105: Defection, Dwellings and Domesticated Animals

Helen, Adam and Andy discuss MPs changing sides, power in the rental market changing hands, and Jeremy Clarkson changing into Greta Thunberg. 

Episode Transcript

Maisie (00:00):
Page 94, the Private Eye Podcast

Andy (00:03):
Hello and welcome to another episode of Page 94, the Private Eye Podcast.
My name's Andrew Hunter Murray,and I'm here in the Eyes Offices.
Joined as always by HelenLewis and Adam McQueen.
Uh, Ian's away this week.
So we're gonna trash the place.
So we've got a few things that havebeen either in the mag or in the
news since the last mag, or thatmight be coming up in the next mag.
And thing.
One that has been actually allover the place is defection time.

(00:26):
Which of us is going to defect tothe Spectator who can say, yeah, some
faces being pulled at prospective.
I did write quite a

Helen (00:34):
rude piece about the Spectator quite recently.
I think they might not be that keento have me, they might be even less
keen to have me than the LabourParty was to have Natalie Elick.

Andy (00:41):
Yes.
So Natalie Elick, um, Dover, was it Dover?
And, um, she's a Labour,she's a Labour MP now.
And that's, that's fine.
Or it's not.
And it's dreadful.

Adam (00:52):
the most profound question I've heard on this entire topic came from
my husband last week when she was onthe news standing next to Kiss Armor.
And you said, why is shedressed as an air hostess?

Helen (00:59):
It was very BA cabinetry.
Really?
He was, wasn't it?
She had this red, white, and blueknotted scarf, and I thought, that
looks, she looks like she's gonna askme if I want a gin to, can we answer?
Yes.
But yeah.
Yeah.
So she was married to Charlie Elit,the previous, uh, MP for Dover.
He was then accused, uh, by, ofsexual offenses, by multiple women.
Mm-hmm.
Um, launched a liable actionagainst the Sunday Times about

(01:21):
the reporting of these claims.
Uh, went on trial for a differentoffense to that was convicted.
At that point, even the Tory partywent, well, you're probably gonna
have to probably have to kindagive up the seat now, aren't you?
She ran for it, won it, and hasnow since defected to Labour.
There was some good stuff in the paperover the weekend by Robert Buckland, the
former Justice Secretary, saying, wellactually, you know, she came to me and she

(01:42):
said some terrible things about couldn'tI sort out getting a different judge and
I mean, she's all terrible and she'd be aninvestigation into it and everyone went.
Wow.
That sounds like something thatwas also a scandal last week
when she was a tour MP Robert.

Adam (01:54):
This woman's dreadful.
No, but this is the great mistake thatpeople make when they defect is they
forget that there's a whips officein their old party that's got a big
book on them and it's got all of thatstuff in that we, they were, they
were protecting them over and takingcare of them over up until this point.
But now it's just gonnabe open season, isn't it?

Andy (02:09):
The thing, the thing I.
Think most surprising about thewhipping operation is that Gil
Brandeth was ever part of it.
He was a junior whip, wasn't he?
When he was.
It just does seem slightlyextraordinary, doesn't it?
And I think Matthew

Helen (02:19):
par, well, the man would at least trust with secrets.
I like the idea being summon to seeGiles Brandreth and one of his comedy
juMPers and himself absolute like,

Adam (02:27):
can we go back to defections then, please?
Right, yes.
The bizarre thing I think about NatalieAlpha is the, uh, the case that, that,
that Helen has just, um, just outlined is.
The one thing she's known for.
And I don't think any, presumablythe thinking as far as it went in
kiss arm's head was MP, fed Dover.
Lots of stuff to say about small boats.
Therefore I will look tough onimmigration, which is a good, um, good

(02:48):
message to be sending out to Tory voterswho were thinking of switching sides
and other people who were concernedabout, uh, illegal immigration.

Helen (02:54):
Yeah.
I also think when the fact that she wasn'tkicked outta the Tory party for any of the
defending her husband post sexual offensesconvictions suggests that they don't
care that much about it and they don'tthink she's done anything that wrong.
Mm-Hmm.
So I think the calculationon the Labour side was.
Having someone who's the MP forsmall boats saying, Rishi Sinek
small boats plan has failed.
Brilliant win.
And no one normal will really payattention to all of this stuff.
But it's also, it was

Adam (03:15):
the second time she's been in trouble over the, uh, trying to interfere
in her husband's court case, isn't it?
Because she, she was suspended alongwith three other, to MPs, uh, from the
commons for a while, for sending ina letter to the judge, um, atteMPting
to influence the judge's decision.
Yes.
Which is a fairly majorscandal to have behind you.
And again, we think makes it not an ideal.
Person to recruit to your party.

(03:36):
But

Andy (03:36):
it's exactly as Helen says, parties are in this constant state
of triangulation between what'sgoing to appeal to their members.
Mm-Hmm.
Uh, their MPs and their voters and all,and all sorts of different constituencies
have to be played against each other.
And clearly the idea is, Ithink there was a good article
about this by Patrick McGuire.
He said, Labour is siMPlyprioritizing the voter.

(03:56):
Above absolutely anything else, nomatter how much it annoys members
of the party, no matter how much itannoys the MPs, which is a case you can
make in an election year, I suppose.
Oh, it's

Helen (04:04):
grubby.
I mean it's grubby, butit's probably effective.
And they've had under MorganMcSweeney's the kind of um,
Emin Re of the Starmer project.

Andy (04:11):
The Svengali, yeah,

Helen (04:12):
exactly.
He is very much, um, they've had thiswhole idea about the hero voters,
which are Tory to Labour switches.
And so, um, Tom Hamilton used to work forLabour at very good Substack post about
this, and Dan Pooler the previous, um.
Defection saying what they want to domore than anything star wants to do
is say if you voted Tory last time.
Lots of people like you are now switching.
That's not a weird orabnormal thing to do.

(04:33):
It doesn't say you were wrong last time.
It says the Labour party changedand you've, you know, you've had
a crappy time, and this versionof the toy party isn't for you.
So they want to normalize the idea ofmoving from the torries to Labour, and
that's part of the defection strategy.

Andy (04:46):
It's a very different.
Tactic to Labour strategy last time.
One, which is, why don't yougo off and join the Tories?
Mm.
You love them so much

Helen (04:53):
and, and low andhold people did, people didn't work out so well.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Andy (04:59):
Okay.
I, I wonder on the de defect thing,is there a, what if all, what if
all the conservative MPs decidedthey wanted to switch to Labour?
Is that a legitimate wayof winning an election?
I appreciate it's probably quiteunlikely to happen, but basically

Helen (05:13):
at the point that Rishi Sun devotes to Labour, I think you to get the is up

Andy (05:16):
actually, if you just get a majority by means of another 40 MPs switching
conservative to Labour, you then havethe majority in the House of Commons.
What happens then?
It'll be quite an ask.
I mean, it's

Adam (05:25):
quite rare that people cross the floor, isn't it?
I'm getting another 40.
I are there actually enough left.
'cause most of 'em have saidthey're stepping down in the next
election anyway, aren't they?
That's true.
And the same true in both of these cases.
Danter and Natalie Alfi both said.
That's it.
We are not standing again forLabour in the next election, which
you know, is probably a good idea.
Yeah.
Because I think that is a point wherethe voters in Dover would say, on
both sides would say, well, hang on,I think we've had enough of this.
This is a bit off.

(05:45):
And the

Helen (05:45):
CLPs, the constituency Labour parties, particularly in the case of
Natalie Alfred, the clp is not happy.
Should I tell you the boringanswer to your question, which
is that a Prime minister governsby being able to pass confidence
and supply motions in the house.
So Rishi Sinek would run a minority, uh,administration with whatever Tory MPs he
had left, at which point he would try and.
Either the opposition parties would tryand put through a no confidence motion.
If he lost that the government fell,he'd have to go to the palace, or

(06:08):
he'd try and put a budget through.
And if that failed, that wouldbe treated as a confidence issue.
So he, but he could carry, even ifthere was just him and Jacob in a
committee room somewhere, he couldtry and carry on and just try and get
through votes on an individual basis.
And this

Adam (06:21):
effectively, sorry to come on All Adam's history corner on this.
we've agreed we're have some loot musicwhenever we do Adam's History Corner.
Matt, the producer is notlooking happy about this

All (06:37):
fuming, but

Adam (06:37):
that was effectively what was going on in the last, uh, couple of
years of John Major's, uh, administrationwas that it wasn't, there were a few
people who crossed the floor, butum, also it was mostly by elections.
That and kicking people out over.
Um, votes on mastery and things.
He ended up running a,a, a minority government.
He, he didn't actually have afull majority to get votes through
and had to do it on variouskind of confidence and supply.

(06:58):
Mm-Hmm.
Arrangements with theDemocratic unionist party.
I think it was at that point, wasn't it?
Uncle Bless Paisley and people, yeah.

Andy (07:04):
Presumably using Giles Brandreth and his, his dastardly whipping operation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which was so effective,as we can clearly see.
At that point, he'll tell you an anecdoteabout the queen and then he'll hit
you with the stuff they've got on you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, okay,
so there have been rumblings, murmuringsthat this is gonna happen again before
the election because Dan Pool was afortnight ago, or three weeks ago.

(07:28):
Natalie Vic was a week beforewe were recording this podcast.
Are we seeing a point where I.
The event horizon isslowly getting closer.
We're gonna see a Dr.
An hourly drumbeat, uh, of defections.
Or is this not gonna happen anymore?

Helen (07:40):
I think it's very unlikely because defections are relatively unusual.
What you've got instead is lotsof tour MPs just going, I've seen
enough like the Queen with Liz Trust.
I've seen enough, I'm out.
Um, so I think that'smore likely to happen.
But you know, it, the momentumwould be, I mean, label would
love to keep the momentum going.
Do you remember the headyautumn summer when people kept
effecting to the Lib Dems?
Do you remember the No, I

Andy (08:00):
actually don't.
I might have rememberholiday or so do remember.
Do

Helen (08:03):
you remember Tig?

Andy (08:03):
I do remember the, the TERs.
The, the independent group.

Helen (08:06):
The independent group always

Andy (08:07):
made me a teeth hitch bit.
The fact that the T waspart of the acronym.
I didn't like it.

Helen (08:11):
Well, the, yeah, but otherwise it sounds like a racial slur.
So I think I can seewhy they didn't do that.
But, um, but then, you know, LucianaBerger went and took Rama went,
uh, various people went and, andthere was a kind of in the run
up to their conference season.
They kept going and welcome tothe Lib Democrat, Sam Gemma, and
everyone went, who's Sam Gemma?

Adam (08:28):
Mm.

Helen (08:29):
that's what happened.
And I think probably if youwere ki Dmi, you'd want another
couple before conference season.
But again, you do need themto be people where you say,
welcome to the Labour Party.
I mean, did you see thegreat funny graphics?
I, people would, making fake ones.
Welcome to the LabourParty, Barron Harken.
Oh, you have to be, you know, somebodywho your, your back bench is greet with a
certain level of appreciation and respect.
Otherwise, it's not, it's not quite.

(08:51):
So exciting.

Adam (08:53):
I mean, Dan Polter was not exactly a household name prior to
defecting a couple of weeks ago.
Was it?
Well.

Andy (08:58):
Depending on which paper you read.
He was either a, a senior conservativeand former minister, or he was a
nobody, and we've never heard of him.
We didn't need him in the party anyway.
It's always my absolute favoritenonsense journalistic phrase

Adam (09:09):
is a senior back bencher.
It's like, unless you are actuallytalking about Peter Bottomley,
who is the father of the house.
Then, you know, they, they enterunless they're really quite old,
you just say, yeah, there is nosuch thing as a senior back bencher.
Yeah.

Helen (09:22):
Yeah.
But that's like, I mean, there's aversion of irregular verb, isn't it?
When I worked to the New Statesmanthat you either used to be, or Wells
magazine, or it used to be like the HouseJournal of the Left, or it used to be
kind of, you know, small circulation,socialist rag, and I'm sure a version
of ham, a private eye as well too,depending on what, on what, whether or
not people agree with what you're doing.

Andy (09:39):
Yeah.

Helen (09:39):
Do you know what I wish we had Andy?
I wish we had some kind of quiz.

Andy (09:43):
Me too,

Adam (09:44):
actually.
Yeah, that would've been good.
I should have thought of them.
Oh, oh, hang on.
What's this?
I've got written in mynotebook in fronted me.
Yes, folks, it's quiz time, right?
It's time for the Grand Defections quiz.
Would you like to select your weapons?
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, do you want to, oh, I see.
So would you like the bell?
No, I

Helen (09:59):
think, no, I think actually it, it was hard.
Remember everyone

Adam (10:02):
wants the hooter, don't they?
He remember was lookingenviously at the hooter,

Helen (10:05):
I remember from Christmas that that actually requires
quite a lot of grip strength.
So well let, I'm gonna leave that to you.
Let's see if

Adam (10:10):
I can, okay.
Okay, we're back, back, back.
So Helen goes and Andy goes,

Helen (10:15):
I think there's like a second delay on that.
I think you've taken a handicap on this.
Yeah, you're

Adam (10:19):
right.
Okay.
Fingers on whatever things, whichMP has changed parties twice in the
past year with hardly anyone noticing.

Helen (10:31):
No, not the Anderson Bugger.
Uh, George Galloway.
No, not George Galloway.
You can't just

Adam (10:35):
name all the MPs

Helen (10:36):
that come on.
I'll go in there.
Andy, do you wanna

Adam (10:38):
come in here?
Do you want a clue?
I'd need a clue.
Pothead or Andrew Bridget.
Andrew Bridget is the right answer toget from that clue that potato pot takes.
I know

Andy (10:50):
the way Adam thinks the problem, he think he sees a potato, he thinks Andrew.
Bridget does it do

Adam (10:54):
Very much.
Yeah.
It makes meal times extremelydifficult, but it's very good
'cause I'm off the carbs.
Andrew Bridget was kicked outtathe Tories in May, 2023 for
saying that, uh, coMParing thevaccine rollout to the Holocaust.
Um, he, a little while after that,joined Lawrence Fox's reclaim Party.
Oh, so Reclaim, actually had an MP for alittle while, but not for all that long.
It turns out because he leftagain a few years later and is now

(11:15):
running as the independent candidatefor his, um, seat of Northwest
Lestershire in the general election.
Although, weirdly.
As the, I revealed in January.
He's still being bankrolled by JeremyHoskin, who, uh, is the Bankroller
also for the reclaim party, butjust a bit too embarrassed to be
associated with Lawrence Fox, I think.
as you said, there were two defectionsfrom the conservative party to
Labour in the space of a fortnight.

(11:37):
But who was the last personto change parties directly?
Not after being deprived of the whip andkicked out and becoming an independent.
The first person to crossedthe floor, first MP to do that
before Dan Putter in April.
And that's Helen

Helen (11:51):
Christian Wakeford.
Oh, very good.

Adam (11:55):
No.

Helen (11:55):
Oh, not very good.

Adam (11:57):
Oh, I've got a second chance, but that was the name I would've said.
Okay.
Do you want to try, you wanna throw in?
You were one in 650 chance?
No, I've got no idea.
Was Lisa Cameron?
who's she you asking?
S October, 2023.
She left the SNP for the conservatives.

Helen (12:13):
Ooh, that's spicy and unusual.
Uh,

Adam (12:15):
she's the MP for East Kil Bride Strathaven and Les Macau.
Um, and she said at the time that the,uh, the s and p was a toxic environment,
which was affecting her mental health.
Well, that you think she's joinedthe modern conservative party.
She's a former clinical psychologist,so she knows a thing or two about that.
Okay.
Um, and in order to disprove herclaims, the s and p President, Mike
Russell said she was just having.

(12:35):
A rather odd tantrum from somebodywho was going to lose their seat.
So not toxic at all.
As you can clearly see, he wassort of ego driven politics
that was deeply unattractive.
when was the last personto defect directly from the
conservatives to the Labour Party?
Go on Andy.

Andy (12:55):
Uh, I'll say 1996.

Helen (12:58):
1979.

Adam (13:00):
No, go, go, go higher.
Go.
More recently,

Helen (13:03):
2015.

Adam (13:04):
no, 2007 Quentin Davies.
Any idea I had?
Absolutely none.
He was conservative.
MP four Grantham and Stanford.
Now, um, uh, Lord Stanford, 'cause funnilyenough ended up in the House of Lords, but
he'd defected on the day that Gordon Brownwas elected as leader of the Labour Party.
Saying that this was aleader he had always admired.

(13:24):
Unlike David Cameron, who has atowering record and a clear vision
for the future, which I fully share.
And indeed, he fully share bychair by having stepped down at the
next election in 2010 when GordonBrown was swept out of office.
Didn't go so well before that.
Never heard of this one either.
Robert Jackson, January, 2005.
Oh yeah.
Robert Jackson.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know the one, you know, the one sayingthat the conservatives had dangerous
views on Europe amongst other things.

Helen (13:45):
Okay.
So quite a lot of these defectors havebeen proved right by the tides of history.
I will say

Andy (13:49):
yes, but it seems like such a, a difficult and unpopular thing to do.
I'm amazed that anyone, especially inthat chamber, you've got two sides.
One of them is your side.
Mm-Hmm.
It must take real.
GuMPtion or real confidenceto do it, to walk across.

Helen (14:04):
But that's a a really, that's why I think the Starmer project
is so interested in defectors.
'cause most people will never, ever admitthat they were wrong about anything.
Right?
Mm-Hmm.
They won't, they won'tsay, I regret doing this.
I regret voting this.
I've spent my entire life, as it turnsout, coMPletely pointlessly on a lie.
So you have to provide some plausiblepsychological mechanism, which is why
they are so intent on stressing in theLabour Party that Labour has changed.

(14:24):
As in, of course, you wouldn't havevoted for Jeremy Corbyn's Labour
Party, but you're fine voting for ours.
That's not, you know, you're notsaying that you were wrong to vote
for the conservatives last time.
You're just, you know, now we'vegot, you've got a better choice.

Andy (14:34):
Sort of de tribalising things.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Adam (14:36):
which MP, who you definitely will have heard of, changed parties four times.

Andy (14:43):
I've dropped, I've dropped the horn in excitement.
Which, and a

Adam (14:45):
drop go on Winston Churchill, you are correct.
Yes.
For a bonus.
Can you name the parties?
conservative

Helen (14:53):
liberals.

Adam (14:54):
Two of them, 1904, switched for the conservatives to the liberals.

Helen (14:56):
Did he have a cheeky bang as a Labour MP?
That seems unlikely, but

Adam (14:59):
no.
That's one of the ones he doesn't do.
How

Helen (15:01):
about a bit of time as a

Adam (15:02):
Whig
I think the Whig were theLiberals, weren't they?
Oh, no.
Pretty much.
Okay.
Yeah.
1924 stood in a by-electionas an independent Mm-Hmm.
A bit later on the same yearin the general election,
stood as a Constitutionalist.
Very nice, don't they?
And swiftly ended up back inthe conservative government as
Chancellor of the Exchequer.
That's the end of the quiz and, uh, I'mreliably informed that the winner this

(15:24):
week it is, Andy, thank you that thatWinston Churchill, uh, biography I read
really, really came through for me.
In the end, what we've establishedhere is that the only politician
that two private eye journalists canname accurately is Winston Churchill.
So we're doing really, really well.

Andy (15:41):
Oh, lord.
Well that was a reallydifficult quiz, Adam.
Thank you.

Helen (15:44):
I knew that Emma Nicholson was a Tory Pier, and
I thought, well, that's funny.
I, I didn't actually know that she was aTory Pier about Then you, you foxed me.

Andy (15:53):
Patrick trick question.
You don't like losing quizzes, do you?
I'm really upset.
Right.
Let's move on to, uh, story numbertwo of the week, and this is off
the back of another bit of audio.
This was something that, uh,was on the Today Program.
Uh, at the weekend.
They've been running a series abouthousing and especially the problems faced
by tenants, and that's because there'sa new bit of law, um, slowly working

(16:18):
its way through, which is called theRenters Reform Bill and the Today Program.
At the end of their week's programming onthe subject, they had Michael Goff, uh,
who's the Secretary of State responsible.
Uh, and he was on, and hewas interviewed about, uh.
The housing situation about the progressof this bill and obviously, 'cause
that was the sort of culminating point,there wasn't, there wasn't a follow
up to that, so I thought it'd be funfor us to provide that follow up.

Helen (16:39):
Can you, um, run me quickly through the re reform bill?
I'll tell you what my basiclevel of knowledge is.
Yes.
It wants to get rid of no fault evictions.
That's how it started off.
Mm-Hmm.
And change from having fixedtendencies to kinda rolling tendencies
where you have to come up withsome reason to kick people out.
Trying to move us more towardsthe European standard where
people rent for a long time inmuch more stable arrangements.

(16:59):
But then my theory, my feeling wasthen landlords got it watered down to
the extent that the housing charitieswithdrew their support for it and
said, this has been terribly muted.
Can you give me more than that?
Is that a reasonable pricey?

Andy (17:12):
You've said everything I know about it.
No, no, that's, that's exactly, that'sexactly what has happened, basically.
So there were two really clear, uh,pledges going into the, the last
election by the conservatives in 2019.
We're gonna build lots and lots andlots and lots and lots of houses.
300,000 a year, a million over thecourse of the Parliament, which isn't
the same number weirdly, um, 'cause theywill have built a million, but they.
Fallen very far short of 300,000a year, which was the target.

(17:35):
And there was this renter's reformbill to ban no fault evictions, where
your landlord can basically say avery short notice is you're out.
Um, so just like someone franticallydoing their homework right at the, you
know, right before the teacher comes inand collects it all in the government,
and now finally trying to get thispassed, um, there are thousands of

(17:56):
these no fault evictions every year and.
The rule at the moment has beenwatered down as it's passed
through the House of Commons.
So, for example, um, the new rules willallow landlords to evict tenants if
they want to sell the property or if aclose family member wants to move in.
Now, it's not crazy if you owna home that you're renting out.
To think, well, I want to sell it.

(18:16):
You know, if I need to fund my old age,whatever, like this was actually gonna
be my really stupid person question, is

Adam (18:21):
that you're allowed to sell your house.
You're allowed to sell it.
Yeah.
Right.
Okay.
Yeah.
And can I say

Helen (18:25):
that I read the exemptions and my favorite one was that the house is
required for a ministry of religion.

Adam (18:30):
Wow.

Helen (18:31):
You can say, well, I'm really sorry.
I've just got, I need to move a rabbi in.
Actually, he really needs to be there.
This Vick has just turnedout, oh, nothing I can do.

Andy (18:39):
Well, you're kind of getting to the heart of the problem with this.
So, so the, the other exemptionis if, if a close family member
wants to move in right now.
The rules have been changedand they've been, they've been
altered and altered and altered.
So now there are plenty of extrapowers for landlords to kick people
out, uh, under Section eight differentthe law, uh, at two months notice.
So it used to be just if they or theirspouse or civil partner wanted to move in.

(19:00):
Now it's a whole load of family members,all the children, all the grandchildren of
any of this whole load of family members.
The second problem with it, isthat this is really hard to enforce,

Helen (19:10):
right?
'cause the thing is, you could presumeyou say, I'm very sorry, but my second
cousin once removed needs this flat.
I'm gonna kick you out.
And what is the enforcement mechanism forgoing back in six months time and checking
that they really are then living there?
Well, it's

Andy (19:21):
supposed to be local authorities now, local authorities.
As anyone will notice, are abit stretched at the moment.
Uh, and also are tenants really likelyafter they've been kicked out, they've
noticed three months later actuallyyour granny didn't move in, in the end.
So are they really likely to go throughall the hassle and the pain of a, a
tribunal or whatever case it might be?

(19:41):
Uh.
Because it is just not likelyto achieve anything for them.
And also, if the landlord does movesomeone in, they're then not allowed to
market the property to be let again awhole three months after that's expired.
That's not very long

Helen (19:55):
because the story that I kept hearing was people, you know, say
your rent was 1500 pounds a month.
Mm-Hmm.
Your landlord would kick you out andthen would put the flat back on the
market for two and a half grand a month.
Right?
Yeah.
That there were lots of.
Because the housing market is so squeezedbecause rents have gone up so much
that there was kind of essentially, youcan't say it's, you know, it's, it's
market adjustment, but somehow it lookedlike very much like price gouging.

(20:17):
Yeah.
Mm-Hmm.
Um, and I'm not sure, and I think that'sone of the things that this bill was
designed to address, and I, I think itwas struggled to do that without very
heavy handed regulation, which thegovernment doesn't seem to be up for

Andy (20:27):
is this a sign that the government really can't pass anything?
You know, because conservative backbenchers are the ones who manage to get
the bill effectively neutered and about.
A fifth, the last time I checked, I oncevery Labouriously checked through the
entire register of members' interestto see how many MPs of which parties
were landlords in their own right.
And it was about a fifth ofconservative MPs were landlords,

Helen (20:47):
right?
Whereas very, very few of them arerenters or maybe some of 'em are renters
in their second home, but they're not.
They're not.
It would be a tiny,

Adam (20:54):
tiny proportion of people who, who have, um.
Members of Parliament whodo not own a property.
It's a very tiny proportion.
So the argument then is about,you know, whether Parliament
gives us a true representation of,of, I mean, we, we, we made this
argument, you made this argument.
In fact, um, Helen on the podcastnot so long ago when you said about
Charlotte Owen going into the Houseof Lords, actually getting a few
younger people who have differentlife experiences into our legislator

(21:15):
may not be a bad idea, might you?

Helen (21:17):
I'm afraid I have, I'm, I'm both a YIMBY and very landlords skeptic because I
just think that having housing as an assetclass has worked out quite poorly for
basically everyone in Britain under 45.

Andy (21:28):
And this is one of the things that go said in the interview, which
I found so interesting, which I wantedto kind of review his, you know,
appearance because he, he pointed outthat housing has been, become seen
increasingly as a good investment.
Hmm.
And well, okay.
Who's been in chargefor the last 14 years.
He also said that housing is a repositoryfor hot money, especially in London.
Same question, also blame the crisisin part, at least on, um, on the number

(21:51):
of people coming to this country ashe, as he phrased it, quite delicately.
Well, okay.
Who's been in charge of those, you know.
There's a certain point after whichyou say, right, you have created
this situation in large part.

Helen (22:01):
Right.
But you know, I, I think it,you are right about not being
able to pass any legislation.
If Michael Gove, who, whateverelse you might say about him.
You know, my secret love of MichaelGove, he's in a very effective minister.
He is renowned as somebody whoabsolutely understands his brief.
He gets on top of it.
He can push thingsthrough, he can prioritize.
And he's got, traditionally hashad a lot of buy-in, in the party
and the ability to get thingsdone, but he cannot get this done.

(22:24):
Yeah.
Suggests to me that the toparty can't get it done.
And I think part of that is the factthat almost every local election
caMPaign is run on, on NIMBY grounds.
And you know, the, the liberalDemocrats are absolute fiends for it.
They're brilliant at voting thiskind, but you actually get even.
Labour MPs recently, John Ledge, um, whoswept me at New Statesman has been catalog
clogging, like the Greens oppositionto, to housing is obviously incredibly

(22:46):
high because if you are a none of theabove party running in a, in a local
election, uh, or a by-election, then oneof the most popular things you can do
is oppose any new housing developments.
So we have all these incentivesjust at the local level for people
to, to block everything, everythingat all, even if it's like.
Turning a derelict warehouseon Brownfield's site into some,
into a six story block of flats.
People, some nonetheless come upwith some reason, whether it's

(23:08):
like some boll weevil or somethingthat they can't, they can't do it.

Andy (23:11):
Those people are the bananas, aren't they?
There's the NIMBYs, there's the NIMBYs,and then there's bananas who are
built absolutely nothing anywhere nearanything, which is very, yeah, it's a lot.
It's a great acronym.
There's a lot of them.
And the other problem with this,the, with this bill, which is really
interesting, it's a, it's a court thingas well, and it's another reason why.
Housing charities and variousorganizations who are quite fond

(23:31):
of the idea have slightly gonesoft and withdrawn their support.
So lots of the backend es opposed tothe renters reform bill in its original
state said, well, the courts are gonnabe overwhelmed with coMPlicated cases
and tribunals and eviction cases.
We have to delay this until thecourts have capacity to deal with
the new cases that might arise.
So The ban on section 20 ones willnot be enacted until a full probe

(23:55):
into the courts has been held.
Uh, and there's now gonna bea full review of the courts.
And you know, the government haveclaimed that on top of that, they
will give six months of notice beforeending section 21 for new tenancies.
Nevermind.
Existing tendencies.
These are only, only the future ones.

Adam (24:12):
So this is not even kicking it into the long grass, is it?
This is boosting it sort of rightout, somewhere beyond the green belt.

Helen (24:18):
But I think Labour have said that on day one they
would ban no fault evictions.
Right.
So it may, it may be possibly,I couldn't say I haven't
seen the polls for some time.
It may be that, that, that, you know,it will require a change of government.
Yeah.
And this is the stealthy argument.
If you are a ybi for a massive Labourmajority is that you need to be able
to have a big enough majority forthe Labour party to afford to annoy
some constituency basis, you know,to force through some house building.

(24:41):
Um, and I think that unfortunately,because realistically you wouldn't
need all these huge gamuts oflegislation if the market worked better.
If you as a renter could approach andhave a, like look at a decent number
of properties at a decent level of.
Pro prize where you want to live.
Yeah.
It would de efficiently sort itself out.
Bad landlords, people wouldn'thave to put up with them.
The problem at the moment isthere are far too few properties.
Yeah.
And so it gets stuck.
You know, there's no, the market,there's supposed to be a market

(25:03):
and that market is not working.

Andy (25:05):
Hmm.
And that's why all the solutions thatare been proposed that are basically
altering the market a little bit likea very, very, very long mortgage term.
You know, 40 year mortgages or, or we'll,we're going to do help to, we're gonna do
share to rent, or help to rent, to share,to buy, you know, all of these schemes.
they're really coMPlicated, but they'remuch easier in themselves than building

(25:26):
another 3 million homes, which is actuallythe, the only thing that would Mm-Hmm.
Really in a long term,concrete over Cambridgeshire

Helen (25:33):
built another reservoir.
No, I didn't say that.
Don't write, don't write intome people from Cambridge.
But you're right.
Like we did at one point.
Remember, in Bridge History, webuilt entire new towns, garden

Andy (25:41):
cities.

Helen (25:41):
That was used to be a thing that we thought was a reasonable thing to do.

Andy (25:44):
I know.
Well there, and there arelots of reasons why they, they
are much harder to build now.
Part of them.
Part of it, a small partof it is grid constraints.
You know, you actually don't havethe electricity supplies to, to get
these developments up and running.

Adam (25:55):
It's not just electricity, it's water as well.
I mean, we've, we've run stuff onhow many reservoirs have been built
in Britain in the last 30 years?
Yeah.
It's a big fat zero.
It's zero it very, very low.
Uh, I mean my entire town down in St.
Leonard on sea last weekend wascut off for four days from water
entirely 'cause one pipe burst.
I mean, the infrastructure wegot in this country is in pretty
much the same state as the road.
So there's an awful lotthat has to go with it.
There isn't just building houses, isn't

Andy (26:16):
it?

Helen (26:17):
Yeah.

Andy (26:17):
Yeah.
And not to go too far on, you know,this is not fully statistically backed,
but it does make me wonder whetherthat leads to more of an appetite for
more radical change, you know, or.
Saying we, we really actually needto crack on and build entire new
towns, which is I think one of theplanks of Labour policy on this.

Helen (26:34):
Yeah.
And they, I mean there have been,for example, Cambridge North has been
quite, um, developed as far as I know.
You know, there is, there are placesin Britain that you could build if
you had sufficient political will.
But I think if you look at HS two andthe fact they're gonna put half of
that through tunnels at vast expense toavoid spoiling people's views of fields.
Yeah.
This is not a country with aravenous appetite for, for building.

Andy (26:54):
Yeah.
And it's.
Because housing is such an intractableproblem, but we, we often forget the,
the really, really sharp end of it,which is the, I think it's a hundred
thousand, um, families who are inteMPorary accommodation, um, which is,
is often extremely unfit to live in.
Yes, I've been

Helen (27:11):
wondering about this.
I live in Lewisham and there's um,there's a premier in, and there's also a
travel lodge, and it's almost iMPossibleto get rooms at the travel lodge.
And I, my assuMPtion is that's becauseLucian Council is putting up families.
And that's definitely been the casein other, um, ho like relatively
affordable hotel chains is thatyou get, but you know, you get an
entire family of four that is livingin a kind of premier in room Yeah.
For months at a time.

(27:31):
'cause they just, there justphysically isn't anywhere to put them.

Andy (27:34):
That's right.
And that's sort of, that'sthe current situation.
Often you get social housingtenants who are in work.
Still qualify for, for housing allowance,which then goes directly to the landlord
of the property, which was a social houseuntil it was sold off under right to buy.
And then the landlord, so the, the,the con the money passes straight
from the government via the socialhousing tenant to the landlord.

(27:56):
What in what was once a social house, so

Adam (27:58):
was pointed out to me by an MP.
I was talking aboutthis a little while ago.
Mm-hmm.
That landlord doesn't evennecessarily live in the
country, let alone in the area.
You know, a lot of this money isgoing straight out to coMPletely
different places where people are, arecontrolling large property empires from.

Helen (28:11):
That's the bit where I think protectionism kind
of is on the rise, I think.
I think people are more open tothe idea that we shouldn't be, you
know, in the same way we shouldn'thave a kind of huge outsourcing
conglomerates being charged of things.
Maybe we also shouldn't betreating housing as a way of making
people in other countries rich.
Mm-Hmm.
But you know that and which isinteresting 'cause that now I say
unites the left and the right.
And that kind of opposition to likeultra free market neoliberalism

(28:33):
is now quite popular amongstsort of almost everybody really.

Adam (28:36):
Mm.
But it also has become intractablyassociated with, in, in the public
mind, with the fact that you makemoney on houses, you want houses.
I mean, that's a.
Your daily mail and daily expressheadlines that we're always printing
spoofs of, of, you know, nuclearwar could have effect on house
prices and that sort of thing.
But people are genuinely, I mean, peopleover 45, as you mentioned, you do kind of
have it there as your security and yourNessun egg 'cause pensions aren't doing,

(28:59):
doing so brilliantly and, but in a lotof cases, that's the thing I, whether
this is a generational thing because alsothere's people over 45 have now got kids
of 25 or 35 still living at home with thembecause they can't afford to move out.
So I think it gradually, it's not the sortof straightforward oldies versus youth.
Kind of, um, issue.
It has been David

Helen (29:16):
Willetts who wrote The Pinch, which is about
generational, uh, intergenerationalunfairness said that to me.
He said he thought the tipping pointwould come when you had people who were
very happy with the fact their house hasgone up by 400%, wondering why their kids
are now having grandkids and they've gotthe baby in like a bassinet in the, you
know, in the, in the corner of their room.
And they haven't managed to move out.
But it really exacerbates.
Social un it is a, it's a real, youknow, tion of social mobility, right?

(29:39):
If the people who've already rich parentswho've got houses in the southeast
can pass those on or pass on some ofthe equity to allow their kids to buy
houses, that is just rigging the systemagainst new entrant to an absurd degree.
You're,

Andy (29:50):
you're getting into a fully predetermined view of what your
life outcomes are going to be.
Yeah.
Based entirely on, on whetheryour parents happened to snap up
a house in the eighties or not.
Yeah.
Um, someone should write areally sort of funny gripping
thriller about this kind of thing,

Helen (30:03):
but not you.

Andy (30:04):
No, no, no.

Helen (30:05):
When, uh, how is, uh, it's a beginner's going to breaking and entering?
I believe that's right.
That is, tell me, me.
Is that available in all good bookshops?
Andy?
It's

Andy (30:15):
tragically we only put it out into bad book shops, which is my mistake.
But, you know, go to your.
No, nevermind.
Look, anyway, let's press

Helen (30:21):
It's all right.
Well, for in order like achieveb BBC balance, I should say that
uh, Adam's book of Ghost Storiesis coming out before, yeah,

Adam (30:27):
next October available for pre-order from, uh, all bad book.
It's got

Helen (30:30):
a lovely cover.

Adam (30:32):
Um, and I just, that's the quote that's going on.
The paperback, Helen Lewis goeson lovely cover and I've just

Helen (30:38):
filed my book.
So at some point thatshould come out next year.
So we'll basically, isn't that lovely?
We've

Andy (30:42):
all got product to flog.
Goodness me.
Um, can I finish off, can Ifinish off this bit with a quote
that I think is quite revealing?
Is it about your book?
No, no, no, no, no.
Okay.
Just listen to this.
Owners of property found it convenient toclose their eyes to all, but the handsome
revenue they obtained from their unsavorytenants and the municipal authorities were
not apathetic, felt themselves helpless.

(31:03):
That's from a book called TheHousing Problem in England
that was published in 1907.
Wow.
And it was at a time where thevast majority of people, I think it
was 80% rented, right at the turnof the 20th century, 80% rented.
There was then an enormous amountof house building, and by the
turn of the 20th century, 70%of people owned their own homes.
The numbers have now startedtrending downwards again.

(31:25):
So I think that's a really tellingcomment on where we've got to.

Helen (31:29):
Well, it is, um, the, the first Alan Johnson memoir, which is
very beautiful, is he talks aboutgrowing up in a sort of slum with
ice on the windows, and then they allget kind of, that all gets cleared
and they all get moved out to these.
New housing estates that are builtand for the first time people have
got their own bit of front goadand they've got somewhere, you
know, to kind of call their own.
They're not jammed intothese unsanitary conditions.
And I think the way that he writes aboutthat is quite moving about what it meant

(31:51):
to people to have a kind of space of theirown somewhere that they felt secure in.
And that's when you read so manyof the stories about the private
rental sector now is the, whatcomes across as insecurity anyway.
You are living on prog probationand could be kicked out at any time.
It's Victorian.
It's Ed Edwardian, technically.
Very nice.
Thank you.

Andy (32:10):
right.
Well that's quite enough.
Uh, incredible gloo aboutthe housing situation.
Let's, let's havesomething cheerful instead.
What's been on telly lately?

Helen (32:17):
I've been watching a lot of telly because I haven't been able to go out,
'cause I've been, um, writing stuffand I, I sent to you and I gonna have
a fight about this, but I would like tonominate as an incredibly good TV program.
Clarkson's Farm on Amazon.

Andy (32:29):
Okay.

Helen (32:30):
I think it's the greenest program on television.
Wow.
And you know, all you wokebicycle munching, lettuce riding.
Yeah.
Woke mind virus people.
Won't I get this?
But the thing he's done in this series isdivide it up between Caleb, the assistant
and him, and say, you know, Caleb is gonnamanage the bits of the farm that have got
traditional arable crops on and he's gonnatry and make money outta the other bits.

(32:52):
So he tries and, um, yeah, likepigs, he tries to have honey.
He tries to harvest his hedgerows.
All that kind of stuff.
He has a bloke from Groove turn up to tellhim about the fact that we're taking all
the nutrients out the soil and actuallyshould try and grow beans and stuff like
that across as well as conventional crops

Adam (33:07):
from Groove.
Yeah.

Helen (33:09):
Yeah.
What

Adam (33:10):
has happened with this music to Environmental caMPaign?
I think.
They all made MeleSharky started this Yeah.
A

Helen (33:15):
load of money in the 1990s, didn't they?
Like, well, Alex James fromBlair and his cheeses, it's a

Andy (33:20):
very long established thing that, I mean, Ian Anderson of Jethro
Toll as a salmon farmer these days.
Yes, indeed.
Didn't know that's, um, it's a bit lessenvironmental actually, given what,
quite considerably less environmental,what privat has written about salmon
and its horrors over the years.
Um, but yes, so, okay.
But the thing,

Helen (33:34):
I think it does a couple of things.
First of all, it is a very softway of talking about climate change
because they talk about the fact that.
For example, the last year they weredoing it, it, the spring was so rainy,
they had to plant a lot of, I think,their barley and stuff later than usual.
And he talks about the fact that thecosts, the spiking of costs, you know, the
fuel costs, the Labour costs, everythingthat's gone up, that's contributed
to your food being more expensive.
And explaining that supply chain processand the fact that working for the

(33:57):
supermarkets, you know, something thatprivate eye has covered a lot over the
years is on those wafer thin profitmargins that, uh, that farmers are
being expected to kind of live with.
Yeah.
All of that stuff is covered while also.
He cried over some littlebaby piglets that died.
Oh, that's what's

Andy (34:12):
got you.
You've gone for thestory about the piglets.

Adam (34:14):
It's sad little piglets.
The, that would've been, so are weessentially, are we essentially saying
this is Clarkson is the new arches?
'cause the arches famously weresent up in 1951 to educate, um.
Uh, British radio listenersabout, about the countryside.
Um, and it used to be long, long sectionsof Doris and Dan Archer reading out
sort of milky old quotas to each other.
They're slightly more integratedinto the storyline now.

Helen (34:33):
No, but there is a lot of that.
And to go back to our last segment,there's a lot about his running
battle with West Oxford Paris Councilthat seems to want to keep the Cowa
as essentially a kind of museum.

All (34:41):
Mm-Hmm.

Helen (34:41):
Rather than like the, the letting him run the farm shop, for example.
They're just sort of, they are, theyare bananas I think in many ways.
And so watching him, Emmanuel have asort of pick a fight with a wall hanging,
have argue with them is quite enjoyable.
But yeah, it ha I feel it hasgenuinely educated me about how the
challenges of being a, a farmer today,well, frankly, people like you would
do well to remember that, Angie.

Andy (35:02):
Oh, get away.
Okay.
I just, I'm gonna.
Push back a little bit about this 'causeI haven't seen all of Clarkson's farm,
so you're better informed about whathappened to the poor baby piglets.
No, before they would'vebeen turned into sausages.
Um, but yeah,

Helen (35:12):
but that's what the guy, the butcher comes on and says that this
is the thing about farmers lovetheir animals and then he hands him
some sausages and goes this way.
You can love them twice.

Adam (35:20):
Crumbs.
Okay.
Speaking of someone who used toeat his own goats, can I just
say it is possible to love youranimals and also love them twice?
Ensure that they have avery, very good life before.
Not having to be cartoff the slaughterhouse.

Andy (35:32):
Well that alright.
That's fair enough.
But I think, I think that, wellthe thing that a lot of people,

Helen (35:37):
sorry, like me, the fact, speaking of someone who had to
eat his own goats, it's just,

Adam (35:41):
oh, it was so exciting.
No, no.
The, the so glossed over that a bit,and this is a big change in farming, is
these days everything has to go throughthe slaughterhouse in those days.
So you, you get animals being,and this is true deer as well,
which is most extraordinary.
You killed, you killed goat.
I did not personallykill, I'm nine years old.
You used to, but used to see signs.
You used to see signsat the side of the road.
Didn't you kill your own goats?
You come in and, yeah.
Yeah.
I'm not, I'm not runningfor vice president.

(36:02):
I'm not in the habit ofgoing out and shooting goats.
No, we have slaughtermanused to come around.
'cause in those days you didn't, youknow, you didn't have to pack animals
into the back of a lorry and take 'emoff all terrified and, and, and, and,
and into a horrendous environment.
It could just quietly bedone in their own goat shed.
Uh, and mom and I, mom and I would takethe dogs for a very, very long walk, and
my dad would deal with the slaughterman.
But there was the, the thrill of beingable to go and look through the crack
in the garage door and see the, uh,body hanging up, bleeding into a bucket.

(36:25):
Going, oh, that's, I think we'vegone quite far into, we've gone
deep into my childhood now.

Andy (36:31):
it's really iMPortant, you know, seeing how your food arrives is something
that almost nobody thinks about.
'cause the number of peopleworking in agriculture has declined
so much over the last century.
So now we're very, verydisconnected from it.
So it's great.
It's, it is great to see that.
I, I think one thing thatClarkson has got wrong.
On plenty of occasions is he'sbeen a consistent denier of climate
change or that there's, there'sany need to change our activities.

(36:52):
And now he's moved on slightlyfrom that 'cause he is literally
farming his land and he can seethat half of it's underwater.
But he's moved on to the next stagetowards actually realizing things
can be done and should be done.
So he was interviewed by the,I think the observer just as
to plug this series basically.
And one of the things he saidto them was, well, you know.
Look, the fact is politics isn'tgonna change any climate stuff.

(37:14):
It's all gonna be solved by the science,which is a, I'm afraid, a really classic.
You are just past the denial phase.
It's just, well, it'll be sorted byscience and it's not gonna be politics.
And then with the very next breath,he said, I would never drive a Tesla.
I've got eight cars or withV eight entrance, whatever.
And I think the thing thathe's not putting together
there, he's so close to it.
That's the thing aboutClarkson, um, is that.

(37:36):
Science does not exist in a vacuum.
You might be able to invent theelectric car, which means you
never have to burn petrol again.
You know, you don't have totransport it across the world.
You have to get it outta the ground,refine it, transport it, put it
in the petrol station, put it inyour car, and then burn it once.
You can run it off renewables, youcan effectively run it off sunlight.
But you need politics to roll that out.
You need politics to changethe status quo, to bring people

(37:57):
with you to make sure it's notprohibitive, prohibitively expensive.
That's the politics and that'swhere they dovetail together.
And I think Clarkson has, hasfrequently siMPlified things, partly
for comedy and partly for, you know,popular effect, but also sometimes.
Quite far, quite popular on that.
Yeah, he's super

Helen (38:13):
attached to the idea of himself as a kind of beer everyman.
I think that that, that stops him.
But you're right.
One of the interesting things that'shappening in the US for example, that
Tesla is having a lot of problems,but one thing that does seem to
be going well in their businessis rolling out the superchargers.
Because one of the things you need to doif you want to make electric cars work is
obviously you need to be able to chargethem and be able to find those charging
points relatively easy and conveniently.
Yeah.
And that kind of stuff.

(38:33):
You do just need, you know, I thinkwe've benefited enormously from
subsidies and encouragement andsupport from the government by kind
of long term plans about this will beworth your while investing in this.
A private coMPany.
Yeah.
But yeah, so, okay.
He can, he can't stop hisessential Clark's ity.
You can't expect that.
Do you don not think he'll get there

Adam (38:49):
though?
Do you not think it's one moreoutrageous column for the sun and then
him having to do a kind of sackclothand ashes contrition thing and then
he'll go, he'll go fully Greta?

Andy (38:56):
I don't know.

Adam (38:56):
I don't know.
I don't, I don't, I, I'm

Andy (38:58):
not really worried about.
Especially, I also think

Helen (39:02):
I, you know, my analysis, the green movement, I think it's a really big shame
that the Green Party has become, now,particularly, it's now become a recipient
for all the people who've left lay becauseit's not left wing enough for them.
And I think the problem with thatis, in a way I want to, I, I'm
fine for that green party to exist.
I would also like a rightwing green party to exist.
You know, the way that, um.
The king talks about conservation, right?
As sort of lovely woodlands and Englandand nostalgia and sustainability

(39:24):
and all that kind of stuff.
There is a very conservative, traditionalform of environmental politics that
I wish we heard a bit more, right?
'cause it would reach awhole constituents of people.
Who don't get reached bythe current Green Party?

Andy (39:35):
Well, I think, I think that's why, um, Labour have been so
clear on the eMPhasis of renewableenergy means energy security.
It means not having to iMPort oil and gas.
You, you can very much lead on it.
This is good British sunshinehitting British land.
Let us use it to Power Britain.
You know, that's Solernationalism and it's,
it's like, I love it.
I'm a solo nationalist.

(39:56):
100%.
Why wouldn't we do that?
if you iMPort oil or gas fromRussia, they can turn off the taps.
If you iMPort a Soler panel fromChina, it cannot be deactivated.
That panel will work for 15, 20 years.
You give you all the power you needand then you can recycle the, the,
uh, ingredients in it, you know,that is Soler nationalism baby.
And my new party will be launching.
Next week

Helen (40:15):
solo will be a great name for political party.
Yeah.
It's got that sort vibe, like itsounds like an an apprentice team.

Andy (40:20):
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
It does feel the farming thingquite public servicey, you know,
it feels like a sort of show.
It's, I mean it's, it is verymuch top gear, crop gear.
That's what he should have called it.
But I presume EMM were offering moremoney than the B bbc, so Fair enough.
But I would also, he got firedfrom the BBC after, uh, the
unpleasantness with that producer.
Yes.
It would have to be called

Helen (40:39):
Land Tour, like Grand Tour if he was gonna do a spinoff.

Andy (40:42):
We've come up with two better names already

Adam (40:44):
than Clarkson's Farm, which is I think your SEO specialist would probably
say they want the name Clarkson in there.
And sure

Helen (40:49):
enough that POM has done incredibly well and they are, I think,
currently filming the fourth seriesafter they're kind of like, oh, maybe
we'll sack him over being mean to Meghan.
Maybe what we'll do iswe'll be quiet for a year.
And hope that everyone has forgotten.

Adam (41:01):
Right, right, right, right.
It's luckily they have, 'causewe haven't brought it up at all.

Helen (41:04):
Well, also I haven't watched yet, episode six, but I saw the
preview of it and it was Caleb andCharlie, the farm manager, going
to meet Rishi Sinek and I was justgoing, no, don't make me hate Caleb.
Come on Caleb.
I've never seen two people who looklike they would've less in common
than Caleb who until I think, filmingthe series hadn't been more than
like 25 miles away from his home.

(41:24):
And she just, I see.
And what's a sheep, I think

Andy (41:29):
Caleb said, didn't he?
He'd been to London once,but he hadn't liked it.
He hadn't got off the couch.

Helen (41:33):
Yeah, he didn't like it.
Didn't like it at all.
It

Andy (41:35):
seems fair.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I have to come to London every weekto do this and I don't like it.

Helen (41:39):
and that of course, uh, for people want to hear more about Clarksons sw.
We did, of course, review it in themagazine last week, so that, I don't know.
Yeah.
I'm I and I, I will go to my gravedefending Clarkson's farm from you people.

Andy (41:52):
this question of what you're funding on a farm and, and how you
are, how you're paying farmers andwhat you're incentivizing them to do is
something that bio waste spreader, who'sthe eyes agricultural correspondent,
has been writing about, in fact.
Their column last week, was aboutexactly this, it was about incentives
to farmers for, um, regeneratingyour soil basically, rather than
growing food is it a good idea?

(42:13):
To what extent is it a good idea?
You know,

Helen (42:15):
that column is often a window into lots of, um, kango and
NGOs and environmental regulationbodies that I had no idea existed.
Yeah.
Um, I think that's one of thethings that's interesting about
farming is, as you say, one ofthe things, the fact that the.
The Labour force hasdropped out of it so much.
It means that it is kind ofless talked about, but obviously
still equally iMPortant.

(42:36):
Right?
Absolutely.
And we are looking at a situation I thinkwhere there is real worries that the
rest of this year there are gonna be,um, another set of food price inflation.
I mean, food price inflation thelast couple years has been a really
appalling and particularly so becausethat affects the poorest people
most because if, you know, if theprice of luxury goods goes up 200%.
Well, okay, by slightly fewer Rolexes,but if the price of bread goes up by

(42:58):
200%, it's a huge, huge catastrophe.
Yeah.
The

Andy (43:00):
price rises are the stage before food shortages to, uh, to add a
cheery note to proceedings, you know,

Helen (43:06):
but the magazine, I should say, does also have some jokes in it.

Andy (43:09):
The cartoons are very, very, very good.
And if you would like to see thosecartoons and if you'd like to read
the accoMPanying stories, uh, thenall you need to do is go to private
hyphenate.co uk and click subscribe.
It's incredibly reasonably priced.
It's very, very fractionallymore expensive than listening
to this podcast, which is free.
So go and do that.
Uh, until then, thank you very much toHelen and Adam, and thank you to Matt

(43:33):
Hill who as always produced this episode.
And thank you to you for listening, andwe'll be back next time with another one.
Goodbye.