TRIGGERnometry - Will Trump's Strategy Work？

00:00:00.000 You know, outside of the political hurly-burly, you know, the cool, calm market analysts,

00:00:06.960 they're thinking, well, this is going to cause inflation. This is going to stall the American

00:00:10.360 economy. You've now actually got some really respectable people on Wall Street and beyond

00:00:14.200 predicting a US recession. I think in my bones, he's still using tariffs because he wants to

00:00:19.420 influence different outcomes. He doesn't want Russia and China getting close together,

00:00:23.280 or he wants to help surprise them apart by bringing Russia back at least some way towards

00:00:27.840 the Western orbit. But the rhetoric coming out of China is unlike anything I've ever seen

00:00:31.940 in 20 years. If you mess with China in the way it is, then you could do irreparable damage.

00:00:38.980 You could spark military conflagration. That's my concern.

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00:01:15.620 Liam Halligan, our go-to guy for all things economics. We want to talk to you about the tariffs. We want to

00:01:20.360 talk to you about the British economy. And you have a very particular insight into the civil war that's

00:01:25.700 happening inside a reform as well. We'll touch on that at the end. But first of all, let's talk

00:01:30.540 about the Trump tariffs. One of the things I think quite a lot of us assumed is this is just talk,

00:01:35.380 right? He's going to claim he's going to put some tariffs on in order to get people to do what he

00:01:39.280 wants, but we're not actually going to have tariffs. Is that what's happening, or are we actually going

00:01:43.660 to have a trade war of the kind that people fear? Well, it's the old sage's response to anything

00:01:49.400 that Trump does, isn't it? Take him seriously, but not literally. This is just a bargaining ploy.

00:01:54.420 And I still think there is an element of that. But in order to be taken seriously,

00:01:59.540 if not literally, he has to at least put some tariffs on for a while. And yet what we're seeing

00:02:05.240 is even though he says, you know, tariffs are the most beautiful work in the dictionary,

00:02:09.240 I love tariffs. His actions suggest that he's actually blowing hot and cold, except it seems

00:02:16.100 when it comes to China. And that's my proviso. We'll come on. We'll come on to that. So obviously,

00:02:20.380 he talked about 25% tariffs on both Canada and Mexico in his inauguration speech, introduced

00:02:28.480 them beginning of February for a few days, took them off again. Now there's a reprieve. Now it

00:02:32.260 seems if they come back, there's the goods that are involved in the NAFTA free trade agreement,

00:02:38.100 which was renegotiated during the first Trump presidency, they're going to be excluded.

00:02:42.100 Maybe car components are going to be excluded because US-based automakers are, you know,

00:02:47.860 they use Canadian made car components a lot. So it seems to be kind of scattergun. But of course,

00:02:55.260 just because Trump has threatened this and is talking tough on Canada, he's propelled, you know,

00:03:00.520 he's convulsed America's relations with Canada and absolutely revolutionized Canadian politics with

00:03:08.000 a complete outsider coming in as prime ministers, I'm sure we discussed, and his party rocketing ahead

00:03:16.020 in the opinion polls making up a big deficit. China, he has introduced tariffs, I'm not sure

00:03:22.100 they're going to be removed anytime soon. There was already a 10% tariff under Joe Biden, of course,

00:03:27.160 and Trump doubled that to 20% and made it more wide ranging. And he's been threatening in his

00:03:32.200 rhetoric a 60% tariff on China. And of course, he's also threatening tariffs on steel imports from the

00:03:38.060 European Union and indeed from the UK. Look, just pause one second, one second. One thing that occurs

00:03:44.220 to me is that for our audience and for us as well, who are not economists like you, can you just explain

00:03:50.280 what the point of tariffs is, what the impact of tariffs is? How does it work? And what is the

00:03:55.640 thinking behind imposing tariffs on China and not taking them off? A tariff is a tax on imports into your

00:04:02.320 country. And the historic justification for tariffs is that you're protecting your domestic

00:04:08.280 industries, particularly industries used to be called the infant industry argument when industries

00:04:12.920 were in the early stages. But of course, the US steel industry isn't in its early stages. It's been around

00:04:17.260 for many, many decades. So what you're trying to do, you're trying to appeal to domestic voters and

00:04:24.840 domestic interest groups by protecting their market share, by shielding them from more competitive

00:04:30.400 imports that are made elsewhere. If the imports elsewhere weren't better value, they wouldn't be

00:04:34.780 coming in because the transport costs wouldn't be worth it, right? But of course, what tariffs do,

00:04:39.800 and the reason why I'm largely against tariffs in most cases, is that tariffs mean that your domestic

00:04:46.460 consumers, your domestic manufacturers, when they buy imports from abroad, not least basic goods like

00:04:54.680 steel, they pay more for them. So then consumers end up paying more, you generate inflation,

00:04:59.660 that's why we're seeing stock market convulsions in America. Because, you know, outside of the

00:05:04.940 political hurly-burly, you know, the cool, calm market analysts, they're thinking, well, this is

00:05:10.940 going to cause inflation, this is going to mean that the Federal Reserve can't lower interest rates

00:05:15.220 as quickly as we previously assumed, this is going to stall the American economy. You've now actually

00:05:19.760 got some really respectable people on Wall Street and beyond predicting a US recession.

00:05:23.540 Well, I saw a tweet this morning, somebody saying my portfolio's pronouns are was, were.

00:05:28.820 Yeah, absolutely, because this is completely, he's not just convulsed politics, he's not just convulsed

00:05:34.180 geopolitics and relations with China, which we must come back to, because for me, this is the really

00:05:38.360 big story here when it comes to tariffs. He's also convulsed, you know, the outlook for financial

00:05:45.620 markets everywhere, because the old adage holds, when America sneezes, the world catches a cold.

00:05:51.100 U.S. sovereign bond markets, the treasury market, when the U.S. government sells its debt,

00:05:55.160 the interest rate that markets charge it to lend to the American government. Again, that sets a

00:06:02.400 benchmark for sovereign bond markets and government borrowing costs around the world. But just to talk

00:06:10.320 briefly about China, I think, I still think in my bones, because this is what Trump did in Trump 1.0,

00:06:17.220 if you like, from 2016 to 2020. I think in my bones, he's still using tariffs, because he wants

00:06:23.480 to influence different outcomes, unrelated to trade, or at least that benefit the domestic U.S.

00:06:32.040 market. So for instance, I do believe he wants help from Canada and Mexico on border controls. And

00:06:37.020 indeed, we've seen the Canadians and the Mexicans jump on that. And indeed, stopping not just illegal

00:06:43.780 immigration across America's huge borders, but also drug smuggling and all the rest of it. We've

00:06:49.460 seen the way he's pushed around the Colombians. You know, he likes pushing around the EU on many

00:06:53.640 fronts, not least when it comes to war in Ukraine, not least when it comes to defence spending, but

00:06:58.620 also when it comes to trade. Of course, the EU is a protectionist bloc, right? I mean, let's just be

00:07:02.960 completely clear about that. He wants the EU to drop some trade barriers. So maybe he's messing with

00:07:07.260 the EU threatening tariffs there and indeed on the UK, because he wants us to lower our tariff

00:07:12.180 barriers, and then he can take away his tariff barriers. So it may be a bargaining ploy.

00:07:16.740 All that is, I think, if not legitimate, there's some kind of rationale and justification for it if

00:07:23.380 you are the biggest economy in the world. But while you can push around the Canadians, the Mexicans,

00:07:28.480 the Europeans, and even the Brits, if you fancy it for a bit, as long, not so much that you don't get

00:07:34.020 to visit the king, because he likes that, you can't push around the Chinese. And he has put tariffs on

00:07:40.860 China 20% now, with the threat of them going much higher. And already, immediately, China have

00:07:47.100 reciprocated. The rhetoric coming out of China, which we're barely focusing attention on, because

00:07:52.340 everyone's wetting their pants so much about Trump. And of course, everyone's rightly focused on

00:07:57.000 Russia, Ukraine, and what's going on in the Middle East. But the rhetoric coming out of China is unlike

00:08:01.600 anything I've ever seen in 20 years and more of watching China. It is literally, if the Americans

00:08:08.000 want some kind of war, a trade war, or at least any other kind of war, the Chinese will fight.

00:08:14.640 So my concern is that while you may be able to play tariff games with the Europeans and the Mexicans

00:08:20.420 and the Canadians, you can't play tariff games with the Chinese, because they don't want to lose face.

00:08:26.220 They don't want to be pushed around by the Americans. And the Chinese, you know, it's in there,

00:08:31.060 it's in their swagger now, their economic dominance in so many fields, be it rare earths,

00:08:38.020 be it AIs, in their threatening of Taiwan, which, of course, is the global hub of semiconductor

00:08:43.880 manufacturing, semiconductors being, you know, pretty much as important now when it comes to

00:08:47.940 global growth as oil and gas, right? They are the oil and gas of the digital world. And that's before

00:08:54.260 we get to AI, then their importance rockets even more. The Chinese are sick and tired of everyone

00:09:00.160 assuming always that America is top dog. And my concern is, it's all the art of the deal and it's

00:09:06.420 all the Donald doing his thing and causing chaos so he can get his own way. But if you mess with China

00:09:12.880 in the way he is, then you could do irreparable damage, not just to global financial markets and

00:09:18.320 global commerce and global trade relations. You could spark military conflagration. That's my concern.

00:09:25.520 What do you mean by military conflagration? Let's drill down into... I'm talking about China wanting

00:09:32.520 to save face to the extent that they move against Taiwan. That's what I'm talking about. And I'm not

00:09:39.440 alone in thinking that. A lot of security services, people think that as well.

00:09:44.260 So you think that by Trump's posturing and talking and talking about raising tariffs even...

00:09:50.520 He has raised tariffs on China and China have reciprocated. They're real. They're on now.

00:09:56.580 But the possibility of him raising them even more would actually trigger them. And how likely do you

00:10:02.440 think that is, Nick? I don't think it's the most likely outcome by any means. I don't think it's

00:10:08.160 even... It's not probable. But I do think it's a danger. It's a lot more of a danger than it was

00:10:14.460 a couple of weeks ago. And he can, as I say, he can bob and weave and bait and switch and bait and

00:10:24.740 switch again with the Western world and his near neighbours. But you can't really do that with

00:10:29.300 China. They don't understand that kind of statecraft. And they don't want to be seen as

00:10:34.060 someone else's plaything at this point. Under some definitions now, China is the biggest economy in

00:10:38.260 the world. That's the reality. China is obviously at the centre of this grouping, which is often

00:10:43.720 derided in the West, but actually is of supreme geopolitical importance. The so-called BRIC economies,

00:10:50.940 which of course isn't just Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa anymore. It's got the UAEs in

00:10:54.860 there. A bunch of other major economies are now informal parts of that grouping. Just the original

00:11:00.280 BRIC members, their economy combined is now bigger than the G7 under various definitions. You know,

00:11:07.100 they've got stonking amounts of currency reserves. They're much, much less indebted than the Western

00:11:13.080 world. You know, to say all this isn't to be some kind of anti-Western nutter, I'm not anti-Western.

00:11:19.200 You know, I'm English and Irish, Francis. I'm just being a rational analyst because I don't see too

00:11:26.880 much rational analysis of what's actually happening. And, you know, I do agree to some extent with the

00:11:35.340 the truism so often trotted out at dinner parties that Trump should be taken seriously, but not

00:11:43.200 literally, up to a point. And I think Trump 2.0 is now much, much more belligerent than Trump 1.0.

00:11:51.380 He's much more confident. He feels that he's got the deep state in America under control.

00:11:56.240 He feels he's got the Democrats and their kind of lawfare, if you like, trying to remove him.

00:12:01.480 Well, we'll see about that under control. And he knows this is his last chance, his last crack of

00:12:08.040 the whip. So I think his kind of business wheeling and dealing and gunslinging, I think politics needs

00:12:16.020 a bit of that to some extent, a bit less nonsense in politics, a bit more economic literacy in politics,

00:12:22.780 a bit more certainly on the fiscal side being realistic with what Doge is doing and so on.

00:12:28.100 But I think his tariff policies are incredibly dangerous unless they really are false. And even

00:12:35.780 if they are false, even if it is a ploy, a wheeze, then the Chinese aren't going to take it like that

00:12:40.320 because they're not going to want to be pushed around.

00:12:42.420 And how much of you do you think this is because of his experiences dealing with the Chinese during

00:12:47.200 COVID with the fact that they were, to put it mildly, opaque when it came to the creation of the

00:12:53.020 virus, how it was spread, et cetera, et cetera. And him thinking to himself, right, well, this is

00:12:58.940 payback.

00:12:59.700 I think everyone was opaque when it came to where the virus actually came from, with some

00:13:04.820 honourable exceptions, including myself and one or two other British journalists. You know, I talked

00:13:10.880 to, we talked to Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of British intelligence in mid-2020, who said

00:13:17.160 COVID was an engineered escapee, i.e. non-zoonotic, i.e. made in a lab and it escaped by accident. The

00:13:25.100 Chinese didn't deliberately release it, of course, because their economy was hammered by COVID too.

00:13:31.600 And that wasn't taken seriously at the time. And it wasn't taken seriously because Trump had also

00:13:36.340 suggested it because he was also talking to people in security services. And now it's the

00:13:41.720 conventional wisdom. You know, the Western establishment has all but accepted it in that they don't knock

00:13:48.360 people down who now say it. But when it comes to, is that why Trump's doing this against the Chinese?

00:13:53.900 No, he's doing this against the Chinese because the Chinese are, you know, a major economic power that on

00:14:01.000 some definitions is now more powerful than the US. And of course, there's a massive trade deficit with

00:14:06.900 China, the Chinese. There are more Chinese exporters that need America than American exporters that need

00:14:12.640 China, by the way. And he feels he can get leverage and he feels he can improve the deal.

00:14:17.820 You know, the sort of MAGA t-shirts are now say, you know, you must pay for the privilege of access to

00:14:23.920 the American market. And there's some logic in that. You know, it's still the biggest, most valuable

00:14:28.040 market in the world under most headings. Though, of course, many other markets have many more people.

00:14:35.200 Having said that, I think if he pushes China too hard, then he'll find that, you know, the normal rules

00:14:42.680 don't apply. The normal rules that he's used to in the US, in Europe, you have a spat, but then you sort

00:14:49.480 of kiss and make up. You're dealing with a different psyche in China and you're dealing with a power in

00:14:55.640 China that's been waiting for a long time to assert its dominance. And they may feel that this is the

00:15:02.420 time to do so. And I don't want to test that hypothesis, because if China do feel that,

00:15:08.800 that's going to send the world into a whole new sphere of geopolitical pain.

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00:16:43.180 And what would you say, Liam, to those people who go, look, what COVID showed us is that we can't

00:16:49.960 rely on China. China will act within its own interests. We're too reliant on the Chinese economy.

00:16:55.940 We need to prioritise American-made goods. We need to prioritise infrastructure in America. We need

00:17:03.060 to prioritise America first because if we look at the way things are going, it's going to become

00:17:11.360 more and more antagonistic between these two countries. And as a result of that,

00:17:15.220 we need to prioritise America.

00:17:18.140 Well, if we spool back, you know, the overwhelming likelihood is that COVID escaped from a lab that

00:17:25.840 was actually funded by Western powers, not least the British, the French, the Americans. You know,

00:17:31.140 we were using a Chinese facility because the research into so-called gain-off functions isn't

00:17:36.220 allowed in this part of the world. So we ship. But, you know, scientists do understand there's

00:17:41.900 some merit in it because you can use it to find vaccines and other behavioural traits of viruses,

00:17:50.940 though, of course, that research is dangerous. So it was being done in China for that reason.

00:17:55.120 So I don't think we can say we can't trust the Chinese because that happened because we were

00:18:00.320 funding them, frankly. But I think your broader point is correct, Francis.

00:18:06.220 I do think there's a growing sense that we need to, as geopolitics gets more fraught,

00:18:13.800 and it's not just the Chinese thing, of course, it's the Middle East and Russia and the West and so

00:18:17.960 on. You know, the Red Sea is currently blocked to all intents and purposes. One of the major trade

00:18:22.560 routes of the world, a quarter of the world's oil goes through the Straits of Hormuz every day,

00:18:28.540 you know, between Oman and Iran, and obviously relations with Iran are very, very fraught.

00:18:32.300 As the geopolitical tensions crank up, I think in general, the dangers with China now really coming

00:18:38.580 into focus as the principal danger for the West are coming in to view. I mean, for instance,

00:18:45.700 I think that's one reason why Trump's been more emollient to Russia, because he is really scared

00:18:51.600 about Russia and China getting very close. That's the biggest economic synergy in the world, right?

00:18:55.900 Between the world, what will soon be the world's biggest oil importer and the world's biggest

00:19:01.000 energy exporter. Massive explosion of trade between Russia and China. I mean, when Constantine

00:19:07.740 was living under the Soviet Union, he'll tell you Russia and China were mortal enemies. I mean,

00:19:13.620 when I lived in post-communist Russia, you know, kids were still learning nursery rhymes in the

00:19:18.780 playground that were all about the Chinese are going to come and take us over. But now Russia and China

00:19:23.980 have had a sort of 10-year love in, you know, as the Western Russia have fallen out since Georgia,

00:19:29.620 then Medan, Ukraine, then of course, the war in Donetsk, 2015 onwards, which we don't talk about.

00:19:36.940 Then, of course, Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine. Then Russia and China have just got closer

00:19:41.560 and closer. And the Russians have been building oil and gas pipelines facing east, right? East Siberia

00:19:46.600 Pacific Ocean pipeline, power of Siberia pipeline, that's an oil pipeline, a gas pipeline, they've

00:19:51.700 another big pipeline from the Malcom Peninsula in the Arctic, you know, a Russian energy fields that

00:19:59.200 only go to Europe at the moment. That's the only place the pipelines go. And now they're building

00:20:04.260 a pipeline literally across the Russian landmass all the way to China, a hugely ambitious pipeline

00:20:11.520 precisely to get closer to China. And the White House is watching all this and Trump is watching all

00:20:16.820 this. And he doesn't want Russia and China getting close together. Or he wants to help to prise them

00:20:21.600 apart by bringing Russia back at least some way towards the Western orbit. And that's not what you

00:20:26.620 hear about what's going on with the, I mean, let's not call it the resolution, because I don't think

00:20:31.360 this will be resolved for a long time in any permanent way. But that's what's going on with the,

00:20:35.600 you know, ceasefire or approaches to ceasefire we're seeing in terms of Russia, Ukraine,

00:20:41.760 literally as we're recording this interview is going on in Saudi Arabia, right? But I think

00:20:46.360 that's part of Trump's big game plan when it comes to Russia, Ukraine is, is trying to re-isolate

00:20:52.480 China, because Russia and China together as Kissinger warned us, the three, the triangle of great,

00:20:57.540 you know, America, Russia, China, Kissinger always warned Western thinkers, anyone that would

00:21:03.000 listen, you really don't want to be the one left alone.

00:21:05.580 Yeah. And so just, so just to finish that thought, so really, it's Trump's priority is

00:21:13.960 Russia within Russia, Ukraine, and that those negotiations, if we look at it with cold,

00:21:21.900 hard, devoid of any type of emotion.

00:21:24.640 He wants the Nobel Peace Prize, right? I mean, can you imagine the Democrats are just going

00:21:28.940 to, you know, they're going to have a fit with their leg up, as my mum would say, if, if

00:21:34.020 their nemesis Trump wins the Nobel Peace Prize, but that's what he wants to do. So he wants

00:21:39.880 to bring some kind of peace. He wants a really good deal for, you know, the vast array of

00:21:45.480 American business interests that have been sniffing about around Ukraine, you know, since

00:21:49.620 the Soviet Union collapsed. I know that from spending a lot of time before the Soviet Union

00:21:54.100 back in the day. You know, Ukraine is rich in so many ways, not just minerals, but agricultural

00:21:59.300 ability, you know, tech brilliance. I mean, Ukraine is an incredibly wealthy country, but

00:22:05.580 unfortunately, and I say this with huge regrets, it's a country very close to my heart. It's

00:22:10.340 hopelessly corrupt. A lot more corrupt in my experience than Russia. I mean, some, some

00:22:16.140 viewers may contest that, but that's certainly...

00:22:18.160 I would contest that, because I would say in Russia, the corruption has been nationalised.

00:22:22.800 That's the difference.

00:22:23.540 Yeah, potentially.

00:22:24.580 So all of Eastern Europe is basically corrupt, and the choice is either you have corrupt oligarchs,

00:22:29.300 or you have one guy at the top and his team who are all corrupt.

00:22:32.280 I think it's a long conversation, but I think for outside business interests, in Ukraine, the

00:22:40.660 corruption is so unorganised, there's no way to navigate it.

00:22:44.500 It's unorganised.

00:22:44.840 There's no way to navigate it.

00:22:46.100 It's unorganised.

00:22:46.400 The corruption in lots of other parts of the former Soviet Union is more organised and more

00:22:50.940 rational, and you're not going to put it on a spreadsheet, but you can navigate it with

00:22:54.620 sophisticated players.

00:22:55.900 I would say in Russia, you know who to give the bribe to. In Ukraine, you could give someone

00:23:00.740 a bribe, and then it turns out they had no power to help you. That's sort of how it works.

00:23:04.640 But the big picture, Francis, just to finish off this section, is Trump wants many things

00:23:09.820 out of his relationship with the Russia-Ukraine war. Above all, he wants to be seen as the

00:23:16.560 good guy who does the deal, and the Chinese not doing the deal. Because for many months,

00:23:21.400 it looks as if the Chinese were going to come in and sue for peace in Russia-Ukraine. And

00:23:26.160 the fact that it's the Americans leading the global news bulletins on this is exactly what

00:23:30.640 Trump wants.

00:23:32.080 And Liam, we weren't going to talk about Russia-Ukraine, but since you brought it up, something I want

00:23:35.920 to ask you is, one of the concerns of mine is, there seems to be, for the reasons I think

00:23:42.660 partly that you've just articulated, a very short-termist approach to attempting to get

00:23:47.900 a settlement there, which I understand after three years of brutal fighting, we want the

00:23:52.240 fighting to stop, of course.

00:23:55.340 Well, some people do. A lot of people want it to carry on, apparently.

00:23:58.640 I think that's probably slightly a straw man in the sense that I think a lot of people want

00:24:04.860 the right deal, and they're prepared to continue fighting to the extent that that might contribute.

00:24:11.540 I think a lot of people are naive and idealistic and far less educated than you about this issue.

00:24:16.960 And so they think, well, rah, rah, rah, Ukraine flag and bio, that's going to solve the problem.

00:24:21.820 But if we're talking about serious people, I think everybody recognizes that Ukrainians did their

00:24:26.480 best very courageously. We gave them not enough support, in my opinion, but whatever we were prepared.

00:24:31.600 Ultimately, that has ended up with us in a stalemate, more or less, where we are, right?

00:24:36.860 So now it's time to have peace. The issue that I think is of great concern is that, number one,

00:24:44.380 if we don't get a deal that has permanent security for Ukraine, this will happen again, number one.

00:24:50.120 So we're going to be back in square one. Number two, and this I think is even more concerning,

00:24:54.760 particularly with a lot of people who say they're anti-war, and they say the reason for that is they're

00:24:59.460 trying to avoid nuclear disaster. Well, what happens when all the small countries that have

00:25:05.640 powerful enemies look around and go, well, look, America has been very clear. They're no longer the

00:25:10.460 world's policemen. They're stepping back. They're not going to protect you. They're not going to step

00:25:14.740 in and say this is wrong. They're not going to defend you. Well, how do you defend yourself when

00:25:20.460 there's no police? You have to get the best weapons you can. So there's a risk of nuclear

00:25:24.980 proliferation in that situation, isn't there? I don't think there's a lot in there, Francis.

00:25:30.620 There's a whole hour of discussion in there. This is Francis. He's the Venezuelan one.

00:25:36.300 It's confusing. You look like you two. Yeah, all foreigners look the same. We know that.

00:25:42.000 We know your kind, mate.

00:25:45.100 Look, it's the first thing to say, it's a tragedy that we didn't go with the Minsk Protocols,

00:25:50.300 because the Minsk Protocols would have left Donetsk, that eastern part of Russia,

00:25:55.980 that eastern part of what is now Russian-occupied territory,

00:25:59.660 formerly Ukrainian territory. That would have stayed within Ukraine,

00:26:03.560 but that area would have had more autonomy, and crucially, it would have had

00:26:07.320 a say in any future referendum in Ukraine on NATO membership.

00:26:12.680 They would have had to have a majority as well.

00:26:14.460 You know, the French, the Germans, the Russians, the Ukrainians agreed on Minsk,

00:26:19.700 which would have led to peace, but then suddenly the Ukrainians didn't agree.

00:26:24.540 Historians will speculate about why that was.

00:26:29.060 But I think that would have been the best outcome,

00:26:30.860 retaining the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

00:26:33.880 Now, of course, as we say, we've had a million dead soldiers

00:26:37.220 and civilians on both sides, of course,

00:26:40.360 the overwhelming majority of the civilians within Ukrainian territory, tragically.

00:26:46.440 It strikes me that given the losses on the Russian side,

00:26:50.620 Russia is not going to give up that territory that is annexed.

00:26:55.680 So what is a good deal for Ukraine?

00:26:57.560 A good deal for Ukraine is that its existing, you know,

00:27:02.240 effective borders, given where the war currently is,

00:27:04.940 they're the ones that are guaranteed.

00:27:06.660 I think that's a good outcome for Ukraine and some kind of, you know,

00:27:10.760 decent revenue sharing on a mineral deal,

00:27:14.420 because Ukraine itself hasn't got the wherewithal in the capital

00:27:17.440 to exploit those minerals.

00:27:18.920 So let's hope they get some kind of deal there,

00:27:21.820 which doesn't, you know, completely squander all that wealth

00:27:25.260 and spirits it away overseas.

00:27:28.460 Some of that wealth actually goes back into Ukrainian infrastructure,

00:27:31.340 nation building and all the rest of it.

00:27:34.680 But it strikes me that we are now in a situation where we've got this emerging

00:27:43.920 rift between Europe and America,

00:27:45.800 and Trump is going to use that to crank up defence spending in America,

00:27:51.480 and indeed the Europeans are going to use that to crank up defence spending

00:27:55.500 in Europe, particularly the European Union.

00:27:58.460 And this really worries me, Constantine.

00:28:00.260 It's all very well for politicians and others to beat their chest and say,

00:28:04.640 yeah, we're going to just take defence spending from 1% of GDP,

00:28:08.180 as it is in many big European countries, big EU countries,

00:28:11.040 and we're going to make it 4% or 5% of GDP.

00:28:13.580 You know, we had quantitative easing,

00:28:16.300 lots of money printing to stimulate the economy over the last decade,

00:28:19.460 and now we're going to use some kind of Keynesian war machine building,

00:28:23.920 big borrowing and spending to generate economic growth.

00:28:28.100 I really worry about that, and I'm sorry to sound like some kind of financial nerd here,

00:28:33.720 but this is just how it is.

00:28:35.620 When Germany said it was going to take off the debt break,

00:28:39.060 it was going to massively boost its borrowing in order to ramp up defence spending,

00:28:43.260 you know, the yield on German bonds absolutely spiked up.

00:28:48.640 That's what markets charge Germany to borrow.

00:28:51.480 And Germany is easily the most creditworthy nation across the European Union,

00:28:55.240 and indeed it bankrolls much of the rest of the European Union through various dark accounts,

00:29:01.540 something called Target 2, which some of your viewers and listeners will be familiar with,

00:29:06.100 sort of underground plumbing of the European Central Bank

00:29:09.480 and the way countries within the Eurozone help to support one another.

00:29:13.560 You know, can Europe really afford this without causing another sort of financial collapse

00:29:19.020 like we saw in 2010-11, the Euro itself coming under threat.

00:29:24.900 And that may sound hyperbole, but I really don't think it is if you look at where financial markets are,

00:29:30.880 because they know if the big European powers borrow and spend,

00:29:35.120 and they spend most of that on defence,

00:29:37.320 well, you know, they're basically creating bits of metal that sit in a warehouse,

00:29:41.800 you know, hopefully never to be deployed.

00:29:44.180 That is not a productive use of borrowing.

00:29:48.320 It's literally like borrowing money off capital markets when you can't afford to borrow it,

00:29:52.300 when you're already massively indebted,

00:29:54.380 and spending it on employing people to dig holes and fill them up again.

00:30:00.100 Well, this brings us on to the British economy, which is something...

00:30:02.840 It's not going to lead to the growth that the markets want to see to justify the borrowing.

00:30:05.560 No, no, I think that's certainly true.

00:30:07.120 I suppose the question that I was going to ask you about the British economy,

00:30:10.180 but I think it applies across Europe is, is there a possibility that because of the hard reality...

00:30:16.420 We've been living in cloud cuckoo land for quite some time.

00:30:18.860 I think it's fiscally, yeah.

00:30:20.040 In every way, actually, culturally as well.

00:30:22.180 We've believed all sorts of things that aren't true about men being able to be women and all sorts of things.

00:30:27.120 I agree.

00:30:27.560 We've been living in cloud cuckoo land.

00:30:29.540 Is there some hope that what happens as a...

00:30:33.180 I mean, net zero is a good example of this, right?

00:30:35.040 It's another cloud cuckoo land policy, right?

00:30:36.940 That because of the harsh reality of the world we now live in, where those luxury beliefs are no longer maintainable,

00:30:44.340 we actually start...

00:30:45.400 I mean, I see the Labour Party announcing that they're going to reform the benefit system,

00:30:49.200 that it's too bloated, apparently, suddenly, and that there's too much waste,

00:30:53.720 and people are trapped in the benefit system, as we had Fraser Nelson in this very room talking about only a couple of weeks ago.

00:30:59.100 Is there some hope that we wake up from this slumber and go,

00:31:04.940 actually, we can't afford to have a military and net zero.

00:31:08.580 Actually, we can't afford to have bloated social welfare systems like we do in Europe

00:31:12.760 and defend ourselves without the American protection umbrella.

00:31:16.280 Is there hope that this is a big wake-up call for all of us here in Europe

00:31:19.560 and we actually start to go for a productive economy to take the handbrake off ourselves,

00:31:25.740 to take the noose off our neck, frankly, with things like net zero?

00:31:28.380 Well, one silver lining in the sort of storm clouds of geopolitics that seem to be looming over us these days

00:31:37.660 is that it may lead to some more realism.

00:31:41.160 But in my experience of politics and economics, realism only really hits when you have a proper crisis,

00:31:49.060 because you can see all the trends clearly that you've just summarised Constantine,

00:31:54.920 and yet I can see them and Francis can see them and, you know, an objective 10-year-old can see them.

00:32:02.500 But our political leaders can't.

00:32:03.500 A lot of the political and media class cannot see them,

00:32:07.000 because to see them would be to admit that they've been wrong about everything they've said for the last 20 years,

00:32:12.460 and it's offensive to them that even we are listing these issues that you are talking about.

00:32:18.940 So my concern for many, many years has been on the fiscal side,

00:32:23.100 as well as all those other cultural issues that you talk about.

00:32:26.740 I share your concerns on those, but I've been particularly focused on the fiscal side.

00:32:30.620 And I do worry, you know, think about it.

00:32:32.380 When Blair came in, in 97, you know, British government debt was, you know, 40, 50-odd percent of GDP.

00:32:39.740 It's now 100% of GDP.

00:32:42.060 We're spending in this country, in the UK, where we're all based, of course,

00:32:45.940 we're spending 10 to 15 billion pounds a month servicing our debt, right?

00:32:51.860 We're spending more on debt service a year than we're spending on the whole of education, right?

00:32:57.780 Schools, universities, higher education, further education, vocational education.

00:33:02.820 Think of the morality of that.

00:33:04.560 So we're spending more on servicing our inability of our generation to not be able to spend within our means

00:33:12.000 than we are on equipping the next generation to deal with the debt that we are leaving them.

00:33:17.820 And this is radicalizing politics.

00:33:19.960 And I was sitting next to, you know, in my life, I often end up talking lots to, you know,

00:33:27.040 people in the Treasury, people in the Bank of England, real kind of establishment, straight-dealing types,

00:33:32.600 people I was at university with, used to be in academia with and so on.

00:33:36.540 And I was sitting with a guy, very, very senior in the Treasury.

00:33:39.220 He said, oh, the thing is, Liam, no one wants, you know, the country doesn't want this austerity.

00:33:43.440 It's never going to work.

00:33:44.320 Look, because we were arguing about austerity, because I was saying, you know,

00:33:47.620 under George Osborne from 2010 to 2019, under Osborne and Cameron, it was the years of austerity.

00:33:53.900 And during those years of austerity, the national debt went from, you know, 50% of GDP to 80% of GDP.

00:34:00.800 So where was the austerity?

00:34:02.220 I'm not saying that certain budgets weren't squeezed and certain people didn't suffer,

00:34:06.960 but the state got a lot bigger and we employed, you know, hundreds of thousands of more civil servants.

00:34:12.260 Well, let me interject one thing on that, because it's very important that for people listening and watching this,

00:34:17.300 that we get this.

00:34:19.060 Austerity or the attempt to reduce our spending is never going to be about simply reducing things that are unnecessary.

00:34:25.920 Some of those things that we're going to have to get rid of are things that we like, things that are good.

00:34:30.200 But in the same way that if you halve someone, for some reason, your income halves,

00:34:35.080 you're going to have to let go of things that you have to prioritize.

00:34:37.680 It's about being a grown-up, you know, that economics is the study of scarce resources.

00:34:41.800 And how you allocate them, which is why, you know, just if you're a sort of card-carrying, you know,

00:34:48.080 economist who can add up, you're called right-wing because you're just saying,

00:34:51.660 no, you can't actually do that.

00:34:52.760 Oh, you must be evil then because we can't.

00:34:54.380 No, because we can't actually afford it at the moment.

00:34:56.820 But if we do this and we do this and we invest this, then we can afford it.

00:35:00.340 So what did this guy say?

00:35:01.200 So this Treasury guy said, oh, no one wants austerity and it's never going to get through.

00:35:05.940 And I said, well, you say that, my friend.

00:35:08.800 I won't embarrass him by naming him.

00:35:11.200 But, you know, I remember 1976.

00:35:13.420 I remember when the UK went cap in hand to the IMF.

00:35:16.440 It was our economic sewers, you know.

00:35:18.100 We were literally bailed out by the Americans.

00:35:20.440 It was the final slipping of the mask that the UK is no longer a world-class economy.

00:35:26.000 Actually, it's bloated.

00:35:27.000 It's got all these useless nationalized industries.

00:35:29.040 It's massively unionized, very sclerotic place.

00:35:32.900 And it was that crisis and the subsequent political crises of 78, 79, the winter discontent that led to, you know, a real change.

00:35:43.640 And Mrs. Thatcher was brought in, you know, a wave of popularity to sort it out, be a grown up.

00:35:49.880 And people forget after the 2008-09 financial crisis, you know, the Tories were kind of reelected with the Lib Dems in coalition.

00:35:59.140 And even the Lib Dems said, yes, we've got to do this.

00:36:01.760 Yes, we've got to be more grown up and we've got to spend less or increase the rate of spending, decrease the rate of spending in order to stop financial markets blowing the country up.

00:36:13.880 You know, I know people in the Labour Party in Parliament who literally say to me things like, oh, can't we just abolish the debt markets?

00:36:21.740 I mean, just insane. That's where the level of understanding is.

00:36:26.380 You know, there are people in the cabinet now who argue with me for many years about why we should do quantitative easing for the people, you know, people's QE.

00:36:34.380 Let's just print loads of money and give it to people.

00:36:36.940 These are people in the cabinet as I speak.

00:36:39.960 Oh, yeah, because it works so well in Argentina and Zimbabwe.

00:36:43.800 And, you know, the Roman Empire collapsed because of money printing, effectively.

00:36:48.100 But what you're saying is that we're being led by people who are fiscally and economically delusional.

00:36:54.460 There is a huge amount of fiscal and economic delusion, not just at the top of British politics, but across almost the entirety of the British media class, in my experience.

00:37:07.340 So the question then is, how close are we to going broke?

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00:38:27.840 How close are we to going broke?

00:38:29.580 Well, it depends.

00:38:31.780 It's all in our hands.

00:38:32.860 But, you know, we are buffeted by global events because as a country, we have a massive trade deficit.

00:38:39.960 We are massively dependent on foreign creditors.

00:38:43.100 And we are spending, as I said, 10 to 15 billion quid a month on debt interest.

00:38:49.300 So and a lot of the money we're borrowing each month, right?

00:38:52.000 If you know how to read the financial, the national accounts, a lot of the money we're borrowing each month,

00:38:56.740 we're borrowing to pay the interest on our existing debt.

00:39:01.480 So we're taking a second credit card to pay off the first one.

00:39:04.160 Indeed.

00:39:04.620 And there's a lot of that going on.

00:39:05.880 Now, you can fix this.

00:39:07.680 You can fix this.

00:39:08.660 You're never going to fix it by massively, massively cutting spending because in a democracy, that's just not going to happen.

00:39:15.800 It's just not going to happen.

00:39:17.020 You have to indicate some control of spending in order to satisfy markets that you're serious.

00:39:23.060 But the real ways to get out of the kind of fiscal jam that we're in at the moment, and much of the Western world is in, particularly Western Europe, America not so much, is to grow.

00:39:32.880 You grow your way out of your fiscal crisis.

00:39:36.720 So your debt to GDP, you know, the debt you're servicing and the shouldering as a share of your economy, you make this one go down by making the economy bigger and growing.

00:39:46.640 The trouble is that we have a media class in this country and we have a government, and even the Tories were like this as well under Cameron Osborne for a lot of the time and under Boris, actually.

00:40:01.860 They want to try and solve the fiscal crisis by taxing more, right?

00:40:07.400 If you try and solve a fiscal crisis by taxing more, oh, there's a hole in the budget.

00:40:10.960 We have to tax more to fill it.

00:40:12.660 You just curtail the very growth that you need to rescue your economy from the fact that you're in a fiscal crisis.

00:40:18.660 And we're now approaching a spring statement in the UK towards the end of March.

00:40:23.980 My concern is that Rachel Reeves' budget last October, she didn't even bring in tax increases then, though she raised taxes by 70 billion.

00:40:35.760 And she raised spending by 70 billion a year, 40 billion of which was extra taxes.

00:40:40.680 She indicated those tax rises will come in in April at the beginning of April.

00:40:45.160 Right. But just the prospect of them has caused UK growth to stall.

00:40:51.160 Our economy is now almost certainly in recession.

00:40:54.020 Hiring is falling at its sharpest rate since the beginning of lockdown.

00:40:58.260 Manufacturing is now 10% smaller than it was just a year ago because of partly net zero, but also these tax rises, prospective tax rises.

00:41:10.120 My concern is Reeves, our finance minister, our chancellor, as we call the finance minister in this country,

00:41:17.100 and Starmer and the Labour front bench, far, far more left wing, far, far more ideological than Blair's front bench,

00:41:23.080 all of whom I knew, well, it's my job, I was a political correspondent back in the day, in the late 90s.

00:41:29.300 My concern is that they are going to double down on the taxes and drive this economy off a cliff.

00:41:35.560 That is my concern.

00:41:37.300 For ideological reasons, it's in their bones that they think if there's a fiscal hole, you fill it with taxation.

00:41:44.240 Taxation increases, which are anyway justified because it leads to a fairer society.

00:41:49.120 No, you do not lead to a fairer society by crushing growth and crushing hiring and crushing enterprise.

00:41:56.940 You lower the living standards of the whole economy, including ordinary men and women trying to raise a family on not a big wage.

00:42:05.320 So you said the words driving the economy off a cliff.

00:42:09.140 In real world terms, what does that mean, particularly for the average man and woman on the street?

00:42:14.180 So it means, Francis, what we're feeling at the moment, we all live in the UK, London's a bit of a bubble.

00:42:20.600 I was recently in the centre of Manchester, I was recently up in the north-east in the centre of Newcastle.

00:42:29.760 In the centres, there's still a lot of buzz.

00:42:33.080 People are going to restaurants, but in the small towns and the small cities, the regional centres,

00:42:38.320 the regional cities, there is a feeling of economic slowdown.

00:42:44.140 High streets are shuttering faster even than they were.

00:42:49.240 Hiring is falling.

00:42:51.020 There are these very authoritative surveys called Purchasing Manager Index surveys.

00:42:55.220 They're conducted all over the world.

00:42:56.640 They're conducted every month.

00:42:57.880 They're surveys of business leaders, what they think is going on, and their optimism.

00:43:02.660 And a Purchasing Manager Index reading of 50 indicates the economy is going to stay where it is.

00:43:07.140 Above 50 indicates growth.

00:43:08.980 They're ways of predicting where the GDP numbers are going to be when the GDP numbers come out three or four months after the event.

00:43:15.940 And the PMIs in this country, and indeed across Western Europe, are pointing down quite heavily,

00:43:21.020 particularly, again, for manufacturing.

00:43:23.320 Again, in my view, in part because of the net zero policies, which maybe we'll come on to.

00:43:27.560 So I think the UK, and I say this with regret, is probably already in recession because we had zero economic growth in the fourth quarter of 2024.

00:43:40.580 I think that's going to be revised down to negative economic growth.

00:43:43.640 They were preliminary numbers.

00:43:45.100 And we're probably in a situation of negative economic growth, economic contraction in the first quarter of 2025 as well.

00:43:52.840 Two consecutive contraction quarters, that's a recession.

00:43:56.240 And when you have a recession, Francis, once that kind of technical thing takes place, it then compounds itself.

00:44:04.160 Because everyone, oh my God, we're in recession.

00:44:06.960 And then people who are on the edge, I might do that investment.

00:44:10.120 I might not.

00:44:10.820 I might open that factory.

00:44:11.900 I might not.

00:44:12.500 I might take on that extra pair of hands on my small building site or my nail bar, my little business, of course.

00:44:17.520 We have so many small and medium-sized enterprises in this country.

00:44:20.440 They're very sensitive to the economic climate.

00:44:22.620 They employ two-thirds of our people.

00:44:24.360 They generate at least half our growth.

00:44:26.860 A lot of those SMEs, they are on a knife edge.

00:44:29.860 Is the economy going to recover or is it really going to go down?

00:44:32.980 And for me, a budget at the end of March, which increases taxes even more, will be the kiss of death for a lot of those entrepreneurs in the sense that they will think, you know what?

00:44:43.040 I'm just going to not do it.

00:44:44.460 I'm just going to shut up shop.

00:44:46.120 I'm going to hunker down, keep what I've got, and enterprise goes out the window.

00:44:51.580 That's what it would look like.

00:44:53.400 Liam, it seems to me you've painted a very grim yet accurate picture of our economy, which leaves me scratching my head when I go, well, why are we pursuing net zero?

00:45:02.460 Isn't that just a fancy name for de-industrialisation?

00:45:07.760 Well, a lot of the trade unions in the UK think that.

00:45:09.900 There's a huge rift now between this Labour government and the trade union movement because the trade union movement can see that pursuing net zero the way we are, as zealously as we are, is massively hollowing out our industry.

00:45:24.480 We've just closed, you know, Britain's largest refinery up in Grangemouth.

00:45:29.280 We've just shut down our last two blast furnaces in Wales at Port Talbot, which, of course, make virgin steel, which is very important for defence applications, other construction applications.

00:45:41.420 It's really hard to get virgin steel in the UK because, you know, the Red Sea's closed because of Houthi rebels.

00:45:47.640 It just seems madness to me.

00:45:48.920 Look, I'm all for a better environment and I'm all for moving away from fossil fuels in a way that isn't economically ruinous.

00:45:55.940 But I think the way we're doing it is economically ruinous.

00:45:59.920 And I think a lot of mainstream politicians now are waking up to that until very recently to even question net zero is to be, you know, you might.

00:46:10.560 You're a climate denier.

00:46:11.240 You're accused of, you know, slaying the firstborn.

00:46:14.340 You're accused of being herod, you know.

00:46:15.980 It's crazy.

00:46:16.580 And just the use of the word denier, I think, is disgusting because, of course, Holocaust denial is a crazy thing and a disgusting thing.

00:46:24.540 But that's the phrase that it kind of tries to echo.

00:46:28.700 You are that unreasonable.

00:46:30.500 No, there are many, many, many scientists who they just don't get airtime.

00:46:35.500 But, you know, Nobel winning scientists who really do question net zero, the whole thing.

00:46:41.660 OK, I'm not here to do that.

00:46:43.360 I'm here to say I do want a much cleaner environment.

00:46:45.640 I do think it makes sense over a period of time to move away from fossil fuels.

00:46:50.800 I do believe in renewable forms of energy being better for the world.

00:46:57.100 I think wind is the least efficient.

00:46:59.700 I believe in hydrogen.

00:47:01.240 I think that's a wonder fuel that we are deliberately suppressing.

00:47:04.800 Suppressing vested interests who are making a huge amount of money out of renewables subsidies are deliberately dissing hydrogen as a viable option.

00:47:14.640 You know, JCB have just built an incredible internal combustion engine that runs on hydrogen, the only emission of which is water.

00:47:24.440 Right.

00:47:25.080 Right.

00:47:25.600 So and if you use renewable winds to do the electrolysis that generates the hydrogen in industrial quantities and then use that hydrogen and it emits water, you have perpetual clean energy.

00:47:38.160 Right.

00:47:38.580 And that will really undermine the businesses of lots of people.

00:47:42.620 That's why it's so little talked about.

00:47:44.960 I believe in that.

00:47:45.920 So I'm by no means not interested in this agenda.

00:47:48.960 But what I would say is that unless this net zero agenda, which was introduced in the UK and so many other countries with no debate, it was put into law, it was waved through Parliament, just a handful of MPs protested against it.

00:48:04.960 Unless it starts delivering pretty soon for people in terms of cheaper energy bills and doing less damage to people who are least able to shoulder that economic damage, then the political consensus behind it is going to be crushed.

00:48:20.320 So take, for instance, electric vehicles.

00:48:23.960 You know, we have in the UK the most stringent electric vehicle introduction laws in Europe, even more stringent than in the EU, even though we've left the EU.

00:48:32.900 And at the moment now, I talk to lots of people in the car industry or they talk to me because they can't get a hearing with many other journalists.

00:48:41.660 You know, very senior people in the car industry.

00:48:44.020 And they are now saying this is going to completely wreck Britain's entire car industry, which employs a million people.

00:48:51.820 Right.

00:48:52.380 And then 500,000 more in related industries, often in parts of the country that don't have many decent jobs.

00:48:59.960 Right.

00:49:00.320 You know, the fact that we now have a situation where car makers in the UK, 22 percent last year, this year, 28 percent of the cars they sell must be pure electric vehicles, not hybrids, pure electric vehicles.

00:49:13.900 But guess what?

00:49:14.800 The punters don't want them.

00:49:16.240 The punters don't want them because the charging network is really ropey and really expensive.

00:49:20.960 They don't want them because the secondhand market for electric vehicles is awful.

00:49:25.280 Well, they don't want them because in many cases they're unreliable.

00:49:28.040 So car makers can't actually sell enough vehicles to get to 28 percent.

00:49:33.100 And under our rules in the UK, insane.

00:49:35.980 They're charged a fine of 15,000 pounds, you know, getting on for 20,000 US dollars per vehicle that is below that 28 percent.

00:49:45.440 So what they're doing, they're rationing, they're not making petrol and diesel vehicles ahead of the 2035 ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles, which means the new petrol and diesel vehicles are going up in price.

00:49:57.680 People can't get them and they're laying off workers.

00:50:01.380 So UK car production, it went down 14 percent last year.

00:50:04.540 In the first two months of this year, it's gone down another 14 percent from that much lower base.

00:50:09.740 And the car companies are laying people off.

00:50:12.620 BMW, because of our electric vehicle rules, you know, imposed by Ed Miliband, who is completely out of control and needs to be, I think, reined in.

00:50:21.860 I think he's actually dangerous with some of his policies at the moment.

00:50:26.500 And BMW are now not building the electric vehicle, electric mini at Cowley in Oxford, right?

00:50:35.400 Cowley has been a center of car manufacturing for over 100 years.

00:50:40.620 This is one of the most sophisticated car plants in Europe.

00:50:44.040 And BMW are probably not going to come back.

00:50:46.520 They're not saying that now, but they're probably not going to come back.

00:50:49.440 And look at the ban on drilling for new oil and gas in the North Sea.

00:50:55.020 Again, insane.

00:50:56.500 Because what we're doing instead, France, is, you know, even the Climate Change Committee, which is our kind of in-government think tank that has the legal rights to tell ministers what to do effectively.

00:51:08.480 Even the Climate Change Committee says that by 2030, we're going to still use oil and gas for 50 percent of our energy.

00:51:14.280 It will actually be much higher.

00:51:15.260 Even by 2050, it will be 25 percent of our energy.

00:51:17.500 It will actually be much higher.

00:51:18.580 So even, you know, the most woke green civil servants say we're still going to need lots of oil and gas, even if we hit net zero by 2050.

00:51:27.540 So why not use our own oil and gas?

00:51:29.500 Because if instead of using North Sea oil and gas, by the way, the North Sea oil complex employs about 300,000 people, many of them unionized, which is why the unions are upset.

00:51:39.180 We are importing liquefied natural gas from Qatar and America on ships.

00:51:44.980 That uses five times the carbon emissions because you've got to pump the gas, right?

00:51:51.080 You've got to liquefy it, which is a very intensive, energy intensive process.

00:51:54.820 Stick it on a diesel ship.

00:51:56.580 Go 3,000 miles across the Atlantic.

00:51:58.640 Re-gasify it here, which is a very energy intensive process.

00:52:02.000 When we've got oil and gas in the North Sea, to close that down just for ideological reasons, because Labour wants to appeal to their trendy urban electorates, who are very wealthy, is madness.

00:52:16.520 Because they are not only really, now I think, threatening the energy security of this country, they are also hammering their traditional blue collar base that works in these industries.

00:52:28.480 And that is why that blue collar base is increasingly looking for alternative political representation.

00:52:35.660 And on that very subject, Liam, well done.

00:52:37.720 See what I did then?

00:52:38.020 The segue was beautiful.

00:52:41.520 There was a party until very recently that was very clear about its opposition to net zero and lots of other things that that very blue collar base that you're talking about feels very strongly about.

00:52:52.760 And this was summed up perfectly by a friend of the show, a friend of ours called Jeff Norcois, a great comedian, who said…

00:52:58.280 He's a great comedian.

00:52:58.860 Who said, how the fuck…

00:53:00.100 Great podcast, what most people think.

00:53:01.620 Exactly.

00:53:02.240 And what he said is on Twitter, how the fuck is there a civil war in a party with five MPs?

00:53:06.720 What the hell is going on in reform, Liam?

00:53:09.520 Thanks to today's sponsor, Venice.

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00:55:09.920 And now, back to the show.

00:55:13.020 Reform, what's incredible, and I'll say this on your podcast because it's not said often enough.

00:55:19.160 Again, you know, I'll be accused of being a fascist for just making this observation.

00:55:23.440 But in my experience, the betting markets are much better predictions of what's happening in politics and indeed lots of life than the polls and certainly the newspaper commentators.

00:55:36.280 And for many months now, reform have been favourites on many of the big betting sites to form the next government in this country.

00:55:44.320 That is an astonishing fact, given that this party barely existed just before the election in July 2024.

00:55:52.620 It is, of course, led by Nigel Farage, who has been on the scene of British politics for well over a decade under UKIP, one of his previous party incarnations.

00:56:05.480 They won the European election in 2014, the first party to win a national election in the UK that wasn't the Tories or Labour for over 100 years.

00:56:15.900 So he's an incredible economic, he's an incredible political communicator.

00:56:20.580 And while a lot of people don't like him, a lot of people, increasing numbers of people really like him and really like his party.

00:56:27.740 But you know what? Because Nigel Farage knows that the key to reform getting into government isn't going to, you know, the far reaches of the British electorate on the right.

00:56:41.560 But what he needs to do is he needs to convince people who are previously conservatives and people who are previously Labour to vote for him.

00:56:50.840 He needs to convince them that he's not racist, that he's not an extremist, that he's not so-called far right, that he's just a grown up.

00:56:59.140 And that's why he's come to blows with another of the five MPs, a guy called Rupert Lowe, who's not a politician.

00:57:07.140 He's a businessman. He used to be one of the owners of Southampton Football Club.

00:57:11.360 He's a very successful businessman. He, like Farage, is MP for a coastal seat in the east of England, Great Yarmouth and Clacton, respectively.

00:57:19.500 Both seats with quite a lot of less well-off people with respect to them, quite economically marginalised.

00:57:26.200 And let's be clear, Rupert Lowe is to the right of Nigel Farage, particularly on immigration.

00:57:31.000 Rupert Lowe wants to deport lots of people, which is what AFD wants to do in Germany.

00:57:36.060 And Nigel Farage thinks that's a bit strong.

00:57:38.180 That's a bit strong for a mainstream political party in the UK.

00:57:43.380 And that is what the essence of this rift between them is about.

00:57:48.740 Is it?

00:57:49.280 Because a lot of people will say it's about ego.

00:57:52.260 Oh, no, of course.

00:57:52.940 No, of course it's about ego.

00:57:55.340 But that is the hill they've decided to fight different.

00:57:59.360 I mean, policy and ego is all tied up in politics, isn't it?

00:58:02.560 Sure. We've had both Rupert and Nigel on the show.

00:58:06.020 I think the thing about deporting people, I'm pretty sure Rupert wants to deport illegal immigrants.

00:58:11.480 So why is that an issue?

00:58:13.900 Like, don't we all want illegal immigrants deported?

00:58:18.320 I think a lot of people do, but I think mainstream British politics isn't capable of coping with that.

00:58:25.440 Really?

00:58:25.800 Yeah, I do.

00:58:26.260 But isn't that, like, I'm an immigrant.

00:58:28.100 Yeah.

00:58:28.280 I want illegal, like, I don't think people should come here legally and then be allowed to stay.

00:58:33.040 It depends, doesn't it?

00:58:34.220 It's all about degrees, isn't it?

00:58:35.680 Yeah.

00:58:35.860 I think a lot of people, you know, if you've just arrived, then I think it is increasingly becoming a mainstream thing to do what Australia did, which is to have third, you know, third country processing and so on.

00:58:47.600 I think there's quite a lot of support among the solid majority for that.

00:58:50.700 But I think the distinction between Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe is, you know, when.

00:58:55.860 Because under the British rules, if you've been here for five years, you know, you're almost certain to get what we call leave to remain.

00:59:03.500 You become normalised.

00:59:04.560 And that's the way we've been coping with the influx of illegal immigration.

00:59:09.320 We've just been letting those people sit there and then eventually there's some kind of amnesty, in effect, and they have their papers normalised, even though they came here illegally.

00:59:19.560 And that's why so many do.

00:59:20.780 That's the model, isn't it?

00:59:21.940 That's why they risk their lives doing this crazy thing of going across, you know, the busiest shipping lane in the world, which is subject to all kinds of squalls and weather surges, which is the English Channel, right?

00:59:32.040 It's only 21 miles.

00:59:33.140 But as we've seen, lots of people have died.

00:59:34.760 But Rupert is much, much more adamant that people should be deported, you know.

00:59:40.660 Even if they've been here, like, 20 years.

00:59:42.220 He hasn't put a number on it.

00:59:44.400 It's all about adjectives and degrees and so on.

00:59:47.120 But, of course, eventually it's about ego.

00:59:49.540 And everyone knows in politics that if you take on Nigel Farage, he will find a way to beat you.

00:59:56.020 He is the ultimate political street fighter.

00:59:58.660 There are a lot of people in politics and parts of the media that are very law to him.

01:00:04.920 I personally think Rupert Lowe is a decent man.

01:00:07.900 I think he's conducted himself very, very well.

01:00:10.380 I think he's a very talented orator.

01:00:12.620 I think it's great we're getting, you know, talented business people giving up their time to come into politics.

01:00:18.760 In many ways, I applaud him.

01:00:20.140 But I think he's been a little bit naive thinking that the way to take on Nigel is to go to the papers and moan about Nigel.

01:00:28.240 That is not the way to take on Nigel Farage.

01:00:31.380 And, you know, in the end, yes, Rupert Lowe is popular on Twitter or X as we must now call it, of course.

01:00:39.040 But he doesn't have nearly the following in the country that Farage does.

01:00:42.660 Farage is a national figure because he's been doing this for so long.

01:00:46.640 Rupert Lowe is getting, you know, great feedback on X with a couple of hundred thousand followers.

01:00:52.160 But, you know, if people walk down the street, then, you know, with Rupert Lowe, very few people are going to know who he is.

01:00:58.400 Walk down the street with Nigel Farage, as I've done many times.

01:01:01.020 We've been broadcast a lot together on GB News and elsewhere.

01:01:05.600 I've known him for many, many years as a journalist.

01:01:08.080 You know, walk down the street with Nigel Farage and you will be mobbed.

01:01:10.720 And years ago, years ago, it would have been largely abuse.

01:01:14.780 Because now, the majority, in my experience, the majority of people that come up to him, they want a selfie with him.

01:01:21.280 They want to shake his hand.

01:01:22.420 Young people.

01:01:23.480 He's got this huge following on TikTok.

01:01:25.640 He's the only mainstream British politician that actually has used TikTok.

01:01:30.200 And so with huge respect to Rupert Lowe, I think he's bitten off more than he can chew.

01:01:34.760 It's interesting you say that because the concern for a lot of people isn't, look, I say this with all respect to both men.

01:01:41.520 I don't care about Nigel Farage.

01:01:43.480 I don't care about Rupert Lowe.

01:01:45.200 I don't care about reform.

01:01:46.840 I don't care about the Conservative Party.

01:01:48.560 I don't care about the Labour Party.

01:01:50.120 I don't care about the Lib Dems.

01:01:51.440 I care about the country.

01:01:52.980 And the concern for a lot of people with this is the following.

01:01:58.100 Forget about Rupert Lowe and Nigel Farage.

01:02:00.200 If this is how Nigel runs a party, I'm not saying this is my position, by the way.

01:02:04.220 I believe in strong leadership and I think people have to follow the leader as much as that's possible, as much as that's possible.

01:02:11.220 But the concern for a lot of people that I'm hearing is, well, if Nigel Farage can't run a party of five MPs, how is he going to run a party of 200 MPs?

01:02:19.700 And if the moment anyone, you know, challenges the way things are done, they get what Rupert's had, which by many people's reckoning is unfair treatment, you know, being accused of things that you may or may not have done.

01:02:32.680 And also, you know, pretty nasty stuff.

01:02:34.880 One of the things that people are putting out is he's got early onset dementia.

01:02:38.260 You know, this is pretty low grade shit.

01:02:40.960 You wouldn't enjoy someone saying that about you or me or anyone else.

01:02:43.680 Right. So the concern for people who don't care about the personalities but care about the country is how is reform going to be a credible challenge to the two mainstream parties, which they have a real shot of doing.

01:02:55.720 Oh, definitely.

01:02:56.380 If they can't keep five people on the same fucking team.

01:02:59.940 I agree with you. It's pretty edifying.

01:03:02.000 There's, you know, a lot of people in the media, a lot of professional political observers.

01:03:07.100 They're pretty disappointed because reform have been going so well.

01:03:10.180 They've been connecting with parts of the electorate they weren't previously connecting with.

01:03:14.160 And now they're having this, you know, ridiculous Mexican standoff, right?

01:03:17.800 Right.

01:03:19.360 Having said that, with huge respect, I do think that's a kind of bubble view, which is uncharacteristic on this podcast because you guys are so good at getting out beyond the bubble.

01:03:29.700 Yet two or three percent of the country have even heard of Rupert Lowe.

01:03:33.920 That's the reality. That's the reality.

01:03:35.660 Now, I'm not saying that among his supporters, he hasn't got at least some of the electricity that Nigel Farage has.

01:03:42.240 He has. I've seen it. I've been, you know, as a journalist.

01:03:44.480 Liam, I'm making a different point.

01:03:45.780 As a journalist, I've been to reform rallies, right?

01:03:47.840 No, I understand, but I'm making a different point.

01:03:49.060 Most voters out there, for them, reform is Nigel Farage, and they're going to vote for Nigel Farage anyway.

01:03:55.440 Agreed. Agreed.

01:03:56.380 However much the Westminster bubble throws at reform for being dysfunctional.

01:04:00.660 But the argument is different. My argument is different, which is, as this thing carries on, reform have less than four years now, around four years until the next election.

01:04:09.480 They're going to have to have a party of 300 people.

01:04:14.260 Some of whom are going to be the Rupert Lowe's and et cetera.

01:04:18.080 How is the concern for, I think, a lot of people who are paying attention?

01:04:21.440 Yes, I understand Nigel is huge in the country. He is, undoubtedly, and Rupert isn't understood.

01:04:27.480 But how is a party that reacts this way to any challenge to the current structure going to manage that situation if they're going to be a credible alternative?

01:04:36.220 I think that's the test.

01:04:38.040 You know, I think most voters don't care about a rift.

01:04:41.720 And obviously, if Rupert Lowe continues to be a thorn in Farage's side, tries to set up another party or whatever, then, you know, that will be a pain in Nigel Farage's backside.

01:04:53.180 But is the media going to carry on reporting it? Is it going to become an old story?

01:04:56.880 We'll see. It's all to play for.

01:04:58.780 You know, Rupert Lowe may get a load of money behind him, and he may cause a big noise, and he may have some massive split in reform.

01:05:05.000 And a lot of the political establishment would love that to happen, and they're waving the fans, flaming the fans of that and desperately trying to make it happen.

01:05:12.720 But your fundamental point is absolutely correct, though.

01:05:17.100 They have to professionalise.

01:05:19.040 And that is what I'm seeing they are trying to do to at least some extent.

01:05:23.500 So they've brought in a young Sri Lankan chairman who's a very successful business leader, Zia Yousef.

01:05:30.540 He, you know, he's part of this row between Nigel and Rupert, trying to get Rupert out for whatever internet sign reason.

01:05:38.880 But as well as doing that, Zia Yousef and his team are doing a mass screening of candidates.

01:05:45.320 They're going to run candidates in each of the 650 constituencies.

01:05:48.300 They're taking premises in a lot of the constituencies, building constituency offices.

01:05:52.020 I'm seeing that in the part of the country where I live, very much a Tory stronghold, where reform are really putting down deep roots.

01:05:58.920 There are lots of defections at the local level.

01:06:01.420 And I would say, you know, I hold no candle for reform, right?

01:06:05.280 I'm not, I've never pinned my colour to any, I've never pinned my colours to any political party.

01:06:12.360 It's not really in my nature.

01:06:15.520 But I would suggest that reform, they're five MPs.

01:06:19.740 Yes, they got five MPs only, but they got 14% of the vote, right?

01:06:23.700 In July 2024 in the general election.

01:06:26.080 The Lib Dems got 71 seats on 11% of the vote.

01:06:29.440 This is our weird voting system.

01:06:32.460 Reform have five MPs now.

01:06:34.320 Maybe they're going to have four if Rupert Lowe leaves.

01:06:35.900 But by the time of the next election in 2029, that's when it is, they'll have 10 or 15.

01:06:40.480 Because of defections and because of by-elections.

01:06:44.580 By-elections, when MPs die or resign in between general elections.

01:06:48.660 And in our system, there's a one-off election in one constituency that the whole political class focuses on for a week.

01:06:54.920 So I think they are going to build their support in Parliament.

01:07:00.300 I think they're going to go from 10 to 15 MPs.

01:07:02.560 Once they go to six MPs, they get something, what we call short money, which is a Westminster convention.

01:07:07.740 They get money to actually help them be an opposition party.

01:07:10.820 They are screening candidates like crazy.

01:07:15.560 I know that Zia and Nigel and Deputy Leader Richard Tice are absolutely focused on getting a candidates list that is shorn of, quote, the nutters.

01:07:25.720 Because so many crazy people are attracted to new political parties.

01:07:29.300 So let's see.

01:07:30.460 I still don't think the political mainstream realizes what's happening.

01:07:34.120 They haven't clocked the fact that on the betting markets, reform, they're not odds-on, but they're favourites to be formed in the next government.

01:07:42.940 That is an incredible thing.

01:07:44.680 And when we look at what's happening across Western Europe, it isn't unusual.

01:07:49.440 AFD could easily win the 2029 election in Germany.

01:07:55.560 They just came second, doubling their vote.

01:07:57.440 They're being shut out by the SPD, who just got their lowest vote ever.

01:08:00.940 And they're still going to be in government if, indeed, Mertz of the CDU and the SPD can actually form some kind of coalition.

01:08:09.700 I'm not sure that they will.

01:08:11.540 We'll see.

01:08:12.300 But this is happening across Western Europe.

01:08:14.420 I think the UK is slightly behind.

01:08:16.660 And our form of, you know, hard right party, if you like, is always going to be a bit more moderate than that.

01:08:22.900 Because I think we are just generally a more moderate country than the French, the Germans, certainly than the Italians and the Spanish and the Greeks.

01:08:31.220 Thank God for that.

01:08:32.460 But I do think reform are coming and they're coming hard.

01:08:36.280 And I think these squalls and this internal war is because everyone can see, crikey, we could be in government and the prizes are coming into view.

01:08:45.480 And so that the venal politics and, as you say, the egos, the clashes are getting more intense.

01:08:52.140 That makes sense.

01:08:52.740 And, by the way, I should say we did invite Rupert on the show, but he wasn't available to come on this week.

01:08:57.360 Anyway, we'll ask you the last question.

01:08:59.280 We'll head over to Substack to ask you our supporters questions.

01:09:01.900 And then we'll wrap up.

01:09:03.120 Final question is always the same.

01:09:04.500 What's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be?

01:09:06.860 Before Liam answers the final question, at the end of the interview, make sure you click the link in the description, head on over to our Substack, and you'll be able to see this.

01:09:17.020 Can the US increase GDP per capita through additional onshore investment to offset or outpace the inflationary pressure caused by tariffs?

01:09:24.700 Could we be better off in practice if major continental regions had each maintained internal self-sufficiency and traded mainly within themselves?

01:09:34.460 I think we should be talking about what's going on across mainstream Europe.

01:09:45.020 We don't do that enough in the UK.

01:09:50.940 Mainland European journalists know a lot more about British politics than we do about their politics.

01:09:56.640 I think it's absolutely fascinating.

01:09:58.060 I think the German election was absolutely fascinating.

01:10:00.900 I'd like to see, you know, as somebody who voted leave, I, you know, I remain absolutely fascinated by continental European politics.

01:10:12.920 I think it's really, really important.

01:10:14.640 We're so focused on the US, you know, understandably, because they're kind of our cousins in many ways.

01:10:19.740 But I think the impact of European politics on British politics is just as important these days.

01:10:25.380 And, of course, again, despite the fact I voted leave, I'll always point this out.

01:10:29.440 While America is our biggest trading partner, we still trade a lot more with the European Union than we do with America.

01:10:34.820 So I want to see us focusing more on what's going on on mainland Europe.

01:10:39.580 And, Liam, I'm delighted to say that after me badgering you for about two years, you are starting a sub stack.

01:10:45.240 And I think that's fantastic because your economic analysis is absolutely top notch.

01:10:50.040 Any time I'm doing any TV show, I always call you up and get your, steal your ideas and then say them in my own way.

01:10:58.060 So I'm delighted that that's now available.

01:11:00.220 You've bounced around all sorts of different places, but your economic commentary has always been right up there with the best of it.

01:11:06.020 I'm super delighted you've got a sub stack.

01:11:08.040 The link will be in the description of this episode for people to check it out.

01:11:11.080 And it will be great for people to be able to access that directly.

01:11:14.440 And head on over to sub stack where we ask, Liam, your questions, including possibly ones about mainland Europe.

01:11:19.500 See you there.

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01:12:34.180 This is as a TV star.

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TRIGGERnometry - March 19, 2025

Will Trump's Strategy Work？ - Liam Halligan

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