Coffee House Shots
Isabel Hardman's Sunday Roundup - 07/07/2024
[Music] Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shops, the Spectators Daily Politics podcast. I'm Isabel Hardman and this is the Sunday Roundup. This week's remarkable election results saw Labour secure a landslide victory whilst receiving fewer votes than the party did under Jeremy Corbyn in 2017. Combined Labour and the Conservatives had the lowest share of the vote since 1945. On Sky News this morning Trevor Phillips asked the new business and trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds if the country's electoral system was sustainable. When it comes to parties like Reform and Green Party, they do get far less scrutiny because they're not seen as parties of government or going to elect significant numbers. Now maybe that should change. I think that's something to address. I mean I met a lot of good people in this campaign who told me they were voting Reform. When you explain to them they support in reform the economic policies of Liz Truss and the foreign policies of Vladimir Putin, they're horrified. Now they're in parliament, they'll get the level of scrutiny they deserve. Yeah but look, I'm not being partisan, I don't want to be partisan here. This isn't this year about democracy, let me show you this chart. And I think most fair-minded people would ask themselves, is this really right? You got 33.7% of those, not far off what you got last time. Less than you got under Corbyn when you got spanked. But you got two thirds nearly of the seats. The Lib Dems down there, they are more or less okay. But Reform and the Greens, less than 1% of the seats but reform. One in seven votes, Greens, 7%. Just asking you really as a Democrat rather than as a government minister, is that really sustainable? Look, I have talked in the past about my own views on this sort of thing but I would say when you've got a system, you've run your campaign to win under that system. Now you can't then look at it through a different lens. You know, we have had elections in the past where Labor has had these extraordinary majorities in a small number of places. That's not good enough. We are not a party of protest or you can't look at vote. Especially when people vote tactically, that's part of the system under first pass the post. We had to get a mandate to go on to replace this failing, former failing Conservative government. We've done that and I think you've got to recognise that the campaign will reflect the system required to get that mandate to win. The inquest into the Tory collapse has begun as former Health Secretary Victoria Atkins told Laura Koonsburg her party needed to ask serious questions about its values. The voters wanted a change and we are going to have to look hard and long at ourselves as to why they wanted that change. But for me, I think one of the issues is going to be the issue of trust and as part of that, we need to ask ourselves some very hard questions about delivery, about integrity and also about our values. But underlying all of this, of course, we have to talk as a unified party because I'm very, very conscious. We lost very many wonderful colleagues and friends on Thursday night who work their socks off as MPs and as candidates, but also, of course, other candidates and our volunteers who did so much work over the six-week period to try to elect more Conservative MPs. It's interesting there you say you have to look like one unit, I mean, is part of what you think went wrong, the fact that, you know, weekend after weekend in here and year after year on TV in the papers, we saw Conservatives knocking all the oomps out of each other. Do you think that's what did for you, a lack of discipline? I think voters want their government to deliver for them. When I'm walking around my constituency, voters are concerned that we have their interests at heart, whether it's health care, whether it's supporting local businesses, whether it's ensuring that migration continues to fall. And the moment we start to lead conversations away from those essential elements, that then brings into question our delivery, but also what we as a party are about our values. And for me, I think one of the messages, and please don't think I'm trying to, you know, turn away from the very loud, clear messages to us as a party, but I do observe that the support for the Labour Party in this election has spread very thinly, a little bit like margarine, and so I think there's a real opportunity for us as a party. Once we have reflected, once we have absolutely taken on board those lessons and acted on them, I think there's a real job for us to do, to rebuild our party, and we will do that. We will get there. What went wrong with your values, though? So I think with, we know that the country actually is instinctively conservative. If you look, people want low taxes. I'm not sure they'll agree with Sharon's assessment about borrowing more to spend more, because of the impact this is going to have on inflation. The country is still instinctively conservative. When they booted you out and you've got your worst defeat ever. In terms of their values, their instincts, they are, I believe, still instinctively conservative. They want lower taxes. They want to build a better future for their children. They want us to help them thrive in their personal lives and in their livelihoods. And so those values are important to us all. What we need to do is to make sure that we are acting on those values, but also ensuring that we have policies that deliver on the sort of issues that we're being raised. But what was it that was wrong, though? So if the country has dramatically kicked you out, this is not a... Former Immigration Minister Robert Genrich argued that failure to tackle immigration was the conservative's biggest problem. Well, I don't think it's about any one individual. We're all responsible for what happened in politics. You win or you lose as a team. But what we've got to learn is why did we not deliver on those central promises, above all immigration, but not exclusively immigration? And I think it was a number of things. We didn't have a good enough diagnosis of just how broken some of our public services were. And we didn't have the willingness to take the tough decisions that were necessary to deliver for the British public. When we said, for example, on immigration that we would do whatever it takes, we didn't do whatever it takes. And it's only by showing the public that going forwards the Conservative Party understands that we didn't do what was necessary on those crucial issues and making clear that if we're ever fortunate enough to be in politics, in government again, we will do that, that I think we can begin to earn the public's trust back again. And of those things, it is crucial that we understand that migration was at the heart of it. Two-thirds of the constituents is that, sadly, we lost on the general election. The majority's, the margin of defeat was less than the reform vote. And that's the case in the north, the south, it's Scotland Wales, or everywhere, including, for example, in seats that we lost to the Liberal Democrats. And so on that issue, not exclusively, but above all that issue, we've got to ensure the Conservative Party takes a fundamentally different approach. And you said, Dora Koonsburg asked Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davie, how his party would deal with the new Labour government having criticised the Conservatives during their campaign? You were very energetically in the campaign, criticising the Conservatives. Are you going to be just as energetic in going after the Labour Party? Well, we're going to be constructive opposition. We fought the election on health and care and the costs of living, on ending the sewage scandal. And in the parliament, we will focus on those issues. And we will urge the government to go further. We've already started that by calling for the emergency budget and health and care. And I want to make sure they respond. I mean, one thing I was disappointed in Labour's manifesto was it didn't mention family carers or unpaid carers who were actually critical. And I've made very clear that the Liberal Democrats will be the voice of carers. And we will challenge the government to make sure they deliver for the millions of people looking after their loved ones. And, GB News, Reform UK Chairman Richard Tice claimed his party was now the real opposition. And overall, with the result, I mean, obviously, we were talking earlier on the panel about reform having come second in many more seats. And I think anyone would have anticipated. Overall, a 14% vote share. Were you happy with that, Richard? Or would you have liked that to have been higher at 4 million people voted for you? I asked because Nigel Farage had said earlier in the week, I think, in his interview to Christopher Hope, that he hoped that 6 million people would vote for reform. Well, it's obviously turned out across the board was lower, so down at 60% some over 10% lower. And that's a great shame with a reflection, frankly, of people's lack of trust in politics. Of course, we're ambitious. We're greedy for more votes. But the fact that 4.1 million people did vote for us on that 60% turnout, I think, was a real shock to the establishment, despite everything the lies, the spin, the mud, the abuse that was thrown at us in the last 10 days or so of the campaign. And this is just the beginning, as Nigel said. It's a bridgehead, five MPs now, with James McMurdock joining us on Friday afternoon after, I think, the third counting of his votes. So it's a great start, and we build from here. And I think, genuinely, we do become the real opposition. The Tory party is completely spit-asunder. They're so far apart from each other. It's not a cohesive force, whereas we clearly are. And we've got the policies that I think, actually, will save this country, whether it's on immigration, whether it's on growth, whether it's on law and order. And lastly, Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham told Starmer to commit to the Northern Powerhouse. One thing I will say to Keir and the new government, commit early to the Northern Powerhouse, deliver what the Tories said they would do, but never did. I think that would be a very wise move, because it would create a path to growth. And also, I think, would lay the foundations for a second Labour term. If people here in the north of England see that change come through in a parliament, then I think they will stick with this government for the long haul. And what does that mean in practice? Well, it means in this parliament, for instance, making a start on work for that new railway between Liverpool and Manchester. These are the things that we can move on really quickly, and that's why this is such an exciting moment. Those things are pretty expensive, though. I mean, you're calling then today for extra financial commitments to the north of England, things that weren't in the Labour in a manifesto, necessarily, because of Rachel Reeves' tight grip on the checkbook. Well, to be fair, the last government left £17 billion in the plan for that new railway, but it just couldn't make decisions on what should happen at Manchester Piccadilly and at the other end of the line in Liverpool. Well, the mayor of the Liverpool City region, Steve Rotherham and I have a very clear plan for this railway line. We've already brought together all of the public and private stakeholders. Let's get on with it. It's 200 years since the place where I'm talking to you from now gave the world the first ever railway between Liverpool and Manchester. What a great thing it would be to do that again, 200 years later. But that's just one thing that we can do. I'll also be offering to Keir to build at least our share, if not more of our share, of the 1.5 million homes he wants to build in this parliament. Greater Manchester has already allocated the sites to do that. We would like a large number of those homes to be council homes. Let's not just build more homes. Let's actually deal with the housing crisis, solve the housing crisis. We think we can do that. That's all for this week, I'm Isba Hardman and this podcast was produced by Joe Biddell-Brill. Don't forget to subscribe to the Coffee House Shots podcast on the iTunes Store. And if you enjoyed this podcast, do subscribe to our daily evening blend email. It's a free roundup of all the political news each day along with analysis and a diary on what to expect next. Just go to spectator.co.uk/blend. Thanks for listening and do join us again next week. [Music]