I'm Ed Vasey. We're going to be unpacking the politics of the day from weird whitehall and the stakeholder estate to China's condom tax and where the colour is going out of fashion.

Joining me are the times columnist Cindy U. Hello, Cindy.

Happy New Year, Ed. Happy New Year, the Year of the Horse. Yes. joining me are the Times columnist Cindy you hello Cindy happy new year

happy new year the year of the horse not not quite yet in a month and a half

February the 14th I think is Chinese New Year is that right 17th oh close enough and the

former Times diplomatic editor Michael Binion, hello Michael.

Hello, Michael.

Let's start with the stakeholder state, which is what everyone is talking about,

because Kyr Starmer's former director of strategy, Paul Ovidon,

has written in the Times today saying that the government is being held back

by the fringe obsessions of civil servants in Whitehall.

He says that this case of the British Egyptian dissident Allah Abdel Fata, who was welcome

to the UK by Kirstama last week, before tweets emerged in which Fata had called for Zionists

to be shocked, was a classic example of where Whitehall's priorities did not align with voters. And it became a bit of a joke

as the amount of civil servants and diplomats who kept raising the issue with them in the last

year. Now, Michael, this is interesting because weirdly I'm reading Tony Blair's book on leadership

because I found a free copy in the office yesterday.

And much of what Tony Blair writes is statements of the obvious, but they're obvious.

They'd still need to be stated.

And he does say, basically, that a government is judged on delivery delivery and part of the thing that sort of

annoys me I think about Paul Ovidon's article is although I think it's true uh nevertheless

it's his job it's his job to get a grip and to overrule civil servants and deliver so has he

...