Does the UK need to be rich?
5/31/202657 min
Is the UK stuck in a debt and tax doom loop, and how do we get out? How do we cut welfare spending? How important is it to give regional mayors more agency over tax and spending? And what can we learn from Mississippi?
Robert and Steph talk to former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt about his take on the economy now he's not running the Treasury, as detailed in his new book 'Can we be rich again?'. Plus for the first time Steph admits it's not all about Middlesbrough.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsRobert Peston· Host0:01
You were in government for fourteen blooming years. You look at that fourteen years, growth remained anemic.
Steph McGovern· Host0:06
That feels a bit unfair on the electorate that you only realize this as you come out.
Robert Peston· Host0:10
A doctor earning a hundred grand, the state was borrowing twenty-five grand to be paid by future generations to pay that doctor's salary. Normally, you'll get a kind of gimmicky announcement at a budget- So you admit you do gimmicks at the start? There's too much gimmicks on all sides in politics. Empowering regional mayors to sort out problems, like properly transforming the welfare system so that people have incentives to take jobs and not remain parked on welfare. You did two national insurance cuts at a cost of twenty billion. [cash register dings] But actually, it was just an electoral bribe. Nonsense, and let me just explain that because- This episode is brought to you by Octopus Energy.
Steph McGovern· Host0:49
Greg Jackson, the CEO, is with us now. So Greg, I've got a question for you. Is it true that by twenty forty in China, there will be no petrol stations because everyone will be driving electric cars?
Greg Jackson1:02
Yeah. Crazy as it seems, the Chinese state oil company, the one in charge of its petrol stations, is planning on having none by twenty forty. I-if you visit China today, what's really striking is the roads are quiet. I mean, uh, all of the two-wheeled vehicles that used to pump out pollution and noise are now electric. Uh, pretty much all the taxis, buses, uh, increasingly more than half the private cars that are sold there now are electric,