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Bloomberg's Hutton on New UK Prime Minister Theresa May (Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: This is a Bloomberg Business flag from Bloomberg World Headquarters.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Charlie Pellett. The SMP five hundred index trading at
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  Speaker 1: Charlie Pellett, and that's a Bloomberg Business flash. You're listening
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  Speaker 1: to taking stock with Pim Box and Kathleen Hayes on
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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. A new Prime minister by Wednesday evening. That's
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  Speaker 1: what David Cameron announced in a brief statement outside his
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  Speaker 1: official residence in central London. She's strong, she's competent. She's
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  Speaker 1: more than able to provide the leadership our country will
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  Speaker 1: need in the years ahead as he gets ready to
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  Speaker 1: step aside, a step he announced as soon as the
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  Speaker 1: vote to leave the European Union from the UK was
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  Speaker 1: a done deal. And I'm talking about Home Secretary Teresa
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  Speaker 1: may So how is this going to play out? Markets
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  Speaker 1: seem to be happy, the pound is rising. Let's ask
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  Speaker 1: Rob Hutton, UK government and politics reporter for Bloomberg News
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  Speaker 1: in London. So Rob, but tell us first of all
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  Speaker 1: about Theresa may Well. She's a vicker's daughter, clergyman's daughter.
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  Speaker 1: She's years old. She's been Home Secretary for six years.
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  Speaker 1: I don't think there's a direct equivalent to that job
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  Speaker 1: in America. But she's responsible for crime, policing, the security services,
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  Speaker 1: lots of stuff. That has traditionally meant that Home sectaries
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  Speaker 1: have to resign. And not only has she has, she
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  Speaker 1: not had to resign. She's she's flourished in that role.
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  Speaker 1: She's her pitch for the leadership was she's experienced, She's
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  Speaker 1: a steady pair of hands at a dangerous time. So
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  Speaker 1: so basically her message is steady hand on the tiller. Alright,
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  Speaker 1: steady hands on the tiller. What are going to be
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  Speaker 1: some of the most pressing issues for her when she
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  Speaker 1: assumes the premiership, Well, it's a horrible job. It's a
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  Speaker 1: horrible job being Prime minister, and it's a particularly horrible
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  Speaker 1: job at the moment. The next Prime Minister is going
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  Speaker 1: to have to negotiate Britain's exit from the European Union,
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  Speaker 1: which means first of all, dealing with dealing with European
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  Speaker 1: allies and trying to persuade them that they want to
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  Speaker 1: give Britain all the things for the Britain wants, which
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  Speaker 1: they don't. And then it means satisfying all the different
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  Speaker 1: demands of different people who wanted to leave the European Union,
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  Speaker 1: who all had different ideas about what it meant. And
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  Speaker 1: then it means finally satisfying all of her parliamentary backbenches,
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  Speaker 1: some of whom are quite obsessed with this subject. And broadly,
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  Speaker 1: as someone famously put it the thing about Tory euroskeptics
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  Speaker 1: as they won't take yes for an answer. So what
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  Speaker 1: else can you tell us about her policy positions? What
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  Speaker 1: do we know about her? I mean, to what extent
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  Speaker 1: would you say, will Catheine just look at the parties
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  Speaker 1: see what they stand for? To what extent do you
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  Speaker 1: have to really know what she has done and so
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  Speaker 1: in the past and what it means for the future. Well,
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  Speaker 1: that's a really good question. I mean, ideally, I was
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  Speaker 1: saying someone this morning before all of this happened, that
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  Speaker 1: that every candidate wants to get through the leadership election
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  Speaker 1: without promising anything. And and of course, because it's ended
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  Speaker 1: so abruptly this morning her rival dropped out. She's eave that.
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  Speaker 1: So there's all sorts of areas where we don't really
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  Speaker 1: know very much about what she thinks. We know that
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  Speaker 1: she campaigned against Brexit, but to be honest, not very
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  Speaker 1: hard and to be honest, can probably live with it.
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  Speaker 1: We know that on law and order she's been quite firm.
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  Speaker 1: She she had issues with human rights lawyers about various things.
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  Speaker 1: But she's also in lots of ways she's a she's
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  Speaker 1: a modernizing conservative dreamy has done two really politically brave
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  Speaker 1: things in her life. The first was in two thousand
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  Speaker 1: and two when she stood up and told the Conservative
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  Speaker 1: Party that people saw them as the nasty Party. Now
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  Speaker 1: that was true, but they didn't like it, and a
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  Speaker 1: lot of them have never really forgiven her for for
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  Speaker 1: that harsh truth. And the second, the second really brave
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  Speaker 1: thing that she did, was in she stood up in
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  Speaker 1: front of the Police Federation, the Police officers trade union,
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  Speaker 1: and told them that they had to change. She said,
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  Speaker 1: it's not just a few bad apples, there is a
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  Speaker 1: there is a cultural problem with Britain's police and they
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  Speaker 1: didn't like that at all. So she is capable. She
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  Speaker 1: has the inner steel and she wants it to deliver
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  Speaker 1: really hard truths to people. Well, delivering hard truths and
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  Speaker 1: delivering on campaign promises might be two different things. I'm
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  Speaker 1: wondering if she has the temperament and the leadership skills
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  Speaker 1: to turn the Brexit vote into something positive for people
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  Speaker 1: in Britain. That's I mean, that is that is a
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  Speaker 1: hundred million dollar question. Um. The problem that we have
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  Speaker 1: with Brexit essentially is that, and it's articulated quite well
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  Speaker 1: in her campaign. She says she has two priorities in
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  Speaker 1: the negotiations. The first is to maintain Britain's access to
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  Speaker 1: the Single Market. That's really important for Britain's economy. We
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  Speaker 1: sell it awful lot of stuff in Europe. And the
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  Speaker 1: second is to end free movement of European citizens to
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  Speaker 1: the UK. Now, if you ask anyone, any European official,
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  Speaker 1: they say, those two things go together. You can't have
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  Speaker 1: one without the other. So how will she that there
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  Speaker 1: is there is an unstoppable force and an immovable object.
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  Speaker 1: And where will she compromise? Probably she can't compromise on
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  Speaker 1: free movement, but if she if she doesn't, then she
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  Speaker 1: will have to go back. And here here is her
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  Speaker 1: slight problem. She is hamstrung by the campaign commitments of
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  Speaker 1: a group of people that didn't include her. The lead
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  Speaker 1: campaign said we can have both of those things. We
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  Speaker 1: can absolutely have both of those things, and various people
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  Speaker 1: said I don't think we can, but lead campaign said no, no,
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  Speaker 1: we can. You know, if it turns out they're wrong,
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  Speaker 1: it may be that because she wasn't one of them,
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  Speaker 1: she has an opportunities. She can say, look, I told
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  Speaker 1: you those people weren't telling you the truth. You know,
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  Speaker 1: and here we are. But the problem is that a
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  Speaker 1: lot of the people on her own side will say, ah, well,
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  Speaker 1: you didn't try hard enough. If only you just tried
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  Speaker 1: a bit harder, pushed a bit harder, being a bit
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  Speaker 1: more optimistic, you could have got the things that we
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  Speaker 1: said that you could get. So there is both an
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  Speaker 1: opportunity and the problem for her. Well, in your story, Rob,
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  Speaker 1: you highlight the fact that in her speech may set
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  Speaker 1: out a pitch for leadership that moved to occupy the
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  Speaker 1: center ground, agnizing that many voters feel insecure and left
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  Speaker 1: behind by globalization, promising crackdowns on high corporate pay in
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  Speaker 1: tax avoidance. Interesting yes, no so so so to read them,
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  Speaker 1: I sees an opportunity. The other thing is going on
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  Speaker 1: in British politics is the opposition Labor Party is in
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  Speaker 1: an impose in all of its own They had they
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  Speaker 1: had it was a characteristic of the Labor Party that
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  Speaker 1: they had. Their big moment was a challenge to their
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  Speaker 1: leader today and it was overshadowed by the Tory leadership.
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  Speaker 1: They actually have people walking out of the Labor press
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  Speaker 1: conference in order to go and cover the Tory one.
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  Speaker 1: So the Tory, the Labor Party just doesn't nowhere in
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  Speaker 1: British politics at the moment, and for the right Tory
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  Speaker 1: leader there is a huge opportunity not just to be
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  Speaker 1: the party of the right, but to be the party
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  Speaker 1: of everyone. So and and to read them was very
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  Speaker 1: firmly making that pitch even before she won unopposed, saying
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  Speaker 1: saying that the Tory Party has to has to speak
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  Speaker 1: for people who who are struggling, people who are not
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  Speaker 1: as well off as they were ten years ago, people
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  Speaker 1: who are worried about their jobsityeople are worried only new
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  Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of people who feel that way.
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  Speaker 1: There's a lot of people who for whom the economy
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  Speaker 1: hasn't been brilliant. There's a lot of people who look
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  Speaker 1: at high pay and say, well, these guys get paid
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  Speaker 1: even when they fail, and I don't even get paid
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  Speaker 1: when I succeed. What's going on? So she she wants
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  Speaker 1: to pitch for all of those voters. Now again, the
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  Speaker 1: problem is that a lot of a lot of the
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  Speaker 1: things that people want maybe hard to achieve, but but
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  Speaker 1: that's her ambition. Are there specific industries that you foresee
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  Speaker 1: doing better with Britain outside of Europe? For example, in
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  Speaker 1: the agriculture industry. I think industries that the main focuses
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  Speaker 1: on industries that will do worse. Um industry, Industries that
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  Speaker 1: don't directly trade with the EU will be better off.
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  Speaker 1: There's an interesting question as to what happens to Britain's
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  Speaker 1: farmers at the moment. They get an awful lot of
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  Speaker 1: subsidies from the EU. Now again, they were promised that
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  Speaker 1: all of those will stay if we leave, But the
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  Speaker 1: Treasury has always eyed those subsidies and said, is really
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  Speaker 1: should we be paying farmers to not farm terribly efficiently?
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  Speaker 1: So if I were a farmer, I don't know how
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  Speaker 1: confident I would be. I know the sugar industry is
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  Speaker 1: quite pleased that we're leaving. There are certain there are
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  Speaker 1: certain niche products people who people who principally deal with
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  Speaker 1: America fishing. The fishing industry is hoping that Britain leaving
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  Speaker 1: means Britain can reclaim it's it's fishing territory. But again,
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  Speaker 1: it may be too late for that. The stocks may
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  Speaker 1: already be depleted. This may be a bit too specific
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  Speaker 1: for Theresa and me to be for us to be
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  Speaker 1: asking about now, But you know, um uh, the the
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  Speaker 1: pro breggsit side was saying that Mark Carney, who's the
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  Speaker 1: head of the Bank of England, should step down, that
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  Speaker 1: he was, you know, politicizing the vote, being far too
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  Speaker 1: draconian about how the economy they were, weren't they. Do
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  Speaker 1: you think that they backed away from that a bit.
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  Speaker 1: They backed away from that a bit in the last
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  Speaker 1: couple of week I think when when bricks It happened
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  Speaker 1: and the pound plunged and the stock market plunged, there
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  Speaker 1: come back up a bit since there was a there
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  Speaker 1: was a realization among the Brexiteers that actually, possibly what
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  Speaker 1: you don't want immediately after you win your vote is
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  Speaker 1: a sense of total panic and chaos. So at that
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  Speaker 1: point they backed away. And as there was a period
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  Speaker 1: where Mark Carney appeared to be the only government that
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  Speaker 1: Britain had, um, I can't see the reason May getting
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  Speaker 1: rid of him. At her entire pitch for the leadership
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  Speaker 1: was everybody calmed down, nothing dramatic is going to happen.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to be in charge and nothing's going to happen.
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  Speaker 1: So I can't see her doing something like that. Whether
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  Speaker 1: Mark Candy will want to stay, of course, you know
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  Speaker 1: he's a Canadian he's got a passport, he can leave.
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  Speaker 1: UM is a different question, but I can't see her
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  Speaker 1: throwing him out. Thank you very much for spending time
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  Speaker 1: with us and illuminating this issue. Rob Hutton, the UK
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  Speaker 1: Government and politics reporter War Bloomberg. The pound sterling trades
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  Speaker 1: right now at one dollar and thirty cents. You're listening
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  Speaker 1: to taking Stock. I'm Pim Fox, my co host Kathleen Hayes,
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  Speaker 1: and this is Bloomberg.