BBC sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, hope you had a good weekend. Keir Starmer has done that classic thing Prime Ministers do when they go and sit on the this morning sofa. They reveal things about their life in a way that afterwards you can sort of imagine them thinking, oh, why should I say that? So first of all, we learned that he did an escape room on Sunday for his daughter's birthday.
insert your own metaphor there. And we also heard his go-to meal. It's the one the kids make me do over and over again. It's a pasta bake where you do layers of sort of handmade sauce, then different cheeses and you layer it up with a sauce on top, which I wouldn't say is necessarily the best dish.
Is it lasagna? No, no, no, no, no, no. The way it works on a sass, I like to cook on a sass a day. So I say, I get the rest of people come out and I go through, I'm going to do this, then the kids get involved, when we negotiate and we end up with a pasta bake.
Very, very often sounds delicious, but I think he's a bit frustrated because he wants to cook something fancier. So throughout this episode, I will be asking everyone who appears what their go to meal is. I've got three. And I think the tastiest one is Nigella's fish finger border, which I actually made on this podcast once for Nigella beat that. Right. Let's see what else we can rustle up in the newscast kitchen with some actual ingredients that are the news on this episode of newscast.
Newscast. Newscast from the BBC. I like landscape. I don't think I'm being rude. Japping. Unemployed people who are overweight. That is not the agenda. It's the fun police working overtime. A star is born Milan. So hurt that America let us have. Actually, I think we need a British Trump. Take me down to Downing Street. Let's go have a tour. Blimey.
Hello, it's Adam in the news cast studio, and shortly I'll be catching up with my old Brexit cast Mucker Catcher Adler, because she's been sitting down for a very rare interview with former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, so I want to hear all about that. But the other thing I want to hear all about, because I've not had a chance to tune into it today,
was the CBI Conference, the Confederation of British Industry, the big employers' organization, and they were meeting for the first time since Rachel Reeves' budget, which put a lot of taxes on business in the shape of the increase to employers' national insurance contributions. So we will catch up with Chris Mason in a second to hear what he made of Rachel Reeves' appearance at that event, but I'm pleased to say we're joined now by BBC Business Editor,
Simon Jack, who I understand has just been chucked out of the venue where the event was happening. Not because of bad behaviour though, Simon. No, the cleaners are in and we're out. So, yeah, just literally opposite Parliament at the QE2 Centre.
where some of the big you know the big businesses get together for their annual shindig to listen to the Chancellor basically defend a huge tax-rising budget for business and a lot of people in the room licking their wounds and I went round the room and talked to a number of people and a lot of them felt that they were born the brunt of a tax-rising budget.
Is that basically what everyone there is saying? Or is that a minority? Or how does it... If you had to draw a pie chart of kind of the disgruntledment in that room, what would it look like?
Well, the CBI did their own survey of about 300 of their members. And two thirds of them said they were going to cut hiring their hiring plans. And half of them said that they were going to dial down investments. And as Rayne and Smith, the Boston CBI said, investment is the key to growth. So a lot of people shaking their heads saying, you know, we were wooed. We were very interested. We were very labor curious about your pro
investment, pro-business, pro-growth plans, and a lot of them offer that whirlwind romance before the election, feeling a little bit cheated, a little bit let down by it. Now, not everyone depends who you speak to. If you're in hospitality or in retail, sectors which employ quite a lot of lower paid younger workers who have seen a big rise in their wages, which are announced alongside the budget of 16% for
18 to 20-year-olds, 6.7% for 21+. If you add all that together, plus a raft of new workers' rights, and people are saying it's just getting more expensive and riskier, harder to fire, people who don't work out, and that has changed the dial. It has moved the dial on whether we're going to take more people on and invest more money in the business.
I think when I've been doing various programmes over the last few weeks and like speaking to Labour MPs or ministers, they say, well, you know what? Business, they like to have a bleat when their costs go up, but actually judge them in a year's time on their actual behaviour. Is there a case here from maybe businesses complaining about some costs and they'll find a way and actually there won't really be an economic impact of all of this?
Well, I mean, the OBR thinks the economic impact will be pretty minimal, both on employment and on inflation. But if you're in a room like that, it's the first time they've sort of faced the chance that is answering for her budget.
you hit any group of people with £25 billion tax rise, they're not going to say thanks very much. But what they are waiting to hear is, you know, so what's the rest? What's phase two, sort of planning reform, capital spending by the government because of the new fiscal rules, maybe that will work out. And as I say, there are some sectors who literally have the wind at their back, like the renewables and infrastructure and all that kind of stuff. And for them, they are plowing ahead with their investments because they think, you know, the government is
putting wind in their sales and into their wind turbines. So they were much more positive. But I would say that on the whole, people are saying, you want growth, you want us to provide the growth, you're tying one hand behind our back. Chris Mason is here. Hello, Chris. Hello, both. Hi. So we've got some growth in the number of people on this podcast. Chris, Rachel Reeves seemed kind of supremely unbothered by getting a bit of a frosty reception from business.
Yeah, I suppose she tried to do that relatability thing, didn't she? I was struck listening to her facing questions and making her argument that she was trying to kind of make an argument that she was the chief financial officer of the country and if you're a
chief financial officer in business and you take the job on and things are as she claims in a in a ropey state in a ropey estate then you were led to believe in advance of you taking the appointment then you've got to take some difficult decisions and you should take pride in those difficult decisions early on. I mean we shouldn't be surprised that that is her argument because you know we've had a variation of that obviously ever since pretty much the election but I guess that was perhaps as she would see a sensible way to frame an argument in front of
In front of that audience and slightly sharper I think line from her with her variations on this I talked to her on the day of the budget and she said something broadly similar but I think you know when she says explicitly I'm not coming back with more borrowing or more taxes.
She's saying that in a more direct way than I think she said so far. And I love the kind of understatement. I guess knowing understatement really from her when she talked about there being a lot of feedback on the budget. People only ever use the word feedback as a euphemism, don't they? And now we can actually hear Rachel Reeves saying in her own words, this budget was a one-hit wonder. It will not be repeated.
Businesses can now be certain that we're never going to have to do a budget like that again. We have now got out into the open all the pressures on public finances and on public services and we've set the spending envelope for the course of this Parliament.
Simon, what did you make about her saying that? Because that was quite a bold statement. OK, she sort of made similar statements before. But as Chris was saying, that's the most explicit she's been. But that is what they call in the trade, a hostage to fortune. Never. It's a big word, isn't it? Sorry, Simon. For sure. I mean, that is a promise that no one in that room today will forget and will try and hold her to. Because I said, you know, it was a very, very bold promise. No more borrowing, no more taxes, never having to do a budget like that again.
As you say, that will be a stick they will beat her with if she ever does try to come back for more. So yes, to be honest, I was actually quite surprised in the room that it wasn't a bit angrier than it was. I think a lot of people are polite at the moment. There was a sound of one hand clapping at some point.
But a lot of people are saying let's see whether the promised things like planning reform, capital spending, et cetera, can move the needle on growth. But for most of the people in the room, they felt they were, particularly if you are, as I say, a business which employs a lot of low paid.
younger people. If you talk to hospitality and retail, they think it was borderline catastrophic what happened in the budget, and they've said that on many occasions. But if you talk to some other bigger businesses, particularly renewables, they say that you actually let's see what happens. But there was one intervention from the stage, from the company that owns McVitties, the biscuit company,
And he said it is harder. So this came from the stage. It's harder now to make the case for investment here in the UK. And Chris, just on a different note. What's this thing I'm seeing about a petition that two million people have signed?
Well, it's a petition that two million people have signed. Excellent reporting there. There we go. Back to you in the studio, Adam. So yeah, so there's been this mechanism for quite a while now at Westminster where you can set up a petition on the government website and try and attract lots of people to sign it. And there is this petition which is now too complimentary about the government and demanding that there should be a general election.
and get rid of labour, et cetera, et cetera, is the broad kind of sentiment of it. And at north of 2 million people, I haven't got the actual link in front of me right now. And the mercy of this being a podcast is that it's recorded anyway, so it might be considerably higher or... Could be 10 million by the time you're listening to this. Anyway, rather a lot of folk have...
signed it, and what is it? It's a straw in the wind. Now it may be that rather a lot of the folk who have signed it would never all that predisposed towards Labour in the first place, because obviously millions and millions and millions of folk voted for parties other than Labour, even on a night where Labour won big.
at the general election. And the Prime Minister today was out and about, he was on the this morning so fairly wrong, saying that it's obviously wasn't that surprised that there might be a collection of folk who would be of that view. A, because some may not have been wildly predisposed to him in the first place. And secondly, because of the kind of stuff that they've tried to take on in these first couple of months. But I always think with stuff like this, I don't know,
We perhaps shouldn't be that surprised. There's a context which is that there was, you know, there was petitions back in the noisy days of the Brexit rouse where there was, you know, six million or whatever it was, people talking about, you know, as they saw it, Brexit not working or Brexit shouldn't happen or there should be another referendum, et cetera, et cetera. But it's always worth saying in these situations, you know, would a government rather these things didn't happen and weren't there?
Well, yeah, and is it an imperfecture in the wind about a lack of wild enthusiasm and a willingness, even if it only takes 10 seconds or over long to sign these things that, you know, there's a fair rest of why we're a folk who are not exactly sort of dancing in the the aisles in delight. Yeah.
Now Chris, you referenced Keir Starmer's stint on the This Morning sofa, where he revealed that his go-to dish is cheesy pasta bake, not ham pasta bake. That is a mishearing that some people have reported on social media. There is no ham involved in Keir Starmer's pasta bake. Chris Mason, what is your go-to dish to cook? Go-to dish to cook is, I must say, I don't do much cooking these days. Working late.
Well, this is, this is it. I tell you what my obsession, my kitchen obsession of the last six months. Have I talked to you about this before? I'm not sure. Is it a well-known blender brand? Well, yeah, I won't get into black brand, but it's basically trying to have my old fruit and veg all in the glass first thing in the morning, because the blasting various things in the fridge and the freezer.
and then working out what reaction it gets from my family. Can you get away with putting cauliflower into a smoothie and it be drunk by every member of the household? Answer. Can you? No. No. I'll get a suspect of that. No, I've made some towers anyway. Simon, what have you got? What's your go to?
My winter warmer is a form of chilli, either with or without meat. I always think that's a nice comfort food. So that's a bit of a go-to. Getting nice and cozy, having a bit of a chilli, that's sort of at the weekend. Maybe it's some footy on. That's the way I tend to relax. I would have thought that Chris has go-to meal, given them hours he does. And sometimes late nights in the comments would be a pop noodle, must say.
Other instant foods are available. Actually, I like it. One of my other go-to dishes is Jamie Oliver's veggie chili. Very, very good. I recommend that. Right. Thank you, you too. Teraf. All right. Thanks, Adam.
Now, you know, I never missed an opportunity to reminisce about our predecessor podcast and newscast, which was Brexit cast, where every day, sometimes every hour me, Chris, Laura and catch Adler would get together to talk about Brexit. And one of the big characters who featured in pretty much every episode, but it was a bit of an enigma because they never really did interviews was the then German Chancellor, Angela Merkel.
So she was the centre-right leader of Germany from 2005 to 2021, and she was there when there was the Eurozone crisis in Greece, which then became a sovereign debt crisis in many other European countries. She was there when Britain voted to leave the EU,
And Theresa May started negotiating the Brexit deal. Angela Merkel was there when there was the migrant crisis that just took so many different forms. I remember it so clearly. There was the Mediterranean migrant boats. Then there was the loads and loads of Syrian refugees coming by land up through Eastern and Central Europe. And she basically said, if you want to come to Germany and your refugee, our doors are open. And that was just a huge thing. And of course, Germany had a much more
intertwined relationship with Russia than most other European countries. Everything big that happened on the continent of Europe, basically in the last 19 years, either happened when Angela Merkel was in charge or Angela Merkel's premiership has had an effect on what has happened since.
So she's just a pivotal figure in the continent's history. Now, I mentioned the fact that she hardly ever did interviews. And I remember on a weekly basis, Katja in the Brussels Bureau of just being like, I wish we could interview Angela Merkel and just actually get her on the record about this. And she did a couple of interviews.
But now that she's out of office, she has sat down and finally done a proper head-to-head with Catcher, and that's available as a half-hour program on BBC iPlayer, and it's to coincide with the publication of her autobiography. And to mark this momentous moment, Catcher has appeared in the newscast studio to talk about it. Hello, Catcher. Lovely to see you. It's always lovely to see you.
Obviously, I'm not as exciting as Angela Merkel to sit down opposite, but... You don't carry off the jackets and shoulder pads as well. Does she still have that same uniform, even though she's not in public life anymore? Well, you know, it was an interview with me, so it was very smart clearly. No, we were both quite formally dressed with an interview, so she always has those jackets. Yeah.
And then people used to, a bit like when June Brexit with Laura and I on our coat, it's like what colour was the coat? What colour is Angela Merkel's jacket that was often discussed in German media? Was it an indication of mood? And she's just released her memoirs and she talks about colour actually, because we forget, I think,
that she's now 70, 35 years of her life were behind the Berlin Wall under communism. And she was a scientist. She wasn't a politician. And so she talks about how after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when she went over to the West, West Germany smelled so different to East Germany and the colors of West Germany was so much brighter. And I thought that was quite interesting. So I looked at her jacket in a different way this time.
And reading the book and hearing just a lot more about her backstory in her own words rather than kind of other people's interpretations of it. Does it make her, does it make more sense of how she views the world and how she approached problems, whether it was Ukraine or Russia or Brexit?
And I think the idea of in your own words is why she wrote her memoirs, because actually, I mean, 16 years as German Chancellor, de facto leader of Europe, and it was very hard to get a proper sit down, let's have a chat, Angela, kind of interview.
And she wasn't planning to write her memoirs. I don't think she had any desire really to be public. But what she writes and what she says is that it was the migrant crisis in particular, because you remember the migrant crisis of 2015, Syrian refugees and others, you know, thronging through Europe, turning up on those people's smugglers' boats as the tourists were lying on the beach of Greece, you know, walking down the motorways. It was astonishing. And I think that, you know, that was
the moment probably of her 16 years in government. She opened Germany's doors to over a million asylum seekers. And that has had a massive impact on her country. And I would argue on European politics. And she said, that is when she decided to write her memoirs, because just like you said, she wanted to explain it in her own words, rather than have it interpreted. And so I said, well, why did you do it? It seemed very unmercle, because you're the... And it's kind of a bit unpopular in retrospect.
Among certain people? Yes. At the time, you might remember in the train stations in Munich and Berlin, there were all these people with welcome signs. So it wasn't entirely unpopular initially in Germany, it was more the management of it that made it all very unpopular in the end for sure.
but obviously there were people who didn't like it right at the beginning. But I think, you know, she said, it's partly to do with her religious belief, her belief in humanity. It's not about the right to stay of migrants. She said, because not all the sign claims are successful.
But it's that you have to treat people with human dignity for her. That's she's a pastor's daughter. So she said that's part of her Christian faith. It doesn't have to have anything to do with religion, she said. But it's a conviction about about humanity. And also she said it was a conviction about open borders. You remember the Shengen in the EU, that open border policy. And of course, at the time of the migrant crisis, one EU neighbor was slamming its borders shut on another. And she didn't want to see that. She said it's the external borders that need to be protected.
And do you think she's kind of restating the case for having done that because there are now so many in the current crop of German politicians arguing against it and saying it was a bad thing? Is she trying to be part of that conversation, which is obviously going to dominate the German election campaign next year because they're having a snap election?
So she would say, no, because I asked her, you know, do you miss the power and the politics with so much going on in the world at the moment? I said, don't you just itch to pick up the phone to world leaders who know so well, like Emmanuel in Paris? Because her and Barack Obama loved each other, didn't they? Yeah, but he's left a role, but Emmanuel might can't still there. I mean, you could argue in what condition, but he is still there. Does she not want to pick up the phone and say, let's have a chat. So she says she doesn't miss it.
but that world leaders that she knows well still call her up and ask her for advice. But she is not trying to get involved and she did not want to talk about modern-day German politics, like who should win, you know, where Germany should go. But her legacy that she's now having to defend
You would think that a memoir like this would be a victory lap, not at all. She's now defending her legacy. I think she had a lasting impression on Germany and on the rest of Europe. She tried to bring all of the politics to the centre. It did not work.
She tried to make Germany rich through trade with China, trade with the US. Well, look how that's worked out. Now you've got Donald Trump coming back and he wants to slap those massive import tariffs on. She wanted to boost German business with cheap gas from Russia. She made Germany entirely energy dependent on Russia. Now German businesses have to buy expensive LNG from other sources like the United States. It has not worked out.
And what does she have to say about her relationship with Putin? Because I'm just thinking, does that famous photo of her with his dog? And everyone's saying, oh, he knew she didn't like dogs. And then so then there's that sort of the superficial thing. But then you think of another time with her in Putin, when she was signing that Minsk agreement, which was meant to prevent Russia taking any more of Ukrainian territory after they'd napped from here. After 2014, yes, that's right. And it was a weak agreement. So
Her critics say she was too soft on Vladimir Putin and too slow to help Ukraine. She speaks fluent Russian, of course, because she grew up under communism. He speaks fluent German because he was in East Germany as a KGB agent until, like, the wall came down. So they have common languages and they have a common understanding of each other's backgrounds.
But sometimes you could see them in real tat-a-tat. Other times it was real head-to-head. I mean, don't forget, Navalny, you know, that opposition leader in Russia who then died in a Russian prison, when he was poisoned, Germany took him in.
Germany healed him back to health. So she wasn't afraid to take on Putin as it were, but she did use Russia for that cheap energy for Germany. She also blocked Ukraine's membership to NATO in 2008. Then President Bush wanted to fast track that membership. I kind of forgotten about that. Oh, it was ancient history, but it's kind of very relevant.
Absolutely. And Vladimir Zelensky said, you know, that emboldened Russia. He also said, you know, that cheap gas that you took from Russia, that was, he called it what he called it, a geopolitical weapon of the Kremlin. He said it was dangerous for all of Europe. You know, we spoke to a Polish MP who said, where do you think the gas money went? It went into the coffers of Moscow used to fund the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
And Angela Merkel has her fingerprints all over it. But at the same time, we also, in connection with this interview, spoke to the former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who was in government during her 16 years, not for the whole 16 years. She saw a lot of leaders, including British leaders, come and go.
He said that when you judge Angela Merkel, you also have to think back to the norms at the time. So if you look back to 2005, six, everybody wanted to make friends with Russia. It wasn't just Germany. And do you remember President Bush at the time? He gave that speech of, I looked into his eyes and like, you know, about Vladimir Putin. Of course, that fell apart.
And Angela Merkel said what she was, I mean, this is one of her reasons. She said she kept buying the gas from Russia. One, yes, for German businesses. Two, because she said she wanted to find peaceful means of cooperation with Ukraine. And she kept trying to do that, as well as trying to organize those so-called Minsk agreements, as you say, after 2014, to try and stop Russia invading again. I mean, there are those who would say, and I would agree, they weren't really worth the paper they were written on. They were weak. But she said it postponed.
the wide-scale invasion. We would have seen military conflict even earlier. It was completely clear to me that President Putin would not have stood idly by and watched Ukraine join NATO. Other European countries were also opposed, and back then Ukraine as a country would certainly not have been as prepared as it was in February 2022.
So she's left the stage, but somebody she dealt with very dramatically on the stage has come back. Donald Trump, what does she say about the return of the Donald? Of the Donald. So I asked if she had any tips for newer world leaders like Kestama how to deal with the Donald.
And she said, I'm not going to give tips from the sidelines. Classic. However, she did say that you have to bear in mind that with Donald Trump, he doesn't believe in win-win. Donald Trump is someone who doesn't believe in win-win situations.
But instead, always believes there must be one winner. And that makes the discussion more difficult than with others. It is always very important to have clearly formulated your own interests and not to be afraid. And when you do that, there is a certain mutual respect.
It hasn't changed. He came into the White House the first time, furious with Europe, about low defence spending. Now, Gomelkel said he was right. I mean, Germany's was abysmally low at the time, 1.3% of GDP. She said he was jealous of Germany. She said that even in the 1990s,
He was obsessed, she says, with German cars because in New York, he kept seeing too many German cars and decided then that if he ever became president of the United States, as you and I always think about, of course, next time we're prime minister or something, but if he were ever to become president of the United States, that he would slap on import tariffs, which is exactly what he's threatening again. And in that way, you could say it is worthwhile listening if anyone has any tips because he's coming into office and Europe is very nervous.
Um, let's do a little mini episode of Brexit cast. Okay. What did she say about Brexit? So not, not that much, nothing surprising. Um, she, I suppose it was a much smaller thing for her than it was. Well, so her memoirs run well over 700 pages. Um, and Brexit is
Tiny, tiny little bit of the book. But she does describe it as a humiliation for Europe and something that made Europe weaker at the time. And so I said, look, eight years on from the vote, do you still feel the same way? And she said, absolutely. She said, for her, the UK belongs in Europe. And she said, there is absolutely no point going round and round and round as to whether the UK will ever rejoin the European Union or not. Nine, she said.
But what she does want, what she wants at the time, she said, was to have what she calls a sensible agreement, departure agreement or new agreement. And she was very glad that that was possible. And she also said that now she wants to have as close a relationship as possible between Europe and the United Kingdom. And she said she had the feeling that Circustama felt the same way. She didn't mention
UK prime ministers in another way as well because I'd heard that she quite likes doing imitations of world leaders that she knows well. So I said, is that true? And if it is, do you have a favor? And if you do, do you fancy doing it for us? And she said, nine, nine,
far too much personality. I don't want to share that with you. But she said she does it yes after long negotiations, but she said not in a mocking way. It's more about the temperaments of somebody. So she said, for example, they're acquired to leaders like Theresa May. They got on, she really likes, she speaks so warmly of Theresa May.
Well, there's a lot of similarities between them, actually. But I remember the moment I feel I saw the real, real Angela Merkel, that maybe like her friends and family see around the dinner table, was to remember that EU summit where her and Theresa May were wearing the same color jacket. I love that. As she took, she ran up with her iPad. It went, look, we're wearing the same. And it was like, oh, that's the real person underneath the jacket. They did. And they both had a real giggle in their cornflower blue outfits. I also quite like when she was seen guiltily stuffing chips, Belgian chips, rather corner from the EU summit.
And actually, I said to her, I sort of gave her some quick questions at the end, you know, because who else? So in her fourth term of office, I thought this was really interesting as well. She asked President Obama for career's advice. You know, like you and I might say, oh, what are we going to do in our future when we grow up? So before she decided whether to run for a fourth term, she asked Obama,
Shall I do it? Should I not do it? So they had a little chat. But she ran a campaign on, you know me, Zeke Kennenmi. Who else does that? That was it. But I said to her, we don't really know you because she never really gave anything away. So I just asked her a whole load of quick fire questions. And one of them, I said, do you have any guilty pleasures?
you know, any little sort of weaknesses. She said she chats too much with a friend, so I was like, that's not good enough. I said, what about chocolate? And she said, no, actually, better chunky fried potatoes.
There you go. Classic Angela. Yes. Well, it sort of feels a week, isn't it really? Yes. That's what I meant about the similarity. I'm just looking at my laptop because I actually just had an email, a press release just before you walked in the studio from Old Street Publishing. Oh, yeah. Dear Adam, I hope all is well with you. This is just to let you know that tomorrow we're publishing the English version of David Seifier's Maud Indare Uka Mark.
murder at the castle, in which a retired Angela Merkel is reborn as a super sleuth. Oh, yes. So it's a dastardly double murder. Yeah. Provincial town of Klein Freud and Statt. Yes, it's a TV series. She sort of does murder, she wrote. Right. You know, so there's an actress who kind of dresses up a bit like, you know, what would you call it, sleuthing and something? Yeah, I'm guessing you didn't bring that up. You're very high level interview. I didn't. I did not bring that up.
My big takeaway from listening to you, and I'll watch your interview, the full half hour version on iPlayer, which is available, and also then reading the extracts there in the paper over the weekend. She's just such a product of her time, which then makes you question how much influence and power did she actually wield?
And it's back to your point about her reacting to things and okay, she's an uber pragmatist and a rationalist, so therefore actually you're just presenting this. She's a scientist. Yeah, and she's a product of her youth. She is. But yes, so she would say yes and no, she is a product of her youth and I think that even though we talked about alienating southern Europe and everything,
I think the girl that lived behind the Iron Curtain does not like confrontation. She doesn't like breaking apart. She didn't like Brexit for that reason. She didn't want to fall apart with Russia if it was possible. You know, Europe breaking away with Russia. She didn't want to have European Union countries closing their borders on one another during the migrant crisis. I think that has really influenced her.
On the other hand, as we say, I mean, you know, you could nautily say, well, she Europe's Donald Trump because she always put German interest first. So, you know, it is all of a mix. So one thing she points out is what really hurt her in politics is that even in her Christian Democrat party, where she was party chairman for 18 years,
People still, when they didn't agree with her, which happened often because of her centrist tendencies, would say, does she really understand democracy, or is she just apping it because of her upbringing, the baggage that she took, she said she was accused of having baggage from her communist upbringing, and that hurt her.
And I suppose, because actually, if you expand the centre ground and you colonise all the different bits of the centre ground and push it out, yeah, you could argue that is a bit anti-democratic, because you're not really giving anyone a choice. Well, you're not- Because if you're taking the whole middle- Where is the breathing space? There's only extremes left, so therefore that's no choice at all to a lot of people. And also, I think now,
And I'm waving my arms around because I'm excited by this thought, but not excited in a positive way. But I just think it's really interesting that having just followed the American election so closely, the European country that most reminds me of the United States is Germany right now because of the divisions, because of so many people in Germany who feel I've not been listened to. You've got the Merkles of the world who told me
not to question globalization, not to question migration, not to question this, not to question that, just to accept what she decides for me. And that has pushed people to the hard left and the hard right. And now of course you have the centrist parties trying to woo them back.
But I think when you put a blanket over people, in Germany, they used to write about a sleeping beauty sleep that Angela Merkel put over Germany. So people kept voting for her. She was very popular in opinion polls. But actually, when Germans woke up, as they say they did, they started to question all the things that had happened. She was like, there, there, I'll take care of it, Muti Merkel, Mummy Merkel. That was another one of her nicknames. But then it was like, oh, all those decisions you took for us,
Right, I've been asking everyone this because of Keir Starmer's revelation that his go-to dish to cook is pasta bake. What is your go-to dish, ketchup, Adler? Well, you've now put me on the spot. So the first thing that I've thought about is only what my children say is that I'm really disgusting. So I like to, I love coffee so much, that in the morning I have a coffee and then I make another coffee and I pour it over my muesli. Coffee and muesli.
and yogurt. Wow. I'm fruit. Wow. I don't think I've ever met anyone. And I also didn't know that about you and I've known you for a long time. This was like not been around your house for breakfast. He's having a really disgusted. No, I love it. I love a cup of coffee, but I'm not going to have it with my muesli. Thank you. I will try all the other ones I've heard today, but it would be not that one. Now I know why you've got so much energy.
Katcha, thank you very much. And yeah, do you want to do the plug for what do people search for an eye player to see the whole interview? Angela Merkel, the woman who ran Europe. Just search for an eye player and it will be there. Katcha, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Right, that's all for this episode of Newscast, which we are finishing recording at Just Gone Tea Time on Monday evening. And I tell you what, I think I'd rather have a Simon Jack veggie chili than a Katcha Adler
coffee muesli or a christmas and cauliflower smoothie. Although that's a decision to make a breakfast time. Thank you for listening. We'll be back with another episode very soon. Bye bye.
