It’s been a busy few days in the world of economics and politics. The big developments include UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s damaging decision to skip a high-profile D-Day event, voters across Europe handing gains to right-wing parties and French President Emmanuel Macron’s surprise announcement of snap elections.
All of this was discussed at a live taping of Voternomics before an audience at Bloomberg’s London offices. Hosts Allegra Stratton, Adrian Wooldridge and Stephanie Flanders were joined by Editor in Chief John Micklethwait, Washington Bureau Chief Peggy Collins and Bloomberg Television anchor Francine Lacqua.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.
Welcome to this very special edition, live edition of voter Nomics, where politics and markets collide. This year, as we all know, voters around the world have the capacity to turn markets, countries and economies like never before. I'm Stephanie Flanders, head of Economics and Government here at Bloomberg.
I'm Allegra Stratton.
I write the readout and I used to be in government.
Before that, I was on TV.
I'm Adrian Wooldridge. I'm Global Opinion columnists for Bloomberg Opinion.
I'm a guest, and I'm the editor at Bloomberg.
So we have brought in our special guests also our boss for this event, and I guess by accident or by design, we've ended up doing it at the end of a well maybe another week coming up, but at the end of a pretty incredible week in voter nomics land. Pre minster Rishi Sunak's inexplicable decision to skip a big chunk of the D Day commemorations last week, despite the best efforts of his spin doctors, still taking up a lot of discussion. Although I guess it has distracted us from what was previously his most inexplicable decision, which was to call the election in the first place. But then we have just in the last twenty four hours, French President Emmanuel Macrol, not to be outdone, has decided that he too wants to call a snap election that he doesn't need to call when he's heavily behind in the polls. That in response to some pretty interesting European election results. The markets have responded pretty sharply this morning, particularly in the French markets. But I think we've got plenty more to discuss around those elections, which you know, in some ways followed what people had thought, but I think it's not as clear a picture as you know, not a completely clear picture, and of course we have that stunning gamble by President Macrol. We obviously have to talk about the US because it's an impossi impossible not to, although that's still many months away, and we luckily have Peggy Collins, Washington Bureau Chief to here to talk a bit about that, and we have the Queen of Bloomberg Television, Francs Lacoit, to help talk through the European results. But I guess we have to start with this all Star cast that we already have we should start with the UK and Allegra, you sort of hinted to it, but you were a former advisor to Richie Sunac mind and you know we you know you also still have your family still have soall we say close connections to to Richie's decisions. So I mean just the outside to the outside eye, it just doesn't seem like it's going that well.
So what you're going to notice is that Stephanie teases me on voteronomics, doesn't she tess slash reserves quite tough questions. I think he has had there was last week in the last week, sorry, the current Prime Minister has had a had had a good outing and had a really bad outing. D Day was an incredibly damaging episode for him. But I think the TV debate was a pretty good outing for him. And it just goes to show, you know, frontline politics is a roller coaster and is is incredibly tough. And I think the two things are that they are interesting and they are linked, which is there. They are resetting what they wanted to do, which is reset the agenda to talk about tax and they did it fairly effectively. Yes, there was a great big barney about the veracity of the claim which they're you know, leading into and they're enjoying, you know, wanting to claim of a two thousand pound which they've you know, pumped out over four years, over four years, which they've pumped out more material on over the last few days. But then the decision to come back from D day early was was was was really regretful you've seen and heard, which she's soon apologize profusely indeed again today I think the only thing that is perhaps a lost I think sometimes in the sort of row about it is having been in government, it is quite incredible to get that sort of the busyness of you know, you've got an itinery and not saying by the way this means that it was it was it was okay for him to he should you know, he's a leader and he should have he should have really stress tested the decision.
But you get an itinerary, you'll tell.
To go to the airport at a certain time, there is a car, you get pushed into it. And I think you know, if and when kits Dharma becomes becomes the next Prime minister, he will have some moments like these right there are there's a lot about government that is, you know, too too busy, too far for any human being to process adequately. But that doesn't mean that Rishie shouldn't have said, hold on a second, there's a big event going on, and I can see Biden flying in, and shouldn't I be there.
I've been trying to explain to myself how he came to make this rather catastrophic decision, and I had two explanations. One is that he is a Wykamist, and Wickimists just don't understand this sort of thing, and you have to leave the government of the country to The second explanation is that he's too assiduous. A student of Walter Badgert. Walter Badgett was the great nineteenth century constitutionalists and editor of The Economist, who argued that there are two branches of British government, the dignified branch and the efficient branch. And the dignified branch is the branch that the monarchy occupies, and the efficient branch is the branch that sort of technocrats do and they take their real serious decisions. And I think he's also always been a person who thinks that government is about delivering things efficiently, doing spreadsheet style things. He's never liked the ceremonial side.
Up to a point, and that a large part of how you describe Britshi is fair. But he also does have this quite a powerful sense of national service, of service and of national service, but the services of a different.
Sort as well.
And also I mean he himself has done a lot for veterans, and you know, the idea just flip it right. This is always the helpful way to look at these things. If you say, if you say, you know, do you want to sort of snub eight year old you know, one hundred year old d Day?
You know, do you here's no way he.
Would have to give you some credit allegroate. I mean, after Thursday afternoon there was that odd thing where and we should we should move on from this quite soon, because I know people have heard a lot about this, but you know, there was interestingly that the press corps by and large had sort of it had gone without notice to some degree, or people had not really considered it to be a big problem potentially until they saw the photos. But I did notice, I mean the readout that the daily news letter we actually had pointed it out. And I think we're the first to really sort of make an argument of it and say this seems a bit odd, not saying that we you know, quite predicted how large it would be, but I mean that you sort of can't get, I quite slightly get the sense that if you've been sitting in the room, you would have said, isn't this a bit weird?
No?
No, yeah, because for all the reasons everyone here you know, will be familiar with.
But it is.
Look, he's building a campaign based on appealing attracting a certain demographic.
Older demographic though by.
The way, younger people would be, as you know, upset by decision to come back from D Day, but you know, strategically make any sense.
But also it's just who he is. He's a respectful guy right age.
When you just to sort of go off for what something that Allegra said, she said, obviously the goal of the week and to some extent even calling the campaign, calling the election, was to reset the ground and to change the terms of the debate. Yes, I mean clearly there is someone who's done that in the last week outside of the D Day discussion, and that is Nigel for.
Us, Yes, and I think what's happened in this campaign is a very very dark and unpleasant man has put himself right at the center of it, and he has completely changed to the tenor of the campaign. He is attracting votes from the right of the Conservative Party. He may well win a seat, and as a relative of winning that seat, he may be central to the reconstruction, the recombination of the right after the elections. That he is a very very bad man who's taken Britain wants to take Britain in very very dark directions.
I think we talked a bit about this last week on the podcast, but do you think that we will quite soon see them the Reform overtake the Conservatives in the polls and will that be Will that be a signal moment for many in the time.
I think if Reform overtakes the Conservatives in a sustained way, that is a very important moment in British politics. Already, they have overtaken the Conservatives a lot of Red Wall seats and that's beginning to have impact. We have Suella Bravman saying that you know, there isn't really a cigarette paper between her and Nigel Farage, and we have the Reform Party taking potentially a lot of money the Tory Party. One of the many odd things about this election is the Tory Party hasn't got very much money. It's I think it's pulled. It's spending on social as it's called, because they haven't got enough enough money to spend on it. And we could see arage in the Reform Party out spending the tourist so I can see a situation in which they really accelerate.
John.
You are because you're so important and you get to sort of flit around the world, but particularly you're spending quite a lot of time in the US. You've been there and a range of other places in the last week or so. How much is any of this discussion changing the way people look at the election, or how indeed is the election coming across the people?
I think I think if you look, if you look at it from outside, and you're right, I've been in Europe and US for the past ten days, but particularly from that angle, I think they people people take several things away. Number one is immigration, and that's because exactly the same problems that they're seeing this is the kind of immigration election they detect, and they think the same kind of things are coming in America and you're already seeing the European elections. I think the second thing is just the straightforward political horse race. It's very odd, especially in America, to think of someone who who calls an election when they're twenty points behind. What's what's behind that? That has broken through into the American audience far more than the D Day thing, which, to be honest, they really didn't see. They just saw pictures of Biden looking a bit dodgery. And the last thing, which actually is I think interesting, and I think I've heard this more in America than Europe paradoxcy, is Brexit. They are every American business person you talk took the big thing which has affected the way we look at Britain is Brexit. Why aren't you talking about that? Why isn't that the big subject of the campaign. And if you ask them, you know, you point out the Tories and trouble, they assume that is because of Brexit. And a lot of these are people who have very little to no admiration for.
The European Union.
They're not in that way, They're just looking at it in a pragmatic way. So this country took this momentous decision which by virtually every method. I'm not trying to refight that battle, but by every every conceivable thing they can see it has not worked. Why isn't that the main thing? So there's a weird way whereby the people outside in some ways are looking on us sort of saying we're avoiding the elephant in the room in a way that we might be Adrian all.
We're going to carry on ignoring it, aren't we.
Briefly, well, strangely the lib Dems, who would have thought would be one party that we should shouting about this and now so they're not going to, you know, campaign on taking Britain back into the to the EU. And the Labor Party has got an obvious reason not to not to talk about it. I was at an event with a senior Labor person who was talking on and on and on. He said, Brexit has been an absolute disaster. It's cause all this trouble to Tori is Orige is how can they have done something so stupid? So I said, so you're going to take us back into the EU?
Are you?
And he suddenly reversed that we can't reltigate that. So they're it caught in a very peculiar bind that they think it was a disaster, but don't want to don't want to reverse it.
There's no appetite.
No, I mean, I was just going to pick something up that our boss. It's just I'm not sure it is an immigration election. I mean, Nijera Farage would like it to be an immigration election.
And and.
But actually, well what is what is it as an election? It's a good question because it sort of each week has a different theme, and actually there isn't one clear kind of this is just the unanswerable big boulder that everybody has to pick up. It's you know, one week was tax and really was big tax last week, right.
I would be fair to say yeah to the two thousand pounds did seem to break through a bit because people, I think people outside, especially business people, had taken on board the idea that Starmer was not going to be a big change, that he wouldn't that there might be some changes in the margin. But suddenly the idea of people paying two thousand pounds more that did that was one thing which did get through. Perhaps I would argue, perhaps even more than the Dday thing.
It's an election without a theme, but it's also an election without a promise. I mean nineteen eighty seven, nineteen ninety seven, everybody is incredibly optimistic about New Labor doing lots of new and exciting things. I mean, we're just saying about Starmer, well, he's not going to be quite as bad as this awful lot that we've got, so let's vote for it.
But is the theme going to be that we're seeing the disintegration of the Conservative Party and all of what we thought would play out on the other side of a late victory actually playing out rather sooner. Is that what we had a hint of from the last So.
You think so, I don't think so you go first, Well, no, I think I think the Tory Party is clearly falling apart. I think when you have a situation. In nineteen eighty three, the Labor Party called an emergency press conference and said, the rumors you're hearing are not true. Michael Foote is still our candidate, and there's almost full confidence as a full confidence, and there's almost a sense that that is happening. That you know, things have got so bad that there was a period in which people thought that the Reason might actually pull out of this thing, and the Tory Party had to reassure the country that you won't. So that's a pretty bad situation to me. It's the party that's falling apart.
And there's one result of that. We were just talking about this earlier, that the actual on the night the results actually suddenly become much more interesting. I mean, of course there'll be the sort of one assumed the size of the Labor victory, but actually is what is left in Parliament is now suddenly rather up for grabs. So many things get mashed by the fact that reform is.
You could get a reverse imagine eighty three in which you know, at a party doesn't well in the polls but doesn't get any seats like that, I mean, the tourists could hold up but still which.
Still happened at twenty fifteen as well.
But look, you look, you're right, and what we've seen today is Sweller Bratherman as of the traps, you know, quickly wanting to you know, stand Schulz shoulder with Farage and so on, and that the optics of that, I get, look, may make it look like it's sort of already a done deal, that there'll be some stitch up and so on, But the reality of it, to your point stuff which is totally right, is that it's all about the numbers. Who you know what the numbers are. And by the way, I've covered enough elections so we all to know that. And I know this sounds, you know, sort of spin doctory ish, but.
That you know, we don't.
So much can happen in three weeks. So much can happen in three weeks. You had Nick Clegg riding high in that TV debate and then the numbers were not at all what he thought would be. Anyway, we don't know, so it's slightly foolish to even sort of go there.
But if the opinion.
Polls now are what you know are in any are right, then of course it is. It is an existential crisis for the Conservative Party.
The question then becomes what.
Actually you know which is the dominant faction, whether there's a number of factions or whether it's actually you.
Know, which is also completely unclear, and it's hard.
To nobody knows. Nobody knows.
So Suella Brotherhaman might be, you know, quickly quickly trying to kind of, you know, be Nigel Farash's best mate, but actually a there will be other fact, there'll be one nation Tories who will not be okay with that happening to the Conservative Party. But also within that sort of world that Sella occupies, there are people with different a different view, which is, if I'm going to take over this Conservative Party.
I'm not going to give it to him. I'm going to take it over.
So you've got it's just yes, Suella, and the pictures and everything she said today suggests that you know, they're getting very much ahead of themselves. But I think it's just that I think they're getting ahead of themselves. We don't know the exact complexion of the result.
That's quite an interesting counterpoint is you can have the British election with at the moment I think we all agree a likely Tory defeat. Almost straight afterwards you're going to have the Trump Convention. And if you look at conservatism generally, when you said is conservatism in trouble, you have two different versions. You might have it find it being tranced at the ballot box here in one way, but in America you might find a man appearing who in many ways suddenly when Adre and I used to write about it, that version, whatever Trump stands for, many people would not have seen that as remotely compatible with say Ronald Reagan or on virtually every single.
Issue, well as befits our grand leader. You have given me a magisterial of a wise and meaningful segue. We can take a breath and think about the US, because I think it is now we should we should have it, think about the US. After that seamless transition, we are delighted. I should probably those of you who are listening to paint the scene briefly. We are in the Bloomberg sort of premium events space on the seventh floor of our equally premium headquarters in the city of London, nestled between the Bank of England and Callon Street Tube Saint Paul's nice visita of the SIMT Paul's. But Peggy Collins, Margaret Collins, we have visiting from Washington. She's our Washington Bureau chief and indeed runs all the economics and government coverage in the US. Peggy. It's funny because I think we've already heard a bit of this. You know, when Europeans and Brits certainly looking at the US election kind of mesmerized by it, and they see all the worries around President Biden's age, they see any number of worries and sort of perplexedness about Donald Trump, will you know, the convictions, the trials, everything else. But actually, if you're in America, it feels a bit more similar to some of the forces that were seeing driving the European and the UK elections. A lot of the debate is around immigration, a lot of it is about inflation and the economy.
That's right, as Johnald was just saying, immigration has become a theme here in your election, but it really has become a big theme in the US. Really at the start of this year, we started to see in our reporting when we were in Iowa for the primaries in New Hampshire for the primaris.
When we were.
Talking to people, Iowa was in the middle of the country, New Hampshire's at the northern border, immigration and border security were coming up time and time again when we were asking voters.
What they were thinking about.
And in March I actually traveled to the Texas border because I wanted to make sure that I understood the perspective of people there to inform our coverage going into.
The election this year.
So as Stephanie saying, immigration has become a huge theme in this election, in part because the Texas governor did start bussing some of the migrants that were coming across the southern border to bluer states like Chicago and New York, and it did change some of the dynamic of who was caring about it and why I think the Biden administration is in a tough spot when it comes to immigration and border security, in large part because he's the president is quite dependent on Congress for funding and legislation to get some of the bigger changes done.
And so he is in a tough spot there.
The other thing is is that former President Trump has really tied immigration and border security to national security. So that's in large part why you see a lot of the Republicans saying they won't support funding for Ukraine, for example, unless there's equivalent funding put into border security. So I think on both sides there's a lot of rhetoric. And then, as Stephanie mentioned, the other big theme that comes up when we talked to voters and when we do our swing state pole in seven of the most competitive states in the US, which we've been doing since October of last year, is the economy. And when I say the economy, what I mean, is the cost of living, and this year that's really been centered around housing and energy costs, utility costs as well as gas costs or I guess you would say petro costs here, and really the cost of living and also inflation.
Really, you know, people are very.
Focused on is there spending power the same as it was maybe four years ago.
Peggy, has it gone into a new phase the election at the moment?
You know, it's interesting, like only in the past few weeks have I really felt like we've had a next chapter start. And it's for two main reasons. The Trump trial in New York changed the way that Trump could campaign.
He was in the courtroom in New York and.
Required to be for three out of the five days of a week.
So that's meant that he.
Had to do a lot of his campaign rallies of sorts and places like the Bronx in New York where the Yankees play I'm a Yankees fan, had to get that in there. But once the trial was completed and he was found guilty on all thirty four accounts, as we all probably know, he has been able to campaign again in some of the battleground states. So just this weekend, he went to Las Vegas and started talking to people there about floating some ideas around not taxing tips, for example, for waitresses and service workers there, and that was an indication that he has really focused on getting more workers and service workers in places like Las Vegas that were hit hardest in the pandemic to pay attention to his message. So that's something. And the other thing that changed in this next chapter is the fact that after the conviction result, Trump gathered a lot of money right out of the gate with his fundraising over fifty million right in the first few days after that, and up until this point Biden has had a huge advantage when it comes to CAP donations. We'll get some more information next week in terms of data on how close this gap is now, but it is closing.
As a result, Piggie, it comes and goes the focus on Biden's age and his strength levels, shall we say. And there was a Wall Street journal piece that have got a lot of attention in the last week that was sort of claiming to be based on certain reporting. I think it's been somewhat discredited by other reporting, like where those quotes were coming from, but is doing a lot of travel last week and this week. Do you expect that to be again a focus.
I do.
It's very much so scrutinized everywhere he goes. Really in terms of his endurance levels, we did see an uptick in people's perceptions of his age right after the State of the Union.
He seemed to get some positive remarks on that.
I have seen Trump at rallies as well, and he does have a lot of endurance and energy there. So one of the things that's coming up at the end of this month, which will be a tell I'd love to hear your thoughts on this too, John, would be the debate that's coming up. The first debate between Biden and Trump will be at the end of June, and that will be something I think people will be looking at in terms of.
Eight I cannot ask you a sort of rudimentary question. America is a big country with a lot of people in it, and he's got quite a lot of talent. How did you end up with these two candidates?
It's very old.
Well, it's something that we often think about a lot, both as reporters and Americans, and our colleague Josh Green, who's a fabulous BusinessWeek writer, did a story with our reporter Nancy Cook last year that coined the phrase the double haters, which is a lot of people were not happy with either candidate, and so you do get the sense that a lot of Americans were hoping that it would not necessarily come down to these two candidates.
But I think a lot of it has to do with our system now is infused with a lot of money. I was just talking about the money and fundraising gap and that has changed a lot of the way that candidates.
Are a to succeed. And the other is media.
I mean, Trump gets a lot of free media and that is something that someone like a Nikki Haley had to really overcome and wasn't able to.
These TV debates is so intense. Do you know anything about how his team is prepping him.
It's something that's a reporting target for us right now. I know exactly I know, but I think you know they go through every scenario that you could possibly do. And the one thing I will say is that both men, you know, at this point, know each.
Other's strategies and teams very well.
So that is something that will you know, be in their favor in some ways.
The one thing you hear from the Democrats alot is that they want the same Biden who appears at the State of the Union, and that if he comes out like that, it's great, but if he doesn't, maybe changing.
And then, as you said, John, we go right after the debate to the conventions in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Trump will be and then at the very end of August will be in Chicago with Biden. So it'll be a summer of both of them having to endure and have the stamina to go through.
There's obviously you're having to sort of game out even now thinking about election night and the potential for a drawn out, possibly a drawn out conflict tussle over the result. And we are even we saw in the swing in our swing state pole rising concern from people on both sides of potential violence around the election. One of the things that I that I was struck by talking to some people who spent a lot of time in the swing states doing polling and was a contrast to many recent elections, was this idea that turnout, that low turnout would actually on balance be good for Biden. Of course, we're just not used to thinking that. We tend to think the Democrat vote is going to be higher the more people you get at. But because of the way Trump has scrambled attracted a lot more young voters, and the additional number of younger African American voters, and just the way things are playing out, what people care about. The kind of people who vote for Trump are maybe not so likely to vote.
You know.
That seems to be one thing that maybe people listening might have underestimated or not realized. And there are other things that people should look out for that we might not be thinking about.
Now.
Well, a couple things come to mind.
I think the Biden campaign feels that there could be a path to winning that is unusual this year because of changes in population and the way we do the census in the US, and that would be if he lost all the Southern states, that he still may be able to win by achieving victories in what we call the Blue Wall, which is Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, and also one random electoral vote in Omaha, Nebraska, which is a very Republican state and some of you may know it because of Warren Buffett.
He actually lives there.
But Nebraska raises the average wealth level.
Does Nebraska is traditionally a very republican state, but Omaha has become more liberal over time. So it would be possible for Biden to lose all of the competitive swing states if they are to end up being the ones that we tend to think of, and yet wins the so called blue wall plus one electoral vote in Omaha. I think the other thing that people may not realize on what we've been trying to do a lot of reporting around at Bloomberg is a number of people who moved in the US after COVID. You know, the twenty twenty election was in November twenty twenty, but a lot of people didn't decide in the US where they were going to live because of things like you know, working from home or return to office, which were in favor of here at Bloomberg.
That was career John.
But in some of our reporting, we've shown that in some swing states about some nineteen percent of eligible voters have turned over in some of these wings states. So who those people are nine yeah, yeah, And who those people are, the demographics of them and how they may vote to Stephanie's point, could be really interesting and a big surprise. And lastly, I'll just say there are some ballot initiatives in some states like Florida and then Arizona and Nevada that could turn out voters for Democrats and help them more than we expect.
Peggy Collins, thank you so much for helping us out.
Thank you for having me, Stephanie.
Okay, So, to continue the series of star turns from our Bloomberg stars, we have Francis Lacoit, who is well known to lots of people as our main anchor, beloved by many very senior interviewees like Christine Legard and others. You're from, I don't know, several European countries.
Depending on who wins that football change.
So you're the perfect person to help us think about these European election results. But I guess we have to talk initially about this enormous campbell by President Macro.
I don't know what happened.
So John interviews President Macron, like four weeks ago. He has like a PM, well, he has a PM drop out of d day, out of last minute. Then he has a state dinner with Biden, and I'm told by people inside the room that certainly his Prime minister is extremely worried about the elections and then you know, I'm told that he's a very careful, you know, individual who actually procrastinates decisions, and we know that his his team around at miss cabinet didn't know that he would you know, dissolve the Assembly and kind of call for legislative elections. So it's a little bit of a surprise the markets, as you say, tak this morning for various reasons which we can go into. And I think the question is, you know, did he see it as a political opportunity because there it would probably be difficulty in the autumn when they had to do the budget that he would have to dissolve the Assembly anyway, or does he really see this as an opportunity. I know we were having a chat with Adrian and saying it's never great to call out the citizens who vote, but there is I think a belief in the Macron camp that he can win. This turnout was very low for the Europeans, you know, Brussels is kind of far away, and so I think he believes and I can't believe that they voted for Mahinlupenz party saying you know, it doesn't really affect me that back home it would be different. So turnout of French voting for the Europeans was about fifty percent. Nationally usually it's it's seventy percent. But it's it's a gamble because he's basically staking his legacy. People say that he also maybe wants to rerun in twenty thirty two, which is unclear constitutionally.
What he So the next presidential election is twenty seven, Yeah.
And then it's five years it's run, he can't run. Unclear whether he can run in the next one, whether it's three terms that have to be consecutive. But it's clear John that he kind of wants to you know, that the Center wants to get rid of.
I think he's more of a guy I discoed front ce Bit. I think he's more of a gambler Mackerel because if you many of us used to know him quite well, because he was the person you went to go and see before you went to go and see a land when he was president. The thing about Mackerel is that he owes everything to one enormous gamble, which is to run for president with no party behind him, nothing, And I think every now and again he thinks it's worth and obviously here he thinks it's worth lilicking the dice. I think his gamble is exactly it's pretty much what Francine said. I think that the other thing is, in this case the alternative is pretty bad because he had definitely lost the momentum in France.
I think he thinks that the next few.
Years would be something where he would be unable to achieve much at all, and this gives him away one of if the National Front gets in, then he puts him on the spot. They will suddenly stop being a party a protest. They will have to come up with things, which Adrian's about to say is a very foodish strategy. But the other one is I think he thinks that really confronted by that, real people will pack him.
Well. The last time I can remember a.
Politician making a big gamble which involved calling out the people was in twenty sixteen when David Cameron you're talking about. It didn't necessarily go very well. I think he can only have done this unless he's foolish and the gambler, because he considered that al penn Win was almost a done deal, that she was just too the movement was too powerful, that he was too do.
In the presidential race. So it was an act of desperation he read.
He looked at the tea leaves and said, everything's moving in their direction.
I need to I need to try and try, and I need a surprise.
He is an optimist, though, and I do hear, you know, from people close to him, that he thinks he has a shot. And what's interesting is that, you know, there's there's a lot of smart kind of doo put a gal analyst looking at what a Lupen presidency means. There's very few that are looking like what a burdella which is from hammer did prime minister means, And that can be you know, it's it's tricky the.
Trouble, the trouble with you know, in the presidential system, the president tends to get the blame when things go wrong. So it won't be the prime minister gets the blame.
It will be the president.
The president is a blame magnet, and if he's presiding over a divided, dysfunctional political system, I don't think that's a good way of what's say, with salvaging your reputation.
When you talk to them. I mean this is before all this, but you know a few months ago when you would sort of put to them, look, you're not going to be able to you know, doesn't this mean you're not going to be able to do any of your unpopular reforms, you know, this side of the presidential election. And their view has always been that action was better than in action, and that the more that you can tire the opposition with, you know, disagreeing with you on responses to the things that voters actually care about, the more, you know, the best that was their best chance is to actually be trying to do stuff that is seen at least is trying to tackle the problems that voters are seeing, rather than rejecting. And you could paint the hassell As as the sort of rejecting force. I mean, I guess that's part of it. It's the idea that you put them on the spot and say, do you actually want to make the world a better place? Or do you are you just running for the presidential.
But they have but France, as you know it has a big many civil servants that if they get into power, will kind of make it work. So there is and there's this you know analysis, and actually they could mess up that Lupen could mess up or her party if they come into power, I mean you still have an apparatus. I think the campaigning will be very important on the economy. Lupen does not have a great track record and what she wants to do. We have not really seen a manifesto. We've been calling chief executives from the CAC forty saying, who do you think is finance minister if Bordella becomes prime minister and we don't really have an answer because their economic team haven't been around and actually a lot of the chief executives have not really engaged. From what I gather.
You have a finance minister that you don't know France.
I do think there's the thing about Macron. As you look at macron'sistory, this is from somebody who's one of his closest I suppose advisors and also possibly rivals. The basic thing you look at Macron. Macron came in as this candidate of change and went quite hard by French standards down that path, and then suddenly, as the last presidential election arrived, he immediately switched the other way around.
And went to statis and stopped.
And now if you look at all the things he's done recently from the interview with the Economist, he'd done various other things, calling and with us as well, calling for really dramatic changes again. And suddenly a Macron now has this new figure who's trying to, as he sees it, reimagine Europe. So he's absolutely in a much bigger way than anybody who could argue since the law have started to put four new visions for Europe. And yet his problem is nobody's listening. The French I've turned against him. He doesn't got on well with the Germans, and so he's trying to do anything he can to change that. So I think it's not just a simple matter of electoral things he has.
He has a sense of mission about this.
You've taken us onto the sort of broader European picture, and the results you know, had been sort of of those European election results had been predicted to be good for the right. It's certainly certainly good for the right in France, and you've had extreme respond extreme right and the Yes, the establishment center, center right, center left parties in Germany also completely humbled. But Francie quite a kind of complicated picture around that. It's not obviously going to see a big shift in the way the European Parliament works.
No, and we don't really know what happens to the Commission president. I mean, I love it's like course wrangling, right, so I give you this, I give you that. So in terms of numbers, she has enough numbers we think of to stay on for another term as as President of the Commission. But of course they'll probably need to get more votes from center left in the European Parliament. She needs a majority of votes from like heads of states. And again, if you're a head of state and you think, look, I have the rise of the rights, do I want to be giving away kind of you know, policies are more left leaning so that Ursula underline can stay. So I think there's going to be a lot of horse trading. We thought usually it takes like a month, you know, maybe five weeks to have a president that either stays on or you have a new one. Because of the French elections, this could be delayed. I mean, he's a little bit busy. At some point, there was like rumor about Mario Draghi, which I mean, I don't know how much political capital Macrol has now.
But maloney, your country, country, But where would she go.
So Maloney is probably the biggest winner in these elections, right, she solidified also her power in the European Parliament. I hear a lot of business people but also politicians saying she's normalized the far right because she stayed the course on Europe, because she stayed the course on reforms, because she, you know, still supports money being sent to Ukraine despite in the past, you know, friendships with Putin. And so it's actually also Maloney being the poster child. And we saw La Penn trying to get closer to Maloney in the last three weeks. She's kind of the poster child of oh well, look she's you know, right, maybe far right, and she's made it work for the economy, and so she's yeah, she's She had a big smile when she was talking to the press.
Today, fran The climate program is in some trouble, it looks like because even though as you say that the macro groupings are enough sort of keep the headline targets okay, in reality the implementation is going to be tough when you have so many more voices saying we've just heard from the electure and they don't want as much of this as we thought they did.
Yeah, and it goes back to again. I mean, I think France was a good point because you know that there's like a fourth power, which is people in the streets, and we saw it with the shells on this this you know idea that if you become more agreen, then it's the person on the street that gets tax more. And so there's almost I wouldn't say abandonment of green policy, but you could really see a shift on green policy appetite from the Commission and the European Union.
I should but in just to remind everyone QR code for putting in your questions. We've got a few people who put in questions. We're going to move to that in a second. But I know Adrian is about to say something very wise.
I'm trying to I'm trying to think of that. If there are any general patterns in what you what we've seen, you might say we've seen the rise of populism in all of these elections we see, but in fact, you know, a pretty populist leader in India was slightly humbled in all this. I'll be seeing your shift are the right, Well yes, but not in Britain, and I think, what if I can think of anything that seems to be going on, it's anti incumbency all over the pace. Incumbents are being humbled and being brought down the people in general of voting against incumbers because they're pretty annoyed, they're they're they're pretty angry.
And so not in Italy. In Greece, actually the prime minister there did pretty well, So I think it's really case by case. But I think John's point to the fact that you don't have this Franco German a line anymore really goes to the heart of Europe and it could mean a lot going forward to the place of Europe in the world of how we deal with Ukraine and AID and reforms. I mean what I also hear in the markets, and we've seen this like big move in your own and French bond spreads. Our favorite subject is that they worry that actually, whatever, if there's a you know, PM from a Loupez party that they don't fund, that we could have like many budget crisis or not so many, just a budget crisis like we've had in the UK. That if they want to put the retirement age at sixty, well how are they going to fund that?
I think you could find a very possible answer to Adrian. The question is you could end up if you look across all these different races, it could be one then where Maloney is a standard bari here. And obviously this may not be acceptable to many of us, but it's there that if you run a kind of populist nationalist party, but you temper it with a bit of economics, which pro business stuff that applies to Maloney apply to the next conservative party here. It's certainly many if you were in America, many people would say that is exactly what Donald Trump is. You know, he is nationalism, but he sure knows how to look after business, and he sure knows how to deliver things, especially to the kind of white for.
Their intention though, aren't they for instance?
And how do you do a program like that where you business is saying we want more workers, and then you're having to have quite tight immigration controls the next the next whichever government it is, will have to be tied.
And so I think, yeah, you.
Completely get the theory, but in reality they it's tough.
I think it probably it probably works better if you're in a huge economy like America than if you're in a smaller one. But yes, but there is a kind of if you had to look, and if I was looking, and I had to try and guess which brand of politics, and notwithstanding what happened to modiomojistorted reasonably well, there is a kind of brand emerging which is not one which is at all amicable with various causes which many of us have spouted in the past, the kind of global liberalism. But there is something emerging which is this much more right wing than we have expected up to now, but with a sort of bitter nationalism and quite a lot of business friendly give business just enough to stick on side, give them money so that they will back you if.
You're Donald Trump. You see quite a lot of Italian business people.
Who don't want to be particularly seen with maloney, but are prepared to, you know.
So it's a sort of a nationalist liberalism.
I must say.
Last time when I was in the United States, last time, I was talking to some money people, and these were people.
Who all they were useful.
These are people who'd all basically said after the riots and on Capitol Hill that they would never ever vote for Trump. And they're all saying, well, actually, we've sort of changed our mind. I think the money, you know, Wall streets and money and business in America, having been very reluctant about Trump, is suddenly saying, Okay, we'd rather have him than I could the old guy.
I couldn't help thinking about that. As people were talking about the rise of Nigel Farage last week, there was quite a lot of conversation about whether or not he would ever be acceptable to a large chunk of conservative voters, and I think, at least for some sounded to me rather complacent in saying, oh, there's you know, there was a chunk of natural conservative voter that would never find him an acceptable person to work to vote for. And it reminded me a lot of a lot of Republicans, you know, five or six years ago, who said, you know, they'd never or longer that our party would never consistently support someone like that.
They never Trumpers.
Yeah, pretty thin on the ground.
Okay.
We've had a couple of questions actually, both about the UK, one from Faize Jammi. Immigration is seen as a strength in some countries as a way to grow their economies and bring in a diversity of skills and knowledge. Why is immigration seen so negatively in the UK by the two major parties? Good question.
Well, I mean, I'll take the start of it, because in the last decade or fifteen years, the perception was pre Brexit that it undercut people's wages, So you had a pure economic problem coming from immigration. What we're dealing with now is the sort of long tail of that, which is still an economic concern about people taking UK jobs and all of that. But at the same time, as we just sort of alluded to, you've also got business saying we need more we need more immigrants, and we need more workers, and we need them to be more highly skilled. But even today you had Starmer saying no, no, no, I'm not going to renegotiate freedom of movement. So you know, that just tells me everything you need to know, even though he will have people in his party saying please relax this because we do need to get more workers in and they need to be more highly skilled and so on.
It's just such a third rail issue.
I'm not sure about the first part of the question. I can't think of these quick countries that are crying out for that are very positive about immigants and immigrants centiment.
Where Canada Canada.
I'm I.
Think Canada, Canada at a really good there's an election in Canada would be the main.
At least it's not viewed negatively by both of the mainstream parties. It has been a major plank of but.
There's a massive amount of worry right across Europe. In the United States, but it has got plenty of spare room about immigration. I think the problem is Henry Ford once said, how come is how come is it that when I want a pair of hands, I get a human being as well? And we've tended to think of immigration just as an addition of labor. But you also get people who need to be housed, who need to be educated, You need to you know, who put pressure on infrastructure.
And we've not.
Set a policy agenda that deals with immigration in the round. We haven't built the resources. And I think that's true right across Europe.
Business. It's somehow got this great reputation as a paternalist. I think it's not resting on that quote.
He was a paternalist.
I mean, one of the things I reflect on after Brexit was that the immigration piece of that was about controlling immigration. It wasn't necessarily about reducing it. I know, like in the sort of squashing of the story of Brexit, that's been lost and then you've got BM Boris Johnson and others, Michael Gove, they were really, really pro immigration, and in the end you have seen a massive increase in non EU immigration.
And that's what we're dealing with right now.
We're dealing with the debate moving on to be yes, freedom of movement was stopped and so that dealt with the immigration, but this is something else has taken its place.
I mean, it's interesting that in the immediate aftermath of the referendum it was often pointed out that immigration was no longer a big issue. You know, people did feel that they dealt with it, but the sheer numbers. And I think the way going back to the question of why it's felt negatively by parties by people is that it has coincided with this squeeze on particularly on local government services caused by Brexit of biosterity that was associated very strategic decision to cut by a third in real times those core local services, which are the ones that were most squeezed by unanticipated unplanned immigration. So I think that does but you.
Get a similar rise in anti immigration sentiment in Germany without all of these particular.
Though with a very rapid influx still around AID. So I think we've got what we've got. Another question, that's actually we can bring Peggy back on the stage with I'm told you have a handheld Mike. Yes. How important are the running mates for both candidates in this selection, given their age and perhaps their need to widen their appeal. I mean we are we're waiting avidly to hear who President Trump decides. I think he's going to keep us waiting a bit longer.
Yes, well, our expectation is that Trump will announced his first presidential nominee at the convention, which is in the middle of July. He has run this somewhat similar to his Apprentice TV show, where he's kept the number of people hanging. But we are kind of narrowing down to a handful left. But I do think it's going to be important to your point, Stephanie, because of the age of both the men that are running in the US presidential election. Then, of course, because there's a lot of attention on Biden and Harris being his vice president, would be the person who would take over the mantle. So I do think it's going to be important to see who Trump picks. Does the person balance him out some ways in terms of attracting some of the moderate voters. Nikki Haley did win a number of votes in every state, in some cases about thirty percent, and has continued to pick up some votes along the way even after Trump was the designated the nominee. So she's certainly still in the mix there. But there are others like Jade Vance, a Senator from Ohio, Doug Burham, and Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina.
So we'll see what happened.
There has been some discussion around whether there's already quite a lot of money obviously going into his campaign, but supposedly some high profile in the side dot in the wings waiting to see if there's a vice president who will be as sort of grown up in the room. I don't know whether. I mean, some people would say that's just a they just want to have an excuse to give him more money, and they're going to give him money anyway. But do you think that's true that there's sort of a wall of money waiting there depending on whether he picked someone who's sort of sensible or crazy or more sensible than crazy.
I don't.
I think it's true that there are some people waiting on the sidelines, particularly in business and on Wall Street, who backed other candidates along the way, are not waiting to see who he picked and putting some pressure on there.
I'm not sure it's a wall of money.
But I think it's a it's a it's a tangible amount.
I think I think there's a considerable amount of money.
If if Trump would choose Hailey, for instance, that would be a fig leaf or portuate way to describe that for him. For people business people who are already leaning quietly towards Trump because tax cuts and things, to say, look, he isn't that bad. It's the same argument you heard a bit in twenty sixteen that Donald Trump isn't as extreme as you think. If you could say, look, he's picked Nicki Haley, that would help. It would also help quite a lot that you look at the swing voters, white suburban women, absolutely the foe there and Nicky Haley would help a bit with that. And the question for Trump is how much he prizes loyalty, which tends to be his main thing, and it has to be remember that he did call Nicki Haley bird brain.
For most of the campaigns. Whether that is something that he would buy, It's unlikely to be like pen so I thinks to.
Say she didn't Nicky Haley.
To your point, John, given that that name Colin Nicky Hilly did endorse him much sooner than maybe some people.
Would have thought.
She's very shrewdly came out and supportive of him during his trial as well.
There's a there's a question which is a massive question. So I'm just going to give it. I'm going to give it to John, and you can give a very short answer so that we end more or less on time. But which question would each Oh wait, this is not the one, but I'm going to another one's moved.
Oh okay.
How will Europe and the UK solve the US China dilemma? I guess the point of choosing will trade trump the security relationship? I guess you could just have a one word answer, We'll trade security with great difficulty.
I think in the end there is I think in the end security will matter. And I think what you see and you put any collection of European and American leaders together for all the difficulty and all the kind of madness that is going on. There is a there is a very steadfast and I think this is cross Peggy. I think would agree across both parties. In America there is an absolute certainty that China is now the enemy. China is the thing they need to beat. There is a disagreement in America about how how much you can do to your main allies in trying to meet with some people on the Publican side thinking you have to bush the Europeans in. But in general the idea that there is China and there is Russia and they are set against everything that most of the people in this room stand for. That is a feeling which is much more consciously put forward in America, but I think is also gradually coming to Europe. So from that perspective, I would say that it is security that comes through.
One of the remarkable things about America is that we think of it about it as being divided in the polarized country, But when it comes to policy towards China, both the main parties are absolutely united over it, and all sort of serious policy makers are united over it. Trump's line on China has become the line that everybody takes about China now and Europe is slowly catching up. But Europe's going in the same direction because the threat from China it is massive. They're building a lot of bombs, they're investing a lot of money in their defense, and they're aggressively against Western values liberalism.
So Adrian, you've confirmed one of the conclusions of your long working partnership and book writing partnership with John Wicklthway that you will never let him have the last word. But that's the end of this special live episode of vhot Nomics or live taping of voter Nomics. Thank you to everyone here for coming. Thank you to Sammasadi, Victoria Wakeley, Eron Levy and lots of other people who've helped put this event together. And to our guests Peggy Collins and Francine Laquire special guest Star Editor in Chief, John Nicklthwaite, and Adrian and Allegra. I'll see you later in the week.
I think