Historical Lessons and Future Outlook

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Dan earns points on obscure vintage football shirts and cheesy chips before the match. And on tickets to the game. And if you can put those points towards the cab home when they lose 4 0. And that's because Amex Gold lets you earn points on what you love and what you don't to spend on things you like. Representative 85.8% APR variable, annual fee applies after the first year, terms apply, 18 plus, subject to approval, rates may vary. Hello and welcome to Not Another One. Now it is so busy internationally and domestically at the moment that we have all struggled to get together to discuss it. And uh I'm joined today by Steve Richards down the line from the glamorous city of York. Hello, Steve. Hi Miranda. Yeah. Um glamorous the summer city of York. And um from and Ian and I are uh at other sides of London but we are still in uh the humming capital where it's all go. So Steve I'm gonna ask you what you've been doing up there in York 'cause it sounds brilli But I think I think just just just to tell listeners we we think that the international picture is moving. We're recording this first thing on Wednesday morning. It's moving so fast that actually we're going to talk about the domestic blowback today. Which which you've been you've been you've been on stage discussing, Steve, I believe. Well we've we didn't really discuss uh Iran but it was a great event actually with um this series of books on postwar- Prime Ministers, Alan Johnson has written one on Harold Wilson, I've written one on Tony Blair. So the event explored uh three complex prime ministers, uh Wilson, Blair and Starmer. And I began by saying this is not wholly symmetrical in that Alan Johnson has written a book on Wilson and was a star in Blair's government. Yeah. I've written a book on Blair and wasn't a star in Wilson's government. Probably would have been quite hard for you to be fair. Yeah, it would. Yeah, thank thank you. I'm fascinated by Wilson. Blair is a complex picture when uh portrait when you get beyond caricature. And Starmer i i is is is so different to those two. Anyway, it was very interesting. Um you know, to we it was quite a long event. But people said they want could've it could have gone on. I have to say, I think A, that series of books, is it Swift Press? Yeah. It's it's such a clever idea, really short, sort of pocket distillations of biography of post-war prime ministers. Um Alan's book's great, your book's great, and uh I m keep meaning to order the rest of the series because it they're very thought provoking 'cause you can almost sort of read them at a sitting and then have a good old think, can't you? Yeah, and it's it's one of the hardest things I've had to write and some have criticized saying, you know, why didn't this? Why do you do the answer is in 30,000 words, you have to compress and that is in a way more challenging than writing a hundred thousand words, where again you have space. I think you know it was a bigger challenge for Alan because Wilson's career began in the Apley government. Um, but it was a challenge for me with uh Blair. And I think the next one out is uh Jason Cowley is currently finished Alan Joe Neal during the glorious this This Week years. Um and he also he went to my kids' primary school here in West London and we had a wonderful lunch in the pub where his father used to play piano, which is where the school is, uh just right at the top of of Portobello off Goldbourne Road. And he's a good chum. And also, I have to say, it was such a privilege. When I was doing the education correspondent job, he was the university's minister. And it was so interesting because he was a man who had not had the opportunity to go to university himself and who was really passionate about the agenda to you know change the class profile of who was able to get a degree. And he's still very interesting on that, I think, although it's become an horrific hot potato recently, hasn't it, Ian? And there's a it was a sort of obsession of the right that we've over expanded, but now the loan repayments is really probably up there in the top five niggles of the new intake of backbench Labour MPs as well. Yeah, I mean I I was a great fan of Alan Johnson's first book. I always thought it was really quite sad actually, that that process where he decided or maybe he was being completely you know honest with himself and with the country where he didn't really want to lead. And 'cause I I I thought he was one of the most interesting politicians of his of his generation and there was a point where it looked as though he might be a challenger and I think would have got backing and I think would have been popular in the country, but for one reason or another just decided it wasn't really for him. Maybe sometimes people know their know their know their limits. On the university point, really interesting story to flag today uh and and significant I think. It's interesting what Larry Fink, the boss of BlackRock, is talking about the UK economy, which I'm sure we will get onto as part of our discussion of the blue bac blue back of the Ira of of the Iranran the I war. But he's talking about there's a really interesting reference to young people and how with what's coming with AI, well prioritized technical skills, practical, in-person stuff, all of that is going to come back into fashion. For many people, it hasn't been out of fashion, but uh you can feel the culture turn and uh change. I mean I advise that I give to you know the little company that we run that runs the London Defence Conference of various other things. You we interview a lot of brilliant youngsters who come through some of the programs we do, and one of the main bits of old person advice that I give now and it's amplified by what's happening with with with AI, is get experience of stuff that we kind of take for granted, like events, live stuff that is uh interaction and it's sort of customer service and interaction with uh with other human beings because those skills plus the technical skills that um that Fink is talking about, they are to an extent at least A I proof. And that matters as well considering what the economy is about to go through. Yeah, I thought that was very interesting as well. So y you probably know the um the American think tanker and writer Orin Cass, who's a regular contributor where I work at the FT, and he wrote a fascinating piece about three weeks ago, which I really do recommend to listeners, which was about the kind of ground-up business-led stuff that's going on in America to make sure they've got this supply of people with technical skills and who are trained for the workforce. But you know it's so different to here because here I have to say and I have covered this sort of policy area for a long time now. There's a lot of moaning from business all the time about whether people have the right skills for the workplace. There's now a kind of rebellion generation wide about loan repayments. But actually where, are the business-led initiatives to actually try and tackle it? And Oren Cass and his uh foundation have sort of profiled a few things that are happening in the States where people are literally just taking it into their own hands and working with local schools and colleges and and creating pipelines. That's what we don't seem to have here. You know, we have a lot of top down stuff and the white hall machinery for skills and vocational qualifications, all the rest of it, keeps being reinvented. But we don't create these effective pipelines. Um and he you know he ended his piece by saying, you know, business really should stop moaning. A skills gap is not some sort of weird thing that just happens to you. It's something you're supposed to tackle as somebody in industry or in business. I don't know what do you think about that, Steve? Because I know you and I follow the DFE very closely. And it seems to me this kind of skills thing gets re-in vented with every new intake of ministers but never solved. And and and it requires long term thinking, which has been a problem in government but also in business in Britain. There is there is too much uh short termis m. It it it is why I've always been uh uh a a fan of in d an industrial strategy because training could be part of that with government and businesses working together. Because I don't just waiting for businesses to do it as you suggest. Um Well I wasn't suggesting waiting, I was suggesting they get on with it. Well y I know you were suggesting they were getting on with it, but so far there's not much evidence . But they are because it involves kind of short term investment for mu uh much longer term uh but huge benefits, as you suggest in that article uh suggested. It is as you say a pipeline, isn't it, where you produce trained uh expertise . Um uh but somehow or other I think it will need a strategy involving uh government too uh to address these uh issues of uh training. But I I I think you're also referring because uh Alan Johnson was a massive fan and advocate of uh Blair's introduction of uh uh tuition fees and I remember that period well because it of course uh it only just got through the House of Commons. Yeah, I was reporting on it that night. My God, the drama. Yeah. But it's not working any longer. If you know it it began of course then at uh 3,000 pounds, then the coalition tripled it. And there are huge problems, there are issues about whether you know that Rachel Reeves in her most recent statement, w what what was the issue that the uh the the students uh loan repayments would not be would be hit by the uh cut off threshold point for tax, wouldn't it? And and there was a big campaign.. Yeah, they froze it So us usually the threshold shoulder at which you start repaying kind of goes up, right? But what they've done is they've frozen it at quite a low level, yeah, which has been super unfair. And um but y and she's under huge pressure to change that. Uh but but but the whole system uh it's very interesting. Kirstarmer, Bridget Phillipson, I think began as sceptics of the entire system All they've done so far is put put them up because universities are broke as well. Yeah. And then it was a big deal to put them up to three. And then the tripling under the coalition was the kind of oh my god and then after that they then hugely increased the interest rate repayments and all the rest of it and also crucially they took away the support package that went alongside it and made that all of the maintenance also loans rather than grants, which means that actually if you're from poorer households you now come up with a double whammy of loan repayments, which really was not the way I think it's a really good example actually. Do you know you do remember a few weeks ago when we were talking about the special needs plan and we were talking about how Bridget Phillipson had learnt from the mistakes of welfare reform and was trying to build a very careful sort of not sub consensus is a bit strong, but at least to prepare the ground much better and try and explain the objectives and all the rest of it to try and get this set of reforms through. I think co uh um tuition fees has been a really interesting example of a a a a c a cross party consensus that lasted for a very, very long time, but has actually locked in a system that's kind of not just creaking but crumbling. Do you know what I mean? Because obviously we talk about the need for consensus and a long term solution quite often, don't we? Um, as as political armchair generals. But actually you could look at that case study and think, Okay, well it actually has its limits in terms of usefulness because the problems with it are not spotted in time. Dunno. What do you think about that, Ian? Yeah, I I mean I I I disagree disagree slightly with what Steve was um you know with Steve's line there. But I think I mean I n I know what you mean, Stephen, I'm not s I'm not saying right and I'm not anti state capacity. I want the state to be effective, but I think the point that Miranda makes is is it really gets to the heart of what I think is going to be one of the big dividing lines in politics for the next ten, twenty years about state capacity and individual , by which I would include businesses, um, responsibility . That I just don't I I think you're I think you're absolutely right, Miranda. It is fascinating. There are shades of some of the interesting innovative things that happened in the nineteenth century and in the twentieth century with US business as well, businesses deciding themselves to just sort of charge out and create the conditions and build their own workforce and and and invest in people. And there'll be people listening to this who work in British businesses who will be shouting at the radio or their device or whatever and and saying that their business is already do do that. So it's not com it's not completely black and white. It's not as though none of that stuff happens. I think it's a question of how we turn the dial. And I think we are we are heading back to a Yeah. We're heading back to an argument. Uh and I think Steve and I are on different different sides of this about individual responsibility. And I I just I I I slightly despair at the thought of considering look looking what the uh British State is you know uh you know, looking at its recent record of saying well we now need to we need the state to do more. I think we are I was watching a Thatcher thing the other night doing research for something. I was just very struck by how clear her message was on this. And I d I I know she got tons of stuff wrong which we can explore and deindustrialization and all the rest of it, but it was a very clear message about we can't just expect others , the state, uh, to uh to do everything for us. And I think something has happened to our politics through COVID and since the rescue and the financial crisis in the last 20 years that you can see now playing out in this energy bills uh uh crisis post the post-t Iran war where the automatic assumption of media and it seems a lot of voters is just the government will automatically be there even though the national debt is approaching a hundred percent of GDP and we can't necessarily afford it. I think incidentally the Chancellor is absolutely right to do her to take her targeted approach. W thatell's certainly certainly the hint. Let's see if um let's see if the the Labour Party allows her to do that. But I I think this is this we've we're now very highly taxed. We have uh you know, the state tak ing a large proportion of GDP. I think we're maxing out on that, and both reform and the Tories I think will start to mine some of that old Thatcher uh rhetoric in the in the years ahead. Okay, well you've given us an absolutely brilliant segue, Ian. Thank you so much on this cold morning for saying that when we come back from our break, which we must take now, we will talk about the the energy situation and the economic blowback from the Iran war on the UK and what the government might be deciding to do about it, what business is saying, all the rest of it. Just back to our discussion about uh universities and voc ational skills. I do remember a rather marvellous uh visit that we had, a career talk when I was a teenager at school from the great Prunella Scales, the actress who who who died not that long ago um whose sons were at my school and um she was hilarious first of all we all like wanted to be actors right so she said well don't do that that's a really terrible idea.' Youll never work again. You'll never have work. And then she said, well I've int I've insisted that my two boys um also do a plumbing qualification because if they're determined to go into the theatre I want to make sure they don't starve so she I don't know whether they ever did it but it really stayed with me Prunella Scales in her wonderful she had a fur coat she was so glamorous and she sat on the edge of the teacher's desk you know with her legs crossed looking like an absolute picture and telling us all that we should do a plumbing qualification. So there we are. She's she's a she's she was wonderful. Could could I just before we go to the break quickly reply to Ian's point. I'm not necessarily arguing in this case, though I do in other areas, for more uh money to be spent by government. But I think there is a fund fundamental divide in politics which maybe Ian and I represent, but I think the case that I make for active government is one that spans uh one nation Tories in economic policy. Uh I mean Hesseltein famously did that speech. I'll intervene before breakfast , after breakfast, before lunch, um, and and and so on. It's about trying to find a partnership where you can plan for the long term. Um and and I think that partnership could be very constructive. But Britain's never pulled it off for all the talk of industrial strategy. This government's got one. Theresa May was going to have one but got blown away by uh Brexit. So so I think that's really what there is a divide, I agree. Um but there's quite a range on my side of that divide, as and as Ian says, it was a Thatcherite framing of the other side. You know, the state is always a problem, not part of a solution. Um but but so so I think it's been there for a long time, not just since COVID. I think it's so interesting. I do think the two of you do sort of represent the two sides of that ongoing debate in quite a interesting way. So my preoccupation is always with what's actually going on on the ground, and I can tell you that schools are still freaking out about the decision to scrap or maybe not scrap BTEX , you know, which have been a very well understood ingredient in the qualifications mix on the vocational side. And they also prov perform a sort of a a a a slab of vocational content in wider diplomas and things like that. And they're still up in the air. Are they being scrapped? Are they not being scrapped? You know, T levels were invented under the last uh Tory government several prime ministers ago. They haven't yet bedded in. Now they're going to introduce V levels, but nobody quite knows what they're actually going to be like. I think there is a lot of tinkering with the system, which confuses the system and is an actual problem for the kids going through it, to be honest whilst we sort of mull the wider problem but there we are that's my my happiness right we'll take a break and we're gonna come back and talk about uh the energy crisis This is an ad from BetterHelp. Some days it feels like you're carrying something no one else can see: stress , grief, responsibility, the kind of heaviness that do esn't show up in photos but follows you everywhere. You don't have to hold it alone. With BetterHelp, you can talk to someone who helps lighten what you've been carrying for far too long. Take the weight off. Start therapy anytime from anywhere online with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash random podcast for 10% off your first month of online therapy. There once was a woman who lived in a shoe . A size too snug, but what could she do? But that's not where her story ends. Thanks to a little help from her experience friends, she got her score into much better shape and relocated to a box fresh new place , with room to grow and a mortgage to suit? Now, she lives in a spacious four-bedroom cowboy booth. Better your experience credit score to help get mortgage ready. Experience. Better your score . Better your story . Okay, thanks for coming back with us to the next section of the podcast. So there's a lot of uh flurry of activity in Parliament. Am I right, chaps? Because we've had Rachel Reeves make a statement on uh what might happen later this year in terms of uh the state's response to ris ing energy costs. We've had a lot of frenzied activity uh from other parts of politics, from opposition parties attacking Ed Miliband and his net zero plan, which we obviously dealt with quite extensively last week. What what do you think is becoming the most pressing issue? It seems as if Rachel Reeves saying, yes, I'll target my energy, help plan later in the year on the households in need has headed off worries of a kind of blank check approach, which is what the Liz Truss energy relief turned out to be after the Ukrainian invasion. But also business and industry are really unhappy because they've been pointing out that in you know, energy costs in the UK are all already sort of make us quite uncompetitive and they want more. I mean this is this is going to be a rolling crisis for Rachel Reeves, isn't it? I don't know who wants to respond to that. What does it look like from York, Steve? The put the picture from York. I think Ian and I are are in agreement on this. I I think her stat ement earlier in the week was necessary and uh perfectly pitched and was done clearly uh aimed at trying to reassure the markets that uh she was not going to change her fiscal rules in an immediate panic stricken response, and so on. And that clarity was necessary. However, that is the easy bit because she was talking in general terms about what they might do. Um very wisely they are keeping their fingers crossed and dare to hope that by September, which is when Liz Truss had to interven e with billions and billions, um the situation might be a lot better. No one knows, and we won't speculate 'cause you say it's pointless at the moment. Um so so it was a sort of holding statement of some uh clar ity. However, if they have to come to decide to give targeted help, um all hell will break loose because we've seen it already on the front page of the Daily Mail on uh Wednesday morning, you know, the middle classes to back uh benefit scroung it's or whatever. That so there will be a right wing framing uh condemning it if it happens in this way. And there will be a left uh concern uh about the cutoff point wherever that is, that people just above it, like with winter fuel, uh will uh sink into poverty. So so the problems are are down the line when you decide how you target. But I agree that in theory targeting is the way to do it because there is limited uh if if any sp are cash at the moment. Um but so she she was absolutely right in the way she framed it this week, but but you know the tough decisions are to come if this uh nightmare of a conflict continues. Yeah, I d i Ian, I th th I noticed that Matthew Said, the the Sunday Times columnist who I think dramatically joined the Conservative Party in recent months, um in a wonderfully uh in a wonderfully sort of sort of uh controversial uh un counter counter cyclical move as it were. Um that's a good way of putting it's counter cyclical counter cyclical political move. That's right to join the Tories right now. Um that he he he wrote a a s a rather extraordinary column um on Sunday saying, Well put another jumper on. You know stop expecting help. Is that the problem? Or is the problem the sort of you know the sp spraying the money too widely as was done in the trust era. Well there's so there goodness, there's so there there's th there's so much in this. I mean firstly I I absolutely agree with Steve on the uh political trade offs and the difficulty of it. It's going to be it's going to be an absolute nightmare for the government and it's this is only just starting. We're in the sort of we're in the foothills of uh of this of this this crisis. But yeah I th uh someone is going to have to develop or rediscover a language of sacrifice. Now it's gonna be this stuff is gonna be really unpopular and you of course you go back to the nineteen seventies and there's the poor chap that told I can't remember who it was that told people to you know brush their teeth in the dark and all that sort of stuff and you you'll get to Jenkins father. You'll get you'll get mockery of all of that, and some and some of it the media will be frustrated on behalf of their readers and will lash out, and certain people will be taken down by it. But ultimately, there is going to be a lot of sacrifice involved. I mean what happened in what happened during the last energy crisis, which was of different character during the immediate aftermath of the Ukraine war, was that the government decided unlike uh for reasons I understand, but unlike in other countries they they didn't advocate people rationing as in they did they didn't try and change behaviour. They essentially said for the sake of the economy, carry on doing what you're doing and we will we will underwr or subsidize existing uh electricity and energy use. That isn't going to be possible this time . And you can't just sort of look through that and pr and and you're gonna have to tackle you're you're gonna have to engage with notions of um psychology and consumer behaviour and say to people, actually you are gonna have to do a bit less or you are just now th this will be to people listening who were around in the 19 19 seventies uh uh or nineteen eighties this that will not be a shock. That was absolutely standard. Now I don't I don't think let's let's hope we're not heading back to three day weeks and all all all that sort of stuff. But we do have to we're gonna have to toughen up as a culture. Now I think the the problem for the policy Well the he the head of the EI uh the International Energy Agency is actually saying this is this energy shock's gonna be worse than the than the CEF seventies. Yeah, Andrew Neil in his Andrew Neil in his mail column on Saturday a very good analysis of it basically saying uh you know I saw you know saw him last week he's he reported on I'm lucky enough to have reported on every single energy crisis starting with uh in the modern era, you know, starting with nineteen seventy th ree and that this that this is the worst. Because the the the other dynamic is that it this also involves shortages of stuff like helium which fert fertililiziserer. Fertiliser to biggie is getting the attention. But but helium is also fascinating because of its role in in essentially cooling chips and in in chip um production, which of course the modern world runs on and uh and the AI boom is built on access to a pl plentiful supply of chips which are you know so many of them are made in made in T in Taiwan, which then relies on supplies of um he of uh helium. So this th you can see and Ed Conway, the brilliant uh economics editor of Sky is just sort of charting this all all all the time. And it's all there in his book Material World, which we discussed a few weeks ago, which is an effort to wake people up to how the world actually works. So I but I think the language of sacrifice will only be credible if the politici ans and I know we don't want to get back into debating the whole green energy thing, people know my views on Ed Miliband's thing, people know Steve's views on it. But I think if you you can you can get away with the sacrifice thing, if you say, right, okay , we're taking what we're rethinking our prior assumptions here. This is an um, this is a national and international emergency, and it's going to require us to do some things which are really uncomfortable. So it's not just you that's making the sacrif ice, we're sacrificing some of our peacetime assumptions about about energy, about infrastructure, and tell people to tell people the truth about it. Now that is going to be incredibly difficult. And I can't see I can't see a way through that in parliamentary Labour Party terms. I c I I hope I'm wrong. Sometimes you know wartime scenarios uh produce a produce a change in people's behaviour or assumptions. Well I mean let let's see but I I but I and I I I I hope I'm wrong I hope I'm wrong in that because we ni we need the government who whoever is in power to really to com to completely change their uh approach, I would argue, on uh on on energy, and that's before we even get to what we're gonna have to do on defence and defen and broader reindustrialisation. It's going to be a really tough few years ahead. Yeah. Okay, we we need to take a break, but I think the psychology of this is a very, very interesting point. And I want to come back after the break, Steve and talk about how Starmer, Reeves, uh and team might be able to handle this with an amex business card selena's earning points renovating her skin clinic and refreshing the builders. 14 coffees and 28 sugars, please. And on new adjustable chairs for every room. And she can use the points to lie back and run. Don't put ice cream on your brother's head. Well, sometimes. And that's because with an Amex Business Card, your points can go towards holidays and more. Search Amex Business Card. Interest for use in terms of apply. Available to UK limited companies in limited liability partnerships. Signatories must be a director or member of the business. Subject to approval. This is an ad from BetterHelp. Am I forgetting something? Did I reply to that email? What am I doing? Ever feel like your mind has an inbox that never stops filling? Don't forget to reply. Some days it's not just messages. Therapy with BetterHelp can give you space to unpack what's weighing on you, one message at a time. Get matched with a qualified therapist and start clearing your mental inbox today at BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/slash random podcast for 10% off your first month of online therapy. Okay, welcome back. So we're talking about the energy crisis and how the uh the government's going to respond. And uh Ian set us this interesting sort of political puzzle, Steve, which I think we could could maybe brainstorm for the government . Hesitate to offer an actual solution, but at least we can come up with some some theories about it. You see, what I find really challenging, Ian, about about your idea that we're entering an era of people being uh expected to sacrifice the incredible lifestyle that we've all become so used to. Uh if the energy crisis sort of does hit really badly, do less, all the rest of it. Steve, I think that kind of shortage economy, a shortage mindset, is actually only going to help the populists, surely, because you breed resentment. And we all know that taking things away from people, from all of us, really hurts. And and d isn't there a way that sort of both Nigel Farage on the right and the Greens now on the left, it's just a kind of wonderfully fertile territory for for them to sort of continue their their song of, you know, the establishment has failed, the system doesn't work, we need uh to throw it all up in the air. So far far from i an's sort of wartime psychological ideal, the kind of uh you know Mrs. Miniver sort of mindset of we're all we'll all sort of keep calm and carry on and and do less and experience less, do you not think it's actually more likely to to That is uh a a real possibility. Um and uh uh basically all that happens is the government gets the blame, uh you know, the betrayal narrative carries on, always the most dangerous word in politics, betrayal. Um but there is a there is a uh another scenario. But the government would have to learn how to be uh political teachers to do it. So I've I've been reading a lot about Heath and the nineteen seventy three energy crisis for various reasons. And it is absolutely fascinating . So oil quadrupled in price uh in seventy-three at a point where the miners in Britain were very muscular. And uh Ian mentioned the three day week, which was part of the response to the crisis. It was seen then and ever since really as a symbol of crisis and chaos Whereas actually it worked. Um it was an example of a government planning brilliantly. Heath was Heath was one of these one nation Tories who believed in planning. Productivity didn't fall very much, interestingly, in the three day uh week . Uh uh ener gy was uh saved uh uh as a result, obviously, of a three day uh week. So it sort of worked, but Heath was a terrible political teacher. There's a party political broadcast on YouTube just before Christmas, 1973, where basically he said, This will be your most miserable Christmas since the 17th World War. And and of course everyone just felt miser able. And and he was out of power within weeks. So so the I can just the problem is I can just hear Starmer hitting that tone of voice, can't you? Remember his first August as Prime Minister, he did that number ten press conference where in the garden saying things are gonna get a lot worse. Um and and so he needs to learn from that and be a a guide to show why they are doing what they're doing, to plan effectively and with clarity behind the scenes. That they are in a real state about this behind the scenes. You know, having focused on cost of living as the issue. Um they know that there's going to be these huge pressures on the cost of living. Yeah. But that that I think is the key. I mean they did plan quite effectively, Heath. I mean they they they failed in the end in their negotiation with the miners. But in terms of that energy shock with the quadrupling of oil prices overnight in a country dependent on it, they they planned quite effectively, but presented it disastrously. worse by something Heath didn't plan effectively for, which was you had the Barber boom running into it. So you you essentially had this in in in insane series of policies uh launched by Barber, then the Chancellor who'd replaced, of course, Ian um you know, Ian McLeod after s after the tragic loss of McLeod, you have the barber boom, then that runs smack back into the uh smack into the the brick wall of the seventy three energy crisis and then you have in nineties as a result of all of that cumulatively in seventy four you have I think what people still talk about in the city is you know one of the one of one of the worst record uh one of the worst years on years on record. I mean I should just on a slight ly more optimistic uh on the slightly more optimistic side of things Oh God, yeah, please do. But there is a there's an all there there's an alternative. Right and there is f think in this interview which he did with um uh the BBC on Wednesday, really interesting interview of Larry Fink of Blackstone, yeah. Recommend listening to it. He presented it as a binary choice, which is good in headline terms. I'm not actually or t t two branches of history that he could envisage a situation where you have a hundred and fifty um dollar um a barrel and then you have global recession. Right. So that's what we've just been taught that's what we've just been talking about. Or actually you get some kind of peace deal, or the regime falls, or something we something we can't possibly sort of plan for, and then you end up with Iranian oil back on the international markets and you end up with, as he put it, uh oil at uh forty dollars a barrel. And of course it had been low and it had been trending low and the economy it felt was about to turn. So that that outcome is possible. Now I know we don't want to get into the sort of Trump um peace deal side of things and who who knows what will have happened by the time people are listening people are listening to this. But that it that it there is a there is a plausible scenario in which there is de escalation or frozen conflict or some kind or it suits both sides to um to pause things or f or freeze things in uh in a month's time and then by the autumn the heat has the heat has heat has gone out of this. But I I I'm in the I'm in the you know prepare for the worst and hope to be pleasantly surprised on the upside camp uh camp on this. I think it's gonna be incredibly tough politically. Hm yeah, I think so. Do you have you seen the the latest polling? I was looking at a um U Gov last night and um it's it's it's still