The Intelligence Squared Economic Outlook: Leadership Special, with Francine Lacqua (Part Two)

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**Mia Sorrenti** (1:00)
Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorrenti. Today's episode is part two of our recent Intelligence Squared Economic Outlook leadership special. We were joined live at Smith Square Hall in Westminster by Francine Lacqua, editor-at-large at Bloomberg TV and the anchor of Leaders with Lacqua. Few journalists have spent more time questioning the people who shape the global economy than Francine Lacqua. At Bloomberg TV, she interviews three to four chief executives every day. And over the course of her career, she has cross-examined many of the heads of state, central bankers and founders who have shaped our world.
This episode is part of the Intelligence Squared Economic Outlook created in partnership with Guinness Global Investors. Guinness Global Investors is an independent British fund manager that helps both individuals and institutions harness the future drivers of growth to achieve their investment goals. To find out more, you can head to guinnessgi.com. We'll see the link in the episode description.
We're about to join Jonny Dymond and Francine Lacqua for part two of their discussion at Smiths Square Hall. If you missed part one, we recommend jumping back an episode to get up to speed.

**Jonny Dymond** (2:11)
Do you see the political turmoil that drives the popularity of Nigel Farage? Do you see that around the world as well? Or in particular, I guess, in Europe?

**Francine Lacqua** (2:22)
I mean, this is a party that's been really campaigning for, it's an anti-immigration party for a number of reasons that goes to, again, jobs, globalization, that is a little bit more inward-looking. And you see patterns of that emerging, starting with the US.

**Jonny Dymond** (2:38)
It's an anti-system party as well as an anti-immigration party, isn't it?

**Francine Lacqua** (2:42)
It's an anti-system party that Italy tried three, four years ago and then went back to a little bit more mainstream. It's a I'm fed up with whatever is coming next feeling.
And that goes, I think, to the multiple forces that our society is having to deal with. When you speak to leaders, and again, we speak about leaders and we talk about chief executives and prime minister, but what is a leader? A leader is someone who makes decisions for people. So you could be a leader of four or five employees, and you have to make that decision very well. I think it's very unsettling at the moment to look at where the world economy goes. I mean, 15, 20 years ago, there was a much clearer view, if you put the, I guess, the financial crisis to one side, but there was a much clearer view on, I have kids, my kids will become doctors, or they'll do this, or there's the globalization people believed in. So people went along with what the elite were telling them for a while. And I don't know if it's not worked, or with the rise of China and a lot of the emerging markets, where they've been doing goods that are much cheaper, it kind of puts the whole business model a little bit on the brink.

**Jonny Dymond** (3:52)
Coming back to Nigel Farage, what seems different about him and Reform UK is the very intense focus on him.
Unlike, say, in France or in Germany, where the populist party, it has its figures, but it seems more broad-based. There appear to be alternatives to simply one person. Am I right in that? Do you think that's a fair analysis? Or again, do you think that there is a very heavy focus on personality?

**Francine Lacqua** (4:22)
No, I think the focus on the personality, and that's probably because of the advent of social media is probably everywhere. So it really has Matteo Salvini, France has Maureen Le Pen and now Jordan Bardella. So it's people that crystallize, I guess, the imagination of something that is anti-system. I mean, you have the same in Germany with the AFD and so it's ideas that suddenly also become, what I hear a lot about Nigel Farage because he's also on TV. And so the way that you speak to citizens is much clearer or more direct is that he speaks like them and he thinks like them. And I think, again, that's a very powerful tool. And you see the same in France when people speak about, I mean, Marine Le Pen has a different connotation because of her father, and she's been around for a very long time.