Let me say a word in defense of elderly gentlemen with memory issues everywhere. It doesn't matter what age you are, you can still find a way to get your foot into your mouth. I bet you a thousand quid that there are a couple of young guys this morning wishing they could forget the whole of the past week. Richie Sunak gambled that a dig at Keir Starmer's line on gender would leave the labor leader red-faced. It backfired. Keir Starmer told the Tories to bring it on over his £28 billion green scheme. By Thursday, he'd thrown in the towel. Joe Biden was outraged at suggestions that his memory was failing. Then he forgot the President of Egypt was the President of Egypt. Michael Gove is the leveling Up Secretary and responsible for housing. We'll ask him why for most young people, the dream of owning their own home now seems impossible, and what that means for his party's chances. We'll also try to find out if next week could be even worse for the Prime Minister than this one. Labor will hope they've put to bed the week-long saga of whether the party will spend £28 billion a year on green spending if they win the election.

Now we know they categorically won't. It begs a question that if they won't do that, what will they do? And can voters trust future pledges? Kim Lord-Darrack is one of the country's most experienced former diplomat. He was the UK's representative to the EU, the National Security Advisor, and ambassador to the US, where arguments over President Biden's age are consuming politics. But is it also damaging the West at a time of huge global threat and instability? And does it matter who owns the media? There's a big political row brewing over a United Arab Emirate a backed outfit, trying to take control of the Telegraph and the Spectator. We'll speak to that magazine's chairman, Andrew Neil. Welcome to Sunday morning with Trevor Phillips. It's election year, and the spotlight's falling on leaders everywhere. Some, we know, just love to struck their stuff. There's no way you'll keep Mr. Trump, Mr. Putin or Mr. Faraj off the stage. For others, the theater of politics doesn't seem to come quite so naturally. Both Mr. Sunak and Sakeer Starmer have been getting one-star reviews this week. The Prime Minister said to lack empathy, the opposition leader, consistency. Some say that it's policy that should matter.

But when our two major parties are in lockstep on crucial foreign policy issues and seem bound by the same domestic reality, there's no money left, it's hard to avoid a focus on the character of our likely leaders. This morning, we'll talk to some of those who know them best, starting with Mr. Sunak. I can speak now live to the leveling Up Secretary, Michael Gove. Good morning, Secretary of State.

Good morning, Trevor. Hi.

Now, your colleague, the Defense Secretary, is said to be furious this morning about the Army's diversified Diversity and Inclusion Program reckons it threatens security. What is the problem?

Well, Grandchaps, the Defense Secretary, has been looking at the specific policies we have in the Ministry of Defense in order to ensure that we strike the right balance, that we provide protection for individuals in our armed forces, that we make sure that we draw on all the talent available in this country to ensure that we have a strong and diverse military, but also to make sure that these policies are operate in such a way as to ensure that political correctness or some of the more, what's the word, out there, approaches that people take towards diversity, equity, and inclusion, don't impair our ability to defend our border and to make sure that this country is secure.

Can you give me one example of a situation in which an aim to get more diversity in the ranks, threatens security? One practical example. How does that happen?

Well, I think, Again, you wouldn't expect me to go into details of security policy, but again, one of the things is that there are-I don't want to go into detail.

I just wanted to give me an example? No.

It is the case that when you're thinking about who should be in our military and who should be responsible for the life and death actions that determine whether or not all of us can sleep safely at night, then you've got to make decisions about personnel and their deployment that are sharper and more acute than in other workplaces. That stands to reason. For that reason, some of the policies that might apply appropriately in other workplaces would not be appropriate in the military. We know that there need to be levels of fitness. We know that there needs to be appropriate selection criteria in making sure that we have the people whom we want defending our way of life.

All right, well, we'll unravel that mystery as the week goes on. But let's look at last week. It was a torrid week for the Tories, and particularly for the Prime Minister. Let's talk about the substance before we get on to the style issues. Mr. Sunak set out five priorities for your government, and he's met the one on inflation, but not the others. Do you personally wish that he'd never hung this five headed albatross round your neck?

No. I think it's important to draw a distinction between ourselves and the opposition. The government have a plan. We are seeking to deliver on that plan, and with every day that goes on, we're taking the steps progress necessary in order to ensure that we do make progress in growing the economy, in reducing debt, in dealing with waiting lists, and with stopping the boats. By contrast, Labor don't have a plan. We've seen this week, Keir Starmer move away from one of the few commitments that he made, exposing once again that he's the jellyfish of British politics. He's transparent, he's spineless, he's swept along by the tide.

Look, just leave Labor to me. Let's talk about the Tories and let's deal with what the voters are concerned about, not about the difference between you, but whether you are delivering on your promises. For example, the one that really matters to voters, waiting lists. The latest figure of 7.6 million on hospital waiting lists is higher than when Mr. Sunak promised to bring them down last year. Four hundred thousand higher. You're going to fail.

Well, one of the particular of the challenges that we face in the NHS, as the Prime Minister has explained, as everyone recognizes, is that industrial action has gone on the way of our meeting those waiting lists. Now, I have enormous sympathy with junior doctors. I want to make sure that we get a settlement that respects the hard work that they put in. But it's a brute fact, it's an unbudgetable fact, that when industrial action takes place, our capacity to treat people in the NHS is affected. When we haven't had industrial action, we've seen progress in reducing waiting lists. You would expect me to be honest those difficulties, and it is, as I say, impossible to ignore the impact of strikes on the delivery of the care that patients need.

Mr. Gove, I always expect you, actually, to be honest, which is why I'm going to ask you, are you seriously blaming the junior doctors for the extra 400,000 on the waiting list?

I'm not blaming anyone because, as I mentioned earlier, I've got enormous sympathy with the position that junior doctors find themselves in. But it's It's absolutely the case that if people withdraw their labor, particularly those at the sharp end, and it's junior doctors who are responsible for the accidents and emergency and the vital treatment that so many need, if they withdraw their labor, then inevitably it's going to be the case that that will have an impact on our ability to treat those in pain. But it's also important to recognize that Steve Barkley, as Health Secretary, delivered the first comprehensive NHS workforce plan in decades. We're recruiting more doctors and more nurses. We have record numbers of doctors and nurses in our NHS. So the steps that we've already taken will result in people in pain being treated more quickly.

Okay, the waiting list is still on coming down. But okay, well, let's deal with another one, which is not one of the five promises, but a shadow promise that all cabinet ministers have been making, which is that we will all pay less tax. The truth is, the tax burden is higher than ever. More of us are going into higher tax brackets. When you and I last spoke in September, you You said you wanted taxes on working people to fall. Okay, you had the 2P cut in national insurance, so you don't need to repeat that, but taxes are still higher. Do you want the chance to cut income tax next month?

Trevor, not only did we speak last September, I think we spoke just before Christmas as well. One of the points I think I made then is that because of the successful management of the economy, we've been able, as you quite rightly point out, to reduce national insurance. At the forthcoming budget, I know that the Chancellor wants to do everything possible to help working people, but it's more than a convention, it's more than just politeness. I can't preempt what the Chancellor was going to say in that budget in just over a month's time.

But you will accept that the taxes actually haven't gone down, they've gone up?

Well, I think everyone acknowledges that we've been facing very difficult economic times across the globe. Again, you and your viewers will know Well, of course it's the case that the tax burden has reflected, A, the huge cost of COVID lockdown, the furlough scheme, the most generous scheme of support anywhere in the world was here in the UK. In a straightforward choice between supporting people to stay in work or contemplating significant unemployment, I think we made the right choice, people can debate it, which was to spend the money necessary in order to keep people in work. That has a cost, everyone acknowledges that. But there's a distinction Again, because elections are choices between our path of lowering tax and labour's commitment to decarbonize the economy by 2030, that by their own estimates will cost at least £28 billion. That means tax increases.

But look, we just Sorry, let's leave labor out of it for a minute. We've both just agreed that taxes have gone up. Let me ask you another element of this. Do you think it's that helpful? It's not his fault, but is it helpful to your cause that we learned this week that the Prime Minister has paid a A deadline rate of 23% on his £2.2 million worth of earnings last year, less proportionately than a nurse pays. The optics are pretty awful, aren't they?

Well, I think individuals' tax affairs are matters for them, and I think it's invidious to look at individual cases.

I didn't go looking at his tax return. He put it out. He asked us to look at it.

Well, again, both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer published their tax affairs, I think, quite rightly, because of the positions that they take. Commentators will comment, but my own view is that it's important for everyone to fully pay their taxes. It's also important, however, rather than looking at the tax affairs of any individual to look at the tax policy of the government. The key thing is that for anyone on an average wage... Have I got right? Well, people will make a judgment about what's called the political optics of something. From my point of view, the most important thing is, are we helping working people? We reduced, as you quite rightly point out, national insurance. That means that for people on an average salary, including people in the NHS, they're hundreds of pounds a year better off under the Conservatives.

All right, let's stop going around this track and let's talk about your actual job. You've written this morning that democracy is endangered because since 2000, home ownership under 35s has plummeted. Now, the Financial Times estimated that that fall has been down by a quarter, and that's driven by a shortage of supply. Why did you drop the target of 300,000 new homes every year when that's clearly the big problem?

We haven't dropped that target. It's a misunderstanding, a widespread one, that we dropped our ambition, our goal, our target of getting 300,000 new homes.

The Prime Minister said in December 2022, this is no longer a top-down target.

No, I think you're, which a lot of people do, mixing up the 300,000 target with the approach that we take local authority by local authority. But more importantly, you don't need to look in the crystal ball. Just look at the fact that over the course of this Parliament, we've delivered a million homes. Over the course of the time since 2010, 2.5 million new homes. Over the last 30 years, the four years when we've had the highest number of new homes have been since 2019. So of course, we got to do more. I'm the first person to make that argument. But I think we need to situate this debate in the context of the Conservatives having consistently delivered more homes than were delivered under Labor. Particularly, just last year, we were making a change to the law that would have unlocked.

Can I just stop you for a second, Mr.

Gove? This is critically important.

Because you said something really interesting.

Critically important, Trevor.

Yeah. But what you said is very important. There is still a 300,000 new home target, is there?

Yeah, absolutely. Totally, 100%. We were trying to meet that target last year by changing the law in order to unlock 100,000 new homes in areas where there's been a moratorium, i. E. A stop on new building. We brought forward a law that would have unlocked those new homes. What did Labor do? They voted against it. They sided with the blockers, not the builders. We have a plan for new homes. Labor have no plan.

I know you want to keep taking me into campaign mode, but I'd rather like to deal with the government's actual actions for a moment. I just wanted I just want to talk to you about the political cost.

We were stopped by Labor. The key thing is there's- I just want to talk to you about the political cost of the point that you raised this morning about home ownership amongst the young.

Now, I was showing a graph here, which is that amongst 25 to 49-year-olds, your polling are just above 10%. That is a quarter, a quarter of the support you had when you came into government amongst that group. That age cohort includes not just the young who can't buy a home without help from mom and dad, but it also includes their millennian parents. How are you going to feel when you look back 20 years from now and realize that you were the housing secretary that lost not just one, but two generations for the Tories?

Well, I hope if I have the chance to look back on what we've achieved in government, I'll be proud of what we've achieved. But on this particular question, for me, the principal concern is not about parties. The principal concern is about people's faith in free markets and people's support for our political system overall. That is why we have a responsibility to do more to ensure that people can have a warm, safe, decent home. More homes for rent, more homes to buy. Again, the judgment will be, as a government, are we doing everything that we can in order to support people?

You've been in power for 14 years.

It's not about...

You've been in power for 14 years, and you haven't built the houses, you haven't got the support.

Well, two things. Over the course of that 14 years, as I mentioned briefly earlier, we built two and a half million new homes. We've done significantly more than the government that preceded us. The second thing is, is it enough? Of course not. We need to do more. But for me, and this is the critical thing, this isn't about the fate of any individual political party. Of course, I'm a conservative. I want the Conservatives to win the next election. But the reason why is because I want to make sure that people have a stake in our society. This isn't about one party versus another. It's about the future of our country and the responsibility The policy that all of us have to clear away the obstacles to new housing, which is why next week we will be announcing policies which will allow more homes to be built, especially in our cities.

All right, let's talk politics, because in order to do any of this, you've got to be in power. Your leader, if I were to offer you £1,000 bet on your ability to get around a scheme off the ground now, would you take it?

I don't have that money, Trevor, to engage in a wager with you. But we will. Absolutely. We absolutely will. So you're up for £100? Well, again, Trevor, from my point of view, I would happily give you 100 quid, take you out for a very nice meal and spend that money on making sure that you are a happier man.

This is a political program, not a dating agency.

I'm just asking you. No, but the critical thing is, what's the conversation about? What's at the heart of this conversation. The legislation that we're bringing forward that other parties are trying to thwart, which will ensure that we have an even more effective deterrent against illegal migration. The key thing here is stopping a trade in human misery.

I get the point, but I wanted to ask you about your leader. Let me just ask you in a different way. Penny Morton called on the Prime Minister a couple of days ago to reflect on his remarks about the transition in the House this week. Now, I know that the Prime Minister says he's trying to make a point about Keir Starmer, but would you agree with her that he should think again about the way he made that point?

No, I think that the Prime Minister was quite rightly drawing attention to the fact that Keir Starmer has U-turned 60 times. No, I'm talking about Sunak.

Should he think again about the way he made that point.

No, I think that the Prime Minister was absolutely right to draw attention. All elections are choices. They're choices between a government that has a plan and an opposition leader who doesn't and who has changed his mind consistently, abandoned every principle on which he was selected as Labor leader and can't be consistent on any question.

You keep wanting to talk about somebody else's leader rather than your own, and I'm asking you about him. Let me just put this straight to you.

He's a great Prime Minister.

The raw politics are that you're 20 points adrift. You'll probably take a beating in by-elections this week. Your leader buried his own success on Northern Ireland because of this trans thing, and you let the Labor Party off the hook on their retreat on green issues. Let me just ask you directly, is this the guy you want front and center in what promises to be the toughest election campaign in our memory? Is he the right guy?

You bet. Absolutely 100 %.

That's not a football... Okay, well, let me just ask. I thought you didn't bet, but let's just deal with a quick thing on you. There are several people-No, I'm just saying that I was using a straightforward affirmation of confidence.

Yeah, I love it. Prime Minister is one of the most gifted leaders in the Western world. He is someone who has a razor-sharp intellect, great integrity, a determination to do what is right, and above all, a plan for Britain.

I'll let you make a clear statement on that. Just a couple of questions about you. You can do yes or no. There are people lining up to be a success if he does fall. Liz Trust has a book coming out in April, Traditional signal of a leadership bid. Have you pre-ordered your copy?

No, but I will not.

Thank you. Another likely contender, Kemi Badenock, often seen as your protégé, told my colleague on the Times, Janice Turner, that you did something very annoying, and that two of you are not as close as you used to be. What exactly did you do to hack her off?

Firstly, Kemi is not my She's nobody's protege. I think it's wrong, and it's often the case that it applies to female politicians that they're accused of being protegees. Anyone who knows Kemi Badenod will know that she is her own person. The second thing is, I think the world of Kemi, she is one of a number of immensely talented people around the cabinet table who give us hope for the next generation. Kemi Badenock, Claire Coutinho, Laura Trott, Richard Hilton, Alex Chock, a galaxy of talent.

The third thing is-Yeah, she's not saying the same thing about you. What did you do to hack her off?

The third thing is that, as Kemi herself has said, I think when she was chatting to you, Trevor, people aren't interested, or I hope they're not, in the titel, tattle of politics. They're interested in what politicians do for them. They're interested in the policy changes made. The key thing is that Kemi has been delivering both our membership of the largest trade block in the world and support for the steel sector. Of course, the thing is, me being me, there are plenty of things I do that irritate some of my colleagues from time to time. Commentators, I'm sure, will want to speculate on all of that stuff. What I do is make sure that I am part of a team that is delivering, and whether it's supporting steelworkers in Talbot or supporting the Nissan factory in Sunderland. Kemi Bedenoff is a world-class cabinet minister.

Michael Gove. Irritating. Surely not. Thank you very much, Secretary of State. Well, let's go straight to our panel. On with us throughout the show today, the former adviser to Boris Johnson, Joe Tenner, the broadcaster, Sangeeta Maisker, and the former adviser to Labor, John McTernan. Sangeeta, What are you laughing about? Classic Michael Gove.

If we've got another eight or nine months of this to go, I tell you. I mean, it's just going to be comedy on stilt, isn't it? I mean, what was really interesting, I thought, was when you were pressing him about Rishi Sunak, The thing to me that came across is just how tone deaf they are. Sunak has had a gaffe laden seven days. It started last Sunday when he did an interview in which he said, Nobody uses the P-word racial slur anymore. Absolutely not. Causes widespread outrage. That's an awful moment in relation to Esther Jai, which isn't really about the trans debate. It's about being sensitive towards a woman who has lost her in the most brutal, brutal circumstances. He just kept going on. What was the third? There was something else, wasn't it? He did.

He shook him.

I thought the bet. He was taking a bet.

He's gambling on The Trade in Human Flesh.

It couldn't get any of us.

Joe, in former days, you would be in number 10, and you'd be thinking, great, great week, great.

Not in number 10, but certainly I'd have been watching I'm thinking, oh, my goodness, this is not unfolding well. I actually felt during that interview, like I'd morphed into an episode of The Thick of It for a while there, actually. It just became slightly too comical.

He's taking you for dinner, isn't he? He's definitely taking you for dinner.

Yeah, I can't wait to see the read out from that one. No, dinner with Michael Goer will be entertaining. It'll be great.

But seriously speaking, the character of leaders is now coming into focus. The The thing that struck me most of all was that Sunak has not been completely unsuccessful, particularly, for example, the Northern Ireland thing, but that's just got buried.

Yeah, and I think what's interesting is that they've made everything so personal about Keir Starmer because they've been watching the polls around what is the feeling the public have on Keir Starmer. So this issue about whether Keir's cutting through, the Tories have obviously decided that's the way to go, but it's the same old thing. You start throwing stones, and what happens is those stones get lobed back in your direction at some point. And so, funnily enough, there are questions being asked about things that Richie has done over the past week in particular, and it hasn't ended particularly well for him.

John, we'll no doubt come to labour's travails later on in the program, but I guess that the leader of the Opposition's office are sitting watching this, and they're quite cheered up in some ways.

The thing is, if you have a strategy, and you could hear it in the words that Michael was using, they call it a plan. It's got to be the right plan. It's no good saying, Stick to the plan. We've got a plan, if waiting lists are rising, there's no point in denying the reality that people have. If you make a bet for £1,000, you're showing... Michael Gove said he doesn't have £1,000 to spare. Who has £1,000 to spare turns at our Prime Minister thinks of £1,000 the way other people might think of a tenner. That shows a distancing because the Prime Minister's character is what Joe said. The character of all the leaders comes into play, and then people are making a judgment. The root reality of being 20 points behind in the polls should be the discipline that makes people have an answer. The big thing that I felt about this week was when you make a mistake, make a quick apology and move on. It hurts you to make an apology. It makes you feel weak, but actually in politics, it makes you stronger. I think that inability to make a concession... Michael wants to come on to talk about housing.

Who's caused the housing problem? Who's been in power for 14 years? There's never a concession.

But does that apology always make you feel weak? Look, weak, I don't think that's necessarily the case. In the case of Esther Jai, a quick apology for being insensitive towards a woman who had just lost a child, I think would have won Sunak, who is widely perceived as being somebody who's out of touch, lacking in emotional intelligence. It would have actually boosted his credibility, actually talking about young people, possibly with young people, right? Politicians have got caught in this corporate communications trap, which is That's so true.

If you're a company and you do something wrong, if you apologize, the insurers are all, Don't apologize, don't need your accepting responsibility. It was your fault. But actually, we should see more humility. We should see politicians who just say, I'm sorry, that was not how it was meant. That was certainly not the tone of what... I never wanted to hurt anybody's feelings. It was never about... I got it wrong. He could have done that, and he didn't. The fact that everyone else around him has now said, No, let's just keep going. Let's keep going.

Let's go back to the, if you like, the substance of some of them. One of the things that struck me was Michael Goe's response to his own story today about young people and housing. He slightly brushed aside that there's a graph that my colleague has created about young people's voting habits, which shows us that in 2010, the Tories had about 40% of the 25 to 49 cohort. It's now down to 10%. This is existential for the Tories, isn't it? Yeah.

I think the point about this is this is about that age group. But what everyone forgets is the grandparents. Their children, the people that are around these folks are also thinking they're never going to get on the housing ladder. My gosh, the economy doesn't work for them. They're going to see their children having their children still living at home as an older voter. They're going to think, Well, what have the Conservatives done for them? As a young person, you might have left school, you might have gone to university, you've been affected by COVID, you've been affected by strikes, you've seen your parents with interest rates go up. It isn't just about one group that can't get on the housing ladder. It's about everyone else around them, too. Thank you, Phil.

Well, that's interesting is if you take a close look at that graph, so there's a dip around 2013, and then it really begins to tail off, actually from 2020 onwards. It wasn't the case that it was irrecoverable, right? The Tories have clearly missed an opportunity, and it's for all of the reasons that Joe has outlined. You've got young people in insecure jobs in the gig economy who can't get on the housing ladder, who look at the state pension. I was talking on my show yesterday about the state pension, for example. Many of them will describe it as a Ponzi scheme. They know that they'll start paying into it. More of them are required to keep doing that. They see themselves as people that are propping up older generations without getting anything back. What's interesting to me is what this is going to do in an underlying sense to society. Are we going to see this huge schism opening up between older people and younger people who feel betrayed?

John, you're an experienced political consultant. If you had to take this graph to your client, what would you be saying it means, and is it recoverable?

It's not recoverable by the next election. I would say to them, You keep picking on issues where you think there's a wedge, but young people don't. So trans rights. Young people are just put off by that, actively put off by it. Secondly, you've got structural policies. Every time you want a policy on housing, you say you're going to increase prices, basically. You don't give, you don't build anything more. You give more money to buyers to heat the market up. I'd say, I've got some young tours are really bright, and they say, The way to win an election, build more houses and legalize weed.

Okay, we'll talk more about all of this in a moment. It's just after nine o'clock. You're watching Sunday morning with Trevor Phillips. In the last hour, the leveling Up Secretary has told this program that the Prime Minister is one of the most gifted leaders in the Western world as he defended Richie Sunak over a row about trans people. Michael Gove said the government had a plan to meet the PM's promises to the electorate. There's still plenty to come this morning. Shortly, we'll hear from Pat McFadden in the week Labor finally pulled the plug on the £28 billion pledge that proved an albatross around the party's neck. Will he run? Or even, Can he run? With President Biden facing major questions of whether he's fit enough for re-election, we'll speak to the former UK ambassador to the US, Sir Kim Darroch. Should a UAE-backed group be allowed to buy the Telegraph and the Spectator? The magazine's chairman, broadcaster Andrew Neil, gives us his take. Right, let's turn to Labor now. You'll remember that over the last few weeks, there's been no shortage of squirming and linguistic gymnastics, including on this program, as shadow ministers answered questions about the now infamous pledge to spend £28 billion a year on green investment.

Well, that's all over now, or at least Labor hoped so after the promise was officially binned by Keir Starmer. The party's election, Supremo and Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Pat McFaddon, joins me now. Good morning, Mr. Mcfaddon.

Good morning.

Before we get on to the inevitable 28 Billing. Can I just ask you about a story that's appeared in the national newspaper this morning about a man called Azra Ali, who is Labour's candidate in Rochdale, who was recorded saying that Israel had deliberately allowed 1400 of its own people to be murdered on October the seventh in order to give it a reason to invade Gaza. If that is true, and The paper says it has recordings of it. Will he still be the Labor candidate in Rochdale at the next election?

Well, his comments were completely wrong. He should never have said something like that. It is, of course, completely wrong to say that. I saw this last night. He's issued a complete apology and retraction, and I hope he learns a good lesson from it because he should never have said something That's why they said that in the first place.

An apology is not the same thing as a denial. It seems that everybody is agreeing he said it. Presumably, he thought it. Is Labor happy with a candidate who thinks that?

Well, no. That's why he's issued a complete retraction and apology. It was wrong to say that. He should never have said it. It's right that he has completely apologized now. He himself said it was wrong to say it, and that's the right thing to do.

So he will be your candidate in Rochdale?

In the upcoming by-election, yes, he will.

Okay. Exactly a week ago, your colleague Chris Bryant told me, I think three times, that you had what he called an ambitious commitment to spend £28 billion each year on your green prosperity plan. On Thursday, the ambitious commitment was cut by more than 80% to £4.7 billion. What happened?

Well, I don't think it's been any secret to you or to your viewers that this has been We've had another discussion for some time. What's happened is a couple of things. Since this policy was announced, interest rates have gone up a great deal. Let me just illustrate this for you. When it was announced, they were at 0.1%, basically zero. They're now at 5.25%. What that does to the cost of government borrowing is it means it's £70 billion a year more to service that debt now than it was when the policy was announced. Anyone watching this program who's had to refinance their own mortgage in the last year or so will understand that those interest rates have an impact on your borrowing costs. The economics made a difference here, but there's another point to remember in this. Although we've made a change, and a change is always difficult about these things, let us not lose sight of what has been kept here, because what's been kept through a different balance of financing between windfall taxes and borrowing is GB Energy, a publicly-owned energy company to help drive the transition, a national wealth fund that will invest in things like green steel for the future in our ports, and an important home installation program that will help to come to those points.

We preserved a lot as well as making the change.

I would like to come to those points, if I may, but let me just deal with your first point. You say that the economics have changed. Interest rates have been the same for the last two months. Labor spokesperson after Labor spokesperson has come on this program and said, 28 billion, it's going to stick. What has changed? It isn't the interest rates that's changed. Is it just that you got to the stage where you, particularly, it reported, have been trying to get Keir Starmer to drop this for months? Is it the point that actually you realized that this was an electoral albatross and you, Pat McFaddon, finally prevailed?

No, I read these stories and I don't recognize about them. This is a decision taken by Kiersheimer.

That's very disappointing. I don't hear people saying Pat McFaddon hadn't been ruthless enough very often.

Look, it's not about me. It's about the right thing to do. Of course, we took time to look at this. We want to step up to the plate on green transition. You can debate that it should have been done two months ago or it should have been done after the budget. You can debate the timing, you can debate the elegance. Neither of those are important in the end. What's important in the end, what's important is getting to the right position. There's another point that's often lost in this debate, Trevor. The radicalism of a policy should not just be about the amount of public borrowing involved in it. That's particularly true of the green transition. When it comes to the green transition, most of the investment in making it happen will come from the private sector. Part of the problem about the endless interviews that you and every other broadcaster was doing was all we were talking about was a borrowing figure. We weren't talking about green steel. We weren't talking about investment in the ports. We weren't talking about warm homes. We weren't talking about the establishment of GB Energy. We were only talking about a borrowing figures.

That's about the borrowing figures.

That's about the borrowing figures.

Okay, let me move on from the borrowing figures, and let me put this to you. This is politics. You're the election supremo. Doesn't this rouse simply... You say timing doesn't It doesn't matter. But surely it does, because what this does is feed the narrative that Starmer will hang on to any policy until he thinks it might damage his electoral chances and that he will do anything simply to win. It didn't take us very long, by the way, to find at least 10 things that he had said were fundamental to Labour's offer that are now history. I'm not going to read them all off. I've got a graphic here, but The House of Lords, abolition, gone. The abolition of Universal Credit, gone. Abolition of tuition fees, gone. All things that he said that he would do. Now, isn't your problem that what this row does is suggest that labor really can't be trusted?

Well, let me make two points in response to this. First of all, I think it's an act of strong leadership to look at your manifesto in the run up to an election, where it could be any time this year, and really test them against current circumstances.

If current circumstances-We can expect more promises to be been.

A huge rising. Look, if things have to be changed in the circumstances, that's the right thing to do. The wrong thing to do is to just keep things if something like your borrowing costs have gone up by £70 billion a year and ignore that fact. It's an act of leadership to make sure that when you go to the people in an election, the policies in your manifesto are absolutely right for the circumstances in which that election is fought. It's no secret that oppositions will say things years before an election, but we're at what Alex Ferguson would call the business end of the season now, and we've got to make sure that manifesto is right. The second point I want to make on U-turns is the Prime Minister we have is a living U-turn. He's only there because they had to ditch a disastrous mini budget. The centerpiece of his leadership in the past year has been to ditch a policy on HS2. He is actually a living walking U-turn.

That's why he's there. That's why he's there. That's why he's there. Michael Gay for not talking about his own leader. I'm afraid I need to do the same with you. I want to talk to you about your own leader. If I may say, you've been admirably frank. But to take your Alex Ferguson analogy, we are getting into Squeeky Bum time. I just wonder whether there is anything that you can say to viewers now that is a promise from Labor that you feel will be good at any time the election comes. Anything other than the Windfall Tax, we've had all that, Anything that you can say to viewers, this is absolutely something that Labor is going to stick on whenever the election turns up?

Sure, I'll give you plenty. I don't want to give you too long a list, but by way of a few examples, we've got huge NHS waiting lists right now. We're going to get rid of the non-dom tax break and use that money to help get those waiting lists down. That's a change worth having for anyone waiting for NHS treatment. We've got children going to school hungry right now. We're going to have a breakfast club in every primary school so that they can concentrate on their lessons rather than thinking about where the next meal is going to come from. These are changes worth having, and change will only come in this election year if people vote for it.

Pat McCladdon, thank you very much your time this morning.

Thank you.

Right, back to our panel now. Joe Tana, Sangeeta Maisker, and John McTernan. John, this 28 billion, they've tried to put a cap on it, but it's a bit like a bad smell. It's not going to go away, is it?

Well, I think it is actually, because if we go back to the conversation we had before about, is it stronger to keep staying the same thing as the Tories do with their lines, or stronger as leader to say, this has to change. When the facts change, what should you do? Stubbornly deny the facts, stubbornly go, we're still going to stop the boats, we're still going to grow the economy. When the facts change, what should you do? Stubbornly deny the facts, stubbornly go, we're still going to stop the boats, we're still going to grow the economy. When the facts change, Labor have gone from a position where they were fighting about a figure to something Pat got onto. Great British Energy is now going to have £8 billion to be a public company. Not a label, not a brass plate, but actually £8 billion. There's something substantial about the purpose and the impact, and you have to get all figures to purpose.

But do you think tactically it was just a mistake to have posted this £28 billion in the first place?

I always think in politics, talk about the purpose, not the process. And figures are process. Figures aren't the outcome. And so back in 2021, when Rachel announced the policy, it's a big number. It felt quite old labor to me. It's a very old labor things, too. We're going to spend money. Let's explain to younger viewers.

You are part of the new labor project still.

And to younger viewers, old labor did actually exist. When you asked Pat to defend policies that labor would implement in government if we were elected. He went to people. He talked about a child. He was trying to draw images. And most of our communications with each other are about people. They're not about numbers. We don't go around quoting numbers to each other. We tell stories. Storytelling is the big-I guess I think the first thing about the 28 billion was someone else once talked about 350 million and put it on the side of a bus and it didn't end too well.

I think these are big sums The public don't always understand them. I think the really sad thing about this, I don't mind about U-turns. I don't mind if people say something's not going to work. But what I found really interesting was that Kierstam in his conference speech last year, he talked about wanting to level with the public. He talked It's also about the fact things are going to be tough, things are going to be difficult. Actually, I think more of that language should have been coming through. We've had a Tories government that have been blaming everything from Ukraine, the economy, all sorts of energy prices, all sorts of things on why they couldn't do what they did, and COVID. Actually, I thought labor could have taken a slightly different tack. I appreciate the numbers are different, but we are seeing mortgage rates. Interest rates are starting to come down. There is some change coming in the economy. To have announced it now does suggest there is more to this, which I'm sure will unravel. But I think the public would appreciate a bit of... I don't know if honesty ever really comes through in politics, but actually being a bit straight.

Pat is very good at that stuff. Pat is very good at explaining things. But I think generally, The public are a bit fed up, and I think they deserve to have a bit more honesty coming through.

Sangeeta, without going over, trolling over the actual policy, there's an underlying question. We talked about Richie Sunak and whether he's good at communication or not. We've now got this change in labor. Is there a danger here that what's happening is politics itself is somehow being demeaned or degraded in the public's eyes?

No, without a shadow of doubt. I think everything Joe has just said is completely true. I think generally people have the perception that politicians are lying, and they lie constantly, and they tend to lie in order to serve their own interests. In relation to this particular announcement and rowing back on it, look, it was wise of labor to stick to the idea that you don't want to over-promise and under-deliver. But that cuts both ways, right? They're selling this as, We don't want to do that in government, and that's why we're rowing back. Well, what they could have thought to themselves is, Well, let's not make a £28 billion pound announcement. Make the figure lower, and if we then win the next year's election, scale it up. The other issue here, I think, is they've created a rod from their own backs in terms of the timing, right? You pointed this out very well in this interview. Context is everything. This all is set against a backdrop of This arm are being labeled as someone who does the U-turns. What they could have done was hang on to this announcement about rowing back, wait till the budget say, Look, they've screwed up the economy.

We now have to row back. That would have been a perfect way into this announcement, and they didn't do it, and I don't know why.

If only all politicians watch this program for tactical tips, everything would be fine. Okay, coming up next, I'll speak to one of the country's most experienced former diplomat who was our ambassador to the United States, where argument over President Biden's age and memory are dominating politics.

This week, a special council investigation said that Joe Biden was an elderly man with a poor memory. It reignited a row that's been rumbling for months. Is he too old to be President? Many people think it means Donald Trump is more likely than ever to to the White House. So what does it mean for the wider West as the global security situation seems more dangerous than ever? No one better to ask that than the former UK National Security Advisor and ambassador to the United States, Kim Lord Darroch. Good morning, Lord Darroch.

Good morning, Charlotte.

Is it all over for Joe Biden?

I don't think it's all over because I think to an extent, what the special council has said was already priced in. The Republicans have been on this issue for months now, but it provides a independent verification of these Republican accusations about his fitness to serve, and so it is very, very damaging to him. By the way, it's not just Biden, of course. There are similar accusations about Trump, who models up sometimes where he is speaking from or who he is speaking about. Recently, we stuck Nikki Haley for Nancy policy. But it's very, very bad for Biden. Listen, no wonder the White House reaction has been so furious.

I mean, it's interesting. You're right about Trump, but it cuts through with Biden, and it doesn't cut through with Trump. Why?

I think because, first of all, Biden, he is older, but only about three or four years older, but he looks older, physically looks much older than Trump. There is something indestructible about Trump. He's like the Terminator. You can't imagine him stumbling or looking as old or as feeble as Biden sometimes looks. And second, Biden has had a long history of flubs and gaffs and missteps. So there's an awful lot of stuff in the archives which you can pull up to build this story. And I mean, a number of the, especially US channels, seem to have them on a permanent loop. All of this stuff from Biden's past.

Do you think there's anything the Democrats can do to pull back from this? What does he have to do? He's done with his vice President. What does he have to do?

It's a high-risk thing, Trevor, but he has to be out there. He has to be doing more press conferences, more town halls, more interviews, more evidence accumulating out there that actually he's on the ball, that he can handle all this stuff, that he knows what's going on. What friends on the Democrat side in tell me is that actually he is pretty sharp, and all this stuff about cognitive decline is a Republican myth. You just need one stumble or one moment like He's mistaking the President of Mexico for the President of Egypt recently. All this special counsel stuff. By the way, it's very strange for a lawyer to stray into a neurological assessment of the President. But there we are. That's American politics for you, I Of course, one quick point is that all of this makes a Trump presidency, I beg your pardon, loom as more likely.

What would a Trump presidency mean for us?

There was a recent headline, Trevor, in The Economist, and The Economist is a fairly sober publication. I quote, Donald Trump poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024, which is fairly extreme stuff. But if you look at what Trump saying on the campaign trail, he says he'll stop armed suppliers to Ukraine, which could mean a Ukrainian defeat in the war with Russia. He says on climate change that he would drill, drill, drill. He would certainly leave the Paris Agreement as he did in his first term. He says he would impose 10% tariffs on all imports into America, which would be massively disruptive to world trade and would trigger basically a global trade war. He's just said that he would, and these are extraordinary words, really, that he would encourage aggressors to do whatever they liked to members of NATO who were not paying 2% of GDP for defense. That's quite a turbulent and disruptive agenda, even if not all of it actually came to pass in the Trump presidency. So you understand the worry.

Okay, well, let's turn to, if you like, the hottest theater of war at the moment. Are the Americans, as you see it, increasingly frustrated by what they see as Israel's behavior in that conflict?

Absolutely. Not just the Americans, by the way. I think David Cameron, since he's been Foreign Secretary, has toughened UK rhetoric on what is going on in Gaza quite substantially. It's a very deliberate thing by Cameron to publicly news about recognition of a Palestinian state. But if you look at the lines that are coming out of Washington, they are much, much tougher, an increasingly angry tone, and some actions like the President banning those Israeli settlers who've been causing trouble on the West Bank. The problem is that there's a deal that US will offer Israel pretty much unconditional support. In exchange, they get some traction on what Israel does. The second part of that equation doesn't, to me, seem to be working. Netanyahu, so far, seems to me be ignoring all of this American pressure. I don't know how often Tony Blink has been there, but several times, it doesn't seem to be having much impact.

I suppose one of the things that we perhaps don't think about enough is what's happening internally in Israel. Netanyahu was an unpopular leader, but is there a sense in which he himself is now He is now driven by popular sentiment in Israel, which is essentially to prosecute war until and unless the hostages come home?

Well, I think Israel is a profoundly divided country. Netanyahu is an extraordinary political survivor. He's never been dominantly popular in Israel. Every election that he's won has been by a narrow margin. He's had to go into coalition with some right wing parties to stay in power. But he's been in power for 16 years, which is the longest Prime Ministerial term of any Prime Minister in the history of Israel. So he's an extraordinary survivor. I think at the moment that his political career is hanging by the thinest thread it has during his entire time as Prime Minister, because he is blamed for what happened on the seventh of October. But there is no doubt that there is a significant body of really a public opinion that really wants this ground operation in Gaza to go on for months more and to achieve, as Netanyahu says, the complete destruction of Hamas. By the way, an objective I personally believe is unattainable.

Kim, Derek, thank you so much for your time this morning.

Pleasure. Thank you.

In just a moment, does it matter who owns of the media? What does it mean for our politics? I'll speak in a moment to this man, Andrew Neil, who is chairman of The Spectator.

The Telegraph and the Spectator are two of the most venerable names in the UK press, especially influential on the right and in conservative circles. Now, an Emirati-backed outfit is trying to take full control of the titles, and that's led to real concern from politicians and others, including senior management, that it's a threat to democracy. Andrew Neil, one of the most famous names in British broadcasting and publishing, is chairman of the Spectator, and he said it would be absurd for the UAE to own part of the British media. He joins me now. Andrew, ministers are weighing up whether to block the sale of the Telegraph and Spectator. Are you opposed to that sale? And if you are, why?

I'm certainly opposed to it as any right-minded person should be. Look, it is clearly wrong for government of any persuasion to own media assets like the Telegraph and the Spectator. It is even more wrong for it to be a foreign government that would own these two British media assets. It is above all wrong beyond the pale for a foreign a dictatorship to own British media assets in our democracy. After all, Trevor, if the UAE can own the Telegraph and the Spectator, why should President Putin's Kremlin not own Sky News.

I'm glad you've come on this morning to mince your words, but let's just test that for a second. We've lots of foreign proprietors of news organizations. Sky News, we're owned by Comcast, an American outfit, Evening Standard, by basically a Russian family. You had a very distinguished career editing organs owned by an Australian. What's so terrible about this particular group, given that in all those cases, people would say that their journalism was not affected by the ownership?

I think you, viewers, will have listened carefully enough to my My first answer to know that I did not come out against foreign ownership. Foreign ownership is not the issue. There's always been foreign ownership involved in British media. Go back to Lord Beaverbrooke in the '20s, '30s, '40s, '50s. Conrad Black, a Canadian, owned The Spectator and the Telegraph. Rupert Murdoch, Australian-American, owns The Times. Foreign ownership is not the issue at all. It is foreign government, and not just foreign government, but a foreign dictator Partnership. As I say, if the UAE can own us, then why couldn't President Xi of China buy up the mirror, the Express, and a couple of other newspapers? I'm sure the Kremlin would love to have sky news as well. It's an absurd proposition, and it cannot be allowed to happen.

Okay, we are happily not speaking Russian here, but I think you'll understand as a journalist why I'm going to ask you this next question. If there a sale, whoever it's to, will you personally benefit financially?

No, I won't. Well, I guess if I said I would stay on, then they may cross my pound with silver, yes. But if the UAE takes over the spectator, I will not stay on. I cannot work for a foreign dictatorship. I don't think you would work for one either. I don't think any self-respecting British journalist can work for a foreign dictatorship. So there is no silver in this for me, but there's a matter of principle. I have been the custodian of the spectator for the past 20 years. What I've tried to do is protect the editor's independence, even from proprietors, but also from advertisers, Powerful Vested Interests and readers as well. I tried to keep what makes the Spectator special. It is in the mainstream of British center-right politics, but it has a radical edge to it as well. You need to understand what makes it special. Spectator was the only mainstream British publication to side with the north against slavery in the American Civil War. The first British mainstream publication to campaign for the decriminalization of homosexuality in the 1950s. This is important. You think the UAE would allow that to happen?

I don't think any of you- The first one to call for an amnesty for illegal immigrants. All right. I don't think anybody will doubt the spectator's bonafidees. Let me just ask you one other business question very quickly. Have you thought about a management buyout?

You cannot do a management... We have, but you cannot do a management buyout when you're dealing with a trophy asset because someone, Rupert Murdaugh, Lord Rothermer of the Mill, or even the UAE and Jeff Zucker, who's fronting this for them in the United States, will always pay way more than the financials would justify. An MBO, as they call it, is just It's not possible, I'm afraid.

All right, well, let's see how that develops. Let's talk about politics. You'll still be covering politics whatever happens. We first met long time ago when you were at the Sunday Times, and then and Still now, I think you've had access to every Prime Minister, including this one. Leaving aside the big politics for a moment, how do you think Sunak is coping with the job?

I think he's struggling to do it. I think Mr. Sunak is a decent man. He's very hard working. I think he's a British Patriot. He has many of the attributes you would hope in a Prime Minister, but he doesn't seem to be that great a politician, and he doesn't seem to be able to change the weather in any way. No matter what he does, it doesn't seem to move the dial. Labour's lead is now baked in, and it doesn't move. Now, I think as the election approaches, that lead will come down, but it will still be big enough on everything we know at the moment to give Labor an overall small majority for the next five years. It seems to me that is now pretty unstoppable. I don't think the majority might be as big as the current polls suggest, but it will be big enough for a five-year term.

What do you think has gone wrong for the Tories. We've been showing a graph this morning, which I found very, very striking. In 2010, 40% of people between 25 and 49 voted for the Tories. Today, in that cohort, they're polling at 10%. I mean, that's existential, isn't it?

It is existential. You add in the fact that labor is now doing well in Scotland, too, where they haven't done well for a long while. But when labor does well in Scotland, they tend to become the government of the United Kingdom. Then that's what, in my view, makes it pretty much unstoppable. Look, we live in a febrile world. Who knows what will happen? But as you and I sit here this morning, that's the way it looks to me. I think when you look at it, they've basically just lost the A lot. People have run out of patience with them. It's all very well, Paul. The Tori cabinet ministers coming on to your program to say, This has gone wrong. We need to do this. We need to do that. They've been in power for 14 years. Why haven't they put it right by now? How long do you need to put it right? I think they've just lost credibility. I remember Jim Callican in 1979, Labor Prime Minister, when he said, Look, you might still be able to beat Margaret Thatcher. He looked at his advisor and said, Sometimes the weather just changes and there's nothing you can do about it.

The weather has just changed for us. Of course, Mrs Thatcher won. I think that is going to happen again this time. It will be like '79, too, in that in '79, people didn't vote for Margaret Thatcher. They voted to get rid of labor. This time, they're going to vote to get rid of the Tories and not necessarily vote for Keir Starmer's Labor Party.

Andrew, you We're also spending a lot of time coming and going across the Atlantic. You're familiar with American politics. Let me put this delicately. You and I are each just seven years younger than Biden and Trump, respectively. The viewers are going to start shouting pot, kettle, and all of that. But does the Biden performance this week spell the end of his presidency?

I think it has. Now, you and I are getting on. I I think there's no need denying that, and I thank you for bringing it up. It's very good of you to do so. But last time, neither you nor I are bidding for a seating the oval office, and the most important democratic position in the world. And politicians are almost at their most vulnerable when people say things that the voters know to be true. And what the special counsel said this week, they know to be true. Most Americans, 70 %, including including a majority of Democrats, think he is simply too old to run again. And there's a very important editorial in the New York Times this morning, which although it doesn't come out and say he should step back, it does say he needs to do a number of things to get the show back on the road. Each one of these things, Trevor, is something that Joe Biden simply cannot do. Actually, the implicit message from the House Journal of the Democratic Party Party, the powerful House Journal, is he shouldn't be running again. I'm not sure it's given because I think Mr.

Biden's decline, by the way, Mr. Trump has declined somewhat, too, but Mr. Biden's in a different category. That can only get worse. I wouldn't rule out that he doesn't make it through to the Democratic Convention in August of this year. Actually, the convention itself is forced to choose a new candidate. 4,000 delegates in what we used to call smoke smockfilled rooms would make the decision as to who the presidential candidate for the Democrats would be. Lo and behold, it's taking place in the home of smoke-filled rooms. It's taking place in Chicago, and it could be an exciting August there.

Crikey. Okay, you're going to come back and talk to us about that the near of the time, aren't you?

I'd love to.

Thanks, Andrew.

Thank you.

In just a moment, we'll hear once again from our panel. I was actually in Poland, lecturing at a conference there.

The next day, climbed a mountain and had a seizure, and then that's when it had some scans which showed I had a mass in my brain, which turned out to be this glioblastoma, nasty type of brain cancer. But I was devastated. I know what cancer means. Having dedicated my life to the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, to be diagnosed with brain cancer, the worst subtype, which basically is incurable cancer. Treatment hasn't changed in almost 20 years. It didn't sit right with me.

After the grief, which is Still ongoing, really. It's a very grim diagnosis. I said about thinking, what could we do knowing that glioblastoma, the treatment had not changed in 20 years being a medical oncologist. So So I started thinking about how we could apply what we know in melanoma and what we've forged and discovered in melanoma about treating with immunotherapy before surgery. It actually makes the immunotherapy more effective, like a sniffer dog sniffing out drugs. If you are trained to know the drugs, when you go to the airport, you can sniff them out better. We know in melanoma that by giving the immunotherapy first before surgery, we actually get a much more sustained and effective, durable anti-cancer control from the patient's own immune system. So that was the first step. And then coming up with the novel combination, which has never been used across the world. Except in early, early, early melanoma trials. This is what I said about with our team from our lab then. The most important bit was what we did with that research research tissue. So planning and strategizing with Richard about resecting the tissue with our surgeon and making sure that we did all the right experiments in our lab to prove we actually activated the immune system The drugs, the immune activators got into the tumor inside his brain, and we could see an increase in all these immune cells within his tumor.

So we were really pleased with those early

results.

Welcome back. Our panel is with me again. Joe Tana, Sangeeta Maisker, and John McTurnan. Joe, why does this Telegraph spectator deal matter so much?

I think the point that Andrew Neil was getting to with this passionate defense of the spectator in particular is this issue of, is it really appropriate for a foreign government to be involved in UK media. There is a concern when UK media often is heralded around the world for holding foreign governments to account actually as well as its own. There is a concern, which I think a lot of people probably don't really understand the nuances of. We're so used to having big figures, and often foreign, as was discussed, that own UK media, and we're used to it. We never really understand their motives or their views. They're always very clear. But when you get into the realms of a foreign government, that can change the huge balance around the reporting. As Andrew was saying, he's worried about what that means for editorial independence, I guess, of his editors.

This is really important. The key issue here is editorial independence and whether or not it can be maintained and whether or not the EU would involve itself in British politics. But I have to say, whilst this is a very important story, I don't think it's one that the public have widely latched onto. It's not the thing that's going to keep them up at night.

That I find quite interesting. But also the consortium who want to buy the papers haven't made enough of the fact that it's Jeff Zucker, an American with a background in news and CNN, Who's going to be running it? Have the business. They've not made enough of the independence they want to put in. They're losing the argument. I mean, they're losing the narrative. If Andrew so persuasionally says it's about a foreign government. All right.

Let's talk about something that people are paying attention to, Joe. Andrew is pretty forthright on the Biden thing. He thinks they're going to junk him.

He's saying that the weather will change in the windy city of Chicago, which means we'll all be watching what happens in the summer. But I have a degree of sympathy as a woman that's entered the menopause. There are times I can't remember people's names, people I love very dear to me. There are basic items, household items I can't remember the name of. But there is an issue about that campaign and what it's going to do to somebody who's... When you're under pressure, and actually, I think a lot about that press conference last week was probably because he was probably so incensed with what was said. He was probably very upset. Emotions will have an impact on someone's ability to perform, as it were. I think that if there is a serious concern about his health, actually, the campaign and the pressure that's going to put on is going to just exacerbate the situation. I do wonder, where is his wife in all this? We haven't seen Jill Biden out. Is she concerned? Where's the big...

They're saying that the only person who could persuade him to stand down is Jill Biden.

I think there's something interesting about her absence. I'd be really intrigued to see whether she appears more this week, because I think she is going to be a really important figure in reassuring the public that he is actually up to the job.

For older viewers, this is all echoes of the West Wing with President Bartlett and his multiple sclerosis, and would his wife want him to run again or not? Anyway, but you, John, you spent quite a lot of time consulting to a broader-All around the world. All over the world, and some quite tricky, if you like, emotional elections. I'm thinking Australia, for example.

Look, the thing about President Biden is he's a proud man. He's a proud man who's overcome a stammer to be a public speaker, and sometimes he loses words because he's actually trying to grope for an alternative. But he's proud because he's the only man in America who ever beaten Donald Trump in an election. No Republican has. Hillary Clinton could. People talked him down. He beat him, and he wants to beat him again. It goes back to Joe's point, anger doesn't actually help you focus or make the right decision. But he's angry for a reason, which is that people are picking on him, and his opponent is an insurrectionist, a potential fascist dictator.

That's quite strong language.

Itnot necessarily-The most... No, it was what the economist said, the most serious threat, I think Kim Dierick said, is the most serious threat facing the world is the election of President Trump. He's fascist or quasi fascist or fascist-adjacent or whatever. The threat to democracy and insurrectionist.

Can I just add? I don't think it's necessarily about age, right? It's about competence. He then does this press conference that Joe is talking about after the special counsel report. There are some conferences that are more important than other press conferences. Unfortunately, that one was really important. When he very publicly and very emotionally mixes up two presidents, it's not helpful to his own cause. I'd also say it's very easy to say, get rid of Biden. Well, who's going to replace him? The Democrats have done an absolutely terrible job at legacy planning. The truth is, he is the only person who has beaten Trump. He's probably still the only person who could beat Trump, simply based on his name recognition.

Would Would you rather have somebody who mixes up a couple of President's names rather than suggest you should put bleach into your veins when there's a disease on the- Or encourage it-There's a real consideration here about what matters.

Joe, if you've been in the position of handling him as he's got a team around him. You're meaning that- One of the things I was... Politically. One of the things I was quite puzzled by was that they put him out there in the press conference straight away after this report was published. That seemed to me unnecessarily high risk, or would there be another logic here?

Well, I think that is the big question. As a former adviser myself, the first thing you think of was that him pushing for it Was that his team? My view watching it was that actually it was most likely to be him pushing for it, and that actually that off-the-cuff, emotional, very direct response was probably because his view was, I want to get out there and I want to show people I can do it. His team may well not have agreed. We don't know. It could have been a split view on what to do. But there is not really a great deal to be achieved by having an overly emotional person, and particularly as President, he's still got his finger on buttons that really matter. You want to make sure that you've had a moment to be able to gather your thoughts and compose yourself before you go out there. So I think the question is really who was in charge at that moment. It's very likely that the President pulled rank.

And the shame of it was the messaging around why Special Council was wrong was really good, actually. Strong. Really strong. The messaging was, which got lost, was they were politically motivated. I was very emotional.

Special Council was a Republican.

Special Council was a Republican. They were asking questions that were personal and not pertinent. I felt emotional when asked about my son, who I had lost. But all of that got lost in the row about his gaffe. That, to me, is the real tragedy of it.

A lot of what we've been talking about today is the performance of leaders. It looks like we're going to have an election where there isn't a massive ideological divide in this country between Tories and labor, so a lot of attention will focus on the leaders. I was very struck in the interviews that we did this morning with Pat McFaddon and Michael Gove, that both of them desperately tried to tug us away into talking about the deficiencies of their opponent rather than what they had to offer. Now, one can be a bit purist about this and a bit high-minded and so on, But does this tell us something about what the election campaign that's coming?

Oh, for sure. Because we're not going to have a close election at all. There's a moment, Andrew Neil was right. There's a moment when the tide changes and you can do nothing about it. The settled will of the public is to change from this government, and Labor are going to be the beneficiaries of that. That makes the Tories angry, and they want to go, You don't understand. They're at risk. They're at risk. They have a scatter gun approach. But all of it is about, Don't look at us, don't ask us, look at him. Jo?

I think both parties have made this very personal politically. Actually, the media generally are fueling this because we're seeing polls constantly about how individuals are faring, so who is the best person for the job. I think it does the public a disservice because you don't really know what you're voting for. Even really, people that voted in 2019 might have voted for a personality, but they didn't get them for the full term anyway. They've had three.

It's going to be bitter. It's going to be personal when it should really be about the economy and bringing it back up in order that we can recoup enough... Well, hang on a minute. Unless you've got enough tax revenue, you can't do anything. And that's what it should be about. And you're absolutely right. The public are going to be very, very badly served in this campaign season.

I think the biggest concern everyone should have is how low turnout will be, because I think a lot of people are just sick of it all.

People have a lost hope.

We have months and months of this to go.

That's it for this week's show. I'll be back next Sunday. Watch Sophie every night this week. See you next week.