The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - SMT - Is The End Near for Leader News Conferences and Interviews?

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

The New York Times has looked at how Presidents in the last thirty years have been doing fewer and fewer news conferences and one on one interviews.  Is that becoming the new normal and is it spreading to Canada?  If so what do we lose?

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Wednesday. Smoke mirrors the truth. Bruce Anderson. Okay, a week ago, I was on the other side of the... Wait, wait, just a... What, what? Okay, a week ago, I was on the other side of the pole. Wait, wait, just a second. What, what? Just a second. Like, the way they say my name in the introduction,

it makes me sound like I'm crabby or angry or aggressive or something like that. You're a crabby, angry, obsessive guy. Bruce Anderson. Bruce Anderson. Smoke mirrors the truth. Bruce Anderson. Okay, here, we'll try it again here. Here we go.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Wednesday. It's such a pleasant day. That means smoke, mirrors, and the truth. With Bruce Anderson. I like that better. I like it better.

That sounded better, but the music sounded awful. So here we go. Here's the cue on the music. Take your break now. Control Room at SiriusXM. First break is coming right up. As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, a week ago I was on the other side of the pond, but now I'm back in the homeland.

Bruce is over there. And why is Bruce over there on the other side of the Atlantic? Well, you know, when I was leaving last week at Heathrow Airport, I bought one of these. There was no lineup at the coronation counter, but I got my King Charles mug. I mean, everything seems, I don't know how it looks on camera there. It looks all backwards.

It looks like one of a kind. Probably you're the only person i got a deal on it i got a deal it was a half price coronation mug uh so i guess you must i'm sure they're selling like hotcakes somewhere i don't see it here in dornick yet but um i i'm sure that um actually i think that there's a fair bit of interest and excitement in the UK about this. So I'll be interested in a Saturday, kind of watching some of the festivities with some people here and kind of seeing how they feel about it. You'll be at a street party. You'll be wearing your red, white, and blue.

You'll be hanging the bunting up. You'll be, I predict that by Saturday, you'll be right into it because that's what happens. People get suddenly really excited. I'll be into observer mode. I'll be into observer mode. We'll see. I mean, they don't do this very often.

Nobody knows exactly what this is going to feel like. No, they don't do it very often. They certainly haven't done it for a long time. What is it, I guess, 70 years? 70 years since the last coronation. And it was a huge deal. Huge deal. As I mentioned, I don't know, a month ago,

there were more than 100,000 people in the streets celebrating in Montreal for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. I don't know, it might be hard trying to find a crowd in Montreal this week. Anyway, time will tell. Some people, strong monarchists in our audience have been complaining that we're not taking this seriously it's a coronation well you know i had a discussion with some people

here the other night and i i've amended my thinking a little bit oh I knew that would happen. Here's where my head is at. I think that ritual and institution is an important part of how human nature works is that we do depend on having those things in our lives and in our political life too. They're kind of anchor points. Now, I might disagree with some people about whether the right kind of institution is manifest in a family that is supposed to have some sort of divine ordinance to play this role. I just can't quite get my head around that as an idea. It's not disrespectful to that family or to any other royal family in any other country that has a monarchy. But I'd be a little bit concerned if we lost the institutional idea and the sense of ritual and the idea of there's some things that are permanent and that kind of sit in the middle of the way that we organize ourselves as a society and politically. So it's not really for the monarchy, but it's maybe a little bit more sense of caution

that if we remove too many rituals and institutions, and we don't know what we're going to replace them with, that we end up without having as many things that we share in common or that we understand hold our society together a little bit. So that's the attitude I'll be taking. Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting reflection on the situation from you, especially from you, because you haven't been an advocate of that position

for the last year or so when this subject has come up. But it is a time for reflection on values and on institutions. And so it's good that you're thinking about it. I still look at it as somebody who's, you know, covered many of these events over the last, I don't know, 50, 60 years. It's a huge boon to the British economy. I mean, the royalty is worth millions, if not billions, to the British. No doubt.

And so they, you know, that's to one of the issues that has been at play here in in canada in canadian politics in the last little while and it revolves around a conservative mp by the name of michael chong he's from southwestern ontario's former cabinet minister quit on a matter of principle in the Harper years, but has remained a staunch conservative, and he ran for the leadership of the party, wasn't successful there, but has always been extremely well respected, not from just within his own caucus, but by other parties as well. Well, Michael Chong rose in the House of Commons the other day

to raise questions about the government and the Prime Minister's office in particular that had been told that there was an indication that his family was being spied upon and harassed, potentially harassed, by the Chinese government. And Michael Chong's family extends beyond Canada back to China. And the prime minister's office was aware of all this, but according to Michael Chong, never told him or his family

what they knew about. And there's a degree of outrage about that, and it crosses some ideological boundaries. I mean, there are people concerned about that, that that should never have happened to anyone, let alone Michael Chong. What's your feeling about that? Well, first of all, let me just agree with you alone Michael Chong. What's your feeling about that? Well, first of all, let me just agree with you on Michael Chong.

He's a very good person, a very good member of parliament. He's been kind of devoted to public service for all the right reasons for a good long period of time. And I, for one, am happy to see him kind of thriving in this Conservative Party because it wasn't obvious to me that he would. I don't think he supported Pierre Polyev in the leadership race, but a pretty senior role in his shadow cabinet. I think he's the foreign policy critic for the conservative party. Bruce, let me just interrupt you for a second because uh we're uh listeners will

know that we're having a little bit of trouble with the line uh to bruce and occasionally it drops out for a second or two uh we're working on it and uh bear with us well while we do that but whenever the dropout happens once again it usually only lasts a second or two sorry bruce go ahead yeah no i've heard it drop out a little bit when you're speaking too, so hopefully we'll be able to work. The connection looks good here, but it's been a little bit iffy, so I'll continue, and hopefully it'll be all right. The second thing for me, Peter, is I do want to know more about

what did the government know? And if they didn't do anything with the initiative in terms of advising Michael Chong, why did they make that choice? I think it's a fair question. I think it's a reasonable question. I think that maybe I haven't seen enough of the government's response yet to know what exactly they've had to say about that. But I do think that it would feel to me incumbent upon a

government to advise if there's something like that going on, if they were aware of it. So I think he's right to raise the question. I think people are right to ask for more information about it. And I think the government needs to kind of share as much information as it can about what it learned and why, if it didn't do more about it, why it didn't do more about it. You know, we are waiting, obviously, for the rapporteur, the former Governor General David Johnson's report on election interference and his recommendation as to whether or not there should be a public inquiry i think everybody feels there should be one um at least that seems to be the perception out there um but it's he's got another three weeks before he needs to report i'm not sure exactly what he's doing i you know he's a pretty uh pretty serious, so I'm sure he's exploring a lot of different routes. He's got up until May 23rd. It doesn't mean he'll take those next three weeks.

He may report earlier. He may report today, for all we know. But a lot of things are waiting on that decision. And I guess we'll see what it is fairly soon and how the government's going to react to it. I think the prime minister said whatever is the recommendation, he'll accept it. Thoughts on that?

Well, I don't see any – I mean, I think that there was a great sense of urgency around this issue a few weeks ago, and it was logical that there was. There was a lot of questions that were kind of popping around this issue a few weeks ago. And it was logical that there was. There was a lot of questions that were kind of popping up. Answers weren't great. I think that the parliamentary committee has been having some hearings about this. And I think some of the information that's emerging in that venue is helpful. I saw that Morris Rosenberg, who was the former federal deputy minister, former president and CEO of the Trudeau Foundation, testified, I think it was yesterday. And he talked about how, you know, in retrospect, it was probably naive for the Trudeau Foundation to think that it could have a relationship with those Chinese donors and not cause perception problems.

So the conversation has been continuing. The heat has been turned down a little bit, which doesn't mean that the legitimate questions go away. It means to some degree that we're in a phase where more information will come out. I think it's a good thing that Sasha Trudeau, Justin Trudeau's brother, who says that he was the one who negotiated the terms of the arrangement

with the Chinese donors. He wants to testify. I think he's set up to testify a little later this week. I think that'll be interesting as well. So for me, it's logical that we have this process going on while David Johnson is preparing his report back to the government about what should be done to prevent interference problems in the future, including the question of whether or not there should be a public inquiry. I don't know, to be honest. I think you suggested that maybe everybody thought there should be a public inquiry. You were breaking up a little bit when you were making that sentence. So if I mischaracterized what you said, forgive me. I don't know. I've been a little bit skeptical about the value of a full public

inquiry. And then I was, yeah, we probably better have one because otherwise we'll never be able to restore enough trust in the systems that we have to prevent interference. And now I'm a little bit more on the fence. I want to hear what alternatives he might have considered or might consider and recommend and see where we go from there. I definitely think the foreign interference question is a serious question. I know that some people testified that it hadn't been a big problem in the past. I do think that it warrants a lot more work and attention on a going forward basis, and maybe that's where the majority of the effort should be put.

But I'm kind of open-minded, I guess, to see what David Johnson has to say about it after he does his work. Okay. Let's leave it on that, and once again, apologize for some of these hits we're taking on the uh on the line here um again take a quick break when we come back with some interesting data on how various decisions are made about whether leaders should do news conferences should do speeches should do interviews um because some data that the New

York Times has put together is interesting and shows a real pattern over the last, I guess, 30 years of how leaders, especially in the United States, are using those vehicles to get their message across. So we'll talk about that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Wednesday edition, Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. You're listening on Sirius XM channel 167 or on your favorite podcast platform or on our YouTube channel. You're watching on our YouTube channel. Okay, New York Times comes out with a piece the other day, and once again, this is just American presidents,

but it's an interesting pattern, and I'm wondering if it's similar here, the use by whether it's the prime minister of the day or premiers or whomever it may be. Traditionally, at least up until about 30 years ago, the main vehicle for leaders, presidents of the United States, to communicate with the people was through news conferences or interviews. But the use of both those vehicles has lessened considerably. I mean, listen to these numbers. News conferences in the era of Bill Clinton,

in the first two years of his presidency. 83 news conferences, almost one a week. Bush Sr., 67, so beginning of the decline, but still that's a lot, 67. Obama, 46, big drop. Trump, 39. Bush Jr., 39. Biden, in his first two years, 21. Reagan, 14.

14 news conferences. But with the exception of Reagan, you know, a decline through each presidency. Interviews, you know, the sit-downs, the one-on-ones, big interview with, you know, network anchdowns the one-on-ones big interview with you know network anchors or whomever obama in his first two years did 275 i'm proud to say i was one of them trump 202 it's amazing you can get on fox news that often clinton 132 reagan, 106. Bush, senior, 96. Bush, junior, 89. Biden, 54.

So, you know, I kind of hinted what I think those mean to me. What do they mean to you? Well, I generally think that what the political managers that help these presidents, and I suppose it's a little bit true for prime ministers in Canada as well, have come to conclude is that the formal press conference is not usually an opportunity to score points or to advance your agenda as much as it is a risk of a question coming at you that is going to be awkward and might steal the show and might occupy more of the news hole. Obviously, there are exceptions to that. When presidents have specific things that they need to address, they're involved in a war or they're dealing with a crisis

or something like that, they're going to need to address. They're involved in a war or they're dealing with a crisis or something like that. They're going to need to use the tools available to them that reach the largest number of people. But otherwise, I think the trend has been towards more curated and controlled exposure situations. So use these situations in a limited fashion where they're more likely to work. I don't want to say to your advantage in a partisan sense, but to your advantage in the sense of there's a specific subject that you need to deal with, whether it's COVID or something like that, that you can be reasonably assured that there'll be a lot of questions about that and you can deal with quite a bit of information in that format.

I think the other thing that occurs to me as I look at the list of the individuals on the U.S. presidential side that you rattled off there is that for those whose sense of their own ability to communicate is really strong or where the teams believe they're really good at this, they'll want them to do more of this. Obama certainly fits that bill. His people would have thought he's remarkably effective. He's one of the best that perhaps we've ever seen. And so putting him in a situation where he's dealing with the press isn't putting him in very much risk because he was very fluid and very quick and very effective in making his points. And the same thing in interviews. Trump, I think, is a different thing. Trump, for me, and I would sort of say the same thing about Clinton on the Democrat side. But Trump, to me, isn't there because his team thought, let's put him in front of journalists all that often. Let's kind of expose him to all kinds of questions and let's see what happens.

I think that this probably has more to do, the fact that he's relatively high on the list, probably has more to do with the fact that he just loved to hear himself lecture the press or lecture people through the press or harass the press in press conferences. And he liked to do interviews because he, you know, for the same reason that he tweeted so much, he has a lot to say and he wanted to say it as often as he could. I don't think it was necessarily good for him to do it. I don't think it was necessarily good for him to do it. I don't think it was politically advantageous necessarily. But that's easy for me to say.

I think that he was a kind of a political failure for the Republican Party. He only won one term. The midterms after he left office were not great. There will be people who think very highly of Trump and who think situation where a lot of Republican voters didn't feel comfortable voting for him against Joe Biden the last time, even though they voted for Republicans on other parts of the ballot that they were given. You know, I've watched, as you have, many different prime ministers over the years and their attitude towards the media, whether it's in a scrum or a formal news conference or a sit-down interview. I can remember when Pierre Trudeau was prime minister.

And, you know, you can say what you want about him, and people have very strong feelings both ways about Pierre Trudeau, those who remember those days. But he loved the duel of a one-on-one, whether that was in a news conference or in a sit-down interview. I can remember at one period during his prime ministership that the parliamentary press gallery got very upset that he was never available.

You couldn't get him. You couldn't get him. You couldn't get him for an interview, but more you couldn't get him for a news conference. So after some back and forth on this with the Parliamentary Press Gallery and the Prime Minister's office, they decided, okay, we will do a formal news conference once a week. I think it was a Friday that they decided to do it, a Friday afternoon. And so they started off, the room was packed, you know, like it was like sardines,

you just couldn't get in there. Within about a month, you had no trouble finding a seat in the National Press Theater. He kept coming, but the questions really didn't. And part of the reason was, unlike Trump, who would humiliate reporters, sometimes to the great delight of his supporters, but usually just, he was being a jerk. Unlike Trump, Trudeau would dance circles around reporters,

most reporters, not all of them, but most reporters, just by his knowledge of stuff or his assumed knowledge or his alleged knowledge on different subjects. He knew how to speak. Well, he would poke back too, right? Oh, yeah. He would challenge them on substantive issues, and he liked that give and take.

It was different from Trump. I agree with you. Yeah. But it was funny because you kind of watched. It eventually died out, and it wasn't because he wasn't interested and it was partly because the media said okay uncle we you know we give up we'll we'll go back to our other ways of trying to you know and challenge him on stuff and and some of them did i remember a little jimmy munson who ended up being a liberal senator basically got in a fist fight with Trudeau and

his scrum in the on Parliament Hill so there was those were different times anyway the point I was eventually driving to on this is I wonder if those kind of statistics mean something to the people around Polyev, who's decided a very different kind of strategy in dealing with the media, about access, about who gets to interview him, if at all, about formal news conferences. That he and his people may look at that and say, you know what, I don't need to do this. I just simply don't need to do it.

Yeah, I think that is part of what happens these days is that the, I don't think, and you tell me if I'm wrong about this, Peter. I'm not sure that the press gallery operates as much as a collective force as might have been the case 20 or 30 years ago. I'm not saying that they don't occasionally band together if they feel that they've got a common interest that's being threatened by the way the politicians operate, but it does feel to me like a smaller and less kind of unified from the standpoint of what is journalism supposed to do with politicians. You know, we've got one big chain that has one particular point of view. And I think it's probably fair to say that if you're a conservative politician, you feel like you can talk with post-media journalists whenever you want to, or they're going to carry your

message even if you don't talk with them, because they've kind of declared that they have a point of view about conservatives versus liberals. With respect to other media, I think it's a little bit more hidden. There are some interview situations where I think that people who were involved in and around politics like doing longer form interviews. I think Rosemary Barton does a good job with interviewing people on her show. It's a little bit longer format than some of the shows. I watched Vashti Capello's interview, Mark Carney, the other day, and I thought that was a really effective interview, quite an interesting interview. I think it was about 15 minutes long. I think those settings are better for today than scrums. I think scrums sort of have a feeling of kind of chaos a little bit, or

there's a kind of a built-in aggression and defense uh in them that maybe the journalists like it that way the politicians generally won't uh and if you're pure poly you've got the additional question which is that you've got so much um you've got a lot of resources i saw the latest indications of the fundraising success of the conservative party relative to the liberal party raised a lot more money, a ton more money. So they've got ways to reach people that don't require participation in those traditional media settings. And I think that Pierre Polyev, he likes to deliver his message without interruption and with lots of kind of energy and surrounding context. And the more he likes that and the more effective he thinks he is at that, he is effective to some degree. I think the more hesitant he is probably to put himself in situations where journalists will challenge and challenge and challenge and

challenge again, because I think he thinks that he doesn't need that. And it's probably true to say that Justin Trudeau also thinks that he doesn't need it, but he may need a little bit more right now because he does need to find some sort of more traction, I think, with voters and a message that they feel is refreshed for the times. You know, I was talking to Rick Mercer the other day on the program on the Monday edition of The Bridge. If you missed it, you should go back and see it or listen to it because he was great, as he always is. But he was talking about how he watches the polyev videos the ones he does

where he's walking around talking and of course rick says he's just stealing my my thing right that's this is like my old rants but he did say he did say you know he said like it's clear that he doesn't agree with polyev You have on a lot of stuff, but he does think that he's very good at doing those videos. That's very, very impressive. Um, and, and,

and that can make a difference. Yeah, I, I agree with him. I think he is very effective at them. I think he's also very, very effective in the house of commons. Um,

he, is very effective at them i think he's also very very effective in the house of commons um he he has the mastery of kind of pacing and economy of words sometimes he i remember years ago i don't know when it started but everybody was in in and around ottawa the media would of say, does anybody know how to ask a question anymore? Um, remember people started using notes and that sort of thing. And, and it just turned something that had this great chemistry and dynamic and a sense of drama into something that really felt dull. Um, and part of it was the TV cameras were coming in and people didn't want to, I think, mess up in front of even more people than used to be around in the gallery. But when Pierre Polyev gets up, I don't see any notes and I don't see him fumbling for words.

I don't see him having any trouble figuring out what point he wants to make. And in that sense, I think he is one of the very most effective opposition leaders I've seen in the House of Commons and in all the time that I've been watching it. I don't know if you would kind of rate him that highly. Listen, I think he's got classic street smarts. He knows how to ask a question. He knows how to ask a question. He knows how to formulate a comeback. He's not so good on defending his own position often,

and he ignores it and stays on the attack. I assume that's deliberate, but he's very good at performative politics. There's no question about that. And you wonder how they're going to address that. I mean, you know, I've seen Trudeau at times over the last few years try to do those kind of videos as well. It's not the same at all.

But it'll be interesting to watch how this, you know, plays out over the next couple of years, if it's that long before this election campaign. You mentioned Mark Carney a moment ago, and I want to have a few comments on that before we wrap this one up. And, you know, he did this interview with Vashie Capellos the other day, and I agree with you. It was a good interview. Vashie's a terrific interviewer.

There's no question there. But Carney was better than I've seen him in a format like that. I've interviewed him a couple of times. It's been a few years now, but he always used to come across, to me anyway, as this kind of like egghead, right? Like he knows stuff. He's a very smart guy, and when you're on his field of play, when it's got anything to do with economics or climate,

he clearly knows his stuff. But he always used to sort of talk certainly a level above me, which isn't hard to do, but he's lowered that level a bit. I actually watched that interview, and I didn't have to watch it twice to know the points that he was trying to get across, right? So that will also renew the discussion about what's he really up to right uh especially as it goes into this week the prime minister speaks tomorrow to the uh the liberal convention um there'll be thoughts about you know about his longevity for that role now and if if he does

decide to move on who who would replace him and there's always been a lot of talk about the possibility of Mark Carney. If he's even thinking that way, Carney himself, then he's making the right moves in terms of his performance on complicated issues because most of what he was talking about was the transition politics, really, on energy, climate, et cetera. And that's not an uncomplicated discussion to have. But he seemed to be more at a level of common talk about it,

which is probably a good thing to do if you have greater ambitions. Yeah, I had the same feeling. I thought that he was, when I offer any advice to people about this kind of thing, I focus on a few things. One is the energy, the amount of energy that they use to make their points and how they distribute the energy level throughout an interview or a speech. Part of that is pace as well and demeanor. And I looked at all of those things in the context of this interview, and I thought the energy level was just right. I thought the pace of the points

that he was making were right. I thought the demeanor never sort of strayed into know-it-allism or any condescension or anything that might suggest, well, I know a lot about this and maybe other people don't. There was no false humility either. It was just a kind of an interesting person to listen to talking about an interesting subject. And to your point, the last big test for me with these things is the content. Is it accessible? Is it interesting? And I thought that he made some complicated issues, to your point, quite accessible and interesting.

I found myself kind of listening to the logic of the economics of the transition, as he put it, and thinking this was maybe the most effective version of that I've heard in a good while. And good for him for doing it, because I think it's an important subject. He was also asked questions about the economy. And, you know, him having been a governor of the Bank of Canada and the governor of the Bank of England, I know that he had phases in his life where his answers to those kinds of questions about inflation would have been more contained and formalized and limited. And he didn't stray too far,

but I thought he was pretty effective at saying, you know, the goal of the central bank is to get inflation down to a target range and have it stay there, not to get it pointing in that direction. I thought that was an interesting way of putting that point. And the last thing he did is he, and it got typically most of the attention of people who commented on the interview was he was asked a question about his interest in politics and i thought he handled that well um saying that he was probably supportive of the government and of the prime minister and was interested in the yeah and and believe that the direction that the government was on was a good direction all in all in all, I think it was an effective interview by Vashi

and an effective interview by Mark Carney as well. Tomorrow night is an important night, and we'll close out on this point. Justin Trudeau speaks to this convention, the Liberal Convention. It's the one they have every two years, the biennial. And then he jets off the next morning to get to the coronation to buy his cups scarves hats all the things that you've already got the corner on the market on um but that one assumes that speech tomorrow night is a pretty important one.

He's got to motivate the crowd. He's got to inspire the crowd. Because there's no question there are some people who are sort of wondering about his continuing presence as leader, especially when they look at the polls. What are the bases he's got to touch? What would you say? Well, I think that there are a couple. One is, in some fashion or another,

I think there are people who wonder, will his communication style alienate more and more people over time, just because people are kind of tired of it or frustrated with it, and that it becomes too big a drag for the party to be able to succeed with him as leader. And that's separate and apart from all the substantive things that he and his government have done. And sometimes it does happen. And there's a, so for people who are anxious about that and the Liberal Party, there'll be a desire to see him give a speech that makes them feel, no, this is a style that will work. And so that's a particular test for him because his style has pleased almost all of the people who will be in that room before on multiple occasions and has been successful in three elections. So I'll be watching for that.

What is the kind of the style and the energy and the way he structures his arguments? And does it feel like that kind of that reset of Justin Trudeau's music that I've talked about before on this? I think the second thing is there are liberals who I know are wondering if the Liberal Party has made enough effort to put some definition around Pierre Polyev. They see him as an effective competitor. They see the Conservative Party a little bit ahead of the liberals in the polls. And they also see polling about Pierre Polyev, you and I have talked about some of this in the past, that show that Mr. Polyev, he's not seen as the devil by most people. He's sort of seen as a kind of a neutral, maybe a positive. And so there will be people looking to see if Justin Trudeau is going to step more directly into the role of defining Pierre Polyiat, creating an understanding that's crisp and strategically useful for the

Liberal Party. I think those will be the two big things I'm watching for. I think later in the year, maybe there'll be a question of what's the government's agenda? What's the plan from a policy standpoint that's fresh? And there's a little bit of talk about a speech from the throne in the fall. I don't know whether that will happen or not, but I don't expect to see that be the focus of his speech tomorrow. I think it will be more his communication skills on display and also a definition effort of Pierre Paulien. Oh, you've got me so excited now.

A speech from the throne in the fall. I don't know whether I can wait that long. Well, you're a big throne guy, and you'll have your cup. You can... They should bring the king over to do the speech from the throne. There's the strategy. Bring Charles III. Sit him in the seat. I can just see the stories about, well, how much did it cost for him to stay?

And then, you know, all of that stuff. All right, my friend. Well, we'll talk to you before the coronation because Friday, good talk. You'll be here with Chantel. And I'm sure we'll be able to talk and review whatever it was that the prime minister talked about on Thursday night. And any other things that are topical for this week. I'll try and work on the internet connection here, make sure that there's no... Well, I can tell you, I don't know what you did during the break, but it's been perfect

since the break. So for the last 20-25 minutes, no interruptions. The first 10 or 12 were pretty tough. I hate to say it. I didn't do anything. I think it was Elon Musk's satellite. It may well have been. Underperformed in the first segment and then got better. We can blame Elon Musk.

That's a national party game or international party game as well. Okay, thanks, Bruce. We'll talk to you again in 48 hours. And thank you, listeners. Tomorrow it's your turn and the Random Ranter. Thanks for listening today. We'll talk to you in 24 hours.