#178 - Malcolm Offord - We Forgot How to Create Wealth

Summary

The Peter McCormack Show #178 — Malcolm Offord: Why Britain Stopped Creating Wealth

Date: May 25, 2026
Host: Peter McCormack
Guest: Malcolm Offord (Scottish businessman, politician)

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Episode Overview

In this candid and wide-ranging episode, Peter McCormack sits down with Malcolm Offord to scrutinize the decline in wealth creation in Britain and Scotland over the past generation. They dissect the failure of political and economic systems to deliver prosperity, the consequences of state overreach, fragmentation in politics, the impact of quantitative easing, and the corrosive effects of managerial bureaucracy on public services and entrepreneurialism. As they contrast welfare versus wealth economies, Malcolm argues for a renewed focus on productivity, business incentives, and personal responsibility, warning that Britain risks being left behind unless fundamental changes are undertaken.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Crisis of Wealth Creation

[00:00-04:00]

• Malcolm’s Opening Analysis: The UK has not created real wealth for a generation. Public spending is the highest ever, yet public services are visibly worse.

  • “For the extra 10% of spending, are our schools better? Are our hospitals better? Are our roads better?... The bottom line is that we have not created wealth in this country for a generation.” (Malcolm Offord, 00:00)

• Quantitative Easing (QE) & Asset Inflation: QE protected asset prices, locking out a new generation from wealth-building opportunities.

  • “The QE artificially protected asset prices to keep the rich rich. And what it’s done is systematically lock out a generation of people.” (Malcolm Offord, 00:11)

• Political Fragmentation & Voter Disenfranchisement:

  • Explosive rise in non-voters. In Scotland, 2 million out of 4.3 million did not vote.
    • “That same nation, 12 years later, 2 million didn’t vote. That tells you we’ve got a problem in our politics.” (Malcolm Offord, 09:16)

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2. The Dysfunctional State & Managerial Bureaucracy

[06:22-14:00]

• State Expansion:

  • The state now spends 45% of UK GDP (55% for Scotland). Despite rising spending, citizen experiences—education, healthcare, safety—have stagnated or declined.
  • “We’re spending more money than ever... but not giving value for money to citizens. That’s just an empirical fact.” (Malcolm Offord, 07:05)

• Bureaucratic “Business Prevention Officers”:

  • Local councils and arms-length bodies stifle enterprise through delays, high costs, and inefficiency.
    • “There’s quangos now... costing £6.6 billion... So what was the point of electing an MSP or a local councillor if they haven’t got any authority now over the supply chain to solve your problem?” (Malcolm Offord, 25:05)

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3. The Political System: Fragmentation, Apathy, and Polarization

[01:22-06:00, 13:15-15:45, 39:36-44:52]

• Fragmentation of Parties & the Public’s “Scunner”:

  • Politics has drifted from big-tent parties to a proliferation of brands; consensus is scarce.
  • Emotional, single-issue debates overshadow reasoned compromise.

• Managerial Class vs. Meritocracy:

  • The emergence of ideologically driven, unelected managers within key services (NHS, education, councils), displacing the traditional, responsive meritocracy.

  • “The Labour Party doesn’t represent working people anymore... They now represent this managerial class and they’re very driven by ideology.” (Malcolm Offord, 38:31)

• Disconnect Between Voters and Decision Makers:

  • Massive divergence between ordinary people’s sentiment (as seen on social media and alternative media) and the groupthink of politicians and mainstream press.
    • “If I really wanted to read on what people are thinking... you get a really good read on what sensible, ordinary working people think on Twitter... journalists actually just become activists.” (Malcolm Offord, 41:01)

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4. The Failure of Economic Ideas & Entitlement Culture

[16:08–23:51]

• Minimum Wage Debate:

  • Emotional arguments for higher minimum wages overlook economic realities for both businesses and entry-level employees. Raising entry-level wages prices young people out of the job market, undermining the foundations for learning essential life and work skills.
  • “If you price out at £15, the market would say that job is worth £7.50... if the employer says I can't afford to... your skills don't merit £15.” (Malcolm Offord, 17:16)

• Employment Legislation and Insulation from Failure:

  • Over-protection leads to entitlement and obstructs business flexibility. Failure and adversity are instrumental in professional growth.

• Education Shift — Learning ‘What’ Not ‘How’ to Think:

  • The modern education system promotes ideological narratives over critical thinking.
  • “The old system would teach us how to think, and the new system teaches people what to think.” (Malcolm Offord, 14:06)

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5. QE and the “Trickle Up” Economy

[28:07–34:48]

• Perverse Incentives and Asset Inflation:

  • Post-2008, QE entrenched wealth for asset holders while systematically locking out the young and asset-poor.

    • “People who had assets were protected. The QE artificially protected asset prices to keep the rich rich.” (Malcolm Offord, 31:06)

  • “I actually think we have trickle up economics now... we're squeezing everyone at the bottom, we're squeezing the kids for the future.” (Peter McCormack, 28:08)

• Unaccountable Decision-Making:

  • Most consequential economic decisions (like QE) have been taken by unelected officials.

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6. Comparing Welfare vs. Wealth Economies

[54:04–58:23]

• Green Party Model—Welfare Economy:

  • Proposes expanded handouts, redistribution, and state intervention.

• Reform Party Model—Wealth Economy:

  • Argues for productivity, lower taxes, entrepreneurial incentives, apprenticeships, and personal responsibility.
    • “The Green Party want to build what’s called a welfare economy. Reform want to build what’s called a wealth economy... I want them to be prosperous, look after, be self sufficient.” (Malcolm Offord, 54:57)

• Attracting and Incentivizing Talent:

  • Need for fewer university degrees in non-vocational fields and more skilled trades and apprenticeships.

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7. Paths Forward: Structural Reform and Local Empowerment

[45:35–61:22]

• Fixing the Plumbing:

  • Asserts that ministerial will is meaningless if bureaucratic wiring is dysfunctional and levers aren’t connected.

• Devolved Spending & Local Accountability:

  • Cites the Swiss model’s emphasis on local tax control and direct democracy vs. UK’s centralized, opaque allocation.
  • “We’re not even spending the money... Where’s all the money going?” (Peter McCormack, 41:35)

• Need for Radical Tax Simplification:

  • Advocates for flatter, lower taxes and reduced bureaucracy.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Scotland’s Political Malaise:

  • “We had this thing in election called the Scunner factor... People shrugging their shoes and saying there’s no point.” (Malcolm Offord, 09:46)

• On Emotional Decision-Making:

  • “The new system teaches people what to think... we’re dealing with certain ideologies that are being imposed.” (Malcolm Offord, 14:06)

• On State Bureaucracy:

  • “Town council officials now being business prevention officers.” (Malcolm Offord, 24:04)

• On The Need for Wealth Creation:

  • “We need to start creating wealth. We are going to be massively left behind and that will have all sorts of ramifications... We can't rely on America all the time.” (Malcolm Offord, 41:17 & 64:52)

• On Politics as a Personality Contest:

  • “With politics, we have a personality contest every five years. If you win that person personality contest, you're in charge of some of the most consequential decisions for the country.” (Peter McCormack, 48:55)

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Relevant Timestamps & Sections

• [00:00-04:00] — Setting the stage: Britain’s wealth creation crisis and consequences of QE
• [06:22-14:00] — The rise of the managerial class, state bloat, and decline in service value
• [15:06–20:22] — Emotional politics, labor market distortion, and missing economic basics
• [25:05–27:13] — Quangos and local bureaucracy stifling business
• [28:07–34:48] — QE’s legacy, boom and bust cycles, and asset value distortions
• [39:36–44:52] — Disconnect between politicians, media, and the public; alternative media rise
• [45:35–49:28] — The limits of political control without strong institutional wiring
• [54:04–58:23] — Contrasting visions for Scotland: Welfare versus Wealth economy

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Takeaway: What Needs to Change?

Malcolm Offord and Peter McCormack converge on the urgent need for Britain (and Scotland) to return to principles of wealth creation: incentivizing productivity, empowering small businesses, shrinking the managerial state, and rebuilding a sense of agency and responsibility. Both see a nation stuck between competing emotional ideologies instead of practical solutions, and warn that unless something radically changes, the UK will continue to lose ground economically and socially.

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Final Thought:
“We need to start creating wealth. We are going to be massively left behind and that will have all sorts of ramifications, not just for public services, but for defense, for everything else... We need to start making money.” (Malcolm Offord, 64:52)

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(For more context and specific segments, refer to the detailed timestamps above. All commentary is paraphrased or cited directly as indicated.)

Transcript

[A]

The state is spending more of our money than has ever done before. For the extra 10% of spending. Are our schools better? Are our hospitals better? Are our roads better? Is our policing better? Our communities happier? But the bottom line is that we have not created wealth in this country for a generation. The QE artificially protected asset prices to keep the rich rich. And what it's done is systematically lock out a generation of people who can get into the market.

[B]

Which way do you want this to go? Do you want, do you want more of the same? More taxes, more spend, more inflation? Would you want to try something different?

[A]

We need to start creating wealth. We are going to be massively left behind and that will have all sorts of ramifications, not just for public services, but for defense, for everything else. We can't rely on America all the time. We need to start making money.

[B]

This show is brought to you by my lead sponsor, Ayron. The AI Cloud for the Next Big Thing. IRON builds and operates next generation data centers and delivers cutting edge GPU infrastructure, all powered by renewable energy. Now, if you need access to scalable GPU clusters or are simply curious about who is powering the future of AI, check out iron.com to learn more, which is I R E N. Morning, Malcolm. How you doing?

[A]

Good morning, Peter. Good to be here.

[B]

We seem to be having two revolutions happening at the same time. We seem to be having a left wing socialist revolution. We seem to have a kind of right wing, hopefully free market revolution. But these splits quite to the right and quite to the left happen at the same time. And it feels like not even just here in our country, but across a lot of western liberal democracies, we're trying to figure out what we are and what we want to be. What's your read of all this?

[A]

I mean, I think democracy is in, is under challenge in a way that never before because perhaps it's the digital thing as well. Everyone's now got a voice, everyone's now got a platform. Back in the day, in analog days, in order to get heard, you had to get on the platform. To get on the platform, you, you had to work your way up through the system. There was a sort of filter system to filter out what might have been called extreme views on either end. And what, and when you got to the platform, you're pretty much center left or right or center. And that's what allowed you to speak. And that's what was the majority view. But now everyone's got a platform, everyone's allowed to speak. Everyone seems to be allowed to be heard equally. And we've got a fragmentation going on and it seems very difficult to find consensus.

[B]

So what do you think that's going to mean for democracy? Is it going to lead us to this hung parliament you seem to be heading towards?

[A]

Well, we've now got this, these proliferation of parties. And you know, I was reflecting recently on the fact that when the Conservative Party lost that last election in 24, that was, there was a lot of heart searching within the Conservative Party at that time because that was the worst election defeat they'd had in 200 years. And there was a presentation done by John Curtis, the polling expert, Professor John Curtis, where he put a chart up to show polling over the last 200 years. And until one generation ago, 90% of the votes went to two parties. Back in the 19th century that might have been, that would have been the Whigs and the Tories, the Liberals and the Tories. When labor came along beginning in the 20th century, they actually displaced the Liberals and it became labor and Tories. Not a three party system, it became mained, a two part. So you had, for two, almost for 175 years or so, you had a two party system and that's now fragmenting. But within those two parties, labor and Conservative, you had a, a right wing and a left wing and you might even have said they had a center as well. If the labor has, if labor comprises three groups, left, left, center and right, and Conservatives comprise three groups, left, center and right, you've actually got six groups within those two parties. And then, so could it be that these are now fragmenting and could it be. And then you, you fit the Liberal Democrats into that, you then fit Greens into that, you fit reform into that. Is this actually just a rebranding of different factions that always existed but now for some reason can't seem to coalesce around one brand, but now need to divide into individual brands. Question mark. That's what it sort of feels like a little bit to me.

[B]

Do you think that comes from a certain entitlement from the public, that the public themselves won't give concessions? The public, the voters themselves think no, this is the world, this is the worldview. I want, I want a party to just represent that.

[A]

I think what's happening is that again, through the digital age, on the one hand we should be better, we're more informed, there's more information than ever. But actually at some points we're less informed than ever before because we are basing a lot of our opinions now on emotion, single Issues the people are very, very passionate about certain single issues. Pick one being climate change. That could be just one single issue for somebody or it could be something to do with post colonialism or something. There are certain issues that people will have and it's almost like that is now their priority issue. It's not just talking about the schools, hospitals, nhs. It seems like we are, that we're getting that the shrillest voices are on perhaps some of the fringe issues and parties are now coalescing around those fringe issues. Perhaps we're describing some nostalgia for a slightly more forgiving space where the center was, whether it's center right or center left. It was able to accommodate more people and it wasn't dominated by shrill voices.

[B]

Yeah. One of the things I've been thinking about a lot with this is the turnover of prime ministers over the last five, six years. It's been like a football club that can't succeed. And these insurgent parties, we've had reform now restored. Part of that Greens become an insurgent party, is that perhaps the state itself has become too dysfunctional to be able to deliver.

[A]

It's interesting, isn't it? Because we're spending more money than ever. The state is spending more of our money than has ever done before. I mean for the UK it's 45% now of GDP. When Thatcher ran hard government, it basically ran on about a third. The state spent about a third of the economy. We're now at 45%. I mean in Scotland we've just had an election. In Hollywood, the state spending is running at 55%. All right. Now I pointed out, I mean, because numbers are sometimes quite inconvenient, especially when dealing with opponents who are dealing with emotion. They give emotional arguments all the time. I try to give less emotion, much more based on numbers to at least ground it in some sort of, some sort of factual. And on that particular case, I pointed out that the Holyrood Parliament has just had its 25th anniversary. So that's a good time to examine anything a jubilee year. How's it were the good, the bad and the ugly? If you look at Hollywood in that 25 year period when we started out in 1999, the state spending in Scotland was 43%. Today it's 55%. So against the UK, the 44 number I gave for the UK, 45%. For UK, Scotland's 55%. London will probably be about 35%. So within that you've got a hierarchy here, haven't you? But Scotland's at 55% as an outlier. And the exam question is, in the 25 years, for the extra 10% of spending, are our schools better, are our hospitals better, are our roads better, is our policing better, our communities happier? And if the answer to that is no, which probably is not, then the state is spending a lot more money, but not giving value for money to citizens. That's just an empirical fact. And if you look at Holyrood, the debate that's been dominated by center left parties, the Labour Party and the snp, the debates are always only about how to spend money. If there's a problem. The answer is you spend money. But there's other ways sometimes to fix

[B]

problems or create a new rule, right?

[A]

And so you spend more money, but the state doesn't deliver in return to citizens. And so it's been an experiment of 25 years of whatever we do, we'll spend, we'll spend, spend. But actually the net result of the holy election was 2 million Scots didn't

[B]

vote out of a population of.

[A]

Out of 4.3 million voters.

[B]

Wow, that's very high. That's higher because it was 60%, I think vert turn out last election here.

[A]

So it was a 53% turnout. The last or 52% 21, it was 63%. But here's a, here's the killer number In Scotland. The 2014 referendum for independence. The UK indie ref1 had an 84% turnout. So of the 4.3 million Scots, 3.6 million Scots voted, meaning only 700,000 did not vote. And that was the most politically engaged population anyone's seen in the Western world. They study that at Harvard Business School. They work at what was going on in Scotland that other than Australia where it's compulsory to vote, why was that such a high turnout? Because the Scots are by definition very politically engaged as a nation. We are a political nation. That same nation, 12 years later, 2 million didn't vote. That tells you we've got a problem in our politics. We're spending a record amount of money. The government is telling people that we can solve your problems by spending money. It's at a record level of 55%. And yet 2 million people didn't vote because they're so fed up. The word we have in Scotland is a scarred. Scarred is that Scottish word of just being completely cheesed off. Fed up. And we had this thing in election called the Scunner factor. The scanner factor is at an all time high in Scotland. People shrugging their shoes and saying there's no point on the doorsteps. I go and talk to people and they say, I've voted all my life, but I'm not going to vote in this election. And they would actually say to me, and my grandparents would be turning on their grave because I was brought up to be taught, well, I've always voted. But you know what? There is no point, because nothing changes.

[B]

As I said to you, I haven't voted in three elections and I'm not sure I vote in the next election. I never vote in local elections. My basic principle, Malcolm, is I'm not going to vote for decline. And if I don't believe a party, I think they're offering decline, which I think every party is at the moment, I won't vote. And I think the apathy is. Has spread. All we see is everyone fight. We see corruption, we see dysfunction, taxes go up, as you say. I mean, my favorite exam question to everyone is basically what you said. I was like, name me one thing that's got better in the last 20 years. One thing.

[A]

Scottish football team.

[B]

I mean, yeah, qualified. Qualify for the World Cup.

[A]

Give me that one.

[B]

Yeah, you qualify for the World cup, but that's not the government. Name one thing the government has made better. And you see people, you sit there and they ponder and they're like, now the NHS has got worse, there's crap in the streets, we're less safe. Yeah, nothing. People can't come up with an answer yet. As you say, we're taxing more and we're spending more. What are we doing? Is it the caliber of the people we're getting, or is it just a dysfunction of politics? Do we need to wipe the slate clean?

[A]

The bottom line is that we have not created wealth in this country for a generation. And we need to have a conversation about that. I've challenged Scotland about that. I've said in the Scottish election, we need to talk about whether we're prepared to make money. Right, let's talk about money. Right, let's talk about money. And I do this, and rather helpfully. As you know, this is 250th anniversary of the United States is also the 250th anniversary of a book published called the Wealth of nations by a Scotsman called Adam Smith. Yeah, right. And he is a guy that invented modern capitalism. And it's. What's the word for it? It's responsible capitalism. It's make money, but also look after your community. There's this thing called the invisible hand that guides you to do good things with your money. But fundamentally, Making money is good and being productive is good. And there's many ways to provide solutions in your life and they're not all provided by the state. Some can be provided by your family, some can be provided by charity, some can provide by third sector. There's different ways of doing it. Right. That book still outsells Milton Friedman and Keynes, John Maynard Keynes. Thankfully, the combined 3 to 1, 250 years old, that book is still. So the rest of the world wants that book written by Scotsman about wealth. And yet the one country that doesn't want to talk about doesn't have an unusual relationship with wealth is Scotland.

[B]

Well, I think we have the same issue of wealth here. I do. I don't think we've created wealth. I find a growing resentment towards wealth, success, prosperity. There's a Thomas Sowell quote I read the other day which I really liked. He said the problem with modern political economics, especially from, I think he said from the left, is that we want to replace things that work with things that sound good.

[A]

It's back to emotion, isn't it?

[B]

Back to emotion.

[A]

It's back to emotion. And it's this thing that, you know, in our modern education we talk about the fact that in, you know, going back generation ago when I know that I got probably the last of the brilliant Scott Scottish state education, I went all through my local state school, primary school, secondary school, university, I didn't pay a penny for all any of my unit, my education actually. And I've paid a handsome return back because I became a productive citizen, paid a lot of tax and I've paid that back many, many times over. But that system doesn't exist anymore. And I would say the old system would teach us how to think and the new system teaches people what to think. And that's a very different thing, very different concept. And so we're dealing with certain ideologies that are deemed to be correct, ideologies that are being imposed on people and our young people. And God forbid you challenge some of

[B]

those ideologies, they come after you.

[A]

I mean, one of the TV debates, Chaplain Green said, do I believe in climate change? I mean, that's sort of like. That sounds like a religious statement, you know. Do you believe in God? Believe. Believe. Believe is an emotional word, isn't it?

[B]

Is that ginger chap? Yes, yeah.

[A]

Do you believe in climate change? Like, do you, do you feel it in your heart? You know what I mean? As opposed to. This is actually something that is quite a broad topic. There's quite a lot of Science involved in it and there are conflicting opinions on that science, we can have a conversation about that. But this idea that I need to believe in it and if I don't believe in it, I'm a bad person.

[B]

Well this is the Marxist friend enemy concept whereby they will challenge you with an idea and if you agree you're a friend. If you disagree you're an enemy. If you're an enemy, you're an enemy, whatever. But you get these weird partnerships, these weird relationships, groups that shouldn't be friends end up becoming friends.

[A]

Yes, yes. No, I mean it's, it's very, it's becoming polarizing and now because we've got a digital world, everyone's now got a voice and a platform to give their opinion and it can get quite nasty and quite personal and quite vindictive very quickly.

[B]

Do you think that part of the problem has been allowing the state to be corrupted by big business? Allowing the state to have free reign on the money printer? Because I was with Narinder yesterday as I mentioned I was trying to talk to her about just like basic economics, the basics of running a business. Why say a coffee shop such as I have can't afford 15 pound minimum wage and actually I don't think an 18 year old there should be a set minimum wage. A job is a privilege, not an entitlement. There shouldn't be holiday pay, there shouldn't be sick, there shouldn't be all this stuff. They should come to work as a title and know if they up I can get rid of them and just work hard. But I was trying to explain the kind of basics of economics to earn. What I realized is she didn't understand it and there's no disrespect to her, she just doesn't understand it. And if you don't understand it then the kind of people who might end up with power who don't understand it don't understand the first, second, third one, the consequences of the big political decisions they want to make.

[A]

So that's a very good example of a decision being made on an emotional basis.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And the words used want to help children out of young people out of poverty. So the way to do that is to pay them more, get a higher wage. But the reality is, and this is what they don't, the left just cannot get ahead, just cannot understand it. Mostly because none of them really worked in business. Right. Is actually your first job is the most important step in your life to creating a pathway to whether you're going to be successful or not in life. And the entry level jobs need to be reserved for our own young people. And that is back to how we all did it. Whether you work in a pub or whether you work as a delivery pizza guy or whether you, you know, you start as a junior chef or it might be, tends to be around hospitality or delivery, et cetera. Now these are quite low skilled jobs, but they actually require human interaction. Working in a shop as an assistant, I was talking to a chap from the Scottish Retail Consortium saying that, you know, these young kids come in at 16 years old and the first thing they have to do is teach them how to answer the telephone. How extraordinary that everyone, they've all got a phone, everyone's got a phone, but no one knows how to answer, answer a phone because they don't speak on phones. Right. That's not useful to talk to anybody. So, and somebody comes into the shop, you have to interact with them, you have to look at them and say, hello, how are you? What can I do to help you? These are skills that are not, are lost, but it can be very quickly regained. So those starter jobs are really important. Now if you price out at £15, the market would say that job is worth £7 50, half of the £15. And it's really important that young person starts with that because my first job was in a bakery and my second job was in a pub. I was a milk ground and you're a milk round. There you go. So that's how we all started, wasn't it? Okay. And you build and you work your way up, you build your skills and you build your way through. But if the employer says I can't afford to. Well, first of all, your skills don't merit £15. So I'm not going to take you on at £15 because your skills only merit £7 50. But secondly, he's. That the employer has got a whole raft of more senior, more skilled employee employees who need to, who need. There's a, there's a hierarchy of pay according to your skills and promotion as you go. If we bump Everybody up to 15 pounds, that whole, that whole weight scale

[B]

has to go up, but it doesn't, it compresses.

[A]

Right? And so the knock on effect for the business is catastrophic and the knock on effect for young people's catastrophic because they've done a lot of work on this is something called a wage scar that they can calculate in your lifetime if you don't get a job. Early doors, you know, between sort of like, you know, if you're coming out of school, say between 17 and 20 or university between 21, 23, that sort of thing. If you don't get into a job and get in the work habit and get into the habit of going to work and building your skills and building up your, your, your wages as you go, and you end up falling out of that system, it's very difficult to get back in later in life. It's very difficult to back in later in life. And so that's where we end up with 9 million people in the UK of working age, economically inactive.

[B]

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[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because then they learn. It's like being fired from a job as a learning experience, as. I mean, I don't know how many business successes and failures you've had, but failures are things you learn from, of course. But if we insulate from failure, we're stunting their development for sure.

[A]

But this is why we had this Row with the Labor Party on the, on their employment bill, which we call the unemployment bill, you know, workers rights on day one. I mean, just, it was a basic thing was you turned up, you did six months probation.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

At a lower wage to see if you're any good at the job. Things like, do you turn up on time? Things like, are you, can you, are you presentable? Things like, are you reliable? Basic stuff. You work through that process of six months, you then become full time and you then get a higher pay rate at that point. And then if you've been in for two years, you then get your pension, but the pension is backdated. But you don't get all the, if you give it all on day one, the employer just says, I'm not going to, I can't do that risk.

[B]

You can't take it.

[A]

So you're cutting off, you're cutting, you're cutting the windpipe of the job market basically.

[B]

It was very interesting when I was chatting to Narendra yesterday because I said to her about this £15 minimum wage. He said, well, look, I'm from an Indian background. We had a lot of families work together in the business, you know, to get it together. If you can't afford it, the 15 pound minimum wage, can your family come in and help you? And I was just like, have you not spotted what you've just said? You've identified it's going to actually cost jobs. And we don't want to cost jobs. We want people out there working. And so this to me is kind of like the modern insanity of politics is that, I mean, certainly with the labor front bench, I don't think there's a single person who's run a business. And I know even in my hometown, so many people are struggling to keep their businesses going. Businesses closed in. The town center is half ghost town.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Lots of shops closed. They haven't understood that like a business like this, you, you take the vat, you take the business rates, you take the employment legislation, the, the increase in costs, the fact that we can't claim back because of this type of business as it is, the energy costs, suddenly it's very hard to make any profit off something that cost four pound.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

And for me it's kind of how do we, how do we return to sense? How do we return the sense? And I don't know, I'm, I'm lost, I'm confused by it.

[A]

We've got another element in this which is that we've got tone. Town council officials now being Business prevention officers. Okay. So anytime you go to the council, get planning permission, for example, if you want to expand your business something it should take four weeks, takes 54 weeks. Okay. And something that should cost. I'll give an example of a business that wanted to knock down an ancillary building to expand their premises and the cost of that knockdown would be 50k. But because actually it was owned by the, by the local council that had to go through their planning and procurement process, comes back six months later and says we can do that for you but it's going to cost 500,000.

[B]

I'm trying to build a football stadium. You want to see the costs involved in that. They've got nothing to do with construction planning consultants.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah. All, you know, all the requirements that come off the planning or the environmental. It's insanity.

[A]

I'll give you another example because one of the benefits of being electioneering which I actually really enjoyed, first time I've done it, first time I've been actually elected. I love just getting out about meeting everybody and going to, then going to the SME, Small Medium Sized Enterprises Scotland. 99% of our companies or SMEs. I was talking to a road haulage guy and he's on his knees anyway with the cost of petrol as you can imagine, cost of fuel. But he wanted to expand his business locally in central Bel, Scotland. And there was a piece of land that became available, owned by the council that had been had light industrial units on it which had shut down, they'd removed them but into that piece of land had had been water and electricity to service these 15 units. All he wanted then was to get the water connected and electricity which is two switches. Switch the water back on please. Switch the electricity back on please. And for both they said that both, they'll both cost you half a million quid. What. So what's going on? What's happening in our town halls? What's happening in our town halls? That it's arm's length bodies. Both of those were quangos. So there's quangos now these arm length bodies now that run whether it's the water, whether it's electricity, it's not run. They're called arm's length bodies. Where we've got 132 of them in Scotland. They're costing £6.6 billion. Where you pay a tax to the government in order to get those services provided to you. The government no longer run it for themselves, they now put it into arms length bodies and then the arms length bodies say to the ministers. Well, you can't interfere with what we're doing because we're at arm's length. So what was the point of electing an MSP or a local councillor if they haven't got any authority now over the supply chain to solve your problem?

[B]

For you, that's completely dysfunctional.

[A]

So that is bonkers. So not only is it a democratic deficit because you should be able to. Because the answer is if you don't get your water sorted, you should be able to fire your local councillor. Well, it turns out it doesn't matter if you fire a local councillor because it's done elsewhere. So it's a democratic deficit. And but second of all, it's wasting a lot of money. But that is why there's 2 million people in Scotland not voting. They look at everything and they say, this isn't working.

[B]

It's completely.

[A]

Everyday life isn't working, it's not working. So what's the point? These politicians don't seem to make any difference.

[B]

Yeah. And you know, and I've, I've seen it quite, quite a lot recently where middle class friends are starting to struggle, starting to get quite upset with, with what's happening and talking about how, you know, their cost of living is going up. We can't have a holiday this year. We would have gone abroad normally. We kind of can't have a holiday this year. You know, business is struggling, money's tight, but I think there's almost like a paralysis. People don't know what to do. They, they look and they see. Well, the Labor Party have completely failed after a Conservative party that failed us. And everyone else is just fighting.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

What do I do? How do I, how do I change this? And I think the system itself has just become completely dysfunctional. I talk, you know, this term of trickle down economics.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

I actually think we have trickle up economics now. I just know this for myself because I keep my money in assets. I keep my money and I don't keep it in the bank because it's a melting ice cube. But the inflation re environment we're in is actually kind of benefiting me. And I think we've created this perverse system whereby we are squeezing everyone at the bottom, we're squeezing the kids for the future. They can't get houses, they can't get jobs, they can't have families to pay for the stuff that we're having now. And I just think the whole system's been inverted. It's completely dysfunctional. But I don't know what the answer

[A]

Is okay, so global financial crash 2008-2010. Remember those words from Gordon Brown? No more boom or bust. Remember that? No more boom or bust. And his big thing was, apart from the fact he sold the gold for 5 billion, it's now worth 50, was to give the bank of England independence. No more boomer bust. Right. What does that mean, given the bank of England independence? What it means is that central bankers, unelected the government bank of England earn 750 grand a year. Right? He's only really got one thing to do, which is to manage interest rates. Do you know, I'm digressing here, but do you know that we issued the first guilt in 1694? I did not know that. Okay, so we're missing girls for 332 years. Do you know what the average interest rate in the UK has been over 332 years?

[B]

I'm gonna guess it's, it's either gonna be much higher than I expect or much lower. I would hope it's higher. I would hope it was like 7, 8%. There was a value and a cost of money.

[A]

5%.

[B]

Well, 5%. Okay, so where we are now, Right,

[A]

okay, now we've just had a period, we had a period where central bankers, unelected central bankers decided to save the world. No more boom or bust. By not allowing there to be a crash in assets, asset values after 2008, 2010, by spending other people's money called quantitative easing, by printing money.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Now the result of that is that asset prices did not fall. I, I came to the city of London 1987 and three weeks were in, there was a, there was a mini crash in 87, then a big crash in 1889 and then a big crash 91. I bought a little flat in Putney back in, I'm going to say 1988 and I think I paid 90k for it.

[B]

Okay, fly Putney for the underground, right?

[A]

90k in 88 and in 93, five years later, if I had lost my job, I, the selling price of that would have been 60k. I'd have been in the soup. I lost that 30k I didn't have, right? But I didn't lose my job. So I kept it and I worked, continued to work and, and I sold it after 10 years. I sold it in 98, having bought it in 88 for 90k. So in that 10 year lifetime, the 90k went to 60 and back to 90. But so long as I didn't lose my job and default my mortgage, I Was fine. The point is though, there was a massive correction to asset values which allows, which cleans up the system. It hurts some people because some people lost their negative equity, but also allows people to get back into the market. What happened in 08.10 was that people who had assets were protected. The QE artificially protected asset prices to keep the rich rich. Right. And what it's done is systematically lock out a generation of people who can't get into the market because there should have been a 30% correction in these prices. There should be a 30% correction in house prices, which allows the next generation to get back into the market and build their position. But those decisions, my point is those decisions were taken by people who were not elected. And yet that's probably. That might well be the single biggest impacting decision, political decision made in the last 20 years. Might be that decision. It's impacting more people's lives. Perhaps in any other decision QE done by people who weren't elected, it's still happening now.

[B]

Same as in Covid.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Covid could have been a wipeout.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Wasn't allowed to happen. And you'll probably know as much as I do, the place to keep your money is not in a bank these days is to keep it in assets.

[A]

Well, back to the. It's back to this 5% because we've just had a generation of. I, I was working in the City when interest rates were 8, 8%, then 10% and then they briefly went to 13, 15. But, but we still at 10%. But we've had a generation of folks who are probably in the 40s now who have had 15 years where money was free.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's really weird that money is no longer free. And yet the idea that money was free is a weird concept. I mean, someday will Neil Ferguson in 50 years, the Neil Ferguson equivalent in 50 years, some economic historian will write about the UK economy and say there was this weird little period in 15 years. There was a 15 year period between 2010 and 2025 where money was free. It hadn't happened before. It never happened again. It's just this weird little period when money was free. Right. And yet that's the world we're living and people are spooked out by the fact that interest rate is only 5%. Back to the 5%. If I would take a job for 750 grand a year and just set the interest rate at 5%

[B]

every day,

[A]

if that's what it's been for 332 years, stick it at 5%.

[B]

And it's because of this though. This is where I have, whilst I disagree with them, I have some empathy towards the socialists. I actually think some of the things the Greens are pointed to, the issues in society I actually agree with, I actually agree with the wealth disparity. I agree it's a problem and I think it's come from this.

[A]

But how ironic. There was a socialist, Gordon Brown was a socialist. How ironic. It was a socialist that put in place a system that protected the rich. In 2010 there should have been a massive correction which would have allowed, as I said, people who were cheating the system. People who over borrowed, for example, would have been found out, they'd have gone bust because they were over borrowed. Those who were actually living responsibly would still have lived responsibility, but asset prices would have come down back to a level they should have been at. Being repriced. That allows new money to come in, allows new people to come in. But that decision to avoid that happening was taken by socialists. Protecting the rich and locking out the poor, sure.

[B]

But I'm not sure if Gordon Brown sat there thinking I'm going to protect the rich here. I think that just the way politics works is you have to build this big tent of people who will vote for you and you have to promise them things. And I find almost in every instance where a socialist has an economic idea, it's based on what sounds good again, not what works. Like the, the renters rights to me is a perfect example. Everybody, anyone who's studied economics knows that renters rights reduces the supply and doesn't change the demand. And then so eventually you might be able to pause rates, period, but landlords will sell their properties, the rates go up. And so my, my suspicion with Gordon Brown is he thought this would sound good. He was probably worried that what happened is during the 2008 financial crisis a lot of poor people got screwed, lost their properties, lost their homes, lost their jobs. And he wanted to protect them from that, but ultimately did the inverse. And I find this is, this is the problem, I think with kind of collectivism and economics. You talk about Adam Smith and the invisible hand is that it's like I look at the Labour Party now, completely dysfunctional. I don't know how long Kia's got left. I don't know if he were replaced by Andy Byrne and West street and Angela Rayner, but I'm pretty confident whichever it is is not going to change their strategic position, which is going to be increase in taxes and increase in borrowing over the next three years. Because I don't think any of them.

[A]

An increase in welfare.

[B]

Yeah, increasing welfare because they have to increase welfare for the votes, they have to attack the rich for their ideology. But ultimately it's self defeating. And this is a, this is the complete dysfunction of government. Now this, to me it's completely dysfunctional.

[A]

What I don't understand is why they do. So we've just done this again in Scotland. We did this, the S and P did this five years ago, three years ago, exact bill, renters, rent controls. We've just did it. It's a real life experiment. You can actually look at the results. And what happened was that rents in Edinburgh went up by 22%. How does that make it more affordable?

[B]

I mean it doesn't. And Milei's just got rid of renters rights in Argentina and rents have dropped.

[A]

Yes. So it's counterintuitive. It's counterintuitive and all the evidence is there. Yeah, it's a Laffer curve. It's counterintuitive. You cut tax, you collect more tax revenue. So what the left cannot just viscerally, cannot get their head around it, but

[B]

I think it comes down to is voting based on vibes and messaging. And this is again I keep saying, the dysfunction of government dysfunction. I mean you, you've mentioned a bunch of authors and books. I like you mentioned Milton Friedman. I mean he, he said that every government program creates an entitlement and the people now have that entitlement, are there to defend that entitlement. And so how do we get from a place where we are now, where we have a managerial class, a bloated state, taxes kind of out, I mean high Since World War II, we've got low productivity. All these economic indicators point into a country's economy which is flat if not on its life support. We've got an entitlement system for pensioners we can't afford, like in every direction. Anyone who's run a business like yourself, understands even the basics economics, knows this is not working. And we have a group of socialists who, whose ideas are, well, we're going to fix not what's not working by doing more of what we're not working. And we don't have enough people who understand what you and I understand intuitively that we need to make the state smaller. Like how do we, how do we even get past that hurdle? I know, I don't know. I mean you're in the battlefield now. Yeah.

[A]

The bit I worry the most about is the, is the manager what you call the managerial class.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

These are the manager, not the front. So in the nhs, take out the front. The medics, the nurses, the physios. But this managerial class that run the nhs, the middle managers there, the people in the planning departments of all the councils, the managerial class in the education system. I heard it said recently that in light of the. The Labor Party was. At the moment, one commentator said that Labor Party doesn't represent working people anymore, or workers or what was working class. They now represent this managerial class and they're very driven by ideology. So the reason why potholes are shocking everywhere, it's just a matter of priority, It's a matter of choice. If you decide that you're going to spend all your money on putting cycle lanes in or building A or putting Ulay in, whatever, and you. And you deliberately don't fix that as a matter of choice. But the. But the decisions being driven by a managerial class that don't even consider there to be any choice. It's obvious, isn't it? You have to build cycle lens.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Right, yes. No, I mean, why can't the. Why can't we just have a little digital in every local authority, have a little digital referendum every now and then? Just ask the people, do you want. What would you rather propriety is your money on? Would you want cycle ins or fix the potholes?

[B]

That's if you of potholes.

[A]

Right. Can we. This is why. Or this is why 2 million Scots didn't vote. People are saying there's no point, it makes no difference.

[B]

There's a really good Twitter account called. I think it's called House of the People that somebody's established with a website. And it reminds me of. Do you know Metacritic?

[A]

No, I don't.

[B]

Metacritic. It's a website whereby you can go and see reviews of films and computer games, whatever. And there's. Am I correct? Kurt with meth? Oh, he's not listen. And I might be confused with Rotten Tomatoes, but there's two reviews. There is the reviews within the press and then there's everybody else.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And there is a clear difference. There's a divergence between the two. So you can go and find a film, like a really popular film that's come out and Maybe it's got 82%, but the public's given it 63%.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And the divergence comes from. There's relationships like, do you want to come to the premiere? You're going to give us a good review. You know, whatever. Whatever reason. There is this House of the People Twitter account has started allowing people to vote on the things that politicians vote on. And again, there's a huge, huge gap between what the people want and what the politicians are doing for all the reasons we would know. And it makes me think a little bit more about what they do in Switzerland. I don't know if you follow.

[A]

Yeah, they have referendums one a week, don't they? But they do it very quickly and efficiently.

[B]

They get to choose.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You know, if you come out with a law that we don't like, we can have a vote on it. You get 50,000 signatures and vice vice versa. But I also found out 40% of tax money goes either through the canton or the municipality. I can't remember which one it is. I think it's 94% in. Oh no. 96% in our country goes through Whitehall.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So we're not even spending the money like, I mean, you're, you've been in the mix. Where's all the money going?

[A]

I mean, just on that. The most egregious example I can think of in the UK recently, example is of disconnect between decision maker politicians and people is Brexit. And putting aside which side of the argument you're on, it's a very close vote. It's 4852. But within. But polling within the actual House of Commons, the elected parliamentarians, 650 parliamentarians is 7822 to stay. Yes. So there is a political establishment that has a completely different group think from the public and is completely shocked when the public say what they say. Okay, now I've got a little bit of experience of this in the last two months. I am not particularly technical. I'm not on Instagram or Facebook or any of that. But I was told that I should do Twitter. Now I don't do my own Twitter. I've got a guy that does it for me. He's a brilliant, brilliant guy who does it. I speak to him all the time about it. So it's my thoughts, my ideas. But he knows how to deliver it. And what I discovered in the three months is that if you take out all the vile stuff on either either way, but just go for. There's some really sensible, bright people who. It's almost like getting an instant opinion on something. And I compare every day between that and what I see in the mainstream media. I. Completely different. Yeah, completely different. And what I began to understand was that if I really wanted to read on what people are thinking again, taking all the abuse, taking all the violent abuse out and just filtering the sensible stuff. You get a really good read on what sensible, ordinary working people think on Twitter and what you realize is newspapers. These journalists actually just become activists. They're actually now just pumping their own. Their own ideology. Yep. Which again, why. So why is it public don't engage with mainstream media? Because they don't buy these newspapers anymore. There's a record number of people not signing up for BBC anymore.

[B]

Well, they're the people who listen to things like this.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because they know it's an hour, hour and a half unfiltered conversation, two people being honest, wrestling with what's going on. When you compare that to, say, question time.

[A]

Yes. Which is performative.

[B]

Performative. And, you know, some of the questions that come from the audience for people. I'm sound like a dick, but I'm kind of terrified that these people are voting and they're clearly picked and chosen and selected for the moment and the whole thing just doesn't represent the real world

[A]

or sound bitty. I've had to do a few of those. I had to learn quite fast on that. But what I find out is that a lot of. A lot of this stuff is just so that somebody can clip. Put a clip on their. On their Twitter feed. It's all sort of almost preordained. You know what I mean?

[B]

Yeah. I mean, look, you're in the mix for a reason. You know, you want to change things, you want to improve things based on your experience in. And business. Are you terrified or do you think there's. Do you think the public's smart enough that we're at a point where they will vote for something better?

[A]

The public are utterly fed up with the mainstream parties and I'm not being party political here in relation to reform, because you can say the same for Green. They're looking for something different. But. But even there, back to Scotland, 4.3 million voters, 2 million didn't vote. That tells you that they are seriously disillusioned with the political system. And so if you're going to get. And everyone. Every five years, all politicians come through the same words, change, change, hope, hope, change. Right. And I like. Nah, actually, I'll just. If you don't mind, I'll leave it this year, you know, like, because nothing happens. How do you actually get change? And to me, this thing in my mind is, it's sort of like, how do we actually sort of fix the plumbing?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

On this. Right. Because if you're the Secretary State for Health and you come in and say, right, we've got an issue with productivity. We've got. We know we've got theaters lying empty at certain times in the day and we know we've got a waiting list. So I'm the second save of health. So I'm going to come in and I'm going to pull a lever on Monday morning called a productivity lever, because I'm in charge, I'm the big dog. I'm gonna come, I'm gonna pull that lever and I'm gonna pull it. I'm gonna improve productivity. Problem is, it's not connected. How did you actually make it go down the line? Okay, now, in a business. In a business, a chief executive will have a board and a strategy. And let's say they've got five divisions, they've got five managing directors. So the chief executive will discuss it with the 5rds. Well, we're going to pool the productivity. We need to increase productivity by 5%. How are we going to do that? Right, so you discuss it with the five senior MDs. They then go to their teams and then they discuss it with their senior teams. It goes down the line and then on Monday morning, pull a lever and the whole thing, the whole thing, the whole lever moves because everybody in the business is pulled into that position.

[B]

Well, there's a profit incentive that drives.

[A]

That's the point. There's. First of all, it's a profit incentive. And second of all, it's still a command and control concept that you can actually tell you've got a boss and you can tell you what to do.

[B]

And also there's a meritocracy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I mean, if you run a business, it's a bit.

[A]

So how do you. But you're the Secretary of Health, you come in and you pull the lever, there's nothing. There's nothing you can do to. These are now all alliance bodies. They've got their own boards, they've got their own funding structures to fill these middle managers that don't agree with what you want to do. In a way, I can give you a prospectus I have done about how to make Scotland the most prosperous part of the uk. How do I do that unless I can pull the levers?

[B]

Have you read Ian Dunt's book, How Westminster Works and why It Doesn't? No, it's incredible book and terrifying.

[A]

I know how it doesn't work. I'd like to see how it does work.

[B]

But it's a terrifying. It's like a horror story. You're reading through it and he said, what happens is somebody eventually gets a role of a minister, they get a department and they want to prove themselves to the party and to the country. They can do something. So they have to do something. They have to make a change, whether they're in the prison, the education, and so they're going to make some big change. And there's consequences that happen to these changes. And I can't remember who is, but I think somebody was talking about the education and it's like. I think it was a head teacher saying, like, every time there's a new minister, we're fearful, like, what change is going to bring in. We'd really like someone to come and say, we're not going to do anything, just leave us alone. But I think there's a really important point in this. You talked about the structure of the business, the middle manager, the senior manager, the exec team. That meritocracy is really important. You don't become the chief exec of Tesco's unless you've proven yourself somewhere previously.

[A]

You've had to work your way up,

[B]

you've worked your way up and you've proven yourself. And likely a headhunter gives you credibility, gives you credibility. And a headhunter's come for you, perhaps. Look, you're going to pay a lot of money for that person, but they're going to perhaps change, you know, Tesco's fortunes from, I don't know, whatever, profit 4 billion to 4.2 to 5, whatever. But with politics, we have a personality contest every five years. If you win that person personality contest, you're in charge of some of the most consequential decisions for the country. Rachel Reeves, I think, is completely and utterly incompetent. And I don't think she's qualified for the job yet. She's part of a personality contest that gave her the job. She's got a bigger budget to run than any chief executive in this country. And when she gets things wrong, what do we expect?

[A]

Yes, well, she. She didn't actually know what. What was the outcome. She admitted she didn't understand. She admitted that she didn't know that would result in pubs closing down and

[B]

people told her and she ignored them.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so how do we get away from essentially having a personality contest which puts some of the most unimpressive people in part in charge of the most important decisions?

[A]

Well, the only moment in our lifetimes was. Was the Thatcher years where that was that guy, John Hoskins, who was the sort of. There was a team of people that were outside of led by Keith Joseph, that actually did a sort of a big wall map of how does the economy actually work? Where are these levers and how do you pull them and what do you have to sort out in order to get the country changing? And the battle that she had to have was with the trade unions because they were the blockers on pulling the levers. But it's almost like we're there again. We need somebody to sit in a room with no windows and map out how this country works and why nothing is connected to each other. Why do you department's not taught to each other why if you pull that lever, it doesn't pull that lever over there as a result, which something in planning it should take four weeks. Takes 54 weeks.

[B]

You think reform can do it?

[A]

I think so. Reform has absolutely got the. I think I've got the political ideas to do this, can win the politics on it and have got the political will to do it. That's really important to do it. The bit that needs to be done now is the wiring and that's what Danny Krueger and his team is working on. The wiring is the piece of that really needs to be focused on now, which is the less glamorous piece behind the scenes about how you actually fix this stuff.

[B]

Can they win in Scotland?

[A]

Well, we. Look, we've come from nowhere to 17 seats with 383,000 votes. Okay? Now the SMP got 626,000 votes. Just think about that for a minute.

[B]

How many seats did they get?

[A]

56. Okay, well that's just the way the system.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah.

[A]

But we go through underneath 3,000 votes,

[B]

so you don't need many more.

[A]

That's not a long way off 626,000 votes, is it?

[B]

And if you've got 2 million not voting.

[A]

If you've got 2 million not voting. Right now, for example, my constituency, my hometown of Greenup, which is a sort of working class town, there are no Tories in that. In Invercly I got five and a half thousand votes, came third. But the Labor Party and the SNP both lost. So the S&P lost. The SV won it, but they lost 5,000 votes. Labour lost 2,000 votes. I won five and a half thousand votes. There's no Tories, Ergo, we managed to persuade a bunch of Nats national supporters who are fed up with the SNP and Labor supporters to vote for us. Okay, that gives us a platform of 16, gives us 17 MSPs in the parliament, gives us A platform to build on the decline of the Labor Party is quite staggering because they've, they've, they're, you know, the Labour Party owned Scotland, didn't they?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Right. And I'll show you a little. It's interesting in. There's been seven elected parliament Hollywoods in 1999. Labour had 56 MSPs in 0350-746113-71624, 21, 22, 26, 17. Gone from 56 to 17 over that 25 year period. That party is in free fall and they're sure the vote's gone from 32% to 16%. Meanwhile, the SNP, think about this. In the independence referendum, 3.6 million Scots voted, the highest ever seen, 84%. Two million to remain, 1.6 to leave. Okay? That 1.6 vote is now in capture by S&P plus Greens because they are both the separatist parties. So keep that number. 1.6 million in 2014, in the 21 Hollywood referendum, sorry, election five years ago, that number was 1.3 million and last week that number was less than 1 million 950K. Okay, less than a million people voted for separatist parties out of a population of five and a half million people. Right. Their vote's in decline and there's two million not voting. So if the established parties being Labour and S and P are in decline, nobody wants to vote for them. And there's 2 million people not voting. That is an open goal for somebody to come along who's got a real plan to fix the country. And that's our challenge, that's our opportunity.

[B]

So who's the opposition? There are the Greens growing there as well.

[A]

They got 14 seats. Incredible. I mean, from about 350,000 votes. So they've had a very strong performance. And we've now got, and Lib Demsworth, whatever it was, 14 and Tories 12. So you've got or 10, I don't know exact numbers, but you've got five parties now ranging between 10 seats and 17 seats. And then the S&P with 56, you got fractured, you've got a fractured, nobody can form a. There's no majority. You've got a fractured parliament and you get 2 million Scots not voting.

[B]

I mean, look, I think there's quite an obvious and clear choice that people need to be making over the next three years. Which way, which way do you want this to go? Do you want more of the same? More taxes, more spend, more inflation? Would you want to try something different? Do we want to return to sensible education and building children up and giving them jobs and opportunity and growing business and getting out of the way. Like which? Which way? I think that's a clear and obvious choice.

[A]

Well, I think actually again, I'm just referencing Scotland because we've done the election there. But if you take out the middle parties of being S and P in decline, labor in decline, Conservative in decline, Lib Dems flat, those two parties on the outside are now the choice you're presenting with the Green Party or Reform Party. The Green Party want to build what's called a welfare economy. Reform want to build what's called a wealth economy. Fundamentally, we all want the same thing. We want people to have better lives and more money in their pocket. The ideology of the Green Party is you do that through handouts, through welfare, everything is free, paid for by the rich. Okay? It's a redistribution model. Take off people who have to give, people who have not. My alternative model is that all that does is embed people in poverty. My model is I want them to be prosperous, look after, be self sufficient. I want them to get a good job. I want a young a kid to come out of work and get a good job. I want to stop 50% of kids going to university to study homeopathy or sociology or Harry Potter. I mean, every barman Edmunds got a degree. But we're short of welders. Right? Good. Welders that resize Chipyard can earn 75 grand, right? We need 50% of our kids going to colleges with apprenticeships and getting proper jobs. That's why the 15 pound minimum wage doesn't work for me. I'm not being nasty. I'm not being nasty. I'm not saying to. I'm saying that's doing you a disservice because that's blocking you from you getting your starter job, which should be at £7.50, which will then allow you to build your skills to get to 10 pounds, to 12 pounds and then to 20 pounds and then 20 and then off you go. So these are two philosophies. How do we deal with, how do we make people better off? The Greens are saying everything's free handouts for everybody. And reform is saying we're going to get back to work and we're going to build prosperity like all Scots used to do.

[B]

But it is quite interesting that from both sides, people essentially diagnosing the problem the same, fundamentally their diagnosis the same. It's kind of, I would say, just left wing and right wing populism in some ways. And, and I think that, I think, I think both are pretty right with their diagnosis of the problems. I don't think there's much different. It's that what is the solution you want. And I think sadly, what the left doesn't understand is their solution doesn't work. Eventually you just run out of money.

[A]

Well, I demonstrated that in 25 years we've gone from 43% of GDP to 55% of GDP.

[B]

How are they affording it?

[A]

Right, because it's paid for by the UK. There's a 30 billion structural deficit. So it costs 120 billion to run Scotland. And we raised total taxes on the 90 billion. So the 30 billion is paid for by the UK through the Barnett formula and the block grant. Okay. Right. Now I would argue that, you know, we have 8% of the population in Scotland and 33% of the geography. So it's more expensive to run Scotland than to run England. The idea of the UK is you get the same services in Stornoway as you do in Streatham, but it's more expensive to run that in Stornoway than it is in Streatham. So there is an equalization payment required for more remote areas. And London does pay for the northeast of England as well as elsewhere. And that's why we're the United Kingdom. But we've got a structural deficit of 30 billion, which I'm not comfortable with. But again, the politicians, particularly on the left, do not understand that. They don't understand that.

[B]

Do you think reform can deliver this without expanding the state themselves?

[A]

We can't expand the state any further. It just is, it cannot be done. I mean, we're at 55%. As I said before, New Zealand is the same population, spends 42% of GDP and their temper and their GDP per capita is 10 higher. So there's plenty of examples of countries the same size. It's called getting value for money. Getting better value for money. Let's stop spending other people's money. Let's stop spending taxpayers money. Let's get better value for money. Now, nobody wants to get into the whole, the austerity cuts, etc. But there's two, there's a, there's a nominator and denominator. Let's increase the tax revenue, let's get the revenue up so we maybe hold the spending flat, but let's get the revenue up and then you get that relationship back down to 45%, you know, on average of the UK, but the way that you got to Grow the economy. And the only way to do that is, again, this is what everyone talks about, but they don't know how to do it. What is the economy? What is the economy? Economy is just people.

[B]

People are being productive.

[A]

Economy's just people. And In Scotland, it's 95% SMEs. It's little businesses getting out and about who right now are saying, Folding their arms and saying, I can't be bothered. Why would I bother? I'm not going to. My business rates just went through the roof. My employer's cost has just gone through the roof. I can't get planned permission to expand my business anyway. I'm not going to bother, Right? But if we can incentivize these people to bother, they'll grow the economy.

[B]

Stop speaking sense, man.

[A]

So how do you incentivize people? Give them. Put some money back in the pocket. So let's cut the taxes, right? Let's cut the tax. We've said we'll give them a. We've said that we've now got these ridiculous six bands in Scotland versus you've got three bands in England, right? Six bands and they're all higher. I say let's go back to the three bands and let's go lower. I mean, how radical is that, right? I mean, you know, let's go back to 20%, 40%, 45%, and then make it one people, 19, you know, 39, 44. And with an ambition to get to minus 3P.

[B]

If you looked at. Estonia has just one band.

[A]

I know it's flat tax and it's clever and it's.

[B]

And their economy is booming, absolutely booming.

[A]

I know, but we're talking about 2 billion of a tax cut that cost £2 billion. I got hold over the coals by the IFS. This is crazy economics. 2 billion out of a Hollywood budget of 72 billion.

[B]

Where is all that money going?

[A]

3%, man.

[B]

Where's it all going?

[A]

That's 3%. Give me a break.

[B]

Where's the 72 billion going?

[A]

Well, I'll give you an example. Energy is devolved. It's evolved matter, right? Energy is done by Westminster. And yet. And that's 72 billion in Hollywood. 5 billion is spent on net zero. 5 billion is spent on net zero. But actually, energy is devolved to Westminster.

[B]

You could give a much higher tax cut with that 5 billion. Well, listen, I wish you the best, man. Is there anything we've not talked about you wish we had?

[A]

No, no, I think we've covered. Covered the ground. I do think you know, what I discovered was when I did start talking about money and I went, and I took a bit of a risk and I went, put it out there deliberately on the TV debate with the guy from the green. So I wanted, It's a great trap because I asked him the question, you know, you know, here's a, I'm a rich guy. Do you want in your Scotland, you want more people like me or less people like me? And his immediate response was, less people like me. He then goes on to then talk about all the things he wants to give away for free. And he's asked then, well, who's going to pay for that? He said, I'm going to tax the rich. Except you don't want any rich people in your country. I mean, you know, schoolboy economics. Right?

[B]

Stupid circular logic.

[A]

But what is interesting, back to the Twitter feed. And getting an early read on this from ordinary people is actually very heartening. I discovered that Scots are still ambitious, still admire success. The fact that this guy made it himself, he didn't get any handouts, he didn't come from his family, he just got educated and worked hard. There's still a beating heart in Scotland of people wanting to be self sufficient, get themselves a good job, look after the family, look after the community. They don't want the state to provide everything for them. They do want the state services to be good, they want the schools to be good, they want their roads to be good, they want hospitals to be good. But they want to live better lives and they want to create their own prosperity. And I am greatly encouraged by that.

[B]

Well, I wish you all the best and I, I hope you're successful there because I've been to Scotland a couple of times, loved it. I love Scottish people. We, despite the football banter, I think we always get on. How do you think you're going to do in the World cup and are you planning to go?

[A]

So the trick question is, has Scotland ever been in the last 16 of a world Cup?

[B]

I don't actually know the answer to that.

[A]

Okay. Because we never qualified for the later stages. But in 1974, there was only 16 teams. Ah, there was four groups of four.

[B]

Interesting.

[A]

And we didn't get beat. We drew the Brazil and Yugoslavia, but we only beat Zaya 2 nil and everyone else beat them by 5 or 7. And that was a Billy Bremner, Dennis Law, Joe Jordan team. That was amazing team. They. So they were in the last 16. We've never qualified beyond the first stage. What we, we have to think About. But, you know, Brazil.

[B]

Who's in your group?

[A]

Well, Brazil, Morocco and Haiti.

[B]

Oh, it's doable.

[A]

Don't underestimate Morocco.

[B]

I know, but it's doable.

[A]

They smile in 98 and set in San Etienne.

[B]

They.

[A]

They smashed us three. Now, they're a good, good team, but that's the key match. Obviously. We gotta. We gotta wait. That's the key match.

[B]

Obviously.

[A]

We've got to try and we've got to be Haiti. But Ali McLeod, when we turned up in 78, said, Peru. Really, that's no problem. We find that they're actually quite good.

[B]

Are you gonna go?

[A]

I have a ticket for the Brazil game.

[B]

Where is it?

[A]

In Miami.

[B]

Nice.

[A]

But it clashes with parliamentary time and I think it's the right thing to do is not to go.

[B]

Yeah, I think I'm going to go out. I've. I've been to the Euros a couple of times here and in France. I've never been to a World cup and I fancy it.

[A]

Well, you know what's interesting about this on the footnote is the Europeans, in fact, the. The whole world's going to go to America and be shocked at how expensive it's phenomenal things are in America. And yet that's just average life for America. What you. What you're going to find out is Americans are much, much wealthier than us.

[B]

We saw that survey that came out recently, right, where we asked people in the UK to rank the uk, if it was a state based on wealth and came out seventh and we're poorer than Mississippi. We. The. We would do the poorest.

[A]

So we have. So. And. And in the next 30 years, America is going to pull away from. Is going to just get even more. I mean, the rich get richer, right? They are just going to get more and more wealthy. We need to get our shit together here. We need to start creating wealth. We are going to be massively left behind and that will be. Have all sorts of ramifications, not just for public services, but for defense, for everything else. We can't rely on America all the time. We need to start making money.

[B]

Yeah. It's the truth. I just got back from there and I was blown away by the cost of things and life's all right for me, but I would be going to like a Starbucks and getting a couple of coffees, a couple of sandwiches, and it's like 45 bucks and you're like, what the. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, they are going to be shocked. But look, I'm with you. We need to. This is what Modi's done in India. As Narinda told me yesterday. She was like, you know, things are good in India. I was like, what's happening? She said, well, Modi's made sure people got more money in their pockets. I was like, he's right wing, isn't he? And she said, yeah, he is. And so, yeah, look, I'm with you. We need to support the entrepreneur.

[A]

Talking about whether it mean left or right, just me, right or wrong.

[B]

Well, I mean, just the same thing. It's the same thing. Look, I just. Just get. Get the fuck out of the way of people and let people go out and create businesses. That's what I hope. And look, I wish you all the best of luck with it. Like I say, I'm a big fan of Scotland. I'm a half Celt myself from Ireland, and I think when we all work together, we do a lot better. So thank you for coming in and all the best.

[A]

Thank you, Peter.

[B]

Thank you, everyone, for listening.