00:00The way to think about this, Caroline, is you have two winners, one loser, and one maybe.
00:05The two winners, Keir Starmer, Nigel Farage.
00:07Farage, like you say, cements Reform UK as a serious party.
00:11They have, in this, taken the man who was second in the Conservative Leadership contest, Takemi, two years ago,
00:17who was formerly a Home Secretary, who was the Shadow Justice Minister, a Cabinet member,
00:22and taken him to their side, ahead of some local elections that are shaping up to be a serious test for all UK political parties.
00:30For Starmer, it's a bit surprising that I'm scouting him as a win.
00:34This splits the right in a pretty irreversible way, at least until the next general election.
00:39There's going to be no coalition, likely, now that they've taken kind of the darling of sort of the right-wing Conservatives and taken them to reform.
00:46No kind of truce there.
00:48The loser, controversially, I'm thinking, is Robert Jenrick.
00:51At one point last year, he was the heir apparent to Takemi.
00:56He was putting out social videos. He was seen as Takemi was doing badly.
01:00And he was seen as someone who would take over if anything went wrong.
01:03And him leaving is, in many ways, a sign that Kemi's position is solidified and that there's no future for him in the Conservatives.
01:10The TBC here is Kemi herself.
01:12In lancing the boil, her words, from Robert Jenrick yesterday and sacking him ahead of time, she, at least the sources I was talking to, looked strong and rallied Conservatives around her.
01:26Now, someone I was talking to said, if Jenrick had left, say, last year, 30 MPs would have gone with.
01:31That was their view.
01:32They said pontificating, it'd be more like eight this time around.
01:36Now, the question is, is how many do go?
01:39And if it is limited, Kemi will have been said to have done quite well.
01:44James, since we're not expecting an election until 2029, why does this matter for markets?
01:50Does Jenrick add credibility to the Reform Party markets case?
01:55So, I think it's a really smart sentiment.
01:58But you say expecting an election, Keir Starmer could call on any time.
02:01And we are also, you know, we've been tracking all year.
02:04It feels like a long year.
02:05It's only January.
02:06The Labour leadership speculation.
02:08It's not totally incontrovertible.
02:10A new leader comes in, wants to cement their position as a Labour prime minister, and calls
02:15an election while there's this Reform-Conservative split.
02:17We also live in this era of five-party politics now.
02:21There are five political parties polling give or take within 20% of the polls currently.
02:27That is unheard of.
02:28It's something I've never covered in my lifetime.
02:30And we have no clear metric of how to judge success.
02:33So, going into May, this moment, we don't know how it's going to play out.
02:40So, if a market's looking at what's supposed to be a stable UK government, it's all too playful.
02:45It genuinely is.
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