Budget 'breathing space', baked beans and 12 bins

0:02The Telegraph.

0:30the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini. That's goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini. This week, we got some breathing space from the budget, not much else. Andy Burnham marked his first 100 days in office. Meanwhile, a one town has decided that recycling requires 12 separate bins because apparently sorting your rubbish into 11 just makes you lazy. I'm not a scientist okay but do we really think that if the people of Denbyshire in North Wales fail to separate their paper from their cardboard it will be 10 degrees hotter next summer?

1:14What impact do we think the residents of Denbyshire have on global temperatures? But first Tim I think we'd better start with the week's most exciting news which is that it's Halloween. Three more days to Halloween Halloween Halloween. Do you know what that's from? No, I've never heard that in my life. What's this? Silver Shamrock. I'll let people write in. If anyone knows what I'm singing there, let them write in. It's from a film. Well, thank you for that, Grandpa Simpson. Are you a fan of Halloween? I adore Halloween. I think it's great fun. Some people are miserly or miserable about Halloween, aren't they?

1:48They're scrooges about Halloween in the way that other people are about Christmas. And I don't get it. I just think it's great fun. What do you love about that? Do you go trick-or-treating? No, I do not because I'm 44. Right, okay. And I think if a 44-year-old man knocked on your door dressed as a werewolf with a bucket in his hand well, that really would be a nasty trick wouldn't it? I'd call the police. Would it be weirder if he came with a load of his friends who are also 44-year-old men or if he came with a load of very small children? The latter. No, no, the latter is what dads actually do.

2:19They would assume you were the dad of all these children. I remind you, you have a son. That's a good point. Do you do trick or treating? I've forgotten that for a moment there. Do you do trick or treating? No, we don't. Actually, in our area, in Kent, we actually have a slightly more civilised way of doing things, Tim. Let me tell you. What we have, you don't get kids ringing your doorbell. What you do, we have something called a Halloween trail, okay? Right. And participating households will leave a pumpkin outside their house and perhaps, you know, some sort of Halloween-themed decorations.

2:46And also a big bowl that's just full of sweets. Right. So you don't get bothered with kids ringing your doorbell and, you know, threatening to throw eggs at your house or whatever. they can just take the sweets and most of the time this works very well although there was one year where we set out our massive bowl of sweets for kids to take just happened to open the door about after about five minutes totally empty like the first load of kids or maybe just a person by an adult licking its lips or maybe a fox just emptied the whole lot into a sack and run off with it but anyway that's the most english thing i've ever heard because part of the point of halloween is to get to meet your neighbors but kent has redesigned it so you don't even have to knock on the door.

3:23No, there's no contact at all. A bit of seasonal passive aggression. You can shut yourself in and watch TV without being bothered by other human beings. So I think that's the way of doing things. I respect what you say about, you know, people being a bit Scrooge-y, whatever the Halloween equivalent of Ebenezer Scrooge is. But I'm afraid I'm a little bit like that myself, I must admit. But for only one reason, it's not that I hate Halloween. It's more that over the past couple of decades or so, I feel like it's really come to overshadow Guy Fawkes Night. Yes. Because when I was a child, growing up in the 80s, Guy Fawkes Night was huge and Halloween wasn't such a big thing and, you know, Guy Fawkes Night was a wonderful thing with all, you know, huge bonfire and the guy.

4:03I don't ever see anyone making guys anymore. Penny for the guy, that seems like that's died out. So Halloween has come to overshadow that, which I think is a great shame and I think it looks like there's another nail in the coffin for Guy Fawkes Night now because this week there was a story saying the government's considering plans to make fireworks up to 87.5 % less noisy. That's very Whitehall, isn't it? Lots of people complaining about noise pollution or their pets are frightened and that sort of thing, which I understand, but yeah, that will kill off Guy Fawkes' knife for good. A firework without a bang is a bit pointless, isn't it?

4:38That's the joy of it. Exactly that, but there you go. That's why kids love it. It recreates war, but without actual war. And I think it's sad to think of Halloween with all its ghouls and vampires overshadowing a decent British celebration of burning a terrorist to death. There you go, I know you. Which itself has a sort of Halloween feel to it. It's all terribly pagan, isn't it? Very well. Anyway, from one source of horror to another, shall we talk about the budget? 100 days of Andy Burnham, and now we have a budget. Breathing space was mentioned dozens of times. That always sounds to me like you're trying to get someone not to have a heart attack.

5:13Breathe into a paper bag. Breathe very steadily. Breathe. Well, in that case, it seems a perfectly fitting metaphor for the state of our economy. him so that's that's fine i think you know credit to whoever came up with it that's that's good there you are by the way did you see a john healy uh celebrating uh his uh budget triumph i think that's all it by downing a pint he's added two p to the price of the pint and but he goes straight to a pub which is brave of him frankly given what the landlords might do to him anyway he's gone to pint and he's there's a video of him downing a pint of beer in one go and i have to say i respect that because i've never been able to do that i don't have the throat for it i'm afraid but I'll tell you I once met a bloke when I was at university I met a bloke who could down two pints of beer in seven seconds and that includes a second for the changeover he was just it was like he was just effectively just tipping it down a drain straight down next one straight down you times seven seconds that was amazing I can't even do one they should make him Chancellor I think so yeah I don't know what became of him but if I can track him down but it wouldn't entirely surprise me if he is now a Labour MP because I think almost everyone I went to school with is now.

6:20Andy Burnham was on Good Morning Britain with the brilliant Richard Madeley. And he said, what's it been like becoming a Prime Minister? What's surprised you the most? And Burnham said, what's surprised him the most is people coming up to him in the street and saying, good job. But it would surprise you, wouldn't it? Surprise to me. Because he thought he was doing a terrible job. But I love all this growth in your postcode stuff and all this sort of stuff. Good growth. Good growth in your postcode. None of this bad growth. As the Telegraph's Annabelle Denim has pointed out there are like thousands of postcodes in this country and the idea that every single one of them should have hope and growth is something well we in my postcode have a tree which is just sucking the life out of the soil and we cannot get this thing cut down it's very ugly very old it's obviously dying i'd like the prime minister to come and deal with that that's what my post there you are yeah you get rid of your bad growth i think yeah i think people should start sending in suggestions for their specific postcode really niche stuff you know There's a bit of graffiti here or we could do with a pothole being covered up.

7:19Something like that. Well, speaking of postcodes, what's your council tax ban, Tim? Are you in line for this very exciting£100 windfall? I do get it. If your council... Yeah, it's the ban's A to D. Yeah. You're getting£100 of your own money back. No, I do because my flat is small and nasty enough for qualifying. There we are. Great. Well, I'm in line for it as well. Oh, good. Okay. Will it buy my vote? I don't want to give away where you live, but it's a Kentish seaside town. Gravesend. No, it's on the Thames around the sea. Oh, okay. I don't know why. We don't have much of a beach. There is a very small patch of sand, actually, occasionally the tide goes out a bit.

7:56Okay. I don't know if we can call that a beach. And Gravesend, they have those sorts of bands there, because I think I'm the only band D in my area, whatever it is. There you go, yeah. I'm surrounded by Es and Fs, a forest of Es and Fs. Anyway. And Xs and Ys. Anyway, lots of people, critics are saying this budget is terribly sort of meagre and not really going to achieve anything apart from 100 quid each for you and me. Yes. Bit sort of pathetic. But that's kind of been the mark of sort of Andy Burnham's first 100 days, hasn't he really? He's obsessed with these what he calls everyday fixes, which is sort of feel like to me, perhaps I'm horribly ungrateful and spoiled, but incredibly sort of small meagre things to help you save, you know, 2p off of, you know.

8:35Yeah, there's a vibe of austere Victorian biscuits about him. There's something of the rich tea about this behind Prime Minister. Although he can dance. We have seen a video, proof that he has actually danced in the past. And he's pretty good at dancing. This was a couple of years ago. And he's doing the salsa to the tune of, I think, Live in La Vida Loca by Ricky Martin. Right. With a professional dancer. And I've got to say, I can't knock it. I think he's done a decent job there. I'm no position to mock because a very long time ago, I think it's almost 20 years ago now, this is burned into my memory, for a Telegraph feature, I was sent to go and be taught a dance routine by a dance troupe called Diversity who had just won Britain's Got Talent.

9:17Okay. And there was a video of that, but I now wish I hadn't mentioned that because I know that our producers are going to be frantically rummaging through the files. I'm praying that it's been deleted. This is very old. Right. I wouldn't say it was an unalloyed triumph. Right. I wonder where diversity are now. I must admit I don't know. In what ways were they diverse? That's a good question. Because I have to say they didn't look all that diverse. I was going to ask. They were diverse from me. Certainly in terms of dancing ability. As we all know, diversity is our strength. I can tell you I was not diversity's strength.

9:54I was very much diversity's weakness that day. They were all great. I mean, obviously, they were award-winning dancers. But I am not quite at their level. But there you go. They were very tolerant. Well, I hope you never do, because I hope they're not going to dig it out. I was forced to go to classes when I was a boy. Really? Because my father was quite an accomplished dancer. He could tap. He had shoes. Oh, tap. He had special shoes. And so I was made to go to classes to learn the waltz and the foxtrot, the cha-cha-cha. Yeah. And I was terrible. Two left feet and all of that. But at the end, because it was a bunch of kids, all of whom had sweaty palms and were embarrassed to be dancing with each other.

10:30At the end, they would do that song, Superman. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there were all these like 10 and 11 year olds suddenly came alive. That was the one ruddy thing we could do was Superman. Well, my school, which is in Edinburgh, we were all forced to learn Scottish country dancing from primary school. So, yeah, I used to do the Gay Gordons. Really? Yeah. every Thursday around your place. It's been a while. I haven't done them for many years. Now, if a disaster were to hit, which could include a flood, it could be a Russian cyber attack, it could be a general election.

11:11Yeah. What would you stockpile? Well, let me tell you, Tim, I've already been stockpiling. I've been following the government's orders to a T. I've got my baked beans, my bottled water. Yes. What else have we got? Some vegetable soup. My wife's vegetarian, so we've got to somehow keep her alive, I suppose. Right. You can eat her if you need to. Yeah. But I've noticed that ever since the government started telling everyone to prepare for some kind of unidentified disaster, people have started panic buying, and shops are now running really low. Is it baked beans, bottled water, things like that?

11:48But also, weirdly, lavatory paper. Yes. Now, the government, as far as I'm aware... I think that goes hand in glove with baked beans. I don't believe the government said start stockpiling that's what people have done, it's like lockdown all over again, that is what happened at the start of the first lockdown in 2020 people were pushing trolleys the government did not tell anyone to stockpile toilet paper, and yet that's what people did, and that's what they're doing it now and it does puzzle me a little bit because I think I can see why you might need to stockpile water or food or things like that, but how is is Vladimir Putin going to halt our supply of lavatory paper?

12:28Can you explain that to me? Is he going to attack the lavatory roll plants, the factories? What's he going to do? He's going to blow them up so we can't go to the lavatory or something? I mean, that is one thing that could defeat Britain, to be fair in a world. I did wonder if the government was concerned about an ancient curse of the mummy. Oh, right. Because, of course, they do wrap themselves in bandages. In which case, there might be a short supply of loo roll. Yeah. If Sutek and his army of death cross the channel and storm the country, we might very quickly run out of two-ply. Hang on a minute.

13:04You mentioned that. It's Halloween. All these people buying up the loo rolls, maybe they're not doing it for some kind of war or crisis. They're all just dressing up as mummies, right? But the other possibility is if we are hit by one of these Greta Thunberg-style floods, I mean of water, not of Greta herself, then you could use the tissue paper to mop up the flood. Right. That would take quite a lot. Everyone's doing their bit. I know it would. I would advise kitchen towel, if anything. Yes. Rather than the loo papers. A bit thin. It's going to take some effort and it's going to create an almighty mess.

13:37But if that's what's going through the British people's heads, then I rather admire that. Yeah. Of course, if this were America, people would be getting guns. Yes. That's the one thing. I mean, I suppose it's a good thing that we don't do that. But I always think there's something slightly petty about our version of stockpiling. Because it is always just sad little things like baked beans. Baked beans, yeah. But back to rich tea biscuits. But they never say get a gun. Isn't that what we really need when stuff goes down? Yeah. We need a gun. Yeah, there you are. Not for the enemy, but to protect us from each other.

14:06Well, that's the exact thing. Because otherwise, if you don't have a gun, people are going to be breaking in and nicking all your baked beans. or even worse, your loo rolls, right? Coming from a loo roll, exactly. There'll be people who haven't thought to stockpile loo roll. They've run out. What are they going to do? They're going to be waddling through your kitchen window, probably, with their trousers around their ankles and breaking in and running off with your loo roll. I tell you, after that budget... It doesn't bear thinking about it. After that budget, with a state of inflation, loo roll could be the next currency.

14:35It could very easily be that. By the way, I want to say, I have my doubts about this whole, you know these threats of disaster stuff i think this is all a cynical ploy from the government to artificially boost economic growth so that burnham can then announce a snap election yes if everyone is you know swarming the supermarkets buying up everything he can say wow look at the growth we've got now in quarter four isn't that amazing yeah you know straight into an election campaign look see we've sorted the economy look at this we're going gangbusters as i think the tories used to say and then when he wins we will need the baked beans and the toilet paper and the guns so it all makes all this stuff may at some point have to be recycled which brings us so neatly onto the next one very nice very nice account one council makes people put things in 12 different bins yes this is uh denbyshire in north wales right the county the county council there have decided that this is just your recycling by the way yeah you've got you've got 12 different bins you've got to sort and in fact in case anyone doesn't believe this I'm going to read out what all the bins are, okay?

15:35Please do. We've got bins for glass, metals, paper, cardboard. Separate bins, apparently. Electrical items, textiles, soft plastic, food waste, garden waste, absorbent hygiene products, batteries, and non-recyclable waste. Well, hang on, if it's non-recyclable, how is it recycling? Why are you recycling it? I just think, you know, for poor people of Denbyshire, it just sounds like a full-time job sorting out this stuff. I mean, is the council paying them for this? I mean, shouldn't the council be hiring people to actually do that? Yeah, I feel someone's not doing a job here. By the way, this is why I hate self-service checkouts.

16:08Because every time I'm doing it, I think, they used to employ people to do this all for me. And those people will be paid. I'm not getting paid to do this. Yes. Well, I think Tesco should be paying me. Yes. I'm giving them free labour. Yes. Anyway, I hate that. But here's the thing. This makes this whole Denbyshire story even worse. Because there is an anonymous Labour councillor who's spoken to a newspaper and attacked the local people for complaining about it and called them lazy, OK? And I want to read this out to you in full, right? This is an amazing quote, anonymous Labour councillor. They are lazy and they cannot be bothered.

16:41They probably don't want to look after the environment and the climate change and blah, blah, blah. They are not thinking about their children. They are not thinking about the place they live in. I mean, good grief. We had a huge hot summer this year and that's all to do with climate change, running out of water and whatever. All these things are contributing to climate change. Now, I'm not a scientist, OK, but do we really think that if the people of Denbyshire in North Wales fail to separate their paper from their cardboard, it will be 10 degrees hotter next summer? What impact do we think the residents of Denbyshire have on global temperatures?

17:17Yes, yes, yes. Now, I take a point. And working at The Telegraph, back in my day, I have written editorials about so many stories in which we found that people have separated everything into six different bags and they've all gone to the same toxic dump in Bulgaria. That's the problem with it. I just, I don't believe that it all goes to different places. But the other thing is I noticed from that quote He said they're not thinking about their children No they're not They're thinking about the recycling You're going to have a spike in child neglect In this part of Wales Because people are too busy But I do feel life is playing a cool trick When you are forced to go through your own bins Yes Come on Yeah Things are tough enough in my household Well there you go Well you know another couple of years of labour We'll be going through public bins probably Here we go Here we go Once we've run out of our stockpiles of baked beans, that'll be the next thing, I'm afraid.

18:13We'll be scavenging the urban foxes. One story that caught my eye because I'm terrified of flying is that three quarters of European airline pilots admit that they have fallen asleep in the cockpit. While flying a plane? Well, I guess what this points to is how the thing flies itself now. Because I assume we'd hear about it, right? If they were falling asleep with their hands on the wheel, whatever it's called. we'd hear about it because they would probably crash i don't know yeah exactly right that's that's my point and and if they were asleep when it did crash well they would never know yeah so you know good for them but this so i think this points to how everything's automated and that's supposed to reassure us in some ways but it doesn't me because it's an old joke but anyone who trusts automation has never used a printer and the and the idea that a plane up there uh could go the same way as my mother's inkjet which i'm i'm called to the house once a week like a an engineer on some kind of permanent contract to fix just makes me think this is not good it just makes me want to fly even less yeah to be fair you're doing your duties as a son the the role of sons is to perform tech support for their parents my son's 12 he does it for me all the time so that's fine yeah there you go um but yeah god i mean i i say i i don't have a fear of flying or at least i didn't until i read this story i think i'm starting to develop one now i think perhaps uh next uh next summer i'll be holidaying in britain a nice little staycation for me now yes unless unless you're going to tell me that train drive is also full asleep at the front of the i was going to say i'm not sure what they do anymore either yeah they just don't turn up for work according to my to my tannoy um now i want to compliment you on a superb article you wrote really about did i about my old friend Alastair Campbell.

20:00Old chum of yours. We go way back. Anyone who wants to Google that can... Anyone who wants to know, either Google it or ask my lawyer. But you commented upon a line in his new book. His new book, yes. Which is called, What is the Word? He's invented a new word, and it's called Percivalience. That's the title of his book. That full title, Percivalience, the word the world needs now. So he's come up with this word, and he's decided we all need to adopt it it needs to be in the oxford english dictionary yes um it's a portmanteau term he has created of the words perseverance and resilience which i would argue are almost synonyms anyway so you i feel you've not created anything new there and i want to say perseverance sounds like a knight in monty python so perseverance the brain there you go anyway uh i'm very glad you brought this up because it's made it worthwhile me reading that atrocious book and if anyone wants know more about it my one star review is available on the telegraph website but anyway i wanted to focus on one single line yes in this book in my column this week which is where alistair campbell uh describes himself as a national treasure now i've got to say i wasn't aware that you know you were able to declare yourself as a national treasure i thought it was something that other people as a committee yes so very possibly yes or you know or at least the media you know would refer to as a national treasure.

21:19Society. Other people. Other people. But he has unilaterally declared himself a national treasure. Right. You know, I don't mean any disrespect to him, but I feel that's a somewhat contentious claim. Yes, it is. Yes. Yeah. The most contentious claim he's made since Iraq, some would say. But yeah, because I think the thing about national treasures is it's not just anyone who is famous. It's a particular sort of famous person with certain qualities. They all have certain qualities in common. They're people who are or are at least perceived to be sort of warm, cuddly, good-natured, and above all, sort of lovable.

21:55They're lovable figures. You're thinking of Stephen Fry and Judi Dench, David Attenborough, Alan Bennett, all of these sort of figures. Someone who you've met in the street. You're being somewhat starstruck. People imagine they would get on with them. They'd be very nice. whatever qualities Alastair Campbell may have I'm not convinced that those are among them I'm not sure if you went up to people in the street and say, you know, think of a word to describe Alastair Campbell I don't think the great British public are going oh well, lovable, obviously It's lovability, I would say, is his defining trait Honestly, I've never seen lovability like it You know, lovability seeps from his every pore So I'm not quite convinced of that, I have to say Anyway, so I wrote that column and I was answering readers' comments after it.

22:40And I have to say, I had a remarkable number of them saying, yes, I think Alistair Campbell is a national treasure in the sense that I'd like to bury him. A lot of them saying that, I have to say. And I'm not saying I endorse that point of view. Yes. But that's what a lot of people are saying. The thing is, whenever I hear national treasure, I've never liked the term, but it always makes me instantly think of old, old coins. that our museums are full of cases packed with old old coins yeah and they always have covers over them for some reason because they're so boring that the people who run the museums actually put a cloth cup and you sort of lift one up and glimpse it and think yeah let's go through to the portraiture or the dinosaurs let's just put there as i don't to me national treasure doesn't necessarily automatically mean something good but when i think of national treasure if i'm being Positive about it I might think of say The lovely Miranda Hart Oh right Who was Kicked off Traitors recently And when I look at her I think of sort of Warm Vulnerable Funny Lovable Yeah And when I look at Alastair Campbell I think Evil And there's a I mean if he were on The Traitors Everyone would just go Well it's him Right There would be no show I mean I I know the format's Not that But just all 30 Of the other contestants Would all just go It's him It'd be worse than having it's him worse than Richard E.

23:59Granger saying I had to tell them had to tell people Alistair Campbell would not need to tell them I mean like people would be calling the police to say we found not just a traitor but also a threat to national security there we go dear old Alistair you're probably giving the BBC ideas here they're going to have a series called Celebrity War Criminal see if you can pick them out yes yes we've got his mate Tone that's what got me in trouble before so we that's why I say speak to my lawyer.

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25:13Now, according to some surveys, people are putting finance before romance when they choose a life partner. Oh, this was a survey, right? This is a survey. I think it's about, is it Gen Z in particular? This is Gen Z. Young people. Young people of today. Are now looking for money rather than love. Yeah, because they're too cold to go on dates. I have neither. Apparently, they can't afford to go on dates. They can't afford it, right. And I've heard that some of them, because they can't afford to go out for dinner, they will suggest, you know, to go out for a cup of coffee. Or, this is the weird one, let's go out for a jog together.

25:48Yeah, because there's nothing sexier than a jog. I don't understand that. I mean, I guess the idea is, you know, you want to see what I look like when I'm hot and sweaty. Yeah. That kind of thing. Yeah, but not on all fours crying on the pavement because you can't do this anymore. Or on a shelf 40. Or something. Yeah, exactly. That is bizarre, isn't it? Yeah. I think it's very easy for us to sort of dismiss this and sort of mock Gen Z or whatever, you know, for their latest sort of hapless misfortunes. But I actually think we should be concerned about this because, you know, we often talk, certainly we often write in this newspaper about one of the greatest threats to this country and the West as a whole is collapsing birth rates.

26:26Well, look, our birth rates are not going to recover if the young people today cannot even afford to go on a date, let alone start a family. Yes. I think maybe, you know, we need to start investing in our young people. How about instead of, you know, paying them all universal credit and pip and all the rest of it, let's take that away and instead pay them to go for romantic dinners at top restaurants. There you are. Just, you know, find a member of, you know, the opposite sex or same sex. Hang on a minute. What am I saying? Anyone you like, find a potential partner. And yeah, I, the taxpayer, I will pay for you to have a lovely candlelit dinner.

27:00Right. OK. Let's get those birth rates up. Yeah, no, I think that's a lovely idea because if people are trying to connect while jogging, I mean, even if there is a spark, they're not going to do anything because they'll be knackered by the end of it. There it is. There you go. There you go. Lovely to meet you. Brisk handshake and you go home for a shower. I mean, that's how do we expect to replenish the earth, really? There you go. Well, there you are. Mr. Healy, Mr. Chancellor. If you are watching, you didn't have the nerve to sort out the welfare bill in this budget. There's how to do it in your next one, OK?

27:37Get rid of all the benefits and instead pay young people to go out for dinner. You know, fall in love, start a family. We've solved I don't know how many national problems in one go there. So there you are. anyway well it's another another another policy making triumph for the weekend tea tim so perhaps i just hope the elite are watching i hope so too anyway thanks thanks for watching and i'll see you next time

28:49We'll see you next time. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini. That's goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini. Outdated technology isn't going to improve a disconnected healthcare system. Next. So what will? At Optum, we wake up every day and work for better. We call it healthy optimism. It's how we use insights and technology to help providers focus less on paperwork and more on patients. Will we fix it all overnight? No. but we'll wake up trying again and again until healthcare works as one for everyone. That's healthy optimism. Learn more at Optum.com.