Hello and welcome to Ways to Change the World. I'm Krishnamgaru Murthy and this is the

podcast in which we talk to extraordinary people about the big ideas in their lives and

the events that have helped shape them. My guest this week is very much about ideas

because he's the director of the centre-right think tank onward. But before that Sebastian

Payne was a journalist, principally for the Financial Times and he's written two books,

one about the Red Wall and how that went to the Conservatives and another about the

fall of Boris Johnson which is subtitled the full story which we can explore a little

bit. But Seb thank you very much indeed for joining us. I mean you've gone from journalism

into ideas and policy and I wonder whether it's a bit of what Boris Johnson said about

leaving journalism which is nobody puts statues up to journalists. I think the reason

that I made the jump first of all it was a great opportunity first of all to take over

onward but fundamentally I've spent 12 years as a political journalist seven at the Financial

Times and I kind of look at where the country is now and just think there's a doth of

big ideas. People are not looking about how to fix these big problems and a lot of the

media debate has become quite small-minded in terms of the ups and downs focusing on just

horse rate of who's up who's behind and I think when the opportunity came along to take over

as director of a preeminent centre-right think tank which values align with my values I felt like

you couldn't possibly turn down this idea because if you've got people who are not exploring

these bigger problems and challenges with the country then no one will and having done political

journalism yes of course Christian like you're observing from the sidelines from the press gallery

from the newsroom and you look at people who are trading in the ideas day to day and of course

a part of you think well actually I would like to get a bit stuck into that and have you

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