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www.foughture to claim this offer now. Terms apply. Thank you very much to all of you, and Steve very kindly agreed to come and chat about

leveling up, as it used to be called, pride in place, both an evolution and arguably,

we'll discover, an improvement on some of the ideas that we had in government. When I,

with Secretary of State, Steve occupies that role now,

and we'll have a conversation which will give Steve a chance to explain

what it is that the government hopes to achieve,

what they've learned from the mistakes that the previous government made.

But inevitably, we're meeting at a time when there is some political speculation about issues other than leveling up and pride in place.

And I know that all of you are a thoughtful, cerebral policy-oriented audience, because that's the type of audience the spectator has.

But, Steve, I must begin just by asking you what your reflections are in the broadest sense

about the last 48, 72 hours. Must you really ask that, Michael? In general. Well, I mean, gosh,

well, first of all, it looks really bad to the public. I think when governments do this,

and they send us to that place

down the road to take decisions and enact legislation to make their lives better and tackle

the challenges that they face. And I genuinely think it turns the public off when we turn

inward and start talking to ourselves as my party has been doing these past, these past few days.

Now, as it turns out, you know, Wes isn't mounting a leadership challenge.

...