WEBVTT - More Than Just Brexit 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:07.680 Hello, and welcome to Stephanomics, the podcast that brings the 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:14.480 global economy to you. You might have noticed the UK 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:18.800 is going to the polls on December twelve. General elections 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.800 are only supposed to happen once every five years, and 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:26.000 this is the third since the first to be held 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:30.520 in December since the nineteen twenties. For UK voters, Christmas 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:33.960 is definitely not coming earlier this year. In fact, for 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:36.239 the many schools that have to close on election day 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:38.560 to be used as polling stations, Christmas may not happen 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:41.479 at all. Up and down the land, Carol concerts and 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:44.960 Nativity plays have had to be rescheduled or canceled for 0:00:45.000 --> 0:00:48.680 this snap election to go ahead. Some parents are very 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:53.159 upset others Anyway, if that's all you want to know 0:00:53.200 --> 0:00:55.480 about the UK election, you should probably turn off now 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:57.640 come back next week when we'll be talking about the 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:00.400 future of India, among other things. But if you do 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:03.080 want to know what's at stake in this UK election 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:06.000 and what the lessons might be for Brexit Britain or 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:09.760 Donald Trump's America for that matter, this episode is for you. 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:12.480 At the end of the show, I'll ask our UK 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:15.679 economist Dan Hansen how he thinks the economy will be 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:19.440 affected by the election at b Brexit. But first we 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:22.000 have a special debate I chared earlier this week with 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.760 the heads of three extremely well respected independent think tanks 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:28.520 here in the UK. It's been their job the last 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:32.240 few weeks to tell fact from fiction in this highly polarized, 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:37.080 rather febrile election campaign. We talked in the debate about 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:39.679 what the two main parties were proposing in their election 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:43.920 platforms or manifestos, what the key dividing lines were, and 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:47.360 whether and how much any of it could really be believed. 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:51.680 Lots of politics and policies and smart debate. No politicians, 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:57.440 You're going to love it. The Institute for Fiscal Studies 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:00.320 led by Paul Johnson, the Institute for Government led by 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:04.680 Bronwyn Maddocks, and the UK in a Changing Europe there 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:09.040 by Alan Meno, have played a massive role already in 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:11.600 the truth telling battle. You're gonna get lots of truth 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:16.920 telling this evening also questions from the audience here but 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:22.320 also importantly from the from online. I have them all here. 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:24.600 There's lots of questions that we already have. Most of 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:26.960 them are worth about half an hour's discussion. At least 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.520 so I apologize in advanced for people, um if their 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:34.200 questions aren't fully answered, like is there an answer to 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:38.600 the social care crisis? Um? But they really exciting news 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:40.840 is that this has been more broadcast online and will 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:44.000 also be on the Stephonomics podcast, which is available whenever 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:47.720 wherever you get your podcast. M Paul, I think we 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:51.720 will have to deal with economics first. If you step back, 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:57.040 can we can we put look at to briefly look 0:02:57.080 --> 0:02:59.320 at where we are in terms of what the parties 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:01.799 are suggesting, and I think more importantly put it into 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:07.800 some context. Well, we've certainly got big differences between between 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:11.720 the parties. I think it's worth starting actually thinking about 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.480 the what's in the manifestos just by saying that everything 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:18.320 about the economics and public finances in the next five 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:23.600 years is incredibly uncertain. Whoever wins and whatever happens with Brexit, 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:26.239 there's lots of uncertainty around what impact that's going to 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.880 have on the economy and the public finances. Don't forget, 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:32.160 as we often do. There's a big, wide world out there, 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:35.160 which economically speaking, was doing pretty well until a couple 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:37.760 of year and until earlier this year, and we lost 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:40.480 out on a lot of that growth, but it's slowing down. 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:45.040 We've got trade wars between China and the US. We 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:47.560 get a recession about once every ten years, and it's 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:50.840 about ten years since the last recession. So whether we 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:53.839 get another one over the next parliament remains to be seen, 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:55.840 and if we do, of course quite a lot of 0:03:55.840 --> 0:04:00.120 stuff might get balloon. Well, off course, what what the 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:04.760 Conservatives saying, well in their manifesto, remarkably little, I think 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:08.520 it's fair to say on public finances, spending and tax 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:10.560 I think we said I think we'd certainly stand by 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:12.960 that that if this had been a one year budget, 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:16.200 we'd have described it as pretty modest. As as as 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.120 a program for government, it's really for five years. There's 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:22.960 really remarkably little in it. I mean, so spending in 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:25.440 a couple of years time will be about thirty billion 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:29.520 more than it is today. So in that sense, austerity 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:36.920 at an end, no further cuts planned um and public 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:39.880 service spending a little bit higher by three than it 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:41.760 was in twenty ten. Not well, that's an awful lot 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:44.840 to write home about. After more than a decade, the 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.960 public service spending outside of health will still be way down. 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:52.680 On where it was fifteen percent lower three on those 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:58.000 plans than it was in twenty ten, so some real increases, 0:04:58.040 --> 0:05:00.480 but in a sense those were all pre announced and 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:04.200 there's very little additional in the manifesto. You take all 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:06.839 of that at face value and you get the deficit, 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:11.080 the debt pretty steady roughly where they are, which is 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:13.080 pretty much what you might think of most of the 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:16.279 Conservative manifesto bar Brexit, which is steady as she goes. 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:20.680 Not much change, of course, risks around what would happen 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:24.919 as a result of no deal if that's where we 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:28.880 end up in a year's time. Labor couldn't be much 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:35.200 more different. Um the scale of the tax and spending plans, 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:40.920 it's hard to overstates they really are extremely bit so, 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:44.279 just to throw some big numbers at you, um, current 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:47.760 spending increases eighty billion a year. This is on top 0:05:47.880 --> 0:05:53.120 of the thirty odd billion already coming through investment spending, 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:56.560 and an extra fifty five billion a year on average 0:05:56.560 --> 0:06:00.599 over a parliament has doubling government investment and the tax 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:07.640 increases of eight billion a year by all British historical standards, 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:14.280 astonishing and unprecedented levels of tax and spending increases It's 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:17.520 important to put addly in international context though. If you 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:22.440 take the overall spending plans, they would take us from 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:26.720 relatively low by Western European standards to rather more average 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:30.479 by Western European standards as tax and spending as a 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:34.680 fraction of national income, so unprecedented in UK history, but 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:41.279 not unprecedented in terms of international comparison. Um on the 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:46.160 on those spending plans, where's all that money going? I 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:48.640 think the answer in the sense is it's largely going 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:54.360 to a reimagined and more universal welfare state. So free 0:06:54.600 --> 0:07:00.440 higher education, free childcare, free personal care, free prescriptions, um 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:03.120 and free, quite a lot of free TV licenses, free 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:05.800 quite a lot of other things. This is actually not 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:09.520 a manifesto focused on the poor. There's very little in 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.080 there actually to undo the welfare cuts we've had over 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:15.320 the last ten years. Probably less than a quarter of 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.520 the welfare cuts to be reversed. And of course the 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:23.120 main beneficiaries of the things that I just mentioned are 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:28.560 those who currently are high earning graduates, are are older 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:32.600 people who actually have some assets and so on. But actually, 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:36.960 I think despite these big differences between labor and conservatives 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:39.360 on their tax and spending plans. I think there's one 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:41.240 thing in common, which is actually we don't really know 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:45.480 what they would do, because it's not I think clausible 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:48.280 that within a single parliament Labor could do all of 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:54.640 the things that I've just described and nationalized water power, broadband, 0:07:55.200 --> 0:08:00.520 royal mail and bringing their inclusive share ownership SKI and 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:03.800 as I say, double double investment spending and all the 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:07.960 other things that they're describing. There's a list and aspiration 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:12.880 which might be achievable over a couple of decades, but 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:15.960 certainly isn't achievable over a couple of years. So I 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:19.040 think actually with both Labor and Conservatives ones and left 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:22.600 with a lot of uncertainty about what actually they would 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:27.160 do um in in their time, in their time in government, 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:30.520 where would where would Labor's plans leave us in terms 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:33.839 of the public finance as well on their own on 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:39.680 their own figures, borrowing would something like double um too 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:43.319 about four percent of national income, the debt would national 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:46.160 debt would be rising. And that's all assuming that the 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:50.280 economy continue to grow as currently currently projected. But I 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:52.480 think the big I mean the big story here is 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:56.400 a huge increase in the role, scope and scale of 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:58.960 the state not just in terms of its tax and spending, 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:01.319 but in terms of nationalization, which would take more than 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:05.080 five percent of private business assets into the into the 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:09.040 public sector. A minimum wage actually which were directly set 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.920 from Whitehall, the wages of a quarter of private sector workers, 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.360 so high as it's set relative to the sorts of 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:20.280 wages that people learned. So a dramatically different view of 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:23.960 the role of the state compared with compared with the 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:27.440 compared with the Conservatives, and a big change from where 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:37.800 we've ever been. From wind your the in student has 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:42.680 done some fantastic stuff almost daily on the public services 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:46.960 piece of the election debates. I mean, it does strike 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:49.559 me that although we talk about we've talked about the 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:52.880 sort of big macro numbers, actually what's striking about this 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:56.160 election is not the not the macro debates that we've 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:58.680 tended to focus on in the past, but actually real 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:02.679 disagreements about the cre economic level, about the basic principles 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:07.640 for policy. Absolutely, let me say two general things about 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:09.920 this election and then dig into some of the detail 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:13.199 and pick up on these points that Stephanie and Paul 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:15.880 are raising. And the first is that this is a 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:18.959 real battle of ideas. We've had something of a consensus 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:22.000 for thirty forty years about how to run government, no 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:26.079 matter whether Labor or Conservatives have been leading that government. 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:30.440 And it's about driving for more efficient use of public spending, 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:33.600 bringing in some of the techniques from the private sector, 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:37.040 like targets and a certain sort of managerialism. But you've 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:40.320 even abroad consensus there and that the government was there 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:44.319 to work with the private sector, and the boundary might 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:46.719 go back and forth a bit, but the techniques for 0:10:46.840 --> 0:10:50.199 doing all that would would would get better and better. 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.319 And this is um and certainly the challenge from Labor 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:58.360 in this election is something very different. They don't see 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:00.840 it that way, and they have on to great length, 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:04.880 great length and the manifesto to spell out just how 0:11:04.920 --> 0:11:07.920 differently they see things. And while we can talk about 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:10.679 the individual policies, I think we have to capture as 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:14.120 well that this is really a different worldview about how 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:17.679 government works, as well as the size of the state. 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:21.240 And the second thing, picking up on a point that 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:24.160 Paul made, is that they have promised too much. The 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:28.400 Conservatives have promised too much with Brexit ah their big 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:31.560 idea if you like there, their manifesto is not entirely 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.439 devoid of things, because that sits there right in the middle. 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:39.520 And yet what they've promised in terms of getting that done, 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:42.360 and the time scale on which they've promised to do it, 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:47.440 and the fact that they're objective depends on the European Union, 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:51.120 not just on the European Union, but on the unanimous 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:56.880 approval by twenty seven different European countries, makes that extraordinarily hard. 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:01.840 That's them. Labor has, to its credit, spent obviously a 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:04.560 great deal of time and many many pages in spelling 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:08.600 out in detail what it intends to do. Um. The 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:12.560 sheer bureaucratic volume of what they try to do, I 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:16.520 think we need to remind ourselves of it. UM take 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:19.920 them years, possibly simply to create the three new departments. 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.080 They want things that are in there almost as an aside, 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:27.319 like abolished universal credit, to be enormously disruptive and take 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.320 a couple of a couple of governments to do, and 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:32.240 I'm not sure they'd be well advised to do it. 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:35.280 And that's before getting onto some of the big planks 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:39.040 of what they want to do, like renationalization and so on. 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:42.200 So you know, they've got enough in there for many, 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:46.280 many governments. And this question of prioritization, I think would 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:51.000 be particularly forceful director directed at them on ownership, which 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:54.920 matters a great deal to labor Um. We can see 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:58.200 from this manifesto labor as really set out it believes 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:04.000 that it matters who owns things. It matters that if 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:08.120 the government owns things, it matters if workers own things, 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:12.920 and it is clearly after a transfer of power UM 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:17.080 through this ownership. I think it has yet to make 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:21.400 the case that government ownership of many of the problematic 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:25.120 things it has alighted on, for example, the railways would 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:30.040 be dramatically would lead to a dramatic improvement UM. These 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:35.360 These are problematic for many reasons, but they were under 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:39.840 government ownership before. It is absolutely true that in some 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:44.440 cases UM priadization has not helped. But the fault I 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:48.679 think has lies more easily, is more easy to identify 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:51.120 the faults with a regulatory regime, and that would be 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:54.640 an easier starting point then simply pulling the whole lot 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:58.000 into government hands again. And there is not in many 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:00.880 cases capacity to man the edge of these things in 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.440 the way that there was in the past in government, 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:06.400 and to say that all these problems will suddenly go away. 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:08.920 They won't they will be more easily pinned at the 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:13.600 door of ministers. Allen's going to talk much more about Brexit, 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.040 but I would just say I'm at the Conservative deadline 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:18.760 of the end of the year is so tight, you 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:24.000 preparing so thoroughly already for those negotiations, and you only 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:26.160 have to scaff in a few words like fish and 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:30.360 Gibraltar to make the whole thing very complicated and difficult 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.520 for any new government UK government to accept that there 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:36.000 is a real possibility if we have a Conservative government here, 0:14:36.080 --> 0:14:39.120 that we have another no deal cliffhanger, though the room 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:43.320 for compromise that both sides showed might lead us to 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:46.600 hope that that could be brushed away on labor side, 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:49.400 This timetable of six months to get it all done, 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:53.480 including a second referendum, I honestly think is for the birds. 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:56.840 It just um they would have to be bringing in 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.600 legislation right away for a second referendum without even knowing 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:02.360 what the question was, because they wouldn't have done the 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:05.160 deal yet. So I think they've been unrealistic, both of 0:15:05.160 --> 0:15:07.120 them in different ways on this, And I just come 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:09.280 back to that point of the battle of ideas. I 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:13.800 mean this, these are two very very different expressions of 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:17.320 how government works and the role of government plays in 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:22.320 fixing things and by extension, the role of freedom for 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:26.760 individuals or businesses. It is a battle about liberalism in 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.520 a way, and we can express some of this in numbers, 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:33.360 um the sheer amounts of money going to one thing 0:15:33.440 --> 0:15:36.720 or other, but it's bigger than that, um. And so 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:39.080 even though this has been called the Brexit election and 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:42.080 the public services and wall of money election, I think 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:44.800 it really is a battle of ideas, and I want 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:46.600 to I'm going to come back very briefly on that, 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:50.440 because I do think it's interesting. It hasn't come out 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:55.360 of nowhere, this very different approach um. And of course 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:58.280 many people would say it's directly a throwback to a 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:03.000 previous time and previous Labor Party policies, but that how 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:07.720 much do you think it's a reflection on the failures 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.760 of that sort of managerial approach that was in a 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:14.560 sentence for all these years that throughout this period, not 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:18.360 just recently, throughout this period, quite significant majorities of the 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:22.960 public have been in favor of renationalizing quite large chunks 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:28.400 of the privatized industries, and certainly younger people also have 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:32.440 a perception that things have that that managerial model certainly 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:35.600 didn't change enough in response to the financial crisis. I 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:38.880 was struct there was a very good Business Week piece 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:41.360 about trying to explain to the Business Week audience and 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.120 the Bloomberg audience this week how Corbin had sort of 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:48.560 got so far, and particularly about you know, how radically 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:53.480 he was, but also how particularly younger people supported him. 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:56.040 And he's that says they not only have zero problem 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:58.720 with his desire for an activist state, they see it 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:01.600 as the sole remedy for system that's still forcing average 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:03.960 people to pay for the sins of the financial industry 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:05.840 and the crash. I mean there is a bit of 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:08.760 some of this is is because there was a failure 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:12.320 to change. I think that's exactly right. And I think 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:16.680 it's it's it's older than the financial crisis itself. Um. 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:19.199 And I think some of the privatizations, you know, it 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:23.520 worked partly. Um. You can argue it's not very popular 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:27.400 that the railways were even worse before and carried many 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:32.600 fewer people. Um. And and that beat has in a 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:37.520 lumbering way improved itself. H and so on. And I 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:40.480 think that is right. But the regulators also, to my mind, 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:43.960 have struggled with a very difficult job, not just a 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:49.440 price regulation, but sometimes of content regulation in the case 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:53.479 of Offcom. They've got they've got very very difficult jobs. 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.120 And there is not a great deal of support rightly 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:59.760 in my view for kind of unelected technocrats presiding of 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.679 these things that really affect people's household bills and so on. 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:05.000 So I think a lot of the challenges right and 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:08.399 when you come to the generational imbalances, um, we can 0:18:08.400 --> 0:18:10.040 have this, there would be a whole seminargist on the 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.840 definitely be very expert on. But what the responses to 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:17.800 the financial crisis did in terms of the exacerbating the 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:21.280 problems in the housing market and exacerbating our stocks of 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:26.440 wealth for some some parts of the population easily caricatured. 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:30.000 But but there is enormous sting in that for the 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:33.280 generational divide, and I think politicians have been very very 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:36.439 slow to recognize that and to address some of the 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:41.520 particular problems for example, the housing the housing market, UM, 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:45.720 and so these things are built up. But state where 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:48.760 the state ownership is actually a remedy for all of these, 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:50.840 I think is an entirely separate argument along that I 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:54.280 think Labor has has really yet to make the case 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:57.959 for let alone to win ann and men not um. 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:00.720 Bromwin said, this was supposed to be the Brexit election. 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:05.520 It is striking that it has not been as dominated 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:08.240 by Brexit as we might have expected, and I guess 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:10.520 some people would take that as an example as a 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:14.159 sign of these other real debates being quite important to people. 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:16.560 I guess the other the other reason might be that 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.000 people just don't fed up with talking about Brexit and 0:19:19.000 --> 0:19:21.840 don't know who to believe, because, as brom Win says, 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:25.760 there is so much unreality on both sides on this topic. 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:28.360 What do you think well? And yet at the same time, 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:31.000 people have very strong feelings about Brexit. That mean that, 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:33.360 you know, if you look at the survey evidence, far 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:36.760 more people in the British Social Attitudes Poll, of the 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:39.359 survey that's taken are now very interested in politics and 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:42.680 whatever the case before, we can expect I think pretty 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:44.960 high turn out, not just because people are motivated because 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:47.200 we have a new registers so are counting fewer dead 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:53.199 people now, so the proportion is going to be naturally so, 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:57.080 so I think people are motivated by Brexit I mean 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:01.000 the problem is, I think, are there are the specters 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:03.960 as as Bromwin hinted at this, that they're being offered, 0:20:05.200 --> 0:20:11.320 aren't all together straightforward or necessarily honest. On the point 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:13.120 about and I'll come onto the manifesteds in a minute, 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:14.320 but on the point about whether or not this is 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:16.080 a Brexit election, I suppose the proof of the pudding 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:18.399 is going to be in the eating. Now, seventeen was 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:20.080 meant to be a Brexit election, but if you dig 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:22.639 into the numbers, then actually social class as ever was 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:26.200 the primary driver of how people voted. So there was 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:28.159 a Brexit impact, but it was quite limited. And what 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:29.919 we don't know this time, and I'll come back to 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.000 this in a minute, because it matters is whether or 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:36.480 not new Brexit coalitions will take shape, whether in particular 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:38.240 the Tories come to power on the back of a 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:41.800 Brexit coalition that might win the majority, but I might 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:43.760 actually make it very very hard for them to govern 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:48.040 because creating a set of economic policies for that Brexit 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:50.520 coalition is going to be challenging, to say the least. 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:54.560 But on the manifestos, if I start with Labor, I 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:57.119 mean the Labor offer is on the surface quite simple. 0:20:57.320 --> 0:20:59.320 We're going to go to Brussels, we're gonna negotiate the deal, 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:00.919 we're gonna come back, gonna have a referendum, and as 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:03.200 bron Win says, that will take us six months and 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.200 then we'll move on to other things. Now there are 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:08.520 holes in this, I mean not least in the fact 0:21:08.520 --> 0:21:10.640 that it's far from clear what Jeremy Corban is going 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:14.240 to ask for in Brussels. There are some wonderfully ambiguous 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:18.960 phrases in the manifesto joined UK EU Trade Deals is 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:23.000 one such phrase. If by joints the Labor Party mean 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:25.000 that EU will negotiate them and we will have to 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:28.080 apply them, then I think the EU could probably live 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:30.399 with that. If by joint the Labor Party means we're 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:33.160 going to get a real say over them, I suspect 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:36.720 Brussels might turn around and say hectually no. So that's 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:38.280 one issue where there's going to be a little bit 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:39.960 of ambiguity, and the other is on the notion of 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:43.280 alignment with the Single Market. What Labor don't say is 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:48.600 how much. So the scale of ambition is very very unclear. Uh. 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:51.080 And of course, when it comes to the political practicalities 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:53.359 of the labor position. There's very little escaping from the 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:56.280 fact that even were Jeremy Corbyn to pull this trick off, 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:59.679 to go to Brussels renegotiate a deal, and there are 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:01.800 reasons I think to wonder whether he'll get that far, 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:03.280 which I'll come back to in a sect, But he 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:06.119 will come back and then find a significant amount of 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:08.840 his own cabinet, of his own parliamentary party, of his 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:12.000 own party membership, and of his own electorate will then 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:15.040 go and campaign against what he's just done, which at 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:18.320 a minimum is not a good look. I mean, you know, 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:20.960 think back to six It's not a good look for 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:23.280 a prime minister to have his deal trashed by his 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:30.320 own party. So there's there's instability inherent in that anyway, 0:22:30.720 --> 0:22:32.960 So you know there there there are there are issues 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:36.000 around what what what labor is offering. I personally think 0:22:36.040 --> 0:22:38.920 it will be very very hard for a minority labor 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:41.080 government because that is the only source of labor government. 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:44.640 We're going to have to get the necessary legislation through 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:48.159 Poland my hunches as they try to do this and 0:22:48.240 --> 0:22:52.720 run into the choppy waters of a Lib Dem party, 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:55.199 half of whose MPs will be people who left in 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:57.520 order that Jeremy Corbyn didn't become Prime Minister of an 0:22:57.600 --> 0:23:00.479 SMP that has its own list of demand, I wouldn't 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:02.479 be at all surprised if we weren't to have another 0:23:02.560 --> 0:23:06.800 election before we got anywhere near a referendument. Will see 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:11.520 what happens. I was going to say that to last 0:23:11.520 --> 0:23:14.439 actually uh turned to the Tories. I mean, there are 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:16.919 three things that concerning about the Tory manifestoized, but well, 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:19.359 one thing that doesn't concern me is I think I 0:23:19.359 --> 0:23:21.399 would say that if the Conservatives come back with a 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:25.560 majority of one, they will get Brexit done by the 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:28.600 end of January, because I'm pretty certain that no Conservative 0:23:28.680 --> 0:23:31.680