Hello and welcome to Not Another One, the podcast with me Steve Richards, Miranda Green, Tim Montgomery, Ian Martin. Thank you very much for joining us. So potentially, perhaps,

this week is a big week for the British government. There has been a huge amount of talk

in British politics about economic growth. Where is it going to come from? It's the number one mission, so

called, of Kirstama's government. And this week, Rachel Reeves is going for it, tonally at least,

and in substance in part. Heathrow, given the go-ahead, airport expansion, lighter regulation in some fields, etc., etc.,

which raises all kinds of questions. The most fundamental one of all being, can government pull levers to generate growth or not?

In my view, it can and should. Just very quickly around the table. Are you, Tim,

a small status who believes actually the government has very little power over economic growth?

No, I think part of the reason why Rachel Reeves is doing her reset is part of the Trump

effect, actually. And I think what you see, I think the Saturday's front page of the Times

had Rachel Reeves really trying to buy into the sort of the optimism, the animal spirits that

Donald Trump had sort of unleashed in America. And so I do think government should have an

industrial policy. I'm someone who believes that government can make a big difference in setting the lead.

Like I think the freedom from DEI diversity policies that Trump has announced will be huge for

industry. So a lot of it is about government getting out of the way. But I do think government can have a positive role in industrial policy. But that basic thing

of having a plan, having a vision, making things happen, I think Rachel Reeves realizes she needs

to get on top of that now. Sorry, Steve, that wasn't a short answer, was it?

No, no, that's fine. And it raises lots of questions because clearly tonally, people in politics are fascinated by Trump and that sort of self-confident verve.

But what she's proposing to do is in many ways very different. And Miranda, it's interesting this. There's a history, isn't there? To governments dramatically focusing on growth.

In the early 70s, we had the dash for growth under the Heath government with his new Chancellor Barber.

It was a complete disaster.

And they had to reverse some of the things they were trying to do.

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