Transcript: What is a ‘woman’ in law? The Supreme Court ruling 

This is an audio transcript of the Political Fix podcast episode: ‘What is a ‘woman’ in law? The Supreme Court ruling’ 

Lucy Fisher
Welcome to Political Fix from the Financial Times with me, Lucy Fisher. The UK Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling this week about the legal definition of a woman. We’ll discuss the political implications of the judgment on this most fiercely debated of topics.

Plus, we’ll fillet the government’s rush to take control of British Steel from its Chinese owner, and examine what it means for Chinese involvement in other critical UK sectors going forward.

With me to discuss it all are my colleagues, Anna Gross. Hi, Anna.

Anna Gross
Hi, Lucy.

Lucy Fisher
And Robert Shrimsley, Hi, Robert.

Robert Shrimsley
Hello, Lucy.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lucy Fisher
So on Wednesday, the UK’s highest court ruled that the definition of a woman in equality legislation refers to someone who is biologically female. The Supreme Court found in a unanimous decision that the meaning of woman in anti-discrimination law does not extend to a trans woman with a gender recognition certificate. Robert, it’s been a big moment, hasn’t it, obviously welcomed by groups that campaign for the primacy of sex-based rights, criticised by activists who campaign for transgender rights. Could you give us just a sort of brief sense of how we got to this point and how it ended up at the Supreme Court?

Robert Shrimsley
Just a brief one, Lucy. (Laughter) Well, I mean, I think fundamentally, I would take this back to the battle over gender self-recognition.

Prior to that, there was a process under which a trans person — and although it is both men and women, the fundamental issue has always been around trans women — prior to that there was process by which people were recognised as having transitioned from one gender to another. It was quite cumbersome and slow, but I think it was two years. And the move towards this notion of gender self-ID and the idea that once we had to recognise this the moment somebody said they were now of a different gender lies behind a lot of the arguments I think that followed.

But fundamentally, I think it became a major progressive cause. It was pushed very hard, particularly by groups like Stonewall. And we got to points where feminists, lesbian groups, other people just felt the whole notion of female identity had been eroded to dangerous extents, and that actually this began to threaten areas of single-sex spaces, be it whether it’s sport, prisons, changing rooms, the like, and that began the backlash.

And I think fundamentally that the high point of this was reached when the Scottish government passed its Gender Recognition Reform act, which brought all of these matters to a head. And in fact, although it was an SNP measure, it was also backed by other parties. And the then-Conservative government intervened to block this measure and found that it was popular in doing so and that the SNP lost popularity. I think that was the high-water mark in Britain of this issue and the legal challenge which we’re talking about springs in part from the actions — well, springs in total — from the actions of the Scottish government up to that point.

Lucy Fisher
Yes, and that’s in part because equalities legislation is a reserved rather than devolved matter, but I won’t go down that wormhole as well. Anna, this has consequences now for single-sex spaces and services. I want to move quickly on to the politics of this, but just give us a sense of the practical implications of this judgment this week.

Anna Gross
Yeah, well, so since that Scottish law and also since gender recognition certificates came in, there are a lot of institutions and spaces that essentially have opted to treat trans women as women. They’re thinking about women’s refuges, sports, prisons, in some cases boardrooms as well. And trans groups are concerned now that this decision will mean that a lot of those organisations will kind of change their minds and say, well, no, we’re no longer treating trans women as women.

Lucy Fisher
They won’t be able to, will they, under the legal definition now of what a woman is? It’s biology.

Anna Gross
Exactly. Yeah, and there are several, you know, political actors at the moment, the Conservatives and Reform, who are saying what Labour needs to do, what the government needs to do, is change the guidance, change the regulations, so they’re really, really clear on this, so that no institution can say, oh no, we didn’t understand, and they’ve got to, under the law, treat trans women as different to women.

Lucy Fisher
Well, let’s move on to the politics of it because it has been this big political flashpoint. And Robert, in particular, it became this real dividing line between Labour and the Conservatives ahead of the last election, didn’t it? And Keir Starmer sort of tied himself up in knots, initially saying that a woman could have a penis, then saying, well, of course, 99.9 per cent of women don’t. He was really squirming by the end and trying to avoid talking about this issue at all, wasn’t he?

Robert Shrimsley
Yes, I think that’s exactly right, Lucy. I think, you know, essentially, this was an issue, that the trans rights issue was one that the progressive parties embraced totally. And I mean, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens still embrace.

But Keir Starmer, as you say, found himself being sort of bombarded with questions, inching on what is a woman? Is this person a woman, is that person a woman? And it was very, very awkward. And I think it’s a generally useful rule of thumb in politics that if you find you can’t easily answer a question, then there’s something wrong with your thinking on it. And he was trying to have it both ways almost, and it was very difficult for him.

And I think what you saw by the time of the last election and since is the Labour party really marching back quite a long way, especially the Labour leadership marching quite a long way back. And so its views in terms of policy now are not wildly different from those of the Conservative party. It’s just a lot less comfortable about it and it still wishes to show kindness and tolerance and compassion to the trans community. But Labour has really moved quite a long way on this now.

Lucy Fisher
Anna, what’s the reaction from Labour been like to this judgment?

Anna Gross
It’s been very, very muted. Bridget Phillipson, who’s the Women Inequalities minister, as far as I could see by the time we came to the podcast hadn’t actually said anything at all about it.

And yeah, it’s interesting. I spoke with her a few weeks ago and I was asking her about Labour’s position on trans rights because you may remember that in their manifesto, they actually committed to making the process by which someone can get a gender recognition certificate easier. They said that people wouldn’t have to prove that they had lived in a different gender for two years before receiving a certificate and that only one doctor would be needed to greenlight a gender dysphoria diagnosis.

But since then, they’ve been incredibly silent on that pledge. I was asking her about it and saying, you know, is this something that you’re still gonna do in this parliament? She avoided the question and said that there are other priorities for the government. So I think Robert’s exactly right. They’ve pretty much vacated the pitch here.

And it was interesting because I just also came from speaking to someone in the Reform party who’s very involved in policy and they were saying that they’re kind of not focusing at all really on trans issues and a lot of these other kind of progressive social issues because they don’t really think it’s an area where they can drive a wedge because Labour’s come so close to where the Conservatives and indeed where Reform is.

Lucy Fisher
Interesting. I was very struck that one of the most vocal MPs to speak about the judgment was Rosie Duffield, a former Labour MP who quit as an independent shortly after the election, who has been a very vocal gender critical campaigner and really attacked Starmer saying on Wednesday that he hasn’t handled the issue.

Robert, does that also speak to sort of Labour’s umbrella of voters, that there are, you know, on the left flank, very progressive people who feel very strongly in favour of trans rights, and then maybe perhaps more traditional, slightly more socially conservative voters in the blue Labour cohort who might take a different view, or is that too simplistic?

Robert Shrimsley
I think there’s something in it, certainly. And I think also the other point is younger voters, where if you particularly look at younger recent graduates or soon-to-be graduates, there is a clear sympathy for the trans rights issue that perhaps is not felt at the other end of the age spectrum. And there is clearly a cocktail of issues where labour is vulnerable from the left — be it the Gaza-Palestine issue, be it welfare cuts — and this will be another one of them. And there’s a whole range of these issues where support can be peeled off from the Labour party on the left, having said which, whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, the politics of this is actually very easy for Starmer, which is you just don’t want to go anywhere near this subject.

The mass of the voting public, the people who actually turn out, have not shown a desire to go as far as we went a few years ago. And I think, you know, Starmer will do whatever he can to keep his party out of this issue, to not look for ways to legislate, to leave the court ruling as it is, not touch the Equality Act if he can avoid it. I think there’s nothing Starmer would like less than being dragged into this matter.

Anna Gross
I agree, but I was speaking to an academic who is looking very, very closely at the polling figures, and he was saying that Labour might have a bit of a what he described as a too-small-blanket problem, where they’re pulling the blanket up so high to try and fend off Reform UK, you know, on issues like migration, on issues like welfare, trans issues and things like that, that they’re losing, as Robert says, voters who are kind of more to the left, who will be keen to vote for Lib Dems, Green or just sit out an election, whether it’s the local elections that are coming up or the general election.

It was interesting because a lunch that Nigel Farage was at a couple of weeks ago, he himself said that he thinks this is one of Labour’s biggest problems that’s being under-acknowledged or under-represented in the media at the moment, that Labour’s shedding voters to the left.

Lucy Fisher
Interesting. Tell me about this metaphor of the too-short blanket. I’ve got an image of someone with kind of cold toes.

Anna Gross
Yeah, exactly. So you pull up this blanket that’s too small. You pull it up to cover your shoulders because you’re cold, but you’re pulling it up and then your feet are exposed.

Lucy Fisher
Got it. Yeah, got it. Clever, right. I’m sure everyone else got that book before me.

Robert Shrimsley
I mean, I do think we have to be careful in terms of the salience to this issue. And I agree with Anna’s point and I think that the blanket analogy is a good one, but I’m not sure that this is one of the ones that really pulls a lot of voters away. I think it’s an issue that generates an enormous amount of heat. And when it was an area of dispute between the big parties, there was potential electoral opportunity here. But I think now, although people may feel strongly, it’s never gonna be one of central issues in how people decide to vote.

Anna Gross
I agree, and actually I was looking at some polling. YouGov’s done some quite really interesting stuff on this, and actually since 2022, so in the past three years, there’s been quite a sharp shift in the public, much less supportive of trans rights. So in a way, I think Labour is kind of slightly moving with the public tide on this.

Lucy Fisher
Robert, as your point on salience, is Kemi Badenoch making a mis-step then? Because the party that has kind of rode in heavily and spoken out quite vehemently in response to this Supreme Court judgment is the Conservatives with Badenoch herself saying this is an end to Starmer telling people that women can have a penis.

Mims Davis, the Tory shadow women’s minister, saying that, you know, the Tories were ahead of their time on this, pointing out that Badenoch, when she was Equalities minister in government, began the call for evidence for the equalities legislation being misused as the party saw it at the time. Are they trying to drum up too much on this if it’s just not crucial to the public and there’s many more serious things going on in the world at the moment?

Robert Shrimsley
Well, I mean, look, it was the story of the day on Wednesday. It was dominating the news bulletins. And in terms of the voters for whom the Tories and the Labour party are in competition, Badenoch can legitimately say that they were ahead of the Labour party in terms of the position they took in pushing back against some of the furthest demands of trans rights. So as I said, regards to the rights and wrongs of the issue, I don’t think Badenoch is wrong to remind people of this and to push back on it. I just don’t think in the end it will make a lot of difference.

Anna Gross
I was just gonna agree with that. I don’t think that this is an issue, you know, when you look at what people are voting on, what people care about, trans rights is not something that ranks highly at all. So I just . . . I think that going too hard on it can actually work in the opposite direction. I just think it can seem to some people kind of cruel and unnecessary.

Lucy Fisher
Oh, I think that’s a really interesting point because I was struck by how carefully and conscientiously Lord Patrick Hodge, the deputy president of the Supreme Court, when he was reading out his ruling, tried to stress, you know, we counsel against reading this judgment as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another. It is not. And yet, you know, I think there was some sort of triumphalism and, probably on the side, defeatism amongst people who feel really strongly in the political sphere on this.

Robert Shrimsley
I do think, Lucy, there’s an interesting point here, which is that in the current political climate where you might say the so-called anti-woke forces are in the ascendant, obviously very much so in the United States, but also in Britain, and we’re pushing back against some of the issues around diversity, trans rights, other things, has begun to feel the current zeitgeist. I do think there’s an interesting prospect here of parties over doing it and overdoing the backlash against this.

And so the point that Anna makes is an interesting one whether there comes a point where people look and say, well, look, we thought this transition had gone too far but now you’re just being unnecessarily unpleasant and you could see the same thing happening perhaps with some of the anti-diversity agenda. So I think mainstream parties have to be a little careful. It’s one thing to ride a wave and it’s another thing get ahead of it.

Lucy Fisher
I think that’s really interesting. And you certainly anticipated what I was about to ask you, Robert, which was, you know, is there a wider vibe shift here that this is connected to, you know, with the row back from across the Atlantic on DEI — diversity, equality and inclusion — even perhaps heading out to the social sphere, into the environmental, the fragmentation of net-zero consensus? Or is that an over-stretch?

Robert Shrimsley
No, I don’t think it’s an over-stretch. I think the question is just how much is true. I mean, I think clearly one of the issues you have in Britain is the antipathy towards Donald Trump. And so campaigns and issues that he is prioritising can be damaged by the fact that he is seen as being a champion of them. And diversity and inclusion is an interesting one. It clearly . . . It’s one of those areas where a lot of people I think would look at this and go, well, we sort of believe in diversity and inclusion, that’s a good thing, but maybe we didn’t like that, or maybe we don’t like that bit of it. And so it’s much more nuanced.

And I think that the wholesale aggressive opposition to it that you see in the United States, I don’t believe that will be a winning ticket here, and I think people have been much more nuanced. But the environmental issue and the net zero one, I think, is slightly different because you can put an immediate price on some of these things. You can see it’s been played out in the steel issue, which I think we can discuss later, but also where you can say to voters, these net zero policies, which aren’t right, are costing you money personally. They are diminishing your own standard of living. That’s a much more fruitful line of attack.

Lucy Fisher
I do wonder if Anna as well, talking about backlashes to parties being overeager to capitalise on this vibe shift or that dreaded phrase, shift in the Overton window, might also apply in particular to the way in which the US is taking quite an imperialist approach to trying to persuade or quite forcefully encourage other countries to ditch their DEI policies as well and it was an FT scoop a couple of weeks ago that US embassies around the world were making clear that they would drop their State Department contracts with any company that kept a DEI policy.

Anna Gross
And certainly some of the DEI stuff is catching. I don’t think it’s anywhere near to the same extent as the US, but we had a story a few weeks ago that BT had stopped using DEI metrics to calculate bonuses.

But it’s interesting just on your point about the kind of backlash. I was in Durham this week doing a bit of reporting on the local elections and just speaking to people on the street, which I know is not scientific at all, but I was quite surprised that there were people who were sort of saying, we’re incredibly disappointed with Labour, a lot of the things that you would expect. And then when it came on to Reform and to Nigel Farage, several people said that, you know, kind of interested in him, really didn’t like how much he was cozying up to the US. And they mentioned tariffs and they mentioned Musk and they just, they really don’t like the idea of Brits kind of trying to follow in . . . 

Lucy Fisher
The poodle.

Anna Gross
The poodle, exactly. And I know, I’m sure that’s not . . . I don’t want to speak for everyone, but it was just interesting that that was clearly something that people didn’t like seeing. And I think with the net zero thing, as Robert said, that’s a domestic argument in its own right, and it doesn’t necessarily tack on to the US argument, whereas with DEI and with trans, it feels like it has so much come over from literally being kind of imported from the US, a lot of these arguments.

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Lucy Fisher
Well, there’s also been drama over the future of British Steel and 3,000-odd jobs at its Scunthorpe plant this month, culminating with a rare emergency sitting of Parliament last weekend and the government rushing in to take control of the company. Sylvia Pfeifer is the FT’s industry correspondent and joins us to discuss the latest. Hi, Sylvia.

Sylvia Pfeifer
Hi there.

Lucy Fisher
Give us a brief sketch of what’s happened with British Steel. When was it first sold off? Just remind us. And when did things start to go so wrong?

Sylvia Pfeifer
Yes, so British Steel was sold to the Chinese group Jingye in March 2020. The company at the time said that it was happy to invest. It pledged to invest £1.2bn pounds into the company. It would help it move to greener forms of production. And then very rapidly, things started to go wrong. It was hit by some external things like high energy costs, high carbon costs and also Brexit. And then after about two years of ownership, the company went to the government and said, we need taxpayer support. We’ve got all these losses and we have to move to greener forms of production. Can you help us?

And then ensued these months of talks, first between the Tory government and then with the Labour government from last year, and those talks suddenly floundered spectacularly last week when they couldn’t come to an agreement. And Jonathan Reynolds, the UK business secretary, said on Saturday during the Parliament sitting, he said the government had to act because they felt that Jingye was intent on closing down the two blast furnaces, the last two in the UK. So closing them would have, A, triggered losses of about 3,500 people, but B, it will also have left the UK as the only G7 country without the ability to produce steel from raw materials. So that’s sort of what happened in a very brief nutshell over the past four years.

Lucy Fisher
Thank you. That was very concisely summed up. Robert, I’ve been very interested, and we’ll come on to the China angle and the theory — a conspiracy theory, some would say — from some politicians that this was the Chinese Communist party’s hand trying to undermine a critical British sector. But the UK political response, I thought, has been interesting: the spread of politicians from across the spectrum, including Conservatives, including Reform, who backed nationalisation of British Steel.

Robert Shrimsley
Yeah, it’s fascinating, isn’t it, Lucy? I mean, I think partly what you’re seeing is the collapse of traditional free market economic thinking on the right as it moves towards this different, more populist economics that has been part of the ingredients of all the right realigned right parties across Europe and indeed America. I mean it was even more telling that Reform was very early in the calls for nationalisation on this. And there’s none of that sort of instinctive unease about it.

In fact, the policy which shows the greatest unease, about nationalisation at the moment, appears to be the Labour party, which is saying, well, we might have to do this, but we don’t really want to. And you can see they’ve still got this neuralgia about talking about nationalisation where other parties are a bit more relaxed about it. But I do think it’s an interesting point in terms of the economic thinking of the parties of the right, which I use that term in the broader sense, because Reform is a slightly more complex beast.

Lucy Fisher
Well, it is, Anna, isn’t it? I mean, I think some people have quite a simplistic view of Reform as this Thatcherite pro-free market party led by a former city commodities trader in Nigel Farage, but actually it has taken a more sort of 70s-esque statist approach on several issues around the economy, hasn’t it?

Anna Gross
Absolutely, yeah, calling for nationalisation and it’s also in its manifesto and subsequently said that it would like to partially nationalise water companies, potentially leading to full nationalisation as well as other utilities. And we also saw Nigel Farage posing with unions this week when he went to visit British Steel. Richard Tice, who’s the deputy leader of the party, was wearing a union badge. So this is not Reform fitting, as you say, its Thatcherite stereotype.

And it’s actually quite similar to what we saw in the US. JD Vance, ahead of the election and since, has said that he massively supports unions; he wanted to see a growth in membership of unions. So I do think that the right and the populist right is in some ways taking on the role that we associate with socialists as part of this kind of bigger idea about reindustrialising the nation. I am sceptical about how much Nigel Farage truly believes what he’s saying here. I think he is deep down, at heart, a Thatcherite.

Lucy Fisher
OK, interesting. Well, he was certainly, I think I’m right in saying, up there in the Scunthorpe plant before Starmer, before Angela Rayner, before Johnny Reynolds. So he is, if nothing else, a very canny campaigner jumping on this issue early. Sylvia, you and I have been writing this week about what this has all meant, the Jingye-government breakdown in talks for the future of the UK’s relationship with Chinese investors, Chinese companies, in crucial British sectors.

And I was very struck at how punchy Johnny Reynolds was at the weekend when he said, you know, previous governments have been far too naive in their dealings with China and that he wouldn’t feel comfortable essentially in allowing Chinese companies to be involved in steel in future, which he called a sensitive sector. Unsurprisingly, perhaps not only has Jingye come back and said, you know, show us some respect as the investors who stood by this company saved thousands of jobs during the difficult years of Brexit negotiations, during Covid. But you have been reporting on what the Chinese embassy has said and that’s even more punchy in its language.

Sylvia Pfeifer
Yes, so earlier this week, Jingye told us in a statement that they wanted the UK government to respect its rights as an investor in the UK. And pretty much at the same time, the British Embassy here in London put up a statement that was even more punchy.

I mean, I’ve got it here, and I’ll just read out some of the language that it uses. It talks about the anti-China rhetoric of some individual British politicians. It describes us as extremely absurd, reflecting their arrogance, ignorance, and twisted mindset. So that’s very punchy, and we’ll see what happens from here.

And the British government has come out on Wednesday saying that they’ve met officials from Jingye and talking to the company about the next step. So we’ll see where we go from here.

Lucy Fisher
Robert, Downing Street trying to stick to the tightrope, however, of saying the UK government has a consistent long-term approach to China, wouldn’t rule out allowing Chinese companies to be involved in critical national infrastructure in future. We know that David Lammy, Rachel Reeves have been to China in recent months, Keir Starmer is planning to go later this year, Johnny Reynolds is planning a visit, it’s been reported. Is the government simply confused about its China policy?

Robert Shrimsley
Well, by the way, I have to say, you have to admire the irony of the Chinese Communist party speaking out in defence of private industries’ property rights, um, against the British government. Are they confused? I think everybody’s confused. I don’t think Britain is uniquely confused. I think China is becoming an increasing problem for all western countries and it’s gonna become more so because it is fundamentally at the epicentre of the Trump foreign and trade policy as well as an effort to make the countries of the west choose between America and China. So these pressures are going to grow.

And I think there is a huge domestic caucus in Britain, which will certainly have been bolstered by events of recent days, which just says, look, we can’t let China anywhere near any kind of critical infrastructure and the definition of critical infrastructure is going to keep growing. On the other hand, number one, people are lining up to invest in the British steel industry. So, you know, if you want outside investors, you don’t have that many options available to you. And number two, Britain does still want to have a proper trading relationship with China. And you can see that by the progress of ministers going there that you just mentioned.

So, I mean, it is confused. It was confused under Rishi Sunak and I think it will carry on being confused for quite a long time because we’re in new diplomatic waters and the scale of American hostility to China is so great and this feeds into particularly the antithesis in British politics that you’re going to see a constant walking of a tightrope and it’s not gonna get any easier, it’s not gonna lend itself to easy definitions. It’s gonna be ad hoc all the way.

Lucy Fisher
I’m interested just looking this week into where there is significant Chinese investment. It’s in our nuclear and energy sectors, including renewables, our telecoms, our transport systems.

And Sylvia, as you said, Jingye bought British Steel in 2020. That was long after the end of the so-called ‘Golden era’ when David Cameron and George Osborne were doing their best to court Chinese investment. The tide had already turned in many ways on UK government or at least parliamentary thinking about potential economic or security threats from China.

Anna, I’ve been very struck that it is Labour politicians who’ve been some of the most vocal this week demanding that ministers, you know, commission a new security review of Chinese investment in the UK. We do tend to think of it being Tories who are the sort of most vocal China hawks. Is that changing?

Anna Gross
Yeah, there have been some quite notable voices. We had Emily Thornberry come out and she was saying that we need to examine all Chinese investment in Britain’s nuclear, telecoms and transport sectors.

Lucy Fisher
She’s the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Anna Gross
Yeah, so yeah, it does feel like the position on that is changing. It’s interesting because, you know, as you say, China is a huge investor in some of the key infrastructure projects, principally energy.

And I think that it was interesting seeing Reynolds, he was quite strong at the weekend, saying, you know, I would not want to see China investing in steel again or in the future. And then he seemed to kind of row back on that later in the week. And I think there’s an acknowledgment and understanding that we are likely to need China going forward in crucial industries like solar, where China makes like 70 or 80 per cent of the parts of solar farms.

But Chinese investment, I know there’s been a huge amount of talk this week about the amount that China invests in industry, but actually the peak of Chinese investment was around 2017-2018 and it’s come down massively since then.

Sylvia Pfeifer
And can I just add one point, I mean, just maybe not on the politics, but on the industrial side of things. I mean, I do think we need to sort of remember that this decision that happened on Saturday is just a sort of stop-gap. I mean, what is the government’s industrial plan for British Steel? What is it for the steel industry? And we don’t know.

I mean, those two blast furnaces are gonna have to close and a lot of those jobs will be lost anyway, because they’re really old, they’re unprofitable and they have to close if the UK wants to meet its net zero commitment. So we have to build those electric arc furnaces and the government is going to have to do something, you know, either give a subsidy to a third-party buyer or pay for it itself.

So this is not the end of the story and it would be good if the government could come out with a cohesive plan, not just for British Steel, but for the whole steel industry.

Lucy Fisher
Sylvia, I was gonna ask you, what do you think will happen next? Is Robert right that we won’t see investors or other buyers queueing up to take British Steel off the government’s hands or will there be a change of heart in private sector interest in the company? Now the government is basically committed to pouring in a lot of state investment into modernising these blast furnaces and sort of helping fund the transition to these greener electric arc furnaces.

Sylvia Pfeifer
Well, it’s interesting, I spoke to one industry expert or consultant who actually sort of said he would be queueing up to invest. He sort of said, you’re being offered a subsidy so any new investor might be offered that £500mn that the government offered to Jingye. There’s a site obviously in Scunthorpe. If you don’t have to take on the blast furnaces, so you’re coming in as a greenfield investor almost with the subsidy, with some action on energy prices, which are still too high in the UK, maybe you can make it work. So, you never know, and we are hearing of potential interested parties, so it’s not a complete dead duck, I don’t think.

Lucy Fisher
We’ll have to come back to you when we know the next step.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Well, we’ve just got time left for Political Fix stock picks. Robert, who are you buying or selling this week?

Robert Shrimsley
I was tempted to sell Johnny Reynolds because I think although he’s had a fantastic week in negotiating this and he’s generally proved himself over a period of months to be an accomplished media performer, now he’s got British Steel, he’s go to work out what to do with it.

And as Sylvia touched on it, it’s not at all clear he knows what to with it next and it’s now on the government’s books and then you’ve got the whole issue, which also involved another trade deal with the US and the costs and the price you have to pay for getting that deal and potential Brexit negotiations. So he’s got a lot of tough stuff coming his way, but it seems unfair to sell him this week.

So what I’m gonna do instead is buy Andrew Griffith, who is the Conservative shadow to Johnny Reynolds, the shadow business and trade secretary, who has shown himself over a period of weeks now to be a pugnacious and aggressive performer, which is a bit of what the Conservative party needs. And he’s gonna have a lot to get his teeth into. And also because I think Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, just isn’t cutting it in terms of bashing the Labour party very well on all the areas where it’s weak.

And I think at some point in the next nine months, Kemi Badenoch, assuming she’s still leader, is gonna have to make a change there. And I would have thought he’s quite a strong bet to be shadow chancellor when that time comes.

Lucy Fisher
Well, I’m definitely talking you down for three moves there, Robert. (Laughter) You’ve sold Reynolds, you’ve sold Stride, and you’ve bought Griffith. Anna, how about you?

Anna Gross
So I’m gonna buy Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.

We had a story this week that the UK was in talks with France about potentially signing a migration deal to return a small number of migrants that arrive here on small boats in exchange for accepting some from France who have a legal right to be here because they have a legal right to family reunification. This is something that the Brits have been plugging away, trying to get over the line for a long time. And it’s always been an absolute red line for the Europeans and for the French.

So it was quite a surprise and I think quite impressive in a way that there seems to have been movement on this and the French seem genuinely to be quite up for this. They see it as a disincentive to people making the journey on these small boats.

Lucy Fisher
Sylvia, how about you?

Sylvia Pfeifer
Right, obviously I’m gonna have to go for somebody involved in the steel industry. I was going to also, sorry Robert, sell Johnny Reynolds. He had to act, I’d accept that, but not quite sure yet whether his plan’s going to pan out, so I was gonna sell Johnny Reynolds. Not sure I want to buy Andrew Griffiths. The Tory government sold British Steel to Jingye. I might buy Sarah Jones, who I think has done really well in recent weeks and days. Seems like a proper industry minister has been there, you know, walking the talk side by her.

Anna Gross
How about you, Lucy?

Lucy Fisher
I’m going to buy Chris Wormald, the new-ish cabinet secretary, who this week wrote to all the cabinet, reading them the Riot Act, essentially telling them that if they don’t respond to cabinet right rounds on time, they’ll be timed out and a nil return will be put next to their name and the government will crack on with policy.

I think it’s interesting because it speaks to Keir Starmer’s frustration at how slow it is to get anything done in government. And of course, a core part of collective responsibility of the cabinet is that any time any secretary of state wants to get through a policy, they have to write round to all the other secretaries of state. And although they try and put deadlines or getting responses back, it wastes a lot of time in civil servant, private offices, chasing up cabinet ministers to see if they want to comment, if they want to object, oppose or make recommendations.

And clearly Wormald is sort of shaping up to be Starmer’s enforcer in this bigger programme to make government more agile and productive. So I thought that was interesting, him issuing this diktat this week.

Robert Shrimsley
Do you not think that makes him vulnerable, Lucy? I mean, I can see he’s doing what Starmer has asked him to do, but he’s put himself into the firing line for attacks from every disgruntled cabinet minister.

Lucy Fisher
Well, let’s see. I can’t wait for the fun and games of ministers now trying to game this system. I mean, this time next year, Easter week, when lots of people are off not checking their emails, that will be a . . . times like this will be a classic moment for cabinet ministers trying to push through controversial policies without their colleagues noticing. So I suspect it’ll lead to sort of crossfire in the cabinet more than it’ll lead to attacks on him.

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Well, that’s all we’ve got time for this week. Robert Shrimsley, Anna Gross, Sylvia Pfeifer, thanks for joining.

Anna Gross
Thanks, Lucy.

Sylvia Pfeifer
Thank you.

Robert Shrimsley
Bye, Lucy.

Lucy Fisher
Before you go, a quick reminder that in a few weeks time, we’ll have the first of our new Q&A specials. So if you have a burning question for our panel, record a voice note and email it to me at politicalfix@ft.com.

Thanks to everyone who submitted a question so far. We’ve got a great spread and some really good questions, including someone who wants me to explain exactly how we calculate the stock pick of winners and losers at the end of the year. I’m not sure we should be lifting the bonnet on that — very precise, I assure you, calculation.

That’s it for this episode of the FT’s Political Fix. I’ve put links to subjects discussed in this episode in the show notes. Do check them out. They’re articles we’ve made free for Political Fix listeners.

There’s also a link there to Stephen’s award-winning Inside Politics newsletter. You’ll get 30 days free. And don’t forget to subscribe to the show. Plus, please do leave a review or a star rating. It really helps us spread the word.

Political Fix was presented by me, Lucy Fischer, and produced by Lulu Smyth with help from Mischa Frankl-Duval. Manuela Saragosa is the executive producer. Original music and sound engineering by Breen Turner. Our broadcast engineers are Andrew Georgiades and Petros Gioumpasis. And Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s global head of audio. We’ll meet again here next week.

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