Rob Paston

I mean, you've seen the cost of HS2 now spiralling.

Just, you know, I looked it up.

You can cycle to Birmingham, believe it or not, in 12 hours, right?

We're spending £100 billion.

On a link to Birmingham, which I mean, there was one report today says that it's more than it costs to land somebody on the moon.

I mean, it is.

This is why we just why are we so terrible?

France, on the other hand, has got so many high speed railway lines.

And it's one of the reasons their productivity is so much better than ours.

We've talked about this a lot on this podcast.

And you're right.

I mean, the fact that our second cities are so much poorer now.

than London compared to France's, you know, Lyon, for example, Marseille.

They're all way richer compared to Paris than our second city.

I mean, you're right.

If we could just close the gap, it would make an enormous difference.

Jeremy, so much more we need to talk to you about, but we'll be back in a minute or two.

One of the things you say, which is patently true,

that our GDP would improve tremendously if we could just get more of the population here into work.

And there's a lot in the book about reforming welfare and a lot in the book about helping people to acquire the skills.