Up next in 10
Andrew Marr joins Shelagh Fogarty live from the Labour conference in Liverpool ti discuss the Chancellor John Healey's speech and the suspected bomb plot at RAF Fairford.
00:00 | First impressions of 'good vibes' Labour conference
01:03 | Reaction to chancellor's speech
03:36 | 'I haven't heard the word "tax" mentioned once'
04:00 | 'Inconsistent' RAF Fairford story: 'a mix of geopolitics and Miss Marple'
05:30 | What to expect from Donald Trump's speech this evening
06:30 | What to expect from the next announcements
Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp
#shelaghfogarty #andrewmarr #labourconference #labourparty #lab26 #labour26 #hopeagain #hope #ukpolitics #politics #uknews #donaldtrump #oil #oilprice #raffairford #fairford #terrorthreat #terrorism #tax #budget #2026budget #breakingnews #andyburnham #burnham #LBC
LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK.
Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/
Sign up to LBC's weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:00
I often think when I'm at party conferences, I'm joined by Andrew Marr now, we're going to talk about some of the things that will be happening, have already happened here
0:06
But Andrew, I often think when I'm at party conferences, there's a touch of the Roman Forum about it, isn't there, where you can just imagine those Roman days where the lawyers, the politicians, the people were all in one place
0:18
Get torn to pieces by a wild beast, you mean. At the end. At the end
0:22
At the end, yeah. At the end. Yeah, we'll ask about that. The Roman Forum with a bit less blood. No, of course, that's got us in the Forum
0:27
Yeah, all the trading and all the chatting. Yeah, yeah, and the politics and the law and all that
0:31
Everybody talking about everything. Exactly, and that's really what it feels like. It's kind of, yeah, it's definitely what it sounds like as well
0:37
Now I've taken my headphones off. So, look, we've got the big moment later when the Prime Minister joins us here to take people's calls
0:43
I mean, inevitably, there'll be questions around defence because of what happened in Aria Fairford over the weekend
0:47
That social care revelation as well. Let's start with that, shall we, as you and I chat it through
0:52
That was a big political announcement. Social care is going to be part of Andy Burnham's legacy if he's got anything to do with it
0:59
which of course he does. We've just heard the Chancellor John Healy speaking
1:03
Interesting, I thought, and I think for your conversation with the Prime Minister later
1:08
that the one big thing he kept hammering, he was conference-pleasing the whole time
1:12
talking nostalgically about Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and John Prescott and the rest of it
1:17
The moment he really challenged the conference was over the question of the so-called NEETs
1:22
the one million people not in education, training, and the rest of it
1:26
And he said, you know, there was a moral duty to get that bill down
1:30
It was an absolute essential moral duty for the Labour Party to get good work
1:34
And I think that's going to be the other part of what Andy Burnham has to do, and it will want to be his legacy
1:40
I think we'll be very interested to hear what he says about all of that
1:44
I wouldn't be surprised if his speech tomorrow doesn't contain something big on NEATS and the welfare bill
1:50
and I wouldn't be surprised if John Healy wasn't softening the conference up for that today
1:54
Ah, that's interesting. He did make a smaller announcement himself, didn't he
1:58
about elected mayors leading the way on local employment. That's also very, very important and will be real
2:04
because, as he said, only local mayors, only local people really understand what the local companies are
2:10
what they need, who's growing, who's got the capacity for more apprenticeship
2:14
and what the local colleges are turning out and the estates where people are being left behind
2:18
So put all of that together, it's a real announcement, I think, not just window dressing
2:23
Yeah, and Andy Burnham himself has already spoken about... I mean, clearly there's nothing wrong with leaving the city or town you come from
2:29
but he's been talking about there's also nothing wrong with staying in the city or town you come from
2:33
and we need to make sure that across the whole country, in every postcode, as he says it, across the whole country
2:38
young people have opportunities where they are, where they belong to. Absolutely It was an interesting moment where they all been Andy Burnham and John Healy and the rest had been on the first Mersey ferry new Mersey ferry to be built for I think 40 or 50 years And he had one of the apprenticeships from Birkenhead
2:55
who had actually built that ferry and his mates in the conference hall right in front of him
3:00
And, you know, that plus the big announcement on shipbuilding yard, shipbuilding work for the Clyde
3:05
shows that this re-industrialisation theme is something they feel they have to deliver on
3:10
And as you said, that word labour, both the title, you know, the name of the party, but also the mission of the party
3:16
Yeah, it's not about welfare, he kept saying. It's not a good, a ballooning welfare bill, a rising welfare bill
3:23
is not progressive, is not socialist. What we need is good work and get people into good work
3:27
He said it again and again. Now, I should say also that a lot of people, we surprised it in the speech
3:33
there was no mention of defence spending. I don't think I heard the word tax mentioned once
3:38
nor was there a list of areas which he might cut to fund more defence spending
3:44
So the really hard-edged stuff, the difficult stuff, the stuff the conference won't like hasn't been unveiled today
3:50
And maybe fleshed out tomorrow to some degree? Maybe. Well, let's wait and see
3:54
Are they going for a feel-good, good vibes conference criticised by everybody else for lack of substance
3:59
or are they going to tackle some of the really difficult issues? We haven't really heard much of that yet
4:03
And on that question of defence, those events in RAF are very much alive still at the moment
4:08
And there's been a report in The Times that counterterrorism officials have told that newspaper that these men were all UK nationals, London, or London, living in London or from London
4:22
We'll get more detail on that when the time is right. but that the sort of inconsistency in that story so far is Donald Trump saying yeah we had a big
4:31
operation ongoing and a local farmer on her way home from a party saying no I had to ring 999 in
4:37
the MOD defence line. It's a very strange collision of kind of geopolitics on the one side and Miss
4:43
Marple on the other you know popping over the hedge and and you know it's a fascinating and
4:48
very very British story. Now of course we say British UK nationals we don't know what that
4:53
means really. We do know that there have been worries about whether this is Iranian connected
4:58
and we also know that in the past Iran and indeed Russia have used relatively low-life criminals
5:05
and paid them to carry out acts. And those fires at the farmer's house yeah. Yeah and against the
5:11
Jewish ambulances in North London again. So the fact that these are UK nationals doesn't really
5:17
tell us much. We know that Donald Trump is due to speak about seven o'clock our time
5:23
There's some suspicion that it might be about the diesel export ban. Do we know whether Andy
5:30
Burnham addressed that with him when he met him? I mean, I can ask Andy Burnham myself later but if he didn he going to want some kind of exemption from that for the cost of living crisis we have here Well I mean you know we are as you suggested in this wonderful rather cheerful little hubbub of the Labour Party enjoying the Labour Party
5:47
But beyond that, beyond the sort of sunlight on the Mersey outside, there is a very, very dangerous, fast changing world economically as well as in defence terms
5:56
And, you know, that diesel ban would have a devastating effect on lots of British families and lots of British industry and commerce
6:03
So it's just one example of the, you know, the noise is off, they used to say
6:08
Yes. And the term we've heard a lot over the weekend, it seems to me, from a number of people, including the Prime Minister, is breathing space
6:15
Now, he often, the Prime Minister often alludes to that VAT on fuel bills cut as breathing space
6:21
I don't know about you, but a lot of callers to my show say, oh, listen, it's welcome
6:25
Of course, it's welcome. Any reduction in our bills is welcome. But it's not very much and we're dying out here. We need help
6:31
So that is not, the diesel threat there is not going to help with that
6:34
It's not going to help. One interesting thing that John Healy said about this was, you know
6:38
he was talking with great nostalgia and affection about the Gordon Brown, Tony Blair years
6:43
And then he sort of paused and said, but conference, I have to tell you, they had the money
6:47
I don't have the money. We don't have the money. And in terms of really big cuts to people's bills
6:53
really big quantities of breathing space, they can't deliver it. It's going to be, this week, we know that that early release scheme
7:00
is going to begin. And that's, you know, that's pragmatism over justice in some cases, isn't it
7:06
in very obvious ways. People have told us time and again on LBC that as victims of crime, they don't
7:12
they feel like it's a kick in the teeth to justice. They got the truth about what happened to them
7:16
They got the case, but somebody's been released really early. There are lots of political nettles
7:22
in that policy. I don't like to be a shroud waver, as you know, Sheila, but the chances of something
7:29
awful happening, some kind of attack or rape or worse coming on
7:33
because of somebody who's being released early and going back to an
7:37
original victim must be quite high and they're not something that ministers here
7:41
really have any control over. And so this is a story that could suddenly be
7:44
on every single front page, could suddenly really knock the reputation and popularity of the government
7:51
Now I met a former, I think he's still in, the trade union movement. I interviewed him 30
7:57
years ago when I worked here in Liverpool. And you remembered his name. That's astonishing
8:01
I remembered his name, eventually. He remembered my name, God love him. But I asked him, we had a little chat
8:06
and I said to him, I said, I'm meeting Andy Burnham later. Do you have a question for him? Do you have a thought for him
8:10
And I was expecting something tough and hard, it's him that he might throw at the Prime Minister
8:15
And he went, I wish him luck. Tell him I said good luck. So there are friendly trade unionists here
8:21
but there are some less friendly ones, aren't there? There are some less friendly ones I think his reviving of the Trade Union Education Fund earlier on was a huge moment in the hall I think a lot of the unions like a lot of the Labour Party members are just desperate for him to do well
8:36
They like him. They like the look of him. They like the way he talks and they like his instincts
8:41
We are still in that kind of relatively early honeymoon period, but we both know it's not going on much longer
8:47
No. And, you know, the budget is literally a month away today, isn't it? It's a month today
8:52
28th month today. in his interview yesterday with Laura Koonsberg the Prime Minister did seem to
8:57
a number of times, I mean he gave us some meat but he did seem to say quite a number of times
9:01
Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday, wait till Tuesday and we're willing to take that live I mean how far do you think he's going to go in that speech
9:08
Because he wants to set out what his vision is and people
9:13
are screaming for it. Will he really do it then or is the budget the real vision
9:18
I think Andy Burnham has to run towards some big arguments which make him unpopular in some places and then win them, which I think he's perfectly
9:26
well capable of doing. But for instance, you know, there is one big possibility, which is that he
9:32
says, do you know what? As we all know, as Kemi Beynok really knows, as reform really know, this
9:38
country can't afford the triple lock forever. It's simply a part of the ballooning welfare bill we
9:44
can't afford. I can tell you now, I'm not going to break my manifesto, the Labour manifesto, I can
9:48
tell you now that we are going to look again at that or perhaps break the triple lock in our next
9:55
manifesto at the next election so you get a chance to vote about it and what I'm going to do is I'm
10:00
going to take the money I saved from that and I'm going to put it into adult social care that is how
10:04
I'm going to fund social care now that seems to me to be the kind of deal in front of the country
10:09
you lose a bit of pension over time but you get social care paid for that I think an awful lot of
10:14
older voters, never mind the younger ones, would go for. I hope there is something big like that
10:18
Well, we'll certainly, we have inevitably, we'll have calls on that, given what he announced
10:23
but we'll certainly go into that. But you mentioned there that he needs to run towards
10:26
some big ideas. Some of the critics of Andy Burnham, since he's become Prime Minister
10:31
say, you know, the vibes aren't going to be enough. He's no beverage. He's no Blair. He hasn't got the
10:37
same sort of intellectually, not him personally, but the party under him doesn't have the same
10:42
intellectually sort of cohesive message to really ram home to the public. What's your take on that
10:48
I think there is an intellectually cohesive message and I think most of us in the metropolitan
10:52
political bubble just don't understand it, which is I think this devolution message in terms of
10:58
getting cities, working for themselves, raising their own money, you know, sorting out their own
11:03
training, etc. That is real, that is possible and it's much, much bigger I think than Westminster
11:07
understands. Andrew, great to speak to you. It's ever great to see you. You're interviewing
11:11
the Foreign Secretary. I'm interviewing Ed Miliband after 6 o'clock. We'll be talking about
11:16
Israel, Gaza and much, much more. You name it. You name it. Thanks very much indeed
#news