Rishi Sunak's is 'insane' to blame Liz Truss | Lionel Barber and Flic Everett

Obviously it's a bit like a sinking ship, right? I think she's in trouble, she knows she's in trouble. Every poll suggests that the Tores are not going to win the next election no matter what they do, and I think the fact that people are jumping around shouting prayers as they go is some sort of indication that things They are not well here. There's a lot to talk about this morning with writer and frequent contributor to the Everett movie, the Good Morning movie, Hello, Morning, and former editor of the In the studio is Lionel Barber, Good morning, Lionel, Good morning, Now They're going to talk about Sunak Hospital Pass, the future of water and whether it's time to stop and accept that we don't want to split up too. from our smartphones, yeah, let's start with rishy suak and his interview with William Hay, the former Conservative leader who is much better known as a Times radio panelist at this time of a Tuesday, which is what he's really famous for.

I think Rishi Sunuk has held out so far. need to

blame

his predecessors for his problems, but maybe he is changing TX slightly. He's been speaking to William for his first interview for the Times History podcast. Let's hear Rishi Sunak give his own explanation of why things are a bit complicated. I think someone described it as the worst hospital pass for any incoming PM in many decades and it was clearly FR. We've been through a lot of frustrations as a country in recent years, which makes understandably frustrated people make the environment more difficult. but I think I'm completely confident that there are better times ahead and despite the challenges that the country has been through, whether it's Covid, whether it's the pandemic, the impact of that on everyone and, just as we were recovering from that, being hit by a war. in Ukraine and the impact on energy bills it's a difficult movie, it's a difficult movie from a few years ago, is it possible for Rich Sak to make some electoral gains by blaming his predecessor because the argument is of course that it didn't work with Liz Truss like when? she was prime minister, but he served as B Johnson's chancellor.

Is there any argument you can make here that will be successful when you say, well, I just got given an impossible job? I don't think it's ever good. The idea is to start by blaming the former owner. I think the initial feeling among the electorate who heard that would be good: you ran for the job you wanted to be prime minister, you know it's your job to get us out of this, not to complain about what we're in um it's a bit like when this government he complained about not having money when they came in you know, it's like well we wouldn't start from here but here we are um and we're going to do the best we can and I don't think anyone likes a leader who relies on victimhood or who suggests that they were dealt a bad hand, that could be the case, no one would want to come after Liz Truss, let's be honest, but I think as he is the sitting Prime Minister he should say I did my best, you know I wanted to be Prime Minister .

I felt like I could order the country and if I haven't managed it, it's my fault instead of saying oh, it wasn't me, you know? Let me fall. I didn't have the tools. If you want to be prime minister, you have to accept that it is your job to bring the tools. I guess I'm wondering if this ultimately comes down to 14 years and ultimately whatever it is. he says or says that he is going to carry the can for 14 years and that is a very, very long time in politics where many things will have gone wrong by definition, firm with Stig, you are asking me to feel sorry for him, I mean, are you asking me to feel sorry for him? who is advising the Prime Minister, this is crazy.

I mean, he's not going to get anywhere by essentially blaming his predecessor by saying it's such a difficult job. What you have to do is say what you are going to do about it. I mean, I think it's fair to talk. about unexpected events, a war in Ukraine, a once-in-a-century pandemic, that's fine, but blaming it on the hospital pass, plus, you know, he asked saying he wanted to do the job, so I'm afraid. I think this is a losing strategy, what strategy would you suggest then? Because this is the problem. Because we have a lot of people reaching out and they've gotten a little heated as the morning goes on, but they're actually still effectively saying you're trying to be competent.

I think he's competent and I think he's extremely hard-working and I think he's a decent, very decent man and he's doing a difficult job, but what he has to do is make sense of two things, one by one. How do I get paid for this advice? But no, but he always listens at 9 actually, so he's listening. I'm going to tell Asma. What you have to do is say wait a minute, patience, everyone is in such a hurry, let's think about it. where we're headed I've given the country a sense of direction and as he hinted, things are getting better, inflation is going down, the interest rate has arrived, interest rates are going to be reduced, even though it's competent, um. be in terms of his um his personnel selection, should we say his personnel?

I'm, I'm just drawing to write a list there Dominic Rob swella braan Lee Anderson, they weren't, they were his people and he appointed them and they all had to go well, it's a very thin bench, I mean, after 14 years, half of the party has its judgment, its judgment, although well, as I said, yes you know, you always hope that if you run a sports team or a newspaper you know who is on the bench and the fact is that after this is where it comes in at stake the Point of 14 years plus Brexit, where a lot of people are just marginalized, you don't really have much talent and by the way, I'm sorry for him, you know, it's Tuesday, who resigned today, well, there you go, exactly , what about personnel problems?

What is going on with them? I mean, yeah, it's obviously a bit like a sinking ship, right? I think he's in trouble, he knows he is. In trouble, all the polls suggest that the Tores are not going to win the next election no matter what they do and I think the fact that people are jumping around shouting prayers as they go is some sort of indication that the things are not like that. well, but I don't think as Prime Minister you can dwell on that too much, I mean, in public, you have to suggest that everything is fine, you are competent, you are in control, if people want to leave, that's up to them, but in in a healthy government it is not possible for people to leave and go to rival parties, and I think the fact that this is happening to such an extent, particularly lately, is very alarming for him and it is also very destabilizing for the government like Bueno , someone has summarized this in a text.

What's wrong with Rishi, the conservative party? um, which I think the answer is very much, yeah, well, that's exactly the problem. Would you advise him to have elections? um L because it seems like it's impossible. question also because you correctly preached patience for things to improve, but still, the May elections will take place, they will probably get an absolute shoe, the level of complaints within the conservative party will be higher and higher and the greater the possibility of more resignations, more defections, a summer of discontent and then elections, some people might say, do you know how horrible that looks now?

Just wait, wait until November. You'd better remove the cast in May or June. Would you be on that side? of the plot or would it be your patience to say wait until as long as possible, so I think this is what they call in Opera the intestinal demon kind of solution, let's do it directly in the flames, not many people think. that a lot of people, well, no and you're going to have the same leadership conspiracies and plots, um and of course it must be enormously frustrating for him, but I would say take it seriously so you can play the expectation game that's going to happen. trigger.

It will be difficult, then it will struggle over the summer as maybe the economic evidence improves a little, then everyone will go on holiday and then they will prepare for a snap election in October and I just hope they know that things will get a little better. tangible evidence, but that's what I'd play for, but hey, I'm not going to run the government, no, no, now you're running the con l, I want an election in October, what's your advice? No, we're going to be arguing about this. in the because I think we're going, I think you know that if they can't win the elections in May, they won't win them in October either.

I don't want them to win on a personal level and I don't think the country wants them to win, so I think it's better to get this over with, give the workers the summer to settle in assuming they're the winners and you know. , use the time as conservatives to regroup and resolve what went wrong. I mean, it's been 14 years and that's too long for a single government to be in power; In my opinion, it always goes wrong at that moment, so I think there is no point in prolonging the agony; it might be better for rishy

sunak

but it's definitely not better for the electorate nor For the country it will be interesting to see if the bold Sunak like you said, Lano can really take the local elections if they are bad on the chin and make it to October or November, but we'll see.

We could talk about this for half an hour. We could not. I just wanted to say that, um, I was advising Richy soon. I would prefer to have elections sooner. Okay, okay, fair enough, everyone has their own personal reasons, right? them by when they won an election Ali says I don't have the luxury of time when it comes to waiting for Sunak's plans to take shape my bills are getting bigger and I tell councils or companies that I will say when things improve in two or three years or I'll pay actually when things get better in two or three years it won't work uh right, let's talk about T's Water now because that's a really great story uh this morning, the shareholders of T's Water which is the water company largest in the country announced that they will not invest any new money, they were supposed to invest £500 million by the end of March, but now they have said that the company's recovery plan is not investable um Lina, what do you think of what? is happening and do you think shareholders can be persuaded or not?

No, no, I don't think they are going to contribute extra money. They want the company and therefore the regulator to also increase water bills. at something like a massive 40% to fund investment in the waterways and cleanup, which they should have done years ago, so I think there is a total stalemate, there are two conclusions here, one is that privatization was a Total disaster, there was a totally ineffective regulator and the private equity companies loaded this, these public services with debt, they took dividends and the public interest which was to have an efficient and adequate water supply was ignored, so I don't think the water of T goes bankrupt, but I think you're going to have a stalemate uh and they yeah, they're going to have to find some way to raise the money somewhere else you think this isn't going to be popular but you think we? that at some point consumers may have to pay more because it has historically been undervalued, that's an argument, isn't it?

I'm not sure that's been undervalued, I mean, given the service and given the amount of wastewater that flows in the in the water historically um, you know, I guess I'm not sure that's the case. I would say the problem was that shareholders and private equity firms took out too much money in terms of dividends and by the way, this was an exercise in financial engineering. I don't want to confuse everyone with talk about securitization and stuff, but that was the model: You basically had reliable cash flow and you could take big dividends and accumulate debt at a time when interest rates were high. very low and of course interest rates went up again, that's where the whole model broke down, so I'm afraid you know it's a very telling story about bad policies, bad regulation, it's a