Tories face 1997 style general election wipeout

To our top story and its good news for the Tories, the economy is growing, the boats have finally stopped and the latest polls show them on course to win a fifth term in office. Unfortunately for Rishi Sunak this is a political fever dream which only exists in his wildest imagination, the latest polling by YouGov paints the bleakest picture yet for the Conservative party.

Have a look at this, if general election was held today Starmer would sail into Downing Street as prime minister, Labour is on course to win over 400 seats that’s a result that would match Tony Blair’s landslide back in 1997. The Tories, a Tory Wipeout would see the party left with just 155 MPs, fewer than John Major managed back in the day.

Eleven cabinet ministers would be casualties of the Tories collapse with the chancellor Jeremy Hunt and Conservative leadership hopefuls Penny Mordaunt and Grant Shapps also losing their seat but, in Richi’s world none of this matters and everything is going to plan!

Look here are going to be lots of polls and you know this better than most because you’ve come consistently looking pretty grim right but the what matters is the general election and that’s what I’m focused on. We get to that, the Sun world exclusive on that, I’ve been clear actually because I said look my working assumption is we’ll have an election in the second half.

You’ve been clear when it might be, you’ve also ruled out dates, you’ve ruled out a May, you publicly ruled out a May election. We’ve got really important local elections to focus, on did he go a bit Danny Dyer on us there? You know this better than most don’t you ‘arry, yeah. The Stark reality is the Tories are more than 20 points behind Labour in the polls, no one can stop the boats and millions of British people are screaming out for change Rishi Sunak claimed he is the change candidate, the only change I can see the Prime Minister making is swapping Downing Street for his Santa Monica Penthouse in the not-too-distant future.

Can anything save the Tories?

On the back of all of this we’re asking the question; can anything save the Tories? There’s one thing, that nugget of hope you could throw to Rishi Sunak is there anything they could do right now to change the predictions because they are dire?

Broadcaster Clare Muldoon is with us I don’t know whether I feel sorry for Rishi Sunak Claire or whether he’s just annoying me now because every time I mean he’s the, we’ll come to the Rwanda thing but I mean goodness me, this is a man that genuinely can’t see it or if somebody said to him look doesn’t matter what’s thrown at you, prime minister you’ve still got to carry on as if you’re going to win.

I think it’s a bit of both because I think as a leader you have to have courage you have to have the innate ability to carry on the discipline of your team, of your party in this case, but I also think there is an arrogance there, there was scepticism in the back from the back benches for a long time amongst Rishi’s appointment as pm and we heard post, Christmas into the new year you know will Graham Brady get enough letters?

Will there be a vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister? Will there be a change? When will the general election be? There’s too much Ian up in the air at the moment and but I’ll tell you something I need to move out my flat so if Mrs Sunak needs a good removal company I can give her the number.

You think you can do that yeah well that would be some sort of coup, they will definitely need it that’s for sure.

Well yes, I think because he cannot, I do not think he can you know carry on as being the leader of the Conservatives, I think the Tories party itself will implode for many reasons, they don’t agree on much, the back bench is not solidifying with the front bench, the cabinet seems to be doing what they want but there is that presence in the Prime Minister that all is well.

Starmer isn’t Winning – Sunak is Losing

He’s got this very calm demeanour, so therefore I think can do Danny Dyer as well when he needs to. Well, let’s think I mean things I think are dire than any Danny Dyer could make it point I really do. It’s interesting that Labour is on track to get 400 seats here because this is the kind of mystery clear of how party politics and how people vote because there isn’t an awful lot of love for Keir Starmer.

This is not about Starmers’ brilliance, this is not the Labour have come up with some amazing philosophical idea that’s going to change the face of the United Kingdom. He just happens to be the chief beneficiary of the fact that the Tories are useless.

Indeed, why do the Lib Dems not get all of those, we are the Lib Dems well I know, I agree I’m not saying they should but why if people aren’t loving Labour, why would they say well okay I don’t like the Tories, I go to why don’t they go somewhere else? There’s the Lib Dems, there’s Reform UK, there’s the Greens if that is your thing, there’s lots of other options, it’s going to be clear Starmer that gets it think you would think I mean basically clear Starmer is where he is from doing absolutely nothing.

I mean he’s flip-flopped his way through, he’s u-turned more u-turns than a u-bend in a plumber’s outfit, more than anything at all I’ve ever encountered for the Labour party. Gone are the days and this is why I don’t want the comparison between Tony Blair’s landslide victory and what Starmer will be projected to have is because there’s nothing new there you know?

Tony Blair was that, John Major no, John Smith got the Labour party elected he was the most outstanding politician of his time. Tony Blair, you know almost fell on to that you know by default, foundations were laid by Smith, sadly passed away of course so Tony Blair then was you know, managed through the nation and the vulnerability of the nation at the time and they hooked on to that.

Was Blair the Messiah? Really??

There he was a messiah he was the change that people wanted he spoke you know, he told them what they wanted and people lapped it up absolutely whereas Starmer isn’t really doing any of that.

He’s also likely to be I mean in terms of policy, Ben Habib said it on Cross Talk a little earlier that you’ll get kind of a similar version of what we’ve already got but possibly worse because if you want to look at the political story through the prism of either cost of living, like taxes or immigration then don’t expect any big changes under Starmer.

Both of those issues are likely to increase in their areas of problem, Anneliese Dodds had the position of Rachel Reeves before Rachel Reeves got of course, she’s now the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, but none of these women have managed to come up with anything. The manifesto itself has got nothing really in it. They don’t address Devolution, they don’t address quangos, they don’t address Net Zero, they don’t address education or health or taxes what they’re going to do, so no one really needs to know, well no one well, we do need to know but no one actually knows.

Indeed, big casualties though coming for the Tories including a couple of Mayors as well the Mayor of the West Midlands, Andy Street who’s been a fairly sturdy trusted face in that neck of the woods. Ben Howchen similarly in Teeside, predicted to lose. You think that’s because they’re Conservatives? I mean look at Sadiq Khan, I mean, as far as I’m concerned, he’s run London into the ground you know and it’s just an absolute an anathema to me to find out you know, that these Mayors they’ve got a lot of power.

Mayors do have a lot of power, increasing power as well and I think certainly there’s a view that whoever wins the next election is going to increase the power that devolved regions get. Let’s move on to this because Rishi Sunak this is his cintilla of hope and of course it’s Rwanda.

Rwanda won’t Work so won’t save Sunak

I think he’s in the land of the fairies if he thinks this is going to save him for a number of reasons. The main one being it ain’t going to work, but Rishi Sunak has hinted that he’s ready to rip up the human rights obligations in order to get the Tories Rwanda Plan through.

Rwanda is more important than the European Convention of Human Rights, that seems to be what he says he’s going to withdraw on, but to me it’s just piece meal to me, he’s just throwing a bone to the dog because by the time this comes around we will have had a general election because you cannot substantively change policy from now until the last possible time is what November? We’ve been told it can’t go on for further than that, so it’s not going to.

If you wanted to get out, by the time you did it, he’s merely throwing a bone to a dog, of course he is. Let’s move on to your home ground Scotland, police Scotland have been accused of making it up as they go along with discrepancies emerging in the recording of hate crimes. The allegations primarily against JK Rowling of course, is all about the new hate crime bill which came into force on Monday.

Oh, it’s just ridiculous and thousands of people have already registered complaints but let’s just you know remind your viewers and your listeners what Monday actually was, it was April Fool’s Day. I mean of the serious with this of course it had to be an SNP piece of legislation that came live on that day that actually was made law on March 2021, so it’s taken this amount of time, the amount of money they’ve wasted and now we find today that the head has been very quietly there’s not one of those SNP MPs that have taken any form of responsibility for the it. There’s not one SNP MP up there that’s taken responsibility for this hate crime.

They’ve allowed it to go through, they’ve allowed it to go live they’ve allowed Scotland to fester in you know nonsense, but what can I say, I’m too frightened to say anything. Well, I’ve got some stern warnings for a lot of football supporters in Glasgow we’ve got an old firm game coming up soon between Rangers and Celtic, I have never heard any more hatred between two teams indeed than those two teams. 3-0 to Rangers by the way, that’s just the prediction, thought I’d throw that in there.

There is no definition of ‘Non-Binary’

Well good luck, we going have a fight now Clare, you want some what’s going on? Are you saying you’ve got a bit of a blue nose? You got a bit of blue going on at this end? I’m a Chelsea man so it follows obviously and what about this Murdo Fraser the Scottish Conservative MSP, he was, this is interesting, he was logged as committing a non-crime hate crime which is I mean it’s just this, is it’s even of the Orwellian kind of mumbo jumbo garbage flow juice thought. Didn’t you, he said you thought so therefore I am just to employ a bit of Descartes in there as well.

He said he put a tweet out saying that this was about the term, the nonsensical term non-binary, it is. There’s no real definition of non-binary other than the sort of street definition. It’s not a recognized gender or anything like that, on the basis of that he said non-binary is as valid as choosing to identify as a cat and there were lots of people complained about this and said it’s a very bad thing for him to say.

I find it interesting who did somebody ring, literally pick up the phone and ring the police and say; I’ve just read a tweet from a politician that said, gave his opinions on non-binary, the word the phrase non-binary and I’d like to report him.

I mean presumably somebody did or people did, multiple people I actually think it’s more grave and more sinister than that, because people won’t even know if the complaints have been made against them such is the volume of complaints. Such is the volume of reporting, but such is the lack of intelligence and the lack of direction that police Scotland have actually had on this issue now where’s Hamza now, he was, it’s on his direction that this has actually gone through, he must have signed off on it.

Nicola Sturgeon started it, she’s supposed to be a qualified lawyer, you would think they would know sitting down in the shortbread Senate in Holyrood, what you know, what they knew that were going to happen and what was going on, the short read it’s good isn’t it.

Non-Crime Hate Reports

I like that, I love it, is that your own? I would love to think, no it’s not, as a friend of mine all right it works it works could have taken it but the fact that you can be reported for you know not and we we’ve interviewed loads of people over the years who who’ve been reported for one of these things, a hate crime, the nearest somebody got to explaining this which frankly is still rubbish, is that the police were getting so many calls on stuff that happened on, shared a debate with the police Federation years ago and somebody made the point that a big percentage of calls that they get particularly in the evening are people reporting what someone had said about them on Facebook and that that was a real crime.

So, one neighbour called another neighbour a silly old cow or something so therefore the police probably was yes, rang. We’ll be reported so the police turn up and say you can’t do that it’s inflammatory they got so many they didn’t know what to do with all this data, so someone in probably the College of policing or wherever said what we need to do is come up with you know we’ll call it a non-crime so we can report it. So therefore, if in the future this is the theory, if in the future you know we’ve got no, there’s no trail of this we can say; oh no we’ve got a database here, so it’s not a crime but it’s been reported as a hate crime.

They’re not making a judgment on its authenticity, they’re merely covering their backs to say we’ve covered it, so I think that’s the, indeed yes, that’s the police defence of it but nonetheless somebody somewhere sitting in a very impressive large leather wing back chair in Bute House possibly somewhere must have gone; this is bonkers, this is just nuts, a non-crime thought crimes essentially, that’s it, people’s opinions, people are being legislated against for offence.

Here we are and that for offence and offence I mean I am offended by it, to be honest with you. Shall I report the hate crime as being as a hate crime? Yeah, I think you’re right, I’ll back you up on this, where on Earth is this going to end? 4,000 people have now, they only came in on Monday, 4,000 people have now reported a hate crime yeah, in what 72 hours.

It’s upside-down Clare Muldoon it is indeed and we hit the clock on that, let’s shut that Shortbread down. I think we should have a cracking Christmas, won’t you enjoy the football, there so much just remember, just remember 3-0 Clare, just think of 3-0, that’s not going to happen, sorry. I think it is. That is Clare Muldoon, thank you everybody with us on the program.