is three weddings, is this like three hen dos and stag dos? as we're getting them ready for it. this is three funerals. 0h, charming! well, we're about to talk about the sort of misery of keir starmer's tone and message. let's not start like that! um, yeah, sojo'sjust given a spoiler away about what this episode is going to be. we thought, why don't we look at the return of politics, but we'll look at it through the lens of everything that keir starmer has been doing this week. and because we can't do anything without a gimmick, we thought we would do it using oasis song lyrics, and commiserations to anyone this morning who has failed to get oasis tickets. does that include you, paddy, by the way? no, i'm in the group that i wish we'd stop talking about oasis tickets after this podcast. 0h, 0k! jo, did you try and get oasis tickets? of course i didn't. i'm just not determined enough. i mean, there are friends of mine who, in a group, like a massive group with their laptops, nine of them. like a call centre. yes, poised. i don't actually know if they were successful or not.

i sort of think of you as like oasis era. it is my era. let's not talk about my age too much. but, yes, i did like them back in the '90s. and, of course, i mean as a political correspondent, i mean, it was probably before your time, though, tony blair in that downing street reception. sadly, it wasn't before my time. it was just as i entered into politics on that wave of cool britannia. you can see me, can't you, cool britannia? well, you've got very cool glasses today. right, so let's get back to the gimmick. so, keir starmer did a big speech on tuesday in the downing street garden, and we're using the oasis song lyric don't look back in anger to describe this section. and here is a little bit of keir starmer looking back, kind of in anger. there is a budget coming in october, _ and it's going to be painful. we have no other choice given the situation that we're in. - and, paddy, i mean,

that really is the theme coming from keir starmer this week and the week before and the week before that, which is like the next few months are not going to be particularly rosy. yes, i'm lucky to be listening along with radio 4 listeners tojo in a moment with political analysis, but cropping up last week in a general discussion on broadcasting house of people drawn from across the national conversation is a feeling that it's fine to offer hope. this is what kamala harris is doing. it is not what keir starmer is doing. and prime ministers, if you read the books, there's some very good ones on the last ten prime ministers, they have to give us a tune to hum. they have to take us to the shining city on the hill. keir starmer may be very well advised to read the commentary i've seen in the statesman, the spectator. george osborne's been out on his podcast saying there's nothing wrong with a little bit of hope. i totally agree with paddy and actually it's really interesting that echoes across the water in america. kamala harris has

completely embraced that, and i was talking to a couple of labour insiders about, you know, is there enough pain being talked about now that is going to overshadow the beginning of this labour government? but look, it's early days, it's two months in, they would say we are trying to not just lay the blame for what's gone before at the doors of the previous conservative government, they want to show seriousness, they want to show a sombre approach to government. well, they're doing that extremely well. remember, no legislation has been passed. um, you know, the the the parliament broke up before the summer recess with one single announcement, which is why it's attracted so much attention. and that, of course, was about stopping the universal winter fuel payments. um, we are going to see a lot more of the shape of this government in the run up to that budget, but only after party conferences.

so the idea of hope and optimism, i think, has been slightly postponed until we get over those next few what i would call choreographed hurdles. but i totally agree with you that they need to be a little bit careful, and that might be why the approval ratings have gone down. people want to see and feel the change. they're not going to see and feel it in a few months, but they want something to look forward to. but what this does is firmly place the blame on their predecessors, and that anything that improves — the tories would say the the economy is already improving — will look better. but paddy, the irony of george osborne advising them to be less miserable when in fact this is the george osborne playbook from 2010 where you spent basically the first, what year, 18 months of your government blaming the last law for creating a mess? yeah, but it worked. it worked, and also it wasn't a year, it was ten years. i mean, iwould have been able to retire if i'd had a pound for we fixed the roof when the sun was shining.

so, i mean, no—one's saying it's not a strategy that doesn't work. i mean, it could work to blame the tories until he eventually leaves office. it is worth remembering the differences between '97 and 2024, which is the popular vote. tony blair got 43% of the popular vote and keir starmer got 33 and change. so, actually, there's been a lot of punishment delivered to the conservative party by the voter. keir starmer has got to behave like prime minister, not like he's campaigning. and that means he's got to take us all with him and he can'tjust preach doom from his pulpit, say those who've watched this roll before, jo, not me. yes, i have watched it. the difference is, is palpable. they were masters of the universe in 1997. it was all about optimism. the economy was on the rise as they came in. this is and feels completely different. there is growth. there is tory growth.

absolutely. but they want to be able to sort of own that when it comes. but for them at the moment, theyjust want to look back in anger, to use your oasis analogy. and they want to sit with that for a little while because they felt it worked so well in 2010. they really, really saw the success of that. they will become a sort of pivot point, if you like. but i also think it's keir starmer's style a little bit more. i mean, there is a sort of personal, it is a little bit technocratic. and look, paddy, there are a lot of labour mps who think he's being too timid and cautious, even in these early months because of the size of the majority. but a 34% vote share is sitting on his shoulder too. it's interesting talking about keir starmer's personal style and then contrasting that with kamala harris. because you think about it, kamala harris loves going to a giant basketball stadium and getting the crowd chanting no going back and the coconut memes. keir starmer's favourite thing to do was to go

to a non—league football club and sit in the empty stands and kick a ball around. it's like we're not the same country, he's not the same person, it's not the same style. but another great distinction is that keir starmer exposes himself to journalistic scrutiny. and kamala harris, you have to drag her to a microphone. and she eventually went with her wingman. so, i mean, look, this is not a podcast where one of the members of the team is criticising the prime minister. in analysing things can only get worse, comma, pat mcfadden appeared on last sunday and he himself contrasted it with things can only get better. i think it's very fair at the end of six days to say that we've seen the cut of theirjib. they're smashing us on the chops with tory failure, disaster, catastrophe, nightmare, it's all appalling, i can't believe it, it's awful. but it is proven that the british public do expect a prime minister to laugh. now, i'm sorry if that scene is impartial, but that is what the british public like to see. oh, but i'm allowed to laugh.

yes, and they need a smile probably. but maybe over the next few months we will see a little bit more, i don't know about laughing, but we will see a little bit more about their priorities. but i suppose there is a sense of honesty. there are a couple of things i have an issue with, in terms of some of the things that they have had to react to. one is the the rows over cronyism, for example, because labour have wanted to paint themselves as completely different to their predecessors — the madness is gone, we are going to be honest, we're going to be transparent. and i think they've been slightly surprised... now i make nojudgement about the veracity of the story itself, but i think they've been slightly surprised that there's been a little bit of pushback or quite a lot of pushback, and they have had to deal with it as a distraction and as a diversion from their sombre, serious approach to government, which i don't think they were completely expecting. what's interesting about that whole so—called cronyism row is it's not been driven by the opposition. it's not the conservatives or the liberal democrats

who are really pushing it, although they have jumped on the bandwagon now. it's been other people. it's been the newspapers and former advisers to to former conservative ministers who've been driving it. and so it's just an interesting little case study in where, where opposition might come from in the next few years, especially if you've got a tory party that feels quite weak. and especially if you put sue gray in downing street, what would sue gray ethics queen have made of bunging a load of old donors in when you're actually in government. when you say we're not making a judgment, we are allowed to say what perception looks like. and there's what the what it looks like is they've got an investigation coming. that's what it looks like. yes, and of course, i think they would say in response, apart from it being a diversion that they didn't particularly want to deal with, the real risk to them is not looking the same as the last lot. if you want to distinguish yourself and you want to sort of hold yourself up... look, tony blair did that in 1997, didn't he,

when he first came in, and then he ran into the bernie ecclestone affair, if you remember, at the time, and that he sort of said i'm an ordinary kind of guy afterwards. "most people think i'm a pretty straight sort a2of guy," was the quote. well done you! and you weren't even there in '97. i was alive, i could read! paddy, on your point about keir starmer opening himself up to scrutiny and doing a press conference, taking questions in a way that kamala harris hasn't, jo, ijust wondered what you thought about the fact that keir starmer did this thing where he turned up, stood at the lectern, did a speech touching on about 12 different news stories that had unfolded over the previous few weeks, and then took a load of questions. that sort of reminded me of tony blair's monthly press conference. do you remember? oh, i do, and they were great. and they'd go on for about two hours. and, actually, david cameron did a few of those. well, he started and then he stopped. but the classic case with those, i mean, this is sorry, a little bit sort of self—indulgent for a moment, but when you're the journalist

that isn't called in the first few and all your questions are being asked and you're trying to think, what else can i ask you? _ but it does mean you can ask anything you like. it's refreshing, i think, and a good test of whether they can stand that scrutiny. i mean, i think for kamala harris, um, it's probably, according to her critics, better if she's not put under the sort of sustained... i mean, i don't know, but the sort of sustained questioning, which is why it's better to focus on hope and optimism. um, the main word, though, in that clip of keir starmer that we played a couple of minutes ago was about was "painful," like painful choices, painful decisions. obviously, the big moment of like plaster ripping off is going to be the budget on the 30th october. do you have any guesses for what some of the pain might look like or? well, yes, ithink there's going to be quite a bit of pain. you have to remember what they said during the election campaign. and the conservatives are particularly aggrieved, saying they were always intended to put up taxes and

so on and so forth. i think there are labour people congratulating themselves about how disciplined they were during the campaign, and the wisdom of that about not letting anything if they did know indeed what they were going to be doing, not letting anything be leaked or come out or give any impression that they were going to have this sort of pain in the budget. i think they'll look at pensions. i think they could look at inheritance tax, they could look at equalising capital gains to income tax. all those things are possible. and remember, the key words is we are not going to put up those three main taxes on working people. but that doesn't mean either people who don't work or there could be other taxes that working people might pay that could go up. i mean, these are always the sort of slightly weasel words that are used and put out there because they do need some wriggle room. but, i mean, i have to say, adam, paul johnson, whom we rely on heavily at the institute for fiscal studies, saying they've actually boxed themselves in by not saying that they would raise those three taxes. if they had, would they have won the election? i don't know. i mean, ifeel very, sort of

much that i've heard everything from the ifs, and they're not actually the government, are they? no. i mean, you sometimes listen to radio four and you mistake yourself for thinking i voted as a voter for pauljohnson, but i didn't. and a budget is a political event, i'm sorry.- but i really don't want your calculator and your abacus to forget the british people. she will have to have a sense of history. she's the first female chancellor. i want to see a moment that rises to history as a voter. so i want a rabbit in her hat. i know she's going to. i've already been told she's got a club in her hat, but she's going to have to have if she wants to read what other chancellors have done. ever since there's been a red briefcase, she's going to have to have a rabbit in the hat. so she's obviously going to have a surprise on october 30th that will flatter the voter. that's obviously coming. and you left that off your list, jo, because you've been drinking the poison. ok, well, hopefully

the poison doesn't kick in. ifeel our gimmick of sticking to keir starmers week and linking it with oasis lyrics is in danger of dying out. so let's get back to it. so on wednesday, he was in berlin and then went to paris. and we're using the oasis album. definitely maybe to describe his approach to, well, renegotiating is probably putting it a bit too strongly the relationship between the uk and the eu, or in this case specifically the eu member of germany. let's listen to him in berlin. when it comes to the wider reset with europe, - i'm absolutely clear- that we do want a reset. i've been able to repeat that here today. - a reset with europe. a reset with the eu. that does not mean reversing brexit or re—entering - the single market or— the customs union, but it does mean a closer relationship on a number of fronts. - so, yeah, presumably you heard the word reset about 1500 times there. are they looking are they looking for a reset?

i don't think they are. um, i'm fascinated by the manoeuvres going on because say it in german. but i won't do any more in german. um, probably couldn't do it correctly. keir starmer sees his path to resetting the relationship with the eu through berlin and with olaf schultz. obviously they come from the same sort of wing of politics, although the german chancellor has got elections or there are going to be elections coming up in a year, but nobody is talking about renegotiating in the sort of way we might have thought about it when the brexit negotiations were going on. nobody is talking about freedom of movement, even with that youth mobility scheme there. they're talking about security. they're talking about trade and they're talking about defence. and purists would say, well, none of those things can change

dramatically unless you re—enter some part of the eu system. well, there are things that can be done and you can reset and improve relations over time. labour think they can without giving too much away. but adam will know better than me that brussels is where the sort of decisions are made about changing any of the sort of bilateral relations, they're not going to change their infrastructure, so i will be fascinated to see where this pathway ends and what labour can this labour government can actually get out of it. one also paddy, just think back to those brexit days and how many times theresa may went to berlin to have like moments with with angela merkel, who was then the chancellor, as an attempt to get germany to sway the rest of the eu when it came to the brexit negotiations. and and it never worked. so i just wonder, like actually everyone's

everyone's maybe getting a little bit too excited. and people are kind of about about about this, this romance that there was in berlin this week. well, i takejo's point that brussels is the one that does the big negotiations, not olaf unilaterally. but i remember dear rishi from ursula von der leyen with the windsor framework agreement, and there was a tonal reset then after the bruising era of the brexit negotiations. so i think that there can be tonally and style wise, there can be a flash of the ankle and i'm supported in that by the french press, which i was looking at, which did describe it in the last few days as an effort by the british to show hello. so that's how the french are reporting. and they've got a lot to worry about themselves. they haven't got a government, as far as i can see. no, they're still literally in limbo in terms of progress there. no, i agree with you, paddy. i think there is a lot that can be done, and i think

there is willingness on both sides. i'll be interested to see what sort of concrete proposals actually develop or come out from it. but again, inside labour, in the parliamentary party, they'd they'd like to see more than ankle being shown. they'd like to see a little bit more because they feel that, you know, the government's in a strongish position, that anything that unlocks smoother trade, that perhaps no, not freedom of movement, but a youth mobility scheme, perhaps ease of travel. you know, we've got these visas coming in in the autumn that you'll have to get to travel as a third country into the eu. anything that might soften any of those, why not go for it on higher education, the erasmus scheme. these sorts of issues are certainly being taught. these sorts of issues are certainly being talked about. but all those things, all those things will take ages because they take ages, because the eu has to get its ducks in a row in terms of what it wants to negotiate. and that's why i'm a little bit sceptical about how much progress.

yeah, and my obsession, and this is where i get very dweeby is just about how this, this will all be structured, because you can see the uk wants to do it bit by bit by bit, but the eu will want to maximise their leverage, which will be to join it all up and say, well, you want this veterinary agreement that will make it easier to export uk food and drink products to the continent and vice versa. but their price might be spanish students being able to come to the uk and pay the same price as uk students pay in fees, and the eu will try to bundle that up in a way to maximise their leverage, which will minimise the leverage of the uk. and also, there's another tonal point going on, an existential moment for all of us in europe, which is the ukraine war. we've talked before with expert bbc colleagues about british tanks rolling across the border into russia. words i thought i'd never hear, let alone speak. and this does triangulate the european living together. because we are democrats, and we are people who are in the strong alliance in nato. and also we have been in and out of the eu. we know all of that stuff. but we are faced with

a with a man who has been killing his rivals and who has increasingly a dictator for the last decade, as we've discussed. so that does help us define who we are and what we've got in common. true. but then if you go back to my dweeby point about negotiations, ok, one of the big strong cards the uk has to play is defence, but the eu doesn't really do defence, so you can't play defence investment and stuff and advice and expertise and troops and weapons systems whatever. and bae system, it's against the eu to get access on trade. so you can you can make it easier to trade because the eu doesn't really do defence. i'm going to defend our gimmick of doing keir starmer's week through the medium of of oasis lyrics. we're now onto thursday, when it was cigarettes and alcohol, specifically cigarettes. my starting point. on this is to remind everyone that over 80,000| people lose their lives every

year because of smoking. that's a preventable death. it's a huge burden on the nhs, and of course it's a burden - on the taxpayer. so, yes, we are going to take decisions in this space. - more details will be| revealed, but this is a preventable series of deaths, and we've got to take - the action to reduce the burden on the nhs and reduce - the burden on the taxpayer. what he was responding to there was the front page of the sun on thursday, which said that the action the government was looking at was extending the smoking ban from indoors in public venues like pubs and things like that into outdoors as well, so you wouldn't be able to smoke in a beer garden or perhaps in the smoking area of a nightclub behind those fences and on the street. um, joe, the thing that surprised me about that was actually just the chronology of the story, because quite often you get these things leaked to newspapers and people go, oh, it's just kite flying. they're testing the waters to see what the reaction is. this doesn't mean they're actually going to do this. but then two hours later, starmer was in paris talking to henry zeifman confirmed it. it's like, oh, it's happening. i was slightly taken aback by it, really.

it's going to make a brilliant discussion point on politics live next week because it's got... well, i might as well do one. i'll do another one later. um, because it brings together politics, sort of culture, health, prevention, all of these issues depending on which angle you want to take. but it took me by surprise because ijust thought, why, why, why sort of embed yourself in this particular issue? because the first thing that popped into my mind is i thought that was rishi sunak's legacy, not this particular thing, but to do with smoking so that the younger generation wouldn't be legally allowed to buy cigarettes. i then wondered, is it to do with their health prevention strategy. is it to do with their general approach of we are going to sort of try and build a healthier nation to try and put less cost and burden on the nhs, invest more into public health. but this is a pretty direct way of doing it. i noticed already, of course, there have been up in arms on the sort of libertarian side and freedom, but i also heard a discussion on another

radio programme about, well, absolutely, it's the right thing to do. why should people be allowed to smoke outside and disturb people's enjoyment of sitting, having their meal, sitting in a pub garden, for example. but on the other hand, drinking is also quite a serious sort of social ill, if you like. but it's legal. it costs the nhs a lot of money. you can be a little prurient about these sorts of things, so i'm interested in the motivation and what politicians of all stripes will say. it's interesting for me because for my whole life as a politicaljournalist, governments of whatever colour have said, oh, we need to invest more in prevention because the way you protect the nhs going forward is by fewer people getting ill. and always up till now it's been like, oh, let's encourage people to walk more or like let's have gyms and playgrounds so that people do exercise. then you realise, well, actually that's nibbling around the edges of health, of prevention. actual real prevention with teeth is banning people smoking

in pubs fullstop. and you suddenly realise once the rubber hits the road on prevention, it's maybe a bit tougher than than some of the language. totally. i mean, wasn't he going to walk a bit lighter on my life? he used the expression we want... now you're better at the exact words he did. he he did use a phrase that said we want the government to. no, no, no. he said politics will tread more lightly on your lives. in other words, there'll be less of the brexit shenanigans and people backstabbing each other for the leadership. but interesting though, because it depends what people will have heard. people will have heard different versions of it. no, but it is quite an important distinction because it wasn't suddenly about bigger state. i mean, we've had quite a big state, obviously, post the pandemic for all the reasons we know. i asked a question about this of labour politicians at the time, what did he mean by that? and it was about this idea that we're not going to allow

all the frivolity and the sort of culture wars that existed before, we're not going to let that tread heavily in people's lives. our last keir starmer moment of the week with an oasis lyric attached, it was going to be a slide away, a lesser known song, but it does reflect the fact that keir starmer has slid away a portrait of margaret thatcher from his study in downing street. paddy, do you think that moment was as significant as the daily mail newspaper would have us believe, by putting it on the front page? no, my answer is no, because you asked me, but only because i heard the man who painted the portrait on the today programme, and he said it's entirely up to the downing street where they move it, i painted it. they move it, i painted it, it can go wherever it likes in downing street usefully reminding us that the prime minister must be allowed power to put pictures around downing street. you know, to voters who love mrs thatcher, her portrait is still there. so, i mean, you asked me a direct question. i know i don't feel the same, but i don't mean that i don't feel

the pain of people who love margaret thatcher and want to see her respected. keir starmer appeared on bbc�*s praising the status of margaret thatcher. that happened in my lifetime and i spoke to him. yeah. and it was a big moment. but i've seen a lot of people who love the labour party, who are listeners of ours as well, and they say this is an example, they've only been in for eight weeks, and we've got to be horrified about the moving of a picture. get over yourself. when you look at the last 11; years. what i want to know is, was this put out proactively by labour people as a little message. so sort of the reverse of when gordon brown became prime minister and invited margaret thatcher in for tea. probably. um, you know, it's all about messaging, isn't it? and it's all about the impression you want to give. it's not the daily mail's big exclusive sort of double page spread. we've got 40s to do some previews. paddy, preview broadcasting house tomorrow. well, let's not play any sound. i did bring some, but i think time is catching up with us. but we will be previewing the grenfell report. i've been to meet people who survived the dagenham blaze. that'll be on tomorrow morning. and jo, politics live is back on monday. yay! we'll be doing keir starmer.

you could do it with oasis lyrics. um, two pieces of legislation that will be as it unfolds. pieces of legislation? well, there is the one that rachael reeves will use. it's slightly symbolic. it's about not being able to do what liz truss and kwasi kwarteng did present a budget without it having sort of oversight and public ownership of the rail. and that's the end of the newscast.

live from london. this is bbc news health workers in gaza begin vaccinating babies against polio , a day before a mass immunisation campaign is due to start. it stays with them all their lives _ a woman and man die from injuries suffered at the notting hill carnival. police open two murder investigations. tickets for the oasis reunion tour are officially sold out , as fans complain about tech trouble and a surge in prices. and the american rapper

fatman scoop dies after collapsing on stage during a performance. palestinian health workers in gaza have started vaccinating some babies against polio, a day before a mass immunisation programme is due to begin. palestinian health workers carried out the vaccinations in nasser hospital in khan younis. unicef says the vaccinations will take place for six and a half hours every day until wednesday. israel and hamas have agreed to three localised pauses in fighting to enable the vaccination of more than 600,000 palestinian children. the parents of the first two children to be vaccinated at the hospital in khan younis both expressed their relief. translation: i was worried and afraid because this is scary, - the polio disease. it makes children not able to move or drink and it's stays with them all their life.

this is scary.