soumaya keynes. — brink of. indeed. soumaya keynes, thank _ brink of. indeed.o much brink of. indeed. soumaya - keynes, thank you so much for joining us on the programme, britain economics editor at the economist in london. moving away from the uk, let's get you some of the day's other news. to japan now, where prime minister fumio kishida has pledged to restart more nuclear power plants to provide more energy as the country struggles with its hottest summer on record. but 11 years on from the fukushima disaster, nuclear plants remain deeply unpopular among the japanese public. and as storage runs low at the fukushima site, treated cooling water is due to be released into the pacific, a policy local fishermen strongly oppose. 0ur tokyo correspondent rupert wingfield—hayes has been back to fukushima and sent this report. this is raw fish, just from the sea off here in fukushima, caught this morning. would you dare to eat this? well, according to this man here, who caught it, he says there is nothing for me to be worried about. nothing to worry about, it's safe.

i've been speaking to britain economics editorfor the economist, soumaya keynes. right now. what you've got is essentially lots of things happening at the same time. so you have got this cost—of—living crisis, this energy price shock which, as you say, is sitting lots of countries around the world, but in the uk it seems like it is going to drag on for an unusually long time. you also have this fresh memory of the pandemic. during the pandemic there was the sense that money was no object, the government was no object, the government was here to help, and so now when we have got these really difficult times, again there is an expectation that government should really do something about it. that is obviously just setting up high expectations, you know, this idea the government should really do something. the tricky thing is that the politics of the situation and the economics are tugging in at two different directions. you got the conservative party, backbenchers, tax cuts, and essentially more targeted support that would help less affected. the prime minister is sa