Speaker 1: From Shorts Media. I'm Rick Wharton. This is seven am.
Speaker 1: By the end of this week the United Kingdom will
Speaker 1: almost certainly have a new Prime Minister and an end
Speaker 1: to fourteen years of Tory rain. There is one man
Speaker 1: in particular working very hard to prevent that. And it's
Speaker 1: not the current Tory leader, Rishie Sunac, whose campaign from
Speaker 1: the very first bizarre rainsoak election announcement has been marked
Speaker 1: by ineptitude, misstep and ignorance. Today, veteran New k correspondent
Speaker 1: and contributor to the Saturday Paper, Parlo Tottero on the
Speaker 1: young strategist from reginal New South Wales whose stratospheric rise
Speaker 1: in the dark arts of campaign tactics has helped craft
Speaker 1: a series of so called miracle victories. That's after the break, Paula.
Speaker 1: You've been watching the election campaign in the United Kingdom
Speaker 1: at the moment, and you've been particularly looking into this
Speaker 1: young Australian figure at the center of it. Who is that.
Speaker 2: Well, his name is Isaac Livedo and he's an Australian.
Speaker 2: He was born in Maitland, he was raised in Port
Speaker 2: McCrory and he now has pretty much the weight of
Speaker 2: a seemingly unwinnable UK government election on his shoulders. Remarkable
Speaker 2: young strategist who actually began his life at university thinking
Speaker 2: he might want to be an accountant and very quickly
Speaker 2: found out that this wasn't for him and began a
Speaker 2: really interesting trajectory into political strategy and pole reading.
Speaker 3: With my friend Isaac Levito joining us from London, England
Speaker 3: this evening in London.
Speaker 4: Thanks very much for joining and welcome Isaac.
Speaker 3: Thanks very much for having me.
Speaker 2: He's seen as a bit of a magician here because
Speaker 2: he's had some extraordinary wins working with Boris Johnson and
Speaker 2: delivered that incredible election win in twenty nineteen in.
Speaker 3: The UK we were in quite a challenging situation where
Speaker 3: an incumbent government but effectively running against the status quo
Speaker 3: that all vote for anyone else was.
Speaker 2: And of course in Australia in the very same year
Speaker 2: winning the election with Scott Morrison, which was I think
Speaker 2: was called the miracle election, wasn't it.
Speaker 1: I have always believed in miracles. I was on that
Speaker 1: campaign and very few people saw it coming.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he's got a bit of a magic around him,
Speaker 2: which I suspect considering what we've seen in the last
Speaker 2: couple of weeks. It's a little tarnished at the moment.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't like to be in his shoes, but it
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 1: Well, let's sketch that out a little bit. So how
Speaker 1: is the Rishi seen that campaign going? The Tory campaign?
Speaker 1: Where are they at? Is he kind of writing on
Speaker 1: the accumulated scandal of many years of government? Now?
Speaker 2: The truth is that it could not be going worse
Speaker 2: for the Conservatives than it is going at the moment.
Speaker 2: Sir John Curtis, who is the kind of election guru,
Speaker 2: looks very cateveric face, which it gets on the BBC,
Speaker 2: but he's the most trusted of the posters and he's basically,
Speaker 2: you know, he's saying that they're going to be it's
Speaker 2: going to be a route they will take at least
Speaker 2: two terms possibly to get back into power. I think
Speaker 2: we all saw around the world, and I certainly watched
Speaker 2: it live when Sunak announced this big surprise announcement outside
Speaker 2: Number ten and it was pouring with rain, and you know,
Speaker 2: everybody was watching television wondering how it was possible that
Speaker 2: somebody couldn't come out with an umbrella over the poor.
Speaker 5: Man in stability. At rest can restore pride and confidence
Speaker 5: in our tree, and with a clear plan and bold action,
Speaker 5: will deliver a secure future for you, your family and
Speaker 5: our United Kingdom.
Speaker 2: Even Larry the Cat was seen in the background, you know,
Speaker 2: the number ten cat that lives, lives and seen number
Speaker 2: of prime ministers. You know, he took shelter in front
Speaker 2: of the cameras. It was. It couldn't have been written,
Speaker 2: you know, by a satirist better.
Speaker 1: It was just shocking what we threw. The greatest hits
Speaker 1: so far of the statues and gas and other things
Speaker 1: that run with the a F of this campaign. What
Speaker 1: have we got?
Speaker 2: Well, I think the one that you know that that
Speaker 2: was incredible And again you wonder where Livedo was and
Speaker 2: and if the problem is with advice or whether it's
Speaker 2: risty s or not listening to advice. But that was
Speaker 2: the D day, you know, the celebrations, and he disappeared,
Speaker 2: you know early supposedly for a really quite unimportant interview
Speaker 2: really with IV. Could have done it at any time time.
Speaker 1: Good to see.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it all just ran.
Speaker 1: It was incredible.
Speaker 2: But there is quite a lot of gossip around Whitehall
Speaker 2: et cetera that Sunac unlike Boris isn't listening. He tends
Speaker 2: to sort of go his own plowy zone, Pharaoh.
Speaker 5: National service will be compulsory. The military option will be
Speaker 5: something that people.
Speaker 1: Choose to do. So how will you make people do it?
Speaker 6: Sorry, if national service is going to be compulsory, how
Speaker 6: will you make people do it?
Speaker 5: Well, you'll have a set of sanctions and incentives, and
Speaker 5: we will look at the models that are existing around
Speaker 5: Europe the appropriate.
Speaker 2: You know, every time we see you almost feel sorry
Speaker 2: for him because he's constantly apologizing.
Speaker 1: And there's a betting scandal now within the Prime minist's
Speaker 1: own staff. Can you tell me a little bit about that.
Speaker 2: Yes, the story began with the Gambling Commission being alerted,
Speaker 2: we think by an anonymous tip off to a small
Speaker 2: rash of bits for the date of the election.
Speaker 6: Alas Williams Joe Pike from Bucy News did you have
Speaker 6: inside information when you placed your bet on the election
Speaker 6: date statement?
Speaker 2: There was a clutch of personal protection officers around number
Speaker 2: ten Police met police who had done this, and then
Speaker 2: the Gambling Commission decided to widen.
Speaker 6: It that there was an election coming and you were trying,
Speaker 6: perhaps to take advantage of that.
Speaker 5: Adding to the similar already.
Speaker 2: Made and it's now sneered a number of Conservatives, a
Speaker 2: number of Torri MPs to have had to apologize and
Speaker 2: stip down.
Speaker 5: Did you tell Craig Williams, a man that you said
Speaker 5: you were with almost every minute of every day the
Speaker 5: date of the election before he put the bet on Sam?
Speaker 5: I've been clear about this. I'm furious to have learned
Speaker 5: about these allegations. We've initiated independent inquiries of our own
Speaker 5: internal ones because I don't have access.
Speaker 2: All in our I think there's at least ten, if
Speaker 2: not more. And what we do know is that the
Speaker 2: Gamby Commision is being very close lip about it and
Speaker 2: that it could be much much wider than we've already seen.
Speaker 2: So at the moment, the front pages of all British
Speaker 2: newspapers a week or so from the election are full
Speaker 2: of the Tories, you know, gambling on inside knowledge of
Speaker 2: the date of the election. You couldn't make it up,
Speaker 2: could you?
Speaker 1: And of course I think I know the answer now,
Speaker 1: But Isaac Lobto is tasked with trying to turn it
Speaker 1: all around. We're only days out now from the election.
Speaker 1: Can he pull off another miracle?
Speaker 2: You know that the polls are so tight now and
Speaker 2: the reading of focus groups, it's an art for becoming
Speaker 2: a science. And I think that if Sir John Curtis,
Speaker 2: who is really very conservative when it comes to these things,
Speaker 2: says they haven't a chance, I don't think they really,
Speaker 2: I really don't think they do. I mean, they have
Speaker 2: a huge majority, but it looks like the biggest problem
Speaker 2: is that is that the southern seats, the sort of
Speaker 2: the more metropolitan moderate rump of Tory voters, they've lost
Speaker 2: those two because of Brexit. So in the end they've
Speaker 2: moved to the right thinking that they could hang on
Speaker 2: to that rump of right of center voter, but they've
Speaker 2: actually lost a much more important one in the cities.
Speaker 2: So it looks like an absolute mess at the moment.
Speaker 2: The landscape is looking incredibly dramatic for them, and if
Speaker 2: the worst case scenario polls are correct, of their six
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty seats in the UK Parliament, at worst
Speaker 2: case scenario, they might end up with as few as
Speaker 2: fifty three, which, as the Polster the British Polster Professor
Speaker 2: Curtis said, could possibly be the worst performance since World
Speaker 2: War One, and possibly worse so wipeout is potentially an
Speaker 2: understatement at this point.
Speaker 1: After the break, What will Isaac Lavito do if the
Speaker 1: Conservatives are decimated on polling day? Palla. So far, Isaac
Speaker 1: Lovito has not exactly had the secret to turning around
Speaker 1: Richie Sunak's fortunes, and I don't think at this point
Speaker 1: many people expected he could. What do we know about
Speaker 1: Lvito and how he operates? So I'm fascinated by this
Speaker 1: kind of person and what motivates them, how does he
Speaker 1: apply his trade.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting because usually when you talk to people
Speaker 2: about this kind of strategist, the one that's in the
Speaker 2: backgrounds of the dark arts person, generally, you know, negative
Speaker 2: things come out when you talk to people about Livido.
Speaker 2: No matter whether you talk to labor or conservative people.
Speaker 2: He's very well liked. He has apparently a really strong
Speaker 2: sort of work ethic. He's his team up and ready
Speaker 2: at five forty most mornings to ensure that they are
Speaker 2: ready to listen to the first round of news.
Speaker 3: All campaigns, no matter how short short a period of
Speaker 3: time you've got, you need to sort of sweat the
Speaker 3: small stuff.
Speaker 2: Obviously, he'd cut his teeth working for Cosby Texter in Washington.
Speaker 2: As a young man, Levito was Linton Crosby's star protege,
Speaker 2: the strategist who's known for the bottom drawer stories that
Speaker 2: emerge about opponents. He's really well known for those kind
Speaker 2: of darker strategies if you like, you know, Unlike Linton Crosby,
Speaker 2: who is known for his blue language and Dominic Cummings
Speaker 2: who is known for flying crockery, Leveto is apparently very
Speaker 2: generous with his time listens, you know, during a campaign
Speaker 2: and the hustings in long hours, and there's a lot
Speaker 2: of grunt work, even you know, for the more senior people.
Speaker 2: And so he has this tradition of having a soft
Speaker 2: furry toy which is handed ceremonious to each person who
Speaker 2: is the star campaigner on the day. And I think
Speaker 2: one year he hadn Echidnaer and another year he had
Speaker 2: something else, something else, but Ozzie. So he has the
Speaker 2: capacity to draw people together and to ensure that they
Speaker 2: feel like a team. He also is apparently a magician
Speaker 2: in terms of focus groups.
Speaker 3: I saw some research recently where an overwhelming majority of
Speaker 3: voters wanted to nationalize the railways. If they asked the question,
Speaker 3: would you nationalize the railways six sixty five seventy same poll,
Speaker 3: the question was asked, do you think nationalizing the railways
Speaker 3: is actually going to solve the problem? Basically the same
Speaker 3: number said no, they don't think to solve the problem.
Speaker 2: So he's a big believer in intuition. He believes that
Speaker 2: voters immediately gut understand when a politician is not being honest.
Speaker 2: But they don't need to hear words. They will read
Speaker 2: the body language and the feeling of the person they see.
Speaker 3: You know, voters are extremely perceptive. Is when they see
Speaker 3: that there are you know, whether it be ulterior motives
Speaker 3: or whether again it just be.
Speaker 2: So clearly, he trusts his own intuition and so in
Speaker 2: focus groups is able to pull together how people are feeling.
Speaker 2: As he's traveling and listening to voters. I mean it's
Speaker 2: a great pity that in this occasion, I think the
Speaker 2: best surgeons get the worst cases. I think that may
Speaker 2: well be the case for Lovedo in this election.
Speaker 5: Yea.
Speaker 1: And of course, as you mentioned, you know, come Friday
Speaker 1: Australia time, it's almost a sure thing now that the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom will have a new leader, and that that
Speaker 1: leader will be Keith Starmer, who is sort of there,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't tell you a lot about him. What
Speaker 1: can you kind of pull apart about who Key Starma is.
Speaker 2: I think that what you observe, even in Australia is
Speaker 2: what the electorate is still saying, even though the polls
Speaker 2: are showing a massive, massive landslide for Labor. When you
Speaker 2: look at the polling for voter response to Starma, they
Speaker 2: don't really know him yet, and he is somebody you were,
Speaker 2: apparently in private, very witty, very funny, very relaxed. But
Speaker 2: as a politician in debates, when we see him on
Speaker 2: television on the hustings, he's quite wooden. He doesn't seem
Speaker 2: to relax very much.
Speaker 7: We're going to hit the ground running from the very
Speaker 7: get go day one. First, obviously, stabilize the economy. We
Speaker 7: have to get that back under control. Secondly, you know,
Speaker 7: making sure that we're bringing down the waiting list forty
Speaker 7: thousand appointments each and every week, that's two million a
Speaker 7: year extra. Bring down that waiting list. A border security command.
Speaker 2: This is you've going to remember that. To get to
Speaker 2: where he got to, he had to completely restructure the
Speaker 2: Labor Party. He had to sort of get rid of
Speaker 2: the far left that was exemplified by Jeremy Corbyn who
Speaker 2: lost that election to Boris Johnson. So dramatically he's you know,
Speaker 2: he's a very ambitious, quietly ambitious person, I think, and
Speaker 2: maybe that will come out more, you know, once he's
Speaker 2: in number ten, we'll see more of the real key Starman.
Speaker 1: Well, it is a neat kind of dichotomy, isn't it.
Speaker 1: For as long as he's been in politics, the Conservatives
Speaker 1: have been in power. They've held government for what fourteen
Speaker 1: years now? Yeah, they're one of the oldest parliamentary parties
Speaker 1: in the world. How big a moment is it for
Speaker 1: the Tories if they are wiped out and does that
Speaker 1: reshape British politics in the short term or even the
Speaker 1: long term?
Speaker 2: Well, I think if it does happen to that degree,
Speaker 2: it's incredibly, incredibly dramatic. Because what we haven't spoken about
Speaker 2: as we've chatted, and which Levido would have had to
Speaker 2: deal with internally at the eleventh hour, is the entry
Speaker 2: of Nigel Farage at the very last minute into the
Speaker 2: election campaign.
Speaker 4: The MRB pole out last night said the reform of
Speaker 4: gone from expecting to win nought seats to eighteen seats.
Speaker 2: Why he was originally not going to campaign. His campaigned
Speaker 2: many times, never won a seat, and since then Reform
Speaker 2: has hold relatively well. They do appear to be taking
Speaker 2: in the oxygen of the right of center far right
Speaker 2: of center x Tory constituency. So if they get a
Speaker 2: seat or two, that will change things hugely, if Reform
Speaker 2: actually managed to have any success at all, I think.
Speaker 1: And then of course there's Levito. I think one of
Speaker 1: the benefits of not being in the spotlight is that
Speaker 1: no one notices when the spotlight puts on. So he
Speaker 1: will continue working and taking clients, no doubt very much.
Speaker 2: So, you know, he in twenty nineteen, about a month
Speaker 2: after he won the election with Boris Johnson, he set
Speaker 2: up a consultancy, just as Linton Crosby before him had done,
Speaker 2: which is called Fleetwood Strategy. And now he's got a
Speaker 2: number of elections wins under his belt. Sadly this one
Speaker 2: won't be one of them. But corporate clients in the end,
Speaker 2: you know, having a strategist that has had access to
Speaker 2: such senior politicians over a period of time, you know,
Speaker 2: obviously very very attractive. It said that he made his
Speaker 2: first corporate million in the first year of Fleetwood Strategy
Speaker 2: opening his doors. So I suspect he's not overly worried
Speaker 2: about his future. Probably we'll want to wash his hands
Speaker 2: and just get on with it and back to the
Speaker 2: corporate stuff. He believes that corporate pr and strategic work
Speaker 2: is now so similar to the political and that ultimately
Speaker 2: you have to keep CEOs on message. You need to
Speaker 2: have a campaign, you need to have a clear focus,
Speaker 2: you need to have a team with disciplines. So he's
Speaker 2: just transferring his political skills over to the extremely lucrative
Speaker 2: corporate world. So good luck to him.
Speaker 1: That's terrifying and fascinating at the same time. Power Tatar,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate
Speaker 1: you giving us the time.
Speaker 2: It was an absolute pleasure anytime.
Speaker 8: Also in the news today, Defense Minister Richard Miles says
Speaker 8: Joe Biden quote definitely has the capacity to be president
Speaker 8: for the next four years. After Biden's performance in the
Speaker 8: first presidential debate, his party reportedly entered a panic over
Speaker 8: the weekend, with media reports that some Democratic Party figures
Speaker 8: were hoping to convince Biden to drop out of the race.
Speaker 8: And it's been reported that a federal police investigation looking
Speaker 8: at links between Defense Force members and extremist or supremacist
Speaker 8: groups has led to at least sixteen investigations into personnel.
Speaker 8: While the outcomes of those inquiries are unknown, The Guardian
Speaker 8: reports that at least two of the investigations found that
Speaker 8: a member of the Services took part in nationalist and racist,
Speaker 8: violent extremist groups or associates. I'm Scott Mitchell. This is
Speaker 8: seven am. Rick Morton will be with you again tomorrow.
Speaker 8: Thanks for listening.