Ian Dunt

Fundamentally, there is a British malaise, which is a core component of our personality.

We are not a happy people.

We don't really sort of trust happiness.

And we're very suspicious of it when we see it in others.

I have to say I like that about Britain too.

That's one of the things I like about it.

Yeah, no, I find happiness and optimism quite alienating personally.

And so I don't think there's ever been a period, you know, I'm sure even like the periods that we look back on as golden ages of sort of British history, let's say like, you know, triumph over the Nazis and the creation of the NHS, you know, 45, 50.

I imagine at the time everyone was just, I know they were just complaining because when you read George Orwell or something from that period, he's not sat there going, we triumphed over the Nazis, we built the NHS.

He's saying, isn't the Labour government tedious and awful?

Why is everyone so miserable and why does nothing work?

But the reality of where we are politically in Britain

was really set starting in 2008 with the financial crash.

Very few countries have the kind of systematic problems in their economy that we have.

We have had a productivity crisis since 2008.

That's getting close to a whole generation.

Actually, to be honest, that's basically my whole working life.

The economy has just been stagnating, basically comatose on a table, rarely going into recession but never really getting out of it either.

You can't grow the pie.

So everything you give to someone, let's say you need more special educational needs provision in school, or to bolster your defence because you no longer have a reliable security partner in the US, well, that has to come from somewhere else.