pottinger and gallagher help us understand the reckless, dangerous, and utterly impractical nature of their own preferred policy china today bears little resemblance to the soviet union of the 1970s and 1980s. the soviet union was an unnatural empire cobbled together after world war ii with a decrepit economic model that had started to fail by the mid 19 china is the world's second largest economy and largest trading nation unlike the soviet union's totally state-owned economy, china has a mixture of private and public sector. 92% of china's exports come from a vibrant private sector including 42% from firms with foreign current investors despite its recent troubles, it is still growing at around 5%. and because of its size is likely to stay the world's second most important economy for decades the soviet union was an isolated economy, whereas china is deeply integrated into the global system trade between america and the ussr peaked at several billion dollars in a year. china and the us do that much trade every few days the ussr's gdp was around 3.2 trillion added speak roughly 7.5%

piers, you've stage managed so many of these speeches in your time with bell pottinger.ght spark behind the campaign is responsible for that, that event was held for television, for the media. you don't have someone with their back to you the whole time, and in front of a very unamused looking audience of rather bizarre collection of people, we've no idea who the hell they are. and i mean, it was again, i mean, you know, rishi announces some good policy and then takes a big step back with an event like that. absolutely appalling, in my view. does it matter, nigel, to voters that something like that matters hugely ? like that matters hugely? >> i mean, the whole thing about about having aides around these people is to make sure they don't do something stupid. so the idea of sending him to the birthplace of the titanic to launch the campaign, brilliant. you just don't do things like that. you watch out to make sure there's no exit sign above you when he's being photographed. so the idea you can actually come there and have his back to us all the way through means that the

piers pottinger and our very own political correspondent, katherine forster. catherine, good morning. we'll start with you. is rishi sunak being a bit too optimistic here, saying that we're going to get a hung parliament? is he just trying to breathe a bit of life back into the redundant tories, possibly , possibly. >> and it's quite something isn't it, when a sitting prime minister says that a hung parliament, when that's their sort of best case scenario, but i think they are scouring around after this horrendous weekend that they had and looking for very tiny crumbs of comfort . ben very tiny crumbs of comfort. ben houchen, surviving in tees valley was one, and another was this poll that came out which put labour only nine points ahead of the conservatives. now, beanng ahead of the conservatives. now, bearing in mind most of the polling puts labour 20 points ahead. this, of course, they have latched on to and they've said, look, we might be looking at a hung parliament. and of course, the reason that they're doing this is , is to send a doing this is, is to

bell pottinger.sed various tory leaders, prime ministers from thatcher, major . i leaders, prime ministers from thatcher, major. i mean, i couldn't believe my eyes pierced. >> neither could i. and then i realised that rishi was probably auditioning for his next job, which is, i know you're a lover of musical theatre, and i think he's obviously lining himself up to play the lead in singing in the rain , and i mean, it was the rain, and i mean, it was just laughable. it was, i'm afraid, and shambolic and how the police allowed mr bray to attach a speaker to the railings of downing street and blast the prime minister, who wasn't making a political statement. it was a national announcement and the police should have interfered, intervened and stopped that . at the very least. stopped that. at the very least. that would have looked bad though. but i mean, from rishi's point of view, it's over. we should be looking at the next prime minister, the next the next leader of the not even a chance he can fight t

now i agree we've got piers pottinger , who we've got piers pottinger, who ran one of europe's biggestpe's biggest ever public affairs companies this scourge of hr diversity that she's trying to get to grips with 27, 30 million, whatever they spend. and i think the nhs last year spent 40 odd million pounds on all these mad, diversity schemes . and how did diversity schemes. and how did it get to this point? >> well, i mean, it. it get to this point? >> well, i mean, it . first of >> well, i mean, it. first of all, tony blair politicised the civil service and introduced a lot of these , aspects which grew lot of these, aspects which grew and grew , for example, the and grew, for example, the enormous power of stonewall as an external adviser. and one of the things esther, quite rightly, is doing is stopping anyone paying external consultants the huge sums of money that companies like stonewall have been making out of diversity. the point is that, diversity has become a business rather than something that we should all accept and tolerate and actually use as a way of improving our busine

but i just think rishi is probably lost every single young vote overnight. >> piers pottinger where'sell, i think it comes from his school because he was at winchester college, where i was, and in those days we had ccf, which was you could choose either to be in the corps , which either to be in the corps, which is the cadet force for the army or , do voluntary work once or, do voluntary work once a week. and this is a very similar scheme, but i think the point everyone seems to have missed here is that the people who really like these schemes are employers, because when national service was originally in place and when it was stopped in the 60s, it was followed by a very popular short service commission in the army, which many people who didn't go to university chose to take up and was actually a very popular qualification with employers because being doing national service or even voluntary service. and rishi has said it would be with something like the police or the rnli or the rnli , police or the rnli or the rnli, it gives them skills, it teaches teamwork, it gives a sense of pur

> it didn't take me that long, because i had a very good campaign manager to get me in one piers pottingerws now. >> we want to go to mark white. this is about the 36 year old man has appeared in court charged with the murder of the 14 year old boy who was killed in that sword attack in east london. a home security artist, mark white, is here to tell us all about it. mark, what do we know? >> well, this was 36 year old marcus monzo from newham in east london. jules spanish , brazilian london. jules spanish, brazilian national who appeared in the dock here at westminster magistrates court. he was driven to court in a prison van which was escorted by police vans, arriving here this morning at westminster magistrates court for that appearance in the dock here at court number one of this magistrates court. now the defendant was wearing a prison issue grey tracksuit. he spoke only to confirm his name and he is charged with a number of counts, including murder. the murder of schoolboy daniel anjorin on tuesday morning, the 14 year old was killed just outside his house not far from hainault tube

she went to the garrick club and caused a scene when they said, there's no andrew pierce pottinger stephen. >> oh, he's very charismatic. >> yes he is, yes, he is. >>— >> yes he is, yes, he is. >> well, we had a few ministers there, which is always nice. and a few people from the labour side too. >> well, i look forward to receiving my signed copy of the liberal democrats was there and igave liberal democrats was there and i gave her £1 for the liberal democrat election fighting fund. i had to buy my own. >> i bought my own book last night. i gave my £20 to andrew pierce. >> how much it cost? >> how much it cost? >> £20. >> £20. >> i'm being told we have to move on. i'd love to talk all day about your party. i did get invited. you just like to add i was in the post. >> andrew. >> andrew. >> yes, darling? >> yes, darling? >> i thought you would be there. >> i thought you would be there. >> i thought you would be there. >> i like this this morning. by the way, i haven't got lovely time. >> i'm having a great time battling duo. >> oh, bless your heart. >> oh, bless your heart. >> thank you. b

>> piers pottinger is the businessman extraordinaire. he knows quite a few of them and actually. the dirty dozen, right. and make sure they're spot on. >> and what will the implications be of this private school vat tax front page of the mail today. 4 in 10 parents who've got kids at private school say they'll take them out. that won't just affect the kids at private school. that is going to affect everybody in the state system. you cannot build schools quickly. you cannot get enough teachers quickly. and by some estimates, we could need 155,000 new state school places by january. >> already one private school in hampshire saying it will close this. and i think this is labour at its worst. politics of envy. >> and we haven't didn't we from starmer yesterday talking about how he's a socialist and we've had other people saying they're christian socialists this morning it feels as though this is the kind of policy that they're going to be shoving out there because they believe, you know, this is a socialist britain that we should live in where there's no elitism. >> i've looked up s