Hello and welcome to the forecast.
Donald Trump, back in the White House, is blasting out news like
a fire hydrant. How does Keir Starmer, how does
Europe deal with him and how should they deal particularly
with these outpourings? To discuss this, I'm joined by
two journalists who've dabbled in politics, Michael Gove,
editor of The Spectator and a cabinet minister under 4
Conservative prime ministers. Tom Baldwin, who worked for Ed
Miliband when he was Labour leader and for the campaign for
a second referendum on the EU parked for now, I think he's the
biographer of Keir Starmer and also in the studio.
I hope that's all right, Michael, an expert, the head of
the Europe program at Chatham House, Amila van Rai, thank you
all for joining us. And I think probably as we're
talking about the bow wave from President Trump, let's start
with you, Michael, as someone who's met him, as you've
observed these first few interventions, probably many
more to come from the White House.
How much do you think Donald Trump genuinely knows when he
says something? We've obviously just been
hearing about Gaza, but we've also been hearing about tariffs,
Greenland, much else besides, How much does he have a clear
idea in his head about where he truly wants to go, any sort of
strategy? What's your sense of him from
meetings, from what you've seen? I think he does.
There's an old trope about Donald Trump that you shouldn't
take him literally, but you should take him seriously.
I think that sometimes there'll be rhetorical excesses.
Sometimes he can't help himself. Sometimes it will seem as
though, you know, when past diplomats would have, you know,
found themselves going through the UN, the WTO and the EU.
It sounds as though he's on MDMA when he's speaking.
But at the heart of it, there is a broad strategic view, and that
broad strategic view is that America has been suckered for
too long, that America is a Gulliver that has been tied down
by those international institutes.
But that's a broadview. That's not that's not telling us
that when he says something specific, there is definitely a
plan behind it. There I think there is a plan.
I think that some of the manifestations of that plan may
backfire, but overall that plan is to have a a realist, a
realpolitik view in which America having been held back by
international law, having been held back by the institutions
that it was paying for, as he sees it, NATO and the the UN in
particular, now it is time for America to assert its own
interests and in so doing, respond to a particular threat,
as he perceives it, from China and its allies.
I mean, the European leaders have had their first taste of
Trump second time round. Do you get a sense how much of
the headspace he's been occupying these 2 1/2 weeks?
How much? How much they give credit to
what he's saying? How much they credit him with a
plan when he opens his mouth. I mean, he's probably taking up
more headspace than he should. And that's because Europe, as we
know, has got huge challenges in terms of Russia's war in Ukraine
on the border, in terms of competitiveness.
These are really quite serious structural issues.
And yet Europe is trying to figure out how to respond to
Trump, who wants to invade Greenland.
That's not a constructive or productive use of time, yet
that's where we are. Tom, I'd like to ask you,
because you wrote Keir Starmer's biography, how you think he's
going to cope. We know his current plan in
terms of how he deals with Donald Trump's utterances.
Zip it. Basically pause, try and think
if it's real. Try and think if there's
something behind it that he's really getting at some other
trade you can do. That seems to be.
I mean, I'm told that's exactly the plan.
Can you hold to it? Do you think the Keir Starmer
that you've studied in got to know?
I think one thing you're definitely going to get from
Keir Starmer is an absence of posture.
He's not going to be striking a position to please the crowd, to
please his party, to please the press.
He's going to look for that little space, that ambiguity,
that nuance where you can find a consensus.
Now, that won't always be elegant, but it's probably the
best way to pursue the national interest.
And he's a he's a very restrained guy.
Must have been quite a difficult biography to write in some ways,
but he must have little trip wires himself.
We watched him when Elon Musk was showering abuse online on
him, on his government, on much else to do with Britain.
And it seemed to say the trip wire was when Elon Musk went for
Jess Phillips. And I mean, I just wonder, could
there be other trip wires there for him with with Donald Trump?
He'll go too far on something and he'll just feel the pressure
from within. And we could put the one side,
the pressure from the party, which could be immense on some
issues. You feel he's got to respond.
There there will be moments where they have to disagree.
I mean, he's already effectively disagreed about, you know, the
plan to turn Gaza Strip into into the Riviera of the Middle
East. You know, he said that
Palestinians must be allowed to go home.
He doesn't necessarily do it from by a position of shouting
or, you know, doing a sort of Hugh Grant and love.
Actually, he will make his case in the right way.
I think he's probably done better than most other
Democratic leaders in preparing for and dealing with Trump so
far. It is difficult.
But the way he dealt with Elon Musk was interesting because he
was being attacked and he just wrote it out.
There's no point getting interest back with Elon Musk.
It's much easier to do it if you're defending somebody else.
If you're defending coming to the aid of a of ministerial
colleague, then, you know, bleating about how how unfair it
is that you're being portrayed by Elon Musk in this horrible
way. So I think you're finding the
right vehicle and the right moment is very important for
him. The first big round that
Europe's had to contest with is the the threat of tariffs from
President Trump. What's your sense of how they
measured this? They've watched what happened to
Canada. They've watched what happened to
Mexico. Do they think with them it could
similarly be transactional or could it be actually different?
Nigel Farage was saying yesterday he he thinks Donald
Trump has a different plan for Europe, which is basically to
put a tariff all there for good. I think what Trump seemed so, so
we know that Trump doesn't like the EU as a set of institutions.
What I think we'll we'll see is countries who try to
bilateralize their, I don't think that's a word, but go for
the bilateral relationship. Here's a word now.
There we go with Trump, rather than going through the EU,
because they might try to hedge in their own national interest
or how they see it in their own national interest, because they
know that Trump doesn't like the EUI think with Trump the
difficulty is you don't know where he's going to stop.
So you might give him something, but he will go further and he'll
come back. We're seeing this already with
some of the Baltic states who announced that they would raise
their defence spending to 5%, which is exactly what Trump has
called for. the US doesn't spend 5% on defence.
Doesn't matter. Trump has made the call.
The Baltic states, who are tiny and on the border with Russia,
have responded. Now, in terms of what this means
for the EU, that's obviously a huge issue if Trump is picking
off countries 1 by 1, um, because that undermines EU
unity. And what we've also seen under
Trump's first term, when, uh, Juncker was still commissioned
president, is that actually he was to some extent somewhat able
to, um, talk about to use trade diplomacy as an effective tool
to stave off some of the worst consequences of potential
tariffs. Some people think he played
Donald Trump quite well. Yes.
And he had a reputation as a man who couldn't always manage the
stairs, Jean Claude Juncker. But he he seemed to on this one,
people give him full marks. Yes, exactly.
And of course Wanderlein hasn't had experience with Trump
directly just yet, I think. No.
Well, she did at the end of his second term.
Didn't. Yes.
Yeah, a slight slide over, but we know he doesn't like women.
We know he doesn't like the EU, so she's going to have a harder
ride on that front. I think what is quite clear, you
know, the Commission has been preparing for months at this
point, so they have a clear sense of what their offer will
be and how they will retaliate if if things do escalate in that
way. But I guess the question is,
does Trump care? And I don't know that he does,
ultimately. Michael, Donald Trump pretty
much said in the run up to this election that tariffs were a
religion. The most beautiful word in the
English language. Exactly, and you were clearly in
the room with him for quite a long time by the picked up some
of his traits. Is it though, or is this
actually a ploy the the the building developers shimmy is, I
mean the the external Revenue Service, is that really going to
replace the Internal Revenue Service?
The the the Trump loves tariffs, and his interest in politics was
particularly provoked in the in the 1980s by what he believed
was the taking of America's economy by Japan then, rather
than China. He's got a very transactional,
very mercantilist view of trade and of power overall, and
tariffs for him serve 3 purposes.
So there's the the negotiating tool, as we've seen with Mexico
and Canada. So the tariff is a cudgel and
indeed it was used towards Colombia in order to make sure
that he could send Colombian migrants back there.
Then there's the tariff as an economic tool.
And what he wants to do is to effectively create a pro
American trade bloc to rival what he sees as China's.
And then the third one, exactly as you say, is as a revenue
generator. In the past, in the 19th
century, America levied most of the the money that it needed for
a federal purposes from external tariffs rather than from income
tax. And in Trump's utopia,
reactionary utopia, that is the way to go.
A. Lot of people watching the way
he did dealt with Mexico and Mexico and Canada would think
actually, no, it's it's, it isn't a real greed.
It is simply a bargaining check. What's wrong?
He sees them in different ways, so he will deploy them
interchangeably for different purposes.
And there's a piece in this week's Spectator, if you'll
forgive the plug, by an economist called Oren Cass, who
runs a think tank called American Compass, which is a pro
tariff, pro Trump broadly think tank.
And in it, Orencast outlines the way in which one of the reasons
why Trump likes tariffs is that they can serve different
purposes at different times. And also he loves the fact
they're transgressive. You know, there's there's sort
of taboo around them that that post war history has been
apparently in the direction of freer trade.
And now he's standing afought history and saying stop.
What marks do you give Keir Starmer so far in the way he's
been handling Trump? I think to be fair, Starmer's
handled things very well. By all accounts, Keir Starmer's
favorite Labour leader was Harold Wilson.
Harold Wilson had all sorts of difficulties when he was Prime
Minister dealing with the Vietnam War, LB JS demands and
then subsequently Nixon Ford, and that was a period when it
was a potentially Rocky, but Wilson, using the the guile and
skill that was his hallmark, managed to navigate an effective
route through that. I don't think Starham is
directly modelling himself and Wilson in every regard, but I
think he can certainly say at the moment that, like Wilson,
he's managed to show an adroitness in the handling of
the transatlantic relationship. That raises a question I'd like
to ask you about, Tom. The degree to which you think
Keir Starmer, who has made a virtue really of coming from
outside politics and into politics later in life, the
degree to which he knows his political history.
This might seem like a slight digression, but you've been to
his house, I think. Is it on the bookshelves?
Are they're political books like a lot of US obsessives have?
Or is it a different range of interests and good novels for
the beach? He does read political books.
I remember going to his house once and finding out how Wilson
biography on his sofa. Not, not a newly written one by
a minister in his cabinet. It was it was that one.
OK, well, that's slightly different.
But I mean, maybe it's just polite to read it.
But, but I, I, I think he, he does know political history,
also knows a lot about foreign policy through his previous
incarnations, you know, so as a human rights lawyer, he
travelled around the world. Yes, I think he may have.
Mentioned Heads of Government right as as as Director of
Public Prosecutions. I think he's mentioned that job.
Yeah, he, he, he, he dealt, he was actually part, you know,
Euro just meetings and he, he, he represented Britain in
Washington and meetings of Eric Holder than Justice secretary of
the United States and then a shadow Brexit secretary.
He travelled around Europe trying to get a better deal than
the awful one that we got. Now, you know, that is
considerable foreign policy experience.
It's considerable understanding of the world.
And what's interesting about it, I think is each one of those is
located in what Churchill called the three spheres of influence
that we have. Yeah, the Commonwealth, the
United States and Europe. And he wants to stay close to
all three. Because we're not actually.
And, well, I want to ask about that exactly because when we
were waiting for what seemed inevitable Keir Starmer to walk
into #10 not always inevitable, but inevitable, as we got closer
to the general election, there was quite a sort of trope going
around in maybe in think tanks, but certainly in journalism,
that Trump would force Keir Starmer into Europe's arms.
It doesn't look like that is happening at all, does he?
Trump is clearly trying to drive a wedge between the UK and the
EU and is doing so. I mean, we'll, we'll see whether
he'll be successful. We know, you know.
Starmer was in Brussels earlier this week.
All went very smoothly. They seem pleased to.
See, seen very. I mean, I think the real thing
is we can all talk and that's nice, but we have to put meat on
the bones so they have a. Clue.
I mean, we're coming up for a renegotiation.
Do they have a clue what he really wants in Europe?
No, I think the the UK has made it very clear that they want to
seek a reset in UK EU relations. Given the political context,
that's probably a positive thing.
Not probably that is a positive thing.
But the the problem is that a the UK isn't clear about what
it's offering and what would be different.
And because of EU KS self-imposed red lines really,
which are not rejoining the single market and not rejoining
the customs union, there's actually very little wiggle,
wiggle room for manoeuvre. So that makes this reset quite
difficult. I was.
Just wondering because Tom was active trying to get a second
referendum and you knew probably got to knew Nokia Starmer back
back then. How much do you think it pains
him that he he's not tiptoeing towards Europe remotely?
Really. I mean, he turns turning up for
a dinner, but he's not doing any of the big stuff that might have
been thought was up his straight back.
There. Well, let's come back.
I agree. Not yet.
I, I, I I think it could. Be a phase two to all of this.
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a certain amount of impatience
that they haven't got a win yet, and that's impatient stretching
across government into Downing St. and beyond that.
So far all we've got is some meetings and tending meetings is
great symbolically, but it's not done anything to improve the,
you know, the appalling circumstances that we were left
in after Brexit. Nothing to mitigate the damage
that that's done. And they need to get some wins
now. You know, in an ideal world, I
mean, this is a very, very challenging time, but it is
possible, I think, for Britain to end up with improved trading
relations with both Europe and America out of this.
But that requires a certain amount of ducking and diving
between the two of them, which I think they're ready to do.
A bigger and more important question for Keir Starmer, I
think, is this security issue where it's not about a
transactional, you know, what can we get out of them?
It's how do we actually protect the security of Europe from
threats from without and within. And that is also Trump is
crucial to that too. Well, there's a the, the, yeah,
there's a huge amount there. I want to come back to the media
on it in a second because what, what what does defence
cooperation really mean when it comes to the European Union?
But I wanted to ask you, Michael, you've written a piece
in this week's, is it called Spectator magazine?
Yeah, yes. And, and it's about Morgan
McSweeney. Yes.
Who's the chief of staff and was the campaign organiser for for
Keir Starmer and. And you get an impression from
your you've had conversations he's actually with him, with
Trump. You seem incredibly well
connected. He's very nervous of Europe
still, by the sound of it, it's still the third rail.
He's nervous of quite a few things which the left
traditionally quite likes. But that, that's part of it,
isn't it? Do you think that will actually
govern Keir Starmer's relationship with Europe?
I think it would be a factor. So Morgan Mcsweeney's analysis
and the analysis of those around him of the of the last election
and of Labour's future is that, and it's a contested analysis,
but one that he holds fast to, is that voters in the red Wall,
voters who had backed Boris and Brexit came home to Labour in
2024. And that reopening the Brexit
issue risks pushing them aside. Added to that, the biggest
threat to Labour at the moment is not the Conservatives, but
reform. And so Labour needs to be an
insurgent party on the side of working people, not on the side
of metropolitan elites as it were, as it might be seen.
So therefore sounds like you. Therefore, Europe is is doubly
bad and Europe is triply bad because migration is a
touchstone issue for many of these voters.
And one of the things that the the EU would most like to see as
part of any reset is a youth mobility agreement.
We actually have youth mobility agreements with Australia, New
Zealand and South Africa. It's not a return to free
movement, but it would be a relaxation of the current status
quo in migration terms with the EU.
And you could imagine Morgan, because we can well imagine how
in the hands of Nigel Farage that could be used against this
Labour government. I'm just going to say one thing
briefly on the Security question, which is a a potential
Achilles heel for Keir Starmer, of course, is the ceding of
sovereignty on the Chagos Islands.
But what is interesting so far is that lots of people who are
Trump adjacent have expressed anger about it.
But Trump himself? He hasn't said a dicky bird.
It's the dog that hasn't barred, and that's intriguing.
Yeah, might not have found it on the map.
Ameda, I did want to ask you realistically when people talk
about the defence cooperation in Europe, there seem to be a lot
of different versions of what that is.
And some people are less keen to only get their defence kit out
of Europe because they always want to have ties with America
and the rest of it. How realistic is is that over
trumpeted a bit? It's a, it's a grabby phrase.
It makes it sound, it sounds serious, but would it actually
amount to a row of beans even if there was an agreement along the
lines that that are being mapped out at at the moment if we
looked back a few years from now?
I think it could be a game changer if we're serious about
it and if we're going to do it properly and we have to be
serious about it because of the worsening external security
environment. And then add to that a US ally
who is still an ally. But there is bipartisan focus on
the Indian Pacific, which may mean in the kind of medium to
long term resources currently in Europe being reallocated
elsewhere in the world, that means that Europe as a whole has
to step up. And so this isn't about UK
defence or EU defence or anything in between.
It's about European defence and what that looks like so that,
you know, we can defend ourselves against Russia and and
any other kind of adversaries. I was trying to ask you, Tom, if
if, if you think Keir Starmer, it pains him not to be able to
embrace Europe, not to be able to do the project that you were
jointly engaged on, trying to get a second referendum ages
ago. But if if not doing that then
then getting closer than he now feels able to get the man you
describe in your book, his formative experiences, not being
very particularly emotive. The rest of it, maybe he just
compartmentalises it and moves on, but what's your sense of
where Europe does his heartbeat for it or it's he's moved on?
I think his Europeanism is based on 1945, not 1972, is based on
that blood bond of the ECHR coming together to say this must
never happen again. What you know, you know what,
what Hitler did to his own people, that's, you know, that
is the absolute core. And this, this human rights
framework, this, this and that matters to him more.
I think that sort of defense of a Liberal Democratic Europe than
a transaction, any deal on this or that, you know, you know,
when you get a veterinary agreement and so on.
What is key though is, you know, the government is now
prioritising growth above all other things.
If you're going to prioritise growth above all other things,
it's quite hard to say. Oh, but we can't do anything
about Europe. It's quite hard to say actually.
You can't have a grown up conversation about immigration
and what skills we need. So this is.
Your phase two point is it. So this, this comes back to the
MC Sweeney issue, I think, which is if you have a very, very
sharply edged political agenda, as Michael's written this week
about, you know, the red wall and white working class.
And you got a reader. I have.
I have read it. It's free.
Yeah. That creates contradictions in
what you're trying to do in government.
That creates tensions elsewhere in government.
And I think that the, the, the key to understanding Keir
Starmer is always to under recognise he sees the world as a
complex place rather than a simple place.
He doesn't like shallow, trite 3 word slogans.
He recognises there's trade-offs.
So yes, he wants to win those red wall seats.
He also wants to call into those blue wall seats.
Yes, he wants to, you know, deal with people's anxiety about
immigration, but he also wants to get the skills we need to
make our public services around work and our economy grow.
So there's trade-offs everywhere.
And I think I saw very narrow idea of mixed Sweeney's totally
in what to do. That's not that's not how it is.
It's more complicated than. I'm sure that three word slogan
jibe wasn't addressed to you, take back control and all that.
But do you think phase there could be a phase two?
Could you envisage Rachel Reeves panicking, no growth, trying to
reach over for dynamic alignment as it's called on certain
sectors of British industry at the tail end of this government
as it gets closer to a general election?
Or do you, do you think actually what we're looking at at the
moment, what Amit has been describing is probably the
settled scope of ambition? I I don't think that there will
be much change during this parliamentary term.
So you, as everyone has acknowledged the, the trade and
cooperation agreement has to come up for renegotiation.
There are certain issues that were parked and certain others
that are up for review. But I don't think there will be
much movement because again, for there to be significant
movement, then the self declared red lines, entry to the single
market or the customs union would have to be breached.
And Labour aren't going to do that because entry into the
single market of course comes with free movement.
There's another associated concern as well, I think for for
some in Labour and some in government actually more
precisely, which is that they can begin to see the glimmers of
Brexit benefits for them in particular areas, for example.
He's talked it up sometimes. Artificial.
Assignments. He's made it clear explicitly
that he believes that there are benefits in regulating
differently from the EU. Steve Reed has talked about the
benefits of regulating gene editing and agricultural
technology differently. Now, these are not massive game
changers in the economy yet. But I think it goes back to what
Tom was saying, which is that I think that Stormer's revealed
preference in government would be to see where he can accrue
small positional advantages in particular areas without having
to satisfy a particular ideological template.
Even though he may emotionally deeply regret the fact that
we're not in the European Union, I don't think he will allow that
emotion to cloud a day-to-day judgement about what pragmatic
wins he might be able to secure. What Tom said there, that's a
strategic vision for EU KS relationship with the EU going
forward that is not being articulated by the British
government. And I think that's.
That's why they should hire Tom Well.
But, but I think that's the issue with this whole reset
talk. But there's a, there's a
mismanagement of expectations there that the UK isn't being
clear about what it wants. There isn't a bigger strategic
vision for the relationship going forward and that then
doesn't help inform its priorities in those discussions
as to where does Britain feature on on the EU's agenda.
I mean, as I started off by saying, you know, there's a war
on the continent, there is competitiveness and economic
growth issues. They're embarking on a hugely
ambitious enlargement process while, you know, just just lost
one significant. With page 94.
Not quite page 94, but certainly not in the top three priorities
necessarily. And so certainly when it comes
to the TCA negotiations or or review, I should say in 2026,
there is 0 appetite to reopen that and go through every single
page. Nor is there capacity really
because of all these other issues that we're facing.
And so I think as ever, we just, you know, sitting here in in
London, we have to realise a what the E us interests are.
EU KS articulated this desire to want to be closer.
OK, fine. But then it has to come up with
a proposal and it has to also think about what's palatable for
the EU side, which at the moment I'm just not really seeing that
understanding, constantly knocking out this discussion of
youth mobility and tying that to freedom of movement, which it is
not. And I don't understand why we
would do that or why the government would do that.
It is just particularly unconstructive and unhelpful,
which is kind of taking away a little bit from all the positive
symbolic mood musings that we saw right after Starmer's
election. I I I'd like to finish if I can.
I'd just asking you all about bringing it all back to Trump
again and the degree to which he is influencing our politics,
maybe maybe even he is the template for political
leadership more and more so constantly in touch with his own
grass roots big gestures that aren't necessarily backed up.
Notwithstanding what you said earlier, Michael, by detailed
policy plans. Can you say right wing leaders
in Europe? Are they?
There's quite a few of them who presumably take notes every time
they watch watch him. I mean, there's right wing
leaders and there's Trump, who's a convicted criminal.
So I'm not sure I would subscribe to the idea that he's
the image of a political leader. It was.
Not the template, the technique. I was wondering if people are
watching. It is a new, you know, this is a
dawn of a new politics for all of us, is what I was wondering.
Yes, and that's certainly 1 of ruthlessly pursuing national
interest in a context of geopolitical fragmentation.
Umm, umm, you know, and, and he's very close to obviously
Georgia Maloney in, in Italy, uh, Viktor Orban in, in Hungary
who are uh, populist far right leaders.
Umm, and they're building those bridges.
Umm, I think it's too soon to tell whether this is the model
going forward. Tom Kate Starmer's trying to be
the Georgia Maloney of, of Britain in a sense, in that he
he wants to, he wants us to believe he's not anti European,
but he's also happy to engage with Trump, maybe China as well.
He he, he wants to walk all of these things.
But but he's also talked about himself as Keir Starmer as a the
last bulwark against populism. This government's got to work
or, you know, it's the last roll of the dice.
He's got to deliver things that make people think this system
works. And yet the thing that he's
worried about the right wing populism, he says might sort of
is is is at the gates. That is Trump.
I mean, he he he's hiding that sometimes, but that that's he's
trying to stop Britain going Trump and yet being nice to
Trump. How's that?
Is he going to pull that off? I was.
Talking to someone from Downing St. last night who said, do you
realize that, yeah, we may be the sort of last that's sort of
left of centre government left at this rate.
So trying to hold this line now, it's really important in those
circumstances that you don't become infected by the virus.
And I think sometimes when people are trying to get a very
clear message out about Keir Starmer, you see sort of almost
of ersatz populist lines being given about, you know, civil
service city in a tepid bar for magic he hated.
He knows what's wrong, right? That's not him and I think what
you his argument is that Morgan right, I don't I don't know who
you're right. The the way to be not only the
antithesis to populism, but also the antidote is to restore
people's faith that the system can deliver for them and improve
their lives and bring real change.
Now that is harder as Michael knows than than sometimes it's
looks in opposition and they're beginning to I think finally
beginning to sort of hit some metal with their with with the
shovels now, meanwhile, but but you know, it's taken a while.
I mean, there is there's quite a lot of envy towards how Trump's
approached his first few days in power in down St.
You know, they're saying, well, why don't we have all those
announcements ready? They didn't have 100 day plan
and that is one of the problems. They, they had a series of
rather unpopular announcements and a lot of office politics
rather than real politics. And so I think they've learnt
from that. It's very recoverable, but they
have wasted a lot of time and they're looking across the
Atlantic and that you don't have to be a populist to get your
announcements out early to show you're delivering change.
You just have to be a good government.
It's been said, Michael, that one of the people in Britain who
will be sitting drumming his fingers on the table looking at
the way Trump is doing things, looking at the way maybe his
party, your party, the Tory party, is looking for a force
that can take on Farage, will be Boris Johnson.
And that he'll be sitting there thinking at some point, sort of
5 minutes to midnight before the next general election, the Tory
party will come to him and beg forgiveness and hand in the
leadership as the only way to take on Farage.
Could you envisage that? It's not unthinkable, is it?
It's not unthinkable, no. So yes, I mean, you know, Boris
has been compared to since an artist, friends have compared to
him. Friends of his, that is, have
compared to de Gaulle as well. It would seem implausible at the
moment, but then Trump's own return after having backed the
the capital rioters and fermented, you know, and incited
rebellion against his own vice president.
Four years later, he's in the White House.
So Boris will think in, in, in at a time like this, anything is
possible. There's one thing, though, apart
from all of the other issues that have been well aired, that
stands in in Boris's way when it comes to thinking about a a
return. And that is the increased
salience of migration. Last week, Priti Patel, the
shadow foreign secretary, was being hauled over the calls for
the Conservative record on migration.
I was part of that government. I'm as guilty as anyone or as
proud as anyone of, of, of our records, so I'm not trying to
distance myself. But the the position of many
potential Conservative voters, particularly those who've gone
over to reform, is that the last Conservative government signally
let them down on migration. And Boris is very heavily
associated with that. But if there is one person who
is capable of transcending the detail by sheer force of
personality, it's Boris. And forgetting it maybe along
the way. As he has said before this the
blessed sponge of amnesia can make the slate of memory clean,
and he's probably hoping that will happen with Aspects.
And his record if he is watching the chances of hiring you as his
campaign manager. I think that I I'd be more than
happy to write his biography, but I think that I probably
shouldn't be writing his campaign plan.
Thank you all three so much for your time and that discussion.
Very grateful. That's it for this edition of
the Forecast. Until next time, goodbye.