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The Owen Jones Podcast

Tories In Crisis As Their Polls Slump

The Owen Jones Podcast

Owen Jones

Politics, Government, News & Politics, News

4.41.4K Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2021

⏱️ 64 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As the Tories are embroiled in corruption scandals, the polls are finally turning against them - after months of seeming apparently immune to pandemic mishandling, a fuel crisis, cuts to Universal Credit and a surge in the cost of living. But how much trouble are they in - and can Labour capitalise on the Tories' crisis?


We're joined by Byline's Adam Bienkov and CLASS Director Ellie Mae O'Hagan.


Plus - with a COP26 agreement signed - how much of a step forward or travesty is it? We're joined by human rights and environmental activist Kumi Naidoo.


Please subscribe - and help us take on the right wing media here: https://patreon.com/owenjones84

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/the-owen-jones-podcast.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to the show. So I think it became a bit of a running joke, a dark joke that the Tories could probably just kill the second born and they would still retain a lead over labor.

0:21.0

After every single disaster that we've gone through, again, a general Twitter joke has been Tories plus five.

0:29.0

We've gone through one of the worst handling of COVID-19 on earth with a catastrophic death toll, one of the worst death tolls, of course, in the world, up to 150,000 people who died.

0:41.0

We've had cuts to universal credit. We have had various scandals like Matt Hancock, for example, we had a fuel crisis, where of course commuters were queuing up to fill up their petrol stations, we had emptying supermarket shells.

0:59.0

And yet, and the cost of living crisis for that matter, we've already gone through the longest squeezing living standards since the Napoleonic War, but again, people's living standards squeezed.

1:11.0

And yet the Tories have retained a sustained polling lead over the labor party until potentially now, I say potentially now, because what matters is the polling average and the polling average has still had the Tories ahead.

1:26.0

But we've now had polls which show the Tories who are now behind labor, including up to six points behind. Let's have a look quickly actually at some of some of the polling, which has come out.

1:40.0

So we've got one poll which shows labor one point ahead and another poll that shows labor six points ahead. Now again, given the Tories have had very sustained polling leads, here we go.

1:55.0

So that would still show, by the way, I mean, this is just shows how first pass the post works. That would still have the Tories ahead on seats, even if labor on 37, the toys of 36.

2:05.0

And let's have a look at the other poll. Yeah, that's labor on 40%. But in mind, 40% is what labor got in 2017, though, of course, the Tories got higher. And that would actually show labor ahead, but even with a six point lead, by the way, again, and this just shows how the electoral geography benefits the Tories, that would still be a hung parliament with labor as the biggest single party.

2:28.0

They would be able to form a government in those circumstances, though they would have to rely on the other party. So even with a six point lead, they're not even home and dry in those circumstances.

2:38.0

But nonetheless, that is appalling. Let's have a look at a couple of the front pages. Now, Jennifer are curi. Here she is, how Johnson pledged help for my business to win my love allegedly having a fair, of course, with Jennifer curi.

2:53.0

And she has now, she suggested that that came and we'll talk about this when he was mayor of London, that he used that office in, in, in, in attempt to support her business interests to win her love.

3:11.0

Have a look at another story, which is about Jacob Reece Mod, did he break rules by not declaring six million pounds of cheap loads. He is the first Tory cabinet minister to be dragged into this.

3:24.0

And we should keep calling it, of course, corruption scandal. That's what we're talking about.

3:29.0

Now, we've got some brilliant guests. I'm not going to speak much longer, but what is interesting, of course, is with the only Patterson affair, where you had a Tory back bench,

3:39.0

of course, he was found to have broken the rules and then the government intervened on his behalf to change the rules to defend him in the end, of course.

3:48.0

The backlash was so huge that he ended up resigning as a member of Parliament, which will trigger a coming by election. But that's now led to a focus on so called second jobs that MPs have.

4:01.0

Now, in the case of the Conservatives, that's a quarter of Tory MPs have so called second jobs should be noted with the Labour Party, it's only three.

4:11.0

And when we talk about these second jobs, there's one example, there's a, a practicing doctor, who's a, who's a Labour MP, which is very different than the jobs that the Conservatives have.

4:20.0

We're not going to let Labour off the hook in the show, by the way, in case you think we are, but it is, there is a very clear distinction. There's a big difference between the two.

4:28.0

Now, I wrote a column last week about this so called second jobs framing, because I think one of the problems with it is it suggests being an MP is a job, it isn't, it's a service, it's a public service.

...

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