Hello and welcome to The Rest is Money with me, Robert Pestan.

I'm delighted to be joined today by Lord O'Neill, Jim O'Neill, Chair of Northern Gritstone,

very distinguished economist, friend of the show.

The reason I wanted to talk to you today is because, you know, one of, like ours, one of your big obsessions is how do we get the growth rate up in this country and how do we make sure that different parts of the country benefit in a fair way from whatever growth can be generated. We've got

terrible inequalities in this country, including regional inequalities. We had this very unusual,

genuinely unusual speech yesterday by the Chancellor. Unusual because we are three weeks before our budget, and this is going to be a very important budget.

She called a bunch of journalists, including myself, to this briefing room they have in Downing Street,

and she gave a speech which she billed as setting out the economic background for the budget.

Now, this isn't the first time that chancellors have given speeches in the run-up to a budget,

but it is definitely the first time in living memory where a chancellor has very publicly said,

I want the world to know what I think of as being the sort of really important economic borrowing fiscal

background to my budget. So it was unusual. So I suppose I just want to ask you,

somebody who watched it, what did you make of it? I mean, it was exceptionally unusual. So

drag us all out of bed so early for what I think is normally something

a kind of Prime Minister normally does in dramatic circumstances is amazing. So they have raised

expectations pretty spectacularly, in my opinion, that something big is coming on Budget Day.

And for the way I've been thinking,

and I think we've talked about before,

it certainly led to my imagination at least,

exploring the idea that this is get real moment,

possibly for all political leaders in this country,

about we're finally going to start dealing

...