Hello, I'm Hugo Rifkin and now we're going to be unpacking the politics of the day.

From the economic impact of the war to which parties the public thinks are pro and anti-Donald Trump,

to whether we should do more to thank military personnel for their service.

And here to help, I'm always thankful for their service.

It's the Times columnist Libby Purvis. Hello, Libby. Hello. How are you? Oh, good, thank you. Good to speak to you as always. And Times columnist and leader writer, Seb Payne. Hello, Seb. Hello, Hugo. So I'm speaking to you remotely today for a rare occasion, not beside you nestling in the studio. Nessling is a little bit creepy, but it's great to have even your voice. And the fact that neither of you are here allows me to imagine you both, for some reason, in military uniform, just in keeping of how it's working. I think Libby would of course, I think in the RAF, I can see Libby and Seb, a boy from the Navy Royal Navy. Royal Navy, well, I suppose you do have that Navy hinterland, don't you? Yeah. Well, maybe you're both in the Navy. Born in the Navy. Thank you, Hugo. I'll take that. You'll take that, yeah. It's, yeah, well, you have to. I think Seb would be in intelligence services ashore somewhere. Well, yeah. I said yeah I I that means that means own clothes. Actually, you know, that does work. Does work. Polanek jumper. Delivering milk tray, all that. Let's crack on. I want to talk about the war, but first of all, through the domestic and indeed economic prism. The looming domestic problem in the government's in tray is of course the impact of the war on our economy. Donald Trump posted on truth social saying short-term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the

destruction of the Iranian nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for

USA and world safety and peace. Only fools would think differently. I shan't spoil your fun by telling you

which words and letters there were in capitals, but let's just agree that it was a lot of them.

I asked Times columnist and economist Paul Johnson earlier if he agreed. They've quite a big price to pay.

I mean, whether it's the right price is something for the politicians to decide. But higher oil prices, that's going to have a significant negative effect on the economy.

That will probably, if it's maintained there, it'll take, I'd have thought, at least half a point of growth this year.

That's going to create problems for the public finances, and it's going to make us all worse off.

Well, look, coming to the fact, Seb, of whether or not it's a price worth paying in a moment, it is nonetheless a heavy price. It's bad for all of us. It's bad for Kirstehmus government because their big plan in 2026 was to lower bills and make us all feel better off. Do you have a bit of sympathy for them? I sort of do in this instance, there's reason to and to not have sympathy.

The reason to have sympathy is that Sam's going to find himself in exactly the same position

Liz Truss was in 2022 when there was an energy price shock following the war in Ukraine.

And one of the reasons, apart from her own sheer incompetence, that her premiership

collapsed was the fact that she had to do this massive energy relief package that cost

£100 billion. It wasn't properly scorecarded. The Office for Budget Responsibility in the

market, through their hands in the air, said, oh, we don't like this. Well, the rest is history,

as they say. So I think we're really much back

into that situation. The problem is that our public finances are in a much worse state than

they were then. It's the idea that we can find £100 billion down the back of the country

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