Hello, I'm Hugo Rifkin, and now we're going to be unpacking the politics of the day from where the Labour MPs are considering doom scrolling through party leaders, how social media is changing our relationship to violence, and the worrying dawn of the £10 pint.

And joining me today, the reassuringly expensive Charlotte Ivers. Hello,

Charlotte. How are you? Very well, thank you. Good to have you here. And straight out of the bargain bin, it's James Marriott. I am a bit. A bunch of stuff I want to talk about, but I want to start by talking about what's going on in Labour. A group of Labour back benches. Many from the 2024 intake are reportedly preparing an open letter urging Kier Stama to set a resignation date.

This is according to the front of the times today.

Here's what the cabinet ministers. the 2024 intake are reportedly preparing an open letter urging Kier Starrma to set a resignation date.

This is according to the front of the Times today. Here's what the cabinet minister Steve Reed told

Times Radio earlier. There are really important issues about who runs our councils, whether we can

build the social housing that this country needs, whether we can improve the public services

that people use.

The whole notion that we would copy the Conservatives and go doom-scrolling through leaders

in a way that means the government is completely incapable of dealing with the things that matter the most of the British public

is an absolute nonsense. James, we know you don't like doom-scrolling. Is this the sort of of Game of Thrones style drama that you do enjoy or are you bored of all this? I am a bit sick of it, although I am increasingly persuaded by the logic of doom scrolling through leaders. I read a great book earlier this year called The Confidence Trap by David Ransomondon about how democracy works. And one of his big arguments in that book is that the

main advantage of being a democracy is that you're not stuck with the same incompetent leader. And the main thing you can do is just keep pressing the reset button until you get somebody good. And he's got some great examples in history where democracies have been stuck with a series of terrible prime ministers and they've gone through this period of chaos. They just keep pressing new prime minister, new prime minister, new prime minister, and eventually gets someone good.

I guess the thing that

worries me is that i just think i don't know how many times you press the button until you get someone

good because i can't really see that person on the political horizon and i kind of feel this is what

everybody is thinking now which is kind of well keir stama seems pretty but Angela Rainer, eh, West Streeting is never going to happen. It all just seems like we might just get locked in this terrible, sort of never-ending Starman nightmare. Well, so, I mean, conversely, Polly McKenzie on our sister podcast, how to an election, basically says when it's a prime minister, you can't just keep swiping right.

Because it's not Tinder, which I always think is a great opening it. She thinks if you swipe right, you just get diminishing returns. Look, the letter that I mentioned, if it materialises, it's said to copy the plot against Tony Blair in 2006, which forced him to set a timetable for his departure. Here he is speaking at the time. As for my timing and date of departure, I would have preferred to do this in my own way, but has been pretty obvious from what many of my cabinet colleagues have said earlier in the week. The next

party conference in a couple of weeks will be my last party conference as party leader. Next

TUC, next week will be my last TUC, probably to the relief of both of us. That was Tony Blair in 2006. Charlotte, the issue is that for this, any of this to happen, Kirstarmer has to let it happen. He has to admit defeat and say, yeah, I'm out of here. Yeah, he does. I mean, if you had a complete rebellion of his MPs, then you could see him going, I've just completely given up on this. I think

it's absolutely insane. When I saw that this letter was being written by backbench MPs from the

2024 intake, so the big Starma majority, the election, he got them all elected. I just thought,

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