Jeremy Hunt On Economic Optimism and How To Avoid The "Double Doom" Loop

32:10Normally when there's a crisis, you know, one way or another, we do the right thing. But when there isn't a crisis, when there's a kind of a slow burn, which is like the problem with debt or with the small boats crossings, these things have been going up gradually year in, year out. that's when we're not as good as we need to be at gripping problems quickly and sorting them out so you mentioned inflation and you got it right down feels like um it's more now a strategy to let it go up and i think most people who are entrepreneurial have got some understanding of money understand that high inflation can be good if you're in a lot of debt because it can pay your debt down.

32:53And I imagine it's never going to be publicly announced that, yeah, we're going to keep inflation nice and high so we can pay off our debt off the back door. But it seems like that's what's happening now. I really hope it isn't. I don't think it is, actually. I mean, I'll tell you why. For our national debt, a lot of it is now index linked, which means it's linked to inflation. So inflation goes up, the debt goes up with it. So that old way of paying off your debt doesn't have the same impact that it used to. But it's also really bad for two other reasons. First of all, because interest rates go up, because they have to go up when inflation goes up, because the Bank of England then wants to bring inflation down.

33:40Then that means it's much more expensive for businesses who want to borrow money to expand. So it's a big families are paying more for their mortgages, they have less money to spend. That's a big dampener on the economy. But most importantly for Rachel Reeves, when interest rates go up, she has to pay more for our national debt. So that debt interest, which by the way now costs nearly double our defence budget, is just debt interest. It's about half the cost of running the NHS. I mean, it's over 100 billion quid a year. That's the full grand a year that we were talking about earlier. Now that, if you have high inflation, that bill goes up.

34:18and it makes her job even more of a nightmare, which is why you cannot afford to take risks with inflation. And unfortunately, the increase... It's creeping up, isn't it? It is, because the increase to employers' national insurance, you know, sure enough, lots of employers said, well, I can't absorb all of this. I'm going to have to put up some prices. Yeah, and unemployment's gone up quite a lot since then as well. Surprise, surprise. Yeah, and what I fear has happened is that something else is happening at the same time, which is that we are on the cusp of a massive AI jobs revolution, which just means that companies are culling the number of jobs they offer because they're saying, could a computer do this job more quickly or more cheaply than a human being?

35:06And that's why you go into Tesco Express and it screens everywhere. You go to McDonald's, it screens everywhere. You try and talk to your bank, your credit card company, you've got to do it on... Yeah. Messaging a bot. But also accountants and consultants, they're all massively reducing the number of graduate employees. I fear that the employer's national insurance hike triggered a lot of employers saying, OK, well, if employing people is becoming more expensive, I'm going to go headlong into this AI revolution. You're forced into it. You have no choice. we had 108 staff when lockdown happened and um you know we had to let a lot of them go and then the furlough came in and we brought a lot of them back um and of course as we all know inflation got really quite high and yeah you know we were we didn't want to just let people go but we just thought if people leave we'll try and replace them with ai rather than rehiring and you know know we've got down to like maybe 90 staff and you know when when you have less staff you're also more agile um but i was i've always been very proud that we're a local employer and we employ 100 people and we pay all these taxes um but then there's so many unemployed people and there's so many people on welfare that could be in work and surely um we're going to need all this manual labor, aren't we?

36:29Well, we don't know, is the answer. I mean, if we need to build all these houses, we need plumbers. We need all of it. Absolutely will. And in the past when you've had technology revolutions and big changes like the invention of electricity and the IT revolution, there have been new jobs that have emerged that we didn't know we needed. Yes. You know, like podcasters. I wish it would pay better. But the AI revolution, we're all hoping that's going to be the case. But it may not be quite like that because it's happening so fast. And all those other revolutions happened over decades, even centuries.

37:15But the AI revolution is going to be, you know, it's hitting us like a train now. And so it's going to, I think, lead to a lot of social disruption. Yeah, it is very disruptive. Let's talk about reform. I still want to get to the favourite subject, which is tax. So we will. Have reform got a chance? And what do you think about if reform got in? They've got a chance. They are formidable. Nigel Farage is a brilliant communicator. And in a five-party system, which is what we've got now, because it's not just Labour and the Conservatives, there's the Lib Dems, the Greens. reform, possibly Jeremy Corbyn's new party could be a six-party system.

38:02You only need 30 % of the vote in the first-past-the-post system to win. And reform are on that now. So it's absolutely perfectly reasonable question to ask. I would say two things, though, as a caution. the first is I think we've got no idea what reform would actually be like in government I mean if you take the last I bet they haven't I've been to their offices it's a little startup yeah I mean they you know have been promising to reopen the coal mines in South Wales re-nationalize the water industry bring back the two child benefit cap I mean and then cut taxes so they are like spending like there's no tomorrow.

38:49If you thought, you know, quasi made a mistake with a mini budget, this is off the charts, different. So I don't think that they have any economic credibility at the moment. Now that can change. But as things stand at the moment, it would be incredibly dangerous for the economy if they started implementing those policies. But the main thing I would say, Rob, is, you know, let's not jump the gun here. This next election is probably going to be in 2029. Keir Starmer doesn't have to have an election until five years after he entered Downing Street. And sometimes they do it after four years. But people who are on the back foot, as he most definitely is, tend to wait.

39:38So the most likely time for the election is four years from now. And just look how much politics has changed in the last year. So in one year, everything's been turned upside down. Labour are, you know, trailing badly. Another four years, I just think we've got to not jump the gun. I think Conservatives will be back. And I'll tell you why. Why? Because in the end, come four years' time, people are going to be desperate for a party offering credible solutions. They don't want people peddling, you know, magic money trees and saying it's so easy, we've just got to do A, B and C. They will want credible solutions that tackle the big problems we face.

40:21Now, that's what in our country, in our system, that's what opposition parties should do. And I think we will do that. But we've got a lot of work to do, don't get me wrong, but I think we will get back in the race. Do you feel that Conservatives lost their identity? It felt like usual fairly conservative policies kind of forgot. Obviously, government grew and grew and grew. And that's not normally a big bloated government isn't normally a conservative thing. Taxes kept going up. It's not normally a conservative thing. Do you think they lost their identity? Did they become a little bit left? We didn't, but we probably did lose our identity.

41:04and why is that because we had these big economic crises you know everyone thought it was the right thing to support companies with the furlough scheme the bounce back loans you know give the nhs the money it needed for the vaccine program but it cost 350 billion quid and you know in the end that needs to be paid back had to be paid back and so i think we were right to be pragmatic and not ideological and say we're not going to spend this money. But yes, it probably did blur our identity. And I think the other thing that happened were the Brexit wars, which basically you had this, it doesn't matter who you voted, whether you voted leave or remain, you had this big division in the country between the people who wanted to stay and the people who wanted to leave.

41:58And then in the end, we voted to leave, But the establishment didn't want to leave. They wanted to stay. And so it was a massive challenge to our democracy to show the 52 % who voted leave that we were going to do what we said we'd do and honour what they wanted to do. and in that process there was just so much chaos at Westminster not just in the Conservative side but you know in all parties and I think that was in the end that was the reason why we had this you know David Cameron to Theresa May to Boris Johnson to Liz Truss to Rishi Sunak quite a lot of that were the kind of aftershocks of that Brexit disruption Do you think people would forgive that, though, and forget about that?

42:48I think over time, but I think, you know, we were in for 14 years and people were exhausted by the drama. They were crossed that their taxes had to go up after the pandemic and for the energy shocks. And I think there was a bigger problem, which is that going back to the financial crisis in 2007-8, across the whole of the Western world, economies have started growing again, but the benefits haven't been spread out. And you've got large communities that just feel that things have stagnated. And so that was something that we didn't sort out. We talked about levelling up, but we weren't around for long enough to deliver it.

43:37And that's something that whoever is in power needs to think hard about. So let's say reform get in and Nigel Farage is prime minister. And in that process, he calls you up and he wants you to be the chancellor. Will you come out of retirement? Would you do that? I can tell you that it's never going to happen for a very simple reason that Nigel Farage once said that he had one of the biggest boosts in reform membership ever the day I became chancellor. So it's not going to happen. But let's say he did ask you. I'll say this, though. I'll say this. I'm going to write a book on, you know, what I've learned after being Chancellor, how to fix the British economy.

44:19And I hope everyone reads that because this is not a party political book. I'm not trying to say I got everything right. In fact, I'm very honest about what I got wrong. But in there were all the things that I wish I'd known the day I took over the reins. and so if he wants to read that, it's all in there. But you don't think you're ever getting the call? By the way, I don't think I'll get the call and in a highly unlikely situation that I would, I think my wife would say, hang on, you were on the front line for nearly 14 years and you always promised that you'd give the next bit of your life to the family.

45:00So I'm in a different stage of my life. so where are we going wrong with taxes it feels like the only thing they know how to do is increase taxes so what are what are the main taxes that you think could or should come down well i would focus on the ones that unlock economic growth and reward work that was why i cut four pence of employees national insurance i'd like to abolish that tax you know in the age of ai we should be doing everything we can to encourage people off welfare into work and encourage employers to employ people. And national insurance is a crazy tax. There are other taxes that don't work at all well, like stamp duty, which has a big drag effect on the housing market.

45:54The way the thresholds work for income tax are ridiculous. There's a big threshold when you move into the higher rate of tax because you lose your child benefit. But then there's another hike. When you get to 100 grand, first of all, the personal allowance goes. So your marginal rate of tax is not 45%, it's 60%. But also, because you lose entitlement to childcare, which could be six grand, we're creating a massive incentive for people to earn£99 ,999, but not£100 ,000. And what you want, those individuals are some of the most economically productive in the country. And you should be encouraging people to want to earn more.

46:48So lots of things in the structure of tax is wrong. Where do you think Labour might start? Do you think they will actually bring a tax down ever? I'm quite pessimistic. I think Labour people tend to think that life is about social justice and redistribution. And they came into politics to take money from... So they're Marxists, basically. They're not quite Marxists because, you know, I think, you know, Rachel Rees believes in capitalism, but she wants to change... Where is she providing evidence in her behaviour that she believes in capitalism? Good question. But she wants... She believes in redistribution.

47:33But that already exists. Yeah, it does. And the danger is, you know, in principle, so do I, but you don't want to do it in a way that is damaging to economic growth. Wow. OK, so I didn't comment on this when it happened because I don't like to just jump on bandwagons. But I did a LinkedIn post this morning and it's all kicked off because I commented on Sadiq Khan's pay rise. And at first I thought, well, I'm an entrepreneur. I don't have anything against the pay rise. But then I thought, wait a minute, if London was a company, London is failing as a company. So the CEO would probably get fired, let alone have a pay rise.

48:18Is it right that Sadiq Khan got a pay rise? And what's happening to London? Is it failing? Well, I am really worried about what is happening to London. You live in London. I live in London in the week and in my constituency at the weekends. And I am really worried. We're having a huge exodus of wealth and of talent. And OK, these are the wealthiest people. But when they leave, they're not spending money in taxes and restaurants where lots of people on much lower salaries earn their living. But most importantly, we have a housing crisis in London and new houses are not being built. And, you know, it's a classic thing that Sadiq Khan did.

49:02He piled on the responsibility to build social housing as part of every development. And the result is that it became unprofitable for developers. And so we're getting no or very, very low numbers of new houses being built. It's an absolute tragedy. So I don't think he's doing a good job. I don't go quite as far as Donald Trump in my criticisms of Sadiq Khan. But I have to say that I think the timing of that pay rise is extraordinary, to say the least. So what can we do to turn London around? Well, I think one of the things we need to look at is the way that property taxes work. Because, you know, we have this 15 % stamp duty for the most expensive properties.

49:47Now, most people think, well, that's fine. If you're lucky enough to live in a house worth more than a million quid, you know, good luck to you. And we shouldn't worry about you. But what's silly about the structure of tax in London is that people in those very expensive houses are paying some of the lowest council tax rates in the country. Right. So we have this illogicality because the council tax rates are based on 1992 values. So a very logical thing to do would be to modernize the way council tax works in London. but unbun the property market by reforming stamp duty, getting rid of these very high levels of stamp duty, which are basically the start of the chain.

50:32Someone moves in an expensive property, then someone else will sell up lower down the ladder and lower down and lower down. And that's how the property market works. And property in London is not moving. And that's a big thing that we need to sort out. Is this completely naive of me to suggest that we could really simplify our tax code. So is it true the tax code is 17 ,000 pages or is it 8 ,000 pages? I've heard it's one of the longest in the world. Yeah. So why don't we just have a flat rate of tax? Well, I think the answer is that we should simplify. I completely agree. And then you have to ask, what are the circumstances that make it possible to simplify?

51:22When you simplify taxes, you have winners and losers. Who are the losers? Well, because, you know, if you, for example... I know who the losers are, all the people that are employed to keep this tax code up today. Not just tax accountants. You will find, you know, if you did what I've just suggested on property taxes in London, the winners would be people who are moving house because stamp duty should be lower, but the losers could be council taxpayers in Westminster who have some of the lowest council tax rates in the country. So you have winners and losers. And the reality is in a democracy, a big change with winners and losers can only happen in the first year or so of a parliament when a government can push it through.

52:12People kind of know in their hearts it's the right thing. and then you've got time to weather the storm and get to the other side. It's not going to happen in the run-up to a general election. So for tax reform, Nigel Lawson's iconic tax reform, the thing that did so much to transform the country for the better was when he got rid of the 60 % higher rate of tax and brought it down to 40 pence. That was in 1988. That was the year after a general election, the first year of parliament. and in fact that reform probably caused a mini recession but he weathered that storm and it stood the test of time right so what would be the downsides then of a simplified flat tax system or who would be the losers i'm presuming your flat tax would be lower than the uh the current 45 level so maybe it's 30 well let me give you some context i nearly all my friends are entrepreneurs and when we're talking about another one of our friend who left for Dubai or Portugal or wherever, we're like, well, what's your number?

53:21What's your number to not want, not have a load of tax specialists and not have a load of accountants and not have a load of different company structures and all that? Because we're always having to bob and weave away just to try and keep some of our money. What's your number where you just don't do any of that and you just pay it gratefully? And everyone seems to agree 25 % flat. And maybe that's naive because maybe that reduces a lot of the tax take. But here's the thing. And I don't think how many trillions of pounds must be stuck in assets and bank accounts that entrepreneurs will not release because they don't want capital gains tax and they don't want income tax.

54:00and surely I mean a flat if let's say I am being ideological here but bear with me let's say the government gave us like three months flat tax 25 percent me and all my friends we're just going to draw all of our money we'll draw it all out we'll give you your 25 percent I have not drawn much of a salary for the last few years because why would I pay 45 income tax on it I do not sell my assets because why would I pay 28 capital gains tax on it what you know by paying all this stamp duty so I am holding back, holding back millions that could be into the economy. And I'm not a billionaire. Have I got a point?

54:35Or am I ideological? I agree with you, we need a much simpler tax system. And for entrepreneurs, I was a huge fan of entrepreneurs relief when we used to have it, because I thought it was such a great signal that we value the brilliant job that entrepreneurs do in the economy. And so I love that tax relief when it happened. And I thought it was a real shame that it's been whittled down over time. But if you were to do what you just suggested and overnight introduce a 25 % flat tax, then you and your friends would all be paying less tax. Now, you might repatriate some of your assets, you might invest more in the economy, there could be some knock-on positive effects, but the immediate impact is you're going to be paying less tax to Rachel Reeves.

55:30Or maybe we wouldn't, because we might all of a sudden start paying ourselves higher salaries. You might do, but you're still going to be paying less. And when you are in Rachel Reeves' shoes, where she's got a huge deficit as it is, she doesn't want to put up those taxes on people on lower incomes. so this is not an argument to say that we don't need tax simplification it's just to say you've got to be super smart how you get there now Margaret Thatcher was the last prime minister under whom we had really big tax simplification and in her first parliament taxes you know she did some tax simplification but actually she had to put taxes up in the 1981 budget Geoffrey Howe I'll put taxes up.

56:14Then she got things organised and she was able to find a way to bring down taxes such that there were more winners and very few losers. And should we be going down that path? Absolutely. And what about trying to get these millionaires and billionaires back? Because I think a lot of the exodus from London is that, you know, I was talking to Kwasi, like I said, and I think common sense, I knew this, but he said, he said 15 years ago, everyone was coming to London and it was thriving. And because, you know, China, Russia, UAE, all in. And now it's an exodus the other way. Surely that's really damaging for us.

56:54And is it not a politic? Is it not just envy politics that we're just pushing them all out? I think it's, more than that, but is it doing enormous damage? Yes. What should we do to put it right? I think there's one very simple thing that Rachel Reeves did, which I hope she changes her mind on, and that is to withdraw the decision to charge inheritance tax on people's worldwide assets. Because the thing is, a lot of these wealthy people, they can move anywhere in the world and if you say that by being in the UK you're going to pay 40 % on your assets not just in the UK but anywhere in the world when you die then they're going to move yeah and I think that was a mistake but I do understand that when there's a cost of living crisis when the average median salary is 37 grand the great British public say it's not fair if someone who's much much wealthier is paying a lower rate of tax than I am so I think the system that we had before was complex and not very fair but everyone I've spoken to and I've got friends too who've moved abroad they say look I don't mind paying a bit more income tax It's the inheritance tax that's the killer.

58:21That's the thing that's really persuaded me that I want to move raw because that's a type of wealth tax. And those are the assets that I was building up because I wanted to pass on to my family. Something that really bothers me at the moment is business rates because you can start a business and not be doing much money and you can be paying tens of thousands a year in business rates. Why can't we give a bit of business rates relief relief or why can't we stage that I know you you have to what is it 80 90 grand and then you charge that but why can't we stage it that's 10 in the first year 15 in the second why couldn't we stage up the corporation tax and a load of people must be listening to this show but also around the country thinking I think I might start a business I think I want to start a business I think I need to start a business can't we just push them over the edge and get a million people starting a business with a few of these reliefs well you know you're bang on the money um and i'm someone who set up my own business loads of businesses i set up actually before i went to politics and um the taxes that are the killer are the taxes you have to pay before you made a penny of profit so vat employers national insurance business rates those are the three killers yeah And the problem with those taxes being high is that it means you're more likely to go bust when you hit a storm.

59:47Because you've got this money being taken away from you by the government right at the moment of maximum vulnerability. So I agree. If we're going to help businesses get off the ground, we should look very carefully at those taxes they have to pay before they make a penny of profit. And is this the fundamental problem with having a left government? Is they're just never going to see the point in that? Well, I sometimes wonder, I mean, that was why, by the way, as Chancellor, my entire time as Chancellor, I had a 75 % discount on business rates for all retail, hospitality and leisure businesses.

1:00:22So every high street shop, every pub, every restaurant, 75 % discount on their business rates. Now, the Labour government has come in and they've taken that away. They've said it's going to go from down to 40 % and then down to zero. but what's happening you know in my constituency I've got three pups closing yeah it's it's had a really big impact those kinds of changes so I want money for great public services like the NHS the police schools that comes from the private sector it's the private sector growing businesses paying taxes that funds our public services. And you need to have a tax structure that makes it easy for the private sector to grow.

1:01:09What do you think is the biggest single threat to the UK right now? We've got lots of things you could point to. We've been talking about economic growth and tax and migration and all these things we've touched on. But the biggest of all is that we are losing hope. There is a former First Sea Lord, head of the Royal Navy called Admiral Sir Jonathan Band. And he had a great saying. He said, hope is the first duty of command. and the people at the top need to give us hope that doesn't mean that we think rome was built in a day it doesn't mean that we're expecting all the problems to be solved by the time we wake up tomorrow morning but we want to know that there's a plan and that these problems are being tackled and that we can have some confidence that they'll be tackled quickly and i think what's happened at the moment is that we've we started to lose hope and you know I look at the world and we have a global struggle now between autocracy and democracy you know China and Russia getting very strong America's very unpredictable with Donald Trump and we've got this global tussle going on and I believe in democracy I like the rule of law I like the freedoms that we have in this country and I want my kids to have those freedoms too.

1:02:38But we're not going to persuade the rest of the world that our way is better if we don't believe it ourselves. And I think we've got to find a way of getting back our self-confidence, our mojo and our hope. And how do we do that? I think by having a bit of perspective, by recognising that we've got loads of problems, but so have other countries as well. I mean, we're the sixth largest economy in the world And in 2039, I just did a book called Can We Be Great Again? And in 2039, 15 years from now, the economists are saying, we'll still be the sixth largest economy in the world. We'll actually have caught up with Japan and Germany a little bit.

1:03:18So we've got so much going for us in this country. Sure, we've got big problems we need to sort out, but don't give up. There's all to play for. Hmm. So as a test, once every two weeks, I do a really positive, happy glass half full post on LinkedIn and on X and they get virtually no views. And it makes me wonder, do we just want to be grumpy? We do like to moan, us Brits. Let's be honest. It's a cultural thing. but then it makes me wonder some things a little bit more nefarious like the algorithms rewarding I mean if you go on x it can be quite toxic there and it seems like you bash someone and you get loads of views so how can we be positive when it seems like everything around us is negative well I think it is true that on social media really aggressive angry posts do better well They have a name for it, rage baiting.

1:04:26It's a strategy. All I say is that, does that make you happy? I mean, when I set up and ran my own business with my best friend, who's still my best friend, actually, they were some of the happiest days of my life. I was in control of my diary. You hadn't gone into politics yet. I chose the people around me. I had a great team of wonderful people in our office in Hammersmith. And, you know, it was fantastic. And I think that optimism is a very important part of happiness. So all I would say is that, you know, we can rage all we like, but in the end, you're just making yourself miserable. And also, it's just not based on reality.

1:05:12I mean, you know, we are a great country. And, you know, yes, we've got problems, but we've got a lot going for us. Yeah, and I think that's important to talk about because I do acknowledge that, you know, I'm talking more about the problems than the solutions a lot, although I've tried to offer some here. But actually, our law here is pretty good compared to many other countries. Legal system is pretty solid. You own a property in the UK, you own it. There's plenty of countries where if they want it, they'll take it off you. I'll tell you one, Rob. You know, in the pandemic, vaccines and treatments discovered in the UK saved more lives across the world than those from any other country.

1:05:56Wow. You know, we have fantastic universities and research programs, London, Oxford, Cambridge, you know. So I think we're also a pretty good force for good in the world. I don't want to slide back into negative. But you're going to. But you say all this and you get me optimistic again and I agree and the sun is shining. And then I just think, oh, but Labour are running the country. Give us some give us some morsel to be positive about about Labour. Well, they haven't done a bad job on the international stage, actually. What do you mean Kia's been good at pandering to Donald? Well, you can put it that way.

1:06:38But actually, I mean, that's a strategy, though. That is important for the UK. We've got the best trade deal with America compared to other countries with our 10 % tariff rate. I mean, I think all tariffs are bad, by the way, but, you know, compared to other countries. So I think that's the least bad bit of what we've seen from Labour. And there have been some successes there. So I would say that's a bit of good news. I would say that Donald Trump is starting to say the right thing about Ukraine, finally. It's taken a while, but we seem to be getting there. And look, I'd say this as well. I'm going to give you my last sort of optimistic comment.

1:07:19We often talk, and I'm sure you've talked with Nigel Farage on your program about the global migration crisis. Where are all these migrants trying to get into? It's not Russia and it's not China. They're trying to come to Europe and North America. Maybe they understand something about how good our systems are that we've forgotten ourselves. Or could it be they know that it's pretty easy to gain the welfare? Well, there's definitely a bit of that. But that's a UK thing. But you look at it more broadly, and they're looking at Europe, look at North America. They want to come to the Western liberal democracies.

1:07:59So what do you think about the state of free speech in the UK? You know, there was this big rally, wasn't there? The Tommy Robinson free speech rally. Yeah, I think we've got to be careful. And I think there are some things happening that make me uncomfortable when I look at people, you know, comedians being arrested and people being, you know, getting visits from the police because of their social media posts. and to me this is an example of where political correctness has gone mad there's too much wokery and you know what we want is the police focusing on real crime so I don't think it's a crisis I don't think that you know we have a massive problem with free speech in the UK compared to lots of countries.

1:08:49But I do think in those particular areas, it's been going in the wrong direction. Okay, so final two questions. Why did you decide to get into politics? You're an entrepreneur. You know what being an entrepreneur is like. You sold your business. You know, you've won at life. And then you go into politics. Well, not for the popularity, that's for sure. There is something incredibly rewarding about public service. I'll give you an example. When I was health secretary, I was one of the most unpopular people in the country. The junior doctors were on strike for a year and I was detested across the NHS.

1:09:31My thing was patient safety, reducing the number of avoidable deaths in the NHS, which I thought there were too many. And by the end of my time, we had two fewer baby deaths every day across the NHS. Now, no one knows that. Now they do. But I, yeah, I will be proud of that till the day I die. And you don't get a chance to do that in business. So it is a privilege. And then finally, what's one maybe mistake or regret? Very good question. You know, every job I did, I had mistakes and regrets. you're talking to the person who in front of the whole world's media called his Chinese wife Japanese that was like that was like the faux pas to be all faux pas so uh so I had plenty of those um but um look I said when I was chancellor I wish we'd done more on welfare reform and uh I really do think that when I was health secretary I wish I'd scrapped all the national targets because the NHS is run like a Stalinist bureaucracy and it makes it impossible for managers to do their job.

1:10:53But overall, I don't have regrets, actually. I'm really proud to have done what I've done. And, you know, I think Bill Clinton said that, you know, don't ask for praise after you've left these jobs. The privilege is doing the jobs themselves. Jeremy I've really enjoyed this thank you very much my pleasure thank you thank you silver has crashed it's back to its price in 1974 and I'm going to buy more and if you'd like to learn how to invest and build multiple streams of recurring income I recommend you join money.school money.school is my global financial education platform to help as many people on this planet get better financial knowledge for less than four Starbucks coffees a month there are hundreds of ours of courses, resources and masterclasses going back a decade to teach how to make, manage and multiply money and gain financial freedom.

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1:12:11We'll see you next time.