You're grounded

25:35So that is going to change the manufacturing sector. But it leads into the higher, more technical jobs in terms of AI and software development as opposed to the old-fashioned metal bashing. So that's where we're looking to diversify our product range to try and get away from necessarily just the old-fashioned metal bashing type product lines and look into more technical prototyping and sort of reverse engineering. I mean, a lot of the things that we're doing now are to take stuff that's not necessarily being manufactured for the traditional way of doing things and looking to be more advanced engineering and things like that.

26:30So it is changing completely. When you've mentioned that advanced engineering and the software behind it, Will talks about this company Wave, which is behind the technology of these self-driving cars that are popping up, Robotux is popping up in London as of the last week or two as well. Does the industry still have a reputational issue, Jane, where too many people with, you know, graduates coming out of school, coming out of college with the talent for this industry still will view what you and your peers are doing as old-fashioned metal bashing when, you know, they may actually find the skill sets they have are actually perfectly suitable to the innovations that you need to get.

27:14Well, exactly that. That's a very important point. So although we're an electric vehicle or a self-driving vehicle, it still has to have a shell, it still has to be safe. So there is still an element of steel or aluminium or other high-performance metals or high-performance polymers or whatever in that vehicle. And what we're looking at is developing product lines that support the frame of a vehicle or an aircraft or whatever, rather than just the old-fashioned way that we used to do things. Just had a look at one of these cyber cabs, Will, because I had missed that. I wondered how similar to the cyber truck they would be.

27:59They've got that feel of a toy car about them, haven't they? Not many external features. As Jane's describing there, just a bit of a shell. Can you imagine the streets of London being filled with these taxes in the years to come, Will? Well, funnily enough, in the US it's much easier for these autonomous vehicles because you've got the grid system, which is very orderly and the like, so easier for them to sort of weave their way around. London, with its sort of medieval planning, is another level. So it's going to take a bit longer, I think, for these autonomous cars to come through. But, you know, as I said, in Texas, you can now hail a cyber cab and use it.

28:42And when you say hail, is that on an app? Yeah, absolutely. And you can sit back and you can recline and you've got a huge entertainment system in there. And you just relax and watch a film and let the car drive you. Interesting. That's a level above, again, what we've been talking about going on in London in recent weeks. But we know that the US has been ahead of us on that for various reasons, as Will mentions. More from Will and Jane to come. We've got lots to talk about the state of the UK economy. I have to tell you, the price of oil sneaking up to$100 a barrel again this morning and that having consequences.

29:16We know longer term on food prices, there's some eye-watering predictions about where food prices might go for the rest of this year and into next year as well. We're going to be speaking to Farmer about all of that and the prospects for food prices. Talking about golf as well. You're a golfer if I remember right, Jane. I am, yes. I'm a golfer. So when you see Live Golf going bankrupt after all the controversies of the investment and the tearing away from the main part of the sport all those years ago and then the Saudi investment disappearing, what's been your reaction to that? I've not got any sympathy really for Live Golf.

29:55I mean, they set up using, obviously, Saudi investment or Middle East investment and then they sort of attracted the sort of high-profile players to join just by throwing lots and lots of money at them. And it's not really paid off for them, I don't think. And now those golfers are having to find their way back into either the European Tour or the PGA Tour. And I don't think it has a positive impact at all on the golfing community really at all. So I don't have much sympathy that they've got. We'll get into what has been going on there and what happens next for all of those players, for the tournament, for the sport as well, a little bit later in the show.

30:58Their Build Your Own Family Meals feeds four for just$35. Stock up at Whole Foods Market. Balance your trading strategy by adding futures. CME Group helps you manage risk and capture opportunities in all market environments. Capitalize on around-the-clock access to highly liquid global futures and options markets across all major asset classes. Visit your online broker and get started. See what adding futures can do for you at cmegroup.com forward slash podcast. Derivatives are not suitable for all investors and involve the risk of losing more than the amount originally deposited and any profit you might have made.

31:32This is not a recommendation or offer to buy, sell or attain any specific investment or service. Wake Up To Money with Sean Farrington. Good morning. It is Wake Up To Money. It's 23 minutes to 6. Hope you're well on this Wednesday morning, the 9th of September. Thank you for all of your messages, whether it's about JLR, about the air traffic control issues we've been talking about as well. Nigel in Gloucestershire says, my son spent nine hours on the tarmac at Heathrow. The plane didn't leave. He's now back home in East London, but his luggage is still on the plane. That just makes me feel for your son there, Nigel.

32:12You know, what happens next? I've been reading lately about putting air tags on your luggage so you can actually track it faster than any of the airlines can and figure out exactly where it is. And you just give them a call at the front desk and say, look, I can tell you exactly where in the airport or in the UK or where in the world my luggage is just to avoid or try and help along those situations. I hope that returns to him in good time, Nigel. Another saying, our colleague Stephen flying to Geneva from London Heathrow this morning. We've had to alert our client. He may be late or not able to travel, though it looks like the flight may take off.

32:45We'll lose revenue if he can't travel. Another example of the ripple effect. Somebody asking the question, are these airport problems an attack or an accident? Well, we are expecting to hear that the Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander, will tell MPs that a cyber attack was categorically not the cause of the fault. We will obviously await for that to be confirmed, but it certainly seems that that's the mood music coming out from those that are in the know about that on Jaguar Land Rover. Maybe the reason for JLR job losses is their poor performance in their last car design, says one. There was a controversy over the prototype for the new Jaguar, wasn't there?

33:30About whether that was in keeping with what a Jaguar should look like compared to the decades gone by. But clearly the company having a fair few issues in recent years to deal with. Are people going to own their own cars? Yes, most people wouldn't want to share a car with others, says one person, much as some with an agenda would like to stop people owning their own cars. Don't worry, nobody's going to take them off you just yet. 85058, let us know your thoughts. Plenty to get in touch with. What about food prices? Are you working already out and about on a farm this morning, working in the supply chain of the food industry and just seeing these constant pressures, seeing the summer of weather that we've had here in the UK on top of price pressures, fertilizer pressures that we've had that have come about because of the war in Iran as well.

34:21A lot of that combining to push up food inflation. Further increase is expected. So the latest from the Food and Drink Federation is that they reckon prices will rise by up to nearly 4 % in 2026 towards the end of this year. And then by 6.4 % through next year. We've got the El Nino weather event as well, expected to create another worldwide food supply shock. that's still to come and play out properly this year isn't it and it's interesting looking at those numbers from the food and drink federation it six months ago as that war in iran began they are actually predicting much higher food price rises for this year what they're saying this morning is that they're expecting now there's sort of quite a long tail a long longer impact of um of this more than we sort of see at the height of the of the russia ukraine war and the price consequences of that war as well.

35:12So it could be around for longer. The National Farmers Union has published a warning today as well regarding Britain's food security, all of these things, of course, all part of the same conversation. We've got the president of that union, Tom Bradshaw, with us now. Tom, good morning. Good morning. Just seeing the Food and Drink Federation's expectations of the months and years to come, and then talking to your members, running farms as you do yourself, is there that inevitability that food prices are going to be going up the amount they are? Well, we warned about this ever since the start of the Orion crisis and none of us could have expected the summer that we've had since then.

35:53And the challenge with the worst drought that we've had in 50 years is the impacts are so widespread, every sector of food production, whether that be vegetables growing in fields, whether it's fruit growing on trees or in glass houses or polytunnels, whether it's our livestock running out of forage and then having to deal with exotic diseases at the same time, every sector has been impacted. But if you move outside the UK, all of Western Europe and now over into the US as well, and then you've got this super alnino coming. So it's been a really challenging year on the farm for producing the country's food.

36:27That isn't over yet, and this has a really long tail. The input costs for growing next year's food are much higher because of what's happening in Iran. And what we've highlighted today is that over the last 30 years, we've become more and more reliant on importing food from other parts of the world. The world is different today. Climate change is having a real impact. Geopolitics are at the fore and that global volatility. And we have to rebuild our ability to produce food here for 29 million households. Are there certain foods that we import that you think we're a little bit naive about the reliability of still getting those same goods that we have been so used to for so long?

37:10Well, I mean, if you look at things like vegetables, we're only producing 16 % of our own vegetables here. And the, sorry, fruit, it's 16 % of our own fruit, 55 % of our own vegetables. We can produce more of that here, but what we need to do is to build the infrastructure that underpins that. We had so much water in January and February, but we let that water go out to sea. Sometimes we're even pumping it out to the sea using energy. We need to look at how we can store that water on farm. This has been a big part of the conversation that we're having with government that we met with the Prime Minister to discuss on farm.

37:43How do we build the resilience of the UK food system? We look at something like poultry, and it's devastating that over this last month, There's been a salmonella outbreak linked to imported eggs. When our eggs here are salmonella-free, unfortunately, people have died because of that outbreak. And what's really frustrating for farmers is that we're proud of the standards that we produce our food to here, but all too often we're having to compete with food which is being produced to standards we cannot produce to here. It's unfair competition, but it's also creating those health concerns which are so unfair for society, but also for the farmers that are producing this country's food.

38:21So when you look at the, you mentioned fruits as an example, do you think there's a risk to certain fruits that we import on the level that we do? Are you sort of seeing that in the numbers at all, in the conversations you're having? Do you know whether it's a certain type of apple or whether it's a broader spectrum than that, that you can actually see there's going to be an issue with the delivery of all this further down the line? It was only six or eight weeks ago, there was no cucumbers on some of our retail shelves because we were relying on bringing them in from North Africa, southern Spain, and there's a weather issue over there.

39:01Four years ago, we had empty shelves of salad because, again, there was a weather impact in North Morocco. And these weather impacts are becoming more and more extreme. And those parts of the world that we are relying on importing that food from are already water scarce. We are not water scarce in this country. climate change will have an impact but as long as we can harvest that water we will build the resilience of our food system and what we're saying to government today is let's use this as a wake-up point there is such an opportunity to deliver growth in every postcode as we've heard the prime minister say to deliver on sovereignty and really talk about the importance of food security and deliver for that farmers are here and ready to grow we need the supportive policies that will enable us to make those investments and to deliver from 29 million households.

39:51And that's why it matters. It matters for farmers, but it matters for the whole of society and everybody listening today that we have a resilient food system at a time of such geopolitical and global volatility. And Tom, while we have you, the way that the nation will have felt the weather turn in recent days, what point of the farming cycle are we at now after the very rough summer with the heat run of heat waves, and there might even be a little spurt of warmth again for some. Where are you sort of having your focus right now? What's key? Well, the trouble is you only have one harvest a year for most of our crops, and the damage is already done for those crops.

40:33Now, whether it be the forage that's being produced for livestock, cereals, grains, barley, wheat, yields have been dramatically down, potatoes, onions, the size of those crops is much, much lower. We can't get that back for another 12 months. So we've now got to live with the financial impacts of that. The rain that we've just had over the past week or two, it's a drop in the ocean. It's a start. But we must make sure that our reservoirs are full by the end of spring because it's those reservoirs that grow those irrigated crops for next year, which if they're not full, then moving into that El Nino season is going to be incredibly challenging.

41:13and we've got to stop relying on other parts of the world to produce our food and take control of our food system here, deliver that growth, deliver that resilience and really make sure that we recognise the importance of it. When you have the extreme weather we've had this year, can it just turn some of those cycles on their head as well? This is a final point and it might seem a bit... Well, I don't think... Weather is unpredictable and that is the one thing we know that even with a Super El Nino, We might have extreme periods of wet and flooding, and then the next month it might be dry with nothing coming.

41:46So it's very, very difficult to predict what our long-term weather is going to do. But as farmers, building resilience is something that is part of our everyday cycle. At the moment, we need support from government. We need a bridge to get to the next 12 months because we are facing a cash flow crisis on farm. Confidence is at an all-time low, and it matters for everybody, not just the farming industry. Tom Bradshaw, President of the National Farmers Union. Thank you very much for your time this morning. 85058. Your thoughts, have you noticed that on the supermarket shelves? Have you seen anything over recent months?

42:21Just even in shopping in the last few days as we get well into the autumn period. How's your garden looking? Can you tell us about the change? You might have a bit of an allotment yourself. What difference has that been making to your growth patterns and the ability to grow this stuff over the course of the year? the months to come, what's really needed in the weeks to come as well. I noticed on one of the school drop-offs this week, or pick-ups actually, I'm surprisingly not doing drop-offs at this time in the morning, was a lot of chat amongst the eight-year-olds about whether they'll be the level of conkers that there has been in previous years because the trees are all over the shop with the summer of sun that we've had in the north-west of England and beyond.

43:02So let us know your weather impacts and how they are playing out, whatever that might be. Will Walker-Arna with us this morning, Director of Private Clients at Charles Stanley. And Will, Tom talking about a lot there that's impacting the food industry. But when you see again this morning, the price of a barrel of Brent crude, not far off$100 a barrel again. And it might feel like we've said that a lot throughout this year. But actually, we had a three-month period, didn't we, as the war began, where it was around that level quite a bit. But the last three months, it's not often been around$100 a barrel.

43:34So we're back at some extremes again. Yeah, you're quite right. It makes me think about some of the comments that Andrew Bailey made yesterday in the House of Commons, talking about the fact that inflation risks are on the upside. The Bank of England now thinks that inflation is going to be up to about 3.2 % in the fourth quarter, compared with 2.9 % as it was in July. And remember, the target, the Bank of England tries to hit 2%, so still well above target. And yeah, what's going on in Iran certainly is not helping. and I'm watching my screen quite carefully this morning because of that psychologically important moment when we get back up to$100 a barrel because we had some respite, didn't we, in June when the Memorandum of Understanding was signed with Iran and it looked like that flows were going to be back through the Straits of Hamas but that seems long ago now and there were additional strikes overnight from the US in Iran and it looks like we're going to have a further elevated period of all prices.

44:38Jane Somerville, who's the boss of the services to the metal forming industry business, which is Bowers & Jones in the West Midlands. Jane, when you look at the price pressures and supply pressures that might come about because of what's going on in the Strait of Hormuz, as Will mentions there, and the fact that there doesn't seem to be any calming of what's going on in Iran, How does it compare to price pressures and spikes we've seen in recent years, whether it's the height of the price pressures of the Ukraine-Russia war or COVID? Because it's interesting to hear the food industry saying this is going to be longer than we've felt before.

45:20Yeah, well, being a manufacturing business, we use a lot of energy, obviously electricity mainly, to run our machines and run the factory and whatever. And over the last six years, we've just seen those prices increase dramatically. I mean, we're using, I mean, looking at this last week, we're using 25 % less energy than we did before the Russian-Ukraine crisis. And that's through investment in the factory. We've bought new machines that are more energy efficient. We've put in motion sensors and LED lighting and things to reduce our usage. But our cost overall is up 30%. but what we looked at was the change in standing charge.

46:02So our standing charge cost has gone from 12p a day to£23 a day. So that increase of 30 % is predominantly due to standing charge. It's not necessarily the cost of the energy that we're buying. The cost has gone up, but that standing charge cost has gone up dramatically. From a few hundred pounds a year, we're now paying several thousand, nearly£8 ,500 a year on that. And that's a higher percentage of the overall bill. So it's not just necessarily the cost of the energy that we're buying, it's also the cost of the, you know, we're paying for the infrastructure development to change to more recyclable or renewable energy and things like that.

46:52And then that energy increase. And those costs falling your way immediately. Yeah, exactly. And then you've got the fuel. So everything we transport coming in or going out costs more. And also the overall inflation rate is very important to us because we start our wage negotiations with the factory towards the end of the year going into January. So if inflation is going to hit 3.2, that means my wage negotiations are going to be more around the 3, 3.5 level rather than... Which is what the Bank of England will be keeping a close eye on as well and then interest rates. Cyclical, yeah, yeah, yeah.

47:26The ripple effect. Yeah, ripple effect of everything, yeah. Yeah, we've used that phrase a fair bit this morning and it's because it feels like there's consequences of some of these things going on a lot longer than people might have thought a few months back. Let's just have a quick listen to the boss of a company called Replit, which is a$9 billion American tech company that enables people to build apps very easily, vibe coding effectively. You just like using an AI chat bot. You have a chat with it and tell it what you want, and it builds an app for you effectively. It's got more than 60 million users, and it's decided to choose London for its international headquarters.

48:04I caught up with Amjad Massad, its chief executive, on the first day of that office opening yesterday. I asked him, why London? Britain has an extraordinary computing legacy, from Alan Turing to Bletchley Park and onwards. It's really kind of the birthplace of computing. And so for a company like Replit that are, you know, we're building tools that expands who can program, who can create with computers. There's something really meaningful about establishing a presence here. So we're really excited about that. But also London is one of the world's greatest AI talent hubs. Outside of San Francisco, it's arguably the most important concentration of AI talent anywhere, especially King's Cross, where we're establishing our office.

48:47What is the benefit for the UK to have you choosing London? If there's a few hundred jobs around the King Cross area that are being created, some people might think, are we actually seeing the benefits of this massive AI industry that's grown so quickly? Yeah, I think it's not just us. There's a bunch of U.S. companies opening in King's Cross. And so London is becoming more of a hub. And it's going to be a center of our European operations. So as we sell into the rest of Europe, it's going to be the place where we're conducting our business. In terms of the talent you need to grow your business, how does London compare to, say, the United States at the moment?

49:40I think that in Silicon Valley, we have this insane talent force. I'm sure you've heard about Zuckerberg going into AI companies dropping a couple billion dollars on AI researchers to hire them. So in a sense, the market for talent is incredibly competitive and it's become really hard for startups to actually compete. And London is a place where we see a lot more, you know, younger talent. It's a place where it attracts a lot of people from the rest of Europe. And so it's a rising AI talent community and a place that we could hire from. And so we're very excited about that. Interesting world, that area of vibe coding, building your own apps.

50:28It's another world where AI is empowering us to do much more than we would have thought we could very, very quickly just a few years ago, if you've ever got involved in that. Some interesting tales of people who have just built stuff pretty quickly on the back of this technology. do let us know. I can see there might be budding entrepreneurs or people who have made businesses out of this stuff or maybe it's expanded your business very, very quickly because you've been able to do this a lot more quickly and cheaper than you could before. Right, hard to believe this was only four years ago. It's just a whole different vibe.

51:01It's amazing though. Everybody's happy to see each other. You've got music on the range. It's just a way different deal. I couldn't be more excited to be part of it. So that was the American Pat Perez talking in June 2022 about the newly minted Live Golf back then. New format, 54 hole tournaments, hence the Live LIV Roman numerals. Simultaneous shotgun starts. Perhaps most importantly, it was lorry loads of cash from Saudi Arabia's public investment fund. But last night, the league filed for bankruptcy. So it leaves the future in doubt of it. Filing showed it owed millions of dollars to golfers like John Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, Robbie Greenfield.

51:39Not on the list of creditors, I don't think, but he's a golf presenter and commentator who joins us now based in Dubai. Robbie, morning. I'm glad I'm not on that list, Sean. Good morning. Well, I mean, if you're on the list, it might mean there would have been a fair bit of cash coming your way at some point at other times, Robbie. But just, we've talked to you a bit throughout the story of all this. Going bankrupt now, and yet only some questions about the future. Can Live Golf hang on? It's hard to see how they can, Sean, in all honesty. They've filed for Chapter 11, So they're trying to restructure.

52:12They're trying to get funding in. This isn't a liquidation. They haven't just waved the white flag. They're trying to bring on BC Partner Advisors, which is a private equity fund to pump about$300 million into the league. But when you consider that Saudi Arabia put$5 billion in and that still couldn't get Liv a seat at the table in the kind of traditional sense, they're still out in the cold. They're still kind of extradited from all the major sort of golfing infrastructure like the World Ranking Points, the PGA Tour. And ultimately, these disruptors, they need to get in. They need to get a foot in the door.

52:44They need to be welcomed in from the cold. Otherwise, they've got nowhere really left to go. And that's what I feel now with the bankruptcy filing. this will give John Rahm, Dustin Johnson, guys like Tyrell Hatton, this will give them the excuse to say, guys, listen, thank you, but no thank you, I'm off. I'm returning to the more traditional formats in the game. And I just don't know how Liv can survive without the money that will entice and keep those big-name stars around the table, if you like. I don't see a smaller version of Liv continuing, in all honesty. Based in the Middle East, as you are, Robbie, Is there chat that this is a wider thing now, that the way Saudi Arabia have pulled the rug here and said this isn't working for us, that they might do that in other sports?

53:30There's no doubt they've had a long look at, obviously with the geopolitical situation, their overall strategy as pertains to Vision 2030. Sport was working well for them in certain areas. The Saudi Pro League, for example, the Formula One. Boxing had really kind of taken off as well over there, but they were driven by individuals. You've got Turkey Al-Al-Sheikh, you've got Yasser Al-Ramayan. And when those individuals are distracted by more pressing, you know, investments and more pressing jobs, sometimes the sport can lose a little bit of that footing. And I feel like ultimately it might be a sort of re-evaluation there.

54:08We'll talk again, Robbie. Thanks very much, Robbie Greenfield. Big thanks to Jane and Will. That's it from Wake Up To Money. Wake Up To Money from BBC Five Live. That's it from Wake Up To Money. You can download the podcast every Monday to Friday, so please make sure you subscribe. We'd also love it if you left us a review when you do. Get in touch. Keep the conversation going any time as well on social media. Use the hashtag WakeUpToMoney. Five Live Sports. So here's the first ball of this series. All the cricket you love. Check for LBW. Ouch. Lives on BBC Sounds. Smash straight back down the ground, this girl.

54:46Hear ball-by-ball coverage of the biggest competitions on the domestic and international circuits. It's a fourth rig and it's the huge one. Jeez. Settle down, tough. Sorry, mate. Cricket on Five Live Sport. Oh, I've lived every ball of this. Listen on BBC Sounds.

55:08With the American Express Platinum Card, you can access over$3 ,500 in annual value with benefits and eligible purchases across travel, entertainment and more. There's nothing like platinum. Learn more at americanexpress.com slash explore dash platinum. Enrollment requirements, monthly and other limits in terms apply. Self-directed investing, trading, full-service wealth management, automated investing, financial planning, thematic investing, retirement planning. Phew. And to think, that's just a small taste of what Schwab offers. Because Schwab knows that when it comes to your finances, choice matters.

55:41No matter your goals, investing style, life stage or experience, Schwab has everything you need, all in one place, so you can invest your way. Visit schwab.com to learn more.