Jeff Randall's Christmas Dinner 2013 - 19.12.13
JEFF RANDALL: In 2013 we said goodbye to Margaret Thatcher and Nelson Mandela but we welcomed a new Pope, a fresh face at the Bank of England and of course, Prince George. The year began with a slew of bankruptcies in the retail sector and reports of a triple dip recession that never was. The year ended with the UK economy growing faster than any other in the G7 group. Job numbers went up, real wages went down, shares galloped ahead as did house prices. There were financial scandals, horsemeat revelations and a political storm over energy prices and, to top it all, the Coop Bank, the ethical bank, had to be rescued by hedge funds. It’s former chairman was caught up in sex and drugs allegations. Yes, it was quite year for news. As we head towards World Cup Finals in Brazil, who better to join me for dinner than Karren Brady, vice-chairman of West Ham United? The city grandee and chairman of British Gas’s owner, Centrica, Sir Roger Carr is ready with his views on the widening row over energy prices and warnings of domestic black outs. All year long Tesco’s Chief Executive Philip Clarke has had plenty on his plate with the horse meat scandal and a battle to prevent market share draining away to discount rivals. Award winning chef Marcus Wearing will add a touch of magic to our special seasonal offering, as well as an insight into the challenges at the top table of the restaurant business. I’m delighted my guests have closed their busy diaries and turned off those wretched mobile phones to join me high above the City in the Gherkin to join me for my Christmas dinner. Marcus, I am so excited by this menu.
MARCUS WEARING: I’m excited to be here.
JEFF RANDALL: Just talk us through it because this is year choice and we are kicking off with a mushroom risotto and truffles.
MARCUS WEARING: I’ve got this one because it is about the luxury and I’ve got a little special surprise for you and it is a little white truffle which to me is almost like nectar from the Gods and the best thing for a white truffle to sit on top of is risotto.
JEFF RANDALL: After that delicious starter we’re going on to Pork, Fennel, Turnip and Apple, very traditional.
MARCUS WEARING: Very traditional, I am at heart a traditional type of person, I quite like the basic things and this is all about the pork, from the Rhug Estate in Wales and it is a beautiful cut, we’ve got the rack, the belly, a little bit of smoked pork in there and I’m going to serve these two little platters so just help yourself to these beautiful pork chops.
JEFF RANDALL: Do you always know the supplier, do you go to the farms yourself?
MARCUS WEARING: Yes, my team, my head chef, my sous chefs, we all source our suppliers, we understand exactly where they’ve come from, how long it’s been hung for, how old the animal is and then it makes our job easier. If you have great ingredients, chefs don’t need to do a great deal with them because they are naturally perfect.
JEFF RANDALL: I asked you that because of all the stories of pollution in the food chain and how things are entering the food chain, that couldn’t happen with you because you go there and you see what’s going in.
MARCUS WEARING: We do and we’re looking for the small supplier and that’s important. The food chain for us, we need to know where it starts and it ends up on the plate.
JEFF RANDALL: And finally Marcus, if there’s any room left after all that – and there will be I can assure you – we’re going to have something I’m not familiar with, a Mole of Brandy and Orange.
MARCUS WEARING: A Mole is a classic, it’s a warm chocolate dessert and it velvet Valrhona chocolate, 70% so it’s incredibly rich. Christmas doesn’t get any better.
JEFF RANDALL: Marcus will be joining us at the table for that dessert a little later in the show. It’s been an amazing year for business, so many things have gone on, so many things we could not have foreseen, what for you Roger was the stand out event as they say in the United States, the most significant business event of the year?
ROGER CARR: I think in many ways the most significant thing was the real recovery of business generally and manufacturing in particular. I think if we had sat a year ago and thought the numbers that are being achieved as we closed the year were actually going to be delivered, we’d have felt we were certainly being ambitious so I think the growth is the big stand out. JEFF
RANDALL: What do you think, Philip, because many of your customers are at the wrong end of the economic ladder, are they feeling that recovery?
PHILLIP CLARKE: No, unfortunately. Real wages have declined now for seven years so it is great to see the signs of economic recovery, on the other hand real wages have declined and people are finding it even more difficult to balance their household budgets.
JEFF RANDALL: What do you think, Karren?
KARREN BRADY: I agree with Roger, I think we’ve had a really good year actually in terms of business. I think for me personally the highlight of the year for me was West Ham getting the Olympic Stadium which in terms of growing your business, growing your brand, resetting your future, that’s a stand out deal not only for football but specifically for me.
JEFF RANDALL: So as you said Philip, real wages are falling, house prices are galloping ahead, the rate at which people are saving is falling – if you add all that up, that is not sustainable, you can’t have real wages going one way, house prices going the other, savings going down, without something bad happening somewhere. How does all that get reconciled?
ROGER CARR: Well you have got to have real growth. The only solution to really sustain wealth creation for the people generally is for real growth to take place in the economy and that is why we’ve got to continue to focus on that and not regard the achievements this year a victory.
KARREN BRADY: I think the people know is that interest rates have remained low so that people can afford to pay their mortgages still or take out a mortgage and with all the Help To Buy I think people are getting on the ladder much more quickly and if you can afford to pay your bills, afford to buy food, afford your home – which I think this year people are getting to that place more easily – then I think the growth comes and people start looking up, it’s about getting everyone up on the ladder.
PHILIP CLARKE: I think what we’ve seen is a beginning to turn but real wages haven’t gone up for seven years and until there is more job creation, until people are earning a real wage, when we listen to customers they say we’re feeling more confident about the future but it’s not yet making it into our wallets and our purses.
JEFF RANDALL: Tell me about the mood of the country, do you have any sense that the country is angry? A lot of people out there are really, really angry. Roger, it’s hard to believe that a group of business people could make themselves more unpopular than the banks but I would say that energy companies have had a go, it’s been a real fire storm hasn’t it?
ROGER CARR: It has, it’s been a difficult year in energy, it’s been a difficult year for the consumer as well as the supplier. I mean the consumer has had to face ever-increasing bills, the supplier has taken largely the blame for that. I mean the reality is that this is a mixture of very difficult economics and politics and the economics of energy are pretty clear. Half of the bill comes from wholesale prices which we have no control over, about 20% comes from the distribution costs which we have no control over and at the end of it we have got about 20% of the bill, 15-20%, which includes a 5% profit if we do well, which is the thing we manage.
JEFF RANDALL: It all sounds reasonable but you haven’t got that message over have you?
ROGER CARR: No, I mean part of the cost of rising bills is clearly the fact that over a series of governments we have had a green energy agenda, it’s very morally appropriate but it’s costly and that has to come through to the customer as something they pay for. Everybody wants a green world, not everybody wants to pay for it. The government has actually managed to get the energy companies to be both a tax collector and a cost distributor in fact and as a tax collector the energy companies have become the focal point of consumer attack and concern.
JEFF RANDALL: What do you think, Philip? You must pay an enormous energy bill in all your stores, does that sound plausible?
PHILIP CLARKE: I put myself in the shoes of customers, Roger, and those seven years of real wages tightening and then just when they are starting to get confident, the bills go up by 9% so I’m not at all surprised it has become a hot topic and today hot topics can be shared on Twitter and on Facebook and campaigns can be created. One of the things all businessmen have to do now is work out how to respond to those and it is difficult for companies.
JEFF RANDALL: The conversation is going on whether you like it or not.
PHILIP CLARKE: You have to be part of it. The best piece of advice I received this year is whenever the conversation is starting and you are in the crossfire of it, you have got to think for a minute and then you have got to work out what you would say in response and when you say it, would the person’s opinion in the world that means the most to you think that is the right answer.
JEFF RANDALL: Which is your customer?
PHILIP CLARK: Well for us the person’s opinion which matters most to me is not actually my customer, it’s some person who will judge me – a close friend, a mentor but of course they would be thinking through the eyes of a customer and looking at me in that way.
JEFF RANDALL: Tell us about your firestorm this year, Philip, and of course it wasn’t just Tesco, it was the whole industry that had horsemeat. What did you learn from that?
PHILIP CLARKE: The importance of the first fifteen minutes. When you get news like that, that someone has found horsemeat in one of your products, what do you say? It can’t be true. Well someone is saying it is. So the only thing I could say was I can’t say anything until I know the truth and when I know the truth what I will do is come back and let everybody know. So I was quiet for a few weeks while we did the most exhaustive tests. What I realised was the longer supply chains get in a world where food is now scarce, where there is more demand than there is supply, the longer they get stretched the more the opportunities for people to adulterate and it has happened over the years, time and time again.
JEFF RANDALL: Now Karren, you haven’t had your firestorm yet but I suggest it will happen if West Ham go do. Now you are looking at me with that steely stare that you give people that have just said rather unpleasant, but however it is a possibility. I bet you have a Plan B so what’s the Plan B?
KARREN BRADY: Well, there’s an old saying that it’s a game of two halves and I’m hoping it’s a game of two seasons and the second half of the season will be slightly better than the first half. We have had an enormous number of injuries and it is interesting to me that we deployed our resources pretty carefully and the manager picked the players that were key in putting the jigsaw together and the problem is that a couple of the pieces of that jigsaw have fallen on the wayside and they are not contributing.
JEFF RANDALL: That would be Andy Carroll?
KARREN BRADY: Well it is and Stewart Dowling, there are a number of serious injuries that we’ve got, Winston Reed, and we haven’t had a sustained period in the Premier League to build up the resources that are required to have a team below the team so that at every possible turn you’ve got three players to pick from so resources is a key issue for us but Andy Carroll will be back, hopefully before the New Year and I think that that will, because scoring goals is a massive issue. Everyone has the same sort of problem wherever you are, scoring goals. You can’t win games unless you score goals so we’ve got to get him back.
JEFF RANDALL: Now Philip, we can’t let this discussion go without you having your say, a lifelong Liverpool fan. How good is this season?
PHILIP CLARKE: In my view this is the best Liverpool team for at least ten years, certainly the most exciting, the most fluid and with Luis Suarez we have the striker of the time, of his time. He is absolutely sensational. So it is fantastic to be at Anfield and I try and get there, not every game but I get there most home games and it is an absolute delight and pleasure. We have had a number of false dawns in my time following them, my first game was ’67 so a long, long time.
KARREN BRADY: What do you think of Luis Suarez and some of his antics, not that I’m casting any shadow on what I agree with you, he is the best striker in the Premier League?
PHILIP CLARKE: Karren’s player of the year, wasn’t he?
KARREN BRADY: Well I’m a Liverpool fan!
JEFF RANDALL: Join us after the break for the second serving of Jeff Randall’s Christmas Dinner.
END OF PART ONE
PART TWO
JEFF RANDALL: Let me take you back to something that happened earlier this year. I was really amazed, I turned on the TV one afternoon, it was the Conservative Party conference and up stepped Karren Brady and to be honest, of all the people I know in business you would have been one of the last that I’d have thought to do something like that. What propelled you to get up and start dealing with mucky politicians?
KARREN BRADY: Well, firstly politics interests me. Secondly, I’ve been a Conservative supporter all my life, since I could very first vote I joined, and I think that it’s an interesting prospect because you can sit back as a business leader and not decide how or where you want your country to go for fear that your customers might not like your political ambitions, for fear the media might not like them. You can hide behind lots of reasons or you can say, I believe an economic recovery is coming forward, I believe that the party I support believes in hard working people and business and I’d like to help them continue that job and that’s what I decided to do. I mean I personally have been hugely impressed with what George Osborne has done, he asked me if I would introduce him and I thought it was a great honour and I was very pleased to do it.
JEFF RANDALL: Talking of politics and disillusionment, I think there is one theme here that ties all industries, perhaps not including football but certainly including retail, including energy and including the media and that is a loss of trust. In this country don’t we have a sort of crisis of trust in our politicians, in our newspapers, in our big companies, in our retailers?
PHILIP CLARKE: We are trading in twelve countries in the world and look what’s happening in Thailand right now, a democratically elected government being forced to stand down because of protests on the streets. Look at Slovakia, look at the Czech Republic, the great uncertainty in the world since 2008 has created many more coalitions, so much greater uncertainty. Consumers are feeling the squeeze, big business is seen to be bad not good so there has been a sea change in opinions and it’s everywhere, not just here.
JEFF RANDALL: So rebuilding all this trust in all our industries, in retail, in energy, in media, we’re not going to have it next year are we? We’re not going to suddenly wake up and people are saying, oh marvellous, you guys have told us it’s good so it’s good. That’s simply not going to happen, people are fed up.
ROGER CARR: Yes and I think that’s fair, Jeff, I think people are fed up and I think in some cases they have got every reason to be fed up. I do think however that we have to look to the engagement with politicians, whether in office or indeed in opposition, to make sure that the day to day exchange that happens between politicians does not catch as part of its slipstream the reputation of all businesses and there is a risk that that’s happening now. The demonization particularly of energy which has occurred is without any doubt driving out good management and it is driving away critical investors and all of us have a responsibility to make sure that doesn’t happen for the sake of the country. So building trust – we are going to come on to wishes, that’s one of the big wishes for next year.
JEFF RANDALL: Let me just pick you up on that. In extremis, given the policies espoused by Ed Miliband, could the lights go out?
ROGER CARR: Oh yes. I mean they could certainly flicker and if we see the nuclear actually go to Europe for a long-term review process which delays even further nuclear energy in this country, with coal fired stations closing, with old gas fired stations closing and no nuclear coming on stream, we are getting into risk territory.
JEFF RANDALL: Now, if I didn’t know better, I’d say there is a future for you in this cheffing lark. That was absolutely fantastic.
MARCUS WEARING: My pleasure.
JEFF RANDALL: Just talk us through how you put that menu together, what made you pick those various dishes?
MARCUS WEARING: I just think they are fantastic at this time of year, they are all very seasonal, very much of the moment and our food is our life’s work, it just keeps expanding and expanding, you are just consistently building.
JEFF RANDALL: Tell us about the restaurant business because here in London it is a crazy bubble and for people that don’t live in London it must be very hard to understand, it feels like boom town and yet you don’t have to go too far outside London to meet people with real difficulties, a totally different world. In your business you focus on central London, it must be exciting.
MARCUS WEARING: It is and we also focus on the traveller, the customers from abroad. I see London as a very cosmopolitan city and for me London in my world is the centre of the universe when it comes to good food because I think Londoners, from a cuisine point of view, where it is located on the map, it has got that passing trade of the Americans and the Far East coming and passing through London and making a stop here for business and also for pleasure.
JEFF RANDALL: Traditionally Marcus, we ask our guests to make one wish and one prediction for the year coming. As the chef who has created this fabulous dinner I think we are going to let you kick off.
MARCUS WEARING: My wish for 2014 would be to definitely expand the airports, build another one, bring as many runways into London as possible. I think we need it, I think London can take it, I think for my industry that tourism is vital.
JEFF RANDALL: And a prediction?
MARCUS WEARING: My industry is not slowing down, it’s getting bigger and better and stronger, even through the last five years I’ve never seen an industry like mine grow in five very, very tough years but people are still spending and what is very common now is the man and woman who are leaving work are going to get a bite to eat who normally wouldn’t be able to afford to, now they can afford to get a good meal for £10, 15, 20 on the way home from work and feel part of London rather than just going home, buying something from the supermarket and having to cook at home and I think that’s actually quite nice.
JEFF RANDALL: Karren, a prediction and a wish for 2014.
KARREN BRADY: Well my wish would obviously be to win the Premier League but I don't know what magic lamp you have under there, Jeff, but I don't think it will happen this year so I think my wish is that we sustain our position in the Premier League and continue to grow.
JEFF RANDALL: Remain one point above relegation?
KARREN BRADY: No, no, no, we finished 10th last year so not too far away from there I hope. We’ve got a big job to do in 2016 so I think that we need to focus on that. My prediction is more of the same for this year, more growth, less unemployment, bigger growth in small businesses. I think we’ve turned this corner and it is now just to keep on the road.
JEFF RANDALL: Roger?
ROGER CARR: My wish is very much the one we’ve already touched on with is that trust is restored back into business right across the board and in energy particularly for my successor there but also for the nation. I think it is very important that Britain sees business as something that’s critical to its future and valuable. My prediction is that we will end 2014 as a United Kingdom. I think we will hear lots of arguments as to why we should be fragmented, I hope and believe that we will end as we start, the United Kingdom. There is strength in togetherness.
JEFF RANDALL: Alex Salmond will be defeated?
ROGER CARR: Defeated in various forms. He may well win some points but I hope he wins the points and keeps a United Kingdom together.
JEFF RANDALL: Philip?
PHILIP CLARKE: My prediction is an easy one and a certainty – the internet will have more influence on people’s lives and businesses need to respond. I am absolutely certain it is changing the way the world lives and acts and thinks and look at the new generation coming through who live their life on a tablet or a smart phone. So that’s an easy one. My wish is about a specific date, it’s the 19th April and we’re playing Norwich at Carrow Road.
JEFF RANDALL: You mean Liverpool?
PHILIP CLARKE: Liverpool, yes. It’s the 25th anniversary of Hillsborough, one of the most traumatic days of my city’s life really and I hope that Suarez knocks three in and that Gerrard picks up the Premiership trophy on that day. That will be justice, justice.
JEFF RANDALL: That sounds absolutely splendid. Well for what it’s worth, my wish is the same wish that I had last year, it was my privilege this year to go out to Afghanistan and see what are troops are doing out there and I want them all to come home safely and in one piece. My prediction is that with the OBR predicting 2.4% growth for next year and with the Bank of England predicting 2.9% growth for next year, that they are both going to be wrong and growth will start with a three and I think the gloomsters will be confounded.
PHILIP CLARKE: I’ll drink to that. ROGER CARR: Excellent.
JEFF RANDALL: And on that happy note why don’t we toast our viewers at Sky, say thanks to all our viewers at Sky for being so good to us through this year and let’s hope next year. Thanks for coming.
