Leighton Smith Podcast #299 - August 27th 2025 - Christian Smith

Two years ago my son Christian and I recorded an interview in London.

Many people commented on it, and many messages requested a repeat. So, under some difficult circumstances we managed it.

We have another discussion on whether London is a better place to live…. or otherwise.

Next week Mrs Producer returns, along with The Mailroom and reports on our sojourn.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from news talksib Follow this
and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio. It's
time from all the Attitude, all the opinion, all the information,
all the debates of.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
The sis, now.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
The Leyton Smith Podcast powered by news Talks it.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
B Welcome to Podcasts two hundred and ninety nine for
August twenty seven, twenty twenty five. Christian Smith practiced law
for a few years after graduating from the University of Otago.
He then moved to London did a master's in international
relations at King's College.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
He also studied.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
Journalism and is a podcaster and editor at the Lawyer
dot com. And it's no secret that I'm his father.
I might also add that while he was studying at
King's College, he was working part time in a very small,
only two partners, very small law firm specialized in sports law,

(01:06):
and boy did he love that.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Now.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Over the years, Christian has put in a number of
appearances on the podcast, and many of you have grown
quite fond of him. And as we did two years
ago here in London, we, as they say, sat down
on opposite sides of a relatively small actually a very
small table and swapped opinions not always agreeing, but I think,

(01:32):
like me, you would agree that that is a healthy thing.
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(01:52):
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(02:15):
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(02:38):
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(03:00):
and health stores. Always read the label and users directed,
and if symptoms persist, seeing your health care professional. Farmer
Broker Auckland. The first page of the August sixteenth edition

(03:27):
of The Spectator. That's the English Spectator. The original is
entitled Doom and Discontent. James Callahan back in nineteen seventy
four made a comment, sometimes when I get to bed,
I think that if I were a young man, I
would immigrate. Of course he's not alone. Men have been
doing that all their lives. Plenty of women also. But
he was referring to that decade's chronic economic dysfunction, whether

(03:51):
it's double digit inflation, growing unemployment and stuttering growth. And
then two years later, as Prime Minister he would have
to go cap in hand to request a bailout from
the International Monetary Fund, and two years after that came
the Winter of Discontent. As it's known now, today's economic
picture may not.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Be quite so bleak.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
Even so, the Young Sea only intractable stagnation, cost of
living pressures and visible declimb. A recent poll suggested that
more than a quarter of eighteen to thirty year olds
had considered emigrating. The number of P eighty five forms
requested by taxpayers wishing to go abroad more than doubled
between twenty two and twenty five. It's a pretty big increase,

(04:37):
and Cullahan's present day successes show no sign of reversing
this gloomy trend. Instead, more punishment is expected. Well, Britain
isn't the only place on the planet that is expecting
or experiencing that sort of thing. Christian Smith is a
qualified lawyer, he's a journalist, he's a podcaster, a champion

(04:58):
one of that. He has a master's in international relations,
and he belongs to the Smith family. He's my son.
We last died this sitting opposite each other at a
table two years ago, and we talked about a lot
about the state of London in particular, but things in

(05:19):
general as well. We expected it to be a guidance
to people who were thinking of packing up their bags
in New Zealand or Australia or elsewhere. And coming here
what I just quoted, How did that ring with you?

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Well, the comparison between the nineteen seventies and the current
moment in Britain has been made extensively in the past
few years. There's not that's not surprising, I suppose, And
there's always a kind of similarity in cycles and economic
cycles and that sort of thing. And Britain is facing

(05:55):
a growth, well stagflation in many ways you are small growth,
chunky inflation. It's a lot less than it was a
few years ago thanks to the pandemic in the war
in Ukraine, but it's still there. But I think it's
probably a fair analysis to suggest that there's there's some comparisons,
but it's not as good as it was then, not
as bad as it was then. Rather all right.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
But since I've been here, you have said on more
than one occasion that a lot of your friends, and
you had a lot of good friends have have departed
left the country.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
A lot of New Zealanders that have been over here
have gone back. I mean that's fairly typical. A lot
of people come here for you on two or three
years on the youth Mobility working holiday visa. A lot
of people stay a bit longer than that, but then
decide they want to go home that rather raise kids
in New Zealand in particular. I think that's generally it's
generally seen as a much better place to raise kids,

(06:51):
particularly compared to London, which is big and busy and
a bit dangerous and expensive. A lot of particular professions
move abroad here, so doctors is a real, really big one.
A lot of doctors from the UK and Ireland as

(07:11):
well have moved to Australia and New Zealand in particular
because the wages are better, the hours are better. I
know New Zealand's medical health system has plenty of issues
at the moment, but generally speaking, the consensus amongst doctors
that I know from both here and in New Zealand
is that it's a better place to work in New
Zealand than it is over here. But I would say

(07:32):
that in terms of people moving away from my friends
who are not from New Zealand over here, no, not
too many have moved abroad, I don't think. I mean,
I think the irony is that before Brexit you actually
might have seen more people move away if Brexit hadn't happened.
Now because people could go to the EU without any difficulty.

(07:52):
If you had a British passport, you could go and
live in any EU member state as you pleased. Whereas
now that has been taken away from people. So it
is actually harder, ironically for a lot of a lot
of British people to move away.

Speaker 3 (08:06):
My podcasts have a way of shaping themselves, and you
just assisted because In the same edition of The Spectator,
the cover story, written by Lisa Hazeldean is border Lands
Europe is giving up on free movement, not just free movement,
free speech too. But that's that's the title. And reading

(08:28):
it and it's a lengthy article. Reading it, I was
both entertained and explain that in a minute. I was
both entertained and disturbed by it. Now, having been to
Europe in the in the last few weeks, I've discovered
that what she says is is pretty correct. My example

(08:50):
is me I had to get just just for starters,
I had to get a visa to come to England
to Britain. What nonsense is that, Because that's what it is.
It's nonsense, it's garbage.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
You didn't have to get a visa, you had to
get a visa waiver, which is exactly what people now
have to get when they come to New Zealand as well.
So if British people came to New Zealand doesn't need
to get the same sort of thing, it's the same
thing you need to go to the States. And is
it warranted? Well, I think that's a good question. I mean,
I don't know enough about it to be honest. I
would say part of it is probably a revenue generation

(09:26):
for these countries. If everybody who doesn't need a visa
to come to the UK has to get a visa
waiver and pay ten pounds for it, that's a lot
of money. But is it warranted? Well, that's that's you
tell me.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
And then I had to get a visa to go
to Turkey, this time being to Turkey on another of occasions.
Don't need a visa now you do?

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Why? I don't know. I'm not a representative of the
Turkish government. I would say, again, probably revenue generation as
part of it they probably want to keep track of.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
Okay, But here's the trick. New Zealanders don't have to
get a visa to go to Turkey, but Australians do.
At this point of time. Maybe it'll change. Sometimes I
have no idea moment. That's the way that it is,
which seems nonsensical.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
There are probably equivalents, I would say, with New Zealanders
needing a visa or a visa waiver to go to
other countries in the world. You know, you see all
these passport comparison charts. Who's got the best passport? Australia
and New Zealand are always very high up that list,
but there are you know, some countries, for example, where
you need one for a New Zealander and not for Australian.

(10:33):
Another equivalent is if you have an Australian passport, you actually,
generally speaking, get a few better options for working holiday
visas in Europe. So for example Italy and Greece. I
believe if you're Australian you can stay longer in the
country than if you are a New Zealander. Why is that?
Probably because of the mass immigration of Italians and Greeks

(10:55):
to Australia, you know, fifty one hundred years ago. But
that's just a guess. I don't know fifty or one hundred. No,
let's go fifty to seventy or thereabouts. Anyway, they made
a very good impression and gave Australia a culture that
otherwise wouldn't have had. And most people I know wish
that more of them would come to New Zealand. But

(11:16):
there you have it.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
So back to Lisa Hazeldeine's article ten years ago. On
thirty one August twenty fifteen, Angela Merkel told the German
press that she was going to what she was going
to do about the swell of Syrian refugees heading to
Europe with three faithful words, my German was never any good.

(11:38):
There schaffendas, we can handle it. She ushered in a
new era of uncontrolled mass migration, not just for Germany
but for the rest of the European Union. The then Chancellor,
so often described by her supporters as in the press
as the Queen of Europe, was adamant that Germany was
a strong economy. Now there's a lot of writing about

(12:01):
this in the next few columns, but I can say simply,
she couldn't have been more wrong. It's now recognized how
she was. Some of us recognize how stupid she was,
because anybody with half her brain would have known that
once you opened the gates, you've opened the floodgates, and

(12:22):
so everybody has suffered for it, and as the author says,
it's going to haunt her for the rest of her life.
So the free freedom of movement it no longer exists.
Give you another example. France first shut down its borders
with Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Spain and Italy last November.

(12:44):
Among its reasons for doing so was the growing criminal
networks facilitating irregular migration and smuggling and irregular migration flows
toward the Franco the Franco British border that risk infiltration
by radicalized individuals. And by the way, on the cruise
we've been on, we pulled into one port and I

(13:06):
can't remember which it was, but I remember it very
distinctly because the day that we went there on the
anzac Centenary cruise, and I think you were there on
that particular leg, there was a whole bunch of people
who had been picked up out in the med and

(13:27):
they were parked in the corner of the wharf being
watched by the authorities while they organized their dispersal whatever
that happened to be. And that brought back memories because
nobody from the ship wanted to walk near them. They
didn't look exactly what you would call like safe. You

(13:48):
look skeptical.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Well, the point about angel and Mercy still remains controversial
and disagreed on between people. In terms of mass migration
into Europe, it remains an enormous issue across Europe and
in the UK. Imagine we'll come onto the UK more
specifically in a bit is one of in the same

(14:14):
way in America. It is one of the key issues
facing European countries in the twenty first century. There are
many angles to this. I think you've got to remember
when Angela Mercle made that decision a decade ago, we
were at the height of the Syrian Civil War and

(14:37):
plenty of other stuff otherwise going on where people were
literally fleeing for their lives. There continue to be thousands,
tens of thousands of people trying to escape places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria,
Eritrea even in twenty twenty five. And it's a problem

(15:01):
faced by Europe in part because of old international agreements
like the Refugee Convention, which some argue is now out
of date, which was built for a post World War
II era where all the refugees in the world were
in Europe rather than coming to Europe. And it's a
real catch twenty two in many ways because on the

(15:23):
one hand, people want to offer genuine asylum seekers refuge
if they are escaping a civil war or the Taliban
in Afghanistan or the Iranian regime. But at the same
time there are clearly plenty of people who are trying
to come to Europe and the UK who are what
people would call economic migrants as well and want to

(15:45):
try and allegedly work the system so that they can
move as well. So it's an incredibly difficult issue. I
don't envy any politician trying to tackle it, because if
it was an easy issue, it would have been sorted
out a long time ago.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
I get lots of mail from some people who are
patently connected to the too GV and they are very
unhappy about what is going on, and of course they're
not alone. Same principle applies to other countries, even even
to Australia. New Zealand has its own issues, but they're

(16:26):
not as bad as anywhere else, I think, but they
could very well become so. The point being that the
first chore of a politician of a government is to
protect its own country and its own people and prevent
things from happening that will destroy that country or might

(16:47):
destroy that country. And when you say that you have
sympathy for or you express that you have sympathy for
politicians in that position, I don't. Why not because they're
not doing the job that they should and they don't
deserve it. Why not because they don't deserve it. Why
because that's not what they're there for, and it's not

(17:08):
what people, it's not what their population wants. And so
when they start something rolling and it picks up to
the pace that it does now, I mean somewhere in
this article there's a comment about the irony that Britain,
which left the EU partly in order to take back
control of its borders, is now an outlier. While irregular

(17:32):
crossings into the EU were down eighteen percent in the
first seven months of this year, attempted and successful illegal
crossings into Britain via the Channel are up twenty six
percent in the last year, nearly forty two thousand migrants
this year having made the journey so far. Now we
get headlines in our part of the world, obviously from

(17:56):
the Times and from the Telegraph, and from others the
daily mail with the stories that go along with this,
turning good quality hotels into resid for single mails for
heaven's sake, and most of the people coming in are
single males, which isn't going to do the country any good.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
Well, let's we can talk about that for a bit
if you like. There's I'll do a you actually and
I'll pull out a piece. A pole came out the
week before this podcast will go out that said they
ask people in Britain what their top issues are for
the country, what they're most worried about. Cost of living

(18:38):
was by far and away number one. It was double
the number two issue, but for the first time, levels
of immigration is number two, and it's just taken over
issues around the NHS or supporting the NHS, the National
Health Service for the first time, and then relatedly but

(18:59):
separated as an issue, asylum seekers crossing the channel is
number four, but number two, three and four are all
within a few points of each other in terms of
what people are worried about. So that's particularly interesting if
we stick with just talking about people coming across the channel.
So tens of thousands of people are coming across the
channel every year on small boats to try and get

(19:22):
into the UK and claim asylum. There are many issues
with that, not least the fact that it's actually very
dangerous to do that because something like on average sixty
or so people are shoved onto these rubber dinghies, and
every year at least once, if not more, some of
these dinghies sink and people dozens of people die. We
see that, and so apart from anything else, that's not

(19:45):
a great thing in that sense that this has been
going on since about twenty eighteen now. The issue is
not a simple one of stopping the boats, as people say.
It's not a simple one of what Nigel Faraja suggested
of doing, or some other people have suggested of doing,
of pushing them back into the Channel. And the reason

(20:07):
for that is law, not just UK law, but international
treaties that the UK has signed a range of things
like the Refugee Convention, the European Convention of Human Rights
on human rights, the fact that once they leave France,
for example, you can't push them back to France because

(20:29):
France can say no, Britain, you're sending us people when
they're not you're not allowed to. So once they're out
of there. It's a huge problem. So what then happens
is they arrive in the UK, what do you do
with them? You've got to house them somewhere while their
asylum claims are being processed, and they have to put
them in places like hotels, they have to put them
in places like flats and another accommodation. It's a hugely

(20:52):
complicated and difficult issue to deal with and a lot
of the time, you know, a lot of what's been
in particularly in the news recently, is about these asylum
hotels in different places and resulting crime that have come
from a asylum seekers allegedly who are staying in those hotels,

(21:13):
and that's caused a lot of anger amongst people. There's
a fair amount of disinformation going on about exactly how
that's being done and what's actually being done. But the
fact is that people are worried about it. The other
thing to keep in mind, though, is asylum seekers are
a tiny fraction of immigration into the UK. And what's

(21:35):
really interesting about this, and if you want to cross
compare some polls here, you've got this pole which says
that people are worried about immigration is the second most
second largest thing that they're concerned about in the UK
right now, and levels of immigration in the UK, in
large part thanks to Boris Johnson changing the rules quite
dramatically after Brexit has skyrocketed. So thirty years ago, or

(21:58):
so thirty five years ago, in nineteen ninety net migration
people coming in and going out was basically zero. Five
years ten years after that arose to about two hundred
thousand a year net migration, so two hundred thousand people
more coming and every year that continued to rise steadily.
But after twenty twenty or twenty twenty one, I think

(22:19):
when they changed the immigration rules after Brexit, that skyrocketed
to I think a peak of about nine hundred thousand
people in net migration in twenty twenty three, I believe,
or twenty twenty two, and that was then up there
for a while. Ironically, last year twenty twenty four it
actually dropped down to about half of that, back to
around four hundred and fifty thousand, thanks to the changes

(22:41):
that the last government made. But the point I'm trying
to make is people are worried about levels of immigration,
but there's a huge misconception of who immigrants are in
the UK. So this poll that came out last month,
ask people, are you concerned about immigration? That sort of thing.

(23:02):
The majority of the people polled in this poll believed
that most immigrants in the UK are asylum seekers, are
for economic migrants or however you want to call them,
but they are people coming in not through legal visa ways.
The actual number is about four percent, So most people
think that most of the immigration into the UK is

(23:22):
quote unquote illegal. That's a different issue that I have
problems with the term illegal, because that's another matter. But
the actual reality is that only four percent of people
coming into the UK are doing so to claim asylum.
Now you can have another there's another debate to be
had about whether that level of immigration is sustainable. You know,
nine hundred thousand people coming into a country of seventy

(23:45):
million or so.

Speaker 3 (23:46):
Since twenty fifteen, more than seven and a half million
million asylum claims have been made across the EU. Now
that's not here, but that's a cross everywhere. But it's
a massive number. And the numbers, the numbers keep rolling in,
and they keep rolling in because they can, because they can,
because they get away with it, because people, because people

(24:07):
in positions of doing something think about it to guphlas
to take a stand more concerned about their own life
and their own future. And I'm talking about any politician
that you want a name, and it's about time that
Britain's revolted.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
Well, I think that. Well, let me talk about two things.
There is a question over in the first place, whether
or not immigration and mass immigration. And I'm conscious on
the point when I'm talking here that I'm an immigrant,
so well that has read. I'm reserving that whether or
not that's actually a bad thing, and a lot of people,

(24:45):
a lot of people argue it's actually a very good thing.
And in many ways, the meager growth that the UK
has seen in recent years is in large part thanks
to immigration. And we will come on to this, I know,
but the UK has a lot of particularly economic issues
at the moment, and immigration, in many ways is an

(25:06):
easy thing to point at blame for a lot of
the problems in the country, which I don't think is fair.
The other side of the coin is and I was
listening to an interview with the former Director of Public
Prosecutions here, who's sort of the chief prosecutor in the UK.
It's the role the keystam of the Prime Minister had
himself as well. It's kind of how he got his name.

(25:27):
But this was a different guy whose name escapes me.
But I was listening to an interview with him. You know,
he's what's called a cross bench peer. He sits in
the House of Lords now, but he's not affiliated with
a party. He's neutral, effectively, and he was suggesting that
a lot of these old conventions, like the Refugee Convention,

(25:49):
which were should perhaps be revisited, and in Europe in particular,
many of them are being revisited, as well as the
European Convention of Human Rights, for which the right of
family life has been interpreted allegedly in a very broadway.
And this is an created a lot of these difficulties

(26:11):
for politicians in trying to stop asylum seekers coming because basically,
the courts are saying, well, here's the law, guys, and
you agreed to these conventions and therefore these people coming
are entitled to do so. And this former Director of
Public Prosecutions was saying that we need to be looking

(26:31):
at these because this is part of the part of
the difficulty with stopping these people, because if they come
and make a claim under the law is the government
can't do much about it.

Speaker 3 (26:43):
I have trouble accepting that there would patently be exceptions
to the rule of law under certain circumstances. Now it's
very easy for instances to refer to this, as has
been done in the United States, to refer to this
massive number of people who are crashing in without legitimacy,

(27:06):
that it's an invasion, and a government has a responsibility
to do something.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
About an invasion. An invasion by who, by the immigrants.
I don't like that word invasion. I think it's a
it's a massive misrepresentation of what that word actually means everyone. Everyone.
If you hear invasion, well there's an army of young men,
But you hear invasion, you think you know Napoleon coming

(27:34):
over the channel. You don't think you know civilians trying
to move to another country as by the bye. Maybe
maybe one should, But I do think that the way
that that language like that is used is creating wider issues.
And I think it's one of the interesting things where

(27:56):
you know, you get these poles where people say they're
concerned about these things. It's a bit of a chicken
in the egg scenario. Sometimes, are people concerned about these
things because they're having negative impacts. Or are people concerned
about these things because the being told it's a bad thing,
because people like Nigel Faraj are saying it's a bad thing,
are using word like invasion. Interesting question with Nige. I know.

Speaker 3 (28:21):
Now you mentioned something a moment ago and I was
I was reserving it. I've heard some frustrations from you
over a period of time because you you are here
on what you came over on a on a work
visa limited one and that expired some time ago, and

(28:44):
you're still here and you can't get citizenship.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Are you outing me as an illegal immigrant?

Speaker 3 (28:50):
No, because you are here because you are here legally.
But you are frustrated by it, And I want I
wonder how you you truly feel that there are people
flooding into the country and getting away with it and
being catered for and paid paid for doing nothing and
committing crimes when you, who are a productive individual would

(29:12):
add to both the culture and the success of this
country or its growth, can't get permanent residency and every
time you leave the country you're nervous you can't get
back in again.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
Wow. No, I mean this isn't Trump's America. Not that nervous.

Speaker 3 (29:29):
No legitimate person in America is nervous.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
Well, look a couple of issues with that. First of all,
people flooding in and getting away with it. About half
of the people that come here and claim asylum get
thrown out once their claims are heard. Part of the
issue that the UK has had for a long time
with these asylum seekers. When I say issue, I mean
difficulty in solving solving the issue is the last government,

(29:57):
the Conservative government, fairly deliberately created a huge backclog of
these applications to be processed, which the current government is
trying to fix. And that's why there are so many
people in hotels and other things like that, because there
was this backlog of them being processed. There is an
argument to be made about people manipulating the system and

(30:19):
being able to claim asylum when you know, they sort
of know what they need to say to do. So
that's what some lawyers have suggested. I've also spoken to
other lawyers who suggest the opposite, and who say that
a lot of the stuff is being misrepresented. Anyway, to
answer you a question about that sort of thing, well, look,
I think it's a really difficult issue. I'm from New Zealand.

(30:40):
It's a fantastic country and I love it and what
gives me the right over someone else necessarily to be here.
I'm very grateful that I get to be here, but
I actually it's not something I think about that much
in terms of people other people who try and come
here allegedly for incorrect reasons. I suppose, generally speaking, if

(31:07):
you're getting on a boat across the channel, you're taking
a huge risk with your life, and I'm lucky I
don't have to put myself in that position.

Speaker 3 (31:16):
I wouldn't say it was a huge threat to your life.
But dozens of people die every year doing well. Some
do yes, but it's a small percentage of the greater
of the greater, and not everybody is aware that they're
really taking their life into their own hands in doing that.
They just think that they're going to take a short

(31:38):
boat right across and the gates to Heaven are open
for them.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
Well, and in many ways, that's one of the issues
that both the UK and European governments are trying to stop,
which is the misinformation that these gangs, these international networks
are selling people saying you can get to Britain easily,
you can get a job easily.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
It's safe, it's fine. Just a diversion question. Actually, well,
we've spent enough time on the crime that's in London
these days, in particular, how has that changed for the
last two years.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
I don't think it has changed much. It was bad then,
it's bad now. London's always been. It's a big city.
Big cities are dangerous. I don't think it's anything on
the sort of gun crime level you have in the States,
for example, in terms of statistics, but there is plenty
of crime in the UK and a lot of that
comes down to the fact that the police don't have
the resources to enforce the law.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
When you say the resources, you mean the manpower or
the person power or what.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
I don't know, but there's a lot of There are
a lot of examples of the police. Shoplifting is a
very good example of the police basically saying we can't
help because we don't have the resources to do so.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
Right now, Okay, so now we're talking about London, and
we're talking about the rules of life in London and
the Mayor of London, who is probably the biggest disaster
that London's ever had. There's a lot of young people
involved in crime. I'll give you two examples. Went to

(33:18):
the co Op store down here. Where are we in London?

Speaker 2 (33:21):
Where in Stretham Hill, which is just down the road
from Brixton, which people might know more about. And Brixton's
in South London. It's sort of a lot of New
Zealanders moved to a place called Clapham when they first
come here. Clapham's about a ten to fifteen minute bus
ride from where we are now to the northwest, but
we're sort of directly south of the middle of London. Okay.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
Back in the day where my folks ended up in
Little's Court along with every other New Zealander in Australia
who was coming to London, and Princess Diana, it was headquarters.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
Princess an turned seventy five last week August fifteen. Do
you have any opinion on her and her role in
lifetare her contribution.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
Interesting question? Do I have an opinion? I think Princess
Anne is generally really well respected. I think I'm trying
to distinguish between what I know about her from watching
The Crown and actual real life, but I think she's
generally very well respected. I think she's seen as a

(34:36):
no nonsense, respectable and respected character.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
You think she might have been better than the older
brother that now it sits.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
That would require me to have an opinion on the
older brother. I don't know what do you think? Absolutely why?
My feelings about the older brother are pretty well known.
Don't forget I've dined with him, I've interviewed him, I've
had an argument in an interview with him, and I

(35:13):
think he's wet. It's that simple. It's interesting. I think
that generally speaking, now that he is king, people pay
him the respect that his mother got here in the UK.
I'd say, perhaps not with the same level of passion,

(35:34):
which he hasn't earned well, but by virtue of his
role as the king now he's somewhat untouchable. It would
be my interpretation, But I can't say I'm a massive
royal follower.

Speaker 3 (35:47):
Talk to me about the economic woes of this country,
because they are a plenty.

Speaker 2 (35:53):
Where to begin, well, I'll begin by saying that I
love the UK. There's a reason I live here before
I slam its economic issues. It's a fantastic place for
many reasons. But I think that even the most passionate
brit would happily acknowledge that economically the UK is in

(36:18):
a lot of trouble, much like in the nineteen seventies
where that quote at the start from James Callahan came from.
There are many reasons why this might be. The UK
has faced lots of international issues like New Zealand has,
like Australia has, like lots of European countries, how like,
to a lesser extent, like the US, But the UK

(36:41):
has sort of come out worse on many measurements than
comparator countries. And obviously there's a huge debate over why
this is, and there's a huge debate over what to
do about it. And I think generally speaking, part of
the issue is people don't necessarily have a very good answer,
but I will pull out some very interesting statistics or

(37:04):
examples of issues. Last year a policy paper, an essay
for want of a better word, went around influential people
in politics here, written by people who basically worked for
a think tank like place, and it pulled out some
examples of some of the issues that the UK faces,
and I think they are really really interesting. Since twenty

(37:29):
ten or two thousand and eight, rather sorry, since two
thousand and eight, real wage growth has been flat in
the UK. Average weekly wages are only zero point eight
percent higher today than they were in two thousand and eight.
In many ways, the UK hasn't really recovered from the GFC.

(37:50):
Annual real wages are seven percent lower for the media
and full time worker to day than they were in
two thousand and eight. The planning documentation. Here's an example,
the planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, which is
a bridge over the Thames. I was rather sorry, a
tunnel under the Thames which was going to connect to
the counties of Kent and Essex. The documentation is three

(38:17):
hundred and sixty thousand pages long. The application process alone
has cost nearly three hundred million pounds. This was written
about a year ago. The application alone, the application alone.
Who's paid for that, Well, the taxpayer, I'd say, good guess.

(38:38):
That is more than twice the cost for Norway to
actually build, not just planned, but build the longest road
tunnel in the world. Here's another example. At three hundred
and ninety six million pounds each mile of the HS
two railway that's high speed railway, which is sort of

(39:01):
maybe in the process of being built in the UK.
We might come onto that that it was originally meant
to connect London, Birmingham Manchester at three hundred and ninety
six million pounds each mile of that will cost more
than four times the cost of the Naples Tabari high
speed railway line in Italy, and it will be more

(39:22):
than eight times the cost of France's high speed link
between Tour and Bordeaux. These are all somewhat bland sort
of structural economic foundational issues, but they're fascinating because they
go a long way to explaining things. Between twenty four
and twenty twenty one, the industrial price of energy tripled

(39:43):
in nominal terms in the UK, or doubled relative to
consumer prices, so it went up twice as fast as
other prices. And energy costs, as you will know, is
one of the largest issues with production, both here in
the UK and in any other country. Really, we've all
got it. It's all through the same incompetence. There's a

(40:07):
few more of these, but the that's one I'll say
is Britain has not built a new water reservoir since
nineteen ninety two. In that time, its population has grown
by ten million, and water reservoirs not only are they
about to become increasingly important because they're needed for what
water is needed for AI and data centers. To keep

(40:28):
them cool basically is a huge issue. But also because
you have an expanding population, you need more water. But
with ten more million people added to the population in
the last thirty or so years, no more water reservoirs
have been built. And in large part what this reflects
is a fundamental issue with the desire to invest and

(40:50):
plan properly for the UK, and what we're seeing, in
large part in many of the issues in the UK
now is the fruition of a lack of investment in planning.

Speaker 3 (40:59):
Okay, lack of imagination, lack of drive, lack of all
sorts of things, character, strength of character, which the politicians
of this country and others are fading in.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
Now.

Speaker 3 (41:13):
If I turn around, I can see a paddock outside
of this window.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
We're on the what are we on the third floord floor?

Speaker 3 (41:22):
And there's a paddock and it's what did you say
it was two acres? Yeah, I'd say so. It's two
football fields, two rugby fields high. Reckon, it's bigger than
that anyway. That's the point.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
Is what's it's It's.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
Got grass growing on it, sort of weeds and stuff,
But the important thing is what's underneath the surface to
the reservoir.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
It's great for me. It means they can't build on
it and I get my nice view of a bit
of green, which is worth gold in London.

Speaker 3 (41:56):
It's an amazing thing. When he told me initially that
that's what it was and there was a big reservoir
under there, I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
But I'm glad to see it.

Speaker 3 (42:05):
So, just in your opinion, do you think that Britain
has the brain power to resolve the issues that we've
been talking about.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
I think it absolutely has the brain power. I mean,
the UK remains one of the kind of world hubs
of international brain power, if you want to put it
that way. The university and cities of Oxford and Cambridge
alone are enormously internationally influential and attract many of the
best scientists and engineers and all the technology people and

(42:40):
all that sort of thing. The thing about the UK
as well is that you know it's again if you
look at the nineteen seventies and Jim Callahan's quote, it's
been here before in terms of it has ups and
downs like any country and it does a remarkable job
of pulling through. So I think there are good days ahead,

(43:01):
there are bright dawns ahead for the UK, but somebody
has to figure out how to make that work.

Speaker 3 (43:08):
Incidentally, in the same edition of The Spectator, there's an
article by somebody we've done on the podcast a couple
of times, Jonathan Sumption of human bondage jonathansumption on an
age old enduring evil. But he's what he's doing is
reviewing a couple of books on slavery. And there's no

(43:31):
question about his intelligence, but some of his interpretations and
attitudes I struggle with. Albeit that he has recognized, as
I say, as the brain of Britain, are there enough
people around who can take charge of things and actually

(43:51):
achieve achieve change? I mean, you've got to put yourself
on the line sometime. I think Americans are great at it,
and they're also bad at it too. It depends which
side of the fence you're on. But is the system
here flexible enough to be utilized to change direction?

Speaker 2 (44:13):
Oh, it's a very good question. I read a very
good book last year called How Westminster Works and Why
It Doesn't, probably written by someone that you wouldn't like
very much. Because he sits left of center doesn't mean
he can't be right, I agree, but he broke down

(44:34):
very well a lot of the fundamental issues with the
way the political system here works and how in many
ways it has become designed not to make mass change.
I mean, in many ways the UK has always done
things slowly and incrementally over the centuries it has. So
when you ask is the ability to sort of make

(44:56):
significant change that might be needed, I think in the
first place, you need an idea of what that change
might be, and I think there's a lack of plan.
There's a lack of idea ideas to make that change
at the moment. And that's not unique to the UK
in much the same way as that the immigration issue
or the asylum issue is a reflection I think of

(45:21):
other things and that people asked trying to figure out
ways to make that change, to create solutions. And again,
you know, I think the state of the UK has
many good reflections with the state of New Zealand in
the sense that there are not that many inspiring ideas

(45:45):
or plans in the same way that you might have
had with let's say Tony Blair's government or the post
World War II government in the UK, or Margaret Thatcher's government.
There aren't radical proposals yet to sort that out. And
while you know Nigel Farage's party is gaining popularity rapidly,

(46:08):
in the basic breakdown of the actual propositions he has
to make changes don't add up. I mean quite frankly.
He admitted after the last election that when one of
the most respected center center ground think tanks broke down
their policy that their economic plans and spending plans and

(46:29):
said that tens of billions of pounds out for us, said, yeah,
we know, we're just trying to paint a picture of
what we want to do. You can paint a picture
all you like. What what I'd like to do is
build a money tree where money grows on it. It's
not going to happen.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
Well, well, there are ways of achieving things once, once
you have the idea that you can that you can
manipulate and work on, but you have to take the
people with you, which leads to.

Speaker 2 (46:54):
It's easy to take the people with you when you
were when you were making stuff up is well, you
got to take the people with you.

Speaker 3 (47:01):
The question is whether there is the flexibility in the
population now to adopt the approaches that might be might
be good. How much of it has to do with
the socialism that's filtered infiltrated most Western countries over some

(47:22):
considerable time now, that stops people thinking in the right way,
That brainwashes people in many ways. The education system that
simply doesn't do the job that it once did for
a variety of reasons. On another matter of importance, very
much so, national health, the NHS. I've had discussions over

(47:46):
the last few years with other people over it. There's
an expat Britain, New Zealand who I know doctor who
just thinks it's a dead loss and he's not alone.
He also thinks the New Zealand system is pretty much well,

(48:07):
it's on the gurney. And in our case, there's a
lot involved with racism, racial challenges in restructuring or improving
the health system based on racial issues, and I would
imagine that the same principle exists here. I don't know

(48:28):
to what extent.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
Though, well the health system here is I mean, it's
permanently in crisis. It's been in crisis since I moved
here seven years ago. It's been in crisis for longer
than that, basically enormous waiting lists. Well, to take it
back a step, you know, the National Health System national
Health Service rather, was brought in after the Second World War.
It's a free healthcare system and it covers basically everything

(48:53):
apart from here or there. I think some dentist stuff
and that sort of thing, but it's an entirely free
healthcare system. It's very close to a religion in the UK.
As many people have said before, people love it, that
are absolutely passionate about it. I think there's a bit
of a misconception that a lot of people sort of
see the health system here it's either the National Health

(49:16):
Service or the American system and there's no one between,
or there's no other way of doing things. You know,
as an outsider, it's interesting to see it sometimes, but
there are huge issues with it at the moment. A
lot of it isn't actually about money, I think most
people agree. A lot of it's about the way it's structured,

(49:37):
about bureaucracy, that sort of thing. The current government's trying
very hard to get waiting lists down, which are kind
of at you know, record levels under the last government
for a variety of reasons. That I'm not well informed
enough to explain, but it's I think the thing is
the service you get on it in terms of the

(49:58):
actual quality of care generally speaking, is rather good. It's
very good. Actually, you've just got to wait for it sometimes. Now,
would you like it at any to the Greek system.
I've got more experience, i'd say now with the Greek
system than I have with the English system. But I

(50:20):
would say it's hidden shoulders above certain aspects of the
Greek system.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
Let me just say here that there was an incident
last week which we didn't discuss actually whether we're going
to talk about it or not, but it involved one
of the family and we've got together in Greece on
an island, which is stunning. We got together to have

(50:47):
a family gathering about the first.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
Time we've done that for.

Speaker 3 (50:55):
Six seven I can't remember it, to be honest, in
adult life anyway. The disappointment was that two members of
the family couldn't be there. They're still in New Zealand.
It was one of the disappointments. There were five of us,
three young people all in their early thirties, and a

(51:16):
couple of oldies. But the incident happened on the second day.
That the second day after we arrived, where Christian's brother
in law came off his scooter after a car came
round a bend on the wrong side of the road
and he snapped his leg down near the ankle on

(51:38):
two places. It wasn't just a fracture, wasn't just a fracture,
and it was very serious and the full story I'm
determined to tell, but let me just say that you
can comment if you want, but let me just say
that this was an example to us of how casually

(52:01):
we take such things when we go traveling, because there
was a great deal of uncertainty about the treatment that
was it was necessary for this, for this accident. The
good news is that the poor bloke with the with

(52:22):
the with the crutch now arrived back in London today.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
M hmmm.

Speaker 3 (52:30):
We're probably arriving about now much sooner than expected. But
there's an interesting story behind it, but there needs to
be a few things cleared up before we before I
can can relate it to you in detail. But there's
there's some detail mm hmm. Speaking of flying, something that
surprised me a great deal. I really was unaware of

(52:50):
the airlines set up in this country or in Europe
if you like. I mean we fly in on Emirates
or or Cortus or not so much on Courtis. I
don't think, not so much on Air New Zealand either,
but Emirates and Air New Zealand here. Now you can't
get in New Zealand to London anymore. No, I'm not

(53:11):
sure that. I'm not sure that the straighter still flies
Quanticent now you can do I did quantus, you can
do quantus, Okay, I'll take your word for it.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
Anyway.

Speaker 3 (53:20):
What I'm talking about is you go to the airport.
For instance, we came into Gatwik Gatwick. I by far
prefer Heathrow, but Gatwick's closer, and it's a couple of
hundred dollars cheaper on the air here as well.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
Well, it depends generally speaking of Heathrow and Gatwork are
more expensive than some of the others. But it depends
on what day you're talking about, or how you hold
your nose, you know, all of how you hold your.

Speaker 3 (53:45):
Tongue, all of that. I'm unimpressed with with Gatwick, with
the with the you go to Luton. I'm not going
to Luton, I am you are as soon as we've finished.
The point that I'm making is that, well take the take.
The flying out of the island.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
Is a Canthos. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:06):
Lined up on the tarmac were about half a dozen
different airlines with smaller planes. Of course, we were in
a seven three seven, eight hundred and it was choc
a block, as were all the planes. But it was Sunday.
People were coming home, leaving and going home I suppose

(54:27):
after school holidays or whatever was going on. The airport
was packed. The planes were packed, but all these different
airlines that you've never heard of. We flew twoy which
was coincidental, and it wasn't bad.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
It was good. I just wonder how this came about.
All the airlines. Yeah, good question, good question. Well, you know,
cheap airlines, low cost airlines have been around for quite
a while now in Europe, but there were about two
of them originally, Yeah, well originally then too. Well, I'll

(55:02):
tell you, well, I think they've been around for a
few decades. You know, most people will have heard of
the likes of Ryanair, easy Jet. There's now wiz Air,
which is Hungarian. We flew whizz there over there, we did. Yeah, yeah,
you did. Two years more of a package holiday airline,
as is Jet two. But there's a few Europeans one

(55:24):
European ones as well, but there's plenty of them now absolutely.
I mean, I mean, low cost airlines have revolutionized travel
in the UK over the past few decades. They've made
it accessible to ordinary people really to be able to
go and have a holiday in Spain or Greece or wherever.
I mean, that's nothing new, It's been going on for yeah,

(55:45):
a few decades, but it is. I think it's fantastic.
It means, it means that people like me who wouldn't
otherwise be able to do much travel because if you
were booking on British airways, for example, you just wouldn't
be able to afford it. But you know, you can
get return flights to Dublin for fifty pounds, or depending
on when you book, you can get return flights anywhere

(56:06):
for under one hundred pounds. And that's one of the
great things for New Zealanders who live over here, who
make the most of it, like you. The ironic thing
is having flown on all of these now, Ryanair, easy
Jet was there. Do you want to know the worst
airline I've still flown on Jetstar.

Speaker 3 (56:28):
Well didn't it didn't it win the worst airline of
the world or something? Did it award recently? Well, there
you go, Jetstar. I'm sure I got told that only
a few days ago, and.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
I've had that, I've had that backed up by other people.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
Listen, there's something I forgot to raise at the appropriate time.
But we might wind up with this. Going back to
crime on streets, there's one thing that I think you
touched on it that the police don't have the resources
or something to do and deal with everything. Now, now,
let me just describe two situations that happened this three

(57:01):
situations that happened in the last week. The there's a
general store downtown. It's a see my Market co op,
the co op, the co op down on the corner
on this what's the name of the main trail Streatham.
Hell Okay, and been in there a couple of times,

(57:23):
even signed up to membership. But missus producer and I
were walking in there the other day and the door
slid open, and this young guy ran out, had a
backpack on, almost like he was on his way home
from school. And behind him, powering down the aisle was

(57:46):
one of the employees of the co op. And boy,
when I say he was flying, he was. He was pounding.
He got the kid. When I say kid, he was
fifteen sixteen. He got the kid on the footpath. But
the kid got out of his grasp and took off
across the road, and the guy from the co op

(58:08):
just stood there and watched him. The kid ran away
up the hill on the side street opposite, laughing his
head off over his shoulder. That's one in the main
drag up here there are where it's actually a miracle
that we haven't heard sirens during this. Oh yeah, yeah,

(58:31):
that's anywhere in London. Two days ago, Karen and I
were walking up the walking up the street to go
to the station, and we were out of town to
spend some money, and two police cars came screaming through it.
And when I say screaming, I mean they were almost stairborn,
one after the other, very close. Within twenty seconds, there

(58:52):
were two more. In the end, there were eight police
vehicles that were headed in the same direction, and I
ran Christian just to tell him. He said it happens
all the time, but he'd never heard of eight before.
But it was just unreal. There is always something going on.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
Well there was the other time as well, when we
were going to the bus and we got We didn't
get involved, but we were witness to a very vocal
argument between a few people who were throwing things and
getting up in each other's faces. I would say, and

(59:31):
I've said this to you before, I think you're a
magnet for these things. In seven years, I don't think
I've personally witnessed someone nicking something from a supermarket. I've
very rarely come across people arguing like that in the street.
Or it does happen, though, and I've never seen eight

(59:51):
police cars zooming down, but not that many, all inside
of two minutes. It's all gone very well for me
to try and persuade you. I live in a nice
part of town. It's all happened within one hundred meters
of my front door.

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
By the way, I reckon, I worked out why the
guy from the co op didn't this kid because he'd
get charged.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
I don't know about that. I don't think that's necessarily true.
I think I don't know, but my guess would be
a the risk of physical violence to him would be
quite high, particularly if he didn't get him at the
right time. There are huge knife issues in London, so

(01:00:32):
you don't really know if someone's carrying a knife, and
in particular knife issues are amongst young men, so there's
a good chance that that bloke could have been having so.

Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
Down at Brixton. We're on the bus coming back from
Brixton station and we pulled up at the lights still
in Brixton proper, and there were four guys, young guys
about the same age as the guy the thief I
just mentioned, and they were all dressed in dark clothes.

(01:01:04):
They were all of a similar extraction. Of them had
a paliclava yep, and he started pulling phones out of
his pocket. They were stopped there and they sort of
gathered around in a circle on their bikes and he
pulled out of his pockets. He pulled too phones at

(01:01:24):
each pocket and they were talking about them. Another guy
came along there and joined them, but they were patently
of the I think it was Carollon who said, I
don't like to think ill of people, but I think
I'm right in saying that they were of the criminal
type at that age, because you explain what happens, well.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
There's a huge issue with it. I mean, I don't know.
I wasn't there, but there's a huge issue generally with
phone snatching in London, people coming by on push bikes
or scooters, grabbing phones out of people's hands while they're
on the on the pavement. And I would say, if
you're ever going to go to London, do not stand
next to the on the curb basically next to the

(01:02:10):
road with your phone out, because you'll become a target.
And I it happens all over the place, particularly in
touristy areas, because obviously most people don't know, but it's
a massive issue. In fact, there's a there's a computer
shop chain called Curries here they think think no Leaming
or dick Smith, not that dick Smith's around anymore, but

(01:02:31):
similar sort of shop. And they've just started a very
clever ad campaign where they put a ribbon of sticking,
you know, a ribbon of kind of poster on the
on the footpath next to the curb in touristy places
saying don't stand with your phone out Curries. You know,
it's quite clever but also really interesting that a big

(01:02:54):
company like that has decided that they're going to warn
people to not have their phones out and have them
snatched because it's a it's a big issue. And again
it's the same sort of thing. A it's quite hard
to track down these people who do this because a
lot of them are wearing masks, but also be the
you know, it's just it just can't it's not their
priority because they're busy with other things on the crime.

(01:03:15):
I think there's a really interesting question to be asked
over how much of what's going on, not just in
terms of crime, but the feeling around it is. You know,
London's a big city. Like most big cities, there's a
lot of crime. There's a question of you know, twas ever,
thus with this sort of thing, you can't tell me

(01:03:37):
that New Zealander is moving to London. In the nineteen eighties,
for example, weren't concerned about crime on the streets as
well here more than New Zealand for example. So if
you know, if you're in New Zealand thinking about moving
to the UK or visiting, I'd say go for it,
wouldn't hesitate for this sort of thing. But I also
think it's an interesting there's an interesting question about how

(01:03:59):
much of the concern around this is from other things too.
It's from the economic cost of living issues that people
in the UK are facing from, you know, the strikes
and that sort of thing that have been going on
over the past few years. From this concept of broken
Britain that gets bandied around a lot where things don't work,
Trains don't work, flights are canceled, the NHS is in trouble,

(01:04:24):
you know, all these sorts of things. I don't know.
There's there's an absolute sense here that things are not great.
But you wonder how much one compounds the other and
how much it's in the mind compared to another, you know,
how much it's it's a reality. I think it's an
interesting thing to think about.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
There is something I've left out that I that I
should have raised earlier, but we've we have ranged far
and wide in this conversation and they're the sorts of
conversations I like. But the Prime Minister, the current one,
I don't like the guy at all. Tell me why
I should.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
It's a good question. Is he like thinkable? Does likability matter?
I know way you don't like him, but that's a
different story. It's probably not the most common opinion. But
I think he's doing okay. He's made mistakes, Jesus doing
okay acceptable, You should have seen them lot before. That's

(01:05:27):
part of the thing, that's part of the reason to
take it back. It's difficult to un to overestimate how
much the Conservative government that had been in power since
twenty ten, through various iterations with about five prime ministers
or something in that time, was hated a year ago

(01:05:49):
when the election happened, in large part because of Liz
Trust and her disastrous forty four day or something time
in office, perhaps more so because of Boris Johnson and
his partying during lockdown and Downing Street and well his
AIDS partying, I should say, many other reasons, and for

(01:06:09):
the fact that they were by the time they left office,
they were tired and they just didn't really have any
ideas or ways of solving things, and people were just
sick of scandal laughter scandal. Anyway, it's difficult to overestimate
how angry they were at the Conservatives and still are.
Kir Istama has what they've done well and they ran

(01:06:31):
a good election, which was they just ran on the
one principle of change that was their slogan, change and
it reflected very well what the UK wanted. People wanted change,
and they wanted a government that was a bit more
grown up, a bit more serious. Have they got it?
I think so, in the sense of they're actually politicians.
There are serious characters. I think a lot of the

(01:06:54):
criticism of Starma so far has been on how he's
done his politics rather than whether or not they've actually
rather than necessarily all policy issues. There's been a lot
of criticism of oh, we didn't handle that very well,
or oh they you turned on things and that sort
of thing, and a lot of that's valid. But I
also think he's dealing with, you know, a catastrophic inheritance

(01:07:17):
from the last government for number of a number of
the reasons.

Speaker 3 (01:07:20):
How long has he been in office now? A year now, Well,
a year is quite long enough.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
But he's also yeah, no, I think so. I think so.
But he's also dealing with, you know, enormous international difficulties
from Ukraine to the tariffs brought in by Trump and
the fallout from all of that, and the difficulties that's
given the UK economically along with everybody else. But I

(01:07:49):
think I think there's a five year term here in
the UK, which is a long time. It's too long,
and well now it is. I think it's I think
perhaps it's too long, but it's I think it's better
than three years. But he's got time, he's got time
to play with. I suppose he's far from perfect, but
I think he's a hell of a lot better than
who we had a year troubles.

Speaker 3 (01:08:09):
A bad government has time for abuse. Yes, that's not
I wouldn't say play with, I'd say abuse. The thing
with them is they've got a few key fundamentals they
need to solve. They need to come up with a
way of and effectively prove that they've started improving on
the asylum seeker problem. I mean, at the end of

(01:08:30):
the day, what they're aiming to do is make people
feel like they're better off in the pocket. That's something
they really need to do. And they need to kind
of break this image of broken Britain, which they have
started to do. You know, a lot of the most
of the strikes have now stopped, a lot of things
are now working in better ways than they were. I

(01:08:50):
think generally speaking, things feel a bit calmer internally than
they did two years ago. But they've got a lot
of work to do, and I think there's a really
good question to be asked for whether they're going to
be able to actually do it or not, because so
far they perhaps haven't. But I don't think that that
is that people are painting the mayors. Do you think

(01:09:11):
time will tell? Time will tell. After her last budget,
the Chancellor promised that there would be no further tax
rises this parliament, following the forty billion dollar increase she
pushed through them. When called upon the justifier U turn
Reeves might blame the global uncertainty generated by Donald Trump's
tariffs are but a more obvious culprit is the disastrous

(01:09:35):
series of choices she made last October and her government's
impotence in the face of its backbenches unwilling to cut spending.
In recent weeks, it's been revealed that one hundred and
sixty four thousand jobs were lost during Labour's first year
in office, a fall in employment traceable back to the
Chancellor's increase in employer's National insurance borrowing figures for June

(01:09:58):
were at the second highest on record. The official for
national the Office for National Statistics, pinned this on the
increasing cost of public services and the nametional debt. Reeves
is stuck in a doom loop. Her tax rises stifled growth,
Her MPs refused to cut public spending. Taxes must rise.
The tax burden is already at a post war high.

(01:10:21):
The national debt is approaching one hundred percent of GDP.
Spending on servicing debt interest is now greater than on defense.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
And that'll do. How do you feel, well? I think,
first of all, most of those issues were the same
with the last government. Some of them have changed, but
generally speaking, they're not things that have been brought in
by this new government that was already there. I think
there's a lot of there's good arguments to be made
that some of the spending and tax changes they brought

(01:10:52):
in last year were perhaps wrong, But it's also easy
to forget how much of a between a rock and
a hard place the Chancellor was because there was a
desperate need for more spending on public services, desperate. This
was part of the whole thing about broken Britain. Things
just weren't working. But at the same time, where do

(01:11:13):
you get money for spending more on public services? Well
you might have to increase tax as a that effects
business confidence, which it did. So there's a real issue
there and I don't envy her job or anyone who
has that job. And I think the thing there is
is that no one has come up with a particularly
good solution for these issues as well. These are kind
of fundamental structural issues. I think the idea of a

(01:11:35):
doom loop is actually a very good one. There's a
thing in the UK that's really interesting. I can't claim
I came up with this idea myself. I've I read
it somewhere. The UK wants and the population want and
expect sort of Scandinavian level public services, healthcare, everything else,
but they want to pay American taxes. You can't have both, obviously,

(01:12:00):
but it means that people are always upset about what's
going on. And I think that in many ways, a
lot of the complaints from from you might say on
the right, they say you should cut spending. A lot
of the complaint on the left is you should increase taxes.
And you need to be honest with people saying we
can't do the things you want us to do. We
can't keep the NHS in good stead if you don't

(01:12:22):
want to pay any more tax I'm not saying one
or the other is right, but again they remain stuck
between a rock and a hard place. Well, shall we
agree on one thing to conclude how to make a change.
That's not true.

Speaker 3 (01:12:41):
That's there is a vacuum in the depths of intellect
among countries' leaders, not just here, not just New Zealand,
but in most of western countries, a lack of intellectual
depth that is damaging a lot of lives.

Speaker 2 (01:13:02):
Yeah, I think that's probably fair. I think that there's
a few things that could be said about I think that,
as I know is the case arguably in New Zealand,
the sort of people that are going into politics may
not necessarily always be the best and brightest. And I
actually think that is in part because a lot of

(01:13:23):
people look at the idea of being a politician now
and go, why the hell would I want to do that?
You got that right, But then also there is a
massive amount of short termism, and I'll bring it back
to some of those stats of or examples of lack
of investment in the UK, the lack of reservoirs that
reflect that that you know, to be a successful politician,

(01:13:48):
you need to show short term success, not long term success.
And that's a real issue because we are now seeing
the results of that because there hasn't been any long
term or not enough long term planning, not on that date.

Speaker 3 (01:14:03):
It's been great talking to you, I hope, well, thank
you for having me back, and we will again Latent Smith,
No one more thing. After we finish the interview, Christian
decided that he had an addendum that he'd like to contribute,
and here it is.

Speaker 2 (01:14:24):
I think it's also worth pointing out, of course, that
you know, one of the reasons why the asylum seeker
issue is an issue is because, you know, as much
as some people think this is the case, the people
coming over the channel on these small boats are not
all young men who are economic migrants. There are many
of them who are genuine refugees fleeing places like Afghanistan

(01:14:49):
and the Taliban, and you know the issue of well,
do you really want to be completely blocking them from
being able to claim refugee status. I mean, Nigel Farage
has come out and said that he wants to make
deals with Afghanistan to return people to the country. Do
you really want to be returning people to the Taliban
when they're trying to escape them? And I think more

(01:15:10):
broadly with immigration here, there's this concept that immigration is
bad and in particular is the reason for the UK's woes.
I mean, I think many people would push back on
that and say, you know, it's a complicated issue and
there are downsides to immigration. You know, the effect on
public services of mass unexpected migration, for example, is real.

(01:15:34):
But also immigration is hugely important to the UK, both
economically and culturally, and has been for the last century
or two. It's a huge issue here for the government
to solve in terms of how to handle it in
the best way and what that is. But the idea
that immigration is what is causing all of Britain's woes
is for the birds, but it is what some people

(01:15:55):
are implicitly arguing. Now it's a classic argument that has
been made throughout history to try and come up with
a simplistic way to solve the problems for a struggling country.

Speaker 3 (01:16:19):
And so end this podcast to ninety nine. Now a
couple of things. The mail Room returns next week as so,
well let's hear from you, and well we've got a backlog.

Speaker 2 (01:16:29):
But the more the merrier, and I.

Speaker 3 (01:16:30):
Mentioned Christians Podcast for the Lawyer dot Com but didn't
include that in the recent annual podcast awards. Christians took
out the best podcast in the appropriate category, and there
was plenty of competition. They pretty pleased with himself, So
Laton at newstalks AB dot co dot NZ or Carolyn

(01:16:51):
at NEWSTALKSIRB dot co dot nseid complaints to her, compliments
to me, and we look forward to joining you for
the three hundred podcast next week. So, as always, thank
you for listening and we shall talk very soon.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
M M.

Speaker 1 (01:17:13):
Thank you for more from News Talks at B. Listen
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