Coffee House Shots
Which Conservative leader could be a problem for Keir Starmer?
If you enjoyed the Spectator's podcast, why not subscribe to the magazine as well? You can get 12 weeks of the spectator for just £12, plus a £3.20 John Lewis, or weight raise voucher, if you go to spectator.co.uk/vulture. This is a podcast only deal, and we hope you take us up on it. Hello and welcome to Coffee House shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics podcast. I'm Megan McQuarrie, and I'm joined today by Katie Balls and John McTurnan, former political secretary to Tony Blair and political strategist. Katie, in your column this week, you've written about the conservative leadership contest. Tell us more. So it's still going? Still. It's going for a bit longer yet, all the way to November. But I think there's an interesting question which is, we can go through all the candidates, but how do the opposition parties look at this leadership contest, and who would cause them a problem if a problem at all? Now, the Tories spend most of the time worrying about the reform party. I think on the liberal democrat side, there is actually some bemusement. How little the contest so far has been about how do you get those lived-em voters back in lots of these home counties, quite well-to-do areas. The gales bakery test that we've heard about. Well, lived-em effectively just targeted areas of a nice gales bakery, and that's where their voters are trying to get over. And I think probably for those voters, I think the names that come up would be Tom Teganhat might be someone who the lived-evs would be a bit more worried about potentially James Cravoli. I think as if you kind of can lick as though you're in the centre, potentially when those voters back. And then on the Labour side, I think that there is just, you know, you get different answers and different figures. I mean, lots of time Labour figures were not particularly worried about anyone, but of course they would say that. John, who do you think would be a problem for the Labour Party? It's an interesting question. I think somebody who's a break with the politics of the last government, so something like Tom Teganhat, I think, is a worrying person, because he can reach into exactly those voters in the centre ground. I think there's a big question which is, who can reach the centre ground? Because that is where UK elections are won. And if you decide to abandon the centre ground, it's really hard for you to recover well within one electro cycle. I think James Cleverly has got about him a naturalness and ease, which is unlike a lot of the contenders. Because he doesn't attempt to divide people. You know, his clever social media president is when his foreign secretary doing a blind tasting of jollof rice and getting every single one of them right. I think that was a very neat way to signal his heritage, but also to signal his sense of humour and sense of, you know, questioning himself and not being up himself. And I think the danger for the Tory party is to go through a cycle, you know, the classic cycle of elections for leadership after a defeat where you go, you know, first you blame each other, then you blame the voters, and then you double down on what lost you the last election. And there's a question about who would most discomfort here at the dispatch box, and I think that's different. I think Tom Teganhat or with James Cleverly, you'd have a lot of PMQs where there were, I suppose, sessions where they kind of had a lot of agreement on a lot of things. A bit like the way Keir was during the pandemic. I'm close to the government's position as a critical friend, but I think, you know, I think who would Keir find it more difficult, because the politics might get under his skin. I think he might find Kemi Badnock annoying in a way. He'd find it hard to hard to actually conceal, because she'd been more likely to have it in my view, kind of left field approach on many, many issues, some of which would be exciting to commentate. So I think some of our writing and talking is interesting, but I don't agree with her conclusions. But sometimes you can't tell where she's going to go in an argument. I think that is a strength in the chamber, because it prevents her being a straightforward response. But I don't think it's a great leadership position, because this is a long rebuild the Tories have to go through it. You know, you may, because of volatility of the electorate, be able to recover much faster the way that Keir recovered so fast in 2019. But you need to have a fundamental strategy. And I think, I do fundamentally think that the most dangerous leader for labor is the one who's most able to distance himself from the tone and the divisive politics of the last government. Most able to say, sorry, once, not a lot, just once, and then move on by their actions to march on the centre ground and accept it's really hard to win back the territory that's occupied. Keir was able to occupy the centre ground faster than normal, because the Tories were vacating it because they're on internal politics. I think Kevin Badenock would probably be the most stressful for Kirstalma on a daily exchange basis. And I have spoken to someone at a Labour party who think Kevin Badenock could be tricky for them. And just in terms of where does it push Labour, I think there's always a risk too for the male leader going against, you know, a female politician at the dispatch box, which is he may well tire of Kevin Badenock's antics, but there's, you know, the dynamic of that is you can look condescending, mansplaining, dismissive of a woman. And I think Boris Johnson often found it like harder going off against a woman than a man and so forth. So I think Kevin Badenock could be an issue on some levels. I also think in terms of her focus on things like women's spaces, some of the identity politics that she talks very fluently about, those can be positions where Kirstalma could be a bit uncomfortable. If she were to keep pushing on that, particularly if, you know, you go down the line, she thinks she's talking about previously, which, you know, Labour is not, you know, a party for women. Look at how you treated Rosie Dufffield and others. I think she could be quite effective on that kind of thing in those exchanges. But of course, there's more to being leader of the opposition than just doing PMQs. And the question is, you know, I think Kevin Badenock is more centrist than lots of the commentary about her suggests. In a sense, you know, you think about where Sue got a bra of another stage in the last Tory leadership election. I think Kevin Badenock was the only person other than Rosie's next saying we shouldn't do loads of tax cuts right now. And she's also been backed by Michael Gove. So this, the caricature you sometimes see, which is almost, you know, she's most to the right of the Tory party. Isn't correct, but also the question is, does she have the breadth of skills to bring many of her colleagues alongside with her? Because that abrasiveness can work really well in exchanges. But if you've also got to lead us very small party in difficult times, you also need a softness sometimes. And then I think James Clavity probably is the other figure that's come up a few times to me on the Labour side, as someone who they could find difficult. And almost, it's picked to me, I'm slightly putting words in this person's life because I was, we're having a discussion. I think James Clavity could almost be the Tory party's queer starmer, which is, you go for the leader who is probably not the most exciting of the candidates, but he's pretty likeable, quite reliable. And then you just hope that the other side messes up. And I think that is a bit obviously, queer starmer to sort out his party, et cetera, et cetera. But, you know, I think most people would agree, the reason that he is currently in 10 down is to a huge majority. Is yes, he, you know, cleaned his side on the street. But also, it's because the Tory is completely imploded. And therefore, could James Clavity be the steady as she goes person to do that? I think on Tom Teagenhart is interesting. It slightly reminds me of Penny Morden, because I remember lots of Labour figures saying, "We're most scared about Penny Morden." But then on the Tory side being much more mixed, I think to be polite, I'm saying, almost saying, the only reason Labour is saying that's clearly no Penny Morden, which I don't mean as disrespect to Penny Morden, but it was just, it was quite interesting, the different perceptions from those who saw her bit and said, "Oh, she pulls well, our voters." And then those, on the Tory side, who probably had experienced her more working and so forth and had more reservations. And I think Tom Teagenhart suffers from that bit, because some of the one nation Tories look at him, and they remember the last time when he backed Liz Truss. So, I understand John's point about breaking what came before, but Tom Teagenhart, to Tory MPs, and obviously, some are backing him and think he is the answer. But to many, he is the person who got their vote at the last leadership election, really, because they wanted anyone but Liz Truss, and they thought he could stop Liz Truss as a one nation Tory. And then he folded in behind Liz Truss and probably endorsed her. And so I think that that means that his whole, you know, the card of being the one to the centre left of the Tory party and things, it is not as clean a card as it would be in different circumstances. John, do you think there's any candidate that Kistama would like to see? Is there anyone that would present less of a threat for him? Do you think Mel's stride would be nice for Kistama or Tricky? That's not Forget Mel? No, look, I think Mel could fashion himself into, again, there's a slot. I think probably here would fear the one who was most like him. He'd find somebody who's like, can be difficult, but that's not because he'd fear them. I think, you know, somebody who is unflashy but likable would be almost like becoming a mirror to him in a funny way. Our politics does produce mirror mirrors. You know, Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson were very different politics, but they were both leaders who were, in a way, aliens, the tradition of their parties, a bit out odds, a bit out a bit at tangents with them. And I think, you know, it would be sensible for the Tories to think of who's their most queer-like person. And I take the point about James Cleverley. I kind of think there's a funny thing about Kemi Badnock just to go back to her would be she wanted too great to be her pram-sec and because she wasn't able to have her as a pram-sec, she was available here to recruit as chief of staff. So there's something odd that will overlap in that. And I think to be fair to Tom Tug, he's got a very good reputation in the MOD, where he was in private office with some of the most senior figures in the MOD, on the leadership of the Defence Forces. So, and he's got something to him. And I think that's, you know, is, do you go to the same or do you go to the contrast? And so I think Tom Tug, James Cleverley, you'd mention Penny Morton, there's something about them that's different from the Tories and, you know, Robert Genreich. There's something about him that's very similar to what we just had. And it's a real question for you, which is, are you going to do the rebuilding by moving on to the difficult territory from the very beginning, which in a way is what Keir did. It's what Tony Blair did, although Tony had had. John Smith and Neil Kennet clear the ground. And it's, who have you got who can do as much work in the next four to five years? When one thing about Labour is Labour will not have many internal divisions and no internal divisions that will be able to drive the leadership from their positioning. It was the Tory party, although I had a large majority from the Brexit election. Always had a chunk of people in it who could drive it away from the centre ground. And I think it's the party dynamics are an important thing. And who is going to be the person, you know, the job that Cameron did, which was really important, can you change the candidates and thereby change the face, the look, the feel of what, you know, who you look at each the candidates, who would a Mel Stride's A-list be, who would Robert Genreich's A-list be, who would be the people that they tried to bring in to show that the party has changed, which always takes you back to this fundamental question. You probably shouldn't have a leadership election until you've decided why you lost the last election. Otherwise they become a proxy for factions in the party. And you never have the hard, honest discussion like, what actually went wrong? Why is it that voters had two views of the Tory party and went from them. Some on-group voters thought they were socialists and left for reform. Another group of them thought they were the most far-right party that's ever been in charge in the UK and they went to vote for Lib Dems and Labour. And so it's that, you know, how do you just answer the question, why did we lose? Because until you get that question agreed in your own mind and your team's mind, you can't start to work, you know, and there are flaws in the analysis of, in my view, the analysis that Labour had about trying to win back all the Red War voters. I think we lost the voters, the Greens as a consequence, but we won a massive landslide. And so because strategies, you can't do everything. You go for some voters, but you can't win them all back. The danger is that you have a strategy that's not, it satisfies on your gut, not on analysis. I mean, I've not seen a Tory think tank analysis that really poses the questions in the way that was done, was done for Labour by Labour together. We lost these votes, we could get these votes back in this way and put them back together. In that sense, the missing question for me is like, where's the thinking behind the candidates? If we knew what that was, you'd see what the strategy was like to be in there for what the tactics are. In essence, this leads to relation. It's quite a lot about feeling tactics, not about strategy and substance. Thank you, Katie. Thank you, John. And thank you for listening. [Music]