To avoid humanitarian disaster. Our guests this week. The Guardian Columnist polly toynbee, mina al oraibi, the editor in chief of the gulf based the national newspaper, and still suitably distanced, here in the studio with me is the bbc� s business editor simonjack. Welcome to you all. So to begin with, boris Johnsons Government has announced the largest Tax Increases in the uk for decades to try to fix the nhs and the Are'>Social CAre sector. Some say that the £36 billion it will raise over three years wont solve the crisis. Other critics say that the Tax Rises Are unfairly distributed. Lets begin this conversation with polly. To what extent, polly, do you believe that what the government is proposing will solve the problem with Are'>Social CAre, which we have been discussing in this country for years . Yes, government after government has failed to grasp it. At least this government has come up with something, but the something isnt nearly enough and it doesnt begin to be a plan. Most of the money it is using will go to compensating richer families who Are paying at the moment so that they pay a bit less. They will still be paying. I think a lot of people will be quite shocked to find they Are still paying up to £86,000, but at least they get some compensation. Lots of people will still have to sell their homes to pay for their cAre, Though Borisjohnson had promised that nobody would. And there will be very little left over for what is really the most important question, which is the very low quality of cAre. Nearly 2 Million people who Are not getting any cAre who would have qualified a decade ago, but the threshold has been raised so they no longer qualify for any cAre at all, and the Are-home'>CAre Home owners and people who provide cAre Are desperate. They cannot keep their staff, they cant pay their staff enough. What the state pays for each person is much too little and i am afraid it doesnt solve any of those. Its a little bit, but probably about the same little bit thats been given every year as a bung to keep it going. And to begin with, the money is going to go to the nhs anyway, rather than to Are'>Social CAre, because the government thinks there is catching up to do because of the backlog of cases brought about by covid, where only covid patients were really being seen in hospital. Simon, we have got this rather unusual situation where we have got a conservative government in favour of Tax Increases and a Labour Opposition who dont want to see them because, as polly alluded to there, they dont regard them as being fair, theyre being regressive, so whats the alternative . Well, the phrase that is doing the rounds at the moment is, i good politics, bad policy, i in the sense that the politics of it is that by increasing national insurance, which Uk Viewers will know Hasi A mythology about it, which is that its some kindl of piggybank you put money in and that means youll be looked after in your retirement and beyond. In fact its just another tax and therefore politically. Raising that is much easier, less problematic than raising income tax. The other part of the problem of the policy is it is generally being seen as a tax on the young, Working Population to pay for an elderly population closer to needing the kind of services, whether its in the nhs or in Are'>Social CAre, than the people who Are actually being forced to pay for it, and therefore its being seen as looking after the grey vote, l which the tories think they have a strong hold on, and neglecting younger voters. Thats why the Labour Party is in such a difficult position, in a way. A lot of people think, you know, how can you vote against this when basically government after government, generation after generation, have failed to grasp this nettle . And even some Labour Leaders, like Andy Burnham in manchester, who i spoke. To yesterday, whos the Labour Leader there, said you know, i theyve got to have some credit for trying to take this. On, but the mechanism by which they have done it is very, very difficult to justify. The other thing is that it is a huge political moment, i because as polly would probably say more eloquently than i will, the tories have sold themselves as the business friendly, low tax, value for money, making sure you get reforms along the way, and many of their own I Backbenchers Are saying this marks the end of that era i and in retrospect, will be looked back on as a veryl significant moment in british politics. The chancellor of the conservative government, Rishi Sunak, surprised a lot of people in how he approached the pandemic, didnt he . By spending huge amounts of money to keep people afloat who were furloughed and keep businesses alive who couldnt open. I dont think there Are many people out there who would say that was wasted money or he had much choice in doing that. Interestingly, i was speakingl to one senior Business Leader with tory affiliations who said, if you had presented this Tax Rise as a covid. And Furlough Payback Tax and said to the business community, weve just spent hundreds of billions of pounds paying the wages of most of your staff and Keeping Businesses afloat, now we need some of that money back, it might have flown a bit better| than this social Are-health-service'>CAre Health Service one. | and as you pointed out, originally it was about Are'>Social CAre. Most of the money is going to go to the nhs and somej people in the Tory Backbenches Say The Nhs is a very effective sponge to soak up money, it always does, and if you dont do it with reform there might not be much left for Are'>Social CAre. Hang on a minute, we Are in the middle. Wevejust had one huge reform and theyre about to do another reform. The people who say that Are mostly people who dont like the nhs anyway, so they say its a black hole, its a sinkhole, its a sponge. Those Are really people who Are anti nhs. The truth about the Tax Situation is really interesting. People abroad might not know this, britain remains a low Tax Country compAred to equivalent european countries. Also, the amount of money that we spent on furloughing in the covid crisis, where every country had to reach into its pockets deep and spend a lot, we spent actually less, a lot less per head than america and germany and france and other countries. So the Idea Weve become this wild spendthrift country, as ever, we Are behind most of our equivalents. Lets talk about the cultural aspects of this, mina. What would your readers of the national make of this discussion that we have been having in this country for a long, long time about Are'>Social CAre, which is, what do we do with people who Cant Look after themselves, at any age, but we often think about older people who we put into homes and Are-home'>CAre Homes, where they Are understaffed and under resourced, what would their reaction be to how we Are dealing with this . Its a great question, martine, because its about, how do societies take Are-of'>CAre Of their older citizens . It was interesting, earlier on simon was referencing how politically, this is about the grey voter, what happens to the young voter . Whereas i think youll find in other Societies Therell be a sense of obligation to take Are-of'>CAre Of those who Are older, who would have worked and paid taxes under different circumstances, and now need to be taken Are-of'>CAre Of. I think the context of Are'>Social CAre is not always really understood outside of the uk, but what is understood is the nhs and the idea of free health cAre, when its compAred to other systems Around The World, theres a lot of respect towards the nhs and a sense that yes, they should, the nhs should be protected. But i think the point about, if this is put within the context of covid 19, the entire world is looking for ways of how to have their economies recover after covid 19. However, this is being put more in a political context, very uk focused domestic politics, and it is interesting to see the initial polling that has come out, the first polling after this, that the tories actually, since january for the first time, have taken a bit of a hit and Are at 33 popularity compAred to labour, that has gone forward with 35 , again the first time leading since january. For outside voters and overseas observers of the uk, that is really interesting because you would think that the tories saying that they would take Are-of'>CAre Of others, the social Are-aspect'>CAre Aspect of this, the Nhs Aspect of it, you wouldnt expect labour would actually get a bit of a bump in saying that this is not good enough, more has to be done. But i do think that ultimately, the reference to grey voters often is seen as somewhat derogatory for people who Are older and actually do deserve a little more cAre. And actually bother to turn out and vote in rather high numbers. How much of this though, polly, is down to us, the electorate . That we need to be treated like adults, but the politicians Are fearful of doing so by saying, look, if you want the services youre going to have to pay for them somehow. You know, you can only make the current amount of Taxes Stretch so far. Well, its a tiny bit of honesty to have raised taxes at all, so give them a little bit of credit for that, but they absolutely, as simon said, they have been absolutely dishonest as to what kind of tax it is. I mean, the national insurance is nothing that it says it is. And it is the most unjust tax where what they have ended up doing is getting young, low paid workers to pay for preserving the wealth of richer, older people, so that they can keep their homes and pass on their inheritance, and that is mostly paid by people of working age, a lot of whom havent got homes, havent Got Assets and capital. This country is incredibly wealth heavy, particularly in the older generation and the obvious thing to do is to go for reform of wealth tax, which labour had proposed back in 2010. It wasnt popular then, might not be again, but i think people Are coming round to the idea that actually, where the wealth is, the broadest shoulders, is where the tax should fall and i wouldnt be surprised if within a short time, Labour Party has its annual conference Coming Up, we dont hear some more talk about labour putting forward taxes that will affect those who have the most assets. I have got a quick questionl for polly, if i may, which is, do you think the conservatives Are storing up a problem and a rod for their own back, given what is happening with education and the allocation of these tax| rises for the future . I think they Are going to be in a lot of trouble because it is notjust. The Money Isnt going to cover health and people really worry about how long the waiting times Are to have an operation and this isnt really going to cover that, but they made it sound as if they will. They should perhaps have said, these Are very hard times and this is going to be difficult, instead of which they have made rather wild promises. Education is still 1 less than it was getting in 2010 and really, all the other departments, apart from defence, Are going to be hit very hard over the next few years and this government is pretending to be a spendthrift father Christmas Kind of government, not back to austerity, but austerity is exactly what most Government Spending is going to feel like in the next few years. Ijust wondered whether, simon and mina, you have come across many places in the world that would take out insurance policies. You can only do that for your Are'>Social CAre if you have got the money. Mina, do see that Around The World . I do, and i think there is also a question about Public Debt. The uks Public Debt exceeded 100 of gdp last year for the first time since1963, but there Are many countries Around The World that Are having to deal with Public Debt, but not Coming Up with solutions because, to pollys point, there Are tough political decisions to be made in the long term and unfortunately too much of politics in the uk and in too many countries Are based on election cycles. People already here Are talking about an election, but it really isnt due until 2024, and yet people Are thinking about, how will this reflect on the ballot boxes, rather than long term reforms that will be tough politically. There Are voices on the left, i would say, who would say that actually this is a false. Debate, the Rishi Sunak position that we have to keep Public Debt within 100 , which is the highest, as mina pointed out, for many decades, that actually, the reality is i we have got our own currency, we can print as much money. As we like and the bank of england is actually tacitly funding the Uk Government, so this is a false choice, that is one Point Of View which is quite prevalent| at the moment. For many decades, that actually, the reality is i we have got our own currency, we can print as much money. As we like and the bank of england is actually tacitly funding the Uk Government, so this is a false choice, that is one Point Of View which is quite prevalent| at the moment. The treasury would say thats not the case, and you have to pretend youve for a plan for public finances just to keep i international investors, who by the way, lend the Uk Government this money, youve got to keep them believing that you still. Believe in fiscal rectitude and cutting your cloth according to your means. That C Word again, confidence. I think the danger is, today we have just had figures showing that growth is practically flatlining. The danger is that by tightening the belt now, by the treasury winning out in his argument and cutting most of the spending in most departments, you do great harm to the economy. Its exactly what George Osborne did after the great crash of 2010. We need the government to be spending until growth is really well established and then perhaps pulling back a bit then. Thank you. Lets move on. Afghanistan is, to use the expression, too big to fail. Warnings abound about it being a Safe Haven for extremists. There Are worries about Human Rights violations, and a Deepening Crisis of Hunger And Hardship that will concentrate many minds on trying to find a way to work with the new government, the taliban, which was announced this week. A government with no female representatives. And top of the list of those seeking to help Are the world bank, the imf and banks across the globe planning, or perhaps thinking about, unlocking afghanistans frozen assets to avoid what the Secretary General of the un has described as an impending humanitarian disaster. Simon, just how much money belonging to afghanistan is locked away and where is it . 0k, well, there Are twol different strands to this. One is that the afghan government was dependent for 40 of its national income on foreign aid, so Thats Day to day spending. So if you cut that off, you have got a serious problem. The other one is that they had about 9 Billion to 10 billioni of foreign currency reserves and what countries generally do with that is they use. It to manage the value of their own currency in international markets. That has been frozen and what that can do is send currencies into freefall and you get hyperinflation. Now, we have seen a bit of that, but perhaps not| as much as we thought. So the question for The International Community now is exactly how economically do you approach the new taliban government . If you play hardball and say, were going to freeze this, l you risk a humanitarian crisis. If you dont, then you risk in a way economically legitimising and recognising the government in place. I so they do have some leverage. How you play it is an incredibly difficult. Diplomatic position, which i dont think countries Around The World Are. Theres any consensus about that yet. | indeed. What Are the opinions you Are hearing, mina . Because if you dont release these assets, it is the general population that will suffer, they Are going hungry, many people have tried to leave the country because they dont want to live in that regime. As simon says, the leverage is there, but it is not obvious how you use it. Well, what Are the levers that Are there . Part of it is this Recognition Element and that if assets Are released, it is a recognition of the government, implicitly. But also there is the leverage of aid and where aid is being sent and actually the one point that the taliban should be hearing is that aid is going directly to afghans who need it most. Half of the Afghan Population relies on aid from abroad and 75 of that population Are women and children. And frankly, there Are ngos, local afghan ngos, that have been working for over the last 18 19 years, and they should be the ones that Are enabled. If The International Community wanted to think of a way to get aid to those afghans who need it, they should say that those ngos. What remains of them, of course, some of them Are in hiding, some of their members have fled because they Are concerned, but many Are still on the ground, so they should be enabled, be it the uk or us or others, theyve worked with some of these local entities, they can turn around and use some of that leverage, turn to the taliban government and say, we want to work with those partners who we have trusted where we know where any Funding And Money comes will go directly to those people. So i think it could actually be quite a healthy channel to try to establish, not to leave afghanistan behind. And one of the biggest concerns, of course, to your point about the evacuations and refugees, is that now that the evacuations have really ended, people will stop paying attention. Some countries have already started an air corridor, an Air Bridge of aid. The uae, for example, has already announced its sent seven flights with medical aid and humanitarian assistance, and said they will continue. And there Are other regional countries who Are saying they will continue with humanitarian aid until there is a clear international position. Polly, a lot was talked about hopes of a different type of taliban. We have seen journalists beaten up for trying to report about these peaceful protests, where women have bravely gone onto the streets to say, what about us and our position in society . How realistic is it, though, to attach good governance, make Human Rights principles central to the taliban receiving help from The International Community . Yes, goodness, Arent those women astoundingly brave . You look at them with such admiration, but they will be intimidated and sent home. For the time being, we dont really know, and i think the evidence from the reporters on the ground is that the taliban itself isnt one thing. There Are those who want to be taliban. More moderate, and there Are quite a lot of people who have just been fighters all their life and have very sort of primitive views, really, about revenge and. And a very austere and puritanical kind of government. Certainly no women visible. So we dont know. But what really matters at this moment is that we dont let there be a humanitarian catastrophe. If there was a mighty famine now, it would be very hard to heal anything in afghanistan or to, you know, try and help the people there, to whom we do have a strong moral obligation. I think that in Britain One of the things we can offer is some of our experience of making peace in Northern Ireland, where you have entirely opposed groups and bringing them round the table and eventually coming to some kind of Power Sharing agreement. Some kind of modus vivendi. It wont be satisfactory, it wont be everything we would want, butjust about enough so that they can get the aid, they can have the money released. There will be some reckoning about, you know, a more widely acknowledged, broad based government, notjust a taliban government. I think thats within the realms of possibility, but only if we act very fast to help now. If we Are vengeful and allow a terrible famine to happen, there will be no influence left, it will be too late. I dont think it is in l the Talibans Interest to have a famine or a massive Food Shortage they want to be seen as a competent government and at the top levels, as our Colleague Lyse Doucet put it, they want to move i from guns to government. They have some sources of revenue, theres obviously the opium trade, Potentiallyl Selling Mining rights to china and some of that has. Been done in the past. That was enough to runi an insurgency, possibly. Its certainly not enough to run a government. I but the idea that i think. The taliban might be very sympathetic to the idea of a multinational humanitarian Assistance Programme because they do not want to be seen to be running. A government that is failing catastrophically to the detriment of its own people. Immediately as soon as the taliban took over, it was pointed out by a lot of commentators that China And Russia see opportunity in afghanistan. There Are huge mineral resources, big marble deposits, there will be no shortage of people queueing up to examine the l opportunities there. I think one of the i other problems is. I am no afghan expert, believe me, but one i of the things we have seen in terms of the conflicts i we have seen over the last few decades, the idea of a centralised government which knows exactly which bits, which extremities, what they Are doing. Some people have compAred it to a kind of Narco Gangster state, or what have you, and certainly it is full of regional people who often have different agendas to anyone talking. To the international press at the centre. So the idea that you can reason with one entity which has control over the whole country, i think is probably a bit naive. Mina, how concerned Are. . Can i just say this one quick thought . Audio cutting out tfrt, said. Narco gangster state. We could deal with that very quickly, if we had a sensible non Prohibition Attitude towards drugs in the west, you could cut into that trade immediately. Polly. Inaudible. We Are struggling to hear you a little bit. I am hoping the picture and the sound will settle down, so we can hearfrom you again in a moment. Mina, in terms of the concerns about proxy conflicts within afghanistan, regional powers, neighbours looking into the country and thinking that they could use the chaos to their own advantage, how Big A concern is that . It is a very big concern, but ijust want to go back to the point about russia and china. Russia and china decided to keep their embassies open. Russia and china have already continued talks with the taliban, but so has the united states, in terms of continuing talks with the taliban. They were the ones, lets not forget, who started talks with the taliban without any of these assumptions about Human Rights or what sort of representation, so im afraid it is a little late to be talking about some of these points. The british government and other governments could have chosen, from Western Europe and of course the us, could have chosen to at least have kept some diplomatic representation in kabul. Instead they all left and so if the chinese and russians Are to take advantage of that, i really think we have to pause before we blame them, where on the contrary we have countries like the united States Thatjust decided it was time to leave, regardless of what the consequences would be on the ground. As for the regional powers, of course not only is everyone going to seek their own interest, but they Are also concerned about Security Development is on the ground. There Are reports already of different foreign fighters possibly heading towards afghanistan, but at the same time those regional entities who Are already wreaking havoc inside afghanistan for the past two decades and even before that, so it is not something new, so to speak. What is new is, as simon was saying, is the taliban Are going to try to prove they can govern and they Are going to have a very difficult time doing that. They could have shown a bit more goodwill with the cabinet they uncovered. It seems that no, the cabinet is going to be filled with hardliners and people who dont really seem to believe in Power Sharing at this point, but also because they feel they have won. The way the united states conducted its withdrawal and its talks with the taliban allowed them to have that sense of success, but also not really feel that there is a need to negotiate, at least at this point. So again when we look at the Aid Issue this is the time to say, local entities on the ground, the regional, domestic different governance, give them a bit more autonomy by having aid delivered there. If that is possible, that could be a way to get back to some sort of negotiation process, but also enable some of the local actors there and give them a bit more agency. Simon, very briefly, if the leverage with the assets doesnt work, The Americans Are already talking about Drone Strikes if terrorism starts to flAre up again . That is the unknown question. The taliban have said i they Are not going to be a place, a Tent Under which Terrorist Organisations can gather. Obviously the invasion in the first place was i because alqaeda found Succour And Shelter within taliban controlled afghanistan. We just dont know. That is all we have time for this week. Our thanks to polly toynbee, Mina Al 0raibi and simonjack. Do join us again next week, same time same place. It will be me again, i think. Hello. Saturday brought a return to drier, brighter weather across much of the uk with skies like this. With the exception of the heavy rain in Northern Scotland, similar day to come on sunday for much of the uk. Minus the heavy rain in Northern Scotland with the addition of rain moving into wales from this Weather System approaching from the southwest. It will be Turning Wetter here as the day goes on. As the day begins, it will be a cooler start, it has been turning fresher from the north and there will be a lot of cloud around in scotland, Hill Fog and that cloud will slip south into northern england and with it, there will be a few light showers and at the same time northern and Western Scotland Brighten up during the day. A few sunny spells in Northern Ireland as there will be across East Anglia in southeast england. Cloud increasing in the midlands and especially in Southwest England and wales. Still a bit of uncertainty about the progression of this rain and it will impact parts and especially cornwall and devon and looks like it will cover much of wales by the time we get into the evening and temperatures for the most part into the teens to low 20s Are some in east Anglia And Southeast england. During the evening, Rain My Push into parts of the midlands especially the west midlands, May Fringe into merseyside, and perhaps effecting some in Southwest England overnight and into monday morning. The cleArest skies will be in scotland, northern Ireland And Northern Counties in northern england with a much Cooler Night to come with temperatures quite down into single figures with some sunshine as monday starts. Some uncertainty on monday about how far north this rain might get and might slip a little bit further on the western side of the uk, may be reaching towards the Southern Parts of scotland later in the day but the driest weather will be further east with a good deal of bright or sunny spells. With uncertainty about how far north rain will get, it will gradually clearly from eastern parts on tuesday. Brighter, sunnier conditions following him behind with the few showers and spots of rain in parts of Northern Ireland and scotland. And then after that, looks as if well get up a couple of drier dates, many drier days before we see another atlantic Weather System bearing down on us bringing some rain on Thursday Night into friday on the current timing. So, the main story about this Weeks Weather then, we Are going to see a Chance Of Rain depending on where you Are, earlier in the week and then largely dry in midweek before the Chance Of Rain coming back again later in the week. Hello and welcome to bbc news. Ceremonies have been taking place in the united states to commemorate the 20th Anniversary of the September 11th attacks. In new york, a Minutes Silence marked the exact time that the first hijacked plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center in 2001. President biden travelled to pay his respects at all three Attack Sites in new york, pennsylvania, and at the pentagon in virginia. With more on the days events, heres our North America Editorjon sopel. Drumbeat on this stunning clear september morning, they gathered in Solemnity And Sadness in lower manhattan