 Welcome to a friday night edition of tisky sour we are less than twenty four hours away from the start of labor party conference i had been speaking about it as if it would be a somewhat depressing affair i think in fact. It could be quite entertaining because kia starmas Stalinist maneuvers are coming a cropper. I'm joined by ash sarkar to talk you through all the big issues we are going to see debated over the coming five or so days are you excited to have your your few days on the beach. What you know my feelings were much like yours i was going in absolutely dreading it and i've got to say there's something kind of amusing about watching kia starma go into his first proper conference as leader just marching in stepping on rakes like side show bob. Rakes which he placed there you know there's completely so many unforced errors going into this this conference anyway we don't we don't need to give you too much of a preview because it's all coming up before we get going you know the school we like to know your fortune comments your questions please do. Tweet on the hashtag tisky sour or or comment under the youtube video or on the twitch stream and subscribe to the channel. Labour Party conference starts tomorrow in Brighton and as we discussed on Wednesday's show the big showdowns will be on rule changes principle among those as a proposal from kia starma that the one member one vote system for electing leaders which elected both him and Jeremy Corbyn would be replaced by an electoral college where members have only one third of the vote the other two thirds going to MPs and trade unions respectively since Wednesday show the backlash to those changes has been growing among the leading Labour politicians said he can has refused to back the move. Asked about the plans on Thursday Mr Khan said I've got to be Frank as the mayor of London internal party rules isn't to the full of my mind I haven't had a chance to look into the changes being considered. Next came the leader of Scottish Labour and I saw what Paul Hudson at the daily record reported. Exclusive Scottish Labour leader and I saw what is the unimpressed with Keir Starmer's conference plan to change leadership rules I don't think it should be our focus it is certainly not my focus I'm going to conference to talk about the issues I care about. Finally today Sarwar and Khan were joined by Angela Rainer she let it be known to the Guardian that she opposes Keir Starmer's intended rule changes. The Guardian report that she has expressed privately to Starmer her opposition to the plans of course as deputy leader Rainer has a seat on Labour's NEC as well as being a generally influential person in the party. More important than any of these politicians though are the trade unions that's both due to the seats they occupy on the National Executive Committee and the votes they control at the conference floor they have half of the votes that on that front there was interesting news from unison this morning. Their Labour link committee which is the part of their union which is elected to input into Labour party processes a majority have come out and said we are against the electoral college we are against these moves proposed by Keir Starmer so if everything is working properly in unison according to their internal democratic norms then unison one of the big unions should be voting against Starmer's plans. Perhaps most significantly Keir Starmer today had a meeting with representatives from all of the trade unions as in a meeting known as Tullo it apparently didn't go very well. This is Gabriel Pogrand from The Sunday Times Union source emphasizes it's not over till it's over but seems Starmer faces humiliation over electoral college reforms if he brings to vote. Trade union and Labour party liaison organization or Tullo meeting was bad nobody defended Starmer even moderate unions look uncertain. I'm told that Starmer claimed he was trying to find a consensus but wouldn't actually address the issues he was instead bollocked. Source says unions one by one claim they hadn't been consulted by leaders office ahead of reforms with even head of Tullo saying they weren't involved in discussions. Showing an awful lot of arrogance there from Starmer and his team just trying to push this through the trade unions pushes through every part of the Labour party without any consultation. Sienna Rogers from Labour list saying a similar thing about that Tullo meeting she said Tullo meeting being described as a car crash for Starmer. Now as we speak there is currently an NEC meeting taking place we had expected there to be a vote on whether to recommend the electoral college rule change to conference. But we understand such a vote has now been postponed that could be voted on tomorrow Sunday or never that's how the Labour party works. Finally if the NEC does ultimately pass the rule change it will have to be ratified on the conference floor on that front. One can assume party staff aren't overwhelmingly confident about its chances that's because they're currently busy purging conference delegates to try and swing it. This morning John McDonnell tweeted the following. Reports coming in of several constituency delegates to conference receiving last minute notices from Labour HQ threatening disciplinary action and barring them attending Labour party conference. It's opening up the party bureaucracy to accusations of a vote fixing beyond farce. Ash I want to get your thoughts on this. I suppose John McDonnell calling it a farce seems quite apt doesn't it. This is all a complete shit show and as we said in the introduction seems to be a massive unforced error from from Keir Starmer. I mean it's hard to see how this could go worse for Keir Starmer because one of the main things. He promised with his candidacy was a degree of competence of organisational and bureaucratic competence. He was the guy who used to be DPP. Do you remember that really cringy hype that he got from somebody which was he can chair a meeting he can draft a minute these might seem like small things but ultimately they're very important. That reputation has completely disintegrated over the last few days. It's quite clear that the more ambitious members of the Labour Party Angela Rainer of course, Sadiq Khan, Anas Sarwar who I think all have potential ambitions for bigger jobs than the ones that they've got now. They've realised that how this looks to the public and also to the rest of the party is quite silly and petty. That it looks very myopic. These things aren't important particularly when the country is faced with a cost of living crisis and energy crisis potential fuel and food shortages as well. So this looks really, you know, small petty unimportant in comparison with what the country is actually facing. Also furthermore, it's being so bungled in its execution. It's hard to think of, you know, the kind of slick political machine of tiny Blair cocking something up this badly. There was obviously the bungled attempt to take out Tom Watson in the Corbyn years but I don't think that there was anything quite as embarrassing as this. We're being hyped up by, you know, Peter Mandelson and Matt Pound and whoever else it is from the Labour right. Kissed Armour goes in having drastically overestimated the strength of his own hand thinking that he could go in and force a rule change on unwilling and unsupportive unions and without a majority of support in the NEC. So you've really got a question. The political now and strategic, you know, basic strategic competence of a man who can go in and make this kind of decision. I got very distracted because while you were very eloquently speaking, I could see a gorgeous little kitten in the background. I hope to see what is it? He or she? I was quite mean about the kitten last time. I'm going to be more, I'm going to be more positive about the kitten this time. Yeah, you have to be nice because he's actually in the room. His name is Moosa. Moosa? Gorgeous. Moosa. After Moosa Dembele, Moosa Sasaka, two Spurs midfielders. Thank you for the clarification there. I was just going to sort of nod along. A key question, the two key questions here. This is from Saul with a five. Thank you very much. If Kierstarmour can't get his changes passed, why did he push them in competence? Or is there a reason why the Labour right needs to get them passed now? That is the million dollar question really. It's potentially all of those things. So, I mean, the official story from Starmour's operation, what they're briefing out is that since the Conservatives are suggesting they might have a general election in 2023, then they have to get the rule changes out of the way at this conference. So next conference, they can be talking about the issues that matter, the idea there being that whenever you debate internal party rules, you take a bit of a hit. So you should do that as far away from an election as possible. Obviously, the more cynical explanation for why it's happening now is because they're worried that if there is that snap election and Kierstarmour loses, then he's going to have to resign and they want to make sure that no left winger can replace him. You could go even further and say potentially he wants to resign before a general election. And so they're trying to fix the rules for when he does that. Maybe he will feel more free to resign when there isn't the danger of a left winger replacing him. The incompetence element here does seem quite significant though, because I assume if he'd realized it would have gone like this, he wouldn't have announced earlier in the week that he wanted to reintroduce the electoral college. Because I imagine, you know, we often hear that most of the big unions have elected leaders which are supportive of Kierstarmour, GMB, Unison, Unite, the one big outlier there. So I assume he thought he could push this through quite easily. It hasn't worked. And what this reminds me of actually is his attempt to demote Angela Reina. That was a point in time where his team and Kierstarmour himself judged that that was a time after the loss in Hartley-Paul to stamp their authority on the party and they completely underestimated their opponents. They thought that Kierstarmour was all-powerful in the Labour Party. They tried to decapitate his main rival who was also the elected deputy, or still is, the elected deputy leader of the party. And it blew up in their faces. And, you know, I'm really pleased to see that it seems to be happening again. I mean, it could be the case. We cannot declare victory. It could quite easily be the case that the trade unions are sort of, or at least some of them, are making a bit of a show of this saying that we're standing our ground. We're not going to be pushed over by Kierstarmour. And then ultimately they will, you know, accede to his request. Maybe there'll be some sort of compromise deal in the next couple of days, which will equally lock out someone of Corbyn's ilk, because it does seem like there are lots of powerful people in those moderate trade unions or the trade unions where it wasn't a left-winger who was elected most recently who don't want to see another socialist campaign group MP be elected leader. But it's definitely not going as smoothly as Kierstarmour had hoped. Ash, if you were a betting woman, I don't know, maybe you are. Let's assume you are. Would you bet on Starmour passing a change to the leadership rules over the next few days? I don't think that his hand is strong enough, quite frankly. I think that while certain unions might want to do a bit of horse trading to sort of hold their support for the rule change hostage in return for, you know, some kind of, you know, policy that they'd like to see implemented or not implemented as rumour has it with regards to the GMB and the Green New Deal, while that could be the case, I think that Starmour's position is so weak that there's not really so much of a disincentive to humiliate him. Do you know what I mean? Whereas the usual rule would be, well, you know, certain unions wouldn't want to see a leader's authority fatally wounded by denying him a rule change, but when he clearly doesn't have confidence in his own leadership or chances at general election, is in a panic trying to secure a route for a successor who is from the party's right wing, then why would any union say, well, let's spare his blushes and his reputation? I mean, it is also worth saying, the rule change he is trying to do, because, you know, in Corbyn's era, there are often sort of rule change parts or changing the fresh hold instead of 15% of MPs, you need 10% of MPs or, you know, whatever the details were. What Keir Starmer is proposing is a fundamental change to the leadership rules. And the last time that happened when Ed Miliband did it in 2014 and introduced one member, one vote, there had been a whole review. It's called the Collins Review. So there was this whole review where all different parts of the Labour Party were consulted. Someone draws up a review, there's a special conference, you know, this wasn't something that was just decided in the dead of night in a smoky room, and then everyone's hand was forced. So it's very unusual to try and push through something this fundamental without having consulted anyone first. And I think it just does show the complete arrogance of Keir Starmer and also his, I suppose, his inexperience when it comes to politics. We saw that already, as I said, when he tried to promote Angela Rayner. Anyway, the one thing I can say is that it has made, you know, me much more excited about conference than I was previously. So we're going to have some interesting shows over the next few days. Let's go to our next story. What Starmer's been busy with if it hasn't been political management. Keir Starmer's much-anticipated 12,000-word essay was released on 11 p.m. on Wednesday night. The pamphlet published with the Fabian Society pledged to repair the public finances and ended with the 10 principles that Keir Starmer said would guide his leadership and bring about what he calls a contribution society. The 10 principles are we will always put hard-working families and their priorities first. If you work hard and play by the rules, you should be rewarded fairly. People and businesses are expected to contribute to society as well as receive. Your chances in life should not be defined by the circumstances of your birth, hard work and how you contribute should matter. Families, communities and the things that bring us together must once again be put above individualism. The economy should work for citizens and communities. It is not good enough to just surrender to market forces. The role of government is to be a partner to private enterprise, not stifle it. The government should treat taxpayer money as if it were its own. The current levels of waste are unacceptable. The government must play its role in restoring honesty, decency and transparency in public life. And finally, we are proudly patriotic, but we reject the divisiveness of nationalism. Those are the 10 principles that Keir Starmer say are going to guide his leadership and any government which he leads. There are a few principles there that are potentially worrying by focusing on playing by the rules. Our labour laying the ground for an attack on so-called benefit cheats on legal immigrants, people who don't play by the rules. And by speaking of government spending as if the state were a household, is he opening the door to more austerity? It might be too early to say. These are all very vague, ambiguous statements. What people from all sides of the political aisle have noticed though is a problem not with what the list of principles includes, but what it leaves out. Namely, anything to distinguish labour from the Tories. ITV's political editor Robert Peston tweeted, the striking thing about Keir Starmer's road ahead, his 12,000 word profession of fundamental beliefs, is that it is not impossible to imagine Boris Johnson saying almost all of it, apart from the sentence about giving more power to trade unions to recruit and organise, which is not to argue that Starmer's labour and Johnson's Tories would do the same thing, but it shows that words are not the dividing line in today's politics, and that is more of a problem for an opposition for a government, or for an opposition than for a government. Even more notable than the tweets from Peston was one from Gavin Barwell. Barwell is a former Tory MP, former Tory cabinet member, and served as chief of staff to Theresa May. In response to the essay, he said, just read Keir Starmer's 10 principles. I agree with eight of them, and partially agree with the other two. This either means I am in the wrong party, or they are so bland that they don't tell us anything useful about what he would do if he became Prime Minister. Ash, some people might argue this is a strength of an essay. Even the opponents are forced to agree with what Keir Starmer has said. Other people might say that was only possible because the essay was so vacuous. Well, the essay is entirely vacuous. When you read it, or 14,000 words of it, it's been focused group to the extent that you have a kind of emotional story and images which kind of work as long as you don't think too hard about them. And then the minute you apply any kind of critical interrogation, the whole thing begins to fall apart because it's not so much an essay, a statement about Keir Starmer's theory of the world or his theory of change. It's really a set of images and vibes, right? It really is 14,000 words of vibes only, which might be appropriate in a kind of party political broadcast where it is just about kind of emotions and images and then the Labour Party logo slathered on top of it. But for an essay which is really articulating who you are, what you're about, what your view of the world is and how you're going to change it, it's completely and utterly inadequate. So I think that this idea of, well, you could imagine Boris Johnson saying any of this stuff. He was saying, well, I agree with eight of the 10 principles and two I kind of agree with as well. I think that shows how vacuous Keir Starmer's so-called vision, his agenda-setting essay really is. I think there were some phrases in there which particularly stood out to me as one of those things, which is very much a vibes-only kind of phrase. And for me, the one which kept coming back to me was this notion of the hard-working families. Whenever Keir Starmer's talking about family life, the defining feature of it is hard work. Now, that is something which might pass an initial focus group test where you give a list of words to people and you go, what do you think about this? And it's like, oh yeah, families should work hard. They should work hard. But who actually in their heart of hearts thinks that the defining feature of family life is work rather than love or quality time or affection or mutual support or whatever it might be? So there are these things which are very kind of flimsily held together by a kind of quite shallow sense of social conservatism and appeal to an imagined English decency. But ultimately, I've got nothing of real substance to say to anybody, at least of all the votes in public. And I suppose, I mean, the real danger there is because you could, I think, probably. I mean, I don't have actually that much conviction when I say this, but let's try this. I think you probably could make a sort of progressive prospectus around things like hardworking families. But you'd have to be very, very clear as to what you are opposing them to. What are you opposing hardworking families to? Are you opposing them to the rich and powerful and tax dodgers? Or are you opposing them to families that don't work hard? Families on benefits, maybe families who have disabled members who aren't able to go to work, right? If you don't do that work, if you don't be very clear and specify what you are contrasting these hardworking families to, then the Tories, the media, and people's, you know, that's going to activate in people's minds these ideas which we have been primed with for years, which is that the big opponent of hardworking families is families who don't work hard. You know, it's not the tax dodging, wealth extracting, wealthy, it's the benefit sheets. And there is sort of very little in anything Keir Starmer has said in quite a long time, actually, probably since the leadership election, to suggest that he is, you know, very averse to, you know, drawing upon a frame whereby you are pitching hardworking families against non-hardworking families. I mean, following the rules especially, I think is... I mean, that for me really just invokes Pretty Patel talking about migration. You know, these people, they might have come over the channel and they might be desperate, but they haven't followed the rules. They should have done it in a way that followed the laws like the rest of us do. I do find it hard to see how that could be progressive. And also getting the nation's public finances in order. I mean, it's just... It's a million miles away from even centre-left politicians elsewhere in the world. So on the same day that Keir Starmer published that essay, Joe Biden tweeted, It's time for it to change. Now, I saw some people sort of mock Joe Biden because they're saying, look, you're the president. You're the president. You're not just a sort of social commentator. Do something about it. At the same time though, this does show to me how out of step Keir Starmer is with the times. It's like this essay could have been written in the early 90s and he hasn't woken up to the fact that the world has fundamentally changed since then. What would you have put in a 12,000 word essay, Ash? What would I have put in a 12,000 word essay? I'd be like, do absolutely anything else other than read this. There's a reason why like most undergrad and even master's dissertations are capped at 8,000 to 10,000 words. Nobody needs to read something 12,000 words long. But I think that this is kind of precisely the point about why there is such a lack of authenticity within this essay. It's because it's not actually about Keir Starmer communicating with the public. It's not even about Keir Starmer communicating with the Labour membership. What this is supposed to do is signal to political editors and lobby journalists that this guy is serious. He's sensible and Labour aren't just a party of wrongans anymore. One of the ways in which I described it for a piece that I wrote was that it is one half of a ventriloquist's act. And the other half of it is, you know, some new statesman columnist cooing about how serious and prime ministerial this guy really is. It's Labour, but not as you know it. The problem is that it's so boring and it's so verbose and bloviating and contentless that even people who'd really expect to rally behind this mid-90s view of the world are kind of turned off by it. You know, Tony Blair didn't put out a 12,000 word essay. He passed out cards at conference which were like this big with like three pledges on it. That's why he was a more skillful communicator. Say what you like about Jeremy Corbyn when he was articulating himself, he wasn't necessarily the king of brevity. You'd ask him to give a speech and he'd always start somewhere around the chartists and then move forward to the present day. But it was very clear what he was about. It was taxing the wealthy, fund public services, don't bomb the Middle East. These things were very, very clear. Whereas Keir Starmer has taken 12,000 words to tell us absolutely nothing. It's a waste of everybody's time. I don't know if there is a physical copy. It would be a bit of a waste of paper. I've only seen the PDF so far. Maybe they'll be handing it out at conference. Let's go to some comments. Apologies first. There were lots of super chats earlier in the stream and most of them because of the tech issues which you probably know about by now. The ones we do have Pocket Wisdom with 1799. Thank you very much. Just wanted to say happy birthday to my good friend and fellow Brightonian. Radildos. I hope I pronounced that name right. I haven't seen that one before. Thanks for my Navara tea back in June. Keep fighting the good fight. Happy birthday. Glad the Navara tea. You enjoyed it. If you do want to get any of our merch, please do go to navara.media.shop. Joshua Youngerman with a fiver. Ash, what will be more exciting? The Left Beating Starmer in Brighton or Arsenal Beating Spurs this weekend is that an Arsenal jersey on your cat? Did you just ask if my boy Moussa was wearing an Arsenal jersey? I would never let that trash touch even one hair from his tabby coat. So wash your mouth out. Also, we all know that form doesn't matter in a North London derby. It's an important match. It's happened before that one team is out of form and they pull it out the bag for a North London derby. So, you know, don't be like Keir Starmer. Don't get overconfident. Don't overplay your hand and embarrass yourself. The most exciting thing I should say this weekend will neither be on the conference floor or, you know, wherever this football match is taking place. It is going to be at the World Transformed and, in particular, the two panels Navarro Media are doing this weekend there because this weekend, Navarro Media will be at TWT. We'll be hosting two discussion panels at 7pm on Saturday and on Sunday. Both the events will be broadcast here on our YouTube channel. Make sure you subscribe for that at the end of the show and we'll give you a preview for now. Do make sure you like this video and we're going to go on to our next story. On the same day that Keir Starmer released his 12,000 word essay on what he stands for, one of the co-authors of the pamphlet released his own piece in the new statesman. Philip Collins was a speechwriter to Tony Blair and he's now helping Starmer with his conference speech. The subheading of the essay in the new statesman was in a changed world, the party is unsure quite what or who it stands for. Now it's potentially not a great look for a speechwriter to admit they don't know what their own party stands for. Interesting choice. But I want to focus on another bit of the essay because Philip Collins now working with Keir Starmer has a go at a member of Starmer's shadow cabinet, Ed Miliband. The first of Collins argument is that Labour has to drop its commitment to socialism to appeal to the electorate and he is especially critical of the shadow business secretary for this intervention he made on a recent episode of Newsnight. It was an emergency. We would be investing in the green recovery. We would be borrowing to invest because it makes sense to do that. Ed, I'm going to put to you at your conference a Labour socialist grouping is going to ask Labour to vote for their green new deal which is energy, water, transport going back into public ownership. We're in favour of common ownership. Keir Starmer said that. There's always management of these things at conferences but yet I can tell you we're in favour of common ownership. Energy, water, transport all goes back into public ownership under Labour. Wait for the conference but Keir Starmer said in his leadership campaign he was in favour of public ownership in those areas. We haven't changed that commitment. In particular in relation to natural monopolies if we're going to make this green transition then public ownership is the right way to go. We don't result from those commitments. So we may see the Labour front bench voting in favour of that. We may well see that. Philip Collins called that performance on Newsnight a strangely fiery display. But what's his concrete problem with it? Interestingly Collins doesn't criticise the policy of nationalising Britain's utilities and he notes that even the Conservative Government are now considering bringing any of the bigger energy companies into public ownership were they to fail. Indeed Collins says he personally has no particular ideological opposition to public ownership. Instead Collins' opposition to Ed Miliband is political. Because while common ownership might be a good thing it is never something that should be proposed by Labour. What does he mean by this? Let's take a look at the quote in question. So Philips writes The reason Ed Miliband is wrong is that politics is unsymmetrical and unfair. When the business secretary discusses an intervention in the energy market it is a little surprising. It sounds like an exception to a rule that is being breached because the circumstances are indeed exceptional. That's when a Tory does it. When Labour says the same thing it sounds like the arrival of the ideological cavalry. The same thing happened with the price cap which sounded like the essence of Labour when Ed Miliband proposed it and a one-off aberration when Theresa May did. This is not about whether it is right or wrong. It is about the political signal that is emitted. Quartet comes across as acting briefly out of character for reasons of temporary pragmatism. The Labour Party sounds like its moment has finally arrived. The long and the short of this argument from Philip Collins is that while left-wing policies might work they can only be introduced by the Tories because if Labour were to argue for them it would seem too ideological. Ash, this is a guy writing Keir Starmer's conference speech which presumably we'll hear on Tuesday or Wednesday and he's saying that only the Tories can implement progressive policies. What reason does that give anyone to vote for Labour? Look, there's a reason why I call him the wrong Philip Collins. I don't think that he's particularly insightful. That's my experience of his work. What he has laid out is a strategy for the country to keep moving inexorably right-wards. You praise the Tories whenever they do anything the slightest bit progressive, whether that's nationalisation or an energy price cap. You say nothing when they do things which are perfectly predictable. For instance, implement hostile environment policies, dish out taxpayers' cash to their old uni mates or cut vital funding from public services. What do Labour do in order to confound expectations? They just come out with right-wing policies because it makes them seem pragmatic metres of the moment. So should Keir Starmer not in favour of torture and capital punishment? Would it have been better if Diane Abbott instead of taking a principled stance against the hostile environment said, you know what, lock them all up, throw away the key, and if you can't do that, deport them. It's a really silly world view because it forgets that you are actually fighting for a set of politics. The ultimate goal isn't simply do you get the two-point bounce in this week's YouGov. To implement changes that you think will transform the country for the better and that means making a case for the things that you think will transform the country for the better. Simply traipsing along right-wards in the hope that you're one day going to get a pat on the head from the Daily Mail of the Times is silly. And we've also seen how it's bitten Keir Starmer on the arse going into the pandemic saying, well, we're going to support this government, we're not going to oppose for opposing's sake. It meant that when he did come out and criticize the government, you had the political journalist who had once cooed over him for writing something in the telegraph or writing something in the Daily Mail going, but you said you support the government. Haven't you thrown away your right to criticize them? So it's completely silly from a strategic point of view. But again, I wouldn't expect anything else from the wrong Philip Collins. It is really worrying to me this kind of thing because this is why under new Labour, we ended up with everyone thinking the real problem in society was asylum seekers and benefits cheats because the Labour Party for, oh look, the people who like public services and who like immigrants, they've got nowhere else to go so we're going to focus all our attention on saying we're tough on asylum seekers and we're tough on benefit cheats. If you read the book by Philip Gold, another wrong in Philip, he was one of the pollsters for Tony Blair who do all of these focus groups and say, they want you to be more right wing, they want you to be more right wing and so Labour, even though they were in government, even though they had the levers of power and they could have done things like regulate the Murdoch press, instead what they did was pander to it and say we have to speak to our vulnerabilities and their vulnerabilities were always that they weren't right wing enough so they'd move to the right, then that would move public opinion to the right and they'd have to move to the right again. It's actually internal to the logic that I've seen there is that when the Tories propose left wing policy, it makes that policy seem reasonable. So when Kwasi Kwarteng says we might have to, I mean he hasn't used these words, but if those gas companies fail, they have essentially said the administrators will come in and for a while it will come into public ownership. They don't want to just do a bailout. What Philip Collins is saying is that when Kwasi Kwarteng says that because he's right wing, people think, oh that must be reasonable then. That means it's reasonable. Well the converse of that works as well. If Labour are saying the public finances are in a dire straight, then that must be reasonable. When Boris Johnson says the public finances are in a dire straight, so we need austerity, people by this point in time say oh this is just the same old Tories, why should I believe them? When Keir Starmer stands up and says, oh well even the Labour Party agree. This is what it means to move public opinion to the right. You're confirming all of the Tories prejudices and saying oh no we back those as well. It's really depressing. Especially as they'll say oh this is just a cynical tactic to get into power. One, if you get into power on that politics and you end up implementing right wing policies as we saw with new Labour. Two, they're probably not even going to get into power. So all we're going to have is an opposition who reinforces all of the Tories attempt to move British public opinion to the right and then lose anyway. There's a real lose-lose situation there. Let's go to some comments. Nicola Curtin with a Fiverr on YouTube says, what do you think the chances are of David Evans not being confirmed as General Secretary this weekend? I could be wrong but I'd say very, very low. So there is going to be, I think it's going to be this weekend potentially tomorrow a vote on whether David Evans should be confirmed. It's in the rule book that the NEC points the General Secretary and then it has to be confirmed by conference. Normally that's been a complete formality. This time around there's going to be a card vote which means that they have to count the number of people in each CLP what the delegates represent and in the unions what each union represents. So it means doing it very properly. Normally this would be a formality. I think it's unlikely that enough of the trade unions would vote against that because you've got to remember it's the NEC who appointed David Evans including a majority of the trade union reps on the NEC so if they were to vote against him keeping the job they would essentially be saying we got it wrong. They'd probably see that as creating too much disquire. Also I think it does matter especially for the trade unions. They like things to be done properly. So one of the reasons why Keir Starmer's having such problems with this Electoral College is that the trade union's like we want to be consulted about these things. We like things to work as they are supposed to work. Keir Starmer hasn't put forward this rule change in a manner by which the norms of the Labour Party suggest you should whereas the norms of the Labour Party also suggest you should confirm the General Secretary. So I imagine it will happen. Obviously I'd love it if he wasn't because he is a terrible General Secretary who's purging everyone for political reasons left, right and centre which is very bad for the left democracy as well. We live in a two-party system. If you can just purge anyone for any arbitrary reason that's terrible. But as I say, I think he will survive. Joseph Bates says, Ash is my hero, Ash is my hero too. I agree with you Joseph Bates. Dan with a tenor says, I can't afford to travel from Manchester to Brighton hotels with deer but I'm desperate to see TWT. Do you know why there isn't an option to join virtually or even a recording after? Well I can say to that I mean our events are both going out on our YouTube channel so we've got an event on Saturday night and Sunday night going out on our YouTube channel and as far as I understand it quite a lot of TWT is going to be streamed as well. There is an online section of the festival I can't give you as much details about the General TWT Festival as I can about the Navara events there. Let's go on to our next story. In the run up to Labour Party conference Keir Starmer has given a series of interviews to ITV's regional news teams and when speaking to ITV in the North East Starmer was played a clip of voters in Concert County Durham. Take a look at how he responds. We've been out today to Concert County Durham to ask people for their views on your leadership if I can play you a little bit of that now. Tell me what you think Keir Starmer sounds like. Erm... All I know is the Labour leader and that's it. I don't think he's as strong as what he should be I mean this guy Boris Johnson should be giving him a good hate really. I thought Labour was about the people the working class people and that but I'm not too sure that's what he stands for. What do you make of that? Well it reinforces my point that in the last 18 months I've not been able to get out and make the argument the way I wanted to what I would ask you to do next time you're in Darlington, I think on your patch Concert that way. Just to give you a counter example in Darlington when you're next there with a camera go and talk to the taxi rank drivers because every time I've been through Darlington I've been having a conversation I stopped and talked to them about they were having a really tough time in Covid I stopped at the time and talked to them I actually went back to talk to them two or three weeks later and they said Boris Johnson without our knowledge of them and they said I stopped, talked to them heard what they were saying and then came back so actually I take this on the chin take your camera to Darlington to the taxi driver That was Keir Starmer saying they might not like me in Concert but if you go to a different nearby town and find two specific taxi drivers who I've spoken to at length then they will tell you something different Also the only reason we're expecting them to say something different is because they were impressed that Keir Starmer talked to them twice apparently according to this anecdote Ash, it's an interview tactic I'm not sure I've seen before in political interviews where they say these people we spoke to didn't like you say well I've got this one genuine working class reference who happens to be in a town somewhere else in Britain who maybe you should interview instead I mean it was such a weak response as well because it wasn't oh you might not know this but I actually spoke to these taxi drivers in Darlington and this is what I did for them his whole boast is I acknowledged the existence of these taxi drivers in Darlington not once but on two separate occasions I spoke to them and I looked them in their little flinty eyes and everything like it actually comes across as incredibly patronizing condescending as if he thinks he's the queen and merely waving out of a motorcade well you know make these peasants days you know so I think it was a really weird way to respond to it. I think though there is something really interesting in the framing of that entire interview and I think that this is something which was established in 2019 and is going to keep happening until the left works out how to deal with the fact that its support comes from and when I say the left I'm talking about the wider left you know from Jeremy Corbyn all the way up to I know we're going to talk about him in a second was Streeting but this problem which is that the left's core support is coming from you know electorally inconvenient concentrations of under 40s who live in the cities and now what this whole notion of the red wall and in particular the red wall town has become is a disciplining tool so you can go out and do any old vox pop and you can interview people who from that video are over 40 years old and you've got a brilliant video package of people saying exactly why they think you're a prick or why you're a failure and the job of the Labour Party is to go um well I like me I guess and that's great and you don't see the reverse happening right so you don't see somebody with a microphone going down to I don't know Tower Hamlets and going do you think about Boris Johnson well obviously people would go I think he's prick I hate him but it's not used as a disciplining tool in the same way because when it's framed like this it's ah you don't speak to the country now Kirstam's response to that was incredibly weak it was far so cool how silly his response was also it made it sound as if he'd mixed up concert in Darlington you know he didn't even say well if you go down the road in Darlington I spoke to at least two taxi drivers on two separate occasions um you know it sounded almost like he'd mixed it up and he kind of never recovered from it but this is a line of questioning and a method of delegitimizing progressive politics in this country that ultimately we're all going to have to get a grip on you can't keep allowing 2019 to be the stick which hits you around the head and you know you've got a video package of people telling you shit and you've got to go oh yeah no I am but you've got to come up with a more compelling response otherwise no one's going to vote for you if you go oh yeah actually they're right I am a cunt why is anybody going to vote for you well the response as well should be you know a confident response is to say well look I'm sorry they think that but I think if they were to hear our program for the country what Labour would be offering and then you list those policies then I hope I would be able to change their mind well they might not like me but these two guys in Darlington do just sort of like okay that's fine that's great that's good for you that's good for Darlington because the other thing with a political interview is a chance for you to communicate to the public you're trying to change people's minds in that interview and do you seriously think that anyone is going to feel like oh maybe Chris Dahmer I do actually trust drivers in Darlington I mean also these taxi drivers they would probably just be in polite right and you don't expect a taxi driver to say look no you're an idiot blah blah blah blah blah they would probably just be in polite to the guy do you remember in the 2008 presidential election Joe the plumber yes but I can't remember Joe the plumber discourse it was when John McCain was sort of trying to prove his like connection to the blue collar man was telling all these anecdotes about what Joe the plumber said and then like reporters went out and they found the real Joe the plumber who wasn't you know who was going to vote for John McCain but it was also kind of ridiculous because it was like I've met somebody who works in a manual profession and they've also proved the perfect vehicle through which I can ventriloquise the things that I already wanted to say like there's no clumsy when you do that there's no elegant way to try and pull that off I think it's always faintly absurd the other interesting thing about this particular anecdote is why does Keir Starmer in particular know the taxi drivers in Darlington he's seen them at least twice potentially knows them quite well it's worth noting the seat of Starmer's former political secretary and key ally and friend apparently Jenny Chapman is in Darlington we won't delve any further into that particular topic but she did go on to receive a peerage from Keir Starmer we're going to go on to our final story first of all a tweet not at Tisgy Sour but some news to update you this is from Gabriel Pogren from the Times hearing Gary Smith of GMB so he's their general secretary was generally furious repeatedly asking Starmer if he appreciated how embarrassing it is for Labour to be backing 10 pound an hour not the 15 pound advocated by his union so broad agreeance is dovetailing with anger over reform so GMB we had heard earlier in the week were inclined to support the Electoral College move it was reported you know one of the conditions is they wanted to get rid of the Green New Deal and potentially Ed Miliband I'm not in a position to confirm that that was a speculation which was circulating now it seems like they're going against Keir Starmer for other reasons there of course Labour should be arguing for 15 pound an hour that might mean he'd have something to say when he's shown images of people saying he doesn't stand for anything before we go to our final story this show is possible because of our supporters if you already donate the equivalent of one hour's wage a month thank you so much you make all of this possible we are forever grateful if you do want to set up a direct debit please do go to supportnevaramedia.com slash support obviously you don't have to set up a direct debit one of donations are also incredibly welcome I'm going to go to a tweet as well on Starmer's essay Joe Skeeping tweets on the hashtag Tisgy Sour everyone knows that the 14,000 word essay was vacuous and hollow the purpose was not to articulate a vision but to defend a certain kind of content free politics that was dominant in the era of Blair talking of content free politics that was dominant in the era of Blair our next story is about Wes Streeting Keir Starmer's attempt to change the rules to elect his successor has led to a lot of speculation as to whether he's considering standing down and we are already hearing rumors of MPs maneuvering to replace him Tisgy Sour viewers I'm afraid I must inform you one of them is apparently Wes Streeting the register of MPs interest shows that in the past year Streeting has raised 45,000 pounds from free wealthy donors and Huffington Post has spoken to Labour sources suggesting he's planning a run to quote a Labour source as saying people are talking about the Wes Streeting leadership road show and whether Keir's office realise it's happening and don't care or don't see that it's happening he's basically mid campaign now even though there is no contest he is everywhere doing everything he's trying to do rounds of union delegation dinners he looks to be the runner for the right at the moment this account has been backed up by Owen Jones who in response has repeated the following I've been repeatedly briefed that some of Stammer's current and former aides have given up on his prospects and are now pinning their hopes on Wes Streeting who they hope can be made Labour leader via the Electoral College for those who are not familiar with Wes Streeting he is one of the most viciously factional right wing MPs currently in the Labour Party and the archetype of a career driven Blair right like many right wingers in the party Streeting's rise was thanks to organising within Labour students their support in 2008 helped him to become president of the National Union of Students which under his leadership dropped its commitment to abolishing tuition fees Streeting then went on to work for progress Stonewall and Pricewaterhouse Coopers before being elected to Parliament in 2015 once an MP Streeting became known for committing an inordinate amount of time to sending negative quotes about Jeremy Corbyn to a hostile media that included in 2016 when on the request of the Bakers Union Labour banned McDonald's from purchasing a stand at party conference they'd done that to protest the firm not recognising the union Wes Streeting responded with this comment to the sun on Sunday I'm exasperated that we should throw away 30,000 pounds worth of sponsorship like this it smacks of a snobby attitude towards fast food, restaurants and people who work or eat at them McDonald's may not be the trendy falafel bar that some people in politics like to hang out at but it's enjoyed by families across the country complete misrepresentation of what was going on McDonald's was not banned from conference because the party had negative attitudes about people who eat at McDonald's it was because the Bakers Union one of the affiliated unions was annoyed at McDonald's for not recognising their union completely ridiculous but why ignore the opportunity to deliver a Murdoch paper a negative story even if it ignores the facts a few more reasons you might recognise Wes Streeting he told Sky in the run up to the 2017 general election that Jeremy Corbyn would not make a good pro-minister during the election campaign and he was one of the right wing media's favourite contacts to call upon when they wanted an MP to say that Corbyn was soft on antisemitism Ash could Labour's future really be one led by Wes Streeting I'm sorry I'm just still really stuck on falafel bar like what's a trendy falafel bar like falafel is like you know like cheap food you know run by somebody's Turkish uncle you know it's not like a kebab shop essentially it's just it's just a veggie kebab you know you had to give him something other than halloumi and I think it just speaks to and I know this is a bit off topic the really weird and like psychologically loaded politics of food and food as class signifier that we have in this country but particularly when like the left is trying to litigate like what constitutes you know a proletarian habit what constitutes a middle class one people start saying ridiculous things like there are trendy falafel bars rather than that's the wrap which you can get for a five or as opposed to a seven pound you know Donna meat one and you know things like lemon or like feta cheese or like basil become like incredibly exotic and rare rather than something which has become a pretty integral part of the British diet over the last 30 years but that's really off topic it's just something which I feel very strongly about I think what this shows is that the labour right truly is out of ideas and all they've got is a set of aesthetic political gestures so we're treating as somebody who as you said is a career politician he's not somebody who came up through the trade union movement or was a community organiser he's somebody who really committed himself to kind of the most low stakes and factually vicious politics that exists i.e campus politics and won and was like okay I was good at that I'm going to get into the Labour Party but what he actually offers in terms of a vision a policy platform a theory of change or a view of how the world works it's scanty flimsy verging on non-existent I'm not saying this as a par I'm just saying that you would have thought that the labour right if they were confident of their powers within the party they perhaps would have been able to call on an MP with a bit more experience maybe a bit more to say for themselves a bit more of I don't know say strategist somebody who has given politics and what they want to do about it a lot of thinking rather than simply been able to cannily react to various media blow-ups in order to position themselves more favourably in the eyes of the country's political editors and current affairs producers it doesn't speak to me of a hugely confident Labour right if that's their guy We should potentially put Wes Streeting's mugshot on our screen more often because it's made us some money Buzzbeard with 899 sending you this begging you to remove Streeting's mugshot from our screens immediately and LB comes in with 9 quid right all of a count with 2 pounds says where's Streeting hates Takataka which I very quickly googled which I think is a falafel bar or I mean I don't know I've just never been to like a falafel bar I've been to like a falafel fast food place where really the prices are comparable with McDonald's Takataka go Greek I don't have time to look through the prices let's go to another story about money which is the same story I said that Wes Streeting has got 45 thousand pounds in the last year it's interesting to see who that money is from so according to the register of interests Anthony Watson who is a financial services entrepreneur donated 15 thousand pounds he had previously bankrolled the Owen Smith campaign when he challenged Corbin 20,000 pounds was from Francesca Perrin she runs something called the Indigo Trust which is part of the Sainsbury family philanthropy network and 10,000 pounds was from Lord Waheed Ali a media entrepreneur very interestingly of the 45,000 pound donated this year 40,000 pounds was in August so 40,000 pounds in a single month what does Wes know that we don't luckily if there is a leadership election I own a video which could tank the whole thing let's take a look everyone changed their tune after that 2017 general election didn't they they've been saying oh he couldn't possibly win he does very well finally they come round to it and talk about oh potentially he was a good leader obviously they memory hold that now no one is allowed to talk about 2017 ever again Ash we're obviously Corbin supporters but can you imagine the conservatives putting Wes Streeting singing oh Jeremy Corbin into some kind of attack ad he's going to be running as the guy who was publicly opposed to Jeremy Corbin and therefore not tainted by 2019 yeah I mean maybe but that's the thing is that it has also been an attack line which is used on Keir Starmer which is now you're turning your back on Jeremy Corbin didn't you fight a general election saying he's the right guy to be PM and that's the that's the problem with these politicians who really try and distinguish themselves by how not Jeremy Corbin they really are well you went into two general elections with that guy as your party leader you know you stood on his policy platform and in where Streeting's case you sang oh Jeremy Corbin with Navarra Media's very own Michael Walker so what changed it does look I think self-serving and hypocritical um but you know look how happy he looked in that video I think you sort of unlocked his authentic self he just wants to be a fun Corbin Easter out in the sunshine with you Michael he doesn't want to be a Blair right taking swipes at imaginary falafel bars you know you had him living his best life one looks happy when they're standing close to me at London Pride I don't think we can read too much politically into that um there is one reason that Wes Streeting standing in a leadership election could be good is because if Clive Lewis who is another sort of standout option to stand in any future leadership election stands we could relive relitigate this legendary Twitter interaction from 2013 this is when Clive Lewis and Wes Streeting were both prospective candidates Clive Lewis says Blair and Miliband split over future of Labour Tony baby stick your fluffy eXmas cards you had your chance stick to your fluffy eXmas cards you had your chance where Streeting says didn't agree with a raft of Blair policies or aspects of his article but surprised to read such a pure all tweet from a PPC Clive Lewis responds if you don't like don't follow you jumped up turd I should say Clive Lewis was initially sharing a Blair article I think or an article about his comment can you imagine that and the next Hustings I would like a bit more of that I kind of can't stand the kind of disingenuous politeness of Hustings where everyone really hates each other and also themselves give me a little bit more of calling each other a jumped up turd you know some honesty in it because if Navarro media did the Hustings then we could really like prong at that so Clive I know you think you'd be a better leader than Wes Streeting but do you still stand by your comments that he's a jumped up turd I wonder how he'd respond just say yes that would make people really respect him yes and that's why he shouldn't be Labour leader and I should we're going to wrap up there thanks for all of you for joining us on this Friday evening Tisgy Sal will be back as normal on Monday but across this weekend we will be at the World Transformed in Brighton when this stream ends you'll be thrown over to the stream for tomorrow's discussion on the Tories Ash I want to get you to describe who is going to be on that panel you'll be hosting that one on Saturday night ooh we have got a real treat for you tomorrow so the discussion topic is has Boris blown it the two years of his premiership have been marked by lurching from crisis to crisis remarkably resilient poll ratings but also a surprise by-election loss in Cheshire and Amisham so with me to discuss the future of the Conservative Party are James Medway, former adviser to John McDonnell political editor of Gal Dem Moyer, Lothian McLean and we even have a token right winger for you we have got the mail on Sunday's and Hodges so make sure you come to the talk if you happen to be in Brighton and if for whatever reason you're not tuning in on here same place this website, this news organisation there's only one that is going to be unmissable for my panel on Sunday night we're going to be talking about whether or not Labour is dead is there still any hope for socialists in the Labour Party to discuss that we have someone who knows more than anyone else I think probably about the machinations inside of the party it's Carrie Murphy who was Corbyn's chief of staff we'll also have Felmer Walker who was one of those people who made the jump she was a Labour MP, then she stood for the Northern Independence Party and we've got Clive Lewis, someone I just mentioned as a potential future leader who I assume will be arguing for a progressive alliance a sort of a third way for socialists if you stay tuned in a moment you'll be able to set a reminder for tomorrow's stream you've been watching Tiskey Sour on Navarra Media, good night