Pat McFaddon, if you win the majority this Thursday, are you going to express your gratitude to Nigel Farage for dividing the right in politics so successfully?

I'm assuming nothing about the result on Thursday. I think Labor has a chance, has a good possibility this time, but change will only come if people vote for it. There's huge uncertainty still in these polls. There's a lot of difference between them. I don't want anyone to think that the outcome of the election is predetermined because they will all be worth nothing when the voters actually go and vote in person on Thursday. I'm assuming absolutely nothing about Thursday other than to say we have a real possibility to turn the page on 14 years of the Tories and to start to rebuild.

I understand that that is the proper answer to give, but let's just deal the actual real situation and the politics, which is that you are in the favorable position you're in because the Conservatives have had so many votes siphoned off to reform. 90% of reform voters are former Tori voters. You will owe something to Nizal Faraj.

I don't think we will owe anything to anyone other than the voters themselves who are expressing their opinion in a democratic election. It's an awesome thing. The power is in their hands. There's a real chance for change, and I hope that people will show up. I hope they ignore these polls, to be honest, that they show up and they vote for change and vote Labor on Thursday.

I'm not just saying this just to tease you, though I enjoy doing that. It's about the reality of what happens if you do get elected. It is possible that Labor could end up with more seats than Tony Blair won in 1997 on a lower share of the vote than taken by Jeremy Corbyn in 2017. Now, is there an issue here about the legitimacy, potentially, of Labor government. The problem for you there is that you'll have no money, as Rachel Reeve's keeps pointing out. Isn't there potentially a problem for you here that you've become a government with essentially It's a relatively poor mandate?

Well, look, in our system, in most elections in the past generation, people have won majorities on whatever percentage of the vote, and I don't recall those majorities being challenged. I don't know what the share of the vote will be on Thursday, but I do know that in the British system, the government is formed by the party that wins a majority of seats. And let's not underestimate this. My party's existence goes back over 100 years. Only three times, only three times in the past 100 years has Labor managed to win a majority from opposition. I'm making no predictions about Thursday, but I'm saying if it was a fourth time, that would be a real historic achievement. I think all this stuff about slicing and dicing the vote underestimates the credit due to Keir Kier Starmer for changing the Labor Party and putting us in a position where this is even a possibility, because four or five years ago, a lot of people didn't think it was.

Indeed, that's true. Well, let's talk about that, the credit due to Kier Starmer. Again, this is not simply being devil's advocate. I'm trying to explore the problem that a Labor Government might face. Let's just take a look at this. Here are the ratings for leaders coming in from opposition. Thatcher, Cameron, Blair, all got elected with positive ratings for them. Kier Starmer, negative ratings. Now, this is not necessarily a comment on him. It's simply the point is that you will have very little political credit, very little room for maneuver, no money. Isn't that going to be a serious problem for Labor if you were elected?

Look, if If anybody wanted an easy life, I would advise them not to sign up to try to be in government. It is a responsibility, and there are plenty of difficult decisions coming to us. But I do believe in the possibilities of change. I do think liberating the government of the country from the obsessions of various right-wing Tori factions and actually having a government that turns up asking, How do we grow the economy today? How do we get NHS waiting lists down? How do we crack down on antisocial behavior? How do we employ more teachers in our schools? These are differences worth having. It's a good agenda to be getting on with, and we are ready if the voters give us that responsibility on Thursday.

All right, well, let's talk about policy. Your big thing is change. Gordon Brown yesterday called for more action from Labor on child poverty, and this is a classic Labor cause. You You're not keeping the two child cap on benefits, yet you can afford to guarantee the triple lock for pensioners, which costs a multiple of that. You've chosen, you've You've already made a choice to satisfy older, wealthier pensioners, not to attack child poverty. You've made a choice already, haven't you?

I don't think the only way to tackle child poverty is through that single change. But there's a really important point in what you've raised. I could give you lots of challenges for the country. Child poverty is one. There are many others. Local authorities have very little money. There's lots of challenges facing the country, and what they all add up to is a legacy that we will inherit of 14 years of the Conservatives. Before you get up to Tori. The economy has been too weak. But this is important. But my point is that you've already- I acknowledge the challenges facing us. The The point is to begin. The point is to make a start.

And the question is the nature of the start you made. And my point is that you have a choice. You have a choice here, and you have made a choice not to tackle child poverty, but to reward people who are, frankly, well up. Right now, it is twice as likely, if you're a child, you're twice as likely to be living in poverty as a pensioner. Is that the right That's the priority for a Labor government?

The priority for a Labor government is growth. The trouble with these conversations, and I've had lots of these interviews during the course of this campaign about the government budget. Should you spend one or £2 billion pounds more on this or one or two billion pounds more on that, is none of it escapes the doom loop that we've been in in recent years. The truth is, we've had a lot of discussion about the government budget or this policy, but it's a really important point. We have not discussed enough the actual wealth of the country and the struggle that households of all kinds of income and range have. Unless we change that, this discussion about government budget won't get us out of it. We've put that question at the center of our manifesto and the center of the campaign.If.

I may say so.We've done it for a good reason. If I may say so, you are unusually are swerving the question. You've got enough money to reward rich old people like me. You could use that money to alleviate child poverty, and you have made a choice already.

I don't accept that because I don't accept that the only way to alleviate child poverty is through one single change. This is going to be a cause dear to our hearts. We've said so in the manifesto, but with all these causes, and this is a really important point, unless we grow the economy, unless we get stronger, unless we make Britain a better place to invest, unless we grow this.

But what you keep telling me is if there's You can make more money, you can do all sorts of things. Will not make the difference. I'm not yelling at you about growth. I'm just saying you've got money, you could make a choice. Rachel Reeves and Bridget Philipson have both been in here telling We're talking about breakfast clubs and how the children could thrive more if they have breakfast. You could have chosen to spend money on free lunches, but you didn't. My point is all of these things are moral choices rather than, let's have more money. And you've already told us or shown us what you're going to do. It seems to me what you're going to do is not change.

I think putting growth at the heart of the election campaign and asking the question, how do we become a stronger economy, is the biggest change of all, because it's the lack of that that has left household income in the UK, thousands of pounds a year behind similar families in France or Germany or the Netherlands, and thousands of pounds a year behind what it would have been if we kept up with the labor rate of growth. If we had kept up with the rate of growth that we had most of the time we were in power, the economy today would be £150 billion larger. We'd have tens of billion more for public services. You cannot escape and duck this challenge.

I hear all that, and you and your colleagues come in every week and you say, Growth will be the answer to everything. I'm not even testing that. I'm simply saying you've got a bunch of money, you know it's there, and you've already decided that you want to do this rather than that. My point to you is that actually Your slogan of change isn't actually change. You are still rewarding the same people that the Conservatives have done for the 14 years you complained about.

It would be real and worthwhile change if you're looking to buy a house for the first time to know that the government of the day was going to put economic stability first in order to grow the economy. It would be real and worthwhile change to know that you had 40,000 more appointments every week in the NHS for people on waiting list. Real and worthwhile change to have six and a half thousand more qualified teachers in our schools. Real and worthwhile change for any community affected by antisolution behavior to know that community policing is coming back with 13,000 more officers and PCS. There are policies, there are first steps, they are at the heart of our manifesto. They are real and worthwhile change, and they're change worth voting for on Thursday, Trevor.

Yes, I know. I know the campaign slogan. These are ambitions, but the thing is, at every turn, starting from Rachel Reeve saying, We're going to follow the Conservatives' spending plans, what you've done is follow the same path as Conservatives. Wasn't the Green leader, Carla Denia, right to say that, Yeah, you've changed. You've changed into Tories.

Carla will not be faced with these questions. I believe that the purpose of politics is not to display your radicalism in opposition by racking up a big shopping list. Frankly, anyone can do that. The purpose of politics is to make real and worthwhile change in power. If we are trusted by the electorate on Thursday, that's what we want to do.

All right, let me ask you to do something that cost you nothing. Would you like to wish the England team good luck tonight?

Of course.

You said that with such enthusiasm.

Of course.

Back to the pardon. Thank you very much. Thank you.