"Reeves' taxes will have us all weeping soon" | David Starkey Talks... to Liam Halligan

[Music] This is a woman who knows she's been found out. Our generation, those coming after us, will have to pay for the financial incontinence of people like Rachel Reeves. They may be weeping now.

The entire nation will be shedding tears. There is no one at the top of Labor now that understands financial markets. And whereas Reeves in a new Labor government would have been the left extreme of the people in the room when the decisions are made, she's now the standard bearer for fiscal prudence.

David Cameron, Theresa May, George Osborne, Ricky Sunnak, all of them bought into the Blair settlement. What the chief executive said is worth repeating. Any restoration uh right-wing government is going to face profound resistance from the Blair State.

Hello there. I'm Liam Halagan, the economist, journalist, and broadcaster. I'm delighted to welcome you to this edition of David Starky Talks.

Good to see you, David. Good to be with you. A pleasure.

So, David, surely the image of the week, if not the image of the month when it comes to politics or the year or the century indeed, is the sight of the chancellor of the exjecker crying in parliament. That's going to haunt Labour for a long time, isn't it? I think it also should haunt us as British people.

And I mean, how do we explain it? She came up with this nonsense clearly of, "Oh, it's a private matter. " I think it was something much more fundamental.

This is a woman, let's put it completely bluntly, who knows she's been found out. She actually knows she represents a supposed economic policy, an economic, in fact, an economic theory which was lies. And she's at the heart of a government which even with a majority of 165 can't govern.

You you began you, dare I say, Liam, you almost sounded like Rachel Reeves, economist, journalist. You say the right things, David. Yeah.

I I I I expected to hear you'd been at the Bank of England. You know, I was about to prostrate myself. But she of course famously lied at every st Let's call Shall we start calling things by their proper names?

This woman lied at every stage of her CV. Every single thing she said was a bit, you know, a bit like Reynolds, the business secretary. Everything is just that little bit detached from claimed to be a solicitor when he was actually a trainee solicitor.

I mean an uncompleted trainee and I'm going to I'm going to give you a little test. Do you remember the mace lecture the Mis lecture of last year of last March? No, because she said almost nothing.

I remember reading it and contrasting it with Nigel Lawson's brilliant maze lecture of the mid 80s which were literally moldbreaking ering revolutionizing macroeconomics. This is somebody just pumping out softleft PPE nostrms. Yes, but careful.

She claimed and she was believed by most of the commentariat to be advancing what she thought was an economic theory that on the one hand reckoned with this wonderful thing called economic stabilization and on the other vast investment in the public sector. And you remember she called it securomics. And the idea was that you could spend and should spend on climate change mitigation on um EV on uh the whole business of of windmills on roads on hospitals or the entire public sector.

And do you know what mysteriously this would bring about economic growth? It was if you remember it's called new supply side economics. It's this this extraordinary fixation with a particular kind of democrat policy.

The most recent expression of it being the so-called biodnomics of Janet Yellen. So you get it's the equivalent of a new new deal. It's a new deal in theory uh based around uh the mitigation of climate change.

So you know you you you get renewables and vast investment in infrastructure. It's just oldfashioned Keynesianism. It's you know it's a new form as as Kain said of paying people to dig a hole in the ground and then fill it up again.

Um, and any economic benefits are accidental. It sort of worked in America for a simple reason. But the Biden government could and did borrow vast amounts of money.

And and I don't know whether you remember the only really sharp comment and I'm afraid I didn't read yours on the May lecture was from Jason Cowie. And what he said was he came up with this wonderful phrase. It's bonomics without the bucks.

And we we are now in the in the very simple position that the Labor Party is really this the Labor Party is the party of the public sector. It sold itself this bizarre notion that if you pour money into the NHS, pour money into the nationalized railways, pour money uh into the various fantastical schemes uh that that that Ed Milliband is running around with. Mysteriously growth will happen.

We all know, of course, it won't because they've got to increase taxation and they've chosen to increase the very worst kind of taxation, taxation directly on jobs. I agree with you, David, the the sort of soft labor left's fixation with America. Gordon Brown had it.

He famously used to go to, you know, Martha's Vineyard every uh summer, get his fix from the Harvard Kennedy School um form of economics. you know, plenty of copies of JK Galith's works um doed in downstairs toilets across uh the the sort of brown brownite wing of New Labor. But of course, New Labor also had the Blairite wing.

And the Blairite wing would always make sure there were serious people in the room who people who understood financial markets when big decisions were made. People that countered Brown's big state uh Clyde side instincts. People like the late Derek Scott, uh former city economist, big and new labor, Gavin Davies, Goldman Sachs, uh partner, you big into financial markets.

There is no one at the top of Labor now that understands financial markets. And whereas whereas Reeves, you know, the the big state descendant of Brown in a new Labor government, a Blairite government would have been, you know, the the left extreme of the people in the room when the decisions are made. She's now the standard bearer for fiscal prudence, even though her instincts are just as statist as Brown's.

And another difference, David, is that when Brown came in to number 11, national debt was less than 40% of GDP. The really important difference is that the government, this government succeeded to a Tory government that had failed to a Tory government that had failed because it continued Brownite policies which have ruined our public finances. The reason, I mean, you can tell me all about those so-called realistic economists um under Blair.

The real truth was they simply inherited what that has done and they gradually eroded it. I mean the great changing point the moment at which everything goes wrong and here you you are the economist is 2008. It's the financial crisis.

I think we unlike any other major economy have never recovered from that. The what happened is what happened to the city of London at that point. the the intro the of course again the complete brownite reaction to it was we we got into the mess because we took risks therefore we shouldn't take any more risks you create the whole structure of the FCA one of these central quangos that is such an extraordinary feature of the blerite state and it has slowly throttled the city of London and the city of London was as we all know the great Milch cow of New labor, the famous remark of Peter Mandlesson.

By the way, can I tell you as we're being terribly serious, my latest Peter Mandlesson's story, I met Peter, whom I know a little bit, the literally a few hours before he caught the plane to DC and his elegant um his his his elegant Lutian's residence uh um up there. Um and do you know what he was doing and where I saw him? God.

God. It was in the Burlington Arcade practically bent double under expensive shopping bags, you know, illust illustrating the I mean, he was more or less crawling on the ground with the way whether they were bribes, whether they were ornaments for the bathroom or whatever. I'm not sure.

But anyway, the gross excess uh uh of of of new labor uh which was powered on the basis of Thatcherism that has just slowly died. It's been squeezed out of the economy. So what we can now see is the Labor Party has a sing the Labor Party as it is now has got a single purpose which is to squeeze money out of the protective se out of the out of the private sector to put into the hands of its client welfare class.

Isn't that that's all it is? We're now in the realms though of what Keith Joseph um called a situation where the rider is heavier than the horse where the public sector is actually now outstripping the size of the private sector is crowding out investment in the the the the private sector and no instinct in Rachel Reeves's body um unlike the Blairites um would would acknowledge that there might be something called a lapper curve and I think we're beyond the peak of the Laffer curve. So in other words, increasing taxation is not actually going to increase revenue.

Let me just go back to that wonderful image that you produced from Keith Joseph of the rider being bigger than the horse. Do you know what? There's a very famous French cartoon of the period just before the French Revolution which asks the question what does the third estate that's the ordinary people do and it shows the nobles the church the bureaucracy the nobles de la ro all piled on top of this poor peasant crushed under the weight we've now got a state I think which is just as parasitic as the ensean regime of the French monarchy but the key thing I Think the the key point that I want to explore, you know, I'm pushing this idea that we need the great repeal, the undoing of the legal and constitutional uh and institutional framework of the Blair State.

I think that is very much also Gordon Brown's creation. He was determined to create a state structure that locked the left in that locked leftist politics in policies and politics and politicians in permanently. And the way that he decided to do it electorally was by this permanent growth in the welfare state.

Millions on benefits that shouldn't be anywhere near benefits. I mean the the astonishing fact that you know was actually the idiots campaigning to preserve the personal independence payment. Do you remember they actually came up with a series of statistics, listen everybody, that in 200 Labor constituencies, 200 where Labor MPs had won the seat, the number of people in receipt of PIP is bigger than the Labor majority.

You know, more than half households now depend on the state. In other words, they're net recipients from tax. That's client democracy.

You're you're creating voters dependent on state laress social democracy. This is this is the catastrophe. But it's also the result of a conservative party that connived a conservative party that took an an equally contemptuous attitude towards this thing called property.

It what what I'm trying to do and I'm sure what you're trying to do is we've got to begin we've got to take that Keith Joseph. It's so so good you mentioned that Keith Joseph was the person who back the last time the last time we were in this position was in the 1970s. We're manifestly going through a quick action replay of the 1970s.

It's Keith Joseph in 1974 who recognizes that that wonderful phrase in that essay, I called myself a conservative, but I hadn't been a conservative. I've been a member of a conservative government that done nothing conservative. That of course would describe David Cameron to Raza May George Osborne Ricky Sunnak all of them were bought into the Blairite settlement and they actually extended it and they entrenched it.

I mean I think you'll probably be able to correct me. Um I think it's Theresa May who extends uh disability payments to the mentally ill. In other words, that puts unfortunately with the very active support of the now Prince of Wales.

Yeah. This fashion for medicalizing the problems of life. You know, the the idea that human rights include the right to be happy, to be to be to be to be to be in a state of permanent euphoria, to have no problems at all.

And if you have them, there's either the state is responsible or your mental health is responsible, which the state is responsible for again because there's an NHS. And we're in this extraordinary interlocked series of problems which are administrative, which are legal, which are political, which are financial. And I think you can see the the British state, you can see the private sector, you can see active, responsible citizens.

It's like the tale of Guliver and Lilyut. You've got this giant tied down with all of these knots of regulation, of control, of legal intervention, of the insanity that judges set wages, the the fact that judges control economic policy, judges control the extraction of oil, judges control the fracking. It's a completely mad world.

But what I'm enjoying, we began with Rachel's tears. I responded with tears of laughter. Because what we're now seeing is I think it's the last days of this Blair Wright settlement.

Not even the party that created it can manage it. It won't be lost on you as a historian, but it strikes me that um you both main parties have forgotten what they're for. So the reason the Blairites prevailed in the late 90s and I was heavily involved.

I was a political correspondent for the FT talking to them all the all the time is because that generation they remembered 1976 you know Gavin Davies Derek Scott the people I'm talking about they were knocking about in the mid70s as young advisers to to to Wilson and and and Callahan and and and and and Dennis Healey and so they knew the horror they knew the public remembered that Labour messed up the economy big time and sent us capping hands the International Monetary Fund Labor today's Labor Party, they've forgotten that or if they remember it, they don't care. They think you can just print money. There's just insane ideology going around.

I mean, you know, I've had endless conversations with Labour front benches over recent years as they've tried to convince me we can just print money. How do you eat for the people? Quantitative eating for the people.

Utter utter madness. And just as Labour have forgotten that they need to banish the ghosts of the 1970s, the Tories have forgotten that it's their historic role to be grown up and make difficult decisions. And I think the rot started, I hate to pin it on one person, but yeah.

Well, it was H. Cameron being determined to keep all his posh mates happy um by hugging hoodies uh and all all hugging huskys and all the rest of it. But it goes back to Theresa May saying, "We are the nasty.

" That's right. The Tory party needs to be the nasty party. The Tory party needs to be the party that says, "We can't afford it.

" It needs to be the party that says, "Wouldn't it be nice if But what I think is so terri what I think is so terrifying, Liam, is looking at the reaction of the tries, for example, to the cut in the winter fuel allowance. The winter fuel allowance is the most outrageous scam, and I speak as a receiver of it. It was done again free television licenses for the elder.

These were all the Gordon Brown tricks designed to suck everybody into the welfare system and therefore everybody on the grounds that we hate giving up anything that we have would be committed to the full and everexpanding role of the welfare state. Somebody has got to start to say no. And what I find terrifying is that the conservatives even under Benong only saying half no.

They they ranted and uh in in defense of the winter fuel allowance and unfortunately reform is going down the deadly path of trying to outflank labor on the left. And and this this seems to me to be insane. There is no point uh in in that sort of populism.

What I think the the real risk is that that that Farage could actually if he continues with that and I hope he won't and I know there's some very much wiser people uh around him and trying to formulate policy but if he continues in that direction there's a real risk he will be the Brit the English Peron the British Peron and we are very near to a Peron state and if you if you get uh the whole as it were it's almost blue labor, isn't it? If you get faith, flag, and family combined with these radical redistributionist policies uh through heavy taxation and large-scale welfare, it is the Peron mixture which you know is taken mele has taken literally uh the chainsaw to begin to break down. And I am terrified of that because I think the the great risk is we saw with the Blair State the terrible terrible risk of thinking you can just reinvent the wheel.

The the the the whole determination to impose a European style social democracy on Britain on the ancient constitution of Britain. Um and the I think the the the terrible risk is that that that we will have reform coming in and repeating that kind of exercise of of reckless demolition, reckless pandering to innovation. And I think frankly that would be terminal.

I mean there is a famous Adam Smith phrase there is a lot of ruin in a nation. But dear me, if we have had the government of uh the the the the new labor government, we have the Cameron the Cameroon Tory government and then the the current appalling uh Starite government to be followed by a reform which espouses similar policies. I mean what would you predict?

I I I think there is a danger that Nigel goes down that big state route. He feels there are some votes there. In general though, I I think his instincts are small state.

I I know the guy he used to be pretty well. Richard Ty, who is a very influential person, not to be underestimated as a sort of intellectual thought leader. Um I recently interviewed Richard Ty for my YouTube channel when the facts change.

And let me say, David, you know, I've interviewed most of the serious politicians of our age in this country, and he is, you know, low bar admittedly, uh, but he is well up there with the most economically literate frontline politicians I've ever interviewed. He's a very bright guy, uh, when it comes to the economy. And I think Nigel trusts him on the economy.

And I've no doubt that Richard Ty's instincts are very much small state as the businessman that he is, Zia Yousef as well. other people knocking around at the top of the problem is they're not they're not saying this they're not saying this because they're enjoying labor melting and also I think you know their two child benefit uh cap um easing of that cap I think they're soon going to make that contingent on other characteristics I mean what the the idea that they have been pursuing is it would be only available to people who were uh in employment in other words you would not get it if you were unemployed now how that how that will be administered is another question. It's difficult, but it's it it's interesting the way they're using it.

For for me, the Tories need to be unequivocally grown up, even if it means they take a bit of a hit within their own party because of course a lot of their parliamentary party are actually live dems. They're not Tories at all. And my concern, David, and I say this with trepidation, and I'm not a bloke in a sandwich board, and I'm certainly not spreading woe for the sake of it, only a major financial crisis is going to move the needle now.

Only a major fiscal uh meltdown is going to make our thick as mint politicians and journalists understand what they are dealing with when people like me go on about the 10-year guilt yield. Endless. It's exactly the point that I was going to say that the 1970s were conditional or rather the revulsion from the 1970s.

You use the Keynesian phrase uh when facts change what changed the facts what changed the opinions was the experience of the 1970s. It was the summoning of the IMF and it was of course the winter of discontent. And we already have the makings of the winter of discontent in the NHS.

The ludicrous demand for 35% pay increases. That's exactly going back to the insanity um of the 1970s. But I was having a conversation about this yesterday with my friend Mark Littlewood and he pointed out that our position now is infinitely worse than it was in 1976.

And he was pointing out that in 1976 when the IMF intervened they were able to as it were solve the problem of Britain with about 10% of their reserves. If you look at the kind of crisis which are facing now it would take something over 50% of the reserves that the IMF is able to muster. Now that's politically impossible.

we may actually find ourselves and I think it's very likely we will with a financial crisis which is very very much worse than 1976 uh in which the IMF may not actually be able to solve it or certainly not solve it by a quick and easy intervention and in those circumstances were Greece aren't we well those circumstances you know we're talking about a new Bretton Woods David we're talking about a whole recasting of the geopolitical economic structures that have been in place for you know with respect all your lifetime and mine uh if if if America is faced with um you know a Europe that's completely imploded financially and that is not beyond the realms of possibility and the Americans you know so stretched their balance sheet is so stretched um then you're going to have a situation where we're going to the bricks the brick economies have more reserves than than the western world they have over half of global GDP they have you thousands of tons of gold. They have most of the tangible assets that we need. You know, uh that is going to we are going to, you know, Rachel Reeves and her economically illiterate ilk are basically going to drive not just the UK economy off a cliff.

They are going to they are going to recast at pace to use a whiteall word, the whole post-war global economic center. collapsing anyway. In in a way it they will accelerate and accentuate the the the the the great shift of power which is the biggest story of our lifetimes from west to east.

They will be the standardbearers for western defeatism and mediocrity. And they will do it because just like the Roman Empire collapsed um uh because of debt, they will do it because of debt. The parallels with Rome are even closer.

The the the key episode in the decline of Rome is something that is so reminiscent of now. It is the decision of the emperor Caracala in 260 to double the wages of the Roman army. It's exactly exactly what happens now.

It's exactly what's happening in the public sector. It's exactly what's happening in the NHS. Um but what what again I would like to bring home to people is back uh back a decade ago with the with the financial collapses in Ireland and in Greece.

What actually was visited upon people? Every person in the public sector had a largecale cut in salary. I gather it was up to 20% or even higher in cases.

Everybody in receipt of welfare had a major cut. bank accounts. If I remember correctly, they literally took money out of your bank account.

Can everybody just think about that? Forced salary cuts, forced welfare cuts, effective confiscation of financial assets. If we do not do something about this on our own, others will do it for us.

And it will be of a degree of pain, of humiliation, and of national defeat, which will be of the same scale as defeat in a major war. Britain uniquely has avoided defeat in major war for centuries. We have never experienced that shattering effect of defeat.

We've never experienced reparations. This will be the equivalent of real reparations. We, our generation, those coming after us will have to pay for the financial incontinents of people like Rachel Reeves.

They may be weeping now. The entire nation will be shedding tears then. We've got to understand this.

And we need a political party and we need political leaders that have got the confidence to say this and the confidence to do Liam. I loved it when you said right at the beginning. The right is the party of realism.

It's the party of facts. As Thatcher said herself, the facts of life are conservative. The problem is that with Cameron wanting to flirt with the Liberals, with Theresa May wanting to do her weeping, another one who cried, you remember that shameful performance she put when she when she resigned as prime minister.

not not not the magnificent triumph for Thatcher in her final uh final PMQs, but that kind of wimpy recognition of self-defeat and failure. Um but but it it has been throughout the the fact that the conservative party has pandered to liberalism going right back to the 19th century the great the second great founder of the conservative party first Robert Peele the second uh Benjamin Dreli Dreli understands that the enemy is liberalism the enemy is this softness of mind what should be badnock do you're you're a serious guy you've got a big profile if if you say something she's certainly going listen to you. She may not do what you say, but what's your pitch to her for the next 6 months?

Well, if I were being honest, I'd say the first thing she should do was resign. But and assuming that she doesn't take that advice, which I think is unlikely, she has got to go to the C. She's she's got to first of all explain why the Conservative Party got it so shatteringly wrong for 14 years.

You can't just say, "Oh, sorry. Oh, we kind of got it wrong. You've got to say why we got it wrong.

And we got it wrong because we followed in the footsteps of Blair and Brown. We went wrong from the very beginning. The moment Cameron said, "I am the heir to Blair.

" The moment you get Michael Gove, with whom I'm due to have lunch shortly, that's going to be a very interesting experience. the moment the moment Michael Gove says um and do you know that extraordinary story which well I'll find out whether it's true or not that he passed round at the cabinet table copies of Blair's memoirs with sticks in it how to do it Blair as the new Machavelli that was the insanity that was the insanity and you look at every stage that not simply didn't we reverse didn't the conservatives reverse they actually make it worse I mean the the the the peak horrors are in I think 2014 and and 2015. I mean in 2014 uh in in the last days of the coalition government you get the extraordinary business of the creation of the college of policing and non-rime hate incidents.

The in a party that was the party of the constitution a party that's the party of common law to do to invent a thing which is purely Orwellian. I mean the the again the bizarness of language a non-crime incident that's treated as something that goes onto your the madness of that and then 2015 with Theresa May the catastrophe of legislating net zero and they spend less time on that than on the even even they managed to spend on on on the debating of of the effective repeal uh as far as women are concerned of abortion legislation. It was a few minutes.

This this fact that has given the entire control over our uh over our fuel extraction policy and pretty well everything else to wholly unqualified judges. And the big thing you've got to say is we followed in the footsteps of Labor. But what you've then got to do, Leon, is you've got to translate that from those nice big phrases into concrete proposals.

You've got to say we are going to undo. You were mentioning Thatcher, the glory of Thatcher. Right from the beginning with Jeffrey How uh with Thatcher herself, you undid what Labor had done.

You change that first budget radically changes economic and tax policy. The Tibet employment legislation as well. You repeal the trade union legislation.

You you you you begin the the enormous fire sale of council houses. You you you you sell off the nationalized utilities. I mean, does does everybody realize we even had a nationalized travel agency?

Total total total madness. But but the conservatives have got to say, "We will undo. We will undo this.

We will also make a and I think again has got to have that sense of what Thatcher did. The manifesto of 1979 is an astonishing piece of work. It's really well written, which is very unusual for a political document, but it doesn't tie itself to specific policy, but what it does, it commits itself to a direction, a confident direction.

And that's what she's got to do. She hasn't done that yet. She's too worried about upsetting the Lib Dems in her parliamentary party.

I think she needs to have a rail with the Lib Dems in her parliamentary party. It will be wonderful. But can I can I just tell you the the the key thing to understand about Thatcher?

Thatcher did not, despite all the problems with the wets, That Thatcher didn't need to do that because she had the immense luck of Ted Heath throwing his gigantic sulk. That huge that huge, you know, decadesl long sulk made clear that there've been a radical break in the history of the Conservative Party. I mean, what I would do, I would withdraw, and I'm really being really serious.

I would withdraw the whit from Cameron Osborne and and Theresa May. That would be that would be the signal the sort of symbolism of that which is which is exactly of course what Boris did on a smaller scale and it actually worked at that moment. The only way you will get rid of this terrible taint of opposition is if you have that absolute clarity in cutting it off.

David, fabulous discussion. Um really enjoyed talking to you. Just to round off, let's talk about something else that caught both our respective eyes this week in Warikshshire.

You have a reform le council, of course, one of the 11 odd councils that reform uh took over incredibly after the local elections. And you've apparently got bulshy local civil servants refusing to take down the pride. Oh, give them their proper title, chief executive on god knows how many hundred thousand a year.

Yes. Should we be worried about this or should reform really make an example of these people? I think both we should be very worried about and an example should be made but equally what the chief executive said is is worth repeating if there is a specific ruling of the council in other words if there's a formal motion in the council she would accept it what she would not do was to accept simply the equivalent of an executive order from a newly appointed leader of the council and but what I think that underscores Liam is that we are going to face if we can use the we any reform any reformist or re I want to use the word restoration any restoration uh right-wing government or coalition government is going to face profound resistance from the Blairite state because the Blairites control the whole structure of our government the quangos the civil service the the officers of the armed forces of the police the lot and there is going to need to be the same kind of extraordinary preparation for government the idea Again, it was tested to destruction.

The terrible problem of List Trust was she went into Downing Street thinking that civil servants who disapproved of everything she wanted to do or the Bank of England that did would simply obey her instructions rather than do everything they could to undercut her. So, there's got to be the sort of serious preparation for government that made the enormous difference between Donald Trump's second term and his first term. In and between those two, Donald Trump didn't simply sulk.

There was an enormous effort of genuine preparation. Trump had no idea what he was doing in the first term. He was completely all over the place.

He was a catastrophic cabinet appointments. If you remember that extraordinary moment this time round after he's inaugurated, he's sworn on the Bible. God knows what Donald Trump's oath is worth.

I mean probably he's a he's probably auctioned it so he's he'll he'll have found out he he takes the oath in front of Chief Justice Roberts in the ratunda and he then goes a few hundred yards to the white house he sits down at the desk which in interestingly enough has given the name to the reform adjacent think tank resolute 1850 he sits down at that desk which is the the the gift of Queen Victoria to the American presidency and what is there there's Steven Miller who's been working his socks off. This brutal efficient lawyer working his socks off and there's a pile of executive orders literally that is more than two feet high and he signs it and there's this great again Trump know Trump understands the monarchical principle the British prime minister is supposed to be able to do this. The British prime minister in theory has vastly greater powers than an American president.

He can wield the whole powers of the monarchy if he can command parliament as we've seen a a prime minister like our current one who is contemptuous of politics. Can you imagine a prime minister who says he doesn't believe in politics? The insanity of the thing he chooses Davos over Westminster.

That's right. Well, Westminster has taken its revenge and Davos will not protect him. But what what Trump was able to do, what we've got to be able to do, we have to be prepared.

There has to be that careful drafting of the legislation that will undo the catastrophe of the Blairite settlement. There's got to be an understanding of how you head off the immediate resistance from the overweening law from the overweening Supreme Court because again the one of the terrible features of the Blair settlement lawyers now think they're on top of Parliament. The extraordinary decision of the Supreme Court to rule pruggation illegal.

So what I think we can see in that that strange little incident, you know, in in the the heart of England in Wararchshire is a premonition of what's going to happen, but it's also a very clear indication of what we've got to do to head it off. We've to adopt that old if is one allowed to talk about Boy Scouts anymore or am I immediately going to be called a nons? But that old motto of the Boy Scouts, be prepared.

We've got to be prepared. We've got to be ready. We And again, you can see this with this government.

This government had no preparation for power. It had no understanding. We've got to work.

We've government isn't just swanning around. Government is just again, we've had political parties going under the influence of Oxford PPE, terrible people like Daniel Finkelstein. Oh, you just win an election.

You tweak the elector. You lie a little bit to them. You have a Mingva strategy, but then you find yourself in a position which we are now.

A government of a majority of 165 can't govern because they're not prepared. They've not thought through. They've not confronted reality.

What we've got to do, our great task on the right from this point is to do that hard work, that preparation, but also what you and I are engaged in, which is a task of conversion. I call it evangelizing. We've got to preach a new gospel, a new gospel of reality.

David Starky, it's been great to join you on this episode of David Starky Talks. Thank you.