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The Monocle Daily
Global travel disruptions and energy price hikes: how are governments responding?
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You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 24 March 2026 on Monocle Radio.
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Governments around the world scramble to forestall an energy shock. Why air travel presently involves a lot of going nowhere. And does anyone really care whether their Prosecco comes from Prosecco? I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts. Hello, and welcome to the Monocle Daily, coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guest Isabel Hilton and Nadine Batchelor Hunt will discuss the day's big stories. And we'll have a report from Denmark, where once again, US President Donald Trump has put himself on the ballot in someone else's election. Plus, some words for and music from the late great Chip Taylor, the songwriter's songwriter who has died at the age of 86. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily. This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller and I'm joined today by Isabel Hilton, founder of China Dialogue and visiting professor at King's College London, and Nadine Batchelor Hunt, political reporter for Politics Home. Hello to you both. Hello, Nadine. First of all, and I'm sure on behalf of all of our listeners, where have you been? It has been ages.
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A
Yeah, I've not been in London as regularly as I should have been. I've been doing a bit of performing on stage, a bit of plays. I'm about to become a home homeowner in the West Midlands, so exciting times. But apologies to listeners who have missed me. I'm back.
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B
Well, I'm sure they will accept that apology if you don't leave it quite so long before you're next here. The playing on stage thing, what has that involved?
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A
Yes, I was in a play called Doubt. I don't know if you've seen the film with Viola Davis and Meryl Streep in explores kind of a child being abused by a priest at a boarding school in the 1960s. But the child is black and the opportunities the child has is limited. So I had to play the child's mother and kind of navigate the moral that the mother's in, whereas if she takes the boy out of the school, she loses the opportunity. But the boy needs to finish the school to go to the good high school. So it was a brilliant play at the Loft in Leamington Spa. If you local to Leamington or ever visit there, I recommend checking it, checking out the theatre because it's a high quality, high quality performances there.
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B
Isabelle, you Topically, and we will sort of be getting to that. Have been researching and writing about the recent military record of the United States.
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Yes, it's a piece tentatively entitled how the United States Loses wars and it's quite, quite a staggering record. The military enterprises in the last, what, 60 years that the United States has carried out all by itself and successfully include the invasion of Grenada in 1983, population 100,000.
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B
I think monocle could take Grenada with the wind behind us.
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C
Yes, probably. Yeah. And you could probably have taken Panama as well and single handedly deposed Noriega which was the other quite successful operation. And we could count Venezuela and that's it. Everything else has involved enormous coalitions and mostly didn't turn out very well.
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B
Can you say where this piece will be appearing?
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C
It'll be appearing in Prospect.
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B
Well, people can look forward to that. And we will start with the ongoing U. S Israeli assault upon Iran and its effect on energy prices, which are either terrifyingly up or reassuringly down depending on whatever US President Donald Trump has said in the half hour before. You're listening to this and the various measures being taken by various governments to respond. Over and above screaming into pillows and cursing the American electorate here in the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves has promised to support those folk who may need it most and curb the profiteering instincts of energy companies. China has scaled back a planned hike in fuel prices by way of acknowledgment that prices have hiked themselves. Isabel, there are. There is a lot of this going on across Asia. We now have four day weeks for public sector workers in Sri Lanka and the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, encouraging people to work at home if possible. Is Asia hardest hit by this?
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C
Well, a lot of, yeah, a lot of energy goes through the Gulf normally of Hormuz, the Strait of Hormuz. In China's case, it's nearly 50% of its energy imports go through that way, although the amount that actually they source from Iran is relatively small. They also buy oil and gas in the Gulf now. They have very large stocks of oil. They have more than 100 days worth of oil stockpiled. But gas is rather harder because it's more expensive and more difficult to stockpile. And they don't have a lot of it themselves. They have a pipeline from Russia called Pyro Siberia 1 and they have a pipeline that comes in from Myanmar. But you know, they feel it. The problem with China is that when there is an energy security problem, as there is now, they tend to just dig more coal and burn more Coal. And that's kind of bad for, for climate reasons. And that's what they did after an energy shortage in 2021, they built a whole raft of new coal fired power stations which are now coming online. And I'm afraid that will continue as long as this uncertainty continues.
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B
Nadine? There is disquiet all across Europe. Ireland is cutting excise duties on petrol. Germany's Energy Minister Katharine Reich says the EU should relax its net zero targets. But here in the uk, what did you make of Rachel Reeves statement? Was that basically the sound of a Chancellor who thought everything was actually kind of starting to look all right and he's now just desperately hoping it all stops.
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A
I mean, I was in Westminster today and talking to MPs about the current situation and there is a lot of concern in Westminster about this escalating because the last time we had this sort of energy shock in 2021, 2022, we saw the government spending tens of billions of pounds subsidizing people's energy bills. What experts told them then was you need a better scheme, a better way of targeting those who need the help the most inst blanket giving everybody money because it's very expensive and we have to pay it back. They haven't done that. That hasn't happened. So now we're heading into another energy price shock with no real mechanism for focusing on those who will need the help the most. And not only that, I mean, you know, I drive, I'm not a native, I'm not a Londoner anymore. And petrol prices like they are going up like pence a day at this stage. So this, this is going to continue to escalate. I imagine the Government is, is reassured by Trump's somewhat, well, playing it mildly chaotic, signaling that he wants to try and wind this stuff down. But the consequences of this conflict in Iran on the straight of humours and just generally, you know, strikes on oil fields, the confidence, the impact it's had on the confidence of investors and insurers, etcetera, is going to continue to go on for months now. And I imagine financial help will be needed. We've already seen, you know, £53 million worth of help for households who use heating oil. And if this continues on into the winter, this is going to be very painfully painful financially for the Government.
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B
Isabelle, vexing though this is going to be for all of Asia, for all the reasons you were outlining. Does China maybe stand to benefit ultimately? It has in many respects stolen something of a march on things like electric vehicles, solar panels, renewable energy Generally, could they actually finish in Frontier?
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C
It's the totally dominant global supplier of those goods, having made an investment decision 15, 20 years ago, seeing the industrial opportunity of the energy transition, and it's now in a very good position. And indeed, the surge in energy demand that China's experienced over the last five, eight years has substantially been met by enormous amounts of renewables which it's installed at home. So you have these two things going on in China, but for again, China's brought the price down of renewable energy for everybody else. So the sensible thing at this point, since we're in the grip of yet another crisis in fossil fuel, is to accelerate the installation of renewables. And the happiest country in Europe in this particular crisis is Norway, not because of their North Sea oil and gas, but because they are kind of 90% renewables and their vehicles are largely electric. You know, if you're driving an electric vehicle and you have renewable energy and the cheapest energy in Europe, which Norway has, you're laughing. This really doesn't hurt you. And in this country, this whole crisis has revived the kind of, oh, we have to go back to the North Sea. Oh, please. You know, by the time you get it out, it's not going to lower the prices. There's not much left. Spend the money somewhere else.
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A
Yeah, I'm actually working on a piece on that at the moment because the calls we're seeing from the Conservatives and reform to just drill in the North Sea and it'll solve everybody's problems. Nonsense. First of all, it would take years to get any of that online. Second of all, it's sold on international markets. We don't have a national energy provider. Pretty sure Margaret Thatcher's thanks to got to blame for that. And third of all, there isn't actually that many reserves left in the North Sea that the UK controls. So even if we extracted everything, we used all of the ability we had to extract every last drop of oil from the North Sea, excusing the climate consequences, you know, adding more fossil fuels, it wouldn't be that much. So the, the energy transition that Ed Miliband has really, you know, tied himself to, understandably. So it's kind of being demonstrated through this. We saw it with Ukraine and the energy price shock then, and we're seeing it now, that renewable energies countries, Norway and then obviously China's got a lot of it as well, are actually going to fare better than those who are heavily reliant on oil.
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C
Where Ed Miliband is failing to reap the reward is it's because of the peculiar nature of electricity pricing in this country where our high electricity prices are entirely substantially because they're tied to the price of gas. Without getting too geeky, it is gas that sets the electricity price. So when the gas price goes up, so does the electricity price. So all the benefit that we should be getting from renewable energies are rather disguised for the public for the bill payer.
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Just finally on this one, Nadine, the UK it is reported today, has offered to host a summit on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. It's not clear to me how much, say the United Kingdom would have in that anyway. But are we now looking at a choice of a deal with Iran or an invasion of Iran? Neither of which seem like terrifically appetizing prospects potentially.
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But again, I'm pretty sure that Trump can't have this war going on longer than 60 days without congressional approval. I may be wrong on that, but I think that may be one of the things that are pressuring him. And on top of that, this is entirely unpopular with the American public and gas prices are going up in the States as well. So I don't think we'll get to a point where we need to talk about definitely not troops in Iran, British troops anyway. But when it comes to reopening the Strait, I mean, have to think about it from Iran's perspective, is it in their interest? And this is where this off ramp is so desired by European leaders because this is kind of escalating to nowhere. Like Trump doesn't really have a strategy with it doesn't really have a plan. The Iranian regime hasn't collapsed. So what now everyone's paying more, everything's getting more expensive, inflation's going up. That's bad for any incumbent government, including Trump. So I can't see this conflict going on for months, but I think the shockwaves of it will go on at least till the end of the year.
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Well, to the United States now and a big hello to everybody listening to this while standing in an interminable queue in an airport. The good news is that there is lots more absolutely excellent listening available@monocle.com radio. The bad news is that there is no other good news. Queues at many major US Airports are running into the several hours, a consequence of the understandable reluctance of Transportation Security Administration workers to show up when they're not getting paid due to a but partial government shutdown ongoing since February 14th. The partially shut down government has responded by deploying ICE agents to 14 of the worst affected airports, which is at least exciting for the proprietors of the donut stalls. Isabel, there's supposed to be a deal later this, this week that will fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, as I understand it, but not ICE deportation operations. And this is obviously assuming that this is actually agreed to. But is anybody going to be able to call that a win?
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C
Well, I'm sure we'll have a lot of, a lot of claims there. It will be. If I, if I the kind of operations that we saw recently, if that's not funded, that is a win for the Democrats. But, you know, the whole bill has been kind of, has been loaded with other issues like, you know, voter rights. And so it really, it's going to come down to what gets through and what gets filtered out as to whether it's a clear win for anybody.
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Nadine, in terms of just the brute politics of this sort of thing, I mean, this is obviously what the Democrats hope, but is it the case that people who are standing in a six hour long queue at an airport and genuinely, if that is you while you're listening to this, you have our every sympathy, but will those people just default to blaming the government or will anybody be alive at this point to the government's protestations that it's somehow all the fault of the Democrats who control neither house of Congress nor the presidency?
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I think given again, this comes back to Trump, given how unpopular it is at the moment, given what's going on with Iran and, and adding this to it, I imagine the Democrats are probably quite happy that this is kind of being laid at, you know, this administration's door of the more chaos, more disruption and more reliability. Now you can't even get a flight. I imagine this kind of plays into their hands and it does just feel that this, this era of Trump this year so far has just been very chaotic. And I wonder, you know, with the midterms coming up at the end of the year, if it's just going to continue to escalate, this kind of sense of lack of control, lack of order and lack of leadership.
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B
I mean, midterms coming up at the end of the year, that's some optimistic talk.
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A
But it's supposed to, right? It's supposed to.
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Well, in theory, yes.
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And in theory the votes will be counted.
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Yeah. In theory.
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Unclear by whom.
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A
It feels like that's going to, we're working towards a crescendo a little bit.
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Is this yet another crisis, though, Isabelle, which is disproportionately affecting Asia because it's not all that easy to fly there at the moment.
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C
No, it's not. And you know, as you will know, an awful of flights to Asia stop in the Gulf or did stop in the Gulf and none of that applies. And the other way to get to Asia is to fly across Russia and quite a lot of that is a little awkward.
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If you look at the flight radar, there's a very densely packed queue over Azerbaijan. Indeed, those air traffic controllers had better be on overtime.
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So, yeah, I mean, there is nowhere that is safe from disruption at this point. Although to be fair, the big disruption for flights to Asia was Covid and the UK still has no direct flights from London to Beijing all these years later. So, you know, we should.
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B
It's astonishing.
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It is absolutely astonishing. I mean, British Airways, I should say, has no direct flights. So, you know, if you want to fly direct, you have to fly Chinese. And so there's been a kind of reordering of routes lately, you know, in the last five, 10 years, which will clearly continue as long as this crisis continues.
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B
Are you, Nadine, among the people who have had to rethink travel plans because of one thing and another?
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I think, yeah, well, this summer, when I think about where I want to spend my summer holidays, I think I'm just gonna stick to like Western Europe. Just, just, you know, I used to like going to Cyprus. Cyprus is somewhere that I went for my 30th birthday and. But it's just, I think just to err on the side of the caution. Also, my travel partner tends to be my mom and she's a very nervous traveler. You know, the. On holiday to Israel, she was nearly having an aneurysm. So I think, yes, sticking to, sticking to Western Europe maybe.
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Roma was thinking this year I hear Leamington Spas playing.
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Exactly.
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B
I mean, there are a couple of bleakly amusing subplots to this, Isabel. Delta Airlines, the American carrier, has announced today it's going to suspend its special assistance service for Congress members of Congress until or unless this gets sorted out.
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I mean, that'll concentrate.
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Well, genuinely though, if a few congresspeop have to stand in a six hour queue, it might focus their attention.
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C
Yes, it's a bit like MPs traveling by public transport, isn't it? They suddenly get a kind of. They suddenly get interested in what conditions are like. I'm having to think about whether I want to go to the States for any number of reasons, not least the airline disruption. But I'm supposed to go in at the end of May, so I'm rather hoping that this gets sorted out.
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I would say student loans is another example of it affecting MPs. Like we're now at a generation where we've got MPs who are on the post 2012 student loans plan. And I was discussing it today in Parliament. It is, it is something that people care about because there are mps sitting in Parliament who are having to deal with this awful system that we were given when we were like essentially children. So, you know, it does. When it affects lawmakers and legislative legislators, they do tend to start giving.
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B
So is the key basically to make our elected representatives as miserable as the rest of us for exactly the same reason?
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A
Yeah, basically make us, make them live like us plebs. That's what they need to do.
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B
Well, on a related subject to South Korea, where efforts are afoot to encourage more transparency about what jobs actually pay, President Lee Jae Myung has put his weight behind legislation which would compel employers to state up front what wages are on offer. As things stand, this reasonably important information is often not disclosed until the interview or even the offer stage, meaning that the whole thing may prove a total waste of the applicant's time. Employers contend that announcing the wage up front may actually restrict their ability to hire. An argument. I have to confess, Isabelle, the logic of which eludes me.
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C
No, it's pretty. It's pretty odd, isn't it? Unless they say if we told them what we are paying, no one would apply. I mean, that is possible, but it's about the only kind of. It's about the only explanation for that statement.
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B
And if the answer to the question, well, if it is the case that if they disclose what they were paying, nobody would apply, that rather suggests they're not paying enough.
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C
Yes. And indeed it probably accounts for people having to go through the whole tedious process of applying, getting interviewed, then discovering that they're not being paid enough to live on and not taking the job, which also appears to be a problem. So it is a very odd system.
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B
I mean, are there anywhere in South Korea or elsewhere, Nadine, employers who just assume that people apply for the love of the game.
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Oh, yeah, journalism. That's an example. Yeah, journalism is a prime example. I mean, you know, I don't think the jobs I've applied for in the past, I've known this full salary, maybe one of them. But a lot of it obviously is depending on experience. And if you're applying in city like London, they might say minimum London salary, whatever, to just try and give you that boost because it's so expensive to live here. But I think that, you know, personally, I think the reason why employers don't tell say what the salary is is because it enables them to keep salaries down. So people don't know. And people, and there's almost a culture as well not to talk about how much you earn. So that, that protects the employer from, you know, people saying, hang on a minute, that person's doing the same job as me and they're getting five grand more or ten grand more or. So it's a system, that weird system and written system that we have here as well, where not talking about salaries actually enables employers to pay their staff less and also enables these anomalies where you might have men being paid more than women or the ethnic minority being paid less than white people. So it's a problem. And I fully, fully like the idea a full disclosure on salaries. I don't think it would be a bad thing or at the very least saying minimum. You know, you might say you can get more if you've got more experience, but at the minimum. This is what this job pays and I just think it protects everybody. The only person to lose out is the employer if they wanted to try and pay a bit less than the employer should get.
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B
ISABELLE Public sector wages are usually discoverable and so they should be because we're paying them. But should that apply to the private sector by force of law?
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C
I'm not sure about by force of law, but I think it could become good practice. I mean, I'm more familiar with the not for profit sector. And certainly in that sector people benchmark because, you know, if everybody hides their salaries, actually as an employer you don't know what you should be paying. So it's in your interest to know what similar organizations are paying. So, you know, it's quite, it's not unusual for people to get together and benchmark salaries across the similar organizations in the same sector. And, and also, you know, at that point to have some transparency. Not again on individual salaries. I have had organization been in organizations where the union has demanded to know what everybody's paid. And that's kind of a bit intrusive on a personal level. But to disclose the bands within which certain, you know, categories of job sit, I think that's absolutely normal.
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B
I mean, thorny office politics question, Nadine. Should people be entitled to know what all their colleagues are making? Making?
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A
I mean, I, I wouldn't see it that way. I would see it as kind of like as you start the job you were aware of, like if they're a Band three or they're a band four, then that's how much. That's their salary bracket as it is in, like, the NHS or in public.
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B
In public sector, you can find out. In private sector, though, I would like
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A
the idea of, like, some transparent, because I think what we end up with, and we know this is a problem, is pay disparities where women are paid less or ethnic minorities are paid less, or some, you know, some men are like just on significantly more than everybody else for no apparent reason. I just don't. I don't think that is conducive to workplace. I imagine one of the reasons for not doing it is it could open up a lot of lawsuits for people if suddenly everybody knows everybody's salaries and all the women are earning like five grand less than the men. So, you know, it could open up legal challenges. But I think in the interest of equality, we should at least have a good practice system where, you know, we do have that banding or a sense of where everybody's at. And that way, you know when you're progressing and you'll know you've been paid that, you know, being paid for what you're not worth, because no one's worth anything. But you know what I mean? Pay. Your work's being paid appropriately.
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C
But I think the biggest scandal in salaries is the. Is the inflation at the top. The people who are on multiple millions when their workers are on really rather modest salaries. And I would, if I were directing my ire about salaries, that's where I would send it.
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B
Would you favor. And as an exercise in game theory, it rivets me, the extreme Norwegian example. Anybody in Norway can look up anybody else's tax return, except the person whose tax return has been looked up can see who looked it up.
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A
Ooh, so it's like LinkedIn for tax returns.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Oh, no, I wouldn't like that.
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C
Gosh, no. I'm not sure that's a good idea.
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B
It's a weird one, isn't it?
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C
Yeah, it's a bit Game of Thronesy, isn't it?
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B
It is. Well, to Australia now, where local manufacturers of Prosecco will have moderate reason to pop a few bottles of their own product. Under the terms of the free trade pact signed between Australia and the European Union, Australian manufacturers of fizzy white plonk will be permitted to continue calling it Prosecco at home and have been given a decade to think of another name for export purposes. The cheese makers are ambiguously blessed Manufacturers of Australian parmesan. Can car, but fresh Nomenclature will eventually be required for Australian feta, Romano and Gruyere. One trembles to consider what vengeances may be wrought during these rebrands upon Greece, Italy and Switzerland. Nadine, do you care about this? Is the authenticity, is the provenance, the terroir important to you?
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A
Absolutely not. As long as it tastes like Prosecco. It's Prosecco. I understand the idea of it kind of being a national export, like, you know, champagne, Champagne, Hayne region. But I also think, you know, that's quite a specific one. But Prosecco is Prosecco. Like I get it from Lidl, I'll get it from Aldi. I don't care where it's from, as long as it tastes like Prosecco. So I'm very anti, kind of sticking this sort of stuff unless it's like something really protected. Unless there's something that, like, you know, Prosecco manufacturers and champagne manufacturers aren't struggling. That's not.
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B
Well, Isabelle French. I remember this from living in Australia. French champagne manufacturers got upset many years ago with Australian producers of fizzy wine calling their produce champagne, and we had to stop.
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C
Quite right.
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B
I think it's now just called sparkling white wine. I mean, we could have called it stuff the French, but we did not.
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C
Admirable selfishness.
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B
We rose above it. But seriously, though, does the fact of Australian Prosecco actually undermine Australian Prosecco, Italian Prosecco?
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C
No, I don't think it does. I mean, where I'm sympathetic is where a product is tied to a place
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B
and, you know, Stilton, Prosecco is a place.
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C
Well, Prosecco is a grape, actually.
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B
It's also a place.
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C
Well, but nevertheless, I don't know which
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B
is named after which.
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C
Yeah, quite. I think there's an argument that it's named after the grape. I mean, you know, I feel a lot of this has been lost. I'm a Scot, and the idea that people should call their brown liquid whiskey still slightly upsets me, particularly when it's rather good as Taiwanese Japanese whiskey now is. So, you know, fair dues. They, they do a very good whiskey. And I think that in things like feta, which is a generic, you know, cheese, I, I, I can't see the case, honestly.
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A
Also, Prosecco, there's a lot of Prosecco around. This isn't like a protected drink like champagne is, is expensive because there's not a huge amount of it around Prosecco. I mean, it's everywhere.
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C
There are bathtubs.
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B
Yeah, yeah. Eight years in the negotiation, this deal was, and we could have knocked this off in 8 minutes if only they would listen. Nadine Batchelor Hunt and Isabel Hilton, thank you both for joining us. Finally on today's show, Denmark headed to the polls today in the wake of President Trump's renewed rhetoric around acquiring Greenland, which is of course a component of the kingdom of Denmark. But as Xander Brett discovers, Trump's comments may have influenced the timing of this election. Praise for the response of Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen left her with decent approval ratings, but Greenland hasn't featured all that much in the campaign training.
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D
2026 was always meant to be a general election year in Denmark, but the vote has come sooner in the year that might have been expected a few months ago. Is President Trump responsible for the decision to go early? His rhetoric over acquiring Greenland, a component of the Danish realm, dominated news coverage in Denmark and around the world in January. He might have gone relatively quiet on it now, but handling of the matter by Denmark Social Democrat Prime Minister Martha Fredriksen has, according to Anders Biersgold, political editor at Denmark's Politica newspaper, seen her popularity surge.
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E
She had had a difficult year, but in January, when Trump once again threatened to take control over Greenland, she had a momentum. Suddenly, I think the voters, they saw her in a different light as a protective sector and the poll starting going up for the Social Democrats. So that was a good time for her.
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D
Trump's words and what many viewed as a strong response for the Danish government may also play to the favor of Denmark's great political survivor, Lars Luko Rasmussen, former prime minister in leader of the Venture Party, now foreign minister and leader of Moderatna, the Moderates Party party formed only a few months before the previous general election in 2022, but already with seats and parliament and a place in the national government. Nikolai Kapman is co editor of the Copenhagen Post.
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F
Lars Gil ran is a political figure of his own totally. There's a lot of bad press following last throughout the years and somehow he always come out anyway again. He's always around and he's always kind of decisive in who's about to leave
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D
this country and his bas. God.
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E
Half a year ago we were asking ourselves maybe he could not get reelected at all. In the past Parliament, I think two persons of the voters wanted to vote for the Murats and now he's tripled his support. It's the same as the prime minister. They both have a momentum right now because of how they handle the American threats.
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D
Despite the effects of the Greenlandic crisis still being felt, however, it didn't seem to be a preoccupation at the people I spoke to. What sort of priorities are you looking for in Canada?
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A
So this is election Canada takes care of the citizens who are at the lower points and need more help and the prices of living.
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D
I see a lot of posters around here, a lot of coverage on tv, radio. It's like that in any country when
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E
there's an election up.
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D
But in Denmark, do you think more than other countries is a little bit more politically engaged?
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A
No, actually not. I don't think that we care more than other nations. I hope not.
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B
We need something more sophisticated with the military environment. Also need to take care of the old people. I think most of the politicians in Denmark can see we need a stronger defense.
- [29:23]
D
It's an inescapable fact of coalition systems that when elections roll around, colleagues must turn on each other. Meta Frederickson's Deputy Minister of Defense, Charles Lud Paulson leads the Venster party and has gone head to head with his boss in a couple of debates on national television division. But Anders B believes if the polls are correct, Frederickson could be on course to see him off and extend a premiership that began way back in 2019.
- [29:46]
E
She can go with the left wing and she could go with the parties in the. In the center. She has a lot of opportunities and she's still almost double sized in the polls than her competitors. BA well, what do you call the left? But actually it's a quite a right wing party. But Tson's party is down to 10 or 11.
- [30:08]
F
Nikolai Kapman I agree that the Social Democrats are ahead and will probably be a part of a future government. But do be aware that actually in the last election the Social Democrats received 27% of the vote and as of now they are polling at a 2122. It's still by far the biggest party in Denmark, but they will lose mandates. That's pretty sure. What they fear the most is if they actually lose the party to the right wing coalition position, then the majority can shift.
- [30:37]
D
Much has been made in the international press of Denmark's tough stance on immigration in recent years. And whereas a decade or so ago we might be discussing the popularity of the right wing Danish People's Party, Fredriksen and her government do seem to have taken the wind out of that party's sails.
- [30:53]
F
Nikolai Kapman so the Danish People's Party have sunken to be just a small right wing party. However, under a new leader called Morten Messerschmitt they are gaining momentum again and they actually have been polling about 7 or 8% after having election results of just about 3% in 2022.
- [31:12]
D
Nearby Sweden also heads to the polls this year. Its general election is scheduled for 13 September, but Sweden's vote is still months away. For now, it's all about Denmark at Talk of Greenland, whose inhabitants select two members to the parliament in Copenhagen, might have been much of a campaign feature, but rhetoric from President Trump and the effect of Denmark's response was surely one reason Danes are being asked to go to the polls so early in the year, not for the first time as the man in the White House influenced domestic politics far away from the United States.
- [31:46]
B
That's all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Isabel Hilton and Nadine Batchelor. Hobby Hunt playing us out Chip Taylor, who has died at the age of 86. You've heard his songs even if you didn't realize you were hearing his songs. He wrote hits for Willie Nelson, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny Cash, Aretha Franklin, Emmy Lou Harris, Frank Sinatra and many others. Taylor was still recording right up to the end. His latest, and it turns out his last album is due out this week. Entitled Words from Holy Gardens, it's an extended elegy to Joan, his wife and or muse of some six decades, who died last year year. Chip Taylor made some astonishing records of his own. Listeners are commended to his fantastic early 1970s run of hyper literate cosmic country records, which nobody really bought, a fact which itself prompted one of his funnier tunes, 101 in cashbox. Of the very many we could have chosen, we've picked a track Chip Taylor recorded right here at Midori House in 2015. It's the one you'll know if you know one angel of the Movie Morning.
- [32:52]
F
Just call me angel of the morning angel just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby.
- [33:06]
B
Today's show was produced by Chris Chermack and researched by Anneliese Maynard. Our sound engineer was Elliot Greenfield. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks. Thanks for listening.