welcome to the alex salmond show where we look at the westminster autumn session of parliament under the shadow of the long pandemic this week almost a year after the general election when he swept back to power with a majority of 80 bodies johnson finally lost his opinion poll lead over the opposition labor party and the trouble is not confined to the opinion polls with the restless tory m.p. stephanie another revolt over the way in which the new to corporate regulations are being introduced all this with the economy facing a double cliff edge of another locked and an interminable lardy crash of european

with till today we asked political commentators peter oborne and professor richard murphy what exactly is going on on the left and the right of british politics as the westminster parliament struggles to hold the government to account during the pandemic and the banks it did you will finally arrives but 1st over to alex with your reaction to last week's show what's your tweets messages and emails. was a big reaction to last week's show which featured a free talk. over the 19 and a huge audience of face because well the 1st stop was from a vet an old friend of the sure that it has to come painless and she picked up the thought there are free medical experts all mentioned sustainability and climate change and population as a major factor and these are measuring viruses and they were the a number of people who were reflecting that perhaps a growing public skepticism about some of the official messages on covert and when some of them for example said i was really hoping that alex salmond would be questioning the. being peddled out daily by the government in the mainstream media

and perhaps interview the many doctors and scientists who are speaking to a different story and wilma says my question is why is the u.k. government saying the national health service is coping yet hospital and doctor services are all restricted so hospitals of they're not coping and maybe dollar a reference i suspect to the. i mean see some of the 1000000 dollars says there's never been a safe vaccine and something not tested is dangerous when you don't know what the side effects are and then why it says hi alec can you ask them why the survival rates are being broadly advertise 99.6 percent survival rate would be good to know your thoughts and jake said can you ask if this cold and flu will kill more people than to influenza over the next decade and this the public hysteria justify the government's actions but then of course other people see a so i mean does the will great questions and form

a divine insoles and leslie on says having lost an auntie to cope at 19 it breaks my heart to see people refusing to believe it's real and that of course in the week we have a little deaf to top 1000000 people and lesley sylvia taylor says brochure this week that they can still be us from scotland really insightful with clear explanations of covert 19 the ongoing situation and i was hard working experts of putting the time and great effort into finding out all the kind of virus and how to protect the general population from its very damaging effects and nobody tells me in a. few commentators have analyzed the menu 1st on the left and right to british politics this morning authorities and professor richard murphy and peter gleick they may discuss it alex where stands the author my finance department the economy heading towards the twin cliff of course they'd break for. but joining me to talk about the problems on the right and the left the british politics and this autumn session of

parliament after peter oborne and professor bunch of my fair welcome guys to the alec salmon show thank you very much was it to be our particular time to you 1st the governor's coverage or if 80 less than a year since ballers triumphantly road to victory in the general election but no this autumn the employable both from coronavirus and indeed who breaks out again how could not possibly be it is amazing given the strength of the prime minister's position as recently as last december when he won this case the majority the biggest majority which the conservatives have had since may the cashier was leader then certainly the least groups on the tory benches growing government unpopularity over the weekend we had this major moment when shish dumbell went ahead of boris johnson in the polls and what i would say is for conservative leaders conservative

prime ministers history shows that again and again a big piece of apparently secure majority is not secure the fact is that the conservative party is completely ruthless if it decides that johnson has the go johnson will go you won't see him for dust. presidential mafia this is a remarkable thought if you have a conservative leader if you are a minister bothers johnson would you be more what it about the role of fault and coronavirus led by a man mr brady or would you be more worried about the european issues still unresolved in terms of they have the u.k. single market which one of these subjects would be the most rewarding for you oh i think of any doubt about that it would be the internal market bill by the coronavirus one is problematic but because the government is true to itself so able

to u.-turn so frequently on coronavirus that frankly none of us know where they are i think they would do that again and again and keep people satisfied the internal market bill is much more fundamental for many tories this is almost the existential yet the rule of law is fundamental to being a tory so many conservative m.p.'s are lawyers we know that the bar council is now raising questions about whether our attorney general can in fact the chair of the bar which by tradition the attorney general always is there are literally proceedings against tory m.p.'s for professional misconduct for the team for this bill it is challenging therefore what is to be a conservative and actually this comes back almost to literally the question of being a tory under difference between being a truck and a conservative and literally this is irish history a little bit of which i know tory is an irish word it means the brigand the pursuit

and this is really want johnson is turning the tory party into over the issue of the internal market bill and i believe that that is the fundamental conflict with what the conservative elements of the conservative party is wanting to do and it's that conflict within the tories themselves of these now becoming apparent for all to see and which is straining the party itself to its limits and i believe that's why it's the real threat to johnson people over fear people know more about tories and tory years of them than you do is that a fair analysis from richard murphy. richard murphy is 100 percent correct on his analysis that conservatism has the roots of deep embedded respect for the rule of law but i think it's politically wrong politically what's going to hurt the tories most of all johnson tenshi get rid of boris johnson if he's seen to have grossly mishandled coronavirus for the 2nd time remember we know that he mishandled he

missed the 1st funny cobra meetings when it was starting in the sit in the in the late winter 2 now if he goes wrong again votes as all of them suffered from coronavirus directly or indirectly it's deeply impacted that lives if mr johnson a sin has been incompetent to handle this it will hit him this early in the polls it will count for more than one i completely agree about the point about conservative party being about rule. but what is it that is behind the graham brady the parliament type of vault i mean it's a big section of the parliamentary conservative party who really want to see the virus let rip to take on the channel as the as the prime minister once said is it is that that all is a just holding up the rights of parliament against an over mighty government who

want to legislate without that approval i think there is nationalists mr johnson still a columnist of the daily telegraph. we would be wise enough columns about the live but about the state of the current the state of the liberty of the individual in the observer the safety of the government position in government of course mr johnson has to take into account all kinds of other considerations so i think actually it's part of johnson's own personality festing itself on the brits it's hearing wing of the conservative but benches there is a and i think this is going to be a really major issue from from now on it richard murphy a bit the labor party been up there have they really got a different policy on covert 19 from the government or are they just going to net picking where things go wrong who knows i mean genuinely who doesn't really know at the moment labor is playing

a very very safe game indeed and i know that there are plenty of people who are frustrated by that. a so long as labor thinks that it's showing up johnson every week at the dispatch box and steer clear stammers undoubtedly doing that and i don't think boris johnson has won one of their exchanges then he's keeping his parliamentary party happy he knows he is a young 18 the left and he's living with that with regard to the economy and coronavirus only needs to do is say you should have done track and trace better and there isn't a person in the u.k. who i suspect disagrees with them and. they should have a better policy on furlough and job replacement schemes and i again doubt that there are many people disagree with them and they feel score the necessary points that they want do they have a policy well their defenses we're not in government it's not in a job at the moment to have an alternative policy i doubt that i think they should have a policy but that's what labor's doing is playing it incredibly safe with

a new leader who simply not trying to take risks so it's a difficult position for labor to b.n. but they're playing that card and on europe richard murphy i mean isn't psaki a star of the past and told gentlemen carbon that it should be far more pro european and take a more assertive pro european line no he is a leader he under did the liberal democrat symptom of this is after the field in europe just while 5 former prime ministers are queuing up to denounce the government's policy i'm staggered that in fact in june he did not take some initiatives for to kill you with regard to the norm not a protocol and point out that frankly it could not be delivered in the way that was then go to happen he could have stood up and said unless there are guarantees we're going to oppose this position on 30th june which was the last 8 when he could really be affectively and he didn't do anything and i think that was a mistake on his part because there was a line in the sand be drawn and to say there is a reason for opposition on this issue this time because there are better things to

do he hasn't shown himself to be a leader on that issue and i'm disappointed. i do think he's walked away he simply playing to the red will revert to the moment and you can say politically that might be a wise thing to do pretty doesn't position him well for a future pharmacy policy position can you explain that be the robot why the the opposition party is a liberal democrat the labor party have fled the field embrace certain just when the government is hitting a wall. it's pure politics again i found myself agreeing with richard murphy entirely of the missed opportunity particularly on the but also on every other issue but here he says it is all b.s. the cached armor is playing a. game he sees in he thinks that i've got a 4 years to let the government make a greater and greater mess of things he's going from really isn't it napoleon said

never interrupt the enemy when he is making a mistake it's incredibly cautious he's the train as richard murphy says a lot of things he believes in but he isn't plan with his eyes set firmly on dunning's bitterly if you think we use socially distanced conferences are going to cut charred after kill stammers or is speech which i assume to be a balcony up the labor party headquarters as far as i could make things going to cut short are we going to get back into the the old style when times are more normal where all the m.p.'s are there and they go to the bus you will remember how intimidating which they use the muscle of the party to visit often visit lee but certainly mentally intimidate and talk show rebels with the win that we're so many m.p.'s back in that could sit it says that unless the easiest suit so intimidating

the 2nd thing is that his stomach as it is a very good in surrogates or in the commons is great live helped by the fact he isn't got hasn't got 350 tory dog tories on the benches they is more like a courtroom for him now which is a very familiar atmosphere so kish done that you see. join us after the break we're off to take special time to soak your style most prospects as leader of the labor party could he really be the next prime minister i'm a look at detail at the challenges from scotland and ireland to the johnson government telling us that. seemed wrong. but. just don't call. me. yet to shape out just come out to. engage me because betrayal.

when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. as a us economy was booming growing numbers of people when they do come to us. you can work 40 hours in a week and still not have enough to get housing everybody believes america still is the land of opportunity the reality of it is we're not financially equality and i'm not comfortable housing or living minimum wage give many people no choice you know there's been a problem with the city knows time limits and told me stay away idleness. if that's what it is if there is no answer because yes that requires resources the most vulnerable are abandoned on the streets to become the invisible cliques.

welcome back alex is in conversation with top commentators peter oborne i'm professor richard murphy about the arts in session of the westminster parliament with a discussion i turns to the labor party and. presidential muffy appear stammers know ahead in one opinion poll at least for the 1st time since the election well that sought quite than any such a doubt among the labor party about his quiet softly softly style i doubt it. but later parties and obesity is made up of many parts but the real question which i'm hearing from people who i'm talking to and i make sure i do is why we only ahead in one opinion poll at this stage given the disasters that are going on inside the conservative party given what has happened in the economy what's going to happen with regard to jobs what is happening with regards to coronavirus surely they should be ahead by a massive margin that's what to do if they're going to win power and it's taken

labor a long time to get close to being even nearly ahead now you can say they pulled back 25 plus percent from where they were in april and of course that's good news but i'm not sure that just being ahead at this moment is good enough peter oborne you've been quite admirer of suck your stammers style of leadership thus far do you think it is enough if a softly softly catch a monkey approaches a enough we're living through the biggest national crisis since the 1930 s. now in those circumstances to have a man of johnson's style of politics sooner jokey fun celebrity politics i wonder whether he is as we move into a very dark periods in not just british or strippers global history whether that is the style of leader which people again or want the question is what will in due

course what may replace it we're going to see an interesting replacement probably in the united states transferred by letter that leads to a sort of great swaggering alpha male replaced by rather an adult. no are we going to say something similar here now is that maybe the change will come from within the conservative party but it's matters are as great as i believe they are. i did they don't rule out i don't say hi i know what will happen i do not rule out the emerging possibility virtualization governments and prime minister sharma before before the next general election is to richard murphy. focusing there on the tanking economy and one of the pile of boxes of the come pulls as as the economy huttle still wards the cliff edge as a result of the the call that lot only impact on the world economy the chancellor of the exchequer says political start seems to be rising so how do you explain the

tanking economy a bill a rising prospects for the chance of the it's jeffy. i think the chancellor's fortunes are at their absolute peak at the moment to be honest alex and they're going to be tanking pretty darn soon he has failed dismally to replace the furler scheme fella scheme was inspired and it worked it provided confidence when confidence was necessary and the cost of whatever it was $40.00 odd 1000000000 was insignificant in comparison to the alternatives that might have risen so of course his stock rose he won with the eat out to help out scheme even though it now appears to be disastrous with regard to the spread of coronavirus but so far that has not hit him but wait until the end of october when the new job replacement scheme replaces the furlough scheme wait until early 2021 when companies are beginning to have to pay that back taxes which have not so far been paid when they have to begin to pay their rents which of not being

a mortgage deferment holidays begin to end and cash flow crises are going to emerge right across the economy wait until there are people literally by the 1000000 and id be by the 1000000 becoming unemployed because that is inevitable and most people are seriously under-estimating how many 1000000 that is i think we are talking at least 5000000 unemployed i cannot see otherwise with this new job retention scheme because it is effectively an unemployment creation scheme it has a curse incentive within it to encourage employers to make people redundant which could not be worse designed if you tried and at that moment is richie soon going to appear to be the guy who's going to save us all from problems no he's going to look like george osborne did when george osborne introduced a range of measures in the budget after budget which really went wrong even from the past the tax to the caravan tax to all sorts of other things that time and again had to be reformed because that he had made mistakes and i believe he's going to look like a really troublesome chancellor who's failed to understand the scale of the problem

he's facing and austerity which is his subtext is. the last thing that people in this country want so peter over is that our air of unreality of the severity of the economic output very much so i'm afraid alex i'm reminded of the i used the what's the malaki leap lutetia road runner cartoons you remember when road runner would be chasing or be chased in the hurdles over attrition is that all legs keep him up up in the air for a little while then he looks down and sees and then he just looks all the way down to the boss and i'm afraid when i greatly fear is we're now in a moment where those little legs are getting him above where in a situation where we're a little legs k.p.s. slopes but we're going to fall big big fall down the trip suit so let's look lastly at the challenges from scotland and from from ireland now let's turn to ireland 1st in the u.k.

single market bill the couple seemed almost oblivious to the impact of that in the delicate balance of nor nitish politics how do we explain that red to love had explained that there was so little discussion the boat they blithely saying were could have breached international law but only in certain respects in terms of its impact on this this balancing act of ulster politics. i think it's staggering ignorance is the only thing that one can use to explain this the fact is that we've seen it that tory ministers didn't know some very basic things we had an order not a section didn't know that catholics voted for nash financially sparky's improper since they took the unionist parties and she admitted as such in public so i have to say it seems to me that we're talking about ensure pure outright ignorance and indifference to the consequences for northern ireland in the months the conservative party and that shocks me still does from the rubble has the government achieved the remarkable result of uniting unionism and nationalism the nandan

distrust of the west was the government one thing i would add sumit richard murphy it's excellent analysis that then is that the tough times newspaper had a $1010.00 days or circular process so your political it's a very important analysis of the predicament facing mr johnson including a revelation which i hadn't seen before about how randall lois the northern irish secretary came to make a statement that he was ready to break international law according to france's earlier times was actually drafted for him by a junior special advisor reporting to dominic cummings inside downing street and so it was for him really by a country johnson it to some degree to know much about it or a matter of importance where you have a cabinet minister setting out a policy of breaking international law to be sexual in by a special advisor and not complaining about the way you're doing submissively what

he's told by by the only cummings's representative it does tell you something horrible actually i think horribles the right word about where this government is progressing. whether moros story is perhaps read or brief certain of all time but let's total ask the scotland and ho of the terrible clear or the head of the conservative party dominic cummings michael gove the prime minister himself how they're going to deal with the the pesky scots of inch of my fee holy going to deal with us from assumption scottish nationalism support for independence we're seeing in the polls but we assume that corona virus would help seal off. i don't think they are going to deal with it i think they're just going to think they can weather it out they believe that he is their right to refuse section 30 referendum they have to grant that they think the right to that referendum and they believe they can refuse to grant their rights to that referendum by using this power given to

them and therefore they're not going to get it and they believe that is sufficient i don't simply think every and the may 2021 elections in scotland 400 are going to be absolutely pivotal because i don't see the tories doing well in those elections they have a confused leadership and i do see the s.n.p. doing well and i can see other nationalist party saying well and therefore a nationalist majority is unethical what does that lead to in inevitably to a call for a referendum and a straightforward confrontation which is going to be very difficult to manage peter oborne your heart and soul are a unionist but do you think this universe government this conservative and universe government really understands the concept of formations wolf unless you knew that it is still the case i believe or nations however ardently mr johnson setting about trying to disprove this better off together and finally

to both of you should put your finger on one thing there's going to dictate the future of of u.k. politics would it be the economy stupid or as are other aspects that we should be looking for over the next few months as dominating the political landscape you're for search of more for. students in rebellion is going to be it's going to happen this time so they are so unhappy we are going to see the rise of youth political awareness again come january there's a very real chance we're going to see food shortages and people who can't feed their children are very angry expect there to be mothers out on the streets literally who can't feed their children and i honestly see that's going to happen how else can we manage threats if we have to choose that $7000.00 lorries and 30 unemployed people have nothing to lose and when people have nothing to lose and they can see that houses there whether they own them whether they rent them disappearing from underneath them are going to be demanding change the recipe at

the moment for change is literally well put those 3 into a cold room turn it up to high and see what happens and that's what's going to be the future for us over the next 9 months appear overnight so enormous the apocalyptic outlook from richard moffitt you see the the problems and the rising tensions as seriously as he does well if there is an economic catastrophe then i think we are going to live through a very very difficult and challenging time difficult and challenging times but of course plenty of opportunities for copy for political commentators like the 2 experts from the left and the right of british politics that we've seen today before auburn professor richard murphy thank you very much for joining me on the alexandria huge pleasure and what a minority government such as today's i mean to lose parliamentary votes as unfortunate. but for a majority government to be on the run from its own backbenchers well that's

downright careless the big city or troika at the heart of the tory government johnson govt i'm coming to totally triumph it only a year ago now look desperate and in it as a hard sell it is of course in bricks it's a stubborn need to be brought into line with their own prejudices taking on the civil service the courts or the b.b.c. will be the least of their challenges if they cannot control even their own a piece they face storm assume within and without even as the economy tanks the stock of the chancellor rises and the labor party looks just about electable while the scots and irish are looking restive about the present circumstances of london do all of which spells problems for the u.k. body politic but will provide endless streams of socially distant coffee for expert commentators as the westminster ship heads toward some dark and definite sure and so for alex myself and the whole team here goodbye stay safe and we hope to see you all again next.

l. look forward to talking to you all. for people. must obey the orders given by human beings except when it conflicts with the 1st law. we should be very careful about. the point. saying with artificial intelligence to.

protect its own existence. and this backyard it's really. the territory. between armenia and azerbaijan. communities exclusively from the ground. rejecting calls for a cease fire and we'll hear from people in both belligerent countries who don't want. as an armenian i do not want to talk about who is right or wrong but i would like to. i don't like what has happened many people i know we're going to the front we don't want to be. friends for allegedly.

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