00:00:49.420This, historically, really has only happened when those parties then have been wiped out.
00:00:56.560Like, I'm not convinced that I want some of the people in the House of Commons.
00:01:02.020You know, I look at some of the people on the front bench, both parties, and I just think, really, is that the best that we can produce?
00:01:08.860I'll tell you, I was speaking to a finance director from a major, major company in the country that everybody would recognise.
00:01:16.020They already forecast that by Christmas, a third of them will not be able to pay their bills.
00:01:22.700And these are the kinds of things that are happening in boardrooms across the country, because people can sense that actually what we're going into is going to be massive.
00:01:30.560What we are seeing playing out now is the tension, always there, always at the heart of the Brexit vote,
00:01:37.860between the Liberal-Lever vision of Brexit and what Brexit Britain would be all about,
00:01:43.660and the cultural Conservative vision of what Brexit Britain was going to be all about.
00:01:49.080And this group hasn't yet realised, I think, that this group has just put into place something very different.
00:02:05.680Hey, Francis, do you need new investment ideas?
00:02:08.800No, thanks. I've got all my cash tied up in Venezuelan crypto.
00:44:31.520But again, it's about a lack of, I think it's a lack of long term thinking.
00:44:34.320But it's also, I just think we are not incentivizing the right people to come into politics.
00:44:42.540And I really think the more, you know, the more I look at all the problems that are mounting up, I think it just comes back to, like, I'm not convinced that I want some of the people in the House of Commons that we currently have managing our national economy, managing our healthcare system, managing.
00:44:59.720You know, I look at some of the people on the front bench, both parties, and I just think, really, is that the best that we can produce?
00:45:07.460You know, and the answer is we're not incentivizing people.
00:45:09.960Like, if you're, I don't want to pick names, but if you're somebody who's run a major investment bank for 30, 40 years, that has a good handle on the economy, where we're going, and the mistakes we've made in the past, and so on.
00:45:22.540Why would you go into politics now? Why would you go in for 60 grand, for constant harassment on social media, for this incredibly toxic, combative culture?
00:45:32.260You wouldn't do it. Like, you have to be pathological, right? Or an extreme narcissist to go into politics today.
00:45:38.500And I think it's an unpopular point, but maybe what we ultimately need to do is jack up the salaries for MPs, improve the conditions, incentivize business leaders with a significant amount of experience to be involved in public services,
00:45:56.400or even somehow make more use of people who have spent their lifetime leading public services, who then just drift into retirement and, you know, do nothing for 20 years.
00:46:06.360I mean, if you look at the NHS, you know, I mean, speaking personally, my father was a chief executive in the NHS for his whole life, you know, and we have a generation of people who have gone through all of the crunch reforms through the Thatcher years, through the major years, through the Blair years,
00:46:20.460who have a very good handle of where the NHS has gone wrong and how we need to integrate NHS with social care and fix various problems, and we're not making the most out of that talent in the same way we're not making the most out of business talent.
00:46:33.180So I think it is a supply problem in politics. We're just getting the wrong people into these roles. But you're right to say long-term thinking. Absolutely.
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00:48:19.120Do you find it interesting that we're now seeing more of these sort of old-school, I would call them, left-wing people like the Mick Lynch's, the Eddie Dempsey's?
00:48:29.120Whereas before, six years ago, all of a sudden, they'd be dismissed as, you know, gammon-y Brexit type.
00:54:31.120It's going to hit people hard, especially people further down the ladder.
00:54:34.120I can tell you, I was speaking to a finance director for a major, major company in the country that everybody would recognize.
00:54:41.120And they said to me that their forecasts suggest that of their customers, all of their customers, they already forecast that by Christmas, a third of them will not be able to pay their bills to that core service provider.
00:54:58.120And they are already moving on to a retention model of lowering bills as quickly as possible to try and retain customers, even if it means they take massive losses.
00:55:08.120And these are the kinds of things that are happening in boardrooms across the country because people can sense that actually what we're going into is going to be massive.
00:55:53.120So there is a sense, a palpable sense that actually we may be on the cusp of something that is going to be very significant and very difficult, right, for people.
00:56:03.120And I think about my, take my students as an example.
00:56:07.120Students arriving this month in university were born in 2004.
00:56:21.120They are the kids that had their, all of their, the last year their GCSE and all of their A-levels were in lockdown, basically were disrupted by COVID.
00:59:22.120One is conservatives didn't really bring big ideas to the table.
00:59:26.120You know, they did a few things, right?
00:59:28.120So, yeah, we left the EU, they reformed migration, but that was kind of like about it.
00:59:32.120And then COVID hit and everything got shut down.
00:59:34.120And then I think labor and very intelligent liberal folks didn't really want to play the game.
00:59:43.120They didn't really want to come to the table and bring new, bold, interesting ideas for how we were going to make this moment work.
00:59:49.120And I think probably now the severity of the situation, I would hope, would now push us into a much more interesting national conversation about what we're going to do about what's a 2050 plan?
01:00:52.120But if I was being even critical of, of Kemi, and I'm not, I mean, I was very on the record of saying I think Kemi would be a really interesting conservative leader.
01:01:01.120But even then, like, it's going to take more than the culture stuff to fix these problems.
01:01:07.120I would have loved for Kemi or Suella, Braverman or so on, any others to come out and say, right, you know, just forget the next five years.
01:01:38.120We need a much bigger, broader plan than anything that's been put forward.
01:01:43.120And I feel like this crisis isn't generating that same kind of response from our leaders.
01:01:48.120I mean, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak haven't really got into it on the leadership campaign trail in the way that they should have done.
01:01:57.120I mean, remember the U.S. presidential election before the global financial crash.
01:02:01.120You know, I mean, Obama was sitting in meetings with Bush and the economic advisory groups actually talking about what was likely to happen and where things were going.
01:02:11.120We haven't really seen that kind of coordination and, you know, forward thinking this time around.
01:02:16.120It's been very, people have remained in their silos.
01:02:20.120And I think that's worrying given the severity of the problems that are going to come down the line.
01:02:24.120It's a complete lack of vision on all sides, which I think just speaks to the lack of talent.
01:02:30.120Yeah, I think, well, again, I mean, I think we need to incentivize people to better people to come into politics because the risk if we don't is we're going to end up, you know, perpetuating this, you know, and maintaining the status quo as we go forward.
01:02:44.120And, you know, let's see what happens.
01:02:46.120I mean, you look across Europe at the moment, look at Italy, you know, big election this month in Italy, of course, new parties are popping up left, right and center.
01:02:55.120Look at what just happened in the French election, left, left and right completely imploded, almost replaced by radical left, radical right parties.
01:03:03.120Look at Germany, look at Sweden, look at Portugal, look at Spain.
01:03:07.120We're seeing levels of volatility in politics that we haven't really seen in quite a long time.
01:03:13.120We've seen high levels of fragmentation, lots of new parties coming on board.
01:03:21.120Matt, one of the things that strikes me about the evolution of our political system.
01:03:26.120Now, of course, this was always the case to some extent, but it seems to me that we it's kind of our fault, too, because we massively disincentivize politicians from telling the truth about difficult things.
01:03:38.120And as you talk about, you know, Liz Truss, she will be elected, I'm sure, on Monday.
01:03:45.120And she needs to come out and say, well, these are the mistakes we've made.
01:03:50.120But I actually haven't heard anyone say what you've said on our show today, which is there's definitely going to be a winter of discontent.
01:03:56.120Right. And I think it would actually be quite important for a leader.
01:04:00.120I mean, what do people think is going to happen?
01:04:28.120Well, if you read what's coming out of sort of, you know, team trust, I think the plan seems to be the first hundred days will basically be about survival,
01:04:37.120will be about just deal with the energy crisis, get on top of it.
01:04:53.120And I think it was the FT that did a piece on that.
01:04:55.120That seems to be the rough plan, like coming.
01:04:58.120And, you know, in all fairness, when you're polling at 29, 30 percent, you know, I think probably that that's the only thing really that she's going to be really incentivized to do is just to make sure she doesn't have a rebellion within the conservative.
01:05:11.120And within the conservative party, first and foremost, because don't forget, I mean, a lot of conservative MPs did not back Truss.
01:05:18.120If she ends up becoming the next leader, a lot of MPs back Penny Morden, which is an interesting decision, a few others.
01:05:24.120And, you know, I think that's, that's going to leave her in a bit of a potentially a vulnerable place.
01:05:29.120But then after Christmas, potentially she wants to get into that situation where she can look back and say, you know, we've got through it.
01:07:41.120We are not as tribal as many other people.
01:07:46.120I mean, I do genuinely think that's the case.
01:07:49.120And thirdly, we have lots of things that still ultimately bring us together.
01:07:54.120And I think many of the things that Orwell and Blair and Johnson and many others have pointed to are valid.
01:08:02.120We have still many points of unity in this country that are not always political relating to sense of humor,
01:08:10.120our respect for certain institutions that are not always in politics, our sense of fair play,
01:08:16.120which, of course, Boris Johnson discovered what happens when you violate that, as did Dominic Cummings.
01:08:21.120You know, our sense of tolerance and fairness.
01:08:25.120These are things that I think are ingrained, actually, in our national culture.
01:08:30.120And you might say I'm being naive, but I think the British and the English culture is very resilient to many of the things that we have been talking about.
01:08:40.120And, yes, it's going to be a difficult winter and it's going to be a difficult five years ahead.
01:08:44.120And lots of people are going to find it very, very difficult.
01:09:25.120It's always a pleasure to have you on.
01:09:26.120Before we let you go, we should tell everybody to read your substack and follow your work on Twitter as well.
01:09:31.120But, of course, our last question is always the same, even though it produces a different answer every time,
01:09:36.120which is what's the one thing we're not talking about in our society that we really should be?
01:09:41.120I think we need to talk a lot more about family breakdown.
01:09:44.120I've just finished reading a great new report by the Nuffield, Angus Deaton Review, the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
01:09:54.120I've just put this report out on the scale of family breakdown in the UK and the effects that it is having on children and the effects of this much more fluid environment that we're in.
01:10:07.120And I think in terms of policy, in terms of politics, in terms of society, we need leaders who are going to stand up and say,
01:10:14.120actually, we need to now start putting family at the centre of our politics and our country.
01:10:21.120And I think that would be very popular.
01:10:23.120And the return on investment is enormous. It's enormous. It's a no-brainer from a policy perspective.
01:10:30.120Strong families, stronger society, fewer problems, less addiction, less crime, less mental health issues.
01:10:42.120You name it. It's a range of benefits.
01:10:45.120Absolutely. Matt, thank you so much for coming back and thank you guys for watching and listening.
01:10:50.120We'll see you very soon with another brilliant episode like this one or Raw Show.