Coffee House Shots Live: Zia Yusuf and Jacob Rees-Mogg

Best of the Spectator

The Spectator

News Commentary, News, Daily News, Society & Culture

4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 10 May 2025

⏱️ 88 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The post-mortem has begun on a historic set of local elections – but where does each party go from here? Is Reform unstoppable? Is Kemi the one to lead the Conservative rebuild? Do Labour really ‘get it’? Michael Gove, James Heale and Lucy Dunn are joined by special guests Zia Yusuf and Jacob Rees-Mogg to unpack these questions – as well as the broader ramifications of the local elections on British politics.

Listen for: Zia’s understanding of why Reform did so well; Jacob’s concession that a Tory/Reform pact of some description could be the only way for the Conservatives to avoid extinction; and Michael’s assessment of whether Labour will force us closer to the EU.

This podcast was originally recorded live at the Emmanuel Centre in Westminster on Wednesday 7 May.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	On Thursday, the 15th of May, the Spectator is hosting a live book club event. Sam Leith will be joined by
0:07.0	former Telegraph Editor-in-Chief and military historian Max Hastings. It will be an opportunity to talk
0:12.2	about Max's new book, Sword, D-Day, trial by battle, as well as mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day.
0:19.6	The full details are as follows. 730 on Thursday the 15th of
0:23.3	May at the Shaw Theatre in Houston, London, and tickets start from £27.50, although I believe
0:29.5	there are ticket options that include a signed copy of the book. For those tickets, go to
0:34.4	www.spector.com.com.com. We look forward to seeing you there.
0:43.8	Good evening and welcome to Coffee House Shots Live, the local elections shaker. I'm absolutely
0:53.0	delighted that we have Zia Yusuf, Jacob Reesmog, Lucy Dunn and
0:57.8	James Heel with me in order to dissect what are probably the most significant local election
1:04.3	results that we've seen for years. I'm also delighted that all of you are here as well because
1:10.2	after we've had our discussion on stage,
1:12.9	I want to invite questions from the audience so that you have an opportunity to dig even deeper into our panel's reflections on what happened last week and what its consequences are for our politics.
1:25.5	I also want to thank our partners who sponsored this evening,
1:29.3	Charles Stanley Wealth Managers, and in particular, I'd like to thank Charles Stanley,
1:34.8	not just for their sponsorship of this event, but their continued sponsorship of so many
1:38.4	spectator events that bring political debate direct to you, our readers and subscribers. I'm going to begin by asking James,
1:47.5	as Deputy Political Editor, just to analyze for us the scale of what happened last Thursday.
1:55.1	In tomorrow's edition of The Spectator, James' column looks at how reform won and what this might mean for our
2:04.5	country and for the other political parties. James, how momentous do you think those results were?
2:11.0	I think these have been a very important set of local elections because, and you talk to some of the
2:15.4	minor parties across the spectrum, it's all been about
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Spectator, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Spectator and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.