I can see a chicken, some
writing, Liz Truss, a Union
Jack, and Nicola Sturgeon.
And that's appalling.
That's like - I'm going to rub
that whole bloody thing out.
Could be an upside
down Welsh dragon.
What are we going
to call this one?
Road - oh, green - to
Brexit is Paved with Gold.
Right, Robert.
Hey.
I'm here with my lovely
little drawing pen
to try something new, OK?
Yes.
So I'm going to do
digital pictures while we
talk about the road to Brexit.
This is a very complicated thing
because I'm actually seeing you
through a camera
through a laptop,
so it's like one those
infinite regression paintings
you see in art galleries.
Last time we spoke, we -
our two main characters
were very much Boris
Johnson and Keir Starmer,
but we've got somebody
who's been a bit more active
this week, the
chancellor Rishi Sunak
spraying money around as
if there was no tomorrow.
I wanted to talk to you about
Rishi Sunak's mini-budget,
the Covid spending, what
it means for the economy
but also whether we're
inevitably looking at Boris
Johnson's successor, I suppose.
Well, I think if you ever take
a look at his Instagram feed,
you can certainly see the
photographs are building up
a narrative of him
as the successor.
There's even a great one of
him visiting the Globe Theatre
and standing in the wings
waiting to walk out on stage.
It very well calculated.
An incredible sort
of personal branding.
Quite remarkable.
He puts out little
social media slides
with his signature on them.
The pictures are fantastic.
You can tell an enormous
amount of thought
has been going into them, and
they announce a new policy,
like the VAT cut.
Out will come, on
social media, a VAT cut,
and there'll be the Rishi
Sunak signature as if it's
guaranteed by the chancellor.
The branding is spectacular.
So this incredible sort of
package of yet more money,
which he announced
in his mini-budget,
this is going to take the
government's borrowing up
to £350bn.
It's a sort of massive, crazy
sort of uptick in the borrowing
graph, which I'm
just going to attempt
to draw very, very badly here.
Like, woo.
That's the borrowing graph.
There's a question
mark, isn't there?
Because obviously this is
an extraordinary crisis,
and, as he put it, stage one of
the spending was about support.
Stage two is trying to get
the economy back in action.
Is it focused in the right way?
He made a big hoo-ha with his
wonderful, lovely personal
branding as you've
said, Robert, and being
seen serving customers
in a restaurant
because he wants us all
to go and eat on him,
discounts to eat out.
Is this actually the
right sort of stimulus?
And whilst you discuss the pros
and cons and whether it's value
for money, which
is quite important,
I'm going to attempt to draw
Rishi Sunak on a fresh piece
of paper serving...
I'm looking forward
to seeing that.
...bowls of Wagamama
noodles to people.
I think the truth is
it was a perfectly
reasonable initiative.
He's pumping a lot of money,
particularly at the hospitality
sector, which is the one
that worries him the most,
and therefore the measures he
took are quite well-targeted.
We're at about £30bn - up
£30bn worth of extra spending,
which is a hell of a lot.
And I think the thought that
occurred to me while I listened
to his budget was that
we really don't know
if this is going to be enough.
He's, as you said, the
amount that we're borrowing
is already remarkable.
There's an autumn
Budget to come,
and when we get to October,
if the economy has not
picked up again in the
way that he would like,
then he's going to be
spending a whole lot more.
And I thought that
picture, by the way,
was almost a metaphor
for the problem
because there you
have him standing
in the pub or restaurant.
He's not wearing a face mask.
He's supposedly serving...
Yeah
...without a face mask.
And the government
has pinned so much
on getting the
economy moving again
and saying to people,
look, it's safe to go out.
You can go out, eat, enjoy.
And, yet, it's not doing
the sort of extra things
that would reassure
people in the way
that they might want
to be reassured.
I know a lot of people
have no intention
of wearing a face mask.
I've been to the pub a couple of
times since lockdown was eased,
and I was very struck by
the lack of these things,
even among the servers.
And people are still
very, very scared,
and I think a bit
of personal branding
might also have been useful
to attach to some face masks.
That, I think, is
true, and I think
you were making the
point earlier on as well.
But it is a gamble.
It's a gamble on the fact that
we're exiting the pandemic,
rather than potentially being in
the middle of two waves, which
is unknowable at
this point, right?
So is this why the civil
servants are actually
refusing to sign off bits
of the mini-budget as what
they call value for money?
It's this phrase dead
weight, isn't it?
That a number of
the things they're
doing, that the Treasury
doesn't like spending money
that it needn't spend.
And so if you bring in
a very sweeping policy,
a lot of the people who
will get the benefit
would have done what they
were going to do anyway.
The cut in stamp duty
is a good example.
Anybody who buys a
house or sells a house
gets the benefit of this stamp
duty cut, but many of them
would have bought anyway.
So that money, in a sense,
is not well-targeted.
But his explanation
on this, which I think
is plausible, is, look,
we haven't got time
in the middle of
a crisis to devise
a super focused,
targeted policy.
We're going to spray
the cash out and hope
to get the economy moving.
Stephen Bush in
the New Statesman
came up with an absolutely
wonderful analogy,
one of those ones you wish
you'd thought of yourself.
He said that what
he's actually doing
is rather like a
parent teaching a kid
to ride a bike in the park.
He's running along with
them, holding the bike,
holding the bike, then
suddenly letting it go
and hoping that they cycle
off rather than topple over.
And that's what this
budget really was.
It was an attempt to push us
into confidence in the hope
that by the time we get
to the end of the year,
the economy has lifted off
and can cycle on its own.
That is a good metaphor.
So it was really
interesting actually
because something else that came
up in that same conversation
with Stephen Bush was
also this - you know,
Rishi Sunak is a political
figure because you can't help
thinking when you
watch Rishi Sunak
- he does come
across as competent
and also has a
good tone of voice
to communicate in this crisis.
It has been noted that he could
be a threat to Boris Johnson
because I was thinking it's
a bit like watching a school
play, you know, where all
the rest of the am-dram is
absolutely appalling, and
there's one child actor
who's much better -
embarrassingly better than
the rest.
And it does seem a bit like that
at the moment with Rishi Sunak.
But it's a challenge also
for Keir Starmer, isn't it?
Because the Labour party has
been very careful since Starmer
became leader to try and
contrast supposedly bumbling
Boris Johnson with
competent Keir Starmer.
And it's this sort of sober
lawyerly figure who's on top...
Oh, that's rather good.
...of the detail.
That's rather good,
that Keir Starmer.
He's waving - he's sort
of waving an order paper.
Ah, yes, now that looks
much - yes, absolutely.
Yeah.
OK, we've talked a
lot already about how
when it comes to the next
election, which I'll admit
is a long time off,
but it could well
be being fought on things to
do with competence as much
as values.
And actually if
Keir Starmer thinks
that that's his number one
kind of branding advantage
against Boris
Johnson, Rishi Sunak
is showing, when no
one else is really,
that it's possible to
be a competent member
of a Conservative
Brexity government.
Yes, he is, and I think the
Conservatives obviously have
a track record of being prepared
to dump a leader that's going
to lose before they lose, a
key difference than the Labour
party.
So if we're coming
towards the next election
and Boris Johnson looks like
irreparably damaged goods,
the Conservative party
will get rid of him,
and they will replace him with
someone who looks a better bet.
And at the moment,
if only because he's
the only tall poppy in
cabinet, Rishi Sunak
looks like the man
who that would be.
The only - sorry - what?
I'm now completely
distracted by your Rishi.
Are you distracted
by my excellent art?
Is that what's putting you off?
The other two were fantastic.
Are you not keen on Rishi?
I'm not sure that's one
he'd put on his own feed.
I want to pour a bit of cold
water on the Rishi Sunak issue
though because I think we're
so early into this crisis,
we're so early into
this government.
And the truth is the
fundamental things
that would undermine
Boris Johnson with voters,
most of them would also
undermine Rishi Sunak.
If we move into a terrible and
long-lasting economic crisis,
the chancellor is
not going to come out
of it well just because
he comes out of it better
than the prime minister.
So when we start getting
into lots and lots of job
losses, when he starts perhaps
raising taxes to claw back
the enormous cost of this
bailout, when he does anything
- let's face it.
He's done nothing unpopular yet.
Everything he's doing has
been throwing out money,
and he's done it very
well, and I completely
agree with everybody who
speaks about his talent.
But, you know, so
far he's not done
any of the difficult things
a chancellor has to do.
And chancellors do not get
to number 10 anything like it
as often as people think.
And one of the reasons is...
That's true.
That's really
important to remember
because there's
always this rivalry,
but can they move next door?
It's not as easy
as you might think.
If you were betting on the
next prime minister today,
you would bet on Rishi Sunak,
but there's an awful lot
of problems to come.
And most of the things that
would undermine Boris Johnson
undermine Rishi Sunak too.
If we get a massive
second wave of infection,
which is the other great
risk at the moment,
well, Rishi Sunak's the
man who was pushing hardest
for the economy
to reopen quickly.
If we have massive
problems with Brexit,
he's a committed Brexiter,
and so on, and so on.
So all the issues that
could really do damage
to Boris Johnson
have the potential
to do damage to Rishi Sunak too.
So while I don't
quarrel with anybody
who says he's the one to
watch, he's the coming man,
I just think some of this has
got a bit breathless a bit
early.
I think that's absolutely right.
And, actually, in your sort of
list of problems that a Sunak
takeover would inherit
from the Boris Johnson era,
I think also something to add
to that list is key workers
in the public services because
something that came out
of the crisis was the feeling
of wanting to recognise
the contribution of people
who tend to be quite low paid
and quite ignored, really, in
the national conversation until
something like Covid.
There's nothing like
a Covid, but this idea
of the carers, people in
the health service, people
working in the utilities,
all of the people
who work through lockdown
and kept the country going.
One of the things that it has
been noted was missing from
Rishi Sunak's package
was much for key workers,
all the public
services, and, in fact,
even the £50bn for
the public services,
which I'll put on a
little chart here,
a huge chunk of that is
paying for PPE equipment going
forward.
I'm going to defend
him on this one
because this primarily
was a jobs package.
It was about saving
jobs, and key workers
aren't the people whose
jobs were immediately
at risk because
we're going to carry
on needing health workers,
and teachers, and suchlike.
So at some point,
the government's
going to have to come good on
its promise to reward them,
but I think it's
legitimate to say,
at the moment we're focusing on
trying to save the people whose
jobs are at immediate risk.
Yeah, I get that, but
I just think there's -
I think for the
government as a whole,
they do have a political problem
with this because, for example,
they only ever mention
schools in order
to have a battle with
the teaching unions.
One of the things
that has caused a row
already is reintroducing
carpark charges for NHS workers
at hospitals.
They really do have -
they have to watch this
because it's one of those
things where any political party
has blind spots, right?
The things they can't
see in the rearview
mirror coming to
damage them, and this
is one for this Conservative
government I think.
Politicians -
Conservative, Labour -
they don't go into politics to
make life worse for people rich
or poor, and the problem often
arises with this empathy gap
where they simply don't
understand the lives of other
people.
And I thought this was
really strongly brought home
at the height of
the Covid crisis
when they were talking about
testing for care home workers.
And Matt Hancock
and others, hey,
look, we've created
these great test centres
where people can go and
get tested for coronavirus.
But these were
drive-through centres.
In a car.
Yeah, that's right.
And a lot of care home
workers don't have cars.
And so it was one of
those classic cases of
- it wasn't that the
government wanted to be evil
or was trying to make life hard.
It just - didn't they
didn't think about it.
But, I mean, your
point about key workers
also illustrate
very much this week
with Boris Johnson's attempt to
shuffle the blame for care home
deaths onto care
homes themselves
for not following procedures.
So, Robert, in the background
of all of this, of course,
the inexorable story of the
road to Brexit continues.
And, in fact, Michel
Barnier wearing a mask -
very nice mask,
Michel - has been
in London for sort of
informal background
to the more formal
talks that are going on.
But it grinds forward, right?
This is a huge
factor as well when
we talk about the fate
of this government.
Rishi Sunak also is
a Brexiter, so you
are right to add that
to the list of things
that he would inherit as
things where the cost might
be held against him.
Something else that's come
out in the last few days
is Scotland is not happy
with the direction of Brexit,
and this time interestingly
over food standards.
And the Scottish
government, the SNP,
has said that they
might not co-operate
with a post-Brexit
setting of food standards
by London for the whole UK.
So it's the kind of
wonderful spectre
of the chlorinated chicken
which might come to haunt
the future of the Union.
And this is about the
creation of an internal market
within all of the UK, which
hasn't been a problem before
because we were in the internal
market of the European Union.
Correct.
But, as you said, food,
and animal welfare,
environmental
standards, these are
devolved policies
in which Scotland
gets to set its own course.
But all of a sudden you've
got the possibility of the UK
agreeing a trade deal
and Scotland saying,
but we don't want this
particular product
in our country.
And so the British
government is looking at ways
to take back some
of these powers
to create the internal market.
I mean, I get what
they're trying to do here,
and I have some sympathy
with the need to do it.
But you can see just
how easily this plays
into hands of the nationalists.
And there is history of
independence movements throwing
British products into harbours
and places like that. so...
...perhaps there will be
chlorinated chicken chucked out
into the Firth of
Forth or something.
It's got the potential to
be very, very problematic,
but I think the
Scots also understand
there does have to be some
kind of internal market.
So it's yet another one
of those tricky problems
that the government
has to deal with.
And I think this is the
biggest risk now in Brexit.
It's not so much - in terms of
political risk rather than risk
to the country.
It's not so much the economic
hits, or the added bureaucracy,
and all those other
areas which are
going to be problematic
for the government
and for its supporters
who believe in Brexit.
It's going to be the
issue of competence again,
and it's going to be if
you don't get a deal,
you don't look competent.
If you don't...
Yeah.
...sort out this problem,
you don't look competent.
And it's the attritional
notion, and that's
where, going back to
our early discussion,
the Rishi Sunak
versus Boris Johnson
point has some salience
because you have one figure who
doesn't look tremendously strong
on detail and one who does.
And that's difficult for
Boris Johnson personally,
but it's also difficult
for the government
because if you start
making a mess of all
the individual
issues, at some point,
people start asking whether
the whole idea was a good one
and asking whether you're
any good at implementing it.
I think that's absolutely
right, isn't it?
All of these multiple factors
come back again and again
to can you pull it off and make
it deliver in a way that people
recognise as a set
of good changes,
and were you competent to do so?
I mean, I was really struck that
there was a poll the other day
on Scottish independence.
And it's now 54 per cent
in favour of independence,
and that has gone up by five
percentage points since March.
So that basically shows you
that the way that the Covid-19
crisis has been handled in
London by the Boris Johnson
government as opposed to how
the Scots feel it's been handled
north of the border
by Nicola Sturgeon
has made a real
impact on how they
might vote in a second
independence referendum.
I mean, I can't understand why
it's not a much bigger story
actually other than everything
else that's going on.
I think it's a really
interesting point,
and, of course, the
other point about this
is the way that Nichola
Sturgeon has consistently
reinforced the
point, you're only
the prime minister of England.
I'm in charge of
Scotland for this crisis.
And so it's created in people's
minds this consciousness
of separation and
how this might work,
and many Scots like
the look of it.
And it is interesting,
going back to Rishi Sunak
once more, one of the lines he
pushed hard in his statement
was to say let's just
remember that all
the money that saved all
the jobs in Scotland,
that came from
the UK government.
That all the furlough scheme
money, all the other support,
that's UK support.
So, Scots, don't actually
think that it was all down
to Nicola Sturgeon because
fundamentally your jobs were
saved by HMG.
It's a very, very good
point that, isn't it?
How much can you
emphasise that there
is money going from
the central UK budget
to bail out the whole UK and
that that's a good argument
for sticking together?
If I was the British
government I'd
be looking at ways
of sending letters
to every worker explaining how
the British government saved
their job because I think it
is the fundamental argument
that people who opposed
to independence have is
actually this was the big
issue, and it came from London,
not Edinburgh.
OK, so I just want to take us
back a bit to Keir Starmer.
OK, that's great.
That gives me an opportunity
to do his face again.
OK, good.
I would say the
general consensus
so far on him has been really,
really positive when we're
talking about
competence, when we're
talking about the
issues for the future.
I would suggest that Keir
Starmer has had a pretty good
start as Labour leader.
He's done most of
the things that you
would want to see
him doing, and I
would've thought his strategies,
while not completely delighted
- there's loads of
other things to do
- would be looking
at where he is now
and feel they've
made a good start.
What are the pitfalls though
because it's - I mean,
it is very, very, very
early days, right?
I think he's just gone
past his 100 days, I think.
The first pitfall is that
having a credible leader
is a precondition, not
a guarantor of victory.
So what he's doing so far
is simply putting his party
in potential contention.
The fundamental problem
for any opposition
is that he's not in
charge of events,
and that the government
makes all the running,
sets the agenda on
most of the period,
and therefore all they can do
is pick away at the government's
failings, and try to
reinforce them to the voters,
and start to think about who
they are, what they represent,
where they want to be
when an election comes.
And that's very
difficult because they've
got to set the parameters
of their economic and social
policy without getting into
too much detail far too early.
So there's a lot of
thinking to be done there.
Until they do have a very clear
idea of what they're about
and where they
are, then they can
look a bit shallow and
blown with the wind.
But you've got to redefine
Labour - haven't you -
after the Corbyn years.
I've just made Rebecca
Long-Bailey's figure very,
very small on my Labour chart
here because he was actually,
in a way, handed an opportunity
by the shadow education
secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey
deciding to make some
ill-considered social
media posts - right -
so he was able to demonstrate
that he wants to clear out
those elements of the Corbyn
era which brought the party
into disrepute, particularly
over anti-Semitism.
But, conveniently,
it's also the far-left.
Yeah, and that worked out.
That was a good week for him,
and he made it work very well.
And every time he
upsets the Corbynites
and they shout
about it like crazy,
you have to assume he's
sitting back thinking, well,
that's another job done.
That's another tick.
I mean, I was talking to a
Labour strategist about a week
ago, and he saying, you can
over-complicate this issue.
The two biggest things that
did for us at last election
were that we had
a terrible leader
and that we didn't really
have a convincing position
on the biggest single issue
of the day, which was Brexit.
And neither of those issues
are going to be true next time.
That doesn't mean you can get
away with having no policies,
but, actually, you can make this
more complicated than it is.
And I think if I were Keir
Starmer now the area I'd be
focusing on is what I might call
the social conservative agenda,
which is where the Conservative
party thinks he's very weak,
the so-called culture or the
values, all this kind of thing,
all this social policy stuff
where the Labour party is
pulling very hard obviously
in a progressive direction.
And the voters aren't
necessarily with them.
Particularly, the
older voters where
they've got absolutely
hammered by the Tories
at the last election.
And I think it's very, very
difficult position for him
to be in as some of the
tightrope walking of the Black
Lives Matter has shown
for the Labour party.
But I think if I
were him, I would
focusing on law and order
and the armed services
for quite a long
time because if you
can show the country that
you're solid on those things,
they might be a little bit
tolerant on the other areas
where you want to
be more progressive.
It's very interesting
though, isn't it?
Because, as you say, that is a
tightrope that you have to walk
to pull that off, particularly
because we are operating
in such a strange time where
conversations about anything
that touches on
values, or patriotism -
law and order is
definitely one of those -
you can be sucked into kind of
culture war territory within
a 24-hour news cycle
very, very quickly.
Yeah, and it's really
hard now on social media
to be able to just control
this and calm it down in a way
that Tony Blair would've
been able to do in his time
because he didn't
face constant Twitter
and social media attacks.
But look at what Tony Blair did.
One of his fundamental
focuses was law and order,
tough on crime, tough
on the causes of crime.
He managed to
square that circle,
and I think it's
that kind of thinking
and that kind of triangulation
that Keir Starmer is going
to have to do to win
back those sort of voters
and give himself the leeway
on the other social policies
where he wants to
be progressive.
I want to ask you one
other thing, Miranda.
Yeah.
Little noticed by many people,
there is a leadership election
going on for the
Liberal Democrats...
Oh, no.
...at the moment.
And I want to ask you is
there actually any point
to the Liberal
Democrats any more...
The big questions -
the big questions.
Is there any point?
Yeah, there is, and
I'll tell you why.
It's not for a very exciting
reason, but I'm just
- while you're quizzing me on
the most important question
of the day, the Lib Dems,
I'm just writing here
ignore Europe in our
little Keir Starmer diagram
because he's obviously
decided to do that, right?
It's really important for him
to not be Remainer Keir Starmer.
Yeah.
Yeah, the Lib Dem leadership.
So if you're going to defeat
the Tory party at a general
election, it's quite difficult
still for the Labour party.
And, in fact, as we saw at the
general election in December,
it was the Tory party that
was making massive strides
into Labour territory, not
remotely the other way around.
There's still enough places
where Tory-minded people
won't vote Labour but might vote
Lib Dem to make their sort of -
there's a complementary pattern
of voting if you want to oust
the Tory party from power.
So they're the Brexit
party of the left?
That's to drain votes
off of the Tories?
Well, you could
put it like that,
or you could say that
the Labour party,
even in the Tony Blair era,
couldn't make itself feel quite
safe enough for a
chunk of voters.
But the Lib Dems can feel safe
enough for a chunk of voters
to not vote Tory.
The Labour party is also
going to have a big challenge
in Scotland to claw
back territory there,
which is really important if
they want to win a majority
against the Tories.
So people in the Labour party
used to say about fighting
the Tories and
fighting the Lib Dems -
because there's no love lost,
they used to say business
before pleasure.
Kick the Tories before you have
a good time kicking the Lib
Dems.
And where the Labour party has
made big mistakes in recent
general elections has tended to
be where they've got distracted
by trying to crush
the Lib Dems actually.
I think it's important for the
non-Tory parties to recognise
that complementarity and that
there has to be some sort
of unspoken electoral
alliance to pull it off.
It's not a brilliant
justification
for some sort of maintaining the
flame of the Liberal tradition
I've given you.
It's an unglamorous reason, but
in terms of electoral calculus
I think it's still exists.
And, actually, that is quite
an interesting question as well
about the Lib Dems because
they branded themselves
as the absolutely the
most pro-European party
and have been kind of crushed.
And as the road to Brexit
reaches its final destination
at the end of this year, where
does that leave a small very
pro-European party?
I'm going to go
back to my chicken
because I'm quite proud of my
drawing and just sort of end
by asking you, do you think that
the Brexit negotiations will
be successful in
the end, or do you
think the whole thing
will lay an egg?
Do you think they'll lay an egg?
Do you see what I did there?
I thought you were going to
tell me that the Lib Dems were
roadkill on the road to Brexit.
Well, that too, but...
My hunch, I've always
been more positive
about the prospects
for a deal at the end
of this year for
the reason I went
into earlier, which is
that actually it just
doesn't look very efficient
for this government
to have failed to get one,
which is why, in the end,
I think they will do a deal.
I also think that the talks are
going a little bit better now.
We are in what they sometimes
like to call the tunnel where
the negotiations
are getting serious,
so my hunch is a
deal will get done.
But as always,
I've always thought
that the deal won't necessarily
be all that good for Britain,
but there we go.
We're on the road for that deal.
We're going to spend
the next 30 years
on this road renegotiating
and tweaking as we move along.
And who knows, by the time
we get to the end of it,
the Lib Dem bird may
have taken wing again.
Yeah, but I think I need to
get better at drawing Rishi,
don't I?
Because I think we're
going to be drawing
him a lot in the future.
Yeah, but the rest was great,
and the chicken's fantastic.
Thank you so much.
OK.
