Can Anything Fix The UK's Broken System?

25:11You're just, and then all the events come in. Donald Trump started a war. You know, Elon Musk has decided that someone in your cabinet's, you know, dreadful and they're going to attack you. There's riots over here. All those events have to be taken care of as well. So they're knackered. And then they're just sort of afraid. So every time they start talking, they start thinking, what is the sentence I can say now that will get me in the least trouble and that will cause the least news? So I can just go home and have a glass of whiskey and hopefully sit with my kids and watch TV for an hour. And it's not just a complete, you know, my whole life isn't just this hellscape of news.

25:43That's mostly what they're trying to accomplish is just survive the day. So they're afraid. And once that happens, they start to talk that way. I remember talking to politicians about why are you, do you realise how problematic the whole manner in which you speak is, how inauthentic you sound, how much it helps populists. It was like, no, we know. It's just that you just become afraid. And when you become afraid, you start to talk like that. It is the way a human talks when they're trying not to get in trouble. And that means that they don't say anything of any meaning. You see it in the apology videos on YouTube.

26:11You know, when someone's done something really bad. And they look very sombre and serious. the way they talk is like oh wow they slow down a lot and they go into these blocks and you can just tell they're trying to like walk this tightrope yeah and i think it's similar to what you're saying so do we need a politician with some cojones like i mean boris johnson i'll be

26:31Ian Dunt:loving or hate him he was like i don't think i was a guy that was afraid like he was just very outspoken very like and he had like charisma personality i feel like his time doesn't really have like like you said it could be ai has more personalities very like stoic very like chilled like where's the people with a bit more pathion you know i think this is i love how salsa you've made this yeah here you go this is what we need yeah vote for tea vote for tea um okay so i think like there you need to be able to talk with authenticity and with fluidity and the time for politicians thinking that other mechanism works is gone i do actually by the way think there was a version of Keir Starman that could have worked and people wanted solid, competent, public sort of responsibility.

27:15And if he could just project that, rather, most of his actions spoke to a completely different sensibility, which is quite chaotic. He was, I want to try this, try that. It was actually quite Boris Johnson. He's approached the government, weirdly enough. And Boris Johnson without the charisma, it's not like, that's not a great ticket for how you're going to succeed at government. So that was not ideal. So yeah, and you're right that Andy Burnham at the moment has quite a lot of that. I think there's also a, they are struggling to adapt to a completely different political landscape. Keir Starmer's whole electoral approach was the one that was common for Labour and worked for Labour really well in the 1990s and the 2000s, which is to go, basically, 80 to 90 % of the country is made up of safe seats that will only ever vote Tory or Labour.

27:57And there is a handful of constituencies in the middle with a handful of swing voters, middle england and we're going to appeal to to those guys that's where we win right in the middle that just is not the case anymore that's not what goes on and also again to refer to the information ecosystem that's not how it works in terms of where people get their politics all right so it's not not even just about social media back in the day one of the things that the blair government would love is if it could land like an op-ed in the telegraph and it would do something about defense or about crime and this is how you triangulate against the tories right what's

28:29Ian Dunt:an op-ed i was about to say but my buzz is all the way over here there's the button what's an op-ed i've never had that used against me um because you're so fluent okay it's basically just an editorial that's an opinion piece so you open up the opinion pages of a newspaper you get the editorial which is the opinionated editorial is that what it's sorry sorry let me clarify you get the first thing you read is the editorial which is by the newspaper it's the view of the newspaper the daily telegraph says the daily mail says this about schools about you know the environment and then you'll have like a picture of someone with their byline which is the column supremacists, the opinion writers.

29:01And that's the op-ed. It's an opinion editorial. So they wanted to always land those because that's how you beat the Tories, right? You take the issues that the Tories are good on, the economy, crime, defence. Those are the core things people always voted Tory on. And as the Labour Party, you come in and you just go one step further than them. Well, we're going to build two warships if they want to build one. We're going to send murderers to jail for 26 years rather than 24 years. And that's how you do it. And they love that. The thing is,

29:29Ian Dunt:That worked back then. Now, I mean, Labour has been doing the same thing all the way through the last two years. Keir Stummer's been trying to get, you know, op-eds inside of the telegraph. And he gets them, they'll put them up there. And then they'll just write, I mean, for a start, the editorial policy of these newspapers is not conservative anymore. It's really quite heavily radicalised. It's really quite extreme propositions that they're putting out there at the moment. They're never going to give Labour Party a chance. And there's no one reading those papers that would ever vote for the Labour Party.

29:52And anyway, hardly anyone even reads those newspapers anymore at all, because they're mostly getting their news from social media, which is a much more curated information stream the politicians struggle to get into. So as you see that shattering of the information ecosystem, there's been no update, really, from government about how it manages that. Like almost no thought whatsoever about how it tries to deal with that information ecosystem, how it tries to address it, how it tries to get its message out, let alone what you do electorally with an electorate that rather than just voting for two parties is now voting for at least five, is highly volatile, but is still split fundamentally into two groups.

30:28a liberal progressive group that bounces around between Labour, the Lib Dems, Greens, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and a right-wing conservative reactionary group of about the same size that bounces around between the Tories and reform. Now, that is a completely different electoral landscape for Britain. We have not seen that before in our lifetimes. It's a product partly of Brexit, partly of information, partly of just the complete corrosion of our public services and people's exasperation with government. And there is simply no plan from government about how you manage it. So much more, yes, you want the clean speaking, the fluidity, the charisma, but what you really need is someone who has an idea about how you deal with that situation.

31:09And we do not have it at the moment. Do you think Andy Burnham has an idea about how to deal with that situation? Andy Burnham is a very thoughtful man. He, on certain issues, he's been well ahead of the curve and he ain't quite radical and he's sticking by them now and they're the kind of issues that can fundamentally change a country forever two i'm thinking of are electoral reform changing the way that we vote from first past the post proportional representation that's the kind of i know it's techie and most people don't want to hear about it but once you make that change your country will never look the same again what's the difference um so first past the post is just winner takes all so let's say you're in your constituency right whoever wins is just going to become the only mp anyone who didn't vote for them they're not represented now let's say that you take um so let's say that you've always voted green you know most constituencies you'll never have a chance if you used to vote ukip you'll never have a chance parties that sort of get below 30 percent it's kind of wasted vote they don't have any representation uh proportional representation you make the constitution this is one way of doing it you make the constituencies bigger so let's say you boost them to so they're about six times the size you have six times as many mps so now someone could vote for the greens on 20 15 where they get one mp the first you know the party that gets 30%, 40%, they get three MPs.

32:23So suddenly there's representations of lots of different parties. That has huge impacts on the way the system is run. For a start, it means everyone's vote is counted. But in parliament, it makes a huge difference because you don't get that situation anymore where one party has a huge majority, gets into power, can just do whatever it likes. Isn't that even worse? In a sense of like, we've got no clear leadership, we've got no clear direction. Okay, let's make it even more convoluted, even more people, all different views. in a five-party political system, wouldn't that be like a... We would just get nothing done even more.

32:56So firstly, I would say, once people are voting for five parties, you anyway can't get a clear result from first past the post. You just can't. What you'll have is in loads of constituencies. I'm talking... I'm not making this up. I mean, I'm talking you could have 20, 50, 100 votes between the winner and the loser in one after another. Because let's say you break down the votes into five parties. So basically, you're talking about, let's say the Greens were on like 14, 16%, like reform on 24. I mean, not even that big a difference there. And there are others all split in the middle. Well, OK, so fine.

33:23So here it's 200 votes made the difference. And on that basis, we're going to give someone, make them an MP. And we're going to have this large majority, possibly for a party, that had 22 % of the vote, 23 % of the vote. It's kind of mad and very, very arbitrary. Then what kind of quality of governance do you get? Usually under proportional representation, you get much better quality of governance. So most countries in the world, most democracies have proportional representation. The Americans don't. We don't. Canadians don't. Basically, everybody else does. And most countries that have ever tried First Foster Post and moved to proportional representation, they never go back.

33:59There isn't a single instance of a country I know. You think it's better? Well, they seem to get better results from it. Can I suggest why? Because right now in our system, what happens to the opposition when you put a bill out? They know that they can't defeat your bill. So you put a piece of legislation, you've got a majority of 200 or whatever. They can say anything. They could be like a modern day Cicero. It makes no difference. They cannot defeat your bill. So what do they do? They have the option of going like, look, I understand you're trying to accomplish X. I'm worried about these effects.

34:27I would be much more comfortable if you approached it in this way over here. And that would help ameliorate my concerns. Why would you act like a grown up when nothing you say makes any difference? So instead, you stand up and you're like, you're a shower of bastards. You're a shower of bastards. You're a shower of bastards. You hope that you'll get clipped for the local news, or maybe someone will clip it online, you know, and that'll help you in that way. But you're not scrutinizing the goddamn legislation. Now, at the point that you can reduce that majority, create coalitions, so parties have, on the basis of a democratic vote that's been fairly counted, have to work together to form a government.

34:57It's not going to have a big majority. Suddenly, you have to bring the opposition with you. Now, you can see that even if you look in Scotland, which has some sort of elements of electoral reform, you saw that with like, they had a bill on banning incitement to hate for religion. And like, the opposition were like, well, we get what you're trying to do. We get why you're trying to do it. Look, I'm concerned about atheist bloggers. I'm concerned about these guys over here. Now, what I'd like you to do is improve the bill so that you have that. And instantly, as soon as you have this much more kind of knife-edge, razor-wire legislative process, you get better law.

35:31And better law means better government. It means better public services. It means a country that works better. So partly you'd want that change because it's democratic. And the other reason is because it will get you better government. Great answer. Thank you. The second thing with Andy Burnham, I'm guessing is devolution? Devolution, yeah, good call. Can we talk about that? Exactly, yeah. Yeah, so what would that look like, do you think? Well, I mean, you could start doing it power by power, and they're starting to do a little bit of that with taxation. The crucial thing that you want is for a country to be dynamic and to be able to experiment.

36:01Like right now, we have a heavily centralised system, so you don't. Like you go to a country that does, I mean, countries like Germany, countries like the US, I admit that that's not necessarily the best example right now. You know, and you can just start trying things out. okay, so how did drug law reform happen in the US? It would never have happened if Washington had to make that call. But instead you've got one state being like, you know what, we're going to decriminalize cannabis. And once other people would look at it and be like, well, that went fine and it wasn't like the end of human civilization.

36:27So maybe we'll do that too. And then even better, they started to decriminalize, they started to do drug law reform in lots of different ways. So some of them had like a pharmacy system. It's like really, you know, no advertising, very little private sector involvement, but you know, you can go in if you can prove you've got a medical condition, you go in and get some cannabis for this others just had like kind of the las vegas version it's just like no lots of flashy you know advertising we're gonna make lots of money and off we go that's quite handy right like for countries like ours if you're just watching it you're like that's a great test case for how you do it that makes a dynamic country the same with taxation just being able to think um allowing people to experiment to try things out without trapping us in a straight jacket where the whole country has to do it then the second part is the fundamental principle that should apply throughout politics is basically the closer you are to the place that is being affected the more knowledgeable your decisions will be about what to do common sense common sense yeah so i mean if you're thinking like what what are the transport systems that we need you know in bristol i would rather give that decision to someone in bristol than i would to a civil servant in whitehall and the extent of our centralization has been so insane i mean you would find people in white especially on schools it's just mad people in whitehall make decisions about whether you're going to fix a leaky roof in a village, you know, somewhere 500 miles from London.

37:44That's where those decisions are made. That is not the right place to make that decision. And we will make much better decisions if we just hand local councils power. So instead, what we've done with local councils is we've basically taken all the money that's earned at a local council level. They used to earn the council housing. We basically got rid of that council housing stock, you know, and we sold it off, allowed people to buy it, didn't replace it. So they lost that power. They used to have control over education. They lost that power. We've basically emasculated them completely. Put all the social care on them as well, so that 65 % of all the council tax revenue is spent on care homes.

38:16Exactly. They've got no money because of that as well. Yeah, well, this is what we did with austerity, right? The politician didn't want to be the one saying, we're closing the library or the swimming pool. So we're just going to say to local councils, you've got to make these cuts. And what they knew is those councils couldn't make the social care cuts because that's just horrible. The Care Act. Well, they'd legally have to pay those costs. I think it's the 2014 Care Act, is it, or something? And so then what do they do? They start cutting and slicing away everywhere else. So you turn them into these sort of undertakers for British services, but you don't actually allow them any autonomy over how they make decisions.

38:49And the worse the area, the worse as in the poorer the area, the more the social care burden. So you get this distortion where Westminster, the richest place in the UK, has very low council tax. They've got really high business rates. And then you get places that are really quite run down, where the council tax is some of the highest in the country because they've got massive social care burdens. We could also talk about how completely insane council taxes, but that would take us out. I made a whole video on it. So yeah, don't get me started. It is mental. So he is right about both of those things.

39:19And those are big, big things to be right. There are weaknesses there, and I think there's dangers. But he's right about both those things. And those two things are generational game chances. And you think that will they... So two questions. Don't these places just need money? The local councils just need, you know, you just need to give these places money and giving them more power to run their buses, is that really going to fix the place? And do you think that these two, you called them game changers, but do you think they're going to provide enough change quick enough to make the public feel that Andy Burnham is doing enough here if he gets into power?

39:51Well, I mean, on the first point, I mean, partly just by using tax money, basically allowing them to raise their own taxes and decide what they do with the money that they raise, that's the thing that will change things up for you. And so how they choose to approach that will be up to them. You know, and lots of the times they'll make the wrong decision. That is simply the case. But that's the test you're talking about. But that's the test. And I think that can happen very quickly. I mean, that kind of the impact of that. I mean, I'm already slightly bored of hearing Andy Burnham talk about the buses.

40:17I've got to be honest. But like, nevertheless, that's a good project. And that's done through taxation. Okay. You know, that's the kind of thing that a politician, if you're a good, confident politician, you can go, look, I did this with the money and this is what I provided for you. And that's how that works. And in terms of speed, the electoral reform stuff can't happen before the next election. basically for reasons of a mandate like some people think you need a referendum before you can do it i don't agree with that at all i think that's mad you could just put it in a manifesto and if people vote for your manifesto then we're going to change the electoral system but i do think you need to put it in a manifesto i don't think you can just do it between elections without asking anyone um so i think and neither does he from from what i've understood of his interview so i think that will wait until after an election um and the devolution stuff like i said can happen before then so the devolution is the big thing really that could happen before then and is the change.

41:04And might just be the thing that lands on people's tables where they go, oh, my local area's improved. Because the big thing about like the NHS waiting list thing, say, for example, I don't think enough people are exposed to that. You know, I'm not on an NHS waiting list and I probably will be one day, right? But Labour can say, oh, we brought those down, but I don't sit there going, well, that's not improved my life, you know. I don't know, but people do, I mean, to be honest, the bit that they talk about most is A &E. Because that's where you... Waiting times.

41:30Ian Dunt:Yeah. Yeah. Or just like, you know, you'll have like an uncle that slipped and he had to go to A &E and they're just like, oh, how was it? Oh, not too bad, actually. You know what I mean? It all builds up. It's not like I'm not saying this is like a one day everything's fine and whatever. But if you have succeeded in spreading your political message more generally through the press and the media and then people start hearing individual instances of things going well, that tends to work up into a rather benign atmosphere for you. But then the other thing is like, we sort of, to a certain extent, have to stop thinking about what the public, have to stop thinking in an electoral cycle.

42:02The only way of ultimately giving the public what they want, which is stuff that works in a country where you've got opportunity, is to ignore the electoral cycle and kind of sort of what the public want and just say, how do we fix this thing?

42:13Ian Dunt:Yeah. You know? A bit more long term. Exactly. Yeah. Speaking about Andy Burnham, as a non-political expert like you guys, I've read a - I'm not a political expert. I'm not sure I am. I've read, like, he's U-turned on a few things, like trans women going into the bathrooms in America. Trump said, no, we don't want that. And then he U-turned on that. And then also going back into the EU. Do you think, do you trust him more than Keir Starmer? And is there a chance that he can just, if he gets elected, he'll just U-turn on other things again? I think that's the big weakness right there. You're right.

42:46I mean, he's doing it at speed right now. And basically, liberal issues, it probably doubly annoys me because I haven't, I liked his original position on all these issues. Basically, it's on immigration, on Brexit, on trans issues. It's like, OK, he's trying to win a by-election in a constituency where that's not going to be hugely popular. And also what he's trying to do is he's just trying to kill the issue. He just doesn't want to spend the whole by-election talking about Brexit.

43:08Ian Dunt:So just flip sides. Let's not change the decision. Let's just ignore it. Yeah, well, he's talking on Brexit. He's basically like, look, I want to go back in eventually. But first, we've got to fix things here first. I mean, I don't think that's logical. but he's just trying to kill the issue for now um the trouble is we've been here before like you know we heard if you remember the Keir Starmer that was running for the Labour leadership was a very very different bloke to the one he was talking about we're going to fight to protect freedom of movement you know in Europe that's not the guy that we got with like islands of strangers and we're going to reduce immigration blah blah blah what concerns me more is there are certain truths that the British public need to understand about our situation and someone has to express those to them.

43:50And that has to be political leadership. There's no point thinking that journalists can do it. It has to be by showing political leadership. One of those truths is that our tax system, we're going to have to pay more tax. We are. And there is no world in which you can just hand all of that over to billionaires and think that there's enough of them and we can tax them to the point where that's going to fix our issues. It is also going to hit medium earners in quite a significant way. And there needs to be an honest conversation about that, because the point that we could get away with not having it is now gone.

44:19You know, when it comes to what we're seeing, yes, in social care, in defence, across the landscape, and also just in terms of our fiscal headroom, we are getting absolutely pounded by bond markets. And that is not like some kind of great conspiracy against us. We choose to borrow money from people. And if we do, we're going to have to accept the risk premium that they put on us. That means we need a great deal of space. Rachel Rooney's fiscal rules are completely correct. What she hasn't done is given herself enough headroom, at least until the last budget, to make sure that you can start reducing the premium, the risk premium on the UK that we face since Liz's trust.

44:52This stuff has to get done. And ultimately, it will involve taxes. And that needs an open and honest conversation with voters. The other part then is immigration. People just are not willing to have the honest conversation. Unless they really want to live in a world where we're experiencing very, very poor social services indeed, unless they want the economy to keep on spluttering and struggling the way that it is, we have to have a decent amount of immigration in this country. Now, the current rate of decline is going to put us like below 100 ,000 net. Oh, probably, to be honest, it's probably already happened.

45:26I mean, the figures, we won't know them for, you know, for quite a while now, but probably it's what's happening now. There is almost no forecard. Well, you know, it's quite clear. You look at what the Office of Budget Responsibility says, you look at what any respectable economist says, and they say, look, if immigration goes down that far, that is damaging our economy. And then you start looking at sector-specific damage to the economy. So look at what happens to universities. We're too scared to raise tuition fees. So we're like, well, we're going to keep those frozen and have done for years upon years upon years.

45:53So we said to universities, get the money from foreign students. You can charge them more, bring them over. Now the government's position is really we want you to cut down on the foreign students. That is part of the anti-immigration drive. It is absolutely savaging the economics of our universities. It's one of our very few success stories. So even the parts of our economy that we're working, because of our hysteria about immigration getting broken down, I'm not suggesting that you have a prime minister come out and be incredibly passionate saying how wonderful immigration and diverse, I know that that's not going to happen.

46:21But you can have someone level with the British public and be like, we have to be realistic about what this economy entails, about how this country is based in the way that it is run. And that is going to require a decent amount of immigration. So on those issues, what you want is the courage for political leadership. And on those issues, I am not convinced that Annie Burnham has that. Do you think people can really stand there and say that, though? Because they're just going to get murdered by the people against immigration, surely. As in, like, politically, sorry. Yeah, absolutely. You'll get attacked by everyone that's against immigration.

46:51But the thing is, politics is, A, about making the case. And it's about accepting that, let's say, immigration is an example, right? It hasn't changed. The public view on this has not changed for the last 20 years. About 25 to 30 % of the public are implacably opposed to immigration. They'll vote for whoever gives them the most draconian anti-immigration they want to reduce. They basically don't want any immigration, you know. About 25 % of the public are very liberal on immigration and would actually be very comfortable with open borders. They like freedom of movement. They value diversity. They want to eat in a different restaurant everywhere.

47:21Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You probably know those guys. Those are most of my best friends. OK, now everyone else is in the middle. It's about 50%, roughly 50 % of this country is in the middle. And it's open to the arguments, OK? And you can pull them one way or the other. And they have been pulled one way or the other. Just three years ago, we were seeing over 50 % of people saying that immigration brought net economic benefits to this country, that it was a good thing for the country. It had all shifted. That was starting in 2014, and it lasted until about two years ago when the conversation fundamentally changed.

47:49OK, but we can do it. It is doable if you provide a little bit of leadership. If you look in the history of immigration to this country, what is the difference between the way the sort of the Irish were treated when they came over very, very badly? There was no political leadership. And yet when we look, you can go as far back as the Huguenots or you can go to various parts of the 20th century. You can even see like the Asian movement from Africa, much better treatment because there was political leadership. Because there was an ability to say, like, no, these are people that we're looking after and we're going to take care of and we can sell it to the country.

48:21Where there's political leadership, it can be done. But that requires people that have the courage and the ability to be articulate enough to show political leadership. And we don't have any of that at the moment. I think it's a good time to talk about reform then as a party, because it's the other side of it. And we focused quite a lot on Labour.

48:41You were critical in the brief, or you mentioned in the brief that you thought that their popularity wasn't quite what people think it might be at the minute. So can you just flesh that out for us? Because, you know, you're talking about immigration. And I think the perception is that people are a lot more anti-immigration now than they were a few years ago. You're saying that's not the case. No, it's true. As I just said, like starting two years ago. People just swung a little bit, though. Yeah, exactly. It's not like a hugely significant change. Actually, when it comes to immigration itself, views are really quite mixed.

49:12When it comes to small boats, views are not mixed. Like we, you know, small boats is really hard. It's a hard case to win. I would like to be able to make the case better and think that these are people who deserve protection. But that is like a really hard argument to win. The majority of Labour voters are not sympathetic towards it, let alone the majority of reform voters who definitely are not sympathetic towards it. But that's much, much, much tougher. Reform is a really interesting proposition, right? Because last year, they're in the low 30s. And suddenly we were like, well, that's just, I mean, it just kept, the support just kept on rising.

49:43And if you'd asked me in sort of like September last year, what's going on with this party, it'd be like, no, this is getting really quite troubling because where's the ceiling? Like, where's the point where the support starts rising? It had just been like 18 months of a solid rise. And then it plateaued. And then it started to decline. And it started sinking in polling down from the low 30s to the high 20s, coming about 27, 28%. Okay, so it's a lot. They're the front runners, 100%. They're the front runners and they have been for ages. But also, the other parties behind them, when you look at Labour, it's like on low 20s.

50:16So 23, 24%. I mean, we're not talking about a vast gulf between these parties. The Conservatives are roughly the same number. The Greens are kind of like not far off. The Lib Dems a bit below that. I mean, it's not like everyone's been left in the dust behind them. It's just that, again, you split a vote five ways and a party on 25%, 28 % can come out top of the pack. Now, the local elections happened a few months ago. um what was interesting about that is it completely proved that theory we saw it from the opinion polls oh the support has plateaued and now it started to decline we know that the ceiling we know what the ceiling is now it's 32 to 33 percent for reform it started to go down and that's exactly what we got for the local election results you could almost like tracing paper put it over the top they are in decline not significant decline but they are going into decline now you look at the kind of stresses that are on nigel farage at the moment so as we're speaking, he's seeing intense pressure from his right.

51:08It's kind of laughable, but Rupert Lowe for the Restore Party, who's speaking in kind of almost explicitly fascistic terms, sort of going like calling people from the third world savages, saying they want a mass deportation program, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now, that part, supported by Elon Musk, so boosted to millions of followers each time, which is then coordinated with Tommy Robinson, all the marches that take place.

51:28Ian Dunt:Okay, so Nigel Farage would love to ignore that, because he needs to present himself as much more moderate if he's going to win a general election. That's obviously where it is. When over and over again in focus groups, the main concern you hear from people tempted to vote reform is, but are they a bit racist? And on that basis, he needs to close that down. He needs to make sure that that's not there. However, now he has problems on his right flank from Rupert Lowe. He's, you know, we're talking as there's just a week to go before the result in the McFill by-election. Like, you take, you peel off, what, 10 % of his vote, 15 % of his vote.

51:57There's very little support for a store, but you don't need to lose much of your vote in order, especially when it's five-way sort of battles in order not to win. So suddenly he has to try and keep those guys in check, which he's done by talking about cold, hard fury and calling for riots, but not spook all the people that are like, why on earth is someone who wants to be prime minister basically stoking race riots, you know, on the streets of Belfast, on the streets of Southampton. And that's a really difficult political situation, not insurmountable, but it's not a great political situation to do, especially not when in the background, you're already in decline, and especially not as well when immigration numbers as they fall mean the salience of the immigration issue has started to decline.

52:34So your chief political attribute, the one policy you can count on to channel public rage, is also starting to fall in salience. So look, it's a big threat. I'm not saying anything, but this idea that we're fate, that it's all destiny, that it's fate, that it's going to happen, it's inevitable, that's absolute bollocks. It is all highly, highly preventable, and you'd have pretty good money on it not happening at all. I feel like my answers are incredibly long. I mean, my throat is starting to hurt, which generally indicates I'm talking a lot. Take a drink of water first. Go on. Are you sure? Yeah.

53:04Okay.

53:06Ian Dunt:What about the Greens then? The other side of that? That's the first party I ever voted for. And then I think my mum was like, they're never going to win. You're wasting your vote. And I was like, but I want to save the world. And I care about the animals and the plants and the oceans. I want to vote Green. And she's like, you're wasting your vote. I still did it. But that was the first time I ever voted was for the Green Party. We're begging for politicians to level the public about something real. Like it's obviously not there in reform. It's not there in Labour. It's certainly not there on the Ken and Bednock's Conservative Party.

53:35So maybe they're there with the Greens. But this attitude towards taxation, which is just basically like, it's just the billionaires. We're going to tax the billionaires. That'll get us all the money we need. That is just fantasy land, infantile nonsense. It's just not economically true. And when you start to assess, look, we should do more taxes on very, very wealthy people. OK, and we should also do more taxes, I think, on assets and capital gains and all, because that's where the real inequality is more than there is on income. These are all good ideas. But we do have to, if we're not honest with people about the fact that, no, this is going to affect you too, you know, that you are going to pay more tax.

54:13Just constantly encouraging people to think that someone else can always pay. It's basically how the British tax system has worked now for a couple of decades. That is not going to get us to where we need to be. And I don't see him levelling with people, Zach Polanski levelling with people at all, really. I just see this sort of fantasy land stuff where we can have all the nice things and we won't have any of the bad things and everything will be all right in the end. So although, look, I quite liked having my tummy tickled. And so it's nice for me to hear a politician come out and be like, immigration is good, actually.

54:44And, you know, we don't think that Israel should just be able to do whatever it wants militarily in Gaza. Like, I want to hear all that stuff. And I'm fed up with a system where I don't get to hear that from anyone. That's nice for me, too, emotionally. but you need that to be backed up by someone who can actually talk in real empirical terms about the struggles that this country faces and what's going to need to be done about it and i do not see any indication from him that he's the man to do it so if you look at a tax system and you want it to be more progressive say so you you can see it okay people who have got squillions of pounds probably should tax some more and we need to find a way to tax assets more effectively or stop their ability to borrow against those assets and stuff yes but you still think the message needs to be but people who work are going to be paying more tax i think that there's yeah 100 i'm sorry about that but it's just true um and that we are do you remember okay like do you remember in those early days of covid boris johnson was terrified of making an argument for national self-sacrifice he just couldn't because he's not that guy right he's the party guy i mean He really was the party guy.

55:50But, you know, he's just a fun times guy. He didn't want to tell people that they had to be indoors. Is that what you mean? He didn't want to talk about communal sacrifice for the greater good, which is funny because he was writing a biography of Churchill at the time. When Churchill got the position in World War II, his first thing is like, I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. It was just like, no fun times here, guys. Like, this is going to suck, right? And we're probably all going to die. But maybe if we don't, you know, we'll save the world. Like, what's funny is even as he was writing a biography of that personality, Boris Johnson, who clearly wanted to sort of model himself on Churchill, was actually basically the complete opposite.

56:20He was the like, don't worry, no one will ever have to sacrifice anything. He literally said, we can have our cake and eat it. That was his phrase over Brexit. There will be no sacrifice, only gains. Now, I don't think people wanted a narrative. They were open to sacrificing themselves for their neighbour, for like a national sense of solidarity and looking after one another. I don't think that's an impossible argument for a politician to make. I think if a politician comes out, there has now been several instances. The first one was when Donald Trump tried to humiliate Zelensky in the White House.

56:48Second one was when the Iran war started. Over and over, we get these, and actually, you could say the third one for the Liberation Day tariffs, just these moments of emergency, all of them triggered by Trump, where you're like, you just level with people and be like, we're now living in very, very serious times. Britain is clearly unable to live under an American umbrella. We are going to have to have our own independent, autonomous, strategic posture in defence in order to defend ourselves, but also in order to project our values. Like on that basis, I think that you could find a public who are willing to engage in that.

57:17I don't think that's beyond what a politician can achieve. And what is the fucking point of politics if they can't achieve it? Well, if I'm, if I can be honest, I feel like that tone would be like when Rachel Reeves came in and Kiyosama came in and they were like, oh, it's worse than we thought. There's all this issue, all that change in positivity that we promised. No, no, we need money because this big black hole. But that was so self-interested. That was so obvious. Yeah, but it's just you burn, I think you burn any will for tax rises on workers across any politician in any case going forwards.

57:49I think you're really going to struggle to sit there to the public and go, we need you to pay more income tax. I agree. These things are hard. But it can be done by talented politicians. And that's ultimately, look, here are the two options. We can either do that or we can live with how things are right now. Those are the choices in front of us. And that is, yes, do you want to be able to defend your country? Like, fine, everything was a bit chaotic with Iran, but you notice the way that we were basically unable to do anything about it anyway, that our navy was in a complete state of disrepair, like a complete humiliation for us.

58:21What's it going to be? It could be, maybe we'll get lucky and it will just be something like the Falklands, except that this time we won't be able to take the island back and it'll be clear that we're exposed to others. Maybe it will be something much more severe, an act of humiliation imposed on us by Russia. This situation is here and it is now and it is taking place via a war in Europe, via an aggressor that wants to very much threaten and humiliate us. Now, on that basis, we need to be able to defend ourselves. We clearly are not in a position where we can depend on the Americans to come help us if that situation takes place.

58:49On social care, people are going to have to ask themselves, look, everyone thinks, what does everyone say when they talk about how they're going to die? They say, I want to die immediately in my sleep or surrounded by my family and friends at home. That's what everybody wants. And hardly anybody gets it. OK, that's just generally not how people die. People have a very long period in between finding out that things are not going to be great for the next few months, you know, and that taking place. They need social care. And on that basis, we are not in any position to give it to them. Over and over, you look at this country and we are not taxed that highly compared to comparable countries of our size and of our stature.

59:24You look across Europe. That is not the way, you know, generally speaking, we pay comparatively little tax these problems cannot be solved until we have someone that will have that honest conversation would it be hard absolutely it's going to be difficult but it is the truth and because it's

59:37Ian Dunt:the truth it needs to be stated can you look back on any of our past prime ministers or politicians that have raised taxes and done it well or like yeah had this conversation well those are two different questions right because loads of them have raised taxes and and but the definition of doing it well is not having the conversation doing it through subterfuge right yeah like you It was the classic Gordon Brown. Fiscal drag and staff taxes and these kind of things. Has anyone done it transparently? We raised some money and no one realised it's like them doing it well, is what you're saying. Exactly.

1:00:04Rather than being like up front and going, do you want your nan to die in dignity? You're going to need to pay for it. And in fact, they've mostly been punished for that, right? Like when George Osborne came up with ideas for social care, Labour turned on him. When Labour came up with ideas... Sorry, when Theresa May had the same... I beg your pardon, I completely screwed that up. When Labour came up with ideas for social care, George Osborne turned on them. when Theresa May came up with ideas for social care, Labour turned on her. So generally speaking, they're punished for it. It used to be completely normal that people spoke this way until Margaret Thatcher.

1:00:34Margaret Thatcher came and then Labour tried to have tax, as you would have had at any other period in the post-war sort of era, had tax-raising manifestos, saying we want more stuff and we're going to pay for it. And they got absolutely pummeled for it over, well, basically, you know, nearly two decades of losing to the Conservatives. And then a political truism took hold, which is you cannot win while promising that you're going to raise taxes. And then a new model took over, which is basically you promise to cut taxes, you get in, you realise you've got five years till you have to face the electorate again.

1:01:03So you raise taxes. It doesn't matter if you're Conservative or Labour, you raise them. And then you cut them just before the next election. And what that does is it eradicates trust in politicians from any party and has done over and over again. You might be in the short term, A, I think we're at the absolute limit of what you can do of taxing other people and trying to do it through subterfuge. but nevertheless even without that you know we currently need the debate in order just to restore any kind of faith in the political system what what about growth i know i know like you probably want your eyes to roll in the back of your head when i say that but like um growth is a way to to get ourselves out of a mess without taxation so should you seem to be like tax is the only way At the moment, the level of spending that we require means that tax is necessary.

1:01:50But obviously, you want growth at the same time. So then what you're looking, I mean, you know, in my opinion, what you're looking for is like a very strategic approach towards the British economy. But you know what? Actually, no, let's put that aside to one moment. What about if you did that through tax as well? So when we talk about changing tax, it's not just like this sort of left wing, let's get more money from people. It's also like, what can we do to make it more transparent and fair? But the tax system is a complete mess. The first stage you take when you're changing tax is to reform it from the ground up.

1:02:18You would basically change the fact that your marginal rate on tax does not look like a series of steps that goes up as you would expect it to, paying more each time. It looks like a completely random wave spiking into infinity at certain points around the 100 mark because of the taking away of tax relief and because of child benefits. And then going down, so you basically get someone who's earning 500 ,000 that's going to pay less in marginal rate than you do someone that's paying 99 ,000. It just doesn't make any sense. Council tax doesn't make any sense. Stamp duty doesn't make any sense. You're just getting in the way.

1:02:49Stamp duty is one of those things that just gets in the way. If a family have just had a kid and want to have a larger house and an older couple have just had their kids go off to uni and want to downsize to a smaller house, we should not be getting in the way of those assets being in the right hands. You know what I mean? That's what you want, assets to move to the people that will most usefully be able to deploy them. So stamp duty is a terrible idea. loads of the ideas that you do with tax just to make it more transparent and rational, less opaque, more comprehensible, so that we don't create this culture of people trying to squirrel away and

1:03:20Ian Dunt:always defeat the tax man, because they feel that's what you've encouraged. Part of it is this, it should be a project that can unite the right and the left of saying, no, it's going to be fair, it's going to be transparent, it's not going to be opaque. That should be doable. And that, I believe, would help growth. In that kind of scenario, you're trying to give people a sense of confidence about their tax system, a confidence to spend at the same time, a confidence to invest in assets. All of that comes by getting rid of the complexity and the irrational nature of the tax system. And that can be part of a much broader strategic approach of thinking, where are we succeeding?

1:03:52Where did we deliver the funds? An industrial growth strategy. And by the way, they have not been terrible on that. The industrial growth strategy published took ages for them to come out with it. Once it did, it was like a pretty positive document. It was a pretty effective state of affairs. It's not like we're completely swimming at sea on this stuff. It can be done, but it requires conscious thought and it requires a real sense of dedication to the task. But there's a perception in the UK that we're taxed a lot. Our tax rate, our burden is one of the highest it's ever been in the UK. I know our people, you know, the narrative of like the richer leaving, I'm not as interested in that as I am the aspirational young are leaving because they feel the opportunity is not here in terms of they can't buy a house and they feel like they're getting taxed a lot.

1:04:36You know, say what you want about Dubai. I know people who are very talented who have gone there. And I personally haven't. I could run this business from Dubai. I want to be in the UK. I feel like, you know, I talk about the UK. I want to be here. I love this place. My family are here. But I know people who are competent, who have moved there for tax reasons. And I think if you ratchet up the tax, aren't you just going to have an even bigger brain drain? No, I've never really believed that. But also, we don't really, you know, We can find that across, like, we look at what happens in France, we look at what's happening in Germany, we look at what happens in Sweden.

1:05:09That is not the experience that we've had. I'm not a huge believer in the fact that the super rich leave at a certain point either. I think most of the time you're ultimately quite invested. Like, you know, your kids are in a school somewhere. No, I get that.

1:05:23Ian Dunt:I think it may be our generation and lower, though, because I know so many people that have moved to Dubai and a lot of families are moving there. Well, maybe not now because of the war, but like you said, a lot of influencers, a lot of talented people are moving there. so i know we say like we always you said something about like using common sense and thinking but we we always talk about changing the tax system like stamp duty council tax but they've just said um isis and now that cash and isis will be taxed so if we can change tax laws this easily why aren't we just changing them then it's not broad reform is it you need like you tell me say what is it 23 000 pages 10 million words 12 times the complete works of shakespeare is our tax code this thing those are great stats yeah yeah yeah yeah i got i i i went to tesco's the other day because i'm making a video on on tax and i was like i'm gonna buy enough paper to have stuck next to me like the tax code i the guy at tesco's like you can't buy that much paper mate i'm sorry you're not allowed to buy every bit of paper we've got i've now got 15 packets of printer paper at my house like i'm printing out menus for dinner do you know what i mean because I'm just like, here we go.

1:06:28But anyway, this thing is monumentally big. And since like 1995, it's quadrupled in size. They just keep bolting on things. And it's, you know, this kind of, oh, we're going to tax cash interest inside of a stocks and shares. So there's another 10 pages. What you're saying is we need to burn the lot and go to say like a Taiwanese or Hong Kong website. It's a few hundred pages potentially. I don't know about burning, but like we've had decades of reports now on how you simplify our tax system. And these are not right-wing or left-wing reports. They are just guided by reason and the creation of sensible incentives that allow people to plan properly for their lives in tax.

1:07:09We know how to do it. Honestly, we have so many. You just look at what's been put out by the IFS, but over and over, we know how to do this thing. Why don't we do it? Because of the courage. And just imagine that you're a politician put in that scenario now. We know the basics of it. the winners will bank it and the losers will squeal. And so in electoral terms, you get terrified. You know, you get like, let's say just changing council tax, right? Anyone, anyone that comes across council tax knows that it needs to be changed because it's fundamentally irrational. But the truth of it is that some people's houses are going to start costing more.

1:07:44And those people are going to be very, very, very, very upset. And they won't be able to get rid of them in some cases. And the Daily Mail will go and Deidre is there and the house that her parents had for generations and sat there and she's going to have to pay more, but she doesn't have any liquidity. So she's going to suffer and it's going to be a very emotive story. And all of the people that gained from it really won't have much to say at all. That is the understanding that most politicians have. I think that is something you can do something about. There are ways to approach this, that you do something about it.

1:08:09But most politicians are afraid for that reason. Okay. Andy Burnham's route to the top job is through the make-a-feel by-election. First of all, do you think he's going to win that? Yeah, I wasn't so sure a couple of weeks ago. It was 43-40 a couple of weeks ago. Was that polling? Sorry, yeah, that's the polling. So Labour 43 % to Reform 40%. It's now looking much better for him, both in terms of the polling, but also just the way it's worked out. Like Farage getting dragged into this kind of... The stuff around the Nowak murder, the riots in Southampton, the riots in Belfast. The Reform candidate was fairly weak as well in interviews.

1:08:46Yeah, there's a real distinction between female and male voters in terms of their attitudes towards reform, which, you know, it just doesn't help. If you basically just go around just disparaging women the whole time, it turns out that a political career might not just be for you because they are half the electorate. Yeah, the Cal Vorderman tweet thing was not the best look. Yeah, you know, he's had a whole history of saying stuff that he's now trying to get past. I mean, also, by the way, looking at that candidate, it's quite helpful, right? Like, with all the reform is so unstoppable, you look at the candidate and you're like, you're not very good.

1:09:12This is the second time they've had not very good. They just had Matt Goodwin, you know, lose Gordon Denton by election. Like, on that basis, you're like, why did he pick matt goodwin he's the sort of like right-wing reactionary academic that really upsets liberals on social media that's your guy and he had exactly the same problem this long history of things that he'd said about we should tax women that don't have kids you know just this sort of putrid nonsense that he'd been saying his whole life and you're like okay but what it takes to be a guy that causes trouble online is not what it takes to be a successful political candidate because that stuff will bite you so again and again for all this thing about how inevitable reform are when they put up a candidate you take a look at them and you're like is that the best you got exactly so andy gets there do you think it's an inevitable that that he ends up in number 10 it's extremely likely the west street will will have a go he will have a go i was i was probably i thought it was quite interesting around west street and about how he felt like to me just another keir starmer you got no ideas mate like i don't know what you are and then as soon as his leadership he's like he starts coming out with all these bold things it's like where are all these ideas before you know oh we're going to get back into europe we're going to do this we're going to do that it's like where have you been do you mean is this going to be are we going to see him be try and be radical in that sense and if he would let's say west street and did win would he then do those things do you think or would he just row back as well yeah the last part i can't answer i have that nervousness as well that suspicion um i mean folks fundamentally he knows what the electorate the electorate and the labor party leadership election is a bunch of really quite liberal left-wing people That's what it is.

1:10:45So that's who you're appealing to. And if you're him and you're viewed as being, you know, the Blairite sort of centrist right-winger type, very neoliberal and all of that, what are you going to do? Like you think you've got that bit sewed up, especially if you're against Andy Burnham. So you might as well just feed all this red meat to liberals. Like we're going to go back into Europe and blah, blah, blah. So it's hard to tell what it comes down to there. What I do think he's underestimated on is he's actually really quite eloquent, eloquent, if you think so.

1:11:12Ian Dunt:yes yes a well-dressed man my aesthetic judgment's not withstanding he's so he's really you're fairly elegant you said i was gonna say he's pretty damper today um he's he's quite good he's quite funny he's quite kind of jovial he's quite witty he's quite dry he's yeah i'm not saying he's a sort of charisma powerhouse but i think he's he's people underestimate how effective of a politician he is. And also tactically, like when you look at that stuff, it sounds rudimentary. Fine, you're going to go left wing to appeal to anything. But we haven't seen rudimentary, competent political life for quite some time.

1:11:48So this man is not an idiot and I wouldn't underestimate. It's interesting because in our previous conversation, you explained to us how, you know, who gets into power is decided by people, you know, people that are heavy into the politics behind closed doors and then we all get like the filtered version. And what you're saying there is an extrapolation of that. He's trying to appeal because no one's going to vote. It's not going to be a general election, right? It's going to be the Labour Party members that decide and they are a particular kind of person and that's why he's moved that way. If whoever gets in, let's say it's Andy, do you think he's got enough time over the next couple of years to convince the UK to vote Labour again?

1:12:26Yeah. Yeah, I definitely think he does. When I say the UK, sorry, they had a majority. It was pretty thin, but enough to win. Oh, 100%. Yeah, I think he can win. I mean, I think he's like, you know, if you check him out on, I would advise people do if they want to get a sense of him on the question time that was done in the constituency. He's really quite an accomplished politician. Like, he's really quite elegant. What is the matter with me? Apparently those words just mean nothing to me now. It's a Freudian slip. It's a Freudian slip. So again, he can really articulate himself very, very well.

1:12:58He's emotionally very present and intelligent. He's intellectually engaged in the issues that he faces. quite a lot of what's what's useful is to hear him talk about things where you don't agree with him like i didn't really agree with his decision he basically he supported the labor decision to try and get rid of sort of equality approaches in the police force i don't agree with that but he put it in a way that i was like i didn't feel myself getting cross about you stating that opinion just now that's the useful thing to check in yourself is how you feel when a politician is expressing something you disagree with not how you feel when they express something you do He's really quite effective.

1:13:32Now, with that, and with a little bit of canny policymaking, it's not impossible that he can get them through. Nigel Farage is the second most unpopular politician in the UK, after Keir Starmer. People are looking for a reason, not to support reform. What you see in by-election after by-election is progressive and centrist voters will pick whoever is best placed to defeat reform. Often, that includes the Conservative Party, which is kind of absurd, because their policy positions are basically the same now, but whatever. They will try, the majority of us will try to do it. In some seats, it just won't be clear.

1:14:03And the left wing or the progressive and the centrist vote will splinter, you know, 20 here, 20 there, and then reform will get in through the middle with 30. But in lots of places, people are able to do that. They're able to do it very candidly for Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, which doesn't usually have a chance. They're able to do it very candidly for the Greens. They're able to do it very candidly right now with Labour against reform. People are able to demonstrate that ability to make those judgments. so yeah he could totally win with Labour becoming the main party I think he has the attributes to it the only thing we question is before is whether he has the courage to make the big decisions that can improve the country in the long term do you know do you know why he's canvassing my area in

1:14:38Ian Dunt:West London like I'm getting all this not only am I getting leaflets through my door in our in our WhatsApp group on my road everyone's like why are there so many people never had a make a field never had a make a field until like 10 leaflets came in my door and there were these guys in suits and saying hi who you vote I'm like but we live in London so why are they like I don't know what's going on yeah no no I mean maybe that do you think there's like a special birthday surprise for you for just no for my road no do you think it's like just promoting Andy Burnham it definitely said it definitely was about the by-election it wasn't like old local elections it feels like it's a national by-elections have become a national issue haven't they you know more so than ever before it's a very what you've just described is extremely strange very strange right yeah I should have brought in a flyer actually maybe I'll take a picture do you know what it says can you recall any of the words don't read that nonsense i can't see my door he sticks up things with my door unless it's from hmrc i'm not interested like to be honest so yeah but i'll try to get a picture and we can you're talking about like the the digital realm and what and all of this and how they need to adapt to modern times clearly flyering is not landing so you don't so you've not seen that anywhere else well you i mean look your resources are i mean to be fair not in his case in by elections, you have a little bit more resources.

1:15:51But generally speaking, I mean, they've knocked on every door in the constituency four times. That's kind of unheard of. That's not really how you approach these things. Usually, you know, parties have these really old data sets. And they'll tell you for each house, voted Labour 1997, hasn't voted since then, voted last time, passionate, you know, pro-Labour, will never vote for us. And they use that to think we don't bother going to the houses that we can't convince. We go to the houses that we can convince. You know, So elections, general elections and by-elections, are data-heavy. They're data-crunching.

1:16:20You work off data sets and you work those data sets to get people out on the day. That's basically what you're trying to do, get your supporters out on the day. That is not the approach that Burnham had in that constituency. He has said, we're going to knock on every single door. And they've knocked on every single door four times. To the point that the main Labour concern in the campaign was, are we starting to just piss people off?

1:16:39Ian Dunt:Let's come to London then and piss them off as well. So I'm very surprised that they'd be spending any resources anywhere else. I don't know what's happening there. It must just be the local parties thinking it's a good time to chat to people. Maybe. Speaking of being pissed off, so in my local by-election, there was three Labour candidates and all three knocked on the door on the same day. And I was like, I'm trying to fucking work. You are literally annoying me now. And I was like, you're clearly doing the rounds because you've come like half an hour apart from each other. But yeah, so I can speak to the fact that if they keep banging on your door, it does get a little bit annoying.

1:17:10That's a bad allocation of resources. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just, it's like they all went out on the same day, you know, and it's like, who are you going to vote for? But it was what you said before, one of the candidates said, I won by eight votes last time. So, you know, when he was talking about proportional representation, that did strike with me. I was like, wow, this is like, it's like my little bit of this road could decide basically who wins. I think I want to take this a bit broader because I know you're deep in the weeds of the politics, is the final question, if that's okay. i think that the main issue in the uk is that most people just think politicians are not useful at all and they've become completely they they just don't like the political system at all they look at it and go this is not useful anymore how do we convince the uk that politics is useful i think you're right by the way and i think that this is the main um i don't want to be all kind of like you know history channel war dad But like, you know, anything you look at about that interwar period, the thing that gets people is just like, Parliament's useless.

1:18:15It's ineffectual squabbling. Democracy doesn't work. Might as well throw in with the strongman. We are obviously in that world now. And I don't think, you know, once upon a time you'd say this and people would say you're being hysterical. You're clearly not. You know, it's strongman after strongman after strongman. Most of the world events, like if you look at Netanyahu talking to Trump, that is basically the kind of archetype that's being loaded. and they don't always give democracy back at the end of it democracy is ultimately a transactional experience it is a politician that just stands there and goes i will do this for you you know two hours of free you know early years care or whatever it can be really quite minor really quite modest they make the promise and you vote for them and they deliver on the promise and if they don't deliver on the promise you're disappointed you can chuck them out and you vote for someone else.

1:19:00They're like, it's transactional, but it's sacred. But what it relies on is a politician who can deliver on promises. Democracy doesn't work unless you can show that the things you say will happen, will happen. At the moment, we are not demonstrating that. Because over and over, we're getting tied up in our complete fear of levelling with voters, of being able to deliver on policymaking properly, of just delivering on basic competence and rudimentary aptitude in government. Because of that, we're not delivering. And so people's faith in democracy is starting to crumble. They're starting to be willing to take very, very daring choices.

1:19:36And when I say daring, I mean that in the worst possible way. Everything comes down to that fact. You just said it. We have to show them that politicians are a good thing and that politics works. And if it's not done now, and by now, I mean in the next three years in this country, very very bad things will follow i'm sorry they don't invite me to children's parties for this reason but that's the basic truth of it yeah normally this is where we'd say this isn't financial advice and it really isn't but if you want to speak to a good financial advisor then

1:20:12Ian Dunt:we might be able to help we've partnered with a few advisors to offer a range of services from one-off flat fee guidance to ongoing advice i'm actually using the guidance service to sort out my finances. If you'd like to understand your options, there's a link in the description where you can answer a few questions and then book a free call with my colleague, Will, so you can figure out what might be right for you. This episode was produced by Ruth Edwards, and it was filmed and edited by Ben and Jack at Flowspire. See you next week.