Piers Morgan Uncensored - Piers Morgan Uncensored: Kwarteng U-turns on tax cuts

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

On tonight's episode of Piers Morgan Uncensored, Piers reacts to the Government's plans to scrap the 45p tax rate. Kate McCann and Piers Morgan discuss whether they think Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng will last until Christmas. Ann Widdecombe and Piers have a fiery debate over the tax cut U-turn, whilst Economist Mark Littlewood joins Piers from the think tank 'The Institute of Economic Affairs' as they face criticism for their potential part in the mini-budget. Piers Morgan challenges eco-activist Kai Bartlett after human faeces was poured over a Captain Sir Tom Moore memorial in a protest against private jets. Watch Piers Morgan Uncensored at 8pm on TalkTV on Sky 526, Virgin Media 627, Freeview 237 and Freesat 217. Listen on DAB+ and app.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tonight on Pierce Morgan Uncensive, failure becomes fast. The British government implodes over unfunded tax cuts. The crisis they caused rages on. What now for Liz Truss's economic strategy? I'll talk to the boss of a think tank dubbed the brains behind the policy. Thus fury at the filthy desecration of a memorial to national hero, Captain to Tom Moore. I'll take on one of the protesters who supports this live in the studio. This is Pearz Morgan Uncensored.

Good evening for London. Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored. Let's be clear, this wasn't a U-turn. A U-turn means turning around and going back in the direction you came from, but you can't turn a car round when you've driven it off a cliff. That's exactly what Liz Truss and Quasi Quarteng

have done with the British economy, taking the reputation of the Conservative Party and possibly their own political careers with them. It's though turning back now. Their reckless, arrogant decisions have already cost the British economy billions. They've already blown. and up mortgages. Millions now face crippling new bills in the middle of the worst cost-living crisis and memory because of their actions.

The markets panic when they announced their unfunded tax cuts simply because investors have no confidence in the government. Tell me exactly why they or anybody else should have confidence in this. Here's Kwasi Kwa Teng, a couple of days after announcing his disastrous policy. So we're bringing forward the cut in the basic rate and there's more to come. We've only been here in 19 days. I want to see over the next year people retain more of their income. Pouring more and more fuel onto the fire he'd started for the record. Here's what I said the very next day.

With their massive tax cuts, mostly for the rich, Prime Minister Liz Truss and Chancellor Quasi Quarteng have taken a reckless gamble with our economy, and so far that gamble is failing. So how did that gamble work out? Well, the pound crashed, interest rate spite that Bank of England had to intervene, save pensions and millions of people.

Still yesterday, fingers in her ears. Prime Minister LidsTrust said this to the BBC's Laura Coonsberg. Are you absolutely committed to abolishing the 45-pence tax rate for the wealthiest people in the country? Yes. Well, she was, but it turned out only for a few hours because the very next morning, this morning, she reversed. The Chancellor, what he came out and said this. We were focused on delivering the growth plan.

there's a lot of good stuff in the growth plan. And what was clear talking to lots of people up and down the country, talking to MPs, talking to voters, talking to our constituents, was that the 45P rate was becoming a huge distraction. A distraction? A distraction, Chancellor, would be if a fly suddenly moved past my head and distracted me. What you did collapse the economy,

destroyed the pound temporarily, and even with the markets in meltdown, you and your Prime Minister spent a full week doubling down on your ridiculous decision. And you knew best. We were all wrong. I asked tonight, how can any of us trust them again with our finances? They wanted to cut taxes for the rich. They refused to tax energy companies as they roll in their billions of unexpected profits. They lifted any cap on bankers bonuses, all with no independent financial oversight.

Didn't even tell their cabinet about half this stuff. always going to be a tone-deaf disaster. The only people who couldn't see that were running the country. Well, now confidence in them is shattered, perhaps permanently, because first impressions last. That's why this isn't a U-turn, it's a car crash, and they're expecting us to pay for the repairs. Well, joining me now.

I've talked to the political editor at Kate McCann. Kate, I have seen some whopping mistakes in my time. This is one of the biggest I can remember, to have to basically do a U-turn on this huge tax cut policy on the morning of your own conference when you've only been in the job three weeks. I mean, for Quasi Quartang a disaster, for Liz Truss a disaster,

for the Conservative Party a disaster. Yeah, I mean, look, it's actually, in some ways, even worse than that, because how it came about last night was absolutely fascinating. I mean, we're all here at Conservative Party conference. You know, peers, that these events don't end at normal working day. times seven, eight o'clock. They go on until midnight, one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning.

And so there was a party last night where Liz Truss gave a speech. It was for the 1922 committing Conservative Home, really an audience of her biggest supporters. She's still on the stage. She said, I'm all for difficult decisions. Conservatives tax cuts. I love the city. I love business. We shouldn't be ashamed of making these arguments. Essentially, I'm not going to U-turn. But crucially, she had already, when she gave that speech, made the decision to do exactly that, to go back on that 45P tax rate. And so those in the room looking back on it are now wondering, well, hang on a minute,

what was she saying to us when she was promising all these difficult decisions would be stuck to? And again, you know, a late night party last night, journalists and cabinet ministers there, this whisper goes around the room that the 45P rate policy is gone, and the immediate response was,

no, surely not. They're not going to do that, are they? Even cabinet ministers didn't believe it, didn't know about it, weren't told about it. Some of them, including Jacob Rees-Mogg, found out this morning from a tax... message by Theresa Coffey, the Deputy Prime Minister. This is a party that has been rocked by the response to what they saw, many of them,

as a fundamentally conservative budget. They didn't expect what happened to happen in the markets, and now they are trying to reassure both the markets and the party here that they are still the right people for the job. The problem here is that the Conservative Party has always traded off its economic credibility, and when you knock into that, particularly the time when Labor is trying to gather momentum in the polls, well, things can look pretty dangerous for you. I thought one of the worst things that they did in the whole farcical process was the Prime Minister yesterday,

admitting they'd failed to do the groundwork for this mini budget. I mean, how could you fail to do the groundwork for a budget of this magnitude with the repercussions and implications so gigantic? It just seemed to me a complete failure of economic competence from a party, which has always prided itself on being the party of economic competence. Yeah, and I think a lot of people heard that. from the prime minister and had some questions about it because she had laid a significant amount of economic ground work in her leadership way she'd indicated that she was going to make the tax cuts that she wanted to and then did do in the

mini budget the problem was that they then went further the forty five p tax rate was a surprise to most of the cabinet when they heard it in the house of commons and the indication as you said from quasi quatering the chancellor the next day that there would be more to come those are the things that the markets really reacted to they'd priced in a lot of the other elements of this. There were some questions about borrowing, yes. Some of those

closest to Liz Trust, her economic advisors, those within the circle had warned her, go steady, don't do anything too rash, the market's a jittery, just do what you have to do. Send a signal, yes, but don't go too far. And for some reason they chose not to listen, and now they're trying to wind that back. And it is difficult. The mood here, you know, usually the Conservative party has quite a buoyant conference. There are a lot of MPs here. You do not have to go very far or even ask them a question for them to start telling you how bad things are. Even, I have to say, the ones who are out defending the government, behind the scenes, they say, well, we'll lose our seats. This is probably going to be my last party conference, maybe the last

but one. We're not in a great place. It's actually almost like a sort of funeral parlour behind you tonight, which is probably the right kind of mood. Final question, and a quick one, Kate, as you look around the morgue. I would say very, very, very high likelihood that one of either Quasi Quarteng or Liz Truss or potentially both gone by Christmas. Will you take that bet? No.

And I know we've been here before and I know how it ended last time but no, because there is no appetite in the party for a new leadership contest and because List Trust has firmly tied her wagon to quasi-Quartans and I don't think she can get rid of him. I might be wrong. I think you were wrong last time

and I think you'll be wrong again. You should just trust old Mystic Morgan, I'm afraid. Kate McCann, good to talk to you. We'll be back with you tomorrow night. Good luck down there. Don't ever enjoy the atmosphere, my God. Good to see. Let's get into my panel tonight.

Former Conservative Minister Anne Whittickham, former newspaper editor, Emily Shevlin, columnist and the Chief Data Reporter for the Financial Times, John Burr-Muddle. So, John, let me start with you, because we need someone with your pedigree. Chief Data Reporter of the FT, number crunch this in language we can understand. In all your time covering economic matters, have you ever seen such a cack-handed display of economic incompetence by government?

It's pretty astonishing, isn't it? I think the key thing here is that it wasn't just that this was a big move. It was a completely unforced move. A lot of people asked last week, why have the markets responded to this? that most of the sort of fiscal weight of what was announced in the mini-budget was stuff that had been leaked before. The bulk of it was the energy bill, the energy price guarantee. But the key point is that was sensible.

That was something that any government, any economist, any member of the public, looks at and says, okay, I can see why that was done. We needed that. It costed a lot of money, but it was necessary. You look at something like cutting the top tax rate or getting rid of the cap on bank as bonuses. And sure, while the numeric amounts in terms of the additional borrowing or the additional sort of fiscal costs were smaller,

it's what it signalled. And I think it just signalled that this is a government, a leadership that has completely abandoned economic orthodoxy and completely unmoored itself from where the British population is on these issues at a time when economic issues, the cost of living, were at the forefront of everyone's minds. I mean, you're shaking your head, Anne. I'll come to you while you're doing that.

in a moment, but it just seemed to me that the optics of the whole mini budget were completely skewed. It just looked like they were trying to reduce taxation on wealthy people. They were trying to spare bankers and take away all their bonus caps, that they weren't going to punish energy companies with a windfall tax because they wanted them to flourish too. Meanwhile, you've got all these millions of people really suffering, and this cost of living crisis going, well, whose side are you on here? Well, that is the PR failure, and it was a very important.

very, very big failure. And I think if Liz Trust failed to lay the ground at all, it was in the preparation for the reasoning for it. Now, if you just take the cap on bankers' bonuses, for example, the idea is that because all the EU does have a cap, if we didn't have a cap, we would be more competitive, we would attract investment. Now, that isn't something that happens 24 hours later, but it's something that does happen. And that was the reasoning behind it. It wasn't to give the richer break. It was to actually... No, but I'm talking about the optics of it. Yes, okay, let me come to that.

You might be talking about a reality. I've seen people defend it. When you put those three things together, the combined effect was we're looking after the wealthiest people in society. Well, first of all, that 150 billion that we've spent on the energy price cap to try and keep down bills for households, 150 billion, a mere 2 billion, if that, it was probably going to be cost neutral. But hang on.

No, no, no. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. You hang on. You hang on. Which of us is going to hang on? It's my show. I'm going to say what I'm going to say. The problem is, if you suddenly see mortgages and rising, pensions crashing and so on, then the damage that is done by this mini-budget far out does any of the benefits you're talking about.

So this all happened, hence the screeching you two. First of all, you were hysterical last week about the pound. The pound has now gone back. And as far as pensions go, there was also a bit of risky trading that was going. on anyway, so it wasn't just at the budget. But those things people don't take in. What really flabbergasts me is that after all that talk, that tough talk, you know, the talk about being Churchill, if you like, they've actually turned into the Grand Old Duke of York. Well, that's the same thing I think. The Grand old Duke of York. Right. So, Emily, I mean, the problem for Liz Truss is she was going to be the new Thatcher. She wouldn't be fraternity.

She would take the difficult decisions and stick by them. And in the space of literally 10 days, she's performed a massive U-turn, humiliating U-turn. She's proved she is for turning, and she ain't no, Margaret Thatcher. And it's about a fiddling little thing like the two billion. Well, it may be fiddling to you, Anne. It's not a fiddling's a lot of people. I don't think it is. She looks utterly incompetence, so does her Chancellor,

because this was three weeks in. She's stitched like someone sort of running into a party to announce themselves in their brand-new frock, and everyone thinks, okay, we'll just have a look at this girl, and literally falling flat on her face. I think she has completely lost credibility. Can we survive? I think they can survive, but you've got to think the U-turn.

Everyone's focusing on the tax cut U-turn today. They didn't just U-turn on the tax cut. They had to praise to high heaven our British institutions, the Bank of England. I think they're going to have to bring forward that OBR report. They can't leave that till the 23rd of November. And they spent the summer slagging off the civil service and Treasury Orthodoxy, they look so.

stupid, sorry, reckless, stupid. Well, the OBR report is actually been brought forward. It's now being credibility. On that point. I think that credibility is gone. Either way. Whether you take Emily in my view,

which is this has been a total disaster and therefore damaging, or your view, which is a show in political weakness, which is also very damaging, either way they're very damaged. That is undeniably true. I mean, they are... And the polls are catastrophic.

I mean, today another poll just coming out, Redfield and Wilton strategies, a 28-point lead for Keir Starlin. It was 35 last week. You said that they're getting better, do you. But you said whether do you think she can survive, the problem is, and you're about to have the IEA director on, I think, because even he said this morning, having said on Radio 4, oh, I've never seen her change her mind.

Well, I mean, which has. Through our career, she's often changed her mind about a lot of things. But, and I don't mind flexibility in politicians, actually. Her bigger problem now is her position in the party. is so weakened. This isn't going to be the only thing she U-turns on. We're going to see her U-turned on so many difficulties. Well, they've got her on the run. She's weakened. Right. This is the thing, isn't it, John. It's not an incredibly weak. Right. But you've got people like, you know, Michael Gove and Grant Shaps, all the ones who basically left the stage, but are festering away about what's gone down.

When you see them all taking her on and getting an immediate win, that to me is a real problem for an incumbent new prime minister, because the confidence from her own party, seems to be less than it is in the wider communities. Absolutely. I think it was astonishingly bad politics. I think the key thing in the polls is the Tory is obviously a key thing for them in 2019 was winning over this chunk of former Labour voters. Those Labour voters are left wing.

If you come out and say we're going to cut taxes for the rich, you've immediately lost them and you can see that in the polls now. About one in five people who voted Tory at the last election are now saying they're going to vote Labor. I think it's the voters, it's the more moderate members of the party. I think that the Red Wall would have hated this mini budget. Absolutely. It gets almost calibrated.

Why do we call it a mini budget? It's bigger than most budgets I've ever seen. Even he said today, he called it a budget. I think the other interesting thing is... His body language, I mean, there was a moment here in his speech today to Maturis where he sort of almost looks like he's enjoying himself. Watch this. But I can be frank.

I know the plan put forward only 10 days ago has caused a little turbulence. I get it. I get it. We are listening and have listened. And now I want to focus on delivering... A little turbulence chuckle, chuckle from the party faithful. Are they still not getting this? Do they not realise the damage they've done to the British public?

Mortgage rates. I mean, again, a little turbulence, and you've got people who are trying to buy a house now are trying to refix their mortgage. And they're screwed. Like you mentioned this earlier, the amount of money we were talking about households losing as a result of the entire cost of living crisis

pales in comparison to what people who are refixing their mortgage will hit now. Right. This is people's real lives. But interest rates were going up. Those mortgage packages will return. So, you know, about 300 were moved. You could still get a mortgage for about, I think it was about 3% to 4%.

So there's interest rates are going up. The catastrophic thing for the trust government now is they are going to own that. And interest rates were going up and the Bank of England would have carried on. I mean, I watched quasi-quartic. They just piled so much on themselves. The Chancellor's job is to be calm, stable and make us all feel reassured. I watched a guy today. The Trump's job is to fire up the economy,

and that was what they were trying to do by going for growth. I'm all for that. That's what they were trying to do. Yes, but they've achieved the complete opposite. Well, I don't think they've necessarily achieved the complete opposite, because what they have... What's grown in... Oh, don't be silly.

Apart from individual household debts, what's grown? As if something grows within a few days of a budget, I mean, you grow up. But what I'm trying to... What I'm trying to say... Individual personal debts in households. because they can't afford to exist. And as we've already heard,

there was a trend that was happening anywhere, and you didn't hear that from a friend of the government just now. But let me say that, I mean, I despise the U-turn, but what they were trying to do, and by sacrificing the 45P, actually they have sacrificed what you could have described as a distraction. But by what they were trying to do was to stimulate growth,

and it is crucial that they do that. And they've been saying for months and months, that, you know, they were going to be a tax cut in government. Yes. It's all through the leadership. It's like saying... It's like saying... It's like saying it's going to be sunny for months,

and then it pours a rain. They were borrowing money. They were borrowing money for tax cuts. That doesn't work. And we still don't know how they were going to fund any of this. If you drive growth, that doesn't actually... They've driven us over a cliff. If haven't driven any growth, let's take a short break.

When I come back and talk to the man who, despite today's new turn, has full confidence in Liz Truss's government. But then he would, his think tanks, by most of our ideas. We'll talk to Mark Littlewood, the IEA director. Plus, a disgusting, dirty protest at the memorial for Captain Sir Tom Moore. I'll talk to somebody who supports it. Welcome back to Pearson. This Tory poll ratings plummeted with the pound last week,

the embattled Prime Minister, one relentless cheerleader. Institute of Economic Affairs is a free market think tank, which has a long relationship with Liz Truss. She even created the Free Enterprise Group, which is effectively a parliamentary body representing the IEA's ideas in Westminster. Well, Director General of the IEA, Mark DeWood, George. Mr. Littlewood, thank you very much indeed for joining me.

I want to replay you at the start of this interview, something you said to the Radio 4 Today program about Liz Truss. I was actually reflecting with a couple of journalists earlier. I've known Liz Truss for many years, and I can't think of another time where she's changed her mind on anything, right? Anything at all. I just wonder whether you wanted to take that comment back,

given that my immediate checklist would include Brexit, the royal family, her political party, she was a Liberal Democrat, and now a 45P tax rate. Would you take back this idea that she's never changed her mind? Yeah, you're right, you're right, Piers. You're right. No, no, you're right, Piz. I was a bit loose with my words.

I mean, actually, she changed her mind on Brexit afterwards. She didn't switch from leave to remain during the campaign. And I'll forgive her for what she said as a teenager when she was a Republican. On a particular policy decision, though, what I was trying to get across to Nick Robinson on the Today program this morning is when she digs in her heels, they usually stay dug in. I guess over five years or 20 years, you might change your mind on a particular policy position. But I've never seen her change her mind in 20 minutes,

which is what seems to have happened over this 45P tax rate, really quite extraordinary. I've got a lot of sympathy with Liz Truss's views. I think you said just before the ad break there appears that I have full confidence in her. I see the world in much the same way that she does. I think tax is way too high. Government spending needs to come over under control and regulation is too tight in Britain. In that broad vision, Liz Truss and I would agree. But if you want to move the country in that way, you've got to execute it. That's not the job for an economics think tank. We just produce ideas. We're not politicians, it's the jobs of the politicians to execute it. And I find some of the decisions

they've made really quite extraordinary. There was room to cut tax. My advice was to cut VAT, not the top rate of income tax. Look, it's gratifying to see you chucking your great friend under the bus. I wasn't expecting that. But let me just ask you this. Given that the varying big number of policy initiatives that were announced in this mini budget, which of them do you personally disagree with then? Would you have lifted the cap on bank and bonuses? Wait, Let me finish. Would you have lifted the cap on banker bonuses? Would you have reduced the... Yes, yes. You would.

Would you have reduced the tax from 45 to 40? Yes. Okay. Would you have put a windfall tax on energy companies? No. Right. So basically, you agree with every single thing you've done. Those are three elements. I'm happy with it. Right. So you agree with every... No, I would have spent 150... Right. No, the big part of the budget...

We're talking about each other. Which we criticise. Let me just finish my question. So it would seem to me that you are entirely in agreement with the very mini budget, which you've just spent the last two minutes, attacking for the execution. How would you have executed the same thing? Well, I would have preferred if it was a choice, and often these things are choices, peers, as you know, probably to have focused on VAT rather than income tax.

I don't mind income tax being cut. I think all taxes are probably too high. The bit of the mini budget, which we came straight out of the traps criticizing the outset, was the £150 billion. Energy deal. You've got to have a package to support poorer households to make sure they can get through the winter. But this is an absolutely extraordinarily overblown deal. And we criticised it at the time ahead of the mini budget. You don't need to subsidise people heating their indoor swimming pools. Absolutely ludicrous. You need to direct help at poorer households. They've decided to go supernova on it.

150 billion pounds. I mean, the two billion pounds on the 45p rate is almost neither here nor there. I think they might have to revisit that now, make sure that's targeted. Spend less, but direct it at the poorer households. So I like the general direction, the thinking of the Liz Trust regime, but just because I like the direction the car's going in doesn't mean I approve of them when they smash the car. Well, I couldn't agree more. A lot of speculation about who funds your organisation. Can you give me the top three funders?

I'm not sure I'd even know them off the top of my head. We've got a breakdown peers on our website. We are funded by people who support free markets. We don't docks our donors. We don't list their names and dresses in the public domain. If you want free market ideas to be spread, please do send us a check. You can go to IA.org.org. There's a donate page.

If you doubt that we would use any pound of your money to do anything other than to promote free market ideas without fear or favor, try this. Send us a check to try and get us to say something that isn't free market, and your check will be returned. Okay. Would you send any checks to... support Quasi Quarteng's future as Chancellor, or should somebody who's executed a plan so catastrophically badly be invited to leave his office? Well, hang on. If you want to support an individual politician, don't send any money near me.

That's up to political parties. We don't dabble in that particular nexus. Should he be, look, should Liz Trust fire Quazirte? Well, Quasi Quartan made an embarrassing political U-turn. Should she fire him? I mean, that's a political, that's a political, I think probably not. It's an extremely embarrassing U-turn. They sort of looked like they were willing to die on this political hill over a two billion pound tax cut,

actually a rounding error in the overall fiscal plan. This is what they've tried to do, is to stem the bleeding on this. They thought they were probably going to lose anyway, so try and get it over with. Here's the problem there, right? The next time that Quasi Quartang stands up and says something, will it be U-turned on if Michael Gove and Grant Shaps complain about it?

So even if you stem this particular issue, what are we supposed to think in future when they're supposed to bring forward big plans for financial services liberation and plan? I agree with you. So why shouldn't she just fire him, put him out of his misery? Because we're not going to trust him again. I'm not a politician. I run an economics think tank. We try to get people to think soundly about economic theory. What's politically possible? You've just given me an exceptionally articulate explanation for why he shouldn't be in the job. Why shouldn't he be? fired. Because if he isn't fired, then as long as he's there with no credibility, this trust is going to be highly damaged. Well, you say no credibility, peers. This is a political question or one for the money markets.

Clearly, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor need to regain their credibility pretty fast. On a range of flanks, I would suggest, within their own political party, certainly amongst the public. I think you just highlighted another disastrous opinion poll for the Conservative Party. And also on the markets. They lost credibility. badly in all those three spaces. They've tried to stem the bleeding by killing this one. I think they've got to regain credibility. The problem is it's like giving your...

Pretty quick. And that means... Yeah, it's like giving your car, though, isn't it? To someone you know has just driven the previous car straight over the cliff. It's like, why would you do that? Anyway, Mark Littlewood, thank you for joining me. I appreciate it.

Well, a prang, a prang, maybe. Not necessarily over the cliff. No, I think we're talking full cliff, full cliff onto the rocks with a dollar per motion. For full cliff, you figure it is. I think it's a major prang. Thank you for joining me. I appreciate it. John, what do you make at that?

Because it seemed to me that he was sort of his statement, well, I agree with everything that was in the mini-budget. I don't like the way they sold it. I mean, do those two things, are they consistent? Can we stop calling it a mini-budget? Sorry. Massive budget. It was a budget.

The biggest issue with what was said there is, you've got this statement that this was in search of growth, right? It's a pro-growth policy. But the evidence for the budget was delivered, for the policies that we delivered, producing growth is very, very minimal. Look, I'm not saying, just to make sure I don't set an off here, I'm not saying that cutting taxes simply will not produce growth. But over decades of research from dozens of countries,

there's very little evidence that it moves the needle either way. But what it does do is it distributes income from the poor to the rich, or at least it keeps it in the pockets of the rich. And that, when it comes to whether we're calling this communication and miscommunication, is just obviously toxic. So you're essentially shuffling things around on the board, not necessarily going to produce any growth, is costing the government,

is requiring more borrowing, and is making the rich rich. Quite interesting, Emily, I thought that he, he was on the radio only a few hours ago saying, I've known this trust a long time, she's never done a U-turn, and now he's immediately backtrack on that tonight, isn't he, and distance himself from that comment,

because he knows it's ridiculous in light of the way she's got about this? But I think he is right. They do agree on her plan, sort of central planks of her plan. But what everyone is saying is the execution of it was so awful. And if you go back to say the Cameron and Osborne government, they did cut tax.

They did put austerity through. But they prepared the ground for a very, very long time. They went, they also had a mandate. So things like suddenly we're hearing she's going to have to put tax cuts in to pay for this disaster. Well, we didn't hear that in the summer. We didn't hear over the summer that this was what her mini budget was going to look like. things like not get, well, not silly, like catastrophic that she didn't want the OBR in.

It just, both of them just look, like they've made real incompetent steps. Anne, you're wincing here, but is it from the agony and torment of hearing the truth? No. It's that I was just wondering when I might actually get a chance to say that. Now's your chance. Thank you very much, considering it's one against three. I thought it might be quite nice if I got a chance to say what I think, which is this. I agree with him and with Liz Truss that tax cutting, does actually promote growth. And when you look at what Thatcher did, that is what happened. And I do very strongly believe that if we're to take any advantage of Brexit at all,

then it made sense to seek a competitive advantage against the EU, which was the point of the banker's bonuses. But the execution of it, what I think went wrong, was very straightforwardly, as I've tried to say several times, it wasn't properly explained. And the view out there is simply... No, no. You've had a lot of go. I know, but you're agreeing. We're both agreeing with each other, the execution.

You seem to think we all disagree with you. We all agree with you. Well, I've just said exactly the same thing. You haven't let me finish the sentence, Madam, and I don't remember stopping you finishing your sentences. Let's move on to something that's controversial. I don't get to finish the sentence. Okay, thank you. Finish your sentence? No, well, I don't. Come on, stop. It makes them ridiculous.

No, I'm not being ridiculous. I'm just trying to say that it was not, you. You weren't talking about explanation. Out there, people think this was just about benefiting the rich. They didn't hear the rationale behind it. And what we should have had was a lot of that preparation, but she didn't have the time. If this was the first week... If this was the first week...

If this was the first week of an entire parliamentary run of four or five years, she would have had the time. She didn't have it. If you haven't got the time to do the groundwork, don't do a mini budget. Well, don't play around. Don't do a U-turn. If you believe that what you are doing is...

Never mind the U-turn. No, I do mind the U-turn. I mind the U-turn too. No, you don't, you like the U-turn. No, I mind it because the original policy on which it was based was completely flawed. Well, therefore you like the U-turn. Therefore you like the U-Turor.

I like it as a... Oh, you do, yeah. Because it should never have happened to start with. I think it should have happened, but it should have happened with more explanation. I want to turn to Ukraine. Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, for some bizarre reasons, decided to go on Twitter today. And he said, Ukraine, Russia, peace.

Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves, and that's one of the people. Crimea, formerly part of Russia, as it has been since 1783, until Khrushchev's mistake, water supply to Crimea assured, Ukraine remains neutral. He then says, this is highly likely to be the outcome in the end. Just a question of how many die before them. Also worth nerting, he says, that a... possible, albeit unlikely outcome from his conflict, is nuclear war.

The Ukrainian ambassadors of Germany responded by saying, F off, is my very diplomatic reply to you, Elon Musk. Gary Kasparov, the chess champion, and of course, Russian. This is moral idiocy, repetition of Kremlin propaganda, a betrayal of Ukrainian courage and sacrifice, and puts a few minutes browsing Crimea on Wikipedia over the current horrific reality of Putin's bloody war. John, I mean, a bizarre thing for Elon Musk to get involved with.

He's now doing other polls. Meantime, President Zelensky has just tweeted his own poll in which he says, which Elon Musk do you prefer, the one that supported Ukraine or the one who supports Russia? What do you make of this? Look, I think Elon Musk spends a lot of time on Twitter, doesn't he? He seems to generate a lot of heat, not a huge amount of light. I think saying something like, let's just have democratic elections in those regions

is a bit like saying let's just have proper democratic elections in Russia. It's fanciful in the current situation. It's certainly not anything Putin would have. allow. So, you know, I treat this the same way as I treat everything Elon tweets and kind of ignore it. I mean, I've got to say, a rather lively Ukrainian ambassador to Germany. The only outcome from this is now no Ukrainian whatever by your effing Tesla crap. So good luck to Elon Musk. It seems like open war now from the Ukrainians towards Elon Musk. But what are you making this? I mean, it's a strange thing for him to get weighed into.

But I think Kasparov summed up everything that I would say, it does look like he literally went on Wikipedia, tried to sort of up himself. on history, tweeted something, actually, in the middle of a war, if you actually, if he'd even read or bothered to look at what's happening and the death and the devastation and the torture and the rape, you just wouldn't, it just looks so blazay, and then putting a poll at the end. I know some people will, like, discuss it,

but actually other people really will just think it's absolutely disgusting, horrifying. I guess, if somebody could explain to me in words of one syllable, why we are even concerned about what Elon must have. thinks. Why should I worry about what Elon Musk thinks? Well, I think on this issue, a good point, because it's certainly clearly not his error of expertise, but he's the richest man in the world. He's highly influential with a lot of young people. So we have to listen to what he says? No, but you can't ignore him, can it? I can. And do? And do? So you think we should just ignore what he says?

I can ignore it completely. It is almost abysmal rubbish and why anybody would want to waste time on your serious programme discussing such rot, I don't know. Well, thank you. We're talking of serious issues on this programme. McDonald's has decided to introduce happy meals for adults. And my question for all three of you, before we let you go, well, one of you, anyway, is what would your happy meal be to make you happy as an adult, John? That is a very question. I think fish fingers just bring back, you know, happy childhood memories for me.

You know, just a nice plate of beige foods. Yes. Maybe some crispy, smiley faces. fingers great cool Emily I was gonna say roast chicken but actually when I was 13 I ate 13 fish fingers in one sitting so I might have to agree with you on fish fingers birds eye fish fingers wow Roast lamb with mint sauce and red currant jelly and lots of spuds but as copy me and no I know that I don't mind here we go what's this this would have yeah mine would be a nice little steak here it is so oh I don't know how we have oh there we go nice little fillet steak I think with some fries.

You tuck in, Peirce. We'll just stay here. There we go. And a nice little bottle of, what's a little Argentinian malbache to watch it all down with? And there's a cool see your blinketree cigar. This would be my happy meal instead of my toy. There we go. Happy days. There you are, McDonald's. That's all you got to do. Cheers, everyone. We'll see you after the break. Thanks, John. Cool. Cheers.

Welcome about Captain Sir Tom Moore, the hero of the pandemic, who raised nearly 33 million pounds for the NHS has had a memorial to him targeted by climate activists in a video widely condemned online protest to wearing a t-shirt reading end private jets is seen pouring human feces and urine over the world war two veterans memorial well joining me now as kai bartlett is from the campaign group end uk private jets and emily still here kai thank you for coming in you did you support this action yeah you do you think that it's right you think that it's right right and proper for someone to go to the memorial to this great man who served his country in World War II, who then at the age of 99, raised tens of millions of pounds for NHS workers in the pandemic

by walking through extreme discomfort up and down his garden. And a memorial has made to him after he dies, and you think it's okay to go and throw urine and feces all over it? Well, I mean, we say that we care for what Captain Tomsted for. You know, everything you just described... You don't, though, do you? Everything you just describe is, like, really brave and inspiring and everything. As far as, you know, the public's concerned, you know, we're acting like what he stands for is just, you know, meaningless. What he stands for is meaningless?

Which part? Serving his country in World War II to fight for our freedom and democracy, or raising tens of millions of pounds for NHS workers and a pandemic? Which part of that did you find so meaningless? I'm saying the UK public is acting like it's all meaningless because basically, you know, we're in a situation where everyone sort of knows, you know, I've talked to quite a lot of the public

and everyone sort of knows that we're ruining our kids' future and everyone's just sort of fine with it and it's just like this. How does attacking Tom Moore statue, how does that assist the children's future? How does it? Because, you know, it's just a little glimmer of the truth. What truth? What truth? You've thrown excrement over a statue of somebody who was totally selfless in his life.

What is this glimmer of truth that comes from this? That maybe things aren't actually okay. You know what it made me do, though, like so many of these protests, and this is a particularly disgusting example of it. You make me want to do the complete opposite. You might be want to go and literally get on a private plane tonight. Literally want me to do the opposite. So any attempt by you to try and influence public thinking

or get support for your cause, you're living for the birds. I mean, this is one of the most disgusting things I think I've ever had to see that this great man who I had a lot of time for and with interviewed him at length for my life story show. And what a life story he had. That this great man should be so disgustingly abused in his death. by your organisation is repellent. Do you understand that public opinion won't be supporting you?

There'll be people watching this thinking it's disgusting and that you by supporting it are disgusting. People sort of say, you know, like you're not going to get the public on side with this sort of thing. You know, that's what people tend to say. And if you think about what that actually means, it's we're not going to get the public on side to care about their own children. That's what... Why should we care about anything to do with you when you've...

shown so lack of care for the family of Captain Sir Tom, one of whom has already contacted me, one of his daughters. Absolutely horrified by what you've done to her father's memorial. We're sort of in an epidemic of pretending and saying that we care, but not acting like it. No, I'm asking you where your care is for the family of Captain Sir Tom, where your care is for his legacy and memory? Where is your care for them? Why should anyone care about what you care about if you show such a disgusting and reparting?

LAC of care for someone like Captain Sir Tom. I mean, you can say all of these things about me and things, but it doesn't change the fact that the UK people don't care about their own children. Right, so you've got no regrets about your organisation doing this. The situation is that we're going to continue doing this sort of thing. You're going to keep throwing feces and urine over very, very popular public figure memorials and statues. Where are you going to go next? Churchill.

What are you? Mandela? Where will you stop with this? Situation is that the government's, you know, murdering our children's future and people aren't standing up to it. And they're also not standing up to this. All right, take a short break. We'll come back with more on this. And, Emily, your reaction after the break. Well, welcome back. I'm still with protester Kai Bartlett from Nd U.K. private jets, who supports the pouring of human feces in urine over the memorial to Captain Sir Tom. We're also here with Anne and Emily. Emily, what do you make of this?

I think I'd just like to try and get to the bottom of what the message you were trying to get across was. So as I read it, Kai, is that you saw this as a man. So this is not you insulting the man, although it's looking like that. You saw this man had given his life, nearly died giving his life for his country, had done an amazing thing. And it's like a sort of wonderful stand-up person in society. had also fought for us in the war. And I don't think, and tell me if I'm wrong, the excrement was to show that as a country,

because we're not taking the future of our country seriously, we are, I don't know whether I can use this word, I won't use the word, pooing on his, I don't want to say the more harsh word of this. You are pooing on his memory, I suppose. So it's not that you're doing the throwing of the air. excrement is that you're trying to say that society is wrecking what he stood for. So I don't mind you saying, Emily, it's a very generous interpretation of what they actually did.

This organisation literally threw human extraming a urine over the moral. I'm just trying to interpret it. I'm trying to interpret what they tried, I think, to get across. I don't think we need to either interpret it, understand it or excuse it. Yes, but I think we should try and understand. You're not condemn it because I think it's totally the wrong way to go around getting people to stop flying. I think it's going to get people to ignore your message and focus on the... Are your family...

We know that the family of the person that did it has come out and been critical. Are your family supportive of you supporting this? I just wanted to say you got it exactly right. The intention. But I don't think the intentions... I understand that a lot of young people feel very angry about what's happening. We've got a government that's doing green levies, but I do think very strongly that actions like this are quite hard to interpret.

and you have taken something that was meant to pay, you know, pay our respects to this man. And I don't think he would have thought that was the best way to go about this. This was a man who walked how many miles around the country? I'm sorry, look, Emily, I appreciate your effort to try and get inside the deeper meaning here. I just think we should not, we should at least try and understand the message. Actually, I'm not sure we do, actually. Because I think if you're going to show such woeful disrespect for someone like Captain de Tom, I don't know why we should respect you or anything that you're causing about.

I can't believe you're trying to understand. Let me ask you, let me ask you, Kay. Does your family support you supporting what happened to this memorial? Some people do and some people really don't. Right. And the ones who don't, what do they say to you as your own family members? You know, they say it's hugely disrespectful and, you know, of course it is. And, you know, the way that the UK way of life, you know,

is spitting on his grave, really. Let's be honest with ourselves. Let's not lie to ourselves. We all sort of know that we're destroying my generation's future and everyone's just sort of like thinking that it's fine. Right. Actually, it's not spitting on his grave. It is urinating and defecating on his statue, which is there as a memorial to him.

And it's disgusting. And I say to you again, if you've got a proper cause that you want to fight and you want to get public support, this is the complete opposite way to go about it. I can tell you already, my phone is blowing up, people are going, this is disgusting. These people are disgusting.

None of them saying, God, you know what, this really makes me want to stop using a private plane ever again. Nobody is saying that. You're having the opposite effect to what you think. It's making people hate you. Why would you want that? I think some people are going to realize that we're all sort of living in an illusion

that we're, you know, We're all just sort of living a lie. Everything's fine. It's not. We sort of complain on Twitter about things, but we don't step into the real world and actually sort it out. That's the UK way of life. Actually, lots of people are trying to sort out

the issue of climate change. Lots of people. World leaders are all meeting regularly now to try and sort this out. They fly using private jets to those meetings. How else are they supposed to get there? There's lots of other ways. Do you ever use planes?

No. When did your last fly? When I was like six. Everyone should stop flying? I'm talking about private jets. But you think everyone should stop flying? stop flying? Well yeah, there are use cases, you know, there are some islands

that you can't access without using a plane. Listen, Kai, think about it. All right, there are better ways to make your case. This was disgusting. But thank you for coming in. And thank you for coming in. Everything coming over. Appreciate it. That's it for me. Whatever you're up to. Keep it uncensored. Good night.