Transcript: The great stink of England’s sewage crisis

This is an audio transcript of the Political Fix podcast episode: ‘The great stink of England’s sewage crisis’

Lucy Fisher
We’re swimming in sewage. And no, I’m not talking about us folks in Westminster.

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Welcome to Political Fix, your essential insider guide to Westminster from the Financial Times with me, Lucy Fisher. And with me here in studio are Political fix regulars: the FT’s political editor, George Parker. Hi, George.

George Parker
Hello, Lucy.

Lucy Fisher
And columnist Robert Shrimsley.

Robert Shrimsley
Hi, Lucy. And just before we get into this, I do think the listeners ought to know that you sort of disgraced yourself this week coming into the studio with a Rishi Sunak-style pair of Adidas trainers.

George Parker
Samba trainers.

Robert Shrimsley
It’s not on. It really is.

Lucy Fisher
Well, this is the last . . . let it be said, this is the last time I wear them before they meet the bin. Thanks for outing me, Robert. I didn’t realise I was a member of the Samba community until Rishi Sunak came out and caused so much ire amongst this gang.

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Well, let’s get down to business. We’re going to discuss the future of Labour’s Angela Rayner. Plus, what’s up with the Westminster honeytrap? But first, we’re kicking off this week’s show with another murky topic: plunging the depths of Thames Water as it struggles with its huge pile of debt. And for that, we’re joined by the FT’s infrastructure correspondent, Gill Plimmer. Hi, Gill.

Gill Plimmer
Hello.

Lucy Fisher
And a very special guest, the environmental campaigner and musician Feargal Sharkey. Hi, Feargal.

Feargal Sharkey
Hello.

Lucy Fisher
So, Feargal, let’s start with you. You’ve campaigned for a while now to clean up our rivers. Why is sewage back in the headlines in such a big way?

Feargal Sharkey
Well, for the very simple reason that last year, 2023, was the largest year of sewage dumping in the country, broke all previous records with a rather unbelievably death-defying 3.6mn hours’ worth of sewage dumped into England’s rivers and on to our beaches in just 12 months.

Lucy Fisher
In the past week alone, I’ve seen the headlines — Yorkshire Water fined 150 grand for dumping sewage in Sheffield’s River Don, in the Isle of Man, their utility company confirming that raw sewage will be pumped into the sea until 2026. Then, of course, the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race disrupted by revolting sewage in the Thames. What’s the worst examples you’ve seen personally of late?

Feargal Sharkey
Oh, a matter of weeks ago, sewage being dumped into the River Test in Hampshire. For listeners, the River Test is probably the primary pre-eminent chalk stream on the entire planet. There are but 225 in the entire world; 85 per cent of those are here in southern England. The Test is the world’s biggest, best chalk stream. And for weeks and months now, raw sewage has been dumped into it by the local water company.

It’s a SSSI, one of the highest forms of international legal protection that we have in this country, and yet it has simply become an extension of a water company’s sewage system.

Lucy Fisher
It’s just very galling to hear about. And then, of course, the water companies tend to say, well, it’s been a period of exceptionally heavy rain lately; there’s not much we can do about that. Do you buy that as any kind of excuse?

Feargal Sharkey
Well, listen, what they’re overlooking is their own legal obligations. As they know perfectly well, in 2012 the UK government was taken to the European Court of Justice. The court ruled that sewage should only ever be dumped in exceptional situations. Now that legal terminology for an event so rare and so unique that no reasonable person could have foreseen it and therefore put systems in place to prevent it. That basic philosophy was reinforced in the High Court last year. They know perfectly well they shouldn’t be doing it.

But to add more gall to your ire and frustration, Ofwat has now confirmed that they do indeed have a legal obligation to build, operate, maintain sewage systems capable of effectually dealing with that sewage, not dumping it when it’s raining, which doesn’t count, and that we as bill payers have provided all of the funding they ever needed for 33 years to meet that legal obligation. What we should be asking is where’s our money gone, what happened to it and when can we have a refund?

Lucy Fisher
Very good questions. Well, Gill Plimmer, you’ve led on reporting about this issue for the FT. Who’s to blame, in your opinion? Is it the water companies? The government? Ofwat, the regulator?

Gill Plimmer
I mean, I think you could point the blame at all three of them. The regulators haven’t regulated strictly enough. The water companies have siphoned off money into dividends and raised debt when they were privatised with no debt 34 years ago. And here we are today with this massive issue where many of the companies are debt-laden, but particularly Thames Water, which has £18bn of debt. And now it’s struggling to service that debt because interest rates have risen and also faces higher construction, energy and labour costs, and that’s all weighing on the company.

Lucy Fisher
So tell us a bit about what’s happened with Thames Water and the crisis it’s facing with its parent company.

Gill Plimmer
Sure. Well, so Thames Water has a very complex structure — which was partly set up to avoid tax and for various other reasons — where it has multiple layers. And at the moment the shareholders have been asked to put on more equity.

But they’re saying that they won’t. They won’t put any more cash unless Ofwat agrees to certain conditions. And those conditions have included a regulatory settlement over the next five years that will allow them to raise bills by 56 per cent, including inflation, and also to relax some restrictions on dividends and also to reduce fines for service failures because they all deplete money from the business.

And shareholders have a point that if they want to rectify the situation, they need to be able to, you know, stop money leaking out of the business in fines. Ultimately, all the expenditure comes from our bills. And if the company keeps paying out in fines, in some ways it stops them investing in new sewage pipes and infrastructure.

Lucy Fisher
So big asks from the company, leniency on fines, this huge increase in bills that you’ve outlined. Now, as I understand it, they need the approval from the regulator to go ahead with such big bill increases. Are they likely to get that? What’s gonna happen, do you think?

Gill Plimmer
Well, it’s still unclear. The shareholders believe that they’re not going to get that increase and that Ofwat isn’t going to show leniency. And, you know, in many ways this is 34 years of light regulation and now, under pressure of what is beginning to look tougher and restricting dividends and increase in bills, but we really don’t know. Ofwat doesn’t have to make a draft ruling until June. It won’t make a final ruling till the end of this year or beginning of next year. And even then, companies may go to the competition regulator and appeal the decision. So it could be a fairly drawn-out process.

Lucy Fisher
And just reassure us. I mean, what’s the legal situation here? Presumably Thames Water can’t be allowed to collapse or at any rate, you know, they can’t turn off the water taps that service such a huge proportion of the nation’s homes.

Gill Plimmer
I think that’s absolutely right, that whatever happens to the financial structure, whether it gets nationalised or just simply has debt restructuring, the water will keep running, the employees will keep working and we should still have water delivered to our homes.

Lucy Fisher
OK. Well, that’s the very least we can expect. And just finally, Gill, on that idea of whether the government will be forced to step in, do you think a bailout is on the cards?

Gill Plimmer
I mean, I think it’s, you know, it’s impossible to say. The government’s absolutely desperate to avoid any sort of bailout. It’s an election year, this is the last thing they want. But that does look increasingly likely.

Lucy Fisher
And Feargal, what’s your view on what the government should do regarding Thames?

Feargal Sharkey
Well, at this point, government should have weeks ago, and possibly even arguably a year ago, placed Thames Water into what’s known as special administration. Gill is absolutely spot on. Water companies cannot voluntarily go into liquidation. It would be a pretty ridiculous situation if we had a receiver trying to sell off Mogden Sewage Works to the highest bidder.

So the truth is, Thames Water needs to be put into special administration — the secretary of state can do that this afternoon. It then needs restructuring. And I’m afraid in reality the bond holders are gonna have to take a haircut. Personally speaking, not a penny of the public’s money should go into refinancing or restructuring this company. The bondholders knew what they were getting into. They were all too happy when the cash was rolling in. As an industry, they’ve paid out £72bn of our money to those shareholders and another tall chunk to the bondholders.

The truth is, I’ve got two words for them: due diligence. They knew what they were doing. This is part of the risk. And let’s face it, do we really care if the Chinese government — 9 per cent stakeholder, indeed one of the biggest debtors to Thames Water — what do we care if they take a bath? They need to take a haircut and none of the public’s money should go into it.

Lucy Fisher
Well, a very clear manifesto from Feargal. Robert, we’ve had a similar level of anger from Michael Gove, cabinet minister, suggesting this situation around Thames Water is a disgrace, it’s the result of serial mismanagement. Is he right?

Robert Shrimsley
Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think the absolute primary offence goes all the way back to the nature of the privatisation, when the government of the day agreed to wipe out all of the debts in order to smooth the privatisation, and then allowed subsequent owners — Macquarie, of course, who aren’t on the hook for any of this now because they’re long gone — to run up huge debts so that they could pay themselves significant dividends. They ran up these debts not to reinvest in the water infrastructure but to pay themselves. And that’s the original sin here. That’s where it all goes back to. So there are serious questions about the nature of that privatisation, in a way.

Although I think Feargal is absolutely right about the bondholders having to take the hit. They’re not mostly the ones who were responsible. Some of them are university pension funds. So they’re not all, you know, rapacious City slickers.

Lucy Fisher
And George, this is becoming a big electoral issue, isn’t it? I mean, the Lib Dems have really alighted on sewage as one of their main campaigning topics for the election.

George Parker
Well, it won’t have come as any surprise to Feargal, or Gill, for that matter, that this will become a big political issue. But I think for a lot of us in the Westminster village, it did sort of blindside us a bit, suddenly what a huge issue the pumping of sewage into rivers became. And as you say, the Liberal Democrats have made it one of their top three campaign issues in the next election. Along with the NHS and care, you know, the state of our rivers and waterways is right up there.

And I think it sort of taps into a kind of — sorry, excuse the pun there on taps — but it plays into a visceral feeling about the privatisations. I mean, I think it’s fair to say that there were some good privatisations that Margaret Thatcher oversaw, including I think anyone would like to go back to the days when British Gas or British Telecom, British Airways were in state control. But the water sector plainly has not covered itself in glory since the privatisation.

And it feeds into this idea that there are these rich people draining their companies of salaries, of dividends instead of investing in the infrastructure, which is what I think we all expect them to do. And it’s become a real liability for the government.

And that’s one of the reasons why, of course, Michael Gove was trying to put all the blame on the management, justifiably, as Robert says, but nevertheless it’s the Conservative government — and it was a Conservative government that privatised these companies in the first place — that is taking a lot of the political pressure.

Lucy Fisher
And Gill, regarding the government’s attempts to try and quell some of the public anger over this issue, earlier this week we saw Stephen Barclay, the environment secretary, outline plans for a new £11mn water restoration fund. That’s just peanuts, isn’t it?

Gill Plimmer
It is absolute peanuts. And it only comes into effect in some areas. And also, voluntary organisations have to claim it. So it’s quite a long-winded process, which does absolutely nothing to really protect our waterways from the initial damage.

Lucy Fisher
Are there any obvious solutions that ministers could bring forward short term?

Gill Plimmer
Well, I think probably the special administration might be a good step forward. And also, you know, more environmental agency staff, because one of the issues is that, you know, the pipes weren’t monitored, the infrastructure wasn’t monitored, no one really had a complete knowledge of the assets until fairly recently, and I’m not sure that they still do.

George Parker
To be brutally honest about this, Gill, the likelihood is this will be kicked down the can by ministers into the next parliament, and it will be someone else’s problem, presumably an incoming Labour government.

Gill Plimmer
That’s certainly what they’re hoping for.

Feargal Sharkey
If I might help? The last set of polling data I saw, 56 per cent of voters are now saying the sewage scandal will influence how they vote at the next election. Sixty-nine per cent want to renationalise the whole industry. Ofwat, the regulator, released some of their own internal research: 69 per cent of people are saying water companies do not provide a good service, 78 say they’re not good value for money, 79 per cent saying they do not act in the interests of the environment.

I think we are all agreed: in terms of privatisation, this one has been a colossal failure, and in fact, I have to place an accolade and place a crown on the head of the FT. It’s because the FT first came up with the phrase water industry privatisation is nothing more than a legitimised rip-off. And it certainly is.

Lucy Fisher
And just finally, from you, Feargal, would things be any better under a Labour government?

Feargal Sharkey
Well, either way, there’s another side to all of this. So it doesn’t matter who wins the next election. Sewage is only half of this. The same contemptuous lack of political oversight, regulatory engagement. As it turns out now, London is on the verge of running out of drinking water in the next 20 years. According to the National Infrastructure Commission, it is going to take £60bn just to keep London’s taps running over the next 10 or 15 years.

Whatever government’s getting elected, they’re getting involved in the management of the water industry. They just need to face up to it and take it robustly on the chin and develop a proper strategy and plan, both to keep London’s taps running and stop our rivers being full of sewage.

Lucy Fisher
Feargal Sharkey, Gill Plimmer, thanks for joining.

Gill Plimmer
Thank you.

Feargal Sharkey
Bye, everyone. A pleasure to speak to you all.

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Lucy Fisher
I want to turn to two other stories that have dominated Westminster in the past couple of weeks to examine whether they matter and in what way. Let’s kick off with Angela Rayner’s tax affairs. To recap, questions have arisen about whether she dodged capital gains tax on the house she bought from the council and a Right to Buy and make claims that it wasn’t her primary home because she was living at another property with her then husband. She’s insisted that she received tax advice and she behaved within the rules. George, the Conservatives have leapt on this story and unleashed hell against her, haven’t they? What do you make of it?

George Parker
Well, the Conservatives have leapt on it, aided and abetted, of course, by the Conservative supporting press, particularly the Daily Mail, which has been campaigning on this, putting on the front page repeatedly, trying to put pressure on Angela Rayner. And the Conservative party, I think, have identified Angela Rayner as potentially a weak points in the Labour front bench and someone they think they can target, someone they think they can portray as in some way untrustworthy. And plainly it’s causing Keir Starmer some awkwardness. There was an interview he conducted this week where he was asked repeatedly by journalists to say that he had 100 per cent confidence that Angela Rayner had done nothing wrong, and he refused to say that. And in the end, he snapped with the journalist, said stop asking me stupid questions and playing games, and that sort of never looks good.

So you can tell it has got under the skin of the Labour party, which is obviously the intention of this campaign. But again, I think there’s a determination by Keir Starmer to stick by his deputy. I don’t think they want to give a scalp to the Conservative press or indeed to Michael Ashcroft, Lord Ashcroft, the former Conservative treasurer, whose book originally dug into Angela Rayner’s background, Red Queen, the book’s called. So I think he’s gonna stand by her. But it is causing some awkwardness for Labour. And you get the sense the Tories aren’t gonna drop.

Lucy Fisher
Robert, what do you think about this as a story? Some people are making the point defending Angela Rayner, that she’s from a very normal background and in fact has risen such a long way from being a teenage mum leaving school at 16 without any qualifications. And that, you know, what she’s been accused of is fairly small beer. But if you step back, if the same charge was levelled against a wealthy Conservative, those same people who are defending Rayner would take it really seriously, wouldn’t they?

Robert Shrimsley
Yeah. I mean, I think there are two parts to this. The first is that I think we have to recognise that we’re moving into a period where most people, and certainly the press, expects us to be having a Labour government by the end of the year. And scrutiny and attention and negative news about the Labour party is going to ratchet up, not just because there are parts of the press that have a political agenda but because there’s more scrutiny coming their way. And so that’s inevitable.

I mean, I think you’re right. I think this is one of those classic cases where the offence, if there is even an offence, which we’re still not 100 per cent sure of, but is actually quite small, and given her life at that time, she wasn’t a public figure at that time. I think this was a very swattable story or a mistake, if indeed it is a mistake.

The problem is, I think Labour got into a very defensive crouch on this very, very early and has now put itself in a position where and she’s put herself in a position where actually, the things she’s been saying to show that it isn’t the problem could turn out to be a bigger problem than the original issue. And I think that’s the issue. They’re beginning to look a little shifty and worried about this in a way that I think, assuming there is a problem, I keep saying this, but in a way that wouldn’t have happened if she said, look, you know, this was years ago but long before I was involved in politics, it’s possible I’ve made a mistake. And if I did, I’m happy to sort it out with the tax authorities. And I think if she’d done that, I don’t think this would be running.

In the end, I don’t think this is going to carry too far unless they make some terrible howling mistake. But it’s a useful example to the Labour party as they head towards probable power that sometimes it’s easier just to come clean and get the whole thing out of the way in one go.

Lucy Fisher
I think you’re absolutely right. In fact, my husband has written a book about political resignations and almost always, it’s never the original sin. It’s how it’s handled when it emerges. But it is the case, George, isn’t it, that Keir Starmer has made restoring standards of public life a key pillar of his promise to the country if he wins the next election. And to my mind, it does seem a bit odd that on the one hand, he’s insisted Angela Rayner has done nothing wrong. He’s got, you know, full confidence in her, or at least he was previously saying that.

George Parker
Almost full confidence.

Lucy Fisher
Almost full confidence in her. But he’s also said that he hasn’t seen the tax advice she received. And you’d think that if he wants to be Mr Straight Down the Line, whiter than white, that he would have insisted on investigating this and seeing for himself that everything is in order.

George Parker
Exactly. Well, it’s one of the areas where, as Robert said, he’s starting to look a bit shifty. He said that his team has seen the legal advice that Angela Rayner has received, but he himself hasn’t. That sounds a little bit strange. And you’re right, he has set the bar very high for standards in public life. And frankly, there is frustration on the Conservatives’ side that Angela Rayner is exactly the kind of politician and in fact has repeatedly called on Tories to resign for this kind of thing and ask for them to come clean and all the rest of it. So they think double standards are at play here.

But I think having gone down this track as far as they have, he’s gonna have to stand by her. Of course, she holds an unusual position in the fact she’s directly elected by members of the Labour party. Even if Keir Starmer wanted to sack her, that wouldn’t be possible.

The second thing, I think, also is that Keir Starmer will probably think that Angela Rayner owes him something now. The fact he’s had to go out there repeatedly and defend it, I think it will sort of strengthen the bonds of loyalty if they were, and there have been reports, of course, that they’ve been strained in the past between the two of them. I personally think that although you speak to Labour insiders who say that Angela Rayner is an electoral asset — she reaches parts of the electorate other Labour politicians don’t — I don’t think we’re gonna see all that much of Angela Rayner during the election campaign. I think we’ll see Wes Streeting, Rachel Reeves, Bridget Phillipson, Keir Starmer of course. I think we’ll see relatively little of Angela Rayner. That would be my guess.

Lucy Fisher
That’s interesting. Robert, do you think Angela Rayner is gonna stand for that? Because, as George pointed out, she’s got her own mandate. She can be sacked from the front bench, but she can’t be sacked as deputy party leader. She’s got this big backing from the unions and I think particularly as Starmer’s veered off in a more Blairite direction, she’s corralled a lot of the dissenting soft left behind her. You know, can she just be put on the back shelf?

Robert Shrimsley
Well, there are ways and there are ways of keeping people. You know, you can have her on a massive campaigning tour going around the country, shoring up the voting core seats, which just happens to make her unavailable for morning press conferences. I mean, there are ways of doing this. But I think at this stage, you know, Angela Rayner has made her accommodation with Keir Starmer. I mean, George talked about he’s with her. But it cuts both ways and the deal she’s done is that she’s got the employment rights portfolio. She gets to be the woman who delivers for the trade union movement what they want. And so my basic guess is that she’ll do what he tells her to do because the reward on the other side of the election is so great that there’s no point in alienating him. 

Lucy Fisher
Just finally, George, is there something to what David Lammy’s said that this is a smear campaign by the Tories against a northern woman. What you know, he suggests, is an easy target, trying to detract from the government’s own record before the local elections.

George Parker
I think there are some people on the Labour side, who suggest there’s an element of snobbery about this and trying to make a point that a working-class woman that bought her former council house using Margaret Thatcher’s Right to Buy, she’s been particularly singled out. So I think there is a bit of an element of angst about that on the Labour side. But I think Robert’s point is absolutely valid. She wants to be deputy prime minister also, number two in the Labour government. She’s got to expect an awful lot of scrutiny in the coming months. And this is a good dry run for them, to be honest, because, as Robert said, there’s a lot more of it coming their way.

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Lucy Fisher
Let’s just move on to talk about the Westminster honeytrap scandal. Tory MP Will Wragg has been ensnared at the heart of this trap and has had to resign from his role as head of the public administration and constitutional affairs committee. He’s quit as an executive member of the 1922, the powerful Tory backbench committee, and he’s given up the Tory whip. Robert, what’s the long-term political impact of this story if it has one?

Robert Shrimsley
There is no long-term political impact of this story except for Will Wragg. 

Lucy Fisher
It doesn’t feed into, then, as sort of John Major-esque, end of an era, sleaze and decay narrative?

Robert Shrimsley
Well, I suppose it might have if we didn’t have that narrative quite firmly established already. (Lucy and George laugh) I mean, I think, you know, it’s a rotten little story, this. And although he also, rather like Angela Rayner, has been at the forefront of calls on standards. And I think when it first came out, people felt a great deal of sympathy for him. He was the victim of a crime. He got into a sort of, you know, dating app honeytrap essentially, sent pictures of himself, was hugely embarrassed.

But I do think under it all there was quite a bad part of this, which was that when he was sort of put under pressure, he offered the numbers of others to these people who turned out to be really quite useless blackmailers. By that I mean most people seemed to have got this not done very much when they’re tapped up for a picture. But, you know, I think it made his position really grim for a legislator to be offering up other people instead of say, going to the police; was a pretty unfortunate situation to have got into.

And the other thing that’s happened, which I think is interesting, is a lot of the people who supported Boris Johnson have seen the opportunity for a bit of payback here, because he was one of the early people trying to bring down Boris Johnson. So it’s also just a very useful warning to MPs. You know the old story, don’t do anything you don’t wanna see on the front page of The Sun.

Lucy Fisher
And George, alongside William Wragg, there’s been suggestions that two other Tories, unnamed, sent naked pictures back to the honeytrapper. What does this say about the kind of psychology of MPs that, you know, for the people who want to go into politics? Is it feeding into that sort of sense that politicians are a breed apart of inveterate risk-takers?

George Parker
Well, there is certainly that view, isn’t it, that some you know, with politics, you get people who are sort of chancers, sometimes people who are risk-takers. But you’ve got . . . 

Robert Shrimsley
There’s still 647 who haven’t sent these pictures. (Laughter)

George Parker
But you’ve got to be monumentally stupid, haven’t you, as an elected representative, to send explicit pictures of yourself to a stranger who you’ve never met before. I mean, how stupid do you have to be? And, you know, this whole saga doesn’t reflect very well on anyone. It frankly doesn’t reflect very well on Rishi Sunak either. I think, you know, the question about why he didn’t remove the whip from William Wragg immediately. Why did William Wragg have to sack himself from the Conservative party? I think, you know, if he hadn’t done that, there would have been a lot more of this when parliament resumes after its Easter recess. There would have been a big campaign, I think, to get rid of him. He basically sacked himself as chair of the public administration committee and as a Tory MP. But no, I think if there’s any good that comes out of this whole sorry saga, it’s probably a reminder to everyone, not just elected representatives, don’t do stupid things online.

Lucy Fisher
Yeah, because you’re right, it’s not just politicians, it was journalists, staffers in the Westminster ecosystem who were also contacted.

George Parker
It’s spawned a whole new genre of journalists, hasn’t it?

Lucy Fisher
It has.

George Parker
Sadly, not anyone at the FT was targeted by Charlie, so we aren’t able to join this, but some actually quite interesting accounts by the journalists who were targeted — Harry Yorke from the Sunday Times, Henry Zeffman from the BBC talking about it. And actually reading their experiences of how they were targeted, the kind of exchange they had, I think it was quite informative for people in the general public, I think, who might be targeted in the same kind of way.

Lucy Fisher
Definitely. I agree with that. Robert, there’s no suggestion from the government or security service sources that this is the work of a malign foreign actor. I mean, it does beg the question who is behind it? It is a curious tale, isn’t it?

Robert Shrimsley
It is a strange one, not least because I don’t think . . . I mean, I certainly don’t think that, you know, the Russian secret service need any help in getting the private mobile phone numbers of MPs. I don’t think they’re gonna struggle to get them. So, you know, it does seem to me odd freelancing for no obvious purpose as yet that we know of.

It does raise some interesting questions as to whether, for example, MPs ought to have special phones approved by the security services which they use or whatever, but it just broadly shows how vulnerable our political operatives are. You know, they’re vulnerable and also, you know, we’ve seen people being killed, we’ve seen their homes targeted. You see this kind of thing going on. They’re all very different. I know this, but actually our politicians are really quite exposed to the public. Sorry, wrong word there. Quite exposed to the public, and we probably do need to think about their broader vulnerability, even if on this occasion, this is a case of individual foolishness. They are open to a lot of attacks and abuse. 

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Lucy Fisher
We’ve just got time left for Political Fix stock picks. George, who are you buying or selling this week?

George Parker
Well, I’m gonna (inaudible) to go for the speaker of the House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle. This goes back to something that Robert mentioned earlier on, that he got into a bit of difficulty recently, as we all remember, where he organised the House of Commons vote. There were calls for him to resign, led by William Wragg, of course, who said that he couldn’t be an impartial referee anymore and all the rest of it. Well, I should think Sir Lindsay Hoyle will be having a little smile on his face that William Wragg is now leaving parliament the next election as an independent MP, having resigned. And I think things are stabilised for the speaker a bit, and I think he can probably look forward to another few years in the speaker’s chair after the election.

Lucy Fisher
Robert?

Robert Shrimsley
So I think I’m gonna go for Wes Streeting, Labour’s shadow health secretary, who I’m going to buy. I mean, he’s already someone who’s well on the up, but I thought he had a couple of . . . They had an interesting week, not least getting some approving coverage from The Sun for having written an article about giving, I can’t remember which one it was, where he talked about how he wouldn’t let middle-class lefties get in the way of health reforms he intended to bring in. They were absolutely salivating on this quote. And it’s exactly the kind of thing that an upwardly mobile centre-rightish member of the Labour party does to make sure that they broaden their appeal. And he’s already doing a lot of interesting things on how he might reform the health service, although we already know he’s one to watch. I’m gonna buy even more stock in him. What about you, Lucy?

Lucy Fisher
I’m gonna hold David Cameron. I think the week started well for him. I was looking back at his record. He’s only been in post for five months, and I do think he’s had this remarkable rehabilitation of his reputation since the Greensill scandal of 2021, which of course the FT was instrumental in uncovering, and all the questions about his business links with China while he was outside of government. You know, he went off to the foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels for Nato last week and said, you know, we need to take a message to Mike Johnson, the speaker. And I’m off to the US next week to see him. Well, that meeting didn’t quite happen, did it? And it was a classic snub narrative. Interesting I thought that he went to see Donald Trump when he flew in. But the sequencing — again, a little bit strange to go and see the presidential rival of Joe Biden before going to see the secretary of state of the current administration.

Robert Shrimsley
Do you not think on that video that you’re referencing, it’s a classic of the Cameron show where he did this brilliant, polished, superb piece of communications? He’s walking out the Nato building, which seems to be just enormous, so many corridors. But then at the end he says, and I’m off to tell the speaker of the Congress what to do. And of course, that’s completely backfired on him. So it seemed to me it captured both sides of Cameron — brilliant communicator, busking it not always brilliantly, 

Lucy Fisher
Totally agree. Robert Shrimsley, George Parker, thanks for joining.

Robert Shrimsley
Ciao, Lucy.

George Parker
Thanks.

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Lucy Fisher
That’s it for this episode of the FT’s Political Fix. I’ve put links to subjects discussed in the episode in the show notes. Do check them out. They’re articles we’ve made free for Political Fix listeners. There’s also a link there to Stephen Bush’s award-winning Inside Politics newsletter. You get 30 days free. And don’t forget to subscribe to the show. Plus, do leave a review or a star rating if you have time. It really helps us spread the word.

Political Fix was presented by me, Lucy Fisher, and produced by Audrey Tinline with help from Leah Quinn. Manuela Saragosa is the executive producer. Original music and sound engineering by Breen Turner. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s global head of audio. We’ll meet again here next week.

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