Q&A: Trump, Putin and 100% inheritance tax

16:04Jon Sopel:then we'll say she should listen harder exactly completely 100 percent um i don't know i think that europe is doing what it feels it has to do right now in terms of trying to manage this mercurial figure donald trump does it make the eu stronger or weaker i think it makes the eu stronger or europe stronger because it's not just an eu issue the way that the talks are being done i think it makes europe stronger if it starts taking more responsibility itself for the security of its own continent and less reliant on america because if you're less reliant on america that has to be a good thing given how unpredictable donald trump is and how one of his continual things has been that europe hasn't paid its way on defense and is too heavily reliant on the united states so if there is more of a gap between europe and the us in terms of self-reliance i think that's

17:04Lewis Goodall:a bloody good thing yeah i think that the thing about europe having to suck up to trump i mean that is um that's just a reflection of the geopolitical reality as it is partly a historic one which is we've relied on the americans for security for since the end of the second world war partly one that was a mistake in not arresting it more we've talked about on the show before not taking action earlier to try and create something that emmanuel macron calls strategic autonomy the idea that the eu can act independently or europe can act independently of the the us particularly militarily we knew that trump could well be back we knew that pretty much from the moment that he left office and yet there was a complete complacency about the entire thing but it's also a reflection of wider things as well which has nothing to do with that i mean the truth is is that europe and i include you know uk plus europe day after day and week after week and story after story we are seeing europe's irrelevance in geopolitical terms in all sorts of ways part of that is militarily part of it is economically i mean you know if you go back to say 2008 2010 2010, the EU plus UK had an economy that was roughly the same size as the United States.

18:07Lewis Goodall:In fact, it was slightly larger. I mean, today, the United States economy has run away from the European economy. Put UK, EU together, it's 30, 40 % larger. And then, of course, you've got the rising powers around the world. China, what's happening in the Middle East, the Gulf, India, others as well. Technologically, economically advancing, galloping at a rapid rate. Europe, in all sorts of ways, technologically, in terms of its population, economically, militarily, feels more and more stagnant. And each individual country, often indebted, big population problems, demographic problems, often fractious politics, rise of populism, all sorts of different things.

18:45Lewis Goodall:And a kind of lack of, if you're thinking about it continentally, a lack of obvious leadership, the EU is full of all sorts of problems. So I think that the truth is, is that right now, Europe is a lagging continent. It's a continent which is diminishing in terms of overall, global importance reach and size and i think that unless you were to have something quite profound happen that is a trend that's probably only going to accelerate well i mean look you've

19:07Jon Sopel:got a fundamental structural problem which is that europe is made of sovereign nations yeah and you've got a single currency which means you've got a kind of single monetary policy but each country goes its own way in fiscal policy and different countries might need different things at different times. You know, one country might be facing a problem with growing acceleration, whereas the other country needs something completely different. You have a United States of America with, you know, a federal government in Washington. You do not have a United States of Europe. And realistically, to have the policies in place and also a lot of what the European Commission has put in place is too much regulation against an America where they're saying we're going to deregulate as much as possible we're going to let companies grow we're going to introduce tariffs to try and attract companies to set up in america and i think europe is struggling to

20:01Lewis Goodall:compete where's europe's apple where's europe's tesla you know these these these things just don't exist or the equivalent of chinese you know instead europe is increasingly reliant on um 20th century industries which are the middle shaft industries of germany yeah exactly and um and in In some cases, and I don't think there are many Brexit benefits, but I think this is probably one of them. I mean, in some cases, are regulating new industries out of existence before they even started. Like on AI, for example, Britain's taking a different regulatory path, which I think is a good thing on AI in the main.

20:30Lewis Goodall:So, you know, some people starting to talk about Europe as a museum continent. You know, it's a sort of place you go on holiday and it's nice and you can have a lovely, lovely time. But fundamentally, a continent of the 20th century rather than the 21st. It's up to Europe to try and show that that is not the case. But for the structural reasons you identify, John, Emmanuel Macron has talked about, this for years and has got nowhere partly because of the institutional problems i mean europe is

20:52Jon Sopel:aware of this i mean mario draghi produced a report i think last year talking about the changes that need to happen within the european union if it is to remain competitive if it is to kind of stay up with and become a 21st century economy it's whether there is the willingness of the member states who've all got want to protect their own little bits of industry you know French historically want to protect their farmers and it goes on whether they will ever make the reforms necessary to be as lean and mean and competitive as America we will be back with

21:25Lewis Goodall:questions some questions about British politics right after this

21:34Lewis Goodall:overwhelmed that was me with diabetes hey I'm Gibran between teaching and coaching managing diabetes felt like an extra job. With the Freestyle Libre 3CGM, I get real-time glucose readings and have the insights to make informed decisions. My life feels lighter now. Learn more at freestyllibre.us.

21:53Jon Sopel:The views expressed should not be used for medical diagnosis or treatment as a substitute for professional medical advice. Individual circumstances may vary. For prescription only. Safety info found at freestyllibre.us. This is Ashley Akinetti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast. Ben, I've been reflecting a lot lately on how many big life moments our listeners have experienced with us. Yeah, it's pretty wild. They've watched us go from dating shows to engagements, weddings, babies, buying homes. Every stage comes with new decisions. The milestones are the fun part, but the planning is where things get real.

22:28Jon Sopel:That's why Klarna stands out. Klarna gives people smarter tools to help manage everyday money with flexible ways to pay, cash back that builds automatically, everything in one place and support that makes everyday decisions feel less overwhelming. Since life moves so fast, the right tools can help you feel more confident. Download the Klarna app today or visit Klarna.com to learn more. California resident loans made or arranged pursuant to a California finance law license and MLS number 1353190. Klarna balance account required to be eligible for cashback points. Limitations, terms and conditions apply.

23:05Lewis Goodall:This is the News Agents. now france's guinan guinan guinan guinan she's a bartender in star trek the next generation played by whoopie goldberg of course the great whoopie goldberg finished oh i just think we

23:22Jon Sopel:should pay homage to a great sci-fi character john excellent thank you very much we've heard a lot about how morgan mcsweeney is a political mastermind and based on labour seats in the last election you can argue that however the strategy seems to have been let's say whatever we have to in order to win which is fine until you're in power has he been overestimated by the media francis thank you for that i think it's a really interesting question you do hear a lot of people now saying he was absolutely brilliant in terms of the campaign how to win what the strategies were where the targeting of seats should be and all the rest of it and actually maybe not as agile now And there have been unbelievable turf battles going on within Downing Street since Keir Starmer has taken office.

24:12Jon Sopel:And most notably with Sue Gray being forced out of Chief of Staff and Morgan McSweeney rising to that post. I still think that if you look at what's happening in the Downing Street operation, if you're focusing on Morgan McSweeney or you're focusing on the director of comms or you're focusing on the head of policy, you're focusing on the wrong person. the person who should be running downing street is the prime minister and if you've got so much focus on this one or that one or someone else who is an official i think you're looking in the wrong way i think that ultimately these things you know we were talking about the problems facing rachel reeves and keir starmer's apparent disinterest in some of the decisions being taken by the treasury no it goes to keir starmer he's at the top yeah i think that's right i mean the government faced

24:59Lewis Goodall:a terrible inheritance, terrible structural things which are buffeting it all over the place, difficult geopolitical environment, and generally speaking, a deeply hostile media. No honeymoon enjoyed whatsoever, unusual for any government. But I mean, I think a lot of the government's problems, the seeds were sown as they always are, actually, before they entered government. And the truth was, is that there had been a shocking lack of thinking about how to provide a prescription for the diagnosis. The diagnosis was there. Keir Starmer, I mean, I sat in the, when he was leader of the opposition and, you know, speech after speech, conference speech and others, you know, they talked about Britain being broken.

25:37Lewis Goodall:It was broken, broken in every direction, economically, politically, culturally, whatever it happened to be. It was big talk on the diagnosis, but there was very, very little talk of prescription. I think there had been a shocking lack of thinking in the different departments, actually, in the different, not just from the centre, but overall about what they would do when they actually got into government. As a result, a lot of that thinking has had to be done on the hoof in government, which is difficult. And you combine that with a figure, a political figure in Keir Starmer, who, although nimble, can be too nimble in a sense that he is a figure who even many of those around him will quietly and privately say is not exactly without politics, but he wears his politics extremely lightly and struggles to communicate whatever politics that he happens to have.

26:22Lewis Goodall:And so I think if you put all of those things together and you put that together with the fact that he does not show. And if you talk to cabinet ministers, I was talking to someone a few days ago about this. If you talk to cabinet ministers, they will say, I am shocked at how little I hear from the prime minister. Yeah. How little I hear from the centre. We just let's get on with it, which is kind of nice in a sense. But it does lead. You compare that to John. I know, you know, obviously you cover really closely how hyperactive Blair was by comparison. Blair used to bring them in every six months for a kind of like little report card, you know, and sort of say, this is your priorities for the year and whatever it happens to be.

26:56Lewis Goodall:Very little of that by comparison in the sense. Now, some of that I think is obviously, look, Starmer's getting pulled, particularly on the foreign affairs front. But part of it, you know, people will tell you is because, as we were sort of saying the other day, he has relatively little interest in economic policy. There are big parts of the government because he came to politics late that he does not have particular strong opinions about. And that lack of leadership from the centre and that lack of direction from the centre can be problematic.

27:19Jon Sopel:Look, if you're looking for what happened in the campaign, and I completely agree with you that there was a lack of thinking about, you know, what were the policy priorities? How are we going to do it? How are we going to reorganise the way government works so that we get what we want at the end of it? There seemed to be very little of that. But I think if you're looking in terms of the manifesto, did Labour need to promise not to raise VAT, income tax and employees national insurance? I think Labour would have won the election without that pledge. But as a result of that pledge, they are so boxed in on what they can do in terms of tax policy.

27:55Jon Sopel:And given the scale of the deficit, you know, and we talked about this the other day on the podcast, you can either borrow more. You can either cut public spending massively or you can increase taxes. Those are the levers that you can pull. Sure. Labour said, no, you go for growth. Well, growth is not a tap that you can just easily turn on. it's not a sprinkler that suddenly is kind of irrigating your garden it takes time to get that in the system and so Labour are left with a whole bunch of unpalatable choices and Lewis Goodall I think you've weighed in this week standing in for James O 'Brien on LBC about what those choices could be and I think we should go to the next question from Jimmy Buchanan so Jimmy has said

28:40Lewis Goodall:Lewis, I was listening to your show I've been filling in for James O 'Brien on LBC yesterday How would you describe the response to your theory on 100 % inheritance tax? So this is me Are you getting a lot of love? Oh yeah So basically what I said was, and I was being a little bit provocative but I said, a little bit? Well, only if you loaded I was being a bit provocative and I said that I wouldn't mind I said personally I wouldn't mind if we had 100 % inheritance tax. What we've got at the moment is an aristocracy of wealth in this country. It's also true of the United States as well. So what I would do, what I would do, and I wouldn't be opposed to, by the way, I wouldn't be opposed to 100 % inheritance tax.

29:23Lewis Goodall:Or maybe let's say 99%. You know, my rule might be that if you can put it in two pee bags, then you can hand it over. That's fine. 99, 95%. I'm being provocative, but you see what I mean? I would not be against a far higher rate of inheritance tax than we have at the moment, which is 40 % above a certain threshold. I wouldn't be opposed to putting that to 50%, 60%, 70%. Why? Because I think the quid pro quo should be twofold. One, that helps fund public services, which actually helps level the playing field in achieving a true meritocracy. Two, it will help us reduce taxes on income. Because at the end of the day, I want to incentivise work.

30:02Lewis Goodall:I want to incentivise productivity. I want to incentivise people to get up off their backsides and do more. You don't have a right to inherit. Anyway, I say this.

30:13Jon Sopel:Can we have a flavour of some of the responses you've had? No, no. It's a brilliant idea, Lewis.

30:17Lewis Goodall:Well, we've got some really interesting, reasonable responses here, John. So here we are. You're a sad little man. You're pathetic. You are a complete and absolute tit. You are a f***ing idiot, you lad. You're a complete f***ing clown. I hate you, you c***. 100 % inheritance tax. you you commie bastard you proper idiot you are dumb as fuck wanker stupid you grub you don't have kids right i feel sorry for your mom so like this is only some of those were from me yeah i was just saying you took my eyes out and only 50 were from emily um but um yeah so anyway some some some reasoned and insightful insightful comments there john it's very interesting isn't

30:56Jon Sopel:it i mean do you think those are real people or do you think i started talking to a couple of

31:00Lewis Goodall:them last night i was like what makes you say that and of course they just then they go oh thanks so much for messaging me one of them didn't one said don't you ever message me back again you

31:07Jon Sopel:fanny but apart from that i love the effective they're great i haven't heard that word being

31:14Lewis Goodall:used in anger for a very long time indeed indeed well honestly i've had them all just um yeah i mean look it is very interesting and like i thought because as i said obviously i was being a bit provocative but the but the response online from the kind of online right it reminded me a bit i mean we do keep poking the bear at the moment you know with what you and i were saying about london last week it's like it creates this level of invective instead of just going which i think most people i'm sorry what i do when i see something i disagree with i either go i just go well i disagree with that i mean that's ridiculous maybe i'll comment on it but i'll do it in a sort of reasonable way but there's something about the online discourse at the moment and i think it's partly because the online right on twitter and x have been so dominant for so long now on musk that something that is genuinely alternative and different that doesn't fit within their worldview even though as I say I don't think it's a left-wing idea I think it's just an idea from classical liberalism really but anyway it shakes them there is this visceral response it's it's a complete has to be a complete demolition part of that I think is about inheritance tax and people feel it quite personally but I think part of it is just about the sort of online media environment as I say we experienced last week you and I dain to say that we don't think that London is basically downtown Kabul and you know and it goes absolutely mad it's it's fevered it is fascinating i loved that you put it out there about the 100 percent

32:32Jon Sopel:inheritance tax which obviously i completely disagree with i think i think it's the most natural instinct that if you have a family and you've got kids and you want to pass something on to your kids that you've paid tax on the money you've earned and this doesn't matter whether you're rich or you're poor i mean you know very kind of ordinary families they they want to leave something for their kids so that maybe they can get a foot on the housing ladder or whatever it happens to be i think it is the most natural thing in the world and i think again but i think that actually you raising it underlines kind of one of rachel reese's great problems that people feel so passionately about some of these issues that because she's operating at the margins of what you can do in terms of taxation if you're not going to touch income tax then you are you know you're grabbing the live rail and you're going to upset a huge number of people by 2040 200 billion

33:19Lewis Goodall:pounds a year is going to be bequeathed every single year largely through property and my My contention is that a lot of that increase in asset prices is basically undeserved. It's windfall. No one's really done anything to deserve it. It's just a matter of the housing market. But I would relate it back to that previous question anyway about Starmer and his problems, which is, look, I mean, that was obviously a provocative thing. But I think it does demonstrate, when I'm talking about the kind of online world, I think in a way it sort of demonstrates his problems with his, what people say one of his big problems is his comms strategy.

33:50Lewis Goodall:So I don't think the Labour government's got a comms strategy problem. I think they've got a content strategy problem, which is that basically whether we like it or not, old comms, comms, i.e. getting journalists to write nicely about you or more favourably than otherwise. That's very 1990s, 2000s things. In the 2020s, you've got actually way more important than the comms strategy is the content strategy, because content is king. That's what gets people talking. That clip, I mean, I didn't intend to do this particularly, but that clip, I think it's been viewed seven million times now of me calling for that inheritance tax.

34:19Lewis Goodall:It started a conversation about it. Admittedly, I might have to go into a witness protection programme as a result of it, but that's OK. You know, like it shows how easily and actually it should be an advantage for a Labour government that struggles with the traditional media. You can shape the conversation if you do something innovative and interesting. When was the last time Labour government did that? When was the last time with all their army of comms officers and press officers and all of it? When was the last time they did that? Look at Robert Jenrick. Robert Jenrick hasn't had a comms strategy.

34:44Lewis Goodall:He's had a content strategy and he has been made king over the water as a result of it. because he understands how the modern algorithmic attention economy works. We might not like it, but that is the arena which politics plays out in. Me and Fanny, we'll be back in just a moment.

35:07Lewis Goodall:We all have routines. I'm Gibran, and with diabetes, mine was finger sticks. Sometimes I skip them because it hurt. The Freestyle Libre 3C GM changed that.

35:17Jon Sopel:It gives me glucose insights without finger sticks. Learn more at freestyllibre.us. Finger sticks are required if your glucose alarms and readings do not match symptoms or when you see check blood glucose symbol for the first 12 hours. The views expressed should not be used for medical diagnosis or treatment as a substitute for professional medical advice. Individual circumstances may vary. For prescription only. Safety info found at freestyllibre.us. This is Ashley Akinetti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast. Ben, I've been reflecting a lot lately on how many big life moments our listeners have experienced with us.

35:48Jon Sopel:Yeah, it's pretty wild. They've watched us go from dating shows to engagements, weddings, babies, buying homes. Every stage comes with new decisions. The milestones are the fun part, but the planning is where things get real. That's why Klarna stands out. Klarna gives people smarter tools to help manage everyday money with flexible ways to pay, cash back that builds automatically, everything in one place, and support that makes everyday decisions feel less overwhelming. Since life moves so fast, the right tools can help you feel more confident. Download the Klarna app today or visit Klarna.com to learn more.

36:28Jon Sopel:California resident loans made or arranged pursuant to a California finance law license, NMLS number 1353190. Klarna balance account required to be eligible for cashback points. Limitations, terms and conditions apply.

36:39Lewis Goodall:This is The News Agents. Before we go...

37:11Jon Sopel:civil wars. Now, I know this was before Lewis's time, but I was hoping that maybe, John, you could tell us about what it was like back then and give your thoughts about what will Rachel Reeves' ship money be. Thank you, newsagents. Much love from the Venice of the North. Thanks very much for that question. In the answer that Lewis had to inheritance tax proposals, why don't you just f*** off?

37:39Lewis Goodall:We'll leave it there, shall we? We'll be back. on Tuesday after the bank holiday. See you then. Bye-bye.

37:45Jon Sopel:This is a Global Player original podcast.