Surveillance: World Economic Forum in Davos Kicks Off

yes to shutdown, but also global slowdown. All of this wrapping around conversations on China, and again, as we said earlier, it could be all one or two hour conversation with Laura Chash. She's Hong Kong Exchange share working in finance. Years of Pillsbury, I'm and other law firms with far more. She is Laura Chure of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. What was it like your first day? I was coming from Hong Kong and Little Cot It was shot and

this was in the late sixties. I'm betraying my age. It was the days of the Vietnam protest, so I was thrown right into that and interesting, interesting, exciting, and uh, this is a really introduction to the to the United It was a politics at the time, and Mr Kissinger and Mr Nixon to that and all. If you could have a cocktail right now at the Mandarin Bar in Hong Kong was selected members of the Trump administration who feel China is a behavioral, a cultural and a social threat.

What would you say to them at the m bar? Well, I think, first and foremost, Uh, we're talking about different culture. We're talking about include sution. We have to be accepting of other people's valued and culture. But there are some common value even though we may have different culture. I think the core valued of you know, of integrity, um, honesty. These are values that the rule of law. I mean, these are values that Hong Kong hosts there and that's

what made Hong Kong successful. In the last few decades, China has repeatedly promised to open its financial system to investors, foreign investors and foreign companies. What more, how's it going? First of all? And what more do they need to do? Oh, there's actually quite a lot that that the central government

can do in opening up the financial market. When China joined the w TEL in two thousand and two, UH Financial Services was one of the least open of all the sectors, and over the years, gradually they have opened up. They have allowed foreign ownership in banks and security houses and so on. But because the currency is not completely convertible, so foreign investors now can access the Chinese markets through Hong Kong, so to stock connect scheme, what else can

the central government do? I think they have already said a few months ago that they are eliminating the restriction on ownership. But what is more important is really not only just the ownership, but allowing foreign investor to participate in that market and vice versa. I mean that that has to be a two way street. I mean, we've seen some crazy moves on the stock markets, right, I mean one day that I think companies lost some five billion dollars, so you know, stock through downs. What can

the exchange do to prevent that kind of scenario? You're talking about the exchanges in China. Well, I think the exchanges in China have a very different um problem than the rest of US because a large percentage of the participant in the domestic market are retail investors. So there's a lot of sentiment when people tray on rumors, and so that that's what brought about the big swings, and the institutional investors in China are not yet well developed.

So I used to say that the institution investors in China behave like big retails. So instead of providing some uh anchor to you know, when the market was volatile, they join in the volatility and make it even more volatile. I think that is certainly an area where the institutional investor can improve um and I think that will bring stability and more stability to the market domestic market. Thank you so much, greatly appreciated. Hong Kong Exchange is their chair.

This is a joy it out right now to speak with a gentleman from Nigeria, Mohammed Barkindos, OPEC Secretary General, and in conversation with his entourage as he came onto our stage, we talked about the history of nine six I think Daniel Jurgen in the prize and all of the history of OPEC, and it was a cartel, and you collegiately take offense with the idea that it's still a cartel. If it's not a cartel in OPEC, what is it. Thank you very much for having me, of course,

and happy New yeah, good to see you guys. Yeah, okay, Now you're quite correct. We are no longer a cartel. I think we are a free, open, transparent organization what some of the you might call a fish bowl in the US. We have come a long way. For example, asad today, all our data, all our data, which is

our key raw material, is online from sixty till date. Secondly, most of our publication of the key ones monthly oil market Report, our annual statistical bulletin, all online, accessible to all our meetings are covered by the global media and their stream. Most of the time, life were as open as any organization that you can think of, and we are. We're proud of what we have been able to achieve since the eighties, very very transparent with the data. Now,

admittedly the process is less transparent to make. When someone I say here on any given morning and the president and sweets about OPEC, it's the president of the elephant in the room. Now, the President of the United States, is he around that almost? Is he the marginal producer? Marginal The President is the biggest producer in the world today, and it's logical for him to take more than a passing interest in what opic does because of what we do or fail to do, affects him, affects his industry

and by extension, his economy. The last downtown has proven beyond an invisible doubt that both OPIC, the United States Ryan, the shell producers were all in the same bold trist just because of the time. I want to conflate here to basic themes in questions. One is the mystery of Russia tangential to OPEC, and the other is you've got to get to a meeting in Vienna in April. How should Russia come to the meeting with OPEC in Vienna in April. It's an odd chemistry right now? How that

chemistry be in April. I think it's been good. So far, so good. We have come a long way with our Russian friends. OPEC and Russia had instituted an energy dialogue as far back as two thousand and six, and during this last downturn we have worked together with the Russian

Federation to reach the historic declaration of cooperation. We also went further to implement from January twenties seventeen two last December, what we had agreed upon with very high level of performance, what we refer to as conformity or what you call compliance. The Russians had played a leading role in the entire process so far, and I've got it in good authority

from the Russians. They intend to continue to work with us to sustain the balance that we have been able to achieve on a sustainable basis, so they still have a lap of partner very much. So have you got any preliminary guidance sound compliance through the early party January?

What if he thinks I found the data. We had just had our technical meetings in Vienna, bringing a close twenty eighteen figures, and we took stock of the implementation of the supply adjustments from January twenty seventeen toal date. I can tell you that the level of performance was well over for both ourselves and the non Opic. We're just beginning to implement our decision on the sixth and certain of December, so it's so far, so good. We're

on track to achieve our common objectives. One of the rumors here in Davos is OPAC split the polar vortex above the Arctic Circle and cause a record called in America. Over the last ten days, what we focused on is to ensure that inventories that had built up in the last downtown too unsustainable levels do not RecA in. You have visibility on that right now. I mean we count

boats of Singapore. But the answer to your visibility on that, we are beginning to see very sharp reductions in supply in conformity to the supply obligations that we agreed upon on the six and seventh of December, and we have seen that the market has started to respond positively. We have seen the market structure, for example, Brent has just flipped into backwardation. And this is just the beginning of the month. Mr Kendall, thank you so much for joining

us to General OPEC this morning. Let's continue the conversation here with the chief executive officers that arguably it is the single most important executive in America on the emotions of the President of the United States. Aren't Sorenson is off the fabric of Minnesota out of Minnesota law among other things. He is a Marriott CEO, and of course, as we all know that uniqueness of being the first

non Marriotte to be the Marriott CEO. We can talk here the summation of your travel rewards into your new thing and your building. Hotels, guess what the governments and shutdown. Then you're at the absolute crucible of this. I read an industry article with you and John Tish about the percentage of immigrants that make Marriott go each and every day. Give us a percentage number of your employees that can

relate directly to the national debate. Well, it is. It's not uncommon in our full service hotels in our urban markets to have fifties, sixties, seventy nation analities represented, all legal. By the way, we are very careful. I'm going to play the other side of the president says below. Either not illegal, The president has illegal immigrants. It is hotels is published. How do you know that they're not undocumented.

We use all the tools available, including e Verify, which is provided by the I and S. But we are vigilant about the documentation and making sure that these people have the right to work in the United States. The challenge, of course government shutdown. Why because both political parties believe it's more important to leave immigration unresolved than to come up with a new consensus. Want to message them today,

then we'll se message to them today. Get talking. I mean, I think the right thing is to get the government open and then to get engaged in building a national consensus around what fair immigration looks like. Because I think if you ask people across the United States, what are the rules of immigration? How do they work? People would say, I have no idea. Is this confusion right now hurting your business? Oh? It? It varies from market to market. Washington,

of course, we're big. That's our hometown. We have a hundred fifty hotels or so in the Greater Washington area. Business there is down double digits since the government shutdowns. So that's the domestic tension. Let's talk about the international tension between the United States and China. You've got a decent window into what is happening in the world. Second launched economy. How big is the slowdown? Because even a company like Apple is really struggling with nit term visibility.

Do you have good nit term visibility as to what is happening in the economy at the moment? Well, we know what happened last night or last week. We don't necessarily know what's going to happen three months from now. So if if you're asking that our ability to predict that's more difficult. There are there are differences. Obviously, the negatives, there's a trade war, the Chinese economy is under pressure because of it. The positive, the Chinese are trying to

move towards more of a consumer economy. We are in the consumer space, so Chinese travelers within China and abroad. Chinese traveling abroad, we think is continuing to grow up, even with a weaker And they're all staying at Marriott, and no doubt I'm kidding. I don't know if you've been at the Marriott in Tulsa two e seventy one Street, Tulsa, Oklahoma. There are workers there for you who are directly affected by the shutdown, directly affected by the debate over immigration,

and they've got a real job at Marriott. How does America have confidence that they will advance and prosper in the coming years. How do we as a nation get behind employers like you with these first Americans? It's all about jobs. You look at how benefited medical jobs you people will see have medical plans. All the full time folks have healthcare. Yeah, I mean they some of them

have it under their spouses. And so I shouldn't say, but I think our participation rate even in retirement our participation rate is because we think it's important to build, of course, to coin and sate people fairly, but to build careers for people where they can say I can work not only last month or this month in one of your hotels, but I can build my career. I can put my kids through school, I'm gonna have a house, I can I can grow in the way I want

to grow. And that's what the company has been about for decades. In some ways, Over the last couple of months or so, the company has been about managing a crisis around the hacking. What's the latest on that. Have you got any idea who was behind it and what the objectives were? I don't know that we'll ever know who was behind it. We know we know that somebody was in Star Wars reservation system for a few years. Of course, we did not find that out during the diligence.

We don't think Starwood knew that before I saw the company to us, and this was something that was discovered in the fall of We moved as quickly as we could to do two things. Want to be transparent that what we knew we had to share with everybody else. And second, to find out as much as we could find out. Do you know I found out about the hacking. I had ten nights at the Ritz Carlton and Atlanta. All of a sudden shot up on my Marriott rewards.

Where did this come from? Everybody was affected? Right, Well, I don't know that that's connected. Let me ask this because this is an important question. Actually, do we have firm wid protocols for when a passport gets scanned in a Marriott hotel that is now encrypted? Well? Uh, the answer is we're getting there as quickly as we can. U a couple of I want to say, a couple

of comparison assports. So by the beginning of January, we determined as best we can that none of the payment card information was unencrypted, which is obviously a very good thing. We determine that about five million global passports, that is from Chinese travelers, American traveling, European travelers, about five million were unencrypted. So that's where the that's where the concern comes from. There is a debate. The U State Department says,

don't worry about it, don't replace your passport. A passport number without the passport is worth nothing. But there are others who reasonably say we'll wait a second, that's my passport number. I feel violated somehow by that. What you know, what are the consequences of that? And I think for us long term, we've got to make sure that everything is encrypted. We've also got to make sure we comply

with local law. So for anybody who travels abroad in many countries around the world, were required to take your passport, maybe make a physical copy of that passport, and encrypting a xerox copy is not necessarily the leading edge of technology. I want one final question. If James Diamond was sitting here, I'd ask him, as he too big as a bank, the question every day has to be his Marriott become too big with all the mergers, the scope to scale,

the new rewards messing that you're doing. How do you respond to the idea of Marriott's become too big for the industry? Well, I think it's I think it's a crazy idea. I don't know that, but but but we are out seven to eight percent of the hotel rooms in the world. Seven to eight It's hardly a massive share. And by the way, about half of those rooms are run by our franchise. Is we don't even price them interesting,

so it is still a highly competitive business. And what customers are italian Us is they want to be able to stay with us wherever they're going, and they're going lots of different places and lots of different purposes of their trips. Sometimes they want luxury, sometimes they don't, and we want to be there for you. Mr Thomason. Always got to catch up with you. Thank you very much for dropping by. Earlier on I caught up with the

Saudi Aramco CEO. I'm in NASA speaking to me about plans for a takeover of the big Saudi petrochemical John Sabag. Take a listen to what he had to say. We are in discussion currently with the Public Investment Fund about the acquisition of seventy of the share of Serbic. We are in discussion with regard to the price that that the stage. Do we have a ballpark figure of where the price will be, not yet. I'm hearing numbers of in and around sixty billion. Is that a ballpark figure.

I'm not going to comment enter price because you know, you understand this is very critical at this stage to will be to keep silent about the negotiation that's currently ongoing with public Investment fund. Well, the Energy Minister has not been silent about the financing of this acquisition. He's looking at a potential bond issuance coming up maybe in the second quarter. Could you comment on that. The financing of the potential acquisition, we are exploring. You know, we

have a significant capital program. To sustain that capital program and also considering the acquisition, the potential acquisition of the stake in Cybo, are blowing all options for funding. One of it is a bond issuance and that is something that we're looking at. Let's talk about the science of the bonds, how much could potentially come to market and the potential duration of them. Well, we are at the

stage we are, as I said, we are evaluating. We are when to decide soon exactly how much we would like to take from the bond market. And so it has not decided yet in terms of how much we

would like to do. You know what your intentions are with the other The thirty percent is of Serbecum del Conte and well it is publicly listed company is listed in the market as the regulator giving you a waiver whereby you don't actually have to buy the thirty percent, Can you just buy the sevent We are in discussion right now with Public Investment Fund first of all, about the acquisition of the seventy percent, and the issue whether

we need to or not is in discussion. With this you may with regard to that, have you had any preliminary guidance on that at all. Our intention is not to acquire anything from the public with regard to PENT of this stage. So if you're told that you would have to also acquire the thirty percent, it would actually be a deal breaker for you, guys well, as I say, this is something right now is in discussion, and there's no intention to acquire the thirty percent from the public.

Our intention and our strategy is to acquire the seventy percent stake in with the Public Investment Fund. There's all the discussion is about the seventy We have no intention of acquiring the percent listed in the market. So the guidance we've had from the Energy Minister is that for the seventy percent, you will come to market, you will issue some debt later this year, perhaps in the second quarter. The guidance we've also had is that it will be

an international bond. Now that's going to come with some financial disclosures. Are you prepared to disclose some of the financials? Definitely is going to be international bond. We're currently in discussion with with regard to how much and were and all of that issuance for the bonds, and everything is going well in terms of h anything that is required by the regalitis, in terms of disclosures, in terms of financial disclosures or any type of disclosure required by the

issuance market, we will comply. Well, let's talk about the potential for disclosures because some of the reporting we have done has shown that Sammy Ramco's books have basically got zero debt and you're one of the most profitable companies on the planet. When you disclose to issue this bond, is that what you're going to reveal essentially that you have no debt on the book, so that you are incredibly profitable. We will reveal our balance sheets and any

it's not you know, we have jvs. They have they have did in the market, they have project financing that so it's not when we uh disclosure, will disclose the whole around Cole and all of our DV in the Kingdom and out of the Kingdom some of them went to their dead market. So all the data with regard to the gearing ratio of Saudia around Cole will be shaped. Let's talk about the potential for pricing. The Kingdom came to the market quite recently ten year money a hundred

seventy five basis points at the treasuries. Do you think when a ramco comes to market, actually spreads will be tighter for Sara a Ramco. That will be decided by the market when we go and seek the wants. But I think our round compositions around Cole is a very

successful company. We have great results in two thousand and eighteen and our history and our track record in terms of performance, I think, well, when we share all of that information in in addition to the disclosure, yeah, the market will decide and we have to agree on ahead of that. You might have to talk to a credit rights and agency. You speaking to the credit writing agency right now? We have we did engage a credit rating agencies.

So if we have all of the information required, are you going to have a better credit writing agency than the Kingdom? Well, we are, as I said, we are maintaining the Kingdom softeign credit ratings and what event we have from the other rating agencies we will be shaping when we go with the disclosure. The CEO of sari Aramco there am in NASA speaking to me a little bit earlier on if this is with our question our

interview of Davos on this issue of Brexit. For those of us foreign it is baffeding in his extraordinary is a modest journalist at the Evening Standard, wandered by Mr Cameron's government to be chancelled the Exchequer, but far more importantly to us to care about design. He is an Osborne of Osborne in a little Definitive and Design. What was it like in your childhood bedroom? Did they change

the wallpaper every ninety days? Well, my dad set up Osborne Little of design company and yeah, well you know, we had to showcase the product and there were always new collections and said the house was always big. Read you'd like to warpaper and they came in they said, no, we're moving this town every year. I got my bedroom reading.

This is wonderful jump bringing bringing the channel. George's a massive change for you now being the editor of a newspaper before that, of course the chance of the exchequer. Did you ever think we'd be where we are now even after we found out the outcome of the vote a couple of years ago. I thought in the end we would hit a point where the promise that you can leave the EU and have all the benefits of

EU membership would run out of road. I guess I hoped that there would be a more conciliatory approach, that we would find a middle way through, like a sort of Norway model for Britain outside the EU, but still pretty closely aligned the U. That feels to me like it's gone and we're confronting increasingly the two choices, which is leave the EU without a deal at the end

of March or delay or stop Brexit. That that's emerging now as the two big choices of the country faces and the former Prime Minister David Cameron did kind of make the process sound quite straightforward. If the outcome of the vote was that the United Kingdom voted to leave, he would go across the Brussels and trigger Article fifty. As we found out, both of you eventually ended up

leaving the government. Do you think both of you still have a certain amount of responsibility to the outcome of what has happened in the UK, since it was your government that did bring the vote to the British people. Well, I would say, first of all, David Cameron, erging myself and others did spell out to the country that there would be very serious consequences of leaving the EU, not just for the economy, but for our security relationships and

indeed the Western Alliance. And I would argue that the process in some ways has been quite straightforward. We've triggered Article fifty, there's been a negotiation, it's all been done in a kind of orderly way. The problem isn't the process, it's the policy. What do people want our relationship with the European Union to be? Do we want no relationship at all? Or do we want a very close relationship and that remains as contested as possible. So you did that.

That's that's the hard politics. That's not about the procedure or the process, or whether we have the right civil servants or the right negotiating team. It's about fundamental contradictions in what Grexit promised. But I think, to be fair, I don't think many of us thought it would take that long as long as it did to trigger an Article fifty. Yet it did. It took a number of months where many people thought it would happen immediately, and here we are the clock is ticking and it looks

like we're running out of time. Would your advice be to the government, And I'm not sure if they're going to listen to it, George, And I'm not sure you think they would either, But would your advice be to delay Article fifty to push it back? Well, I think it's just not except stable for this country, my country to leave the European Union without a deal. That is a big shock to the British economy and indeed the

European economy. It does enormous long term reputation or damage to the UK and it's not the way that a advanced nation should behave. So if we can't get a deal, if there's no Norway on the table, for example, then we have to delay brexit. If you're negotiating that with the Europeans, George, is it realistic to take it off the table? Well, there are in the negotiation with the

European Union is over. The British government signed a deal in December and you know, you can have any number of European leaders here at Davos come on this show and they will tell you there is no prospect of reopening out talk. And the only person who believes there is at the moment is the reason May her cabinet

doesn't think the British Parliament doesn't think it. The truth is the choices either now leave without a deal, or perhaps everyone changes their mind on treasons may deal or delay Brexit in some way, either through referendum or indeed an election, which I think is by the and underappreciated outcome of this whole. I think it could be an election. I definitely think I could be election. He's gonna tricker

that well. At the end, what will happen is there'll be a confidence vote in the British Parliament and a small number of Conservative MPs will switch side in that vote because they would rather have an election than see our country leave the European units. George my advantage here as I'm an outsider and for television and radio reduce civics one on one ear and re explain the Cameron Osborne is the same party as Prime Minister Man. I think some people maybe no don't realize that they aren't

even reading the evening standard eight days a week. With that said, his Prime Minister May, has she passed herself by date? I was thunderstruck. There wasn't a window there for her to gracefully resign and move on to a

new Conservative majority. Did she miss that opportunity? Well, the reason Mays challenge i'd be like was that she called a general election last year and lost the majority that David running, myself and others are built up so she doesn't have any political authority and crucially in the British constitutions, for a grace from the Prime Minister to move away from the stubbornness and just step aside for a new vision, a new set of gargles, a new optics within your majority.

I don't think that's realistic because I think she's going to stay. I think what's more realistic, and what she should do is take this threat of a no deal off the table. She can do that, you know, actually shouldn't need anyone else's consent to do it, otherwise she'll allow the Parliament into that space. But here's a crucial and again underappreciated point. You'll hear on shows like this, it said that there's a majority in the British Parliament to stop a no deal Brexit. Now that is the

default of the moment. We're leaving the EU at the end of March, whether we have a deal or not. And in order to stop it, it's not good enough to say as a majority against leaving with that majority has to coalesce around one of the options, either an alternative deal or delaying Brexit, or asking you to delay Brexit,

or a general election or a referendum. At the moment, the parliament's quite divided, so you know, I would say, looking at financial markets, you've got a price in the tail risk that Britain does leave without a deal, and then you have to say, increasingly likely the Britain is going to remain in the EU at the end of March. I don't know how many people have told you this, but you sound a little like Jeremy Corbyn. Isn't that Jeremy Corban. No one has ever told me that. Isn't

that Jeremy I think Corbyn is. You know, he's partly being what all opposition leaders are there to cause trouble for the government, and of course sitting on a very divided party himself unwilling to come to a single conclusion. The problem with delaying, I'm telling you what I think is going to happen. Problem with delaying is it it doesn't actually confront the choice Britain now needs to make. It puts it off, of course, and that's why it's

a convenient bucket for people to go into. But I think we are unless and I'm quite I think I'm quite pessthemistic about this. Unless somehow we can construct some kind of deal which takes Britain out of the EU but keeps us in things like the European Economic Erea, which I, by the way, would think is a fairer reflection of a vote that split the country in half. Then we're going to be confronted with the only way to stop leaving the EAR without a deal, which is

stopping Brexit. How do we then look to the arch Brexiteers I'm going to mention Boris Johnson as well, who say we have a nostalgia in a vision for doing our own trade deals, doing being unilateral in our view of the world, literally harkening back to the Empire, if you will. Nonsense, it's nonsense, but they have a certain mass. How much would you gauge as an enormous great billboard on the side of the big hotel here in Davos, which is sponsored paypful that of the British taxpayer, which

is Britain is the sponsor of free trade. If we leave the U without a deal, we are engaging in the biggest act of protectionism in the entire history of the United Kingdom's got nothing to do with free trade. It's about erecting trade barriers with our nearest and biggest people. Some people that George would say that the European Union it'sself embodied staff it is the protectionist regime in the ice of many people. In fact, in the eyes of many people that voted to leave, that is what the

European Union stands for. You're either in our club and that's great and you can enjoy the benefits of that. But if you're outside of it, go fish. You're on your own. And aren't we living that at the moment? Aren't we finding out that that's what the European Union stands for. Well, I would argue that these are countries like France, Germany, these are our biggest export markets were

in a free trade zone with them. I'm all for the EU doing trade deals with America, Japan which has just been concluded, China, even the United Kingdom to a trade deal with the United States of America. Well, I think the first priority is to have a trade deal with our nearest neighbors, which were about to tear up

if we leave without a deal. And then, you know, the European Union is the best platform through which you can get a good trade deal with the US, and you know, things like permanent membership with the customs you could have been a route to a deal that more MPs would have supported. The first time I saw your government, you were in minority. Remember David Kerman. It was two swords lanes apart in the House of Commons and David Karen was going against Gordon Brown and it wasn't like America.

Are you advantaged or disadvantaged that Jeremy Corbyn is Labor Party head? Would this debate be radically different if there was a different leader of the minority party. Well, the answer is yes. And it's very sad for those of us who care about a parliamentary democracy in our country's reputation that Labor is not led by a much more moderate social democrat of the kind of has led the labor body for all of my lifetime. I think if Labor had that kind of leader, well they'll probably now

be a labor government as it happens. But even if there weren't a labor government right now, we would be on the cusp of a big labor government with a big majority. But we're not because the country is understandably very nervous to Jeremy Corbyn, and ultimately in the country doesn't want to have a choice. I don't think of simply Jerry Aremy Corbyn or Jacob Riesmok. Who's the going to of brexiteer type. You know there there is a center there which is looking and waiting for its voice. Well,

let me give you a choice. What would be the worst outcome for the UK economy a heart Brexit or Jeremy Corbyn as the prime minister. Well, I think one leads to the other, so I'm not sure they are a choice. I think, you know, I think Brexit is a what's the Brexit argument? It's globalization has failed you, The elites have failed you. We need to completely change the way we run the country for last for or five years. That is Jeremy Corbyn's argument as well. So

Brexit opens the door to Corbyn. Corbyn would be very damaging, of course, to Britain's reputation as a home of business and free markets. But we're already doing an enormous amount of damage by choosing to leave the EU and erect a protectionist barriers and tear up a key feature of the Western life. You're just joining us on Bloomberg Radio, George Osborne with US journalist as well as we talked the emotions of his United Kingdom. I want to turn

the journalism. I was thunderstruck by the vibrancy of London newspapers. You're at the Evening Standard and just the cacophany there, I would say, is radically different than what we have in America, where there seems to be much more of a sameness to it. Is the joy of British journalism and print journalism is it is it at risk of

going away as it has in the United States. Well, first was great fun editing a newspaper and for me, you know, I found a fund and politics, I found a great second career, and you know, I'm always trying to speak for our many readers with the kind of classic London newspaper have been for a hundred nine years, and I want us to have a broader national readership. I think in the end, you know, you've got to

make it entertaining. In when I was a kid in London, the Evening Standard was the way you found out what was going on in the world. These days you turn on Bloomberg, right, you can get a collection that you can come back. You can get a constant commentary on what's going on in the world. So by the time you pick up my newspaper in the afternoon, we'll know this has happened in financial markets, or this plane has crashed, or this government is full. And you know what we

can do is provide a context to it. We can make it entertaining, We can inform you. So you cover English football. We do cover English football, particularly my team Chelsea really the other day and they didn't do so well with a cab drum Thomas and I like the Tots, or like this team or the bubbles bubble got are you thinking of west Ham? Was Ham? Yes? And the cab drivers lecturing me on our Arsenal. Is that crush

It was the Cabby that predicted the outcome. Yes, how we got a big Tottenham v. Chelsea game on Thursday night which I'm going home for. Are you you're leaving? This is a surveillance pre exclusive George Osbourne leaving a happy valley to go home for the game. Final question, is the a road back into politics for George Osbourne? Yes, there might well be, but at the moment I'm enjoying my life outside and I don't want to go back,

you know, to this current situation. You know, I want to work on things that are building up our country's reputation, not to me. So you're waiting for this to get cleaned up, and then I'm very like I had a very lucky career in past, became chance to work with a primary very young age as well. Yeah it was, you know, and I like with David Cameron and a team I really and who we were all, you know, a happy band of brothers and sisters. You know, that's

not British politics at the moment. So I would take some persuading that I give up what I'm doing now to go back to that. Georgeos greater catch the former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer and a Chelsea fan who knew that there in London right Westley were blue. Do you know what? We go back and forth on this so much West London, Chelsea, East London, West North London and Crystal South London's Crystal Palace. Okay, well I knew they were sort of there. Liverpool. Yeah, well most London

clubs must say this. And this happened this weekend while I was in I think I was in. I guess it was in London. You guys do it right, because you know, I kid you about how guys fall down and all that. The fiasco in the National Football League over the last week and those two very flawed football games make you guys look like Tom likes the fact that the clock still run. The clock still goes, and they don't stop the game and go back to the decision.

That was brilliant. But that's real. Seriously, anitating George Osborne and the Patriots. Well, can we make some news here Rams or Patriots? Oh well, you got about the Patriots, haven't in this contest? I don't know. To me, it's like Chelsea the Tarts. I don't have a clue we get you saying spurs Spurs Tom Keay alongside me. I'm Jonathan Thorow here in Davil, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum. A special thanks to George Osborne. Thanks for listening to

the Bloomberg Surveillance podcast. Subscribe and listen to interviews on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, or whichever podcast platform you prefer. I'm on Twitter at Tom Keene before the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide. I'm Bloomberg Radio