#102 - John Redwood - Lessons from Thatcher, Warnings for Starmer

The Peter McCormack Show

Peter McCormack

Technology, News, Politics, Money, Investing, Finance, Bitcoin

4.8 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2025

⏱️ 88 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sir John Redwood has been inside Downing Street and the Treasury. He’s seen the machine up close and he’s not impressed.

Sir John explains why the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and Treasury models are flawed, how Ireland beat Britain with smarter tax policy and what Thatcher got right that no one today is willing to say out loud.

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TIMESTAMPS:
(0:00) – Introduction
(1:25) – Why government keeps making things worse
(4:14) – Taxing education & small business
(9:47) – Should we abolish the OBR?
(14:05) – Government too big, taxes too high
(18:52) – Are we heading toward another 1970s crisis?
(21:43) – How Thatcher fixed the mess
(31:28) – What would Thatcher think today?
(34:12) – Labour's economic strategy collapsing
(37:06) – Why Redwood entered politics
(48:34) – The water crisis & foreign ownership
(55:16) – What Thatcher got right
(58:59) – Jealousy politics & public perception
(1:02:20) – Why deregulation & low taxes aren’t a hard sell
(1:04:57) – Two-tier justice: public vs private sector failure
(1:07:26) – What makes a great Prime Minister?
(1:09:34) – Will Starmer survive a full term?
(1:12:04) – Rise of Reform & collapse in turnout
(1:18:17) – Should we audit the Bank of England?
(1:25:47) – The personal cost of political conviction

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FILMED BY CURTIS TAYLOR
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EDITED BY CONOR MCCORMACK
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Transcript

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0:00.0	It seems like you actually really care about stability as well.
0:04.0	Well, of course. I mean, you don't want these wild fluctuations because that destroys people's jobs.
0:11.0	You know, I remember both my mother and my father who were lovely people,
0:16.0	who didn't come from rich backgrounds or anything and just earned what they could in reasonable jobs.
0:25.6	And they both lost their jobs in 79 to 81.
0:30.6	And they knew I was helping Thatcher.
0:34.6	And that was quite a problem.
0:36.6	And I had to say to them, you know, what she's doing has to be done because the thing is such a mess, but it's awful.
0:43.9	People like you have lost your jobs.
0:46.3	You are casualties because of what's gone before.
0:50.0	And the disaster of the 70s meant a lot of families experienced that.
0:58.4	This episode is brought to you by our least sponsor, a massive legends iron, the largest NASDAQ listed Bitcoin miner using 100% renewable energy.
1:04.8	Now they're not just powering the Bitcoin network,
1:07.4	they're also providing cutting edge computer resources for AI, all backed by renewable energy.
1:14.1	Now, my boy Danny and I have been working with their'm in good form. It's good to meet you. I am, I romanticise about old school politics.
1:48.5	The politics I didn't pay much attention to when I was in my earlier years. And now I've got into
1:53.8	politics. It feels like a big mess. Has it always been that way? And I'm just romanticising
2:00.5	or things very different now. There have always been that way and I'm just romanticising or things very different now?
2:02.8	There have always been problems in the conduct of government and the management of
2:06.3	public services and public enterprise. Governments are meant to be there to sort that out.
2:11.6	We seem to be living through a period when governments make these problems worse rather
2:14.7	than make them better. And I think the magnitude of it has just got so much bigger because government has expanded
	...

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