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Nicola Sturgeon Resigns
00:14:24
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| Tonight on Piers Morgan Uncensored with me, Richard Tice. | |
| And me, Isabelle Oakeshott. | |
| Nicola Sturgeon dramatically resigns as the SNP leader today. | |
| What's her meltdown over the trans rights route, the gamble that finally backfired? | |
| And what's left of her independence dream? | |
| We'll ask two of the big independence movement, Alex Salmond and Ian Blackford. | |
| Labour's Sakir Starma pledges patriotism and warns the hard left, back me or quit. | |
| Does chaos in Scotland pave his path to power? | |
| We'll be debating that. | |
| Plus Bakoffs, Dame Prue Leith lobbies MPs to legalise assisted dying. | |
| Her MP son is standing in her way. | |
| He joins us live. | |
| Live from London. | |
| This is Piers Morgan Uncensored with Richard Tice and Isabel Oakeshott. | |
| There have been three big beasties in Scottish politics in recent years and today the third one, Nicola Sturgeon, suddenly resigned. | |
| Did she jump before she was pushed as leader of the SNP? | |
| Well we've got the other two big beasties, Alex Salmond and Ian Blackford, live on our show tonight as we explore what was behind Sturgeon's bombshell announcement. | |
| What does it mean for Scottish nationalism and indeed the whole of the UK political scene? | |
| In a long, heartfelt, passionate resignation speech, she acknowledged that she's become too divisive. | |
| But with a worrying absence of any other big beasts apart from those joining us this evening, will her departure boost her party and the independence cause? | |
| Or will it be essentially the moment where we've seen peak SNP, peak Sturgeon? | |
| It's all over. | |
| After all, the SNP is up against a few gigantic, perhaps insurmountable roadblocks to their dream of breaking up the union and going their own way. | |
| Beyond the fact that according to the most recent polling, the significant majority of Scots are actually against it. | |
| Brexit sent them into a complete frenzy. | |
| They're desperate to rejoin the EU. | |
| But they can see just how challenging it's been for the UK to leave the EU. | |
| Imagine, after 300 years, how much worse it would be for Scotland trying to leave the rest of the UK. | |
| Extraordinary. | |
| We've been joined at the hip for 300 years. | |
| Well, in a moment, we'll be speaking to the SNP's former leader in Westminster, Ian Blackford. | |
| But first, let's hear from former Scottish First Minister, now leader of ALBA party, Alex Salmon. | |
| Alex, thanks for joining us. | |
| Well, absolute bombshell announcement today from Nicola Sturgeon. | |
| Did you see this coming? | |
| No, I didn't, Isabel. | |
| It took me by surprise, and I think it took everybody by surprise. | |
| You might get one or two journalists claiming the new all along. | |
| I don't believe them. | |
| I think everybody was fair astounded this morning. | |
| What do you think is behind her decision? | |
| I mean, she was at pains in that very long resignation statement to emphasise that it's not short-term pressures. | |
| I think that was an allusion to the very toxic trans rights row that has been bubbling around for the last few days. | |
| So if it wasn't that that pushed her over the edge, what do you think it was? | |
| I don't know, Isabel. | |
| I mean, I certainly don't think it was the trans reforms, the transgender rights reforms. | |
| I mean, that was a difficult situation. | |
| Nicola made missteps. | |
| She was losing support. | |
| It was damaging independence. | |
| But, you know, that's the sort of thing where if you come to a compromise, if you settle it, if you do a compromise with your rebel backbenchers, you know, government's difficult. | |
| You come into difficulties and challenges, but usually what happens is you deal with them and then move on. | |
| So it wouldn't have done long-term damage to the independence case, or indeed to the SNP if it had been settled. | |
| It's similar with other things that are going on at the present moment. | |
| There's huge problems in the health service and the education system. | |
| There's this problem with this bring back bottle return scheme. | |
| But I mean, these are things which it's the job of government to face them and to overcome them. | |
| So I don't rate these. | |
| That's why I was so puzzled. | |
| I don't see in any of these any insurmountable difficulties. | |
| And I suppose the real question about my surprise is Nicola was midstream in a two-pronged strategy. | |
| She had gone to the Supreme Court, got a knockback. | |
| She said she was going to have a de facto referendum in next year's general election, and she's halfway through that strategy, which seems an extraordinary time to step down. | |
| I mean, perhaps the problem is that the strategy is going nowhere. | |
| You'll have seen the Lord Ashcroft polling from earlier in this week, which shows a quite significant margin in favour of staying in the Union. | |
| Every which way she's turned, it looks like her campaign was going nowhere. | |
| Perhaps that's the problem. | |
| That's the reason she's quit. | |
| Well, you know, polls come and go. | |
| I mean, if we've been having this discussion six weeks ago, you'd had a runner poll showing a significant majority in favour of independence. | |
| And I think the reason for recent poll disappointments for the SNP and indeed for independence was in the difficulties she'd got herself into. | |
| But the way you do that is you overcome these difficulties and move on. | |
| I mean, the underlying position is that support for independence and staying in the Union is about 50-50. | |
| Now, I could just remind you, Isabel, when I called the referendum in 2012 for 2014, support for independence was about 30%. | |
| So even that's not a reason. | |
| I find it very perplexing that this is a moment she chose to go. | |
| Alex, essentially, the three big beasts of Scottish politics, Nicola Sturgeon, yourself, Ian Blackford, you've all recently, relatively recently, stepped down. | |
| I mean, what next? | |
| What for you, Alex? | |
| Is this possibly the moment where we're actually almost a bit like Boris Johnson? | |
| You're tempted to go back. | |
| Well, can I say that? | |
| I think the SNP will elect a new leader and therefore a new First Minister. | |
| And what happens to the SNP and to Scottish politics will depend on what that person does. | |
| I mean, I get these sort of celebrations from the Tory and Labour people saying, oh, this is wonderful. | |
| We'll have it all our own way. | |
| Now, I saw the same celebrations after the referendum in 2014. | |
| And six months later, they lost all their seats. | |
| So it really depends what type of leadership the national movement gets. | |
| And in particular, where you have a leader who will reunify the movement and bring all parties, all parts of it together, perhaps in an independence convention. | |
| Alex, could that be you? | |
| No, the person's going to be the person elected by the SNP. | |
| I'm not a member of the SNP. | |
| I'm leading a rival political party, Alipa. | |
| But you can bring people together through an independence convention, which was once an idea which Nicholas supported. | |
| And that way you unite the movement and get on with taking on the unionists. | |
| And get back to arguing the fundamental case for Scottish independence, which is a case in economic terms, like, you know, why should energy-rich Scotland have a million people in fuel poverty? | |
| In constitutional terms, it's about the right of self-determination, something you should recognise, Richard, not some of the other issues that the SNP government have got themselves immersed in. | |
| Indeed, I mean, Alec, the reality is that this campaign for independence is going to take a very high-profile, influential, powerful figure to get it to the next stage. | |
| At the moment, with the greatest of respect to those who are likely to throw their hat into the ring, they're not national figures with huge profile. | |
| You, by contrast, are. | |
| I hear what you're saying. | |
| You're currently the leader of another party. | |
| It doesn't have any representation. | |
| Is there any way back for you, do you think, into the SNP? | |
| Well, Alec have two MPs at Westminster, Isabel. | |
| And I mean, that may not seem very much, but when I led the SNP for the very first time some years ago, the SNP only had four MPs at Westminster. | |
| Now they've got a whole battalion and indeed dominate Scottish politics. | |
| So look, they don't have to be leader of the SNP and First Minister to make a contribution to the independence campaign. | |
| And my hope would be that whoever the new leader of the SNP is and whoever's the new First Minister, he or she will reunite the movement and get everybody from the various political parties, but even more importantly, from the cross-party and non-party groups, groups like Commonwealth have come up with some terrific policy ideas from Independent Scotland. | |
| We've got all these people working together in an independence convention. | |
| Thank you, Alex. | |
| Brilliant. | |
| Well, let's bring in Ian now. | |
| Ian, good evening. | |
| Thanks for joining us on Piers Morgan uncensored. | |
| So this was a massive shock to most people at Mayman, or to be to yourself. | |
| But what's happened here? | |
| Has Nicola Sturgeon realised that she'd become too divisive a figure? | |
| Or is there something else involved? | |
| I think the fact is Nicola's been involved with the SNP or I haven't lied. | |
| She's been First Minister since 2014 and indeed was deputy first minister before that right back to 2007. | |
| So she's had a long time in frontline politics, a long time in government. | |
| And I think she's taken the decision that it's right that she has a bit of me time. | |
| That politics, being in government, is something that is all consuming. | |
| It's 24-7, it's 365 days a year. | |
| Alec knows that. | |
| And I think she's taken the decision that, given that she's been in office for so long, it is time to move on. | |
| And it's time that I think having laid the foundations for the SNP to move on and to be able to put that case for Scotland to become an independent country, that she wants to pass that baton on. | |
| I'm silent. | |
| I didn't want her to go. | |
| But I think it's right for her that she's taken the decision that she has. | |
| And it may be right for her, but what about for the SNP? | |
| Is this a moment of new opportunity, new revival for the SNP? | |
| Or actually, is this sort of we've seen peak sturgeon, peak SNP, and it's a sort of gradual slide down the slippery slope for you? | |
| We would never take anything for granted, Richard, but we've, of course, been in government in Scotland since 2007. | |
| Nicola's won every election that she's fought as leader, beginning with the Westminster election in 2015. | |
| We have, of course, a Westminster election coming down the tracks at some point in the next two-year period, just under two-year period. | |
| We've got a Hollywood election in 2026. | |
| We've got to make sure that we can enforce the mandate that we were given by the people of Scotland at that last election. | |
| And Alec talked about democracy, but the simple fact remains, Richard, that there is an independence majority in that parliament. | |
| We often hear about this being a union of consent. | |
| So what are the circumstances that the people of Scotland can rightfully have their say in their country's future? | |
| And I know a lot of the discussions that we have are about process, but at the end of the day, we need to have that debate about Scotland's future, about 20 years. | |
| Well, I mean, unfortunately, unfortunately for you, process is the great roadblock to this. | |
| I mean, Westminster will not allow you to have this referendum that Nicola Sturgeon said she wanted to have. | |
| You can't overcome that. | |
| You can't short-circuit it. | |
| To what extent was the division within the party over whether the next election should be a de facto referendum on independence one of the key factors for Nicolas Sturgeon's resignation? | |
| Well, you know, in the SNP, that's a matter for the members. | |
| And what Nicola had recognised is the party was going to have to have a conference to debate those matters. | |
| That will still happen at some point in the very near future. | |
| But, you know, you've raised tonight on a couple of occasions the issue of the transgender recognition bill. | |
| There's something quite extraordinary that's taking place, actually, because that was a bill that was passed by a majority of parliamentarians, cross-party support of MSPs of every party. | |
| It was a matter which was in the manifesto of a number of parties at that last election. | |
| But we're now in the situation that before that bill got royal assent, the Secretary of State for Scotland has used his powers enshrined in the Scotland Act to strike down that bill. | |
| Now, that's an extraordinary set of circumstances. | |
| Which Westminster is entitled to do. | |
| Just finally, Ian, we must ask. | |
| That's a very important position of democracy and the rights and the respect that has to be shown to the Scottish Parliament, Richard. | |
| No, indeed. | |
| So are you tempted to throw your hat in the ring, Ian? | |
| I mean, this is your big chance, your big moment. | |
| I will support whoever the new leader is, but fundamentally, we're talking about someone that becomes the leader of the SNP and becomes the First Minister of Scotland. | |
| You really have to be a member of the Scottish Parliament to stand in this election. | |
| Well, thank you very much, Ian Blackford, for joining us. | |
| Thank you to discuss that extraordinary. | |
| Extraordinary. | |
| Thank you, Ian, and thank you, Alex. | |
| I totally was not expecting this today. | |
| It is true to say there have been quite a lot of rumblings about Nicola Sturgeon's political future, particularly in the wake of that Ashcroft polling, which was, you know, however Alec and Ian tried to frame it, it was pretty negative for them. | |
| Yeah, my sense is that actually she recognised she was too divisive. | |
| She said that. | |
| And she said that. | |
| My sense is that actually this could be good for the SNP. | |
| It might be a sort of moment of renewed interest, different personality, new blood, fresh blood. | |
| So, yeah, I think it's going to be absolutely fascinating. | |
| But of course, if it's someone... | |
| They're all both slightly hedging their bets there as to whether they would stand, it seemed to me. | |
| Well, I mean, I think there are a couple of process issues there, aren't there? | |
| I mean, even they're not both in a position to do so. | |
| But I think Alex Salmon would probably love to do it if he could. | |
| There we are. | |
| Well, next tonight. | |
|
Trans Women in Politics
00:03:13
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| So, Sakir Starmer tells the left of his party to back him or find a new home. | |
| Is the Labour Party ready for power? | |
| What an alarming thought. | |
| We'll debate that next. | |
| Welcome back. | |
| Well, Sakir Starmer talked tough in a major speech today, recasting the Labour Party as patriotic and ready to lead. | |
| He says Labour has vanquished anti-Semitism and the hard left, confirming Jeremy Corbyn will not stand again for the party he once led. | |
| Sturgeon's shock resignation overshadowed Starmer's speech, but did it also help pave his path to number 10? | |
| Well, joining us now is Associate Editor of The Daily Mirror, Kevin Maguire, and talk TV contributor Esther Kraku. | |
| And down the line, we've got former Labour MP Chris Williamson, who was suspended for denying the party had an anti-Semitism problem. | |
| We'll talk to Chris in just a moment. | |
| But firstly, Kevin and Esther, I mean, this was such a shock. | |
| But what's really gone on here? | |
| She hasn't given this up voluntarily. | |
| I mean, Kevin, what's behind the scene? | |
| What's going to come out in the next few days? | |
| Yeah, that's what we're searching for because a couple of weeks back she said she had plenty left in the tank. | |
| Today she said she was running on empty. | |
| She was planning the next general election. | |
| It was going to be effectively a referendum on independence, she said. | |
| And all of a sudden she's gone. | |
| Well, we've seen her poll ratings and respect for a collapse over the trans issue. | |
| But also hanging over the SNP is this inquiry by the police and allegations of fraud on funding and the use of money that was supposed to be set aside for the referendum on other spending. | |
| Now her husband is the chief executive. | |
| Yes, she exists in her own right, but you can't ignore the relationship. | |
| You'll all know about power couples and politics yourself. | |
| But there we have one right at the heart of Scottish politics. | |
| Esther, do you think that the trans row, however much she denies it, do you think that that tipped her over the edge? | |
| I actually think it was the inquiry that that was the straw that broke the camel's back. | |
| I think the trans issue, what she was hoping for was that it would blow over because it always does. | |
| There's always some sort of huge row about a male being swimming in a woman's swimming competitions. | |
| Exactly, and all of that. | |
| And then they blow over. | |
| But I think this really did her in because it was compounded. | |
| The slip of that. | |
| Question is, are all trans women women? | |
| You haven't answered that question. | |
| Well, that's not the point that we're dealing with here. | |
| Trans women are women, but in the prison context, there is no automatic right for a trans woman. | |
| There are contexts where a trans woman is not a woman. | |
| No, there is circumstances in which a trans woman will be housed in the male prison estate. | |
| Any context in which a woman born as a woman will be housed in the male estate? | |
| Look, we're talking here about trans women. | |
| I'm now asking about women born as women. | |
| I don't think there are circumstances there, but it's different for trans women. | |
| Well, yes. | |
| That was painful. | |
| That was fantastic. | |
| Just finally, does it help or hinder, Kevin? | |
| Does it help or hinder the SNP her going? | |
|
Labour Party Ideology
00:09:07
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| The SNP? | |
| No, the SNP is in a bad place now. | |
| There's no real strategy for a new business. | |
| And I think the thing is they haven't cultivated any superstars. | |
| This is what happens when you have a superstar. | |
| You don't breathe the next generation of superstars. | |
| In which case, then the question is, what does that mean for Labour? | |
| And we're joined now down the line with Chris Williamson, former MP. | |
| Chris, a very good evening. | |
| Thanks for joining us on Piers Morgan Uncensored. | |
| So the Labour Party has, as Sakir Starmer, he's done the right thing. | |
| He's cleaned itself of the left. | |
| He's suggested that they find a new home. | |
| How do you feel about that based on your tweets today? | |
| Well, I left the Labour Party in 2019. | |
| I mean, I think we had a unique moment in history when Jeremy was elected as leader in 2015 and we saw at the 2017 election the biggest increase in vote share since 1945. | |
| What we didn't know, of course, at that time was that senior figures in the Parliamentary Labour Party and in the bureaucracy of the party were actively working against a Labour victory. | |
| And indeed, had we all been fighting for a Labour win at that election, I think there's every possibility that we would have won it and we would have been in the process now of transforming the country. | |
| But look, Tony Ben used to say that the Labour Party needs two wings to fly. | |
| I mean, I was a member of the Labour Party for the best part of 43 years. | |
| And, you know, I always had respect for people of all shades of opinion within the Labour Party. | |
| I was on the left. | |
| I supported Jeremy Corbyn, obviously. | |
| And I naively anticipated, thought that when he was overwhelmingly elected in that one member, one vote election in 2015, then re-elected with an even bigger margin, actually. | |
| But in the 2015 one in particular, I thought that all these right-wingers in the Labour Party, many of whom were friends of mine when I was in the House from 2010 to 2015, a lot of us even came back in 2017, would accept the democratic will of the members. | |
| I accepted the democratic will of the party when they elected Tony Blair. | |
| I didn't agree with his politics, but I worked for the Labour Party. | |
| I felt the Labour Party was the best vehicle to deliver progressive social change. | |
| But what it's shown to me is that Tony Benn's assumption that the party needs two wings to fly was based on a false premise. | |
| But the truth is, the left had never been in the ascendancy. | |
| The left had never been in the ascendancy. | |
| Then Jeremy got elected, and the right wing of the Labour Party, who are in the pockets of the war machine, in the pockets of the establishment, were not prepared to accept that democratic will and to work for a Labour. | |
| It sounds like a contradiction of terms, the right wing of a socialist party. | |
| But anyway, you tweeted out today that the Labour Party is utterly lost. | |
| And I think we've got it on screen. | |
| The job now is to destroy the Labour Party. | |
| So you essentially, Chris, seem to want to destroy both wings and build something completely different. | |
| How are you going to do that? | |
| Or are you going to do that with Jeremy Corbyn based on his statement this evening? | |
| Well, I've not seen Jeremy's statement this evening, but let's see what happens. | |
| But it will be very difficult, obviously, particularly in a system that we have, electoral system in this country, the first past the post system, mitigates against new parties emerging. | |
| Although we've seen it happen in Scotland, you've just been talking about the SNP. | |
| They've actually destroyed, eviscerated the Labour Party in Scotland. | |
| Labour was dominant for years in Scotland, wasn't it? | |
| And of course, indeed, in the whole of the country, back at the turn of the 20th century, the Labour Party replaced the Liberals. | |
| So, it's not impossible, but I accept that it's difficult. | |
| But look, look, the Labour Party isn't what people thought it was in reality. | |
| It is a tool of the establishment, and to varying degrees, it always has been. | |
| But it's openly, nakedly admitted that fact now. | |
| As I've said, it's in the pocket of the war machine. | |
| It's in the pocket of transforming the country. | |
| Just to clarify, we are neoliberals to the core. | |
| Wow. | |
| Just to clarify, what Jeremy Corbyn said is that Sir Keir Starmer's statement about my future is a flagrant attack on the democratic rights of Islington North Labour Party members. | |
| I mean, they're not interested in democracy. | |
| I mean, that's been pretty clear, isn't it? | |
| We've seen that. | |
| Getting, you know, huge attendances of members were really energised and engaged with the agenda that Jeremy Corbyn was putting forward, with this possibility of democratising the party, putting the members in the driving seat. | |
| And I used to quote Ed Miliband in those meetings, who said in 2010 that if we'd listened to our members a bit more when we were in government, we wouldn't have made as many mistakes. | |
| He was absolutely right. | |
| There wouldn't have been tuition fees introduced. | |
| There wouldn't have been a war in Iraq. | |
| There wouldn't have been cuts on the social security benefits of the poorest people in the country. | |
| Chris, I mean, you're obviously incredibly angry tonight. | |
| I wonder how many Labour MPs in the parliamentary party you think still identify more with Jeremy Corbyn's view of the world, your view of the world, you two share roughly the same thing, than they do with Keir Starmer's. | |
| And how is that going to play out? | |
| Well, look, I mean, the tragedy is that the socialist campaign group of Labour MPs have been left wanting, really. | |
| I mean, there's a line in the Labour Party anthem, the red flag, though cowards flinch and traitors sneer. | |
| And I'm afraid to say that the Parliamentary Labour Party is exclusively made up of cowards and traitors. | |
| And I put the socialist campaign group within the cowards category because they weren't prepared to speak out against, they weren't prepared to speak out against the witch hunt, against long-standing anti-racist socialists. | |
| They weren't prepared to get themselves. | |
| They weren't prepared to defend even Jeremy Corbyn. | |
| Hang on, Chris. | |
| So, Keir Starmer had the courage to tackle the high levels of anti-Semitism within the party, which you deny. | |
| Do you still deny it? | |
| That's utter not. | |
| Well, of course I do, because the figures prove that that was a lie. | |
| It was nonsense. | |
| Now, what happened was the Labour Party foolishly embraced the IHRA, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition or working definition of anti-Semitism, and there's a range of different examples. | |
| Which almost every decent person accepts to bring in. | |
| No, no, no. | |
| Well, not every decent person accepts it at all, actually. | |
| Because what it means is that criticism of the racist settler colonial apartheid regime in Israel is now deemed anti-Semitism. | |
| If you look at the examples, I think there are six or seven of the 11, I think it is examples in the IHRA working definition, which actually cite criticism of Israel as a form of anti-Semitism. | |
| Anti-Semitism is a very straightforward concept. | |
| It's hatred or bigotry against Jewish people because they're Jews. | |
| And the interesting thing is now, for all Keir Starmer saying that he's eradicated anti-Semitism and the Labour Party, Jewish people are being thrown out of the Labour Party hand over fist because they oppose the apartheid regime in Israel. | |
| They are anti-Zionist Jews. | |
| Let's keep this simple. | |
| That's the point. | |
| It's about not about anti-Semitism. | |
| Let us keep this simple. | |
| Are you saying that the party never really had a problem? | |
| It didn't truly have a problem with anti-Semitism. | |
| No, it did not have a problem. | |
| Look, the Labour Party has been in my... | |
| Wow, I mean, I think there were multiple instances of it having a problem. | |
| No, no, there hasn't been multiple instances. | |
| That's an absolute lie. | |
| And if you actually look in that ridiculous report of the EHRC, well, wait a minute. | |
| The EHRC report, they were only able to cite two examples of anti-Semitism. | |
| And that was on the basis upon which they then produced their report and suggested that Labour had a major problem with anti-Semitism. | |
| And even those two cases are subject to judicial review. | |
| And there was a very strong case, and they will probably be thrown out. | |
| They have nothing. | |
| And that complaint, that complaint was put forward in the first place to the EU. | |
| Thank you very much. | |
| You've clarified your position. | |
| You've got the motivated groups who wanted to undermine the Labour Party. | |
| Pretty remarkable. | |
| You're still in denial. | |
| Thank you very much, Chris Williamson, MP. | |
| Not a denial. | |
| No, I'm telling the facts. | |
| I'm telling the facts. | |
| Kevin, Starmer's done the right thing in your view. | |
| Well, hang on. | |
| What do you make of that? | |
| We can just let that last. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Well, Keir Starmer would not allow. | |
| Most Labour MPs would not want Chris Williamson back in the Labour Party now. | |
| Or probably not on TV either. | |
| No, in truth, I'd be quite happy to be attacked on the basis that Chris has used now. | |
| There's always a kernel of truth somewhere, but Labour did have a problem. | |
| And anti-Semitism was weaponised both by those against Corbyn and those who supported Corbyn. | |
| That's a fact. | |
| But Keir Starmer will point to huge poll leads and how he's transformed Labour since 2019. | |
| And it got the worst drubbing since 1935 in terms of seat. | |
|
Assisted Dying Debate
00:15:41
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| But the fact is, he is very authoritarian, though. | |
| I think that what we've just seen with Chris Williamson here is still this kind of ideological possession, which Keir Starmer has tried to root out, which is why I say there's not a lot of differences between the Tories and the Labour Party at the moment as well, because one thing he said was they're neoliberals to the core. | |
| Guess what? | |
| So are the Tories, right? | |
| And what Keir Starmer has tried to do is kind of wipe out the more extreme, very ideologically pure aspects of this party and keep it more centrist, keep it more palatable. | |
| He's talking about transforming the country. | |
| You know, politicians actually saying that now feel a bit scary because, you know, what kind of transformation are you going to... | |
| Are you trying to? | |
| On the question of Corbyn, though, he is more authoritarian on selection. | |
| Oh, absolutely. | |
| During the Corbyn era, people were stopped from standing and they rigged selections and so on and had people suspended so their seats could be taken by other people. | |
| That all happened under Corbyn too. | |
| However, Kier Starmer has taken it to a new level in trying to palletise the party. | |
| And he'll see how it's going to be. | |
| But he'll argue the polls show he's justified in doing it. | |
| That's what he's saying. | |
| Absolutely. | |
| Next tonight, Bakoff's Dame Prue Leith lobbies MPs to legalise assisted dying, but her MP son disagrees and he joins us next. | |
| Welcome back. | |
| Well, MPs are holding an inquiry into assisted dying for the first time in almost 20 years. | |
| They're asking people whether if people who have a terminal illness should be allowed to end their own lives. | |
| A very, very difficult question. | |
| Now, public support for a change in the law has actually grown pretty substantially, but assisting death is still currently punishable by up to 14 years in prison. | |
| And critics fear that a legal change could put pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives. | |
| A new documentary fronted by Bakoff's Prue Leith and her son, the Conservative MP Danny Kruger, takes a look at both sides of the debate. | |
| When it was time and they had set 10 o'clock to drink their medicine, we went into the bedroom and we just sat in silence and love and just held this space for them as they drifted to sleep. | |
| My mum passed in 15 minutes and my dad passed about 45 minutes later. | |
| But they both went to sleep within a few minutes. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Yeah. | |
| And died holding hands. | |
| That's a wonderful story. | |
| Wow, that is going to be some documentary. | |
| That's on tomorrow night. | |
| Well, Danny Kruger, who would disagree with his mum that it's a wonderful story, joins us now in the studio. | |
| And former Conservative Cabinet Minister Kit Molthaus, who is speaking in a personal capacity, is down the line. | |
| Good evening to you both. | |
| Danny, I mean, this is such an emotional debate, so difficult for everybody. | |
| It's not on party lines. | |
| You know, you two Conservatives obviously complete the other side of the debate. | |
| But it does seem to me, you know, surely, I mean, we don't treat dogs the way we allow humans to suffer. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Why can't we do better? | |
| Well, the comparison is interesting. | |
| You know, a dog is a pet. | |
| We own a pet and we ultimately decide on their life. | |
| Nobody owns a human being. | |
| And what the assisted dying law would mean is that a doctor has the power to decide that somebody is better off dead and to prescribe a lethal injection to that person. | |
| I totally recognise why so many people think that it's a good idea and I really do believe in the autonomy of the individual. | |
| But actually what I need to really hold out for and Kit and I as MPs have to consider is the wider implication. | |
| What about the vulnerable? | |
| What about the disabled, the lonely, the mentally ill? | |
| And my mother and I went to Canada and you just showed the one great clip on the other side of this debate. | |
| There's lots of footage in the TV programme and you just look online, search Canada assisted dying and you'll see story after story of vulnerable people who have felt pressured into this step. | |
| Their families find out they've been euthanised after it's happened because nobody has to tell them. | |
| There's so many bad stories coming out of Canada and all the other countries where it's legal that we should not stop in this room. | |
| There are also really awful stories that come out of Europe, aren't there? | |
| I mean, I'm thinking you probably know the details better than I do, but there are cases where very young people who've been suffering from profound mental health difficulties but no physical illness have been allowed to go down this awful road. | |
| I'm afraid that's the case everywhere. | |
| So there's not a single jurisdiction where assisted dying is legal, where you're not also eligible if you have an eating disorder. | |
| If you can convince a doctor that you're near to death because of a mental health condition or anorexia or diabetes, people with hernias in Canada are getting it. | |
| All you need to do is convince a doctor that you're eligible and they sign it for you. | |
| Let's bring in Kit Molehaus. | |
| Kit, thanks for joining us. | |
| I mean, such an emotional debate, but Danny here essentially saying that we're not capable of designing a framework of regulations and the necessary checks and balances. | |
| I mean, surely, come on, we're smart enough to be able to do that, aren't we? | |
| Well, that's certainly my view. | |
| And, you know, Danny cites the situation in Canada very often as a comparison. | |
| But if we followed that kind of principle, then we wouldn't necessarily have an abortion. | |
| Or they have no legal restrictions on abortion at any stage in Canada. | |
| And yet we design a law in our own country that is for our own values. | |
| The other thing that we need to stress, of course, is that the situation in this country at the moment, the status quo, is horrible. | |
| I mean, we've got, you know, one person a week on average going to Switzerland to take their own life at Dignitas. | |
| You know, we've got several hundred people every year with terminal diseases committing suicide in horrible circumstances and thousands of people dying horrible, undignified deaths. | |
| And that's before you even get into the position of doctors helping people on their way. | |
| And have you got any extremists? | |
| So the situation in the country in the UK at the moment is deeply distressing for thousands, if not millions of people. | |
| And it's just not acceptable. | |
| And we do believe, you know, I chair the all-party group in Parliament and I work with Dignity and Dying. | |
| We do believe that it is possible for us to design a law which safeguards people and place. | |
| I'm sorry, we seem to be having a few problems with your line there. | |
| So we'll come back to you if we may. | |
| Daniel, how do you feel? | |
| Do you feel that you've been somewhat sort of dragged into this debate by your dear mother? | |
| Because it may not have been a cause that you necessarily would have chosen. | |
| No, well, I did choose it. | |
| I mean, it is slightly her fault because when I became an MP, she asked me to help her with the campaign for legalised assisted suicide. | |
| I'd always been quite iffy about the topic. | |
| I didn't like it in principle to begin with, but I said I would look into it. | |
| So I looked into it and my prejudices were confirmed. | |
| You know, I really think it's dangerous. | |
| So, no, I think it's very important. | |
| I don't like disagreeing with my mum. | |
| She and Kit, I really respect the arguments on the other side. | |
| I would just agree with Kit, though. | |
| It's absolutely unacceptable, the state of the end-of-life care that people receive in this country. | |
| Every year, thousands of people die very, very badly. | |
| That is not an argument for killing them. | |
| It's an argument for improving palliative care, which we can do. | |
| I'm really hoping we may now be able to get Kit back. | |
| Sorry about that, Kit. | |
| We just had to correct the line there. | |
| Can you tell us, is there a particular reason why you personally feel so strongly about this issue? | |
| It's quite a really difficult one for any politician. | |
| Well, it is. | |
| And to be honest with you, many people come to the cause after they've had horrible personal experience of somebody who they love or a friend who's died in awful circumstances and who wanted this kind of service, if you like, or wanted this choice for their own life. | |
| And certainly I've experienced it in my own family, albeit my, if you like, my decision about this particular course of policy came well before that in my teens. | |
| I've always had in myself the sense that I wanted in extremists the ability to choose the time, place and manner of my own death. | |
| And I would want that for everybody who needed it or indeed wanted it. | |
| And of course, you don't have to have it if you don't want it. | |
| But this is one of the things about assisted dying is that for many people who are facing a terminal illness, they know broadly what's going to happen to them. | |
| You know, if you have motor neuron disease, you know that at the end of your life, you're basically going to choke to death and no amount of palliative care can help you. | |
| But knowing that it is, but knowing that if you need it, you can choose assisted dying allows you to enjoy in much more security what time you have left. | |
| Just before I come to Danny, we wanted to find out from our own viewers and listeners with a quick poll this evening. | |
| So we asked, we asked for, and there's the result. | |
| 61% in favour, 39% against, which I think the YouGov poll is actually slightly stronger in favour. | |
| It does seem to have moved. | |
| I think back in about 2015, MPs Danny voted against it, overwhelmingly, over 300 against. | |
| Now public opinion is really important. | |
| Does that worry you? | |
| I mean, you so I think polls are valuable and interesting. | |
| I mean polls generally show a majority in favour of assisted dying because if you ask someone the simple question, do you think people who are facing an agonising death should be allowed to have an early termination? | |
| Then people instinctively say yes. | |
| But what the evidence also shows, and there's lots of polling to prove this, once you explain to them what it actually means, what the implications are, how it would work in practice, how it's working in other countries, the support drops away. | |
| And that's why MPs, you know, we've Parliament has looked at this half a dozen times over just in this century, and every time they conclude not to go down this road because they actually study it. | |
| And I think that'll happen again. | |
| You touched on palliative care. | |
| I mean, if that was much better. | |
| Yeah. | |
| And if pain drugs were much better, I mean, I've seen it. | |
| They are good now. | |
| So I'm afraid you're right and Kit's right. | |
| Too many people have personal experience of loved ones dying really badly. | |
| That was my mother's experience too of her brother dying badly. | |
| It should not be happening. | |
| We have enormous strides in analgesic pain relief and nobody should die in physical agony anymore, including people with MND, by the way. | |
| Just very quickly, Kit, do you want to have one final word on this? | |
| I would just say, I mean, as I say, I do think it's possible for us to design a law that fits for the UK and fits our own values, notwithstanding what other countries around the world do. | |
| And the implication of Danny's argument is the Canadians, the Australians, the French are now looking at it in other countries, they're somehow barbaric and that we're going to be because none of them work. | |
| In any of those, you can... | |
| In the same way that we have an abortion law for our own circumstances, governed by our own parliament, I think we should have a law that allows people to choose the time and place of their death in extremists. | |
| Not just safe anywhere else. | |
| It won't be safe anymore. | |
| I'm going to finish. | |
| It can be safe in the same way that our abortion law is safe. | |
| I'm going to finish by asking you a tough question. | |
| Is it actually genuinely one for MPs, or dare I say, should it be a referendum, Danny? | |
| I think this is one where the right process is for it to be properly looked at, not just a snap poll. | |
| So yeah, I think it's something for Parliament to regulate. | |
| Kit? | |
| Oh, yeah, definitely something for Parliament to regulate. | |
| I mean, and the point about it is that Parliament is not doing that at the moment. | |
| And as a result, we have an unregulated situation where lots of people are taking their deaths in horrible circumstances, taking their own lives in horrible circumstances, who would rather have the choice to do it with dignity. | |
| And that's what we're doing. | |
| Well, look, thank you very much for coming on and for your bravery on confronting what is a really very difficult issue. | |
| I'm really looking forward to seeing, I'm not sure if looking forward is the word, but I think it'll be, it looks as if it would be a very powerful documentary. | |
| It's so difficult, but if I can just be sort of brutal about it, on the politics of it, this is an issue that I don't think I cannot see any government taking on. | |
| It's a kind of thing that comes up in a private member's bill and tends to go nowhere. | |
| I mean, governments run a mile from the abortion debate, and this is in the same sort of category. | |
| They will not want to touch it. | |
| So I actually think you're, you know, from your point of view, you're going to be okay. | |
| Your mother may not be quite so pleased. | |
| I don't see it happening. | |
| I just saw a friend die in absolute agony with bone cancer and it was heartbreaking. | |
| The drugs just couldn't deal with it. | |
| Maybe if the drugs have improved, the palliative care has improved. | |
| Maybe that's the way through it. | |
| Well, thank you very much. | |
| Fascinating. | |
| And next tonight, calls for a crackdown on SickNote Britain. | |
| Should GPs stop signing so many people off work? | |
| Welcome back. | |
| Well, Esther and Kevin are back with us as our fantastic superstar panel. | |
| That debate just before the break on assisted dying. | |
| So difficult, so emotional, so personal. | |
| Where are you, Kevin, first on this? | |
| Oh, look, I think it's barbaric that we force people, condemn people to live in agony when they want to ease their passing. | |
| It's a debate we have to have. | |
| If you don't believe in a sister dying, don't do it yourself. | |
| But why stop other people? | |
| And there's huge contradictions where now, if you've got the money, you can be taken to Dignitas in Switzerland. | |
| If you've got the money and the people who take you won't be prosecuted, doctors turn off life support machines in hospitals every day in consultation with families. | |
| Now, a sister dying will make us a more civilized country. | |
| Do you think Labour might pick it up as an issue or just too difficult? | |
| Yeah, they've been tiptoeing around it, but I think you have to make it a cross-party. | |
| You can't give offence, doesn't surprise us. | |
| I think it's clearly a moral issue. | |
| I think when you have cases like what we've been seeing in Canada happening, where it's clearly gone too far, you have undercover patients going to doctors and they'll be having a conversation about their chronic pain. | |
| And then casually in conversation, they talk about also euthanasia as an option. | |
| You know, that just shows that it does go a step too far. | |
| So that is the worry there. | |
| I don't think the country is ready for it. | |
| I don't think we have the appetite for it. | |
| This is still, I know it sounds shocking, a Christian country. | |
| And we still, we base a lot of our laws on Christian morality. | |
| And I just don't think it's rightful. | |
| I think we're going one way. | |
| It's just when we get there. | |
| Oh, really? | |
| I mean, what is appalling is a situation where you've got loving spouses and their dying partners are begging for help to die. | |
| And that loving spouse, and there have been multiple court cases over this, is put in an utterly invidious position, totally tragic. | |
| And they, in the end, cave in to the desperate appeals to help and find themselves hauled through the court. | |
| Yeah, what criminal is they could be up on a charge, not that they've actually done it. | |
| I do think that that is where we could have a discussion on actually not prosecuting people that assist people to die. | |
| But I do think... | |
| With safeguards. | |
| Exactly. | |
| But if it's done abroad, I think that's a different case. | |
| But I do think in the UK, there shouldn't be a country that legalises that. | |
|
Jobs and Work Pay
00:04:04
|
|
| Talking of safeguards and other issues, a different sort of aspect of being sick. | |
| The front page of the Telegraph today, classic sort of Tory, you know, rattling the flag. | |
| Sick note crackdown to boost workforce. | |
| This is a hobby horse of yours. | |
| I know it's a hobby horse. | |
| It is actually hobby. | |
| It's actually one of the hobby horses that I think I can quite approve of. | |
| Well, I did actually give a press conference at the beginning of the year saying that I wanted to, in order to make Britain work, we've actually got to make work pay and get many of the 5.2 million people on out-of-work benefits back into work. | |
| Absolutely. | |
| My starting point is always: if you can work, you've got to work. | |
| If you can't do something, you might be able to do something else. | |
| But at the same time, there are some people who are sick and disabled, and they've got to be looked after. | |
| Now, this felt, though, reading the story in the time, it just felt a bit of it's a parliamentary recess. | |
| Let's just say it's not pathetic. | |
| The figures actually tell their own stories, don't they? | |
| I mean, there's been a huge rise in people on sick notes since the pandemic, 25%. | |
| Yeah, but long COVID is a medically recognized condition. | |
| 200,000 plus people died with COVID. | |
| Of course, millions more had it. | |
| With it, you're going to get a tail from it. | |
| With it, not of it. | |
| Yeah, no, I think it's a bit of a picture. | |
| But look, the thing is, I think this is pathetic, right? | |
| Because I think this is really skirting around the issue. | |
| The point is, we shouldn't be living in a country where there are more jobs available than people to fill those jobs and where working for able-bodied people is an option, right? | |
| Where they can choose not to work and they can still live, you know, not very well. | |
| We've got one in eight of the working age population on out-of-work benefits. | |
| It's one and a half million more than pre-COVID. | |
| Come on, Kevin. | |
| Be honest. | |
| Not all sick. | |
| There's a few on take, and there's a few on the makeup. | |
| And if you're right and you say there are a few, then tackle those few and you can come in with a system to look at that. | |
| But don't just think Britain's become suddenly work-shy, a nation of skywards. | |
| Esther. | |
| Well, you shouldn't be able to choose to not have a job. | |
| And I think the way the benefit system is now, people can choose to. | |
| It's a hunt. | |
| No, but you can choose. | |
| Because the thing is, there are people. | |
| Then why are there more jobs available than people to fill them? | |
| I mean, anyone who's dealt with the Department of Work and Pensions know how tough it is. | |
| I'm sorry. | |
| I've actually dealt with them. | |
| I've had no animals. | |
| I've been off sick. | |
| I've had young people. | |
| I've had young people, because I work for business. | |
| Anyway, I had young people come to sit there telling me, I'm a software engineer and I'm not going to do a job that's not in software engineering. | |
| It's like, well, excuse me, you don't have a choice. | |
| You're 20. | |
| That's different. | |
| Kevin, that's not sick or disabled, is it? | |
| It's not what Richard is doing. | |
| What I'm hearing, though, for example, is you've got taxi drivers in northern towns who are working out that they can earn more. | |
| Instead of driving five days a week, they'll drive 16 hours a week. | |
| They'll be on benefits and their net take-home pay is more. | |
| That's a terrible situation for a nation to get in. | |
| So the system's flawed, it's broken. | |
| But the benefit system is designed you will always get more in work. | |
| It's just whether work pays enough overwhelmingly. | |
| No, I'm sorry. | |
| That's no longer work. | |
| No, it's working because, of course, benefits have been increased. | |
| But they've frozen the tax threshold. | |
| Isn't there a danger that long COVID just becomes a bit of a catch-all? | |
| Yeah. | |
| We've got to think through it. | |
| But I'm in the few cases. | |
| I don't think it's a few. | |
| I think it's a lot more than you're willing to do. | |
| Way more than a few. | |
| I don't think we've become a nation of malingerers. | |
| Choosing not to work has become a legitimate option, and that is a problem. | |
| But a lifestyle choice. | |
| You've got to make work. | |
| If I go back to the 1980s, Kevin, you've got to make work pay by lifting the personal tax threshold above the standard threshold for benefits. | |
| Yeah, well, you make work pay by raising wages. | |
| That's how you do it. | |
| It's the same thing. | |
| Exactly. | |
| No money. | |
| We're all going to keep working around this table. | |
| That's it from us anyway. | |
| Wherever you are, whatever you're up to, keep it uncensored. | |
| Good night. | |