Quite right!: Katie Lam interview
Best of the Spectator
The Spectator
4.3 • 825 Ratings
🗓️ 28 April 2026
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Katie Lam is one of the brightest lights of the Conservative party. Frequently tipped as a future leader, her interventions in the House on immigration and the grooming gangs scandal have won her a large following on social media – and, inevitably, led to constant links with a defection to Reform.
On Quite right!, Katie sets out why she is a Conservative and why the Tory party is still the best vehicle for change. She gives her reaction to the defection of Rob Jenrick – who she backed as Tory leader in 2024 – and explains why they are not speaking any more. They also discuss the grooming gangs and why Westminster flinched from tackling this scandal, before considering immigration and the million-pound question of how many will actually have to leave. Finally, she addresses the defection rumours and tells Michael and Maddie why, despite having her respect, Nigel Farage is not fit to be Prime Minister.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
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Transcript
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| 0:31.2 | Hello, I'm Michael Gover, and this week on our podcast, Quite Right, we'll be talking to Katie Lamb, one of the stars of the Conservative's 2024 intake. |
| 0:43.1 | Katie shot to prominence with the violence, her denunciation of Labor's failure to deal with the grooming gang's scandal. |
| 0:51.1 | Katie has been involved in Conservative politics before as a special advisor to Boris Johnson |
| 0:55.7 | and Suella Braverman, and she was also one of the most energetic supporters of Robert Jenrick |
| 1:01.2 | in his leadership bid. In our interview, we'll be talking to Katie about grooming gangs, |
| 1:06.2 | what more needs to be done. About migration? Is it reform or the Conservatives who've got the right answer? |
| 1:12.2 | Does she do God on what she really thinks of Robert Jenrick, Nigel Farage and Kemi Baitmore? |
| 1:20.4 | Katie Lam, thank you for joining us. You had a hugely successful career before you became a |
| 1:25.1 | member of Parliament. Why on earth did you throw it all the way? |
| 1:32.6 | Sadly, this is actually my most oftenly asked question, particularly if I'm talking to, |
| 1:37.9 | even to associations or to members, which I find very sad because I think it belies the cynicism about politics and about elected politicians in our country, which I think will have to |
| 1:42.0 | change. But I always wanted to go into elected politics. |
| 1:46.2 | My grandmother was German. She came to Britain in 1937. She was 13. And she was a political refugee. |
| 1:52.6 | Her grandfather had been a senator in Germany, in Dresden in Saxley, where they were from. |
| 1:58.9 | He'd come from nothing. He used to work on the trams, |
| 2:01.4 | got very involved in the Transport Union, and then eventually he became a politician, and he was a fierce |
| 2:06.2 | anti-Nazi campaigner. He was also a massive socialist, but we don't hold that against him. |
| 2:11.7 | And when the third right came to power in 33, the whole family was stripped of their |
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