Cross Question with Iain Dale 06/02 | Watch Again

Iain Dale was joined by:

Baroness (Nicky) Morgan – Conservative peer and former Secretary of State for Education, and Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
Rebecca Long-Bailey – Labour MP for Salford and Eccles
Jim Pickard – Deputy Political Editor of the Financial Times
David Buik – businessman and co-host of the Global Player podcast ‘Money’ with Michael Wilson

#iaindale #crossquestion #lbc

From Global’s Newsroom at 8:00 King Charles has traveled to Sandringham after being seen in public for the first time since sharing the news of his cancer diagnosis he’s today been met by his son the Duke of Sussex who’s flown in from California the Watchdog is investigating eight metropolitan police

Officers after a black teenager was stopped and searched six times in five months complaints were made by the 16-year-old and his mother after it happened in two areas of London last year lit truss has criticized the government for failing to take on left-wing extremists as she announced a

New conservative group today the former prime minister says popular conservatism or popcorns can Galvanize Britain’s many secret Tories conservative MP Tobias Elwood though has told LBC it’s not a good look for the party competence discipline that’s what wins general elections a party exhibiting tribal division or or in fighting or an absence

Of focus that will not secure the support of the middle ground of British politics in the city the footy 100 has closed up 68 points at 7681 the pound buy is a125 and a17 LBC weather with ripple energy part own a wind farm for a Greener way to

Power your home outbreaks of rain continuing to spread southwards tonight lows of minus three dry for much of the UK tomorrow some rain in the Southwest high of 10 from Global’s Newsroom for LBC I’m Charlotte Morgan this is LBC from Global leading Britain’s conversation cross question with Ian

Dale hello very good evening it’s 1 minutes past 8 on LBC welcome to Tuesday’s cross question I don’t know why but I’ve been really looking forward to this panel I suppose I should look forward to every panel but there are some that you look forward to more than

Others and this is one of them because we have with us Baron as Nikki MO Moran conservative peer who’s a cabinet minister under Boris Johnson and David Cameron Rebecca Long Bailey is labor MP for sford and Eckles who’s former Shadow cabinet minister under Jeremy Corbin Jim Pickard is Deputy political editor of

The financial times and David Buick a businessman who’s co-host of the global player podcast money with Michael Wilson they’re here ready willing and able to take your questions on 03456 6973 you can text 8485 and you can watch us on global play call 0345 6060 973 tweet at LBC text

8485 cross question with Ian Dale this is LBC let’s go to our first caller it’s Steven in East grinstead hi Stephen hi thanks Ian good evening to everyone will the latest splinter group of unpopular conservatives amount to anything or are they just a bunch of conspiring failed politicians with their Hangers On

Preaching conspir conspiracy theory politics from the sidelines I I think you got their name slightly wrong there I know you did it with a tongue of your cheek but that it is of course popular conservatives now obviously any political party needs to be popular to win an election the

Conservatives are 20 points behind in the polls um Nikki Morgan I’m not sure you’re spiritually spiritually aligned with this particular grouping in the conservative party but do you not think they would be better uh if they spent their time trying to support the Prime Minister and win the next election

Rather than cause trouble because that’s clearly what they’re going to do well strange enough first I hope this panel lives up to your expectations Ian and good evening Stephen thank you for the the question um and stange of my invitation to today’s launch of the popular conservatives got lost somewhere

In the post um I supect a lot of peoples in the conservative party got lost because actually um I mean I agree with you I agree with the premise I think of Steven’s question which is that um extraordinarily for I think Savant found for somebody who is unpopular Liz truss

Is now launching a popular conservatives movement and I think something guaranteed to make the conservative party less popular uh and Rishi Sak’s life more difficult is the launch of yet another conservative grouping um it’s a very clear thing in politics disunited parties do not win elections and the

Only thing that conservative party MPS members ministers should be focusing on now is what can they do between now and election day to put themselves in the best possible position to get the best possible result let me play Devil’s Advocate because they they would argue I imagine

That well this is actually a sign of real healthy democracy in the conservative party that we have all of these different groups putting forward fresh new ideas to help the party win the election does that argument not have any cred look that’s just baloney isn’t

It I mean look Ian you and I have been involved in politics for a long time been involved in you know conservative politics for a long time um and I’m afraid the idea that anybody is helping uh the leader of their party or uh the cabinet uh who have got difficult enough

Jobs there’s plenty go on the world that needs to be solved at the moment the idea that they’re helping in any way shape or form by distracting from the work of uh the government um I’m afraid is just absolutely for the birds and this is just a pattern I’m afraid there

Are some people who claim to be conservatives claim to be supporting we had this recently with this poll in the Telegraph newspaper fronted by Lord David Frost um reporting the telegraph which has just um again been uh incredibly unhealthful to the party and my colleague my roommate in-laws Lord

Robert Haywood has just been speaking in the laws just this evening about the Electoral commission he thinks that they should be investigating why you know a poll we don’t know who paid for it we don’t know anything about the group behind as he said you know they these

People have fat wallets and no honor and he’s absolutely right to do so and these people need to shut up and get behind the Prime Minister Jim peckard I think you had a subsequent engagement this morning uh and weren’t there what do you make of this group because it’s clearly

I mean I won’t say it’s a Liz trust fan club but most of the leading people in that they were sort of from the the Liz Johnson Liz Johnson Liz trust Boris Johnson side of the party but they’re all people who held Ser senior positions in government who could have done a lot

Of the things that she was suggesting while they were in government but failed to to be fair to Liz trust she only had 40 days of government in which to do some of she has some fairly senior positions apart from being Prime Min of course now Nikki pointed out that

Savanta surveys have shown that list trust is quite unpopular I think she’s actually according to savanta the least popular politician in Britain it’s hard to imagine a less popular figure head unless you put someone like prince Andrew in charge of this operation and so it’s just kind of remarkable to watch

The Huts per of of someone just kind of not realizing that the the country had a look at her said no to her and said no to a lot of her certainly her economic ideas and Market said no to her her ideas I think what’s interesting here

Though is that just because some of the people involved with this particular SPL splinter group of the conservative party may be personally unpopular it doesn’t necessarily mean that some of the ideas that they’re playing with are not popular with parts of the population and in other people’s hands could be but I

Think you know as a subgroup of a subgroup you know we now have this ridiculous half a dozen right-wing Tory Splinter groups you know to to have this Splinter of a splinter group run by somebody completely discredited I’m afraid after her disastrous period in office it just feels a little bit

Ludicrous and and kind of like Nikki was saying it just hastens that idea that this is a sinking ship and everyone’s squabbling and I find it striking when I talk to conservative MPS how despondent they are about the general election because I still think that the hung Parliament is not impossible I think

There’s a reasonable chance of that like a kind of reverse 2010 situation where the country wants to get rid of the incumbants but is not totally wedded to the opposition party AKA labor and therefore the conservatives are sort of almost talking themselves into a disastrous election lat this year by

Fighting each other and by being totally giving up the ghost Rebecca Long Bailey do you do you look on at this and sort of slightly smile or what’s your reaction not really no I think the country feels rudderless at the moment we feel as that we’ve got a functioning

Government and I think what we’ve seen today with this new emerging faction of the dying throws of the current government they know their days are numbered but what’s more worrying for me is how reactionary and divisive this group will be for British politics they’re definitely modeling themselves

On the Donald Trum Trump School of politics um Liz trust started off by calling um people who campaign for LGBT rights and environmental issues as left-wing extremists and that was quite worrying because if those sorts of comments gain traction on certain news outlets not yours of course

Ian then uh then it could be very divisive for the Country David berck total distraction I’m afraid I agree completely with Nikki and also with Rebecca and with Jim how can this isn’t going well well let me just put a bit of an endorsement in if I make five Prime Ministers since

2016 including David Cameron do me a favor what more do they want they must know that these are the smoldering Embers four four Prime no five oh no I forgot to reason a which it’s your influence your influence no on on on on a seriously note just to go back enough is enough

And they have to pull together now the conservative party I mean it’s a complet we’ve been saying this for six months and they show no sign of having any desire to do I mean you know there may be some really fun people in it some intellectual input but what they’re

Doing is just damaging and trashing the brand and it’s got to stop Nikki well just to your point of about they show no signs doing so I think what’s forgotten is there’s an awful lot of MPS um in the conservative parliamentary party in fact the vast majority who frankly are heads

Down getting on with constituency work doing their ministerial boxes if that’s the position they’re in there are a lot of conservative party members who’ll be out door knocking you know all hours Saturday mornings and they look on what’s Happening and you know Jim was saying about he makes an awful lot of

Conservative P who quite despondent um the trouble is that there’s always a very vocal small number who inevitably are going to attract headlines um and miss the fact that the rest of the party is is still you know trying to get on with being a government doing the right

Thing it also feels to me a little bit like the party has shifted to the right you if you look back at 2016 and the rise of Donald Trump there was a very convincing cross-party debate in Parliament where MPS across the Spectrum agreed that this guy was was basically a

Little risky and not someone who they really wanted to be leader of the Free World and fast forward seven years and we have prominent conser of MPS saying they would like him to win and that is after a very long period I think Jacob

Ree MO is one of them I think Liz truss has suggested that that she would kind of prefer Trump despite the implications for Ukraine of course I suppose at least he might differentiate Emanuel maon from Fran meon as Joe Biden seems unable to do but they seem so keen on free markets

That they’re prepared to forgive somebody who has lied is it 20,000 times who has all these charges against him who I think most people listening or a lot of people listening will agree raises a lot of questions about you know Western democracy and yet they’re quite happy to endorse him because of his

Let’s take a followup caller uh Chris en Cen who might uh engender a a little bit of disagreement among the panel uh Chris what what’s your point yes my question is this um which should the UK prioritize Net Zero carbon or Net Zero migration are one in one out well the

Net Zero policy came under multiple attacks at the popcorn launch with 30p Lee Lee Anderson saying only odd weirdos care about making Britain Net Zero would you class yourself as nod weirdo Rebecca well I think that’s open to debate isn’t it I would because actually to be fair to Liz truss she has

Described herself as a weirdo but no I mean I think in answering um your question Chris I think the most important priority for the next government is going to be the economy overall and it’s about lifting living standards for everyone and Net Zero and the the green Industrial Revolution or

Whatever you want to call it is going to be a key part of that in terms of the investment that it will bring to the UK in terms of the jobs that it will create in terms of the prosperity it will bring with to Regions that have been de-industrialized and forgotten about

For many many decades and it’s also important because we’ve got to tackle climate change and if we don’t do it now I don’t think our children and grandchildren will forgive us and just on that I mean thinking back you were really the architect of Labour’s green Prosperity plan weren’t you but quite a

Few years ago now um what what do you think of these reports that it’s about to be ditched I haven’t seen any formal reports and K was out doing media rounds brief that every day aren’t you it’s a confused picture everyone’s arguing yeah but we did get confirmation this morning

From Kia it was definitely going to happen and it’s important because I mean one of our Central missions as a party is to promote growth in the UK economy and that does not happen in a vacuum you have to have some government investment to encourage business investment

Alongside it and that’s why the 28 billion is so important it’s not about spending willy-nilly it’s about making Strategic investment decisions that you know will support local businesses and will generate a wider economic return and to ditch that I think we might as well ditch our growth pledge as well

Alongside it because we won’t see that with some level of government investment and support so David Net Zero carbon or Net Zero migration Net Zero carbon must be I mean the situation as I see it now there that is absolutely key in the next 10 to 15

Years the problem we’ve got is we don’t have any money and there’s every single member of the public sector needs money and it isn’t available and we’ve got a treasurer we should call him CH for ex Jer who is very keen on fiscal discipline but we have to do something

To encourage investment at the moment the companies are what I describe as risk averse they won’t take any gambles at all and this is hopeless at the mansion house feet Jeremy Hunt asked business industry and commerce particularly pensions if they wouldn’t mind stepping up with 50 billion to

Invest in all the good things that we’re very good at at this country The Silence has been deafening because we’re not seeing the kind of incentives given like if you want somebody to invest stamp Duty you got to be kidding me it’s got to go tomorrow corporation tax 25%

Hopeless you’ve got to get it down to back to where it was at 19% that cost money but what you lose on the swings you will gain on the roundabouts because if investment is really exciting people will make money and therefore people will pay tax ch I think it’s not a kind

Of binary choice between Net Zero carbon Net Zero migration I think the two issues are they’re intertwined and they’re going to become increasingly intertwined if you imagine a situation in 50 years time 100 years time where the sea levels have risen substantially around the globe we are going to have

Movements of people like we’ve never seen before and therefore if you’re worried about people coming in boats to your Shores you know if you think there are a lot of people trying to cross the sea right now a world where sea levels have risen by a substantial amount is a

Very alarming scenario there’s a fantastic fictional book by called the wall by a guy called John Lanchester which envisages a future Britain with a massive concrete wall around our country keeping the water out keeping the refugees out I don’t think we want to end up in that situation and therefore I

Believe as difficult is as it is and however many seren voices there are saying it’s all nonsense we can just kind of ignore it I think it however we try and pursue that goal it needs to be done somehow thanck you Morgan well I think Jim completely right I me the

Answer is it’s not either all um and you know governments um are handling these two issues and many many others beside and it is all intertwined and Jim’s explained you know why obviously um climate change in other parts of the world um is going to have an effect on

Migration because people are going to come to places where even if our climate is changing it’s more temperate than other parts of the world that going to become totally inhospitable uh to um to live in I mean um Reon I going to disagree I suspect about a number of

Things this evening but I think what we can agree on is the fact that actually uh UK industry um is doing very well in developing Net Zero uh technology and is something that we should uh government should support and invest in and there are uh jobs uh there um I think the only

Thing I would say me just picking up Jim’s earlier point about you know conservative parties move more right and everything else I mean the fact is that public opinion on these things changes too and politicians do have to respond so there’s no point saying that immigration is not a concern which I do

Hear occasionally because it definitely is a concern you must hear that all the time on your program here but so too is climate change and actually um I was talking to somebody today who does a lot of work in polling when they poll public opinion the economy cost living always

Number one and then you know two three and four is is a mixture it moves around between uh NHS climate change and immigration and so those issues are of a concern you can’t solve one without you know addressing it’s really interesting because at the moment if you do a cost

Of living failing on LBC you’re not inundated with calls so when rushi sunak says well maybe it’s abating today I think could be a little bit of Truth in that but the other three issues you that you always get loads and loads of calls um right we’re going to get loads and

Loads of calls on air with our panel in just a moment 0345 6060 973 it’s 17 minutes past 8 this is LBC pump four please is it true there’s a chance to win £250 of the bpme rewards points every hour yes every single hour hey again just a

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Cheeseburger our final destination as always is home plenty of McDonald’s restaurants are open late tonight see mcdonalds.com for opening times cross question with inale on LBC with Simpson travel.com plan your 2024 holiday now our panel today is uh Nikki Morgan Rebecca Long Bailey Jim peckard from the ft and businessman David Buick and

They’re here to take your calls and text questions let’s go to a text from Steven CCH no idea how you can say the cost of living concerns are abating it’s not improving at all which leads on to a text question from Harriet in hyb should today’s cost of living payments really

Be the last well 8 million people on means tested benefits are receiving their final cost of living installment of £299 from today the prime minister in an interview this morning claimed that the burden on hardpressed households is starting to ease for which he’s got a little bit of criticism I suppose it

Depends depends on your circumstances as to whether you think the cost of living crisis is abating but should this payment today of £299 be the last Jim Pickard I mean the more the more macro question is are things getting better and secondly is Rich’s unit rights take credit for it

All and of course when interest rates and inflation were going up he he said this is all out of my hands this is all Global forces is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine causing an energy Spike and and Global inflation and he was correct about that I I think he can’t really

Turn around and say look look thanks to our tough decisions inflation’s come down from 11% to 4% whatever it is today I mean yes there was a little wage restraint in terms of the government and handling industrial action but you know inflation has come down for other

Reasons namely the bank of England um taking taking a tough approach ah should there be more payments for for people on low incomes and people on benefits I mean there’s obviously a very strong case threat um but I mean I I think the cost of living crisis is going to

Continue for quite some time time and a lot of the people who are in relative pain are sort of middle England people with homes with mortgages because you ministers like to talk quite a lot about how people refinancing right now have got a lot easier than they had six

Months ago or a year ago but you know if you were on a 3mon a threeyear fix or a 5year fix and you’re now remortgaging you are facing some horrendous increases in your payments and that process is still going to play out George Freeman has found absolutely I felt a bit sorry

For George Freeman people made it look as if he was saying he couldn’t survive on 120 Grand a year he had particular personal divorce circumstances which he wasn’t sort of saying no one can survive on this amount of money you’re a more compassionate man than I am um Rebecca L

Bailey no I don’t think it should be the last payment I think people are living through really extreme circumstances at the moment and certainly when I look at my own constituency in Salford we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of people trying to access What’s called

The household support fund which is kind of like the emergency pot of money that the council has to deal deal with people who can’t make their day-to-day living expenses and it’s expected to increase in demand over the coming year now what’s upsetting is that this is due to

Come to an end soon and the government hasn’t announced whether there’ll be a replacement for the household support fund so there are many families now worrying about how they’re going to make ends meet but I think there’s a wider discussion Beyond um inflationary issues that needs to be addressed by the

Government and an incoming labor government and that’s about housing because housing costs quite often a lot of cases of outstripping incomes at the moment and that’s certainly the case in sford where renting in the private sector isn’t affordable even if media type sort of moved well even a

Professional graduate on a good salary can’t afford the levels of rent that we’re seeing at the moment let alone those people who are on local housing allowance they definitely can’t afford to rent in the private sector and there aren’t enough social houses being built to accommodate those that are

Desperately in need Nikki well we have a budget coming up in a month’s time if in fact the month tomorrow um the budget the month yes the 6th of March isn’t it and um and I suspect that’s probably when the chancellor having seen the latest office of budget responsibility

Figures will have made decision about things like the housing support fund and and other payments and I think um there’s no doubt inflation um has come down uh including both uh food price inflation as well which I think was the really very painful bit for many uh households I take Jim’s point about

Mortgage rates having having gone up although those rates are beginning to to but it does depend on when you have to uh to remortgage um I mean the government can’t carry on making lots of extra payments where the money if you’re going to put money in to make sure it’s

Targeted is in uh probably benefits means tested benefits and you’d expect that set of announcements as I say to come uh in the uh in the budget but I mean going back to David’s Point um there is you know inevitably uh in our economy huge amounts of pressure and

Demand everybody is wanting more money whether it’s public sector wage settlements whether it’s NHS education all the Departments we putting in their spending plans at the moment and so the treasury is going to have to go through all that and work out what it is going

To be able to afford and who is going to get that most support David I’m going to go back on my hobby horse but before I do that let’s not think that inflation is going to Cascade downhill in the next six months it’s not because there’s an

Awful lot there I mean even the Federal Reserve had a real shock what they call the non-farm payrolls which is the number of people who put in employment in December was 353,000 in January a big pardon you had December and it was over 800,000 which tells me the US economy is

Buoyant I think there’s a little bit of a disturbance in Ukraine and a mild one in Gaza as well which means if they got really nasty and out of sorts oil price is currently $78 a barrel wouldn’t take lot to take it up to 100 so I ask people

To be very cautious about this thing oh you know interest rates going to Cascade downhill come the summer and the Autumn not necessarily because we’ve got a lot of geopolitical problems out there to take Rebecca’s point and she makes a very strong case and I do that so I’m going to bang my

Hobby horse if we want people to have a better standard of living do something about investment create work create jobs create profits so people spend a lot of money and therefore that goes into the treasury and then to Public Services it’s the only way out of jail now

Because as Nikki said everybody wants money and there isn’t enough go run but do you think the chancellor has the imagination to do that sort of thing in the budget because he’s not known as radical politician he’s not I I really think that for me it’s the last row of

The dice for the simple reason that we are still massively risk Avers in business and that is just something that’s been generated as a result of covid people working at home things going not as swimmingly as they should Jim made a point the econom is improving

But it needs to select about five more gears for me before we really get tracking that’s why I think it’s hugely important that he does something to make business really sit up and take notice stamp Duty corporation tax and I only got a very little limited Headroom but

That’s where I do my sums I referred to something earlier on in the program in our business update is what I call the tumbridge Station Car Park index where for the F it’s true the first time in four years my station car park was full apart from two spaces when I went to

Park my car to come in today now that hasn’t happened since Co now you can either put that down to more people going to work on a Tuesday um and not working at home or if you’re going to be ultimately optimistic you can say well that proves that the economy is getting

Better now I I’d like to think it was the latter but I actually believe it’s the former what do you think I think it’s a bit of both I mean I think basically you’re right in where you are but I do get this sense now that for instance the banking fraternity not the

Most popular sector in the world I accept but having been very happy Nat West JP Morgan all these stay at home it’s not a problem uh-uh get your backside into work now and that is coming back into lots of areas of business and I think when that comes back you get this wonderful

Interpersonal skill Joy which we get which is people you don’t get the monosyllabic ug Merchant so uh uh have you ever been in our news room no but no seriously it’s so wonderful to see people communicate talk negotiate create deals create ideas you can’t do that from home and therefore I’m so

Proud and if you’re right I and I sincerely hope you are and I hope T is not the only place that’s happening because I think it would be 7 X2 apparently I mean is it happening in S I mean do you do you feel as Norman Lamont

Might have put it the green shoot starting to come or do you do you think we’re that this is going to last for an awful lot longer no I think people are managing as best they can certainly in Salford um you know and our local authorities doing its very best to try

And encourage investment into our own local area to spur on um Local Economic growth but it’s not receiving the support that it needs from central government and that’s because there’s a huge black hole in the public finances and as David says you know there’s two ways that you know the government and an

Incoming government addresses that it either invests strategically overall in the economy through things such as a green New Deal or it taxes and the problem is with taxation at the moment is that most people cannot afford to pay more in tax that’s not to say we can’t

Have discussions about a wealth tax for example and that’s certainly something that I think the government and incoming government should be looking at um to try and deal with some of the issues that the public sector is facing at the moment okay can I just have one very

Quick thing I think one thing I would say that food banks in 2024 Are Holy unacceptable and therefore some some kind of help even if it’s not another £299 in but towards those that really needed I think is essential okay well we’re going to move on to a very very

Difficult question in a minute um I’m not going to tell you what it is that’s a tease ladies and gentlemen to make you stay listening it’s 8:30 on LBC uh let’s get the news headlines with Charlotte Morgan it’s understood the King has traveled to Sandringham via helicopter

After being seen in public for the first time since his diagnosis Charles was visited by Prince Harry at Clarence house earlier who flew back in from California there’s been a new last confirmed citing of the Clapham chemical attack suspect in central London Abdul aidi was captured on CCTV heading

Towards Victoria embankment around 3 hours after a woman and her two children were injured and the Watchdog is investigating eight metropolitan police officers after a black teenager was stopped in search six times in 5 months complaints were made by the 16-year-old and his mother after it happened in two

Areas of of London last year LBC weather outbreaks of rain continuing to spread southwards tonight with lows of minus three some rain in the southwest tomorrow mostly dry elsewhere a high of 10 weekdays from 700 a.m. call me cynical I don’t believe a word of it straight to the point why was the

Promise made Nick Ferrari at breakfast on LBC Minister what the hell are you thinking listen on your radio and Global player the official LBC app tea time just finishing H work what’s a replacement for fossil fuels um wind power I’ve got wind power especially when I eat beans Archie when it comes to

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Required condition supply ask and store for details cross question on LBC with Simpson travel.com for a selection of exclusive handpicked Villas 834 gek I don’t I’ve been just debating the merits of saltburn I don’t know how many of you have seen it but uh don’t watch it while you’re eating is

All I can say and certainly don’t watch it with your mother or your grandmother um he thought it was gray ignore him he’s completely WR right Jim peard is here Deputy political editor of the financial times David Buck businessman he’s co-host of the global player podcast money with Michael Wilson

Rebecca L Bailey is labor MP for sford and Eckles and former Shad cabinet minister and baroness Nikki Morgan conservative Pier who was a cabinet minister under David Cameron and Boris Johnson what was the difference oh my goodness me where do I where do I start um I suppose David

Cameron was sort of not long after the election so it was a very clear um agenda I mean look one was pre-brexit one was post and that was so that time Westminster those are two big differences right let’s go to uh this difficult question that Hassan in

Cambridge is going to pose to you all hello Hassan hello you really put pressure on me um is anti-zionism distinct from anti- semitism and does the panel believe that it’s an acceptable belief protected by the UK equalities act now there’s a judgment today in the Professor David Miller case which said

Having anti-zionist views is an acceptable political Viewpoint and is distinct from anti-Semitism now Professor Miller has won uh an employment tribunal case against the University of Bristol which sacked him after concluding he had made anti-semitic comments in a lecture when he listed Zionism as one of five sources

Of islamophobia the tribunal ruled that anti-zionism beliefs qualified as a philos philosophical belief and are therefore protected by the equality act meaning Bristol University had breached the law by sacking the professor so as I say it’s it’s quite a difficult one this from an ethical point of view from a

Religious point of view from um an point of view of whether you believe that anti-zionism is the same as anti-semitism um Nikki let’s come to you first you were ding that weren’t you no well uh I mean it’s a it’s on one level it’s a fascinating question I’m a former

Lawyer and these are the kinds of things that you can imagine this being debated in um amongst um well everybody I suppose but law students for many years to come I I presume there’ll be some sort of appeal I have to be honest I think this um first reading and I don’t

Know the details behind it all but this judgment makes me feel extremely uncomfortable um and I think that um my worry would be that by somehow saying that anti-is and anti-Semitism are different things somehow you’re giving some sort of License to um uh you know anti-zionism um and then you are asking

The courts and others to be tread an even an Ever more difficult line um of uh comments that are acceptable in this case in a workplace or or not um and in a in a lecture theater and I think that’s incredibly difficult for uh for employers and others uh to do and My

Worry is that people hide behind um what is actually an anti-semitic comment by saying that it’s anti- Zionist and actually you’re somehow licensing something which um should be unacceptable in all form but that that is you know a reaction from hearing this first off David

Bick wow like ni is I think it’s a very difficult one because I think they’re pretty closely aligned um anti-Semitism I think we all know is pretty clear but in terms of anti-is I suppose it’s associated with being critical of the Israeli government say in their actions

In Gaza and you could say that they had a very strong point to be able to make after the 8th of octob 6th of October whenever it was which was an absolute atrocity of the worst possible time but then I think a lot of people felt this

Overkill and you know what’s gone on since then to some people is very unacceptable and I would call that anti-zionism uh really well well there’s a difference between being anti the Israeli government and actually not believing that Israel has a right to exist as a state which is what my understanding of

Anti-is I suspect your understanding is greater than mine I mean I’ve always felt it it’s to do with Israel uh and its policies Ro and being Jewish if you know what I mean and yeah you’re you’re right but I think it’s entirely acceptable to criticize the actions of

Benjamin nanu um without being labeled an anti-zionist ah well that’s where I think it’s a question of understanding I mean know making me doubt myself let’s let’s have Jim is the Arbiter here I’m no legal expert I don’t know the details of this legal case it’s an area that I avoid stumbling into

Because of my lack of knowledge of of that part of the world the only things I would say that we have seen some conflation in recent years between what is anti-Semitism what is criticism of the state of Israel when it does certain things and I think we should be just

Careful of of keeping those two things rather separate one view I do share with Nikki is that I’ve noticed some young people sort of using Zionist almost as some kind of you know insult as if it’s a bad thing to be a Zionist and you can

Disc you can discuss the ins and outs of the formation of Israel and all the rest of it but my message to people is just be a little careful about talking about this kind of issue because you can you can unwittingly stumble into anti-Semitism on Rebecca well I haven’t seen the Judgment

Or looked at the case and with my lawyer head on I I struggle to see how how the tribunal has come to that decision is normally when you’re looking at discrimination it’s on certain protected characteristics and they’ve never as far as I’m aware gone into that level of

Detail in identifying what belief could be and what belief couldn’t be it’s usually you know your religion or you know your ethnic group that determines your protected characteristics so I’d have to read what it says but I think it’s about context isn’t it and um an understanding whether what’s been said

Is acceptable or not and whether it is actually anti-semitic or not I’d have to see what was actually said um Hassan are you still there would you like to come back and give your view look um yes uh thank you look I think these are very distinct and um I think

The anti-Semitism has no place in in an education institution or Society but anti-zionism is a criticism or critique of the state of Israel which is a political entity which has been around for 75 years and I think it should be perfectly acceptable to critique that and also question whether that should

Have been created in the first place it does not mean you’re anti-jewish it just means that you have a different political opinion about historic events and current events okay Hassan thank you uh let’s move on to Billy in ventar on the aisle of white hello Billy hi good

Evening and good evening panel I’ve got a question about the dental crisis in this country I’ve been on well I say a waiting list I can’t even get on the waiting list at the moment on the a of white and and that’s it’s been in the news recently my simple question is what

Do the panel think is the solution to the so-called Dental crisis and all the dental deserts well the government set to announce plans to offer dentist cash bonuses for taking on more NHS patients along with offering up to 240 dentists an extra £20,000 to work for 3 years in so-called

Dental desert s areas with very little access to dentists uh meanwhile hundreds of people have turned have queued outside the new NHS dental practice which opened in Bristol yesterday police had to be called to send them home last night and people were back in the queue

In the early hours of this morning I mean that that is an incredible situation in many ways isn’t it um Jim let’s go to you first on that with your fine pair of nashes so I have an NHS dentist but they’re in such rare Supply

That this is is the place I lived in 22 years ago and I’ve kept going back despite having moved house three or four times since then I keep going back the same place struck off also the fascinating thing here is you know London is one of the places which

Actually has a decent supply of dentist greater Manchester Birmingham couple other big cities still do but I was shown a map by an MP a Tori MP a couple of days ago which shows the full extent of these Dental deserts now it may sound like little pockets here and there it’s

Enormous it’s most of rural England it’s the whole of Cornwell the whole of Devon most of Norfolk does not have a single dentist which is willing and available to take on new adult patience it’s different with kids but you know this is a really serious problem um the only

Devil’s Advocate thing I would ask and maybe other people on the panel will know this better than me is from my understanding private dentists don’t actually charge that much more are there enough of them to pick up the slack I don’t know well I had an appointment with my dental hygienist this afternoon

Um I can assure you she charged quite a lot 85 quid more wow I think 6 I’ll tell you what it dental hygienist are the most sadistic people in the whole country hello Tanya David Jim has obviously done his homework on this I think you’ve seen the

Questions before we came here old son yes I do I absolutely do all I can say is that this has been a a weeping saw now for 10 15 years is in this Dental situation and people have left the profession it was unbelievably cheap relatively to go to the dentist under

The national health system and as costs have gone up as the price of property to rent has gone up as the cost of dental nurses have gone up unfortunately the charges have not been commensurate and people have said thank you very much indeed Dental doctors have said not for

Me so this needs is part of the overall National Health which is a sub subject which we’ probably have 10 programs with you in on but which for me suggests that with the whole of the National Health System needs a complete overhaul on a onep party system it doesn’t work you’re

Employing 1.5 million people you need to have consensus and also involve the commercial World in order to do it well I was talking to Andrew Leedom who is now the minister in charge of Dentistry um before Christmas about this and she was telling me um how the dental

Charging system works and I said well is it any Wonder no one wants to be an NHS dentist I mean if you’re actually being paid less than the cost of providing the treatment who is going to do it she’s absolutely and that’s what we’ve got to

Change so I’m hoping that she will be able to do something about it this paper that’s published tomorrow hopefully will go some way towards it I think labor making some I think West streeting was talking about this today as well Rebecca yeah no I mean Dentistry is in crisis

And in Sul doing a debate on the dentist crisis I had one of my office members ring up every single supposedly NHS dentist in sulfa to see if they were taking on patients not one of them would take patients on and it’s so acute the crisis in Greater Manchester that people

Are reportedly pulling out their own teeth with pliers because they can’t afford to go to the dentist now the labor party set out its own plan on tackling the crisis we’re offering incentives to encourage new dentists to train and become dentists with a golden hello um we’re funding an urgent access

Scheme providing around 700,000 extra appointments a year and interestingly this is what the government’s been saying today and uh well particularly with the golden hello and stealing Labor’s ideas because they don’t have any of their own Nikki well we have to wait and see what obviously is is

Announced um and I’m afraid that is politics whereby somebody says an idea and then somebody else goes well that’s a good one we’ll have that thank you very much um I do did you ever do that as a minister oh I couldn’t possibly say but I’m you’re always in interested in

What other people are saying aren’t you I mean that’s part of somebody comes up with a great idea then you know isn’t that what you do in other walks of life you uh you take it on and you run with it um I remember campaigning before the

2010 election on the state of dentistry in the NHS so this is an issue that has been um around sadly for some time I don’t think there’s a shortage of people who want to be dentists I suspect that probably the opaque uh NHS charging structure and um uh and the way people

Uh would have to comply it’s not just about um the money I’m sure it’s important but it’s also probably working within the confines of of the NHS within the bureaucracy within having to follow other people’s rules um and therefore actually people set up their own because

Able to run their own businesses but the the thing that has to happen is the fact that there is massive demand um and how and this is not just Dentistry but obviously just for NHS lots of I was talking to somebody today who who was saying that um maternal Dental Health um

Mothers to be with poor Dental Health there are much more likely to be complications often in relation to um the birth of their children so really as a country we have to decide if we’re going to um fund some public Dentistry we are going to have to say it’s going

To be for children it’s going to be for for for people perhaps on particular benefits and it’s going to be for um you know mothers to be because you’re save money down the line if you’re able to look after apparently even if you are even if the taxpayer spends money on

Training you as a dentist there is no obligation to stay in the NH for a single minute let alone 5 years or that needs to change of course it does of course it does so that there are there are a number of things but I think um uh

Look this is one of the the the conversations I think uh that we uh as a country probably have not wanted to hear as a population some difficult truths Dentistry is just one of the issues for some time we are we are going to have to

And it’s going to be a brave uh person who Andrew leum is a brave politician so maybe she’s the person to lead the charge well um I’ve done my bit because I’ve given up buying sweets or chocolate and I’ve done it for 36 Days note that I’m counting every single day that

Doesn’t mean I don’t eat any I don’t buy my consumption is 95% down on what it would have been last year so I’m doing my bit I feel 848 this is LBC all the big names are here oh who is that I think she was in the movie about that

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Hotels 851 you really are going to want to listen to their answers for the fun question at the end which I won’t tell you what it is at the moment but it’s a good one Nikki Morgan Rebecca Long Bailey Jim peckard and David Buick with

Us uh let’s go to a text question from Bill who says a Tor MP said today that doctors deserve deserve a bigger pay rise than they’re currently being offered is she right well Chancellor Jeremy Hunt told his Tory colleague T Vilas that Junior doctors had a very

Fair offer uh Rebecca yes they do and they’re under incredible pressure at the moment they’ve been trying to hold our broken NHS together for the last 15 years or so with chronic underfunding they’re working all the hours God sends we clapped them during the pandemic the

Very least we can do is make sure that they’re being paid a decent salary so they’re being offered I think the equivalent is it 11.1 or 12.1% uh they’re asking for 35% what would you what do you think they should be offered well I think it’s up to the

Union to negotiate uh with that but certainly I think they deserve more than the government’s offer David it’s a it’s a very difficult one but I think it’s got to be uh more than two years I think to give somebody more than 11 and a quarter 11 and a half%

Over a 2-year period And I do accept that doctors are grossly underpaid there’s no question of any doubt about it but I think it needs probably a 5-year deal and what’s upset me is the inability for anybody to get round the table and actually talk about it because

It seems to been the silence seems to been Dey Because unless people stop striking they’re going to talk that doesn’t work you need to talk Jim I think the trade unions have been clear that the 35% pay rise they want wouldn’t just be immediate it could be spread

Over several years I mean it’s very difficult political decision to give a big pay rise to any public sector workers I think where Richi Sak is messed up is that he has his five political targets and one of those targets was getting NHS waiting list down and what is the primary reason he

Would say himself the waiting lists have gone in the opposite direction is because of the industrial action he could have solved that industrial action by paying more so leaving aside the safe of the public finances just in political terms he seems to have shot himself in

The foot Nikki well you need to pay people what’s um necessary to to to to get people back to work and and I agree perhaps Holding Out for um all strikes to be stopped before you have a conversation I mean the reality is there’ll be conversations going on

Behind the scenes um and those are very important conversations I think my uncomfortable I mean 35% is clearly not and I think the last time I was on this um uh panel um I said that’s clearly not going to be paid it’s not going to be something that’s affordable um My worry

Is actually when you look at what the nurses who do a fantastic job settle for I think it was a lot less than 11% um and whilst of course Dr you know train for longer take responsibility we couldn’t we couldn’t run our NHS without those wonderful uh those wonderful

Nurses so um I’m afraid to say I think that so far the demand is is something I to know IA what in what context Theresa V said it um and how she thinks that actually um that would sit with other uh public sector wage demands and negotiations that have happened great

Well let’s move on to another caller question from David engraves and hi David hi Ian hi everybody the question if Trump become president would he break up NATO short and sweet while the New York Times claims officials in the German government are concerned that the US might withdraw from NATO if Trump

Returns to the White House next January meanwhile Trump is telling Republican Senators to reject a $120 billion plan by the Biden Administration which would create $60 billion of new military aid for Ukraine and also $14 billion of aid for Israel in return for committing extra f

To the US Mexico border uh Rebecca I think Trump creates a very uncertain geopolitical times and we’re already in uncertainty times um I don’t know what he’ll do I think that’s a problem with Trump is you just don’t know what he’s capable of and what he’s going to do

Next but certainly he’s been behind um a big campaign with the Republicans to encour them to vote against Joe Biden’s bill which was a bill that kind of encapsulated aid for Ukraine and Israel along with some immigration proposals as well um now the problem with particularly Ukraine I think is that

That would undermine um International agreements that the US made in the 1990s to support the Ukraine in the event that they were ever invaded by a hostile aggressor um I think the UK was part of that agreement interestingly Russia was as well they freaked that agreement um

But that was in return for Ukraine relinquishing its nuclear weapons at the time and the point of making is is that you know you have international agreements for a reason and if you’re a country that does not observe those International agreements then it creates the impression that you can’t be trusted

In the future Nikki well um I don’t think um uh it would break up uh NATO but I don’t want to see America leave um I I read some the weekend that Congress has apparently passed uh something to say that actually the a future president could not pull out of NATO without

Congressional approval and I was very pleased course it depend Who Running Congress I guess but I was very pleased to see that that extra check was there true I think the worst case scenario of a trump Victory from the perspective of European capitals is that the US pulls

Out of NATO potentially um that American support for Ukraine is withdrawn and perhaps in some ways we can’t predict he destabilizes the Middle East further the best case scenario is that none of that happens and the thing about Donald Trump is that I don’t think necessarily even

He knows what he’s going to be doing tomorrow or next week let alone next year he seems to say a lot of things off the top of his head he’s completely capricious we know that already David it’s a wonderful podcast that lbc’s Lewis Goodall had with Lord David Owen

About Trump and as you know his wife is American de and she says Trump will be the next president and he heaved a huge s of Lea But to answer your question depends which way the wind’s Blowing that okay that’s interesting right uh let’s move on to our fun question for the end of the program this is from Michelle in Liverpool a group of local school kids have joined up with the Poli police to aim speed guns at motorists as part of a road safety

Campaign what kind of weird work experience did you get through school uh Jim it’s not a weird work work experience but when I was about 16 I did a paper round and I had to cycle from my Village to the neighboring Village of Castleton and go up a hill and

Distribute all these newspapers and it took probably about an hour and a half and for 7 and 1/2 hours a week I got paid £5 and I am quite old but it’s not that long ago and for the for this job I was nicknamed mug by my

Friend I can top that I used to muck out my Dad’s pigs on a Saturday morning and got paid 10 P an hour you win that one yeah I think I did David I’m going to surprise you mine was really working as a bus boy at the Bam Springs hotel in

Alberta in a period of 6 months I ear $3,000 I blew it all on one card on the last night there the whole lot it’s equivalent of 30,000 quid today wow amazing and we trust you for your financial goodness me I hope still relativ I hope Nick Ferrari doesn’t know that uh

Rebecca wasn’t a work experience was my weirdest ever job when I was on the summer holidays um from University one year I’d been working parttime in a Bookshop so I thought oh I’ll go and find another Bookshop to working for the summer and there was this book shop near

Picadilly train station in Manchester and I went in and it had all train books and bus books and I was thought oh it’s thematic cuz it’s next to the train station the real books must be upstairs went and spoke to the manager and said oh I’ve got experience working in a book

Shop can I do some you know time over the summer and she was like yeah that’s great anyway I realized the week later when I started that it was a train and bus spotters Bookshop so I had six weeks giving people timetables and books about particular buses and they had a video on

Stream constantly in the shop as well that showed a bus just driving around Manchester oh God it was really random lovely people but really random wonderful I I’ve got no response to that Mi I don’t think M can compete at all and my work experience when I was at

School um I end up uh following a barister around for uh for a week um and end up in court in the Old Bailey um where what have you done strange I was sitting at the back of the Court watching as the defendants were sent down and listening to their

Families being extremely upset um as the judge pronounced quite long sentences for them to be you thought that’s a career for me and I thought I think I won’t do that bit of law I think I’ll do the other bit that involves sit behind the desk right well thank you very much

All for joining us this evening you did live up to my expectations I have to say now tomorrow we are going to be joined on the panel by the green party pier and former leader Natalie Bennett the conservative MP and former Chief whip Wendy Morton the political commentator

Benedict Spence and the journalist and author Paul Mason who’s trying to be a labor MP so in the next hour we are going to return to a subject that we covered about a month ago and it’s all about violence in schools because a primary school teacher who was beaten

And kicked by year five people that’s a that’s a 9 to 10 year- old is suing her former employer for 25,000 pounds um also th this week Sadi Khan I think has suggested that people that kids who are convicted of knife crime should not be

Excluded so I want to a ask what should what more should we do to protect our teachers from violent school children and secondly do we need to look at the exclusion rules a little bit more closely 0345 6060 973 is the number to call on your radio on global player and

Play LC leading Britain’s conversation this is LBC from Global’s kns for