The New Statesman. Is Labour reading from the Reform Handbook? And what is the government doing to address rising child poverty? I'm Olly Doug Moore and this is the listener questions edition of the New Statesman podcast. I'm joined by my colleague Rachel Cunleff. Hello, Rachel. Hello, this is the first time we've podcasted together. What's a joyous debut. I'm anticipating it. I cannot wait. I'm excited. Me too. Should we get straight into it? Yes. One listener asks, can Starmaism be summarised as, quote, Farage is racist, but don't worry, if you vote Labor, you can have his policies, end quote. Not a Starma fan here then we can...

How did you discern that?

I don't know.

Maybe it's someone who really likes the fact that they find it difficult to distinguish

between Labor and Estama and reform.

Actually, it's fair, though, because this is a criticism that you are increasingly hearing

from people on the left about the way the Starma government is responding to the Farage threat,

right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's a online, you see it over and over again, you'll hear it in

conversation. And, you know, I wouldn over again, you'll hear it in conversation.

And, you know, I wouldn't, the second you kind of drill into the actual policy,

you see that there is quite significant differences between the Labour Party's program and reforms.

Obviously, I think this is a reference to, right, the sort of increasingly right-wing rhetoric around immigration,

but it's important to distinguish the difference between words said and actions taken. Yeah, and at Labour Party conference, they were really pushing this distinction,

particularly between the policy that reform had just announced days previously

about scrapping indefinitely to remain, including for the people who have it and who have

been living and working legally in this country for many, many years and decades.

And anything that the government might do on tightening up rules going forward. You heard that again and again

again. It was a centrepiece of Stama speech. David Lammy called it racist. Lots of other people called it

racist. So I definitely don't think it's fair to say that the Labour line is, don't worry if you vote Labour, we'll do all of the Rwatra's policies.

It was very much at conference.

If you vote Labour, we will make sure that this particular policy doesn't make it anywhere near government.

What you think of the rest of their migration policy is another matter.

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