The FT's UK chief political commentator Robert Shrimsley and deputy opinion editor Miranda Green discuss how outlying runners could affect the election result
You can enable subtitles in the video playerMIRANDA GREEN: Well, I've never been on a horse successfully in my life. Where shall I put my lettuce? You can have the lettuce.
Used to be Ukip before that. And we've got the Welsh nationalists, , the Welsh nationalists. And we've got the Green party, which I'm putting behind Keir Starmer because I think we're going have a bit of a discussion about whether they might be a factor this time. MIRANDA GREEN: So essentially, on the boundary changes, it might make a tiny bit of difference here and there. Not enough to compensate for a party that's way behind.
MIRANDA GREEN: It's not nice. Right, OK. So at the moment, we've got a situation where the polls being what they are, Keir Starmer looks like he's way, way out in front of Rishi Sunak. And it's a consistent sort of 18 to 20 point lead in the polls.MIRANDA GREEN: It seems like a lot. But obviously, in a campaign, that does usually, usually narrow. So we would expect that sort of thing to happen.
MIRANDA GREEN: But before we get to the finish line, there are sort of some hurdles, as it were we, that Starmer would have to jump.MIRANDA GREEN: Well, I've never been on a horse successfully in my life, I have to say. OK, let's make it a hedge, hedgey fence.MIRANDA GREEN: A hedgey fence. That's not the finish line, OK? That's a hedge.
MIRANDA GREEN: And that's now been scaled right back to much less-- 4.7 billion. Is the price tag being the story is the problem rather than the policy itself? OK, I think they've also got this other problem at the moment, which is the left--MIRANDA GREEN: --and discomfiture with Starmer and the shadow cabinet's stance being shoulder to shoulder with the Tory government on support for Israel over Gaza.
MIRANDA GREEN: We should explain. There are two riders on the green horse because they have a co-leadership strategy.MIRANDA GREEN: Everybody. All our viewers will know that. MIRANDA GREEN: Some of those voters could go to the Lib Dems as well. And obviously, there are lots of seats in which they are the challengers to the Tory party. The factors are quite different in terms of those blue, yellow seats where that's what the fight is.
ROBERT SHRIMSLEY: The thing about the Greens is it's not really what they end up doing in the election. It's about what they end up doing in the months before the election, how much they frighten Labour. You know, we've got local elections. MIRANDA GREEN: Now, one thing that's helping Keir Starmer is the relative falling back of the SNP under Humza Yousaf, first minister of Scotland, because the SNP, having dominated the whole territory in Scotland since the mid-2000s-- 2007, they became the largest party in the Holyrood Scottish parliament. But they are less popular now. They have all the problems that come with incumbency, not least how they handled COVID, which we're seeing on the inquiry stand at the moment.
So you actually have, incentives in Scotland, if you're left-leaning, not to vote SNP this election but to vote for Keir Starmer. So I mean, they're having an absolutely terrible time. Humza Yousaf keeps changing the strategy on how to approach Labour. MIRANDA GREEN: So again, shall we just try and make clear? It's not that we're expecting Reform UK unless something really extraordinary happens to take seats in the Commons. It's taking enough voters away from Sunak's party to cause him serious difficulties in a lot of seats.ROBERT SHRIMSLEY: Potentially. I mean, the question is whether they're causal or whether they're just a response to what's happening.
MIRANDA GREEN: It's phenomenally dangerous, actually, isn't it, in terms of the future of the party. So if we were going to do-- because we've done the hurdles that Starmer's got to get over. Let's think about some of the hurdles that Sunak's got to get over. I mean, there is this whole question of the budget and the handling of the economy. There's also May elections--MIRANDA GREEN: --which is mayoral elections, local elections.
But you know, Keir Starmer is closing down every possible avenue for attack that he can see. Their first draft of their manifesto, which they're working on now, is going to be absolutely safety first. I mean, you'll scan-- if you find adjectives, it'll be a miracle, let alone policies. It's very clear they're going to give Rishi Sunak a smaller target as possible.
MIRANDA GREEN: So I'm glad you got on to that territory because also, in election campaigns, it becomes quite important who the kind of chief, I don't know, trainer, the trainer of the jockey and the horse, might be. And Sunak has Isaac Levido, who has a proven track record, not least in Boris Johnson, in getting Tory candidates over the line quite successfully.MIRANDA GREEN: Really hard-nosed.
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