What did you make of that, Cleo?

Well, it's not been very well received, has it? And there's lots of chat.

Even people like Lord Rose, who used to be in charge of M&S and Waitrose and Ocado, said it's harking us back to the 1970s.

I mean, I feel like people have been talking about this for a while, but it's not sinking in perhaps in, in Whitehall or perhaps in Parliament in the same way.

The prime minister in, at the beginning of January in one of his many resets said cost of living is gonna be the kind of prism through which he makes all his decisions from now on.

But the cost of living crisis is getting worse and worse and worse.

And just as John says in his piece, the idea that the Strait of Hormuz will open again and everything will be fine is just for the birds.

[laughs]

What did you make of that, Cleo?

Well, it's not been very well received, has it? And there's lots of chat.

Even people like Lord Rose, who used to be in charge of M&S and Waitrose and Ocado, said it's harking us back to the 1970s.

I mean, I feel like people have been talking about this for a while, but it's not sinking in perhaps in, in Whitehall or perhaps in Parliament in the same way.

The prime minister in, at the beginning of January in one of his many resets said cost of living is gonna be the kind of prism through which he makes all his decisions from now on.

But the cost of living crisis is getting worse and worse and worse.

And just as John says in his piece, the idea that the Strait of Hormuz will open again and everything will be fine is just for the birds.

[laughs]

Yeah, sure

... on food, and it does...

You know, exactly as Patrick says, his whole argument has been, I've been making the right calls internationally, but this is a few chickens coming home to roost because, okay, we haven't, we haven't been in the Iran war, but the Strait of Hormuz is still closed, and that has massive implications, not just fuel, but various farming, um, food storage, and food transport costs.

Um, but also, the IHT decision has been very, very damaging for farmers as well.

So it's like a little cluster of different decisions he's made all at once-

Mm.

And that's just because the brand is so badly damaged.

And I'm sure there are different ways that she can try and turn this around.

Absolutely

... organizations I would go for more.

And like the problem we've historically had, and I don't know whether this falls into your kind of shame element to it, but, like, our politicians have been a bit too sexed up.

Power is a very powerful aphrodisiac, and in my experience of government, most of my time was, was spent trying to tamp this kind of behavior down, like a sort of mistress, headmistress at a boarding school.

The other...

The bit I'm slightly wondering about as well is that when Samantha's debate comes in the chamber, how many male MPs will really get involved with it? 'Cause I think they'll be anxious about either being a bit too into it and come...

and being told that they're perverts, or, uh, being a bit juvenile about it or, or giggly and being told they're not taking it seriously.

I mean, Cleo, what, what was it like dealing with these oversexed MPs?

Mm.

And in previous cases that is quite common.

There is also, by the way, a sort of separate little team within the Met who deal with kind of very high sort of VIP security and sensitive issues as they arise, and I have dealt with that team before on security issues to different members of the government and so on.

They're very a- very reactive.

You know, you are not just given a crime reference number in that scenario, and it seems near impossible to me that that team wouldn't have been brought in as well.

So there were a few things at play here, but that's, that's a sort of download of what happens in this scenario with backups and all that kind of thing.

Um, the only other thing I do want to emphasize quite carefully is that obviously there's lots of talk here about WhatsApp and disappearing messages and all the rest of it, but in my experience, particularly during COVID and during a period of sensitivity where lots of Tory MPs are worried about Huawei and so on, people mainly use Signal for really sensitive conversations.

Um, I mean, uh, are you just been surprised at how many times the kind of same things rear their head in this, or is this sort of a natural of government rather than anything, you know, an ability to learn from this scandal?

Cleo Watson argues that these insurgent parties are targeting the group who are most likely to have a zero-sum mindset and that is young voters who've only ever known austerity in their adult lives.

There are young people who don't feel they have good prospects and you can also sense how they have parents and grandparents who have been let down again and again by the more traditional parties and there's obviously a trust issue Interestingly, these young people think, I'm yearning to get involved in something, I want to do something now.

And there is a certain glamour to a lot of the content being made by these, let's call them insurgent parties.

It's not just the parties themselves.

It's also having a sort of figurehead who is authentic and engaging and can win over people and can convince them that, particularly if they are zero something, because they have their best interests at heart.

And it's actually quite hard to do that if you are...

the Prime Minister or the leader of the opposition, because you become establishment figures, particularly now when you have these kind of new and exciting insurgents.

But given the low turnout that's required to win a majority in Westminster, what would happen if they did all go to the ballot box en masse? Political strategist Cleo Watson still doubts that appealing to only zero-sum thinkers could win any party an election.