WATCH: Tony Blair HUMILIATES Ed Miliband: “Do You Really Think China Cares What He Thinks?”

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:06]Yeah. So, Tony Blair, right, the guy that everybody loves to hate, the guy who was going to be one of the greatest prime ministers we ever had until he decided to go along with George Bush Senior uh and invade, actually George Bush Jr., I should say, and invade Iraq, right? Um, some people accuse him of war crimes. Some people accuse him of being in the pockets of the Americans. Some people said that he should never have done it, that it was a massive mistake.

[00:00:33]And I think, you know, apart from that, you might have said that Tony Blair was actually a pretty good prime minister. I used to get into terrible trouble with many of the people that used to listen to my show on Talk Sport because I would say until the moment he went into Iraq, actually, I thought Tony Blair was a pretty good prime minister. He came in 1997. He was suddenly the new broom in Downey Street. You know, he replaced John Major, the gray man, the old guy who was, as it turns out, uh, banging uh, what was the name? Who was it? He was seeing. Can't remember. Anyway, >> wife.

[00:01:06]>> Uh, well, no, there was No, no, I'm not talking about Blair. I'm talking about Major.

[00:01:10]>> Oh, Edwin Curry.

[00:01:11]>> Edwina Curry. That's right. Um, which is something you don't really want to think about.

[00:01:15]>> But the thing is like Tony Blair came in, he had young children. Suddenly there was, you know, joy, children singing, laughing in the in the sort of corridors of Downey Street. It was all great. Um, so he's now come back, right?

[00:01:26]And it says here, uh, on the, uh, on the middle pages of pages six and seven of the Daily Mail, uh, Burnham is now at war. That's Andy Burnham is now at war with Blair. But Blair has actually come out and said some quite interesting things. For example, has said that Ed Milliban's an idiot. He mocked him and said that net zero is a waste of time.

[00:01:45]He basically said that, you know, we shouldn't be pursuing it because nobody in China gives a monkeys what Ed Milliban says. He actually his quote was, "Do you really think that in China the next person that you talk to is going to say, "What does Ed Milliban think about that?" No, of course they don't. So, we alone are pursuing this net zero mania. You saw Jim Dale on earlier incredibly making an absolute fool of himself because he alone is the only person who thinks that net zero is a good idea. Even on the front of the times today, u we've got Karma coming under mounting pressure from his cabinet to rethink Labour's net zero agenda because nobody wants it. It's too expensive. We're going to pay more and more money over the course of the next 6 months to a year for our electricity.

[00:02:28]We're paying in excess of £2,000 a year for our electricity. 2,300 I think is the average price that we pay when in almost every other European country it's 400 quid, 500 quid. You know, it's ridiculous. So, I'm pleased that Tony Blair has come out of the woodwork. I know that many of you watching this will think I've gone mad because you hate Tony Blair, but when you think of Tony Blair versus Kia Starmmer, who would you rather have running the country right now? I'd much rather have Tony Blair in Downey Street because Kia Starmmer is still a complete and utter dud. And the problem for us now is that because of the u the Makerfield bi-election, nobody's talking about Karma anymore.

[00:03:06]Nobody's even looking at Downing Street.

[00:03:08]Nobody's going What's he doing now?

[00:03:10]What's he what's he up to? You know, what sort of rubbish is he getting into with the European Union? What sort of promises is he making? Where's he going?

[00:03:19]Nobody's talking about that because they're all obsessed with what's happening in Makerfield and whether Andy Bernham's going to get elected, whether Andy Bernham is going to be the next prime minister. Heaven forbid. I really, really hope that it's not that. But I think I welcome the return of Tony Blair because it reminds us of how proper political leadership actually should be.

[00:03:37]And you might think that's a very controversial opinion, but I don't obviously. Um, and I think the more Tony Blair sticks his or in the better for all of us. Don't you agree?

[00:03:53]>> Is no one there?

[00:03:54]>> Yeah. And now uh I thought I thought about saying and now for something completely different.

[00:04:01]>> And now for something completely different. Uh for some of you who are old enough to remember that, you'll know exactly what I mean. Uh that was the old Montipython thing, wasn't it? Um, by the way, um, I should just read this out to you as well because Charlotte, I I was reminded when I was with Mark yesterday that Charlotte did this incredible piece of research about the Mike Graham show and the numbers on the Mike Graham show and how uh the engagement levels by our audience are so much better than everybody else's, you know, um, that we basically have a slightly lower subscriber base perhaps than people like Piers Morgan and uh, and even Dan Wooden who apparently had a go at me the other day. I'm going to have to have a look at that. We'll talk about tomorrow. Sky News, BBC, Trigonometry, they're all bigger than we are, right? They've all got bigger audiences, if you like. But, but what they don't have is what we have, which is a very high level of um of integration with our fans and with our viewers. And people are far more engaged with this show than any other show on YouTube. Right. This is the most engaged audience in UK news. It says the average Mike Graham subscriber watches the show every other day. Um, the BBC's average subscriber watches less than three times a month. Sky News six. By the metric that actually matters, engagement. Uh, Mike is in a league of his own. So, thank you once again. Uh, we've reached uh we're on the way to 24 million views. Uh, we've got, I think, 164,000 subscribers now. So, keep hitting that subscribe button, though.

[00:05:26]It doesn't cost you any money. It's absolutely nothingly free. You don't have to sign up for anything. You don't have to promise to pay me anything. you just subscribe to the channel, right?

[00:05:35]And then you get alerted every time we do something. And as you know, we are about to expand into UK live, which is going to be really exciting. Um, coming up a little bit later on today, we're going to be doing Plunk of the Week.

[00:05:47]Chris Walk is here with Oliver and so is Anna. Oh, hello. Anna McGovern's here as well. Excellent. Um, so we're all here.

[00:05:54]We're also I've got a friend visiting as well who who's checking us out, Elena from um from Russia. Listen, I got friends all over the world, trust me.

[00:06:02]Um, so let's talk to Helen Dale, who's also a friend of the show. Uh, she's from Australia.

[00:06:07]>> Helen, very good morning to you.

[00:06:09]>> Although I'm not in Australia now. I'm in the home counties and that's why it's very bright and sunny and >> lovely. Yes. Well, well, listen, I hope you're enjoying the heat wave because being from Australia, you'll be you'll be well used to it, I'm sure. Um, >> it's very much certainly Tuesday was a Australian summer's day, >> wasn't it? Nice temperature.

[00:06:32]>> I do love that. I I mean, the one thing >> the one thing I know that we we haven't said we would talk about is Australia has become a bit of an odd country in your absence, hasn't it? It's become something that I never thought it would be, which is a slightly kind of authoritarian um slightly kind of, you know, intolerant place, has it?

[00:06:52]There has always been a strong streak of authoritarianism in the Australian character and a lot of people were unaware of this and this goes back probably to the late 19th century. You can see elements of it in uh the federal compact, the Australian settlement when the country was set up as the the supposedly the working man's paradise was the expression that is used. And I remember having to say this during co when Victoria, you do have to remember it was only one state. It wasn't the whole country. It's a federal system. So the states vary. But when Victoria went mad and the police were firing rubber bullets at trade unionunists who were protesting about CO restrictions, um I had to sort of get across to people that the bulk of the Australian population, obviously not all of them, but the bulk you have to the argument is you have to remember that Australians are maybe the descendants of convicts, but they're also the descendants of their jailers.

[00:07:51]>> Yes.

[00:07:52]And they were two large groups of people at that came into the country and brought some brought those values with them often in conflict often in tension and the thing is Australia went or is going through now I can't say went it is going through now um the realignment that Steve Davies talks about in this book which I've just reviewed for law and liberty >> and one of the points he makes in this book now that's review copy. So, if you buy this, you won't get that silly black stripe in the middle book.

[00:08:27]>> Just remember that. Um, that's just my review copy because I reviewed it and it's only just come out. Um, >> but Australia had not gone through the realignment because there's always a 12-month lead time on books.

[00:08:40]>> And Steve Davyy says this in that book, the historian, his political historian.

[00:08:46]And the thing is the realignment in Australia has started to happen now. But three things had to happen to sort of blow Australians off their bum because Australia has very stable orderly politics. First both Morrison and Albanesey. There was all this pent up demand for immigration because Australia has control of its borders. During co for a couple of years it went massively net negative >> immigration. But there was all this pent up demand because there's a lead time with getting immigrating to Australia because a lot of people want to go there and Morrison and Albanesey that so to both parties past that pent up demand allowed huge numbers of immigrants.

[00:09:29]>> It's gone black again >> in into Australia. Um am I Yeah, >> I'm on air. It says >> I can still hear you. That's okay. Carry on.

[00:09:38]The second thing that happened was the Bondi massacre and both the government, the Labour government and particularly Albani personally and the coalition completely fluffed their handling of that. Their response they did they were appalling.

[00:09:54]Talk to Australians about Albanesey's behavior and they'll say he was appearing in public like honestly someone had stood behind him and put a key in his back and wound him up. And then the third thing that has just happened in the last Fortnite is the ruling in Tickle and Giggle, which to use the uh uh I know it's a ridiculous name, but that's the actual name of the case. I'm not making it up, Tickle and Giggle.

[00:10:18]>> Um the ruling in Tickle and Giggle has basically to use the gender critical expression peaked Australia.

[00:10:27]And so the realignment's happening in stages. In response to the first one, the immigration surge, the support for One Nation began to rise and support for the coalition, which is supposed to be the center right opposition, which is basically the equivalent of the Conservatives started to drop. One Nation overtook the Greens, which are traditionally uh the Australian protest vote party where you park your vote um if you're annoyed. But they are left-leaning and they got badly blown up at the last election. Like Labour really took them on and they lost their lower house seats and they lost two senators and that kind of thing which was bad. So what One Nation became the place where people were parking their protest votes.

[00:11:10]Then the Bondi massacre happened >> and this process accelerated. One Nation overtook the coalition in polling and uh so it looked like and reputable Australian pollsters were pointing out like Costamaris because the Australian electoral system is complex. reputable Australian prop pollsters like Kosamaris at Redbridgeidge were pointing out, okay, we may be seeing a situation and this has emerged on both sides of politics in Australian history where one of the two major parties is supplanted by another one and you get a situation where the unusually stable Australian voting system instead of rewarding the coalition the way first pass the post has historically rewarded Labor and the Conservatives started to re is starting to reward the insurgent party. One Nation and then you started to get electoral results. Uh, One Nation now has two MPs in the lower house. One of them a defector from the from the coalition from the National Party, Barnaby Joyce, a former deputy prime minister of Australia. The other agraus consultant called Jim Farley who's a very clever guy who won his bi-election and took it also from the coalition but Labour didn't even bother to stand. They knew that they would be the wooden spoon, so they didn't even bother to stand. And he won that seat fair and square. One Nation also performed enormously well in the South Australian state election. Then after those two results, the tickle and giggle result came down and the coalition had been fencitting about it. So people like S Grover and her advisers, her her solicitor Katherine Dees, who I should disclose is a personal friend of mine, um could not get a straight answer from the coalition and could not get a straight answer from Labour because Labour don't want to dispute the legacy of Julia Gillard, the prime minister at the time who brought the changes in.

[00:13:04]>> No, whatever happened to her? What is she doing? What is she doing now?

[00:13:07]>> Going around on on the junket on the talk junket. But if you read Helen Joyce's latest piece in Joyce activated, she talks about how people tried to query her about what she did to the sex discrimination act in 2013 at a literary festival and they were shut down and tossed out of the venue which I think is very revealing.

[00:13:26]>> But anyway, then that the ruling was handle handed down in tickle and giggle which has peaked Australia absolutely peaked Australia become an enormous news story. Sal Grover has turned into Eddie everywhere. She's all over the Australian press talking about this. She presents very well. She's an entrepreneur, a founder, you know, quite different from the stereotype of the feminist. Basically, you're dealing with a tech person and a marketing person rather than with the traditional image of the academic feminist.

[00:13:54]>> She's been all over the Australian press. And One Nation has been the most consistent supporter of women's sex-based rights and women's sex-based um areas and spaces and events.

[00:14:06]>> Yeah, you do need that. And now obviously the coalition have now made their decision and they've all gone for we're backing sexbased rights as well.

[00:14:13]But One Nation were first. They were quickest in their response to the uh to the ruling. Pauline Hansen had he's the leader of One Nation. She's a senator had media ready to go and so they have got the benefit of that issue. And what has happened in two recent the mo two most recent polls and I think a third one today. One Nation has now overtaken Labor in what's known as the primary vote.

[00:14:42]That is the number of people who will put number one next to the One Nation candidates name on Australian.

[00:14:50]>> So is that is that a similar thing to what's happening here with reform then would you say?

[00:14:54]>> Yes, it is. But it's much much later.

[00:14:57]And if you read my law and liberty review which I have put up on on Twitter, if I can get you to retweet that.

[00:15:03]>> I have retweeted it. Yes, I rewed it just before you came on. So, there we are.

[00:15:07]>> Excellent. Thank you. Um, it's got a link to the book.

[00:15:14]>> Learn which way. Yeah, it's a link to the book and I explain how Davies genuinely didn't think that this was happening in Australia yet. Australia and New Zealand have been much much later. uh because what happens with the the realignment his key argument and you can read my piece which I summarize it and then decide that if whether you want to buy the book or not um his key argument is the thing that used to divide people the most >> back to about maybe 2000 and a bit later than that it varies obviously from country to country was economics >> yes >> how much the government should intervene in the economy and there were and or how little and there was a real contest of ideas we can all remember Margaret Thatcher and we can all remember the big fight with the unions. Well, those of us who are older than 40 anyway, >> um can all remember this. It was a huge fight. It was a genuine fight between capital and labor.

[00:16:05]>> Yeah.

[00:16:06]>> Um speaking not here as the political party or as capitalism per se, but as the factors of production in economics.

[00:16:12]There are three factors of production, land, capital, and labor.

[00:16:16]>> Yes. And it feels a bit like we're going to go end up there again because I think in in the sense we're going to have to cut this short now because we're almost out of time. But you know, we're almost going to fight that same fight I think again with the the representation of of the workers which is different now because it's almost like just the public sector, you know.

[00:16:34]>> Yeah. As and as Davey says, it's not over the economy. So obviously although it still matters to a lot of people it's over issues of culture like immigration like women's sexbased rights uh over issues of identity and this doesn't just come out for English people it's not just reform anyone who thinks that Camry and the Scottish National Party are somehow not parties of national identity is fooling themselves and they're also massively social they're also massively socialist parties as well the same thing >> I I know. I know. We got to run. So, the book um review is Law and Liberty is where it can be found where she's written the piece. Uh look in the uh on my Twitter account and I've retweeted her tweet which you can see. Helen Dell, thank you very much indeed. We got to run just because we're out of time. The clock uh as against