Is there an inflation crisis coming?

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2:03This is political currency with Ed Bulls and George Osborne. . So we are remote today. It's slightly baffling because we're actually both in the UK unusually, but here we are. I have to tell you, George. I got out of my Good Morning Britain car after the show on Tuesday. And as I was walking down our road to come into our house, this guy yelled out from across the road. I think he was walking his dog. Gordon the chicken. And I said, what? He said, Gordon the chicken. I said, what? He said, I'm listening to Gordon the chicken. And he actually was walking down our road listening to our podcast. Your door he would story. And he said he was an avid listener. Loves a podcast. Loves the story. And so there you are. It's gone viral. The assault on Gordon the chicken by the Gove family dog.

3:05I have to say, I mean, this is an extra reason to listen to our EMQs, which will come out in a couple of days. But we have a contemporaneous account now because Beatrice Gove, the daughter of Michael and Sarah, has sent us in a message about the instance. Very good. Did you also see that Sarah Vine wrote her column in which she confirmed in the mail the Gordon the chicken story and the role of their dog? And in passing, she said that political currency was her favorite podcast. Better she said than what can I say? Less well-known brands. Anyway, look, it is such a relief that we are finally starting this podcast because we've been sitting around for about half an hour waiting for George Osborne's Wi-Fi to actually function. You have to get help. I mean, I thought you were a tech bro with a Rucksack making trips to California. And therefore you would be living in a state of the art tech hub and it turns out that your tech doesn't work.

4:08I don't know what's going on. Well, all I'd say is there are now layers of cyber security wrapped around me, which are hard even for our Persephoneika production team to penetrate. And so it's all a bit more complicated doing the Wi-Fi now. Are you making that up? No, all you do is live with the foreign secretary. So it's obviously easy for you to get on the Wi-Fi. But for me, it's like a whole load more difficult. I work on the basis that the people of Russia, China, North Korea, are part of every conversation I ever have. So I never really think about it. But the interesting thing, George, is you would have thought the depth of our tech relationship between Britain and America, which was supposed to be being deepened by a bilateral agreement, would have solved these tech problems, including for a tech bro like you. But of course, that tech deal is currently still in a Bayance

5:10and the person who was negotiating it. No longer in post. Yes, that is, of course, Peter Mandelson, our former ambassador. And yesterday, the government published some, not all, of the papers concerning his appointment and what Keir Starman knew and there was a statement in the House of Commons. We're going to take a temperature check on the Mandelson files and ask ourselves a question, is it doing more damage or has the damage already been done? Then we're going to turn to Iran when we call the war still ongoing, even though Donald Trump said earlier in the week that it was very complete, impacting energy prices, but also global interest rates, making things harder for central banks around the world, and still the dominant issue in British politics for a form, the Conservatives and for the government as well, they're at PMQ. So we're going to talk about what's happened in the last week on Iran's second.

6:13And then third, we're going to look at the role of ex-prime ministers. There are quite a few of them knocking around at the moment, but people might have noticed that Tony Blair has weighed in on the Iran conflict. Gordon Brown is weighing in on Peter Mandelson, Boris Johnson's weighed in on Ukraine. Everyone's having a go amongst this elite group of ex-prime ministers or maybe not everyone thinks they're elite, because Liz Truss is also weighing in on things. But we're going to ask ourselves a question, is that unusual? Do we normally expect ex-prime ministers to be such a loud voice in our politics or is that something new? So we're going to have a look at that as well. But we're going to start with the release yesterday of the Mandelson files and just an interesting insight into how the lobby works, how parliamentary journalism works, this quite big tranche of files released in the afternoon, Down Jones did a statement. Initial flurry of interest in the fact that Peter Mandelson asked for a payoff

7:17of over 500,000 pounds and ended up being granted severance payment, more like 75,000 pounds, much lower, but still a significant sum of money. But when you look at the newspapers today this morning, that isn't what they've all gone on. All the front pages are about Keir Starmer's judgment. And that is because the lobby works as a pack. They're kind of like a wolf pack. They're looking for the issue, which is going to give them the biggest chance of a kill. I'm not saying they coordinate, but they all have that innate instinct. And what the payoff is interesting. Did Keir Starmer make the right judgment when he appointed Peter Mandelson? Is that issue now dealt with by yesterday's revelations? And I would say that the answer the lobby is given on the papers this morning is no. And it goes to a point you've been making for the last few weeks. If you wanted to sort this out, you had to put out all the documents in one go, full disclosure, that absolutely is not what happened yesterday,

8:18not only because the key document about the Mandelson appointment, the Morgan McSweeney questions to Peter Mandelson has been withheld by the police. But also, you know, we're expecting there to be volumes of WhatsApp messages and emails and other communications between Peter Mandelson and so many people in the cabinet, in the civil service, none have that has been released. Yet there was nothing about communications between Tim Allen and Peter Mandelson, for example. We know what WhatsApp messages with Peter Mandelson communicating with anybody in the government about how the government is doing. What was his role in the Starmer number 10? So it feels as though we're going to have a drip, drip, drip in the coming weeks. Have they passed the test of getting this all done? No. Well, that's certainly true. And you know, you and I have been saying, get it all out, get it all out, and they haven't done that. And they've still got this problem of a police investigation. But, you know, without kind of repeating earlier bogus,

9:19I really don't, you're perfectly entitled, well, any citizen is actually entitled to question police judgment before, you know, there's formal proceedings. And, you know, this is just police advice not to publish this particular document, which is the essentially Morgan McSweeney, who's then the chief staff, his questions to Mandelson and Mandelson's answers. And let's remember the offense that Peter Mandelson is being investigated for as far as we understand it anyway, is all to do with events much earlier, 15 years ago when he was in the government, and potentially, you know, the allegation is he was sending internal number 10 documents to Jeffrey Epstein. So it's not really clear to me why this McSweeney document is relevant to the police investigation. And while it had... Allegations, we should say that he denied it. Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, the fact that that kind of sits out there means that they're not able to draw a line. All that said, I will make a slightly kind of contrarian observation.

10:20There's quite a good test in politics, which I think still applies, although, obviously, the nature of political communications changed dramatically with social media and the like. But, you know, there's a kind of, you know, today program test, you know, I'd include Good Morning Britain in this as well, which is, you know, the next day is a story running strong. So, obviously, on the day yesterday, they publish 147 pages of documents. Of course, it being Britain, it's not America. When they do the Epstein files, it's like four million documents in Britain. It's 147. But anyway, the 147 pages are published. It's big, you know, as you say, a kind of lobby scrum, rush to get all the kind of, you know, the killer points, the smoking guns, et cetera, out there. But, you know, listening this morning to the BBC, today program, the Mandelson files were not on the news. And so, therefore it begs the question like,

11:20did we actually learn anything yesterday that we didn't already know? I think there is one thing I'll come to it. But in terms of, we knew, or at least, Keir Starmer had subsequently kind of clarified that he knew that Peter Mandelson had maintained an ongoing relationship with Jeffrey Epstein after Epstein was initially convicted. That's something that Starmer clarified only a few weeks ago. But these documents confirm that he was aware that at the time of the appointment of the ambassador and, you know, the number 10's doing its job. When it says like, you know, there are reports that he stayed close to Epstein and he stayed in his house and so on. So, that information was available to Prime Minister. But we knew that before yesterday. We also knew, considering it sort of leaked out, that the kind of foreign policy establishment was pretty uncertain about Mandelson's appointment. And again, we learned more about that yesterday and the permanent undersecretary of the foreign office having concerns.

12:24We learned, I guess, an interesting kind of internal bluerite dynamic, which for real officials is interesting, not sure how more widely interesting it is. But Jonathan Powell clearly has lots of issues with Peter Mandelson that go back many years because, you know, he's complaining not just about the rush appointment, but he says, you know, we always get into trouble with him. The only kind of brand new piece of information was that Peter Mandelson received a payoff of 75,000 pounds, and I have to say it's very odd that they signed off of that. I absolutely am sure I was thinking last night. I'm sure it had to be signed off by the Chancellor as well. If I'd been Chancellor, I'd just absolutely would have said no. See us in court. Forget it. There's no way he's going to take us to court. You know, we don't have to pay anything. So that was the only odd thing. And I thought it was a bit lame of the government to kind of come out last night and say, oh, we should give them money to charity months and months after the event. But my central point, Ed, is I don't think anything really changed yesterday. And, you know, it didn't really change the price of anything in the political market.

13:25And I don't think it made much difference to Keir Starmer's position. It didn't make it better, but it didn't make it worse. And I guess for him, therefore, that's not a bad day. I think it is right that it confirmed what we already knew, that Keir Starmer, in knowledge of what Peter Mandelson had continued to do with his relationship with Epstein and a wider set of risks, which were there in the documentation presented to him, decided to go ahead with the appointment anyway. And that is the question of judgment. And just to say, I think it's important we say this. We had on our program, Good Morning Britain yesterday, three survivors of the kind of terrible Epstein scandal, Daniel Bensky, Lisztine and Charlene Rochard, who had flown over for America to urge Parliament, that Peter Mandelson and Andrew Manbatten Windsor should give evidence to the American Congressional inquiry.

14:27But when we ask them what they think about the fact, that in the knowledge of an ongoing relationship with a convicted and imprisoned pedophile, our Prime Minister decided to ignore that, and appoint him anyway to be the ambassador to America. I mean, in their faces and in their reaction, you see the horror that that was a decision which was taken by, not just the Prime Minister, but by our political establishment. And it is actually a shameful thing, that the question of the survivors at that time was not in the minds, and in the documentation which we saw yesterday. But there are still lots of questions. What did Jonathan Powell actually say at the time in January, as opposed to later in September? How come the person who they relied upon for confirmation that Peter Mandelson could answer the questions was Matthew Doyle, who has now been suspended as a Labour peer, because of an ongoing relationship to a convicted pedophile,

15:29which he was not transparent about at the time. But where his peerage went ahead, even though later people knew about it, and that's what I say. But hold on there, on that particular point, no one knew all that at the time. He was the Director of Communications, so that's why he's in the loop then. That's right. And in these documents, he's thrown under the bus, because he's easy now to blame, because he's been ditched, and he's no longer a Labour peer. But I mean, I have to say, quite how Matthew Doyle's judgment was the judgment you would rely upon on that important subject. And of course, we don't know what Morgan McSweeney said in his exchanges with Peter Mandelson, but I'm just going to say to you, you know, I don't think Matthew Doyle is the person I would have relied upon if I was Keir Starmer making a decision of such importance absolutely not. But there is loads more to come out about what Peter's relationship was with number 10 in the months which followed his initial appointment in January. So that, and the Morgan McSweeney memo, is going to bear on the role Peter played and the judgment of Keir Starmer during that period.

16:32And you know, this is going to be something which will be with the government always now. And the question is whether this is just, you know, as you say, in the price discounted, it's all known or whether there are going to be future revelations which intensify the pressure on Keir Starmer. I don't think yesterday did that, but then yesterday was a drop in the ocean of what is going to come out. Is that right? Coming months. I mean, maybe we're not going to see a load of WhatsApp messages. Maybe we're not going to see a load of emails. I mean, of course we're going to... How could we not see this? Well... Because they've made a commitment. What amount not exist? I mean, I mean, remember, you know, when the COVID inquiry came, it turned out neither Boris Johnson nor Rishisunak had their WhatsApp messages. And they all had, you know, technical explanations of, you know, what happens when you transfer a WhatsApp from one phone to another and so on. Well, we're treating... Chose, praise by us, to publish his WhatsApp messages with Peter Mandelson a few weeks ago, in which there were strikingly revelatory things

17:34where streeting said about the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, and economic policy. And that was just where streeting. Now, it may be where streeting was the only person who didn't have his WhatsApp on automatic deletion. And maybe Peter Mandelson has broken his... Well, dropped his phone into the middle of the North Sea, you know, the Wagatha Christie. As of a Becker Hardy. And maybe he's the only one. It may be that Peter Mandelson has suspended his practice in my experience of a lifetime, which was writing memos, emails, letters, and decided to do everything verbally. I would be very surprised. I think there is a lot still to come out. Alla, where's streeting WhatsApp's? And let's see what Peter Mandelson was saying to others in the government about the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, economic policy, tech policy, the wider state of things. That's all going to be published.

18:34Yeah, okay. Well, we'll see. I suspect it's going to be a bit of an anti-climax. And that itself might lead to all the questions of the kind you're just asking now. But it doesn't... I guess the where streeting point is, you know, why didn't they just get all the cabinet yesterday to publish their exchanges? Because they actually told where streeting don't do it, you know, naturally wait for everyone to do it at once. So that's not saying that's going to do the police and as far as I can see. And you could do all of that at the same time. Look, you might be right. That the peak moment passed yesterday. I'm just saying, I'll be surprised if that is the way things turn out. But you may be right. I mean, but that's the... The key thing though, there wasn't the smoking gun yesterday. You know, maybe they'll be a smoking gun. But absent that, all of this is still just politics of Keir Starmer's judgment and whether anyone in the Labour Party wants to challenge his leadership. And this is just like another kind of piece of evidence for the prosecution,

19:34if you like, against his leadership. But it hasn't dramatically changed things. And I don't think it will, even when more information is released. That's my guess now. Just about to the payouts point. I mean, it is staggering, isn't it? That Peter Mannersen, kind of in a pompous way, demands that he should be allowed to leave his job with dignity. The dignity we should be owing to a civil servant and servant of the crown. But also demands a payment of over 500,000 pounds to leave the job from which he's effectively being sacked. But as I think happens so often in our country, at the moment, and this is not just true in politics, it will be true in business all the time, that the attitude of the HR department is, if they're going to sue, the cheaper thing to do is to make the pay-off rather than fight it. By the way, I don't think this will have gone to the Prime Minister or the Chancellor. I think this will have been made at a sort of personnel employer level.

20:36No. I think it was actually a permanent security decision. I think so. If that's the case, I would definitely get that permanent security and say, what are you doing, not elevating and making me aware of this? Of course. I thought I'm pretty sure. I guess maybe if it's 75,000 pounds, it was sort of below the determinants that would be elevated. But certainly big public servant pay-outs. I had to sign off as a Chancellor, that she secretary did on my behalf. And I would have been livid. If I was in the Treasury, and they'd said, we paid off the former ambassador's has been fired by the Prime Minister. Sorry, we didn't tell you, Chancellor. I mean, that would not have been a good day, working with me in the Treasury. I can tell you. But I think the advice will have been, and I think this happens all the time in our country at the moment, that if you fight this, even if your certainty of victory is 100% the cost to the taxpayer of fighting it will be markedly bigger

21:36than making the pay-off. It happens all the time. You know, the people sign an NDA, get paid off and leave, even though they were culpable. And I think this is a very common thing to happen. It may be a rational thing to happen. It may be frankly prudent thing to happen. It may have been what the accounting officer would say to the minister, is what I'm advising you, because it's the best way to protect the taxpayer. But as you say, it's morally shocking that people are paid off when they fail and even disgrace. Of all the things that happened yesterday, it's probably in the public's mind, what are the things which will linger longest, that Peter Madison was paid off when he was sacked. Do you remember all the kind of Boris Johnson ministers? When Boris Johnson's government was collapsing and all those people came in and suddenly were a Secretary of State for a week or whatever, they all got paid off as well. No, but that is not... You're making a broader point about this. That's not the same thing. I'm actually making a narrow point. You need to have a word with Angela Rainer, because I think she's actually strengthening employment right into the moment for people

22:37who would be fired by their employer. But we won't get... We will come back to that issue. We should turn to the big geopolitical moment, which is the ongoing war in Iran, what it's doing to the oil price, what that means for the cost of living here, and Kia Starmer's decision, not to do a Tony Blair, not to be alongside the Americans and how that's playing out domestically and we'll come to that next. A better help ad. Hold on. One second. I just need to. What if you had a room where no one interrupts? No notifications, no expectations, just space to talk. With better help, therapy happens in a space that's yours. Visit betterHELP.com slash random podcast

23:40for 10% off your first month of online therapy. Are you noticing your car insurance rate creep up even without tickets or claims? You're not alone. That's why there's Jerry, your proactive insurance assistant. Jerry handles the legwork by comparing, quote, side by side from over 50 top insurers, so you can confidently hit by, no spam calls, no hidden fees. Jerry even tracks rates and alerts you when it's best to shop. Drivers who save with Jerry could save over $1,300 a year. Don't settle for higher rates. Download the Jerry app or visit jerry.ai slash a cast today. Hey, moms and dads. If you're tired of getting the deer and the headlights response every time you bring up family plans with your kids, let me introduce you to your new best friend, the Skylight Calendar. Skylight Calendar was designed to help you manage the chaos of family life. Ditch the mental load of juggling every one's schedule by pulling it all into one clear place. This all-in-one touchscreen calendar brings visual structure

24:40and color coding across your schedules, tasks, lists, and other family needs. Right now, Skylight is offering our listeners $30 off their 15-inch calendars by going to myskylight.com slash get 30. Go to myskylight.com slash get 30 for $30 off your 15-inch calendar. That is M-Y-S-K-Y-L-I-G-H-T. .com slash get 30. Welcome back. Well, we're almost two weeks into Operation Epic Fury, the attack on Iran by Israel and the United States. If you're in the kind of Trump camp, I guess you would say, this has all been very effective. There's been minimal loss, not no loss, but minimal loss of American life. The kind of collateral damage has been quite kind of televisual in terms of drones flying into Gulf states, but it hasn't really spilled

25:40beyond the border. There's no prospects of the payment of American soldiers being deployed. And at the same time, you know, Iran's Navy and Air Force, and indeed it's going to miss our capacity has been dramatically reduced. I guess on the other side of the ledger, you'd say Iran is still clearly functioning or the Islamic Republic of Iran is still functioning, because they managed to appoint a new Supreme Leader, so some kind of process they were able to undertake, the son of the last Supreme Leader, perhaps no surprise there. And I guess, you know, Iran is proving able to destabilize the broader region and have a pretty direct impact, therefore, on oil prices. Distabilize it both in the attacks on kind of refineries and oil and gas facilities in the neighboring Gulf states, as well as the hotels and the banks and stuff. I think the more kind of direct impact is on these facilities. And of course, this crucial choke point in the maritime choke point,

26:40the Straits of Hormuz hip ships that are passing through it, which basically prevents all the other ships going through. So that's had an impact on the oil price, which if you're Iran, you know, oil is your main export, so you won't be too worried about the oil price going up. And B, of course, it's the thing that is most likely to get through to the White House, probably you have a little impact in Tel Aviv, and I think one of the interesting dynamics of this conflict is, can Trump unilactually stop it, yes, probably, but there is an Israeli element to this as well, which is certainly the protesters against the conflict are well aware of, but I think in some of the kind of reporting is neglected, the kind of dynamic between Trump and Netanyahu. But is this becoming the kind of global conflict, the big regional conflict that we all thought, or are we going to wake up tomorrow and shouldn't be too surprised if Sunday Donald Trump called it off and declared victory? No, I think you can certainly say that things are not going as anticipated, certainly in the White House,

27:41the US Energy Secretary had been saying that there wouldn't be a big impact upon energy prices, but we had tankers hit in the Gulf last night, all prices up to $100 in spot markets over a night. Trump said the regime will change, well, actually, the regime hasn't changed, it seems to be consolidating around the old and the existing regime, really interesting piece in the New York Times, about the internal debate in the White House, people are all worrying about what is the off-ramp, but nobody dares have the conversation with the president, because they're not quite sure what the off-ramp is going to be, and the Trump TACO strategy. You should experience a new TACO. Trump always chickens out. That's right. Well, in the case of Greenland, he declared victory, and that kind of worked for him. In Venezuela, probably was a victory, but it's been so telegraph now that Trump is going to be claim victory, even though he hasn't won. It's not clear to me that was quite good of work for him in the way which he hopes. I mean, there's too much speculation about why it doesn't look like a victory, and why Iran is going to be a mess, and why the global economy

28:41is an a mess. A week ago, you were quite upbeat about Donald Trump. We were arguing about this, and you were saying that no is going his way. It's going to be a Trump victory. The rest of the world is irrelevant, and he's in charge. I just wondered whether a week on, do you feel as confident as you were a week ago that actually Donald Trump's got this under control? Well, I think it's still entirely within his power to end this conflict, whatever he chooses. In terms of power, you know, he is in control of the situation. So he could go on television tonight in America and say, we have, you know, eliminated their Navy, eliminated their Air Force, eliminated their Air defences. You know, we've destroyed their missile capability, and therefore I'm, you know, calling old to the operation. And I think, you know, people were going to question, well, is that really the case weren't your war aims broader and didn't you want to have a regime change and so on? But precisely, because the war aims were unclear, it's quite hard to sort of pin him down on what he was trying to achieve. But if he declares victory now, will people think that's real?

29:42Or will they think it's just a Donald Trump making up as he goes? Well, they might be thinking that in terms of how he got into the conflict. But does Iran remain a kind of serious regional threat? I mean, it is hugely reduced in its missile capabilities. And, you know, I don't know what's happened to its restarted nuclear program, but I imagine that's been a major target of the bombing. So I'm just saying that Trump can still kind of call it all off. It's still the same length as the operation last year, which, you know, was more Israeli-led, but had those American bombers doing the big and a bunker-busting bombs. That, to my mind, means that he's still in control. I think where... Well, if you look at the JD Vance positioning now, it is clear that even within the White House there are some people who worry this is going to be a negative and need to start distancing. And I just wonder whether that's like a counter to the idea that this is all going chumps way. The risk for Trump here and therefore for the Western, you know,

30:43is that the Iranians are not able to do what a functioning sovereign state could normally do. They can't get any aircraft in the air. They can't put any boats in the water. Their soldiers are irrelevant. They haven't crossed any international border. What they've got is these drones. And the drones carry quite small payloads of one to three kilograms of explosives. Now, you don't want to be hit by one of those. But if you fly them into a big building, it doesn't actually kind of bring the building down. However, what it does, if you fly into the side of a boat or hit an installation like a refinery, it causes a fire. It shuts the refinery down. And so, you know, they're tactically quite small weapons. They can cause quite a lot of wider damage and the Iranian tactics appear in the last couple of days of switch to this sort of broader offensive against neighboring countries, oil and gas facilities. And that's what's leading to the impact on the oil price. So, that is definitely the risk for America.

31:43You could argue in the big broad picture from the United States' point of view, it's pushing all of these other Gulf states to be much closer to America. So, in terms of kind of big geopolitics, when this all stops, it's going to create a much firmer US presence in the region. And a lot of these Gulf states, the UAE had a state visit for Vladimir Putin a couple of years ago. Saudi Arabia has been talking to China a lot. And, you know, these countries have sort of looked for other options other than the US. But I think the effect of this conflict is going to be defined over a much more closely together. But crucially, and, you know, this is, I guess, the point you're getting at, which is, you know, what about the impact on the oil price and the domestic US economy? And is Trump still in control of that? I would argue he is in that, as of today, he could call it off. You know, he's a very fair point. In a week's time, maybe not. There is no doubt it's going to drive more cooperation between the Gulf states because they've been stand-offs over recent years.

32:43That's going to change. Whether Israel becomes part of that greater cooperation, at any time will tell, because I'm not sure whether Nanyahu with elections coming has an interest in that what they're doing in Lebanon is quite shocking. They will see America as a more reliable partner than six months ago, or a less reliable partner. I think he's still sort of in the balance. They're definitely going to be in the market for America's defense systems and iron domes and all that kind of thing. They may decide that they need their own as well in the greater numbers than they have at the moment. On the energy markets first, interesting sub-stack from Nick Butler, friend of this podcast used to work with me in number 10, pointing out that actually there are people whose memos Peter Manolson forwarded. We see from the files. That is right. Pointing out that it takes four or five weeks for a restriction in supply of oil coming out of the Gulf starts to impact on the actual oil market because it's only at that point the reserves start to run out

33:44whereas on gas, because the reserves which are held are much smaller, you see a more immediate impact upon supply and on prices. But if you look at oil futures a year out, oil futures are backed down to $70 a barrel in 12 months time. The markets at the moment don't think this is going to be a long-lasting supply shock in anywhere near the kind of impact we saw in the 1970s or even in the early 2000s. And so I think at the moment the markets are thinking that the impact will be more short-lived. On the other hand, if you look at global interest rates, people were expecting a Fed cuts that's still expected, although with less certainty. But the financial markets have now switched from thinking that the Bank of England and the ECB were going to, in the case of the Bank of England, cutting interest rates. In the case of the ECB, keep them on hold. Financial markets now both think the Bank of England and the European Central Bank are going to be raising interest rates

34:44to deal with a potential inflation shock in the coming months. There are a lot of people out there who may be in the process of buying a home or remorgaging, and quite a lot of the mortgage deals have been suspended or taken away from people. So it's not just the impact in the kind of petrol pump, which I think a lot of the commentary is all about, what does this mean for the price of the pump? And that's the most visible thing because the oil price goes up and therefore it's more expensive to develop your car. But the actual cost of credit in the economy goes up. And if you were Chancellor, you would have a lot of money in the end and said to deal with an inflation risk we're now going to raise interest rates. What would you be thinking if they did that? Well, I would think I was very premature given we don't actually know how things are going to play out in the next couple of weeks. And I don't think it's by any means certain indeed. I would think the expectation is quite the opposite that this thing is going to go on for months. I think the expectation is it might come to an end pretty quickly in terms of the military action. Now, whether facilities that have been damaged

35:44I'm not qualified to say it. But I think there's an interesting point. I mean, you should probably explain as the economist here. A central bank could have two responses to this, couldn't it? It could say, hold on, there's an energy shock. The price of energy is going up. That means the price of other products made with that energy are going up. And therefore we need to raise rates to deal with higher inflation and we have that big inflation spike as a result of the Ukraine invasion and its impact on global and gas supplies and central banks will criticize for not putting up rates soon enough. There's another argument, isn't it, that this is a one-off shock to energy prices and central banks should see through that and the more likely lasting impact are weaker economies, slower economic growth. And that's a reason to potentially cut rates more than you were going to. That is right. And the conventional economic way to think about this, which is I think the right way to think about it, is if you have a price shock, a supply shock like this, which pushes up prices

36:45for a time-limited period or even in a permanent way, what you shouldn't be doing is trying to raise interest rates to stop that happening and to accept a slowing economy as a price you have to pay. This is just a change in relative prices. You should see through it. I think the problem was, when you go back to after the pandemic, you've got into a mindset in 2021-22, maybe they got behind the curve, maybe a letter of rise in inflation expectations, maybe it locked in high inflation, and we mustn't make the same mistake again. And I think in financial markets at the moment, and this is reinforced by some of the things said from the Bank of England and the ECB, there is a worry that they may be trying to fight the last war all over again. Last time we were behind the curve, let us not get behind the curve this time. Let's do something preemptive. In my view, that would be completely the wrong judgment. I'm totally where you were. When I ask you that question, the Bank of England should not be doing something right now

37:45to deal with a supply shock because of a rise in energy prices. And if anything, that might lead to further down the track, bigger cuts and interest rates, if they then hit the economy at a time when other put is rising, and the economy is slowing down. So I'm hoping that markets will calm down on this, but that is a matter for central bank leadership from the ECB and the Bank of England. There is a separate thing there, which is really interesting on the fiscal side, Keir Starmer saying, we'll do what it takes. Are we going to have to have some price cap like Liz Truss introduced on energy bills in the autumn of 2022? I mean, that cost tens and tens of billions of pounds that price cap. Look, it may be a good way politically to help consumers right now. But I think what happened was the Liz Truss debarkler, when in her short lived time as Prime Minister, it wasn't only what they were doing, was unfunded tax cuts.

38:45It wasn't only the whole issue around the LTR pensions investment problem. It was also that after the pandemic, when you had a big rise in borrowing to deal with the shock of the pandemic, two years later, you had a big rise in borrowing to deal with an energy price hike. If now in 2026, governments like Britain, much higher levels of debt, much more vulnerable financially as far as the markets are concerned, started saying we are in a temporary way going to throw money at another price shock. I think the market reaction to that could be bad, very bad indeed. And what we're seeing currently in market prices is a bit of an anticipation of that as well as hedge funds in their positions. If I was Rachel Reeves, I would be extremely cautious about the priorities to giving the impression that a one-off rise in borrowing to pay for an energy price cap is going to be a good thing to do, because I think the cost to the economy and to our debt service of doing that

39:45could be very difficult to deal with. If people like Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, pretty right-wing in their different ways felt that they had to spend tens of billions of pounds of energy bills, a huge government intervention and a huge increase in the size of the state despite all the protestations that they believed in the opposite. Think of a labour government, two or three years out from an election, big increase in domestic energy bills, huge pressure from the parliamentary labour body to do something and pressure on, you know, and already somewhat beleaguered Prime Minister. And the Chancellor attempting to say, I mean, I just think the Chancellor in that situation is under huge pressure to do something. Here's a simple question for you first. I mean, they're not going to go ahead and put up fuel duty by five pence in September. I don't know why they're maintaining the fiction that they're going to do that. That's currently baked into the government's budget plans and government ministers probably, you know, even interviewing them this week are saying,

40:45oh, you know, wait and see. So they're not going to be able to go with that. So they've already got a hole in their budget. The situation continues to deteriorate in the Middle East. The oil price stays high. It looks like a lasting impact on energy bills. You can't be a labour Chancellor who says to Geostarma. I'm sorry, mate. I can't help you out. Look, go back to the Chancellor's spring statement a week ago in which she started by saying the plan is working. It's all on track. Nothing to worry about. At a time when she already knew this turmoil around her was going to destabilise her growth, inflation, and fiscal forecasts. If I was her, I would have had a very different tone in that spring statement. But if you were going to move on fuel duty when the time to do that was last week. They didn't do that because they didn't want to have a fiscal event. Does that mean we now have to wait? This fuel duty rise comes in in September. But it's not going to happen, is it? Yeah, but I'll be going to wait until November

41:45for this is announced. To the small group of Treasury officials who still think it's going to happen. Everyone else knows it isn't. So start doing the numbers because you ain't going to put fuel duty up in September. But how do you announce that other than in what we're not allowed to have? Which is another fiscal event before November. So they've got themselves into a bit of a hole but stand back more broadly. We don't need a fiscal event. You can just announce, you know, just like I did with pubs and whatever. I mean, when they do the U-turn, you just announce the U-turn and then you clear up the numbers at the later event. I mean, you made the point when we were talking about the spring statement. It was actually one of the biggest fiscal events. Anyway, because they were having to just account for previous U-turns. Well, if you were going to do it, the orderly time to have done it was last week. And that would have got them ahead of things rather than... He were there orderly. However, I just think, Rachel Reeves will be saying to the Prime Minister, whatever the political pressure, if you think that we can get away with another multi-billion-pound, you know,

42:4560, 80-billion-pound rise in borrowing to pay off for a one-off cap in bills, there will be turmoil. And we will be blown away. And precisely, as you say, because it is a labor government in that position, which is why what Kirstner and Rachel Reeves desperately need is for this conflict in the Middle East to be over and for energy prices to return to a more sensible place quickly. And the last thing they want is the bank of England that everybody else is assuming, thinks they're going to get worse before they have. Donald Trump has made it perfectly clear and is very unhelpful, truth to social posts, unhealthy for sitting in Downing Street. Kirstner is not caught the ear of the President when it comes to decisions on the longevity of this conflict. There's no... I mean, I'm trying to think of any kind of historical precedent. You might go back to Suez and Eisenhower publicly, and it lags off the British Prime Minister and the French President at the time. But obviously, a wholly different situation

43:45and a wholly different kind of president. The American President literally posting in public, sorry, Britain, we don't need your aircraft carrier. Thanks very much. We don't need people to join wars, we've already won. I can't think of anything like that. It is quite astonishing. Of course, it worked for Albert Aurelisi in Australia and it worked for Mark Carney. But the British relationship with America and the British intelligence were much more widely. It's so deep. This is obviously destabilizing. Hold on, the difference, sorry, the difference to figure out that is Mark Carney and Prime Minister Albert Aurelisi were not like getting an aircraft carrier ready to kind of join in the action or at least be present in the action. The point here is, although Kirstner didn't say it, it was clear that Britain was starting to send... and indeed has deployed some military forces. And so they've you open yourself up to the American President saying, we don't want you mate. But you have to be open to that with Donald Trump at all times. I mean, in terms of military capacity on the brown,

44:45Britain has done far more than Canada, Australia, Germany, or France in the build-up to this conflict to be there and ready. But of course, I'll get no credit for that. On the other hand, Kirstner. Is that true about France? I'm... France has actually got a quite significant naval flotilla going to try and help open up the Straits of Hormuz. And we've got one destroyer that's finally set self from Portsmouth. But I think the British capacity was already there and had already been put into place beforehand, not in terms of naval. I don't understand the situation in terms of ships at all. But in terms of wider capacity and support, I think Britain has done far more than France, as well as other NATO countries. That's as I understand it. But look, Kirstner will think to himself, the opinion polls were on my side and have moved in my direction. Labor voters, green voters, Lib Dem voters, all strongly supporting what I'm doing. Conservative voters split exactly equally between support for Kirstner and support for the Kemi-Badenock do more position. Reform supporters just supporting doing more.

45:47But Nigel Farage has now done a big U-turn and shifted, I mean, actually pushed into it last Sunday by Robert Generick on the Coonsburg show, saying, actually, we shouldn't be involved in these wars. And essentially, say, Nigel Farage was wrong to say we'll do whatever America wants, former shifted. So far, the politics has been moving in Kirstner's direction. Actually, we should just hear this as him responding to Ed Davey in PMQ's. The leader of the Conservatives has been competing with the Honourable Member for Clackton to be Donald Trump's biggest cheerleader. And the Prime Minister was right to reject their costly war mongering. He's right about the leader of the Opposition leader reform. Last week, they were urging us to join. This is serious. To join... If they had been leading the country, if they had been leading the country, we'd been a war, and they'd now come to Parliament and say, oh, order, order, order. Prime Minister.

46:47I mean, look, if there is a big energy price crisis this summer, it hits living standards and hits inflation, then that's very bad for Kirstner. But right now, the opinion polls and his confidence in PMQ's suggest to me that he thinks he's in the right place and Donald Trump attacking him in this way is not damaging him. No, I think I'm sure you're right. And we discussed it didn't we last week. The whole kind of legacy of the Iraq war and how that hangs over the left in British politics. Well, maybe the old British politics. And Kirstner is sort of doing the opposite of Tony Blair. Come on to former Prime Ministers and shortly, but he's rejecting the kind of Blair advice, if that's the right way to put it. You've got to be close to the Americans and he's taking the other view, which is you can say no. But you do pay a price in terms of Britain's ability to influence... Well, certainly, influence the United States and therefore probably global events.

47:47Last week, we talked about the induncan spith position and then the Michael Howard position. And can we be not started out as induncan spith? And do you wonder... Is she starting to move towards a bit more of a Michael Howard? Well, you know, I've got to be cautious about this. You're telling her, don't do that. Stay in the hard place. Continue to say I'm back in Donald Trump. It's all going to work out fine. And Kirstner has got it wrong. Well, I think as a leader of the opposition, at this point, particularly, I think we're still a couple years away from the election, you want to be kind of asking all sorts of questions or why ships aren't ready and why the evacuation flights aren't on time. And, you know, as he's spoken to the president about this, that the other. You don't necessarily want to kind of be out there as the kind of cheerleader in chief for the war, which is what induncan spith did at the time of the war. And by the way, I was someone who absolutely supported the conflict and voted for it as an MP at the time. And just don't think that's where a leader of the opposition wants to be at this point. And particularly as you have even less influence on events

48:48than the Prime Minister. But kind of, there's one observation I make, which is you would think this whole situation is tailor-made for the green party leader. I mean, we were just playing Ed Davy. But, you know, Zach Polanski has been making the weather. He's ahead in the polls over the other central left parties. He's just won that seat in Manchester. And this is, you know, a classic kind of anti-war territory and you could be addressing big rallies and so on. But he's sort of gone quiet because he's got his own ongoing saga, which is, you know, quite bizarre, which is before he was a green politician and green activist. He was actually a hypnotherapist who claimed that he could increase a woman's breast size through his hypnotherapy. And he said, in fact, he said on your show when you quizzed him about this back in September. I was misrepresented. I apologized a day later. And now, as of today, it's emerging that that's not the case. There was some sort of BBC undercover investigation to expose this.

49:49And this all kind of rumbles on. And, I mean, first of all, tells you quite a bit about Zach Polanski potentially and, you know, his past and so on. But also means the green party leader isn't as front and centre of this domestic rour about the Middle East at the moment. We did talk to him about this on a good morning Britain in the autumn. And on the one hand, I didn't think his explanation was compelling. On the other hand, I could see why he was an effective communicator. And he's carried on being quite an effective communicator ever since the barletcher result is the sign of that. But it is true that in the end, if you have these things in your past and you can't properly explain them, they never quite go away. And as Nigel Farage discovered, if you win barletchians and do better in the polls, you then have to answer all the difficult questions and you. And let's see, if Zach Polanski emerges from this new period of exposure and intensive scrutiny still strong, then, you know, he'll be doing well.

50:49But as you say, it's, he's still got a bit to prove. We're going to take a break and then we're going to carry on that conversation provoked by Tony Blair's intervention last week on Iran and ask him, what role should Prime Minister's play after they've stopped being Prime Minister in the public life of the nation and the world? Here's news from the ETF industry. As demand accelerates for ultrafast computing and advanced AI, I shares has introduced a new European ETF tracking the stock's global quantum computing index. The index identifies companies using a unique methodology, scanning patents, annual filings, and corporate disclosures to capture leaders in quantum innovation. Learn more at stocks.com slash quantum. That's stoxx.com slash quantum. Are you noticing your car insurance rate creep up even without tickets or claims?

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52:54by going to MySkylight.com slash Get30. Go to MySkylight.com slash Get30 for $30 off your 15-inch calendar. That is M-Y-S-K-Y-L-I-G-H-T dot com slash Get30. Welcome back. So a week ago, Tony Blair at what was supposed to be a private chat room house only event. I think for Jewish news where he was being interviewed by Robert Pest and your fellow band member, he said on stage at this event and then it subsequently leaked, like those chat mouse rules. He criticized Kirstama's approach to the Iran conflict. We've just been discussing that. He basically said Britain should be there when America needs us because when we need America, we need them to be there. He actually said we should have backed America from the very beginning. And I thought it was actually not a bad neat encapsulation of his entire Iraq war argument all these years later.

53:59But it kind of begged the question we were debating it where we were discussing what to do on the podcast about former Prime Ministers weighing in to current politics. So it kind of begs the question, what is the right and the wrong thing for a former British Prime Minister to do? And I think we've got more alive at the moment than we've had in my lifetime. Let's remind people of some of these interventions. We've got a little medley here. A majority of voters opted to leave the European Union. I believe then, as I do now, that was an historic mistake. And I've watched with growing concern as the British people have been led to expect a future that seems to be unreal and over optimistic. There are lots of people in Britain who are cheering President Trump on and he want him to see the BBC. No logical reason that I can see why we shouldn't send some peaceful ground forces there to show our support,

55:05our constitutional support for free independent Ukraine. Our belief is that the only long-term solution to growth, productivity and better public services is the full embrace of this technology revolution. Which prior to generative AI was already a revolution. And now I think you've got with generative AI, a revolution on top of the revolution existed. This is information that was 15 years old that is now becoming available to us. And it's remarkable that our checks and balances in the system have not found out about this before now. So is this all brand new? These voices from the past weighing in? There was a great piece by Rob Hutton in the House magazine a few years ago about this where he quoted Stanley Baldwin's promise when he stopped being Prime Minister in 1937. And Baldwin said, once I leave, I leave. I'm not going to speak to the man on the bridge and I'm not going to spit on the deck. And I think you can argue that Edward Heath stayed in the House of Commons for a long time in quite a silky way.

56:08It was called the Incredible Salk. But if you remember when Harold McMillan, former Prime Minister, Lord McMillan, criticized Margaret Thatcher on the economy in the 1980s from the Lords, it was like a big and unusual event, former Prime Minister criticizing Margaret Thatcher. And I don't really think that she did the same to John Major, because Harold Wilson had passed away. But Dennis Healy, Jim Calan, were much more cautious in the approach they took to their labour successes. And it has changed. I wonder whether John Major in the 2016 referendum wasn't the first to kind of go full frontal where we heard in that clip. And it's obviously caught on. I mean, it could be because all these Prime Ministers just think that their successes are just no good anymore. Although I bet you every Prime Minister in the last 200 years has thought that their successes weren't as good as they were. It could be, as you say, that there's a lot more of them and they're egging each other on. It could be that, like with Brexit or the pandemic, massive events, they feel they have to say something.

57:13It might also be because they're all younger. And they don't feel as though they want to retire. And they still think they've got something to offer. And therefore, you know, in pretty much every other job, if you look at you, George, you know, you have left big chance that you go on to do another job in around the world. It's harder to do that as Prime Minister. You have to have security. You've been in that job. Maybe if that happens to you younger, then you kind of want to stay involved. And so just to work at why it's happening so often, what do you think? Well, partly we live in a much more intrusive media rage. So you can't just sort of retire to your country estate or whatever, like former Prime Minister's used to. I think they're all slightly different, aren't they? I mean, I think John Major, first of the referendum, it was such a unique event. People were entitled to sort of come out of the retirement to make their view clear.

58:13It wasn't only a debate held between the active politicians at the time. And in fact, I would say one of the most important but under reported events, which I remember at the time, it's kind of screaming at the broadcasters about from inside Downing Street, was John Major and Tony Blair's joint visit to Northern Ireland, pointing out that Northern Ireland would be a big issue in Brexit, which was basically not covered at all during the referendum campaign. So I think the referendum campaign is somewhat different. And Gordon Brown did the same in 2014, didn't he? But again, that was quite an unusual thing for British Prime Minister to intervene in a... That was the Scottish amendment. And that was absolutely the invitation of the people like myself and David Cameron and Anastodoning were all involved in the kind of campaign. I think Tony Blair is, I think, a bit of a unique case because he's set up the Tony Blair Institute. We've had nothing like it in British politics, but war and we probably won't have again.

59:13And it's 1,000 people and it's influencing and advising all these governments all around the world. I guess I was a bit surprised that he went to send me public in his criticism of Kirstama. And he must have known what he was doing. I mean, if you say that even at the Chatham House event, I mean, he must have known there was a good chance that would appear in the newspapers and allow Kirstama and other ministers to say, we've learned the lessons from Iraq and you haven't... I don't know. I mean, it's an odd... I guess if you were doing it, why would you do it at a Jewish news event on Chatham House rules? I mean, you must have sort of thought... I mean, if you were going to make it public, you would think would have chosen a more obvious way to do it. And the other thing is, you know, it's not like he doesn't have routes into Downing Street. I mean, I don't know if Kirstama speaks to him at all. I mean, that's a good question. I don't know whether they ever speak. But, you know, people like Jonathan Powell, who we've been talking about on this program, he's the national security adviser and he was Tony Blair's chief of staff.

1:00:14So it's not as if Tony Blair doesn't have routes into that kind of current foreign policy establishment. I'm not... I guess I'm not... You pointed out Harold Millen's attack on Margaret Fatcher. Ted Heath was a constant thorn in Margaret Fatcher's side while she was leader. I just wonder if it's so new. I don't know. Maybe it's just the opportunities there because everyone can tweet, everyone can sort of self post and, you know, you do a private event. And the words can be immediately leaked. And, you know, it doesn't have to be a journalist in the room who breaks the gun or chat in the house rules. There's just any member of the audience can do it. I have an alternative theory, which links to the fact there's a lot of them around. And the fact they are younger, which is in politics for everybody. But especially if you're a Prime Minister, the question is, how will history see you? What will be the first line of your obituary? And if you have more years to influence and shape that after you've become Prime Minister,

1:01:14the temptation to try and change the narrative about you shifts. And if you think of, you know, kind of different people we've talked about. John Major, remembered for Black Wednesday, Gordon Brown remembered for the global financial crisis. Both of them, I would say, from a lower position have seen their reputation rise. And that's partly been because of the way they've conducted themselves. Gordon, kind of returning to the sort of old, kind of moral advocacy about women around the world and education. But also the two-child limit here in Britain, now more recently, Peter Mandelson. Tony Blair, on the other hand, starts from a much higher standing in the opinion polls when he leaves. And then that goes down a lot after he's Prime Minister, all because of Iraq and the Chilcot inquiry. And you have to see everything he's done there since the Tony Blair Institute intervening on the pandemic, trying to be part of the Middle East Board of Peace, all trying to shift the narrative about Tony Blair's place in history

1:02:16to kind of, to make it about something else or to try and change how people perceive Iraq. Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, not sure that they, I mean, they went out in a bad way. I'm not sure they've done anything to help themselves. Theresa May, she went out in a difficult way on the European Union negotiation. She hasn't chosen to intervene on Europe, but she has around violence against women, trafficking. She's been much more careful. Rishi Sunat, now writing a column in the Sunday Times, judicious in his interventions. I would say his standing is on the way up, rather than down. And then, of course, as David Cameron, he's the only one who's gone back into an active public service role within the British government as foreign secretary that he thought he came out of that well. But if you were to say to people at the moment, David Cameron, I think they would still say the guy who was Prime Minister took us out of the European Union by losing a referendum. And I'm not sure that anything has happened subsequently has changed that narrative and that place in history.

1:03:16But what you've got is a lot of former Prime Ministers all trying to reshape the narrative about them to varying degrees. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. You know, I very regularly say yes to programs which sort of look back at the years I was in government. They're not so about me or they'll be about the coalition time or the referendum or the... Because I think, you know, if you're not trying to defend what you did and explain what you did and trying to get people to understand what you did, you can't expect anyone else to do that on your behalf. I mean, I think it's a mistake not to comment on your time in office. That's not the same as commenting on what's going on now. Although, at this podcast, George, you were former Chancellor, me a former Cabinet Minister of Chancellor, we both comment on what happened back then and what is happening now. So we are... I mean, look, neither of us were Prime Minister. We don't spend our lives with security. We don't have the same position that a former Prime Minister has. But... Yeah, but I don't think there's... We do do this. I put it this way.

1:04:16I don't think you're interested in how the country has governed the big kind of policy issues of the day. It disappears the day you stop being the Prime Minister or indeed the day you stop being a Cabinet Minister. I wonder if what we do is we talk about what is happening should happen. And in a pro-politics way, try and talk about what is the right thing to do, rather than if all you do is X-Place Judgment popping up and saying, you got that wrong, maybe that's a bit negative. That's a risk we're going to sound a bit self-serving. I just... I draw the distinction. I think in all the Prime Ministers. I think there is a distinction. There are quite a lot of Prime Ministers. Some of them, you know, know really well. And I like and, you know, really admire your major. For example, personally, and he was the first person I worked for. But, you know, I think a lot of the Prime Ministers you're talking about are quite transitional figures who are not going to be big features of British history books in a hundred years' time. And... But one or two are big figures.

1:05:16And quite clearly Margaret Thatcher is. And you can certainly argue that Tony Blair is. And maybe not as big as Margaret Thatcher, but, you know, a big figure. And that's slightly different. I think the kind of noise around them their role after they leave is somewhat different to the kind of Prime Ministers who are a bit here to take on tomorrow. Very interesting. There was a tweet from John Renthal today. Folk Memory is a selected and cruel thing. And this is him saying, what each Prime Minister will be remembered for. The one thing they'll be remembered for. So Chamberlain, appeasement, Eden, Sueis, Wilson, the pound in your pocket, Ted Heath, three-day week, Margaret Thatcher, the Falklands, John Major, Black Wednesday, Tony Blair, Iraq, Gordon Brown, Flanchel Christ, David Cameron, EU referendum, Theresa May, Brexit, Deadlock. He says Boris Johnson got Brexit done. I think he might be remembered for a party gate, Liz Trust, Midi Budget. And then he then says, but Rishi Sunak.

1:06:16It's not clear what Rishi Sunak's one thing is. I'm not sure whether John White will be remembered for that. I don't think that's true. It is interesting. The deindustrialisation, I mean, you take the minus strike, wouldn't you? I think more than the Falklands, actually. Or maybe it's two things. It's Falklands and the minus strike. You can't have two in this game, you have to have one. Yeah, I would say she's much more important for her impact on Britain's domestic economy. I mean, Gordon Brown, we were remembered for being Chancellor in some ways. He's more as an e-ceneers, I've kind of partnered with. It's the sort of Blair Brown years, isn't it? That's probably right. And how about Rishi Sunak? I think he's been more remembered for being Chancellor during the pandemic. I think there was a moment when there kind of people, millions, tens of millions of people were like, oh my God, what is happening in our world and our country? You know, with all the best women of the world, they looked at Boris Johnson and wondered whether he knew what he was doing. And then they were enormously reassured that the guy next door did seem to know what he was doing. And for David Cameron, losing the EU referendum. Yeah, but I think David Cameron actually, you know, the very existence of a coalition

1:07:18will turn out potentially as our politics gets more complicated to have been a precursor of the world to come. Maybe, but not as big as losing the EU referendum. Really sorry, George. He should have listened to you. I've said this very many times. And Tony Blair, will it be the Middle East Board of Peace? Will it be pandemic vaccine advice? Will it be making money around the world? No, it's going to be the Iraq War. Yeah, a new Labour. Yeah, that's true. And keeping you laugh. Our first line. You're a bit tree. If you have a number 10. Every one of these. Yeah, well, I was never number 10. That's the point. I was in number 10 far more when Tony Blair was there than I ever was after it. So that is it for this week's podcast. Yeah, we're going to be back on Monday with X Ministers questions, where we answer your questions about the various political topics that you raise with us. If you can't wait till Monday, you can get our EMQs early and ad free by becoming a member of our kitchen cabinet or a gold subscriber.

1:08:23And if you join our kitchen cabinet, of course, you don't only get the ad free version of the EMQs, but also our main share. And you get a member's any chat. And you get the political currency mug. And you get our buy weekly news. That I mean, what an amazing bargain. Our next newsletter out on Monday. I'm going to be discussing Baron Noir when the cranes fly south and other kind of cultural moments. George will be talking about politics and what's changed between our podcast and the beginning of next week. Yes, which potentially has got a lot. So there are lots of things to read in that. And we're going to see you on Monday for EMQs. See you then. Thanks for listening to Political Currency. This has been a Pursufonica production. Craving the coffee flavor you love. But without the caffeine, Kachava's got you covered with their newest coffee flavor.

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