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Sept. 13, 2019 - The Delingpod - James Delingpole
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Delingpod 36: Christopher Hope
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Welcome to the DeliPod with me, James DeliPod, and I am so excited and delighted about this week's guest.
His name is Christopher Hope.
He is the senior political...
No, well, you can call me that.
Anything you like, really.
I'm the Telegraph's chief political correspondent and its assistant editor.
Well, that sounds pretty good.
Is that enough?
Chief political correspondent.
And you've just got a new job, which is...
Well, not that new, but I mean for the past six months, I've been the lobby chairman.
So my job is to help journalists, about 120 or so journalists in covering politics, liaise with the executive, with the government and get them prompt briefings and trying to hold the man to account, James.
Well, I... I was on the Telegraph for many years, and I always used to think about the lobby journalists and the political editors and stuff, that they got far too excited about the political process and they revered MPs too highly.
SO24, these kind of things.
Well, it seems to me that lobby journalists tend to go native.
They form a kind of Stockholm Syndrome relationship.
There's a bit of that.
I mean, we are meeting in the lobby room in the House of Commons, aren't we?
We should describe for your listeners.
Describe it.
Go on.
Well, it's wood-panelled, as you might expect.
It's got names on boards behind me of previous lobby chairmen, and many of them have been very senior people who worked on the great things.
Like Trevor Kavanagh of the Sun.
Adam Bolton's there.
Adam Bolton, blimey, yes.
Gary Gibbon.
And this is a room where, when Parliament's sitting, of course it's Perraud, we can come on to that if you like, I chair a meeting with the official spokesman of the PM. We then brief us on whatever the PM thinks, and we can ask him whatever we like about anything in government.
So it's really a privileged position of being able to ask anything you like of the executive, and I try and make that happen.
So who is the PM's official?
He's called James Slack, but we don't say his name in...
We just say the PM's official spokesman because he's speaking on behalf of the entire government.
It's not really about him.
In America, you have the named spokesman for Donald Trump, you know, who becomes quite a famous person, Kellyanne Conway.
Yes, I enjoy those conferences.
But we don't film this.
It's all done off camera.
And there's a convention that we say the PM's official spokesman rather than naming him because it's the person he's speaking.
He's basically the mouthpiece of the prime minister.
And do you get stuff from him that you wouldn't get from elsewhere?
I mean, is he honest with you, is it?
Or is it the formality?
He's honest, yeah.
He tells it like it is.
I mean, he does his best within the limited way he can.
He can't do politics, so he can't do, we can say to him, will MPs be whipped tonight to vote for the MV4, the fourth meaningful vote, which I'm sure is what Boris Johnson was planning to offer to us.
Next month, but he can't do any of that.
He does purely on what the government says, what the government's doing.
The political questions are for someone called Rob Oxley, who's the political secretary.
And he briefs us after PM questions once a week and then, you know, sends around political...
So the two mouthpieces are political and some government civil service.
You are...
I've just done your excellent podcast.
Yes, Chopper's Brexit Podcast.
Chopper's Brexit Podcast.
And God, I so envied you.
You've got a team.
You've got staff.
I have a team, yes.
You've got people who do the sound levels.
Phil Ludis, a producer.
Elliot Lampett on sound.
They're all here, aren't you guys?
Aren't they all here?
Yeah, yeah, right.
And look at you, there's no one else around you.
It's just me.
It's got that homemade feel.
It's the Telling Pod.
It has a different attraction.
People like that.
Yes, it definitely has a different vibe.
And you kind of...
You sort of script it.
I mean, you block out roughly what you want people to say.
Yes.
Whereas, I do no...
You wouldn't guess this, but I do no preparation at all for my podcast.
But you got my name right, so you looked at...
The name is correct.
No, no.
I had it in my head already.
Yes, it was there.
No Googling.
The sort of mnemonic, you know, chopper.
Okay, so that name's...
Christopher Hope.
Christopher Hope.
Yeah, so it was easy.
Actually, funny you mentioned that.
One of the weird things about Lyme disease, which I'm recovering from...
And I don't talk about it because it's actually really boring.
I didn't know that.
No, it's really, really boring.
But one of the annoying side effects, I went through a period where I did not remember anybody's name.
Even people I knew really quite well.
So I was very much reliant on my wife to kind of fill in at parties.
A lot of men have that to a degree, don't they?
We're not an extremist like you were.
Oh no, it was really extreme.
Is it men or women?
I think it's a men thing.
Men, totally.
Is it men?
Yeah, totally.
I'm always being reminded of who people are by my wife.
No, no, absolutely.
And I think a lot of couples have a code whereby I don't know who this person is.
I don't know where we've met.
And what the wife normally does is say, hello, I'm, you know, Sally or whatever.
And I don't believe, I know how you know my husband.
And she does all the work.
Well, I always say who I am when I meet somebody.
To try and trigger the response of who they are as well.
I think it's just politeness.
No, I just know everyone's going to know who I am, Chris.
Do you?
Because you're famous.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I actually get accosted in the streets by...
Do you?
Yeah, by strangers.
Yeah, yeah, and it freaks me out every time it happens.
I mean, it's nice.
Yes.
Because they are nice.
But at the same time, you think, oh my God, if they recognise me, then that means all the kind of Antifa...
In fact, I know this for a fact, because I was covering a...
A Brexit party rally.
Yes.
I met you there.
In Olympia.
Olympia.
I was doing a documentary about the barrage.
I interviewed you for the thing.
And the crowd outside, the unwashed mob, was saying, Derling Pole knows nothing.
Derling Pole knows nothing.
And I thought, well, yeah.
I was sort of flattered and yet...
There are some people in the Brexit debate who become this symbol.
So I was at a UKIP, before they kind of imploded, a UKIP conference, and Matthew Parrish's name, who's a friend of mine, who I've known for decades and has a huge help to me in what I've tried to do in my career...
He's often raised as a person who completely winds them up.
He completely winds up the Brexiteers.
Matthew Parris.
His name, he'd be booed, you know, he's like a token.
Perhaps you're the remainer of Matthew Parris.
Chris, you say this about Parris in a surprise voice.
Have you actually read any of his many spectator columns every other week on why it's a disaster?
He can't stand Brexit.
He called out Boris Johnson early.
I do remember back in 1999, he was an early hater of Tony Blair, way before most people piled in after the Iraq war.
It's interesting to remember, because one easily forgets, that a lot of the people who have been unhinged by Brexit derangement syndrome, Matthew Parris being an obvious example, people like A.C. Grayling, did have a previous life in which they were quite normal.
I mean, I used to love Matthew Parris' columns.
I think Matthew is one of the finest writers in this country.
When he's not writing about Brexit, he is fantastic, and I'm sure there are people out there...
Just leeches through his writing.
But on Brexit, he really can't get over it.
And it's, yeah...
Yeah.
So, do you have to...
You're definitely much more sensitive and delicate, diplomatic, on the subject of Brexit, on your podcast, than I am on mine.
I mean, you know, I'm full-on, you know, Remainers are complete loons and stuff.
But surely, the Telegraph's readership.
We met some of your readers, or listeners, and they were as Brexit as they come.
The first time, the first time.
Yes, they are.
I mean, I think if you're a reporter, though, James, rather than a columnist, You have to get everyone to talk to you and give everyone a fair hearing as best you can.
So I try to keep all of my personal views in the locker.
Yes.
That must be difficult.
I don't think I could do that.
I don't think I could ever, for example, take David Lammy seriously or...
Well, pretty much any Labour MP, apart from Kate Hoey and a few...
Keir Starmer's a good bloke.
Barry Gardner.
I'm now naming...
Because it's very hard to get anyone to come on my podcast from Labour.
Keir Starmer has come on.
Barry Gardner, Chris Bryant.
The ones who I think are grown-ups and don't see me as a stooge for the Tory party, but as a person trying to report Brexit.
I've asked repeatedly Jeremy Corbyn and anyone from the leader's office, no one comes on.
Because what I worry about is the echo chamber that's created by Brexit and to a lesser extent, sort of momentum and everything else, means that the two sides are not talking and we have to keep talking and listening to different people's views all the time.
Yes, I disagree with that.
I don't think the other side has anything to say of any interest whatsoever.
Why could you vote Corbyn?
Sorry?
Why could you vote for Labour?
Why could I vote for him?
Give me five policies that you might vote for him.
Make you vote for him.
I've got some ideas.
He's got to bring back fox hunting.
Because that was so successful.
That was me who asked Jeremy Hunt that, you know, for the podcast, for my Chopper's Breakthrough podcast.
I said to Jeremy Hunt during the campaign, would you bring back fox hunting?
And he said, yes.
Oh!
That was me?
Yeah.
And he's told me that was one of the two big mistakes he made in the leadership campaign, was answering me honestly.
And yet, for me, it's probably the only thing he's ever said which has been right.
Do you foxhunt?
Corbyn, well, unfortunately, I've currently been, I say currently, they think it's permanent.
I've been banned by my family.
I had a really bad hunting accident and I bust up my collarbone and my ribs.
But otherwise, yeah, I think foxhunting should be made compulsory.
I've never hunted in my life.
No, well, you probably can't ride a horse, can you?
No.
Can you not use quad bikes?
Can't we modernise it?
Or drones?
Let's do it by drones.
There are foot packs in the north, and I believe the Brixton hunt uses bicycles and they wear hoodies.
What do they hunt in Brixton?
Cats.
Oh, cats?
Not urban foxes.
Actually, there's loads of urban foxes in Brixton.
Yeah.
And Camberwell, which is where I used to live.
They're pests.
In fact, they climb through windows and eat babies or threaten...
Was that an urban myth that was ever proven?
Foxes have, I believe, hassled babies having climbed through the window.
I don't think they've ever actually eaten one.
Have you ever bitten a child's foot?
Sorry?
Have you ever bitten a child's foot?
Well, I'm sure I've gnawed my children's feet.
In a playful way.
They're very biteable, babies.
They're edible, aren't they?
One must eat babies, generally.
Absolutely, but that's all behind me.
Oh, no!
I've got grandchildren, so that will be...
Yeah, yeah, I've got my first grandchild.
Gosh.
Oh, yeah.
I'll keep that child away from Dave Dennypole until it's fully fledged into a grown-up.
No, no, no.
I'm going to love being a grandpa.
I'm going to be really indulgent.
So, Chris, Brexit.
Do you think – I mean, as you know, as I vouchsafed on your podcast – I am supremely optimistic about Brexit.
I think that Boris is going to be great.
I think, you know, apart from the withdrawal agreement, which I worry about slightly.
Actually, what's your thought on that?
Do you think there's any danger the withdrawal agreement will come back?
I think you'll try and rebadge something and not call it the backstop, this agri-foods idea.
The problem I've got with...
His plan is that it doesn't really deal with the other bits of the document which is equally appalling to Brexiteers.
That's what I mean.
The ECJ jurisdiction, the bill, there's going to be a shadow shadowy, my quotes, committee running relations between the EU and Britain run by two officials with no minutes, you know, no way of vetting what they're saying, which will be setting out disputed areas of policy between the trading bloc and the which will be setting out disputed areas of policy between the trading bloc and the UK, all sorts of things which are pretty much anti what Brexit
And those officials that you mentioned, we don't know the names, but presumably they're going to be Remainers because they're civil service and who all remain.
I don't know what to say about that.
I'm not sure they all remain.
I've watered down my feeling of criticism for Ollie Robbins because I think he was doing what he was told.
Sir Ollie Robbins.
Sir Ollie Robbins to you and to me after the resignation on his list was announced on Monday.
I just think, you know, he was trying to interpret mixed messages from his boss.
He was not.
He was a complete tosser.
Didn't he write papers at Oxford in praise of...
Okay, Ollie Robbins is not a tosser, I think.
You can't say that.
But I think we can say that there's a degree towards liking the status quo, which has been the EU for 40 years, and it's quite hard.
You do need a disruptor, Boris Johnson, aided by his chief advisor, Dominic Cummings and Michael Gove, to a degree, to pull kicking and screaming the civil service into where it's going.
But I do worry that your old friend Michael Gove says he would vote for Theresa May's deal just last week.
Now, why is that?
No, I don't understand why he's saying this stuff.
And you're right, if these shadowy figures are negotiating behind the scenes and they're saying, well, you know, if you can just give us the backstop, we'll happily take the easy job.
Well, Nigel Farage will not accept that.
The problem he's got is he's got to kill off that 12% of votes, 14% of votes.
That will go towards the Brexit party unless we have a clean Brexit.
And anything to do with the deal will mean that Farage will have his straw man to kick against and he'll be fighting in all these seats.
And then you'd possibly allow a Remain Alliance government led by Jeremy Corbyn with SNP support, Lib Dem support, Plaid and the Green.
And the Green.
The Green.
But he did it in Brighton, the Green.
But the point is...
That's the mistake.
I don't know why he was saying October 15th as an election date, before the council.
That, to me, was mad, because it meant that you would go into an election saying, we'll get a deal four days after you make me prime minister to the British public.
And Farage will say, well, how can we trust him?
Anyway, he wants a deal, and this deal is a surrender document in their language, so why do it?
So you think, if you are, as I imagine lots of our special friends are, rather the special friend, there's only one special friend who listens to this podcast, I imagine the special friend is probably very sympathetic towards the Brexit party, and...
And probably is relieved by that because you reckon that if Boris had got the election before the October 31st, do you think he could have easily shafted us more easily?
I think he's got to fight an election on a no-deal manifesto to win.
Now you're talking my language.
I think he's got to.
I think he's got to or else he won't win.
And if I was Boris Johnson, I'm not.
If I was a part of the government, which I don't, I would say, just go for no deal, go all out for no deal, and then win an 80-seat majority, 60-seat majority, whatever the polls say, 40%, 40-seat majority, which is what John Curtis said recently, apparently, and then tack back into the middle ground, which is what will happen anyway, and reclaim those moderate Tories and reconstruct the party from the right.
That's what he's got to do, I think, to get us out and probably reform the Tory party.
Yeah, but Boris, we know from everything he's said and done, is not on the right of the party.
I mean, he's pretty squishy, actually, in my book.
And it's clear that he's...
Pro-immigration.
It's clear that his plan is to go for a spending splurge.
And he's relying, presumably, on the kind of Lafferker principles that if he reduces taxes, he'll actually increase the intake of the exchequer.
And that's...
I'm prepared to support him in that, even though it's not my ideal small government, because I think he's going to deliver on so many other areas.
But it's good to know that you think you're...
I can't see any other option.
No.
I can't see any other option to deliver a majority Tory government with a decent working majority, because basically during any five-year cycle, 15 to 20 MPs...
You know, die, move across the other side, are sacked by their own constituents.
There's all sorts of...
So you basically, you know, you accrete or you get rid of this majority will shrink and shrink.
You need 30 or 40 to have a proper working majority.
And I think if I were Boris Johnson, I'd be...
I would, you know, I would go for a hard Brexit and then tack back over five years.
That's how you do it.
Just going back a bit through the last few...
How long have you been a political correspondent?
Well, I've been a journalist all my life.
I've been in the lobby for the past 13 years.
I'm the longest-saving reporter at The Telegraph.
Oh, right.
Okay.
So you've seen a bit of politics in the last few years.
Do you...
Share my horror at what a complete dog's breakfast various conservative governments have made of the job of being conservatives.
I've spent many of the last 20 or so years spitting blood at what a useless shower that we've had.
What is your version of conservatism?
What is your version of conservatism?
Because that's a key question.
Okay.
Limited government.
Strong defence of the realm and property rights.
Obviously you can't have a functional country without those things.
Low taxes.
Liberty.
Liberty, I think, is an element that's been missing a lot.
Soft drugs use?
Oh, I'm fine on those.
Like cannabis?
Yeah, cannabis.
I'd legalise all drugs, actually.
I'd also have much less stringent gun control, but that's the kind of American thing in me.
I don't know why that is.
What have I missed?
Those seem to me obvious things.
And into that, you can explain your position on fox hunting.
I'm also, by the way, I'm a free trader.
But having said that, I don't sympathise with all those people who are criticising Donald Trump for his tariffs policies on China, because I think China is the exception.
I think China has changed the rules.
And actually, China has been raping the global economy since it was admitted to the WTO in 2001, which is the subject of next week's podcast.
And I don't think, if they're not going to play fair, then you can't.
When was the last time a Tory government was delivering absolute Tory policies?
Are you looking back to Thatcher in the mid-80s?
Yeah.
Because she won the 79 election with a quite a...
Thatcherism didn't even start until 83 or 84, did it?
Absolutely right.
It existed for six years and then it stopped existing.
So essentially what you're going back to is a six-year period of pure Thatcherism and everything else is bunkum.
Yes, that would be me.
And I realise that having talked to lots of...
People who know about conservative history and stuff, that I'm not necessarily representative of conservative tradition, that Margaret Thatcher...
It's the One Nation tradition, which is...
I despise One Nation.
...what Theresa May talked about a lot.
Yeah.
David Cameron tried to go towards with modernising...
It's just Blairite.
It's...
Look, it was interesting.
But it wins elections.
I heard Nick Timothy, who I liked much more.
On a podcast?
On the Chopper podcast.
Just now.
And I spoke to him afterwards.
He was really nice.
I felt rather embarrassed about having slagged him off all the time.
He's a very nice bloke.
But he was saying that all One Nation Toryism was about, well, not having a divided nation, so black and white and, I don't know, rich and poor, north and south.
But actually, I think that's a kind of handy apologia for what One Nation...
That's the theory.
The reality is...
One Nation Tourism is conservatism watered down so much that you might as well be voting for Tony Blair, which is what David Cameron did.
Watered down, maybe, but to appeal to a wider group of people.
What you're describing is a very narrow sliver of society, which wouldn't give you a majority government.
Well, look, you're talking counterfactual, so we don't know, because we never had that opportunity.
We never had David Cameron...
Presenting what was the phrase at the time, clear blue water between the Conservatives and the Labour.
He never did that.
He wasn't in my book nearly radical enough.
The only thing he was radical on was education, and that was because he was lucky enough to have...
Well, he picked up a Labour policy, didn't he?
And that was a Labour policy which he inherited and didn't quite like, because it was taking power away from local authorities.
I'm just being generous here.
Just in case you were going to come in and say, what about education?
And I'm conceding that point.
Well, the old days, I mean, back in the days...
One tutorial idea which seemed quite interesting was vouchers.
I think vouchers are a great idea!
Rather than having you put your kids through the education system paying out of your tax income and not using the taxes you're paying or not paying for your kids' education, just get vouchers that can be knocked off private school bills if you want them to.
I think vouchers, I don't know why that hasn't been revived.
I think it's a good free market policy.
I think there was definitely something wrong at the moment with the situation we've got with...
Have you got children?
I'm sure, yeah, three, yeah.
And are they private or are they...
Both.
They would be mixed and matched for its reasons.
I mean, it's...
Fraser Nelson was writing about this in The Spectator the other day.
He was saying that we are known as the country where, even before your child is born, you start speculating nervously on how on earth you're going to deal with the education.
It's a terrifying experience.
Actually, I also read a good piece in The Spectator before that about someone from Canada was saying, in Canada, you send your kids to local school and no one worries about it.
Look at Canada.
Look at what's happened to them.
The reason why everyone worries about where your kids go to school is because the parents want to meet other good parents at the school gate.
It's all about networking and getting on in life.
Forget the kids' education.
It's who's at the school gate.
Yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
That's what it's about.
Yeah, yeah.
And I've enjoyed that.
I know that my children are going to be hanging out with the...
Are your kids about school?
Yeah, yeah.
Totally.
I mean, they've just finished.
So you're very kindly funding my children's education who are now in state schools.
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you for that, James.
And also you're paying out of your taxed income for the kids' education.
You're just lifting the load of the state.
It's about time somebody thanked me for all that.
No one thanks you enough.
They don't.
Yeah, they've just finished school.
I think when they try and get into university, they're discriminated against because they're seen as being born with a silver spoon in their mouth.
Don't think I'm not very bitter about that.
No, I really am, actually.
It's one of the few areas where I'm actually...
A bit of a sourpuss.
I think that Oxford and Cambridge have been completely ruined by the Liberal left.
I mean, there's a ghastly woman...
But isn't it right, though?
It's harder, if you're at a state school, to get schooled properly for a big university.
So to make allowances for that in grades is a fair enough rebalance.
I think the job of a university is to educate the best, regardless of where they've been to school.
And if...
If privately educated children can perform well in the exams or in the interviews, then I don't see why they should be punished for those skills.
But a child who hasn't had the benefit of that schooling and that coaching won't get in.
That's not fair.
Well, fair, I think, is one of the great mistakes to view the world through a filter of it's not fair.
I think what actually happens is you end up the system creating greater injustices than it solves.
Look, I went to...
Catherine...
You asked me who I've had on the podcast.
Catherine Verbal Singh, who I totally love.
I mean, I have got the hots for her.
She's amazing.
She's rejected me on Twitter.
You know him they sing twice a week?
In their morning assembly.
I vowed in my country.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
They sing it twice a week.
Have you been there?
No, Roger Scrooge told me to do...
I phoned her up and...
I think they sing Jerusalem, and I vow to be my country, and it's extraordinary.
I mean, it gives them a connection with the country they're in, Britain.
It's just...
Do you know how many middle-class children are at that school?
No.
One.
One.
I asked them about this, and you're right.
What's his name, Tarquin?
No, I think he's the son of a comprehensive school head or something like that.
Anyway...
You're right.
There are very, very few white faces there.
Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.
These are the kind of...
If this school were anywhere else, they would be having those knife arches before the children came in.
There would be jukings in the playground.
When you go and visit the school, you sit down at a lunch table with the kids.
These were 11-year-olds, I think.
It's a primary school, isn't it?
It is a primary school.
These were 11-year-olds, and we started talking about Brexit.
And they were talking intelligently.
Every child contributed, and half the table was pro-Brexit.
Now, can you imagine that in an average state school?
They'd all have been brainwashed that Brexit is literally Hitler.
Because that's where...
So is it the teaching, you think, which produced these free-spirited, open-minded children?
So you think that...
I mean, are you...
Is Catherine, if you're saying, if other schools aren't doing that, is that because of the headteacher or is that the rules?
It's counterintuitive in that...
The incredible strictness and rigour of the environment.
I mean, I described it as like a combination of a marine boot camp and a Trappist monastery, because they walk around in total silence and the discipline is very, very severe.
Is that a bit sinister?
Is it weird?
No.
Is it weird?
Okay, because kids should be running around shouting, shouldn't they?
No, no, because you see the joy in their faces.
They love it.
Yeah, they absolutely love it.
But what I'm saying is...
But should kids run around in the playground and sing and shout?
Interesting you say that.
Do you know what I mean?
Catherine's line on that is, she said, look, we can't be like Eton.
I mean, Eton, which is where my boy went, is the opposite.
It's kind of like, it's like a libertarian experiment.
Yeah.
The kids don't have bedtimes.
They decide when they...
So they have the discipline at school and they like it, do you think?
They...
It's amazing.
They are free to do what they like, but there's a kind of subtle pressure exerted from their fellow boys to do well.
Is it boys and girls?
No, it's boys.
But Catherine said to me that it would never work in the kind of environments that these children come from.
There's probably sometimes no books in the house.
There's no routine of discipline.
So the teachers have to provide that.
A lot of the staff at Sounds amazing.
At that school are very highly motivated.
They're probably fresh out of Oxbridge, you know, really eager.
How big is a school?
Well, I mean, big enough that they have to have the children in two lunch sittings because otherwise they couldn't fit.
How many honours has she got, Catherine Bevelsingh?
I... She's got to be Lady Biblesing, hasn't she?
Dane?
Dane?
Yeah.
Is she?
I don't know.
No, she's not yet, but she...
Nothing at all.
She's a...
A, she's a shoo-in, because she ticks all the right boxes.
I mean, the diversity and gender boxes.
But it sounds amazing.
She's a heroine, isn't she?
She's...
I... Look, there are a few people I worship...
Catherine Belblesinger is one of them.
Jacob Rees-Mogg is one.
I was going to ask you about another of my heroes, because I've never met him.
How much of a god, a shining god, a shining, painted god is Dominic Cummings?
Well, I've met him once for a cup of tea.
You've met him once?
I've met him before the referendum in 2016.
I liked him.
You know, then he was trying to convince me how he could win the referendum and he talked about the AV referendum.
I think he was part of that.
I think that's right.
All the passes against John Prescott, regional government plans in 2001, I think it was.
You know, I think...
I think...
I don't know.
I don't really know.
I don't really know him to talk to either.
I mean, I think he is a disruptor.
I think he's just completely just...
He's just causing a bit of chaos at the top of government and giving a bit of spine to Boris Johnson, who, you know, arguably wouldn't have this kind of fixed determination to deliver Brexit if he wasn't there.
Do you not think that...
He's the reason, really, why I have such faith in Boris delivering Brexit, because he seems to be several steps ahead of the opposition.
All the people running number 10...
When they're in their obituaries, the first line will be the Brexit vote in 2016.
They know that.
So they are personally invested in getting Brexit done.
And frankly, if these guys can't do it, it will never happen.
And all the chaos we're seeing in Parliament with people who don't want to appear to accept the vote properly in 2016, the courts ruling in Scotland just this week, this is an indication of what they're up against.
And frankly, if that group can't do it, It's
never going to happen.
How's that going to solve it?
Because it's not going to look very fair to the 52-48 one, which is overturned.
I just don't understand how a referendum resolves anything.
The problem is that if you even look at Jacob Rees-Mogg, back in 2013-2014, he was a reformer of the EU, not a lever.
And the vote in 2016 forced people into positions they never win previously, and it's coming back from that position.
I can't see it.
You've just reminded me of a story that was in Michael Ashcroft's biography of Jacob Rees-Morgan.
You've just had Michael Ashcroft.
Jacob's Ladder.
Jacob's Ladder.
And did I know this?
That when Jacob was trying to get on the parliamentary list in 2010...
That Conservative Central Office tried to veto him because they wanted more working class, diverse, female.
I didn't see it.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
No, it was in the Mail on Sunday.
Because, of course, in that same election, Anansiata Rees-Mogg was allowed to stand as Nancy Rees-Mogg.
Remember that?
That was the other...
I thought she...
Did she actually stand?
It was 05.
I thought she was not allowed to stand.
It was not allowed.
Or she tried to stand in 05.
I forget the actual detail.
David Cameron said that...
David, Aldertonian David Cameron said that Anunciata was too posh a name and that she's campaigned as Nancy.
Hasn't David got a daughter called Nancy?
I think, possibly.
Yeah, I think so.
I forget all the names.
Yeah, he's such a yesterday's man now.
Well, he's about to be in the news next week, isn't he?
His book's out shortly.
Yeah, but that...
No one's going to care.
You met David Cameron a few times, haven't you?
You old Etonians.
You were made in some club, didn't you?
I wasn't Eton.
No.
You weren't there?
No, I knew him in Oxford.
No, we smoked dope together in my rooms in Christchurch.
Oh, right.
That was the big...
That was my brief hour of notoriety.
Because in, again, Ashcroft's and Isabella Oakeshott's biography of Dave...
I vouchsafe that when I'd been at Oxford, we'd been in this thing called the Flam Club.
Three members.
We used to listen to Supertramp albums and listen to the Flams, which is like a drum beat where the beats come close together to form the single sound.
Supertramp were big on those, and we appreciate those while listening to Crime of the Century.
And this appeared in the book.
I was on the front page of the Mail as the only journalist, the first journalist ever to have admitted to taking drugs with the Prime Minister.
But I seriously, I thought then, and I did think now, and this was my reasoning when I agreed to go on the record with this, Dope is not a thing anymore.
No one cares.
Why did you wait so long to go on the record, given it was not a public interest back in 2005 when he became Prime Minister?
Funny you mention that.
I originally, I was sweet-talked by the then editor of, by Eleanor Mills, I think it was, on the Sunday Times.
Sweet-talked into doing a piece called something like The David Cameron I Knew at Oxford.
And I was going to mention on Passant that...
And then I realised that I'd been sucked into a trap.
I mean, Eleanor is lovely and very persuasive, but I realised that the only thing they gave a toss about was, I took drugs at Oxford with David Cameron.
So after consultation with Michael Gove...
I backtracked and I then...
What date was this?
2085?
Don't know when it was, but the then editor of the Sunday Times, what's it called?
John Withereau.
John Withereau was so cross that he banned me from ever writing for the Sunday Times again, which was quite a big deal because they used to pay quite well.
So I really took a massive hit there.
I mean, I don't regret it necessarily.
And I actually got a personal call from Dave Thanking me for not doing this.
You're right, by the time my revelations came out, they really didn't have much market value because Dave was already a kind of lame duck Prime Minister.
No one really cared about him anymore.
It didn't matter so much.
Back in the day...
Perhaps then it was drugs was a big thing.
Ten years before that, it was if you were gay or not.
And these things have less currency nowadays, don't they?
By the way, I think it's very amusing.
Of all the guests I've ever had on the podcast, you are the one that's interviewed me most.
You can't help it.
I think it's really good.
Do you mind?
Not at all.
I love talking about myself.
And actually, I think sometimes the special friend who listens to this is thinking, if only I could hear a bit more about James Dellingham.
Well, I think I might stop speaking now and let you speak.
Yeah, but I don't know what to say now.
Now I've gone into question answering.
No, actually, I do.
I wanted to ask you about something that you mentioned.
We were talking before the Chopper podcast about this.
I asked you whether when you were growing up, there was a stage when you thought that you looked at the House of Lords, inasmuch as anyone thinks about the House of Lords, which you don't at all.
But I had this view of the establishment as being this noble and decent thing.
And since I've been middle-aged, I just look at the kind of reptilian creeps who get elected to the House of Lords, which I think should be hereditary still.
I think it was a big mistake.
I think Tony Blair's reformation of the House of Lords was one of the biggest constitutional disasters of this country.
They're currently around 70 or 80, aren't they?
Yeah.
Since the reforms in 98, that's it.
Yeah.
They're elected, by the way, of course.
The kind of people who get into the House of Lords now.
So we've got Gavin Barwell, or hamster face as I call him, one of the least talented conservative ministers ever, probably.
What was the one thing he was good at?
Being doggedly loyal to the worst prime minister in history.
I don't want him in the House of Lords at all.
He gets £300 a day for turning up?
Can I answer that in two ways, or two points?
I think that the Tories need more peers in the House of Lords.
That is, without doubt, Tories.
But he's a Tory.
I think that, you know, having people who can push a Tory message, because the party is hopelessly outgunned by lots of Lib Dems, a disproportionate number of Lib Dem peers, plus Labour peers, plus a lot of crossbenches.
With you?
So it's very hard to get anything through from a Tory point of view.
The Tory government often gets things through purely because it's elected and has this kind of, you know, this more power in our constitution, such as it is now.
If you're criticising the honours, which you seem to be from the PM's resignation honours list, I do think it's dreadful the way it looks like.
The nearer you are to the PM, the more likely you are to get an honour.
I mean, I don't know what Catherine Burble-Singh's got in terms of honours, but there are these heroes out there who are not getting recognised, in my view, and then it seems that the nearer you are to the sun or nearer you are to the life-giving force at the heart of government, the More likely you ought to get rewarded.
Well, exactly.
When I was grumbling about this to my wife, she was saying it was ever thus.
And, of course, it wasn't.
But I wish it was ever thus.
And to what degree, though, do you think, and I think maybe, that as we get...
You say you were middle-aged then, that was your words, and I would say I'm middle-aged.
As you get older, everyone else is your age.
The policemen are your age.
The PM is a bit nearer your age.
You know, the peers are more your age.
And you become a bit more...
Frustrated and you think, crumbs, what have they got that I haven't got?
And why are they doing that and I could do that?
And to a degree, when you were younger and Margaret Thatcher was 30 or 40 years older than you, and other people around her looked like...
Like your grandparent's age or your parent's age.
So a degree, we're all getting older, and also a degree familiarity breeds contempt.
So you're seeing more of them on social media.
They're tweeting.
And people are getting a bit more cross.
I just wonder whether, because we change, we have a different view of our political leaders, and that changes too.
No, I think it's more than that.
I think that there is no question that...
If you're going to have Conservatives in the Lords, it should be Lord Dellingpole, Lord Toby Young at a push, although he's a bit of a cuck.
Lady Burble Singh, I think, would be fantastic.
But Lord Scruton, Lord Douglas Murray.
We're the kind of people who should be in the Lords.
If it's Lord Douglas Murray, it means he's the son of an Earl, by the course.
So you mean Lord Murray of Oxford?
No.
The reason I said Lord Douglas Murray was...
I admire your pernickety...
I work for Telegraph.
I know these things.
That's true.
Does the Telegraph Court and Social still operate?
Of course it does.
And we have a style book written by Simon Heffer, lately of this parish, which sets out that the son of an Earl is Lord Douglas Murray, but a peer in his own right is Lord Murray of Oxford.
Yes, well, Lord Murray would be excellent.
But the thing is, people like...
The way the left operates is so good at blackening the name of anyone who's to the right of Gavin Barwell, say, to make us look like we're Nazis.
And therefore, any attempt to elevate us to the Lords would be entirely proper is going to be rejected by the sort of left-wing Twitter mob.
It's not though, is it?
Because there's a House Laws Appointments Commission, which I think Charles Moore sits on, the former editor of The Telegraph, which vets names as they come forward.
The problem is that they have to announce, they have cohorts of groups of people to announce.
So you get three Tories, three Labour, a Lib Dem and a Green or something every so often.
So you can't really...
The problem is there's an inbuilt bias against the Tory party in the House of Lords, which is going to be hard to overcome.
Do you think...
Unless you scrap it.
So what are you saying?
You think I should join the Green Party?
Do you think I might...
Because, actually...
If you want a peerage, if you want an honour, you want to be a Lib Dem.
We've got loads of nights.
Yeah, but I'm not into kiddie fiddling or transvestism.
You can't say that.
Oh, come on.
You cannot say that.
Cyril Smith.
If you look at the Liberal Democrats' record on perversion, they are the party of the perverts.
There's no doubt about it.
I am not going to come on this conversation.
No, no, well, it is the liberal mindset.
Just before we go, I used to, one of my big regrets in life journalistically is that my friend Susanna Gross used to edit the male books pages and give me really good books to review and they used to pay really well.
And one week as a favour to a friend, she gave me this book to edit on the history of liberalism.
And I read about a page of it and I thought, I love you Susanna, even as a favour to you, even though I'm going to get paid for this, even though whatever, friend, this is such unmitigated shite.
There was no argument for...
Classical liberalism, obviously, the kind of thing that I am, that's great.
But liberalism, I think, is...
Small L and a capital L, isn't it?
Actually worse than socialism or communism or anything.
I think there was nothing more...
Did you review the book after you got the page?
No, no, no, no.
I just thought...
I can't read it.
But wouldn't it be an interesting review for you to take on and to go through this book, even though you disagree with every single word of the book?
To make you review it would be quite a good read.
It would have been like wrestling jelly.
I simply couldn't get a handle on this world view.
It was like reading Sanskrit or something.
The problem with Lib Dems for a lot of, certainly on the Labour side and probably the Tory side, is that they are hard to pin down and they appear to have different, they can often shapeshift into the opposition wherever they are in the country.
And that's always been the problem.
With Labour and Tories historically being pretty clear on where they stand.
You mentioned it earlier, low tax of the Tories and state intervention on the Labour side.
But Lib Dems can shapeshift.
And that is what is so frustrating if you're trying to fight them in a by-election or election.
I've been told by other parties that they can't pin them down because they move and reform into the opponent.
It's very funny that...
I was once at a dinner with Jesse Norman and Jesse Norman referred to this as playing the Lib Dem game and being a constituency MP and going big for the local hospital and all this stuff and it's how you keep your seat.
But funnily enough, when I quoted him on this later on, he denied all knowledge of this phrase, which I thought kind of reflected badly on him.
I don't like career safety in politicians.
Great hits in my early days at the Telegraph when...
The last Labour government was closing around 2,500 post offices.
Yes.
And a lot of these ministers in the cabinet, I think I remember Jack Straw doing it, posed outside their local branch, save our post office, and they were backing the national policy.
And there's this complete disconnect between, oh, it's all right for 2,500 to close across the country, but I want to fight the one in my backyard.
And this disconnect, which you're describing, was probably understood by the MP, But looked a bit ridiculous in the papers, the page of the Telegraph.
You wonder that, because actually I think that, unfortunately, this kind of messaging seems to work well with the public.
They seem to be...
A lot of people...
I think it's ridiculous.
I'm torn.
On the one hand, I'm a great believer in the wisdom of crowds, and I do believe that's the case, which is why I'm so confident about Brexit, by the way.
I do believe that...
When the tide of history and the British people decide something, that's the way it's going to go inevitably sooner or later.
So on the one hand, I believe in the wisdom of crowds.
And yet at the same time, the conversations that you and I are having, the kind of sort of audience we're addressing with our sort of wonkish discussions about politics...
There are very, very few people.
They're not representative of the country at large.
Most people don't know who these MPs are.
Probably they've seen Boris Johnson getting stuck on a...
They shouldn't know who Speaker Bercow is.
They shouldn't know.
No, they bloody well shouldn't.
But they bloody well do now.
They bloody well do.
Before we go, one other thing that struck me, I don't know whether you've observed this about Labour MPs.
I see a lot of Labour MPs.
I'm not sure what these people actually believe anymore, other than in identity politics.
You look at the...
Who's that blonde one who'd be quite fit if she lost a slightly bit of weight?
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Or Jess Phillips.
I've never seen...
I think Jess Phillips is the most overrated MP in history because all she does...
I don't believe she believes in anything other than playing the cry-bully, I'm a feminist and it really matters to me.
I don't think that's fair.
Of course you wouldn't think it's fair because you go native, you people.
I'm not native with her at all.
No, no.
I think she's an amazing campaigner for women's rights.
Yeah, that's boxing itself, isn't it?
Women's refuges and...
Okay, sorry.
She campaigns for women's rights.
What is the problem with women's rights in this country?
What rights do women not have?
If she were out there campaigning for the rights of women in the Muslim world, campaigning against Dijab, I can understand it.
She's not.
She's campaigning for a feminist war which has been won long, long ago.
So I don't count that as it.
So what else does she believe in?
Well, I don't really know her politics.
I mean, I think she is against Brexit.
And everyone defines themselves now in politics if you're pro-anti-Brexit.
And I think that, you know, the parties are moving towards recognising the vote in 2016, I think, of what's happening.
So Labour's going pro-Remain, apart from Corbyn, who can't quite acknowledge that.
Do you think there's anything in my view that we are about to enter a new golden era of conservatism under Boris and that we're going to get sort of Thatcher mark too?
Well, I think I just described to you how I think that can happen.
But I think he's got to grasp the nettle of a hard Brexit to get to that position.
The golden, the sunny uplands you're describing.
Because I think he'll then, if he does that, if Dominic Cummings were listening to this, he would do that and then tack back into the centre.
Because he's basically quite a soft Tory anyway, isn't he?
Yeah, I like your analysis apart from the tacking back to the centre bit.
But he'll do that.
Because that's where the votes are, James.
They aren't where you are in politics.
Well, you're going to say it's never been tested.
I'm just saying...
But no party wants to risk it.
I'm saying, look it up, dogshit, yoghurt fallacy.
Anyway, thank you, Chopper, Christopher Hope, for being a lovely special guest on the podcast.
Listen to Chopper's podcast, which is funnily enough called...
Chopper's Brexit podcast.
Chopper's Brexit podcast.
And he's going to be...
I think you're going to be speaking at Podcast Live on October the 5th, but I fear have we not been scheduled at the same time, which is crazy if we have.
I'm 1pm.
Are you 1pm?
I don't know.
I haven't looked at the time yet.
Well, I'll tell you what.
If I'm there and you're on, I'll go to yours.
Will you come to mind?
Yes, I will.
If we don't clash.
Can we shake on that now?
We'll shake on that.
Deal.
Yeah, deal.
Thanks for having me on.
It's been great fun.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for listening.
Goodbye.
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