 Good evening and welcome to a Tiskey sour budget special and we're going to be going through all the the big policy announcements What it means about the current direction of the Conservative Party? What it means about your finances I mean, I'm probably not going to be able to give you all of the details on that But we'll try our best. I'm joined by Aaron Bostani. Have you been glued to your to Sky News today? I suppose however you however you watch big announcements in Parliament. I Don't do Sky News Michael. Do you do Sky News? I mean, I shouldn't I actually like Sky News But no, I often watch BBC just because I think that's what most people are watching. I watch them politics live Uh, and then I kind of I I tuned out after 2 p.m. I was actually a little bit torn between the budget and Nicola Sturgeon's committee hearing which we are going to be talking about later As well very very dramatic what was going on there and to talk about the budget in a moment I'll be joined by Jeevan Sunder and who's a economist and former treasury official I want to take you through some of the key moments of the day Before we discuss what happened First of all, though, you know the score do share the show link tweet on the hashtag tiskey sour Comment under the twitch stream and put your super chats under the youtube video now As rishi sunak likes to occupy the limelight there are many ways the public could absorb today's budget announcements Alongside the traditional presentation of the budget in the house of commons There was a blitz of social media clips with sunak explaining the key policies to camera Then this afternoon sunak broke with convention to host a televised press conference Here were the key themes today's budget Is a three-part plan to protect the jobs and livelihoods of the british people The first part is this We're going to keep economic support in place until well past the point that we exit lockdown The furlough scheme support for the self-employed business grants business rates holidays tax cuts and the temporary universal credit uplift have all been extended and generously But that unprecedented level of support Combined with the damage corona virus has done Places huge strain on our public finances Simply put We have to get borrowing and debt back under control So the second part of today's budget begins fixing that Now some people think we should ignore this problem or worse. There are some who think there is no problem at all But I think that's wrong If we don't act once the economy has recovered To control our borrowing We won't be able to fund the stronger public services people want to see And when the next crisis comes along We won't be able to respond with the boldness we have this time So I want to be honest with you now today about how we'll begin fixing the public finances This budget is helping people develop new skills start an apprenticeship and get better paid jobs This budget is helping small business owners get the training skills and technology They need to compete with bigger firms and become the high growth companies of the future And this budget is bringing prosperity to the whole united kingdom With new free ports around the country And the largest pro-investment tax cut in modern british history Making the time to invest right now And the place to invest right here the key Announcements rishi sunak saying we offered you lots of support We will continue to do so for the the period for which the pandemic lasts And then saying this is going to build up a load of debt And we're going to have to pay it back with some taxes and then looking to the future We're going to go through these in a somewhat granular detail So let's go through some of the key announcements We'll start on that coronavirus support which he was talking about So in terms of that probably the biggest pledge was this one on furlough The furlough scheme will be extended until the end of september For employees there will be no change to the terms They will continue to receive 80% of their salary for hours not worked until the scheme ends As businesses reopen we will ask them to contribute alongside the taxpayer To the cost of paying their employees Nothing will change until july When we will ask for a small contribution of just 10% and 20% in august and september So you can see there he's saying that the furlough scheme will now go on until september Some people worrying does that mean that actually restrictions are going to continue beyond july Is there something we don't know? I think probably more likely he's just worried about there being a huge cliff edge And everyone becoming unemployed in the summers This is a way of sort of tapering Tapering out helping people out of the pandemic recession or crisis that we're in Let's look at some of the more coronavirus support measures that have been announced So as well as the furlough the self-employed support scheme will be extended until september And the 20 pound universal credit uplift will be extended as again to september Although i should say that actually means there'll be a cut to universal credit in six months time And to sort of i suppose compensate people for that cut They're going to give a 500 pound one-off payment to people who claim working tax credit So the real story there and the extension of furloughs but benefit cuts to come of course Still no money for people to self isolate, but that was a given Let's go on to tax And so it was a proposed increase to corporation tax that caused the biggest political stir in the run up to the budget Here's what sunak announced So the second step i am taking today Is that in 2023 The rate of corporation tax paid on company profits will increase to 25 Even after this change The united kingdom will still have the lowest corporation tax rate in the g7 Lower than the united states Canada, italy, japan, germany and france We're also Introducing some crucial protections First this new higher rate won't take effect until april 2023 Well after the point when the obr expect the economy to have recovered And even then because corporation tax is only charged on company profits Any struggling business will by definition be unaffected So corporation tax will be going up from 19 percent to 25 percent But not for a couple of years and we can go to the the further announcements on corporation tax and taxation in general Sorry, so we can also see corporation tax rate will be kept at 19 percent for those companies with profits of less than 50,000 Corporation tax will be tapered for profits of between 50,000 and 250,000 And the big tax announcement was probably that personal income tax allowance will be frozen So that doesn't mean that people will be paying more tax even if the tax rate hasn't changed Finally, let's look at the bigger picture. Um, what is the the torry's long-term vision? From this announcement Including how they plan to level up our future economy Demands a different economic geography If we are serious about wanting to level up that starts with the institutions of economic power Few institutions are more powerful than the one I am enormously privileged to lead the treasury Along with the other critical economic departments, including bays dit and mhc lg We will establish a new economic campus in Darlington So alongside that announcement to move parts of the treasury to Darlington only 750 workers It's probably more symbolic than anything else In terms of the long-term plan They also announced that firms will be deduct investment costs from tax bills reducing taxable profits by 130 That's supposed to be to encourage businesses to invest to increase productivity There will be a new uk infrastructure bank to be set up in leads that will have 12 billion pounds in capital And aims to fund 40 billion pounds of public and private projects There'll be 15 billion pound in green bonds I'm including for retail investors to help finance the transition to net zero by 2050 A one billion town fund to promote regeneration in 45 english towns and a green mandate for the bank of england Now joining myself and aran to discuss the budget and everything that rishi sunak announced is jivan sander Who is an economist at kings college london a former treasury official and most importantly Another podcaster jivan is co-host of politics jam a podcast that looks at the week's news through the lens of political science Thank you so much for joining us today jivan Hey, how you doing? It's wonderful to be here mic Absolutely, um, can I get you to start by I suppose telling us what you see as the big picture here I've sort of gone through some of the details of the budget. I want to know as an economist looking at this What is sunak thinking? What's what's the big idea? Well for me the first thing I look at any budget is does it make child hunger go up or down and this chancellor and this budget May child hunger go up and that's why I think it was disgraceful You know to not keep the universal credit uplift in place does mean more children going hungry It means that low paid key workers like nurses are going to see a thousand pound pay cut in six months time They risk their lives in this pandemic and they're going to see a fall in pay They're going to be forced into food banks as they were beforehand. And so yeah, I think that was wrong I think that was Morally abhorrent as well. It's a disgrace and that has to be fixed in the future I suppose going on I think some of the other things we saw today Investment and public spending so it looks like a good story on investment We'll see exactly what the chancellor wants to do in the future with that But on public spending and this has been a little bit. I think under the radar It looks to me like public spending in 2025 will be lower Per person than it was in 2010 now We should remember since 2010 needs have risen the population has gotten older as well as that We've also seen the after effects of the coronavirus pandemic So we're going to see some real problems with public spending and finally housing now for me We don't talk enough about housing in this country. We don't talk enough about its impact This mortgage support guarantee is going to be like the help to buy scheme before it It will lead to higher house prices. And what does that do? Well, it means you live in an economy where what matters is who your parents are and not how hard you work When house prices go up, who can afford to buy a house? It's not young people who work hard It's young people who have rich parents and the higher house price the richer your parents have to be And in the future those young people own those houses And so for me, that is another really big story out of this budget We're creating this rentier economy where it doesn't matter what you do What matters is who your parents are and did they have the good sense to buy a house in london 10 years ago Aaron, I want to get your your take on the budget. What for you is the big picture here I would agree with a lot of what was just said there. I would say there were effectively two budgets here One was what we just heard in terms of pay restraint for the public sector Not addressing the housing crisis actually trying to inflate another housing bubble Which you know that might not sound like it's plausible But if you look at what's happened to london house prices in the last year They may rock it up again over the next 12 to 18 months. I think that's that's the plan effectively But then there was another budget which is what I think is causing a lot of political interest from unusual quarters Now I I don't agree with the idea that oh, they are now implementing labor Policies that you know rishi sunak is listening to john mcdonnell Somewhat. Yes, but I think principally no What I do think is interesting is that alongside that restraint you're also seeing the outlines of how A progressive left government could govern so for instance The the national infrastructure bank. Yes, it's not sufficiently capitalized But that's an institution which with serious money behind it could do really impressive stuff Exactly the kind of thing john mcdonnell talked about you saw it You know before that was the idea of a national renovation agency with DARPA again That's a DARPA like agency. That's a united states of research and development agency Again, that's something a left government in the future could capitalize differently and perhaps Set it particular socially useful objectives. It could be very very impressive The green bond the same the town's fund the same So I thought there are some interesting long-term breaks with tori orthodoxy osbon osbonomics Which shouldn't be sniffed at because actually they're very popular and they're also, you know offering the outline of good policy And then of course, there's the corporation tax increase to 25 percent now I'll be I'd be interested in in our sort of general discussion and perhaps some of the comments About whether or not that will happen. I think it will will happen But what I think it means is two things firstly. It's trying to incentivize as much Uh, kind of front loading of this stuff over the next couple of years Trying to stoke up a bit of a a bit of euphoria. I think And then look if there's high rates of growth high rates of profit going into 2023 What's there's no big deal if there's low rates of growth if we're not seeing kind of a lot of the the lost kind of GDP over the last 12 months not made back Then they're just defer it right But I do think the tories are cognizant of the need now in terms of maintaining their present electoral coalition They can't they can't go back to osborne and pre 2019 and say, you know what we want 18 17 corporation tax I think they know they can't increase Uh tax on cigarettes alcohol petroleum Generally speaking And so, you know given the broader context of yes a high deficit. That's not the end of the world But also wanting to spend money on things That matter to this new electorate of theirs. They're gonna have to find the tax from somewhere And so I think it's a really really important budget for that and also I'd finish with this I think people in 2019 december 2019 election looked at the Tory result and said wow that can't be beaten It's very possible that the tories actually expand their electoral coalition at the next election It's very possible partly because you know, they may be very fortunate with the business cycle Partly because labour is just a complete complete, you know clusterfuck But I think it's very possible. They can basically achieve what they did in In late 2019 that kind of brexit coalition plus maybe five percent I don't know what happened because then you're looking at sort of high 40s. That's not really happened I think since maybe the 1951 election or maybe one of the thatcher elections but I think it's plausible because they had absolutely no credibility on for instance green issues You know climate change and so on I think their view is they can't win on the nhs. They can't win on, you know amongst public sector workers They'll try and nibble into labour's vote through through green issues and perhaps making some kind of offer to young people although that wasn't there today so Politically a hugely important budget But I think I think it's being somewhat overstated in terms of the the the fundamental shifts on policy But it does prepare the ground for a very different kind of political economy in the 2020s to what we saw in the 2010s Hmm. I mean, I think there wasn't really an offer for young people But they're they're hoping to create more young homeowners So if they just if they just win over a very small proportion of young people by giving them these cheaper mortgages The people who can afford to buy a house then you might have a few more people who are less Tempted to vote for the Labour Party. I want to focus now on on the question of How progressive this budget was was it borrowing from john mcdonnell instead of george osborne And I want to start with someone who's suggesting maybe to some degree it was And this is george etan from the new statesman. He tweeted today Policies rissy sunak has borrowed from john mcdonnell increasing corporation tax a national infrastructure bank A treasury hq in the north and rewriting investment rules to end london bias That last one is is a reference to rules which used to say we invest money where we get the most money back which would Inherently favor those places which were already wealthy which was why money poured Into the south instead of the rest of the country Um, so there were some interesting points there. It is also true And this seems fairly significant to me that taxes will be at their highest level as a proportion of gdp Since 1969 This is from the office for budget responsibility. So this is a Tory government Who are now overseeing the highest taxes as a proportion of gdp? As was last seen when roi jankins was the chancellor Obviously, this has a lot to do with the fact that the economy has shrunk Thanks to coronavirus not just because of of tax increases, but the two obviously Have sort of intersected in a way. So so it's still A much higher rate of tax and we have seen in the past However, and this is sort of the case against why it's not A budget that could have been written up by john mcdonnell is because there was no mention of the nhs Really none at all of social care and in most public services austerity will be Continuing and this is a graphic put up by the institute for fiscal studies after the budget They're showing there that whilst in certain protected areas of spending the nhs and schools spending will go up by five percent They've also got overseas aid there. That's taking into account the cut from 0.7 to 0.5 already. So it's going up five percent just because growth is going up Um 10 percent, I suppose or five percent. So um, and what they're showing is that the unprotected Sectors of public spending that's going to go down one percent So after a whole decade of cuts, for example to the local government budgets, that's still going to shrink further And john mcdonnell is also Not convinced. He doesn't think they're they're necessarily taking his policies. So he tweeted sunak steals my rhetoric But no substance working people hit by income tax rise as fresh holds frozen Council tax rise pay freeze for public sector workers cliff edge cut in universal credit in months Nothing for disabled on legacy benefits and over two million still excluded Um jeven i want to get your take sort of on You know you worked in the treasury when george osborne was was was chancellor And I think sort of as you pointed out there are still huge gaps in in this budget and for most working people It's well, it's not only not offering enough, but it's going to be offering a pay cut In in many respects. See there's a public sector pay freeze for example, but to what extent do you think? in other areas The treasury who is you know supporting sunak in in writing up this budget has learned from some of the mistakes of the previous decade Do you see that do you see that this is coming from a fundamentally different treasury to the one that you worked in under george osborne? I think sadly not fundamentally different I think there's been a shift as the zeitgeist has shifted right when the imf and the oe cd are saying to you look You need to austerity is not the right call at the moment Did you start to see the treasury view start to shift slightly? But ministers also have a huge direction over that shift right if a minister says well I want to cut spending because that's what I believe The treasury's view or a civil servants job is to say okay. How am I going to make that happen? So even if the civil servants views might have changed a bit And I think they have and I think we've also seen that even on the conservative ventures as well The overall treasure view very much will be directed by the man at the helm and the man at the helm is rushi sunak Now it is unfortunate the way he views government borrowing and government debt We borrow at zero percent will have a debt to gdp ratio after this about 115 percent japan 250 percent and they also borrow at zero percent interest rates You know rushi sunak doesn't seem to really understand how government borrowing works What determines the interest rate on government bonds is economic growth when you're growing strongly Your borrowing costs are a bit higher because there's lots of competing demands for investment And so it's sad, but I think that fundamentally the question is what does the chancellor believe and the chancellor seems also to have Latched on to this figure of a hundred percent of debt to gdp And I have no idea why that is like it's a round number But it's like five to ten times off the sustainable debt level for this country I mean, it's just completely plucked out of the air, isn't it Aaron I want to get your taking on this because I suppose there's one theory Which is the the reason they're obsessed with having this 100 percent debt to gdp ratio Is because they think that this magical number has some economic significance The other is because the Tories recognize that they can only really go into an election in a very strong position If they keep the myth alive that you have to Live within your means and that the state functions like a household Which one of those do you think it is? Do you think that that rishi sunak is genuinely a fiscal conservative? Someone who who doesn't like to run budget deficits or do you think this is just them? I suppose setting a trap for the labor party Such an interesting question michael, you know I think what was notably absent today in terms of who was this budget for was the city of london Which is super interesting given obviously we're about to go where we are going through brexit It does seem like one of the big net losers at the moment is the city of london Lots of stories coming out. Obviously, they get hugely amplified by people with various political positions prior to our leaving the european union obviously remainers are saying oh look Amsterdam is now the financial capital of europe not the city of london, etc But but clearly it's it's it's facing big big problems and I do think that Brexit has implications to the city of london and therefore there is a chance that actually financial services May loom less large in the national conversation about the production of wealth jobs gdp growth Not necessarily. I mean you could have the contrary argument Which is to say well, it's going to suffer our you know as a result of our leaving the european union Therefore we have to double down on it. I don't sense that though after today I feel like actually the Tories are talking about Other areas. I mean that makes sense if you look at AstraZeneca Glaxo Smith Klein Britain's been a world leader in you know the manufacturer of a really effective vaccine So I think they'll be looking at that and they'll be saying, you know, why not material science? Why not renewable energy wind turbines? Why not lithium ion batteries? Why not, you know fintech? And other you know areas of biotechnology beyond vaccines So I do think there is probably a bit and like like uh like we were saying earlier There's a bit of a shift in the zeitgeist as well But I think there's a recognition that actually moving back to other quote-unquote productive parts of the economy Is not just geopolitically good Obviously in the context of leaving the EU But also I think people recognize it's kind of necessary if you want to make some money You want Britain to be a top five top six economy. So I I think that's important the city of london angle um, and in terms of the gdp thing, I think the hundred percent It's a round number I agree But also I think if you think and it's actually this is obviously dramatically changed now in the context of covid But if you think of those countries historically in europe at least with a gdp To debt ratio of more than a hundred percent greece italy That they aren't exactly by words for economic success on the other hand, you know California has you know the most dynamic innovative economy of all the u.s. States has very high levels of public debt if you look at Japan again hugely impressive export-oriented economy despite you know having these massive pressures on demographic aging still the world's third largest economy You know that is not necessarily true But I think there's that context of us being a european country looking at other european countries with a hundred percent Debt gdp plus and saying we don't want to be like that. Of course, it's not an issue Public debt is a form of private wealth. It's guaranteeing returns for somebody somewhere Yes, the taxpayer has to foot the interest but often it's the taxpayer Who's also receiving a very low rate of return, whether it's people with pensions or Whatever So we shouldn't be looking at public debt as a as a as a form of as a form of deficit as a purely negative thing It's also offering very stable rates of return for all kinds of people in this country I've got 2 000 people watching do share the stream. We still want to get that higher And let's go to some comments to run at amadi parka. Oh, that's not a comment. That's just a super chat with a fiber Thank you very much Nick hook with a fiverr says of sunak all the passion vision and sincerity of a management consultant number 10 awaits We'll be discussing that issue a little bit later Henry the 8th fake with a fiverr says corporation tax still lower than america But frontline public sector workers get a pay rise when oh, no When they're not getting a pay rise. Let's be clear. I read that slightly wrong And the fennel d yop with 20 quid the maxed out nation's credit card myth lives on I think it there's actually it's interesting if you watch the bbc at the moment. There's a bit of a dispute I think you've got some sort of editors who are quite Confidently and proactively saying look the household that the debt of a of a country is not like a household actually the bank of england Owns nearly all of of britain's Covid debt at this point So we shouldn't look at it like that and then you've got others Especially I think in in the news at 6 and the news at 10 teams who in their headlines are constantly saying This is a hundred billion pounds of taxpayers money blah blah blah blah making it sort of all seem as if We we still have that credit card analogy as something that is remotely functional And we're going to move on to labor's response In many ways, they're sort of struggling to find a response Given that this is a quite a different Tory party to the one that they have been opposing for the previous Decade we should start off by taking a look at starmas response in parliament After the decisions of the last year And the decade of neglect we needed a budget to fix the foundations of our economy To reward our key workers To protect the nhs and to build a more secure and prosperous economy for the future Instead what we got was a budget that papered over the cracks Rather than rebuilding the foundations A budget that shows the government doesn't understand what went wrong in the last decade Or what's needed in the next The Chancellor may think The Chancellor may think that this is time for a victory lap But i'm afraid this budget won't feel so good For the millions of key workers who are having their pay frozen For the businesses swamped by debt And the families paying more in council tax And the millions of people who are out of work Or worried about losing their job And although the Chancellor spoke for almost an hour We heard nothing About a long-term plan to fix social care The Chancellor may have forgotten about it, but the Labour Party never will The British people will rightly ask Why has Britain, why has Britain suffered a worse economic crisis than any major economy? The answer is staring us in the face So he's saying the answer is staring us in the face and he goes on to sort of blame sunak for opposing the circuit breaker Which was one of the reasons why we had such a High death toll and longer lockdowns in the end last winter and also Blaming the conservatives for for Tory austerity leaving Britain ill prepared to deal with covid So trying to go back to create a critique that the the difficult pandemic we've had is because of the party who are in power In my opinion he hasn't necessarily made that consistently enough. So it probably won't land But there we go Given I want to ask you you mentioned some of those things that That starma mentioned there the idea that what was lacking in this budget was a focus on social care Do you think that the angle he's taken is the the correct one? Is it actually the only one he could take at that point in time to say? Well, there's not necessarily anything I actively oppose in the budget, but you missed out XYZ social care in the NHS Yeah, I think so in the end of it. I mean it's a really tough gig isn't it responding to a budget You only get the document there and then straight away you have to figure out what to say So if you listen to that speech by starma what you hear is a lot of lines He would have written well before the budget document had landed inside his inside his hands I think in the longer term the challenge for starma is to take down this idea of the conservatives ran the economy well And I think so far the moment you're trying to transition out of Being supportive during the covid pandemic and then saying okay Well, actually let's talk about all the mistakes you made the costs that had not just in terms of economics But also in terms of people's livelihoods and their lives and that's the real challenge going forward You know when you think about when do parties win and lose elections generally speaking If there's wage growth in an election year You will you will see a win for the incumbent party unless their reputation for competence has been completely destroyed So we saw that in 1992 with the conservatives even though the economy is growing in 97 They still lose the next election similarly labor They kind of get it halfway through but they still also took a massive knock to economic competence because of they were at the helm during the financial crisis And so the challenge for starma is how do you say these guys? They're not going to make you better off and they're not very good at running the country And then the final thing is to say is they really don't care about your lives It's a tricky it's a tricky sell to make that's certainly true But look, this is the way you set it up and this is the way that you that you transition forward I can also see why you wouldn't want to attack a government too aggressively during A corona virus a pandemic where people are worried about their lives It might be seen as opportunistic the problem is the other side of it Do you then look like you're not really taking a hard enough stand? And does it not look like you've done enough to paint the party in power as being incompetent And we should remember as well. Look the worst economic growth rate Why because rishi sunak the chancellor argued for opening up the worst death rate for the same reason And at some point that has to be made very explicitly and tied to this chancellor Aaron, I want your take on labor's response on kia starma's response to that Announcement is we should say is a very difficult gig apparently Normally the chancellor is supposed to give the opposition some foresight of the budget so they can prepare their response Apparently this time around sunak refused to to give any indication or notes to the labor front bench So you do have to to some degree make it up on the spot. What did you make of of starma's response to sunak's announcements today? Yeah, there are some good jokes But apart from the the sort of wise cracks and I think it was labor paint by numbers And of course to an extent that was inevitable So social care nhs, you know public sector workers and of course labor are right to talk about all of those things But but there was nothing Unexpected or that I think in any way cut through And I think that was inevitable because of as jeven was just saying labor's response throughout the pandemic It's very hard to pin A very bad year in terms of economic contraction. I think ultimately our GDP contracted by 10% last year. I mean, maybe slightly more maybe slightly more maybe slightly less Um, you know on on a par basically with france it's lead germany was five percent The u.s. Of course, which has had a you know a complete meltdown in terms of public health That was a lot lower kind of different context though But in the in the context of of europe britain had a really bad year It's important to say that a bunch of other european countries did as well There have been countries like vietnam like taiwan like china which have seen growth and also a low death rate Which is to say there wasn't necessarily a kind of trade-off between economic growth and keeping people safe But labor can't make the argument and they certainly can't make the argument about how you know The economy was trashed because of sunak Reopening things Particularly, I think after the summer. I think that was entirely avoidable and particularly over december last year If you've basically agreed with them on 90 percent of those moves Very hard to then say well, you ought to blame for This this major economic downturn and I think labor aren't going to make an ounce of political capital out of it for that reason In terms of the economic credibility thing I think labor just picked a super strange fight over corporation tax for no particular reason I can't get my head around it And they were saying well, you know in a in a in an economic downturn You can't increase taxes the proposal was always going to be over the course for parliament Corporation tax isn't going to go up next weekend, right? That was always the proposal and that's ultimately what we got and yet labor decided to talk for a week About a bunch of ultimately very popular measures Increasing the rate of corporation tax increasing, you know introducing potentially a windfall tax Is that how you build economic credibility? They would answer yes by the way because for them economic credibility And I think this is where I would massively disagree with them You need it But they think it's purely a function of distancing ourselves from Jeremy Corbyn and john mcdonnell When actually what you need to be saying is overtly, I think The agenda of Jeremy Corbyn and John mcdonnell after 2015 was hugely popular You know it initiated a push back against austerity, which now many people kind of think was completely crazy including the IMF and the OECD And also actually in terms of just domestic public services Yeah, maybe not popular on foreign policy or on the military or on russia But on domestic public services and how we want to spend our money at home They were really, you know in touch with the with the public mood in this country Kirstelmer can't necessarily say that because of course the whole thing about credibility is distancing yourself from your predecessors Bit of a catch 22 So I think he would have been much better placed if he'd spent the last 10 months Actually being much more critical of the conservatives doesn't matter if your polling goes down. It's going down now instead Critical of the conservatives while actually trying to portray more of a continuity with his predecessors You know, I do think corbinomics And you know the politics of john mcdonnell With a fresh face professional slick Establishment credentials, which we were told, you know, star mccan lean into those in order to advance the radical agenda I can see how that would have worked labor haven't done it labor haven't done it and I think in the absence of that it's very hard to see now if there is an election in say april may 2023 Which would look like the ideal time Labor if there's boundary changes before then are in deep deep trouble Because like I said that the tories could expand their electoral coalition here And I I don't see who labor is trying to appeal to right now It's 10 15 of the electorate leave voters and former labor seats in certain parts of the country You know, you need to think much bigger than that because we're running a deficit of 20 percent We've had this pandemic. We've had a lost decade. Everybody's now basically conceding. Yeah We had a lost decade of austerity for no particular reason You need to think much bigger than that now and it's not coming It's it's sort of it's basically just virtue signaling saying look, we're not socialists I want to focus on this corporation tax issue for for a moment because it has been the big row Which has been tearing the labor party Apart over the previous week over the past week I want to start by showing you a tweet from ben bradshaw and this was yesterday morning He reported back from a meeting of the parliamentary labor party The free labor MPs calling for tax increases as we emerge from the worst economic hit for 300 years Something not a single economist supports didn't bother turning up to make their case at last night's plp where kia and annalees enjoyed unanimous support for their strategy Now in response to that a friend of the show and of our media columnist james meadway Disagreed he tweeted untrue on not a single economist James meadway is an economist who has argued very eloquently as to why it's Silly to call a tax rise austerity, which is what many people kia starmas outriders are sort of arguing at the moment We do have an economist here though jeven are you one of the economists who Does think it's it's ridiculous to announce a tax increase when we're in the worst economic hit we've had in 300 years I wouldn't say ridiculous, but I also wouldn't agree with the call So like a rise in corporation tax will lead to a hit on investment It won't be a big hit but it will be a hit and the question that I would ask myself is well Look, we had the economy shrink by 10 last year now if the economy shrinks a little bit because of this tax rise What does that cost in terms of jobs? What does that cost in terms of people's incomes? That's the question in my mind so in my mind I would have waited until next year to bring in those corporation tax rises and say okay Now is the time to do it because even if the drag is small and even the impact is small It's still a small impact when we know that unemployment is going to rise further at the moment at 5.1 percent We know that's going to go a little bit more. So I would say in this year I wouldn't support a corporation tax increase But for those who do I don't think there's a huge amount of difference if you increased it by one point this year Or if you didn't I just think it's a drag that we don't need Well, there won't there won't be any increase until 2023 now, will there The argument that I've heard in terms of it not even being a drag if you wanted to do it tomorrow Is that whether or not you are stimulating the economy or taking money out of the economy is the net effect of what you do So if you take a few billion out through corporation tax, but then spend that few billion Um on redistributing to poorer people who probably spend more money of that spend more of their money anyway Then that isn't taking anything out of the economy because you're just putting it back Elsewhere you're redistributing from one part to another as opposed to sucking out of the economy Yeah, so there's always going to be I think new economics foundation has done some really good analysis on this and they show that The kind of the impacts of rises of corporation tax are really small And if you have a big stimulus the effect will be kind of swamped out But the key word there is net right like there's always going to be some impacts like when a tax rises Most of the time now there are a few exceptions land taxes as one windfall taxes another But most of the time you will see an incentive effect and you will see a fall in economic activity Now look, that's not to say you shouldn't increase taxes, right? There are really good reasons to increase corporation tax. There are really good reasons to increase the top rate of income tax There are real benefits from it There's always going to be a cost to the other side The question is is the cost worth it and for me given what happened last year It wasn't worth it in this year very much in the future Um, you mentioned a windfall tax there I want to get our public opinion on this because um, lots of people replied to ben bradley there saying You're saying no one is supporting Raising taxes after we've come out of this this big economic kit. He didn't specify whether it's corporation tax or or otherwise And we have a poll from salvation and they polled a thousand people representative sample And they have asked people would you support or oppose a windfall tax on the pandemic profits of large companies such as amazon And 70 support that and nine percent oppose Labor also on corporation tax I mean now that I suppose they are now saying they will support it because it's in 2023 instead of tomorrow As Aaron said, I don't know if anyone was actually proposing to increase it tomorrow But on how businesses feel about this there was an interesting fred from ben glover who works for the cross party think tank demos Used to also be in my clp when I lived in a different place. Nice guy He tweeted the following fred. Um, so he writes i've been interviewing large businesses about tax for demos Um, so far I've heard almost no opposition to a significant corporation tax rise to 25 brought in gradually over time Which is essentially what what's happened now Because it's a profit tax those that have struggled during the pandemic won't be punished and those that have done well Will pay back more businesses have told us this is right and fair There's also a widespread recognition that the uk's rate is much lower than other countries So can afford to be increased even quite significantly Indeed other factors e.g. Skills regulation appear to be much more important when choosing to locate rather than corporation tax As a result even quite a significant increase might not negatively affect investment decisions Big businesses want to be seen as doing good, especially in light of huge government support for business during a pandemic And finally tax receipts are increasingly viewed as a part of this given the above That's unsurprising that businesses have so far told us they prefer for any tax rises to be corporation tax rises Over other business taxes. I imagine what we're going to hear over the next couple of days I haven't seen what interviews they've been given after this after this budget today is they say look We said introduce the corporation tax further down the line. That's what they've announced This is actually A win for us. Do they do they have a decent argument if that's what they say I've seen the argument or it's preposterous I mean, it's absurd when this stuff was being moved a couple of weeks ago in the sunday papers, you know In the sunday times and the ft a fortnight ago People were very clear it would be over the course of the parliament, you know, it wasn't coming anytime soon So they can say that I mean, of course they're entitled to say that they're politicians You're allowed to be an opportunist when you're a politician. That's kind of in the job description But I don't I don't think it's legitimate What I would say is I think it's actually, you know, the corporation tax move is partly yes about raising money You don't increase You know tax by six percent unless you're seriously wanting to raise money But I actually do think principally it's a political move And I think it's a very clever political move And here's why Because label will be going into the next election or they were planning to go into the next election probably to increase corporation tax it, you know You could have increased it's 23 24 percent and it still would have been it still is a 25% lower than I think anybody else in the g7 Yes, you have other countries with much lower corporation tax, Ireland, Malta, but if the big economy is it's still be very very low What Rishi Sunak has effectively done if they implement in 2023 is to say We will go into that next election, you know Saying 25 corporation tax you'll be going into the election with 25 corporation tax But we'll be doing it in order to pay down the debt You'll be doing it to splurge on xyz And I I think that kind of neutralizes the idea that labor are going to be viewed as economically competent Because labor then have two options either they ditched the policies that the tax race was going to pay for not good If you're trying to get your voters out Or the increased corporation tax beyond 25 that becomes a political Kind of flashpoint. You probably don't want to do that or I don't know. I think I think it's a really smart political move now You know, is that overestimating kind of Rishi Sunak's thinking here? I think with this one move today, they've neutralized probably the biggest Weapon labor had in terms of raising Money for their spending commitments in three four years time. I think that's a it's a real problem for them now Which would suggest actually that they're not going to cut taxes even I want to ask you sort of from a treasury Economist perspective, there were lots of briefings over the weekend that what Rishi Sunak was telling Tory backbenches He was going to do is announced tax rises now so that he then cut them before a general election now Given that these corporation tax rises are coming in 2023 I can't see how that would happen. I suppose you could cut other forms of taxes Are there are there going to be taxes available for Rishi Sunak to cut before a general election? Or does it just seem like that story maybe was a bit of a nonsense? I could see why Rishi Sunak wanted to do it and I think he's politically looking ahead of it I don't think corporation tax is where it's going to be I can imagine him floating that idea and everyone saying guys Rather saying to the chancellor that probably isn't the greatest move It would see be seen to be kind of transparent But look, we've seen the personal allow us threshold is frozen. We know that income tax thresholds are frozen too Why not raise them a little bit in the year before an election to give everyone a bit of a An income boost before the election. That's certainly not out of the question It wouldn't be the kind of out of the question for him either So look, there is very much a tax rise or rather a tax cut in the in the offering That would also go to most of his voters because who are conservative voters Well, they tend to be higher income people and as well as pensioners And so yeah, you give you give them a tax cut and I would say as well When you look at young people who support the conservatives They do tend to be those who have higher incomes And so again, there is a really easy way to kind of reward in Aaron's You know as Aaron's pointed out many times tonight the electoral coalition of the conservative party I could definitely see that happening It would probably be quite savvy politically because at the end of it all Our elections won because the deficit's at 1% of GDP or at 0% of GDP No, it's whether or not people think the government is competent Whether or not they feel they are better off and whether they identify with their values So there's very much a tax cut in the offering and there's an election strategy there We're going to go on to the cult of Rishi Sunak So I'm going to let you guys even send a thank you so much for for giving us your your insights this evening on the budget Thank you very much guys. It was a pleasure Cheers Um, yeah, we're we're moving away now from the from the policies within the budget We're going to talk about Rishi Sunak himself Um before we do that if you're watching the video and you're enjoying it do hit like it helps us on the algorithm now The budget was a chance for Rishi Sunak to promote his vision for the british economy But more fundamentally than that. It was a chance for him to promote himself Earlier in the week the treasury put out a flashy video all focused on Rishi's first year as chancellor It's a full five and a half minutes long, but we'll just show you a taster I'll never forget the team said, oh, you've got to have a call There is someone called Chris witty and Patrick Valens sitting in the treasury in my office around big table with their team Where they very calmly and methodically walked me Through everything that they were seeing and I remember when we finished the call that there was just silence Our planned economic response will be one of the most comprehensive in the world Once we knew we were going to have to lock down huge parts of the country We knew we would have to do something equally radical to try and protect people's jobs It was going to be an enormous challenge to get something like that designed enough and running in the time we had Today I can announce it for the first time in our history The government is going to step in and help to pay people's wages You know, I didn't sleep the night before furlough launched everyone was expecting it to be challenged But the team at hmrc did a genuinely heroic job Now Rishi Sunak's massive ego isn't really news to anyone But many people did question why that piece of self-promotion was made by the treasury. So that was made with public fund It was clearly akin to a party political broadcast Yet the taxpayer paid for it or the bank of england paid for it. However, we want to talk about these things now One reason why it seems so ridiculous to be spending treasury money on that Is because public money is already being splashed on boosting Sunak's image now You might remember this from last year. This was after Sunak announced the furlough in 2020 the bbc So britain's public broadcaster introduced us to a new superhero This is the chancellor imagined as superman Flying and then we can also see the chancellor imagined as superman helping old ladies So that was both created by the bbc So he gets that that propaganda from the bbc and then he he also pays His his treasury pr people to make even more glowing imagery of himself and I said that was last year the bbc this year didn't I suppose changed their tune they've they've got another piece of equally forming propaganda which they put out this morning From newly elected backbencher to chantler in less than five years Rishi Sunak has made light work of west minster's slippery slope to the top He's now got to figure out how to fix one of the biggest economic challenges this country has ever faced So who is he and what does he believe? Someone here is very bright and very smart oxford and stanford educated smoothie really he immediately struck me As somebody that was going places When politicians rise quickly through the ranks there are often raised eyebrows jealousy Maybe even a bit of scandal with rishi sunak not so much It's really quite uh boring as a journalist if you try and write a profile on rishi sunak because you call brand lots of mp's and people have worked for him to try and get the dirt And everyone just has you how lovely he is I think because of the speed of rishi sunak's rise He hasn't really picked up any enemies yet He's lovely. He's smart That's political journalism. Um, that's what it looks like now. That was a four and a half minute video We only showed you a minute of it They did mention a couple of criticisms of rishi sunak someone mentioned eat out to help out's role in transmission And there was a sentence about people left out of covet support But those two points took up about 10 seconds in a four and a half minute video There was of course Nothing on the fact that sunak has more blame than anyone when it comes to us going into late lockdowns I should say anyone other than borris johnson because he made the final call or that sunak was crucial In opposing the circuit breaker we can also I mean we're used to it by now the bbc politics team have no interest In bringing up the fact that 12 months into a pandemic sunak still hasn't bothered to pay people to self isolate You know, this is not someone who should be getting glowing uncritical reviews from the public broadcaster after the year We've had ara and I want to go to you on this I mean, do you think the way that rishi sunak is treated by the press is exceptional Is it is it a sort of exaggerated example of how we normally see them sort of deferred to the party and government? Or is is there something special about this guy that just has them entranced? You know when that sort of twitter meme people say oh, I met so and so once Charity dude. They were very charming and so down to earth This is how the political editor of the The daily mirror that was pippa quara by the way the daily mirror is talking about a Tory chancellor Who is worth an extraordinary amount of money who as you say in a number of ways really failed to deliver When when we went through the biggest crisis in this country. I think since at least it's 1940 so Is it is it unusual? I think we have to put it in a sort of broader context, which is Britain's media is is moving effectively so a sort of post-democratic status quo Which is to say the bbc has been neutralized anything they said it's critical of the government the sort of the subtext is they're worried about losing money Channel four was frozen out for doing their job Good morning. Britain was ignored when they started asking the tough questions The daily mirror wasn't allowed on the Tory battle bus at the last general election What rish johnson didn't do an interview with andrew nill for the bbc And I think the Tories have got this right in so much as they feel we don't need to do Two thirds of the media if we don't want to between social media between favorable Coverage in the print press these media roligarchs, which are you know the telegraph the sun The times we're fine And I think that's accurate And so for people who say well, where's britain going to be in 2030 2035? Look at victor all bands hungry, you know, and I don't say that as an exaggeration Look at the sort of political appointments right now going on the bbc people very favorable to the conservative party. So it's It's Explicable it's getting worse and it's structural reasons, you know, it's not just because some journalists are bad people This is that this is an expression of a broader problem. We've been going through now for a decade I mean it does also, you know, the thing they say always quite nice and charming Probably true and that is I think probably why or one of the reasons why he gets such fawning Press from from people like laura coonsburg from people like katie ball's who you saw in in in that clip there someone who works for the spectator and it is because Political reporting is so much about what dinner parties you go to who has charmed you who you get on with And if you are someone who is a smooth talker and can get on with people who are also members of the ruling class Then you don't get critical things written about you and it's why So long as you're well educated and charming and don't challenge any of the powers that be if you're not particularly critical of Of the establishment, you're not like john mcdonnell who says that yes, of course business elites and the bbc are going to be biased If you're just there and you say no, look, i'm going to be charming to everyone Then no one bothers writing about the fact that you didn't Pay people to self-isolate which would have been the one policy which would have helped us To avoid the disastrous consequences that we saw this winter It's why people don't bother writing about the fact that you were one of the main lobbyists for a herd immunity strategy Endowning street throughout the year and it does make me wonder about the journalism of someone like like katie ball It seems like a nice enough person But if you're saying it's boring writing a profile about rishi sunak Maybe you're not doing your job properly because there's a lot to say about this guy, right? There's a lot to say about this guy, which would be You know in the public interest for you to be making known But people are just interested in saying oh if if if there's no mp that doesn't like him Then what am I supposed to write maybe do some research other than checking your whatsapp messages when tory mp's message you What they're basically saying is when nobody briefs against him So I haven't got any dirt like you say you're not doing your job. Oh, he's charming. Do you know what for the electorate? They don't care Nobody cares about whether he's charming. They're never going to meet him. They want to know in terms of The consequences of his actions relating to public services to pay to housing will my mortgage get more expensive Can my kids afford to go to university? Will I be able to access decent elderly care in a couple of years the nursing home my mum or dad is in You know, is that is that going to get more expensive less expensive in the public sector private sector? How are they going to pay for it? That's what people care about nobody cares about rishi sunak's haircut or You know his workout routine or his waist size I've seen people talk about that before how he has a waspish waist good for him I'm happy for him It means he's less liable to get heart disease as he gets older But as somebody who's you know voting for politicians or a journalist who's covering them like you and me michael It's irrelevant. If you can't find any bad stories go find them. That's your job That's the public interest the public interest is to scrutinize this man as an individual and as a politician person Almost and if you can see if you're there saying I can't find anything bad about nobody's briefing to me on what's that This is in light with jeremy corbin and john mcdonnell By the way, it wasn't because those were bad people It's because there was a vast array of interests which didn't want them getting anywhere near power It's the complete opposite with rishi sunak hence. You're not getting the negative briefings Really not that hard to work out now. I think that ends you yes It's a great deal about about how terrifyingly bad our media is But also They don't realize what they're doing is bad. These are journalists. You don't realize what their job is meant to be And I think that actually shows a real disconnect between what we've got in this country and what you saw in the united states Yes, it's not perfect. Yes. There are lots of journalists who will criticize Trump but not criticize biden when he does something broadly similar We saw that with the the airstrike in eastern syria last week But there are still a large number of journalists particularly on the left But who have who have in our mainstream presence who who at least Interested in getting stories on people who shape all of our lives The vast majority of westminster journalists the lobby people who work for press and broadcast Don't actually care They want to get on with some people at the next dinner party at the next spectator summer garden party And they don't want to make any enemies and they want to get up that you know that career ladder and that's it That's it and it's not good enough and If you have the temerity to not want to do that like us at navar media You're an outcast. You're a horrific person. You're evil. You're malevolent. You're a racist. You're a misogynist You name it, they will go to town But if you're a conservative whose policy response to a pandemic has left I hundreds of thousands of people in real trouble economically And I think indirectly led to the deaths of many many many people He's so charming because he knows which fork to use At you know at a white tie dinner It's also I mean, you know when we talk about other journalists being partisan There'll be people who justifiably say but you're partisan You know you supported the the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn and labor at the last general election But did you ever tune in to tisky sour and me and Aaron just talk for for ages about how charming Jeremy Corbyn or John McDonald? No, even even when we support politicians, we don't just say oh, they're so nice people We talk we supported them because we but we wanted the policies we wanted transformational policies in this country And that's what we talked about we never said. Oh, whatever whenever I call up people to ask about Jeremy Corbyn. They say he's so nice that's It's just such a silly way of doing politics It's crazy. Um, and we kind of my Michael can I say more than that? We didn't just not do that We did actually criticize, you know when Jeremy Corbyn didn't pursue open selection We said that's not the right thing to do when they didn't have an elector general secretary Said that's not the right thing to do, you know when they bottled out from various confrontations We said that's not the right thing to do I I think you know The idea that navara was uniquely, you know obsequious the former labor leadership my god No, we are I think head and shoulders above so much the media when it comes to how we relate to Politicians who may advance policies we agree with we were far more critical and I think anybody look it's all online It's all on youtube go see the interviews with with john mcdonald and the run up to the last general election We got them in a few weeks beforehand It was critical because we were trying to give value to our audience We're trying to inform the viewers at home people listening on podcasts. How is this guy going to affect my life charming? Who cares? Let's go to our final story of the evening And this story would have dominated today's headlines if it weren't for the budget It was nicola sturgeon scotland's first minister giving evidence to a hollywood committee on the government's flawed handling of complaints Into harassment allegations against alex salmon. She spoke for hours A real tough grilling and it was happening at exactly the same time as the budget now We discussed this story on friday And there are a number of charges being levelled against nicola sturgeon now They include that she lied to parliament about the date she found out about the complaints against salmon They include that the scottish government ignored its own legal advice to continue fighting a case against salmon Who was suing them for bias in their initial investigation now that legal advice was released just last night Which put a lot of pressure under Nicola sturgeon there was all There were calls actually official calls from the conservative party for her to stand down and for a vote of no confidence More broadly the background here and the sort of underlying fred throughout all of it And I should say more tenuously salmon has suggested that officials in the scottish government and the chair of the smp Who is married to nicola sturgeon were part of a wider conspiracy to destroy his reputation? um Now obviously the sturgeon defense was hours long. We're not going to show you all of it This is a part of her introduction, which I thought was especially powerful. Let's take a look I feel I must rebut the absurd suggestion that anyone acted with malice or as part of a plot against alex salmon That claim is not based in any fact What happened is this and it is simple a number of women made serious complaints about alex salmon's behavior The government despite the mistake it undoubtedly made tried to do the right thing As first minister I refused to follow the age old pattern of allowing a powerful man To use his status and connections to get what he wants The police conducted an independent criminal investigation The crown office as it does in prosecutions every single day of the week considered the evidence and decided there was a case to answer A court and a jury Did their jobs and now this committee and an independent investigation are considering what happened and why For my part I am if not relishing the prospect relieved to be finally facing this committee But given all that has brought us to this moment Being here also makes me really sad and in all the legitimate Consideration of this sometimes the personal and human elements of this situation are lost spoke on friday about what a nightmare the last couple of years have been for him And I don't doubt that I have thought often about the impact on him. He was someone I cared about for a long time And maybe that's why on friday. I found myself searching for any sign Any sign at all that he recognized how difficult this has been for others to First and foremost for women who believed his behavior towards them was inappropriate But also for those of us who have campaigned with him worked with him cared for him and considered him a friend And who now stand unfairly accused of plotting against him That he was acquitted by a jury of criminal conduct is beyond question beyond question But I know just from what he told me that his behavior was not always appropriate And yet across six hours of testimony. There was not a single word of regret Reflection or even simple acknowledgement of that I can only hope that in private the reality might be different Now I always like showing clips of nicolas dirgin on this show because you know, I have to admit I'm not an expert when it comes to scottish policy Um, I'm I'm not particularly I don't have a sophisticated critique or or analysis of the smp government But whenever I see her speak, I think wow, she is you know impressive really persuasive And I do think you know this whole row Raises some really interesting issues in in politics because it seems to me That probably on the balance of evidence nicolas dirgin did break the ministerial code I mean, I obviously there's an investigation going on, but it seems to me It seems that the scottish government pursued a legal Illegal challenge and two samans complaints about their investigation into him Beyond the point at which their legal counsel suggested That was a good idea and people are saying that's a waste of public money. Why did they do that? That was the wrong decision It also seems to me kind of implausible that dirgin forgot a meeting which she had Three days before she told parliament. She had found out about the allegations against um, alex salmon There are many people now saying she knew about it three days before she had had a meeting With alex salmon's chief of staff three days before and she said she forgot it I don't Think that's particularly plausible. So it seems to me that on potentially a number of counts. She has erred Right and on a number of counts There could be coherent requests for her to resign because the ministerial code has been broken At the same time, I think the point she put across so well there in that that bit of evidence We we just saw was that there is also A political background here, right? It's not just that She was you know, these mistakes weren't made out of it seems it seems from from where I'm standing These mistakes weren't made out of malice. They weren't made to to benefit herself But they were kind of honest mistakes that were made in an incredibly difficult situation And for me while you have Um the scottish torries very loudly saying she should resign. I think the the labor party are kind of keeping their power dry for me it would be a problematic outcome if The most lasting result of a powerful man Treating women inappropriately and we should say yes, alex salmon has been acquitted of any crime at the same time He's admitted himself to treating women inappropriately, right? So that's what happened in the context of me too and it would to me not really be justice If the the biggest lasting consequence of that was the resignation of a powerful woman who got caught up in it When she had no intention to Now and I want to bring you in on this not necessarily talk about the details of the case But this issue of should someone who's broken the ministerial code she hasn't been found who have done that yet But it's quite possible that in the next few weeks she has Should they necessarily resign or should we make exceptions in a case where like this? It seems like they were human errors made when You know, I don't know if they were trying to do the right thing But this isn't a this isn't a crisis of her own making, you know, it seems to me Politically complex and we might in this case say look, yeah, she's done wrong. She's broken the ministerial code But this is not a reason to resign I think in abstraction. She probably if she did break the ministerial code, she should resign in abstraction right in a world where politicians sort of lead By upholding the highest standards in public life. She probably should however Where else have any politicians anywhere done that in this country, you know in living memory So no, I think in reality if I was an s&p member if I was just a scott who you know was I could see why somebody who hates her would think she should resign But I think any reasonable person given the broader context of british politics wouldn't think she should resign That said, you know, probity in public life is a really important thing and just because it doesn't exist Just because no particularly in english westman's the politics just because it doesn't exist for likes of Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings and before them, you know, Tony Blair Alistair Campbell just because these people have debased politics for so long doesn't mean we shouldn't take that seriously But I think I think you're right in this particular context the idea that the the major consequence here would be a the most senior female politician in the united kingdom resigning over somebody who He was found not guilty But it's also right that he faced a criminal investigation if somebody makes those kinds of allegations. That's the right thing to do so I don't think she should resign no, but at the same time as you've so Articulously stated Michael. I could see why somebody would make a morally coherent argument for her to go It's going to be super interesting to see how this develops because I feel like more and more people are reaching Kind of a similar conclusion, which is that the story doesn't quite add up it seems like mistakes were made and some of them were serious but You know a just outcome doesn't seem to be her resigning I mean, I suppose quite likely as someone else falls on their sword Someone who's not nicolas sturgeon but who can take the blame and then also we have hollywood elections coming up So they'll probably say look If I've made any mistakes everything is out in the open now that people can decide I don't think she will resign given she's so popular She's such an asset to the smp and the independence movement more generally and actually she's you know People judge her to have performed quite well during the coronavirus crisis So I can't see her going over this. I could be proved wrong. We will cover it on future shows I'm sure for now Aaron Bustani, thank you so much for joining me this evening My pleasure is always michael And thank you for watching Tiskey sour, as you know This organization to show only possible because of our regular donors If you are subscribed to Navarra media or a regular supporter, sorry to Navarra media Thank you so much. You make this possible. If not, please do go to navarra media dot come forward slash support The equivalent of one hour's wage a month if you haven't already of course hit subscribe Under this video we go live three times a week monday wednesday and friday at 7 p.m We put out videos every day For now we are going to leave you out actually today with a short clip because today is an anniversary It is today the 3rd of march 2021 if you did not know and on the 3rd of march 2020 before 130,000 people would tragically go on to die from covid 19 Boris Johnson said this I can tell you that I I I I'm shaking hands continues I was at a I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were a few there were actually a few coronavirus Patients and I shook hands with everybody. You'll be pleased to know