Browse content similar to 29/06/2017. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Grenfell residents wonder whether this man, picked to run | :00:00. | :00:09. | |
the inquiry into the fire, is going to run away | :00:10. | :00:11. | |
From my brief meetings with residents of the tower | :00:12. | :00:18. | |
and local people, it's quite clear that many of them will have evidence | :00:19. | :00:21. | |
to give that will be of great value to the inquiry. | :00:22. | :00:28. | |
The question is whether this is to be an inquiry into the fire, | :00:29. | :00:31. | |
or into the dysfunctions of a society that allowed | :00:32. | :00:33. | |
We'll ask what it will take for the inquiry to earn | :00:34. | :00:37. | |
the confidence of those affected by it. | :00:38. | :00:41. | |
Feeling like you haven't had a pay rise in a while? | :00:42. | :00:44. | |
Can the chief economist at the Bank of England explain | :00:45. | :00:46. | |
20 years ago he was waving goodbye to the British colony. | :00:47. | :00:51. | |
Today, the last Governor of Hong Kong gives us his view | :00:52. | :00:54. | |
on Xino-British diplomatic relations, and has this to say | :00:55. | :00:57. | |
You should feel rather sad for him because he's been here several years | :00:58. | :01:05. | |
and he doesn't know the difference between democracy and a wet haddock. | :01:06. | :01:08. | |
Hard to believe but the iPhone is about to be ten years old. | :01:09. | :01:11. | |
It's undeniably useful, but how do we really feel | :01:12. | :01:13. | |
It's like a really narcissistic, clingy girlfriend who always wants | :01:14. | :01:26. | |
my attention! Everybody thinks we need | :01:27. | :01:34. | |
to learn the lessons And responsibility for drawing up | :01:35. | :01:37. | |
the right lessons rests primarily on the shoulders of one man - | :01:38. | :01:42. | |
Sir Martin Moore-Bick, a 70-year-old former commercial | :01:43. | :01:45. | |
lawyer and Appeal Court judge. He went to the site of the fire | :01:46. | :01:47. | |
today and met residents, But - and it's a big one - | :01:48. | :01:50. | |
he then downplayed expectations of what his inquiry might cover | :01:51. | :01:55. | |
and how quickly it could report. Now, I'm well aware | :01:56. | :02:02. | |
that the residents and the local people want a much broader | :02:03. | :02:06. | |
investigation and I can fully Whether my inquiry is the right | :02:07. | :02:09. | |
way in which to achieve that I'm more doubtful, | :02:10. | :02:16. | |
and I'll give that some thought and in due course | :02:17. | :02:19. | |
make a recommendation, but there may be other ways | :02:20. | :02:22. | |
in which that desire for an investigation can be | :02:23. | :02:25. | |
satisfied otherwise than through Well, after the inadequacy | :02:26. | :02:28. | |
of the early response to the fire, and the problems in the child abuse | :02:29. | :02:35. | |
inquiry, it is going to be pretty important for this one | :02:36. | :02:38. | |
to have the confidence of the survivors of the fire | :02:39. | :02:41. | |
and the families of the deceased. And they do not merely want | :02:42. | :02:44. | |
another review of cladding. They think they were ignored | :02:45. | :02:47. | |
when they were warning of problems. For them, this is a case | :02:48. | :02:50. | |
of the authorities on trial. For them, those authorities | :02:51. | :02:53. | |
give the impression To make that point, tonight | :02:54. | :02:55. | |
a meeting of the Cabinet of the Kensington and Chelsea Council | :02:56. | :03:01. | |
collapsed in disarray, as the leader left with his colleagues | :03:02. | :03:04. | |
after the press were allowed in. That was after having secured an | :03:05. | :03:13. | |
injunction to watch proceedings. That was nothing whatsoever to do | :03:14. | :03:18. | |
with the new inquiry Chair, but has Sir Martin Moore-Bick lost | :03:19. | :03:21. | |
the confidence of With me now are residents | :03:22. | :03:23. | |
of the estate of the Grenfell Tower And former Lord Chancellor | :03:24. | :03:27. | |
Charlie Falconer. Welcome. I know you were in the | :03:28. | :03:41. | |
meeting with the judge today. Yes, he held a few. I was in the first he | :03:42. | :03:48. | |
held at 10am. What was your first impression? He's a nice guy but he | :03:49. | :03:52. | |
didn't inspire any confidence, to be honest. I was a bit sceptical when | :03:53. | :03:58. | |
his name was leaked in the press, in the media, last night. I was doing | :03:59. | :04:02. | |
some research on him. The cases he was involved in did not inspire | :04:03. | :04:09. | |
confidence in me either. But you met him and he knew he had a job to sell | :04:10. | :04:13. | |
himself to you to some extent, I'm sure. What did he say that gave you | :04:14. | :04:20. | |
reservation? For a start, he seems to already be saying that the terms | :04:21. | :04:24. | |
of the inquiry would be extremely narrow, and yet supposedly they | :04:25. | :04:28. | |
haven't been decided or solidified yet. So that gave us a big concern. | :04:29. | :04:37. | |
His background gave me the concern. Insurance and commercial law. That | :04:38. | :04:40. | |
doesn't inspire confidence in me at all. What other questions you feel | :04:41. | :04:46. | |
an inquiry needs to look at that you feel might be brushed aside? Well, | :04:47. | :04:52. | |
it seems this judge is giving us the impression it's going to be just | :04:53. | :04:56. | |
about what started the fire and what caused it, but we want to know what | :04:57. | :05:02. | |
led to it as well. So, you know, the circumstances, the political things | :05:03. | :05:05. | |
that allowed the cladding to go on. The regulations. Not just the | :05:06. | :05:12. | |
cladding but whose job it was to get it right? Absolutely. What is the | :05:13. | :05:18. | |
fear here? Are people worried about a cover-up? Is that your fear? It's | :05:19. | :05:24. | |
not just my fear, it's the fear of everyone. I'm not a conspiracy | :05:25. | :05:28. | |
theorist but the way the authorities have been behaving since the | :05:29. | :05:31. | |
beginning of this tragedy is appalling and it has appalled my | :05:32. | :05:35. | |
neighbours. There was absolutely no response on the ground on the first | :05:36. | :05:39. | |
night. The fire crews couldn't get to the location, they couldn't put | :05:40. | :05:42. | |
out the fire because they didn't have the correct equipment. Some of | :05:43. | :05:48. | |
them then ran into the fire block without -- the tower block without | :05:49. | :05:51. | |
gas masks or helmets on because they were so keen to get up. It's a | :05:52. | :05:57. | |
litany of failures and it's gone back several years. The gas pipes | :05:58. | :06:02. | |
running up the building. We do feel there has been a managed decline. | :06:03. | :06:06. | |
There was application for demolition of the tower in 2014 so we do feel | :06:07. | :06:11. | |
they wanted us out anyway. All of that should be in the view of the | :06:12. | :06:17. | |
inquiry. Yes. It seems they were negligent because they didn't want | :06:18. | :06:23. | |
us there anyway. But they had renovated it? But that is because it | :06:24. | :06:26. | |
was an eyesore for those in the area. Charlie Falconer, there is an | :06:27. | :06:33. | |
enormous amount of suspicion. Trust is the most important thing. What | :06:34. | :06:35. | |
was your reaction when the judge came out and said he was going to | :06:36. | :06:40. | |
disappoint the residents with the scope of his inquiry? I'm worried | :06:41. | :06:44. | |
about that and what these two are saying about the scope of the | :06:45. | :06:47. | |
inquiry seems to me to be absolutely right. It can't be, to use your | :06:48. | :06:52. | |
language, to just be a review of the cladding. It has to go right back to | :06:53. | :06:57. | |
explain how we ended up both with some regulations that don't appear | :06:58. | :07:01. | |
to be effective, and also even if the regulations were effective, and | :07:02. | :07:05. | |
I don't know if they were all weren't, how will they enforced? If | :07:06. | :07:11. | |
the terms of reference don't allow the legitimate questions that | :07:12. | :07:14. | |
Thomasina has raised about the build up over time of the situation and | :07:15. | :07:20. | |
then that Joe has raised about, how did the emergency services proved to | :07:21. | :07:23. | |
be so ill-equipped to deal with the fire, then I would agree with both | :07:24. | :07:30. | |
of them. The terms of reference have been set. And they are right in the | :07:31. | :07:34. | |
way they are putting it. I thought the issue was about, you know, going | :07:35. | :07:39. | |
right back into the political system, which the judge can't deal | :07:40. | :07:44. | |
with, but both the areas these two are dealing with the right areas to | :07:45. | :07:51. | |
focus on. I understand what Joe is saying about the insurance and | :07:52. | :07:55. | |
commercial background. I don't know him personally but I've worked with | :07:56. | :07:59. | |
him over 30 years. He is a man who will be able to deal with what will | :08:00. | :08:03. | |
inevitably be a whole range of vested interests, like national | :08:04. | :08:06. | |
government, the local authority, trying to make it as complicated as | :08:07. | :08:11. | |
possible. You need somebody who is both sympathetic and gets the trust | :08:12. | :08:15. | |
of the people but also is able to cut through it. This is the problem | :08:16. | :08:21. | |
I'm facing. We've put out a statement to Theresa May to consult | :08:22. | :08:25. | |
us with the appointment of the judge. She hasn't consulted us or | :08:26. | :08:29. | |
responded to us and it looks like a foregone conclusion that she's done | :08:30. | :08:34. | |
this. That is very interesting. What is the normal procedure? Is there | :08:35. | :08:37. | |
some legal principle that you don't talk to victims in the picking of | :08:38. | :08:42. | |
the judge? The normal principle, and with the judge in a court case, is | :08:43. | :08:50. | |
that you can't negotiate with the parties, and this is not a court | :08:51. | :08:55. | |
case but it is one where it is an inquiry with a judge appointed in | :08:56. | :08:59. | |
effect by the Lord Chief Justice. Is there is a -- if there is a problem | :09:00. | :09:03. | |
with the judge then he should be replaced but my own view, and you've | :09:04. | :09:09. | |
got the broad scope right, and if that is not reflected in the terms | :09:10. | :09:11. | |
of reference it would be a problem, but give Sir Martin Moore bit a | :09:12. | :09:20. | |
chance. -- Sir Martin Moore-Bick. He said he didn't feel that those | :09:21. | :09:27. | |
issues could be covered. Why was that going to inspire confidence? He | :09:28. | :09:32. | |
didn't sell us to a single one of us. There were ten of us there. The | :09:33. | :09:36. | |
more I found out, the less I am willing and able, and the nail in | :09:37. | :09:41. | |
his coffin was his decision in the Westminster case, where he sent that | :09:42. | :09:46. | |
poor family to Milton Keynes. Did you go in open-minded, though? You | :09:47. | :09:49. | |
don't know what the legalities of that case were, so did you go in | :09:50. | :09:54. | |
open-minded? I went in in the way anyone would go in. I had questions | :09:55. | :10:01. | |
and I expected honest answers, and the answer is, I believe they were | :10:02. | :10:04. | |
honest, but I don't believe they were satisfactory. I understand what | :10:05. | :10:08. | |
you are saying. I ask you to give him a bit more of a chance. I | :10:09. | :10:13. | |
understand you are suspicious... It's not only him who is the | :10:14. | :10:17. | |
problem. It's Theresa May. She hasn't responded and it seems she's | :10:18. | :10:21. | |
already decided, and that makes us believe that the terms of reference | :10:22. | :10:27. | |
have already been decided as well. Taylor inquiry. It ensured | :10:28. | :10:34. | |
loudspeakers were loud enough to be heard everywhere, very sensible | :10:35. | :10:37. | |
conclusions on a technical standpoint. Did it lead to any | :10:38. | :10:42. | |
prosecutions? It didn't. What does he need to do? He's got to get your | :10:43. | :10:47. | |
confidence and that means listen to what you're saying. What I've heard | :10:48. | :10:51. | |
tonight is reasonable about what the terms of reference should be, and | :10:52. | :10:54. | |
then he's got to deliver quickly a good report that explains right from | :10:55. | :10:58. | |
the beginning how this happened. Thank you, all of you. | :10:59. | :11:03. | |
Well, think about joining the Government. | :11:04. | :11:06. | |
As expected, it managed to get its Queen's Speech | :11:07. | :11:08. | |
through the Commons today, but the margin was inevitably fine. | :11:09. | :11:11. | |
The ayes to the right, 323, the noes to the left, 309. | :11:12. | :11:15. | |
So the ayes have it, the ayes have it. | :11:16. | :11:18. | |
A measure of how easily business can be disrupted. | :11:19. | :11:31. | |
And for confirmation, there was the fact that | :11:32. | :11:33. | |
to get the Queen's Speech through unscathed, the Government | :11:34. | :11:36. | |
had to accept a proposal from Stella Creasy offering | :11:37. | :11:38. | |
taxpayer-funded abortions in England for women from Northern Ireland. | :11:39. | :11:43. | |
Backbench MPs suddenly have leverage and the Government suddenly has | :11:44. | :11:46. | |
But today was also awkward for Labour, with several shadow | :11:47. | :11:50. | |
ministers being sacked and one resigning. | :11:51. | :11:54. | |
We're all struggling to get used to this new normal. | :11:55. | :11:56. | |
Nick Watt watched the day at Westminster. | :11:57. | :12:04. | |
Let's talk about Labour first, because we all thought it was rosy | :12:05. | :12:10. | |
in the house of Labour at the moment! Yes, we thought the focus | :12:11. | :12:14. | |
would be solely on Theresa May and then Jeremy Corbyn ended up sacking | :12:15. | :12:18. | |
three of his frontbenchers. The reason for that was because they had | :12:19. | :12:22. | |
defied the Labour leadership to table an amendment put forward by | :12:23. | :12:27. | |
Chuka Umunna, which would have committed the UK to remaining in the | :12:28. | :12:31. | |
single market and Customs union. This was roundly defeated by 101 to | :12:32. | :12:38. | |
322 after Labour whips instructed their MPs to abstain. I've picked up | :12:39. | :12:44. | |
quite a lot of anger amongst pro-European Labour MPs. They say | :12:45. | :12:47. | |
this was a vanity vote by Chuka Umunna that handed a gift to | :12:48. | :12:51. | |
Brexiteers, who stayed look at the heavy defeat. And these pro-European | :12:52. | :12:56. | |
Labour MPs also say, why did he have to table this amendment when the | :12:57. | :13:03. | |
official Labour one called on the government to negotiate the exact | :13:04. | :13:05. | |
same benefit on the customs union and single market. But they are | :13:06. | :13:11. | |
defiant, saying their tactics today were about putting pressure on the | :13:12. | :13:15. | |
Labour leadership to go one step further and agree with them that the | :13:16. | :13:18. | |
UK should remain in the customs union and single market. OK. | :13:19. | :13:24. | |
Interesting day for Labour. What about the Tories? It was a pretty | :13:25. | :13:28. | |
fine margin to get your Queen's Speech through. As you say, the | :13:29. | :13:33. | |
Magic number for Theresa May is 14. That's the majority she had in the | :13:34. | :13:37. | |
final vote that established and entrenched her government. That's | :13:38. | :13:41. | |
what she got after her deal with the DUP. I spoke to one senior Tory who | :13:42. | :13:46. | |
said to me, that's hardly a respectable majority but it is a | :13:47. | :13:49. | |
workable one and the government can carry on. But the rapid move and | :13:50. | :13:53. | |
announcement by the government that it would fund abortions in England | :13:54. | :13:57. | |
for women from Northern Ireland illustrates a crucial point about | :13:58. | :14:03. | |
this Government. If you can muster all the opposition parties and then | :14:04. | :14:08. | |
persuade to seven Tory MPs to join you, then Theresa May has to act, | :14:09. | :14:12. | |
and supporters of a so-called soft Brexit, they had a setback today but | :14:13. | :14:15. | |
they hope that that point will eventually work in their favour. | :14:16. | :14:17. | |
Thank you. The backdrop to all this is a sense | :14:18. | :14:21. | |
of national frustration, That's perhaps why we're in hung | :14:22. | :14:24. | |
parliament territory at all. And when we look at what makes | :14:25. | :14:28. | |
people frustrated, it's perhaps the fact that living | :14:29. | :14:30. | |
standards are stagnant. In short, Britain is tired | :14:31. | :14:32. | |
of austerity and wants a pay rise. And that's not surprising given | :14:33. | :14:35. | |
the long squeeze on wages that we've We'll hear what the Bank of England | :14:36. | :14:38. | |
says about that shortly, but first our business editor | :14:39. | :14:41. | |
Helen Thomas sets out what we know - Sometimes it feels like everything | :14:42. | :14:57. | |
in the world of work is speeding up. The mantra is two more, and more | :14:58. | :15:02. | |
quickly. But one thing is stuck on go slow. And that unfortunately is | :15:03. | :15:15. | |
wages. The public sector pay cap is hitting recruitment and retention | :15:16. | :15:18. | |
right across the public sector. It has been a week of political | :15:19. | :15:24. | |
wrangling over whether the cap on public sector pay rises should be | :15:25. | :15:29. | |
lifted but this is not just about the public sector, it is about the | :15:30. | :15:34. | |
whole economy. He is real wage growth, pay rises adjusted for | :15:35. | :15:37. | |
inflation, and slumped after the financial crisis. Very low inflation | :15:38. | :15:42. | |
meant a better time around 2015. Then the vote to leave the EU, | :15:43. | :15:49. | |
inflation rose sharply. Living standards are again in decline. But | :15:50. | :15:53. | |
inflation isn't really the nub of this problem. The bigger puzzle is | :15:54. | :15:58. | |
why workers and managing to push for a pay rise, despite very low levels | :15:59. | :16:03. | |
of unemployment. Now economic theory would tell us that low unemployment | :16:04. | :16:08. | |
puts workers in a stronger position. Employers find it hard to fill | :16:09. | :16:14. | |
vacancies and yet UK unemployment is up 4.6%, the lowest level since the | :16:15. | :16:20. | |
1970s. But wage growth is sluggish. In fact worse than sluggish. | :16:21. | :16:23. | |
Recently it has been heading in the wrong direction. So why has this | :16:24. | :16:31. | |
relationship broken down? The crisis spooked workers and their employers. | :16:32. | :16:35. | |
Now Brexit is churning the corporate walkers. Roger Waters. If workers | :16:36. | :16:40. | |
are reluctant to move jobs they miss out on one way to get a hefty rise. | :16:41. | :16:47. | |
On one side you have the employers that also have the uncertainty of | :16:48. | :16:51. | |
demand and of uncertain increases in costs, given the exchange rate, | :16:52. | :16:57. | |
falling, that are likely to hold on to wage demands, and be a bit more | :16:58. | :17:03. | |
careful. Next up the economic headache. Productivity growth has | :17:04. | :17:11. | |
been nearly as disappointing as earnings. This is one measure output | :17:12. | :17:17. | |
per hour worked. Expansion helps living standards for decades and | :17:18. | :17:21. | |
then it flat lined and no one is entirely sure why. Everyone agrees | :17:22. | :17:29. | |
that dismal pay and dismal productivity are linked but which | :17:30. | :17:31. | |
causes the other? Well it is not that simple. Productivity is | :17:32. | :17:37. | |
obviously key in the to how much we can pay ourselves, what the wages | :17:38. | :17:41. | |
that people receive because in the end what we produce as a country | :17:42. | :17:45. | |
determines how much we can pay ourselves. But the relationship | :17:46. | :17:49. | |
between pay and productivity is more complicated and is sometimes to | :17:50. | :17:52. | |
waste so sometimes when pay increases firms respond by investing | :17:53. | :17:56. | |
in machines, and skinning their workforce and that leads to higher | :17:57. | :18:00. | |
productivity. It's not just that higher productivity can lead to | :18:01. | :18:02. | |
higher pay, it is not just that higher productivity can lead to | :18:03. | :18:09. | |
higher pay, it is perhaps the changes mean that the headline | :18:10. | :18:13. | |
unemployment rates does not really reflect what is going on. This is | :18:14. | :18:20. | |
co-working. In this office freelancers and entrepreneurs can | :18:21. | :18:23. | |
join up by the month, space to work with craft beer, yoga classes and | :18:24. | :18:29. | |
events laid on. Self-employment has risen, nearly doubling its share of | :18:30. | :18:35. | |
the workforce since 1980. But so has part-time working, temporary work | :18:36. | :18:39. | |
and zero hours contracts. This includes the so-called gig economy, | :18:40. | :18:45. | |
types of jobs which offer no guaranteed hours, little career | :18:46. | :18:49. | |
progression or job security. It means an employer could offer more | :18:50. | :18:54. | |
hours instead of a pay rise or a better contract. So what hope is | :18:55. | :19:01. | |
there that wages get moving again? That is the question for the British | :19:02. | :19:05. | |
market, and actually for the British economy and British families over | :19:06. | :19:08. | |
the next few years. But some things we know for certain, wages are at | :19:09. | :19:11. | |
the bottom of the Labour market because of a fast rising national | :19:12. | :19:15. | |
minimum wage, those will go up significantly over the next few | :19:16. | :19:19. | |
years. The big unknown is what happens to the top 80% of workers | :19:20. | :19:24. | |
not affected by the minimum wage. Those people are currently | :19:25. | :19:35. | |
seeing big squeeze is on their pay packets, what happens to them does | :19:36. | :19:39. | |
depend on does Brexit scare firms or do they think that a big opportunity | :19:40. | :19:41. | |
is there and they get their confidence back and the workers get | :19:42. | :19:43. | |
their confidence back? Wage tension hasn't vanished, of course not but | :19:44. | :19:46. | |
the lower unemployment gets without wages rising, the more likely that | :19:47. | :19:50. | |
longer term tougher to fix factors are standing between British workers | :19:51. | :19:51. | |
and their pay rise. Helen Thomas. Well, earlier today I sat down | :19:52. | :19:57. | |
at the Bank of England with the chief economist there, | :19:58. | :19:59. | |
Andy Haldane. He has been in the news lately, | :20:00. | :20:01. | |
having given a speech that suggested he might vote for a rate | :20:02. | :20:04. | |
rise later this year. He didn't want to say anything | :20:05. | :20:06. | |
more about rates today, And why he thinks it's flat lined | :20:07. | :20:17. | |
for the better part of a decade. What have been the drivers, there is | :20:18. | :20:22. | |
no single factor but I would say among the most important has been | :20:23. | :20:29. | |
the fact that at the same time as real take-home pay has flat lined, | :20:30. | :20:35. | |
so to has the measured productive capacity of the economy. Typically, | :20:36. | :20:40. | |
we expect that as that productive capacity grows over time, that gets | :20:41. | :20:48. | |
mirrored in pay increases. So we are looking for one of, if not the | :20:49. | :20:52. | |
biggest contributing cause, it is the accompanying flat-lining of not | :20:53. | :20:59. | |
just the UK's but many of the economy is's productive capacity | :21:00. | :21:04. | |
over ten years or so. It is extraordinary because we tend to | :21:05. | :21:07. | |
think we get a little better at everything, people will ask if we | :21:08. | :21:12. | |
have run out of innovation. This is not about stagnating in innovation, | :21:13. | :21:17. | |
in the main. When we talk about, the rise of the robots, the fourth | :21:18. | :21:22. | |
industrial Revolution, it is there. It is there, but only for a subset | :21:23. | :21:27. | |
of terms. Only for that 1% of perhaps 5% of firms who are taking | :21:28. | :21:34. | |
the productivity high road. The root cause of the stagnation in | :21:35. | :21:41. | |
productivity and in pay is that long, lower tail of firms, they are | :21:42. | :21:50. | |
taking the low productivity road. This is like 95%! A sizeable chunk, | :21:51. | :21:55. | |
at least three quarters... And they just employing more cheap Labour, | :21:56. | :21:59. | |
squeezing them Eberhard but not equipping it in the best ways or | :22:00. | :22:03. | |
innovating or thinking of the things to do and new products to sell. | :22:04. | :22:08. | |
Quite so. And they can't afford to pay more because they don't have | :22:09. | :22:13. | |
more revenue. This long tail, and to be clear, it's not a crisis | :22:14. | :22:16. | |
phenomenon, if you look at those companies, that long tail, they have | :22:17. | :22:21. | |
been with us back-ups for a couple of decades. Every country on the | :22:22. | :22:25. | |
planet has long tail firms, it just appears to be somewhat longer in the | :22:26. | :22:30. | |
UK and elsewhere. And there are companies, as you say, that perhaps | :22:31. | :22:34. | |
not investing sufficiently in the skills of workers, perhaps not | :22:35. | :22:39. | |
investing sufficiently in machines and automation, so it's not the | :22:40. | :22:49. | |
champions we need to worry about. It's the mediocre. There's a natural | :22:50. | :22:53. | |
temptation to gravitate towards the new and the shiny, let's seize the | :22:54. | :23:00. | |
next Tesla, Google, or Apple, and say, in terms of boosting the | :23:01. | :23:02. | |
numbers you would probably get much more purchase out of incremental | :23:03. | :23:08. | |
improvements from that long-tail of companies. Let's talk about public | :23:09. | :23:12. | |
sector wages, there's a huge debate over public sector pay, it's been | :23:13. | :23:16. | |
going up at 1% a year for the last five years or so. That does factor | :23:17. | :23:22. | |
significantly into the deliberations when figuring out how great are | :23:23. | :23:29. | |
underlying inflationary pressures in the economy. We have been repeatedly | :23:30. | :23:35. | |
surprised about how weak pay growth has been, not just in the public | :23:36. | :23:39. | |
sector but in the Private sector as well. And if anything, pay growth | :23:40. | :23:45. | |
over the past 12 months has been falling rather than picking up, | :23:46. | :23:49. | |
which has taken us and indeed the rest of the world somewhat by | :23:50. | :23:55. | |
surprise, given that over that same period, jobs growth has remained | :23:56. | :23:59. | |
very buoyant and unemployment has kept on falling. So this way is with | :24:00. | :24:05. | |
us. Of course it is a factor that has contributed to rates in the UK | :24:06. | :24:10. | |
remaining, they are currently at very low levels, and watching | :24:11. | :24:16. | |
closely for any signs of pay bigging up. That is one of the key | :24:17. | :24:21. | |
indicators we look at when judging that pay picking up. To be clear, | :24:22. | :24:26. | |
public paint matters, it's not just the Private sector. I know that you | :24:27. | :24:31. | |
don't particularly want to step on the interest rate landmine at this | :24:32. | :24:35. | |
point. But it would be interesting for people to think about where they | :24:36. | :24:39. | |
might be in five or ten years' time, if they are buying a house thinking | :24:40. | :24:44. | |
about the long-term average on the bank website which goes back 300 | :24:45. | :24:50. | |
years is 5%. Does that constitute a guide to the long-term norm? What | :24:51. | :24:53. | |
would you advise people to plan on, to think of rates of the sort of 5% | :24:54. | :25:01. | |
level or the .5% level? You are right in pointing out that the rate | :25:02. | :25:07. | |
is currently, and if you believe financial markets, prospectively set | :25:08. | :25:13. | |
to remain pretty low for a long time. Not just the lowest in the | :25:14. | :25:17. | |
last 300 years, probably the lowest in the last several thousand years, | :25:18. | :25:21. | |
I would say. As and when rates begin to rise in the UK, they are likely | :25:22. | :25:27. | |
to do so in a gradual way. And to a limited extent, by which we mean the | :25:28. | :25:32. | |
numbers that may have been in people's heads, from the past, are | :25:33. | :25:38. | |
probably on the high side relative to what we might expect in the | :25:39. | :25:43. | |
future. Let me not but a number on that! Squeeze you on that. But | :25:44. | :25:47. | |
Limited and gradual is the name of the game. I would squeeze you on | :25:48. | :26:00. | |
that. Andrew Haldane, thank you very much -- I won't squeeze you on that. | :26:01. | :26:03. | |
20 years ago, the British top brass in Hong Kong handed the keys | :26:04. | :26:06. | |
of the province over to the Chinese and boarded the Royal | :26:07. | :26:09. | |
Yacht Britannia to leave the colony behind. | :26:10. | :26:11. | |
The exact anniversary is at 5pm our time tomorrow. | :26:12. | :26:13. | |
The handover was - and is - a big deal for China, | :26:14. | :26:16. | |
and President Xi Jinping is in Hong Kong to | :26:17. | :26:18. | |
It's his first visit since becoming leader in 2012. | :26:19. | :26:23. | |
Back then, when former president Hu Jintao visited | :26:24. | :26:27. | |
for the 15-year celebrations, he was met with hundreds | :26:28. | :26:29. | |
of thousands of protesters, marching against what they saw | :26:30. | :26:31. | |
And there were mass protests again in 2014. | :26:32. | :26:40. | |
The so-called umnbrella protests, with calls for more democracy | :26:41. | :26:44. | |
and protests at the idea of China pre-screening candidates | :26:45. | :26:51. | |
for elections for the post of Chief Executive of Hong Kong. | :26:52. | :26:54. | |
Hong Kong never saw itself as just another Chinese city. | :26:55. | :26:59. | |
In a 1984 agreement between China and Britain, China committed itself | :27:00. | :27:03. | |
to the principle of "one country, two systems", granting | :27:04. | :27:11. | |
the city its own legal system, limited democracy with multiple | :27:12. | :27:13. | |
political parties, and rights like freedom | :27:14. | :27:14. | |
But has China reneged on the letter, or at least | :27:15. | :27:18. | |
Most notorious is the case of five booksellers who had | :27:19. | :27:23. | |
allegedly sold banned books, and then went missing, apparently | :27:24. | :27:26. | |
You may remember that the last British Governor of Hong Kong | :27:27. | :27:42. | |
As Governor, he tried to plant some democratic seeds | :27:43. | :27:45. | |
in the Hong Kong garden, hoping they'd grow | :27:46. | :27:47. | |
He has a well-timed memoir out this week, so I went | :27:48. | :27:51. | |
to meet him this afternoon, to talk about Hong Kong, China, | :27:52. | :27:54. | |
and because he's a former chairman of the Tory Party, | :27:55. | :27:56. | |
First, though, has China let the people of Hong Kong down | :27:57. | :28:00. | |
Initially it did something which was sad but predictable. | :28:01. | :28:06. | |
It choked off the sort of democratic developments which had been taking | :28:07. | :28:09. | |
place and which were perfectly satisfactory because people | :28:10. | :28:13. | |
More recently, particularly under President Xi Jinping, | :28:14. | :28:19. | |
I think it parallels his crackdown on dissidents in mainland China. | :28:20. | :28:22. | |
There's been a growing squeeze on Hong Kong's windpipe, | :28:23. | :28:26. | |
attacks on the judiciary, attacks on the rule of law, | :28:27. | :28:29. | |
abduction of people on the streets and a general atmosphere | :28:30. | :28:33. | |
in which Beijing's Office in Hong Kong tries to | :28:34. | :28:37. | |
The Chinese ambassador to the UK was on the radio this morning | :28:38. | :28:44. | |
and was rebutting criticisms of the sort of anti-democratic | :28:45. | :28:47. | |
nature of Hong Kong by talking about British democracy and in fact | :28:48. | :28:50. | |
Should we laugh, should we think, should we ponder? | :28:51. | :28:54. | |
Yes, you should feel rather sad for him because he's been | :28:55. | :28:56. | |
here several years and he doesn't know the difference | :28:57. | :28:58. | |
I shouldn't say that about ambassadors but he is. | :28:59. | :29:07. | |
And I heard him this morning saying things | :29:08. | :29:10. | |
which, were I Boris Johnson, I might describe as porkies. | :29:11. | :29:15. | |
And beginning by asserting that what happens in Hong Kong | :29:16. | :29:19. | |
is entirely a matter for the government of China, | :29:20. | :29:24. | |
as though the joint declaration, the treaty between Britain | :29:25. | :29:27. | |
and China, was simply a single declaration by the Chinese. | :29:28. | :29:31. | |
It is actually a treaty lodged at the UN. | :29:32. | :29:36. | |
Looking at politics in the UK today, it's hard to think of who you would | :29:37. | :29:40. | |
really feel is your sort of beacon of leadership, and who you would | :29:41. | :29:43. | |
We're partly in this mess because of two catastrophic | :29:44. | :29:55. | |
decisions taken by Conservative Prime Ministers, and we sometimes | :29:56. | :30:00. | |
kid ourselves that we're well governed. | :30:01. | :30:04. | |
Internationally, nationalism, which is a denial of the importance | :30:05. | :30:12. | |
these days of international co-operation, has been | :30:13. | :30:16. | |
In America - Make America Great Again. | :30:17. | :30:21. | |
In Europe, happily, Macron, Angela Merkel win the elections | :30:22. | :30:32. | |
in Germany, the Dutch have done well in seeing off Geert Wilders, | :30:33. | :30:35. | |
so in mainland Europe, it's gone pretty well. | :30:36. | :30:37. | |
But we're left with the residues of English nationalism. | :30:38. | :30:42. | |
Isn't it the case that the Tory Party is one party, | :30:43. | :30:45. | |
I think both the main parties are two parties | :30:46. | :30:49. | |
I think there's a moderate mainstream Conservative Party | :30:50. | :30:58. | |
and an English nationalist right-wing party. | :30:59. | :31:01. | |
It's a sort of Ukip-lite and a sort of economically liberal party, | :31:02. | :31:04. | |
There's a party that believes in market economics and there's | :31:05. | :31:10. | |
a party that believes in a market society, which is an | :31:11. | :31:12. | |
In the Labour Party, you've got the Corbynistas, | :31:13. | :31:18. | |
who have clearly been strengthened by the dire campaign | :31:19. | :31:22. | |
that the Conservative Party fought in the election, | :31:23. | :31:25. | |
which suddenly turned this sort of quite amiable guy | :31:26. | :31:29. | |
with extraordinarily old-fashioned, out-of-date views into | :31:30. | :31:37. | |
But let's talk more about your party, because it is | :31:38. | :31:42. | |
I mean, would you basically favour a politics where we let these | :31:43. | :31:46. | |
parties disentangle themselves into their component | :31:47. | :31:55. | |
parts and you had, say, electoral reform, and then the voters... | :31:56. | :31:57. | |
Like in France, actually - remember, the French had | :31:58. | :31:59. | |
They could vote for populist right, left, centre. | :32:00. | :32:02. | |
I think it's very difficult to know what it is about our party system | :32:03. | :32:06. | |
Because the number of people who are active members of parties | :32:07. | :32:10. | |
Well, until Corbyn came along, and now it's shot up. | :32:11. | :32:21. | |
Yes, but with a particular age group - you have to notice | :32:22. | :32:24. | |
the number of people under 40, 45, who are voting for Corbyn. | :32:25. | :32:27. | |
But when I was chairman of the Conservative Party in 1990-92 | :32:28. | :32:29. | |
Today I should think it's 150,000 on a good night. | :32:30. | :32:34. | |
The parties have been hollowed out in terms of mass membership, | :32:35. | :32:39. | |
so most of them now have fewer members than the Royal Society | :32:40. | :32:41. | |
They've been hollowed out in that sense, and yet they have more | :32:42. | :32:49. | |
authority electing leaders, determining policies, | :32:50. | :32:51. | |
You mean the members have had more authority? | :32:52. | :32:54. | |
So I don't quite know where it goes from here. | :32:55. | :33:01. | |
What I think remains undoubtedly the case is there is a majority | :33:02. | :33:04. | |
in this country for, as it were, wets, to borrow | :33:05. | :33:09. | |
I think there is a majority for welfare democracy, | :33:10. | :33:18. | |
for market forces but not too much of them, | :33:19. | :33:22. | |
for recognising that the state isn't an enemy but you don't give | :33:23. | :33:25. | |
the state too much to do in terms of industrial management. | :33:26. | :33:31. | |
I bet there's a majority among people like me now for seeing | :33:32. | :33:35. | |
an increase in taxes for people like me, because I certainly don't | :33:36. | :33:39. | |
want to see further rounds of cuts in public spending. | :33:40. | :33:44. | |
And yet I recognise there's a real problem with the fiscal deficit, | :33:45. | :33:47. | |
which I don't think you can just let go hang, as Mr Corbyn would suggest. | :33:48. | :33:51. | |
One of the things that we're sometimes told, | :33:52. | :33:54. | |
and I think in the end this is the biggest, most important | :33:55. | :33:57. | |
question for the country over the next year, is there's really no | :33:58. | :34:00. | |
There's a hard Brexit or there's no Brexit, but there's | :34:01. | :34:04. | |
That either we reverse this vote, or we go along | :34:05. | :34:12. | |
Because I'm interested in whether you would vote | :34:13. | :34:16. | |
for the kind of Theresa May Brexit when it comes to the Lords. | :34:17. | :34:22. | |
Well, I think at the end of the day, as bishops say, there will have | :34:23. | :34:25. | |
to be a vote in Parliament about whatever terms emerge. | :34:26. | :34:32. | |
And at that point, the electorate, given that I suspect by then | :34:33. | :34:37. | |
the economy won't be looking too good, and the electorate will be | :34:38. | :34:40. | |
able to see that you can't have the same relationship | :34:41. | :34:43. | |
with Europe outside the European Union as you have | :34:44. | :34:47. | |
So I think at that point there may be a significant shift | :34:48. | :34:52. | |
in the public atmosphere, the public views on this. | :34:53. | :34:56. | |
But I don't think you can go into these negotiations | :34:57. | :34:58. | |
on the assumption that they'll turn out badly. | :34:59. | :35:02. | |
I think Philip Hammond is right that we should be aiming now | :35:03. | :35:06. | |
for a transitional period, for staying in as much | :35:07. | :35:08. | |
of the single market and the Customs Union as possible. | :35:09. | :35:13. | |
Both of those things were of course anathema to those who thought | :35:14. | :35:16. | |
the big bloody bold thing to do was to head for the precipice | :35:17. | :35:20. | |
and if we jumped off the precipice, there would be Dunlop mattresses | :35:21. | :35:23. | |
Who would you like to see leading the Conservative Party? | :35:24. | :35:29. | |
Well, if I suggested that, it would damn them immediately! | :35:30. | :35:34. | |
I think Theresa May will lead the Conservative Party | :35:35. | :35:38. | |
until the Conservative Party thinks that it can comfortably find | :35:39. | :35:44. | |
a successor who won't plunge it into either an election | :35:45. | :35:46. | |
I think that dancing on her grave, particularly by people who only | :35:47. | :35:55. | |
the other day were saying that she was if not Teresa | :35:56. | :35:57. | |
of Avila, certainly Theresa of Maidenhead, | :35:58. | :36:00. | |
I think dancing on her grave is particularly unseemly. | :36:01. | :36:05. | |
But in a world you know better than me, | :36:06. | :36:07. | |
in the stock market, I don't | :36:08. | :36:10. | |
think you'd regard her at the moment as a strong hold. | :36:11. | :36:18. | |
I think she's there partly because anything else people | :36:19. | :36:20. | |
Chris Patten talking to me earlier today. His book First Confession is | :36:21. | :36:34. | |
available now. Did you know that sales of chewing | :36:35. | :36:36. | |
gum have plummeted since the iPhone This is apparently because people | :36:37. | :36:40. | |
queueing in supermarkets can now pass the time looking at their phone | :36:41. | :36:43. | |
rather by making impulse purchases. That's just one effect unleashed | :36:44. | :36:46. | |
on the world by Apple's bestseller. Others include selfies, | :36:47. | :36:49. | |
the gig economy, and To that list critics might add | :36:50. | :36:51. | |
shorter attention spans There's no doubt that the iPhone | :36:52. | :36:54. | |
is an extraordinary piece of kit - even to those of us who clung | :36:55. | :37:00. | |
to our Blackberries for some Stephen Smith, who personally | :37:01. | :37:03. | |
nominates the trouser-press, When you think about your iPhone, it | :37:04. | :37:16. | |
is probably the object that you use most in your life. It's the product | :37:17. | :37:22. | |
you have with you all the time. The adverts suggest a mindfulness | :37:23. | :37:27. | |
workshop and devotees hang on every word from the pristine Apple bunker, | :37:28. | :37:33. | |
as if harkening to a guru. We want to make a much better phone. | :37:34. | :37:39. | |
We thought we would create our own immaculate thought cloud about the | :37:40. | :37:45. | |
iPhone. I think it's one of the most marvellous things that's ever been | :37:46. | :37:48. | |
made. There's this wonderful old line about what talent is an talent | :37:49. | :37:53. | |
is the ability to hit a target but then genius is able to see a target | :37:54. | :37:58. | |
no one else has identified. I'm desperately trying not to hell the | :37:59. | :38:03. | |
thing somewhere over there and smash it into 1000 pieces! It's like | :38:04. | :38:08. | |
having the great library of Alexandria to hand. Imagine | :38:09. | :38:14. | |
explaining something like that to my father's generation. He would be | :38:15. | :38:19. | |
mystified! It's like a narcissistic really clingy girlfriend who always | :38:20. | :38:23. | |
wants my attention! The vision behind the iPhone was so | :38:24. | :38:26. | |
ground-breaking that few could quite believe it at first. A pod, a phone | :38:27. | :38:42. | |
and Internet communicator. You getting it? People were talking | :38:43. | :38:49. | |
about the integration of telephone technology and computer technology | :38:50. | :38:52. | |
but they were thinking about vast, clunky equipment, and nobody had | :38:53. | :38:58. | |
seen you could bring these two together into something you could | :38:59. | :39:02. | |
actually put in your pocket. We have the iPhone and its various | :39:03. | :39:08. | |
competitors to thank for the selfie. Posting pictures, seeking likes is | :39:09. | :39:14. | |
surprisingly atavistic behaviour, says one writer. I think the | :39:15. | :39:21. | |
surprising thing about social media is it's such ultramodern technology | :39:22. | :39:25. | |
but it is tapping into very primeval, ancient circuits in the | :39:26. | :39:29. | |
brain. We are a tribal species, a tribal animal, and one of the things | :39:30. | :39:33. | |
that means is that we are constantly preoccupied with our status in the | :39:34. | :39:36. | |
group. Just like the chimpanzees, one of our closest relatives, the | :39:37. | :39:42. | |
state of the humans 's human is constantly in flux and we are | :39:43. | :39:49. | |
constantly preoccupied. -- the state of human is constantly in flux. It | :39:50. | :39:53. | |
is all very tribal. Young people are avid users of smartphones, of | :39:54. | :39:58. | |
course. A new study says over a third of 15-year-olds are extreme | :39:59. | :40:03. | |
Internet users who spent six hours a day online. It also found a clear | :40:04. | :40:08. | |
association between longer periods spent on social media and mental | :40:09. | :40:13. | |
health problems. I think that's a development of smartphones that's | :40:14. | :40:16. | |
really interesting, in that people are able to have their phone in | :40:17. | :40:20. | |
their pocket, looking at it in their bedroom, so their access to the | :40:21. | :40:23. | |
Internet is in a much more private space than it used to so potentially | :40:24. | :40:28. | |
parents will have used the technique of wandering past the screen to see | :40:29. | :40:31. | |
what their child is looking at and if their child is on the phone in | :40:32. | :40:35. | |
the playground or in their own room, the parent can't use that kind of | :40:36. | :40:38. | |
technique any more, so it gives us new challenges as to how we get | :40:39. | :40:43. | |
young people. But it isn't just the youngsters we need to look out for. | :40:44. | :40:46. | |
Some mature iPhone users are struggling to. It always wants to | :40:47. | :40:52. | |
help you. It is sitting there going, look, I could do this, I could do | :40:53. | :40:59. | |
that. Why don't you get me to help? Look, I'm all shiny! No! Silence! | :41:00. | :41:05. | |
Silence! See, whatever happened to silence? It's really good... | :41:06. | :41:17. | |
Steven Smith on the iPhone. We have to go but a quick look at the front | :41:18. | :41:21. | |
page of The Times. They have specific emails on Grenfell cladding | :41:22. | :41:27. | |
looking at cutting costs before the renovation. A specific email, so I | :41:28. | :41:31. | |
think people will follow that up tomorrow. | :41:32. | :41:32. | |
Just before we go, I don't know if you heard that George Osborne | :41:33. | :41:35. | |
announced today he's got yet another new job. | :41:36. | :41:37. | |
He's going to be Professor of Economics at Manchester University | :41:38. | :41:39. | |
in addition to being Editor of the Evening Standard, | :41:40. | :41:42. | |
an advisor to a venture capitalist and after-dinner speaker for hire. | :41:43. | :41:44. | |
In total we think he's now got six jobs! | :41:45. | :41:46. | |
And we wondered what might come next. | :41:47. | :41:48. | |
Friday should be a bit warmer with still a lot of cloud around with | :41:49. | :42:30. | |
outbreaks of rain and | :42:31. | :42:31. |