But does this mean that actually you get to test those theories so that your point around Ireland growth could become this test of Burnham's 10-year plan?

It's a weird thing, isn't it? It's exactly like supporting England in the World Cup.

You're optimistic...

And yet every game you're just awaiting disappointment, right? It's a very similar feeling to that.

So Greater Manchester really pushed for devolution.

Howard Bernstein and Sir Richard Lees, they were the chief executive and the leader of the council for a very long period.

And there were people before them and there was a lot of people in the region who also worked alongside them.

Again, it's the government doing things in a variety of different ways.

So just talk me through the kind of the good bits and the bad bits as you see it.

Yeah, sure.

So I think I could have written more, but I did still say, like, the legacy of Thatcher is in many ways good for Britain.

So take, for example, how Liverpool City Council was run with Militant in Charge.

refusal to set a budget basically the refusal to be part of the united kingdom and that was rightly condemned by the labour party and and it was rightly um demolished by thatcher and the conservatives so there were certain things that were required that obviously she came in and she did.

And my dad always says, you knew where you were with Thatcher.

She said she was gonna come in and do what she did.

But when you look at the living standards of working people, you look at income now compared to income then you could make i think a very strong argument that for workers the pre-thatcher situation was actually a more positive one than it is now