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Speaker 1: As we mentioned this morning with Nicola Willis earlier on,

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Speaker 1: she is not for turning at this current point in

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Speaker 1: time and any sort of fiscal relief as regards the

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Speaker 1: cost of fuel. What does Starmer make of it?

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Speaker 2: We are going to have to do what we can

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Speaker 2: do now to de escalate, keep this all under review.

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Speaker 2: As soon as it's necessary to say anything further, I

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Speaker 2: will obviously do so. But it's simply not sensible to

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Speaker 2: say that in a number of months time, not knowing

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Speaker 2: what the situation will be, that the following will be

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Speaker 2: ruled in or ruled out.

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Speaker 1: Which makes relative sense. Which is why one wonders why

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Speaker 1: the Treasury would be producing forecasts in New Zealand till

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Speaker 1: the end of the year when basically it's all based

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Speaker 1: on guesswork, And then why you would want to take

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Speaker 1: that information and then present it via a press conference

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Speaker 1: of view with the Finance Minister of New Zealand. So

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Speaker 1: there you go, Rod, How are you?

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Speaker 3: I'm very well? How are you, man, I'm very well.

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Speaker 1: Indeed, let me get to Starma and the war and

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Speaker 1: bailouts and heating oil in just a couple of moments,

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Speaker 1: this meningitis and Kent. How bad is it. We've got

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Speaker 1: one deed obviously, but how bad is it?

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Speaker 3: Well, it's bad because it causes panic. It's a bit

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Speaker 3: like the sort of panic we used to happen. I

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Speaker 3: was very young, you know, eight or nine, and there

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Speaker 3: was a small pox outbreak. That's of course all gone

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Speaker 3: and meningitis has kind of replaced it as this sort

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Speaker 3: of invisible hand of death which reaches down largely to

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Speaker 3: youngish people. So two kids have died, young students in Kent,

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Speaker 3: in my old town of Canterbury and the University of Kent,

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Speaker 3: and two schools have closed down, and the nightclub has

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Speaker 3: been closed down. The truth is meningitis doesn't spread very easily.

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Speaker 3: You've you've got to really go at it to spread

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Speaker 3: the disease, which is why the government and medical people

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Speaker 3: have been saying, you know, don't kiss other people. But

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Speaker 3: they're eighteen, you.

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Speaker 1: Know, what do you do now? As regards the war,

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Speaker 1: so heating oil relief over and it didn't strike me

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Speaker 1: as a lot of money, correct me if I'm wrong.

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Speaker 1: Fifty six million for sixty six million people. I know.

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Speaker 1: Not everyone's got heating oil, I get that, But what

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Speaker 1: are they actually geating?

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Speaker 3: We don't know. Yet. But it's not bad. I mean,

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Speaker 3: in fairness, I don't know what they could have done.

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Speaker 3: They are utterly broke because you and I discussed time

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Speaker 3: and time again, they failed to get a grip on welfare,

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Speaker 3: et cetera, and will continue to fail to get a

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Speaker 3: grip on welfare, so they've got cuts coming. There is

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Speaker 3: more that she could have done that Rachel Reeves could

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Speaker 3: have done. There are so many levees on fuel that

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Speaker 3: you know, one or two of them could have been

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Speaker 3: relaxed for a few months. But that was decided. That

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Speaker 3: was decided. It wasn't an option at all. But you know,

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Speaker 3: if I had to read the way this was going

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Speaker 3: at the moment, I think it's probably going slightly in

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Speaker 3: favor of Starmer. The right wing are screaming at him

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Speaker 3: about failing to stand up and stand by the Americans.

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Speaker 3: But that's not the mood in the country, you know,

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Speaker 3: And the mood in the country not necessarily a moral decision, perhaps,

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Speaker 3: but the mood in the country stiffens in its objection

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Speaker 3: to the invasion of Iraq, to the bombing of Iran,

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Speaker 3: with ever more cap handed evidence of President Trump, you know,

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Speaker 3: who doesn't seem to know a what he was doing

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Speaker 3: in the first place, and be what he's going to

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Speaker 3: do now. So Stalmer's position, whilst it's not in my book,

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Speaker 3: a moral position at all, because he is he has

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Speaker 3: provided help, he has provided sucker to the invading, to

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Speaker 3: the Americans and the Israelis is Nonetheless, I think probably

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Speaker 3: in line with roughly what the nation's thinking.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, i'd agree, because there's no buying in the Americans

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Speaker 1: polling either. Having said that, and you don't deal with

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Speaker 1: the straight up the most of the way we do.

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Speaker 1: I mean, all our oil goes through the straight and

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Speaker 1: into Singapore Career to get refined and then ship down

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Speaker 1: to places like New Zealand. You've got other channels, but

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Speaker 1: never the las oil is a globally traded commodity and

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Speaker 1: you're paying more at the pump. At what point at

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Speaker 1: the pump do Brits start going, We'll hang on here.

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't mind if this thing ended sometime soon.

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Speaker 3: Quite soon, but there may be other things to complain

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Speaker 3: about before that, which is, you know, we still have

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Speaker 3: an energy secretary at Milliband who is determined upon a

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Speaker 3: net zero approach. Whereas if we started fracking a bit,

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Speaker 3: if we started drilling for oil. We would be far

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Speaker 3: less dependent upon foreign oil, far more self sufficient, and

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Speaker 3: we would have a backstop for when the wind turbin

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Speaker 3: turbine stopped working, which is about every week and a half,

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Speaker 3: you know. So I think some of the annoyance will

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Speaker 3: be turned on on the net zero stuff, But there

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Speaker 3: will be I suspect there will be more protests about

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Speaker 3: the war against Iran. Yeah. Sure.

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Speaker 1: Indeed, a couple of quirkies. While I got you, Rod,

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Speaker 1: there's been an announcement whereby you get paid to employ

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Speaker 1: an unemployed young person. So this is the eighteen to

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Speaker 1: twenty fours and all the people at home, and so

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Speaker 1: you'll get three thousand quick. Is that the sort of

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Speaker 1: thing that actually works? And where do they pull the

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Speaker 1: money in from that? Given they have no money, Well.

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Speaker 3: They would argue that most of the money will come

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Speaker 3: in from benefits which are not being paid out. This

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Speaker 3: will give you, this will give you an indication as

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Speaker 3: to how close benefit payments are to wage payments. I mean,

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Speaker 3: they're more than wage payments. That's that's the whole problem

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Speaker 3: we have in this country. But there is, nonetheless, you

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Speaker 3: know a huge problem with I guess they're gen zetters,

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Speaker 3: aren't theyous? The gen setters simply aren't going to work.

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Speaker 3: They don't want to work, they feel no compulsion to work,

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Speaker 3: and the people aren't taking them on large peoples they

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Speaker 3: can't spell their own names or count up to seven,

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Speaker 3: you know. So those are generalizations when you get the

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Speaker 3: kind of drift. So this might do something. I've never

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Speaker 3: known it work before, but you know, hey, we need

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Speaker 3: to do something to get my miles. Would be apprenticeships,

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Speaker 3: but that's another issu.

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Speaker 1: Good only mate knows to talk to you a little

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Speaker 1: back on Thursday. By the way, the UK asylum appeals

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Speaker 1: backlog has reached a record high. It's sitting now at

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Speaker 1: eighty thousand and a poll out that says Starmer's party

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Speaker 1: stands to lose about seventeen hundred seats in the local

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Speaker 1: body elections in May, quarter of the two and fifty

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Speaker 1: two seats it currently holds. It would relinquish control of

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Speaker 1: forty nine councils. So for a man who's already underwater,

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Speaker 1: he might be a lot more underwater by the time

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Speaker 1: made's done. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast listen

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Speaker 1: live to news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio