#122 - William Clouston - Beyond the Doom Loop: A New Politics for Britain

Summary

Podcast Summary

The Peter McCormack Show
Episode #122: William Clouston – Beyond the Doom Loop: A New Politics for Britain
Date: October 23, 2025
Host: Peter McCormack
Guest: William Clouston, leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP)

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode features William Clouston discussing the UK’s political, economic, and cultural malaise and offering his vision for "a new politics" as leader of the SDP. The conversation examines why Britain is in a so-called "doom loop"—wherein national decline is normalized—touching on energy policy, deindustrialization, spiraling public sector inefficiency, social trust, and the possibility of political realignment. Throughout, both Peter and William critique the ruling elite’s failure of leadership and advocate for a return to foundational, practical policies.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The State of the Nation: Decline & the “Doom Loop”

• Sacrifice of Prosperity for Righteousness:
  William argues the ruling elite has “sacrificed our prosperity for their own self-righteousness”, prioritizing moral posturing over material wellbeing.
  “They sacrificed our future, particularly young people, to be self righteous. And you see that in lots of domains. It’s not just energy. ... But they’re more interested in doing that than in the material reality of actually supplying power.” (00:00 & 15:11)
• Anecdotal Evidence of Malaise:
  Peter shares stories of business closures, lack of investment, and social decline, such as the failure of local councils and decay in his own town.
  “Today another friend of me has told me they’re closing their business down next year.” (05:31)

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2. Economic & Energy Policy Failures

• UK Energy Policy Catastrophe:
  William details how the UK’s industrial energy prices are the highest in the world, crippling domestic industry.
  “We have the highest industrial energy prices in the world. ... Four or five times higher than the U.S.” (08:10)
• Privatization and Loss of Planning:
  Both speakers critique the move to privatize natural monopolies (energy, water), arguing public ownership and planning yielded better outcomes.
  “You can’t and you shouldn’t privatize natural monopolies. ... It was better when it was.” (09:09)
• Net Zero & Policy Pretending:
  Clouston derides the UK approach to renewables and net zero as “pretending it works” while the grid still requires reliable backup from fossil fuels or nuclear.
  “Renewables are not very sensible. Wind power and solar power isn't sensible because it’s not reliable. ... Net zero is just—it's a form of pretense.” (12:03)

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3. Bureaucracy, Regulation, and Public Sector Inefficiency

• Government-Driven Inefficiency:
  The conversation exposes bizarre bureaucratic requirements, such as diversity quotas in nuclear reactor contracts:
  “To win it, you must have 50, 50 male and females in the workforce ... and you have to open up employment opportunities for minorities, including asylum seekers. I’m not joking.” (17:16)
• Grift and Bad Incentives:
  Peter laments rampant inefficiency: agencies exploiting NHS staffing, councils fostering expensive emergency housing at public expense, and local government outsourcing.
  “So what happens is agencies are created, they incentivise nurses to come and work for them, and the hospitals are employing them through the agencies and paying them more.” (19:38)

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4. Social Trust, Public Realm Decline & Cultural Crisis

• Collapse of Social Trust:
  Both note the breakdown of trust in institutions, illustrated by disorder in town centers, visible drug problems, and public realm neglect.
  “No one. There’s this sense, I can’t really put my finger on it, but there’s like a misery across the country.” (49:48 & 50:11)
• Public Good Contamination:
  William argues inaction toward antisocial behavior punishes everyone:
  “If it goes wrong, everyone suffers. That’s what’s happened in your block. Everyone else is suffering because of a few people and lack of assertion from the authorities.” (56:41)

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5. Political Realignment, Leadership, and the Future

• Lack of Political Champions:
  Peter and William enumerate the failings of all major parties and predict further crisis under Labour without fundamental changes.
  “It can be done ... The Swedes did it 25 years ago ... But you know what you have to do? You have to raise tax, but you have to cut at the same time. ... If everyone suffers and everyone does the correction, then you can fix it.” (33:49)
• Political Homelessness & Realignment:
  They discuss the appetite for “sensible” politics among both left and right voters, and the possibility of new coalitions or parties (SDP, Reform, etc.) filling the void.
  “There is a sort of fusion ... what unites us? National citizen preference and the nation state. ... it is a mixture of red and blue.” (69:01)
• Conviction Politicians:
  Repeated references to the need for politicians who are independently wealthy or brave enough to ignore party whips and special interests.
  “He has the one ingredient that is a precondition of bravery. He’s not a coward. No, he has bravery and he’s prepared to say.” (75:16)

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6. Optimism—But Only After Hitting Bottom

• Change Must Be Forced:
  Clouston is cautiously optimistic, believing a turnaround will require reaching a crisis point where “the right people with real conviction” can seize the moment.
  “The moment you get to the inflection point, you get to the bottom and it turns round, you’ve got to show that it can turn around.” (86:50)
• Practical Vision:
  The SDP’s platform focuses on energy abundance, reindustrialization, investment, and restoring direct provision of services.
  “I want a new fleet of British nuclear power stations ... flood the grid with cheap power and reindustrialize and re-energize your economy.” (36:06)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the British Elite:
  “Our elites have sacrificed our prosperity for their own self-righteousness.” — William Clouston (00:00, 15:11)
• On UK Privatization:
  “Selling off the family silver ... was a failure. ... You can’t and you shouldn’t privatize natural monopolies.” — William Clouston (09:09)
• On Political Courage:
  “If you don’t have that [independence], you won’t be able to correct anything. ... If you’re fettered to other things, there’s no chance.” — William Clouston (77:45)
• On a Nation’s Mood:
  “There’s like a misery across the country.” — Peter McCormack (50:11)
• On the UK’s Economic Prospects:
  “We have the highest industrial energy prices in the world. ... Four or five times higher than the U.S.” — William Clouston (08:10)
• On Social Trust:
  “I think trust in the institutions to be capable is at the heart of it.” — William Clouston (50:13)
• On Conviction Politics:
  “Conviction, you know ... you elect people that really believe in something and you might get somewhere.” — William Clouston (70:30)
• On the Path Forward:
  “Join us. Don’t just get off the fence and join us if you believe in what we’re saying. ... The country itself ... is headed for some turbulence.” — William Clouston (91:23)

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Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Topic/Quote | |-----------|-------------| | 00:00 | William on the self-righteousness of elites (main opening) | | 07:49 | The crisis in UK energy, postwar planning vs. privatization | | 09:45 | Arguments for public ownership of natural monopolies | | 12:03 | Net zero as “pretending” to deliver results; grid reliability | | 17:16 | Absurd bureaucratic hiring requirements for nuclear contracts | | 19:38 | NHS agency inefficiencies, broader public sector grift | | 26:47 | Question: has anything improved in the last 20 years? | | 36:06 | The case for a massive nuclear investment (energy policy) | | 49:48 | The mood of decline vs. US optimism | | 56:41 | Case study: decay in Bedford's “The Heights” flats | | 69:01 | Realignment: “fusion” of left and right under patriotism | | 78:11 | William negotiating general election pact with Reform | | 91:23 | William’s pitch for the SDP, prediction for Britain’s future |

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Tone & Atmosphere

The conversation is earnest and deeply concerned, but laced with pockets of humor and personal anecdotes. Both speakers are candidly pessimistic about Britain’s short-term trajectory but agree that fundamental, practical change is both necessary and, ultimately, possible—if enough people demand it and the right leadership emerges.

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Conclusion

William Clouston offers clear-eyed criticism of the British status quo while laying out a vision focused on decency, national interest, and practical investment. With neither the left nor the right delivering for ordinary citizens, both he and Peter see an opening for new politics driven by competence, honesty, and genuine public service.

For those seeking substantive, skeptical, and constructive criticism of where the UK is—and hope for how it could be better—this discussion is essential listening.

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Find out more about the SDP and their policies at:
stp.org.uk
(See especially their energy abundance green paper as referenced at 93:44.)

Transcript

[William]

Our elites have sacrificed our prosperity for their own self righteousness. That's what they've done basically trying to, and I'm a simplified trying to say, what have they done? They've sacrificed our future, particularly young people, to be self righteous. And you see that in lots of domains. It's not just energy. You see that in obviously borders and refugees and all sorts of things. But yeah, they're more interested in doing that than in the material reality of actually supplying power. But they, you know, to go back to Delve or any of the other propagandists for Net zero. I'm sorry. Well, I tell you, another simplification I use in meetings a lot which is very simple. Right. You know, it's not a fair fight between these power sources. Gas and oil hydrocarbons are so efficient you can tax them.

[Peter]

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[William]

But he. Well, I don't know. I have no idea. I just, just heard the story. I don't know. I hope he did.

[Peter]

He could be a multi millionaire and completely disturbed because nobody opened.

[William]

No one's doing it properly. Yeah, yeah.

[Peter]

So how have you been, man? It's good to see you.

[William]

I'm good.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[William]

Well, it's funny because, because when Jack said let's, can we ask again, It'd be lovely to do it. But I was thinking do it a year later and saying, what's happened? Well, nothing really. Everything's got worse. Well, you know, gradually. Some things happen though.

[Peter]

No, not every two haven't. So our last show, I mean, we were still fairly new as a show, but it's very popular. Got a lot of really great feedback. Yeah, I think there's a lot of old school kind of people with left wing ideas who felt like the STP might be a home for them, because it's sensible politics.

[William]

Right?

[Peter]

Sensible politics. And I think it's always. I was like, interviewing a person for the second time, because the first time you don't really know each other. You kind of feel each other out, but a lot's happened since.

[William]

But we kicked off pretty well at the start, actually. Sometimes you do. It depends what happens. Like, I've just done talk radio. Do it every time in London with Mike Graham. We know each other so well. It's just like. Just, let's pick up what we did last time. We trust each other and we know what we're going to say.

[Peter]

The audience has missed our 10 minutes on Punk rock.

[William]

I know they. Yes, they are. Well, that's the best bit. Well, listen, look, I. I. Did I tell you why I stopped playing punk? Apart from I didn't listen to it, but I worked out. I got the calculator out in. I played. I played Rockaway BEACH probably about 600 times, and I worked out how many times I hit the snare. There's about 1.6 million. And I said to the man, that's enough. I've done enough now.

[Peter]

Have you seen the film Whiplash?

[William]

Yes, I have. Yeah. Yeah.

[Peter]

So it's up there with one of my favorite films of all time. It's a brilliant film.

[William]

But is it.

[Peter]

Is it like that?

[William]

It's. Well, the claim in the film that, you know, that jazz drummers are the best by far is true. Okay. But they're the best in all respects. I mean, remember, if you're a. Imagine you're, you know, a brass player, you know, play trumpet or bassoon or whatever. Sax. If you play in a concert orchestra, it's all regulated and you're told what to do. And jazz players could do that, but a lot of concert players couldn't do what jazz is. So just. Just riff. Just do it. It's much more talent to do that.

[Peter]

Yeah. So when I've been to Ronnie Scott's, like I said, I used to go all the time when I worked down here because it's a good evening and I can't remember what night they used to have. The kind of open night, the drum kid and the various instruments and just random people would just come up and they would. They would all just jam, just play.

[William]

Yeah, yeah.

[Peter]

And it was. I was like, hold on, are they playing a song? Or is there, like. Is there a certain theme to a song? And they just kind of deviate. And I don't understand jazz, so I didn't know what was Happening. But I couldn't understand how they just all got up and played.

[William]

Well, there's some sort of structure to it. And then they play within the structure. But they can go whenever they like. Usually at the start of something, they'll start with a basic melody or, you know, and it could be like a standard song that everyone knows. And they'll just start that and they'll just go off into directions. But they always pull it back. And it's democratic. Cause they. They hand. You know, they get a chance each to do.

[Peter]

It's a solo.

[William]

Yeah, but it's totally different art form. I think it's the highest art form, actually. I think music is the highest of all art forms. I think jazz is the highest of it. But. And it's funny, but you have to develop a jazz ear. It takes time. Most people don't know what the hell's going on.

[Peter]

I don't know what that was going on. I like it when I'm there.

[William]

You've got to have. You've got to. It probably takes years, actually, to get it. One of my whippets, he's not with us anymore, but his ear was up. And I just tweeted, I took a photograph of him and, you know, thousands of hours of jazz into this ear. And someone wrote, you know, poor bastard. You know. But actually, it is true that you do have to listen for a long time to get it. Yeah.

[Peter]

Well, it's good to see you again.

[William]

Yeah.

[Peter]

I can't even remember how. It was about eight months ago we did this nine months ago.

[William]

Yeah, it was January. Yeah, it was. Well, I was snappy because someone. It's really funny, Peter. Actually, someone said, I've never seen the sort of assertive will, you know, and it was dry. January.

[Peter]

There you go. So, look, lots have happened since. I'm. I'm deeply concerned about the future of this country. Primarily, I. I'm thinking a lot about the economy. So today another friend of me has told me they're closing their business down next year. I put a post up on Facebook ahead of this interview. Just said, how's business? Are you an investor? Are you investing? Do you have a local business? How are things? Reach out to me. Private. I've had four. I'll show you after four or five, people reach out and say, it's really hard out there. And I know it's hard. Like my businesses, I'm finding it hard. I'm lacking the will to invest at the moment in small business because I. I don't see it. And Just, I went out to America recently to see somebody I know because I, I, I put together a thesis on how to redevelop a town. I had an idea of investing in the local economy and creating businesses that were part owned by the people who worked at it, part owned by the town in terms of benefit, and that you could create a community around the town, that people would work together and build the town anyway by the bite. And I was about to put it in front of him. He said, look, Pete, if you're asking for money, I'm not investing in the uk. I was like, okay.

[William]

Astonishing.

[Peter]

I said, why? He said, you got to fix the foundation first. The UK is not a place that's worth investing in at the moment. I don't want to lose money. And he said, if you want to go and be a politician, I would support your campaign and I would help you, but you got to go and fix the foundations first. It's not an economy to invest in. He said, and absolutely it's funny you've brought this. He said, you've got to fix your energy policy. He said you're anti competitive on the international stage and if you can fix your energy policy, it's a tax break for small businesses and homeowners.

[William]

Yeah, no, it's right. He's right. I mean, there are so many things to talk about, so many problems. Energy is the master industry and we've got that completely wrong. And I tell you what, I learned a lot with the team writing that energy paper. And a lot of what I learned was stark and it's not going to be easy to fix from where we are because you have to change a total paradigm and you have to correct a lot of problems. And all the problems basically go back 30, 40 years. Most of them are cultural.

[Peter]

Tell me about that.

[William]

Well, first the problem that we have now, we have too little energy supplied, it's too expensive and we're too reliant on imports. So every point we made a lot, you know, we have the highest industrial energy prices in the world. It's not competitive and any energy intensive industry is struggling or closing down. So ammonia.

[Peter]

There's no country in the world with higher industrial energy prices.

[William]

No, no, no, this is, this is, this is the worst.

[Peter]

And how much higher we are, say than the U.S. and four times, four times higher than the U.S. yeah, yeah, or five.

[William]

Depends where you are on the, because it's decentralized, but yeah, four or five times. So if you're producing something like cement or ammonia for fertilizer, Whatever, you've got no chance. Teesside. There are parts of Teesside Billingham that are literally being closed down as we speak. And it's tragic for the economy of course, because you close the production down here and what do you have to do if you want that product, you have to import it. So the balance of payments gets worse so you're in this awful doom loop. So we won't get anywhere as a country until we get cheap abundant energy. But fixing it is a problem. Why are we here? It's a failure to plan. They abandoned planning 40 years ago. They thought it wasn't important. And actually when we used to plan, post war, the golden age of the nuclear energy that Britain pioneered, we invented it basically it was very old fashioned, had a state, entities, central energy generating boards, cgb, they produce power. And if you look at the graphs it went up and up and up and it was good and we had industry that could use it. And then you had a sort of flawed privatization. You shouldn't, I mean I would say this, you know, from my point of view, you can't and you shouldn't privatize natural monopolies. It just doesn't work. You know, water and energy production, transmission should be in the public sector and it was better when it was. And I just, you know, all the data is in, I'm not going to argue with anyone on the data because it just doesn't work.

[Peter]

Well, it's funny you should say that. So the libertarian side of me, this is the one area I have struggled with and I've even discussed it with libertarians and they said no. Well the, you know, the water sector wasn't really privatized. You know, they were had, you know, guaranteed profits, blah blah, blah. But my thing on water I think is actually a public good. It is, yeah, it is a public good, like parks and things. There's certain things I think we should protect as a public good. And so that's an area where like my libertarian, my libertarian ideas kind of break down.

[William]

Well they do, yeah. But also just the textbook, the economic textbook tells you it's a natural monopoly. So you can't have competition in it. If you can't have competition, I don't want it in the private sector. I want the private sector deregulated and energized. You know, I want the government off the, we're regulated to destruction in this country. So I want the private sector to make all the money and produce all the product. But the basic, the frontier, as I said last time we were in, you know, water's basic and it's not helpful to load it with debt or sell it to foreigners. I was invited as a guest to the Tory conference a couple of weeks ago to speak with a friend at a think tank and a big fringe meeting, True North. And, and I made the point that you've got a cultural problem. And I don't want to be rude. I used to be a member of the Tory party for four years, a lot of friends in the party. But. But I didn't want to be rude, but I said, you have a cultural problem in this room because you, you know, you're selling, you're getting other states to run your railways and you've got foreign entities owning the water in your capital. I think that's a problem. I think that's a cultural problem. And if you don't understand that it's a cultural problem, you have a cultural problem. Because no sensible state would do this. South Korea wouldn't do this. We just wouldn't do it. So I think that is a problem. But to get back to energy. So we had a flawed privatization and then so we stopped planning and producing. We just was indifferent to that. You didn't have to bother doing silly things like that. The market will decide. Well, the market's incentives are entirely different to the states. The CGB had. One basic function was to develop and supply power to the grid. It was really simple and they did it. They weren't distracted with anything else. If you have a private producer, its real incentive is to sweat the assets. It's not a service ethic, it's to sweat the assets. So underinvestment and squeezing it, and then you get into trouble, but then everyone knows what happened. Then you combine that with net zero ideology and you end up with a crazy system. It's funny because you had Catherine Porter in and she's excellent. But my job as a politician is to really simplify, okay? Really simplify. So, you know, renewables are not very sensible. Wind power and solar power isn't sensible because it's not reliable. And it's as simple as that. I mean, if you have, if you relying on renewables, you have to have two systems, right? You have to have a real one, which is gas, power stations or nuclear, whatever, baseload. And you have to have a pretending one and it's that simple. And it's not just that, it's pretending it doesn't work. So because it doesn't work, you have to have a backup and you have to have Two. One. A good one would be enough. Right? It's very, very simple. So net zero is just. It's a form of pretense. I would. I always talk about cultural issues. I think it's yet another cultural problem because the whole political class, the Tories, are the same. They were the same. Lib Dems, same. Or worse. Greens? Worse, probably. And Miliband is just the epitome of this thinking. They have to pretend that it works and it doesn't.

[Peter]

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[William]

He's done very well.

[Peter]

Been good business for Dale.

[William]

Yes.

[Peter]

I want to be careful what I say because he likes to sue people. But they all seem to be able to point to the fact that energy prices will eventually be falling. The economies of scale will come. No, no, I know this. Catherine said it. You know, it's as you said, we're sat there with the highest energy prices in the world for the industrial sector and I don't even know for the private sector. Sorry.

[William]

For the domestic sector. Domestic sector, but it's 27p.

[Peter]

Yeah, it's very high.

[William]

But.

[Peter]

I can't for the life of me figure out why we've ended up here. I just can't figure out why people are accepting of this, why politicians are accepting. Is it because it's, it's too difficult to say we've got this wrong?

[William]

Yeah, there's a lot of that. They don't, I mean they've built this whole rhetoric and you know the, and also it's, it's, there's a line in our energy abundance paper which is a great line which is that our elites have sacrificed our prosperity for their own self righteousness. That's what they've done basically trying to, and I'm a simplify trying to say what have they done? They sacrificed our future, particularly young people, to be self righteous. And you see that in lots of domains it's not just energy. You see that in obviously borders and refugees and all sorts of things. But yeah, they're more interested in doing that than in the material reality of actually supplying power. But they, you know, to go back to Del or any of the other propagandists for net zero. I'm sorry. Well, I tell you another simplification I use in meetings a lot which is very simple. Right. You know, it's not a fair fight between these power sources. Gas and oil hydrocarbons are so efficient you can tax them net zero. The renewables are so inefficient you have to lob lots of subsidies. And that's just going to tell you something, isn't it?

[Peter]

Yeah, it tells you a little bit.

[William]

You know, I mean just remember that and you've got your solution to it. So I, you know, we, we. You've got to stabilize the grid somehow. It's going to be difficult though because you can't just click your fingers and get a new gas pad, you know, a power station. And we suggest using some coal because it's actually cheaper in the interim as a route to get to nuclear.

[Peter]

And they're doing that in China?

[William]

Yeah, no, they do. Well they do it rapidly in China. But again, you see, this is the problem. You understand as you're running businesses that you're totally fettered by this crazy structure of legalism and civil service bureaucracy. Perfect example. This morning I picked up the Times and the government two years ago said right, we want to roll out SMRs, small modular reactors roles always have a model and you think they just, okay, get on with it. No, they organize a competition, this is on the Tories to see who should be blessed with the contracts to do this in Britain. So they spent 30 million on consultants to Lloyds and other people were involved and lots of lawyers and then they found at the end, actually, Rolls Royce might be the best one to do it. They still haven't done any. They've not done anything. But if you dig into that, that submission, the submission provides that you to win it, you must have 50, 50 male and females in the workforce. And not just your workforce. This is engineering, heavy engineering. This is very heavy engineering. It's male dominated on site, I'm afraid. Just is you have 50, 50 in the workforce and all the suppliers, all the supply line to. It has to be 50, 50. And I'm glad you're sitting down and you won't believe this. And you have to open up employment opportunities for minorities, including asylum seekers. I'm not joking. What? Yes, this is in.

[Peter]

When can we read this?

[William]

Well, it's in today's Times. If you get a paper copy of that, you'll see it. This is madness. And so when you know, it's like angels dancing on the head of a pin. When the Ottoman Turks, when Constantinople falls. This is crazy. And there are so many examples of this. We will have some sort of debt crisis, I think, because I don't think labor are capable of correcting a course of action which will prevent it. So something will happen and years later, when people look at it, they'll say they really weren't thinking straight. It's like the mobility scheme and all this sort of thing. People having BMWs and Audis cause they've got a problem with their elbow. You know, this is happening, this is happening and they're still doing it. And they're still. And they still can't balance the books and they still got a PSBR of 100 billion and they're still doing it. And the politicians and the elite class seem unable to stop it, not in power. Or maybe they want this, I don't know.

[Peter]

Well, that's another thing that I've been kind of looking into and discovered is how this big organic government system, giant pot of money is very easy to grift money out of and creates bad incentives. I think the first time I recognized it was with the health service, whereby there's that minimum requirement for the number of nurses that must be on duty in a hospital. Nurse. I think nurses wages are up 27% since my son was born, because we looked it up. Yet CPI is about 81%. Their CPI, by the way.

[William]

Yeah.

[Peter]

And so nurses aren't paid enough. And nurses figured out if they just went to work for an agency, they would be paid more. So what happens is agencies are created, they incentivise nurses to come and work for them, and the hospitals are employing them through the agencies and paying them more and actually paying that spread which the recruitment agent takes. So there is a part of the government that doesn't work and the inefficiency has been snapped up by the private sector, ultimately cost the NHS more money. But I found so many of these things.

[William]

I've got another for you. Do you want to hear?

[Peter]

Well, let me give you a couple more that I've seen. So, looking in my local town, I was trying to understand why our council's bankrupt. And look, I think our mayor's made some mistakes. He's had some ambitious projects which he's invested in, but they've run out of money and now they're facing section 114 and they're cutting so many services, they're going to be cutting green bins.

[William]

They're not the only one.

[Peter]

Well, it's up and down the country. So if it's up and down the country, we have a problem. And the problem is the statutory demands have increased, but funding has been cut. Now, you don't. Doesn't take. It doesn't take much. Many brain cells to figure out that. That this is. This is not something that can continue. And. And essentially the central government has been squeezing the council to do some of their work they can't afford.

[William]

Yeah.

[Peter]

And I noticed that with the Homelessness act, that there's this duty to provide emergency housing. Well, that's. It's nearly tripled in Bedford in three years. And the landlords, you have to be an approved landlord, they're making so much money from this. The guy, there's a guy I know, he used to buy houses, do them up and rent them out. He now rents houses, then sublets them to the council because, again, the council pays so much more and it's guaranteed. No, look, he does have to increase the price slightly because invariably, once somebody leaves, there's a lot of work to fix it up because of the people they're putting in there. But I'm finding these things, like, in every single direction. And there's another thing. Make sure I tell you about this BT tower in Bedford at some point as well, because this is a. This could be a national grace. But what I've realized is that private equity and clever small business people have realized there is so much guaranteed money to be made off government, and government just says, yes, they do.

[William]

Yeah.

[Peter]

And this has become a problem in so many parts of our society. And so, yeah, I mean, you've got an Example?

[William]

Oh, well, I was asking example in a bit. But the, the, the, the, the root cause of it is just fail to do the basics. So what, what if someone asked me what I, what my plan for local government is? It's something very old fashioned, which is uncomplicated. Direct provision is what I call direct provision. The council actually does the services. So you get rid of so much outsourcing, get rid of complexity and you go around to. It's a bit like in the 50s and 60s you really did have to. In urban district councils, rural district councils, you had town clerks, usually people that had actually done the job on the ground and they rose up and they weren't very often, didn't have degrees or anything. Now you've got chief execs and it's all about comms and it's all about compliance and the rest of it is not about basic provision of services. But it's true what you say. I mean, it's not proper local government in this country in the sense that Whitehall gives you the statute of duty and they just do it. And here's a little bit of cash and probably not enough.

[Peter]

That's less.

[William]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Peter]

And I just found about the business rates reset. I didn't even know this was a thing. So the business rate reset is. Oh, you've done a good job, we're going to take some of that off you now and you've got to do it again.

[William]

Yeah, it's a terrible incentive. Yeah, yeah.

[Peter]

And I mean I, I really worry for our local council, but I'm worried nationally because we have this perfect storm at the moment where new employment laws are coming in, which I know as an employer are a nightmare. Taxes are going up and God knows what's going to happen in the budget next month. There's too much regulation getting in the way of running a business. I cannot physically do everything I'm meant to do within a business, particularly small businesses.

[William]

So you get the impression that they just want to beat small businesses out of the market and then, and that's in so many domains, like in housing, the extra, you know, a lot of buy to let. Landlords are leaving. That's happening because of compliance difficulties. At the same time, huge funds, you know, the big American funds are coming in, buying up estates, building estates. I read Larry Fink. Yeah. A few days ago that the Australian, there's a big Australian pension fund coming in. They're going to put in another 500 million. And for them, of course it's brilliant because it's A very tight housing market because we don't build enough houses and it's guaranteed income, it's very safe. It's always like a new annuity stuff, you know, brilliant, let's do this. Why wouldn't they? But to get back to your councils in the health service we don't do any of the basics. We can't do basics. And I go always go back to planning. You know in theory every single health Secretary in the last 30 years could have perfectly matched, not instantly but certainly in a seven year period perfectly matched the number of clinicians, doctors and nurses that you required for the service. They never do. They under perform, they understood develop and they've got a cap on doctors. So it creates. So then you import foreign doctors which is wrong because you're, you're surcharging the Ghanaian or the Nigerian system and they may need them more and also their negligence rates are higher, they're not as well trained. Why would they do this?

[Peter]

I've never understood the cap on doctors. It doesn't make any sense to me.

[William]

Well I would oversupply doctors. I would deliberately oversupply because a lot of them, well a like I think in most medical schools there's a. Most, most medical students are female and the rate of part time work when they're fully trained is higher than men. So you need to overproduce from that point of view. A lot of them leave. So you need to over produce from that point of view. But to under produce is. That is negligent actually. And it's never. No one ever said to Jeremy Hunter, any of the others sort of why haven't you done this? You've got 220 billion, why don't you produce enough? It's absolute basics and then you get a sort of. You're quite right to be concerned because it's a spiral and this happens in so many domains, a sort of doom loop. Don't produce enough. So import part time, you know, get into a panic with a tight labor market, import people from Ghana and Nigeria. But the case, the crazy case I read about the other day, there's a chap, Nigerian guy, has been convicted of pretending to be a nurse up in Chester when a nurse is sort of an ancillary sort of medical. But he's doing you know, clinical work. But the joke is that he'd taken the identity of another Nigerian lady, I think who was called Joyce. He's running around with her badge and it's Joyce and his bloke. This is Kafka Esque you know, this is like no one asked him. Maybe nowadays it'd be entirely normal. Nothing to see here, you know, but they didn't ask him. But he's basically, you know, he's guilty of fraud. But here's the kicker. He is only in the country cause his partner is on the skilled worker thing, so he's one of the extra family. And you know, all the people that Boris Johnson and Boris Wave brought in, most of them aren't working, most of them are dependents or family members. So at virtually no level is our ruling elite capable of getting a basic thing right. And it's, it has to be turned around. Peter.

[Peter]

Well, it's a great question. I keep asking people when I get into the political conversation, there's kind of a defense of the state. I'm like, okay, just, just name me one thing that's got better in the last 20 years.

[William]

Well, you're going to struggle.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[William]

Yeah, you really are.

[Peter]

The NHS has not improved. Yeah, okay. Our tax burden is higher than ever. Small businesses harder to do. Our councils can't afford to provide basic services. Homelessness gone up, poverty's gone up, education funding has gone up.

[William]

That's a bit like a broader question because John Gray, who's very pessimistic and says there's no progress when he, when he means is there's no progress in human beings, there's no more progress. And he writes a lot against progress. And someone said, well, there must be some progress. And he said, well, anesthetic dentistry, probably, that's probably progress, you know, so there probably are some things. But no, it's gone. And then the doom loop is worse, as you say, because now we're at the stage where the chancellor, I mean, all she's trying to do now is beat money out of people's pockets.

[Peter]

Yeah. So like, where can I can maybe get some gambling or from taxes a.

[William]

Little bit more from this or that. So the whole squeeze is on and people are just giving up.

[Peter]

But, but it's a very tough time for the Labour Party and I'm, I'm not a fan of the Labour Party, but I can understand, you know, why people vote for them. I had a really good chat with my dad and my dad said, I've always voted with my pocket. And when he first started work, he voted, he was a Labor voter because he didn't have much money and he felt like labor made it fairer. And then when, when his career progressed as an engineer and he started to make, you know, good, good amount of Money for him. He started voting conservative because they left him more than his money. So the incentives of voting are quite clear. But what I found really interesting recently is that when you, you know, we discussed reform at that last election, they're polling very high. They seem to have a, A, a working class vote who, who understands something's deeply wrong. That they're. Yeah, they're going to Tesco's and they're shopping. They're 50 pound and it's one bag. They can't afford to go out as much, can't afford a holiday. Everything just seems to not work and get expensive. And then you've got this kind of upper, middle and upper class who are being blamed for everything and told they've got to be taxed even more, even though they burden most of the pressure of the tax. And it seems to be this kind of small sliver of people which are kind of, I don't know, I want to say middle to upper middle who are defending these kind of crazy leftist ideas and it seems they can afford to, they can, they can afford virtue.

[William]

Yeah, no, it's like I was saying before about the end. Yeah, yeah. They sacrifice everyone else's future. Yeah, I think they, they're gonna, there aren't enough. I mean, they'll get squeezed as well. I think largely the Labor Party's, you know, merged into being a middle class, progressive, hyper liberal public sector party, pro migration, pro open borders. That's, that's its constituency and that's why it's down to 15% of the vote. But I, incidentally, I think they. Because it's funny, the Tories are interesting. I mean, the last time I attended a Tory conference I was a member into 2002 and I thought they were quite, they were quite jolly. I mean they were quite sort of. Because there's nothing on them. There's no, I mean there's no expectations. They're, they're, they're not in power. You know, they're just sort of. And the atmosphere was quite, quite good. Apparently. The atmosphere at this, the Labour conference was abysmal and it would be because I think, actually, I think they're more vulnerable than the Tories even, because they will get the blame. There are limits to how many years or months you can say it's all the Tories fault. When you're at the tiller, you know they will, it's lethal, really.

[Peter]

Well, ideologically they can't do what the country needs, so they were voted in at the wrong time, I think after.

[William]

For the wrong Reasons. Yeah.

[Peter]

Look, if we had a. Yeah. If we had a booming economy and people felt like, you know, it's time for the Labour Party, because the wealth gap is too big and the labor came into power, you know, if times were good and they had a bit of redistribution. Yeah, you're going to get away with it. But they've come at a time when we can't afford it. And Rachel Reeves is in the worst position possible because, I mean, it's record borrowing under her.

[William]

Yeah.

[Peter]

Our interest rates are crazy high and she's got her own black hole and.

[William]

Which she could help cause, of course.

[Peter]

And she's already chased away a lot of rich people. Everybody I know who is. Yeah. So who's slightly older than me, 50s to 60s, are buying properties abroad and preparing to move abroad because tax is so high and services are failing. And so they've chased away all the rich people and what she going to do now? Her hands are tied.

[William]

Well, there's no. Yeah. I mean, it's just a Laffer curve. You can't, you can't beat any more money out of. It doesn't exist. You'll just kill the goose. And they sort of must know this. They are not able to make a correction which would save us from calamity. That's the cultural problem they have. So look at the welfare reformers which. The backbenchers. The backbenchers that proved themselves to be childish and enumerate. That's what they're like. And I was chatting to someone the other day about who's gonna be the next Labour leader if the government allow the May elections to go ahead. Because talk about those being cancelled, but if they are, then Starmer's under real pressure. Cause they will get caned, absolutely caned at those elections. And he was gonna take over. And people are saying, well, actually, Miller Banner say no. What? No. Yeah, but that's your reaction, Peter. But no, but the book is a moron. I know, but I had, I had a friend. I mean, I, I, I had a friend. I have a friend in the Labour Party who's an insider, knows it very well. And I said, you know, Burnham? They said, no, no, not well, I turn it. And well, he needs a cp. Yeah, but, well, yeah, but he's not well liked. He wouldn't get. And the membership don't like him either. And labelists, you know, if you just look at the, the published data on who's popular. And I said, you know. And people have said, you know, questioned Miliband's sanity on A few things. And he said, but that's what the members are like. Perfect match. So it could happen. I mean, I said it here. Maybe. Maybe next summer you can replay this and say, I mean, it could happen.

[Peter]

Well, they don't have. I mean, Angela Rayner probably would have won it if she hadn't proved herself to be a pig at the trough. Yeah. And I've heard Andy Burnham's name put forward and people seem to think he's been a good mare. I mean, I don't know, he's good.

[William]

On transport and he's back to Manchester up. And actually, politically, he's. He's astute.

[Peter]

Wes Streeting is a name that comes forward a bit.

[William]

He's got a majority of about 200.

[Peter]

But the rest, if you just. If you look at the party, I mean, these are not serious, you know, Bridget Phillipson Cooper, Ed Miliband. These people are not serious people. I wouldn't employ these people.

[William]

It's terrible. No. And actually the. And even people like Rachel Reeves, who's trying to, you know, hold onto the wreckage a bit, but can't take any of the decisions necessarily correct. You could get somewhere worse and you'd say, well, actually, that wasn't too bad.

[Peter]

You know, that's like the Manchester United manager's position.

[William]

It is, yeah.

[Peter]

You know, you laugh at Olegarda Solskjaer and. Yeah, and it turns out he was probably the best. One of the best managers they had. And then you have. Hentag is it. Hentag was the guy. And then it's got worse ends. It's like every manager seems to make it worse and it's. And then you think, well, should. Would it be best to get Ed Manaban. Get it as bad as possible?

[William]

So I just think. I just. I just. I want the correction. I mean, it can be done, right? So when you're in a fiscal position that we're in, you can fix it, because lots of examples are being fixed. And I want to be optimistic. And despite how dire it is, it can be done. The Swedes did it 25 years ago. Persons, government. But you know what you have to do? You know what you have to do. You have to raise tax, but you have to cut at the same time. And the thing you have to do is you have to. Everyone has to share the pain. We're in it together. We can't look after the public sector and feather bed it and then beat money out of the private sector. We're all in it together and we correct it. And if everyone suffers and everyone does the correction, then you can fix it and that's a prerequisite. And I don't see there's any hint of them even trying.

[Peter]

We have to be honest.

[William]

Yeah, you have to be honest. Yeah. And say we're in trouble. Yeah. But they did it and the Swedes halved their deficit, you know, that was it. So it can be done. Don't tell me that it can't be done. But they looking at the backbench's reaction to very modest welfare reform. No, they can't. So I think if you ask me again and make a prediction, dangerous making predictions. I think there'll be some sort of crisis in the markets and they'll be disciplined by the markets. That's what'll happen.

[Peter]

So again, talking to people I know who the wealthier people I know or the people who've got successful businesses, more tax doesn't scare them. It's more tax with no improvement. Yes, it's more tax and failing services. More tax without reform. Somebody. Somebody. I think I read in one of the papers that perhaps there was an idea that labor might double council tax for the highest band. So that would hit me. It's annoying, but if it's 3,4000 pounds, I can do it.

[William]

It's not a problem.

[Peter]

It's done. Yeah, I don't.

[William]

It's quite high anyway, actually.

[Peter]

It is quite high. But. But what I'm saying is 4,000 pound. I would rather have that. That's a, That's a nice holiday, but I could do it. And if the party came back with an honest conversation to. The nation said, we are broke. We are broke. If we continue to borrow at such high rates, we're going to cause more inflation. We are broke as a nation. We have to go through real austerity and real austerity. Proper correction, the proper correction for the whole nation. We have to balance the books. The wealth is going to pay the most. Okay, I'm in. I want my nation rebel.

[William]

Yeah, and I do too. And so an example is in our paper, our energy paper. So because anyone on the economic left is proposing to build some things, or the state wants to get grid stabilization and say, how are you going to pay for it? And we say, well, the 30 year bond, not the best time to try and raise because that's at 5.5%. And long bonds are pricey at the moment for lots of technical reasons. But you've got to know the difference in cost and value, which is what I'm getting at here. So we calculated Using our ACD metrics that the lost productivity. Again, you're sitting down because then you're sitting down. The lost productivity to the UK economy in the last 25 years of high energy prices. Three trillion. What doesn't surprise me, three trillion. That's the aggregate, lots of productivity. So that's what the cost is, that's what it's caught, that's what the damage it's done. So when I pop up and say, right, I want a new fleet of British nuclear power stations, probably gonna have to use Westinghouse American one because it's tried and tested, but build them, flood the grid with cheap power and re industrialize and re energize your economy. How much is that going to cost? 150 billion, we think. Is it worth it? Course it is.

[Peter]

Of course.

[William]

Yeah, course it is. But you've got to perform and you. And you don't perform.

[Peter]

What's the time scale to deliver that?

[William]

10 years.

[Peter]

10 years?

[William]

Yeah, you start. But that's why we. Because I think you. That's the quickest things you could do with the gas plants, but they're not overnight. I'm gonna take you five years to do those. If you really, it was an emergency, do it. But the point is that there's knowing the difference in cost and value and I think proper investment like that would yield. But you can't do it if you're run by people, as we said earlier, that mandate the people building the nuclear power stations to employ asylum seekers and underprivileged. No, just no. Let the best engineers do the work, please.

[Peter]

Where does that come from? Is that coming from central government?

[William]

Yeah, it's coming from central government. Yeah, it's lawyers that are applying human rights legislation, the Equalities act stuff. Because the Equalities act wasn't about equality, it was about mandating. Yeah, so you can, but you've got to. And it comes down to simple things, which I think a lot of the political class don't understand. There aren't many decent equations in economics because it's an open system, very unpredictable, but one that is true. Broadly, savings equals investment equals future prosperity. And unless you can get investment up, we have no chance at all. So I'm going to make a case for spending it on this. But I'm a big critic of laissez faire anti planning attitudes because that's caused the beggary, that's caused the deficits, that's caused the trade deficits, has caused the deindustrialization which has put us here and it means that that's why we spend 470 billion on welfare, because you're mopping up blood.

[Peter]

And I've always said 470 billion, that's nearly.

[William]

In aggregate. Yeah, in aggregate. So that's every category, but it's still massive. And you're mopping up 20% of adults in a lot of the big cities and from the Midlands and North are not in effective economic employment, they're not in, in the workforce and it's colossally expensive. And, and I always say when I'm arguing with, on people of Thatcher's legacy, I think it would have been cheaper to keep the factories open, probably socially and economically. And I think there's a very strong case for that. I was the European Conservative because it's, it's Mrs. Thatcher's, the centenary of her birth last week, and the European Conservative asked me, they were looking for someone to debate Charles Moore, who's her official biographer. Three volumes of brilliant book on Thatcher, three books, and they're redoing that. And they said, well, would you be prepared to debate Charles in a good faith way? And I said, sure, I'd be honored to. And I did. And he took my points largely, I mean it, A lot of Thatcher deserves credit for some things. You know, Falcon's War, taming the unions, very important. And we supported that in the, in the 80s, you know, she, and also she tried, yeah, I mean she deserves credit for trying to turn around the, the morale of the country, that you can have a future. So a lot in there, but on the economics, on the material things, the housing, on energy, on an industry, I'm afraid it was a failure. And a lot of the privatizations were failures. They were selling off the family silver and actually I was surprised that Charles accepted a lot of the points I made. So we, I think you've got to be real, we are where we are. Get the diagnosis right and then, and then set off, you know, let's have a proper private sector that makes wealth and a proper public sector that, you know, does a bit of water and housing, transport and energy.

[Peter]

I want to talk to you about one of my sponsors, Incogni, and that means we're going to talk about the weird world of spam. And I don't just mean those spam emails that you get day after day from companies you never heard of and companies you've never signed up to. I'm also talking about those spam phone calls you get from those people who seem to know a little bit too much about you trying to get your bank details. It's all a bit creepy right now. This all comes from the world of data brokerage. There are companies out there collecting your data, building profiles and sending that data to anyone who wants it. Which is why when one of those scammers phones you up, they seem to know everything about you. Now, I've tried, I've tried myself to get off these lists, try to get off the phone lists, try to get off the email list. I unsubscribe from every one of these emails that comes in. But this game of Whack a Mole, it just never ends. And so this is where Incogni comes in. They do all the hard work for you. They reach out to these companies and they will get you legally removed from these lists. And I know because last time they sponsored my show, I signed up and I didn't take the free option that they offered me, wanted to pay for it. I wanted to see if you get value for money. And they removed me from 79 data broker lists. And so I've stayed on, I've stayed a subscriber and I have seen a massive decrease in the number of emails and phone calls I've been getting. So it's a great service. I recommend you check it out. If you're sick of this like I was, please head over to incogni.com Peter and sign up. If you use the code Peter, you will get a lovely 60% discount. So that's incogni.com forward/peter. So how do we get through this next three and a half to four years?

[William]

With great difficulty.

[Peter]

Yeah. I, I've been questioning the idea that the Labour Party actually has a mandate anymore. I know they have a mandate from the election.

[William]

Yeah, yeah.

[Peter]

But, but is it. I don't believe they, they represent the country anymore. I don't. I believe there was an election tomorrow. They may get 15% of the vote.

[William]

Yeah.

[Peter]

And I keep, I, I keep thinking about it. Does they get a scenario where we have severe civil disobedience to the point where, where, where we could question the idea that we would need another election? And I know because they have a majority. Yeah, it could be very hard because a vote on her confidence probably won't go through. But I think it's, I think it's, I think it's desperate. I think it's going to get really bad and they're certainly going to lose the next election. So what are we waiting for?

[William]

Well, the, they're wonderful observations. I think they're all correct.

[Peter]

Like, is it is consent active is concerned.

[William]

No, no, the system, I mean this parliamentary democracy that we have is, is elections, general elections. And they won a general election. They've got a massive majority. They've got the biggest majority since the early 1800s. 1820 was the larger one. 170 is very, very big. So one of the things I've always been very clear about is the Labour Party is not falling in the sense that it's not gonna just say, I don't want to do it anymore. The last stages of the Tory administration of SUNAC and things. I just go for a coffee at the Commons with a couple of Tories that I liked and they used to say to me, I'm not naming names, but he says, oh, it's terrible, William, we just want it to end. They were really at the end and it could get like that. But they don't give up. There's no history at all of governments with big majorities. If you can win a majority in Parliament, you will not. The government won't fall. And I see no, because of the size of it, I see no prospect whatsoever. I think Starmer could leave. I mean, he could be ousted and I think you can have a crisis and I think. Have you interviewed David Betts yet? David?

[Peter]

No. Is he the guy who says we're in civil war?

[William]

Yes, yes. He's a theorist. He must. He's an excellent. He's a little bit doom laden, but it is fact based value divides.

[Peter]

Yeah, sorry, I watched his interview, I think it was with trigonometry where he said six of the seven conditions for civil war are met.

[William]

Yes, they are, yeah. And in big numbers. Y and all he's looking at. He just looks at data and he's an expert in internal civil disobedience and disorder and strife. And all the academics have pretty much agreed about this. They rate, by the way, it's not just us, Germany, France, Holland, Sweden and are sort of in the same boat and they sort of try and quantify what's the prospect of a civil war proper civil disturbance occurring in the next year and they say, oh, it's 0.16 or 16% of a chance and it's going to go up. So I'm worried about that. And he was at the battle of ideas yesterday. I listened to him and I think you should listen to him and take it very seriously. And the thing that I'm worried about is I don't think you're going to get a. As I say, you're not going to get A change of government. But you're going to have a government that's losing control, losing the reins because they're not doing any of the right things. So that. No, but some of the things that causing the collapse in trust could be corrected. That's my. But they're not the people to correct it and that's the bind that the country's in. So I'll give you an example. You know, raising the colors, the flags in the area of Leeds that we have our councillors in Middleton Park, Belle Isle. I haven't been for a while but I was down the other day doing a bit of electrical work and there's flags everywhere. Yeah, there is. Every lamppost has a flag and people, the sort of the progressive shielded middle class liberal is sort of a little bit perturbed, a little bit embarrassed about this, doesn't know why it's happening and they denigrate it actually. But the reason it's happening and they must get with this quickly. The reason that it's happening is that the majority, the white British majority feels disprivileged and denigrated and they feel their history is denigrated and no one's speaking up for them and all they see is two tier policing.

[Peter]

It's a peasant's revolt.

[William]

It is a revolt, it's a rebellion against disprivilege and it's a revolution actually. Yes, but actually it's also, it's a sort of cry for help and if you don't have an elite that can see that and react, then you're in trouble. So I'll give you the best example I've got because I wanted to be. I spoke at the David Betsing last night because everyone's being so gloomy and I said, well hold on, but, but you can. Some things can occur with political action. One of the things that I've always wanted in, in Western politics is I wanted a government somewhere to show that you could get a hold of the border, just to show the others because the leaky borders everywhere and none of these supposed nation states are doing anything about it. It's pathetic. Oh, we can't. The Human Rights act or international asylum, they can't do it and it's inept and meanwhile the public trust is vanishing. You're putting people that have basically broken in and invaded the country in expensive hotels and people are trying to find a house in Leeds. There's 26,000 people on the housing waiting list and they, the council wanted to make it a sanctuary city to encourage more of this. And my councillors said no. They were the only councillors in Leeds City Council to say no. And the soirees said yes. All of them said, yeah, it was sanctuary city. Oh, it's great, you know, so no, you've got to get a border and you've got to restore faith that the government actually has your back, is looking after you. But it has happened because Trump's done it.

[Peter]

Yes.

[William]

So.

[Peter]

But now we're all far right fascists.

[William]

No, they're just, well, they might be nation state Democrats. Maybe that's what they are. But, but Vance and Trump have proved, and I think they've shown as a beacon to the west that it can be done. And as soon. Nothing will get better, Peter, until you get some beacons of turnaround. You got to get to the bottom. And actually it will get better.

[Peter]

I've just been, I'm on the back of two trips to the US in the last month and both times, strangely, I had to go to the same cities. I went to New York, which obviously is a Democrat city.

[William]

Yeah.

[Peter]

I went to Nashville, which is, you know, it's a, it's a Democrat city in a Republican state. And then I went to Vegas. And what stood out is optimism. Restaurants are full. Every single restaurant is full. And when I speak to people there, they're optimistic. They're optimistic about business options, about the opportunity. Yes. They say we've got a divide in the country. It still exists.

[William]

Yeah.

[Peter]

ICE is not popular with Democrats. People think Trump is an, an authoritarian. I don't. I think he's just getting shit done. He's getting it done, he's getting things done. But, but what's really interesting, New York is the interesting one for me because I know a lot of Republicans who live in New York. When I first started going to New York, I went the year after 9, 11 and, and I kept going regularly, probably once every couple of years. The city was very safe, it was a good city. Now I was in Washington Square park walking through to my friend's bar. It's got a park called Pubkey and there were a lot that's near the.

[William]

39 Club, which is a nice little jazz just near. In Greenwich Village.

[Peter]

Well, Washington Square park is so weird. You would have a bench and you would have someone, I'm assuming on fentanyl or something like zombified, bent over sideways and there'll be a couple next to them having like a picnic.

[William]

Yeah.

[Peter]

And so that's very New York for it to be that way. But coexists, coexist but there is a. There's a massive drugs problem now in the city. And to the point, you go to Times Square and there's people openly selling weed, but also saying drunk cocaine, just without any fear of offering just cocaine to random people. And now they're gonna vote in this guy Mandami.

[William]

Disastrous.

[Peter]

Yeah. So. But that aside, America felt optimistic, it felt positive, it felt like people had money. And then I come back here and restaurants aren't full. I mean, London restaurants are closing down, businesses closing down everywhere. And no one. There's this sense, I can't really put my finger on it, but there's like a misery across the country.

[William]

There is a real doom.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[William]

And it's trust. I think trust in the institutions to be capable is at the heart of it.

[Peter]

I also think there's another incoming storm, which is, which is coming from AI in that I know of a handful of people now who, six figure salaries, 100 grand a year salaries, who've recently lost their job and the job's not coming back. It's marketing. It's some kind of, kind of middle class consulting job. Yeah. Copywriting. I mean, Kurt knows within the creative industry there's a lot of jobs going, but those jobs aren't coming back.

[William]

Translation.

[Peter]

Translation. Yeah. And. And also you've got the university kids who are coming back and we're getting jobs in pubs and cafes because you can't get a job. And that, that is another incoming storm on what we already have.

[William]

It is. I. No, I totally agree with. But yeah. Can I. Before we get onto that, can I just respond to your, your New York thing.

[Peter]

Yes.

[William]

I think Public realm, it's is. It's just civilizational decline. You can see all the signs. You go to a town, you go to a city. Is it well kept? Is it loved? Is it loved? I always say, you know, when you go into a village, is the village loved? Is it clean? Do you have people planting things and looking after it? And, and the opposite occurs when you're walking around. It stays things of skunk. And I was, and last time I was in New York, which is, which is last year. Yeah. It was stank of skunk.

[Peter]

That's it. Well, Nevada's the same.

[William]

Yeah. And it's. And I, I don't. I think I always say it didn't used to be like that. And it's a sure sign of decline. And in fact, in the towns in, in, in smaller towns and cities in the uk, that does mean a lot of older people and people that just don't like it, don't go in. So you get a spiral of decline. And I also think that. I don't think. I think vagrancy is something. You see, we are. I mean, stp. Its heritage is of the left. It just is. But people, if they have a go at us, say it's the authoritarian left. But I would say in Singapore, you just don't have that right. So you have public good in the public realm. You can't do that. And I think we are too liberal and too. Liberalism is nice in theory, and then it just merges into indifference and you're walking around and seeing people shooting up or. No, sorry. That is actually antisocial. I think begging is antisocial in that sense.

[Peter]

Do you know about the things I've been doing in my town?

[William]

Only what I've seen on your feed.

[Peter]

Right. So I'm gonna. Unfortunately, the YouTube comments will fly. I mean, you're always talking about you and your town, but I think they're really good signals. So I had business in the town center, and I was seeing a massive antisocial behavior issues. So I said, I'm gonna do a pilot private security initiative in the town.

[William]

I have. You have read about that? Yeah, yeah.

[Peter]

And it's overwhelmingly successful. Not had a single complaint against the guys doing the job. But if you go through the logs from the past weekend, they found a guy at the top of the car park asleep with a needle hanging out of his arm. Now, if you've got. If you're a parent with children, you do not want to go park in a car park where that happens. You don't want to come down the stairwell and there's somebody aggressively begging you. Then don't want to walk down the alleyway where people are dealing. Walk into a town center where homeless people are begging. And if you own a business, you don't want people coming with knives threatening you. So there's a plague of issues. And the security worked. Now some people said, oh, you've only moved the problem. And I said, yes, we have. We're moving the problem out of the town center, which is the economic and social heart of the town, which we must protect. But this expanded. There's a building in Bedford called the Heights. It was an old BT building, but as B team, you know, moved on, involved. They didn't need the building anymore, sold the building. It got converted into luxury flats, penthouses, Beautiful. But recently they've. Well, over the last few years, they've had a number of issues. Firstly, the landlord is Really a crook. He might sue me for this, but he has been stealing the service charge money and not putting the money into the building. Genesis Housing took over the first three floors, which is social housing. And I did a tour of the building. It's basically like the film Snowpiercer and you've got probably five problem properties, problem houses in there, through a crack dens and they're openly selling drugs. What's that's meant is drug takers and users have been breaking into the building. Let me show you this. They've been breaking into the building and they've been shooting up in the communal areas, They've been defecating on the carpets, vomiting in the lifts and. And so they had to rip up all. I'm going to show you this.

[William]

Hold on.

[Peter]

How do I get here? So this is. This is from my tour. So I first went in. Sorry, people can't see. These are the bins outside.

[William]

Yeah.

[Peter]

You see the rat? There's rats everywhere.

[William]

Oh, my God.

[Peter]

Yeah, he sold the. The landlord sold the land there. It's not been developed. So that's just.

[William]

That's a building site. Yeah.

[Peter]

So there. That where all the carpets have been taken up.

[William]

Yeah.

[Peter]

The stairwells, Brighton all over the walls. Now these were luxury flats.

[William]

Fundamentally, that's a good building.

[Peter]

It's a great building. And. And I've been into the flats and they're great flats. Now if you own a property there, you can't sell it because the landlord's taken all the money, they've increased the service charges. So somebody with a two bedroom property there, they're paying 8,000 pound a year in service charge. The reason service charge is so high is they're having to fix things, they're having to put cleaners in, they need a sprinkler system.

[William]

Firefighting. Yeah, but it's what I always say, mopping up the blood. That's what you're doing.

[Peter]

That's what it is, yeah. They've got to put a sprinkler system in next year because there's no sprinkler system. So it's a potential Grenfell that's going to cost 250,000. And so one of them tried to sell the property. The agent came around and said, you can't because no one's going to pay the service charge. And even if they would pay the service charge, they've got to walk around these bins with rats, up through the stairwells where the elevators aren't working and see there's no carpets. The Smell is disgusting. I nearly vomited on the first floor. It's five problem flats out of 109 that have caused this. And inaction to deal with those problem tenants has destroyed this problem.

[William]

Destroyed the whole thing.

[Peter]

It's destroyed the whole thing. And we put security in place in there over the weekend just to monitor what was going on. Socks are being dropped from windows with keys in so people can get in and buy the drugs. There's one lady, particular lady, in and out all day in taxis, she's delivering drugs. I mean, it's so obvious what's going on, on. Yet no one's dealing with it. No one's like, what are we doing to our towns?

[William]

But it contaminates everything. And that's the concept of a public good. It's why the center of towns, the center of cities and communities is vital. And one of the reasons it's vital is actually everyone shares in this. And if it goes wrong, everyone suffers. That's what's happened in your block. Everyone else is suffering because of a few people and lack of assertion from the authorities and the rest of it.

[Peter]

But it's the same in town, another country, everywhere, up and down, everywhere.

[William]

And.

[Peter]

And how do you change it?

[William]

Well, you have to. You have to. Well, you have to have some policies and implement them, grow some. You have to actually stop vagrancy for a start. And begging. I mean, on the numbers, particularly in, you know, like in the Northeast, there isn't a. There's no. If someone is homeless in the Northeast, there is somewhere for them to go.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[William]

So you can't have people begging on the streets and just you. And you can't have a society that's so liberal that says, look, is my right just to sleep here in this doorway of this shop with a sleeping bag. No, it isn't. You're actually being antisocial. I'm being socialist in saying, no, we're not accepting this. People don't want to see this. It's ruining everyone else's investments and lives and enjoyment. And it gets back to the classic definition of a public good. A public good is like a light. You know the definition of this, A public good. Yeah, like a light, like public lighting. It's there, everyone can enjoy it and no one can opt out of it. So you can't not have the light. And in town centre, you can't not have a good town centre if it's looked after, which is why it's always sensible to do it, you know, so.

[Peter]

I've been looking at this I've tried so hard to make changes in the town. I thought what would happen is by stepping forward and doing this, investing in the town.

[William]

Do you have the backing of the police and the local authorities? Do you know them? Have they?

[Peter]

Yes. So I know the mayor, I know the mayor, I know the Chief inspector. So when I originally did it, I think there were some reservations. But what happened was I've been visited by a number of police officers. All of them back. What I'm doing, they say, look, one, we're stretched. We're dealing with so much across the town, there isn't enough of us. What you're doing is great. It helps us. We integrated with the CCTV and we report things to the police and we work with them. That's. That's fine. I think even the Chief Inspector is happy we're doing it. The PCC cannot stand me because I've embarrassed him, because he's in charge of strategy. Some of the council.

[William]

You have to do comms to.

[Peter]

Well, exactly.

[William]

Comms to stop you.

[Peter]

There are. I think there are elements within the council who know it's good, but it doesn't reflect well on them.

[William]

So it embarrasses them, Embarrass them.

[Peter]

There's some that hate it. One particular council called it the paramilitary wing of a coffee shop. He said there's no place for it in, in the town. And then with regards into the town, there are. If you're conservative minded or a centrist, you like it. If you are Green, Lib Dem or Labor, you live in a certain area. We call it Castle Road. It's our Islington. They all hate me. Yeah, I mean, they.

[William]

But I think they see, the thing is you. I would say that you are civilizational and they're anti civilization. Oh, I agree. They're anti civilization. And actually I do. I will say this. I think a lot of these people hate this society and hate its culture and hate its history and hate everything about it. They're not our friends, they're. They're. If anyone wants to build anything up or make things better, they're the first to criticize.

[Peter]

Unless it's within their community of people who agree with their line of thinking, then they will support them.

[William]

But the line of thinking is not. It's. It's. It would be tolerant of this stuff for the start. They would look, they would always take the side of the, of the, of the perpetrators of this, wouldn't they? They do. Usually. It's like there's a joke. What is the joke? So people Walking down the street, a road, and they see someone. Two sociologists walking down the street and they see someone in the gutter, beaten and bloodied. And one sociologist says to the other, we must find the person that did this and help them. Well, that's like the.

[Peter]

What's that Adam Smith quote? Empathy for the criminal is persecution of the victim.

[William]

There it is. Yeah. No, any criminal justice system has to. I mean, you see this all over the place. I mean, and this is another reason why people are putting flags on lampposts, because they're at the end of their tether, seeing examples of people that have done stabbing people or assaulting people or sexually abusing people and walking. And people that say the wrong thing on Twitter are getting arrested. And that, to most people, just seems unfair and balmy.

[Peter]

So it goes back to. So I looked at it and thought, I've done as much as I can, William, I've done as much as I can. I've tried. And I thought there would be this civic spirit and it would all come. And there is.

[William]

It is there, though.

[Peter]

It exists. And there are people who are very supportive. But ultimately, I cannot change the trajectory of the town. I cannot get enough people into the town, shopping and investing. And again, talking to this guy in America, he's like. He said, you cannot fix. You cannot fix something on broken foundations. He said, you have to go and be a politician.

[William]

What's. Well, you can. Yeah, you'd have. Yeah, you'd have a better chance of achieving things in France as a mayor than you would here, because they have genuine mayors with genuine powers that can just implement things and do things. I'm trying to.

[Peter]

You can do that in Bedford. It just. There isn't enough money.

[William]

Yeah, no, but. Yeah, but it's also power. It is also powers. I mean, I chair my Community Council in Northumberland and we're remodeling and restoring the marketplace to reduce the number of cars and to increase the public realm and to hopefully invest a few million quid in it. I'll probably need Heritage Lottery funding for it, but we get consent. We've actually put in consent for it now and it's been two years work to get here. A lot of public consultation. But I. I often joke to people, I mean, if I. If I was. I'm just chairman of the Community Council, if I was the mayor, I'd have done it in France or Italy. I'd just done it by now without any. Any problems. So there is that. There are a lot of impediments to. To doing Things.

[Peter]

But, But. So I'm going to a place here to really point a question at you is that I've considered the idea of running as an mp and the reason I would run as an MP is for the reason the guy on the US said to me, said, you cannot change anything unless you change policy. And so if you really care that much, get into government and force change of policy. And plus, by the way, you're interviewing all the right people, all the experts who know what needs to be fixed on your show so you can introduce it. And I'm not sure it's something I will do.

[William]

But you'd win as an independent. Actually. No, I promise you. I mean, we face it in real elections. A penalty for us is people say it looks and sounds like a normal political party, we can't trust politicians and I'll be on the doorstep. I was on the doorstep last week chatting to people and say, you're all the same. That's why I'm doing it. That's what actually why I'm doing it. I'm trying to change it, really. But independents, people will vote for a good independent.

[Peter]

Maybe, Maybe. I just think there's a lot of people don't trust me in the town because of what I've done and would vote against me.

[William]

And 40 of people trust me.

[Peter]

Well, yeah, maybe. I mean, look, Mohammed Yassin, who is the MP of Central Beds, he is well liked by what is a very left wing town. North Beds have got a bigger chance. That's Richard Fuller and I think Conservatives facing a crisis.

[William]

But.

[Peter]

But it's really pointing it back to you with everything you know and everything you think. Don't you want to be in government?

[William]

Yeah. I mean, that's what, that's why we're building a proper political party. We do work like think tanks.

[Peter]

No, I mean within the party that is leading the country. So you can actually. Really.

[William]

Oh, you mean should I join reform.

[Peter]

Or if it's a Conservative comeback or some kind of coalition.

[William]

This is the perennial question for all of us. I mean, as you know, I've got friends in both the Labour Party and the Tories that think like me. I. I tip Nick, Timothy, he. He would have said very little in that interview. I didn't agree with. Yeah, I saw it. But I knew he would because we don't disagree about very much and he's very good. He would say, join the Tory Party to try and help. And other people would say, the Tory Party's moribund. Other people would say, the. We're the only party. It is true. We're the only party in the top left corner. So, you know, in theory, our biggest. The STB's biggest problem is money. I mean we've got to have a shift in that in the next 12 months because we've got a lot of time. We've got three years before the next election. But we do need more resources.

[Peter]

What would be a huge win for you guys in the next election?

[William]

We've got three at the next election.

[Peter]

Yes.

[William]

Get people into Parliament in the key seats that we're after. So in South Leeds. Well, you'd want to win Leeds Central. You'd maybe one or two other. That would be. And I'm realistic about it. I'm not going to say we win 20 seats or 30 seats. You'd have to get people into Parliament. But I think we can get people into Parliament in, into a parliament next May because in the Scottish Parliament you have a system that might in Glasgow get Craig Houston across the line. Great. If Craig Houston was in Parliament in Scotland, he'd help the whole country because he's speaking for a lot of people and there's a chance that, as I say in that system he gets enough because it's quite a complicated Dhon system. But if he gets 40, 50,000 votes in Glasgow Division, he could get in. So I'm, you know, that's a realistic thing. Winning more seats in Leeds is a realistic thing for us.

[Peter]

Do you look at reform as a inspiration in that if you can win four or five seats, you can suddenly become very effective, you can have a voice, you can suddenly go from five seats to a party that can compete?

[William]

Oh yeah. I think it's. I think and I've made the point several times that it's never been done overnight in political history in Britain anyway. Most of these insurgents, if they've continued, if they're successful, have been 20 years. There are three labour and post war Liberals, Greens and Ukip and it took about 20. So we're on course. I'm happy with the progress. I want us to go quicker. I mean. Yeah. Battle of ideas. We had a drink afterwards. Some reformed people, very senior people were saying you should join us and things. But they're not. I mean, at the moment there's a lot of. Of instability. They don't really know what they're doing on policy yet really. They're a little bit all over the place. They've got some good people advising them. You know, James Orr has just come on board. He's good. And, and on the cultural stuff, particularly, very good. But there's still, there's still a feeling they're attached to some of the sort of old Thatcherite dogma, which is just not worked on the data. It's not where they're saying things that aren't true, I think. So for the moment, yeah, I, I, I'm totally committed. We, I think the country needs this party, not reform. That's the answer. But the reform will probably, I mean, if they, and there's a hell of a lot of time between now and the election, by the way. I mean, there's not, there's lots of different things could happen, but what the public is telling the political class, the ruling elite, is that we're not the two party system shot, but you still have a system that favors the two parties. So it's very unpredictable and no one knows what will happen.

[Peter]

The political map looks like what Anne Widdacombe said to me. She thinks it's going to be reformed with a shadow cabinet of the Lib Dems, which is such a switch if it does.

[William]

Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's extremely difficult to. So I think the biggest challenge for reform and actually history says that the Tories recover somehow. And actually a point that Tories made to me at the. Have you had Cami Badnock on yet?

[Peter]

No, I've tried, spoke to her team, yeah, really tried.

[William]

But, well, she, you know, I mean, a point that Tory's made to me about, I mean, I don't know, I've only met Cami a couple of times. I don't know generally very well. I know people that do know him, but I don't know the relationships. But Tories would say to me that if they can get on, they're as good a two front line politicians as any other party have got, which is, is probably about right. And, and so they, yeah, history says they, they probably recover somehow, but there's no love for them after what they did. I mean, there's no, absolutely no love for them. And, but by the same token, reform is a hell of that. Three or four years, that's a hell of a long time. You know, you could be in a completely different place in two years, who knows? But the public want something different that is absolutely clear. So the demand side absolutely is there.

[Peter]

I think if we forget the people who, the crazy people who think.

[William]

What.

[Peter]

The experiment we've been running over the last two decades is working, if we ignore them. I actually think there's a lot of people on the left and the right who want the same thing.

[William]

Yeah. There is a sort of fusion and you know what unites us, national citizen preference and the nation state. Yes, it's a national interest actually. That's what, it's the, the thing that unites us, the people, the people in the Labour Party. Blue Labour people. Paul, Embry, Morris, all those people, you know, Nick, Timothy and the Tories. The thing that brings us together is the patriotism and the belief in the country itself and it needs helping and the, the opponents, it's a crude thing. Other sort of liberals that are globalists. I hate saying it, I hate saying, but unfortunately that, that is, that is the dividing line. It's the sort of local. It's the people. I always said, last time I was on, on your show, you know, it's the people that see this place as a home. That's what unites us. And it's, it is, it is a mixture of red and blue and it really. And I think if, I mean reform. Dip their toes in some of this, but I don't think they've really thought it through. I don't want me to. I mean I, you know, I want the two party system broken down as well and in a sense I hope they succeed. But they're not, they haven't got it yet. And I'm not sure knowing the individuals that they actually will. That's my issue with it.

[Peter]

Well, like you say, they've got a number of years to try and get it right. The policy does seem to be moving.

[William]

Yeah, but it's, it's a problem. I always say. And I do, I do think it, I think it matters what you sort of. Have you thought it through? And do you really believe it? I mean, if someone said if reforms suddenly say, yeah, we're going to nationalize steel. You've never said that before.

[Peter]

No.

[William]

You've never even believed it. You're free trade purist, economic libertarians.

[Peter]

Are you being reactionary?

[William]

Yeah. Or you're just reacting to the, to the, to where the voters are. And that I think is not helpful. I mean conviction, you know, this is Thatcher conviction politician, Reagan, you know, you elect people that really believe in something and you might get somewhere.

[Peter]

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[William]

Yeah, yeah, I think we, I think a lot of, I think we've been very careful to get the thinking right and to get the foundations philosophically. That's very good, I would say. But yeah, I think we need, we need a bigger media team and we need more resources, more cut through. I would say, you know, we have internal meetings, you know, pr, press, cut through. That's what we need. And I think, and it is frustrating because people say, a lot of people say to, you know, you love your stuff, but no one knows. And that's that, that is the challenge.

[Peter]

Yeah, well, you're doing things like this.

[William]

Yeah.

[Peter]

Hopefully we'll get a big audience.

[William]

No, it is, it is, it is, it's. And it's Very, very helpful. And it, I've sensed it more in the last six months than any other time, actually, that you just, you get stopped in the street, people take a double take, whatever. And, and I don't really, I mean by disposition, I don't want to be in the limelight particularly, but I know the, the country needs this party, but.

[Peter]

You kind of have to be in the market.

[William]

You do. Yeah. No, you can't moan about it, but it's, it's, it's, I mean, it's a good thing if we get cut through. This is what we're trying to do, to build it and get people to join us that get. And it is better. I know, despite the doom and gloom, it is better for you and better for the country. It's better for the soul to try and do something. Don't. The, you know, the answer is not what everything. Staying at home, eating crisps, it's just not. Won't help anything.

[Peter]

But we have a lot of disenfranchised people.

[William]

We do.

[Peter]

And I think a lot of politically homeless people. In some ways, a vote for reform in the next election is kind of a similar vote for what labor was.

[William]

In the last one.

[Peter]

It's like, what do we do? Where do we go?

[William]

And, and there's no guarantee they succeed. No, I mean, that's a lot of people, I mean, if you, you know, if you read the blogs and obviously a lot of people listen to Don Cummings and, and, and, and I, I think they know. I, I know they know because I've spoke to them, but they, they, they know what they're up against. I mean, the civil service, the Blob, you know, all, all of these impediments will be absolutely formidable. And there's every chance, actually, if they, if they won an election in, at the end of the decade that the whole country would be far worse, far worse position, far more acute.

[Peter]

Do you know Nima Povini?

[William]

No.

[Peter]

It's called Academic Agent. Right Line. He wrote a book called the Populist Delusion.

[William]

Right. I have heard, yeah, that rings a bell.

[Peter]

Well, he talks about how, how politics, how populists gain power but are unable to make change, why that happens. It was a little bit like Trump 1. Really? Trump 2 I think they've learned how to make.

[William]

They've learned.

[Peter]

Yeah, yeah. And so that, that fear of Reform is essentially Trump 1. They'll come in, they won't be able to make any change, but they've seen.

[William]

TRUMP 2.

[Peter]

Sure.

[William]

This is the point. I mean, it's like, you know, NCF at the battle of ideas were doing these little, these little clips and asking you a few questions and they said, is woke dead? And I said, well, no, of course it isn't. There's loads of, you know, you've had some victories against, you know, on the gender stuff or whatever and you've had some corrections. But the woke still exist and they're still totally embedded in the institutions. And I think people like anyone that doesn't know that is not dealing with the reality. So the challenges will be absolutely formidable. But they, at least they, I think Trump too is the beacon because you've got to have some self assertion. Like, I'll give you an example. So last time we were here, I don't know, you know, I know Ben Habib reasonably well. I've known him for a while and I didn't know Rupert Lowe very well at all, but. And his economics obviously different to mine. Okay, we know this. But he starts Restore Britain and reaches out, I meet him and we get on and agree about a lot of things, not everything, but a lot of things. And very kindly he asked me to, would you consider stepping up and being on the policy advisory board just to join the team and help and throw in your ideas? I thought very carefully about it and I knew people, some people on our own side wouldn't approve, but I know a lot of people would. And I said yes, and I joined them because Rupert has the one ingredient that is a precondition of bravery. He's not a coward. No, he has bravery and he's prepared to say, and I think that is whatever else you want to do, you've got to do that.

[Peter]

I think he has another superpower as a politician. He doesn't need the money.

[William]

Oh, yeah, no, that's very helpful. I mean, you know, on a vastly smaller scale, I'm in the same boat. I don't, I can't be canceled. You know, I don't really, I don't really mind about that.

[Peter]

But there's this book that, How Westminster Works and why it doesn't, which has become like a bible for me. But she talks about if you're a backbench mp, your job is to get, you know, get to hopefully one day become a minister with a really important role. And yeah, you don't upset the boat. Yeah, yeah. And a career can be very short. So you follow the whip and, you know, you toe the line and eventually, hopefully you get. But if you, if you're out of government and you suddenly screwed and, and actually, I would. I would like independently wealthy people, more independently wealthy people to be in politics because they don't need the money.

[William]

No, no, he has strength. He can say, he can say it as it is, he's not captured by anyone. And if you don't have that, you won't be able to correct anything. I'm afraid if you're fettered to other things, there's no chance. Anyway, that's why I put my weight behind it. And we'll see. We're getting. It is. It's Westminster Village. It's. Okay. That's interesting. But I, you know, there is a long time. I mean, actually there are a lot of people. I mean, think about it this way. And no one knows what's going to happen to the elections.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[William]

Or whatever. But if, if the right people convened at the end of the decade, and I do, and I have a history of doing this. I didn't. I. Again, I, I. It's not well known, but I did negotiate a general election pact with reform last time with Richard Tice. And we did it. It was only 24 seats. No. And Richard didn't sing it from the treetop, but it was a proper pact and if you Google it, you get it. And I say to people, I don't want to be the only person in history that's negotiated and general election pact with reform, because I want people to convene and the right people to convene to try and save the country. And if we don't do it, there are enough people to do it. And there's a massive constituency of people that want it to be done. And despite is always the economics. But I don't mind, actually. Richard Tice was very grown up about it and he was very honourable to me. And I said, you know, I'm gonna fight for energy and water and utilities and housing in a state's strong role. He said, fine.

[Peter]

Well, I like Richard.

[William]

Yeah.

[Peter]

I like Zia.

[William]

Yeah.

[Peter]

And I know he's not popular, everyone, but every time I hear him speak, I think he's great. I think he's articulate. I think he eviscerated Zach Polanski on Question Time recently. I like Rupert. I like Ben. I like yourself. I like Nick. Timothy. I like Katie Lamb. There's like a group of conviction politicians, smart people who understand the problems, who seem to be scattered across different parties, who I think create such a formidable team for this country. And, and I just think, how do we get all these people together? And it's difficult because there's these tiny little like offshoot factions. They're all in.

[William]

Yeah.

[Peter]

And I just wish they were all together.

[William]

Yeah. I mean, I don't, I don't. But there isn't a, I mean if you sat where I'm. It's not, there isn't a, an easy. I'm trying to build something that. Is that right. So. And actually it was funny when Danny Krueger went over because I know Danny and he, you know, politically we were very, we are very, very, very close and he joked, you know, possibility of working with us. But, but, you know, he went another direction and he, and I think it's quite brave that he did. So there are a lot of people, we do speak to each other, but it's not, there's not a logical answer to this, of which vehicle you drive, you know, which, which, which bus you're on. You know, I always say to like Blue labor, for years they used to. They're trying to reform labor from within the Labor Party. Sensible people aren't crazy. And actually that and a point that they do. And they're right about this. The title deeds to what labor should be is with them. It's not with these liberals that have middle class liberals that have taken it over. There's a party of the working class to represent working class interests. It doesn't. So they have the title deeds to it. Maurice Glassman and Paul Embry have the title deeds. The Ernie Bevin title deeds to the party. They are the real Labour Party. And they say to me, why should we leave? So there are lots of. And I always joke with them, well, you're in a bus and it's driving somewhere you don't want to go and the other passengers hate you. And I'm in a little car. At least we drive where we want to. And so there isn't a. I mean, in a way we have three years to solve this, don't we? But what I will always say to all of the others, I'll work with you because I've done it before and I will do it for the good of the country. Definitely.

[Peter]

It's going to fry a lot of people's brains who think. Consider you somebody from the left who is also saying Trump is being very effective.

[William]

Yeah, but Trump on the economics is pretty left. I mean, honest trade. I mean, I did a. This is the interesting thing about it. I mean the real divide is between the social and the liberal. Because I've talked to you long enough, Peter. You're on the social side. You Might not like the description, but the real divide in politics is between the social and the liberal and the individualistic and the communitarian. That's the real divide in politics. And I did a debate yesterday at Battle of Ideas about trade policy. Now, trade policy. I'm on Trump's side and I've done a lot of interviews. I'm about the only people. I'm the only person that argues. I'm probably the only politician that argues strongly in favor of trade, protection, free industrialization to back Trump. And I wouldn't do it exactly how he is. So he's transactional, aggressive, it maybe works for him, but he needs to do it because all of those gutted industries and those gutted towns, Pittsburgh and Philly and Cleveland, Ohio, they voted for him because they need to get industrial production back. And offshoring it to China hasn't worked. It's this security terms. It's ludicrous, it's reckless to do this. So on the economic nationalism, I'm with Steve Bannon and I'm with him. Sorry, that's the way it is.

[Peter]

I like Steve.

[William]

Yeah, yeah. So there you go. So it's complicated and it's great that listeners. It's great to give me the opportunity to explain what I'm about. But on economic nationalism, the SP is right at the top. I mean, it's putting the country's interest first. I'm not crazy. I think the US has a much better chance of being a semi autarky because they've got aluminium production, steel, they've got lots of resources and they've got energy resources. I mean, they're energy. Totally resilient. We're importing, but we should be more like that. That's my point. It appalls me that we've got gas fields and oil fields, Rosebank, west of Shetland, and they're stopping it being drilled. Meanwhile, we're. We're pumping these imports from Norway and. And importing, you know, on the interconnectors from France from their nuclear fleet. So this is daft to me.

[Peter]

Have you ever watched Steve Bannon's PBS interview?

[William]

I've watched a few. I've watched a few. Yeah.

[Peter]

There was one where he talked about. It was like in two halves. He first started off talking about, I think it was his father or his grandfather worked for the telecoms company.

[William]

Yeah.

[Peter]

And he talked about.

[William]

I have seen this. Yeah.

[Peter]

Everybody has, everybod a shareholder in the company. And there was like an incident, I think the economic crash, and they convinced them all to Sell them. And then nobody had a vested interest in the company anymore. And he kind of realized that, what, in terms of greed, they were gutting out what was owned by the workers.

[William]

Yeah.

[Peter]

And I have so much sympathy for that. I was like, okay, you know, I get it, you, you actually care about people being able to create personal wealth, prosperity. Like my dad again, he was an aircraft engineer. Okay. Most of his life he was in engines, fixing airplanes. Eventually he was head of maintenance control. But he put. Yeah, and I don't think my dad would have earned, you know, before I, before I quit university. I don't think he would have ever more than 50, 60,000 a year. Most of his money he had was in overtime, but he put two kids through private school. He owned a detached four bedroom house. We had a holiday every year. My mum could stop work and trained to be a nurse. And then he's retired to a house in Ireland at 61. I've got friends on six figure salaries who have no pension, no savings. They probably aren't going to be able to retire.

[William]

Got no stake.

[Peter]

Both parents are working and it's like, how has this happened? And I think we've bled everyone dry.

[William]

Yeah, no, we're not thinking about who owns what. You see, the line I always use about trade is indifference to what is made where and by whom. But I always link onto it, who owns what. We don't care. We're governed by people that don't even care who owns Thames Water, for God's sake. That's a mistake. But you've got to have a stake. I mean, the reason that people are going to vote for Polanski is they've got no stake and they've got no chance of having a house. They're very annoyed. And there's a legitimate constituency which he will represent with completely innumerate nonsense.

[Peter]

He seems like a complete moron.

[William]

Oh, it's just shockingly bad. But he's an articulate. I don't want to get into the courts either, but you know, I can. Yeah, you can maybe, but he's not. I mean, there's no correspondence to reality. A lot of what he says, but it's appealing and there is a constituency react to it because they've got no stake, nothing in it. But no, I mean, I think another thing that came up in the trade debate is someone was saying to me, who represents these people? Who is going to stand up for them? Who's going to say when the American corporations offshored all the industry, a question that could have been Asked is, were these people trying to influence federal policy on trade? Were they? And I would say, yeah, they did, but they didn't care. So their interest was to try and offshore the industry to make more profits this year. The fact that the town went down the tubes wasn't really what they were bothered about, so it was the workers and the broader picture of us and the whole community that needed representing by the politicians. But it gets bought off by the corporations. Say, we'll just ship it out to Southeast Asia and make more money this year. But your town's knackered. Yeah, your town's knackered. And then the drug dealers move in and everyone has an opioid epidemic and so you're really in real trouble. But the moment I want to be optimistic because the moment it's like the debt thing or energy or anything else, the moment you get to the inflection point, you get to the bottom and it turns round, you've got to show that it can turn around. And this is why I think Trump and Vance on the borders is so vital. Whatever you think, I mean, a lot of people don't like them, but I like Vance particularly. But they've proved it could be done if you want to do it, and that's what people are crying out for. That's the big thing, that's more on trust. Can you actually help me? And they've proved on that dimension they can.

[Peter]

I was with a guy this weekend, a friend of mine, just again, just surveying him, the idea, I was like, I'm thinking of running for mp. And he said, look, Pete, it's not what people say, it's what they think. That's what's important. People aren't always going to say what they think because they're nervous about being canceled or shelter that. But he said it's, you've got to be in touch with what people think, not what they say. And if you can be in touch with what people think and you become the voice for the things they're scared to say or can't say, then you can be an effective politician. And I think, I believe that a lot of people in our country are thinking the same thing.

[William]

Oh, they are, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, actually, that, that, that does go back all the way. I think it was the Tory and it didn't work as. For lots of reasons, didn't work as a campaign, but the Tory campaign in 2005, were you here in the. Or you were abroad at the time?

[Peter]

No, I was here, yeah.

[William]

So, Michael Howard, how old was I.

[Peter]

78,890. I was 27.

[William]

Yeah. So Michael Howard run. Ran a Tory campaign in difficult circumstances. The general election in 2005. I think the strap line was, are you thinking what we're thinking? Which is quite interesting.

[Peter]

Yeah.

[William]

And has a parallel to what you're saying. It didn't work. And actually, it's funny, actually, because they. Because Howard was quite sound on some things and. And he. Part of that manifesto was leaving the 951 Refugee Convention. Did you always remember that? Yeah. And when you debate a Tories think, oh, you can't do this. Well, it was your policy 20 years ago, you know, and then you. Then your Cameron came in and went to a different direction. But, yeah, no, it's interesting. I think that that's true. The difficulty is, and this is why sometimes you need to cut through, we need to have someone that just says it as it is, and that's cathartic. And I think the people that do it are people like Rupert Low. I'm probably naturally more mild as an individual. So you might. I might take longer to say what I'm saying. But he can say it. Vance says it. I'll give you an example. So when he came to the European Security Conference and just blasted it, remember it? Yeah. That's gold. Because it's like an emperor's no clothes thing, you know, it's like, sorry, you're in cloud cuckoo land, you people, you're not in reality. And they needed him to come in and say that. And I looked at that and think, thank the Lord. I didn't. You know, I don't always agree with everything he says, but that was like a balloon being pricked. And it was, thank you, goodness. Well, someone is.

[Peter]

This is why I find Tommy Robinson such an intriguing figure, because I was very critical of him. Never liked him. I just thought he was a bad character. And then more recently, I did an interview with him. The opportunity came, I said, no, you know what, I'll interview him. The Overton windows shifted a bit. We had a good time. We brought up all my old tweets. I gave him off, but we had fun and we talked to him and I spent some time with him and. And I found him a really interesting character. But the most interesting part of that is, and I do believe he's made some mistakes. I think he said some stupid things. But what happened was I got so many private messages, people saying I agreed with a lot of what he said. And I just think. I think this Overton window on Acceptable things that can be said and complained about has fully shifted and we're moving now into a world where I say the. The nation wants something different.

[William]

Yeah. No, and actually, people rely on people like Tommy Robinson and some journalists. They rely on them to say what no one else can say. And on Tommy. I'm not. I don't know him. I don't think he's a Social Democrat.

[Peter]

No.

[William]

But I don't go around criticizing him. I would say a lot of what he said is true.

[Peter]

Yes.

[William]

And he said it before a lot of people were prepared to say it. And he's clearly articulate and so on, but he's practiced a type of sort of street politics, which is not what. What. What I do, but, you know. Yeah.

[Peter]

So what's your prediction? How do you think the next three, four years is going to pan out and give us the pitch for the sdp?

[William]

I. Well, the pitch for the SDP is join us. You know, don't. Don't just get off the fence and join us if you believe in what we're saying. And then we build it together so we continue doing what we're trying to do. The country itself, I think, is. Is headed for some turbulence. Seriously. I think financially there's a. Get Ed west on. Have you in. Ed West? Ed West. You've got to get him on. So he's a very interesting writer and cultural critic, Ed West. Now, he, he is sort of. He can be sort of comically pessimistic and. But he, but at least his truthometer is high. He's not shying away from these. He tells it as it is and he writes beautifully. And I was in the pub with him a couple of years ago and I said, well, what do you think's gonna happen? And he said, well, it's gonna be the same as it is now, but worse. So that was the trouble. Is. But, but I would say until. Until you get. Until you get the right people at the top who can cut through all this stuff, that is going to be true. So I'm sorry, Labor have got a big majority. It's going to get worse. You'll. You financially now, they won't. They don't have the capacity to correct it. Their instincts. A lot are wrong on a lot of the stuff, like Borders, some of I. You get your tin hat on because it's going to get worse. But as soon as the inflection point comes and you get the right people in charge who do want to save the country, it will get better.

[Peter]

Well, okay, let's see. I always like talking to you again. I said it earlier. I put you in the list of people. I've met a lot of politicians now and I really like, I really like Rupert Lowe, I really like Ben Habib, I like Zia, I like, I like Nigel. I like yourself. I like Katie Lamb, I like Josh Simmons in the Labour Party. I think Josh Simmons is a really smart guy actually. And I just want things to change desperately. I'm really, really deeply concerned about what's happening and where we're going and what the next few years are gonna be like. But I'm gonna try and be optimistic that we will have election in three and a half, four years time and we will get the right people in power and we will course correct this country because I think it's needed. Because otherwise it's like I might as well leave. It's gotta happen, it's gotta happen.

[William]

It's got for all our sakes.

[Peter]

Right? If people want to find out more about the STP website, well, the website.

[William]

Is stp.org.uk and on that you'll find the energy abundance, green paper. It's a proper bit of work. So, you know, for those that are struggling to sleep at night, you know, 60 pages, a lot of data. But honestly, we've done a proper job. I don't think any other party could have done this, I would say that. But it's great. Absolutely fantastic.

[Peter]

I'm going to read this. Thank you. Good to see you again.

[William]

Thank you, thank you.

[Peter]

Thank you to everyone for listening. See you soon. Bye.