Starmer vs. The Green Machine | Oh God, What Now?

Tory failure at the locals was obvious – but the rise of Greens and independents was less clear in advance. What does this mean for Labour and the general election? Plus, it’s 30 years since John Smith died, is he the best Prime Minister Britain never had? Historian and editor of the Tides of History project, Anthony Broxton, joins the panel to discuss. And in the Extra Bit for subscribers, the panel discusses the controversy around Baby Reindeer.

• “To what extent are the people moving over to the greens really committed to Net Zero?” – Ros Taylor
• “Until Labour reconciles with the EU people will always look to John Smith.” – Anthony Broxton

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Presented by Dorian Lynskey with Ros Taylor, Hugo Rifkind and guest Anthony Broxton. Producer: Jacob Jarvis and Chris Jones. Audio production: Robin Leeburn. Video production: Kieron Leslie. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis.. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

welcome to ogre what now I’m Dorian Linsky on today’s show what do the local election results tell us about what’s happening on Labour’s Left Flank and his success bringing problems for the green party plus John Smith died 30 years ago this week the day after his death The Daily Mirror declared him the best prime minister Britain never had and that’s still a popular view we discuss his reputation and what might have happened if he had lived with historian Anthony Brockton and in the extra bit for supporters we’re talking about baby reindeer most talked about show of the year so far and not always in a good way let’s meet the panel Ross Taylor is the host of jam tomorrow and author of the future of trust hi Ros hello Dorian exciting news the very day we record that Natalie ali uh MP for do and deal has defected from the Tories to labor um but she’s not really a kind of Centrist character uh she’s been very Hardline on immigration very Hardline on her husband’s uh conviction for sexual offenses um for which she was uh suspended uh for a day and had to had to apologize it has not been greeted by the labor family uh with open arms so why are people uh very unhappy about Eli I don’t really want to go into Natalie Ali’s marriage to the sex offender and former MP Charlie Ali I mean that’s that’s over now but she did make some very dubious judgment calls on whether and how to support and got herself very briefly suspended from the commons as a result so a lot of it is about that but it’s also about as you say that she’s got quite Hardline views on immigration but of course that’s what exactly what makes her so valuable to labor it’s implicitly saying people who have Hardline views and immigration can rely on labor to solve this problem for you now you know we might have our doubts about that but that’s the that’s the implicit promise and this feels like one of those kind of periodic occasions when starma Dees is pe’s to turn against him they does something quite Shameless and then he kind of dares them and and if when when they don’t act he emerges stronger it’s almost like he’s toughening them up for the compromises of power we should say that alic is also interested in housing and renters rights and there is some point of of overlap with labor what I wonder though is this happens I mean there’s some people who are annoyed every time a Tory defs and they go well look at how they voted and it’s like yes they voted with the Tory party of which they were a member like it’s not as if if they’re going to have this sort of leftwing voting record this case seems to have got a lot of people who wouldn’t normally be annoyed like you know John Harris for example in the guardian uh is there ever a case for just telling a Defector to fuck off and go no we don’t want you yeah there probably is but at this point in the Parliamentary term when she’s not going to be standing again and certainly not for labor I think it was just too tempting I think you’ve got to take the kind of biblical view you know there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner that repent pentis and you know if Heaven is the labor party Hugo riffkin is a times radio host and columnist for the Times hi Hugo hello uh the ministry of Defense has been hacked exposing the payroll records of 270,000 personnel and things are pointing at China but China’s denied involvement they probably didn’t do it uh what’s going on like if China did do it yeah why would they do that China hacks all the time China’s always hacking in my understanding of China’s hacking is largely not sophisticated but it is huge in scale huge numbers of people doing it always trying to hack everything all the time this is this has obviously been a success the most interesting thing about this is the way we’ve made it public that it happened this is the new approach we keep doing this this is what they did with the Electoral commission hack earlier in the year when MP’s emails were hacked as well they sort of they made that public this is what you do now you call it out it’s very much not what we did in the cold war never once in the cold war did we say oh we’ve been successfully infiltrated oh the Russians are at it again they again look what they’ve gone and done you know we’ we’d uh we’d uh we’d make it public back then when things were countered or people were arrested but we wouldn’t say hey world look what these guys are doing and there’s something really fascinatingly fascinating in geopolitics about that it’s a bit like what the West did as well before the Ukraine war started where everyone was like this is our intelligence they’re about to attack we know this cards on the table and I wonder if it’s sort of a response to the decades before that the many leaks there were from intelligence Services Snowden Wikileaks all that kind of stuff where these days the approach is basically to to sort of stay ahead a step ahead of the information War to say this is what we know this is what’s happening and it also it’s the only weapon we’ve got why is China doing that it’s a bit rude well I mean I’m sure we are fairly consistently doing doing our utmost to hack China again China hacks everything all the time all the time um so one I mean people have said did they want uh Financial details salary details to open people up to Blackmail I’m sure that’s a perk but mainly they’re just hacking all the time if they can put it to use afterwards for their nefarious purposes I’m sure they will they just love hacking they just love hacking Our Guest today don’t know if he loves hacking is a political historian editor of the tides of history project and author of Hope and Glory rugby league in thatches Britain Anthony Broxton welcome back Anthony pleasure Rich seem like is desper trying to suggest uh based on some weirdo uh Sky News projection that there could be a hung Parliament after the next election and a labor Le Coalition of chaos oh no not chaos is this a why strategy well it’s one that’s worked for the Tories in the past uh we look historically thater in 79 to bring thater into it straight away talked about we don’t want another minority government another Coalition because that’s what they’ been with labor 1992 when John Major and Neil kinnet were neck and neck John Major talked a lot about the dangers of hung Parliament and then again obviously with David Cameron and the S SMP um Coalition of chaos the most famous One a recent times kind of worked doesn’t feel like it’s going to work this time because of um you know how far they are are behind in the polls and all the the chaos that’s happened I suppose the the interesting thing is where the labor actually go on this um argument because they’re the ones who probably have to drill home to people that a hung Parliament could happen and that they you know the election is not won yet so get out and vote labor and and prevent us having to to govern as a coalition minority I wonder because the Tories really are sort of making the argument like well considering that they can’t win I they’re not deliberately making this argument but effectively they’re making the argument you’d better make sure labor has a majority if you don’t want chaos yes whereas Cameron was going well you can vote Tor and we could get a majority which is fact is what they did whereas nobody believes that the toys can get a majority yeah and I think you know people like John Curtis who’ve said you know labor of a 99% chance of forming the next government he’s done it projecting that there is no one for the Tories to work with so it’s going to be hard for sunat to sustain that message and people to probably believe it but it’s the last throw of the dice Hil M I’m probably not the last throw of the dice they probably the other ones but this is just the latest one I’m sure it won’t last until the election this won’t be the line it’s it’s really in a what have we got to lose territory yeah and it’s worked before as to say in those elections that they’re probably thinking well if we can cast enough doubt in enough minds and and and during election campaign there is always a sort of wobbly moment where a poll comes out that it shows it’s you know it’s neck and neck it happened in 97 you know it’s happened in other elections that they’re hoping that there’ll just be enough doubt in Minds that that we don’t want to Coalition of chaos but showing people what that looks like is going to be the hard bit for him are we sure voters don’t like coalitions I know politicians don’t like coalitions politicians are like well because we won’t get to do what we want and nor will anyone else there have to be some kind of compromise with consensus and stuff but I think I’m sure there are voters who look at the conservatives and go well I don’t want totally that and even people look at Labor and go I don’t want totally that and the idea of a bit that I’m not sure it’s quite frightening as people think it is well we had a coalition yeah we didn’t seem to like it much we didn’t love it but it wasn’t it wasn’t chaos so that’s the idea the suggestion that the Coalition is chaos and maybe with the SNP there was that suggestion it’s like oh no you know this tears apart the union but the idea that if there would be just a coalition with like the lib Dems yeah the nightmare scenario of a labor libd Coalition I just doesn’t work for me I’m sorry seems to quite enjoy it didn’t they at the time before the election came and people thought was going to happen again and people have kind of got used to it it is something that he’s always thrown at lab during election time you know that they’re going to have to go and work with these Fringe parties it may be the greens this time it may be the S SMP so you you hype up the you know the fringes and say that star’s going to be beholden to them so that that’s the strategy I’m assuming that soon has gone for maybe it’s because labor themselves would hate to be at a coalition I mean Gordon Brown had a bit of opportunity in 2010 and he didn’t take it [Music] starma has been a bit more reflective than sunak after the local elections despite doing much better than the Prime Minister All Things Considered record support for the greens and independents including two Council seats for George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain in Rochdale suggests labor are losing some leftwing and Muslim voters to other parties the West Midlands race between Labour Richard Parker and Tory Andy Street would not have been a nailbiter if not for praza independent at midia Cube labor also lost control of Alm Council fell short in Oxford due to the Gaza fact underperformed According to some estimates by almost 100 seats and the co-chair of momentum remember them has quit labor over the war in Gaza speaking in Birmingham starma said I say directly to those who may have voted labor in the past but felt on this occasion they couldn’t that across the West Midlands we are a proud and diverse Community he hasn’t really promised much there um but he’s sort of going come back please Ros is there a clear patent to Labour’s loss of support what was overall a very good night can you put it down to uh specific causes in specific areas yeah you can I to return to John Curtis sorry this is the second time we’ mentioned John Curtis in this podcast he’s actually sponsoring the podcast he’s paying for the mics but uh he he said that the party support is down by eight points since last year in wards where more than 10% of people say they’re Muslim so that seems pretty clear and the other point worth making is that where is this support going well it seems to be going to Greens and independents um and to a certain extent in some places to George Galloway’s Workers Party so what that suggests is a desire for more radical policies as well as as well as anger over Gaza disappointment maybe over the watering down of the green Prosperity plan as far as we can tell that’s what it seems to suggest yeah and local election Behavior we know is very different from general election voting which is why you cannot in fact do a projection based on local elections um but do you think some of these people are going to stay away from labor whether that be some Muslim voters or whether that be the the exinite vs I actually think they probably will I’m not convinced that the local election behavior of these people will be that diff uh different from the general election Behavior the I mean these are angry people who are probably not interested in casting a tactical vote in order to remove the torist they are interested in making their voice heard if you’re going to elect a counselor a local counsel based on your views on Gaza as many supporters of you know Galloway’s party did there someone who has no P power to change anything of what’s going on in Gaza then quite frankly you’re not likely to change your mind at the general election based on worries that labor may not win it particularly when they have such a big lead so I think these voters May well a lot of them may well be lost but there will be there are different kinds of people here I mean there there it’s it’s as we said it’s not just people who are angry about Gaza it’s also Al people who think the labor has moved too far to the right Hugo do you think Labour miscalculated the intensity of feeling over Gaza or they decided that you know some loss of support was a price worth paying it seems like the loss of support might be a bit larger than they imagined I think it’s a bit of that I think they look I think at the start they messed up um I mean kiss D weirdly enough kiss D didn’t really mess up that much they did that interview with Nick Ferrari on LBC where I mean he it seems to me I think very obviously didn’t mean to suggest that he was okay with Israel cutting off what was it food and water and power and water it was one of those things where the questions asked and then another question’s asked and you answer the one before and you end up in this sort of Vic canian Duck Rabbit situation where everyone can take the worst possible interpretation of what they wanted um Emily thorry afterwards is another matter because she sort of doubled down very much and she very much was asked should is it okay for Israel to cut off power and water and she refused to say it wasn’t and that seemed to me to be sort of hapless Emily thornbery in that way that she is sometimes she just seemed to be in sort of defensive mode defending what she thought was a position but I’d be very surprised if laber had sat down if the shadow cabinet had sat down and had a meeting and gone you know what we’re cool with them cutting off water and power um so I think they handled their position there really really really badly um whether in the round they could have struck a dramatically different position on G I think it’s sort of it’s sort of another matter I mean I think for one thing at the start they probably did believe that Israel was justified in a response as because this wasn’t the week after October this wasn’t the week after October the 7th you know and they they probably did have a plan to stick relatively closely to what for example Joe Biden was saying but they’ll also the political calculation is they’ll have been Keen to show that the Corbin era of Israel bad whatever was over uh and whatever political Fallout has followed and there has of course been some I think if they hadn’t done that the political Fallout for them would be worse that’s not a moral argument that’s a political argument but I think had they not had they tread closer to the Corbin line had they been a party that people on protests were supporting rather than condemning I don’t think that would have worked very well for them in the polls I’m not saying that’s necessarily the reason why they made the decision I’m sure there were moral considerations as well but I think the counterfactual doesn’t doesn’t work well for them and sorry to drone on but their position on an on a ceasefire has actually sort been relatively strong for quite a long time it wasn’t as strong as the snps the only reason they didn’t support that ceasefire was because the S&P also wanted to condemn Israel for war crimes which is something you can do when you’re an activist party that I’m not sure you can do if you want to be a party of government because there are there are repercussions well lab still suffering for those bungled remarks in in week one like you said they do support a ceasefire they impose they oppose the invasion of Rafa um but there’s this new group the Muslim vote which issued 18 demands there’s a lot of Demands um and it starts with apologize for greenlighting a genocide and not supporting the SNP motion they goes on to like arms boycott recognize Palestinian State uh accept the definition of islamophobia sharia pensions uh boycott divestment and sanctions uh School prayer for Muslims it’s like it’s a lot and and that made me think well what is it that what could he do that would win back those those people I’m not saying that everybody has 18 demands but I’m just wondering at this point has the damage been done so that even going do not go ahead with that Invasion there should be a ceasefire is is really not going to make any difference I’m wondering what he can do when he’s saying oh we’re very sorry we’ve lost you but how’s he get them back I mean yeah I think the idea of K standing up and saying we apologize for green lighting genocide doesn’t doesn’t feel like a vote winner uh but I mean I think there’s look there’s another way of talking about it you can say the damage has been done has the damage been done or has a coalition of political interests that had sort of coalesced over a period of years now diverged again right this is not new historical territory I mean you know where we have a historian here but the um something that’s frustrated me from the start of the Gaza debate is the historical illiteracy of it and I hadn’t I hadn’t even realized that that the Iraq War was considered history these days but it turns out it is you know this is precisely what happened then labor lost a lot of Support over their stance on Iraq they were a government then they went to war then it was a bit more extreme um and yet they were still elected afterwards and the sort of support they lost then is a lot like the sort of support they’re losing now combining a Muslim vote and people on the left and uh they sort of Drew a lot of them back through the Miller Band and of course extremely the Corbin years um they are not really Labour’s core in the recent in in the recent time Labour’s core is the soft left rather than the hard left and so there was sort of an ability about this whether it happens now over this issue or further down the line I think so soy obviously with the war going on and you know images on the news every day and and and and and emotions are so high so some of this is temporary but if there were to be if the kind the ceasefire that Arrangement that’s currently been discussed doesn’t look particularly hopeful but you know for example if that cared out if the basically the war ended how long would you think that it would that it would take some of these people to come back like how permanent is this is this shift yeah it’s it’s back to the point Hugo was making about how much is it about this issue or is it about wider issues and that Coalition that stam’s trying to build yeah he’s obviously you know had a huge task after the last election to try and win back those red wall voters and all the arguments about patrim and they went down that path and some would say very successfully I mean it has been successful if local election look at like symb yeah black pool you know classic and there’s obviously been a calculation that they can’t probably appeal to everyone probably like you say they didn’t expect it to be as controversial as this because foreign po policy doesn’t usually dominate the agenda as much you know as this obviously has done um obviously Iraq was was was a huge issue that we’ll talk about what might have happened had another leader been in charge but I think this shows how how difficult it is for labor to keep that Coalition together of the sort of workingclass red War voters these new left-wing green voters who you know came into the party in the Corbin years there was probably an expectation that they weren’t going to keep them yeah yeah um and we’re sort of seeing that now they’re probably unlikely to come back whatever happens because there’s other issues that star star’s doing on policies and the u-turns over the commit pledges that he made at the beginning beginning of his leadership that mean a lot of people don’t trust him because of that and that probably is irreparable with that group and you know in in a way they’re right to to to think that because he said he would do a lot of these things and he’s rened on them so I remember Jeremy Hardy once saying that he’d been a member of the labor party all his life with a brief Hiatus between 1987 and 2016 and that’s basically constituency we’re talking about here yeah and lots of people who say you know I’ve been in the party all my life in the last 60 on they’re leaving now it’s like when you went through the Iraq and I stayed through the blur years but I’m leaving now it’s quite interesting never I’m not quite convinced people go I’ve been all my life and it’s like have you or did you did you drop in you know because it’s yeah well I we talk about Palestine as the issue like George Galloway is a uh a social conservative with a long track record of supporting uh various dictators denying various war crimes um and I’ve just noticed on Twitter that some supporters they say that doesn’t matter none of that matters because he has a strong Pro Palestine voice like it doesn’t matter what he says about like Syria or Ukraine or gay people as long as in Palestine why is that issue even before this war why is that so tmic for part of the left it almost seems if you were Pro Palestine like anything goes like that’s the one it’s an interesting question I’m not sure really I think there’s obviously the George G George Galler’s a character come comes back occasionally into British politics and a new generation come along and I think the way that he communicates politics is so different than a lot of people and they they’re happy to sort of Overlook a lot of things but there has been a backlash to his Nara interview I think on certain parts of the left which is interesting is is it that they didn’t know about his social conservatism before or that they feel like they have to dis him now because of that I don’t know you’d have to ask it’s certainly there’s a lot of different views out there some people are just like well no no way but I seen some going I don’t care yes because of because of Palestine as if he’s the only Pro Palestine MP anyway Ros the green party um seems to be you the most obvious natural home for the ex labor left um with some of the problems that brings they’re already investigating one new counselor over alleged anti-Semitism including a tweet uh which appears to celebrate October 7th are they prepared for this basically seeing the the the disciplinary problems that that labor had under Corbin do they realize that this is going to be something they’re going to have to make a lot of calls because when this guy got he hasn’t been suspended he going got investigated there were some green candidates Furious about this and just going we shouldn’t have backed down he’s got nothing to apologize for you’re just letting the MSM pull your strings and I was like I’ve seen this movie before no they’re not prepared I mean they should have been because they’ve been moving in a much more leftwing direction for quite a while now since they made a conscious decision I think to try and Hoover up disillusioned left-wing voters from labor rather than trying to go after people who were a bit bored by Ed Davey for example um oh no no no no I’m sorry Ed but damic D and of course the fact that they’ve been in Coalition with the S&P until effectively in Coalition recently in Scotland um is has has influenced the whole direction of the party as well because there been a sort of scent of power and that set of Direction they’ve been very clear on Gaza and they’ve deliberately gone you know said right labor is not going far enough we’re going to call for a ceasefire right from the beginning we’re going to condemn Israel as much as we can all the time but the trouble is the party is now a very broad Church and yet it’s a very small church still you know it’s like a very big church try squeezing into a tiny chapel and that creates even more problems than if you’re a big party because you know you you when you’re a small party you’ve really got to focus on on one one thing in order to get people’s attention and to what extent are the people who are moving over to the greens really really committed to Net Zero and on the you know the other wing of greine support tends to be people who love nature passionately and want to preserve it at all costs and of course that creates its own its own potential conflict um which which the greens were trying to Grapple with a bit already but now that you’ve got people who are whose number one issue is not necessarily green things it is going to it is going to be very difficult for them the most prominent green at the moment isn’t one of the joint leaders its Deputy leader Zack palansky um who’s sort of very active on on social media tell us about him yeah very active um fansy is is interesting um he’s he’s on the London assembly he he used to be a Liv D so he didn’t everyone well this is why he gets accused sometimes of opportunism because he didn’t get selected for a seat he wanted in I think Southwest London he’s a former hypnotist hypnotherapist and the thing you really a former hypnotist you’re always a hypnotist you got it can’t lose it he made you think a for him just this is this is the point really because I did um I talked to quite a lot of activists last Autumn after the Green Party Conference and got sense of what was going on there because I couldn’t go myself had covid so um I said what was it like what you know who were the best speakers and everyone said Zack palansky his speech was so amazing I felt so great after hearing him it was like really he was literally the first the first person they mentioned he’s very he’s a very social justice green passionate about housing in particular he’s quite good at trying to explain why you can keep the green belt and still build more houses and he’s pushed back hard in the last few days against accusations of anti-Semitism against Green party as a Jewish person himself and of course that lends it all the more credibility frankly among his among his supporters he had he had he was very very nasty to Peter mandon who had a go at Greens on times radio I think um and he has been retweeting um cor ex Corbin nightes um frantically so it’s clear what what his strategy is you go are disgruntle corbon nightes a significant enough voting block that they could lose labor seats I mean I suppose I’m thinking I’m thinking that like Bristol seems like somewhere that could go can’t which seat but Bristol seats could go could go green around the edges are there kind of marginals that could be lost in the way that the West Midlands was almost lost I don’t know I would have thought not many I mean c here but I mean you got to think back again we were talking about when this happened before with Iraq right I mean Iraq labor won the next election the what 20 2005 election the lib Dems did who were the anti-iraq party the main one I suppose uh they got the most seats that they’ve ever had the election after that I think they they were up by was I think maybe 11 seats um I would have thought the greens are not the Electoral force that the lims were back then which is that’s a daming to say about anybody but um but I I I don’t think I mean I don’t think they can have such a broad Coalition of support um so I can see them sort of chiving around the edges but I think the number of people who will be prepared to I’m sure there’ll be a decent number of people who would like to vote for a more leftwing labor particularly with green green uh green overtones or undertones I’m sure the number of people who’ be prepared to do that at the expense of voting for a labor government right now is probably relatively small how that looks in an electoral cycle time could be dramatically different but right now i’ would have thought that’s small because if you just think of that there is a group of I suppose let’s just say the sort of Corbin night left and obviously when Corbin was in charge uh they were in labor and now they seem to be looking at the greens and there’s always talk of a new Socialist Party you might remember the northern independence party being one it seems to me I could be wrong but like it seems to me the reason why there isn’t one and the reason why people like an and Jones are doing a more kind of formal uh let’s support groovy Independence rather than trying to set up a party it seems to me that half the members would be idealistic corbon nightes and the other half will be Galloway ites anti-semites assaulted cranks and so immediately they’re going to have to in the most extreme even more so than labor and the green it’s either look like the extreme crank party or start getting rid of people and then you get into a whole thing about oh you’ve sold out and that’s purges and then there’s going to be another split and so I’m just wondering the reason not been that left party that people have been talking about since Corbin um stopped being labor leader is because they they sort of know that I forget who it was who first said this but this is the Schism of the hard left it’s the it’s the Lenin nightes and the John Lenin nightes right and it’s um and there sort of and that is exactly what’s going on now with with Navara having a pop at Galloway you know it is kind of unreconcilable although they agree on various fundamental things and I mean there’s no there’s no shame in that why should it be reconcilable I I I personally have a good deal more fness with the John Lites uh and and um and the extent to which they’re not prepared to put up with the Lenin nightes good on them why is it so much easier to have a pressure party on the right you know like reform or the brexit party before because they’ve got some pretty yeah fruity people in the Reform Party you we got remember there was that whole kind of ukip blowing apart Veritas Kilroy silk period you know there um I mean admittedly their schisms tended to be my favorite period the kill Ro period the schisms tended to be personality based rather than politics based but that’s because their politics were generally quite unsophisticated I mean there is not there’s not massive success for a fringe party on the right you know the brexit party I mean y Yip did a right in the European Parliament and the brexit party you know was a bit of a force um but reform is reform is a bit of a mess with sort of no MPS and isn’t legally a political party anyway so I I I wouldn’t oversell that on the right either they do put a lot of pressure on the Tory party that AR they these like the ukip and the brexit party and that’s the thing that people are talking about now and it’s the question probably is is how much does that then change the way that labor approached things there are always going to be people in labor party labor history who quite welcome these people leaving you know in in 94 for example when Arthur Scargill set up his own party you read the cbell Diaries they’re absolutely delighted that he’s doing this does stalmer want that does he want more and more people to sort of leave the party and join it’s not that clear whether this is a strategy or whether he actually wants to keep some of them in or is he going to have to offer something to the disgruntled people um you know on the left at some point in the next year or so to get them back to vote for him what helps the left though do you think because obviously they they would like to have some influence um the Socialist campaign group seems very weak nobody seems to be pushing starm to the left might they have more success if you if basically momentum just sort of detached itself from labor joined up with sort of greens independent whatever form that might take do you think they would have any more success as a pressure group outside side labor all reform than trying to fight for the left inside I mean That’s a classic conundrum that’s faced many leftwing people in the labor party you know through its history people like Corbin for example always stayed in the labor party pushed from within some people left the party I think you know it’s it’s it’s you know if it’s momentum they’re probably the their influence on labor is probably done now but there are still going to be leftwing PE leftwing MPS that will have quite a bit of influence in the labor party as you know people like Corbin dying abbit John McDonald did throughout that new labor Administration they they they stayed and fought and there will be a sort of push for those people they will talk a lot more if labor get into power and start doing things they keep the powder dry now you know people like maybe like Richard Bergen and people who were Rebecca Long Bailey others they will you know all other people we’ve probably forgotten about now that they still are and keeping the powder dry because they they probably recognize well if they we’re going to get in we’re going to have a lot more influence if we’re MPS in that party than if we’re on the outside in greens also I think mentioning Richard Bergen perhaps is a little bit unfair because they’ve also some quite talented MPS on the lab that was the first person from those years that came to because he was quite prominent you know he did a lead debate for Corbin so he was you know but yeah I’ll take your point there are a lot lot better examples probably but thanks for reminding me about Veritas because I just remembered I went to the launch of veritas 19 years ago I just looked out the piece wrote about it because of the wonders of the internet and Robert kill Roy silk and it was just extraordinary he actually said I can’t help my tan or my looks and I don’t intend to and I’m not ashamed W well what was honest [Music] politics now let’s have a question from one of our patreon backers in but your emails if you support us you too can submit a question for the panel and get in touch through patreon or by emailing info@ roman.com our old school email address this is from Benedict Cohen what external pressures could force sunak to call an election it appears the noises within the Tory party for a leadership challenge have quietened thus removing the internal threat but could public disquiet become significant enough to force his hand Anthony are there cases where public disqui forced somebody to call an election when they you know they don’t have to I’m trying to think of put on the spot there public disire um I can’t think of one where the the the the classic Sun case seems to me is it’s just going to go right to the end in a way that James Callahan you know went on and on the same way that John Major went on and on and the same way that Gordon Brown went on and on there just NE there is never seems to be a time when you’re that far behind that it seems right to go to the polls because you always think something could come up economy War anything um who know we can’t imagine what it would be for sh not to turn this around but they must be thinking keep going keep going keep going could be wrong on that um but I can’t think of historical I there example who governs but that’s different really because that’s about well who’s in charge is it the labor party or is it the unions that was a different kind of no one really party no one wanted that election really he s an opportunity to go for that and went for that because he thought he would win well you do it because you think you could win I think I think maybe where Benedict I don’t by Benedict’s premise is the fact that if people are really really unhappy with you you feel sort of like obliged to call an election but I think the opposite is the case because you think well if we hang on maybe they less unhappy you’re not going to if you’re not going to call it because people hate you so much that they want you to go that’s the last time you’re going to want to do it I can’t I can’t think of when that’s ever happened I don’t think there are any external factors that could call that and the internal factors will be odd and erratic you can see some sort of spiraling momentum thing happening where suddenly there are cabinet ministers going and he’s like right election you know I think I basically I think the thing that would force an Force an election is we would be more likely to have an election than a leadership battle and if there was a prospect of a leadership battle then we get an election instead I’ve definitely come around to the idea of like a December January situation I can’t remember who said that he’ll go to January so that his Wikipedia pays so that he was prime minister till 2025 always looks better three years rather than two I think they’re waiting for the last possible minute now but all people don’t come out to vote when it’s n and icy and stuff it’s so so risky I mean he does still want a decent number of Tor MPS that’s what he’s hanging on for he’s hanging on for um the the hope that the Tory party can in some way still maintain a decent decent presence in the Commons and he has turned it around a bit and if you put yourself in a situation in December January where quite possibly elderly people won’t come out to vote who are still the you know who are the only to it is suicide really is no we can’t happen I just can’t get away from the idea that he’s going to fuck glenbury for me that’s that’s what I think I’m not going this shit so I don’t mind that [Music] one 30 years ago on May 12th 1994 labor leader John Smith suffered a fatal heart attack the next day The Daily Mirror front page called him the best prime minister we never had a few weeks ago a viral tweet made the same claim of Jeremy Corbin and about 90% of the replies I scrolled through them all said no actually it’s John Smith uh why is Smith still lionized across the breadth of the labor party and Beyond what kind of PR what kind of prime minister would he have been and would he as some people clearly believe have rendered new labor unnecessary uh so I’m going to ask who remembers hearing the news like yeah I remember hearing the news very well well he was a he was an edin Edinburgh guy he lived next door to my aunt and uncle in fact oh in uh in uh in morning side so I remember it very well he was friends with my dad as well because they were all Scottish politicians were friends in the ‘ 80s and90s because they all got the same flight home on a Thursday night right so there was there was a bit of a club with them so yeah I remember it very well because it was shortly after um for for me it was like Bill Hicks Kurt cabain John Smith what a band all jamming in heaven but no I just generally thought what the fuck like my favorite comedian like the biggest rock star and now the next prime minister I was like like spring 94 was fucking kill zone but I don’t really think I understood really that much about him beyond the fact that he seemed quite nice and sensible and I liked labor Andy Smith does not get a chapter in Steve Richard’s book the prime ministers we never had because he died rather than failed so the story sort of is sort of not as interesting but is that the main reason his reputation is so high that he didn’t get to fail he didn’t get to disappoint anybody you can project whatever you want onto him I think that’s very much the case and over the years the mythology around John Smith has changed so people have tried to claim it as their own you know you saw this massively on the 10 year anniversary of his death people were talking about well if John Smith had lived instead of Tony BL we wouldn’t have gone to Iraq we would have joined the Euro we would have had a strong relationship with the with Europe you know Robin Cook after he resigned over Iraq wrote a really long piece which which I which I read recently about what the world would have looked like had John Smith survived wouldn’t have been as close to America at a time when people didn’t like George Bush and this has gone on and on you know through the years it came back again during the brexit years when people started to say well John Smith wouldn’t have would have wanted a second referendum Tom Watson made a speech on the anniversary of John Smith’s Des that would have been the 25th year SE yeah five years ago and he said look John Smith would want second referendum should have a second referendum um so and in labor mythology it is you know this happened in the sort of 70s and ‘ 80s Hugh Gates skill who was another labor leader who died just before he was going to come to office was mythologized by different people in the party ABS mythologized by Margaret Thatcher who used to say wow labor used to have these great leaders like Hugh gateskill look at the state of them now but of course he never got to power so he never got to do the things that Margaret thought would of life he died suddenly as well he died suddenly as well and labor seemingly the two big labor you know Prime Ministers Harold Wilson Tony W came into office on the back of these deaths when really they shouldn’t have been the prime ministers which sort of Quirk of History I don’t know how much is in that that they die and then they you know they inherit a strong position because both of them inherited strong poll leads um well tell us where he came from and where he fitted into the to the labor party would you say that he was like in terms of like you know labor rights soft left Gates scite like what where where did he sort of sit yeah this was the thing he was really hard to pin down in a way he was a Gates scite you know he rose through the party in the you know 50s 60s was spotted by gateskill as someone who could do you know good things for the party but in the 1980s when Labour was sort of engaged in Civil War he didn’t leave to join the sdp when many people thought he might have done but he also didn’t engage massively in the battles that Neil kinck did with militant and left some people criticized him for that you know that he didn’t get his hand dirty in a in a public facing way but that meant by the time that he became leader lots of people for a long time in the 1980s if you go back and read comment pieces and all you know all those things they say label would be better led by John Smith than Neil kuk he’s more he’s smarter he’s more presentable he’s you know he’s better which is kind of always the case when you’ve got a leader people always look to who who could be in charge instead and obviously when Neil kinck lost in 1992 John Smith was in the box seat to take to take the leadership and he did but what people say at the time was that he was really hard to pin down in terms of factions in the labor party you know he would speak to people on the left like Tony Ben knew quite liked him he was close to people like Ken Livingston not close in the sense of like you know had him working alongside him but would go and speak to him and tell him what he was doing and Ken Livingston would say well even though he disagree he will always be honest about what he’s going to do so he that made him a sort of very popular figure with a lot of people in the party but but for the modernizers the Gordon Brown and Tony blur and Al Campbell and Peter mandon who were not really I mean Gordon Brown and Tony blur were making their way but Philip G Peter mandon Alex Campbell were not involved in the John Smith leadership so they were agitating for faster well can we talk about the frantics versus the long Gamers and theith obviously like kinck taken us a certain way and you know we’ve just modernized enough but he was still quite close to the union so he didn’t want to kind of you know he wouldn’t want to sort of weaken those ties as much as as brown and Blair but when he died I believe he’s like 20 points lab was 20 points ahead did Brown and Blair have and Campbell have a point that more needed to be done is there any doubt you think that that Labour would have won that’s the classic whatif isn’t it and and we just will never know what would have happened if John Smith gone into election the thing that John Smith was sort of represented and why there was such an outpouring of grief when he died is that I mean shock horror this was the early 90s Tories are engulfed in various aspects of SAS corruption lots of other things that are happening that they’re just being attacked you know there’s low expectations on politicians you know you have things like House of Cards the politicians wife all these sort of Dramas that are showing really sort of dirty Westminster uh scene that had emerged in the 1980s and that John Smith was trying to set himself above that and and the way that he wanted to do that from doing the research was that he was going to hand power to the regions things like Devolution in power local councils but the modernizers you know the BL didn’t think that that was enough to win an election and that you needed to show firmly that this was not the same part as it was um in the 1980s you know John Smith famously didn’t like focus groups there’s a story in Deborah matan’s book where he famously walks out of the focus group and accuses all the people in there of being Tories and he doesn’t want anything to do with it now when blur becomes leader in 194 there’s a complete shift back to what it had been before where they’re heavily sort of focus group so I I mean there 7 I saw a poll that 75% of people thought that John Smith was a was like a nice guy you know and Anthony King who was the big pollster at the time said these are the best opinion polls that labor have had for a generation you know going back to the 1960s and that was a month before he died so who knows what would have happened in the election press might have come for him you know he probably wouldn’t have won the support of the son can’t imagine he would be you know a Godfather to Rupert Murdoch’s children or anything like that but he probably would have won because of the armm similar to the mini budget once that happens it’s so hard to sort of come back R Andy quot a 99 documentary in which labor MPS tell am meloy new labor was never really necessary and the party has sold it sold for nothing that was basically the story of John Smith so is that what he represents even though at the time like Corbin was unhappy with John Smith he was unhappy with every labor leader except Jeremy Corbin there was unrest on the left but but now do you think that people that might even have sort of you know criticized him then love him because he is the symbol of a world in which new labor never happened yeah I mean there’s there’s that Gulf in labor between those who really believed in in new labor and the Third Way and all that sort of thing and and those who didn’t and slightly despised themselves for going along with it um and have very very mixed feelings about their decision to do so and they tell themselves it was to win but what if they could have won power anyway yeah um and as you say they were 23 points ahead in 1994 they just had it was just like it’s almost like today they had really bad council elections for the Tes that it was it it was scarily similar 30 years ago to now in that way yeah but do you think that um some people on the left you know who just oh if only John Smith would have just found things reasons to dislike him once it got to the campaign once he got into government that that he sort of made out to be more of this sort of unifying force than than he would have been yeah I mean I think he he’d always have compromised too much for them because being in power leads to compromise it’s interesting the um the Trade union thing he abolished the Trade union voting block at at conference didn’t he he brought in one Member One vote um which was at the time quite controversial yeah um and he was very he was he was he was very one more heave that was his thing one more heave and we will we will get power whereas whereas the new labor modernizers very much know not one more heave one more complete change of direction or one complete change of Direction and that is what will do it um but it’s really it is really interesting to think how he would have handled 9911 to think how he would have handled Europe whether he would have as you say joined the Euro cuz he he did vote to join the European Community unlike some people in in labor so he was quite Pro Europe which was quite big for him at the time at a time when the party wasn’t you know totally for it and he was a young MP and he sided with well a lot of people heed yeah and then a lot of those people obviously the pro- Europeans then went off to form the sdp which yeah and he never wavered from his pro-european stance really he wanted Britain to be at the Forefront of Europe you know in the 90s that probably would have been quite difficult to do as prime minister with the press as as we know it um hug go Sky Adam Bolton wrote quite an interesting uh little sort of reflection on John Smith and he thought he would have been unlikely to win a third ter because he wouldn’t have got the center of ground so there was no doubt that he would have won in 19 like 97 or indeed the next time but maybe would not have had as long a run um as Blair did on the other hand you know there’s something what people seemed to like about him was he was like he didn’t like focus groups and he didn’t like you know mandelson and G and all that lot and and he just seemed like a sensible decent you know family family bank manager so what do you think do you think that would have been a weakness almost his lack of kind of Glamour and and and the limits to his modernization well there’s a I mean there’s an extent to which even as a figure he was he was sort of pre 90s it’s I mean it’s quite hard to see because you you you look at you look at Blair you look at Brown you look at Cameron I mean to a lesser extent sort of Johnson and May and so on but still there’s a generational shift there and John Smith I mean I know he he wasn’t a lot older than Blair but he was5 I think when he go uh was what 10 years probably older than Blair was at the time thereabouts uh he felt like a different generation he felt like more of the John majorie generation which did he was well yeah like when I read that he he’d sort of been identified as a possible future Prime Minister by Callahan yeah and you’re like well Callahan you know we didn’t know who Blair was because he wasn’t even an MP yet yeah but what I mean is when you have the when you think of somebody like uh like what would what what would John Smith have looked like on the far side of cool britania and Brit pop you know would that quite have made sense would he have looked like would it have been a sense of uh a more oldfashioned sense of Youth versus The Establishment with him being the establishment I’m not quite sure how that how that kind of plays but it’s very hard it’s it’s a real hard to imagine with the shaking hands with no Gallagher well sure which is not the most important thing that happened you know that being said I had a very once one time when I interviewed Billy brag I had a very similar conversation to this with him and he saw that generational shift as having happened with with um with with Neil kinck because he said the he said the most important fact about Neil kinck was that Neil kinck was a member of the Gene Vincent fan club and he said that and I laughed and he was cross with really meant it yeah well Billy brag really didn’t like John Smith I found news night interview where Billy BR was making the argument that he kind of makes all the time that labor aren’t doing enough they’re not radical enough and there there was a newsl interview which I’ll put out on tides in the next few days where they go to a black pool and they speak to labor activists in this focus group and they’re all actually really depressed about John Smith’s leadership they’re saying there’s nothing we’re not doing anything we’re not setting the agenda all the interesting things are happening on the fringes of the of of politics you know you know in the ’90s um but you know you could always probably find that in the labor activist Bas we’re not doing enough we’re not being being radical enough we’re not we’re letting the Tories get away with it because there’s an Institutional fear as there is still with starma that maybe it’s not going to happen and that one more he is just say is not enough and you need to really go for it what sort of government then do you imagine that he would have led obviously the the assumption is okay no Iraq war that’s crucial but obviously new labor did a lot more uh than that is it possible to extrapolate from his his his sort of values and his rhetoric indeed his sort of policies in by 94 and sort of go oh this is how this government would have differed on the policy the point is always made that the the manifesto in 97 was essentially John Smith’s platform he’d outsourced a lot of the policy Mak to like the ippr so things like Freedom of Information and minimum wage they were all John Smith policies what would have been totally different in that early period is like you say the presentation that Tony blur obviously had and you got to remember bill Clinton in America had done his thing as a young candidate and was doing politics in a different way that John Smith just would not have been able to do John Smith was actually older than John Major I think um yeah no that’s true and he so he would not been able to do the youth thing in 197 in government what impact that would have had you know on a counterfactual documentary that Andrew Mah made in 1999 he says things like John Smith wouldn’t have built the Millennium Dome and he wouldn’t have been interested in fads like that but the the most important thing I suppose and the thing that will always be reflected on is the relationship with Europe people believe that John Smith was a passionate supporter of the EU and believe that the thing that was holding Britain back in the 90s wasn’t the the EU it was the Euros skepticism and that if he could become Prime Minister Britain could really lead in the EU and that is just something that will always appeal to labor people so until Labor reconciles you know with the EU for example probably always going to look to John Smith and say well it would have been very very different with him and it’s counterfactual and it’s kind of um pointless in a way but it’s you know it says a lot says a lot of about Labor mythology that that that he’s the person that people always go back to that’s it compared to some counterfactuals it’s not that no no no absolutely not I love it Blair was was pretty Pro I mean it was basically Gordon Brown who stopped us joining the Euro wasn’t it yes I mean Tony Blair wanted us to join the Euro so and it again you know you it’s hard to imagine that period you know that labor without that constant pull between a p pool between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and what that did because essentially it wasn’t just Tony Blair in charge it was Gordon Brown as well you know he was at least you know very very huge influence on the government and that had its impact too and Gordon Brown himself was I would you know much closer to John Smith I think in terms of his his his values and so on except on Europe so yeah it is it is fascinating but also the idea you mentioned hereo that you know would we would be felt did we feel like a young country at that time do we just look back and think we felt like a young country at that time because we were young people but but and if so how is it that one fairly young person being in charge could make us feel like that there was a creative there was a creative explosion which of course predates yeah Blair um but then he kind of writes that and it was genuine I know that people are very kind of down and oh this was overrated it’s like actually if you look at like music and fashion and art and Cinema it’s stuff going on figures that still Loom large today and you wonder whether yeah like Blair was kind of a natural fit like a frontman for that stuff in a way that Smith wouldn’t have been so Ross I wanted to end part of a long running series of which form of labor leader should we compare K sta to obviously a lot of people go oh um he’s a he’s a Blair ey he’s more right-wing than Blair he’s more rightwing than Tories but no there obviously a lot of people go oh he’s like he’s just trying to do the Blair thing and then we’ve also had discussions of like well is he actually a bit more like Harold Wilson who’s got a great deal of interest in or um or or inde Gat school do you think he might be more like Smith and not just in the way that he’s just doesn’t sort of get the sort of pulse racing did Smith transform his party no I don’t think he did I think kinck did that work um I don’t think Smith did it I think that uh starmer’s Legacy I we don’t know what if he gets into Power he will be confronted with and what decisions he will have to take that reveal tell us more about his personality but on from what we know so far we know that he is completely ruthless and uh 100% in the pursuit of power and not not inth to any particular ideology and certainly you know will is is willing to cast that aside to get there we know we know that he believes very very strongly in the rule of law as well I I think there there’s I don’t think you can really make the comparison it’s very very hard to say but no I I I think it’s a he’s a very very different proposition K sta although I think maybe is also time for maybe another section we can do on is kinck underrated is kinck being rehabilitated because whenever I’m read about I like oh my God he had just such an incredibly difficult job um and he really and he did had to do it for a very long time with essentially no rewards but we have to maybe get back there is a whole thing about the rehabilitation of Ken that is quite interesting and I think that happened during the Corbin years massively because he was seen as the person who’ done it you know before you know and there this thing was happening again to the labor party so people went back and looked at you know what he’d done and also someone of course had he succeeded no new labor so everybody can like kenck next [Music] time we’ve reached the end of the show so uh let’s briefly do the stories that have gone under the radar this week uh Ros oh I I want to talk about the Olympic torch because it’s so insane you know it’s it’s Paris Olympics obviously this summer and now the torch is is coming to France to Marseilles and it’s it’s having a sixh hour parade for it it’s got more than a thousand boats obviously macaron is going to be there uh over 150,000 people expected it’s insane the the whole and it’s so fascinatingly tied up with politics and this is what the the only really thing I find interesting about the Olympics is how it Blends into politics and and and the the ways in which politicians exploit it I once followed the Olympic torch for a week when it was here obviously and it was the hope for money yeah it it was my job it was change on the way it was one of the most must week off work did you did you keep watching it at one point it just turned towards you should you to car it it was one of the most difficult series of Articles I’ve ever written because everywhere you went everyone would be so excited and thrilled and have fuck all interesting to say and it’s like it’s actually it’s actually quite rare that you get that you’re like what are you excited about and they’re like everything and it’s like say say something other than this is this is amazing and no one could it was it was just it was sort of thrilling and Incredibly boring at the same time yeah simultaneously it’s an International Event in which we all get together and forget our differences and yeah it’s intensely deployed for political purposes any that’s fascinating uh Hugo say something that is intensely thrilling but also extremely boring do you know do you know I might be about to this is this is my my neglected story uh this is this this is the death of the iPad uh it’s been it’s been uh in the news this week apparently iPad sales are way down and they reckon they’re going to keep going down they’re going to be stop dropping by about 2% a year they currently make up about I think 6% of Apple’s revenues the idea being other tablets sales are dropping as well I have an iPad in front of me right now but apparently people don’t want iPads anymore the the the phenomenon of the iPad may be at an end that’s great they just want phones they want phones and they want laptops and and so it maybe I remember when when when when iPads first came along and suddenly everyone in our office was carrying them I one of my colleagues saying it’s a file ofx you’ll look stupid in a decade and um and uh and he in a longer term may turn out he’s right we’ll look back now as the period of the tablets that might be like that cuz when it was first to choose I was like well who wants that it’s bigger than a phone it’s smaller than laptop it’s just a kind of like it’s neither here nor there and then it was hugely successful and I was like I was wrong but perhaps it will turn out that I was right but very early it’s not wrong it’s just not right yet yes yeah thank you for vindicating great Maxim in journalism Anthony I’m going to bring us back to labor and thatcherism again uh Andy Burnham saying that he wants to scrap right to buy Manchester for 10,000 houses that Council houses that he wants to build I’m not sure how much it’s gone under the radar that this is going to become a big story in the next weeks or so because right to buy has always been difficult area for labor you know Angela Raina was the beneficiary of a rights by policy we know that and we know that but and and labor you know fought it so hard in the 1980s um but in reality you know is there anything wrong with working-class people buying houses that’s the Contra conundrum that the problem they didn’t build replacement exactly so that’s that’s the the case that will be made by labor is is the secondary point to this story is it is Andy Burnham sort of On Maneuvers again you know reelected for another term and he’s basically signaling to K sta that I want some more power to do this and is the next Labor government going to scrap right to buy and allow people like Andy Burnham to you know build a lot more Council houses which I think we all agree is massively needed um so yeah interest that’s the story that I think is quite interesting today um well M’s American story uh people would have noticed there is an enormous amount of coverage of Gaza protests on American campuses more coverage than indeed of uh Gaza itself um and some people were comparing it naturally particularly since Columbia University is one of the hubs to the student protest in 1968 because you know Columbia University kicking off the Democratic Convention coming up in Chicago people always at like 1968 again um I was listening to the 538 uh podcast very nerdy um and there’s a guy going look in 1968 40% Americans said that Vietnam was the most important issue and said here if you scrape together anything vaguely related to the Middle East you can’t get to 10% he says it is just not what most people are concerned about and so it feels like it’s hugely it’s hugely Amplified literally anything one of these students says what worries me slightly is that one of the 60s protesters Todd gitlin wrote a fantastic book uh about about the 60s one of the things he says that he didn’t realize at the time he says that we he says oh we were very you know we very fired up about Vietnam and he says even then he says we just made so many people angry you know that it did help Nixon get elected and it’s that real sort of that real conundrum it’s like well of course students should be out there and protesting and and and and and having these very strong Mor values but it it does have political consequences and I really do worry that if they decide to um really make a big deal of it at the August convention that it could be very very damaging then you’ll end up with Trump who cares much much less uh about Palestinians and it will eventually have achieved [Music] nothing anyway that’s the show thank you to Hugo thank you Ros thank you and Anthony brilliant thank you stick around for the extra bit after demonism Monster by cornner shop and uh thank you to our supporters you could join them get the podcast early with our ads plus lots more goodies by backing us on patreon search oh God what now patreon to find out how and there’s a link in the show notes hello huge thanks and welcome to the OG God what now underground to Tom Cunningham Jimbo Duncan Angus Barber try and Rachel and greetings from me and many thanks for your generosity to Elizabeth Ganon will cook Joe chem zobu and Peter holiday and thanks for me to our brand new supporters an truck I hope I got that right John low and welcome back to past backers who have returned Leo kitley Jeffrey luland and Jillian yes [Music]