Quite right!: Is it time to abolish the Treasury? – Q&A
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The Spectator
4.4 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 24 November 2025
⏱️ 36 minutes
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Summary
To submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie, go to: spectator.co.uk/quiteright
This week on Quite right! Q&A: Is the Treasury still fit for purpose – or has ‘Treasury brain’ taken over Whitehall? Michael and Maddie dig into the culture and power of Britain’s most influential department, from the Oxbridge-heavy ‘Treasury boys’ to a ‘visionless’ Chancellor.
Then: after Michael’s suggestion that Piers Morgan should be the next director-general of the BBC – why, in his view, could cnly a disruptive outsider could shake the organisation out of its complacency.
Plus: the rise of ‘Mar-a-Lago face’ in US conservative politics, and whether Britain has its own aesthetic quirks – from Ozempic-thinned MPs to the enduring Labour ‘power bob’.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If you'd like to submit your questions for Quite Right, next week, you can do so at |
| 0:04.0 | spectator.com.uk, forward slash, Quite Right. |
| 0:12.4 | Hello, and welcome to Quite Right. I'm Michael Gove, editor of The Spectator. |
| 0:16.9 | And I'm Madeleine Grant, Assistant Editor and Parliamentary Sketchwriter of The Spectator. |
| 0:21.1 | This week on Quite Right questions and answers, we'll be exploring the role of the Treasury, |
| 0:26.2 | who should lead the BBC, and Maro Lagoface. |
| 0:31.4 | Is this American syndrome spreading to prove. |
| 0:44.2 | Our first question comes from anon. |
| 0:46.2 | Is the Treasury fit for purpose? |
| 0:52.3 | I think this is probably Rachel Reeves, who said as her question, cloaking her own identity. |
| 0:53.6 | And again, I suppose it provokes the initial question, |
| 0:57.2 | what is the purpose of the Treasury? So if the purpose of the Treasury is to meet all ideas |
| 1:03.8 | from other government departments and to suck its teeth and say, nah, in as persistent a way as possible, then it does its job brilliantly. |
| 1:13.6 | What the Treasury does in government is to act as the perpetual skeptic. |
| 1:18.8 | It is the enemy of innovation. |
| 1:21.9 | It is also the banisher of waste, but it is not the powerhouse for growth that I imagine this government |
| 1:30.9 | had hoped that it might be. And it hasn't been throughout its history. There have been various |
| 1:36.4 | different efforts by prime ministers to consider whether or not there should be an alternative |
| 1:40.6 | department for growth. Obviously, most notoriously, when Harold Wilson asked |
| 1:44.7 | George Brown set up the Department of Economic Affairs, and there have been efforts John Major trying |
| 1:50.1 | to make Michael Heskine a sort of counterweight to it when he was at the industry department. But they all |
| 1:55.7 | fail because the Treasury has the capacity to say no, and the Chancellor has the capacity to kibosh or stymie, |
... |
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