Gary Stevenson

You know, they know they're going to come in in a context of falling living standards and they know that that's going to risk falling popularity for the new prime minister, Andy Burnham, whoever it is, and that we need something quicker.

We need something now.

We need something to deliver now.

And unfortunately, you know, the UK government has reached this situation where

and I think this has been like really, really clear from what happened to Keir Starmer, you can't deliver quick fixes if you are unwilling to deal with a long-term problem.

So just after Keir Starmer and Labour won the election in 2024, I happened randomly to like bump into somebody who was like quite a senior in Labour and they knew who I was and I knew who they were and I said to them,

hey you know like well done on the election um but you know probably maybe you're already aware of this but like if you don't deal with that growing inequality problem like you you you're going to find very very quickly that you can't do any of the other things that you want to do um and you're going to be i think what i said was uh you know i don't envy your situation um it's going to be incredibly difficult if you don't fix this thing um and what that person said to me at that time was

Oh, don't don't worry, because we've got a common strategy for that.

And I remember my stomach like sinking.

I want this to be a lesson, you know, to, you know, I don't hate labor, you know, I don't hate Starmer, but you cannot make that same mistake again.

You cannot come into power

with an unwillingness to get to grips with the long-term problems of the country and then be surprised when living standards collapse.

And I know, I understand, I fully understand that you want short-term wins in this.

I don't see those short-term wins being available.

And I think I need you to be honest with yourselves and to be honest with the British public and to turn around to the British public and say, listen,

The situation is fucked.

But we are the people who are going to do the work to seriously fix the long-term problems of inequality in this country.

And if you do that, I fucking promise I will work my tits off to make sure the British public believe you.

If you can show me that you are serious in fixing the long-term problems,

of the British public, then I will make do the fucking and I'll get all every fucking influencer I know to do it as well.