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Hello and welcome to
another episode of Page 94.

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It turns out that Britain is gonna
be renamed even Greater Manchester.

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Andy Burnham has done a big
speech outlining his big vision

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for the future of the country.

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Can we also mention that he's
called Andy Murray Burnham?

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I know.

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Nightmare.

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It

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has been an uptick in the number
of Andy Murrays in public life.

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yeah, I was just getting
over the last one.

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I will say it was, in terms of the vibes.

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The vibes were good.

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It was happy, it was summery.

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He was in a little t-shirt with
a suit over and he had to gag

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at the beginning about how Kemi
Badnock wasn't gonna like this.

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And he was halfway into his,
out of his Manchester clothes.

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And he made a joke about how
he was gonna buy longer shorts

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or repeal the public decency.

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Yet, there was just, a level of
breeziness to it that I thought was,

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quite good and somewhat refreshing.

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And for a public that's had a lot
of speeches by Kirsten Starer,

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this one just looked good.

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, even if the bar is quite low.

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And, I kept thinking, Richard,  a
lot of his diagnosis of what is wrong

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You would have to agree with, 'cause
you've written it and I published it,

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About outsourcing, over centralization.

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yeah.

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No money in the region.

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you do agree with some of these things.

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the principle of more dilu,
regional devolution, power to

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places that no should know what to
do with the money, is a great one.

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the trouble is that while over the
last few decades, while so much has

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been, centralised, so much power
and money has been brought into

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Whitehall, taken away from local
government, so have the, things that

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can hold those areas to account right.

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When they do spend the money.

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So local democracy is in a shocking
state because people aren't really that

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interested in,  the bin collections.

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Yep.

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Or things like that.

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there's no auditing of
spending regionally.

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The, Cameron government abolish
the audit commission, which used to

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look at local government spending.

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So now if you spend money
wastefully fraudulently, you

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basically get away with it.

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and thirdly, the, local
media as well barely exists.

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Hundreds of local newspapers have
shut in the last 20 years or so.

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what's left is often cheerleading
for the region, it means there's no,

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scrutiny in local journalism really.

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So you are suggesting that, with
no one looking at how the money

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is spent, it might not go well.

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That's right.

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do you perhaps have any examples of, yeah.

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Mayors you perhaps have spent rather
like a drunken sailor and gave

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contracts to their friends Richard as

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Yeah.

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They at have a chap called, Ben Houchin,
who's a mayor of the Teas Valley, who's,

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not, sorry, not Ben Houchin,
the former judge at the

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political podcast Awards 2026.

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The one who overlooked us.

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You mean

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him one who didn't win
Indeed for some reason.

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Enough of this petty griping.

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sorry.

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yeah, Richard, what's really useful,
is how, things have gone wrong

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and what you would do instead.

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As in, so sorry, T side
as an example Yeah.

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Of where it's gone wrong and what
could have been done to avert it.

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Actually, Houchin is in the, the
telegraph this morning writing

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about Burnham saying why he fail.

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And he's, I wrote out what he said.

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He said, he points out that actually
regional mayors have it quite easy

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'cause they don't have the really
difficult things to do that, that the

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Prime Minister, for example, has to do.

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So he says, we rarely make the calls
that lose you friends, crater your poll

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ratings and keep your awake wondering
whether history will forgive you.

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The thing is, he's made a couple of
decisions that should be he him away Yeah.

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That we've written about.

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Yeah.

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notably with, with, the spending
of vast amounts of public money.

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which is what Andy Burnham is now
proposing for regions around the uk

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and it is re industrialising,
which is exactly what Burnham

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is proposing to roll out.

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Yeah.

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The, these can create
problems, these decisions.

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especially as Burnham says,
we need to bring everybody in.

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We need to bring local businesses
in as well as, local government.

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the trouble is when you do that,
you've gotta keep an eye on what

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they're up to with the money.

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and in t side, the deals that
have been struck to regenerate

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the former steelworks, which
closed down, in 2015, that's what

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we've written about quite a lot.

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those deals, have cost the local
taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds.

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essentially Lord Houchin as he is now,
thanks to Boris Johnson, gave a deal to

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a couple of local businessmen who can
now buy that land once the taxpayers

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remediated it, for one pound per acre.

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And a couple of issues ago, we wrote
about the latest, manifestation of

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that where, a data centre company
plans to anthropic plans to build

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a big data centre on that land.

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it's agreed a deal in principle
to buy the land from those

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businessmen for 222 million pounds.

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', and pay them another couple of
hundred million just to connect

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to the local wire network, which
is like a sort of local grid.

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Right.

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for power, because they control
that as well, because they were

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able to buy that under land option.

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They bought a, they bought a wire network
with 20 substations for about 10 quid.

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and that so they can cash in on all this.

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And it is relevant because Burnham.

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Specifically mentioned steel.

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I think it is reasonable to

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yes.

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To look at examples that are in
the north that are about steel.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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I

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mean, involve local mayors
and haven't gone so well.

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Exactly.

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I teach art is the archetypal example
because it is this old industrial

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region, but was, very successful in some
ways, industrially and could have been

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again, because, there are lot has lots
of geographical advantages  tees Ry.

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but it's, yeah, it's been
absolutely thrown away.

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there's already been a kind of example
of something similar to this with Andy

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Burnham, which is the debate over Sasha
Lord who, Andy Burnham's, nightlife

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Czar, who had to pay back an Arts
council grant for, COVID, essentially.

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was seen to be having preferential
access to as a mate of Andy Burnham's.

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That's been The Mill, which is one of
the local newsletter type operations

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has reported on that quote extensively.

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You are right.

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I think to say that the, scrutiny
level just goes up a notch

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when you move from regional to
national and that'll be the thing.

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I think that'll be the hard
adjustment for and Burnham to make.

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he's already served as a ministry, as
Minister for culture, he all this kind of

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stuff before, but, it's, he, as he said
this week, he's, been out of Westminster

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for a long time now, and I think that
might be a bit of a shock to the system.

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The other one that reminded me
was the fact that he said he wants

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the largest council house building
programme since the second World War.

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in London you can't get developers to
build private houses that will, selling

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off plan for 700,000 pounds a pop.

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Because of what they call the kind of the
green tape, the new staircase requirements

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post Grenfell, the demand for a certain
amount of 'em to be affordable housing.

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we have laden down developers
with lots of, very good stuff,

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but it means that the lot more
and more of them are saying, what?

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We can't make this process work.

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So if you're talking about council
house building, you are, you're

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saying somebody, the state is gonna
have to take on that risk that

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you won't get planning permission.

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That risk of the upfront costs of it.

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I'm not entirely clear where the
money for that is going to come from.

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And some local councils and some
we've written about have decided

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to do house building themselves.

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And it hasn't gone very Well,

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there have been some people trying stuff
quite near where I live in Lewisham.

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They built essentially modular housing,
that very cheap kind of version of that.

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So people are trying to think creatively
about it, but it is still an incredibly,

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difficult thing to get through the
gauntlet of all of the regulations and

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then all the objections from local people
and that, I'm, I do, I worry about that.

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But

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you're not simply saying we can't have
affordable council housing anymore,

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or it's just too difficult to do.

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No, but I'm, and what I'm saying
is, if you want to do it seriously,

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and I hope that he does, because
housing is a huge issue, particularly

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for younger people in this country.

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He will have to a, make
some enemies of some NIMBYs.

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And that is also known as existing
homeowners of whom there are a lot.

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And also he will have to find some,
funding for it from somewhere.

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And, there was a quote from, I think
Howard Lee, who was one of the people

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involved in Manchesterism saying, the
way we got so much built in Manchester

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was by ignoring those requirements for
a certain amount of affordable housing.

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We basically just brought in
developers and said, let it rip.

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And that's very different.

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Just build, anything.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And if you build enough houses, then
eventually they will become affordable.

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there are parts of Greater Manchester
that haven't seen this, spectacular

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rejuvenation that he's claiming.

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he will, that will fan
out across the country.

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central Manchester's done extremely well.

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Okay.

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largely because of a, a big housing
fund that was, that, that was funded

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by, George Osborne, in about 2012.

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and a lot of the money has gone into
the big skyscrapers that you can

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now see if you go to Manchester.

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The Skylines transformed.

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Most of them built by a single company
that has made some people very rich.

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we've written about, chap who runs that
company and the company's called re acre.

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chap called Darren Whitaker appeared
on the Sunday Times Rich List

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at somewhere over 700 million.

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but Andy Burn made him rich and
he can do that to the rest of us.

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That's what I'm hearing.

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Rich.

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I don't wanna hear this talking
down written anymore from you.

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Yeah, We've just gotta level up a bit.

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those skyscrapers were supposed to
have affordable housing to get the

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funding, they, claimed that, they,
were gonna be profitable and they

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could get loans from this fund.

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But they escaped the requirement to
put affordable housing in by claiming

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they weren't gonna make enough money if
they put affordable housing was common.

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So there were these games played

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in

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development and, which is, why
you have to keep an eye on it.

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I think one interesting thing is
that Byrne will be the second recent

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prime minister to have been a mayor.

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So Boris Johnson was the mayor of
London and his, deficiencies as mayor

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of London translated onto a larger
scale when he became Prime Minister.

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So example number one, do you
remember the Garden bridge?

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Oh.

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Which is going to be a beautiful,
a literally a garden bridge.

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It looked absolutely fantastic in
all the CGI renderings of it cost.

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A lot of money was never built
when bro became Prime Minister.

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That became let's have
a tunnel to Ireland.

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Yeah.

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There was a Yeah.

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So the, smaller eras will
be, they'll be magnified.

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Yeah.

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And of course burn.

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Bernard was clear that this
is a sort of 10 year plan.

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You 10 years is a long time.

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so it's great to hear a bit of long
term thinking, but when you think of

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all the, problems that are gonna crop
up along those 10 years and whether

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he'll survive them, whether he'll
be able to, resist them in a way not

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bow down 'cause he's known for just
wanting to keep people happy and giving

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into to what people lobby him on.

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One of the things where they can stick
to it show the resolve over that kind

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of period is pretty questionable.

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one of the things he did say is he doesn't
want such heavy handed whipping, which

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I feel like is the kind of person who
has not yet had to corral 400 members

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of the PLP to vote for something really
unpopular that he thinks is good.

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But you are.

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But you are.

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The interesting thing about that is that
some of the things he was talking about

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was essentially following up this 2010s
labour project in opposition of what they

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00:11:20,021 --> 00:11:22,031
called insourcing or the Preston model.

235
00:11:22,031 --> 00:11:23,171
Do you remember the Preston model?

236
00:11:23,501 --> 00:11:23,531
I

237
00:11:23,531 --> 00:11:25,901
don't, but it was the idea essentially
that local council should try and

238
00:11:25,901 --> 00:11:30,731
commission more services in house,
bring reinvestment back into the region.

239
00:11:30,731 --> 00:11:33,161
And that's the kind of thing that he was
talking about, saying he wanted to be

240
00:11:33,161 --> 00:11:37,211
able to prioritise British businesses in
contracts that kind of, you know, that

241
00:11:37,211 --> 00:11:41,161
stuff there is a fully developed, and
we might laugh a bit at Manchesterism

242
00:11:41,301 --> 00:11:44,501
and, expose its contradictions, but
there are people who have been thinking

243
00:11:44,501 --> 00:11:47,756
about this stuff quite hard and one
of the things they talk about is the,

244
00:11:47,761 --> 00:11:49,841
active state or the participatory state.

245
00:11:50,321 --> 00:11:53,051
the idea that actually you
do wanna get more involved.

246
00:11:53,051 --> 00:11:54,821
You don't want to just
lead things to the market.

247
00:11:55,031 --> 00:11:57,951
I think they're more comfortable
with that than Stama was.

248
00:11:57,971 --> 00:12:01,091
I think Stama really had a
particularly strong view on

249
00:12:01,091 --> 00:12:02,621
the market in either direction.

250
00:12:02,651 --> 00:12:02,981
I can't,

251
00:12:03,011 --> 00:12:04,091
we dunno what his views were.

252
00:12:04,271 --> 00:12:04,481
That's

253
00:12:05,381 --> 00:12:06,251
No, but that's a

254
00:12:06,251 --> 00:12:07,031
part of the problem.

255
00:12:07,031 --> 00:12:07,301
Yeah.

256
00:12:07,361 --> 00:12:08,081
It's time yet

257
00:12:09,401 --> 00:12:09,821
he's got enough,

258
00:12:10,151 --> 00:12:11,381
he'll set out his missions

259
00:12:12,131 --> 00:12:13,031
in his memoir.

260
00:12:13,031 --> 00:12:19,061
Probably no perfect timing, but the, there
were more ideas I thought in the Burnham

261
00:12:19,061 --> 00:12:23,621
speech and more evidence of someone
having given some of this, some thought

262
00:12:23,891 --> 00:12:26,531
than we'd seen for quite a long time.

263
00:12:26,591 --> 00:12:30,131
And that presumably,
overall I kept thinking.

264
00:12:30,975 --> 00:12:32,955
I agree with a lot of the diagnosis here.

265
00:12:33,075 --> 00:12:37,605
As I've said, our local council
column will be saying a lot of these

266
00:12:37,605 --> 00:12:43,035
things, this is right, but what are
you going to do and can you do it?

267
00:12:43,350 --> 00:12:46,800
you run the money column, Richard,
where do we get the money?

268
00:12:47,059 --> 00:12:50,119
Andy Burnham also hinted that he
doesn't really wanna raise taxes.

269
00:12:50,119 --> 00:12:53,029
He said he wants to give everyone a bit
of a break on that front, didn't he?

270
00:12:53,630 --> 00:12:56,822
you either raise taxes or you
borrow it, there is a bit of room

271
00:12:56,822 --> 00:13:02,182
for that borrowing for investment
infrastructure inside the fiscal rules.

272
00:13:02,332 --> 00:13:03,322
Yeah, that's right.

273
00:13:04,312 --> 00:13:06,772
Rachel Reeves has changed
the fiscal rules slightly.

274
00:13:07,462 --> 00:13:11,122
although Andy Burnham didn't remember,
didn't know what they were a few days ago.

275
00:13:11,122 --> 00:13:14,062
He perhaps does now, but
she relaxed in a bit.

276
00:13:14,062 --> 00:13:18,262
So there's a slightly friendlier
measure of overall government debt,

277
00:13:18,262 --> 00:13:21,442
something called public sector net
financial liabilities, which is a

278
00:13:21,442 --> 00:13:23,002
bit lower than the, debt figure.

279
00:13:23,002 --> 00:13:23,302
Amazing.

280
00:13:23,512 --> 00:13:28,132
and there's a bit of room there
to borrow for investment, not for

281
00:13:28,282 --> 00:13:29,752
day-to-day spending, but for investment.

282
00:13:29,752 --> 00:13:31,222
So he can take advantage of that.

283
00:13:31,867 --> 00:13:36,607
And also if he can change the way
that the, the forecasters and the

284
00:13:36,607 --> 00:13:41,917
watchdogs look at this to give
him the benefit of growth that

285
00:13:41,917 --> 00:13:43,357
will come from that investment.

286
00:13:44,119 --> 00:13:48,019
so it's a bit, he was a bit daft, a bit
naive to say, we don't wanna be in hock

287
00:13:48,019 --> 00:13:49,974
to the bomb markets a few years ago.

288
00:13:50,744 --> 00:13:51,949
Don't say that Peter.

289
00:13:52,069 --> 00:13:53,449
Don't mention the bond markets.

290
00:13:55,009 --> 00:13:58,519
but there's a bit of room there,
there is some possibility.

291
00:13:58,849 --> 00:14:03,859
And I noticed that he managed to
reference both, Germany and Finland.

292
00:14:04,879 --> 00:14:08,539
the suggestion that other
countries might have some ideas.

293
00:14:09,019 --> 00:14:09,319
Yeah.

294
00:14:09,619 --> 00:14:10,279
Outrageous take.

295
00:14:10,369 --> 00:14:11,629
Yeah, outrageous.

296
00:14:11,629 --> 00:14:14,239
So Germany is this idea of the
kind of, essentially you have

297
00:14:14,239 --> 00:14:16,069
to equalise all your regions.

298
00:14:16,219 --> 00:14:16,279
Yeah.

299
00:14:16,279 --> 00:14:18,709
Which I presume in Germany came from
the fact that the east was always so

300
00:14:18,709 --> 00:14:22,639
much poorer than the west and post
reunification there was a, real transfer.

301
00:14:23,080 --> 00:14:26,440
at the moment, London is just this
mad massive drag weight on the

302
00:14:26,440 --> 00:14:28,810
rest of the country generating huge
amounts of the income that then

303
00:14:28,810 --> 00:14:30,370
gets redistributed around the place.

304
00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:33,880
That, again, I'm, I'd be interested
to how that intersects with Sads

305
00:14:33,885 --> 00:14:37,270
Kahns feeling that actually he would
like a bit more investment in London.

306
00:14:38,770 --> 00:14:39,910
I think he made the point
in the speech, didn't he?

307
00:14:39,910 --> 00:14:42,910
That, he was quite careful to
be nice about London as well.

308
00:14:42,940 --> 00:14:44,380
And so London would

309
00:14:44,380 --> 00:14:45,130
get into London.

310
00:14:46,010 --> 00:14:46,020
yeah,

311
00:14:46,990 --> 00:14:51,370
is he wants to sort of London of the
North, but in London that was a bit, he

312
00:14:51,370 --> 00:14:52,960
slightly lost me a bit, I have to say.

313
00:14:53,320 --> 00:14:56,260
But yeah, I, there was also
of, there were some big ideas,

314
00:14:56,860 --> 00:14:57,970
you have to give him credit,

315
00:14:58,030 --> 00:14:58,360
but we,

316
00:14:58,360 --> 00:14:58,960
some big ideas.

317
00:14:59,020 --> 00:15:01,360
I think we should say that none of
this is gonna happen if he makes the

318
00:15:01,360 --> 00:15:04,900
dangerous mistake of making an actual
communist Ed Miller Band Chancellor.

319
00:15:04,960 --> 00:15:06,970
So can we all, hold the author?

320
00:15:06,970 --> 00:15:07,270
I think that's

321
00:15:07,270 --> 00:15:08,745
unfair to communist actually.

322
00:15:09,455 --> 00:15:09,745
Andy

323
00:15:10,205 --> 00:15:12,100
Maoist, how much further can we go?

324
00:15:12,640 --> 00:15:12,880
Yeah,

325
00:15:13,090 --> 00:15:16,450
you had an interesting thought about this
Richard Ba based on Miller Band's previous

326
00:15:16,450 --> 00:15:19,690
time, Miller Band was at the Treasury for
eight years seeding his radical communism.

327
00:15:19,690 --> 00:15:20,080
I know.

328
00:15:20,170 --> 00:15:22,930
But, you had a thought about
his sort of prior record.

329
00:15:23,260 --> 00:15:27,910
he was Gordon Brown's special
advisor from 97 until 2002.

330
00:15:29,620 --> 00:15:34,600
when Gordon Brown and Tony Bla were very
keen on the private finance initiative,

331
00:15:34,660 --> 00:15:40,930
which was essentially it was financial
engineering to borrow money without

332
00:15:40,930 --> 00:15:42,550
the appearance of borrowing money.

333
00:15:43,565 --> 00:15:46,000
and it ended up costing a lot of money.

334
00:15:46,000 --> 00:15:50,767
We ended up paying well over the
odds for hospitals, prisons, so it's

335
00:15:50,767 --> 00:15:55,537
a sort of, caution retail really in
the dangers of, too much financial

336
00:15:55,537 --> 00:15:58,447
engineering with the public books.

337
00:15:58,962 --> 00:16:00,467
And that's what he's gonna have to resist.

338
00:16:00,677 --> 00:16:02,057
there will be the temptation.

339
00:16:02,627 --> 00:16:08,507
back then the government had debt
of about 40% or a bit less of GDP.

340
00:16:09,557 --> 00:16:11,145
it's more than double that now.

341
00:16:11,237 --> 00:16:13,697
So the temptation is
probably even greater.

342
00:16:14,067 --> 00:16:16,497
So he's not red ed, he's blue ed,

343
00:16:16,947 --> 00:16:17,997
he's dangerously right wing.

344
00:16:17,997 --> 00:16:19,377
He's much too right wing to be chancellor.

345
00:16:19,437 --> 00:16:19,647
Yeah.

346
00:16:19,647 --> 00:16:20,427
Flexible ed.

347
00:16:21,747 --> 00:16:25,227
which is, and keep him
with the burner, isn't it?

348
00:16:25,716 --> 00:16:30,171
but the noises that have been coming
out, the Burnham camp, people close

349
00:16:30,171 --> 00:16:35,241
to him and so on, are that, they may
be looking for more conventional ways.

350
00:16:35,301 --> 00:16:36,801
Borrowing we talked about earlier.

351
00:16:36,861 --> 00:16:37,011
Yeah.

352
00:16:37,011 --> 00:16:38,061
Which is the way to do it.

353
00:16:38,061 --> 00:16:40,581
It's a lot more, it's a lot
more honest for one thing.

354
00:16:40,731 --> 00:16:40,911
Yep.

355
00:16:41,661 --> 00:16:46,208
and it's, more cost efficient
because, you're not paying the private

356
00:16:46,523 --> 00:16:49,933
bankers and investors profits that
you have to do on private debt.

357
00:16:50,173 --> 00:16:54,703
And I thought, not entirely because
of your efforts, but, there is

358
00:16:54,703 --> 00:16:57,013
a bit of a consensus on PFI now

359
00:16:57,163 --> 00:16:57,463
Yeah.

360
00:16:57,463 --> 00:17:00,133
After a couple of decades
that it wasn't a great idea.

361
00:17:00,883 --> 00:17:01,303
That's right.

362
00:17:01,303 --> 00:17:01,483
Yeah.

363
00:17:02,323 --> 00:17:06,313
when the, coalition government came in,
they, that they commissioned a review

364
00:17:06,313 --> 00:17:08,443
of it and said, no, not value for money.

365
00:17:08,443 --> 00:17:09,373
We're not doing that again.

366
00:17:10,483 --> 00:17:12,433
there was something called PF two,

367
00:17:12,694 --> 00:17:14,209
why did they call PI two?

368
00:17:14,209 --> 00:17:14,529
Didn't really work.

369
00:17:14,989 --> 00:17:15,369
Why not?

370
00:17:15,604 --> 00:17:16,984
PFII like Roman numeral.

371
00:17:16,984 --> 00:17:18,634
It's much what was
wrong with these people?

372
00:17:18,694 --> 00:17:18,904
Yeah.

373
00:17:19,774 --> 00:17:21,184
You should have been a special advisor.

374
00:17:21,184 --> 00:17:24,004
Dropping the requirement for civil
servants to have really, good Latin was

375
00:17:24,004 --> 00:17:26,704
where it all the rot set in, my opinion.

376
00:17:27,453 --> 00:17:30,093
I think the fact that people really hate
Ed Miller Band, or at least there's a

377
00:17:30,093 --> 00:17:33,483
big briefing war going on against him,
has to be related to the two things.

378
00:17:33,663 --> 00:17:36,663
One, that he has been seen as energy
Secretary to have been dabbling

379
00:17:36,663 --> 00:17:39,573
in other people's departments in a
way that they have found annoying.

380
00:17:40,023 --> 00:17:42,903
And also from the right, the
criticism that he's trying to

381
00:17:42,903 --> 00:17:47,193
basically take, make you all eat a
carrot and never drive a car again.

382
00:17:47,523 --> 00:17:48,603
Hair shirts and lentils.

383
00:17:48,933 --> 00:17:49,173
Yeah.

384
00:17:49,173 --> 00:17:49,183
Yeah.

385
00:17:49,533 --> 00:17:52,009
But where does he stand
on air conditioning?

386
00:17:52,099 --> 00:17:55,009
Andy, that's entirely where I'm
gonna take my view on Ed ban from.

387
00:17:55,441 --> 00:17:57,511
Can we agree that it's been quite hot?

388
00:17:59,641 --> 00:18:00,361
you never know.

389
00:18:00,361 --> 00:18:03,991
I look forward to the mailbag, but I,
think it probably has been quite hot.

390
00:18:04,040 --> 00:18:04,583
It's been quite hot.

391
00:18:04,621 --> 00:18:08,543
If you're watching this, it might've
already got past 30 degrees again, by now.

392
00:18:08,633 --> 00:18:08,873
Yeah.

393
00:18:08,873 --> 00:18:09,833
It's been too hot.

394
00:18:09,983 --> 00:18:10,193
Yeah.

395
00:18:10,253 --> 00:18:13,223
And a Furious debate has now
broken out about air conditioning.

396
00:18:13,376 --> 00:18:15,956
I can't instal it in my house
for physical reasons, but, I am

397
00:18:15,956 --> 00:18:17,666
pro it because it is too hot.

398
00:18:17,666 --> 00:18:19,976
It's too hot to work in my
house and Pat, apparently that

399
00:18:19,976 --> 00:18:21,416
will be the future until I die.

400
00:18:21,806 --> 00:18:23,006
Is that for a couple of weeks?

401
00:18:23,006 --> 00:18:24,926
Every summer I'm going to broil slowly.

402
00:18:24,956 --> 00:18:27,116
No, it'll be a couple of months
by the time we're 20 years

403
00:18:27,116 --> 00:18:28,436
older, so don't worry about that.

404
00:18:29,276 --> 00:18:29,426
Great.

405
00:18:30,446 --> 00:18:30,806
Yes.

406
00:18:30,806 --> 00:18:32,786
Get air conditioning,
if you can afford it.

407
00:18:32,846 --> 00:18:33,326
Terrific.

408
00:18:33,326 --> 00:18:36,836
As in, we've seen in the last couple
of weeks this big debate about a

409
00:18:36,836 --> 00:18:40,196
relatively, I don't wanna say relatively
unimportant 'cause it is important.

410
00:18:40,196 --> 00:18:41,246
Air conditioning protects you.

411
00:18:41,246 --> 00:18:45,206
If you're very old, very young
pregnant, you're otherwise, vulnerable.

412
00:18:45,296 --> 00:18:46,196
It can save lives.

413
00:18:46,196 --> 00:18:46,826
It's great.

414
00:18:47,276 --> 00:18:50,186
And there's this mad sort of attempt
to have a culture war over it,

415
00:18:50,696 --> 00:18:54,056
but it doesn't reflect at all what
the situation actually is, which

416
00:18:54,056 --> 00:18:54,386
is

417
00:18:54,710 --> 00:18:57,650
The conservatives are trying
to say there's a labour war

418
00:18:57,650 --> 00:18:59,060
on against air conditioning.

419
00:19:00,440 --> 00:19:01,580
defacto ban.

420
00:19:01,880 --> 00:19:06,320
There are a couple of councils which have
been a bit restrictive on it, and I think

421
00:19:06,320 --> 00:19:08,780
they absolutely shouldn't be, and I think
they're gonna have to change the rules.

422
00:19:09,290 --> 00:19:13,370
But the idea that there is a defacto ban
is, in the old phrase, is not even wrong.

423
00:19:14,690 --> 00:19:20,390
it's so wrong that labour will pay you two
and a half grand towards the cost of air

424
00:19:20,390 --> 00:19:23,420
conditioning in your home watching this.

425
00:19:23,510 --> 00:19:24,920
But this is by heat pump, right?

426
00:19:24,950 --> 00:19:26,900
There's a thing called a, it's
called an air to air heat pump.

427
00:19:26,900 --> 00:19:29,990
And it basically does you cold air in
the summer and hot air in the winter.

428
00:19:30,290 --> 00:19:33,140
The reason the government wants you to
get one of those, to the extent that

429
00:19:33,140 --> 00:19:37,670
they will give you two and a half grand
of the cost is that it means you need

430
00:19:37,670 --> 00:19:39,350
to use a gas boiler much, much less.

431
00:19:39,350 --> 00:19:42,800
It basically decarbonize your
home heating very effectively.

432
00:19:42,980 --> 00:19:44,120
That's where they'd like you to get it.

433
00:19:44,270 --> 00:19:45,860
Free air conditioning on the government.

434
00:19:45,890 --> 00:19:46,520
Let's all get it.

435
00:19:46,520 --> 00:19:48,440
Now, that's, is

436
00:19:48,440 --> 00:19:50,720
it a bit like the guardian's air
conditioning, which notoriously

437
00:19:50,720 --> 00:19:52,400
packs up when it gets to 27 degrees?

438
00:19:53,300 --> 00:19:54,830
that's my worry about eco.

439
00:19:55,280 --> 00:19:55,940
I just say I feel

440
00:19:55,940 --> 00:19:56,330
like No, it's,

441
00:19:57,080 --> 00:19:58,760
it all goes back work to the guardian.

442
00:19:58,760 --> 00:19:58,820
It

443
00:19:58,820 --> 00:19:59,795
all goes back to the guardian.

444
00:20:00,375 --> 00:20:00,595
No,

445
00:20:00,595 --> 00:20:02,180
that is all I hear about
every summer though.

446
00:20:02,480 --> 00:20:07,280
yeah, the reason that I think
this debate, which is not a, I

447
00:20:07,280 --> 00:20:08,450
just wanna say it's not a debate.

448
00:20:08,450 --> 00:20:08,810
Get it.

449
00:20:09,050 --> 00:20:10,070
If you can afford it, terrific.

450
00:20:10,070 --> 00:20:10,610
Get it.

451
00:20:10,910 --> 00:20:14,120
Partly because we'll have so much Soler
on the grid by 2030 that it will, per

452
00:20:14,180 --> 00:20:17,660
the demand for air conditioning will
perfectly soak up Soler and then you'll

453
00:20:17,660 --> 00:20:20,150
get, it's very advantageous to do it.

454
00:20:20,990 --> 00:20:24,230
part of the debate is I think that you
have now a block in British politics.

455
00:20:24,290 --> 00:20:25,970
This didn't, this wasn't
the case five years ago.

456
00:20:26,330 --> 00:20:30,770
The block of reform, the conservatives who
have decided that they're going to focus

457
00:20:30,770 --> 00:20:32,990
only on one element of the climate thing.

458
00:20:33,170 --> 00:20:34,580
The climate thing is two halves.

459
00:20:34,580 --> 00:20:35,450
It's adaptation.

460
00:20:35,450 --> 00:20:37,670
'cause we need to adapt to the
fact that the world is much hotter

461
00:20:37,670 --> 00:20:41,240
than it was 30 years ago, and it's
mitigation, which is stopping the

462
00:20:41,240 --> 00:20:45,440
problem from getting worse and worse
The way you deal with that second bit.

463
00:20:46,230 --> 00:20:52,500
It's to get to, if you like, a net of
zero to coin a phrase, crud going from

464
00:20:52,500 --> 00:20:53,820
the bowels of hell into the atmosphere.

465
00:20:53,850 --> 00:20:54,780
That's how you do it.

466
00:20:55,530 --> 00:20:58,110
And the conservatism and
reform have decided they're

467
00:20:58,110 --> 00:20:59,160
not going to bother with that.

468
00:20:59,340 --> 00:21:01,470
They're going to scrap the 2050 target.

469
00:21:01,680 --> 00:21:02,940
They're gonna scrap all incentives.

470
00:21:03,060 --> 00:21:04,290
They're just gonna scrap the whole thing.

471
00:21:04,350 --> 00:21:06,780
They're basically saying, we
don't wanna deal with this.

472
00:21:06,810 --> 00:21:10,200
So the reason they're talking about
air conditioning is basically their

473
00:21:10,200 --> 00:21:11,700
attitude is, we'll just adapt.

474
00:21:11,880 --> 00:21:13,260
We'll just everyone get air conditioning.

475
00:21:13,410 --> 00:21:14,880
It'll be as hot as Saudi Arabia.

476
00:21:15,060 --> 00:21:16,140
Just don't go outside.

477
00:21:16,890 --> 00:21:19,650
It's an anti-real position that
they have found themselves in

478
00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:21,480
reform have always been like this.

479
00:21:21,600 --> 00:21:25,740
The conservatives sign net
zero into law seven years ago

480
00:21:25,740 --> 00:21:26,820
was Trees Maze part

481
00:21:27,090 --> 00:21:27,390
there may

482
00:21:27,390 --> 00:21:27,690
gift.

483
00:21:27,780 --> 00:21:28,410
Boris Johnson.

484
00:21:28,620 --> 00:21:31,770
The one thing he was right about
apart from Ukraine is clean energy.

485
00:21:31,920 --> 00:21:32,190
Yeah.

486
00:21:33,270 --> 00:21:36,030
and the conservatives have
absolutely abandoned a position

487
00:21:36,030 --> 00:21:37,320
of dealing with reality on this.

488
00:21:37,380 --> 00:21:39,270
So it's, a crazy thing.

489
00:21:39,270 --> 00:21:41,640
And that is why I think we're talking
now about air conditioning so much

490
00:21:41,640 --> 00:21:44,820
is because it's part of adaptation
and it's a useful and important part.

491
00:21:44,940 --> 00:21:46,710
But mitigation is the other bit.

492
00:21:47,430 --> 00:21:52,182
If I've, understood the arguments
on the other side correctly, we

493
00:21:52,182 --> 00:21:55,932
can only have air condition if we
drill in the North Sea tomorrow.

494
00:21:56,022 --> 00:21:56,892
Yeah, that's very,

495
00:21:56,982 --> 00:21:57,792
have I got that right?

496
00:21:57,797 --> 00:21:57,847
Yeah.

497
00:21:58,223 --> 00:22:01,433
If you wanna get air conditioning
and it comes from renewable, the

498
00:22:01,463 --> 00:22:03,233
extra emissions are pretty minimal.

499
00:22:03,623 --> 00:22:06,863
If you do want to drill a whole new oil
or gas field, they'll be a bit higher.

500
00:22:07,673 --> 00:22:11,633
and presumably will not allow us to
have widespread air conditioning.

501
00:22:12,379 --> 00:22:15,709
No, the, even Donald Trump has
been weighing, I mean he always

502
00:22:15,709 --> 00:22:16,549
talks about the North Sea.

503
00:22:16,549 --> 00:22:18,259
I don't, unlock the North Sea.

504
00:22:18,289 --> 00:22:22,129
We had 14 years of conservative
government who un like granted licences.

505
00:22:22,789 --> 00:22:25,039
it's, our bit is mostly knackered.

506
00:22:25,549 --> 00:22:28,909
Anyone whose main priority is
the North Sea isn't really folk

507
00:22:28,969 --> 00:22:33,979
can't do sums about what works
and what works is going electric.

508
00:22:33,979 --> 00:22:37,879
And the reason for that is the very
boring thing that it makes your devices,

509
00:22:38,149 --> 00:22:41,119
if it's heat pumps, electric cars,
like three or four times as efficient.

510
00:22:41,419 --> 00:22:42,499
That's the gain you get.

511
00:22:42,619 --> 00:22:45,739
If someone invented a petrol car
that went 2000 miles on one tank,

512
00:22:46,309 --> 00:22:48,709
they would be faded for all time.

513
00:22:48,769 --> 00:22:50,239
They'd win Nobel prizes up the wazoo.

514
00:22:51,499 --> 00:22:54,439
But this comes back to my
conspiracy theory about recycling,

515
00:22:54,469 --> 00:22:54,649
right.

516
00:22:54,649 --> 00:22:57,319
Which is, and actually turns out to have
been validated a couple of years ago.

517
00:22:57,829 --> 00:23:00,499
Lots of recycling just gets shipped
off to China and put in landfill.

518
00:23:01,069 --> 00:23:04,219
But why does everybody like
big businesses were very happy

519
00:23:04,219 --> 00:23:05,539
to Wang on about recycling?

520
00:23:05,539 --> 00:23:05,599
Yeah.

521
00:23:05,629 --> 00:23:06,949
'cause it was saying it's up to you.

522
00:23:07,159 --> 00:23:07,339
Yes.

523
00:23:07,339 --> 00:23:09,499
Actually climate change can
really be materially affected

524
00:23:09,499 --> 00:23:12,199
by you putting, separating out
your paper from your milk bottle.

525
00:23:12,229 --> 00:23:12,409
Yeah.

526
00:23:12,589 --> 00:23:14,239
And I feel like the
same thing about aircon.

527
00:23:14,239 --> 00:23:17,599
It's saying, we can't do all these
mitigations that would be expensive or

528
00:23:17,599 --> 00:23:21,469
trying to get to net zero by putting money
a, a levy on your bills or whatever it is.

529
00:23:21,499 --> 00:23:21,649
yeah.

530
00:23:21,679 --> 00:23:24,439
Instead, it's up to you to buy
an air conditioning unit and if

531
00:23:24,439 --> 00:23:25,849
you don't, that's your fault.

532
00:23:26,209 --> 00:23:30,139
Like that to me is, it's about, just
shifting it back on to being an individual

533
00:23:30,139 --> 00:23:31,999
problem on the collective action problem.

534
00:23:32,179 --> 00:23:32,479
Yeah.

535
00:23:32,599 --> 00:23:35,224
And lots of people can't afford
air conditioning either to

536
00:23:35,269 --> 00:23:36,949
buy the thing or to, run it.

537
00:23:36,949 --> 00:23:38,839
'cause it, it will add to
your electricity bills.

538
00:23:39,021 --> 00:23:42,831
and that is another big part of the
problem is that policy matters basically.

539
00:23:43,041 --> 00:23:45,801
But there's also a left critique
of air conditioning, Which is the

540
00:23:45,801 --> 00:23:48,561
sort of degrowth one, which is
essentially like the left wing attack

541
00:23:48,561 --> 00:23:52,311
on GLP ones, the anti beastie drugs,
which is, it's a sticking plaster.

542
00:23:52,431 --> 00:23:55,341
So the idea is you have to morally
suffer in your very sweaty house,

543
00:23:55,551 --> 00:23:58,911
otherwise you'll never feel the pain
that will make you want to attack

544
00:23:58,911 --> 00:24:00,066
climate change in the same way.

545
00:24:00,066 --> 00:24:01,911
You shouldn't take a drug
that express your appetite

546
00:24:01,911 --> 00:24:04,221
because we should fix big food.

547
00:24:04,692 --> 00:24:07,621
that's I think the reason that
the left can be quite puritanical

548
00:24:07,621 --> 00:24:09,001
about judging people for echo

549
00:24:09,001 --> 00:24:11,011
and coming from the centre,
I'm always thinking, can we

550
00:24:11,011 --> 00:24:12,181
not do both of those things?

551
00:24:12,696 --> 00:24:12,916
No,

552
00:24:12,916 --> 00:24:13,196
but that's

553
00:24:13,196 --> 00:24:15,451
the thing is can we not
collective and individual action.

554
00:24:15,481 --> 00:24:19,636
I am what is limiting the progress
on these, the, these air to air.

555
00:24:20,631 --> 00:24:23,061
Heat pump air conditioner
things, which sound like,

556
00:24:23,841 --> 00:24:24,231
they sound a

557
00:24:24,231 --> 00:24:25,041
bit SoFi, don't they?

558
00:24:25,041 --> 00:24:25,281
Yeah.

559
00:24:25,281 --> 00:24:25,341
I

560
00:24:25,341 --> 00:24:26,211
mean, holy grail,

561
00:24:26,271 --> 00:24:29,451
I think until recently the government
was focused on air to water, which

562
00:24:29,451 --> 00:24:32,481
is where you heat it, heat your
water, so it does your radiators.

563
00:24:32,511 --> 00:24:34,551
And that's 'cause most people
have radiators in their homes.

564
00:24:34,551 --> 00:24:36,231
So it's a natural first step.

565
00:24:36,660 --> 00:24:37,860
I think it probably will catch up.

566
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:40,530
there's lots of money available
for it, which is a good thing.

567
00:24:40,740 --> 00:24:44,100
And thank you to the readers
who've been saying get with it.

568
00:24:44,100 --> 00:24:46,470
Air to air, not air to water.

569
00:24:46,950 --> 00:24:47,310
Yeah.

570
00:24:47,310 --> 00:24:51,690
So as of last week when I read these
letters, Andy, I'm big on air to air.

571
00:24:52,470 --> 00:24:53,010
It's, great.

572
00:24:53,010 --> 00:24:56,040
And having got an air to water a system
a year ago, that's absolutely fine.

573
00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:02,610
the degrowth thing I think is a bit of
a mad perspective because people don't

574
00:25:02,610 --> 00:25:04,650
want to give up the things they have.

575
00:25:04,890 --> 00:25:07,440
You see it a lot in the
argument over, cars.

576
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:07,950
For example.

577
00:25:07,950 --> 00:25:11,970
People will say, we shouldn't go
to electric cars because, actually

578
00:25:11,970 --> 00:25:14,220
active travel is much better.

579
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:17,520
people, we should be getting people
walking and taking the bus, or

580
00:25:18,090 --> 00:25:19,590
cycling that, this kind of thing.

581
00:25:19,620 --> 00:25:19,680
Yeah.

582
00:25:20,010 --> 00:25:22,770
But good luck doing that in
America where one town is a hundred

583
00:25:22,770 --> 00:25:23,760
miles away from the next town.

584
00:25:24,300 --> 00:25:26,970
This is the thing, even in
the Netherlands, even in

585
00:25:27,390 --> 00:25:29,070
like crazy, the Netherlands.

586
00:25:29,610 --> 00:25:29,760
Yeah.

587
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:35,273
I think about 9% of distance
travelled is, is active now.

588
00:25:35,273 --> 00:25:38,153
That's in the Netherlands, which
has had decades of strong support

589
00:25:38,153 --> 00:25:39,623
for active travel cycling.

590
00:25:39,803 --> 00:25:40,493
Very flat.

591
00:25:41,423 --> 00:25:45,383
so the idea that is going to be the
answer is, just not quite real enough.

592
00:25:45,383 --> 00:25:48,413
Like the Climate change Committee
have done the, numbers on this and

593
00:25:48,413 --> 00:25:52,733
basically the savings that you get from
going electric are so much greater.

594
00:25:52,763 --> 00:25:53,093
and that's good.

595
00:25:53,093 --> 00:25:55,433
That's part of what I think of
as your kind of climate sensible.

596
00:25:56,033 --> 00:25:59,003
That I think, I hope that, I hope
whoever becomes chance of listen,

597
00:25:59,453 --> 00:26:03,683
which is energy expenditure matters
less and how that energy is generated.

598
00:26:03,846 --> 00:26:07,198
globally, about 20% of our
energy usage is the electricity.

599
00:26:07,288 --> 00:26:12,658
So you do need to clean up electricity
generation, but the other almost 80% is

600
00:26:12,658 --> 00:26:14,458
the stuff that has not yet gone electric.

601
00:26:14,578 --> 00:26:16,858
So that's cars and home
heating and all that stuff.

602
00:26:16,948 --> 00:26:19,768
Low, low temperature,
industrial uses all of that.

603
00:26:19,948 --> 00:26:23,818
And the, opportunity to
electrify that is, is big.

604
00:26:24,118 --> 00:26:27,898
And that is why, especially in the
wake of the Iran war, you're gonna

605
00:26:27,898 --> 00:26:29,398
hear lots more about electrification.

606
00:26:29,398 --> 00:26:31,498
It's gonna be a big focus of
the cop meeting in November.

607
00:26:31,973 --> 00:26:34,373
because it just gives you these
massive efficiency savings.

608
00:26:34,883 --> 00:26:38,123
and that is one valid criticism of the
government, the current government's

609
00:26:38,123 --> 00:26:40,613
position, which is that they've
been really focused on getting to

610
00:26:40,613 --> 00:26:45,353
clean power 2030 and old Sparky's
written a lot about this clean power.

611
00:26:45,353 --> 00:26:49,043
2030 is great, but it is expensive
to do the last few percent.

612
00:26:49,223 --> 00:26:51,923
And actually there are lots
bigger gains to be had.

613
00:26:52,824 --> 00:26:55,853
As in, if you run an electric car,
even if you're basically only using a

614
00:26:55,853 --> 00:27:00,023
gas powered electricity grid to make
the electricity, that's still better

615
00:27:00,023 --> 00:27:01,343
for the environment than a petrol car.

616
00:27:01,973 --> 00:27:04,043
Because, that is so much more efficient.

617
00:27:04,283 --> 00:27:07,678
But first you need a huge investment in
the national grid as well, don't you?

618
00:27:07,763 --> 00:27:08,183
You do.

619
00:27:08,183 --> 00:27:10,313
And I think we've needed one
for a long time and there just

620
00:27:10,373 --> 00:27:11,723
hasn't been much action on it.

621
00:27:11,783 --> 00:27:14,213
But yeah, the idea, oh, that's
another good thing about aircon.

622
00:27:14,543 --> 00:27:18,113
It gets more electricity used,
which spreads the cost of the grid.

623
00:27:18,563 --> 00:27:19,883
It's gonna be really expensive.

624
00:27:20,123 --> 00:27:22,343
The, economy is basically a
hybrid car at the moment, which

625
00:27:22,343 --> 00:27:23,933
is running two systems at once.

626
00:27:24,053 --> 00:27:25,883
And Burnham did say infrastructure.

627
00:27:26,243 --> 00:27:27,173
Yeah.

628
00:27:27,173 --> 00:27:27,248
At least

629
00:27:27,248 --> 00:27:27,713
once.

630
00:27:27,713 --> 00:27:28,703
At least once.

631
00:27:28,853 --> 00:27:31,043
So I imagine he's, all over this.

632
00:27:31,103 --> 00:27:32,447
I think he's been quite
good on green stuff,

633
00:27:32,463 --> 00:27:34,653
I think I see a bit of a
difficulty with the number of

634
00:27:34,653 --> 00:27:35,883
commitments he's making there.

635
00:27:36,673 --> 00:27:40,320
the grid itself is gonna cost a,
fortune, to upgrade and so on.

636
00:27:40,467 --> 00:27:45,030
And also the capability to deliver
this, if you haven't invested

637
00:27:45,030 --> 00:27:47,340
in the skills, for generation

638
00:27:47,340 --> 00:27:47,400
Yeah.

639
00:27:47,430 --> 00:27:47,910
There is a gap.

640
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:51,870
we don't really have the
engineers, at the moment.

641
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:55,800
So it's a rebuilding
is a difficult process.

642
00:27:55,800 --> 00:27:57,030
You can't just chuck money at it.

643
00:27:57,270 --> 00:27:57,690
Yes.

644
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:03,510
so it's good to even talk about,
education and, apprenticeships and Yes.

645
00:28:03,510 --> 00:28:06,900
Technical education and levelling
it with academic education.

646
00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:09,060
these are again, great ideas.

647
00:28:09,710 --> 00:28:11,013
It's not easy to, deliver.

648
00:28:11,973 --> 00:28:14,043
It was no, it was the least blare Right.

649
00:28:14,043 --> 00:28:15,153
Bit of his delivery.

650
00:28:16,233 --> 00:28:19,833
which, was, pretty solid
Tony for quite a lot of it.

651
00:28:19,893 --> 00:28:23,793
And then he's going, and I promise
you that a lot of you won't

652
00:28:23,793 --> 00:28:25,833
go to university this years.

653
00:28:26,373 --> 00:28:27,723
that, that's marvellous.

654
00:28:27,783 --> 00:28:28,413
Yeah.

655
00:28:29,055 --> 00:28:34,485
if you could become a an engineer or
technician without a 80 grand debt Yeah.

656
00:28:34,515 --> 00:28:35,025
Wouldn't you?

657
00:28:35,175 --> 00:28:35,325
Yeah.

658
00:28:35,625 --> 00:28:36,825
The numbers make sense.

659
00:28:36,825 --> 00:28:37,275
Should they?

660
00:28:37,275 --> 00:28:37,485
Yeah.

661
00:28:38,045 --> 00:28:41,555
And there is, sorry, just the last thing
there is quite a sort of, the electoral

662
00:28:41,555 --> 00:28:45,755
point is always a bit duller to me
'cause I'm just a geek on all the tech.

663
00:28:45,875 --> 00:28:50,409
But labor's, voters tend to like
this stuff and they've been losing

664
00:28:50,409 --> 00:28:51,639
a lot of votes to the greens.

665
00:28:52,779 --> 00:28:53,859
and, to the Lib Dems of course.

666
00:28:54,229 --> 00:28:57,444
Because they seem to have been going
a bit further On all sorts of things.

667
00:28:57,684 --> 00:29:01,104
And I think if they do row back too
far, then there's a real risk that

668
00:29:01,104 --> 00:29:02,754
they'll just lose more to their left.

669
00:29:03,324 --> 00:29:04,974
but also it'd be a big
splashy thing to say.

670
00:29:06,084 --> 00:29:08,634
one of the things he was talking
about was more greater public

671
00:29:08,634 --> 00:29:12,534
ownership or public accountability
for energy companies and utilities.

672
00:29:12,924 --> 00:29:14,334
But again, very expensive.

673
00:29:14,454 --> 00:29:14,514
Yeah.

674
00:29:14,634 --> 00:29:19,284
But Stan's labour were nationalising the
railways like a great big labour thing.

675
00:29:19,284 --> 00:29:22,344
Ask for a really long time and
just no one knows about it.

676
00:29:22,554 --> 00:29:24,264
No one knows about It's extraordinary.

677
00:29:24,354 --> 00:29:25,374
No, it was the same on the energy stuff.

678
00:29:25,374 --> 00:29:28,194
Like the record is terrific,
but they seem to have been quite

679
00:29:28,194 --> 00:29:29,784
unwilling to make the case on it.

680
00:29:29,784 --> 00:29:30,444
It is weird.

681
00:29:30,534 --> 00:29:30,714
Yeah.

682
00:29:30,714 --> 00:29:33,444
And the thing that plays well with
people is actually not arguments

683
00:29:33,444 --> 00:29:35,064
about jobs or the economy.

684
00:29:35,454 --> 00:29:38,334
People quite like, this is protecting
the planet for future generations.

685
00:29:38,424 --> 00:29:41,664
We all have to do our be this is a
global problem, like electorally that

686
00:29:41,664 --> 00:29:45,024
does better than there are this many
jobs and this much investment, which

687
00:29:45,024 --> 00:29:46,374
is a spreadsheet he think to say,

688
00:29:46,794 --> 00:29:48,594
and Burnham is a storyteller.

689
00:29:48,594 --> 00:29:49,944
He can tell these stories of me.

690
00:29:49,974 --> 00:29:51,714
He's, you were telling me
he's got an English degree.

691
00:29:51,774 --> 00:29:52,104
Yeah.

692
00:29:52,194 --> 00:29:52,704
I'm thrilled.

693
00:29:52,704 --> 00:29:53,664
I've got an English degree.

694
00:29:54,414 --> 00:29:55,164
Am I only Burnham?

695
00:29:55,734 --> 00:29:57,384
Yeah, you look might be, look
at this panel, you'll find

696
00:29:57,384 --> 00:29:58,489
quite a lot of English degrees.

697
00:29:59,089 --> 00:30:00,324
Yeah, I've got an English degree as well.

698
00:30:00,384 --> 00:30:00,504
Oh

699
00:30:00,504 --> 00:30:00,834
dear.

700
00:30:01,974 --> 00:30:04,504
There's a very sad bit, apparently
in his memoir where he talks about

701
00:30:04,644 --> 00:30:07,092
the fact he didn't get into his
first choice of Cambridge College.

702
00:30:07,284 --> 00:30:07,614
Yeah.

703
00:30:07,884 --> 00:30:09,744
It's, oh God, people he's
been through suffering.

704
00:30:09,744 --> 00:30:10,254
Adversity.

705
00:30:10,758 --> 00:30:11,289
Adversity.

706
00:30:11,652 --> 00:30:11,929
Yeah.

707
00:30:14,184 --> 00:30:16,134
as, stories of working class defeat.

708
00:30:16,134 --> 00:30:16,584
Go.

709
00:30:16,854 --> 00:30:18,174
I think that's pretty shocking.

710
00:30:19,059 --> 00:30:21,339
now we should come to someone else
who, I'm not sure whether that

711
00:30:21,339 --> 00:30:22,550
Donald Trump's got an English degree.

712
00:30:22,659 --> 00:30:26,079
He's got such a fluid command of the
language that I think he probably

713
00:30:26,079 --> 00:30:27,669
has a few honorary ones anyway.

714
00:30:27,879 --> 00:30:31,359
But Helen, you have been keeping
up with, we're fresh from America.

715
00:30:31,359 --> 00:30:32,049
Two 50.

716
00:30:32,319 --> 00:30:32,499
Woo.

717
00:30:32,499 --> 00:30:32,859
Yeah.

718
00:30:32,859 --> 00:30:34,569
The cage fighting on the White House lawn.

719
00:30:34,659 --> 00:30:38,859
And now, there's been another book out
about Trump, which is exciting, and

720
00:30:38,949 --> 00:30:39,219
yeah.

721
00:30:39,219 --> 00:30:42,279
By two New York Times journalists,
Maggie Haberman, who is known

722
00:30:42,279 --> 00:30:46,239
as Trump's psychiatrist, that's
her, he invites her in big job.

723
00:30:46,239 --> 00:30:47,229
It goes like

724
00:30:47,229 --> 00:30:47,859
gold couch.

725
00:30:47,949 --> 00:30:48,189
Yeah.

726
00:30:48,339 --> 00:30:49,629
Why didn't my father love me?

727
00:30:50,179 --> 00:30:54,639
but essentially, I think, And, Jonathan
Swan, who's an Aussie originally did

728
00:30:54,639 --> 00:30:59,379
a very good, very fact-based interview
with, Donald Trump a couple of years

729
00:30:59,379 --> 00:31:00,429
ago that kind of made his name.

730
00:31:00,429 --> 00:31:03,999
Anyway, the book's called Regime
Change because their essential conceit

731
00:31:04,029 --> 00:31:07,209
is that Trump is now running what
they call an imperial presidency.

732
00:31:07,269 --> 00:31:10,839
We've talked about this before about
Caesar maxing, but their thesis is

733
00:31:10,839 --> 00:31:15,489
essentially, it would've been better had
Trump won again in 2020, had Biden not

734
00:31:15,489 --> 00:31:19,719
defeated him, because in his first term
he was disoriented, he wasn't ready.

735
00:31:19,779 --> 00:31:24,069
He was restrained by various chiefs of
staff, by the Republican party in Congress

736
00:31:24,069 --> 00:31:29,049
not doing what he wanted by judges, by
the concept of conflict of interest rules.

737
00:31:29,499 --> 00:31:34,179
And then he had four years bruising in the
wilderness, meditating on his grievances,

738
00:31:34,179 --> 00:31:39,309
and he also attracted a cadre of loyalists
Who would just say and do anything.

739
00:31:40,149 --> 00:31:43,659
And so in the second Trump presidency
has been an imperial one where he's just

740
00:31:43,659 --> 00:31:45,789
smashed through absolutely everything.

741
00:31:46,509 --> 00:31:51,159
the stuff that the boys, Eric
and Don Jr and their Barron have

742
00:31:51,159 --> 00:31:54,144
done in terms of mingling their
business interests with the family.

743
00:31:54,704 --> 00:31:58,719
Extraordinary through the crypto firm,
world Liberty Financial through deals.

744
00:31:58,719 --> 00:32:02,919
There's been a deal recently with a, I
think either a Kazak or an Uzbek tungsten

745
00:32:02,919 --> 00:32:08,049
mine, this like the me the fusing of the
foreign policy and the Trump's family's

746
00:32:08,049 --> 00:32:09,999
own financial industry is extraordinary.

747
00:32:09,999 --> 00:32:11,679
Is it called World Liberty Financial?

748
00:32:11,889 --> 00:32:12,009
Yeah.

749
00:32:12,009 --> 00:32:13,149
It's it sounds like a made up name.

750
00:32:13,149 --> 00:32:15,939
Doesn't it sounds like a made up name
of an evil company in an eighties movie.

751
00:32:15,939 --> 00:32:16,359
Yeah.

752
00:32:16,809 --> 00:32:17,739
That's, yeah.

753
00:32:18,609 --> 00:32:22,179
I, don't know why that would be
appropriate, but, essentially the idea

754
00:32:22,179 --> 00:32:25,253
would've been that, decided in the
first term, he tried to obey conflict

755
00:32:25,253 --> 00:32:27,623
of interest rules, and he feels he
didn't get enough credit for that.

756
00:32:27,653 --> 00:32:30,443
He was like, they were still mean about
me anyway, I only did a little tiny bit

757
00:32:30,443 --> 00:32:32,273
of corruption and I never got any credit.

758
00:32:32,593 --> 00:32:34,373
so now I might as well go wild.

759
00:32:34,433 --> 00:32:37,163
Is the idea that a second term
following immediately on from

760
00:32:37,163 --> 00:32:39,268
the first one would've, what?

761
00:32:39,268 --> 00:32:42,983
It would've meant more chaos and
more incompetence and more of him not

762
00:32:42,983 --> 00:32:44,753
getting his way And now it will be over.

763
00:32:44,993 --> 00:32:45,773
Yes, exactly

764
00:32:45,803 --> 00:32:46,073
right.

765
00:32:46,103 --> 00:32:46,463
Yeah.

766
00:32:46,973 --> 00:32:49,733
But, what actually happened was
that he returned to the SEC for

767
00:32:49,733 --> 00:32:55,703
the second time round, a intent on
revenge against everybody, and b,

768
00:32:55,703 --> 00:32:59,453
having won the, not just the electoral
college, but the popular vote.

769
00:32:59,991 --> 00:33:02,121
Absolutely in command of the party.

770
00:33:02,121 --> 00:33:05,391
So he's got a speaker in Mike
Johnson who does whatever he wants.

771
00:33:05,811 --> 00:33:08,931
he has primaried so many
people in the Republican party.

772
00:33:08,931 --> 00:33:10,131
There is no one left, really.

773
00:33:10,131 --> 00:33:13,401
There is no Mitt Romney, the senator
from Utah, who was very critical

774
00:33:13,401 --> 00:33:14,631
of him, voted for his impeachment.

775
00:33:14,781 --> 00:33:16,551
None of those people are around anymore.

776
00:33:16,791 --> 00:33:20,511
None of the chiefs of staff that he
had previously tried to restrain him.

777
00:33:20,511 --> 00:33:23,031
He's now got Susie Wiles, the
fluoride operative who sees

778
00:33:23,031 --> 00:33:24,651
herself as enacting his views.

779
00:33:25,221 --> 00:33:30,111
he doesn't have, Pete EF has been sacking
people left, and centre in the, military.

780
00:33:30,351 --> 00:33:32,331
So he doesn't have the
generals holding him back.

781
00:33:32,331 --> 00:33:37,671
He now has Dan Raisin Cain as his, as
his top general, who seems, although

782
00:33:37,941 --> 00:33:40,551
comes across in this book as being
very sceptical of the Iran War.

783
00:33:40,551 --> 00:33:41,451
Certainly hasn't,

784
00:33:42,146 --> 00:33:43,116
stopped it happening.

785
00:33:43,356 --> 00:33:43,596
Yeah.

786
00:33:43,596 --> 00:33:44,356
Stopped it happening.

787
00:33:44,901 --> 00:33:45,831
You actually might put it.

788
00:33:46,401 --> 00:33:50,601
So it, it is a really fascinating
portrait of what it means to hold the

789
00:33:50,601 --> 00:33:54,681
power of the American presidency without
really anyone to reign you in at all.

790
00:33:54,981 --> 00:33:58,731
the Democrats obviously
bloodied and defeated.

791
00:33:58,731 --> 00:34:02,571
Basically the only people really
holding anything back are the courts

792
00:34:02,571 --> 00:34:05,211
and usually like individual justices

793
00:34:05,811 --> 00:34:09,321
Who say, there's a bit where Stephen
Miller, his immigrations are,

794
00:34:09,351 --> 00:34:11,481
wants to re repeal Haas Corpus.

795
00:34:11,601 --> 00:34:14,301
He wants to just deport people who,
without giving them any kind of hearing,

796
00:34:14,661 --> 00:34:19,521
and that gets held up by a judge and
so they go to war against the judge.

797
00:34:19,731 --> 00:34:22,761
that kind of stuff happens over
and over again and, it just

798
00:34:22,761 --> 00:34:25,131
shows you how fragile it is.

799
00:34:26,091 --> 00:34:28,041
and then the other thing that
comes out very strongly from it

800
00:34:28,041 --> 00:34:32,301
is the way that Biden on his way
out used the presidential pardon?

801
00:34:32,301 --> 00:34:36,471
Power to preemptively pardon his son
who'd been involved in a load of felony

802
00:34:37,071 --> 00:34:41,481
convictions, actually, but accusations
too, and various members of his family.

803
00:34:41,841 --> 00:34:44,691
So Trump having seen that, it
seems to be now the feeling.

804
00:34:45,231 --> 00:34:47,631
let lads, let's all get
absolutely involved.

805
00:34:47,631 --> 00:34:50,331
And then there's a quote in it about,
I'm gonna pardon everybody within

806
00:34:50,721 --> 00:34:55,371
25 feet of the Oval Office on my
last day, which is totally within

807
00:34:55,371 --> 00:34:57,261
the President's power to do, just to

808
00:34:57,261 --> 00:34:58,251
preemptively pardon?

809
00:34:58,791 --> 00:35:02,061
Just say that you cannot prosecute
anybody for anything that they

810
00:35:02,061 --> 00:35:05,331
did during this term, period.

811
00:35:05,331 --> 00:35:07,971
So a time period rather than
doing it as part of their job.

812
00:35:08,361 --> 00:35:10,551
Yeah, just any, you could say anything
that you can't prosecute anyone for

813
00:35:10,551 --> 00:35:11,901
anyone they did in this timeframe.

814
00:35:11,901 --> 00:35:12,051
Right.

815
00:35:12,291 --> 00:35:15,951
And he's already thanks to a Supreme
Court decision, got very wide

816
00:35:15,951 --> 00:35:18,111
presidential immunity powers for himself.

817
00:35:18,261 --> 00:35:22,101
You can't retrospectively go back
and say, we think that this deal was

818
00:35:22,101 --> 00:35:23,751
dodgy and actually amounted to fraud.

819
00:35:24,441 --> 00:35:25,371
presumably as president,

820
00:35:25,371 --> 00:35:27,621
presumably being told that
you're going to be pardoned.

821
00:35:28,439 --> 00:35:32,549
Whatever you do is not automatically
conducive to good behaviour.

822
00:35:33,824 --> 00:35:34,044
Yes.

823
00:35:34,484 --> 00:35:34,604
I

824
00:35:36,479 --> 00:35:38,849
It doesn't have a chilling effect,
I think is what you're saying.

825
00:35:38,994 --> 00:35:39,284
Yeah.

826
00:35:39,289 --> 00:35:39,719
Yeah.

827
00:35:39,959 --> 00:35:42,029
Imagine if you said that to
a sort of 7-year-old, right?

828
00:35:42,029 --> 00:35:43,919
Anything you do this week on
holiday, at the end of it, I'm

829
00:35:43,919 --> 00:35:48,209
gonna completely forgive you bear,
like paint all over the walls.

830
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:49,619
Just, it would be a bad plan.

831
00:35:49,689 --> 00:35:49,859
you should

832
00:35:49,979 --> 00:35:51,479
be describing modern parent together.

833
00:35:52,949 --> 00:35:52,959
Yeah.

834
00:35:52,959 --> 00:35:52,979
So true.

835
00:35:53,309 --> 00:35:56,849
But Helen, how much of this student
is changing the system permanently,

836
00:35:56,849 --> 00:36:00,809
irreversibly, and how much have we
just gotta get through and get rid

837
00:36:00,809 --> 00:36:03,029
of him and, things will improve.

838
00:36:03,479 --> 00:36:08,069
I, their thesis, which I tend to sign
on, was that most people, including

839
00:36:08,069 --> 00:36:11,309
people in Europe and the wider world,
treated the first term as an aberration.

840
00:36:11,309 --> 00:36:12,269
This was a, fluke.

841
00:36:12,569 --> 00:36:16,589
America's just having a bit of a, rum,
springer and dallying with having an

842
00:36:16,589 --> 00:36:21,419
authoritarian, but no, the second term
and the bigger win, they mean it, right?

843
00:36:22,139 --> 00:36:25,019
and they talk about that meeting with
Zelensky in the Oval Office as being

844
00:36:25,019 --> 00:36:28,769
the moment that European leaders
went, oh, it's, like nato as we

845
00:36:28,769 --> 00:36:34,199
know it is over the idea of America
interfering in, outside of its sphere,

846
00:36:34,199 --> 00:36:35,729
of influence in the western hemisphere

847
00:36:35,759 --> 00:36:38,909
interfering, contributing
his expertise and wisdom.

848
00:36:38,909 --> 00:36:39,209
Thank you very

849
00:36:39,209 --> 00:36:39,299
much.

850
00:36:39,299 --> 00:36:40,619
It doesn't work the other
way around, does it?

851
00:36:40,679 --> 00:36:45,644
So Trump announces that really, he does
not want, ed Miller Anders Chancellor.

852
00:36:45,884 --> 00:36:46,204
I know.

853
00:36:47,219 --> 00:36:49,919
so the foreign policy comes our way.

854
00:36:50,009 --> 00:36:50,159
Yeah.

855
00:36:50,159 --> 00:36:52,559
It's just, we, no longer
have any say at all.

856
00:36:52,859 --> 00:36:55,139
The only thing about it that goes,
gives me hope, and this is the

857
00:36:55,139 --> 00:36:58,559
bleakest kind of hope imaginable,
is the book ends with the, all the

858
00:36:58,559 --> 00:37:01,019
decisions about the Iran strike.

859
00:37:01,529 --> 00:37:04,649
And it makes, I think, probably due
down to their sourcing abundantly

860
00:37:04,649 --> 00:37:07,649
clear that no one really, maybe a bit.

861
00:37:07,649 --> 00:37:10,289
Marco Rubio, secretary of
State, no one really thinks

862
00:37:10,289 --> 00:37:12,239
that's a crack of bang up idea.

863
00:37:12,823 --> 00:37:14,413
JD Vance is very worried about it.

864
00:37:14,413 --> 00:37:16,663
Tucker Carlson comes into
intercede with him about it.

865
00:37:16,663 --> 00:37:18,223
Susie Wildes doesn't seem thrilled.

866
00:37:18,583 --> 00:37:22,513
General Dan Raisin, Cain doesn't seem,
but no one can say anything anymore

867
00:37:22,753 --> 00:37:25,453
and no Republican in Congress, which
doesn't get asked to vote on it.

868
00:37:25,453 --> 00:37:25,723
No.

869
00:37:25,813 --> 00:37:26,713
They don't get a say.

870
00:37:26,953 --> 00:37:28,303
the judiciary doesn't get a say.

871
00:37:28,483 --> 00:37:31,213
There's no one left to reign him in.

872
00:37:31,483 --> 00:37:32,893
And this kind of comes
back all the way, full

873
00:37:32,893 --> 00:37:33,253
circle.

874
00:37:33,283 --> 00:37:35,623
You were saying, it was a hopeful
point coming up at some point.

875
00:37:35,863 --> 00:37:39,883
then the actually, the imperial ness
of the presidency creates the Seeds of

876
00:37:39,883 --> 00:37:41,593
its own unpopularity and destruction.

877
00:37:41,593 --> 00:37:44,143
And which it comes back not to come
back to T side are very similar.

878
00:37:45,193 --> 00:37:47,953
I wasn't seeing any,
giving any echoes at all.

879
00:37:47,953 --> 00:37:48,043
But

880
00:37:48,733 --> 00:37:52,123
the idea that if you're on, if you
don't have this level of scrutiny Yeah.

881
00:37:52,153 --> 00:37:54,793
What you don't get is any
pushback on your bad ideas.

882
00:37:55,063 --> 00:37:57,073
And therefore they get through
and at some point maybe you do

883
00:37:57,073 --> 00:37:58,333
meet the consequences of them.

884
00:37:58,333 --> 00:37:58,393
You,

885
00:37:58,871 --> 00:38:02,205
mentioned power, and the quote
I liked was this quote that

886
00:38:02,205 --> 00:38:04,125
Trump believes about himself.

887
00:38:04,125 --> 00:38:08,355
That he has more power than Mao Stalin.

888
00:38:08,625 --> 00:38:14,734
Roosevelt, Augustus, he said in,
his original quote, this came from a

889
00:38:14,734 --> 00:38:16,864
historian, but it wasn't historian.

890
00:38:16,864 --> 00:38:17,254
Was it,

891
00:38:17,314 --> 00:38:22,264
it was Gary Player, the golfers caddy
who printed out a list of the fact

892
00:38:22,264 --> 00:38:25,324
that Donald Trump was one of the top
10 historical figures along with Hitler

893
00:38:25,324 --> 00:38:29,614
and Mao, and handed it over to him and
he went, yeah, those are the big dogs.

894
00:38:29,674 --> 00:38:30,364
And that's me.

895
00:38:30,364 --> 00:38:30,784
I'm up there.

896
00:38:30,964 --> 00:38:32,614
It's only the second
best quote in the book.

897
00:38:32,614 --> 00:38:36,544
The best one is, I wrote this down
'cause it moved me so much when Elon

898
00:38:36,544 --> 00:38:40,324
Musk flanked out of the administration
after being a special government employee

899
00:38:40,774 --> 00:38:45,424
And did a since deleted tweet saying the
reason they haven't released the Epstein

900
00:38:45,424 --> 00:38:47,464
files is 'cause Donald Trump is in them.

901
00:38:48,454 --> 00:38:52,954
Donald apparently sat in the get your
hanky ready, sat in the Oval Office

902
00:38:53,584 --> 00:38:58,324
with a dejected pensive look and said
they always leave, they always do this.

903
00:38:58,564 --> 00:39:00,274
This is why I can't have friends.

904
00:39:02,694 --> 00:39:04,284
If you have tears to, shed

905
00:39:04,284 --> 00:39:05,184
cry them now.

906
00:39:05,603 --> 00:39:08,513
that's an example as well, they
use as a direct quote, which they

907
00:39:08,513 --> 00:39:11,993
say they only do if they've heard
it from somebody who was there.

908
00:39:12,083 --> 00:39:12,383
Right.

909
00:39:12,563 --> 00:39:15,263
And this is one of the extraordinary
things about this book is it has direct

910
00:39:15,263 --> 00:39:19,943
quotes from discussions in the situation
room, supposedly the most secure room.

911
00:39:19,943 --> 00:39:23,393
You just don't have that level of
insight from any previous administration.

912
00:39:23,903 --> 00:39:27,803
And a lot of the book is the
subplot is the race for who

913
00:39:27,803 --> 00:39:29,153
gets the nomination next time.

914
00:39:29,603 --> 00:39:32,723
And, that has been fascinating
to me to see at what point does

915
00:39:32,723 --> 00:39:35,483
Donald Trump graciously move
on for the next generation?

916
00:39:35,843 --> 00:39:38,003
Feels a touch out of character.

917
00:39:38,783 --> 00:39:41,993
And so what he actually enjoys is once
again, running it like the Apprentice.

918
00:39:41,993 --> 00:39:45,863
And, there's a line when he says
about all the gold decorations that

919
00:39:45,863 --> 00:39:46,943
they've had in the White House.

920
00:39:47,273 --> 00:39:48,923
someone says, will the
next president keep them?

921
00:39:48,923 --> 00:39:50,753
And he says, Cubans love Gold.

922
00:39:51,083 --> 00:39:54,053
A reference to Marco Rubio's
a Cuba background rather

923
00:39:54,053 --> 00:39:55,583
than his alleged successor.

924
00:39:55,583 --> 00:39:57,023
JD Vance, the vice president.

925
00:39:57,353 --> 00:40:01,073
So he's really enjoying, so we can
take a small moment of consolation

926
00:40:01,073 --> 00:40:05,033
to the fact that he's torturing JD
Vance and Marco Rubio by kind of

927
00:40:05,033 --> 00:40:06,653
ultimately favouring each one of them.

928
00:40:07,013 --> 00:40:12,383
I like your idea that, who could the
source be in this situation room given

929
00:40:12,383 --> 00:40:14,933
he moved the situation room to Mar Largo.

930
00:40:15,743 --> 00:40:20,753
and the, there's a wonderful photo of
a man peering round the black thing,

931
00:40:20,933 --> 00:40:26,783
looking in, watching them, presumably
discussing, the invasion of Iran or the

932
00:40:26,783 --> 00:40:28,523
non invasion or the bombing of Iran.

933
00:40:28,733 --> 00:40:31,253
And he looks like he
was one of the waiters.

934
00:40:31,433 --> 00:40:31,763
Yes.

935
00:40:31,763 --> 00:40:32,903
In the next door room.

936
00:40:33,083 --> 00:40:36,443
I presumably there are a lot
of people who've leaked stuff.

937
00:40:36,623 --> 00:40:37,523
they made a Yeah, you're right.

938
00:40:37,523 --> 00:40:40,133
They made a makeshift, I think
they call it a skiff in, which is

939
00:40:40,133 --> 00:40:41,663
the secure communications thing.

940
00:40:41,693 --> 00:40:44,873
But it doesn't, look all that it
is in the corner of a ballroom.

941
00:40:44,873 --> 00:40:45,953
It doesn't look all that secure.

942
00:40:46,703 --> 00:40:48,773
they also had people
dialling in on speaker phone.

943
00:40:48,833 --> 00:40:51,263
And this is a government where
many of the people involved

944
00:40:51,383 --> 00:40:55,193
either were podcasters, want to be
podcasters, have podcasted Yeah.

945
00:40:55,253 --> 00:40:59,483
But didn't inhale, so there are a lot of
people who are trying very much with one

946
00:40:59,483 --> 00:41:03,563
eye on the, not even the memoirs, but the
future podcasts in this administration.

947
00:41:03,773 --> 00:41:06,143
And why is this book so big?

948
00:41:06,143 --> 00:41:09,863
Why has it worked when lots of
people have written Trump books?

949
00:41:10,163 --> 00:41:13,313
I think because the level of detail
and insight and reporting they've got

950
00:41:13,313 --> 00:41:17,063
is so much greater than anyone else's,
you just be, are being taken inside.

951
00:41:17,453 --> 00:41:22,253
And no one in the administration seriously
disputing anything that's been reported.

952
00:41:22,493 --> 00:41:26,033
This isn't like a, let's be rude, a
sort of Michael Wolf where he's written

953
00:41:26,033 --> 00:41:29,123
down some like thirdhand things that
Steve Bannon told him about stuff.

954
00:41:29,128 --> 00:41:29,168
Ooh,

955
00:41:30,563 --> 00:41:30,713
no.

956
00:41:30,713 --> 00:41:32,063
But those books sold incredibly well.

957
00:41:32,063 --> 00:41:32,123
Yeah.

958
00:41:32,153 --> 00:41:34,403
But they were a little, shall
we say, looser in the sourcing.

959
00:41:34,823 --> 00:41:34,853
Okay.

960
00:41:34,853 --> 00:41:37,823
Then these are two New York Times
reporters who at the end of the

961
00:41:37,823 --> 00:41:41,993
process had an on the record
interview with Trump to, to kind put

962
00:41:41,993 --> 00:41:43,523
all the allegations right to him.

963
00:41:43,943 --> 00:41:46,043
But some of this, here's
the other bit that got me.

964
00:41:46,193 --> 00:41:50,723
He's got a, this woman, 34-year-old woman
called Natalie Harp, whose job is to

965
00:41:50,723 --> 00:41:52,403
print him things and bring them to him.

966
00:41:52,763 --> 00:41:56,423
And she's once sent him a note that
said, you are all that matters to me.

967
00:41:57,627 --> 00:42:01,137
And Susie, the chief of Star finds it
and is just like, are we in high school?

968
00:42:01,272 --> 00:42:02,072
what fuck's happening?

969
00:42:02,612 --> 00:42:03,417
What's just happening?

970
00:42:03,417 --> 00:42:07,077
She's sitting there doing signing
her name from Natalie Trump or

971
00:42:07,077 --> 00:42:07,917
that kind of stuff he's doing.

972
00:42:07,917 --> 00:42:10,257
When you 13, very fascinating business.

973
00:42:10,257 --> 00:42:10,377
Did

974
00:42:10,377 --> 00:42:13,287
Trump, dispute any of this
when it was put to him?

975
00:42:13,287 --> 00:42:13,947
Or do you think Yeah.

976
00:42:13,947 --> 00:42:14,817
Sounds good to me.

977
00:42:15,057 --> 00:42:17,667
I think 'cause it's all about
how amazing he thinks it is.

978
00:42:17,667 --> 00:42:20,457
The bit that he took from
that is I do, I am amazing.

979
00:42:20,457 --> 00:42:20,637
Yeah.

980
00:42:20,877 --> 00:42:22,347
Rather than, this makes me
seem like a, I am bigger

981
00:42:22,347 --> 00:42:22,797
than Hitler.

982
00:42:24,027 --> 00:42:26,127
Rather than, this makes me
seem like a megalomaniac.

983
00:42:26,127 --> 00:42:26,277
Yeah.

984
00:42:26,667 --> 00:42:27,987
His generals abandoned him too.

985
00:42:28,557 --> 00:42:28,947
Oh,

986
00:42:30,217 --> 00:42:32,017
it's generating a lot of heat, isn't it?

987
00:42:32,017 --> 00:42:32,287
It is.

988
00:42:32,287 --> 00:42:33,277
Affect the midterms.

989
00:42:33,282 --> 00:42:33,402
It's,

990
00:42:33,689 --> 00:42:36,419
the thing that will affect the
midterms is the fact that he can't

991
00:42:36,419 --> 00:42:40,049
be reliably kept on the subject of
affordability and the cost of living.

992
00:42:40,829 --> 00:42:43,229
Though Iran more obviously just
sucked up a lot of time and

993
00:42:43,229 --> 00:42:45,089
attention and put up gas prices.

994
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:47,609
But more than that, he just seems
to, the only thing he really

995
00:42:47,609 --> 00:42:49,499
cares about now is building work.

996
00:42:50,255 --> 00:42:52,709
It's really, he's become
late era Kevin McLeod.

997
00:42:52,739 --> 00:42:55,259
He's probably got very strong
thoughts about when you don't use

998
00:42:55,259 --> 00:42:58,199
a project manager, how that can
actually really rack up costs.

999
00:42:58,589 --> 00:42:58,829
Yeah.

1000
00:42:58,829 --> 00:43:01,829
He's obsessed with the, reflecting
pool, which obviously they

1001
00:43:01,829 --> 00:43:03,359
repainted and it's all peeling off.

1002
00:43:03,419 --> 00:43:03,479
Yeah.

1003
00:43:03,479 --> 00:43:06,299
He's got guardsmen around it now,
guarding the reflecting pool.

1004
00:43:06,419 --> 00:43:08,249
It's such a fantastic metaphor though.

1005
00:43:08,819 --> 00:43:13,169
I always feel you get to a point in your
career where the metaphors take over.

1006
00:43:13,379 --> 00:43:13,589
Yeah.

1007
00:43:13,619 --> 00:43:18,566
And a stinky swamp in the
middle of, democracy's home.

1008
00:43:18,746 --> 00:43:18,896
Yeah.

1009
00:43:18,956 --> 00:43:21,956
Seems to be difficult to escape from.

1010
00:43:22,246 --> 00:43:25,126
and we should say, there is a, an
extremely good video of Priva eyes.

1011
00:43:25,186 --> 00:43:29,866
Own Donald Trump, Lewis McLeod doing
a video live from the reflecting pool.

1012
00:43:29,926 --> 00:43:31,276
So if you wanna see that, go to Instagram.

1013
00:43:31,874 --> 00:43:35,084
he demolished the bipartisan commission
that was supposed to be celebrating

1014
00:43:35,084 --> 00:43:38,384
the 250th anniversary, replaced
it with this very partisan one.

1015
00:43:38,474 --> 00:43:38,624
Right.

1016
00:43:38,924 --> 00:43:40,694
And one of the things they've
had been having is this sort

1017
00:43:40,694 --> 00:43:42,554
of earth sat world fair.

1018
00:43:43,004 --> 00:43:46,124
Which the, crowds do not look
impressive so far, but they've

1019
00:43:46,124 --> 00:43:47,744
got a, you'll enjoy this.

1020
00:43:47,804 --> 00:43:51,974
They've got a mock up of the, RC to Trump,
this planned triumphal arch that he wants.

1021
00:43:51,974 --> 00:43:55,154
And it's like the
Stonehenge in spinal tap.

1022
00:43:56,774 --> 00:43:59,654
It's like they put the order in
for the wrong size and there's

1023
00:43:59,654 --> 00:44:03,314
something that's just incredibly funny
about a very small triumphal arch.

1024
00:44:03,344 --> 00:44:05,084
Like it's, yeah.

1025
00:44:05,084 --> 00:44:06,104
You can't get through,

1026
00:44:07,214 --> 00:44:09,104
just get stuck in the Trump arch

1027
00:44:09,104 --> 00:44:10,379
back like getting a dear.

1028
00:44:10,784 --> 00:44:11,144
Okay.

1029
00:44:11,294 --> 00:44:13,754
that's, it's ending on
a funny note at least.

1030
00:44:13,784 --> 00:44:14,174
Yeah.

1031
00:44:14,474 --> 00:44:16,754
I'm not sure whether Trump's
presidency will, but yes.

1032
00:44:16,754 --> 00:44:17,234
There we go.

1033
00:44:17,635 --> 00:44:19,310
That's it for this episode of page 94.

1034
00:44:19,375 --> 00:44:22,405
We'll be back again in a fortnight,
but until then, thanks to

1035
00:44:22,435 --> 00:44:23,965
Ian, to Helen, and to Richard.

1036
00:44:24,175 --> 00:44:26,934
Thanks to you for watching
or listening to this.

1037
00:44:27,145 --> 00:44:29,725
If you would like to get a
copy of Private Eye, the latest

1038
00:44:29,725 --> 00:44:30,805
one is still on newsstands.

1039
00:44:30,805 --> 00:44:34,105
There is a very funny Andy Burnham
joke on the front cover, and there

1040
00:44:34,135 --> 00:44:35,875
are many more very good jokes inside.

1041
00:44:36,265 --> 00:44:38,575
along with brilliant
reporting of all varieties.

1042
00:44:38,945 --> 00:44:42,065
You can subscribe@privatehyphen.co.uk.

1043
00:44:42,515 --> 00:44:43,535
We'll be back in two weeks.

1044
00:44:43,565 --> 00:44:44,225
We'll see you then.

1045
00:44:44,225 --> 00:44:46,655
And thanks to Matt Hill of
Rethink Audio for producing.

1046
00:44:46,835 --> 00:44:47,115
Bye for now.