Robert Paston

Or is there something else going on?

He's specifically talking about the IMF.

He says he has a lot of sympathy with Rachel Reeves because when he was chancellor, the IMF was consistently negative, then revised up.

But by the time they revised up, the negative publicity has already happened to the UK.

And again, it's happened to Reeves.

Exactly the same thing.

And so, you know, Steph's question, just why does the IMF single us out in this way?

Us, all three of us, have been talking about this as effectively as a national emergency for years.

One of the things that tells you all you need to know about the crisis of politics is even though it is a national emergency, arguably the only prime minister of recent times who took it seriously as a national emergency was Liz Truss.

And we saw where that got us.

Why is it that governments find it so difficult

to make the structural changes, the long-term reforms that are necessary to actually improve our competitiveness and our growth.

Because this government is only the latest in a long line of governments who talk the talk of wanting to do something about growth and productivity and in the end do, you know, using a very technical phrase, bugger all.

But is it the problem in the UK that we've basically infantilised

whether it's local authorities or mayors.

And when you infantilise them, they are much more likely to get into difficulties because at the same time, you're not giving them responsibility.

And secondly, they're massively squeezed by all these surging costs, particularly things like social care.

So what do they do?

They find creative ways to raise money.

And we've seen a succession in recent years of local authorities effectively going bust because they've abused borrowing powers