Is the UK general election all over even before the first vote is cast? Polls suggest that Labour has an unassailable lead, and so with two weeks of campaigning to go, is there any chance that media coverage could still influence the electorate? Lionel Barber and Alan Rusbridger are joined by two experienced political commentators to discuss how the parties have performed so far, and if any surprises are likely in the remaining fortnight.
Michael Crick is a veteran of election campaigns, having started reporting on politics in the early 1980s, and Ros Taylor from the political podcast Oh God, What Now? has been on the political trail since the 1990s. Together with Alan and Lionel they reflect on Ed Davey’s capers, Sunak’s gaffes, Starmer’s “safe pair of hands” and the rise of Nigel Farage.
The outcome of the election will inevitably have ramifications for the future of Conservative party—including raising questions about who will be its next leader. While Farage—who leads Reform—is clearly popular amongst certain areas of the media, is any news organisation likely to take the plunge and back him and laud him as a future prime minister, or is he destined to remain on the periphery?
Also this week: The Washington Post saga continues and Lionel and Alan discuss how long Jeff Bezos can allow the chaos to continue, and Lionel reacts to breaking news that the Telegraph has lost a record £245 million: a story that promises to grow over the coming weeks.
This transcript is unedited and may contain errors.
Alan Rusbridger: Hello and welcome back to Media Confidential, your weekly deep dive behind the headlines and beyond the clickbait of the rapidly moving world of the media with me, Alan Rusbridger.
Lionel Barber: And me, Lionel Barber. Today, we're going to look at the UK general election where we could be witnessing the death of the modern Conservative Party and perhaps the biggest-ever win in history for Keir Starmer's Labour.
Alan: We begin with a big story that's just broken while we're recording and Lionel is going to tell us all about it.
Lionel: Yes, Alan. This huge breaking story concerns The Daily Telegraph Group, which has reported losses of £244 million in 2023. That's against profits of 30 million or so last year. This is due to an exceptional provision they've had to set out a provision of nearly £280 million to cover loans made to the Barclay family, and which they said may not be repaid. The statement also refers to identifying potential irregularities between the Barclay Empire and transactions related to the Telegraph Group.
Alan: Whoever bought The Telegraph may have overpaid.
Lionel: I think the bigger picture here is we know that the Barclay twins ran an extremely complicated corporate structure involving lots of different companies, some offshore, all aimed in general at avoiding the payment of tax, but also they were trading within each other and clearly highly indebted. If you look at this, it casts doubt about whether the Telegraph Group was actually worth the 600 million or so that the Abu Dhabi's and the Jeff Zucker's RedBird Group, the American Banking Group venture fund, when they paid that money, was it really worth it? It also raises questions about the sale process now that RedBird and the Abu Dhabi's have been deemed by the government and parliament not to be suitable owners of the Telegraph Group because they're foreign state agencies. We know that for many years the Barclay twins had extensive properties.
They owned the Ritz, they owned a shipping line. They were very close to Margaret Thatcher, but they did have a historic aversion to paying tax. Of course, they were based in the Channel Islands on the island of Brecqhou, highly secretive. Any journalist that went anywhere near investigating their corporate empire was often threatened with legal retaliation. The fact that in the course of reviewing the accounts of the Telegraph Group with an item to the sale this extraordinary provision has had to be made. Questions about the loans and circular transactions within The Telegraph Empire have been raised. Of course, it's worth remembering that the Daily Telegraph Group was put up for sale because Lloyds Bank called in a loan of around £1 billion which the Barclay twins couldn't actually repay and that had been going on for years. This extra provision raises even more questions.
Alan: Thank you, Lionel. We'll keep listeners posted as the story emerges. Now back to the general election, and we're four weeks into this campaign, but it looks like damage to the Conservative Party has already been done as Labour remains ahead in the polls.
Lionel: Is the UK media capturing the moment and how about the big guns in the Tory press like the Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Sun, and the once mighty Daily Express? So far, they've failed to dent Labour's commanding lead in the polls. Here's the question, Alan. Are they already hedging their bets? May some move to Labour or have they already switched allegiances to Nigel Farage and his insurgent reform party? Maybe some are even betting on Farage as the next leader of a refashioned Conservative Party.
Alan: How much does it matter any longer is the question. We certainly haven't had anything like the Prescott left hook or Gordon Brown being caught on mic calling a voter of bigot. There haven't been any huge gaffes. There have been a couple of Rishi clangers. We've had Ed Davey falling off paddleboards and bouncing down water slides and all that kind of thing. I'm sure we'll discuss this, the showering of Nigel Farage with not only milkshakes but with endless coverage. We haven't had a big moment, have we?
Lionel: No, not yet. Maybe there is some other things that are happening under the surface that haven't been quite captured by media either on television or in print. Anyway, we're going to be joined today by journalist, author, and presenter of the podcast Oh God, What Now, Ros Taylor. We're welcoming back to the show, Michael Crick, doyen of political journalists, broadcaster one of the founders of Channel 4 News. We'll be asking who's performed best so far in front of the cameras and in the newspaper column inches.
Alan: First Lionel, welcome back to the UK. Just as I leave it, I should explain. I'm in [unintelligible 00:06:22], France.
Lionel: Oh, you're traveling, Alan?
Alan: Not quite to the extent of yours, but I will catch up with your miles one day. Are you gripped by election fever?
Lionel: Well, I think I am. I've been extremely interested the way in which big business appears now to be shifting to Labour. I thought the new part owner, he's making all the moves at Manchester United. Sir Jim Ratcliffe is now saying Keir Starmer is a good guy. I think he's going to back him. Of course, another one is John Caldwell, the mobile phone multimillionaire who's a big Tory supporter and contributor. I think that's quite telling, Alan.
Alan: Does it matter? Do these names have influence in other areas of business and to what extent does the backing of business, apart from the money coming to the coffers matter?
Lionel: I think it's more than the money going into the coffers, Alan. I think it's more about the normalization of Keir Starmer and the fact that they recognize they want to go with a winner and they're basically saying all these Conservative Party attacks saying it's extreme socialism, the dangers of a supermajority. We are going to go with the winner. Obviously, you've got a rather interesting election in your new country of location, France, where the center is imploding even as we speak. There could be a super right-wing government headed by a 20-something-year-old Jordan Bardella, National Front all over the place. What's the National Front like in your district?
Alan: I feel it's rather strong though. Talking to the local bar owner last night, he said that there's a local candidate who's very popular and they're going to vote for him rather than for party. I've been reading the Reuters Institute declaration of interest. I'm the chair of the steering committee there, but every year they produce this bumper digital news report, which is a health check on the state of the media and the industry. I was trying to look for a glimmer of light, but I have to say it's fairly depressing reading. Actually, the only glimmer of light in the UK is that 31% of people have listened to our podcast in the past month.
I think podcasts are proving popular. The number of people who say they're willing to pay for news in the UK is at the bottom of the league is 8% compared with, say, the US 22%, Norway, 40%. A great reluctance to pay for news in the UK. The trust level is slightly up. There's a slight uptick, 36% in trust, but that's 15% lower than it was before Brexit in 2016. A massive decline in trust since Brexit which the news media have yet to claw back from. Of course, as always, the BBC leagues ahead in terms of trust, 62% compared with the Tabloids who are regularly knocking them who are in the low twenties or in the case of The Sun, 15%.
Lionel: Can we return to our favorite subject where I do think prospect, and you, and Nick Davis have been making the running on The Washington Post story and the fate of William Lewis. Will Lewis, the publisher of The Washington Post, appointed by Jeff Bezos, the Amazon multi-billionaire, who's in some difficulty. I see that this week, Jeff Bezos has made his first intervention, sending a note to senior staff.
The point here, Alan, is I would say it's only conditional support for Will Lewis. No mention of Rob Winnett, the new editor coming in, and full backing for The Washington Post's reporting, and there've been a number of stories, big stories in the American press, on Lewis' role in the clean-up|cover-up of the phone hacking scandal. Bezos said to staff, "A huge thank you for the work that makes us all proud, and makes the institution so important." I'd say the institution of The Washington Post first, and Will Lewis second.
Alan: Yes, it was an interesting memo sent, I believe, from his 127-metet yacht currently moored in Mykonos. There has been this extraordinary thing this week of The Washington Post investigating itself, not edited by the interim editor, and not seen by the publisher. They've done a very good job of holding their own publisher and potential incoming editor to task. It was printed on section A1, so they've given it real prominence, and I think the staff see it as a way of recovering something of their own integrity from this murky business.
Lionel: It's a bit like that movie, Internal Affairs, with Richard Gere. You've got an Internal Affairs department at The Washington Post investigating both the new editor appointed, and the actual publisher. Extraordinary matter. By the way, I think I can break some news, Alan, on the podcast. Cameron Barr, the former senior managing editor who's overseeing this coverage, appointed by the interim editor, Matt Murray, who's in Washington. Cameron Barr, I believe, is located in England. He's a big Anglophile. He's editing this story remotely from an undisclosed location somewhere in the English countryside.
Alan: Extraordinary. Well, the truth is that Lewis, he's clinging on at the moment, but his fate hangs in the lap of two people. One is Jeff Bezos, who will be reading the tea leaves from his yacht. The other is Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police Chief, because we've still yet to hear a reply from him to the letter from Gordon Brown. You remember, Gordon Brown, having read the coverage in Prospect, wrote to the Metropolitan Police Chief and asked him to investigate the cover up. So far, there's been some big investigations in The New York Times, The Beast, NPR, and The Washington Post itself.
They've looked at and uncovered things they claim are ethical failings, both in the career of Lewis and of his would-be editor, Winnett. They haven't covered so much so far, this thing which, if it was true, that Lewis took part in the cover-up when he was supposed to be cleaning up and presenting a clean pair of hands to the police. That is very, very serious. That must be playing in, if Bezos is being well advised, he must be advised that this could come to trial in the Prince Harry case. It could come out through police action. If he puts all his eggs in the Lewis basket now, is he going to be required to recant at some point in the future?
Lionel: Yes, Alan, I agree with that. That shoe has yet to drop. I'd mentioned one other name that will be crucial in the determination of whether Will Lewis can survive as publisher, and that is Patty Stonesifer, the former long-time board member of Amazon, and really, Jeff Bezos' conciliary, closest advisor, who was the interim CEO of The Washington Post before Lewis' appointment. She is a very important figure.
Alan: There was a graphic description in The Daily Beast of her having a party last Sunday for the outgoing editor, Sally Buzbee, to give her a proper send-off. While this party was still going on, The Washington Post's own story dropped. According to this account, the guests at the party then rushed to their phones to read what their own paper was reporting about their own publisher. Extraordinary scenes.
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Lionel: It's week four of the election campaign. It may have not had some of the fireworks and theatrics of previous campaigns, but there's a huge amount at stake. We have two highly experienced journalists to share their insights, Michael Crick and Ros Taylor. Welcome, Ros and Michael. Michael, let's start with you. You've covered political campaigns and general elections going back to the early 1980s. Can you let us know one or two favorites, and how this one in 2024 compares?
Michael Crick: Well, personally, my favorite was 2005 when- it was a boring election, but not for me, because Newsnight very kindly gave me a helicopter, and they put it in special Newsnight livery. It was only a single-engine helicopter, which I think is quite dangerous, actually. They basically said, "Right, you can go wherever you like." Every morning, I'd turn up at the airfield at nine o'clock and say, "Right. Where are we going today?" Well, there's a bit of a rumpus going up in Calder Valley or wherever, and we'd fly up there. I'd quickly whiz around for a couple of hours, gather all material, fly back to London, and edit it back at Newsnight.
Everybody thought this was terribly expensive, but it wasn't actually, because the helicopter was only charged by the hour, and we had no overnight hotels. We hadn't got time for any lunches or meals. Actually, it was no more expensive than normal on campaigns. I suppose the interesting one, '97 was obviously an interesting one, because it was a big change of government. '83, I remember well. That was, of course, the Thatcher landslide and seeing poor old Foot at various events. They have changed hugely in the last 40, 50 years.
Lionel: Ros, you presumably did not go by helicopter when you've been following campaigns?
Ros Taylor: No. Generally, I have been in the office writing about things rather than actually tracking the candidates. I suppose the most interesting one for me to work on was 2010, because while I was thinking a lot about politics before then, writing a lot about politics, that was the first one where I was commissioning and really involved with The Guardian's comment desk. Also, there was a real sense of uncertainty. Of course, it did turn out, it was a close election, which I hadn't had before in my career, because I joined The Guardian in 1998.
I did quite a lot of work with various minor celebrities, asking them to track how their opinion of the election was changing over the campaign, whether they were starting to lean towards the Lib Dems, what they were trying to think. That proved very, very interesting.
Lionel: Let's talk about this year's campaign. Ros, how would you score, let's take the print media, and then we'll turn to Michael on the broadcasters, for the quality of their coverage and the insights that they may or may not have provided. Who would you single out?
Ros: It's an odd election, isn't it? It's an awful lot better than last time, which was ghastly. The 2019 election, from both a print and TV point of view, was with Johnson refusing to take part in so many debates. From a print point of view, you can sense the despair, I think, of the papers at the knowledge. I think, papers always suspect that their endorsements and their beliefs don't really make much of a difference to an election. Now they're really feeling it with the polls not moving at all, really, in the course of the campaign, except uptick for reform.
There is a sense of, I think, complete impotence among the papers. There's some interesting sideshows. You're seeing, I think The Telegraph working out whether it would eventually back a Farage-led Conservative Party. I don't think it's quite in the place where it can currently back reform. I think reform is currently the mistress rather than the wife of The Telegraph.
I think you're seeing The Guardian really struggling with itself, wanting to be more excited about Labour, incapable of being more excited about Labour, and knowing that a lot of its readership are far more likely to vote Lib Dem and Green, because, of course, we have this extraordinary situation of this election where the Lib Dems are really to the left of Labour in terms of policy in many areas, and of Greens very much to the left. That presents a big conundrum, I think, to the paper. What else? Oh, it's not edifying. I've been really disappointed by The Times coverage. The Sun is just still sitting on the fence in a slightly tedious way.
Lionel: They're going to go for Labour, aren't they? Just like they've switched to Labour in '97.
Ros: Yes, they will, but it's going to look a bit pathetic, isn't it?
Michael: Yes. On the newspapers, it's-- I remember when I was a schoolboy in the two elections in 1974. Every lunchtime I'd go to the school library, as soon as I had eaten my lunch and grab the only two papers the school got, which was The Times and The Guardian. I would just sit there devouring it all. There was page after page. What there was in the papers then, there were loads of local constituency profiles in the papers. Now, there are a few of those now, but not so many, and not with the detail. The papers would put their best writers on this, and they'd be traveling the country from one seat to another.
Of course, the same used to happen in telly. That's what I used to get to do. There's a lot less of that going round for a constituency, interviewing the candidates, interviewing the voters, getting a feel of an English journey coverage, the rich tapestry of our nation and all its localities, and a lot of that is missing. We particularly miss Newsnight in this election because well, these are the old Newnight, because the old Newsnight would put reporters on that me in some cases, and Jeremy Vine, others would do it as well. Also, Newsnight used to have lots of zany things on it like there was Steve Smith, one year.
He had a student house, I think it was in Leicester. He would go back at regular intervals and talk to the students about how they were assessing the campaign, how they were likely to vote. On another occasion, he was at a motorway service station. He would just stop passersby going through. He had Margaret Beckett in his caravan. There was always a zaniness and a sense of humor to it. With the decline of Newsnight into purely a talk program, we're missing all of that. Nobody really seems to have picked it up and replaced it either in print or in broadcasting.
Ros: I think there has been some really good scrutiny from the podcasts this time. That's where we're seeing the real scrutiny go. The Power Test, Ayesha Hazarika and Sam Freedman podcast has been excellent on scrutinizing labour policy, which no one else has really been doing. I think very few people have very good idea of what great British energy is, what it will do. There's been a complete failure to step up to the bar on that and the focus instead of tax has just been relentless. In terms of going around the country, I think the best people from that have been POLITICO. They've been doing some amazing profiles and constituencies far better than anything I've seen elsewhere.
Alan: Michael, can I ask you about the TV debates? The first one was conducted in 45-second sound bites. I rather thought that Beth Rigby was the best of the crop so far, but again, what have you made of those?
Michael: Yes, I agree. I thought Beth did a tremendous job on both Starmer and Sunak in her debate. When was it? A week ago, 10 days ago. I think actually, overall, I've not seen every minute of everyone I have to confess, but I do think overall, they are livelier this year. They've been better this year than in previous years. I think over the years, even though as a broadcaster, I'm meant to believe in TV debates.
I think over the years, that you had a good year in 2010 and then since then, they've always been a bit disappointing. Well, this year has been so far a good year for the television debates. I think there have been some not only has Beth excelled, I think that the other two interrogators, I think of it who have excelled have been Nick Robinson, and I'm looking forward to him doing Nigel Farage on Friday evening. Also Andrew Neil on the radio.
It's not been a bad election from the broadcasting point of view or the wider point of view. I think there have been gaps. It's been an election, a very different texture to the kind that we were used to in the days 30, 40 years ago, when the focus every morning was a string of three press conferences, held 45 minutes after the other in the three headquarters in London, or the liberals had theirs at the National liberal club and we'd all traipse around from one to the other day after day after day.
It nearly always would be the party leader, Margaret Thatcher, or Tony Blair, John Major. They're answering questions. Gordon Brown. It was amazing, really that journalists could just go along and ask questions, and about anything, and you don't get any of that now. I can see why they stopped doing them, but they were useful. I remember with Thatcher, I can't remember it was '83 or '87, we even ran out of questions extraordinary that the whole assemble press.
Having each had one question each. We couldn't think of anything else to ask, which is an embarrassing reflection on us I suppose, as the press corps, but that was a very different era. It was only after the press conferences nine o'clock, ten o'clock, that the leaders would then wizz around the country, and feel the need to do six or seven events all over the place. Then often they would finish off with an evening rally, some of which would be depending on what area we're talking about would be covered live on Sky and there would be big extracts on late-night programs around the hustings. That was the title they gave them.
Lionel: I'd give a shout-out to Ed Conway on Sky News for his assessment of the tax and spending programs of all the parties. He's actually gone through the data. This, of course, is very important to assess the impact on a still very fragile UK economy. Then maybe I don't know what you think, here, Michael and Ros, but I think that Nick Ferrari remains a very good interviewer of political leaders. You get added spice with the radio phoning.
Michael: Yes. I should have mentioned him. You're absolutely right. Superb and has been for a very long time and is on top form right now.
Ros: Yes, I agree. Just to endorse Nick Robinson, as well, I think he's particularly useful for the BBC, because he's genuinely seen as even-handed in a way that Laura Kuenssberg for whatever reason, rightly or wrongly is not by many people. He's a good choice. The interviews he started have been exactly the right length, not too long, not too short for I think people's attention span. Those have been excellent. I'm also looking forward to what he does with Nigel Farage.
Alan: Ros, we're likely to have a Labour Government, almost certain to have one. From your point of view, who are the most fluent media performers?
Ros: Yes. That's an interesting one. Wes Streeting naturally is very fluent. He I think will run into serious scrutiny after the election. There will undoubtedly be some bust-up with the doctors, whether it's over strikes or whether it's over physician associates, or whether it's over some crisis we can't even begin to conceive of yet. At the moment, he does very well. I think they add quite a lot of their talent under wraps in the Labour Party. I think there's a number of people... shadow defense is very good. It has been very much Starmer, and almost no one else. It would have been nice to see a few more people more prominent on the trail.
Lionel: What about Rachel Reeves? She's going to be a very important figure and she's certainly been doing a lot behind the scenes.
Ros: Yes. It will be good to see more of her. I'm a little surprised that we're not seeing more of her. I think there's a sense that she's not a particularly adept media performer yet that she tends to have a slightly Gordon Brown-like technocratic approach to explaining things. Of course, Labour's big policy offerings are about stability. Mostly, if the other ones are not really in her ballpark, so I think they don't see a particular reason to put her forward. I think she's beginning to make an impact, but it is slow.
On the other hand, we've seen a lot of Angela Rayner. Of course, clearly, she's a woman who loves the cameras, and so far has been thriving on that. Although, interestingly, she did less well in the debate, I think. Not quite sure, but she seemed to be quite rigid, unable to relax, annoyed often with what she was hearing. Clearly wasn't a format that suited her and I wasn't expecting that.
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Lionel: This is Media Confidential from Prospect Magazine. After the break, we'll have more from Ros and Michael. We'll be right back.
Alan: In this week's Prospect Podcast, deputy editor, Ellen Halliday talks to Imaan Irfan to find out more about The Muslim Vote campaign, a volunteer collective mobilizing Muslim voters, to vote for pro-Palestinian candidates and those representing independent parties. Zoë Grünewald, Westminster editor of The Lead dissects the reform party's contract with the people.
Zoë Grünewald: I think it confirms what we all thought, which is that reform is basically a professional windup merchant to really irritate the conservatives. Everything in their manifesto are conservative cultural issues. Scrapping Netzero targets, banning transgender ideology in schools, canceling the BBC license fee. All these things are the things that really wind up the Tory right. A lot of this is really I think, a challenge to the conservatives to say, you are not right-wing enough and we are now filling that gap that you should have filled, and without that, you are just a challenger to Labour, basically.
Alan: Follow The Prospect Podcast wherever you get your podcasts, and right now you can take advantage of our special election offer which is six months of digital access to Prospect for only £15. This includes all of our pre-election updates and post-election analysis. If you get a digital subscription, you get full access to all of our articles including digital-only articles on our app and our website, and about, I've calculated, 28 million words that we've published over the last 28 years of Prospect's life.
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Lionel: Welcome back to Media Confidential and now more on the media coverage of the current general election campaign in the UK. Can we mention the unmentionable, Brexit? I think one of the best columns that I've read recently is Adrian Wooldridge in Bloomberg, formerly of The Economist, who says that Brexit has basically destroyed the Conservative Party. They've lost the art of government and they've all turned into pinstriped sans-culottes revolutionaries. That sounds good for you, Alan, in France.
I think he's making a very serious point and you just sense that also Hugo Rifkin in The Times, that some of the commentators are actually beginning to say, you know what, these people who triggered Brexit, the Johnsons, who's on holiday still, and the others, they've actually not just damaged the country, they've destroyed their own party. Do you think that's right, Michael?
Michael: Yes, I do. It is astonishing. Given the way in which Brexit totally dominated the last election and indeed the one before that in 2017, and to have so little coverage now. Of course, I suppose part of the problem is that none of the main parties really want to talk about it for one reason or another. Either they're embarrassed by it in the Conservatives' case. In the Labour and Lib Dems' case, they don't really know where they stand and don't want to cause offense to one section of the public by being a bit more definite in what they say. Of course, Boris Johnson has yet to surface, but even Nigel Farage is not being questioned about Brexit and his role in it as thoroughly as he should be. It is extraordinary how that subject is just not there, and nobody would have predicted that even, I don't think, a few months ago.
On the people who are performing well, this has tended to happen more and more, that if you do the stats, as the academics do afterwards, you find that the leader takes up a greater and greater proportion of the airtime of individuals. Then you look for the ones who are missing. Yvette Cooper, I haven't seen much of, and she's shut-at-home secretary. You would have thought she would be a shining star. Pat McFadden, I thought, gave a dreadful performance on the radio a few days ago. Some of the lesser figures in both parties really are not great broadcasters, and it surprises me that they put them up all the time. There's a limit to how much Starmer can do everything, and Rayner and Reeves. Reeves, I think, is becoming a good broadcaster. There'll be all sorts of tensions internally. Why aren't you putting me on board? Does it mean that I'm out of favor and all of that? That's always gone over the years.
Ros: I suppose the question of why Nigel Farage isn't getting more scrutiny over Brexit, it's an interesting one. I think the answer is that he's able to defray it all the time by pointing to rising levels of immigration. Because, frankly, Farage is a nativist. Brexit was a means to an end. As far as the people who support reform are concerned, Brexit has not, has failed because only because we didn't crack down on immigration. Immigration has subsequently risen. His currency, as far as they're concerned, is still very, very strong. You're right, I think it's extraordinary in a way. The only people who are able, of course, to attack him in the debates on this are the SNP and Plaid Cymru, and the Greens because of their stances on the EU. It makes it very limiting.
Michael: Although Farage, of course, was caught out on immigration, I think a few, about a week or so ago, in that he was forced to admit that he did believe the figures that he would want would have involved a certain amount of net immigration. Yet, he's implied and said in the past, he doesn't want any immigration. There was a great inconsistency in his position that was exposed. I think that that is true. If you press stuff and you do your homework properly with Farage, and I don't know how many more interviews he's got lined up, you can catch him out because he won't have read his manifesto, for example. He barely did in the past. There will be stuff in there that he will find it difficult to defend.
Lionel: Yes, shout out for Michel Hussein, who did that interview with Nigel Farage and did a great job in pinning him down, Michael. She'd done her homework.
Alan: You can understand why the politicians don't want to discuss Brexit. If you were to sit down with Starmer, who's obviously the most interesting, how do you break open a figure like that, who is so well media trained and has got all his prepared answers? How do you actually get a meaningful answer from him on Brexit? What would you like to ask him?
Michael: Well, I'd think about it for a while to start with. On the other hand, as a broadcaster, you should always be ready for the moment when they suddenly appear around the corner. There you are with your camera and microphone. It's so embarrassing when you haven't got a good question. I think I'd do it in general terms and tease him about this and saying, most of the public want Brexit now. Sorry, it's time for you to change your views on all of this. I'd go down that avenue because the polling is pretty strongly pro-Remain now. I'd tease him. I'd say, you've changed your views on everything else. Isn't it time for another U-turn?
Lionel: Yes, I'd take him on Rishi Sunak's ludicrous latest tweet on you've got to buy British food, stop buying foreign food. I'd say the reason that there's a problem with foreign food is because of Brexit. Prices have gone up. Don't you think at some point you're going to have to become come closer to Europe? You're going to have to move this position. I'm not anywhere near as articulate or provocative as you, Michael. I'd be pursuing him on those lines that his position is actually not sustainable.
Michael: Yes, the thing with Starmer is, of course, that because he has reversed his position on so many things, over just how long has he been leader less than five years, particularly all the things he promised, but not just those things, other things as well, that you can-- he is incredibly vulnerable on virtually anything he says because you can say, well, why should we believe you, Mr. Starmer on this? Because you've changed your view in the past, who's to say that down the road in the middle of a government, you want to say, well, circumstances have changed, the economy is not as good as we were hoping, growth's not as high as we were hoping, we're going to have to change it again. In other words, you're expecting us to give you a blank check. That has been the tone of some of the interviews so far. I think that the broadcasters need to keep pressing that.
Alan: Ros, I thought the reason that Rigby was quite effective was that she questioned him from the left rather than from the right. She said, why aren't you putting up taxes? Why are you reluctant to put up wealth taxes, when you could use that money on public services? He's so well-defended on the right. He seemed rather uncomfortable to be questioned from the left, as it were.
Ros: Yes, that is his weakness. You saw a little bit of that in the last couple of days when he's been probed over the two-child limit on child benefit, when he's clearly deeply uncomfortable with that, he would he would like to change it. Rightly so it's fundamentally a cruel policy, in my view. I think what the Lib Dems have managed to do very well at in this election, and to a lesser extent, the Greens, is to play on what seems to be missing at the moment in Labour policy, which a lot of Labour voters instinctively look for, which is a sense of compassion, and a sense that Labour cares deeply, not just about working people, as undoubtedly they do, but about poor people, and sick people, and people who are suffering for some other reason.
Ed Davey has been able to do that very effectively with his own personal experience as his son's carer, and his recommendations for a shakeup. We've seen nothing on social care, for example. We've seen a turning away from that, understandably, in the pursuit of power because it's expensive because it's difficult. That is one of labour's weaknesses. People talk about the problems with Gaza and the tensions over that, and that is absolutely the case. There are people who have turned away from the Labour Party over Gaza.
I think more risk turning away from labour because they don't see enough caring and enough compassion there anymore. I think that's his weakness.
Michael: I think that Davey has grossly overdone the stunts, the theme parks, and the fooling around and falling in the water, and so on. Maybe one or two of those. This guy could be the leader of the opposition in a few weeks time. I think that those stunts sit very uneasily with what we were all talking about Davey, about four months ago, which was his appalling role in the early stages of the postmaster scandal.
If I was a television reporter, I'd be getting one or two aggrieved postmasters who've had to go to jail or had their businesses and lives ruined. I would take them along to an Ed Davey stunt and confront him with them. It's possible that some reporters done that, and I've missed it, but that would certainly, I think, bring us back to earth. In fact, it's astonishing really how little that story has had, given the way in which it dominated our headlines at the start of the year.
Ros: How much do British voters really won't dignify politicians anymore? Clearly, there is stamina running in that place, but we've had Boris Johnson as Prime Minister fairly recently.
Michael: I think there are certain people who are, there are clowns and there are clowns in what I call, the clowns in amiable rogues who can get away with those kinds of stunts in the way that Boris Johnson did and Nigel Farage does. Although, Nigel Farage doesn't do stunts. Nigel Farage is brilliant with the props, the hats. He's always holding something. He's always wearing different clothes. He's always visually brilliant is Farage.
I don't know how much of it it's him and how much of it-- I think it's largely him actually. He knows how to do a photo and to present a photo. In terms of Davey, because we regard Davey as a serious person, it's almost as if he's implying that he's resigned as a serious person and he's trying to become a clown. Once you're a serious, he's very difficult to move from one to the other.
I don't think that the stunts with him really work in the abundance they have. In fact, it frankly wouldn't even work if they were Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage. It's almost day after day after day that he's doing these stunts. I'm not sure he is doing him or his party any good. Although, the strange thing is he may end up as leader of the opposition but because of other forces.
Alan: Final question from me, Michael, and Ros. We saw the American networks struggling to resist the sheer magnetism of a great media performer like Farage, but we all know there are serious subjects. Perhaps, the most serious of all is climate change that are not discussed at all because they're so hard to get onto television to express visually. Is that a failure of journalism?
If so, what could be done to remedy that?
Ros: The TV channels are doing a reasonable job of covering that side of things. I think the papers much less so, and I think there's going to be a huge gap after the election in the current specialisms that reporters have. One of the problems inevitably with elections is you don't always get that, the policy scrutiny that you'd like because you have lobby journalists doing the interrogating.
They don't have the background knowledge needed to really delve deep and that's probably not something that we can, it's a systemic problem. After the election, things are going to change. After the election, we'll have a situation where there's going to potentially be huge amounts of investment in energy and renewables and the national grid and all that stuff. I don't think the papers in particular are geared up for that.
I think they have two ways of thinking about that as green stuff and as NIMBY stuff, where it's outraged local residents because there's a new solar farm in the area. We don't currently have that expertise in the newspapers. Similarly, with housing, it's got to be more about more than just people protesting against new development, which is the lens through which so many of the papers currently see it.
There has to be some shake-up in health too where we're not really looking in and social care but that big argument for a social care correspondent in newspapers we never have those because the people receiving social care are so often voiceless and difficult to interview, and all the other reasons why it don't get the attention. Absolutely, I agree that there it's not just the environment, it's other things as well, which the press is wholly unprepared to cover, but which are going to be massive in the labour government.
Michael: The environment stories in terms of not just climate change, but inland wind farms and relaxed planning controls and great housing developments where people are up in arms are going to be huge themes of the next parliament. Specifically, on climate change, I always used to think as a mainstream television reporter that covering the environment and covering the politics of the environment, whatever aspect of the environment is, was always incredibly difficult.
You are covering two areas at once and understanding the science and then distilling it and conflicting figures and arguments and so on. It was always very, very difficult. I don't think, Alan, that it is a visual problem, climate change. After all, we can see, the outcome of all the changes that are already taking place on our planet because of climate change.
It is actually a very visual story. It's because it is complicated and that a lot of the stuff is counterintuitive.
A lot of the arguments are counterintuitive about, for instance, if you end extraction of North Sea oil and so on, it's actually, is not beneficial for this country in all other ways. It does get incredibly complicated and I can see why people steer away from it. There's certainly a lot more should be said about it, and let's hope over the remaining fortnight it does become more of an issue and that Farage is grilled on it more.
Well, all the parties have grilled on it more, actually.
Alan: Last one from me. We're going to see it, I'm sure a new leader of the Conservative party after the election, Rishi Sunak, it seems will have to go. Will the Daily Mail anoint a new leader as they did with Theresa May? Who's your money on, Michael and then Ros?
Michael: Oh gosh. The trouble with this question is it so much is dependent on who keeps their seats. Many of the would-be contenders are now in serious danger of losing their seats. Penny Mordaunt, you would've thought, she would otherwise be a front runner, but she has got to be in Portsmouth in huge danger. Even Kemi Badenoch is now reckoned to be vulnerable in saffron in Northeast Essex, I think it's called now.
The only ones, Tom Tugendhat has got a sufficient majority to survive. Priti Patel has got enough to survive. Gun to my head, I think I might say, I might put money on Priti Patel actually.
Alan: Ros.
Ros: She's a front-runner undoubtedly. Is it possible that there will be some effective merger between Reform and the Conservatives? I would've said until a couple of weeks ago, never. An institution with the history legacy of the Conservative Party would not do that. Now I'm no longer, so, sure. The question is, would the man endorse Nigel Farage as a leader of that new popular right party?
Alan: It would be a reverse takeover, not a merger.
Michael: That would take time. It may happen, but it would take years because you would first need to get both parties to agree and the terms. Farage, he would then have to switch from being a reform MP to being conservatives, and that the conservatives will need to elect a leader this summer. I don't think Farage can be a runner in that but on that hand, they're likely an opposition to go through several leaders as off positions generally do.
His chance may come.
Ros: They will certainly be excited about whoever new is chosen, because it has been a pattern of all the new conservative PMs that the Daily Mail has been very excited about them, including Liz Truss and how wonderful they would be. I remember their reaction to Therese May, and having her pictured in Tartan on a map of the UK looking thoroughly dominating that they will be excited and they will, I think, get behind whoever it is without reservation.
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Alan: That's all from Media Confidential today. Thank you Michael Crick and Ros Taylor for joining us. We'll be back next week with more news from behind the headlines and clickbait. If you've got any questions or comments, send them to Media Confidential or oneword@prospectmagazine.co.uk or get in touch on X, formerly Twitter, where we are @mediaconfpod. Remember to follow Media Confidential wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening to Media Confidential, brought to you by Prospect Magazine and Fresh Air. The producer today is Martin Points Roberts.
