Coffee House Shots
Isabel Hardman's Sunday Roundup - 08/09/2024
[Music] Hello and welcome to Coffee House Chops, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Isabelle Hardman and this is the Sunday Roundup. In his first major interview in Downing Street, the Prime Minister told Laura Koonsburg that his government would have to be unpopular to bring about change. I am absolutely convinced that we will only deliver that change. I'm absolutely determined we will if we do the difficult things now. I know they're unpopular. I know they're difficult. Of course they're tough choices. And note there you said you know it's unpopular. Are you willing to be unpopular? We're going to have to be unpopular. Popular decisions aren't tough. They're easy. When we talk about tough decisions, I'm talking about tough decisions. The things that last government ran away from, that governments traditionally run away from, I'm convinced that because they've run away from difficult decisions, we haven't got the change we need for the country. Keir Starmer also said the United States understood the UK's decision to suspend some arms exports to Israel and hinted at increased support for Ukraine. You're expected to go to the White House next week. Now, it's no secret that your decision to suspend some arms sales to Israel has not gone down very well across the Atlantic. It has not made the UK government very popular with its closest ally, the United States. You're wrong about that. We've been talking to the US, we've been talking to the US beforehand and afterwards, and they're very clear that they've got a different legal system and they understand the decision that we've taken. So that's very clear. The reason I'm actually going and having the visit is not about that at all. It's because the situation in Ukraine is becoming ever more pressing, as is the situation in the Middle East. I've obviously had a number of discussions with President Biden, both in person and on the phone and with other allies, France, Germany, Italy, NATO allies, about the tactical decisions we have to make in relation to Ukraine and the Middle East. And we've coordinated a lot of our messaging, coordinated our action, as you'd expect. But what I also want to have the opportunity is for a more strategic discussion about the next few months in relation to Ukraine and in relation to the Middle East. On Sky News, Shadow Health Secretary Victoria Atkins told Trevor Phillips that she had decided to back Robert Genrich in the Tory leadership race. Let me talk about the Conservative Party itself. Second row, round of voting for a new Conservative party leader takes place this week. Who decided who you're backing? Yeah, I've thought long and hard about this. I've had the pleasure of having many, many conversations with the leadership candidates, all of whom, by the way, will have my support should they succeed because I'm genuinely impressed with some of their ideas and their strengths. But for me, after long contemplation, I will be backing Rob Genrich. And the reason for that being that I don't think this is a matter of left or right, actually, I think we need to look at the election result. We have to understand why it is that voters turned away from us. And I've said, as I said immediately after the general election on that first Sunday media round, I believe actually that the country is instinctively conservative with a small C. We want to bright a future for our families. We want to have our own home. We want to ensure that our public services are well run. And I believe that Rob and I can find that common ground and reform the Conservative Party to attract those voters back to us. When you say Rob and I, is this a double ticket? No, are you in some deal with him? No, I am simply saying that I believe that with the experience I hope that I bring to this conversation, as many other people bring experience as well. We will find this common ground and we will be able to begin scrutinising the government. And indeed, this week of all weeks shows the urgency of that scrutiny, because on Tuesday, we, the Conservatives have forced the Labour government to have a debate. Okay, let's go back to that. Well, it's really important, Trevor. I have the tenth oldest population by constituency in the country. This is affecting tens of thousands of millions. Can we just stick with your choice? It's interesting. You say it's not a matter of left or right. If that's the case, what is special about Robert Generate? You know, why not? Can we be bad knock? So one of the things that I spoke about as Secretary of Health was my concern that the social contract between younger people and the NHS was being broken, because the NHS had to keep track track with how young people use their services nowadays on their phones and so on. And that is why, as Health Secretary, I brought forward this £3.45 billion productivity and tech plan, which sadly it seems Labour have come to touch up. What's that going to do with the reason? Because I have long been concerned about the younger generations and what they are facing at this point. And Rob has got, I think, a really interesting story to tell about younger generations, as health as housing secretary. I think it's pretty much the same age as Kimi Badnon. What's a distinction between these two? So, because as housing secretary, Rob set out these plans to try to build more homes, he is speaking to younger people. And by the way, I'm not getting into attacks on other candidates. I think they all have their strengths. But I am concerned that Kimi Badnon's people are saying this morning that the Generate Camp is doing some dirty tricks. The urgency of today's media round for me is exposing the Labour's choice to take winter fuel payments away from pensioners. It is the cronyism scandal that has emerged today about Alan Milburn popping into the Department of Health, looking at sensitive government documents whilst he still has more. My favourite is the former health secretary. Because he has all his business interests, advising private healthcare firms. And so the relationship between him popping in and out, I mean, Trevor, you and I can't pop in and out. That's the way to the Department of Health. Why is it that this former health secretary with the substantial private interests is being allowed to pop in and share government sensitive government. You're telling me that none of that ever happened in 14 years. Conservative government. No business leader, no person who had private interests. Not in this way. It was ever invited to invite Conservative ministers on their port, on their air of expertise. So there is a palpable difference between advice being sought in a minuteed and formal environment with civil servants compared to what the Sunday Times is reporting, where Labour's cronyism scandal continues to engulf the Department of Health. I'm here to talk about their cruelty, their cronyism and their cock-eyed accounting, which I'm pleased to see you showing. I understand that. Fellow leadership candidate Tom Thugintak told Coonsburg his vision for the Conservative Party. But we need to make sure the economy actually works for people delivering a higher wage, lower migration economy, not just shouting at foreigners from the White Cliffs and pretending that you can fix migration by withdrawing from a single treaty or changing a single bill, but actually changing the economy. Some of your party were doing previously, shouting at foreigners from the White Cliffs. I think what we need to do is we need to change the economy of the British people, so that it works for the British people. And I think there's a really fundamental decision we need to make. Do we want this economy to work for people? Do we want it actually to see the blood of the economy flowing again so that you get that intergenerational fairness, the link between the energy of the young and the assets of the old? Do we get that connection so that you get geography and generations connected? But I just wonder also, you say the party needs a rethink. If you've had a bit of a rethink about some of your principles too. A few years ago, this is what you said about the European Convention of Human Rights, which is a big treaty written in the aftermath of World War II. And you said it was an amazing piece of drafting crafted by lawyers in the aftermath of the Second World War, a real landmark piece of legal work many decades ago. But in this leadership campaign, you started saying that you might be willing to leave the Convention, which some people on the right of your party want, what's changed? So, Laura, in 2013, before I wrote this, I was saying that we needed to change bits of it. We needed to opt out of bits of it, so-called "derrigation." It still stands. This was an extraordinary piece of legal work written in the aftermath of the fascist regime dominating the whole of Europe. And those lawyers did an enormous amount of brilliant work. But what's happened since then is 80 years of change, things have evolved, things have changed. Now, those lawyers drafted in various changes that we could opt out of. And I've been arguing since 2013, the first thing I did when I left the army, actually, was to argue that we needed to just walk down to certain ways. But now, in 2024, our viewers and Conservative Party members, and we'll be watching this morning, will want to know, are you saying to them, vote for you to be Tory leader, and you would campaign to leave the Convention on Human Rights? Or are you actually just flirting with that idea? Has plenty of Conservatives have done in saying, "Well, maybe we might tweak it here or there." What are you actually saying? What I want to do is, right now, to derogate from certain aspects of the European Convention on Human Rights... To leave parts of it. To leave parts of it, which we can do now, the French do it, other countries do it in various different ways. The second thing is we need to reform it, because actually it's become dynamic, as so-called, since the 1970s and 80s, and it's changed. And if we really can't get the reforms, then we need to be prepared to leave, but prepared means actually doing the work in advance. This isn't something we can just tear off the Band-Aid and pretend it has no consequences. It underpins many other treaties, and we need to be absolutely ready. And my commitment is that we will be ready. We will do the reforms. We will do the derogations. And if they really don't work, then in order to keep the British people safe, I will always do what is necessary. And finally, Health Secretary, where Streeting admitted that the current rate of decline in NHS waiting lists was not acceptable. Secretary, the reason I'm asking about this is that, you know, okay, you say that the wind field allowance and so on is a tough choice. But there are some people who would say that you'd rather talk about that than this challenge, which you know very well, you're facing, waiting lists. Let's have a look at what's happening here. Of course, waiting lists were at their highest year or so ago. The thing is that at the moment, at the current rates at which they're falling, it's going to take until 2039 for NHS waiting lists to return to pre-pandemic levels. Now, I know you want to do better than this. Let me first of all ask you, would you like to commit to bringing that graph down so that waiting lists are below pre-pandemic levels by the end of your term of office? Well, I'd certainly like to see them come down faster. We've committed to return the NHS by the end of this Parliament to the constitutional standards we expect. So things like being able to see within four hours in A&E, making sure that you are treated with a verbal treatment for cancer is within 62 days. Those are the sorts of constitutional standards we want to see the NHS return to. Yeah, exactly. And also to get to constitutional standards, NHS waiting lists will need to be millions lower by the end of this Parliament. And that's why that chart shows, which is the status quo, is not tolerable or acceptable. One of the reasons why within weeks of coming into government, I agreed to deal with the junior doctors was because I saw it as an essential ingredient to bringing waiting lists down and delivering better care locations. So you're going to do better than that. Yeah, and that's why I'm not just Lord Darcy. I've got people like Alan Milburn, former Labour Health Secretary with a track record of delivering rapid NHS improvement on my side. I'm lucky that I can draw on people who worked for the last Labour government. I feel sorry for Victoria Atkins who you've got in this morning. When she was the Conservative Health Secretary, she couldn't turn to a Conservative predecessor because every single one of them left waiting lists higher than they found them. That's all for this week. I'm Isabel Hartman and this podcast was produced by Joe Biddell-Brell. 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