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Speaker 1: It's time for all the attitude, all the opinion, all
Speaker 1: the information, all the debates.
Speaker 2: Of theists, now.
Speaker 1: The Layton Smith Podcast powered by News Talks.
Speaker 3: It be Welcome to podcasts two hundred and sixty two
Speaker 3: for October thirty, twenty twenty four. I was just twelve
Speaker 3: weeks ago that we spoke with power engineer Brian Leyland
Speaker 3: on electricity supply inadequacies. But his concern has since deepened,
Speaker 3: so we update and consider whether nuclear power deserves more attention.
Speaker 3: And it hits up me as it does. Last year
Speaker 3: when we were in London, Christian Smith, whom I am
Speaker 3: closely related, podcasted on life in London for young New
Speaker 3: Zealanders in particular. It was appreciated by a large number
Speaker 3: of people. Media commentary recently seems to suggest that the
Speaker 3: young are fleeing Britain. Have things changed since July twenty three? Well,
Speaker 3: yes and no, and Christian's got plenty to say. Now
Speaker 3: I don't really need to point out that from today
Speaker 3: there is one week to the most important election, If
Speaker 3: not ever, then certainly in our lifetimes. There are some
Speaker 3: people who are bored with it or don't like it
Speaker 3: around interested. I feel sorry for them, to be honest,
Speaker 3: because this is an incredibly, incredibly important election that affects
Speaker 3: the whole world and that includes US. So at the
Speaker 3: back end of two six two I'll drop in some
Speaker 3: aspects of this election that are worthy of attention in
Speaker 3: my opinion, But first COVID inquiries that are getting attention
Speaker 3: on both sides of the Tasman and Britain and the
Speaker 3: US and elsewhere. And I choose to quote Robert McCulloch
Speaker 3: who guessed it on podcasts two fifty one. McCulloch is
Speaker 3: a professor of economics at Auckland University who has the
Speaker 3: ability to be a brutally honest well in his opinion
Speaker 3: and be offensive in his criticism to some, including some
Speaker 3: good acquaintances of mind as it happens, it is though
Speaker 3: a case of free speech, like it or not now
Speaker 3: in his blog down to Earth Kiwi, the Australians make
Speaker 3: it official. Labour leader Hipkins, aided by his henchmen in
Speaker 3: the mainstream media, wrecked New Zealand's economy by ordering vaccine's
Speaker 3: late and destroyed trust in our government. I think it's
Speaker 3: more to it than that, to be honest, but nevertheless,
Speaker 3: this is his opinion and I shall air it. Days
Speaker 3: after this blog released its two minute COVID Inquiry, which
Speaker 3: I argued Labour leader and former COVID nineteen minister Chris Hipkins,
Speaker 3: together with former PM A Dern and Health Chief Ashley Bloomfield,
Speaker 3: ordered the COVID vaccine late, which crushed the New Zealand
Speaker 3: economy and smashed trust in government as it forced them
Speaker 3: into an over reliance on lockdown. In twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: the Australian COVID Inquiry has released near identical findings, almost
Speaker 3: word for word, and briefly the first wide ranging inquiry
Speaker 3: into the nation's pandemic. This is Australia Response has found
Speaker 3: delays procuring COVID nineteen vaccine cost lives and delivered a
Speaker 3: thirty one billion hit to the economy. In New Zealand's case,
Speaker 3: it was a fifteen billion dollar hit, which is why
Speaker 3: our health system is now underfunded, infrastructure crumbles and teachers
Speaker 3: are underpaid. Then if we swing to his closing, New
Speaker 3: Zealand does not need to waste more money on COVID inquiries.
Speaker 3: The Australians have done ours for us. It matches what
Speaker 3: this blog argued in twenty twenty one, as evidenced by
Speaker 3: our writings and radio interviews, maybe more than any other institution.
Speaker 3: Our mainstream media Radio New Zealand One News, Herald, News
Speaker 3: Hub and stuff, should take a look at themselves and
Speaker 3: ask why they sold out kiwis by not objectively scrutinizing
Speaker 3: the New Zealand government during those times. So there is
Speaker 3: more after the mail room, the back end of the
Speaker 3: mainstream media at its place in the world. And while
Speaker 3: there is so much more than we can deal with,
Speaker 3: we'll do our best to point out a couple of
Speaker 3: interesting factors now in a moment. Brian Leland Laighton Smith.
Speaker 3: Brian Leyland is a consulting engineer with the experience in
Speaker 3: all aspects of the power industry, and that experience covers
Speaker 3: over fifty decades. We last spoke with him only twelve well,
Speaker 3: I say only twelve weeks ago, because it seems like
Speaker 3: it was only about five or six, but in podcasts
Speaker 3: number two hundred and fifty I think it was, And
Speaker 3: now we're doing two hundred and sixty to Brian appreciate
Speaker 3: your time and appreciate even more your input the subjects
Speaker 3: of electricity supply in this country. When we spoke twelve
Speaker 3: weeks ago, you were disturbed, but now you are even
Speaker 3: more concerned over the continued supply and reliability of electric
Speaker 3: power in this country. Correct.
Speaker 4: Correct, We.
Speaker 5: Scraped through the shortage because it rained just in time.
Speaker 5: The legs were at a lower level than they've ever
Speaker 5: been before, and if it hadn't rained, we would have
Speaker 5: had blackouts. But even then we had shortages that led
Speaker 5: to shutdown in two industries, So in a way we
Speaker 5: did have blackouts, but not affecting the consumer. So we're
Speaker 5: in a serious situation now.
Speaker 3: The MDAG, the market developed an advisory group that existed
Speaker 3: between twenty seventeen and February of this year, has what
Speaker 3: do we call.
Speaker 5: Them past it's had a look at als degeneration going forward,
Speaker 5: and it's all based on some very dubious assumptions.
Speaker 3: All right, now you've gone through this and it must
Speaker 3: have taken you some time. You've drawn up some conclusions
Speaker 3: on your part, and so you've posed some questions. Shall
Speaker 3: we run through them or some of them?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I think that's a good idea right.
Speaker 3: So, starting at the top, a basic assumption is that domestic,
Speaker 3: industrial and commercial consumers will be happy to make major
Speaker 3: changes in their behavior. For domestic consumers, most of the
Speaker 3: changes will save less than a few dollars a day.
Speaker 3: For commercial consumers like officers and shops that need to
Speaker 3: reduce consumption will in most cases lead to losses in
Speaker 3: sales or productivity. So what is your question?
Speaker 4: Okay, just a little bit of background.
Speaker 5: The assumptions behind all this are but we haven't gone
Speaker 5: that generating capacity and therefore the consumers are going to
Speaker 5: have to respond otherwise we'll have blackouts and they're looking
Speaker 5: at having a massive response from consumers. So question is, so,
Speaker 5: in the real world evidence from New Zealand or overseas,
Speaker 5: consumers will be happy to change the way their home
Speaker 5: or business runs to save a small amount nol thritty cost.
Speaker 5: And the answer appears to be absolutely not. They'll do
Speaker 5: a bit. And in the days when we made good
Speaker 5: use of water heating, we could reduce our load by
Speaker 5: five or ten percent just overpeak them on periods, but
Speaker 5: not enough to make a difference to a dry year,
Speaker 5: not enough to make a difference to the situation where
Speaker 5: the wind doesn't blow for several days.
Speaker 3: And we get those days now.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Another indeed, another assumption is that people will be happy
Speaker 3: to plug in their electric car and have the system
Speaker 3: deplete their battery whenever the system is in trouble.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, as far as I can make out, there's no
Speaker 5: evidence anywhere in the world of this being a substantial
Speaker 5: contributor to demand side management. And I can't imagine that
Speaker 5: people would want to risk having their battery flat when
Speaker 5: they get up in the morning just to safe make
Speaker 5: a few dollars selling pounds a year to the system.
Speaker 4: Well, that that's being reflected, it makes sense. Yeah, that's that's.
Speaker 3: Reflected in in this In this next observation, another assumption
Speaker 3: that sales of electric vehicles in New Zeala are going
Speaker 3: to increase rapidly. Yet the evidence indicates that now that
Speaker 3: the subsidies have been removed, the enthusiasm for electric cars
Speaker 3: has largely died away. Is that is that correct?
Speaker 5: Yes, that's dire, and I've got figures to prove it.
Speaker 5: Electric car sales this year were hardly greater than last year.
Speaker 5: And what you need for electric cars to be a
Speaker 5: success is something like a fifty increase year on year
Speaker 5: on year, and it's not happening anywhere in the world.
Speaker 5: And you must always remember that electric cars would not
Speaker 5: exist but the government mandates and subsidies.
Speaker 4: It isn't.
Speaker 5: An industry that would exist in a competitive situation.
Speaker 3: Let me throw it a personal observation here. It's my
Speaker 3: belief that part of the reason that is tied up
Speaker 3: with all this is that they want us out of
Speaker 3: cars anyway. They want us out of cars and into
Speaker 3: in the public transport, in the walking and on bikes
Speaker 3: and scooters and what have you. And they've made some
Speaker 3: progress in places like well, you've got your fifteen minute
Speaker 3: hounds that are developing around the country. I'm not sure
Speaker 3: how many there are, but there are some. But I
Speaker 3: always revert to Auckland, to Auckland Central for an example,
Speaker 3: where they've screwed up shockingly, disgracefully and very badly just
Speaker 3: to boot and wreck the city.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I know. The whole thing's crazy.
Speaker 5: And if you're looking to get people out of cars,
Speaker 5: and what you've got to do is provide them with
Speaker 5: a convenient door to door transport, and people are now
Speaker 5: developing electric self driving taxis that will do that job,
Speaker 5: and you know, the whole industry is waiting there to
Speaker 5: go ahead. Self driving is going to come sooner or later.
Speaker 5: You won't get people back into buses in the way
Speaker 5: that they expect, but you will get them into a
Speaker 5: self driving speaking their self driving service.
Speaker 4: You'd have to have a lot of them though.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, okay, we went with with with great interest.
Speaker 3: Now worldwide, the evidence is that more wind and solar
Speaker 3: power connected to the system, the higher the power price,
Speaker 3: Australia being a perfect example. I think I think wholesale
Speaker 3: prices increased in Australia for about four cents to what
Speaker 3: about triple that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, pretty well, that's that's a characteristic that seems
Speaker 5: to be all over the world. They are always saying
Speaker 5: the wind and solar are the cheapest, and what they
Speaker 5: really mean is at the station gate that cheaper, but
Speaker 5: by the time you've paid for backup and transmission and
Speaker 5: all the other costs they impose on the system, it's
Speaker 5: very expensive. So it's basically nonsense to talk about wind
Speaker 5: and solar being cheap.
Speaker 3: Okay. Now, the group that being the market Developing Advisory
Speaker 3: Group under the auspices of the Electricity Authority, the group
Speaker 3: assumes that in spite of the declining income from wind
Speaker 3: and solar power when it is abundant and needs to
Speaker 3: be dumped and causes a price crash, generators and developers
Speaker 3: will continue building wind and solver. Now that to me
Speaker 3: seems to be nuts. Why do they believe that many
Speaker 3: of the consented products will be built in spite of
Speaker 3: the obviously declining economics as we get more and.
Speaker 5: More of them, Because they're ignoring the realities of the
Speaker 5: power system. And I think the people who've been involved
Speaker 5: in this report don't have a good understanding of how
Speaker 5: the power system works. The basic underlying problem, I think
Speaker 5: is that there is a whole amount of groupthink amongst
Speaker 5: the people in Wellington and among the senior people in
Speaker 5: some of the generating companies, and they all believe this
Speaker 5: and it's become an article of firm belief, and there's
Speaker 5: not enough people involved with experience of the power system
Speaker 5: who will point out that there's serious problems with it.
Speaker 3: Just a quick word on geo thermal good.
Speaker 5: We are developing more, and we should, but there's a
Speaker 5: limit to how much we can develop. We don't quite
Speaker 5: know what the limit is, but it's certainly good.
Speaker 3: Is it likely to be hindered by other groups?
Speaker 5: Probably if they spread out into new fields. All the
Speaker 5: fields are being developed were identified years ago as promising
Speaker 5: or better than promising. But there are other areas where
Speaker 5: there may be a good resource which needs expiration drilling, right,
Speaker 5: and there may be objections to that.
Speaker 3: Now, all these these questions, and there are more, but
Speaker 3: we've touched on I think the main ones. All these
Speaker 3: questions need responses. So is there anything in place or
Speaker 3: are you following any lines of shall we say, pursuit?
Speaker 5: I it is a formal letter to a member of
Speaker 5: the electricity authority what you've got in front of you?
Speaker 3: But only one member?
Speaker 4: Is that right?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 5: And I can't say I can't and will not say
Speaker 5: who it is. No, that would be wrong, all right?
Speaker 3: But is that one member in a position to be
Speaker 3: able to influence the.
Speaker 4: Authority reasonably high? Up?
Speaker 3: Okay? This will be shall we say interesting? Now? There
Speaker 3: is the other subject that I'm very keleen to talk about,
Speaker 3: albeit probably briefly, is nuclear energy. And I've been I've
Speaker 3: been keeping an eye on Australia and there is a
Speaker 3: there is a what i'd call a major shifting attitude
Speaker 3: in Australia from from people who were waking up to
Speaker 3: the fact that nuclear is the answer. And there is
Speaker 3: a There is also a what shall I call it
Speaker 3: a quote, and it doesn't matter who said it, but
Speaker 3: it was somebody of appropriate authority that without nuclear there
Speaker 3: will be no net zero. You want net zero, you
Speaker 3: have to include nuclear.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Has that applied to New Zealand? Two?
Speaker 4: Do you think?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 5: Even geothermal imits carbon darkside, so jeering amounts, some feels
Speaker 5: quite a lot and some not very much.
Speaker 3: All right, what about this? What about this? This this
Speaker 3: one question, and it's an obvious one, very obvious because
Speaker 3: it's been around forever, that that is likely to have
Speaker 3: an influence on members of the population, and that is
Speaker 3: nuclear safety. How far have we advanced enormously?
Speaker 5: And the fact is that in the Western world, no
Speaker 5: nuclear station has killed anybody from radiation. Three Mile Islands
Speaker 5: has cause of station to be shut down on a disaster.
Speaker 5: You've got more radiation from spending a couple of hours
Speaker 5: in Grand Central Station, which is made of granite whichmits radiation. Fukushima,
Speaker 5: According to the International Sensus, nobody has or will die
Speaker 5: of radiation from Fukushima, yet they shut down lots of
Speaker 5: nuclear stations. The whole thing's crazy. It's seriously safe. It's
Speaker 5: something like a hundred times safer than the next major
Speaker 5: generating technology, certainly safer than large stamps.
Speaker 4: They're very dangerous.
Speaker 3: Well, my sister lived very close to three Mile Island
Speaker 3: when it happened, and she her husband and the two
Speaker 3: little kids who jumped in the car and left, as
Speaker 3: did so many other people. Yeah, and then I can't
Speaker 3: remember now how long it was before they moved back,
Speaker 3: but they certainly did and seemed to have suffered no
Speaker 3: ill effects.
Speaker 5: Of course they wouldn't. They've probably probably less radiation than
Speaker 5: what you've got from a long airline trip. What did
Speaker 5: you go about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you go up further up in the sky,
Speaker 4: you get more radiation. Yeah.
Speaker 5: No, it's the problem is that according to the rules,
Speaker 5: they're not reality. Six thousand milli seabirds will kill you,
Speaker 5: none will not hurt you, and three there and will
Speaker 5: half kill you. So the more of it, the more dangerous.
Speaker 5: Is The reality, which is well proven and well established,
Speaker 5: is up to about three thousand, two or three thousand
Speaker 5: millisivers are harmless. And the proof of that is medical radiation.
Speaker 5: When you get radiated in some cancer, it's the cancer
Speaker 5: itself is subject to a lethal dose of radiation. Six
Speaker 5: thousand more more milionsiverts. These stuff just outside of the
Speaker 5: cancer gets a very still gets a very high radiation dose.
Speaker 5: You don't you can't suddenly cut it off. So all
Speaker 5: the people who have radiation for cancer are radiated, also
Speaker 5: get radiated healthy tissues, and their death rate is not
Speaker 5: abnormally higher than normal. They don't die of radiation sickness
Speaker 5: afterwards at all. Right, So the whole thing is based
Speaker 5: on assumptions which are demonsterly not true, and it is
Speaker 5: seriously safe.
Speaker 3: Okay. My response to that, if I were of such
Speaker 3: a mind, would be to say to you that convincing
Speaker 3: people that it's safe is not going to happen because
Speaker 3: we won't let it happen because we don't want we
Speaker 3: don't want nuclear in New Zealand. End of story. And
Speaker 3: so it will be the subject will be shut down,
Speaker 3: the same as matters of climate change have been shut
Speaker 3: down by the media and elsewhere. Is that the way
Speaker 3: you see it?
Speaker 5: No, I give quite a lot of public lectures on
Speaker 5: net zero, the dream and the reality, and I usually
Speaker 5: mention nuclear power, and I often ask the audience, which
Speaker 5: is in the older age group, whether they think New
Speaker 5: Zealand should be considering nuclear power, and from usually round
Speaker 5: about a half foot they hands up. When I ask
Speaker 5: who thinks we shouldn't, a few put the hands up.
Speaker 5: It's something we should be talking about. If men made
Speaker 5: carbon dioxide really is real and dangerous, which I don't believe,
Speaker 5: it is the only satisfactory solution and an acceptable price
Speaker 5: and an acceptable reliability.
Speaker 3: By the way, Cop twenty nine is upcoming is I
Speaker 3: can't help but laugh because after twenty nine cops, what
Speaker 3: improvements have they made to the world.
Speaker 4: None?
Speaker 5: Last year, we've burnt more coal than we ever had before,
Speaker 5: and give mean us or the world, the world, the
Speaker 5: world more coal than ever has before. Consumption of oil
Speaker 5: and gas is still going up, and people like us
Speaker 5: are here poverishing ourselves in a feeble attempt to make
Speaker 5: a tiny change to the world's climate.
Speaker 4: It's crazy.
Speaker 3: A tiny change.
Speaker 4: Hey well, well not even that. I suggest no change,
Speaker 4: no change, Yeah, no measurable change.
Speaker 3: That'll do. I'll settle to no measurables.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, it's it's a fascinating life. We're living at the moment.
Speaker 3: May what's the Chinese saying, May you live in interesting times?
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a curse. By the way, we're certainly living
Speaker 5: in interesting times. There's no doubt about that exactly. And
Speaker 5: it's going to get more interesting.
Speaker 3: Oh, I think so, Brian appreciate it. Thank you, hips,
Speaker 3: and we'll.
Speaker 2: Talk you very much. We shall love you to talk
Speaker 2: to you always. We'll talk again, Layton Smith.
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Speaker 3: always read the label. Takes directed and if symptoms persist,
Speaker 3: see your health professional Farmer broker Auckland. Christian Smith is
Speaker 3: a New Zealander. He's an X at least for the moment.
Speaker 3: He lives in London. He works in London. He is
Speaker 3: a lawyer. Spent a couple of years working for a
Speaker 3: top law firm in Auckland, then went to London and
Speaker 3: decided he wanted to be in media, so he did
Speaker 3: some studies in journalism and now he is a lawyer
Speaker 3: journalist and he has a family background of media. His
Speaker 3: father is moderately successful in the New Zealand radio market.
Speaker 3: Now it is fifteen months since we spoke in London.
Speaker 3: Fifteen months and I don't know where it's gone, but
Speaker 3: it's down the drain. And we did a very interesting
Speaker 3: We had a very interesting conversation on the podcast and
Speaker 3: a lot of people appreciated it. This was about life
Speaker 3: in London and for expats from here moving over there. Now,
Speaker 3: my belief is that based partly on a couple of
Speaker 3: lines that I'll read you at a moment, but my
Speaker 3: belief is that things have changed somewhat in the last
Speaker 3: fifteen months, not necessarily in fact, I'll say not for
Speaker 3: the better and by the way, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 6: How right am I? Well, thank you for having me back.
Speaker 6: Not particularly not particularly right.
Speaker 3: Sorry. What's changed in fifteen months? I would say, having.
Speaker 6: Read those articles you referred to, I would say many
Speaker 6: of the problems they talk about were there before. I
Speaker 6: don't think much has changed in the last fifteen months really.
Speaker 6: I think, I mean, we can come onto politics in
Speaker 6: a minute in the sense that is a new government
Speaker 6: after the election in July, and that will or may
Speaker 6: bring about big, big changes, but particularly on a kind
Speaker 6: of micro personal lifestyle level, not much has really changed.
Speaker 6: Of course, the UK went through plenty of issues surrounding
Speaker 6: the cost of living and pandemic and said over the
Speaker 6: last sort of eight years or so, a lot of
Speaker 6: those issues still exist. I think, perhaps of anything, what's
Speaker 6: changed in the last for fifteen months is things seem
Speaker 6: to have calmed down a wee bit. Inflation is down.
Speaker 6: It's back down to kind of pre pandemic levels I
Speaker 6: believe was around two percent and the most recent numbers,
Speaker 6: which is obviously around where they target it. Cost of
Speaker 6: living is still a big issue, but it does feel
Speaker 6: less intense for people. I think people have adjusted, but
Speaker 6: also it's easy for me to say that as a
Speaker 6: kind of single individual not having to support a family,
Speaker 6: the job market is I am mixed reports.
Speaker 3: It's all right, I think, you know, generally things are
Speaker 3: much the same, I suppose. Okay, So the two articles
Speaker 3: I'm talking about, we're both in the Telegraph a couple
Speaker 3: of days apart. First one is it's time for the
Speaker 3: young and ambitious to leave Brittain. Fly into Britain through Heathrow,
Speaker 3: and one of the first things you'll see on getting
Speaker 3: off the plane is a helpful sign pointing a little
Speaker 3: way to the baggage reclaim. Looking ahead to the budget,
Speaker 3: it might be worth adding a second, larger sign, abandon
Speaker 3: all hope ye who pay tax here ahead of the budget.
Speaker 3: The only element that appears to be in doubt is
Speaker 3: just how much Chancellor Rachel Reeves intends to raise taxes.
Speaker 3: By the Institute of Physical Studies thinks we're in for
Speaker 3: twenty five billion pounds in tax rises. The Bank of
Speaker 3: America suggests thirty five billion. Is this of great concern
Speaker 3: to you and your colleagues.
Speaker 6: I think you can take that into two Take that
Speaker 6: question into two parts. The first part of abandon all hope,
Speaker 6: you know watch the situation on the ground, and the
Speaker 6: second part being the budget. I think to the short
Speaker 6: answer to the budget question is sort of twofold. First
Speaker 6: of all, the government here has sort of pledged not
Speaker 6: to raise taxes on working people. There's a huge kind
Speaker 6: of ridiculous debate going on in the media at the
Speaker 6: moment about what a working person is because the labor
Speaker 6: government tried very hard not to mention working class during
Speaker 6: the election campaign because that nobody really wants to talk
Speaker 6: about class anymore apparently.
Speaker 3: But generally speaking, it's the.
Speaker 6: Budget comes out on the Davis podcast comes out, I believe,
Speaker 6: so in many ways we're sort of floating in the
Speaker 6: year before that. It's quite a hush hush thing over here.
Speaker 6: Before the budget comes out. They leak a thing or
Speaker 6: two on purpose. But apart from that, but I think
Speaker 6: the tax rerisers look set to mainly go on businesses,
Speaker 6: things like inheritance tax, that sort of thing. It seems
Speaker 6: almost very unlikely to go on your average pay earner.
Speaker 6: So in terms of our I me and my colleagues
Speaker 6: concerned about that, not particularly at the moment. If you
Speaker 6: want to take the question of abandon all faith, you
Speaker 6: who pay taxes here or you know people who are here.
Speaker 6: I mean that I think I think I find it
Speaker 6: very hard to take a broad brush approach to kind
Speaker 6: of economic issues in the UK. I think it's so
Speaker 6: dependent on what you do and what you're trying to
Speaker 6: do here. You know, if you're if you're an average
Speaker 6: average worker, things are generally pretty tough in terms of
Speaker 6: you know, cost of living and that sort of thing.
Speaker 6: If you're running a business, I hear it's it's it's.
Speaker 3: Very very tough. Well, what you've just said is is
Speaker 3: pretty damn serious. I would have thought, I if the
Speaker 3: cost of living is as high as you're talking, well,
Speaker 3: I know it is, having having been there just fifteen
Speaker 3: months ago, But has it noticeably gone up at all?
Speaker 3: Since I wouldn't say, I wouldn't say in the last
Speaker 3: fifteen months.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think there's a statistic that I think
Speaker 6: is a really interesting one, which is that per capita
Speaker 6: in the UK GDP per capita now in the UK
Speaker 6: is closer to Poland than it is to the US.
Speaker 6: And I think there was something I read not that
Speaker 6: long ago that suggested that Poland might catch up and
Speaker 6: or overtake the UK in terms of gdp per capita
Speaker 6: in the near future. Now, I think that sort of
Speaker 6: does a disservice to how well the Polish economies been
Speaker 6: doing in the last decade or so.
Speaker 3: It's been doing very very well.
Speaker 6: But given the sort of impression that the UK has
Speaker 6: and how it's you know, what the UK is used
Speaker 6: to being in the world as in a leading first
Speaker 6: world economy, I mean that says quite a lot. I
Speaker 6: think there are major, major issues economically, and I'm not
Speaker 6: an economist, but there are major economic issues with the
Speaker 6: UK and a lot of that comes down to, you know,
Speaker 6: I think relatively boring policy related things like planning, laws
Speaker 6: and access and that sort of thing. But that is
Speaker 6: where a lot of the problems arise. Well, it is
Speaker 6: so in practically every other country in the world. As
Speaker 6: you say, the budget, the budget comes out, we've after
Speaker 6: we've done this podcast, But is there anything likely on
Speaker 6: the budget frontline that would encourage you to go to Portugal?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 6: I see, I mean personally no, I think I think
Speaker 6: it's worth saying that. You know, I love the UK.
Speaker 6: I've been here for six years now and it's it's
Speaker 6: it's fantastic. I also think it's probably important so we
Speaker 6: might come on to this later that you know, kind
Speaker 6: of self sort of internal naval gazing and doom and
Speaker 6: gloom mongering amongst you know, the chattering classes say in
Speaker 6: the UK it's a national and across the country it's
Speaker 6: a national pastime.
Speaker 3: So sort of talking.
Speaker 6: About how everything is just awful and we're all doomed
Speaker 6: is just something that has gone on in the UK
Speaker 6: for the last eighty years.
Speaker 3: It just it just happens.
Speaker 6: So I think every time you kind of hear about
Speaker 6: how horrible things are, probably need to take everything with
Speaker 6: a pinch of salt in that sense in saying that
Speaker 6: there is still a sense of gloom over the country.
Speaker 6: In terms of you know, people want to I can
Speaker 6: understand why there's this sort of dry for people to
Speaker 6: move to Portugal, and that's not a purely UK thing.
Speaker 6: You know, they're plenty of people who want to go
Speaker 6: and do the digital nomad thing nowadays who might want
Speaker 6: to go to other countries and you know where they're
Speaker 6: more encouraged to go, like Canada, like the Netherlands where
Speaker 6: they give them tax breaks or it's easier to get visas,
Speaker 6: and that you know, it's you're sort of treated in
Speaker 6: an immigration sense, you're welcomes rather than seen, as you know,
Speaker 6: to being one of the many people who have come
Speaker 6: in that year. There's still a sense here that nothing
Speaker 6: works in the public service sector. You know, Trains are
Speaker 6: regularly delayed or canceled. There have been strikes over the
Speaker 6: last few years. Many of them have just sort of ended,
Speaker 6: hopefully for good, but they'd likely a huge well, we'll see,
Speaker 6: but that's been a huge issue.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: It seems that no sooner has one section of the
Speaker 6: tube been reopened after repairs, that another one has shut.
Speaker 6: I actually I got I got an email from Transport
Speaker 6: for London about our local tube line escalator that was
Speaker 6: being shut for maintenance next month for three months. And
Speaker 6: I'm not an expert, but I don't understand why one
Speaker 6: escalator takes three months to fix. And you know, it's
Speaker 6: the stories with buying a house here as well. Is
Speaker 6: much like New Zealand. It's very hard for young people,
Speaker 6: particularly in jobs where you know, traditionally forty years ago
Speaker 6: it would have been fine to buy a house in
Speaker 6: that job. There are huge issues with water companies polluting
Speaker 6: into rivers. The NHS National Health Service is still a
Speaker 6: disaster zone really, so there is the sense that nothing
Speaker 6: really worked. I suppose that's just not that's not new
Speaker 6: since last year, and I.
Speaker 3: Got the impression that the NHS is in worse shape
Speaker 3: now than it was fifteen months ago. It's on a declaim.
Speaker 3: I mean, I.
Speaker 6: Suppose you could say that that is true in the
Speaker 6: sense that it's still headed in the same direction. I mean,
Speaker 6: it depends which report you read and which anecdotal piece
Speaker 6: of evidence you take, and who you're asking it which time,
Speaker 6: whether it's in winter or somewhere or whatever.
Speaker 3: I mean. The new government.
Speaker 6: Started to review into the NAGS, which has recently completed
Speaker 6: a kind of root and branch what's going on, what's
Speaker 6: going on with it?
Speaker 3: How can we make it fit for the future.
Speaker 6: And the review is very damning to no one's surprised,
Speaker 6: I think, with the least surprising thing that has come
Speaker 6: out of government reviews ever. But you think, you know,
Speaker 6: I know, there are obviously problems in New Zealand as well,
Speaker 6: but things like wait times here are just extraordinary. You know,
Speaker 6: people genuinely fear god having to go to A and
Speaker 6: E because they know they're going to be there for
Speaker 6: hours and hours and hours. So According to this report,
Speaker 6: waiting times in A and E, ten percent of patients
Speaker 6: wait twelve hours or more to be seen, and the
Speaker 6: waiting times in A and E are estimated to contribute
Speaker 6: to fourteen thousand deaths a year that could have been prevented.
Speaker 3: If those waiting times weren't there. I mean, that's extraordinary,
Speaker 3: extraordinarily terrible. And yet there are people who still think
Speaker 3: that it's the best health service in the world.
Speaker 6: Well, I think, I mean, I think that's interesting because
Speaker 6: in many way the NHS is and I might have
Speaker 6: said this last time we spoke, the NHS is kind
Speaker 6: of the closest thing the UK now has to a
Speaker 6: national religion, and until recently, to criticize the idea of
Speaker 6: it was unheard of. But I think what has really happened,
Speaker 6: and partly this was driven by the kind of wake
Speaker 6: up call. Well it was worse than a wake up
Speaker 6: call that COVID was, But there is now a kind
Speaker 6: of acceptance that there needs to be serious structural change
Speaker 6: and that's what the current government is saying to make
Speaker 6: it serviceable, because it just is not working at the moment.
Speaker 3: Well, question is the current government, which is a left
Speaker 3: wing government, capable of even approaching that little and succeeding. Well,
Speaker 3: the proof will be in the pudding, I suppose. I mean,
Speaker 3: they had this report into the health service. They're now
Speaker 3: considering how to implement Chambers. But I think changes. But
Speaker 3: I think that much in the same way as the budget.
Speaker 3: You know, the kind of messaging from the new government
Speaker 3: which is sort of adding to the sense of gloom
Speaker 3: across the board is things are going to get worse
Speaker 3: before they get better. You know, there needs to be
Speaker 3: significant investment in not just a public services, but also
Speaker 3: just sort of the country and the economy, and that's
Speaker 3: going to cost money and take time, and there's you know,
Speaker 3: the main message from the government is that they're trying
Speaker 3: to get across is that enough of this quick fix idea,
Speaker 3: Let's actually look at properly how to long term fix
Speaker 3: the problems at the country faces, which sounds like a
Speaker 3: very sensible approach. I think just at the moment they
Speaker 3: are struggling somewhat to convey exactly what that will look
Speaker 3: like and convince people that they know how to do it.
Speaker 3: That could possibly be because it's exactly true, they don't
Speaker 3: know how to do it well.
Speaker 6: I mean, look, I think that the honeymoon period for
Speaker 6: the government that was elected in July did not last
Speaker 6: particularly long.
Speaker 3: They have been plagued by a series of issues.
Speaker 6: I think it's fair to remember though, that to point
Speaker 6: out perhaps that you know, kind of labor governments tend
Speaker 6: to have to meet a higher standard in the public
Speaker 6: eye than conservative governments. I mean, the UK is a
Speaker 6: conservative country with a large sea in the sense that
Speaker 6: I think since the war that the Conservative Party has
Speaker 6: been in power for basically double the time that Labor
Speaker 6: Party has been in power. People inherently think of the
Speaker 6: Conservative Party as a as the party of government, and
Speaker 6: so that means that the Labor Party has sort of
Speaker 6: held to higher standards in general. We might disagree about that,
Speaker 6: but I think that is generally seen as not an
Speaker 6: uncommon opinion. But that means that, you know, to kind
Speaker 6: of achieve the things they want to achieve, they have
Speaker 6: to really make a good go of it. Otherwise people
Speaker 6: are going to look at what, you know, in five
Speaker 6: years time when there's another election and say you haven't
Speaker 6: really done anything, will vote you well. And that's the
Speaker 6: case across kind of Europe and a lot of the West,
Speaker 6: where you know, the two major parties aren't really offering
Speaker 6: much change and haven't really been great at it since
Speaker 6: the GFC.
Speaker 3: The second article from the Telegraph headed a very nice
Speaker 3: life for a lot less money. Why young people are
Speaker 3: fleeing high tax Britain and the tax is going to
Speaker 3: get even high by the look of it. So as
Speaker 3: an example of a fellow called Charlie Baron who moved
Speaker 3: from London to Lisbon last year, he wanted to leave
Speaker 3: Britain as much as he wanted to go to Portugal.
Speaker 3: And then he gets into how much it costs to
Speaker 3: set up a company and do business and what have you,
Speaker 3: but he talks of the advantages, the lifestyle advantages. Also,
Speaker 3: Portugal is a country that I've heard more and more
Speaker 3: about favorably over the last few years, and possibly possibly
Speaker 3: any other country. But getting back to wine, getting back
Speaker 3: to what you are closer to it than me, so
Speaker 3: you might have a better idea getting back to Britain itself,
Speaker 3: which is part of the reason that young people are
Speaker 3: being encouraged or are fleeing from Britain. Some thirty percent
Speaker 3: of eighteen to twenty four year olds want to move abroad,
Speaker 3: according to a UGOV survey that was earlier this year.
Speaker 3: What's more, more than a third of British people believe
Speaker 3: that they are right too, and that young people face
Speaker 3: a brighter future that if they emigrate. At a survey
Speaker 3: from job a job site indeed, what would you call
Speaker 3: a job site? Indeed found almost two thirds of Britain
Speaker 3: would consider working abroad. Two thirds rise into an astronomical
Speaker 3: three quarters among eighteen to twenty four year olds. Suggested
Speaker 3: a widespread dissatisfaction with life in the UK. And I
Speaker 3: could go on giving you more ugly statistics like that.
Speaker 3: There's examples of couples with kids all wanting to get
Speaker 3: out of Britain because the schooling's not so good. They
Speaker 3: think it's probably better elsewhere. Christian, I just say that
Speaker 3: I think I think that I've learned something recently, and
Speaker 3: that is that. And you touched on this in a
Speaker 3: round about way a moment ago, and that is that
Speaker 3: it's a case of the grass on the other side
Speaker 3: of the fence looking greener. But in some cases it
Speaker 3: happens to be true. You've got friends in Amsterdam. Why
Speaker 3: did they go there? How long have they been there
Speaker 3: and why do they stay?
Speaker 6: I do They've probably been there around the same amount
Speaker 6: of time I've been in London. I think some of
Speaker 6: them went somewhat for family reasons, you know, they had
Speaker 6: family there as well. But I mean, Amsterdam is an
Speaker 6: interesting country which is much more welcomes, shall we say,
Speaker 6: highly educates people with tax breaks when they get there
Speaker 6: for the first kind of between twenty months and five years,
Speaker 6: in an effort to bring in kind of to attract
Speaker 6: those sorts of people Canada does. I don't know about
Speaker 6: tax breaks, but they make visas much easier. I mean,
Speaker 6: talking about young people in the UK wanting to move abroad,
Speaker 6: I suppose what that survey doesn't necessarily tell us is
Speaker 6: how many of them want to just go abroad for
Speaker 6: a few years and come home like many Kiwis do.
Speaker 6: And how many You know, what this sort of compared
Speaker 6: to in the past. I mean, I think, you know,
Speaker 6: British people moving abroad for a while is nearly as common,
Speaker 6: or is perhaps less common than it is for Kiwis,
Speaker 6: but it's still relatively common. So I mean, there is
Speaker 6: a sense of the grass is always green. But again
Speaker 6: I'd say it's dependent on what you do. I think
Speaker 6: for many people that that issue is you know, if
Speaker 6: you're in let's say, I don't know a marketing job,
Speaker 6: or a public health job, or or a teacher. Your
Speaker 6: prospects looking to the long term, you know, you might
Speaker 6: be struggling when you're younger, in your or twenties, say
Speaker 6: for salary reasons, but in the UK your prospects looking
Speaker 6: further ahead are also not amazing.
Speaker 3: You know, there's not a huge.
Speaker 6: There's not an extraordinary kind of ladder of pay to
Speaker 6: go up, which there might be in other countries. But
Speaker 6: then again, if you flip that on its head, if
Speaker 6: you're a lawyer in the UK, say your salary prospects are,
Speaker 6: particularly if you're working anywhere to do with business law,
Speaker 6: your salary prospects compared to most other countries are frankly enormous.
Speaker 6: And you could say some of the things about anything
Speaker 6: in the financial sector. So it really does, it really
Speaker 6: does depend on what you want to do. I mean,
Speaker 6: doctors is a really good example, and I think doctors
Speaker 6: is something that I mean Australia in particular, of course,
Speaker 6: as everyone listening will know gets right, and New Zealand
Speaker 6: less so, but in particular the UK. You know, the
Speaker 6: UK has a huge issue with doctors moving from from
Speaker 6: here to Australia and New Zealand. I went to a
Speaker 6: music festival in the summer with a mate of mind
Speaker 6: who's adopted as a GP in the Hawk's Bay, and
Speaker 6: he came over just for a holiday and we met
Speaker 6: up with some of his friends who were doctors or
Speaker 6: are doctors he met working in hospitals in New Zealand,
Speaker 6: and they were telling me, you know, just how many
Speaker 6: hospitals in New Zealander staff by Briish or Irish doctors,
Speaker 6: and how many of them or their colleagues, you know,
Speaker 6: we're no longer working in medicine in the UK that
Speaker 6: either changed careers or moved overseas.
Speaker 3: And it's you know, you know, island's the same. They've
Speaker 3: got similar problems, and.
Speaker 6: That's just because the working conditions in the PAYER are
Speaker 6: frankly significantly better. And for most people it's a bit
Speaker 6: of a no brainer, you know. I think often it's
Speaker 6: it's from some people I speak to it sounds like
Speaker 6: the norm is to go rather than to stay. But
Speaker 6: again it depends on what you do, and it depends
Speaker 6: on personal circumstances.
Speaker 3: What about education in the UK, I mean, there's a
Speaker 3: there's a couple in one of these articles, who moving
Speaker 3: to Australia from Kent. And they're moving to Australia because well,
Speaker 3: when education came up in the discussion, they were going
Speaker 3: to the three kids were going to a school they
Speaker 3: were very happy with this is primary school, but the
Speaker 3: prospects beyond that were very well sad would be an
Speaker 3: appropriate word, and so they were looking forward to getting
Speaker 3: to Australia and having the kids get a better education.
Speaker 3: Now I could suggest to them that there's things that
Speaker 3: they might not know, but that that would depend on
Speaker 3: the advantage that they saw over what they've what they've
Speaker 3: already got on. By the way, that couple, he's a
Speaker 3: builder and Australia has recently changed its entry rules for
Speaker 3: certain occupations and building building is one of them. Now,
Speaker 3: what happens when the builders, Because you've got a shortage
Speaker 3: of housing, you can't afford to lose builders in Britain.
Speaker 3: But if they're going to find it better to move
Speaker 3: to the antipathies or anywhere else for that matter, then
Speaker 3: that creates a problem for you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I can't say I'm a massive expert
Speaker 6: on that or on the education system.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 6: I mean Funnily enough, my two of my flatmates are
Speaker 6: a builder and a teacher, so I talk to them
Speaker 6: a fair amount. And I've sort of just moved over
Speaker 6: here from New Zealand to do the sort of wee
Speaker 6: type thing.
Speaker 3: I don't think they're going to be here.
Speaker 6: They don't, you know that their plan is to go
Speaker 6: back within a few years, but they wanted to come
Speaker 6: over here and you know, travel and live somewhere else
Speaker 6: and that sort of thing. I can't say, you know
Speaker 6: that I know how much of an issue that's going
Speaker 6: to be with builders leaving the UK. I mean, I
Speaker 6: would say, generally speaking, the UK is still a very
Speaker 6: attractive country, and I think you're going to see a
Speaker 6: thing where a lot of the builders, as many of
Speaker 6: them actually already are, will come from overseas, you know.
Speaker 6: So there's plenty of builders from other parts of Europe,
Speaker 6: for example, in the UK who have been here since
Speaker 6: well before Brexit, So I don't know exactly how much
Speaker 6: of a lack there is actually.
Speaker 3: I couldn't tell you.
Speaker 6: Teachers, there's certainly a shortage of teachers, and I know
Speaker 6: that there's significant you know, I've got a few friends
Speaker 6: over here with teachers and their experience of schools over
Speaker 6: here is quite different to back home. It depends if
Speaker 6: you're talking about secondary or primary. I suppose. I think
Speaker 6: a school curriculum over here is much more lightly controlled.
Speaker 6: Is one of the things that secondary teachers say, you're
Speaker 6: kind of told what to teach by the government. There's
Speaker 6: much less kind of leeway than there is a New Zealand,
Speaker 6: where you can pick from a larger variety of subjects,
Speaker 6: and there's a much much stronger emphasis on examinations and.
Speaker 3: The results of those.
Speaker 6: You know, I've always since moving over here, I've always
Speaker 6: been really grateful that I did my schooling in New
Speaker 6: Zealand because the pressure on kids over here, because there's
Speaker 6: more emphasis on exam results, and that's a large part
Speaker 6: because of the more importance given to people going to
Speaker 6: university and go to good universities, so that the sort
Speaker 6: of stress that you see on teenagers can be extraordinary.
Speaker 6: You know, there's huge rooms with anxiety and arex hea
Speaker 6: and that sort of thing at high schools over here.
Speaker 3: But then I mean more generally, there's.
Speaker 6: A huge diversity and quality of schools over here as well,
Speaker 6: which there is in New Zealand of course too, and
Speaker 6: I can't really speak evidentially on that, but you do
Speaker 6: hear about sort of underfunding and overwork of teachers, which
Speaker 6: is definitely something I've seen reflected and my friends over here.
Speaker 3: I see though that there's a flight of a considerable
Speaker 3: number of students, good students from school to universities in
Speaker 3: the US.
Speaker 6: Now, yeah, I mean, I don't know the numbers behind that.
Speaker 6: I mean, I know it's a thing in New Zealand
Speaker 6: as well, of course. I mean the university is at
Speaker 6: the moment are going through something of a crisis because
Speaker 6: basically it's short short history of this was back in
Speaker 6: twenty twelve the government effectively tripled university fees from three
Speaker 6: thousand pounds a year to nine thousand pounds a year overnight,
Speaker 6: hugely controversial. Lots of riots took place around that. But
Speaker 6: because of that, the university is now kind of twelve
Speaker 6: years later.
Speaker 3: Saying we need more money.
Speaker 6: And one of the consequences you're seeing of that is
Speaker 6: that there are more international students been being offered places
Speaker 6: at universities over here because they have to pay more fees.
Speaker 6: There's not a cap on. I don't know if there
Speaker 6: is a cap on. How high international fees can go.
Speaker 6: But you know, as whos get more money from international students,
Speaker 6: so there is increasing increasing pressure on local students for
Speaker 6: places because of that.
Speaker 3: Okay, so let me just quote you this bit. For now,
Speaker 3: young Britains are going to keep moving overseas well. They're
Speaker 3: doing that from everywhere, aren't they. I mean it's more
Speaker 3: I think it's more universal now than it ever has been. Liberty,
Speaker 3: who works in international development, and Sam, a teacher, moved
Speaker 3: abroad in August. They considered other locations Dubai, where Liberty's
Speaker 3: employer has another office, or Thailand, which is a well
Speaker 3: worn route for British teachers, but found you'd never guess,
Speaker 3: but found Kenya offered the best combination of new experiences,
Speaker 3: lower living costs, and perpetual summer. Let's pray as you'd
Speaker 3: consider virtual summer, I can perpetual summer. I can see
Speaker 3: the attraction of that. Yes, I can say.
Speaker 6: Actually, as the clocks went back this weekend and today's
Speaker 6: the first working day where the sun went down at
Speaker 6: hlpas four, I'm more than ready to move to Kenya.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, I'd be happy to come and visit. So
Speaker 3: there are all sorts of reasons and there, and their
Speaker 3: frequently individual reasons, depending on people's lives and what they're
Speaker 3: up to and who they're doing doing it with and
Speaker 3: all that sort of all that sort of thing. But
Speaker 3: does it leave I mean, does it let me ask
Speaker 3: you this, does it leave a state or an atmosphere
Speaker 3: of uncertainty in a lot of people's minds.
Speaker 6: Yes, I think very very much so. I mean, I mean,
Speaker 6: i'd say getting sick of London in particular is nothing new.
Speaker 6: I mean, there's a reason why so many people who
Speaker 6: work in London often end up having a family and
Speaker 6: settling down outside London, you know, you know, near London
Speaker 6: and places like Surrey or Oxfordshire and then commute to London.
Speaker 6: And that's even more so now with remote working. And
Speaker 6: you know, you just have to tell by the number
Speaker 6: of English people or British people in New Zealand, how
Speaker 6: how long you know, how that's always been a thing.
Speaker 6: But I think there is a huge sense of uncertainty
Speaker 6: here at the moment. I mean an enormous amount amount
Speaker 6: will depend on how this government goes over the next
Speaker 6: five years, and I think most people aren't enormously hopeful.
Speaker 6: You know, the reason labor one more than anything else,
Speaker 6: was a vote against the Conservatives and the kind of
Speaker 6: fiasco of Liz Trust and the partying and downing Street
Speaker 6: during during COVID, and the anger that many people still
Speaker 6: have towards peace, like Boris Johnson because of that. But
Speaker 6: you know, there's not a great kind of economic vision
Speaker 6: of the current Labor government, or of really anyone in
Speaker 6: the UK, I mean, even the two people who are
Speaker 6: now vying to be the Conservative Party leader, which will
Speaker 6: be announced I think next week. You know, I'm much
Speaker 6: keener to talk about issues like wokeism than actual economic
Speaker 6: policy that the country desperately needs.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can have a.
Speaker 6: Conversation about how important it is to talk about workism
Speaker 6: as well, but the lack of economic discussion is frustrating,
Speaker 6: and I think most people don't really see the positive
Speaker 6: path through. I mean, I would say, you know, looking historically,
Speaker 6: the UK has always ebbed and flowed, you know, since
Speaker 6: since the war and since before, you know, basically since
Speaker 6: the end of the First World War, the UK has
Speaker 6: always ebbed and flowed. And it will come again and
Speaker 6: I'm sure will be a kind of easier place to
Speaker 6: live than it is now. And it's not all doom
Speaker 6: and gloom, and as I kind of said earlier, that
Speaker 6: there's a national sentiment of doom and gloom.
Speaker 3: It's a national pastime.
Speaker 6: But I think that most people don't have a huge
Speaker 6: amount of faith that things are going to be particularly
Speaker 6: good for a while now. In saying that, if you're
Speaker 6: a New Zealander thinking about moving to the UK, it's
Speaker 6: still a fantastic place to be and it's all contextual.
Speaker 6: You know, if you want to come over here and
Speaker 6: come for a great job or an opportunity to travel
Speaker 6: or try someone new, that's still there and there's nothing
Speaker 6: stopping you doing that.
Speaker 3: Do Kiwi's for instance at Australians. Do they get paid less?
Speaker 3: And I'm thinking of people like lawyers, seeing that that
Speaker 3: seems to run in the family and the family of
Speaker 3: a few friends and doctors if you want, or any
Speaker 3: group that you're familiar with. Do they get paid less
Speaker 3: than the UK or in New Zealand? No, less than
Speaker 3: less than somebody of equivalent status in the UK.
Speaker 6: Lawyers get paid significantly more in the UK. I mean
Speaker 6: I'm talking no, but yeah, but I mean, for a
Speaker 6: key we to go to London and apply for a job,
Speaker 6: would they expect or would they get offered the job
Speaker 6: for a lower rate than what a local would. I
Speaker 6: haven't really. Well, again, it depends on the situation, you know.
Speaker 6: I know people who have come over here and now
Speaker 6: work at really really top law firms and they get
Speaker 6: paid the same. There's there's kind of a unity of
Speaker 6: pay depending on your experience over here in most places.
Speaker 6: I do also know of people who have come and
Speaker 6: struggled more to find a job and perhaps ended up
Speaker 6: working as a contractor for a long period of time,
Speaker 6: and that mean they don't necessarily get paid as well.
Speaker 6: I haven't heard any circumstance where where kiwis are being
Speaker 6: paid less because they're not from the UK. In terms
Speaker 6: of being a doctor, I mean, there are so few
Speaker 6: New Zealand. The UK kind of shoots itself in the
Speaker 6: foot by making it so difficult for doctors from places
Speaker 6: like Australia and New Zealand and other English speaking countries
Speaker 6: to come to the UK, by making it, you know,
Speaker 6: having really intense kind of requalifying exams that people have
Speaker 6: to sit, it's very rare for doctors to come over here.
Speaker 6: It does happen, but generally speaking, doctors get paid much
Speaker 6: worse in the UK than they do in New Zealand,
Speaker 6: and particularly compared to Australia. But again I haven't heard
Speaker 6: of any you know, having to be paid worse than
Speaker 6: your kind of local colleagues.
Speaker 3: I'm just running whether I mentioned something and I will.
Speaker 3: I know. I know of a doctor, young doctor who
Speaker 3: has made such headway in life that he, after working
Speaker 3: doing the rounds here at various hospitals and in Australia,
Speaker 3: ended up in London, still young, and was at a
Speaker 3: specialty hospital for a year. Upon that contract expiring, he
Speaker 3: and he and his wife wanted to move back to
Speaker 3: New Zealand, and they did, but before they came, they
Speaker 3: were offered, he was offered an amazing contract that would
Speaker 3: not be matched here. But they they they had plans
Speaker 3: for what they wanted to do here and that was that.
Speaker 3: I thought staying on there for another couple of years
Speaker 3: would have been well worth well worthwhile. But you know it,
Speaker 3: like we say, it depends on the individuals.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's not an uncommon thing I know amongst
Speaker 6: people here to want to move back to New Zealand.
Speaker 6: If you've been here a while and decide you want
Speaker 6: to have a family and you know now at the time,
Speaker 6: I think, generally speaking, the kind of quality of life,
Speaker 6: particularly for kids. I mean, I don't have kids, so
Speaker 6: it's hard to say. I'm not ingratiating how the school
Speaker 6: system works, but generally speaking, it sounds like it's a
Speaker 6: lot better, particularly if you're living in London. I mean,
Speaker 6: I mean, it's better in New Zealand.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 6: You know, London's a big city. There's but plenty of crime.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's.
Speaker 3: It's it's.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well perhaps that's true, but I think you know,
Speaker 6: there's sort of you know, you've got better access to
Speaker 6: the beach, to mountain hiking and mountain biking and whatever
Speaker 6: else you want to do. Outside of New Zealand, there's
Speaker 6: less pressure on kids. I think the kind of kids
Speaker 6: that people seem to say generally happier, Well, don't take
Speaker 6: that out if you can. I don't know if that's true,
Speaker 6: but there is definitely a sentiment among people that I
Speaker 6: know that they want to move home when they have
Speaker 6: a family.
Speaker 3: I want to wind up on back on education and politics,
Speaker 3: the politics involved, because there is Jonathan Turley, the law
Speaker 3: professor from Washington who just wrote a very good book
Speaker 3: on the importance of free speech, the indispensable right free
Speaker 3: speech in an age of rage. It's good book, I've
Speaker 3: got it, and he refers to a new survey of
Speaker 3: more than a thousand professors showing that seventy eight percent
Speaker 3: will vote for Harris and only eight percent will vote
Speaker 3: for Trump. Other than a poll of the Democratic National Committee,
Speaker 3: there are few groups that are more reliably democratic or
Speaker 3: liberal For anyone in higher education, the result is hardly surprising.
Speaker 3: The poll tracks what we already know about the gradual
Speaker 3: purging of departments around the country of conservative, libertarian and
Speaker 3: dissenting professors purging. It's a very ugly scenario as far
Speaker 3: as education is concerned. Is there an equivalent situation in Britain.
Speaker 6: It's a difficult question. My gut would be to say no.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think that you'd be kidding yourself if
Speaker 6: you didn't think that the majority of kind of higher
Speaker 6: education teachers in the UK are not left leaning as
Speaker 6: in most Western countries. I have I know people who
Speaker 6: went to university at in the US who were somewhat
Speaker 6: taken aback at and these are people who are I
Speaker 6: would probably describe as left wing myself, but they were.
Speaker 6: They were quite taken aback at how how little room
Speaker 6: there was in some places for a discussion outside of
Speaker 6: you know, for kind of wanting to be conservative or
Speaker 6: anything like that, not that they were trying to be
Speaker 6: in that time. But in the UK, I mean I
Speaker 6: think that, I mean, there are plenty of sort of
Speaker 6: high profile right leaning academics in the UK, and I
Speaker 6: don't think that it is as big an issue here
Speaker 6: is in the US. And I think that's the case
Speaker 6: about lots of things in countries like New Zealand and
Speaker 6: the UK and Australia, where you know, we see US
Speaker 6: issues and kind of transfer them over to our countries
Speaker 6: without necessarily giving value to context. But I would say
Speaker 6: that there's more of it. Ironically, in many ways, there's
Speaker 6: more of an animosity, I think, towards the Conservative Party
Speaker 6: than conservativism conservatism, So.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't, you know, pretty stupid people running the show.
Speaker 3: And I think, you know, there's a certain anger amongst
Speaker 3: many young people at a lot of the things that
Speaker 3: have done. I mean, in particul the bricks that I think,
Speaker 3: you know, you can have your own views on bricks
Speaker 3: no matter what. But I think something that's.
Speaker 6: Often lost in kind of international discussion is that if
Speaker 6: you're a young person over here, speaking of let's say,
Speaker 6: moving to Portugal before bricks, you could move to any
Speaker 6: country in Europe without a visa and living there for
Speaker 6: the rest of your life, no problem. Now you need
Speaker 6: countries like Portugal to offer you a digital nomad type
Speaker 6: situation to do that. But anyway, I'm getting off track.
Speaker 3: Sorry.
Speaker 6: In terms of university education, no, I don't think there
Speaker 6: is an equivalent of that. I think like many institutions,
Speaker 6: you know, mostly young people tend to be left wing,
Speaker 6: but I don't think there's that sort of animosity there.
Speaker 6: But you know, I haven't been in higher in tertiary
Speaker 6: education for a number of years now, That's what I'm
Speaker 6: not sure.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I said that to wind up. But there
Speaker 3: is one other thing I just want to hit you
Speaker 3: with without warning. The power supply in Britain. I'm not
Speaker 3: entirely sure about how reliable it is, but I wonder,
Speaker 3: I wonder if there is an issue with power supply,
Speaker 3: the cost of it in particular, and whether or not
Speaker 3: there's a much greater move to move.
Speaker 6: To nuclear Yeah, a very interesting question and debate that's
Speaker 6: going on in the country at the moment, I obviously no.
Speaker 6: New Zealand's going through plenty of issues with that right now.
Speaker 6: There were massive energy will increases over here in twenty
Speaker 6: twenty two and twenty twenty three. The government kind of
Speaker 6: ended up stepping in and subsidizing a lot because it was
Speaker 6: just becoming astronomical. In a similar way as I know
Speaker 6: that it's an issue in the US election at the
Speaker 6: moment that was largely driven by the war in Ukraine
Speaker 6: and sanctions on Russia and kind of resulting issues with
Speaker 6: oil and natural gas coming from Eastern Europe. There is
Speaker 6: a debate about increasing nuclear power plants. With the number
Speaker 6: of nuclear power plants over here, I'm not sure exactly
Speaker 6: where that is at the moment. It's sort of on
Speaker 6: the new governments to do list. They have increased the
Speaker 6: planning for onshore wind farms in the UK that's seen
Speaker 6: as a huge future source of power. It's it has
Speaker 6: become less of a discussion topic this year than it
Speaker 6: was last year or year before, but long term, like
Speaker 6: many countries, it's a serious issue all right now.
Speaker 3: The very last question, what's the opinion of Jacinda Adiran
Speaker 3: in written now, I think still fairly positive.
Speaker 6: I think people over here would generally a bit flummixed
Speaker 6: with her stepping down and then Labour's subsequent loss in
Speaker 6: the election. But I also think that people don't give
Speaker 6: Justina are doing that much thought over here? What about
Speaker 6: what about oh sorry, expats?
Speaker 3: Not much.
Speaker 6: I'd say mixed, I think, I mean, I doubt it's
Speaker 6: moved on much since last year's election, but you know,
Speaker 6: there's still a fair amount of resentment after COVID amongst
Speaker 6: some people. I think there's some disappointment at how her
Speaker 6: premiership played out. But I also think there's lots of
Speaker 6: people who are frustrated that she stood down and that
Speaker 6: Labor was voted out. So I'd say the opinion is mixed.
Speaker 6: But I think memories will be long for people who
Speaker 6: felt jaded after what happened during COVID and being locked
Speaker 6: out of the country. But you know, I mean, my
Speaker 6: personal opinion is, you know, as we may have said
Speaker 6: last year, I think it was will be the right
Speaker 6: thing at the right time.
Speaker 3: But I was lucky I didn't have to come home,
Speaker 3: and you were lucky about that too, all right, it
Speaker 3: has been a pleasure to talk with you anytime, anytime, anytime,
Speaker 3: all right. I'll keep it in mind, so thank you
Speaker 3: and we'll talk soon. Enter the mail room for two
Speaker 3: sixty two and if you'd like to write to us
Speaker 3: latent at NEWSTALKSIB dot co dot Nz or Carolyn at
Speaker 3: NEWSTALKSIB dot co dot Nz. So Carolyn aka missus producer.
Speaker 7: How are you later?
Speaker 4: I'm very good good. In fact, I'm feeling extra good
Speaker 4: and you look extra good. Go for it.
Speaker 5: Late.
Speaker 7: In this from Jin judge Anthony Willie reminded us that
Speaker 7: we live in an age where highly complacent humanity is
Speaker 7: willingly tyrannized by increasingly self righteous totalitarians. Just recently, the
Speaker 7: wicked leftist Australian government has canceled Candice Owen's visa in
Speaker 7: the hopes of wiping out her shows, which have been
Speaker 7: selling extremely well across Sidney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide.
Speaker 7: Now Immigration New Zealand is quote assessing her visa. I've
Speaker 7: paid for front row tickets to Candice Owen's show in
Speaker 7: New Zealand, so I'll be utterly ticked off if Immigration
Speaker 7: New Zealand makes the same idiot decision Immigration Australia made
Speaker 7: in desperate times like these, where our freedoms are being
Speaker 7: choked to a slow death by these modern day Nazis.
Speaker 7: I find that laughter helps. I recently discovered one of
Speaker 7: the best stand up comedians of our times, stand up
Speaker 7: comedian Donald J. Trump, delivered one comedic zinger after another
Speaker 7: at the Al Smith Memorial Foundation dinner. On a more
Speaker 7: serious note, Tucker Carlson gave one of the most powerful
Speaker 7: speeches I've heard in history. Donald Trump's victory will be
Speaker 7: a triumph of the human spirit. It will be a
Speaker 7: triumph of Americans over the machine that seek to oppress them.
Speaker 7: It will be a middle finger wagging in the face
Speaker 7: of the worst people in the English speaking world who
Speaker 7: are leaders. It will be a moral victory the size
Speaker 7: of which I never thought I would live to see.
Speaker 7: And as essential, it's so important that it happens. And
Speaker 7: Jen goes on to say, maybe that is exactly what
Speaker 7: an insane humanity needs. The sane comedy of a Donald
Speaker 7: Trump presidency that makes fun of the idiots. May Trump
Speaker 7: outlaugh Carris Hackle to become the forty seventh President of
Speaker 7: the United States, because the world needs to laugh again.
Speaker 3: Yes it does. Layton, regarding your prediction of a Trump victory,
Speaker 3: in the US presidential election. On paper, Trump should be
Speaker 3: a shoe in, but the Deep State cannot be allowed
Speaker 3: cannot allow that to happen. Trump was purposely denied victory
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty by the unelected Deep State stooges, the
Speaker 3: Three letter agencies, and the complicit legacy media, all conspiring
Speaker 3: to commit the most outrageous election fraud ever witnessed. All
Speaker 3: the swing states shut up shop and supposedly stopped counting
Speaker 3: votes late in the evening of election Day twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: with Trump leading comfortably. Then in the middle of the night,
Speaker 3: massive amounts of votes all for Biden, suddenly had Trump trailing.
Speaker 3: For anybody who doesn't know that or isn't sure of it,
Speaker 3: it's true. The Deep State got away with this massive
Speaker 3: fraud in twenty twenty, thus were able to install corrupt
Speaker 3: puppet Biden as president, having miraculously received eighty one million
Speaker 3: votes after campaigning from his basement, along with his totally
Speaker 3: clueless sidekick Harris as vice president. I said much of
Speaker 3: this in last week's podcast. I think from memory the
Speaker 3: military industrial complex could breathe a sigh of relief after
Speaker 3: a four year hiatus and get back to the business
Speaker 3: of laundering money to politicians from the profits of the
Speaker 3: billions of dollars worth of ammunition and weapon sales approved
Speaker 3: by Congress to fund their endless wars. It is patently
Speaker 3: obvious that the Deep State will be attempting all nefarious
Speaker 3: means to stop Trump from becoming president again. They have
Speaker 3: already carried out numerous cases of law fare with the
Speaker 3: intent of putting him in jail. There have been two
Speaker 3: known assassination attempts on Trump in recent months. One avenue
Speaker 3: that the Democrats are taking this time is to steal
Speaker 3: the election by bastardizing the overseas voter system. They have
Speaker 3: been actively advertising on YouTube that US citizens can vote
Speaker 3: in the election from anywhere in the world. I'm not
Speaker 3: sure they don't do that anyway every year, but I'd
Speaker 3: stand corrected if necessary. The problem is there is no
Speaker 3: way of telling whether a person voting has US citizenship,
Speaker 3: as there is no requirement to provide ID or even
Speaker 3: a Social Security number, no requirement to have ever lived
Speaker 3: in the state you wish your vote to be counted,
Speaker 3: in which the Democrats hope to overwhelm the legitimate vote
Speaker 3: in swing states with these unverified citizens emailing their votes
Speaker 3: from overseas. The Democrats have already telegraphed their moves by
Speaker 3: stating that votes could take days or weeks after the
Speaker 3: US election day to fully count due to the expected
Speaker 3: influx of these highly dubious overseas votes. Same playbook as
Speaker 3: twenty twenty. Just keep manufacturing more Democrat votes after election
Speaker 3: day until they have surpassed the Republican vote. Needless to say,
Speaker 3: if the Democrats can't rig enough votes in their favor,
Speaker 3: It'll be left to the deep State to swart Trump's
Speaker 3: bid for the presidency, and that very likely will involve violence.
Speaker 3: As for Trump's competition in the race to the White House,
Speaker 3: Miss Cabbage Brain, I recommend watching Candace Owen's recent YouTube
Speaker 3: podcast where she delves into the bloodlines of the present
Speaker 3: Vice president. In recent months, Carmala Harris has been attempting
Speaker 3: to blackify her heritage in some perverted attempt to appeal
Speaker 3: to black voters. Harris has even falsely claimed in her
Speaker 3: autobiography that a photo of her standing next to a
Speaker 3: dark skinned house servant was a grandmother, when in reality
Speaker 3: evidence says her grandmother was very fa skin. Well, as
Speaker 3: you never forgets you would have had two. Cantice Owens
Speaker 3: over several recent podcasts, says come to the conclusion that
Speaker 3: Harris is Indian Irish. Owen's also interview judge Joe Brown
Speaker 3: this week over two hours long, but the judge knows
Speaker 3: his stuff and well worth watching. From David. There's a
Speaker 3: few claims in there that given more time, if David
Speaker 3: were on the phone, I discussed with him, but overall
Speaker 3: it's difficult to say that anything is straight out FB.
Speaker 3: Is that putting it delicately enough? Misproducer?
Speaker 7: I thank you.
Speaker 3: You have a.
Speaker 7: Disturbanced on the head of quite nicely right good?
Speaker 3: You had a disturbed look on your face.
Speaker 7: Ladon Craig says, I did hear a couple of responses
Speaker 7: to my email around the COVID passes and that was
Speaker 7: the email that you read. Was it not about COVID
Speaker 7: passes being well?
Speaker 3: He manufactured his own.
Speaker 7: I was comfortable circumventing the system when it was established
Speaker 7: that the job did not prevent transmission, which was actually
Speaker 7: before any were administered. I did not get an exemption
Speaker 7: on checking what was required. I visited a few cafes
Speaker 7: to see how the procedure worked. Most establishments scanned, but
Speaker 7: a number just viewed. The first pass I manufactured was
Speaker 7: for establishments that simply viewed the pass that was a
Speaker 7: computer generated one which was made by a year nine
Speaker 7: school child. The name and photo were mine. After a
Speaker 7: few weeks of using this pass, I decided to look
Speaker 7: at how and if it would be possible to develop
Speaker 7: a pass that could be scanned. That proved a step
Speaker 7: too far, so I decided to borrow a friend's pass
Speaker 7: and see what happened. I didn't think it would work,
Speaker 7: as the photo on the pass was of a thirty
Speaker 7: eight year old with dark hair and I am seventy five.
Speaker 4: With gray hair.
Speaker 7: What I found so and what to my amazement, was
Speaker 7: that when they scanned, they simply listened for the approval
Speaker 7: sound from the scanner and then simply handed back the
Speaker 7: carden and I went. Not once was I refused entry.
Speaker 7: I established as I entered what system was being used.
Speaker 4: Simple.
Speaker 7: I accept that some people may have an issue with
Speaker 7: my actions. However, I'm very relaxed. As I have already said,
Speaker 7: I only decided to do what I did when it
Speaker 7: was established that the JAB did not stop transmission. The
Speaker 7: draconian responses taken by the Ard Labor government was unacceptable,
Speaker 7: unethical and outside the bounds of the New Zealand Human
Speaker 7: Rights Act. Doing what I did also exposed another failure
Speaker 7: of the COVID response as dictated and implemented by the
Speaker 7: lying Ard Labor government. And he goes on to say,
Speaker 7: does Craig thanks for your weekly podcasts in this crazy world.
Speaker 7: It is great to hear your reasoned thoughts and common
Speaker 7: sense debates.
Speaker 3: And as to your moments, you can apply the same verbiage.
Speaker 3: Caroline writes, I've been catching up on your last few
Speaker 3: podcasts and so enjoying the critical and thoughtful manner in
Speaker 3: which you explore such landmine topics as vaccines, among others.
Speaker 3: I plan to share my vaccine story with you in
Speaker 3: a separate email, but I've just read this article which
Speaker 3: encapsulates so well I thought the state of public health,
Speaker 3: both in the US and New Zealand in Brackett. Since
Speaker 3: New Zealand follows the American model of healthcare and a
Speaker 3: whole holy Grail of vaccines, we are an increasingly sick population.
Speaker 3: As the number of vaccines, especially on the childhood immanization schedule, increases,
Speaker 3: so too does the rate of autism at other chronic diseases,
Speaker 3: autoimmune conditions, obesity, et cetera. In childhood. For instance, in
Speaker 3: my childhood, the rate of autism was around one in
Speaker 3: ten thousand, with only a handful of vaccines gins. Today
Speaker 3: there are rates of autism as high as one in
Speaker 3: thirty seven kids, with an exploding rate of shots given
Speaker 3: according to the childhood schedule from pregnancy up to eighteen.
Speaker 3: Yet there are still no clinical trials comparing vaccinated with
Speaker 3: unvaccinated children, except the Amish population in the US, who
Speaker 3: don't vaccinate their kids and where autism is almost unheard of.
Speaker 3: I've heard the excuse for this is that the Amish
Speaker 3: are a genetically different population. Parents are still being gas
Speaker 3: lit when they ask questions. Worse, they are coerced and
Speaker 3: manipulated into vaccinating their child in the complete absence of
Speaker 3: informed consent through a mixture of fear and guilt. Your
Speaker 3: child could be permanently harmed or die if you don't
Speaker 3: comply pressed onto them by medical professionals. In raggots these days,
Speaker 3: I use the term loosely close braggets who themselves are
Speaker 3: coerced and manipula d by public health officials and medical boards.
Speaker 3: The loss of career career, job status, and reputation is
Speaker 3: too much for most to bear, so they don't investigate
Speaker 3: vaccines other than what the official NOH line is. There
Speaker 3: are some fundamental questions or parents should ask. Firstly, where
Speaker 3: are the independent studies comparing vaxed versus unvaxed children? Second,
Speaker 3: where are the studies which can demonstrate how the different
Speaker 3: ingredients in different vaccines given together up to six vaccines
Speaker 3: and a time to my baby are safe and effective?
Speaker 3: And where are the full list of ingredients of all
Speaker 3: vaccines on the childhood Immunization schedule. The answer to all
Speaker 3: the above, of course.
Speaker 4: Is none.
Speaker 3: Parents need to get informed and ask these questions of
Speaker 3: their medical professional and firmly decline their child being used
Speaker 3: as a human guinea pig until they're able to give
Speaker 3: full and informed consent. I hope you enjoy the attached article. Caroline,
Speaker 3: thank you, and if there is sorry, I should add this.
Speaker 3: She is a retired pediatric nurse and plunket nurse, a
Speaker 3: mother of three now adult unvaccinated children, all healthy. By
Speaker 3: the way, now, if there is any other medical person
Speaker 3: who wants to comment of your life, Leyton.
Speaker 7: Renton says high Laighton, a periodic listener here, I appreciate
Speaker 7: your take on things. Thanks so much. I just listened
Speaker 7: to your interview of Anthony Willie very good. In it,
Speaker 7: a few references have made to the COVID idea and
Speaker 7: era what I call the COVID crap. Unfortunately, there is
Speaker 7: not a lot of clarity about this, even among those
Speaker 7: who opposed and oppose all the draconian measures justified on
Speaker 7: the basis of it. Most who took this stand, nevertheless
Speaker 7: still accept the basic narrative that there is a virus
Speaker 7: SARS cove two and that this virus causes a disease
Speaker 7: COVID nineteen. The main difference between those who were for
Speaker 7: and those who were against the measures was that the
Speaker 7: former said the virus and disease was deadly and required
Speaker 7: extraordinary measures to combat, including the removal of constitutionally guaranteed freedoms,
Speaker 7: whereas the latter said that the virus is not much
Speaker 7: different to the cold or the flu, and no special
Speaker 7: measures were required to deal with it. Certainly not the
Speaker 7: removal of our freedoms. I think the presumption of a
Speaker 7: virus and the disease it has claimed it caused is
Speaker 7: a serious error on the part of those who accept
Speaker 7: the second opinion and severely restricts their ability to oppose
Speaker 7: the tyranny imposed. They basically share the same view as
Speaker 7: those they oppose. And then Renton goes on to say, later,
Speaker 7: and he's produced a little video. He sent you the link,
Speaker 7: which I'm sure you've got.
Speaker 4: He says.
Speaker 7: His video challenges this presumption, and I think brings clarity
Speaker 7: to the issue. I commend it to your consideration.
Speaker 4: Pass it over and I'll give it. I'll give it
Speaker 4: a look, Thank you, thank you. Later.
Speaker 3: We shall see you next week. You will, at least
Speaker 3: I regime. I'm not sure about next week, to be honest,
Speaker 3: because well on Wednesday, I'm going to be sitting downstairs glued.
Speaker 7: There may be not podcast because you're you're going to be.
Speaker 3: No, they're going to be podcast. Patrick Besham's coming.
Speaker 4: Along fabulous, And I don't know how. I don't know
Speaker 4: quite how we're going to structure it at this point, but.
Speaker 3: We're going to a moving feast. It is a moving feast,
Speaker 3: and it's going to be a damn good one. Thank you, missus, Brittany,
Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Leighton Smith. Now I have to admit
Speaker 3: that I'm pushing my deadline. Clock to include this, but
Speaker 3: that's my fault. There is a war in the US.
Speaker 3: It is a propaganda war. It's a war that is
Speaker 3: aided and bettered by technology as much as anything else.
Speaker 3: A multiplicity of media in all its high tech forms,
Speaker 3: which lend themselves to deception, sad, wicked, and evil is
Speaker 3: the order of the day for some at least. Let
Speaker 3: me give you an example as an introduction, and not
Speaker 3: from where you think it would be coming. J Badicharia,
Speaker 3: an ab you probably familiar with, is a medical scientist.
Speaker 3: He has written on Brownstone the most devastating report so far,
Speaker 3: the House Report that is, the House of Representative report
Speaker 3: on HHS COVID propaganda is devastating. The Biden administration spent
Speaker 3: almost a billion dollars to push falsehoods about COVID vaccines,
Speaker 3: boosters and masks on the American people. If a farmer
Speaker 3: company had run the campaign, it would have been fined
Speaker 3: out of existence. HIHS engaged a pr firm, the Four's
Speaker 3: March Group, for the propaganda campaign. The main goal was
Speaker 3: to increase cod COVID vas uptake. The strategy one exaggerate
Speaker 3: COVID mortality risk. Two downplayed the fact that there was
Speaker 3: no good evidence that the COVID vax stops transmission. The
Speaker 3: propaganda campaign extended beyond VAX's uptake and included exaggerating mask
Speaker 3: efficacy and pushing for social distancing and school closures. Ultimately,
Speaker 3: since the messaging did not match reality, the campaign collapsed
Speaker 3: public trust in public health. The pr firm drew most
Speaker 3: of its faulty science from the CDC's guidance so for
Speaker 3: Disease Control guidance, which ignored the FDA's findings on the
Speaker 3: vaccine's limitations FDA being Food and Drug Administration, as well
Speaker 3: as scientific findings from other countries that contradicted CDC group think.
Speaker 3: The report details the CDC's mask flip flopping through the years.
Speaker 3: It's especially infuriating to recall the CDC's weird, anti scientific,
Speaker 3: anti human focus on masking toddlers with cloth masks in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two. President Biden's COVID advisor waited until December
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two, right after leaving government service, to tell
Speaker 3: the country that there is no study in the world
Speaker 3: that shows that masks worked that well. What took him
Speaker 3: so long? The propaganda campaign hired celebrities and influences to
Speaker 3: persuade children to get the COVID vacks. I think if
Speaker 3: a celebrity is paid to advertise a faulty product, that
Speaker 3: celebrity should be partially liable for if the product harms
Speaker 3: the people. In the absence of evidence, the propaganda campaign
Speaker 3: ran ads telling parents that the vaccine would prevent their
Speaker 3: kids from getting long COVID. With a collapse in public
Speaker 3: trust in the CDC, parents have begun to question all
Speaker 3: CDC advice. Predictably, the HHS propaganda campaign has led to
Speaker 3: a decline in the uptake of routine childhood vaccines. That
Speaker 3: would please some people. But so that's an example from
Speaker 3: a different field from politics. But basically you can say
Speaker 3: that it's all politics one way or the other. Now,
Speaker 3: the core of my point has been contributed to by
Speaker 3: the owner of the Washington Post. Now, I've been critical
Speaker 3: of the Washington Post time and time and time again.
Speaker 3: I've said things like, let's be inclusive here. I've said
Speaker 3: things like, if you're getting your information from the Washington
Speaker 3: Post or the New York Times, don't believe it until
Speaker 3: it's verified by more than one other at least one
Speaker 3: other source. Why, because they are not to be trusted
Speaker 3: and if you wanted, if you wanted, now the evidence
Speaker 3: for my approach to this for some considerable time, it's
Speaker 3: been delivered by the best person that could possibly be.
Speaker 3: I mean, I can refer to mak Levin's books on
Speaker 3: the met there and on the Democrat Party and other things,
Speaker 3: but this actually takes the cake, and you probably are
Speaker 3: aware of it by now. In what is likely even
Speaker 3: more harrowing for the co op editors at the Washington Post,
Speaker 3: Jeff Bezos, its owner, has just penned an explainer for
Speaker 3: his decision to not allow the Liberal Rag to endorse Kamala.
Speaker 3: We present the opinion piece here in full. This is
Speaker 3: shocking levels of honesty, the hard truth. Americans don't trust
Speaker 3: the news media. The credibility gap can be bridged by independence.
Speaker 3: In the annual public surveys about trust and reputation, journalists
Speaker 3: in the media have regularly fallen near the very bottom,
Speaker 3: often just above Congress. But in this year's galluphole, we
Speaker 3: have managed to fall below Congress. Our profession is now
Speaker 3: the least trusted of all that is journalism mainstream. Something
Speaker 3: we are doing is clearly not working. Let me give
Speaker 3: an analogy voting machines must must meet two requirements. They
Speaker 3: must count the vote accurately, and people must believe they
Speaker 3: count the vote accurately. The second requirement is distinct from
Speaker 3: and just as important as the first. Likewise, with newspapers,
Speaker 3: we must be accurate, and we must be believed to
Speaker 3: be accurate. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but we
Speaker 3: are failing on the second requirement. Most people believe the
Speaker 3: media is biased. Anyone who doesn't see this is paying
Speaker 3: scant attention to reality, and those who fight reality lose.
Speaker 3: Reality is an undefeated champion. It would be easy to
Speaker 3: blame others for our long and continuing fall incredibility and
Speaker 3: therefore decline in impact, but a victim mentality will not help.
Speaker 3: Complaining is not a strategy. We must work harder to
Speaker 3: control what we can control to increase our credibility. Writing
Speaker 3: this for the staff of the Washington Post, presidential endorsements
Speaker 3: do nothing to tip the scales of an election. I'm
Speaker 3: not going to go into that. It's been done elsewhere,
Speaker 3: including on radio. I don't know how much of it, though,
Speaker 3: has been expressed, he writes. Secondly, I would also like
Speaker 3: to be clear that no quid pro quo of any
Speaker 3: kind is at work here. Neither campaign nor candidate was
Speaker 3: consulted or informed at any level or in any way
Speaker 3: about this decision. It was made entirely internally. Dave Limp,
Speaker 3: the chief executive of one of my company's blue origin,
Speaker 3: met with former President Donald Trump on the day of
Speaker 3: our announcement. I sighed when I found out, because I
Speaker 3: knew it would provide ammunition to those who would like
Speaker 3: to frame this as anything other than a principal decision.
Speaker 3: But the fact is I didn't know about the meeting beforehand.
Speaker 3: Even Limp didn't know about it and advance The meeting
Speaker 3: was scheduled quickly that morning. There is no connection between
Speaker 3: it and our decision on presidential endorsements, and any suggestion
Speaker 3: otherwise is false. You can see my wealth and business
Speaker 3: interests as a bulwark against intimate or if you can
Speaker 3: see them as a web of or you can see
Speaker 3: them as a web of conflicting interests. Only my own
Speaker 3: principles can tip the balance from one to the other.
Speaker 3: I assure you my views here are in fact principled,
Speaker 3: and I believe my tracker are good. As owner of
Speaker 3: the post since twenty thirteen, backs this up. You are,
Speaker 3: of course free to make your own determination, but I
Speaker 3: challenge you to find one instance in those eleven years
Speaker 3: where I have prevailed upon anyone at the Post in
Speaker 3: favor of my own interests. It has not happened. Lack
Speaker 3: of credibility isn't unique to the Post. Our brethren newspapers
Speaker 3: have the same issue, and it's a problem not only
Speaker 3: for media, but also for the nation. Many people are
Speaker 3: turning to off the cuff podcasts, inaccurate social media posts,
Speaker 3: and other unverified new sources, which can quickly spread misinformation
Speaker 3: and deepened divisions. The Washington Post and The New York
Speaker 3: Times win prizes, but increasingly we talk only to TI
Speaker 3: do a certain elite. More and more we talk to
Speaker 3: ourselves in brackets. He writes. It wasn't always this way.
Speaker 3: In the nineteen nineties, we achieved eighty percent household penetration
Speaker 3: in the DC metro area. While I do not wish
Speaker 3: to push my personal interest, I will also not allow
Speaker 3: this paper to stay on autopilot and fade into irrelevance,
Speaker 3: overtaken by unresearched podcasts and social media barbs, not without
Speaker 3: a fight. It's too important. The stakes are too high.
Speaker 3: Now more than ever, the world needs a credible, trusted,
Speaker 3: independent voice, and we're better for that voice to originate
Speaker 3: than the capital city of the most important country in
Speaker 3: the world. Are more. There's more writing, more details, but
Speaker 3: you get the picture. The Washington Post has been recognized
Speaker 3: by its owner as being not just unreliable, but misleading
Speaker 3: and lying. And they have been whther or not this
Speaker 3: makes a difference, and how much of a difference it makes,
Speaker 3: because the staff are very upset. Then we have to
Speaker 3: wait and see. But you get the point. The verification
Speaker 3: has been made, by the way, if I didn't mention it.
Speaker 3: The title of the article published on zero Hedge after
Speaker 3: colossal exodus of subscribers Washington Post, Bars Bezas explains the
Speaker 3: hard truth about not endorsing Karmada. I may have mentioned
Speaker 3: that at the beginning, I don't recall. According to two
Speaker 3: sources within the paper and familiar with the subscriber exodus,
Speaker 3: over two hundred thousand digital subscription cancelations had occurred by
Speaker 3: Monday afternoon of this week. Not all cancelations take effect immediately. Still,
Speaker 3: the figure represents about eight percent of the paper's paid
Speaker 3: circulation of two point five million and it's still spreading apparently,
Speaker 3: so you can see why the new nervousness. Whether he
Speaker 3: was spooked into doing that or had it on his
Speaker 3: mind anyway because he was uncomfortable with the falsehoods that
Speaker 3: emanated from that address, I don't know. And while there
Speaker 3: are many, many, many examples of what's going on, I
Speaker 3: would imagine that many of you, most maybe hopefully are
Speaker 3: aware of it and have been keeping track of it.
Speaker 3: But let me conclude this podcast with something I mentioned
Speaker 3: earlier I think in the interview that is the thin
Speaker 3: blue line university professors are approaching near unanimity as a
Speaker 3: democratic lock and written by Jonathan Turley. You'll find it
Speaker 3: at Jonathan Turley tu l Ey dot org Jonathan Turley
Speaker 3: dot org. He says, below is my column in The
Speaker 3: Hill on the recent poll of university professors in this
Speaker 3: election speaks volumes about the composition of higher education today.
Speaker 3: Here is the column. The twenty twenty four presidential election
Speaker 3: is shaping up to be the single most divisive election
Speaker 3: in our history. The public is split right down the middle,
Speaker 3: with almost every group splintering between former President Donald Trump
Speaker 3: and Vice President Carmala Harris. There is, however, one group
Speaker 3: that seems almost unanimous professors. A new survey of more
Speaker 3: than one thousand professors shows that seventy eight percent will
Speaker 3: vote for Harrison, only eight percent will vote for Trump.
Speaker 3: For anyone in higher education, the result is hardly surprising.
Speaker 3: The poll tracks what we already know about the gradual
Speaker 3: purging of departments around the country of conservative, libertarian, and
Speaker 3: dissenting professors. Indeed, the lack of political and intellectual diversity
Speaker 3: may be turning some donors and even applicants from higher education.
Speaker 3: With failing revenue at applications, universities are starting to re
Speaker 3: embrace commitments to neutrality on political issues. Some, however, are
Speaker 3: doubling down on advocacy and orthodoxy. It is an example.
Speaker 3: In an op ed this week, Wesleyan University president Michael
Speaker 3: Ross called on universities to reject institutional neutrality and officially
Speaker 3: support Carmela Harris, calling neutrality a retreat cowardly if you want,
Speaker 3: if you are another word, Ross compared Trump's election to
Speaker 3: the rise of the Nazis and insisted that schools should
Speaker 3: give up the popular pastime of criticizing the woke and
Speaker 3: call out instead the overt racism. He added, without a
Speaker 3: hint of self awareness or irony, that we should not
Speaker 3: be silenced because of fears of appearing partisan. In my book,
Speaker 3: writes Turny, the indispensable right free speech in an Age
Speaker 3: of Rage, I discussed the intolerance in higher education and
Speaker 3: surveys showing that many departments no longer have a single
Speaker 3: Republican as faculties replicate their own views and values. So
Speaker 3: not only are professors voting on mass for Harris, Roth
Speaker 3: would have the schools themselves work openly for her election.
Speaker 3: That ideological echo chamber is hardly an denticement for many
Speaker 3: who are facing rising high tuition costs with relatively little
Speaker 3: hope of being taught by faculty with opposing views. There
Speaker 3: are obviously many reasons why faculty may reject Trump specifically,
Speaker 3: but this poll also tracks more generally the self identification
Speaker 3: and contributions of faculty. A Georgetown University study recently found
Speaker 3: that only nine percent of law school professors identify as
Speaker 3: conservative at the top fifty law schools, al most identical
Speaker 3: to the percentage of Trump voters found in the new poll. Notably,
Speaker 3: Roth acknowledged that the current lack of intellectual diversity in
Speaker 3: higher education has become so extreme that there might be
Speaker 3: a need for an affirmative action program for conservatives. Stop there,
Speaker 3: because I want to throw in something else that came
Speaker 3: into my possession by being sent to me. It's an
Speaker 3: opinion piece from the Sydney Morning Herald on the twenty
Speaker 3: sixth of October, headed Trump's Garden Party echoes America's Nazi
Speaker 3: Moment by Bruce wolp Wlpe if you give you his
Speaker 3: credentials is a senior fellow at the University of Sydney's
Speaker 3: United States Studies Center. He served on Democratic staff with
Speaker 3: the US Congress and as chief of staff for former
Speaker 3: Prime Minister Julia Gillard. It's a hit piece on Trump
Speaker 3: of the ugliest and most untruthful kind. It is littered
Speaker 3: with falsehoods and lies. He likens the Trump rally at
Speaker 3: Madison Square Garden to the Nazi rally that was there
Speaker 3: in nineteen thirty nine, comparison that's been made by almost
Speaker 3: every Democrat in the last couple of weeks. It's built
Speaker 3: up and they think now they've got momentum, but it's
Speaker 3: about the only thing that they have to run with.
Speaker 3: Calling Trump a Nazi and expanding on it obestly. He
Speaker 3: repeats the lies that are attributed to the Joint Chiefs
Speaker 3: of Staff a million particular, who refused to deploy the
Speaker 3: army forces to put down demonstrations in cities across America
Speaker 3: in the wake of the murder by police of George Floyd.
Speaker 3: We all know that story. No one has ever been
Speaker 3: as dangerous to this country as Donald Trump. Billy told
Speaker 3: Bob Woodwood for his new book War. Now I realize
Speaker 3: he's a total fascist. He's the most dangerous person in
Speaker 3: this country. Well, Milly hates Trump with a vengeance because
Speaker 3: Trump called him out. There is no truth to the
Speaker 3: claim that Trump is a fascist, no evidence for it whatsoever.
Speaker 3: There are lies that have been told about comments that
Speaker 3: Trump made about Hitler's henchmen, but they have been disowned
Speaker 3: by other people who were president at the times. Had
Speaker 3: never happened, never happened. It is an ugly, ugly campaign
Speaker 3: and I can only say, may the best man win,
Speaker 3: And as there is only one man and only one
Speaker 3: best of anything of either, that's Trump. It's fascinating to
Speaker 3: see the people who have who have changed sides, and
Speaker 3: we've picked those names up over the over the over
Speaker 3: the course of the last few months who've changed sides,
Speaker 3: people who have been Democrats in the past and realized
Speaker 3: that the Democrats are the major issue and gone to
Speaker 3: join the ranks of the Republicans one way or the other.
Speaker 3: And the next time we podcast it'll be election day,
Speaker 3: and I can't wait for it because the role. I
Speaker 3: know what the result is and I've mentioned it, mentioned
Speaker 3: it last week. Trump will we and I'm thinking landslide.
Speaker 3: I really don't think it's going to be as close
Speaker 3: as some people are suggesting or have been, in spite
Speaker 3: of what some polls might be saying. At that point,
Speaker 3: I'm going to say, if you'd like to write to
Speaker 3: us Layton at ustorksb dot co dot nz, well Carolyn
Speaker 3: at ustorksb dot co dot nz, send you nice comments
Speaker 3: to me and the complaints to her, and we shall
Speaker 3: return for podcasts two hundred and sixty three next week
Speaker 3: Huge Day. Until then, there's always thank you for listening,
Speaker 3: and we'll talk soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you for more from us Talks B. Listen live
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Speaker 1: wherever you go. With our podcasts on iHeartRadio