 Since becoming a leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer has struggled with commitment. When it comes to the big questions of the day, the Labour leader has sat on the fence instead of taking a side, and it means most people very reasonably think he stands for nothing. However, this week, speaking to the BBC's Laura Kuhnsberg, he has come up with a pledge he hopes will grab the country's attention. It's to sweat blood to win back the nation's trust. He made the comments after taking part in a focus group with ex-Labor voters in Blackpool. The BBC put out a clip with some of the exchanges which took place in that focus group. First thing is, your party is divided within itself. Get rid of all these sort of bickering people who lose us, you know, they want to lose further by doing what they're doing. If someone's in my shadow cabinet or on my front bench, I can do something about it because I can fire them. If they're on the back bench, then they've got a bit more freedom to say what they want. But I get the point you're making is it doesn't really matter to anybody else. You want to hear one voice. I honestly believe for the Labour Party, it's a stigma of Jeremy Corbyn. He's still 18 months on, and it's still there. People think he's a toxic. Trust is invaluable. If you lose trust in something, or somebody or an organisation, to get that trust back is so difficult. You aren't kind of a death spiral. I mean, we lost really badly in 2019. We lost 66 in a row, and we've got a lot of work to do to rebuild. And we've got to change. You can't lose that badly and say, well, we'll keep things pretty well as they were, which is what we're doing. And what I heard tonight was people, they weren't saying, I'll never trust you. What I heard them saying is I have lost trust in Labour, but I might, I might have trust in the future, but it's down to you to earn it. And that I will do, you know, sweating blood over the next days, weeks, months and years into the next general election. No pressure. It's exactly what I expected. This was always going to be a tough gig. But actually, I'd much rather have the sort of robust discussion I had tonight than the warm bath of simply talking to people who already agree with me. Michael, that was the most infuriating thing I've seen in days. So first of all, the first gentleman that spoke to get rid of all these losers. The BBC was presenting this as this is the core lost Labour vote. You know, the last time he voted Labour, he was quite honest about it, fair enough, 1997. 1997. He hasn't voted Labour for 24 years. What are they going to do next? Are they going to start going to the cemeteries and exhuming people that voted for Harold Wilson in 1964, right, or 1974? Is that what they're going to do? Let's find out what this person can say. This is the quintessence of what Labour should be adhering to. The guy didn't vote for Labour after 1997. They went on to win two general elections without him voting for them. I think they'll be OK. They don't need this guy. Another person, St Jeremy Corbyn's toxic, he last voted for Labour in 2010. So clearly Jeremy Corbyn didn't lose Labour's vote. Jeremy Corbyn was not the leader of the Labour Party for nine years. There was a predecessor. It was Ed Miliband. He says 2010. I mean, maybe he doesn't remember correctly. And then, you know, the other chap saying we have to, you know, get trust back and some guy, I know, I know, I know. Sturma, by the way, was the architect of Labour's remain position. Blackpool South voted 67.5% to leave the European Union. And he slapped those people in the face saying, no, we're going to have another referendum. But the lost trust, nothing to do with me, Gov. And this, to me, says a few things, Michael. Firstly, he has a pathological and this is really this is so dislikable. He has a pathological aversion to taking responsibility. But he does this corporate thing where he says, I'm going to take responsibility. And then he takes zero responsibility, zero. He's never taken any responsibility for the Brexit decision. Never not one Iota of responsibility for it. And the fact this is being broadcast on the BBC. What is this? Is this a proper exercise to collect data? Focus groups do that. Or is this a media stunt? Because in all honesty, you can't do the same two things. And anybody who's familiar with methodology in qualitative research methods will tell you that people, if they're being recorded on a camera for national television, are going to change their answers, right? That you change the conditions under which you ask the questions and you get different answers. So methodologically, it makes this focus group quite weak. I mean, my God, it's just another stunt, Michael. It's just another fucking stunt. It's from a stunt from a man who hasn't got a clue what he's doing. Terrifying. You know, labor at this rate are going to struggle to get their 2019 vote, let alone their 2017 vote, let alone forming a majority. But we know what the excuse is going to be because he only makes excuses. It's going to be, well, it's Jeremy Corbyn's fault. I mean, he says, we have to change. By the way, that's code for saying, I'm going to ditch the 10 pledges. That's what he became the leader by saying, I'm going to have these 10 pledges. There's a bit of continuity on policy. And now he's saying, we've got to change. So every single person that voted for Keir Starmer, well done, because all the things he promised, they're going down the toilet. And the worst thing of all is, I think they'll get fewer votes in the process. The worst guy at the worst time to be leader of the Labour Party right now, when the political dial could have moved so far, so quickly during the course of this pandemic. And actually, it's gone the other way. Congratulations, Keir Starmer. There is also a political purpose to this kind of self-flagellation tour, which is he is very specifically talking to people who are ex-Labor voters, as you say, some of them not since 1997. And this is all part of justifying his project to take the party to the right. What it completely ignores is that just because people who voted for you in 2019, you might not see them as a priority, but they can go elsewhere. And if it seems as if you only care about the people who didn't vote Labour last time around, they're not going to take particularly kindly to that. And that does seem to be the way that Keir Starmer behaves. He essentially says, if you voted Labour in 2019, you're a bit of an idiot. What kind of idiot would have trusted us in 2019? We have to build back that trust because only idiots voted for us then. People don't like that. Now, one group of people who there are suggestions will not like this is the young. The young, obviously overwhelmingly voted for Labour when Jeremy Corbyn was leader. They came up in these focus groups. 25, don't waste your money. Don't waste your money. Don't waste your money. If they want to work, they are already working, but they're just sitting on the back sides. They don't want to because the government are still paying them to sit on their bombs. They will not get up in this country. There's a lot of people under the age of 25 who just don't want to work trying to get everybody into a job. I just don't think that will happen. You're always going to get some people who maybe don't want to work, but there are lots of young people who've been who've lost their job in this pandemic. Lots of people got very, very annoyed by that clip because of, I suppose, what the woman said to Keir Starmer. She said there are lots of people who are under 25 who just don't want to go to work because of essentially because the scheme to pay people money over the pandemic has been too generous. And it was seen that Keir Starmer didn't push back strongly enough against that. I thought potentially that was blaming him for what was said in his presence. It was a highly edited video. What did you make of that particular controversy? Yeah, I think that's a fair judgment. I don't agree with it, but I think it's a fair judgment. Clearly, it would be highly edited. He does clarify that he thinks that's a very minority people. I don't agree with him, by the way. The worst thing than having a job under capitalism is not having a job under capitalism. I've never met a person in my life who had no money, who was broke and who didn't want a job. I've never met a person because it's the worst thing in the world. It's the worst thing in the world. And the only people who say that are people who say otherwise who have never experienced it. And for me, this is a guy who's a barrister, a sir, a QC. What the woman was saying was crap, and he's clearly not on a level with her. But I think, look, if you want to be a leader of the Labour Party and one of your most essential core bases of supporters amongst young people, you need to go back for the Michael and people say, oh, is he patriotic? Does he love his country? You can't be patriotic and love your country. If you think everybody under a certain age is a twat, is a lazy good for nothing. You can't. It means you're a misanthrope. It means you hate what is what is your country? If it's not the people inside it. And so if you attest to all these people, you don't love the country. You're an ignorant misanthrope, which is what that lady is. And sadly, we saw this with the was the Gillian Duffy quote in 2010. You know, Gordon Brown apologised for calling her a racist bigger. She was a racist bigger and Labour needs to have the front like Biden with the Democrats. Sorry, madam. I disagree. That's what he said. And you know what, people are, well, I really like this guy. That's really impressive. He has the front to say I disagree. Yeah, I disagree. I've never met a young person who needs work who refuses a job because they need the money. Sorry, maybe we've had different experiences in life. No, under twenty fives don't want to work. Who's serving your coffee? Who's who's who's who's cleaning your clothes? Who's cleaning your office? Right. Who, you know, who works in the supermarket? Who works in the logistics chains to get the to get food from A to B so that you can eat? All the people in the global south are making all these consumer durables you buy. How old do you think those people are? You know, we in this country in particular are suffering from a cult of of the older generations, hating the young. Now, there are many older people who love the young. I'm not saying it's universal, but there is a real hatred of the young in this country. And I do think it's peculiarly British, very strange. You know, most countries, people love the young. They love children. Oh, wow, what a blessing. Yeah, they seem to hate them. They seem to really hate young people. I've often thought it's inexplicable. But increasingly, that is also that's now also running along class lines and also, you know, cultural lines. They disagree. They have a different relationship with the means of production. They have less likely to be asset owners, their generation rent. As a result, they have different political views. And that is just adding sort of kerosene to the boom of fire of these people hating the young. It's really sad, Michael. It is really, really, really sad because I think it makes those people even more miserable. It's good for nobody. And I think fundamentally, it's now growth of the media environment in this country, but the last thing you want to do is concede an inch to it.