Bridget Phillipson: "Spiteful class warrior" and proud

Just a quick word before we start to say that we recorded this episode before the tragic news of Ann Widdickham's murder broke. We will of course be returning to that story in the days to come, but first here is that interview with Bridget Phillipson. This is a global production. Kimi Baidnock, she seems to be bringing you up a lot. A pointing a spiteful class warrior's education secretary was a disaster. I seem to be living rent free in a head and I don't really know why. I honestly could not care less what Kimi Baidnock thinks about me. This must be a very weird couple of weeks as a serving cabinet minister in the Starmer government. Big mistakes were made. People said, look we bought it labour and we didn't vote for this. There's a disconnect, I think, in terms of Kia's public persona and who he is as an individual. And I don't quite know why that is. We've got a big fight in our hands and a lot rests on defeating the likes of our origin reform and his poisonous politics. Why should we indulge in some attention seeking desperate stunt that Nigel Farage wants? Why would we indulge that? Kimi Baidnock, the Tory party leader, isn't exactly known for being a cuddly, friendly figure. But even for her, she's seemed especially exercised of late by one woman on a labour front bench. Hands up if you think the education secretary is doing a good job. Even she doesn't think she's doing a good job. Bridget Phillipsin represents everything that is wrong with the labour party. She is incompetent but yet she is very happy to dish it but can't take it. She grew up on a council estate. She's a disgrace to people who grew up on a council estate. That is not an excuse for failure. Brilliant people grew up on council estates and have done a lot better than her. She's just not good at the job and I'm not going to pretend otherwise so that she doesn't feel bad about it. She should feel bad. Yes, Bridget Phillipsin, the education secretary and a close-care starmer, Ally, is a current obsession of the leader of the opposition. Interviews come and interviews go and yet Kimi finds her way to bring Bridget Phillipsin into the conversation. And it's not just her. The right-wing press, the Daily Mail, in particular, the telegraph seems to have come to rather loathe her, writing a story recently, accusing her of hypocrisy because her mother bought her council house on weird side and sold it for the princely sum of roughly £90,000. An amount, I think it's fair to say, most of those newspaper proprietors would think twice about getting out of bed for. She's attracted their eye because of her policy of applying that to private school fees, about which she has been unrepentant, but for which she has earned the title courtesy of Bednock as a spiteful class warrior. Phillipsin is an interesting figure beyond all of this, though. As I say, she's a close-care starmer, Ally, often spoken of in glowing terms by the outgoing Prime Minister. Her officials, unshurray style her impressive backstory, appeal to starmer and she's sword. She's also, again, without much ostentation gone on with a quiet, but it's own way, rather ruthless program of reform of England's schools, itself controversial, with the accusation that she has undone, the so-called good work of the gov era for which there's been a rather cozy political and media consensus. Now, like the rest of the Labour Party, she must grapple with an uncertain future as a new era cause. So we thought in this really curious, liminal space between starmer and Burnham that it might be time to get the woman herself into the news agent studio, the charge is that she's a spiteful class warrior. Is she? And if she is, does she wear it with pride? Welcome to the news agents. What would you fill up to the education secretary? Welcome back to the news agents. We are, I want to talk a little bit about this extraordinary feud that Koby Biden, noxemes, I don't know if it is a feud, she seems to have a problem with you, I don't know if you have a problem with her, but we can talk about that a little bit because it has been a very notable feature of recent politics. But just thinking about politics in the round a little bit at the moment, this must be a very weird couple of weeks as a serving cabinet minister in the starmer government. So we're still getting on and doing some really big things at the moment, just last week I announced the teacher pay award with extra investment going into that. So we're still, you know, government continues and I'm still kind of doing the things that matter, but it's a period of mixed emotions I suppose. I'm understandably really sad that it's entered this way for Keir, not least after he you know, turned the party around, took us to a stunning election victory and has done so much these last two years. We should say he's a friend of yours. He's a friend and I feel personally sad for him and for his family they've been through a lot and he reached a very difficult decision but did so with grace and humility and he wants what happens next to be a fantastic success and so do I and I suppose when I say mixed emotions I also mean that this is a chance for us to you know, move successfully towards hopefully winning the next-gen election and I remain as confident as I was back in July 2024 that we can win the next election and Andy will take take us on that next stage of the journey. Have you spoken to the Prime Minister about it about the downfall and so on? Has he felt about it? I've had lots of conversations with him and I wouldn't I wouldn't share what they were but you know, he's general feeling. Well, you know, he has achieved so much and I will be forever grateful to Keir for the leadership that he's shown in terms of turning the labour party around when people thought it wouldn't be possible to overturn that 2019 to 80 did. He proved people wrong. He took us to one of the best ever election victories in our party's history but he also turned the labour party around at a point at which you know, back in 2019 we had conversations, you know, conversations with journalists, you know, was the labour party finished and he grasped that really awful issue of anti-Semitism. He turned the party around and whatever comes after this Keir will go down to history as a brilliant election winner and he should take real pride in that. What he wants and what I want is for what comes next to be a success and he's he is genuine and sincere in wanting Andy to succeed and wanting the labour party to succeed. That's what I want because it is right for the country and I'll be doing everything I can to make sure that whatever part I have to play I'll be fully focused on getting behind this labour government. You don't think is Margaret Fatcher famously said about herself that he'll be a very good backseat driver? No, he's been really clear that that isn't the intention. No, it's not his style and it won't be the approach he takes. He's always been someone that has been ruthlessly focused on making sure that labour wins and that's what I want going into the next general election. It does require though, doesn't it? And I know that you admire him and as you say he's a friend, it does obviously require for labour politicians now including yourself to reflect on how it did come to this because obviously you're right, he achieved something extraordinary. No one thought it would be possible from 2019 to get back into government, given where it wasn't 2019. Obviously the tourism implosion helped but it wasn't the only factor. So he went from winning that historic majority to two years later having exhausted his political authority and that does require some theories to why that happened to prevent it from happening again from a labour point of view, right? So what's your theories to why it happened? I've thought a lot about that and I will kind of share my thoughts. I think sometimes it's only with the passage of time that you really have a full understanding of exactly how things have worked out as as they are. My instinct is that firstly we didn't tell a good enough story about what we were doing. Individually the policies were the right ones and I'm really proud of what I've delivered in education but I think in terms of how that all fits together as a positive and hopeful narrative about the future of our country. I don't think we connected with the public. I think we were too gloomy early on. I think Keir Axepsad as well. That was a famous press conference he did in the week or so after the election where he basically said things were going to get worse before they get better. That was a mistake. It was a mistake and at a point at which people were nervous because it's a big leap of faith to overturn such one government in the way that it was done and there wasn't an extent to which people wanted the Tories out and the way to do that was to vote Labour but they wanted to believe that Labour that we had the right plan for the country and I don't think we successfully convinced people that that was where we were. I think in addition to that there was some, there's a number of areas where big mistakes were made. I mean, Tate went a few allowance for example, Tate the where we got to unwellfare reform. Those calls just unnecessary problems. It's weird though when you look at that though. I went and I just just speaking personally, I, when we think about winter fuel, I know it dropped out of nowhere. I cleared the politics around it was poor but it was a declining benefit. Paid to people who obviously didn't, there's a political argument to be made that it does seem still weird to me in retrospect that it cut through in the way that it did and it seemed to generally. That one thing, it was, it recoverable it seemed from their own which is peculiar, it feels to me. It was big and symbolic and I remember I did, I do regular community events as a constituency MP, just kind of town hall style people can turn up and the first one I did after the general election was kind of the very end of July so after the winter fuel allowance announcement and my god, it was, it was an angry meeting and the ja, it was the symbolism but it was also people said, we thought would Labour, we didn't vote for this, we didn't expect this and we thought you would behave in a way that they just didn't think it was fair. I think there was a way of doing it that could have explained it as sharper politics around it. Well, we got there with, the problem was the policy, we got there with the right policy which is that the wealthiest pension is no, they shouldn't be getting it but actually the way in which it was set, the limit actually captured a lot of people including a my constituency who were not affluent, not wealthy people but have maybe got a little by way of savings or I've got a small widows pension whatever it might be and therefore were set to lose their winter fuel allowance. The trouble was we then got to a better position on the policy but we didn't actually explain that we changed it so I still to this day have people saying to me you took my winter fuel allowance. even though they've had it, they will, on the basis of what they've told me, they have almost certainly gone it back. But it's those kinds of things. And I think the trouble is, it has crowded out some amazing achievements. You know, you look at the Employment Rights Act, the Rentus Rights Act, massive upgrades in terms of rights for working people, where they live, how they live their lives, rights in the workplace, great protections. And that's alongside all the things I'm obviously personally proud of that we've done in education, both some of the practical changes in the short term will make a big difference, whether that's the huge expansion in childcare, preschool meals in September, new free breakfast clubs, but also being willing to grapple with and confront some of the long-standing challenges that previous governments had run away from. You know, take send reform, for example. It's far from done, where, you know, we've had a big consultation and we'll set out next steps. But there are lots of people who said to me, it's just too difficult to don't bother, don't try. Especially after what had happened around welfare reform. It's just too hard. And actually, I think it shows what can be done if you try and take people with you, you explain what you're trying to do and you make sure that people are involved in the design of that. No matter how difficult the policy, and it is really tricky, 'cause this is obviously children who've been through awful experiences, parents who are really bruised by a system that has failed them. But I think we are taking people with us, building confidence, but there's an awful lot more to do on that front. - Do you buy the idea that one of the problems, and you know, some of your own colleagues have said this to me and it's been well-rehearse, but the idea that, you know, Kierstahlma himself was just not, and especially politically effective for Prime Minister, IE, that he didn't really have much connection with the public, you and I both know that, whether it's fair or not, you know, he does, has seem to attract a kind of visceral loathing for whatever reason, which might not really seem commensurate with the kind of political profile he has, but it is there, and that he just wasn't sufficiently political. - I think there is a disconnect, I think in terms of Kier's public persona and who he is as an individual, and I don't quite know why that is, but I think there is a disconnect, because the Kierstahlma, I know, is someone who is just very straightforward down to earth person who's in politics for the right reasons. He genuinely is, I mean, I think most politicians are, but I think Kier really feels that he felt a real sense of profound responsibility and wanted to do the right thing for the country. And ultimately, that was why he took the decision to resign, because he felt that was right for the party and right for the country, and I think that's the measure of him as a man. - You and I have spoken before about the ability of modern politics and modern politicians and the modern media to maybe absorb difficulty and the extent to which perhaps there is post-Brexit a kind of addiction to kind of political sugar and that, you know, that and everyone is sort of part of that, and peace is part of it, there's a WhatsApp thing, there's a media thing. Is, do you think that's part of the problem? - Because I mean, that's, and if it is, that's gonna be something for the incoming government to deal with as well. - I think the fact the media landscape and the way people consume news and the way that MPs interact with one of the rest changed is certainly a factor, but I think it's the reality, so there's a little point mourning about it. I do wonder whether you would have a Harold Wilson today, though, for example, someone who can mount that kind of comeback, you know, reinvent himself. Would that happen today? It feels like people are kind of, once you're done, you're done. - Or maybe you just haven't had politicians of Wilson's quality. I mean, he was exceptional. He was exceptional, but I think, no matter how exceptional, I think the landscape in terms of how fast things move, partly connected to just people's ability to access information, which is not a bad thing. It's here to stay, so as I say, there's no one complaining about that. - Do you think the new MPs, for example, do you think they've got, you know, do you think they've got the necessary kind of political shock absorption? - I do, but I think what also happened, and this was kind of a collective failing on behalf of those of us who'd been there long. I did a lot of work with my new colleagues, and particularly on Sandra Form, but I think a lot of my new colleagues arrived in Parliament, having had a clear sense of what they were doing before and found Parliament. It's an odd place to work, and you're part of a team, but it can be quite lonely, and they didn't always feel fully involved in the work of the government. And that, I think, is not, it's not an unreasonable expectation. - One of the things that, it feels to me, that sort of gone wrong, well, maybe not gone wrong, but it is a disconnect, and you talked about the disconnect. Something that Keir Starmer was often like to say, and there is clearly a strong element of truth to it, he says, you know, this is, I think he says the, but I think the more accurate way of saying it probably, this is certainly one of the most working class cabinets that has ever been, certainly in the sense of background, I mean, maybe not in terms of immediate profession before going into politics, but certainly, you know, most of the people around that cupboard, say, will offer on backgrounds, like yours or backgrounds, like mine, they're often, you know, they're from working class backgrounds, often the first in their families goes to university and so on, and that's a big success story. And yet, you and I both know that if you said, probably to your average person, that Keir Starmer's cabinet is full of working class people, they would probably find that visible, comical, ridiculous. And it allows certain forces who are certainly not working class to pose, actually, as the absolute friend of working class people. That, how do you overcome that? - So, people are right to be skeptical in a sense, because, you know, I'm very proud to be from working class background, but I have a very different life now. I have a very different life to the kind of life I had growing up. - Yeah, I feel, sometimes, if I work in class now, sort of, but clearly not like, so it is a hard thing to come here. - And I feel incredibly fortunate. I think as a constituency MP, though, you were always on the sharp end of understanding what people feel in their experiences day at the day, and I take that really seriously, because, you know, I feel so lucky to be in the position that I'm in and to be in a position to actually do something about it for the next generation of young people growing up in the situation that I was in. I think where it does make a difference, however, in terms of having people from those kinds of backgrounds, is there wouldn't be an employment rights act without it. There wouldn't be the biggest reduction coming in child poverty in any parliament ever if we didn't have people at the cabinet table who really cared about making sure that, you know, you've got good rights at work, you've got protections when things go wrong, you take action to make sure the background doesn't determine what children go onto a achieving life. You know, there's a reason the Tories don't do that. It's not, there's a philosophical point. They don't actually care about that stuff, and they think people should just be left to get on with it would be my, you know, you either, you think of swim. And my view has always been that the role of government, the role of the state is about giving people the freedom to make the choices that are right for them, doing the things that only government can do. And it is not freedom, it's not just the absence of constraint, it is the full range of choice that should be available to people to choose how they want to live their lives. And I think sometimes, Westing on the left is being people that want to tell others what to do, tell them how to live their lives, you know, be judgmental. And for me, it's the opposite. I want people to have real options, real choices, genuine freedom, whereas too many lives are constrained by things like poverty that mean no matter how hard you work, you're not going to have the life that you want because some of that has already been determined at quite a young age. It's interesting that it's not that conversation around freedom or that concept of freedom, which people, I mean, Roy Hattles just started, of course, he famously, oh well, maybe not famously now, I mean, I suppose, in my mind, he's famous. He wrote a book about freedom in the 1980s and about how the Labour Party, the left more generally, should reclaim freedom as a political concept because of that time, obviously, it was so, so, so, so, it's with Margaret Thatcher. And still, I think, you know, people think of freedom, they think of it as a right-wing idea. But there is a really powerful argument that you've just articulated that it can be a very left-wing idea because, as you say, you know, you can have lots of freedom from all you like. But if you don't have freedom too, you don't have the economic power to actually excise for freedom. What's the point? Why do you think, I'm always intrigued that the left and Labour doesn't make more freedom as a political idea. No one really talks about it. Why do you think that is? I mean, I love Hattlesley's book, and it was an inspiration to me when I read it many years ago. And I gave a speech yesterday, 50 years on from Jim Callahan's speech at Ruskin on education. I gave a 50 years on speech about that. Great debate he wanted about education. Exactly. And the theme part, a big part of the theme yesterday was around education as freedom. So the freedom to give people choices over their lives. And the argument I was making was that that has to start early on, because it's in those first early years of a child's life that so much will be determined unless we take action. And why I was making the argument for a big expansion in child care, universal child care, so that every child and a mother, their background, start school in the best possible position. Because now, you know, less well off children arrive months behind their more affluent peers. That got widens. And then many of those young people, as Alan Milburn's report, has shown end up not an education employment or training. So it's what will-- it's the absence of choice those young people will have later on because of decisions that were or weren't taken when they were much younger. So you like being education secretary? It's best job in government. What surprised you about it in terms of like being in Whitehall and the machine? I mean, I was in-- like so many of us, entirely new to government. I think we've actually been able to drive things forward pretty fast. If you're clear about what you want to do, I've just been struck by how amazing so many civil servants are. If you've got a clear agenda, you know what you want to deliver. It will deliver for you. So you disagree with them in the prime minister articulated the idea of civil servants who are stuck in the kind of tepid bath of decline. You don't recognize that. My experience at the Department for Education is that the team there are just so committed, so dedicated. They choose to be-- many, many people choose to be there. Because education is something that they feel very profoundly. They will do so in a way that is entirely upholding the best traditions of the civil service, which is political neutrality, good advice to ministers about the risks and the trade-offs that are involved. But there's a reason we've been able to deliver curriculum. assessment review and a new curriculum that's coming, big expansion and free school meals, the send reform, the school's white paper. I mean, we've charted a course to the end of the Parliament on every element of education from our early years through to post-16. And that is a big undertaking in just over two years. And I think it shows what can be achieved if you've got a clear sense of what you want to do. Would you like to stay as education secretary? Of course I would. You had any choice, that's what you'd like to do. Of course I would, because it's been such a privilege to do this job for two years. But these are of course questions for the new Prime Minister and he will reach his own decisions. I'm not going to seek to influence that. That's that's for Andy to decide. Well, we're going to talk a little bit about, what you've done in education, but also how it is perceived by some politics anyway right after this. So Bridget Phillips and Education Secretary, you have been, it seems to me in this government, one of the kind of sort of lightning routes for political attack from the press and from others. I think Ed Miliband has been a very significant one in terms of what he's done from energy, but I think you've been right out there attracting the eye or it seems to me, it feels to me there's been a consensus in education quite a long time. The Gover reforms and so on are considered a kind of unalloyed good and it sort of proceeds or was the Blair reforms and academies and so on before that. Now I don't think it seems to me that you've tried to upend that, but you've certainly tried, you've certainly done slightly different things or had different points of emphasis. Why do you think you've attracted such eye from some of these people? Part of me, I don't really know in some ways, I find some of it a bit amusing and a kind of huge overreaction at times to what I think are pretty straightforward changes that will benefit children, but I think a part of it is that I am actually getting on and doing things and they don't like the agenda because it's a dots with their political worldview. So I think it probably demonstrates that what I'm doing is effective if they're so hostile to us. Well they say that your hostile to work and class aspiration, which of course given your background is quite peculiar, it's a peculiar charge, but that's what they say. They say that because you are undoing the reforms, the Govira reforms built on the kind of Androidonis Blair era reforms, which have been so successful in transforming English education, that's the charge that they put to you. I think that is a total misunderstanding, not just of what I'm seeking to do, but also a total misunderstanding of the so-called consensus that you described. Now it just doesn't exist in the way that they would have it. So the consensus that is there is that over a 30-40 year period, it became very clear that high-quality teaching was essential. That's why teaching fully became a fully graduate profession and the way it wasn't even when I was at school. We have clear accountability around schools, clear expectations and a set of assessments that allow us to check whether working class kids in particular are achieving all that they showed. And if they aren't, the means by which we can intervene to turn that around. What didn't happen over an extended period of time, poor schools, Golf had a clear agenda and he drove it forward. What happened after that was far less clear. There was a lot of drift. A catamization was seen as the only route to improving school standards. Lots of schools were allowed to drift along, even Westanders were not improving for working class kids. Pretty unaccountable sometimes as well, some of these schools. They were accountable directly to the Secretary of State. And we had schools that became academies and progress then didn't follow. For many schools, change of leadership, change of direction, yes of course that can be critical. But there are schools today that became academies in 2011-2012 and that have never been anything other than equivalent for quiz improvement or inadequate. Now, something's gone wrong there and that's why I've brought in the rise programme to intervene much earlier in schools and not performing. So this so-called consensus, look, the academy's programme under Labour was worlds away from what it laid at Bacaym under Michael Golf. You would expect that. And at Michael Golf did a pretty good job of persuading people that actually the agenda he was pursuing was in line with the agenda that the last Labour government pursued. That is simply not the case. Of course, there are some aspects around continued expansion of academies. But the last Labour government's academies programme had a focus particularly on disadvantaged communities with real focus on those that were not delivering but with extra support that went alongside it. What happened under Golf and what happened beyond that was not the same thing. It wasn't the same programme. You wouldn't expect it to be. It was a conservative secretary of state. But actually, what we saw in recent years in education was just drift and indifference. But generally speaking, favour what Golf did? I'm in favour of things like phonics, which I think have been proven to work. The idea that schools should all schools should become academies are drive to do so. What do you think about that? So I've sat out in the white paper that I want all schools to be in a group and I think that is the right way forward. We've got, you know, 80 or almost 90 per cent of secondary schools now in groups of schools and small numbers of primaries and that will take longer. But I think it is right that schools, particularly in their local communities, collaborate work together. But I've also said that local authorities will also be able to establish their own trusts. So you were trying to undo the Gauviara reforms, but you are trying to change them or trying to put a stop on some of the excesses of it. I think there's two points I would say addressing some of what didn't work because some of it where it was rooted in the evidence was effective and did work. But there were other areas where, for example, it's been clear for some time that we have a bigger team and gap in terms of outcomes and basically nothing was done in any meaningful way to address that. But the other point is that, and I think all of himself has said in recent days that the way in which the dismantle show a start was mistake, you can only achieve so much by school ruffle. You can only achieve so much in terms of what happens within schools. It's also what happens beyond the school gate and what happens before children arrive at school that makes often even bigger impact in terms of what they go on to achieve. So if you dismantle show a start, if you push children poverty, if you take away all of the help to families that is absolutely essential, don't be surprised that your school reforms don't deliver all that they should because children are not in a position to benefit from it. I sort of feel this, I mean, this is obviously part about policy and obviously go people like Gauviara and those around him and some conservatives as well don't disagree with what you've done and that's totally fair enough. It also feels like there is a slightly personal element to some of it. I mean, can we be very knock in particular over the last few weeks? She seems to be bringing you up a lot. Sometimes entirely involuntarily, we just put together this little little set of clips of, just as just the last couple of weeks of what can be very knock has had to say about you. Even she doesn't think she's doing a good job, Mr Speaker. Just, oh, there's someone did, someone did. Just for those who raised their hands, the two people who raised their hands. Yesterday, a poll found that 0% of teachers think the education secretary is doing a good job. 0% she taxed private schools to pay for more teachers, but the number of teachers has gone down. It turns out appointing a spiteful class warrior as education secretary was a disaster. Does the Prime Minister agree? Does the Prime Minister agree that he has been let down by her incompetence? Bridget Phillipsson represents everything that is wrong with the Labour Party. She is incompetent, but yet she is very happy to dish it but can't take it. She was extremely rude to my shadow justice secretary yesterday morning just before PNQs calling him a racist. Why doesn't she apologise for that? She was a disgrace to people who grew up on a council estate. She's just not good at the job, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise so that she doesn't feel bad about it. She should feel bad. So you're a spiteful class warrior. Your people who come from, your disgrace to people who came from council estates. What's your response to that? I seem to be living rent free and ahead and I don't really know why. Why do you think it is? I think if you're resorting to personal abuse like that and you didn't actually include the Gestapo one, she can permit you to a Gestapo office in the other week as well. If you're engaging in that kind of abuse then you don't win in the argument. What is the argument? What do you think she means when she says that you're a disgrace to people from council estates? God knows. Does it bother you? No. I honestly could not care less what Kevin Bade knock thinks about me. I mean she brings you up a lot. I mean she's a whole cabinet to choose from. So there must be something about you that really grinds her gears, really pisses her off. Well there must be. I mean like it's obvious. She's not just attacking what you're doing. She's attacking you. You were a disgrace to people from council estates. I think I'm probably annoying all the right people if that's what she thinks. I mean there is something. I think there is something in that. I find it amusing. I genuinely find it amusing. But I think it probably shows that I'm delivering things that she doesn't like and I wouldn't expect it to like them. All of it, what's absent in all of this is any kind of substance. I mean you can throw on insults all you like. What's the substance? What's the vision for what she wants to achieve? What's the policy? I mean to be fair they have one policy and that's to give private schools their tax breaks back. Which is not a popular policy with the British people? Well that's the thing that they've, I mean this is obviously when they call you a spike for class worry. That's the particular bit of the policy that she's talking about or why she's talking about that. I mean they have, not just them but of course much of the press as well. I mean, That has been, if we're looking for an explanation as to why you've been a bit of a lightning roll, it seems to me that that is a principal component of it. Probably, which again, I find absolutely baffling, given that 93% of kids in our country go to state schools, the vast majority of parents send their kids to state schools and are more interested in what we're doing to drive up standards and deliver better life chances for children in state schools. I suspect not a vast majority of Eddices and newspapers. Yeah. Do you think that class policy is interesting? She talks, you know, she's called you a spiteful class warrior. Is that something you own? It is definitely something I own. In fact, it's something I own in the form of a t-shirt now. Oh, really? It is. And I've got a little present for you as well. You got a present for me? I've got a present for you because I know you take a keen interest. Are you very proud of where you come from as well? Well, what's one spiteful class warrior to another? From one spiteful class warrior to another. Now you're talking to me. What have we got here? Oh, now we're talking. Oh, I wear this. Let me look at this. People watching rather than listening. Spiteful class warrior. What's the size? Large. How dare you? I've got the same one. I'm okay, right. Well, that is, I'm going to put this on. You don't need to put it on if you don't like it, so I'll put it on the rest of the interview. I'm not, here we go. That is a title that I will wear with some pride. You wouldn't get this with John Soap, let's tell you that. Maybe I'll wear this to the royal box that we're building. Look at that. It's very flattering. Excellent. Thank you very much. You don't often get presents from interviews, so I'm grateful to you. I need to appreciate it. I do appreciate it, but seriously, you're happy it's a title that you're literally, well, I'm not wearing with pride, but you're wearing pride. You don't mind the idea of thinking of you as a spiteful class warrior. I don't really care what the Tories think. All I care about is the job that I'm doing, the difference it's making for children. And I know that we are making a difference. And I have been really struck by the number of really kind, kind of emails and correspondence I've had from people across the country saying that there's spiteful class warriors too. Because they're people from just ordinary backgrounds like I am who want the country to be fairer, who want to live in a world where you can get on the matter where you're from. And that's what I'm in politics for. I want kids growing up today from backgrounds like mine to achieve great things and to have a bright future. And I will do whatever it takes to make that happen. And if it involves being called a spiteful class warrior by people like, by people like Ami Bade-Knock, then, so will be it. What do you make of her as a political figure? Because it seems to me that we can talk about this briefly, but obviously we've got this slightly peculiar situation with Farage fighting this bi-election at the moment who knows what effect that will have of him. There's a timeline where this is very, very diminishing to him. We may have seen not just Pete Reform, but we might be accelerating to actually sort of base reform quite quickly. In which case, actually the prospect of a Tory, a Labour Tory fight at the election, which has been completely underpriced till now. Actually, we could have a something of a restoration of more normal politics. How do you think the party should take Bade-Knock on? So I do think that she shouldn't confuse that kind of unpleasantness and personal abuse with being effective, because I don't think it's actually where the British people are. You think she's not? I think that's a name calling. It's an unpleasantness and there's a name calling there. I don't think it's how people generally like things to be done. It just feels to me like she is chasing reform, that the right are descending into some kind of, I don't know what it is, it feels a world away from a lot of the traditions that the Conservative Party used to represent. Now, whatever my, obviously, part company with them on everything, but there was an argument and there was a case being made. I'm not clear what the case is beyond not liking the Labour government and throwing around some names. They haven't come to terms with the fact that they were in power for 14 years. They were kicked out in an almost unprecedented result because people knew that they had failed the country. They've never reflected on that. We lost the election in 2019. We reflected really seriously on why that wasn't changed our party. Instead, Bade-Knock's response is to kind of ape the worst instincts of Nigel Farage. That is not a root of. She's put distance between herself and Farage, hasn't she? In terms of working with him and so on. Well, I heard her the other day saying, making the case a why she put Rupert Low on a Select Committee using a Conservative place. I mean, Rupert Low. I mean, I just find it breathtaking. I just don't think that is where the average voter is. I don't believe it. And I think she will be found out in the context of a general election. Do you dislike her? No. You don't dislike her? No. Do you think she's a bully? She's accused of being. I honestly couldn't care less. Since you mentioned Rupert Low, he's been on Joe Rogan's podcast, little known by comparison to this one, obviously, but he's been on Joe Rogan's podcast in the US. I only mentioned it because he's asked about Dumbley, obviously your education secretary. He said there was a single murder. Now, that was not only the worst school shooting, but the worst mass shooting in British history. Just wondered if you had any thoughts on what he said. There's barely words for it. I honestly cannot believe that he would go there. I mean, that was just an appalling tragedy that to this day casts a long shadow over our country. And people still living with the consequences of that family still affected by those awful events. I honestly cannot understand for the life of me what he was thinking about. How do you think what do you think's going to happen with the claxon by election and Nigel Forage? Does this mean, I mean, he's obviously not fighting this Labour's not contesting. He's saying that you're coward. That you're part of the establishment and that you're cowardly for not even bothering to stand the candidate against him because you're too afraid. Why should we indulge in some attention seeking desperate stunt that Nigel Forage wants? What's be fair? I mean, you know, the Labour Party knows a thing or two about giving it by elections, doesn't it? Give him recent history. I mean, you know, they indulge you in the make of field by election. They're totally unnecessary by election. No, we're not standing a candidate. We think it's a stunt. He can spend his summer doing what he wants to do. Do you think we've reached peak forage in British policy? I think it's often the case that early on into a government, you know, you get, it's tough in the polls. I think we're just starting to see big signs of improvement in terms of our position. But there's a lot to do. We've got a big fight on our hands and a lot rests on defeating the likes of our origin reform and his poisonous politics. And that is a big responsibility that, you know, going into the years ahead with a new prime minister that we need to take on. Do you know what Andy Burnham stands for? I do. Do you know what Manchesterism is? I do. Well, the articulation of how you can use kind of the power of government, whether that's regional government or national government, to harness the best of the private sector working together. I think that will be. But new labour, isn't it? In its own way. When one looks at Manchester, I mean, you know, what's happening in Central Manchester, isn't a truth about Burnhamism and Manchesterism. It's kind of new labour on steroids, isn't it? You know, lots of private sector money, foreign money, regenerate, a sort of city centre, hoping it flows outwards. I think it shows what can be achieved as well with a clear sense of purpose and direction, the ability to use the power of government, whether that's at a regional level or a national level, to bring an investment, to deliver change, but also to do only the things that government can do. So, for example, you know, it is always better if public transport is actually in the hands of people that care about it, not just left to private operators to, as we still have in the northeast, left to private operators to do as they want. And when that happens, people will let down. Do you think that the Burnham government, in terms of its policy, prospects will be much different to the Starmar government? Or is it just emphasis and style and vibes and communications? Which is not nothing, by the way, I'm not undermining it, but is it substantially going to be different? So, I think that sense of the country moving in the right direction and the sense of hope and optimism that people want will be there in abundance. The Prime Minister, the new Prime Minister, Andy Bohnen, will want to put his mark on a new government, will seek to push things in a different direction in certain ways. And I'm sure he'll be setting that out very soon. You're fan of his? I am. Always been. We've got, we've got very well on things like Centreform. He worked with us on that, on areas like adult skills, on working together on further education and skills. I think he's delivered a lot as well. Do you support, you think he's a good idea when he says we need to introduce proportional representation? That's not been my view in the past. No, I've never been persuaded on that. I've been clear about that for a long time. You wouldn't want to stand on a manifesto that pledged to introduce PR. I'm not close, there are a few issues in politics. It's slightly odd list, but forgive me. Proportional representation actually assisted dying in two issues where I've always been open-minded. I've always been willing to consider the arguments, but having done so in recent times, I haven't changed my mind. I'm not close-minded on proportional representation. I've always just thought that there were significant benefits to first pass the post. I think that Ed Milliband would be a good chancellor. I'm not going to get into speculating on who might or might not. Go just not, because it's just tiny bit now. No, but just theoretically, you know, of all the options available, you think he'd be a good chancellor. Ed Milliband is a great and talented colleague. I can tell you that much. And he's done a great job on the role that he's in now, but I am not going to speculate on decisions that are rightly for the new Prime Minister. And there's been a suggestion in the past that one of the things that Burnham needs to do is sort of end the boys club in number 10. Is that something that you encounter and do you think it is something he's got to correct? Look, the sexism and politics. That's wherever you are in politics, there is sexism. And that's just the reality of being a woman in politics. And I've got a pretty thick skin. I was on the receiving end of rather a lot, but actually there were some really talented people working in number 10. But I think overall, clearly the culture across our party was not where it needed to be. And we've got a chance to turn that around. Can you imagine a situation where, after the next election, could you imagine working with the green parties? keep for our job or live dams or whatever? No one thing I can say I'm sure Andy Bernheim is focused on is delivering a majority Labour government so I think let's just we've got a big majority already we want to keep a majority and let's park an East speculation. You might have four as in there in the Labour government. Where are his two shirts around them? Unfortunately you're not allowed to wear um two shirts with slogans and so forth in in PMQ's. Well I didn't know there might be a guy with the dresses have been in there soon so I mean who knows who knows um and just finally um if it all goes really well and there's a bounce in the polls do you think it'd be a good idea if Andy Bernheim sort of his own mandate? Tempting as it is to speculate on those questions I won't be. So your preference would be for the Parliament to run along rather than anything shorter? We've got we secured a five year term so there is no reason to have a general election but I'm not going to speculate on what might or might not happen into the future. Are you hopeful? Just finally you hope for me it's been pretty tough two years I know you said you've achieved a lot I get that um but it's not been an easy time necessarily to you know either be it never is supposed to be in a Labour cabinet minister but it's not been easy. Are you hopeful? Is this an optimistic moment for the Labour Party? I am hopeful and optimistic although I almost always am because I think being in government having won a Labour victory happens so rarely and is such an enormous privilege and responsibility that we should be doing our best to be optimistic and to convey that sense of optimism that people want to believe that our country's best days lie ahead of us and the fact that we haven't done that effectively has been a big problem for us but we have the chance now to really make that case to the British people and I am confident that we can go on and win the next-gen election but there's a lot of road left to run and a lot that we need to do in the meanwhile. Brilliant Philipson still the education secretary grateful to you thanks for coming in. Thank you. And thank you for the C-shirt. Pleasure. [Music] Well, Philipson remains an intriguing figure. For me she talks of something seldom spoken about much at all these days in politics freedom. It is a bit of political terrain vacant and I think waiting to be seized. By the way the late great Roy Hattersley's book from 1987 we mentioned choose freedom is a superb and a resting read on that very subject and as I say I can much recommend it over the days when politicians could write and breathe political prose like that. That is it for our bit of podcast prose or hasn't been poetry let's not go ahead of ourselves. For another week thanks as ever to our own podcast laureates our production team Shane Fenley, Michaela Walters, Natalie Inge, Arvin Badowell and a Georgia rich, Jess Williamson, Mikey Bags, Martin, Croza and Lizzie Ward our executive producer is Louis Dagen Hart and our editor is Tom Hughes. It's presented by Emily Get Me Out of the Royal Box Makelist John, Arby at any match, any day sople, Ami Lewis Goodall. Emily will be back on Monday and assuming that the heats of the South Balkans water polo championships are finally concluded John will be too. Have a lovely weekend and as a man in a Norwegian English household may I be the first one to say come on Englund, Lads take the big Vikings legs out. Bye bye. This has been a global production.