A desire for wires?

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1:19Then go seafood. There's an abundance on sale at Whole Foods Market, where it's all sustainable while caught or responsibly farmed. At the bakery, grab seasonal treats like their strawberry pretzel cream pie, and you can't go wrong with a ready-to-heat quiche Lorraine, deviled eggs, and fresh-cut fruits to go. Celebrate mom with Whole Foods Market. Wake Up to Money from BBC Five Live. Hello, welcome. It is Wake Up to Money. Oil price is a little bit lower this morning. Donald Trump has announced the end of his Project Freedom, That US-led effort to escort vessels out of the Strait of Hormuz less than two days after it began.

1:59Are there signs a deal is on the way between the US and Iran? We've got ministers from the G7 group of major economies holding talks in Paris a little bit later, looking at the world's relationship trade-wise with China. We'll have the latest from the trial that's pitting two of the biggest names in tech against one another as Elon Musk sues OpenAI and its co-founder Sam Altman borrowing costs for the UK government at levels we've not seen for decades. And when it comes to headphones, are you team wired or wireless? Wireless. I just think it's so much easier, but I have noticed a lot of people wearing the wired ones recently.

2:41I think they've really come back into fashion. With sales of wired headphones on the rise in the first few months of the year, we'll hear from one of the team that's designed Apple's iconic white headphones back in the early noughties. Wake Up To Money with Sean Farrington. Good morning. Wake Up To Money on BBC Five Live on this Wednesday morning, the 6th of May. It's just after five o 'clock. Lots for us to chew over this morning, whether it's holiday chat, what is going on with your flights that are coming up in the next few days or weeks. Front of the sun this morning. Come cry with me. 13 ,000 flights, Axe for May, holiday chaos over fuel shortages.

3:22That's been brewing a little bit as well. We're going to talk about borrowing costs, why the cost of borrowing for the UK government has gone up more in recent days. And we're going to get into headphones in particular. Headphones, earpods, whatever you want to call them these days. They were supposed to disappear with the rise of wireless headphones like those modern day AirPods. But it seems the wired headphone could be making a comeback according to some data. After years of declining sales, you may notice them a lot more when you're scrolling through your reels and your TikTok videos, seeing plenty of people wearing the wired form.

4:04It could become a little bit fashionable again. I'd love to know where you are. Never moved away from wireless? from the wired headphone, have you gone towards and embraced the wireless Bluetooth headphone and never looking back at you? One of those people that just sticks them in as soon as you wake up, first thing in the morning, and just put them back in their little packet at the end of the day before you took them back into bed. No need to speak to anybody during the day, is there? But I would like your thoughts. It's how many of you may well listen to Wake Up To Money throughout the morning, throughout your day, as you subscribe on BBC Sounds, no doubt.

4:37Kirsty Glenn, Chief Executive of the British travel brand Antler is one of those. Kirsty, very good morning to you. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being with us, Kirsty. Are you a wireless or a wired headphone person? I'm neither. I'm actually hybrid. I tend to have both as a maybe, just in case one of the batteries on the earpods run. I always have a set of wires in my bag. Yeah, so you always carry them. And how often do you reckon you end up resorting to those, the wired ones? To be honest, I think the earpods are pretty safe and amazing technology these days. So I tend to over-index to the earpods, but I like to have them as backup, certainly for travel, just in case all your tech fails you.

5:31You've always got that plan B. Yeah, I love, though, that even though the vast majority of the time you trust your Bluetooth, they're still there. They're still there in reserve. So there's something, some reason we can't quite get rid of them. I mean, I haven't used a pair of wired headphones in my smartphone for a very, very long time. It comes with this part of this job. There are other reasons I do need to wear them from time to time. But I'm just thinking, I'm not sure I have anything with the right port for me to go in my smartphone. Have you needed to update your headphones, your wired headphones lately so that they match your relatively newer phone?

6:13No, exactly. That's the challenge. You've got to keep the pace with the tech stack and all the wires and bells and whistles. But, you know, they fit into a laptop. So I tend to find, you know, I'm trending at the moment if I've got my wires and I'm on a Zoom call because I do know it's on the side of cool at the moment. So it tends to be on the laptop more than the phone. Absolutely. Always on the side of cool. George Gobba, fund manager at Polar Capital. George, I assume you've still got your iPod with the old connector of the wired headphones. Do we have George with us this morning? We don't know where George has gone.

6:56Well, hopefully we'll get his headphones connected so that we can chat to George about the world of investment very shortly. Let's bring you the latest of what we're chatting about this morning. More headphones chat to come with the person who was behind major developments at Apple all those years ago, whether it's to do with the wired headphone or the wireless innovations of those AirPods. But we'll refer to some of the headlines making a lot of the front pages of the papers this morning. Long-term borrowing costs, highest in decades, as prolonged inflation looms. That on the front page of the Financial Times.

7:33There's a few things playing into this, including, of course, how much the cost of living has been going up in recent years. The fact that there are more pressures on that right now because the oil price has been so much higher than it was last year. It's come down a little bit this morning. Donald Trump announced that Project Freedom, that US operation to guide stranded vehicles through the state of all minutes that only started two days ago will be paused for a short period of time. Kirsty, how much and how quickly are you seeing the impacts of higher oil prices and even the moves within those higher oil prices filter through into the travel industry?

8:12I think there's two parts. There's obviously the supply chain and then there's the effect on travel in terms of airplanes, etc. So starting on, I think, the travel and the demand side, I guess there's, you know, where the effect of the storm really is. It's more the media is covering, obviously, the chaos front and centre in terms of flights being cancelled, re-rooted or reduced, for example. And that's all an effect of exactly that. I guess from our perspective, the immediate effect of that is less so. I think the travel category is somewhat resilient. And I think the British people are also incredibly resilient to some of this.

9:01They will not sacrifice their holiday, certainly after COVID. So as much as there's a lot of lack of reliability at the moment, everyone feels quite vulnerable. in terms of translating into the travel category, into where I am as the British travel brand, luggage, bags and the whole system that helps you travel. We're not seeing that immediate effect yet in a negative way. I think individuals are just changing their travel. So, you know, we've always ambassadored, you know, short travel as well as long travel. So maybe you don't do the long haul to a far-flung destination you keep it more local and the same for you know it's not always fast it can be short uh slow as well so a car or a train so i think people will just diversify um and do you notice a trend literally the difference between the maybe long haul bigger suitcase that is being checked in and seeing more of the shorter distance on the trying to squeeze it into a train around the UK or a short haul flight around Europe.

10:11Do you notice in cost of living squeezes a change in the kind of purchases people are making? We definitely see an uptick in the smaller bags. So the cabin size that is obviously much easier to manoeuvre and shorter number of days in terms of trips. But what we are seeing is this massive demand in a hybrid bag. So it's more active. We've got a collection called Discovery, which has kind of got a hard back and a soft front. And then all the sort of literate in terms of backpacks, four to five litres, 60 litres, sort of bigger bags, but more soft and active as opposed to your traditional suitcase.

10:53So how does that play into cost of living situations? I think people are using different, they're investing, you know, in good quality. I think, you know, being 112 years old, we're kind of the customers do default to trusted brands. But within your portfolio, do you see a change of people's habits when their budgets are squeezed more? Do people buy more of one thing than another? I think because we're quite a considered purchase already. I think people are thinking about it long in advance of the media anyways and then coming, you know, to test it, try it and fit it into their new plans. I think what people are doing is maybe doing, you know, sort of closer to home holidays or shorter haul.

11:48And with that, they're looking for a different kind of system to travel. So that hybrid bag that has a multifunction. So they might be able to take it on their holiday, but then use it afterwards as well for other purposes. And I think so therefore it's a smarter investment as opposed to less and dialing down. I mean, in our category, there's a saying of you only ever buy a cheap case once. And you can imagine why. So, you know, it's very much a considered purchase. And some of them might be quite pricey. You know, talking could be several hundreds of pounds for a suitcase or a backpack here. And, you know, I guess that may be one area where a lot of people are thinking, you know, if they're going on holiday just once in a year, that, you know, a cheaper one may work a little bit more for them in the long run if they're using these things a lot less.

12:42yeah i think it's it's you know it's uh you know people do default to trusted everything in in moments of chaos and um the resilience of of bigger brands have been around for a long time that you know are you know represent that value i think i think there's a lot to say in that but i mean you know we're not up at that price point we're more a premium investment um slightly less than than those numbers that you've mentioned so still very considered but yeah buy smart buy less um and just get the right things and plan ahead. I think people are planning and diversifying a lot more. But I think, you know, the staycation was the hero of COVID as we came out of that sort of lockdown phase.

13:26And it's now become very glamorous and, you know, has credibility to just stay in the UK and do Cornwall or do Devon, you know, where all these other destinations go up a hill, travel to Scotland. You know, everywhere has got a new credibility. than maybe previously. Interesting. 85058, your thoughts? Have you changed your plans at all? George Godbert, Food Manager of Polar Capital with us this morning. George, good morning to you. Good morning, Sean. Let's get into what has happened with the cost of borrowing for the UK government. People will see the headlines this morning. The front of the FT, as I mentioned before, the front of the Guardian as well.

14:05It's the main story there. Labour under pressure after UK borrowing costs hit 28-year high. So I'd just like to talk about these longer-term borrowing costs. Explain what the bigger moves were yesterday, George. So I think the very significant and sort of sad thing that happened yesterday, if you look, often bond moves, when we talk about them, you know, our debt moves and you report it, but also it's alongside, you know, France or Germany or US government debt also moving in a similar direction. Ours has been more volatile and worse in the last few months, But yesterday, ours got worse and everyone's got a little bit better.

14:42So really what the bond market is, I think, focusing on is two core things. The first is as Iran drags on, we are more liable to inflation shocks than other Western economies. I mean, you've just talked a little bit about travel. I mean, we shut the Grangemouth refinery. That was where we got a very large amount of our diesel and our jet fuel from. So it's going to now sort of cost more to import that. It builds into the inflation picture that has plagued the UK. And then sadly, obviously, the bond market has to reflect the political uncertainty that the elections will bring on Thursdays. The bond market is not political.

15:26It cares about what will happen to GDP growth and what will happen to the amount of bonds that are issued if there were to be a change or a change of leadership. And it's just the fears and uncertainty around that are starting to be reflected in the borrowing markets. So just, yeah, let's get into that aspect a little bit more as well, because the sort of political implications of the bond market. So this is the investors worldwide, huge market where investors are looking to lend money to governments, to companies as well around the world and get a return on that money, that interest rate. So as there may be concerns about a country or a company's ability to pay that money back, if the concerns get a bit bigger, then the interest rate goes up.

16:15People will be very familiar with that concept. So how does what the potential might be for the UK's finances play into that? so the bond market listens very carefully to i think people who you know who what may happen and what policies they may um undertake so if you get you know a comment from a candidate that says well we you know we can't be continue to be you know in hot to the bond market they'll say ah that person is not going to care as much about you know you know rates briefs has got these very set rules you know they're not going to you know they're not going to follow that therefore they're going to spend more and issue more debt and a bit like anything in in life you know when you when you issue more of it you've got to pay a higher price of it um to as you say to persuade investors to take it as opposed to you know buying the germans or the us or you know french debt alongside it um i think the other thing is the the the bond market has been pretty worried about uk government spending and the quantum of that you know we spend the government spends 1.3 trillion pounds a year and it just sort of keeps growing and and they haven't been able to control that spending or show restraints in that spending and they but they hear candidates who just talk about you know well we need to spend more and that causes the market to dislocate rather than no one gets elected by saying do you know what i'd like to do i'd like to say more restraint on government spending.

17:47That would be very difficult for a Labour candidate to get away. And so when these longer term borrowing costs go up, so there's a couple of ways of looking at it, I think. I mean, there can be several ways, but sometimes in recent years, we've talked more about when investors want to lend to the UK government for a 30 year period, so for quite a long period of time that that cost of borrowing has gone up. And then there's the sort of shorter term, 10-year length of borrowing, five-year, two-year. And it seems that the 30-year length of borrowing is what's grabbed quite a few of the headlines today.

18:27Other borrowing costs have gone up as well. So why would that longer-term cost of borrowing be higher? so there it's really interesting because that's you know that should be sort of looking through the political noise if you like you know over a 30-year period you might have all different types of government so it gets a lot of focus because it's a a reflection of the i guess a sort of more permanent um more permanent view and i think the longer-term borrowing costs for the world market reflects two big concerns. The first is the embedded inflation within the UK, and that stems from our energy policy.

19:05You've covered it a lot on your programme before. But if we look around the world, what Iran, over the Iranian conflict, what you've seen is a number of governments have been pretty pragmatic. Even, you know, those with a sort of more, you know, environmentally friendly hat, you know, the Germans or the New Zealand, yeah, they've shown some quite radical moves to sort of show greater energy security we've done nothing and so therefore they say well the uk is structurally going to be more exposed to these shocks going forward they see you know we don't know why they keep happening but you know whether it's covid and russia ukraine and now we spun into this they seem to keep happening therefore the uk is the most at risk from this because they they seem to keep plowing on this path of of you know running a high very high and expensive energy policy and that embeds inflation throughout the system.

19:59And then I think the other problem is that, you know, it's not just the politics today, it's just the saying, well, they keep changing their prime minister every five minutes. So we don't really know what's going on there. There doesn't seem to be any form of political stability. So those two big concerns have been in that 30 year, because it's not so much to do with government policy today. I mean, it's in part reflection, but I think that is the bigger drivers of it. Good morning. It's Wake Up To Money on BBC C5 Live, thank you for your messages this morning. Steve's been in touch about headphones.

20:31He said, A, copper wires provide superior hi-fi, and B, they make it harder to lose headphones or to prevent theft. Are you wired or are you wireless? We'll be talking about what seems to have been a little bit of a resurgence for the wired headphones a little bit later in the program. Remember, energy flowing through the air can be eavesdropped, says somebody that can get the conspiracy theories around that. Can you? I don't know. Is that the case? Have you found people tapping into your Bluetooth headphones at any point? Do let me know your thinking. Sandra's been in touch about travel as well.

21:08She says, morning, Sean. Back from a week in Crete. BA flights on time. Only took cabin bags. Short queue, passport control, Crete arrival. quick on departure. Sandra, well done. You've had a successful trip of it. Craig, in Manchester, the ear pods are easy to lose or break as they pop out the ear. So I've gone back to wired ones. Is it a bit of an innovation that we've just had enough of? It hasn't done its job after all these years. We bought too many of them as we're looking to maybe cut back on the spending that we have if they break. Is it that we're turning to something that's a little bit more retro before and a bit cheaper as well.

21:50Let me know your thinking on that as we tuck into the changing world of headphones, earphones, wired, wireless. Let's have a look at what's going on at Nissan. So Nissan's announced it will be closing one of its UK production lines at its plant in Sunderland. It's going to cut 10 % of its workforce across Europe, around 900 jobs. Now, it seems jobs at the Sunderland plant won't be affected. Around 50 office roles go in the UK. The Financial Times also report in the carmaker has held talks with the Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers to start using some of that spare capacity that there is at the plant in Sunderland.

22:29George, interesting developments here because it's not often we might talk about, you know, the production lines being cut in the UK and the car manufacturing and not necessarily see more jobs going alongside that or future prospects for the plants being concerned about. Where do you see this one? I was I'm sort of quite surprised by the comment whenever you hear that um statement that says you know we're merging production lines I sort of you know you put fear of god onto me because I think well that that just has to be job losses you got if you've got two production lines running side by side you merge them into one that usually means fewer people so you're saying that's not the not the case here I think difficult to untangle because that that this discussion with the Chinese is interesting.

23:14I think the traditional, let's call them the traditional car makers, I don't know what you'd call all the Western brands, are just under threat from the efficiency of those Chinese factories and the speed and the level of output that they're chucking out, and therefore the associated cost with which they're putting vehicles into the market. So I guess probably the longer term future is how much Nissan and others can adapt and make themselves in the positions they can try and compete with the Chinese. Kirsty, as a boss of the British travel brand Antler and all of the products that you're selling in your stores and online, when you look at where they can be manufactured, is there anything that might persuade you to make these things in the UK or at least get them supplied to you from manufacturers in the UK?

24:08um i mean that would be the dream um genuinely um 112 year old brand we used to manufacture in berry in northern england um but that way before my time and you know many many years ago um i think now unfortunately the engineering that is required in the technology in order to produce luggage and certainly hard luggage for what you know we offer which is a lifetime warranty and unfortunately it's all Asia focused is where the skill and the technology lies at the moment and so it's actually just not available to many of us at the moment and we'd have to make those investments along with many others throughout Europe and you know the US if it's brands out they're doing similar um products in the category so um at the moment this is where um where it happens to be and we're very diverse though we um are de-risking across many countries so that we're not you know all focused on one and as and when we can we we bring it back we've done a couple of bags so not suitcases um in the uk and you know but then that comes at a premium Not every customer is willing to go that high, but we love the hand touch and, you know, the local sourcing as and where we can.

25:34Is there something as well in the business that's really interesting about where you choose where to source your stuff and how much that might cost? If it's being made just closer to the UK, we've heard of some businesses talk about trying to make more things around Europe, perhaps if they're reliant on Asia because they see the various supply chain disruptions that we've had globally is there any sense that that is changing almost out of your hands a little bit that you see more manufacturers popping up nearer to the UK where the distances aren't so far for the goods to travel yeah definitely um it's an option but for small quantities at the moment and you know as antler grows and it's you know it's bigger you know our forward orders are quite large so we have already these existing relationships but for bags and we've got a lot more opportunity to to localize and bring it more towards Europe and we do do that as and where we can and other markets so I think probably like most global brands today we diversify we're incredibly agile so as and where you know and we we change our what we call our new product development pipeline all the time so we're speaking to new man new manufacturers all over the world constantly for one the most sustainable materials but to you know obviously the best price and quality for the customer so it changes constantly.

27:05George just going back to the car concept and where we as a buyer a nation that buys cars where we want them to be made where they need to be made to get to us our chinese manufacturers thinking the success of some of those new chinese brands as we've talked about quite a lot in the last few weeks on on wake up to money is maybe persuading them to build them in the uk to i don't know get closer to the market that is clearly one of the more successful ones for these companies? I don't know. As soon as you should have said that comment, my gut will is this is the sort of situation where the EU would flex its muscles and say if it's made in the UK, you can't sell it into Europe in a bid to basically persuade those Chinese manufacturers not to build a factory here but to move it into the EU.

28:01We don't have punitive tariffs on Chinese cars here. So we could persuade them that we're a very large car market and we want cheap vehicles. And we'd be very welcoming if you were to set up a plant and a battery plant to go with it. I think, though, we just had that conversation about UK very high power prices. Anyone who's looking to set up a long-term manufacturing plant here has to consider that and think, Like, you know, I'm going to get a better deal on my electricity elsewhere. So there's a whole sort of moving. There is a hope, I guess, that the UK could attract it, but there are some challenges.

28:4285058, your thoughts on all we're talking about? Veronica says, who knew I was becoming fashionable again. Ha ha, never moved away from the wired headphones. George, where are you on that one? I'm wireless, but I have to say I wouldn't spend more than 25 pounds on a set of headphones. So you can probably imply from that that I'm not buying the premium branded ones that are over 200 quid. That seems to be a heck of a lot of money for something that I'm clumsy and I would lose. Yeah, I was going to ask, is it because of loss, breakage or just a general keeping things tight? A few people are getting in touch with a variety of those aspects.

29:21Dominic in Tamworth, I finally switched to wireless headphones after years of running with wired ones. Only problem was the wireless ones are not compatible with my Nano. So I run with the wired ones while using wireless when listening to podcasts on the go. Great show as always, says Dominic. That was an issue I had, Dominic. I remember trying to do what George has done, switching to cheaper, not the big branded earpods or whatever we call them, Bluetooth headphones, and then went for a run, realised they actually weren't waterproof, and after a few goes and a lot of sweating, they were done for, never to be recovered again.

30:00We've had Craig's message in in Shetland, says wired headphones too obvious when working in a hospital. You can't get away with it quite so much, can you? And also just that maybe feels a little bit ruder to just be walking around with wired headphones in your ears, whereas these days we are quite used to just seeing people potter about the place. You might leave people alone a little bit more if they've got the Bluetooth headphones in their ears as well. Martin in Cheltenham, a recent study found Hi-fi snobs could not tell the difference in sound quality when the music was transmitted through quality cables.

30:32Or banana or mud, says Martin in Cheltenham. 85058, I always like it when there's a bit of an audio snobbery battle, a bit of technology battle. Let us know if these things are worth it or not. Not many saying that the wireless headphone has been one of the greatest innovations ever and they're never going back to the wired headphones again. So, come on, make your case.