>>a >> a very good morning to you. happy christmas and welcome to the camilla tominey show today with me tom harwood filling in for camilla. now parliament might well be in recess now for christmas, but that doesn't mean it's been a quiet week in westminster. no, the leader of the house of commons, lucy powell, will join me to talk about keir starmer appointing lord mandelson as the uk's new ambassador to the us and the 30 bills she's putting before parliament. also, the shadow secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities,

kevin hollinrake, will join me. i'll ask him to reflect on kemi badenoch first few weeks in charge. former conservative minister for migration tom pursglove will join me to reflect on the year in politics and spokesman for republicans overseas uk, jonathan ewing, will reflect on a momentous year in us politics as we look forward and what we can look forward and what we can look forward to in 2025. plus, the pollster and founder of electoral calculus, martin baxter, will be here. we'll be taking a look at the polling around reform uk. is there rise real and can the party continue that growth into the new year? but before all of that, delighted to be joined by the former labour adviser matthew lazor, who's joining me, of course, to look through the sunday.

>> good morning. >> good morning. >> very good morning to you. >> very good morning to you. >> how are you? >> how are you? >> you you're surprisingly well, actually. >> good. >> good. >> we're this close to christmas. >> you're not too stressed? >> you're not too stressed? >> not too stressed. but. >> not too stressed. but. >> but let's be serious for a second. because, of course, one issue dominating most of the front pages tonight. >> and that is the awful events in germany. >> absolutely. i mean, i think now the, you know, as the sort of immediate shock dissipates, it's more kind of anger. i think, you know, clearly in germany and across the globe about what has happened. i think people are asking two questions, really, it seems . one, how could really, it seems. one, how could this happen in terms of the security measures that were taken, which obviously has implications for other countries, not least ourselves? so in terms of how you protect events like christmas markets and other large gatherings. and then the second question really is, you know, is were warnings listened to? and, you know, what are the kind of intelligence implications to be learned from from this attack? and it seems to be emerging on the latter

that saudi arabia gave the guy was a saudi citizen. the guy who's been arrested and charged as a saudi citizen is a saudi citizen. he's a critic of the saudi government. his social media is a mixture, sort of starts off with criticisms of the saudi government and quite a lot of criticism critics out there of the saudi government, not an issue in itself. but then rampages into the worrying and then the frankly, sort of bizarre in terms of him prophesizing his own death and also indicating that, you know, that he thinks that germany is being overtaken by islam. indeed, the whole west is being overtaken by islam. so obviously, when it when it first happened, i think everybody assumed from early reports that this would be a radical islamist attack. and it clearly is from a rather different perspective. >> yes. now, i must say that we're looking at live pictures now of the scene, people still laying flowers, a huge bed of flowers there. >> but we saw the chancellor out yesterday, didn't we? >> we did indeed. five dead, 200 injured. i mean, the scale of

this is vast, but there are serious questions to answer. as you've been saying, it appears as though saudi arabia warned germany about this. individual and journalists have been looking through his social media accounts, posts from him saying the suspect this is saying that he expected to be dead within the year and that he needed to do things to, to end the german government. >> absolutely. so i think there are there are very big questions, first of all, about whether or not saudi arabia is listened to. obviously, you know, we have critics here in london, many critics here in london, many critics here in london of the saudi government, particularly in a place of refuge. that's one thing. it's another thing when they appear to be threatening the state, which is giving them which is which is giving them which is which is giving them which is which is giving them host. so, you know, was there too much scepticism towards warnings from the saudi government because people worried about the authoritarian nature of the saudi government, and then also just a basic if he was on a track list, why wasn't his social media account being monitored because of accounts being monitored? because, as you say, he was clearly saying that

he was expecting to die, which is obviously a big a big red flag. i think the issue now in germany, as the immediate shock goes, is the political consequences we saw, as we said, the chancellor, laying flowers yesterday with other cabinet ministers and the regional president. but we have a german election coming up in february. initially, of course, you know, everybody's famous saying, oh, this is this is the benefit of the afd. will the afd surge in the afd. will the afd surge in the polls? the sort of this is the polls? the sort of this is the radical right party, which is which is anti—islam? or anti certainly anti bringing a million refugees, as mrs. merkel did to germany. so certainly taking a sceptical stance. everybody thought, you know if this was an islamist attack that they would benefit. now it turns out that this guy was a supporter. obviously there in no way responsible for his actions. but as he was a supporter of their agenda and indeed was doing it in the name of his agenda, will it have the opposite consequence? will it will it rally around the mainstream parties as people don't want to see chaos? it's actually an interesting piece in the sunday times saying today comparisons to chaos of the weimar era, the interwar era

that saw hitler come to power are usually overblown. not this time thinks that since he thinks the times berlin correspondent. so i think that will be. the question is whether people rally around stability and the sort of establishment, or whether it does push people into the arms of the radical right. >> question is there any stability in germany now at all? the governing party is in third place in these polls. absolutely. both the afd and the sort of merkel conservatives who are cdu, who are in the front. yeah. so let's let's move on. let's turn to britain now and let's have a look at this cunous let's have a look at this curious splash on the observer. because it seems, though, that there's some suggestion that labour wants to block donations to reform uk. but on the other hand this is suggesting perhaps not. yes. >> so i mean, once we saw the i think we'll now go down as one of the political pictures of the year of nick candy and nigel farage standing next to elon musk at shea trump. there was lots of speculation that that the rules would be changed to block the donation, a donation

of the size of the rumoured size of the size of the rumoured size of £100 million. now, it didn't seem actually when i was looking at them in the week, it didn't seem that they were all coming from the government there. the electoral commission, which is the regulator of these things, seem to be making soundings in and of itself is slightly strange that the impartial electoral commission, the regulator of elections, was giving interviews to the guardian newspaper saying, oh, i don't think we should allow elon musk to give money to nigel farage. >> i mean, it did seem a little bit, i think, curious of an impartial regulator. >> absolutely. i think that's actually what the government because then the reaction was, oh my gosh, this is this is labour only trying to change the rules because, you know, they wouldn't be changing the rules if there was a big £100 million donation coming their way from a american billionaire. so the sceptics said i actually thought in the week, actually, i'm not sure the government has made its position clear. well, the observer front page, michael savage is the policy editor of the observer, is often the conduh the observer, is often the conduit for stories from the heart of the labour frontbench. and what he's saying is that the

government is pushing back against the electoral commission and is sceptical about rushing to ban foreign, foreign donations. it would actually be, by the way they would do it would be banning donations from foreign companies to operate here because it has to come through a uk entity. if the profits didn't match the donations, of course, musk does employ many hundreds, perhaps thousands of people in the uk through his through. absolutely. although apparently twitter only made about £17 million last yean made about £17 million last year, so it would the profits would dwarf the donation. so i.e. the 1521 00:08:27,856 --> 00:08:28