Dan Bloom

Now, on Reform, here's something really, um, interesting about how the party is positioning itself.

My colleague, Dan Bloom, he was out and about in, uh, Kent with Nigel Farage, uh, yesterday a- a- and wrote something reflecting a couple of very striking things that Farage said.

One, uh, was that when he was pressed on how much did he support Ukraine, he said he certainly wasn't backing out of the room that the way that Donald Trump was, but he was very guarded about the terms of that support, and he referred it to it as one of the most corrupt countries on Earth.

Now, that seems to me to signal that there are limits to Reform's support.

Uh, one of the issues I think for Andy Burnham, you know, something like made in Europe, controversial as it is, slightly protectionist, uh, measure, but it's quite a nice thing to be in if you sell, uh, cars or make, make cars or aspects of cars.

Uh, I don't think, uh, Britain is gonna get anything, uh, anywhere near being in made in Europe, and I think Burnham has had to accept that.

Where he has to be a bit careful, as I do hear from talking to Brussels colleagues and just keeping my ear to the ground in, uh, i- i- in France and Germany a bit myself, they do not want this summit to turn into the sort of how nice do we have to be to Britain summit.

That is not really what it's intended to do.

And then plenty of conference folk here want to hear that.

But then the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, I think very much speaking for the centre of the Burnham government, he was warning my colleague Dan Bloom at the Politico pub yesterday that there are many constitutional questions about this sort of idea.

It would cause uncertainty for business.

It was You know, how about not? I felt it was Johnny Reynolds' approach to that.

And they do think you can borrow and spend to growth.

But there is a question of tax revenue.

Just on this question of tax, what have you and your colleagues been picking up about the tax system and the budget that's coming up?

Well, I think the sharp end of this is that John Healy's headroom is widely estimated to have fallen very sharply.