Unfiltered & Unapologetic: Suella Braverman on the Battle for Britain’s Identity

29:29I think it's catching now. 40 % is catching police officers and nurses and teachers in a way it was never designed to because... Because they haven't put the thresholds up and inflation has wiped it out. Fiscal drag has been... Is that what they call it? Fiscal drag? To me, it's just stealth taxing. That's another way of putting it. Yeah, because they don't have to change anything. And by not changing anything, they increase the tax. Right. So why would you work longer? Why would you go for the promotion? Why wouldn't you just leave to Dubai? If you're going to be taxed, really. In America, to get to the highest band of tax, I think you need to be only about 700 grand.

30:04In the UK, above 50, you're pretty much in the highest band. And, you know, some Gen Zers are getting a bit mocked because they're like, I'm not, I'm going to work for anything less than 40 grand. Well, 40 grand is not a lot of money anymore. Well, average salary in the country is about 35, 38 ,000 pounds. So the real rate of taxation on 40 grand, when you include what you buy and what you sell, is 48.1%. because you're taxed on what you earn, but then you're also taxed on what you buy. This is what I mean. The government is gobbling up the proceeds of people's hard work and endeavour. And that is very dangerous because there'll be a nasty surprise for Rachel Reeves and the government that they'll soon find that people are not playing ball with them and that they're actually upping sticks and leaving, which will leave the government with a very, very serious problem of how to generate wealth.

30:58And they can't just keep taxing and taxing and taxing. And they can't, well, what she'll do is she'll keep borrowing. Of course, because that's the only other way for them to generate revenue. Which is why she's got to change her fiscal rules, which is horrendous for the UK balance sheet and our standing in the world and our resilience to any economic shocks. And that is a recipe for disaster. People need to be warned because they don't know. but you know government borrowing is basically increased taxation yeah because we because this to service it yeah is horrendous 80 billion pounds a year that we pay just on the interest of the debt which is in the trillions so i think you know it's it's gonna get worse under this under this government and then when you speak up about it you're in trouble you had a little incident, didn't you, with your Cambridge University?

31:51Oh, yes. Well, yeah, I guess I could cancel. You were sort of semi-cancelled. Semi-cancelled. Yeah. Do you want to tell me about that? Well, so, well, listen, I'm no stranger to provocation. Well, you're on disruptors. There we go. Exactly. It's a compliment to have been invited onto such an esteemed podcast. I was nearly arrested for giving a speech with Nigel Farad. We were both in Belgium. We were both in Brussels. And I was there to talk about human rights. It's my interest and why we need to leave the European Convention of Human Rights, as I set out earlier. And Nigel was there. We were speaking as part of a conference.

32:29And the mayor of Brussels got wind that we were speaking. And he sent the police to the conference to shut down the event. And there were hundreds of police officers who turned up at the event. They barged their way in and they were standing at the back of the hall while I was speaking. I did think that they were going to arrest Nigel and myself, actually. Thankfully, we weren't arrested. They backed off. I like to think that I scared them off, but maybe it was Nigel. I don't know. We were a double act and we fended off the thought police. Anyway, so we nearly got arrested just for speaking because we were branded.

33:06The mayor of Brussels, who was a left-wing extremist, he thought we were far-right politicians who were coming to speak in Brussels, and he didn't want us speaking, and he sent the police down to get us. The conference organisers actually challenged him through the courts, and they won, so he had to back off. So we nearly got arrested. Yeah. And then fast forward six months or so, I was due to speak at Cambridge University's Conservative Association. Yeah. That was it. And a few days before the event, a pro-Palestinian action group at the university started to organise a protest outside the event.

33:52And they sent flyers round and it went on social media. Come on, come and, you know, protest against Braverman. Braverman's a genocide apologist. or she's a, you know, Israel apologist for my views on Israel. I'm a very, I've been staunch in defending Israel since October 7th, even before that. The police thereafter advised us to cancel the event because the threat posed by these protesters was one that they couldn't manage. And on the back of that advice, the event was cancelled. So, yeah, literally the event was cancelled. I was cancelled, I guess. Yeah.

34:32Suella Braverman:Because of the mob. They attempted to silence. The police said, well, we can't really deal with this. And they got their way. And the event was cancelled. And we were just, I was just going to talk to a group of students privately, with all civility, just about politics and about topical issues in a very inoffensive way. And we had to shut down our event because the protesters' rights were more important. And I think that's an actual very sad reflection of free speech on campus, which I think, again, to overuse the word is in crisis. I think if you look at some of our universities, anti-Semitism has gone off the scale.

35:15and it's very, very dangerous for many academics or students to voice what would be considered centre-right views in classes, in academic papers, just generally. And there's a real challenge to freedom of speech within our universities today. 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 hours of courses, resources, and

36:01Suella Braverman:masterclasses going back a decade to teach how to make, manage, and multiply money and gain financial freedom. So join thousands of other money and freedom seekers on the link money.school. And start today your journey to financial freedom and more money. So do we actually have free speech in the UK? I would say that we have a crisis of free speech. In many, many examples, there are too many examples now where people... Like people being jailed for social media posts. Exactly. It's a great example of where free speech has been seriously challenged. We've got overrun prisons. Yeah. And we've got rape gangs that everyone knows.

36:38Yeah. But we're putting people in jail for social media posts. Lucy Connolly. For example, the lady, she should not be in prison. Now, she put something... It was in a Facebook group, I think. Yes, she put something up on social media. It was wrong what she put up. The comment was offensive and rude and vile, but she took it down pretty quickly and she apologised. She's serving a sentence which is many months long. I think it's something like 12 months long. Why do you think she was put in prison for that? I think we have two-tier justice in this country. If you're on the right and you express right wing views, you can expect to get the police, you know, issue a non-crime hate incident against you for saying a man can't be a woman or for saying something like what Lucy Connolly said.

37:28But if you're on the other side, if you're shouting from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, which is an anti-Semitic chant. It is calling for the elimination of Jews. Then the police will stand by and they won't do anything. There's a band at the moment, Necap. They've just been very brazenly, brazenly saying, encouraging their audiences to go and kill Tory MPs. there's been very little, I think the government was funding them. This government was funding them. But they're on the left. So they're more politically acceptable to those in power. You know, it's two-tier justice and freedom of speech under threat.

38:18Wow. And what do you mean by creeping blasphemy laws? So we don't traditionally have blasphemy laws in England, in English law. And is that part of the demise of Christianity, do you think? No, that's because we have a culture of liberty in this country that you can criticise and question and challenge religion. And part of our historic convention has been that people are free to criticise Christianity, the Christian Church or the Church of England. But in some religions, that is not acceptable and they don't like receiving criticism, particularly Islam. And so there are some MPs who are calling for blasphemy laws.

39:03They don't want to allow any challenge or criticism of aspects of Islamism or Islam. That would be a blasphemy law. And the government is currently considering whether to introduce a blasphemy law. Now, they say, no, we're not going to have a blasphemy law, but they are very sympathetic to it. Many Labour MPs are calling for blasphemy laws to protect, to prevent and criminalise any questioning of Islamism and extreme Islamic fundamentalism. That would, you know, talking about the rape gang scandal might be considered blasphemy. under such blasphemy laws. I think it would be very, very damaging for our freedom of speech, for our justice, for our liberties.

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41:12so we've got a few things going on here we've got the economy we've got multiculturalism immigration freedom of speech and i want to come to we've also got a bit of the lawless state they're my words um and i want to come into how we solve those in a moment i'd love to hear there There are solutions. Well, of course there are. That's what we must take away from this. I'm an entrepreneur. There's a solution for everybody. There are solutions. This is not an irreversible decline. Yeah. So before that, though, I want your honest thoughts on reform, Nigel Farage, and if you think they've got a chance.

41:55What do you think? I mean, they're popular, aren't they? So I think that reform is a serious problem for the Conservatives. and I very much respect and understand those people who vote for reform. They are furious with the Conservatives. Well, a lot of them are previous Conservative voters, aren't they? Right. Yeah. And they are livid with the Conservatives because of our failure largely on immigration. But on other things, we didn't tackle woke culture. Well, high tax. We didn't lower taxation. We let the state proliferate to unsustainable levels. So many things. So they are furious with us. And for many of them, they can't forgive us.

42:38And they are patriots. They are common sense people. They are decent, fair-minded people who believe in the greatness of our country. They want proper border control. They want lots of things we've been talking about. They want a police force that works. They just want a country that works and a country that's proud of itself and has rediscovered its self-confidence. And they feel let down by the conservatives. So I very much understand where they're coming from and why they are voting that way. So in your role, did you fail the government or did the government fail you? Listen, I've got to take responsibility.

43:15I'm not here to pass the buck. I was Home Secretary. I tried. I made the case. I went in with a very clear agenda and objective. And I said, listen, this is how we can do it. I had a plan. We can raise the salary threshold. We can reduce the number of dependents that people can bring in. Because one of the big reasons for the rise in the numbers has been students and workers coming in. But they'll bring, on average, two dependents, a spouse and a child. So it really rapidly and very quickly puts the numbers up. There were so many things we could have done. And the power was in our hands. We didn't need to pass any laws.

43:56We wouldn't need to worry about the House of Lords or the European Court of Human Rights. We wouldn't need to worry about the courts. It was pretty straightforward to implement these changes. So I wasn't able to persuade the prime minister. And the way our government works is you could be the best minister. You could be the cleverest, most charismatic minister. But if the prime minister doesn't back you and agree with your plan, it ain't going to happen. So do you think then that the entire political system needs an overhaul? I think there are aspects of our political system that do work well.

44:33So I think generally that our democracy is in very good health. Do you think? Yeah, I do. There was two conservative prime ministers that the people didn't get to choose. We didn't choose Liz Truss. We didn't choose Rishi Sunak. We had no vote in that whatsoever. I take that point. But equally, in our elections, they are generally free and fair. There's no corruption in our electoral system. We can only choose two, though, can't we? We can choose Conservatives or Labour. We have a first-past-the-post system, which means generally. Although that is under challenger at the moment. We've got a third.

45:08Well, this is what I like about reform. Forget what reform we're about. A challenger party. Yeah. Challenging the system itself surely has got to be good. You're a supporter of disruptors. They are disrupting the political system right now. They are. And that is forcing. Surely it's forcing you to step up. Exactly. It's forcing the traditional parties to up their games. Yeah. That's not a bad thing. Challenge and competition. Pure capitalism when it works properly. It's a healthy dynamic. I agree. But you think we've got reasonable democracy here? I do think we do. I think we have a very active democracy.

45:43I don't think it is generally tainted by corruption or by big business in the way that it can be in America, for example. If you look at other countries, whole swathes of populations are denied the vote. Right. And here we, you know, everybody has the chance to vote. And I trust the integrity of our electoral system. OK. You know, Donald Trump says that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. You know, there's no question that any general election in our country has ever been stolen. So, you know, we we are we have I think we do have a democratic system, which is not easy to get into. It's difficult to break into the first-past-the-post system, but I have confidence in our democratic system.

46:39Okay, so you're happy with the democratic system. You're not happy with how many people are in government, how bloated the state is? Yeah, I think we have a very bureaucratic, slow-moving, sclerotic... I like that word, sclerotic. Civil service and establishment. Yeah, I think we have... Too much overhead. There's too much orthodoxy. There's a lot of groupthink. There's a Westminster elite bubble that's to some degree detached from the real world, actually. Take immigration. Immigration is a great example. There's an orthodoxy in Westminster that more immigration is good because they think it's better for the economy.

47:19How do they work that out? Oh, this is taken as read in Whitehall. The Office for Budget Responsibility, the kind of watchdog of the Treasury, works on the basis that more immigration is going to be good for revenue and good for the economic growth. That was one of my battles. I had a battle with the OBR. I said, listen, in that assumption, you're overlooking the costs because predominantly low skilled, low wage immigration is not a benefit to the economy. That is going to be a net cost when you take into account Social Security. Two dependents with them. The use of public resource, public services, that is a cost.

47:57The pressure on housing and inflating house prices, that is going to be a cost. You're overlooking the impact on GDP per capita because as the population gets bigger, GDP per capita keeps falling. Which is surely the most relevant metric, isn't it? Absolutely. Yeah. But they would say, oh, no, you're wrong. We think that if you cut immigration, if you cut net migration, then we're basically you're going to cut income into the country. And so you're not going to be able to afford a tax cut. That's basically the view that the Office of Budget Responsibility takes. It's the view that the Treasury takes.

48:36It's the view that many of it's a view that the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, took. So they believe that to be sacrosanct as a view. That's a groupthink view. It's a liberal view. And that is totally detached to what people in my constituency of Fair and Waterlooville think. It's detached from what communities around the country are thinking when they see a hotel accommodating hundreds of migrants on their doorstep. It's cut off from the real world. And that's one example. Woke. Woke ideology is another example. There were senior civil servants who took the knee. There were police officers who took the knee.

49:20Keir Starmer took the knee at the time of the BLM riots. There were politicians coming out and saying, I'm sorry, I've got to confess to being a beneficiary of white privilege. Yeah, that's an example of this woke ideology that's taken over. And do you think the tide changed when Trump got in power? Do you think there was a global shift in the woke ideology? Now, he's not a perfect human, nor is Musk, although I think personally at the moment they're a net benefit to society with where it was going. But do you think that was the shift globally where wokeism, that was the start of the end? I think the Trump presidency is definitely having an impact on the UK.

50:09Yeah, when it comes to the way that we are viewing some of these progressive causes. And hopefully it will signal the high watermark for some of these. You mean like removal of DEI? I mean, in the NHS, the DEI officers get 90 grand salaries. And there's a massive need for employing and they won't employ. Why? Doctors and nurses. Get rid of them. I mean, that's a good saving straight away, isn't it? Definitely. Middle management bureaucracy gone. Yeah. Scrap the DEI industry. Yeah. We've got this cottage industry that's basically grown up over the years. I just wrote about it in the paper about why we need to scrap the Equality Act.

50:59The Equality Act is the root cause of much of this DEI culture that we've seen. There are whole parts of the legislation in the Equality Act that permits a form of discrimination against white people or against men in the form of positive action. There are sections in the law that say an employer can prefer a minority applicant for a job, for example, if they want to further the rights of minorities and they want to support minority groups. that's discrimination against people who are in the majority. And that's allowed under the law as we have it in the Equality Act. We have a duty, a duty placed on public bodies.

51:50It's called the Public Sector Equality Duty contained in the Equality Act that obliges ministers to always takeaways take into account the equality implications of their decisions. During the pandemic, Matt Hancock, who was the health secretary at the time, it was a crisis. He hired Baroness Harding to run our test and trace scheme. So it was a crisis. It was a novel situation. Things were moving very quickly. That decision was challenged in the courts and it was found to be unlawful because it breached the public sector equality duty. Because in appointing her, she was a very qualified lady. She had a lot of experience for the role.

52:40In appointing her, Matt Hancock forgot to look at the equality implications of appointing her for the role. And because of that, it was deemed unlawful. And because of this public sector equality duty, organisations in the public sector, but it's infected the private sector, overcompensate. And that's why you have diversity champions and you have unconscious bias training and, you know, basically political correctness is entrenched in a lot of our public sector and much of our private sector. And then the result of that, as an employer of 100 people, is reduced productivity. If you can't pick the best person for the job, you've got to pick the person for the job to hit a quota, you can't increase productivity.

53:37Yeah. So you have reduced productivity. Reduced productivity. Which is reduced revenue, which is reduced tax revenue. Right. And much more bureaucracy and red tape and training, meaningless training that you need to put your staff through to tick a box, which is going to be checked by some regulators somewhere. Wow. It's a massive industry which has grown up over the last couple of decades, started with Labour, Conservatives failed to kill it off. And Trump's come in and he's just slashed the whole lot. Right, exactly. And maybe we will start to see a reduction in some of the worst aspects of this stuff.

54:17So let's talk about some solutions. Solutions, okay. I'd love some sort of broad policies that if you ran the show, but I've got a few little ideas I'd just like to run by you. Let me know what you think. So a flat tax, the same for everyone. So myself and my entrepreneur friends, we all have chats. I was talking to my friend Daniel Priestley. He said, well, you know, I've got millions in the bank and I'm leaving it there because I want to pay the income tax. I'm in the same situation. He's like, Rob, what's the number? What's the number where you just pay it? You're happy. Don't need to look into loopholes.

54:49Don't want to go to Dubai. You'll just draw all the money out. I said 25 percent. He said 25 percent. So all of us entrepreneurs here are saying if we got a 25 percent income tax, assuming all the other taxes aren't really high, we just draw all the money that we're storing that we're not drawing, probably flooding the economy with loads of money. and, you know, whether you earn 20 grand or 20 billion, you pay a flat 25%. What are your thoughts? Well, I mean, it's attractive. Is it naive? But I do think there are some virtues to a progressive tax system. I mean, where would your threshold be? So does that mean that even someone on the minimum wage pays 25 %?

55:29Sorry, let me make a little caveat. I would have a threshold whereby you don't pay any tax up to 50 grand. because so you know like if trickle down doesn't work why don't we enable from the bottom up so at the moment there's loads of people on benefits i know because i do my tiktok videos i go and talk to a lot of them um and they say well there's no point getting a job because i've got my house paid for and if i get a job i lose this benefit and i'll earn less so i say um instead of bringing in tax at 12 grand and ramping it up and 50 being you go into the highest tax band nothing to 50 grand and then 25 % from there I reckon a load of homeless people are going to go well actually I know I can work and it's now more beneficial to me I'm going to and those that are gaming the welfare system will probably stop it what do you think to that?

56:15Well anything that incentivises work and makes work pay We're about half the nation aren't working at the moment aren't we? We've got a ridiculously high number of people on out of work benefits it's surpassed 2.8 million in terms of long-term sick, for example, which is a record. That's actually a hangover from COVID. It peaked during COVID and it's just never, we've never got it down since. But at the moment, it is too easy to claim benefits. Okay, so zero to 50 grand, no tax, 25 % for everyone above even the super rich. What do you think? And do you calculate that that would cost us, cost the government?

56:57Oh, I'm sure it would. It would lead to a fall in tax revenue, wouldn't it? Well, it might lead into an initial fall in tax revenue. Yeah. But I imagine all those billionaires that are thinking of leaving May now stay, all those millionaires that are hoarding their wealth because they don't want to give 45 % of it away when they draw it, would draw it. So, I mean, you know, you'd have to be a very good numbers person to figure out the... Yes, I think it would probably be an initial net cost. But anything that simplifies our tax system must be well-cooked. How many jobs would you save? And it would definitely do that.

57:36I mean, the tax code. My accountant tells me the tax code is. How many pages is it? Thousands of pages. How many people are employed just to justify the tax code? Well, most of those are gone. There's a good saving there. More people could do their own tax return, perhaps, couldn't they? Well, that's another thing. We've got, what, 12, 15 people in our finance department. We have to employ half of them for VAT and tax returns, which is basically us paying for them for the government. Yeah. So I think that anything that simplifies our tax system must be part of the solution because we have an overcomplicated tax system right now, which has led to a prolific industry that services tax payment and something which incentivises work and investment.

58:22So if a flat tax were to do that, I don't know enough about it. But if it were to do that, then it would get my support. Okay, great. What about incentives, grants and support to start a business, protection for failure for business? And, you know, like the golden visa thing that Trump's done, having some good incentives. London used to be the tax haven of the world, didn't it? And now everyone's going the other way. So what about some incentives to start business and to bring innovation and entrepreneurs and millionaires and billionaires into the UK? What do you think of that? Oh, absolutely.

58:58Listen, we don't do enough of that. And there are great examples of economies around the world where they've adopted exactly that approach. And Argentina are killing it, aren't they? Israel, actually. Interestingly, there's been a lot of, historically, a lot of funding, seed investment for high-tech companies, which is why they are now a leader in the world for such a small country, small population, you know, in very challenging circumstances, let's put it. They've actually, they are a real outlier and punch above their weight when it comes to producing innovative high-tech companies, very successful companies, which have revolutionized technology around the world.

59:38And that's because the government in previous years took a specific policy approach of investing and supporting new companies. So, yes, I think we need to do a lot more of that. And as we reimagine how we think about entrepreneurialism, as I was saying before, you know, we've got to make it less daunting for people to start up a business. It's got to take less time to set up a company on Companies House. There needs to be less paperwork and less bureaucracy for people who want to start out. And if they fail, because let's face it, most businesses will fail initially and it takes an entrepreneur a few goes before they succeed.

1:00:22We need to bank in that process of failure, actually learn from failure in America. There are whole conferences which are held where they learn about business failure and they invite people who have failed in their businesses and they say, well, what are the lessons that we can all learn from your experience? And how can other businesses avoid the same mistakes and, you know, evolve on from where you went wrong? I think that's very encouraging. That culture is positive. And I don't think we quite have that here. No, I agree. OK, so what would be the top three policies you would implement then?

1:01:07Listen, first of all, I would pull out of the European Convention of Human Rights. I think that is absolutely essential if we're to regain control of our borders and our laws. Because currently, even though we left the European Union, we are still controlled by a foreign call in Strasbourg. Like the European Court of Human Rights, it's a politicised court. It's an interventionist court. It stopped the flights from taking off to Rwanda. And ultimately, we have no chance of controlling our border as long as we're a member of the European Convention of Human Rights. So that would be policy number one.

1:01:40Again, that's simplifying it because there are other things you need to do, like change the judicial review and the courts and other immigration enforcement. I would also rapidly cut legal migration. and to very, very low levels, to the tens of thousands, to zero levels. I'm not quite sure what the figure is, but it's got to be an incredibly low number. It cannot be anywhere near a million or 600 ,000 or 700 ,000. And we would do that by raising the salary threshold, putting a cap on the number of workers, foreign workers that we had coming into our NHS, into our labour market. and we would start reskilling and upskilling our domestic workforce.

1:02:30And it's two sides of the same coin. You cut the number of visas, but you must make sure that the labour market needs are met by a domestic workforce. And the millions of people who are currently claiming out of work benefits are a good place to start. And then with all the people out of work, what are you going to apprentice schemes and make it harder to get on benefits and just draw as many people back to work as you can? Yeah, I think you'd have to have a much more rigorous system of administering welfare. It's, you know, in many aspects, it's far too easy to claim out-of-work benefits and it pays more.

1:03:09Benefits pays more. Welfare pays more than getting a minimum wage job. And that can't be right. So we need a system that reverses that dynamic and that actually work, whatever job it is, will always pay more than welfare. Because that's what is the deciding factor. That's what talks. That's what will make the difference for the average person in terms of their choices. And then what one major policy might you implement to improve the economy? We need to cut taxes. So raising the income tax thresholds, I would definitely want to do that. I've argued for that in the past because too many people are paying far too high a rate of income tax, which is a disincentive.

1:03:57On a low salary. Yeah, absolutely. And then even at the higher end, again, you know, it's not an incentive anymore to go beyond a certain level. I'd cut corporation tax. And I'm in favour of scrapping inheritance tax as well because I think it's unfair that people are taxed twice, basically. Yeah. And it's an intrinsic part of our society that people who've worked hard and saved and sacrificed and paid tax should want to leave something for their children. Do you know, this sounds very much like a reform policy. I mean, there might be a job for you if they get in power. It sounds very similar.

1:04:43Well, actually, I think there are lots of similarities between the Conservative Party and reform. A lot of the people supporting reform have been lifelong conservatives. I've met many of them on the doorsteps in the last 12 to 18 months, and they've told me as much. and in my own constituency. I've lost count of the number of doors I knocked on where people said to me, Suela, I've been a lifelong conservative. I think you're great, but I can't vote conservative anymore because of the betrayal. So there's a lot of similarity instinctively, politically, socially. There's a lot of overlap. Okay, I've got a couple more theories.

1:05:23I have a theory that maybe some senior politicians should be on a bonus scheme where they should have probably a slightly higher salary, some of the senior politicians, because they don't earn a lot. I saw, you know, some of the second, third, fifth highest paid, they're in the 120 plus few little bits. It sounds like a lot to people, but it's not a lot when you're getting death threats and when you're away from your family all the time and when half the population hate you. I'm an entrepreneur, so I understand how all that feels. So what about a fixed fair salary, but they have their targets and if they fail, they lose their job.

1:06:12If they succeed under budget over time, they get bonuses. Are you like the private sector? I think there's a difference between public service, particularly being an MP, and the private sector. I don't think you can draw the comparison. Well, but the private sector generates all the money for the public sector. Yes. The public sector spends all the private sector money. Yes, of course. So that's the difference. Of course. And taxpayers' money more generally. Yeah. But I think the MP's wage is far higher than the average salary. The average salary in our country is less than£40 ,000. I mean, being an MP is a huge job, isn't it?

1:06:50It is a huge job. It's a seven-day-a-week job. There you go. It's very long hours. Lots of people make sacrifices. People have been murdered for being an MP. Very true. Yes, absolutely. They're hated. You get death threats. It's very true. I'm not going to advocate higher salaries for MPs. I think by comparison, it is a high salary. And I think there are lots of... Okay, so what about bonuses? Rewards and penalties. I think it's very hard to enforce that and measure it. How do you measure? How do you measure delivery and performance? Surely you've got to start with the open-mindedness. I mean, getting on the moon wasn't proven, was it?

1:07:30Do you know Steve Jobs once did a speech when a computer was the size of a room and he said, we will make a computer the size of a book. Now we have a MacBook and a computer that used to be the size of a room when no one had foreseen it was the size of a book. So I think we can start the conversation. By the way, if you disagree with me, tell me I'm an idiot. You've got more political experience than me. But, you know, the thing with the British economy or the economy as our politicians run it is it's not a real economy. And I'll tell you why. Because in a business, if you trade knowingly and insolvently, that's illegal.

1:08:11And if you don't balance your books, you lose money or you go bust. If you have a negative balance sheet and that's knowing, you can be struck off as a director. For seven years you can go to prison. You have to put your own money in, and I have a friend who put three million of his own money in last year into his business because that was what they lost. Whereas any politicians come in, well, it's not a real economy. It's like a toy economy. It's like Monopoly. And we can leave the national balance sheet in minus three trillion and there's no consequences. What you're talking about is you want a way of holding politicians to account.

1:08:49Yes, to do a good job. Rewarded for a good job and penalised for a bad job. And where that's coming from is your sense that there is no accountability. Well, they're not spending their own money for a start. Yeah. So it's so hard to have accountability when you're not spending or investing your own money. So you don't feel that the current electoral system provides that accountability. Because I would say the kind of accountability that you're seeking in your question is provided for through our electoral system. As we saw very vividly last year, people were not happy with the Conservative government.

1:09:25They rejected us. And so that is the biggest symbol of our democratic accountability is how seamlessly political administrations change. Overnight, Rishi Sunak was out, Keir Starmer was in number 10, because that's what the British people expressed very vocally. And so I think that is a more effective way, don't you think, in terms of people getting... Yeah, I accept that, you know, several months on, a lot of people are having buyer's regret and buyer's remorse and feeling very let down by this government, but that can happen all the time. What you're saying is you'd want another election at an earlier point to be able to express that, But then I think that comes with difficulties as well.

1:10:16So I do think our democratic system as it is, whilst it's slow, slower than you might like, it does allow you to get rid of the people who are not performing, basically. The Conservative government wasn't performing. The British people got rid of it. Okay. Because I think it's very difficult to maintain rigorous integrity of some kind of system that you're suggesting. and I think it's being an MP, being Prime Minister being in the cabinet is not the same as a private sector job. You should be motivated by public service. Okay, I hear you and it's not about money actually. For me it's not about money I know I have to live and I need a salary I'm not in this job for money.

1:10:59I'm not in this job for kudos or status. I'm in this job to make a difference and have an impact and serve the country that I love. And so So I think once you kind of add remunerative elements to it, I think that slightly distorts that motivation. That's the motivation for most MPs as well. I'm not special in that regard. Okay. Well, in the last 15 years, I think we've royally fucked up this country.

1:11:32I mean, by your own admission, conservatives did a really bad job and by your own admission, Labour are making it worse. So the current system isn't working, is it? Well, I think there's a question about the quality of our politicians. Well, then if you paid them, well, you might give out equality. I can see why you say that, yeah. But it's a very, that's a dilemma. I don't want people coming into politics for money. I want people coming into politics because they really love our country and they want to serve it. Yeah, but people come in like that and then the system ruins them, taints them. I mean, look at Boris.

1:12:09So the system isn't – there seems to be a reasonable amount of careerist politicians. And all right, okay, if it's not for the salary, it's for the after dinner speaking and the book deals afterwards. Maybe I take a romantic or a view of it. Ideological. Maybe I'm too ideological. I like the fact that it's public service that motivates people to very often make a sacrifice in their salary. They may well be able to earn more in other jobs. And they've chosen to give that up for our country. I won't chase you anymore. I made a case for high quality MPs to get paid more. And Suella rejected it. I am not calling for MPs to be paid more.

1:13:02No, you're not. I'm not calling for MPs to be paid more. And I just think when you look at the average salary, I just think I don't think you can ask. But you're running the country. You know, the people who run the companies get disproportionately more money than, you know, the factory workers. And I know some people think that's unfair. And I know that the gap's got bigger and that needs to be sorted out. But you take more risk than a lot of people who earn the average salary. You get death threats. You put your entire life on the line. That's serious. But that's fine. We're discussing. We're discussing.

1:13:40We don't have to agree on everything. No, we don't. That's the essence of disruption. If we agreed on everything, then it wouldn't be very disruptive, would it? No, it wouldn't. Final question. Okay. Paint us a beautiful future of the UK. Let's finish good and finish strong. How can we bring back Britain? How can we be positive? What is there to be positive about? There is a bright future available to us if we work hard for it. And the Great Britain that I would love to see, that I know can exist, is one where everybody, regardless of what school they went to or where they come from, is able to realise their potential and they take personal responsibility for it.

1:14:30And they know that working hard and striving and an attitude of service and pride in their community and contribution, not entitlement, is what will give them success personally, but also will enrich the country. and that we've got a much more vivid sense of togetherness and pride in our country and love of our country and gratitude for our history. And, you know, that we wave our flag with pride, not embarrassment. I go to so many other countries around the world and there are whole motorways where they have their national flag set up along the motorway. And houses will all have a flag post and they all know their national anthem and all the children in school sing their national anthem every day.

1:15:34And they are beaming with pride and joy when they talk about their country. And they have a sense that their country provides excellence and quality. And we don't have that at the moment, but I know we can have it in the future. Well, everything you said, I really like, just like what it's like to be an entrepreneur. Personal responsibility, work hard, take agency. Sounded like you were creating a culture for the UK. It was not really a policy. It was a culture. A culture that we can all buy into. Yeah. It's something that is unifying and that says we're a positive country. We're an aspirational country.

1:16:19And there's so much. Like we used to be. Like we used to be. And that we can really offer aspiration to everybody. Because what saddens me sometimes is people do work hard. They are aspirational. But the state gets in the way. And the culture gets in the way. and there are obstacles and there are setbacks and there are problems that are actually caused by the government or arms of the government. And I don't want people to be held back. I want people to be liberated and empowered. Amen. What a perfect way to end. Thank you very much. Lovely to be here. Thanks for being on the show. I really appreciate you.

1:16:57Thank you, Rob.

1:17:29Suella Braverman:This episode was brought to you by Disruptive Media, helping bold entrepreneurs stand out through podcasting, video, and social content. Visit disruptivemedia.co.uk to learn more.