Are you a Tory till the day you die?
Oh, absolutely. So you'll never join reform?
Never, never, ever, ever. We've seen that playbook before.
We know where it leads. The reformer in government today
on the economy, they will be a present danger to this country.
I haven't spoken to a single senior Tory here at the
conference who thinks that Kemi Vaidnock will still be in her
job at the general election. Do you have absolute faith that
she will? Kimi Badenov is our leader.
If anybody out there thinks that Tory party getting involved in
another internal election contest is somehow going to
advance our fortunes, they are deluded.
Does the Tory Party have a a God-given right to exist?
Hello and welcome to the forecast.
We're in Manchester for the Conservative Party conference,
where the Tories are in turmoil, trailing badly in the polls and
facing electoral oblivion. With Labour in power and Nigel
Farage's Reform UK surging ahead, Shadow Chancellor Samel
Stride joins me to explain how the Conservatives plan to regain
momentum and rebuild their reputation as the party of
economic competence. Are they simply an irrelevance?
Well, Samel, you've been talking about cutting welfare to fund
this National Insurance rebate to help people buy first homes.
You're being called Malay Stride after Javier Malay, the chainsaw
wielding cutter in chief in Argentina.
Do you like that comparison? I don't think I trust myself
with a change, a change. I think it might be a terrible
accident would happen. But look, what what I'm saying
is that we need to recognize that we are living beyond our
means as a country. You're seeing that in the size
of the debt that we're carrying. You're seeing that in the
servicing costs on that debt at 100 billion a year, twice what
we spend on defence. Yeah, we've all started under
your. Well, we did have the small
matter of COVID and, you know, the contraction of the economy
that occurred and a lot of money that needed to be spent at that
time, about 400 billion and Libra and all the other parties
were urging us that if you remember to go even further than
we did. So I think there were some
exceptional circumstances, but the reality remains that we need
to have a recognition now that if we carry on the way we are,
the wheels will come off our economy and it will be bad for
all of us. So what we've been saying in my
speech today is that we are serious about and making savings
across government so that we can get the debt down, but also do
through time things on tax that will help with the economy.
And I had announcements to make on.
That too well, and one of the announcements is restricting
benefits only to British citizens, exactly the same
policy as reform. The difference between US and
reform is that we have thought very carefully through the
measures that we're putting forward.
Reform, for example, have said that they will take everybody up
to £20,000 out of income tax altogether.
That comes with a price tag, according to the IFS, of up to
£80 billion, but half what we spend on the NHS every year with
it's one and a half million employees.
They have not explained to any degree how they will fund that
or any plan to actually deliver on it.
They are fantasy economists and what we're talking about is well
thought through savings that we can deliver.
Well is it well thought through though, because some of your
sums look a little bit sketchy. EU citizens with settled status
have to access benefits because of the withdrawal agreement, so
that takes quite a big chunk out of the potential.
So they're not in our calculation.
Exactly. They're not, but you know a lot
of your, well, some of your front bench colleagues are
saying, colleagues are saying unpick that withdrawal
agreement. Is that on the agenda?
Should that be looked at? As things stand, there is a a
treaty arrangement with the European Union.
We are not speaking about going in and trying to renegotiate.
You say, as things stand, well, you.
Could in the future pick that, well, I'm not going to predict
what happens in the future. I mean, we're not saying, well,
they may well, well they may do and that's fine.
They're you know, that's fine for them to express their to
flare. Views.
Well, that's. Fine.
And people, well, people will have.
No, I didn't say that. What I said was that we have a
treaty arrangement with Europe and that treaty stands, and
that's why we have excluded EU nationals from that particular
change. Just just again on the sums, you
know, you didn't back the government's own welfare cuts of
five and a half billion pounds. That was just political
opportunity. That was to.
Propose that one. No, not at all.
Because if you remember how that came about was that Rachel
Reeves was approaching the spring statement, discovered
from the OBR suddenly that all the headroom disappeared again
second time round and needed to find some money and shouted over
to DWP, find me 5 billion plus, actually shouted over twice
because they came back with one lot.
And then she found it wasn't quite enough on the revised OBR
figures. That's not a way to drive
welfare reform by being sort of pulled along by the fiscal rules
and so on. And that's why it wasn't
principled and it wasn't the right thing to have done and we
opposed. Even so, you're talking about,
you know, having worked out all your figures, Therefore you're
more responsible in reform, more responsible from Labour, more
responsible than Labour in their last set of cuts.
But saving £8 billion from cutting civil servants 3 1/2
billion pounds by axing asylum hotels, You could have done both
of those things in government. The costs of those two policies
ballooned while you were in government.
So civil servants in particular, the numbers bloomed because we
had the Brexit and we also had COVID.
You push through, I mean, which we had COVID, yeah, so the
numbers went up. But you're quite right.
We are under new leadership now and we recognise that we do not
need that number of civil servants.
And mistakes were made under your.
On your we, we, we did great things when we were in
government and we made mistakes like all the governments do.
But the reality is to get back that number, which is a 25% cut
to where it was in 2016, given we don't now have those
particular pressure and we got things like AI and productivity
driving technology that is eminently achievable and we will
do that over a period of five years after the next election if
we're elected. You're trying to find the middle
ground of British politics, you know you've got reform on one
end, you've got Labour in power, you're trying to sort of find
this middle Rd. Does it exist though?
Does the centre not hold anymore?
Liberal minded Tories going to just go and vote Lib Dem next
time. Well, well, it's interesting
that you can't characterize reform as being to the right.
I would say they're marching to the left.
They are in some. Ways and not in others.
No, they they want the National. Economically to the left,
socially to the right. Well, there we are.
If your premises are economically to the left, in my
terms as the shadow Chancellor, they are to the left.
So they want to nationalise things and utilities.
They want to abolish the two child benefit cap.
That means spending more on welfare, not less.
An extra 3 1/2 billion pounds a year.
Those are the kind of policies, well, frankly, actually, of a
party that will just go out and say what it thinks the various
people it's talking to want them to say.
Well, that's probably if. It's true.
Vote for you. That's my point.
I mean, you had John Curtis the pollster saying that as things
stand at the moment more the Lib Dems would win more seats than
you. So you know, Liberal Tories will
just go well. Let's get them to that.
We can't be led by where the polls are today as to what we do
as to what we do for an election that will probably be in four
years time. What we've got to do is hold our
nerves, stay true due to our conservative principles, set out
policies when it's right to do so and when we've done the
thinking, we've done that at this conference.
One of the things that I don't think anybody will be able to
leave this this conference and say is we don't know what the
Conservatives stand for on borders.
We've been very clear on the ECHR, Big bold move.
We thought about it carefully. We had Lord Walsam do all that
work. And on the economy, the things
that I've been saying this morning about living within our
means, but also showing that whilst a lot of that money needs
to go to bearing down on the debt, we can, if we do this,
make the savings actually get some taxes down that will get
the economy going. Does the Tory party have a
God-given right to exist? Or when it comes to the next
election, if Reform end up the biggest party, do you have to
just throw in your lot with them?
Well, all these hypotheticals about four years time.
Look, the the big thing about politics today is uncertainty.
If you were interviewing me in 2019 and I were a socialist,
Cathy, you'd be saying you've just had the worst results since
the 1930s. You're going to be out of power
for a generation, aren't you? So.
It's all to. Play for and yeah, and yet the
Labour Party get one of the largest landslides in British
political history. The same thing you could say of
the Canadian election with Pierre Poliev 23 points up came
to the election. He not only lost it, he lost his
own seat. These things.
Will move. Around you as a person, you
know, there's been quite we'll come to this in a second with
quite a few facts about male stride that have been floating
around this conference. Are you a Tory till the day you
die? Oh, absolutely.
I'm a conservative. Never, never, ever, ever.
Right. And do you think that holds for
a large number of conservatives that whatever happens in the
next election, you are going to remain as a force?
Well, yeah, absolutely. And and what you're saying at
this conference is setting up serious, well thought through
policies that have grown up because we're not sometimes just
saying the easy things. I said a lot of things that
you're rightly challenging me on and saying, well, you know, can
you really afford this and can you really say that?
And all that sounds a bit, you know, these are the things that
serious grown up politicians have to do.
And we're demonstrating now right here in Manchester that we
are up for government. We are doing the hard yards, the
hard thinking and we're going to take the serious trouble.
So what do you say to colleagues who are thinking about defecting
to reform? There's quite a lot of them.
Well, I don't know who's thinking of doing that that or
not, but I would say, I would say if it's on the basis that
you think that it's a foregone conclusion that you know the
outcome of a general election in four years time, then if that's
the basis on which you're moving, I I would be thinking
again, nobody knows. Absolutely not.
Be part of a merged Tory reform. Party I see no common ground on,
for example, the economy between US and reform.
I see a party that is fiscally irresponsible, that is going to
go, is going out there and promising all sorts of giveaways
without properly looking at how that'll be funded.
We've seen that playbook before. We know where it leads and if
reformer in government today on the economy, they would be a
present danger to this country. So why would I want to get?
Involved, right? So you have.
Why would you? Rule out being part of a merged.
Party before I am, Yes, yes, I am not going to be predicting.
You know you're drawing into all these hypotheticals.
As. Interviewers love to do.
It's the great sport, isn't it? But what I'm saying is I'm not
going to get into hypotheticals in the future, but there is no
I'm not. No, I, I'm, no, I am not up for
a merger with Reform. I'm not up for joining Reform
and I don't think I could make that much clearer.
Yeah, OK. You've had welfare cuts, mass
deportations, withdrawing from the ECHR, you've even announced
in a policy a policy today abolishing business rates for
High Street businesses. Whatever happened to waiting
until 2027 for policies? Isn't that extraordinary?
You should ask me that. When?
About a month ago, before the conference, you'd be saying,
what on earth do you stand for? Where are your policies?
Well, now we're coming out with them.
You're now saying, well, why didn't you wait?
Yeah, but you know you. Can't win?
You've panicked. You can't win.
No, you've. Got desperate.
You've looked at the polls, you say.
You look at the polls. What you do?
Not at all, not at all. What we are doing, we've said
this from the start, is doing the deep thinking around the
challenges our country faces and coming up with the right
policies. And as we come up with those
policies, we will put those policies out there.
So I have set out, yeah, you were gonna, I've set out, I've
set out a series of savings totaling £47 billion.
It's a large amount of money. And what I'm saying is the
majority of that must go to paying down debt, but that
leaves some to do other things. And what we've sent today is a
very clear signal that we are pro business.
We understand that we need to free businesses up to drive
growth. We are reaching out to young
people. So the National Insurance first
job bonus that I announced today is very much a clear message to
younger generations that we are, we are on their side.
When they go out and do the right thing, when they're
aspirational, work hard, we will be there right behind.
I haven't spoken to a single senior Tory here at the
conference who thinks that Kemi Baedenock will still be in her
job at the general election. Do you have absolute faith that
she will? Kemi Baedenock is our leader.
She has a very clear vision. She has a very clear vision for
the Conservative Party. She is somebody who will hold
her nerve. She's somebody who's extremely
resilient. This is one of the things that
people too often dismiss or don't even think about.
She's doing the hardest job in British politics.
Mine's a pretty hard job, hers is a much harder job and she's
doing it in a very calm, measured way.
If anybody out there thinks that the Tory party getting involved
in another internal election contest is somehow going to
advance our fortunes, they are deluded.
Well, just so she is going to be our leader in my my view, right
the way through to the general election.
And as I say, I think there's all to play for.
Look, you mentioned Reform, 31% are they know to you're you're
not. Yeah, where was the SDP back in
19? 81 to SDP.
Of no, but I do think the SDPI know we're at over 50% in the
polls. In the 83 election they got
about 20 odd seats. Just finally.
Things can change. You've absolutely, categorically
assured us that Kenny Badenoch will still be in post, but up to
the general election. But there's a little list doing
the rounds on WhatsApp about 10 things you didn't know about Mel
Stride. You're a licensed pilot, a scuba
diver, a Stonehenge qualified tour guide.
You've penned an unpublished novel set in the 60s US music
scene. I mean, you've got quite a hint
to land. I wonder whether that's that
list is doing the rounds because you quite fancy, although you
crashed out in the last leadership contest.
If there's a sort of need for an eminence grease, I mean not very
great, but a bit grease. You know sperm.
Hand on the tiller to step in to just tide you over to the next
general election. You'd be there.
I am there putting my shoulder to the wheel, supporting Kemi,
working with the shadow cabinet to get another Conservative
government and you know, if people are interested in my wild
swimming or novels that weren't published or flying aeroplanes.
I mentioned wild. Swimming.
Yeah, great. The wild swimming or whatever
else is out there, then great. You know, I think people should
know something about their politicians.
And, you know, hopefully it's brightened a few lives, you
know, knowing that I do all those.
Smells great. Thank you very much for joining
us. That is it from the forecast.
Thank you very much for watching Back Soon.