Dire Straits – Start Your Week with Ros Taylor and Andrew Harrison

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1:02With me this morning it's oh god what now regular and all through the future of trust. Ross Taylor. Morning, Ross. Morning. Very well. How are you? All right. Yeah. As well as can be expected. Yet again, Donald Trump's war on Iran. The one he said was completed pretty much will dominate the week. Specifically the question of the Straits of Hormuz. About a fifth of the world's oil and liquid natural gas pass through this choke point between the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf. And since Iran started using missiles and drones against shipping, traffic has run by 97 percent. Ross having created the conditions with the blockage. Trump is now urging the rest of the world to help US clear it. How is that going down? Pretty badly to be honest. Not many people have had the guts to say what on earth are you doing, demanding that we now sort out the mess you've made. But that is what absolutely everybody is thinking. This is an absolute disaster for Trump. It was obviously crazy thing to do to begin this war in the first place. And he obviously ignored any advice that he was given

2:04that Iran would be likely to try to close down the strait of Hormuz. One of the most worrying things I think is that even when the US eventually stops bombing Tehran and the rest of Iraq, is there any guarantee then that Iran would stop blocking the strait? I don't necessarily see that there is. They have got a very big tactical advantage here. And it's a card that they are playing to full strength. And Trump is unable to declare victory while the strait is still blocked. Obviously, what he was hoping to do was bomb the hell out of Iran, claim that its military capability and nuclear capability, potentially, too, had all been destroyed, and then leave. And now he's got a real problem that he needs to resolve. And he's called upon, I think, seven countries to help police the strait as he puts it overnight. And none of them have taken up this offer. France has been particularly clear that it won't take part

3:05while the conflict continues to escalate. Japan and South Korea might think about it and perhaps are made slightly more positive noises. But the UK, it's clear, is not going to send any warships to the strait. Because if they did, we risk them being bombed and losing large numbers of military personnel. And also these very expensive ships. And then we too, formally, are at war with Iran. So it's a complete disaster. Well, contemporary response in a second, but Americans are already feeling the effects of what they think of as high-petal prices. Trump dismissed this as, when oil prices go up, we make lots of money with that we was doing an awful lot of heavy lifting there. They're all ready to talk about hormones inflation. Is there any kind of indication that these considerations are kind of making it through to the administration's decision-making? They certainly are beginning to make themselves felt. There have been representations from the farming industry, especially, which have pointed out how much fertiliser angioria goes through the straits of hormones.

4:07And that this is preventing American farmers from getting on with planting and preparing for the next season. This is a real problem. Another one is helium, which also travels through the strait and is very important for various medical and other processes. The prices of these things are already rising. And it's not just those things either. There is a warning to the NHS today to where streating that we might have to start stockpiling medicines because there could be shortages as a result of this. But so far, of course, the American public, I don't think, have really felt the impact most of them. And they are very much taking a wait and see approach. I've been quite surprised. I must say by the lack of opposition to Trump's war in Iran so far. And a lot of people seem to be sitting back and saying, well, hopefully it will be over soon and then the oil price will fall again and it will all be fine. There certainly hasn't been any of the mobilisation of people

5:09of civil society that you might expect to be beginning to happen at the moment. The problem for Trump especially now is that he needs a big win, a big concession. He fundamentally needs an off ramp. And we've seen this happen with struggles over tariffs in the past. He needs something that will enable him to declare victory and move on to whatever else he wants to screw up next. And that can't happen while the strait is still effectively closed. There is also the question of Carg Island. Trump has talked about occupying that. But that presents significant logistical difficulties. Basically, Carg Island is where Iran exports the vast majority of its oil from. America has bombed it, but it hasn't bombed the actual places where the oil is stored. That is because if it did, there would be an absolute environmental disaster. Out of, I think Trump used the word decency. He has decided not to bomb Carg Island yet. If he wants to carry out a ground invasion of Carg Island, he needs marines.

6:10He won't have those in place for two weeks, but he may well be thinking, well, if I can do that, if I can claim that I've captured Carg Island off the Iranians, then maybe I can move on. But at the moment, there's this pinch point of the strait of all moves that he can't get over. On Britain's response, Ed Miliband has said that Britain may send mind-clearing drones and other navy vessels to help clear the straits. As he say, there's a huge question here about whether we would kind of de facto get dragged into a wider war. Trump thinks we are not giving any aid whatsoever. But does Iran effectively think we're already in a conflict with them? Certainly, it suggested that. There was an interview with Times Radio that the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman yesterday where he said that if we join the US attempts to keep the strait open, he said that would be complicity in the crime of aggression, and that would be responded to by Iran. Now, whether that means the ships or whatever we sent out there would be bombed, or whether it means that there would be more of a domestic operation on British soil,

7:15is open to question. It's worth pointing out that when the head of MI5 gave his annual threat speech last year, even then, before all this broke out, Iran was the second threat he mentioned in terms of domestic terrorism, and although that hasn't been much discussed, it is very much a possibility that Iranian terrorists could launch some kind of attack on the UK. And again, that would change the game. There's every chance if we send ships to this region that they would be blown up, and our people could be killed, and we would very much be dragged into this conflict. Of course, that's exactly what Iran wants. While we're on the subject of Ed Miliband, and this is in the wider context of energy security, he's given the go-ahead for solar panels that you can put up on your balcony, which I'm surprised they didn't exist already. You would assume that there's something you could buy big, but apparently you can't and you will be able to.

8:16Are they that effective? Yeah, they are surprisingly effective. They can generate quite a lot of electricity, particularly if you've got a nice south-facing balcony, and a lot of people, particularly in Germany, have taken them up, because they're quite affordable. The reason why they're not a big thing in this country is because of regulation. You'll be surprised to hear there has been a question in the past about whether they're really completely safe to hook up to the domestic energy systems, and quite often as well, we have sometimes quite antiquated electrical wiring systems. There's a lot of more modern building in places like Germany that is more suitable for this, including things like electric stockets and cable protection on balconies and things like that. It isn't as simple as it can be in places like Germany, but it's very good news that you can do this because the idea is you'd go along to, I don't know, DIY shop, and you'd pay a couple of grand for your solar panel, and that's very, very much cheaper than having them installed,

9:18because, as we all know, having anybody do anything installing in this country costs vast amounts of money. And there's also help with energy bills on the way from the government as a result of the impending Hermeson inflation and choke on energy supplies. The government's allocated £50 million for this, is that right? Yeah, that's right. So there's two problems here. The first is very in-readage and short term, which is the oil price. That is a problem in Northern Ireland, where I think 60% of households use oil for their heating. So there's going to be targeted help for them. In the longer term, it all depends whether this conflict drags on, but there may be a situation in which the government needs to, or feels it needs to start subsidising gas bills, and it's already thinking about how it could do that, and whether it can do more targeted support than has been offered in the past. You'll remember Liz Trusses' disastrous budget. Part of that disastrous budget was handing out tens of billions of pounds of subsidy for energy bills. That was one of the reasons why it was completely unsustainable. So this time, the government is hoping to have more targeted

10:22helpful households that really need it, but it's still working out exactly how to do that. America leads the world in medicine development. It matters. We get new medicines first, nearly three years faster. Five million Americans go to work because we make medicines here at home, and not relying on other countries keeps us safe. But China is racing to overtake us. Will we let them? Or will we choose to stay ahead? When America leads, America cures. Let's go to Washington to keep us in the lead. Learn how at americacures.com. Pay for by Farma. Not sure how to tackle your taxes? Are you sweating the small print? You may be experiencing FOMO, the fear of messing up. The answer? Using turbo tax on into a credit karma. They help you get your biggest refund, and then we help you do more with it, with a personalized plan designed to help you hit your money goals. It's time to take your taxes to the max. Start filing today

11:27in the credit karma app. The average cost of a DUI in Virginia is $11,352.47. Drinking and driving costs more than your drinks. Learn more at what's the damage.org brought to you by Virginia DMV. In evidence of what interesting times we live in, yet more Iran wall related stuff, Ed Davies says Britain needs to develop its own nuclear weapons, which is not what I expect from the Lib Dems. How will that go down with the nuclear power at 9 Danka Lib Dem called? He's like, I'm not sure how it will go down. I think it might go down better than some people expect, because firstly, nuclear power and nuclear weapons, in some ways it's a separate issue, particularly when a country feels under threat and isolated, as arguably Britain does at the moment. And as he pointed out, we depend on the US to maintain tried, and a lot of Lib Dems will

12:29rather that we didn't depend on the US for our ability to do that. We are actually the process of developing new nuclear weapons that you can drop from aircraft, but that hasn't been much discussed yet. We're also getting together with France and supporting their nuclear deterrent, so I'm not sure whether Ed Davies is completely on top of that. But the main aim of this announcement is to distance himself from the Greens. He wants the Lib Dems to come across as a more sensible mainstream continuity option rather than the Greens, of course, who are very anti-any nuclear weapons. And so it's putting, if you like, and I know you don't like this phrase Andrew, clear yellow water. It's one day morning. Yeah, I could say clear green water, but yellow water. It's quite nice to see the Lib Dems of the Green Party. Couple more humours related or humours adjacent matters. The EU wants to reopen a pipeline transporting Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia. President Zelensky in Ukraine says lifting the banner on Russian oil is basically blackmail, and Tansomanso ending the sanctions,

13:34you would not be surprised to learn that the proputing Prime Minister of Hungary, Victor Orban, is central to all this. He's blocking EU sanctions on Moscow. He's also blocking a major loan to Kiev until the pipeline is reopened. What's going on here? I mean, Orban is up for election in April. So this is a real kind of mess of, you know, interconnected and intertwined problems. But what exactly is happening here is, is the EU basically bottling it on Ukraine for reasons of oil supply? To a certain extent, yes, because it doesn't want Hungary to be plunged into crisis, and for Victor Orban to be able to use this to bolster his reelection campaign. There is a strong contender against Orban this time. He's got a very good chance of being defeated, and the EU doesn't want to risk that guy being damaged by this crisis. And you can understand that, because Orban has been an absolute thorn in the side of the EU's attempts to make itself more energy independent. It's continued to import oil as much as it can and gas from

14:39Russia. It's helping to prop up the Russian economy. It's a real, real problem. And now we can perhaps see the end of the tunnel at a chance to outstall ban, and it doesn't want to damage that. But of course, you can totally see Zelensky's point of view. This is an oil pipeline that runs through Ukraine and is transporting oil directly from Russia to the EU. Why an earth would you want to make life easier for Russia when it's already benefiting from the surge in oil prices? This is helping to fund Russia's continuing attack on Ukraine. Why would you want to make it even easier? So it's a really difficult one. One last thing still on the war. In the US, Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is threatening to revoke US broadcasters licenses for being insufficiently enthusiastic about the Iran war. He's accused them of running hoaxes and news distortions without evidence of what those alleged hoaxes and news distortions

15:39are. And we have seen Roz the US media falling into line during previous wars. Have you ever seen such kind of naked threats and coercion as this? I wouldn't like to say what was going on during the American Civil War, to be honest, in the media. Social media was very, very, very divisive at that time. And there's no doubt that there has always been very biased media reporting in the US and from some quarters. And then let's not forget the very vehement campaigns to try and ensure that the US never joined the first or the second world wars. This is not new in one sense. But it is completely audacious. I mean, Trump put out an infographic over the weekend boasting about how much he'd suppressed unfriendly media by getting various hosts sacked by promoting his own rubbish social network, truth, social, all the ways in which he's poisoning the media environment in the US. And yes, it is terrifying. And this is another reason to go back to the lack of opposition to the war in Iran in the US. You feel Americans need to... I won't say wake up because that sounds

16:46there's a plenty of Americans who know just how bad things are. But there needs to be more pushback. There really does. It can't just be a very few Democrats who are protesting against this. What we are seeing now is the gradual takeover of the state and of the information ecosystem by Trump. And it's terrifying. Luckily, there are other stories in the world. Listeners, you're going to have to steal yourself for the final rounds of the don't replace Winston Churchill with a beaver wars. Those deranged wokesters at the Bank of England announced that historic figures, including Churchill, will be rotated out of the banknotes and replaced by images of British wildlife. And of course, you'll never guess who lost their minds. The bank of England is replacing Winston Churchill with a picture of a beaver on our banknotes. It has gone PC, Mad and Looney. This is the definition of woke. But I'm glad we've actually got a definition of woke at last because it's very difficult to find one. And the Tories, in a one of the most embarrassing tweets I've ever seen in my life,

17:52a little video. Winston Churchill was a hero. He should not be replaced with an otter. Ros, can you please give our listeners a few reasons why this is really low-grade cultural slop and that some arguments maybe they might need to employ this week against their angry and irate co-workers? Oh, God. It's just when we just talked about the threats to Britain and the things that are happening in the world and the enormous problems that we've got facing us. And people are worried about who is on a banknote. When did you even last see a £50 note, for example? I've never seen a £50 note. I mean, you already see them if you're criminalised to you. I don't know. Occasionally, you know, you have to use other notes, but we barely use this any more. It's almost as if as things like stamps and coins and banknotes gradually disappear from British life that we cling on to them even more tightly. The whole thing is absolutely

18:52insane. It's not even as if the Bank of England itself made this decision. They did a survey in which they asked Britain's what they wanted to have on the banknotes and Britain's unsurprisingly, because we're British, said, we'd like animals, please. And now even the RSPCA has weighed in with an even more ridiculous suggestion that we should have rats and pigeons on our banknotes apparently, because they're so British. Pigeons, I can say, rats, people aren't fond of them. No, no, no, I don't want to just look at a rat on my banknotes. I mean, I know where I live, you can see them for free. You don't need to look at them on the money. They're all over the place. I mean, now going to this country is literally flatlining. And we need to be talking about what to do about that, not what to do about what pictures are on banknotes. And they weren't even any specific animals suggested. People talk about, oh, Winston Churchill's going to be replaced by an

19:53otter or a bee. You have no idea what might be on the other. It's complete conjecture. Tomorrow, Madam, I will still be an otter. What gets me is that like, he wasn't even on the five of us till 2016, right? So this is not our agent rights going back to Magna Carta, did she die in vain? Also, Jane Austen, the painter turn and Alan turn, they're getting rotated out as well. Nobody's saying, oh, you're destroying our culture. It's an anti-counterfeiting measure. We do this every few years anyway. And there's an obvious solution. Right in front of us, you know, the culture will not want Churchill. Everybody else wants animals. Just use Churchill, the dog from the advert. Oh, no, no, no, no, remember him. That'd be fine. Keep everybody happy. I was particularly disappointed that, you know, Ed Oppenheimer, Davey jumped on in on this and complained about the badger thing. It's just ridiculous. But if Farage wants a real reason to be angry, Rachel Reeves is going to announce yet more rapprochement with the EU this week. On Tuesday, she's going to use the annual maith lecture in the city of London to call for closer alignment to the single market. Ros, how close? How big a deal is this?

20:57Well, we're not going to rejoin the single market, obviously, but we are going to try and align ourselves with it in a dynamic fashion, which to be honest is what we've been trying to do since Labour was elected anyway. So there are going to be all kinds of talks this week, which are quite important with the EU on things like food and drink standards. That includes incidentally, things like those annoying caps on plastic things, because we've worked out, basically, there's no point in trying to be too different from the EU, because when the EU introduces something, we basically have to accept it anyway. If we're going to sell into their market and they're going to sell into ours, another of the big things being discussed is defence cooperation, obviously, very timely, and the youth mobility scheme. Now, this has been going on for ages and how the youth mobility scheme, and there still hasn't been an agreement. And apparently, the latest sticking point is that the EU wants us to cut tuition fees for EU students. You can very well

22:00understand why they would want us to, because UK tuition fees are very much higher than the ones in the EU. And that makes them pretty unaffordable, but you can also understand why universities would be very unhappy about that. It will make them less likely to take on EU students, because they literally can't afford to subsidise them. And this is a real problem. I'm not quite sure how they're going to get over it. They might try to cut them and then subsidise them from central government and make the argument that EU students spend a lot of money in the UK, so that will make up for it. But it will also go down really badly with Bushish students and ex-students who feel that they have paid through the nose for their tuition and their maintenance, and now they're paying through the nose as graduates, and they don't see why EU students should get this subsidy. Reeves is also in the same switch, going to double down on AI and announce a new development

23:01corporation for what's called the Oxford Cambridge Corridor or OXCAM, which I've not heard of before. I thought it was where you took your old clothes to raise money for Jersey. She wants to make it the Silicon Valley of the whole of Europe. I feel like I've heard this before, and I wonder if it's a bit late for that now, Rose. We have heard about the Oxford Cambridge Corridor before. It's been a perennial thing that governments have been keen to revive. There's a railway that used to run between the two and that they're constantly planning to reopen, may actually reopen soon. It's also been constant competition with competing projects in the north. There's been a suggestion why should we subsidise the south when the north arguably has bigger problems. But so it's interesting to see it back on the table again. I can't say I'm terribly enthusiastic about the big focus on AI. I think the government has not got to grips with the potential ramifications of mass adoption of AI and what they mean for unemployment, but yeah, clearly it does have useful applications and if we can make sure it's

24:04used in the right way, yeah, it's a good thing. Speaking of unemployment and also things that are short to annoy Nigel Farage, it is good news for needs, not in education or training. As the government is going to end down to three thousand bonus to employers, if you hire somebody under 25 who's been on universal credit for six months, this sounds like a good idea, subsidising wages like an actual policy, Ross. Yeah, it is a good idea and we definitely need to get more people back into work at that particular age. I would point out though that the government has previously made it harder for employers to do that by putting up their international insurance contributions and by increasing the minimum wage. So effectively, they're now trying to correct the results of what they've done, which economically is a bit confused, but I can well see why they're doing it and they need to do something. Yeah, I mean, I guess raising the minimum wage, that actually is to the advantage of the employed person and rather than just simply

25:07saying, well, we'll make it easier to employ young people by keeping them cheaper. I mean, I guess it's a surprise move and the kind of thing that I guess a lot of people on the label left would want. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, it's massive intervention in the labour market and therefore, it will be popular in there, but there is a case for saying that you need more growth desperately in this country and that they perhaps should make it a bit easier for people to if employers take on people of any age and rather than sticking subsidies and trying to manipulate the labour market in small ways, as we've seen, growth is flat and one of the main reasons is that it is hard to employ people in this country and getting hard at all the time. One more thing to look after this week in Europe results of the first rounds of the French local elections and importantly, the Parisian mayoral elections are going to be coming in the next couple of days in Paris. Rashida Datti, the right winger, who was until recently the culture minister,

26:12thinks she's very much in with the shop of taking Paris. What should we look out for? Datti has done less well than she was hoping. In Paris, she has come second to Emmanuel Cregoir, who is the socialist candidate. He is, if you like, the continuity candidate in Paris because the previous mayor and Hidalgo has transformed Paris in terms of things like bikes and getting rid of traffic, green streets, things like that, also put up various taxes. But generally, I think prosians have been broadly happy with what she did. So, Cregoir did a lot better. I'm not particularly surprised that Datti didn't do especially well. She is due to go on trial in September for a alleged corruption and abuse of power over a lobbying scandal. She, of course, denies all wrong doing, but it's a bit strange to ask voters to endorse someone who's got that hanging over them. We seem to take the political temperature of France every five minutes. Obviously,

27:13the thing hanging over the whole country's politics is will the far right finally make a breakthrough? We've got any indication yet, or is this likely to give us an indication of the direction of travel in France on this? The far right did reasonably well, especially in the south. It didn't do, perhaps, as well as it was hoping. It didn't get the landslides that it was hoping for. It's, if you like, consolidating its position. What's also happening is that François Soumise, which is Jean-Luc Mélenchon's hard left outfit, has done better than expected as well. So, France continues to become more polarised. There was an interesting result in La Afra, where Edouard Philippe, former Prime Minister, was trying to get reelected. He's looking pretty good and he's a centre-right candidate. He's also a possible successor to Emmanuel Macron, whose, of course, his term runs out reasonably soon. And finally, somebody to share

28:16result because we need it. The Oscar results came out. Biggest winner was one battle after another, which took best picture, best director for Paul Thomas Anderson, best supporter active for Jean Pan, who didn't turn up for some reason, and six others. Sinners got four awards. Jesse Buckley won best actress for Hamlet, Emmy Madigan won best supporting actress for weapons. I'm not an awards person. I never watched any of the ceremonies. Did you pay attention to this? I didn't, I'm afraid. I did patch up with the photo galleries of the dresses, which were, as always, very impressive. I particularly enjoyed Demi Moore's feathers and Odessa Asian's extraordinary. Yes, she basically appeared to be some sort of angel with black wings. It was extraordinary. So there was amazing stuff on the red carpet in terms of the films. Yeah, it wasn't a vintage season for me because I have not seen any of the winners. I'm afraid except for Hamlet. Hamlet impressed me perhaps a bit less than it did others. I have heard other people,

29:17including my husband, say how extraordinarily moving. They found the final scenes in Hamlet. And while they didn't leave me entirely cold, I did not enjoy that much. So it's not been, it's not been a vintage Oscar for me, but then I still haven't seen one battle after another, and it's very much on my need to do list. Well, there you go. You've got your orders for the week there. Ross Taylor, thanks for joining me for Star Your Week. Thank you. Listeners will be back tomorrow with another regular edition of The Bunker. Don't forget, the best way to keep us in rude health is to back us on Patreon for early, at-free episodes and the warm glow of supporting independent podcasting. Follow the link in the show notes to find out more. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time. Star Your Week with The Bunker was written and presented by podmasters group editor Andrew Harrison and Ross Taylor. The producer was Liam Tate, with audio production by Simon Williams. Music was by Kenny Dickinson, art was by James Parrot, and the managing head of Silver's Jacob Jarvis. The Bunker is a podmasters production.