 Welcome to The Fix. It's Monday the 26th of June. I'm Michael Walker joined as ever by Aaron Vestani. What's up? It's a very exciting episode today. We have our first MP in the building since the People's Almost Landslide, the one and only Chris Williamson MP. The People's Chris Williamson. The People's Chris Williamson of the People's Derby North. Yeah. People's Republic of Derby North. We're looking forward to that. We're going to talk you through a few of the news stories first. Yeah. So I'm going to start with, I'm not going to talk about Grenfell directly. We've talked about that a lot over the last days. But the government's record or on housing safety is going from bad to worse still. So 600 buildings it was announced have cladding on that needs to be tested. 75 of those buildings have sent cladding to the government. All 75 have failed. That's an 100% failure rate. It doesn't get much worse than that really. This earpiece I'm hearing a little bit too much through, so it's slightly distracting me. The dangers of professionalism. The dangers of professionalism. Yeah, we went high tech too quickly. At the same time, the government has also, so this is all Sajid Javed today was in. I'm going to take it out just for now. Sajid Javed was in parliament. He said they're also encouraging private landlords to test their cladding. Encouraging is not really good enough. They also encourage local authorities to test. What does that even mean? Encouraging? Well, so they encourage local authorities to put sprinklers in their building, but that's like capitalism doesn't work by when you encourage a profit maximising palace and to do something. It's not in sense of road. You have to incentivise them by actually having some sort of stick to beat them with. Let's beat the landlords with the sticks so that they make our houses safe. We also saw on Friday night, Camden had to evict five tower blocks with about half an hour's notice. Thousands of people? Thousands of people. I was watching it live on Sky News. It was like a bizarre event. All these people were leaving their houses saying the council hadn't actually told them anything. They'd just heard it from themselves watching Sky News that they all had to be evicted late on a Friday night. I think it was about 8pm, 9pm. People leaving with their PS3s, with their dogs. And that was because not only was the cladding unsafe, obviously it seems all the cladding is unsafe, but that there were further fire problems. The insulation was even worse than the stuff used at... I haven't heard that confirmed. Exposed pipes? What was concerned by Sejid Jarvid today was that there were a thousand fire doors missing in the five tower block. It's a lot of doors. That's a lot of doors. That would be 200 doors a block. I mean, maybe Sejid Jarvid got zero wrong, but I mean that clearly the building was not built to special cases. Here in the government doesn't know the law when it comes to cladding. Yeah, they've got no idea how many doors are in the building. It's fair to say they're pretty clueless, right? We don't know what's on the building. We don't know how many people live in the building. Was it on Panorama? They were talking to a woman in Plymouth. There was a Plymouth time block, right? Yeah, it's on Plymouth. She would say, I just want a fire door. Yeah. She says I think she could basically see under the gap in our doors, so she's like, if there's a fire, all that smoke is going to come here. I mean, this is going to cost a shed load of money. Every single social authority building with cladding on has to remove that cladding. If every, it looks like if most local authority buildings have to replace all the doors, potentially pay for people to have temporary accommodation for two to four weeks while they fix it up. Refitting boilers, all sorts of stuff, ventilation systems. Who's paying for this? I mean, obviously it should be paid for. Yeah, it's two questions. It's going to be like tens of billions. Is it the company that screwed everyone over? Just clarify if the viewers who ride are now. So ride another building who got the contract to put the cladding or to read, it's not redevelop, is it, to do up? Grenfell. To regenerate. To regenerate Grenfell. To make it a death trap. To make it a death trap, yeah, as well. To make it prettier for the neighbouring luxury flats, or potentially to make it, they'd argue to make it more energy efficient. Either way, they were paid, I think, £9.6 million to do up. Grenfell, they undercut another company who were going to do it for slightly more expensive, but using non-combustible cladding. Actually, I think it was £8.6 million. Let me get this on. There's a great FTRs to come out of this. Carol, I'll pull it up. You've got it up. I've got it up on her, but the iPads aren't working that well today. Failures of technology. We're having real, I'm going to put in my earpiece in a minute, see what's going on. No, it's fine now. They're being quiet now. I think the other bidder was, I think, around £11.5 billion. Right, and I think it was about £8.5 billion. And obviously, Chris Williamson, who's coming on, echoed what Clive Lewis said. He said, bear, neoliberalism, not people. And then, of course, the commentary respond with, what's neoliberalism? What are you talking about? A classic example, I mean, this is emblematic of it, right? You have a company which is a contractor for the council, refurbishing a building to the minimal possible standards, precisely because it was the cheapest bidder. Like, if you want the definition of neoliberalism, this is it. Climate sector, subcontracting, the fundamental imperative behind the work being the cheapest cost. This is it. It's emblematic of neoliberalism. And a government who's abdicated their most basic responsibility, which is to know what the fuck is going on. They don't even know the law. So they don't know the law. After a week. They don't know. After a week, they don't know the law. They've got no idea how safe our buildings are. They're clearly not very safe. They thought the market would sort it out, just like they thought the market would sort out our financial sector and both are coming crashing down. How it would self-regulate in 2008, how banks wouldn't go out of business, despite making loans to people who clearly couldn't pay them back. Right? I mean, it personifies all the flaws of the variant of capitalism we've had since the late 1970s, as much as the financial crisis of almost a decade ago. But- Is this happening to the NHS? Is the NHS going to start being self-regulated? Well, we have- You'd need those private firms to be self-regulating their- I mean, you have significant outsourcing in the NHS already, but I think, I mean, the further it accelerates, I think the more of these problems you would see. Unless we can turn the tide. We'll be asking Chris Williamson about that as well, I'm sure. We're going to turn the tide. It's matter of time. It's not if it's when. The other big news of today was the DUP. Theresa May has made a deal. Aaron, you're going to talk about that. We found the magic money tree. The Tories have found the magic money tree. It's still in the Cayman Islands. It's still in the Bahamas. It's still in Jersey. It's still in Aruba. But a little bit's going to go now to Northern Ireland. So, there's a deal between the DUP and the Tories. A billion pounds over the course of two years will basically go to Northern Ireland. That's for 10 DUP MPs. 10 million pound an MP. 100 million pound. 100 million. Oh, I'm not raking at zero. 100 million pound an MP. That's pricey. Good work if you can get it in the words of David Lambie. So, 100 million pound an MP. I'm voting DUP next time. What else is it? Oh, late and regenerated. Even if you were like a Republican, Sinn Fein voting person. The DUP, and also, not just that. They're stopping the changes with the pension. So, the Tories and their manifesto promise that the public pension after 2020 would go from a triple to a double lock. So, at present, the state pension increases by inflation, wage increases, or 2.5% a year, whichever is high. It's a good deal for pensioners, generally, right? And the Tories want to move that to a double lock. So, inflation or wage increases, which is clearly low. But that would have gone anyway about the DUP, I think, because with such a weak parliamentary position, one of the Tories was bound to rebel on that, right? Well, absolutely. They've got no mandate. Tories in marginal seats. Do they want to piss off every old person? The laws would throw it back. There's no mandate for any of that stuff. But the point is, the DUP have said, we want this. It's a base of disagreement. And also, they were going to mean test wind-fuel allowance. 12 million people currently get the wind-fuel allowance. The Resolution Foundation said, maybe 10 million could lose it. The DUP are saying, no way. So, they've got a good deal for older people, not just in Northern Ireland, but across Britain. Furthermore, there'll be potential reforms, corporation tax. And this is big. This is probably the biggest one of the lot, because the DUP, as actually all the major parts at Stormont want, including Sinn Féin Bazaarly, want 12 and a half percent corporation tax in Northern Ireland to compete, of course, with the Republic, which makes sense, but it's not socially progressive. Well, the danger is that the UK, you get a raise to the bottom, right? Well, we will, right? We will. I mean, we're going to get... This is going to go back. This is going to take us that as well. It's 12 and a half percent in the Republic. I can understand the argument for it being the same in the North, but then clearly, if you're a business in Wales, in England, in Scotland, you would very quickly relocate to Northern Ireland. Hey, you know what? Navarra, we want to relocate to Belfast. 12 and a half percent corporation tax. We might have a correspondent in the Northern Ireland scene, but I think we'll be able to reveal that soon. And furthermore, also, the air passenger duty. They won't see that eliminated as well, for Northern Ireland's three airports, because the Republic has that. Oh, because the Republic has the same thing. So they can basically compete with the Republic when it comes to tax incentives, when it comes to the overheads of doing business. And that's lower than anywhere else in Britain. So it's a raise to the bottom and it's tax cuts for the elite. So I think whatever way you look at it, this is not good for the Tories. Furthermore, imagine being a Scottish Tory, one of these new Scottish Tory MPs, and you vote through a Queen's speech, which clearly privileges Northern Ireland over the other home nations, but obviously specifically Scotland. I mean, this could have something of a blowback to a resurgent Tory party in Scotland. So what happened to the Barnett formula? Because I thought if you give one of the devolved nations a bit more money, you have to give all the other ones. Well, for every pound spent in Northern Ireland, I believe 35 pounds has to be spent in the rest of the Union, something like that. So... In total, right. Yeah, so in extra cost, obviously, because of the population rate. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So for a billion pounds to be spent in Northern Ireland, it would mean that the government will have spent 35 billion in the rest of the country. Which, I mean, we're back. Are we back, but I don't think... You don't think it's going to happen? Well, I mean... Oh, the deficit's got up the window anyway, right? So potentially... I saw some good statistics today that was saying austerity has now ended in Northern Ireland. Let's end it in the rest of the UK. Well, that's nonsense, because they want to cut the corporation tax to 12.5%. They want to turn it into tax haven. So that's a pretty fucking stupid analysis. Isn't it? No, it doesn't. They're the Tories. They don't want to fucking end austerity. No, they're saying, by the Tories didn't want to end austerity in Northern Ireland, but what the DAP have managed to do is get a sweetheart deal for Northern Ireland, which is going to pump a load of money into there, which, if you live in Northern Ireland, might look like an easing of austerity. Left-wing policy, obviously. In the United States, they call this... They call it Port Barrow, right? Port Barrowing, yeah. I mean, it kind of is that. And it's being, and it's attendant with, a desire to cut corporation tax to 12.5% to get rid of air passenger duties. So it isn't the end of austerity for Northern Ireland. I mean... Do you think anyone's going to care? I mean, obviously Theresa May's hope is going to be that people want a government. They're going to think, well, a billion pound for Northern Ireland so that we can have a government to go through Brexit. Or do you think this is actually going to damage them? I think there's a few things. So first off, you can't run a general election campaign saying magic money tree, get money out of nowhere, and then to form a government, give a political party of 1,000 members. The DUP has maybe 1,500 members tops. You're giving them a bung of 100 million pound per MP. Unbelievable. If you're Sinn Féin, you think they're always going to abstain. They're never going to attend Parliament because they won't swear on Earth to the Queen. But I mean, it's a pretty compelling argument to participate right if you could be the kingmaker. And then furthermore, so that's the big one for me, is that it undermines the whole magic money tree argument. And then secondly, I think if this is made salient by Labour, it's going to really screw the Tories and Wiles and Scotland next time around. Really? I mean, I don't see how it couldn't. Let's get Chris on in a minute. First one is going to say, so there was probably a lot you will have seen on social media demonstrations yesterday in Forest Gate. That was after the death of, I know him as Edson, but I'll just get his real, I don't know him personally, a dear Federico de Costa, who died after being on life support for six days after being stopped by the police in a car. It's still very unclear what happened, but we're going to have someone from Black Lives Matter on Thursday to discuss that. We're maybe going to have them today, but they couldn't make it. So tune into that. We're going to have Chris Williamson on the couch now. We'll discuss a lot of what we've just been talking about. Will Mayfall, what next for Labour? First of all, we've got Chris at his best in the last couple of weeks, I think, on the daily politics and in Parliament. Your shadow business secretary tweeted, burn neoliberalism, not people. Is that appropriate? This is a class issue, and neoliberalism is at fault here. Absolutely. So you agree with Clive Lewis? Well, I retreated his tweet. Oh, right. Well, you do then. Well, I do agree because you think neoliberalism is the problem, and it's a long-standing problem going back 40 years, and it's got far, far worse in this last seven years. This culture, which you've already spoken about, about cutting red tape. I used to work in the building trade. I know how important health and safety is. I nearly died on a building site because there was no handrail, and I fell 20 feet onto a concrete staircase. But the Conservative Party wants to get rid of health and safety regulates because they see it fetters business. But worse than that, it's this point where they will externalise wherever they can privatise, where they can pay attention to youth public services to make money for their friends. Like my father before me, I believe in an elected head of state, so I take this oath in order to serve my constituents of Derby North. I do solemnly and sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth Herrés and successors according to law. Oh, now we're going. Chris Williams, an emcee. Thank you so much for joining us. Congratulations. The main man, your recent win. Back in Parliament. Where you belong. Thank you for your time. Say that, yeah. How does it feel? I'm not a fan of Parliament, I have to say. The building, I'd like us to move to something that's actually fit for purpose. I mean, that building is really or should be... Would you move it? Would you move it out of London? I would, definitely. Where'd you put it? Where'd you plonk it? Somewhere in the Midlands. Maybe Derby. Derby is the centre of the country. Bit of pork barrel politics yourself though. 80% of the population get to Derby within two hours. But it's somewhere like Manchester or Birmingham perhaps. I mean, you know, there's far too London centric in this country and that building isn't fit for purpose. There aren't even enough seats for MPs to actually sit if everybody turns up. And that's why you see lots of people standing at the PMQs and sitting on the steps and standing at the edge and so on. And it really just... It's not only conducive to a good democratic process really. What would you do to the House of Commons? I wouldn't necessarily bulldoze it. Because it was in William Morris or William Blake, famously said it should become a storage house for horse manure. Yeah, that wouldn't be a bad, that wouldn't be a bad. It's not a turning to museum. A turning to museum. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, when I take people around there, I mean, one of the things I always show them is the little cubby hole in the undercroft there, the St Mary's undercroft in Westminster Hall where Emily Wilding Davison hid on the eve of the 1911 census so that she could give her address as the House of Commons. And Tony Benn announced to the House in the 1990s, I think it was, that he was going to commemorate this because it wasn't recognised at all. So we didn't get permission from the House of Authorities, which is a very kind of stuffy and conservative with a little say. I'm probably a capital C for that matter. And so, Brilliant now said he was going to do this. And it was he and Jeremy Corbyn, I believe, who then got this plaque, which actually commemorates the fact that Emily Wilding Davison did steal away in this little cubby hole. But because they hadn't got permission from the House of Authorities, they actually fixed it to the inside of the door. So you've actually got to go in this little cubby hole to read it. And it's a great piece of social history. So for that, I think it's important to perhaps... It's the one reason to keep here, isn't it? ...to retain the place so that people could... Yeah. Don't knock it down. Whenever I go to Port Cutter's house to see people, I'm just like filled with disgust, anger, dread. I mean, it's a horrible working environment. I actually feel sorry for the people I have to. I know some people will sort of get big ego out of it. But if you're a sort of semi-normal person, you're just like, this is kind of weird. All these kind of... What's the minimum time you can spend there, actually? Because I was thinking... One thing we've checked about on the show before is that Ed Miliband, in that period, wasted too much time being a parliamentary opposition and asking the right questions and not enough time at all speaking to the nation or speaking to their constituents or organising at the grassroots. I mean, like, what's the... How many days a week are you planning to spend? Well, I mean... The Palace of Westminster. Well, when I was there before, the whip sort of insisted that you were there sort of three or four days at least, and you know, you've got to be there to vote. My view was always that rather than simply just turning up to troop through the lobbies and lose on every occasion, apart from the other occasion where, you know, we did defeat them on the plan to gerrymander the constituencies when the Liberal Democrats decided to, you know, rebel against the Tory government at that time. The rare, the rare moment. But my view was that it would be far better spending time having some sort of road to where we're kind of going out into the country speaking to people, campaigning and actually trying to, you know, whip people over to support the Labour Party. Obviously, it was a more difficult ask then because the Labour's programme wasn't really progressive, in my view, and that was something I regularly used to raise at the PLP meetings. But now, of course, we've got an excellent programme, I think, and I'm hoping that we will start to see not just Jeremy going around the country, but other MPs going around the country to try and take the message out to people that, you know, there is an alternative to the present status quo in that sense, you know. But just going back to the place, I mean, you know, they want to spend, I think, something like just under £4 billion, £3.9 billion to actually refurbish it. I mean, that just thinks a colossal worth of money. Chris Bryant's like a huge parliament stan, isn't he? He's like, he's desperate. Oh, really? He loves the House of Commons. He's written a book, I believe, about it, so he's got an encyclopedic knowledge about Parliament. When I first arrived there, I mean, Chris sort of gave the newbies like myself, and a few others, a bit of a tour round, and a bit of an idiot's guide on to how to, you know, give constituents a tour round the place. So, yeah, he's very, very knowledgeable about that place, but look, you know, no reason why we have to be in London. I just think it would be good, actually, for politics, if we were to move out. I might be a minority voice at the moment, but hopefully... Can you see the part it's taken out? Because especially with the £4 billion thing, right, it's such a good opportunity to say, instead of spending that £4 billion on renovating this ancient institution that's part of the whole centralisation of the British economy and politics in London, let's not bother, let's spend half a million pound building a new building somewhere else. Can you see Labour taking that on? Yeah, I think it costs a bit more than half a million quid, though, to build a new building, but I think it's because... We'll get well enough of a shitty... ...considerable less than the £3.9 billion. I mean, I think, well, look, the Labour Party isn't just the people who sit in Parliament, is it? I mean, they're a tiny proportion of the overall membership of the Labour Party, which is now, I think, well over £600,000 and growing all the time. So, for me, you know, the party is, you know, the membership and, you know, if the membership feel that we should do something different and have a different location for Parliament, I think that's something that, you know, as MPs, we should take seriously and support. This isn't a question here, but I'm desperate to ask it. So, you obviously left Parliament 2015 and there was a certain temperature around the Parliamentary Labour Party. People had a certain understanding of what was politically plausible possible. To what extent has that changed? Because you've gone back in and obviously you're widely known as a left-wing MP and to an extent you've been completely validated. Everything you've said has kind of been... Well, not everything, because we don't have a government yet, but broadly confirmed, to what extent, with your colleagues in the Parliamentary Labour Party, are they recognising that when you talk to them? Are they... Are they getting it? So far, steady as she goes. I mean, I went to the first Parliamentary Labour Party meeting expecting to leap into action as Jeremy's Praetorian Guard has defined him getting a prolonged standing ovation. So, that is really, really positive. And as for being left-wing, I don't necessarily characterise it in that way, you know, because, as I was saying during my election campaign, it's not a matter of left and right, it's a matter of right and wrong. I think what we're putting forward is a programme which is plain common sense if you actually look at it. I mean, why should we penalise people for getting a university education? Why shouldn't we make the economy work for ordinary people? Why shouldn't we have decent housing for people throughout the country? Why shouldn't people be able to retire in security? You know, during the 1980s, when the stock market was doing very well, local authorities, just as much as the private sector, but particularly the private sector and the pension schemes, when they had the final salary pension scheme, took years and years and years of pension holidays because they said, oh, the stock market is performing so well, we don't need to contribute so there was no employer contribution. Now, a lot of local authorities did likewise. I mean, that was partly to offset the cuts that the fact that government were bringing in. But had they not done that, had they actually paid into the scheme, then the argument that we've seen over recent years, or we can no longer afford the final salary pension schemes, I don't think, you know, would necessarily have been financially behind it because I think they would have had a much bigger pension pot in order to withstand the difficult times in that sense. But for God's sake, with the fifth or sixth, depending on how you measure it, wealthiest nation on the planet, surely to God, we can have a system where people can retire in security. That's not too much to ask, but we move it towards a situation where we're going to have a whole cohort of pensioners who are going to be in poverty. Nearly 13 million people agree with you, but do you think that your colleagues in the Parliamentary Labour Party really believe in this manifesto? Because for many of them, it was to the left, I mean, if we're going to characterize things in classically political terms, of where they've staked much of their sort of political career. So, do you think they believe in this manifesto? What's your sense? I don't think they necessarily believed in it before the election because I think they'd bought into the kind of whole neoliberal consensus that was, you know, held it in by Margaret... Well, actually started, really, I think, by Jim Callaghan and Dennis Healy. After we went to the IMF in 1976, but really kind of got accelerated under Margaret Thatcher. And there was some resistance, obviously, under Michael Foote. But then, you know, and particularly when Tony Blair came to the fore, you know, we bought into it and accepted it. And a lot of people felt that, look, the only route to power is to essentially ate the Tory party, be kind of like the Tories, but just not the rougher edges off. And we did, to be fair. I mean, I think that last Labour government did do a lot of good things, but we didn't transform the economy. We didn't transform society in the way in which we should have done with the majority that we had. So it remains to be seen whether or not they have now fully bought into the new agenda that is obviously very, very popular. And I think the fact that we've got nearly 13 million votes now, and if you believe the opinion polls, it seems that we're on five, six points ahead now of the Tories. I firmly believe that, you know, if we keep this agenda and we keep continuing to promote it, there was a lot of people, I think it was skeptical, who didn't turn out a vote for us, because they thought, well, you know, Labour can't win, but we did do well in a lot of seats. We won a place like Canterbury, for goodness sake, you know? So I think there's absolutely everything to play for, but the key, I think, thing is going to be, you know, during the reselection process. And I think that those that don't, as it were, you know, fully buy into this new common sense agenda, I think members will lose patience with them and they'll replace them. I mean, at the moment though, that's very difficult to do, right? It's not that difficult to do. I mean, you have the trigger, but I mean, you know, perhaps it should be easier. I mean, there should be maybe mandatory reselection. I'm not against, I think that would be a, you know, a thoroughly good and positive thing to do. But there is the trigger ballot mechanism at the moment, so that, you know, where members are not happy, or they just feel that there should be a democratic process, then if 50% of the local ward parties and affiliated organisations say they want to have a reselection process, then they can have it. You just need 50% to request that. And there have been some already, I mean, not very many. But I think now there is an appetite. There's a certain timeframe for that, isn't there? It has to be immediately proceeding in a general election or it can't be at any time, can it? Well, it's when the process starts for reselection. So at the moment, we're not in a process of selecting. If the NEC tries to stitch things up again, like it did, not stitch, okay. If there is a, if we're rushed to a general election again. Oh, well, yeah. Yeah, but I mean, I don't want to load the question. No, but just procedurally, let's say that there is an election next month. Well, if there's a snap election, then you haven't got that ability to do that. But during the normal course of things, it remains to be seen whether this coalition of chaos that has now been signed off, I don't think it, I don't think it's as robust as the Lib Dem Tory coalition was. A lot of people said to me, when they made their agreement, that that won't last. But for me, I always felt that there's no reason why the Liberal Democrats would have wanted to get out of that. Because if they ditched it, I mean, they were toast. I mean, and I just think they, I always thought they would just hang on as long as they possibly can, hoping that something will turn up. Now, I don't do UPs in the same position. I don't think Westminster politics plays in the same way in Ulster. I mean, this is a party that had a campaign a while ago, which was, was it something like Save Ulster from Sodomy? You know, so it's kind of very kind of strange, extreme views are expressed by this political party. And they kind of just plough their own furrow. So I don't think, you know, they're going to be damaged by necessarily, by electorally, by this agreement, or at least we'll see whether they will be able to. I don't think they will be in the same way that the Liberals were, particularly, because the Liberals sold, they sold, didn't they? I mean, you know, they went to the election, they went to the country in 2010, signing in blood almost a commitment not to increase tuition fees, and then they tripled them. I mean, what the DOP has done, you know, obviously, as you were saying in your opening remarks, they've managed to secure, they've managed to secure like a billion quid for the province. I mean, you know, that's the equipment to give in my region, East Midlands, you know, one billion pound, and, you know, a lot of local authorities, like Derby City Council, for example, that has been absolutely hammered by the massive funding cuts that have been subjected to, and, you know, it's absolutely crucified their ability to deliver decent public services. And, you know, the Tories are very shrewd in what they did, because, you know, they essentially devolved blame for funding cuts. And so consequently, you know, a lot of the decisions which are being taken by local authorities like Derby City Council, actually, they cuts that are being made, made in Westminster. But it's only so long you can actually make that argument, really, I think, you know, and I think we perhaps need to look at... Do you think local councils could be doing something different? I think it's difficult for them. They're already in a difficult position. It's difficult, but I think, yeah, I think with political will and, you know, imagination, I think it potentially is possible, but look, there's only so much you can do in regards to trying to find innovative ways of overcoming and dampening the impact of the force of the cuts. But I do think, you know, there are... And, of course, it's very uneven, because some local authorities historically had a higher council tax basis, so they were able to, you know, withstand the funding cuts much easier than other local authorities were. And there's a geographic issue here, because particularly some of the authorities in the southeast, they are insulated because they've got a much, much bigger council tax base. So, take Surrey, for example, less than 20% of their total spend comes in the form of government grant. Most of it is actually raised through the council tax, which is a very blunt instrument. Kensington and Chelsea, right? Well, indeed. A huge amount of money. Well, indeed, indeed, indeed. So you have those sorts of examples, but then it comes to a place like Derby, and there are others, I mean, Derby's not the worst effector, but, you know, around about 60 odd percent of what the council, obviously the council spend, I think it's probably slightly higher than that. It actually comes from central government. So here, Pace Piper calls the tune and, you know, he puts them in a very, very difficult place. But I think we need to find all the levers for local government to be able to raise finance. I think, you know, municipalisation, for example, of energy supply. I mean, back in the day, obviously to council, when it was an energy supplier, generated 50% of its income, and it was able to be socially entrepreneurial, and it actually did a deal with... 50% of its income came from... Came from the Sonning Gas and Electricity, yeah. And in 1904... Now it's still going to be cheaper, right? Indeed. But in 1904, it did a deal, with Rolls-Royce, to actually bring them to Derby, because they were in Manchester then, brought them to Derby on the basis of, look, we'll do a deal with you, we'll say you've cheap energy for a period of time if you kind of relocate to Derby. And of course, now it's the biggest employer in the city, and, you know, an internationally renowned company, although I do have some issues with some of the practices, like many global corporations, you know, they've externalised tens of thousands of their jobs. I mean, when I left school in Derby in 1970, the 35,000 people worked at Rolls-Royce. How many now? 12,000. Did Labour surprise you in terms of their performance? 12.8 million votes, biggest increase in the share of the vote since 1945 for any party? Did you really see that coming? Locally or nationally? Were you surprised by your own victory? I'm always... Not really, no. I'm always an optimist, I'm always a dreamer, I suppose you have to be in the Labour Party, and to be on the left in the Labour Party as well. And I've always felt the Labour Party's been the best vehicle to deliver progressive social change, but in terms of, was I surprised? I mean, we were going out on the doorstep and we were getting an incredibly positive reaction. Really, really positive. From the beginning? From the beginning. Universally? Or... Well, yeah, I mean, well, in some parts of the constituency, better than others. And that was through that way through the campaign. And then I was going home and getting really depressed, looking at the opinion polls being reported on the news and thinking, God, well, somebody's getting this badly wrong, are there resources or it's the pollsters? But no, right the way throughout, and look, and I set myself up as somebody who was very strongly supportive of the agenda that Jeremy Corbyn, you know, was very much leading. And I said I was a very strong supporter of Jeremy and there were people who told me, people on the left, actually, who said, look, the important thing is to get you in, Chris. So disassociate yourself from Jeremy. And I said, I'm not prepared to do that. I would soon lose than actually win on that basis. Because I think we've got to be honest. And I said irrespective of what happens, win, lose or draw, there is no going back to new Labour. And you did beat the swing. Especially in the Midlands, you beat the swing. We lost seats in the Midlands. Oh, we did indeed, absolutely. And I was very much, anybody ever kind of said to me, you know, on the doorstep, and there wasn't that many, I have to say. I mean, I don't know whether these people were saying, oh, every doorstep I go to, they're all moaning about Jeremy Corbyn. That absolutely was not my experience. That maybe Dab is different than other places. But if anything statistically, like you say, that part of England's more likely to have those voices. Well, he didn't come up, I have to say. I mean, in fact, I had more people say to me that voting Labour because of Jeremy Corbyn than those who said they weren't going to vote Labour. And I actually even had Tories, and I was saying there was loads of them, but there were a number of Tories who said life long-term. And we know that worked for all my Congress returns because we're quite an active party. So we've got Congress returns going back, you know, 10, 15, 20 years in certain circumstances. People who, and we have elections virtually every year in door because our council has elections three out of four years. So we have data from every single year. And some people who have consistently been against us and voted Conservative were saying to me, they were going to vote Labour because Jeremy Corbyn is a breath of fresh air, he's an honest, decent man and it's exactly the sort of thing that we want to see in politics. And a lot of UKIP voters, because a lot of people are saying, oh, you know, UKIP are going to go and vote Tory on mass, but absolutely it wasn't the case at all. We won a lot of UKIP voters over to us. They had questions and, you know, we were able to answer them. And I was saying, look, if you genuinely want to take control of Britain, it is only Labour that is offering that to you. Because it's only Labour that's going to take on these big faceless corporations. It's only Labour that's going to nationalise the utilities, nationalise the railways and give you a decent deal. If you want a situation where global corporations are going to be able to operate in a deregulated tax haven, where it's much easier to exploit British workers, we'll go ahead and vote Tory or vote UKIP. But if you want to take control, if you want to make a difference, you're going to have to vote Labour. We're the only party that's offering that now. And that sort of approach, you know, did work with a lot of people. And it was quite robust with people sometimes. So it's a bloody stupid, you know. So that's quite a, you know, when they were sort of saying, you know. It's good life, if only more MPs could be like that. Well, I just think, you know, you've got to be honest with people. And I'm a darling lad, I've lived in the city of my life, I live 100 yards from where I was born, you know. And I just think, you know, when people try and come across is all kind of, oh, Lardy Dar and, you know, they don't really relate to people. And that's one of my gripes with that place over there, the whole vocabulary in the chamber, kind of distances you set, distances, what goes on in that chamber. From the public at large, who watch in, when they say, you know, will my honourable friend give way? And all this kind of nonsense. You know, it just, and standing up to be called by the speaker and stuff like that. And swearing in via the Queen or whatever. Well, that was a bit of a trauma for me because I've been a Republican all my life. You did it, but... Well, yeah, in 20... We played that just before you came on. So the audience have seen you, right? I mean, my dad was a very strong Republican. And, you know, he went through the whole war and he told me this story where he had made to... All the guys, you know, in the regiment, as he made to parade like prats for three hours, they said, in the pouring rain and they didn't know why. And then when the rain stopped, they saw this open-top car coming closer and closer and closer and the thing was going on here, you know. And as it drew level, they saw, bloody hell, it's the Queen, it's the King. And he's got every medal that my dad had been awarded. The King was wearing. And he thought, I've seen my mates get blown to smithereens. His best mate lost both his legs three weeks before the end of the war. Where was that? Well, he was in North Africa, a Monte Cassino. And then beyond, you know, I'm not quite sure where his campaign led him after Monte. But Monte Cassino was an absolute bloodbath. And there was obviously skirmishers beyond that, clearly. I'm not quite sure the location where his mate lost his legs. But so my dad said, right, and he put all of those medals in an envelope and he put a little message here and saying, you can stick these up your arse and send them back to the Ministry of Defence. An absolute legend. It's amazing, what a legend. Well, we can see where you're getting from, Chris. Yes, indeed, yeah. I want to go into the future. So you had an impressive swing in Derby, but it's still marginal. It's 2K majority, you've got this net. Well, just to remind us that we lost in 2015, my majority is 2015, 2015. What? What do you mean? Well, we lost in 2015, and my majority this time is 2015. Okay, right, okay, so we can remember it. I get it. And there's a certain symmetry, because what was the Tory majority previously? Only 41. Right, of course it was tiny. And my majority before that was 630. But how, so I want to know both nationally, the Labour Party, how are they going to make sure they form the next government? You locally, how are you going to turn your marginal seat into a safe seat? What are the priorities for us as a put? Well, for the Labour Party as a party, well, doing more of the same, I think, and getting the message out there for sure, I think, clearly in some of the areas in the constituency, I mean, it's overwhelmingly Labour. I mean, just every door you knocked on. But the more kind of, if you like, traditional working class neighbourhoods, it was more mixed. So there's a bit of a job for us still to do there. This is where we'd lost votes in the last election to UKIP. And as I said, we won a lot of those back, but there were far too many going to vote Conservative. That confirms the national story, doesn't it? It does, yes. That sort of lowering C2 DEs, as they call them, over 55 actually has a bit of a swing to the Tories. And we've got to find a way of actually resonating with them. And I do think the message, you know, we've just got to keep repeating that message and developing the policy agenda that we've formulated in that manifesto. But it means, I think, we've got to get smarter at, you know, kind of community organisation. Because it's no good just... I mean, to be fair, we don't just do this. We don't just go round, you know, at election time. We go round outside of that. But we've got to find ways of getting embroiled in local communities more, local community organisations more, and being, you know, people feeling really that kind of Labour Party is relevant to them and our message is relevant to them. And we've, you know, for the younger age group, I think social media is brilliant. And we had a fantastic online campaign and was assisted very well by somebody who used to work for yourself, Lewis Bassett. Yeah, right. What are Lewis? It was fantastic on that. And so, again, you know, we've got to kind of keep that going. But for the older age group, I mean, some obviously are on social media, but not all of them, though, we've got to, you know, find ways of actually... And that's not... It's not standard for them. So MPs, you get a bit of a pot of money to employ people and normally they get a casework, a research, maybe a secretary or something. It's not normal for MPs to get a community organiser, is it? No, but that's got to be part of what we do. Are you planning to do that? I am. We've got to, absolutely got to do that. Because, you know, I mean, I don't think it's breaking any rules either, because I think it's about taking, you know, my service, if you like, the fact that people can approach us and if they need our help. And it's about, you know, being proactive in actually getting it out there that, look, I am your local MP and if you want to, you know, use my service, then here I am. You know, come and get involved. But more important than that, I think, is this notion that people feel that, you know, we are on their side, that the lead part is relevant, that politics is relevant. And again, one of the messages I was saying to people, because a lot of people made a political decision, I mean, a lot of people talk about how we lost five and a half million votes between 97 and 2010, but we lost three million from 97 and 2001. People made a conscious choice not to participate, to kind of plague on all of your houses. And we've got to give people a reason to vote. And I think if we, you know, if we do that, we show, we saw in this case, you know, that the turnout did increase and I think we've got to do more to be relevant and make people feel that, you know, you can make a difference. But my point, I was making to people on the doorstep, is that, look, people with money, they've got power and they can exercise that power, the big corporations, the oligarchs, they've got power because they've got plenty of brass. All we've got is each other as working class people. We've, all we've got is the political process and each other to try and make a difference. And I, you know, I cited my mum and dad's generation and we use this quite a bit on the online campaign. But it's true, I was saying, look, they were, you know, talking about the younger generation, how they could not just change the course of this election, but change the course of history, as my mum and dad's generation did. And they said, we ain't going back to the indignancy of the means test and mass unemployment and inadequate, poor quality, insecure housing and being frightened about falling ill or getting injured at work because they couldn't afford a doctor. So they say, well, we're not off of that. Yeah, church will let the country tour victory over the Nazis, but ain't nobody voting for him. We're going to vote for something better. And they stood together and they delivered something better, didn't they? I don't know, we didn't get everything right. But, you know, we had full employment, national health service, welfare state. Every single year, right the way up through to the late 70s when Thatcher came in and embraced neoliberalism, every single year, a bigger and bigger proportion of the national income was going to workers in their wage packets. And it's been going in the opposite direction ever since. And so people like myself, as a young 19-year-old Apprentice Bricklayer in 1976, was able to save up enough money to buy a brand new three-bedroom, semi-detached house in a desirable village. As an apprentice. As an apprentice. A desirable village backing onto a waterfront. And it was three times what I was earning as an apprentice Bricklayer. And I think now the minimum wage for apprentices is, is it 350? Well, I know it's a separate deal now. Yeah, if you're under 21. I looked at what an apprentice Bricklayer today would earn and what the income multiples would be in terms of buying that property that I bought. And compared to London prices, it's obviously quite a snip. But I think the last time it was sold, it was 275,000 quid. It's, I think it worked out to about 27 or 28 times what an apprentice Bricklayer could earn. So it's completely beyond their reach anymore. And we've got to get back to a position where you can actually, you can realistically aspire to own your own home if you want. You can certainly get access to a council house. And these things are linked. And actually, you know, we can build council houses in this country, three effectively, because the rental stream actually will service the loan charge for actually, you know, the development cost. And the added benefit of doing that would be you would enable people to escape. The trap of being stuck in private rented accommodation, paying incredibly high, high rents. Very often, even when they're on, you know, reasonable income still having to get some help with through the housing benefit scheme. So you'd be able to reduce the social security budget, tackle a social need, create economic growth by generating decent jobs. Because it doesn't take the load of demand as the community, but it's not getting sucked up in rent. You're creating and helping to create an economic virtuous circle. But tens of billions are spent on housing benefit. Just 27 billion. 27 billion. Last question. I've got a few more questions. A few more. All right, we'll keep going. I'm loving it. Well, we've been so positive. So B, I'm going to ask you a question. I know you're going to have to be very circumspect in your answer. So how do we change things even more? How does your marginal get bigger majority? How does Labour form the next government? All very interesting. There are some people that say that Labour would already be in government. Were it not for key decisions made by Labour headquarters? Had it not been for various shenanigans with the Parliamentary Labour Party last year, those are two separate things. Labour, of course, based its campaign, a defence campaign fundamentally on inaccurate in-house polling. To what extent do people like Ian McNichol, Tom Watson, need to think about their position fundamentally in Labour in regard to winning? Because Ian McNichol, this is a party which claims to be for the many, not the few. Yet this is a secretary general who is unaffected, who goes when he wants and exercises fundamentally a monopoly of power over very key decisions, like hiring a party headquarters. So for you, what's the future of Ian McNichol and Tom Watson in the Labour Party? Well, I mean, Tom is no longer chair of the party. That has been taken now by Ian Labour. Ian Labour has got a very different vision, I think, for the party. And it's very important, I think, that the party structure does complement the agenda that Jeremy Corbyn represents now. It's clearly overwhelmingly backed, as we know, from the elections and the massive insurge in membership, and now this election. That, you know, it is incredibly, it is an incredibly popular agenda. But I think on, you know, Ian Labour is tutelage, I can put it like that. I think, you know, we will start to see a very different approach from the, you know, the party aparachics, if I can put it like that. And that needs to be right from, you know, Root and Bansh reform really. So there needs to be a very different approach, I think, from the party nationally, right the way through to the regions as well. Because I think they did miscalculate this election, and it was very much, you know, a kind of defensive campaign that they were waging. I think there was a fear, and maybe it was a genuine one, I can run you, I can assume it was a genuine one, that, you know, look, we're really struggling here, we're going to lose, potentially lose seats, not gain them. And so they were consequently putting a lot of resources into seats that we just, you know, we got just colossal majorities. And if we'd have actually put a bit more resource into some of the other marginal seats, then, you know, we'd be, well, Jeremy called me to be now in Downing Street, I think. Pony, rice, slip, I mean, there's at least three or four just in London, which Labour should have won, should have won. There's a bit of a suspicion among grassroots members that it wasn't just bad polling, that there was a little bit of element of sabotage, and I've heard lots of reports of certain quarters of the Labour Party being a bit dumbstruck when the exit poll came out and looking in sort of, what do we do now? We wanted this actually to be a bit worse than it was, so we could kick out Corbyn. So I wonder if... That was never going to happen. It was never, he was never going to go, you mean? Absolutely not. Irrespective, as I said earlier on, win, lose or draw, we weren't going back to new Labour. The membership was not going to go back. Of course, this agenda's the right agenda. Yeah. But what I'm saying is, do you think... Some people may have thought that, but they weren't going to happen. They were kind of laboring up, they were kind of very miscalculating. Do you think people, what I'm saying is, do you think people throughout the Labour Party hierarchy be that HQ, the PLP, do you think there are people who were genuinely brought into this and we can trust them to do everything the Labour Party needs to do to get in government or do you think there needs to be any kind of, I suppose, reckoning would be a way to put it? Well, the reckoning, if there isn't any reckoning, that will be done in the constituencies, won't it? I mean, Jeremy's always made it clear, look, you know, it's not just about him, it's about all of us. And he's not a dictator and he doesn't dictate and he can't dictate and nor should he dictate, you know, who's in and who's out. I mean, obviously it can do that in terms of is in the Shadow Cabinet on the front bench, as it were, but in terms of who's going to actually be an elected representative, that is a matter for each local constituency party to determine. But Nick, whose position isn't elected, that's the thing. When it comes to MPs, I agree with you, it's absolutely a matter for CLPs and I'm not even going to comment on what members should do regardless of who they are. Although, I mean, I think it should be easy than trigger ballots, but... Yeah, I mean, fine, but there's... Well, that's, that's, indeed, but I mean, and I think there's a debate going on about that, but the point is that even with trigger ballots, there is still a mechanism available. If people want to have a contest in their constituencies, they can do it. But Ian McNichol is making... He fundamentally exercises the final set of hiring decisions that the party had courted, and he's not elected. He can go when he wants. But it's very, very... And this is a party which claims to be for the many, not the few. I know, but it's a bit like Chief Executive, isn't it, in an organisation? I mean, they're not elected, either, are they? But they're unspilled to a board or trustees, and then if they're found to be wanting... Ian McNichol is on to the National Executive Committee, so the key is making sure that we've got the right people on the National Executive Committee, isn't it? So the big issue is, yeah, it's the same as the board, but the NEC members don't actually have that much control. I mean, for Chief Executive, in my view, and obviously, Chris... Well, you know, I mean, you elect the six constituency delegates, but then the trade unions, they have their delegations. And I think there is an issue, actually, within the trade unions, and this is already beginning to bubble through, seeing, you know, people are asking, what are those trade union delegates on the NEC doing? Why are they not supporting... Because, if you think about it, we should have an overwhelming majority on the NEC for the agenda that Jeremy's putting forward, because when you put the constituency delegates with the trade union delegates, that's huge. Chris, that's because a lot of people in the Labour Party, not for change, but for careers, rightly or wrongly, there's a lot of people, and it's the same in the trade union bureaucracy, you know, and I'm not going to attack them personally, you know, people are maybe wrong, that's just my interpretation of facts, but there are lots of people in this organisation who are in it for careers, and that's not particularly to the Labour Party, all organisations have this problem where, you know, it's called the iron law of oligarchy, where an organisation is set up for a fundamental reason, and very shortly thereafter, it's sort of highest good becomes reproducing itself rather than pursuing the original aim, and you see that with any bureaucracy anywhere in the world, and you see it fundamentally with the Labour Party, there are people in there for careers who are acting in the interests of those careers, rather than getting Jeremy Corbyn to tend Downing Street. And they're not elected, many of them. Well, I think there's perhaps an element of truth in that, and I think it's inevitable. Look, I mean, in any organisation, you're going to have people who are party workers, in that sense, who have paid officials, and that's an honourable thing to do, and there's a reason why you shouldn't necessarily make a career out of serving the party in that way. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, so long as they're properly accountable, you know, to the electoral representatives, that's the key. But you're right, though, about this notion of careers, I remember not long after I'd been... Well, actually, I'd only been put on the front bench, but I don't think the chief witness necessarily knew it. And she invited me in to see her, and asked me what my career plan was, and I said, I haven't got a career plan. For legend. Oh, she said, well, why not? I said, all of your colleagues have got key milestones when they expect to be on the front bench or in the shadow cabinet. And I said, well, I'm not going to turn you down. Oh, I don't really... I mean, actually, I was already on the front bench, as it happens. But, you know, I said, if an opportunity if I was asked to serve in the shadow cabinet, I wouldn't turn you down. But I'm not sitting out to actually get into the shadow cabinet because, to me, I think the most important thing was. And, you know, in the end, I suppose politics is the art of the possible. You know, you do have to recognise it sometimes as a certain compromise you need to make. But I think it's important to be true to yourself, actually, and try and keep those principles. I remember why you're there, you know. And I always take that view when I was lead of the council in Derby as well. I used to always... I'm not a representative of the council. I might hear as a spokesperson of the council. I'm here as a spokesperson, even as leader, of the people that elected me and the party that I represent. Because the bureaucracy, talking to bureaucracies, doesn't need elected members. They will carry on quite nicely without us. So, unless we're adding something to it, you know, that's what I'd value there, then it's, you know. There's no point in us being there. But far too many, in local government and in national government, are blank canvases on which, you know, local government officers and central government, you know, civil servants paint their pictures. And I just think they shouldn't do that. And I think, actually, when you've got a clear programme, like we do have now, there's a chance to, when we're getting to government, and this is why you need ministers who are absolutely signed up to it, to go in there and basically say, look, this is our agenda and this is what we're delivering, and you get on and do it. And don't give me reasons why, you know, you can't do it, because they're very good at telling you a million reasons why you can't do something. I want to know how you get around that. And that's how I approached, you know, local government when I was leader. And that's how I, if I ever got the privilege of being in government, and that's sort of a bit of a presumption. But, you know, if I ever was, that's how I would approach being in government. I've got one more question. Yeah? Go for it. Thirty seconds. What is the prize, for those watching, what's the prize here in terms of a Labour government? What's the final outcome? Why are we doing this? A society and an economy that works in the interest of the many, not the few. That's it. That's it. I mean, that's pretty clear, isn't it? I love it. I love it. No, but I say, people have to remember, this is not for six months or a year, this is to transform the country. That's what Jeremy's, and this is why the establishment are so set on demonising him and bringing him down, because it ain't just about winning an election. What, Jeremy, and not just Jeremy, what we're all trying to achieve here is the creation of a new consensus, a new progressive consensus, you know, to smash neoliberalism. Me and Liv's bloody Dal, he's a dead duck. He don't work. It's never worked anywhere in the world that it's ever been tried. And it works for the people at the top, of course. But for the vast majority of people, it does not work. And so, they are desperate to retain this tax of code, but I wonder, how much money do they want? How much money can they spend? I mean, there's a guy who seemed to get it, it was an oligarch, and he said, it was being interviewed on a documentary, The Super Rich and Us, I don't remember seeing it. He said, look, my income is 1,000 times what the average income is in this country. Not the lowest income, but the average income. He said, but I haven't got 1,000 times more stuff. He said, I've got a few pair of shoes and trousers and jeans and cars, he's got a few houses. He said, but I haven't got 1,000 houses. I haven't got 1,000 pair of shoes. I haven't got 1,000 cars. And the point I think he was making is, and it's an obvious and it's a common sense point, isn't it? Look, if you put money in the pockets of ordinary people, they will spend it. And that creates an economic virtue circle because if you put in spending power in people's pockets, they're paying more tax and last insurance. They're going out and buying goods and services, which carry VAT. That money comes back then into the checker. And that's then recirculated in investment, in infrastructure, whatever, or in our public services. And all our public servants are an engine for economic growth, too, because they all pay tax and last insurance. And we spend, I think, the public sector procurement in this country, a budget is each year 200 billion pounds. And if we're a bit more strategic on how we use that to actually benefit British industry, then we would do a lot better, I think, and making sure that we're actually generating using that spending party to generate jobs in this country. What a legend. Chris, thank you. Thank you, mate. Yeah, cheers. Absolute pleasure. Thank you for joining us. Go to support.nivoromedia.com. Give us a one-off donation or a subscription so we can clone Chris Williamson. We need 100 Chris Williamsons. And then we'll, I think, we'll be on our way. Thank you so much, mate. That was brilliant. We will see you on Thursday. I was just going to say, we need 100 Chris Williamsons then mandatory reselection so we can actually get them into Parliament. See you on Thursday. Over the last 10 years, things have really changed. But for all the darkness, every cause has an effect. For all the talk,