Paul Johnson

They were quite clear about that, and they did the same again in 2015.

Now, it's much harder to do now because we're now nearly 20 years into a period of no growth and poor public services, so people are much less likely to accept

a prospectus which says, you know, I'm sorry, but we're going to have to raise taxes on you as opposed to on someone over there.

I mean, there's this silly little poem in tax law, which is don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree.

It's just kind of how they talk about it.

I think there's an interesting economic element to that spying thing.

Why on earth was not the appropriate punishment to ban the manager from English football for a decade rather than to punish the fans and the players for doing something that clearly came from the top of the club?

But it's rather like the financial crisis.

I mean, nobody in this country got stuck behind bars for bringing the economy down, and the rest of us have suffered.

It really struck me there was a definite parallel there.

I'm not making the argument is right.

I'm just saying that at one level, that was a government which basically said to the electorate, you know, we're going to really, you know, of course, a lot of it was a lot of it was, you know,

was not right.

I mean, to blame the last Labour government on what was clearly an international problem was not levelling with the electorate.

But they didn't come in, and I think it was particularly true in 2015.

They didn't then say, you know, look, this is now OK and we'll be a bit nicer.

They came back and said, we're going to kick you even harder.

And remarkably, they got in.

So let me be – I'm not defending austerity.

I'm just saying that that was a moment when –