The 'traitor' row tearing Reform apart | The News Agents

Zia Youssef calling a former Conservative Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, who has served his country, who has been honoured for the military service that he gave, to call him a traitor?

Nah.But then what happens when you're on the down and you're trying to lift yourself again?You try and get attention.But the way that you get attention, as we know, in the content era and the attention economy that we live in, is by being more extreme, by leaning into your worst excesses.

You are maybe appealing to the far right flank and to those people who are on X, but are you winning the country over?

The thing about insurgent parties, like reform, is in a way they're a conjuring trick.They're very good at casting a spell.The News Agents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity.

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I don't care about being called a moron.I do care about being called a traitor.Traitor is a very loaded charge.Traitor carries by history a death sentence.And this is a man who a few weeks ago was telling people to modify their language after the tragic murder of Anne Whittaker.and spouts this stuff.

I also think it's a bit cheeky.This is a guy who's an American banker, for God's sake.Never put a uniform on in his life.I spent nine years of my life on operational tours and in uniform.From a party whose Welsh leader is currently languishing in jail for 10 years for basically being a traitor, taking money from the Russian state, Nathan Gill, I think I know a traitor better than he does.

That is the former Conservative Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, speaking on LBC as a former serviceman, I think it's fair to say, taking no prisoners against the Reform Home Affairs spokesperson, Zia Yousaf, after he called Wallace a traitor to Britain, after Wallace had criticised Reform's policies onsending prisoners in the UK to foreign countries.

The striking thing since the 2024 election is how much reform got right in the immediate aftermath of it.But is it now getting everything absolutely wrong?Welcome to the News Agents.

The News Agents.

It's Jon.It's Lewis.And before we start, Jon, I don't know about you, I just really fancy for some reason, I don't know why, like a 99 ice cream?Maybe with like a flake?And for some reason I've got green sleeves.I've just got green sleeves, just.

just going off in my head for some reason.

You're trying to make a sartorial joke, are you?

Well, you've said enough of them my way in the past.Just for people listening rather than watching, John is wearing today a very fetching cream suit.It would make Martin Bell blush, I think it's fair to say.That's how bright it is.It's very bright and it's very new.It's very new, very lovely.

From a holiday in Vietnam, made to measure, can't beat it.and it's a little lighter than I had anticipated.Well, it's lovely.It's summer, a little taste of summer, whereas you look rather gloomy and wintry.

I know, I'm already preparing for the autumn.Calippos all around.Anyway, back to our proper story.So this is a, well, as it often is with reform, it is a row which is engulfing the party, which started on X, and which is, I think, in all sorts of ways, reminding us of the way, ways in which This feels like a party at the moment, which is spiraling out of control.So Zia Yusuf, who we've had on this show before, he's the party's former party chairman, home affairs spokesperson.He's often been heralded by Nigel Farage as the rising star of the party.

As you heard at the top there, he has been slammed by the former defence secretary, Ben Wallace, for saying online that he was a traitor to Britain.And I have to say, this is the sort of language which has become more commoncertainly in part to the Reform Party and from Youssef himself.This comes after Youssef hit out at the Defence Secretary.Ben Wallace had criticised Youssef's plans to fix the shortage of prison places by sending foreign criminals abroad.He said that on X. And in response, Yusuf said, incredible that this moron was defense secretary.

Our policy today is in direct response to your government's failures.If their home countries won't take back their citizens that are languishing in our jails, we're going to rent spaces in countries like El Salvador to put them.And this all started off in a kind of like spiraled into a kind of Twitter exchange.where Wallace, among other things, hit back by saying, oh, look, a lesson from a man who never put a uniform on, just worked at a bank, a man who is literally making policy and facts up.But it is that accusation of being a traitor, that deeply emotive language that really has basically cascaded through the Reform Party and indeed has led this afternoon to Nigel Farage having to disown what Zia Yousaf has said.

Yeah, so...You may have struggled to hear some of that, but Nigel Farage saying, that's a bit strong, he's going to get a ticking off, he wouldn't have said that.I do think The Sun, which has been a brilliant newspaper over the years, still needs a little help on the audio side of its production.I think the microphone was pointing.I don't know whether the microphone was actually connected to listen to what Mr. Farage had to say.But anyway, it's interesting, isn't it, that Nigel Farage is even having to say, Zia, whoa, enough, rein it in, wind your neck in, son, and stop saying all this stuff.

And I think it points to something else that is You've got Nigel Farage who, since the 2024 election, has seen an opportunity where reform can be catapulted into the lead in British political opinion polling, can potentially win a general election.What does it need to do?It needs to win over.It needs to win over disaffected Conservative voters who kind of are part of the mainstream and they want to see reform that's a bit more respectable.Zia Yousaf, calling a former Conservative Defence Secretary who has served his country, who has been honoured for the military service that he gave, to call him a traitor?Nah.

You're not winning friends there, mate.You are maybe appealing to the far right flank and to those people who are on X. But are you winning the country over?And you saw in Makefield the danger for reform by trying to go far too far out to one side is that people think, you know what, I don't want to have reform as the MP.I will vote someone else.I will either vote restore or I will vote for Labour.And that is exactly what happened in the maker field by election.

And Zia Yousaf seems to represent one strand of thought, which is we've got to go far further to the right.We've got to be even angrier.We've got to outrestore, restore.But you've got Farage seeming to want to go in a different direction.

I think what's what's what's revealing about this and why it's more than just a twisted spat is, as you indicate, John, I think this is indicative of asplit within reform.And in a sense, we've already seen a split within reform because those who wanted to take that harder edge, not only rhetorically, politically, but also in terms of policy in all sorts of areas, going harder to the right and even to the far right in some cases, that's already happened because it's happened with Restore and it's happened with Rupert Lowe.And I think what you're seeing here is at least two schools of thought within the remainder of reform, which is that, as we've talked about on the show before, 12 months ago, reform had a maximalist strategy where it was looking to get up to 35 % and 38%.And what I think is the danger with this sort of thing from Yusuf, which is not an isolated example, by the way, is that it speaks to a party which is cascading out of control.And if it is not careful, we'll end up in a death spiral.

a political death spiral, because this is the sequence of events and we're already halfway through it potentially, which is that the thing about insurgent parties like reform is in a way they're a conjuring trick.They're very good at casting a spell, right?Because what they do is they have to convince you that they have a sort of unalloyed chain of momentum.It's never going to be broken.We're getting bigger, we're getting bigger, we're getting more support.We are the people and you can see that from 100 unbroken poles where we're top, 200, 300, 500.

And that's great as long as you can maintain that momentum.The moment you stop maintaining that momentum, the moment you start to slide, the moment you start to make mistakes, it's almost as if the spell is broken.We're seeing that in the poles with Nigel Farage's personal ratings at the moment.It is something which is, and we've seen it with Polanski as well, it is something which is almost endemic within these parties, which is that the very forces, the vapours which lifted them,are so good at bringing them down again, because there is nothing that much more substantial than the waves and the sort of populist kind of instincts which brought to them where they were in the first place.So I think that the danger is that as soon as you're on the down in a way that reform are, at least for the moment, and it might not maintain by the way because they're still maintaining some decent levels of popularity, but then what happens when you're on the down and you're trying to lift yourself again?

You try and get attention.you try, almost at any cost, to get attention, to try and be lifted up again.But the way that you get attention, as we know, in the content era and the attention economy that we live in, is by being more extreme, by leaning into your worst excesses, which is exactly the opposite of the maximalist strategy, which is where reform were when they were at their strongest.And that leads you to the crazy situation of calling a former defence secretary, who is in the Scots Guard, a traitor.for a policy, for just criticising you online.There is a world of political difference between not agreeing with what Ben Wallace says, not approving of what he did when he was defence secretary, as Yusuf says himself.

He took out the super injunction to prevent that.Well, he didn't actually do it, but his government took out the super injunction, which led to people like us not being able to report on that Afghan policy.

But there's a world of difference between that and calling someone a traitor.And treachery and treason.Look, I mean, what's striking is, as well, is the language of Zia Youssef after the death of Ann Widdecombe when he's saying, we've got to moderate the way we speak in politics.

West Streeting, until recently the health secretary, said, quote, if only science had a cure for Ann Widdecombe.A woman on Twitter said, quote, Ann Widdecombe better go this week.She is a little fascist beast.This woman happens to have been, until just a few months ago, the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, Jess Phillips.Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, made the inflammatory declaration that, quote, the greatest threat to the Britain we love doesn't come from Tehran or Moscow, it comes from within.I'm talking about Nigel Farage.

Is it any wonder, with such rhetoric relentlessly levelled at reform, that some may be moved to try to eliminate that supposed threat through lethal violence.

So that was Zia Youssef then.And obviously the traitor comments is Zia Youssef now.And they're only separated by a few weeks.And I think what you were saying, Lewis, about the need to show that you're continually rising and once it stops rising, then you're in problem.Because how do you reinflate the balloon?I remember back in the day, Thatcher had a great phrase for it.

And the SDP, where, you know, she said, I as someone who can cook knows that you can't make a souffle rise twice.And I think that there was a kind of one of those very brilliantly written phrases for her because it hit home about the SDP, you know, they'd started to sink and they weren't going to rise again.I've sometimes wondered whether with reform and what you're seeing now between Zia Yusuf going out on a kind of you know, more extreme view than Farage, whether it is the same trick that Thatcher and Tebbit pulled off when, you know, Tebbit was the party chairman, Thatcher was the prime minister, and Tebbit would say much more inflammatory things than Margaret Thatcher would.And he was there to be the Rottweiler attack dog, to kind of go out and say the things that were unthinkable, but would play well with the conservative base at that time.I'm not convinced that it's as well organized as that in my view.the moment, where I don't think there is that discipline of right, this is what we're doing.

This is how we're doing it.I think an awful lot of people are going their own way.and it's not working well for them at the moment.If you look at just the recent cascade of publicity that has been so negative.

Yeah, well, I think reformers have found themselves in a very unhappy space, which is that, you know, we've got the Clacton by -election this week.That result will come in on Friday.Farage is almost certainly going to win.For all those people out there hoping that we were going to see a Count Binface MP, you know, it's not going to happen.But during that time, because he has absented himself from the political battle, um because basically broadcasters haven't been able to to really include him very much as during the as a Burnham has become prime minister they've receded they've fallen down the agenda um at the same time they've been slipping in the polls and so they've been trying to find ways of getting back into the conversation and until Farage is actually re -elected during by which time of course all the the investigations will resume in Parliament about his financial affairs, but until he's re -elected, they've basically been without a leader.And it feels to me that in that space, to some extent, has stepped forward Yusuf and others who have been trying to kind of get some attention.

And what I think is the problem here with Yusuf in particular, and I think with his style of politics, and it's sometimes Farage employs this, sometimes he doesn't, but it is this battle which is going on with reform.Yusuf's tick, his rhetorical sort of tick here, and other politicians on the kind of this part of the right do as well, is to basically collapse the distinction between being wrong and between being wicked, right?Like basically, it isn't just that politicians like Ben Wallace have made bad decisions.They betrayed you, they betrayed Britain, they should face consequences for it.He's always talking about like a reckoning of their beingsome sort of, when reform is in there, that basically the government's going to come after you, like in some way, right?

Like there's something that is so online about him.and about his politics.Like the constant escalation of nouns that he has, right?It's not just that someone's wrong, it's that they've become an enemy and the enemy becomes like a version of betrayal and then that becomes treason.And the problem with that is, right, the problem with that is this is the guy who's going to be Home Secretary.The argument is that this is the guy who's going to become Home Secretary and to have a potentially incoming Home Secretary accusing former politicians of betrayal, of not just betrayal, but of being a traitor when he would be in charge of the apparatus of the British state, of the security state.

Do we want that?Is that what we want?Is that the sort of country we want to be?Because I can think of no precedent for that.I can think of no precedent of someone who fancies themselves as an incoming Home Secretary accusing a recently departed former government minister of being a traitor.

But isn't that the mistake that people are making online, where you live this life by demanding attention, the attention economy, which we've spoken about many times and you've kind of mentioned this.Is that the center of political gravity online?the likes that you're going to get on X, the algorithmic boost you're going to get by being extreme.I mean, sure, I bet you it gets you a huge amount of likes.But if we're talking about those constituencies, which, you know, reform strategists will have looked at in Surrey and Hampshire and wherever else, where there are an awful lot of Tory seats, is attacking Ben Wallace for being a traitor going to win over those voters who might have thought about going with reform?I don't think it will.

I think it's entirely counter...We're not America.Yeah, we're not America.

Please wake up to this.I think this is a schism like at the heart of this party.I think some people in reform, and there are some really clever people in reform, there are people who rightly are are capitalising on the deep anti -politics feeling there is in this country, the deep anti -Westminster feeling.Absolutely there's a feeling that the big parties have let this country down, let lots of people down, and it's completely legitimate and important that those voices are heard and that there is a channel for that.And don't get me wrong, you know, they're still doing well in some by -elections, they did spectacularly well at the local elections, and they're still, I mean if you talk to them, they'll say, look, this is Andy Burnham's best best moment that there's going to be it's all going to be downhill for here and from here and we're hanging in there do not write us off and i think this is perfectly possible, indeed plausible, that in three months' time or six months' time we're talking about them at the top of the polls again, right?So there's nothing certain about this.

But I guarantee, and I think their big mistake, which has come over the last 12 months, is the moments that they think that we're America.The moment that they think that they can transpose MAGA politics and superimpose it onto our country and our politics.And yes, there are elements of our politics which are becoming more American over time, we are becoming somewhat more polarised, there is radicalisation going on, some of those same sort of forces, but we are a long way behind that and the proclivities and the instincts and just the sentiment, the kind of, the manners of British politics and British people are different and are in a different place and different space to where America is.And these people, frankly, sometimes their association with MAGA and their kind of finger on the pulse, some of them, with American politics has been an asset.Increasingly, it feels like a huge, huge problem and something which is impeding them rather than propelling them forward.

Can we just talk about one other thing which kind of emerged over the weekend, which hasn't been discussed much?And that is that Aaron Banks, who was one of the original bad boys of Brexit, who is very close to, yeah.Farage, stood to be Mayor of the West of England on the reform ticket and is often put up as a reform voice.He paid for investigators to look into the background of the Sunday Times Insight editor, Gabriel Pogrund, who's been on this podcast a number of times, into what his background is and is there any dirt on him because of the stuff that he had been digging up on reform.And you think Gabriel Pogrund is really in this unique position now where not only has he been investigated from the right reform but also by the left, by Josh Simons or the think tank that Josh Simon was involved with.And Josh Simons paid a hefty price.

He was forced out of government.What is the price that Aaron Banks is paying for this investigation that he's launched into a journalist who was doing his job.What a journalist is paid to do.

Well, I think Gabriel should take it as an enormous, although it must be very disturbing, he should take it as an enormous compliment, in a sense, that both the Labour Party and Reform, well, someone very closely associated with Reform and someone closely associated with the Labour Party, I should say, have been so bothered by his reporting that they have gone to the trouble of doing this.But that doesn't mean it isn't a deeply disturbing development, profoundly disturbing development in our politics.And just to be absolutely specific about it as well, I mean, this is according to the Sunday Times, investigators reportedly from Precision Risk and Intelligence, a private investigations firm that banks had previously owned, when the new statesman put the allegations to banks, he didn't deny commissioning the investigation.He instead justified his stance by alleging that the Sunday Times had used hack material, something the paper strongly denies, and reportedly said, when you live by the sword, you die by the sword.and the Sunday Times has described the investigation into Pogrund as reprehensible.And Reform would say that they themselves weren't involved and didn't know about Banks' investigation.

But Banks, as you say, John, is basically a longstanding and prominent ally of Farage as it gets.You know, he's given a lot of money to Farage's different political vehicles over the years.He stood for the party as a candidate.Is he going to get kicked out of the party?Is he going to be removed from the party?If Farage says, rightly, that it's a bit far, a bit far, a bit over the top to call someone a traitor, is it a bit far and a bit much for one of your most prominent supporters to commission an investigation into a journalist for doing his job?

Is that the sort of country we want to live in?Like, this is the point, this is the point that reform have to kind of ask themselves, right, they want to be treated seriously as a credible government in waiting and there have been moments in the recent past where that has looked very probable or at least, you know, very credible.Can we expect from a reform government that we'll have a Home Secretary who is accusing his predecessor ministers in government of being traitors, as a matter of course?Can we expect that prominent allies of reform ministers will be commissioning investigations from private investigators into journalists and journalism that they don't like.Is that the sort of country that we can expect to be in 2028 or 29 after the next general election if there is a reform majority?Because it's not the sort of government that we'll have ever had before.

Lewis, you spoke a moment ago about mistake reform are making by trying to borrow everything from the example of the United States.The United States has this thing called the First Amendment and we have freedom of speech in this country as well, something the reforms say they are firmly in favor of.If you believe infreedom of speech, you also believe in a free press able to go about its work legally, lawfully, within the rules, which is what Gabriel Pogrond has done.You don't start getting the goons involved to have an investigation into what he's doing, into his work and whether there is anything that could compromise him.I think it's outrageous and gone way, way too far.

So Andy Banham is on the latest stage of his cost of living tour and what is wrong with Britain and the small measures that will make a big difference.And today he is focusing on the high street and what has gone wrong with the high street.The fact that it's full of vape shops and casinos or slot machines or whatever that are operating 24 hours.And how do you get ordinary shops back onto the high street?And he's been speaking to LBC's Henry Riley.Andy Burnham, thank you very much for joining us.

What has gone wrong with our high streets, Prime Minister?They've been in slow decline, possibly from the 80s, as shopping habits changed, but also de -industrialisation is the big employers left, people had less money to spend.So it's been a combination of factors, but you can go up and down Britain now and you see hollowed out high streets.And it's sad because people in those areas say, why can't it be more again?Why can't it be better?It's also linked to councils.

Councils have not had enough power and resource to turn them around.And that's what today's announcement is about.Give communities more power to close the shops they don't want.stop the spread of them as well.And then there'll be a phase two of this campaign, which is looking at more incentives to support businesses through business rates.

As the Prime Minister speaking to LBC and Jacob Hawley has joined us in the studio is comedian but also host of the Scream Rot podcast, which I'm a big fan of podcast which explores internet content, content creators,and most humanely for this, a long -standing campaigner to save the British high street.

That's correct.I've been passionate about this for a long time.I'm very glad to finally see action being taken.

What, what, um, obviously, things are shaking.Most, when we think of like campaigners to save the British high street, most don't tend to be, how can I put this, um, as young as you.Go for it, Lewis.No, no.It's nice.Don't tend to be as young or as sort of content savvy as you.

What is it about the British High Street which has attracted your campaigning zeal?

Do you know what?I think it started, funnily enough, it was one of those chicken and egg things where it started as something I spoke about on the podcast.But as I spoke about it more on the podcast, I started thinking about it more and getting more bothered by it.And I remember someone sort of messaged me after a gig being like, oh yeah, I like the cut of your jib, mate.I'm from a similar place to you.You know, I've probably got similar concerns.

to you, I don't like this, don't like that, and I don't like the sort of fall of the high street.And I just thought that was a really funny thing to say to someone that you'd assume that that's something I care about.And then after he said it, I was like, yeah, I'm fed up with it actually.And I think it's one of those really like everyday normal things that everyone notices every single day.The amount of people who walk around Britain now and they go, yes, rubbish, it's awful, it's just worse than it used to be.And you can't really put your finger on why, but that's one of the things.

That's one of the reasons why.Like when I was a kid, I would go around with my mum, stop at a little bakery, get a biscuit.Brags the bakers.Do you know what I mean?It felt quaint and nice.And now, as you say, those places are gone and they are replaced by vape shops, barber shops with no one in them, sort of tat shops.

Do you know what I mean?Everything shops.All right, Robert Jenner.Well, right.But you've just hit on the problem.Yeah.

it gets grabbed by people on that side of things, Robert Jenrick, Farage, stuff like that.But then ostensibly it's like, why is it a right wing?

No, it shouldn't.And that's why it's really smart of Burnham to a lighter point.I mean, you tweeted last month, if a politician just said, I'm going to put a bit of money in and just wipe this, i .e.vape shops all out, it'd be one of the most popular things a politician has done in years.Everyone's fucking fed up with it.

Yeah.Vindication for you today.

Thank you.Well, I'm glad that Mr. Burnham was reading my tweet.I mean, to be fair, he does follow my podcast's Twitter account.Does he?

Yeah.He doesn't follow ours.Jesus Christ, Prime Minister.So do you think he's been listening to you?Do you think that this has helped kind of inform his judgment?Do you think I did it?

I'm trying to give you, I'm picking you up here, man. I couldn't give it any more welly than saying, you know, are you responsible for Downing Street?You could be the new Mary Portis.

I don't want to... we had some messages from people who work for councils who've said that they sent proposals to Number 10 where they had used clips from us talking about this thing.Really?But I do think it's because, as you just say there, all right Robert Jenrick, it's like, it feels like a right -wing issue.It's not and it shouldn't be.But the reason it does is because we're quite a plain speaking podcast.I think that's the reason we took... because let's be honest, it's not Pam and Sue, the former dealer ladies running the vape shops.

It's lads from overseas.Do you know what I mean?And that makes people a bit tense.That makes people, oh God.It doesn't feel great as an ostensibly left -leaning person to go, can we get rid of those brown people?They're making things look a bit untidy.

But that's not what you're saying.What we're saying is, A lot of it's crime.Yeah, of course.A lot of it is crime.And I think ultimately normal people who just potter up and down, going to work, getting on the tube every day, using the train station, whatever, when they walk past these places.

And the left have been way too squeamish about just like, not just the left, just like mainstream political parties have been way too squeamish about addressing this stuff head on.

Right.And when you're walking around seeing this stuff and it is crime and it is people like getting away with paying no tax, no business rates, whatever they're doing, money laundering.And you're hard up.You can't afford to take your kids on a date.You get fed up.But it's nothing to do with race or colour or where people are from.

No, exactly.But the methods that the British state have of controlling the high street seem totally ill -equipped.given the fact that, as you say, there's probably organized crime behind this, and this is a front for laundering money.And you've got someone from the Trading Standards Office, from the local council, knocking on the door saying, excuse me, can we just start?I mean, what are they backed up by?

This is it.If this was in America, This would be the FBI.If this was Yanks, they'd send the FBI after these people.You're bang on.The BBC have reported on this in the past.If you read about this, it's people from the local council who turn up in their own cars, knock on the doors, and they're going, excuse me, are you money laundering?

And then they're confronting gangs who go, who are you?Why are you asking me questions?There's multiple reports of council workers being followed home, their vehicles being targeted, their homes being targeted.They have to leave the jobs.They have to move homes.Like it's a very simple thing of like if you crack down on this stuff, like the amount of money you'd uncover through the crime, like there's been countless amount of journalists who've done undercover stuff.

A lot of these places are just selling drugs.Like a vape shop with nothing on the shelf next to Greg's or whatever.

American candy store.

American candy, whatever.

It's basically painted on, all the stock.You try and lift up one of these little candy canes, you can't even get one.

And the thing is, I go all over the country, I'm a stand -up comedian, right?So I go all over the country and you see it in Swindon, you see it in Lancashire, whatever, and you go, God, yeah, that's mad.

Mate, we're recording this in the West End.You can walk up Oxford Street.

There's 20 of them between Oxford Circus and Tottenham Court Road.It's everywhere.And you're 100 % right.It's an issue of the fact that the people trying to stop this, it's little council workers with a clipboard turning up saying, excuse me, can I check your forms?It needs to be bigger than that.And I think the interesting thing about a lot of this is it's one of a number of

just very visible things about Britain that feels worse, that feels like it's on the slide, on the decline.People getting away with small level crime that years ago they wouldn't have got away with, now they are.But if you want to do something about it, You need a bigger state.You have to pay for it.You have to be willing to say, all right, I'll give a bit more tax.I'll pay a bit more, whatever it might be.

National insurance.

Or the state not to ignore it.

But then the state, if they're to not ignore it, they've got to pay someone to knock on doors, right?

I mean, as I said, your podcast looks at online content and content creators in all their forms.We've also got a new prime minister, although his primary job seems to be content creator in chief.That's right.What do you make of him?What do you make of his social game?

I don't know.I mean, I think he's clearly looked at what went wrong with Starmer and went, nevermind, you know, global issues or whatever, let's try and get good at TikTok.You know what I mean?

I don't know.I guess it works.Do you think actually that Starmer, his lack of ability to do that stuff, I mean, because like, I mean, it was bad, right?I mean, you know, the vibes, but yeah, well, vibes sort of bounced off him.I know it's not the most important thing in the world, but do you think it was quite a big part of his problem?Yeah.

His lack of ability to do content.

I assume it was, because to be honest with you, you know, say it quietly.I think he did some decent stuff, Starmer.And I think when you look at the stuff that was his undoing, it's not stuff that I massively care about.If I'm really honest with you, Mandelson, right?To be honest with you, I think loads of them are crooked.I don't doubt that Mandelson is one of the worst ones, but I think there's hundreds of people in positions like Mandelson's positions that are just as bad as him.

And to be honest with you, the time that I've grown up in, I think they're all as dodgy as that.The whole freebies scandal.Who cares?He gets a free ticket to the Emirates sometimes.So do I every now and then.Do you know what I mean?

It's like, who cares?I think he did loads of decent stuff.And I think ultimately, he sounded a bit weird.People didn't like looking at him.And that's the end of Starmark.I love the high street stuff that he's saying he's going to do, Burnham.

Do I have any confidence that he's going to be any better?I don't know, not really.Do you?Do you think he's got big plans, more so than Starmer, to change direction in the country?

Well, the question is more is whether Starmer's lack of ability to control the political conversation, which Burnham has done very well so far, partly through his content and his ability to kind of, you know, dominate some of the platforms you're talking about, whether that actually is basically like a necessary condition now to be a successful politician.

We're in the honeymoon period.By Christmas he won't be able to just tell us his favourite Joy Division album to get away from the fact that he prefers Scampi Fries.

But you talk about, you know, the death of the high street and the fact that it's full of vape shops and whatever else.Isn't the problem that we all shop online now?There is a structural problem.It's not just that it's been taken over by vape shops and that the rates are too high.

It's the fact that people don't want high street anymore when they can sit at home click on something from amazon it arrives the next day they can send it back or whatever and that is the way that retail has changed in this country and that there isn't the space for you know the small stores that was a clothes shop or was a whatever it happened to be on the high street and maybe the bakery you go to the supermarket now and you buy your bread for the week yeah i mean and for all the hoo -ha about money laundering and after these barber shop owners have got bmws and mercedes i don't think the online retailers that most of us use are paying loads of tax do you know what i mean i don't know i don't know if they're any more straightforward in their bookkeeping than the boys in the barbers but I also see, yeah, OK, maybe we don't need a candlestick maker on the high street anymore.But when you see the amount of restaurants, bars, venues that are closing, that to me feels sad.And that to me feels like a use of the high street.I mean, there's a huge campaign to reduce VAT on outlets like that.That, to me, feels like...And I think Burnham has said this, to be fair, has he not?

He's kind of said, there are some places where we have to be a bit kinder with our business rates and some places we need to be a bit harder.Get rid of casinos, get more, I don't know, pubs, venues, that kind of thing.

So we were talking about our national conscience, Zia Youssef, before you came in.And he's another sort of modern content creator, isn't he?And I know on your show you analyse Not just politicians content, but other stuff that's online.Just have a look at some of Zia's most recent material.I just want to hear your thoughts on what he's been up to.This is him in Morocco last week.

Spanish territory is being invaded, and Britain is being invaded too.200 ,000 people have turned up on our beaches illegally, including murderers and terrorists.That's more people than stormed the beaches of Normandy on D -Day.Reform will respond by ordering His Majesty's Royal Navy into the Channel to defend Britain's borders.They will be ordered to see to it that not a single unauthorized vessel crossing the English Channel makes it to the United Kingdom.Tory and Labour governments responded to the invasion with a free ferry service and free hotels for the invaders.

Reform will respond by launching the biggest military operation in the Channel since World War II.To those with no right to enter Britain, our borders will be impenetrable.

Subtle stuff, isn't it?If that was a series, I'd watch that.It feels like the sort of promo for a Netflix series where you get to watch the Navy go to war with the migrants on the dinghies.I'd watch it.I think the funny thing with what Reform try and do with a lot of their content, They know they're aiming it at an older market, right?And my parents are the exact market they're aiming for.

You're half expecting to start selling like gold coins or something.

Yeah, but I found this in my parents who are kind of like, you know,content addict, Facebook user, sort of daily mail comment section frequencers.Their brains have kind of regressed to that of Gen Z. So they need this.They need like loud noises and colors and stuff to keep them hooked.Yeah, exactly.They're really into that kind of thing.

That would work on them.I mean, my dad uses this to describe some of his mates.They're boat brained.They're fully boat brained.They're obsessed with these dinghies.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.Yeah.

I mean, they don't have any other policies apart from the boat.

I like the idea of making our border impenetrable.Like no one can come in.No one can come out.It's completely impenetrable.That's the end point.No more ferries.

No more ferries.

Also, the Royal Navy will be mobilized just like in World War Two.Really?I mean, we tried to send a warship to the Eastern Mediterranean and struggled to get it off out there.

The idea of, like, putting in the channel the biggest military operation since D -Day, as if that was great.That was ideal.Everyone looks back at June 1944 as the golden age.

Yeah, the good times, the good old times when the Navy were at sea.

Yes, and all of we were as well.Yeah.Well, I'm sure we'll all be there when we get the call up.Yes, please.Jacob, it's been an absolute pleasure.Thank you so much.

Thank you.It's been a pleasure.

Well, before we go, another uplifting bit of news about the President of the United States.So Donald Trump, it turns out, was at the centre of an extraordinary presidential disappearing act, we're told by the New York Times last month.So he was leaving NATO, which you might remember was going on in Turkey, and US intelligence had picked up what officials regarded as a possible Iranian assassination threat.So Trump, who had gone to the summit on this brand new, people will remember jets, new Air Force One that the Qatari government had given the president, he was then filmed going on to that as normal but once the cameras had seen him get on got on he secretly got back off again via an airport cable.truck what disguised as a tuna bake yes maybe yes exactly maybe maybe an egg and cress given the new hair and was driven across the tarmac to a smaller military jet.Meanwhile, and here's the rub for our colleagues in the American, in Washington and the White House press corps.

Meanwhile, the old Air Force One took off as a decoy for the Iranians, carrying the journalists and indeed even some of the White House staff still on it, who apparently all thought that the president was still on the plane and they were told to keep the blinds shut.Trump had explained the mysterious switch by saying that he fancied, he fancied because they stopped off in England, he fancied showing the American troops who were based in the UK the new plane and he fancied going on the old Air Force One for old time's sake, which is quite the euphemism you might say for the Iranians may be trying to kill me, put me in with the sandwiches.

It's one of those Trump stories that you would think, nah, can't be true.Although the idea that Donald Trump would be part of any disguising operation where no one would ever know about.It seems so far -fetched because Donald Trump has to broadcast everything, but there we are.

I mean, this is a man who wanted a military parade for his birthday, and now he's being extracted from a NATO summit alongside 48 mini bottles of Chardonnay.I mean, it is quite something, isn't it, for him?And basically, when he was asked about it from the journalists, he basically said, well, you know, if I go, you go.which apparently the euphemism is, in fact, if you go, I don't go.Exactly.Gets you right there, doesn't it?

That's patriotism.Thank you, Mr. President.Yeah, well, we'll be back tomorrow.We'll see you then.Bye bye.Bye bye.

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