Do you think Burnham has made a "very big mistake" by reopening the Brexit debate?

0:00This is a global production. This is LBC from Global, leading Britain's conversation with Ian Dale. Hello very good evening to you. It's four minutes past seven at C&L here with you until 10. Let me tell you what's coming up on the program at nine. We're going to be talking about the death penalty. I don't really want to ask you if you're in favor of it or not. I just want to ask you in the light of this case in Tennessee, surely no one can believe that the death penalty is the right way forward for any country, let alone the United States. So that's coming up at nine. We have cross-question at eight, but first I want to talk about, well, I don't honestly really want to talk about Brexit. I don't want to rehash all the arguments for or against, but that's exactly what the Prime Minister is seemingly encouraging us to do. And Nigel Farage today said, well, this is a major political mistake by the Prime Minister.

1:02Because if you remember on Tuesday in his conference speech, he said that by Christmas he'll come up with a paper outlining the options for a closer relationship with Europe. And we all know what those options are. We don't need a paper to tell us, do we? We know that they are, keep the status quo. So we stay out in the same way that we are at the moment. We rejoin. We rejoin the single market or and the customs union. Or we have some sort of, excuse me, we have some sort of Canada style associate membership, although no one really knows what that means. So those are the options. Now, I don't know about you, but I rather agree with Ella Wheeling and Oli Dugmore from last night's show on cross-question. And they both agree, one from the left of politics, one from the right, that oh my God, do we really want to open all this up again? And of course, a few months ago, that's exactly what the Prime Minister said. So Nigel Farage thinks this is almost a rallying call for his party reform UK.

2:05And I can see what he means. It is a uniting factor for anybody that voted leave. You might say, well, it works the other way around. Do we really want to go through all those divisive debates yet again? And the Prime Minister wouldn't guarantee that, well, if he comes to the conclusion that we should actually rejoin, he hasn't said that there would have to be a referendum. And I think surely you think there would have to be. So we'll have another five or 10 years of this type of argument. Well, this is what the reform UK leader said reporters this afternoon. Oh, I think it breaks it, Reverend. And we unite the country wonderfully. I can't see anybody falling out. That's all families will all be at one with each other. Bazaar, how can you unite the country and then reopen this? And the second point I'd make is this is the pro-divolution Prime Minister. You would think to listen to him that devolution solved all problems, pass power down, and life will be better and people will be richer, to even consider rejoining the single market, the customs union. Let alone the European Union itself is the opposite of devolution,

3:10a massive transfer of huge powers up to an authority whereby there's nothing Parliament could do to change any of it. So I find the whole thing totally contradictory. 60% of people want to rejoin? Of course they do. Until you tell the middle cost 25 billion quid a year. Until you tell the middle mean joining Shengen. Until you tell the middle mean actually having to recommit to joining the euro. Remember that the levers haven't made their arguments in 2016. The remuners have made their arguments every single week. Do you know what? I actually think that Bernie has made a very big political mistake here. I really do. And let's just reflect on what the Prime Minister has actually said about Brexit. This was him on Tuesday at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool. Brexit has done more harm than good.

4:11We need to restore a higher level of growth and prosperity for Britain. So I will take the opportunity around the summit to lay out to you, to lay out to the country what I believe the different options are for Britain's long term relationship with our European partners. And there are different options. And I will see if we can find consensus around one, which will give us clarity about our position and the future of the continent that we live in. Well, good luck with that, finding consensus. However, listen to this. On the 18th of May after he announced his plans to run in the make of field bylection, he said this at a business summit in Leeds. Brexit has done more harm. I am not proposing that the UK considers rejoining the EU. I respect the decision that was made at the referendum. And it's going to undermine everything I've said about strengthening democracy.

5:14If we don't respect that vote, we need a relentless domestic focus in this period. Let's fix our own country. Let's get it working again. Let's get it back to where people want it to be. I sense a real yearning out there. People feel why aren't we where we should be? Why aren't things just working as they should? And that's what I think has to be our focus now, fixing the fundamentals of our own country, rather than plunging into another divisive debate about a relationship with other countries. How quickly a Prime Minister can change his mind. This is what I think Johnny Reynolds was on about a few days ago, when he said that he didn't think it would be right to reopen all these arguments because business needs certainty. So that's what I want you to give me your views on. Whether you think the Prime Minister is right to launch this initiative, but also whether you think Nigel Farage is right, that it's a big political mistake. Or do you see it as a political master's strike? Richard Corbett was Labour's final leader in the European Parliament before Brexit.

6:19He was an MEP for just over 22 years, Richard, very good evening. I thought the days of us talking about Brexit were long gone, but it appears not. I mean, what do you make of what he said this week, compared to what he said only four months ago? Well, he's discovering in government that the costs of Brexit were even higher than some of the worst fears beforehand. It's costing, depending on who study you look at, between 5 to 8% of GDP. In other words, our economy would have been between 5 to 8% higher had we remained in. That in turn would have delivered annually, even taking the lower estimate of 5%. That would have delivered 90 billion pounds a year extra tax revenue for the government. Here he is having to grapple with, can we afford 4 billion extra here? Can we spend 5 billion extra there? Maybe save a billion here? Imagine how different things would have been had we had an extra 90 billion pounds a year.

7:20You can have financed everything he's been talking about and delivered tax cuts at the same time. So that's one pressure he's discovering. He's discovering. I mean, I heard these figures three, four, five years ago. Are you suggesting that Andy Berner wasn't aware of these figures? Well, the most recent figures show that the situation is even more dire than anticipated. So I think that they really don't. A second factor is the geopolitical situation very different from a few years ago, where you've got a military and a really aggressive Russia to our east and unreliable USA to our west. And we're finding that up we and our European neighbors share a lot of interests and values. And it would be better if we had a seat around the table. The third factor is the shift of public opinion because it's been slowly but very steadily increasing the numbers that say that Brexit was a mistake and even wanting to rejoin the European Union. So he's right to launch this debate. That's always doing at the moment.

8:20Is saying this hasn't worked. That's a very widespread view. What are we going to do about it? Do what? Well, why doesn't he tell us what he thinks we should do about it? We're going to list out the options. If he said, well, I think we should rejoin at least we'd all know. Well, he did spell out some of the options that should be considered. He's trying to get a debate. He's got the ambition of finding consensus. As you point it out. I mean, come on. You know as well as I do. There will never be a consensus on this. There's a broad majority view after a debate. And he mentioned the options as what George Osborne said, rejoin the customs union. There's what the Liberal Democrats have said, rejoin the single market. Customs union doesn't change the economic dial very much. Single market would change the economic dial, but at the end of the day Britain would be a real taker. And not have a safe, if it's not a member. So many people are saying in those circumstances, why not get our membership back and have a seat at the table and have a say and have the economic benefits?

9:24But do you really think most people in the country want to be plunged back into the same titled arguments that we've been going through for 10 years? Just one it's seen that there was an acceptance that what happened happened, that it was a democratic vote, that yes, I would probably agree with you, that since we've left the EU, the previous government, they made a complete hall, so actually implementing Brexit completely agree with you on that. But do we really want to go back to all of those arguments for the next 10 years? Well, and Sean, most people would not have wanted to, if Brexit had been a success, but Brexit has turned out to be completely different from what was promised. Remember they promised it would save lots of money that would all go to the NHS, it's costing us a fortune. They said we wouldn't lose any access to Europe we have. They said we'd have wonderful new trade deals with countries across the planet, we've had hardly any. It's hurting our economy, it's causing all kinds of inconveniences for small businesses,

10:27travelers and so on. That's what's causing this debate. It's the lies that were told by the Brexit ears that brought us in the past. You see, here we go again, with respect, you are just there again. You are just chopping out the same tired old arguments that we've heard. I mean, it's the same tired old arguments that we've heard from your side of the argument. No doubt we'll get the same arguments from the other side. They'll be kind of dangerous then. Part of it? Let me quote David Davis. You said if a democracy cannot change its mind, it ceases to be a democracy. I've got it. We are changing our mind as a country on Brexit. Well, most people think it was a mistake. So let's discuss the options. What do we do about that? What, why is that? We've got a status quo. Andy Burnham said that was one of the options, the status quo. Why, we ought to think about what to do about it. Why is there no significant rejoin the EU movement? I mean, if there was a public clamor for it, I could almost understand it, but there clearly isn't.

11:28Look at those opinion polls. Most opinion polls are volatile. But it depends what the question you are. What's in the news? This one is slow but relentless, gradually increasing the number of people saying they want to reconsider Brexit. Well, we will see, Richard. Thank you very much indeed. That's Richard Corbett, the former Labour MP. Now we were going to talk to reform UK now, but they've just pulled out. Decided they don't want to defend their leaders position, no doubt. I mean, honestly, how pathetic can you get? This is LBC with Ian Dail called 03456060973. 17 minutes past 7 on LBC. Well, there you had it. You had all the same total arguments that we've been hearing for 10 years. Nothing new there. The same fake figures that are being trotted out, saying it's all be the disaster. Yeah, 5 to 8%. Yeah, that's one economic group that said that. There are plenty of others that would gain say it. I don't know about you, but I don't look forward to it. If this really is going to be something over the next few years,

12:31I do not look forward to this. The country made a decision for ill or good. And we can't surely... I was a bit like Scottish independence, isn't it? It's the same argument there that the S&P come out with. Oh, well, it was like 12 years ago or whatever it was. Yeah, it was 12 years ago. Now, therefore, we should have another referendum now. On the basis that, well, we didn't know that we were going to leave the EU at that time, grow up everyone. Do you not agree? I mean, when you had Oli Dugmore last night on Crossquestion, I wasn't expecting him to say what he did. But he was saying more or less the same thing as I am. Do we really want to go through this? Well, we had families divided. We had friendships shattered over Brexit. You really want to open that kind of words again, do you anti-Burnum? Well, as I think, no, I think no, I just just write. It's Manor from Heaven for Reform UK. Alan Zimbastin, well, hello, Alan. Hello, Ian, nice to speak to you. Hi.

13:31I think the whole issue needs being put to bed. And the reason it has never, ever been put to bed is because the public of this country has never voted on a deal. That's what we have a parliament for. Yes, but a parliament, and certainly the government, doesn't represent even the 48% who voted no to leave it. Well, it doesn't now. No, you're absolutely right. 48%. It didn't. And it never has done, because governments are elected apart from one in my lifetime. I'm less than 50% of the electorate. Well, it had 48, 52. Everything else in life. And I was a trade union. Yeah, I know. But Alan, you're making exactly the same mistake that Richard Corba did. You're talking about the past. We are where we are.

14:31I'm not talking about the past. I'm talking about the future. I'm saying that what anti-Burnum should do is say we're having no more referendums because they're for everything for everybody. You talk to the fishermen of Cornwall, who will tell you they would never have voted for Brexit. And it goes on and on and on. What you need to do is do like trade unions do. You sit down with the EU, you flash out a deal, you put the deal to the country. I thought you didn't want to referendum. That's not a referendum. That's a deal. That is a no deal. Yeah, but you still want to referendum on whether the people would accept it. Well, no, it's not a referendum. Well, it is. Are you voting for the... No, it's not. If you have, honestly, mate, if you have a plebiscite, it's a referendum. If you're asking people to vote yes or no on something, it's a referendum. No, it's not. It's not. It's not. Because there's not two sides to the argument. Well, of course there are.

15:32Do you accept it or don't you? Yes, but that's not a referendum. Yes, it is. It's not. It's a vote on the deal. You're voting for the deal. Oh, God. You're dancing on the head of a pin, Alan. No, you are here. You are. Well, should we have a referendum on that? The referendum was lots of things to lots of people without a shadow of a doubt. Yeah, I don't do anybody. Don't disagree with you. Right. There's lots of things to lots of people. A deal is one thing that is the same for everybody. Well, it was the same for everybody voting, leave or remain, wasn't it? We only had two choices. No, it wasn't. People voted for many different things. Oh, God. Nobody knew what the deal was going to be. No one, not the 400 MPs who voted for the deal, or the 52 or the 48. Nobody knew what the deal would be. No one. And the only way to end this argument

16:32is to sit down with the EU, come up with a deal. Well, that's what we did. No, it isn't. Oh, my goodness, me. What do you think? What do you think all of those negotiations were? In 2018, 2019, that lasted for two years, they came up with a deal, which you and I think was a crap deal, but it, but it, it, they came up with one and Parliament voted on it. Yes, and it shouldn't have been. It should have been the public. It was our. But you don't want to referendum. OK, well, I'm sorry. I'm kind of had enough of this. A whole lot of people in the country, and all the people in the country never got a chance to vote on the deal. No, because that was never part of the deal. I know, and this is what's caused the problem. Oh, my goodness. OK, Alan. Oh, I've lost the will to live, frankly. Johanna, is it Johanna or Johanna in Mayfair? Yeah, Johanna. Hi, what would you like to say? Well, I just feel like I'm feigning on behalf of younger people, really. Like my daughter's 21, and she didn't get the chance to vote on this.

17:34Oh, no, she would be 11. No, would it really go? Yes. I guess, yes. But she feels really cheated, because she feels like it's like older people who made this decision on their, you know, on their behalf, and they didn't really get a choice in it. I mean, they don't have free movement in the EU. You know, there's a lack of, I think the real-life allows most of whatever it is, some kind of exchange program that they would have had access to, they don't have any more. You know, these are big things. And, you know, yeah, at the age of 21, they're not really, you know, all that sort of motivated politically, I feel like they're a little bit, you know, I feel like they're, you know, a little bit overwhelmed by the whole thing, or there's no point, you know. But I certainly think for my daughter's generation, that they're really angry about the fact that they didn't get a choice in this. Well, I mean, I can't say anything about it from the fact your daughter was 11 at the time. So, I mean, unless you think the five-year-old should have a vote,

18:35that not is not really an argument, because... Right, you can't really bring it down to like 16, we'll make a difference. But I mean, obviously it really affects younger people more. And the demographic, you know, people at the phone into a radio station tend to be a bit older. And so you're not really hearing the young voices who are really quite angry about the fact, you know, they can't go live in Spain, they can't travel freely. Yes they can. Everyone can travel freely. Yeah, but you can't stay there for an extent. I'm not a very paranoid person. You can stay for 180 days at a time. But that's still a drag to keep coming back with some forwards, you know, it's not like that. Well, and also there's a same visa system as you use for any other country. It's not as if there's a ban on travel or living in the EU, plenty of people go living in the EU. A reason of movement that was really, you know, everyone was just really used to it. I don't think that was really explained to people. And I do think the young people are affected by it, particularly, you know, we can... Yeah, I mean...

19:35Why is it then? Why is it then that there isn't a massive rejoin the EU movement with lots of young people joining up and demanding that we rejoin? I think they actually feel quite sort of dislocated. Oh dear. Oh dear. Particularly deleted. My heart bleeds, I'm sorry, if you feel so strongly about something, then you go and try and change the law and try and get things moving. You don't just sit on your backside and complain. I don't think it comes from our generation where, you know, we do these to, you know, go on marches and things like that. They're less inclined to do it. They don't really understand it. They feel like a lot of power's been taken away from them. We'll take it back then. Well, no, I agree with you. But, you know, how do you do that when you've got, you know, for completely different generations? Well, they seem to be quite happy to go on marches for guards of the whole time. What about going on marches to rejoin the EU? Well, yeah, no, I agree. But, you know, they do feel a little bit lost, you know, and I think this is one of these things that I would love to do. Joanna, I'm sorry, it's pathetic bleeding.

20:36If you're not willing to get up and launch a campaign, get involved and try and get your own way, then I'm sorry, I have no sympathy. But they don't see the point in doing anything because all the power's been taken away from them. They don't seem to feel like they have any power. Goodness me. I'll tell you what, if generations like, if you're right in your analysis of this generation, I mean, how on earth we manage to win two world wars, I do not know. Well, I mean, the internet's got lots to do with that passive, you know, nature of things. I mean, you know, life changed a lot from when we were younger. So, you know, you can't really gauge children on that same level anymore, but, you know, I say children, that they're 21, but they definitely would join the EU again if they had a child. Then they are free to campaign for it. And they might get the chance of Andy Burnham has this way. Joanna, thank you. Jerry's in St. Alpen, Salah Jerry. Hi. Hi. I think I don't really want to talk too much about kind of what happened in the past, but the general public were misled

21:39and Nigel Farage, as he normally does, you know, makes a big noise, gets everybody kind of, you know, we're going to be so better off and we'll have more money in this country. Well, what it's done is done the complete opposite. So moving forward, we need to be in the EU. Yeah, we need to be in the EU because we cannot function without them. Yeah, as a country. Well, we've shown for the last five years we can actually. Not what you we can. Ian, where have you been? Are you ahead in the fan? No, not at all. I mean, so, so Jerry, let me ask you, let me ask you a question. How much money would we have had if we stayed in the European market part of the EU? We would have got money, wouldn't we? No, we don't get money. We don't have any. Where do you think that money came from,

22:40that we got from this country? It came from British taxpayers. We paid in 10 billion pounds a year at least and didn't get as much as that out. So I don't quite know what your logic is there. What did your last person that you spoke to, who was, you interviewed? What was the figure that we used to get? I don't know what you're referring to. You had, you were speaking to somebody. You interviewed somebody and he mentioned, right at the beginning, before your callings. He mentioned how much money we could have received. Well, he was talking about some economic study which said that GDP would have been, well, he said 5 to 8% was actually 4 to 8% higher had we stayed in the EU. Now, economists, you asked 100 economists the same question and you'll get 100 different answers. That was the view of a particular group of economists. I can't say that was totally wrong.

23:41I can't say it was totally right. But the fact is that there are things that we can do as a country, which we wouldn't have been able to do when we were in the EU. Now, for example, the government have just announced that 6 billion pounds is going to be given to British shipyards to build ships. Now, if we were still in the EU, that would not be possible under EU state aid rules. The government have put VAT on private school fees, something I don't think they should have done, but had we still been in the EU, our own sovereign government wouldn't have been allowed to do that because of EU rules. So, yes, there are things that we haven't been able to do since we've come out. But... Who's going to buy these ships that you're talking about? Well, presumably the Royal Navy. We haven't got any money to spend. Well, we've just told you we're spending 6 billion pounds on it. We're just borrowing. Well, we're borrowing money. Well, I can agree with you on that, but the fact is the government have done it,

24:42they wouldn't have been allowed to do it, had we still been in the EU. There are plenty of other things that I could sit here for the next half an hour. There's a book called 75 Brexit Benefits. I could go through those one by one if you really want me to, but I'm more interested in... No, the value of having a British passport is worthless in Europe. No, it's not. Nobody wants it. Nobody wants it. Because you can't go over and just be, as you were, free to set up home, move country. You know, you've got to go through the ins and outs of a ducts, whatever, yeah, to actually try and live there. Why is it that so many people are still buying houses in France and Spain, then? You're probably fine. That's the way of avoiding tax in this country. Oh, God. You really haven't got any arguments, have you, Jerry? I have. I've got plenty.

25:43Well, that one wasn't a very good one, was it? What? People going away, how many rich people have we lost in this country? We've lost many millionaires. That's not because of Brexit. Oh, not because of the level of taxation in this country. Well, the business bureaucracy... The level of taxation would have been slightly lower if we remain in the EU. Wouldn't you prefer having those billionaires in this country? I absolutely would, but not a certain... I haven't heard a single one of them in the last couple of years. Since Labour came to power, I haven't heard a single one of them say that they're leaving this country because we're not in the EU. It's because of the level of business regulation and the level of taxation. Simple as that. Jerry, please do better. 731 on LBC. Coming up, we'll talk about the bad news for the chancellor today, with this country's borrowing costs rising inexorably. One of those pesky economists joins us in just a moment and will come to more of your calls on... Well, we actually haven't really talked about what Nigel Rage said.

26:45That was a whole point of this half hour. I wanted to get your views on, is Nigel Farage right? The Andy Burnham's basically giving reform UK a gift by reopening this debate. Probably that's my fault for not sharing the debate properly, but we'll come onto that in just a moment. Ian Dale on LBC. Taxed 84850. 735, we really are going back to the future. Aren't we Bernadette says Ian, Could you please have a debate about Brexit with James O'Brien? I mean, I used to get that all the time during the Brexit years, and so did James. You're not going to have that particular pleasure on the trade. Although, you never know if Andy Burnham decides that we should rejoin and wants to have another referendum, that's strange that things have happened, I suppose. Now, we'll come back to your calls in a moment. Do you think that Andy Burnham has presented Nigel Farage with a unique opportunity to unite his own party? Sadly, they didn't actually, well, they did agree to come on to talk about it tonight, and then suddenly dropped out. Now, long-term UK government borrowing costs

27:45briefly top 6% today to reach their highest levels since 1998, amid a fresh global bond sell-off, fueled by fears about public borrowing and inflation. Now, I'm probably like you. I find the whole talk about bonds, guilds, interest rates of borrowing. I don't find that a particularly interesting subject, but we all need to be aware of it, because it could be about to get very serious. Let's talk to Yael Selfin, who is Vice Chair and Chief Economist for the Accountancy Firm KPMG, and also Research Fellow of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. Yael, thank you for coming on. Why should we be worried? Hi, Ian. How are you? Good, thank you. Good. Why should you be worried? So, I'm going to try and make it simple, so we can all understand it. And essentially, what it means is the cost of borrowing is higher.

28:48Yeah? So the cost of borrowing is higher for governments. We've just talked about the government and the new plans for the economy. And what it means is that because we have a lot of debt in the UK, but not just in the UK, but let's focus on the UK, we have a lot of debt here. So even a small increase in interest rates means that the cost of servicing that debt rises a lot. So we've already had a big increase in the cost of servicing the debt since the initial phases of the crisis in Iran, unfortunately. And what it means is that the chancellor's headroom has probably halved partially as a result of that. Yeah, so it has direct implication on how much money the chancellor will have when he announces a budget in October. And how much he can spend on different things. So that's one part. Then the other part that is very close to the heart of your listening,

29:52as I'm sure, is mortgage costs. Mortgage costs are linked to the cost of interest rates, market interest rates. And if those go up, the cost of mortgages will be higher as well, which is going to mean that households will have less money to spend on other things. And then finally, for businesses, the cost of borrowing is also likely to go up as a result of it, which means that they'll have less money to spend investing on projects, hiring people, et cetera. Now, Liam Halligan, respected economists, head of the Center for Policy Studies, he's got an interesting post on Twitter today, quite a long post, where he says, unless we drastically change course, this could turn into a fully blown market meltdown. He says at that point, the UK government won't be able to borrow enough money to finance that already spiraling debt interest bill. And then he paints a picture of essentially a financial armageddon,

30:53which could result in Britain having to go to the IMF for another bailout. I mean, we did that 50 years ago. Do you subscribe to those views that we are on the precipice of something that could be economically even worse for our economy than the financial crash? Well, unfortunately, some of it is not down to us, yeah, but because we have higher level of debt, we're more vulnerable. I'd say we're not going to change that very quickly. What we need to do is gradually reduce the level of debt that we have. Some of it can be done by growing faster, yeah. And some of it could be done by spending less. So I think, you know, it's not all down to us, unfortunately. Some of that increasing yields is coming from other sources. But we were told in 2022 after those infamous Liz Trust mini budget that the guilt yields then, I think they got, was it 4.68%.

31:55They're now well over 5.5%. And today, some of them have gone over 6%. We were told then that it was an absolute disaster. And yet we're now in a far worse position. We're in a different position. At the time, the yields were driven by political uncertainty. At the moment, they're driven by a number of factors. One of them is concerns about inflation. Because energy prices are going up. And it's very uncertain when the energy prices will go down. And as well as concerns about public finances that are very elevated. So especially for the UK, say it's less of a political uncertainty that is driving it. But also, it is a global thing. And it's driven into a large degree by the US, by additional demand for credit in the US, driven by large investment in AI and AI infrastructure. So I'd say it's a slightly different story at this stage. OK, thank you very much indeed.

32:57That's the other self in there. Vice Chair and Chief Economist for the Accountancy Firm KPMG. Right, let's go back to your calls on Andy Burnham's wanting to reopen the whole Brexit debate, which I think would be incredibly divisive. I thought we'd almost got to a point where it was settled, but he's reopened it. Nigel Farage thinks this is fantastic for him. And that's a question I'm really asking. I do not want to re-litigate the whole Brexit debate, which I'm afraid we've kind of been doing so far. James, in air, don't let me down, James. I don't know what are you now. I won't let you down. And there's no cracking hat from me. You won't like what I've got to say. But I don't think the Brexit debate should be reopened. I think when people vote for what they want, they should get it good and hard. And to use a good old German word, Shadon Freuda, I will watch with Shadon Freuda as the United Kingdom disintegrates Euro and Europe, its lack of membership of the European Union. It was a ridiculous decision, an absolute disgrace

33:57based on misinformation and disinformation. So you are re-litigating. So I want the people who voted for this and who, and who promulgated us to have it year on year on year. And that bit that you mentioned, the 75 benefits of Brexit, I would really like to know who published that. Was it peer reviewed, who funded it? Can I get it? You can't get it. It's fully foot noted too. So you can check it all out. Good, good, good, man, because I want it from a left wing point of view. You just stick with your Brexit and right wing commentators condanced in the head of the pin. From now for the next 10 years, trying to justify the removal of the United Kingdom for the EU. But going back to the question, I mean, you have let me down, James, because you haven't answered the question about whether you think Andy Burnham is right to reopen it and is Nager Farage right to say this is a manner from heaven for him. Well, I don't listen to anything for Raj, says, I'm debarming them re-open it and know, just let it go.

35:00Let it go and let's just see where we are in 10 years time. The guys that you do actually advocated for this in the media, you and it's your show, you go with it. Well, I correct the record there, because I didn't express a view before the referendum at all, because I was covering it impartially. It was only afterwards. I did, I absolutely voted for it. And afterwards I told everyone I voted for it. Well, well, it's you and you, aren't it? I do, aren't it? I'm not resigning from it at all. If there were another referendum tomorrow, I'd vote in exactly the same way. Good for you. Well, you know, like, the lady who voted earlier, if you put food, because her children couldn't do anything of a vote, that's a disgrace as well, actually. See, did you see the majority that Brexit, the majority is now dead, actually? The people who voted for this now, they're gone. You know, it's a different world we live in now. Another point about the passport, the lady made that passport.

36:01I'm quite happy. I was quite happy with my EU passport. And it expires next year. And I have to have a new passport. I was happy with my EU passport. And never go to airport and I see that we're now in a kind of thought country, queue to get into, to get into European country. It's shameful to quite honest with you. It's often shorter than the other queue. Well, to be fair, I haven't experienced many delays, but just the symbolism of it. You know, it's just really sad, the capital is on its way. So if you're sure you're sure you're going with it. Thank you for taking part in it, James. I think Shaheed says, let me just get this up. As Berlin was not in Parliament for most of the Brexit era, well, it was, he wasn't till 2015, which is when the debates really started. I think a lot of the reasons why people voted for Brexit have passed Berlin by. There was a mixed result in the Northwest, but he should remember his own constituency was a Brexit voting area,

37:0264 percent, I think. And you see, that takes me back to the buy election, where Andy Burnham stood up and proudly said, everything I do will be guided by the Make-A-Field test. I don't think that the majority of voters in Make-A-Field judging by the majorities that there were for reform in the local elections there, I don't think that they're going to be particularly impressed with their MP as Prime Minister trying to reopen this kind of worms again. This is LBC, message E and Dale on WhatsApp now on 03456060973. 749 Al says, Ian, I had to pull over as I nearly crashed my car. You disingenuous scoundrel. You absolutely champion Brexit before the vote, and you know it's been an unmitigated disaster. We can hear it in your voice. Grow up and own up. PS, other than Brexit, we love you. Well, I'll forgive you for that.

38:03Now, it's simply not true. I did not express an opinion before Brexit, partly because during the referendum campaign, which effectively started in March, as a radio presenter, I wasn't allowed to give an opinion. And if I had done, there would have been complaints to off-com, because we have to operate in the same way as every other. There's a BBC or ITV or Sky. We're not allowed to sort of sway the electorate one way or another, during an election or referendum period. So I can guarantee that you would not find any evidence of me expressing a view on Brexit before the 23rd of June to 2016. I certainly did on the 24th of June, and I immediately said that I'd voted for Brexit. And after that, I did become a champion of it. And as I say, I don't resign from it at all. I don't agree with you that it's been an unmitigated disaster. I think it could have handled much, much better. I'll go along with you as far as that. And let's go to Ivan and Ipswich. Hello, Ivan.

39:03Hello, Ian. Thank you for taking my call. I'm a Labour Party member on the centre list, to the soft list. And I'm also Euro-Skiptic. I voted leaves, and I would vote exactly the same way if that vote came up again. I, as you can well imagine, I disagree with you on practically everything, but I'm pretty much on the same page as you. When it comes to Brexit, although we probably have got different reasons why we voted for Brexit. And my reasons are entirely different to Nigel Farage. He is completely wrong because he's reasons for Brexit are completely wrong. But my opposition to EU is how it structures and run.

40:04I don't believe that the European Commission and the European Parliament should have power over our own government and parliament. And just for example, with the British Steel help, which the government did previously, if we were sitting in the EU, we would still have to get permission by Brussels to do that. And it's completely wrong. And the European Commission president Ursula von Delayon, last week, says about an EU while you're banned on social media for either under 16s or under 30s or can't remember. But I thought, no, I agree with that policy. It should be up to individual countries. And this whole idea of having a state of the union of a dress in the EU is absolutely ridiculous.

41:07That's what a country has. Well, exactly. It's states. Yeah. And the EU, as it is now, is a United States of Europe. Well, it wants to become one that you're absolutely right. And that was the main reason, or one of the two main reasons why I voted for Brexit because all I could see was ever closer union. And I like you. I did not want Britain to be part of that. And I wanted our sovereign parliament to be able to make its own decisions on everything. And that has happened now that they haven't made the right decisions on many things. But at least we can make our own mistakes now. Exactly. I mean, if the EU was an intergovernmental organisation like UN or NATO or the colon wealth, I wouldn't have a problem with it at all. But it's not like that. It's not like that. It's one, it's got, it still wants to be a United States of Europe. And it just don't.

42:09But as a Labour supporter, are you slightly horrified that anti-Bernamazote opened up this kind of worms again? I, I, I am horrified and disappointed because everything else in this speech to the Labour Party confidence, I absolutely applaud it. I thought it was totally brilliant on this. That, that just ruined it for me. And I do not want these divisions with families and friends up and down the country to all start up again. Well, you're absolutely right, Ivan. Thank you very much indeed. It's seeming talking of Groundhog Day, here's Marco. Oh my God, you can't be this stupid after 10 years still being this stupid. This is why the remainside lost the debate in the referendum because they patronised leave voters. They thought leave voters were all stupid, ignorant, uneducated.

43:12Well, if you patronise people, that is not the way to persuade them of the error of their ways, is it? And I'm afraid Marco, you represent all that is wrong with debate. If you just say that your opponents are stupid and don't even make an attempt to understand why they're arguing, what they're arguing, how can you really marshal your own arguments against them beyond insulting them just saying they're stupid? I fully recognise that there were many arguments for staying in the EU and I decided on balance. I didn't agree with all of those arguments. I mean, I could sit here and give you all of the arguments why we should have remained in the EU. I could probably sit here and make arguments as to why we should go back into the EU. But my opinion is that we are better off out. And I have a right to hold that opinion and you have a right to challenge me on it, which is, I guess, what this hour is all about. Let's go to Jane and Camden. Challenge me if you want to, Jane, but what do you make of Andy Burnham's decision to

44:15reopen this? Hi Ian. So, well, I mean, can I just firstly say, I'm a little depressed when we start talking about 11-year-olds not having the right to vote on a referendum. I can think back to things that happened way before I was born that I could complain to my parents about. But I mean, I think this is the problem that we've got in this country is that I think some of us have completely lost the plot. So, me, I think we have to understand what Burnham actually means when he talks about opening up negotiations again with the EU. And I think we need to hear the detail of that, primarily because the way that things are currently in the White House, with quite frankly, well, I would consider it to be a lunatic running America at the moment, he's not somebody that we can rely on, he said that we could rely on America. So, we need to start thinking about our own defence and how actually we're able to look after ourselves,

45:24which is going to be quite difficult. And I think just where the economy is going, we do need to assess, you know, we need to be properly assessed whether actually going back into the EU or not completely into the EU, but having some form of better economic trade with them will help us, because at this moment, I think we should be pushing it every door. Now, when I voted, I voted to, to basically remain. And the reason why I voted to remain was because I had no confidence in the politicians, and I still don't know. Well, I think a lot of people voted leave for that exact reason as well. Yes, I mean, the reason why I voted to remain is because I knew that they would never really be able to do a good job and put in a good deal for us if we were to leave. I mean, I think that, you know, that has been played out now.

46:28We don't have politicians that have the ability to make the right decisions, to do the right things, because unfortunately, a lot of them are just thinking about their own careers and the next election and keeping their spots. So that is a problem that we've got. And so, yeah, I mean, that's why I think really we need to see the detail of what Andy is talking about before we start getting ourselves carried away with whatever Nigel Farage is going to say. Okay, Jane, thank you very much indeed. Well, I gave that little homily about why I think remain lost the referendum, because they just patronized leave voters by calling them stupid. I might as well have saved my breath, frankly. Here's one from Robert. Why does every Brexit here come across as thick, including you? Have a good evening, Robert. Right, coming up on cross-question, where I'm sure this subject will no doubt come up, we will be joined in the studio by Hina Bacari, Liberal Democrat leader of the London Assembly, Festus Ackinbosoi, Conservative Member of Westminster City Council,

47:31former police and crime commissioner, who's seeking his party's nomination for the 2028 London Meryl Election. And Matt Stadler, political commentator and the host of the podcast, 20 questions with he'll be joining us as well. So get your questions in, 0345-6060-973. You can WhatsApp us on that number, you can text 84850, and of course you can watch us on Global Player, the LBC app, or 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, Ian Dale. Welcome to the programme. It's Thursday's Cross-question, joining me on the panel. Next to me on my left, making her debut, Hina Bacari, Liberal Democrat leader on the London Assembly. Next to her, Matt Stadler, political commentator, the host of the podcast, 20

48:34questions with, and to my right, Festus Ackem Bersoi, a Conservative member of Westminster City Council and former police and crime commissioner who's seeking his party's nomination for the 2028 London Meryl Election. And you may notice a seat empty to our right. Unfortunately, our fourth guest has a dropout through illness, and it was quite late on, so he didn't have a chance to replace them. But it means that all of our three guests get more time to speak, so they're very happy. If you'd like to submit a question to them, O345-606-0973, and what's up on that number? Text 84850, and you can watch our proceedings on Global Player, the LBC app or the LBC YouTube channel. Call O345-606-0973, text 84850, Cross-question, watch live on our free Global Player App or the LBC app. Well, let's start with a WhatsApp question from Gareth Inchechet. By announcing a potential new Brexit referendum, has Andy Burnham draw on the Labour battle line against reform,

49:37which will be to pin the failed Brexit promises on a duplicitous Nigel Farage nice independent question there. Now Matt Sadden, I can't decide what I think your views going to be on this, whether you think this is a master's straight by Andy Burnham or the opposite. I was really surprised by it because I've been doing TV shows for years saying there's no way that Labour are going to take us back into the EU anytime soon. And don't forget the Prime Minister himself said before he was Prime Minister in May that he wasn't interested in revisiting this argument and it would undermine what he's been saying about democracy. And he should know because he's learned or you'd have hoped he would have learned from Starmer's two years as Prime Minister that in the modern day you cannot escape what you said 10 years ago, let alone three or four months ago. So I'm surprised by it. I voted remain mostly for economic reasons. And then I spent quite a number of years saying we should not have a second referendum because like Andy Burnham

50:38seemed to think a few months ago, I thought that would be undermining of democracy. Imagine if we were to have another referendum and imagine it would go the other way. 52, 48 in favour of remain, you'll get an awful lot of people who are very, very unhappy and although it would of course be a democratic process, the feeling amongst those brexiteers who lost would be that it wasn't. I agree with everybody with that. I mean it's about time that that she started talking about so thank you very much. We've been saying this for a while now and as you know the Liberal Democrats put it on their ballot, we wanted to stop brexite in the first place. We wouldn't be in this situation. If we, you know, if our plans have gone according to plan, but we have plans to thought well, yeah, we did. We didn't want to stop. We wanted to stop an economic disaster. And I think that at the end of the day, you know, the people that I talked to, the London businesses have said that it has been an economic disaster. Brexite wasn't the way forward for this country. Now

51:39this is why the Liberal Democrats have been saying that we need to rejoin the customs union, the single market, we have a plan. And I think Andy Burnham is starting to listen to what we've been saying for a while now. Oh, you think this is all down to the Liberal Democrats? I know. We're the ones who've been saying it for quite a long time and I think you wouldn't have been saying it. If we hadn't had that opposition, if we didn't have that position, if we weren't pushing for it, he probably wouldn't be saying it. If you added it together with what he said in his conference speech about electoral reform, and you see that at the moment it's going to be tough for Labour to get an overall majority, who might Andy Burnham go into coalition with at the end after the next election? The Liberal Democrats? I mean, you know, social care, Europe, electoral reform, it was like he read the Liberal Democrat manifesto. It's a good saying to it. Absolutely not, because I know that our party was right in the first place. They're just catching on now. Do you think, I mean, he says he's going to issue a paper with the different options.

52:41Well, we know what the options are. I mean, we know how we can probably all agree what those options are. But if he decides that the consensus of the country, Ha Ha, because you're never going to get consensus on this, is to rejoin, do you think there should be another referendum on that? I mean, I think that we need to have that debate and talk about it in terms of before we even get to that point. Let's make sure that if he is serious about this, we're always very into the cross-party working, aren't we? Let's talk about how we can do this process. But first, what we've been saying is sort of at the single market, custom unions, that's the first step before we start talking about it. But if you go back into both of those, that is effectively rejoining, isn't it? Really? But this has been taken so seriously that yesterday, President Macron and a speech that he was making was welcoming us back saying, yes, go ahead, do it. And the Prime Minister of Spain went even further, so we welcome you back with open arms. And what terms are we under? Festus? I somebody who voted for remain, campaign for remain,

53:41I was doing around for remain. I think we have to respect the outcome of that referendum and make the best of what we have. The idea that we want to take our country through another round of Brexit referendum debates, knowing how devastating this was and how divisive the country, divided the country became during those years. I'm not sure of all times, this is what Britain needs. And the other aspect of the concern is this, why is it that we believe that the solution to the economic malaise that we have in Britain right now with a very sclerotic economic growth is by linking ourselves to another sclerotically declining region. It opens up more trade with the, even though trade over the years has declined with the EU sort of compared to the rest of the world, it opens up a big market where there would be no trade restrictions, which I mean, it has to be said, Brexit didn't pose. But for some sectors, they will definitely benefit from that. That's no question at all. Like I said, I voted for us to

54:45remain, but I respect the outcome of that. We have all the parts of the world that are growing at a much far, wonderful crime now. Like it's growing at 7%. You know, you've got other European countries that grow roughly about what 1%, 0.7%, and when we grow by 0.5%, we are jumping for joy. I think we need to be exploring more of the opportunities outside of the EU, rather than saying we want to get ourselves bound to the EU again. And some of the regulations that they've got there is what, look at how they treat an AI, for example, and technology and innovation. I'm going to just show that going back into the EU is a solution that many people think that's going to be. Do you support the Prime Minister's decision to invest £6 billion in British shipbuilding? I think it's the way forward. We do need to have a boost to the economy. And if that is a step forward and absolutely, we need to see growth in the economy. And do you agree with putting VAT on private schools? That hasn't been the position of the Liberal Democrats. Yes, as you well know. But the only reason I also see things is because will we still members of the EU, we couldn't

55:47have done either of those things. Now I don't agree with the private school thing either. I'm not sure I agree with £6 billion of British shipbuilding, but it means that we can make our own decisions and they're not dictated by state aid policy. I think we were able to make our own decisions as well before. We couldn't have made that decision to support the British shipbuilding industry for example. I'm just staggered that we're already in the embryonic stages of having some of these discussions. Do you remember from when there was that? No, the world. No, the world. Can you imagine Bristol likes some capital? If you're obviously not working on it, I'm worried about from a democratic point of view, is the suggestion, the possibility that Andy Burnham might say we're not going to have another referendum. But if you vote Labour and if we win, then we're going to re-enter the EU. And that to me is democratically problematic because although again, it would be an exercise of democracy under our first pass-the-post system which may disappear if Labour win the next

56:51election, nonetheless Labour could win with 30% of the vote and then you'd have 30% of those people who turned out in the general election deciding that we go back into the EU which should be a considerably smaller number than the people who voted last time round. Well, let's move on to Nick Insslow. I'm trying to get my head around how these early releases of offenders from prison are going to easy overcrowding of our prisons. Today was the start for early releases which will continue until, well, we don't know when. The next load of offenders then go through the judicial system and some will be sent to prison. Then eventually the cells vacated by early releases will be re-revited. Then what? Those new inmates get released early to make room for the next load. Does your panel think it's only a matter of time until there are serious consequences following this ludicrous decision? Hina. Well, we were put in this mess by the Tories and you're going to be surprised with my reaction to this. It wouldn't have happened if we weren't in this. The Tories, of course, this after decades of ignoring the issue and they

57:55could have fixed it and they haven't. But what I am really proud of is the fact that in the London Assembly when I was chairing the Economy Committee, we did actually do an investigation on making sure that prison levers had the ability to have long-term employment. That's actually the way forward. Let's start thinking about how to make sure that they don't go back to prison, that they are actually contributing to the economy, having the skills to get a job. And then we will have this panic station. Let's stick to the subject though. I mean, there are, I've seen on the television today, there was a woman being interviewed who had been attacked by her partner. He'd been sent to prison. He got a five-year prison term. He served, I think, just over a year and he showed her to come out early next year. Now this woman fears for her life. I think that's the problem. And so the way that they've done it, I mean, I'm not going to argue with you about the reason that we're in this situation. But we are where we are. Surely they shouldn't be constructing

58:57a system which lets domestic abusers out early. Yeah, I mean, there's been some really important work from Josh Barabindey. He's one of our MPs who's been talking about the impact that it has on domestic abuse survivors when people who are essentially putting people's lives at risk. This is essentially what people are feeling through this system. And I completely understand how anyone who's a victim of domestic abuse is going to be feeling. I would just say that those prisoners, they might represent a threat if they came out after they'd served half their time or whatever percentage they would otherwise have served. It's a pretty weak argument. I'm not defending the policy because what I'd like to say about this is that it is the state's primary responsibility to keep us safe from foreign powers, foreign threats, but also from each other. And this is nothing shorter for shambles. And of course, it is true that I have criminal justice system, including our prisons, were driven into the ground by the conservatives. But

59:58this government has now been in power for two years. We saw the difficulty Starmer had when he initiated the first of the early releases, not the first ever, but the first of this government. Burnham clearly saw it as a toxic issue, which is why he paid it so much attention over the summer. But it is just not good enough. And therefore, on another day when we are letting people out earlier than the state wants them to be let out because there isn't enough space, the government should jolly well have a proper plan in place for making sure that the people we want to be in prison can indeed be in prison. And we can have a whole nother conversation about the role of prison and about how we improve prison, how we improve the chances of rehabilitation and how for some offenses, it might be better for people not to go to prison in the first place. That's a different point. The point here is that the state is allowing people out early because there isn't enough space and that is inexcusable. This is a shambles, whichever way you look at it.

1:00:59And the fact of the matter as well is that even if you look at the amount of people that were in prison in 2024 when Labour came into power, I think this is the second or third tranche of early release prisoners since they came into office. The prison population is only once planned by the Conservatives as well. That's right. But for not for two thirds, what is doing? No, it was slightly different. The principle was so early release has been around for a long time, but it's just getting released a bit more a lot sooner now. The ten is this, like Matthew said, the problem is if you have to release people early, that's fine, but you have to have the systems in place when they come out. Some of them it was released announced yesterday, they're not even on tags, yet because it's taken about two or three months for them to go on tag. A domestic abuse survivor just this week was saying that it looks like we are being ruled by clowns because some of the victims of the domestic abuse offenders have been revictimized. The level of people who are

1:02:02being recalled to prison has increased again. It just shows that there hasn't been enough planning for these early releases. And the last thing I'll say about this is this. We have police forces who are now on their knees because of the extra demand being created by these early release schemes. The probation service can't cope, and this is two and a half years or thereabouts after labor have come into power and you're still blaming the Conservatives for that. The Conservatives are responsible for people not being tagged. The Conservatives are responsible for the police numbers in the metropolitan police being the lowest as being in almost 10, 15 years now. That is on Labour's watch and those officers who should be doing other things are now going to spend more and more of their time going after these prisoners who are preaching the terms of their release. Imagine what it does to morale and the police as well. The police get a very tough time, but actually the vast majority of them are putting themselves on the line for our benefit and for our safety. And they get someone and they get put in prison and then the state says, we're terribly sorry we haven't got enough space. No, well it is a state failure isn't it?

1:03:05I mean let's not beat around the bush. Cross question with Ian Dail, watch live on our free global player app or the LBC app. 90 minutes past eight on our panel tonight we have Nina Bacari, Liberal Democrat leader of the London Assembly. What's the main challenge being Liberal Democrat leader on the London Assembly? The main challenge probably is the fact that I get case work across the whole of the capital city. So that's quite a lot. And probably I think the fact that in the Assembly there are just two Liberal Democrats members out of 25. So the challenge sometimes is to make sure that we get enough done in the amount of time that we're allocated because it's all proportional. So the questions that we have to ask have to be pretty good, but it makes this work hard and the quality is excellent. So there's two of you, you don't need to whip. I'm in charge of the two of us. Yeah. Wasn't Leanderson the chief whip of reform when they had about four other MPs. Yeah, he was.

1:04:07That's not go there. Matt, that was a voice of Matt Stadler, political commentators, the host of the podcast, 20 questions with which I've been on. Who's the latest? Who's your latest victim? I actually interviewed the cleverest boy in my year at school, but really written a newbie. Well, you're interviewing yourself. No, sadly not. He's going thanks. He wrote a book called The Madness of Markets and the impact of things like Blue Sky on trade going through and his fascinating reads and he's such a clever articulate person. So I thought I'd stick him into the 20 questions with Spotlight. Well, you've got two more victims here. Best of sack and bus. Busy is another one. You asked to come on. Haven't you? Well, it's quite right too. Now, you're standing for London map. Why? Is she not going to win? Are you? James turn his got it. So it up. Well, look, no one consists of five. No one consists of a full bull match until the final whistle is, you know, it's been blown. But look, you know, David Cameron was not meant to be the party leader as well, right? Then was supposed to be David Davis. Well, remember, I'm sure you do. And I made that point for the head of the American research here.

1:05:09I guess there you go. Look, I think we can definitely do a great better job in making London boom again. You know, this is an amazing city. I think it's one of the greatest in the world, but I am extremely concerned about the direction the city is going. And almost all the polls show the same thing in terms of housing. It is collapsed completely in terms of economic development and jobs being created. It's not as where it is not where it should be. And I think who better to help fix that than someone who's actually taken the responsibility for fixing the police force that was really struggling. And it's not doing better. If you look at the map, it can do a hell of a lot better. As I'm sure you can attest to where I have a different proposition to give to London as a fresh face with experience of getting things done. And I look forward to the debate. And the firmest handshake in the business. I can't remember. Who's the person that has had the weakest handshake? You've been really disappointed. Me in this very building in the pre-experiment. I don't say that for a row. No, definitely not. No, there were two people who surprised me. One was John Major. This is when I was a police

1:06:12got my massive hands. Huge, strong handshake. And didn't let go when you expected him to let go and gave you an extra little twist. And then he puts his other hand on top of your which I've got. So you took me out. It didn't creep me out. It was a Trump like, isn't it? It surprised me. Because you think of him as I thought of him as the sort of grey man slightly weak, but actually it was a dominant handshake. The person who surprised me even more. And this is a direct answer to your question was Gordon Brown, who had unfortunately one of the limpest handshakes I've ever encountered. And he was of course known as the Iron Charts. Well, I'll go on better than that Norman Tabit. Let's go on to a question. Christina on the hand side says, what action should the government take to make sure we have decent fuel supplies which don't cost an absolute fortune? Now ministers of hell talks with representatives from the governments of Germany, France, Italy and the Republic of Ireland today over possibly releasing emergency stockpiles of diesel with fears that Donald Trump could impose a ban on the export of diesel from the United States.

1:07:15Festus, is it ever possible to buck the market in terms of fuel prices? It's difficult. It's difficult, especially when you've got external factors across the world that is making things that much more difficult despite any domestic measures you put in. But I'm a big believer that if you're in charge, there's something that within your control and there are some that are not within your control. You've got to focus on things that are within your power. And there are certain things that our government can be doing to make energy prices, fuel prices, cheaper in Britain. Like what? So I know they're talking about the removing the VAT on energy prices. That will be some benefit. There's a green levies, for example, which we have on energy prices that can be dealt with. This might be controversial. If we have some, if we have fuel in the North Sea, we should be looking to explore those, don't know anything that's really diesel, but I do think that we need to look at how we can become more energy independent or at least looking at other sources that are not as challenging as the ones that we've become in the initial for us at the

1:08:17moment. Okay, Matt. I'm not sure I've got the answers, but I can express serious concern about the winter ahead. So I drive a lot and petrol since before the Iran war has gone up, what, 30, 40 p something like that. And that is a heavy toll. And if you run a business and you've got a white van, you're a plumber, you're a builder, a labourer, I just don't know how people actually can accommodate such a massive spike in their daily costs. So that is a real problem. I listen to someone from Wales who runs a big coach business ferrying people around the country relies on diesel. And I think their costs have gone up something like 700,000 pounds. In a year, how do you absorb that as a business eventually? You have to either go bust or you hand it over to the customer. And then that price of living goes up even further for the customer, the person who's not driving. And then on top of that, you've got this 16% rise that's predicted in household energy bills from January. You mentioned the VAT. The VAT of course is at 5%, so it's peanuts that's

1:09:20coming off 45 quid or whatever, because there's a 4% increase today. And then in January, it's going to go up what 260 quid or something. And for people who are struggling, that's massively, massively difficult. I just say one more thing on that. Why is the government, if it isn't? By the way, I haven't been particularly pro this government so far on this show. I want Andy Burns to do well. I thought it was a very, very good speech. I think he's got some momentum. I want him to win the next election. But the government should be thinking incredibly hard. He should already have been thinking about how it can offer targeted support for the most vulnerable in our society for household energy, because I don't see how households across the country can just simply absorb these hits. The Swedish government, I think, knocked the equivalent of 50 Pio fuel duty. Our government, I think, is at 5 Pio tempi, which is when diesel is costing close, well, it's over two pounds a litre now. You might as well not bother really. He did, you think there should be some dramatic gesture by the government? I mean, we all remember Liz

1:10:25Truss, but very few of us remember that when the similar occasion when she first became prime minister, she really went for it. A lot of us thought she went for it too far. But do you think the government should be looking at something like that kind of a... A dramatic Liz Truss approach. I don't think so, but we do need to be thinking about alternative ways of traveling. I mean, you were talking about the white van drivers and so many businesses being dependent on that. There needs to be incentivising ways of making people move away from the white van. How can you, if you're in the country, right? Are you coming into London from outside or into Manchester? I don't see what the option is. Well, we have been doing some investigations on this in the London Assembly, and that is encouraging things like in London itself. Having a white van isn't actually economic or it doesn't make sense. You can't get around the city that much anyway. If you have another option like cargo bikes and using those different options to get around the city, that's the way forward. And you can do that

1:11:27on a cargo bike. Have you have a go? I don't need investigation. I know that you can do this. This is a way forward. Yes, have a look at our report. What are you actually having a look at the reports of the end of the century? I'm sorry. I'm one at a time. Look at the evidence and see what we've been doing and the investigations that we have been doing in the London Assembly is saying we need to move away. How many of you have actually run a business? I have not run a business. How do you carry a ladder on a bike? A cargo bike. There are, and there's enough ways to carry all sorts of things on a cargo bike. You can carry fridges. You can carry enormous amounts on cargo bike, even TFL are looking into it. And if you don't know that, you have to be the mayor of London. I'm sorry. I don't really want to be the mayor of London. Can you actually look at the facts and investigations that we're doing in London? I've actually done the investigation. Let me speak, please, please. I want to look at the construction sites. That's not the situation. Construction sites

1:12:31are not on the same thing. They have said that. Please, let me finish. Please, you are not going to carry five bags of cement on a push bike. You are not going to carry a ladder on a pushback. You are not going to carry a cement mixer in a push bike. Correct? I'm saying that there is a lot you can do. And if TFL have agreed that this is actually a way forward in making decisions, everything can't be taken in a cargo bike. But there is definitely options. And why can't we look at that? Don't be closed. But open. We're going back to the main question. You really want to be the mayor of London. The reality is that the cost of energy, the cost of fuel is one of the biggest contributor to the cost of living crisis that people face in London and across the country as well. And we have got to find a way to deal with this. And I think some of the levies that we're putting on these on energy bills need to be looked at again because no matter what the prime minister says,

1:13:33as we go towards the general election, he's going to have to deal with this issue of the cost of living. And this is going to be one of them because some of them it will not be within this control and some of them will be. But what is mayor of London? Could you do what powers would you have to help solve the fuel crisis? Well, the mayor of London does not control international oil prices. You don't have powers. You can. You know, this is national government. Well, you got some pass of taxation. Taxation in that regard I want to talk about. But as a mayor, you do have some influencing powers, some convening powers to talk with the Treasury, to talk with the government as London being the county for a bad war, almost about a quarter of the economic output of the entire country. So that comes with some weight. And that absolutely absolutely affect the level of economic outboard in jobs being created in London. What might you think about investors just to push back on yours as a source of disagreement? I think, Kenny Badenock's complete abandonment of the consensus that was developed by the conservatives when you guys were in power of the net zero policies. I think it's pretty disgraceful. I think it's

1:14:36populist. I think it's unbelievably short-sighted as well because in the medium or the longer term, the way that we can better insulate ourselves from disasters in the Middle East. What's going on in Iran completely, that's almost completely out of our control, is to go green. And we can put our fingers in our ears and we can put our heads in our hands and we can pretend it's not the reality, but it is absolutely the direction of travel. But we have to electrify our grid. We look at China, China's often used as an example of this great polluter. So why should we bother when we're less than 1% in terms of polluting? Actually, China is making massive strides in the right direction. And we are going to get left behind. We're doing all right at the moment. But if the Tories get in, heaven help us if reform get in, we're going to cycle backwards or we're going to drive backwards whatever mode of travel you want at 100 miles an hour. But Matt, Britain is decarbonized faster than most developed countries in the world. We're doing well. Let's just you're going to give the Conservative government some credit for that, right? Yes, and that's

1:15:39what we're doing. So let me finish. But the point is this as well. We cannot decarbonize the entire world on the back of British workers, on the back of British economy. That exactly is the point. We have gone much faster and further than many other developed countries. I think it is quite a reasonable thing to say at the time when our economy is struggling, we've gone one of the highest energy prices for production in the developed world. It is not a bad thing to actually look at. I mean, I think Matt, you've slightly overstated the case because I think all she said is that well, I don't agree with this 2050 date. She hasn't actually questioned the, she's not denied. But she's not denied climate change is happening. No, but she has taken a sledgehammer to the part that the cross-party consensus on the importance of 2050. This is an urgent crisis. Why not 2045 or 2055? It is an arbitrary date, isn't it? Yeah, but if you're a party that is singling to the public that this is less urgent than actually it is, then you're doing huge damage. Well,

1:16:40then you should be arguing for 2030. You're just being difficult. Well, that's my job. Cross-question with E and Dale on LBC, tax-date 485-0. 835 on LBC. Nina Bacari, promoter of the cargo bike, is here. That's how I'm going to remember you now. I'm the cargo bike queen. You can have me on any time. She is Liberal Democrat leader on the London Assembly. Festus Akinbysi is a Conservative Member of Westminster City Council and is wanting to be the Conservative Party candidate for the London Meryl election. When is there going to be sorted out? Well, we think it's going to be sorted out by the end of this year, but I can't give you a specific date. It will be wrong on me to do so. There's another guy that's coming forward. Alex, Alex, yes. We all get along pretty well, but there will be a good contential in the Conservative Party. Well, we are very sensible here at London. Who can do more press-ups? You're James Clevley because he's found himself doing press-ups. I'll be James, come on. Would you would, yeah? This is the burnemisation of politics, isn't it?

1:17:47Everything for TikTok. That was a voice of Matt Stadland. Michael in Sunderland is on the line. Hit us with your question, Michael. Are you in the westernmost final? Do you think it's about time we are the referendum on the death penalty to help free up the prices in the president? I shouldn't laugh. We are going to be talking about this after nine, actually, on the back of the Christopheic, is it Christine Pike in Tennessee? Matt? This is an issue where, ultimately, I think it comes down to the sort of question, do you believe in God? If you say, I believe in God and I say no, then you're not going to get anywhere. I believe that we shouldn't be killing people as a punishment. And if you believe, I don't know what you believe, I imagine you don't believe it. But if you were to believe that actually we should be doing it and it was justified, I'm not sure how I'm going to persuade you of my position. Now, I might attempt to say, well, miscarriage of justice or, indeed, the supporting case in America where they

1:18:48failed to kill someone twice. I mean, just barbaric. But then you'll get extreme views out there and say, well, that woman should have thought about it before she committed whatever crime she committed. And they will say there are cases now with modern technology that are beyond any doubt. And for those cases, you should get the executioner out. My view has been the same all my life. Human life is sacred. I know that's a religious word, but I think it's sacred whether you're not, you happen to be a religious whatever you're saying. I'm not a pacifist, but using that logic, you should be. No, not in the slightest. They're two very different things. If you have to go to war to defend your country and to defend yourself, that's very different from when someone has already been imprisoned is incarcerated in found guilty and is at the whim of the state. At that point, there's no need to use violence. But very, very, very different. Human life is sacrosanct sending people to war inevitably means that they are going to kill other

1:19:51people or they're going to be killed themselves. That's what I meant. I see what you say from that point of view. In that case, it's not sufficiently sacred that you cannot defend yourself. Or indeed, you could say because it's sacred, because my life and the lives of my fellow citizens are sacred, I have to take a life in order to protect the sacredness of our lives. But you've got to be dancing there. I mean, it's, it's, I'm so depressed that we're actually having this conversation. I thought we lived on from, you know, from this. I sort of agree with you in one way, but when you see this case in America, I mean, the question we're going to be asking at night is not should we bring back the death penalty. I think that would be absolutely crass. We're going to be asking, has this now ended any argument in favour of capital passion? I mean, it's horrific to think that this woman had the injection twice and was still alive. You know, it didn't work in her case, but there have been other cases as well, where it's just been horrific the, the, the whole process. Morally, it's just so wrong and absolutely not having a, I can't imagine what a referendum

1:20:57won't even look like, you know, who would be forward, be against what kind of characters, what kind of debates, you know, how would the show work here on LBC when you're having a referendum about the death penalty? What kind of people would you have on that would be like? The death penalty would win in a referendum, I think, sadly. Well, actually, when you look at the polling, that is no longer the case. It used to be the case, I think going back to the 80s and 90s, the last time that there was a debate in Parliament on the death penalty was in the 1980s, but 75% of the British people used to be afraid of the death penalty. That has reduced to, I think, under 50%. Yeah, it's probably because of a new generation that I've come through. Well, I don't know. I don't have the really interesting question. I know you're going to say something first, but that's for me the really difficult thing for someone on my side of this argument. Let's say it were still 75% believe in the death penalty. How can I justify not having a referendum on that? Yes, we live in a representative democracy, but when opinion is as clear cut as you say it was back then, how do you

1:21:58resist? Well, it isn't. Last November, you got to deserve it. It showed 50% in favour and 45% against. I'm pretty sure I've seen something in the last year where it was marginally against, but first, I have the very sad experience of having friends and loved ones whose sons were killed on the streets of London. One of them scored Abraham Badrue. He was shot dead and hackney after he gave evidence in court where he stopped the brutal gang rape of a young girl on his council of state. I was speaking to his dad a few weeks ago. What do you think he would say about the killer of his son? The people who want him dead? Absolutely. Without question. I think we're looking at this story. No, I think he has found it in himself. Matthew, please don't interrupt me. Please, let me speak. The thing is this, as a matter of

1:23:03principle, I do not agree with the death penalty. No, I think we should bring that back. The referendum has the question suggest. But it's really important that we look at this from the point of view of those who have been on the other end of that. They loved ones who have survived. And what would they really think? Of course, not all of them, like you mentioned, would want death. Not all of them. For some of them do. But we're probably looking at this from the point of view of our moral standpoint where there's religious or the sanctuary of life. And there have been some cases in the news recently of grotesque killings of people that have put me on the edge of you know what maybe it's about your response there because what you're saying essentially is that justice should be upheld through the emotional reaction. How dare you say that is the emotions of the son who's lost his side? I've lost people too. I know that forgiveness. You think there been emotional? A giveness is hard to do. You think there'd be an emotional? That's why we have a justice system. That's why we have laws in place. That's why we have this system in place

1:24:06to make sure that we are able to you know ensure that these people are put away in prison etc. But to have to have somebody say, do you say because somebody died in my family I have people who been victims of crime in you know in horrific ways and then say because of that experience I think that somebody should die because my my love for that. No I did not say that's what I believe. I'm saying that's what the family of this boy. But that's essentially why we have the system we have now to make sure that we have a justice system that is fair and that doesn't react in that in that in that way. But in the end in the end in the end this is a heart versus head thing that I'm sure if somebody close to you was horrifically murdered you would feel exactly the same as the people first to talk about. I think you can. I think you can. It's not as far as who's an incredible human being. No I know but you have to understand why people are feeling like that. That is the point that we don't that is why we don't put justice in the hands of the victims for a reason.

1:25:06Also, we might get stoning we might get all sort we know we're not suggesting it but I'm saying we don't put it in the hands of the victims partly because if it were in the hands of the victims family some of them not all of them would want to exact all sorts of horrific revenge. They wouldn't necessarily stop at the death penalty. That is this is a hallmark of a civilized society and it is not for a single second to belittle any of the victims or any of the families of the victims. And by the way Ian your point about the sacredness of life and how can I think life is sacred if I'm prepared to take it in a war. If that's a winning argument on your part then I'll scrap it and I'll say I don't want to live in a society where the state indulges in or engages in cruel punishment and even for the worst of us even for those who have committed the most unspeakable crimes I do not believe that we as a society and ultimately the state should act physical revenge. I think

1:26:11that's cruel and I think it chips away at our own capacity to be civilized. I used to be in favor of the death penalty for terrorist murders because I think if you are doing a terrorist murder that is it's one level above I think what sort of if you can say normal. And then we're going into the argument of what terrorism is and who's being described as a terrorist. We know what terrorism is. You went about it to find a law. And yeah that worries me that that that approach. You went about and the Geneva Convention though he in which even in war we have conventions. What's I got to tell you was this? Well you're saying it's one level above and I'm saying even in war. I've changed my view I don't believe in the death penalty for anybody now. But back in the 1980s I would have probably if there had been a referendum voted for terrorist murders but not others I think there is a logic to that. But anyway we're all part of friends. Cross question with Ian Dyle on LBC. 849 on LBC with us on the panel and she's just told me I'd be mispronouncing her name all the

1:27:12program. Hina Bukari have I got it right thank goodness for that. And here's one that I can never pronounce and he never corrects me because it's pretty fun. It's pretty fun. Festus Akim Bosoi. Perfect. Yeah. I keep Bosoi. He's very easy to pronounce Matthew Stadlin. I could never pronounce my name. Why? It's originally a foreign name Stadlin and so I used to get very self conscious about it. So where'd you call yourself then? Well I try. I have a stab at it. Right Peter's in Norfolk he says is it time to be cruel to be kind to our younger generations as the Conservatives are suggesting. Under new Tory proposals young people who are fit to work but have not worked for six months continuously would face new rules to qualify for payments including daily attendance at a job centre or courses. Festus. I think it is a tragedy that Britain now has

1:28:12more young people between the 16 and 24 who are unemployed who should be economically active. That's higher than in Greece. The country that was a basket case in Europe all those years ago. In London about the same number 24% of young people are not in employment at all. That complies to about 16%. Nationally we need to be able to get more young people into work. Absolutely without question and it's not just about money. It's also about values about them being able to move on in life and that really does matter. My only other concern is this. We have a situation at the moment where the businesses that will generally will employ those young people are going out of business. They're going bust. The job taxes is not helping. I can say this is somebody who has about 40 people that work in his business. It has been an absolute car crash for the most part for many businesses that employ young people especially whether if you work in hospitality as well, it is a problem. Yes, we absolutely need to get more

1:29:16young people into work and incentivise them to go to work but make it a lot easier and cheaper for employers to employ people. Not necessarily to reduce the minimum wage of course, but reduce the burden to employing young people. Incentives are fine but the way that this policy is being promoted is to say, well, it's sort of tough love. I'm not sure sort of depriving people of money to live on is the equivalent of tough love. Well, it's a tough lady. So what she's saying here is about, look, we can't just allow so many of our young people. For me, it's also about compassion. We can't allow many of our young, this many young people to be out of employment, training or education. That's just not acceptable. It helps no one. It doesn't help them. I've got young children in that. Well, I'm sorry you think that way, but we need to get more young people into work. Okay. You just said it was compassionate. Absolute bonkers. Do you think it is compassionate for them to not be? Absolutely bonkers policy

1:30:18from the Conservatives. It's clickbait politics. They're just trying to get attention over something stupid like this. I can't believe they're actually saying this. It's out of touch. It's completely the wrong idea of how to get young people into employment. Well, actually, there's a lot of evidence to say that we need to have a youth guarantee. We need to make sure that young people are having a boost into their careers advice, a boost into mentoring, make sure that post-16 education is improved. And the fact is that half of the people that are not in education and training right now are not even claiming benefits. Anyway, so that's why it's a silly idea. As a parent of two teenagers and also a teacher, I've been teaching for 20 years. I can tell you right now that schools are really, really urging police to give them support to make sure that children are work ready. There's a phrase, work ready. We need to make sure that children have the skills, because right now they don't have those sufficient skills right now. There are young people who

1:31:21are applying for jobs at an entry level and they're being told that they need to have two years of experience. How they can get that experience? This is the problem. The approach to the toys have got is completely out of touch, absolutely without any reality. And it's probably the worst thing I've actually heard in recent age. Do you think it is okay? Absolutely bonkers. Do you think it is? Okay. Do you think it is okay that we can have this many young people not working in London? Absolutely. We can't have this situation. We've got a youth unemployment situation that's worse than anywhere else in London. London has the worst rates and can't have anywhere else in the country. We know that. The all proposals should say, let's punish those young people even more. Now I've been to a charity recently that are doing some really amazing work. They're called the Good Work project. They are working with young people to get them into employment. Now these people have got degrees who've done everything right. They've done everything they

1:32:22were told to do to get a job. Because you know what? The jobs aren't there. The jobs are reducing. We've got young people here trying to get jobs. I'm just looking at the time and need to get managed. But I am passionate about this as you can tell. And I'm coming from a place of actually understanding the situation rather than the conservatives. Very briefly. Okay. Very briefly. I'm you're both passionate but I'm more on headed side on this than Festus. The government recognizes this is a massive issue with needs. My worry is that they will get through to the next election if indeed it is 2029 without fundamentally changing it. It's all very well having these big reviews. The Milburn report coming out. They've actually got to get their hands dirty and changed things. I am encouraged a bit by this idea of more technical education, linking secondary education to jobs in local communities. I think that it could be a very, very positive thing. Let's also though not forget just how challenging this market is. The graduate market alone is really, really difficult. We've got the massive big picture concerns

1:33:26about AI and what that will do to jobs of all different ages. These are really difficult issues. We need Andy Burnham to grip it because it really matters. Driving people into depression, into poverty. That cannot be the answer. Because then the tango is a far better. We're all going to play a game now. We're going to guess what subject in a teacher's at school or taught at school. Matt, go on. I think you'd hold... You're not going to get it right. C-D-T. What was that? That was what competitive design was called. But in the old days, in the old days, Festus. You're older than I am here. I'll see you taught history. I'm going to say maths. I was a primary school teacher. I do everything. Every single student. And history as well. Right, there you go. I've got that right. I want to... That's why I'm the expert. I'm cargo, right? You've been educated. I want to yes no answer to this one. This is from Kim. Let's follow up really to the last one.

1:34:26Is the Tory party, the nasty party again? Kemi Badernot spoke to the spectator and said, the people who are going to say nasty party will always say it. Quite frankly, the reason why we're in this mess is because we kept pandering to those people and trying to make them like us. Did it work? No, it didn't. Well, I'm going to predict that yours is going to say no, Festus. Absolutely. I'm going to predict that you're going to say yes. I'm probably going to predict math that you might say yes. I would say yes, but I've got a parenthesis, five or six words, kicking people out of their social homes because they're not British or EU systems. And trying to ape what reform is doing is absolutely disgusting. It would mean I could never vote Tory even if Festus is the leader. That's that's more than five or six words. We can talk about that. Right. This has to be a quick one too. This is from Caltharine Exeter. Spain is talking about putting a hundred percent tax rate onto empty second homes. Should we do the same to tackle our housing crisis? The Spanish government has proposed allowing local authorities but a 50 percent tax

1:35:29increase on empty properties after two years and then increasing it to a hundred percent after three years and for people who own multiple empty properties it could even be a 150 percent tax. Well, that's not really second homes is it? That's empty homes. Matt. The one word again. You can have a few more. No, I'm not in favour of that and I'm not in favour of this policy that Burnham was announcing in his speech. He said we might not agree with everything he said. I don't agree with the idea of taking hold of people's private property now. I mean, we've got a housing crisis and that's absolutely the case but what we need to be doing right. I would say is pushing developers to make sure that there is more housing making sure that we're actually reaching the targets. We've decreased the targets of housing in London. You're not being met. Okay. And then we're not being met. The way we're going to deal with this is by increasing the supply of housing, making it a lot easier for schemes to become more viable and reduce the crazy level of regulations that just makes it much more difficult, much more costly to build homes. So this idea of taxing second homes will

1:36:30only touch the surface. We need to find a way to build more homes. Right. Our fun question is from Martin and Donkaster. Hello Martin. Hello, Ian and I know you have a question. Is this a UK ticket holder? One over 100 million pound on the lottery on the weekend. If you got that call this weekend to say you want over 100 million pound, what do you think you would do straight away? Cargo bikes. Cargo bikes. I haven't actually got an honest answer to this. Yes, I love Cargo bikes. It would be actually. I can't imagine such a vast amount of money. I would give every penny away to charity. Every penny. Every children will be furious. No, they wouldn't. They'd understand. They'd completely. They know exactly what I'm like. I feel enormous pressure either to be extremely pious, like you just have been. Also to be unrealistic, fun. I'm afraid to say apart from going to watch England play cricket in Cape Town in the new year, I would love to do that. I would put a lot of it away from my children, but I do believe in inheritance tax. I'd obviously give some away to charity, but I would not

1:37:34be as pious as you could. I would. I'd give you a fairly pious. Festus. Given the fact that I am. Be a nasty Tory. I have a strong affinity for young people. I would certainly want to look at investments on money in facilities for young people to use. That's one thing for me. Also, given the way that the kind of returns you can get on government bonds at the moment, that would be a pretty good way to invest on money, right? Please have not been fun, Asas. I would buy a football club. I was thinking about giving a bit of money to QPR. My local club, I've become an accidental supporter of. They just think that I would. Like you mentioned, you're a new, very football fan, Matt. Can you really? There's a grittiness to the championship, as you know, as a West Ham fan. Well, I don't see you. I don't like smatches against QPR. At the London stadium, you should go. Right. Well, that was a spy, Sarah, episode across question, and I was expecting possibly, but thank you all very much indeed. Now, Monday's across question will come live

1:38:35from the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham. Well, we will be joined by Tally Fraser, the spectator journalist, among others. Right. In the next hour, we are going to return to the subject of the death penalty, because we talked last night to a journalist from Tennessee who is covering this awful, awful story. I hesitate to even call it a story. The time we were speaking last night, she'd been reprieved. And then at one o'clock in the morning, our time, she was injected with a supposedly lethal dose of something. It didn't kill her. And the second injection didn't kill her either. Has this whole story now ended? Any argument in favour of capital punishment? 0345-6060-973 is the number to call.

1:39:394 minutes past 9 on LBC is the time. Welcome to the programme if you've just joined us. One of the things I love about presenting this programme is that you can be covering one thing one day and something else the next day. So yesterday in this hour, we were talking about Manchester City and the financial scandal that they're involved in. And today, we're going to be talking about the death penalty. I mean, two very, very different subjects, but both subjects on which people will have very strong views. The death penalty debate in this country, I think, was probably at its height in the 60s, 70s and 80s. I remember when Margaret Thatcher was in power, she was under a lot of pressure and she wasn't supported the death penalty. She was under a lot of pressure to allow votes, more or less every year, in Parliament, on whether to bring it back or not. Parliament consistently voted against it, but there was a wide public debate on it in this country in the 1980s. We have to remember now that's what 40 years ago, 50 years ago. So it hasn't really been a subject

1:40:46that has been brought up. I think sort of in my 17 years on LBC, I've probably done three or four phonons on it, possibly when there wasn't any other news around in a day. I mean, that is not the case today and we are going to talk about it today, not whether we should bring it back in this country because frankly, that is not going to happen. But I think it is very interesting that the public opinion on this has changed over the decades, that in the 1980s, most of the polls showed somewhere between 65 and 80% of the British public were in favour of restoring the death penalty. That has now reduced, I think, to under 50%. The last survey that we can find is about a year ago and only 50% of people supported it, 45% of people said they were against, 5%, clearly, so they didn't know. 21% wanted to bring back the stocks and 17% wanted to bring back flogging. Now,

1:41:47there will always be people on the political spectrum and they're not always on the right either. The death penalty has actually always been quite popular among working class labour voters as well in particular. It's always been the so-called middle classes and the more intellectual side of society that's always been against it. It is also, I think, the case, and I guess will inform me if I'm wrong on this, that as a member of the European Convention on Human Rights, we couldn't actually bring it back, I think, even if Parliament voted to do it. Now, as someone say, well, that's another argument for coming out of the ECHR. I used to be in favour of the death penalty for terrorist offences because I thought that was one step up. We don't really have degrees of murder in this country, other countries do, but I've always thought that a terrorist murder is essentially a

1:42:48tack on the state. It's a tack on our whole society. It's an attack on our way of life. So, I would justify my support for the death penalty on that basis. But over the years, and some of you will say, well, you've just become so woken, over the years, I just thought, no, I don't actually want to live in a society that has the death penalty. I think it is totally inhumane and we've had the proof of that, haven't we? In the last 24 hours, where the governor of Tennessee in the United States has suspended all executions in the state until at least the end of the year, and he's ordered an independent inquiry after a botched attempt to put a condemned inmate to death last night. Now, witnesses at the execution chamber in Nashville said that Christopher Pike, who was convicted of murder back in the 1990s, was still awake and snoring loudly about 40 minutes after officials administered two doses of the lethal drug, Pento Barberto. So, twice she was injected and it

1:43:51didn't work. I mean, how horrific must that have been, not just for her, but for everyone witnessing it? It's unthinkable, isn't it? You think, well, if you are going to have the death penalty, we'll at least have a way of administering the death penalty that is at least humane and that will actually work without too much human suffering. I mean, the whole thing just appalls me, it revokes me, and yet there will still be people who believe that this is the right thing to do, and that it is the ultimate deterrent and our crime would reduce if we had it in this country again. I don't want to live in a country like that. I think it is the mark of a civilized society when we don't have the death penalty. The number to call, O345-6060-973. I mean, has this case of Christopher Pike now ended any argument in favour of capital punishment?

1:44:55Clive Stafford Smith joins me, a human and civil rights lawyer who's represented more than 400 people who face the death penalty in the southern states of the US and elsewhere around the world. Clive, very good evening. How many countries actually around them, about what 200 countries around all, how many still have the death penalty? I think it's 192 members of the family, and there's about 60 that still have it. Don't take me on that. I've not visited them all. So, what has motivated you to represent so many people on death row in the United States? Well, I went to the US when I was 19 with the Evalda and very arrogant intent of persuading them of the error of their ways. And that was, I wanted to be a journalist, but I found a way to sink lower in the public espouse by becoming a lawyer. So, I disagree with that analysis. And so, I've done this for the last 42 years and it's been a great privilege to do it,

1:45:59that I got to say you keep thinking that they can't shock you anymore, and I keep being proven wrong. Last night was a good example. There are apparently calls that I've read today in the United States to bring back the electric chair because that's much more effective. Look, I've had to, and this is not a happy part of my life, I've had to watch six of my clients die in the various things. The electric chair, the gas chamber, and lethal injection. And while lethal injection is far worse than people think, and it was brought in, there's a sort of kind of gentler form of killing people. The electric chair is the worst. I mean, Nicky Angerum was a British guy who I represented, oh, 31 years ago, and he died in the electric chair and there's just nothing quite like it. So, it was a senator from Tennessee who made that suggestion, and I really encourage him to go watch in electric chair execution. And how is the legislation of the United States? How does it govern this?

1:47:07Is it individual states that decide whether they have the death penalty or not? Well, it is. There are 32 states with the death penalty, but most of those don't actually use it. It's really about five states that take it seriously. And it is those states who choose how to do it. Ultimately, you'll be surprised to hear guided by Michael Portillo, because when we showed just how awful lethal injection was, and some of the states started not being able to do that anymore, Mr. Portillo, who had a similar, damn, a scene conversion. He was in favor of the death penalty and voted for it in Parliament a few times. And then he came against it, and he did a documentary about all the awful ways in which the US executes people. And he went to the Netherlands and tried having oxygen deprived from him, as one word if one was a pilot, high up in the air, and decided

1:48:07nitrogen hypoxia was the way to go. And as a result, both Alabama and Mississippi have adopted it. And this is the sort of madness that we have when we're experimenting with killing human beings. Do you think there's any hope that in the next 20 years that those remaining states in the US will actually decide, no, this is not what we should be doing in a civilized society, or is it a bit like US gun law? Well, we look at that in absolute astonishment and shock in many ways, but we don't really understand why Americans are so attached to their guns, and we don't understand why Americans or some of them are so attached to the death penalty. Well, I mean, fortunately, while there is a second amendment right to bear arms, there isn't a amendment that has the right to kill people. So I don't think it's the same. And

1:49:07during my career, when I started in the US, it was 85% of the population was in favor of execution, and now it's below 50%. So look, I like to think we'll get to where we need to get to, but, um, you know, if you bet me whether it'll happen in my lifetime, I think I'm going to have to pick on myself and gin to make it last that long. You will remember the debates that we've had in this country over the death penalty, which seemed to have peaked it out over the last 20 or 30 years, but certainly I would say right up till the early 1990s, it was a live political debate. What do you put it down to that really, we don't talk about it very much anymore? I mean, there are people, I think Dominic Lawson and Lord Glassman have both written articles in recent memory advocating that it should be brought back, but it's a very fringe issue now. Well, I'm not sure you're right on that. I mean, I'm very glad to hear you say that, Ian, but, uh, but I think there are a number of

1:50:10people who advocate, um, bringing it back, and it tends to be like so many things when you've got a problem and politicians are searching for solutions, and instead of coming up with a sensible solution, they come up with a stupid one, and they promise the people that that's going to solve crime. I mean, if ever there was an overarching issue, it's that America is a very violent society. I've been held up at gunpoint seven times, and the death penalty doesn't make it safer than Britain. And so, you know, it's hard. A lot of this is irrational. What happened to Christopher Pike is totally irrational, because that poor woman, it was actually the victim of several, what Tennessean's things should be death penalty offenses herself. They last year they introduced a new statute to have the death penalty for child sexual abuse. And I think you'll find more

1:51:10people in England favor it for that than even murder, which is always surprising. But Christa had been sexually abused, age three by three separate people. Again, age 11, then she was rape, when she was 17. And so even though one has to have immense sympathy for Colleen, who is the victim of the murder, actually, Christa had been the victim of several capital offenses herself, but the authorities never did anything. Clive, we're going to have to leave it there, but thank you very much indeed. That's Clive Stafford Smith there. He's representing more than 400 people who face the death penalty in the US. Well, can't you all call us in a moment? 0345, 6060973. Has the Christa Pike case now ended any arguments in favour of capital punishment? This is LBC with Ian Dail, call 03456060973.

1:52:11It's 80 minutes past nine on OPC. Has the Christa Pice, let's start that one again, has the Christa Pike case in Tennessee now ended any argument in favour of capital punishment? Because if you can't think of a way to administer the death penalty properly, humanely, if that's possible, I mean, you can't really be in favour of it at all, can you? Surely it's incumbent on the authorities who are supposed to implement it to do it properly. And this is not the first time this has happened, is it? Warren's in Eastbourne. Hello, Warren. Hello Ian, thanks for taking my call. Yes, I am vehemently opposed to the death penalty. Well, in my youth, I sort of agreed with it, but then when you get older, you realise that is actually quite an immature opinion because it's based on the Bible and vengeance. And it was very interesting for me to hear Clive Stafford Smith because I remember him from a few

1:53:13years ago, well, a couple of decades ago, when he had a few programmes on the BBC where he was representing people on death row in America. And he had managed to conclusively prove that his clients had been the victims of miscarriages of justice, but their executions weren't ahead anyway, to the extent that some of the guards on death row with a couple of these people were in tears at the time. And I had the utmost respect for Mr Stafford Smith. And it occurs to me that all the countries around the world that still have the death penalty, not many of them are democracies. Because I think that it is really the state's way of saying, a totalitarian, totalitarian state's way of saying, look, if we're prepared to take your life, there's nothing we won't do to you. I mean, the state is not supposed to take your life. That's not why we pay our

1:54:17taxes. It's supposed to look after us. And I think, and I know, I want to hear what you think about this opinion on my back to express now, right? My loins are girded. Yes. Actually, I think that the reason that this debate, well, we're having a debate tonight because of what has happened in America, which is fair enough. And I think that really the most American people, when they saw that on the news, would say, well, hard luck, you know, because I think they really do support it. And the ironic thing is that those states in America, if we're talking about capital punishment being used to reduce crime, those states in America that have capital punishment have the highest rates of crime. So it's not a deterrent and, and peer point, after he retired came out against capital punishment because he said already is autobiography.

1:55:19And he said that if it was a deterrent, he would never have had to use it. But the only reason he resigned was not because out of opposition to the despotality, but over a pay dispute. So I don't really set much store by peer points opinion. And if we talk about humanitarian effort, a method of execution, which, I mean, you know, lethal injection and the electric chair are absolutely horrific. And peer point solution was to put a ball at the bottom of the news to break the neck instantaneously. That was peer points version, the humanitarianism. But what I was going to say about what worries me about this whole debate coming back again is reform. And I think if reform does actually manage to get into government or get a majority, the first referendum they will have a populist referendum will be on capital punishment. And

1:56:23that will be their method of trying to clear up the prison situation. And people will go for it. I haven't heard Nigel Farage pronounce on the death penalty. And maybe Chris can look up whether he has. I mean, I suspect if you, and this is purely instinct, if you said to party members of all the different parties, would you be in favor of bringing back capital punishment? I would have thought the highest proportions would be in reform of the conservative party. I may be wrong on that because I think, as I said before, this hour started, I think there are a lot of people on the left. And I'm talking about what I would call sort of solid working class voters who would pro possibly be in favor of the death penalty more than the sort of Islington type of Labour Party member. He says personizingly. Well, no, no, but I mean, is the ultimate populist idea, isn't it? You know, I mean,

1:57:25and I would, as you said before, I would never wish to live in a country that had the death penalty hanging over us, you know, and they would bring it in for extreme examples. I mean, totalitarian societies, well, they would bring it in for extreme examples to begin with. And then they'd work lower and lower down the list, you know, I'm talking about reforms specifically. And then they'd get to journalists, you know, and, and, well, capital punishment for journalists. Well, I do, I could think of a couple. Well, I'm talking about how it's used in totalitarian government. Yeah. Well, can I just re, can I just reassure you? Naja Farage is quoted as saying, I don't think I could ever support it, though he has said he thinks it's a conscience issue, but reforms justice advisor of Vanessa Freik has called for the debate to begin. And Leanderson is in favor, there's a surprise. 20p, 30p. Yeah, don't, don't short change him.

1:58:33Yes, yes, but that's what I mean to say. And I don't believe a word that comes out of Farage's mouth. So yes, he says, oh, no, not now, but, you know, just wait until he actually does, if he does, get these hands on some real power. And then we really will be up the creek. Thank you very much, Warren, for being our first caller. Pete says, there's lots of sympathy for these murderers from due gooders. Nobody's got sympathy from murderer. I'd bet a tenor that their victims would have begged for a lethal injection instead of the horrible way that they've had to die at the hands of their evil killers. This woman surviving her execution wouldn't change my mind. It's the chances of expecting an innocent that makes me have second thoughts. I think that is a valid point, but I would say that given technological advances, given DNA now, I think that the chances of a miscarriage of justice and someone being killed by the death penalty are much less than they would have been. Obviously, there were cases of mistaken identity, miscarriages of justice

1:59:38before the death penalty was abolished in 1967. And that was a large part of the reason it was. This is another text from Alice who says there is nothing civilized or compassionate or sacred about LBC discussions of the recent failed death penalty in the USA. Zero thought for the victim. No, not at all. Not just brutally murdered but also tortured. Her mother, who is counted the days for justice to be served, such a relief to hear one lone voice on LBC with genuine compassion. Everyone else is just virtue signaling around sound bites. It's sickening. I think that we always have to think of the victims and their families and friends in these situations. But I don't think we should ever have a legal system, a justice system that is effectively created by people who have been through these horrific experiences because you can't look at it from any, with any sort of dispassionate impartial independent viewpoint. Because I know for a fact, if a relation,

2:00:42a close relation of mine was murdered, that would probably make me revisit my thoughts on the death penalty. But I would know in the back of my head, I would know I was wrong, that it was my heart ruling my head. And we can't let our hearts create a judicial system. Can we? Surely? Collins and Alton, hello Colin. Hello nice to speak to again. Hi. I had my view on this completely reversed by Lord Havers when he was attorney general. And he said, the reason you cannot have a death penalty in this country is because juries will never convict. Lawyers are clever enough to put up sufficient amount of doubt, even on the most paytantly obviously guilty people to mean that the juries will not convict. He said, the result is that if you're accused of murder, you're either guilty or not guilty. If you're not guilty,

2:01:42you'll let free. And he said, any one in ten of an extreme case will ever, ever actually be hanged. He said, so what would you rather have nine people who've painly done a murder out free and one hanged or nine people in prison, not able to do any further, but the whole argument, his argument is correct, but people will not convict. Even as to what you said just now, you would know it was wrong, even though it was your heart that was right. But there are people who just will not let the judge put the black cap on, I'm afraid. So it's an academic argument unless we get rid of it to try it by judge. I think that's a really interesting point because I hadn't ever really thought about that, but there is a real logic to that, isn't there? I'd rather have nine guys inside who've done a murder than nine who have gone out because they couldn't get her jury to agree. Yeah, Colin. It won't work. Very wise. Thank you very much indeed.

2:02:49Louis says, I think capital punishment is wrong, particularly in the present case in America, they had two shots of killing her and failed miserably. This woman should never again be put through this terror. She should be out into a mental health hospital. The only way I believe in the death penalty is that of some redustus if someone is caught in the act of murdering another person or people. I think in that case, it wouldn't be described as, it wouldn't be classified as murder, would it, it would be manslaughter because you're effectively trying to protect someone from being murdered. I think that's presumably how a court or a jury would look at it. Glenn says, instead of radio presenters and human rights lawyers or the general public like me giving their opinion, why not ask the parents of the children who were killed at a dance class in Southport or went to listen to an Ariana Grande concert or Lee Rigby's parents. Sometimes the world is a better place without these monsters. It's a very slippery slope because where do you draw the line there, Glenn? As I think Matt Stadlin said on cross-question, it's not the case that every

2:03:56single person, a relative of a murdered individual, would necessarily want the death penalty. We've seen remarkable examples of acts of forgiveness for people who you would think they would naturally want the murderer of their family member or friend to face a death penalty, but they actually, they want to meet the person who did it, somehow to give them closure. I think there were some heroic people in this world who were acting a far more responsible and compassionate way than I think most of us would. Right, we'll take more of your calls on the death penalty in a moment. Has this Christopheique case now ended any arguments in favour of capital punishment? It's 934 on LBC. Those of you who were listening last night will have heard me talking to an American journalist from National Tennessee about the Christopheique case. The more he spoke,

2:04:58the more horrified, I think many of us were by what was about to happen. Now she was given a reprieve, but then the Supreme Court Justice Brett Coviner decided to overrule the reprieve. So at one o'clock in the morning, today, our time, she was administered a lethal dose. It didn't work, so they administered another one. That didn't work. Now the Governor of Tennessee has put a stay on all executions in the state until the end of the year. Well, quite right, hopefully, this will lead to a reopening of the whole debate in the United States. As we heard there from Clive Stafford Smith, only about five or six states in the South actually still use the death penalty. So even though I think 32 still have it on their statute book. Right, let's go to William, who's in Paisley. Hello, William. Hi, Ian. I just wanted to make a point about the subject. If that's okay. Do.

2:05:59I think those are your territory and arguments for why I even know it's not necessarily comfortable, it's necessarily to have the death penalty, the better the rehabilitation framework of prison. So in prison's meant to rehabilitate people and they'll sit on cases where people can't be rehabilitated back into society. So if you look at it from the point of view, what is the best thing to do? Should they continue to just pay for people and subsidise them to disaster if they can't rehabilitate them? Or should they maybe like look into like the death penalty has been something which in those extreme cases there's something we should do? Well, that's an argument for giving the death penalty to people who've committed offenses which aren't murder, but which we would all sort of thoroughly disapprove of. But if we don't think that they can be rehabilitated, then what's the point of having them in society that are too expensive? Well, let's just kill them. I mean, that's not the kind of

2:07:00society I want to live in. But I think there's two people in the United Kingdom based upon what they've proclaimed or the consulate that were jirpletful. So like actually the cabana and the Manchester bomber, one of your texts would say, I don't see an argument within like a rehabilitation framework of prison of what should we should do. And then in that case, if we just talk to people because you're advocating for torture at that point, because what they're going to do just keep people in jail for the full life. So it's I would be because a lot of pain perpetuated someone's fruit on pile life and tortured them because we're okay, we're met this person can't be. I mean keeping someone in prison is not the equivalent to torture. No, as if you don't think there's going to be rehabilitation. The reason why we send people to jail is to rehabilitate someone. No, no, no, no, we don't. Well, you hope they might be rehabilitated. The reason why we send people to jail is to deprive them of their freedom and for most of them to deprive them of the opportunity of committing a crime again. Would you say that's a punitive action send someone to jail? Of course it is.

2:08:02Okay, so the argument is to be either prolong a punitive action or do we do it short and do one punitive action? I would argue repeatedly prolonging a punitive action is worse than doing a one-pine punitive action. Well, it depends what they've done. That's the thing I would do. So say someone like has like muddled someone and has a bad bath or a bad dog rigging and like they may be made bad decisions. That is maybe someone that can be rehabilitated into society and then we should maybe the reason why we would prolong that punitive action is okay. There's a hope here that we can rehabilitate this person and they can have a normal functional life in society. It'll be better. I think there are murderers who have realized that they've done a very, very bad thing and have highly unlikely to do it again when they come out of prison. I totally agree with you. But there are a phase. I might justify jail, though. That's what I'm saying. So that's why we accept shouldn't have repunitions. People don't do it. Well, hang on, I haven't finished my point. There are other people. I mean, let's take these ample pedophiles. I don't about you, but I don't

2:09:07believe that a pedophile can be rehabilitated. Yeah, I think they could. Fine, but we'll disagree on that. I think if you have those kind of urges, unless you have some sort of chemical treatment, you may be able to suppress those urges for most of the time, but I suspect they will always come back. I think rehabilitation is something that we should aim for for anybody that goes to prison, but recognize that there are just some people who cannot be rehabilitated. So would you allow for wrong that punishment for that person or give them a short punishment and just get over the must? No, I wouldn't give a pedophile a short punishment at all. Keep them in prison for as long as I could. I would say from a your tele-telling point of you're that's not laughing you're making them all strong and popping through against the best penalty. And I would say the logical thing to do is if we recognize those people can't be rehabilitated that they're not just going to prolong the punishment in jail. The only reason why you would say

2:10:09prolong the punishment is because they're bad people and it makes people feel good. The rational logical. So it means that they can't commit their offense again because they're in prison. Yeah, they can do that. They can do that. They can't penalty as well. So it's just a logical thing. No, well again, I mean, the argument that we heard from Colin in Alton, I think it was a very strong one, he says that and he got this from Lord Havers, who was a totally general in the Thatcher government. And his viewpoint was, well, if you had the death penalty, you would find juries less willing to find the person guilty. So you would actually have a lot of guilty people going free. Now I think that's a very convincing argument. Yeah, that's why I believe in not proven. We have a different legal system in Scotland. Yeah, you do. Yeah. So I would say that's different. I can't angle and maybe that's the case. But I'm just thinking that it's a emotional argument. If you're recognising like just each stage of the argument, some people can't be rehabilitated. Right? So that person's not getting out of jail. So what are we going to do with this person? We all agree. You shouldn't be allowed out in public ever again. The emotional response was, well, be keeping them in there because we want them

2:11:13to be punished. I think that is a logical, it's also not cost-effective. So for doing the logical cost-effective thing, not just like from an emotional point of view, just more emotional, you're telling me, we all agree that this person shouldn't get out of jail. They can't be rehabilitated, but we're just going to keep them in jail for them. Okay, William, thank you very much indeed. Will says the judge in the Gildford 4K said he would have had no problem in passing the death penalty if he'd been allowed to. They were framed by the police and much later released. Yeah, and I think that was a very valid argument back in the day. I think it's less valid now because I think it is more difficult to have a miscarriage of justice when you have DNA evidence. So I'm not using that as justification for the death penalty because I'm not in favour of it. But I think if I was to argue for it, that would be one of the cases that I would put forward. Now the judge in that case, Mr Justice Donaldson, told them, if hanging was still an option,

2:12:14you would have been executed. Mark, say, working, hello Mark. Hello, I've vacillated over this topic for many years. It's a good word that, isn't it? I hope it means swing from once on the other. It does, yes. I'll do it, I've got it. Although the use of swing in this context is possibly not the best appropriate one. Yes, some years ago, I've read a chap who's certainly better educated than me. And he mentioned something I've never heard anyone point out. If I murder a B and then you allow A to go on living, are we really a liberal society? If we say that the life of the perpetrator is of greater value than the life of the victim. And I've thought rather hard on that. I thought I understand what he says. But as I say, it hasn't thrown me definitely in one direction or the other. But I just wondered if

2:13:17we could actually say if we were a liberal society, we cannot say that one person's life is greater than another and therefore allow the perpetrator to live. Well, in the end, it's essentially about everybody's human right to exist, isn't it? Human right to live no matter what they may have done. And that I think does test the boundaries in some ways. And I completely agree with you. From an emotional point of view, you're absolutely right. But from a judicial point of view, you can't have a judicial system that operates in that way. I don't think I don't quite follow your logic. So why can't you not have it? Well, because you can't have a judicial system that is based on emotion. I mean, we've got I've just got this text here. You haven't swayed me so. No, I wasn't trying to sway you. I mean, actually, although you do say that you've swayed from

2:14:20one point to the other. But you see, I mean, I've got a text here. It says, let's see how liberal Ian is if one of his relatives is raped. Well, I have had a relative who's, well, I won't go into detail, but gone through a horrific experience. And yeah, my emotional reaction to that, I remember was very visceral. And I would not have batted an eyelid had we had the death penalty and that and the perpetrator was found guilty. And therefore, the state killer, the emotional side, I mean, wouldn't have batted an eyelid. But I would always know the logical part of my brain would tell me that I was the last person that should be allowed to pass judgment on that person that done a horrific thing. But did they deserve to lose their life over it? I couldn't honestly say,

2:15:21or the logical part of my head could not honestly say that I would approve of that. But oh, yeah, emotionally, I would have happily sort of pulled the leave of myself. Oh, I can't see how the emotion comes into that because what you're basically saying is you're making more like a business style hard and fast rule. Everyone's life is of the same value. So if one person executes a, they cannot really then complain if they themselves get exactly the same. I don't think that's your emotional sort of. I think that's logical. There is a certain logic to that. I agree, but that's not the kind of world that some of us particularly wish to inhabit. This is LBC message E and Dale on WhatsApp now on 03456060973 948 on LBC. Let's continue with your calls. Oliver is in great. Yeah, I'm at Hello Oliver. Hi, Darian. Good to talk to you. I'm missing great. Yeah, I'm at

2:16:21I used to go there quite a lot when I had a house in Norfolk, but haven't been for several years now. Oh, the nice just bit about it. I know it sounds bad, but it's a beach. It's lovely in the summer. Especially taking the kids down there for the whole day. It's beautiful, especially Goulston and places like that. Totally agree. The winterton I think is I think that outstrips. Anybody, what you weren't calling in to talk about beaches while you're Oliver? What would you like to tell me? I, my opinion is the definitely surely is mentor actors are deterrent. It doesn't seem that it does that. There's still plenty of murders in states that do have it. So you move on to where is it? It's more retaliatory then. So you know, states are doing it as a punishment for committed crime. My biggest issue is, there's two things is it costs on average about three times as much to put to send to someone to death because they have appeals and lawyers along the way. But if it was me,

2:17:25I feel like death would be a better solution than knowing that I have to spend the rest of my life in prison. I might spend 10, 15 years on death row, whereas I could spend 60, 70 years in prison knowing that I'll never be free. I don't understand how pushing someone to death is a punishment if you're going to commit those sort of crimes. What is it then? It's got to be a punishment surely. I feel like it's more retaliatory. It also feels slightly medieval in my opinion anyway in terms of it's, there's statutes, they have it there and they've had it there for so long, but there's more, more states that are getting rid of it because they realize it doesn't make a difference. It was obviously the idea was that it was meant to be to prevent these serious crimes. It doesn't

2:18:25prevent anything from looking at statistics. So the only thing in my, I like to say, in my opinion, is that it has to be retaliatory because there's nothing else that it can be. Yeah, but you could say that about any prison sentence, couldn't you? I mean, a prison sentence is punitive. Obviously, the death penalty is the ultimate punitive sanction. So, again, I'm not quite sure that argument works because the well prison is meant to be for rehabilitation, isn't it? No, it's for punitive. It's primarily for punishment. It deprives you of your freedom for a crime that you've committed. Rehabilitation, if it can happen, is a pleasant byproduct. Yeah, see, I come across, I view it in a slightly different way. Yes, you remove these people from society, but if you're going to say sentence someone for rape to prison for a year and a half, you only are depriving them for that year and a half. The whole point of probation,

2:19:27all of that is to help rehabilitation. There's no benefit to society, in my opinion, of just having someone say in prison or basically, well, there's no, well, you have, you serve a high purpose to society anymore because you committed a crime. As I say, the purpose is that they're not on the streets and they can't commit the offense again. They're not a danger to society. Now, there are different type of offenses in that there are many offenses that are not by people who are a danger to society, white collar of crime, for example. Yeah, I mean, somebody who commits a fraud, that's not a victim as crime, obviously, but they're not going to go and conduct a violent act or perpetrator, violent act on somebody. Are they? So I think there are some prisoners who, it is wise for them to be in prison just to keep them away from anybody else, from harming anybody else. And there are others who lose their freedom. And at the same time, yes, you make every effort you can to rehabilitate them.

2:20:29We had to go on the, what was it two weeks ago today, actually, who would be, who had committed a quite a serious white collar fraud. And I mean, you would, you would never think he would have done to listen to him or look at him. And he clearly had been rehabilitated. So the system had worked for him. But as I say, if you've committed a serious pedophile offense, and I think all all pedophile offenses are serious just for the avoidance of doubt, I doubt. I can't say I know but my instinct is that it's almost impossible to rehabilitate a pedophile. Yeah, from my experience, from family members that have unfortunately encountered them, yeah, you would be correct with that part. I don't know. Yeah, you've got a good argument with that. I accept that, but I feel that the hope that the purpose of prison should be for rehabilitating.

2:21:31Okay. Fine. You are correct. There are definitely. Yeah, well, I mean, I agree with you that rehabilitation is something that we need to take much more seriously. And we need to reform the prison system to try and ensure that it happens whenever it is able to. Thank you, Oliver. John says, further to your caller who said, juries wouldn't convict for murder if there was a death penalty in Britain. When there was a death penalty in Britain, juries often used to hedge their bets and find the defendant guilty of manslaughter, whether judge could still give life imprisonment rather than completely innocent. I take a word for that, John. I can imagine that that did happen. But then again, I mean, the sentence for manslaughter is going to be a lot less than it would be if they've been convicted of murder. David is in Mansfield. Hello, David. Good evening, Ian. Thanks for taking my call. Well, I used to know a hangman. An assistant hangman, his name was Sid Dernley. He's no longer with us. He was assistant to pay a point. He started his career in the late 40s.

2:22:33He was responsible for helping pay a point and other lead hangman execute several people. He wrote a book called the hangman's tale, which isn't in print anymore. But I knew Sid very well when I was a young man. I got to hear the benefit of his thoughts on the matter. He was always very interested in crime and punishment, not surprisingly. He would be, wouldn't he? Yes. He was shocked when Paypoint wrote that he didn't believe that capital punishment was a deterrent. But actually, if you look at the statistics, I'll just look to that earlier, actually, to see about murder for capital in the UK is 0.9 per 100,000. It's about one person per 100,000 murdered. In America, it's roughly six people per 100,000. So they have the death penalty and they have six times more murders than we do per capita. But in terms of what Sid's opinion was it, what about it was, was that when he wrote his book in 1987, he said in

2:23:36the 22 years since the capital punishment was stopped in the UK, 36 people had been murdered by people who had served a life sentence for murder already and then been released. And that was the biggest argument that he made up for it. He didn't agree with Paypoint. His argument was none of the people that saw him and Albert at a committed a murder again, which was a fairly blunt way of putting it up here. But the question is, in my view, if we believe that in a civilized society, which we Western Europe are, I believe, if you look at countries that have the death penalty, would we like to be like those countries? I personally wouldn't want to. But then we need to know that there's an alternative that is going to be permanent, that means that society is protected from these people permanently. And that means life imprisonment, meaning life doesn't take. Well, I think it does. And I think that's why the system falls down. Because if you can kill

2:24:36somebody and get out of prison after 15 years or whatever, I mean, that is not a deterrent. I mean, I do believe that there is an argument for saying the death penalty is, it does cause some degree of deterrent. Because if you pre-meditate to kill somebody, then inevitably, if you actually know that ultimately, if you're a fan guilty, you could have the death penalty. I mean, that possibly means that you might think twice. I mean, I don't know. I can't put myself in the mind of a murderer. But the majority of people who were executed by these people, by say it and by the others, were there weren't necessarily the people who set out to commit a murder. They were sad people with serious personality disorders, or they were drunks, or they had committed a murder that wasn't necessarily pre-meditated. And one point I would like to make actually, because I do remember it very quickly. Not everybody who was given the death

2:25:38sentence was executed. In fact, hardly any of them were. If you look back at the years, if you look at the stats, 50s and 60s, it was about one a month. And Sid said to me that he could plot his year around the country. They used to have an execution around the country as a lesson to the others. That's the way they did it. They didn't text you. You could also argue that the fact that many of the prisoners on death row have been there for years, if not decades, that's the cruelest thing of all. Really good debate on this. Thank you all very much for contributing. Thanks for all of your calls and messages this evening and throughout the week. I'll be back on Monday from 7 when I'll be at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham. If you missed any of this evening's show, you can listen back on our free global player app or the LBC app, where you can stay up to date with all the latest news videos and opinion. Download the official LBC app for free from your app store now. This has been a global production.