TRIGGERnometry - My 49 Days as Prime Minister - Liz Truss

Episode Date: May 5, 2024

Buy gold and earn interest on it! https://monetary-metals.com/triggernometry/ Go to www.CozyEarth.com and enter promo code TRIGGERNOMETRY at checkout for up to 35% off. Liz Truss is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 6th September to 25th October 2022. The member of Parliament for South West Norfolk since 2010, Truss previously held various Cabinet positions under three prime ministers—David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson—lastly as foreign secretary from 2021 to 2022. Her recent book, Ten Years to Save the West, has become a best-seller and is available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/178590857X Join our Premium Membership for early access, extended and ad-free content: https://triggernometry.supercast.com OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube: @xentricapc Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/#mailinglist Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I faced really, really quite strong forces pushing against my agenda. We have a situation in Britain where we have a very powerful economic establishment that has a particular set of views. It did not like to be challenged. And what I did was challenge those views. Looking back at your time and power, what would you change? I think the biggest thing I could have changed is whether I ran in the leadership election. Looking at the Conservative Party now, I mean, And to put it bluntly, they're in pretty dire straits, aren't they?

Well, the polls are not good. Listrust, thank you for coming on the show. You haven't given many interviews since leaving Downing Street, so we're delighted to have you. Let's get to it. I mean, what happened? We don't do much warm up here, which is getting hit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what happened?

Well, looking back on 2022, I would. I was frustrated about the direction of the country, the direction of the Conservative Party. I decided that I had to run in the leadership election because I believed we needed more conservative policies, frankly. Lower taxes, smaller government, we needed to get the economy growing. And it wasn't really anybody else putting that case forward. And I'd been spending quite a lot of time putting that case forward. As a member of the government, you can argue your corner. But the general trajectory, I know that was partly because of COVID,

it was partly because of the war in Ukraine, had been towards higher taxes, higher spending, more intervention. And I thought we needed a change. And I very much believe that's what people in Britain voted for. They've dated for that in 2016. They vated for that in 2019. And I wanted to deliver that. And I knew at the time that it would be difficult.

I knew that I wasn't going with the grain of what people, or particularly the sort of broader elite and intelligentsia in Britain thought. But I thought it was the right thing to do, so I put myself forward. And what happened? I write about this at length in my book, 10 years to save the West. which goes through exactly what happened. But essentially, I faced really, really quite strong forces pushing against my agenda.

And ultimately, those forces were able to stop it happening. We're going to get into the forces, because I think that's a very interesting conversation that we've had with previous politicians on the show. So La Bravaman was sitting in your chair only a month ago, basically saying she couldn't do anything for the same reasons that you were giving, actually, in many ways. But the first thing I want to get into is this idea of smaller government and lower taxes.

That got Margaret Thatcher elected and re-elected numerous times in this country within living memory. But now that seems to be unsellable. I'm not sure if it's true that it got her elected. I think what got her elected was the winter of discontent. It was the fact that things had got so bad that people were saying, we need change. And she offered a coherent vision of change, but she offered that off the back of it was clear that Britain wasn't working, that our industry was doing badly, that our economy was doing badly. And she had an alternative. And I think we've lost those lessons. So all the hard work that was done, getting Britain on track, getting our economy on track, making the private sector successful has gradually been undone over time. And people don't always learn the lessons of history, and I think people have forgotten what it was that transformed Britain and therefore what we need to do.

So, yes, those ideas have become unfashionable, even though they're right. It's true. Liz, you say forces at play. What does that mean? So what I mean by that is, first of all, I mean sort of general political and unethical. ideological forces. Constantine was just talking about how it's not fashionable to believe in supply-side economics. It's not fashionable to believe in monetarism. Those ideas that were shown to be correct in the 80s have been superseded. They've become, they're no longer fashionable in our universities. They're no longer talked about free market economics and profit. It has become something that is not popularly talked about.

So I think that was one issue that the general tide was not pointing in that direction. But the second thing, and when I say forces, I mean people who are part of the bureaucracy, part of the government administrative state, did not support those policies, and in some cases made it harder for those policies to be delivered. So I think there was a general problem about the intellectual tied, the ability of conservatives to make arguments. But, you know, we have a situation in Britain where we have a very powerful economic establishment

that has a particular set of views and did not like to be challenged. And what I did was challenge those views. And so was it also the civil service as well? And do you include them in the bureaucracy? Yes, yes. So the bureaucracy is... Of course, it's the civil service itself, but it's also the, what I call the quangocracy.

So, organisations like the Office of Budget Responsibilities, part of the quangocracy, the Bank of England is essentially part of the quangocracy. And what do I mean by that? I mean, organisations that are not directly, democratically accountable, organisations that are appointed to have independent expertise. That's what I'm talking about. Whenever we talk to people, and you're not the first person to say this, I keep thinking the same thing, which is, do we really have a democracy in that case?

Because we elect leaders to enact certain policies. If those policies can't be enacted because the powers that be, the forces, quote, unquote, refuse to let them be enacted. I mean, do we have a democracy? Really? Well, it's not democratic enough. There's no doubt about that, in my view. But that's a very, very serious problem because... It is a serious problem.

It's an absolutely serious problem. And, you know, the other side of this argument will talk about things like institutions. They'll talk about, you know, tram lines that politicians should be operating in. But what they fundamentally mean is that politicians need checks and balances against enacting things that are democratically decided. And what we've seen, and not just in Britain, right across the free world, is we've seen a growth in the power of unelective bodies. There's no doubt in my mind.

And it's not just the Office of Budget Responsibility or the Bank of England. It's also the Environment Agency. It's the Climate Change Committee. It's people who are not democratically accountable are effectively making decisions. And I think that's a problem. I don't think it's democratic. It's a massive problem.

And I think as an ordinary person looking at this, which I am, I'm going, I didn't vote for the civil service. I didn't vote for the OBR. I didn't vote for the Bank of England. I didn't vote for the environmental agency. So at the same time, I'm also thinking, well, the Conservative government has been a powerful, 14 years, surely they would have been aware of all of this.

Why haven't they done anything? I don't say it. Well, so I first got elected in 2010. And when you get elected as an MP, you assume a lot of things about the level of power and influence you're going to have. And those are not always true. And, you know, I became a minister in 2012. I was a junior minister. I found it frustrating.

that was difficult to get things done, but I assumed it was because I was junior in the organisation that if I was a Secretary of State, it would be easier to get things done. And as a Secretary of State, I was able to do some things, but it was still the case. It was hardgoing.

It was hardgoing implementing conservative policies when that was not the broad view of the system. Can you give an example, sorry to interrupt this, could you give an example where you had a policy that you wanted to be enacted, and then for whatever reason, it was scuppered, all diluted down to the point where it was simply unrecognizable. So the first job I had was in the education department,

and I wanted to deregulate childcare to make it cheaper. We've got some of the most cumbersome childcare rules in the world, and we've got some of the most expensive childcare. So I wanted to change that. And what you find is that no one ever says no, we're not going to implement the policy. What they do is they take a long time about it. It's sometimes called consent and evade. So just a yes, minister, we'll go and look at that.

We need to do a bit more work on this, blah, blah, blah. So what you'll find is it takes a long time to do things. And often the civil servants in the department will be in touch with the so-called sector, which is generally the vested interest within which other area are talking about, whether it's environmental NGOs or the nursery sector or whatever. And you find yourself ending up having to compromise to get things done quicker. This is also true of things like appointments as well. But you'll have to compromise to get things done quicker.

You'll find there's a lot of opposition from the sector. or the organisation you're dealing with. So in the case of the childcare reforms I wanted to do, before I even got them out, I'd had to make quite a lot of compromises, so they weren't as good as what I would have wanted to do and what I think is right, making them more like the system in France, for example,

which is actually better than the system in Britain. So it's hard to describe the process, but it's all very long-winded, you know, driven by endless layers of people having to look at things. So it just takes a long time. And then by the time I'd finally got the policy out, Nick Clegg had been so lobbied by the childcare sector and by Mumsnet that he blocked the policy. And therefore, a policy which would have made lives better for families across Britain would have given them more flexibility. didn't happen.

So that's the kind of thing that happens on each policy you were looking at. Or a lot of the things we're talking about, take the Environment Agency, for example, in order to override the decisions that organisation makes or to change the way the organisation works, you need primary legislation.

So that will take you two years to get a bill for, through. You've got to get the bill approved in advance before you even get to the stage of primary legislation. So unless you are absolutely focused on one thing and absolutely determined to drive it through and prepared to spend a lot of time, it is very difficult to make things happen. And unfortunately, a system has been created where you're operating in that sort of constant, constant sort of confinement, if that makes sense. I mean, so. Sounds like a straight jacket to me.

Well, basically, yes. So as Environment Secretary, I was in, you know, the department was in court constantly. So we were in court with the Badger Trust. We were in court with the climate change, the sort of clean air campaign. There's all sorts of environmental bodies would be suing us all the time. So it's not just that there are civil servants. with a particular worldview, and by the way, there are, it's also that they are understandably very frowned of being sued.

And the sort of powers of judicial review allow that to happen. So you've got a system that's constantly looking, covering its back, looking at what bad things might happen, therefore making it very, very difficult to push a positive policy forward. So reading between the lines then and coming back, back to your own story, you're a junior minister, you struggle to get too much done even though you try, you think, well, I better become a senior minister. You struggle to get as much done as you'd like, so you're like, I better become prime minister. And then you

get into 10 down the street and I'm guessing it's probably the biggest straight jacket of all. Is that fair? That's a fair point. Yeah. And you discover because, you know, I sat there in governments under David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, thinking, you know, why doesn't the Prime Minister do this? You know, why can't we short-circuit this? Why can't we get on with this? And what I discovered in the job as Prime Minister is how constraining the overall, you know,

it's not the case that when you get to the top there's more freedom of manoeuvre, actually there isn't. And what I tried to do, essentially with the growth plan, which I developed with quasi-quarteng, was to take on that economic orthodoxy, which I think has been behind why Britain has had low growth and stagnation for almost two decades.

I tried to take that on, but I found that even at that level, trying to take on these unelected institutions is extremely difficult. And I didn't realize how ruthlessly those people, would fight back. Just a very quick question. I thought that, you know, going through the system, well, maybe there are political

decision makers above me, you know, pulling the strings, making sure that these things don't happen. You know, maybe there is a... But when I got to the top job, I found that wasn't the case. Very quick question before Francis jumps in, and it's a provocative one, but I think it's a logical one given everything you're telling us and one that we know increasing numbers of young people are asking, which is, why should I vote at all? If this is the case, why should I vote in the next election?

Well, I think it makes it more important people vote. Because? I think it makes it more important. I believe we need to restore proper sovereign parliamentary democracy in Britain. And I think we've drifted away from it. And I think we have become a technocracy. And that is a problem. Part of the problem is, and it's been a...

a sort of chicken and egg thing. Part of the problem is a lot of people have become disengaged in politics because it has become so technocratic. It's become something for the political class to do. And that has created even more division between what the public actually wants and what is being delivered by the government.

So the only way to fix that is through more democracy. Ultimately, ultimately, Parliament is capable of changing this. We are suffering. We are capable of changing this. Like one example, the Equality Act. The Equality Act creates huge issues for government.

We've just seen how Birmingham Council has, because of the public sector equality, GTM is a mismanagement, gone bankrupt. The Equality Act has created mountains of red tape across government. It's embedded the idea of identity politics into the way the public sector behaves. And it's also done that in a private sector,

particularly, so we could repeal the Equality Act. That's one example of something we could do to make this country work better. The issue is we don't have a parliamentary majority to do that. The issue isn't the democracy doesn't work. The issue is that we need to make the case and get enough MPs who believe things need to change. Liz, there'll be people listening to this, we're going, well, isn't it just not going to be the case that you present that? And even if it gets voted through, the blob or, you know, the dark forces or whatever you want to call them, are just going to drag their heels to such an extent that you end up back at square one with a watered down bill, which means that it's not that effective.

So what I didn't know in 2010 that I know now is that these things that look benign on the surface. You know, who objects to equality? Who doesn't want to help the climate? Who doesn't believe in human rights? Another thing that we need to repeal is the Human Rights Act, which has been a disaster. But on the surface, some of these things look bad.

They all sound reasonable. But what they have done is they have wrapped up Britain in a huge amount of red tape and technocracy that makes it impossible to do things and also embeds values that are not conservative in the very heart of government. So I didn't know that in 2010. And I know that now.

So what I'm saying is, if enough people understand what needs to change, which is why I've written my book, I want to explain to people what needs to change to create pressure to actually make those changes. And Parliament is capable of doing that. It's technically capable of reversing all of this legislation. We just haven't done it. We just haven't done it.

And maybe it's, for me, it's taken me that time of being in government, of getting to the top to understand just how big a problem it is. So what do we need to change then? It's a very long list. It's a very long list, but the Equality Act, the Human Rights Act, the Climate Change Act, the Constitution Reform Act 2005. I mean, this is a very important part of why Britain doesn't work. We used to have a Lord Chancellor who was appointed by the Prime Minister who appointed senior judges. That role was effectively abolished by Taney Blair or denuded of its power back in 2005.

Instead, the appointment of judges is now down to a quango. So effectively, you've created a self-appointing judiciary rather than one that feeds into parliamentary sovereignty. And a Supreme Court was created in Britain, which had never existed before, rather than having the senior judiciary in the House of Lords. And I think that has created a problem. And we've seen more activist judges, more activist lawyers, we've seen government policy like Rwanda challenged now by the Supreme Court.

So that is another act of Parliament that I think we need to reverse. I mean, I could go on for a very long time, I think you go right back to the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act, which is why is it so difficult to build things in Britain? It's because we had a group of socialists in government in 19, you know, post-war, who put in this socialist piece of legislation that nobody has since reversed. So... But this is the type of discussion we need to be having in Britain.

And one of my many frustrations with politics is that so much of politics is focused on the absolute. superficial stuff. Like, you know, who's going to be the next leader of the Conservative Party or why is X unpopular? What has X done wrong this week? Rather than, what are the fundamental things that are stopping people in Britain pursuing happy and successful lives? That's what we should be focused on.

I completely agree. And what you've spoken about has led to people losing their faith in the Conservative Party. and I was looking at one bookmaker's odds for the chance of the Conservative Party being re-elected, and it was at 1%. I mean... This is just why I'm talking about the political media commentating on Flimplam.

I don't agree with that, actually. I think Francis has a very strong point, which is after 14 years of a conservative government that could have done all those things. But you're talking about repealing the Blair Wright reforms. You had 14 years? I wouldn't just say the Blair Wright reforms. I think we need to go back to...

The 1947 Blair wasn't around, but the human rights act, the equality is unlawed. We can hold Blair responsible for a lot, but we can't hold him responsible for the 1947 town and country. I agree. What I'm saying, and I think what Francis is getting at, quite rightly, is that after 14 years in which you had the opportunity, not you personally, the government of which you were apart for most of that time, had the opportunity to do all this stuff, is now going to crash out of office, hand the keys to Downing Street over to Keer Starm,

who's going to introduce more Blair-R-out forms, almost certainly. Yeah, I mean, he's a turbocharged technocrat. So, you know, the guy, the guy wants to strengthen, you know, the OBR. He wants to create new quangos within the Treasury. He wants to put more policy control over to so-called independent bodies. But I think my point is... And more power to lawyers, of course, of which he as well. My point is, Francis' point about the 1% odds of your party being re-elected

reflect a failure of the Conservative Party over 14, maybe even 15 years, close to 15 years, to do all the things that you're saying they should do? Why weren't they done in the last 15 years? Well, this is what I tried to do in 2022, is start turning it around. And frankly, I fell at the first hurdle because I found that the economic establishment were not willing to back my policies. They weren't willing to back my policies. On the day before the mini-budget, the Bank of England sold guilds,

announced the sale of 40 billion worth of guilds, and failed to raise interest rates as much as market expectations. And when there was the issue with the liability-driven investments, the so-called LDIs, rather than dealing with it, the Bank of England governor sought to lay blame at the government's door. And frankly, it wasn't something I knew anything about. It wasn't something Quasi knew anything about. So what I found is when I did try and deal with these issues

that you're talking about, these longstanding issues, I faced the most almighty backlash and the most almighty pushback. And partly that was from the economic establishment, but it was also from people within the Conservative Party and the Conservative Parliamentary Party. So the basic answer to your question is not enough people in Britain, not enough people in the governing elite,

and not enough people in the Conservative Party actually agree that that is the problem. So we haven't even got to first base, which is people understanding what the problem is. So you can't fix a problem if you don't. don't agree it's a problem, and you can't fix a problem if you don't understand what the problem is. And the problem is that not enough people understand that. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money, because behind every headline is a bottom line. Whether it's the funds-fuelling

AI or crypto's trillion-dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. And when you see the money side, you understand what others miss. Get the money. money side of the story. Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com. I'm going to ask a provocative question. If your diagnosis of the problem is correct, and let's just say it is for the sake of an argument, then basically what you're saying is a majority or a sizable portion of the Conservative Party are kind of clueless, if we're being honest. I'm saying they don't agree. But if the problem is, if you're a diagnosis of the, problem is correct and they don't understand that, then they don't understand the problem

that we've got facing our society and our democracy as a whole. I mean, that's a pretty damning indictment, isn't it? Well, I would say that a lot of people in Britain, a lot of the public understand things don't work and there's something wrong. But I don't think it is widely understood what the problem is. And I think, you know, I've had a unique set of experiences. Being a minister for 10 years, in six government departments, being prime minister, I think I've seen it to an extent other people haven't.

So, you know, before I became a minister, I did not know how the government worked or didn't work. I now have a much better understanding of that. So I think there is a, as I say, it's the reason I've written this book is I want to explain to people the issues and problems I faced and what I think the problem is. But I don't think that there has been, I don't think that is a view that's shared by the whole Conservative Party. Of course, it's not. And also by the commentariat, you know, there are a lot of commentators who say, why doesn't the government just, you know, stop the boats in the channel, or why doesn't the government just cut taxes, or why doesn't the government just cut spending? What I'm

saying is it's not that easy. There are actually... and push back from the bureaucracy that makes these things very difficult and from the legal profession and from the legal system. But to me, Liz, that seems like a pretty obvious thing. Now, I get, I understand, if somebody else... That might be why you're doing this podcast because you think it's obvious. I don't think it is obvious. Really?

To somebody working in the government who's trying to get legislation passed and is blocked at every route... That's a pretty obvious thing. I understand if the cabby outside doesn't know about it, but that's not a difficult concept to grasp for the average person walking down the street, let alone somebody in government, surely. There's two different things.

There's people who agree with the policy, but don't understand how difficult it is to deliver. So they just say, well, if you go in there and you do the right thing and you, you're clear with the civil service, they will do what you want. So there are people who believe that. He believes that the system works. It's just a question of the policy hasn't been implemented correctly,

or ministers won't get enough at explaining that. But then there's a whole bunch of people, including in the Conservative Party, who believe that even though institutions have moved to the left, we should accept that. So we should accept wokeery. You know, we should accept. the full implementation of net zero, even if it's damaging our economy.

So there are people who believe that having a straitjacket is not a bad thing. There are people who believe that in the Conservative Party. So there were different shades of opinion here. And what I'm trying to do at the very least is to say to people, if you do want these policies, if you do want to stop illegal immigration and actually be able to deport people, if you do want to move away from our very rigid net zero policy, it's not good enough just to change the policy. It's not even good enough just to communicate the policy well. You're going to have to change the system because the system, the way it is structured

at the moment, will not allow you to even deliver the policy. So I'm not even aiming my argument the group two of people who basically don't agree with it. And there are some of those in the Conservative Party. My argument is about people who agree with a policy and yet don't appreciate where we've got to with our system in Britain. So coming back to your story, you get elected as Prime Minister. It's pretty fierce election, pretty intense. What is it like walking into No. 10 down in Australia as Prime Minister?

Well, it was all very, very surreal because I'd spent the whole summer travelling the country, country, making the argument, preparing, but there's no way you can prepare for that. It's a quite unique experience. And there was all the, you know, the queen being in Balmoral was very unusual because she wasn't very well, so we had all the organisation. I think in that type of situation, I was just very focused on what I needed to do. I needed to make a speech on the steps of Downing Street, I needed to do things like a point of cabinet. And I was just really aware of how big the intray had got

because the Conservative Party had spent several months debating our leadership. Meanwhile, there was some very serious, the war in Ukraine was taking place. You know, you had the rising energy prices, economic problems. All of these things have been piling up. So I was just very aware of the need to get on with it. And I think one of the main criticisms that people would make about your time as Prime Minister was that actually some of the policies and viewpoints that you've just espoused, you abandoned when you were challenged on.

I mean, 60% of the mini budget was giving money to families and businesses to help with rising gas prices, which doesn't seem like a small government thing. to do. Is that fair? Well, that was, the way I would put it is what we did was an energy price guarantee. So we were saying to people, if energy prices go over a certain level, then the government will underwrite the energy suppliers. And the way I look at it is over the past 30 years, Britain's energy policy hasn't worked. You know, we haven't built the nuclear power stations. we didn't get on with fracking, we didn't get on with making energy cheaper.

And we were headed for a serious recession. I mean, if energy bills had gone up to £6,000, households would have needed money anyway. So the government were going to have to bail them out. And likewise, businesses would have gone under anyway, just because of the sheer strain of those prices. So what I wanted to do is protect confidence and protect business confidence and protect consumer confidence,

by giving some kind of guarantee whilst we got on as quickly as possible with fixing the supply side. And that's why I wanted to get on with fracking. It's why I wanted to get on with long-term energy deals. But these things were always a judgment about what you need to do and political reality. And the political reality was

that there was going to be some kind of energy package. That was just the political reality of where the conservative party, party was, where the country was, where the economic situation was, I mean, it was happening around the world that governments were protecting people against very, very high energy bills. I sought to do it in the most free market way that only paid out if the energy bills went high. What we previously been doing is paying out money regardless of what the energy bills were, which I thought was incredibly inefficient.

And what I wanted to do was fix the supply issues in Britain so that ultimately Britain became a net energy exporter. And look, I mean, there's always a judgment in these things, but my view was the government was going to end up paying out money. Let's at least pay out money only if the bills go that high. And in fact, the cost of it was far less than was estimated because the energy prices didn't go that high. I agree with your points about failure of government policy over 30 years on energy,

and I suppose that's kind of where we are on a lot of issues. You have government failure over a long period of time to deal with certain things, and then, yes, the last resort is for the government to step in and rescue people from the consequences of government failure. But the other thing that really, I think, shocked quite a lot of people, including I know a lot of people who are very, very clued into the financial markets and the economy was this issue with LDIs, because I don't think people quite realize

how close we came to essentially something resembling another 2008. I mean, this was really, really significant. Absolutely. I mean, what I have since discovered about LDIs. Liability-driven investment, or derived investment, whatever they're called. Yeah, exactly.

And what they were, is they were a way of pension funds investing in bonds, so government bonds, that would deliver a higher return. But they delivered that higher return on the basis that interest rates wouldn't go up, which is obviously completely unrealistic because interest rates have been too low for too long.

And the UK had 60% of the global market in these investments, and we were highly exposed to changes in the interest rate. Now, it's the responsibility of the Bank of England and the pensions regulator to maintain proper regulation and financial stability. And it was the effect of interest rates rising, guilt prices rising, on the LDIs that created the market turmoil. And that was something that I didn't know about. quasi-quarteng didn't know about, so we were blindsided by that. And I think to this day, it's poor that the Bank of England hasn't had a proper investigation into what happened. Instead, what happened was the Bank of England governor,

and the Bank of England tried to shift blame onto the mini-budget for something that was essentially caused by a failure of financial oversight. And given how exposed this country is to the, these things. And these are pension funds we're talking about. They're quite important in the health of the British economy and to ordinary people. Do you think that they should be, LDI should be banned, more regulated? What do you think should happen? Well, look, I, a lot of the positions have been unwatched, and that's what happened after the exposure of the LDI. And I'm not, I'm not somebody who's in favor of banning pension funds investing in particular products.

I think it was partly because they were so restricted on equity investment that they tried to find somewhere else they could make a return. So it was the perverse consequence of over-regulation in another part. What I'm saying, though, is that the system didn't work. You know, why didn't the Treasury know about this, the extreme exposure to changes in interest rates of a lot of people? British pension funds. And what it seems to me is we've not only created a very powerful bureaucracy, we've also created a very powerful siloed bureaucracy that often doesn't talk to other

bits of the bureaucracy and that leaves us very exposed in those circumstances. So I'm not going to get into which financial products should be regulated, but I think there's a problem if the system isn't talking to the rest of the system about what is a major exposure. Do you regret the way that you handled the issue with quasi-quartan? Do you think you should have stood by him, looking back on it? Well, I think by that point, we were in very serious trouble, to be honest.

So I don't think it would have made, looking back on it, I don't think it would have made a massive difference either way. I mean, the bank had successfully laid the blame on us. The much of the Conservative Party in Parliament wanted to accept their version of events. And I simply, we didn't, we simply did not have the support or the, you know, the strength of support to continue with the policies. As I explained, Quasi was in the US, I thought it was a mistake for him to go there. I ended up handling it all during that week, which is difficult not being the Chancellor, handling the fallout and the need to change the policy.

But essentially, the policy was changed, and the critical thing was corporation tax. That was the absolutely critical policy. to my mind, putting corporation tax up from 19% to 25% is a massive mistake for Britain. It hasn't resulted in investors putting their money elsewhere. It's not bringing in to the Treasury what they expect it. And I'm a believer in the laugh at the curve. I believe if you raise rates too high, you don't get the tax revenue. So the reason we were forced to reverse that policy is because,

the OBR forecast was leaked of what the alleged hole in the government budget was. So it was a forecast of £70 billion. Now that forecast has since turned out to be untrue and wrong. But at the time, that forecast being leaked, which clearly showed that we lacked support from the economic institutions because it was either leaked by the OBR or the Treasury, That essentially put huge pressure on us to reverse the corporation tax rights, or reverse the corporation tax cut. And that was, you know, I was essentially threatened that if we didn't reverse that, we might not be able to fund government debt.

And that would have created a huge crisis. So I couldn't in all conscience do that. That's why the policy had to be reversed. Now, I don't know to this day whether or not it was the case that that would happen, but I believed it was a credible threat. And once the policy had had to be reversed, I thought it was very difficult for Quasi to continue, to be frank. So I think the issue was the policy being reversed.

Because you think if I put myself to be forward to be Prime Minister to deliver a change in Britain's economic policy, to move away from the economic orthodoxy of high taxes, high regulation, close alignment with the EU, high migration, stagnant, you know, stagnant growth. That's what I wanted to move away from. I wanted to move to dynamic, open for business, Britain, lower taxes, keep better control of public spending, don't raise welfare so much. Those are the policies I wanted to adopt. get on with things like fracking to actually liberate the supply side of the economy

and by then it was clear I couldn't deliver any of those things Conservative MPs wouldn't vote for fracking they wouldn't vote for restraining welfare spending the OBR was leaking the Treasury were leaking against the corporation tax policy so do you I guess what we're getting It's all quite tricky.

No, no. That's a very British understatement. But I guess what we're getting at, and please understand, this isn't a, it may sound like a personal question, but I actually think it's a broader conversation about leadership and principles. Because Francis and I have friends, we started this together six years ago. We have the same vision for it as you and Kwazi did. If at some point we did something that we both agreed was the right thing to do, and then something went wrong.

And I was like, hey, mate, actually, I think you need to go. I would feel that one of two things would happen there. I'd like, why is it just me? But I myself would have thought, well, we did this together. We should leave together if I can't deliver the things that I agreed with my Chancellor. You know, the game's up, time to go. We gave it our best shot. Because are you still friends with Quasi?

Yeah, yeah. Look, I think the... So Quasi had been out of the country a week of this IMF meeting. So that was a very tricky situation. But what I felt was, these policies had been forced to be reversed. I still believe they were the right policies. I still believe that the people who undermined the policies were in the wrong. And that's a great shame.

And I feel that Britain is in a worse position as a result of that. But what I had to think about at that point is I had to think about the country. And what I couldn't risk is if Quasi had stayed on, he hadn't had the credibility in delivering that U-turn, which needed to be delivered, and then we had not been able to fund our debt. Could you know if first resign is what I'm asking? That wouldn't have been a serious. If I'd resigned as well at that time, then that would have created a crisis. How much later did you resign? I think a few weeks later, but by then.

Jeremy Hunt had been installed. He was essentially following the Treasury Orthodoxy. The markets had calmed down. If I had resigned at that moment, when there was about to be a cliff edge on, because this is another issue, the Bank of England governor, on finding a solution for these LDIs, set a cliff edge. So rather than saying that the Bank of England would support into the medium term, he created a cliff edge, which was a following Monday,

which created a, again, a speculation cycle by the markets. So I think it would have been a dereliction of duty, frankly, if I had stood down at that time as well. I mean, I instinctively knew that I wasn't much longer for this world. But the idea that I would just leave the whole thing in a terrible situation and resign, I don't. think that would have been the right thing to do. Looking back at your time and power, what would you change?

I think the biggest thing I could have changed is whether I ran in the leadership election. Because... Do you regret that? Well, I think, knowing what I know now, I think I was in a pretty impossible situation. That there were the types of changes that Britain needed, probably needed. a longer run-up to prepare, and they needed, well, they probably need now, I believe, a sort of full electoral mandate to deliver. And, you know, I knew it would be difficult, but as I said, I didn't realize how ruthless the sort of forces the economic establishment would be in taking

it on. But there were lots of small things I could have changed about the way we delivered, you know, communicated, etc. But I think it was pretty much impossible to actually deliver that program that autumn because of the lack of the lack of support for it both within and outside the government. I mean, it was even hard, you know, it's back to the point we were talking about earlier,

it was even hard finding external economists who would back the policies up, even though they exist. It's just not a fashionable thing to believe. Some people in Britain are still saying, you know, the government's not big enough. I mean, it's absolutely incredible when we spend 45% on GDP, but people are arguing for industrial policies. They're arguing for more government spending in every possible area.

We're not in a broad atmosphere where supply-side economics are seen as the logical thing, which is what they were seen as in the 80s. I mean, could I have done something? I think the other question is, is there anybody who could have gone in in that, because I, you know, I just, if there was a possible way of doing it, I didn't have the skill set to do it, frankly.

I mean, is there somebody who could have gone in that autumn and delivered those policies? Well, I don't think they exist. But, you know, So what's certainly true is that no other Prime Minister has successfully cut taxes. I did actually manage to reverse the health and social care levy, which was going to be a new tax imposed on people in Britain. I did do that in my time in office.

But what we've seen is constant pressure on the government to spend more and tax more. Before you move on to a different subject, actually on this thing, Liz, I'll be honest with you. I like small government and I think low taxes are the way to grow the economy, so I agree with you. But if you listen to someone like Matt Goodwin, who's a regular guest on our show, he's a

political analyst and pollster and all sorts of other things, he'll tell you the country is not there. The country wants to be right on culture and left on economics. The country wants big government and it wants to be socially conservative. That's where the majority of the public are. Is it

possible that the reason the policies you and I actually quite like, just that's not what the British people want anymore. They want big daddy government to come in and wipe their bottom. Well, I think it's true that people do want culturally conservative policies. So he's absolutely right about that. He's right on immigration. You know, he's right on wokeery. But if we look, you know, why is the government big and why is growth stagnant? Well, one reason is net zero. and the fact we're not doing things like fracking.

One is very high regulation. And certainly a lot of people I speak to in my constituency are frustrated, particularly about the level of regulation on their small businesses or their farms. So I don't think, you know, the voters I speak to are not crying out for more regulation on their business or more regulation on their farm, and they're not crying out for higher taxes. I don't, I don't agree with Matthew Goodwin on that. But they're not crying out for any of those things, but as we know, the general public often don't connect things. People will demand lower taxes and more money for the NHS in one.

Exactly. So this is, it's like the point about fracking. If you ask most people, do you support fracking? I don't think support for it's very high. If you ask people, would you be prepared to allow fracking if it meant your energy bill is half what it was? Then they might support it. So it's a question of communication. Liz, looking at the Conservative Party now,

I mean, to put it bluntly, they're in pretty dire straits, aren't they? Well, the polls are not good. The polls are not good. I mean, all I can say, though, is, you know, to me, like, to me, conservative policies are still the right policies. We just need to show people. We can deliver them and be clear about what is the problem. I think that's the start of being able to make the argument as conservatives,

saying here's why we're not able to currently do this policy. Here's what we're going to do to change it. I think we've got an opportunity to do that in our manifesto. We've got an opportunity to do it with what we say. But we have to be honest about where we are now. Because the average bloke or woman on the street will be going, like Constantine has said many times, You've had 14 years to implement these policies.

Why is it going to be any difference if I put an X next to the Conservatives now? We need to explain why. So we have delivered good policies in 14 years. So on education, we've improved English education. You can see by the comparison with what's happened in Scotland that England's maths and reading results have got better. We've delivered Brexit, which is a massive constitutional change. We've delivered trade deals.

You know, we've been on the front line of supporting Ukraine. So we've done good things in our period in government. But I think we should be honest and say the reason we haven't been able to deliver the other things that you, the British public, want, you know, the reason there's workery in your schools, or the reason we haven't been able to deliver on immigration is because we didn't change enough of the Blair legacy. We should just say that now. we should say we didn't change enough of the Blair legacy. Of course we should have realized that quicker. We were wrong to say Tony Blair, you know, as some of the Cameroon said, we were wrong to say Tony Blair was the master and we were wrong to say Cameron was the heir to Blair. Actually, these Blair policies, such as the Equality Act and the Human Rights Act, are part of the problem.

We now recognise that and we're going to deal with it. And I think people, you know, the Public are not stupid. You know, they appreciate honesty. And it's not easy to be honest as politicians. You often get absolutely hammered, as I've discovered myself. But I think we've got to say it like it is. We said, here are the good things we've done. We recognize in these areas we haven't done enough.

And here's why. And this is how we've changed. But also as well. Because, by the way, Kirstama has got absolutely no answer to any of these problems. He's got no analysis on why the economy isn't growing. He's got no analysis. on immigration yet he's got no idea about what to do. But also, I was going to say, is there the political will within the Conservative Party to change it?

Because earlier in the interview, you just alluded to the fact that some, there's a sizable portion of the party that don't, that doesn't think this is a problem. Those people, you know, I want to convince them. And I think others need to convince them. I think we need to make the argument. Fair enough. As you can see, I'm an incorrigible optimist. But, you know, what's the alternative here? What's the alternative I'm actually convincing conservative activists, conservative members, conservative politicians that we need this systemic change?

That is what we have to do. That is what we have to do. That's the only alternative. No, the only thing that will convince them, I think, is a crushing defeat of the next election. That's what's going to happen. That's what we'll get. them to realize that going along and business as usual isn't going to work. Let's be honest,

in the spirit of honesty, as I say, I agree with many of the things that you support. But the people who have that point of view have not won the argument. The Conservative Party's time in government is coming to an end. And I think it's, you know, your book, 10 years to save the West, you're going to have five years of a star in my government. And then you'd hope to come in with, let's be honest, a whole bunch of new MPs with a very different set of views. That's the only way this gets saved, isn't it? Well, the book is 10 years to save the West, so I'm talking about the problems we face haven't just faced Britain.

Yes. You know, they're there in the US. A lot of the bad ideas have actually been imported from the US. If you talk about eco-extremism, transgender, you know, sort of gender ideology, all of this stuff has much of it been promoted in the US if you look at what's going on in Democrat cities with crime, defunding the police, etc., etc. So we also need to change what is happening in Western democracies overall.

And part of what my book is about is a warning to the US and saying if you don't change the system, if you allow this, left-wing ideology to flourish in your institutions, you are not going to be able to deliver conservative policies. This is not just a problem in Britain, and this is not just a battle that's happening in Britain. It's happening in Australia. It's happening in Canada.

I want people to learn from my experience. I want people to understand. I try and explain in the book what it's actually like being there. The subtitle of my book in Britain is called The Only Conservative in the Room, because I was there. It were people like Biden, Trudeau. None of these people are conservatives. And the ideology that they back

is fundamentally undermining the West. So this is, to me, a big battle that conservatives have to win. Will we win the battle this year? Maybe, maybe not. But we've got to keep fighting it. Liz, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

The final question we always ask is... Before we go to our locals and your questions. Yes. is what's the one thing we're not talking about as a society that we really should be? I think we have talked about it here, but I don't think we're talking about democracy enough and how under threat it is. And that is what is ultimately, I believe that empowering people more, having a much more direct relationship with the electorate is what will save the West. And what does that mean?

What it means is that most people in Britain actually understand what needs to be done. The problem is the transmission mechanism. The problem is that this bureaucratic state, and it's wider, you know, it's not just the state. You know, it's what's going on in big corporations, what's going on in charities, what's going on in the broader sort of London bubble. You know, that needs to be challenged. Perfect. Well, head on over to locals where we ask, let's trust the former Prime Minister, your questions.

While conservatives in the Conservative Party... Which is put in inverted commas. Yes. Being held hostage to the progressive agenda.