 Often at party conferences the real headlines are made on the fringes. It's in those more informal settings and with TV cameras far away that Britain's leading politicians let their hair down and even get a little tipsy. It's been speculated that Booze was to blame for this controversial verbal flourish from Angela Rayner. You cannot get any worse than a bunch of scum, homophobic, racist, opportunistic... Those comments clearly went down well in the room. However, they created a lot of hand-ringing on social media about civility in politics. Speaking to Sky the following morning, Rayner refused to back down. Well I think anyone who leaves children hungry during a pandemic and can give billions of pounds to their mates on WhatsApp, I think that was pretty scummy. Now that is a phrase, and let me contextualise it. It's a phrase that you would hear very often in northern working-class towns that we'd even say it jovially to other people, you know, we say it's a scummy thing to do. And that to me is my street language, as you would say, about actually it's pretty appalling that people think that's okay to do. That was Angela Rayner doubling down on calling the Tories scum. However, Keir Starmer was less impressed. Well, Angela and I take different approaches and that is not language that I would use. Should she apologise? Well look, Angela said those words, she takes a different approach. To me we have different approaches to how we get our messages across. It's not language that I would have used. You're a courteous man, do you think she should apologise? Well look, that's a matter for Angela, Andrew, but I would not have used those words. And it goes back to my central point about the respectful way in which we have a debate. But look, at conference there's a fizz of ideas, there are rallies. That wasn't likely respectful, was it? Well there are fizz of ideas, there are arguments, disagreements, cullings together. Angela has said those words. It's not language I would use, conference is a fizz of ideas. A sign of a good political interview is that it's hard to tell which sentences were and weren't part of any briefing. Now it's Keir Starmer always fails on that front. Every sentence he said twice in that interview because he'd clearly been sent out with a bunch of dull talking points to try and change the subject. I would not have said that, which didn't really convince anyone. Ash, what's your take on Scumgate? So look, what this is, is that this is lifted straight from the establishment media playbook. Because what this is about is by marginalising the broader left, by which I mean not just what we would call the left, but anyone really right up to, you know, where's streeting by going, we're going to marginalise you and demonise you by refusing to discuss the political content of what you're actually saying and making out that you're a bunch of wrong hands, that you're mean, that you're nasty, that you can't be trusted, that you're vicious. And I think that this is actually one of the things which was the core of the coverage of the anti-Semitism crisis in Labour. It wasn't really fundamentally about racism because we know that the British media don't actually give a shit about racism. And they don't give a shit about anti-Semitism either when it's time to demonise George Soros or make any other kind of horrible trope against one of what they would consider their political opponents. What it was was about being like you can't trust this person, they're nasty and they're vicious. And what we see is that the same standard has never held to people on the right. You had a Tory MP making a joke about bombing Annalisa Dodd's office and that has had nowhere near the same amount of media coverage. You look at the way in which Diane Abbott has been monstered from all corners of the press and also the Tory party in a way which was playing on sometimes explicit racism but also dog whistle racism, trying to present the fact that she is a dark-skinned black woman and make her out to be stupid, ignorant, unattractive and all of these things. Those smear tactics are never held to the same standard as the left-supposed incivility. Now people are going to have a different take on whether or not you think it's appropriate for a politician to call another politician scum. Personally, I think it's a bit of a road back from Nia Bevan's lower than vermin comments and he knew what he was talking about. But that's going to be according to personal taste. The thing that really bothers me is the way in which Keir Starmer is seemingly unable strategically to identify the box that he's being put in, being held to these impossible standards while his opponents get to say and do whatever they want about him, his party and also marginalise people in the country at large, working class people, welfare recipients, religious and ethnic minorities. And the more in which you play into this frame, more that ultimately you disempower yourself. I don't think anyone really expected him to go out there and say, no, the Tories are scum, she was right to say that. That's not the role he's playing and I think quite sensibly. Labour do need to win some Tory voters. Calling them scum isn't necessarily going to be the way to do that. But he could have gone out there and said, look, that's just Angie being Angie. That's why she's such a brilliant deputy leader. She's a rabble rouser and she has a lot of reasons to be very annoyed at the Tory party. You could give an answer which is much more natural, much more organic, which is a bit more entertaining to listen to. Keir Starmer's interviews are always just so dry and dull and they just make me feel depressed when I watch them. I was reading write-ups of this controversy of scumgate in the press this morning and there were suggestions from sort of some Labour sources and other Shadow Cabinet members that Angela Reina had done this on purpose to dry an overshadow Keir at his Keir Starmer at the Labour Party conference. I think a much more plausible explanation is that she was really, really steaming drunk. Now, I don't have confirmation of this, but why I believe this is because of other things she was saying that night. So Dan Bloom, I think he's a Daily Mirror journalist. He's probably the person who got the recording. He was sort of tweeting out some of the comments Angela Reina was saying that night. They also included, if you are what you eat, I'm a pile of shit tonight because I've eaten some pretty dodgy stuff. There was more meat in my speech today than a chicken kebab down in Manchester. Now, this doesn't really sound to me like someone who's playing cynical political games. It sounds to me like someone who's, you know, being carried away and pissed and having a good time. So I think Skumgate is probably not as deep as some people are making it out to be.