Can you give us a sense of what the difference in mood is like between all those at the moment? Did it feel more jubilant at the Tories than at Labour, for instance?

I think Tories and Labour are actually the more jolly side.

You have to put this into the perspective of polling and where the parties were at.

And with reform, we had that Channel 4 news investigation that completely clouded over the conference.

Obviously, Nigel Farage and co were desperate to try and keep the spirits alive, and they were doing these sort of slightly awkward jokes with business leaders about sending them to prison and so on.

um labor obviously with andy burnham now in charge there was that kind of the bounce was felt i think among party members and that sort of really quiet emotional speech from the prime minister um talking about his dad and his ideas for more state control whereas the tories were sort of the opposite again also a quite powerful speech from kemi badenock on sort of identity and really punchy remarks about reform figures um so you can see those quite striking dividing lines between each party labor really firmly in the kind of state investment public control spirits and new care service free at the point of use tories really pro-wealth that huge announcement on um you know removing inheritance tax for family homes so trying to sort of win over those kind of areas where there are in the south i guess of england where families are being dragged into paying these sort of enormous taxes um which i think is a controversial policy because some people are firmly in favor of inheritance taxes and find it unfair that families can inherit sort of giant math mentions i guess and then reform really policies for small businesses and for lower income earners you know with their sort of raising personal um the tax-free personal allowance up to 15k

on on the subject of businesses and having a presence there any business will want to go to the government's conference so labor conference that's absolutely locked in there is a bigger question and still a live question as to who is the second party i think either reform or conservatives would want to make that pitch uh to be the second party at which of their conferences did it feel like there were more businesses

Well, Labour for sure.

Do you think it's a vote winner? It's certainly something that CityM's been calling for for quite a while.

Yeah, it's an interesting one because obviously the Shadow Chancellor was part of the government under Rishi Sunak, under Liz Truss, you know, in that kind of era of the Tory government.

And it was actually Rishi Sunak, when Rishi Sunak was Chancellor, that he got rid of this sort of VAT shopping, right? It's when Tories can come to the UK, they come to London, they spend lots and then they can get their VAT.

You might have that when you go to other countries across Europe, right? and the treasury costed it as like a 540 million pound increase on so it's cost basically that relief and now the government now has it back um the hospitality industry has always like fought back you know the likes of victoria beckham have been massive opponents of it and i guess that kind of effect of reducing vat free shopping for tourists is uh really sort of rippled through the hospitality sector at a really challenging time post pandemic so the tories are a month before their big party conference are calling for it to be brought back.

When we do get to that election do you think Davey will still be leader?

So one of the most significant things that happened this weekend, Lib Dems have finally got a headline story, right? They finally made the news.

And it was actually the council, sort of a councillor in Devon, calling for Davey to go because they were sleepwalking, I think, into the next general election.

So you can feel that angst.

You were there.

I was there.

And I spoke to Layla Cunningham, who is, uh, Reform UK's London Mayor pick, and she is the candidate unless Reform and Nigel Farage turn around and say, "No, no, no." Um, so I spoke to her for half an hour.

It was the sort of first proper interview that City AM has done with her, and she's talked a lot about reducing crime in the city and, uh, sort of going after grooming gangs, for example.

But I wanted to know a bit more about her business policies.

Um, she'd sort of spoken very openly about her intention to automate tubes.

Um, so that was the first bit of interviews that I did, and the second one this week was with Sir James Cleverly.

Yeah, cost him

So have these three big brains all now got a desk in Downing Street?

No, is a straightforward answer there.

But it's a little bit more context around that.

It's Jim O'Neill we understand is having ongoing conversations, but...

Effectively, these advisors were never appointed and some of them not handed any official role.

So it is a slightly bizarre thing to do to brief out that you are appointing three economists and not appoint any at all.

So does he have a chief economic advisor? He does not...

So the first sense we might get of that is, of course, the budget.

Mauricio, it looks like even procurement rules are not immune from the vibe shift.

Yeah.

So this was trailed by Andy Burnham during his Makerfield by-election as one of the big policies he'd come in and support job creation.

John Healey, who's now the chancellor, when he was defense secretary was, was also saying, "We need to buy British, we need to support British jobs." And what they've done is they've put out this new document on social value, right? And they've stripped back all these bizarre kind of regulations that were forcing companies to report on everything from modern slavery to diversity to net zero.

And actually, we had a funny story earlier this year in CCM, which was about woke money printers, so your cash being woke because the new manufacturer was being told you have to sort of support, you know, equality or diversity or whatever it was.

But that was obviously [laughs]

Mauricio, you, you, you feel a lot older than you are right now.

[laughs] Um, but the new rules are quite interesting.

The cost of borrowing is only getting worse.

Tax hikes while Rachel Reeves has already hiked taxes by 60 billion pound- over 60 billion pounds over her last first two budgets, or s- big spending cuts.

You know, 40 billion pounds basically is the MOJ, the Ministry of Justice, and the Cabinet Office combined.

That's a, you know, it's a huge sum.

It, it's, it's basically how much government currently this year paid on disability b- benefits as well.

So, you know, we can t- you can talk about, oh, the, the best probably case for a government o- is obviously a sort of mixture probably of taxes and spending cuts.

Perhaps, you know, there's been arguments from the Liberal Democrats, for example.

And actually, p- uh, like, i- are voters gonna reward a government that much for defense spending in the same way they would with other kinds of public spending?

Uh, I suppose, what is it particularly about young people being out of work that's so corrosive to the economy? Why is it happening? Why is that number gonna potentially cross the million mark?

Let's take business' perspective first.

Um, we've heard for two years since Rachel Reeves' first budget, where you might remember the biggest tax hike was £25 billion on what, um, employers pay on national insurance, so you know, the National Insurance Contributions levy.

And hiking that by £25 billion is a tax on jobs, quite clearly.

You know, the more salaries you give out, pay more tax, and so on.

That's obviously gonna have an effect on the cost of labor.

Similarly, in the last year, the government has rolled out the Employment Rights Bill.

Low value, yeah

Is there a way that Labour MPs can stitch this up and make sure it doesn't go to the membership? Because if it goes to the membership, who are q- widely believed to be quite left wing, it's unlikely Wes Streeting would win that kind of con- contest.

So Wes Streeting's letter to the Prime Minister sort of speaks about, um, one, supporting a broad conversation, a policy debate, not about personalities.

Um, it's, it's kind of the line that you've heard from some Labour MPs saying they want a timetable, and he is opening the door there.

Because, I mean, some MPs have suggested that he doesn't have the numbers to basically, you know, do that sort of smooth transition.

But, uh, you can also actually read it in the way of Streeting actually wants to be given a platform to speak about his own ideas, and he's seen as being on the right of the party.

Maybe he'll change his tune and actually, you know, maybe strike some deals, um, with some of the more soft left members of the party.

I mean, who knows? Um, we're not even at that stage yet of a leadership election.

And to what extent does it actually factor in the war in Iran?

... who aren't tuned in so much to politics, fiscal headroom is essentially her emergency fund, right? The difference between what we take in and what we spend.

Yeah.

So when we talk about headroom, is we're talking about a slightly different area because that's kind of what the government says.

It, they, they base their figure on the current budget, which is basically rather than the sort of capital investment, um, it's a sort of day-to-day spending.

And I, I went and asked economists, you know, using this OBR sort of analysis that's been done in the past, what does that mean actually today for Rachel Reeves' headroom? And they said, well, Rachel Reeves le- left headroom of about 24 billion pounds.

Um, that's what the figure was, um, in March, just as the war broke out.

And now the headroom has probably been knocked off by about 10 billion pounds because of their interest payments being higher.

Uh, just finally, uh, we have a new piece of data out today from the group Moneyfacts on, uh, mortgage bills that they're expecting, uh, to see jump due to Trumpflation if this stuff gets any worse.