Hello and welcome to rock and roll politics. Thank you so much for tuning in to this weekly podcast with me, Steve Richards, wherever you are in the UK

and indeed the rest of the world. And you know what I'm going to say? As ever, we have got so

much to cram in in our time together as we reflect on and make sense of this extraordinary

political situation. Liz Truss, a new prime minister.

The only prime minister I can recall who has not had a prime ministerial honeymoon with the

electorate, indeed the exact opposite. And I must say right at the beginning, welcome to the anti-growth coalition. I think everybody

in this rock and roll politics cooperative, although they are hugely productive with all the

bread making and all the other stuff that goes on while you listen to the podcast, I think you're all

part of the anti-growth coalition because you listen to

podcasts. And, you know, I'm on this podcast and I do, I'm absolutely ticked the anti-growth coalition

membership or qualifications, even though I kind of want growth, growth, growth, to quote Liz Truss.

And some of you rightly admonish me for not focusing enough on

issues like climate change in the podcast, although we did a special on that sort of in Edinburgh

via one of the listeners there, Nick Radcliffe. But yeah, welcome to the anti-growth coalition

and the rock and roll politics cooperative. So this is what we're going to do in our time together, if it's okay with all of you.

A few notices, first of all, and then we go on to my kind of reflections.

I'm going to look at the role of the markets in inverted commas in British politics,

because although the markets are making life

hell for Liz Truss and Quasi Quarteng, they always present a huge challenge for

labour governments. The markets, again in inverted comm, are far more wary by instinct of labour

governments. And I'm going to come on to that if it's all right with all of you. Brilliant

questions on a whole range of things connected with the trust era and other matters. So yeah,

...