‘It was a therapy session!’: Chancellor Healey’s wistful speech lacked any substance

A man hooked on nostalgia and, it seems, without an economic plan. The new Chancellor of the Exchequer speaks for 40 minutes without mentioning tax or spending cuts. Is this Labour Party conference in Liverpool a conference or a therapy session? So you and I sat in the Chancellor's speech. We were expecting some kind of bombshell. It never came. I was sitting there wondering whether I'd entered a parallel universe. I actually. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Tim Stanley, you and I are standing by the Mersey. We're at the Labour Party conference. We're in beautiful Liverpool. Liverpool. I love being in Liverpool. It's really nice weather. When Liverpool is rainy, it's the most depressing place on earth. I think Mogadishu probably ranks above Liverpool in the rain. Bless you. But in the sun, it is stunning. Beautiful. It's stunning. I mean, we've been surrounded by lefties, which isn't. It's not my natural habitat here. I don't think people like us very much. We kind of like getting a lot of side-eye. Yes. People trying to figure out, I know I hate that person, but I can't remember why. And then they're like, oh, they work for the Telegraph. That's it. What wanted list have I seen those two on? Those two neoliberals, whatever that means. Well, no, I think it's the pro-Zionist stuff, because obviously the pro-Pallers have been outside the venue shouting at us all. We're going to come back to this. But isn't it interesting how the plaster's been ripped off? No one's pretending anymore that this is a party trying to. Walk a line between Israel and Palestine. No one's bothering that anymore. This is now just a pro-Palestine party. But I find that incredible. Why are the protesters here when Ed Miliband, as foreign secretary, has just given them everything they want? To explain, when you enter this conference, you have to walk through a bottleneck of protesters who are pro-Palestine. But they're not just pro-Palestine. They're really, really nasty about Israel in a way that's coded with blood libel and anti-Semitic slurs. I shouldn't laugh, but someone's actually holding a banner that says, Zionists control Labour, which is astonishing. Well, these people think that they control everything else, so why not the Labour Party? I mean, I think we can both agree that it would be laughable to suggest that Zionists control Labour when you consider Andy Burnham's foreign policy decisions. But there you have it. So we've had to run the gauntlet of that. We noted, didn't we, in the conference centre that the Jewish friends of Labour were separated somewhat from the Palestinian solidarity. Yeah, there are several countries in between them. Colombia and Cuba are in between. And on the other side, they don't have to look at each other. But the Palestinian tent is full of lovely bags and things made locally. The Israel tent is just two sad-looking pro-Israel people. The two friends of Israel left are sitting in there, and they've stuck them next to a tent with robot dogs in. Killer robots. Killer robots celebrating the weapons of tomorrow. I just think that's so on the nose to put the poor Israelis next to them. The Israelis, by the way, couldn't have a bigger flag. They said if they fell, I don't know. They couldn't have a bigger flag. But if they unfurled a bigger white and blue flag, they'd be lynched here. Well, when I went to the first day here yesterday, when I went through that bottleneck of protesters, I was really angry about it. And I sought out the Israeli stall. And I went up to this lady who was sitting there and said, how do you think about the B? It rhymes with lasters that are outside. And I realised that I don't think her English was super good. And I think she thought I was calling the Israeli nation a bunch of lasters. Which she would be used to. And I could see that she was looking around for security. And I had to backtrack and say, no, I'm sorry. What I'm trying to say is, I quite like Israel. I quite like Israel. But this is a very strange conference. It's about 80% down on the previous year. Is it? I think it's less well attended. I'm sure some will correct me. But we've been in the hall for Chancellor John Healey's speech. And there were empty seats. Yes. We'll come on to that in just a minute. On the floor section. If we can fill the podcast with its content, because there wasn't any. This is like attending a meeting of a brainwashed cult where the leader died. Yeah. He's nowhere to be seen. Where's he gone? He was supposed to be reincarnated as Jesus on the Temple Mount, but instead he just died and didn't come back. He's not the next Messiah, everybody. He's somebody who's leaving Holborn and St. Pancras, we think, for a job on the international stage. And now they've got this new guy who's saying, I am the prophet. I am the next Messiah. I am the leader. So the cult is trying to remind itself why they got brainwashed in the first place. Yes. It's also trying to remind itself. It's an exercise in re-brainwashing. Also, I think it's an exercise in trying to remember what they actually believe in. And I'm not sure any of them are particularly convinced. I mean, we know it's a broad church. Are they even practicing the same religion, some of them? They're certainly not always singing from the same hymn sheet. And that will bring us on to Healey in just a minute. By the way, you watched it, so I didn't have to. Ed Miliband? Was there much there? I did watch Ed Miliband's speech. What was fascinating was to watch the signer for deaf people trying to keep up. Because Ed Miliband's hands move faster than a hand signer's hands. That was classic Ed, and actually quite moving in places. He framed it around his parents, who were both refugees from Hitler's Germany, his father coming here to fight, join the Royal Navy in Britain, and his mother fleeing to Poland. And he talked about the contrast between the concepts of survivor's guilt, which some Jewish people have, versus a resilience and a determination to make the world a better place. And I don't think there's anyone here thus far who has framed their politics in such a stark moral way. And whether you agree with it or not, there is a reason why they really like Ed Miliband. But he did put Israel front and center of his foreign policy. The party, it's about the issue itself. It's also about moving on from Keir Starmer and the sense that we had this great moral compromise. I was talking to an MP last night who said, "My constituency is obsessed with this issue." Yes. They really, really are. I mean, the Greens to the left of them, so they're having to kind of, you know, pander to some of these. But they also believe it. But the constituency members really believe it. Yeah, but there's an irony there, isn't it? This time last year, they're praising Starmer for cleaning up the Labour Party and trying to remove the anti-Semitism. And now the anti-Semitism, I'm sorry by implication, is creeping slowly back in, which I personally find uncomfortable and indeed, you know, immoral. I find it completely and utterly hypocritical, frankly, for some of these progressives to be spouting some of this nonsense. Interestingly, I spoke to a Labour MP. I spoke to a Labour MP yesterday, and they were saying that Andy Burnham feared Ed Miliband. And I said, "Why?" I mean, in one breath, the Prime Minister's got him out of the domestic scene by putting him in the Foreign Office and telling him to go around the country. But it's all harking back to the leadership bid of 2015 and the fact that Miliband defeated Burnham. I mean, this is the point that we've been making about the Prime Minister. He's actually a bit of a loser. I mean, he's lost two leadership races. He hasn't held any of the great offices of state. And you and I have both written a letter to the Prime Minister in pieces saying, "This man is all soundbite and a lack of substance." So then we waited for John Healey. We waited for the Chancellor, and we were at the spectator party. You were getting drunk on champagne fumes. You weren't drinking. No, I don't drink, but I came away from it. People were breathing on you. Off my breasts on champagne because everyone was just breathing. It smells like alien blood. Yes, it does. There is nothing worse than secondhand champagne. Champagne breath. I know what you're going to say, so let me just mention here that you're right about this issue of. This is a conference full of MPs who feel they should have been leader. Yes, that's right. And suddenly, Byrne has been hired to come in and do it for them. Yes. But both Miliband and West Streeting made a point in their speeches of saying, "Yes, I have ambition, but I've put them behind me." Of course you have. No politician on earth ever puts their ambition behind them, for goodness sake. They're all queuing up for the next roll of the dice. And well, Streeting was introduced by a boy who's a trainee in whittle shunting on big ships or something. I don't know. You said that, "My trainee ship has taught me that ambition is valuable." And I think West Streeting knows that too. I think so. Again, strange cult where the jokes are about the fanatical, die-hard, obsessive ambition of their leader. I know. Streeting also briefly commented upon the alleged terror incident at the RAF base. Yes, RAF Fairford. Involving the hot terrorists. You said they were hot terrorists at breakfast. We're not going to address the fact that they're hot. Are they hot? I haven't seen the footage. Well, I was looking over someone's shoulder and they had on their computer the four of them being arrested. For some reason, the police made them undress. It had a soft core quality to it. Who did it? I need to watch this footage. And we now, actually, as we were coming out to record the podcast, I note that it's been confirmed that they're British nationals, those involved in this, because there were rumors of links to Iran. Were there links even to the illegal boat arrivals? Let's see. More will transpire. Yeah. But we're at this party. We're at this party and people are saying to us, "Ooh." The vibe was something big is going to happen. Brace yourself. The chance will come. In the chance. The speed. Chancellor in making a huge announcement shock, which at the time last night we thought might be scrapping the triple lock. That's what everyone was saying. So I don't know about you, but my column had said that this conference will contain no substance whatsoever. And for a few hours I was in a blind panic. You did phone me. Ringing people to try to confirm, is it true they're going to get rid of the triple lock? I can confirm that Tim Stanley phoned me while I was in my pajamas saying, "I've got my column wrong. Are they going to say something big?" It wasn't mad. Where this came from is the prime minister went on Laura Kunzberg's show on Sunday. And insisted on talking about social care. Yes. But again, had no fiscal plan for it. In fact, won't even tell us what it will look like. Is it an NHS? Is it a private public mix? Is it the deal not reforms that have been around for years and years? Right. And he kept saying, "Wait and see. Wait and see." So we were then told on Sunday night, well, the reason why the prime minister did that was to tee up the chancellor to come out and say, "Here's the funding formula so that the prime minister can then sell the reform program in his office." his Tuesday speech, and what everyone was saying that Healy would suggest was we will scrap the triple lock for pensioners after the next election so we're not breaking a manifesto before a general election and we will use the savings to finance the reform of social care. So we all went to bed thinking, blimey, tomorrow is going to be huge. Yes, but then it could be the case that the Chancellor hasn't announced that but the Prime Minister might. I mean, I would question the wisdom of taking a triple lock away from pensioners on the breadline, i.e. those only earning 13 grand a year to live on, taking that away from them in order to fund their care should they end up getting dementia and in a nursing home. Well, and Rob Jenrick has written saying that actually if you stuck to the original funding formula, it would be more expensive if it tracked inflation rather than the metrics that it's been following. So that still might happen tomorrow and of course we're going to do a snap analysis of Andy Burnham's speech to the conference in tomorrow's Daily Tea. It never came. I actually. Well, first of all, first of all, okay, I think there's been a misunderstanding of John Healey. People thought because of his association with the Blair and Brown era that he's in any way new Labour. He isn't new Labour, he's old Labour. He's got, you know, a huge crush on Gordon Brown. He's going on about Gordon Brown being the best Chancellor in history, how the UK led the world out of the global financial crisis, how the UK led the world out of the global financial crash. Well, I'm sorry, I think you'll remember that Gordon Brown was junked after two years as Prime Minister. You lost the general election. And was in charge when said crash happened. Two years after. I mean, this is the parallel universe that these people seem to occupy. But here's a little bit of him talking about giving Gordon Brown his tie. Now, I first worked in the Treasury under Gordon Brown in the late 90s and noughties. It was new Labour, new promise then. And Gordon was and is an inspiration. His determination, his drive, his block cap emails in the middle of the night. And I joined him in 1999. And one of my first duties was to join him at Labour Party conference in Bournemouth that year. He'd been at the IMF. He flew in overnight and arrived just before he was due to give his conference speech. So I was in this small room with this big group of, Gordon's top aides, I was the new boy, there were big names there. Ed Miliband was there, Douglas Alexander was there, Ed Balls was there. And suddenly, Gordon was just about to go on and soon I said, "Gordon needs a red tie!" And the only person in the room wearing a red tie was me. So in 1999 at Bournemouth, Gordon made his speech as Chancellor with my tie. I did get it back. I did get it back. He signed it and I've never worn it since. Until today. And I'm totally living in the past. Now, going on about the miners' lamp. So, yes, OK, newsflash, everybody. John Healey is a northerner. He comes from Rotherham. He is old Labour. He wants to mention things like ore grieve and how evil Thatcher closed the mines. He keeps an old miners' lamp on his desk to remind him of the solidarity of workers, which is not a morally bad thing at all. But it does suggest someone still living in 1984. Can I also ask you a question? Can I also just remind everybody of Frank, Daily Tier Frank, who reminded us some weeks ago, the Labour governments before Thatcher from '64 to '70 and '74 to '79 closed substantially more mining pits overall. About 295. Thatcher's government closed between 115 and 154, depending on the counting method used. So I do rather object to this kind of strange, rose-tinted, "only the Conservatives closed down mining towns." No, I'm sorry, Labour did. And by the way, I don't remember. Blair or Brown reopening any mines or indeed re-industrialising parts of the Forgotten North or Wales or Scotland or anywhere else for that matter. But, you know, this seems to be conveniently forgotten. Healy, on his trip into the past, said that the first conference he'd attended was 1986. And he mentioned that year Neil Kinnock arguing for sanctions on apartheid South Africa. Yes. I felt that was an unsubtle comparison being made to Israel. Possibly. I think his point in that speech was that nothing much has changed. The emphasis is very much upon Labour's past. Yes. I have not yet heard anyone at this conference use the 'S' word. I've not heard anyone say 'socialism'. No, no, that's. I've forgotten what the word is. What? Right. I've used the 'S' word on a number of occasions having to attend some of these events, but yes. And I think the distinction is important because it's not about making a philosophical case. It's not about making a political case for the ownership of the means of production. Rather, it's about reminding ourselves of the good we did in the past to make us feel better about ourselves. And that is cope for what they feel were the compromises of the last two years. But then, can I just say on that though, when he harked back to 1986, I wrote this down. He spoke about Neil Kinnock and John Smith and he said, "It was a vibrant time." "It was an awful time to be in the left." For the Labour movement. It was an awful time to be on the left. What's he talking about? When they lost. They kept losing and they had balmy Labour councils. That's what I thought. They had militant here in Liverpool. That's right. It wasn't a vibrant time. It was a dreadful time. Yeah. Also, other things where I thought, "Are you all right, John Healey? I must pay tribute to Rachel Reeves." I've written down. He said that as though she had died. I wrote down why. I then also questioned his statement that Starmer rebuilt Britain's international reputation. Yeah. Did he? Yeah. Then I also wrote down. Hang on. I'm going to start it here. We are creating hope again. Yeah. He had a go at Cameron's austerity, Johnson's Brexit, Truss's mini budget. He had a go at Andrew Griffiths, who is the shadow chancellor for having a role in the treasury when Truss's mini budget was put together. Okay. Fair enough. Talked about quiet patriotism. Which is a throwback to the quiet bat people in the thick of it. That's right. He talked about the need for fiscal discipline, which obviously didn't go down very well in the hall. They all like us to be taxing and spending and borrowing more. This was the only time in which he talked about the things over which he has real control, tax and spend. And he said we're going to stick to the fiscal rules. That was it. Otherwise, this was a 40-minute speech by a chancellor in which he did not once address taxes or spending cuts when we are approaching a fiscal cliff edge. Now, you might say he's saving that for the budget. But how extraordinary that our new chancellor has nothing to say about those two critical things. Also, how can he claim to be fiscally disciplined when it was revealed last week that borrowing is £8 billion higher than anyone anticipated? Yeah. But his fiscal headroom is slowly evaporating ahead of the budget on October the 28th. Well, he's trying to blame this all on his Tory inheritance. He's trying to pin the NEETs crisis upon Boris Johnson in the post-COVID years, and he's trying to pin the bad fiscal position upon Boris Johnson in the post-COVID years, and he's trying to pin the bad fiscal position upon Boris Johnson in the post-COVID years. He's trying to pin the bad fiscal position upon Liz Truss. But the problem is, is we are where we are undoubtedly because of those two things, but also because of decisions made by Rachel Reeves in those first two years. Didn't you think it was interesting when he started talking about benefits needing to be a bridge to work rather than a crutch, how reluctant the floor was to applause that? And this is despite a message being sent to MPs on WhatsApp saying the chancellor is going to mention welfare, please clap as hard as possible. He was quite right-wing in his rhetoric of saying we cannot consign a million not in employment or training young people to the scrap heap. We've got to create jobs for them. So then came, and I noted it was 27 minutes in, then came an announcement that they were going to make a down payment on Milburn's reforms. So Alan Milburn is trying to work out right now what to do with these 1 million NEETs. And basically he announced that they were going to plough 100 million into a new apprenticeship scheme. Or to ramp up what we currently have and get more young people straight from their bedrooms basically onto the factory floor or what have you. And he was trying to inspire the spirit that actually these children or these young people shouldn't be left behind, that they're the ones who can spread hope. But I also thought, well, in the same breath, you're giving them benefits for conditions like mild anxiety and stuff. So are these the children of the future, to quote the 1980s pop song? This is the serious problem. It's not just about the future. come and help me. I'm a righty alone. I'm at sea here. So we also heard he's going to bring back something called the Union Learning Fund. So all they really announced that was new here was the re-industrialisation of Britain, which has been everyone's goal since about 1975. Yes. And some extra spending on training programmes. Yes. So we've got nothing in terms of a serious economic plan. No. But we've got growth and hope in every postcode, but no idea of how we're going to do it. Also, who's stumping up the most cash, by the way? It's actually Rolls-Royce. I mean, he mentioned that Rolls-Royce is going to invest 300 million more into shipbuilding. I think this is it. And I thought, well, that's private enterprise. That's not state money. So basically, you are going to be reliant on really successful companies run presumably by really wealthy people who you're trying to tax more to actually create these jobs. The government isn't creating the jobs, Tim, unless you're talking about the public sector. You're talking about enterprise creating these jobs. And yet we've had two budgets. And one to come that look like it's going to they're going to thwart business people even more. This is the thing you have to understand about Labour. I know this because I was one. For Conservatives, politics is one part of their life. It's almost like a tragic necessity. Something they have to get involved with. For Labour, it's totalising. It's everything. John Healy spoke about how he actually met his wife at a Labour Party conference. Got engaged two weeks later. And they genuinely believe that everything good in this country is because of them. Yes. And so if someone opens a factory, he was talking about how at the old site of Orgry, there was now this super high tech manufacturing plant. He talked about that and claimed it as if it's there because Labour. Yeah. No, it's there because of private enterprise. I mean, in the same way that if you have a child, it's because of your family. That's right. If you do a charitable collection, it's because of your church. But Labour literally cannot separate private initiative from a Labour government. And it's an extraordinary place, by the way, to try and make that argument. We're in the Liverpool. We're in the Liverpool docks, which were regenerated by Lord Heseltine, a Tory, and a load of private equity. Yeah, exactly. But I'm sure Labour would like to take credit for this entire area looking like it is now. But let's be honest, it wasn't their project. Yeah. And a final thought. You got into an argument with Novara Media, which you can see. Well, I know. They might cut it up badly and I might come across like an evil right wing Harrod and Witch. But that whole thing is, is neoliberalism ending? Has Andy Burnham ended neoliberalism? I don't even know what neoliberalism is. What they think neoliberalism is. What is it? If neoliberalism is the state vanishes, then part of the reason why we're in the mess we're in now is because the state is too big. Because the tax take is too big. Because spending is too big. Because something like six million people are on benefits right now and are not in work. So if the legacy of neoliberalism is the triumph of markets and private enterprise, it's actually not the world we're living in. And I come back to your point about this is like entering a parallel. The parallel universe where Labour builds everything. Yes. Private capital is in a conspiracy with crypto and tech business and Putin to destroy everything. Yes. And as long as this place feels good about itself, then Britain is good. This is not a party conference. It is a therapy session. No, that's right. Tim, we have to leave Liverpool now because we have got a Telegraph event tomorrow morning that we need to play a starring role in. And then we are going to be analysing Andy Burnham's speech from the studio. Thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ♪ ♪