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podcast everywhere acres.com. Lower.

1:12

My carry on I meant Ancona and this

1:15

is the two months for the week ending

1:17

Friday, the first of March Already first as

1:19

long as he was ago was ago. The

1:21

podcast that gets things done and not in

1:24

a boring where. Will. I

1:26

should hope so. What's that leading

1:28

to? I a feeling that that's

1:30

what we've established is it is

1:32

pronounces segue into a conversation with

1:34

tumbled in it's going to Great

1:36

new biography of for the Bog

1:38

failed so you have kids dharma

1:40

and we talked to some about

1:42

the book and will do things

1:44

about Starmer and crucially what kind

1:46

of a Prime minister Starmer might

1:48

be a if he wins and

1:50

also pertinently to this podcast. Potentially.

1:53

Case Dorms relationship to a new relationship with

1:55

your with the Euro which is very interesting

1:58

Thought was very fascinating sir know what? going

2:00

to call this episode? Ah well I don't know,

2:02

the man who knows starma best? The man who

2:04

knows starma best? Or

2:08

the man who knows starma at all?

2:10

That would be me, wouldn't it? The

2:12

man who knows starma best. So this

2:14

is the two mats, episode 34, the

2:17

man who knows Kia starma best.

2:19

Enjoy. So

2:39

we are very delighted to say

2:41

we have Tom Baldwin with us

2:43

this week for the two mats

2:45

podcast. On the publication day, on

2:47

his biography of Kia starma. Congratulations,

2:49

we've both enjoyed it very much.

2:52

Welcome Tom. Thank you, I walked

2:54

off my small independent book first

2:56

morning and a small

2:58

crowd had gathered around it and excited and

3:00

people were pushing each other aside because

3:02

these books are running out and so if you haven't bought

3:05

one yet, do it while you

3:07

still can. True story listeners, true story.

3:10

Well the true bit is I'll push you

3:12

out the way. Yes exactly. Well congrats

3:14

on the splash it's made because it's been

3:16

everywhere and rightly so. Shall

3:18

we just jump in? Tom, we've known you actually a long time

3:20

way back to Sunday Telegraph

3:22

when you

3:26

were a political editor, a great distinction

3:28

and now you're an author again and

3:30

having had a period of time in

3:32

politics and then people's vote. So you

3:34

know Labour and the Progressive World very

3:37

well but you were approaching this as you know with

3:39

your I think with your journalistic hat on really. And

3:43

there are so many phrases in it that leapt out

3:45

when I was reading it but one of the descriptions

3:47

of Kia starma that I thought sort of was

3:50

a good way in was you describing them as someone who

3:52

is both extraordinary and very ordinary and I

3:54

wondered if you could kind of unpack that for

3:56

us. I think part of the Problem

3:58

we've had in politics over the last. The use. His.

4:01

Weeks back, political leaders to be

4:03

a certain thing. Respect them to

4:06

fit straight lines and a template.

4:09

And. I'm when they fail is how

4:11

we hate politicians. I wonder

4:14

how many paradoxes of life among his. People.

4:16

Say they hate politicians and also say they want

4:18

kids. don't behave more like one. And

4:22

he doesn't fit the strike titans.

4:24

He is complicated. He. Doesn't have

4:26

a tight backstory. it's a messy one. We.

4:28

Blew sense. He doesn't have

4:30

some grandiose vision which will

4:33

solve everything. He

4:35

has. More. Pragmatic approach

4:37

to pursue valleys. Because.

4:40

The problems we've gotten his country

4:42

are complicated. The solutions will necessarily

4:44

be complicated. So. Why do

4:46

we expect our politics to be simpler?

4:48

Fit straight lines? He doesn't. And.

4:52

I kind of thing. That's. Part

4:54

of. The. Reason he's succeeding

4:56

of a as as I read

4:58

it through that does this extraordinary

5:00

personal backstory that is complicated and

5:02

messy and and and and his

5:04

family is such It clearly a

5:07

huge part of who he is,

5:09

but the more vet it and

5:11

the more started said I understood

5:13

his Dad more than I understood

5:15

him. At the end of it

5:17

in I understood where his Dad

5:20

came from, why he felt embittered

5:22

by the way he was treated

5:24

in. It in his in

5:26

his community and I was a

5:28

toolmaker which it you know as

5:30

you say in in working class

5:33

society that's actually have a prestigious

5:35

aristocratic kind of working class job.

5:37

But he wasn't in a working

5:39

class community and he felt kind

5:41

of puts for hims have a

5:43

different dogs. I understood his dissidents

5:45

spyglass. I wasn't entirely sure about

5:47

why. Care who is clearly betrayed

5:49

in the book as a guy

5:52

that privately is not dissidents is

5:54

great fun. Likes. Of Pines and I'd like

5:56

to explore that and little bit more. You know it's

5:58

clearly is very social place, pissy or. times obsessed

6:00

with the arsenal, but

6:03

publicly appears diffident

6:05

and technocratic and kind of

6:07

austere as a man. And

6:09

why do you think that he is

6:12

reluctant to let some of

6:14

that warmth that he shows privately into

6:16

his public persona? I

6:19

think part of it is that childhood, in

6:21

that your life in

6:24

Tanhouse Road, Hearst

6:26

Green's story in the 1970s revolved around

6:29

this extraordinarily sick mother who was...

6:32

This is Joe, yeah? This is

6:34

Joe, his mother, who was constantly

6:36

going to hospital and Simon describes

6:38

this time when he wasn't sure whether she was coming

6:41

back and he waited up all night. He thought he

6:43

had sort of duty as the son to wait and

6:45

see whether she came back and then

6:47

the father comes back and says, go to school.

6:49

She's okay. And this happened time and time again.

6:51

And in that place,

6:54

there wasn't a lot of room

6:56

to emote or say, I'm really worried

6:58

about this. People worried about whether Joe

7:00

was going to die. His dad Rod was

7:02

pretty austere anyway. He wasn't going to allow

7:04

a lot of emotion, but you're not learning

7:06

to express your feelings like people do now.

7:09

So partly it's about the 1970s, partly

7:11

about his dad, partly about the peculiar circumstances

7:13

of his mother. There were

7:15

other... His brother had learning difficulties. There's

7:18

not a lot of space to be filled

7:22

with emotions and so on. You just get on

7:24

with it and you batten things down. But

7:26

it's also the things you talk about, about football

7:29

and the pub. He's

7:32

always reaching for things that

7:34

make him more normal. If you're a

7:36

teenage kid, you don't want to stand out. You

7:38

want to be like everyone else. He didn't

7:41

tell his friends that his mum was sick. He's

7:43

about to make him stand out again. He didn't have a

7:45

TV at home because his dad wanted to play Shostakovich when

7:47

he was at home. And so you

7:50

get to school and they talk about Starsky and Hutch or

7:52

Tiz Woz or whatever you were. He

7:54

can't join the conversation. So he plays football. He

7:56

does have a connection to real life, but real

7:58

life is what normalises him. I think it

8:00

still does. Dr. Seuss call important component

8:03

of his make up as a politician. Now. He.

8:05

Doesn't want to make his family

8:08

part the prop. The public

8:10

brown to the position. You. Don't want

8:12

to let it run film and playing football over

8:14

time will see him down the pub. Because.

8:17

That's how it refreshes.

8:19

To. Censor themselves So they made

8:21

a very good point about every

8:24

time there's a photographer know that

8:26

invitation but that when he's playing

8:28

a decide the normality they decide.

8:31

Diminishes. The

8:33

So he does become prime

8:35

minister at some point that

8:38

realm is protected. Normality is

8:40

gonna be almost. Nonexistent

8:42

is that the ones are closing them

8:44

on the placing. And yeah, to and.

8:47

He's talked a lot about his started in

8:49

it it in a long form. Waves are

8:51

things are terrible but once you make your

8:53

children part of a slogan. If

8:56

of diminishing a relationship with them. Of

8:59

is one point I I suggest to him that in

9:01

a bar sense into the. For. Expensive refurbishment

9:03

of a domestic flight. You can rebuild

9:05

of replica the pineapple pump. In

9:07

so I doubt that you can stole

9:10

his friends call him to take up

9:12

to be that with a pint. he

9:14

and his eyes light up for a

9:16

second after they have article.without such as

9:18

a matter of us. Are

9:20

other? Get some it is it. Is.

9:23

Because he is orderly and

9:25

extraordinary. That ordinariness

9:27

and a find new ways of constantly

9:29

refreshing that is really important to it

9:32

is going to continue to be the

9:34

person he is. Now if

9:36

he wins next election on on a

9:38

soulmate the formation of our his ideas

9:40

and denied the constant refrain known as

9:43

a D Stansell and saw I think

9:45

one of the things I really found

9:47

to be mean the but was extent

9:49

to which he goes to leads and

9:51

then gets upset to read it a

9:53

postgraduate. Degrees there

9:55

are does really well and starts in

9:58

as a lot very early on. It's

10:00

nice writing text books about human rights law

10:02

and it I'm I'm I'm our eyes in

10:04

reading that. Sort of human rights

10:06

lawyer is his will play with. call his

10:09

irreducible cool. You know that that's where a

10:11

lot of his values cannot. All but a

10:13

lot of his political values come from. Yes

10:16

and no. I think

10:18

he's always positioned himself on the left

10:20

Fitness own. Vague. Identity

10:23

way. The. Article: Values Rotten

10:25

Ideology. The. Arm the

10:27

of brief flirtation with this obscure

10:29

thing called Pablo and saw hello

10:31

hello hello is that my I

10:33

am now of publish right away

10:35

so we have a is where

10:37

we have a pregnancy test elevator

10:40

pitch on tabloids and played it

10:42

on is apparently post trotskyist in

10:44

that it's about. Bottom

10:46

Up: Self empowerment. Red green

10:49

politics of the seventies and

10:51

eighties. And. Some of that as

10:53

is still in it. yeah when he talks

10:55

are out in developing power. when he talks

10:58

about some the green stuff I think this

11:00

two. Litres of that around.

11:03

But interest A better yet is my

11:05

wrinkles Socialist Alternative which is part of.

11:08

On. The people producing it. Said.

11:11

The thing that stood out in the memory of

11:13

he was a guy.it. out right years ago. Interesting

11:15

to disabuse, right? He will never forget how they

11:17

should hours allow that. I'll discuss about what the

11:20

problem is. A mean guy he wanted. The

11:22

practical side of. It. And I

11:24

think in his expression of human rights.

11:27

Was. expression of his. Politics.

11:29

Now. It's about doing robin

11:32

and just talking and so you know

11:34

he did rothys text books on

11:36

here much but that prank to go

11:38

dines. How to use humor? What's right

11:41

now? manual surround down here and

11:43

he does keep coming back. Job on

11:45

is. A early clashes with Dominic

11:47

Grieve is now defender of him was

11:49

he was deposed attorney to his attention

11:52

to be generally yeah, Squinty Ten. Or.

11:54

shudder to the gym and twenty thousand nine

11:56

he wrote it of speech as as when

11:59

you threat to public prosecutions defending the Human

12:01

Rights Act against the Tory plan to abolish

12:03

it. They're still having to abolish it. But

12:06

Dominic Greve, who is

12:08

now part of the traditional

12:10

Conservative Party, so therefore can't be a member of the

12:12

Conservative Party. Could be a member of the Labour Party.

12:15

No, he stood a Tory. No, I

12:17

know. I'm being teachers. I wouldn't be

12:19

surprised if he voted for Kirstarmer. Yes.

12:22

He has enormous respect for

12:24

it. But you had a clash with

12:26

Dominic Greve of defending the Human Rights Act then. Probably

12:30

the policy is most consistently

12:32

defended throughout his career, has been Human

12:34

Rights Act. But not as

12:37

a lefty thing. He

12:40

sees human rights as something which

12:42

defends victims, which extends Britain's soft

12:44

power abroad. It's a very pragmatic

12:47

tool, which allows you to

12:49

get a lot of things done, rather

12:52

than human rights yay. I

12:54

think he's evolved in how he

12:56

sees it. So he sees things in terms of

12:58

utility, rather than, you know, how can I use

13:01

this now? How can I use this to affect

13:03

the change I want to make,

13:05

rather than saying, here's a big set of

13:07

dogmatic values and I'll head forward

13:09

no matter what. He does have values, but

13:11

he pursues them pragmatically. And that takes you

13:13

to radical places. It takes you to change

13:15

your mind. So if

13:18

you're looking for the most practical

13:20

way to get from A to B, you

13:23

may change your mind. If you're looking

13:25

for the most practical way to achieve change, you

13:28

may challenge some of the

13:30

old shibboleths in the Labour Party. And

13:32

so most politicians define themselves

13:35

as primarily radical. I've got

13:37

my big radical vision. And then

13:39

if necessary pragmatic. He

13:41

defines himself as primarily pragmatic.

13:44

And if necessarily radical. Now that's no

13:46

fun for political journalists. Looking for the

13:48

big idea, will it work? But

13:51

may actually get you further. They

13:53

turn their backs. That's boring. You just like following

13:56

the football. There's another guy's sort of rock climbing

13:58

using only his teeth. But

14:01

following the football might be the better way

14:03

out. Well let me just briefly play Devil's

14:06

Corbonite and ask you, because

14:09

they loathe Keir Starmer. Some

14:11

of them do, especially the more vocal ones on Twitter,

14:14

especially the ones that he no longer takes

14:16

for lunch and stuff like this, like Owen

14:18

Jones and stuff like this, they despise him

14:21

and they call him a liar,

14:23

the most duplicitous, most devious man,

14:26

the only thing

14:28

he has is ambition and he'll do

14:30

anything to get to a point in power

14:32

and he's done more 180s

14:34

than Luke Littler. He is

14:36

absolutely, he's done more U-turns,

14:39

I've worked on that one, long ahead. This is

14:41

an off the cuff. We're

14:44

here on wing by the way. Took

14:46

me ages that one. But haven't they

14:48

got a point that he has, because

14:51

you talk about you can change your

14:53

mind but you have to

14:55

examine the compression of time in which

14:58

he's changed his mind over some fundamental

15:00

things and so completely, haven't they got

15:02

a point to say well he is

15:04

more about getting into power than he

15:06

is about any set of guiding principles?

15:10

Some of that I think is true. He's

15:13

a very very competitive person, anyone who's played

15:15

football with him, he's so

15:18

hard and competitive and that's

15:20

something I don't think people necessarily see.

15:23

He really really wants to win and he

15:25

really wants to succeed at everything he does

15:27

and he perseveres but

15:30

that's not the same as one nil to ask

15:32

the will do. Yeah, it's not winning for the

15:34

sake of it. I think there's something about this

15:36

changing your mind in politics which we've kind of

15:38

all got to grow up about a bit. Most

15:41

people in real life change their mind. If

15:45

you're running a business or a school or

15:48

you're working as a carer,

15:51

you change your mind about how to do things

15:53

as facts change. In

15:55

politics it's seen as some sort of

15:57

cardinal sin. I

16:00

mean, maybe I'm more

16:02

on this. I don't think I am, but I'd

16:04

actually quite like to have a leader who

16:07

says, yeah, I was wrong about that. All

16:10

the facts have changed. And if

16:12

I was wrong about that, how do I improve my performance?

16:14

How do I make sure it doesn't happen again? If the

16:16

facts have changed, well, I changed. Rather

16:19

than a leader who says, I said something

16:21

in the year 2020 before COVID,

16:24

before Ukraine, before Liz Trusted, whatever she was

16:26

trying to do. But I'm

16:28

going to say exactly the same thing now because I've said

16:30

it and therefore I've got to stick to it. I don't

16:32

think that's the best way of governing the country. That's

16:35

not to say I don't want people to have consistent values

16:38

and stand for something, but how

16:40

you apply those values has to change

16:43

according to the circumstances. And I,

16:45

rather than distrusting

16:48

him as a result, I slightly

16:50

trust him more for his ability

16:52

to admit that he gets things wrong and he

16:54

has got things wrong. I trust him

16:56

more for his ability to adapt

16:58

to different circumstances, run to pretend

17:00

that everything is the same as

17:02

Theresa May once said, nothing has

17:04

changed. Things do change. Politicians should

17:06

change. And I think that's quite English.

17:09

I mean, it's like common

17:11

law or road systems. It bends

17:14

to the folds of the landscape, run and

17:16

trying to drive a

17:18

tunnel for every hill you see. Yeah.

17:21

It more resembles what the country's like and what the people

17:23

of this country like, I think. It's interesting that he

17:26

didn't become an MP until he was 52. And

17:29

it occurred to me that by the age of

17:31

52, Tony Blair had been prime minister

17:33

for nine years and we've been through

17:36

an era where, I mean, not Blair, but a

17:38

lot of especially on the Tory side of the

17:40

house, politicians have been

17:42

career politicians, you know, they've gone in straight

17:44

after university, become special advisors or joined a

17:47

think tank. They've never actually had any contact

17:49

with the outside world at all. And,

17:51

you know, it's clear in your book that it

17:54

wasn't even certain that he would become an MP, you

17:56

know, it could have gone either way. And a

17:59

fascinating that At what point do you think he

18:01

thought, right, I really am, I'm

18:03

gonna go into politics. I want to make

18:05

a difference in that way. I've done my

18:08

time as DPP, but I'm not just

18:10

gonna head straight back and become a

18:13

extremely wealthy silk. I

18:16

am going to try my hand

18:18

at the top table. I think

18:20

it was a gradual decision and

18:22

a pragmatic decision. He

18:24

definitely wasn't someone who spent his

18:26

entire life practicing his late-party conference

18:28

pitch. He was naked in

18:30

front of the mirror imagining. Or reading

18:33

Hansard. Yeah, definitely not. And, you

18:35

know, he was not just a lawyer,

18:37

he was a very successful lawyer. And

18:39

success tends to define your identity. You

18:43

know, you have this courtroom voice, you win

18:45

arguments on the basis of facts and evidence

18:48

and quite narrow legal points rather than

18:50

great arcs of oratory. And

18:52

so it's quite hard to then change who

18:54

you are and be

18:57

a retail politician and

19:00

bend to all the things that politicians are meant to

19:02

be. And to some extent he has changed. He's got

19:04

much better at his speeches and his interviews. But

19:06

he's not perfect. He's not the best. I don't

19:08

think he'll ever be the best. But he's got

19:10

better because he must have his. Why

19:13

he went in, is this

19:16

pragmatic? Yeah, I want to

19:19

bring change. I can bring a certain amount of

19:21

change as a human rights lawyer, but not enough.

19:24

Working inside the system, I can bring more change.

19:26

Becoming public prosecutor, I can bring more change. That's

19:28

still not enough. I want to get my hands

19:30

on the levers of power. So

19:32

I'm going to become an MP. Unfortunately, he's been

19:34

going to nine years of opposition. Yeah. And he hates

19:36

it. Yeah. And it's so odd

19:38

listening to him. He gets,

19:41

I've achieved less in these nine years than I've

19:43

achieved at any other point in my life. That's

19:45

fascinating. Like, hold on. You become lead at the

19:47

Labour Party. You turn the Labour Party inside out.

19:49

You've gone from a 20-point deficit to a 20-point

19:51

lead. I haven't changed anybody's

19:53

life. That's fascinating. And he's just so

19:55

frustrated by that. Do

19:57

you think, I mean, what hardened his desire? to

20:00

be leader. Was it Brexit? Was it the

20:02

downside of Corbynism? What

20:04

was it that made you think I'm

20:07

the person to take charge after

20:09

Corbyn loses? I think he didn't

20:11

go into Parliament with ambition to be leader.

20:14

He summited his ambition was probably to

20:16

be Attorney General and the Van Laer

20:19

government. And then he gets

20:21

there and Corbyn becomes

20:23

leader and Trump becomes president. Brexit

20:26

happens and then Corbyn becomes

20:28

leader again. And he

20:30

thinks this is a bit of a shit show. And

20:35

quite early on, he's going back to his office after

20:37

big events. Chris Ward was

20:39

senior advisor at the time. So they

20:42

used to practice what he would do if he was

20:44

leader. How would you respond to the

20:46

budget? What would you have said at that point? Not

20:48

on the basis that you definitely would. But I

20:50

need to start getting better at this thing called

20:52

politics, which I've never thought I'd have thought of

20:55

today. Because it wasn't very stiffer those

20:57

early years. Yeah. You know,

20:59

he was very loyally. And

21:02

he spent a lot of his period

21:05

trying to find ways of fitting

21:07

what a political leader is meant to be better.

21:09

But he's still quite stubborn. There must have been

21:11

a lot of give it all up. There must

21:14

have been a confident he must have needed some

21:16

inner confidence to grow within him as well to

21:18

say to himself, well, I can

21:20

be leader, you know, and I wonder how much of

21:22

that was that he was surrounded by, you know,

21:25

another accusation is that he's a very

21:27

lucky general and that he, you know,

21:29

he's been in opposition during the worst

21:31

Tory government in living memory. You

21:34

know, he didn't have to do anything to lose. But I wonder,

21:37

did he do you get the sense that he

21:40

is a born confidence guy?

21:42

Or is this had to grow within

21:44

him that he's up to the job?

21:46

It's really interesting. He's not confident in

21:48

the sense of sort of swagger and

21:50

arrogance. He does

21:53

have a pretty profound belief in his

21:55

capacity to get something done. But

21:58

it's all pain. He

22:01

keeps going, but he goes on and on about. He

22:04

gets up from his mother. She was

22:06

always in agony. Even

22:08

to walk down the stairs was agony. And

22:10

she'd walk up hills in a lake just

22:12

every summer and holiday. And

22:15

he said, well, if she could do that, I just

22:17

have to screw myself and get on and do with it. And

22:20

he has this relentlessness, which

22:24

is extraordinary. And

22:27

you don't see it in an interview. He

22:29

doesn't show it, but he

22:31

has this confidence and purpose.

22:35

And no matter how much it hurts, he doesn't like some

22:37

of the things he's had to do in politics. He

22:40

doesn't like politics. He tends to put all the

22:42

things he has to do in politics, where he's

22:44

talking about his parents or breaking

22:46

a pledge into the same category of

22:49

bad stuff after doing politics in order to achieve

22:51

a bigger purpose. Whereas I think other

22:53

politicians would make bigger differentiations.

22:56

He doesn't. He just, that's what has to

22:58

be done. That's what I have to do. Tom, let's take a

23:00

very quick break there. And we're going to come straight back and

23:03

talk more about this brilliantly written about.

23:06

Sorry to be so condescending, but it is

23:08

a brilliantly written, great rapping, and we'll come

23:11

straight back after a short break. This

23:15

podcast is brought to you as ever

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25:41

I suppose the natural question

25:44

to ask Tom is you've

25:46

described him in great detail and it was

25:48

more eloquent than anyone so far

25:50

I think it's the book you have to read

25:52

to understand him. What sort

25:54

of Prime Minister on the basis of I mean

25:57

you can't obviously there's stuff

25:59

you can't know the circumstances

26:01

we can't be absolutely sure of. But

26:03

let's assume he gets into office with

26:05

a reasonable majority. Let's take that as a

26:08

common ground. We know he's shifted

26:10

and the sheer velocity with which he's moved in

26:12

2020 is amazing. He's

26:14

shifted from the 10 pledges of the

26:16

leadership campaign to the five missions. We're

26:18

now in a very, very cautious pre-election

26:21

strategy. Nothing left to chance.

26:24

Could he, might he be more

26:26

radical in office? He

26:29

talks about a decade of renewal. This is somebody

26:31

who's thinking of two terms rather than one. Yeah.

26:35

Sometimes I think when people talk about his

26:38

policy shifts, they classically see

26:40

the glass half-empty rather than half-full. Well, let's look

26:42

at it half-full then. You know, if you go

26:45

back to the 10 pledges, he's

26:47

not nationalizing water, but he is

26:50

taking rail into public ownership.

26:53

He is creating a publicly owned Great

26:55

British Energy Company. He is

26:57

looking at investment, new investment in

26:59

public services. He is introducing

27:01

new workers rights from day one. And there's

27:04

a lot there. There's a

27:07

big, you know, ambitions which he's set about, and these

27:09

missions which are very personal to him. Talk

27:12

about breaking the class ceiling, ending

27:15

the snobbery that holds people back. No

27:17

Labour leader has talked about that for a very long

27:19

time. He does it

27:21

for a personal reason. It's about his brother and

27:24

his sisters who he left behind. He didn't go

27:26

to university. He knows that they

27:28

haven't been valued and people haven't seen their work.

27:31

But there is an edge to a

27:33

lot of all this. I remember

27:36

some interview he did with Laura Kurnsberg back

27:39

last summer. And

27:41

she said, are

27:43

you sticking to the two-child policy? And

27:45

it was rather nasty welfare policy, which

27:47

the Tories interjust. And

27:51

there's no explanation. There was

27:53

no reasoning. He just said,

27:55

no, we're not going to change that. That then

27:58

became the story. of you,

28:01

he says he's looking at increasing

28:03

housing benefits. Right. Now,

28:06

if I'd been behind the camera working for Ed Miliband at the time,

28:08

as I had been once, the story

28:10

coming out of that would have been Red

28:12

Ed promised us blurred billions of

28:14

pounds on housing benefit hike. Right.

28:18

They totally ignored that because the underlying narrative about

28:20

Keir Starmer is what he's not going to

28:22

do, Rowan, and what he's going to do.

28:24

He's the traitor to the... Yeah, yeah, the

28:27

people think they've got to be. ...eavour caused,

28:29

yeah. I think to

28:31

some extent there is

28:33

a radical in plain sight to it. I think

28:35

the way he talks about a new relationship between

28:39

the state and the people

28:42

and the state and private sector is

28:44

really interesting. You know, there's

28:46

a kind of communitarianism there, there's a corporatism

28:48

there, there's something we haven't seen for 50

28:50

years, but it's not

28:53

ideological. So at the end of the book,

28:56

I'm pushing him harder and harder to tell

28:58

me if there's a Starmerism. I

29:00

said, this thing about the state, isn't that it? And he

29:04

then goes into a very long anecdote about

29:06

Gordon Brown telling him how businesses have changed

29:08

since the financial crisis and they want to

29:10

be more involved in society. Then

29:12

he tells me about how his mate Colin, who was meant to meet

29:14

in the pub that night, but he can't because the plumber's here to

29:16

fix the boiler and it was freezing in there, by

29:18

the way. His mate Colin down the

29:20

pub, he works for Procter & Gom and he knows how business

29:22

works, so he agrees with Gordon Brown. Then he

29:25

goes on about the Arsenal Community Program and they're

29:27

a business and they have to do stuff in

29:29

the community. So you've got an ex-prime minister, you

29:31

make down the pub and Arsenal to explain your

29:33

relationship. That's very Starmerish. Is there

29:35

a Starmerism? He goes, I don't know, I just want to get

29:37

things done. And which one is why, he says?

29:40

If you want to get something done, you can stop the audio take away because

29:42

we haven't got any food. So there's

29:45

this constant ordinariness in

29:48

how he's describing quite

29:50

extraordinary things and quite big

29:52

ambitions. I

29:55

don't really want him to be more

29:57

extraordinary. I mean, he's not perfect.

30:00

He's not the best speaker, he's not

30:02

the best debater, he's not the

30:05

most visionary politician. He

30:08

will be quite dull for a lot of reporters

30:10

to cover it, unless they reprogram themselves. But

30:13

I'd like the fact that

30:15

he's still quite normal. But

30:17

to that, okay, so in the book you say,

30:19

some of those who know him complain he lacks

30:22

the political instinct to see how emotional connections rather

30:24

than rational calculation can bring change. And something Matt

30:26

and I have talked a lot about on the

30:28

pod is, you know, we

30:31

live in an era of politics as show business,

30:33

surface entertainment, and,

30:36

you know, populism, which is

30:38

all about simple answers

30:40

to complex problems. And we know what

30:42

a disaster that's been, but nonetheless, it

30:45

has become the arena in

30:47

which we all operate. So the

30:49

question is, can

30:51

he survive in that

30:53

arena or by sheer

30:55

force of character and showing not

30:58

telling, change it? Well

31:00

the proof will be in government.

31:03

Yeah. And I

31:05

would say two things. One is he's

31:08

changed the Labour Party. In an

31:10

unshowing way, he didn't come in in 2020 say I'm

31:12

going to turn the Labour Party inside out and go

31:14

do these big reforms, I'm going to throw my predecessor

31:16

out. He just got on with it step

31:19

by step pragmatic decisions to

31:22

a point where he get radical change. He's

31:24

also got a record in running a big

31:27

government department, he was 7000 civil servants at the

31:30

CPS. He did bring

31:32

change and he challenged the

31:34

institution when he thought they were wrong, rather

31:37

than circling the wagons and trying to

31:39

protect the institution. He challenged them on violence against women

31:42

and girls and right

31:44

prosecution and things like that. He

31:46

does have a record that you can look at. I

31:49

think there is a problem, he talks about a

31:52

decade of national renewal. He says it has to

31:54

be national because everyone has to come with us.

31:56

We've got to inspire people to see that there's

31:58

possibilities of changing this country. work together like we

32:00

did during COVID. Now a lot

32:02

of people say I think it's a fair point that he's

32:05

not exactly a person to inspire people. People

32:08

don't know what his missions are let alone get inspired by

32:10

them they definitely don't know that they've got a key role

32:12

in delivering them. What

32:15

he will say and he always goes for

32:17

a football metaphor. I'll do my talk on the

32:19

pitch. Yeah if I can get something done that's

32:22

much more inspiring to people who have

32:25

seen big promises come to nothing again

32:27

and again and again or big radical

32:29

solutions where it's Brexit or Exterity or

32:31

modern modernity make my life

32:34

worse rather than better. Yeah so

32:36

if you can in an

32:38

unshory, unflashy, unvisionary

32:41

way get

32:43

some houses built and get

32:45

what your house is built isn't the

32:47

most interesting thing. No it's important. Yeah

32:49

it's probably a better result than having a

32:51

big crowd around you like Boris Johnson did

32:53

to watch them set far to the houses

32:56

we already got. Yeah so he may be

32:58

to extend the football metaphor he may be

33:00

more Arsene Wenger than Bill

33:02

Shankly for instance or

33:04

Jurgen Klopp more kind of

33:06

quietly progressive rather than demonstrably

33:09

poetic in his politics. One

33:11

of the people who play football with him regularly

33:13

so he's not the best player talks

33:16

a lot you know organizing the defence but

33:18

he's not shouting and screaming but

33:21

he has a capacity to be in the right place at the right time.

33:24

Okay. And when he became leader late party

33:26

all his friends who's a barrister out here

33:28

straight all his friends said well

33:30

Keir's got no chance of winning next election he said oh

33:33

you watch him I play football with him he gets the

33:35

right place at the right time he will win. So

33:38

you know you don't always see the

33:40

run you don't always see what someone's doing

33:42

you know to find that pocket

33:44

of space or wherever they find

33:46

the football but he's a

33:48

lot better at this game of politics than

33:51

people make out and step

33:54

back from this the same people

33:56

who said he had no chance of winning the

33:58

next election. are the

34:00

people now who say we can't change the country

34:02

if you get to it. No

34:06

reason why they could be wrong once and right

34:08

the next time. But I do think there's

34:10

just a bit more humility and not

34:13

make a mistake as so many people have of

34:16

underestimation. Of underestimation. Do you

34:18

think, I mean just to be close to

34:21

what I'm introducing, do you think he has the capacity

34:23

to be remembered as a

34:25

consequential change prime minister? I

34:27

don't know because... I

34:30

don't mean Willy V1 but does he have it in him? I mean

34:32

does he have the capacity? Yes, I

34:35

think he has the capacity to bring change. And

34:37

I've seen that. We've all seen it, we just

34:39

haven't given him credit for it. He

34:42

has changed the Labour Party. Extraordinary

34:44

speech. And it nearly all went wrong

34:46

after the Hartley-Cool by-election as you reveal.

34:49

He nearly threw the towel

34:51

in. And that's why he's being able

34:53

to bring change. He's not

34:56

going to cling to power because all

34:58

the matters is power. He

35:00

went into the office in the morning after the

35:02

Hartley-Cool by-election, which another

35:05

Red Wall seat was labored and lost

35:07

to Boris Johnson. So it's getting worse

35:09

under me. I'm not making a difference.

35:11

I'm quitting. And

35:13

several hours passed before

35:15

he emerged in public and made a statement. Phone

35:18

calls were made to his wife, his friends. He

35:21

had to be persuaded that he

35:23

could win the election. He

35:25

wasn't just sitting there as leader clinging

35:27

on. And that

35:30

impatience, that perseverance, that

35:32

drive is, I

35:34

think, his most important characteristic. That

35:37

combined with perhaps the superpower of

35:40

bringing quite radical change and

35:43

people still thinking you're dull. I

35:46

mean, you know, what a result. You

35:49

think people think you're reassuring and dull

35:52

when you've been on this white knuckle roller coaster

35:54

ride for the last three or four years. What

35:58

an achievement. I mean, compared to that, this

36:00

a lot. You know, I

36:02

mean, you know, this derricks,

36:04

the daily panic, the

36:06

daily crisis. Interesting

36:10

catastrophe. How

36:13

we grown up reporting politics, you

36:15

know, big grand visions, visions

36:17

crashing down, who's next, who's up,

36:19

who's down. And Kistana

36:22

is moving his building blocks around trying

36:24

to build a house in a boring

36:29

walk away. And you've got a bonfire there. You've

36:31

got a pile of corpses there. And you've got

36:33

a new house there. Which one do you want?

36:36

Yeah. Listen, we've got to let you go soon.

36:38

But this is the New Europeans

36:40

podcast. So we must ask

36:43

you about what you think, and you may

36:45

not know this, but what do you think

36:47

is in his deep hardcore about Britain's relationship

36:49

with Europe? Where do you think once

36:51

he's got into number 10, will he become

36:53

more radical in moving us forward to a

36:57

closer, more meaningful relationship post

36:59

Brexit? I think

37:01

it'll be closer, but

37:04

won't be as meaningful

37:06

as I probably you. Yeah, definitely.

37:08

What about me? I'm

37:11

doing that. Everyone's doing that.

37:13

There's a few of us.

37:16

And, you know, most of the country. I

37:19

first really met here when I

37:22

was working the People's Vote campaign, and

37:24

I was trying to persuade him along with our to Campbell

37:26

to back the People's Vote campaign. And he was a stubborn

37:28

bugger. It

37:31

was hard. And eventually he did. But

37:34

he certainly wasn't the first mover. He

37:36

wanted to get something like

37:38

a customs union, not the customs union.

37:40

He wanted the bespoke customs union. He

37:43

got quite a long way down negotiations with Barney on

37:45

it. And then was eventually

37:47

persuaded that you know,

37:50

for Brexit was that stays the least popular option

37:53

where he is now I think he's in a slightly

37:55

different place. He doesn't want to expend

37:57

all the energy of the first

37:59

time like government opening

38:01

up these arguments again. Probably

38:04

not getting very far, not sure there's huge appetite

38:06

in Europe to have a back at the, you

38:09

know, a rather awkward country back in at

38:11

the moment. Yeah. There are

38:14

lots of deals to be done one

38:17

by one incrementally from low hanging fruit. At

38:20

some point, bigger

38:22

decisions will have to be made. At some point,

38:25

those incremental decisions amount to something which

38:27

people might condemn or you

38:29

hit a clear face. I don't

38:32

think he wants to come to

38:34

that place in certainly the first term. I

38:37

don't know what shape it looks like. And also, the outside

38:39

events are going to change Europe. I mean,

38:41

if Trump wins, suddenly,

38:43

Labour's plans for a European security

38:46

pact become very

38:48

relevant and Britain's in the lead. Yeah.

38:50

Because we're going to be fighting Russia

38:52

on our own. Now, the

38:55

debate about single market, it's

38:57

about how Britain will be leading a

38:59

European security pact. Yeah. So the

39:02

exact shape of this is yet to all I

39:04

can tell you I think is his

39:07

attitude, which is he wants closer alignment.

39:09

He's not batshit crazy like the Tories

39:11

and unable to take basic decisions in

39:13

the national interest. I

39:15

mean, that's where we've got to. Yeah, they

39:17

literally can't do things which everybody wants them

39:20

to do, because they governed by

39:23

people who lived in the badlands of the

39:25

fringes of politics for a few decades.

39:27

I mean, it's extraordinary. They're in power. So

39:30

you'll get sensible, pragmatic, incremental moves

39:32

towards a better relationship with Europe.

39:35

But it won't be the big move

39:38

that you want. And probably me. Yeah,

39:40

cool. All right. Well, listen, that's disappointing,

39:42

but probably, well, it might

39:44

not be. It might not be disappointing.

39:46

We'll have to say, all

39:49

politics is a choice between better or

39:51

worse, rather than perfect. And,

39:53

you know, I

39:58

mean, in this case, I think there'll be a choice between better and

40:00

much much worse. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's

40:02

certainly true. Tom, thank you so

40:04

much for that. I found it absolutely fascinating.

40:07

I'm sure all the listeners have and the

40:09

book Kia Stama, the biography is on sale

40:11

now. Yeah. Crowds are gathering. Crowds. Yeah. See

40:13

if you can lay your hands on one

40:15

of the few last copies. One, one, one

40:17

critic called it the political book of the

40:19

year. A very, very, very, already, already, a

40:22

very wise man described it as that. Excellent.

40:24

And he's always right. Well, I

40:27

can just say it is a rattling read and

40:29

you you do shed

40:31

light on a man who

40:33

has avoided illumination to date. So thank you

40:35

for doing that. Thanks for coming in. Thanks

40:37

so much. I really enjoyed it. Well, thank

40:39

you very much to our guest, Tom Baldwin.

40:41

We must get him back on. We definitely

40:43

must get him back on. At some point

40:45

in the future. Yeah. Fabulous. And the book

40:48

Kia Stama, the biography is on sale now.

40:50

Please get in any questions, any

40:52

feedback to two mats

40:54

at TNE publishing dot com. That's

40:56

the number two M A T

40:58

T S at TNE

41:00

publishing dot com. Or if you listen

41:02

on Spotify, you can message us there

41:05

very simply. And that's exactly what Alison

41:07

Richardson did. And she says, just

41:09

want to say thank you. You're

41:11

welcome. You're welcome. Your last

41:14

Q and A was fantastic. Donata. I

41:16

sometimes feel alone in my worries about

41:18

tax, ultra processed foods and wealth. So

41:20

good to hear you are not alone.

41:22

Thoughts. You are not alone, Alison. And

41:26

as you've asked for more, you will get more.

41:28

I can go. Shall it be. Let

41:30

it be so. It shall be so.

41:32

We're back with a new Q and A

41:34

episode on Sunday. Remember our

41:37

subscription offer. You get a

41:39

free copy of James O'Brien's brilliant book, How

41:41

They Broke Britain. Just

41:43

head to the new european dotco dot

41:45

UK/two mats. Maybe we should get some

41:48

copies of Tom's book as well. I

41:50

think we should. Yeah. I'll speak to

41:52

the publishers. There is a link in

41:54

the show notes. Thanks as ever to

41:56

producer Matt Hill at Rethink Audio. And

41:58

until next week. It's goodbye from me.

42:00

It's goodbye from him. Goodbye. You

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45:02

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45:04

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45:06

I think that we have, we certainly

45:09

hope we have, on

45:11

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45:13

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45:15

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