Farage and Badenoch U-turn on Iran - and Starmer slams them for it

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Hello, and welcome to another instalment of my daily podcast,

full of the best bits of news, discussion and discoveries from my LBC show.

We begin with this, frankly, unbelievable.

I don't use that word very often, I normally say extraordinary.

We have an unbelievable aligning of the planets.

I am, as you know, completely obsessed with the psychology, the mental,

gymnastics and, unfortunately, as has become increasingly clear,

that the weapons-grade ignorance of all of the people in the business of sharing opinions

for money, whether they're politicians or pundits, who have been catastrophically wrong

about everything now for the best part of a decade.

All of the people who have been catastrophically wrong about everything for almost a decade

have this month been catastrophically wrong about Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu's war in

Iran. This became crystal clear in the House of Commons yesterday during PMQs.

Question that I'm going to finally get to at the end of this interminable monologue,

but it will be about whether or not this represents a serious change of fortunes for Keir Starmer,

whether getting this so completely and absolutely correct will actually see some sort of bounce

in his popularity or some change in attitudes towards him, because I honestly don't know,

and I can't wait to ask you. But what has become crystal clear is that all of the people

who have been catastrophically wrong about everything, shall I do the list? I'll do the list.

Brexit, austerity, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Donald Trump, catastrophically wrong about

all of these things, are utterly untouched by embarrassment, humiliation or shame,

because they queued up, jostling with the sharpest of elbows to push each other out of the way

and compete to see who could shout the loudest, calling for Keir Starmer to join the war in Iran.

I've never been more ashamed to be British. They shouted. He's weak and pathetic, and the special

relationship is over. They mule. He's a national disgrace. It's the worst thing since Suez

wrote the world's wrongest man, Daniel Hanan. And now they've all gone a little bit quiet. They

haven't quite reached the scale of denial that Kami Badenak reached in the House of Commons

yesterday, when she effectively spent all six of her questions, channeling John Cleese. I don't

know if you heard PM Qs yesterday, but she spent all six of her questions channeling John Cleese

and insisting that we don't mention the war. Unfortunately, Keir Starmer wanted to talk about

little else, but it's not just Kami Badenak. It's as if a memo has gone around to the dumbest

people in the country, insisting that they all start banging on about fuel duty.

Having its cap removed in, yes, wait for it's September. It's currently March. We count April,

May, June, July, August, September. So yesterday, you were literally attacking Keir Starmer for

not joining a probably illegal war in the Middle East, which everybody now agrees is a bloody

disaster. Talking of reverse ferrets, Andrew Neil probably holds the record for moving quickest

from saying this is an absolutely brilliant idea and Keir Starmer should be four square behind

it, to saying this is an unmitigated disaster and God knows how it's going to end. But he's not

alone. You think of a politician or a pundit who leans towards the right. In fact, think of anybody

you know who supported Brexit Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, austerity and Donald Trump. And you will

find someone who was attacking Keir Starmer mere hours ago for refusing to get involved in this

disgusting war. And now they're trying to make the national conversation about a six month

distant, long scheduled, still uncertain, removal of a cap on fuel duty that has been in place since

2022. I'll say that again because sometimes as you know, I have to pinch myself. They are trying

to make the national conversation. I'm looking at front pages now. I'm listening to some commentators,

all of whom spectacularly wrong about all of the usual lists and to which we have now added

the war in Iran, more later on the results of the investigation into the girls school that got

blown to smithereens, whatever you do. Don't mention that if you were shouting at Keir Starmer

for not getting involved last week or explaining why you'd never been more ashamed to be British.

I just want to get this absolutely clear. It is a long scheduled, still uncertain, six month

distance increase in fuel prices that people are complaining about and trying to blame Keir Starmer

for hours, literally hours, after attacking him for not getting involved in an illegal war in

the Middle East. Now yesterday I asked this question rhetorically. I said, do they not know,

or does she not know in Kami Badenot's case where petrol actually comes from?

The idea that now is the time to start attacking a government that inherited a fuel duty cap that

they're minded or scheduled. I don't know that they will even remove it, but that's a conversation

for a different day. And of course if they don't part of the reason will be the war in the Middle

East and the impact that it's had on oil prices. But I asked rhetorically yesterday whether these

people even knew where petrol came from. What do you need? Brasneck doesn't cover it. What is it that

you need to conclude that this is a good day hours? Literally, you've just put the phone down

from telling all your friends in the media to attack Keir Starmer for not joining Benjamin Netanyahu

and Donald Trump's war. You've literally just put the phone down. Look to the television screen,

realize you've made the mother of all mistakes and decide, I know what we'll do. We'll go in on

fuel duty. We'll try to blame Keir Starmer for a six month distant rise in the price of petrol.

Well, oil tankers are being attacked and confined to barracks in the Middle East. There's a direct

consequence of the war that yesterday, yesterday, we were not only telling him to get involved in,

but attacking him quite nastily in a very ad hominem fashion for not being in already.

Do these people know where petrol comes from? And then of course you reminded me that we're talking

about a gristle-headed section of our population and our commentary that contains people who

think that concrete grows out of the ground. You are talking about people whose stupidity is

visible from space. You are talking about people who possibly think that petrol grows on trees

or comes out of a soda stream. I don't know, but I do know that the effort I put on an almost

daily basis to pointing out to you, the contempt in which these people hold you. Imagine if I turned

up for work today, having been in favour of this war all last week and thought, let's not mention

the war. Let's certainly not mention the, that's definitely not going near the girl school that's

been blown up by the by the Americans and and all the dead school goes, what can we talk about?

You said, how can we try to make here a starmer look bad today? And someone said, why don't you talk

about fuel duty? Can we bait or not did in the House of Commons yesterday? You just you'd probably

fire that person. We said, don't be ridiculous. My listeners deserve more than that. My readers

deserve more than that. My viewers aren't that stupid. I'm not going to get them riled up about a

six-month distant increase in fuel prices where there's, while they're setting fire to refineries

in the Middle East in a war that I was telling Keir Starmer, he was a national disgrace for not

joining just yesterday or forgive me possibly the day before. And it gives you a mark of how desperate

they are. And it gives you a wonderful indication of how pathetic they are. Not fit to lead the country

is one of the headlines that the right-wing media has gone with today. When they're not attacking

him over the Mandelson appointment that they all praised to the rafters. And I mean all,

they are trying to attack him for a mooted increase in petrol prices. And it just makes me wonder.

It just makes me wonder whether or not this will actually be a significant moment for Keir Starmer.

Sometimes given the bent nature of much of our media, you can't tell how the Labour Party or

the Labour Government is doing, except by looking at the hysterical reaction of their enemies.

Not really in Parliament, they're increasingly irrelevant. And of course, print media is increasingly

irrelevant as well. But together they still dominate political and public discourse. You can't

really tell how well or how badly they're doing without looking at events through the lens of

their opponent's hysterical reaction. Or, in this case, the reaction isn't really hysterical.

It's humiliatingly stupid. Why aren't you talking about the war anymore? We're talking about

the possibility of petrol prices going up in six months' time. Let's just run that by me again.

You're talking about what? Yeah, we're going to use all six questions in PMQ's

to talk about the possibility of petrol prices going up next September.

Sorry, is the war over? Is the war that you were screaming from the rooftops?

I'm a hat to join on pain of national humiliation. Is it somehow ended?

You've moved on, have you now, to the possible increase in petrol prices next September?

Oh, I see. What are the other five questions going to be about? No, no.

I'm Kimmy Baden. I don't do gaffs. I'm going to ask all six questions about a

mooted increase in petrol prices six months' hands without mentioning the war.

They're going along with it. The Brexit fans, the Boris Johnson Toticolas, the austerity

vampires, the Liz Truss fan club. They're all going along with it.

Oh, 3, 4, 5, 6, 0, 6, 0, 9, 7, 3. Is the number you need to tell me? I haven't spent enough time

setting this question up, actually. It would be helpful if you just got involved without

another lengthy monologue, but this is what the phone is going to be about.

The Falklands War, I don't know if you know this, it will depend slightly on your age and how much

attention you were paying at the time. I did it at A-level and when General Galtieri sent his

troops to the Falkland Islands, the SDP was smashing it in the polls. It's hard to believe,

given that they faded into a few years later, but the SDP had been set up by exiles

from traditional political parties, mostly the Liberals and the massive majority came from

the Labour Party, David Owen, Shirley Williams, Roy Jenkins, huge political beasts. It's hard

to stress what a significant moment that was in British politics. Margaret Thatcher's popularity

was low and then the Falklands War happened and her decision to go to war changed everything.

I don't think Starmer's decision not to go to war is going to be on a comparable historical

scale, but it's a very helpful reminder, the Falklands lesson, of how significant these

moments can be in terms of domestic political popularity. I want you to tell me whether

Keir Starmer's decision not to go to war is going to be a game changer in the context of his

political and electoral fortunes. That's the question I've got for you. How big a deal do you

think Keir Starmer's decision in the face of so much shrill and hysterical abuse to stand firm

and refuse all requests to join this ridiculous war, to insist that our role will be only

to defend our own interests and to retaliate against the tax upon our allies? How significant

a moment do you think, because the polls haven't dropped yet, the ones that would be able to take

into account, which means we can have a really interesting conversation without having it

underbinded by the evidence. How significant a moment do you think this will prove to be?

Pending for a little break now, after that I'll try and shut up for a bit while you talk.

Sam's in culture, it's the Sam, what would you like to say?

Good morning, Jane. How does very well, mate. What's on your mind?

Good. Yeah, I mean, I actually believe that this is going to be a big pivotal moment for Keir.

Last time I spoke to you, I said that I was unsure of which way I was leaning in terms of my

vote and then. You were a member of the Tory party. You weren't just a voter, I think. You were

a member of the Tory party. Yeah, that's right. And everything that Keir's done with regards to

Iran so far, I've been very impressed. I've been very proud of the way he's dealt with it.

I think there's been a little bit of lackluster in some of the things. Of course, we didn't get

perhaps our Navy off to Cyprus quite as quick, but in terms of the way he's dealt with,

certainly with Trump and with his opponents around him, I think, has been really, really,

really good. And the fact we're not being sort of bowing to America's wind and just going off

to war, for me, is spot on. You know, my brain boils when I just see the lights of

Burdenock and Farage and others just going, right, we're off. Let's go, Tally Ho and

unoff we go to another war in the Middle East. Yeah. And what, what same person wouldn't take

24 hours just to say, right, let's just think about this. We've got to go in with a measured,

a measured attitude. We're potentially taking the country to war. And the decisions that

Keir Starmer has made so far, just for this moment, for me, has swung my vote closer to him than it

has before. Do you think it will stick? I mean, not necessarily because you're not putting an

X in the box yet, but this is because there are, I think of two pieces on the board, two types of

pieces on the board, the big pieces and the little pieces. If you like the royal family, the

pieces and then the pawns, but the big, the big pieces for the purposes of this very poor

analogy, Sam, but bear with me, the big pieces stay, that they affect significant and probably

permanent change. And then they can get nibbled away at by the little pieces. And then another

big piece could be put on the board from the other side. And it could undo some of the good that's

been done by it, but this is a significant shift in your opinion that will probably have deeper

roots than other shifts in opinion that we all feel periodically. Yeah. I think, for me, like you

say, I think this is one that is, we will look back on when it comes to three years time,

or maybe even three months time, when, you know, who knows what's going to happen tomorrow,

let alone next week with this war, and my aim is changing so quickly. But I think in time,

a lot of people will look back and think, actually, you know what, he handled that really,

really well. So far, I think he's done everything more or less correct. And there's only been a

few minor details which haven't been right. Like I say, getting our Navy out there, perhaps a

bit quicker would have been good thing, but, you know, I don't know how much quicker that could

have moved, given that it's been completely ripped apart by previous governments over the years,

anyway. Yes, we're back to it. It's amazing how many roads lead to George Osborne, but nothing

ever touches it. It's like, it's like McCavity, isn't he, in cats?

One of these, yes. And, yeah, so I like this. I like this. Yeah, I don't know what you sound like.

You sound, you sound like someone who has the national interest above their political

parties, and even though you were a fully paid up member of the Tory party, it sounds as if you

are someone who has managed throughout this madness of the last 10 years, and all of the effort

put into persuading us to abandon these sort of positions, you can still put the national interest

ahead of parties, and ship or personal prejudice, personal opinions. He has just played a blinder.

Full stop. Next question. Yeah, I mean, I like to think I am. I like to think there's a lot of

people like me out there as well. So do I. So do I. So, I think, yeah, but what I do think is

it shines the light on where our politics is now, and where you're saying, you know, you've got

these individuals in our, in our politics who are just shouting the loudest, and they are the ones

who are asking six stupid questions to the Prime Minister, you know, and, and you need people in

there who, I don't think you can be in our position anymore, and actually agree with what the

government are doing, and that I think is wrong, you know, I think you've got to be able to

come turn around and go. If it doesn't happen at a time like this, then it's never going to happen

at all, is it? And you're absolutely right. I mean, I would have thought that somebody like James

Cleverley would have been able to be a lot more graceful and gracious in in a moment like this,

than Kenny Badenock has managed to be. I'd have put Tom Tugan hat on that list at the moment,

but he's popping up in one of the features that's coming up later on the program. So I don't know

if the gloss has come off Tugan hat as well, but thank you. That's a lovely start to the calls,

because it speaks to precisely the point I was trying to make about this somehow transcending

party politics, transcending political loyalties, transcending past allegiances, and speaking directly

to the national interest. So the head bangers at the moment are trying to pretend that putting a

badger on a bank note is damaging to our national interest, whereas attacking a Prime Minister

for keeping us out of an illegal war that is going disastrously is almost a national sport for

these people. You heard Sam refer there to PM Q's yesterday with with with Cammy Badenock. If you

did miss it, then we have put together a little digest of exactly what she said and how she said it.

Don't mention the war. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it all right.

When Peter Mandelson hosted a drinks party on the on the night of the White House Correspondence

dinner in April of last year, so almost exactly 12 months ago, who do you think co-hosted it?

Okay, so Peter Mandelson installed as ambassador to the United States of America,

held a reception, a drinks reception ahead of the annual White House Correspondence dinner.

It was co-hosted not by an individual, but by a British organization whose insignia, if you like,

was all over the room. The room was full of their insignia, their emblems, their merch almost.

They're kind of who do you think co-hosted? Peter Mandelson's drinks reception

immediately prior to the White House Correspondence dinner, and you're not going to believe me.

And not only are you not going to believe me, you are going to think, you know, sometimes I think

James has lost the plot when he goes on about the ecosystem created by the right wing media

and the right wing politicians in this country. But if he's telling the truth about this,

then I think I owe him an apology. When I tell you who not only co-hosted Peter Mandelson's

drink reception ahead of the White House Correspondence dinner, just 13 short months ago,

when I tell you who it was, you are not going to believe me. It was not Bernard Manning James,

although that's an excellent guess. I want you to text me because I genuinely don't think

you're going to get it right because it's not obvious until it is. It's not obvious until it is.

And it is part of the conversation because, of course, today, the revelations contained

within the so-called Peter Mandelson files are another thing that the right wing media and

Tory party and Nigel Farage and his friends are using to avoid mentioning the war that they were

desperate to join just 10 minutes ago, but a now-admin would have been a disastrous decision

because they have no integrity, no honesty and no intelligence. And for once, Keir Starmer is

displaying, well, not for once, that's not fair, but he is displaying all three of those things,

integrity, intelligence and honesty on a scale that many of us have forgotten what it looks like.

I think probably a quick visit to Idiot's Corner and then we'll go to Peterborough.

Steph is there. So we have Martin in Wolverhampton. This is quite helpful in many ways. This is

what happens if you spend your life boiling your brains on Twitter, okay? This is where you end up.

Martin has been in touch. You far left useful idiot. Starmer is a weak, useless, calculated

wasteer and in time all the cover-ups and scandals and lies of what's being hidden will come out

and the truth will be told. And Starmer didn't get involved in the war as he didn't want to lose

the Muslim vote. That's from Martin in Wolverhampton displaying, I mean, almost admirable ignorance of

both Islamic history and the makeup of the Islamic faith in the modern world. The reason that

we were supposed to join the war was because of the human rights abuses being visited

upon the people in Iran, Martin, who are mostly Muslims. I don't know what to say to people

like you. I feel enormous sympathy and a weird sense of concern for you. I hope that, for example,

you're not allowed near scissors at the moment. Because to be that, what's the word I want?

Stupid isn't fair. To be that boiled. To have had your brain boiled so completely,

I'm going to have a look at your history. Sorry. Is that fair? Should we have a look at the other

sort of things that he sends into the studio? Because I find this fascinating. These are the people

that are being appealed to today by attempts to pretend that a six-month distant possible

increase in fuel is a scandal, and that the people who were calling for more war in the Middle

East yesterday are trying to get people like Martin to get cross about a six-month distant

increase in fuel duty. I'll have a look. I'll have a look at the history of that text shortly,

because I think it's really interesting. Steph is in Peterborough back to the question of whether

or not this will prove to be a very significant moment in care, style, and political fortunes.

What do we think, Steph? Well, after that, that message, I don't look with, but I think

I think potentially, doesn't matter if Keir Starmer should come for, let's still go in and I think

the problem is that it's the opposition. It's not just the reform party or the Tories, it's also

a lot involved with Labour who's still connected to Jeremy. The thing is, it's just like,

there sort of seem to be running out of things to have a go at him about, because yes,

he's made mistakes, haven't we all? But the thing is, over the U-turns, and you know,

listening to what other people are saying, they have adjusted and changed things, James, but

the thing is, do you not think that these people are running out of things to cut, as well as

yes, I do think that, oddly, because I mean, there has been quite a lot to criticise in four,

and I sense we'd probably disagree about the significance of some of the policy resets,

except that we agree on the fact that if you've made a mistake, it's much better to undo it,

than it is to persist in the mistake, whether or not that qualifies as a U-turn or a reverse

ferrit, it's very much in the eye of the beholder, but I do know, I think six months ago, I'd have

pushed back about that claim on cancer, because it's a bit of a cliche, isn't it? You could cure cancer

and you'd still get a kicking, but they can't bring themselves to say, this is amazing. We've

actually seen some statesmanship, after years of putting Liz Truss and Boris Johnson in Downing Street,

we've actually seen some international statesmanship and some sovereignty stuff, we've seen him putting

the UK set firm like Harold Wilson during Vietnam, we will not dance to the tune of a bloodthirsty

American president. But if you look at Iraq, though, James, everybody voted in the comments for that,

but until it went seriously badly wrong, then it was, oh my god, it's players fault, you know,

and yet they passed it through Parliament, you know, I mean, it wasn't just the UK that was

involved in Iraq, but there's a lot of Commonwealth and Allies involved, and I hope you say something

about them. And I think because Iran's going so horribly wrong, especially with the killings of

the kids, and especially for the Iranian people, that is a point that we're all in danger, some

sort of overlooking. Could you imagine, though, if Keir had gone in and back the Americans, I mean,

there's 136 countries in the world and only 134 joined in, but nobody seems to have mentioned them,

but could you imagine if he had gone in? And that may have been part of that horrific

bomb in those kids' school, and it isn't arranged, it would have been horrendous.

The thing that intrigued me, and I mean, this is the way my brain works, it's not necessarily healthy,

is what they would have done if it had been Barack Obama banging this drum, or be it that he

would have been less likely to go in without a UN approval, that the idea of, and of course,

Benjamin Netanyahu alongside Barack Obama waging an illegal war in Iran, if it had been Barack

Obama, Nigel Farage, for example, would not have been able to support it, because, well, I think

probably, because Barack Obama is black, and Nigel Farage can never be seen to be saying anything

remotely warm, positive or supportive about Barack Obama. As we know, he was adamant that American

presidents had absolutely no business getting involved in British politics when the president was

black, but when he was bright orange, he couldn't wait to roll out the red carpet and invite him to

comment on everything under the sun. And of course, to fly there, several thousand miles at a cost of

God knows how much, in the hope of catching him for a moment, this weekend, in Mar-a-Lago, and

Trump stayed resolutely about an hour away, and to be fair, you would, wouldn't you? If you knew

that Nigel Farage was an hour away, you'd stay an hour away. If you weren't listening yesterday,

then you might not know what this is. In fact, if you were listening yesterday, you might not know

what that is, that's the sound that a ferret makes. Our political editor, Natasha Clarke,

told me what the verb is, that is one of those beautifully specific verbs relevant to wildlife,

is it de-king? Do-king-ding-king? There's a special verb for the noise, well, for this noise here.

And I mentioned that because we launched reverse ferret specials yesterday, and we've

got the mother of all reverse ferrets today. It was, and I can't believe this, and I also

apologize to you for missing it at the time. When Peter Madison was appointed ambassador to the

United States of America, he hosted a drinks reception ahead of the White House correspondence

dinner. The room in which he was held was emblazoned with the branding of his co-hosts, the people

that were effectively have picked up the bill for the entire Shindig, and his co-hosts were

the Daily Mail. So, the tiny bits of the media this morning that aren't taken up with attempts to

make you care more about the six-month distant mooted increase in petrol prices, then you do about

the war that they were telling you to join yesterday, are full of attempts to claim that the

Peter Mandelson revelations are either particularly new or particularly damning. So, let's have a

look at what the Daily Mail had to say in December of 2024 when Peter Mandelson was appointed.

Peter Mandelson may seem a curious appointment to be our new ambassador to the US,

but he is undoubtedly a smooth talker and, like Mr Trump, a natural wheeler dealer,

and compared to the overgrown student politicians running this hapless government,

he is a veritable colossus. What's that sound again? Is that what there it is?

Because four months later in April when they co-hosted the party, they reported Peter Mandelson

giving a speech in which he said, this is a pinch yourself moment for me, hosting tonight's

reception in partnership with the Daily Mail. It's incredible. And then in February of this year,

Mandelson's close association with Epstein was well known before he was made US ambassador,

so why on earth was he given the job? I love this. The Daily Mail literally co-hosted the party

on the night of the White House correspondence dinner. You could just as easily have written.

Mandelson's close association with Epstein was well known before he was made US ambassador,

so why on earth did we pay for his party? But they don't write that. They pretend it never

happened because they are undertaking a reverse ferret, and they're not the only ones.

Here's a Daily Mail columnist called Dan Hodges, ruthless, cynical, and cunning. Why

Mandy is the perfect choice as US ambassador? Perfect choice, December 2024. February of this year,

the fact is everyone knew the truth about Mandelson and Epstein. The Prime Minister's claim that he

and he alone was kept in the dark over the whole squalid saga is utterly preposterous. The perfect

choice was utterly preposter these people. I mean, what happens? Are they like the owl in

Clash of the Titans? You know, our comedies, the owl in Clash of the Titans, his head goes all the way

around. Can they do that? They can do it in print. Gordon Rainer in the Daily Telegraph,

the five secrets of Peter Mandelson's unrivaled political genius is undeniable. Natural

talents have now been supplemented by 40 years of experience, May 2025. February of this year,

Sir Keir did not need a James Bond or a George Smiley to winkle out the fact that Lord Mandelson

was far too close to comfort to Geoffrey Epstein. Should Keir Starmer have appointed Peter Mandelson

and no he bloody shouldn't? Was Keir Starmer alone in thinking it was a good idea? No he flipping

wasn't. That's Dan Hodges. That's the entire Daily Mail co-hosting a party. That's Gordon Rainer

of the Daily Telegraph back to the Telegraph for something that is much more complicated.

This is what Private I always describe as the triple ferret. So it's not just a reverse ferret.

It's it's massive wrongness. May a culper complete reverse ferret. So Tom Harris writing in the

Telegraph. Mandelson is a political genius. He's the right man to deal with Trump. He will bring

charm and intelligence to the role. That was in December 2024. Fast forward. February of this year,

I am not alone in the world of journalistic commentary in having woefully misjudged the wisdom

of appointing him as Britain's ambassador to the United States, but that does not absolve me.

I was wrong. So that's stage two of the complicated triple ferret. And then we reach stage three.

Just four days later, Stammer appointed Mandelson to the most prestigious diplomatic post that

Britain has to offer. It was an egregious and devastating mistake by the prime minister. Well,

it was the appointment of a political genius who was the right man to deal with Trump and would

bring charm and intelligence to the role. Me a month earlier. And I could go on. Well, I will.

Michael Gove. Lord Mandelson will be a thoughtful and original British ambassador to the United

States with the skill set to navigate Trump's presidency. Lord Gove has said, in a fusive praise

from across the political aisle, the former conservative minister said Mandelson had the breadth

of vision to make a success of his new role. Then the middle stage, there's ego in a lot of

faces at the moment. And there's a few scraps of yoke an album in online. I am as gullible a duck

swept along by the tide in the SW one pond as any. Says Michael Gove, who is not only a former

cabinet minister and conservative party leadership contender, but of course a journalist of 30 or 40

years standing. But hey, oh, I'm just a little old Mickey Gove. You can't expect me to know

anything about anything. How did Starma miss judge Mandelson so badly? Was the headline in the magazine

that he edited just a couple of days later? So those are reverse ferrets on the like, the

scale, which you probably think is uncommon, until you learn the attitude that the same people

are taking to the war in Iran, which leads us back to the question of just how good this will prove

to be for Kier Starma. Douglas is in dumb firm. If Douglas, what would you like to say?

Well, first of all, thanks very much, James. I worked down P.L. Q's yesterday and I thought Starma

did brilliantly well. You know, I grew his points across really well, explained what he was doing,

and why. And you can't see much coverage out in the newspapers today. And we haven't had

come much coverage out in the newspapers this week. They can't, can they? Because they were

telling him, telling us he was weak. They were siding with Donald Trump. They were attacking him for

so they are, they're doing the John Clees, aren't they? They are, don't mention the war.

Well, and can it be done yesterday? And so our troops, the way she did, I think, was absolutely terrible.

If people missed that, she said they were just hanging around in the Middle East when

Kier Starma then explained exactly the kind of operations they've been undertaking.

Well, I was going to say I know somebody who's out there just now and he was deployed

not this week, last week. Really? And it's just not good enough. You know, there are things

happening, but you know, the government just doesn't sit around and do nothing. But I think the

thing that worries me more is that Starma's getting hit with what's going on domestically.

And these papers are putting all the blame on him. But he's got a cabinet that works with him.

And they're not standing up to take and responsibility. I think we should.

Some of them are. I mean, they do, they do the interview rounds and they get asked

stupid questions by people who are silent about their own support for the war or, of course,

the fact they used to work for a television station owned by the Iranian state, which is an

embarrassment that some people are very keen to keep on the wraps. But the cabinet's not

being disloyal. They perhaps could be making a slightly stronger case of support.

But well, I'm not communicating now. Pretty well. I certainly don't see them communicating.

There was one thing with a mandal, something that concerns me a little bit because I worked

for the government and had to get security clearance. And I was able to see toxic documents

for five years. But do you have to kill me now?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's really, carry on.

I was interviewed by the security services who went into my background, checked my bank account,

talked to my friends, said, oh, you going with Douglas to the pub on a Friday night?

What did you drink? They asked me, Douglas, what did you drink? I checked all my background.

The security services must have done a report for mandals to get access to these top secret

papers. I know it came late, but there must be a poor somewhere and now must have gone back to

number 10. Well, there's more to come at the moment. I don't think no other than that.

It's restricted to reputational risk. They established a possible reputational risk based on

evidence that, of course, everybody knew at the time, including all the people that were

celebrating the appointment from the rooftops. What do you drink, Douglas? I'm curious now.

We'll have a couple of rescues here and again. I'll give this man the job.

From Scotland, you should again. It goes with the territory, doesn't it?

Thank you, Douglas. Time for a short break now. But when we get back, we'll be moving our focus

to another huge story from today's news agenda.

It's a story partly about the nearly one million young people who are not in education,

employment or training. But it's also a story about the plight faced by young people in this country

who are in education, employment or training, or in this case, an employment and training. It's

about the generational divide and I don't understand why I've never nailed it down.

Is it because I've not got enough skin in the game yet? That my children are still in full-time

education. I've got one in the sixth one and one at university. So I am not fully aware of the

gulf in experience that that generation is going to have compared to mine. There's also perhaps

a degree of insulation by dint of the fact that we've done okay and so Mrs O'Brien and I will be

able to insulate our children in part from some of the harsher realities of being young in this

country in 2026. I get some of it right. I get some of the buttons. When I tell you, for example,

if you're listening to this as a millennial or as somebody who's still dreams of getting on the

property ladder, when I tell you that my first mortgage was for 110 percent of the value of the flat

that we bought, your jaw hits the floor. I didn't not only did we not need a deposit, they gave

us money because the market was in such heat that they knew by the time I'd signed the documents.

By the time we'd signed the documents to buy the house, it would have gone up in value. Such was

the state of the property market at that time, at that point in the historical cycle. We're going

back almost 26 years to the day, 26 years in May when we signed on the dotted line just before

going off on honeymoon and they gave us 110 percent of the value of the flat. Never had money

like that in our current accounts before. Let alone having our names on the deeds of a property.

So I get that. That's such a huge illustration and I used to feel enormous anger when I started

doing this job with older callers who would insist that the problem with the young today is that

they just don't work hard. So you'd get someone ringing in saying, my husband worked four three

jobs and we bought our first house in 1954 and I'd say, how much did it cost? She'd say seven

pence and I'd say, and how much did he get paid for the three jobs that he was doing? And she'd say,

well, he got paid about four pence a year and you'd say, well, should we work out what the

relationship is between what he was earning and what his property cost? And then we'd work it out.

And then we'd say, do you know what that relationship is now? At the average property price is about

10 times the income of the average 20 something. So how the hell would you have bought a house in 1954

if that ratio had been in place then? And then I get lots of text saying, James stopped being

rude to old ladies. So I don't know what the right way to have handled that would have been

looking back. So there are some huge markers. Some huge markers of just how bad things are,

but we never seem to do anything about it. The political machines are tuned to look after pensioners

and listen, this is not a bash pensioners perspective. It's a look after everybody perspective.

And young adults, I think, in this day and age, are having an unconscionably bad time of it.

And it can't end well. You've now got AI coming up on the outside lane,

robbing many of them of the job that they thought they would be doing with varying degrees of

success and security for the rest of their naturals. There's a cross party committee looking into

student loans in particular, but also looking at the plight faced by young adults in general.

It has been described by the chair or by the MP for Hackney South Meghilia as a perfect storm of

problems. You're not just talking about student loans, you're also talking about a lack of pensions,

you're talking about soaring house prices, and you're talking about the threat from AI.

And I want this to work. I want this conversation to be illuminating. And all I want to know,

all I want to know is what it's like. And I want the conversation to be conducted in a way

that will not only help the people that used to ring me to claim that the only reason why young

people can't get on the housing ladder is because they're spending all their money on avocado,

toast, or Netflix subscriptions. I think some of them are possessed of brains that are permeable.

I think you can help some people come to a position that hasn't been spoon fed to them by the

usual, good lord. 26 years also, I've been doing this, no, 22 years I've been doing this job

and I nearly swore then. I said the same, the usual suspects, I nearly used an entirely

inappropriate, very off-common friendly word. Good grief. Anyway, sorry, I digress slightly,

being spoon fed to them by the usual suspects. And of course, people like me who don't quite

get it, partly because of our own financial security, our own income, partly because of the ages

of our children. But we don't quite get it. I've got colleagues in this catchment area and I am

interested in their plight, but it's not a natural subject of conversation for my colleagues to tell

me about the relationship between their income and their student loan repayments plus their rent,

their absence of pensions, or if they're very, very lucky and have probably had a little bit of

help from mum and dad, their mortgage payments, that the gulf, the generational gulf between,

where do we draw the line? Where's the actual rubicon, do we think? That's a good question to ask.

Where's the rubicon? So we bought our flat. It's really easy to remember, that's why I proposed,

so I'd never forget my anniversary or how many years I'd been married. We bought our flat in

May of 2000, so 26 years ago, this May, and we got a 110 percent mortgage, so that is

what, the brink, the precipice of the rubicon, things seem to go south, they went south in 2008,

right? The global financial crisis, so I just snuck in. When did the zero deposit mortgage? Where

did the 100 percent mortgage get taken off the table? I suspect in about 2008, right? Would it be

about that 2008? The 110 percent mortgage, it's about there, isn't it? I was 28 in 2006,

born in 1972, if it'd been born 10 years later, I'd have been screwed. I'd have got on the

property ladder, but only by dint of my earnings, getting a deposit together. My earnings were relevant

to me getting a mortgage, but getting a 110 percent mortgage. I want to really highlight the difference

between being young then and being young now, and we're pretty clear on where the line is between

then and now. It's somewhere in that say five-year window between 2005 and 2010, isn't it? Or even

probably that the global financial crisis in 2008 was a form of guillotine, so it might be a much

smaller window. If the guillotine is 2008, then everybody before that and everybody after that

is the then and the now of it. But why, not why, we know why, or we know some of the reasons why,

I'm interested in the how, what's it actually like? And I suggested to Eleanor, who is in

generationally in this catchment area, the 20 to 30 generation give or take, that we would talk

to parents, that parents would provide a really interesting perspective on this, because parents of

people aged between 20 and 30 will be in a position to make the comparison. And she quite rightly

pointed out that people in the zone will be able to tell us what it's like as well. So we're talking

about people in their late 20s and early 30s, in particular with reference to what Megilia is

talking about. But of course, if you're a parent and you're looking at your children in their 20s,

their early 20s, their mid 20s, up to their mid 30s, so from 20 to 35, you're making comparisons

with what life was like when you were that age. You're assembling, aren't you, the raw materials

for our adult life, in terms of relationships, in terms of financial security, in terms of property.

I'm fascinated by, on a personal as well as a professional level, the differences between

then and now. Okay, and I want you to tell me about that. And you can do it from either end of

the telescope. You can do it either as the parent, comparing what life was like for you, when you

were in that catchment area, let's say 25 to 35, or thereabouts, and comparing it to what life is

like for your children. And I want to be shocked by what you have been shocked by. Of all the things

that we don't talk about enough, this has got to be one of the biggest. But if you have the ability

as a younger person to make comparisons with what your parents experience, and I want to speak to you

as well, it's a slightly trickier ask, but I want to know whether you, I want you to tell me what

the perfect storm is like. So use me as a whipping boy. A 100 to 10% mortgage and a wage that has

barely changed. If you went to fight, I don't know what the show business editor of a national

newspaper is on now, but it won't be much more than what I was on in the year 2000. And actually

in terms of that, the actual number that I was on then won't have gone up much. So wages have

stayed flat and property prices have rocketed. The ability to get a mortgage has almost disappeared.

If more you talk about this, the more you realize that it should be defining almost every

level of the national conversation. And it doesn't. That's another question that I'm going to ask you.

Why? Why are we only really recognizing the horrors of this generation's experience as a consequence

of the student loan scandal, the student loans crisis? I'm doing the classic question. The question

that underpins many of the finest hours that we spend together, it's not what was it like, but what

is it like? Well, and for parents, it's what was it like? Compare being 25 to 35 now with being 25

to 35 prior to 2008 and talked me through the differences because there is obviously a perfect storm

for this generation and these generations. I don't know what we can do about it, but we have to

understand it before we can even think about what we might do about it. And the other bit

of the question that I want you to help with, very simply, it's why it's not a big deal.

Time for a short break now. After that, that's more than enough from me. It's over to you.

David's in Bath. David, what would you like to say?

Hi, James. Hello. I'm 32 and I'm lucky enough to be a homeowner, but the only reason that I

am a homeowner is because my granddad passed away and left me in money for a deposit.

Yeah, I'm sorry for your loss. Thank you. Appreciate that. But we were originally renting

and our combined salary meant that we couldn't actually afford to have any savings. That would

be significant enough to put a deposit down for a decent size property. We were originally living

reports, and it obviously moved up to Bath now. We were looking at starting a family and we

were in a one-bed flat. So it was kind of more than applicable and more than kind of suitable.

And I'll rent for a one-bed flat as the same as a three-bed house where we live now.

Good lord. And this is not an extraordinary situation among your peer group.

No, so I've got quite few friends who are renting and they've kind of accepted the fact they're

going to be renting, you know, and they're not going to be able to get on the property ladder.

And it's the same with people at work for a really younger than me. So I was mentoring someone

who is about 10 years younger than me at work. And he's just kind of resigned to the fact that

he's also, even if his parents help him out or anything, that he'll just be renting because

house properties are so unaffordable unless someone passes away, like they did for us.

There you go. I'm sorry. That pull narrows with each generation as well.

How big a part of the other story that I can never get to work on the radio, do you think this is?

The needs that the people who are not you, but the people who have surveyed what you're describing

and just sort of decided it's not worth joining in. Do you know anyone in that category?

I think so. I think it's because it doesn't affect them as much. And I'm not

not interested in affects them, but they haven't got peers that it doesn't affect them either.

So there's a lot of people and even my grandparents, you know, they bought their first house

just like 6,000 pounds or something. And the house that they were living in, they bought

for about 150,000 at the time that they were bought it in 2000 when they passed away.

Yes. 350,000 exactly the same house, but it's growing 200,000 pounds in 20 years.

Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy how that kind of jump happens. Yeah, salaries obviously don't match yet.

And on top of that, you then have some pay an extra tax, both memory wise, I've got

two student finances. Yeah. Well, this is why the story's in the news, isn't it? Because there's

student loan element to it, but it's only a small part of the pie that you're serving up every day,

being served up every day. More a big part of the pie, but not the only part.

It's also prices of obviously things like energy and water and that are going up.

So we're in a situation where last year, I bought a went up 20 pounds a month,

but we still got the same service. You can't have any say over it as well. Energy prices are

going through the roof, but your salary is just not matching it. So at the end of day,

you've got less in pockets than you did before those things went up as well.

And where does that dread phrase, that's just the way it is, or it is what it is.

Where does that sit in your sort of consciousness, that idea that this doesn't,

this isn't right, it isn't fair, or it isn't very pleasant, but it is what it is. There is no,

this is how it is. This is how things are. It reduces your, I think I think worthwhile could

be the best way of putting it because you kind of get bought into social contract when you're at

school, if you're doing your A levels, or I'd be like, I did, you're kind of told, you know,

this is going to get you to university, and that's going to get you a well-paying job.

And we're in a position now where we've got an 18-month-old, and I'm in a position now where

I've just been offered a job with a decent enough pay rise that I can then start to contribute her.

Congratulations. Thank you. But I can now start to contribute to her future and invest in her,

so she's not having to wait around for one of us to pass away to be able to afford a house.

You're already thinking about that when she's 19 months old. Yeah, because otherwise,

it's the same with Americans in their college system. You want to set them up for the best

future possible. You want them to have a better life than you do, and the social contract at the

moment is not set up like that kind of old tariff, or back in my day, because you're probably going

to get people who've thrown up, say, back in my day, we had to... Well, they won't get on to that,

because I've taken those calls for years, and everyone's got a limit to their patients. Do your

parents understand your parents understand that I don't want you to be in discreet or undiplomatic?

I don't have much conversation with my parents. I'm sorry for the different things. I appreciate

that, but my wife's parents only when we went to buy a house, we were looking at buying this house,

that's when they understood. Yeah. Beforehand, I'll just get on the prophesies, just get on the

prophesies. It was as easy today as it was when they did, and that leads me to the final question,

which is, why do you think it's not a bigger issue for society? I think it's not a bigger issue,

because it's effectively younger people, and I think a lot of the ways that some of the media

have set up, I don't include you in this, in any way. I think some more kind of... I hate the

far as legacy media, but some of the places like the Daily Mail and etc, and then GBBs and all of

those places, they're set up to pander to an older generation, but it doesn't affect.

But they're chippin' it up. Well, that's why I asked about your parents and your partner's

parents, because they care about you. They care about their children, but they're just not

getting the information that they need from either end, either from the media that they rely on,

which is, of course, a dwindling power, because the consumers are passing away, and your generation

are not replacing them when it comes to buying newspapers from the newsstands. But equally, they're

not getting told about it properly by you either, and that's an interesting thing, isn't it?

That idea of loving these people more than any other humans on the planet, but not really having

a full grasp of what their life is like or what they're, and also children don't want their parents

to feel sorry for them. You want to feel like you're making your own way. David, what a great call,

thank you. David is in Tottenham. David, what made you pick up the phone?

I think we go back to FATURE. I think we go back to the right to buy it. I grew up in Tottenham

on a council of state, and nobody had an aspiration to buy a property, nobody. Then suddenly,

the right to buy came in, my parents, my friends' parents all thought, yes, we can buy a property,

and then what's happened is that their children have gone on to buy a property. But when I bought my

property, about the same time as you, just a little bit before, as you rightly said, you didn't

need a deposit, so we were very much on an even playing field here. My parents had nothing,

and certainly couldn't stomp up a deposit, but my wages were probably comparable to yours,

so we were on a very much an even playing field here. Now, you know, fast forward.

You got children? I have. I've got a 30-year-old and a 26-year-old.

Oh, smack in the cat's catchment area then, and then it's a completely different world

that they inhabit from the one that we inhabit. The only possible way, and it's not just them,

but it's all their peers, their friends. Bank of Mum and Dad. Bank of Mum and Dad, so

for kids who haven't got parents who have purchased a property, they have zero chance, zero chance.

It's not even an aspiration, not even a dream. So it's going to entrench the division,

oddly. So the council house sales widely regarded as being an aspirational policy that opened up

opportunity to people to whom it had previously been denied, but of course the children of people

who didn't avail themselves of the opportunity to buy their council houses, and then the millions

of people living in the private sector rental world are going to be, I mean, like inconceivably

less equipped to help their own children get onto the property ladder, and then more and more

people who are at the lower end of the property owning classes are not going to be able to sustain it

for their own children, or they're going to still have an awful lot of mortgage left to pay off

when they finally shuffle off this mortal coil. So the next big social divide, and it's going

to be bloody huge, is between families where parents can help their children buy a property,

and families where they can't, regardless of whether they've actually got a property themselves.

Yes, and they can engineer a mortgage product so that parents are still taking equity out of their

house. They will take it out automatically with regards to their children's mortgage,

and the mortgage term will be over 50 or 60 years as they do in Japan rather than over 25 years

or 30 years as they do now. Why do you think we don't talk about it more?

I think we do, but I think that there's always going to be this divide between having

have not some very, very unfortunately, and I think it's heartbreaking that there are

children out there, or you're in for, as you say, young people, who love nothing more than

had the security of only their own home. But the fact that social housing has been just

decimated, it means that what are the alternatives of rentals? Rentals is very, very spinachy.

Of course, I remember the first time I realized this, I thought I was, I think I did a lap of

honor mate, because I was so pleased with it as a summary of what was going on in the world,

that these young people can afford to buy a property. They're just buying it for somebody else.

They're buying it for a landlord who was able to cobble together a deposit, and the Renters'

Rights Act is going to try to address some of this entrenched injustice and inequality. But the

first thing that it's going to do is reduce the number of properties that are available to rent.

That's the next big property story on the horizon. I don't know whether you're aware of this or not,

but my friends who still rent have been telling me, and one of them needs to move, and he's been

telling me, been regaling me, no less, with just how difficult it is at the moment, because so many

landlords are getting out of the market in preparation for the new rules that are being brought in

correctly, oddly, by this government. David, thank you. There it is. I mean, the idea, I'm sure

a certain type of phone in-house could still do it, but the idea that it is a valid contribution to

this conversation to claim that things were much easier in my day, therefore it must be young

people's fault, is just so witless that it barely merits and mention any more.

Caitlin's in action. Caitlin, what made you pick up the phone?

Hi, James. Hello. Yeah, I'm 30 years old. I have only been able to purchase my property

with the help of my grandparents and my parents with inheritance and money saved.

I appreciate that that's not going to be a position that many people my age are in.

Well, you may not even be able to do the same for, I mean, if you want children and you have children,

you may not even be able to do the same for them in the future because of the different,

because of the relationship between our income and our outgoing. Your generation is income and

that's even a consideration I'm making myself as to whether I can even afford to have children.

I don't know whether that's even going to be feasible for me.

I think that we're just so entrenched in what you were saying, you know, in this

the way that the past government for the past 14 years has led us into this kind of mess and

I think we need to also acknowledge that, you know, I graduated in 2017

along with myself, you know, the early stages of our career. We were

hit with COVID and all of the kind of job losses that happened in that period of time.

It's really kind of dented our ability. Perfect storm is something of an understatement.

Do your own parents understand the extent of your situation?

Yes, they do because a lot don't, I think. I got an extraordinary message from Karl about a

year ago and he sent me a little bit of an update on it and it wasn't in any way criticising his

dad but the number of parents who probably haven't really got a clue what their children are facing

in this way. It's going to be fairly huge, isn't it? And the last thing you want to do is go

cap in hand to mum and dad asking for help. Yeah, I also think, you know, with the student

own situation, I am unfortunately part of the plan to group and so I think it's very unclear

to a lot of people about what the actual ramifications of that are. It seems to have been

an appalling enactment, doesn't it? I suspect that they're going to do something about this

and I don't care who takes the credit for it, frankly, because I care only about the plight

of people like you caught in the pincers of it but it seems to me that when Martin Lewis is on his

high horse, the whole world should be paying attention and he's previously being very sanguine

about student loans. It's these changes to them that I've got him in high dodging to the point

where he had to reeducate, can we bait and not live on the television? Although, of course,

that would be a waste of breath and time for everybody involved. But I think you're going to,

I think you're going to get some good news on that front, but whether or not it's too little,

too late remains to be seen.

And we're done for another day. Huge thank you to all my contributors for some truly

special conversations. I'll be back on LBC tomorrow from 10 or right here shortly afterwards.

This has been a global player, original production.