Do Trump's constant insults to Britain's Armed Forces show the NATO alliance is at an end?

Hello, very good evening. It's three minutes past seven on LBC. I'm Ian Dale here with you

until ten. Now, I always say, oh, I sometimes say at the beginning of the program, don't

forget you can watch the whole thing now, all three hours live on global player, the LBC

app and the LBC YouTube channel. Well, from today, we are going to start reading out

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want to ask a question in cross-question, you can post that question there as well as

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access YouTube on your television. So instead of just listing, you can watch as well.

What is not to like? Right, in this hour, I want to talk yet again, yet again about Donald

Trump, because you know, if I was Mark Rutte, the secretary general of NATO, I might be

fearing for my job, because Donald Trump has spent quite a bit of time over the last

week insulting various NATO countries. Okay, mainly Britain, but he has today had to go

out France too. He's warned the UK today in a post on truth social. The US won't be

there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us.

Well, I remember many occasions in the last few decades when Britain has been there for

the United States, for example, in the first Gulf War, for example, in Afghanistan, for

example, in Iraq, need I go on? Britain has been the most reliable ally of the United States

of any country in NATO, since NATO was formed in 1949. And I don't know about you, but

I am getting sick and tired of the abuse that the president of the United States is throwing

at our country. And I suspect the good citizens of France are feeling a little bit the same

today after he did the same to them. But that sentence really jumped out at me from his

post on truth social, because it really made me think, not for the first time, but it

probably reinforced the view that the future of NATO is now in real jeopardy. Because without

the United States as the leading member of NATO, and they would say the leading funder

of NATO has NATO got any future. That is the question. I think we are going to have to

ask ourselves, maybe not for the first time. But I think before, a lot of us have thought,

well, it'll all go right in the end. I'm not sure it will now. I'm really not, because

I don't know whether Donald Trump is just making a mountain out of a molehill here, but

I genuinely believe that he feels he's been slighted by Kirstama and the attitude of

the British government to what's going on in Iran. I don't have a lot of sympathy for

that position, because all governments of all countries have a duty to do what they think

is right for them. Now, I don't agree with a lot of what Kirstama has done in this,

but it does not deserve the kind of abuse that Donald Trump is meeting out at the moment

towards this country. And to post this, within minutes of the news going live that the

King and the Queen are going to go to America at the end of April, on a state visit. I mean,

the timing was incredibly crass. Now, I suspect that was more cock up, rather than conspiracy,

but you never know, do you? Now, after Trump made that post on Truth Social, his defense

secretary, or war secretary, as he likes to be known, Pete Hegseth gave a press conference

and said this, I think the president was clear this morning in his truth, that there

are countries around the world who ought to be prepared to step up on this critical

waterway as well. It's not just the United States Navy. Last time I checked, there was supposed

to be a big bad Royal Navy that could be prepared to do things like that as well. So he's pointing

out, this is an international waterway that we use less than most, in fact, dramatically

less than most. So the world ought to pay attention to be prepared to stand up. President

Trump's been willing to do the heavy lifting on behalf of the free world to address this

threat of Iran. It's not just our problem set going forward, even though we have done

the lion's share of preparation to ensure that that straight will be open, which is an

outcome. The president's been very clear on.

So the question I've got for you in this hour is the NATO alliance potentially at an

end. I had the word potentially in there, because I can't bring myself to think that

the alliance, which has kept the peace for, well, ever since it was formed in 1949, could

really be about to disintegrate. But I think we have to contemplate that now, don't

we? Robert Fox is defence commentator for the I news paper and for the independent. Robert,

very good evening to you. Is it an exaggeration to say that the whole of the NATO alliance is

now in real danger?

I think what we have to watch here is the game of misdirection. And I think even Trump

and headsets in their way in black circumstances could apply to join the magic circle for

Mr's direction, because we have to ask them ourselves, why are they saying this? Why are

they being so crass? Because slacking off allies doesn't encourage them to come to their

aid. The Israeli-American war effort in Iran is in trouble. I'm not just saying that

the markets are saying that. Take a pill hunt, bankers in the city of London, they have

warned today that Trump is losing control of his war. This is what's happening. It's

a bizarre way to go about damage limitation. Yes, there is an enormous crisis in and around

the straits of whalers, as there is over the Babel Mendeb, but who created it? That's part

of the problem here, and how are we going to get out of it? It's going to take a long

time. No NATO is not dead, and NATO will not be dead. It is going to change radically, and

radically in a way that may be very embarrassing to particularly the Trump-Hegs-Earth Vance leadership,

but to the United States. It's going to go much more regional, and I think that they're

preparing for that, because already you've got separate alliances building within the

NATO alliance. We've seen it with joint expeditionary force with the northern countries, and I

think Britain will also be involved in an equivalent of the J.E.F. for the Levant, by that

I mean the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea Gulf area, because we are faced with

America the unreliable, and it's the material nature of the Trump presidency, has come across

in this second incarnation, the second presidency, to such an extreme degree, I think it's taken

everybody by surprise, friend and foe. But, I mean the Trump presidency will be over in less

than three years time, and remember we don't know what will come after that, I mean if it's J.E.Vance,

well back to where we started I suppose, but it might not be, we've got to be very careful

about not throwing the baby out of the bathwater haven't we? Well I think under the blanket,

that's not happening, the grown-ups in the party really are talking, even what remains of the

grown-ups of the United States diplomatic service, despite Rubio, despite Hegg's health. I know

the commands the intelligence community does talk a lot, and they must be quite worried about it,

sorry understatement, probably the quarter century, because they are confronting precisely the

question that you've put in. What do we do? What do we do next? How are we going to storm to the

flow? What's the damage limitation that we can do now? And how do we set things that we can get

some semblance of stability within the next two years, anticipating whoever comes into the White House?

Robert, always good to talk to you, thank you very much, that's Robert Fox's defense commentator

for the I news paper and for the independent. Well let's get an American view on this from Daniel

Fried, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, and also

its former ambassador to Poland. Daniel, very good evening, thank you for talking to us.

We are sort of on this side of the Atlantic, flummoxed to say the least at some of the language

that Donald Trump is using and abusing our country. It seems almost on repeat now, virtually every day

he finds an excuse to insult the United Kingdom. What should we read into that in the long term?

Well first, I share your outrage. The language is ugly and pointless. So your frustration and

anger is completely understandable. That said, I would not throw out the alliance. I would not assume

that Trump's tweets are an ultimate indication of even of where his own administration ends up,

certainly not where the United States will end up after whatever it is we're going through now

is finished. So I would hold on to the alliance, but prepare for a rough ride, and certainly I

would take this point from the Trump administration seriously. Europe needs to do more for its own

defense. American administrations have made this point for decades, and it is true. So

I share the frustration. I think some of it is due to Trump's own frustration that his war

against Iran is not going according to plan. He's not clear. I don't think he's clear in his

own mind how this ends. So he's lashing out, trying to find various punching bags. As I said,

I don't like this very much, but what other I like it or not is irrelevant. It's important to

understand what is happening. It's not the end of the alliance. It's a particularly nasty period,

and the king in his visit will have a great deal of work to do, and I wish him all the best.

Well, I think we all do, but you said it's not the end of the alliance, but to misquote Churchill,

it could be the beginning of the end. And I think that's what a lot of people on this side of the

Atlantic, not just in this country, but I think more widely in Europe are contemplating now.

How damaging would that be to the whole idea of Western defence if NATO was in some way to be

what either to disintegrate or to be diminished? It would be damaging indeed.

The West is faced with a virulently aggressive adversary in the form of Vladimir Putin.

Putin is serious. He thinks he can win in Ukraine, although by the way we have the tools to help

the Ukrainians prevail, but that's another issue. If he succeeds in Ukraine, he will move on to

the Baltics. He will move on to Moldova. He intends to take down the Western Alliance and

restore the Russian Empire. He is serious about this. So the end of the Western Alliance would undo

what we have taken for granted, which is Europe as a united strategic actor and asset for the free

world. NATO helped solve the centuries-old problem of European powers fighting among us,

amongst each other. We've taken that better world for granted. The end of the Alliance puts

all of this at risk. No, I don't think Germany and France are going to go to war. That's not my

point. My point is that Europe has been able to work with the United States for the on behalf of

a United West and done so for decades. Yeah, losing the Alliance would be terrible.

Just finally, do you think Donald Trump has any sense of history? Does he even realize that Britain

on its own lost hundreds of brave service personnel in Afghanistan when we did come to the aid of

America after 9-11, similarly with the First Gulf War, similarly in Iraq. He doesn't seem to acknowledge

this at all. That I think is the most insulting part of it. It is inexcusable and it is appalling.

I worked in the administration of George W. Bush in the run-up and during the Iraq war. I am

well familiar with British sacrifice and the sacrifice of many other European countries, including

Denmark, by the way, who hardly deserve the threats visited on it by the Trump administration.

Again, your outrage is unfortunately justified. The question is, what do we do with this moment?

And giving in to outrage is not really going to get us where we want to be. I think that

I have the greatest sympathy for European leaders, Alexander Stubbe,

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, the Prime Minister, who are all trying to find ways to work

with Trump as constructively as possible to limit the damage of Trump's more ill-considered ideas

and to keep our collective eye on the ball, which is the Western Alliance at the heart of the

free world. Russia is the virulent adversary. China is the rising problem. So we need a free world

strategy and we have to get past Trump. No, he doesn't have a sense of history and his historical

lessons are drawn from the worst traditions of American strategic thinking. The isolationism,

which was really indifference to the rise of Hitler, unilateralism and a kind of neo-imperialism,

which I think does injustice to the President's McKinley and James K. Polk, but that's another story.

It is and interesting you should mention those gentlemen because I've just finished editing a book

on US presidential election campaigns in which Karl Rove has written the chapter on McKinley. He's

a bit of an expert on him. Daniel, I can see why you were an ambassador. You've been a great diplomat

in some of your answers there. Thank you very much for joining us. That's Daniel free, therefore,

US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and former ambassador to Poland.

By lots of calls coming in, is NATO in danger? What can be done about it? Do you think we just

have to sit tight and wait for the Trump era to finish and the normal world order will be restored?

Not so sure. That's going to happen, personally.

90 minutes past seven, if you're just doing what we're asking, is the NATO alliance in danger

after Donald Trump's latest tirade, not just against the United Kingdom, but also France? Let's

go to Paul in Worcester Park, hello Paul. Hello there. First of all, before I do with the

NATO bit, I will say that I think from the outset we should have supported Trump. I think when

the Israeli Prime Minister made his speech to the UN a couple of months ago, saying that American

Israel was fighting Europe's wars for it and for our future, I think he was correct. I think

the fact we can rely on NATO is laughable. European countries can't get that together. They

won't necessarily stick up for one another. They have too many conflicting interests. Some of

their colonies, ex-colonies sometimes rub up against each other. France didn't support

in the fall from war. They sold it except for the Argentinians.

Well, hang on a minute. Well, they did sell it except for the Argentinians, but that was before

the war. They didn't sell them to them during the war. No, they also provided

huge amounts of intelligence to the British government. Margaret Thatcher was very grateful to

President Metron for doing so. Well, Spain didn't support this. Also, over Bosnia, we couldn't

get our act together. I just think Europe is unable to get its act together at the moment. It's

weak. It has what an issue would have called like a collective slave morality at the moment.

I cannot believe it did not come to the aid of America, or even not necessarily to the aid of them,

just fought with them on this matter, because the very fact that the Iran has been able to

have power over the straits for the last 10, 15 years is ridiculous. It should have been

dealt with a long time ago anyway. And the fact that we started, we should have backed him up.

You know, our security is far more with America than it is at present with Europe until Europe

gets its act together. It's collectively and politically and morally weak at the moment.

And I believe each country would put its own interests first.

Well, I mean, look, I mean, that's that's self-evident that all countries put what they

think is a national interest first. That's what that was Keir Starmer's justification

for not taking part in the military action. I agree with you to up to a point. I agree with you

that Spain, France, Italy and Britain should be allowing American planes to fly from their

bases. Now Britain is now, but Italy isn't, Spain isn't, and France isn't. And look,

they have to make their own independent decisions. I agree with you. I think that's a mistake.

Where I part with you is that I don't think it is incumbent on European countries to

go into military action unless they're sure what the end game is. And Donald Trump has failed to

explain what the end game is. What does victory look like? Well, in that case, well,

rather than relying on him to make the end game, they could decide what the end game themselves

should be. What the end game should be without doubt is Iran doesn't have control over those

straights. And I don't see how, while we're leaving America to do with it, imagine America does

lose this war. Are we now, well, something they will actually be honest? Are we going to allow Iran

to be in charge of those straights? Because that would, what would happen if we don't back America

up in America doesn't win. And what is worse is if they do win, America is not going to let us forget

this. And I actually do believe America will win this, actually. I think there's a lot of

naysayers out there at the moment. And they're not going to let us forget this. I really think we've

got now, you know, we've put our allegiances in the wrong place that we should be back in America

far more. Not just not Trump, but America. And at the moment, America still is doing this.

Well, if you put it around that way, American public opinion does not support Donald Trump on this war.

And a public opinion, as you know, is not very sickle. If he wins this, which he will,

that public opinion will change. They will win it. Okay. And it will be America that will benefit

from this. And they're not going to forget that we didn't help them out. I just can't understand

why Europe is a whole. He's not helping America out of this. I mean, I do, I do probably know

why it's because I do believe that the that we have such a large Muslim voting base now, it's

it disturbs slightly how certain politicians make their decisions. But I think we're definitely

back in the wrong people at the moment. And we should get in behind America.

You certainly believe that the reason Kirstalmer isn't back in America is because of the Muslim vote.

It's a partial reason. Yeah, I don't believe he's made it for many moral standpoint. The man's too weak.

I think he initially made a decision because he is scared of the Muslim vote. I think now that the

upholding is a bit more in his favor. He's now going that way for those reasons. But I don't believe

his decisions are made on any actual true moral standpoint. No, I am okay. Well, I mean,

we're going slightly off the subject of NATO, but there we are. Paul, thank you. Let's go to Patrick.

Let me to spa. Hello, Patrick. Hey, and thanks for having me on. Not at all. What would you like to say?

So one of the things I wanted to talk about was the fact that Donald Trump was elected. And I think

he was elected because most Americans were tired of the politicking around dealing with aggressive

countries like Iran, like Syria, and so on. And America has generally been the one who has

initiated. We talk about the Gulf Wars, both of them. We talk about Afghanistan. This was America

trying to stand up to what they perceive as a world threat, not really for any reason other than that.

Now some would say maybe it was for oil or for financial gain. But I tend to see Americans looking

at themselves as people who are basically the superheroes and they go out and they stand up to

these nations. I think NATO and the UN for that matter have outlived their usefulness. I think

if we abolish that, we might find a different alternative that might be a little more progressive

and what the world needs at this point. What were you saying that after 9-11 when all NATO countries

rallied to the support of the United States? You know, I would agree that in 9-11 there was

a quite of a world bonding. But I mean if you fast forward to now and you see what appears

to be a radical Muslim mayor of New York City is almost unbelievable that that could even happen.

But then you have now this rise of Islam and radical Islam, not just a scattered few terrorists.

But you're talking about a religion amid fear. Well, some might say that radical Islam has only

really reared its ugly head since the war in Iraq. I don't know if it's been since the war of Iraq,

but I definitely would agree that the war in Iraq was probably, I think it was Bill Clinton

who did not want to go into Iraq because he feared of the, he feared the fallout from being there.

Well, it was actually George Bush the first that didn't. I mean, once the military action

was finished, they could have gone on to Baghdad and probably deposed Saddam Hussein. Then it was

actually George H. W. Bush who decided that I would not be a good idea for the reasons that you've

just said. I don't know why you've got it from, I don't know why you've mentioned Clinton.

I was Clinton was one of the reasons why he did not go after Osama bin Laden when they had a

chance before 9-11. And part of the thinking I think back then was that that would destabilize

the region. And that's where I'm getting it from. However, I mean, really, what is the purpose of

NATO? What is the purpose of all these UN organizations? And the US is the number one financial

contributor to these organizations. I think they legitimately have a right to say,

if we're not going to be doing these things together, then maybe we'll reconsider funding it.

Yes, but you can't, the fact is Donald Trump didn't consult anyone before doing this.

He didn't give anybody any warning, so it was impossible for any European nation to join up

from the beginning. Now, I completely understand the reasons for that, because you do have to keep

military operations secret. But you can't then win that other countries aren't supporting you.

When, frankly, you haven't done what George Bush did in 1990. You haven't done what George

W. Bush did in 2001 and actually brought your allies on side.

Yes, and no, and I think I agree with part of what you're saying, but we don't know as regular

Joe on the street. We don't really know what's going on in back channels, and we don't know what's

going on in discussions. We don't know if Kier Starmer has had discussions, but ask for some

concessions in terms of PR and the optics. We don't know that. I know, for example,

some nations say we're not participating, yet they'll have a hospital ship in the area,

they'll have refueling supplies in the area. They aren't participating, but they're not

publicly saying that they're participating. And I think a lot of that happens. And I kind of see

what Trump has said as perhaps a little bit of politicking.

Well, I wish the thought that a politician should politic. Patrick, thank you very much.

Let's says, NATO have been in a mess for a long time, Ian. How many members haven't paid their

way, put their heads above the parapet missing in action? Even the UK talks the talk,

but still hasn't released its plans for the future of the armed forces. All nations have

continuously kicked the can down the road, and now it's biting them in the bum. Well,

you're correct up to a point there, Les, but many European nations have increased the amount

that they're spending on defence. Many European nations have actually overtaken the UK. We were

the number two contributor to NATO. We're now something like number 12, and many other countries

have now exceeded the 2% target, which was said many, many years ago. So you're half right there,

Les, if I may say so. Ian Dale, call O3456060973, text 84850, Alexa, send a comment to LBC.

733 on LBC will come back to a cause in just a second, but first, let me tell you who's on cross-question

tonight. Will Forster is Liberal Democrat MP for woking. Zoe Williams is a colonist for the Guardian.

I'll be Owen Cone, it's political commentator and campaigner and vice chair of the LGBT

Conservatives campaign group. We have had a dropout though, so Corey and Chris are working like

eager beavers to find a fourth panelist before 8 o'clock. Will they succeed? The tension is mounting

ladies and gentlemen. Right, we are going to continue with your calls on, we're speculating about

the future of NATO after yet more insulting comments about Britain and indeed France by President

Trump today. Do you think the NATO alliance is in danger of fracturing? If it did, what were the

consequences be? Is it something that we really need to get our heads around? Some people will say,

well, this is an argument for a single European defence force. I've never really bought into them,

all in favour of closer cooperation with other European countries. But would that really work?

Should there be some sort of European NATO? Geoffrey is in Harrow. Hello, Geoffrey.

Yeah, hi, good evening. Two or three points really. First of all, I just want to say the quality

of the contributions you have left now, I've been absolutely superb. I saw all the listeners

like that. You're very lucky. Well, we've had a good run, we had some brilliant calls on last night too.

Sorry? We had some brilliant calls on last night too, so we're on a roll. I'm sure you did.

I greatly agree that the analysis of Daniel Fried, the Undersecretary chap from America, I thought

they were spot on. Namely, sorry to use the word, you may have to cut it off, but even if Trump is a

and he's never less than man in charge and we've got to take what he said seriously. He's been

elected as President of the United States and he's a man of action as well. And I think the point

very particularly Shiite imperialism with a Iran that's going to grow itself into a world power

similar to the potential of Nazi Germany, in my view, at the Second World War. And the sort of

decisions that the Europeans have got to make is not where the Trump is rude to them or not,

which he is, of course, and I'm sorry about that and there's not my responsibility. But the question

is, you know, are they going to appease Iran Iran's threat with a nuclear power, missiles,

the whole lot and the proxy invasions of, not invasions, well, some of the invasions.

And I would remind the listeners in yourself, if I may, it was Israel actually that launched

the war against Iran of its own accord in June of last year. And America will actually

followed suit by, I thought sort of, I don't know, rather shame, shift, brought to shame and then

use their bombs on the Iranian reactors. So there's a lot of points there, but the main point,

I think, is that Shiite, Iranian imperialism has got to be challenged. And that is what America's

doing. And I think the West should support it. But clearly, clearly that support hasn't been

forthcoming. And do you think that endanger NATO? It's up to NATO to get its act together. And

it's very difficult to understand exactly why NATO's the way it is, because we all live quite

happily with higher standards of living, thinking of the sort of war that we thought was finished

with the Second World War would never re-acquire. All deeply shocked by Russia's evasion of Ukraine

and deeply more shocked by the Middle East going to the level that it has. So we're left in an

entirely embarrassing position, defense-wise, very embarrassing indeed. And it's not something

can be repaired tomorrow morning. It takes years to build armaments of any quality and so on and

so on and so on. You know that. So we're in a mess. Well, it's interesting you mentioned

Ukraine there, because that was an example of NATO countries coming together, included the

United States too. And they were very, very unified. I think there was one or two who were slightly

more dubious, shall we say. But when Trump became president, he basically withdrew American support

from oiling meaningful support from... I don't know that Ukraine in detail, but my impression is

that the support for Ukraine was very much tying their hands behind the back. We'll give you weapons,

but you can't use them to attack mainland Russia or metropolitan Russia. You can only use them.

But my point in raising that was that this works both ways. If America complains that other

NATO countries haven't come to its support over what's happening in Iran, well, perhaps European

NATO countries would like a little bit more support from America over the war in Ukraine. I'm

sure you grain would. Jeffrey, thank you. Habib is in Cambridge. Habib, hi.

Well, hi. Thank you for having me. Just going back on, I mean, I'm trying to be focused on the

question which is about the NATO and the alliance. The alliance is obviously a defensive alliance.

It's not a, we're not supposed to be an aggressive alliance. This is a war of aggression.

And it's according to... Oh, balls of aggression. Well, at least our Prime Minister

doesn't feel and you know, felt that this is an illegal war. And I don't think there is any,

therefore there is no legal justification. I mean, you can just just about read Donald Trump's

tweets that he's going from, you know, a normal conversation to a war, the threats of war crimes,

you know, hitting the Iranian infrastructure, et cetera. So I think that there is no question that

this is what the UK and NATO has done so far has been the right thing to do. But this is not the

first time. Donald Trump started to pull out support from, from President Zelensky. He embarrassed

him in White House. Now he's embarrassing the NATO country leaders. And therefore this is not

the first thing he did. Then he went to, you know, go over the issue of Greenland. This is now

Iran. And I don't think that in order to make, to appease Donald Trump, we have to join on an

illegal war to saw our, you know, allegiance with the leader of the Western world. That's not

the right thing to do. I think the right thing to do is for the leaders of the Western world to

actually encourage him to stop doing that and think about an exit strategy with, which involves

obviously peace, which he doesn't really, even though he claims himself to be the one, but he's

actually isn't. He's just an aggressor so far. So NATO has to learn to, well, they have tried to

somehow stand for the last two challenges, which was Ukraine and Greenland, but they have to do

exactly the same thing in this one. I mean, I think the standard NATO towards Ukraine was probably

the best and also the Greenland. They were firm on that. And I think that this is the only thing

you can do with the types of bully. I mean, he's only, I mean, I've heard that there was a gentleman

from US that called, and they're the previous one. All of these people, I mean, then the last

call invented a new terminology because Iranian sheer imperialism. We really need to stop doing that.

And, and, well, it's quite accurate, isn't it? I've never ever heard of that.

Well, I've never, I've never heard of the phrase before, but when you, when you look at the Iranian

influence on Lebanon and Yemen, I think it's perfectly reasonable description.

You think, so you think that the Iranian sheer imperialism is a, we need to use that terminology.

I don't see anything wrong with it. Iran is not an empire. This is not an empire. I mean,

okay, you can, people use these. Well, it's a country that wants to basically annihilate Israel.

So, I mean, I suppose that's the opposite of an empire. Now, in, in high, in 98, it is actually

Iran, and the one who, the one who is doing it is, is Israel. They're, they're buying schools,

they're buying pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies, power stations, water saline, who is in

98 to the other one. It's obviously, it's, well, Iran has been funding Israeli annihilation

for the last 30 years. Well, but in reality, a lot of it is actually rhetorical, and this is what

it's not. You haven't seen all of the missiles that have been going from Iran into Israel for,

for decades. But have you not seen the missiles and have you not even checked what's happening

in southern Lebanon? Of course I have. Don't insult my intelligence. Pardon?

I said, have you ever mentioned southern Lebanon, and what's happening in south Lebanon?

Yes, we've talked about it quite often over the last few weeks.

Yes. So, if you, if you look at that, just, just, just watch what idea is doing to the

people. I'm not, I'm not defending. Who is talking about great Israel? Who is, where was the

loudspeaker? Well, people like you. Who is the one who is pursuing the Israel? Do you deny that

Iran has been funding terrorism, not just in the Middle East, but sort of far beyond that over

the last 30 years? I think that what happening, what is Iran has been doing is just trying to stop

Israel attacking, attacking their country and to divide the country into the multiple ones.

That's what they're putting. Israel had never attacked Iran until over many, many years,

Iranian-funded terrorists were attacking Israel and killing Israelis. That's what provoked

Israel to respond. Musad agents have been very active in, you know, in meddling with Iran. You

forgot that the majority of the West was with Saddam Hussein during the eight-year war. This is

not a new thing here, and you know that. And there is no such a thing as Iranian-mishia imperialism,

I can assure you. But, you're wrong. You're absolutely wrong. Well, I think you are wrong,

actually. Okay, but we can agree. We're both wrong, man. Just all you need to do is to have few

processes of the Middle East and, you know, I'll tell you what, I talked to Iranians all the time

on this program, and without exception over the last month, without exception, they want to see

the end of the Iranian regime. Why would that be? Well, because there are particular people,

there are the people who are not happy, and this is why they ended up in the West. All you need to

is 90 million people live in Iran. Some of them are happy. Some of them are not happy. There are the

other ones who will do all they can, and even their lives to keep the regime. Do you not realize that?

Do you not realize that? I'm sure there are some, but you think they're the majority, do you?

I think actually there are the majority. Absolutely, delusional. I think there are the majority,

so you think the majority of people are happy to keep a regime that just murdered 40,000 of

their own citizens because they had the temerity to protest. The majority of people are happy to

keep the regime then to allow Israel to divide their country. Why are so many people cheering Israel

on that? Iran would not like to be bullied, you know, by Western or Israel or their alliances,

and there will probably most of them. There are people, obviously, there are people who live in

the UK or the West who have been never visited Iran for 40 years. Many of them have come,

many of them have flown Iran because of the regime because they feared for their lives.

I agree. I agree with that, but these are not the majority. They are the sort of the small

dissident groups that are not. No, they're not small dissident groups. There's thousands of them.

Well, the most of them are unfortunate. As I said, not happy. That's why they left and we give

them asylum in the UK. We give them asylum in Canada. They we give them asylum in the US.

And that's how they, but look at some of their protests that they mostly, they also have some

abhorrent fascist ideals. Don't they? No, they don't. I actually just, I actually passed in

Whitehall coming to the studio this afternoon. I passed two protests. There was one opposite

Downing Street where they were chanting obscenities and looked very aggressive. And this was all the

sort of free Palestine lot. And then further up Whitehall, there was an admittedly smaller protest

which looked incredibly peaceful and well organized for freeing Iran.

And why I feel in you slightly biased. And you aren't biased at all. I think you've

demonstrated in this call you're incredibly biased. I am not biased because I think you need to

really study these groups a lot better. Most don't patronize me. No, they're not. Well,

clearly, you don't understand the meaning of the word fascism then. Well, in that case,

you also understand the meaning of the imperial Iranian. I understand that term perfect.

I'd never heard it before today, but I understand exactly what the caller was talking about.

You obviously feel that you know more about the Middle East and for example, I do.

I haven't said that at all. I just disagree. I disagree fundamentally with virtually everything

that you said. No, no, no, you disagree with me, but you are also saying that you know more than I do.

I didn't say that. You're putting words into my mouth, which I didn't say.

Well, I didn't try to do that anyway, but I just felt that you've, you, you, you see yourself

somebody more, no, I tell you what, I see my, I see myself as somebody who stands fundamentally

against the kind of fascism as you call it of the Iranian regime. I talk to university professors

all the time on the show, which you well know if you listen. We'll leave it there. Thank you,

Habib. It's 740 Ian Dale on LBC.

750 just to remind you that we have cross-question at eight o'clock. So in just 10 minutes time,

we have Michelle Donnellan, the former Conservative Cabinet Minister with us.

Will Forster, Liberal Democrat MP for working. So he Williams, columnist for the Guardian,

and I'll be Amon Cohen, a political commentator. So the lines are open for your calls. I'm,

I'm not sure there's any lines left actually at the moment. So if you call now, you won't get through,

but if you leave it a couple of minutes, we'll take a couple of calls more on the future of NATO.

And we'll then hear from you on cross-question. Alison says absolutely with you 100% Ian,

as a veteran, it makes me really angry. Starma is our prime minister. No one deserves it.

She means the abuse from Trump. Maybe the King should point out all the times we have helped the USA.

Let's go to Dan, his first time call in Ramsgate. Hello, Dan.

Hi Ian. So is NATO, is it the end of NATO? I think a couple of points I think under a Trump

government. NATO is severely weakened obviously. I think he treats is NATO allies quite badly.

The whole Greenland fiasco and threats to annex Greenland, threats to annex Canada.

So I can see why a lot of countries in that sort of NATO allies, natural allies are not wanting to

get involved in the war. Also, legality wise, you know, is it, are there human rights,

violations being committed by, by Israel and America? There's probably some compelling arguments.

But I wanted to, my main point really for calling is I think the EU and other sort of NATO

allies should be looking to. And he's gone. I was waiting for him to get out the sentence,

but he's gone. So let's go to Raphael in Slough. Hello, Raphael.

Hello, Ian. How are you? I'm all right. Thank you. What would you like to say?

First I'm calling Ian. I do agree with a previous caller in that Trump is, it's got four years,

it's term will be finished. And so what we shouldn't look at NATO as just because Trump is trying to

penalize and suppress all the other allies. So we should look at it in the sense that he's got four

years, after four years, it's got to be a new American president with a new thinking and strengthen

NATO again. Well, I suppose it depends on who it is, doesn't it? Because if there's essentially a

Trump disciple like JD Vance that takes over in 2029, I mean Marco Rubio, I think he's drunk

with Trump Kool-Aid a bit because he's had to. I suspect if he became president, things would

revert to some degree of normality. But you can't rely on that, can you? Well, I'd like to

differ with you on that because I think both Marco Rubio and Vance have to follow suit and

100% loyal towards Trump's objectives are. But deep down, and if you have a look at their history,

they're really into one with Europe and into supporting the European countries, especially

Vance. Vance is very well-known for spending a lot of his time in Europe and actually

strengthening Europe. Well, he's right. He does spend a lot of time here, but I wonder why he

doesn't really understand European countries better if he spends so much time here? Well, to be fair,

Vance is very quiet about the whole invasion into Iran. So we don't really know. I guess he can't

come out and sort of disagree with Trump, especially now. Well, no, although the fact is, if you

think about it, we haven't heard a lot from JD Vance over the last month, have we? I mean,

normally he's in front of the TV cameras all the time. I don't recall a single interview that I've

seen and given support of this war. You're right. And I think that speaks volumes. I think that

really he is holding back to see how everything pans out. At the moment,

majority of Americans don't support the war. And he's trying to position himself to be the future

closer. Well, you may be right on that. It is a very interesting position. Maybe we'll talk about that

on another evening. Rafael, thank you. Omar is in Birmingham. Hello, Omar.

Hi, you're now. Are you good? Thank you. What would you like to say? Yeah, I think

NATO are the countries that make it up the majority while the European countries are ultimately

acting within their interests. I think it's important to know that last year in the midst of the

last four, Netanyahu said explicitly, he said, hit the ideal for Iran as the Libyan model.

Now, why would someone say something like that when after the Libyan people, it was that the

Libyan model was most disastrous for European nations. It started the refugee crisis,

just a nation of four million, the slave markets opened, drugs running and weapons running.

And then at the same time, in the West Bank, a settler at Markridge, they asked them about the

refugees from this war and his reply was that Europe is going to take them. And this is something

which was which they've been talking about openly. So I think that NATO and Europe in general,

they understand that ultimately they are going to bear the brunt of this war.

While at the same time, the US and Israel are going to benefit from it in whether it's in terms

of weapons sales or imperialistic ambitions. Even in the last hour, Netanyahu had a, he's,

I don't know if it's finished now, but he had a live conference in Jerusalem.

And he said that this war is for our future and that the aim is to make them a regional or

global power. So I think the people in Europe, the politicians, they understand very well that

they're going to be boarded with a country, a land border of dysfunctional nations. So Iran,

Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, these are all adjacent to each other. And if you think about a refugee crisis

with 90 million people, that's just if just Iran and if they decide to, if the war spreads

regionally and causes dysfunctionality in Saudi Arabia and all the other neighboring states,

I don't think Turkey like in the last refugee crisis is going to be willing to host so many,

so many displaced people. And even in terms of energy, Europe is going to be the one that

is going to lose out the most. Donald Trump has made it very clear. They don't need the oil,

they don't need the energy. So I think he's ultimately holding NATO around them to do as they're

told while at the same time planning to its themes. Now he has an excuse to pull out, leave Europe

with the mess. And we also know from himself and from the rest of his cabinet and administration,

they're not very keen on the war in Ukraine either. So they would essentially leave NATO with

two fronts. Donald Trump can say we've done the best, so we've done our most. We're not the ones

that are going to benefit. It's not the Europe, it's the true. And also something else is...

No, Omar, we've reached the end of the hour, I'm afraid. Apologies, because I always like hearing

your calls. Thank you very much indeed for this one. Finally, our first ever YouTube comment,

from the LBC YouTube channel. I'm going to read this one out from Comrie. The US is not the

entirety of NATO. NATO existed before the US entered it. No, it didn't. Just like the EU existed

before the UK and the EU didn't collapse upon our leaving. That is true, but America is the dominant

party in NATO. I'm not sure the analogy works there. Right, coming up on cross-question,

we will be joined by former Conservative Cabinet Minister Michelle Donnellan. Will Forster,

Liberal Democrat MP for woking, Zoe Williams, columnist for the Guardian, and Albert Amincona,

political commentator and the vice chair of the LGBT Conservative campaign group.

They're here to answer your questions, so the board has been cleared. O345-6060-973,

if you want to put a question, you can WhatsApp on that number, you can text 84850,

and of course you can watch us on the LBC app, global player and the LBC YouTube channel.

This is LBC, from global, leading Britain's conversation, cross-question, with Ian Dale.

Hello, a very good evening. It's three minutes past eight on LBC. Welcome to Tuesday's cross-question.

Joining me on the panel today, we have to my left. We have Michelle Donnellan, former

Conservative Cabinet Minister. She is a late entry, as they say, and thank you so much for stepping

into the breach. Our previous book guests had to drop out through illness. Next to her is Will Forster,

Liberal Democrat MP for woking, making his debut on the programme, so we'd be very kind to you

on your first programme, Will. To my right, Zoe Williams, who's come in penitent mood, haven't you,

Zoe? Why would that be? I feel terrible because I got the wrong week the last time I was meant to be in,

and the first I knew of that was when I heard you on the radio saying, I wonder where she is.

We forgive you. And next to Zoe is LB Ammon Cone, a political commentator and vice chair of the

LGBT Conservative campaign group. Right, O345-6060-973, if you would like to put a question to the panel,

you can WhatsApp on that number, you can text 848-5-0, and of course you can watch on Global Player,

the LBC app, and the LBC YouTube channel. Not only can you watch on the YouTube channel now,

we're going to take questions, so if you're watching live on YouTube and you want to put a question

to the panel, just put it in the comments, and Corey Orchus will, if it's a good question,

we'll give it to me and we'll read it out to our panel. That's called engagement, Zoe.

You sound so impressed by your own technological exploration. I'm always terribly impressed when we

do something for the first time. Right, let's continue with your questions.

Call O345-6060-973, text 848-5-0, cross-question, watch live on our free Global Player app, or the LBC app.

All right, let's go to Scott in West Hamstered. Hi, Scott. Hi, Ian, good evening, panel.

Hi. Has Donald Trump completely lost the plot with his grossly offensive comments

about the UK and our European neighbours, and how should Sir Keir Starmer, and indeed the King,

respond to this barrage of criticism? It's always a great question,

rather than a very good Scottish accent, I think. Sorry, let's not with you.

Well, it begs the question, what's the King going to do when he goes over there?

Because there is absolutely no sign that Donald Trump has got to rein it in in his remarks

about Starmer or Europe, or indeed the King himself. You never know what he's going to say.

A lot of people are saying, you know, he's been to far more dictatorial regimes, and the past

he has to go see Charles Tuskew, but all of those regimes that he went to, they were sane.

They didn't just come out with any old thing. They reigned it in for the purpose, for the duration

of the diplomatic visit. If he's walking into that kind of nest of vipers, not knowing whether

Donald Trump is going to lay Keir Starmer or praise him, not knowing whether he's going to declare

war on Denmark or declare peace, it puts him in a situation which nothing in his diplomatic

portfolio will have prepared him for. In terms of whether he's jumping a shark,

it's impossible to tell, and I think a waste of headroom to try and figure out whether he

means it, whether he's crazy, whether he's playing everyone, whether he's just trying to set us

all a tumble so that we don't talk about anything else. It's impossible to tell, and really all

European leaders have to find a way through that isn't constantly trying to do Trumpology, because

it's a waste of a decent adult's headspace. Oh, should we move on then? Michelle Dunlund.

So I think Trump now is beginning to sound like a passionate child in the playground

across with somebody that is trying to hold the rest of the world's economy to ransom,

and that's becoming very apparent. But to the listeners' question about what should

Keir Starmer actually do, I think the worst thing he could do would be to not engage. I think it

is the right move that the king is still proceeding and is going to the United States, because we do

need to maintain that relationship, and the special relationship is bigger than just one person.

Trump is the president at the moment, it's very strained, but he's not going to be the president

forever. And so we do need to have a long-term view on this, despite the rhetoric that is coming out.

But I also think it's anybody really surprised. This is all very usual for Trump

to keep flip-flopping on things, changing his opinion, to also use bravado and to try and

push people to act in the way he wants them to act. So to a certain extent, it's losing its impact

because people just expect it. It was interesting today, and I don't know whether this

is cock-up or conspiracy, but Trump's post about Britain, or his insulting post to Britain today,

was posted literally within minutes of the official announcement of the king going to America.

Now I'd like to think that was cock-up, but I can't say I'm 100% sure.

Yeah, I noted that too. It was a bit unusual for the two to collide in such an awkward way.

But I think you're right. I think it probably was cock-up rather than, yeah.

Will Foster. I think Scott's criticism of Donald Trump's completely right. This man seems

like he's on another planet. He's incredibly insulting about British, but whole NATO forces,

whether that's with our commitment to it in Afghanistan, saying that we just weren't there.

He's called the Royal Navy ships Toys. He's been incredibly insulting, and I think

Keir Starman needs to grow a backbone and cancel the state visit.

They keep late now. They're just announced it.

Well, we've said that the Liberal Democrats said that the visit

shouldn't have gone ahead for some time. I think it should be cancelled, even though it's just been

announced. Well, we said it shouldn't have gone ahead. You still think it should be cancelled now?

Yes, it shouldn't be. Donald Trump respects bullies. He respects tough men. He is a bully himself.

We need to show that strength, and I haven't seen any strength from Keir Starman on the foreign

policy stage since he took to office. This state visit is meant to be about the 250th

anniversary of American independence. That's in July. Why is the visit happening now?

Donald Trump is going to try to use the King, use the state visit for his own political

agendas, and I don't think we should allow that.

I'll be. Donald Trump being very bonkers and very

batty is not a new thing. The question is, is what have British politicians done about it since

we've actually realised how crazy he is? And the answer is not very much.

Keir Starman has made announcements about increasing defence spending, but actually in the financial

statements that we've heard so far, it's not clear how we're going to meet those new targets

that have been set. I don't actually think the targets that have been set for near the end of

the decade are really anywhere near high enough. We look at what's going on in the Baltic states.

We look at what's going on in Poland. I think they're taking this issue a lot more seriously.

Across Europe, we need to be a lot more serious about being independent from the United

States of America just in case they elect someone else just as crazy as Donald Trump. And I don't

really see the right level of serious, seriousness when it comes to approaching those issues,

whether or not they're security issues to do with defence spending, economic issues to becoming

more economically independent of the US. I don't see you're grappling those issues at all.

Still do you see your own party leader grappling with those issues?

No. I don't think Kevin Vadenock is doing it anywhere near a good enough job. I don't think

Nigel Farage is doing anywhere near a good enough job. I don't think the right

has really struck the right tone here. And we need to be doing better. It's not a right or left

issue. We need to be a lot more independent in our thinking in the UK. And that might actually

mean, look, I'm a Brexit hero, I support a Brexit. I don't think we should go back into the European

Union. But it might mean more cooperation when it comes to military, among the European

military powers of France and the UK. We know Germany is rearming. And also these in European

states that are taking this military threat very seriously. And Albe, you're right. A lot of

Europe has stepped up to the plate and started to invest in their defence. I think we need to

follow that as well. So I do think we do need more European cooperation. You've been very

critical of your leadership, which I think that's really really good of you. Surely this is an

issue where we need cross-party consensus to genuine. What is a Lib Dems position on defence

spending? Well, what I've just been saying, we need to increase our defence spending. But actually

some of this, the world has changed radically. Do you think we need that cross-party consensus? Do

you think all the political parties can come together to work out on a plan where we do

increased defence spending? I think that's not really how things work. Because everybody

will agree and say, yeah, we need more money in defence. And if you don't, you'd be bonkers quite

frankly, looking at how volatile the world is. The question is where you get that money from,

and that's where the differences will be. So therefore, cross-party negotiations on this would

break down quite quickly. Don't you think parties would want to put their partners and blinders

behind them? Where are you going to get the money from? Well, we've suggested how we would

increase our defence spending a fair bit, not to the full 3%. And that's why I think we need that

cross-party consensus. The Liberal Democrats with Ed Davey has talked about cross-party consensus

to invest in social care. Surely we need the same level of protection. Just like such

and live damn thing to say. Let me tell cross-party consensus. Hold hands and come up with

the defence policy. There was a similar thing when it came to Brexit and the remainers who didn't

want to leave the European Union and thought they could all come up with some plan to stay in.

It didn't work. That is not how our parliamentary system works. It's a lot more adversarial,

and actually what I would like to see are a lot more serious plans, especially coming from

the left of British politics. The toys and reform have been very clear about how they would

get the money for defence spending. They were cut. Where is with Labour and the Greens?

No, come on. That's actually very unfair. What you're doing is conflating Labour and the Greens

and they've never been further apart and you're calling Labour the left and they've never been

less left. The Greens are really clear. I wish they'd been more right. Yes, they're not sure.

No, it's definitely true. They're not recognisable as a left-wing party. They might not be a

competent right-wing party, but they're not recognisable as a left-wing party. That's not the

point. Anyway, the Greens are really clear on this. They would get the money from

the nuclear disarmament, because at the moment you've got a disproportionate amount going into

weapons. We're a great time to get rid of any of the weapons. Well, I know, but Ian, you say that,

but actually no democracy would ever use a nuclear weapon, because nobody wants to incinerate

their children. But we're not fighting against democracy, we're fighting against Russia in Iraq.

Well, yeah, but you know, they're fighting against us too, though, aren't they? So, exactly.

Which is why we need to have strong, ambitious. This is not an argument about nuclear disarmament,

although I'm happy to have that argument. I'm having, well, no, you asked me what the Greens

would do about in military spending, and the way to spend more on the military, land armies,

navies, they hate nuclear weapons. And I'll tell you why. It's because once you spend it on

Trident, you haven't got any more money left. And that's what's going on. And that's what,

you know, the Greens, even though most of them are pacifists, have a much more realistic plan

for boosted military spending than any of the rest of you who are all like, well, I'm going to take

it from social care. Well, I'm going to take it from benefits. That's not going to touch the sides.

Have you become a Green? No, I haven't. No, I'm still. Do you do?

Do you do? Do you live in good impression or what? I'm still an anarchist in the class.

How many times? No, not really.

Right. We've got another question to come on similar theme, so we'll wait until after the break for that.

We're very amused by Gordon's text who says, Ian, why are the LGBTQ communities so aggressive?

I think that's a little dig at you, I'll be.

But I think he thinks, I think he thinks I should think so. In the LGBTQ community,

and then he's rolled us in for one. I don't think it's your fault.

Wow. I think it's a common reason. I think the aggressive one needs me.

What, what, what, what are you finding this program? What are you finding on this program?

It's everybody's fault because somebody somewhere on a WhatsApp or text will find fault

with all of you and in particular me.

Right. We have a question from Martin here.

Trump hates European democracies and our system in Britain. He doesn't understand democracy.

He's accusing us of not supporting the US in the war against Iran and holding this against us

so that when Russia extends its war against Europe, he won't feel committed to reciprocating

and supporting us and will remind us you didn't support us in the war against Iran.

So we won't come running to your assistance in the war against Russia.

Does the panel think Trump and Putin want to see the breakup of the EU

and share the spoils between them? Will Forster?

I've always been very, very critical of Donald Trump so far.

I also think this government is not staying up to him. He does respect strength.

And I do find it terrifying that he's so pally with President Putin.

Almost this time last year I was in Ukraine seeing the devastating impact of that war.

The fact that when he met when Trump meant Putin, he didn't raise Ukraine at all in the last

visit. He wasn't talking about the 20,000 kidnap children. It's absolutely heartbreaking and

heartless. Our government needs to grow a backbone and stand up to him properly.

Do you think that Putin wants to see the breakup of the EU?

Which I think Putin wants to see the breakup of NATO and the EU.

And I worry both Putin and Trump want to tear up the world order that has actually made

this world and this country relatively prosperous and safe.

The last couple of years has been so dangerous. We've got more wars, more conflict than

any time since 1945. That's not a time to break down the established world order, the rule of law.

Michelle, do you think that, I mean, to take the questions point here, if we did come under attack

from Russia, do you think that if we asked NATO to invoke Article 5, do you think Trump would say,

well, no, I'm not going to do that. No, I think a lot of this is Bavardo and words and he's

throwing his toys out the pram now because he expected that he was going to launch this war

and everybody would follow and they haven't done and his polling are declining in the US.

He's seen the effect it's having on the global economy and the pressure domestically as well

and he's getting agitated and hoping that he can persuade people to follow him and change course.

So, of course, if something dramatic as you've outlined happened, of course, he would be on board.

And I think some of this is interesting. I don't think that's necessarily true.

I think Trump has many things but he's also quite strategic when he wants to be and he understands

the risk that that would pose to the United States as well and he might not

jump for joy at the prospect of supporting people but he would see what's in it for the US

because that's always what he wants to make. So, what is, I mean, for example,

Will's colleague Mike Malton, the MP for Tumbridge Wells, he has said that he thinks that what

might happen is if Russia, say, invaded one of the Baltic states and British troops are

based in Estonia, say that happens, it could happen and Kirstalmer says, rings up Donald Trump

and says, right, Article 5 needs to be invoked and Donald Trump says, but why and because Russia

has invaded Estonia, where's Estonia? Why would I be interested in Estonia? I mean, you can see

this could happen. Well, and it could change his mind 40 times before for the morning. And as we've

seen happen over the last few weeks on various things, right, the way through from Greenland,

I think it is plausible but I think that he would eventually recognize that actually the US

is a very integral as he has made and labored part of NATO. And as he said himself, without the US,

NATO is a very different entity, if any entity at all. So, he would have to come in and support

but there'd be a quid pro pro. Everything that Trump does is about what's in it for Trump,

what's in it for America. So, I'm not saying that he would come to our aid without an ask,

but I think that there would be some realism and some recognition that he can't just leave us to it.

So, well, Britain could become America's 51st state on that basis. He says, well, that's my

dear, well, rescue you, but you need to instead of Greenland will go for you. I'm sure you'd probably

start high and we'd have to bring him down. I'll be. Well, if that meant American levels of economic

growth, there might be someone the right who might be quite happy about that or American energy

prices, for example, but I don't want the UK to become the 51st state of the United States of America,

although I wish our economy looked more like the American economy than the German economy,

for example. But on the point about whether or not I think that Putin and Trump want to see

the EU deteriorate, which I think was a question, I've no doubt that Putin wants to see the West

less strong. And if the EU broke up for whatever reason, I might evade it for Brexit. I don't want

the end of the EU. That would be probably in Russia's favour. Do I think that Donald Trump wants the

EU to break up? No, I don't. And I worry about like for like comparisons between Donald Trump and

Vladimir Putin. I don't particularly like Donald Trump. I like Putin even less, but they're not really

comparable when it comes to world leaders and what they're doing. And I think we need to be careful

when we're making like for like comparisons like that. Sorry. I don't know why we're being so

tactful about this. I mean, it's obvious that Putin wants to want to seek the end of the EU. It's

obvious that he's in direct opposition to NATO. It's obvious that he seeks the end of that power

block. We saw it in the Russian support for Brexit, in both the dark Russian support and the

open Russian support for the Brexit campaign, that his interests are in breaking up that regulatory

environment. And that is because the weaker it is, the less it can resist what is plainly a

land war of a question, such as none of us were expecting. It's very, the EU has never been weaker

and every time Russia acts in this way, every time it acts and it is not banquished, the EU gets

weaker still. It just does. Now that's so that's Putin. The thing with Donald Trump is we're all

doing that Trumpology thing again. We were like, oh, one minute he says this, the next minute he

says that, but actually if you follow the through line, since he became president, they are, you

saw the Munich Security Conference and this wasn't Trump, but this was France and the other members

of the administration basically haranging the all European nations, haranging us about our immigration

policy, haranging us about our civilization, haranging us about our freedom of speech. This is

all right when playbook to try and destabilize normal social democratic governments and with a

long game I would argue destabilizing large block regulatory environments that do things like

subdued tech billionaires and subdued fossil fuel and some of our commenters on YouTube are

watching on YouTube. They agree with you. Well, Marker says, nothing would please Putin more than

the breakup of the EU. Kevin agrees, saying Nigel Farage, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump all want

to dismantle it. It's all part of the Brexit plan. I thought there was never a Brexit plan. I thought

that was part of the problem. Well, there was a Brexit plan. It's just not all of you guys were told

what it was. I don't think so. Anyway, that's another discussion. And Steve says, I'll take a bet that

Ian Dale liked lizard truss. Now, his truss screwed world view. Well, you'd lose your money then,

Steve. You have to say because even before she became Prime Minister and certainly while she was

Prime Minister, I did nothing but criticise her. Not just a world view as well. Right. Another

question from this is from Barry. Is it? No, sorry. No, that wasn't the one I thought we were going

to. It must have been deleted. Anyway, Barry says, is it time to ban doctors from striking?

As we'll be discussing after 9 o'clock this evening, so Keir Starmer has told the British Medical

Association that it needs to come to an agreement on resident doctors paid by tomorrow night

or see the current offer with Jordan. Well, not just that. He's saying that he'll abolish

four and a half thousand training posts for doctors, which Zoe, it's brinkmanship, which I

wouldn't have necessarily expected from someone like Keir Starmer. I wouldn't have expected it.

I don't know. I wonder whether he's thinking. He's finally found the people he thinks he can go

toe to toe with because he thinks I would recognise a load of doctors. I bet they're similar to me

and they're also quite, quite kind of spotty. They're not going to spotty. What's that mean?

Well, it kind of means a bit, a bit, a bit, a bit swatty. Okay. You know, because it's,

it's, it's, it's, it's kind of ridiculous. And I don't think it's going to work. I don't think

it's going to stop them doing, going on the path they're going. Fundamentally, the principle of

withdrawing your labour, if you don't get your terms met, is that you, I don't think you can say,

no, I don't think you can ban any segment of society from doing it. Well, we can and we have.

I mean, 20 degrees. Okay. You actually, you actually can. But I don't think you, I think you,

I don't think you should because it's certainly, you know, generally speaking, doctors figure it

out. They, they don't leave emergency care posts unfilled. They, they're grown-ups. But the

principle of, of, of being able to withdraw your labour, if you're, if you feel like your terms

and conditions are being eroded, I think is the correct one because we, you know, we've seen

across every single public sector job and across quite a few private sector jobs that if you don't

use those, that power that you have, your terms and conditions do go down all the time.

I'll be. I think the doctors are taking the mic now to be honest. I want to say something a

lot stronger than that, but I won't. They, they, they have received essentially the pay rise that they

wanted before or a number very close to it. And now they're going on strike again because of

cost of living pressures. Well, everyone's facing cost of living pressures. I also know that,

that MP's got a 5% pay rise as well. I don't, I don't agree with that. I live by the 20%,

3%. I don't think I don't think. I don't think. I don't think. But it's not. It's the extra money

that they've got. Well, of course, are you getting paid next year? Join me to come in. So it is a

three and a half percent, which is set not by MP's, but set by Ipsa. Do you think you should be

having above inflation pay rise? I want to vote on lots of things to represent woking. What, one of

the only things I don't want to vote on is my own pay. We saw in the expensive scandal when MPs

started to vote on their pay set their own pay. It was an absolute disaster. So I don't spend

any time thinking about it. I don't, look, you're derailing it. The fact is they're not striking

about cost of living pressures. They're striking about, but the cost of living pressures created by

the way their debt is structured, which is really absurd. You know, there is no other debt in the

country where you could take it one under one kind of term and then it be changed. So you're talking

about, you're talking about student loans now. I'm on a plan two, student loan. I can't just go

on strike and they're not and they're not paying my student loan off every month. I mean, it's a lot

of money. I understand why these junior doctors who are the same age as me, who are the same

age as we are annoyed because I do think we have been, we're being used as cash cows to pay

for the triple lock on pensions. If they pay for people on welfare, I get that, but lots of people

are feeling that way. And I think for the junior doctors to continue to go on strike as if they're

the only people who feel the way that they do, I don't think it's exactly okay. Okay, we should,

Michelle, no, sorry, we're showing close to the news. Yeah, but it isn't just because of the

loans, you know, the union have come out and said because of the Iran war and the cost of living

that actually we need, we need a higher package. Well, everybody is facing that. And

do our doctors do an incredible job? Absolutely. Do they have a huge responsibility

and work in say-in-hours? Yes. But let's look at what they've actually been given. So a resident

doctor, the top end of a junior doctor is going to be on 100,000 pounds. A junior doctor starting

out is 52,000 pounds. That's up 12,000 pounds in the last three years. And we're talking about

striking at a time that is around the Easter break. There's already shortages in staff.

That the head of the NHS was on TV today saying that he's very worried about shortages of

equipment too because of the Iran war. So what NHS is being asked to take a heck of a lot of hits

and who's going to suffer the British public because they won't get the right adequate care.

And if it means that, you know, somebody's mother or grandmother or what is going to be put in a

precarious position, if that's not okay, is it? We're talking about people's lives at the end of

the day. They're at risk because of this connectivity. So similar to Michelle, we've got to say

be thankful for the doctors, particularly what they did over the pandemic, but it's really

irresponsible for the BMA to call a strike based on not getting a... I'm calling the consultants

out on strike as well. Because it's 26% increase they've asked for because they've not got that.

They've got on a mate. They had a very good offer. They're going to go out on strike. That's

so irresponsible. But it is shocking, as you highlighted earlier, that the Labour Government

are saying, well, we'll cancel training places as a punishment. We've got two sides taking

extreme positions. People need to get around the table so we can get the NHS back into a decent

state. It's been in a mess. I'm afraid where Michelle, I agree, because of Conservative

mismanagement. I don't think Labour and the BMA chest beatings is going to help rescue it either.

But on that canceling of the pace, I think Keir Starmer has got himself into a right old pickle

because how is he really going to actually pull those places? I mean, he's not actually damaging

the doctors. He's damaging the offer to the British public as well. And I think that that is a

is a card he shouldn't have tried to pull. Right, more questions to our panel in just a moment on

LBC. Cross question with Ian Dail on LBC. 834, with us on the panel, Michelle Donlon, former

Conservative Cabinet Minister, Will Forster, Liberal Democrat MP for woking, sorry Williams,

colonists for the Guardian and Albi Aminco in a political commentator and vice chair of the

LGBT Conservative campaign group. Now, what's that question from Keir and Inel's Court? Yesterday

was the first day in British history when the amount paid out in welfare exceeded what was

brought in through income tax, as quoted on call Kemi last night. It's Britain addicted to benefits.

That's not quite right. I think it's the first time, it's not a particular day where this happens,

but it isn't out true that on an annualised basis we're spending more on welfare benefits than

we get through income tax. Well, I think the question is quite right. So welfare spending is

at a record high. I think we need to acknowledge that the majority of that is on pensioners,

which is a problem. I think we just need to put that in context that the majority of welfare

spending is on pensioners, but we do have an increase in youth unemployment. I see this

in my constituency of woking, but I talk to so many businesses who wanted to expand, wanted

to grow our economy to lower that welfare bill, but because of national insurance increases,

because of sort of Trump inflation, the unpredictable world that we're in, they're not growing.

And I think the government has been given a really bad hand by events, by the Conservative

government, but they have made awful decisions on national insurance contributions and other things

that as men, our economy isn't growing the way it should. We're not having young people taking

up new jobs, and then it goes back to the question, our welfare bill was too high. So I forgot how

I forgot how anti-the national insurance crisis the Lib Dems were. So they're crazy. Super anti-dem.

Anyway, I'm really sorry, Kevin and I was caught, but this is a dumb question. You basically

have an age in population, and that drives up the pension bill. You have a completely rigid

pension policy, which I don't agree with. And every time that there's somebody on pensions,

they're not earning and paying an income tax. So all we're looking at is a rebalancing

demographically of the British public, so that more people are not working than working.

And it isn't about, I'm sick of people demonizing disabled people and people who can't find work

and young people who nobody will take a chance on. I'm sick of them being demonized. It's ridiculous.

But it isn't really about, but it isn't about demonizing those people, it's about calling

the ones that aren't actually working. But every single conversation we have about benefits

is about the people who aren't working, who should be working, and every single person who relies

on benefits to live feels that as a chill to their bones that they're being tainted with that brush.

It's just not true. It's actually really hard to get disability benefits in this country,

and they aren't an army of people who are on them who don't deserve them. There are just a lot

of people living really difficult lives and we should be a lot more compassionate towards them.

I don't think that we shouldn't, I think we should be compassionate to those who genuinely

need the support. That's the whole premise of how government should work, protect the vulnerable.

But it has gone the other way now and we do have people that are taking benefits that

should be out there working, contributing, adding to the economy, and equally some of them in

that pocket of people are put there by this government because they are removing any sense of

aspiration that our nation never had. If you look at all the initiatives that they have introduced

which doesn't make work pay, so like, for example, they've gone after dividends now,

they've also gone after if you want to transfer money into your pension, they've not increased

the tax thresholds, and my government did neither, and I tried to argue that it should have done

as well because we should be making work pay at the end of the day. I don't think increasing

the tax breaks on pensions is going to improve work prospects for young people, not in employment

education. That's not what that is. But the reason why this is going to do is privilege old people,

even more than they are privileged already. But it's quite simple why.

It's quite simple as to why young people are not getting jobs. It's because this government

have made it too unavoidable for employers to actually hire young people anymore with the changes

like in national insurance. That's actually not simple. There's a huge amount of reasons why

young people aren't getting jobs. There are serious encroachments. One of the reasons employers

aren't hiring, so if we just speak about that, is because of the national insurance contributions

that they've got to have increased the cost of employment, and then they're all the new workers'

rights legislation coming in. You all seem very confident about making this identical and quite

minor point. That is not minor point. Have you spoken to businesses? Look at how

hospitality, for instance, used to be a huge employer of young people.

Loads and loads of things have gone in on in hospitality and in employment. You're basically

doing it many times a week. For a lot of reasons, right? People are spending less in restaurants and

bars because they have less. There is a problem with the economy and everybody knows that. But it's

not all about the national insurance payments, and it's not all about the rather small instruments

that have been done by this government. There's a huge amount of stuff going on, which is all

sorry about this, everybody. I've lost my earpiece. Not even though I'm talking, I still need it.

Look, I think there are two issues here. One of the issues is that the welfare bill just keeps

going up. We saw a huge increase in the number of people claiming entitlement related benefits,

particularly after the pandemic. A lot of it happened under the last Conservative government.

I'm sorry, Michelle, but your lot didn't do very much to tackle that either, and we started to see

this. I was going to say that. I was in a government. You were sat around the cabinet table,

and I'm afraid that last Conservative cabinet did not do anything really to tackle the size

of the benefits bill. Cami would say the party's under new management now, and they do everything

differently. But the truth is, I'm not sure whether or not they would be able to, but the point is

the welfare bill went up. That's one issue. The second issue is it wouldn't be such a problem

that the welfare bill went up. All this demographic change that you're talking about, which has led

to some of the increase in entitlement related spending, by the way, if the economy was growing.

And this, to Liz Truss' credit, was an argument that she made correctly. The measure that she took

might have been completely wrong, but the idea that you want to try and increase the amount of

tax revenue that the government takes by promoting economic growth is the right thing to do.

And it's actually what Keir Starmer wanted to do, but he never did it.

But it's so annoying this. Have you ever heard a politician come out and say, I'm against growth?

Well, this government seems to be. Everybody wants growth. The point is that you can't venture

out of thin air. I mean, actually, yeah, they're not, you know, that's actually a relative

newcomer. But you can't conjure growth out of thin air. No serious economist would suggest that

it's in a government's power to create growth. But they would suggest that if you start

cycling business with additional costs and taxes, then it's going to, you guys always say this.

That was the whole premise of Camaroonianism was, you know, we're going to stop choking off private

investment. We're going to stop squashing the private sector. We're going to shrink the public

sector in order to unleash the beast of the private. Doesn't work. What do you think would happen if a

country has a very high tax burden and some of the high hang on, I'm not done. I'm not done.

And had some of the highest energy costs in the industrialised world. What do you think happens

under those circumstances economically? Are you asking me whether I understand why that's a

low growth environment? That's completely separate. So you agree it's a low growth environment?

That's completely separate to my point. It's not what it's my point is that we've not had a

government that has been promoting growth. So you have taken this part of high energy cost,

high taxes, high regulation and ciphering business. Show me a government. Show me a government.

Any Prime Minister, you've had about seven of your guys in recent times. Show me one of them

who has actually created growth. Margaret Thatcher. Okay, he wasn't born then. I wasn't

it's true. I wasn't. I wasn't asking you. I was asking Alvi. He wasn't born in Margaret,

in Margaret Thatcher's era. And, you know, I- It's got a very good bit about it. I have my problem.

I think I know my problems with Thatcher and that model of growth creation, but you cannot show me

a conservative, a programmatic conservative approach that actually does what they say it's

going to do. All it does, generally speaking, is, is, you know, give you a decay and public sector.

And a decay. Do you not agree? I mean, I agree with you. Governments do not create growth,

but they do create the circumstances where growth can happen. Well, okay, then why can't they?

Well, because I don't know, because they've got not the right people in charge most of the time.

I don't think he is that. I don't think there's any point personalising this. I don't think

there are levers that you can just pull. I think the ecosystem is much more complicated than that.

I think ever since the financial crash, they've been battling headwinds that if you can't make a

kind of adult and realistic analysis of them, you're always going to throw weird Liz Trussite

policies at them and they never were. Well, you haven't spoken for a minute.

I'm pleased I started off a good debate on national insurance. Speaking to businesses in my

constituency and beyond, that has been awful for our economy. Liz Trussite's economics, the

Conservative government, was a disaster for our country. But the businesses I speak to, they are,

they're like my parents when they saw my school report. I'm not angry. I'm just disappointed.

Businesses and the public. But the businesses are, they're so disappointed with the government

because they've had good economic rhetoric. Let's grow the economy. But they have taken

damaging steps such as mix increases in two final things. Europe is something I will mention.

That's the conditions for economic growth. If we reduce those trade barriers, I was talking to a

business only last week that Brexit has added trade barriers. It's costing them jobs. They're not

investing as a result. If we can get back into the customs union, that is incredibly important.

But America's got better conditions for growth than Europe does. And if we'd only look across

to our cousins in the US, we might actually be able to create the conditions needed for growth,

a lower regulatory burden, a lower tax burden, and lower energy. And Trump's busy putting up tariffs

that's damaging his economy. And ours, tariffs are still growing faster than Europe.

What do you want next? Tariffs. I mean, which bit of America do you want to emulate? Do you want

to emulate ice deportation rates? Do you want to emulate? We're talking about economics. Why are we

talking about ice? Everything's part of the same ecosystem. If you're looking at a neo-fascist state

and saying, why can't we be more like them for some growth, don't I?

Economic growth was actually very high under Biden as well, by the way. This is a different

psyche that there is in America than there is in Europe. Let's close this debate with some

YouTube comments from the LBC YouTube channel, which many people are watching on at the moment live.

Matthew says, Zoe is talking nonsense. So many vacancies in hospitality and retail and get young

people aren't taking them up. Bally reacts to the debate saying, we need more universal credit.

It's just not enough to pay for everything with the Tory inflation effects.

Oh, I don't think that's really fair on the, well, okay.

Especially as the government at the moment is Labour and they've been in for nearly two years.

They do need to pay for some of the. And if you think inflation's bad at the moment, wait till this

time next year. Right. We'll take more questions in just a few moments.

Cross question with Ian Dale on LBC.

On our panel tonight, Michelle Donald and Will Forster, Zary Williams and Albee Amincona.

John in Luton says, having seen the latest uGov polling, it seems impossible for anybody to get

a, oh no, he's a caller. Sorry, apologies for that. John, I was going to read out your

question. You can do it yourself. Oh, no problem. Ian, you said to call back also. Do you remember

when I said I was putting a big bet on the Greens to win Thornton? Do you remember that?

I called back. You said, phone back if you win and I did win. How much did you win?

I don't want to say. Oh, come on. Come on. You're obviously bragging.

How many seconds? No, seriously. One doesn't know. I only want to say, is it was so blindly

obvious they were going to win and slaughter reform? Because they were a form guy with a disaster.

And it was every, well, come on. Was it four figures? Was it five figures?

Yeah, no, no, no, under the four. Yeah, four. No, I didn't go there.

Okay. Right. What's your question? So my question is, the drinks are on you.

Thank you. The latest uGov polling is very interesting, showing the declining reform party,

as we expected on 23, Greens 19, up one conservative 19, up two,

Labour 18 solid, holding their ground. And of course, Lib Dems down to 12. But I find,

I just want to say, who would you form an alliance with to get to secure a government?

Because I don't believe anyone is going to become a government by themselves.

I hope that no one will, nobody will get better with the reform party or I can't stand.

I lean towards Kenney Biden and also the current prime minister and the Greens,

so basically they're massively supported by the young. I mean, you can't underestimate how many

young people have learned into the Greens. Well, I think you're a man ahead of your time,

because I think this is going to be a dominant, dominant question. Certainly, maybe not next year,

but 28 in the run up to the election, a lot of politicians are going to have to be able to answer

this question and not sure any of them will want to. Well, you're the only serving politician

on the panel tonight. I mean, the Liberal Democrats, shall we say, had an interesting experience

of being in coalition last time. It's something that many Liberal Democrats try to forget.

I never understand why, because they got 75% of their manifesto through and ought to have

shouted from the rooftops about it. But your party is going to be very reluctant, probably,

to go into a coalition. But do you see this debate coming up right at you? Well, John's talking

about the polls for the next election. We're less than two years out from the previous one.

And Liberal Democrats had an amazing election last time. We won seats like mine for the first time

ever, the largest third party in 100 years. I don't think it was our wins that we did well last time,

reform have got obviously more popular since. But we've gone high since two years ago. I think we're

more focused of the current parliament than what could happen. A week is a long time politics.

I remember most people that I speak to in Woking or elsewhere are not living and breathing polls.

The last time my area did vote, the Liberal Democrats won two by elections in my seat.

The Conservatives, which you stalled the seats, didn't even get double digits. I think what we

are seeing is an age of the traditional parties declining, where if the Conservatives can't get

double digits in a sorry area, something's gone wrong. Labour and the Conservatives seem like

they're declining. Liberal Democrats and obviously are calling others to do better. Possibly,

depending on the electorate of arithmetic, you will be courted by possibly both the Labour and

Conservative parties. The electorate before an election, I think it's going to want to know which

way you might jump. And I think it's going to be a very difficult thing for you to say publicly.

John's highlighting at the moment reformer on course to win the next general election,

based on what? Not on the majority. Well, I think for us as Liberal Democrats,

reform should be nowhere near government. That's got to be the key thing for us.

Michelle, this is going to be, I think, a question that Kenny Badenock is going to need to answer

at some point. Would you rather have a reform Conservative coalition or do you want another five

years of Labour? Well, quite. I think the answer to this is quite simple. We have to put the country

first and the national interest and the reality is that we just cannot simply afford another

Labour government. And we're not even halfway through yet. So, good and so to what state,

the country is going to be in at the end of this term. And we cannot allow them to win by default

by the right splitting. So, in my opinion, if that is what is needed, then we should be doing

PACs and I'm working with the reform party to ensure that Starma doesn't get in again,

or by then. I doubt very much that Starma will be at the helm by then. We could have Angela

Rainer leading the charge by then. Sorry. It's interesting. Because actually, you know, you can

dump the table and say reform should be no-one in government, then a lot of their language is

neo-fascist. But then, like, there is, genuinely, in Labour and in the Conservatives,

often an attempt to sound like reform in the moment, just to scoop up some of their popularity.

And I think it's so hollow and cynical, you know, either you mean it and you might as well

be in reform. And I'd say that to Shabbana Mahmoud, as much as I would say, it's coming red

knock, or you don't mean it and you think people are stupid. And so, I don't kind of like a kind

of massive hygienic nobody going to coalition with reform. I think if that's where you are,

that's where you are, although I can see that little devs never would. What I would say is that

we talk, when there's a lot of kind of weird polling like we're getting at the moment, you know,

sometimes the Greens are on 19, sometimes Labour's on 15, it's weird. People's talkers, though,

a coalition is inevitable. But actually, what we're looking at is not a part, is not a political

landscape that's fragmenting. It's a kind of political landscape in which it's a bit like at the

beginning of a trap race in the Olympics and recycling. They're going really, really slowly,

very, very close to each other. And the closer you get to the election, one of them is going to

start going fast. And then the one behind that is going to win. But mathematically, it is possible

for either Labour, the Conservatives, or reform to form a majority government on something like

22% of the vote. Now, democratically, even I, who would want to keep the first pass the

vote. Yeah, you're the only person I know you still like. I would find that quite difficult.

It's really, and it's really, it's, it is bad, you know, it is bad. How many votes that you have,

the Greens have to collect for a single seat and reform, you know, the right. What I find interesting

about this discussion is if you look at the voting intention that John was quoting, it's right to say

we're former on 23%, I think Labour, the Conservatives and the Greens are all in the mid to high teens.

The Lib Dems aren't really part of the conversation. You're like hovering around 10%,

which I find pretty unbelievable for the party that was the main protest voting party to essentially

kind of be absent in these discussions about protest voting. And there are two new parties,

the reform party and the Green Party, who have taken that spot. Now, what would my preference

be for a coalition at the next election? It would be the Toys and Reform. But I've had a lot of

friends in reform. People have made the move from Conservative to reform. I don't think they've

got any interest in, in, in, in pact with the Conservatives at the moment, but it doesn't really

seem like there's anything in for that. But so, I mean, if the Conservatives were the junior party

in the coalition, do you not fear that what happened to the Lib Dems in 2015 could then happen to

the Conservatives in 2034? It could happen, but my honest view about what happened in the next

election is I think there will be a lot of tactical voting against reform. There will be some

Hodgepodge coalition of left-wing parties, Labour, the Lib Dems on the left wing of the Labour,

the Liberal Democrat Party, Pride, Cymruan rails, May the S&P in Scotland, and of course,

the Greens. And there'll be this massive, not get reform in vote, and there'll be another

five years of the left, and then there'll be some sort of accommodation between the Conservatives

and reform after that, just like we saw in Canada. But you're doing that thing again,

you call it kind of a malgumated left, but actually, Labour and the Greens are not the same.

They're like, they're really not the same. But I think they work together to keep reform

out. Well, no, I don't think I'm not sure the Labour. I think Lib Dems are more likely to work

with Greens than Labour are. Was that right? Well, would you say? Well, I've been tacking Labour

most of the evening. The Lib Dems disagree on Labour on so many economic policies in Europe,

but on the Greens, they're on another, they're completely different to us on the defence policy,

the fact that Putin would like their defence policy to be quite horrific. You're quite

similar environment. The Greens don't talk about the environment at all. The latest

Green MP, did she mention it in her maiden speech? I don't believe she mentioned the environmental

ones. She talked about it all the time. So you're saying that you categorically wouldn't support

a coalition with another party? No, I'm not saying that. I think the idea that we're talking

about what could happen in three years just feels a bit ridiculous when we're talking about

issues now. I'm saying very clearly, we need to put the country first. I would therefore support

that. I think the government would be far superior to this government and therefore I support

a pact, whereas your position is that you're just going to sell the fence and not really

indicate either way. So it's quite confusing to understand what you're saying.

Reform shouldn't be anywhere near government. It's not sitting on the fence.

No, you're leaving all the other parties up for grabs.

I don't know what the Greens did spectacularly well and they were sort of 40 seats off being

able to govern on their own and you had 70, 80, 90 seats, whatever. I mean, would they be a potential

partner in a coalition government for the Lib Dems? I think it's potential, lots of options,

but we had the Johns discussion earlier of he's won some money. This is about how would I

spend my lottery winnings if I ever won it, which I don't get away. The voters are going to want

to know. They're going to want to know in which different options there are. What about our policies,

what about our record as MPs? You must have a preference. Our preferences not reform.

Our preferences are not reform. They should be noted in a government.

That's a negative preference. Yeah. Well, I think this country, the last thing we need is

Nigel Falker walking in Sendan. Right. Time for our fun question. After we've read this YouTube

comment out, Mr Lee Kicker, careful how you say that, says, still a way off election time,

lots can happen. He's obviously traveling. Yeah. I was not on my phone. That wasn't me.

Fun question from Lee. With news coming out that climate change has got so bad that by 2040,

we're going to have to look at alternatives to the cotton industry. Four young engineers have

created a company that uses potato starch to make clothes. That got me thinking, what's the weirdest

thing that you'd like to have your clothes made of? Well, Albi, you've got quite a striking suit

on today. What would you like that suit to be made of? Well, this is made from wool. I think the

cotton crisis wouldn't be affecting this particular seat, but in the summer obviously you can't wear wool.

So I really hate wasps. If there was a weird thing that I'd want my clothes to be made from,

it would be the wings of wasps. Oh my god. That's so much. Can I kill them anyway? You'll kill

wasps, spray them with bug spray. I thought you were going to want to get them out of the room.

Clothing for massacres. Yeah, I have to pick a weird thing. Let's pick an animal I hate that it's

acceptable to kill and make clothes out of them. Okay, well now I'm going to sound like a psycho as well,

but actually, I would use the fur of a dog, but it's still a live dog. I would just kill it.

Like a nice one, like a cockapoo or something. It's so soft.

Courage is never coming out of the shell. I'm not sure mine's that weird, but I would use second-hand

sleeping bags for two reasons. One, I'm always, always cold, so it'd be quite practical. And the

second reason is that energy prices are going to soar so much that I would be able to leave the

heating down. Well, I think sort of similar to to our bebed, not in wasps, but a suit that is

cool in the summer that doesn't wrinkle unlike a linen suit. So I think that works. As a vegetarian,

I found those ideas terrifying to be honest with her. I have to say that again. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

If Dems, we don't take a stand on these issues. Thank you very much indeed. Now on to

Murray's cross-question. We have the Deputy Chair of the Social Mobility Commission,

Rashaam Kotecha, former Labour Advisor, Skoll at McGuire, business newspaper City AMs

Opinion Senator Alice Denby, plus the Politics Home Reporter Harriet Simmons. Right, after

nine o'clock, what are we talking about after night? I've completely forgotten. We're talking about

the doctor's strike. So professional, aren't I? We are going to ask you, is why is Keir Starmer

playing this game of brinkmanship with the junior doctors? I don't recall the conservative

government indulging in this sort of thing, because he's essentially saying to them,

unless you agree, by the end of Thursday, to the terms of the offer that you've already got,

we are going to abolish four and a half thousand training places for resident doctors.

It's going to have to reverse on that. Otherwise, surely, he himself is damaging the NHS,

O345-6060-973.

Five minutes past nine of very good evening, too, if you've just joined the program. Now,

the Prime Minister has given the British Medical Association 48 hours to call off the six-day

doctor's strike in England after Easter or face losing a thousand extra training places,

although a figure of four thousand has been mentioned, but I think that's over three years.

Now, last week, the BMA called the strike over a deal, which would see doctors receive a three

and a half percent pay rise this year, so slightly above inflation. Some expenses, including

exam fees paid for, and an increase in the number of training posts. Now, the union said this was

not enough, given inflation is expected to rise, and that pay for resident doctors has not kept

pace with inflation since 2008, although I seem to remember a massive pay rise for resident doctors

that were treating gave them almost as soon as the election was over. Well, LBC's deputy political

editor, Aggie Chambray, has the details on what the Prime Minister was trying to achieve with

this threat to the BMA. He would say that he was not making a threat. He was merely pointing out

the consequences of the BMA's actions, but effectively, he has said to the resident doctor's committee

of the British Medical Association, he's given them a 48-hour deadline to consider a deal that they

were given previously, which includes an offer of thousands of extra NHS training posts before they

go on strike on April 7th. Now, the reason, as you ask, he's taken this approach is because they

believe people in government believe, and indeed the NHS believes too, that if they will not be

able to basically make good on this offer of a thousand extra jobs offered this year, because

they would open in April in a matter of days, and so they basically need to make the decision

of whether or not those jobs are put on stream, essentially, very, very soon. So they are given,

they have given the BMA a deadline of Thursday advertising, those jobs which would have started

in August, and also in terms of those jobs existing in the first place, there's a thousand extra

jobs, which is part of the deal. They have budgeted the government £250 million for these jobs,

which is about, they say, a week's worth of strike action, which is what seems to be going ahead

next month. So we heard earlier from the NHS England boss, Sir Jim Mackey, who confirmed the offer

to expand training places will come off the table if an agreement is not reached. This was him

speaking to our colleague Nick Ferrari earlier today. So you were aware of this ultimatum. Number 10,

did let you know it was coming down the line? I wasn't personally aware of it, no, but when you

you would have had lots of discussions about it, taking away those 4,000 places, you are supportive

of that. I'd rather we just reached agreement, to be honest, I think that's the ideal position,

there's still a chance my preference would be, of course, colleagues getting a room sorted out.

But the reality is that those extra training places cost money. If we're going to be spending

money on managing industrial action, peer, the colleagues extra cover shifts, that money will disappear.

So it's a necessity from the log. If the log jam stays, you really don't have an option cash-wise.

Yeah, I see. So this deal, which was given to the residents doctor's committee, was never

voted on by the British Medical Association. But I've talked about those 1,000 extra jobs. The

1,000 extra jobs is part of a minimum of 4,000 new additional specialty posts to be delivered

over the next three years. And then there's also offer on things like outer pocket expenses

for things like exam fees to be covered and progression through the resident doctor pay

bans is also to be sped up. If indeed the offer was to be accepted, which at the moment,

it doesn't very much does not look like it is going to be. We also heard early today, Ian,

from the BMA chair, Dr Jack Fletcher. I don't think that this dispute is resolved by

headline generation. And I don't think that it's resolved by making threats. I also don't think

it's resolved by moving the goalposts at the last minute, which is essentially why we've had to

take this action, because the discussions on pay that we've been having, which were constructive

and were genuinely, we thought we were making progress. The goalposts were changed at the last

minute by the government, where the investment offer was reduced and stretched over three years.

So I think that this end in a negotiating room, I'm very willing and I'm ready. I'm sat here in

London ready to negotiate whenever the government would like to. We're hoping to have more talks

this afternoon to avoid this strike action. I don't think the way to avoid it is by making

threats in the media around cutting doctors jobs. That was Dr Jack Fletcher speaking this morning,

so they did actually have talks all of today to as he said he was in London and for those talks.

This is an act of breakmanship by the government, isn't it? I mean, we always think of Labour

portraying themselves as the party of the NHS. I'm not sure, Keir Starmer, ever envisaged in being

in a position after 18 months as Prime Minister, where he'd essentially have to issue threats

to resident doctors. How has it got to this? Well, it's basically, as you say, it's who's going

to blink first and, you know, the government is basically saying we're taking this deal

off the table of those thousand new jobs. How it's got to this? That's holding the NHS to ransom,

isn't it? Well, I think some in the BMA do see it like that, Ian, but some in the government see

it in the way that they see that the BMA is holding the NHS to ransom by going on strike again

for this amount of time. So, you know, the government is saying the Prime Minister wasn't making

a threat. That's definitely, as you heard from Dr Flakda, Dr Jack Fletcher there. That is how

they have seen it. But, you know, we've got a statement too from the Health Secretary,

where he's treating who says the BMA seems surprised if they reject the deal on off and go on strike,

their members don't get what the government is offering. We have time before Easter weekend to

resolve this dispute. A deal on jobs and pay is on the table, but that walk out, as I say, is due

from April the 7th at 7 a.m. until April the 13th. Thank you very much. I'll say I go

somewhere there. LBC's deputy political editor. It does seem strange, doesn't it, that

a Labour government of all governments would adopt this approach, a brinkmanship? Do you think

it'll work? Who do you think is going to blink first? I mean, I think Jack Fletcher was right there

that, in the end, these things are always settled on the negotiating table. But a six day strike,

and the previous strikes weren't six days. Do they really need to be that long? I wonder whether

public sympathy with the resident doctors is as strong as it used to be, because it certainly was

very strong. Do you support the government's stance on this, or do you think, no, that they've

called this wrong? It's making me more sympathetic to the doctors. O3456060973. Well, let's talk to

Dr. Rida Khan, who is a resident doctor working in the NHS. I read a very good evening. Thank you

for coming on. Well, you've rather surprised, maybe even shocked by the threat that the Prime

Minister has made. Good evening, Ian. Thank you for having me. I feel like the Prime Minister

Kirstalman statement seems quite threatening in nature. It seems like it will have a negative

impact on the NHS in the future, because he's threatening to remove the extra training

process he wanted to give when he knows that there's a big job crisis in the NHS with resident

doctors. That means he's wants to stop today's doctors from specialising, becoming consultants,

becoming GPs, and ultimately help patients. And it's for the patient care, especially in a time

where there's so much short staffing, so much pressure, and the NHS is overwhelmed.

So if Jack Fletcher, the head of the resident doctors committed the BMA rang you up today and

said, look, Rida, I want your advice. I'm not sure what to do here. I don't want to put these

training posts at risk, but on the other hand, we've got a strike mandate. What would your advice

to him be? Well, at the moment, for example, for GP, there's over 18,000 doctors that are waiting

to get into GP training with over 4,000, probably just over 4,000 places. So with the

1,000 places that Keir Starmer is saying, it's a step in the right direction, but when you have

18,000 over 18,000 doctors waiting to get into GP training, these applicants that have passed the

exam are on the waiting list to get into GP training. I would say that he needs to take the

seriously Keir Starmer needs to actually understand that there's a big job crisis, it's causing

unemployment, and it's causing a lack of job security as well. Well, I think that's all true,

but the fact is, if he delivers on this threat, you're going to be 1,000, I think 1,500

worse off this year, and 4,500 altogether, if he then repeats it for the next two years.

I mean, it's one of those things where the BMA is almost sort of cutting off his nose despite

its face, isn't it? The pay is a big aspect to the strikes. It always has been from day one.

It's a long-term investment in the NHS. When the pay is, they want the restoration for the pay,

there's a real time cut that they feel there's a risk of this real time cut because the government

has proposed to give it over a few years. So the issue is you're not going to retain doctors,

there's a staffing pressure because the staffing pressure when you're not retaining doctors

and doctors are leaning towards leaving the NHS or going to these different countries,

there's a lot of pressure on resident doctors on the shop floor. That means resident doctors have

to, when they're short-staffing, they have to look after more patients that they probably wouldn't

have if it was well-staffed, more acutely unwell patients, could be probably complex medical

patients where they miss their breaks, miss their lunch and have to stay overtime. This overtime

causes burnout, causes fatigue, causes them to be demoralised, low morale, and then they drop out

of medicine or they want to just completely move to a different country. And this is really,

really over the years going to affect the NHS, so we need to retain doctors. The pay is a big,

big aspect of this to get the fair pay in order to get these better working conditions and

getting it to get a safe number of staffing on the wards. Because when this part of the dispute

first broke out, whenever it was, I remember talking to various people from the BMA saying,

oh no, this isn't about pay, this is about terms and conditions. And yet you're saying it is

more about pay. Can you tell us what the settlement was after the election that we're

treating came to because we would tell it was something like 22%. But I mean, that's just one

figure. What was that settlement? So the pay conditions that they want, the 26% increase,

so they wanted to get the pay restoration that it was back in 2008. I think pay and conditions

go hand in hand because when you've got that has been, that was achieved in the last settlement,

surely. But it wasn't, it was below inflation, so they weren't happy because it wasn't the full

restoration for what doctors wanted from day one. So they've always had the same goal from day one

throughout throughout the years training. There's been a training crisis. There's been

specialty places. It's been really tough for people to get into specialty training. So that

became another aspect to the strikes that doctors were not getting into training. There's a lot

of unemployment. There was a bottleneck going into training services, but the pay has always been

the day one. And even now it's just not been agreed upon. And now of course, no, but my point is

last year there was, I can't remember whether it was 22 or 29% and now this year there's another

similar claim. And yet you look at other people in the NHS. You look at nurses, for example,

or ancillary workers. They haven't anywhere near court up and they have paid far, far less

than resident doctors. Why should resident doctors take precedence over other groups within

the NHS? First of all, I do understand that everyone who works in the NHS works really hard and

they also deserve, you know, to be to be paid fairly. I really do think so because it's the whole

wider MDT that makes the NHS work, whether that's nurses, healthcare assistants and also doctors

and many others who work in the NHS. So I don't want to take that away from them. But the years of

training that doctors have done, they've sacrificed a lot of their youth, a lot of the years of

studying, getting into, and they have these dreams of wanting to go into specialty training,

becoming consultants, progressing in their career, which they deserve. They don't get the working

conditions that they signed up to. So the working conditions are getting worse for them.

They're scrolling hours, there's overtime, there's miss breaks, there's causing them for tea,

causing them to burn out. And because of this, obviously, the strikes, they feel like the pay

restoration has not been put in place from the day one of strike. Yes, they were.

And I accept that. But the same could be said of teachers, the same could be said of prison

officers, the same could be said of police officers. Why should resident doctors be a special case?

I think resident doctors should be a special case because it's a long-term investment in the NHS.

Resident doctors are in the front line working hard and if they're losing these doctors and

they're leaving the NHS, they're going to countries like Australia, Canada, America, this short

staffage, that means that it's affecting patient care overall. And this NHS is a big asset

to our country and we can't afford to lose these doctors. So if you're not going to listen to

the doctors, you're going to lose the doctors. Over, it's costing them the government even more

money because now because of staffing gaps that they have, they need to employ temporary staff

that will be at higher rates whether they're consultants, whether there's resident doctors,

they're higher rates. And of course, when the strikes go ahead, they at the rates are higher

as well for doctors to step in and to make sure this staffers say a safe number. So all of this

is costing the NHS way more money than it would if they actually just negotiate a good deal and give

the restoration because it's not a pay raise that doctors are asking for. It's just that restoration

from day one that they've wanted. Okay, thank you very much indeed. That's Dr. Rida Khan,

their resident doctor working in the NHS. Do you think the Prime Minister is right to adopt this

brinkmanship position? Because in the end, he's either going to win or he's not. And if he doesn't

win, in a sense, everyone's the loser. Aren't they? I mean, who do you side with on this? Because

we've been talking about resident doctors strike four years now on LBC. When Kirsta Armer and

Westery Tamirunal position, they both promised that this would not be happening under a Labour

government. Well, it is happening under a Labour government. From April the 7th, there will be no

resident doctors working in our hospitals for six whole days. I mean, I forgot to put that question

to Rida there because I do think that it is, shall we say, taking the Michael to go on strike for six

days in the NHS. I don't think resident doctors should be striking at all, but if they are, I mean,

six days really is far too long, isn't it? And particularly if you're somebody who's got a family

member who is going to suffer because of that, you're not going to have a lot of sympathy with them.

Or are you? Because I know in the past we've had plenty of people ring in saying, well, I

said that they're going to be risk to this, but I'm fully on the resident doctor's sign. But if

you're a nurse, and I'm really not trying to sort of pitch public sector worker against public

sector worker, but if you are a nurse, if you are a teacher, if you're a prison officer,

what do you make of this? Do you think, well, we'd like a bit of action there too? Because I

fully accept that the resident doctors have lost out over the past 17 years, but hasn't virtually

everyone, whether they're in the public sector or the private sector. There isn't an endless

pot of money, is there? But if there is more money, where would you put it?

923 on LBC, 03456060973, do you think that Keir Starmer is right to play this

game of bringmanship with the BMA? He's given them a deadline of Thursday evening, think that's

to accept the terms of this new offer, or he will withdraw more than 1,000 training places.

As a slightly strange position, I would say, I don't think that it's one that the general public

will have a lot of sympathy with, certainly, obviously, resident doctors don't, but I wonder who's

sympathies you have on this, whether you actually do side with the resident doctors? I mean, they're

asking for, or they've been offered a 3.5% pay rise, which is slightly more than the rate of

inflation. Now, admittedly, we know that inflation is going to rock it over the next six months,

because of the war in Iran. So I suppose from that point of view, they could say, well,

we think inflation is going to be 10% by the end of the year, and that's not an outrageous thing

to believe. So we want to have a much bigger pay rise, but they've also got these other offers

as part of the settlement that the government has put to them, but they've rejected it, and they

haven't, as far as I understand it, they haven't actually put this revised offer from the government

to their members. Sarah says, I supported the doctors before this government came to power,

because I thought the last government were unreasonable. However, I think this government

have done what they can, and the doctors can't have everything they want at once.

There has to be a compromise, and I support Stama, says Sarah. Let's go to Jonathan in Greenwich,

hello Jonathan. Hello in, hi. Hi, what would you like to say?

I don't agree that it's such a strange position, working the NHS myself. These training places

generally are offered across the world. I think it's problematic, because they're not offered to

UK resident doctors as a matter of course. Why is that? Well, there may be a track conditions

from across the world for these places, with, for example, PhDs, they've been above standard

medical qualifications, they have worldwide profile, they present a global medical event,

and they will often be recruited above UK resident doctors.

But they're better qualified, then UK resident doctors ordinarily.

The two other countries do this, I mean, I would have thought any country would give priority

to their own people. Well, these are better qualified people, so it may be an argument to

extend this to UK resident doctors, brilliant, but it's not a disservice to patients if this

doesn't happen. So if resident doctors don't want to take this off us, that's tough to them,

and not for patients. Do you think that most people who are not resident doctors in the NHS,

but work in the NHS, support their stance? I think there's an argument to say that we need to

ensure our own homegrown talent, but equally what's best for patients, actually,

what's best for patients is recruiting from around the world.

So it's great that we're taking a position at the moment, maybe if he'd be retracted,

it's great that we're taking a position to recruit UK resident doctors, but it's not

going to affect patients. Well, isn't there a moral issue here, though? I've always had a real

difficulty with recruiting doctors from countries who actually probably need their own doctors more

than we need them. I understand why it's happened over the years, but is it really right to recruit

doctors from sub-Saharan Africa from countries who don't have the same kind of healthcare that we

do, and every doctor that works here, rather than there, is diminishing the health of the people

in that country? Well, I suppose in an ideal world you would, but there are obviously balances

to strike here, aren't there? I mean, what you're effectively saying is, well, if somebody's

better qualified, we wouldn't need to recruit any British doctors. I mean, that would be a ridiculous

position. All I'm saying is that in terms of care that is on this position, actually, patients

aren't going to lose out with response at all, because we're just going to go with this status

quo, how it views all those basements that you give residents, the resident doctors,

but no patient is going to lose out if that's withdrawn. So that's what the BMA needs to

reconcile itself with. So do you think the BMA will actually give into that?

Well, I think the BMA needs to consult with individual doctors and put it to a diet.

But they're refusing to do that, aren't they? Okay, Jonathan, thank you very much indeed.

Ellie says this strike is shocking. It's quiet enough at weekends and bank holidays,

and this lot are getting an extended Easter holiday. Well, I suppose you can look at it in that

way. I mean, it's starting on when does Easter finish? So we've got, I'm working over Easter,

I'm trying to remember what the dates are Tuesday the 7th. Oh, so you can have a nice long Easter

weekend holiday, and then you have another six days off through strike action at nice work,

or not, if you can get it, hey? This is from Annie, who says, I date a farmer, lucky you,

who works 80 hour weeks for approximately 25,000 pounds per annum. We need doctors and farmers,

but we rarely value those who produce food. My partner has had two burnouts. He never receives

fair pay, but his livelihood has been put at risk every year. This one from Sue, forget the

percentage figure for doctor's pay rise is just look at the actual figure that they wanted.

Is it unreasonable? They damn well deserve better pay, at least they're saving lives. I bet you

earn more than they do, and you aren't saving lives. I work in the private sector, and what I earn

is a matter for me and my employers to discuss, but you're right. I do. I don't feel guilty about that.

I don't see why I should be made to feel guilty about what I earn. I think that the resident

doctors are underpaid. I think they have every right to want pay restoration, but there are so

many other groups in the public sector that have also suffered from this, and I fail to see why it is

always the resident doctors who should get a better deal than any other group, because I think

there are other groups that are equally as deserving. If I had a pot of money and I was going to

dull it out, having seen that the resident doctors had such a big pay rise last year, they would not

be first in the queue, if I was Prime Minister. The first in the queue I suspect would be prison

officers, followed by the police and then teachers, because I think they all are grossly underpaid,

compared to resident doctors. Discuss. At 933 on LBC we're talking about the resident doctor

Stry, which is due to begin on Easter Tuesday, the 7th of April, it'll last for six days, unless

they cave in to the government's demands, well I say the government's demands. The government wants

them to accept the pay offer that was offered, and on the face of it it's a reasonable offer,

3.5% pay rise this year, that's slightly more than inflation, some expenses including exam fees

paid for and an increase in the number of training posts. Do you think they should cave into the

government or do you expect this strike to go ahead? What effect do you think a six day strike would

have, particularly keen to hear from you, if you work in the NHS? Heather is in Heriford, hi Heather.

Yes, well when are we going to appreciate our doctors? You know, how would you like to be

rushed to hospital visits to and find there's not enough doctors to see you and things go wrong?

I mean it's just diabolical, I mean why is it we spend all this money on migrants, they get whatever

they want, and we spend money on the French police, but we haven't got money to pay the doctors,

it's not a big risk. Well I mean doctors are paid far more than the average of anybody in the UK,

admittedly in their first year they're not paid a huge amount, it's about 38,000 I think,

but it does progress up to 40, 50, 60, 70,000. I understand from the news that these junior doctors

are student doctors, they get only 18 pounds, something an hour, will I give them at least a minimum

of 20, but can you say give them 20 pounds an hour? Well most of them do get much more than that,

it's only in the first year and when you put it in an hourly rate like that, it doesn't sound

very much, but if you multiply 20 pounds an hour by 52 weeks of the year, it's a reasonably

sizable sum. The point is, the point is they're worried, I mean they've got to, they should have

accommodation when they've got to be at the hospital on time, they should have nearby accommodation,

hopefully free. What, sorry, that's ridiculous, why should people, why should doctors have free

accommodation? Why not? I mean, let's give every doctor a hundred thousand pounds a year then,

I mean let's let the land flow with milk and honey. Well the thing is your life depends on them

and they should be appreciated when they go to work, they shouldn't have anything on their mind

to hold them back, their mind should be solely on what they're doing and that's what their

vocation is and you can't find everybody that can do this, this is kind of thing, you just can't

find them, they're like gold and I think you know they've got to be well fed, we feed the army,

don't free, we feed them. Oh, so they should have free food as well as free accommodation?

Yeah, oh my goodness. They should go to work on a full stomach and they shouldn't have

what they're not, they're not on destitution wages. Pardon? They're not in destitution wages.

I mean your argument would be better if you applied it to nurses who do not often get the

average wage. You know, we're going to appreciate them, they shouldn't have a care in the world when

they go to work, they should know that they have their wages and they have these, they shouldn't be

hungry, they shouldn't be able to work. Nobody's suggesting that doctors are going hungry.

Well, if you miss meals and and and you're you're working on an empty stomach and you're a

surgeon or something, I mean you might think, so good news. I mean, if that really is, there's

best strength of your argument, Heather, I mean I'm sorry, I agree that we should appreciate doctors,

I agree that they deserve a good wage, I agree that they should be rewarded for the years of

training that they undergo, but you know as well as I do that there are competing demands on

public sector pay, there isn't a limitless pit and I'm sure you would think the police

should be paid in the same way. I'm sure you would agree that teachers and prison officers

should be paid in the same way. Exactly. So they deserve a lot more money, but where's it going to

Heather, Heather, we can't have a conversation if you're just talking over me the whole time.

Where's the money going to come from? When we can find it, when it comes to strangers,

because then it's just turning up and they want this, that, and the other, you know, we've got

to rearrange the debt chairs, you know. Well, if we go by your policies, we would be on the

Titanic because we can't afford to pay everyone another 50% on their pay. We can find the money,

I just heard that I've got to find money to pay for the count to tax that's just gone up.

There's government, they've got car parks and they've got money's coming in, they've got

luxuries and money's coming in and all kinds of things. I think Heather, you've indulged us

too much. Thank you. Let's go to Stephen Colchist. Hello, Steve.

Steve, are you there? Yeah, I am. Hello. Hello.

Yeah. So I mean, I'm not really into the doctor's bit, but obviously I support everything that's

going on and I don't think I don't agree with what they're doing. What I'm concerned about

is that, you know, something I don't think anyone appreciates is that nurses in the NHS have

been offered voluntary redundancies to leave because we're supposed to be trying to get nurses

on board, increase the capacity of the nursing industry, but nurses have been offering voluntary

redundancy to leave the industry. Why? They're trying to cut costs. It's ridiculous. You know,

how is it that if you've been a nurse for 40 years, 30 years, 20 years, you're now being offered

voluntary redundancy? Crazy. I don't understand that. Well, I must admit that's the first time I've

heard that. I thought nursing numbers were actually increasing. No, because people are being offered

voluntary redundancy. And yeah, I'm not going to say name names, but you know, my lady works in

the industry and she's been offered voluntary redundancy. She can't take it because she hasn't

been there long enough, but this is happening and no one knows. It's random. Well, it's very

interesting what you say there. I'm going to pass this on to one of our reporters to investigate

because if that is happening all over the country, then I think the general public do deserve

to know about it. As I say, look, I haven't heard that before. I wouldn't necessarily expect to

have maybe, but I would have thought it might have featured in newspapers. Or anyway, we will look

into that, Steve. Thank you very much. Let's go to Craig in Canuck. Hello, Craig.

I think what we need to do, I mean, I think he's fair comment that the resident doctors should be

paid more overall, but I do agree with your comment that there's other people on the, if you like,

the public payroll that should be in front of them in the queue to get the pay rises. Yeah, and I

mean, the problem is whenever you say something like that, you're then accused of trying to divide

and rule, and I'm genuinely not, but I think it, I think you have to point out that it's not all

about resident doctors. Yeah, well, exactly. What I actually think would be a fantastic way to do it

is absolutely everybody in the public payroll, whether we talk about the, the lords with their

dearly attendance figure to people on benefits, we should work out the fair amount to pay everybody.

Yeah, but who decides that? Together. And it would have to be some sort of independent-ish

body that would do that, but have it so that they would then get those numbers fixed in relation

to each other. MPs, council workers, bin men, soldiers, the whole lot, everybody gets on the

public payroll and then have it so that absolutely everybody gets the same percentage pay rise

every year from then on. But it's a case of, as you say, working out what would be the fair figure

and who would work out and to start with for everybody. Well, I can see the logic of what you say,

but the problem is that in most of the public sector now there isn't national bargaining. It's

often regional or local. So what a, what what a refuse collector earns in Newcastle upon time,

may be very different to what they earn in woking. So come and let's let geographically adjust it,

but eat something there. You're creating a whole new expense to bureaucracy there, aren't you?

Only once, once it's been done once, then the bureaucracy of working out the exact figures

has been done. All you're then doing is deciding, having no ever is in power, can work out

what is, for example, a figure that the country can afford and is a reasonable figure to add on,

say something hopefully near inflation each year. And that would be able to be done, but it would

only only involve the whole issue of the huge bureaucracy, just the ones to get the starting figures.

I'm not sure that would eliminate strike threats, though, because there will always be a sector

that thinks for whatever, maybe economic circumstances change, maybe some sector becomes more

important in the national conversation. And the union representing that sector will then say,

well, actually, you know, we are far more important now that we were five years ago. So we need to

have more than the others do. I don't, I think what your, your system would work in a land flowing

with milk and honey where we all sing, come by, Armour Lord, but I don't see it working in the real world.

I think it's fair to say, though, that every time, you know, regardless of whatever system

anybody comes up with, there's always going to be strike threats, regardless of who it is.

It's the thing of, I know you've started off with your response to me saying about avoiding

dividing and everybody. And what you're actually doing by the idea that I'm thinking of, these more

trying to bring people in together by basically saying, well, the nurses get a 5% pair of eyes

this year. So the doctors get a 5% pair of eyes and the soldiers get a 5% pair of eyes and the

police get a 5% pair of eyes. And so in that way, you're not othering people in different roles.

But surely each, each particular sector ought to have their own mechanism. Like, for example,

MPs pay is decided by an independent body. It's not decided by MPs. And they weigh up all of the

aspects of the job and cost of living in all the rest of it. And they come up with a figure.

And yeah, even if the figure was only 0.1%, people would still complain that politicians get more

than they did the previous year. Sorry, go on.

Something people would complain about politicians getting.

But they do. A larger pair of eyes. If everybody else in the public sector was also getting that same

pair of eyes, you're not paying. Yeah, but politicians aren't getting more than other people.

But if you've got the situation where politicians are getting an identical amount of other people,

then that argument then becomes no more void.

Well, they're more or less are. I mean, I think the the pay rise this year was three three and a

half percent. That's the same that resident doctors are getting.

But when there was issue a few years back about where how much the nurses were getting,

I actually looked on on some documents about what had happened with regards to

public sector pay rises between I think it was 2008. And that that year, which I think was 2023,

and politicians were getting significant there in that period had got significantly more than

average for public sector. Well, my recollection is throughout that period MPs pay rises

vary between one and three percent. And now you're probably very right by the same time you've

got situations where the nurses pay was was held for two or three years. You are right. I mean,

I think the one, well, I've already mentioned some of the public sector workers that I think

do deserve high pay rises. I do think nurses are among that group too. But I mean, they they got

a bigger pay rise a few years ago. But I don't think they've been treated particularly brilliantly

in the last couple of rounds. Thank you very much indeed. Craig, we'll come to more of your

calls in just a moment. Your views on the resident doctor strikes going to last six days from April

the 7th. Leading Britain's conversation, Ian Dale, Alexa, send a comment to LBC.

949 Katie says, I've had enough. The government should be investing in social care. But instead,

the doctor's strike and more money goes to the doctors instead. If social care was sorted out,

it would lighten the work of the doctors and free beds. But there is never any money left

because of the doctors getting all of the attention. They've had their turn already. They should

step aside for a while so that other care workers and NHS workers can get a turn for a change.

Let's go to Sham who's in South End. Good evening. Hello, Sham.

Hello. Hi. Hi there. Hi. What would you like to say?

Yeah, I think I just wanted to add a bit of context that my feelings out there is a lot more to

this strike than just the headline elements of pay and jobs crisis. I think there's a sentiment

of dissatisfaction and anti-establishment thinking amongst these, amongst you and doctors,

because of a series of things I've been happening over the last 10 years ago, 10 years or so.

I think one of the main things is changes to how doctors are recruited, as well as other factors

such as changes to student loan system, to which doctors are, I think, disproportionately

effective compared to other professions due to the length of their course and the earning

bracket that they fall into, as well as lots of so many other factors that happen. The trigger

point being the implementation of a change in contract by Jeremy Hunt several years ago,

prior to that, doctors hadn't really been on strike at all, but I think that was a tipping point

that made doctors feel like they were losing their autonomy. They already felt like they were

losing their autonomy, but that was the last sure as it were. What do you mean by autonomy?

Well, I think, for example, I give you an example regarding how doctors are recruited for,

and how that's changed over the last few years. So it used to be that your job when you finished

medical school was allocated based on your performance at medical school, the grades you've got,

and the achievements that you had whilst you were at medical school in terms of extra work that

you'd done and prizes that you won, and overnight that was changed and basically replaced with a

national test that everyone takes. That's a sort of situational judgment test that asks you

a bunch of questions that you might be asked in other careers as well about your response to

a certain situation in which most candidates answer the same answers and most people give the same

answers. So it's more of a random number generated to be honest because there is a much

difference between different candidates answers to that. So all these medical students who've been

working really hard to get good grades were suddenly told their grades didn't really matter

anymore and then similarly they were told that if they'd paid money for extra degrees and

taken years out of their trainings to do these extra degrees and they didn't really count anymore

either and so they basically just wasted money on that and these sort of decisions were just made

without any consultation with the doctors that were in training. So it's quite disheartening to

then finish medical school and then be told that you could be moved randomly to any part of the

country or Northern Ireland or Wales just just by a random number generation which is now what it is

and then on top of that there's so currently so because they've relaxed the visa requirements

for doctors that are applying to jobs within the UK so that they've opened it up internationally

to all applicants which you know could be argued as potentially a good thing but the

the impact that has had is that it means there's so many applicants so when you're selecting for

highly specialist training programmes in competitive or very specialist specialities

there is no capacity to properly screen all these candidates so they end up resorting to

basically paper-based screening when that sometimes means looking at basically whether a

candidate has a PhD or not or whether they have an extra qualification or not and filtering out

candidates on the basis of that but as as I'm sure you know having a higher degree of research

degree such as a PhD doesn't necessarily mean you're better placed through the job and it also

means that doctors who are recruited for example to to become a surgeon it's possible to be

recruited to be a surgeon and get appointed as a surgical trainee to do operations on patients

without having any assessment of your surgical skills so without having any

but by just having letters signed by by other people and other departments for example and

and so essentially you don't actually have to have any surgical skill to be appointed as a surgeon

I think that's outrageous yeah I mean there have been a lot of changes to you honest and I think

these are just frustrating doctors because I mean it's not just that that's I've just talked about

selection but who brings in these new things because I mean you mentioned Jeremy Hunt earlier

when he was health secretary there's no way that Jeremy Hunt as a politician is going to have

any sort of make a decision like that that has to be done with surely within the bureaucracy

of the health service no I just what I meant was Jeremy Hunt was just a specific point regarding

he was kind of the face of a new contract that was implemented at the time into around 2016

which which meant that doctors were required to basically work extra weekend and out of that

was shifts I mean we already worked lots of weekend out of our shifts but the the summary of that

was that if you did work on a weekend or out of hours then the time that you you got paid for

that would be valued less than than before and to be honest I don't to mean to me personally as

a resident doctor hasn't even made too much of a difference to to my pay from that contract

implementation but the but the point is just the whole resident doctor body was just emotionally

stirred up by that because they just weren't it was just imposed on them without any consultation

and that kind of just triggered the process and there's so many other things that the resident doctors

are upset about I mean just speaking for myself there's all of these targets that are being

imposed on us mean that for example if I want to schedule patients with surgery sometimes I have

to prioritize patients who've been waiting a long time over patients who have been waiting less

time for surgery but who have cancer or more urgent conditions just because a certain target

or patient would breach a certain target for example and even if that patient is going to breach

doesn't even want to have surgery urgently and they they actually want to wait sometimes I'm asked

to convince the patients to have surgery earlier so they don't breach breach a target and things

like this just really frustrate us and and I think a lot of doctors I'm not necessarily speaking

for myself but I think a lot of the doctors and a lot of my colleagues feel like this is the only

way that they can have their voice heard and it's just what a way to sort of I guess lash out as well

okay um shaman I could talk to you for the rest of the program but we've only got to an

hour when it's left and I do want to fit in lily and astin so I hope you forgive me thank you very

much you've been a brilliant caller uh lily go ahead hi hi um just it was a a point that I just

came in on um that it seemed that that doesn't seem to be very much awareness about nurses being

asked to take voluntary redundancy yeah um uh so I'm I'm I forgive me I'm not actually commenting on

the doctor's strike no career um but my daughter who is an 8B um manager mental health nurse

and her whole directorate have been told that they have to save tens of millions of pounds

um and uh has been asking for nurses to um put in for voluntary redundancy out of their trust

they had less um apply for voluntary redundancy than they were expecting or hoping for to make

these savings so the senior managers have been told that they just need to be cutting jobs

so no you're absolutely right Ian it hasn't hit the headlines it hasn't been in the papers

and I just think it's absolutely scandalous and and the nurses that are going to be left

are going to be asked to do more and more and more um you know managing multiple units at a time um and

well I I've been told that a lot of the nurses that are employed directly by NHS England are being

made redundant because NHS England is not going to it exists um I think later on this year

it's actually being abolished but you would hope that most of those nurses would be able to find

alternative employment within within the NHS. There are no jobs um there are absolutely no jobs

I mean my own my own daughter I mean I don't want to give my location or anything else um obviously

I need to protect her but you know my own daughter has been looking for jobs in in a huge area prepared

to move um and there are just no jobs um well that's very depressing to hear um I wish I could

talk to you for longer but we have reached the end of the show lily thank you very much indeed

and thanks for all of your calls and messages this evening and I'm back tomorrow from seven.

There's a brilliant episode of my all talk podcast being released at one o'clock in the morning

with now Shalva Labour MPs written her childhood life story called honoured and believe me it's

quite a story.