WEBVTT - Will Jeremy Hunt’s Budget Help Save the Tories? 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:14.319 Welcome to In the City, Bloomberg's podcast connecting you to 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:17.640 the conversations and the stories shaping the world of finance. 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:19.880 Now with me for this episode is a group that 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:23.280 you will continue to hear a lot more of on 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:26.160 in the City. Of course, listeners, no a legra, who's here? 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:26.760 Hello? 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:31.560 And recently we also heard the opinion columnist Adrian Woolridge. 0:00:31.600 --> 0:00:33.240 Good afternoon, this is fun. 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:35.839 We all got dragged in here at two pm on 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:39.479 a Wednesday because Jeremy Hunt has just finished delivering his budget, 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:42.600 maybe his last one before we go to the elections, 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:45.559 and I don't know what we've actually make of it. 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:49.280 All budget day he confirmed a lot of widely expected things. 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:52.919 Absolutely, I think everything big in that had been very 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:56.880 very widely trialed. There was nothing really exciting or new 0:00:56.920 --> 0:00:58.000 in it. 0:00:58.040 --> 0:01:00.480 Is this a good or a bad thing? So Marcus Ashworth, 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:03.320 also from Bloomberg Opinion said, look, he was outraged because 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:06.600 it's really Parliament that should have heard about this first. 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:09.000 Does it make a difference or is it just to 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:11.120 try and make sure that the markets they are not 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:13.479 surprised and they kind of get a sense of the voter. 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:16.280 So how modern media management works? I mean, you can 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:18.720 be as outraged as you want, but it's the newspapers 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:20.479 that hear first in Parliament that he has last. 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:24.920 As a former Treasury head of communications, I've had a 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:28.240 strategic communications. I hate it. I really hate it. And 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:30.679 I tried to do when I was in the Treasury. 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:34.480 I tried to do a budget where nothing leaked because 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:37.320 it so you've got leaking and then you've got pre 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:40.240 managed briefing, which is mostly this. But I think some 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:42.200 of the managed briefing is because you assume it's going 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:45.080 to leak, so you're kind of trickling out what you 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:47.520 want and the narrative you want. This is not me 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:50.240 as my former treasury self, but rather the people in 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:53.160 there right now and in the recent budgets, they're managing 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:55.640 the narrative so they can try and manage their people, 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:01.560 and otherwise something gets lead and they can't manage that story. 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:04.920 So it's sort of the tour in goes hand in hand, 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:07.000 but you are ending up with a situation like today 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:12.720 where you almost have nothing left. And Marcus, dear Marcus 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:16.480 is getting outraged on behalf of Hansard and parliamentarians, and 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:18.840 rightly so. But there's also a sort of sense for 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:21.480 the rest of us around where is that kind of 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:25.720 stake craft where we are used to budgets and not 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:28.320 so long ago where it was real surprise. There was 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:30.760 one though, which was the child benefit, which was not 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:33.639 quite so extensively, and I think I think that is 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:38.400 something that's potentially interesting around the kind of voters they 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:39.880 still want to be trying to connect with. 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:41.639 I get a sense it was a big problem with 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.840 expectations management over this budget. A month or so ago, 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:49.680 the expectations that their arose were quite big, that this 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:51.519 would be quite a big budget, that they had quite 0:02:51.520 --> 0:02:55.840 a lot of headroom for maneuvering, and then the OBR 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:57.920 came back, wait a bitute, I don't think you've got 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:01.040 that money. And the money available for giveaways seem to 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:03.240 contract over the last month, and the government was then 0:03:03.320 --> 0:03:07.519 caught in ketchup trying to brief the manage expectations down 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:08.000 a bit. 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:10.240 And what was this a budget for? Is it really 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:14.080 to get voters? The fiscal head room was so small 0:03:14.160 --> 0:03:16.800 that actually there's not you know, they couldn't really have 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:18.359 done a bazooka or anything like that. 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:24.760 Yeah, it was. It was not as a Jeremy Hunt 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:29.320 fan it was not brilliantly handled because, as you say, Adrian, 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:31.560 you went from a situation where almost as soon as 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:34.560 the last fiscal event finished, they were briefing there'll be more, 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:36.720 there'll be more, there'll be more. And then they've been 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:38.520 in a situation where they've kind of kind of pair 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:40.720 back what the more is. And that is in the 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:43.520 context of you know, a set of back benches who 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:46.800 were just desperate for more, and so they you know, 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:51.320 potentially they'll be quite happy today because they'll think the 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:54.240 job is done of you know, another tax cut has 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:57.840 been achieved, and you know that is fundamentally Sunakan Hunt's 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:02.960 kind of loadstar, philosophical creed, etc. So I think they 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:06.320 won't be too focused on Eeke, we kind of got 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:08.760 ahead of ourselves there and we got away with it. 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:10.720 And whether or not they did get away with it, 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:12.360 I mean, we've yet to see, as we're recording this 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:15.320 so early, but we've yet to see what the backbench 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:17.880 opinion will be, whether it was a nothing burger or 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:20.239 whether actually they feel he's done enough. 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:22.039 Against that, I'd say two things. One is that it 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:24.240 was quite a political budget in the sense that he 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:27.960 was quite constantly trying to draw red lines between himself 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.919 and the opposition. You're the high tax party, you're the 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:37.000 undisciplined spending party, where the low tax party riskal responsibility. 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:39.520 And he also got to dig at the Liberal Democrats, 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:41.880 which I thought was quite interesting since they're quite an 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:46.200 important opponent. And the second thing was the issue of 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:50.720 trying to cut National insurance even further. There were promises 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:53.800 that double taxation of income is a very bad thing. 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:55.520 We want to get rid of it, or at least 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:58.720 reduce it. I can think of two impossible interpretations of that. 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:01.320 One is that there's going to be another significant fiscal 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:04.520 event before the next election. This was indicating that the 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.200 election would be some time off, or the other was 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:10.480 just throwing a bit of red meat at the backbenches 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.400 to make sure upset. 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:15.960 But I wonder also whether the Chanceller was really speaking 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:18.760 to the markets. Right the memory of Liz Truss frankly 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:21.279 lives on, and so maybe it was better not to 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:25.080 royal or panic the markets, then, you know, deliver an 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:25.960 underwhelming speech. 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:29.520 One of Labour's better sort of barracks, I thought, was 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:31.960 where's Liz? Some new was shouting, because. 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:37.400 In the chamber but I think the thing I was 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:40.919 most interested to see was that they didn't pay for 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:44.080 it by reducing spending into the next parliament, but it's 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:46.560 due to increase by one And the rumor that was 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:51.880 quite quite again probably pre briefed by Hunt's advisors, was 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:54.560 around do you pay for that, which is what many 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:58.400 backbenchers would like, by reducing public spending, And he was 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:00.960 quite keen to to make heavy weather of the fact 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:03.560 he'd not chosen to do that because I think you know, 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:05.320 we've talked about it on this pod. In fact, we've 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:07.279 the three of us together have talked about this just 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:11.000 last week, this idea that they that the evidences, the 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:15.920 polling and people are against tax cuts over reducing public spending. 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.159 So him sort of swerving that, like clearly looking at it, 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:22.359 contemplating it because it would have appealed to some of 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.159 his people, but deciding not to do it, I think 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:29.080 was probably the right decision. I think that it would 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:31.320 have it wouldn't have been very Jeremy Hunt. 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:34.040 I mean, the guild sales are a little bit. I mean, 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:36.479 he did and this is something that Alex Wickham put 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:38.040 in the in the blog that if you look at 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:41.080 it from a rational point of view. I think there 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:43.719 are seven points where actually taxes are more or less 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:45.800 going up. And there's you know, the non darm system 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:48.800 is abolished, there's a new vape tax, so one off 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:52.600 increase in tobacco duty, business class air duty is going up, 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:56.159 Holiday home lendings regime will be abolished, and multiple dwellings 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:58.000 relief will be abolished. So all of that is money 0:06:58.040 --> 0:06:59.440 coming in absolutely. 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:02.200 And again I think you know a political budget in 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:04.839 that it was drawing lines with labor. But in fact 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:07.680 what's so interesting is that both Labor and the Conservatives 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:10.800 are quite close together on all sorts of things. And 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:13.640 you know, the stealing of Labour's clothes on the non 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:16.400 dom was one interesting example of that. But we have 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:21.000 a sort of generally fairly managerial, sensible approach by both 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:23.440 the Labor Party and the Conservative budget. This is not 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:25.640 the world of Corbyn or the world of Liz Trast. 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:28.080 It's the world of centrist politicians. One thing I did 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:30.280 think was interesting in the in the budget, and I 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:33.920 think is worthy of conversation is the issue of productivity improvement, 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:38.120 Because on the one hand, productivity improvement can sound like nothing. 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:42.320 You might say, all we want greater efficiencies. Everybody wants 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:45.320 greater efficiencies. What's wrong with that. But on the other hand, 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:47.560 we do have to get a productivity increase from the 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:51.720 public sector if we're not going to tax ourselves to death, 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:53.920 or if the public sector isn't going to fall apart. 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:57.720 And the worst and quite interesting ideas mentioned about the 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:01.400 use of it and various other things about particularly in 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:03.680 the National health services and trying to spread that we 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:07.320 have had a fall in productivity since the pandemic and 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:09.920 we do need to drive productivity growth in the public sector. 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:12.920 So that that was an attempt to talk about it seriously. 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:14.840 I think, yeah, I felt to me like that was 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:17.080 almost the sort of Jeremy Hunt legacy item that he 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:19.520 wanted to say. This is distinctively me. This isn't something 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.440 you'd have heard soon act. I mean, I'm sure you 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:25.400 know fairly kind of out of his textbook too, but 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:27.680 sort of this is the thing, the one thing that 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:30.000 he will have done in depth, because it wasn't. Normally 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:32.719 in budgets, you hear these things and they're just glancing references. 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:34.960 But actually this one he went through all the different 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:37.760 public services and listed how they could be used in 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:39.720 granual detail, granular detail. 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:41.640 And he was in charge of the National Health Service 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:45.200 for five years, so he knows just how much money 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:49.360 is not efficiently used, and there is a potential with 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:52.600 it and the rest of it to improve form filling 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:55.920 and bureaucracy and things like that. So well, if we 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:58.040 can't improve the productivity of the public sector, we're in 0:08:58.040 --> 0:08:58.600 a real mess. 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:01.000 The US, of course, have done it really differently. I mean, 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:03.520 They're product activity is kind of going through the roof 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:05.480 thanks to also immigrating. 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:08.920 In the private sector. In the public I mean, the 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:13.200 world's most wasteful, wasteful health service is the United States 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:17.280 Health Service is incredibly bureaucratic because of so much duplication. 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:19.720 The other thing I thought was quite interesting politically, and 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.040 he kept making this point, was that we want to 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:28.480 boost national productivity without just relying on lots of cheap immigrants. 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:31.120 He made that point over and over and over again, 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:34.840 almost as if to say, the central offer from the 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:39.000 Labor Party is just bringing in more immigrants and boosting 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.679 the overall size of the economy rather than boosting productivity. 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:45.040 I'm not quite sure why he was doing that, but 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:46.800 it was a point that he made at least three times. 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.240 Yeah, and no, I agree with that. I think it's 0:09:49.280 --> 0:09:53.800 also interesting because he was you described it earlier, Adrian, 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:57.480 as you know, stealing the labor clothes. It's interesting because 0:09:57.480 --> 0:09:59.679 it's not just that he's stolen labor clothes, but he's 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:02.200 also stolen their money because they were going to be 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:05.199 doing certain things and you know, you know, we can 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:07.400 do this sort of little extra labor things that make 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:10.079 it worth a labor government because we're going to have 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:13.760 done non doms and and other measures, and he's now 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.000 taken that, and so it changes the baseline as everyone 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:16.280 will know. 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:20.520 What's the first thing that labor would actually reverse if 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:22.240 they came into power in this budget? 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:26.240 Is there anything hard to think actually hard for them 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:31.199 to come into power and increase national insurance or something 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:35.840 like that. And again, central to Rachel Reeves's policy is 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:39.840 addressing the making work pay, which she's been talking about 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:42.440 a lot very recently. And the other thing about making 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:44.640 work pay is trying to reduce the number of people 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:47.839 who are a working agement not working. Again, that's another 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:51.840 area where both parties singing from the same hymn styt 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:53.119 rightly so, I think. 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:55.720 So while we've been speaking what they've gone on. Is 0:10:56.440 --> 0:11:00.719 that Richie Sunac in his leadership manifesto in twenty twenty two, 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.080 remember that he promised an income tax cut, so a 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:07.040 more vanilla straightforward rather than you know this this this 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:08.760 making work pay next cut. 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:09.760 Now. 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:13.360 Of course it's powerful because I think that's where the 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.040 Conservative politics is going to come in the next few weeks, 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:18.839 which is they will grumble that they have you know, 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.240 yes they've got this, but they wanted more, and so 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:25.360 Starmer is having fun on that front. It's difficult because 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:28.600 is it necessarily something that labor would would do better? 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.480 So it's you know, he's just having fun making the 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:37.400 pain for the internal party Conservative politics even even more painful. 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:39.280 I mean, I want to ask, you know, how do 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:41.960 you want elections in this case? Is it actually just 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.120 making sure that the budget is not inflationary so that 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:47.720 the Bank of England can get on with cutting rates, 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:50.840 which would help with mortgages and make people feel a 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:51.400 bit richer. 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:55.199 I don't think this makes much difficient in the election. 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:58.640 I think basically people are exhausted by the Conservative Party 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:00.880 and they want to change. I think that they're trying 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:03.920 to change the narrative. I mean that the Conservatives are 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:07.960 I don't think there's much room to do. It's people 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:08.800 have made up their mind. 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:12.840 So I think a slightly different thing which is in 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:16.040 the same room, which is I think it's necessary but 0:12:16.120 --> 0:12:18.160 not sufficient in that old phrase, in that you know, 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:21.080 they needed to not drive the car into the wall today, 0:12:21.559 --> 0:12:23.640 but equally they've got you know, they've got a lot 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:26.040 of work ahead of them whenever that next general election is. 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:30.920 The British isa I thought was really I mean, we knew, 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:34.240 but actually I don't know whether I mean we knew 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:37.439 because the chances we're told us, but homebuilders got a 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:38.840 little bit of a lift on the back of it. 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:42.520 I mean, does it make a difference to the British psyche. 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:45.680 Well, I'm interested, you're probably interested in. 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:47.400 What I think. We're all interested. But it is a 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:50.800 fundamental break with free market economics or Thatcherism and other 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:53.440 countries have it right. Oh yeah, absolutely, I can other 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:56.440 countries are moving in a similar sort of direction. But 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:59.040 it does just show how different the world is now 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:02.040 from the nineteen eighties that instead of you know, deregulating 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:04.840 the flow of money, we're trying to encourage the flow 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:07.640 of money. Of bension schemes into our own economy. 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:10.559 But is that the only way you get growth? In 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:14.920 a way, but it's the most assured way. 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:17.200 A way. 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:22.320 It's it's a kind of you did see, you know, 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:24.640 like an arsenal or a range of measures today. I'm 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:27.680 not saying it was, you know, necessarily going to going 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:30.880 to kind of pep up growth by you know, the 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:33.640 rates we were used to seeing years ago. But but 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.320 but you did, you know, the British iSER is part 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:39.079 of that raft of you know, what they're doing in 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.520 the City of London, how they're changing listing, et cetera. 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:44.720 I don't know how long this stuff takes to turn around, right, like, 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:48.280 you know, how long whether it if we think that 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:50.320 there's a general election this year, whether or not any 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:54.360 of this is going to be tickling up growth that quickly. 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:57.320 I'm not sure if the Chancellor was here he would 0:13:57.360 --> 0:14:00.360 say it is when we have been the Minister City 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:04.400 Minister Bi Mafalami on this podcast must be a month ago, now, 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:06.400 you know, he sort of acknowledged that, didn't he found 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:07.600 that this is long term stuff. 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:11.480 I think also that they would say that pension funds 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:15.679 are unnecessarily and unreasonably nervous about investing in the in 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:18.360 Britain and I think that maybe some truth about that. 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.400 It's definitely actually just tweeted an obi Ar NuGet, which 0:14:21.440 --> 0:14:24.000 is that the spending numbers from twenty twenty five onwards. 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:26.840 She says may not have changed much, but real spending 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.320 per head will be flatter filing after this year, so 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:33.480 watch for headlines on that that actually it's not you know, 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:38.200 spending because of the population increase is going to diminish 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:40.960 per person, which. 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:42.600 Is partly why you're starting to hear more and more 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:46.040 on the immigration debate from as Adrian said earlier, three 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:50.360 mentions or more from the Chancellor. But I think I 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:52.680 think they will. I mean, you know, if we think 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:54.960 that Jeremy Hunt was the safe pair of hands Chancellor, 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:57.560 I think that that is unchanged today. 0:14:57.880 --> 0:14:58.600 Do you just right? 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:02.160 Okay? And there was you know, if we think about 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:05.280 earlier in the week, Bloomberg pieces around traders being nervous, thinking, 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:06.880 oh my god, what is he going to do because 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:10.400 he's at the poll this week that showed the Conservatives 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:14.880 going to the lower ever level, lowest ever level since 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:18.920 ipsos Mori started recording in nineteen seventy so you know, 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:25.440 traders thought he's going to be so nervous contemplating those 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:27.920 kind of numbers, He's going to try and inhale mary Well, 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:29.440 I don't think he really did that. 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:32.600 Now where does this leave Labor. I heard two things 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.520 from Labor. One is that they think they've got quite 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:39.680 a number of hidden pockets of money, a certain amount 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:41.800 hidden pockets of money that they will be able to 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:44.240 get hold of and use which would be very interable. 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:45.840 I don't know the answers to that. Then, they haven't 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:48.120 told me that, but that's interesting since the Tory Party 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:50.440 has tried so hard to find these things. But they 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:52.560 will talk about that. And the second thing I think 0:15:52.640 --> 0:15:55.840 is the reorganization of the machinery of central government, the 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.320 sort of things that the Dominic Cummings talked about and 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:01.560 then annoyed of, probably so much that nothing really happened. 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:06.040 We haven't had much actual reform of the central machinery 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:09.920 of government. I think you might, but a new government 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:12.840 might come in and starn't try to try to do 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:15.640 that sort of thing. So I think that Labor it 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:17.680 won't have a lot of extra money. It may have 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:19.560 a bit more than we think, and it may have 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:24.080 an agenda for sort of institutional reform which will be 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:27.680 used to try and drive our government productivity and efficiency. 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:29.960 But it is hard. It take very long time. It's 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:31.240 like moving an oil tanker. 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:35.400 If we have a labor budget at some point soon 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:38.560 it's going to be a tricky budget. And all of these, 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:40.480 all the politics that we're looking at with the kind 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:42.720 of the fringe of the party will be flipped. They 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:45.440 have the same dynamic going on. It's not going to 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:46.920 be kind of kumbay our. 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:50.680 That's a long time ago by our politics. 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:55.320 My daughters just recorder. It's very much in my life 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:57.200 right now. Cracking chuin. 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:06.399 Perfect way to end the party. Thanks for listening to 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:08.760 this week's in the City. We'll be back next week, 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.160 but in the meantime, if you like our show, please 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.560 head on over to wherever you listen to podcasts, rate, review, 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:17.320 and subscribe. It does help people find the show. This 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:21.480 episode featured me Francin Laqua with like Rostratton and Adrian Woolridge. 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:25.399 It was produced by Someersadi and Moses Handham. Additional editing 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:26.600 by Rishi bou Jakol.