This is a City AM Studios production.
SPEAKER_03Hello and welcome back to Business as Usual with me, Martin Kimber. And me, Matt Kenyon. Coming up on the podcast today, as President Trump dramatically declares that the Iran ceasefire is over, the price of oil and the cost of government borrowing have shot up.
SPEAKER_02Virgin Media O2 is handed one of the biggest fines in the media watchdog's history for making it harder for customers to cancel their contract and for not cooperating with the investigation.
SPEAKER_03Plus, we will be speaking to our own food and lifestyle writer about his journey to get jacked. Welcome back to the podcast, everyone. So if Trump's chaotic Iran ceasefire ever seemed a little too good to be true, that is because it looks like it was. Now the US president has said that that deal is over and markets are convulsing in pretty dramatic fashion. So we're lucky to be joined by our closest Iran and Trump watcher, uh Sam Norman. I think you I mean you edit our morning live blog where this is normally top of the agenda and has been for several months, is the thing which is really driving. Yeah, how often are you waking up at the moment, like, ah crap.
SPEAKER_04See, I think my routine for the last couple of months has been, right, what has happened with Trumping Iran overnight. And usually on that like 6 a.m. train in, we've seen this gradual easing intentions. However, I will say what we're seeing today is not particularly a surprise. Like anyone who's closely followed it the last week, we've seen this start with exchanging strikes again. We've seen there's still all these contentious issues over Iran having a nuclear weapon and the straight of home is obviously this massive oil supply waterway. So today what we've seen, I mean, obviously it's that dramatic scale, but we were heading in that direction for a couple of weeks now, I think.
SPEAKER_02Why, when the price of oil goes up, why did chip stocks and AI stocks tank? Because I mean, uh they don't are they particularly oil intense?
SPEAKER_04So I think there's a lot of moving parts, and this is what actually we've seen big economists and the Bank of England even warn about these overlapping risks. So the two separate risks: this AI sell-off and this tech sell-off, which we've seen fueled by earnings seasons. Obviously, we saw uh Samsung's blockbuster earnings this week, but sometimes it's not enough to ease some of these tech sell-off fears. Now you've got things like that overlapping with this massive spike in oil prices that we saw earlier this year, and now obviously they're creeping back up there, which is finding these inflationary risks. So there's these two big ongoing risks to global markets that are just coming at the same time now, as you say. And uh, yeah, sometimes not particularly interrelated, but coming at the same time. I mean, it's not the nicest thing for investors.
SPEAKER_03It's been a real classic theme of the Trump 2.0 journey so far. It started with the tariffs last year and then now into uh the the back and forth on Iran this year, which is that markets increasingly just can't trust that when Trump announces something, i.e., a ceasefire, that will hold. I remember you've been quite skeptical throughout the last few weeks and months that this ceasefire is durable or real. Do you think this is going to create even more uncertainty heading into the end of the year?
SPEAKER_04See, it's it's a weird one because we've not they've actually got to a point where markets were just shrugging off any developments over the last couple of weeks between Trump and Iran because like a strike here, a comment there was different. But then this is obviously a full blown out when we're ripping up the negotiations, we're not doing it anymore. So this is the first time in a while I think markets have kind of took him at his word as uh in terms of what the ceasefire is over. Now, in terms of the inserting it's bringing, I know from conversations I'm having with like lawyers and bankers, the deals and the IPOs that were in the pipeline, they're not gonna be one of going now. Like we saw what was happening earlier this year, we saw what happened last year with tariffs. Klarna, that was an IPO that got cancelled because of tariffs earlier this year. So many, I mean, love holidays was floated around at one point. All these different spin-offs and IPOs were floating around.
SPEAKER_02All that is now potentially not getting ahead because of Wednesday's this is a.
SPEAKER_04I mean, uh we don't potentially know what's gonna come down the pipeline now, but just judging from what we saw earlier this year, the massive market drop that we saw uh mainly in Q2, I mean, you're not gonna want to go on a public market when everyone's selling off. And the footsteps slipped below um 10,000. Like you're not gonna want to join any index around that time. So if we're heading back towards that way, and I don't think we're gonna get to the dramatics that we got to in the second quarter, but if we're heading on a period of sell-off and a period of risk aversion, which is a key point here, you're not gonna want to go public to retail investors and to public investors when they're in a risk-averse mindset.
SPEAKER_02But that is sort of like you've hit the crucial nail on the head. If you can't trust what the president of the United States is saying, you know, you it's almost gotten to the point now where people are as skeptical about what he's saying as what they hear out of Tehran as what they hear out of Moscow. You know, it this is really damaging stuff.
SPEAKER_03It's also just the worst possible timing for a new UK government, particularly that we know that Andy Burnham is less interested in foreign affairs than he is in um yeah, in domestic affairs. I mean, I think Rishi Sanaik went on the record recently and said one of the one of the things that really surprised him about becoming PM a couple of years ago was that he ended up spending a really surprising 40% of his time as PM on foreign affairs. And I imagine for Keir Starman, that's been high, and I imagine for Andy Burnham that's going to be higher than that.
SPEAKER_04We've seen the argument grow a while, and this could really bring it from what you've just said about with the burn on point of like having a foreign secretary who is not an MP, and maybe maybe it's making someone a lord who has this sort of experience, maybe a David Miller band, who can afford to spend time out of the country and deal with the likes of Trump. And because you've not just got the Treasury shoring up the economic fallout, but you've obviously got the political fallout as well. So yeah, it's it's back to that sort of period of uncertainty.
SPEAKER_02Um and we really haven't interrogated Count Binface's foreign policy enough, I don't think. Uh Sam, Wednesday wasn't a good day for VMO2, for Virgin Media 02, was it?
SPEAKER_04No, absolutely not. I mean, we've seen um over the last uh couple of months, I mean, watchdogs have kind of been showing their teeth a little bit with the fines they've been handing out. And um, this was a real big one. So I think it's one of the biggest Ofcom that's a media watchdog has ever done. Uh Virgin Media is 28 million pounds. And you know what? I think the difference is with this one, it's something we can all kind of relate to. And I don't mean this is a direct criticism of Virgin Media 2. Well, exactly that's related to that. I uh it's actually what they were fined for in terms of you're trying to call, you're trying to switch um your account, whether that be a bank account, whether it be a phone service, whether it be a gym membership, like you're trying to ring up and call and switch something and you just can't get it signed off. Yeah. They're switching you around, they're switching your calls around, you're not getting like an actual sign-off. And I think it's like people seeing this, regardless of a brand associated with it, they're like, yeah, that makes sense because everyone's had that experience.
SPEAKER_03There is no excuse in 2026 to have something, any kind of service that you pay money for that you cannot cancel on its own website or app. It's just insane the idea that you'd have to go through when they're trying to get everyone off the phone lines anyway to create that friction. Um, so yeah, I it's yeah, the frustration is understandable.
SPEAKER_02But it's it's a shame, really, because they they do provide really fast internet compared with DT and open reach and stuff like that. And I I I'm trying to get faster internet where I live. The only people who offer it are Virgin Meteor O2, and I I can't get the line up into my flat because it's too high up. And so, like, if it if we could only create this to Ofcom. If only we could create the perfect company with both brilliant customer service and really fast internet.
SPEAKER_03So the irony of creating such wonderfully fast connection, I mean and not to let people use it to cancel your own service. And it is exquisite.
SPEAKER_04It is quite insane. I mean, you look at the case, it was a period of January 2022 to September 2024 where we investigated. And we said millions of calls. This is a oh, like this is not like a few cases of customers, this is millions of calls that they investigated. And I don't know, this is not necessarily every single one, but they were finding this pattern of hassle and difficulty with customers, which is it's an insane thing to be going on for that long across so many calls.
SPEAKER_02And I was surprised to read the bit uh where Ofcom said they weren't cooperating with the investigation either. And it's just like these days, you know, there's nowhere to hide, to be honest.
SPEAKER_03If you are a business as usual listener who has been affected by any of the issues, reach out to us. We'd love to hear human interest stories. There are millions of people out there.
SPEAKER_02There is a fan mail link which you can use to not just send us press releases, which is currently what it's being used for.
SPEAKER_03So we'll keep accepting them as well. Sam, that's about all we have time for. Thank you very much for joining us uh for talking about these quite various topics. And we we will see you again on the podcast very soon. Now for some other stories making the headlines this week. So we've had quite a feisty, fiery intervention from the shadow business secretary. That is Andrew Griffith on the Conservative benches. He's lashed out at what he calls Ivory Tower financial regulators. Uh, we know them as uh the FCA, I think that's what he's referring to here. So the Financial Conduct Authority. The senior Tory MP says watchdogs aren't spending enough time dealing with problems facing London's capital markets. He's even blamed regulators for making the square mile less competitive. And you might remember, just a couple of years ago, a certain Rachel Reeves promised that regulators would be under a lot of pressure from her government to supercharge innovation, but it looks like it hasn't quite gone exactly to plan.
SPEAKER_02No, not yet. Um, I mean, K Kemi Badenok unveiled that policy a while ago on um stamp duty on shares, which would seem to be the most radical idea that I've heard politicians put forward for a while.
SPEAKER_03No one, I think, has put together a strong political argument so far about how you actually get regulators to make things more innovative. It's a very difficult thing to do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, some people in Westminster were saying that the King's speech had a bit about it regulating for growth, which uh made them chuckle. Um a story from our retail reporter, Felix Armstrong. Jet two has recorded a 400 million pound boost from the rising price of jet fuel. The package holiday provider has revealed that it defied the travel chaos caused by the Middle East conflict to instead take a 388 million pound balance sheet because the company had already locked in low fuel prices with its suppliers.
SPEAKER_03So we talk about this quite a lot, what impact this will end up having on airlines. And I am I get the impression there is a brief short-term sugar rush that will come just from the elevated prices. I do think there are problems ahead when people start to change their whole day plans, start booking them much closer to the time. Also, I think we have to factor into it. There's something that's we're talking about a bit on our pages, but this new EU entry-exit scheme. We did some polling, some uh exclusive polling with freshwater strategies. A big chunk of the UK public are genuinely uh questioning their choices to go to Europe this summer and enter the Schengen area because you're getting four five-hour waits at airports, and the EU this week uh doubled down on that and don't seem to be in any way eager to U-turn.
SPEAKER_02Which is uh slightly bittersweet in that I think it was the UK, while we're in the EU, that suggested the scheme in the first place years ago that is now being implemented.
SPEAKER_03It always comes back around. Uh, one more which talk about this is from uh Maisie Grice, our investment reporter. So the UK's largest state-backed pension scheme, they're planning to invest up to a billion pounds by the end of the decade. That is the uh National Employment Savings Trust. We probably talk about them as NEST uh more often because it's a bit of a mouthful. But they say their plans are going to expand into high growth companies, private companies, that is, uh, that will kick off with a pretty mega 200 million pound allocation into Schroeder's capital. Well, there's uh another example of the government trying to boost growth through any means uh at all, um grasping uh uh straws potentially, but uh and also trying to bridge that investment gap, which is this this massive problem we have of pensions not moving quickly enough, people not investing enough, and a lot of intervention being needed to get to get money and liquidity flowing.
SPEAKER_02And finally, the famous saying goes summer bodies are built in the winter. But what if you're a professional food critic? Our very own deputy life and style editor, Adam Bloodworth, has set out on a mission to get jacked in the name of magazine journalism. Let's check in with his journey. Uh Adam joins us now.
SPEAKER_01Adam, how is it going? I'm not jacked, but I am more jacked than I have ever been, which is exciting. That's great. Um it turns out having someone shouting at you twice a week and telling you to like do stuff actually kind of works. Yeah, it's been it's been a it's been an education, and it's been, yeah, I guess so. My story is that I've yeah, reviewed restaurants for I guess 10 years, more than maybe 12 years, I don't know. Always just leaned into the hedonism, had a lovely time of it, like squarely millennial perspective on things, and then just thought, well, probably should stop doing this now, maybe, or think about and stop doing this because I did. Now you're in your late 20s, and time to sort yourself out. Exactly.
SPEAKER_03Do you did you have a moment where there was a turning point and you thought I'm gonna embrace full Silicon Valley drill sergeant coach in your life?
SPEAKER_01I think what was the the moment was just like I did another article on this Posh Mayfair Health Clinic and was told that I'm technically in the obese category, or I was, which was not the answer that I was hoping to get. I know.
SPEAKER_02But BMI is rough, BMI is is a bit unfair and uh slightly inaccurate.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I just thought look, I'm interested to see what it might look like. I've got no answers, no solutions. Just interested to see what it might look like to try and get in shape, and it's just been for like fascinating. I think the the actual weights and the doing the exercising and the lifting stuff has been easier than I thought. Um, it's actually just so fascinating looking at kind of like the mental journey of like anyone can do anything for a month, and then you hit this massive wall. Oh, consistency is hard, and then you hit another massive wall, and just trying to work through those, and what does that mean? It's been like free therapy. It's like, and then the one of the most fascinating elements was every time I stand on that scale, which is so humiliating, you feel like a batch chicken standing on the scale.
SPEAKER_03How often is this happening?
SPEAKER_01This is once a week, socks off, shoes off, like toxically not drinking water beforehand to like help myself, whatever I can to get those get those cat those kilograms in the right direction. But what's been fascinating is that every time I've gone and I've gone, look, I'm gonna be back up, I'm gonna be back up this week.
SPEAKER_02And I've now had a run of three or four where I've been considerably lower, which is just those are the boosts you need to keep going, because if you if you don't see progress for too long, then it it becomes real not for this to turn into a gym bro podcast, but yeah. But my question is like there are lots of people who listen to us in the city who probably go for nice city lunches. There's probably a couple of insurance people who who listen to us who we see at the pub opposite our our office at 11am. What what's your advice to them about how to live a fun uh sort of lunch lifestyle, but also keeping and staying in shape?
SPEAKER_01That's my whole article. You know, how can I I'm not willing to give up, and I'm I can't give up. It's my job to review restaurants. So, how can you pair these two things? I don't want to become a bore, I want to eat out, I want to do the fun stuff, but I also like should maybe think about the stuff. What I've I mean, this I can only talk from my own perspective. Everyone's done something different. I'm completely new to this. If you're completely new to this, my only advice would be don't be afraid of the actual going on a deficit and actually looking at that toxic, quite loaded word calories. Because I think that I was always scared forever of you know, if what does it mean if I try and go on a diet or lose weight or cut back? Because it's like I'm just shooting in the dark. Like, do I cut everything out? Is everything boring now? Can I have any fun? Whereas actually, you can do if you just stick to the deficit, you can actually choose how you want to live. And as long as you're within the deficit, it gave me this quite structured way of looking at my days. And toxically, if I fancy not eating much for lunch and then having four beers and a pizza at night, well, I'm a tall guy and I'm still in my deficit. So I've actually found that there are ways of manoeuvring so your days can be pretty fun and actually not that different. Look, I'm not talking about nutrition here, I'm talking about medical advice. No, this is this is not nutrition. This is purely, and look, I need to I acknowledge that I'm new to this, I need to tackle that at another point. But what's been fascinating is to learn that actually in terms of weight loss and putting on muscle, you can still do loads of fun stuff. You just have to not do it at lunch and at dinner every day.
SPEAKER_03I'm intrigued as well, just in terms of your trainer, what sort of clients, I suppose, is your trainer working with? Are they working with people of various ages, various professions? Have you got a view of some of the fitness habits of the square mile through through this exercise?
SPEAKER_01That's a great question. I I don't think I do, but I think I do have an understanding of just like how kind of open to different types of people you would have been as a PT, and how like incredibly like flexible and like welcoming. He's such a sweet guy, he's like 26, he's just like fully backs me. I believe him. I like he's such an integral part of my journey. And yeah, he's got some like much older guy after me most weeks. Um, some people that are like clearly very overweight. Just before we finish, do you want to give him a shout out? Sam Bannel. Good PT. Absolutely um Sam. Well on well on Sam. He's is he's very prominently featured in my article. Um, I don't I actually don't think he's on Instagram, but you can have a look. He's at Virgin Active Bank, whom I don't know if I'm allowed to say that, but um they're obviously operating. That's probably fine. Um and I love actually just a genuine shout out to Virgin Active who are just kind of like a very fun. I that might sound terrible, but like I mean I've worked I've gone what done stuff with lots of other uh gyms, and Virgin Active are just like fun. I really like it there. It's like okay, the no paparazzi signs in the in the change of rooms, fun. It is fun. Do you know what? Do you know what? Do you know what? This is what fascinates me. Third Space charge a whack for the I'm this is my last ever free Third Space membership out the window, but they charge a whack for their membership. There's no hot tubs anywhere. Virgin Active, half the price, everywhere's got a hot tub. And I'm interested in hot tubs. Yeah. So that's what I want.
SPEAKER_02And with that, thank you, Adam. We we thank you for your time. We thank you for your investigative journalism. Big shout out to anyone on a fitness journey out there at the moment. It's a hard thing to do. It takes consistency, hard work, blood, sweat, tears, money, and protein meals from Lidl. So congratulations, thank you.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much. It means the world to me.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's just about all we have time for today.
SPEAKER_03Thank you very much for listening to Business as Usual. Don't forget to subscribe to City AM's daily and weekly newsletters. And of course, don't forget to download our free app.
SPEAKER_02It's got everything those expensive ones have, except ours is free, unlike Third Space. We'll be back in your podcast feeds tomorrow at 6 a.m. But for now, goodbye. Goodbye.