Paul Johnson

So part of it is, I think, the sort of –

the cycle of that has got a lot quicker over the last 20 or 30 years because of online stuff and 24-hour media and so on.

So it becomes harder to stick to a long-term policy.

And then I think the other half is that some of the things that you need to do

are particularly hard when you haven't got any growth because everything becomes a zero-sum game.

So if you want to reform taxes, for example, in a way which supports competitive industry, which maybe supports the housing market, you might cut some taxes here and there,

And you'll cut taxes on the whole that don't help sort of middle-income people directly.

They will in the long run.

So you have to raise taxes somewhere else.

Or you, because it's less politically difficult, you increase employer, national insurance contributions, knowing.

I mean, the Chancellor knew that was a bad way of raising taxes.

But politically, it was the most palatable way of raising taxes.

Well, I wouldn't say I'm – I mean, I think, you know, people in the Treasury would think I'm absolutely madcap keen on it.

It's –

I'm not super cautious about it.

I basically agree with you that I think that a movement to more fiscal devolution would be good from all sorts of ways.

But you do need to be a little bit careful because, of course, if you suddenly give

areas or mayoral authorities or what have you, lots of additional power and responsibility for raising taxes or what have you, when for 100 years they haven't had that responsibility, it's going to take them a while to work out how to do it properly, to build up the appropriate infrastructure to do it and so on.

So you need to do it at a sensible pace and make sure that it doesn't go belly up straight away.

That's all really.