Liam Halligan

I want to bring someone else into the conversation, if I may.

Liam Halligan is an economist, broadcaster, journalist, and director of the Center for Policy Studies.

What does history show as to the idea of countries that introduce wealth taxes? Liam Halligan, good morning.

They've generally been introduced by center-left governments, Nick, then they've generally been unintroduced because they haven't worked.

France is the most famous example.

Thanks as ever.

We go back to Claire.

Liam Halligan, economist and director of the Center for Policy Studies, journalist and broadcaster.

Hello.

And me, Liam Halligan.

Andy Burnham's turning back the clock.

Not only does the Prime Minister want Britain back to the status 1970s when the music was good but the economy was a mess, he now also wants to reopen the Brexit debate in a bid to shore up a potential traffic light coalition with the Lib Dems and the Greens by attempting to take Britain back into the European Union.

[laughs] Well, talking of which, we saw the girlfriend, the celebrity girlfriend, out in a Dolly Parton outfit this week, didn't we?

[laughs]

And my other half said, "It's Liam Penny Rogers."

[laughs]

Hello.

And me, Liam Halligan.

There's a battle of ideas now looming in British politics, co-pilot, with Andy Burnham's Labor Party pushing to expand an already bloated and chronically unaffordable state even more.

The Tories, meanwhile, after spending too many years talking right but governing left, are now at least espousing traditional conservative values.

We get a lot of gas through the Langeled pipeline, which is the lu- one of the longest undersea pipelines in the world from Norway to the northeast of England, yeah.

So he was saying that if Burnham doesn't give the green light to the Jackdaw field, then no one's gonna invest in the United Kingdom.

So as you say, joking aside, it is pretty grim, and also, 'cause I've been digging down into it of course, and now I've got rid of my diesel car, but the number of refineries we've shut, Liam, we are woefully under provisioned with backup really, aren't we?

We've gone from 18 refineries to four in the last two decades.

[upbeat music] Hello, welcome to Coffee House Shots.

I'm James Heale, and I'm joined today by Tim Shipman, the political editor of The Spectator, Liam Halligan, The Telegraph columnist and new director of the Centre for Policy Studies.

Now, Tim, for this week's issue, you've done the cover story interviewing Kemi Badenoch.

There's been some policy in there suggesting under 25s could have their benefits cut if they don't go back to work.

That, at least, is the theory anyway.

Now, later in the show, I'll speak once again to economist Liam Halligan.

But first, let me try to make sense of what's happening and what's at stake here.

There is no question a looming diesel crisis, uh, with the prospect of spiking prices, or even though they're already at elevated levels, uh, the potential for actual shortages perhaps, and it threatens Europe in general, as well as Latin America and Asia, but Europe in general, and the United Kingdom in particular.

So time for the government to understand what's happening, exactly what should be done or could be done in the time remaining.

Well, so much time has already been wasted, but that's another matter.

Joining me now is Liam Halligan, economist and author of, uh, the Substack called "When the Facts Change." Liam, welcome back to The Andrew Neil Report.

Always a pleasure to have you and your expertise.

And then finally, for businesses, the cost of borrowing is also likely to go up as a result of it, which means that they'll have less money to spend investing on projects, hiring people, et cetera.

cetera.Now, um, Liam Halligan, a respected economist, head of the Center for Policy Studies, he's got an interesting post on Twitter today, quite a long post, where he says, "Unless we drastically change course, this could turn into a fully blown market meltdown." He says, "At that point, the UK government won't be able to borrow enough money to finance our already spiraling debt interest bill." Um, and then he paints a picture of essentially a financial Armageddon which could result in Britain having to go to the IMF for another bailout.

I mean, we did that 50 years ago.

Do you subscribe to those views, that, that we are on the precipice of a, a, something that could be economically even worse for our economy than the financial crash?

Hello.

And me, Liam Halligan.

I say, I say, I say, co-pilot Pearson, why did the Scarecrow win an award?

Because he was outstanding in his field.

And even co-pilot Pearson had noticed that the price of diesel was accelerating rather alarmingly.

So finally, today took delivery of the new Petrol BMW.

So the diesel was gone just in the nick of time, Liam, because it's not funny, is it? It's whatever it is.

Did you have to pay for it to be taken away or did some mug actually give you money for it? It's on one of those, you know, rollover lease things.