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Learn more by visiting acast.com slash advertise. Come on, we've had a different kind of day to day, let's be honest, because we've had the Prime Minister into the Daily Tea Podcast studio. Funning games today with him speaking about how he has his tea, naturally, mixing up the personal with the political. But I don't think I've heard him be this candid.
We're trying to do different types of interview here on the Daily Tea, and the Prime Minister is the first of those. He's the man who wants to be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. And as you say, Kamala, this was really a frank discussion, some funny jokes in there, some moments in there, but also, what does he think of Boris Johnson, what does he think of Nigel Farage, immigration, the Rwanda scheme, faith and family. It's all packed in to the next 30 minutes.
Welcome to the Daily Tea with me, Kamala Tommenie. And me, Kamala Tommenie. Prime Minister, it's the first question we have to ask you. It's an important one.
How do you take your tea? Well, first of all, I hope it's your tea in there. Of course it is. Good to start.
I mean, I take mine strong with a splash of milk. Great, plenty. Thank you. I'm not going to suggest you say that when you think of Prime Minister.
That's all right. I'll let it go. I'll let it go. I'll let it go.
I'll let it go. And what will I get to keep the mug? If you win the election, we will send you a mug. OK, that's one of your top prizes for winning the election.
OK, on loose women, they gave me the mug to take away with me. Oh, well, we can negotiate this later. OK, fine. Now, so you've got your cup of tea, which is obviously very important.
Who would your ultimate tea companion be for taking tea with now? It can't be a member of your family, because everyone would obviously say that. So who would you have a cup of tea with? I would probably do.
Ooh. I mean, two of my great loves in life are cricket and Star Wars. Yes. And actually, probably one of the most enjoyable days I've had in this job was when I got to sit down with Jonathan Agnew and do a testament special.
So maybe, given that he's retiring, Jimmy Anderson, just to have him talk about his incredible career and all the stories he's got, that would be pretty special, I think, over a cup of tea. Although he wouldn't have your tea, obviously. So we'd have to find some neutral tea. And or George Lucas.
Yes. I mean, I got to hear him speak once when I was younger, which I absolutely loved, and got him to autographs and Star Wars poster I had in a slightly grouping fashion at the end of the talk. I got to the embarrassment of everyone. But actually, I'd love to hear him talk about how we came up with Star Wars, the stories and everything else.
So they got one of those two. Well, it can't be about Star Wars, but we also like to know a fact. Now, we say that no one knows about it. You're not sure, Camilla.
No one knows about it. But it's something surprising. Yes, unknown about you. Something about you that they didn't know already.
They didn't know. What could I say? Oh, gosh. This is quite new.
You're not an Anderson, are you? You're not an Anderson, are you? You're looking at what I'm gonna say about the heart attack now. So I have very recently, this is very recent.
I have recently, over the last couple of months, gone into Yellowstone TV series. But as a result of that, at the same time, I'm very late, but I'm getting into country music. I've got lots of friends who are really into it. So I've been asking to send me all their favourite songs.
And actually, some of my protection officers are massive country music fans. And so I now I'm slowly getting into country music at the same time as what kind of country music to be Dolly Parton? I'm very new to this. Let me just forgive me.
I'm country music fans. Yeah. So here are the... So Lainy Wilson, I love Lainy Wilson, Chris Stapleton, Tennessee Whisky, Lainy Wilson, my favourite song, Watermelon Moonshine, and this guy, Luke Combs, Beautiful Crazy.
Yeah, so those... We are looking at you. There we go. You are not country music people.
I was the only person who would not want to be in a country. So it's all cool now. I think I got into this a bit before she released her album. I actually got into it after she had you.
Probably got into it. But actually I like that song, it's nice. Yeah, so this is a very new thing for me. So I'm slowly building my knowledge and thoroughly loving it and enjoying it.
At the same time as binge-watching... Beautiful for winding down, I would imagine. It's really nice, actually. It's very common music.
It's good, it's uplifting. I imagine my protection officers in the cars are very happy because for the last four years, since I've been... One of the chance, I've promised, they've had to listen to all my pop music, capital and heart incessantly for four years. And now we've switched a bit to a bit more country music in the car, so I think they're all welcoming the change.
Can we ask you a question, a serious question about your wardrobe? The election announcement suit. Is that in the dry cleanest or completely on the pair? We're very excited.
Well, I haven't actually... I'm trying to think, I took it off. I haven't seen it since I think about it. I've put it up, I think it's just about survive.
But I'll tell you on the side. I don't know, so it doesn't need some attention. I can say on that whole thing, though, it's... We're a country that loves talking about the weather, ask for it.
So if nothing else, I gave the country an option to talk about the weather for a whole other day. So I did my public service for a day. But more broadly, I just... I'm all dashing in that sense.
I think traditionally, when promised, it's called Elections and they make these big moments, they do it on the steps of Downing Street. So that's what I wanted to do. Not fair weather, politician. Come rain or shine.
I wanted to make the announcement. There we go. If you re-ran it, Prime Minister, should you have had a number? Just re-run it in your mind.
When you look back, writing your memoirs, sometime in the far future, I think, why do you want to just take a number? No, because maybe we can auction that suit for charity now. There we go. There we go.
There we go. That's a wee good idea. And then that can hopefully do some good. No, it's fine.
It's fine. It's fine. It's a bit of rain. I mean, it's a bit of rain.
It's okay. Let's get on to the campaign. This is the first full week. Since you surprised a number of people in announcing the election for July 4th, the number of conservative MPs who have said they are not going to stand on the conservative ticket for this election, have you been surprised by how high that number is?
No, look, everyone will have their individual reasons. And, of course, I'm really sorry to see valued colleagues leave. You know, Michael Gove being an, obviously, for example, and both of you have probably known Michael for a long time. It's been in public service for 20 years, I think, it will take, right?
It's an extraordinary record of service. So it's understandable that, you know, after that period of time, people think it's right for them to make a change. And, you know, whether it's Michael or others, they'll look back on their time fondly, and particularly in Michael's case, really proud of everything he's achieved. Michael Portillo, as you know, suffered a what was known then as a Portillo moment in 1997.
Said at the weekend, he felt that the tiredness with which Gove particularly announced that he was standing down, it's too late in the day, was discautious to his constituents. I mean, here you are, grafting. It's not easy to be on the campaign. It's not easy to be wanting to be prime minister for another four or five years.
In fact, some people listening to this and watching this on YouTube might think to themselves, why do I do it? And then you've got trusted colleagues in a lot of experience, sort of jumping ship. I don't think of it like that, because I think these jobs are demanding, right? And I've actually been an MP since 2015, and you know, these are demanding jobs.
And they do take a toll on you and your family, and everyone's situation is different, and it will just be right for some people to make a change. And I'm completely understanding of that. And I'm grateful for the service that they've provided to their community, to the country, the support they've provided to me, particularly in Michael's case, and there are many others I could talk about. And I don't, you know, it's not how I think about it at all.
And there's always new people coming through, I'd say. And I was one of those, you know, I was someone who benefited, in a sense, from my predecessor, William Hay, standing down in Richmond, in North Yorkshire. And that, you know, new people get to come along. And I think the other thing I'd say to me is just because people stop being an MP doesn't stop them contributing.
And I think even if they say, look, being an MP is no longer the right role for them. There's so many different ways people can contribute to their community, to their country, continue to serve. And I'm sure, you know, many other people who are stepping back from being MPs will continue to find ways to contribute and to serve, because that's who they are as people. What signal, what signal do you think it sends Prime Minister?
More conservative MPs are going to be leaving as MPs this year, compared with 1997, obviously, just before Tony Blair's huge landslide. What signal does it send the public that so many of your colleagues are not fighting for their seats? I don't, I don't, I really don't read that much into it. Well, I think the situation is such that obviously there are lots of people, these things are structural, right?
So there were lots of people who were elected in 2010, who have now been here for 14 years, and the last couple of elections have also happened a little bit by surprise, you think, about 2017 and 19, so people may have not had the time to think and plan. So whereas this time around, people have known there's an election this year, so I think that probably has quite a bit to do with it. And, you know, compared to 97 and other times, the job has probably changed. And if you talk to people who have been doing this for a lot longer than I have, because, you know, there are way different, this is an example of us sitting down, right?
You know, the different forms of media, all the other things that go along with it, the job has probably changed. And so is it the type of job that everyone is going to want to do for 20, 25 years in the way that they could in the past? They might feel they can't give it what they want for that long period of time in the way that they used to. But again, everyone's situation is going to be different.
And I don't take anything away from it other than to thank people for their service, thank them for their support of me. And I said, confident that, because these are all people who are motivated by service, that they will continue to find ways to contribute to their communities and the country. Whoever party you are, ultimately, if you decide to stand as an MP, you believe in service, right? And I don't think that changes when you stop becoming an MP.
You saying you were first elected in 2015 does focus the mind as to how much has happened in your life over the course of the last eight to nine years. The last time you and I had a couple, I'm just thinking, was it better? I remember it, yeah. Prettamology in Marcham Street.
Somebody said to me, you should take that Rishi Sunak out for a cup of tea. He's a rising star. I thought, all right. And then I remember it quite vividly because you're one of the only MPs who's ever bought me the coffee.
Normally, the journalist buys the MP the coffee. I think you're running the consultation into disabled toilets. Changing places. Changing places, exactly.
I was the government minister. Yeah, that's my first job. And I was reflecting on it before thinking about what to ask you for this podcast. I mean, how do you reflect on how far you've come and what you've achieved?
What have you learned about yourself in this extraordinary trajectory from elected in 2015 to PM now? I remember that coffee very vividly. Yeah, we're at the back of the department. Yes.
Because I do remember it, actually. What have I learned about myself? Well, actually, the thing that you were just talking about there, the thing that one of the things I've learned is you don't know what you don't know, in a sense, because I didn't know about that issue that I was doing the consultation on. And some constituents of mine came to see me home in Yorkshire.
And they said, we want to talk to you about disabled toilets. And I said, I thought we'd largely fix that. And actually it was William, my predecessor, responsible for that. I think that one of the disabilities bills that we passed that ensure there was more provision of toilets.
And then they brought me this magazine. And they said, no, because our children have complex disabilities and standard disabled toilets. And big enough for us, because they need a changing bench in a hoist. And they brought me a magazine of all of the summer activities that were happening around Yorkshire.
And they kind of gone through and just crossed out all the ones that they couldn't do. And the vast majority of them were all crossed out. And obviously, I don't know when my family has a complex disability needs that type of facility. So it was not something I learned about it through talking to them and other families.
And so, well, let me see if I can do something about this. And we were able to make a change. And actually, we managed to find some money from elsewhere. We're rolling out many more of these across the country, changing places to toilets.
And we changed the building regulations. So big new buildings on the built have to make a provision for these things, which is great. And it will mean that many more children and people will have the opportunities to go and travel and experience things that the rest of us take for granted. And that's quite eye-opening.
You get into these jobs. I didn't know that that was something that would come across my desk. And then you also get the ability to do something about it. And that was my first job.
I was a junior minister. You know, anyone who I was and didn't have this job or wasn't chancellor. And you could still make a really meaningful difference. But you had no idea then.
I mean, it would have been ludicrous for me to suggest to you. And we had that cuppa. You're going to be PM in a few years time. So do you have a moment to go?
This is nuts. Yeah, I mean, obviously, things have happened relatively quickly for me over the course of my political career over the last few years. And I became chancellor in quite surprising circumstances. And then we had a pandemic to deal with.
And then I popped up and everyone's TV screens talking about Furlough. And I was like, how do I pronounce that? What does that mean? So yeah, things just happen.
But I guess my reflection on it through that period and even now is the thing that has helped is having or being anchored with a set of values and principles. Because you don't know what's going to come at you right now. And you find a way to don't know all the things that you don't have to deal with. And as we saw in the pandemic, I became chancellor had to do a budget in three weeks.
And then pandemic hit pretty much at the same time. If you don't have a set of values and principles to anchor you, you just get buffeted around and you find it very hard to make decisions. And because I know what I believe, you know, for the better or worse, I have a set of values that I believe in. And that makes life a bit easier because as things just emerge that you didn't know about, you haven't thought about before, you just have a way of thinking about them and approaching them, which starts with your values and beliefs.
I always thought if you don't have a strong set of values, beliefs, convictions, these jobs must be incredibly hard because on any given day, you have to make a million decisions that you don't have. And that would be quite tricky. I mean, that's really interesting. Giving your own skin the public to give you a mandate to be my minister for another five years, just take us through those values and beliefs.
Because I think for some of the public, they can be somewhat confusing. We've just heard this amazing explanation about why you became interested in disabled toilets and accessibility, shows you to be a certain type of person, whereas other policies some people might say show you to be a different type of person. So let's just start off with those values and principles. Just tell us what precisely they are.
Yeah, I mean, it starts with how I was raised. I was born and brought up in Southampton. You know, my family of Indian immigrants, their story is not that dissimilar from the many other Indian immigrants have come to our country, first and foremost, believe in strong families. Right, that's how I was raised and my parents are a wonderful great role model to me.
So that's where it starts as just inherent faith in family as being a wonderful thing. And then the next thing is probably hard work, you know, for the better or worse what people criticize me for and now to some extent. But that's what my parents raised us with. You don't get anywhere in life without hard work and they expected us to work really hard because that's how you build a better life for yourselves.
Very important to me as a person, both in how I expect to myself and others. And service, my parents were GP and a pharmacist. And I saw the impact that they had on our community. And I heard firsthand from all of their patients about the difference that they've made to their lives.
And that was my inspiration for becoming a member of Parliament, was being able to have that same impact on community around us. And those are the values that guide me today. Right. And I know the other thing, it's not so much a value, but it's a belief in a conviction.
It's about education. And that is, again, my parents sacrificed a lot, worked incredibly hard, so that they could provide a great education for me and my brother and sister because they believe that was the best way to ensure that we had better lives was through education and that is something that I believe, to my core, that the best way you can transform people's lives, spread opportunity, is to give them a brilliant education. And that is, I'll reflect that in my policy and approach to life, but that's something that was very important to us growing up. Oh, no ideological values.
One criticism that's been made of you and this has been attributed to the rise of reform is that you're not conservative enough, that you're a wet conservative. And I know this angers you because you say, look back at my maiden speech, I'm a Thatcherite. I mean, is it fair criticism? No, I don't think it doesn't anger me.
I mean, it puzzles me because I think actually puzzles most of my closest friends in politics, probably enough. So if you ask most of my closest friends in Parliament and the people who know me, they find it hugely puzzles then, because when we all arrived in 2015 and we're getting to know each other and having dinner and whatnot, I think most of my colleagues and friends who know me, politically, would tell you, yes, definitely. Then how might we know you like, would you work with Nigel Farage in the future? I mean, I've got an enormous respect for Nigel.
And well, let's take that issue, right? Let's just take the conservative issues, what the issues that matter to the country, to matter to conservative voters, the state immigration, the levels of immigration are too high. I've done more than any Prime Minister of recent times to do something about that and bring them down. And now they are falling.
You can see that in the numbers we've had earlier this year. They're now actually properly falling and want to trajectory to significantly reduce them, indeed, half of the levels of net migration. If you look at the independent forecast in a relatively short period of time, I'm prepared to do something quite radical when it comes to tackling illegal migration with the Rwanda programme. Again, we've already made progress on that.
And we've led the conversation on that. And I made my first speech on that. After becoming Prime Minister, I got lots of flack for it. And a year later, it's clear that we're leading the conversation in Europe on it.
Although you were initially worried at the Treasury about the cost of Rwanda? That's not unreasonable. It's not my money. I was the Chancellor.
My responsibility is to make sure that the government, and that's a conservative virtue, making sure that we spend taxpayers' money sensibly and effectively. And I want to make sure everything we do delivers value for the taxpayer. Of course I should be doing that. And that's entirely conservative thing to do, it differentiates us from the Labour Party.
If you talk about migration, you can talk about defence. I made the decision to increase defence spending, because I think that's an important at this moment in time. We live in uncertain worlds. I want a charter course to secure future for everyone.
You can only do that for a pledge to take bold action. I've taken the decision to increase defence spending. When it comes to the economy, one of my proudest moments actually in this job was to have in your paper the endorsement of Nigel Lawson. When I ran to be leader of our party, and Nigel Lawson is one of the titans of Conservative politics, particularly as a Chancellor.
And to have his endorsement was an incredible moment for me. I've always been an enormous admirer of his. I believe my approach to economics is squarely fact right. Control inflation first, get borrowing under control, and then cut taxes.
That's what he did and cheated. That's what I said I would do, and that's what we're now delivering. Given you say you've got a good record on immigration, but some would say the only reason you've been able to cut immigration so rapidly is because we've had record numbers of immigrants coming to the UK since the Brexit deal. But would you be willing to have that debate with Nigel Fries that he's asked for on immigration with you, a television debate with him?
On immigration, I'm not for one second defending the numbers as they are, because they are too high. So they are simply too high, they're unsustainable. The levels of legal migration. But I have taken specific action.
They don't just come down by accident. They've come down because they said no, we're going to stop students bringing independence with them because they were bringing so many, and they weren't for the most part working. We're stopping the abuse of the social care visa. We've raised the salary that people need to earn if they come here on the work of users to 38,500 pounds.
And we said if people are bringing family dependency, they need to be able to support them. Those are all practical things, decisions that I've made and changes to the system that are going to bring the numbers down. And look, with Nigel, I've got huge respect for him. At the end of the day, there's only going to be two people who are going to be prime minister for this election.
It's Kist Armor or me, and it's him and me who should be having these debates. I've set out my plan for the country and you'll hear more of it over the coming weeks. You can see that I'm prepared to take bold action, whether it's to reform our welfare system, get to net zero in a more sensible way that privatizes bills and energy security, tackle migration, cut taxes, increase defense spending. And the Kist Armor should be willing to debate me in front of the British people so they can compare who has got the clearest plan, who's prepared to take bold action and who's more likely to deliver a secure future for that.
On cutting taxes, obviously, you've made the national service pledge, which will, I think, cost more than $2 billion. You've talked about the pensions quadruple lock, $2.4 billion. You've talked about other spending, which is going to be required with regard to infected blood compensation and the rest of it. So one of the reasons that people think you call the election now is because you can't have another budget and you weren't able to cut tax.
I mean, you've already made pledges that are worth billions of pounds in the last week. So how can taxes come down? And also, isn't the biggest mistake not to have changed these thresholds, which fiscally drag people, including pensioners, into brackets they shouldn't be in? So we already are cutting taxes.
We've had a difficult few years and we had to get through Covid and then rightly provide support for people with their energy bills. Now, I don't remember anyone at the time saying that that was the wrong thing to do as a conservative and as just someone who believes in common sentences, reasonable to expect that you have to make some difficult decisions to deal with all that borrowing and to stop paying it back. And that's what I did, because that was a responsible thing to do. I don't believe in leaving bills to our kids and our grandkids that are our responsibility to pick up.
But now that we've got through that and the plan is working and you can see that inflation down from 11% to 2%, wages now rising for almost a year ahead of prices, the economy growing at a healthy rate again, we're in a position where we haven't been able to start cutting people's taxes. So an average person in work is getting a tax cut worth £900 this year alongside the state pension going up £900. And that's because I believe, as I said right at the beginning, quite well your question, I believe in hard work. I believe the government's job is to make sure that hard work is rewarded.
And that's why I believe cutting tax on work is so fundamental to the type of country that I'm trying to build. Why Prime Minister, you've given this the menu that you want the public to look at before they vote on July the 4th. Why aren't the public hearing you? The polls are not moving.
Why are you so far behind? Are the public just not hearing it or are they hearing it, which many people say, and not liking what they're hearing? Well, look, we've had a difficult few years. I mean, it's unsurprising that people are frustrated.
I completely accept that. It's been really tough. Right, inflation at 11% is hard for everybody. Seeing the bills that you have to pay going up and up and up, energy bills are essentially doubling.
Right, these are not small things. They've had enormous impact on everyone and their families and their sense of confidence and security. And I hope, though, what I've shown in the 18 months or so that I've been Prime Minister, is that on someone that they can trust to stick to a plan and deliver for them. And that's what you've seen on the economy.
Like, these things didn't happen. All the things I just said, they didn't happen by accident. Inflation coming down, the economy growing wages rising. They happened because we had a plan and I stuck to it even when it was difficult.
And I talked with the right beginning about having a set of beliefs and the anchor, you have to. We've got to be disciplined on public sector pay. I can't spend the money that everyone wants me to, because we've got to get inflation down. I can't do all the things that you want me to do straight away and cut taxes immediately after I got this job, because we've got to get inflation and to control first.
And lots of people didn't like that. But that was the right long-term thing for the country. I stuck to it. You can see that it's working now.
I get that people are only just starting to feel the benefits. There's more to do. But I am confident. Come on, look, over the course.
We've got still five weeks of the campaign. We're only just in the first few days. People are going to see that I'm someone who's got a clear plan, who's prepared to take bold action, like the National Service Policy that I hope you will have a chance to talk about. And that's how we'll deliver a secure future for everyone, because that's what people want.
They want a secure future. But you don't get there by just saying it. You get there by having a plan and being prepared to do bold things. Very quickly on National Service.
Which one would you have done, the military or the volunteering? If I had my time now, I would do the military one. And it's actually one of my regrets that I didn't do more of it when I was younger. And it's one of the great privileges in this job is to spend more time with our armed forces.
That's what I would do now. And the volunteering I did when I was younger was more on the civic side. Do you regret how we ended with Boris Johnson? And are you going to call him up to campaign with you?
So when it comes to Boris, and I said it a lot during the summer, I'm very proud of the things that we did together. But when you call him? We've been in touch. Have you been in touch with him recently?
Yeah, we were in touch with the other day, actually, talking about the risk that Starmer would pose to our country security. And is he going to hit the campaign for energy? Well, that's a question for me. He's a busy guy as well.
But we were in touch with him. We were in touch, yeah, exactly. But we were in touch with the other day, actually, about the risk that Starmer posed to the country's security and the damage he would do. And I do worry, actually, I worry about Starmer's case, Starmer's complacency around security.
And I see it in this job. We're living in the most uncertain, dangerous time that our country has known for decades. And that's why it's the right thing to increase defense spending to 2.5% of GDP, to prioritize that, to keep everyone at home safe from the threats we face. That's not a pledge that Starmer has matched.
And that should worry people. Now, either you think the world is more dangerous or you don't. I'm confident that it is whether we like it or not. And so the question is, what are you going to do about it?
And what's his answer? Well, I'll do a review. I mean, that's not leadership. That's not taking action.
That's not going to deliver a secure future. Just one final thing on your principles and values. How much does faith play a role in the way you judge politics? I don't know how much of a role it plays in, how I judge politics.
It has a role in who I am as a person and how I conduct myself. It gives me courage, it gives me strength, it gives me resilience. And that sense is very helpful. The job has not been easy, obviously, over the last 18 months.
And actually, family and faith are things and exercise are the kind of the areas that help you get through tough times. And I've talked about it a little bit in the past. But there is a concept in Hinduism called karma, which roughly translated means duty. And it is, again, it's kind of how we were raised.
And it's about doing your duty in life. And everyone has a duty and a purpose. And you do your duty to the best of your ability. And you kind of divorce yourself to attach yourself from the outcomes of that.
You're not doing it for the rewards. You are doing it because it's your duty. And your job is to do it to the best of your ability. You do what belief is right.
You work as hard as you can. And the consequences and the rewards and all the rest of it, you have to try and detach yourself from it. That's easier said than done because we're all human beings. And we kind of like to put in efforts to reward and feel a bit about it.
You know, actually, this concept is more about just focusing on what you are meant to do, doing your duty in life and doing it to the best of your ability. And that is quite helpful in conducting yourself in this job and probably many other boards of life. People of faith say that that should mean giving refuge to a Simon Seeker's coming here, and that it doesn't seem to be anchored in principles of faith to send people to Rwanda who are coming here for refuge. I'm really glad you asked it.
I'm actually asked in that way because I'm really proud that this has been always a very compassionate and tolerant country, both for legal migrants, like my generation or my family generation, yours as well. And we're a very welcoming place where people are prepared to come here and work hard and integrate. Then this is a place where you could be sitting here as Prime Minister, right? And similarly, when it comes to asylum over the last few years, we've granted humanitarian asylum to around half a million people from Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, Hong Kong.
But the key point is we should focus our compassion on those who most need it, and it should be the British people who make those decisions. So when people pay criminal gangs or exploited by them and are jumping the queue and coming here illegally, they actually undermine trust in that system and mean that we can't target our compassion on exactly the people that you all of us listening would want to. Of course, we're always going to welcome people from around the world who need refuge here. That's part of what it means to be British.
That's what we've always done. But that's not what's happening across the channel, right? This is economic migration for the most part, where people are paying, they're largely overwhelmingly young men who are paying to come here illegally, jump the queue. And then the pressure that puts on our system means that we can't actually offer safe and legal roots in the number that we would want to those who really need it.
So actually, tackling legal migration matters for so many reasons. It undermines our notion of fairness, which is fundamental to who we are as Brits. It puts enormous pressure on public services, go to any community whose hotel has been taken over to housing legal migrants as evidence of that. It's obviously a security issue because it threatens the integrity of our borders.
But it also means we can't compassionally help those who we really want to. And so actually, if that's what you care about, you should be absolutely on my side in saying that we've got to stop this from happening, not least because people are dying when they make these crossings. And as I've said when I made my first speech, when we properly grip this issue and we have stopped the boats, we will then every year in Parliament be able to decide how many people we can welcome here through safe and legal roots. And actually, that is a conversation we should be having.
We get to decide that as a country. How many people every year should we be giving refuge to on our terms in a way that we can do? Prime Minister, you've got a train to catch. Have you enjoyed your cover?
I've only had about half of it. You've been talking right. Thank you very, very much indeed. Join us on day two.
Pretty good brew. So whoever did this, thank you very much. Fantastic. It's a day two.
It has to be a good brew. Thank you, Prime Minister. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Prime Minister has just left. I thought he was pretty human. I thought, actually, we wanted to make this about him and why he's doing that. This is the central question, isn't it?
It's very well-educated, very self-motivated, hardworking guy who, let's be honest, could afford to be anywhere else is doing this. And he said that he wants to serve as an MP, even if he loses for another four years. You've got Michael Gove and others jumping ship. The central question is, why?
And I think he answered it. That's the most I've heard from him on. His values, his principles. He spoke about faith, hard work, his parents.
He gave an answer. I was quite surprised on asylum seekers and Rwanda, which was, it's only by sorting out the problems that we have now that we can almost rediscover the British notions of how do we become a place for safe refuge. And I thought that was a very interesting answer. What I took from it was a proper sense of the Prime Minister, the person, I think, an election campaign.
You so regularly lose the idea that everyone, Prime Minister, journalist, are human beings in the end and are motivated by certain things. And that's the first time I've heard him in an interview reveal much more about who he is. Because as he says, when you come to vote for a Prime Minister, you're voting for somebody who will be making decisions in three to four years time. You have a idea about it.
As you were saying, the fact that he's Prime Minister would have been a surprise to him. It's crazy. I think we can agree that he is grounded in that sense of duty, that he's not putting that on. I know some people covering the rules, there's a lot of talk about duty.
I think that's pretty innate for him. I think this idea of both of his parents sort of serving the public as a doctor and a pharmacist, funny enough, it echoes my life as my dad's a doctor, my stepmother's a pharmacist. The idea that he feels privileged to have had the education that he has, I think, is well-intentioned. The family orientated nature of his upbringing and, indeed, his relationship with his wife and daughters.
You get the impression of a quiet sort of wholesome set up, don't you, where? He's probably on the phone to his mum and dad quite a lot, getting advice from them and his siblings, very close to his wife and his kids. Those family values I felt shone through in that interview. Why can't he be like this, on the more public stage?
We spoke and haven't we committed about his touchiness at times when he comes across, and he's clearly, let's be very frank, he's worked on it. He felt there that he was considering our questions and coming back with what I would describe as human answers. And I think in politics, if you can find that register, then you have much more opportunity for being heard. And I think for both of them, Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, they find it difficult to find that human register.
It's what Margaret Thatcher had when Margaret Thatcher spoke about her household budget was like the national budget, whatever economists might say to that. But when she spoke like that, people understood what she meant. Yes. Tony Blair had that register that people understood, agree or disagree, they understood what he meant.
And I think both these leaders in this election campaign struggled with that. And I think we've seen there a real example of the Prime Minister finding a little more of that register, which is a good thing. I thought it was an interesting point when you said to him, is he a real conservative and was he seen as a bit wet? Of course, he found that funny.
He did. But he has to convince two constituencies amongst the undecideds in this election campaign. The ones that may be flirting with voting reform will say he's not tough enough as a conservative, but also very frankly, people who are in the middle and are flirting with Labour and think he's not compassionate enough. And he lacks that edge to him.
I got a sense there for the first time that he understands that duality of this campaign, because it's only if he gets that that he will actually see those polls. You're so right. It can break it up into conservatives that like Nigel Farage and conservatives that hate Nigel Farage, and he's got to appeal to both, which is a really big ask, isn't it? I thought the response on Boris Johnson was interesting.
Yeah, we've had a chat. I mean, because I know that at the time of the so-called backstabbing when he resigned and Boris Johnson and his team absolutely thought that that was the final nail in the coffin. I mean, I do sometimes listen to Boris Johnson and his team and wonder when they will actually take responsibility for his demise, rather than blaming it on everyone else. Doesn't matter.
There was a visceral hatred for Rishi soon, like around that period, he was really being heavily briefed against. And now in the interests of trying to beat Keir Starmer, they've come together on the telephone. I just thought that was interesting. You know, clearly the conservative project is bigger than their own personal or professional animosity.
Country music, that was a surprise, come up. We both were just staring at it and going, no, we haven't heard of any of these people. I couldn't quiz him back deeply on these stars that he will do in the show notes. We'll do some links to some of those stars.
We found out that he likes country music. We found out as well, I think of that, I mean, the duty thing. Maybe he's a bit of a sucker for punishment. He's going to keep going at it.
You said about it. It's a cutting question, really, isn't it? You know, but what? He gives us this great patter.
He did really well in this interview, and then as you point out, but you're still so far behind in the polls. And he's saying, well, you know, that's the times where it's being difficult. Where I found him less convincing was your question around tax and thresholds. Every single government always say, may come be virtuous on tax, but Lord God, not today.
And that has always been the issue. It's always that idea of tax cuts jam tomorrow. So the only party thus far to have announced two huge new policies, which are going to cost the thick end of five billion pounds, are the Conservatives. Can I just say, I wish you'd come in with that five billion, because you could see when I was trying to add things up here.
OK, two point four billion, two point five. I should have come in. Sorry, come in. I'm not quite helping you.
No, I was making sure that you managed to get your question up. But both parties have an enormous challenge on July the 5th, whoever wins the next election, which will be around public spending and the Conservatives with the National Service Plan and the pensions quadruple lock. The Conservatives have put in five billion pounds worth of more spending, and they've fallen back on, frankly, that rather tired idea that somehow a new clampdown on tax avoidance and evasion is going to produce this magic money. I do feel a bit of the magic money tree circulating both parties, but the inability for parties to be straight with the public on raising tax thresholds in line with inflation, so that what's called fiscal drag, is putting up people's tax bills.
I find those answers. Yes, we are tax cutting, but you've given us no evidence. Yeah, can we just make a direct appeal to team Labour? Because somebody, somewhere, well, quite a few people actually, will be listening to this, who are very close to Kirstama.
We make a direct appeal to the Labour leader to come on and do exactly the same. Show us the real man behind the mask. Show us who you really are on the DailyT podcast. We'll ask you that, because we want to be even handed to both sides and give both sides this golden opportunity to have a couple with Camilla and Kamal.
Right, should we go and relax to the strains of Dolly Parton's 9-2-5? Because that's the only country music we like. Although I must admit, I have listened to Beyonce's country music album, and it is absolutely superb. Absolutely wonderful.
Wonderful. We both hope you've really enjoyed our interview with the Prime Minister on today's edition of The DailyT. And if you would like to send us your responses, your questions, your queries, we'd be delighted to hear them. You can email us at thedailyt, at telegraph.co.uk, and don't forget, you can find us across social media, our handle, which is what it's called, I think, Camilla.
The handle. In the country music scene, yes. Is at DailyT podcast, good and easy. Do join us tomorrow, five-bit.
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