Will Ministers Have To Act On Energy Bills?

0:00Hi, this is Farnoosh Trabi from So Money with Farnoosh Trabi and today I want to talk to you about Boost Mobile. Quick money tip, stop paying a carrier tax. If your phone bill feels trapped in a pricey plan, this is your sign to Unlock Savings. Boost Mobile helps you reset your spending with the $25 unlimited forever plan. You can bring your own phone, pay $25 and get unlimited wireless forever and that simple switch can unlock up to $600 in savings a year. That's money you could put towards paying down debt, investing or something that actually brings you joy. Though savings are based on average annual single line payment of AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile customers compared to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited plan as of January 2026. For full offer details, visit BoostMobile.com. Have you ever been stuck on a weight loss plateau, trying everything and anything you can to lose that extra weight and reach peak health? We've all been there, but Noom's unlocked a secret to reaching the mountaintop. Go in micro.

1:02The Noom GLP1 MicroDose program starts at $99 and is delivered to your door in seven days. Start your MicroDose GLP1 journey today at Noom.com. That's n-o-o-m.com. Noom. Microchanges big results. Noom GLP1RX program involves healthy diet, exercise and support. Individual results may vary. Meds and personalization based on clinical need, not reviewed by FDA for safety, efficacy or quality. No affiliation with Novo Nordisk Inc, the only US source of FDA-approved semi-gluetide, not available in all 50 US states. Hello, I'm Hugo Rifkin and now we're going to be unpacking the politics of the day. From the economic impact of the war, to which parties the public thinks are pro and anti-donald Trump, to whether we should do more to thank military personnel for their service. And here to help, I'm always thankful for their service. It's the Times columnist, Libby Purvis. Hello, Libby. Hello. How are you? Good, thank you.

2:02Good to speak to you as always and Times columnist and leader writer, Seb Payne. Hello, Seb. Hello, Hugo. So I'm speaking to you remotely today for a occasion, not beside you nestling in the studio. Nestling is a little bit creepy, but it's great to have even your voice. And the fact that neither of you are here allows me to imagine you both, for some reason, in military uniform, just in keeping without it's working. I think Libby would, of course, but I think in the RAF, I can see Libby and Seb, a boy from the Navy. Navy, Royal Navy. Royal Navy? Why suppose you do have that Navy hinterland, don't you? Yeah. Well, maybe you're both in the Navy. Royal Navy, thank you, Hugo. I'll take that. You'll take that, yeah. Yeah, well, you have to, because Seb would be an intelligent service is a sure somewhere. Well, yeah, but that means that that means you have to wear his own clothes. Actually, no, that does work, does work. Perlnec jumper, delivering milk tray, all that. Let's crack on. I want to talk about the war, but first of all, through the domestic and indeed economic prism, the looming domestic problem in the government's intray is, of course, the impact of the war on our economy. Donald Trump

3:07posted on true social, saying short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iranian nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for USA and world, safety and peace. Only fools would think differently. I shan't spoil your fun by telling you which words and letters there were in capitals, but let's just agree that it was a lot of them. I asked Times economist and economist Paul Johnson earlier if he agreed. They're quite a big price to pay. I mean, whether it's the right price is something for the politicians to decide, but higher oil prices, that's going to have a significant negative effect on the economy that will probably, if it's maintained there, it'll take, I just thought, at least half a point off growth this year. That's going to create problems for the public finances and it's going to make us all worse off. Well, coming to the fact, Seb, of whether or not it's a work price worth paying in a moment, it is nonetheless a heavy price. It's bad for all of us. It's bad for Kirsten's government because their big plan in 2026 was to lower bills and make us all feel better off. Do you have a bit of sympathy for them? I sort of do in this instance, there's reason two and to not have

4:12sympathy. The reason to have sympathy is that Times going to find himself in exactly the same position Liz Truss was in 22 when there was an energy price shock following the war in Ukraine and one of the reasons, apart from her own sheer incompetence that her permutorship collapsed, was the fact that she had to do this massive energy relief package that cost £100 billion. It wasn't properly scorecarded. The Office for Budget Responsibility in the market through that hand and they said, oh, we don't like this. Well, the rest is history, as they say. So, I think we're very much back into that situation. The problem is that our public finances are in a much worse state than they were then. It's the idea that we can find £100 billion down the back of the country so far to try and pop up energy prices. It's something for the birds at the moment. So Kierstarm has hinted that there may have to be some kind of energy price relief. But how much that is, where it's going to come from and how it's going to work is kind of unfathomable. Now, people from the Trump administration have been asking about this morning saying, the oil shock is only in the last week, not months, it will all be over very soon. Again, it'd be quite nice to

5:15know what plan there is for that because it doesn't feel as if everything's just going to calm down and we go back to matters as normal. So, I have a lot of sympathy for the Starmer government on that fund because this is not their fault and if they do have to do a big intervention, it was not, as we now know, UK was not involved in the reason for that. The reason I don't have sympathy is that the government's been in office like 18 months and it's whacked up green levy significantly, which have piled on extra taxes to energy bills while trying to ramp up the new rules. That's a milliband's big strategy. But they've equivocated on North Sea oil and the new Rosebank field, for example, as things you could have done there, as things you could have done in terms of expediting more nuclear, but all that stuff takes time. So, you know, it's a difficult situation but I don't really know how the government's going to get out of this if this disruption goes on for months and if the oil price go high, I mean, oil's gone above $110 about this morning. If that remains high for a long time, then all of our prices are just going to go up and up and up, which means no more interest rate cuts, means inflation's going to

6:15soar again and we're going to come back to the next budget and it's going to be another dumpster Levy, I think it's, I think it's right, but I also think it's going to strongly impact how people feel about this war. I mean, there seems to be sort of general public cost to it to it anyway. I think it's going to get all the stronger because even with the Ukraine war, yes, it pushed up our bills, but at least it wasn't our supposed ally who had begun it. With this, it's sort of, I mean, it sort of is and I don't know, do you feel like I feel like almost like a bit robbed as in we've been through a sort of a bad time? We were supposed to be on the cost of a good time and now it's been kind of snatched away from us. Yes, yes, I think so and I think Seb's right. I think the fact that so many of these green levy's have been put on to domestic and business bills is going to react. It's going to be a very bad response towards our own government, though actually at the moment, Keir Starmer is actually not doing too badly. He is at least trying to create some kind of of some kind of friendly link, some kind of of subspecial relationship, remains of a special

7:18relationship with Trump, which I think is good because actually you cannot really have too aggressive self-aggrandizing lunatics heads of government in charge at the same time. But I mean, it's going to be difficult. It's going to be politically difficult. It's going to be very difficult for business, going to be difficult for individuals, you know, say, petrol prices are really shot up now. I don't know where Seb got the, is it 100 billion cost as trustless thing? I read 50 billion, but it's still absolutely normal. I think it was originally... I don't think I can dive in as deeply as she did, certainly. I think it was the trust scheme. It was originally estimated that it was going to be 150 billion, but it came in as much lower in the end, but it was still, it was, I will take sums. I mean, 50 billion, yeah, but I mean, that, you know, they don't want to go throwing that money at it straight away. So they're in a really difficult position. And I think I actually happen to think that a stammer for once is somebody to be quite pleased about, you know, because I think he

8:21is trying to cool things. The person who's an absolute disgrace in this whole business of Trump's new war is Tony Blair, you know, who claims that he didn't intend it to be leaked, what he just happened to be said at a private meeting, you know, how long has the man been in politics and diplomacy? And he's just sort of thrown, you know, thrown another dead cat on the table to, to discomfort, gear, starma. And I think that is disgraceful, undiplomatic behaviour. No, yeah, he was, I think he was speaking at a, he was being intrigued by Robert Peston. I think it was a Jewish news event and it was supposed to be, I think, Chatham House rules, but it did leak out pretty, pretty swiftly. How long has he been in politics, you know, I sort of think, I sort of think, yeah, if you stay something on a stage in front of loads of journalists, then whether it's supposed to be secret or not, you can pretty much assume it's going to get out there, I would have thought. Yeah, indeed. Yeah. And therefore it is a deliberate attack on care, starma, which I think is disgraceful. That's, I mean, that's, that's interesting. We'll be talking about that a bit more. Speaking of starma in his relationship with Trump,

9:22the two men spoke for the first time in eight days last night, Daning Street said they'd discussed the situation in the Middle East, no surprise there, and military cooperation between the UK and the US as well. This came just a day after Trump said America didn't need Britain support in the conflict, running on truth social. We don't need people that join wars that we after we've already won. Where do you begin with that, sir? But I mean, I'm not quite sure they have as such already won. But I mean, I mean, that would have been, that would have been an awkward call. I'm just sort of, I tell you what, I've been struggling over the last week with this idea that starma must be on the back foot of this criticism from Trump, because there's a bit of me that wanders in terms of where he's trying to position himself, in terms of the, you know, the wake of the greens surging in the polls. He doesn't really want to be sort of Trump's best buddy any more anyway. No, he doesn't. And I mean, the only thing that's embarrassing I guess is the amount of effort Kistam has put in to try and to try and get those ties as close as possible, which you see a lot of criticism from Labour MP particularly on the left of the party in

10:25the green party and the Lib Dems and all that sort of thing. So you could say it's embarrassing. But feel the prime minister of the UK, what else can you do? You don't have much choice to have a good relationship with the US president. That's been the case ever since the Second World War really. So I don't think it's the same wrong with that for starma. I mean, the whole thing is slightly dancing on the head of a pin because nobody asked the UK to be involved in the first wave of strikes, which is where the debate was. It's then more about could the UK have been more ready for the kind of retribution from Iran that hits Cyprus and the other bases in the region, given there's a kind of timeline that suggests the UK did know this was coming, and could have got HMS Dragon and HMS Duncan or the Prince of Wales war carrier into the region sooner. Although, of course, that would have indicated that when this was coming. And for Kistam was domestic position, I think you'll like Hugo. It does help him because there's some polling out of the weekend that show that people are pretty happy with Kistam's position on this, that they think the UK's right to defend its assets, but shouldn't have been involved in the strikes and shouldn't be involved.

11:26Now, that's kind of exactly where the government is. And the problem with Donald Trump is he's so precarious, and he just flips like a switch, that you can't bet the house on that. And there's no US president like that. And Ben Duda, who was a foreign office advisor until quite recently, has been out and about talking about this, and has given many examples of how Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, was in a room with our phones actually, would go out, take a phone call from Trump and come back in, and then everything would have changed. So if you're in that situation, you've kind of just got to roll with the punches on this, which is what I think his Starmer's done. So I think that's kind of fine. And you've just got to kind of ride it out. But of course, it's a little bit awkward, given the fact that the king is supposed to be going to America for nice state visit before too long. Yeah, well, we'll talk about the king in a moment. I promise. But Libby, with the Starmer's, I guess, pushback against the Americans, pushback against what Trump wants him to do. Do you think he should be, do you think he should be shouting it more loudly? Because it's a very, very care-starmer thing to do, to be involved in a sort of, what could be a

12:26sort of costly political fight without really getting the benefit, because he doesn't talk about it, you see what I mean? Like he gets the criticism for making the difficult decision, but never gets the benefit for the fact that it might be the right decision in the long run. I think that him constantly spouting out how he was right and he knows best would not be particularly helpful. I listened to Ed Davy this morning. I don't know whether you heard it, Ed Davy this morning, but he's shouting the odds and so on with really basically nothing to lose. None of us have got anything to lose by saying Trump is a deranged, aggressive lunatic. But I don't think it would help. In a Starmer has to behave in a prime ministerial manner. There's two aspects of being prime ministerial. One is just being massively effective and decisive and never making U-turns and he's sort of failed at that. But the other bit of being prime ministerial is just not being the guy who's out there shouting for nothing in particular when there's nothing that will change. And so I don't think he should be making political capital out of it particularly. I think I think people would respect him more for just quietly getting on with it and hoping that

13:32we can get out of this without too much damage either to ourselves or to the relationship with the United States. Trump won't be around forever at least for the moment, but he won't be forever. Just to catch you up on some of that polling that Seb was talking about. This is New Yugo of polling about where Britain's think the main UK political parties stand regarding Donald Trump. Two thirds of British people describe themselves as being anti-Trump. 56% say they're very anti-Trump. 70% say reform UK is being supportive of Trump. So I guess yeah, as you were saying Seb, Keir's down my sort of positioning himself as not quite being that. Probably yeah, does does somewhat work in his advantage. Look, in a moment we're going to talk about directly about the King's visits to Washington, which is due next month. Quite a few people are getting in touch, taking me to task for describing ourselves as pre this war in an economic sense, having been on the cusp of good times, wondering if I misspoke. You're quite right, I did miss, misspeak. I meant to say on the cusp of slightly less bad times, and you're quite right to call

14:36me out on that entirely, entirely correct, considering me admonished. Hi, this is Farnoosh Tarabi from So Money with Farnoosh Tarabi, and today I want to talk to you about Boost Mobile. Quick money tip, stop paying a carrier tax. If your phone bill feels trapped in a pricey plan, this is your sign to unlock savings. Boost Mobile helps you reset your spending with the $25 unlimited forever plan. You can bring your own phone, pay $25 and get unlimited wireless forever, and that simple switch can unlock up to $600 in savings a year. That's money you could put towards paying down debt, investing, or something that actually brings you joy. Though savings are based on average annual single line payment of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile customers compared to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited plan as of January 2026, for full offer details,

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16:38That's Q-U-O dot com slash business. Quo, no missed calls, no missed customers. Hello, Quo, if you can hear currently unpacking the politics of the day with Libby Purvis and Seb Payne. I just want to read out some of the messages we've been getting sent in as relates to the war. I normally say them till the end, but just a lot of relevant to what we've been talking about. Alistair says, hello, Luya. He says, I strongly support the comments about Tony Blair. He means Libby's comments there. He says, absolute disgrace. Underlining Starmer in his incredibly complex situation while he navigates working on the world stage with various lunatics reveals the lunacy of the war-monger Tony Blair himself and on it goes. Whereas somebody else, no name on this one. Basically, I think taking us all to task for having some sympathy for Kirstama, saying, have you so easily forgotten that the Iranian regime murdered at

17:40least 30,000 of its own people and has sworn to destroy Israel and has been threatening Western interests for more than 40 years. Meanwhile, Yolanda says, Starmer must let Trump know that if he doesn't stop throwing insults, his UK golf courses will be compulsory purchased and returned to farmland. Thank you, Yolanda. Link to this. We know, as we were discussing, that Kirstama and President Trump spoke for the first time in eight days last night. Currently, the king is due to go to Washington next month. The Lib Dem say that visit should be cancelled. Here is the Lib Dem column miller speaking to Tom Dredi of breakfast. One of our greatest concerns is to make sure that the king is not placed in an embarrassing position and sending him out to Washington in April at a time when unfortunately it looks as though a war that has no end plan from Donald Trump or Benjamin Netanyahu would place him in an incredibly delicate and difficult position. That is a column miller that abdems for an affairs spokesman and that call has been echoed by some Labour-backed bench MPs as well. Libby, what do you reckon? I mean, it is at least a month away and anything could be

18:42happening war-wise by then and it would be a huge diplomatic breach for us to decide to do this. And yet, what do you think? I don't know. I was wondering if there was some way for the palace to say look to the White House. We are in times of great suffering and fear in the Middle East. Many of our own citizens are involved in this in daily fear of bombings and so on. And we just feel that any ceremonial would be an appropriate. We would like to hope it gives a very low key and friendly visit to express concerns and general support for good relationship with the United States. But we'd like everything to be kept very, very calm and thoughtful. I wonder if that's possible. I mean, because they do, I mean, the bands play their terribly rackety, you know, like we're a rackety with our soldiers and so on. I just think it would be interesting if there was some formula whereby the king could sound sort of sorrowful and anxious and wanting everything to be rather low key this time round. See what happens, see how

19:44the White House would respond to that. They might quite like it. What do you think, sir? I mean, obviously, the king is well versed in the whole world of family of having to go and deal with tricky overseas allies and countries who don't for many decades with pretty distributable individuals. And the king is pretty good at rising above all this kind of stuff. So I think you've got to do the visit because pulling out now would really kind of collapse diplomatic relations and given how ask you ties are into woven air. And as Libby said earlier, Trump is not America. And America is not Trump. He's just happens to be president at the moment. But I think ultimately, you know, the king will focus on the 250th independence anniversary of America. Obviously, not a straightforward topic for the UK, but I'm sure there's a way he can sort of light on it with some alarm. Then I think that will that will kind of get things the best they can. They will try to as little as possible. I think, of course, you've got all the Epstein stuff as well, which is going to be quite tricky. And most members of the royal family have tried to stay away from it. And I'll be interesting to see if the US press corps are as respectful as the UK one

20:47of you when it comes to questioning him on that. Yeah, indeed. Yeah. I mean, I suppose that would be another reason room to decide not to go. I guess they might just, you know, not do the press call because I suppose they often, they often don't. You have those sprays in America, though, which is really hard to do when, when, you know, a head of state, whatever goes in and all the journalist's shout questions was far more served in this country. And you ask very politely when you remember of the royal family. But I just think the king not going at this stage would just be such a disaster. Just see. Not somebody could write the right, the king of speech on this about the 250th anniversary, majoring on all the great achievements and the great and democratic and peacemaking achievements of the United States over the year, you know, sort of under just anything to remind Trump that, you know, he may not be Churchill, but Trump's not Eisenhower either. I think I think a big speech sort of on the great history of the US leaving out the recent bits might be quite a nice tactful, tactful, very great. Love it, passive aggression, the British way.

21:50Yeah, that's sad. Libby, your column today focuses on respect for those who serve in the armed forces, putting out the difference between the US habit of thanking people for their service and UK attitudes, which are somewhat more reserved. Why do you think the UK lacks that kind of culture? And have you seen that change in your lifetime? Absolutely. I mean, a lot of what I've written is about how one of the advantages of growing living as long as I have is you've watched the changes from that sort of post-war period when my generation really didn't want to listen to the wartime stuff, you know, and we thought it was over, it was in the past, okay, so we won all the rest of it. And there was a great deal of lampooning, you know, comedy generals and comedy soldiers on Monty Python and Oh, what a lovely war and so on. And it was sort of quite fashionable to not have any respect really for armed forces, armed services. Any of them. I was always uneasy with that because I had sort of grown up around the remembrance services on the Sarmons zone because my dad was a diplomat over there. And I sort of,

22:54I knew about, you know, how you have to have an army and it's pretty darn hard for these forces and they lead a hard time. One should as it were, thank them for their service in any war. And then that sort of changed slightly as this generation grew very old. The wartime generation grew old and started talking about, are they were 17 years old flying night sorties, bombing sorties, terrifying stuff. And people sort of actually, yes, these old boys were great, but it was still sort of bathed in this sort of sentimental nostalgia. And I think what we need to think about now is how to make people understand and therefore make politicians more able to spend decent money on defence. Because as you know, we've halved what we spend on defence. And we're not even back up to half what we've spent in 82, you know, is enormously the Navy, the RAF, the Army, and terrible trouble. And we need to beef up defence. And that's going to mean hard choices on all sorts of things that we like, you know, for our own welfare. And people are going to have to accept

23:56this, I think. And governments are going to have to be able to do it without being so terrified, as they have been these last 35 years. And so I just wanted to go into all that, this business of changing attitudes and how the attitude needs to sort of sweep back slightly into saying, you know, we don't want to fight by jingo if we do, you know, we'll get them on, we'll get the guns, you know, we'll, we've got the money too. Yeah, I mean, there is, there is something of a paradox there in the, in the sort of the British mindset as relates to the armed forces. Because on one level, you know, people write about the, the black hadarisation of our view of war, where it's, we've got it in a sort of, sort of sentimental way, but we focus, I think rightly on the, on the horror of war and the misery of it, but that doesn't seem to come hand in hand, Seb, with really American levels of respect for the people who have to do it for us. I think this is, and I was fascinated by Libby's column because it kind of taps into a wider question about patriotism and how we feel it, because I think throughout most of my lifetime, patriotism has been relatively low key. You didn't see a lot of union jacks or St George's crosses

25:00around and it was a kind of, you know, it was humming in the background and there was a kind of low level, quite respect. And that's become much more vocal in recent years. You obviously had all the flags going up on the lampposts as people want to be more vocal about their patriotism. And I think there is something going on and you could link it to, I don't know, the rise of reform or whatever it is there, but it's a more fundamental question of what people feel about the nation state. And again, there's been some research done on this and people tend, you know, the number of younger people who would be willing to go and fight is, I think almost it's lowest, lowest level ever, because people just don't feel what they did in the past about the concept of a nation state. They actually don't feel the same ties. Now you can blame all sorts of different reasons for that, but obviously filters through within the armed services. And it's obviously probably no coincidence that a lot of people, particularly in sort of the regular army, are people who come from sections of society that are much more likely to be more openly patriotic. So there must be a kind of link between those two. And I know what Libby means about, you know, well, a generational too a part

26:05of I'm allowed to say that, but I think, you know, the wall for me is something that you only ever saw through Black Adder or through Dad's army kind of reruns on BBC 2 on a Saturday night. That's your kind of main link with it. And so it has obviously drifted. And when you're coming to generations below that, that's not just something they remember. It's entirely a history book phenomenon. So it's not maybe a surprise that you know, there's been no massive wars in our lifetime. So therefore, people just don't feel the same way about it. Well, yeah, point is said, I mean, you're all very well talking about patriotism. It's not just about patriotism. It's also about safety. I mean, I rather progressively opened on these people in the UAE. One of them is in fact a cousin of mine. And she is not doing this for propaganda reasons. You know, she is very sort of level headed when they sort of say things like, we are grateful to the UAE for keeping us safe. They are being bombed. They hear overhead the sound of interception. They say, thank you, UAE, for keeping us safe. And I thought, wow, gosh, that's something we're a million miles from. You know, in the war, I think people did sometimes think that way. Thank you, RAF,

27:06for keeping us safe. Well, I mean, thank you for the anti-aircraft guns. But we don't have this feeling anymore. It's not just about patriotism. It's about prudence. You know, you can say, actually, we hate our leaders, you know, and we're not very patriotic. But on the other hand, we would really have a strong army and a strong nuclear deterrent so people don't bomb us. I think it's the sense of one reality about it, Libby. So some of the studies said we're talking about were conducted by the Times and Alice Thompson and I interviewed a bunch of, we did a sort of focus group with some Gen Z people who were all sort of in there roughly around about the age of 20. What was fascinating speaking to them about this is they were pretty much universally, I mean, I think maybe one or two were dissented. We're just sort of like, just had sort of a mused disdain for the idea that they should be expected to fight to defend their country. But when you talked about it in real terms with being like, hang on, does that mean that you'd just shrug and turn the other way if there were actual Russian tanks rolling down your high streets? They just sort of hadn't thought about it in their terms. They just thought about it in those terms. They just thought about as this sort of entirely theoretical threat that older people were always banging on about.

28:08When it came to actually defending themselves and their homes and their families in a very, very real sense, they thought pretty much, well, everyone else always thinks eventually when you know, when the, when the challenge comes and they were sort of much more, they were effectively what sort of manifested as patriotic about it. They just didn't think about it in those terms. It was really, I don't know, really, really interesting. Let's, let's move on because time is short. The government's new social cohesion strategy is going to be published today creating a new anti-Muslim hostility Tsar. I guess you've got to phrase that pretty carefully. The new special representative on anti-Muslim hostility will champion efforts across the UK to tackle hostility and hatred directed at Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim. Seb, can you tell us any more about this? This sounds like something in your area. Yeah, so this was started off the back of, I mean, this, going to off the conversation now about general concerns about cohesion within society. And the last time this was done was in 2018 when Louise Casey, who is now the kind of handyman of the government when it comes to fixing all various broken parts of the state, she did this

29:09fascinating review into integration and for Saddi Jarred, who was then the local communities minister. And it came up with a lot of stuff, though, I think remains true in this new strategy about there being one million people who don't speak good levels of English in with this country, huge levels of segregation within some portions of society, anti-Semitism on the rise again in some portions and it's about 58 page, 48 page reports, sorry, coming out this afternoon and something was leaked over the weekend and the most contentious headline is the government is going to appoint an Islamophobia czar and this is again reflect rising levels of Islamophobia within society. Now, this has become quite a contentious Westminster issue because MPs, particularly those on the right, so if you have an Islamophobia czar, it's going to be someone who is policing free speech and where and what is not for criticism of Islam. Others say that there is a particular issue here and the government reflects this being they're having anti-Semitism czar and there's already various czar and extremism and the like. But the question will be is who is this?

30:13What is their remit and what is their background? So you can see this all spurling out into another kind of classic culture wars debate here. But what I think the core thing about this strategy is is that we need to do something about it that when Louise Casey did that 2018 review, it was all set out of that, all the things that needed to be done, mandatory English lessons, councils being active when you've got communities that are, you know, are keeping women locked up at home or don't speak good levels of English and that's what needs to be acted upon. But it will descend into a classic cultural thing and you can see a reform figure saying this is all, you know, you will not be able to criticize Islam under this new report. But I think it just shows that we do have some big problems and it's about how we grip them. And that's the job of Steve Reed who's up in the comments afternoon to explain what he's going to do about it. Libby, how'd you see this? Is this about sort of civility or is this a blasphemy law by the back door? We must not have a blasphemy law by the back door, we absolutely must not. I think Casey and Javid and indeed some extension,

31:13some extent madmood have kind of got it right. It's interesting that, you know, it's people from minority ethnic minorities tend to be rather, rather better at it. No, we just have Islamophobia law, I mean, there's disastrous to start talking about, you know, people are not co-hearing and therefore we must be kinder to them, you know, anti-Semitism, hostilities, I was absolutely barking. Any law protecting Muslims in particular would have to have an exact corresponding law and degree of enforcement protecting Christians, Jews and people who deny any religious belief at all. Absolute level playing field all the way, no incitement, you know, no sort of unreasonable law, no unreasonable ruling, no unreasonable treatment of women, just not tolerated, absolutely not tolerated. And that's, we don't need SARS to go on and on about it and agonise about it, we don't need to culture more, you know, we just need absolutely level, level enforcement. And this involves obviously some imams who should be thrown out of the country, you know, you see them

32:15online all the time, I don't know what your timeline is like on social media, but my goodness, there are some people who simply shouldn't be here at all, they're saying about women, what they're saying about non-Muslims is just not defensible in anyone's world. I mean, well, look, there's something that I guess linked to the politics of all this, there's a new poll suggesting the Greens are going to come top in the capital this May with Labour losing half of its counsellors, that's basically would be a, I was going to say an echo, but something like an echo, whatever you call an echo that's even louder than the first one, basically, there's a little bit of reverberations, reverberations, well, even then, it's like the bottom of the avalanche rather than the top, never mind, pick whatever metaphor you want, this follows the Green Triumph in Manchester, which are panic to Labour enormously, but if they sort of just massively, massively take control of London as well, you can imagine full-scale panic. Labour must just be completely freaking out about the prospect of this. I think they are, and I mean, I think the Labour have been incredibly complacent, almost as complacent as the Conservatives were about the rise of a former UK, you know,

33:20from ours, it's a flash in the pan, he's going to go away, one issue person, and well, they've been leading opinion polls for well over a year now, and I think Labour have had this exact same thing with the Green Party that if you've got no upbeat, convincing, compelling message, why is it a surprise people would look towards the alternative? We should obviously reflect that there's a big of a green wave at the moment, following the Gordon and Denton by election. I don't think that would translate into a wider electoral success either in the kind of general election, because the Green vote is heavily indexed on younger people, and a certain ethnic minority communities, both of which are less likely to actually vote. But London is going to be fascinating, as you say Hugo, and there are two things in this survey. I thought one is the fact that Greenson's going to sweep up lots of Labour seats, particularly in eastern, the outer fringes of London, and the Hackney Mayor is up for election as well, a very, very big race there, but obviously, that is one that the Greens don't hope to win as stepping into winning the Hackney constituency at the next election. The other thing, which is very much mine here, is the Conservatives actually

34:24making some gains in London. I mean, it's not often the toys having anything good to say, but this poll did say the Conservatives would pick up about 80 councillors, and this is obviously before campaigning as begun. So it does so, something's interesting going on there, but for Labour, you know, they are stuck in this situation. The whole strategy is to win back voters lost to reform with Shabbat and with Moon's tough rhetoric on immigration. Yet their left flank is also under appeal as well. But I think if you think about a future election, if you hand green versus reform, then that might be a pretty good time for us to pack our bags. Libby, Green London, good for parks and cyclists, perhaps? No, no, there's nothing to do with greenness, absolutely nothing to do with greenness. You know, they're about Islamism and cross-dressing as far as I can make out. No, I'm well known, my USP on this programme is I'm a pull skeptic. I don't actually believe there's going to be a great green wave. I don't think there's a great green wave going on. I think that the useful thing about the Gordon Dunn by election might make people sit down and actually look at what the Greens actually want, what they actually say and realise how incredibly

35:28incoherent it is and opportunistic it is. I think people will say we're actually sick of Labour and the Tories messed us up. Let's have something else. I think I will do reform quite a lot of good. Well, look, linked to greenness and London. We'll cover this quickly because we've got opened the court in a second. But Seb, you've been writing about London and in particular about plans for Oxford Street to be pedestrianised. Well, I actually agree with what Sebastian Payne wrote in the Times recently. Thanks, Jacob. I mean, he might. Seb, you're basically talking about how Oxford Street has just become a sort of a dead zone. Yeah, exactly. Without going for Alan Partridge here and talking about the pedestrianisation of North City Centre, but this is Oxford Street. It's got this kind of big problem at the 1.2 mile stretch from Oxford Circus up to Marble Art. It's a bit of, as you say, a Hugo Ed disaster zone. There's several of the big department stores have gone. A lot of the other retails have moved out to region street order, so whole to May fell all around about. And there's what still is actually Britain's busiest shopping street face, the kind of what is the point of it and how do you deal with

36:31the structural change of people wanting more boutiques? They don't want big shops and they certainly don't want department stores. And so Deak Karn's Big Plown, which was actually Ken Livingston's Big Plown back 20 years ago, is to pedestrianise it. And I wrote last week that the problem of this is that it's just pedestrianised on its own is not going to fix it. There's too much retail, there's not enough leisure destinations, and there's not going to be any cyclists because it's going to be closed off both ends, so it is kind of fully pedestrianised. And because there's no reason to go there after dark, you can see becoming a something of a dead zone. And I spoke to some people in the police who are quite worried about it becoming a crime hot spot as well, because everyone will just avoid it, because there's nowhere to go. So to really revitalise Oxford Street, you'd have to think quite radically about the stock there. Do you need all those departments or do some of them even need knocking down your marks and spences, try to knock down their big shop, it got called in by Michael Gove who then tried to stop him but eventually lost that battle. So it's a big question, not easy one to fix, but I don't think pedestrianisation when it happens

37:33later this year is going to fix all the problems. I mean I'm not sure I'm sure. Cedars right, Cedars the new Mary Portus, and I'm a bus oilist, and if you close it to buses, I'm doomed. Yeah, I mean bus buses, I guess, I haven't I haven't I've kind of driven down Oxford Street in 20 years, avoid it like avoid it like the plague. You know what I think we could do almost anything, Drosary, when it makes much difference to my life at all, no matter how often I pass through there. Anyway, you don't you don't what you don't think about Oxford Street that much you go. You know what? You're too grand to go on the bus, that's your father. Too grand to go on the bus. I mean, well, sometimes. You're not that sure, sir. You know, if I was around there, I would indeed get the tube. Yes, I am. Too grand to go on the bus. Are the buses and, you know, my neck are the woods all the time. No, no, all doing courts and all rise for Judge Libby. Because Libby, Abily, assisted by Seb, not yet a judge, is going to rule on some of the biggest questions of ethics, and morality in public life, and so on. First case before the court, we're going to have to rattle through these quite fast. The heads of the role, Ballet and Opera, the English National Ballet, Sadler's Wells and Scottish Opera, have all invited the actor Timothy Shalamet

38:33to come to a show after he said no one cares about opera and Ballet. He said they were dying art forms in a stage conversation with the actor Matthew McConaughey. Libby, what do you think? Overpraised movie actor. Nobody wants him an opera or Ballet, so it's easier to say they're dying out and don't matter. I say the same pole vaulting. No one wants me in that area, so I could just say it's rubbish. He's talking nonsense, his actor. Seb, have you seen more opera, A opera, B ballet, or C films with Timothy Shalamet in them? Opera, Shalamet, ballet, in that order. I think I've probably seen ballet, Shalamet, opera, interestingly enough. All right, moving on. Do you fancy a cheeky work day doing nothing at home? How about you take a soft off day? Apparently online influencers are showing staff working from home, how to do the bare minimum, but make sure their colleagues and bosses don't notice. It's basically how you log in late to fly under the radar, you answer emails in the morning to show face and then you switch off early with full confidence. This isn't quite not turning up, it's just effectively not turning up.

39:34Much easier, of course, if you work from home. Libby, what do you think? Most people who work from home, of course, are educated middle class type people and they should know that this is actually fraud. It is cheating your employer. Don't take the money if you're not going to work. Seb, I'm going to have to ask you to make a case for the fraudsters here. You've got to take their side for balance, off-concessor. Oh, I don't know. Something about wellness and looking after yourself and that's something like that. I mean, it's the best thing to probably do there. I mean, people obviously don't work at 100% every single day. I mean, there are days you go where you do a radio show and write a column. It's like two jobs in one day. And I think, you know, when you've got things like that, that's fine. And you can have the days where you take it off a little bit. So I think that's fine. I mean, we all traditionally known as hungover days. Let's squeeze one more in a lightning speed. Apparently, hasslers may cause more than just irritation, but also a shorter life. A study of using DNA is found that people, if you find yourself being hassled by family and friends,

40:35it could be making your age faster and die sooner. Judge Libby, is this my excuse to not empty the dishwasher? There'll be an awful lot of men like you saying it's all about nagging wives, but actually husbands nag as well. And I think we all thought to mention the fact that teenage children and young adult children nag their parents. So yes, all nagging shortens your life. But on the other hand, geriatric and palliative care is so bad these days that maybe shortening it is doing us all quite a favor. Wow. We're going to have to leave it there. Thank you very much indeed, Libby Purvis. Thank you very much indeed, Sir Payne. We're pleasure to speak to both of you. Hi, this is Farnoosh Tarabi from So Money with Farnoosh Tarabi. And today I want to talk to you about Boost Mobile. Quick money tip. Stop paying a carrier tax. If your phone bill feels trapped in a pricey plan, this is your sign to unlock savings. Boost Mobile helps you reset your spending with the $25 unlimited forever plan.

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