Is Burnham-ism High Street Socialism? | Novara Live

Welcome to Navara Live. Coming up tonight, Andy Burnham unveils a raft of measures to save the high street while Britain's forests are on fire. Our imprisonment for public protection jail terms to blame for the chronic overcrowding in our country's prisons and is shrinkflation the ultimate signifier that capitalism has run out of gas. I'm Arthania and today I'm joined by Michael Walker. Michael, how are you? >> Very well. Um, very honored to be on today's show with one of the most powerful men in Britain and we've been banging the drums about vape shops for years now. It's pasti Britain and we're just living in it. I've been termed by some Britain's most influential conservative. [laughter] Um, I I must say as well, Michael, as I as I was speaking to you there just a moment ago and my voice was going up and I was getting more aggressive and I was reminded of a comment on last week's show who said that I sound increasingly like Mutley. uh from Wacky Races and Dick Dastardly. Uh for older people perhaps you'll know that reference. I try my best to uh sound like a normal person, but I get so animated with these stories. >> It's important to emote. You know, the the best presenters do that. >> Yeah. But I don't want to sound like I don't want to sound like a cartoon dog. >> Uh like I did just there. You see? Uh before we get started on tonight's show with some great stories, uh tickets are on sale for our next Downstream IRL event. That's at Earth Theater in Hackne. It's going to be a really great event this one. Ash Sak and I will be joined by cultural theorist Katherine Louu and writer Darren McGabi. That's on the 21st of September. You can get tickets in the link. It's going to be fab. Hackne is always wonderful. When we do these events in December and January, I'll be honest, it's a bit too cold. But September 21st is probably the perfect ambiencece for this kind of event. I'd love to see you there. Um, I have to say that when we publicized this event on Instagram, it somewhat polarized people. Um, because of course trauma is something that people really care about. It's a good thing we didn't call the event trauma maxing. That might have uh looked almost flippant. We didn't do that. Fortunately, it's a very serious event and we'll be covering it uh with I think a great deal of interest and curiosity and of course giving it its due importance. >> And presumably there'll also be questions from the floor. So if anyone uh will does object, they can of course come and raise a difficult question. >> They will. But Darren McGabby and Katherine Lou, two really distinctive important voices in that debate. If you disagree with them, both of them like Michael says, come along, get a ticket, uh say what you think. There are many things I've been called during my career, some of which are far too colorful to be repeated on air, even on YouTube. But I never thought I'd see the day where I could be credibly described as Britain's most influential winter. Didn't you know my hosting style is based on Peter Griffin and grind my gears? But it's high streets that I've been complaining about particularly loudly for years now. I've grumbled about the overflowing charity shop bins that often act as prompts for people to fly tip. And then there's the litany of empty phone boxes that are more likely to be used as a public urinal than as a way of actually calling anyone. And how about the explosion of vape shops, barber shops, and mini marts we've seen in recent years? All three of those, but that last one in particular have become emblematic of the decline of the high street and the public realm more generally. In some places, trading standards have claimed up to half of these shops are connected to organized crime with the sale of prescription drugs and cocaine being documented in some of them. Although, it's important to say more often they're involved in money laundering and sales of illegal tobacco and alcohol. Not murder and bank robbery. No, but a mundane low level of lawbreaking that is basically everywhere. It's certainly become a joke in smalltown Britain. When a restaurant or bookshop closes, people wonder, will it become a vape shop or a William Hill, a mini mart or perhaps an HMO under permitted development? Which perhaps explains why today Andy Burnham announced action on the likes of such businesses with the prime minister posting this on X. Vape shops, bedding shops, dodgy businesses. If you look at your high street these days and think, "Who asked for this?" You're not alone. I'm doing something about it. We're giving local people and councils more control over what opens and tougher powers to crack down on businesses that aren't good for our communities. For too long, Westminster has stood by while our high streets declined. That ends now. And here's Burnham speaking to Sky News about the issue earlier this afternoon. >> There's a real concern across the country. I felt it in the Makerfield bi-election about high streets that have been hollowed out, particularly in former industrial areas. They just have been in decline for a long time. And I want to give local communities the power to turn things around. And that means uh clamping down on some of the businesses that cause harm in communities and then supporting those that bring life back to our to our high street. So we are announcing big changes today uh to give communities more control over planning when it comes to vape shops, adult gaming centers and also the proliferation of betting shops uh by removing the um uh the the aim to permit. This is a really useful graphic published by the Financial Times today and it visually underscores the growth of vape shops and mini marts in this country. As you can see, the number of barber shops increases by about 600% in the decade following 2015, although I think barber shops are a bit different to vape shops. I'll talk about that more in a minute. Uh, the number of takeaways increases by 500%. Although, to be fair, delivery apps such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo change the economics of those businesses quite a bit. Meanwhile, vape shops, they've increased here by 14 times. They've gone up 1,400% in one decade. Now, I know vaping really took off after the mid2010s. I get it, even though I don't vape myself, but 1400% in a decade seems like a lot. Uh, which is why lots of people think that some of these businesses do more than just sell vapes or provide haircuts. Although, of course, many, indeed, the majority are legitimate businesses. Here's a clip from a BBC report months after an initial expose they ran about crime on the high street in the West Midlands. Some gram of cocaine bought on a high street. >> Cocaine, cannabis, prescription drugs, and illegal cigarettes. All for sale on this high street. >> Weed 30. >> Millions of you watched our undercover footage. >> Couldn't you believe? >> Yeah. >> So, 3 months on, we've come back to Cradley Heath to see the impact of the BBC's reporting. >> God [laughter] market. We bought illegal tobacco in here. It's now been forced to close by a court order. >> That's the cheapest one. >> Here's another one. G&G Market >> Lamb. Yeah. >> Forced to close. Oh, look. There's one. Top G's closed down after our reports. Vape Express. Last time we were here, we bought illegal cigarettes. >> Have we got any um cheap uh amie? >> Yeah. >> But today, it is still open. Look, every single window at Cradley Market has been shuttered. >> Everyone, this poster is telling people here that the shops have been closed down after a court order due to the criminality inside these places. >> I just say the Express, you said they're coming for you some weed. >> How much you want? >> 20 quid some week. >> Carnivis in a grocery shop. This is a message not only to the people who live here, but also to people who are selling illegal cigarettes, illegal drugs. All day closed. International Vape, this is the sixth and final shop that has closed down on this high street. And people here tell us they feel safer now these shops have closed. We were just talking about how Andy Burnham could try and really make the most with these uh kinds of shutting down closures uh by trading standards by local authorities and it should have Andy Bernma's face on the front saying >> this is Bernham's Britain no more crime on this high street. >> Yeah, it's a bit like the Trump gold card, right? The residency card that was available for high net worth individuals and had Trump's face on it. And >> I mean he's very smart politics. I mean, he's he's announcing it in a high-profile way. People, you know, already associate Andy Bernham with caring about those issues, which might not agitate people in London quite as much as they do in smaller towns around the UK. And now he's coming out with a policy that I think people do do care about. So, I mean, it's smart. >> I mean, I was in Makerfield for the bi-election and loads of people were talking about this stuff. And I do feel like people in larger cities, but particularly London, it's not so visible because you actually do have really, well, not really. You have quite successful high streets. >> We have very successful high street. >> No, no, but you can go to zone three or something and people say, "My high street isn't that great." But look, it's a lot better than, >> you know, lots of bits of the West Mids or the Northwest. You know, Wigan actually isn't too bad, which you know, bit of Wigan is in Makerfield, but it was still really conspicuous how many there were. >> I mean, Karma was MP. Well, still is, I suppose, for Hoben and St. Pancress like there are I don't think many people in H Highlands and Pankress have as their main complaint that their high street is abandoned and there are too many vape shops and too many barbers that don't seem to be cutting people's hair. Right. So it does seem like this is an issue where it does make a concrete difference that you have a politician who's sort of representing people from outside of London. I mean you know how did you become the id of small town Britain Aaron? got married, you had a kid, you moved to Portsmouth, right? >> Portsouth is a city, my friend. But apart from that, yes, >> it's not a small town, is it? But you know what I mean? There is a difference between London and everywhere else. I mean, maybe I don't know if central Manchester also has the same issue with this. Although, you know, Oxford Street has these stupid candy stores. >> So, they do they exist everywhere, but obviously if you've got one vape shop, one candy store, and it's next to a nice calf and next to a plant shop, it's it's not quite so offensive. >> In Hoben and St. Pancress, you know, you'll be at the Oyster Bar at the St. Pancress station or maybe you'll go to the Google Plex. You know, you might not notice the many marts and the vape shops, but when you're in this part of the West Midlands, it's a bit more conspicuous. And you're right, I'm really on this stuff because I see it every day. Conditions to term consciousness. >> I walk down a road called Albert Road in Portsmouth and there's about 10 of these places. I get my haircut by lovely guys, Elliot and Barry, and opposite them is a is two two other barbers that just opened up in the space of six months. and they sort of make jokes about how they buy they buy drugs from them. I don't know if they do, right? They're joking. But I think I think, you know, they make vague illusions to people being able to just buy cannabis in these places and so on. I don't know if that's true or if that's their primary business or or whatever. >> But these are these are the kinds of conversations that are in circulation basically everywhere outside of London. And it's kind of the folk politics which Burnham is channeling and getting into. And by the way, if you want to win democratic elections, that's something you kind of have to do. >> There are two separate issues, aren't there? There there's the issue of is there crime going on in this premise? So is it a legitimate business or is it a front for for something else? But then there's also just the issue of is this a pro-social use of the high street, right? So betting shops I I don't think anyone's suggesting that betting shops are a front for crime, right? But no one thinks, oh great, there's a new betting shop on my high street. So it does make sense to favor, you know, calfs, butchers, bakers, um charity shops over betting shops. And I' I'd say similar about vape shops. I mean, barbers definitely are somewhere in the middle because I think of a barber as a classic pro-social space, right? I love going to I don't I shave my own head now because I need to cut it so often that it's too expensive to go to the barber. But I used to love going to the barber. You know, the barbers around me, you often look in and there are, you know, people sitting around getting a haircut. Lovely to have a conversation. I think they're, you know, a good barber that's actually a barber is is brilliant. You know, I think we should be favoring them on high streets. If it is the case that a bunch of the new ones aren't legitimate barber shops, you know, I don't know. I I don't know enough to say that's not the case. >> We we have an issue with our auto cues. So, I'm going to freewheel a bit. But I think the FT said 16,000, right, that it's gone up to in the last decade. Um, but >> like there are that many new heads to share. >> But even if twothirds of those aren't real, you know, that's still a significant increase. I think you're right. A big part of the reason why barber shops are rising in number is because low cost of entry. You don't have to pay business rates because they're very small. You don't need much kit. It's very labor intensive. People are going to constantly need them. You know, there are big structural reasons why we have lots of barber shops. >> Well, also men are way more image conscious than they were 10 years ago, mainly because of Instagram, right? So, so I mean I think men spend a lot more money on personal grooming than they did 10 years ago. So, there is there's a legitimate explanation for the rise of barbers. Um but presumably also some of it is is illegitimate. But it is important to say, you know, we don't want everyone walking down the high street thinking like, "Oh, that guy in the vape shop, he's probably pretty dodgy." Or, "Oh, new barbers there, but he's a drug dealer." You know, like that. We could go overboard with this. >> Yeah. I mean, Andy Burnham's he's on the right track. >> Yeah. I mean, it's important to say that if you live in somewhere like Pompy, there'll be dozens of businesses like this and there will be some that almost, you know, statistically, it's very likely that some be criminal. I mean, where I live in Portsmouth, in the last couple of weeks, actually, we've had places shut down for precisely these reasons. Um, we've lost our auto quue. What a terrible What a terrible place to be in for somebody as talentless as me. I feel like Obama that time. >> Or was it was it Hillary Clinton, Michael, when she lost her auto cure and she just went had a meltdown? >> She had a meltdown. Trump free will. >> Um, you're going to go on the weave. Yeah, >> I mean there is also, you know, a strong social democratic argument to be made here, which is, you know, I suppose is is somewhat separate. But in terms of what businesses does one want to promote on a high street and what does one not, you know, obviously there is the free market argument, which is to say, well, wherever people want to shop, you know, whichever business can make the most money, whichever business can pay the most rent, that is the business that should occupy that plot on the high street. Um but there is an argument to that actually some businesses have huge positive externalities and some have negative externalities. >> I think I think people are really understating and we'll talk about this more in a moment. I think people are understating how radical that argument actually is. Right? If you're saying look certain kinds of business are better than other kinds of business. Certain kinds of activity are actually not really wanted. You might even say that's the case for certain rentier behaviors whether that's with the housing market or with businesses. That's a big that's a big political statement and I think they're few and far between now. people on the right who will say, "No, just completely leave it to the market." And by the way, that was the common sense of the political class until 10 minutes ago. Now we've got a prime minister doing something very different >> and it's really really popular. >> I'm also kind of in favor of the something should be sacred, right? And and this is the French way of doing it, which is to say, look, and people people love going on holiday in France, right? Because you go down the high street, there is a baker, there's a cheese shop, whatever, right? And and that's not just completely organic, right? It probably is because culturally they do care a bit more about fresh food than we do or whatever. But it is also because they have very restrictive trading laws for supermarkets which have boosted small independent shops. >> But also the supermarkets are banging. The French supermarkets are better than our ones. They're great. They're the best supermarkets in the world ironically are in Sweden and France. Two center-left societies. Makes you think, doesn't it? That isn't to say everyone is enthusiastic about the proposals. However, here's one take on X. This is from Oliver at OWS1892. Thick old cuns think vape shops and Turkish barbers will be replaced by the jolly butchers and candlestick makers from their youth. Michael Walker, that's what you're saying. You're saying that uh we might get the old butchers and the bakers and the candlestick makers. And then there was this one from Glumbird at Glumbird. Now, by the way, we we've got this here. I'm not trying to gotcher anyone. This is a genuine criticism and these are important points to engage with. Uh to all intents and purposes, Britain is in a national emergency. Drought, agricultural collapse, spiraling prices, largest construction contraction since 2008. I mean, not all of this is true, right? I mean, agricultural collapse, a big word. We do have sparing prices. We do have drought. Uh there is a contraction and construction. Sewage so thick swimming in the sea routinely makes people sick. Again, true. Uh what do we get? I will boldly take on vape shops. Michael, what do you think of that second comment? because I sort of disagree. You know, I think these are major issues and I think a prime minister should be taking on quitity and lawb breaking um and just the environment looking like crap on the high street. I think the PM should address those sorts of questions. But given he's not said things on drought, it feels like uh a process of evasion as much as actually trying to solve the problem at hand. I mean, I do agree that this summer we really could have had a bit more political leadership when it comes to climate change. We are living in sort of extraordinary times. Um, and I think it would be helpful to to have politicians stand up and say, "This is what we're going to do about it." I think there would have been a bit more space to do that with this new government. Didn't even need to be Andy Burner. Maybe it could be someone else in in the cabinet who sort of stands up and says, "This is a really big deal and we're going to do this." Um, I think that would have been um legitimate. I suppose this this whole way of speaking that just reminds me of the whole like rainy fascist island like everything is terrible. Everything sucks. You can't even swim in the sea anymore because it makes you sick. Like >> Well, to be fair, that's true, Michael. You know, you don't need to say that it's like it's winding. I mean, I love a good winch, but that's true. You know, people are people are getting sick by swimming in the sea or rivers actually more >> Yeah. >> more accurately. >> I mean, it is the case that actually most of this is because we just monitor it more than we used to. Like I remember in the 90s when I was a kid in Wales like there was a beach we used to go there like for my first eight summers to North Wales. There was a beach that we called Pooh Beach, right? So the this idea that everything's getting worse and it's the worst it's ever been. >> So getting cancelled for this. >> No, I mean it's true. Like our waters are probably a little bit cleaner than they were 20 years ago. We're just No, but we didn't used to measure the [ __ ] going into this. We should still be angry about it and want to clean them up. But there has been a massive increase in interest in wild swimming, which is brilliant. You know, surfers against sewages have have started up, which is brilliant. We should deal with this. I want I I love wild swimming. I want all of the rivers and lakes and seas in Britain to be brilliant to swim in. But the idea that sort of this is so much worse than it used to be, I don't think really stands up. >> I think it does. someone like the River Hay for instance, because there's such a a concentration now of of egg and chicken farming around there and that's basically byproducts of of food production and the food waste is going into the river um why not hey sorry I'm showing my uh my literary proclivities um the river Y and that's been destroyed really by animal agriculture >> but do we have evidence it was better 20 years ago >> well been doing animal agriculture for a very long time >> yeah know but there's been a real concentration of egg and and chicken production just in that particular part of the world. >> Which came first, >> Michael Walker. We're going to talk more about the climate stuff, don't worry. Of course, it's a reasonable criticism of Burnham, whatever you think of his moves elsewhere, to highlight the fact he isn't really talking about the fact that 3/4 of England is in drought. It's particularly glaring given it's now official that this is indeed the warmest summer on record. >> We're talking about it being a hot summer. at the Met Office uh has just announced that the UK is on course to record its warmest summer on record for mean temperature. The only we're only going to need average conditions for the rest of August to surpass the record and that record was only set last year. So provisional Met Office statistics show that the UK's mean temperature for the summer so far, which is uh the 1st of June to the 10th of August, uh currently stands at 16.48° 48 degrees uh Celsius, which is uh almost two degrees above the 1991 to 2020 average. Um and to equal the UK's summer mean temperature record of 16.12 uh Celsius, which is set in 2025, the remainder of August's August would only need to average. 21 Celsius below the 1991 to 2020 long-term average for the meteorological summer. Uh so any warmer than this would establish a new UK record and the records started back in 1884. So very very likely that the UK is on course to record its warmest summer on record for mean temperatures according to the Met Office. So we're on course for the warmest summer on record. Although I must say it sounds less impressive when you realize that the record being broken was in fact set last year in 2025. Maybe there's a pattern here. Who knows? Some people should look into it. Of course, it's the issue of drought that has been particularly conspicuous this summer with parks, heaths, commons, and verges as yellow as sand in many places. Take the village of Whizzley in Surrey. It hasn't rained there for 55 days. And given present forecasts, it seems very likely it'll hit the twomonth mark without any rain. This is Surrey, not Sicily. It's no surprise then that the wildfire has been breaking out across the country and yesterday saw a major one in the New Forest in the south of England. It was started by a vehicle that crashed. It appears to have been a white van with this setting fire and that fire rapidly spreading across Heathland adjoining the road. Hampshire Fire Services are still tackling the blaze today. It's the third day they're doing so and apparently last night was when it got really intense. There were 120 firefighters tackling that blaze and the conditions they are facing are grueling. Not least because of the relentless heat, the lack of shade while they work, of course, there's not much coverage. Uh, and the fact that containing the fire, given the forest heathland is basically dry like tinder, is close to impossible. Here's a video of one firefighter showing just how hot it's getting. I mean, that's crazy, isn't it? That's not California. That's not Death Valley. That's the New Forest in Hampshire, right? They have ponies there. It's quite a relaxed, chilled place. I mean, I live nearby. I love the New Forest. have to say actually the screen saver in my phone is the New Forest. You've got ponies there from from the Bronze Age. Extraordinary place and the guy's literally lifting up his feet and there's smoke coming off. That's one of the most extraordinary bits of video I've seen in 2026. Uh the blaze was so large. This is what it looked like from Portsmouth in the evening. Of course, Portsmouth is to the east. That is incredible. You can see the Sper tower there in the in the front and then Britany Fair is coming into Portsmouth Port. And here is the fire from the other side to the west in Bournemouth. Again, that is really um striking, terrifying, one might say. Here's New Forest Ranger Jilly Mulland speaking to Sky News earlier today. How devastating is this for the flora and fauna of the new forest? >> Um absolutely devastating. Um you know we're globally important here for um the plant and animal species that we've got. Heathland is actually rarer than the rainforest. Um so to to lose some of that is absolutely devastating. Um we have, you know, some really key species. We've got all of the UK's uh native reptile species. We've got birds such as the um night jar and dartford wobbler um all of which rely on this area to um to breed. So um it really is quite devastating and uh losing things such as some ancient beach trees that we know were in part of this area. You know, they're kind of 3 400 years old and there's no way that we can kind of get those back. >> Do you think much of the wildlife has managed to escape? Yeah, I know there's been um a lot of concern. Obviously, we have free roaming um ponies and livestock down here in the forest. So, um they have been able to um are, you know, very mobile and have been able to get away to safer ground. Um some of those species that that are slower moving, we will um have lost some of those and and see some of the the critical habitats were also internationally important for wetland. So um the that will have been lost in in that area as well and and take quite considerable time to regenerate. Um heathland mature heathland can take decades to um develop and and establish. So it will take time to recover. >> Just before we went on air, news broke of another fire in the south. This one in Devon further west. Uh Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service have sent some 20 crews. 20 crews to a large grasslands fire that's broken out in Mincing Lake Valley Park, part of the Devon Wildlife Trust. That's in Exat. Uh the fire service have asked people to avoid the area while they get the blaze under control. Uh finally, sticking with the extreme weather we're seeing. Check out this image posted by Matthew Todd Onyx. He says it's from Essex. Here's the tweet before you see the image. My friend Jonathan Fuller took this picture of ducks in a dried up pond on Wallace Island. Essex. It's heartbreaking. I will never ever forgive the media, politicians, the oil industry, and the moronic fools on social media who've been complicit in this climate crisis. And this is the photo in question. I mean, this is uh striking uh to say the least. It's arresting. It's visually arresting. You've got, for people who can't see this, you're listening on the podcast, you've got a mother duck, and she's got maybe what, six, seven chicks behind her. They've been born the last couple of weeks. They're walking on what was previously a pond. It's dried. You can see it's it's cracking on the surface. There is obviously no water there. They can't drink, let alone swim from it. And they certainly can't eat anything uh from it. And I would imagine without the help of local people, which I'm sure uh will be the case. I'm sure locals in Essex will provide water for these creatures. Without those people, of course, these animals would die. Uh, by the way, as is the case in the New Forest, huge numbers of animals, um, ground nesting birds, night jars, and so on will have been killed in those wildfires. Uh, and yet you have people on social media who say this is normal, right? The climate's always changing. Didn't you know that the BBC Radio Times said actually it was going to get colder in 1974? Peter Hitchens says that. And by the way, I agree with Peter Hitchens on many things, but this is crazy. Peter, this is ridiculous. This is ridiculous. We've got firefights in the New Forest looking like people fighting wildfires in in Southern California or Nevada. We've got ducks in Essex just walking through what was a pond. It's now it's now dry as I don't know what's dry. What's particularly dry? It's dried out mud. It's not a pond anymore. We've got Hackne Marshes. Look at the football pitches there. It's like something from the the dust bowl in 1930s America. But we still have significant parts of the political and med media establishment in this country saying nothing's nothing's out of the normal here. Nothing's unusual. Okay, it's a warm summer. Enjoy it. Enjoy it. I'm sure they'll enjoy playing on that football pitch in Hackne Marshes. By the way, I don't think you can. You can't play on a pitch like that. It's like clay. It's like hard clay. Imagine playing football on hard clay. It makes astroturf like a November grass. It's impossible. You can't do it. And yet from the PM so far, nothing. Michael, what do you make of the fact that Andy Bernham hasn't said anything about this so far? And what kind of opportunities does this present to Zack Palansky and the Greens? >> This is a sign of what's to come. And I mean, it we need to make this a really big political issue. Like, everyone always says, "Oh, climate change is so abstract. um you can't get people to engage in it. This is exactly the time when everyone is very willing to to engage in it. Um and I, you know, I really love your downstream on on on Sunday with a guest saying this is also this isn't the new normal. It's going to get worse and worse from here when it comes to extreme weather. Um so absolutely. I mean I I would like him to be out and doing some, you know, some some national emergency briefings. They don't have to be too doomy, right? if he wants to be a positive guy, but just to say, look, everyone can see that this is happening and this is going to continue to happen. I mean, obviously, if you wanted if you wanted the sort of Andy Burnham, I'm a new guy. Um, and I'm actually going to help with the little things. I mean, he could make a big offer to farmers or something. I don't know. They hated Kharma. People quite like farmers. If you come out and say, I'm really gonna do something to help with agriculture, build a few new reservoirs, something like that. I mean there are a bunch of things that you could say about this drought that would be very popular and would also help move the dial when it comes to um adaptation and mitigation of climate change. >> Yeah, like a national a national reservoir strategy seems quite sensible even though of course private water companies are to blame. We've not built a single reservoir since they were put into private ownership in the early 1990s. Um what do you think it means for Zach Palansky? Because you know Bernham's come in, he's done really well in the polls. He's a very popular individual when you look at personal approval ratings. But actually, we've not really seen a PM like this. I think probably since like Blair, preIraq, actually, in terms of them coming in and being this popular. That's not happened. Maybe you could say Boris Johnson, but then of course he was still very polarizing in a way that in a way that Burnham isn't. He's done well. Labour for the first time in a year overtook reform in national polling. The Greens have taken a hit, but they're still at 10%. And surely somebody like Zlansky is looking at this and saying, "Well, okay, you know what? We're just gonna hold our fire, keep our powder dry on cost of living, public services, etc. But we're really going to go on foreign policy and particularly with this climate because like you say at Nvar Media, it's a question we always pose ourselves. How can we get a big audience around these kinds of questions? Because it's very, very hard. People say they want to see more coverage of it. Actually, the numbers speak for themselves. It's just not the sort of thing that gets many eyeballs. this week that's changed because the whole country is talking about this and Zach Palansky equally doesn't feel like he's necessarily at the forefront of the conversation in a way that he might have been say 6 months ago. So where's Zack and what can he what can he do to change the political weather on this? >> So I thought his press conference last week was the right thing to do, right? And and then also you can make a political story out because Sky covered it but the BBC didn't cover it. Um I think you could put a lot of pressure on the BBC to say this clearly is a national emergency. Why are you covering Farage but not me? I mean, I would I would just do more of that, right? Because Zach Palansi's had a few he's had a few sort of social media hiccups and the like this summer that have been a bit distracting. I would just say just like you're the Green Party. This is one moment in time when everyone is thinking about the climate crisis. I would just be hammering with a press conference every week like reform did last year with crime or whatever. And yeah, you you know, the the coverage of it might be variable. you know, sometimes the cameras will come, sometimes they can't, but if they don't come, then that's a story in and of itself. Now, obviously, you know, Zach is good at this stuff. It's it's not like I think he's been a complete failure this summer. I think last week he did the right thing with that press conference and I would just like to see more of that essentially. Um cuz then also I think people people want to associate him with something a bit more substantial, right? Because there is the suspicion with him that he's sort of like good at communication. He was an actor, you know, he likes to perform. Um, but what are his sort of concrete policy chops? I think sort of going out meeting firefighters, meeting farmers, being very active on social media, not just in terms of, you know, Labour hasn't gone far enough or this or that or that, but sort of saying, I am specifically going to meet everyone in Britain who is affected by this drought and make a social media video about it and then maybe invite them to some kind of press conference. M >> I would say you know for someone who often seems almost sort of hyperactive when it comes to politics it has been a little bit you know underwhelming I suppose the Green's approach to this particular drought but but again you know comparatively compared to everyone else they've they've done more than Labor right so we can't you know be too harsh on >> for sure for sure but they are the Greens right >> yeah this should be their bread and butter this should be their bread this is like you know if if there was 3,000 people come over the English channel in one day reform you're going to here from reform. >> Yeah, the press conference is right then. >> Nigel Farage is going to be giving a press conference down at do. I feel like maybe there is a lack of I don't like to use this word because it look it almost sounds to say this theater when you know night jars and you know wildlife you know are dying. People are losing their businesses, right? There are business in Lindhurst in in just joining where we showed you from the New Forest that they will not be open today and yesterday and tomorrow and probably for a week. Um, and there's an economic impact for all of this of course as well. But there is also the theatrical element which we have to be honest about it. We have to be real about it. You know, reform do really really well. And I would like to see Zack Palansky and Rachel Milwood and Motini in front of Heath or Woodland Pasture which has just been burnt. And I would like them to be blaming Rbert Murdoch and the billionaire press and the political elite because nobody is going to disagree with that. Literally nobody. And I think sometimes actually the Green Party and Greens generally don't lean on conservation enough, right? Like even Nigel Farage when he announced that he was going to stand for office in the last general election, he's in the Kent countryside with his dogs wearing a gi. He's trying to present himself as a country's choir. And I feel like actually I think of Zack Palansky as a city politician, >> which is great. I love cities. He's probably going to stand in London. Of course, he's a member of the London Assembly. I get it. >> But, you know, like you said, your bread and butter as a green politician. >> There is also a lot of political space here specifically because, you know, Labor are, you know, you can argue about Rosebank and and Jack Door and sort of say that, you know, he he can come out and he would say that in a press conference as he should. Um, >> this is North Oil, right? But the but the big issue so the most outrageous thing this summer is we've got the Tory party in reform both saying this is the time to abandon net zero right so if he comes out and says no one in this country is making the argument for net zero right it is insane that we have the hottest summer on record we haven't had the rain in parts of the country for 55 days and the main political conversation is whether to abandon net zero this is insane right I think that would be relatively impactful And again, it wouldn't be easy. You would have to fight for coverage because there's no point in pretending that, you know, Sky and the BBC are going to be as keen to turn up to the Green Party press conference as they are to Nigel Farage's press conference. But there is a message and an argument that can be made a bit more aggressively, I think, this summer. >> Yeah. I will also finish with this because particularly broadcast journalists, yeah, they have an agenda. Yeah, they're, you know, they're in the pockets of elites, but also when there is just strong footage and B-rolls. >> Yeah. if it's strong visuals, they will actually just gravitate to the story. And that's the case with things like what we're seeing in the New Forest. So, you know, make the most of that. Again, it's not a nice thing to say, right? But that's just the reality you're working with. Um, the Greens big opportunities and I yeah, I don't think they're taking taking them. Uh, but you're right. Keep on plugging away. Britain's prisons are buckling at the seams with a little under 90,000 people currently serving custodial sentences. That is a number that grows year on year. It's constantly growing. going up uh with the prison population just about doubling since 1990. That means our prisons are currently at 99% capacity. Uh to address the problem of overcrowding, the government has introduced an early release scheme, meaning that from October, some 5,000 prisoners serving sentences of longer than four years will be set free at the halfway point of their terms, rather than the usual 2/3 mark. Child sex offenders, rapists, and groomers were excluded from the program, but prisoners convicted of manslaughter were not. That's been particularly controversial because as a result, two of the three convicted killers of the 28-year-old police constable Andrew Harper are eligible to be let out early as part of the scheme. Harper was killed in 2019 when three teenagers attempting to steal a quad bike drove their car at speed for a mile, dragging the police officer with it. All three defendants were charged with murder, but were cleared of that charge by a jury at trial. Instead, Henry Long was sentenced to 16 years in prison for manslaughter. His two co-fendants, Jesse Cole and Albert Powers, who were both 17 at the time of Harper's killing, were sentenced to 13 years each for manslaughter. That sentencing happened in July 2020 in the middle of CO, meaning Cole and Bows will have served half their sentence by early next year. The public backlash was immense at the time, and it still is. A petition to block their early release has so far gathered over 900,000 signatures. And today, Prime Minister Andy Burnham tried to address the issue, releasing this statement online. I spent recent days considering in depth all of the issues involved and the range of advice I have received. I've been pushing for further progress. I have not accepted that it is impossible to do more. As a result, I have asked the justice secretary to fasttrack the development of a plan for presentation to parliament early next month to create more headroom within the prison system. I'm increasingly confident that a more focused approach along these lines will allow us to reduce the number of people released early and in the case of the most serious offenders like those convicted of the killing of PC Harper, prevent their early release altogether. So, it sounds like there's going to be an act of parliament that basically stops certain people being subject to early release. Now, in his statement, Burnham mentioned three areas where he thought pressure on prisons could be eased, including removing convicted foreign national offenders to their home countries more quickly and housing some male prisoners in some parts of the women's prison estate. I'm not sure how that will go down or whether it would even be legal. Uh, but the third option that'll be looked at uh is not only very credible, it's also a national scandal. That's the matter of what Burnham called the longunning injustice of people who were given indefinite prison sentences under the imprisonment for public protection scheme. This is really extraordinary. From 2005 onwards, Tony Blair's government gave British courts the power to jail people indefinitely for a range of crimes, including relatively minor ones. Most sentences in Britain have a fixed term set by a judge within a range set by law and based on a number of intersecting factors. Now, a prisoner may come up for parole before the end of their term, usually at the 2/3 mark. If they get it, they're released on license until the end of their term. But if they don't, uh, they're still set free when they've served their time. There are some exceptions like whole life orders, but on the whole, that's how the system works. But imprisonment for public protection jail terms were different. They had no end date, only [snorts] a minimum term, meaning there was no date where their time had been served. and the person subject to it had been uh guaranteed freedom. It was a bit like Kfka's trial. At that point, a prisoner came up for parole, but there was no guarantee they'd get it. Uh they could go up for parole time and time again and failed to get it each time. Meaning someone who committed a crime, normally carrying a sentence for a few months or years, could find themselves incarcerated for decades. And I shouldn't be talking in the conditional because, as you'll see in a moment, this happened to some people. Uh, and if they were parrolled, they could be put on license for 99 years, meaning the potential to be returned to jail at any time throughout their entire lives. This sounds made up. It's not made up. It's very real, and frankly, it's reprehensible. It also didn't apply to only adults. Children could be sentenced under similar powers. In 2012, Coalition Prime Minister David Cameron scrapped those powers, calling the unclear, inconsistent, and uncertain nature of such law unwise. And in 2024, David Blancet, the home secretary, who introduced the law as a Labour home secretary, called the sentences his biggest regret. Frankly, he should be asking people for forgiveness, in my view. That was much too late, though, of the nearly 9,000 prisoners given indefinite sentences during the new Labor years with over 2,000 people still in jail under the scheme. And the cases of gross miscarriages of justice are truly shocking. Take Martin Meers on the right here and pictured with his twin brother. He was handed an indefinite sentence with a 19month minimum term in 2006 after he tried and failed to steal a cigarette. He served 18 years in prison. When she was 22, Ronny Sinclair was jailed under an IP after she was arrested for robbery following a drunken row at a friend's barbecue. She served 16 years in prison for a crime that involved breaking a plant pot and tearing up a betting slip. Uh there's also Abdullahi Sleman who was handed a minimum sentence of just under four years in 2005 for stealing a laptop. He's still in prison 21 years later and he has no idea when he's going to get out. stealing a laptop. I'm not a fan of people who steal laptops, but dare I say that's excessive. Uh you can imagine the strain of never knowing whether you'll get out of prison years and years after serving the usual sentence for your crime. At least 94 people under IPS have taken their own lives. Utterly extraordinary. Um, and many people are still serving sentences under a law that we scrapped nearly 15 years ago. In July, the UN urged the UK to end IP sentences, warning of serious human rights violations. And today, lawyers have written both to the Justice Secretary, Alex Norris, and the High Court to start a legal action over the sentences. It shouldn't be hard to win with the former Supreme Court justice having already described the regime as quote the greatest single stain on our criminal justice system. Dame Vera Beard uh is chair of the criminal cases review commission, the last port of call for prisoners who've been denied parole. On News Night, she explained what she thought would happen to the remaining IP cases. >> Does that mean effectively to those people who are still on IPs, you'd like to see those go? But I think they need re-sentencing. So make no mistake. I mean there will be some people on IPs rightly, you know, who who are violent people who you wouldn't want >> they would have been victims to their crimes too. >> Yeah. Exactly. But also because that it's about assessing dangerousness. Yeah. That's been done probably quite wrongly for young men who of course mature uh can mature quickly and change. But the I think the real point is that there are now ways in which we understand these sentences don't work. People do need to be let out. It needs to be done more wholesale than just coming to the CCRC where we will work as fast as we possibly can, but there are two and a half thousand to go. And of course, if you did get quite a lot of them out appropriately, you'd have to look at each of them in turn, but re-sentence rather than look at the whole question, is there a miscarriage of justice? and so on. That would be a lot quicker and of course it would contribute to emptying the prisons. >> So Michael, it's two and a half thousand people. It's more than 2,000 people. We've got the prisons are full, 99% full with 90,000 people. So we're let's say 2,000 people were released. Okay, maybe not all of them, but a good good chunk of them, right? You're looking at freeing up I mean what 3% of overall capacity and actually doing the right thing. Why hasn't it happened already? Well, I suppose I mean this is in a way why sort of policy around this is is difficult because it's if you just do it on a whim, right, it's very likely that someone will commit a crime that's heinous and then everyone will say, "Why the hell did you do that?" Right? And and that's why I suppose sort of the way the Andrew Harper the PC Harper case is is being discussed in the media feels like we're kind of doing the same cycle again, which is you have outrageous case criminal justice policy driven by that. um just to sort of go into some of these IP cases. So I only really looked up Martin Meers in detail. So he had threatened to knock someone out while he was trying to steal their cigarettes. That's why he got sentenced. But he had previous convictions for dangerous driving, assault, theft, and burglary. So the idea of these sort of sentences that they'd be given to someone who seemed kind of dangerous for whatever reason. Um his case is extraordinary though. So the parole board and prison service made a bunch of mistakes. In 2011, they said they weren't releasing him because he was a sex offender and he' mix misused drugs in prison. He wasn't affect sex offender. This was like an administrative error, but he couldn't read. So, he got his cellmate to read out the letter for him. The cellmate then thinks he's a sex offender and the next few years in prison, he's constantly getting beaten up because sex offenders get beaten up in prison. So, it's like it's it's outrageous. It's a horrific case and I'm sure that's sort of repeated among loads of these people in terms of how sort of extreme cases drive this though. So, sort of looking why did these IPs get introduced in the first place, right? Because normally a policy happens for some kind of reason, even terrible policy. And this case was very much related to the high-profile horrific case of 8-year-old Sarah Payne, who was murdered in 2000. Now, the man who murdered her had recently been released from prison. Now, police and psychiatrists both thought he remained dangerous. So, they both thought he was likely to commit serious crimes essentially against children. But he had reached the maximum term of his sentence, so he was released. Right? So the the government look at this and they say, "Well, this is a high-profile horrific case. Everyone is saying something must be done, right? This innocent 8-year-old child has been killed." Um, and they said, "Well, it, you know, at the moment, if someone's done their time, you have to let even if you think they're likely to commit another crime, even if they seem incredibly dangerous, they've done their time, they have to be let out." So that's why the IPs come in. Then the IPs end up, you know, you got a bunch of people just indefinitely sitting in jail. A big problem is that the parole service is under resourced. So you're not in a position to be able to actually make an accurate judgment whether someone is safe or not. But that's, you know, that's why all of these things are difficult because you just need one high-profile case and then everyone's suddenly like actually we need to get much tougher again. I mean also in terms of the numbers of people in prison. So this would be 2,000 people. Now you know I imagine lots of those people should and can be released. The much bigger number of people in prison is the 13,000 people who are on recall. And all the sort of NGO documents I've been reading about this say this is a really big problem which is that there are lots of people who get released from from um prison but on license. So by the way this is also important to note these you know PC Harpers killers if they get released they'll be on license for another third of their sentence. So for a significant number of years and lots of people are getting recalled not because they've done anything particularly dangerous but because they've missed an appointment and so you got this this cycle of people getting let out they've got chaotic lives they get brought straight back into prison because they've they've missed an appointment. So this seems crazy. Why are they doing this mad, right? But then again there's another high-profile case. So in 2022 Zara Alina um many people will remember this case. A young law graduate raped and murdered by Jordan Msweeny. So, sort of like someone, you know, the most horrific thing happened to someone with this bright future. He'd been released on license from prison just 9 days earlier, and this is key. His license had been revoked after he failed to meet probation officers, but he was not recalled to prison. So, again, there were a bunch of failures here because the person was overworked and he should have been sort of called high risk instead of medium risk. But now you've got this situation where everyone in the parole service is basically like, well, if I've got any doubt at all and they don't sort of come to their meeting, I'm going to send them back to prison because I don't want another high-profile catastrophe. And so lots of this is driven by high-profile catastrophes. And I think we do need to keep that in mind when we're thinking about PC Harper's killers, which is sort of it's very easy to take a high-profile case and say this means all the rules have to be changed. then all the rules are changed and then you end up with a bunch of situations like this where people are in prison for much longer than they need to be. >> So that's really intelligent commentary and context for people watching and listening and it's really valuable. I get all of that, Michael, but I don't know any other criminal justice system in the world that has IPs. I I could be wrong where you basically have this rolling sentencing sort of strategy and you don't have a maximum sentence, you have a minimum sentence. Now, if you were to make the argument with regards to all those cases, and that's why we should have much longer sentences. That's why we should have people in custody, you know, for twice as long as they're present, I mean, we can make that argument. We can have that conversation. But IPS in particular just seem insane. >> I'm I'm not in favor of IP. >> No, I know you're not. No, I I appreciate [laughter] that. >> I think they were they were problematic. I'm holding No, my point is this. So, you're saying that's a result of overreach by government responding misguidedly to um public anger, which was entirely justified, right? >> But can't you do something where you say, well, you know what? Okay, the home secretary in certain circumstances can do something like this rather than having this whole sentencing regime like IP, which affects thousands and thousands of people. You know, dozens of people have committed suicide who were in that regime. It just seems like complete overkill. And I suppose somebody like myself who's rather skeptical of the Blair era would say actually rather than just responding to public anger, there was something more cynical and ideological going on on the part of people like David Blanket because they wanted to they were tough on crime. And actually rather than being tough on crime, they contributed to a deeply dysfunctional criminal justice system, which to me is the more interesting interesting story here because we have more people in prison in Western Europe than any other country. We have higher rates of recidivism than any other country in Western Europe. We're still very safe compared to the US, but you know, compared to most Western European countries, we have higher rates of violent crime and so on. Also, rates of lower, you know, and less important crimes as well. We've basically decriminalized certain things like shoplifting and bike thefts in recent years. So, that to me seems like the bigger story actually. Successive governments trying to be quite quite tough on crime, but actually making the problem much worse. Well, if the argument is that they, you know, so so the prison population increased from about 1993. So it started under John Major who said prison works. Um the idea was that cuz I mean I often, you know, there's sort of sometimes I think quite wishy-washy liberal arguments prison doesn't work because people come out and they reend. Well, well, it's still, you know, it's better than no prison, right, for in many of these cases. But um you then end up with this situation where sentences are constantly getting longer because of public pressure. And I suppose what I'm pointing out is that if you think that prison sentences were too long under new labor, right, David Gawk wrote a review, so about I I think in 2023, which was basically saying there's been too much political competition to try and to to try and say we all think sentences should be longer. So you have this ratcheting effect where if Labor try and reduce sentences, Tories say this is outrageous. If Tories try to reduce sentences, Labour say this is outrageous because there's always a political opportunity here. What's happened now, right, is that Labour were giving people early release mainly because the prisons were full. But they're also implementing the Gawk review, which was an argument to say we should have prisoners serve more of their time outside of prison um under, you know, serving some kind of community sentence. And what's happened is Andy Bernham, you know, wants to be popular. He's looking where the pressure is and he's saying I don't want to do any of this, right? He's saying he's not just saying PC Harper's, you know, uh, killers shouldn't get out immediately. He's saying he doesn't want anyone to get out earlier. He he he essentially wants to abandon the Gawk review which was saying all of these problems happened under new labor and that's because there is, you know, there is no incentive to have a more liberal policy on this because public opinion goes in one direction. So the point I'm making here isn't to justify the IPs. It isn't to say um we should have early release. I don't even really know. But I suppose what I'm saying is the way that the PC Harper case is being talked about is very similar to the kind of situation which led to the introduction of IPs. >> So you said that we're we're sending people to prison for longer and longer in the case of um Andrew Harper. So he was he was killed by three people. One of them is viewed as the the primary agent in that manslaughter. >> They got a slightly longer sentence. The other two got slightly shorter sentences. But they got what was it 15 years for manslaughter of a police officer? That doesn't seem particularly long. I think you know historically in the in the 50s and the 60s you would have been hanged for that. >> For manslaughter I'm not sure. I mean I I don't know about that doesn't seem especially long. I don't know about that particular crime, but what I do know is that on aggregate um sentences for serious crimes got much longer. So sentences for murder, for manslaughter, for especially sexual offenses, these have all got much longer than they were in the ' 70s and the 80s. I I I'm not in a position to be able to tell you how this sort of cashes out when it comes to specific crime. That's just a sort of fact. >> We're talking about the politics of it, right? Because Burnham's having to respond to this particular case. And I think most people would say, well, look, this police officer was officer was killed in 2019, so seven years ago. These guys were sentenced six years ago. They could be out inside a year. The idea of serving seven years when you killed a copper, there's not many countries that happens. There's not many countries, Michael, this is the tension, this is the tension politically, right? So, I'm sure statistically what you're saying is entirely correct. >> But it's very hard when you're a politician. You got people like yourself in receipt of all the information saying, "Well, actually, the sentences are longer than ever." and they're saying, "Well, hold on. These guys killed a copper and you know, they didn't seem contrite when they went down. You can see the video from it in in 2020." Basically laughing. Um, and they're out in seven years. But that's the challenge for Burnham, isn't it? No, it's a challenge. Obviously, it's not easy. I I'm not I'm not saying Burnham should really do anything differently. I mean, he said, you know, if you want to make this argument about sending people to prison for for less time, you've got to expend a lot of political capital because it's a difficult argument to make, right? And Bernham has made a decision. I've got no idea what he actually believes on this issue, but he's made a political decision that he's not going to expend political capital on this issue, right? He he he doesn't want to be seen as soft on crime. Um he's said quite explicitly he wants to spend expend um political capital on social care. I think that's perfectly reasonable, right? If you want to say, look, I don't think there's this we've got reform chop, you know, biting at our heels. Um the the far right is insurgent. I don't actually think now is the time to expend capital on prison reform. I I think that's fine. I think that's a legitimate argument. Um I'm going to do it on social care or something else instead. I suppose my concern is if the left or anyone journalism actually because I think journalism doesn't have the same pressure as as politicians. If journalists are on the one hand saying, "God, I can't believe they came up with this overly authoritarian um sort of sentencing guideline. >> The IPs." >> Yeah, these IPs. I can't believe they did this or I can't believe that the prisons are so full because new labor was authoritarian on crime. And at the same time, isn't it bloody outrageous that they're letting out PC Harper's killers? Because the reason we have more people in prison is because of the kind of storm we're seeing when it comes to PC Harper's killers, right? That the the two things can't be separated. >> And that's why we call Michael Walker the sober judge. >> So judge. Yes. Thank you. I love that >> sober judge. You don't have to like it. >> You [clears throat] don't have to like me. >> Often they don't. But you know what? A couple of months later, they think, "My goodness, Michael Walker was right." If you're like me, you'll have had the sneaking suspicion while doing your weekly shop that everything is getting smaller but costing more. And didn't I used to get more tea bags in this 5 quid box of tea? And surely there were more crisps in this pack of walkers last time I checked. Now it's just air and empty space. Where's the actual potatoes? Well, you're not wrong. And now one woman has found the ancient Mars bar to prove it. Look at the size of this Mars bar from 1991. Oh yeah, it does say 90 February 91 sell by date I think. Size of it. Now I've got small hands. That is massive. This is the size of it compared to my hand. Now obviously I am petite. My hands are small. But I think we can all agree that that is musive. Everyone was like, "Get one to compare. Get one to compare." So, I've just bought this, 40 g, and this cost me a pound. There's no price on this, which is really unfortunate cuz it was probably like 25p or something. But look at the difference. >> So, one's 40 g, one's 60 g. Bear that in mind. Or 61 g. Uh that was Victoria Gordon who discovered the Mars bar while cleaning out a hoarded property. That's what she does on her Tik Tok account. Uh now when she guessed the price of a Mars bar in 1991, she wasn't far off. It turns out it would have been about 30p or just over 70p in today's money once you factored in inflation. A Mars bar from Tesco, this is 51. So it's actually this is slightly bigger than the one she had. Um that's 120, right? That's 120. So the bar is smaller than before. There's less cocoa than before, but it costs 40% more. Make it make sense. Responding to a request for comment from the BBC, Mar said this. Over the last 35 years, we've made a number of updates to our bar sizes and pack formats reflect consumer demand alongside considering wider external factors such as manufacturing costs and the price of cocoa. cooker prices did indeed sore last year at raising the price of chocolate universally, but that doesn't explain why the product got much smaller and much more expensive over time. And it turns out Mars bars aren't the only products slowly fading away. Please look at these examples of not only shrinkflation, but simultaneous old-fashioned inflation uh released by which magazine in October last year. You can see here Aquaresh complete care original toothpaste was 130 for 100 mil now 2 for 75 mil. Uh, Sainsburysbury Scottish Oats, my favorite. £125 for 1 kilo. Now 210 for 500 g. [laughter] [gasps] I love it. Uh, quality street tub 6 for 600 g, £7 for 500 g. So you are paying more. Significant inflation, but you're also getting less, right? That's why they call it shrinkflation. Uh, those changes all happen in the space of a single year, one year. And it's not just that products get smaller and more expensive, they also get worse. a process so common it's now called skimpflation. White Kit Kats can no longer be marketed as white chocolate because Nestle took out 20% of the cocoa butter that goes into making them. Penguins and club bars also can no longer be lawfully sold as chocolate biscuits uh because McFittys took so much of the cocoa butter out of them too. Did they get cheaper? Of course they didn't. Uh, this is from the Grosser magazine. Following Kit Kat Junky White's overhaul, pre-promotional shelf prices of 4x40 gram packs have soared by 50%. From 1 pound50 to 225 and sainsburs and Morrison. So, it's not even technically chocolate anymore. It's getting smaller and it's getting more expensive. Sounds like a bad deal. Uh, of course, we wouldn't be uh bringing this story to you without including the worst scoundrel of all, and that's Toblerona. In 2016, Tobberon shrank their bars by making them significantly more gappy, turning their iconic mountains into speed bumps or I think a toast rack. You know, after a national outcry, they reverted to the original in 2018, but recently they've cut 20 grams off the pack size again if at first you don't succeed at. Finally, is the story of Arizona Iced Tea. And this is a this is a feel-good story. It's a rather different affair to Mars and Tobo. They've kept the price of a 23 oz can of the product at 99 since 1992. Same size, same price. Not in real terms, not factoring for the cost of living. It's literally the same price. It's not risen with inflation. Uh the fact the company's founder, Don Voltagio, still owns the company and hasn't sold it to a major conglomerate is probably why. He said increasing the price is just something we don't do. I think that's really interesting, Michael. So you've got big multinational capitalists taking more of your money for less with crappier ingredients. A private company has chosen not to do that. So they're both capitalist enterprises. Both quite different outcomes. Cory Doctoro talks about initification with regards to digital services like Gmail and Google search, Amazon. Maybe it's been happening with chocolates and other consumer goods for decades. >> [snorts] >> I'm not quite sure the analysis carries over because I mean the initification argument is quite a specific one which is that you've got these companies that look for market share. So they they have a decent product which is very cheap and you get a massive market share for a product with network effects and then once you've lured everyone in, you start to make the product a bit [ __ ] You make the product [ __ ] because you want to have higher profit margins everywhere, right? So so Google search is now just full of adverts. They have a really good cheap product which was the original Google. Everyone joins Google. It's our habit now. I mean I use Claude now instead of Google pretty much. Um but that that that's initification that works. Now when it comes to sort of shrinkflation um I mean that is mainly because the input costs are going up. There's some sort of debate about whether greedflation is happening or whether it is input costs. And the competition markets authority 2023 said supermarkets weren't profitering so their margins remained fairly low. um even though their profits are high but their margins are low. They said some branded manufacturers had if they had more pricing power. So if you you know if people really want that Mars bar then you obviously have more power to to shrink than if you're some you know budget brand or whatever. Um so there's a bit of it but yeah I don't think I I think this is more about you know the price of cocoa going up. Um, partly it's because of climate change, partly it's because of demand in different parts of the world. But yeah, now I don't think it carries over, but maybe you disagree. >> I do disagree because we have a really good case study. >> Go on. >> Of this. When Craft bought Cabbury in 2008, so they buy this iconic British company. I talk about this all the time. I really love it. By the way, it was 7 billion pounds they paid for it or 7 billion pounds and they got the money loan to them by the Royal Bank of Scotland which was guessed by owned by guess who, Michael? owned by >> RBS. Who owned RBS 2008? >> Craft. >> Us. >> Oh, >> the British taxpayer. So, we subsidized American or Craft actually Swiss Swiss I think, right? Uh we we subsidize a foreign multinational buying a British company. Okay. We did [clears throat] that as the British taxpayer. They then relocate outside the UK for tax purposes. So, the taxpayer has subsidized less tax. They put in less cocoa. They relocated some production. They put in more sugar and they laid off a ton of people that were making Cabri's chocolates in the West Midlands. So this to me is a really great example of a multinational getting a product, making it cheaper and trying to basically get better margins. This is what they do. And you see with asset managers as well, right? You see um asset managers like Blackstone, they buy T's water. What's their revenue model with these closed funds? They buy temp's water, they buy cheap, they increase the costs, they reduce the investment, they sell high because they've increased the the price you have to pay. So it's now a more valuable brand, right? So if you want to sell it on, you say, "Well, look, we per unit our our our outputs are actually much higher. Inputs are much cheaper. It's a much more profitable thing, right? And by the way, you get to you get to lend against all of these metrics when you're a when you're a major company." So I I don't really know. I think in the era of financialization and you know shareholder value I think you necessarily have to screw your customers in a way that isn't really the case for and I wouldn't defend it old-fashioned capitalism of private companies where there's arguably more bit more pride in the product. >> You don't want to basically be shafting your customers a bit like uh the iced tea I was telling you about. Um, so I think it's a bit different and I think it's about a certain genre of capitalism which is now all pervasive of course multinationals, asset managers and I'm not suggesting you know why can we go back to the good old capitalism but I can see why somebody on the center right would say that when they see those two Mars bars next to each other. >> No that does make sense. So Cadbury's so you'd say Cadbury's had to work hard and make a good product that was good value to build the market share then private equity buys Cadbury's craft whoever buys Cadbury's and then they are trying to um milk >> what of a better word um the brand for all it's worth >> they're trying to dairy milk the brand for all it's worth >> exactly so so they say Cadbury's have built up this brand through decades of of a good product and now we're going to make the product worse but we're gonna rest on the coattails of the fact that people still have faith in this company, >> but also as a as a as a brand within their portfolio, Cadbury, the fact that they can charge more and their costs are lower, so the product is inferior, that actually boosts the value of the brand within the portfolio. So, if they want to sell it on, it's a more valuable brand. It's literally a more valuable brand because they're shafting the customers more. It's a more valuable brand because we're putting inferior ingredients in and we're charging for more for less. So if you want to buy it, take it because it's a it's a license to print money in a way it wasn't before because it was actually a better product. >> Yeah. I mean there is also an argument this is just capitalism not done properly, right? Because craft craft buying Cadbury obviously completely undermines competition because they're in conflict with each other, right? If you if you had Cadbury and Craft competing with each other, then if Cadbury make a [ __ ] project product, then you know Toblone can say we haven't reduced the cocoa in our product, so you should buy that. So the fact that Craft has I I don't know actually how much of that shelf in a supermarket is owned by either Mars or Craft and that would Yeah. That that gives them so much pricing power that they can make their product [ __ ] So you can also make a kind of a real capitalist wouldn't have allowed that merger to happen. Liz Warren over here. >> Exactly. >> Anti- monopolies. Uh Michael, we're going to leave it there. You know, I thought we were going to overrun massively on tonight's show because that first story was a big one. Uh Michael did mention the interview I did over the weekend with Kevin Anderson, climate scientist on downstream. It's done really well. I mean normally in August it's hard to get numbers on anything. Quite right. People are relaxing. Um but people are really watching that interview because Kevin Anderson I think is the best communicator right now in Britain when it comes to climate systems breakdown. Having said it, if you want to support our work here at Navar Media, you know what to do. Go to navar.dia/support. In the coming months we're moving to a new studio. We'll be covering the return of Westminster politics from September. We'll go to a few of the conferences, too. Uh, Michael, thanks for joining me tonight. >> Pleasure. >> Great topics. >> We got there. They were great topics. Only three stories, but um, really, really important stories, too. Uh, thanks everyone for tuning in. Come back on tomorrow. I was going to say on Monday, tomorrow's Wednesday. If only it was the weekend tomorrow. Come back tomorrow for another live stream from 6 p.m. For now, you've been watching Navaro Media. Good night.