0:02

This is a global player original

0:04

podcast. Last week, I was

0:06

in Australia and did a TV program.

0:09

For which I coped a lot

0:11

of grief from maintenance

0:14

and Lewis Goodall in particular. But

0:17

revenge is a dish best

0:19

served cold. This morning,

0:22

mister Goodall was on TV,

0:24

on Lorraine,

0:26

talking about scheduling sexual

0:30

intercourse.

0:31

Listen, I put it in the diary. Right? We need

0:33

have sex. So otherwise, just disappeared.

0:35

Oh, no. Listen. No.

0:37

No. No. No.

0:40

No. No. Second. So so, Lewis, do you

0:42

write it on the calendar on the fridge and

0:44

post dinner. Get married in September. I

0:46

think it would be a bit of a sad state of affairs.

0:48

If they're already, we would just shit really miss it.

0:50

Yeah. Lesson about that. But, remind you,

0:52

take so much effort to organize a wedding. Frankly,

0:55

you know, you might need to

0:55

schedule.

0:56

Yes. Well Thanks. Yes.

0:58

Some

0:58

top quality content from me there. Say

1:01

a variety. I

1:02

think you actually got the month of your own wedding

1:04

wrong.

1:04

Yes. I did do that. So it's really hard. So

1:06

so maybe the calendar is exactly what

1:09

you do need. Right?

1:09

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I need calendar for all

1:12

things. All I can say is

1:14

listening to that made my

1:16

Thursday. Welcome to the

1:18

newsagents.

1:22

The newsagents. It's

1:25

John. It's Emily. And there

1:27

is a scene unfolding along

1:30

one of the main arteries in London

1:32

right now outside the Russian

1:35

embassy, where hundreds of

1:37

liters of yellow and blue paint

1:39

have been poured onto the road,

1:42

which creates as you can imagine, one

1:45

enormous Ukrainian flag,

1:48

that motorists and cyclists and

1:51

pedestrians are passing through

1:53

and spreading further and further

1:55

along the road as they can, and

1:57

that is the message created by

2:00

an activist group campaign group led

2:02

by donkeys to remind

2:04

everyone that one year

2:06

on from the Russian invasion

2:09

our focus should still be on

2:11

Ukraine. And in the studio,

2:14

we are joined by Bill Brodern.

2:16

I don't know how quite the best way is to

2:18

describe Bill because, yeah, I could just say

2:20

he's the CEO of Hermitage Capital

2:22

Management, but that doesn't quite do justice

2:25

to who he is. Bill ran

2:27

all sorts of investment organizations in

2:29

Russia and called out corruption in

2:32

some of Russia's biggest companies and

2:35

he was declared a threat to

2:37

Russian national security. And

2:40

I think it's pretty high on

2:42

Vladimir Putin's hate list

2:44

and was once at the top of

2:47

that list. And so, Bill, we're delighted

2:49

to have you. And One

2:52

year on, my observation would

2:54

be that enormous sanctions

2:56

were introduced on Russia, and everyone

2:58

thought Russia is economically

3:01

weak and militarily powerful.

3:04

And one year on, I think, we'd say actually,

3:06

The Russian economy seems to be doing

3:08

alright. It's the military that was very

3:10

weak. Well, I think that we need

3:12

to not listen to Vladimir

3:14

Putin when he talks about his economy. So in

3:16

the Russian government or Putin

3:19

or any of their statistical agencies,

3:22

tell us how well they're doing. You

3:24

can't believe a word they're saying. They they have

3:26

every interest in projecting an

3:28

aura of stability and

3:30

strength and so on and so forth. But let's just

3:32

look at the numbers. They had seven

3:34

hundred billion dollars. So I think six fifty

3:37

billion dollars of central

3:39

bank

3:39

reserves. We froze three hundred and

3:41

fifty of that. That's out of commission. They

3:43

can't use that money.

3:44

Three hundred fifty billion billion dollars.

3:46

That was their war chest. Half their war chest

3:48

has been frozen. We have

3:51

disconnected almost all their banks from the

3:53

swift payment system, so they can't transact

3:55

business. We have sanctioned,

3:57

frozen the assets of forty of

3:59

the richest oligarchs out of a hundred and eighteen

4:01

alligarchs. And these oligarchs are I mean, they have so

4:03

much money you can't even imagine. There's probably a hundred

4:06

and fifty billion dollars of oligarchs money

4:08

that's frozen. We have stopped the

4:10

supply of all sorts of chips and technology

4:12

and all this other type of stuff so that if

4:14

you wanna buy a new Russian

4:16

car, there's no airbag anymore because

4:18

airbags are coming from somewhere

4:21

else. That thing on the seat belt that makes it sort

4:23

of strap in when you when you're leaning forward

4:25

they don't have that anymore because that comes from somewhere

4:27

else. There's only two types of paint you can get

4:29

for your car. A thousand companies

4:31

have either withdrawn completely or partially

4:34

withdrawn from the country. And so it's

4:36

absolutely not the correct thing

4:38

to say that the economy is just chugging

4:40

along

4:41

nicely. So do you think The

4:43

West has done enough in terms of

4:45

the freezing of assets, in terms

4:47

of the

4:48

sanctions, in terms of punitive measures

4:50

on Putin's economy. Well, I think that

4:52

there's a lot more that can be done. So there's, like,

4:55

forty oligarchs sanctioned, a hundred and

4:57

eighteen oligarchs should be sanctioned.

4:59

So there's another six or seventy eight oligarchs.

5:02

The oligarchs have been doing all sorts of cheating.

5:04

They're like putting stuff in their cousin's

5:06

name or some friend's name. We need to start

5:08

sanctioning those people. But

5:10

the elephant in the room and the real problem

5:13

is that Russia continues

5:15

to sell its oil and gas pretty

5:17

much unhindered. And they get between

5:19

five hundred million and a

5:21

billion dollars a day from the sale of oil and

5:23

gas. And that's

5:25

a lot of money And as long as

5:27

they can continue to sell their oil and gas,

5:30

they will continue to be able to afford

5:32

to fight and kill

5:34

in

5:34

Ukraine. But Bill, how do you stop that?

5:37

Europe can say, okay, well, we're not going to

5:39

buy your oil and gas, although

5:41

Well, you're a person. You're a person. That. I mean,

5:43

yeah. But even still, then they will find

5:45

other markets that will be India or be somewhere

5:47

else that they will try to sell their product.

5:50

So I have an idea for this. So

5:52

who's all involved in our side of the of

5:54

this thing? The g seven, the group of

5:56

seven most powerful economic nations

5:58

plus the EU of all the other

6:00

countries that are not in the g seven. If

6:03

you add it up, we, the the

6:05

good guys in the story, make up

6:07

fifty percent of the world's economy. Russia

6:10

makes up one point seven percent of the world's economy.

6:12

think it's totally reasonable to go to a country like

6:14

Turkey or Indonesia who's buying Russian

6:16

oil and say, hey, all yours. But

6:18

if you wanna do business with the rest of us,

6:21

then you better not do business with

6:22

them. You have to make a choice. So

6:24

you are basically saying we have to cut

6:26

ties with any other economy that

6:28

is dealing with

6:29

Russia. No. We just have to make an ultimatum. We

6:32

have to say, if you wanna do business with them, we

6:34

will cut ties. You

6:35

choose. Can I read you this story?

6:37

It's by Sam Plumbing in dire mister Lover

6:39

in the FT. And

6:42

it's about the EU investigating

6:44

a surge in exports to economies around

6:47

Russia. They talk about Armenia and Azerbaijan

6:50

in particular, that the EU is selling to Azerbaijan

6:53

and they're

6:53

saying, hang on a sec. Why have these numbers

6:55

gone up so dramatically? Is it because they

6:57

are then going into Russia with the fact that they're cheating.

6:59

And I think twenty twenty three has to

7:01

be the year where we really start

7:04

throwing our weight around because we have weight We

7:06

just don't throw it around. Well, I know. Part

7:08

of it is just, you know, we're slow. This is

7:10

the governments are not very good at this kind of stuff.

7:13

Part of it is that no one has thought of it

7:15

and part of it is probably a little bit of

7:17

timidity that we need to sort of grow backbone

7:19

here. Is there the appetite to do this?

7:21

There's a lot of military hardware that is

7:23

going into Ukraine from

7:26

the west on a daily basis to help them

7:28

resist Russian advances. But

7:31

economically, is that too

7:33

painful and too awkward

7:35

a choice for policymakers to make?

7:37

Well, I think all policymakers are intensely

7:39

risk averse. And the fear is

7:41

that somehow we're in a economic

7:44

turmoil right now. We don't wanna make things worse.

7:47

But my answer to that is that

7:49

If this thing continues to go the way it's going,

7:51

it could easily become a war that we're

7:53

involved in, which would be hundred times worse, and

7:55

it's better to bite the bullet and do the tough stuff

7:57

right

7:57

now. But you talk about the power of

7:59

the g seven. What about the bricks?

8:01

Which is, you know, Brazil, Russia,

8:04

India, China, South Africa?

8:06

I mean, Russia obviously take out

8:08

of that, but those other countries

8:11

are noticeable by

8:13

their rather lukewarm if

8:15

tepid support for the West if any

8:17

support.

8:18

Well, I think that China is sort of a special case

8:20

and it's hard to generalize about China. But I

8:22

think you can easily go to South Africa, which is not

8:24

a particularly powerful country and say, some guys.

8:27

You've gotta make your choice. Answer

8:28

them. Let me

8:29

ask you about Putin in particular because

8:31

we heard a very bullish speech

8:34

from him this week. And

8:36

it was nothing unexpected, but

8:39

it was a reversal of everything

8:41

that the West and Ukraine

8:43

thinks is true. Did he sound

8:45

to you like a man intimidated

8:48

by what you'd faced this last year or

8:50

a man who's doubling down and now talking about

8:52

nuclear options?

8:53

He sounds like a man who is

8:56

desperate. First of all, everything he

8:58

said was a verifiable lie.

9:00

He said that somehow the West has invaded

9:02

Russia. He said that their bio terror

9:05

labs in in Ukraine organized by

9:07

NATO and all sorts of other complete, another

9:09

nonsense. The crazier, the stuff he

9:11

says, the more desperate he is. And

9:13

I wouldn't say this is his Brevado

9:16

is is from self confidence. I think his

9:18

Brevado is from fear. The

9:20

one thing I will tell you though is that Vladimir Putin

9:23

never backs down. Whenever he's

9:25

losing, he just doubles down and triples

9:27

down and quadruples down. And

9:29

I don't think we should ever expect him to

9:31

say, wow, this is not going so well for me. Let's find

9:33

an elegant way out. But build knowing Russia

9:36

as you do and knowing the

9:38

way the power works

9:41

in that country. Would you

9:43

say that Putin is under pressure

9:46

from other oligarchic from other people

9:48

who make up the kind of intelligence

9:50

you're in the power elite in

9:52

Moscow? Or is he still in

9:54

control and calling all the shots? Is definitely

9:56

in control and calling all the shots. But let me tell you

9:58

where the pressure comes from. It's not from oligarchs.

10:00

Those guys are all subordinate to

10:02

him, subservient to him We'll do anything

10:05

he asks them to do. It doesn't come from his

10:07

own officials because, again, he's the dictator.

10:09

They're all employees. But

10:11

the pressure comes from the unknown man

10:13

on the street. And what Putin is afraid

10:16

of more than anything is looking weak.

10:18

If he looks weak, if he looks

10:21

like a failure in any way to his own

10:23

people, that's where he ends up

10:25

potentially losing power. And that's what he's

10:27

most afraid of. And as you point out that if

10:29

he ever were to lose power and not

10:31

be the president, he's not gonna be

10:34

going on the lecture tour like Boris Johnson,

10:36

he will go to jail, have all

10:38

his assets stripped from him, and probably

10:40

die. And so for him, this is

10:42

an absolute desperate quest

10:45

for survival to make sure that he

10:47

looks strong he's the most

10:49

vicious, nastiest guy around. And

10:51

that's the image he has to project to his own people

10:54

and to try to project to us.

10:56

Can I take you to where we started,

10:58

Bill, which was the blue and yellow

11:00

paint on the streets of London? There's

11:02

a protest organized for this weekend. These

11:05

are all wonderful moments

11:07

for us to feel like we're making

11:09

a

11:09

difference. I wonder if you think any

11:12

of that really stops a wolf.

11:15

Yeah. Indirectly it does. So basically,

11:17

there are two factors to this war

11:19

being won. The first is the

11:22

resilience of the Ukrainians their ability

11:24

to fight their absolute passion

11:26

to protect their families in their country.

11:29

And then there's the aid that they're getting from

11:31

us. From the United States, from the United

11:34

Kingdom, from the European Union. And

11:36

that aid is very much dependent on

11:38

public opinion. And public opinion

11:40

is very important that we all show

11:42

up in front of the Russian embassy to protest

11:45

so that our leaders here can see that that that

11:47

this is the right thing to do that they'll be rewarded,

11:50

not punished for supporting Ukraine. And

11:52

so I think every bit of flag waving,

11:55

you know, putting that yellow and blue flag out in

11:57

front of your window and going to these demonstrations shows

12:00

Rishi Sunak and shows everybody else

12:02

who's making

12:03

decisions. Cure Starmer, if he's eventually

12:05

gonna come in, shows all these people that

12:07

this is the politically correct thing to

12:09

do. I wonder whether on

12:12

this Thursday in a year's time

12:15

We'll be sitting in the studio with you and you'll

12:17

be saying, well, Putin's speech was full

12:19

of bluster. We shouldn't believe his assurances about

12:21

the state of the economy. I its

12:24

groundhog day will be exactly

12:26

where we are one year

12:27

on. I predict that we will be not because

12:29

his

12:29

economy is doing well. But because

12:31

he has no choice but to continue to fight this

12:33

war, and the Ukrainians at this point

12:35

don't have a decisive military advantage to

12:37

win the war. So grateful

12:40

to you. Thank you very much indeed for being with us.

12:42

Thank you. And later in the pod,

12:44

closer to home, we'll be looking at Kiyastama's five

12:47

point plan should labor

12:49

win the next election. And also, you

12:52

say tomatoes, you may say tomatoes,

12:54

but we don't seem to have any of them. That's

12:56

coming up. This

13:06

is the newsagents. Welcome

13:11

back. Millions of children

13:14

across the United Kingdom are trying

13:16

to feign upset over

13:18

the fact that supermarkets have run

13:20

out of tomatoes, and

13:22

cucumbers. They're bereft obviously

13:24

that they won't they'll have to

13:26

have, you know, spaghetti hoops instead

13:28

and fish fingers and peas. This is coming

13:30

from somebody who was homophobic as

13:32

a child. I mean, that's trying to be your

13:34

therapist. I'm guessing there is something in here

13:36

that has Honestly, there was someone's house we

13:39

used to go to where they would you couldn't get down from the

13:41

table until you'd eat in your tomato and

13:43

as whole tomato. And I could not bite

13:45

into a tomato, something about the texture and

13:47

squidginess. So I really relate

13:49

to kids going, there

13:52

are no tomato those old cucumbers in our supermarket.

13:54

But I love it now. You had a spinach? You had a spinach

13:56

thing here. What was the point of spinach then when

13:58

you were a child? I love spinach now, but

14:00

Yeah. You should leave

14:01

it till your ten or above.

14:03

Yeah. Right? Wilted or no

14:05

cream sauce or raw

14:07

or raw. Yeah. Anyway, the point is

14:10

We are talking about something that most people,

14:12

most of us cannot get hold of very easily

14:14

at the moment. The supermarket shelves

14:16

are, if not bear, at least sparse,

14:19

Tesco has become the latest supermarket

14:21

to actually limit what you're allowed

14:24

to buy. I mean, this is kind of crazy

14:26

stuff. You know, when I lived in Hong Kong,

14:28

they had a limit on new

14:31

paper, toilet paper before every typhoon.

14:33

You could actually buy a certain number because everyone

14:36

used toilet paper patch up their windows and their

14:38

cracks and their doors before Typhoon. And this

14:40

has that slight feeling of the apocalypse.

14:42

What is going on now because we can't get

14:44

hold of things that are always staples

14:47

in our supermarkets.

14:48

There has been a glorious exchange that

14:50

has taken place between the

14:53

Deafra Secretary to raise coffee.

14:55

And the head of the National Farmers

14:58

Union, Minette BATters at the

15:00

NFU conference that has been taking

15:02

place this week. Where I think

15:04

it's fair to say they didn't see

15:07

eye to eye on the course of the

15:08

problem. We haven't touched the sides really

15:11

of what is going on. Front page of every newspaper

15:13

salad shortages as the

15:15

rationing, that will

15:16

be -- You can't control the weather. -- in Spain either.

15:18

So and not necessarily seeing

15:20

a market failure. So

15:22

we saw market failure with pigs on poultry.

15:24

Well, I'm

15:25

not sure that we've seen a market failure with poultry.

15:28

We had billion less eggs in twenty

15:30

twenty two to twenty nine that's not necessarily

15:32

a market failure. So, you

15:34

know, we've we've lost businesses

15:36

on I'm

15:37

not denying that people have chosen potentially

15:39

not to restock on certain things. It's

15:41

the tone. Is it there's just a little bit of

15:44

that partridge esque passag.

15:47

Did

15:47

you hear what I said? Did you understand

15:50

control the weather? Well, that was yesterday with

15:52

Therese coffee, a minute at batheters.

15:55

Therese coffee as it happens was speaking

15:58

in the commons today about

16:00

the problems, the shortages. And

16:04

sort of said, well, if

16:06

you can't eat tomatoes, eat

16:08

turnips

16:09

instead. It's important to make sure

16:12

that we cherish the specialisms

16:14

that we have in this country A

16:17

lot of people would be eating Turnips right

16:19

now rather than thinking necessarily about

16:21

aspects of lettuce and and and tomatoes

16:23

and similar. But conscious that consumers

16:26

want a year round choice and that is what

16:28

our supermarkets and food and

16:30

growers, food producers and growers around the world

16:32

try to satisfy. I wonder whether

16:34

people would just start saying, quoting

16:36

Mary Antoinette,

16:38

let them eat turnips. The point is

16:41

a lot of people are looking at a

16:43

bad few months in Spain, a bad

16:45

few months in North Africa. During winter,

16:48

this country gets about ninety

16:50

percent of its lettuces and its

16:53

tomatoes and all the sort of the green salad

16:55

stuff as imports

16:57

because quite frankly, we

16:59

haven't been growing it ourselves and it's become

17:02

more expensive to run greenhouses and

17:04

the fuel now means it's more punitive

17:06

if you want to try and do this stuff ourselves.

17:09

And so we've been kind of having a discussion

17:11

here about how much it is just a seasonal

17:13

thing, how much it is a

17:15

cost of living inflation on

17:18

the fuel price thing because of the Ukraine

17:20

war, although Ukraine and brackets, has

17:22

got full shelves because of their relationship

17:24

now with the EU and how much it goes back

17:26

to something much more longer term

17:29

that actually we could have seen coming.

17:31

Yeah. Well, let us talk now

17:33

to Jay Rainer. You might know

17:35

him off some TV show called,

17:37

I think, Masterchef. But he's actually

17:40

been a kind of food critic and

17:42

writer for years award winning

17:44

journalist, etcetera, etcetera, now writes

17:46

for the observer where he's a feature writer

17:48

and restaurant

17:49

critic. Jay, was this all

17:51

entirely foreseeable? It

17:53

is completely foreseeable. And at the risk

17:56

of doing that annoying thing of saying I

17:58

told you so. I bloody told

18:00

you so. I published a book in twenty

18:02

thirteen called greedy man in a hungry world,

18:04

in which I laid out the

18:07

deformities to the British agricultural system

18:09

that we did not pay enough for our food,

18:11

that it was dominated by

18:13

about a dozen companies, the big supermarkets,

18:16

controlling ninety five percent of food retail

18:19

who were forcing such harsh deals

18:21

on producers that many of them were leaving. Meaning

18:23

that we were less self sufficient creating

18:25

a situation which meant that we were exposed

18:28

and vulnerable to external shocks. Now in

18:30

two thousand and thirty, I didn't know what they were. I said it

18:32

again, to the Defra Select Committee

18:34

in twenty fourteen, and then

18:37

the external shot came along. It was

18:39

self inflicted at that point. It was

18:41

Brexit. But multiple

18:43

external shocks, including a

18:45

failure of energy policy or failure to

18:48

look after our agricultural base

18:50

have resulted in where we are now with

18:53

little empty shells not

18:55

supplied with the things that we are

18:57

used to.

18:57

So Jay, what it comes down to essentially

19:00

is you saying we should be farming

19:02

more ourselves?

19:04

Yes. So just to put some history

19:06

on this, people will always say, but Britain's

19:08

never been self sufficient. Well, no. I mean, there was

19:10

a period before the Second World

19:12

War when we're only about thirty five percent self

19:14

sufficient. And that was as we raped and pillaged

19:16

empire. But it grew after the second

19:19

world war, partly as a result of the European

19:21

project by the mid

19:23

nineties, we were north of seventy

19:25

percent about mid seventies. But since

19:27

then, it has declined and declined. Prior

19:30

to Brexit, We were at sixty

19:32

percent, fifty nine, sixty percent, but only

19:34

fifty percent of that was consumed here because the

19:36

other ten percent was exported. That

19:39

as I understand it, has slightly

19:41

improved because it's harder to export, but it's

19:43

still roughly in that realm.

19:46

And this is a a multi generational, multi

19:48

party issue. In two thousand and six,

19:50

Labour commissioned a report for cabinet

19:52

office on food security. And

19:54

it was nicknamed in food policy circles that

19:56

leave it to Tesco report because it basically

19:58

said, well, we can go out and buy whatever

20:01

we need on the world markets. Failing to recognize

20:03

the rise of emerging economies like

20:05

China, India, Brazil, who

20:07

were starting to buy exactly the crops that

20:10

we were dependent on. So when we try

20:12

to analyze, what is going on now?

20:14

We can say that, yes, the

20:17

harsh move from a very hot

20:19

summer to a very cold winter in Morocco

20:21

and Spain has caused the

20:23

present

20:24

shortage, but it's not an explanation

20:26

of it. Is that right? Well partly, I mean,

20:28

as everybody's been saying, you've we've all seen

20:30

the pictures all over social media. Oh, look,

20:32

the supermarkets in France and Spain

20:35

are full of salad

20:36

vegetables. Markets not doing too badly.

20:38

Ukraine as well

20:39

because of

20:39

the special relationship they've now got with the e.

20:41

So

20:42

we've got a number of things going on. One,

20:44

the salmon fishable base because we can grow

20:46

under glass in this country fifty two weeks

20:48

of the year. It is a way of doing it.

20:50

And before people go, we shouldn't eat them out of season,

20:52

humanity has been interfering with the seasons

20:55

and the way we grow crops since we

20:57

first domesticated wild grasses on

20:59

the banks of the Nile five thousand years go.

21:01

That's what humanity does. Right.

21:03

We could do that, but the supermarkets

21:05

don't pay enough for it. And when the energy crisis

21:08

hit, the government in their infinite wisdom

21:10

decided not to subsidize in any way

21:12

the host of energy to run

21:14

that production. At the same time,

21:17

the post Brexit visas for

21:19

workers coming in were posted

21:21

on AA6 month schedule when they need

21:23

them for nine months, which means that those producers

21:26

have to train a second cohort,

21:29

raising their costs even more. There

21:31

were reports over the past, you know, twenty four hours,

21:33

a one big grower who simply decided to

21:35

leave portion of their greenhouse

21:37

is completely empty for the first

21:39

time. We are not producing as much, and

21:41

that obviously is directly as a result

21:43

of Brexit.

21:44

So, Jay, have we, in a nutshell, have we

21:46

left it too late to get

21:48

food security.

21:49

Well, if I only that, loudly listen to

21:51

me. Yes. I mean, yes, we have. One

21:53

of the things I said at the select committee in

21:55

twenty fourteen is we need to pay a little bit more

21:57

for our food now so that farmers can invest.

22:00

I think it was the Daily Mail who went well. It's alright

22:02

for that big fat-wiltered food critic

22:04

than one on Masterchef and Twitch. I said, yeah,

22:07

you're right. It is alright for me. I can afford

22:09

it. But the risk that we face

22:11

if we don't do this now, is more people

22:13

leaving agriculture and prices

22:15

going up. There is a very good reason

22:17

why food price inflation in the UK

22:20

is so much higher than it is

22:22

in France. Obviously, they've also seen food price

22:24

inflation because of ENGIE issues, the war

22:26

in Ukraine, and so forth. But the

22:28

rate of that inflation is much lower. Why?

22:31

Because they are so much more sustainable in

22:33

food. I mean, one of the I I don't

22:35

wanna be the daily mail here. But before

22:37

it We went to Jeremy Clarkson's farm

22:39

a few months ago, and he was talking

22:42

about exactly this that people

22:44

need to pay more for their food. And

22:46

there was a very strong backlash to

22:48

the program. Well, it's all very well for bloody Jeremy

22:50

Clarkson to say that. And for

22:52

you to say that, when we are in the midst

22:54

of a cost of living

22:55

crisis, and that message is surely

22:57

going to land very badly

23:00

with the British public. But the message might

23:02

land badly. But here's the thing.

23:04

If we try to create a

23:06

food system built and engineered,

23:09

to service the people on the very

23:11

lowest incomes because

23:14

of a terribly unprogressive taxation

23:17

system. Which has created serious

23:19

social exclusion, we will end up with

23:21

a deformed food supply chain. We

23:23

need a food supply chain, which

23:25

is fit for purpose, and we need to deal

23:28

with poverty. People talk about food

23:30

poverty. There's no such thing as food poverty.

23:32

There's just poverty. If you haven't got money,

23:34

you can't afford many many things. And the

23:36

first thing that comes to mind is actually feeding yourself

23:38

and that energy. So this misplaced

23:41

attempt to say, well,

23:43

we can't pay more for food because what about

23:45

people going to food banks is to misunderstand

23:48

the issue. The issue there is poverty, which

23:50

is a systemic social economic

23:52

failure on the part of governance

23:54

for the past twenty years.

23:56

Tarina, you've really explained this incredibly

23:58

well. And

23:58

can I say if you wanna read more about this, I

24:00

am writing about it in the Observer, the finest

24:02

liberal newspaper in the world on

24:05

Sunday? Hang

24:05

on. So we've plugged We've plugged We've plugged we've plugged it in.

24:08

You're plugged it in. Yeah.

24:10

But your name is that. Very much in bold.

24:13

Jay, thank you so much. Bye. Bye.

24:15

Yes. And coming up after the break,

24:17

we'll be talking about Kia Starma's

24:20

five point plan, which hasn't

24:22

sort of landed with resounding

24:24

success so far. This

24:31

is for

24:35

newsagents. Welcome

24:39

back. Lewis is back with us in the studio.

24:41

And before we go, we need to talk about Kia

24:43

Starmer's speech today and

24:46

unveiling his five

24:48

pledges, which to send you back,

24:50

John? It takes me back to the Blair Years of

24:52

the pledge

24:53

card. But it was all a bit motherhood and Apple

24:55

pie wasn't it? Yeah. Look, I mean, what was Starmer

24:57

trying to do here? He went to Manchester. They

25:00

think that twenty twenty three is all

25:02

about They've established the

25:04

party's recovery in twenty twenty two.

25:06

They think they're on course for government, and twenty twenty

25:08

three is about putting flesh on the bone and giving

25:11

people a sense of what a Labour government would be

25:13

like. So in a way, this is a response

25:15

to Sunak's five pledges.

25:18

And it is, as you say, John, aping

25:21

kind of intellectually culturally anyone who remembers

25:23

that. The famous pledge card with five pledges

25:25

on it in a run up to the nineteen ninety seven

25:27

general

25:28

election. Do you remember what they were, John? Of course.

25:30

I bet you do. I bet you do. Well, hang

25:32

on. He's got an order. I mean, it's

25:35

a very short tough crime. And the

25:37

speed with which cases will be

25:38

settled. There was no class size

25:40

I got the tattoos somewhere. No. No class

25:42

size over thirty for 345

25:45

year olds. I can't Hang on. I've got

25:47

that. I'm stretching. I'll come back before the end of the show.

25:49

I mean, basically, these five were They're

25:51

sort of more nebulous as an

25:53

unkind term, but they're broader. Than

25:56

that. Right? Those were very, very specific pledges.

25:58

Right? They're almost quaint in terms of

26:00

how small the sort of

26:02

sense of ambition was at that

26:04

time. These five are securing

26:06

the highest sustained growth in the G seven,

26:09

making Britain a clean energy superpower

26:11

by removing all fossil fuels by twenty thirty.

26:13

That is quite ambitious in fairness. And then the other

26:15

three are they haven't really elaborated

26:18

what they will be. They're just, you know, improving the NHS,

26:20

improving the justice system, and so

26:22

on. Obviously the thing which is kind

26:24

of most domains at debate at the moment, you know, the

26:26

really sluggish economy. That was the one

26:28

that they unveiled first about getting the

26:30

fastest growth in the g

26:31

seven. This is what Starman had say about that.

26:33

This isn't growth on a graph. This

26:35

isn't going to be gained by clever statistics.

26:39

This is going to be growth that makes people

26:41

better off higher living standards.

26:45

I want more growth in London. Of

26:47

course, I do. But I'm

26:49

not interested in a model of growth. Where

26:51

London races ahead and the rest

26:53

of the country stagnates. Nor

26:56

will I be satisfied if our growth depends

26:58

on creating jobs for the low paid and

27:00

insecure. We need growth

27:02

from the grassroots, a new

27:04

model, wealth created everywhere,

27:07

by everyone, for everyone. It

27:10

must be powered by

27:13

good jobs and stronger productivity in

27:15

every part of the country, every

27:18

part of the country. Look,

27:21

as an ambition, that is

27:23

huge, right, to talk about the highest sustained

27:25

growth in the g seven. My

27:27

problem with this is I don't know why Politicians

27:30

think they need to talk about a five year

27:32

plan. It always sounds for

27:34

a five year plan. It's either the thick

27:36

of it or else it's Stalin. Right?

27:39

And I don't know people who go about

27:41

their lives saying what

27:43

we need to hear is this mission. What we

27:45

need to hear is five point plan. What we need here

27:47

is an understanding of,

27:50

you know, the ambition. If he just started

27:52

with that line actually and said,

27:54

I'm gonna make this country. The

27:56

place of highest growth in the g seven.

27:58

You sort of have everyone's attention for

28:00

the year and five points. I just don't

28:02

know why you have to set out with all the

28:04

bump around it, with all the language around

28:07

it, with all the sort of chat of partnerships and

28:09

stuff. I don't know anyone who's looking for that except

28:11

for possibly advisers. Who think it's time

28:13

for their

28:13

leaders. they are compared to commentators who

28:16

think that, well, where is your big idea?

28:18

Yeah. I'll tell you

28:19

what, I've got five, not six, not

28:21

full.

28:21

I'll say the way fish is a lot. Yeah. And

28:23

Starman did produce an enormous, well, he's writing

28:25

a book, and he had an enormous

28:28

favian pamphlet out, what the start of last

28:30

year again. In a way, I think, labor

28:32

leaders Oh, what's your fabian pamphlet? Whoa.

28:35

I'm coming from the guys and Doris That's

28:37

amazing. Republic. Alright. Wait.

28:40

You know

28:40

what? I'll be quite into it. But I think labor

28:43

leaders get it even more than Tory leaders. Right?

28:45

Labor leaders often get constantly

28:47

ask, what's your big vision? What's your vision for

28:49

society? Is it something about being on the left,

28:51

socialism, social democracy, whatever you wanna call

28:53

it? Where labor leaders are supposed to have this kind

28:56

of huge schema and vision for Britain

28:58

--

28:58

Right. -- and intellectual view. In a way that we don't really

29:00

ask from conservative leaders -- Well, the same way. -- but

29:02

to be fair, we slag off

29:04

those kind of fairly

29:06

reductive, horrible, three word

29:08

sloping like tape back control

29:10

or oven ready Brexit because

29:12

we think that they reduce big complex

29:15

problems to something that is just a neat

29:17

sound bite or a kind of an

29:19

untruthful sound bite, but

29:22

this is the opposite, isn't it? So I guess you know,

29:24

you you started by asking about, you know, Tony

29:26

Blair's famous pledge cards in the ninety seven election.

29:29

I guess that was a

29:29

anecdote, man.

29:30

No. No. There's a that he's right. can

29:33

that you can remember them. Yeah.

29:34

Of course. And later said, the more you're

29:36

hearing us say those things --

29:37

Yeah. -- the more

29:38

we're getting our message home. As opposed

29:40

to the nineteen eighty three manifesto, famous

29:43

to love

29:43

it. Like Corfmann, the longest service Is

29:45

that do you

29:46

remember the long term economic plan that Cameron had?

29:48

I remember the one that might not happen to

29:50

that. You remember what I do. I mean, I studied

29:52

the long day economic plan of now. Is that suppose

29:54

the thing is is that I can see Starmer bristles.

29:56

When he's asked, what? What's your big vision? What is

29:58

it? I think he bristles with it because I

30:00

think he is basically I think

30:02

Stalin was kind of a Labour

30:05

personal Labour leader in a way that David Cameron

30:07

was basically be a Tory leader or a Tory person.

30:09

He's just like every vibrant his being,

30:12

every instinct he has, every political reflex

30:14

he has. He's like, well, I'm just labor.

30:16

Right? And in the way that Cameron, didn't have some great

30:18

vision for everything, but he was just instinctively

30:20

a toy. And star moves like that.

30:23

But on the left, the other interesting thing was

30:25

though, he did have some good lines. Though, he actually

30:27

talking about aching Blair in ninety seven. He actually

30:29

ate Reagan. So he actually brought

30:31

out the high

30:32

school. Are you aware of? Four years. Thirteen

30:34

years ago. And, honestly, that's the only question that any

30:36

politician ever needs to ask. When

30:38

they're about to come into And that's what they the only thing

30:40

you need to

30:40

ask. And that's what I think what's also interesting about these

30:43

five things, right, is apart from the environment one,

30:45

Rishi Sunak and the Torres would basically agree

30:47

with all of

30:47

them.

30:48

think what's interesting is and likewise, really,

30:51

soon x ones as well. I think what we're

30:53

heading into is the general election honed

30:55

into view now we're honing into an election

30:57

that actually will be pretty technocratic. It will

30:59

be pretty managerial. I don't think we will

31:01

see it. Assuming it is Zunak, if it's Zunak

31:03

based armor, any sort of great sense

31:06

of a clash of political visions as

31:08

we had in twenty nineteen with Johnson

31:10

and Corbyn and to a large extent that we had

31:12

in twenty seventeen as well with May

31:14

Corbin. It's not so much that they're coming together

31:16

politically, but politics is becoming more

31:18

managerial. Right. We are

31:20

back tomorrow where we've got a one point plan,

31:22

which is just simply to produce the podcast.

31:25

And I can't know what? I'll

31:27

take that. Yep. That's absolutely fine. You

31:29

can watch all our podcast on global

31:31

player. We'll see you tomorrow. Bye. Bye. Bye

31:33

bye. This has been

31:36

a global player original podcast

31:38

and a Percifonica production.