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you'll love to use. So

0:33

I thought it was the

0:35

nothing to do with me,

0:37

Gov, Budget. I think on the

0:40

Labour Front bench now,

0:42

which don't have anyone who

0:44

really gets... business, really gets

0:47

economics. If there was an

0:49

Olympic sport for self-damaging behaviour,

0:52

the Russians would be the

0:54

world champions. I've got the

0:57

feeling this is a government

0:59

that still just doesn't realise

1:02

the scale of the task that

1:04

lies before it. One. We have

1:06

the task. Welcome once again to

1:08

Planet Normal, the Telegraph podcast

1:10

with Alice and Pearson. Hello.

1:13

And me, Liam Halligan. Back

1:15

in October, Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivered

1:17

a budget which raised spending by

1:20

a staggering 70 billion pounds a

1:22

year during this Parliament, paid for

1:24

by 30 billion of extra borrowing

1:26

and 40 billion of extra taxation

1:28

each year, a 5% rise in

1:31

the overall tax burden. Most of

1:33

these taxes were on business, not

1:35

least the 25 billion pound increase in

1:37

employer national insurance contributions. And most of

1:40

them are yet to be implemented. They

1:42

don't come in until early April, the

1:44

start of the new fiscal year. But

1:47

just the prospect of these tax

1:49

rises has crushed business confidence according

1:51

to countless surveys and led to

1:54

layoffs and a huge slowdown in

1:56

hiring. With the economy contracting, tax

1:58

revenues plunging and the chart... Chancellor's

2:01

son's unravelling. So on Wednesday this week,

2:03

Reeves came to the Commons to give

2:05

a spring statement, an emergency budget in

2:07

all but name. We're going to talk

2:09

about this spring statement co-pilot, a

2:11

discussion involving not just you, economic

2:13

sage that you now are, but

2:16

with another of Britain's leading economists,

2:18

former Treasury-wise man, founder of the

2:20

Consultancy Capital Economics, and our fellow

2:23

telegraph economist Roger Bootle. Before we

2:25

get out our calculators and consult

2:28

our spreadsheets, running our slide rule

2:30

over this spring statement, not that

2:32

you ever knew what a slide

2:35

rule did, co-pilots, I hear that

2:37

you lately won an award, Allison.

2:39

Was it the Lion in the Wizard

2:42

of Oz, Courage Award? Or something

2:44

else? I wish I'd never mentioned this

2:46

to you. But you did! I showed

2:48

you my certificate. That's where it started

2:50

to go wrong, wasn't it? What

2:52

was it, 25m breaststroke or something?

2:54

I was at the Margaret Thatcher Centre

2:57

at the University of Buckingham for a

2:59

freedom conference. God, you've come a long

3:01

way since you're a shouty lefty student

3:03

in your dungarees and your monkey boots.

3:06

The Margaret Thatcher conference, Kriki. Yeah, but

3:08

I brought about the fall of the

3:10

Soviet Union as planet normal listeners there

3:13

with my cyclists against the bomb badge. So

3:15

I was able to move to the

3:17

right after that was safely sorted out.

3:19

Actually it was a great event, lots

3:22

of fantastic speakers. Top Young was there

3:24

from the Free Speech Union and I

3:26

did my speech about my shenanigans with

3:28

Essex police and was able to talk

3:30

about some of her quasi-political prisoners we

3:32

have in our country here and we're

3:34

going to be doing more on that

3:37

on planet normal in coming weeks I

3:39

hope, but they were very very kind.

3:41

and they gave me an award for

3:43

courage standing up for freedom of

3:45

speech and as I explained to

3:47

them some are born brave some

3:49

achieve braveness and some have bravery

3:52

thrust upon them and I was

3:54

very firmly in the third category

3:56

and I got home with my frame

3:58

certificate which I showed to himself who

4:00

took one look at it and he said

4:03

the last person to get an award for

4:05

courage was the cowardly lion in

4:07

the wizard world. There's nothing but

4:09

tributes from the men folk I'm

4:12

closest to. Is there really, however bad

4:14

I am Liam, however timid, at least

4:16

I'm not Rachel Reeve. Talking of

4:18

which, what a segue I like. What

4:20

we did there. So we have got

4:22

Roger Bootle in our midst, Roger, welcome

4:24

to Planet Normal, it's great to have

4:27

you with us. Lovely. Lovely to be

4:29

here. Why don't we do this? Let's

4:31

hear from Roger, we've literally all of

4:33

us watched the spring statement, let's hear

4:35

what Britain's leading economist thinks of it,

4:38

and you and I can fight for

4:40

the number two and three slots, Allison.

4:42

Let's hear what Roger thinks of the

4:44

spring statement, and then you and I

4:47

can quiz him over the next half

4:49

hour or so, and hopefully all become

4:51

clear, clear as mud. Well I was

4:53

I suppose I was depressed I was amazed

4:55

at the same time because I've done so

4:58

many of these budgets it really is a

5:00

budget in all but name isn't it you

5:02

know to see the joshing between the shadow

5:05

Chancellor and her all that is so familiar

5:07

my overwhelming feeling is actually let's make a

5:09

surprise to you I think some of the

5:11

things that labor are now doing aren't all

5:14

bad. The trouble is, first of all, they

5:16

went badly wrong, I think, last October. She

5:18

shouldn't have increased borrowing and increased taxes the

5:20

way she did, and that comes down to

5:23

increasing spending. And the other thing is, the

5:25

amounts of the correct things that are doing

5:27

are so tiny. I mean to be boasting

5:29

about an extra 0.2% of GDP at events,

5:32

it's utterly and utterly pathetic. So I've got

5:34

the feeling that this is a government that

5:36

still just doesn't realize the scale of the

5:38

task that lies before it that lies before

5:41

it. I think that's right Roger. If

5:43

you look at the welfare reforms

5:45

that labour is really risking party

5:47

unity, the left of the Labour

5:49

Party of course is absolutely in

5:52

sense that they're even touching at

5:54

the beached whale that is now

5:56

our welfare state. In total they

5:58

may save or save. slow down the

6:00

rate of increase in spending by

6:02

up to 5 billion quid a year,

6:05

that's on spending of 1,300 billion

6:07

pounds a year. And the headline for

6:09

me, the sort of nerds headline,

6:11

is that this spring statement, even before

6:14

we've looked at the OBR documents,

6:16

we haven't had a look, but just

6:18

looking at the summaries of the

6:20

documents, I can tell you that the

6:22

government is saying it will borrow

6:24

over the next two years. no less

6:27

than 18 billion pounds more than it

6:29

was going to borrow before this

6:31

statement. 18 billion pounds over two years

6:33

Roger that's twice pretty much twice

6:35

the savings from all these welfare reforms

6:38

with all the political fire and

6:40

brimstone that they're going to bring so

6:42

far from fixing the foundations and

6:44

other Rachel Reeves bingo words and we

6:46

can go through bingo words in

6:48

this in the statement. Far from fixing

6:51

their foundations, she's actually doubling down

6:53

on the risks she's taking with our

6:55

public finances. It really concerns me.

6:57

But you know, Roger, who cares what

6:59

you and I think? Because we've got

7:02

today's John Maynard Keynes in our

7:04

midst. Here she is. So Allison, the

7:06

guilt markets around the world, equity

7:08

markets are poised, wall streets on the

7:10

line, Singapore's waking up. What did

7:12

you make of it? I think she's

7:15

got some brass neck, hasn't she?

7:17

R. Rachel. She's objected to being called

7:19

Rachel from accounts on the basis

7:21

of her decidedly dodgy CV, bigging up

7:23

her rather shallow experience, but we

7:25

have had quite a few entertaining emails.

7:28

You'd be happy to know this

7:30

Roger, from actual people who work in

7:32

accounts, subject it's not right to

7:34

say that Rachel should be called from

7:37

accounts, because she wouldn't get that job.

7:39

So she's objected, and that this

7:41

is... misogyny and you know one of

7:43

my absolute pet hates is when

7:45

women who prove themselves to be deeply

7:48

competent, embarrassingly bad at a job,

7:50

suddenly start deciding that people are saying

7:52

you're really rubbish at this job

7:54

love because it's a woman. No, it's

7:56

because you're completely useless. I thought

7:58

it was in a way what we

8:01

expected, she was scrambling to fix

8:03

the mess that Rogers just describes that

8:05

she made in October when they'd

8:07

been already talking down the economy hugely,

8:09

haven't they, saying, oh this is all

8:12

dreadful, you know, she's still sticking

8:14

with the fiction of the 22 billion...

8:16

pound black hole, which she promptly

8:18

decided to fill by giving nine billion

8:20

in wage increases to her mates

8:22

in the public sector, 11.5 billion in

8:25

overseas climate aid, always top of

8:27

anybody's list, that is Liam really. So

8:29

I thought it was the nothing

8:31

to do with me, Gov. budget pretty

8:33

sort of shame with stuff but

8:35

you know as Mel Stride I thought

8:38

he gave a very good response

8:40

we did we did we did too

8:42

generate looking a bit upset next to

8:44

him because they can blame me

8:46

he's a bit good Yeah, he was

8:49

good and he talked rightly about

8:51

her public humiliation. He talked about the

8:53

economy being in a perilous situation.

8:55

Talk about the look on Robert Genrich's

8:57

face, the look on Kier Starmer's

8:59

face was an absolute picture. He wasn't

9:02

beaming rapturously at his Chancellor. There

9:04

was a slightly, what the hell are

9:06

we? doing here. Just the one

9:08

thing that she said that really annoyed

9:11

me was she said working people

9:13

are paying the price of economic irresponsibility.

9:15

We would never do anything to put

9:17

household finances in danger. Let's just

9:19

talk to a random person on any

9:22

street in the United Kingdom and

9:24

ask them how are your household finances

9:26

doing? She's a bit good Roger,

9:28

eh? She's a bit good, yeah. I

9:30

feel like Robert Genrich. Yeah, I

9:32

thought the kind of buzzword bingo was

9:35

absolutely awful. The Labour Party is

9:37

the party of... we won't put more

9:39

taxes on working people. Of course,

9:41

you know, the increase in employer NIC,

9:43

which has led to hiring dropping

9:45

off a cliff. The burden of that

9:48

is largely on working people. She talked

9:50

a lot about increased global uncertainty.

9:52

Maybe we can talk about that. She

9:54

talked about, we've seen what happens

9:56

when a British government borrows too much,

9:59

you know, banging in the drum

10:01

about the Liz trust mini budget again,

10:03

even though Allison, as we've said

10:05

on planet normal, a lot in recent

10:07

months. Government borrowing costs have been

10:09

higher than they were at the peak

10:12

of the so-called mini budget crisis

10:14

in October 2022 for most of the

10:16

last three months and they're still

10:18

going up. Let me just put this

10:20

to Roger. Joking aside, you are a

10:23

macro economist of international reputes. You

10:25

think about these issues very, very closely.

10:27

What do you think about this?

10:29

The world has changed line from Rachel

10:31

Reeves. Trying to shift the blame

10:34

for her forecasts, falling apart, her sums

10:36

not adding up since October, trying

10:38

to shift the blame for that on...

10:40

specifically Donald Trump, US tariffs and

10:42

global events dear boy. Yeah I don't

10:45

really think that stacks up because

10:47

the budget was in October. Trump didn't

10:49

take office until January. I think

10:51

you're right to emphasize the terrible effect

10:53

on business confidence and ultimately consumer confidence

10:56

from those tax rises last October.

10:58

That's the main thing. Just the prospect

11:00

of them. Because they come in

11:02

in next month. Yeah. Like they're really

11:04

worrying if you want to get

11:06

worried. Is that this business about the

11:09

world's changed? It'll increase uncertainty. do

11:11

as in when the world really does

11:13

turn adverse because we don't know

11:15

what Trump's going to do yet. We

11:17

don't know what Trump's going to

11:19

do. Exactly. We don't know the consequences

11:22

of all that or the knock-on

11:24

effects on us from whatever happens in

11:26

Europe. So it could be an

11:28

awful lot worse. My overwhelming feeling, you

11:30

know, is that this is a government

11:33

which really just didn't understand basic

11:35

economics. They don't understand how you get

11:37

economic growth. They seem to think

11:39

you just kindered up out of thin

11:41

air. They don't realize... the way

11:43

that regulations are clobbering small businesses and

11:46

taxes are as well. They just

11:48

don't understand where growth comes from. With

11:50

one exception, I think they have

11:52

done something good on the reform of

11:54

planning. which the Tories sort of

11:56

flirted with over a number of years

11:59

didn't do very much. They're absolutely

12:01

right. I wish they could actually extend

12:03

that lesson more broadly and think, hold

12:06

on, what can we actually do

12:08

which reduces costs for businesses and gives

12:10

them the incentive to expand? But

12:12

it's all about the vested interest you

12:14

take on, isn't it? If you're

12:16

going to take on the big housebuilders

12:19

as a vested interest, if you're

12:21

going to take on farmers and try

12:23

and extract more land from agriculture

12:25

compulsory purchase orders and so... that's one

12:27

thing. How about taking on other

12:29

vested interests like the trade unions? Absolutely.

12:32

How about taking on other vested

12:34

interests that stop employers from properly employing

12:36

people? I tell you a huge unexploded

12:38

bomb in this and I must

12:40

say Andrew Griffiths you know Robert Genrich

12:43

is going to be a bit

12:45

worried about Mel Stridey. She'll be worried

12:47

about Andrew Griffiths as well who

12:49

I think is putting in a decent

12:51

stint on the shadow front bench

12:53

or shadow business secretary of course Mel

12:56

Strideish shadow Chancellor. Andrew Griffiths has

12:58

been tweeting Reeves was on her feet

13:00

was on her feet and I

13:02

think... exactly right. He spotted in the

13:04

OBR documents that none of these

13:06

forecasts include the impact of Labour's employment

13:09

bill. Now Labour's employment bill is going

13:11

through the Lords at the moment

13:13

and even on the government's own estimates

13:15

it adds five billion pounds a

13:17

year. to the costs to firms of

13:20

employing people because it gives you

13:22

sick leave rights it gives you tribunal

13:24

rights unfair dismissal rights from day

13:26

one as well as a host of

13:28

other reforms from the 80s and

13:31

90s being unraveled going back to the

13:33

70s and once you include those

13:35

costs it strikes me Roger hiring is

13:37

going to fall even more. Business

13:39

investment is going to be even lower

13:42

and growth could slow more. Yeah, I

13:44

think it's absolutely right. Going back

13:46

to the forecasts and the OBR, which

13:48

comes in for a lot of

13:50

stick, I do think that the whole

13:53

thing... got an area of unreality

13:55

about it. It's amazing. She was boasting

13:57

about increases in GDP forecast several

13:59

years out of 0.1 or 0.2 percent,

14:01

which is frankly, you know, well

14:03

within the margin of errors, a slip

14:06

of a pen, frankly. The OBI

14:08

has just reduced its growth forecast for

14:10

this year since last October, from

14:12

2% to 1%. And we're supposed to

14:14

believe all this stuff. Yeah I think

14:17

that what Roger was alluding to

14:19

about them you know not understanding growth

14:21

I think part of the problem

14:23

was that labour came in with this

14:25

sort of extraordinary promise that it

14:27

wouldn't raise taxes on so-called working people

14:30

so working people don't mean you

14:32

know the people like my friends in

14:34

town who run a deli and

14:36

a cafe who work seven days a

14:38

week but they didn't come under

14:40

the stalma. Reeves definition of working people.

14:43

So they thought that by not

14:45

raising taxes on working people on their

14:47

pay packets, they would raise taxes on

14:49

the businesses that employ working people.

14:51

But as Roger said, without understanding that

14:54

these business people would in due

14:56

course pass on those increases. So I

14:58

think they do know what they're

15:00

doing, but I just think they're picking

15:03

who they pick on as it

15:05

were. Something I was interested in Roger

15:07

is Rachelries talks about these. global

15:09

headwinds, but I in my extensive reading,

15:11

if Haligan will tell you about,

15:13

if we compare the UK to comparable

15:16

European economies, the cyclical activity data

15:18

has moved from the UK being materially

15:20

above the European average since last

15:22

summer to well below. So in fact

15:24

she's fibbing, isn't she, because actually comparable

15:27

European economies are... somehow doing better

15:29

in these global headwinds than us? Yeah,

15:31

I think that's fair. There are

15:33

of course big differences between different countries.

15:35

I mean, Germany, we know, has

15:37

been very badly hit indeed. Some countries,

15:40

Spain, Portugal, Italy, are doing... relatively

15:42

well. But yeah, I go back to

15:44

what I said before. Most of

15:46

it is clearly a self-inflicted wound. On

15:48

this point about whether they understood

15:50

what they were doing, I suppose they

15:53

must have understood to some extent,

15:55

but I think they sort of fell

15:57

for their own publicity, which is a

15:59

big danger in politics. That's to

16:01

say, I think they sort of believed.

16:04

that lack of growth was basically

16:06

because it was an incompetent Tory government.

16:08

And you just got rid of

16:10

the Tories and magically things would be

16:12

an awful lot better. And gave

16:14

lots of speeches saying the word growth

16:17

many times. I read something, I

16:19

guess it must have been the telegraph,

16:21

I don't know if it was

16:23

you, I read something the other day,

16:25

which horrified me, also amused Cabinet

16:28

Minister, as saying that we thought we'd

16:30

get growth quite easily because if you

16:32

raised wages, that gives people more

16:34

money to... spend, and more spending equals

16:37

more output. You couldn't make it

16:39

up, could you? This is Soviet economics.

16:41

This is literally Soviet economics. I

16:43

mean, I've had conversations, you know, in

16:45

recent years with people who are

16:47

now on the Labour front bench, quite

16:50

senior people, I can't disclose, because

16:52

I'm a journalist, and they were off

16:54

the record, but trying to convince

16:56

me that you can do quantitative easing

16:58

for the people. What does that

17:00

mean? print loads of money and give

17:03

it to the people. We did it

17:05

for the bankers, we can do

17:07

it for the people. And I responded,

17:09

if that worked, Argentina would be

17:11

in the G7. Absolutely. If that works,

17:14

the Roman Empire wouldn't have collapsed.

17:16

Absolutely insane. And yet these people who

17:18

think that, not as students, but

17:20

as adults, are now in senior positions

17:22

running in the country. I mean,

17:24

to what extent Roger... Do you think,

17:27

compare the politicians now with the

17:29

politicians we had when we, we sound

17:31

like two old coders. We are.

17:33

Of course I'd never call, I've got

17:35

to say three old coders on this

17:38

podcast. I'd get a rolling pin

17:40

thrown at my head. But, you know,

17:42

back in the day, I mean,

17:44

even, you know, I remember talking to

17:46

Dennis Healy a lot. Labour Chancellor,

17:48

seriously knowledgeable bloke about the economy. And

17:51

I think on the Labour front

17:53

bench now, which don't have anyone who

17:55

really gets... business really gets economics.

17:57

I think that's right. I mean Healy

18:00

was an intellectual giant but he

18:02

wasn't the only one that lots of

18:04

them were really very very able.

18:06

Peter Shaw for instance. Peter Shaw was

18:08

absolutely terrific. So this lot aren't in

18:11

the same league intellectually but over

18:13

and above that it's the lack of

18:15

business experience which gets me. I

18:17

think I'm writing saying there's not a

18:19

single member of the cabinet who

18:21

has worked for a private sector business.

18:24

If I might run one or

18:26

founded one actually worked for one. I

18:28

mean this is... If it's true,

18:30

it's largely true, then you've got to

18:32

have completely warped attitude, haven't you,

18:34

towards where prosperity comes from and what

18:37

effects you're going to get on

18:39

the economy by shoving up taxes and

18:41

regulation. I think Rachel's trying to make

18:43

Jeremy Hunt look like an economic

18:45

tighten, to be honest with you. Well,

18:48

I think in some ways, by

18:50

comparison, yes. I know that's what I

18:52

mean. You know, it's being new

18:54

to the dismal science. I mean, something

18:56

that leaves out at me that

18:58

I can't, it's quite hard to get

19:01

your head around, and I don't

19:03

think the public is aware of it,

19:05

as Liam has tried to explain

19:07

to me. We are paying a hundred

19:09

billion pounds interest on our debt

19:11

annually, and I just wrote this down,

19:14

a hundred thousand million pounds of

19:16

British taxpayer's money seems to be caught

19:18

up in this Ponzi scheme. Are you

19:20

worried? Is there going to come

19:22

a point when the markets will just

19:25

look at this house of cards

19:27

and say, we're not going to go

19:29

on with this joke anymore? I

19:31

think it's possible. I mean, you've got

19:34

to think about this thing both

19:36

historically and by comparison to other countries.

19:38

We've been here before. I keep

19:40

saying whenever I write about this that,

19:42

you know, after the Napoleonic Wars,

19:44

the debt ratio in this country, public

19:47

debt GDP, was pushing around about

19:49

240 percent. It was 250 percent at

19:51

the end of the Second World War.

19:53

So we've been there before and

19:55

we worked it down. be done. But

19:58

you know, you've got to ask

20:00

yourself how is it going to be

20:02

done. Then looking at us internationally,

20:04

we're obviously much worse off in this

20:06

regard than Germany, but we're actually

20:08

in a better position than France, better

20:11

than the United States, better than

20:13

Japan. There are lots of countries out

20:15

there who've got a serious fiscal

20:17

position. You're asking me if I'm worried.

20:19

What worries me is that here we are

20:21

with this debt level. We haven't fought a

20:24

war to bring us here. There could be

20:26

a shooting war in the future, let's hope

20:28

not, but there could be. The economy, although

20:30

it's on its knees, it's not in a

20:33

deep depression. What on earth could these numbers

20:35

be if things got really, really bad? They

20:37

could be up there way, way above 100%

20:39

of GDP. That's what worries me. And then

20:42

I think the markets would have a real

20:44

fright. The way we got out of

20:46

the debt after the Second World

20:48

War, of course, Roger, as you

20:50

know well, you've been writing about

20:52

it all your adult life, is

20:54

that we had a baby boom,

20:56

we had massive demographic expansion, we

20:59

grew like Topsy, we had all

21:01

kinds of developments in the British

21:03

economy which generated that growth. and

21:05

we managed to expand GDP so

21:07

you had a bigger economy that

21:09

could shoulder the debt. Since the

21:11

global financial crisis in contrast, the

21:13

British economy, like a lot of the

21:16

Western world, has barely managed 1% growth.

21:18

After when Tony Blair and Gordon Brown

21:20

came in, debts of GDP was more

21:22

like 50% and they had 3 or

21:24

4% growth for the next 5 to

21:26

10 years. And this is the problem

21:29

we don't seem to be able to...

21:31

get out of second gear in the

21:33

aftermath of the global financial crisis. And

21:35

yes, if you look at the headline

21:37

numbers, as I know you do, debt

21:39

to GDP is still looking, you know,

21:42

middle of the pack when it comes

21:44

to the Western world. But our increase

21:46

in our debt to GDP is

21:48

an outlier. The increase in

21:50

debt to GDP since the

21:52

COVID pandemic, during the COVID

21:54

pandemic, because our lockdown was

21:56

so ridiculously stringent. And because

21:58

we spent so money on

22:00

furlough and because we massively

22:03

expanded quantitative easing which really spook

22:05

financial markets even though our headline

22:07

number isn't as bad as the

22:09

Italians for instance or even the

22:11

French when it comes to debt

22:13

to GDP the rate of increase

22:16

is alarming and I know you

22:18

talked a lot of people in

22:20

financial markets as do I there

22:22

is fear out there that sterling

22:24

that the British government with its

22:27

finances is sailing very very close

22:29

to the wind and I say

22:31

again the tenure guilt yield it's

22:33

not something we often talk about

22:36

on planet normal but these issues

22:38

are now going mainstream it's 4.64.7%

22:40

that's the highest government borrowing rates

22:43

in 25 years Roger and on a

22:45

much bigger stock now of debt. Oh

22:47

yes, I mean it's not a comfortable

22:49

position, is it? And the one thing

22:52

that Rachel from accounts, I said, well,

22:54

was she not from customer complaints? I

22:56

think she was. Rachel from customer complaints.

22:58

If only she was from customer complaints.

23:00

If only she was from customer complaints.

23:03

If only she was from account. I

23:05

think she is right about it. She's

23:07

been banging being the thing. She's right

23:09

about that. The way to get ourselves

23:11

out of this is by growing the...

23:14

points I made earlier on about planning

23:16

reform, they haven't done much to boost

23:18

growth at all. These increasing regulations, the

23:20

point about employment rights you've talked about

23:22

earlier, I mean that's a killer for

23:24

many small businesses, the increases in business

23:26

taxation, all these things are very very

23:28

very bad for growth. So you know,

23:31

and that's before we get a real

23:33

hit from the global economy which could

23:35

be out there. I've just found in

23:37

the documents as I've been talking

23:39

with the first and second best

23:42

economist in Britain, the number I've

23:44

been looking for in the huge

23:46

reams of documents and I've found

23:48

it on page 118 of the

23:51

OBR's 180 page document is debt

23:53

interest costs as the Chancellor said

23:55

in her speech, debt interest costs

23:57

are due to be £105.2 billion.

24:00

year that's 2024-25 and

24:02

they they rise each

24:04

year to become a

24:06

hundred and thirty one

24:08

billion pounds by 2020-930.

24:10

Let me just say

24:13

here and now I think

24:15

that is a gross underestimate.

24:17

Because? Because I don't think

24:19

interest rates are going to

24:21

come down the way many

24:23

economists forecast and I don't

24:25

see tax revenues emerging to

24:27

the extent the OBR is

24:29

saying even from these lower

24:31

levels of growth because I

24:33

don't, okay we've had the

24:35

impact of these announced tax

24:37

increases in October to some

24:39

extent because businesses are spooked.

24:41

But when they actually are

24:43

implemented I think you then

24:46

get another shock effect and

24:48

I would bet my house on her increasing

24:50

taxes again in October. Really?

24:52

Absolutely. Because it's in, it's who

24:54

she is. It's in the DNA. It's in

24:57

the DNA. Well that would be a shot

24:59

in the foot, it seems to be, wouldn't

25:01

it? I mean, you know, clobbering the economy

25:03

still more. I know the numbers are frightening

25:05

and you could easily paint a scenario under

25:08

which guilt yields go up. against this backdrop

25:10

and then you get massively increased interest payments.

25:12

I don't think that's bound to happen. It's

25:14

in the balance frankly. I mean I was

25:16

interested the way and the run-up to this

25:19

statement all sorts of commentary was saying how

25:21

she's hedged in by the OBR. I know

25:23

they won't say this, they will say that,

25:25

blah blah. I don't think that's quite

25:27

right. She's hedged in by the financial

25:30

markets. You and I, all three leading

25:32

economists on this podcast, know this. You

25:34

know, they're no fools. It's not the

25:36

OBR. It's the bean counters and the

25:38

dealers in the markets, looking over these

25:40

things, and if she put another step

25:43

wrong, they're going to exact a heavy

25:45

price and upgo the guilt yields, upgo

25:47

the debt interest payments. I mean, we've

25:49

somehow rather got to get the... debt

25:51

scenario trending down quite significantly. Isn't it

25:54

worrying that you think that whenever this

25:56

chance, or to some extent it was true of

25:58

the last few chances as well, talk about

26:00

what's going to happen to bring

26:02

this ratio down. It's always in

26:04

the future, way into the future.

26:06

I mean today for instance we

26:09

had all these measures. Lord make

26:11

me virtuous, but not today. Yes,

26:13

not yet, which are coming good

26:15

in four or five years time.

26:17

That doesn't really impress me I

26:19

have seen. I think that that's

26:21

right about her being hedged in

26:23

by the public that is not

26:25

aware. of the situation you guys

26:27

have just outlined and also a

26:29

media class which shows total dishonesty

26:31

and will a tiny bit of

26:33

Parmesan shaving off universal credit is

26:36

this austerity again and you actually

26:38

think I said in the column

26:40

this week but it's literally like

26:42

the bar steward on the Titanic

26:44

deciding whether to cut down on

26:46

the olives or the creps and

26:48

through the porthole we see the

26:50

iceberg looming and there is a

26:52

lack. I agree with that. Telling

26:54

people, she talks about making tough

26:56

choices. No, she doesn't make tough

26:58

choices because there's a terror that

27:00

all of the Labour voters will

27:03

say, oh it's not very nice

27:05

to take away disabled persons car

27:07

or whatever benefit we can't afford.

27:09

And it's probably true, Liam, isn't

27:11

it, across the political class? People

27:13

don't want to say, you know,

27:15

we owe a hundred thousand million

27:17

every year on debt interest. People

27:19

aren't interested in that. People understandably

27:21

want to know, can I afford

27:23

my heating bill and so on?

27:25

So, I mean, just to finish.

27:27

I absolutely think that one thing

27:30

they could do would be to

27:32

scrap net zero tolerance. Absolutely. Immediately.

27:34

And start drilling and fracking and

27:36

getting oil and gas of our

27:38

own out of the North Sea.

27:40

Are we going to let the

27:42

British people get poorer and poorer

27:44

so that labour can feel virtuous?

27:46

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activity by the New York State

29:03

Department of Financial Services. Now on

29:05

to our latest planet normal guest.

29:07

Something a bit different, given our

29:09

earlier focus on the spring statement.

29:11

Mike Calview was born in Oklahoma

29:13

to a modest family, his father

29:15

working in the local oil industry.

29:17

As a young man in the

29:19

late 1980s, he wanted to be

29:21

a Wall Street hot shot. But

29:23

then the Berlin Wall came down,

29:25

and Mike Calvey started working for

29:27

the European Bank for Reconstruction and

29:29

Development in London, and began visiting

29:31

the newly emerging post-communist economies of

29:33

Eastern Europe and the former Soviet

29:35

Union. By the mid-90s, Mike had

29:37

totally changed his plans and moved

29:39

to Moscow, joining other bright young

29:41

Westerners working to build a whole

29:43

range of new businesses, as the

29:45

Russian economy opened up and the

29:47

West for the most part sought

29:49

to embrace the former Cold War

29:51

enemy. Mike Calvie ended up living

29:53

in Moscow for more than 20

29:55

years, learning the language marrying his

29:57

Russian wife Julia and raising three

29:59

kids together. He also built Bering

30:01

Vostok, a hugely successful investment firm

30:03

that raised billions of dollars from

30:05

Western pension funds, insurance companies and

30:07

university endowments, earning them spectacular returns

30:09

from exposure to some of the

30:11

world's fastest growing companies. The Financial

30:13

Media Empire Bloomberg described Mike Calvey

30:15

as, quote, a legend in the

30:17

Russian market. with a reputed aversion

30:19

to any kind of foul play.

30:21

And as someone who also lived

30:23

in Russia for part of the

30:25

90s and again during the 2010s,

30:27

and who's known Mike for many

30:29

years, I can attest that is

30:31

true. But in 2019, after getting

30:33

in broad in a business dispute,

30:35

Mike Calvi ended up in Matroskai

30:37

Tishina, Moscow's most notorious prison, sharing

30:39

a cell for several months with

30:41

seven burly Russians. Now free, fully

30:43

exonerated, living back in the West,

30:45

and having severed all business ties

30:47

with Russia, Mike Calvie's book, Odyssey

30:49

Moscow, has just been published. He

30:51

joined us on Planet Normal to

30:53

discuss Vladimir Putin, the war in

30:55

Ukraine, and his love-hate relationship with

30:57

Russia. Mike Calvie, great to have

30:59

you here on Planet Normal. Liam,

31:01

I'm extremely happy to be here.

31:04

I've been a fan of Planet

31:06

Normal since the very beginning. As

31:08

I'll explain later, I listened to

31:10

your very first episode while I

31:12

was under house arrest in Moscow,

31:14

walking on my tiny balcony, and

31:16

when I heard you and Allison

31:18

talking about lockdown and everything else,

31:20

I was thrusting my hand in

31:22

my fist in the air and

31:24

saying, yes! from Russia optimistic to

31:26

prisoner of the state. Briefly, tell

31:28

us how you first came to

31:30

Russia. Tell us where you're from

31:32

and how you ended up living

31:34

in Moscow in the aftermath of

31:36

the collapse of the Soviet Union.

31:38

It was really a total coincidence.

31:40

I grew up in Oklahoma, the

31:42

Midwest, no ethnic roots from Russia,

31:44

no interest in Russia, Russian language

31:46

growing up, but I was a

31:48

child who graduated from university in

31:50

1989, which of course was the

31:52

year of communist revolutions and history

31:54

changing year, and on a backpacking

31:56

trip around Europe in between graduating

31:58

from uni and starting my job.

32:00

I was reading the news, I

32:02

was meeting people coming back from

32:04

Berlin or Prague or other places

32:06

like that, then I realized as

32:08

a young man that I was

32:10

living in a historic time. So

32:12

I went back to my job

32:14

in New York after that. but

32:16

I started following the news and

32:18

the events that were happening. Because

32:20

you're going to be a Wall

32:22

Street hot shop, right? I was

32:24

working for Solomon Brothers, actually, you

32:26

know, whose London office was in

32:28

this very building where we are

32:30

right now. One of the most

32:32

powerful firms on Wall Street in

32:34

the 1980s and the subject of

32:36

Michael Lewis's liars poker, which was

32:38

written at the time I worked

32:40

there. But, you know, Coming back

32:42

to the question on Russia, in

32:44

1991 I had an opportunity to

32:46

move to the EBRD when it

32:48

was first set up. The European

32:50

Bank for Reconstruction and development. Exactly.

32:52

Set up in London to invest

32:54

in the Soviet Union and I

32:56

leapt at the chance. This was

32:58

a new kind of world bank

33:00

style organisation. We call it multilateral

33:02

to channel state. and private investment

33:04

into these new emerging economies, including

33:06

Russia, including Eastern Europe. Exactly. And

33:08

my boss from Solomon had gone

33:10

there as the chief investment officer.

33:12

So he knew me as a

33:14

guy who understood a little bit

33:16

about resources and energy. So he

33:18

hired me. Because you grew up

33:20

in Oklahoma, right? All country. Hared

33:22

me as one of the first

33:24

50 people or so who worked

33:26

at the EBRD. And it was

33:28

still the Soviet Union. I traveled

33:30

to Moscow for the first time,

33:32

actually a month after the Soviet

33:34

Union ceased to exist. to rubles.

33:36

I had the wits to do

33:38

so on the black market rather

33:40

than at an official rate and

33:42

I got a shoebox full of

33:44

rubles which I couldn't even spend

33:47

because people at the time didn't

33:49

want rubles. So I ended up

33:51

coming back to London with of

33:53

a shoebox full of useless rubles.

33:55

So how did you feel the

33:57

first time you went to Russia?

33:59

I'm sure you thought you might

34:01

stay a few days, maybe stay

34:03

a week. What happened to you

34:05

over the next five to ten

34:07

years? We should disclose, I first

34:09

met you in the mid-90s when

34:11

I went to live in Russia.

34:13

Tell me about the ten years

34:15

after you first went to Russia.

34:17

You know, it wasn't love at

34:19

first sight, I would say it

34:21

was fascination at first sight, but

34:23

my first impressions of Moscow were

34:25

grim. gray and brown. People had

34:27

a scowl on their faces and

34:29

I was fascinated but I also

34:31

felt it to be very harsh.

34:33

But as I got to know

34:35

the country better, started to meet

34:37

Russians, I had some colleagues, Russian

34:39

colleagues at EBRD, I really understood

34:41

that when you scratch through the

34:43

surface Russians can be some of

34:45

the most sentimental loyal friends that

34:47

anyone could have and... you know,

34:49

that very genuine, so the opposite

34:51

of superficiality. So I came to

34:53

fall in love with Russia with

34:55

the culture or the people, but

34:57

it took a while. But the

34:59

90s in Russia, they were the

35:01

wild east, right? What was it

35:03

like for a young man? I

35:05

mean, I'm living in Moscow. Yeah,

35:07

I started traveling there when I

35:09

was 24 and I moved there

35:11

full time at the age of

35:13

27. I remember meeting an American

35:15

former ambassador named Bob Strauss, who

35:17

was a Texan, very classic old

35:19

school guy, who said, if I

35:21

was a young man and had

35:23

$10,000, I'd moved to Moscow and

35:25

bet at all. But then he

35:27

said, if I was an old

35:29

man with ten million dollars, I'd

35:31

still only bet ten thousand dollars.

35:33

At Oklahoma Home and doing an

35:35

impression of a Texan here on

35:37

Planet Normal. Who says we're a

35:39

parochial British podcast? There you have

35:41

it. Don't ask me to do

35:43

any other kind of accent. You

35:45

grew up at the height of

35:47

the Cold War as it were.

35:49

but it was also very interesting

35:51

from a commercial point of view.

35:53

Yeah, it was a horribly unfair

35:55

and tragic time for old people

35:57

in Russia. But it was a

35:59

spectacularly fun and exciting opportunity for

36:01

people who were young. So there

36:03

are a lot of people my

36:05

age, Russians, who started businesses in

36:07

that time, trading, building consumer goods

36:09

or brands. the country needed everything.

36:11

And the Western world was seriously

36:13

interested. Not just in Russia's resources,

36:15

but its people, its markets. Of

36:17

course, through the Yeltsin era, of

36:19

course, there was enormous encouragement from

36:21

the West to support Russia, to

36:23

move there, to look at investments,

36:25

and that continued through the first

36:27

five or ten years of the

36:30

Putin regime as well. So tell

36:32

us about the kind of business

36:34

that you built, and I know

36:36

you're quite a modest man. You

36:38

did pretty well. Well, we started

36:40

off investing in consumer brands and

36:42

goods that Russians need. So you

36:44

raise money from Western institutional investors

36:46

for what's called the private equity

36:48

companies? And we invested it in

36:50

money into... private Russian businesses to

36:52

help them to build factories or

36:54

to expand working capital or marketing.

36:56

And we originally were doing that

36:58

across traditional industries ranging from beer

37:00

and chocolate to mineral water and

37:02

forests. But eventually and pretty quickly

37:04

we shifted towards investing in technology

37:06

and software and we were the

37:08

first investors in companies like Yandex.

37:10

Which is Russia's Google. Which many

37:12

tech specialists think remains. Technologically superior

37:14

to Google. It's a spectacular group

37:16

of brilliant minds who came together

37:18

to build that business. Arkady Volish,

37:20

Ilesegolovich, and many others, created a

37:22

absolutely world-class, and spectacular business that

37:24

beat Google at its own game

37:26

without any benefit of regulation. But

37:28

we also had other investments. It's

37:30

worth saying that one of the

37:32

guys who set up Google was

37:34

actually ethnically Russian. That's true, Sergei

37:36

Brin. Yes, that's true. I think

37:38

that we believed in Russian talent.

37:40

It's not just about the type...

37:42

of education they have, which makes

37:44

them great problem solvers, but also

37:46

the resilience and the competitive spirit

37:48

that was very fertile ground for

37:50

entrepreneurship. Not easy, because every seven

37:52

or eight years there was a

37:54

catastrophic economic crisis when the currency

37:56

collapsed and the stock market collapsed.

37:58

But if you could stomach those

38:00

and you didn't you didn't have

38:02

too much debt, you could double

38:04

down in the downturns, which we

38:06

did and it paid off enormously

38:08

for our investors. So your investors,

38:10

I should add, were seriously bespoke

38:12

Western investors. They were pension funds,

38:14

they were insurance companies, they were

38:16

university endowments, very heavily regulated, very

38:18

cautious investors. huge regulatory compliance you

38:20

had to go through but once

38:22

they were in the market a

38:24

lot of them got a taste

38:26

for it not least because during

38:28

those that period Russia was always

38:30

either the best performing market in

38:32

the world or the worst performing

38:34

market in the world exactly just

38:36

had to pick the right year

38:38

yeah that's right but I think

38:40

there were more good years than

38:42

bad ones and but there were

38:44

also there was a lot of

38:46

competition that finance themselves with borrowing

38:48

or debt and so when the

38:50

markets turned down they often went

38:52

out of business and that created

38:54

a great and a further great

38:56

opportunity for us but ultimately our

38:58

success was because of Russian technology

39:00

brains it had nothing to do

39:02

with the government it was companies

39:04

who are building building products and

39:06

services mostly internet related that helped

39:08

to transform customers lives and it's

39:10

worth saying that you built funds

39:13

that invested not just in Russia

39:15

but across the former Soviet area

39:17

in Central Asia profitable country in

39:19

fact yes big returns for your

39:21

institutional investors absolutely then what happened

39:23

we ended up in a dispute

39:25

so We had probably 100 different

39:27

investments with different partners, and 99

39:29

times out of 100, we didn't

39:31

have any problems or issues with

39:33

our fellow shareholders. We sometimes had

39:35

scrapes and conflicts with competitors or

39:37

others. But we never had any

39:39

problems with our own fellow shareholders.

39:41

But we never had any problems

39:43

with our own fellow shareholders. But

39:45

that changed with one investment, where

39:47

we had done a merger between

39:49

a bank that we owned and

39:51

another one. And to keep a

39:53

long story short, two of the

39:55

shareholders of the other bank had

39:57

stripped cash out of the company.

39:59

We ended up in a dispute.

40:01

London Court of Arbitration, they realized

40:03

they were going to lose, so

40:05

they orchestrated an FSB case against

40:07

me to have me arrested. That's

40:09

the successor to the KGB, correct.

40:11

And before we get on to how that

40:13

transpired, that situation, we

40:15

should also say, not only would you

40:18

move to Moscow, Mike Calver, you

40:20

had properly unpacked. Tell us about

40:22

your relationship with Russia at that

40:24

time, not just your business relationship.

40:26

Yeah, I met my wife Julia

40:28

after living there for about two

40:30

years. We got married very quickly

40:33

and have three beautiful kids who

40:35

are half Russian, half American. I'm

40:37

very proud of the fact that

40:39

they share that dual heritage. And

40:41

Julia of course has been rock solid,

40:43

especially during these last years when

40:46

we went through a huge, hugely

40:48

stressful time for our family. She's

40:50

an amazing woman. And tell us

40:52

about that stress. What happened? I

40:54

remember you in the market at

40:56

that time, I remember Bloomberg reporting

40:59

you as constantly referring or often

41:01

referring to the fact that Russia

41:03

was a difficult market, it's obviously

41:05

a very complex place to invest,

41:07

but because you had all these

41:09

bespoke Western institutional investors, and because

41:11

of the way you are, you

41:13

were the kind of guy, you

41:15

were a straight dealer, people across

41:18

the Russian business community, the Western

41:20

business community, always held you up.

41:22

as somebody who would walk away

41:24

during the suitcase under the table

41:26

moment. You'd always keep it, as

41:28

we say, in Russian Chisti, above

41:30

board, clean. Yeah, I think that when

41:32

my arrest happened, there was an

41:35

explosion of support for me

41:37

across Russian civil society and

41:39

within the business community, but

41:41

also even within the government

41:43

economic blocks, mainly because they

41:45

knew me as a... First of all, someone

41:48

who was honest, if I had a single

41:50

partner, a disgruntled former partner or

41:52

something like that, it wouldn't have happened.

41:54

So reputation was what saved me. But

41:56

also I think a recognition among,

41:58

especially the business. elites that I

42:01

was someone who had done more

42:03

to help the Russian economy than almost

42:05

anybody. You raised literally billions of dollars

42:07

that were invested in Russia. And the

42:10

kinds of companies that we invested and

42:12

succeeded did so without any government involvement.

42:14

It was the perfect repost to

42:16

anyone's criticism that Russia was just a

42:19

natural resource economy. And I believed it.

42:21

Obviously I was at naive. I saw

42:23

the arbitrary arrest that took place. But

42:26

I labelled most of those as political.

42:28

I thought they were oligarchs who had

42:30

been involved in privatization or people that

42:33

started to exercise political influence and that

42:35

those arrests couldn't happen to someone

42:37

like me because it would be

42:39

deeply irrational for Russia. But if there

42:41

was an Olympic sport for self-damaging

42:43

behavior, the Russians would be the world

42:46

champions. And my arrest was definitely an

42:48

example of self-damaging behavior by Russia. Because

42:50

the word went around the international community,

42:53

investment community, Kriki. everything he knows about

42:55

Russia probably knows more about the Russian

42:57

commercial scene than any Westerner on earth

43:00

living there, Russian family, massively connected? Well,

43:02

and it wasn't a sudden, a

43:04

sudden conflict. It had been brewing

43:06

and simmering for almost two years. It

43:08

had gotten pretty heated. So, heated

43:10

literally because before one tense negotiation I

43:13

had with our enemies or our opponents,

43:15

my apartment in Moscow suddenly caught fire,

43:17

literally three hours before the meeting. I

43:20

went from the fire. to the meeting

43:22

with the guys who immediately said well

43:24

i had nothing to do with us

43:27

but during that time i was consulting

43:29

with friends of mine who are

43:31

within i would say the business elite

43:33

or the economic regulatory elite of russia

43:36

and they all encouraged me to stand

43:38

my guns and also they gave me

43:40

bad advice in hindsight telling me that

43:43

it's not possible that that the russian

43:45

security services would arrest someone like you

43:47

who's done so much for the economy

43:50

without a proper prove to be

43:52

very bad advice. It's worth saying,

43:54

Mike, of course, that the majority of

43:56

your business life... in Moscow, across

43:58

Russia, across the former Soviet Union, you're

44:00

doing everything in Russian. You learnt Russian

44:03

to such an extent. You're not, you

44:05

didn't do languages at university, you have

44:08

no ethnic, ethnicicity, Slavic ethnicity, unlike a

44:10

lot of Western people doing business in

44:12

post-communist Russia. So you're dealing with all

44:15

these linguistic and cultural difficulties, which you

44:17

embraced. You love those differences. Well,

44:19

even an American can learn a language

44:21

in 30 years. But I think there

44:24

was a cohort of business people, entrepreneurs,

44:26

mostly Russians, that were my exact same

44:28

age, that we all grew up together.

44:31

Many of them became among the most,

44:33

the wealthiest and most successful entrepreneurs and

44:35

tech giants in Russia. And many of

44:38

them became my friends. So yes,

44:40

I was speaking Russian, adopted a

44:42

Russian sense of humor, which is not

44:44

international as you know, but it's

44:46

very unique and it's wonderful in its

44:48

own way. So yes, I did feel

44:51

very much at home. So the book

44:53

Odyssey Moscow, it's part about your backstory

44:55

growing up in Oklahoma, it's part about

44:58

how you went to Russia, how you

45:00

built the business, but it starts, at

45:02

least the book starts, with a knock

45:05

on your door and a chunk

45:07

of the book is a prison diary.

45:09

That's right. Tell us about the knock

45:11

on the door and what happened? Well,

45:14

it wasn't a knock on the door.

45:16

It was pounding on the door by

45:18

several giant fists that I could hear.

45:21

And I heard it, got out of

45:23

my bed. wearing nothing but my shorts

45:25

and we're in downtown Moscow and

45:27

downtown Moscow hearing the door shaking

45:29

I realize there must have been 10

45:32

or 15 men on the other

45:34

side and before I could figure out

45:36

what to do the door burst open

45:38

they burst the door open and several

45:41

men with guns charged into my apartment

45:43

shouting at me to put my hands

45:45

in the air you know so of

45:48

course it was an enormously stressful experience

45:50

that began an ordeal which you know

45:52

led to interrogations and a two-month

45:54

stint in a... notorious Russian prison before

45:57

I would released and then put under

45:59

house arrest for another two years. I

46:01

must say your prison diary, the scenes

46:04

from the prison, you shared a small

46:06

cell with seven burly Russian men, you

46:08

became a kind of band of brothers.

46:11

Tell us a bit about your cellmates

46:13

to whom you dedicate this book.

46:15

That's right. I dedicate the book

46:17

to the men of cell 604. You

46:20

know, I was expecting the very

46:22

worst. After... four or five days of

46:24

interrogations by FSP and investigative committee. interrogators

46:26

where they told me you really need

46:29

to admit your guilt and then we

46:31

can negotiate a deal. I realized that

46:33

they were going to be putting me

46:36

in trying to put me under pressure

46:38

in prison to confess to something that

46:40

never happened. So when they told

46:42

me I was going to be moving

46:45

to a permanent cell there I imagine

46:47

being put into a cell with a

46:49

bunch of hardened Chechen warlords or something

46:52

and was really expecting the worst. So

46:54

they moved me there. They told me

46:56

they're moving me there at 1030 at

46:59

night, which is just before lights are

47:01

about to go out. They take

47:03

me up these stairs with this,

47:05

the scariest siren sound you've ever heard.

47:07

I call it in my book,

47:09

the psycho siren, because it reminded me

47:12

of the scene from Alfred Hitchcock's psycho,

47:14

the shower scene with the screeching knife

47:16

attack. So it was spine chilling. Well,

47:19

I get to the cell door, the

47:21

guards knocked three times and opened, and

47:23

I see seven men standing and including

47:26

a couple of huge guys. But as

47:28

soon as they see me, their

47:30

face slid up in a big

47:32

smile, and they said, Michael! So the

47:34

guards shoved me into the door

47:36

closes, and the door closes, and the

47:39

guys all came to shake my hand

47:41

and started to... They've been watching, there

47:43

was a TV in the cell, so

47:46

they've been watching about my case. They

47:48

knew more about my case at that

47:50

point. things like a clean towel or

47:53

a clean t-shirts and we sat at

47:55

this table the lights switched off

47:57

so it was very dim but we

47:59

still they had time to pour a

48:02

cup of tea for each of us

48:04

in these little plastic or rubber cups

48:06

and one of them looked at me

48:09

and said Novicelli which is Russian word

48:11

for like house warming that you get

48:13

welcome. And then they started to introduce

48:16

themselves by name and the very

48:18

last guy said, don't worry. The

48:20

scariest moment has passed. In this room,

48:22

all of us are decent people.

48:24

Everything is going to be okay. And

48:27

after what I was expecting, you know,

48:29

going into that cell, expecting, violence, expecting,

48:31

intimidation, to have that kind of a

48:34

welcome was truly inspiring. Tell us a

48:36

little bit more about. Tell us a

48:38

little bit more about. life in the

48:41

cell. Reading the book, you'll turn into

48:43

sort of little housewives. Well no,

48:45

I wouldn't say that, but it was,

48:47

there was definitely, I would say more

48:50

like a band of brothers. It was

48:52

like, there was a, there was a

48:54

camaraderie, there was a sense of humor,

48:57

there were rude jokes and exchanges of...

48:59

Did they look after you? Yeah, they

49:01

gave me advice. They were under much,

49:04

much worse circumstances than me with

49:06

almost no chance of freedom. I

49:08

had the President of the President of

49:10

the United States. the entire business

49:12

elite of Russia, several even ministers within

49:14

the Russian government. He was speaking out

49:17

publicly. And a giant fund with the

49:19

enormous resource for battalions of lawyers and

49:21

PR agents and everything. My cellmates had

49:24

none of that. And yet. They still

49:26

were offering me advice. They were offering

49:28

me support. I'll never forget one of

49:31

my cellmates, a guy named Andre,

49:33

who had been there for three years

49:35

in Matroska Tishana, not yet even tried

49:37

or convicted of anything. So truly guilty

49:40

until proven innocent. He was heading off

49:42

to his final trial hearing day, knowing

49:44

he was going to get a sentence

49:47

of 15 years. And yet that morning,

49:49

just before he left, he asked me

49:51

if there was anything he could.

49:53

give me help on any advice

49:55

about my case because I was having

49:58

a minor procedural hearing the same

50:00

day. So it was really inspiring. I

50:02

would say what I hope people will

50:04

take away from the book is condemnation

50:07

for that unjust system, but also a

50:09

sympathy for average Russians. because of course

50:11

the biggest victims of that system are

50:14

Russians themselves. Well Planet Normal listeners can

50:16

read a lot more about you online

50:18

and your case. The book is

50:20

coming out literally as we release this

50:23

episode of Planet Normal. Just in the

50:25

final couple of minutes Mike, how do

50:27

you feel about Russia now? Well I'm

50:30

pessimistic about Russia itself. I'm still optimistic

50:32

about Russian people. I do agree with...

50:35

the Trump administration's urgency in trying to

50:37

bring about an end to the Russia-Ukraine

50:39

war, people who support Ukraine and

50:41

its independence should be among the

50:43

ones with the most urgency about that

50:46

because time is not on Ukraine's

50:48

side. Obviously, the devil is in the

50:50

details and how to end the war

50:52

permanently between those two countries so that

50:55

there's not a resumption of war two

50:57

or three years down the road. That's

50:59

going to require complex negotiation, which I

51:02

hope all the sides and parties are

51:04

up to. but certainly at least what

51:06

they're trying to do i think

51:08

is something that's overdue and i strongly

51:11

support i think it's true to say

51:13

mike that you've you lived in Moscow

51:15

longer than you lived anywhere else that's

51:18

right in the world longer than you

51:20

lived in the united states true yes

51:22

you do think of yourself as a

51:25

muscovite right? Well I'm an American muscovite

51:27

I'm still very proud to be

51:29

American and proud of my motherland

51:31

in Oklahoma with my roots there so

51:33

I cherish that but I you

51:35

know Russia's got a deer spot in

51:38

my heart obviously it's a love-hate relationship

51:40

I hate the system I hate the

51:42

FSB I hate the ruling cast of

51:45

security people who rule the country and

51:47

probably will for at least another decade

51:49

if not more but I love Russian

51:52

people the sense of humor the loyalty

51:54

that they show to their friends

51:56

and the sentimentality that they have.

51:58

So there's a lot of things that

52:00

are deeply still fond in my

52:02

heart. And of course, you love your

52:05

Russian family and your wife is sitting

52:07

next to you in tears. She as

52:09

well. She didn't come here for me.

52:12

She came here for her... for Liam

52:14

Halligan, who's, she views as a rock

52:16

star, one of her favorite people. So

52:19

it's hard for me to compete with

52:21

you, Liam. Mike Cowley, thanks for

52:23

being on planet normal. So there you

52:25

have at Allison, Odyssey Moscow, One American's

52:28

journey from Russia Optimist to Prisoner of

52:30

the State. It's just been published by

52:32

History Press. What do you think? Absolutely

52:35

fantastic guest Mike Halvey. Wow, what a

52:37

guy and delighted to hear that Mike

52:39

and his wife Julia are planet normal

52:42

fans. I tell you live, I

52:44

tell you what made me laugh

52:46

was that Mike Halvey was under house

52:48

arrest in Russia. when we were

52:50

broadcasting about lockdown. Unbelievable. Isn't it unbelievable?

52:53

We were very much, Mike, if you're

52:55

listening, we were very much under house

52:57

arrest here too, although not with the

53:00

KGB or FSB on the doorstep, but

53:02

fantastic story of comradeship in that cell.

53:04

I mean, what a wonderful human dimension

53:07

and amazing guy. I wonder if Mike's

53:09

free to become chance of the

53:11

exchequer because they may be a vacancy

53:13

soon. They'll have to fight me for

53:16

it. But of course Alison, you'll have

53:18

the casting vote as our next Prime

53:20

Minister. Now on to our listener emails.

53:23

Your messages sent to Planet Normal at

53:25

telegraph.co.uk. Please keep them coming. We learn

53:27

so much from you. The Citizens of

53:30

Planet Normal. This is from a

53:32

follower on Twitter actually, or X.

53:34

Radium Shaser, who says... Every business I

53:36

talk to, including the one I

53:38

lead, is looking at either massive job

53:40

losses plus any cash into automation while

53:43

passing costs onto customers and basically going

53:45

into survival mode. Worse than 2008. Worse

53:47

than 2020. No end in sight. Diabolical.

53:50

and S. Turner says 10,000 fewer civil

53:52

servants is but a drop in the

53:54

ocean and I hope the 7,000 plus

53:57

redundancies in the disbanded NHS England

53:59

are not going to be included in

54:01

that number. And this is one from

54:03

Kit Liam. Dear Allison and Liam, a

54:06

few weeks ago directed The Rocket of

54:08

Right Thinking, after reading a post by

54:10

co-pilot Halligan about his travails and getting

54:13

air time with the media. In my

54:15

note I wondered if he would set

54:17

up his own platform to educate

54:19

and enlighten the uninitiated on economics.

54:21

I was therefore delighted says Kit to

54:24

see that he is set up

54:26

on sub stack. I immediately became a

54:28

subscriber. Oh well done Kit carrying

54:30

favour there. Angling from Mark, we

54:32

know these tactics. I immediately became

54:34

a subscriber to Liam Subsack when

54:36

the facts changed and took out

54:39

an annual subscription. I would happily

54:41

gift a subscription to Red Rachel

54:43

at the Treasury who was in

54:45

desperate need of help and advice.

54:47

Liam had a good platform on

54:49

GB News and I also listened

54:51

to his show Money Talks and

54:53

was bitterly disappointed when both ceased.

54:55

Liam's knowledge and expertise was so

54:57

wonderfully demonstrated in his recent appearance

55:00

on trigonometry with Constantine, Kishine, Kishine

55:02

and France. Foster. I agree, Kit.

55:04

Fantastic appearance by the Halligan. Looking

55:06

quite fit as well, actually. Anyone

55:09

who hasn't seen it should take

55:11

a look. With that shock of

55:13

just slightly tousled hair, he looked

55:15

very professional. Good publicity and promotion.

55:18

That's all he needs now. I

55:20

look forward to all Liam's writings

55:22

and can't wait to read his

55:25

ruminations on our pretend Chancellor's next

55:27

farce. Keep up all the good

55:29

work, you too, as ever, Kit. Well that's

55:31

very kind of you Kit, thank

55:34

you, thank you so much. Returning

55:36

to the theme of businesses being

55:39

hammered, businesses of course which generate

55:41

all the wealth in an economy,

55:43

there is no taxation without business.

55:46

Every single worker who pays tax,

55:48

they're paying tax because a business

55:51

is giving them money to pay

55:53

their tax. So we can't bang

55:55

on enough about the huge increase

55:58

in taxation on business. My partner

56:00

and I run a business employing

56:02

over a hundred people that we

56:04

started 18 years ago. Congratulations Mike

56:06

and your partner. A year after

56:08

starting the business I remember the

56:10

conversation about taking on our first

56:12

employee. It's a big step. Three

56:14

mouths to feed instead of two.

56:17

A 50% increase in the wage

56:19

bill overnight. However we took the

56:21

risk knowing that if it didn't

56:23

work out we could dismiss the

56:25

new employee without the risk of

56:27

them coming after us through an

56:29

employment tribunal. We also knew that

56:31

if they didn't turn up on

56:33

day one and called in sick

56:35

we didn't need to pay them.

56:37

This new employment bill removes these

56:39

and many other protections and increases

56:41

the risk significantly. Reflecting on that

56:43

situation with the new rights that

56:45

this bill gives employees on day

56:47

one, I doubt we would be

56:49

able to take the same risk

56:52

of increasing our staff by 50%

56:54

the first highest risk and one

56:56

of the most important steps of

56:58

starting to grow any business. Last

57:00

year I was chatting to a

57:02

friend, says Mike, who started his

57:04

own CCTV and alarm business. He

57:06

wanted to employ an additional engineer.

57:08

He didn't yet have the work

57:10

for the new employee, but felt

57:12

it would follow. But he was

57:14

so nervous about the cost, risk

57:16

and responsibility of doing this that

57:18

despite my encouragement, he didn't end

57:20

up taking the risk. And that

57:22

was under the existing employment rights

57:25

regime. I doubt now a new

57:27

employee would even be under consideration

57:29

when these new laws come into

57:31

effect. Labour will kill start-up stone

57:33

dead. Well done labour. Kind regards.

57:35

Mike. Such an important point, Allison.

57:37

Such an important point from Mike.

57:39

And to repeat, he and his

57:41

partner now employ over a hundred

57:43

people because they took that first

57:45

step of employing a single person.

57:47

And there's something else here, of

57:49

course. The minimum wage is going

57:51

up by almost 7%. The minimum

57:53

wage for youngsters is going up

57:55

by 16% in early April. No

57:58

one bragrages people money in their

58:00

pockets. But if Labour want to

58:02

get people off welfare, particularly... young

58:04

people in interwork do not increase

58:06

the minimum wage by 17%. And

58:08

I was told that a former

58:10

planet normal guest, you can guess

58:12

who it was, who runs an

58:14

extremely successful hospitality business, is looking

58:16

down the barrel at increased costs

58:18

with all these job taxes of

58:20

five million pounds, right? So we

58:22

can imagine how many people... That

58:24

person won't be taking on. This

58:26

is from Laura, not her real

58:28

name. Dear Asner Liam, I've thought

58:31

many times about writing in, having

58:33

been a listener since the very

58:35

first episode, but your latest podcast

58:37

about the benefits bill prompted me

58:39

to email at last. I'm a

58:41

healthcare professional working with children at

58:43

a large teaching hospital. There are

58:45

the usual NHS issues with constant

58:47

spending on the promotion of and

58:49

mandatory training relating to diversity and

58:51

equality. None of this money addresses

58:53

the fundamental issues of lack of

58:55

trained staff to cope with the

58:57

vast explosion of complex medical needs.

58:59

Management is bloated and out of

59:01

touch, expecting frontline staff to do

59:03

more with fewer and fewer highly

59:06

skilled workers as people retire or

59:08

go off sick. Predictably, says Laura,

59:10

I wear my woke cloak. Now

59:12

planet normal listeners will know woke

59:14

cloak was something that was a

59:16

teenager wrote to say that's how

59:18

she goes out to protect herself

59:20

from our increasingly mad world. Predictably,

59:22

Laura says, I wear my woke

59:24

cloak where I can and try

59:26

not to make my true feelings

59:28

known. Some of the biggest issues

59:30

I see day to day indicate

59:32

that the benefits and immigration system

59:34

is completely broken. Social issues have

59:36

exploded in the last five years

59:39

and I'm not surprised by the

59:41

rapidly increasing medical benefits bill. Families

59:43

regularly call to request supporting letters

59:45

for medical needs which are mild

59:47

or not impacting their daily life.

59:49

The endrosat being they are paid

59:51

significant sums for looking after children

59:53

with minor conditions. Many parents also

59:55

cannot speak any ink. English. they

59:57

work. It is a mystery how

59:59

they have come into the UK,

1:00:01

given friends of mine have found

1:00:03

jumping through immigration hoops incredibly difficult,

1:00:05

needing to earn high salaries to

1:00:07

qualify and pass English-speaking tests. The

1:00:09

result of this is that a

1:00:12

lot of care is done via

1:00:14

costly interpreters in our hospital and

1:00:16

clinical resources must be translated. We

1:00:18

spend vast amounts of money on

1:00:20

very poorly children who have been

1:00:22

brought to the UK with their

1:00:24

families stating they are coming because

1:00:26

they will get better care. here.

1:00:28

I understand why as a parent

1:00:30

you would want to come to

1:00:32

the UK. What I don't understand

1:00:34

is how our system allows it.

1:00:36

There seems, says Laura, to be

1:00:38

a fundamental feeling amongst colleagues, that

1:00:40

all medical care should be free

1:00:42

for all, regardless of if you've

1:00:45

been born in the UK or

1:00:47

paid into the system through tax

1:00:49

or national insurance. Anyone who dares

1:00:51

to hint at an alternative opinion

1:00:53

is met with blank or fearful

1:00:55

stares. D-E-I-D-Tats mean that any negative

1:00:57

judgment of any kind. verboten. Their

1:00:59

belief is that individuals should never

1:01:01

be critiqued as to do so

1:01:03

is undoubtedly discriminatory. There is no

1:01:05

requirement for personal responsibility anymore, nor

1:01:07

any expectation that you should financially

1:01:09

provide for your family. Now whilst

1:01:11

I believe the NHS and benefit

1:01:13

system should help everyone when they're

1:01:15

genuinely in need. I believe this

1:01:18

system is open to deep abuse.

1:01:20

Free at the point of use

1:01:22

needs to be balanced with a

1:01:24

spirit of fair play, where those

1:01:26

of us who pay in have

1:01:28

a reasonable expectation that their money

1:01:30

is spent well. I worry about

1:01:32

reprisals whenever I give any hint

1:01:34

of my true opinions. It can

1:01:36

be quite a suffocating and isolating

1:01:38

way to work. And your podcast,

1:01:40

Planet Normal, is my weekly reminder

1:01:42

that I am not alone. Thank

1:01:44

you, Nora. And finally, this one's

1:01:46

from Keith, dear Allison and Liam,

1:01:48

I love the podcast and enjoy

1:01:50

listening every week. Thank you Keith.

1:01:53

Regarding Allison's lawsuit against Essex Police,

1:01:55

do you think a campaign of

1:01:57

direct action would help put an

1:01:59

end to the injustice, says Keith

1:02:01

of non-crime hate incidents? If planet

1:02:03

normal listeners were to overwhelm the

1:02:05

police with... ports of non-crime hate

1:02:07

incidents against left-wing politicians and journalists,

1:02:09

then perhaps we would see an

1:02:11

end to this insanity. I'm not

1:02:13

asking anyone to do anything illegal,

1:02:15

says Keith. Each reported incident should

1:02:17

be based on a real social

1:02:19

media post that planet normal listeners

1:02:21

find offensive. Hopefully such direct action

1:02:23

will result in a return of

1:02:26

sanity, free speech and the right

1:02:28

to offend. Kind regards. Keith. And

1:02:30

on that bombshell, that's it from

1:02:32

Plan Normal for another week. We

1:02:34

leave our sanctuary of Sweet Reason,

1:02:36

our flying refuge of Reason Views.

1:02:38

Email of the week, it's my

1:02:40

turn, and I'm going to give

1:02:42

it to Laura. I think that

1:02:44

was a wonderful email, Laura. So

1:02:46

Laura, send us your postal address

1:02:48

in an email, put Mug Winner

1:02:50

in the subject heading to Planet

1:02:52

Normal at Teleroth.co. UK, and that

1:02:54

Planet Normal Mug will be winging

1:02:56

its way. towards you. Talking of

1:02:59

Planet Normal Mugs, Roger Butle's seeing

1:03:01

opposite me with his Planet Normal

1:03:03

Mug. He's surreptitiously stuffing it into

1:03:05

his briefcase as we speak. Roger's

1:03:07

been great to have you here

1:03:09

on Planet Normal. We're both huge

1:03:11

fans of your writing. I know

1:03:13

many telegraph readers are. We'll put

1:03:15

a link to your columns in

1:03:17

the show notes to this week's

1:03:19

episode. It was great fun. Thank

1:03:21

you. Roger, thank you for being

1:03:23

our number one economist and the

1:03:25

number two. No, no, number three

1:03:27

didn't do too bad. I thought

1:03:29

he did fine. And as we

1:03:32

speed away from our beloved planet,

1:03:34

normal, the madness of planet Earth,

1:03:36

comes back into view, thanks to

1:03:38

Zever, to our producers, Isabelle Bouchard,

1:03:40

Cass, Ho, and Louisa Wells, and

1:03:42

to Roger Bootle, stay safe and

1:03:44

in touch with us and with

1:03:46

each other. Until next week, it's

1:03:48

goodbye from me. And it's goodbye

1:03:50

from him. This

1:04:00

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