now on bbc news, it's time for political thinking with nick robinson. hello and welcome to political thinking. and boy, there is quite a lot of politics to think about, isn't there? all this drama masks a dramatic shift in our politics. it has been sketch may become the conventional wisdom of a night that labour will win the next election. the polling suggests there has been a bigger swing in recent weeks than

there has been during the last financial crisis. that will mean they were pretty soon be much greater scrutiny of what labour will do faced with the same economic fundamentals. high taxes, high borrowing, high inflation and low growth. if labour does indeed win an election, lisa nandy will be the cabinet minister with the job of delivering for what has become known they red wall, northern industrial towns like wigan in lancashire which she represents and which she says has changed her politics, a politics learnt at the knee of her grandfather who was a liberal mp and a father who also is a famous marxist academic. politicalthinking is a conversation with, not a interrogation of someone who shapes our political thinking and today we are recording just down the road from wigan next door to the great city of manchester in the city of

salford. ,., city of manchester in the city of salford. . , u, city of manchester in the city of salford. ., , _, ., salford. lisa nandy, welcome to political thinking. _ salford. lisa nandy, welcome to politicalthinking. hello. - salford. lisa nandy, welcome to politicalthinking. hello. how. salford. lisa nandy, welcome to i politicalthinking. hello. how does it feel being _ politicalthinking. hello. how does it feel being a _ politicalthinking. hello. how does it feel being a political— politicalthinking. hello. how does it feel being a political spectator, l it feel being a political spectator, in effect at this time of extraordinary political crisis. i should stay the —— say this, it's not good started podcasting this, but in some ways it is quite a belief not to be laboured at the centre of the jama. we have had huge political upheaval on our own side —— the centre of the drama. i've not been the party going through that, thatis been the party going through that, that is unified and looking out to the country is a good place to be. when you're part of the politics, which will get to any second, do you also watch open—mouthed and think, my goodness, how is this happening? a bit. we got used to a lot of political drama in the last four years and it has almost become the norm. there is something really extraordinary about what is happening to the conservative party at the moment. when borisjohnson fell, i was sitting on a bus in berlin, we had gone over there to look at what was happening in

germany, how the sdp government is starting to reconstruct the country, to deliver for, starting to reconstruct the country, to deliverfor, as starting to reconstruct the country, to deliver for, as you said starting to reconstruct the country, to deliverfor, as you said in starting to reconstruct the country, to deliver for, as you said in the intro, for those what are known in britain as a red wall industrial coastal communities that have not seen that economic growth and that success in recent years, but actually also how to deliver for the whole country because if you get things working in those places, you get the economy firing on all cylinders and everything starts to work. we are sitting in this bus in berlin, sitting in traffic and we were watching annalisa dodds, our party chair had managed to get a connection and we were watching on her little phone. jonathan ashworth, who is work and pensions, her and myself back at the back of this bus while borisjohnson resigned and the government collapsed and the tories descended into chaos. i suppose it is a bit of a reminder that things can happen very quickly, but i think what has also happened next is a really unprecedented and extraordinary. at the moment, the tories feel a lot like two parties

within one party. that sort of happened to labour a few years ago, but it certainly happening to them now. , . but it certainly happening to them now. . ., now. does it affect you directly in a sense, now. does it affect you directly in a sense. you _ now. does it affect you directly in a sense, you better— now. does it affect you directly in a sense, you better smarten - now. does it affect you directly in a sense, you better smarten up l now. does it affect you directly in - a sense, you better smarten up now, they are going to start talking to me as we are not going to have at the opposition, but the next cabinet secretary on quest might give completely but it may, i walked in here, brush them i sit, needed to smack myself up because we might be in government in a few weeks! it must be curious you, you were born —— smarten myself up. your entire childhood is with the conservatives in government and then you don't get into parliament until 2010, so the whole of that period, then, is spent under a labour government and ever since you have been directly in politics as a member of parliament at least, you're under the tories again. at least, you're under the tories aaain. . , at least, you're under the tories a.ain_ ., , ., at least, you're under the tories aiain_ ., , ., at least, you're under the tories aain. ., , ., again. that is part of the reason i stood for parliament _ again. that is part of the reason i stood for parliament in _ again. that is part of the reason i stood for parliament in 2010 - again. that is part of the reason i - stood for parliament in 2010 because i am from manchester originally,

although i'm tense, tense, towns and everyone knows i spent my teenage years in bury, made my home in wigan, grow up in manchester in the 19805 wigan, grow up in manchester in the 1980s in a very angry divisive time. and i was 17, almost 18, i didn't get to vote, but i was 17 when i saw my first labour government and there was this feeling during that time that progress was inevitable. and if i have learned anything in the recent years, it is if you want a better country, you do have to go out and fight for it every day. that battle is never one. so in 2009, came back to manchester for conservative party conference, is working with child refugees at the time, the conservatives were here, had not seen a lot of conservatives in manchester for a long had not seen a lot of conservatives in manchesterfor a long time, quite an unusual sight, they are absolutely certain they were going to when the next general election, and ijust thought, i got to do something about this. that and i just thought, i got to do something about this. that sense you iot to fi i ht something about this. that sense you got to fight for _ something about this. that sense you got to fight for things _ something about this. that sense you got to fight for things you _ something about this. that sense you got to fight for things you believe - got to fight for things you believe in, did you learn that from your dad? he was an activist as well as

an academic, very important in the history of race relations in this country, the founder of the runnymede trust, for example. do you remember as a child of the fights he had and had to have quest to make it a sort of the stuff of legend in our house and a lot of the stories i think i remember, i don't remember because i was far too young, but when i was little, we had them aside write down the road from when i was growing up. the write down the road from when i was growing urn-— write down the road from when i was growing no— growing up. the demonisation of a lot of people _ growing up. the demonisation of a lot of people in — growing up. the demonisation of a lot of people in that _ growing up. the demonisation of a lot of people in that community, i lot of people in that community, particularly young black men and my dad was a very involved, as was my mum, actually, in trying to turn around the perception of what was happening. there is a story that my mum tells now, my dad occasionally tells it, but my mum normally tells it, about when my dad was... he has a photographer, amateur photographer but good very at it and very into it, he had gone off to take some photographs of what was happening to document it and stuck his nose into a police van and started taking some photos and the police, who were doing some apparently fairly dodgy things, they chased him... looking

at pawn, that is what the legend says, out comes, chased by them, and thatis says, out comes, chased by them, and that is my dad 0liver, does ridiculous things to get the right photo. the police are following him, my mum is blocking them with the come a little baby, and my sister who is a toddler. they get through the house and he is over the fence into the neighbour's garden, over the next fence and goes and hides in the next fence and goes and hides in the neighbour's house until it was over. it was pretty close up, the action was all around us, but it was also... it could have been a very dispiriting time, because you could have looked at a time thought, everything is a rotten, everything is broken. and in some ways, that is partly when i broke faith with the labour party when jeremy was leader because labour party whenjeremy was leader because i'm labour party when jeremy was leader because i'm not labour party whenjeremy was leader because i'm not in labour party when jeremy was leader because i'm not in politics because i hate the tories, although, my goodness, they're making it quite easy at the moment. and in politics

because i believe this country can because i believe this country can be better. i know we can be better and it only happens if everybody —— every generation picks up the pattern invites for it. it’s pattern invites for it. it's interesting _ pattern invites for it. it's interesting you - pattern invites for it. it's interesting you say - pattern invites for it. it's interesting you say that. our young comfortable with the idea that you should say of your opponents, i despise in question like i am, actually. i despise in question like i am, actuall . despise in question like i am, actuall. , ., actually. i was listening to question _ actually. i was listening to question time _ actually. i was listening to question time the - actually. i was listening to question time the other l actually. i was listening to - question time the other night and there was a bit of a debate about it and ifeel i'm... dehumanising people in politics is a really corrosive thing. one of the things my dad taught as an academic as you should meet your opponents at their strongest arguments and defeated, not their weakest, and it is the argument that matter. there are some very good people have some very bad ideas and at the clash of ideas matters. and you should always engage in that level, but i also just think politically it is a bit daft because politics is about persuading people and to keep you witty and a lot of people voted for the conservatives at the last election and the one before and before that and before that and just

writing all those people off as if they are not worthy of consideration just seems to me the wrong approach. it is interesting that you have become identified as not a spokeswoman for, but someone who cares passionately about towns and particularly northern towns, but as you said, you grow up in a city, manchester, where we are broadcasting from here. it is also the case that you lived for quite a while in london, you were a councillor in london. i while in london, you were a councillor in london.- while in london, you were a councillor in london. i went to university _ councillor in london. i went to university in — councillor in london. i went to university in newcastle - councillor in london. i went to university in newcastle as - councillor in london. i went to | university in newcastle as well, councillor in london. i went to - university in newcastle as well, the best years of my life, bar none. mas best years of my life, bar none. was becomini best years of my life, bar none. was becoming mp _ best years of my life, bar none. was becoming mp for _ best years of my life, bar none. was becoming mp for wigan in lancashire that change the way you saw things quest to make your writing a book at the moment question i get starts with the story about making and how we saved wigan athletic. it is with the story about making and how we saved wigan athletic.— we saved wigan athletic. it is about the future of _ we saved wigan athletic. it is about the future of the _ we saved wigan athletic. it is about the future of the country, _ we saved wigan athletic. it is about the future of the country, but - we saved wigan athletic. it is about the future of the country, but it - the future of the country, but it starts with making a0 very particular reason because i am a different person than i i was 12

years ago and that is entirely as a consequence of making my home in wigan, my friends, neighbours, constituents understanding the experiences of people in places that often are not reflected in the political debate. it has completely changed the way i think about not just the country, but the world. it just the country, but the world. it is quite a thing to say you're in a different person, but i can understand your thing, different policy ideas, it has changed my views, but you're seeing something more fundamental than that. yes. views, but you're seeing something more fundamental than that. yes, i think that is — more fundamental than that. yes, i think that is right. _ more fundamental than that. yes, i think that is right. i'm _ more fundamental than that. yes, i think that is right. i'm somebody i think that is right. i'm somebody who grew up in manchester, i come from a fairly middle—class, fairly socially liberal background, i went to university, and in that, i'm quite unlike, not all of my constituents, but if your chunk of my constituency come from a very working class background outside of a major city. many of my other constituents did not go to university, although the younger ones now often do, in no small part thanks to the last labour government. and on a lot of issues,

that have become really big hot button issues for labour —like immigration and social security and human rights, and brexit, quite famously, i have had to find a way of compromising and accommodating and understanding where a lot of my constituents are coming from, as they have had to sort of get use to me and understand where i'm coming from as well. that has made me a different sort of politician, much more consensual, much more interested in negotiating my way through shared challenges and come in turn, i think that has made me a different sort of person. representative democracy is the most awesome thing. when you get elected as a representative, your most can't believe these hundreds of thousands of people you have never met have ticked the box to say you can represent them. of course, they are voting for your party, notjust for you, but they are trusting your judgment because they are not going to monitor everything you do and say. 0n things like going to war, huge major decisions that are going to change their lives and their

family's lives, and when those people do not feel represented at all, notjust by the person who is supposed to represent them, but by the whole political system, that is when the whole system collapses. i still don't think to this day that most of the political... i still don't think the political system, whether it is journalists or politicians understand how close the whole system came to collapse during those brexit years.— whole system came to collapse during those brexit years._ yeah, i those brexit years. collapse? yeah, absolutely- — those brexit years. collapse? yeah, absolutely. defining _ those brexit years. collapse? yeah, absolutely. defining what _ those brexit years. collapse? yeah, absolutely. defining what way. - absolutely. defining what way. peo . le absolutely. defining what way. people felt _ absolutely. defining what way. people felt the _ absolutely. defining what way. people felt the system - absolutely. defining what way. people felt the system had - absolutely. defining what way. i people felt the system had failed absolutely. defining what way. - people felt the system had failed to represent a very long time but was actively working against them blocking change that most people have started to see i was very badly needed. but have started to see i was very badly needed. �* . ., , �* , needed. but that wasn't “ust, fori ive needed. but that wasn't “ust, forgive me. i needed. but that wasn't “ust, forgive me, some i needed. but that wasn't “ust, forgive me, some ofh needed. but that wasn't just, forgive me, some of the - needed. but that wasn't just, l forgive me, some of the issues needed. but that wasn't just, - forgive me, some of the issues that underlay the vote for brexit, was at? it was also the view that and i put it in inverted commas, that the

establishment did not want to listen to the people who voted to leave, were doing everything in their power to overturn that, whether it was through parliament, through the supreme court, whether it was through campaigns any media. it sort of sense that we were given the vote, then people did not listen to the vote because we voted the wrong way. the vote because we voted the wrong wa . �* the vote because we voted the wrong wa , i , . ., the vote because we voted the wrong wa. ., way. brexit became the catalyst for all this, but — way. brexit became the catalyst for all this, but it _ way. brexit became the catalyst for all this, but it was _ way. brexit became the catalyst for all this, but it was not _ way. brexit became the catalyst for all this, but it was not really - all this, but it was not really about the european union, it was about the european union, it was about a political system, an economic model that was not delivering for people in the political system that told them they were stupid, dinosaurs, they were racist, this is progress and they either got on board i got out of the way. ijust remember on the day of the referendum, leafleting in wigan town centre and it was a pretty awful experience because we were leafleting for remain in a town where people had pretty much made up their minds and that they were definitely going to vote leave in large numbers, if they're the people voted remain, two thirds voted

leave. this guy came up and said, it will not make any difference anyway. i said it absolutely well, this is one of the few elections we have what actually does count. he said, no, because they will never do it, whatever they say, they will not do it, they will do whatever we want —— whatever they want anyway. i said him, you're wrong, you have to think about this carefully. years later when we were going round in circles, i cannot stop thinking about the guy and i thought, you're right, actually. i wasn't in favour of the first referendum... i think the added economic trade—off against a political trade—off, you will either do damage to your economics system or your political system. it was an awful place for us collectively as politicians have got the country into but we had. i thought the

mandate was for compromise. but i think that is now widely accepted because the country wants to move on. now, what is the connection between that, where you said you begin your book, which is the rescue 0f wigan athletic. now we're not on football, so we're not going to get into the structures of it. but what i hope you're not going to tell me about your side. no, i've literally i mean, i still have no understanding. i go to the football, but i have no understanding whatsoever of what i'm watching on the pitch, and i've never pretended to. and i'll tell you, 12 years in elected politics, and i've never seen anything as truly frightening and rotten as some of the things

no, you did rescue it or you were part of rescue, but with a foreign owner. yeah. now, some people think its foreign ownership that is killing football because it is dissociating football's community from the people who actually own clubs. yeah, we fought really hard and we came together and we had to do some fairly extraordinary things and call in a lot of favours from some very good people in high places.

but most of all, what i learnt from that experience is that the system is tilted in favour of people who want to come in and make a quick buck they want to take and extract and in many instances end up destroying, perhaps not by design, but they're quite cavalier about whether they do or not. and it's tilted away from the people who are in it for the long haul, who have skin in the game. those are the people actually. they're the great untapped asset in our country. and we saw that when we saved the club. these are the people that will work harder and try harder and do more and think more creatively to make things work because they've got no choice, because it matters so much. and the way that it informed my politics really was that it made me understand that we've got to tilt the system back in favour of those people instead of.. just to be clear, you're not

having a conversation purely about football here. no. you're saying this is a symbol of the way the economy works? yeah, absolutely. so, you know, when you're the person who's sitting in your community watching ropey landlords from other parts of the world or other parts of the country, coming in and buying up large swathes of the housing stock and creaming off the housing benefit and running the housing stock down and treating the tenants badly and ruining the local community, the power should be in your hands, not theirs, to do something about it. is this levelling up labour style? yeah, but it's notjust about local. so it starts local because that's where you find people in every place in this country who are going to go out and fight for their communities and build and invest and create for the long term. but that means that the national system has to change. i mean, you know, you talked about the foreign owner of wigan athletic who is incredibly popular in the town. he's our chairman, he's over all the time from bahrain. he's become an honorary wiganer. he's always posting about pies

on his twitter account. but it's more than that, he's given a commitment to the town, that he's in it for the long haul and that he cares about what happens there. and that taught me that it's not that local is good and national or global is bad, it's that we need national government to stop doing everybody else's job, micromanaging millions of decisions in communities that it has no clue about. and we need it to start doing its ownjob, which is tilting the balance of power back towards those people at global, at national and at local level. what do you say to someone listening to this who might say this is all hopelessly romantic. it's about saving a football club. actually, what matters, whether it is, as you say, wigan or it's great yarmouth down south, it's just straightforward economics. the truth is there are not the jobs, there is not the wealth, and labour will confront all the same fundamental problems that the tories are suddenly wrestling with at the moment, which is you've got a low—growth economy with high inflation, high taxes and high borrowing, and so if you were put in office like that, you don't instantly have a solution to levelling up any more than they do. someone asked me this question.

i went to a conference in halifax run by the tory think tank 0nward, who did a lot of work with michael gove and andy haldane on levelling up and said, why will you succeed when for 100 years nobody has? you know, whether you call it regeneration, localism, levelling up, regional inequality. and my answer is that this is not a regional or a local issue. this is a national issue. for 19 of the last 20 years, only two regions, london and the south east, have had the investment and the backing from the government to put more into the public purse and they take out. everybody else has effectively been put by government into a state of managed decline and the country can't succeed like that. i mean, you all know this from london that, you know, a million kids move to london every year to try and find higher wages. i was one of them all those years ago. and you do find them. you find better opportunities and higher wages, but you also find that half of your disposable income is taken up with housing costs and that you can't get on the housing ladder and you can't get

a gp appointment. we've written off the potential of people and places in every part of this country and we just can't go on like that. now another big question that will be asked of labour in the weeks and months to come is, to put it crudely, but it's one of the most powerful questions in politics — whose side are you on? you did go on a picket line, you did stand with bt workers back in the summer. and yet keir starmer seems to be saying to people like, you, don't go on a picket line. look, this all got very blown up into a sort of ongoing row between labour people about picket lines. but actually, i don't think you can put a piece of paper between me and keir on this. he doesn't think that we should be out picketing. that's not our job. and i agree with him. when i went down to meet the bt workers, it was just simply to say hello, listen to what they've what they were dealing with here about the dispute, see what i could do to help. i met with the royal mail workers,

but we did it not on a picket line because we were able to do it in their office on a non—striking day. the point is this is that ourjob is to understand what is happening and then go out and solve it. in government, we would solve it by sitting down with them and negotiating our way through what is a shared challenge that you know, especially when you're in the public sector, there isn't a lot of money around. inflation has gone through the roof and people are not being paid enough and they need a pay rise. now, that is a difficult square to circle or circle to square, but the only way you do it is by talking. ican i can see the subtlety of what you're saying. but in opposition, ourjob is notjust to go around with placards saying this is terrible. 0urjob is to get into parliament and drag ministers to the dispatch box in order to hold them to account for it. it's what i did with michael gove about local government. with some of the only people in the country who have the power to do that. and keir�*s point, which i fundamentally agree with, is that we should be doing ourjob so that they can get back

to doing theirs. now, i was reading the other day that you are ferociously competitive. no. is this true? no, absolutely not. your son's recent sports day, you went for the adult sprint. well, what else are you going to go for? corssed the line with a dad who works as a professional sports trainer. yeah, i was pretty pleased with that. if you're in it, you're in it to win it. otherwise it, why take up space? i'm told that board games are banned in lisa nandy�*s house. little bit. yeah. why? i've had to learn to tone it down a bit. i've now got a child who is of nintendo switch age and i've had to learn to just be a little bit more zen in my defence. i think there is something quite important about this. i learnt this from my mum, is that when you set your sights on something, if you know that it's the right thing to do, you should go for it and you should be all in. and in fact that's the title

of my new book, all in, because i think it's only by being all in that you actually grab hold of things and change them. and i'm not really in politics for sort of, you know, tinkering around the edges. i think we really do need to change things and that means you've got to go for it. and when i stood to be leader of the labour party, it was always a long shot. of course it was. but we didn't do it by half measures because we felt it was so important and so much was at stake. and sometimes i look at politics in the way that we talk about things and it's celebrated that men go out and fight for what they want and don't compromise and take no prisoners, and yet women are sort of apologetic for it. and i guess i'm sort of saying to you today, i'm not apologetic about it. i'm ambitious for this country. i'm ambitious for my constituents and my community, and i'm going to go out and fight for it. so we'll put you down for the next leadership contest. oh, god. in 20 years' time when we've been in government, we've sorted all this mess out, i'm fairly sure that i will be allowed to retire at that point and go around terrorising other kids with board games. that's my plan. one final serious question.

you didn't look like you enjoyed it very much, running for the leader. it was one of the most stressful times that i've, one of most stressful decisions i've ever made, i think. and the reason was i felt there was so much at stake. i thought if we turned up and said, corbyn, ten out of ten. brexit ten out of ten, labour ten out of ten. we just need to put our foot on the gas and do more. i thought we'd make a decisive break with people in every community in this in every region who had built this party and had lost faith with us. i didn't think there would be any way back, and so win or not win, it felt very much like a small group of us trying to turn the ship away from the rocks. i think we did that, actually, and i think keir has really run with that over the last few years. and it's been an absolute pleasure, actually, to be part of a team that is trying again not to fix the labour party because we've done

that, it's to fix the country. lisa nandy, thanks forjoining me on political thinking. thank you. it is one of the great cliches of politics that governments lose elections and oppositions don't win them. like most cliches, there's a lot of truth in it, but not entirely. labour had to change to have a prospect of winning, but they've done something else as well — quite consciously said very little about what they'll do in power, not come up with a great policy perspective. pretty soon people will want answers to the questions we've just been exploring. if you are living in an economy with low growth and high tax and high borrowing and high inflation, how on earth will labour help the sorts of people it's committed to help? thanks for watching.

hello. for those of you who've had a wet and blustery saturday, sunday looks to be drier with some sunshine. this is the area of low pressure responsible for saturday's rain and gusty winds, only slowly pulling away north and eastwards through the evening and overnight. behind it, a quieter spell of weather for much of sunday, before our next system arrives from the southwest. back to tonight, still plenty of showers around, especially for northern ireland, scotland and northern england. further south, still some showers around at first, they'll tend to fade as the night wears on with some clearer spells developing. temperatures in range from 6—9 celsius, so we're frost free, although some rural parts of scotland could fall a few degrees lower. so for much of sunday, it's looking mainly dry with some sunshine. i say "for much of sunday" because there will be some rain arriving from the southwest through the afternoon and also some showers in the morning across northern ireland,

scotland and northern england. they'll soon be out of the way, then dry with plenty of sunshine for the uk before the cloud starts to build from the south and the southwest, eventually pushing rain into southern and southwestern counties of england, wales and northern ireland through the afternoon. still some noticeable wind strengths, particularly along irish sea coasts and the northern isles. but the winds not nearly as strong as they have been on saturday, and temperatures on a par with saturday afternoon, 11—13 celsius for the north of the uk and 1a—18 celsius further south. then that band of rain continues on its journey, gradually north and eastwards through sunday evening and overnight. most of us will see a spell of sometimes heavy rain all tied in with this area of low pressure, which is still with us on monday. slow to clear from scotland. so we're likely to keep some rain here, and potentially first thing on monday as well, some cloud and rain slow to clear from the south east of england and east anglia, but behind it, for many on monday, mainly dry, plenty of sunshine, but still those showers lingering across a large swathe of scotland

with some gusty winds as well. temperatures on monday still in the mid to high teens for much of england and wales, 11—13 celsius for scotland and northern ireland. then from tuesday and into wednesday, tuesday looks to be a quieter day, but i'm sure you can see this next system arriving in from the atlantic as we head into wednesday. so it's a drier start to the week with a good deal of sunshine for many on both monday and tuesday before some rain arrives midweek, and with it, some stronger winds. bye— bye.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. there's been a huge fire at a prison in iran's capital tehran — where hundreds of political prisoners — and dozens of dual nationals are held. as the uk prime minister fights for herjob — the new chancellor signals... major changes to her economic policy. in northern turkey, at least a1 coal miners have been killed in an underground explosion. president erdogan promises an investigation during a visit of the scene. translation: of course we will find out how this explosion happened, i and if there are any people responsible for it with the prosecutions, which have already started. and astronomers have detected what might be the most powerful

flash of light ever seen.