The telegraph Broke showed her for an Aisha, C.I.B.C. investors edge while at the carnival. Aisha thinks gut-wrenching ups and downs should be for rollercoasters and not her investments. Now, with C.I.B.C.
investors edge, she has all the tools to invest confidently. Kamal, there's loads of headlines around the election campaign, as you'd imagine. Dainabat, day two. What's going on with the left?
The left is eating itself, Kamal. So we're going to be discussing that. We're also going to be discussing reforms offering a migrant tax on business, slightly curious. But we thought that the whole theme of this week has been, how does the left solve its problem with the left and...
How does the right solve its problem with the right? So that's what we're going to be delving into today's podcast. Welcome to the Daily Tea with me, Kamal Ahmed. And me, Kamal, Kamal.
So we'll get on to the Tories and reform later, but let's kick off with what's been happening on the Labour side today. Dainabat's been on the steps of Hanytown Hall. I have campaigned over 40 years for the Labour party. I have also campaigned 40 years for equality.
I've spoken up of race, I've spoken up on gender, I've spoken up on gay rights. And it is this, the party leadership is throwing all of that in my face. Well, I am here to say that I will continue to speak up, I will continue to struggle, and by any means possible, I will be the candidate for Hanytown Hall. This sparked a bit of confusion, didn't it, Kamal?
Because she's saying she's going to be the candidate for Hackney North. That's the seat she served since 1987. She's got a 33,000 majority there. But she didn't clarify whether it was going to be as an independent or for Labour.
As we explained yesterday, she had the whip removed, which means she was removed from the Labour party. She then had it restored. This was all over that row about anti-Semitism. So even though she's had the Labour whip restored, she suggested that she's been banned from standing for Labour as part of Starmer's purge of Corbynistas.
It's not clear yet, actually, whether she will stand as you say, for Labour. Angela Rayner, the Deputy Leader of Labour, has said that she doesn't see any reason why she shouldn't be standing. She's been cleared as part of investigation. That is a process.
I'm not involved in that process. And for me, I just see that if she wants to stand, then I don't see any reason why she can't stand. That was Angela Rayner speaking to ITV. Keir Starmer was speaking to reporters during Labour's campaign launch in Wales today, where he was asked if he is blocking left-wing candidates from running for the party.
No, I've said repeatedly over the last two years as we selected our candidates, but I want the highest-quality candidates. That's been the position for a very long time. The situation in relation to Dine Abbot is that no decision has been taken to Harper. For any political party during a campaign, what do they want?
They want control of what the media is talking about as far as possible. This has been a subject that Labour would prefer the media, the public, weren't talking about, and would prefer to be talking about the NHS, the economy, whatever it might be that Labour is campaigning on. So we have now had two days of this. Next Tuesday, Keir Starmer will have all the Labour party will have to make the final decisions on who their candidates are.
I would be surprised if Dine Abbot is stopped from standing as a Labour MP, given what Angela Rayner has said, unless Keir Starmer is going to go against his Deputy Leader. The other problem for Keir Starmer here, which is very different from the challenge that Blair faced in the 1990s, the challenge that Neil Kinnet faced against Middleton in the 1980s, that this issue today is overlaid by the issue of racism. This is not just about, are you on the left of the Labour party? This is about anti-Semitism and really serious evidence and accusations about anti-Semitism for the hard left.
What I'm trying to work out from all this, Kamal, is whether it is harming or helping Starmer's campaign with a view to trying to attract the moderate undecideds, because on one hand you could say it's wiped the NHS announcements off the front pages, it's wiped. Anything Rachel Reeves has been saying about Tory economic incompetence off the front pages, but at the same time it's working because our readers quite like this. Our readers want Dine Abbot, like Jeremy Corbyn, who they absolutely hate, not to stand as Labour candidates. So this whole idea of purging the party of people who have been linked to anti-Semitism is working.
I mean, he's got cut through on that. I think for Keir Starmer, a day of this is fine, day after day of this is more dangerous, because as long as you're not what is described in campaigning terms, controlling the narrative, that's not a good space to be, because you're not sure where it's going to go. And as I said, they're getting themselves a little bit boxed in. Is Keir Starmer really going to go against his deputy leader and say, no, Dine Abbot shouldn't stand?
I don't think he will do that. So my assumption at this stage is that Dine Abbot will stand when they have the final reckoning on their MPs list next Tuesday. Well, that means that for telegraph readers or for people who want to see this idea of a purge, it won't be satisfied. So Labour will get themselves trapped.
Yes, Corbyn is standing as an independent, but Dine Abbot looks like she will stand as a Labour MP. And just the final thing is it gets people talking about an area that is always toxic for the Labour party, which is this idea of is it socialist? Well, this whole issue of is it socialist? Who's a socialist who isn't a socialist?
That's been debated all week. We've got Keir Starmer saying he is a socialist. We've got the likes of Rachel Reeves and Darren Jones, who both work on the economy brief for Labour, saying that they aren't or refusing to commit. Shall we listen to sexy jesser last night at his campaign launch?
Because he's obviously running in Islington North as an independent. He was speaking to reporters last night to the strains of Dolly Parton's 9-5, which I thought was fun. Excellent. Also, he's also picked up, which he's seen in love of country music, which is obviously enjoyed here.
Keir Starmer says he's a socialist, is he? Well, there are many people who have different definitions of socialism, and the line is from each, according to their means, to each according to their means. But is he trying to pose to the left? It looks like it, but as I'm disturbed that they die, and it's been treated, you can see what happened to me.
But there has to be a voice, a voice, a voice, a voice, a piece, and socialism outside. And you've seen the message here tonight. I'm not sure whether Dolly would necessarily be a Corbyn fan, by the way. I'm not sure what she thinks about that music being used.
Maybe it's completely beyond both of their control. But the Corbyn factor in this idea of Starmer's socialism once again plays into the Tories's hands, doesn't it? Because they keep on saying to the electorate, Who is this bloke, really? Is he a Blairite?
Is he a Corbyn-easter? He propped Corbyn up for four years? What are his true colours? But on the other hand, maybe all of this kind of strange flick flopery on the issue of how socialist he actually is means that the electorate gets the message that maybe he is more moderate than he seems.
This type of issue doesn't work for leaders of the Labour Party if it plays into a public suspicion that the leader of the Labour Party is to the left of them. If you look at how Neil Kinnock was framed during the 1992 election, and in the 1987 election, it was this idea of, yes, they've reinvented a bit of Labour, but actually they're still the same old Labour that will run out of your money. That worked because the public believed it to be true. It didn't work with Tony Blair.
The Conservatives tried to make Tony Blair out as someone who would reveal his true self when he got into power. That didn't work because in argument, because the public for one, hang on a minute, there's no evidence that Blair is actually a left winger. Now, when you come to Keir Starmer, it is different because, of course, as we've discussed so many times on the DDT, he did stand on a ticket for the leadership of the Labour Party, which does align much more closely with Jeremy Corbyn. So the public are looking for evidence.
They have a big chunk of evidence, who was Keir Starmer in 2020 when he became the leader of the Labour Party. And now they've got this issue being raised, which is why it becomes more important for Labour to close this down, because the public can see or believe or perceive there's an element of truth. But where will it leave this theory that Tony Blair only won successive premierships because he was a Tory in red clothing if Keir Starmer ends up winning election on the back of pretty socialist pledges? That then blows apart this idea that only moderate Labour can win.
I think he will win because the public believe more readily that he's actually a moderate who played being left and it's going to win, rather than he's actually left-wing and he's slightly fooled us, but we don't mind that. Most polling shows that the centre of gravity for the British public is slightly centre-right, all in. If you put the whole adult voting population into one big bucket, where do they net out left-right? They are slightly centre-leaning to the right.
And in the end, that is where you win. You win from the centre, you win from the centre, and a very light blue blush on that. But then Thatcher wasn't winning from the centre, was she? But then in 1979, the public wanted huge change.
I mean, there's a very different set of judgements by the public. By that stage, a whole method of government had seen to have failed, which was this idea of the trumvirate between the unions, business and government that had been seen during the 1970s to change. So what people wanted in 1979 was a complete change. It isn't the same argument I think that we're having now.
So, Kamal, you know when we've spoken in the past about the difficulty facing Rishi Sunak, in that he has to appeal to both conservatives that like Nigel Farage and conservatives that hate him, is it the case, do you think that Starmer is having to appeal to left-wingers that both love Tony Blair and left-wingers who hate him? I don't think it's quite the same. Farage is more of a polarising figure to me for people who may vote either conservative or Labour, much more polarising than Blair was. He became more polarising once he had stopped being the Prime Minister, so I don't think it's quite the same comparison.
What Keir Starmer needs to do is get soft Tories, if you might describe it like that, over the line to trust him. And he has, as we've discussed before, jettisoned anything that he thinks will get in the way of Starmer's journey to number 10. His danger, though, is that the public are still concerned and want to be reassured about what he was saying only four years ago. But if we think that the moderate approach can win, how do you then accept that?
Because nobody's denying Blair's astonishing legacy in the history, not just of Labour politics, but British politics in general. However, he is now, according to Ugov, the least popular Labour politician in history. His approval rating is worse than Brown's, Kinek's, everyone's. Our readers absolutely hate his guts.
Can I give you some examples? They blame him for, funny enough, we discussed this yesterday, the rise in Mickey Mouse degrees. They blame him for uncontrolled immigration. So the legacy of Blair, one might imagine, might actually put off soft Tories.
I wonder whether people really think about him anymore, to be honest. I think you're right that the polls turned very pretty aggressively against him once he had stopped being Prime Minister. But he did win three elections. He has been the most successful Labour leader ever, and the longest serving Labour Prime Minister.
So I'm not sure Blair is really playing in this election. He's playing in one way, which is a different thing, but we can come into that. Or you should recognise this, because you and I both know that Tony Blair is in the background, pulling some strings. We were talking about this earlier, his institute has now become pretty powerful.
It's employing hundreds of people. We know that he's in the ear of the Starmer administration. The Tories should weaponise this and say they should do the thing like they did with Tony Blair, you know, being in George W. Bush's pocket.
They should be saying, actually, Blair's behind all this, because I genuinely think that would be a good scare tactic to put off writings from going for Labour. The Conservatives for years and years and years thought they could scare the British public about who really Tony Blair is, and they've done it over and over again, and it's never worked. So I would say if they were... Where does Blair be less popular now than he was?
In polls, but people vote for him, because to them he looks like a Prime Minister. And they could try making this into, well, as you describe it, weaponising Tony Blair, I don't think that would work, because you'd have to be relatively obsessional about Blair to still have a real sort of hatred of him now. I think that you raised a really, really important point, which is the Tony Blair Institute and what role that will have in the Starmer government, if he's successful on July the 4th. These places really do motivate a lot of policy discussion and things, so we'll get on to that at another time.
Shall we talk in a moment about the Conservatives? The writers also eating itself, let's be honest, Kamal, it's ever been thus, and also reforms offering to the electorate a migrant tax on workers. And also sticking with us, because we've got some very funny reactions to Rishi Sunak's love of Starneurs. So we spoke about the left eating itself, let's get on to the right, possibly having a bit of a meal of its own, but also reform and the policy they've just announced on immigration.
We had Richard Tice, the leader, and Nigel Farage, who I think is honorary president, is that right? Correct. honorary president of reform. And they have laid out a policy on immigration, which is that they would introduce a migrant tax, which would force employers to pay a higher national insurance rate on foreign workers.
And it seems to come that they're saying that foreign workers are anybody who doesn't hold a British passport. So they have to take some care there, because, obviously, lots of people don't hold a British passport, not just because they're foreign. They say that would incentivise businesses hiring British workers. I'm scratching my head at this policy.
First of all, I mean, as you say, the non-British passport holders. So, sorry, are you going to apply a higher tax to Irish workers in London? That strikes me as slightly bizarre as a proposal. Second of all, if I were the Tories, I'm not advising them, but if they want to listen to my advice, you just say in response to this, sorry, let's just get this straight.
Reform want to tax businesses more, full stop. We've had Richard Tice and Nigel Farage banging on about the high-incorporation tax. Banging on about small and medium-sized businesses being squeezed by a conservative government, and you actually want to make their tax bills higher. How much is this, Camilla, just what might be described?
I don't mean this pejoratively, but you'll know what I mean. Is it being used as dog whistle? So, look, reform are not going to be the next government of the United Kingdom. But sending this idea of tax foreign workers has a whiff, oddly, of that Gordon Brown famous phrase, British jobs for British workers, they're going to say, without firm and incredibly, it would be very controversial.
Action on immigration would never bring the numbers down. Does that work for conservative voters who, many of whom are so concerned about immigration? I mean, you say dog whistle, that's kind of negative spin. It's red meat, like it's righty red meat, OK?
I'm concerned about the levels of worklessness in this country, and I'm concerned that there are a load of vacancies that aren't being filled. And I can understand this idea of trying to incentivise companies to employ more British people. But there's a degree to which it's completely unrealistic, because whenever you and I go around our daily lives, we're often being served, helped, working alongside foreign workers. I get that they've excluded health and care workers.
I mean, they should. My dad runs a nursing home. Most of the staff are from overseas, not just Europe, by the way, the Philippines and other countries, which have a historically very good record on looking after the elderly. That's why dad employs them.
So are we both coming? What do you think about Gordon Brown saying, British jobs for British workers? I found that really hard. I find the tone of this might really interesting phrase that Tony Blair used.
Parties are always in love with their emotional impulses. And there is an emotional impulse on the right, which is control, immigration. I have the emotional impulse, which is almost exactly in the opposite direction. And therefore, I should be challenged.
You know, my father was an immigrant. He's dead now, so everybody came from Sudan to work here in the 1960s, worked his whole career, almost his career in the NHS at Morefield's Eye Hospital. So as soon as I hear people saying, control, immigration, I have an emotional impulse, which is that's a bad idea, because open borders lead to greater economic growth. If we hadn't had immigration in this country over the past few years, we would have had no growth.
Growth per capita has actually been stagnant for a number of years under this conservative government. So immigration has given us some growth and immigrants are net contributors in tax. They pay more in tax and they take out in benefits and other services. So I instinctively am pro immigration, but when it comes to the conservatives, immigration can be a very motivating issue to get a vote out.
So I'm interested in not so much my reaction to this because I am somebody who is instinctively pro immigration believes in open borders as much as the state can allow resources to support GPS and education and other things. But for the conservatives, I can see why Richard Tyson and Nigel Farage have gone for something like this, because what we've seen in the evidence of the public attitudes is that they do not believe that either party, Labour or the conservatives have got anything that will solve this problem. I think there are several strands to why people are concerned about immigration on the right. There are those people that feel that the complexion of Britain has changed, that it's become more multicultural, they don't like it, they're quite parochial, and that's their positioning.
I think there's also what I would call the Trevor Phillips position, which is that people don't really have a problem with immigrants, they've got a problem with the lack of infrastructure that has gone with it. So if you're going to take in 15 million people since 1997, not build enough schools, not build enough houses, not have enough GP places, not have enough dentists, then unfortunately people are going to come to resent those who have come in. I think that there are others who think that immigration is a great thing, that they want high school workers from overseas, they see them in their hospitals, they see them in their hospitality venues, they love this sense of the immigrant that does well, you know, the kind of product of, Richard Zunak talked about this, right? His parents come to this country, they embrace everything that Britain gives them, they make something of their lives.
The trouble with the mass immigration that's come in recent years is that some of those immigrants, particularly when it comes to kind of family members, accompanying students for instance, haven't actually worked, and I think people have a problem with that. And also I think there is an issue and a concern now around the integration. If there is, and this is the sort of right-wing conservative position, it's the Suella Braverman point, that if you have mass immigration and people then go into different communities and just exist in silos and don't mix with others, that you then get the kind of quotes, sectarianism that Nigel Farage talked about. And that conversation does appeal to a certain kind of...
How should Richie Zunak respond, or maybe he shouldn't respond, or maybe that is the response, is no response. Should he respond to what's reform is saying? Because it gets to the heart, doesn't it, come in a matter of something that we've spoken about on a number of occasions, which is the conservatives need to protect their flank on the right, and they also need to pull back people who are flirting with voting Labour. It's either no comment or it's a critical comment.
I mean, Zunak can't have it both ways. He can't say, I won't debate Nigel Farage because he's never going to be prime minister, and he's just, you know, irrelevant to my campaign, and then start reacting to everything that reform says. This is an interesting point, by the way, from Nigel Farage, he made it on Pestan's ITV show last night. This idea will actually, when push comes to shove, if there's a star in the government, then it will be reform that will be the effective opposition, not the Tories.
The people that have come from Labour, through the gateway drug, over-you-kit Brexit party, vote over Boris, they're gone already. They will not vote Conservative. They have been betrayed on Brexit, on immigration, on so many things. Even if we stood aside completely from the election, those voters are not going back to the Conservatives.
The election is over. We all pretend they might be a contest, the polls might tighten, they won't, it's over. These people loathe the Conservatives. It's done.
Our job is to provide a voice of opposition to a Labour government with a big majority. I'll tell you why I say this, because the Conservatives will be in opposition, but they won't be the opposition. They're incapable. They're at war with each other.
They're divided. They don't actually stand for anything whatsoever. And I think what will happen in the next five years, I genuinely believe this, is the centre-right of British politics will realign and reform will be a key part. The problem with that analysis is that Nigel Farage is only talking about 20% of the electorate, and you don't win an election with the support of 20% of the electorate, who are very, very bothered by just the issues that reform regularly highlight.
The other problem for the Conservatives isn't the opposition from reform, but the opposition from within. Only this week I've had briefings from the pop cons. I've had briefings from the new cons. All of these right-wing caucuses who are fighting like rats in a sack.
I want to send you our manifesto. I'm like, so much about the Unite would die. Surely you should just be backing one manifesto. So all of these groups are now making demands of the person writing the Tory manifesto to make sure that it's full-throatedly right-wing enough.
I get that positioning. I get that our readers don't think that Rishi Sunak's offering is conservative enough, because it's been high tax, high spend, furlough money. I mean, Rishi Sunak, bless him. He still thinks he's going to be thanked for furlough money.
No conservative in the history of the world has ever been thanked for giving people money. OK, it's just such bad politics. I think as well, this idea that if there is a 1997 type moment and Labour getting with a big majority, it will be wilderness on the Conservative side of the debate, and there must be a whole new generation. There will need to be a generational change.
This idea that the Conservatives can keep spinning their wheels around the same subjects, which has been massively rejected by the public. If that is what happens on July the 4th and the polls at the moment are saying that is what is happening. The whole debate for the public and for government will be about what is Labour doing. The Conservatives will go off just as they did after 1997 in a sort of wilderness land, where they'll be having these intense debates that the public will not be listening to.
Although, if things don't get better, to quote the Blair Eye anthem by D-Rheem, OK, if things get really, really bad, then as we've witnessed across Europe and the rest of the world, you then get a full lurch to the right in opposition. So I get your point about, you know, moderate politics winning the day, but you'll get more right-wing sentiment against the Labour Party, the Labour Party start, taxing us to the Pipsqueak, spending huge amounts of money, racking up debt, suggesting that women can have penises and all the other things that really annoy the right. Don't forget, by the way, come on, you're forgetting somebody who could be the linchpin of the right. And that is the popcorn popular Conservative that is Lizz Truss.
Now, the former Prime Minister spoke to our very own Dominic Penner. He's our resident daily tea political stato about her own ideology. Let's just hear how she positioned herself. If Kia Starmer gets elected, the unelected bureaucracy will be turbocharged.
They'll be given even more power. And, you know, you've got Sue Gray, who was previously the head of government ethics, now the Labour Party Chief of Staff. So you're going to see more of these, you know, more of these powerful unelected officials stopping the real change that needs to happen in Britain. And what I would encourage people to do, and I would encourage Conservatives to do, is join the Conservative Party, help the Conservative Party to change into a force that is going to take on this very, very powerful state that we now have.
They can join the Conservative Party, they can get themselves involved in selecting members of Parliament, who actually believe in these ideas. This is why we set up the popular Conservative movement, so that people can actually participate, because it is going to take the public to understand what the problems are, to participate in politics, to actually change them. I'm not sure that Liz Truss was convincing to herself during that. She was trying to say an anti-growth coalition, and she forgot her own sort of act line.
On selections, by the way, I love this idea that Liz Truss thinks that voters are going to have control over who gets parachuted in at the last minute to Michael Gove's seat. Can we just look back at a little bit of history as well, on that selections thing? The idea that you go to the electorate and you say, would you like some spam? And the electorate say to you, no, we don't like spam very much, we're going to vote for the other guy who's offering us eggs.
And you come back to the electorate and say, OK, you didn't like the spam, we're going to give you double spam. It is what the left tried to do after 1979. They went from 1979, losing to Margaret Thatcher to Michael Foote in 1983. So they went left, they thought, right, what the public wants is what they've just rejected.
And I can see it as night follows day, the Conservatives, if they lose on July the 4th, and this is advice I am giving them. If you go right and say, OK, double spam, even though you've rejected it, it won't work for them. Should we explain what spam is? It's not that old, but it's a tinned meat.
You have the other eats. I don't think I have them. At one point, we should sit down for spam and eggs. Now, during our interview with Rishi, saying like, there was a part where I did zone out a bit.
I felt like I just ended a comic con with two George Lucas freaks. I like Star Wars, but clearly not as much as you and the Prime Minister. No, not like a proper fan. And obviously, we're interested in the socials, and we have a look at the amount of views that they're clocking up.
On the Star Wars clip alone. So we ask all of our guests on the daily team, we ask them how do they take their tea, and who would they like a cup of tea with? And Rishi soon said, George Lucas, the director of the original Star Wars movies. I don't want to bore you, so I don't go on any more about Star Wars itself.
But that clip of him talking about his favourite Star Wars movies has, what we like to say, gone a bit viral on socials. We've now got a million views of those social media posts of the Daily Tea Podcast interview with the Prime Minister. And even I remember which ones he liked, it was the Empire Strikes Back, and then it was Rogue One. Let's read out some of these comments are so brilliant.
Ryan, astronomically rare Rishi soon act. James Brog gave the most standard opinion, to be fair, I agree with that, because everyone says Empire Strikes Back, don't they? Ellis didn't realise he was chill like that. You read some comments.
I love Louis, who says, I hate to say that I agree completely with Rishi soon act for one time and one time only. And then he says, and then Daph Williams has said, may just vote for him, a very good and educated take. On the other hand, Liam remains unconvinced. You can like Road One, but that doesn't win you my vote.
Liam's a very sensible person. I think I shared with you, Camilla, the clip on Star Wars with one of the few things that my son has shared from the podcast on his social. So that shows that it's got cut through. Rishi soon act has got cut through with Generation Z, who knew?
Who knew? Come on, on that subject, we're going to look at it a little closer tomorrow in tomorrow's kind of election, special round-up podcast special for the weekend. We're going to look at the socials, the TikTok generation, and who's winning the social media war. And we're going to do it wearing tank tops.
Can you explain why? Because our brilliant socials editor, Jimin, he was wearing a tank top when we met the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister, commented on it. I don't have a tank top. Can you let me one?
Yes. Are you convinced it will fit? Let's see tomorrow. Join us five o'clock.
For more unrivaled insight into the race for number 10, do get a telegraph subscription to our website and the telegraph app. You can start your two-month free trial today at telegraph.co.uk forward slash daily tea sub. You can actually cover the election for free because two months takes us beyond July the 4th. Delightful.
While you're there, you must must sign up for the daily tea newsletter. Head to telegraph.co.uk forward slash daily tea newsletter. And of course, follow the daily tea on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get, your podcast. We really want to hear from you, our dedicated daily tea audience.
So you can get in touch with us on socials. We're at Daily Tea Podcast on Twitter, now known as X, Instagram and TikTok. Or you can email us on the daily tea at telegraph.co.uk