Economic Growth and Future Investment

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This advertisement doesn't constitute an offer or solicitation nor a description of any products or services of AxorXL Hello, So the first half of today's podcast is going to be about something that is happening, the heat wave, which pretty much everyone in Britain is experiencing in some form or another. And the second half is going to be about something that's about to happen, which is Andy Burnham's entrance to number ten Downing Street and what more we've learned about what kind of prime Mister he might be. So those are two things we're going be serving you on this episode of Newscast Newscast. Newscast from the BBC. I will resign. as leader of the Labour Party. And what will you do . Hanity's next great voyage begins. You know I like my busses. I'll come on to them. It's supposed to be me as a doctor. Thinking about it like a panter help. Do we play music now or what do we do? Hello, it's Adam in the Newscast studio. and as we're recording this episode of Newscast on Thursday, another heat record has been broken, the hottest June day in England since records began and it was in Yovilton. And just before that this morning, on Thursday, the Met Office had extended their red extreme weather warning into Friday and it will now be in place for southern England, including London. until nine PM on Friday. So if you thought it was going be a little bit less hot sooner, rather than later, it's now going be later, rather than sooner. So let's talk about what is causing this extreme weather and how it fits into the context of our changing climate. Because we're joined here in the Newscast studio by the BBC's climate editor, Justin Roowt. Hi, Justin there You' in your shorts? Be I've been rushing around the car. I know I'm trying to report this hot weather. This is my dilemma because I still feel I can't wear shorts in the office because I'm a journalist in the BBC. but actually maybe that's something that need that's a norm that needs to change for a warming world. But I must say I did feel self conscious as I flapped in my Birkenstock shoes and scuff scruffy sh. You look great though, don't. Also down the line, and I can't see him, so I actually don't know what he's wearing iss Professor Ed Hawkin, who's a climate scientist the University of Reading. Hello, Ed. Hi Adam. How are you? Good thanks. I can see you on a screen through the glass, but I can only see you from kind of chest up. so you could be wearing Bermuda shorts or swimming back I in shorts yes, home, yes Now Ed, just before we start our discussion, explain to newscasters why every couple of days I drink my morning coffee in my house out of one of your mugs. So yes, I created a graphic called The Climate Stripes, which is a very simple representation of changes in temperature over time just using simple colored stripes going from dark blues back in one hundred fifty years ago to bright reds today And just to link what's happening this summer with my mug, your mug, your design, are you going to have to do a new version of the mug that's got even darker red stripes for this year, last year, next year We've already had to change the colours over the last couple of years because they've been so hot to add extra cols to represent the extreme temperatures over the last couple of years Justin, we'll do the numbers in a bit, but just give me a flavor of what youve how you've been experiencing the heat wave So I start on Sunday morning on Primrose Hel in London he' seeing this heat wave stretch ahead of us and I haveve been rushing through the heat ever since yesterday was a particular adventure as we tried to chase, tried to get to the hogest place in Britain phoning BBC weather getting getting sent to, you know Hearn in just outside Bournemouth and then we're going to go to somebody somewhere called Wiggan Ford, which I think is an ex exort And you ended up in Gosport. ended up record fininally in Gosport Fy got got to overlook Gosport. We got to be clear that was we couldn't actually make it to Gosport. We got down and could see gosport in our camera. so we consider that a triumph and And that's on the south coast. That's on the south coast in Hampshire just outside Portsmouth and it's actually quite an unusual place, I think. Ed correct me if I'm wrong to have a really high you know record tune temperature because it's right by the sea So you would have thought it would be moderated by the sea breezes. Yeah, we often tend to find the records further inland. and I think Yogvilton's actually just beaten the Gospook record as we speak. thirty six point four, I think it isn't it? Y. Yes and we' were recording at Qarters four on Thursday afternoon and that record was set about an hour ago So Justin, how are you explaining to people on the I should call it the nine thirty news because ten o'cock the news was on it at nine and thirty last night was the football. The difference between hot weather and a hotter climate. It was really interesting. I was on another I was on a phone in program, Nickki Campbell's phone in yesterday morning and it was quite interesting. There were loads of people writing in saying Why are you making such a fuss about this? We've always had hot days, we've always had heat days, heat waves. What's the difference? And of course, they're right, we have always had hot days. We've always had heat waves. but there is a big difference. Those heat waves are happening in a different world. So the kind of high pressure systems that give us clear air give us lots of sunshine, light winds that allow the heat to really build up and now happening against a background of a significantly warmer world at one point four degrees Celsius on pre industrial levels. And that means the heat waves when they come tend to be hotter. They tend to last for longer. and they're more frequent. So yes, of course it is weather, but it's weather, as I said last night on the news, it is weather in a warming world And Ed, you've been looking at one of the periods of time that lots of people bring up when it's hot, which is the heat wave of nineteen seventy six. And I remember, yeah my grandparents telling stories about the roads melting. you could fry an egg on the boat of the car and like that's actually not actually. I think your parents would probably remember it as well. Yeah, but I feel it's more a story that my grandparents told me Which would tells you about the liquaciousness of the different generations of my family. But anyway Ed, do that thing that lots of people have been doing this week, which is comparing the hot weather now with the very, very hot weather we had in nineteen seventy six Yeah, so nineteen seventy six was certainly an extraordinary heat wave for its time We have fifteen consecutive days where somewhere reached thirty two degrees and that's an unprecedented l for a heat wave It came at the end of a year long drought. and I think that's what made it so memorable was that many people were queuing at sandpipes for water in different places around the country. There were lots of wildfires, S of the schools were shut. and so on. So yes, it was an extraordinary heat wave for its time But obviously as Justin says, the world has warmed over the past fifty years by one point about one degree since nineteen seventy six But the important point to note is that that does not mean that our heat waves have got just one degree hotter For southern England, what we've seen actually over the last fifty years, is that heat waves have got three or four degrees hotter So the extremes are getting hotter much faster than you might expect if you're just talking about global averages So that means that those fifteen days above thirty two in nineteen seventy six would be fifteen days above thirty five day. And that makes a big difference. It probably doubles the mortality that we would expect to see from such an event. And also Justin, this incredibly hot weather has coincided with London Climate Wek when lots of people come to London to talk about climate change and the science and what the political solutions and responses to that are, which is a kind of amazing coincidence whereere is the conversation about climate change with the kind of B, political, scientific elite It's interesting isn't? mean, the polical eliteue obviously is much more divided than it was, even like four or five years ago. I mean, it's hard to remember, isn't it? There used to be a kind of consensus not just among the political parties here in Britain, but among leaders around the world that this was a really serious issue that the world needed to come together and tackle. And we've seen that really melt away, haven't we? And then ironically, you see these kind suuper hot heat wave coming. remember, really early in the year for us to have a heat wave like this June instead of late July, August, which you normally typically expect. So I think that's really striking. It was quite interesting. I mean, look, obviously climatek is climate focused so you don't get the kind of businesses that aren't engaged in tackling climate change. But you know really interesting to see some big players out there The octopus event was absolutely huge.g company. the energy company, electricity company, got three or four thousand people together, had this big roster of speakers, obviously kind of literally putting its tent on the ground saying, know we want to be part of the climate discussion. And it is an interesting company in that here you've got a big new company, multi billion pound company employing I think seven eight thousand people here in the UK supplying energy to seven million households, which has kind of forged a new path in energy over just a few years. And that you know often this is the kind of behavior you expect more from a tech firm. I think You know, we should perhaps feel optimistic to see these kind of devel these kind of business exciting new businesses developing in the clean energy space. And Justin as part of the conversations around Climate Change Week, the cllimate Change committee, who kind of mark the government's homework on cutting emissions, published their latest big progress reports. I've kind of skimm the summary I haven't read all the annexes as maybe I would have done in the olden days when it was more a part of the the daily political conversation. but what's their assessment this week? Top line is emissions continue to fall down one point eight percent twenty twenty on twenty twenty four. Really interesting picture. They're saying on the one hand, electric vehicles, which remember, the government is talking about weakening the zero emissions mandate, which is a requirement that car manufacturers sell a certain proportion of cars and get fined really quite heavily if they don't sell as many low emission vehicles as they should They're talking about watering it down at the same time. The climate change committee is saying actually sales are doing really well. One in four cars are now fully electric cars sold in the UK compared to one in five. That's a significant change. twenty percent to twenty five percent, big change going in the right direction. They say we can see a pathway now to a kind of fully electric car fleet in the UK. Obviously that will take many decades to happen. On the other hand, heat pumps are really quite disappointing. The rate of growth of heat pumps has fallen massively. seeven percent last year compared to fifty six percent the year before. They're saying that's to do with a grant. But when when pressed, they say look, there are some underlying issues about the costs and the returns. because when you push them on this, know even the cllimate Change committee admits that actually it's very hard to save money with a heat pump without a flexible tariff, without solar panels, without batteries without all the other stuff, And that of course, Adam is expensive. And the whole time I've even known about the existence of the Climate Change Committee, they've basically been saying the same big thing, which is that electricity is going to have to become cheaper as we all transition to using electricity for everything rather than say using gas for your heating in the winter, which does not seem like a comfortable subject to discuss right now And actually you realize there's some poins there for Andy Burnham taking over his Prime Minister. If he really is serious about cutting people's energy bills, then actually making electricity cheaper by putting fewer government policies on your electricity bill would be a very quick, fast way of changing the proble it' also a very expensive thing to do and that is the big challenge because it then goes ont to your tax bill as opposed to your energy bill Right, Ed, a few ss things about what we're living through right at the moment. What is the role of humidity in how this heat wave feels for us all individually? Yes, Ada, that's right. So this heat wave is a bit different to some of the others we've experienced in recent years and that it is much more humid this time around and a more humid heat wave is more dangerous because it feels hotter. We've got this fies like temperature which is often quoted And the reason for this is that when it's more humid, the body finds it harder to give off heat through sweating because it's more humid air around you. Yes. and so it feels a lot hotter and is therefore more dangerous. And is that when we hear people talk about the wet bulb effect, that's what that is. Exactly right, Yes. Just giving people things to say in the pub when they're at the beer Garden and they can talk about the wet bulb effect, makes sound like an expert And then another thingounds like a fun evening. Yeah. And then this other thing that people have been talking about is just the fact that it's not getting much less hotter at night. so there's no respite. We've seen the records broken for warmest nightross across the country as well. And yes, that makes it really hard to sleep. I know I struggled to sleep last night When the temperature doesn't drop below twenty degrees, we call it a tropical night And we're seeing more and more of those happen and we'll continuous to see more of those in the future as well. I just wanted to say, I mean Cardiff. so my team is based in Cardiff. Cardiff twenty eight degrees last night, twenty eight degrees in Cardniff overnight. Tonight, I think we looked at three and four AM, it's about twenty five degrees twenty five degrees in Cardiff. I mean, this is a really hot and unusual heat wave. But here's an interesting thing about language. When you say a tropical night, your brain straightaway thinks of holidays and of something pleasant a tropical night in the UK with our houses built the way they are with no air conditioning and not enough ventilation and great insulation for keeping the heat in in winter. A tropical night is not a great thing to live through. and that's why I'm intrigued about the the red heat health alerts from the MET Office and the UK Health Security aggency, Justin, trying to sort of jolt people or scare them, but change the language from Heat waves Ses No, this is something you need to worry about because of your health and the health of vulnerable people in your family. But I think that's you've hit on something really interesting, which I think this heat wave, people really have experienced negatively. And if you go out, there aren't people out and about. Ses so quiet. Even on kind of even on Sunday when the heat was just beginning to build, we noticed no I mean, there were a few people sulving, but not very many. Most people who were out were sitting under trees It's like now in the UK in heat waves, it's got so hot, it frankly is unpleasant. And yeah, I just saw that the London Abulance service said that on Wednesday, they responded to the highest number of life threatening emergencies in their history. and that is because of the heat. Ed, we had a big chat with Emma Pinchback from the Climate Change Committee on newewscast a few weeks ago about adaptation, about what are the things you do to like the fabric of the nation make these very hot heat episodes more bearable. Are you seeing examples of adaptation actually happening and actually places where people will be feeling more comfortable in this heat wave than they would have done otherwise? I think those who've got air conditioning will be feeling rather smug at the moment that they can enjoy the cooler temperatures. But no, I think adaptation is a key issue for us to learn how to deal with heat. I think that's particularly true for people's workplaces, which are not designed necessarily for the hot temperatures and they can't be as productive when it's so hot I think it's an issue for our hospitals, you know trying to recover from surgery on a hospital board is not going to be much fun And for our schools as well, we've already seen you know lots of schools shut at the moment. and you know, imagine trying to take exams in a hot stifling exam hall to think about your future. It's not a good place today. Justin, have you seen examples of good adaptation? I have. I wanted to have something optimistic. On Monday, we went to a cool space set up in a housing estate in Tottenam Hale kind of you know, working class community in London and it was absolutely lovely. Everybody in the community who was involved had gone out for a little walk and then come in. And they were sitting around chatting and they were saying what a wonderfully cool space it was. It's called the Engine rooom in Tottenham Hill. So if you're warm and you're in Tottenam There is a place there is a place for you to go And the nice thing they made it cool. was It was air conditioned space. It was a community center, that air conditioned And the idea was you go in, you have a cup of coffee, cup of tea. they had art stuff there and it was kind of what was lovely. It was like a focus for the community And the people who'd come in were really enjoying being with each other. And obviously they felt a sense of relief coming in. One of them said Chilling for the mind chilling for the body. and it was a really chilled space. it was lovely And I can't remember if it was you that taught me this trick, but putting a bottle of frozen tap water in front of your fan in the bedroom at night is a really good way of dialing down the heat in your bedroom Except, since you've given me that advice, I've moved house and I do not have any fans anymore So's not that's not what I've been doing this far. Why didn't take your phones with you? I don't know. Well, because I was probably in denial about our warming world, even though I spent many years covering the story Right, Ed. An else you want to tell us about about what we're living through at this period Well, you know, it's very clear that things are hotter now than they were, and that's primarily because our greenhouse gas emissions, primarily from burning fossil fuels, are making every summer and every heat wave hotter than they would have been in a world without those emissions. And so yes, we need to adapt to what's going on now and to deal with the heat better. but For the future, heat waves are just going to get hotter and hotter and hotter until we manage to reach global net zero greenhouse gas emissions and stabilize the climate. I would just underscore what Ed said This isn't a natural disaster. this is a man made disaster and we are continuing to make it worse. And Justin, before you go, would you like to do a bit of marketing? I would love to. Yeah, I'd like to plug my new series, Ten Fights that madeade the Green Movement a fascinating exploration of the conflict that created the modern Green movevement. We start back with the greenpiece, the original greenpiece that founded the movement on this crazy journey of dope smoking hippies getting lost in the Arctic, trying to stop a nuclear test and how that's developed into the movement that we see now utterly fascinating program made with the assistance of members of the newscast team. you know quality assured. Absolutely and available on BBC Science from Monday Exactly. Thankk you. Justin, thank you very much. Oh, thank you and And Professor Red Hawins thanks to you too. Thank you very much Now on Thursday afternoon, the National Executive Committee, which runs the Labour Party set out the timetable for their leadership contest for finding a new Prime Minister although we know that there probably isn't going to be a contest, but there might be anyway. So here are the dates and the dates that matter. So we already knew that the nominations will open on Thursday the ninth of July and this is MPs nominating somebody and that window will close on the fifteenth of july at six PM Then that is when the window opens for affiliates to the Labour Party, so trade unions and other organizations. The window for nominations will close on Thursday, the sixteenth of july at six PM, so a day later. And then if there is only one candidate nominated, Barnum. He will then be crowned to carry on the coronation metaphor at a special conference on Friday, the seventeenth of July So if no one else gets eighty one plus nominations to challenge him. The new prrime Minister will be officially endorsed on Friday, the seventeenth of july, and presumably will walk up Downing Street pretty soon after that special conference However, if there is a challenger The next phase will be the constituency Labour Parties nominating person And then there'll be a ballot of members and supporters starting on Thursday the sixth of August, closing on Thursday the twenty seventh of August. where the result announced at a special conference on Saturday the twenty ninth of August. So in the now quite unlikely looking event of the being a challenger at Andy Burnham the winner will be announced on Saturday, the twenty ninth of August. And one other little thing that we weren't totally sure of has now been confirmed. On Monday the thirteenth of july, there will be a hustings in front of Labor MPs for all of the propective candidates. So that's prospective candidates. So you wouldn't have had to get all your nominations By then, so maybe I don't know, somebody like Al Carnes, the former defense minister might say, I want to be in the hustings up against Andy Burnham to test him And then Al Carnes wouldn't have had to get eighty one nominations to earn his place in the hustings. So actually that could turn out to be a slightly more interesting event than circumstances might suggest. Now, that's the timetable for Andandy Burnham or someone else becoming Prime Minister. Let's talk about reactions to Andy Burnham becoming Prime Minister. We had a really interesting conversation with Helen McNamara yesterday, the former Dputy cabinet secretary. Today, we're going to have an interesting conversation with Simon Jack, the BBC's business editor because he's been at the conference of the British Chambers of Commerce testing the temperature if you bardon the pun about the new Prime Minister amongst business leaders. And here's my conversation with Simon Jack, which we had at about three PM after he'd hot foted it. I've done it again conference Hello, Simon. Hello, Adam. Before we give a sense of what was happening with the business community, how was the business community coping with the heat in this conference center? I have to say that the air conditioning in there I'm not sure it was completely packed up, but it was certainly under p for the beating sun that was just in Parliament Square today. And does it make any business leader think, o yeah, I really need to double down on climate action because this conference is happening during a heat wave. this proves the climate scientists might have a point I was not really a subject. Well, weirdly, it did come up, but not in those exact terms. and in fact, quite the opposite was true. becausecause the Chancellor on wh might be her swan song in front of a business community, probably will be was sort of pressed on approach to oil and gas exploration, which as you know, has been a contentious issue. G gotot the unions want to do more oil and gas exploration, youve got the jobs, for the jobs, for the revenue for the tax, et cetera And you've got you know parts of the government who are sympathetic to that and on the other hand, you've got Ed Miller Band who is staunchly resisting those calls. And there's clearly a bit of a war of words and actually I would say ideas coming to a bit of fruition there. She was asked about it and there's two big projects which are coming up for approval. One is called Rosebank, O one iss called Jackdor. They're big fields and they've been held up through the courts and she said that she hoped that they would go through. Now that is not the same thing as ripping up manifesto commitments on New Orle and gas drilling. But clearly there is a direction of travel which and also if you factor in the Aberdina Cervative victory when they the by election in the by election where they basically ran partly on a ticket of saying that we will, you know say, yeah, green light newew ole and gas. And I think a lot of people are thinking about, yes, we all want renewables, Do we have to do that and basically you know, can we ride both horses rather than shoot one of them and shooting one of them being oil and gas? So it did come up And of course, the reason that Rosebank and Jackdaw are not necessarily scientific examples of net zero being ripped up is because they were projects that were basically approved already previous government stopped by the courts and this government's having to decide whether to approve them again. Yeah. And all I can tell you is that the people I know who are associated with these projects are supremely confident that they will find a way to approve them Where we go from there in terms of new oil and gas licenses, I think still up for Graam. It was interesting hearing what Rachel Reeves was saying because she was talking as if she's still had months and maybe even years in the job It was funny, wasn't it? Be she was she defend she went out there to defend her record. Two years ago, she was in front of that audience as a wannabe Chancellor, shadow Chancellor, promising to be pro business, pro growth, whatever. Today, she was possibly her last address to that audience as Chancellor, defending her record And and also saying that you know, I think I've got more to do and that my advice to the next chancellor would keep doing what I'm doing. So was that a subtle pitch or not so subtle pitch to keep her job and saying that stability was important, stability in her mind, I think, meaning the same chance Yeah. but I think that there was ye, I don't think she misunderstands that you the way the wind is blowing that she's very likely to be replaced as Chancellor. And did it feel like there was a Chancellor recruitment process going on at this conference and lots of the business people there were on the imaginary recruitment panel? Well, it was very interesting because I asked the question obviously because it's a very key one for business, who's going to be the next Chancellor. And's what I can tell you is there is no consensus a couple of streeting votes. I saw a couple of milliband quotes, a couple of people very anti milliband. I had a couple of people saying, I don't care who it is. It's what they do rather than the person in the job that matters. And what they want is after a couple of bruising years where they thought a government that had a charm offensive to business saying we are pro growth, pro business, feel they were slightly misled And that you know big increases in employment taxes, national living wage, a rough of new employment rights eta, etcera et ceter have been actually quite anti business. So they're saying that, you know, we felt that we were kind of sold a bit of a pup first time round, that can't happen again. And are the business leaders feeling that Andy Burnham is pro business or that he might carry on in that less pro business vein that you just mentioned there? Well, it's interesting. I think that there was a kind of will the real Andy Burnham please stand up to quote E andem was already gone back home to Manchester. two days. sorry, three days. Well, it's sort of he's got one very powerful card which to play with that community, which is that Gth in economic growth in Manchester has It's been faster than the UK as a whole. So the question is, can you take that secret source of, for example, combined authorities, more joined up planning, all that kind of stuff and replicate it at a national scale? And so there was quite a lot of interest in whether devolution greater devolution is going to be, you know, can unlock greater growth. So there's a lot of interest and I would say enthusiasm for that idea, but there was some ortion in the sense that if you're going to allow local authorities to raise additional taxes, revenue raising, split up income taxes, all that kind of stuff then there's a bit more nervousness about that. How would they actually work? So I think a lot of people are feeling their way you know as to what a Berham prime Ministership might look like. And that conversation reminds me of the conversation we had yterday with Helen Mc Namara, former Dputy Cabinet seecretary. And she was saying Her reading of what Andy Bernam has said in the last few days is that he's going to doah a big thing about evolution fiscal devolution, so allowing areas to change their tax regimes to benefit certain industries so that you can create these big clusters. But she was also talking about how Andy Burnham is inheriting quite a lot of work that's already underway. And actually Rachel Reeves announced some of that early thinking about devolution and tax revenues in the budget the last time. So there's some blueprints being being worked on already. And we should say that Andy Burnham in the minds of many, is standing on the shoulders of giants in his predecessors who are city officials Richard Leeise, Howard Bernstin, etcetera, who kind of laid the groundwork for a kind of stability. So if you've got ten running Manchesters they were running Manchester before. And if you've got local authorities where, you know on one side of the road, it's this authority, onn this side of the road,'s the other. So who gets to dig up the road and who has to tell all that kind of stuff It does matter when it tries to So Andy Berham's got a reputation within the business community as someone who appears be able to get things done. And I heard that phrase a lot today. Although so much of Manchesterism as it's come to be known, that you witness when you're in Manchester seems to be based on investment from abroad. For example, there is a whole tram terminus called the Ettihad campus because it's the Etihad Stadium and lots of other buildings that were built by and sponsored by Etti Had because they're based on investment from the Gulf. I mean, that's something the government under Kure Starmer was doing in a big way anyway, wasn't it? taking the tin around places like the Gulf. With quite a lot of success in the years. I mean, that's the interesting thing because one of the biggest Trump cards that the government played over the last couple of years.' saying to international investors what you know you've had five P prime ministers blah, blah blah, seven business secretaries, whatever the numbers are We can offer you a bit of stability And so you're going to be dealing with us from now on. Now obviously clearly in the current circumstances, that card is hard and l when we've got a new look government on the way. So but yeah, so there's a question about foreign direct investment Soort of the Ety hads, of course have a big relationship with Manchester City, of course, you know, that Manchester the football team. So that obviously helps But they also had on stage today Andy Halde. Now he used to be the chief economist of the Bank of England He's currently the president of the British Chambers of Commerce. and importantly, he very much has the ear of Andy Burnham. He's one of his key advisors, along with Jim O'Neill, Lord O'Neill, who used to be former economist for Goldman Sachs. And what was interesting about Andy Haldane is he said, we need more British capital going into British business And he gave a very clear idea of how that would work, saying that at the moment, we've got nine trillion dollarss worth of sort of personal wealth in the UK. and he likened that to a reservoir next to what he like into a farm, which is the UK economy? And he said at the moment, this reservoir isn't irrigating the farm which is right next door. So you need to get pension savings and put it into the UK economy. And then you think, well, how do you do that? Do you force them to do it? What you do was the clear message is at the moment, when you put money into your pension, you get tax breaks on it. And so you're getting sixty billion pounds worth of tax breaks across the UK Most of which money is being invested in the stock markets abroad. Less than five percent of pension savings goes into UK shares. is spectacularly low compared to our comppitors like, for example, Australia, it's about forty percent in the US. it's sixty percent, what have you. And so we're giving a massive tax break. savers to put money into NvIidia and Amazon And he clearly was joined but that is another example of where Andy Barnham and whoever his chancellor is might end up being Kurestarmer and Rachel Reeves plus plus plus becausecause Rachel Reeves was already doing lots of things try to encourage people's savings to go into UK stocks with Ample reducing the amount you can put in a cash isA Correct to encourage you to put it in stocks and shares ice. Yeah. And he referenced that. He there are two major issues. There's one called the Manansion House Accord, which was getting a bunch of insurance and pension companies. to sort of voluntarily, but not really voluntarily, put five percent of all their assets into UK assets And there's also the cash ISO, which is you know, basically reduce the amount of cash you can hold because it's not a very productive asset I think this was a much more powerful lever that Andy Haldane was talking about, which is that you're not going to get a tax break for investing in foreign companies. You're only going to get a tax break if you invest in UK companies. And I know that to me you know, with a little bit of financial nails seems to be quite a powerful lever, right? Interesting. It's now making me think that Kir Starmer and Rachel Reeves been like diet Andy Burnham. and what we're now going to get is full fat? full fat or Andy Burnham zero, depending on what tastes. So yeah, intriguing. Anything else you picked up from the very Hot conference centwer? We haven't discussed. This' iss a latent level of optimism in the sense that you know inflation is coming down. And when Rachel Reeves defended her record, she said Listen ard, you know, had defense was that, you know, when I came in, public finances was a little out of control, lots of unfunded spending promises We basically had to put business up on taxes. We took it easy on you from the last budget U but we've got public finances, inflation, on a firmer footing. And I think there was a general acceptance that that was probably right. but what they want is just they just want to be left alone in a way to get on with it. And this is very interesting. So this is where Burnhamism or Manchesterism comes in. because Andy Burnham is not a get out of the way and let business do what they want to do. It's a much more muscular interventionist role that he imagines for the state And he says it worked in Manchester, it can work elsewhere. Not everyone is convinced by that. Although sometimes that muscular role involves saying to housing developers actually you can build less affordable homes than you might have to do in other places to get this development built. Yeah. Well be muscular and the sort of pulling back rather than pushing forward. Yeah. anyway, the thing I heard more than oftenough I've mention this already is that he looks like some who can things done and that was if that's true You know, we're all always f Fascinating, Simon, thank you very much. Whats you Adam Right, That's nearly it for this episode. exxcept we've got another entry for Supporter Reporter. It's from Nathan. He says, Hi Newscastam. I'd love to put myself forward as your fan reporter for England. H Oh or the USA at the twenty twenty six World Cup. I'm English, an England fan through and through and I now live in Frisco in Texas, about thirty minutes north of Dallas, which is one of the host cities. I've been in the US for eleven years, married my American wife Nina in july twenty twenty five