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New towns and old ideas: Labour’s housing plan

New towns and old ideas: Labour’s housing plan

Released Monday, 24th June 2024
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New towns and old ideas: Labour’s housing plan

New towns and old ideas: Labour’s housing plan

New towns and old ideas: Labour’s housing plan

New towns and old ideas: Labour’s housing plan

Monday, 24th June 2024
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0:00

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1:03

We've lived in Hitchin for 10 years. We've rented in all of that time. The last

1:05

few years, the rent has

1:08

gone up dramatically. Last year, our

1:10

landlord proposed to put our rent up by

1:12

40% overnight. That was

1:16

an incredibly difficult experience. If you make an issue

1:18

with the landlord

1:21

and you resist potential rentals,

1:23

you're going to be in trouble.

1:28

Resist potential rent increases and things

1:30

like that. Ultimately, they can

1:33

no fault of it. The

1:35

worry was that not just we'd

1:38

have to move, but we'd have to move

1:40

area, move our daughter out of school. And

1:42

my wife works in the town and

1:45

doesn't drive. So it

1:48

was the whole thing of what do

1:50

we do? This

1:52

is a man we're calling Andrew. He doesn't want

1:55

to give his real name because though

1:57

the problems he's describing are relatable. He's

2:00

worried that complaining might

2:02

make things difficult with his landlord. We've

2:06

all been fed the dream by

2:08

successive governments of owning our own

2:11

home. And that's what Andrew

2:13

and his family are hoping to do. But

2:16

for now, they're stuck renting. We

2:19

ended up negotiating with them, got

2:21

back down to 25%. And then

2:24

this year they proposed to put it up by a further 25%.

2:27

How much are you paying now after

2:29

all these rent increases? We're

2:32

paying 1350. How

2:35

much of your income is going

2:37

on rent at the moment? Well

2:40

over a half, probably 60%. There's

2:43

no spare money, let's put it that way. Andrew

2:47

lives in Hitchen in Hertfordshire. And

2:50

that's where we're going to be focusing

2:52

this episode. It's a commuter town, 40

2:54

minutes outside London, where house

2:57

prices have risen by 6% in the past

2:59

year. And

3:01

developers are eyeing up the countryside

3:04

there for big new developments. Hitchen's

3:10

a new constituency that was created because

3:12

of the boundary changes that happened last

3:14

year. It

3:16

combines what was a labour constituency

3:19

with two former Tory seats. So

3:21

it's all to play for. From

3:26

The Guardian, I'm Hannah Moore. Today

3:29

in focus, new towns,

3:32

new homes and old ideas. Labour's

3:36

housing policy. Hitchen

3:46

Town Centre around the Market Square is a

3:48

very pretty open square with old buildings on

3:50

one side that look like they're dating back

3:52

to the Elizabethan period. And then there's a

3:54

kind of 1960s shopping

3:57

centre on another side and there's

3:59

cafes. galore, I mean dozens and

4:01

dozens of places to buy coffee. It

4:03

has the flavor of, several people said

4:05

this, of a kind of North London

4:07

suburb and that's obviously because lots of

4:09

people have in fact moved up from London.

4:16

Outside of Hitchen you get very

4:18

quickly into the Greenbelt and beautiful

4:20

rolling countryside and there's lots of

4:22

little villages to the south particularly

4:24

of Hitchen, very picturesque. Rob

4:36

Booth, you're the Guardian's social

4:38

affairs correspondent. You could

4:40

have chosen anywhere in the country to go

4:42

and talk about the housing crisis. In

4:45

different ways it's affecting everybody

4:47

but you chose Hitchen

4:49

and I came along with you. Why

4:52

there? What was interesting about it to

4:54

you? Well

4:56

Hitchen is a place that's seen a

4:58

huge influx of people moving there from

5:01

London during and since the pandemic. House

5:04

prices were considerably cheaper than London so people

5:06

who didn't want to be cooped up in

5:08

a two-bed flat anymore in London were keen

5:11

to get themselves a two or three-bed home

5:13

with a garden in Hertfordshire. But one of

5:15

the consequences of that is it's pushed up

5:17

house prices quite considerably in the

5:20

area. Private rents have really gone up in

5:22

the area too. And I think

5:24

given that we have this national need

5:26

to build one and a half

5:28

million homes seems to be the broad figure over

5:31

the next five years, this is

5:33

the sort of area quite closely connected

5:35

to London on the M1 with

5:37

good transport links where there is going to

5:39

be a great push to build more housing.

5:43

Rob, we all know that Britain's got

5:45

a housing crisis. Even Rishi Sunak has

5:47

said that it's now too hard for

5:49

young people to get on the housing

5:51

ladder. What's the conservative

5:53

record been on housing over the past

5:56

14 years that they've been in power?

6:01

Like governments before, they've

6:03

failed to meet their own

6:05

house building targets. And

6:08

therefore we've got an imbalance of

6:11

supply and demand at the end

6:13

of this 14 year period of

6:15

conservative control. I think

6:18

the other thing to say is that there's

6:20

been a considerable drop in the number of

6:22

social homes that have been built in

6:25

England, to the extent that there

6:27

are historic lows at the moment,

6:29

and also we've seen kind of

6:31

increased demolitions and sell off of

6:33

the existing social homes. So

6:36

we have many more households in the private

6:38

rented sector, lots more people

6:40

who are bringing up families

6:42

in rented properties and often

6:44

properties that are substandard. What

6:47

are Labour proposing if they're elected on

6:49

the 4th of July? Labour's

6:52

plan, similar actually in some

6:54

ways to the conservative plan, is to

6:56

build. And they're saying

6:58

we're going to build 1.5 million

7:01

new homes over, of course, the

7:03

next parliament. Right, so about 300,000

7:05

a year. About 300,000

7:07

a year, which would be a big jump on the

7:09

current output, which I think is about 220,000 or in

7:11

that ballpark. Conservatives

7:15

saying 1.6 million, so they're just

7:17

edged slightly higher. So there's a

7:19

numbers game going on. The most, you

7:22

might say, exciting proposal Labour's bringing

7:25

forward on housing is to build

7:27

a series of new towns. What

7:30

would that mean? I

7:32

think the new towns idea is

7:35

very grabbing. And to my mind,

7:37

that is one clear way that

7:39

you could make a step change

7:41

in the housing crisis in this

7:44

country, which is to build genuine

7:46

new settlements, which are sufficiently large

7:48

to have all the infrastructure, all

7:51

the character, all the sense of

7:53

place of a town or

7:56

even a small city rather than

7:58

just another housing state. of

8:00

the kind that there have been numerous builds over

8:02

the last 20 to 30 years. Now

8:06

the level of detail that Labour have put out about this is

8:08

thin. We don't know

8:10

where these might be. We don't know

8:12

very much about how they would be

8:14

funded or delivered and how long it

8:17

would take to do that. So it's

8:19

a bracing idea but the level of

8:21

detail, as is often the case in

8:23

these pre-election periods, is somewhat

8:26

wanting. Stevenage is to be transformed

8:28

from a country area into a bustling new town

8:30

of 50,000 people, part of

8:32

the Greater London Project. After World

8:35

War II, Labour built several

8:37

new towns including Stevenage, which

8:39

is near Hitchen. Those

8:41

towns were funded by the government. Would

8:44

that be the same case for these new towns?

8:47

To build a genuine new town with

8:49

all the infrastructure, you have to make

8:51

a huge financial commitment. The previous new

8:53

towns were done by massive government borrowing,

8:55

which paid itself back over decades and

8:57

decades. So there were very

8:59

long-term plans in place. I

9:01

think it's unlikely that such

9:04

huge borrowing to build infrastructure

9:06

and social housing would be

9:08

in line with the Labour's

9:10

proposed fiscal rules, which is

9:12

to keep the government borrowing

9:14

in line. So

9:17

I suspect that they're more

9:19

likely to try and enable

9:21

these new towns and encourage

9:23

private landowners, private developers, to

9:26

put in the money and come together

9:28

with development agencies which the government may well

9:31

set up and put it together like that.

9:34

So it's not going to be

9:36

like the post-war government-funded project.

9:40

Still, Angela Rayner, Deputy Leader

9:42

of Labour of course and

9:44

Shadow Housing Minister, she's

9:46

been out in her hardhat on

9:48

the building sites, really pushing this

9:51

idea as central to

9:53

Labour's housing plan. An

9:56

expert independent task force will be set

9:58

up to help choose the... right

10:00

sites and the list of projects

10:02

will be announced within the first 12 months

10:04

of government so that

10:06

we can start building the towns of the

10:08

future within months and not decades. So

10:11

she's saying that Labour could start

10:14

building these new towns within months of

10:16

getting into office. Do

10:18

you get the sense that Labour will follow

10:20

through on this policy? Well I'm

10:23

afraid, you know,

10:25

the experience of the Conservative

10:27

Cameron's attempts to build a new generation

10:29

of new towns and also before him

10:32

Gordon Brown's attempts to do the same

10:34

show that it's pretty difficult

10:36

not to run into massive

10:38

local opposition about building these places

10:41

in other people's neighbourhoods. So it's

10:43

going to take a degree

10:45

of conviction, a real vision, for what

10:47

these places can be that the public

10:50

can get behind and sufficient

10:52

funding frankly from one source or another

10:54

to show that they're going to be

10:56

really high quality places that people want

10:58

to live in. What she's also

11:01

said is that they want to

11:03

launch a big process of public consultation about

11:05

where these places could be which

11:07

is exactly of course what happened

11:09

before under Brown and Cameron and

11:11

it just becomes so politically difficult

11:14

to actually get local

11:16

consent. I spoke earlier to

11:18

a man called Andrew who's in hit chin

11:20

and he's trying

11:22

to get the money together at the moment to buy

11:24

a house. He said I would

11:27

absolutely support the idea of a new

11:29

town being built near me. I think

11:32

that's a brilliant idea. I think you need

11:34

to have a bolder

11:36

vision to build new

11:38

towns, new infrastructure, schools, roads,

11:42

green spaces. We

11:44

need it. We're a country of 70 million

11:47

and we don't really have enough

11:50

housing to put everyone in and

11:52

that's affordable as well and I

11:54

think that building new towns with

11:56

council housing as well would be

11:58

really beneficial. Is there any at

12:00

all of where the new towns might be?

12:02

I mean are they going to be in

12:04

the southeast places that

12:06

are going to be sort of on

12:08

the outskirts of London or Midlands,

12:11

North? Well they

12:13

haven't given any indication of the locations

12:15

yet but people who are you know

12:17

kind of working around this that I've

12:20

spoken to have suggested various locations. There

12:22

are some obvious ones in the southeast,

12:24

places like Thorek in Essex or Ebsfleet

12:26

in Kent, either side of the Thames

12:28

Estuary could be more developed. South Hampshire

12:30

as well is another location but there

12:32

are also ideas for places

12:35

you know up around the M1

12:37

near Nottingham, Derby, perhaps Stafford around

12:39

the M6 again thinking

12:41

about connections and kind of

12:43

Northampton in the Midlands and I would have

12:45

thought around this area that we've been spending

12:47

some time in as well. Hi

12:53

there, someone to this fair, my name's Alex John. Yes,

12:55

hello. I was your local enderpeaker and I'm re-standing again

12:57

in the local election. So you

12:59

went outdoor knocking with the local

13:02

Labour candidate Alastair Strathairn and

13:04

you asked him about housing and kind

13:06

of were gauging how people were feeling

13:08

about it. What kinds of things was

13:10

he saying? Well yeah when I

13:13

asked him about the new towns proposal because

13:15

that is something that kind of could solve

13:17

the problem, I asked him

13:19

if he would accept one in Hitchen.

13:21

I thought his response to that was telling

13:23

because he didn't say yes. Would you

13:25

accept one in the constituency? Well

13:28

I think it's on Labour if we're

13:30

lucky enough to get into government to

13:32

come forward with a really sensible framework

13:34

for engaging with communities not just here

13:36

but right across the country on

13:38

where the best places for any new towns would be. And

13:41

so you got this sense immediately that

13:43

it's going to be difficult to

13:45

find political approval for a new

13:47

town in any of these already

13:49

quite crowded areas of the country

13:51

where the demand is strongest. I

13:53

think Labour's got to make sure we've got a really compelling

13:55

offer to how we're going to bring people into

13:58

the process of helping to decide where these are. How

20:01

would Labour deal with that if they were elected?

20:05

Well, you know, both Labour

20:07

and the Conservatives talk about Brownfield first,

20:09

about building on previously used

20:11

land in cities and towns, that being

20:13

the absolute priority. Good reasons for that.

20:16

It doesn't wreck the countryside. It's also

20:18

often close to jobs and transport. So

20:20

they'll be looking for that. But

20:22

if they want to actually, you know, get the

20:25

big numbers that they're talking about aiming for, they're

20:28

going to have to look at agricultural

20:31

land, but also previously owned public

20:34

sector land, so old

20:36

barracks sites, old airfields, old NHS

20:38

sites, these sorts of places which

20:40

could form the anchor of new

20:42

settlement. But there aren't going to

20:44

be enough Brownfield sites to meet the housing

20:47

need. So what do they do

20:49

then? Well, there's different ways they could do it. One

20:53

is changing the planning rules and

20:55

actually taking more of the Greenland

20:57

that is available. Particularly controversial

20:59

thing for the Conservative government to do

21:01

because of their support in the Shires.

21:04

Perhaps slightly less controversial for Labour to

21:07

do, although I think they may well

21:09

run into opposition around that. They're talking

21:11

about using some of the green belt.

21:13

They call this the Grey Belt, which

21:16

is areas of the Green Belt. And

21:18

the Green Belt is to protect settlements

21:20

from sprawl. They say the

21:23

Grey Belt is sections of this which

21:25

really aren't particularly lovely, not particularly green.

21:27

It's often a bit of redundant

21:29

car parking or perhaps petrol

21:31

stations, that kind of thing.

21:34

Slightly hard to judge what it

21:37

actually means and also whether

21:39

there'd be enough of it to build the number of

21:41

homes that we're talking about. I mean,

21:43

the other thing is that the

21:46

Labour is very keen to make sure that

21:48

all local authorities have proper local plans in

21:50

place. OK, and what does a local plan do? So

21:53

a local plan, every council of significant size has to have

21:55

a local plan which says how many homes it's going to

21:57

build and where it's going to build them over the... next

22:00

few years. And in those local

22:02

plans, councils can often

22:04

take parts of the Greenbelt away

22:07

and maybe, as we saw in

22:09

Hitchen, replace it with another

22:11

part elsewhere. To do that, you need lots

22:13

of planning officers. Labour has said they'll put

22:15

more planning officers in place. These things have

22:17

been promised before by other parties

22:19

as well in order to enable better

22:22

local planning. We'll see how far Labour get

22:24

with it. I

22:26

mean, what's the danger in an

22:29

area not having an up-to-date local plan?

22:31

Does it just mean that housing is

22:33

developed in a more haphazard way? That's

22:36

right. It either becomes more haphazard or

22:38

it doesn't really happen. So housing need

22:40

isn't there. Even if Labour

22:43

gets the planning system sorted out, gets

22:46

local consent, have

22:48

we got the skills nationally to

22:50

be able to build 300,000 houses a year? It's

22:55

been a persistent problem, the shortage

22:57

of workers. Construction

22:59

jobs are relatively low paid.

23:02

There's quite a lot of competition for low

23:04

paid workers and the

23:06

kind of investment in the skills

23:08

has declined over the years. I

23:11

think partly because there was a period

23:14

during the expansion of the European Union

23:16

when a lot of quite highly skilled

23:18

people came from Eastern Europe, the famous

23:21

Polish builders, and they

23:23

filled all these gaps. A lot of them have gone,

23:25

so we have a black hole. So

23:27

shortage of workers and what are the other

23:29

difficulties that they're going to have to wrangle

23:31

with? Dealing with the house builders

23:34

themselves who own a lot of the plots

23:36

of land and are only really willing to

23:38

build on them if they can get a

23:40

sufficient return on their investment. And if the

23:42

government or the development agencies that the government

23:45

set up is very keen to build

23:48

much more social housing and also build

23:50

a lot of public infrastructure, that's going

23:52

to lead to a conflict with those

23:55

builders. So that's going to be a

23:57

big challenge for Angela Rayner if she

23:59

becomes the... Housing Secretary and others

24:02

in the government to sort of knock

24:04

heads together and make sure these development

24:06

sites are actually delivered. One

24:18

problem Labour is going to have is making

24:20

sure that any new houses that are built

24:22

are going to be actually affordable for people

24:24

to live in. How are they

24:26

planning to enforce that? They

24:29

are again hoping to use the planning system

24:31

to push private developers to

24:34

commit to build more affordable housing

24:36

as part of the schemes that

24:38

they're going to put through. Labour

24:40

have talked about helping young

24:43

first-time buyers get on the housing ladder

24:45

with a kind of mortgage guarantee scheme

24:47

which would enable them to get places

24:49

without such a big deposit. And the

24:51

Conservatives have said that they'd bring back

24:54

help to buy which was this government

24:56

scheme that gave first-time buyers a loan

24:58

of either 20% or

25:01

40% depending on whether they were

25:03

buying in London or elsewhere. That

25:06

scheme ended in 2022. It was

25:09

a far from perfect scheme but it

25:11

was popular. Do you think

25:13

that would be a vote winner bringing that back? I

25:16

think both parties are

25:18

focusing quite strongly on

25:21

the desire of young

25:23

people, young families to buy their own

25:26

home and it's quite a powerful desire.

25:28

So we're not hearing either talk hugely

25:30

about kind of boosting the

25:32

rented sector. The answer for

25:35

both seems to be we've got to

25:37

make it more possible for people to

25:39

get out of the rented sector and

25:41

into home ownership. Politically that's clearly a

25:43

more attractive idea. That's the sort of

25:45

middle political way and both parties have

25:47

drifted towards that and I think that's

25:49

going to cause some frustration amongst renters

25:51

groups and those who want to see

25:54

a lot more social housing that the

25:56

focus is going to be on home

25:58

ownership. Coming

26:04

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26:06

deliver the biggest increase in social

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Unlimited slows. Rob,

27:29

the reforms that the Conservatives planned

27:31

for the private rental sector have

27:33

been put on ice because of

27:36

the general election being called. Have

27:38

Labour said whether they would pick

27:40

back up on the renters reform

27:42

bill? So Labour said

27:45

last week that they will immediately

27:47

ban no false evictions, confirming

27:49

what they've previously said. They've said

27:51

that they are going to crack

27:54

down on mould and damp in

27:56

private housing by giving landlord deadlines

27:58

for fixing those kind of problems.

28:00

homes. And they're talking about giving

28:02

renters much greater certainty

28:05

about price. And for example saying

28:07

no longer will landlords be able

28:09

to run bidding wars for private

28:11

rented homes and no longer will

28:13

landlords be able to demand exorbitant

28:16

upfront chunks of rent. But they're

28:18

not talking about things like rent

28:20

caps, which is what a lot

28:22

of the renter groups really want.

28:25

And about 15% of people in

28:27

the area around Hitchin are renting

28:30

privately. And we wanted

28:32

to get a sense of the types of

28:34

issues that they're having at the moment. So

28:36

we went along to Citizens Advice and spent

28:38

the morning with their housing

28:40

specialist who's called Rachel Williams. And

28:43

I just found that really, really

28:45

interesting. What was it about

28:47

what she told us that

28:49

stuck with you? Well,

28:52

a piece of paper that was most telling that

28:54

turned up in that meeting was the one that

28:56

told us that they've seen a 62% increase

28:59

in the last year in the number of

29:01

people coming forward with problems with

29:04

their housing. Most of that to do

29:06

with rent. I'm basically the

29:08

absolute last resort for people who

29:10

come to court and they

29:13

think they're going to lose their home. You

29:16

got difficulties that people were facing

29:18

when their rents are being renegotiated

29:21

after tenances and then being jacked

29:23

up. Huge demand for social

29:25

housing, but not enough social housing by

29:27

a long way. But

29:29

also the impact on

29:31

residents of insecure work,

29:35

which played into the housing problem.

29:37

More and more people are coming to the

29:39

local authority to look for social housing, because

29:42

even people who are working can't afford private

29:44

rent. You had

29:46

people that were working in light

29:49

manufacturing jobs or warehouse jobs and then

29:51

after four or five months before their

29:53

employment rights would start being pushed out

29:55

and having periods of unemployment and that

29:58

creating thousands and thousands of people. worth

30:00

of rent arrears that people were struggling with, to the

30:02

point that there was one man that we saw there

30:04

who was desperate for a food voucher that day, wasn't

30:06

he? He needed it now. Rachel

30:09

was saying that it wasn't

30:11

uncommon for her to see people on

30:13

a sort of daily basis who were

30:15

in tens of thousands of pounds of

30:17

debt and in thousands of pounds of

30:19

rent arrears. A lot of people are

30:21

paying credit card debts off rather than

30:23

paying their rent, because they've got bailiffs

30:25

knocking on the door, so they think

30:27

they've got to pay those debts. You

30:30

look at the high street and it

30:32

looks so polished and beautiful

30:34

and you have all this greenery around, but

30:37

there is a big pocket

30:39

of poverty going on there and some people

30:41

who are really struggling to find somewhere to

30:43

rent or to keep up with their rent

30:45

payments. Yeah, that's right. And the thing that

30:47

jumped out for me was how normal it seemed to

30:50

the people who had those thousands of pounds worth of

30:52

debt hanging over them. How it just becomes an everyday

30:54

part of their life that this was something that was

30:56

going to be hanging over them for

30:59

the foreseeable future. She's being kind

31:01

this morning. She feels very guilty.

31:04

She's 6,000 pounds in rent arrears

31:07

at the moment. We can deal with her debt,

31:10

but where's the support if we get

31:12

it all put back for her? There's

31:14

nothing to support people long term. That's

31:16

where a lot of our problems lie.

31:19

As Rachel said, a lot of people

31:22

going to citizens' advice would ideally be

31:25

in social housing. They wouldn't

31:27

be in the private rented sector. Labour

31:30

have said that they would deliver

31:32

the biggest increase in social house

31:35

building in a generation. What

31:37

would that mean? Well,

31:39

not necessarily very much because social house

31:41

building has declined so dramatically since the

31:44

1990s. Nevertheless, it's

31:46

something that would be welcomed. And it's

31:48

certainly something that I think could form

31:50

the nucleus of these new towns that

31:52

could start to provide a positive way

31:54

of having genuinely mixed communities in these

31:57

new towns. You

32:05

do get that sense, don't you, that reading

32:07

through the manifesto that they are quite unwilling

32:09

to put figures

32:11

to what they're proposing. And

32:14

if you don't have access to decent

32:16

housing, it affects everything. It affects your

32:18

health. It's extremely stressful. It affects your

32:20

job prospects, your children's wellbeing. Yeah.

32:22

I mean, housing is a

32:25

policy area, something that's very slow moving.

32:27

Changes happen over decades, not

32:30

instantly. The political upside

32:34

of doing something now that would

32:36

only bear fruit in 10

32:38

years is limited in the way

32:40

things are at the moment, which

32:43

is why the Newtown's idea has

32:45

a sort of germ of something

32:47

exciting in it. Because if genuine

32:50

Newtown organizations are set up to build these

32:52

places over 10, 15 to 20 years and

32:54

can kind of hold the torch and

32:59

actually deliver places that are like Milton

33:01

Keynes that are incredibly popular now many,

33:04

many decades later, then we may

33:06

end up with a genuinely rich

33:08

legacy. You know, you

33:10

spent four days in Hitchen. What have

33:12

you come away thinking? Have

33:14

you learnt stuff about our housing situation

33:16

in the UK that you maybe

33:19

haven't thought about before? I

33:21

think with Hitchen, one of the really interesting

33:24

things about it is that it's changing quite

33:26

fast. The population's changing quite fast in terms

33:28

of these thousands of people that have moved

33:31

up there since the pandemic. That

33:33

can have a really positive effect on a place as

33:36

well. It can bring energy and new

33:39

life to a place. It

33:41

can have negative effects as well, which means that lots

33:43

of the families who've lived in Hitchen for a long

33:45

time are now facing up to the reality that their

33:47

children won't be able to afford to live there. I

33:50

think it struck

33:52

me as the housing situation can

33:54

change communities quite rapidly. And

33:56

in doing so that can have some positive

33:58

effects, but also some quite... worrying negative

34:00

effects and it would be

34:03

great wouldn't it to start to see some

34:05

kind of more kind of visionary approaches to

34:07

how we can tackle this crisis. Rob

34:10

thank you so much. Thank you.

34:19

That was Rob Booth, Social Affairs

34:21

Correspondent for The Guardian. His

34:23

writing from Hitchin will be up

34:25

at theguardian.com later this week so

34:28

look out for that. Thank

34:30

you to everybody in Hitchin who made

34:32

the time to speak to us for

34:35

this episode. A reminder

34:37

before we go that Google podcasts

34:39

is closing today so if

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you use it you need to find a new way

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to listen to this show. We're

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on every platform except YouTube.

34:49

Today's episode was produced by Ruth

34:51

Abrahams and George McDonough and hosted

34:53

by me Hannah Moore. The

34:56

sound designer was Solomon King and

34:58

the executive producer was Elizabeth Cassin.

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Today in Focus

Hosted by Michael Safi and Helen Pidd, Today in Focus brings you closer to Guardian journalism. Combining personal storytelling with insightful analysis, this podcast takes you behind the headlines for a deeper understanding of the news, every weekday. Today in Focus features journalists such as: Aditya Chakrabortty, Alex Hern, Alexis Petridis, Andrew Roth, Emma Graham-Harrison, George Monbiot, Jim Waterson, John Crace, John Harris, Jonathan Freedland, Kiran Stacey, Larry Elliott, Luke Harding, Marina Hyde, Nesrine Malik, Owen Jones, Peter Walker, Pippa Crerar, Polly Toynbee, Shaun Walker, Simon Hattenstone and Zoe Williams. The podcast is a topical, deep dive, explainer on a topic or story in the news, covering: current affairs, politics, investigations, leaks, scandals and interviews. It might cover topics such as: GB, Scotland, England and Ireland news, the environment, green issues, climate change, the climate emergency and global warming; American politics including: US presidential election 2024, Biden, Trump, the White House, the GOP, the Republicans and the Republican Party, the Democrats and the Democratic Party; UK politics including: UK election 24, Parliament, Labour, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats, Reform UK, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer; culture; the royals and the royal family, including King Charles III and Prince Harry; HS2; the police and current affairs including: Ukraine, Russia, Bangladesh, Israel, Palestine, Gaza and AI.

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