Now time for dateline london. Hello and welcome to dateline london. Im martine croxall. This week, our discussion is all about money. Here in the uk, the government has announced the biggest set of Tax Rises since the second world war. The imf, the World Bank and in fact banks everywhere are trying to decide whether they will release afghanistans frozen assets and thereby try to avoid a 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 with me in the studio is the bbc� S Business editor simonjack. Welcome to you all. So, to begin with, borisjohnson� s government has announced the largest Tax Increases in the uk for decades to try to fix the nhs and the Social Care sector. Some say 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 toynbee, do you believe what the government is proposing will solve the problem with Social Care, which weve 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 its using will go to compensating richer families who are paying at the moment so that they pay a bit less. Theyll still be paying. I think a lot of people will be quite shocked to find theyre 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 nobody would. And there will be very little left over from 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 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 does not solve any of those. A little bit, but probably about the same little bit that it has been given a three year as a bung to keep going. And to begin with, the money is going to go to the nhs anyway, rather than 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, weve 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 thats doing| the rounds at the moment is, good politics, bad policy,| in the sense that the politics of it is that by increasing national insurance, which Uk Viewers will know has a mythology about it which is that its some kind of piggybank you put Money In and that means you will be looked after in your retirement and beyond. In fact it isjust another tax, i and therefore politically raising that is much easier, i less problematic than raising income tax. The other part of the problem i with 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 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, which the tories think they have a strong hold on, and neglecting younger voters. Thats why the Labour Party was in such a difficult position, in a way. A lot of people think, how can you vote against this when basically government after government, and generation after generation have failed to grasp this nettle . And even some labour leaders, like andy the mayor of manchester, who spoke to yesterday, said you have got to have some credit for trying to take this on, but the mechanism through which they have done it is very hard to justify. The other thing is if therel is a huge political moment 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 i sure you get reforms along the way and many of their own backbenchers are saying this marks The End of that era. In retrospect, it will be looked back on this moment in british politics. As a very significant moment in british politics. The conservative government, Rishi Sunak, surprised a lot of people and 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 a waste of money or he had much choice in doing that. Interestingly, i was speaking 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 so do the business community, we have just spent hundreds of billions of poundsl 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 the social i care Health Service one. And as you Pointed Out, originally it was about Social Care. Most of the money is going to go to the nhs and some people in the Tory Backbenches Say The Nhs i is a very effective sponge to soak i up money as it always does, and if you dont do it with reform there might not be much left for Social Care. Hang on a minute, we are in the middle of one huge reform and they are about to do another reform. People who say that are mostly people who dont like the nhs anyway, so they say it is a black hole, a sponge. Those are people who are really anti nhs. The truth about the Tax Situation is really interesting, for people abroad might not realise this, britain remains a low Tax Country compared to equivalent european countries. Also, the amount of money that we spent on bailing out people in the covid crisis, while every country had to reach deep into its pockets and spend a lot, we spent actually less, a lot less than America And Germany and some other countries, per head. So the idea that we have become this wild spending country, as ever we are behind most of our equivalents. Lets talk about the cultural aspects of this, Mina Al 0raibi. What would your readers of the national make of this discussion that weve been having in this country for a long, long time about Social Care . Which is what do we do with people who Cant Look after themselves . At any age, but we often think about all the people who we put into homes and 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 Care Of their older citizens . It is interesting earlier on, simon was saying about this is about the grey voter and what happens to the young voter, whereas i think you will find that other societies would have a sense of obligation to take Care Of those who are older, who would have worked and paid taxes under different circumstances, and now need to be taken Care Of. I think the context of Social Care is not always understood outside the uk, but what is understood is the nhs and that idea of free Health Care when compared to other systems Around The World is a lot of respect for the nhs and that sense that, yes, 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 for the first time since january have taken a bit of a hit on the 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 Care Of others and the social Care Aspect of this and the nhs aspect of it, you wouldnt expect labour would 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 these services, youre going to have to pay for them somehow. 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 bit of credit for that, but as simon said, they have been absolutely dishonest as to what kind of tax it is. I mean, the national insurance is nothing like it says it is. It is the most unjust tax. 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 who are working age, a lot of whom has havent got homes, havent Got Assets and capital. This country is incredibly well heavy, particularly in the older generation and the obvious thing to do is go from the 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 wealthiest, the broadest shoulders is where the tax should fall. And i wouldnt be surprised within a short time if. And labour has its annual Party Conference coming up. If we dont hear someone talk about labour putting forward some more taxes that will affect those who have the most assets. I have got a quick question i for polly, if i may, which is do you think the conservatives are storing up a problem i and rod for their own back, given what is happening. With education and the allocation of these Tax Rises for the future . J i think they are going to be in a lot of trouble because it is notjust. The money is going to cut the health and people really worried about how long 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 ideally 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. We can only do that for your 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 since 1963, 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 the election, but it really isnt due until 2024, but people are thinking about how will this reflect in the ballot boxes, rather than long term reforms that will be tough politically. There are voices on the left, i would say, who say actually this is a false debate and the Rishi Sunak position that we have to keep Public Debt within 100 , which is the highest for many decades, as mina has. Pointed out, but actually the reality is we have got our own currency and can print as much money as we like and the bank of England L is actually tacitly funding the government, so this is a false choice. That is one point of views which is quite prevalent. At the moment. The treasury would say that is not the case and you have to pretend you have a plan for public finances just to keep international investors, who by the wavelength of the Uk Government this money, you have got to keep on believing that you still believe in fiscal rectitude and cutting across according to your means. The C Word again confidence. 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 this 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 in 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 announced this week by the taliban. 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 to unlock afghanistans frozen assets to avoid what the Secretary General of the un has described as an impending humanitarian disaster. Or perhaps they are thinking about unlocking those assets. Simon, just how much money belonging to afghanistan is locked away and where is it . There are two different strands to this and one is that the afghan government was dependent for 40 of its national income on foreign i 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 to 10 Billion of foreign currency reserves, i and what countries generally do with that is they use it to manage the value of their own currency. And 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 not as much as we thought. The question for the international community now is exactly economically do you approachj the new taliban government . If you play hardball. And risk this, you risk a humanitarian crisis. If you dont, you riskj anyway 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, i which i dont think countries Around The World, there is any consensus about that yet. Indeed, and what are you hearing about this, mina . Because if you dont release these assets, it is the general population that will suffer, theyre going hungry and many people have tried to leave the country because they dont want to live in that regime. 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 if the 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 them for their members have fled because they are concerned, but many are still on the ground, so they should be enabled via the uk and others who work with these entities, they can turn around and use that Leverage And Turn to the taliban and say, we want to work with those partners who we have trusted who 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 refugees, is that now that the evacuation have really ended, people will stop paying attention. Some countries have already started an air corridor, an Air Bridge of aid. The uae has for example already announced it will send seven flights with medical aid and humanitarian assistance, and said they will continue in their other regional countries. They are saying they will continue with humanitarian aid until there is a clearer international position. Polly, a lot was talked about hopes of a different type of taliban. Weve 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 also 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, orto, you know, try to 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, but just 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 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 level, as our Colleague Lyse Doucet put it, they want to move from guns to government. They have some other sources of revenue, obviously opium trade, potentially selling Mining Rights to china and some of that has l been done in the past. That was enough to runi an insurgency, possibly. It is certainly not enough to run a government. But the idea that i think. The taliban might be very sympathetic to the idea of a Multi International of a multi national humanitarian Assistance Programme | because they do not want to be seen to be running a government. That is failing catastrophically to the detriment of his 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, theres big marble deposits, there will be no shortage of people queueing up to examine the opportunities there. I think one of the i other problems is. And i am no afghan expert, believe me, but one of the things we have seen in terms of the conflicts we have seen over the past few decades, j the idea of a centralised government that knows exactly which bits, what they are doing in the extremities. I some people have compared it. To a kind of Narco Gangster State, what have you, and certainly it is full of regional people. Who often have different i 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 a bit naive. Mina, how concerned are. Can i just say this one quick thought . You said the Narco Gangster State we could deal with that very quickly, but if you had a simple non Prohibition Attitude towards. Inaudible in the west, you could cut that immediately. Inaudible we are struggling to hear you a little bit. I am hoping the Picture And 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 its 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 that just decided it was time to leave, regardless of what the consequences would be on the ground. As for the regional powers, of Course Everyone as not only 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 that they have won. The way the united states conducted its patrol and its talks with the cabinet allowed them to have that sense of success, but also not really feel that theres 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 they are not going to be a place, a tent under which Terrorist Organisations can gather. L obviously the invasion in the first place was 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. Thank you for watching and goodbye. This is bbc news. The headlines Emma Raducanu makes history at the us open, beating Leylah Fernandez to become the first british woman to win a Grand Slam singles final in 44 years. The queen is among those congratulating the teenager following her stunning victory in new york, just months after finishing her a levels. To have a note from her, i was extremely honoured and very grateful that she took notice of my tennis. I cant believe it, im maybe going to frame that letter or something. 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