A Prime Minister’s dramatic downfall

Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove

Guest

Episode Summary

What does Liz Truss’ stunningly short term mean for the United Kingdom’s standing in the world? It comes at a time of tectonic transformations at home & unprecedented threats abroad. Queen Elizabeth’s passing and the rapid succession of three occupants at 10 Downing Street in as many months has shaken the country’s sense of stability. The former head of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove discusses the international implications of these chaotic days in British politics. He delves into what went wrong for the Tory leader and the bad options that remain for the Party in the coming months. An economy teetering on the brink of recession, confidence in national leaders at historic lows, the veteran spy reflects on how road ahead will undoubtedly be a risky and rocky one for the next Prime Minister.

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Transcript

INTRODUCTION

Mcfarlane: So, Richard, we were supposed to record this podcast a couple of hours ago, but we had to delay, didn't we? Because of some pretty extraordinary events outside Downing Street, that lectern was brought out a bit like Vecna's clock in Stranger Things. And when you know when the lectern comes out of Number 10 Downing Street, you know there's a pretty seismic announcement that's going to be made. Particularly when the prime minister comes out with her partner. Yes. Exactly. She comes out with her husband. Coming out on her own. Yeah. You know it's curtains when when when that starts to happen. Here's what Liz Truss said.

Truss: I came into office at a time of great economic and international instability. Families and businesses were worried about how to pay their bills. Putin's illegal war in Ukraine threatens the security of our whole continent, and our country has been held back for too long by low economic growth. I was elected by the Conservative Party with a mandate to change this. We delivered on energy bills and on cutting national insurance. And we set out a vision for a low tax, high growth economy that would take advantage of the freedoms of Brexit. I recognize though, given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party. I have therefore spoken to his majesty, the king, to notify him that I am resigning as leader of the Conservative Party. This morning, I met the chairman of the 1922 committee, sir Graham Brady. We've agreed that there will be a leadership election to be completed within the next week. This will ensure that we remain on a path to deliver our fiscal plans and maintain our country's economic stability and national security. I will remain as prime minister until a successor has been chosen. Thank you.

Mcfarlane: You're listening to the One Decision podcast. I'm your host, Julie McFarlane. I'm joined by my cohost, sir Richard Dearlove. Richard, we just watched a pretty extraordinary statement outside Number 10 Downing Street from the currently incumbent prime minister Liz Truss. What was your immediate reaction to hearing what she had to say?

Dearlove: I think my immediate reaction was relief that we were not made to wait longer and that she was relatively quickly and easily persuaded that her position is untenable and that she had to stand down. I think obviously for her and her supporters, it's a seminal and very difficult moment. But on the other hand, the statement says it reasonably clearly. She can't deliver the mandate on which she was elected. So she really had no reason to stay in office. And I suppose the other point which is so crucial now is what happens next. So it looks as though there is going to be an election, a parliamentary election, MPs for a successor and that we're not going to face a general election which to me is no surprise. The Conservative Party clearly do not want a general election.

Mcfarlane: Certainly not with you look at where they currently stand in the polls, dozens of points behind the opposition Labour Party. You said that you felt relief at hearing what Liz Truss had to say and you mentioned her supporters. I hope you don't mind if I dob you in as being one of those supporters you voted for Liz Truss.

Dearlove: I'm not a Conservative Party member so I didn't actually personally vote for her. I would have voted for her had I been a Conservative Party member, not for any other reason that I believe that the growth policy is probably the correct route for any government to go down. And interestingly, if you listen carefully to what Starmer's saying about Labour Party policy, there's an implication that they support a growth policy probably by different means with more sort of government capital expenditure rather than trying to energize the market.

Mcfarlane: Well, I do want to look at where Liz Truss's grand economic plans all went wrong, but I just want to just linger a little more on the instability and the chaos of this week. And you're right, you say that she swiftly put an end to the speculation about whether she would stand down as increasing numbers of her own MPs have publicly said her position is untenable and called for her resignation. Swift in that she's only been in power for just over a month, but there has been an awful lot that's happened in this month. And perhaps it's just because the chaos of the last few weeks and particularly what happened yesterday in the House of Commons after what initially seemed to be quite a positive day for Liz Truss, having had a difficult week so far, having had a lot of criticism for a bizarre statement she gave early in the week for not being present for Labour's urgent question in the House of Commons on Tuesday. She has now come out and made the statement. She said that she will stand down, she will stand aside for a new leader. But only after having, so to speak, a metaphorical gun held to her head by her party, and she was meeting the chairman of the 1922 committee, which is this very powerful group of conservative party members. She met the chair of that group earlier today, and it's very, what we don't know, but one can expect that he perhaps said to her that the writing was on the wall. This has been such a turbulent administration and we've seen how the markets have responded and The UK has gone from being a safe haven for investors to one that looks a bit more like an emerging country and that's a picture that's been painted by international observers and experts. How damaging has this been for The UK?

Dearlove: Well, it's been very damaging in the short term for The UK's reputation. I mean, for the Conservative Party, which has this reputation for responsibility in handling the economy. But if the world suddenly turns around and the markets in effect are saying, we think your chief financial officer is a waste of space, and they start heavily selling discounted shares in UK plc, which is effectively what happened, you know you're in deep trouble. So I mean, it is the judgment of the markets ultimately more than anything else. And the impact on the financial institutions that are so linked to government related investments like the pension funds that cause suddenly your credibility to fall away and evaporate. And that's really what happened. I think once Kwasi Kwarteng had had to resign, there was really no hope or going back. I think Liz Truss as a prime minister has a rather dogged determination. I don't think she necessarily takes much notice of what people are saying. She was heading straight on and straight down.

Mcfarlane: You point to the markets as being very, very instrumental to the piling on of pressure on Liz Truss. But it hasn't just been the markets. It's also been a growing number of people in parliament, in her party, in the public eye, commentators, journalists, activists, campaigners, taking umbrage with the optics of her economic plan, which was slashing taxes for the wealthiest and not doing enough to support families who are really, really struggling.

Dearlove: Yeah. I agree with you entirely, but I think that the way it's played out is a reflection of the fact that, you know, she was elected by the party membership, which I think leans pretty heavily to the right. If you look at the composition of the MPs that, you know, make up the the the conservative block.

Mcfarlane: Careful. So that's a revealing Freudian slip. That's a Freudian slip.

Dearlove: They're much more centrist. And there are an awful lot of conservative MPs who would see themselves as the sort of compassionate conservatives with a social conscience.

Mcfarlane: Well, that's what Jeremy Hunt said. He in his statement, he said, we are a compassionate conservative.

Dearlove: Yeah. And there's always been this significant block within the conservative party that has a strong social justice, social fairness agenda. That's, you know, a very centrist group, but it's still a very significant group. And I think that we all understand that if the leadership election had been the MPs, almost certainly, Liz Truss wouldn't have been the elected leader. It would have been well, it probably would have been Rishi Sunak, but not necessarily. And it would have been someone who had a more conventional view of what the economic options were for a new government.

Mcfarlane: Yeah, and I think a lot of international watchers might be looking at our parliamentary political system and being quite confused at our strange way of doing things. And you rightly point out that having a process where it is party members who ultimately decide who gets crowned leader is obviously going to be influenced by the fact that with the Conservative Party, the membership tend to lean very right. But that's usually counterbalanced by the fact that the parliamentary party, the MPs, they decide amongst themselves who makes it to the final two. So there is that kind of counterbalance.

Dearlove: But if you're sitting in the house of parliament dealing with a lot of social issues during a period of high inflation, you're gonna be much more attuned to the problems generally across the electorate than a group of conservative party members who probably come from the wealthier elements of the population and are to an extent personally insulated against some of the economic downside that the population as a whole are suffering. So I don't think it's particularly surprising that you get a different sort of political emphasis appearing out of the House of Commons. Which in a way, you know, is a healthy aspect of democracy.

Mcfarlane: It's quite necessary because after all, these people, they know their colleagues and they know who has the who should command authority.

Dearlove: Yeah. And strictly, if you're an MP, you're meant to represent everyone in your constituency, including the people that voted against you.

Mcfarlane: Yeah. But what was interesting was, and you say, you know, if we had taken the membership out of the equation that the Tories perhaps would have ended up with Rishi Sunak, but what we saw was an interesting contest, didn't we? Because we had Boris Johnson forced out of power after dozens and dozens of resignations sparked off by the resignation of the chancellor and the health secretary earlier this summer, and then a string of resignations all across government, even down to junior ministers, and it got to the stage where there was not a government functioning because everyone had left their posts and he had no option but to resign. And it was his camp that felt so betrayed by Rishi Sunak's resignation that their modus operandi was to say, you must not back Rishi, anyone but Rishi, and that's kind of how Liz Truss ended up being the Boris candidate to back. And I've got to wonder why Boris Johnson wanted Liz Truss to be his successor?

Dearlove: Well, a good question. But I guess if you looked across the candidates, maybe it was the one who Boris at a certain point in time felt would be his continuity candidate given that he was clearly reluctant to go. I don't know enough about the personal dynamics and relationships between the individuals. But that, you know, there's no question that we've been through a tough period. I mean, Boris was ultimately rejected for his lack of integrity. And I think that you cannot possibly have a prime minister in the long term whose integrity is so open to question. It's one of the fundamentals. You need, you know, leadership that shows integrity.

Mcfarlane: Absolutely. Do you think our politics has become too much about personalities?

Dearlove: Well, I think it's a statement of modern day life. I mean we live in an environment which is so much dominated by social media, by podcasts, by all these varying means of communication that personal dislikes, personalities are going to play a big role in political choice. And we all know why Boris was such an attractive and remarkable political candidate, which he was. I just think it's a great shame that he lacked this essential quality of integrity.

Mcfarlane: Well, I have my own theory about Boris Johnson's electoral sort of golden ticket, and I think it's because he, you know, he was obviously very, very charismatic. He was a great media performer. He knows how to keep the attention, the glare of the media on him by saying controversial things, by being very flamboyant and colorful and a character that stands out from among all the other suits in Westminster. But his election campaigning tactic was always one that was a positive platform. And you contrast that to Jeremy Corbyn, who did not run on a positive platform. He ran on a platform that many have described as being a sort of a politics of envy, a sort of us against them tribalism, rather than selling a vision of what working people, of what the poorest and most disadvantaged in society, rather than selling them something they could aspire to, it was more about need to take power and wealth and resources out from the rich and give it back to the poor, which is nothing wrong with that style of politics, but it was a negative campaign. And that was set against Boris' sort of positive campaign, and it almost didn't matter that he didn't have a clear blueprint of what Brexit would look like or what the brass tacks was going to be, he was selling a feeling and he was selling a feeling of being proud of Britain and, you know, that's something that we've seen with president Trump, America first, injecting some positivity and I wonder if that was maybe the secret to his success and people need something positive to look forward to in this day.

Dearlove: Well, I think he conducted, Boris was able to conduct a very clever campaign, which was focused on a few simple, almost absolutely reduced political ideas like get Brexit done. And then, you know, driving that bulldozer through, do you remember a wall of packaging cases and things like that, which I guess had a basic appeal. But he's obviously a charismatic individual who seemed to offer something new and different. I think as part of this whole debate about Liz Truss, Boris, you have to bear in mind, you know, we've been through the most divisive public debate over Brexit. And we're living, still living through the aftermath to an extent. And although it should be over and I think it is largely over as an issue and it is accepted now by most of the political forces of significance in the country. There is all that residue of bad feeling. There is that residue of anger and disagreement. And I think it's reflected in the nature of our politics. Let's hope with the departure of Liz Truss who strikes me as a pretty wooden politician.

Mcfarlane: Sorry my tummy is rumbling really.

Dearlove: I didn't hear it. It's a pretty wooden politician. That we sort of head back into calmer waters which we need to in a period when there's so much else happening in the world. But I think we also have to bear in mind that there are an awful lot of other countries at this moment in time who are not having a very happy time with their internal politics. Look at what's happening in France. Germany also very disruptive at the moment given the problems over energy policy and the future of the German economy now that it can't rely on cheap Russian gas. So there are all sorts of issues which play into this very fluid dynamic state of politics. The UK has perhaps been one of the most extreme examples. But thank goodness we can change our political leaders without having a revolution on the streets. We actually have a mechanisms for doing it. So in a way, it's a credit to British democracy that this can be done in such a straightforward fashion in the glaring light of publicity where there is no really hidden issue. Everybody knows what's going on.

BREXIT, IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM

Mcfarlane: I have to just go back to something you said and push against it slightly, which is you said that you think the Brexit issue is somewhat done and in the rearview mirror. And I have to say, I don't think that's quite true, and the resignation of the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, officially it was about protocol and emails that she sent from her personal email account. And then this incredibly stinging, with the subtlety of, some political correspondent said on Twitter, with all the subtlety of a brick being thrown through a glass window, taking a stab at Liz Truss's, in the direction of her government. And apparently, what happened was an almighty row over immigration, and Suella Braverman is someone who has taken a very, very tough stance on immigration. She said recently that it was her dream. It was her Christmas dream to have a front page spread of the Telegraph on a flight to Rwanda carrying migrants away from The UK, and she got very, very criticized for that remark. And Liz Truss's government has been making some sounds about migration, because of course, you know, the one thing you want to do to boost growth in this country, well, controversially, the one thing you could do to really do that is to reenter the single market, that's not going to happen. But they've sort of intimated that the migration issue would have to be looked at in order to help the economy, and that was apparently the real reason for Suella Braverman abandoning her post because it's a stunt she cannot condone. One of the main reasons a lot of people voted for Brexit was they wanted to take back control over their borders, and it was the principle of free movement, a lot of the country, electorate, and a lot of the conservative parliamentary party had a lot of issues with. And so I think what we're seeing is, parties that have long histories and long affiliations, and groupings of your ideology being tested and strained against new dividing lines, and Brexit is one of them.

Dearlove: Yeah. It's still a dividing line. Obviously, the migration issue, immigration is a key aspect. But what I would say is to be fair to someone like Suella Braverman. There is illegal immigration and there is immigration. And I think that what any future government whether it be labor or conservative is driving at is legal immigration. That is admitting to the country those people who you know are gonna make an economic contribution. You have the right profile in terms of employment because it's clear with record low unemployment. You know, for example, take the caring industry or take the hospitality industry. There's a desperate need for extra employment.

Mcfarlane: But she did say she wanted net migration down, not up. Not just illegal immigration.

Dearlove: Well, I think that this is an issue which, you know, I think one has to be very careful about making predictions about numbers because you're absolutely right. It's so closely linked to economic growth. So if you're gonna have a policy to grow the economy, you're going to presumably increase employment. And if you really significantly increase employment, you haven't got the workforce to fill the gaps. Then you go out into let's say the international market and encourage people who have the right qualifications to come legally and work. And then you allow them to stay for a limited time or if they stay for a long time then they become permanent residents and all of that. I think what people have objected to in the past is completely free movement. We have no idea who's coming into the country, how many people. And I mean I certainly recall a situation where the number of people entering The UK from Eastern Europe, countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Poland suffering massive drain of their population. And this is going back a long time but it's still probably the case. Their government is not actually knowing where half their population has disappeared to. Well, a lot of them have, you know, come to The UK and during free movement, come to The UK quite legally. And I think the situation basically got out of control. It doesn't mean that we can't get back in that direction, but with a very strict control system, which let's face it, it's what The US operates, what Canada operates, what Australia, and they all depend on immigration.

Mcfarlane: But what confuses me is how that has been so weaponized and, you know, I remember years and years ago, when there were new workers at our school, who had recently come in from Poland and Romania, and they were cooks, they were cleaners, they were janitors. And it became very clear after speaking to them very quickly that they were teachers, they were lawyers, they had they were professional people, and they were hugely qualified people back in their home countries, and they were coming to The UK, yes, taking lower paid jobs until they learnt good enough English to then work their way up. What I don't understand is why that was seen as a negative here. And particularly when we have the context, if we have an aging population, we have a growing number of retirees who live on their pensions, who rely on the state, who don't generate an income, and therefore don't contribute tax, and we have a shrinking workforce. And the answer is to boost your workforce population. So why was the arrival of qualified people from the EU, why was that seen as such a bad thing when surely, exactly, because it's exactly what we needed.

Dearlove: Yes. I agree. But if you look at it at the local level, what you're talking about is housing, educational places for kids in schools, access to local welfare arrangements, access to the NHS. And I think there were and probably still are an awful lot of people who felt that, you know, they were indigenous locals. And they should be at the front of the queue. New arrivals particularly, you know, just coming from anywhere shouldn't be displacing them. I think people really feel resentful about that. And it's difficult to deal with because you know maybe the more well off, better adjusted members of society can accept it and accommodate it. But I think an awful lot of people react really badly against those stresses and strains. And I think that was a problem. I think we've probably moved beyond it now. But I mean I still think there's a huge number of people who really dislike seeing you know 50,000 illegal, mostly young men in their twenties coming across the channel in rubber dinghies and walking up the beach.

Mcfarlane: Well, on that I understand that people hate it, but also, is that not surely point to an issue with our system of claiming asylum? Because in our system, you cannot claim asylum in The UK until you set foot in The UK. You can't apply for asylum until you arrive here, and so surely these people are only doing what they...

Dearlove: Well, that's not entirely true. You know, there are certain parts of the world where you can make a claim to come to The UK, and of course, you can't come unless it's accepted.

Mcfarlane: Yeah. But look, let's say you're a dissident in some hostile country. You really, is it safe to go to march up to the British embassy, go inside and say I want to fill out an app for president. It's problematic. It is problematic. And this politics issues get weaponized and it corrodes.

Dearlove: But I think the majority of, you know, people for example coming across, they are economic migrants. I think if you took a poll you know on a regular basis you would see that a fair proportion are economic. I'm sure that some of them are political refugees.

Mcfarlane: Well, of course, they are. Some of them. Well, I mean, the reason why I wanted to go into it because I think it is one of the continuing dividing lines that the Conservative Party cannot seem to stitch itself together and come to a unanimous view about. And that along with issues like the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice and all these other things that are surely going to continue to cause the conservatives to have infighting. I mean, what do you think is...

Dearlove: Maybe. But, you know, we have left the EU so I do think that the common law is adequate and we don't have to defer to the ECJ. And I'm also skeptical about ECHR as well, the European Court of Human Rights because we have our own legal mechanisms. And I think having to defer legally beyond our sovereignty has all sorts of problems. But then that's my personal view and I'm pretty strong believer in the integrity and sovereignty of our own legal system. I mean the common law is pretty powerful legal instrument, which has worked well over many centuries.

THE ECONOMIC PLAN

Mcfarlane: And what do you make of Liz Truss and former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, their plan, and we are headed for some really difficult economic times as forecasts of interest rates rising to 6% next year, I'm probably going to have to sell my flat, their inflation is more than 10%, a lot of people are putting life decisions on hold, they don't know if they're going to be able to grow, sustain their business or even if they will be able to afford to heat their homes. What did you make of their economic plan? Was it economically literate?

Dearlove: Oh, obviously, it wasn't. I think it aggravated an economic situation which is not specific to The UK. So it made something bad which was happening much worse. But I think looking at this from a European or a global perspective, we are at the end of the existence of the magic money tree or whatever you like. We've had incredibly low interest rates. We've been through a pandemic, the most disruptive social and political event since World War two. Governments have printed money in order to, as it were, facilitate this difficult passage through the pandemic. Quantitative easing has been the accepted methodology. The idea that we were not going to have to pay for this. Okay. This has happened more suddenly and more quickly than people expected. Partly stimulated by international events particularly the invasion of Ukraine which has its impact on energy prices. And it's triggered a series of events which were going to happen anyway. The question was at what speed they happened. I mean I think we could all anticipate that you know having had the government paying furlough to a significant proportion of the population, there would be a reckoning and that we would have to pay for it. I think that the idea of growth was a good one. And actually if you listen to Starmer in terms of unspecified labor economic policy, growth is very much on their agenda too. The question is how you implement it. And obviously, the massive expenditure, the increased debt that this country, every country has accumulated now has to be taken account of in future budgeting. And we've just seen this very clearly in, you know, Jeremy Hunt coming in as a safe pair of hands and saying we must do this, we must do that.

Mcfarlane: Right. But you say Jeremy Hunt is a safe pair of hands, which really sort of illustrates that his predecessor was not a safe pair of hands, and something that has always really struck me about Liz Truss and those on her side of the argument have, for a long time, railed against what they have decried as the orthodoxy, you know, these treasury officials, these bean counters who are holding Britain back, and how for The UK to really prosper, it had to break free of this orthodoxy, and orthodoxy is a dirty word. And surely, orthodoxy is there because there are systems in place by which we conduct our economy and to go outside of that too far, to be too radical, to do things that are unexpected, that is not going to be productive. I mean, you could say that it is orthodoxy that we drive on the left hand side of the road in this country, and you're sitting there thinking, the traffic is mostly one way. I wanna drive on the right hand side and save myself some time, but then you will crash if you...

Dearlove: They should have been radical by stealth. I think that you could see a program for growth which could have been progressive over time, which could have been accelerated as the economy recovered and expanded. To do it in the way that Kwasi Kwarteng presented it was over gambling. I mean I think Kwasi is a clever guy. Has a Cambridge PhD in economics, I believe, or in economic history.

Mcfarlane: I'm not sure Oxbridge educations are quite the currency they used to be.

Dearlove: Well, maybe, but this is quite a long time ago.

Mcfarlane: I have to point out St Andrews was found the best university in The UK.

Dearlove: That's where you went. Yes, it is. Fabulous. But I mean, he is a clever guy. But I think he was a risk taker, a gambler.

Mcfarlane: Gambling with the country's mind. Well, yes, unfortunately.

Dearlove: And of course, the immediate market reaction was this doesn't play. It's far too fast, too quickly. And I mean, there's silly aspects to it like cutting the 45% rate of tax which would have benefited me. On the other hand, I think I had several conversations with people I know who we all said this is ridiculous. We don't want it. We don't need it. We shouldn't have it. It's the wrong time. If the economy is booming and you have a different economic setting, then perhaps there's an argument for removing it. And of course, the 45% rate was stacked. It's Gordon Brown's legacy as prime minister. He inserted it just before he went out of office. A political time bomb which the country's never managed to get rid of. So there is a case for getting rid of it, but not now, not in that way. It was not a good idea and it gave completely the wrong spin to the mini budget so called, which actually was a major budget. It wasn't a mini budget at all.

THE UK AND EUROPEAN SECURITY

Mcfarlane: Yeah. We're running out of time, but one thing I do just want to briefly touch on is something that really has changed is the growing role that The UK has had, and is having, perhaps as a life buoy to the Prime Ministers in distress, but stepping up to the plate when it comes to European security. And we also saw, you know, who was it? Was it Steve Baker who apologized for not working with the EU enough on when it came to the issue of Northern Ireland, we're seeing actually a bit more of a change that, you know, we may have left the EU, but The UK is wanting to be more internationally present and engaged with its neighbors.

Dearlove: That's exactly where we should be. Look, historically, The UK has never been an intimate part of a European alliance for a very long period of time. So if you look at it through a historical perspective, leaving the EU is perhaps less of a big deal than if you just look at it in current terms. But The UK's position as a security defense power has always been crucial to European security. So the fact that Macron holds this political meeting in Prague and invites many more countries than the member countries of the EU including The UK. I think it's a very healthy and sensible development. European security based on the defense side and in pure security and intelligence terms cannot function without The UK contribution. It's as simple as that. We are an essential element. So I think this is one of the good things. We're moving beyond the sort of immediate angst of Brexit, sour difficult Brexit negotiations and The UK is being reengaged in European security. But as a contributor, not in its capacity as an EU member state. But for me, it actually puts us in a stronger position because we have more room for maneuver. Look, we've been able to do stuff on Ukraine quickly in quantity in a way which is much more profound and more successful than any other European power. And I think it shows the aspect of liberation. I think if there's a change of administration or change of control in the midterm elections in The United States, you will see significant acceleration in UK progress towards a trade deal probably with The United States. I mean these flexibilities I think are a huge plus for us. They're also a benefit to Europe once they get over the angst of us actually leaving the EU, which of course was a huge blow for the EU. What to bear in mind, wasn't just controversial here in The UK, it was resented by many Europeans who didn't like to think that we wouldn't be in there because we represented a particular strain of thinking within the EU which reflects views on the EU of other member states and they lose their closest ally. But we can still operate in conjunction with Europe in a very positive way when it comes to European security. So I'm pleased about that.

Mcfarlane: I think it's good to leave on, to finish on an optimistic note and to hopefully our nearest and dearest friends and partners abroad will bear with us.

Dearlove: Great Britain under new management. Let's see where we are next. They have been appalled at watching our internal politics. But I think the one thing you can say about Westminster is it functions, it is transparent, it has the mechanisms to make political shifts and changes and many other countries should be jealous of the fact that we have such a mature parliamentary democracy that can cope with really quite profound political crises, is what's happening at the moment.

Mcfarlane: Quick question. Should we have a general election? Not yet. That's it for this edition of One Decision. If you enjoyed the podcast, why not like and subscribe? We drop new shows every Thursday. From me and the team, thanks for listening, and see you next time.