you Hi, Gemini. The football transfer window's open. How are my team's stats looking? Well, your team definitely has a lot of star power. Do you think we're going to have a good season? It's going to come down to consistency and a little bit of luck on your side. I'll let you know if we win. I'll be keeping an eye on the score. Yeah, me too.
Five. My worry is under this government, they are more hardline than even the Conservatives were. And the Conservatives were pretty wedded. I mean, we introduced the 2050 target. Keir Starmer, rather than looking like the beginning of a new, fresh era, which is how he sees himself, looks instead like the last gasp of an old order that's going to leave Britain isolated not just from America, but also Europe.
Some of the ideas that Nigel Farage has with reform, you know, already leading in some opinion polls. It's so frustrating to find oneself living here right now, forced to live through this last hurrah, this Alamo. Welcome once again to Planet Normal, the Telegraph podcast ordinarily with Alison Pearson.
But there's stellar co-pilots away this week, working on special planet normal projects. So I'm delighted to welcome my fellow Telegraph columnist and listener's favourite, Tim Stanley. Tim, welcome aboard. Great to have you with us. Hello. It's the economy, stupid. A phrase coined by James Carville, the legendary political strategist who helped Bill Clinton win the White House back in 1993, remaining US President, of course, until 2001.
And that's certainly the case in Go Slow Britain, because growth has stagnated since Labour took office in July, and particularly since Chancellor Rachel Reeves' tax-raising Halloween budget. a lack of economic expansion under Labour, the last three monthly figures for GDP growth have been minus 0.1, minus 0.1, plus 0.1, are tearing the public finances apart. As tax revenues come in lower than expected,
just as Labour's cranking up spending, not least on public sector pay deals and other ball balls, paid for with your money for the government's trade union paymasters. The result's ever more borrowing, 17 billion-odd quid in December alone.
That's big money, equivalent to putting more than 2p on the basic rate of income tax for an entire year. And we're borrowing that in a single month. No wonder mega investors are charging ever higher rates of interest to lend money to our cash-strapped... government, which pushes up the debt service bill even more.
Reeves says she wants growth. She mentioned the word 31 times in her October budget and she gave a major speech yesterday which again was full of rhetorical platitudes. Meanwhile, taxes are rising, regulations up and out there in the real world... businesses are increasingly upset that growth, enterprise and the wealth creation upon which everything else depends is being crushed.
Meanwhile, across the pond, it's the second coming of the Donald. It's now 10 days since Trump was inaugurated as the 47th president of the US, having already been the 45th, of course, from 2016 to 2020. He's hit the ground running, signing a flurry of executive orders, implementing deportation orders against illegal immigrants and cranking up the rhetorical tariffs or import taxes.
on countries from Colombia to Canada and China, and maybe Europe and the UK too. Tim, I'm so pleased you're here. You're hugely knowledgeable about the US, of course. You've lived and worked a lot. over the years in America, so how will Trump 2.0 be different from his first incarnation in the White House?
As I said in a recent column, you can tell the difference by the official presidential photographs. In the photograph of 2017, Trump has got this big grin because he was the guy who got away with it. And of course, the establishment then did its best to take it away from him. They impeached him two times. The lawfare warfare. Exactly. The photograph for 2025, he's got this scowl and he is imitating his famous mugshot. And what that means is...
I have been shaped by that experience. I'm serious. And this time I understand how power works and I'm going to use it. So you have this extraordinary flurry of executive actions. He's done over two dozen in his first week and he's repealed 78. of Joe Biden's. You compare that to the first time where he did on his first day one major executive action, which was to try and reduce Muslim migration. And immediately he was hit by protests. And immediately the court swung into action to stop him.
This time, where are the protests? So this is someone who has a laid out agenda, who has the people that he wants to hire to get it done. And because there's now a conservative majority in the Supreme Court and because the Republicans control Congress, there's this sense that... you can actually get stuff done.
Thinking of photographs, compare also the photograph of Melania Trump in 2017. Her official photograph was just this sort of bland passport photo with her giving this half smile. Now it's strictly business. Now she's black and white, she's leaning on the desk, and it could only... only be more- inappropriate and un-first lady had she been topless. I bet she had to be talked out of doing it. So there is this real sense of this time we're serious. And final thought, as Steve Ballin has said,
just doing so much, so much so fast, that the media doesn't know how to scrutinize it. They don't know where to begin, which bit to pick apart. And the Democrats just can't figure out how to oppose it. So there is an extraordinary sense. of momentum and as if he's sailing with the wind rather than against it. He's eight years older than 2016. He knows how governments now work. He's literally been shot at.
and missed. I'd be interested in your view. Yes. Do you think how that is changing him? But given that Alison isn't here, that makes me, by default, the resident economics nerd, because it's usually her, as you know. You know more about US politics. You've forgotten more than I'll ever know. Tim, these tariffs, are they real? Could he really put 25% tariffs on Canada?
and Mexico? This is the intriguing question because last time it was more or less a threat. And of course, the Republican Congress didn't want to do it. So they persuaded him. rather than doing that, to re-onshore American jobs through tax breaks. Bringing them back home from overseas. Yeah, it wasn't protectionism yet. It was about bribing businesses to come back. Whereas now he seems determined to use it as both...
an economic and a political tool. And I think he might actually do so. In which case, I think this is a revolutionary moment. It's the firing gun in a new race among great powers. Before China was doing it. the Chinese state was advantaging its own people over everyone else. And now America's doing it too. And if America does do it, won't that prompt the EU to respond? It'll certainly prompt China to respond as well. And in fact, I think the recent AI story...
works to his advantage because it stresses how weak American business is. It's not competitive. They've been outbid by the Chinese who've produced a cheaper chat GPT product than the Americans are capable of producing. This is why America has to up its game.
point about being shot at by the way i think he's come to god and in this inauguration speech he talked about god a lot and he talked about how he thought he believed he had been saved by god in order to save him even if he doesn't believe that it's a great point of reference
The American Bible Belt, right? It is. They'll love that. And of course, he's been told that by other people. He was told that by Billy Graham's son at the inauguration. But I think he believes it. I think this is a different Donald Trump to the one in 2016. You're the man with the PhD in history among us, Tim.
I'm thinking when I look at these tariffs, I'm thinking Smoot-Hawley. I'm thinking of American protectionism big time in the 1930s. American protectionism that turned the Wall Street crash of 29 into what became a worldwide depression.
That's not how they read it. And this is the really interesting thing. People always dismiss ideas. Who cares about ideas? Well, actually, the people who are in power care about ideas. And one group of conservatives has won over another. There are the free market conservatives.
who I suspect, like you, would argue that Wall Street crash was bad, but it was made infinitely worse by what the US government did next, which was raising tariff barriers in order to protect its industry. And that group's argument held for about 50 or 60 years and is why the Republican Party...
was a free trade party. Well, a new group have come along who said, you're reading history backwards. Actually, America was doing great when it was under the protective tariffs. That's why it grew in the 19th century. And you need the government to create a kind of free market paradigm.
within the walls of America. So there's free trade within America, but the country is protected against cheap foreign goods and cheap foreign labor without. And that group, whether you like him or not, have definitely won. We're back to the roaring 20s in terms of... policy making.
Hopefully without the prohibition. It strikes me there's so much history going on here. How wrong was Francis Fukuyama when he wrote at the end of the 80s as the Berlin Wall was coming down? It was the end of history. It wasn't. It was history. speed. That's true but he did say people would get bored and he said that they would retreat into the opiates of nationalism and religion.
And he's right. That's exactly what happened in the Middle East. And it's what's happening in the West is we are retreating into ethno-nationalism. There's no doubt about that. But I think that's happening because the liberals who won the Cold War and then governed the world for the next 20 or 30 years, they screwed up.
They failed to, to use a trite phrase, distribute the proceeds of growth. People felt left behind. You always struck me as similar to George Osborne. People did feel left behind. And they failed to control borders because they thought that mass migration was a win-win.
and we're only now working out that actually it's not. And any aversion to that was racism. Precisely. So Fukuyama did predict that we would very quickly grow frustrated with the new order because it doesn't speak to those elements of the human soul, which unfortunately... I agree with you profoundly on the power of ideas. I guess we would...
Both say that, wouldn't we, given the kind of stuff that we write. It was John Maynard Keynes who says that statesmen of today are slaves to the ideas of defunct economists, protectionist economists, rather than the free market economy. like David Ricardo and those associated with the Enlightenment really are coming to the fore. How about immigration?
As you say, rightly, in 2016 he moved much more cautiously. Now he's got the actress and singer Selena Gomez trying to do human by crying about these deportation orders. Of course, she is the daughter of immigrant. grandparents born in Texas as she was. Are there going to be legal moves to try and stop Trump doing this? Of course there are, because one thing he wants to do is sort of get rid of birthright citizenship. The idea that if you are born in America, even if your parents came from out.
sided, even if they came outside illegally. You are American because you were born on this territory, which is a fundamental idea. And it really seems to be legally watertight. His argument is, is that creates, it's a horrible phrase, anchor babies, whereby people come to the United States.
they have a baby and lo and behold, that baby is now a citizen. And so he says it creates an incentive for people to move illegally to the United States. So that's an example of where he will face pushback. But in the same way, I mean, to go back to the ideas point, ideas...
almost runs over the heads of politicians, right? Sometimes politicians tap into those ideas and affect them. But the ideas are out there because they reflect what's happening socioeconomically. And the truth is, America, what the basic line is, America and the whole of the...
Western world have been overrun by mass migration and the mass movement of people made possible by things like mobile phone technology. And so whoever is in charge would do something like what Trump is doing. And Biden, when he first came into office, signaled that he wanted to...
Be softer on the border. He liked immigration. You know, maybe we'll have an amnesty, all this sort of stuff. By the end of Biden, he was deporting people. He was restoring the Remain in Mexico policy. He was doing much of what Trump will now do. Obama.
than they were under Trump one. It's just that the Dems didn't shout about it because their base didn't like it. Yeah, because the ideas were changing because the economic reality was changing. The thing that's really often slow is politicians. We have a model where we think politicians drive ideas.
because they come out and say, I'm for this, and therefore it happens. No, they respond to situations which generate the ideas. And the truth is that some form of nationalism has been embedded in US politics for up to 10 years. Obama was all about withdrawing troops. was all about attracting jobs back to America. And now Trump is just doing all of that and taking it to its logical extreme. We're sitting, of course, in Telegraph Towers in London. How do you think Trump 2.0 is going to impact?
British politics. If it's seen to be successful, if our citizens, our voters look over the pond, and of course they look across to America far more in the main than they look to continental Europe for political inspiration. and a sense of where the world is. Do you think it could create more space on the right, say, for the Tories to move into? Do you think it could legitimise further some of the ideas that Nigel Farage has with reform already?
leading in some opinion polls. Well, the power of the revival of American nationalism has already been shown in Elon Musk and the Southport riots, right? And it's carried on through reform creeping up the polls in spite of that. The old model was you go to...
extremes or you're slandered as being extreme and then your poll collapses and the opposites happen to reform. Maybe six, seven years ago, if a British party had tried to tag itself to Trump, it would have hurt it. Curiously, now it's not. And that's partly because...
there is this feeling that Trump might not like him personally, but his style of politics is the future. But I don't know about you, but I just feel I'm living in an irrelevant backwater right now. And I want to be where the action is, and it's America. And instead, Kirsten...
rather than looking like the beginning of a new fresh era, which is how he sees himself, looks instead like the last gasp of an old order that's going to leave Britain isolated, not just from America, but also Europe. He's talking about things and thinking in a way. You know, his ideas are like 30 or 40 years out of date while the rest of Europe and America is moving on. And it's so frustrating to find oneself living here right now, forced to live through this last hurrah, this Alamo.
This Alamo of Fukuyama liberalism, right? But that's what we're going to have to endure. And because of his majority, because the British people and their infinite wisdom gave me a historical majority, we're stuck with it for four years. Well, they did, of course, though, on a lower vote share than Jeremy Corbyn achieved.
You know better than me. Yes. 33 percent of a 60 percent turnout, 20 percent of the vote. Four out of five of the electorate didn't actually vote for Keir Starmer. I've been writing for some time, Tim, that this isn't in the aftermath of of that.
huge landslide delivered by first past the post. I've been saying that this isn't 1997, even though to a lot of people on the left, it felt like 1997, of course, because the size of the majority is very similar. After a long period of Tory rule, it's actually Actually, 1975. Yes. 1975 was the year before 1976 when the UK went cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund. When Britain was bailed out, I've called it over the years, our economic...
Suez because it really was a moment of extreme shame when Britain's status as a world-class economy was finally shattered. Why did 1976 happen? Because you had a Labour government coming in off the back of a... profligatory government, by the way, spending, spending, spending, ideologically upping the ante every time that the bond markets rebelled and said, look, we're not going to keep lending you money. The market pushed up interest rates, the government's debt.
This bill became unmanageable and the UK literally had to be bailed out. I've been worrying about that aloud and not been thanked for it since July and August of... this year you're not an economic specialist but i know you follow economics very very closely in your writing
Do you feel that the parallels now with the 1970s are valid parallels? Back then, trade union membership in the UK was over 50%. Now it's 22%, being devil's advocate. Back then, many of the commanding heights of the British... economy were nationalized. Now they're in private hands. Is it an exaggeration to say that we could be in a 1970s situation? I think it's strikingly similar. And there was a similar sense of cultural decline as well.
there was a depression hanging over the country. And that was partly because Britain back then had forgotten what is required to make wealth. I mean, Jim Callaghan... said this in his famous speech when he invented monetarism. And he said, ultimately, a country cannot spend what it doesn't produce. We used to think you could spend your way out of recession. I tell you now, in all candor, that option no longer exists.
son-in-law, Peter Jay. Peter Jay, US ambassador. And another striking parallel is, of course, that Jim was right in theory. but he was completely undermined by labor and government in practice because whatever he might do when he did fiscal restraint and cutting budgets, et cetera, was then just undermined by, at that time, its relationship with the unions or other. This is a government which is still nationalizing shipyards. know, right? Likewise, today, the government rhetorically gets it.
Rachel Reeves. It's all about growth, growth, growth and deregulation. But that is then simultaneously undermined by the other aspects of its policy, like employment laws, by raising taxes on business, etc. So even if labor can be dragged back into the world of contemporary... is. It can't do it.
Because its commitments, what it really cares about, always undermine that project. I don't think Rachel Reeves intellectually is a creature of labour in the 70s. I give her more credit than that. But she is very much Gordon Brown-like. Yes. Gordon Brown is a political hero. And the difference between 1997 and now, in my view, is that back in 1997, you had that Labour front bench and there were some really serious people on that Labour front bench, some proper.
People with first rate intellects, in my view, they had a plan of what they wanted to do. You might not have agreed with it, but there was some coherence. But more importantly, while you had Brown in the cabinet, you also, of course, had Blair and the people around Blair. and Blair and the people around Blair...
understood economics. Blair had people who were always in the room when really big decisions were made, like, I've said it before, Gavin Davis, who was a partner at Goldman Sachs, like Derek Scott, who was another very senior city economist.
These people understood financial markets. They were also people who'd grown up as Labour supporters in the 70s and seen Labour ruin its reputation for a generation with this fiscal excess, with this... profligacy, opening the door to the inevitability that was Margaret Thatcher and reforms, which in my view, while deeply painful and many people in many parts of the country feel really bad about them, they did rescue the UK.
creating the wealth that laid the foundations for a relatively prosperous 80s and a particularly prosperous 90s. Now you have no one in the room in Downing Street who gets financial markets. You have no one on the front bench. who's ever built a business or made payroll or had to employ people out of their own money. It's statist all the way. And I think the Labour front bench has forgotten if they ever knew the realities of...
The realities of economics and the fact that Labour's reputation for economic competence, hard won, is now fast diminishing to its historical default, which is that Labour... always mucks up the economy. As a citizen of the UK, I don't want that. I want there to be a good, viable, coherent Labour Party that can give the parties of the right a run for their money, because that's how politics...
should work. Labour are squandering that. But there's also, there aren't people of substance who are able to tell people in their own party or the public what they don't want to hear. So the government will say, and they're quite right about this, that the future lies in AI and renewables. That is generally the direction of...
But they are contradictory, right? Because you need vast amounts of electricity to do AI. And so they're unwilling to make a choice because of their other commitments. By contrast, Trump is... a sort of truth teller. So he's a really honest crook. As in, okay, he's robbing you blind, but he's telling you, I'm robbing you blind and you're enjoying it.
That's pretty good. But that's what he does. This is the beginning of Tim Stanley's stand-up. So Trump tells truth about the nature of power competition. So he'll say, we need minerals. So you know what? I want Greenland. And it's crazy, it's mad, but it's a form of truth.
And there is no one willing to do that in British politics today. I mean, there's Nigel, there are people on the quote unquote periphery. But within mainstream politics, there are very few people who are willing to tell the truth like you did on Question Time when you said we need to cut spending.
And the audience didn't like it. I was shouted down. You were shouted down. Even me, and I'm not known, as my mum would say, you're not backward in coming forward. Even me, I could barely get my words out. And I was just closed down and Chris Bryant was constantly...
interrupting me. I actually quite like debating with Chris Bryant, by the way. I think he gives as good as he gets. And I don't mind. You've been on Question Time as many times as I have. It's an absolute bear pit. But there's a frustrating dishonesty about politicians who will say to you privately, you're right.
And that's exactly what happened. And they'll go on telly and they'll say, well, this is the voice of right-wing extremism. And I've had this on not just economics, but on trans issues, things like that. You'll have a conversation with a politician off air and they'll say, I don't know what this trans stuff is.
about very strange, isn't it? And on air, well, I believe in the rights of trans people. And it's so frustrating. We don't have people of substance who will tell people what they don't want to hear. I think that's exactly right. What do you think is going to happen, Tim, on the right of British politics as Trump...
comes in and I think is likely to be seen to be as at least moderately successful, at least until the congressional midterms, which, of course, when things could change. I'd be interested in your view on that as a US specialist.
How we've got an interview coming up and we can talk about this more off the back of the interview, of course. But just briefly, how do you think it's going to go down between the Tories and reform? It's worth noting that in the U.S. House, the Republicans have a notional majority of.
Yeah, exactly. They literally, every single person, and under their system, you can't vote remotely. So if someone has a bad cult, they lose a vote, right? And the Congress needs to get stuff done on immigration and taxes or else it's going to lose this midterm. So it has to be.
Which is an 18-month time, right? God, American politics is relentless. Amazing. So you have to pick up seats. In this country, I just think those of us who are on the center-right, we're screwed because we have a legacy party which ain't going away.
and it is the Marks and Spencers of political parties. It's the WH Smith of political parties. It's not going away. It ought to, but it's not going away. I was going to say, I've never bought underpants from the trees. But then you have the start-up, you have the radical start-up, which is also...
not going to go away because whatever happens to its polls, they're going to have a go because they're doing well enough to justify having a go. So for the next electoral cycle, whatever ideas they come up with, we're just screwed. because the vote's going to be split two ways. And until one of those two, until reform says we'd rather the Tories win than Labour, or until the Tories say we'd like a pact with reform, please, so Ella Braveman's right about this, we're screwed.
Hi, Gemini. The football transfer window's open. How are my team's stats looking? Well, your team definitely has a lot of star power. Do you think we're going to have a good season? It's going to come down to consistency and a little bit of luck on your side. I'll let you know if we win. I'll be keeping an eye on the score. Yeah, me too. Today's Planet Normal Stairway is Teesside Mayor Ben Houchen.
Winning the inaugural mayoral election in 2017, Houchen was re-elected in the north-east of England in both 2021 and 2024. Not bad for a card-carrying Conservative in a part of the country which has long been a traditional leader. Labour stronghold. Representing five local authority areas in the Tees Valley, Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Redker and Cleveland, Hartlepool... And Darlington, Houchen at the age of just 38, has built a reputation for cutting to the chase and getting things done.
He was instrumental in the reopening of Teesside International Airport and has led the charge to attract investment to the region of his birth, not least when it comes to the creation of renewable energy schemes and carbon capture projects, replacing the traditional Teesside industries of shipbuilding and steelmaking, which have now sadly long since gone. Married to Rachel, who he met at school in Teesside, Houchen's now the Tories' only combined authority mayor in power.
A member of the House of Lords since last year, he plays down, for now, his ambitions to become a major player in Westminster politics. And here he is. Ben Houchen, great to see you here on the Planet Normal. podcast. You are Teesside Mayor, you know the region really well, born and bred, proud Northeasterner. How's the economy doing in the North East under this Labour government? I think it's difficult to tell. I mean, there's two parts to that question. So locally in Teesside...
Things locally are going pretty well. There's still a lot of investment coming in. We've been working on that for a lot of years now, six, seven, eight years. We've seen the employment rate since I was elected in 2017 go up 5.4%.
in the last seven years compared to a national average of 0.1%. So I think locally people would tell you there are lots of really good things going on in the economy, jobs being created, some really interesting stuff, which I'm sure we'll talk about when it comes to kind of carbon capture, hydrogen, offshore wind.
But then there's a slightly more macro conversation going on with people, which is the general state of the country economically, whether that's national insurance rises, the budget has caused a huge, huge blow to people's confidences. And in particular, T-side being the type of economy that it is, family businesses are really worried. And in particular, they're worried about the changes to things like the business property relief.
We obviously talk a lot about farmers being asset rich and cash poor. You see a lot of that in Teesside as well. Some really successful businesses, asset rich, you know, port businesses, for instance.
cash poor, where they're saying they may have to sell their businesses. So there's a bit of a schizophrenia going on at Teesside at the minute, people feeling locally quite positive. But when you overlap that national kind of feeling at the moment and what's going on nationally, it's not so positive. To put it mildly. The CBI Manufacturers Survey, and of course Teesside is nothing if it's not a manufacturing heartland, particularly dire at the moment.
To what extent do you think manufacturers really are suffering at the moment? And what are the implications of that? So they are suffering. They're suffering for two reasons, largely. Firstly, and by far and away, I think the most significant factor is energy costs, particularly in a place like Teesside, which is the second largest chemical and processing sector in the country behind the Humber. Energy costs are everything.
And actually, if you look at all of the official statistics, this isn't just about this government. This is a long-term decline over the last four or five years of the chemical sector contracting in the country by 38%. And when you think Teesside has the second largest cluster, that has a hugely disproportionate... impact on a place like
More so as well, because those jobs are really secure jobs, but also really well-paid jobs. I mean, the average wage in the Tees Valley is about £29,000 a year, compared to obviously the national average, which is about £36,000, I think. You know, these people are on 60, 70, 80, 90, more than £100,000.
And that drives a lot of local business, doesn't it? The fact that there are quite well-paid people in the community. Absolutely. The supply chains that come off the chemical sector, both directly in relation to providing services into the chemical sector, but indirectly, whether that's catering services, marketing.
communications professional services the impact it is having is significant but that's also why people still feel optimistic locally because they can see a transition away from more traditional chemical and processing sectors to other areas where these jobs are being fulfilled so if you look at things like net zero T side, which will be
the world's first industrial-scale carbon capture and storage facility, a £6 billion investment from BP, Equinor and Total as a consortium. That's 4,000 construction jobs. It's 1,200 jobs once it's up and running in 2028. You know, people can see a transition.
that works for them, protects jobs, moves manufacturing so that we can be sustainable in the future. And so people are frustrated that there are some incredible businesses that are either closing or offshoring, but they're also feeling confident that the future is also a positive one locally in Teesside because of what we've been able to do. Let's go.
In your seven years and counting as Teesside Mayor, you have really championed this whole net zero agenda in the sense that Teesside has become a place where investment is attracted to things, as you say, like... carbon capture like offshore wind you know teesside really is the jump off point for north sea wind energy those initiatives on the other hand you'll know as somebody who follows the manufacturing sector to your fingertips there is
a lot of concern among trade unions. Look at what's happened at Grangemouth, one of our biggest chemical centres, refineries, closed down. The owner, Ineos, closing it down. Look at the impact of net zero on our car managers. the so-called Z directives, the zero emission directives, really now putting strain on our car industry.
You have been seen as a champion of net zero, Ben. To what extent do you think that some of those net zero policies, for all the benefits that they're bringing to Teesside in particular, are hollowing out our manufacturing base? There's nuance to that. I'm a champion of...
these technologies because actually i'm a champion of investment in jobs and as i go back to the chemical and processing point to protect the existing six and a half thousand jobs we have in that sector never mind creating new jobs we have to decarbonize why do i say that because
It's government policy, right? It was the policy under the Conservative government. It's doubling down, particularly with Ed Miliband in this government, as the mayor of the region in that type of sector, which is very heavily reliant on those types of sectors. I have to do my job and make sure I protect inward investment and create jobs.
So that's why I'm a big supporter of it. If I was in a more national position and in a position of power, not that I am, would I take a different view? I think I would take a different view. And Grangemouth is a great example of that. So Grangemouth, they're losing hundreds and hundreds of jobs. Jim Ratcliffe and Ineos have already...
close their operations in Teesside. They used to have some significant operations in Teesside, which was the canary in the coal mine. I mean, Ineos are an incredible industrial player in the UK. But it's not just about them closing it down. They're turning it into an import terminal. So actually, what they're basically doing is losing all of the jobs. the uk offshoring them all and then still importing the product that we need into the uk that used to be made in the uk and that is the
That's the bit of net zero. That's the bit of the transition that people, including myself and most people on the street, just cannot buy into. It's one thing having a transition, and there's a discussion to have about that, but doing it in a way that costs jobs, makes us poorer, and makes local communities like mine.
which are poor in relation to the rest of the UK, is not something that's acceptable. How about this zero emissions directive? We've talked about it on Planet Normal in the past, where now, unless car makers in the UK, you know... Teesside is a centre of UK car making, of course, not least with the Nissan factory. Unless they are selling 28% of their cars are fully electric, they get fined 15 grand per car that they make.
that pops that 28% target. Our rules on zero emissions for our car industry are more strict than the EU's rules. How do we get into this position? Wouldn't you reverse that? Yeah, I would absolutely reverse that. Of course I would. But it demonstrates as well, signing up to a 2050 net zero target is one thing, but it leads to a culture and a sense of direction that the civil service then take on and politicians take on as well, where all of a sudden they feel like they have to beat what is...
already a very ambitious target so setting a 2030 target been tweaked 2035 you know better than i do and there's some nuances to those rules is one thing but why again are you driving out industrial development car manufacturing from the uk when actually you could measure that over another 15 years and create a 30-year timeline. You know how important that is. Nissan don't just turn up on one month and say, OK, we're going to do the electric Qashqai.
in Sunderland. They don't do that. It takes about seven years for Nissan as an organisation to go through their corporate structures, their pipelines, their manufacturing processes to set up a new line at Sunderland to introduce a new model. So the idea that now in 2020... we can change this rule and have 2035 as the limit that doesn't
push manufacturers to do that because that's what the government are trying to do they're trying to push manufacturers in a direction what it does because the rest of the world are playing to slightly different rules is it causes a company like Nissan to say actually should we even be in the UK and we can invest our capital somewhere else
make the same if not better margins, and we're not having to deal with these cliff edges that we're seeing in the UK. Yes, the government wants to get there, but actually it's too much of a risk for a company like that. We're about to see, and are about to see, and it's a slightly different point, but it's the same point, the same thing in the boiler industry.
The government have just implemented the same fine system to say if boiler companies that produce gas boilers that go into pretty much 99% of our homes aren't selling, I think it's 5% or 6% of... uh their product as heat pumps they will be fined what's that going to do that doesn't necessarily mean that there's a transition to extremely expensive heat pumps it probably means that some of these boiler manufacturers are going to retrench and move away from the uk market making things more
expensive and making it more difficult to be able to install boilers in our homes so it's counterintuitive to what the government and the wider policy system is trying to produce just back going back to cars it seems as a society Directed largely strikes me by the civil service. that electric vehicles are the only viable technology to replace hydrocarbons. Now, of course, you know, you're mayor of Teesside. There's lots of EV car making going on on Teesside. But that notwithstanding...
Don't you think this is a blind alley to focus so relentlessly on one technology? How about hydrogen technology? Well, I was going to say that we've talked about this, haven't we, at length separately, Liam, about the opportunity within the hydrogen economy. And that's not just in cars. That can be in large scale.
construction, you know, you've got people like JCB producing hydrogen equipment that can go on to construction sites now and run on 100% hydrogen through hydrogen combustion engines. And the only emission is water? Literally the only emission is water. I've got Cummins in Darlington, big American company, producing hydrogen
hydrogen combustion engines in Teesside, every single one of them is exported to the US because the UK government doesn't have a regulatory model to allow these engines onto the UK roads. And what's bizarre, and it goes back to how has this been allowed to happen, fundamentally it's...
an issue of sir humphrey you know back in 2013 2014 a decision was taken that we need to electrify our energy system and so every decision that has been taken since has to reinforce that decision even when the rules change even when the facts change you know that doesn't seem to
me like good government i think there's a huge space for hydrogen electricity more generally but certainly in vehicles will play a role to some extent but what we have is a is a government both at a political level and a civil service level that is trying to pick a winner
And what I say to government, I say, look, you know I'm a big hydrogen convert, so I'm not saying I'm right, but government has to develop a system that's more technology agnostic to allow the likes of hydrogen or other types of fuel to come to the fore, whereas at the minute, government is trying to pick a winner.
We know how that ends. It's not going to end well. And there's a huge cost to that, not just to the people that drive the cars, but to the energy system in general, which we've seen from the recent NISO report that was published by the Department of Net Zero. And the costs are watering to get to Net Zero by 20.
2030 to decarbonise our grid. And even then, the report itself even talks about needing to ration energy in people's homes to do so. That's no way to run a modern economy like the UK. An energy-poor economy is a poor country.
And I think the tide is starting to turn, to be frank, and hopefully it will sooner rather than later. So in a nutshell, how would you describe, notwithstanding that Teesside is a centre of... ev car manufacturing how would you decide the decision by whitehall to focus so relentlessly on electric vehicles pushing the industry towards electric vehicles apart from other technologies
Well, I think it's madness for the government to be able to push EVs beyond all else. The country's not ready for it. The costs aren't there. It's going to make consumers poorer. It's going to drive people into transport poverty. It's going to... ultimately push people out of work as well for not being able to afford a flexible way to be able to get around.
Like I said, my worry is under this government, they are more hardline than even the Conservatives were. And the Conservatives were pretty wedded. I mean, we introduced the 2050 target. So my worry is this is going to get worse before it gets better. You mentioned Sir Humphrey there. Do you believe, Ben Houchen, in the idea of the deep state holding back economic progress? I don't think I'd call it the deep state. But as Teesside Mayor, you have had huge deep...
With regulatory bodies, our agencies, you know, you've developed rightly, in my view, a reputation for being able to get things done, pushing through the bureaucracy. What's your sense of these arm's length bodies, these regulatory? agencies, because it strikes me they seem often to have faceless bureaucrats running them who are more powerful than elected politicians. I mean, that's a very good point, Liam, and I'll use an example, but I will...
Allow the minister to remain nameless. I had a meeting with the Secretary of State, actually under the previous government, under the Conservative government, where I had a pretty major issue with an arm's-length government body that was supposed to be under the control of that ministry, under that Secretary of State.
And the Secretary of State said to me in an official meeting in front of civil servants that was minuted, whether this was minuted or not, I don't know. They said to me that it would be easier for them to introduce new legislation and change the law than it would be...
for them to tell the arm's length body what to do. I mean, when a country gets to a point where ministers and politicians are blamed for everything, but actually have very little power and little control over the arms of government that actually administer and impact our lives on a daily basis, we've gone too far.
And I also think culturally, where you talk about independence, culturally it means that those bodies do not align to the will of the people because we have a democratically elected government with a mandate to deliver X. And an arms and government body would say to you, well, I don't have to deliver.
X, because that's not my remit. And I don't care about democracy. I don't care about your mandate. I have terms of reference that I need. And if ministers push, in the end they'll say, we're independent, back off. Back off or we're going to start leaking to the papers and making you look stupid. And the default of all of these arms things...
bodies is ultimately they talk about political independence as if it's a good thing they say oh well we're separate from politics and that's a good thing because we can make independent decisions but actually what it means is we often see perverse decisions you know we look at what border force are doing look at what's
on migration. Look at what the Environment Agency does. We're talking about a government wants to go for growth, and you've got the Environment Agency in Natural England building £100 million tunnels for bats. I mean, those two things do not marry. So unless you bring together...
the cultural need for a democratically elected government to deliver on its mandate, and all arms of state to be able to pull in the same direction, we're always going to be in this place where the public is disenfranchised by politicians saying something and not delivering on it. Are some of these arm-length bodies, regulatory agencies... quangos, whatever we want to call them, are they generating regulation in order to perpetuate their own bureaucratic empires, Ben Houchen?
Well, all arms and government bodies have to justify their own existence because, you know, they will be criticised, I'm sure, by you, Liam, and other journalists to say, well, what are you there to do? And why did you stop that instead of approving it? It's led me over the last six or seven years to start to go on a...
journey of looking you know if we're going to have these armed government bodies and there's a question as to whether we we need them or not or do they get absorbed back into the departments but if we're going to have them i'm increasingly of the view that we need
directly politically appointed people into the chairmanship and the chief executive roles of these government arms-length bodies, because you've got to allow the culture of that organisation to be in lockstep with what the government's trying to do, which are elected by the people, which is what a democracy is all about.
have that joined up thinking then under this government Keir Starmer can promise growth all he likes but the arms and bodies are going to say well hang on a little minute I have this priority and growth isn't it.
So we're not going to do it. And things like, I could go back to it, things like the Environment Agency are a great example of that. And there is a place where I think this government could get itself to, where it could try and change things within the Environment Agency, but they'll get pillared. by the journalists and you know and the tory party saying you're lowering environmental standards to try and meet your growth goals
And actually, the reality of some of the changes that they should make won't actually impact environmental standards whatsoever. But the Environment Agency will use that politically to try and stop that type of progress. So there's a real battle to have if this government wants to deliver its growth agenda with all.
lambs and government bodies, not just the environment agency. How will the election of Donald Trump, the re-election of Donald Trump, change British politics? Is it an opportunity for the Conservative Party, for your party? I think it is in the medium term. I think Donald Trump coming in will signify not just to the UK, but a lot of the Western world that there is a...
different way of being able to do politics. And I think in quite a positive way. I think just in the last couple of days, people will have seen there were flights blocks for illegal immigrants to go back to Colombia.
You know, within an hour, Donald Trump had threatened tariffs. And if you're not going to take them back, you know, there are going to be penalties to the way you're going to behave. You're not going to take your own nationals back. We're going to retaliate. Within an hour, they'd reverse that. And the president of Columbia had actually offered his own plane to bring them back.
Now, people may agree or disagree with that. The people I've spoken to on the street who've seen that in the last couple of days think, why aren't we more like that? So I think what it will do is it will start to move where politics lies. It will move that Overton window more to the right, where in the medium term, the Conservative Party could use that to say, actually, there's a different way of doing politics in the UK as well.
We don't have to be technocratic. We don't have to be led by a massive blob in the bureaucracy. Actually, there is a sensible centre-right way of delivering good small government, reducing taxes, growing the economy, and actually...
be able to leverage on some of the things that I think Trump will end up doing over the next four years. Not saying copy and paste, right? You know, Trump and America are a pretty unique proposition, but there are lessons to be learned there that conservatives can take and also point to with the electorate to say there's a big opportunity.
If you vote for us, centre-right politics, this is what we do. The future can be a bright one for Britain. Before we move on to domestic politics, of course... As Teesside Mayor, you grew up with the steel industry, the blast furnace at Redker, which now has unfortunately been turned off. We've seen the blast furnace turned off at Port Talbot. I think there's one or two blast furnaces now operating in the UK.
or a largely Chinese-owned factory, of course. Does it bother you that the UK can no longer produce what we call virgin steel from a blast furnace, the kind of steel that you need for certain defence and construction applications that we now have to implement? port? Well, the last remnants of a steel industry in the UK is British Steel in Scunthorpe. It's the only place that is producing
what you call primary steel, which is essential not just to maintaining our railways, building buildings, but our national security. You know, having a steel industry, no developed Western economy does not have its own steel industry. The world is a dangerous place. It's getting more dangerous. having that domestic capability in the supply chain to build our ships, to build our submarines, is essential. If British Steel closes...
Then we are at the whims of the global markets, which are largely dictated to by the Chinese. The Chinese currently own British steel. And the biggest thing that went wrong in recent months was Port Talbot being allowed to close. And it was closed. The government had given a huge amount of support.
that may or may not come to fruition, not because the government haven't given it, but it may or may not be utilised. But what it did is it sent a signal to the Chinese and British Steel that they could still get a load of money out of government, they could lay off thousands of people, and the big thing that the government allowed them to do... do in South Wales because it's owned by Tata, an Indian company, it allowed the Indians to import steel from India.
And so the Chinese are looking, thinking, hang on, I can close down this steelworks, get a load of government support, and for what, at least the next five, six, seven years, import cheap Chinese steel? From my operations in China, that's environmentally very damaging. Health and safety is through the floor. It's cheap as anything.
You're always going to get to a place, if British steel closes, there's a real risk that we never have a steel industry again, because we can't deal with those types of imports. Now, the only alternative to that would be introducing tariffs for imports, which would drive up the price, as you well know, Lee.
and then you all of a sudden get into a spiral. So I actually think it's pretty essential to the economy, never mind the politics of today, that we have to maintain an indigenous steel industry because the future could be a very dangerous one. And I do think, I personally think... There is a lot of geopolitics going on with British steel being owned by the Chinese, because if you're the Chinese, who I do not think is a friend of the UK or the West more generally...
If you're them and you think, hang on, I can close down steelmaking in the UK, make them a win basically to Chinese dumping on the international markets, that's a huge geopolitical win for the Chinese. So I think we've got to be really careful about this. And I've actually said to Johnny Reynolds, the Secretary of State on this.
if it gets to it and as a conservative it's not something I'd like to do but we may need to look at things like the Civil Contingencies Act to take it off them to keep it that's how serious this matter is and I really worry that would be a huge step
I mean, but they have to do it. What's the alternative? We don't have steel making anymore. And then all of a sudden, it's all from India and China. What does that do to, like I say, public security, national security? What does it do for our industry? It's a really, really big issue. I worry at the minute that there is a way through that we can keep British steel open. We can build new steel plants in the UK. We can reshore manufacturing and create jobs in the UK in manufacturing.
But it requires a strong government, and it particularly requires a strong government that doesn't play politics with this, about its location. There's a lot of talk about they wanted to go to Scunthorpe because of the politics, and there's a lot of union involvement here as well. The unions are definitely pulling the strings behind the scenes.
And I've written to the unions to try and work with them on it. You know, they wouldn't be natural bedfellows, but I published an open letter and said, I want to work with you on this. This is important. I got a letter back from the three general secretaries of community, Unite, and the GMB, who all said they didn't want to work with me.
You know, that's the position we find ourselves in with unions pulling the strings of this government, not wanting to work with local communities who are steeped in steel. try and protect our steel industry we could very quickly find ourselves without one and subject to some very very pernicious players in the international market that would put us at major risk in the medium term final question ben you are one of very few senior conservatives actually with
power in the country at the moment there is a lot of speculation despite your work as teesside mayor that in the not too distant future you want to get more involved with national politics what would you be doing if you were the leader of the conservative party now that Kemi Badenoch isn't doing? I've said this before. I think the big part of Kemi's job is to...
help the public understand that the Conservative Party is under new management and that we are the Conservative Party that they have traditionally trusted. You know, we are of sound money. We are common sense on things like immigration. We're common sense on the economy. We're common sense of...
on cultural matters, whether that's DEI or wokeism or whatever you want to brand it as. And it's going to be hard fought. And so we need to be out there much more. We need to be on TV screens every single day, helping people understand that we get it.
We get where we got it horribly wrong. Apologise, actually, for some of the mistakes, or some of the big mistakes we made, certainly over the last three or four years, so that people understand that we genuinely understand that. We're not paying lip service to it. But help people understand that that's not what this Conservative is about anymore. We've learned...
from those mistakes there are new people in charge there's a brighter future ahead and start to draw some comparisons of where i think this government's going quite badly wrong and what we would do in the future now that's not a policy point that's not about announcing what you're going to change of you know this tax code or
these migration rules. But it's about giving a sense of direction to the country, that we get it, we understand it, and with the Conservative government, this country will be better off. Does your party at the highest level really get the threat that reform poses? I think so. I hope so. I know there are lots of people, including myself, talking to the Conservative Party about this, because one of the things that, particularly being in a place like Teesside that's very Red Wall...
It's not like it was in the early 2000s where, you know, if Labour were doing well, we were doing poorly or, you know, where Labour were doing badly, we would automatically do well. You know, in 2019, it was very one way. You know, there was a lot of swing to the Conservative Party.
With this election in 2024, what we've seen is the same thing happen in Tory heartlands rather than the Red Wall. And what it did, and I can tell you this from experience in the Red Wall, it's now broken that traditional link between Conservative voters and the Conservative Party, like the Red Wall did with Labour.
in 2019 that now means that there's a huge space in the middle for Nigel Farage he's very popular he is people might not like it but he's very popular he's very succinct he's very clear in how he communicates he's very common sense in a world where people feel let down they feel like they're not being listened to they feel like the direction of the country and their communities is not where they want to go and they
see a Labour Party that's not performing well they still see the Conservatives are basically just being the same because of look what we've done over the last few years and you have a man in the middle that's you know promising quite simplistic but quite
clear messages to the country. We need to combat that. We need to be able to get there first because, to be frank, a lot of what Nigel's saying are quite conservative things. We should be saying them, we should be saying them first, and we should be adopting that so the public come back to us. Could he be the next Prime Minister? Nigel Farage, I don't think so. I mean, obviously he could, but I think it's extremely unlikely. I don't think he can.
The maturity of the systems within reform will not be there in time. I think they're also on a bit of a honeymoon themselves as being the third party, as not being tarnished like the Conservative Party and not doing the things that this government is doing. So they're getting a relatively easy ride. There's a really interesting thing.
going on in reform between quite a protectionist, relatively left-wing economic policy and those that don't sit naturally with your Richard Tices and your Nigel Farage's who are free market Tories at the end of the day. And so if there wasn't...
Well, Rupert Law, exactly. And others actually not within the parliamentary party. And so there will be a reckoning at some point where reform is going to have to pick a lane. It can't do both of those things. Now, can they ride two horses for a while longer? Of course they can, because the country's not really listening to them. the politics of opposition parties.
They hear things in general from day to day, week to week, month to month about politics, but they're not in it. But in two or three years' time, when elections start to roll around and people start to get serious about what do they want for the country and who do they want to run it, I'm not sure that the... that reform can do what it's doing today in a serious way that it will have to do in three or four years time. Ben Hatchin, thanks a lot for appearing on Planet Normal. Pleasure.
Well, there you go, Tim Stanley, Ben Houchen, very much an up and coming figure in the Conservative Party. Very popular on Teesside, as you and I know from our visits to that part of the country. He says that Nigel Farah... could of course be Prime Minister but that he won't be. What do you think?
First of all, you said in the interview that he's one of the few conservatives with power. He's the only conservative with power because he's the only directly elected conservative mayor in the UK, and they're not in charge anywhere else. How did he pull that off? Well, I... covered him during the mayoral elections in early 2024. And he did very well, of course, but also Susan Hall in London and Andy Street in Birmingham performed above.
how Rishi Sunat did in the general election. And I think that those were very interesting results because they demonstrated that aggressive conservatives running on a platform of delivery, here's what I've actually done locally. can do well. And that was what was supposed to happen with Brexit. It was supposed to make the Conservative Party both definitively...
patriotic, but also is meant to devolve a bit of power and make it all about growth and jobs in the regions again. And so in Ben Houchen, you sort of see the last standard bearer for that kind of Brexit regionalism. And then on his point about Nigel Farage listening to him talking about... I was really struck by the absence of criticism.
He does say on balance, I don't think he can win. But the argument is, is he can't win because the party isn't quite mature enough to do it. He's not saying, I don't think he should win. Or I disagree with his ideas. Because there are conservative MPs who would say Nigel Farage is... He's a racist and an extremist, and I want nothing to do with him. But Ben Houchin sounds like someone who, to me...
In a few years' time, if the politics were right, I could see him serving on a reformed front bench. I can see him running the Conservative Party somehow. If he can get into the House of Commons, I think he's got that kind of star quality and ability. He's in the Lords now, of course, but he could denounce his peerage. He could denounce it.
and get elected, there's nothing to stop him from doing that. I can see him as a future player, but on the basis of just the way he talked about Nigel Farage there, it sounds to me like he could very easily reconcile himself to a reform party centre-right in Britain as well.
And the other point I'd pick up, Tim, before we move on to emails from Planet Normal listeners, is this Z mandate. I know I'm a bit of a nerd about this. No, you're quite right. I know I go on about it. Ross Clark in The Spectator has also written a great deal. This said mandate in the UK, what it means is that this year...
Unless car makers sell 28% of their cars that are purely electric, and the demand isn't there from the public for that, they get fined for each petrol and diesel car. It's extraordinary, isn't it? Up to £15,000 per unit, which means they won't make the...
car which means petrol and diesel cars are now being rationed planet normal listeners can listen to an incredible interview a couple of months back we did on planet normal with a guy called robert forrester who's one of the biggest car dealers in Britain, he's got the biggest car dealership, Virtue Motors, in the North East. And he is warning about this. Senior car-making executives from across Europe are now warning about this. And yet our rules...
on the ramp up to electric vehicles being the only kind of vehicles you're allowed to sell in terms of new vehicles by 2035. A stricter even... than the European Union rules, despite Brexit. On Monday, I listened to Ed Miliband at the Environmental Audit Committee explain that if you build a new Heathrow runway, it has to fit within a carbon budget. In other words, whatever excess emissions...
come from a Heathrow runway, which will be extraordinarily high. You have to compensate by some other sector producing less carbon. Now, what Labour always says is, look, this is just the future. It's just happening. People are just, oh, people are just going green and they're getting the pumps. And they're getting pumps and they're doing it because we have to. And if you just say this isn't happening, it isn't the future, then you're just some extremist loon.
But of course, the truth is they're making it happen through the laws and the rules. They are mandating that it happen and that it happened here faster than anywhere else in the world. I have no objection to going where the technology is going if that's where it's going. going but there's always a problem when you try and mandate that people buy something that isn't quite yet ready for the market
You just pass the cost onto the consumer or you kill the industry. That's the reality. So if you were to say to the airline industry right now, OK, you can build that runway, but make sure that you produce less carbon somehow on balance, it's going to kill that industry. that's not about going where the market's going. That's about you mandating it and then you just wreck the economy. So you're in no position to get there in the end, in the future.
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 Planet Normal. This is from Charlie.
Dear Liam, a fantastic interview with the amazing Catherine Burble-Singh. That was last week's interview, of course, which you can listen to on the Planet Normal archive. She's inspirational, passionate, intense, dedicated and fearless. I find myself vaguely terrified of her, but at the same time, totally... swept away with her sheer undiluted devotion to her children.
I enjoyed a rather privileged childhood born in 1954, by which I mean I went to a Scottish boarding school. We holidayed in the south of France sometimes twice a year. My point is that despite that privilege, I never had one single teacher inspired me to believe the world was my own.
that there was nothing that wasn't within my grasp with hard work and perseverance as it happens life's turned out pretty well but what could i have achieved with a katherine burble sing on my case even the vaguest thought she might be prevented from doing what she does me with despair if she's defeated we have an as a nation have lost the fight it's game over the marxists will have won i know katherine burble singh will very graciously make mincemeat
out of Education Secretary Bridget Philipson. But I fear our Bridget will find a way of stabbing her in the back, no matter what platitudes she might utter when the two of them meet. Best wishes, Charlie. Ian has written to us at planetnormal.telegraph.co.uk. He says, A quick note of congratulations on Alison's interview with Ian Hirsi Ali and the fact that you let it run for more time.
She is an immensely brave woman. There seems to be no limit to the depths of depravity below which most radical followers of the Islamic faith will sink. And I emphasize the word radical. I have a Muslim neighbor and Muslim friends and once worked in a Bangladeshi restaurant, and they are all fine, upstanding people.
You may have heard Nigel Farage's announcement on LBC last week that he has decided not to sue Kemi Badenok over her Boxing Day tweet, but would instead hold an event in her constituency as a demonstration of reform's strength in her political backyard. Public attendance is restricted to four members who live in the North West Essex constituency. This is a typically clever Nigel ploy to put the spotlight firmly back onto reform and to rattle an opponent at the same time. Best wishes, Ian.
And this is from Louise. Dear Alison and Liam, thanks for bringing a little normal... to this weird and wonderful world. Another story about the NHS. As I write, a friend's in A&E with leg and foot burns from a milk pan slipping out of her hand. She's waited two and a half hours in reception, not seeing a triage nurse with the burn exposed.
in visible shock and in a packed waiting room. It is of course crucial for burns to be cooled and covered with speed. You would hope this is basic knowledge in an A&E. Having got through triage, she's been told it's second degree. It now needs urgent cooling and wrapping due to prolonged exposure. You couldn't make it up. A nurse has returned to say after a doctor has seen her, she'll need to be seen by plastics.
deepened due to the weight. This is absolutely minor of course compared to the horrific tales you hear but if the basics aren't being done is there any hope for the rest? Love the podcast. Sorry for the rant. But it was the straw that broke me after listening to Rachel from Accounts and her new buddies who are taking the piddle. Thank goodness for the Rockets of Right Thinking. Louise. Finally, this is from Richard.
Dear co-pilot, I watched every moment of the ghastly Starmer dirge announcing the public inquiry into the horrific Southport killings due to a new sort of terrorism. Really? including his attempt to explain the rationale for not giving out any details of the crime or suspect. He claimed that to do so would potentially jeopardize the successful prosecution of the murderer.
This did not in any way ring true, as we have heard similar examples of just such details being given out on multiple occasions. Angela Rayner called the rumours surrounding the circumstances of Ruda Cabana's crime fake news, which in my book means untrue. A blatant lie, as the most senior levels of government already knew the details which were broadly in line with the rumours. Their refusal to disclose those details contributed in huge parts to the riots, dismissed as far-right by Starmer.
His attempts to justify not releasing details are disingenuous at best, or in my view, just plain wrong. The public is sick of this sort of behaviour, which is why reform are now leading in opinion polls, a reality downplayed by mainstream media. Keep up your brilliant work. Thursday is always a joy when we hear a drop of sanity in an ocean of odieux. Regards, Richard. And on that bombshell...
The Ocean of Adieu. That's it from Planet Normal for another week as we leave our Sanctuary of Sweet Reason, our Flying Refuge of Reason views. Email of the week. Tim, would you do the honours? I am going to go with... Charlie, talking about the interview with Catherine Burblesing, who I entirely agree with him, is personally terrifying. But aren't the best teachers a little frightening?
So there you go, Charlie. Drop us an email to planetnormal.telegraph.co.uk. Put mug winner in the subject heading. Give us your postal address and we'll send you one of those rare as rocking horse poo Planet Normal mugs. If you enjoy Planet Normal, please subscribe to this podcast and leave us a rating and a review on Spotify, the podcast app, or wherever you listen. It helps others to find us so the Planet Normal family can grow. The madness of planet Earth comes back into view. Thanks as ever.
So our brilliant producers, Isabel Bajard, Cass Ho and Louisa Wells, thanks, of course, massively to the brilliant Tim Stanley for stepping in for Alison. Stay safe and in touch with us and with each other. Until next week, it's goodbye from me. And it's goodbye from him.
Hi, Gemini. The football transfer window's open. How are my team's stats looking? Well, your team definitely has a lot of star power. Do you think we're going to have a good season? It's going to come down to consistency and a little bit of luck on your side. I'll let you know if we win. I'll be keeping an eye on the score.
Yeah, me too. Now we're talking. Transfer to Google Pixel 9 with Gemini Live today. Sequences shortened. Gemini Live available for ages 18+. Internet required. Results are illustrative. Check responses for accuracy. Feature and account compatibility limitations apply.