Has Blair just brought the Labour party together - against him?

21:35Jon Sopel:It's just that actually it's not been the policy. It's been the politics that has let Keir Starmer down. He has failed to manage his party. He has failed to convince people that this is the right things to do. And so it's not been so much the policy in that area. It's just been the politics and Keir Starmer not being up to it. Yeah. I mean, one thing I think is true is that he has animated a proper intellectual debate in a way that nobody feels like they've done for kind of years. I mean, we have not stopped talking about the Blair speech for 24 hours, not because we love it, but because there is something to argue about.

22:10And a debate is a good thing. I think the difference, to your point, Lewis, between I mean, it sounds so obvious that Blair and this Blair is frankly, he doesn't have to petition the voter anymore. When was the last time he spoke to an ordinary voter?

22:23Tony Blair:He doesn't. He doesn't. Yeah. He doesn't have to ask people for their vote. And that immediately changes the register of what you're doing. Now, in a way, that's really good because it's not somebody who's saying, oh, I'm so desperate to please you that you will, you know, I'm going to say the thing that you want to hear. I'm going to say the thing that I think. And I do believe, actually, the one thing we've lacked is that leadership of kind of ambitious thought, just saying stuff and saying, well, it's better to have a plan. It's better to have an idea than not to have anything. But obviously, you know, he can say this and it goes nowhere.

22:56He's not going to lose Makerfield. You know, he's not going to lose a seat. The one thing Keir could do right now, tomorrow, that could really please the whole nation. Right. The majority of people in it, I think, would be to introduce the legislation that curbed tech companies powers over ills against children. That's what I was just saying.

23:15Tony Blair:In which case, that's completely against what Blair was saying. Because because if you were just listening to a Blair prospectus, you would just allow this to just happen. So the point is, if Keir did that, it would be an amazing thing. Now, maybe he comes up and does that the week before the by-election. Who knows? But the trouble is at the moment that Tony Blair is arguing for stuff that is passionate and may be wrong. And Keir Starmer is not putting forward the stuff that absolutely is required and may be right.

23:48From a range of trusted voices and award-winning journalists.

23:52Jon Sopel:Good morning, I'm Nick Ferrari. It's time to get to your calls. Find out the latest news and hear every side of the story. So just as I take responsibility for the results, I also take responsibility for delivering the change that we promised for a stronger and fairer Britain that we must build. Now he's still toast. He's just wasting our time now. The words of two in a growing list of Labour MPs whose patience with the Prime Minister has run dry. Is there anything he said or can say to make you want him to stay? Listen on our free Global Player app or the LBC app. LBC leading Britain's conversation.

24:30Jon Sopel:If the world were like a sleep number mattress, everything would adapt for your comfort. Because as your life changes and your body changes, sleep number mattresses adapt and shift to give you personalized comfort night after night. And now it's the final days of our Everything's on Sale event. Save up to$1 ,200 on mattresses. Our Memorial Day event ends Monday. To experience a whole new world of comfort, visit a Sleep Number store or go to sleepnumber.com. Sleep Number, to a good life's sleep. If your best finance people are doing expense reports, chasing receipts, or spending time on month-end clothes, it's time to get Brex AF, a Gentic finance that eliminates that work before it starts.

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25:22Tony Blair:Well, there's a really important report out today which links back to the conversation to some extent that we've just had about some of the things Tony Blair was saying and about what the government can do to reinvigorate our economy. This specifically relates to young people and young people who are not in education, training or employment, so-called NEETs. And there is now a million young people in this situation, a new record. and this report forecasts that if nothing is done, that number could rise to 1.25 million, perhaps higher by the end of the decade. Alan Milburn, who was a health secretary, health secretary in the Blair years, is the author of the report commissioned by the government and joins us now.

26:02Tony Blair:Alan, thanks so much for being with us. It strikes me that one of the most interesting and indeed chilling things about your report and what you found is that it is true to say, as you say, that there has always been cyclical unemployment for young people and when the economy is going through a difficult patch young people are usually the kind of canary in the coal mine for unemployment for obvious reasons they're the easiest to get rid of or not hire but you're saying that something new is happening something that is more structural tell us what it is so that's basically right so um the old problem and there's still a problem of cyclical youth unemployment by the way the numbers are far too high but the really worrying thing about this neat number is not just the number it's the makeup of it.

26:45So six in 10 of these young people have never had a job, okay, of that 1 million. If you go back 20 years, it was four in 10. The problem then was more unemployment. Now it's inactivity. In other words, they're not even looking for a job. And that's driven by a whole variety of things, which is why we tried to do a proper diagnosis of what on earth is going on here. And partially, it's about some changes in the labour market, fewer entry-level jobs. Partially it's about who the NEAT cohort is. The biggest worrying thing, probably the biggest change factor, has been about, I guess there's been an increase in about 70 % over the last decade of young people who are reporting a work-limiting health condition, and that's mainly mental health.

27:29And the consequences are that the sort of stickiness that you're seeing of young people not just becoming NEAT, but staying NEAT is growing, and this then is a massive challenge. And look, the real problem is that the system that we have, whether it's education through to welfare, you know, the system was really set up to deal with yesterday's problem and it's not equipped to deal with today's.

27:52Tony Blair:So to what extent do you think it is that, I'm sure the answer is both, but where would you apportion most of the problem? Is it how government is dealing with it and the sort of structural things are in place in terms of how government is dealing with it? Or is there just something more fundamental going on in the economy in terms of just the number of positions that are available. We're seeing the kind of in the foothills of kind of the AI changes that we're seeing, which we know even in sort of middle class professions, entry level jobs are starting to dry up. Like where is the sort of balance of problem, do you think?

28:18You know, people tend to look at this over the years. If you think about public policy, it's best to try to address this question of youth and employment through a supply side lens. In other words, if you make young people more employable, improve standards in schools, improve their skills, suffering their benefits, then that will solve the problem. But if you have a labour market that isn't working to bring them in, then you can fix the supply side and the demand side remains unaltered. And that's what you've got. What's really interesting and so worrying about this is that if you look at the numbers, the proportion of young people who've got five good GCSEs who a neat is now 30%.

28:5815 % of the neats have got a degree. I said earlier today that this was, it used to be a problem for other people's children. And it's now something that every mum and dad worries about, that their kid could end up neat. So you've got something profound going on in the labour market. It's sort of largely been disguised for the last 20 years. It's been going on and on and on. Fewer entry-level jobs, death of a Saturday job, startling decline in the number of young people starting an apprenticeship. That's down by about 35 % in 10 years. And on the supply side, you've got a school system that is more geared to qualifications than it is getting these kids work ready.

29:37That's what every employer will tell you. They'll all talk about lack of work readiness as being the problem. And what they mean by that is not that they're not literate or numerate. They haven't got their GCSEs, but can they communicate? Can they collaborate? Have they got enough confidence? Have they got agility? Have they got adaptability? So there's something in the school curriculum and the primacy that we place on qualifications, say, over work experience that is causing young people a problem down the line. Is it a question of finding the right skills, different skills for the young that is not to do with the GCSE or the qualification, but is to do with that bridge into the market?

30:15Or are you fundamentally saying that, frankly, whilst there are still policies in place like the NIC raise, like the minimum wage, like the Employment Rights Act, there just aren't going to be the jobs for these people, however skilled they are, however brilliant they are? So there's no doubt that those policies have had an impact. I mean, that's clear. Every employer has raised NICS, national minimum wage with me. There's no doubt about that. And the truth is, every time an employer takes out a young person, it's a risk because they're unproven. It's not like they've got a track record or a CV.

30:52They haven't. And in fact, nowadays, the nature of the cohort coming into employment is bringing with it, because there are more anxious generation, higher levels of mental health, etc. It brings a bigger pastoral burden for employers. So at the margins, employers are now going, well, hold on a minute. Is it worth it? So what I'll say to the government is, look. Every employer is saying that to you. if every employer is saying that to you and i'm taking your word here then those policies have got to end right they've got to change haven't they

31:30well what i'm saying to the government i mean i'm going to make some recommendations in the autumn this is a diagnostic report it's not a recommendations report but i mean honestly it's very clear the way that this is written and the way that we've analyzed it that if you really want as a matter of public policy to increase the number of young people in work then what you've got to do is minimize the risks for the employer and you've got to maximize the incentives okay which isn't to say and this is the bit of the problem but sometimes the debate just becomes too reductionist you know the truth is the problem of youth detachment and the difficulties that young people are having and breaking into the labor market getting on that first rung of the career ladder which sort of feels further and further away for so many people that didn't begin two years ago with the budget that probably begun 25 years ago it's not a question of two years it's a question of two decades.

32:18So this is why you've just got to be, you know, one of the things I'm very cautious about in this is that when you look at the history of all this, you guys know this, you know, there's been no shortage of youth employment programs, you know, YTS, New Deal, Kickstart. Okay, fine. But none of them have dealt with the fundamental structural problem that you've got here. It's a structural problem. And it's got worse, not better. And currently, we don't have a system. And frankly, we don't have a plan to deal with it.

32:43Tony Blair:There's a lot of emphasis, Alan, on the question of welfare and specifically mental health related welfare, i.e. increasing numbers of young people, as you say, economically inactive because of their mental health. How important and how big a part of the picture do you think that is? Because it is something, particularly in the papers, that receives a lot of attention. No, it's a huge issue. And I mean, look, there are several aspects to this. I mean, there's an aspect where people say, well, you know, these young people are flaky, they're snowflakes, they're soft, they're less resilient. They're sort of, they're talking about their mental health, but they don't really have a mental health problem.

33:19That is not what we found. We found, first of all, that 84 % of these young people want to be in work and training. They want to work. They're trying to work. The people that you meet, I've just met a group here in Islington, you know, they're applying for the job for jobs not just like a few jobs sometimes hundreds of jobs they never get a response nothing literally nothing no response no and it's the silence that kills right because it dents their confidence it kills their hope this is just now normal so it's not that they're not trying but they are a bit different that is undoubtedly true what we can't do is just say that because someone has got i don't know a neurodiverse condition adhd or autism or because they're living with anxiety or depression, that somehow or other, the health system and the welfare system should automatically catapult them into the world of benefits rather than into the world of work.

34:08So when I talk to Amazon, for example, you know, they are extremely proud, and rightly so, of their brilliant program that they run for young workers with autism, you know. So they're recruiting these people, they know that they've got to look after them, but they're brilliant workers, you know, they like coming to work, and all of that sort of stuff. So I think we've just got to get out of this sort of notion about, and this is, there's a weird debate about this because people want to ask all the time, is it over-diagnosed or is it over-medicalized? Okay, look, I'm not a doctor. I don't know the answer to that question.

34:39My question is a different one, which is a so what question. So if they have got a diagnosis, why does that mean that they cannot work? What does the system need to do to enable them to work? Tens of thousands of disabled people are proving every day that just because you've got a diagnosis doesn't mean that you can't work providing you get the right level of support and that's where the rubber hits the road because the way the welfare system works is more geared to income replacement than it is to employment support and that's what's going to change. I've been really surprised Alan by my own kids suggesting stuff that I think my generation would never have talked about and that's an idea around something like national service and I don't mean a conscription or something that takes us back to the Boer War but something that gets kids from all over the country together in dormitories, teaches them skills, whether it's first aid or how to mend a car or how to cook or how to fly a drone or how to look at cybersecurity, you know, actual practical stuff married with really interesting sort of future stuff that takes you into a whole tech world.

35:44And, you know, if you gave them sort of six months, eight months, would that kind of bring a kind of cohesion and a sense of confidence and a sense of re-skilling that we just don't we don't feel that we have at all and I'm you know if you look at somewhere like Estonia you know uh obviously they're right on the border with Russia it's a totally different thing but all they're young do something which just brings them into the same place at the same time and I don't know just sends them out into the world feeling like they've got a hardback shell on them yeah no so I think this is really interesting and as we move into the next phase of this and sort of think about okay so what is it that we actually need to do now that we've sort of diagnosed the nature of the problem it's important to get that right the diagnosis because otherwise you just end up with yet more misplaced solutions you know so new deal isn't around anymore kickstart isn't around anymore these things come and go you've got to make sure that the problem that the problem is identified in the right way and the solution is more permanent so what is very obvious is that within the one million there are different cohorts okay so there are some people who are very close to the labor market probably just need a nudge over the edge but then there's a generation and i've met you know as i've been going around the country talking to young people meeting them there's a cohort who what i call the bedroom generation who's sort of stuck in their bedrooms doom scrolling at night you know not going to sleep being awake at four o 'clock five o 'clock in the morning and they're stuck there not for one or two years but for three or four the idea that they're going to walk straight from their bedroom into a full-time job is fatuous it just is but at the moment that's the offer that you know the government through policy is making for perfectly understandable reasons and that will work for part of the cohort but for another part it will be about how do you edge them into the workplace do they need a supported internship does some sort of volunteering or community service or whatever that's got to be part of the suite of offers that are available to young people.

37:41And there's lots of that at a very localised level, but honestly, none of it really has heft of scale. So, you know, we need to look, we need to look, we need to explore exactly that terrain.

37:53Tony Blair:Alan, the Labour Party is still, because it stood on this, it's manifesto, the Labour Party, the government, is still committed to the equalisation of the different levels of the national minimum wage, which has already been reduced from where it used to be. Given what you're saying, do you think that would be a good idea or do you think they should abandon it well i mean we're gonna as i say we're gonna pronounce on that in in the autumn but you know it's pretty obvious from what we've seen that there is a risk if we keep going down the same track you know if you want more young people in employment you've got to make sure the jobs are there for them to get the jobs there for them you've got to make sure the employers are willing to take the risk and so this is not easy and And particularly in sectors, as I say, if you're in, say, the hospitality sector or the retail sector, margins tend to be very low.

38:44These tend to be sectors that really had badly hit by cost of living, hospitality in particular. It's discretionary spend to go to a hotel or to a restaurant. And that's what's really hit them the hardest over the course of these last sort of five or six years. So we've just got to make sure that we understand what's going on in the economy and then apply the right solutions, because otherwise you start to get perverse outcomes. Would you say everyone out of their bedrooms? I mean, enough working from home. Has that been a fundamentally unhelpful place for us to end up post-COVID? Yeah. So, you know, I've had the small team going around the country looking at talking to young people and asking them about their lives.

39:22And they ask this question about which, what time did you go to sleep last night? And the answer is two o 'clock, three o 'clock, four o 'clock, five o 'clock, sometimes never. And so Peter Fonagy, a professor at UCL, has been doing some work on this for the Department of Health and Social Care. And Peter's conclusion is, look, there is some functional impairment now that is taking place, not exclusively because of social media, but sleep patterns are disrupted, concentration levels are lower, the rhythm of these young people's lives is just not regular in the way that for our life when we were growing up it was.

39:55That has an impact. So this is a real issue. Alan in Melbourne, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Alan.

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41:17Tony Blair:Well, as we know, Tony Blair is an enthusiast for AI. As we were saying there, he thinks it's going to change everything. Indeed, it is the thing. on tomorrow's show on Friday's episode I'm going to be talking to someone who I think it's fair to say really really knows what they're talking about with regards to these companies and what their agenda might be Karen Howe she's written an amazing book called Empire of AI where she basically argues the way we need to understand these companies is not is not as some sort of evangelical kind of altruistic kind of force that's going to change everything they are like the social media companies that came before them sometimes they're the same companies you know commercial forces driven by Deeply driven by their bottom line, fundamentally.

41:58Tony Blair:Anyway, I spoke to her on the day that Blair's essay came out. I couldn't help but ask her, given her deep expertise, what she thought about Blair's thoughts on AI. Here's a little preview of that conversation. Tony Blair has, as we're speaking today, in fact, published a very interesting essay about British political change. And one of the themes that he often majors on is the importance of what he calls a technology revolution and AI in particular. He said, the second thing we must consider is the technology revolution led by developments in artificial intelligence, which will change everything.

42:35Tony Blair:I mean everything. There is no point debating whether this technological revolution is a good or a bad thing. Just know it as a thing. In fact, it is the thing. It will displace jobs, though creating new ones, but no one yet knows the full consequences. Companies and countries will rise or fall on the back of it, it will revolutionise the private sector, and should in time revolutionise public services and government.

43:01Jon Sopel:AI is a political project. The central feature of that political project is taking agency away from everyone. and Mr. Blair has successfully continued to propagate this idea that no one has agency in this, which is, I think, deeply anti-democratic. The entire premise of democracy is that we are able to shape our future. And if someone is saying you cannot stop one of the forces that will come to shape how the future looks, then what's even the point of democracy after that? I mean, that is deeply untrue. The things that we do today is what shapes our future. And there are many people around the world that are now actively contesting the way that these empires of AR are engaging in this technological imperial project.

43:53Jon Sopel:And it's having an effect on these companies. So everything that Blair said is, I think, absolutely not true.

44:02Tony Blair:Everything.

44:02Jon Sopel:Everything. Get off the fence, Karen. Come on, tell us what you really think. Well, while we are looking at Americans thinking about our own politicians, I was speaking to the Philadelphia Congressman Brendan Boyle on the news agency USA, which is out this evening. And here is his take and his warning for British voters about Nigel Farage.

44:24Tony Blair:I do want to make one other point, though. I really hope the British public learns the lesson of Donald Trump when it comes to Nigel Farage. It is amazing to me the way these hucksters and flim-flam artists are able to get away with some of this stuff in this new media environment. Farage is a total fraud, and I hope the British public realizes it before it's too late. Hucksters and flim-flam artists. Yeah, it just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? It's perfect, isn't it? It's perfect. Thank God we've got somebody. Would you say you're more of a huckster or a flim-flam artist? Oh, I'm definitely a flim-flam artist.

45:00Tony Blair:I think you'd want to be Flim Flammer, wouldn't you? I'd be swinging on my Flim Flammer, I think. I quite fancy a Flim Flammer right now, actually. Let's go and find one. We'll be back tomorrow. See you then. Bye. This has been a Global Player original production.

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