Does Liz Truss actually have a point?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2024
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Yes, yes, yes. She crashed the economy, has blamed everyone else, made Britain a laughing stock, inflicted higher mortgage rates on millions of households, and was the shortest serving prime minister in our history. But her 49 days has spawned a 100,000 word book (be thankful she didn’t last ten years - can you imagine how long that book would be?). And it does have a central argument - that Britain has become an administrative state, with civil servants ruling the roost.
Does she have a point? We speak to John McTernan, Tony Blair's former political advisor, and Tom Fletcher, diplomat who's co-authored a report for the UCL Policy Unit on the need for Whitehall reform.
Meanwhile Rishi Sunak is likely to get his Rwanda legislation passed this week. But will getting planes off the ground happen anytime soon?
Editor: Tom Hughes
Senior Producer: Gabriel Radus
Producers: Laura FitzPatrick
Social Media Editor: Georgia Foxwell
Video Production: Rory Symon & Arvind Badewal
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.0 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.5 | Mr Speaker, I'm privileged to be the proud owner of a copy of the former Prime Minister's new book. |
| 0:19.2 | It's a rare, unsigned copy. It's quite the only |
| 0:25.7 | unsigned copy. It's quite the read. She claims the Tory party's disastrous kamikaze budget |
| 0:33.3 | that triggered chaos for millions was her words, the happiest moment of her premiership. |
| 0:40.3 | Has the primers to met anyone with a mortgage who agrees? |
| 0:45.0 | In case you couldn't work it out for yourself, |
| 0:48.5 | that was Sakeer Stama talking about Ms. Liz Truss, |
| 0:53.2 | who has a book out and a book to sell, |
| 0:55.9 | even though she is not the greatest writer on the planet. |
| 0:59.6 | She also did crash the economy. |
| 1:02.1 | She also made Britain a bit of a laughing stock around the world. |
| 1:05.7 | She didn't last as long as an iceberg lettuce, |
| 1:08.7 | and she brought a certain amount of humiliation to the Conservative Party. |
| 1:13.0 | But she has an argument in this book, which is that civil servants have gained ever more power, |
| 1:21.4 | even though they don't have the responsibility of meeting the electorate, |
| 1:25.6 | whilst MPs have responsibility, but less and less power. |
| 1:32.2 | An administrative state has been created in Britain, is her contention. |
| 1:37.8 | Might she just have a point? |
| 1:40.0 | Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:44.6 | The newsagents. The Newsagents. |
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