Carol Vorderman SLAMS Reform Candidates Over Past Twitter Activity

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Well, Robert Kenyon is Reform UK's candidate in the Makerfield bi-election due to be held next month. And while the party has been keen to pitch the self-employed plumber as the relatable, hardworking local choice, a recently surfaced social media posts have created a battlefield. An account belonging to a user called Rob Canyon 1 appears to have been deleted last year, though its archive lives on. Last week, campaign group Hope Not Hate published some of those archive posts with this one gaining by far the most attention. It begins with a Christmas Eve post from someone called Lewis who replies to a post from Carol Viment by saying, "Happy birthday, Carol. My god, I'd love to smell and lick your asshole." A second user called Chris then comments on that post saying that given Lewis is prepared to publish something so graphic on a public forum, he probably needs his computer checking. and Rob Kenyon one then replies the second user saying of Louiswis's post quote he's only saying what we're all thinking Chris speak for yourself and he adds a laughing emoji and thumbs up the surfacing of that post prompted this response from VAN >> opyion is a misogynist in my opinion and he's built as this local plumber no he isn't he's an online abuser and I tell you what if he was a local plumber in my area I wouldn't let him through my front door.

[00:01:23]>> I mean, that's quite reasonable, isn't it? If a guy is speaking like that to a random woman online, >> Paul, I mean, if you if you if you saw the local plumber say like that uh talk like that and you've got your partner or your wife, you got your kids at home, you think, I don't want this guy in my house.

[00:01:36]>> No. And and it'll be so interesting to see actually how the story lands in a place like Makerfield, whether it actually appalls voters in the same way that you know, you watch this and you think this guy seems like pretty unpleasant. I mean what seems to be the line that that the reform is going with now which is interesting is basically to say the stuff doesn't matter >> is to basically say this is just you know locker room banter. It'll be very interesting to see in a week whether this is still in the news cycle and whether that actually works or not.

[00:02:06]>> We we're talking about this story obviously now and we're going to get to the heart of this. I've seen one comment here saying, you know, I've said worse, and I presume if you stood for public office and want to be a member of parliament, you'd apologize. I presume you would. I mean, I think I've said some pretty bad things. Not that bad, but if I said something that offensive, I think I I probably would apologize. As for points out there, hope not hate found a few other potentially dodgy tweets from the accounts. This was another from 2020.

[00:02:34]It comes at the end of a conversation that appears to be about when lockdown might end with one user asking Rob Kenyon 1, since when was he a politician? To which Rob Kenyon one replies, "If it's not tits and ass or rugby, it's politics who always been a fan of politics to be fair." That deleted Twitter account isn't the only source to have resurfaced that's been linked to the Makerfield by election candidates. A user linked to the now deleted Twitter account also commented on an online rugby message board. This is from the Independent.

[00:03:06]The same account also wrote in 2011 that women can't quote ref, drive, or give directions and declared, "I'm sexist.

[00:03:11]Sorry, but I am." 15 years ago, not 2020 to be fair. Post made on an online rugby fan forum in the 2010s, objectified European women's bodies, uh, while saying, "English women don't care, just walk around with their fat bellies and odd shapes, pushing around at 16 in their PJs." Now, you know what? For me, this is the worst thing he said. This is the worst thing he said because he's saying that British women are worse than European women. They're fat. They have too many kids. I thought reform wanted to protect this country's women, not slag them off. Uh again, we're going to talk about the details of this. And I think personally people shouldn't be written out of politics because they say something dumb on social media 15 years ago.

[00:03:53]But again, I I have a daughter, God willing, touchwood, got another one on the way. I don't want him talking about women in this country like that personally. Apologize. We move on. But they've chosen not to do that. Former Tory MP and now reform UK defector Danny Krueger was asked about those posts on the Today program.

[00:04:10]>> It is clearly wrong for politicians to talk in that way. He was not a politician at the time. He is an ordinary man from an ordinary place and what he's done now is to step forward outraged at the state of our country and the state of his >> only ordinary men from ordinary places do not write that I'm not going to defend those comments but please can you acknowledge that there are other concerns at play here what reform stands for it is a it is in a sense a revolution >> about better politicians >> absolutely and we do >> and I've tried to use that as a theme to understand why when you're going to get rid of some of the civil servants and you're going to replace them with potentially men in makerfield field who say they want to do that to TV presenters, whether they should, are they up to the job? Are they the best ordinary man from an ordinary background you could get?

[00:04:54]>> What we want is politicians who will hold this machine to account. I'm not going to sit here and please the previous remarks, unacceptable as they may be, uh, of people who, as private citizens, said things they shouldn't.

[00:05:05]There is a bigger story here, and I recognize I'm not going to diminish the importance of that, Emma. But if I may, the real challenge for our country is to get our economy moving, to secure our borders, to give opportunities to young people, and to rescue places like Makerfield from economic model that isn't working. Uh, in a statement, Reform UK also said this.

[00:05:26]Uh, these comments, which are little more than locker room banter, uh, he wasn't in a locker room. Uh, it was online for everybody to see. That's the point. It's a public statement, were made more than a decade ago, well before Rob was in politics. We simply don't care about establishment hit jobs. We fully back Rob and are confident he will be an excellent MP for Makerfield. Paul, I mean on the one hand, there's some truth to that that what somebody has written randomly 15 years ago, you know, that shouldn't write them out of politics in 2026 in my view. We can talk about that more.

[00:05:58]>> Uh I think in a way that response is more important to me from reform than the contents of what he said. You know, again, he could apologize. He could say, "I've learned. I'm sorry. We move on." I think most people, most voters, and that's what matters ultimately makefield would say, "Okay, might not vote for you anymore, but that's good enough."

[00:06:17]>> But reform doubling down.

[00:06:19]>> Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I think on the first point, I think the one thing we, you know, this is not to defend his comments at all because they're clearly they're plainly deplorable. Um, but I think this is going to happen again and again and again in our politics actually because he's from a particular generation. He's basically our age. um where for a lot of people when they're on Twitter back in 2010 or 2011 and they got three followers effectively they're treating it almost like a tiny social me message board for their friends sort of like what you treat like a WhatsApp group now right which is not to defend those comments just to say this is some context so maybe you know it's quite different to him having 100,000 followers and putting it out there uh and you'd expect in that sort of situation that you know people slightly more like casual actually more revealing about their their their views you would expect him after that to apologize, right? I mean, the response from reform, I think, is is fascinating, both appalling and fascinating. And and what they're sort of trying to test for the first time, I think, in a UK space is effectively sort of the Roy Roy cone Donald Trump approach, which is you never apologize for anything. You're always on their attack. Everybody else is wrong. Everybody else is taking themselves too seriously. everybody, you know, just needs to lighten up, loosen their tires, behave like ordinary people. And and they've obviously made some sort of internal decision that actually there are enough voters who first of all don't think this is a don't think this is actually a material issue that they're not going to vote yes or no on the basis of these comments on enough scale to affect their vote. But maybe they're thinking like this happened with Donald Trump. You know, Donald Trump said horrific things. Donald Trump was caught on tape. The grab them by the [ __ ] comments didn't make any difference to his success as a politician.

[00:08:05]In certain ways, some people saw that as a sign of authenticity. And you can see that's sort of what reform is playing with at this point in time. They're sort of playing around this idea of, well, actually, this is what ordinary people talk like. We're not like you in Westminster. We don't follow these these woke codes of conduct. You know, it's a bit loose when we have a drink around like the building site. It's sort of the implication they're giving. Um, and that's both very worrying because actually you do want two political parties to uphold democratic norms. You do want them to push back against misogyny. You do want them to push against back against homophobia. It's important that we set that our politicians set a tone >> because politicians who don't set a tone in that way invite other people to start pushing boundaries in other places. You know, if you see a politician, you know, in reform who's saying horrifically misogynistic things or endorsing them, it's not unlikely you start hearing them on trains. you know, it makes public spaces more dangerous for people, but clearly they've decided at some level that people might actually buy into it.

[00:09:03]Either it'll fade away, either it'll just go away and it doesn't matter, or some people will actually quite like it and they'll lean into it and then maybe this is actually some of the underlying subconscious sub almost subliminal messaging the reform wants to give across that it can't actually state explicitly. It's quite useful for them to say, "We're not going to call this guy out. We're not going to be one of the tough guys who comes in and tells you to be politically correct. This is 15 years ago. Move on.

[00:09:28]>> I mean, there look, I see that argument, but equally, take the trans comment. A good question, I think, from the media would be to him, well, you've said those comments. Presumably, you wouldn't say those as a member of parliament. I mean, that's one thing you can ask that. But separately, let's say you're the MP for Makerfield and a constituent, a trans constituent comes to you and says, "I've been assaulted on the street. I've had my bro my nose broken." you know, will you represent that person like you would any other constituent? Right? We're talking about equality under the law. If their house is burgled, >> will you help them? Will you do case work for them serving them as constituents, as voters, as taxpayers, as you would for anybody else? I mean, that's a really important question. Or do you think they're simply less important as human beings? Right? I mean, by the sounds of it, he he does think that. And then again on the women comment, you know, I think the media will emphasize the Carol Vman stuff because it's a great headline for them and it's going to get clicks, but he's basically saying that 50% of the population, again, he'll be representing a constituency of around 75,000 people.

[00:10:26]Half of those people uh are idiots.

[00:10:30]Again, you you should probably apologize for that. Uh it's worth contextualizing the post we've just discussed. The archived Rob Kenyon 1 account contains thousands of posts written between 2017 and 2025. And yes, there are some posts that are offensively misogynistic. There are also posts written during the height of COVID which are anti-Chinese and at least two that are overtly homophobic.

[00:10:52]But the vast majority of Rob Kenyon 1's Twitter activity involved his hardcore support for the Wigan Warriors Rugby League football club. Uh when you look at Rob Kenyon 1's tweets in the round, it becomes clear that he went on a pretty radicalizing journey. Along with the sexist posts on the rugby messaging board, Rob Kenyon 1 also discussed his politics. Here's one of those posts written in 2019.

[00:11:16]So anyone who thinks I love Trump, voted Brexit, read the Daily Mail, live in the 1950s, Amtori, and 103 years old is wrong. I'm none of the above. In a later post, the account also wrote that they quote quote woke up the day after Brexit [ __ ] myself and to what was voted for as in Rob uh the plumber was [ __ ] himself. But they also said that the EU's treatment of Britain after the vote made them quote glad we voted out. In another post, the account said it would rejoin the EU tomorrow if the block was quote stripped back to what it was set up for. Uh and the account also said this free movement of people is great when they're natives of EU countries and not people from outside Europe seeking a Greek passport that will allow them into any country in the EU. So you have their summon with concerns about the EU with the generosity of freedom of movement inside the European Union who nonetheless voted to remain in the EU.

[00:12:11]There's lots of people like that. He also distances himself from Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, the Daily Mail.

[00:12:17]Not exactly your typical Reform UK profile, though. Reform UK have now said that Kenyon did indeed vote leave in 2016. He he himself said the opposite.

[00:12:27]But there we go. Uh the party has also called Kenyon quote, "A proud Brexiteeer, unlike Andy Burnham, who will drag the UK back into the EU by any means possible." But over on the deleted Twitter account, Rob Kenyon 1, uh also has some views you might not associate with reform. He was indeed supportive of drum roll industrial action endorsing GMBB's British Gas Strike Gorn Rob. Uh Rob Kenyon also worked for the NHS during CO and he regularly vented his frustration at those who doubted the reality of the virus. Sounds pretty woke to me. He also spent significant time trying to discredit CO misinformation while calling on people to pay attention to the advice of the chief medical officer. Chris Witty makes you think.

[00:13:15]But something appears to change during the latter part of the co pandemic. By late 2022, Rob Kenyon one is reposting co conspiracy theories and supporting less trust of all people. And he's taken to telling the chief medical officer to f right off.

[00:13:30]Uh Paul, I mean, in a way, actually, this is much more interesting than the idea that he's been a horrendous, horrible individual for 20 years. He's far right. I mean the evidence would indicate the opposite. Pretty normal dude. Probably right of center. Seems to have voted for remain. He said as much.

[00:13:50]Has some socially conservative views but supports the NHS. Supports striking um gas workers. Maybe his mate was one of them. I mean that's quite you know a normal or bit contradictory set of things.

[00:14:03]>> Mhm.

[00:14:03]>> And he's been on a journey where he says some really strange stuff and now he's standing for reform. I mean that is a way more interesting story isn't it than identicate farright guy for 20 years hasn't changed a bit. Yeah, it's also interesting to see. I mean, we it is this quite odd thing of trying to basically watch the development of a political personality and like a whole person through their social media posts, right? Which is actually, you know, first of all, that's not entirely going to be a reflection of everything.

[00:14:30]There's going to be, you know, a degree of self-curation around that. What is quite striking and I've gone through some of the media reporting I haven't gone through as our archive but how much more political his posts have come over time and that feels like actually quite an organic change an underlying there has been an underlying change in like algorithmically driven content on social media right I'm not saying that social media like determines all our social consciousness at all um but there does seem to be certainly around the co period a lot of uh additional political content that will serve to people that actually politicized people on both sides of the political spectrum, but generally speaking became quite a useful feeder scheme. You know, people started feeling upset about co didn't think it was fair, didn't think it was just, didn't think that, you know, the way the lockdown was applied was applied evenly or effectively across society. There were people ready to take that stuff and lead them into sort of more politicized spaces. And to me, it feels like that's part of a broader underlying change in the way the social media feeds our stuff, which did change. They did change the algorithm, right, in in sort of the late 2010s because it used to be, you know, it's all driven by engagement, right? And they realize that actually the thing that drives engagement the most is is people being angry, people being upset, people being feeling like they've been hard done by. Uh they also serve up more political content because it's much easier to produce, people have more robust opinions, people engage more about that stuff than they would about, you know, necessarily, you know, photos of their latest barbecue. So, it's interesting to see. We're both on the one hand watching through this lens of social media. We're trying to pass his political psychological development. At the same time, we're also using that as a prism to refract how social media has changed itself and how it's changing our politicians and how it's actually generating this sort of quite bizarre political feedback loop. Um, that's how he generates a character like Rob the plumber. um who has been taken from a relatively ordinary guy who likes rugby into being a political player who could potentially have like a major impact on like the political life of this country because this bi-election really could be quite sort of definitional in terms of how the Labour party does in future.

[00:16:44]Suddenly you have this character who was apolitical it seems you know posting about Carol Vman and you know other things >> in the Wigan Warriors >> in Wigan Warriors is now posting about co and politics and has been drawn into this stuff. Uh I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing but it's an interesting thing. Yeah. And you said it's not just on one side and that's absolutely true, right? On on on one side, which we talked about today, you've got Rob the plumber. On the other side, you got Hannah the plumber. You know, millions of people are taking politics more seriously than ever. It might be because of COVID. It might be because of Gaza, cost of living, Russia, Ukraine. But it really is, I think, beyond any doubt that the general public is more politicized than any point in my lifetime.

[00:17:23]>> I think that's true. I think it's really interesting and and maybe I can act as a bit of a case study for you. So, you know, I'm originally from South Africa.

[00:17:30]In South Africa, politics is like the national sport. It's like it's the national gossip. Everybody's talking about politics. Like, we have endless commissions of inquiry or court cases and everyone's following them. Literally during lockdown, the number one thing that people were watching in South Africa was a judicial commission of inquiry that was streaming live. Um, and when I came to the UK, I was quite shocked by how hard it was to engage people in political conversations that actually it became like a bit of a social impediment. You know, as a young guy living in Hackne trying to make friends with people and I tried to talk about politics and people just didn't want to engage at all.

[00:18:02]>> When was this?

[00:18:03]>> 2008 2009 >> and it was very hard to get people to engage. I remember you know you know join the Lo party uh even during that period it felt quite hard to engage people around. I drowned about the AV vote referendum like trying to talk about people about like proportional representation versus AV vote. Nobody was was talking to me at my age about that. Now it feels very different. Now feels like actually politics is a national conversation that is had like very broadly and very widely and it's particularly pronounced amongst young people. It is striking to me the extent to which young people in the UK are so much more politicized >> than they were. And maybe it's just like, you know, we had this last privileged generation where maybe you didn't need to worry about politics because the world wasn't burning. There wasn't Gaza. We were living in the tail end of like the privilege of the '90s peace dividend, right?

[00:18:52]>> Uh but it's definitely very different and it's definitely made our politics I feel both more engaging and interesting but feels a lot more high stakes at this point. Of course, because the background to all of this stuff, right, is like massively increased inequality, climate change, you're going to be talking about these like the underpinninging social realities driving this engagement, which is all being refracted through social media.

[00:19:16]>> Uh maybe it's possible that 10 15 years ago, Navara media couldn't have succeeded in that sort of environment.

[00:19:22]>> 100%. You know, if you look at, you said you were in Hackne in 2008, think about all the hipsters going around on their single speed bikes having their, you know, lovely coffee.

[00:19:32]That world view, that way of relating to the world is only possible if you might be able to get some housing security.

[00:19:38]And of course, that was ebbing aware at that point, but it wasn't quite as bad as it is now. You might be able to get some housing security. Cost of living isn't terrible. You know, you can just about make ends meet. You haven't got runaway inflation. These are all things that really you get them off the glo financial crisis. Then you get them with COVID. You get them with the, you know, Russia Ukraine war. It's coming again now down the line with Iran. Um, these were luxury beliefs. There's that line the right likes to use. A subplot in the makefield bi-election saga is the story of restore. The party presently has one MP, its founder, Rert Low. And it's generally considered a meme party more than anything else. But as experience tells us, woe betide anyone who ignores memes or underestimates their ability to make the political weather. Because while for now reform just have one guy in Westminster as well as 21 counselors, they've had polling that puts them on eight and even 9% nationally. They also have tens of thousands of members and Roert Lo's Facebook account has 1.2 million followers. Uh here we go again.

[00:20:40]I hear you say none of that's real, Aaron. Facebook isn't real. Large memberships just don't matter that much.

[00:20:47]Look at Corbyn's Labor. Except in a narrow bi-election, they sort of do. In recent days, new polling by Cvation gives Burnham the lead in Makerfield.

[00:20:58]Just uh Cation has Labor on 43% with Restore Reform rather just behind on 40%. Here's the big news though. The Restore are on 7%. Uh which means a strong showing by Rbert Lo's party could give Burnham the seat and incredibly pave his way to number 10. Wow. And I mean wow. These are fascinating subplots, right? Rob the plumber gets radicalized. Does Andy Burnham become the next prime minister? Robert Low starts a new political party. Will the Labour party die? These things are operating with very fine margins right now. Uh all of this has been followed by Dan Hodges who after visiting the seat last week wrote in Sunday's mail on Sunday that the restore vote was very real. In that piece, Hodges talks about how reform had Burnham not been Labour's candidate would have done very well. You know, he thinks that reform would have won this bi-election at a caner. Uh even then it's close of course. Um but the restore votes it could really really make the difference. So reform should win this seat. Burnham comes in. It's really close. That's his assessment.

[00:22:09]That's what Cation is saying. But he's saying, you know what, the restore thing is not just a polling error. I've seen it and I've had multiple people tell me this personally as well. Restore. If you go into the middle of the constituency, you see a ton of garden stakes, you see a ton of posters. It's real. Doesn't mean they're going to win. Doesn't mean they're going to come second, but they're, you know, they're in the realms of keeping their deposit. In response, Reform have freaked out basically, which might indicate that Low has indeed thrown something of a spanner in the works. After that poll was published, reform posted this on X.

[00:22:48]Vote restore, get burn has criticized Robert Kenyon, the reform candidate, for his previous comments on Brexit and Trump. And in response, Kenyan posted this.

[00:23:02]I used to respect you, Robert. Resto have never wanted anything to do with this area. But now someone born with a silver spoon in their mouth is trying to lie about the only workingclass local man in the race. I want net negative immigration. I mean that's a really stupid thing to do, isn't it? Start a flame war with a guy who has 1.2 million followers on Facebook.

[00:23:26]Maybe he knows more than I do when it comes to this stuff. Uh then there's Richard Ty who shared an article in Spike magazine which attacked Restore and Mr. Low. Superb by Brendan O'Neal.

[00:23:38]Must read. These guys will form a government and they're citing Spike magazine as kind of an attack dog that's going to win them this seat. I mean it's panic stations folks. Uh finally there's Matt Goodwin reforms candidate in Gorson Densson who said this. It is crystal clear restore have no idea what they're doing. They are amateurs who are only helping the left. Only reform has a serious plan for saving this country, including reversing the Boris wave. I urge you all to get behind it. Vote reform. What's so funny is that Matt Goodwin and the people in reform and the people in Restore all backed Boris Johnson in 2019 and now they're fighting over who can reverse THE BORIS WAVE. YOU VOTED for it.

[00:24:25]What are they going to be arguing about next? You know, we'll get a reformed government. We need to reverse the Farage wave. We had no idea this would happen. Well, we were told Brexit would reduce immigration. It went up. We were told that Boris Johnson getting a supermajority would bring back the glory years. And now we're being told Farage can sort it all out. When is it GOING TO CLICK? THAT maybe these guys don't have the monopoly in any case on good ideas.

[00:24:49]Now, why is this fury happening? And is that polling real? Uh, according to Low, it actually understates restores real numbers. Uh, here's what the man himself said on Twitter. They're getting the same returns as us on the doorstep.

[00:25:02]That's in reference to reform. So, canvasing returns, according to Rupert Low, which I I don't personally believe.

[00:25:09]It's his experience. I don't doubt it's his experience. I just don't think it's representative of broader reality. The canvasing returns for reform and restore are the same. I thought this tweet again by Dan Hodgers was a good one.

[00:25:21]Reform's increasingly frenzied attacks on restore represents the biggest example of the strand effect in British political history. I mean that's probably a little bit OCT. In years to come, PPE students at Oxford will be reading textbooks about all of this.

[00:25:36]Do you think Restore could be the thing that sends Andy Burnham to 10 Downing Street?

[00:25:41]>> Oh, that's a good question. Um, I don't think so. My sense is that this is an incredibly interesting insurgent campaign that is basically extracting concessions from the right out of reform and that the vote will generally consolidate. I mean my sense is that it's such fine knife edge stuff, right?

[00:26:04]It really is like very small margins. My sense is that you know polling people ahead of an election when the the opportunity is to to bring in reform MP which would fundamentally transform the Labour party. You absolutely you know would throw it into crisis would almost guarantee you you'd think it would certainly create the conditions where you could have a reformed government very realistically in the next two and a half years. I think that vote will consolidate. What is interesting to me is the extent to which Rbert Low is being Nigel Faraj's Nigel Farage.

[00:26:35]Because this be this has been Naja Faraja's trick his whole political life.

[00:26:38]He's actually been, I would argue, probably the most successful political operator in the UK, achieving his political objectives by doing what Rupert Low is doing now, which is planting himself to the right of the Tories and basically saying, "Unless you give me what I want, unless you do exactly what unless you pull your policy platform to my direction, I will make sure you don't win the seat." And he's always been, one thing that's been interesting about Far is he's always until 2019 when they all got behind Boris Johnson as part of the agreed deal was that he always stuck with it. He said, "I'm not going to pull out. He's not not doing what the Greens have done for example or make a field or they sort of half discussing whether or not to no I will always run you know if you don't win my voters that's your fault not mine I'm going to pull you along with me and he's been incredibly successful so the question now becomes I mean it's such a weird situation as well where reform who don't have the seat are actually sort of the establishment party in this fight of the far right which is very unusual because I think the one thing that's really striking about that poll I think you spoke about online the conservatives are 2% % >> I mean that is extraordinary. I think people undervalue and under explore the extent to which the 2024 general election was not about Labor winning everything but actually about the Tory party a party of government for 100 200 years falling to pieces. Uh so my sense is that they will come to some sort of agreement the end result of which is I think the reform is going to move even further to the right. I mean, we've even started seeing if you saw the the stuff that Robert Genrich and and Zia Yusf were sort of sparring about whether you know the extent to which they want to engage in remigration or outward migration from the country. It's it's working from Rupert Lo's perspective. Uh but I don't think it's going to be the thing that actually changes the vote.

[00:28:20]The thing that changes the vote is the extent to which Andy Bernham can get the vote up.

[00:28:24]>> You know, we've not had a race like this in terms of a bi-election where you've got two candidates on the right. I think it might bugger them. I really do because if you're reform, you want to get as many postal votes in the bag, for instance, two, three weeks before polling day. Three weeks before polling, that's what you want. And you're going to have people saying, you know what, I'm not sure there's there's a lot more don't knows than there otherwise would have been. And I think that's really going to hurt them. And it's hard.

[00:28:50]They're being powered by enthusiasm. Not by everybody because not everybody's enthusiastic about reform, but their side are meant to be enthusiastic about them. And restore's pinched some of that.

[00:29:01]and he's now being attacked Rob Kenyon from two sides. It's fascinating. It is really fascinating and I think your point about the Tories being the real story here in some ways >> just 2% restore allegedly according to sation 7%. So restore allegedly the status is only 350 people but they are in the constituency. Um restore having more than three times the vote of the Tory party. Isn't it crazy? We always hear from legacy media chem Badnock's doing so well.

[00:29:25]They just love to confate realities, don't they? She's doing so well. I'm looking at the local elections. I'm looking at the Makerfield polling. I'm looking at Gston and Denton. They didn't come in the top three there. They're losing all their donors to to reform. I mean, Labor and this is really key. This is the most important bi-election I think since what 1922 since Newport, which killed it killed the Liberals. Basically, it was the end of the Liberal Party. And you're right that if Burnham doesn't win this, the calculation then becomes that Labour probably going to get single or double digit MPs. I think double digits is really I think I 100 MPs at that point would be really impressive, right? If they lose Makerfield, but Andy Burnham running.

[00:30:07]That's that's part of it. And then I think you probably would see some defections actually. I think people would start to say, "Well, my seat's gone. Oh, bugger. I might as well just join the Greens or join reform."

[00:30:16]>> I I feel like there's been this degree of complacency amongst Labour circles.

[00:30:20]There's this there's an assumption that that you know certainly amongst the soft lift that Andy Bernhammer will turn and his unique political instincts and his you know his brand will carry Labor enough that you can begin this process of like a midgovernment recovery.

[00:30:34]>> What's undervalued I think is the extent to which Burnham losing will send this government into like total crisis because at that point what do you actually have? You have an incumbent prime minister who pretty much everybody can't stand. And I think if there's one message that came out of the local elections, it was pretty much we're done with this political project. We're sending you a message. This guy has to go. And that was even though it was a local election, that was a very consistent theme that Karma himself was driving defections away from the Labour party in both directions, right? To reform uh and to the Greens. So then you're going to have a prime minister. You're going to have had this 6 8 10 week psycho drama. We've had a bi-election. This guy's arrived. at the end point of which is this guy who we've all basically said we don't want as prime minister is still there clinging to power and who's in the cupboard to challenge him >> I mean it's Angela Raina could she could she get another vote is she going to be popular with the public I have no idea or it's going to be west streeting is west streeting going to make a move I mean that's at that point you know the Labour party is is in like a very dire dire dire situation >> here's the thing that people aren't saying and you're right it's terrible for start Bernham wins he's gone Bernham loses I mean the party collapses but if Bernham loses in makerfield labor's most popular politician bar none if he loses in makerfield then any smart money would say that west streeting Angela Raina Ed Miller band karma all the seats are gone >> you know these are not safe seats I mean streeting's majority I think is about 650 um really really extraordinary stay with Navara for all of that I'll be going up to make a field in the next couple of weeks to make a little documentary and of course we'll be covering the bi-election on the night that doesn't come for free sadly If you want coverage that isn't failing Labour lords who were part-time comedians going on Sky News and talking nonsense for hours on end on the night of the bi-election, why not support our work here at Navar Media? You get more wise words from people like Paul Asharker, Michael Walker, and dare I say myself, but also we get to cover this stuff in a very different way to what you see in Legacy Media. Uh if you think that's a good idea, go to support.navaria.com, I think, or navar.dia/sport.

[00:32:44]I should know that by now, shouldn't I?

[00:32:45]Uh the link is also in the description below.