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We can only marvel at the cynicism of Labour's election manifesto, can't we? We are going to see a pretty punitive budget on the 30th of October. And you can already see it, I think, in terms of hiring is really, really slowed down in the last couple of months. The new leader, whichever of the two it is, has got another job on their hands. Because they've got a fight. A war.
War on three fronts. They've got to be an effective opposition. They've got to take on an understand the danger of the lived dance, which is real. Rachel and the black hole. A. Welcome once again to Planet Normal, the telegraph podcast with Alison Pearson. Hello. And me Liam Halligan. It's another new tsunami Alison.
Labour's first budget is shaping up to be pretty tough to say the least. With Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Orbit admitting a national insurance hike for employers will be in her 30th of October autumn statement along with other tax rises. And now just two weeks ahead of a budget, the Chancellor says the £22 billion black hole in the public finances that Labour blames on the Tories is actually considerably larger. 40 billion.
Which presumably means the UK's tax burden already at 70 year high is set to go up considerably more. But don't worry. Because Labour has a plan for growth. And Labour's held an investment summit. So everything's going to be OK. Meanwhile, more and more people are raising the alarm co-pilot, Planet Normal Style, that the UK's energy security is now so precarious, we could face 1970 style blackouts, all very nostalgic for the likes of us.
We who brushed our teeth with a flaming candle, not literally, and run under the big clothes by torchlights. But power outages will be a disaster for the British economy. Could someone please tell energy secretary Ed Miliband? But the big big news Alison, and this is huge, is that your campaign to spread the word about a Zempic, Fatty's little helper as you call it.
The Miracle Weight Loss Serum has been so successful that health secretary Westreating wants to roll out this anti-fat hunger suppressing drug across the NHS. But you know what? I'm still going to beat you in our ongoing weight loss competition. Well, you know our little private RG bar G.
It's not exactly private because we talk about our own cost. Our personal RG bar G. Is actually this is sort of forming the basis of quite furious debate this week, not least under my column in the telegraph because you've got people like me who are saying, look, the country is terrible at preventative medicine.
The idea that the government would give weight loss jabs to unemployed people in an attempt to get them back to work. I mean, we do have nine million people of working age who are not looking for work, which is so bad. It can only provoke incredulous laughter. But anyway, yes, as you said, West has come up with a plan to get these people to lose weight and hopefully be fit enough to stagger down to the job centre.
So there are people like me who think, yeah, might as well give that a go because people don't really understand obesity or being overweight. I don't think I think you get the other lot who are taking the halogen, the brisk halogen, you know, just eat less and cycle about more approach. Will power.
Yeah, and quite a lot of telegraph readers are really not very impressed with the idea of giving taxpayers money to couch potatoes who are on earning anything. I do have sympathy for that. And I do understand what it looks like. Why should people who keep themselves fit and at a healthy weight? Why should they be subsidising these millions of people?
But the facts are Liam. It's absolutely, you know, the statistics are absolutely terrifying. I mean, basically obesity is costing the NHS about 11 billion a year. That's even more than smoking. And about 40% of the current NHS budget, which is already a deafening 180 billion quid is being spent on preventable health conditions and that figure is predicted to reach 60% by 2040.
So if you could distribute enough of the slimming jobs, Muncharo, which is what I'm on to zap a tide or how you say it, it's called the King Kong of slimming jobs because it's believed to be the most effective on the market actually out at Eclipse.
Now, Ozone Peak and Wigowy. Are you pronouncing it differently now? I can't say it. But I will say that when all the readers write very angrily, what about the side effects? I did share with them that one side effect I had this week was all of my clothes and how far too big. And I was wandering down the high street of my leggings fell down. So the newly reduced Pearson bottom was very much on public view.
And I was like, this is a family friendly show. I'm amazed you've managed to sit in the cockpit all these years. We're not going to have to alter the planet normal cockpit, are we? I know. We'll have to get you a new space suit though. Oh, I mean, the space suit is going to be, you're right. I'm going to have to order a new space suit.
And you can use your old one as some kind of, you know, you can put it in a museum or something or I was going to say you could use it as a tent, but you'd kill me if I said that. So I won't say it. I'm marquee basically. Yeah, but so really where we are now is, you know, the elder Bay, is it the Danny state? Why can't people take personal responsibility? I would just point to the fact that in the States where weightless drugs are, you know, they're far more advanced and have been taken up more.
The States has recently seen obesity declining for the first time and it is a crisis, a huge proportion of children 36.6% Liam of 10 to 11 year olds in the UK are either overweight or obese. That's the life expectancy of those kids, basically shorten before they've even got out of the starting block. So so that so there's a lot to think about. Do you think it's worse doing? Do you think it do you think it's worse treating spending this money on it?
Well, putting our little wager aside and our little contest. Obviously I'm delighted for you. You're my friend that this is having a really positive impact on you and your life. I know it does make you feel a lot better. You are more upbeat because of the stroke that you've been taking and how could anyone not want that for their friend or for anyone else. But the journalist in me aside from the side of hex if I may, which of course are a big part of the public discussion at the moment.
There's another aspect of this. You know, shouldn't we be teaching our kids to eat properly and exercise? I don't accept as some of the big supporters of Manjaro say that obesity is a function of poverty because the healthy option is always the most expensive option when it comes to food. Something which I heard somebody say on the today program this morning it was done challenged. No, it isn't.
If you go to a chicken shop for dinner, it's a lot more expensive than if you buy some vegetables and boil them. I'm being serious. I don't accept that obesity is because of poverty. I understand completely to my fingertips that it's often linked to poverty and people working all hours, God sends with multiple jobs to eight make ends meet, particularly if they're a single parent household, usually a single mum. I get all of that. I get all of that.
But my concern is, aside from the side effect, which obviously I hope there are none at all beyond the norseer and another minor complications that people are talking about. But aside from all those, I do worry about just trying to address issues by rubbing them out, if you know what I mean, by substituting a real solution which would be to eat properly and exercise more for a synthetic solution. Does that make me sound like a prude?
No, it doesn't. I've had thousands of comments under the article today talking about where I am with Mungaro and people say much the same. Get a grip. If you just eat less like me, you'll be, you'll be, no, I can quite... Get a grip. I just love that phrase. Get a grip.
Well, yeah, that's the pull your socks up, you know, absolutely. Look, no, of course. And I think that's right. And I think things started to go wrong in schools when domestic science, which is what I did, was replaced by something called food tech.
I mean, domestic science was absolutely, you know, how to get color on the plate girls, Miss Whitaker used to shout it as soon, sort of 1976, you know, and all your vegetables and whatever. And a lot of kids, Liam, in fact, it's true that in lots of households, three generations have never cooked from scratch.
In fact, in some households, there's no table, there's no dining table, everyone sits on the couch, and people have, you know, the knowledge that you'll have seen from your mum and grandma and so on, all those things that have been passed down. There are homes where people haven't even had the sort of basics. I mean, I remember when Delia Smith basically brought out how to boil an egg and everyone thought how ridiculous, but she wasn't wrong.
I was more of a Graham Kerr man myself, the Gallic and Gourmet, you know, you start the show by jumping over a table. Do you remember this daytime, Italian, 1974, followed by paint along with Nancy Kominsky? No, I don't remember that. I do remember him slurping. Oh, no, it wasn't him. It was Keith Floyd. It was permanently pissed, wasn't it? TV executives these days, they have no imagination. Why can't we have permanently pissed chefs on the phone with Kelly?
So I know, we all have sort of Nadia Hussein, don't we? It's entirely sober, but although very good, of course. But yeah, I mean, just coming back to the side effects, first of all, I haven't had little minor constipation. Nothing a few prunes weren't sought out.
I noticed there's just this, there's a real stigma with these weight loss drugs, possibly as there was with Botox when it was first introduced and, you know, what used to be called plastic surgery, it is now called tweakments and nobody blinks an eyelid if someone has their eyelids lifted the lunch hour.
I do they and I just want to say this because I know lots of business will be rightly be skeptical. I've been reading some academic papers on Mungaro and these other drugs, which affect the hypothalamus. I think I'm saying that right. The fact is Liam, this family of drugs could have more impact on medical science than penicillin, right?
We are not just talking about a few people, you know, going down a dress size like me or two dress sizes and your leggings falling off and counting two dresses sizes and counting. Absolutely. We are talking about drugs, which genuinely senior scientists now think are the most unastonishing thing they've ever seen.
So they think even without weight loss, these drugs, Mungaro and others will protect against cancer, heart disease, which costs the NHS seven and a half billion pounds a year, heart disease, cancer, even Alzheimer's. And this is because they reduce inflammation, which causes metabolic disease. So we're not just looking at something like get off the Doritos. And the Wagon Wheels and the Wagon Wheels. We've signed up the Wagon Wheel for 30 years.
We are possibly looking at a potential revolution in medical science and, you know, we'll be having this argument till the cows come home. But I would bet you even stronger possibility than an Ed Villaband power cut will be that in a decade these drugs will have been rolled out to a degree we can hardly imagine. That's very interesting. And I know you're a squirrel of a researcher. You dig really deeply into subjects that you write about.
And I've, you know, planted normal listeners who have been with us since the beginning will know that the way you've schooled yourself in many subjects that you've written about in the column and that we've talked about on the podcast. And I sincerely hope you're right about all this. I'm not, I totally respect anyone that wants to try these drugs. And I sincerely hope that they're successful for the vast majority of people and have no bad side effects that we discover later down the line.
It strikes me that the NHS is going to have to make a really big decision though about this. And it's so interesting that it's happened so quickly. We've gone from this becoming a kind of urban myth to something which could be rolled out across the fifth biggest economy in the world by the state in just a few months.
Yes, but as I'm trying to say, there's, you know, there are individuals who are using it. I'm paying privately quite a lot actually a month and lots of us, lots of listeners and readers have got in touch and are already reporting tremendous weight loss. And I think one of the things I tried to write about today was people have issues with food. I certainly do going back to childhood quite a difficult childhood I had and was with an alcoholic father.
And it was very much that sweet things were associated with comfort and treats. And I think if I'm ever under stress, then that's my sort of default setting. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that's true for lots of people. You know, those incredibly annoying people who say, I'm so stressed I haven't eaten for three days. I'm like, that's just aggressive, isn't it? That's just sort of nasty.
What do you mean? I mean, three packets of hot nubs when I'm on the deadline. So, so actually, listen, Liam, I want to be clear about this because I know we're laughing and so on. And I know you are. I absolutely think probably in an ideal world eating well, exercising, doing exactly as you say, cooking from scratch, good ingredients, all of that would be the ideal.
But we are where we are. We have millions of people who are carrying, you know, the average weight of a man in the UK now is 14 stone. The average is 12 stone for a woman. People are hugely heavier than they were in our parents, let alone grandparents generation. We could talk for hours about what is you and I will remember how little choice there was in our cupboards and fridge when we were kids.
You know, I mean, you get the odd packet of salted crisps and so on. But there just wasn't this just absolute torrent of food and we could we could also point to the food industry food manufacturers who stuff perfectly normal. And if you bought a cottage pie in one of the supermarkets, a young mum struggling with the children just wanting to buy something decent for dinner. What's in that hydrolyzed fat sugars, absolute rubbish, you know.
So there's an awful lot of people trying to feed their families who got more families in the UK where two parents are in full time work than in any other country. All right. I totally understand diet is often people are time starved and we've talked about that a lot on planet normal. Yeah. And I totally respect those choices and how difficult they are for many people. How difficult they were, you know, in my family when we were raising our kids and I totally get the stressing too.
It seems a bit po face to us to say, oh, journalist, we have a really stressful life. We do have a stressful life, you know, writing a column to deadline is a really stressful thing, but it's has nothing to the stresses that some people face my concern. I have is that you rightly talk about the food processing industry, which of course is an enormously influential lobby.
I just don't want us to get into some kind of drugs arms race where the food processing, you know, where big food is pumping that what we eat with drugs and ingredients that make us. Fatter and then big farmer is pumping us full of drugs that make us thinner. That's the concern I have.
Actually, every so often, obviously we have wonderful listeners and didry came up with a great image actually because she was taking one jar or my recommendation and she said it's like training wheels like the stabilizers on a bite when you're a kid. This is what I'm hoping. This is what a lot of people are hoping is you're training yourself now. I'm eating in a particular way, extremely disciplined, high protein, no rubbish at all.
Look fantastic. I must say you look better for it and you're happier for it. You're going to be at the festival ideas on the weekend. We're going to have to issue magnifying glasses to be able to spot the co-pilot. Because you are getting smaller co-pilot. The black hole is getting bigger. Ah, Rachel and the black hole. It was 22 billion. The black hole that Rachel Reeves says she discovered on taking office left by the Tories, even though the IFS no less said it was clear.
It was clear for anyone who dared to look and that is a direct quote. But this is now quite serious. The tax rises that the UK economy may face. And I'm not talking so much, you know, a bit of extra income tax on changes to thresholds. And I'm not talking about the wealthy having to pay more.
So much as I'm talking about the impact on companies, that will then stymie hiring. It will stymie growth. The very growth that we really need in order to improve and strengthen and make sustainable our public finances. For me, it's growth that fixes the public finances and prudence with spending, rather than tax rises that stymie the growth. That's the problem I have. And I think we are going to see a pretty punitive budget on the 30th of October.
And you can already see it, I think, in terms of hiring is really, really slowed down in the last couple of months. In anticipation of this budget, you've got people from the hospitality industry seriously saying they're on very tight margins. And to raise national insurance for employers is going to lead to fewer jobs is going to lead to lower investment as Rachel Reeves herself admitted. Yeah.
The Tories raised national insurance by one P also breaking a manifesto commitment. Labour would say attacks on employers isn't attacks on workers. They're not breaking a manifesto commitment. But Rachel Reeves in opposition was very articulate when she attacked the Tories with some attitude for precisely this measure. Well, let's just look at this as a video you might be able to find online. You know, one of the great things.
I mean, there's a lot of things to be said against social media, but just forgot your moments of hypocrisy. It's absolutely madness. Here's something you said on tele four years ago. There's Rachel in 2021 in the Commons warning that rises to employers, national insurance will make each new recruit more expensive and increase the cost of business.
This decision to saddle employers with job taxes takes money out of people's pockets when our economic recovery is not yet established and only adds to the pressure on poor businesses. You know, these tax rises are only hitting businesses harder. Do you know what Liam? This we can only marvel at the cynicism of Labour's election manifesto. Can't we? Clearly the plan was always I think to put up taxes for higher public spending.
And we've actually just this morning we're recording obviously on Wednesday afternoon and Robert Jenrick, one of the finalists in the Tories leadership race gave us speech this morning Wednesday. And when he said that public sector productivity is lower today than it was in 1997. And this bunch of clowns in Downing Street are going to take penalize the productive private sector to give more money to this sector which hasn't improved since 1997.
And as you said, you know that not just this plan to increase employers contributions to national insurance. I did think it was quite bold of Rachel to designate people with businesses as not working people, didn't you? Given that two thirds of people are employed in this country by small businesses, small businesses that are often started by families and run by families working extremely hard. Thank you very much.
I still remember this is when Jeremy Hunt was the Chancellor and I we got a fantastic and very moving email from a bit of businessman in the Northwest who was clearly really struggling.
And he said when he heard Jeremy Hunt talk about putting up you know national insurance for employers, he said he nearly threw his laptop through the television and he said the increases that the Tories had slapped on business were costing him £225,000 a year that his business which had just come out of Covid and all the borrowing they'd had to do to get through that which he simply didn't have.
And we should also mention Liam that big-ange our Deputy Prime Minister and Lou Hague, she of the public sector pink hair. It's got more pinks than she entered the cabinet, hasn't it? It was less pink in opposition. She seems to pink to herself up even more celebrating Labour's victory. I'm surprised she hasn't even got a nose ring I suppose that will come soon. But this pair had decided it's also a great time to extend employees' rights.
So not only do we have businesses actually I should can I just pay tribute to my co-pilot because I was writing all this in a fury in my column and I suddenly thought I wouldn't have known how to write this piece if I hadn't been learning at the knee of a great economist but these women of these Labour ministers extending employees' rights. So basically fresh faced recruits to a company are going to be entitled to the same terms and conditions as experienced members of staff.
Well, you know, you having taught me Liam, you know, who's going to take a chance on a new young person when they're going to have the same rights as experienced members of staff from day one. And all this to me is pointing to bad news for younger people who companies just simply won't take on.
I agree with you about employee rights, Alison. I do think it's all to play for. I think there may be some opt-outs that new recruits can take in order to ease these new requirements on firms that are taking them on. But I would say there's a general sense here that the economy really needs to grow. And I would say, and this is reflecting many conversations I've had that across financial markets, they're now watching very, very closely these new borrowing numbers that are come out.
And the danger is that Labour's tax rises made in the name of fiscal prudence, many of which are actually pretty ideological and may not raise the money that they're meant to raise. They are now causing concern among investors. However many investments summits, Labour wants to hold. This Halloween, ghoul all out with Instacart, whether you're hunting for the perfect costume, eyeing that giant bag of candy or casting spells with eerie décour.
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And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous to your contracts, they said, what the f*** are you talking about? You insane Hollywood ass s***. So to recap, we're cutting the price of Mint unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at MintMobile.com slash switch. $45 up from payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three months plan only taxes and fees extra. Speed slower above 40 gigabyte CDT.
This week's planet normal stowa is former tabloid newspaper editor and political strategist Andy Coulson. Born in Billorickie, Coulson started out on local papers and rose quickly, working for the son, the Daily Mail, before becoming editor of the news of the world in his mid 30s, a post he held from 2003 to 2007. Later that year, Coulson was appointed director of communications for then conservative opposition leader David Cameron.
Before entering number 10 as director of communications, when Cameron became Prime Minister in 2010. But in July 2014, after an eight month trial during which he pleaded not guilty, Coulson was sentenced to 18 months in jail for conspiracy to hack mobile phones, that is, unlawfully intercept private communications. Three other ex news of the world journalists also received custodial sentences along with another freelance private investigator.
Coulson was later put on trial for poetry in a Scottish court too, charges of which he was fully acquitted. Released after five months in prison, Coulson established a successful communications consultancy and he remains a sought after advisor to a host of companies and individuals on political, commercial and other strategic issues. I started by asking Andy Coulson how he felt when back in 2014, he received his custodial sentence.
So I was expecting it and then when the sentence came, I was as prepared as I suppose you can be and I'd obviously spent a bit of time as a journalist by trade. I've done my research, I've spoken to a few people who've been to prison. I tried to kind of prepare myself as best I could. And then there's sort of down into the cell's moment and at the old bay where I was on trial and where I was sentenced these are called straight out of central casting if I can put it that way.
You're down in handcuffs down into that old sort of Victorian holding cells and spent the rest of the day I was sentenced quite early in the morning and I had to wait until the end of the day, which is the system before you get put on a bus and then cut it off to Bill March. So yeah, I certainly wouldn't rate it as one of the best days of my life. That's for sure, but actually as a process, I thought it was pretty well managed.
The people that I met down in those cells were very in terms of the staff, were incredibly civilized, were very nice to me when they didn't have to be. And although the whole thing was unpleasant, it was also to an extent again, probably because I'm a journalist it was quite fascinating in a way as well. At the moment of it, that I was properly interested in. You were a bright state school educated boy from Essex. You made your way up through local papers.
You became editor of the news of the world at pretty young age in 2003. You're a family man with three kids. You must have felt as if the bottom was falling out of your world.
I did, but again, it was a very long process. So that moment that I've just described actually wasn't kind of even the end for me in a way because I knew that at least that night once I arrived in Bill March, I spoke to my wife and we were waiting to see what would happen with a different situation that was developing in Scotland.
The sort of consensus was that having been convicted in England, I would not be then tried in Scotland, and that turned out not to be the case. And so my first call from Prism actually was with Eloise and she explained that the lawyers had explained to her that actually Scotland was going to happen. So I knew that I would be coming out of prison and going straight into another trial with potentially much more serious consequences.
I was acquitted in that process the following year. So most people who go into prison know where the door is. If you like, at least the beginning of the end, not everybody, but a lot of people, I certainly didn't have that. But what I did have is an awful lot of time to sort of prepare if you like and get my head in the right place. And I left Downing Street in 2011, January 2011, I set up a business in the interim and then things went properly wrong in the sort of summer of 2011.
So I had from then to sort of accept what was happening to me, which was a proper unraveling of my life. And to try to come to terms with it, which is the single most important thing when you find yourself in that kind of situation, and then to accept what I had control of and what I didn't have control of. And that's been the sort of central pillar, if you like, on which I have got to manage to myself.
Once I worked that out and it took me quite a while, took me about a year, I was then able to sort of move on in a much more constructive way, understanding that ultimately this so is now an approach that I didn't have control of obviously because it's a jury trial and that's the system that we have. And that's the kind of thing that I didn't have control over that. And you had control over what you say do and most importantly, how you feel about it all.
So once I'd worked all that out, actually we got through, it was not something that I would wish on anybody because it was a proper unraveling. And of course, the most difficult thing is that I've certainly the most difficult thing for me was not the end of kind of my career, if you like, or my second career, having already lost the newspaper career, I've now lost the career as a sort of political advisor.
That wasn't the most important thing for me. The most important thing for me was the way that it was impacting my family's lives and how it might impact my son's lives both in the moment and going forward together with Eloise, largely thanks to Eloise, as to be said, we've managed to get through that pretty well. And we're many years down the road now. I'm about to celebrate a sort of road, the wrong word, but I'm about to mark.
10 years since I came out of prison. So I then got on with the business of building a business and trying to see if I could put my experience, the good and the bad, the good use. You have only not only built a very successful strategic communications business, obviously your contacts across the world of politics, the media, as a former tabloid newspaper editor, are almost matchless.
You've also, if I may say so, launched a very, very successful podcast, which I've been gorging on in preparation for this chat with you. And it's called Crisis What Crisis. Newspaper People Like Us know that that was the famous headline from the late 70s ahead of the winter of discontent. It's a headline that I remember reading as a child on the front of the sun paper.
That's the name of your podcast and you interview people, some of them very prominent people about disasters in their lives and how they've responded to them. You're interview with Dylan Jones, somebody I've worked for, of course, the long standing and highly successful editor of GQ. You're interview with Craig McKinley, now known as the Bionic MP, as it were, of course, he's out of the comments, but Craig McKinley, the Thannett, M Tory MP, who lost all four limbs when he got sepsis.
You're astonishing interview with your fellow, as he said, former prison lag, former Belmarsh inmate, Jonathan Aiken, the former Tory cabinet minister, incredibly moving and insightful. Courtney Laws, the former England rugby captain, as well as prominent politicians like Michael Gove, William Hague, Sajid Javid, and others, well worth a listen.
What does it meant to you launching and building that podcast? You've now done dozens and dozens and dozens of interviews with people discussing how you pick yourself up when you are on the floor. Almost a hundred interviews now we've done actually over the course of the last four years, and it means a tremendous amount to me.
I mean, when I was in Belmarsh and I spent two months of my five months in prison in Belmarsh, I was told I'd be there for the weekend, but it turned out to be two months before I moved on to an open prison. I spent an awful lot of time, it was a pretty dysfunctional period for Belmarsh. They were between governors and the sort of system had broken, essentially, and so it being Belmarsh was a high security prison.
Their priority, not unreasonably, it has to be said, this was security, and so we spent an awful lot of time behind the door, locked away for 23 hours a day, and then you get out and get some food, maybe a quick walk around the yard.
And so I had an awful lot of time to think, and one of my thoughts, and I spent a little bit of time on it, actually just to kill some time, writing it up and thinking about it, was around this idea of creating positive content, not entertainment, but you get a sort of battered portable that you rent in your own prison, so you can watch a bit of telling. I watch more homes under the hammer than it's healthy for any human being, I can say.
But I got thinking that, actually, what surely does a way here of getting some useful content in front of these lads who are just locked away, going out of the window?
I sort of worked that up, I didn't go so far as to get to crisis what crisis, I didn't get so far as to get to that idea, but once I'd come through my dramas, I revisited that kind of idea, and that's when I, and podcasting with sort of just emerging then, and then during COVID, I thought, well, I've now got a time actually to do this, as we all did, I saved all my time on the train, and I thought, well, that's how I'll disappear in the data, and tell if I'm okay.
So I started to ponder, so I just sort of got a few mates on, and started chatting with our first guest, he was amazing, and we sort of chat about, he's had a lot of crisis, right? And I did it from a number of different angles, and amazing that, and an amazing career, and I just loved it, you know, and it definitely scratches the journalist to get for me.
But more importantly, it sort of became, and it's an old adage I know, but it sort of became a nice platform for the very simple idea that if you put 10 people in a circle, and you ask them all to chuck their troubles in the middle,
chances are you'll want to go home with your own, chances are, and that is essentially what the pod is, right? It's a sharing of other people's difficulties, so that you can learn from it, and get perspective from it, maybe extract a little bit of gratitude from it, maybe getting useful lessons.
The podcast ends each episode with a sort of summary of what the person you're interviewing has learned, and I must say, as I found that middle-aged man myself, I found that really useful, and it wouldn't surprise me if I did this thing. It's a tough list thing to all your episodes over the next few weeks and months. That's very generous of you, but you know, it is all obviously down to, you know, I had a few bunks in a road in my life.
They are nothing as compared to the vast majority, possibly even all of the guests that I've had on my podcast, and that is, you know, I've got, you know, it's just been fundamentally helpful for me, right? Just from a perspective point of view, apart from anything else, and there are common lessons, regardless of what the cause of your crisis is, there are common lessons to be extracted, so you don't need even to have been going through a crisis to get a bit of value.
And there's a little bit of news about your podcast, isn't there, in terms of access to prisoners? Yes, I've now a deal that I've never do with the Ministry of Justice, who have now taken our pod very kindly and have made it available to prisoners.
So that positive content, thing that I was kind of running through my mind when I was in prison is now through a pretty securitous route, ended up with the pod being made available by something just called Launchpad, which is being rolled out across the prison state, that will allow prisoners to listen to it. Which is just fantastic. Now, I'm so pleased that's happened to lovely positive to come out of a fairly negative period of my life.
Let's talk about today. You were, David Cameron's Director of Communications, very famously in Downing Street. You are well known as a very serious political analyst with really astonishing contacts across all the main parties. You're not now a professional political journalist, of course, you're doing your strategy business and so on.
But what's running through your mind when you see Starmas government the first hundred days, lots of chaos, as somebody who's been there in the trenches, albeit under another flag, as it were, what do you think the atmosphere is like at the moment in Downing Street? Well, I have a number of reasons, but it's possibly linked to the first half of our conversation, not necessarily being the most instinctively sympathetic person when it comes to the case of Delma.
I do have a bit of sympathy for them because there is a truth about politics, unless you're in the room, you don't really know what's going on, unless you're part of the decision making, you can't really sit in judgment. Unless you've got a full grip of what Downing Street is, I've trained as rattling along in a fairly random way quite often.
Then you never really know the full story. So I don't much like advisors who dive in the criticize. I certainly didn't like it when I was in the job, that's for sure. But that said, in the spirit of constructive criticism, I suppose, what we've discovered is perhaps that they didn't, as a unit, as a team, perhaps spend as much time as they should have done thinking through those first hundred days.
And whether that's from a policy point of view, or whether that is from an organizational point of view, from an ops point of view, which is very important in Downing Street, and that's the bit that I was very involved in. It seems some of the problems that have been converging over the course of the last few weeks were entirely predictable. And it strikes me that their past wasn't enough time just sort of sitting, thinking, working through some of that difficult stuff.
Number one, number two, I'm not the first former Downing Street advisor to say this, but the gap between getting in the number ten and getting on with the budget has been a long one. And budgets are a real test of your policy thinking of where you want to send the country, what direction you want to send the country in. But they are also real tests, possibly one of the biggest tests of your operational resilience.
And we're about to see, and there's already the beginnings of some leaks, perhaps they're intentional, who knows around national insurance. But the test for them now is, can they actually get to a budget in a way that is competent and professional? Can they then deliver that budget? Never mind its content in a way that is competent and professional and reassuring, because God knows we need a better that.
And can they then deal with that really interesting, difficult five days of follows of budget when every bit of it is being pulled over and rips apart and analysed? Well, you are my thing that they're going to have it easier than most, because it pulls our opposition at the moment, too busy on other issues. And it's the opposition that obviously provide the main focus for the criticism or the analysis of the budget, and I'm not going to have that.
But I'm not so sure. I think they may be in for a rough ride with this budget, but it will be a real test of every part of the machine. I was a lobby correspondent back of the day as you may remember for the Financial Times at the zenith of new labour, the change from the fag end of the major government to Tony Blair Gordon Brown.
And of course, Alice the Campbell, who I clash with quite a lot. But I've often said on planet normal over the last couple of years, looking at the Tories and now again at Labour in Downing Street. Alice the Campbell, controversial figure, but he was a grown up and he really understood the news. You know, with all huge respect, a quite controversial figure, but you really understand the news, a grown up.
I don't see any grown ups in Downing Street. And I haven't for a while when it comes to understanding political strategy. Do you think Labour need to get some really serious people in there? We always want serious people and I don't know their slightly reshaped as it is now team. Which itself is a problem. Do you know much about them? I don't know much about them. I'll address them. Maybe, maybe. I'm not sure I agree with that. I mean, I've found in this task, perfectly.
Both as an editor and indeed as a Downing Street communication director, I didn't want to profile in either of those jobs particularly. Let's say I was supposed to be the first one where you've got to have a profile of a degree. He's made bread. But in Downing Street, I tried really hard not to have a profile and failed obviously in an epic fashion all the wrong reasons.
I like an advisor who, you know, bluntly doesn't stroll down Downing Street, you know, wearing a pair of B-t headphones, who doesn't draw attention to themselves with constant ear-eye-air briefings, who doesn't end up at a position where they have to hold a press conference about themselves in the garden. It's, for me, actually, I quite like a period of being invited by another of my advice. I think it might be quite a good thing.
Now, they've got to be competent and they've got to be able and they've got to be focused and they've got to be patriotic in my view. But I don't need to have a profile. I don't need to be. I don't need to have a profile. I don't need to be there for quite some time yet. I don't need to be there. I don't need to be there. I don't need to be there. I don't need to be there. I don't need to be there. You're not to be there. I don't be there.
but also on the other side now, has been the sort of Coulson element, a sort of street savvy, sun, journalist who can read the public mood and by that the old labor mood or indeed the voters that Boris managed to sweep up in 2019 and I think as Andy said, the Tories had grossly underestimated the threat from Nigel Farage and Reform, hadn't they? Now on to our listener emails. Your messages sent to PlanetNormal at telegraph.co.uk. Please keep them coming.
We learn so much from you, the citizens of PlanetNormal. This is from Richard, a quick note to congratulate Alice on her telegraph column, which will go down in political history. I've no doubt her announcement that she'd be off to reform of James Clevverly one was a big factor in the surprise result in the membership ballot the next day. For all the talk about tactical voting, I don't think the numbers stack up.
Team Clevverly wouldn't have wanted to face generic in the final round, so they might have lent him votes, but that wouldn't explain the surge in support for Kemi. What happened I believe was that Tory MPs were helped by Alice and Coulomb to see the stark lunacy of choosing a continuity candidate after the biggest defeat in their party's history. Ultimately, they understood that the party needs to change and to be fair, many of them have seen this from the outset.
It has been estimated there are only 20 MPs who are really on the right, but Robert Jenric and Kemi have always been in the lead until Clevverly rallied after a good conference speech. I now have no idea who our vote force has Richard, but I'll be happy with either outcome, and I hope the new leader could work with reform to give the country a real alternative to the Stammer regime. And also on the same theme, Liam, more of our poets. Oh my God. This is from Steve.
It's me again, says Steve, in the interest of political balance, I felt compelled to offer a limerick. Yes, here we go. On the marathon, there is the Conservative party leadership race. So here we go, Steve's limerick, and then there were two. Now that the two have been chosen and the number of contestants frozen, it's Kemi or Rob for the number one job so preventing their parties' implosion.
It's strictly a dance-off debut, and they're still so impressing to do if they fail to entice, they'll be dancing on ice up the creek and without a canoe. Although it's the members who vote, they'll tune into soundings and note, which means have more traction with multiple factions on which themes their dreams will remote. And once they have weathered the storm of public opinion and form, they'll be a new leader, the PM-succeeder, while the loser is wooed by reform. Boom, boom.
Very good, and also Steve adds a riddle. Question, why are Liam and Alison like the Tory party answer? They're both a shadow of their former selves. Thank you for the continuing sanity, even if it is only one hour in the woke week. Thank you, Steve, for that marvelous limerick. This is from Richard, lots of memories from the 70s. I was on planet normal from the word go, hi, Alison and Liam. When I was a child in the late 1960s, I was a massive fan of subcutiotable football.
So was I. And was overjoyed on Christmas when my parents gave me the international edition. One of the features of that was the inclusion of battery-operated flood lights. When the power cut started in the 70s, we had some scheduled for the evening when I got home from school. Being a good grammar schoolboy, I was keen to make sure that my homework was handed in when it'd use, to make sure it's done without resorting to the use of candlelight, which my mum thought was dangerous.
Subutio flood lights were the perfect alternative. Now in my mid-60s, those flood lights still reside in their original box in my loft. I can't bear to part with my favorite childhood game. It looks as if they may need to see some action again. So I'll have to look them out. I'll need some of those huge square batteries, though. I'm sure Ed Miliband will point me in right direction to get some regards.
Richard. Two Bob. Dear Falmer and Scooby-Doo, I don't suppose there are too many people under the age of 70 who remember the three-day working week imposed by Ted Seat government in early 1974 to conserve coal stocks due to the National Union of Miners demands for a 35% pay increase. All non-essential businesses were restricted to a three-day working week.
So this, at the time, lowly insurance clock, had to travel from West Ull to Croydon, bus followed by two trains to Cicis a desk, often lit by candles in an office that was nowhere near sufficiently warm to meet health and safety rules. Despite the inconvenience we managed to have some fun, most of which would have got us all fired in these politically correct days, it's worth pointing out that the women were just as bad.
Ted Heath government would fall following a snap election in February and surprise surprise the incoming Labour government immediately settled the NUM's 35 wage claim. This was followed by another 35% increase in 1975. We, on the other hand, had to be content with threshold payments where a 1% increase in inflation was matched by a 1% salary increase. This happened almost monthly and as a result, depressed and merit increases, which never seemed to feature in union demands.
Hopefully a few blackouts will be worth seeing the back of Ed who hasn't got a Scooby Cille band and his net zero nonsense. Keep the rocket of reason and right-thinking pointing in the right direction. Best Bob. This is a big theme this week Liam. You'll have noticed that as Kirsta Amher's investment summit, was launched in London. That's the same day the country's blackout prevention plan was activated and as we've been predicting for some time, we came perilously close this week.
To power cuts, this is all the fault of, of course, mad ed and his blackout. Britain, I've written a piece this week which will have a link in the show notes, Liam, and it's about why I am going to be buying a generator. And this is from John. As a professional geologist, oil and gas, I personally have a stash of six gas bottles in the garden, an LPG petrol generator, a wood burning stove, and four tons of wood says John. Quite a lot in my field says John, expect blackouts this winter.
If you think toilet paper made people go crazy during lockdowns, I'd dread to think how very cold people or people without charge phones will react when the power goes off. Hopefully they'll take it out on Ed, the bacon mangler. And finally, Alison, another poem, this time from rhyming Simon. As a season ticket holder for the rocket, he says, you asked for the memories of the 70s power cuts and that we'll endure once again thanks to sick in the head, Ed. Here goes.
Matches by the fireside candles at the ready. Games have snapped with Granny, because there's nothing on the telly. Memory's shared of blackouts, but this time there's no war. Just three day weeks and power cuts, that was 1974. 50 years have come and gone, now net zero is a deal breaker. No log burning stoves or gas or coal. Oh, the damage done by a tool maker. Yes, Starmer's running out of fuel, as mad Ed pushes us all to the brink. Has anyone got 50p for the meter?
Because the country's on the blink. The 70s are mere memories for those of us who's old. Well, man, the ramparts lighter fire will fight this war against cold. If power cuts come back again, there won't be much to savor. But this time we all know who to blame. Three years for care, it's Labour. Very good. I don't know that bombshell, Alison. That's it from Planned North for another week.
To be leaving us active street reason, our flying refugees have reason to use, email the week, it's your turn. And it's going to go to rhyming Simon. What? For adding to our stock of stanzas, my god, we're going to have to publish a small downstairs lavatory book at this rate. So Simon, rhyming Simon, please send us an email with a subject in mug winner and including your full name and address. And we will send you a rare as rocking horse poo planet normal mug.
And another reminder that Alison and I are staging a live recording of Planet Normal at the Battle of Ideas Festival in Westminster Central London. This coming Sunday, the 20th of October, it's an extended voyage, 90 minute Planet Normal Extravagant. So with two special guests, the academic and cultural commentators of Frank Faradhi and comedian and author Andrew Doyle. That's right. It's going to be absolutely fantastic. So if you're in London or if you can get along, please come and join us.
We're going to be hosted by our friends at the Battle of Ideas, led, of course, by Planet Normal Legend, Baroness Claire Fox. We're going to be recording at 11am on Sunday, the 20th of October. If you would like to join us and please, please do, go to battleofideas.org.uk and we'll put the link in the show notes to this episode. And we should also mention that the absolutely sensational Irish music band, the Hooligans, will be... Who are they? Who are they? Do we know anyone who strums along?
Looking doodian picturesque on the guitar. And Planet Normal listeners can get 20% off all categories of Battle of Ideas tickets if they use the code, Planet Normal 24 or one word, Planet Normal, then the number 24. That's the Battle of Ideas over the weekend of Saturday, the 19th and Sunday, the 20th of October, with a live Planet Normal recording at 11am on the Sunday. And as we speed away from our beloved Planet Normal, the madness of Planet Earth comes back into view.
Thanks as ever to our producers, Isabelle Bouchard, Elie Atlanta, Picasso and Louise Wells, staying safe and in touch with us with each other. Until next week, it's goodbye from me. And it's goodbye from him.