Welcome Back And Guest Introduction

Gerald 0:00

Hello and welcome once again to Equital Conversations. I'm Gerald Ashley, and as ever, I'm joined by my good friend and colleague George Cooper. And on this occasion we have a guest, someone we've had on before, Helen Thomas from the political and economic consulting firm Blonde Money. Helen, welcome.

Helen 0:23

Hello, it is a great pleasure to be back with you both.

Gerald 0:26

Great to have you back, Helen. Thank you. Well, I think we might just dive straight into politics. We obviously want to talk about financial markets and all that's going on around them, but maybe this wouldn't say is parochial, but a little bit more local to talk about uh what's going on with the UK government. Obviously, we've had a change with Prime Minister during the summer. Some people think that this is going to lead to a new direction. Others think it's more a sort of marketing gloss to what was already there. We catch you, Helen, just before you go off to the Labour Party conference uh later today, I believe. I I wouldn't and that's clearly work and not a holiday.

Helen 1:07

Bit harsh on bit harsh on Liverpool. Lovely place to visit.

Gerald 1:12

Well, anyhow, what's your take on the sort of political situation?

New Leadership Versus Fiscal Reality

Speaker 1 1:19

Plus, we should we should fold into that. What are we, four weeks from a budget?

Speaker 1:24

Yeah, quite a critical juncture and interesting in a sense that the prevailing mood is sort of shrug your shoulders, it's all the same thing. What does why does it matter? It's actually very significant because this is a new administration. This is a new Prime Minister and a new Chancellor. Now they've been keen to emphasize the word continuity, that's what Chancellor Healy used. I can't get over, by the way, saying Chancellor Healy. Uh, you guys, I suspect, remember the first uh Chancellor Healy and what happened on his watch. But in any case, it is new, but what is going to be new about it? And um, in terms of this conference, it appears that it's going to be a message of hope and cheerful TikTok videos, um, which in and of itself we should not decry because uh Lord knows things are getting quite miserable in the UK on many levels. But then when we talk about that budget in in in four weeks to come, for all that the hope and rhetoric may sound positive to the party faithful, what is it going to be backed up with in terms of policy? And what's interesting is we are getting right now, we're getting this clash between big ideas and the uh Burnamism, Manchesterism, which says some pretty radical things versus fiscal reality, which as we all know is extremely constrained. And by the way, you talked about you know, we're talking about the UK today, it's across all Western governments, and it's that struggle is being reflected in politics across all of them as well. We could spend time talking about Merz in Germany and his travails, Le Pen coming up in France, etc. etc. So that's how I how I set the scene is something's going to have to give between grand ideas and uh the fiscal reality.

Twin Credit Risks Hit Markets

George 3:16

Yeah, I think that's interesting to point that out, Helen, because you know, when I look at this from a markets perspective, it looks to me like that we are at risk of being in a twin credit crisis. As in, we we've got a credit crisis brewing in the corporate bond market around the funding of AI, with uh particularly Oracle now trading basically like a junk bond. And at the same time, we've got a global sovereign debt crisis. We've got interest rates rising everywhere, even you know, even after the Fed put up interest rates uh a few weeks ago, still longer term rates are higher, which I think suggests that the markets are not just concerned about inflation, they're actually concerned about sovereign credit quality. Doesn't do these governments have enough money to pay their their way? And when we look at Andy Burnham, he seems to have pretty big ambitions on the spending side. And it's difficult to see how they how they fit with the the fiscal reality.

Speaker 4:17

Well, the if I just interject for a second there, Rachel Reeves last year in the budget punted out into the longer end of the parliament of some very difficult fiscal restraint, um, spending coming in. And everyone at the time said, well, that would be around the end of the parliament when there might be an election. And it you'd be hard pressed to expect any government, let alone a Labour government, to be cutting spending back into an election. But I think that uh I was actually quite surprised at the time the market took that so well because um I mean it's it's sort of a fiscal fiction to borrow the expression that the uh I think the Institute of Fiscal Studies have used about this sort of thing. But it at some stage, you know, time is marching on, so you can't just defer them and kick the can. It is actually going to have to uh become a reality. And this is what I mean about a critical juncture, because the the market will will not give this new government much time. It might be a new government, but it's not because we're now into what this will be the third budget of you know a five-year term. We're more than halfway through this Labour government after that big election victory. And a market has to judge on what has happened, not on hopes, dreams, aspirations, positive mood. It's about it's about the numbers and is it is it a plan? And the thing is, I one thing that perturbed me about the some of what we are expecting to see from this Labour conference, where it it's not just about, okay, look, it's good, as I say, to have a more positive message, but the advisors to Burnham are saying, look, some economists are being too pessimistic. And now look, I know economics is a dismal science, that's what it's known as. And a lot of, if you get in, a lot of people might be switching off this recording right now, thinking, oh no, don't talk to me again about flipping aggregate demand and supply curves, how dull. But uh bear with me, because it it's still a science, there's still a reality. If if you do X, then Y happens. I think there's a real concern here that Andy Burden thinks that by just being more positive, he's going to rewrite the laws of economics. It's not the laws of physics, it is slightly different, but there are some basic facts. And if, for example, you increase national insurance on employers, then you're taxing jobs, and that will tend to lead to less jobs. And that is what we have seen from this Labour government. That's not economists being grumpy. That is not it's it's a it's a theory and it's a fact, it's something that's happened. So they're gonna get themselves the the problem then is the reaction function. George, you've you've hit on it there. This is a dynamic ratchet effect whereby we talk the same issues, but the the buffer for resilience is shrinking, and the that means a shock of any description um is just going to sort of derail everything. And I'm not saying that to be grumpy, I think you know you guys are known me a long time. I'm actually quite a cheerful person. But you you can't just change the laws of economics on uh vibes alone,

Housing Schemes And Market Side Effects

Speaker 7:12

can you?

George 7:12

I'm quite struck by his latest move, which I th I think he just announced yesterday, which is the new an another variant on the help to buy scheme for um I guess it's for first-time buyers, where he's saying that he's he's going to engineer a situation where you can buy a house with just a two and a half percent deposit. And it strikes me that he's he's trying to stamp on the brake and the accelerator at the same time with the housing market. You know, he's basically government policy through their um what they've done with non-doms and mansion taxes, uh have basically put them put the housing market into a tailspin. It's it's falling rapidly. And I think he's probably now looking at the economic consequences of that. Less tax receipts, less economic activity. I mean, we we if we've got a falling housing market in the UK, which is an economy that normally saves a lot of its wealth in the housing market, just as the uh the baby boomers are coming into retirement, you've got a pretty big economic shock uh if that housing bear market takes root for several years. So I think they're they're now starting to panic and put uh and invent these other schemes to to try and get you know poor kids to prop up the market on 40 times leverage.

Speaker 1 8:30

It's there's a a a wider philosophy going on here, which you know it depends on one's politics. But my my view is that if anything, Burnham is to the left of Starmer, and that this activity uh in a way is they're they're trying to impose a form of equality in the housing market. Help people at what they're thinking is help people at the bottom and hit guys at the top, and really revealing they don't understand how how markets work. And uh to my mind, this is bound to fail. I mean, what will be interesting, I think we this will be published just after uh the markets open on Monday. Um is I think the only people who really benefit from this prop uh property thing are property developers. It's gonna be for new builds. We're recording this on the Sunday, so we can't trade now. But I predict that um property uh developers' shares will do rather well on Monday morning. But but it doesn't actually solve anything else, but it makes a good TikTok.

The Budget Is The Real Test

Speaker 1 9:34

Um so, Helen, what I what I want to get to is really the key date is gonna be the budget, isn't it? It's the 28th of October or whatever.

Speaker 9:42

Well, it is, but I don't think this government wants you to think it is, because what we keep hearing is wait for Andy's 10-year plan. Andy's going to give us his 10-year plan in November. That's much more important. Now it's interesting in itself that that is what is being briefed out from the operation. Um, that says to you, nervousness, obviously, about how the budget will be received. So let's try and downplay it. An understandable kind of focus on trying to stop the budget itself, slowing activity, because that has clearly happened over the last couple of years. Which can I just say that is a lot of that is to do with uh obsession with the OBR who need their 10-week forecast period and where there is an iterative process where you wait for the OBR to tell you what the number is in the spreadsheet and then you try and fill it in with various policies, which, by the way, isn't how a budget has to be run, it is simply how uh Rachel Reeves chose to interpret the Liz Truss episode, which was please the OBR means please the markets means keep your job. Although ironically, she hasn't kept her job. But anyway, that's that's sort of but that but they so they want to downplay it for very understandable reasons. Um, but I think it's very interesting that this focus on a 10-year plan. A 10-year plan for a man who himself has no mandate from the country and where the current five-year parliament has proven to be so unpalatable to his own voters in his own party that they had to remove the Prime Minister that won that massive majority. Um, to me, that clearly signals uh he will want to gain a mandate. Burnham will want to go to the people and get a mandate, and there's we may well go into this constant swirling around about whether there'll be an early election. And it looks like that game plan is get over the hurdle of the budget by doing some tweaks to make the numbers add up, even though, as you've just pointed out, George, you could end up looking, well, you will end up looking like you're hitting both break and accelerator. And it's quite possible all the little things they do don't add up to any kind of coherent narrative. Sorry, they won't add up to a coherent economic model as such, uh, because as you've just said, uh Gerald, it seems to belie a lack of understanding of markets. They will add up to a story that he wants to tell of, hey, we're on your side, all these little things that annoy you, we'll make it a bit better, give us 10 years and we'll make it brilliant for you. But in, you know, for now, all we can do is cap bus fares, help out some northerner, first-time buyers, signal will give power back on devolution, all these sort of little bits and pieces. But the thing is, you know, markets and economics carry on. They don't wait for politicians to make pronouncements and 10-year plans. I mean, unless, of course, you are in what was it, Stalinist Russia and their five-year plans, uh, then it did have quite an impact. But it it it carries on regardless. And um, that's the bigger thing that George is talking about, the twin crises of twin credit crunches.

Speaker 1 12:42

Yes, I think I think George's point is well made. Um, one thing that you touched on, Helen, which is gonna come up, is Rachel Reeves already parked everything down the end of the period, and that that is getting ever closer month by month. Is this grand ten-year plan going to try and kick to even further, longer grass further away? And um, I would have thought uh that that would not go down well with with financial markets at all. When we talk about financial markets, what are we really talking about here? The government guilt yield, basically, their cost of being able to roll over their debt?

George 13:22

Yeah, I mean, I th I think as far as the the bond markets go, the there's one thing that the government has got in its favour, and that is that pretty much every major Western government is in fiscal crisis at the same time. So our bond yields are rising, but so is the treasury market, the JGB market, the French oats, German bunds. So uh there's a sort of generalized crisis, and and that's that's going to be a problem because, as I said earlier, if we've got a generalized fiscal crisis for governments and we have a private sector debt bubble, traditionally what's happened in the past is when the private sector debt bubbles burst, the government steps in with a massive stimulus plan, borrows a lot of money, and spends it. But this time round, um the um the the bank itself, if you like, the government

Higher Inflation Changes The Rules

George 14:12

is looking like it's in in trouble as well. So it it's hard to see how how governments can make ends meet on on this.

Speaker 1 14:20

Yeah, I mean people talk about oh, we shall have to go to the IMF. And I think both you and I, George, have pointed out in the past, well, where are the IMF going to get their money from?

Speaker 14:31

Exactly.

Speaker 1 14:32

So maybe, you know, are we getting uh without catastrophizing things, are we getting to a really big, big break in the economic structure since 1945, and things are just gonna get thrown up in the air and fall in a whole new pattern?

George 14:50

I think it it does feel to me like, you know, we we've a lot of people in the markets have been talking about the uns unsustainable path of government debt for years, and and it's been true for years. But it's one of those situations where you need it to be both true uh and for the markets to start worrying about it. So a lot of it is the mood of the markets, and it does feel like the mood of the markets has changed now. You know, that okay, it could it could fade away, but if the mood continues deteriorating in the in the way it's done for the last few weeks and months, then yeah, we we we've come to perhaps an end game for a regime that we've been running more or less since you know the the post-Thatcher Reagan era, I would say.

Speaker 15:38

Can I jump in? Um two parts. One is short-term optimism, because actually I think the government will jump through the relevant hurdles regarding the markets with this budget, n notwithstanding some volatility. But uh it's actually it's actually more the the the voters and the party, the Labour Party, that will cause headaches for Burnham and Healy rather than markets, I think, because they they are aware, they are at least aware, they may not know how to deal with it, but they're very aware of fiscal constraints and OBR and just, you know, get through this hurdle, which says to me they'll sort of do what needs to be done on the market side, but that will ultimately really disappoint a vast swathe of voters to the well, I mean all varieties, I was gonna say to the left, but actually all voters who then say, Well, what was the point of changing the leader? What's he doing differently? I want this, I don't see any change in this, my particular area, etc. So so the immediate hurdle I think they will clear, but it will then sow a path to huge discontent within their own party and their own voters in like the nine months after that, which is where I then think we then get to an early election, and we'll come back to that. Because I also now I also want to talk about that paradigm shift, if I may, just say something struck me this week. I went to a London macro policy forum, which was an excellent event, lots of central bankers, and John Williams was there from the New York Fed, and he was questioned, of course, about the rate hike in the US. And um Kevin Walsh had said that when the, you know, when they raised rates, he talked about removing a dash of monetary accommodation. Removing a dash of accommodation, good way of selling it, makes it sound like, oh, we're not slamming the brakes on too hard, you know, we're not doing very much, nothing to see here. But John Williams referred to financial conditions and the financial conditions index and how financial conditions look extremely easy, right, because of uh the rise in equity markets and tightening credit spreads and a slightly schizophrenic situation where we're all talking about the worrying rising government bond yields and some other bond yields, but the actual financial conditions way of looking at the world all seems to look quite rosy, you know, on the under the it's sort of like the the duck swimming along. It looks great and graceful, but underneath there's all sorts going on. But John Williams said, what if the financial conditions and I'm paraphrasing, the financial conditions look extremely easy, but it's driven by, say, two or three massive companies who have got huge oligopolistic powers, who are then basically building huge data centers, is what he was driving at, these hyperscalers, and they can market up with their prices. So you might actually get a lot of inflation. So actually, what I think he was hinting at there is it's not just about financial conditions, it's about actual real-world demand and supply and inflation situations. You could have super easy financial conditions, but inflation could be double digits, and the central bank would need to respond. Now, why forgive me, that was a long blurb, but why is that important? It is a shift from basically 20 odd years of keep everything propped up, keep rates low, hope everything works out all right when there's a crisis. And as George has been referring to there, what if we now are, or indeed I think all of us know we are now in, a different economic structure of structurally higher inflation and higher interest rates. And how does the market swallow that? Sorry, I took that in a different direction.

George 19:07

I think that's just the truth. That's where we are now. And what what needs to happen as a result of that, or the or the the problem of going into that higher inflation, higher interest rates from where we are is we're going in there with a much bigger stock of debt for governments. And a lot of those governments have brought the funding of that debt to the front end. So they they they're rolling that debt over at these higher rates much more quickly. So something has to give. And to my mind, it seems that the markets are still in the old mode of saying we're looking for a monetary policy fix to this. It's not a monetary policy problem, it's a fiscal problem. We need a fiscal fix. We need we we need uh a bout of, dare I say it, austerity. We need to stop spending so much.

Speaker 19:55

Well, for those who don't like the word austerity, look at Greece. Painful world that they very much went through. Actually, painful politically, huge political shifts. But actually the now, investment grade, primary budget surplus, um, and um uh the old parties they're now lecturing Germany. Yeah, now the problem's Germany, and the old party came back, you know, these parties that were the old parties had actually come back again. So Greece is super interesting to watch.

Speaker 1 20:25

Yeah, I think that that makes the wider point here. Uh do the electorate get the government they deserve?

Austerity Politics And Voter Backlash

Speaker 1 20:33

And do, you know, we all it want to have uh a lot of government support in a variety of different ways. And we've had governments that have been very accommodating to that, to the extent of borrowing like nobody's business and just shelling out to everybody. Are we I uh two parts of this A, do we get an event that is a crisis? And B, will that change the electorate's mood and say, look, this is this is too much, you know, enough is enough. I'm gonna paraphrase when I was on a panel with you last week, Helen, when you uh dropped a minor bombshell by suggesting that 2027 could be two general elections, so that we we know the polls are all over, you know, they're they're not always as accurate as one wants to believe. But it does rather look like a hung parliament if we had a an election now, or unless things dramatically change. Now, what is going to be interesting if that does happen, how is the electorate going to feel when that turns out to be, uh dare one say, a bit of a shambles?

Speaker 21:47

Right. So at the moment the polls are telling you none of the above. We're not sure. We don't know who we like, but we don't like these people. Uh that's actually none of the above has been has been a theme for many Years it's the Brewster's millions uh kind of elections, for those of you who remember that nineteen eighties film with Richard Pryor. And it's because of what all of what we're talking about, which is different world, difficult decisions, to govern is to choose, and with huge amounts of debt and a shrinking pie, or at least a pie that's not growing, how do you divide it up? Everyone's unhappy. It's all a world of least worst outcomes. Um, until you take the medicine and take a really bad outcome and then turn it around. So this fracturing of the electorate happening all over uh the West, um, and it makes it difficult for one government to win, which is why we will have we will have a hung parliament of that. Um our analysis actually suggests is quite the case. Hence why we'll then have a second election, because that will be unsustainable, coalitions will be tried, it won't really work, then we'll have this proper debate because actually, under those different coalitions, you might try left bloc first and then try the right bloc, um, it will become clear, none of them are really willing to take some of this austerity medicine that um George has referred to, that as I mentioned in the Greek example is where you actually get to a resolution and reach rock bottom and can return. So all of us as voters are going to get educated now because we're going to have to make decisions, you know. And I'm interested, by the way, the triple lock, the triple lock, I feel has now got a bit of momentum towards being got rid of by everyone on the political spectrum and any age on the political spectrum. So I think it can happen. These changes can happen. It is unaffordable. But you're going to ask me, everyone else asks me, how do we get to the first election? Well, we get to the first everyone's talking about Andy Burnham. We'll call this from a position of strength. You know, I've I've sketched out for you the plan there, which is get through the budget, sell a good hope and dream, things stabilise, and because of that split polling, you don't need much to win a massive majority. If it's split four ways, 25% plus one, you've got a massive majority. Roughly speaking, therefore, if one party gets to 29% points in the polls and the next place is about 21, 22, actually you could win a very big majority. Depends upon how the votes are distributed and why that MRP poll that just came out was interesting, but it's significant because I think Andy Burnham thinks he's a good campaigner. To be fair, he's got the track record to show that. This is a man, a liverpudlian, an Everton fan, no less, who won in Manchester. I mean, that is extraordinary. Everyone should appreciate that. So he is a good campaigner, he does have good skills and he will have a good story to tell, he imagines. So that's sort of the dream plan A. But we've just been talking about why that's going to be very difficult because uh lack of resilience, markets on the move, things getting much more difficult. We've not even touched global events that are keeping inflation high, and particularly energy prices very high, which is really toxic for any government. So, position of weakness, how do you get to an election? Well, when that becomes the least worst outcome for a leader who's trying to marshal their MPs into voting for and agreeing to a coherent platform. It doesn't have to be on a finance bill, although if a finance bill doesn't pass, then a government falls anyway because you have to have be able to pass a finance bill. It could be on something else. But basically, the uh we know it's like the the the madness at the moment is we allegedly there's a majority, but it's like Boris Johnson had exactly the same thing because of course there isn't, because I've just talked about this fractured electorate that there's too many interest groups, and what has happened since that welfare rebellion is that and 49 MPs still still voted against the welfare vote, even though it was guttered at the despatch box, even though it didn't really do anything, they still voted against it, right? That's 49. Now you need about 81 uh of them to rebel, and then the government can't pass something. But the rebels are emboldened by what has happened, and much as Andy Vernon wants to be the man who pleases all people, we've just run through in the beginning of this podcast how the market will impose certain decisions that have to be made, which will inevitably upset more of them. So in the end, he'll have to turn to an election to get a mandate, to get even if it's a small majority, that will work. It is not tenable. We cannot you can't keep on. How can I put this? It's a bit like when everyone said, Oh, they'll never get rid of Keir Starmer. The one part you always have to remember is public opinion. The public do get a say in this. Yes, they voted one way in July 2024, but every day you have to renew the contract as such.

Speaker 1 26:36

Is this the PR spin that Burnham is doing then? That in a way is these TikTok videos that are derided by uh a fair number of people, but nevertheless, is that the opening shots of his um campaign, almost like an American sort of election campaign, that this is the uh a rolling thing, and maybe in the spring or summer of next year

Early Election Logic In A Fractured UK

Speaker 1 27:00

um he's either cornered because of lack of support from his own backbenchers, or for whatever reason he goes for it.

Speaker 27:07

A majority of a hundred and odd is no a majority, it's not really a majority, it's not working, is more of a burden than a small majority of about 20 or 30, because you can't please them all and you can't give them all nice jobs and nice titles, and a smaller working majority is actually in many respects better.

Speaker 1 27:27

Now, George, back back to the markets then. If you're Mr. Market, how how's this gonna go?

George 27:33

If you sort of summarize a lot of what Helen says, you could get to the conclusion that we've almost become ungovernable. And and I find this uh interesting that you you brought in um Boris Johnson's government as well. It seems to me that these big majorities, even when they get the big majorities, they either don't have the the political will or because of the fractures within the parties, don't have the ability to do anything with them. So we've we've had Boris Johnson couldn't take any tough decisions, or didn't take any tough decisions. Uh, it seems like Keir Starmer, he he had this huge majority, uh, and there was really only one or two things he was really passionate about, none of which were really domestic. He so he didn't achieve anything. And they this is why I think the the markets are very jittery here, because if if the economies are in these states of fiscal mess and they're leaderless, rudderless, whatever you want to call it, then we we actually have to go into, we've talked about this before, we have to go into the crisis before we can get to uh a solution. That sort of feels where we're headed.

Speaker 1 28:48

I've I've got a maybe a little historic point to make as we sort of wind up as part of the discussion. Um I don't know if either of you are students of this bit of history, but this we've got to be careful that we don't end up like France in the 1930s, where France um economy got into a serious mess, along with everybody else, because of the worldwide depression. But politically it completely fractured. They had X number of governments. Um I think famously this ran into the start of the war, and um the very day that Churchill uh went to see uh the French Prime Minister, they changed nearly half the cabinet the day before. I mean, uh governments were lasting in weeks. I I'm always noted on this podcast for being pessimistic. So what we want to be, I think, we're saying here, Helen, is perhaps we hope for Greece and not France of the 1930s.

Speaker 29:50

Yeah, and people interesting parallels to today. You talk about that very weak period in France. They uh famously rewrote their constitution, the Fifth Republic, to prevent weak governments, and yet, and yet, France has had seven prime ministers in the last six years, one of whom resigned and had to come back, you know, uh, what was it, two days later. That's their current prime minister. Um, so it's not all just a UK issue, as George has been pointing out. Um, look at Germany. Germany, utterly fascinating, on a precipice there, very difficult constitutionally to change their Chancellor. He's in a real mess, by the way. Merz, Frederick Merz, who's the Chancellor, took three or three attempts to become party leader, a bit like uh, well, exactly like Andy Burnham, uh, and then jettisoned within days of his election, well, victory, it wasn't quite a victory, but they they did come top, jettisoned his entire party's commitment to balance budgets by enabling you know unlimited debt spending, uh unlimited defence spending, sorry. Uncapped, rather. So this is this is going on uh across the board. And it it's well, look, I'm a student of political history myself, uh I'm afraid. Uh we could do a whole podcast on that. But it's quite interesting how systems that were created post-war to provide stability are now cracking. And it's why Greece went first. It's why I say, look at Greece. Greece has has a less mature or a less solidified system, it's got more flexibility. It's easy to start a new party in Greece. Um, it's always had a lot of parties. The electoral system allows for more representation. When a system doesn't allow for that, because it's been constructed to impose rigidity, it when it breaks, it will be more dramatic. It will be the kind of thing where people say, This is inconceivable. How did this happen? Well, it happens when the underlying economic shocks and changes to this economic system you guys are talking about realigns the electorate, changes the politics, and then and then we have to get we have to get the system breaking.

George 31:52

You know, that that's interesting. And it's interesting as well, Gerald, that you brought up the 1930s uh situation as a parallel, because of course, if we look even broader, uh so if we cast the net wider in in what's going on, we also have a lot of geopolitical tensions. We have wars going on. And it is a brutal truth that when democracies start failing, the the leadership of those democracies start to look for foreigners to blame, and foreign conflicts become more frankly attractive to the domestic politics to start discussing them and uh and and amplifying them. And and that's that's something that probably is for an entirely separate podcast.

Speaker 32:39

But it plays into the inflation theme, doesn't it, George?

George 32:42

It absolutely does, because it's it's a way I mean I I've said before on these podcast podcasts, I believe that inflation is now a policy objective. And that's one mechanism to to get that uh into the system.

Speaker 1 32:55

Well, we could rattle on for two or three hours about this because there's there's so so many elements to what's going on, but I think we'll draw it to a close now. But before going, we're going to do our usual trick of um book recommendations. As ever, I shall go first. And I've got a book called One Day in a Very Long War by a historian called uh John Ellis, and he's written a book about Wednesday, the 25th of October, 1944. Now, what's really interesting about this is because history is normally done in timelines, he's done a horizontal slice. So, what was Hitler doing, Stalin doing, uh, where were the American troops in the Pacific, what was the SAS up to in Italy, all this stuff. And um

History Parallels Geopolitics And Book Picks

Speaker 1 33:48

A, it's fascinating, and uh, I mean, it's not just a single day, but he anchors it around that day. But it also maybe reminds us of a lesson that we should we should understand. That when we're at school, we're taught linear history, you know, this king dies, another one arrives, whatever. But when you're in the moment or you're at that point, in fact, you've got a wide array of things pushing into you from all from all sides. And so it makes you, from a decision-making point of view, from my point of view, it makes you change your focus or possibly makes you reevaluate the situation in that it's the width or the broad problems you're facing day by day. Um, and of course, that's often what overwhelms politicians. Um, George, I think you've got two books, have you?

George 34:44

Um well, I was gonna let Helen go next as she's our guest. Okay. Um but Helen, do you want to go next?

Speaker 34:50

Well, look, mine is far, far away from the learned tomes of our two hosts, because I spent all my time thinking about these complicated issues, and I I then kick back and relax, I'm afraid, with Richard Osman. I love Richard Osman's books. And he's now got this, I know, Gerald's both sort of laughing and weeping at the uh cozy crime, I think it's called. Uh, I've just finished We Solve Murders, which I do genuinely laugh out loud uh reading them, uh, but along with the um the Tuesday night murder clubs. But uh but we solve murders has been has been a good that was that was uh more of a galloping romp through cozy crime.

George 35:32

I think I might put that on my audible account and do uh do the uh listen to that one on audio, but so is this Agatha Christie um updated, heaven.

Speaker 35:42

Yes, yes, it's uh it's actually extremely well crafted because it it he tends to certainly We Solve Murders has quite short chapters, and by the end you go, Whoa, I had an awful lot happened there. You know, someone got shot, uh somebody's on a plane to Brazil, someone's here there, and everybody. And and and but he keeps grounds it in like a real British small town mentality. I I don't know. I I think he does a great job. I think it's very well written, even if it is a bit trashy.

George 36:10

Well, I I think I'll look that one up. Okay, so I'm gonna break the rules, Gerald, as you said. Um and I'm gonna recommend two books, two books by one author. Um, and and there's I'm inspired to do this by Andy Burnham himself. Um, so the the first one I'm going to uh recommend is Forbidden Facts by Gavin de Becker. And the reason I'm recommending that one is because it's basically a list, it's a US book talking about the US uh situation or things happening in the US. And it's basically uh a list of lies that have been told to the US population by US governmental sort of agencies. And and um I thought that was quite topical given that Andy Burnham has announced he's gonna set up a Ministry of Truth uh to uh you know to tell us what we should be, what we're allowed to think. And then the other book by Gavin de Be by Gavin de Becker that I think is a really interesting book. It's called The Gift of Fear. And uh Gavin de Becker runs a uh security agency that's uh looking after defending um or protecting um executives and celebrities. And the book he's written, Gift of Fear, is basically arguing that the emotion of fear is actually a very useful one, and that's distinct from anxiety. So if you feel a sense of fear, it's telling you something and you should listen to it. And he talks about different situations where uh you can actually read the room or read the situation, and if you are feeling that emotion, you should listen to it. So it's a it from a social point of view and a psychological point of view, it's a really interesting book. So I I recommend that one.

Speaker 38:00

My book, Dovetails, George, because the main protagonist, female protagonist, is a close protection officer.

George 38:05

Well, there you go.

Speaker 1 38:05

Well, there we go. Um, and as ever, I've just done a boring history book, but I still like it. Um, Helen, thank you very much for uh coming on today. And I know you're now just uh about to jump on the train to go up north to uh to Liverpool and the Labour Party conference. I was going to say have fun, but thank you again for coming on the show. Um and George and I will be back in a few weeks' time.

Speaker 38:34

Thank you. Thank you.