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- [00:01]
Jimmy
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- [00:31]
Mel Stride
This episode is brought to you by
- [00:32]
Jimmy
White Claw Search Great podcast Pick friend. No surprises there.
- [00:36]
Mel Stride
After all, you're all about finding the tastiest flavors out there, just like White Claw Surge.
- [00:40]
Jimmy
And with big bold flavors to enjoy like blood orange, BlackBerry, cranberry and more, it's time to go all in on taste. Unleash the flavor. Unleash White Claw Surge. Please drink responsibly. Hard seltzer with flavors 8% alcohol by volume. White Claw Seltzer Works Chicago, Illinois welcome back to Jimmy's Jobs of the Future. I hope you had a great summer. I always love September. It's one of my favorite months. It always feels like a month for kind of renewal. I think it's academic year being wired into our brains from an early age, fresh notebooks and all that side of things. It's also the month of my birthday when I got married and our first daughter arrived on our first wedding anniversary. So it's always a special one for me. I always enjoy it and it was great to get Mel Stride in the studio and talk about a few things and talk about the kind of conservatives path back to power. Lots of difficulties with that at the moment with them being third in the polls, etc. But Mel has had a really impressive career before politics actually came into it a little bit later as well. Similar to Gillian Keegan in some ways, but was an entrepreneur by background and kind of been in the publishing industry as well. And he also had a background, a tour guide before that as well, which I've always thought is like one of the most amazing jobs that you can. You can have actually sort of that mixture of entertainment and history I think I like. And of course one of our favorite episodes from this year was was Jewels Guides, which has just gone past 110,000 views on YouTube. I certainly didn't expect it to be our most viewed video ever, but it's done incredibly well. So it was great to sit down with Melbourne. Have a bit of a chat about the future of the Conservative Party and the future of our economy and what government should do for entrepreneurs. Onto today's episode. Make sure you subscribe so we can continue to get bigger and bigger guests. Mel Strike, welcome to Jimmy's Jobs of the Future.
- [02:48]
Mel Stride
Thank you, Jimmy. Great to be here.
- [02:50]
Jimmy
What was your business?
- [02:52]
Mel Stride
Exhibitions, conferences and publishing.
- [02:54]
Jimmy
And what did you call it?
- [02:56]
Mel Stride
What originally it was called cii, then became Venture Marketing Group. And this was back in the 80s and sort of mid-80s that I started the business. There's an interesting story actually, because I was working for another business at the time and I took a day off work and I had this idea about getting young graduates, bright graduates into industry and I knew I needed to get some of these industrial companies involved. So I took this day off work and I got the top 100 UK industrial companies by size, which then had Shell and BP at the top, and rang every single chairman down the list thinking it was a numbers game, one of them would come up and sure enough, the chairman of Shell picked up the telephone because I phoned very early in the morning before his assistant came in and I sort of blathered on about my idea about getting industry together, making it, showcasing it for young people, making it exciting and all the rest of it. And he said, I don't know whether you've got a good idea, but what are you doing for lunch tomorrow? So I said, well, well, nothing. So he sent his car around to where I was working and he met me and the rest, as they say, is history. So it all started with a cold call, really, the whole business. And then I grew it in the UK and took it to, I sold the American business and, and still have the UK company.
- [04:00]
Jimmy
So where did you get the, the numbers from? Was it the Yellow Pages by then?
- [04:04]
Mel Stride
You just. I just phoned out the switchboard. Yeah. So I just, you know, went through directory inquiries, found out the main number got put through to the chairman's office and sure enough, Sir Peter Holmes was the, the man that I connected with.
- [04:18]
Jimmy
But I just find it safe because I think that sort of traditional way of making it in entrepreneurship and jobs is being lost a bit at the moment. Like we'll get onto AI in a bit in more detail, but it's like it allows you to do so much, but actually that old fashioned sort of, you know, going and sort of knocking on the door. Yeah. Is being lost a little bit from, from people and actually I think the old school methods can, can work quite well, in the new age as well.
- [04:42]
Mel Stride
Yeah. But it's all about people in the end, isn't it? And often driving businesses forward is connections. So in my case, yeah, talking to somebody and getting in front of somebody, particularly somebody senior at that point was really important because, of course, spending time with Peter Holmes, I did then put me in touch with then the. The chairman of lots of other big companies who got interested in my idea. And then I brought them together and it became our idea rather than just my idea. And that made it even more powerful. And before we knew it, we had what was then an exhibition, actually, that was launched in 1987.
- [05:13]
Jimmy
What was the job you were doing before?
- [05:14]
Mel Stride
I was with a merchant bank in the City. Yes.
- [05:17]
Jimmy
So it was like side hustles. You were doing them.
- [05:20]
Mel Stride
Well, I wouldn't describe as that because I was, you know, working at the bank when I was working in the bank. But I had this idea and I'd always wanted to do it. I'd grown up in a family in which my father had small business totally unrelated to what I ended up doing. But I'd always wanted to do my own thing, being there in my background. Yeah. And, yeah, when the time was right, off I went and never looked back, really.
- [05:43]
Jimmy
Yeah. No, it sounds. And so therefore you go into politics a little bit later. Right. Age 48.
- [05:48]
Mel Stride
Yes. Well, everybody says they want. They want people that have had experience of the real world, ideally growing businesses and things and going in a bit later. So I did go in at 48. I think there are pros and cons to that. I think you do bring more outside experience, which is very helpful. But being in a bit younger is quite useful, I think, in terms of learning the ropes and, you know, doing more when you are. When you are younger. But I thought for me, it was about the right age to have gone in. Yeah.
- [06:16]
Jimmy
And you obviously got sort of quite well known at the beginning of this year. You basically became the minister for the Today program. Almost became a bit of a meme on Twitter that it was Mel Stride appearing again on the Today program the next morning. But it does mean that people don't perhaps know your backstory as. As well and so on. Because you. You come in in 2010, you're sort of, you know, you're straight into. Not on the ministerial office, but you're straight into government. Basically, what the business that you were running was all about, trying to get people into interesting jobs.
- [06:45]
Mel Stride
Yeah.
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Jimmy
Like. And so on. So how. What's your perception of how the job market has changed over the sort of 30, 40 years you've been working.
- [06:52]
Mel Stride
Gosh. I mean, it's changed enormously, I think. Well, certainly in terms of what employees expect of employers, I think has changed. So the idea of going into the office now is not as common as certainly it was back in that day. I think the big change that's coming is. Is AI, is the big technological change that's coming down the line. And I think there are many that will say, oh, there's a. This could be very deep and dark and difficult because it could destroy all the jobs. I'm not of that view. I mean, we've seen many technological waves and big changes coming through, everything from the spinning Jenny in the 18th century through to computers and so on. What tends to happen is that work actually gets more productive and more interesting and new sectors emerge. Yeah, and I think that's the most likely outcome for the AI revolution. But interesting, it'll be a white color collar effect. I think, you know, it will be the lawyers and the consultants and the accountants rather than perhaps the plumbers, the electricians, the construction workers who would like to be less impacted. But I think overall, I think it's a big opportunity for huge improvements in productivity, which is what we need to see in the economy if we're to face effectively into the challenges that we've got as a country. Geopolitical challenges internationally, demographic challenges within our own shores. And for us as a political party, how do we get young people more plugged into the benefits of our economy? How could we show the way as a political party on that front?
- [08:14]
Jimmy
But then it's interesting that we've had all this kind of technological advancement over the last 20 years and productivity hasn't gone up like, it is a rather sort of like, you know, in the famous kind of quote of, you know, I see productivity everywhere but the. Sorry, I see computers everywhere but in the productivity statistics, like, why is it that we aren't making as much of that as we could do?
- [08:37]
Mel Stride
It's a very good question. I mean, some of it is the shift to being a service economy and to make productivity gains within services as opposed to manufacturing is typically more difficult. There's definitely been a very high level of underinvestment in the private sector, but also across the public sector in particular. Some of the latter driven by the fact that chancellors have often been under a lot of fiscal pressure. The budgets they tended to squeeze have been the capital budgets. If you look at health, where productivity has gone backwards since the COVID a lot of that is because money has gone into resource spending rather than capital spending. But there are many strands, there are many, many strands to it. Some of it's regional. If you've got super high productivity in London and the southeast, very low productivity in other parts of the country, some of it is, we've got world leading larger businesses that are very productive. We've got a long tail of SMEs and other companies, some of which are not that productive. So it's quite a multifaceted challenge, I think. But I think AI can really move the dial.
- [09:43]
Jimmy
It is interesting. So I did this thing with it yesterday. It's my favorite thing to do at the moment, tell everyone what I used for it yesterday or this morning. And it was back of conversation that I had with Greg Jackson who did our 200th episode, founder of Octopus Energy. I saw him earlier this week and he said used a great stat in mind. So you said we've created more jobs than anyone else in the last 10 years. Where did you get it from? Can you source it? Etc? And I was like, well it's just me and me knowing that. But I was like it is quite an interesting question actually, like who else has sort of created a lot of jobs? So I basically set AI off on one of its deep research things to go and find this out. And it was, it was very interesting, like the stuff it kind of came back with. But I spent a couple of hours on it and then reading it and sort of going down a bit of a rabbit hole with it. And I did kind of come out at the end of it being like that's been interesting but not particularly productive.
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Mel Stride
What did it tell you about.
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Jimmy
Well, I mean jobs, a lot of E commerce jobs over the last 10, 15 years. Right. So it was sort of, it highlighted AO, ASOS, Gymshark. I mean it ends up. It was interesting because it's also got a bias for the stuff that I've asked it for in the past. So that was kind of an interesting lesson as well. And a lot of logistics jobs that I hadn't heard of necessarily around the country as well. So quite a few firms in the north of England that hadn't kind of come across and so on. So it was quite interesting on that side all that. I mean I was asking it to look at British companies but it did also make the point that, you know, Amazon have created 75000 jobs here in the last 10 years. So that's more so what. But it, what I mean as an, as an example of your White collar work. I thought if I'd commissioned that piece of work from an ey or someone, you know, I'd been looking at tens
- [11:25]
Mel Stride
of thousands of pounds to go and
- [11:27]
Jimmy
yeah, it's kind of two hours and it's there in front of me.
- [11:30]
Mel Stride
Well, I went out for a drink a few months ago with a great friend of mine. He said, I've got this business idea and I won't tell you what it is because he might not want me to tell you. But anyway, I didn't think it was that good actually, but. And I told him so and I said, like, I don't think that's going to work and all the rest of it. Anyway, we said good night at about midnight or something and when I, when I got back, woke up the next morning about 6 o', clock, I said to AI, write me a business plan based on. And I plugged in all the things that he said. It spat out this lengthy, highly detailed, brilliant business plan, which I then pinged over Tim and said, by the way, I got up early this morning and wrote you a business plan. He came back and said, I don't believe it. What time did you get up to do that? You know, you're right, things could be done in seconds. That would have taken a huge amount of time and it is absolutely amazing.
- [12:14]
Jimmy
It is interesting because you gave this speech about the kind of rewiring of the economy and so on, and the fact that it's happened twice in the last sort of century, Post World War II, with Atlee and the kind of. That revolution of 70s and 80s.
- [12:26]
Mel Stride
Yeah.
- [12:27]
Jimmy
And I do think we're going to have that moment again, partly whether we like it or not. Right. Like with this technological revolution. But what's your kind of. And I know also the big part of the speech was it's time to be more thoughtful, etc. And opposition does allow one of the benefits of it, it does give time to think. How do you think the economy will be rewired?
- [12:51]
Mel Stride
So let's start with why it needs to be. I suppose because we've had sort of lagging growth and productivity, haven't we? Particularly since the financial crisis in 2008, to the extent that actually if we continued on the same growth Trend up to 2008, the economy would be a quarter bigger, 25% bigger today than it actually is. The reason why we need to get up to that kind of level of trend, growth or better, is because of the geopolitical challenges we're facing in the world. America decoupling from European security, the threat of Russia, all the stuff that's kicking off that means we're going to step up to the plate when it comes to better funding of defense. And 1% of GDP on defense is about 25 billion pounds. Huge amount of money if you went back to the 1960s. In fact, in 1960 we spent three times as much on defense as we did on health. Now it's the other way around. So there's a huge shift we're going to have to look at in public spending. We've got rising health costs, we've got an aging population which is being supported by an ever proportionately smaller sort of younger population. And as a party, we've got the intergenerational challenges of the average Tory voter in the last election being 63 years old. So we've got to come up with a big bold offer to young people and get them plugged into a different kind of economy. So that's the why. How do you do it? Well, it's several fundamental things that need to change and they're all big things. One is tax. How do you get the tax burden down? How do you simplify the tax system? You should ask a fundamental question of every tax. To what degree does it lean into growth rather than leaning away from growth? A big piece of work there. Big bit around the size of the state and arm's length bodies and regulators and regulation. We've gone from 365,000 civil servants pre Covid to 515,000 today. That just doesn't compute. It speaks to a bloated state. There's a lot around skills and higher education. I think so too many young people going through universities without sufficient value added to justify the kind of loans that they're loaded up with and the cost that they incur. At the same time, we're bringing net migration down. We need to look at the skills offer to make sure that we've got the right skills for those labor markets that are going to be under pressure as a consequence of that welfare spiraling, welfare bills now getting on top of that is vital. And then a lot of supply side things around building houses, roads, rail. Why is it that around Cambridge, which is an area that's a real hotspot for life sciences and tech and all the rest of it, they haven't got the laboratory space, they need commercial space because they can't get the planning. Why can't they get the planning? Because there's not enough water. We haven't built a reservoir in this country for 30 years. Okay, so we're going to get more like the Chinese who will do Beijing to Shanghai fast rail in three years. We've got to be able to crack that building infrastructure bit of the puzzle. And the final thing I'd mention is energy costs. So we are paying seven times what they do in China, four times Canada or the US and 50% more than France and Germany. You can't have an efficient and competitive economy with that lying at its heart. Particularly getting back to AI where data centers are consuming vast amounts of electricity. About 20% of the Republic of Ireland's output of energy, of electricity goes solely into powering data centers. Yeah, 20%. So we've got. So anyway, I paint a big picture of a lot of big things. And if we're to really show shift the dial on our economy, there's no quick fix. You've got to try and address all of those things and more. And then the final thing I'll come back to actually is kind of where we started, which is entrepreneurship. We have got to reignite that flame of entrepreneurship of young people in particular, feeling that it's, you know, good. The environment's right to go out, set up businesses and the tax regime is there and the regulation is right. All the things that I encountered in the 80s when I was building my businesses, when Nigel Lawson was cutting taxes and red tape and the environment, the zeitgeist was there for that kind of, that kind of experience. And that's what we've got to get back to, a form of popular capitalism.
- [17:05]
Jimmy
And how, how do you get that? Because that is, as you say, it's kind of a cultural thing. It's difficult for governments to sort of create that zeitgeisty thing. Definitely part of it. I don't disagree that. Yeah, like, what is it that kind of can allow that to kind of take hold more?
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Mel Stride
So I think, I think some of it is tax, actually. I think if you create an environment in which the government is absolutely throwing the door open to people that want to create, create jobs, build businesses, wealth and add to the economy in that way, then I think you can reset relatively quickly if you're big and you're bold about it. We've seen the reverse happening with this government. So by loading up taxes, what's happened is we've lost about between 10 and 15,000 millionaires up to billionaires right now. Socialists might say, oh, good riddance them, who needs them? Well, it actually takes a third of a million people at average earnings to pay the tax to cover that 10,000 that have just walked out the door. Yeah. So we need to reset quickly, as quickly as we can on the tax front and the regulation front, such that that door is wide open and people are trying to do their very best to get into our economy, to contribute to it.
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Jimmy
Okay, let's talk about one sort of specific thing that, on. On that, and that's the 100k kind of tax trap. Right. Which ended up coming in at the end of a kind of conservative government and so on.
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Mel Stride
You mean the withdrawal of the personal allowance.
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Jimmy
Yeah, exactly. And. And also the childcare. Right. Comes up in my sort of friendship group. Loads.
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Mel Stride
Yeah.
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Jimmy
At the moment. And I think it's a real. You've got a lot of people that are deliberately sort of capping their earnings. Yes, at that. And I, I do think it's a. It's a real problem in that. And you're seeing the Times writing about it more. They're calling them the, The Henry's right. The high earners. Not rich yet. Yeah, the Henry's right.
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Mel Stride
Yeah.
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Jimmy
But I think there's. There's something in it. And I often think, you know, we have 14 years of conservative government and it's a real kind of challenge. I mean, do, do you think that 100 grand is a high salary?
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Mel Stride
I. I think it. Well, it clearly is compared to average earnings, which is mid-30s. But do I think that we should have kind of complications within the tax regimes that disincentivize people from working? Absolutely not. So to take the two examples that you've given, the marginal tax rate, you get beyond 100 until you reach about 125 when the personal allowance is fully tapered away, is too high. And of course, unless you can get well beyond 125, you probably are going to hesitate to continue to increase your work. The child benefit, if you had three children, as you know, I think it's tapered away between 60 and 80. If you've got three children, you're taping away between 60 and 80. Across that range of income, you're paying over 70% as the marginal rate, which is just. Just not viable. The problem, Jimmy, with my treasury hat on, is of course, un de Wrinkling. Those things comes with a price.
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Jimmy
Yeah.
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Mel Stride
They are significant revenue raises. But that is why you've got to tackle things like the size of the state and regulation and all skills and get the welfare bill down. Billions of pounds out of welfare, which you can then use to fund exactly that kind of thing. The other thing I would say is you do want to look for these so called laffer taxes where you can reduce the rate and yet still increase the yield. And I think there are some prospects there. The higher rate of capital gains tax I'd probably put in that category. Stamp duty on property is an awful tax. Transaction based tax slows down turnover of properties, which means that people are not moving as readily to where the work is. Means that the number of every time somebody moves, of course they're bringing the plumbers and the decorators and that drives economic activity. People, when children, you know, leave home, are not downsizing, which is a problem in the housing market too. And there is evidence that it's set at a level certainly for more valuable properties where you would get more if you drop the rate.
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Jimmy
Yeah.
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Mel Stride
So I think we should certainly ruthlessly look for those.
- [21:13]
Jimmy
Okay, so this isn't your usual ad read. We've just partnered with Hunch, an AI job finding platform that I believe in so much, I've actually invested in it. If you've ever listened to Jimmy's Jobs and thought, I'd love to work with those guests now, you can. Whether it's the UK government, Google, Amazon or the BBC, Hunch makes it easy to discover and apply for roles at companies like those. And here's the kicker. We'll be hiring through Hunch soon too. So if you download it, you might even end up working with us. Honestly, for our listeners, this feels like the perfect fit. Just visit askhunch.com to learn more. Back to the episode. It does strike me that Stamp Duty is one of these taxis that has been designed over the years to be fair to him. George Osborne leveled out some of the cliff edge stuff early on in the government, which was one of the worst aspects of it. But what is your kind of thinking around that? Because it does stop quite a flexible labor market as well. Right. It stops people from moving on a regular basis. So how would you. I mean, look, I know you're not going to sort of come out and like announce policy here, but what. How are you thinking about that? Because it's also a massive revenue raiser for the Treasury.
- [22:25]
Mel Stride
So I think I've sort of set out, including the very important point you've just made about labor market mobility being stunted by this tax. The reasons why you would want to change it. I would. And we are going to be looking at taxes generally in great detail, but I would certainly be looking for reductions that actually wouldn't affect the yield very much. You'd increase transactions, you might even get more money As a consequence of that. And I'd be looking at the second round effects which I touched on. So somebody moves home. They of course, then, you know, do redesign it and they go and buy new furniture and they do all. There's a lot of economic activity that goes around moving home. Yeah. And that needs to be factored in too. But it is one of, I mean, the ifs always says this and they're absolutely right. It's probably the most unattractive of many of the taxes we have.
- [23:15]
Jimmy
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I agree with that. How in this sort of rewiring of the economy, you know, one of the things that I, you know, strikes me as a real problem at the moment is the amount of non working people there are. Right. Like it's now in Birmingham, there's one in four people of working age that are not working. Right. And this is not some kind of, you know, former industrial town. This is a second city. Right. Like it should be an economic booming place.
- [23:42]
Mel Stride
Yeah.
- [23:43]
Jimmy
How do we change it? You know, you were in charge of work and pensions for the last couple of years. The Tory government, like what's, what's happening out there?
- [23:51]
Mel Stride
So there's unemployment, which is people that are out of work and looking for work. Okay. And that is relatively low.
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Jimmy
Yeah.
- [23:58]
Mel Stride
Okay. We're down at 4.5% or thereabouts. And then there's economic inactivity. Economic inactivity is people that are out of work and are not looking for work. And then if you break that down, I think you can generally focus on four cohorts. One is students. There's over 2 million of them. And I think most people wouldn't be expecting students to go out and get full time jobs, are there to study and so on. Then you've got the. Those who've retired early might be in their 50s, have done quite well. It's a lifestyle decision. Now, it may or may not be the right decision in every case because some may be under, you know, under, you know, they're not taking into account the fact they may live a bit longer than they're expecting, not have enough money and all the rest of it,
- [24:37]
Jimmy
another 30 years probably.
- [24:38]
Mel Stride
Right, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So that, that, that, that's a group. Then you've got, those have caring responsibilities, particularly with children. So that's where we rolled out when we were in office, quite a lot of childcare, big childcare offer. And then you've got the really tough bit, which is the long term sick and disability cohort. You've got 3 million people on those long term benefits. We know that about 20% of them through surveys say that with sufficient support they would like to work. A lot of them are frightened of working because I think if they try it and it doesn't work out, they won't be able to get back onto the benefits, etc. And you've got a flow going into that, into those benefits of people being assessed and going on the benefits. So what I did when I was Secretary of State was I looked particularly at the flow and I looked at something called the work capability assessment, which is the criteria by which you get onto those benefits and made changes in a very principled, I think, thoughtful way. And the OBR said that that would say £5 billion across the scorecard and would see around 450,000 fewer people going on to those benefits. So the answer to your question is in part you do have to look at the flow onto those benefits. What the gateway is going into that benefit, into this benefit, what support you give the people who could work with a bit of help. But the real tough nut to crack, I think are those that are currently on those long term sickness benefits is how you support them and get them into work. And that's something that we will be doing more work on over the coming months.
- [26:15]
Jimmy
Okay, how are you finding being in opposition as a job itself? Because you spent 14 years as a MP as part of government team, how have you found the sort of skill transition? Because I imagine it's quite well suited to you as an entrepreneur if you've got to go out and make things happen in opposition. How. Yeah, how have you found sort of almost first year of it?
- [26:37]
Mel Stride
So. Well, so the first big difference is, and it's an obvious thing to say is you go from having the huge apparatus of government around you, the civil servants, DWP. There were 90,000 people working at DWP. Okay, so that's a big change. Somebody said to me, once you realize when you're no longer a minister is where when you get into the back of the car and it doesn't go anywhere, you know, right, so the support suddenly disappears. So that's the first thing. The second thing is the experience in the chamber of the House of Commons itself. Standing up as Secretary of State at the Dispatch box with 300 plus conservatives roaring behind you, roaring on is a very different experience to being a Shadow Chancellor and having a much smaller group and facing 300 plus roaring at you from the other side. So it's sort of the texture of it all. Is very different. But you're right about the entrepreneurial bit. It's like guerrilla warfare to a degree. You've got to do the slow burn stuff, which is about thinking about the future and coming up with the ideas and so. But there is some. There's a lot of cut and thrust and living by your wits, I would say, in terms of holding the government to account when you're a very small team without a lot of support.
- [27:46]
Jimmy
Yeah. And how have you been using AI then in the last year? I mean, you mentioned the friend's business plan that you wrote.
- [27:53]
Mel Stride
Yeah.
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Jimmy
And so on. But how have you been using that in opposition?
- [27:56]
Mel Stride
I just ask questions of it, really. So I might be reading some economics piece and I come across a term where I think, yeah, I think I know what that means, but let me just check it out and I plug it in and sure enough, it comes back. Sometimes it will, you know, you ask it. I don't know, what am I thinking? I might say, you know, what's happened to what's been the path of the deficit since, you know, 1963 to the current day. Yeah. You know, and off it scurries and it gets it. To me now, that's something I would otherwise have gone to a researcher to ask. Yeah. Which would have taken hours of mucking about to get some information. So that, that kind of thing. Just general inquiries, I would say, most of them economic and what.
- [28:37]
Jimmy
One of my favorite questions to ask people is what sources of information that they are reading and consuming to kind of.
- [28:43]
Mel Stride
Yeah.
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Jimmy
Like impart their worldview and so. But also I think it's great to be able to. For younger people to be able to, you know, listen to what Mel Stride is reading, hearing and so on. Now, one of the things I've learned about asking ministers is. That's a really bad question question because basically all it is is red box papers they're reading that the civil service have kind of prepared. But what have you found in the. In the last year that you've sort of been using to sort of influence your thinking and go through this kind of process of. Okay, what is the slow burn? Stuff that we can. Yeah.
- [29:13]
Mel Stride
So sometimes stuff that people recommend. So they might say they've been really good paper. Paper Foundations was a paper that was written recently. Yeah.
- [29:21]
Jimmy
Sam Bowman.
- [29:22]
Mel Stride
Yeah, exactly. Sam Bowman. Which. Which I found a really useful document. Spend some time thinking about. I read quite a lot. I. I get the Economist every week, so I like to read that. That's often not specific reading on a particular thing that I'm super interested in, but it's a good sort of background stuff and the economy more generally. I read a lot of newspapers, I like to read the ft and I get a lot of briefing stuff. So I get a lot of internal briefing from the party stuff that my researcher produces and puts my way. So I do spend a lot of time reading.
- [30:01]
Jimmy
Yeah.
- [30:01]
Mel Stride
Absorbing information. Yeah.
- [30:05]
Jimmy
And one of my big questions that I'm trying to sort of grapple with at the moment, like it's a very standard public policy question of like, why don't we have a Google or a Facebook here in the uk? Now I think that comes down to market size, partly comes down to ambition and culture as well. But actually there's a sort of, you know, Peter Kyle sat there yesterday saying, you know, I think the next trillion dollar company can be created in Britain and so on. And I'm like, it's all very well, Peter, but we struggle to get to a 100 billion company. Right. We actually struggle to get them really beyond 20 billion.
- [30:38]
Mel Stride
Yeah.
- [30:39]
Jimmy
Why do you think that is the case?
- [30:41]
Mel Stride
Well, they always say that scale up is the, the bit of the equation that we're not so good at, and I think that's probably right, is that we're great with our universities, we're great with our, you know, entrepreneurs coming up with ideas and get to a certain level and somebody else typically from America comes in and takes it and then takes it up to the, to the next level. So I think there needs to be a lot of work and a lot of thinking. We've set up a commission around the city and finance and all of that kind of stuff that, that we need to think about it. So I'm not sitting here with, you know, magic bullet as an answer to that, but I think it's in that scale up space that the problem lies.
- [31:19]
Jimmy
But you've seen it from both sides, I suppose, right? You've seen it from government and you've been an entrepreneur yourself and you know, inevitably if you want to be hitting that size of company, you've got to be exporting and so on. That's something that you did. Where was the point in your kind of business journey when you thought, right, we're gonna have to go to the States to really scale this.
- [31:38]
Mel Stride
So. Well, I went to America because I saw an opportunity to just expand a particular exhibition product that we had and I thought would be interesting, exciting to get, get a foothold over there. So I don't think mine was quite in that sort of, you know, I wasn't going to be producing a trillion dollar business, unfortunately. But who knows, if I hadn't gone into politics, I might be sitting here as a, as a trillionaire. That's quite possible, but. Yeah,
- [32:05]
Jimmy
but how? I guess it goes back to that question as well, of like, how do we foster ambition and so on and how do we, you know, I think it's interesting the people that we kind of hold up on this. There does almost seem to be a bit of a generational gap in terms of you've got the boomers like Branson and Sugar.
- [32:22]
Mel Stride
Right.
- [32:22]
Jimmy
And then you've got the kind of like younger millennials, Ben Francis, Stephen Bartlett. But we do sort of have a bit of a, a gap of, of who is in that sort of aspirational Gen X, your generation slightly of, of who've been out there and done it.
- [32:37]
Mel Stride
But is, isn't part of this, sort of fostering this zeitgeist that we sort of had a bit in the 80s, I think, think where entrepreneurship was kind of cool and people were out there doing stuff and there was almost, almost a celebrity tinge to it. Yeah. And I think that speaks to trying to recapture a sense of a popular capitalism that perhaps we had. You know, the number of people that own shares now is substantially down or what it was 20 years ago. You know, when I was younger and I set up my own business, I had a government that was cutting my taxes and red tape. I'd gone to a university. I hadn't emerged with loads of debt because in those days you actually got a grant amazingly enough, to go to university. I came out with a degree that did actually add some value and held me in good stead for the rest of my life. It wasn't that long after that that I did manage to get that key in my hand to my own property. That became the sort of foundation for the rest of my life and the security that allowed me to, you know, go out ultimately and get married and have children, build a family and so on. And I think too many young people just can't see all of that. And I think that's what we've got to start to focus on. And if you think about who's benefiting in our society from our economy more generally, well above the age of about 40, where you have gain from the asset inflation around shares and in particular property, you're sitting on typically quite a lot of wealth below that age you're increasing. To get into what we're discussing earlier, the lower wage growth associated with a lower growth Lower productivity, economy.
- [34:13]
Jimmy
Yeah.
- [34:13]
Mel Stride
And that's something that's kind of got to be addressed. So one of the things that I think we've got to do as a party, tying this all up neatly is for, with things like AI and the future of our economy and productivity, is communicate that vision of how exciting this country could be, how vibrant it could be, if we get the calls on that. Right. But equally translate that into our mission of being a country that's there for everybody and that younger people feel they have a stake in. And if you look at some of the social sort of attitude surveys around younger people, you may know this, that too many of them think that they wouldn't want to fight for king or country or indeed question whether democracy is the best system by which to run a country. And that's deeply disturbing. Now, I'm not saying that engage economic engagement is the sole reason for that or the lack of it for a lot of young people, but it's part of the story.
- [35:07]
Jimmy
Yeah.
- [35:07]
Mel Stride
So we've got to get back to kind of what I experienced in the 80s was that I did feel part of it.
- [35:12]
Jimmy
Yeah.
- [35:12]
Mel Stride
I was excited about setting up is because I thought it was. But, you know, there wouldn't be all the red tape. And I did have the lower taxes and I did have an environment in which that was, you know, people sort of sang it from the rooftops. And I didn't get saddled out with debt when I went to university and I did get a degree that, that held me in good stead and I did get on the property ladder and all of those kind of things. And I probably owned a few shares along the way. And I think that's something that we've got to try and reconstruct quick.
- [35:38]
Jimmy
Thanks to Octopus Energy for supporting this episode. Now, a lot of people know about Octopus for their home energy products. I have recommended people switch them for years. But what you might not know is that they are now rolling out more products across home and businesses from solar panels, EV chargers, heat pumps. So if you're thinking of upgrading your home or business and you are a Jimmy's Jobs listener, you can ping jimmyctopus.energy and get the very latest deals and insights. And if you're already on the journey with Octopus, leave us a comment or a message. I'd love to hear how it's going with their wider products. All right, back to the episode. And how much do you think that the sort of quantitative easing has played in this and the kind of role of the bank of England because I do think you've had these sort of two black swan kind of events in the financial crash and the pandemic happened within the space of 15 years. And part of the bank's kind of response to that and global financial institutions. Right. Not just bank of England, it's been quantitative easing and it has led to that kind of like asset inflation for those above 40 that had already got assets. Whereas if you're starting now and you're starting with nothing, it's really hard and like you say, not even starting from nothing a lot. And they're starting with debt.
- [36:49]
Mel Stride
Right.
- [36:49]
Jimmy
If they've been to university.
- [36:51]
Mel Stride
Yeah. So I, I think in general terms, I, I'm not one of those that thinks that any level of QE was a mistake because I recognize when you get down to very low base rates, you've kind of run out of monetary firepower.
- [37:06]
Jimmy
Yeah.
- [37:06]
Mel Stride
You know, you're not going to get into, or you could get into negative interest rates with all sorts of problems associated with that. So I think QE has a role. I think there is an argument about the exception, the extent of the QE that was embarked upon. I mean, there's now this interesting debate, of course, about what do you do about the interest that's being earned by the banks on the reserves that they have relating to the QE that's held at the bank of England, which is another discussion. But no, I don't think, I sit there thinking monetary policy went completely mad and completely, you know, the alternative should have been that we should have had less, lots less. Yeah, Quantitative easing. Because I think we're just in a monetary environment when that was kind of the only realistic lever available, really.
- [37:51]
Jimmy
Yeah, no, I see that. I just think it's one of these things that's, that doesn't sort of get covered as much when it happens because there's so many of the sort of particularly pandemic, so many other kind of like health implications. But it does have this sort of long lag effect on the economy, which just does make it a lot harder for, for younger people wanting to, to get on. I mean, where would you be if you were in your 20s now? Where do you think you would be looking to go and start a business?
- [38:23]
Mel Stride
Very good question. I, I would probably look around the AI tech space.
- [38:28]
Jimmy
Yeah,
- [38:31]
Mel Stride
I would be looking, yeah, I'd be looking for one of those sectors or areas that was like, likely to expand very quickly, probably be high risk. I suppose, because I was young. I didn't think it was an assumption, Jimmy. I didn't have a family and lots of responsibilities.
- [38:45]
Jimmy
Yeah.
- [38:46]
Mel Stride
I'd be looking for something where if I really hit it right, I. I do really well and make a, you know.
- [38:51]
Jimmy
Yeah.
- [38:52]
Mel Stride
Make a big difference sort of. I suppose that would probably be the area. Yeah. It's difficult question, isn't it? Actually I thought about, you know, you fire a 20 so many years ago
- [39:04]
Jimmy
because I think it's. It's also paradox to the heart of this podcast a lot. I think there's never been a better time to be building or switching a career because there's more opportunity out there than there's ever been before.
- [39:16]
Mel Stride
Yeah.
- [39:16]
Jimmy
But there is this sort of. If you don't know how to do it and you don't know these opportunities there, it sort of means. It entrenches a lack of social mobility a little bit. It's almost your connections and what your parents did and what your parents. Friends did.
- [39:31]
Mel Stride
Yeah.
- [39:31]
Jimmy
Almost becomes more important. And it's just. I just find that, I mean. Yeah.
- [39:35]
Mel Stride
But getting back to AI, though, one of the things that AI can do is actually do the matching and the thinking.
- [39:41]
Jimmy
Yeah.
- [39:41]
Mel Stride
The answer to the question that you've just asked. So, you know, if we had time on your podcast. Be interesting just. Yeah. I bet you if we spent half an hour plugging in what. What I was good at, what my experience, you know, were I 20 back. Yeah. In the day. And what might I therefore do? It would start to come up with some stuff. I think AI actually has the ability to reduce unemployment in terms of reducing the frictional unemployment that there is. In other words, making moving from one job to another much more seamless in terms of matching up employees and opportunities and individuals as well.
- [40:12]
Jimmy
So I think, I think that's. I think that's true. I think it could be a. Because there's always that. That, you know, teachers and schools aren't very good at careers advice. I've always been like, yeah, because that's not really their job. Right.
- [40:25]
Mel Stride
It's.
- [40:26]
Jimmy
It's gonna. That's always going to be a bit.
- [40:27]
Mel Stride
But it's moving so fast.
- [40:28]
Jimmy
Exactly.
- [40:29]
Mel Stride
I mean, how on earth can you be, you know, in the, in the dusty old crusty old career service, you know, with a bookshelves full of, you know, opportunities or whatever, you know, and
- [40:39]
Jimmy
suddenly it's, it's changing by the week almost exactly. And I just think there's a. Yeah, I do think it's right.
- [40:45]
Mel Stride
It's.
- [40:46]
Jimmy
But again, it's that learning how to use the skills.
- [40:47]
Mel Stride
Right.
- [40:48]
Jimmy
Learning how to use chatgpt but you
- [40:50]
Mel Stride
see, skills will go out of, out of fashion very quickly in this new world. So. Yeah, I mean, look, what was the thing a while ago? Probably is doing coding.
- [40:59]
Jimmy
Yeah.
- [41:00]
Mel Stride
Where's coding gone? Well, AI can do all that stuff for you. So I think actually that younger people might be better focusing on not so much skills as capabilities, actually.
- [41:12]
Jimmy
Yes.
- [41:12]
Mel Stride
Which is a slightly different thing. So I think that is an interesting challenge for higher education and the skills space is how the nature of the skills required will be changing very fast.
- [41:24]
Jimmy
And what do you mean by capabilities?
- [41:26]
Mel Stride
That's a good question. I mean the ability to look at a fast changing environment in which technology is a major driver and to be able to function in an economically effective way. So probably lots of, you know, good interpersonal skills, good analytical skills, you know, the ability to spot opportunities, you know, lots of drive and enthusiasm, motivation, motivating teams and others.
- [41:54]
Jimmy
Yeah.
- [41:54]
Mel Stride
Rather than necessarily being a super brilliant coder who, yeah. Where AI is going to step in, who knows, in six months time and make everybody in that, doing that totally redundant.
- [42:08]
Jimmy
Do you think Westminster's begun to get his head around this? Yeah, because I, I agree with you and I just think that, you know, by the end of this parliament we may be knocking on the door of AGI. Right. And super intelligence. And that is just, you know, I just think it's going to be so different.
- [42:27]
Mel Stride
Yeah. Difficult to even work out the way in which it will be different. Yes, I think that's the point.
- [42:34]
Jimmy
Yeah.
- [42:34]
Mel Stride
Because it's moving so quickly. But the fundamental question is, I suppose the one we start with, you know, is this going to be a good or a bad thing? I strongly believe it's going to be a good thing. You know, I am an optimist on all this stuff. I think the world of work is going to become far more interesting. I think we're going to be far more productive. I think the cost of some things that are, you know, relatively expensive now will become very cheap. And that's, you know, that, that will be good for consumers and all the rest of it driven by the efficiency gains from, from AI.
- [43:01]
Jimmy
Yeah, I hope so. We should definitely get it back on in six months and kind of reveal. Yeah, but I, I, in the last few months I've noticed like a really big, I'm using it every day basically. And that's just been, it's this thing that's, it's a bit of the earnest Hemingway gradually and then suddenly. Right. Like I'm just like, wow. Like.
- [43:19]
Mel Stride
Yeah. But you can see The, the, the early ripples of the effect in the job market. I think two things I would point to. One is some consultancies who appear to have frozen recruitment or slowed down on recruitment. And second is the demand for graduates, which. Which has decreased.
- [43:37]
Jimmy
Yeah.
- [43:37]
Mel Stride
Now that in part is businesses thinking, well, we'll kind of wait and see. You know, where is this going? But I think you already see the only effects of it.
- [43:44]
Jimmy
Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, I think the government has created a bit of a perfect storm with this because they brought in the. They've obviously the NICs increase national minimum wage as well, which means it now basically costs an employer close to 30 grand to hire somebody at the lowest level. So a lot of money for somebody to learn, which they're basically doing their first job. And you've then also got the employment rights stuff. Plus you've got kind of like Trump chaos and tariffs and all that and businesses being unsure. And then you've got AI as well. So you've got this sort of, you know, quintuple effect kind of happening on the job market.
- [44:19]
Mel Stride
Yes.
- [44:20]
Jimmy
And a lot of it's not replacing jobs yet, but it does mean companies aren't hiring. Right. Because it's like, okay, well, let's increase our capabilities with AI.
- [44:29]
Mel Stride
Yes.
- [44:30]
Jimmy
Rather than people. And I just think it's. Yeah. And the graduate employment thing as well is striking.
- [44:35]
Mel Stride
I think you see life in phases. You go back from the Second World War on. I think you can look at a period during the Cold War in which we lived in a dangerous world. I even, I can remember as a young man hearing thunderstorms and thinking, gosh, has a nuclear bomb gone off? Or something?
- [44:52]
Jimmy
Right.
- [44:52]
Mel Stride
You know, there was a Cold War, was a difficult time. Then we went into the era of the peace dividend, which is a very fortunate time to be alive, actually. It was a kind of exciting time, wasn't it? People were getting more affluent, you know, the threat of, you know, wars and things seem to have diminished in those terms. But now we've moved into another phase, which seems to have a combination of both, which is that it's both exciting to be around, full of opportunity. There's also this sense of risk associated with it, with the coming wave of technology and with the, you know, the way the geopolitical world is changing at the moment in a slightly more or less certain way. So an interesting time. And that's where, getting back to the politics, what the Conservative Party has got to do do is demonstrate that it is the future facing future, looking Party that has got thoughtful things to say and policies to have around AI technology, the economy, the rewiring of the economy, all the things that we went through earlier around tax and welfare and supply side issues and so on, address that intergenerational challenge so that it's an economy that's there for everybody, everybody can benefit from it. And also underpin that by something I've been talking a lot about lately, which is fiscal responsibility. In other words, making sure the numbers all add up. And I think if we can do that, we can be that party that comes through with the offer where the electorate will look at us and say, you're the adults in the room compared to Labour who've messed it up and reform, who will promise anything and not think it through or explain how it's going to be paid for. You're the adults in the room, but you've really worked out what the future holds for this country and how we can maximize our benefits from it.
- [46:36]
Jimmy
How often do you think about what you would do on day one as Chancellor? Because it's a long way.
- [46:45]
Mel Stride
It's a long way, yeah, of course it is. You know, it's four. Four years away if we need a small matter of winning an election to get there. But I believe we can do that. I think general terms, not so much about, you know, day one. If I was, you know, at my desk, what would I have in my entree, but a strong sense that I will arrive at that point with a very clear plan. In other words, whatever it is, whatever buttons that need to be pressed, and they. They will happen very quickly and we will know exactly what we're doing. Why? Because we'll have had four years to do all the hard work, to do it. Why is it important? Because you've seen what happens in government. Government with this government, I believe, that didn't come into office with a very clear plan. Certainly on the economy.
- [47:28]
Jimmy
Yeah.
- [47:29]
Mel Stride
I mean, they made all sorts of pledges during the run up to the election about, you know, not putting up taxes left, right and center and so on, and then doing exactly that. Destroying growth, you know, going on this massive spending splurge, keeping inflation higher than would otherwise be, interest rates higher than and for longer than would otherwise have been the case. Having a huge national debt that they're adding to with massive servicing costs on that, about 100 billion, twice what we spend on defense, and running the economy ragged when it comes to fiscal headroom, blowing that headroom, rebuilding it in the spring, looks like it'll be lost again. In the autumn, with taxes going up and maybe tipping into this kind of doom loop of vanishing fiscal headroom at the same time as then, then loading on more taxes to try and build it up again, which slows the economy and you go around this, this vicious cycle. So I think we've seen what happens when you don't have a clear and sensible plan. So that won't be. If there's Mel Stride, Chancellor in the future, it will be a very prepared situation and we will hit the ground running.
- [48:35]
Jimmy
Are you a fan of Jimmy's Jobs of the Future? Hi, I'm Sunny, one of the producers behind the show. And we don't just make this podcast. We produce some of the best business content out there, working with global brands and founders. Over the past year, we've flown around the world and demand keeps growing. And with four prime ministers trusting us with their appearances on this show, you're in safe hands. So if you're already in the market for a podcast or standout business content, why not start with us? Drop me a line at sunnyoxlight IO, try our podcast Cat Calculator, or book a meeting at Boxlight IO. That's Boxlight IO. Now back to Jimmy. How did you find responding to the spending review? Because that's, you know, that's quite a big.
- [49:18]
Mel Stride
Yeah, it is a big moment because as with all these things, like responding to a budget, you don't know fully what the content's going to be. You can sort of guess, but you can't be absolutely certain. So there's an element when you do it of sort of filling in the gaps as you're literally thinking on your feet. And in fact, you get a copy of the statement about half an hour or so beforehand, but 90 of it is redacted. So, I mean, it's hilarious. It says something like, you know, I will make sure that we get much more growth by doing. And this is three pages of nothing. You know, there's a table with no figures in it, so it's a bit like that. So, but look, it's a big moment. There's an element of theater about it. I do actually enjoy being at the dispatch box. It's in the Commons, so I enjoy doing that. And I'm there to hold Rachel Reeves to account, but I'm also there to frame our argument. So the way I framed it was this was the chancellor who will spend now and tax later. And that landed. So almost every newspaper then picked that up and all the rest of it. So what you're trying to do is to frame what's going on in a very clear cut through way. And, and I think we did achieve that actually around the spending really.
- [50:34]
Jimmy
We've talked a lot about the future and being the party of the future, which seems ironic for somebody whose first job was a tour guide.
- [50:41]
Mel Stride
Oh no, it wasn't a job actually, Jimmy. I wish it had. Yeah. There's a bit of me that always wanted to be. No, I trained to be a blue badge guide, but I was, I was never employed. That was purely a hobby. So I did, I did it as an interest in the way that somebody might do a course at, I know, creative writing or something. Yeah, yeah. So because it was a brilliant way of learning about our, our people and our history by actually being, ending up being qualified to, you know, guide the British Museum or Tower of London or Westminster Abbey or whatever it may be just to look at things and understand history through objects. I think it's just a really fascinating way of learning about our country.
- [51:18]
Jimmy
And so what was the process that you had to go on then?
- [51:21]
Mel Stride
It was about an 18 month course. I would describe it as being a bit like doing a degree, actually, quite intensive. So you had to obviously cover all the history of our country but also get very well acquainted with the various places you were then qualified to, to guide and you know, including, you know, being on a coach and being driven around all over London and being able to look out the window and say something that, you know, it was intelligent and interesting and maybe amusing, you know. So I know it was a great, it's a great skill. I have huge respect for, for good guides who could. And it's a bit like a good politician in a way because sometimes the things that you're discussing can be quite bitty and complicated and all the rest of it, but you've got to kind of distill it into something that somebody wants to listen to and can understand what you're saying fairly quickly. So it was good discipline in a way, actually.
- [52:13]
Jimmy
Well, our most popular guest this year is a guy who makes YouTube videos of tours of London and it is places like sort of, you know, Balham, Tooting, Clapham. Yeah, it won't necessarily be. Yeah, it'll do some of the sort of bigger places as well. Obviously they're quite well known and it is a real. I've always thought it's a, it's a very cool job because, you know, you're part historian, part entertainer and so on. And yes, you know, it's, it's, it's a Very interesting thing. I know it's a long time ago since you did it, but what's a couple of things that sort of stood out for you that still stand out for you now that sort of surprised you when you read it? Etc?
- [52:48]
Mel Stride
I would say that the reality of the fact that there is history all around you and most people don't notice it and that when you do know a bit of where you're wandering around, you kind of have a familiarity and a connection with it that is quite special. I'll give you one example. For example, the other day I was. I went to a meeting, a place just off the Strand in London near Charing Cost Station. And if you look down there, there's an embankment that would have gone in in Victorian times. So Basil Jack sort of sorted out all the sewage system. Okay. It all rested partly under these different embankments that were created. So of course the River Thames got a bit narrower as a consequence. Well, if you go into the gardens by Embankment tube there, you'll see a little arch and a little gateway
- [53:40]
Jimmy
by Gordon's Wine Barge. Just that.
- [53:41]
Mel Stride
Yeah, that's right, yeah. You, you'll have seen it. Now that was the water gate into what was York House. Now you could say, well, where's the water? Well that's because the embankment was there. There's no water there anymore, there's a garden. But before Basil Jet and the Embankment occurred, of course that would have been right on the water. Now what was York House originally it was a house that George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham owned and he was lover of. Of James the First. And if you look around that area, whilst the palace and its various reincarnations after that is long gone, the street names always like that. There's Villiers Street, George Street, Duke Street, Buckingham Street. There was even George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. There was an of alley in that area which Westminster Council in its wisdom, and I don't no idea why they did this, decided to change because confused the post or something, which I think is a great tragedy. So there is no off valley. But that's what I mean by it. It is that sense of identity. So when I walk around there, I look at that, I suddenly get transported back to the early 17th century. And I think about the building that was there and the river that would have gone up to that gate and maybe the people that would have been ferried to and from it and so on. And it brings places to life in a way that they're otherwise just places that you scurry by in Your hurry to get from a.
- [55:03]
Jimmy
To.
- [55:03]
Mel Stride
To be.
- [55:04]
Jimmy
Yeah. If you could go back in time for 24 hours to any date, location, history, read only access. So, yeah, you can't go back and last week and pick the lottery numbers or whatever.
- [55:15]
Mel Stride
Yeah.
- [55:15]
Jimmy
But when and where would you choose? Or you can give me a couple. You don't need to give me.
- [55:21]
Mel Stride
No, no. Okay. Well, any, any period of history anywhere.
- [55:24]
Jimmy
Any period of history anywhere. Where.
- [55:26]
Mel Stride
Oh, my God. I probably. I'd probably go back to Vienna when. When Hitler applied to get into the Viennese art school, and I'd probably just make sure that they accepted it. That would have helped the world probably quite a lot. What else might I have done? Oh, gosh. When would it be fascinating to have been around? Well, when. VE day. Let's stick with the war theme.
- [55:49]
Jimmy
Yeah.
- [55:50]
Mel Stride
I think, you know, when Churchill was out there on the balcony from a Treasury balcony looking over Whitehall with all the crowds cheering. The fact that after all those hard years we'd finally beaten, you know, Nazi Germany. I think that would be an incredible moment to. To experience and be around. Who else? Where else might I go? The Tudors are always interesting, aren't they?
- [56:16]
Jimmy
Yeah.
- [56:16]
Mel Stride
You know, what was Henry VIII really like? A pretty.
- [56:18]
Jimmy
Pretty awful course of Henry.
- [56:20]
Mel Stride
Just to be around there for a bit, I suppose. Yeah.
- [56:28]
Jimmy
One of the things that came up in your political thinking interview with Nick Robinson was that you had a red Mercedes at one point, the sort of Thatcher. Yeah, Thatcher area. And so what car do you drive now?
- [56:41]
Mel Stride
So it's a. It is a Mercedes, actually.
- [56:44]
Jimmy
Okay.
- [56:45]
Mel Stride
It's. It's. I don't know what the model is, but it's not a sports car because children came along.
- [56:50]
Jimmy
Well, yes.
- [56:51]
Mel Stride
And you know, and that sort of. Of kills all that stuff.
- [56:54]
Jimmy
Would you ever go electric car?
- [56:57]
Mel Stride
Yeah, maybe. Maybe, you know, yeah, it might. The car I have isn't an electric car, but. Yeah, I wouldn't. Wouldn't rule it out.
- [57:05]
Jimmy
I'm not wanting to ask about that because you are the first person that I've interviewed who has three daughters.
- [57:10]
Mel Stride
Yes.
- [57:11]
Jimmy
Which is the same as me.
- [57:12]
Mel Stride
Yes.
- [57:13]
Jimmy
And mine are much younger. They're all under five. Five and under. What advice have you got?
- [57:20]
Mel Stride
Firstly, enjoy them at the age they are because it goes so quickly. And I know everybody says this, but it's absolutely true. I mean, I. My middle daughter just finished her last A level yesterday and I'm just so proud of her and all the work she put in, but I equally. I just thought that time from having been a little Baby through to being a toddler, etc. Flew by, actually. And what I wouldn't give of, you know, to. To your question about, in history, when would you go back? When in my private life would I go back? I probably would go back to the kind of age that your daughters are, just for a day to spend with them and, you know, have that lovely relationship the fathers in particular, I think have with daughters. Yes. At that age. Really special. So there we are. Jimmy, that's my. My advice to you is make the most of that time while you've got it.
- [58:08]
Jimmy
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I. Yeah, yeah. It's. It is a special time. I. I enjoy that as a very politician, which means you basically tied the last two questions together, which is. Which is very good. Mel Stride, thanks very much for coming on Jimmy's Jobs of the Future. It's been a real pleasure and I think you're doing some really interesting thinking. And, you know, it's. It's not great being in opposition, but it does allow time for a bit of thoughtfulness and thinking.
- [58:34]
Mel Stride
It does. Thanks, Jimmy. I really enjoyed it. Thank you.
- [58:37]
Jimmy
Sa.
- [59:27]
Mel Stride
Close your eyes. Exhale. Feel your body relax. And let go of whatever you're carrying today.
- [59:34]
Jimmy
Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh, my gosh, they're so fast.
- [59:42]
Mel Stride
And breathe. Oh, sorry.
- [59:44]
Jimmy
I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order.
- [59:49]
Mel Stride
Oh, sorry.
- [59:50]
Jimmy
Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-contacts.
- [59:56]
Mel Stride
It's tax season, and at LifeLock, we know you're tired of numbers, but here's a big one you need to hear.
- [60:02]
Jimmy
Billions.
- [60:03]
Mel Stride
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