 Well, to discuss this so-called absolute need for austerity measures as the British Chancellor coins it, is the Executive Director of Positive Money, Fran Beut, who works with banks and the UK government to campaign for a democratic and sustainable money system. Thank you for coming in. Now, surely Osborne is completely reversing what he said before the Brexit vote, when he was predicting doom and gloom, and now he says the economy is fundamentally stable. I think that millions of people that voted to leave the UK did so as a response to this very unequal society that we live in in the UK. I think there are the 20 constituencies where there were the strongest vote leave, the strongest number of people that voted to leave. The median income is something like £18,000. So it would be the worst response for Osborne now to increase taxes and cut spending on the poorest people, kind of confirming that actually the government doesn't really care about their future. But I also think it would be equally dangerous for Osborne to allow other policies that increase inequality to be pursued, such as monetary policy, including the Bank of England. So one policy that they've been pursuing is quantitative easing, which is where central banks create money and flood financial markets with it. And I think that increased the wealth of the top 5% by about £128,000. And exactly these kind of policies that have been leading to the frustrations that people have in this increasing inequality and that have resulted in the UK voting to leave the EU. But the fact that the pound has gone down, I mean, is that bad or good news? I mean, it's obviously bad news for holiday makers, but it might be good news for exporters. I think that fundamentally the pound going down is a sign of volatility in the UK and the economic instability of the kind of coming in the short term and the medium term. We already have a trade deficit, so we're very reliant on imports and it's going to increase the cost of those, which will have an impact on the cost of living. And I think what Osborne needs to be worried about is this volatility turning into potentially a recession. And what a lot of economists are saying is that the UK needs an economic stimulus, which is the opposite of spending cuts and increase in taxes. So, one of the ways that economists are proposing that we have an economic stimulus is potentially through monetary policy, through actually the Bank of England creating money, but rather than flooding financial markets with it, getting it into the real economy into people's pockets. And that's something that positive money advocates for. We call it public money creation. But that's kind of Keynesianism or neo-Keynesianism, and it's not the philosophy of the Conservative Party in Britain, is it? They believe in a very different policy. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, absolutely, it's a new idea, so the kind of public money creation. But I think that even the chair of the Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen, less than two weeks ago, actually suggested that we need to be considering these kind of ideas and have them in monetary policy toolkits. And I think that Osborne needs to realise that what the economic instability, since the referendum is exposed, is that we have an economy that is skewed towards property and financial markets. We rely on these oversized banks and housing bubbles. And actually, this is a real wake-up call that he needs to be thinking about new ways of re-balancing the economy, so that it works for people and not just for banks and property speculators. Well, Osborne, of course, is a kind of lame duck, as is David Cameron. Soon we will have a new Prime Minister, a new Chancellor. We don't know who they're going to be. Do you think those two people, whoever they are, should now work in a very different way from Cameron and Osborne have been doing over the last six years? Well, hopefully, I mean, as I said, I think this is a real, it's a kind of unfortunate wake-up call, because it's come about in quite an abrupt and a sudden way, this economic instability. But it is a real wake-up call that the future political leadership need to take on, that we can't go on in this way of just having an economy based on an oversized financial sector and housing bubbles. We need to rebalance the economy. And in the short-term and medium-term, all options need to be on the table, including ideas such as public money creation, which have been promoted by economists and gaining further traction. But what sort of policies do you now advocate in the near term as Britain negotiates its Brexit? What should it be trying to get from the European Union? Well, I think, you know, in terms of stabilising the economy, the kind of the key thing is that a decision is made, an agreement with the EU is made, whether that is to, you know, trigger Article 50 straight away and how we actually leave the EU, those decisions really need to be made as soon as possible in order to kind of stable markets, but also investors and businesses in the UK. If we're going to see a devaluing of the pound, we're going to see potentially increasing the cost of imports. So that's an opportunity for businesses in the UK to actually fill the gap there. But if there's a lot of economic uncertainty, then potentially they won't be the investment. Should Britain try and stay in the single market as much as possible and therefore make concessions on the freedom of movement issue, which is so sacrosanct? I think that it's obviously not a straightforward issue, but I think the key is that we want to rebalance the economy towards one that's a lot that's not just focused on big banks and property yet. And I think that ideally, from an economic perspective, we could have stayed within the single market and actually moved away slowly from having, being so reliant on the banking sector and the financial sector and property markets. But that hasn't happened. So we're having to, well, they're having to negotiate quite quickly our exit conditions. And I think that what we should be concerned about is that under the kind of crisis situation and very much lack of political leadership, that we don't allow lobbyists from the finance sector or from vested interests to be shaping the demands that are on the table. We need to think about why people voted to leave, which is essentially because they don't see a future for themselves, they don't see themselves being considered in government economic policy, and they see increasing inequality. And if we're going to really address those concerns, then we need fundamental change of the money banking system and the economy.