Jeremy Hunt
๐ค SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
You can arrive in the job, you can get your feet under the table, work out how everything works and maybe two years in say, here's my plan to make BA the best airline in the world.
You can't do that as a politician because your political capital is draining away from the moment you arrive and therefore you have to do the big things early.
So I think the reason, irrespective of the rights and wrongs of their policy decisions, the reason that...
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have got into trouble is that they didn't do the big... They did do big stuff, though.
The big radical changes that we need, that are talked about in the book, which I think some of which they would agree with, like welfare reform, like the planning system, those didn't happen early.
Now, I want to address your other point, Robert.
About national insurance.
Because I could just about see the case for the first cut.
The second cut, I just thought was profligate.
Well, it wasn't at all because, first of all, it was within the fiscal rules.
No, I cut headroom to ยฃ10 billion.
But let me answer your question because I think it's very important.
No, it's not because look what the OBR said about those tax cuts.
They said that they increased GDP by 0.6%.
Now, that sounds a small amount, but it is significant.
They take 200,000 people off welfare into work.
That was my growth strategy.
And I could have chosen tax cuts that were much more salient with the electorate, that people understood.