markets as rachel reeves the markets as rachel reeves travelled to china. i'm going to be joined by the secretary of state for science, technology and innovation, peter kyle. i'll ask him whether it was right for the chancellor to cosy up to one of our biggest foes. while the economy here at home has been tanking, shadow chancellor of exchequer mel stride will be joining us. we'll be discussing the economy and a new poll which puts reform well ahead of the tories. is that a source of concern to mel stride? and former chancellor of the exchequer kwasi kwarteng will be here. i'll be asking him why. what's been going on with the economy is any worse than liz truss's mini—budget of 2022. lord walney, the government's independent adviser on political violence and disruption, will be with me to discuss the latest on the grooming gangs, child rape scandal and why labour is still blocking a national inquiry. and we'll be looking ahead to president elect trump's upcoming inauguration and also reflecting on the devastating wildfires in los angeles, with jennifer ewing of the republican overseas

group. another 90 minutes of punchy british politics lies ahead. don't go anywhere. but first, let's delve now into the sunday papers with former conservative special adviser james price, who joins me this morning. james, lovely to see you. good morning. right. great story on the front of the mail on sunday by the political edhon on sunday by the political editor, glen owen and his deputy, anna mikhailova, musk and cummings in plot to sabotage uk politics. so this is the suggestion that behind every elon musk tweet is dominic cummings, formerly or best known perhaps as boris johnson's closest adviser, known before that as the chairman of vote leave. what do we think? >> i mean, it's just a fantastic headline, isn't it, to get started, all the kind of major characters in every news story. a great plot twist, bringing

back an old fan favourite in dominic cummings. you know, this is the guy who masterminded the brexit campaign. he masterminded bofis brexit campaign. he masterminded boris johnson's massive election victory in 2019, and then had that rather infamous falling out with boris after the even more infamous trip up to barnard castle. yes, i happen to think that dominic cummings is probably the smartest person in british politics. i think he's right about every major problem and failing in the british state. and i think he's also right about all the ways that you need to fix it, which, incidentally, kind of the opposite of all of the things that this newish labour government are trying to do. and elon musk is clearly one of the smartest, most successful, impressive people in the in the world as well. so the two of them getting together, you would like to think would yield some amazing results. but as we know, they're quite volatile figures. will they be able to get along long enough to save western civilisation? >> let's find out. it strikes me as perhaps a meeting of two loose cannons. and i think when you get two loose cannons together, all you end up with is an explosion. and i agree with you with regard to cummings's genius in ideas. didn't quite manage to apply that to actual

government. >> it was tricky, wasn't it? i mean, i worked inside government when dominic cummings was the top adviser, as you say, and he was right about everything. and if he'd have, you know, had kind of extreme executive authority, if he'd have been lord protector, like oliver cromwell or something, you'd see him much more efficiently running british state. but unfortunately, the state. but unfortunately, the state of the state is in such a pickle at the moment, and it's getting worse and worse every week that we've got this current government in that it's a big, tall order and it's going to take literal rocket science, perhaps in the form of elon musk, to help try and fix the deep problems that you've got inside both the british government and the american government as well. >> it would explain, wouldn't it, if cummings is in behind the scenes when it comes to elon musk tweeting, particularly in the middle of the night, you know, like there's this sense that he's tweeting on british time and could somebody be tweeting for him or whatever. when it came to that criticism of nigel farage and saying, oh, nigel farage shouldn't be running reform over a disagreement over the involvement in reform of tommy robinson, and then you think, god, there's no love lost between dominic cummings and nigel farage?

>> yeah, that's that would be the really sort of 4d chess going on here from, from dominic cummings in there, doesn't it just. but this is the idea, the reform as you mentioned there, there's a poll out there doing very well. dominic cummings has been talking for a long time about a potential start up party in the uk as well. that sounds like it would be up elon musk's street even more than perhaps reform. so i think a long way to go until the next election. you can't count out the tories to make a comeback as well, although the difficulty that my party has got is the fact that for everything they now say, reform or elon musk or dominic cummings or others will all go and say, you know, you had 14 years, why didn't you fix it? and it's a fair challenge. i think there are structural reasons for it, but they seem to be having more cut through as well those figures than kemi badenoch right now. >> should we move on to labour? oh, it's not been a great week, has it, for rachel reeves. so much coverage in the paper today. tim shipman has written a piece saying, you know, crisis. yes. it's still a growth crisis. talking about callaghan's famous words crisis. what crisis? and being blind to the idea of the

economy tanking in the 1970s. we've now got rachel reeves over in china. i mean, she's claiming that she's made £600 million worth of trade deals. all well and good, but it's starting to make the mini—budget look like a picnic, isn't it? >> this. yeah. >> this. yeah. >> i mean, it's extraordinary. again, labour have had so much time in opposition to try and work out what's wrong with the economy and what they could go and do to make it better, and everything they've done is make it worse. let's not forget that that budget that rachel reeves said she made a big song and dance about economic growth. and that's really important because as costs go up and more brits get older, you need economic growth to create more money to pay for the schools and the hospitals and the roads and the army and all these very important things. as the world gets more dangerous, i think we need to spend a lot more on defence. and that's not happening under this government. so she talked a big song and dance at the budget. this was going to be a budget for growth. and what's the outcome. growth is going to be even lower. yeah. before the 2008 big financial crash, by some metrics, brits were a little bit richer in terms of their, what you call purchasing power parity that americans were. now, americans

are about 60% richer than we are. and their poorest state, mississippi people there are better off than they are in the uk. that's how stark it is, because the americans actually prioritised economic growth. and here we've prioritised rules and regulations and more things that will cut off that kind of growth. and that's why we all feel poorer. >> but don't worry, because according to the front page of the sunday telegraph, reeves is to wage a war on waste. so why is it whenever a politician is in trouble, they start saying, right, i'm going to wage a war on waste. how many wars on waste have been waged in the past by successive governments? only for the state to continue to be hugely wasteful? well, the jury's out on that one. you mentioned america earlier. should we talk about these wildfires, which are kind of i mean, there is an irony to this unfolding in the hollywood hills when it actually does resemble a sort of james cameron esque disaster movie. we've obviously focused a lot on the celebrities that have been affected, and some of the stars that have lost their homes include james woods

and mel gibson, paris hilton and others. but now serious questions being asked by people of all political persuasions by the way of why los angeles was so ill prepared for this. fire hydrant hydrants running dry. i mean, these communities are on the pacific coast and they don't have enough water. donald trump saying that gavin newsom or newsom, i think he calls him, is to blame. what's your 1503 00:07:25,736 --> 00:07