Mark and Pete

Here’s the episode 2 description, keeping the JLR story central but widening into the bigger British-industry and net-zero question.Jaguar Land Rover is cutting around 4,000 jobs, trying to save £1.7 billion and facing fierce competition from China, tariffs, rising costs and the lingering effects of a devastating cyberattack. Britain’s biggest carmaker is not going bust. But something is clearly going wrong. citeturn131080news47In this episode of Mark & Pete, we ask: is Jaguar Land Rover running out of road?JLR employs about 43,000 people globally, around 34,000 of them in Britain, and is a hugely important part of UK manufacturing. Yet it now plans to remove nearly 10% of its workforce while lowering the number of vehicles it needs to sell just to break even. At the same time, remarkably, it still intends to invest somewhere between £15 billion and £18 billion over five years in electrification, digital technology and manufacturing. citeturn131080news47Which brings us to the electric elephant in the showroom.Jaguar made the extraordinary decision to end its traditional model range and reinvent itself as an all-electric luxury brand. Was that bold long-term thinking, or did the company move further and faster than customers actually wanted?And JLR is hardly alone. Across Europe, traditional car manufacturers are struggling with the enormous expense of moving towards electric vehicles while Chinese manufacturers pile into the market with cheaper alternatives. Volkswagen, Stellantis, Nissan and others are restructuring as the industry changes at astonishing speed. citeturn131080news36Britain has another problem too: the wider cost of doing business.There were 1,931 company insolvencies in England and Wales in July 2026, up 5% on the previous month. That is not another 2008-style collapse, and the insolvency rate remains well below the financial-crisis peak, but businesses are plainly operating in a difficult environment. citeturn131080search0So we widen the discussion. Are net-zero targets, electric-vehicle mandates and high industrial energy costs helping Britain build the industries of the future, or making it harder to keep the industries we already have?Decarbonisation may be desirable. But if British factories close and we simply import cars, steel and manufactured goods made elsewhere, have we reduced emissions or merely exported them along with the jobs?Our Bible verse is Luke 14:28: before building the tower, sit down and count the cost.Perhaps Britain needs to do exactly that.

Donald Trump is promising Americans a $5,000 payment if Republicans win control of Congress. He calls it a dividend. Critics call it a bribe. And somewhere in the middle sits one of the strangest election promises in recent memory.In this episode of Mark & Pete, we ask whether the proposed $5,000 Trump dividend is actually a reward for American economic success, a spectacular piece of political theatre, or something uncomfortably close to buying goodwill with public money.The numbers are enormous. A payment of $5,000 to every eligible American adult could cost well over a trillion dollars. That immediately raises the obvious question: where does the money come from? Trump points to tariffs, economic growth and increased government revenue, but the sums do not neatly add up. Governments have, admittedly, never regarded that as an insurmountable obstacle.We look at whether the proposal could legally count as bribery. Strictly speaking, probably not. The payment would not depend on how an individual person voted. But politically the message is rather less subtle: return Republicans to power and there is a large cheque waiting.Is that fundamentally different from politicians promising tax cuts, pension increases, subsidies or benefits before an election? Perhaps not. But the sheer size and simplicity of the offer gives it a rather different flavour. Five thousand dollars is not a minor adjustment buried on page 87 of a manifesto. People notice it.We also ask whether the underlying economic claim stands up. Is the US economy really performing strongly enough to justify a national dividend? Is tariff income creating genuinely new wealth, or simply shifting costs around the economy? And what happens to inflation, borrowing and the already enormous US national debt if Congress actually approves the scheme?There is also a deeper question. Democracy depends on voters making judgements about leadership, policy, character and the common good. What happens when politics increasingly becomes transactional: what will you give me if I vote for you?Our Bible verse is Deuteronomy 16:19: “You shall not pervert justice… and you shall not accept a bribe.”Trump dividend or Trump bribe? Economic genius, shameless electioneering, or simply politics with cashback?Mark and Pete discuss.

Robotaxis have arrived in London. Uber and British autonomous-driving company Wayve have launched the UK’s first public autonomous ride-hailing service, using specially equipped all-electric Ford Mustang Mach-E cars. You can now request an UberX, Uber Electric or Uber Comfort and, if fate is feeling futuristic, a self-driving car may turn up instead.There is, however, one small detail.There is still a driver.For now, each of London’s first robotaxis carries a qualified human safety driver behind the wheel. The initial fleet is tiny, around 15 cars, and passengers can refuse the autonomous option if they would rather be driven by a person with all the usual British motoring qualifications, including muttering at cyclists and becoming unexpectedly theological at roundabouts.Then BBC technology editor Zoe Kleinman tried one.Most of the journey apparently went perfectly well. And then, near the end, a van door suddenly opened into the robotaxi’s path and the human safety driver intervened.Which is, admittedly, not quite the advertising slogan Silicon Valley was hoping for.Wayve says its autonomous system would itself have reacted safely. That may well be true. But the sight of the human taking control at precisely the moment things became awkward rather neatly illustrates the whole question surrounding robotaxis.Are we actually ready?The argument for autonomous cars is stronger than many people assume. The UK government says drivers contribute to around 88 per cent of reported road collisions, which means removing tiredness, distraction, drink, impatience and simple human stupidity could produce enormous safety benefits.American evidence is encouraging too. UK government analysis cites peer-reviewed research based on 56.7 million fully driverless Waymo miles, showing an 85 per cent reduction in serious-injury crashes compared with human drivers, alongside large reductions in injuries involving pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists.Britain’s legal standard is deliberately demanding. Under the Automated Vehicles Act 2024, approved self-driving vehicles must eventually perform at least as safely as a careful and competent human driver, not merely the rather more alarming statistical creature known as the average driver.And yet driving is not merely following lanes and recognising traffic lights.It is dealing with delivery vans, roadworks, emergency vehicles, cyclists appearing from nowhere, pedestrians doing something inexplicable and a bloke in a white Transit deciding that the pavement is temporarily a loading bay.That is where the doubts begin.Mark and Pete ask whether self-driving taxis really will make Britain’s roads safer, what happens to taxi drivers, who carries the blame when artificial intelligence gets it wrong and whether people will ever trust machines with their lives.Because perhaps the biggest obstacle is not technology.It is us.If a human driver crashes, we call it an accident.If a robotaxi crashes, we call for Parliament.

Victoria Beckham Holdings has finally made a profit. After 18 years of fashion shows, beauty launches, celebrity cachet, private investment, substantial losses and, one assumes, quite a lot of very expensive beige, Victoria Beckham’s fashion and beauty business has posted its first operating profit.And not a tiny one either.For 2025, Victoria Beckham Holdings reported revenue of £129.8 million, up 15 per cent from £112.7 million the year before. Operating profit came in at £7.3 million, compared with a £1.6 million operating loss in 2024. EBITDA rose more than fivefold to £12.1 million. It was also the company’s fifth consecutive year of double-digit revenue growth.So, has Posh finally done it?Well, yes. But there is quite a lot of history sitting behind that £7.3 million.Victoria Beckham launched the label in 2008, debuting her ready-to-wear collection at New York Fashion Week. The beauty arm followed in 2019. For years, though, the business lost money. By 2022 it was reportedly nearly £54 million in debt, while accumulated losses over the longer period have gone beyond £66 million.Which raises the slightly impolite question Mark and Pete are asking in this episode: was this always a genuinely good business waiting to come right, or a terrible business kept alive because Victoria Beckham happened to be married to a very rich former footballer and had access to investors most struggling fashion designers can only dream about?The answer, annoyingly, may be both.Because the turnaround now looks real. Beauty has become enormously important and reportedly makes up around two-thirds of group revenue. Products such as the Satin Kajal eyeliner have become strong sellers, while fashion has performed well in tailoring, occasion wear, denim and jersey. Better cost control, stronger direct-to-consumer sales and international expansion have all helped.And that changes the story.Keeping a loss-making company alive for years using outside money looks foolish right up until the moment it begins generating sustainable profits. Then somebody will inevitably write a business-school case study explaining that it was visionary patience all along.Mark and Pete look at the numbers behind Victoria Beckham’s first profit, the historic losses, the role of David Beckham and outside investors, the rise of Victoria Beckham Beauty and the uncomfortable but interesting question of whether celebrity businesses get chances ordinary entrepreneurs never would.Is this finally a great British business success story?Or merely the first year in which an extremely expensive hobby has remembered it is supposed to make money?Either way, after 18 years, Posh is in the black.You have to admire the persistence. Even if the accountant needed rather more convincing.

Keir Starmer resigns as MP, bringing an extraordinary political career to a rather abrupt close. After becoming Labour leader in 2020, winning a huge Commons majority in the 2024 UK general election, becoming Prime Minister and then leaving Downing Street in July 2026, Sir Keir has now decided to leave Parliament as well. So the question rather writes itself: was Keir Starmer Britain’s worst ever Prime Minister?That is the deliberately provocative question Mark and Pete tackle in this episode. Starmer was spectacularly successful at getting Labour into power. He took a party flattened in 2019 and, five years later, put it back in government with 411 MPs. You cannot really call that political incompetence. Yet that 411-seat victory came on only about 34 per cent of the national vote, an enormous parliamentary majority resting on a rather less enormous popular mandate.What happened afterwards, though, is rather more awkward. A premiership of barely two years, collapsing public enthusiasm, internal Labour rebellions, difficult economic choices and, eventually, Andy Burnham taking over as Prime Minister.And then there were the U-turns. Oh, the U-turns.Winter fuel payments. Welfare reform. The grooming gangs inquiry. Digital ID. Earlier promises on tuition fees and green investment. Positions announced firmly, defended firmly and, sometimes with impressive speed, replaced by another firm position. Starmer’s critics came to argue that the problem was not simply that he changed his mind. Governments have to do that occasionally. It was that voters increasingly struggled to work out what the underlying Starmer position actually was.Now comes perhaps the neatest turn of all. After indicating that he intended to remain in Parliament until the next general election, Starmer has resigned as MP for Holborn and St Pancras. The seat he first won in 2015 will now face a by-election, with Green leader Zack Polanski already saying he intends to stand.So what exactly is the Starmer legacy? A highly effective Leader of the Opposition who turned out to be a poor Prime Minister? A decent man trapped by events and impossible expectations? Or the political embodiment of managerial Britain, endlessly reviewing, consulting, recalibrating and then discovering that somebody else has acquired the keys to Number 10?Mark and Pete react to Starmer’s resignation, revisit some of his most memorable political reversals, assess Labour under Andy Burnham, and ask where Sir Keir sits among Britain’s shortest and least successful premierships.Was he really Britain’s worst ever Prime Minister?Liz Truss may reasonably request the right of reply.Politics, power, promises and the peculiar speed with which yesterday’s landslide can become today’s footnote. Psalm 146 offers an older warning: “Put not your trust in princes.” Westminster continues to provide the illustrations.