00:00What happened at the 2026 Oscars? Sorry first of all if I'm a little baggy-eyed after my night
00:06watching the ceremony in London. The headline is that one battle after another Paul Thomas
00:11Anderson's freewheeling political comic action thriller won big and it won Best Picture which
00:17having been favourite for so long ended up feeling weirdly like a shock given the seemingly runaway
00:22momentum of Ryan Coogler's vampire fable Sinners in the last few weeks. It's interesting that a
00:28film as frazzled as one battle after another would have been favourite in the first place.
00:32I do think it's what everyone outside the academy would simply call film of the year. Pinpoint timely,
00:38filled with ideas and a giant gamble which in gold statuettes if not box office receipts
00:43has now paid off. I'm glad that Michael B. Jordan won Best Actor for his performance in Sinners
00:49though I do wish that Jessie Buckley who won Best Actress playing Shakespeare's wife in Hamnet
00:53had won for a better film. The whole thing clearly made a great party for Warner Brothers just in
00:59time to be swallowed up by Paramount and the Ellison family and yet going on the laughter for comic
01:05Conan O'Brien's opening monologue even now Hollywood doesn't like Ted Sarandos or it appears
01:12Timothee Chalamet. The ceremony itself was painless which relatively speaking makes it a triumph after
01:17some very bumpy recent years. So again kudos to Conan O'Brien for actually leaving that stage with his
01:23career intact. I'm gonna go and have a coffee, you can tell the academy what they got wrong.
01:32Could AI be your therapist? Kirstie turned to ChatGBT when she didn't have access to traditional
01:40therapy and in just four weeks it helped her to escape what it called an abusive relationship.
01:46The chatbot told her to pack a grab bag of things to take with her in case she needed to
01:51leave the house
01:52in a hurry and eventually she did. I didn't choose AI because it was AI, I chose it because it's
01:59what I
01:59had and I needed out so I hope I would have found another way out but I don't think so.
02:05I think I'd
02:05still be there. A UK survey says that more than one in three adults are now using AI to support
02:11their
02:11mental health and well-being and this is actually something that psychologists are starting to
02:17encounter in their work too. I started probably a year ago just having people mention that they had
02:24turned to ChatBots for advice or a place to kind of think things through and then more recently I've
02:31had people who have reached out for couples therapy share with me that their ChatBot has diagnosed their
02:38partner with certain things which has been more on the concerning side for me as a therapist because
02:44ChatBots sort of are good at some things and less good at others. So can AI be a good therapist
02:51and what
02:52does it mean if we start to use AI as a sort of referee in our human relationships? I explore
02:58all of
02:58this in the latest episode of Tectonic Artificial Intimacy. Find it wherever you get your podcasts.
03:12There's no one in British politics like Nigel Farage. There's suddenly no other party leader
03:17who'd have two bowls of wine with a journalist on the record. I first had lunch with Farage in 2016
03:22ahead of the Brexit referendum. I had lunch with him again this month with his Reform UK party leading
03:29the opinion polls. Then in 2016 he was a fringe figure. Now he's possibly heading to Downing Street.
03:36So what happened? Did Farage change or did we? One interesting thing is that Farage does not seem
03:42to have become massively more popular. A favourability tracker by pollsters YouGov shows that his appeal
03:47has remained relatively stable. But there have also been changes in Farage's support. His voters today
03:52are less likely to have a degree and despite all his success on TikTok they are more likely to be
03:56over 65 according to analysis by Focal Data. But what about Farage the man? Farage himself?
04:04Michael Crick wrote a biography of Farage so he knows him better than most people.
04:08Does he think that Farage has changed?
04:10I don't think Nigel Farage really has changed since he was at school. And of course he got his politics
04:15at school inspired by visits from Sir Keith Joseph and Enoch Powell.
04:21Mr Nigel Farage.
04:25I think there have been times when Farage has been far too admiring of the Trump regime in both of
04:31its periods and of Trump himself. And I think that is a problem for him because Trump is not popular.
04:38He's very unpopular in this country.
04:41Farage himself? Well he told me he hadn't changed apart from a few grey hairs.
04:45And that's deliberate because he wants to pitch himself as someone who champions ideas
04:50long before they become popular, long before they enter the mainstream. But
04:54at the same time he reads opinion polls and he adjusts his policies accordingly.
05:00He recently flip-flopped his policy on the two-child benefit gap
05:03and he changed his view on whether Britain should join the war in Iran.
05:08His other argument is that if reform wins the May local elections voters will see his momentum
05:12and jump on the bandwagon.
05:14I don't think it's at all definite that Farage will be Prime Minister. In fact I think the odds are
05:18against it.
05:19But if you look at what's happened in the four significant by-elections in this parliament
05:23reform hasn't done as well as was predicted a few days before the vote.
05:29And I think you will have huge tactical voting before the next election
05:33and of course that is what has beaten Farage in the past.
05:37Much of the past ten years Farage and his pine glass have been unavoidable.
05:41He'd like you to think that he's inevitable as well.
05:48This week we saw the first tranche of the Mandelson files and they included within it
05:52a two-page document detailing the general reputational risks posed by appointing Lord Peter Mandelson
05:59as UK ambassador to the US.
06:01This was a document, it says on the top of it, that was prepared for the Prime Minister.
06:06So, you know, the Prime Minister upon seeing this didn't have to go ahead with the appointment.
06:11It really brings it back to the Prime Minister's thought, doesn't it?
06:14Exactly. I mean the general reputational risk to the government should have been
06:17sort of something that was ringing alarm bells in number ten
06:20and requiring the Prime Minister as the person who was going to make this appointment
06:23to personally get involved to establish the facts.
06:27And one of the things that's come out as part of this disclosure was
06:31there were some documents where there were strange holes, basically,
06:35where the Prime Minister's comments should have been, the box notes as they were called.
06:39And there were questions about, you know, why hadn't he made some comments
06:42about what was going on here?
06:43And the explanation from Downing Street was, well, there are other ways for the Prime Minister
06:46to pass on his views.
06:48And, of course, he read the advice.
06:49But the overwhelming impression from going through the 147-page cache of documents
06:55is how absent the Prime Minister was from this whole thing.
06:58There's one reference in a document dated the day after
07:02Mandelson was sacked in September 25, where Jonathan Powell says he thought
07:07that maybe the Prime Minister had been involved in a couple of political conversations.
07:12But, you know, very little evidence the Prime Minister was involved at all,
07:15to the extent to which Kemi Badenow, the Tory leader, said that she thinks
07:18there must be some kind of cover-up.
07:20But I suspect it's more likely that this was delegated by the Prime Minister
07:24to his former Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney.
07:26We know he was sent off to do some extra inquiries.
07:29But the Prime Minister was strangely absent.
07:32I think George is exactly right, then.
07:34The big theme coming out of this is of a Prime Minister who's just not present,
07:38who is not actually in any meaningful way running the government.
07:41And in an odd way, as I'm sure we all hear, right,
07:44sometimes feels when you're talking to people about what Downing Street or Keir Starmer thinks,
07:47it's like you're being invited into a rabbinical discussion about, like,
07:50what did Hashem mean?
07:51It's just like, you know you can ask him, right?
07:53Like, he's in the building.
07:55But, yeah, that kind of wonderful sort of...
07:57And now, I, Jonathan Powell, would just like to make it clear,
07:59I didn't think this was a good idea before,
08:01I'm not going to get stiffed with it now,
08:04and I think it reveals a fractious and ill-led Downing Street.
08:14Nearly 90% of FT readers are not planning on spending their bonus money.
08:19Instead, the majority plan to invest it.
08:21Why?
08:22To save tax.
08:24Many readers are stuck in the 100k tax trap.
08:28You'll pay a 62% tax rate on this slice of your income,
08:32rising to 71% if you're repaying a student loan.
08:36Ouch!
08:37Let's take a reader on a 100k salary who gets a 25k bonus.
08:42How much extra money would they actually get after tax?
08:45This much.
08:46But what if they're repaying a student loan?
08:49Even less.
08:51Got young kids?
08:52If one parent earns over 100,000,
08:56they'd lose valuable childcare benefits too.
08:59This is why many people use salary sacrifice to pay more into their pension
09:03and keep their pay on paper below 100k.
09:06Take that reader.
09:08Let's say they sacrifice their £25,000 bonus straight into their pension.
09:13The whole amount gets invested.
09:15There's no tax, national insurance or student loan deductions,
09:17and that money can grow tax-free.
09:20And when they retire,
09:21they can take a 25% tax-free lump sum from their pot,
09:24though they will pay income tax on the rest.
09:26But the downsides, the lock-up.
09:29Those born after 1973 will have to wait until their 57th birthday
09:33before they can get any money out.
09:35So the younger you are,
09:36the greater chance of the tax rules on pensions changing
09:39by the time you eventually retire.
09:44The American and Israeli strategy seems to be to try to eliminate
09:48all the missiles, missile launchers,
09:51and particularly the drone factories,
09:54so that Iran effectively can't fight back eventually.
09:58But how realistic is that,
10:00given the size of the country and the dispersed nature
10:03and the preparations of the Iranian regime for this day?
10:06Do you think it's an achievable aim?
10:08I find it hard to say.
10:10What we do know is that the United States and Israel,
10:12between them,
10:13produce absolutely formidable destructive power
10:17when directed against a country like Iran.
10:21They will have studied their target sets for many, many years
10:25to arrive at what they regard as the most effective strategy.
10:29And just the United States alone
10:31claims that it attacked 3,000 targets
10:34in the first seven days of the conflict alone.
10:37So there is massive destruction.
10:38I think the question in my mind, Gideon,
10:41is not so much can Iran continue to fight
10:45by attacking Israel or even attacking American bases in the Gulf.
10:50I think the critical question will be,
10:53will Iran still be able to pose a significant threat
10:56to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz?
10:58That is their asymmetric ace in the hole, it seems to me.
11:02And the question of the oil price
11:05is likely to be, in my judgment,
11:07an important determinant in the question
11:11of how long this conflict goes on for.
11:13What do I want to go on to,
11:13I want to show you on the basis of the hole.
11:14And if you want to get a sense of giving in your attention
11:15that might have around the ahem right,
11:15And don't wait until the scroll isladı,
11:15is in the departing department,
11:15be able to discover freedom. If there
Comments