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Speaker 1: The timing I would have thought could not be more orkies.

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you broadly accept that the current narrative

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Speaker 1: that this government is working awfully hard to get us

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Speaker 1: out of the massive economic hole left to it by

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Speaker 1: the previous government, and if you accept that that previous

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Speaker 1: government was one of the worst in living memory, if

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Speaker 1: not any memory, then just imagine where we would be

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Speaker 1: if that hopeless lot of twenty through twenty twenty three

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Speaker 1: had actually been rampaging across the countryside until last year

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Speaker 1: because they'd had a four year term. And surely it's

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Speaker 1: that cold, present, still throbbing reality that prevents the discussion

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Speaker 1: on a four year term going much further. I mean,

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Speaker 1: a lot of politicians seem to want one, and who

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Speaker 1: can blame them. There's a logic to what they argue.

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Speaker 1: I mean, year one, you arrive at your office, introduce

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Speaker 1: yourself to everybody, put a few press releases out and

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Speaker 1: start the spade worth. Year two you gave for break

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Speaker 1: because year three is written off in campaign mode. But

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Speaker 1: as Britain is discovering, five years is an awfully long time.

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Speaker 1: And until they changed the law about calling early elections,

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Speaker 1: they got into this nasty habit of calling early elections

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Speaker 1: because five years tended to exhaust them and very aus

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Speaker 1: calamities would present themselves with the only exit strategy being

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Speaker 1: a vote. So, following the logic, three isn't enough, five

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Speaker 1: is too long, so four is goldilocks or is it

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Speaker 1: I mean? David Seymour, fan of four, argued the most

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Speaker 1: countries have longer terms, that there are very few countries

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Speaker 1: with three years. Well, there's also very few countries that

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Speaker 1: balance their budgets or pay down debts, so it doesn't

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Speaker 1: make it good. What is good is his admission that

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Speaker 1: the jurymanned shambles he offered up as a twist on

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Speaker 1: an extended term with committees and numbers will never see

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Speaker 1: the light of day. It's taken as twenty five years

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Speaker 1: for goodness sake to get our head around the MMP.

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Speaker 1: The Seymour version of an extended term. If you ever

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Speaker 1: read it, it's got a half life of eight million years.

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Speaker 1: You had a headache by the end of it anyway,

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Speaker 1: So four or not, my gut says, will probably go there.

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Speaker 1: It'll be a thing changes coming, but small warning. Time

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Speaker 1: isn't the issue. Quality is time doesn't bring talent or

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Speaker 1: skill or insight or dedication, professionalism or success. It just

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Speaker 1: brings time. The rest is what we should be way

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Speaker 1: more con learned about. For more from The Mic Asking Breakfast,

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Speaker 1: listen live to news Talks at B from six am weekdays,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio