What exactly has been announced today?

Well, what's been announced today is an initiative to encourage local councils to get people off the streets, i.e. rough sleepers off the streets, by Christmas.

So the exact wording he used is, "Councils must give a route off the streets to everyone who wants it by Christmas." This is the first iteration of that flagship policy that you mentioned, which I think he surprised many people, when it was literally the first thing he said when he became Prime Minister, that he wanted to r- end rough sleeping.

Uh, so what he said back then was that he would eradicate rough sleeping in England at the earliest possible opportunity.

So essentially what he's done today is he's starting to say how he's gonna meet that original promise that he made a few weeks ago.

Patrick, how possible is this to do in a sustainable way, and what will it look like under the offer that he has made to local authorities?

Well, it's definitely possible.

I mean, what homeless campaigners would say is that Everyone In, that was the campaign you mentioned.

But Premier Frechette's party, they're not

in the lead of the polls right now.

Very much not in the lead.

So her party is third in the polls right now.

And so there's a real possibility that come October 5th, which is the date, fixed date for the Quebec election, that she's no longer going to be in the premier's chair.

And so what's interesting, however, is that in making this announcement and in saying that the CAQ is the only party that can get this thing across the finish line, well, of course, the other parties in Quebec have reacted to that.

And so the party that's in the lead right now is the Parti Québécois, who has made some statements in the past few weeks that have led to a little bit of consternation on both sides of the border.

Yeah, it's making me just kind of wonder If I can keep using the the word finish or the term finish line

Oh, right.

And, uh, so it, so I've been...

I was inspired, I guess, to, to kind of, uh, think about how it's, uh, the mecca of country music, uh, in Nashville.

And, uh, I was just curious, you know, one thing I've noticed, you know, whenever America develops a musical style, rap or dance, you know, it always went back across the pond to you guys, kind of, and you modified it, changed it, had developed your own superstars who came over here, and we've had kind of this cross dialogue with all those genres.

Right, right.

That was just completely you were really weird if you did that, you know? And but now I see teens listening to it constantly.

I mean, it is, it is clearly far and away the biggest style, uh, in Ameri- uh, certainly amongst American youth and, and up.

And it's all about domestic relationships, right?

And also country and Western is so rooted in American culture domestic country life you know the details you know the cars the dogs the parking lots the whatever you know I think all those things just to have no real equivalent we can't it's so purely American don't you think?

Yeah, I mean, I don't, well, I would say a lot of, at least what I, no, I don't listen to a lot of the modern stuff, which is massive now, which was never big when I, when I grew up in the 90s in Boston, no teenager listened to country music.

That was just completely, you were really weird if you did that, you know, and, but now I see teens listening to it constantly.

I mean, it is, it is clearly far and away the biggest style in America, certainly amongst American youth and, And it's all about domestic relationships, right? It's all about my boyfriend's cheating, my wife left me, I'm in love with you.

And I was like, well, those are universal kind of songs, ideas.

I agree with you about the geography piece.

I mean, there's definitely still elements of that.

So has the World Cup being in Boston encouraged you to take an interest in the round ball game or did you take an interest in it before?

Yeah.

I'm coming to this from the perspective of journalist rather than a, a, an expert, and I thought this was a fascinating report, and I, it...

I thought it was quite revelatory in many ways, and I think that's partly because the, the media, um, of which I'm a part, is generally quite Anglo-centric.

We're based in London, and we tend to think that when we have a debate about Social Security, it's about Eng- England is what we think the whole system is everywhere in the UK.

And I think we assume a single uniform system, and this is... it's always quite surprising when you discover it's quite different.

Um, I think often when we talk about, uh... or often the way we frame discussions of Social Security is, is through politics and personalities.

So you saw the discussion about two-child limit, for example, was essentially largely seen as a, you know, a, a, a fight within the Labour Party leadership and cabinet.

Yeah.