Shadow chancellor John Mcdonald will measure this budget with joining me now from geneva in switzerland is someone who has advised a shadow chancellor standing cofounder of the basic Income Earth Network guy thanks so much for coming back on so after years of tory austerity the un called it callous policies driven by a political desire for social reengineering how well prepared is the chancellor to offer policies in response to Something Like coronavirus well to be frank i think its almost irresponsible to be having a budget today the chancellor is a young man whos never had a senior government position before and hes been in the job for weeks to prepare a complex budget and an extremely sensitive moment in our modern history when weve not only got the pandemic rushing towards us but the World Economy is at the very very fragile state. Bad mistakes at national and International Level could lead us into a big recession i want to get to those macro level top topics in a 2nd but im not sure in geneva or if youve been following it but obviously Boris Johnson fired his defacto finance minister a few weeks ago and they say its Dominic Cummings who is the real chancellor of the country so we can take maybe something from Dominic Cummings his blog he said he would support a nigga to income tax to boost growth what do you make of that in deed happens at the budget today well i im around the worried by the way that the government is relying very much on this shadowy figure who has not been elected Dominic Cummings and i think the way that the previous chancellor was pushed out of his position by having is advisors sacked i think thats very ominous when he comes to talk about a negative income tax im surprised if he knows really what that means i dont think we need a negative income tax in the sense that it was originally conceived by Milton Friedman many many years ago but i do think we need a major reform of our welfare system because universal credit is one of the most disgraceful social policies certainly in my lifetime we need to have a basic income where every citizen has a right to basic Economic Security and that i think would be tremendously helpful in combat in both the medical crisis that is associated with the pandemic and the social scryer with homelessness rising morbidity rising death rates in certain age groups and so on and and also i think weve got to realize that this. Instance e. U. s economy is stalling the chinese are closing their factories and we need a multilateral balanced mature approach so i think weve got a whole combination of things and to force someone whos not in an elected position to be throwing out policies on an ad hoc basis when we have a new young chancellor without any practical experience in the high level politics is meant to be delivering a budget today well im sure the Chinese Government would say their opening factories in the trump government would certainly say that the economy is doing fine but in fairness to Boris Johnson obviously universal credit was accepted by the electorate at the election the abolition of it which was proposed by the labor party was rejected at the ballot box if you were advising the shadow chancellor today John Mcdonnell how on earth would you be able to advise coping with coronavirus given the stricture immigration controls of low paid jobs of their effect in the economy we have one of the lowest hospital beds because after. In fact weve lost 43 percent of them general and acute bed since 97 how how could you possibly cope with years of brown blair major in government well i think weve had 10 years of austerity which Boris Johnson and his ministers backed faithfully in that period and that those 10 years of austerity have sort of held back our infrastructure denuded Public Social Services of brazil was is and have created a perfect storm of circumstances in which a crises on top of all that leave us very ill prepared to deal with. It and i think the chancellor has has a very difficult job today hes going to throw a few tidbits that will appear to reduce poverty that will appear to be addressing the Infrastructure Program problems but those problems are the result of 10 years of under successive conservative governments supported by Boris Johnson and if i was still advise ing John Mcdonnell and his successors in the labor party i would say that theyve got to hold the government to account one of the 1st things i would do which would help combat the virus and the effects of the virus is i would overhaul the welfare system because millions of our fellow citizens are suffering from the threat of homelessness actual homelessness rising morbidity and a lot of those problems will be intensified by the virus and the effects of the virus will be much worse because people are in such vulnerable social circumstances you see you mentioned the chancellor and just a moment for being so young the the chance let me know and be allowed to have his own advisors obviously we know hes been married to a billionaire or a billionaire is daughter he worked at Goldman Sachs doesnt that help him in making his budget the former bank of England Governor Mark carney i think he leaves his post in a few days time also former Goldman Sachs actually struck a deal to bail out goldman should a 2008 crisis repeat itself do you think we can expect anything about tax havens and tax avoidance in the budget given his past. I dont think you should hold up too many hope. So of such a set of moves youre right he worked for Goldman Sachs for some years didnt distinguish himself in any way and then was involved in the hedge fund and investing in a number of American Companies including private Health Companies which might be indicative of which way the trade deals with the United States might go and with the privatization of our n. H. S. So there are a lot of worrying signs there but i think its too early for us to rush to judgment theres nothing wrong with being being young and inexperienced i just worry that he wont have the gravitas and weight to with stand some rather shadowy people behind him you mention privatisation the Doctors Association union here says that not even one percent of doctors in a survey believe the n. H. S. Is well prepared for a coronavirus if you were advising the chancellor today would you say that all outsourced private contracts should be renationalise and brought back into the state sector i think those those structural changes are desperately needed but i think the 1st priority must be to increase preparation for the oncoming effects of the virus i i think were seeing the the results of years of resource to prevail and privatisation by stealth but i think the chancellor must do is set aside significant extra resources for responding to the immediate needs of of people who are going to be very sick and very frightened when we do need the structural changes that preserve the n. H. S. In the in its. Original form or close to it and deep privatized what has already been privatized i think that that is a longer term challenge. Theres been some controversy in the United States over the bill that the trumpet ministrations sponsor because of its its impacts from big pharma in that they may be able to charge what they like for any possible seen or cure for coronavirus despite the fact the taxpayer is funding the research what do you think of those responses in these economies to coronavirus you know it may or may benefit the bottom line of Big Pharmaceutical Companies at the expense of the population well i think thats merely the latest sign of the fact that we are living in an age of rentier capitalism in which the owners of property including intellectual property are making most of the money while most other people are struggling with low wages with fluctuating wages and loss of benefits and lack of entitlement to social services and i think that this pit in my eyes is the fragile nature of the International Economy with Household Debt in the United States and a record high corporate debt and also a record high the disruption to the World Economy by the outcome of the virus could tip all of the the worlds economy into a deep recession that will will be very similar in the intensity to the financial crisis of 2008 and i think just hope that governments and multinational organizations and multilateral organizations such as the world bank and the i. M. F. Have learned their lessons from the calamitous mistakes made in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and those those mistakes included the policy of quantitative easing. I which they pumped be hundreds of billions of dollars euros and pounds into the Financial Markets to enrich the financiers and the big corporations at the expense of really lowering the Living Standards of millions and millions of people will some of called it the new liberal plague reza guys addict thank you. After the break whos feeling the war coronavirus sends 2 of the worlds oil superpowers russia and saudi arabia into a price about the well traders watch wrong to see who will blink 1st and why all British Special forces in syria and his u. K. Coronavirus money being funneled into big pharma profits we are told the Home Office Minister norman baker told us of all coming up about 2 and going on the ground. A fairly significant portion of the role that was attracting and news media at the saw in the china style will ensure a stitch keep focused feel and i mean the steel wool for the program or not and i do it is made for bush but i will push the council could issue i mean he got us no. 6 and hes. Kind of financial for a long shot today with all the Money Laundering 1st to visit this gas into 3 different. Oh good thats a good start well we have our 3 banks all set up here maybe something in your something in america something overseas in the Cayman Islands or do we know all these banks are complicit in the kleptocracy who decide to give my phone and say hey im ready to do some serious Money Laundering ok lets see how we did while weve got a nice laundry watch for max and for stacy oh beautiful jewelry how about. Luxury automobile again from that you know what Money Laundering is highly illegal dont be a watch guys record. What is the difference between embarrassing gaps in elder abuse joe biden certainly excels at the former and maybe is the victim of the latter we are told the mention of Mental Health is not limited to what degree does the public the right to know. Welcome back his neighbor nations arguably fall into a state of panic amid coronavirus fears which threaten to rock the Global Economy what actually makes nations fail joining me now via skype from chicago is the british economist and author of why nations fail Professor James robinson thanks so much and for coming on how resilient are the economies where the 20018 canonic a day genetically began to a real contagion literal contagion like coronavirus well i want you mean china i think from our perspective. Theres a lot of there are lots of problems about how resilient china is you know china has what we call extract of Political Institutions so theyre good at doing some things but theyre very bad at doing other things. Getting people to cooperate with them and trust them which is essential for fighting Something Like this is not will things that the Chinese Government is good at but chinas already reporting fewer increases in numbers of cases than where youre talking to me from the United States make china is closing down some of the pop up hospital they built well it may be reporting that but i dont think we trust the information and i think one of the problems in china has been you know the lack of proper information about how many cases there are. And you know china distorts its National Income accounts it distorts its growth statistics we know that so so that will should be fairly skeptical about so given the fact that the w. H. O. Is relying on data from china and the whole world in terms of the medical fraternity and sorority is talking about reliant on data from china you think its not worth the paper its written. Well i dont know that but i think you know you have to prepare for eventualities which dont rely on china that china truthfully revealing information because of course some people have been commenting that since the austerity that the u. N. Has said took took over this country after the 28 crash in fact presided over by David Cameron who says one of his favorite books is your book since then the numbers of beds the numbers of acute hospital beds and so on theyve continued to decline and our Health Infrastructure has suffered so wed be in a much poorer position to respond to a threat like coronavirus be id be quick to add that you know that we in no way into d all stock David Camerons policy and he certainly didnt derive it from our book certain you know i mean we emphasize a lot how Critical Public Services are and investment in Public Services and i think this this virus is a kind of wake up call you know this we had it below but it polar started in sierra leone you know where we you can easily lock down but you cant so easily lock down will happen and and so so i think you know we should rethink this will lead us to rethink lots of decisions that weve made perhaps about health and investment in services that were too shortsighted but everyone seems to agree that china has been swiftest and being able to respond to coronavirus and thats why its effectively in terms of a crisis over as it will soon be in south korea what implications does this have for the kind of things youve been writing about when it comes to liberty should we be taking lessons from the communist party of china. I dont think so i mean you know to the extent that draconian measures banning movement and you know closing things are attractive from an epidemiological point of view then the Chinese Government is good at that you know the Chinese Government is very good at locking up hundreds of thousands of people and forcing people to live in certain areas you know in france has italy of course is banned or movement as well do you think there. Think that a response like one made on c n b c b by a presenter saying instead of having stocks losing value week to week in the crisis being eaten on gated better to give coronavirus to everyone have it all sorted out and the death toll in terms of morbidity will be the same as it would be over months rather than days or do you think that is a some kind of a free market. For a lot of the gone mad when it comes to corona virus yeah i think the best evidence we have for example with respect to the spanish flu after the 1st will war was you know within the United States at least the more rapid Public Health interventions were in Public Health measures the lower the mortality rate was so i you know i think the idea that the mortality rate is kind of independent of these Public Health interventions is just factually incorrect so i mean obviously people are talking about super tuesday coronavirus do you think the long term implications of say the oil war as its been termed between saudi arabia and russia will be considered a bigger deal than coronavirus in the medium term that you know theres a strategic calculation being made by russia about you know the not the us is now the Worlds Biggest Oil producer which is probably the 1st time its been like that maybe it was like that in the late 19th century back in the days of rockefeller but but you know i think that but that the fracking and many of these techniques for producing oil in the United States are only vial. Well that relatively high prices so i think one of those strategies behind keeping prices low is to make the u. S. A little production and profitable so its a kind of long run geopolitical an Economic Strategy that the russians are playing i dont know quite how disastrous that it was the price of oil tends to be if when the price of oil its low thats for the good for the economy so i would think that the short term effect at least is positive not negative which is different from coronavirus Professor James robinson thank you well joining me now to give you some of the weeks top stories is former u. K. Home Office Minister norman baker norman welcome back to the program obviously appalling he was arguably coming from italy and from other countries about coronavirus but some people are making money out of it its not all stock markets plummeting oil present plummeting when people with money from anything into my country when i dont make any money out of it are not making any money the tragic situation so this is prompted lists big pharma to stem the Coronavirus Crisis an industry hope to win him over for good and in a sense trump is in a difficult situation because hes been attacking the pharmaceutical industry in the usa maybe exploiting the position in the states making too much money and here youre going to go to them cap in hand and say can you help me out with this particular medical situation that the states and embryos now has i mean i understand that the bill originally in the United States was supposed to protect price gouging by the Big Pharmaceutical Companies after the taxpayer paid for the or indeed for the vaccines or the goal of the goal of a coronavirus over here do you think theres a degree of lobbying in their restaurants or westminster or Big Pharmaceutical Companies are saying give us the Taxpayer Research and Development Money and then you can pay to look at the bottom line is that what the public need to any particular point to not necessarily commercially what a Pharmaceutical Company wants to produce the same thing its not the reason the reasons we have for not to inaction on the antibiotics for example over the years because of no money in it particularly the. The period of development to so long and the payback is short if youre taking a commercial view so therefore the government whatever government it is has to be involved in to encourage on the unis matters the issue then comes that if the couple put the money in who gets a profits thereafter who are asking why do you think its not a pandemic is concerned as considered by the w. H. O. Well this is rise of what i call while the core of epidemic around the pandemic and if you look at the dictionary a pandemic appears to be more serious and implies that the contagion takes place away from the original source but one thing is for sure coronavirus well being tragic for thousands of people around the world is is a good thing for some people arguably because perhaps less attention to this there might have been paid tanks a group yes heres our 11 time trade and boy the walking disaster that is Prince AndrewPrince Andrew hanspeter shots or pinochet lawyers f. B. I. Pursues probe into royals links with paedophile epstein and of course whats happened here is that Prince Andrew after a disastrous interview on the b. B. C. Was preserver nongrata he was told not to be a member of all family in any public sense i didnt think i would hear the commonwealth he didnt see the Westminster Abbey on monday well outside certainty but he also said on the pressure fortys after that terrible interview that he would cooperate with the f. B. I. And give him every possible assistance well its very possible sustained short about actual help because what hes done has been keeping well out of the way and now employing so were told a specialist in extradition in terms of legal qualifications to try and stop him being taken to the u. S. To answer questions always or even answer them here but he denies all the allegations and as you say it does appear that he doesnt want to voluntarily submit to questioning in the United States but why would he think of hiring pinochets lawyer the british backed dictator of chile responsible for torture and disappearances as an example the answer to your question is of course that pinochet was successful in that particular case and Prince Andrew did out things you can be successful as well in avoiding any so. From justice or accountability for what he did ok well the 11 institution that has a lot of good p. R. And really knows how to do p. R. Arguably we invite the israeli ambassador to london on this program is the government of israel this look at this from her rants this is actually in my view the most serious and disgusting story were covering today 42 knees in one day israeli snipers open up about shooting in gaza protesters you know this is totally inhumane and for a democracy like israel which is disgusting you know ones are not that are in any way that if they have course of right to exist not that i also that in some ways the arab states have been there almost had a 1000000 tons of denying the right of israel to be searched but theres no excuse for this sort of behavior on all what exactly has happened because this hasnt been really covered it is written as record sales to israel so obviously we have a robust Sales Strategy the government says and weve been selling weapons to the Israeli Defense forces what do you what is this evidence and what is proved we have it whats happening here are the Israeli Defense forces on the border who are told to take care of the palestinians by shooting the kneecaps rather than anything else and theres lots of pictures of palestinians Walking Around lost boys who have one leg im sure that its going to be almost a game its like a game in a fairground to see how many they can pick off its a contest and theyre not teaching palestinians as human beings this is a subspecies now for these Israeli Soldiers but are sort actually what i want to have but for once when i had to regularly i was in my council days and what worried me up which was not the way the animals were killed it was a deadness in the eyes of the men who were there undertaking the killing of if you kill every day and shoot every day people you lose any sense of morality and sense of compassion thats whats happening here well. Said the corroborates what has been found by United Nations in investigators it was then as in coronavirus. May have appeared in gaza the largest open air prison camp on earth im not sure whether International Corporate news values allow for that story to emerge i dont know what it will or not but i do know that what we have in the west bank and gaza is now an Apartheid Regime so look south africa which had been created by the israelis want to liberally well britain has at least been saying that the military may be involved in our fight against coronavirus but this story from the daily mirror suggests that we have soldiers that the parliament doesnt particularly know about in syria already have scramble to save s. E. s soldier wounded and all you teach lotion in syria whether its be just on the practice for what i guess is doing in syria well i mean we dont know what theyre doing in syria but its been Standard Practice for us to use acts against people on the cover in all sorts of reason in all sorts of situations in the middle east where for decades youre a Home Office Minister and you know or do you know that there are special forces in countries that may be related in some way to a policy that you may be carrying out or britain has been talking about Foreign Policy that much press sakes i dont think rob visited turkey dont you just read one in saudi arabia of course where theres quite a lot of instability being well that wasnt a home Office Matter it was a foreign Office Matter but i do suppose the Foreign Office even knew themselves over for a few minutes knew themselves they would regard these i think the army others as operational matters so even the Prime Minister might not know the army also i mean this probably is probably an overarching. Authorization for the Prime Minister or for the foreign secretary for particular actions to be taken place in a general sense and then the detail of it is left to the army to sort out its own big thank you thats it for the show well be back on saturday ahead of the 9 Year Anniversary of mass demonstrations of damascus that were hijacked by international proxies to from end the syrian war that killed wounded or displaced millions until that human touch residential meter enjoy the underground or you twitter found that instagram and. Facebook. Join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and ill be speaking to guest of the world of Politics School business im showbusiness ill see you then. And were going to fulfill the repeated promises apologise to the people and tell myself that you know we all pots to. Be. Pretty. Pretty good. Now you want to. Know. All. The cut because. I can link up my young budget we talk about trump hes gonna demystified so political space if you werent clear before like these folks are no better deny us so you know i you know you can reach out to friends say you know take responsibility maybe run for office at the end of the day you know i dont see how we rely on a system where these people get away with you know misrepresenting us why not step up and do it yourself. Former u. S. Army Intelligence Analyst to Chelsea Manning attempts suicide in her jail cell her lawyers say she has been refusing to testify in the governments. Wiki leaks probe. As a coronavirus takes hold around the globe the World Health Organization labels that the outbreak as pandemic. In the latest of what appears to be politically motivated attacks in germany the car of a prominent or right wing politician is torch. Whenever a car set on fire or. The coffin and all of. Its attacked you can be sure this