Keir Starmer bows out | UK Politics | The New Statesman

It's been a big week for Keir Starmer who I'm pleased to say his approval rating is a three-month high Whatever he's doing he should just keep that up Yeah, he might be Prime Minister one day Well, his hero is Harold Wilson who you know, obviously got a couple of goes but Actually anecdote on that. Yeah, I asked him about this I was when I when I did the profile I asked him as we were walking down the stairs Past all the Portraits and I said you ever stopped to look at any of these, you know because I find them quite sort of haunting in a way you look into the These eyes of these people who've either failed or you know succeeded or what, you know, whatever your judgment on them. He's like nah Wasn't it was interesting. Well, not even Harold Wilson. You're you're you're hero and he's not my hero, you know, no, I That came from one Question but somebody said, you know, so if you could be any Prime Minister, who's your favorite other than Clement Attlee? Who's your favorite and he just sort of just went? Oh and it was like Harold Wilson. Yeah, and that's it That's the basis upon which all of that story has been spun. So he doesn't really care about any of it well that is I mean that is yeah a very revealing part of your your cover story that you've written this week in which The the famous staircase is portrayed. Yes, lovely yellow wallpaper. It was your inaugural issue of the New Statesman wasn't it Tom when you profiled star over a series of meetings Which you wrote up in a modest 10,000 ways short for a new statement feature these days But one of the things that you mentioned in this piece is you go back to your memory of the room in which she worked yeah and Which is kind of political ghost now and habits Yes, tell us a bit about that room and what was so distinctive about it. So I think this is this is interesting because Where prime ministers choose to work Is is actually quite revealing about their character and and how they're going to operate as a prime minister And if that sounds mad to people who haven't been inside 10 Downing Street which Isn't set up to be an office. You know, it's not set up to run a Major advanced economy from or a country, you know to run military operations or to just run a government of a You know of a major power. It's just it doesn't work and the rooms are old. They're oddly sized. They're not open plan You it's a kind of bit of a rabbit war and you have to go up different staircases to go different places and yeah, I remember there was a There was a unit that was supposed to save the Union like protect the Union and you had to get to it by the Backstaircase and you'd wind all the way up to the very top and it was just poking out the back in this little room So, of course you could see from that It's it's relationship to power where it'd be in place that it was of no real great importance, even though it'd been spun up as this Important, you know development or this important unit in the Boris Government but each prime minister chooses a different room in this strange Building to to work from to base themselves from so I think John Major may have from memory based himself in the cabinet room Margaret Thatcher chose a different room Tony Blair moved towards the back of the towards the back of the office and most of the prime ministers that I've Interacted with have been based right at the back of the of the building in Quite a small office by, you know global leaders standards and it's an office next to another room Which again is quite small where they have all of their staff outside And so the big fight is about how close you can get to that office But inside it's there's nothing special in it at all And the cabinet secretary's office in the next door building is much grander and it overlooks st. James's Park Fantastic office. That's where like the real power of the British state lies in the cabinet secretary's office But Keir Starmer what how he liked to operate is he just carried on From there from where Rishi and and the others had worked in that back office But he actually would like to go upstairs take his papers upstairs into a different Room a much bigger brighter area room where there's no desk there's big windows one of which overlooks the flat where he worked and There are sofas and that's where he liked to work he would take his papers up there and he would sit on the sofa and he would read through his papers up there and I Interviewed him in there. And one of the things I noticed was That it was He hadn't changed anything. So there was no sense that he was there There's no sense of you know, when new labor came in they got rid of all the old stuffy Tory Paintings and they put a load of horrible new paintings There was modern and new and everything the key someone didn't do any of that I there was there's no sense that he is he belongs in that Although he owns it that he is in charge of it that it's his place There's no paintings that are star bright or busts that he's moved or anything like that There's just nothing. Hmm, and that that would have been a meeting I mean, I guess it's a kind of a minor point of procedure But also incredibly revealing the you know The government art collection goes to the Prime Minister when they arrive and says what paintings do you want? Yeah, they've got a great big warehouse full of paintings that they can have. Yeah, and there's some quite revealing choices on there I think you know George Osborne had The Grayson Perry the really really big picture called I think it's called picture for a politician and it has all these little people with it all Almost kind of thought bubbles next to them saying what kind of species of political Species they are like, you know There is you know sort of climate deniers and their asylum seekers and all these people, you know Labels attached to them and he had that sort of behind his desk in the Treasury, but yeah incredible that he he never Really inhabited the place that that I think is the important thing I I think I went briefly into into the the the office where he would have Worked and again from from memory. It wasn't You know, he really hadn't sort of changed all that much I mean he would have got rid of things, you know, when when I went in to see David Cameron in there he had all sorts of stuff around he and he had he had these Russian dolls that Putin had given him. I remember that on that on the back and Presumably checked for recording. I think so You'd hope so maybe I don't know. Maybe Cameron was so plus a who cares Boris Johnson had a massive painting From his mum on the on the wall and she yeah because she was quite a she's quite a good artist or very her paintings are Quite shocking actually if anyone gets the chance to see you can Google them and find them. There's There there is one where Boris Johnson's mother had a breakdown when Boris was around 10 or 11 and they're living in Brussels and She was she actually was admitted into the Maudsley Hospital And this was when then Johnson his sister started going to a boarding school back in Britain but she these paintings that she She painted were at that time are really really dark and there's one called hanged by circumstance Which is worth Looking up. It's and and it's kind of this dark imagining imagination of The children the Johnson children you can clearly see Boris from memory hanging it's Anyway, but that wasn't the one on the wall in number 10 But it was yeah But each of them have their little you know Moments that reveal something and I and I think the lack of him inhabiting number 10 is is quite an important one Yeah, but also what I think is interesting is that you know, this is reflected in some polling that's been done about looking back at Starmer's Legacy you guys have asked first of all, they asked what the what? respondents thought was the worst thing that he did as prime minister and Very few of the of these answers. What really stands out is there almost no actual policies, right? So that the one Specific thing that gets a significant number of votes was the winter fuel cut Yeah, so about 6% of people said that was the worst thing he did So a fiscally essentially meaningless policy that basically didn't happen You know The actual scandals that happened weren't didn't seem to be particularly significant No mention of you know gifts or anything like that 2% of people said the Mandelson appointment was the worst thing he did The thing that really jumps out so there are other things that are held to be very very important Online or in the in the political conversation like it, you know perceived lack of support for trans rights or the the Chagos deal Digital ID in Harrison's tax farmers, you know, so-called two-tier policing. Yeah None of those got more than 1% of respondents saying that was the worst thing he did but by far the worst thing he did Was to be Keir Starmer so people said vague things like indecisiveness People said everything people said broken promises or other Biggest thing was don't know 4% of people said his worst act was just becoming prime minister so overall I added those up and it's about 70% of responses was just Being kissed armor was the worst thing he did and when they're asked the best thing he did again, like the top specific answer only got 6% so there's only one thing that got you know a Decent handful of respondents and that was refusing to join the Iran war. Yeah So the best thing he did was to not do so not do something but again, there were big things like, you know rail nationalization Scrapping the two-child benefit caps support Ukraine, you know changes improvements to NHS services social media ban It doesn't seem to have really registered and again by far the most Popular answer is just don't know. He just he was kissed He didn't like it but you know you you talk it in in your cover story this week You say that you know in 20 years of covering British politics You've never experienced the level of open contemptuous hostility Towards a prime minister from his own side as you'd seen in two years was done. So Why do you think he was so divisive when he you know, people struggle to say what he did Why do people hate him so much? I think it's a it's a it's a hard one to to really Know the answer to that question. I think there are substantial reasons that you know, not not on specific things that he said he would do and then he wouldn't do but a general dishonesty that people I think have detected a sense that he said one thing to get the labor leadership and then was evidently something else and then he broadly said in the run-up to the election that You know taxes would not go up because that wasn't necessary and Stability would return and there wouldn't be the selfish chaos of that and obviously on both counts that wasn't true, but He didn't open the set out to obviously be chaotic, but that was the product of his of his failure But he did leave the impression with people I'm not raising taxes and then it evidently did he also said that He would make brexit work as a you know, a direct electoral strategy, you know brexit we will Keep it not reverse it but also make it work. He left office fighting for his job saying that brexit was a total disaster and We would repair Relations now, they're not Necessarily like in contradiction or they know they're not but you know You can make a sort of loyally argument to say that I didn't break and it bring you any promises But I think there is a sense That people didn't trust him But I do think there are Sort of both shallow things going on like people found him annoying and they his voice was annoying So they didn't like him but he doesn't have an authoritative voice Ed Miliband suffers from the same problem There are studies on this that you know, if you if you you need a deep voice, you know a powerful voice To you know to be heard So I think there are things like like that going on that are unfair There's a the colleague said, you know, he's the very fact that he put on weight Sort of robbed him a bit of the that sort of early charisma that he had that he was a bit of a dashing young lawyer So maybe there are those things but I I I do think it's something more profound about him that he There wasn't much there and I do think people have spotted that and can and can see that that there isn't a sort of an idea or a Sense of something particularly interesting like he's not interested in those those former prime ministers on the wall It just generally isn't I don't think he's interested in history. Like I don't think he really Cares that much, you know, so I don't think he Don't think he has these like these these ideas like seats. It's you just sort of what is it that people are supposed to? feel about this To feel about this man and you didn't give anything you didn't give any any sense of like Who he was really so That's what the thing and I tried to get out in the piece. There is this very odd sense with him that He's been prime minister for two years. We don't really know what it was all about We don't really know what he did wrong to be forced from office It's just this kind of ethereal sense that he was crap at it Mm-hmm and shouldn't have ever really been prime minister and Had to go and nobody's that sad about it There's a few people are a little bit sad at the on the edges, but it's it's not like it should be we've just removed a prime minister in a coup and Everybody's sort of like fine with it. You know, a few people are upset in Parliament, but I just think that's kind of remarkable. I think you also you really put your finger on something in this piece when you talk about His conception of Britain and this was something you you wrote about in the in the original profile as well Reform talk about Britain being broken. Yeah, as lots of people have you know, David Cameron and others and you know, it's very common Refrain just to say I'm angry about this and I want to fix it Yeah and Yeah I think you're right to say when he came in and said we're gonna have a Politics that treads more quietly on all our lives and we're just gonna get on with things We're just gonna be competent managers. I can see how on the one hand that sounded very nice to a lot of people Yeah, but also it's completely mad promise to make you can't just say yeah in a world in which you know the the dominant the hegemonic superpower is increasingly unstable and you know, there are massive energy shocks and We are increasingly just experiencing wild bouts of Exogenic inflation. I'm just gonna it's just I'm just gonna steady this ship Yeah I'm just gonna steady the ship in front of this enormous tsunami that may or may not be unleashed on us and we have no say in the matter, but also His you know beneath that was his conviction that you talk about everything was kind of basically fine. Yeah. Yeah, I think that is Absolutely Central as well to why people I don't like him I should have mentioned it in the previous answer, but that is so crucial that I think people Understand that something is fundamentally off You know that it does it does that mean that the country is broken and that it's like, you know You know, it can't be fixed or it or that it's everything is broken. No life. Of course not but it's there is something that Isn't right at a kind of structural level you can feel it as soon as you go out and about most of the country and it's not even like leaving London as if like you're in this Bubble of you know wealth and prosperity in London where everything is fine No, it's like, you know, most of London feels like this. I think if you if you walk around it's like this Isn't this isn't a prosperous country quite evidently just look around, you know return from anywhere abroad And you kind of go God feels richer over there, hmm, aren't they supposed to be poorer than us They don't look it. They don't feel it And then you add on to just the sense that you know, of course, you know, very little can get built or done You know, I I remember this feeling I Had when I read some mad story about Elon Musk building a factory in two weeks or something Some part of America probably will have no regulation. They just you can do whatever you want. I thought yeah could could How long would it take to build that factory in Britain? Yeah, 20 years or something. I don't know. I'm pretty old. Yeah, how long has it taken us to build? the third runway or To there's there's a there's a road up near where Where I grew up And they've tried to duel it I think it's taken and it's taken something like a year per mile doing this road and Obviously that and the bat tunnel and everything for HS2 is just obviously emblematic of something more structurally Wrong, and I just think at a fundamental level. He didn't think that yeah He was a conservative man with a small say in that, you know, he wanted to keep the ship of state Stable, you know manage responsibly respectfully logically and Protect almost every institution. I think he essentially wanted to protect so, you know the health, you know the NHS schools the welfare system our relationship with Europe with America our place in the world The economy the essential balance of the economy. I think he essentially thought that that's all okay If we just sort of be sensible, it'll all be fine. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right and I think that I mean although as you say it's often the case that people in this country go on holiday to you know, France and Drive along without the tires being shredded by the potholes and then they come back here and they go What how can we not be like that? But also I think there are areas of other countries where people feel that I think France Yeah, and even you know in the US and much much higher GDP per capita, but you get areas of it where people feel like yeah, we're in a nominally a very very rich country, but we are in a Heavily financialized services dependent Yeah economy in which some people just like might as well live in a completely different economy yeah, and yeah, I think one of the secrets of Trump's success is not pretending that's fine and Even like, you know He literally can get up on a stage and say I'm gonna crook and I'm gonna make everything worse and people say yeah But you know like that there would be some change there You know, maybe we'll roll the dice on that some people might find that appealing I'm not saying I'm not arguing for Donald Trump of course, but But yeah to get up there and say no. No, this is all good. Don't worry. No. No, look at the GDP figures That's you know, this you know, it's gradually gradually growing. It's kind of, you know stagnating at just the right rate That's that's it's more unacceptable to a voter I think than the idea that you would maybe flip the table and you know Make things a lot worse in some cases well it's about also like using the power that you've got to try and do something to pursue something and I'm going to take for a Particular cause and I do quote like Lyndon Johnson in here in passing and there is that video of him where he says here I didn't expect to get to the top But here's my story. Here's what I believe in and now that I am at the top I intend to use my power to do this thing I'm gonna change the lives of this now Lyndon Johnson is actually a crook and Incredibly corrupt and yes always wanted to be president. So it's like the story is dishonest it's dishonest, but there is a fundamental truth in there in that he was power mad and wanted to grab hold of power to do something and if Listeners have read the Cairo Biographies which sort of all good political nerds have done It is great on this point that there is this kind of dark contrast in in Johnson between being absolutely power hungry and ruthless And using it for all sorts of bad reasons And also probably having some kind of moral core that he was trying to do something with it I don't think we know what case I was trying to do Yeah, and this is why like he he's I try to put it in the piece that there is a kind of It is so forgettable So we already almost don't really remember what it was all for and I put this to a historian friend of mine And he said the same is true of Rishi right that we look back at Rishi thing. Oh, yeah, he was prime minister What was what did he try and do again? What was the point of that? What were those targets? I can't remember a single one something to do with Crossings legal crossings, I think and still that was Starman was gonna smash the gangs There may be evidence some evidence now that he's being successful. I don't know but there is a I Think there is a something going on. That's deeper here about The past 10 years I would say even maybe the past 20 years At least going back to 2008 up until now and This feeling of like it's hard to really Capture that period in any sense of like what what was that? Maybe you have the Thatcher period, you know what it was and you can judge it either way the Blair period Post-war decline or was it post-war, you know Prosperity you can have views on those things this past 15 20 years. It's so chaotic So all over the place one one day we're trying to do this then we're trying to do this It's it's very hard to make sense of it and so I think we just almost Have lost interest. Yeah, I know I just finally on that on this very revealing Incident when you were meeting him and you talked just to go back to those portraits for a moment He joked that his own portrait would be hung in the downstairs loo rather than on the staircase. I think it's just so indicative of The the lack of the sense of historical importance or that like that the Extent to which he didn't feel the weight of his own power and was not prepared to wield it. Yeah Yeah, well, that's actually that point. I remember being struck by it. I don't think he ever Was like deeply uncomfortable with power like some sometimes you get the sense with labor Cabinet ministers that they are quite in awe of the position they've got to and they're a bit more nervous about it than some of the Tories that I've that I've come across and that can be Inhibiting in a way and that they it can be voters can kind of smell it that they're not comfortable with power Starmer didn't have that like Starmer was comfortable in that position like he He didn't sort of didn't Destroy him keep him up, you know at night. I think he he went to bed fine I think he he kept a relative balance. He wasn't like Thatcher just driven, you know to you know Basically never sleep because of the the power that she had and the responsibility She felt Gordon Brown something very very similar like oh my god. I've got this job this power. I Have to use it at all all the time to achieve these things. I don't think he felt like that at all He was a bit more like David Cameron to me just sort of this is a job. I'm a competent guy. I can do this And so he wore it lightly. I think too lightly is the problem and that joke was kind of self-effacing, you know He spotted on the staircase that there was there was essentially room for just one more portrait and Rishi Sunak hadn't gone up and yet So he's like, you know, well, I'm not sure well I'll go Generally, don't think he cares. Yeah We are talking about Kirsten as final week in power if indeed he ever was and his swan-song in Parliament this week his final Prime Minister's questions and Which you called a farewell to storms, which is which was very good That I have to actually I have to give credit to the subs that was not my joke there were for my money I think far too many of the same joke in this week's p.m. Cues Pretty much. Everyone was guilty. It was a quite Mawkish and saccharine in places, but the real thing that was wrong with it for me was the Everyone wanted to get in a joke about the football and joke about count bin face And I mean as a sketch writer, that's that's appalling so you sat there thinking well, this is my job You I mean at times These were MPs leaders of political parties who sounded like they're auditioning for a role You know as a writer on the BBC comedy panel show but but perceptive quote actually the the real surprised me was was Kami bad knock who Said this is a quote from her She said I say this to Labour MPs with as much goodwill as I can muster Which did like that's a good line. It got it got a well-deserved laugh because she has been absolutely brutal Towards the the opposite benches in recent weeks. She has said some truly horrible things especially the Labour front bench But she said we have been where you are changing Prime Minister is not a silver bullet and She yes, you get this quite frank and honest account of you know her message to her own backbenches. Don't get rid of me Well, yeah It was I guess sort of, you know blades facing in a couple of different directions on that comment But yeah, she talked about you know without being Openly nasty about it. She talked about you know, she asked star But why he felt that you know, he'd sort of pulled leavers and nothing had happened And you know, he obviously was was justifying what he'd done and saying. Oh, no, we pulled some we pulled some big leavers But he also I think the worst line of the whole thing was This quote which no Prime Minister should ever say said my advice to everyone is put your vote in the bin It doesn't matter that I mean this is this is Starmer talking about, you know, it's a count bin face joke He's referencing the Clacton by-election and saying, you know, Nigel Farage wants to spend his summer arguing with a bin It's very much the the Labour line on this. It's quite a well-written line. And then he said put your vote in the bin I mean what I think for a Prime Minister to say his last Prime Minister's questions put your vote in the bin. I mean Yeah, no, no politicians should ever say that in a democracy, but yeah, and I thought in general it was a PM queues that reflected what you've written about the It didn't feel like a historical moment. Yeah, it felt like you know Leaving to for a well-liked manager, you know there were some some staff who obviously worked closely with him who I could see they were on the Distinguished strangers benches behind the speaker who were who were in tears, you know there were people talking about his decency in his character and what a nice guy is and he finished up by saying, you know talking about his love for his wife and his kids and but You know, you wouldn't have heard Thatcher saying. Oh, you know, I love my family. Bye everyone Maybe see you at Chessington world of adventures It just you know, it was it felt like you know, a kind of goodbye from world You know what Anoush has talked previously on the podcast about how politics is ruined reality TV because you know People like Nigel Farage from Michael Cove's getting to go on reality TV shows But this is also an example of reality TV ruining politics. It was just too Can we both not use the word lovely Who did she say was lovely I it was a she was talking about So Keir Starmer was doing this thing where she would ask him a question and a very very soft you know slow ball from from her and he would kind of just sort of waft it to one side and Refer to he had invited a lot of people who was sat in the public galleries Who were people whom his policies had affected? Yeah, so campaigners with whom he had worked people like that So he would say she would ask a question He'd say blah blah blah but what I want to talk about is but and just sort of non answer the question and refer to these campaigns and thank them for coming and say didn't I do a good job of working with you and Can we but not use the word lovely to describe one of those responses and it was just a bit creepy I mean, well, I mean it's almost like we shouldn't celebrate the fact that a Man loves his wife and his children. Like I I'm kind of expecting that as a basis. Yeah Human decency from from everyone. Yeah, that's the the floor Yeah, not the ceiling that we should be aspiring to and you know in my interactions with him. I I think he is sincere in being moved by Individual stories of injustice You know or your trauma a tragedy I I think that is that that is how he sees the world and how he acts and is moved to act I mean that's been his job for most of his career, isn't it? Yeah, and then he fixes that thing in court or you know He either defends somebody against injustice or he prosecutes somebody who's you know committed an injustice or a company that's done And I think that is essentially how he has acted as Prime Minister there's no overall Coherent analysis of why these injustices are happening, you know Or you know, is there a kind of structural reason here that you know, this keeps going on It's that you know, he's very good at meeting families, you know bereaved families say or You know Or people who have just suffered from something or other and I think he probably in those in those meetings Comes across as you know, decent dignified and serious and then goes and tries to do something and that's obviously what he wanted to champion But again, there's no argument here. There's no political argument that is made in his final Prime Minister's questions about What he stood for and therefore what is being lost? What is being challenged, you know when Margaret Thatcher was removed it was over Significant policy differences, you know, she was opposed to European integration and this was something that both the Foreign Office and Treasury were in favor of for different reasons and That plus, you know the poll tax Core reasons why she's removed and then she spent her time Afterwards battling against her Successor. Mmm, because she thought he was wrong and probably there was a personal, you know reasons as well Tony Blair has a big Policy ideological challenge to Gordon Brown and all the Labour's successors essentially that you know You're a bunch of lefties basically, you know And you it all went wrong when I was removed because you know, I was holding you guys in check That's his essential. I know nothing to do with anything that might have happened in the markets No, just you you you you cover to me and you move you move left that but these are like political arguments about About the state of things and we we didn't get one in his first speech outside Downing Street Where it was I will basically take politics away from you I will sort of you know that Meme of Homer going back into the into the bushes that that'll be politics I'll just slowly disappear from your life. You won't have to worry about it. I'll don't worry. I've got this and then it was Pretty much his speech when he resigned he just listed a load of things that he'd done, you know All these statistics are getting better And it's his final Prime Minister's questions and I he doesn't see it though No, I just I don't think he's he fundamentally doesn't say it when I asked him What? went wrong Why why were you elected in a landslide to get rid of the last lot? Why is the country in a mess? I water the cool and he and he just listed a load of different Things that weren't connected in him in any sense. There wasn't a fundamental reason why you know 2007 2007-8 Brexit it wasn't any of that. It was just a whole load of stuff Yeah, and that is even what was on the clock that he was given his final cabinet meeting So his ministers gave him a carriage clock made by the people who made The clock in Elizabeth Tower. I'm not gonna say Big Ben because that's the balance we Walk into that trap, but it said on the clock there was a It said I think it said change promised change delivered And that really is I mean, I'm sure he just sees it as a nice gift, but that really what a statement on you know literally giving someone something that says Time passed you were given some targets and you met them I mean like as a statement on a political career, that's quite something from your own cabinet ministers And even so I mean, yeah, you took you talk about Blair and others for whom That was by no means the end of their struggle to Impose their ideas upon the country where a starmer said This is the end of my political journey in his final PMQs I mean, yeah, like clearly that's that's that's what he intends, but it was interesting to watch the people around him Even before he arrived there was some quite interesting Maneuvering like it's quite interesting to watch Where people are gonna sit these things so people like me a real loyalist like Steve Reid Well, obviously making a calculation of how far away can I sit? What's a safe distance is there a safe distance I saw some reason I've I mean well I could spot Al Khan's because he's massive and he was also kind of looming just in a Doorway at the corner menacingly a half in half out of a door Almost kind of I don't know looked a bit like a bouncer I guess because he's huge and was in a doorway But also sort of you know Almost as if he was physically asking whether or not he was needed Yeah, I spotted Machilia who led the the backbencher Rebellion she tabled the the opposition to the the welfare cuts that I guess were the kind of turning point really for Starmer and Reeves and she I Felt like she might have come in as sort of Respectfully late in that she didn't want to be in a position where she might be in the same camera shot as them or you Know anything like that and obviously like when When the chamber is that full you've got people standing at either end and So you also it was interesting to I was watching Ed Miliband for a while who stood behind the speakers chair And he had two phones out and he seemed to be at one point I'm pretty sure I saw him scrolling both of them and scowling at both of them at the same time Which is I've never seen somebody doom scroll ambidextrously before It was you know, he's a very impressive guy and Clearly capable of that. But yeah, I mean the really it was it was a strange thing as we've talked to in the past about Starman's resignation speech and that historical moment being kind of, you know I cheapened by the sort of playing of the music and it not feeling Sort of gravitas, but this also, you know He had a Davey kind of pitching for a spot on strictly come dancing and actually Starmer had a good line on Davey He said he called him the honorable member for Chessington world of adventures, which that is well written to be fair But it just bounced off him he didn't you know it was there was no sense that he was being belittled as the leader of a political party and And the uniquely creepy spectacle of chemo bait not being nice Which I think when you round No, no. No, I kind of felt as like an XL bully licking your hand, you know It can wag its tail like a spaniel bit. It will bite your hand off at some point. You can tell it wants to Yeah, and as I said it just a you know Not not a feeling of a historical event and even you know People got up the end and and and gave him a standing ovation and after they finished the summer had left Lindsay Hoyle the speaker said we don't do that. We don't do that. We don't clap. We they clap for Blair Yeah, he left. I think I think Cameron got them. There's a there's a there's a piece that there's a quote in in my piece about So I was trying to think about this and This historian says the importance of public life has receded so much that nobody cares Anymore, I know and I I was I did sort of think about that for quite a while It obviously is quite a depressing thought But it does seem sort of the case that yeah, we've removed one and we've got another it's you know It's you know, fine, you know, it's not a big moment, you know, but it should be a big I should be a big moment and the you know the the adebe line and the crossing of politics and Entertainment TV You do wonder, you know, if you ever go back and read the debates like historic debates There if you read Hansard, they're completely fascinating because you know often like the wrong people He's like All right about something. Well, they they alight on something kind of important. So For my book, I went back and read the debates about the Schuman Declaration. This is high geekery here about Britain's entry into Europe They were absolutely brilliant debates the the level of sort of intellectual curiosity is So depressingly better than today. It's sort of It kind of kills you and you when you read them, but if you go back and read Some of the debates about you know, when a statue is going or Blair's time one of them is the debate about entry of TV into Parliament and it's like this will be terrible. It's all cheap and politics The the MPs will just play to the camera. They won't be actually interested in the debate They'll just sort of be interested in the in the clip and how it looks on TV. I mean that has got to be True. Yeah. Oh, I think this PM Q's was the best example of that so far in that everything everything everyone said was kind of written to be clipped up and shown as a 27 20 second clip on on on social media, you know, just here's my Football because they were kind of all making the same joke about or is the football tonight though, you know Can the Prime Minister make sure we win? Oh, you know, who's the real joke candidate in the Clacton by election? It was all that again and again, and I think probably You know, these are clever people with large teams around them They probably would have thought how everyone's gonna make the same joke None of them tried to be original because they would have all thought oh, yeah But that will go out on our socials and everyone else. Yeah won't so, you know, I guess That that fear about the you know, tell a televisation of Parliament, you know for a long time might not have been that well-founded Because it would have just been BBC Parliament, you know, very few people would have been watching it Think back about like Thatcher that the no no. No. Mm-hmm We know that because it was one of the first moments to be clipped up on TV So it's now and now it's a YouTube thing, you know, we don't have you know, maybe this is I guess that was being clipped up By a news editor, yeah on a TV channel, you know who was deciding what would be clipped up Yes now it now it's the party themselves. The politician themselves will be clipping up and it's you know, which clip is Most, you know funniest or most divisive that will get there, you know the the most reach Oh, yeah, we're just following the Americans in this as well. If you think of Trump in the Oval Office He's just turned that into a TV show and so he he you know, right I'm gonna get this foreign leader in and I'm gonna shout at them Mm-hmm, and then I think he said after dressing down Zelensky said I'll be great TV. Yeah, and that and he's completely right Obviously, we're all gripped to it. Yeah so I think I think that is what's going on here and it is then therefore utterly shallow and Mean and it doesn't there is no benefit for the Prime Minister in actually engaging in the question and Thinking it through and if he says if he was to stand there at the dispatch box and say, you know what? I'm a clever bloke. I've I've been thinking about this and the reason I think my premiership failed disastrously is Because of this this this and this and you know, I think there are some lessons there for future of course, we're never gonna get that because that'd be to admit weakness and it would be clipped up and there it'll be you know one small bit of that that was the most disastrous for him would be would be clipped up and maybe it's just a sort of a Deeper reflection on what has always been the case. I don't think I tried to think about this once there's been a single Prime Minister in my lifetime all that I can think of ever who has Genuinely reflected on their failures. Hmm No, I don't know of a single of a single one John Major is still fighting the fights that he that he had in 1990 He's you know, he's still trying to say it's all the the dastardly Tory rights fault, you know And look what's happened Tony Blair as we've discussed Liz Truss Still doing it The two maybe that come closest William Hague obviously didn't become Prime Minister, but I think he speaks relatively openly about his Failures Rishi Sunak a bit Bit self-deprecating now, but now it's just a Times columnist Yes, of course, you had David Cameron with his I mean it was by no means an admission of failure But at least it was a moment of kind of elegant kind of self-reflection when he said I was the future once, you know a kind of concession of what the the way in which he'd had the back-and-forth with with Blair and then you know a concession about his own You know sort of political mortality, I guess in that sense, you know a sense of like whereas yeah, you know Yeah, just as you say it's generally just sort of boasting and the refusal to admit failure isn't it Pretty much and that was you know, and his book is, you know, subsequently is just the defense basically That's the you know, that could be the tights the subtitle of it Although Blair's book is is quite reflective and it's also you can tell that it's written by him because it is so Certainly Tony Blair of every sentence Yeah, that is more gripping for that obvious reality that it's him and he's he does he does reflect a bit But I don't think it's I don't think it's possible most to become Prime Minister and have that character that will leave And say you've got I've got that completely wrong. Sorry about that Yeah for that you'd have to be a normal person and even somebody like his time is not enough for the normal person for that But he will now be heading towards his Shepherd's Hut to pen his memoirs look forward to reviewing them and Yeah a bit of a itinerary for Andy Burnham there, so he needs to undo 40 years of Failure, he needs to produce a combined budget and spending review while everyone else is on there some holiday and he needs to return Gravitas to politics, so he'll be getting on with that on tick-tock from Monday