It's actually, technically, the quality of the MPs is probably on average slightly higher than it say was in the 50s but what you've got is a lot of mediocrity

and the very top people are not there yeah that's my problem is uh i look across the front bench you know both the labor party and the conservative party now and it's i don't know where the quality is i know i've talked about in this podcast many times you might even have heard it if you've listened to the episode but i talked about there's not a single person on the labor front bench who's run a business no no i mean just to me it's there's one person in the government has i thought there were two i think there's maybe oh yeah yeah yeah oh within labor labor shocking and and if you know i'm not saying everyone has to be and it's good to have a broad range of people yeah and and like the fact that there are people who are different from me. I want to hear from them the things I don't understand, because I am from a semi-privileged background, and I've got an all right life. I do have my blind spots. when you're preparing a budget who understands the difficulty running business who's worried about making payroll who's you know having to deal with new uh employment legislation that's going to impact their recruitment if there's nobody's done that there's nobody going to question it and it would be good to have two three four people that go no if you do this this is going to damage business yeah and so that really concerns me you're

right to be concerned

yeah but i'm also concerned about just I'm concerned about how many highly credible people there are. I'm also concerned about the ability people have to do their job in government. It feels like the mechanics of government now is so distorted, directing people towards actually not challenging too much. let's protect my seat because after i finished in government i'm going to get some uh like a like a i don't know top position at facebook or top position on board somewhere so i won't rock the boat and we'll just you know let everyone we'll go with the managed decline like really concerned about these things these elements of politics i

think that's there's a lot in that only you know we've gone to the blob and cummings is uh uh critique of it and he's right about that as well but the i think the what kevin was talking about really was the the the sense of duty that used to be there in society that's you know particularly to you know top people very able people felt sense of duty to go into public life to to help the country um and the thing that's said now is, why would you? In the sort of media age, you know, why would you, you know, in the age of social media and, you know, all the sort of chops that you get and intrusion into your private life and so on, who would go into

public life? It's a conversation we had in the car on the way down, me and my son. So, sorry to interrupt you, but it's funny you should should say that because we were talking about firstly we're talking about tommy robinson yeah um and i was explaining to uh uh connor he was like what what's his role in life and does he want to become a politician i said probably not and i said i can understand me well he can't be yeah because i don't understand but i did what it is in sentences and i said yeah i i would like to become a politician i've thought about it i don't know if i'm you don't have to answer this i'm not looking for a vot vision i don't know if i'm smart enough or i'm a good enough statesman to be a politician but either way i feel a duty locally in bedford where i'm from to do something but i, I've got skeletons in my past. They'll come out. I can operate independently with a podcast. I can say what the fuck I want, talk to who I want and get on with my life. But I know the things that government need to be doing. I know some of the things that get it wrong. And I know I can make a change. But it's low paid. And it's just a threat to yourself and your family.

Yeah. And also it's not, it's the actual job itself. I've studied for parliament three times and haven't been successful. I mean, I came closest. I had four years in Tory party. And from 1999 to 2003, I stood as a Tory in Northwest Durham. That did actually become a Tory seat. So it hung on, you know, in theory might've got there, but I wasn't comfortable in the Tory party. And it's a long story, but I, you know, left. But the other two times, you know, I wasn't close to getting elected, but you know, it's a hell of a life if you do, you know, certainly a three stone increase, you know, for someone in the North East on the train all the time. It's pretty awful, you know it's it's tough for them and i think they i think that is a problem i'm not sure what you do about it but i am worried about the very very able people just giving it the flick and not doing it and actually one of the reasons actually peter that we i said in 2018 when we sort of recharged the sdp was that i i just genuinely people ask me what I'm doing. I think the country needs this party because it's got a whole quadrant of opinion that's not represented. Most British people agree with the SDP on most things. They just don't know we're here. That's the problem. So there's a need for the party. My life would have been easier had I not bothered to do this. But what do you do you know you you sit there there were there were plenty of i there was too many think tanks when we start set up because we'd produced that little thing which is a little bit of political philosophy really um people thought i was in your think tank no it's not it's a it's a vehicle for representing ordinary people it's a chance for people going to the polling booth and they look at the ballot paper and they don't think oh you know what do we do no there's something for them then you know you're giving people a chance to vote for something they actually believe in and that's why we're doing it um you don't need another think tank you need should we pay politicians a

lot more but uh make them a lot more accountable would that work i mean the thing that we talked about singapore the singapore model is to pay that what was it if we let's pay them enough to not be corrupt yeah

yeah and then if you are you go to jail yeah recently yeah you saw that yeah uh yeah there is an argument for that i i i think the the expenses scandal that we had sort of 10 years ago was a was a product of the system not being honest with itself, because they were given expenses and other things that were like a proxy salary increase. And we do a lot of that sort of thing. It's not very honest. We'd be better to pay people better. But actually, maybe there should be fewer. I mean, maybe there should be 650 is still quite a lot and uh you know maybe if you had fewer but better um politicians with better teams i mean you know u.s senators for instance have a decent office decent staff and might be able to do their jobs

and they're good in the stock market yes i think i think i run the calculation based on the salaries we pay mps the total budget the salary budget is 56 million and i know their staff costs and office costs as such but when you're managing a one trillion budget i would have thought that 56 million either to less people like you say or to better people i've got no issue having a chancellor of the exchequer who's on a million pound a year who understands economics yeah

that's a fair point and and actually but that applies to the whole of the public sector i mean we we had a policy um of recent years which is that no one in any local authority is going to be paid more than the prime minister because there are plenty that i mean every single local authority has ceo

yeah

yeah no but not just every head of department we go to northumberland county council you see you'll probably have five or six maybe ten that are paid more than the Prime Minister.

Well, 164,000 Prime Minister

gets... What's the President

of the USA get, Con? Is it a million dollars or something? I mean, I find it interesting that you also still get people who come in, like Rupert Lowe doesn't take his salary because he doesn't need it. And I think that's what we kind of want to attract. He's done brilliantly.

Yeah. I mean, I can't think of, and I did message him and congratulated him. I, for a new MP, I mean, I think he was a parliamentarian in Brussels, wasn't he, previously, but for a new MP to make an impact and to basically hold the government to account single-handedly, it's been quite an incredible thing.

And

it is disinterested because he doesn't need it. Yeah.

$400,000 a year for the president of the USA. There you go. They usually doesn't need Singapore. I think they, for the prime minister. But it's $500,000 for an MP in Singapore, right? Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, I know, like I went to the school I went to, I went to one of the private schools in Bedford, Beverly Monk, and very lucky my dad worked his butt off to put me through there. There's good people there. A lot of good people I went to school with. They went to university. Nobody was talking about politics because they wanted to go in the private sector because they wanted to become millionaires or around a quarter million a year. I think – and we saw the political people at university who were part of the student politics. I think if you were offering half a million pounds a year, that's an essential. Hold on. Do I want to work in the privacy i totally want to do i want to yeah but remember

the the the job opportunities are limited i mean you can want to be a politician uh but the i mean there were a lot of staffers and hangers on and spads and things but you know but and there are a lot of people hanging around sw1 but um there aren't that many job opportunities i mean you run a football club i started nine years as a football coach. And we had a few kids that, you know, were signed on to Newcastle United, the Sunland and Carlisle and things. And the parents got very excited. You know, we had one lad that was at Newcastle United as a goalkeeper, you know, in the youth team there for four years. A very good keeper, very good keeper. But I always used to quell the enthusiasm of the parents because just on the numbers i said just ask yourself what how many what's the job opportunities for your cohort every year to be say a premiership goalkeeper it's tiny i mean it's just tiny particularly keepers because they because they last 22 years or in a 25 years so they you know in reality very very few people are going to make it so i don't know i think i think mp should be paid well i don't think the public know how bad a life it is i think the mps it's it's a real it's a real tough life on their on their families and on their on their on their system physical system as well and i'm not i'm not sure you'd put it another way i'm not sure that people are going into it for money anyway i don't not sure they are no

maybe not but maybe they would the better people would if the incentives but

i don't think that's where the problem is i think it's a problem right at the top peter i think

which is the very very top people i

think it's the it's the it wouldn't matter so much i mean the government a total government might have 185 people with people you know pps and the whole thing and whatever they're governing the country and the civil servants are governing the country anyway, really. But I don't, it's, say if you wanted to, you know, because it's a bit like the SDP people say, oh, you should join the reform or the Tories and work within. Well, working within doesn't get anywhere, because you're, unless you're literally in the, unless you're the top five people in Labour or the Tories, you're really not. I mean, it's just those three or four people, probably. You know, unless you're one of those, you're not going to do it. But my argument is, who are those three or four people? Who are the very top people in politics? And I think the acid test is, get this up, this will will be great. Get the photo of Mrs. Thatcher's first cabinet up. Get it up there. And look at the quality in that cabinet. And I would argue, and I've made the point several times, I have differences with them about politics. But I would argue that of that cabinet, 10 or 12 could have been prime ministers. That's what the quality is.

And

if you look at the quality of people that have headed up the Tory party recently, and even, there you go. So... I

mean, I won't know. You won't know. I might know some of the names. So you've got White Law. If you zoom in,

you've got White Law, Pryor, Carrington, Jeffrey Howe, Keith Joseph, you know whether you've got heseltine there i know yeah i mean that is you honestly you know you've got peter walker at the end there you could have certainly five or six of those could have been uh prime They were prime minister material, Francis Pym. But that's changed. You compare that to the cabinet we have now, totally different. Yeah, let me ask you that. So that would be an interesting question. So in the Labour cabinet,

is there anyone within that cabinet, you're like, oh, like them i respect them that would they would be a good prime minister no

i don't think so no i can't think no anyone

in the conservative um

i think there are there are tory mps that i have have contacts with and a lot of respect for like danny kruger i think is very good. Miriam Cates was a very good Tory MP, but she lost her seat. I think of the new lot, Nick Timothy, as I mentioned, is very, very good. There's a core of them that are pretty good. And there are some good old-fashioned backbenchers in the Tory party that are, you know, Desmond Swain and people that are very good. But they have the same problem at the top of the Tory party. They're not over-endowed with talent. And actually, I think the last succession of leaders has proved that. I think that's the problem. And I, you know, I've... It's sad, though. It is sad. No, it is sad. You know, Kemi Badenoch, I sort of wish her well, in a way. I mean, she's very engaging and charming. And one-to I've met her a couple of times, she's, you know, very pleasant. And I sort of wish her well again economics is wrong i think she has to be on a learning curve on that um her instincts on cultural stuff are good but you know she's she's potentially quite good but i think jenrick's probably uh what we need yeah i think he's stronger um but we'll see i mean it's that's their that's their problem i don't talk about too much well

so i vote last time i've i'm voting last i think three elections i think the last time i voted it's this is how bad it is i don't even remember it might have been boris or it might have been cameron i can't really remember but and i was voting out of just historical reasons because my dad did because my dad did yeah my dad yeah um yeah but haven't since I couldn't vote for Rishi Sunak felt patronized everything he spoke to me and thought he was an idiot oh

so did you met

him and no no no I mean the way he talked to the public yeah yeah sure there's that whole thesis with the some newspaper that they write for you know 12 year olds and I felt like he was talking to me like a 12 year old patronizing condescending voice um uh i didn't mind theresa may which was harmless um uh you know um i don't think we've got a fair crack at the whip with uh uh liz truss uh kemi seems okay but the party itself just seems very weak. It seems, like I said, it seems like a...

It does, it does, it has a, it's overweight. I mean, there is a talent problem at the top. I mean, I don't agree with you about Liz Truss. I think it was a disaster, total disaster. She was unfit to be Prime Minister, in my opinion, but leave it there. I think there's a talent issue.

You know she agrees with you on all the things?

No, she doesn't, not on government. I think she does. No, I think she doesn't. She will on the cultural stuff, but her economics is lunatic. It's literally crazy. I mean, her economics is not. That's not a strong point. She was one of the sort of orange-book liberals. She's still a liberal, I think. That's the problem. And also, not someone that... I'm not... You can change your mind. I don't think the in the dissolution and the mayhem and the tory party philosophically now right so you've got the the in the parliamentary parties overweight these liberal patrician tories who are just like you know, Dominic Grieve, you know, someone like that, you know, so they're a problem. And then you've got two newish groups. And I think one of them is on the right track, which is the Natcons, the National Conservatives, Kruger, Nick Timothy, they get it. State and Nation, they understand it. And then you've got popular conservatives, who are Liz Truss now, they're in conference and things.