Hello and welcome to another election special episode of Politics Theory Other, a podcast from Tribune magazine.

My guest today is Will Davies. We spoke about the Conservatives' response to Labour's policy on free,

full fibre broadband, where the Boris Johnson really is the great campaigner his admirers claim he is,

and we also discussed Labour's messaging around taking on the billionaires.

If you've been finding these election special episodes interesting and useful,

please think about becoming a supporter of the show.

You can become a supporter for $3 a month, which is just over £2,

and by becoming a supporter, you'll get access to extended versions of lots of PTO shows,

including today's interview. You can find the Patreon page at patreon.com forward slash

poll theory other. Will Davies is reader in political economy at Goldsmiths. He's the author of

the happiness industry, the limits of neoliberalism, and his most recent book, Nervous

States, How Feeling Took Over the World, which we discussed in episode 27.

I began the interview by asking Will whether he thought that the reaction of the Conservatives

and much of the media to Labour's announcement on rolling out free full fibre broadband by 2030,

which included talk of maxing

out the country's credit card and articulating the economy as akin to a household with the

idea of needing to balance income and outgoings still resonated with the public in the way

that it did during the years of the coalition government. Well, I think one thing that's happened, particularly as a result of Brexit,

but also as a result of the lies that George Osborne told about how austerity would work

and how it would benefit the economy and benefit most people,

is that in some sense, the whole notion of economic rationality and of doing what is common sense in relation to economics has almost sort of departed our politics, I think.

And I mean, the conservatives are signed up to a policy that is expected to have a pretty disastrous effect on macroeconomic growth over the next few years,

...