Hello, I'm Hugo Rifkin, and now we're going to be unpacking the politics of the day,

from whether a tough upbringing makes you a better politician to whether Elon Musk or Sam Altman are providing any benefit to humanity.

And joining me from the mean streets of the Times and the Sunday Times comment desk, it's James Marriott.

Hello, James. Good morning. Good morning. And. It's James Marriott. Hello, James.

Good morning. Good morning. And Charlotte Ivers. Hello, Charlotte. Hello, Hugo. Your notes that I'm

actually wearing a collared shirt because I got fed up of us all wearing the same t-shirt week

on week, so I've elevated standards for our YouTube viewers. You know what? This was the wrong week

to do it. And James, your t-shirt is not black. It is a sort of bluey grey, which I respect

in a way. I have a very similar one. Obviously, chaos that's the same clothes. But look, this is the week we've just learnt, we might be soon to have a prime minister who always wears a black t-shirt. We are the original black t-shirt people. How does it make you feel, James? A prime minister who's going to adopt very much the Marriott Rifkind stylistic choices.

I feel that the sartorial influence of our choices on Times Radio was only a matter of time before it began to influence politics in the culture at large. I'm completely unsurprised, and I do attribute it this entirely to us. Charlotte, have you looked at Andy Burnham and ever thought there's a man who dresses like James Marit and Hugo Rifkind? You know what? Constantly, yes.

This brings me to one of my grand theories of politics, which is you can tell how a party's doing at its conference by how it's men addressing. I remember in the sort of doomed days of the Conservative Party, you had special advisors wandering around looking very kind of hipstery. Whereas as Labour started to cleanse themselves, shall we say, of Jeremy Corby, they stopped wearing their kind of, you know, hippie clothes and started wearing these kind of very boring sharp suits. And you thought, oh yes, these people who know they're ready for power. So what it says, Andy Burnham is a t-shirt guy about the state of the Labour Party. Probably nothing good under my grand theory of politics. That's interesting. Do you think he should, I mean, should he keep wearing just a black t-shirt, James,

if he gets to number 10?

Should he meet the king in a black t-shirt? Yeah, he should do Zelensky. I think he's a bit of a leading indicator for the death of the political suit. I think suit just says Westminster Washington Swamp too much, and politics is going to move away from the suit towards the open collared shirt and the t-shirt

and yeah I think

how many more suited prime ministers we're going to get

yeah I mean, I am fascinated by his sotorial choices. I say this very carefully for fear of times two making me write a feature about it. But none the day, because he does dress quite smartly, but while eschewing the shirt and tie. You know what I mean? He's got a sort of a hefty line in shackets. What would be the feature?

Would the feature be... smartly but while us chewing the shirt and tie. You know what I mean? He's got a sort of a

hefty line in shackets.

What would be the feature? Would the feature be I, Hugo Rifkin spent a week dressing up with Andy Burnham? I Hugo Rifkin had been doing that for 40 years. Yeah, no, fair point. Fair point. Well, if you know anything about Andy, Andy Burnham's clothing choices, do keep an eye on them send us in any any labels and tips we're going to we tips. We're going to, we're going to follow this one right down to the line. James, we're going to

start with your column today, which is a treat for Michael Gove. And I think that one of the people

who has diagnosed the problem best is the Times writer James Marriott. Thank you, Michael Gove.

Look, Andy Burnham and Westreeting have both been

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