Subsidising trips to theme parks and free bus travel for kids.

Does this look to you like the best way to protect people on low incomes from a cost of living surge?

In a word no. We're dealing with symptoms rather than underlying causes.

Everything around Andy Burnham's rhetoric is, look what I've done in Manchester. You're also

cautious about it happening too quickly, aren't you? Surely the government has to, you know,

do loads and loads to support people through an energy crisis, dealing with these short-term

issues, even though some of them are potentially contrary to any idea of long-term growth.

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, using a very technical phrase, bugger all.

We're delighted to say that this year the rest is money is powered by Octopus Energy

and we've got Greg here.

Greg, good to see you. So oil prices are very

volatile. If they stay like that, what can we do to protect the UK economy? In the long run,

electrifications, the answer. Ever since I was a kid, we've had periodic fossil fuel shocks

and more fossil fuels aren't the long-term answer because the reality is that industry will never have spare capacity.

They wouldn't invest in stuff unless you're using it every day, which means that whenever there's a constraint on supply, prices go up.

We never used to have an alternative.

But now, with electrification, we do.

Nice one, Greg. Thanks for explaining that.

Right, we're going to go to the episode.

This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Now these days, it's all about who you work with.

...