it's cheesy it's tomatoey it's gooey the pie crust looks like a country fair winning pie crust the caramelized onions on the bottom our resident chef mark paul is going to have the first taste you know we need an expert opinion i would like to have the second taste because uh you're hungry too yeah i'm hungry too looks incredible

oh my

thank you that's so good what are you picking up there chef

The pie crust especially is just really lovely.

The acidity with the tomatoes going through, cutting through with the butter.

Mmm, parm topping.

And the bacon kind of like goes through all the bites.

That's really good.

There wasn't necessarily a Labour logo there anyway, but- What promises did Burnham make when he was running for by-election that helped him garner so much votes?

Well, he had a bit of a tightrope to walk in that by-election because he didn't want to, like, he's already seen as somebody who, um, how shall we say it? He doesn't lack self-belief, right? And the perception is there that he doesn't lack self-belief.

You know, he's a pretty decent fella to chat to or whatever, um, but he, uh, he, he, he does believe in himself.

Um, so he had to be careful not to be talking about national issues too much, or it looked like he saw himself as a presumptive prime minister.

So there were local issues up in, up in Makerfield around, around planning, building on the green belt was a big one, and, you know, trouble in the town.

But he did also telegraph as best as he could that he would try and revive the Labour Party nationally, that he would try and do nationally for Britain, um, and what he had done in Manchester.

I mean, his Manchesterism philosophy, which is a promise that he's now bringing to Britain, that is based around greater public control of the utilities that are the big things in day-to-day life, so energy, water, transport, rail fare, stuff like that.

Who is Burnham going to choose for the key role, Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Now, and so I take it from all of that, that the religion of an incumbent prime minister is irrelevant nowadays in modern Britain.

Well, I suppose it is.

I mean, look, Boris Johnson was technically the first Catholic prime minister in Britain, obviously baptised Catholic and converted to Anglicanism.

But, you know, with the Catholic Church, once you're in the club, they never let you out of it, technically.

So he was the first.

Look, maybe it's moved past that.

I mean, there was no hoo-ha about a Hindu being appointed as prime minister.

Given the week that's in it as well, the anniversary that was marked this week, is Brexit, is continuing relations or improved relations with the European Union, is it on the agenda much or is it still politically toxic to even suggest perhaps rejoining the EU?

Now, and so I take it from all of that, that the religion of an incumbent prime minister is irrelevant nowadays in modern Britain.

Well, I suppose it is.

I mean, look, Boris Johnson was technically the first Catholic prime minister in Britain, obviously baptised Catholic and converted to Anglicanism.

But, you know, with the Catholic Church, once you're in the club, they never let you out of it, technically.

So he was the first.

Look, maybe it's moved past that.

I mean, there was no hoo-ha about a Hindu being appointed as prime minister.

Given the week that's in it as well, the anniversary that was marked this week, is Brexit, is continuing relations or improved relations with the European Union, is it on the agenda much or is it still politically toxic to even suggest perhaps rejoining the EU?

I mean, can that spread beyond him? Can he lift an entire party, let's say, if he was going into a general election?

I think, I think you could caveat the vote if he had won just by a narrow margin, and you could say, "Well, look, he had a lot of things going in his favor." Restore Britain were splitting the right-wing vote, um, and Reform ha- seemed to have chosen a particularly poor candidate this time round, and, and also his own celebrity status.

But I think just the sheer size of the victory, I think pushes all of that to the side.

I mean, it is, it is a victory of significance o- on its own merits, regardless of any of the other noise around it.

And because of the size of that victory, um, everybody has to sit up and take notice of it.

Um, I think the most interesting part now will just be to see how long it takes, this, this dance, this standoff between Keir Starmer and, and Andy Burnham, how long it takes to be resolved.

Um, I mean, I think there is a sense in Andy Burnham's camp that they don't want to be seen necessarily too quickly as the agents of chaos, in a way.

What's caused that, Mark?

Let's start, I suppose, with the basic facts, what we know about what happened to Henry Novak in the minutes and the hours before his death.

So Henry Novak was a student in Southampton.

It's a well-known student town, Southampton.

It's got a vibrant student scene.

He went on a night out in early December last year, on December the 3rd.

He was seen on CCTV going to a pub, coming out of a pub.

He was walking home back to his accommodation just before midnight.

And there also is this investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct, although they are not looking at sort of the role of individuals in all of this, are they?

Right.

Because different types of kids on a team, and different types of families, and some kids are used to things, and you gotta learn how to make everybody kind of feel comfortable because you'll get more out of your players, and it's easier to not have to deal with drama.

Now, I've dealt with a lot of drama and, uh, forever, just like anybody else.

There's nothing that, that, I'm sure we've all done it.

But being a guy that just learnt it when it first started going, you know, like travel ball was getting going, and I was like, "You know, this is how, if they just do this, then you might be able to run a successful program and a team and be successful."

Yeah

...

but we still gotta learn business.

Is that right?

That's exactly right.

I mean, with my own experience, when I applied for something, we were asked for all the useful documentation, you know, the... communion, the baptismal search, all of that sort of stuff.

And that's fine.

I mean, you kind of expect all of that.

But then we were asked to get references from priests in Dublin, and those references had to say, you know, how involved we were in the Catholic community and all the rest of it.

Now, look, I mean, I respect the Catholic Church.

What sort of power does that local parish priest exert over who gets in and who doesn't to these schools?

So the options, I suppose, one would be to kind of just close the place down altogether and move the House of Lords and the House of Commons someplace else.

Yes, that's what's known in the report that was released last week.

That's what's known as a full decant.

And that means basically moving the House of Lords across the park, across the square here, there's a conference centre called the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre.

Everybody knows it as the QE2.

So you would move the Lords there and you would move the House of Commons to another part of the estate, which is a bit further up Whitehall.

And that would cost about £15 billion, but it would still take between 19 and 24 years to get the whole job done.

Though, I mean, would there be a general acceptance that it's, you know, in the area of national treasure and all that rather than just a nice place for, well, not so nice place for politicians to work in?

And what you have to do is start projecting out quite a bit.

It's not uncommon when horses first start, young horses only race shorter distances.

They only race around one turn.

But as they mature, they start racing.

Instead of racing three quarters of a mile, they run a mile and a mile and 16th, a mile and eighth, and then derby distance is a mile and a quarter.

He said to me, let's see what happens when she goes around two turns.

If she can relax a little and still be good at two turns, then I'd be interested.

Do you think they expected you to show? Was the sense when you arrived that you were expected?

What's the size of your company now?

Now we have about 15 horses.

A lot of them we bring over for resale, but we also keep quite a few, and so on our team, we now have seven personal horses.

What we do essentially is we go to Europe.

We find horses.

Usually, we're buying horses that are in the age range of four years old to about 12 years old.

Horses really start to hit the peak of their career around 11 or 12.

Could I set myself up as an agent, and could I go on to, let's say, the website of your company, which I'm looking at now, and say, "Oh, I'm going to pick the three horses from this company that I think are a good sales opportunity and market them, and then if I get bites on them, then I come to you and say, 'Hey, I've got a buyer,' and I'll take my ten percent"? Is that the way I could do it?