Henry Zeffman

And that is why Sir Keir Starmer, I think, was, you know, reasonably, it was reasonable for him to be confident in saying, in answer to Zoe's question, in fact, that he expects this to be in force in the spring of 2027.

I think given the parliamentary process around this, as well as actually the level of political consensus that there now is,

when he says that, we can be pretty sure, at least if he is still Prime Minister, that that is the timetable the government is going to end up being able to deliver this over.

Yeah, and clearly that is where things get a bit trickier for the government, and that is where there's

ample scope for the political consensus that has formed on the broad principle to fracture.

Just in the last half an hour or so, Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, whose party has been pushing for a ban, is saying that he is worried that the government has come up with a half-baked policy that won't keep children safe.

I mean, I think the argument he's essentially making is that the government has rushed this out for political purposes and therefore hasn't quite thought through the answers to questions like the one you just posed me.

Yes, that's right.

And, you know, there will be a range of other positions.

I think the Conservative Party, which probably launched off the kind of politics of this when Kemi Badenoch backed a full ban sort of first thing this year.

I think they've been perhaps the least begrudging, as it were, of the other political parties who've been pushing for a version of this and have said they'll support the government on this, although they're very cynical about the reasons that Zakir Starmer has announced it now.

But, look, just to re-emphasise...

The government doesn't have to follow a full Act of Parliament on this.

They have, though it's easy to forget it, a massive majority in Parliament and the vast majority of Labour MPs, as far as I can tell, are supportive of what Sir Keir Starmer has announced today.

And that's not necessarily something we've always been able to say.

Yeah, there was language in a portion of the sort of opening speech about not backing down and delivering this however hard it might be.

which I don't think was really specifically about this issue.

I think it was about the broader political predicament that he finds himself in.

And look.

It's been clear for some time that the government is going to end up in this place.