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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

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Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast.

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Speaker 3: I'm Jill Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway.

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Speaker 2: Tracy, we're recording this August twenty six, twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot going on right now, particularly in I guess,

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Speaker 2: many big questions about macro and governance and all kinds

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Speaker 2: of things in some of the richest countries in the world.

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Speaker 3: That is certainly one way to put it. So just

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Speaker 3: overnight we had headlines saying that Trump was going to

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Speaker 3: fire Lisa Cook from the FED, and this obviously fits

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Speaker 3: into the whole debate around central bank independence and how

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Speaker 3: much influenced governments should actually have on central banks. And

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Speaker 3: it turns out this is a debate that we've had

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Speaker 3: before in other countries totally.

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Speaker 2: And part of the reason I think is focused on

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Speaker 2: the FED is the high level of interest payments and

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Speaker 2: you'd like to see them come down. Speaking of interest payments,

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Speaker 2: this morning, I saw the headline that the UK thirty

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Speaker 2: year guilt is like at the highest in nineteen eighty nine,

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Speaker 2: it continues to elevate. So for all the stress that

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Speaker 2: we have here, all the fiscal pressure, inflationary pressure. It

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Speaker 2: actually seems potentially worse elsewhere, although yes.

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Speaker 3: I will say the pound is up against the dollar, right,

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Speaker 3: so from a currency perspective, we're kind of doing worse.

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Speaker 2: From a currency perspective. But there's a lot these things

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Speaker 2: are global, is I think the point, and all of

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Speaker 2: these anxieties and stresses. It's not just a US story.

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Speaker 3: No, And obviously it's feeding into ball markets. And I

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Speaker 3: cannot tell you how many notes we get on a

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Speaker 3: daily basis about how governments can reduce the debt, how

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Speaker 3: they deal with deficits and things like that.

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Speaker 2: Right now, everyone to talk about this these days here

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Speaker 2: in twenty twenty five, it got a lot of interest.

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Speaker 2: Of course in twenty twenty two, after there is a

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Speaker 2: famous spike in yields in UK guilt and maybe this

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Speaker 2: sort of premonition of what a lot of rich countries

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Speaker 2: would be dealing with. So I'm very excited to say,

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Speaker 2: we really do have the perfect guest to speak about

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Speaker 2: all of this today to understand some of the pressures

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Speaker 2: facing rich developed economies. We're speaking with the right Honorable

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Speaker 2: Liz Trust, former Prime Minister of the UK, author of

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Speaker 2: the recent book ten years to save the West. Liz Trust,

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Speaker 2: thank you so much for coming on odd lots, thrilled

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Speaker 2: to have you here.

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Speaker 4: Good to be on.

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Speaker 2: I have a question. You know, when you see like

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Speaker 2: thirty year guilt yields higher substantially than when you were

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Speaker 2: the Prime minister and whenever one attacked you over the

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Speaker 2: mini budget, do you feel some sense of like sort

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Speaker 2: of vindication or happiness or is it all like despair

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Speaker 2: for the state of your country.

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Speaker 5: Well, I do feel despair for this date of my country,

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Speaker 5: and it's in fact why I tried to do what

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Speaker 5: I tried to do in twenty twenty two, because I

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Speaker 5: could see the way things were going. I could see

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Speaker 5: our economy was stagnant, that the tax revenue being generated

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Speaker 5: wasn't enough to cover the amount of money the state

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Speaker 5: was spending, and we needed to do something different in

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Speaker 5: order to get out of a negative spiral. And what

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Speaker 5: I see now is we're further down that negative spiral

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Speaker 5: and we are heading.

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Speaker 4: For a very very serious crisis.

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Speaker 5: I said last year, I thought we were headed for

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Speaker 5: an IMF bailout as Britain experienced in the nineteen seventies.

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Speaker 5: I think that's even truer now. Than it was a

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Speaker 5: year ago, and we're in an economic doom loop of

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Speaker 5: higher taxes, lower growth, higher debt, and it's very difficult

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Speaker 5: now to see the political way out of that.

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Speaker 3: So how should governments actually announce or unveil large scale

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Speaker 3: policy shifts because there does seem to be a some

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Speaker 3: institutional constraint and then be the market reaction. We saw

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Speaker 3: that this year in the US after Trump's Liberation Day announced,

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Speaker 3: you know a lot of people were saying this was

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Speaker 3: Trump's trust moment. How should governments actually go about I

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Speaker 3: guess balancing the views of the market with you know,

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Speaker 3: big scale change in terms of policy.

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Speaker 5: I think the issue that I faced, and it is

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Speaker 5: also the issue that Donald Trump faces in the United States,

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Speaker 5: is a lot of the mainstream economic establishment do not

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Speaker 5: agree with the policies that I was pursuing, and they

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Speaker 5: don't agree with the policies that Donald Trump is pursuing.

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Speaker 5: So you're operating in a hostile environment. In the UK's case,

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Speaker 5: we have institutions that have become very divorced from government policy.

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Speaker 5: In nineteen ninety eight, the Bank of England was made

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Speaker 5: independent by Gordon Brown. Since then, I believe it has

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Speaker 5: been pretty much unaccountable, So politicians have very little control

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Speaker 5: over monetary policy, and what has happened is monetary policy

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Speaker 5: has driven fiscal policy. It's very hard to coordinate between

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Speaker 5: those two policies as a government because you don't have

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Speaker 5: control of the leavers. Even more so, back in twenty ten,

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Speaker 5: George Osborne established the Office of Budget Responsibility, which handed

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Speaker 5: over huge powers to another unelected authority. It's a bit

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Speaker 5: like the Congressional Budget Office, but it has more power

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Speaker 5: within the British system. So what I was facing back

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Speaker 5: in twenty twenty two was powerful institutions that didn't share

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Speaker 5: my policy objectives. Now I believed, as the democratically selected

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Speaker 5: leader of the country that I should be able to

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Speaker 5: pursue those policies. It was what I was elected on it,

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Speaker 5: in fact, it was what the Conservative Party elected on.

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Speaker 5: But what I faced was resistant. So when you're talking

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Speaker 5: about timing of policy announcements, it's not like you're operating

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Speaker 5: on a clear creating in a stormy see where there

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Speaker 5: are people out there who want you to fail, not

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Speaker 5: just your political opponents, but also.

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Speaker 4: The institutional opponents.

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Speaker 5: And that is what Donald Trump faced with his tariff

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Speaker 5: policies that he announced on Liberation Day. A lot of

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Speaker 5: economists said they wouldn't work. A lot of people say

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Speaker 5: said it would make the budget deficits in the US worse.

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Speaker 5: And those policy makers are very influential with the markets.

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Speaker 5: So in the case of the Bank of England, or

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Speaker 5: the case of the people sitting on the Federal Reserve

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Speaker 5: or civil servants within the Treasury, these people are out

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Speaker 5: there creating their own waves. So I think that's the

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Speaker 5: context you have to see what I was trying to do.

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Speaker 2: First of all, I totally take your point about the

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Speaker 2: sort of limitations of many mainstream economists, the bias of

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Speaker 2: many mainstream economists, and we have many critics of mainstream

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Speaker 2: economics regularly on the show. So that's a point well taken.

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Speaker 2: When you unveiled your or mini budget, given the fiscal

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Speaker 2: constraints or the perceived fiscal constraints, why tax cuts specifically

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Speaker 2: and not also spending cuts. You know, there's so many

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Speaker 2: different aspects of the UK spending situation, whether it's the

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Speaker 2: triple lock pension. There's this thing that goes viral Twitter

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Speaker 2: a lot about like how easy it is to get

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Speaker 2: a free car, etc. Like why not first take aim

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Speaker 2: at potentially low hanging fruit, or at least in combination,

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Speaker 2: you know, spending cuts.

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Speaker 5: Well, that is exactly what I sought to do. The

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Speaker 5: package we were putting forward was a combination. It was

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Speaker 5: actually not tax cuts, it was reversing a tax rice

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Speaker 5: and I think that's a very important distinction. The biggest

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Speaker 5: measure we wanted to take was keeping corporation tax at

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Speaker 5: nineteen percent, not raising it to twenty five percent. And

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Speaker 5: I believed, and I've since been proven right, that if

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Speaker 5: you raise corporation tax to that level, you get less

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Speaker 5: business activity, you get lower growth. Combined with the non

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Speaker 5: dom tax that's been put in place or the removal

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Speaker 5: of the non dom benefits, we've seen more millionaires leave

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Speaker 5: Britain than any other country in the world per capita.

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Speaker 4: So what we were.

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Speaker 5: Doing, just on its own account, raising taxes at that

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Speaker 5: juncture back in twenty twenty two was a bad idea.

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Speaker 5: I believe that it would lead to lower economic growth

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Speaker 5: and a higher deficit in the long term, and some

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Speaker 5: economists agreed with me, But the economists working for the government,

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Speaker 5: the Office of Budget Responsibility of the Bank of England

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Speaker 5: did not agree with me, and they were keen on

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Speaker 5: that policy, and in fact they forced me to reverse

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Speaker 5: that policy.

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Speaker 4: So that's one point.

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Speaker 5: Second point on spending is we did try to reign

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Speaker 5: in spending.

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Speaker 4: So a particular thing I sought to.

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Speaker 5: Do was increased welfare by wages not prices, because we

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Speaker 5: were a very high inflation year in twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 5: That would have saved seven billion pounds on the government budget,

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Speaker 5: which has a significant amount. What I found was that

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Speaker 5: conservative MPs were not prepared to vote for that. So

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Speaker 5: even a relatively minor change which was simply not raising

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Speaker 5: welfare as much as it was going to be raised,

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Speaker 5: created a massive outcry on the conservative benches. So the

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Speaker 5: answer on spending is it was politically not possible. Now,

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Speaker 5: personally I would have liked to be even tougher on spending.

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Speaker 5: I think we could have done that over time, but

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Speaker 5: I had to think about what was politically realistic, and

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Speaker 5: so what we had is spending constraint, not raising spending

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Speaker 5: as much as was previously planned, keeping taxes low rather

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Speaker 5: than raising them and choking off economic growth, which is

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Speaker 5: what I thought it would do and was what actually happened.

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Speaker 5: And then also supply side measures such as legalizing fracking

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Speaker 5: in the UK making it easier to drill in the

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Speaker 5: North Sea so that you stimulate the economy with supply

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Speaker 5: side reforms. That was the overall package, and you know

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Speaker 5: what happened. And you can compare my fiscal package with

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Speaker 5: packages that Richie Soon acted during COVID or packages that

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Speaker 5: Rachel Reves did, since my package was smaller even according

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Speaker 5: to the estimates of the Office of Budget Responsibility, and

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Speaker 5: yet it got a very different reaction. And this is

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Speaker 5: because the economic establishment, the key figures in the treasurer

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Speaker 5: in the Bank of England, have a bias towards a

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Speaker 5: more Canesian approach. So I think it's important to note

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Speaker 5: that this physical package was not any bigger than packages

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Speaker 5: before or after. It just got a different reaction. I

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Speaker 5: think the other important point to note about what happened

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Speaker 5: in September and October twenty twenty two is the night

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Speaker 5: before the mini budget, the Bank of England announced the

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Speaker 5: sale of forty billion pounds worth of guilts. So I

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Speaker 5: had a central bank who were making announcements that made

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Speaker 5: our lives a lot more difficult the day before the

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Speaker 5: mini budget, and since the guilt spike in twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 5: the Bank of England have actually produced a paper saying

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Speaker 5: that two thirds of that spiking gilts was down to

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Speaker 5: their failure to regulate the pensions market. So there were

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Speaker 5: lots of other things going on at the same time,

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Speaker 5: but it was very, very convenient for the mini budget

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Speaker 5: to be blamed for what happened. And as you pointed

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Speaker 5: out at the beginning of the show, the guilt spike

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Speaker 5: wasn't as high as it is now. So what I

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Speaker 5: think is going on now is you can see the

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Speaker 5: different treatment of a tax spending, high spending labor government

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Speaker 5: from a conservative politician who's trying to pursue in my view,

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Speaker 5: Laffer friendly tax freezes, supply side reforms, and spending restrain.

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Speaker 3: If there's an institutional and market bias towards economic orthodoxy

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Speaker 3: or Knesianism, as you just pointed out, why not try

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Speaker 3: to adapt your budget or your economic policy to that

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Speaker 3: reality because it did seem like, you know, you were

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Speaker 3: sort of expecting the markets to adapt to your policy

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Speaker 3: rather than vice versa. I guess I'm asking it's just

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Speaker 3: is there a better way to try to communicate what

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Speaker 3: you were doing at the time.

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Speaker 5: Well, I'm a believer in democracy and I think it's

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Speaker 5: democratically elected politicians that should decide policy, not unelected central

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Speaker 5: banks and a network there's the IMF for World Bank,

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Speaker 5: the central banks meeting regularly. They are far too powerful

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Speaker 5: in my view at deciding what countries economic policy should

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Speaker 5: be and they.

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Speaker 4: Have not been effective.

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Speaker 5: You know, if you look at the Bank of England's

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Speaker 5: record over the past ten years on things like inflation,

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Speaker 5: on economic growth, it's been extremely poor. And I fundamentally,

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Speaker 5: you know, why should democratically elected politicians cow tao to

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Speaker 5: what unelected officials want when we're the people who are

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Speaker 5: held to account for the success of failures of the policy.

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Speaker 5: And what is happening now is Rachel Reeves is very orthodox.

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Speaker 5: She's a former Bank of England employee. She's essentially taking

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Speaker 5: dictation from the Bank of England and the Treasury about

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Speaker 5: what she should do and we can see the results

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Speaker 5: of that. And what is happening is we are going

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Speaker 5: to reach an end point where the country runs out

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Speaker 5: of money and then we will have a major crisis

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Speaker 5: and we will have to think differently. I just think

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Speaker 5: it's very sad it's got to that point. This was

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Speaker 5: obvious from where we were in twenty twenty two. But

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Speaker 5: as I've said, the economic orthodoxy proved very powerful and Frankie,

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Speaker 5: what is the point of wanting to become Prime minister

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Speaker 5: if you're simply going to go along with the failing

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Speaker 5: orthodoxy that has put your country in the problems it

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Speaker 5: is already, which is where we were.

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Speaker 3: You know, you mentioned that the Bank of England wasn't

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Speaker 3: really independent from HM Treasury until Gordon Brown's chancellorship in

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Speaker 3: the nineteen nineties. Do you think that arrangement still works

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Speaker 3: or would you perhaps call for reform where maybe the

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Speaker 3: Treasury regains some of its influence over the central bank.

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Speaker 5: I think the Bank of England needs to be accountable

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Speaker 5: to politicians. I think the current system doesn't work. This

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Speaker 5: is why I'm very sympathetic to what Donald Trump is

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Speaker 5: saying about the Fed. Monetary policy is incredibly important. It

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Speaker 5: determines the allocation of assets within society. And what we've

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Speaker 5: seen in Britain is we've seen people who have property,

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Speaker 5: who have capital have done very well out of the

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Speaker 5: low interest rates that the Bank of England and the

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Speaker 5: easy money the Bank of England has created over the

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Speaker 5: past fifteen years, and we're seeing young people struggle to

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Speaker 5: get on the housing market. We are seeing it real

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Speaker 5: effects in the economy of the Bank of England's policies,

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Speaker 5: and as a Democrat, somebody at leaves in democracy, I

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Speaker 5: just think it's wrong that people should be making those

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Speaker 5: decisions and not accountable to the elector. And it's also

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Speaker 5: very difficult, as I found as Prime Minister, to combine

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Speaker 5: fiscal and monetary policy if you don't hold one.

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Speaker 4: Of the leavers.

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Speaker 5: So yes, I think it's got to change, and I

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Speaker 5: think there is a reckoning coming for the central banks,

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Speaker 5: not just in Britain but also in the United States,

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Speaker 5: also the ECB. The current system does not work, and

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Speaker 5: I think one of the reasons that the Bank of England,

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Speaker 5: I would say sabotaged what I was trying to do

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Speaker 5: is I was a critic of central banks before I

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Speaker 5: became Prime Minister. I'd been very clear that I thought

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Speaker 5: the Bank of English record was not good, that the

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Speaker 5: Treasury should have much more of a role in setting

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Speaker 5: the mandate for the Bank of England, and they didn't

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Speaker 5: like their power being challenged.

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Speaker 2: First of all, I want to say, I think your

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Speaker 2: point about the sort of the political impossibility of or

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Speaker 2: the political at least difficulty of spending cuts is really

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Speaker 2: important that you had the Tory majority obviously, and even

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Speaker 2: what you described as sort of modest cuts to the

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Speaker 2: rate of growth is spending, couldn't get the votes. Like,

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Speaker 2: I think there's a very telling issue and raise a

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Speaker 2: stress about the ability of any democracies to do difficult things.

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Speaker 2: Sitting aside, maybe what's politically capable in the next parliament.

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Speaker 2: Should the next parliament revisit questions such as either the

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Speaker 2: triple pensions or free point of use at the NHS.

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Speaker 5: So, just on your point about political possibility, I think

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Speaker 5: the only thing that is politically possible at present, or

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Speaker 5: certainly was in twenty twenty two, was to try and

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Speaker 5: restrain the growth of spending and to grow the economy

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Speaker 5: faster than that. And I think that is what just

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Speaker 5: that is my Trumpite strategy is in the US you've

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Speaker 5: got to outpace the growth of public spending sure with

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Speaker 5: economic growth. I think that is only possible. What you've

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Speaker 5: just said about actually spending cuts is when there is

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Speaker 5: some kind of well, so this.

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Speaker 2: Is what I'm saying. So you mentioned you said last

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Speaker 2: year that you were worried that the UK could need

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Speaker 2: another IMF bailout. There were headlines I think of the

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Speaker 2: news just in the last week of some economists talking

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Speaker 2: about that again. Okay, like, if this is what we're

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Speaker 2: talking about, I mean, if this is real and we're

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Speaker 2: talking about the UK essentially being at the point of

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Speaker 2: needing an IMF bailout, is it time to look at

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Speaker 2: these sort of core pillars of existing spending levels.

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Speaker 5: Well, you can see what's been going on in Parliament,

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Speaker 5: which is the Labor Party tried to put through some

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Speaker 5: modest welfare cuts and there was a massive rebellion by

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Speaker 5: Labor MPs. Even though they have a huge majority in parliament,

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Speaker 5: they could not get through some pretty minor changes, smaller

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Speaker 5: by the way, than the amount I was proposing in

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Speaker 5: twenty twenty two. I think it was only worth about

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Speaker 5: four billion pounds. They could not get that through their

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Speaker 5: current parliamentary party. And all of the evidence what happened

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Speaker 5: in Greece, what happened in Ireland where spending cup programs

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Speaker 5: have been achieved, or Argentina is another good example, have

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Speaker 5: come after a crisis. I think that's deeply regrettable. But

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Speaker 5: I can't see certainly with the current parliament serious spending

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Speaker 5: cuts happening until Britain runs out of money.

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Speaker 3: I'm going to ask Joe's question just in a slightly

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Speaker 3: different way. But if you were back in government today

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Speaker 3: and guilt yields are where they are, what specific tradeoffs

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Speaker 3: between spending and taxes tax cuts would you be willing

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Speaker 3: to make and what trade offs do you think are

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Speaker 3: actually politically realistic.

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Speaker 5: Well, the issue now is that taxes have got so

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Speaker 5: high that they're checking off economic growth, and we're seeing

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Speaker 5: millionaires leaving the country, We're seeing businesses closing down. I

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Speaker 5: think the easiest thing and the most sensible thing to

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Speaker 5: do straight away is all the supply side stuff, abolishing

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Speaker 5: planning regulations, taking on the environ our mental NGOs, getting

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Speaker 5: on with fracking, using north sea oil, maybe using our

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Speaker 5: coal reserves. I think those are the types of things

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Speaker 5: that can be done relatively quickly and would have an

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Speaker 5: impact in terms of spending. Of course, our welfare state

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Speaker 5: needs to be reformed. I think something like over sixty

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Speaker 5: percent of Britain's budget is a combination of the National

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Speaker 5: Health Service and welfare and those are the.

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Speaker 4: Two areas that need to be fixed.

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Speaker 5: But I don't think there's any room for maneuver now

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Speaker 5: on taxes. I think that raising taxes has proved already

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Speaker 5: to be counterproductive. Doing it even more will simply make

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Speaker 5: the UK even more unattractive for investors. So you've got

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Speaker 5: to focus on supply side. Make it much easier to

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Speaker 5: build things, make it much easier to frack, make it

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Speaker 5: much easier to hire people, all of those kind of things.

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Speaker 5: And you have to have spending cuts where you can.

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Speaker 5: But as I've said, I've tried myself to get spending

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Speaker 5: through Parliament.

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Speaker 4: It's it's not easy.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to ask the really ignorant American question that's

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Speaker 2: sometimes so forgive me if this comes off as blind,

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Speaker 2: just so I'm just getting it out there. But is

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Speaker 2: there a cult of the any trust in the UK?

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Speaker 4: There has been.

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Speaker 5: I think the cult is wearing thin, but you know

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Speaker 5: there has been a cult. I think people are recognizing

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Speaker 5: though that the outcomes are not good. You know, if

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Speaker 5: you compare British health outcomes with other countries, I don't

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Speaker 5: think the American system is anything to aspire to. But

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Speaker 5: if you look at countries Germany, if you look at

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Speaker 5: countries like Germany, France, Japan, you know they managed to

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Speaker 5: achieve better outcomes with similar levels of funding. So I

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Speaker 5: think everybody in Britain recognizes that it's not working as

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Speaker 5: it's currently constituted. But it is such a big and

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Speaker 5: deep issue to resolve.

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Speaker 4: It really is.

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Speaker 3: Joe, Remind me to tell you my NHS horror story

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Speaker 3: later on. Everyone has one. On the plus side, it's free, right,

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Speaker 3: all right?

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Speaker 4: You know, I want to go.

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Speaker 5: Back to cost you it costs you in other ways?

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Speaker 3: True, I agree, say true, I want to go back

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Speaker 3: to something you said about the economic orthodoxy leaning towards Keynesianism.

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Speaker 3: Why do you think that is? Like, why is that

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Speaker 3: the dominant economic policy framework at the moment, given that,

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Speaker 3: as you keep pointing out, you know, a lot of

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Speaker 3: people would argue that it hasn't actually yielded good outcomes

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Speaker 3: for the developed world.

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Speaker 5: In the eighties, we had some very successful supply side

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Speaker 5: policies both Thatcher and Reagan increased economic growth, increase the

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Speaker 5: strength of our respective economies, And when the Soviet Union collapsed,

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Speaker 5: I think we all thought free market capitalism had won

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Speaker 5: low taxes, restrained spending, supply side economics, and I think

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Speaker 5: people in favor of those policies took their foot off

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Speaker 5: the pedal, and that allowed more left wing economics to

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Speaker 5: gain traction. And since then, I think we've seen it

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Speaker 5: in universities, in the Treasury, in the Bank of England,

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Speaker 5: but the Kanesian economics has become much more prevalent. And

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Speaker 5: whether it's the Office of Budget Responsibility or the CBO,

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Speaker 5: they're looking at economics through a Kinesian lens. And I

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Speaker 5: think it is a big question about how on Earth,

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Speaker 5: after seeing the success of those policies and now seeing

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Speaker 5: the failure of Kanesian policies, anyone could possibly think these

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Speaker 5: policies are right. But they proved very hard to shift.

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Speaker 5: And I think the left of politics have been very

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Speaker 5: successful at capturing institutions. I think they've captured large parts

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Speaker 5: the bureaucracy, the university's, large parts of the media. There

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Speaker 5: was in Britain there has not just talking about these

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Speaker 5: the events of twenty twenty two. There's not been real

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Speaker 5: analysis of what happened and what the Bank of England

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Speaker 5: did and how the institutions behaved. It's something that is

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Speaker 5: not talked about. And I think the level of economic

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Speaker 5: literacy in the media has also got lower, and certainly

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Speaker 5: British politics just gets reported as a pantomime rather than

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Speaker 5: an analysis of the issues.

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Speaker 2: There's much you say about the media, the way reporting

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Speaker 2: is done that I probably am quite sympathetic with. Actually,

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Speaker 2: would you ever join reform if the Conservatives can't pass

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Speaker 2: modest slowdowns in the pace of welfare increases, if you

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Speaker 2: know labor obviously hesitated issues, would you join reform?

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Speaker 5: I'm not really thinking about party politics at the moment

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Speaker 5: because my whole experience of being in government, and I

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Speaker 5: was a government minister for ten years before I became

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Speaker 5: Prime Minister, was that the power was not in the

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Speaker 5: hands of the politicians. The power is in the hands

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Speaker 5: of the bureaucrats. So even if Nigel Frage gets elected

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Speaker 5: in twenty twenty nine, and currently he's the Booky's favorite

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Speaker 5: to get elected, if the bureaucracy isn't changed, if there

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Speaker 5: isn't fundamental change to the way Britain is run, nothing

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Speaker 5: will alter I mean a lot of them.

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Speaker 2: Presumably presumably a breakup of the I mean, right, like

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Speaker 2: that's the idea, Right, there's no prospect of breaking up

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Speaker 2: the bureaucracy unless there's like genuinely something new that happens politically,

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Speaker 2: like that would be their argument right, that of brand

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Speaker 2: new party taking power is the only way that there

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Speaker 2: could be some sort of deep institutional shakeup.

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Speaker 5: Yes, in some ways that's true or could be true.

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Speaker 5: There's no reason why the Conservative Party couldn't do a

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Speaker 5: deep institutional shakeup. But the Conservative Party has to acknowledge

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Speaker 5: what went for fourteen years. You know, why didn't we

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Speaker 5: solve the immigration problem, Why didn't we solve the growth problem?

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Speaker 5: Why didn't we solve things like the free speech problem?

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Speaker 5: The answer is we didn't reverse the institutional changes. Tony

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Speaker 5: Blair mate and I talked about how he made the

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Speaker 5: Bank of England unaccountable. He also made the judiciary unaccountable

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Speaker 5: with things like the Human Rights Act and the Constitutional

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Speaker 5: Reform Act.

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Speaker 4: So until the Conservatives acknowledge that.

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Speaker 5: That is why we failed to deliver an office, that

440
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:35,400
Speaker 5: is true about the Conservative Party. But if you look

441
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:38,680
Speaker 5: at the two Trump administrations, Trump one and Trump two,

442
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 5: in Trump won, there was less recognition of the institutional

443
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 5: change that was required in the US, and we're now

444
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 5: seeing more of that from Trump. So my point is,

445
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:56,439
Speaker 5: whoever is in office in twenty twenty nine needs to

446
00:26:56,560 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 5: understand that the British state needs to be fundamentally shaken up.

447
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 5: Otherwise nothing is going to happen. And I make that

448
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:08,439
Speaker 5: argument to all parties. Interestingly, there are even people in

449
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:12,760
Speaker 5: the Labor Party backbench MP's who are saying the Bank

450
00:27:12,800 --> 00:27:16,160
Speaker 5: of England's independence needs to be removed. They're saying get

451
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:18,680
Speaker 5: rid of the Office of Budget Responsibility because they can

452
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 5: see the types of policies they want pursued are not

453
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:23,960
Speaker 5: possible with the current setup.

454
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:28,439
Speaker 3: Since we're talking political parties, and on this note, you

455
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:32,480
Speaker 3: know there maybe there is some consensus on specific economic policies,

456
00:27:32,520 --> 00:27:35,239
Speaker 3: as you point out, but we've had this back and

457
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:38,920
Speaker 3: forth between Conservatives and Labor for many, many years now.

458
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:44,520
Speaker 3: How do you actually go about building consensus around economic policy,

459
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 3: especially at a time when you know people would describe

460
00:27:48,000 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 3: our current environment as relatively turbulent and guilt yields are

461
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:52,560
Speaker 3: where they are.

462
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:56,920
Speaker 5: I would say there's a bad economic consensus between Labor

463
00:27:56,960 --> 00:28:01,120
Speaker 5: and the Conservatives at present, which is nobody is saying,

464
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:05,000
Speaker 5: apart from me a few others, nobody is.

465
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:07,399
Speaker 4: Saying that the institutions need to change.

466
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:11,960
Speaker 5: The Conservative Party are also wrapping themselves in we need

467
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:14,679
Speaker 5: to respect the independent Bank of England. We need to

468
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:18,560
Speaker 5: listen to the Office of Budget Responsibility. They're not prepared

469
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:23,879
Speaker 5: to take on the economic establishment. Neither are the Labor Party.

470
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:29,640
Speaker 5: And we're in a situation where the policies these institutions

471
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 5: believe in are failing, and they're manifestly failing. Guilt rates

472
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:39,640
Speaker 5: are now much higher than they were back in twenty

473
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 5: twenty two, Unemployment is up, our energy prices are the

474
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:47,560
Speaker 5: highest in the world, and the industry is closing down.

475
00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 5: These policies are manifestly failing, yet nobody is challenging the

476
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 5: fundamentals of the economic institutions.

477
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:00,240
Speaker 2: You know, I'm gladly brought up free speech because I'm

478
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:03,640
Speaker 2: interested in that as well. And of course, you know,

479
00:29:03,680 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 2: again in the West, I think free speech, liberal speech

480
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 2: norms are good, and so I worry about when I

481
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:12,920
Speaker 2: see them failing in various countries or friends and neighbors.

482
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 2: Palestine Action seems like a bunch of like crusty old hippies,

483
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 2: And I know they defaced a plane, but they're listed

484
00:29:20,240 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 2: as a terrorist group in your country. People can get

485
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 2: arrested even just for saying support them, And I think

486
00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 2: they're like a terrorist group basically, like on the same

487
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:30,760
Speaker 2: level of as like isis which I think most people take, yes,

488
00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:33,040
Speaker 2: that is a genuine terrorist group, like what is going

489
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:33,440
Speaker 2: on there?

490
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:37,400
Speaker 5: Well, they did attack a military base and they are

491
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 5: advocating for terrorism in the UK.

492
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 2: They deface a plane and then also people get arrested

493
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:47,280
Speaker 2: or in trouble for saying that they support them.

494
00:29:47,720 --> 00:29:51,320
Speaker 5: They are clearly a problematic organization. And there are lots

495
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 5: of organizations in Britain that are allowed in the UK

496
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:58,760
Speaker 5: that aren't actually allowed in many Arab countries. So I

497
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:02,640
Speaker 5: think it's right that we down on these organizations. I

498
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 5: do think when people you know, I am a pro

499
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 5: free speech person. I'd love to have the First Amendment

500
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 5: here in Britain. I support both people I agree with

501
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:17,200
Speaker 5: and people I don't agree with having a lot more

502
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 5: free speech. And it is a travesty that we've just

503
00:30:20,760 --> 00:30:23,680
Speaker 5: seen Lucy Connolly released from jail who put out a tweet,

504
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 5: deleted it four hours later and was sentenced to thirty

505
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 5: one months in prison.

506
00:30:29,200 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 4: That is absolutely ludicrous and.

507
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 5: I think we've become an international laughing stock. And it

508
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 5: is an attempt and Kirs Starmer is very clear about this.

509
00:30:37,600 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 5: It is an attempt by the authorities to suppress what

510
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:44,880
Speaker 5: people are talking about and I think that's a very

511
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 5: dangerous thing for a society, For a society to go down.

512
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 2: All of these things really worry me. In the Lucy

513
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 2: Connolly example, so she tweeted and I understand that she

514
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 2: deleted it, but she tweeted about setting a hotel on fire.

515
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:01,800
Speaker 2: I mean that is our arguably a call to violent action.

516
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 2: Like how would that be different? Would you feel the

517
00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 2: same way if someone said, look, you know, we should

518
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 2: set a synagogue on fire. Is that free speech? Well?

519
00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 5: I think what she said would not have been deemed

520
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 5: a violation in the US because it wasn't. I don't

521
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:18,880
Speaker 5: believe she was talking about a specific you go out

522
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 5: and do this now, it was a general statement. It

523
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 5: was obviously a terrible thing to say, and she has

524
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:27,440
Speaker 5: said sorry for that. I think there's a question about

525
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:29,760
Speaker 5: whether or not in the US that would have even

526
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 5: been a crime at all, and even if it is

527
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 5: a crime, whether it merits a thirty one month prison sentence.

528
00:31:35,760 --> 00:31:40,520
Speaker 5: When we have people caught with child pornography being let

529
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 5: off with no jail time at all, I mean you

530
00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 5: probably heard the expression two tier Britain. But what is

531
00:31:46,160 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 5: happening is people are being let out very early for

532
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 5: crimes like child rape, and yet put in prison for

533
00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:56,840
Speaker 5: things that they write on Twitter, and those are two

534
00:31:56,920 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 5: different categories in my opinion.

535
00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:02,120
Speaker 3: You mentioned the first mention, then how would you reform

536
00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 3: I guess speech rights in the UK if you were

537
00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:06,720
Speaker 3: in power again.

538
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:10,720
Speaker 5: We came up with free speech, freedom of the press

539
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:14,600
Speaker 5: back in sixteen ninety five, and it was a historic

540
00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:17,560
Speaker 5: British liberty. We had the Bill of Rights of course

541
00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:22,080
Speaker 5: sixty to eighty nine, which then the United States built

542
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 5: on that with your Bill of Rights and so on.

543
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 5: So these liberties are there in the British constitution. The

544
00:32:27,600 --> 00:32:30,960
Speaker 5: problem is all of the laws that have been passed since,

545
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:34,160
Speaker 5: most notably the Online Safety Act. So what we need

546
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 5: to do is restore Britain's historic liberties with a great

547
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 5: restoration bill that sweeps away all of this legislation that

548
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:48,960
Speaker 5: has tied the country and knots. And I've talked about

549
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:54,360
Speaker 5: our problematic institutions, the problems with the judiciary, the problems

550
00:32:54,360 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 5: with free speech. This is all down to very poor

551
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 5: quality legislation that is essentially handed power that used to

552
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:05,160
Speaker 5: sit in the hands of the individual British citizen or

553
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 5: the British Parliament. It's handed those power to unelected bureaucrats.

554
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:29,520
Speaker 2: Basically, my entire professional career, your party has been in

555
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:32,160
Speaker 2: power except for you know, the last ten minutes or

556
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:34,360
Speaker 2: so in Labor and Cure Star mar.

557
00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 4: Doesn't feel like ten minutes.

558
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:38,920
Speaker 2: Maybe it just feels like it over here because it

559
00:33:38,920 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 2: feels like a lot of the rot. You describe the

560
00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 2: route that you perceive in your country, Almost so much

561
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:48,760
Speaker 2: of it seems to have taken place under Conservative government.

562
00:33:49,200 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 2: Why is that? And why would anyone, you know, and

563
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 2: they're thinking about the next election, why would anyone think

564
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 2: that if there's so much route was allowed to happen

565
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,560
Speaker 2: under the Tories, that the Tories should be given another

566
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:00,320
Speaker 2: chance power.

567
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:03,840
Speaker 5: So I think the rots has sort of built up

568
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:08,239
Speaker 5: over time. So I talked about the development of the bureaucracy.

569
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:12,800
Speaker 5: You had the Atle government which socialized Land, which created

570
00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:15,640
Speaker 5: the NHS, which created the welfare state. A lot of

571
00:34:15,680 --> 00:34:18,840
Speaker 5: our problems go back to that government. But what was

572
00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:25,200
Speaker 5: very important about the Blair government is this taking power

573
00:34:25,239 --> 00:34:27,960
Speaker 5: that was in the hands of Parliament and putting it

574
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:34,320
Speaker 5: in the hands of unelected bodies, bureaucracies, the Bank of England,

575
00:34:34,360 --> 00:34:38,920
Speaker 5: the judicial appointments, Commission, all of this plethora of people

576
00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:42,080
Speaker 5: offcom who are now making the decisions about free speech,

577
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:45,520
Speaker 5: These pleasure of people who have not been elected now

578
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 5: de facto run our country. And the big mistake the

579
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:52,520
Speaker 5: Conservative Party made was not reversing that. And this was

580
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 5: because at the time David Cameron said he wanted to

581
00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:58,200
Speaker 5: be the heir to Blair, you know, who wanted to

582
00:34:58,239 --> 00:35:00,840
Speaker 5: be fashion of all the Conservatives, be modern. But I

583
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:04,400
Speaker 5: think it was a huge error and the Conservative Party

584
00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 5: lost its soul. That's what happened in the pursuit of power,

585
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:11,799
Speaker 5: in the pursuit of trying to be modern, the Conservative

586
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 5: Party lost its soul. And I think it's an open

587
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:18,200
Speaker 5: question about whether or not the Conservative Party can get

588
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:22,880
Speaker 5: it sold back or be replaced. But certainly you know

589
00:35:22,920 --> 00:35:28,680
Speaker 5: where we are now. Not enough people are saying what

590
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 5: really went wrong over those fourteen years, But the Conservative

591
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:37,200
Speaker 5: Party failed to take on the bureaucracy. These were not

592
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:41,239
Speaker 5: the Conservative Party's policies. They were just policies that we

593
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:42,200
Speaker 5: didn't object to.

594
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 3: Related to Joe's point, when you think back to certain

595
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:53,480
Speaker 3: moments in Britain's economic history, so for instance Brexit, the

596
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:56,319
Speaker 3: argument then was that if we get rid of all

597
00:35:56,360 --> 00:36:00,040
Speaker 3: this EU regulation, the UK economy will be free to

598
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:03,279
Speaker 3: flourish and prosper. And I think in the nineteen seventies,

599
00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 3: you know, Anthony Barber instituted some tax cuts as well,

600
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:09,600
Speaker 3: right before inflation hit, I think twenty five percent or

601
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 3: something like that. Why should the UK population have confidence

602
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:20,000
Speaker 3: that a growth focused economic policy, one that features you know,

603
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 3: big tax cuts and deregulation, will actually drive economic growth.

604
00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:28,120
Speaker 5: Well, I think the important thing to note about Brexit

605
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 5: is we haven't got rid of any of those European laws.

606
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:36,080
Speaker 5: They're still on the British statute books. So laws that

607
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:39,680
Speaker 5: protect bats and news still on the statute books. Laws

608
00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:43,400
Speaker 5: that tell you how your can opener should work are

609
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:45,760
Speaker 5: still on the statute books. We still have the working

610
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 5: time Directive, we still got all of those laws. So

611
00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:52,839
Speaker 5: this goes back to the problem you were talking about

612
00:36:52,880 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 5: the Conservative Party. The Conservative Party is fundamentally split between

613
00:36:57,760 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 5: people who want Britain to be you know, Singapore on TEMs,

614
00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:07,799
Speaker 5: you know, a free trading go getting country, people who

615
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:10,200
Speaker 5: wanted it to be part of Europe and want to

616
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:14,360
Speaker 5: be part of the you know, European lots of labor

617
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:18,680
Speaker 5: laws protecting people environmental red tape, all of that stuff,

618
00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 5: and that issue has never resolved within the Conservative Party,

619
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:26,120
Speaker 5: which is why you know, you saw prime ministers being deposed,

620
00:37:26,200 --> 00:37:29,200
Speaker 5: why you have the debate within the Conservative Party. And

621
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:32,080
Speaker 5: I think if you look at the Brexit vote in Britain,

622
00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:35,279
Speaker 5: fifty two percent voted for Brexit, forty eight percent didn't,

623
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:40,600
Speaker 5: so Brexit was not delivered as the public intended. I

624
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:43,440
Speaker 5: mean the biggest case in point is of course immigration,

625
00:37:44,440 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 5: where the Boris Johnson government failed to invact allowed immigration

626
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:54,560
Speaker 5: to increase huge amounts, which has had a very negative effect.

627
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:58,000
Speaker 2: You know, since you mentioned party politics in the UK

628
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:01,960
Speaker 2: and the split within the Conservative Party, again ignorant question here.

629
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:05,040
Speaker 2: I do get the impression that the Conservatives just like

630
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:07,640
Speaker 2: all seem to hate each other more than the members

631
00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 2: of the Labor Party and the nineteen twenty two Committee,

632
00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:12,400
Speaker 2: which I still like have to Wikipedia every once in

633
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:14,240
Speaker 2: a while to remember what that is, and they're always

634
00:38:14,239 --> 00:38:17,160
Speaker 2: like scheming against each other. Is there like a deeper

635
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:20,480
Speaker 2: culture of just internal hate in the Conservative Party than

636
00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:21,000
Speaker 2: the Liberal right?

637
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:21,640
Speaker 4: I would say.

638
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 5: I would say the problems that the Conservative Party go

639
00:38:24,840 --> 00:38:28,919
Speaker 5: back to where Margaret Thatcher was defenestrated and the sort

640
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 5: of Tory wets and the you know, the Thatch Rights.

641
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:36,319
Speaker 5: But if you compare it to American politics, you know,

642
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:39,600
Speaker 5: if you look at the split between people like Trump

643
00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:43,919
Speaker 5: and people like Dick Cheney or the sort of Bush Republicans,

644
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:49,560
Speaker 5: it's a very similar ideological divide. But what is different

645
00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:52,960
Speaker 5: in America is that Trump has basically taken over the

646
00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:58,560
Speaker 5: Republican Party, whereas in Britain the kind of the left

647
00:38:58,600 --> 00:39:00,879
Speaker 5: of the Conservative Party is still in control of it.

648
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:04,000
Speaker 5: That's the difference. Well, there is going to be a

649
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:07,400
Speaker 5: political realignment, and you can see it in America. You know,

650
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:12,240
Speaker 5: Republicans are now getting votes from low income people, people

651
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:16,000
Speaker 5: in rural areas. The Democrats are dominating in the sort

652
00:39:16,040 --> 00:39:19,640
Speaker 5: of liberal cities. That's exactly what's going to happen in

653
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:23,200
Speaker 5: Britain at the next election. It's just the Conservative Party

654
00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:26,359
Speaker 5: hasn't really got its head around which of those two things.

655
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:26,680
Speaker 4: It is.

656
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:30,239
Speaker 3: So one of the things that seems to be happening

657
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:33,920
Speaker 3: in many developed countries at the moment is everyone wants

658
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:38,280
Speaker 3: to boost their own domestic manufacturing sector. And I believe

659
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker 3: you've spoken about the need for this in the UK

660
00:39:40,640 --> 00:39:44,640
Speaker 3: book four. When I think about the British economy. I

661
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 3: usually think there's a pretty big monopoly when it comes

662
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:50,080
Speaker 3: to let's call it intellectual.

663
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:53,239
Speaker 2: Jobs, services, finance office, journalisms and journalism.

664
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:54,960
Speaker 4: Yeah, that kind of thing.

665
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:59,080
Speaker 3: But when I think about British manufacturing, you know, it's

666
00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:03,319
Speaker 3: it's an island with a relatively small population compared to

667
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:06,920
Speaker 3: some other places in the world and high taxes. As

668
00:40:06,920 --> 00:40:10,920
Speaker 3: you've been pointing out, what would make Britain actually competitive

669
00:40:10,960 --> 00:40:14,080
Speaker 3: when it comes to manufacturing at a time when everyone

670
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:17,640
Speaker 3: seems out to compete in the same field.

671
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:20,200
Speaker 5: Well, the number one thing is energy prices need to

672
00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:22,759
Speaker 5: come down. They're the highest in the world. They're four

673
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:27,239
Speaker 5: times the United States. If you are a car manufacturer,

674
00:40:27,280 --> 00:40:31,960
Speaker 5: steel manufacturer, it's incredibly hard to compete. So that has

675
00:40:32,040 --> 00:40:35,040
Speaker 5: to change. We have to make it much easier to

676
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:36,880
Speaker 5: build things in Britain. If you want to build a

677
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:38,799
Speaker 5: new factory, it takes far too long. So there are

678
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:42,760
Speaker 5: all of those sort of supply side policies.

679
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:43,880
Speaker 4: That need to change.

680
00:40:44,239 --> 00:40:48,279
Speaker 5: I think Britain we de industrialized pretty much earlier than

681
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 5: any other country.

682
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:49,640
Speaker 4: You can see the.

683
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:53,799
Speaker 5: Same thing now happening in Germany and continental Europe. I

684
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 5: think it's important to do, or you can to maintain

685
00:40:57,160 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 5: a manufacturing base because a lot of industry like AI,

686
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 5: for example, requires high levels of energy. It requires other

687
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:09,560
Speaker 5: industries that it can sort of feed off if you like,

688
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 5: So if you just become I talked about Singapore and

689
00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:16,880
Speaker 5: seams earlier, but Singapore's a relatively small countries so it

690
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:18,319
Speaker 5: can afford to be a trading hub.

691
00:41:18,560 --> 00:41:19,759
Speaker 4: Britain is a country.

692
00:41:19,480 --> 00:41:22,440
Speaker 5: Of seventy million people. I think you can't rely on

693
00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:25,920
Speaker 5: services alone. I think you have to produce the full gamut.

694
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:29,120
Speaker 5: I'm very worried that we're losing our last steel blast furnace.

695
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:33,359
Speaker 5: What we learned during COVID is you are seriously up

696
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 5: against it if you are relying on China for pharmaceuticals.

697
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:41,080
Speaker 5: These are the types of industry that Britain.

698
00:41:40,719 --> 00:41:42,360
Speaker 4: Can excel in and does excel in.

699
00:41:42,600 --> 00:41:46,360
Speaker 5: I mean, our biggest manufactured export to the United States

700
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 5: is cars. We do produce good, high end cars that

701
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:54,200
Speaker 5: people want to buy. So there are opportunities for British manufacturing.

702
00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 5: It's just been made very very hard by high energy

703
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:01,480
Speaker 5: prices and are planning rules.

704
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:04,719
Speaker 2: I take your point about certainly about energy prices and

705
00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:07,319
Speaker 2: planning rules. Many people are having the same discussions here

706
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:11,160
Speaker 2: to my mind, and Tracy mentioned the fairly small population

707
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:13,280
Speaker 2: scale is incredibly.

708
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:15,840
Speaker 4: Well, I was seventeen, okay, okay.

709
00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:18,840
Speaker 2: Okay, Well you know China has, however, hundreds of millions

710
00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:21,040
Speaker 2: just in the manufacturer But yes, I take your point,

711
00:42:21,080 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 2: not that small. But did Brexit harm scale capacity because

712
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 2: to my mind, if we're thinking about okay, mass production

713
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:31,239
Speaker 2: at efficient level, so that it's like genuinely competitive, so

714
00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:34,000
Speaker 2: that it's not some sort of you know, government subsidized

715
00:42:34,239 --> 00:42:38,239
Speaker 2: albatross that just exists as a make work industry, it

716
00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:42,000
Speaker 2: strikes me that sheer scale of market is very important,

717
00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:44,600
Speaker 2: and it feels to me like Brexit has shrunk the

718
00:42:44,640 --> 00:42:46,160
Speaker 2: scale of that market.

719
00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 5: For these I mean, there's no there's no evidence that

720
00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:52,399
Speaker 5: exports to Europe have gone down after Brexit, and in fact,

721
00:42:52,520 --> 00:42:55,440
Speaker 5: you know, the different trade deal we got from the

722
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:59,160
Speaker 5: EU presents the UK with some opportunities because we have

723
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:02,440
Speaker 5: lower tariffs in some areas with the United States than

724
00:43:02,480 --> 00:43:05,920
Speaker 5: the EU does. But I think the other big factory

725
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:08,759
Speaker 5: in manufacturing is so much of it is becoming automated

726
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 5: that it makes economic sense for goods to be produced

727
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:15,799
Speaker 5: close to market because you're no longer getting the advantage

728
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:19,240
Speaker 5: of a massive labor cost differential. So I think it's

729
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:22,280
Speaker 5: it's just a natural progression of modern economies that more

730
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:24,919
Speaker 5: manufacturing is going to be done closer to home when

731
00:43:24,920 --> 00:43:27,840
Speaker 5: you've got a much more automated process.

732
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 3: Since we're talking trade and exports, the UK was one

733
00:43:32,040 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 3: of the first countries I think to sign an agreement

734
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:38,480
Speaker 3: with the Trump administration on tariffs. Would you have signed

735
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:41,480
Speaker 3: that so quickly or would you have perhaps pushed back

736
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:45,000
Speaker 3: a little bit more, given you your emphasis on boosting

737
00:43:45,080 --> 00:43:47,080
Speaker 3: manufacturing domestically within the UK.

738
00:43:47,880 --> 00:43:51,719
Speaker 5: I did actually praise Kirsedtarma for the deal at the time.

739
00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:53,480
Speaker 5: I was one of the few people to praise it,

740
00:43:54,160 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 5: and I said, because I've got experience of negotiating with

741
00:43:57,040 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 5: the first Trump administration. Bob Loiheiser said, I know how

742
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:03,600
Speaker 5: difficult it is, and I thought the UK got a

743
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 5: good deal, and so it has proven that the EU

744
00:44:07,160 --> 00:44:09,919
Speaker 5: has actually got a worse deal than the UK got.

745
00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:11,960
Speaker 5: So I thought he was right. He was right to

746
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:12,279
Speaker 5: do that.

747
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:14,239
Speaker 4: And I want to see.

748
00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:17,560
Speaker 5: Well, we are paying lower tariffs than the EU.

749
00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:21,440
Speaker 3: Is, so just on a relative basis compared tor on

750
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:24,200
Speaker 3: an absolute basis, you're still paying terroriffs.

751
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:29,000
Speaker 5: Yes, But what Trump has done the with all of

752
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:32,719
Speaker 5: his trade deals around the world is essentially reset the

753
00:44:32,719 --> 00:44:35,600
Speaker 5: World Trade Organization. I think it was one of the

754
00:44:35,640 --> 00:44:41,360
Speaker 5: biggest errors that of American foreign policy when Clinton allowed

755
00:44:41,800 --> 00:44:45,440
Speaker 5: China to join the World Trade Organization on developing country terms,

756
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:49,720
Speaker 5: and that has had in my view, it's helped boost

757
00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:54,200
Speaker 5: China's economy. China is an autocratic, authoritarian regime. I think

758
00:44:54,239 --> 00:44:57,840
Speaker 5: that was a disastrous policy. What Trump is trying to

759
00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:02,800
Speaker 5: do is reset at that, and that has inevitable consequences

760
00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:06,360
Speaker 5: for all of America's trading partners. But knowing what I

761
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:09,840
Speaker 5: do about the Trump administration, I thought the deal kissed

762
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 5: Arma Gott was a good deal.

763
00:45:12,239 --> 00:45:14,279
Speaker 2: Potentially one thing that could I.

764
00:45:14,239 --> 00:45:19,279
Speaker 5: Don't praise him very often, by the way praise I figured.

765
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:22,000
Speaker 2: That's one thing that theoretically could be done to lower

766
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:25,920
Speaker 2: energy prices for in many places would be a resolution

767
00:45:26,360 --> 00:45:29,120
Speaker 2: of the war in Ukraine. And I'm curious when you

768
00:45:29,160 --> 00:45:32,759
Speaker 2: look at either Trump's pursuits or what Keir Starmer has said,

769
00:45:33,000 --> 00:45:35,839
Speaker 2: do you see other paths? Were you the Prime minister now,

770
00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:39,440
Speaker 2: what would you be pushing for in that particular conflict.

771
00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:42,759
Speaker 5: Well, I want what I want out of that conflict

772
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:46,959
Speaker 5: is I want Putin not to have been rewarded for

773
00:45:47,120 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 5: his appalling invasion of Ukraine. So what we don't want

774
00:45:51,280 --> 00:45:54,200
Speaker 5: is him, or indeed shi Jingping to get the signal

775
00:45:54,640 --> 00:45:57,360
Speaker 5: from the resolution of the Ukraine conflict that this was

776
00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:04,640
Speaker 5: a this invasion was somehow justified or worth it. I

777
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:09,880
Speaker 5: want Russia to be contained because I still believe that

778
00:46:10,640 --> 00:46:12,640
Speaker 5: they have expanded its instincts.

779
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:16,080
Speaker 3: Just going back to the Mini Budget for a second,

780
00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:19,000
Speaker 3: one of the components of that was government support to

781
00:46:19,120 --> 00:46:22,600
Speaker 3: offset higher energy prices, and that was also one of

782
00:46:22,640 --> 00:46:25,719
Speaker 3: the things that seemed to spook markets, This idea that

783
00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:29,160
Speaker 3: the UK government would be fiscally on the hook to

784
00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:33,280
Speaker 3: compensate for astronomical energy prices at the time that seemed

785
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:36,879
Speaker 3: to be expanding at an enormous rate. If you were

786
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:39,560
Speaker 3: going to do it all over again, would you have

787
00:46:40,000 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 3: possibly included some sort of mechanism to maybe limit the

788
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:48,680
Speaker 3: cost or avoid the sense that the UK was basically

789
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:52,239
Speaker 3: bailing out its population in some way.

790
00:46:52,400 --> 00:46:55,319
Speaker 5: It's important to note that the Energy package was one

791
00:46:55,360 --> 00:46:59,440
Speaker 5: thing that wasn't reversed, so that was not the policy.

792
00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 5: The policy that I was forced to reversed, and that

793
00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:07,640
Speaker 5: was made pretty clear to me pretty much through threats

794
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:12,080
Speaker 5: was the corporation tax increase. The energy policy remained in place.

795
00:47:13,000 --> 00:47:16,160
Speaker 5: The energy policy remained in place. And the point about

796
00:47:16,200 --> 00:47:20,440
Speaker 5: the energy policy was it was not a subsidy that

797
00:47:20,600 --> 00:47:24,000
Speaker 5: happened automatically. It was only when energy prices reached a

798
00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:27,480
Speaker 5: certain level. And I believed it was right for the

799
00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:30,560
Speaker 5: government to do that because the government had failed to

800
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:34,960
Speaker 5: ensure adequately cheap energy was supplied.

801
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:36,239
Speaker 4: But what I was.

802
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:41,480
Speaker 5: Doing in tandem with that policy of essentially ensuring people

803
00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:46,280
Speaker 5: against very high energy prices was getting on with fracking,

804
00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:52,719
Speaker 5: licensing new north sea gas reserves so the prices would

805
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:55,840
Speaker 5: never get that high. So it was an insurance against

806
00:47:55,840 --> 00:48:00,080
Speaker 5: prices going high to give consumers and businesses confidence to

807
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:04,399
Speaker 5: invest whilst we sorted out the supply that had been

808
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:08,960
Speaker 5: so badly failed by previous governments. That was the intention

809
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:11,200
Speaker 5: of the policy, and as I've said, the policy wasn't

810
00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:15,759
Speaker 5: reversed by my successor. The policy that was reversed was

811
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:19,240
Speaker 5: getting on with the fracking. So you had the energy

812
00:48:19,280 --> 00:48:22,319
Speaker 5: insurance policy but not the fracking policy. Those policies were

813
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:26,279
Speaker 5: designed in tandem so that we can make sure that

814
00:48:27,120 --> 00:48:30,200
Speaker 5: businesses in the country weren't spooked by the threats of

815
00:48:30,239 --> 00:48:34,200
Speaker 5: having a sky high energy prices. And by the way,

816
00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:37,239
Speaker 5: if the energy prices had got that high, there would

817
00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:39,200
Speaker 5: have had to be some kind of package to deal

818
00:48:39,239 --> 00:48:41,800
Speaker 5: with them. Anyway, what I was doing is giving people

819
00:48:41,920 --> 00:48:45,000
Speaker 5: notice so they had the confidence to invest.

820
00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:46,440
Speaker 4: The energy package was.

821
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:49,799
Speaker 5: Actually announced because very sadly, her Majesty the Queen died.

822
00:48:50,239 --> 00:48:53,000
Speaker 5: It was announced a few weeks beforehand. It wasn't announced

823
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:56,040
Speaker 5: at the time of the mini budget. The thing that

824
00:48:56,360 --> 00:48:59,920
Speaker 5: the economic establishment really objected to in the mini budget

825
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:02,880
Speaker 5: of the taxes, it was that, you know, it was

826
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:04,480
Speaker 5: not raising corporation tax.

827
00:49:04,800 --> 00:49:05,719
Speaker 4: That's what they didn't like.

828
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:09,360
Speaker 2: I just have one last question. You know, Tracy and

829
00:49:09,400 --> 00:49:12,400
Speaker 2: I work in public, though not as public is having

830
00:49:12,440 --> 00:49:15,800
Speaker 2: been the Prime Minister of the UK. We live in

831
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:19,120
Speaker 2: this age where people, you know, stories go insane, and

832
00:49:19,160 --> 00:49:22,719
Speaker 2: people love to see someone publicly humiliated. And it just

833
00:49:22,760 --> 00:49:25,080
Speaker 2: seems to me that the UK press in particular is

834
00:49:25,120 --> 00:49:28,200
Speaker 2: a bunch of jackals. But that's just my impression over here,

835
00:49:28,239 --> 00:49:29,360
Speaker 2: even relative to the pressure.

836
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:32,120
Speaker 5: So it's funny when Americans come over and they don't

837
00:49:32,160 --> 00:49:34,799
Speaker 5: realize what they're like, and I'm like, you ain't seen

838
00:49:34,800 --> 00:49:37,160
Speaker 5: nothing until you dealt with the UK press, and they

839
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:40,120
Speaker 5: always ga, Liz, you were right, you're about these people.

840
00:49:40,200 --> 00:49:42,160
Speaker 2: I just see in the headlines it's I don't know,

841
00:49:42,200 --> 00:49:45,040
Speaker 2: it seems obvious to me. What's your lesson takeaway? How

842
00:49:45,040 --> 00:49:48,120
Speaker 2: do you move past a period of one's life like that.

843
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:51,640
Speaker 5: Well, I didn't really see it like that. I just

844
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:55,319
Speaker 5: see that the British press needs to change. And I'm

845
00:49:55,320 --> 00:49:58,800
Speaker 5: a big support of independent media. I think the British

846
00:49:58,800 --> 00:50:02,160
Speaker 5: press is coverage of e Can is appalling. I think

847
00:50:02,200 --> 00:50:05,359
Speaker 5: their coverage of politics is skin deep. I don't think

848
00:50:05,360 --> 00:50:08,600
Speaker 5: they've done anything to analyze the sort of failings of

849
00:50:08,640 --> 00:50:14,920
Speaker 5: the British state, and I think there won't be serious.

850
00:50:15,080 --> 00:50:17,560
Speaker 5: We don't just need to change the bureaucracy in this country.

851
00:50:17,680 --> 00:50:21,719
Speaker 5: We need to deal and change the press. And people

852
00:50:21,760 --> 00:50:24,920
Speaker 5: are now turning off the BBC. You know, they're turning

853
00:50:24,960 --> 00:50:30,360
Speaker 5: off the mainstream media because they can see that the truth.

854
00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:31,080
Speaker 4: Isn't being told.

855
00:50:31,120 --> 00:50:34,040
Speaker 5: And there used to be a golden age I guess

856
00:50:34,040 --> 00:50:36,480
Speaker 5: in journalism where people cared about the truth. I'm afraid

857
00:50:36,520 --> 00:50:39,040
Speaker 5: they don't now. Friends of mine who are journalists just

858
00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:41,640
Speaker 5: say their editorial conference is about how many clicks their

859
00:50:41,719 --> 00:50:45,239
Speaker 5: article gets, and it's you know, I just think that's pathetic.

860
00:50:46,080 --> 00:50:48,880
Speaker 3: Well, these are the tensions of being a journalist in

861
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:51,680
Speaker 3: modern times. But I have one more question. It's just

862
00:50:51,719 --> 00:50:55,840
Speaker 3: going back to some technical aspects I guess of economic policy.

863
00:50:56,280 --> 00:51:01,799
Speaker 3: So you've criticized the OBR for you know, it's forecasts

864
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:05,640
Speaker 3: that end up influencing or you know, perhaps even dictating

865
00:51:05,840 --> 00:51:09,439
Speaker 3: government policy. I guess My question is, you know, when

866
00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:13,960
Speaker 3: you think about a pro growth economic agenda that also

867
00:51:14,120 --> 00:51:18,600
Speaker 3: relies on forecasts about future growth. And when we talked

868
00:51:18,600 --> 00:51:22,799
Speaker 3: to Stephen Myron from the Trump administration earlier this year,

869
00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:25,560
Speaker 3: that was one takeaway from our conversation was how much

870
00:51:25,600 --> 00:51:29,600
Speaker 3: the Trump administration was really betting on economic growth picking

871
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:32,359
Speaker 3: up in order to offset some of the stuff it

872
00:51:32,400 --> 00:51:37,799
Speaker 3: was doing it. But why should people have confidence in

873
00:51:37,880 --> 00:51:41,719
Speaker 3: the growth forecast but not have confidence in you know,

874
00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:43,280
Speaker 3: OBR forecasts.

875
00:51:43,440 --> 00:51:46,120
Speaker 5: But the point about the OBR, and this has been

876
00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:52,320
Speaker 5: proven by history, is that they overestimate how much raising

877
00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:55,279
Speaker 5: taxes will bring in in revenue because they don't take

878
00:51:55,719 --> 00:51:59,279
Speaker 5: the full account of the depression and economic activity, and

879
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:05,160
Speaker 5: they estimate the impact of supply side reforms like planning

880
00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:06,800
Speaker 5: or fracking or whatever else.

881
00:52:07,480 --> 00:52:11,400
Speaker 4: And there are two answers.

882
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:16,359
Speaker 5: This one is there are better economists out there, and

883
00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:19,919
Speaker 5: I think the government, as was the case prior to

884
00:52:20,040 --> 00:52:23,720
Speaker 5: twenty ten, the government should have the ability to hire

885
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:29,279
Speaker 5: the economists that they believe are right. I don't think

886
00:52:29,280 --> 00:52:31,920
Speaker 5: my homework should be marked by somebody doesn't agree with me,

887
00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:33,200
Speaker 5: which is what was happening.

888
00:52:33,640 --> 00:52:34,680
Speaker 4: I think that's just wrong.

889
00:52:34,840 --> 00:52:37,320
Speaker 5: If people don't like what I'm saying and they don't

890
00:52:37,440 --> 00:52:40,800
Speaker 5: like the policies, they can vote me out at an election.

891
00:52:41,320 --> 00:52:44,800
Speaker 5: But I wasn't even allowed to try the policies because

892
00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:47,279
Speaker 5: the people marking my homework said no. I mean, that's

893
00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:50,080
Speaker 5: the bottom line. But the second thing is I think

894
00:52:50,160 --> 00:52:54,080
Speaker 5: we're far too reliant on forecasts. You can't predict the future,

895
00:52:55,160 --> 00:52:59,120
Speaker 5: and trying to say which is what the UK system

896
00:52:59,160 --> 00:53:02,160
Speaker 5: does that five years out we know exactly what the

897
00:53:02,239 --> 00:53:02,719
Speaker 5: debt is.

898
00:53:02,680 --> 00:53:04,080
Speaker 4: Going to be is rubbish.

899
00:53:04,239 --> 00:53:07,600
Speaker 5: You know, we don't know what if Donald Trump imposes

900
00:53:07,680 --> 00:53:11,040
Speaker 5: huge tariffs, what if the UK strikes a trade deal

901
00:53:11,080 --> 00:53:15,120
Speaker 5: with India? You know what if there's a discovery of

902
00:53:15,120 --> 00:53:18,120
Speaker 5: a new technology that totally transfer You don't know what

903
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:21,600
Speaker 5: the future is going to look like. And my economics

904
00:53:21,680 --> 00:53:23,600
Speaker 5: is based on first principles. I know that if you

905
00:53:23,680 --> 00:53:26,719
Speaker 5: put up taxes too high, people won't go out to

906
00:53:26,760 --> 00:53:30,600
Speaker 5: work anymore. I know that if you make energy prices cheaper,

907
00:53:31,160 --> 00:53:33,440
Speaker 5: businesses are more likely to invest in Britain.

908
00:53:33,560 --> 00:53:36,080
Speaker 4: The problem with these forecasts, and this is.

909
00:53:36,520 --> 00:53:40,840
Speaker 5: Another criticism of British economic media, The problem with forecasts

910
00:53:40,960 --> 00:53:44,359
Speaker 5: is that people become focused on whether the numbers right

911
00:53:44,400 --> 00:53:48,080
Speaker 5: in the forecast, rather than the fundamental principles of what

912
00:53:48,120 --> 00:53:49,520
Speaker 5: makes the successful economy.

913
00:53:51,120 --> 00:53:53,520
Speaker 2: Trist so great to chat with you, someone we wanted

914
00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:55,560
Speaker 2: to have on the show for a very long time.

915
00:53:55,880 --> 00:53:58,279
Speaker 2: Great that we've made it happen, and I'm appreciate your

916
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:13,840
Speaker 2: coming on. Thank you, Tracy. I'm so glad we finally

917
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:15,680
Speaker 2: got to interview this trust.

918
00:54:15,760 --> 00:54:17,600
Speaker 3: We finally did it. I think it was a good

919
00:54:17,600 --> 00:54:19,759
Speaker 3: time to do it, actually, because yes, you know, there's

920
00:54:19,800 --> 00:54:22,279
Speaker 3: a lot of overlap with the Trump administation at the

921
00:54:22,280 --> 00:54:25,839
Speaker 3: moment and what trusts experienced in twenty twenty two.

922
00:54:26,040 --> 00:54:28,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, I mean there was a lot that

923
00:54:28,400 --> 00:54:30,920
Speaker 2: I found to be interesting there, you know what I think, Actually,

924
00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:35,080
Speaker 2: maybe the most interesting thing to me is thinking that Okay,

925
00:54:35,280 --> 00:54:37,799
Speaker 2: in the US we have these multiple branches of government, right,

926
00:54:37,840 --> 00:54:39,759
Speaker 2: so the president wants something, but Congress is going to

927
00:54:39,840 --> 00:54:41,880
Speaker 2: veto it or ken veto it, especially if it's a

928
00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:44,800
Speaker 2: different party in power. Obviously that's not the dynamic of

929
00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:47,839
Speaker 2: UK with the parliamentary system. And yet even in the

930
00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:51,400
Speaker 2: parliamentary system, to hear this, Trust described the fact that

931
00:54:51,680 --> 00:54:54,360
Speaker 2: what she describes is even modest cuts to the increase

932
00:54:54,400 --> 00:54:57,320
Speaker 2: in welfare weren't palatable to the members of her party,

933
00:54:57,440 --> 00:54:59,320
Speaker 2: let alone the opposition, which of course never going to

934
00:54:59,400 --> 00:55:01,719
Speaker 2: vote it for but in her party. I find that

935
00:55:01,800 --> 00:55:05,560
Speaker 2: to be a very striking comment about the difficulty that

936
00:55:05,920 --> 00:55:09,400
Speaker 2: you know, electoral democracies have in bringing back huts.

937
00:55:09,400 --> 00:55:09,480
Speaker 1: Well.

938
00:55:09,560 --> 00:55:10,120
Speaker 4: Absolutely.

939
00:55:10,280 --> 00:55:12,680
Speaker 3: The other thing that kind of caught my eye or

940
00:55:12,719 --> 00:55:15,080
Speaker 3: my ear was when we were talking about tariffs, and

941
00:55:15,360 --> 00:55:19,680
Speaker 3: you know, Liz said that she had praised the deal

942
00:55:19,719 --> 00:55:22,719
Speaker 3: that the UK struck with the Trump administration because it

943
00:55:22,840 --> 00:55:25,759
Speaker 3: was less than what the EU was paying. And it's

944
00:55:25,800 --> 00:55:29,040
Speaker 3: interesting to me that like countries seem to be competing

945
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:31,680
Speaker 3: with each other. You know, the Trump administration in some

946
00:55:31,719 --> 00:55:35,359
Speaker 3: respects has been kind of successful in that getting its

947
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:37,760
Speaker 3: trade partners to compete with each other for the lowest

948
00:55:37,800 --> 00:55:40,160
Speaker 3: deal rather than to, you know, try to compete on

949
00:55:40,200 --> 00:55:43,319
Speaker 3: an absolute basis for lower tariffs per se. I thought

950
00:55:43,360 --> 00:55:44,160
Speaker 3: that was interesting.

951
00:55:44,400 --> 00:55:47,160
Speaker 2: I also think it's interesting, you know, this sort of

952
00:55:47,680 --> 00:55:49,560
Speaker 2: I find myself having a lot of sympathy with this.

953
00:55:49,920 --> 00:55:53,040
Speaker 2: It's sort of like anti democratic aspects of entities like

954
00:55:53,080 --> 00:55:55,960
Speaker 2: the OBR or in the US, the OMB, and these

955
00:55:56,040 --> 00:55:59,520
Speaker 2: ideas that okay, they have one set of assumptions about

956
00:55:59,520 --> 00:56:03,960
Speaker 2: how Paul works, and the idea that like they have

957
00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:06,880
Speaker 2: a formal role, and you know, there's there is a

958
00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:12,560
Speaker 2: certain undemocratic element. I think of these sort of institutions

959
00:56:12,880 --> 00:56:16,800
Speaker 2: that either they not necessarily with a formal veto, et cetera,

960
00:56:17,280 --> 00:56:20,000
Speaker 2: that aren't elected. I have sympathy for that opinion.

961
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:23,080
Speaker 3: It certainly seems like they can act as an institutional

962
00:56:23,120 --> 00:56:25,919
Speaker 3: restraint on the government. But some people would argue that

963
00:56:26,200 --> 00:56:31,640
Speaker 3: maybe that's a good thing, an independent body looking at

964
00:56:31,680 --> 00:56:34,080
Speaker 3: economic policy and monetary policy.

965
00:56:33,760 --> 00:56:35,920
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, I mean that's the thing. And look, it's

966
00:56:36,000 --> 00:56:38,480
Speaker 2: very striking that she said, really she does not accept

967
00:56:38,520 --> 00:56:41,360
Speaker 2: the premise the Bank of England should be as independent

968
00:56:41,400 --> 00:56:43,040
Speaker 2: as it currently is, and that you know, the idea

969
00:56:43,120 --> 00:56:44,840
Speaker 2: is to your question, folding it back in with the

970
00:56:44,840 --> 00:56:46,200
Speaker 2: Treasury is very striking well.

971
00:56:46,239 --> 00:56:48,719
Speaker 3: Also the line about you know, not wanting to have

972
00:56:48,800 --> 00:56:51,560
Speaker 3: her homework marked by someone who doesn't believe in it.

973
00:56:51,600 --> 00:56:53,839
Speaker 3: I'm sure all of us as students would have liked

974
00:56:54,200 --> 00:56:57,240
Speaker 3: to choose our own teacher who was creating our homework,

975
00:56:57,320 --> 00:56:59,680
Speaker 3: but we don't get to for obvious reasons.

976
00:56:59,640 --> 00:57:00,000
Speaker 2: We don't.

977
00:57:00,200 --> 00:57:00,920
Speaker 3: Shall we leave it there?

978
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:01,640
Speaker 2: Let's leave it there.

979
00:57:01,719 --> 00:57:04,000
Speaker 3: This has been another episode of the aud Thoughts podcast.

980
00:57:04,400 --> 00:57:07,720
Speaker 3: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.

981
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:09,840
Speaker 2: And I'm Jill Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart.

982
00:57:09,920 --> 00:57:13,080
Speaker 2: Follow our guest Liz Trust. She's at Trust Liz. Follow

983
00:57:13,160 --> 00:57:16,520
Speaker 2: our producers Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen armand dash Ol Bennett

984
00:57:16,520 --> 00:57:20,040
Speaker 2: at Dashbot and kill Brooks at Kilbrooks. For more Oddlots content,

985
00:57:20,080 --> 00:57:22,280
Speaker 2: go to Bloomberg dot com slash od Lots with the

986
00:57:22,360 --> 00:57:25,400
Speaker 2: daily newsletter and all of our episodes. You can chat

987
00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:27,240
Speaker 2: about all of these topics twenty four to seven in

988
00:57:27,320 --> 00:57:30,080
Speaker 2: our discord Discord dot gg slash.

989
00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:32,800
Speaker 3: Outlines and if you enjoy Odd Lots, if you like

990
00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:36,200
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991
00:57:36,240 --> 00:57:38,600
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992
00:57:38,600 --> 00:57:42,120
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993
00:57:42,160 --> 00:57:45,160
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994
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995
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996
00:58:00,880 --> 00:58:12,680
Speaker 3: It behind