John Stepek

He's clearly aware that it matters, but it's not clear, I would say, from what he says or from what his supporters say, particularly, that they really get what it's for or, you know, why it's there or why it's a constraint.

And I think that's something that can make the, obviously will make the gilts market

cannot worry.

Yeah.

Yeah, and it's just the tax take that's also shot up that is keeping that in check.

It's not because they've been careful or anything like that.

I like hearing you talk.

And also we've consistently too high inflation, which is basically because, as Simon French of Parneur Libre keeps pointing out, we basically ration every part of the economy that we need to grow without inflation.

Yeah, it's not sustainable.

And so, yeah, you can see why.

I think the main reason the gilt market is a bit more worried about the politics than it might have been is because of this idea that they may throw what little fiscal caution they've got to the winds.

And as far as I can see, the other problem is that whether or not... But we don't know that anyone's going to stand and challenge Starmer.

But if Street Thing does it, there's already talk from the left of the party that, well, if he gets into power, one of them said we'll kick him out faster than they get rid of Liz Truss.

And you're like, OK, so it's not even as if the next leader is necessarily the final leader for this particular parliament.

I get why...

guilt markets are at the moment unsettled rather than panicking.

And I think it's really important to emphasise that this is not like 2022 in the Liz Truss situation, because that was a very different set of circumstances.

And you don't have the same level of instability and leverage that creates a kind of doom loop.

But in some ways, that's worse, because actually what we're getting now is just a repricing that says that, well, OK, well, Britain is really kind of unreliable.

We're a bit worried about its, not so much even, it's not its capacity to repay, it's the desire.