“It’s A WARNING Sign!” | Reform UK Overtake Conservatives In Major Opinion Poll For General Election

Talk’s Mike Graham is joined by political correspondent at The Spectator James Heale, who says Reform’s growth is a “warning sign” to the Tories.

Reform UK has overtaken the Conservatives in a major opinion poll, as Rishi Sunak continues his absence from the General Election campaign trail to meet world leaders in Italy.

A YouGov survey commissioned by the Times newspaper had Nigel Farage’s party at 19% to the Conservatives 18% in voting intention, in a crossover moment which is the latest blow to Tory hopes of returning to government.

Mr Farage hailed the poll, claiming his party were now the “opposition to Labour”, while in Italy the Prime Minister said he was not feeling dejected about his prospects in the election and would be “back on the campaign trail” as soon as he returned from the G7 summit.

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let’s talk to James Hill political correspondent of The Spectator James very good morning to you morning Mike so uh the big story I suppose of the morning uh front po of Telegraph and the times uh is reform you poll showing them to be as Nigel farage puts it the opposition yeah and I think that’s going to be the narrative their season on this weekend uh I think this point was what known as crossover point was long forecast we thought it would happen some point this week on the aftermath of the D-Day dearle um what I’m picking up as a result of it is not right now the kind of Tory panic yet you know where lots of people are briefing against the Prime Minister but what I am detecting is a sense perhaps that the narrative has changed we saw it last night that poll dropped faily handily just before the ITV debate uh and as a result of that farage could plausibly claim for once for the first time you know we if vote for the conservatives that’s splitting the anti- labor vote we’re ahead of the conservatives reform is now the opposition now I don’t think they are technically opposition party and this is just one poll of course but it does change the narrative and suddenly you get what we saw 30 years ago in Canada which was the main conservative party slipping behind reformers and opposition so it’s a big big moment a big warning sign and I can’t recall uh ever um conservatives in the postwar era being third at this point in an election cycle in the general election no indeed I spoke to Richard Ty about an hour ago um and I asked him the question you know now that Nigel FR considers himself to be the main opposition to the lab party will he be seeking a debate with sir starma to which the answer was absolutely we will be ask ask you for that and I mean it’ll be interesting to see whether any of the main broadcasting Outlets decide to do that and I’m also fascinated by star’s calculation here on the one hand I can see why he wouldn’t want to do a debate with farage you know farage is probably the best debater of his generation uh he might be concerned about those kind of red War votes but equally if you think about it label would be I think very cynical and calculating and clever if they made it a two-way contest between them and farage and kind of really squeeze Rak vote even more so there’s a question perhaps of should they do that they not do that but I think that farage has every right to ask for that at this point in the cycle yeah interesting um I don’t know if you were able to watch the debate last night um many people didn’t bother but so we’re going to try and bring them all the best highlights from it there weren’t too many it has to be said but let’s have a look at the green party here uh here’s they here they are accusing labor of doing u-turns to Angela Raina Angela which of your parties u-turns are you most proud of the ditching of the 28 billion climate investment plan keeping the cruel to child benefit cap or one of the others what I’m not proud of is that we’ve had 14 years of the touris and the crashing of the economy but what I am realistic about is we’ve got to have a program for government which is credible that can grow our economy so we can invest in our green Prosperity plan and so that we can eradicate poverty and I know labor can do it because we’ve done it before and we’ll do it again don’t really feel like that answered my question well I did I felt it did answer the question you can’t you can’t just keep plucking numbers out and say well this is what we’ll do because that’s what the tour Manifesto is fully costed one well yours wasn’t fully costed yes it was the conservatives had unfunded tax breaks and that’s when Liz trust crashed our economy we have a fully funded fully costed Manifesto which will have which has a growth Str there was a lot of shrieking and shouting wasn’t there last night I mean we played a little bit earlier in the last hour Penny Moren and Angela Rea going at it again um and I’m not sure what people learned from any of this stuff and and when politicians have stopped answering questions is there any point to even asking them anything yeah I think we have to realize that most debates don’t produce a big moment I mean in the UK we only started them in 2010 and of course the first debate was the only one that’s reallying a big breakthrough because that was Nick CLE that was CLE Cameron and brown and so it was structured in such a way to change it from a two horse race into a three horse in the 15 years since I’ve not seen any really big moments to be honest and I think last night was one of the worst seen yeah I think that’s the trouble um as far as the way uh that the labor Manifesto has been perceived um a lot of people saying this morning the most important part of what’s in the labor Manifesto is what’s not in it if you like you know they’ve of glossed over quite a lot of things they’ve kept it relatively vague they’ve said no new taxes for working people they repeat that over and over again no new vat apart from on private schools no new income tax but people are starting to say well what about property tax what about uh the other taxes they might raise fuel tax as well what’s your take on that I think that that’s exactly spot on and that is because uh labor are basically colluding with this fany that taxes won’t go up in the next Parliament uh they have clearly been saying that it won’t be income tax or vat but as you say Mike that leaves open a lot of scope for what they haven’t spoken about which is capital gains tax which I think is going to go up potentially some kind of raid on pensioners as well and I think that that’s the key thing we see in a lot of different medor out today which is labor are going to win this election where we’re going to win it comfortably what a Labour’s fiscal plan and this is the only way to kind of hold them account for the next 3 weeks before we get into government and start doing it so I think that the manifesto went off reasonably well for them um they basically with no kind of bombs and that it’s obviously been tested very much but I do think tax Rises whoever wins are on the horizon and under labor you tend to get more taxes typically than under the conservatives yes and it looks as though there were some sort of secret signs in that Manifesto as well to suggest that the labor party will have a much more woke government you know lately we’ve seen particularly since the elections been called we’ve seen the St is kind of trying to walk away uh from some of the more woke policies that they’ve introduced like the gender policies um and some of the stuff on on you know civil servants being able to you know basically tell their bosses not to just to go to hell we’re not going to do what you want us to do um but it does look rather like if you’re not a fan of wokeism you’re not going to be very happy Come the July the 5th no and I’m fascinated by his race equality act which they’ve announced which was a part of st’s early phase as leader there’s a kind of two phrase to K which is one which was from 2020 to 2022 when it looked like he was going to be a two-term opposition and then from when they thought oh God we’re actually going to win this and a lot of the kind of early leftwing woke stuff was junked from 202s and so this race equality act I think will put a mandate on employers to look into different racial disparities and I think that that’s going to be a really big contentious problematic piece of legislation to come and so yeah I think labor is delivering for different bits of it voter Coalition and voting block and I think that’s the one that a lot of Tories I speak to are the ones saying this is going to be potential V loser for them yeah absolutely let’s have a look at another clip from the debate these are the Tories here under Penny Moren talking about Labor and the European Union we cannot have an economy that relies on just overseas workers we have to also have an industrial and skills strategy when unemployment is going up in the UK that we can train and fill our skills gaps as well you haven’t had to do anything else you’ve been in power 14 years 14 years you haven’t got one you Haven you you promised you promised employment bill never got one been here before you I think we might worst of all possible worlds for the EU because they will take you back in without any of the benefits of membership Penny you’re blind me somebody sent us a text in earlier when we played that and said this reminds me why I’m quite happy to be single I think that clip was pretty unify wasn’t it I mean you know even 14 years 14 years European Union I mean try and make a bit light out that it’s just a load of shouted words isn’t it not even a sentence no not nothing co coherent cogent and I think that you know look we these days we live in an age of sound bites where we’re used to kind of a 30 second snippet I mean you at least want a bit of logic and processing behind that I can’t make head or tell what was going on there no absolutely right so I mean where did the Tories Go From Here James because you know richy Sun must wake up every morning I mean I was saying this even before the election was called he must wake up every morning thinking KY I didn’t think it would be this bad you know but I mean even with every step that they take uh they sort of stumble I mean just before the last debate uh between K starma and and and richy sunak up in Grimsby we had the breaking news about you know the uh Craig Williams the the the Tory special advisor and MP or former mp uh putting a bet on um uh on the date of the election three days before it was announced you know richy sux had to come out and I think today and say that he showed a very poor error of judgment yeah I mean I think Rich unit problems twofold some of those of his own making like the da dearle but others other people around him and really what can you do when your own MPS are acting in this way I me it’s extraordinary uh I think for the conservatives the next thing is just getting through the next three weeks and trying to get a bit of momentum going I mean you know someone said to me in Richie CX team that the reason he’s going into Italy is he gets one last peck on the cheeks with Maloney yes you know the Italian Prime Minister for the last time and it’s a very nice hotel down there I must tell you I mean the G7 where they’re having it is down in pulia uh it’s one of the most most amazing Hotel in the world I’m not that I’ve stayed there but just because I’ve looked at it and gone wow I mean it’s very very exclusive and this is why you want to be prime minister presumably yeah Italy or Grimsby that’s the question isn’t it you know which would you be at yeah I wonder if you’ll go quiet again last weekend like he did last weekend well he’s going to be out there I think to tomorrow still so I think that basically of the first four weeks of this campaign Mike we’ve seen three of them where he’s out of action two of them the blunders and four the fourth one because of the summit yeah incredible stuff well we look forward to next week I’m sure we’ll talk to you very soon as well James see there from The Spectator