[laughs]

[laughs] On what I've tried to think aloud in the blog is think about what Andy Burnham on what he said about Manchesterism and how that would guide his prime ministership, um, how that might translate into, um, his foreign policy, his trade policy, his development policy, his international stance, and his vision of U- the UK's place, um, in the world.

And it kind of seemed quite logical, uh, uh, to me that if he wants to connect all national strategy with real places, real communities impact on real people, they should also include foreign policy and international engagement, trade, energy, all of the things that you've, you've been talking about.

That has been long been a, a, a pet peeve of mine, that foreign policy is, and Laura knows this, that foreign policy is seen as this separate silo in government, that it's something that's separate from domestic policy.

That's an elite conversation, uh, that doesn't have to be explained in quite the same way as other things, that is about conversations on high, high tables in the ether, which are more about our prestige, our status, our, our influence in the world.

Global forces, um, affect everyone.

Arguably, they affect people in the kind of places that he was talking about more, uh, whether it's in food prices or fuel, supply chains of, or, or fuel, um, and, um, uh, energy security, whether it's, uh, creation of jobs, uh, the kind of jobs that will survive to 2040, 2050, not just, uh, employment.

So given the pressure that any government really faces to fall in line on defense, on alliance politics, do you think a, a Manchesterist government could really hold that line?