Catch up on the latest political news from across Kent with Oliver Leader de Saxe, joined by Gravesham Borough Councillor Lenny Rolles and former Conservative government adviser Claire Pearsall.
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00:00Hello and welcome to the Kent Politics Show live here on KMTV, the show against Kent's
00:28politicians talking.
00:29I'm Oliver, leader of the SACs, and it's time for yet another relaunch.
00:33Not for us, of course, but for the Labour government, with Sir Keir Starmer outlining
00:37pillars, pledges and milestones to judge the government on their record.
00:42With immigration stats on the rise, that record is under scrutiny, as is the very nature of
00:48our voting system, with some MPs arguing it should be more proportional.
00:52Well, to make sense of it all, I'm joined by Lenny Rolls, Labour's Special Cabinet Advisory
00:57Chair at Gravesham Borough Council, what a mouthful there, and Clare Pearsall, former
01:01Conservative government advisor.
01:04But before all that, six milestones, five missions, three foundations, seven pillars
01:09of change.
01:10They never make it easy for us, do they?
01:12In a soft reset for the government, Sir Keir Starmer outlined the ways in which we can
01:16judge the government over the next five years.
01:20It wasn't quite James Bond, but for Kent's politicians, Sir Keir Starmer's attempt to
01:26reboot his government at Pinewood Studios was big box office.
01:32Today we publish new milestones, measurable milestones, that will also give the British
01:39people the power to hold our feet to the fire, because that accountability, that is part
01:47of how we shift the focus in Westminster towards long-term change.
01:52With more pillars and foundations than a home makeover, Labour's plan for the next
01:57five years may appear a little complicated, but boiled down to the essentials, the Prime
02:04Minister aims to hit six key milestones by the next election.
02:10These include improving living standards across the UK and Kent, rebuilding Britain with 1.5
02:18million new homes, safer streets with 13,000 new neighbourhood officers, more than 6,000
02:27new teachers to improve education, and decarbonising our energy grid by 2030.
02:34And while that may sound like a lot, there was one thing that didn't make the list, immigration.
02:43We were incredibly disappointed that Labour seems to have turned their back on the idea
02:47of having a deterrent through the Rwanda scheme. It's also really noticeable that they've
02:53been out this weekend talking about their big speech that the Prime Minister is going
02:57to make on Thursday. Immigration is not going to be one of the targets they're setting themselves,
03:01and so to my mind they've got some real questions to answer about how committed they are to
03:06tackling illegal immigration.
03:09With five years to go until the next election, the Prime Minister will have his work cut
03:14out for him if he wants to hit all those targets. Otherwise, Labour's newly elected
03:21MPs may be out of a job sooner than they anticipated.
03:26Oliver, lead of the sat for KMTV.
03:30Well, Claire and Lenny joined the studio there. I see you laughing, Lenny, because you're
03:33going to get a little sneak peek of you there at the Labour launch back over the summer.
03:38I want to go with you on this one, because you were the Weald of Kent candidate earlier
03:43this year. Did you make head or tails of all that techno babble there? Do you think
03:48that Labour made it quite clear for the voters about what they're promising, how we can measure
03:52them going forward?
03:53As you'd expect, Ollie, I think they made it very clear in terms of setting out clear
03:58measurable targets around the key areas. And you have to remember that those missions were
04:04set out in the manifesto as well. People voted for change, and this is the plan for delivery
04:09for change that the Prime Minister set out yesterday at Pinewood Studios. So I think
04:16it is very clear, yes.
04:17Claire, what about you from your perspective? Obviously, you're a parliamentary adviser.
04:22You've been in the heart of government before. You know how difficult it can be to communicate
04:27a clear message. Do you think that Keir Starmer, who you see on screen, is communicating that
04:32clear message?
04:33Unsurprisingly, I'm going to have a different view. No, I think the communications around
04:37all of the manifesto promises have been sloppy. They have been almost incoherent at times
04:45and not very well thought through. And some of these ideas that he's come up with, these
04:49milestones, millstones, whatever we want to call them this week, I think are unachievable.
04:55So you've got some that are completely unachievable, some that are really quite easy. And how are
05:00you going to measure them? So it's a bit of a word salad from the Prime Minister this
05:04week, which in five months, this is the best that he's got. It's a plan for change when
05:09you've just had an election, you've just been the change candidate. It doesn't really seem
05:14to be thought through.
05:15Can I ask you about that, Lenny? Because obviously, this is five minutes into a government and
05:19it isn't necessarily a major reset, but it is definitely a change of tact from the government.
05:26Obviously, we've seen Pat McFadden taking a more central role in government communications.
05:31Can I ask you how to outline to the voters five months in how we can measure them? Surely
05:36this should be here from the offset. Has it been a rocky five months to start off with
05:41from your perspective?
05:42I don't think it has, to a certain degree. Those missions that were set out in the manifesto,
05:48which the public voted for, with giving Labour an overwhelming majority in Parliament, delivering
05:55the most MPs in Kent, set out a lot of those missions. We've had to reprioritise them and
06:01re-establish them in people's minds. Keir was very clear going into the general election,
06:07this would be a long haul task. We got in, didn't expect the levels of the £22 billion
06:14black hole, the problems with the prison system. You know, you may pull faces, but then in
06:22the same regard, we've had a National Audit Office report setting out the challenges that
06:27the previous government weren't building the prisons fast enough. There's a huge number
06:32of challenges that we've come into government and found on top of everything else. So it
06:37has been very difficult to be able to tackle those. But I think, you know, people voted
06:43for this change. So you may feel that it's not understandable and people don't get it,
06:49but they absolutely do. You know, increasing people's costs, like tackling the cost of
06:55living crisis, being able to raise living standards for people, putting a roof over
07:00their heads. There's 150,000 children living in temporary accommodation, the highest level
07:05ever. We need to be able to build these homes and tackle this. The targets are a stretch,
07:11they really are, you know, and we're in local authorities, we know how difficult it is going
07:17to be to deliver those. But we need to unplug and be able to support the infrastructure.
07:22Absolutely. I want to bring you in on this, Claire, because I saw that you weren't necessarily
07:26agreeing with everything. But obviously, the Constellation had been in power before and
07:30they've made undeliverable promises, like the Rwanda scheme, which was shot down repeatedly
07:36in the courts. What's different here?
07:39What's different here, I think, is that you get all of the rhetoric around this £22 billion
07:45black hole, you get the lines to take that are put out from Labour central office. But
07:51what has Keir Starmer done as one of his first moves to make sure the living standards of
07:55people are better? He's taken away the winter fuel allowance from the most vulnerable people
08:01in the country. So I don't think that was a particularly great start. The communications
08:05around things like Freebiegate, Lord Ali's donations was handled really badly. And I
08:10think the public are starting to look at Labour and say, well, hold on a second, you're meant
08:15to be there for us and all we've seen is you've given inflation-busting pay rises to
08:19public sector workers, you've taken winter fuel allowance off of vulnerable old people
08:25and you are now going to tax farmers. So I think that no, the Conservatives didn't have
08:31a blemish-free record. I'm the first one to say that. I have criticised them equally over
08:35the last – certainly the last five years. But I think that Labour is very disingenuous
08:40to the public by saying we're going to make difficult decisions now, but it's all going
08:44to be fine when people are feeling less than fine. And it wasn't the massive vote share
08:50that Labour would like everybody to think. Yes, the Conservatives did badly and yes,
08:55they only have themselves to blame. But I don't think that the amount of people voting
08:59for Labour was any higher than Jeremy Corbyn's day, was it? Well, we ended up with more seats.
09:05It was a more targeted approach. But beyond that, the pension, those receiving pension
09:10credit will still receive the winter fuel allowance. And in addition to that, in addition
09:16to that, we are, we've already, we're tackling the things, those public sector workers that
09:22you refer to getting those pay rises, they're working in our hospitals, they're doing important
09:27jobs like driving the trains, getting people into work. They're the doctors, you know,
09:33a protracted argument with doctors and doctors going on strike to echo the problems, to set
09:39out the problems they've got. Clearly not everyone isn't happy though, Lenny. Clearly
09:44not everyone isn't happy, but there is a proportion of the population that is, and there is new
09:48polling out today that shows Reform UK is on course to gain two MPs in Kent in two Labour
09:54gain seats, focused in Hive and Sittingbourne on Sheppey. That's according to the electoral
09:58calculus. There is a clear sign that if the government doesn't deliver, they could be
10:04forced out by these upstart parties like Reform UK. Look, we're five months in to a
10:10new government, you know, and the inheritance we received was a shocking thing to come in
10:17and walk into. I think the government has already achieved, you know, nationalising
10:22the railways, bringing them back under public ownership, which we set out to do and people
10:26voted for in the election. You know, there's setting up the energy, green energy company
10:33in order to provide and reduce people's bills and help reduce, you know, and improve the
10:38cost of living crisis. We're already achieving in a number of areas, but that's going to
10:43take a while to fill. We don't expect people to fill that after five months. There's a
10:47long way to the next general election. Between now and then, you know, we've set out clear
10:54measurable targets for us to be monitored on, you know, providing additional police
10:59on the streets so that people feel safe in communities. These are all things that people
11:04are screaming out for.
11:06There are some problems with the policing numbers. Unfortunately, Labour cannot articulate
11:13are they going to be actual serving warranted police officers or are these going to be more
11:19community support police? So I think there's some argument around that. The number of extra
11:24teachers, the 6,000 number which kept being bandied around, which if you split it across
11:29the country ends up at half a teacher per classroom. So it's not really going to make
11:34an immediate difference. Now, I do accept that police is one of those issues.
11:37And obviously there is a lot of dispute here over the facts and figures. We have to go
11:41to our break now. We'll be back with more debate after this about immigration and of
11:45course, proportional representation. See you in a few minutes.
15:00Welcome back to the Kent Politics Show live here on KMTV, the show that gets Kent's politicians
15:10talking. Still joining me is Lenny Rolls, Labour's special cabinet advisory chair at
15:15Gravesham Borough Council and Clare Pearsall, former government adviser. Now, more than
15:2020,000 people have crossed the channel in small boats to Kent and the south coast since
15:25Labour won the election. New data published this week has revealed Labour have pinned
15:30the number of crossings in the last five months. But conservatives say it's all to do with
15:36deterrence. Now, Clare, I want to go to you on this one because you were a former immigration
15:42adviser. What do you make of the claims that it's all to do with there being more clear
15:47days for crossings? Obviously, we've seen those nearly 20,000 people crossing in the
15:52last five months. What do you make of it?
15:55The weather always plays a massive factor in the number of crossings. So when the weather
15:59is good, you will see more people coming across. The deterrence effect is a really interesting
16:05one. And this is the kind of line that gets brought out all of the time by those who wish
16:08to defend the Rwanda scheme. Now, I never thought that that was a deterrent from the
16:13start because it was never going to work. And as we've seen, a lot of money spent, more
16:17Home Secretary sent over there than actual migrants. So that can be sort of pushed into
16:22the water. But it does show how incredibly difficult this problem is. And I think you
16:28need to almost take the politics out of this and look what you can do with the international
16:31community, look what you can do with the European Union partners to see how best you can work
16:37smashing criminal gangs. Because as Keir Starmer said, that was one of his goals. It is incredibly
16:42difficult and you need a lot of cooperation right across the globe.
16:45It is difficult. And I want to go back to you on this one, actually, because obviously,
16:48as a former advisor, I was kind of curious, what sort of advice would you be giving the
16:52government right now? Do you think they have the right plan at the moment? They obviously
16:57are working with local authorities on this. We've heard that in the past weeks from Jim
17:01Martin. But obviously, it is a complex issue. Do you think they're doing enough? What would
17:06you be saying?
17:07I don't think you can ever do enough. And that's the thing. You can't just point at
17:11one thing and say, this is going to make it better. You need to look quite hard at
17:16how you're going to process people. So that's one thing, speeding up the processing in this
17:20country. But also look at perhaps working with international partners and having processing
17:26done offshore. And this is always a really controversial point. But it's quite interesting
17:30that Georgia Maloney in Italy is using Albania for those purposes. Now, I have concerns around
17:36her plan, but that's for a whole other programme to go through. But I think you need to start
17:40looking at other alternatives. You need to start looking at how you can work with countries
17:45nearer to conflict zones to perhaps find safe countries that people can go to, so that they're
17:50not having to make that perilous journey across the Channel.
17:53Lenny, what do you make of it? Because obviously, it's too early to tell what Labour's plans
18:00are going to have an impact on migration levels. But it is still high. For this year, it's
18:05been 33,684 crossings. These are dangerous small boat crossings. Do you think Labour
18:13should be working more with our European partners, talking about safe routes, perhaps? Is there
18:17a more compassionate approach, perhaps, to this issue?
18:21Well, I think Keir has been quite clear in terms of – the Prime Minister has been very
18:26clear in terms of the way that he wants to tackle the criminal gangs and seek international
18:32cooperation. And many of the conversations I understand that he's been having across
18:37Europe at the moment is to do precisely that and seek to tackle those criminal gangs, make
18:43it more difficult to get through, to disrupt, to take a whole approach from government,
18:49working with the security agencies as well, to make it a top priority to be able to prevent
18:56illegal migration into the UK.
18:59Well, it's not just illegal immigration. We heard last week, Sir Keir Starmer, talking
19:04about a rise in normal immigration, nearly a million people in the year to June 2023.
19:11We're hearing a lot of more harsher rhetoric around immigration. Do you think this is the
19:18right approach? Do you think that there needs to be a conversation about immigration? Or
19:22do you think it is just trying to win back votes that are being lost to other parties?
19:29Is there an actual political argument to be made for lowering immigration the way Keir
19:33Starmer is mentioning?
19:34Well, look, I think that it comes down to the problems that people are feeling. And
19:39I think that's why people see immigration as a problem. We're in the middle of a cost
19:43of living crisis. You know, there's the huge hospital waiting list, a lack of housing.
19:50All of those are factors, I think, that make immigration a big thing at the top of people's
19:54minds because they're feeling it hard. We do need to tackle illegal immigration. It's
20:02absolutely important. But then there's other areas like farming and students, international
20:07students, where actually immigration is kind of key in terms of driving different sectors
20:15forward and being able to support a workforce where skills aren't available. So I agree
20:21with Claire that we need to take the politics out of it to some extent, really have a proper
20:25conversation around it so it's not such a hot topic. But we absolutely should be tackling
20:30the criminal gangs that are exploiting poor people like refugees trying to come out of
20:37war zones.
20:38I don't think anyone can disagree with that. I think it's interesting because it is part
20:43of making people's voices heard, which is actually going to bring us on to our next
20:46topic. Because is it time to change the way that we vote? Well, that's what has left Kent's
20:52MPs divided earlier this week as the House of Commons narrowly voted through a ten-minute
20:57motion on proportional representation. Mike Martin, Jim Dixon and Rosie Duffield were
21:02some of Kent's MPs who supported the motion, while Labour's Lauren Edwards and Mike Tapp
21:07voted against it. With the site passing by just two votes, the motion won't be given
21:12any time to be debated, as we heard in Prime Minister's questions.
21:16The Prime Minister has rightly spoken about the need to restore and rebuild the public's
21:21trust in British politics. We believe a crucial part of that is reforming our electoral system
21:29to make it fairer and more proportional. And so does a majority of the British public.
21:36This House voted yesterday in favour of a bill for electoral reform. Proportional representation
21:42is not our policy. We won't be making time for it. And I just gently say to him, it didn't
21:47do too badly under the system as it is. Before we jump into this one, I want to gauge the
21:52read on the room. Do either of you support proportional representation? Claire first?
21:56No, absolutely not. I'm not a fan of it, and that's despite the fact that if there was
22:01an alternative vote or proportional representation, I might be sat here as Kent Police and Cronus.
22:07So I don't know, why don't neither of you, a rare member of Kent across people's wide,
22:13why do neither of you support this? Because obviously it's gaining momentum. There are
22:18Kent MPs that do support it. There are Labour MPs that support it. And it is something that
22:23would give certain groups, parts of our population, more of a voice in Westminster. Why do you
22:28both oppose it? I think one of the main problems is you end up with a very messy political
22:34scene where you wouldn't have a sort of ruling party as such, and you'd have to cobble together
22:41some kind of coalition. And if we all cast our minds back to 2010, where we had a coalition,
22:47didn't work out so well for some people. It was not ideal. And you look to Europe and
22:52you look at the systems that they have in place, a lot of those are on proportional
22:55representation. And it is very, very messy. Very little gets passed through whichever
23:01legislature you're talking about. But it also allows for some very fringe parties, some
23:08views that perhaps none of us here and perhaps people watching would want to see, being able
23:15to be an elected representative. And it gives rise to those parties. And I don't wish to
23:20see that. But to push back, we are seeing more extreme politicians, even under our current
23:25system. We see independents with some quite strong views. Of course, we met that by-election
23:30with George Galloway. We are seeing more politicians with fringe views on the first past the post.
23:37This doesn't really justify it, does it? Well, I mean, I think to take your point on board,
23:43then it is giving people an opportunity to vote for the parties that they want to get
23:49in. My argument with it is slightly different in that I absolutely agree with the points
23:54that Clare has set out. But the reason why I don't necessarily agree with it is under
23:59a list system, members of the public don't necessarily get a particular MP come forward
24:05to represent them. And I think having a named person as their MP makes that person accountable
24:11to the electorate. It also means that people know who they're going to get to be their
24:16MP. I mean, you look at Nigel Farage in Clacton. I hear he's hardly ever there in Clacton.
24:22It'll be up to the people in Clacton to then decide whether they want a reform MP that's
24:27doing nothing for them. That's right. And people say that they feel very disenfranchised
24:30from politics. And if you don't have the ability to remove somebody who you don't feel is doing
24:35a very good job, then you're going to further enhance that. And it doesn't do well for democracy.
24:40But surely it does benefit both of your political persuasions. Obviously, Labour gained over
24:45200 seats, but their vote share only increased by less than 2 per cent to 34 per cent. That's
24:52far from a majority in this country. And is it really fair for the Labour Party to
24:58have 411 seats? They have basically a mandate to do whatever they want, despite only having
25:0334 per cent of the vote share. Look, there's arguments for and against proportional representation.
25:11But we did have a referendum on something similar a little while ago, and the British
25:14public rejected it. You referred to the 10-minute rule vote motion that took place in Parliament.
25:20It wasn't whipped. There wasn't that many MPs, really, that took part in that vote.
25:25I still stand by the fact that I think having an elected, accountable MP, accountable to
25:32their constituency, people know who they're getting, is far better than some PR-less system.
25:37Does that mean that both of you would oppose central parties imposing candidates on constituencies
25:44then? It's something we saw in the 2024 election, a cross-political divide, central parties
25:49coming in, they're going against local branches and their preferences. Is that something that
25:53you'd both oppose then? I'd definitely oppose that. I think it should be up to the local
25:57parties to choose, and local residents. Well, I'm talking about local residents voting for
26:02the candidates. And by the time that we got to those general election, when people went
26:07into the ballot box, they knew who they were voting for, and they had an opportunity to
26:12test the candidates that were standing for the political parties that they were going
26:15for. Well, I think we'll have to leave it there. Very interesting. And as I said before,
26:20a rare moment of agreement after a first half where it was nothing but disagreement. But
26:25that really is all we have time for on the Kent Politics Show this week. Thank you to
26:29Lenny and Claire for coming on. For more news and views, you can go to Kent online. Check
26:35out the Kent Politics podcast and the Kent Politics briefing. It's great weekend reading.
26:41Stick around for Kent tonight, and I'll see you very, very soon.