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You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 8th September 2025 on Monocle Radio.
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US President Donald Trump once again threatens devastating sanctions against Russia. Nobody holding breath. UK's Prime Minister advised to stop making mistakes. Seems weird nobody has thought of that before. And is the Star Spangled Banner in danger of being replaced by the International? I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts now. Hello and welcome to the Monocle Daily, coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests Zoe Grunewald and Steven DL will discuss today's big stories and our weekly letter from Comes a few days earlier in the week than usual and from Gaza. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily.
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Foreign.
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You'Re listening to the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller. Not only earlier in the week than usual, but earlier in the program than usual. It's time for our recurrent Letter from feature. It's from Ahmed Sharmali, who is a former health administrator at the Al Shifa Medical Complex, a writer and father of one based in northern Gaza. He writes to us from the Gaza Strip, with translation by Monocle's Hassan Anderson.
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Our daughter, Mariam was born in Gaza on February 9, 2024, at the Emirati Hospital in Rafah before the city was occupied and destroyed. While we have been trying to survive the airstrikes, famine and the loss of our closest family, Mariam has grown. She has taken her first steps. She's walking and sometimes running fast now.
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Maria.
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The lack of basic hygiene products, soap, diapers and vaccines has made the job of early parenthood the hardest thing me and my wife Reema, have had to do. But we try as much as possible to enjoy small amounts of time as a family, to steal beautiful moments where we can. We cannot postpone these instances because we know our fate is uncertain. Even the memory of Gaza is being erased. Every place that witnessed our steps, every voice that accompanied us, every scent, every color, every flavor has evaporated. Our history now is like a blank page. When we grew up, they used to say in Gaza, the important thing is to stay calm. We didn't understand what it meant then. Now we understand how great peace of mind is more important than anything else in this life. We watch the nights with caution and we do not sleep from the sound of exploding robots that shake the earth beneath us. While we live under immense pressure from overthinking and severe worry due to the ongoing Israeli threat of occupying Gaza City, we seek ways to alleviate this anxiety, you may know that Gaza is a coastal city overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. But what you might not know is that the Israeli army issued orders some time ago prohibiting people from approaching the beach. And anyone who gets close risks being shot. Summer is about to end and the beautiful view of the sea from afar brings us pain when we cannot approach it. However, today our I made the decision to take a risk and go there. I went with my daughter and wife. We spent a short time in the ocean, swimming for a while and then we left. It was brief but extremely beautiful. I felt a great relief after this quick outing. It alleviated much of the pressure we've been experiencing lately. I hope to go there again in the coming days. Despite the horrors we are experiencing, there remains in our hearts an unquenchable certainty. The pain will pass, the suffering will subside. No matter how long it takes, the good news will come soon, carrying with it a message of stopping the genocide and God will gladden our hearts. Sometimes. A reminder of this comes from outside of Gaza. Last month, a short while before the start of a football match between Paris Saint Germain and Tottenham Hotspur, a banner was raised by the crowds there on an in. It was a simple statement, stop killing civilians, Stop killing children. It was a very moving gesture, a message I loved seeing. You can take the initiative too. Anyone can do this. Even while you are at work or watching tv, you can spread awareness and share what is happening here. You may be a reason for waking others up. Your voice may be a reason for stopping what is happening.
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The words there of Ahmed Shamali in Gaza read by Monocle's Hassan Anderson. You're listening to the Daily on Monocle Radio. This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller. I will be joined shortly by Zoe Grindelwald, Westminster editor at the lead, but already here is Stephen Diol, Russia analyst and regular Monocle Radio contributor. Stephen, welcome to the show. You have been, I put it to you in Switzerland. What were you doing there?
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I have indeed been in Switzerland and I'm in the fortunate position, unlike many of the guests on this show, when they turn up who have to chase around the world rather like head honcho Monocle Tyler Brulee to to chase business in one way or another, I can go to expand my horizons. And having spent all year, all my years studying Russia, I'm actually finding a lot more about the world, which is great. So Switzerland was a bit of walking in the Alps, which was very pleasant, apart from getting soaked twice. But it rains here too. And then realising that One of the great things about Switzerland is that because it avoided the two world wars of the 20th century, it still has medieval towns like Thun and Berne, which I find rather attractive.
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Bits of Switzerland are indeed exceptionally pretty. Did you spend most of your time in the quaint old medieval towns or did you see the countryside as well?
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No, we spend most of the time in the countryside because we've, we've skied in the Alps quite a lot, but we've never really seen them in the summer. And that was the driving force, really, about going there. And then we thought, well, let's take some tourism in as well.
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Time well spent, clearly. We will start tonight's show in Ukraine, which has been on the receiving end of the heaviest Russian bombardment of the war so far, a mark which has been cleared with depressing regularity in recent weeks. Almost as if President Vladimir Putin's willingness to visit Alaska was not actually indicative of a sincere desire to make peace. Putin's host on that occasion, US President Donald Trump, has once again harrumphed his displeasure and threatened increased sanctions, but at least as of this broadcast, has seemed too downcast to even promise to implement these within his usual preferred timescale of altogether. Now, in two weeks, Stephen, first of all, do we get any sense at all that Donald Trump yet understands how badly he is being played by President Putin? And especially since Alaska?
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I honestly don't think he does. I think he is so arrogant, so much believes in himself. You know, the other day he was at a press conference, he was wearing a cap which instead of saying make America great again or maga said Trump was right about everything. And it is staggering. I mean, every week that goes by, almost every day that goes by, there is something about Trump that makes us think, surely he can't be that, either cunning or stupid. But certainly when it comes to Putin, Putin is playing him for all he's worth. Putin is simply laughing at Trump. And I mean, that's, you know, I say laughing at. I mean, the tragedy is he's doing it by increasing evermore the number of missiles and drones that are fired at Ukraine. And as you said, quite rightly, we seem to have said a number of times in the last few months, you know, the biggest strike yet on Ukraine in one night. And that's what happened on Saturday night with over 800 missiles and drones. And the crucial thing to remember about this is that, you know, these are not light blue touch paper and retire. And, you know, these things will land wherever they land. These things are all targeted. The Russians know exactly what they're aiming for. And although there is a version that Vitaly Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, said that, well, perhaps the one that hit the government building was actually had the drone or the missile had been hit and it was on its way down, because, of course, even if they're hit, they still come down and hit something. And so it may have been because of that, but even so, undoubtedly, the Russians have been firing at the center of Kyiv, and right from the start, they have been targeting the civilian population. Whatever Putin says, I remember very early on, I think it was in April 2022, March, even within a few weeks at the start of the war, there was a Russian Air Force pilot, a fighter pilot who'd been shot down, who was put in front of a microphone and actually honestly said, well, I was. Yeah, I was flying my jet and I was told, the target is in front of you. And he said. I said, but that's a block of flats. And the answer came back, yes. Fire. And when asked, did he. He said, well, yes, I did. Those are my orders. And. But that's been the case ever since the start of the war. They are targeting civilians.
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President Trump has been invoking fire and brimstone vis a vis sanctions again. U.S. treasury Secretary Scott Bezant has said the new sanctions would mean the Russian economy will be in total collapse, will bring Vladimir Putin to the table. If that was going to happen, wouldn't it have happened by now?
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I think the trouble with statements like that, they assume that the Russian economy is what you might call a normal economy. Yes, the Russian economy is in a bad way. And people, for example, have seen foodstuffs increase incredibly in cost. Things like eggs or milk or bread, basics have increased a lot, particularly over the last two years. But it's not a normal economy. Putin can turn around and tap up his billionaires and say, give us more money. The whole economy also has been switched to a war footing, and of course, it goes hand in hand with the propaganda. So Russian, whose access to information is getting ever more limited as they shut down on, for example, WhatsApp, Telegram. The Internet can be very hard to get anything that's outside Russia. So Russian people are fed a diet of propaganda, and they are told that we're fighting this war to save Mother Russia. And many of them believe that because they don't see any alternative source. And so therefore, they're prepared to accept sacrifices. And so, yes, the economy is being hit, but I think it's going to take a long time. I Mean, we're talking months and months at least that. If, for example, the west stopped buying Russian oil and gas completely, you've still got countries that are buying it. You've still got money coming in that is going to fuel the war machine. It's going to take a long time. It's not a normal economy. As I say, it's set up for a war and that's what it's doing. And it's going to keep doing that for the foreseeable future.
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On that subject, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has once again this week urged European countries to stop buying Russian energy. And it does seem incredible that this is still a thing that is happening at all. But Hungary, France, Slovakia, Belgium and Spain are all still customers of Russia. And EU imports of Russian fossil fuel are worth around 22 billion euros to the Russians every year. Is there a reason why this is still happening? I suspect I should spec a good reason why this is still happening.
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I would say there isn't a good reason, because I think that it is that sort of weakness that helps. That's what really fuels Putin, because then he can play that back and sort of say, look, you know, the west is fractured and you know, the Norwegians, for example, are now supplying more oil and gas to Europe than Russia. But even so, as you say, Russia's still providing some. The west really has to get behind this idea of unity. You're going to have countries like Hungary and Slovakia who are rogue states in that sense, and unfortunately there's not a lot you can do about it. But France and Spain you mentioned, I mean, they really should be prepared to take a hit themselves and say to their people, look, this is what's got to be done. This is a war on European territory. The biggest war on European territory since 1945. And people need to wake up to the fact, instead of just accepting that it's going on, wake up to the fact that this has been going on. Soon it will have been going on for as long as the First World War lasted. And that should not be acceptable. People around Europe should be educated to realize that this is terrible, this shouldn't be allowed to happen. And the man who's leading it, Vladimir Putin, will not be stopped. He's gone down a one way street. He cannot turn around and say, okay, you know, we'll sort of draw a line there. You know, he has now to have those four territories in Eastern Ukraine that have been made a part of the Russian constitution, because anything less than that looks like a defeat for him. And the one thing that Putin still fears most of all is not the war in Ukraine, is not NATO, is not the United States. It is an uprising by his own people. And that's why the information sphere is being screwed down more and more.
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Just finally and briefly on this, Stephen, there is going to be yet another coterie of European leaders going to Washington D.C. this week to talk about how the war might be brought to a close. Although, as you suggest, that's going to be difficult. While Putin is all in on this, it does seem that one of the things they are going to be told, and this is where we have to consider the just because Donald Trump says it doesn't mean it's wrong proposition. One of the things they're going to be told is that if they want the US to implement these further sanctions, including secondary sanctions on continuing customers of Russia, Russia such as China and India, the EU is going to have to stop buying Russian stuff. Is that actually an unreasonable line for the US to take?
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It amazes me to say it, but no, it's not. In this case, Trump and his coterie are right. The EU has got to show that it's serious, that it really wants this war to stop. And yeah, as I said, countries like France have got to bite the bullet and, and try and explain to their people, I mean, they've got their own problems, their government's just collapsed, we've just heard tonight. So they certainly have their own problems, but that has got to be part of the deal. It's very easy, of course, to criticize Trump and his administration, but that is one thing where they're right. The Europeans talk a lot at the moment, but they need to step up more in providing more weaponry for Ukraine and as you say, stop buying Russian energy.
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Steven DL, thanks for the moment. We will have more from you shortly. You are listening to the Monocle Daily. We will be back right after this. You're listening to the Daily on Monocle Radio with me, Andrew Muller. Still with me is Stephen Diol, and joining me now is Zoe Grindelwald, who has made it in despite the Tube strike. Zoe, welcome to the Daily, your first time on the show. So we have also spent some of the time putting you in the owl costume, which is customary for all first time guests. Introduce yourself to our listeners, if you would.
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Yes, well, thank you very much for waiting for me. I was trying to get across London during the Tube strikes, which have been quite disruptive, actually. I am Westminster editor for the lead. I'm a political journalist and broadcaster and I'm very happy to be here and wearing the owl costume.
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Well, we're glad you're here as well, because we are going to UK politics right now. Prime Minister Sakir Starmer has had the kind of first year in office which sorely tempts political reporters to deploy their most damning adjectives. Specifically, embattled or worse still, beleaguered. Happily, the Prime Minister is able to draw upon the sage counsel of the Labour Party's wise and experienced grandees, who have, according to reports, made the following brilliant suggestion. Stop making mistakes. This electrifying bolt of wisdom has been discharged as the party looks for a new deputy leader following the departure of Angela Rayner, forced to resign for understanding British taxes as much as much as anybody else in Britain. That is not in the slightest. Zoe, this is very much your department. Why has nobody thought of the stop making mistakes strategy until now? It's brilliant.
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It is a brilliant one. You have to wonder what sort of conversations are going on in number 10. Look, I think this is code for listen to the party. So the Labour leadership has had a lot of criticism from quite kind of quiet criticism from within the parliamentary Labour Party and not so quite from its membership about the direction it's taken. Starmer's government, and particularly after this reshuffle we saw over the weekend, is much more of a pivot to the right of the Labour Party. And this comes down to an ideological fissure at the centre of government, which is that reform, which is this populist hard right party that is on the rise, is making a lot of hay about immigration, a lot of hay about social issues. And the Labour leadership has decided they need to fight on reforms, turns, they need to match them, they need to talk about immigration, they need to show that they're clamping down on the welfare bill and irregular migrants. But those within the Labour Party who are more of the left say, actually, this is unhelpful. All you do is push voters into the arms of the right. All you do is raise the salience of those issues and voters begin to believe they are problems. And we actually do see whereas originally, when Labour came into power, the top two voter priorities, where the NHS and the cost of living, increasingly voters say immigration is their number one priority. So there is lots and lots of discussion about whether Labour should follow the path of reform and fight them on their ground or present their own vision to the country. And I think at this point, lots of people in the Labour Party are getting vocal about the fact that actually, thus far, the direction that has been taken is wrong. And the Labour leadership need to be much clearer about what their vision for this country is making the positive case for some of those progressive things the Labour government is doing, like the Employment Rights Bill, like the Renters Reform Bill, and stop just talking about immigration, because it hands that conversation that political power to Nigel Farage, who is the leader of the Reform Party. So it is an ideological battle. I'm not sure it's one that the left are going to win, but we are seeing more of those influential voices coming out and speaking. For example, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham. But of course, the big kick in the tee for the left this weekend was the loss of Angela Rayner, who was the deputy leader of the Labour Party, deputy prime minister, and that anchor of the soft left to power.
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A quick follow up on that, Zoe. Is there, I guess, discontent within labor about Sakiyah's leadership more generally? Because it does seem now, a lot longer than a year ago, that he was swept into office on a mighty landslide. Or does it turn out that it was the case that maybe that wasn't colossal enthusiasm for him and Labour, it's just that everybody hated him slightly less than they hated the other mob?
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Yeah, I think that's right. The way to describe the landslide, and it was a landslide, was broad but shallow. So you had lots of voters departing from the Conservatives, fed up with 14 years of conservative rule, declining living standards, stagnating wages, hemorrhaging public services, and they wanted something different. And Keir Starmer and the Labour Party seemed like a less worse version to a lot of voters than the Conservatives. And of course, in this country, you only have really two parties that have any chance of getting in. And I think what the Labour leadership felt then was that they could win with a sort of managerial approach, not giving away too much, but actually in power. It turns out that voters want radical change. They want better public services, they want more money in their pockets. And thus far, what the Labour leadership have been doing is just kind of pursuing, for many voters, that kind of managed decline. Nothing seems to be getting particularly better now. They've rested a lot on delivery. They're not delivering. Other political strategists say actually, no, what the country needs is a big overarching vision, which they haven't provided either. So there's a lot of concerns about Keir Starmer's leadership. There's a lot of concerns that the Labour leadership misread the tone of their election, what the country wanted. And now in that Void. We're seeing the rise of the Reform Party and Nigel Farage.
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Stephen, on that thought, are Labour, I guess, making a mistake in trying to win back voters that they may have lost to reform? And it's clear, judging by the polls at least, that they've lost quite a lot of voters to reform. Reform, who had their conference at the weekend, still only have four MPs, lest we forget, but do have quite a comfortable poll lead at this point. But if you add up the voters who are still declaring for Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, that is still a progressive majority.
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D
It is. But I think Zoe's point was very good, that the Labour Party has allowed itself to be dragged into this immigration debate. Whereas instead of actually stressing the points at which, as Zoe said, when they came in, you know, the National Health Service, the standard of living, these were the things that people were very fed up with after the conservatives, after 14 years. And instead of. The problem is, I think that we've mentioned Keir Starmer already. I mean, Keir Starmer is probably a very nice man, but he's rather dull. And Farage, who is rather odious, actually, I think, but he has a certain charisma and he really played it up. You mentioned they had their conference this weekend and he really played it up and you could see he loved it. And you know that he's very good at capturing the audience. And unfortunately, the British media are led by him, it seems. And every time he opens his mouth, even the BBC will sort of, oh, you know, he'll lead the news. And that has been. The Labour Party has allowed it to become damaging instead of saying, well, actually, Farage has got no policies, which he hasn't. I mean, the Reform Party has no policy, they bang the drum about immigration. But even then, Farage has been sort of put on the spot a couple of times recently and found wanting saying that, oh, well, if there were children, then maybe they would be allowed to stay. Well, maybe. Well, but we'd deal with it in two weeks. Well, we wouldn't deal with in two weeks. We'd have to get the law in place, then we'd deal with it in two weeks. I mean, he shilly shallys when he's put on the spot, but he's not put on the spot enough. And it is. I think it's a question of charisma or lack of it in the case of Starmer and the fact that, yeah, Labour has been led by the nose by reform and therefore, because there's a lot of noise about reform. People are saying, well, we'd vote for them. I think. I think that one perhaps a bright light. And Zoe may correct me on this, but I see it as. Because a general election is three and a half, four years. Yeah. That this is not a particularly good time for reform to peak. This has happened before. I'm old enough to remember, for example, the Social Democratic Party, which was formed, which for a time led the polls and then faded before the election. So that I think still could happen. But it may be this new type of Labour government is going to be a bit more serious. But certainly I find it worrying. I think anyone who looks at reform and sees that they are a far right party and look what else is happening around the world. It's a worrying trend. It really is.
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B
Just finally on this one, Zoe, and on that subject of what is happening around the world is one of the things that makes Labour nervous about taking on reform. The example of the United States, because we saw the reform conference at this weekend was quite properly bonkers. But has labor learned or is struggling to learn from the Democrats experience over the last 12 years that merely pointing out the obvious that our opponents are a party of kooks led by an obvious charlatan doesn't necessarily win the argument?
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Yeah. And I think if they hadn't learned that from the Democrats, they should have learned it from Brexit as well. Because what you had there, you know, they call it the silent majority. It was a group of voters who felt that they had been ignored by Westminster, they had been ignored by the establishment for far too long. And that was a result of austerity, de industrialization, declining living standards, you know, declining wages, all these things. But a Westminster sort of, kind of tepid managerialism, centrist approach, whatever you want to call it, that sort of got its head down and said, no, everything's fine, we're going to tweak here and there, but we're not going to fundamentally change things. And then when you have our voters who are angry and want to put their anger in a radical solution, and what Nigel Farage is very, very good at is campaigning. He's very, very good at taking whatever face is ne a bit like Donald Trump, to be honest, to secure power for himself. Nigel Farage is a neoliberal Thatcherite at heart, but at the minute he's playing like he is a sort of paternalist, you know, small C conservative who really wants to clamp down on immigration, but that isn't really who he is. Much like Donald Trump plays to The MAGA crowd, and he plays to the sort of interventionist Republican crowd. These are opportunistic men who will seize disaffected voters and seize their anger. And if the middle ground or the government or the establishment, whatever you want to call it, don't recognize that that anger is real and consequential, then they will fall to it. And I think that's exactly what's happening here.
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B
Well, to the United States. And though we have spent much of the afternoon grappling with Lenin's pamphlet, what is to be done in an effort to stand this up, we cannot say that we believe the conditions for proletarian revolution in America have been met. Crisis of ruling class arguably period of severe national crisis. Not quite, or at least not quite yet. Coherent Bolshevist opposition work in progress. However, a new poll by G suggests that the faith of Americans in capitalism is ebbing. Only 54% now view capitalism positively, down from 60% as recently as four years ago. Stephen, apparently two thirds of Democrats in particular are now keen on socialism. But do we need to adjust for the American idea of what socialism is? These people think Barack Obama was a socialist.
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D
Yes, we definitely do. Can I just say, by the way, I have read what is to be done in the original, but I just thought I'd throw that one in.
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B
Would you like to answer this question in Russian, Stephen? Would that make you happy?
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D
Yeah, I think that when you talk about Americans and socialism, I think it's more accurate to say that, okay, because they're fed up with capitalism doesn't mean say necessarily that they're going down the route of the Communist Party, of the Soviet Union or indeed other Communist parties of making everything state owned. I think, you know, it can fall both ways and I think in America, actually it's falling more the other way that they're fed up with capitalism, but therefore they're going for Trumpism, which is definitely not socialism. And I think that's the danger at the moment. It is interesting though, if we take socialism in what it's meant historically, that I think that there are a number of people who, for example, never knew the Soviet Union, who think that the idea of the state running everything and the state being in charge of business and everything else is a good idea. Why don't we try it? Well, I can tell them why we did. Exactly they did, and it doesn't work. I think that what is certainly missing in America, because, I mean, I think it's appalling the way the Democrats have just fallen apart. You know, they've got this clown in the White House, and yet no one really standing up to him or actually presenting themselves, apart from the governor of California, but generally no one, no one's presenting themselves as an alternative to Trump. What they really need, they need someone explaining to them what social democracy is. And that's a far better alternative to what's going on there or here than pure socialism.
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B
Zoe, you are at this table, among other things, as the anointed representative of somewhat younger generations. Is that part of what is driving this? Because I'm not going to sit here and be one of those people who says that young people have nothing to complain about, because I think it's fairly clear that they do. There are a lot of things that are much more difficult now for people in their 20s and 30s that were much easier for people who were in their 20s and 30s, 20 or 30 years ago. Is that, do you think, driving some of this desertion of faith in capitalism?
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A
I think it is for young people, especially in this country. In the uk, housing was really kind of the pinnacle of that capitalist ideal since 1975, when Margaret Thatcher gave her first speech about how having housing should have been seen as the dream of modern Britain. It was this idea that, that the, you know, home ownership would be. It would make people better individuals, better citizens. And actually what we've seen is that that narrative carry on, but actually young people's access to housing being stripped away. So we haven't built enough houses. We sold lots of affordable homes off, and council homes are under right to buy. And now there is a mass shortage of housing that is bootstrapping young people economically in every part of their lives. So you compound that with wage stagnation. And then we see rampant inequality and inequality growing across the country on geographical lines, but also throughout the generations as well. And young people see that the system as it is doesn't work for them. And it's very easy to tie that back to capitalism. But I think it's absolutely right that this goes both ways. Yes, we know that young people tend to be more progressive, they tend to be more left wing. And people often say, well, you get more conservative as you get older because you acquire more things you want to conserve. But actually, we're also seeing young people just becoming more radical in both directions. So we are also seeing young people, particularly young men, move further.
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B
I was just going to say there is a gender spirit in which ways younger people are getting more radicalized.
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A
Absolutely. So although overwhelmingly they tend to still more move left. We are Seeing a trend of young men moving further towards the right. And it's absolutely Trumpism. It's also this kind of. I don't even know what you'd call it, like tech, bro. Autocracy. It's this idea that actually maybe we should do away with the guardrails of democracy and have something more technological and something a bit. Probably a bit more sinister.
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B
Sounds fine.
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A
Yeah, yeah, it sounds absolutely fine. But I think it is very interesting that clearly people are not happy with the system and I think intergenerational equality is driving that, and I think it splits people into radical positions on both the left and the right.
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D
Now, I think it's very interesting that Zoe should say that, and I agree that the younger people tend to be more radical one way or the other. But you also said, you know, the younger people, older people are seen as tending to be more conservative. They've got everything. I had this conversation of being the eldest person in the studio.
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B
Thank you for that.
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D
Steve and I had this conversation with some friends of similar age, 60s, 70s, not so long ago, and we all said, we're supposed to be getting more conservative as we get older, but we're not. We're actually becoming more left wing. And maybe it's because we saw what the Soviet Union was like and so on. And so we're in this extraordinary situation in society now. I don't think Britain is unique in this, but that older people, and if you actually look at America as well, there's a lot of older Americans who are very worried by Trump and are more leaning to the left. So I think that is a big change that's happened all around.
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A
Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a couple of things to say on that. Not least that recently we've had a few protests here, obviously in the uk, about the prescription of Palestine action, and a lot of the people who are being arrested are older people. Partly you could say that's because they have the time to go out and protest, but also because I think you're right, there is almost a reaction in the other direction of. Hang on, we remember what it was like to fight for these things and we want them back. But I think also we've seen, particularly here in the uk, voters deserting the Conservative Party because now they are seeing their children who they think have worked very, very hard, went to university, saddled with student debt, unable to get on the housing ladder, living at home with their parents. I mean, that's enough to change everybody's political leaning. So, yes, absolutely. These conditions do Filter through. It isn't as simple as as you get older now, you get more conservative and as you're younger you're more progressive. I think it's all being blurred by what we're seeing and probably the failures of capitalism.
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B
Well, back in London, a story which suggests that those Americans in favor of hoisting the scarlet standard and herding the urban bourgeois on collective farms to plant turnips may in fact be onto something. According to research published by an attention seeking corporate entity which in keeping with spiteful program policy we will not be naming, half of London's dog owners spend more feeding their mutts than they do feeding themselves. And nearly two thirds declare that they would not feed their dogs anything they would not eat themselves. Accordingly, sales of so called gourmet style dog dinners as beef goulash and chicken casserole are up 500% in the past year. And this, Stephen, is why the poor countries hate us. But do we actually believe any of this?
- [35:21]
D
I think it's written. Having read the original article, I think it's written rather tongue in cheek, you know, talking about someone being barking mad, which of course is a colloquialist I rose nobly above. Yeah, I'm afraid. But that's what he was in the original article now and I have to say I am one not a dog owner. I would never be cruel to an animal, but I'm just not one of those great animal loving people.
- [35:42]
B
See, I'm a huge fan of dogs. I'm very much pro dog. But Zoe, I have been around dogs enough to know that they will eat liter.
- [35:49]
D
They will eat them.
- [35:50]
A
They will. You do not have to spend this amount of money on your dog. Dogs will eat anything. I have a very fussy cat who does have expensive kibble, but luckily that's all she eats. She doesn't touch human food, so it's not actually costing me a great deal of money.
- [36:03]
B
So Stephen, to be clear, you would be happy to feed a dog something you would not eat yourself. Like for example, dog food.
- [36:10]
D
Indeed, yes. I think that's a very good reason why it's called dog food and why it comes in tins with pictures of dogs on them.
- [36:16]
B
Is this a thing, Zoe, where, where that class of especially annoying pet owners have kind of lost track of the difference between their pets and children, which they have not as yet had.
- [36:29]
A
I think we are seeing, and this is kind of based on just what I've noticed in my peer group living in London, that there do seem to be more people acquiring dogs rather than having children. And I think that probably is a cost thing. I think it is. Even if you're feeding your dog steak and goulash, it's probably a lot cheaper to raise a dog than it is to raise a child in London. So I do think you have a slight kind of discrepancy there where people are thinking, actually, I'd rather get a pet at this stage of my life than I would have a child and then maybe putting some of that love onto that pet. You know, that's. That's what I've. That's what I've noticed amongst my friends.
- [37:06]
D
My sister, who was a great dog lover but didn't have any children, once said to me, well, I think there's a big part of you missing because you don't love dogs. And I said to her, look, I have three, three children and two grandchildren. And that's fine by me.
- [37:18]
A
Yes.
- [37:19]
B
Would you feed them anything you wouldn't eat yourself?
- [37:21]
D
No, no, I'm very, very particular about what they eat.
- [37:25]
B
Well, on that heartwarming note, Stephen Dirle and Zoe Grindelwald, thank you both for joining us. That is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists. Today's show was produced by Monica Lillis and researched by Daniela Brauer Smith. Our sound engineer was Elliot Greenfield. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for listening.
- [38:07]
A
It.