The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Why Are Incumbents In So Much Trouble?

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

The Scottish First Minister resigns, the British PM is being pushed by his own party, the polls are brutal for Justin Trudeau, and Joe Biden can't seem to pull away from a court bound Donald Trump. What's the problem here? Bruce Anderson makes a on-off return to mid-week commentary to have a chat about the mood of the electorate.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. And this is special. A voice comes back. A midweek voice comes back. That's coming right up. Well, some of you veteran bridge listeners will recognize that music. That's the old music from Smoke Mirrors and the Truth, SMT. We haven't had that for a while, as Bruce checked out of Wednesdays, and we kind of checked out of Wednesdays as well. This is a Tuesday and a special one-off appearance by Bruce Anderson. Both Bruce and I are in the UK this week,

traveling around, doing our thing. Oh, and there's a lot of smoke and mirrors. There's a lot of smoke and mirrors. And that's why we wanted to have a little chat this week, because there's some stuff happening politically in this country that in some ways is kind of similar to what we've been witnessing going on, not only in Canada, but in a lot of places, because incumbents are in trouble in this big election year.

More than half the countries in the world that have elections are having them this year. And in many places, incumbents are in trouble. And the UK is a classic case in point. We're in Scotland right now and we witnessed yesterday the resignation of their Prime Minister, what they call the First Minister,

Hamza Yousaf. He decided to call it quits because he just couldn't make the pact that he had with a, he's SNP, Scottish National Party, and they had a pact with the Green Party to keep them in power. Sound familiar? Anyway, that pact has kind of broken down.

And Yusuf decided, you know, I'm part of the cause of this and I'm out. So before we get into any possible comparisons, why don't you talk about what happened yesterday in terms of the way you saw it unfold? Because I think it's interesting for a Canadian audience to witness not only what's happening here, but what's happening south in England. And we'll talk about that in a moment. Go ahead, Bruce. Yeah, you know, Peter, it does feel to me that everywhere you turn, or almost everywhere you

turn, the number one talking point for incumbents is, oh, it's hard for incumbents everywhere. Justin Trudeau talks about it. Obviously, Joe Biden is feeling it. He's tied in the national polls with Donald Trump, but he's trailing in the swing states, the all-important swing states. We see Rishi Sunak 20 points down to Labour, a massive, massive deficit. Justin Trudeau, roughly 20 points down, maybe a little bit less than that, to Pierre Pauliev. And here in Scotland, you know, it's a slightly different situation, but underneath it all, there is a certain malaise with incumbents right now. And I think that you have to look at it and say, there are some things which are temporal, meaning they're specific to this moment in time. And then there are some things that are maybe kind of longer term challenges for incumbents. And let

me deal with the temporal ones in the UK and then Scotland separately. In the UK, Sunak is leading a conservative party that's been in office for a good while. And so there is fatigue with conservative policies. And there's that sense that develops over time that whatever's going wrong has to be, to some degree, the responsibility of the people who've been there all along. But in very specific terms, there's a lot of unhappiness with the cost of living. There's a lot of unhappiness with the National Health Service. There's tremendous frustration around the immigration issue. this really quite bizarre plan, it seems to me anyway, that Britain will fly asylum seekers to Rwanda and pay Rwanda to process those claims and figure out what to do with these people.

There's underlying dissatisfaction with the way that Brexit has turned out. And the Conservative Party also has a party on the right a very profoundly kind of right-wing uh pro brexit uh party that eats into its support as well so there are things that are very specific to the political context for rishi sunak that are bedeviling him that are making it hard for him to make a case that he's a uh you know a change agent uh and reaches a broader market than the Conservative Party was before he took the lead. And then there are these kind of broader, longer-term trends, which we'll come back to in a moment. In Scotland, of course, you've got the SNP, the Scottish National Party, which has been in government for a good while, and under Nicola Sturgeon before Humza Yousaf. People have grown

tired of that party, not necessarily alienated by the separatist agenda, the idea of Scottish independence. I think there's still a strong feeling that that would be an ideal situation, but it doesn't feel like anything imminent can happen on that. And so the Scottish National Party, the raison d'etre of which is to pursue Scottish independence, has been governing like any other party. And that means people are unhappy with the cost of living.

People are unhappy with the education system. People are unhappy with a sense that the government is maybe more focused on social justice issues or environmental issues and not as focused as they might like on economic issues. So those things are affecting the government in Scotland and causing really the First Minister to resign. But let me finish by starting the conversation really on that. What are the things that aren't specific to unique economies or different economies, different political systems? I think that we live in a time where, first of all, we don't all consume the same information. We see that as a fantastically growing trend. More and more people say they're

consuming less and less of the same things. And so they're developing their own opinions based on whatever pieces of information or opinion or comment they gather. The second thing is that we live in a period where the pace at which we come to conclusions about things we don't like, and maybe things that we like too, is almost instantaneous. We know that social media is very unforgiving, not just in the world of politics, but in the world of what you're wearing and how you act. And what you said to somebody that maybe you didn't say exactly the way that you would have said it if you had it to do over again. There's a punishing aspect to the way that we conduct ourselves as societies now. And so people who are in the center of the public eye, like politicians are and first ministers,

they pay an extraordinary price sometimes because of that. And I think we can expect that that's going to continue to be an important trend going forward because nobody's really turning off social media to the extent that the rumors might suggest we would. You know, the other thing that I noticed that's different, and when you look around, at first I thought, well, maybe it's just in Canada, but it doesn't seem to be that way uh this sense that there's no allegiance to any one party

anymore people don't feel you know a loyalty to to one political ideology or not we're in a very different kind of era different time because of whether it's cost of living or the world situation or what have you, there is no allegiance. I mean, in Britain, Boris Johnson won one of the biggest majorities ever. That was only four years ago. They're in their, they've got their third leader within that time. They bounced Bojo. They bounced Liz Truss.

They are on the, you know, depending on who you listen to, they want to bounce Rushi Sunak. They would be into their fourth leader, you know, in a term that they want a majority government. And as you point out, for at least the last year or longer, they've been down 15, 20 points in the polls. No loyalty. Same kind of situation here.

You know, the SNP in Scotland, I think it's about 18 years they've been in power. It's a long time. Yeah. And, you know, they've been single-focused on independence for Scotland. And while there is, I think, loyalty to that issue by a large segment of the population, it no longer translates to the SNP. So this loyalty factor is an interesting one to look at.

Yeah, it is. And it's a little bit different in different places. So in the United States, Democrat or Republican, those are brands that people attach to themselves and attach themselves to, to a very significant degree, much more so than I would say in Canada. If we look at the base vote of the Republican and Democrat parties for presidential election purposes, it's kind of, you know, 40% each. And then there's independents and some swing voters. But in Canada, the base vote of the Conservative Party is about 10%, the same for the Liberal Party, maybe 8% for the NDP. And everything else is a vote that kind of swims around or at least looks like it would or could,

depending on the circumstances. I think that in Britain, the Labour Party, you know, has had a pretty strong cohort over time, but it didn't go down a lot. And sometimes parties kind of lose touch with what it is that they're there to do, which is if they're in government, to govern for everybody. And instead, they start focusing, and this is also a thing that we see more in the era of social media, parties tend to respond more quickly to the way in which their base cohort is thinking about things, talking about things, pushing things. And there's a symbiotic relationship,

which is I think sometimes counterproductive in terms of how the rest of the marketplace looks at what's going on. And sometimes when I look at the Liberal government in Canada, now I see that the way that they communicate on social media seems designed to kind of rally their base. And they've got a bigger problem than that. They need to look a little bit more like they're trying to change and reach other people that haven't been with them for the last, call it a year. So, you know, I do think that there is shifting loyalty.

It varies by place. Here in Scotland, I want a Quebec first orientation. I think in Scotland, the SNP has been that. But in recent years, the complaints about it tended to be that it kind of lost its focus on that. And maybe didn't have enough focus on economic issues. What do you make of the, you know, there are some similarities to what we're seeing here as opposed to at home. But one of the things that's clearly different, at least it is so far, is they're much more liable to go after their leader here than we've seen it happen in terms of the Liberals anyway. The Conservatives, they didn't wait long to plunge the knife into Aaron O'Toole after the last election. But the Liberals, you know, you hear the odd rumble about Justin Trudeau,

but it's not open like it is here. And it has been in both, you know, in England and in Scotland. What do you make of that? What's the difference here? I don't know if I see the difference as clearly as you've said it. I think that, you know, when I think about John Turner and I think about Paul Martin and I think about Michael Ignatius, I'm not sure that the Liberal track record is as clean a loyalty card

as all of that. And I think that the jury's out. What I was really getting at was with these times, like right now. It's not like the Liberals haven't been in trouble. It's not a matter of weeks, even months. It's been more than a year. Yeah. Well, I do think everything sort of moves more quickly

and things get kind of locked in a little bit. And so when momentum starts, you know, if the news cycle was, and there'll be another newspaper tomorrow, and there'll be another news broadcast tomorrow night, that gave people who were in trouble a little bit of breathing space. They could sort of retreat, regroup, mend their wounds, figure out another strategy for another day. And then they could put themselves back in front of cameras, in front of journalists, in front of their caucuses and that sort of thing and maybe try to right the ship. Now, you know, there's no waiting for the 10 o'clock news with Peter Mansbridge. I mean, there are a lot of people who are waiting for that. Let's be honest, they're still out there going there going where is he why doesn't he come back and

get us the news oh that's people have moved on right and but the number of people who subscribe to a daily newspaper i think i was looking at some numbers that we gathered a little while ago and it looked like it was 10 percent uh now that's not that nobody else is reading newspapers, reading it online, a lot of people, but that media environment has changed so much. Everything is so immediate. And so when momentum starts, for the worse, it's very hard to pull it back. And you saw, because you were watching this as I was with Humza Yousaf, that once he took a decision last Thursday to kind of push the two Green members out of his cabinet and end the agreement that he had with the Green Party that had kept him in office, all hell broke loose. And it really never stopped breaking loose. It looked like he wanted to isolate for a weekend and see if he could regroup.

But, you know, it was apparent that he couldn't come up with a strategy that might be workable. And then the only focus became, how quickly is he gone? And who's going to replace him? And I think there is something for incumbents everywhere to be aware of in that kind of, in that sense, that when something starts to move, it can sometimes move more quickly than it ever would have in the past, and more punishingly too. That's interesting. And that is a true difference in the past where things used to drag on for, you know, a long time, sometimes, you know you know months sometimes years before a change was made um let me ask you one other thing because mentioned this at the end of um good talk last

week we'd lost you already i don't know what happened to your line but you disappeared but i gave you the big plug uh one of the most popular certainly one of the best if not the best political podcast that you can access anywhere in the world these days is the rest is politics a british-based podcast um you had a chance to talk with the two principals on that podcast uh last week to give them a sense my understanding was basically they were trying to understand what was going on in Canada. But at the same time, you had the opportunity to talk with them. And I'm wondering what you learned from them,

because they're both pretty experienced guys. They're super astute and very curious individuals with great track records of experience in and around politics. And they were lovely guys to talk to. So I really enjoyed it. I felt the strength of their curiosity really came through in the conversation that we had. Also, for people who were looking to know more about Canadian politics, they already knew quite a bit. They had a reasonable understanding of the state of play, and they were interested in things that it made sense for me to hear their interest in. you know, said that he had talked to someone who suggested that the entire political spectrum in Canada could fit within part of the Democratic Party spectrum in the United States.

And I think one could quibble with that a little bit, but there is some element of truth to that, that Canada's political spectrum, you know, is fairly congested around centrist public policy, for the most part, and for most years. I thought that they were interesting in looking for parallels in the challenges that Justin Trudeau was facing with those that Rishi Sunak is facing. And we talked about, you know, the cost of living, we talked about how people feel about the economy and how it kind of lands on the desks of the incumbents. I found their level of knowledge of Canada to be really pretty good. Obviously, their kind of intelligent observations about politics were interesting for me to hear and i noticed that this

week and and maybe uh our listeners will be interested in it as well as they started a i think it's going to be weekly a separate podcast uh called trip usa i think it is trip america trip usa which is about the u.s presidential election and, and it features Cady Kaye, the BBC journalist, and Anthony Scaramucci, famous for serving in Trump's White House as Director of Communication for what has since become known as Scaramucci, a very short period of time. Quite a colorful character, and they're both – I listened to the first one last week.

I loved it. I thought it was interesting, and I'll be listening some more. If you're wondering who these guys are, as you mentioned, Rory Stewart was a cabinet minister in the conservative government, and Alistair Campbell was the Downing Street Director of Communications for Tony Blair, right? Tony Blair, yeah. I remember interviewing Alistair Campbell after Blair had left

and the next election and talking to him. This was before his rest of politics days, and he was great then. Obviously, with that kind of experience, it's kind of like the Moore-Butts conversations, but they're much more regular on the rest of experience. It's kind of like the Moore-Butts conversations, but they're much more regular on the rest is politics. But they try their best, as do James Moore and Jerry Butts, to separate their political biases. Biases? Biases?

I'm not sure what that is. But anyway, they try to separate those, and they do a pretty good job of that and give you the inside story without getting too inside baseball. I think that's right. I think they have a kind of an operating ethos of disagreeing agreeably and they don't always disagree, but when they do, it's never tendentious. It's not like listening to to people who are you know about to drop the gloves all the time or something like that they

they exchange views and it's a very interesting conversation and they were also interested in mark carney because they would have been familiar with uh mark carney uh from his time as the governor of the bank of england and they you know, heard that he was giving speeches about Canadian politics. So I found it interesting to hear their questions about him as somebody who was wasn't in a political job, but experienced politics firsthand as the governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England in particular. It's always a tricky transition. You know, you and I have watched a lot of people try to make that leap from the private sector into politics, some successfully, some that it takes a while.

I remember Michael Wilson, who became, you know, finance minister in the Mulroney years. I was at his nomination meeting when he first ran. I think it was in a by-election in 78. And he was one of the most awkward candidates I've ever seen. He won that nomination meeting, and he went on to win the riding, and then, you know, had a very successful career. But it takes a while for some. Others, it's kind of a natural fit.

It's often the whole public speaking thing that trips some people up. Others who've had that experience. Yeah. I think I've spent the better part of my life trying to figure out what distinguishes people for whom that part of the life trying to figure out what distinguishes people who for whom that part of the job comes more naturally and it isn't probably any one thing but the thing that comes most easily to mind for me is something to do with ego you have to be almost unnaturally confident in your abilities to persuade people and to make a point that will stick with them to be great out of the gate at that. Otherwise, you know, a natural level of humility is I'm standing in front of a crowd.

They're expecting me to tell them how it's going to be and what to do and that sort of thing. And so people don't naturally come equipped. Most people don't anyway with this. That's the thing I should do. I should get up on the stage and tell people exactly how it is and exactly how it's going to be and exactly what I would do. That takes a degree of experience, a kind of a commitment to the setting aside of your humility almost, right? I remember, like, for me, Jean Chrétien was kind of one of those guys who never seemed to shy away from that microphone, right? He was like, give me the microphone and I'm going to tell you a story

and I'm going to tell you what's what and I'm going to tell you where we're going to go. And he was good at that, even though you might look at him on other days and say, but did he know that much about that or was his idea really that good or had he really thought through the other ways of thinking about this so anyway i'm going to keep on kind of looking for that but i feel like that one of the one of the challenges for people who are thinking about getting into politics these days is this a kind of social media tyranny almost is that you saw rishi sunak the other day he was making some video that it looked like he was thinking this should this should go great on tiktok he had a cup of coffee did you see this one peter i don't know he had a cup of coffee in

front of him and he went and sat down and he put milk in the coffee. And when the coffee turned more milky and brown, you could see that there was a 700 pound was written in there on a Sharpie. So you couldn't see the 700 pound figure until the milk went in the coffee. And his whole point was, you're going to tomorrow is the day that you're going to be 700 pounds richer because of some policy that I've got. And it looks so concocted, right? And sometimes that works. Like, we've seen a whole bunch of these videos now, and I see Justin Trudeau is doing a lot of them now too where you would know this from your your days in tv where there's some poor camera person who's walking backwards holding that camera because the person's coming at them with a certain amount of energy with a certain pace making a whole bunch of points uh and it kind of works as video but it's pretty concocted it's manufactured and my point i guess is uh

it's a little bit like playing with it's like running with scissors for politicians who who haven't been in that business for a long time how you do that kind of thing how you manifest uh the way that you want to come across so that it doesn't look as though you're trying to be something that isn't authentic to you. But a lot of the time, the advice that people get when they approach politics for the first time is almost like, well, everybody's good at skateboarding, so you should be good at skateboarding too, or whatever the equivalent is, right? And that isn't the way that people are. Sometimes you have to look at politicians and say, you do you. Whatever the good version of you is, the one that will make people interested in knowing more

and kind of get a glimpse into your soul, as our friend Alan Gray used to say, that's what you should do. And I think that that's a real challenge these days for people who are thinking about entering politics is is to be authentic to themselves and still find ways for people to pay attention to what it is that they have to say well that's going to be the challenge for a lot of people in the in the next elections whether they're in canada in the states or here in the uk is that there are so many platforms now that you're going to be bombarded with, whether it's TikTok or AI-generated stuff that is going to be coming at you and you're going to be trying to decipher about whether this candidate or this party's platform is good for you or good for the country or what have you.

It's not going to be easy. I mean, the traditional ways of communicating those kind of things seem so basic now compared with what's going to be coming. And it literally changes every month in terms of the ability for new platforms to be created, new ways to try and persuade voters on different things. I'm not quite sure how to handle it. People ask me for advice on what to believe and how to handle this stuff.

I don't know what to say to them anymore. Well, yeah, I get it. So I tend to, whenever I get asked that question, I tend to revert to I get asked that question, I tend to revert to, you know, some basic kind of fundamentals, which, you know,

the right thing is almost always the right thing to do. And so if you're in politics and you, and that seems like a novel idea or not what you expected, you should think about it. It isn't the case always that people will really appreciate the right public policy choice, but it's still the case that it's the best thing for you to try to do if you're entering politics to be at a senior level. And I do think that over time goes to this question of authenticity is that if you if you

do what you truly believe is the right thing to do people mostly will sniff that out they will come to understand that that is who you are and that if you decide that you don't have to be good at all of the 10 decathlon political skills, you know, speech making and glad handing and storytelling and all of those kinds of things, but you're good at one of them or two of them. Maybe that's good enough. Don't, don't try to compete in events that you're not going to be that successful at from a communication standpoint.

That's kind of where I sit from an advice standpoint is do what you believe is right and figure out which of the political skills you're good enough at or particularly good at, which ones maybe aren't really for you. And don't try to figure out how to do the ones that you probably won't be very good at. Pick your lane and stick to it. Yeah. I do use the decathlon example sometimes because, you know, I forget all of the events to that. There's javelin and all kinds of things, right? The idea that anybody in politics could be good at all these different things, it isn't really the case.

And we always sort of measure politicians against, well, you know, the incumbents, they suck, but everybody else would suck worse. How many times have we heard that, right? Well, no, the world doesn't really work that way. At some point, if we're tired of what we're seeing, we're going to want something different and we're going to judge it a little bit differently

on that curve of, I don't like the incumbents anymore, so what else is on offer? But eventually, people do use different metrics. We saw in the reaction to Brian Mulroney's passing that the way that people in Canada judged him years after his time in office was very different from how they felt about it when he was in office, as you know. And that, to me, was maybe the most reassuring bit of public opinion I've seen in a very long time around this question of, are there any anchors in public opinion? Is it possible that if you did what you thought was the right thing, that eventually people would kind of see it, would notice it, would give it some credit? Now, maybe he will have thought that that took too long to happen. Maybe other people will say, yeah, but there were some intervening events that weren't all that great. Be that as it may, to me, you still have a guy who, for the most part,

did what he thought was the right thing to do as prime minister. And some number of years later, you have people saying, I think he tried to do the right thing and did some useful things. you know modern politics and social media the raucousness of the way in which people talk that that donald trump has exemplified it's you know there's still some bedrock things and i that's why i think that um the question of how solid and secure pierre pauliev's lead is is an open question if he's not running against Justin Trudeau as I was saying last week and I don't say that all the time because

I'm trying to cast dispersions on Justin Trudeau I'm really saying it because I think I saw a story on CBC yesterday about Pierre Pauliev talking about the justice system and he made reference

to using the notwithstanding clause. He didn't say specifically, he says, I think you know what I mean, but I'm going to use all of the means at my disposal to change the way that judges deal with sentencing so that it fits my sense of what it should be. And then he added a quote, which I tweeted out this morning, or X'd out, or whatever you call it now, the essence of which was, well, maybe I should find the exact quote, because it just read really strange to me, that he would say, I will be the democratically elected Prime Minister,

accountable to the people, and they can make the judgments themselves on whether they think my laws are constitutional. Now, if he had said they'll make the judgment on whether they like my laws, no problem. But the idea that people will make the decision about whether his laws are constitutional the whole point of a constitution is it's not public opinion and so i look at him and i kind of go some days he seems like he's got the you know he's got exactly what he needs to have he talks about jobs with workers he talks about housing with people who need housing and then some days he does things like this, says things like this. And I think he's, I don't know if he's a finished piece of work in politics. Probably not.

Almost nobody is. But he's vulnerable on some of these issues. If the other parties can find a way to be more competitive with him, which so far they are not doing. Sorry, I know I rambled there. No, no, no. You rambled good. You make us think, you know, and I mean,

that's the whole point of what we try to do on the bridge. You don't have to agree with us, but you do have to think about, or you get the opportunity to think about some of the issues that are confronting us in these days. And, you know, Wednesdays was always fun on SMT, and, you know, it was a treat to have you back. I told Bruce, just come on for 10 minutes, you know. Here we are 35 minutes later, and we're still rambling on. But it's great, and anytime, anytime

you want to come back early. All right, well, we it's great anytime. You want to come back early? We'll do it again. It's a good warm-up for you to get ready for Chantel on Fridays. Yeah, you bet. You always have to be ready. I'm trying to find I'm trying to use AI to give me

Chantel-like metaphors that aren't Chantel's. That's my next challenge when I open up the computer later on this morning. We'll look forward to that. All right, Bruce, you take care. I'm going to keep on rocking here on our Tuesday episode of The Bridge, but we're going to take a quick break, and we'll be right back. All right, you bet, Pete.

And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Tuesday episode. It was great having Bruce with us for the first chunk of the program today and got a couple of little things to bring up with you before we go. You're listening on SiriusXM channel 167 Canada Talks or on your favorite podcast platform. Okay. Well, one is the question of the week as I as we mentioned yesterday. And there have already been lots, lots of entries, and they're fabulous.

They're a little long, and I'm trying to figure out how we're going to deal with that. But the question is simple. Name one teacher, and it could have been in grade school or high school or university, college, you name it. Name one teacher who has had a real influence on your life. Okay? Some of these replies that I've heard, almost entirely from people, not regulars, they're all new listeners.

Or not necessarily new listeners, but listeners who haven't written before. And it's great to hear from you. Because this clearly spurred something on with many of you. So, entry process is simple. You write to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com, themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. Have it in by 6 p.m. Eastern time tomorrow.

All right, that's the deadline. That's the cutoff. After that, you know, it's too late. So get your entries in by then. Make sure you include your name and the location you're writing from. That's all I ask, as well as your answer. Name the one teacher you've had in your life who's had the most impact, most influence on your life.

As I said, some wonderful answers. That will be for Thursday's Your Turn, along with the Random Ranter. Okay, I've got a couple of minutes here. We haven't had an end bit in a while. This one's interesting. The headline, it's in The Guardian. The headline is thousands of flights to and from Europe affected by suspected Russian jamming.

According to The Guardian, 46,000 aircraft have logged GPS problems over the Baltic Sea since August. Gwynne Topham writes this. He's their transport correspondent. Flights in and out of Britain are among thousands that have been affected by suspected Russian jamming of GPS systems. More than 2,300 Ryanair flights have reported incidents of GPS interference since last August, according to a report, as well as almost 1400 at Wizz Air. I've never heard of Wizz Air. 82 at British Airways, certainly heard of those.

And four from EasyJet. about 46,000 aircraft in total have logged problems with GPS over the Baltic Sea in the same time period. Based on analysis of flight logs with the website gpsiam.org, most of the GPS problems reported on the website have come in Eastern Europe, bordering Russia. The UK government has confirmed in March that an RAF plane carrying the Defense Secretary, Grant Shapps, had its GPS signal jammed while flying near the Russian Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad, while heading back to the UK from Poland. Now, Downing Street Did make it clear that

The safety of the aircraft was not threatened But it was wildly irresponsible Obviously GPS helps them navigate, right? Helps you know where you are and where you're going Anyway, interesting story And in my theme of Anyway, interesting story. And in my theme of airline stories, you know I love those. Yeah, if there's one thing, like I love flying,

and I don't mind long flights at all. But I do want to be comfortable. You want a seat that will recline at times without getting in the way of the person behind you. However, this headline in Yahoo.com, reclining seats on planes may soon be no more. Here's why airlines are getting rid of them. The controversial debate of reclining your seat on the plane may soon come to an end thanks to airline companies wanting to cut back on costs.

Natalia Seneyaka writes this piece for Yahoo. With airlines like Southwest debuting a more streamlined seat design for 2025, it's only a matter of time before reclining seats disappear completely, aviation and travel expert William McGee told Condé Nast Traveler during an interview published just last week. The trend has been occurring for several years now, and I think it will continue. Lighter seats are what the airlines want, because with the cost of jet fuel,

they are always looking to reduce weight on board. That's what McGee told this reporter. And the weight issue, you know, it's funny the way they look. That's what McGee told this reporter. And the weight issue, you know, it's funny the way they look. I may have mentioned this somewhere before. I know it's always been a thing that I've been fascinated by. When I first heard it, I think from an Air Canada person. You know, obviously, the heavier a plane, the more fuel it needs, right?

On its flight. One way of reducing weight on a plane, aside from seats, is the paint they choose to cover the plane with. The logos and all that. Some colors weigh less than other colors. Apparently, white weighs less than red or navy blue or black. At least that's the way it was put to me. And on a big plane with a huge amount of surface covered in paint, it can make a difference, a real difference.

So there you go. Did you know that? I love telling that story. And, of course, hoping that it's true. But that's what I was told. Okay. That's going to wrap it up for today. Tomorrow it's our wonderful Wednesday Encore Edition,

and we'll pick one of the best programs from the past. Thursday, we're back with your turn and your answers to this fabulous question about the teacher who had the most influence on your life. Make sure you send it in. And the Random Rancher will be by on Thursday as well. Friday, of course, is Good Talk. Bruce will be back for that with Chantel. Know you love that show.

And we love doing it. Alright. That's it for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours