The Mogcast, a fortnightly conversation with Jacob Rees Mogg about the topics of the day.

Welcome to the 82nd Mogast. This is Paul Goodman, editor of Conservative Home, in conversation with Jacob

Reese Mogg. If you can hear a hissing and crackling noise in the background, this is Jacob's

smokeless coal fire. Jacob, good morning. Good morning, Paul. Thank you for coming around.

We are continuing our historical or recent historical exploration.

Last time in the modcast, we did, as it were, the first half of Boris Johnson, ever-topical subject.

And in this modcast, we're going to begin by talking about Boris Johnson and the economy. So looking at where we are now, I think the tax burden in 25-26 is forecast to be 35.1% of GDP. That'll be the higher since the early

70s. If you go back further, it's really only been substantially higher post-war during

the great expansion of the state that followed.

So a question that follows that is,

how on earth has this happened and who is responsible?

How has it happened?

Well, I think it's partly a consequence of where Gordon Brown left things, that he left a tax system that was going to increase its share of the nation's wealth.

And he took a final decision to put the top road tax up to 50p, which was only ever reduced

to 45p.

I think it's happened because the Conservatives bought in quite some time ago,

the idea that government spending is a good thing.

And if you look at ministerial briefings before going on media rounds, they always say

we have spent X billion pounds on whatever it is,

as if the spending of money is in and of itself beneficial. So I think there has been a certain

willingness of thinking about government expenditure and a need ultimately to pay for it. And that has led to too much government expenditure and too much taxation.

So moving on, is it fair to say that somehow this was all Rishi Sunak's fault when he was Chancellor?

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