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S4 Episode 22: In conversation with Ryan Wain, Executive Director of Politics at the TBI.
44 Plays1 month ago
Today we are joined by Ryan Wain, Executive Director of Politics at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. Tune in to hear us discuss the work of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, and their plan for digital ID's.
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Transcript
Introduction with Ryan Wayne
00:00:00
John Gartside
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Debatable Discussions podcast.
00:00:01
Dejan
Thank you.
00:00:05
John Gartside
Today we are very lucky to be joined by Ryan Wayne again, and we have a very exciting episode ahead.
00:00:12
Dejan
For those of you who don't know, Ryan is the executive director for the Tony Blair Institute, which is a UK based, but an international operating think tank changing the world.
00:00:23
Dejan
But most importantly, Ryan is also the first ever guest on this podcast. And now a year later and 50 episodes later as well, he's back. Thank you so much for coming.
00:00:33
Ryan
My absolute pleasure and what year it's been for all of us, right?
00:00:37
John Gartside
Yeah.
00:00:37
Dejan
Yeah.
00:00:38
John Gartside
Yeah. And so much has happened since we last talked to you.
What is the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change?
00:00:42
John Gartside
But before we sort of get into that, for our listeners who don't know, we were wondering if you could summarise the work of the Tony Blair Institute's
00:00:51
Ryan
Sure. So look, it's the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. And would say we do two things, really. One is that we work with leaders right across the world.
00:01:03
Ryan
We are in fewer countries, I think, than your podcast has been. We're in 45. think you guys were in about 60 by our last count.
00:01:10
John Gartside
Thank
00:01:10
Ryan
But working at the highest level of government and supporting leaders to make change happen, deliver for their people. And then the bit that I run is the think tank side. So, again, the focus is on leaders.
00:01:23
Ryan
They're our audience, but we're developing big, transformative, bold ideas for the future of their countries, and we have a specific focus on the UK and a specific programme of work focused on the UK that we call the future of Britain.
00:01:39
Ryan
Sitting alongside those ideas is also analysis to try and understand why we are where we are. And then I guess we're developing the ideas to do something about that. The thing that unites both sides of that, the thing that makes the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change what it is, is the Tony Blair bit.
00:02:00
Ryan
So Tony's my boss and there's a set of values and a politics that comes with that. But also this commitment to look into the future, look at all of the changes that are coming down the line and trying to harness those both for the leaders that we work with and for those ideas that we develop. And we have this central platform, this idea of the reimagined state to really try and rethink the sort of paradigms, if you like, of what we have in play now in order to really start to transform countries that we work in.
Global Projects of the Institute
00:02:30
Dejan
What are some of the countries you work in and what are the policies that you've come apart from the UK, which we're going to get into just a bit later in a lot more detail?
00:02:38
John Gartside
Okay.
00:02:40
Ryan
Yeah, so look we work variety of different countries in different regions. If I was to pick a couple of examples, so we supported Senegal during the pandemic on vaccine manufacturing.
00:02:56
Ryan
So that's a big old project in and of itself and getting a manufacturing plant set up. can draw a line from there to Malawi. And in Malawi, we supported them on getting satellite internet set up.
00:03:10
Ryan
So it was a long conversation in a country like Malawi about how do we get internet access to everyone. We recognised a growing technology in Starlink were able to broker a partnership that saw them get access to internet, high-speed internet, which started to transform some of their public services.
00:03:29
Ryan
And then you move across to Europe, and we work with Albania, for example, and do a whole host of projects there with Eddie Rama, the Prime Minister.
00:03:30
Dejan
So,
00:03:41
Ryan
So it's varied, it keeps us busy, and it's great because it gives us a real source of insight into what's happening now. around the world you start to see the issues that are actually quite common between different countries and indeed different continents.
00:03:56
Ryan
But you also get to see some of those differences as well play out.
Digital ID Initiative and Controversy
00:04:00
John Gartside
Oh, wow. And sort of closer to home in the UK, the Tony Blair Institute has received quite a lot of attention recently. And it's following on, Ryan, from what you said about your role sort of formulating policy, am I right?
00:04:13
Dejan
Right.
00:04:14
John Gartside
And that was mainly around your idea and the Institute's idea for digital IDs.
00:04:14
Dejan
And that was mainly around the idea of the issues like digital ID.
00:04:19
John Gartside
And think the nature of social media sort of exaggerated it unfairly, I suppose.
00:04:20
Dejan
And I think the nature of social media is that they're not very exposed.
00:04:25
John Gartside
So what is the importance of digital IDs and how would they work?
00:04:27
Dejan
So it's important that digital ID can come with a bit of work.
00:04:29
Ryan
Yeah, I think we might have spoken about digital IDs on the podcast we did a year ago.
00:04:34
Dejan
Yeah.
00:04:34
Ryan
So amazing, really, that it's an idea whose time has come, and for good reason.
00:04:34
Dejan
So,
00:04:38
Ryan
So remember that phrase I used before about reimagining the state and thinking differently about how government interacts with its citizens, how government provides services?
00:04:42
Dejan
Thank you.
00:04:51
Ryan
think a digital ID is absolutely key to that.
00:04:54
Ryan
And what a digital ID will allow us to do is start to move towards public services that are bit more data driven and as a result become much more personalized, much more efficient and over time this is really ambitious, preventative as well.
00:05:17
Ryan
So you can imagine how that could play out in something like health but even in education and welfare. But we say about a digital ID that it basically In a nutshell, it needs to make life as difficult as possible for people who shouldn't be here and life as easy as possible for people who should.
00:05:36
Ryan
And the government launched it, or at least introduced the idea of it, attached to the immigration debate. I think they alighted on a really important insight that one of the reasons why we are losing control of our borders, which whatever your view is on immigration, not controlling your borders is never a good thing for a nation state.
00:05:59
Ryan
One of the reasons why we've lost control of our borders is that there is a real draw into the UK because of what we call our shadow economy. People are able to slip into the informal labour market. What we say about digital ID and what the government's correctly alighted on is that it will make enforcement of illegal working a lot more effective, but also it will shut down illegal living So all of the things that sit around people who come to the country, who work legally, who maybe want to send money home or want to access public services, you'll be able to shut that down quite quickly with a digital ID.
00:06:31
Ryan
But the big opportunity is around that transformation of public services. And, you know, from a simple thing about proving who you are at the moment, in a lot cases, if you want to prove your identity, you have to do quite a manual way.
00:06:46
Ryan
If a passport or a driver's license, I've taken to someone in real life. or more often than not photocopying it, scanning it, sending it to someone over email.
00:06:57
Ryan
And that's a really insecure way of sharing your data.
00:07:01
Ryan
And John, you mentioned about the online debate around digital ID.
00:07:05
Ryan
It has been a little bit crazy and our opponents have moved straight to big brother, George Orwell, they've moved to dystopia. And look, there are, of course, legitimate concerns around all of this, and need to be addressed in design of it.
00:07:21
Ryan
But I do think fundamentally this is about making life more easier and more effective for citizens, and think they're desperate for it, to be honest.
00:07:29
Dejan
I think you've mentioned something really interesting there, and it's the sort of the way that the government has linked this with the immigration debate, but also the fact that a lot of the criticism of digital ideas has come from the sort of faction of society, if I can say that, that is quite passionate about the immigration debate.
00:07:29
John Gartside
See,
00:07:50
Dejan
Why do you think this is? It's sort of, it's a bit counterintuitive, at least to me, that The people complaining about sort illegal immigration the most are also the ones that are most against this idea that would seem to at least alleviate, if not fix the whole issue.
00:08:06
Ryan
Yeah, I think this is a great question, and there's a lot of ways we could take First of all, I think a lot of people have an anxiety and a grievance around immigration, both illegal immigration, for obvious reasons, going back to that point around securing your borders, but also around things like integration and pressure on public services.
00:08:32
Ryan
They are legitimate grievances, and it's a job of politics. to provide solutions. And that's what worries me. I think your question picks up beautifully. There is a growing wing of politics, particularly on the right, right-wing populism, that seems to really want to speak to that grievance, that legitimate grievance, that anxiety.
00:08:54
Ryan
And they're not inventing those grievances, but they are exploiting them. And they're exploiting them by putting up a mirror and reflecting the anger back. but they're not providing solution. And I think there is something about this being a genuine solution that means that it sort of scares them a little bit.
00:09:12
Ryan
Because the minute that mainstream politics starts to offer solutions to these grievances, a little bit of wind and fuel falls out sails of those populists.
Media Influence and Political Challenges
00:09:21
Ryan
And I've been doing a lot media around this.
00:09:24
Ryan
I urge you to dig it out. I did an interview on Radio 5 couple of weeks back. And it was debate with Owen Jones, who obviously comes from the left, And Owen, in his usual sort of excitable way, was setting out why this was opening the door to, I think he referred to the Stasi at one point, so the secret police.
00:09:47
John Gartside
Be right.
00:09:49
Ryan
And those guys did not need a digital ID in order to become an authoritarian, awful government. And I said to him, Owen, you know, I...
00:10:01
Ryan
I actually can't work out your politics at the moment because he was also saying we're on the verge of electing a Trump-like figure in this country and putting this tool in their hands, digital ID, will allow them to run riot over Britain.
00:10:18
Ryan
And said to him, Owen, you're on the same side as the Trump-like figure talking about, which I assume is Nigel Farage.
00:10:24
John Gartside
Thank
00:10:25
Ryan
And it's just so interesting to see populists on the left, of which unfortunately Owen, who's written some great books in the past, by the way, probably belongs to that camp, along with Nigel Farage, who belongs to that camp, how they have just become united in this politics of grievance, of anger, of worry, of concern.
00:10:46
Ryan
And I think we've got to be in the business of providing solutions and answers. But that's really hard because we have a media climate that is fragmented and nuance and credibility don't travel that far, but it requires a new type of politics, I think.
00:11:06
Ryan
And even being totally honest, I think we're still trying to figure that out, what that looks like at this moment in time.
00:11:11
John Gartside
And I think that's a really interesting idea because as you said there, there has been this just, especially around immigration, this huge rejection of mainstream politics.
00:11:16
Dejan
this
00:11:22
John Gartside
We see it with Raj, he's just totally capitalizing on these grievances and there is a solution for it here, which legitimizes this idea of, I suppose, being a British citizen.
00:11:33
John Gartside
But I don't know, is Nigel against the policy? I'd assume simply because it's a mainstream thing, which it's sort it's a better headline to be against, suppose, for him.
00:11:43
Ryan
It is, but I also think one of the watchouts for reform, who are ahead in the polls and are commanding popular support, one of the watchouts for them, and if I was advising them, which I'm absolutely not, and I don't mean they'd accept my advice anyway, they've got to be so careful to not bring what is an online fringe wing of their movement into the mainstream.
00:12:04
Dejan
you
00:12:11
Ryan
And I think They've listened to that wing a little bit too much on digital ID, and so they're crying dystopia. But also, you saw at their conference, right, a couple of weeks back now, that they gave a platform to a guy who basically linked the COVID vaccine to the royal family getting cancer.
00:12:30
Ryan
They did that on the stage at the reform conference. And I just think they've got to steer a steady path if they're going to bring normal people along with them to basically shed that.
00:12:40
John Gartside
Thank you.
00:12:42
Ryan
that mainstream bit of their party and their politics. If they can do that, think it puts them in an interesting place. But I think they do feel a little bit beholden to them. I think that probably shapes how they turn up to debates like digital
Labour's Language Policy and Austerity
00:12:54
Ryan
lighting.
00:12:55
Dejan
Another thing that stirred up quite a bit of media attention is this policy that the Labour Party is trying to implement, which is that immigrants should have a sort of A-level like English sort of level.
00:13:10
Dejan
Is the TBI involved in that? Are you advising on current sort of policies across the board or are you sort of a bit more specialised to issues here and there?
00:13:21
Ryan
Yes, and we're not involved in that specific policy, but I can give a personal view on this. The idea of people who come to Britain needing to speak English.
00:13:32
Ryan
I think this is one where you can have an honest conversation with the public. So during the austerity years, one of the things that was cut by the Conservative-led government was ESOP.
00:13:45
John Gartside
you
00:13:47
Ryan
ISOL is an abbreviation technical term for basically teaching English to people who don't speak it as their first language. And so you got rid a lot of the supply of English teaching for people who had come to the country and couldn't speak English.
00:14:01
Dejan
Thank you.
00:14:04
Ryan
Now, I, on one level, understand that. You know, if you've got to tighten your braces, then it probably makes political sense to say we're going to cut something that has been provided to people who...
00:14:16
Ryan
have come into the country as migrants, you know, you guys are smart to see the political appeal of that. But fast forward a few years and where we are now is that we do have large swaves of people who have came to Britain legally who don't speak English.
00:14:34
John Gartside
you
00:14:36
Ryan
And I think that's a massive problem. I think I'm on from the progressive side of politics. I want people speaking a common language. I think we should be proud of this country. And think it makes total sense that people speak English, that we have a national language.
00:14:53
Ryan
And think that matters from an economic perspective, because it means that more people can be involved in the workforce. It matters from a public service perspective.
00:15:06
Ryan
You know, you want to have one language that people are able to interact with. It matters from an economic perspective and a spending perspective. don't want to spend a load of money on translation, that sort of thing.
00:15:18
Ryan
But also matters from a cultural perspective as well. If we speak a common language, then we can better integrate and, you know, recognise our differences, but also be part of the whole, the nation state moving in the same direction. I think that's really, really important. I think that progressives should aspire to.
00:15:36
Ryan
I think you can have a nuanced conversation with the public.
00:15:37
Dejan
you know, you want to continue the board.
00:15:38
Ryan
I think you can say English, speaking English should be a requirement.
00:15:38
Dejan
I think you're saying English, English field clients.
00:15:43
Ryan
But on the flip side, we are going to have English language provision so that people are expected to learn it, but have the means of learning it as well.
00:15:43
Dejan
You're not going to have English, English, English,
00:15:54
Ryan
And I sometimes feel that's one of the things that's gone out of our politics.
00:15:58
Ryan
We love a bit of a, we love a soundbite. We love a headline. And what we're missing is those actual solutions that sit underneath that.
00:16:09
Ryan
There's inspiration to be drawn from abroad.
00:16:11
Ryan
I mean, again, sticking with the immigration debate, you look something like Denmark. Denmark is very strict on asylum seekers and very strict on illegal immigration. They have some really, really tough measures in Denmark, but they're led by a centre-left government. So like the Labour Party here, they're led by a left-leaning government, and they've introduced those strict measures.
00:16:35
Ryan
But they also still spend 0.7% of their GDP on international development.
00:16:40
Dejan
national development.
00:16:41
Ryan
And what they say to the public is, look, we will be really tough on asylum seekers. Our borders will be watertight. People who come here illegally won't have the red carpet rolled out to them. In fact, they're going to find Denmark a very difficult place to navigate.
Nigel Farage's Political Influence
00:16:57
Ryan
And we will have measures in place that will deport these people. But at the same time, we also recognise... why these people are coming to Denmark in the first place. There are economic drivers, environmental drivers, security drivers in their home countries.
00:17:13
Ryan
So let's spend 0.7% on GDP, not to build an international development arm that we can all feel good about ourselves and think about Denmark's place in the world, but where we can really, really think about how we can mitigate some of those issues at source.
00:17:20
John Gartside
Thank you.
00:17:27
Ryan
And I think that's where I want see our politics go to, where we can hold two thoughts in our head at the same time,
00:17:32
Ryan
It's solution-based, and we're going honest conversation about the policies that we need in order to be the country that we want to be, both internationally and domestically.
00:17:42
John Gartside
And I think about that language requirement, I can understand why Sakhir introduced it, because as you said there, Ryan, it's vital for integration. And that's where a lot of this anger surrounding immigration has come about.
00:17:55
John Gartside
It's about this lack of integration.
00:17:56
Dejan
Oh, right.
00:17:58
John Gartside
And in the UK, I think we've got the lowest, we're country in Europe with the lowest percentage of people who speak a second language. So it's totally essential almost that you speak the English language for many jobs or for any sort of manner of integration.
00:18:06
Ryan
Yeah.
00:18:13
John Gartside
But carrying on with that earlier, I guess, subjects of Nigel Farage we talked about, from a policy perspective, which you at the TBI analyze, do you think he's a lot of promise but sort of lacks in performance?
00:18:29
Ryan
Nigel Farage.
00:18:30
John Gartside
Yes, yeah, and his policies.
00:18:33
Ryan
I think he's an excellent politician. And I mean that from a technical point of view, in the way that you look at a footballer and say they've got a set of skills and they're really good at playing football.
00:18:43
Ryan
I think he's a great communicator. I think he tells stories. think he connects with people. And do think he demonstrates leadership in quite a narrow sense, but it's leadership nevertheless, in that he is taking people with him.
00:18:58
Ryan
And I think there's a lot to learn on the progressive side. from that, frankly. But I also judge my politicians not just on their technical skills and their ability to communicate, but their substance and their ideas and their visions and their ambitions.
00:19:09
Dejan
Thank you.
00:19:18
Ryan
And I think Faraj falls short on pretty much all of those measures. I think he has regressive view of this country. I think his ambitions for him are pitiful.
00:19:33
Ryan
I think the plans that reform have put out to the great British public are insulting, frankly. It reminds me a little bit of the Labour Manifesto in 2019, where you look at all the policies added together the cost is just crippling.
00:19:41
John Gartside
Yeah.
00:19:43
Dejan
in my practice, which comes to mind.
00:19:50
Ryan
In fact, it's fantastical.
00:19:52
Ryan
It's imaginary. It's impossible. It's make-believe politics. And I think that is genuinely insulting to the people who are looking to that leadership.
00:20:03
Ryan
are looking for that leadership. And I do think Farage does play the politics of division, but maybe not in the way we're on the progressive side.
00:20:15
Ryan
don't think he's actually stoking those divisions between races and ethnicities, for example, which is often the label that the people on my side of the fence give him.
00:20:26
Ryan
But I think he is stoking a division between, guess, like a mainstream politics on the rest of the country.
00:20:31
Dejan
Thank you.
00:20:34
Ryan
Some people talk about elites versus the country. Some people talk about the establishments, about institutions. All of these different terminologies are often interchangeable. And that's really tough because when you actually look at those institutions and people who make them up the people who make up politics, they are often good human beings who are to do the best for the country.
00:20:56
Ryan
But I agree with Farage in the sense that those institutions, probably aren't working or aren't fit for purpose. But then to denigrate the people in that is bad and to try and turn the country on them, I think is really quite toxic.
00:21:05
Dejan
Thank you.
00:21:10
Ryan
And we sort of saw this play out a little bit in the US with the January stuff, way back when. What he'd be much better doing, but requires him to think deeply and intellectually, is to make the argument for reform of these institutions. In the same way we started this conversation by talking about data-driven personal events to public services, about revolution in education and health.
00:21:35
Ryan
I think far arch who starts to do that work could be a formidable force, actually, and would start to cause a lot of fear within Labour circles. But he's not there yet.
00:21:47
Ryan
And there's still an opportunity, I think, for us to fill that vacuum of ideas that are going to transform this country. Arrest decline, reverse decline, transform Britain. think that's a massive opportunity.
The Green Party's Populism
00:21:59
Dejan
I think another party that similarly has been getting quite a lot of publicity despite their reduced number of seats and despite not being quite, as in the public eye, the Green Party.
00:22:09
Ryan
Yeah.
00:22:14
Ryan
Yes.
00:22:15
Dejan
What do you think about what they're doing? What do you think about their strategy, their policies? It seems to me that they're sort of trying to emulate this...
00:22:26
Dejan
reform wave in the public eye, but a bit differently with some different policies behind it.
00:22:33
Ryan
Yeah, I think that is a fair assessment. I also think Zach Polanski is a talented politician. I think he has some major flaws.
00:22:44
Ryan
I think the, I mean, I know it's terrible say, I actually cannot get over the hypnotist boob in large, I mean, that is just wild, right?
00:22:53
John Gartside
Yeah.
00:22:57
Ryan
And I know he says that he was hudbing to doing it, but I don't know, could you ever find yourself speaking to someone and proclaiming that you could do that? It's just,
00:23:05
John Gartside
He loses all his credibility from almost.
00:23:09
Ryan
I agree. I agree. And, you know, but let's, for the purpose of this podcast, let's look beyond that. And I think he's a talented communicator. thought his video was really compelling. And the Greens are going up in the polls.
00:23:20
Ryan
People are looking for that disruption, that hope, that optimism. And I think the drivers to the Greens are actually the same drivers to reform.
00:23:24
John Gartside
Yeah.
00:23:29
Ryan
It's not that everyone's suddenly become incredibly right-wing is going towards reform. And it's not that everyone has suddenly become, you know, religious around climate or incredibly left-wing and moving towards Greens. They feel a status quo is failing them and they're rejecting it.
00:23:45
Ryan
And to your question about the Greens, I think they are pulling from the populist playbook and they are speaking to those grievances, those anxieties.
00:23:55
Ryan
They're creating this sort of mythical enemy, which is, again, the elite, the establishment. And they're also putting these quite interesting sounding proposals, solutions on the table that when you scratch out them, they're not actually solutions.
00:24:17
Ryan
A wealth tax, for example, I think, look, sounds great. Wealthy people should be the ones contributing to Britain's renewal, Britain's reinvigoration more than anyone else.
00:24:24
Dejan
It wants.
00:24:30
Ryan
But wealth is this weird intangible thing and it's quite hard to to tax that one fell swoop. It's certainly hard to tax that and raise the money that I think some of these guys would have had you believe that you could get from they could suddenly solve all of the country's problems.
00:24:45
Ryan
So would love to see, for the sake of democracy, all of these guys not come together and work as one. think that's make-believe politics again, but really do the hard work on what their actual intellectual solution-based offer is to the country.
00:25:04
Ryan
And it'd be brilliant to get democracy back to having a debate about ideas, the merits of ideas, rather than the sort of personalities and some of the fantastical stuff in politics today.
00:25:14
Dejan
Thank you.
00:25:20
John Gartside
Sort of carrying on with that idea of wealth and money for perhaps one of our last questions.
Strategies for Economic Revitalization
00:25:27
John Gartside
We've seen Rachel Reeves for a long time talk refer to this black hole in public finances.
00:25:33
John Gartside
And Sakia has been trying to combat perhaps slowing economy. But how do you think he should actually do this? How can Sakia reinvigorate the British economy?
00:25:45
Ryan
think you've got to, to answer that question, you've got to understand where the Labour government is at this moment in time. And this is quite unsophisticated analysis, but think it's helpful.
00:25:58
Ryan
So there's somebody on to this that I'm going to skate over. I think the government is trapped by free markets, right? And those free markets are leading to inertia and a bit of fear. So in turn, the first of those markets is the electoral market.
00:26:16
Ryan
This is voters. And Labour MPs, 89 of have reform second place. 40-odd of them have Greens in second place.
00:26:28
Ryan
And the government, I think, is aware of that and is trying to think about how do you speak to Green voters as well as reform voters.
00:26:32
Dejan
It is.
00:26:40
Ryan
quite a tricky place to circle.
00:26:41
John Gartside
Thank
00:26:42
Ryan
You end up struggling a little bit in terms of getting a coherent agenda across. I think the second market is that political market.
00:26:54
Ryan
And within that is the commentary app. So the people who write in opinion columns and form of thinking. And the government wants to come across as credible to these guys and they've got plan.
00:27:05
Ryan
But the other bit of that market is the parliamentary Labour Party who, for the reasons is set out around who's second in their seats. And the fact that very different, quite diverse parliamentary Labour Party politically.
00:27:19
Ryan
They're in control. And we saw this with the welfare bill, right? And think the government is scared of the parliamentary Labour Party and their ability to get things done because they need the parliamentary Labour Party to swing behind it and give them the vote that they need to get important legislation over the line.
00:27:38
Ryan
And in the last market, which think they're scared of. And it's been well documented. It's the bond market. And these are the guys, men and women, who basically buy UK bonds.
00:27:44
Dejan
Keep talking about it.
00:27:50
Ryan
And they buy bonds. And if they are confident direction of the UK, they're prepared to pay a little bit or receive a little bit less interest on those bonds because they're confident they're going paid back.
00:28:05
Ryan
I think... They are looking for credibility and sound and sure economy. And so that creates a fear from government because they don't want to anything that rocks the boat on that front.
00:28:20
Ryan
The thing that speaks to all three of those markets and fact overshoots them, and think answers your question, what CAERS and the government need to do, is a bold, radical, transformative, credible plan for the future of this country.
00:28:36
Ryan
It's what voters are looking for. Remember, they're united by this pervasive sense of decline around them. They want a bold, credible, transformative plan to get us out of that. It's what the parliamentary Labour Party looking for.
00:28:48
Ryan
They don't want to do votes on individual issues like winter fuel allowance or cuts to welfare. They're prepared to do that, but as long as they see it as part of a broader, bigger, coherent plan. And the same for the bond markets as well.
00:29:00
Ryan
The bond markets are about investing in Britain's future. And... I think at the moment, it's hard for them to see what Britain's future is going to be.
00:29:09
Ryan
I think it's politics' job to set that out. Again, bold, credible, radical, transformative plan. That's what we're trying to at Institute.
00:29:19
John Gartside
Thank you.
00:29:20
Ryan
And I would love the government to grab hold of that. And if they do, I think it could be incredibly transformative for the country, but also very exciting for us who are in and around politics.
Trump's Gaza Plan and Tony Blair's Role
00:29:30
Dejan
I think the last chunk of this conversation should go around topic that's definitely been everywhere, which is Trump's new Gaza plan with Tony Blair sort of in charge, managing the area, managing the region.
00:29:46
Dejan
How are people at TBI sort of dealing with that statement? Any concrete policies coming into shape or anything like that?
00:29:56
Ryan
Well, we probably know as much as you do. So we've seen the, we've seen the, obviously the statement from the president.
00:30:06
Ryan
It's still taking shape. It doesn't need me to say it is such a difficult, incredibly challenging situation in the Middle East. And it is going to require leadership and empathy of the highest level.
00:30:21
Ryan
All I can say is, I don't know what role Tony is going to play, if any, in the future of the region. But I have had a seat up close to him over the last six years and he's a fantastic leader.
00:30:37
Ryan
He's got a deep respect for citizens, including the citizens of Gaza. And I think he's been really clear his commitment to not displacing those citizens.
00:30:51
Ryan
I think he is leader in the truest sense of the word. can direct, he can drive things, he can make things happen, but he also does that bringing people with him and listening to expertise, whether that's the expertise of people with lived experience in the region or expertise of those who have the right ideas and ambitions to drive the country forward. But we need all of that and more.
00:31:20
Ryan
So If you can see that happening in the region, then I'll be incredibly grateful for it. But like you guys, I'm just sort of watching this unfold on my TV screens on a daily basis.
00:31:32
John Gartside
Yeah. And with that, think we'll end the podcast. So it's been great to have you on today, Ryan. And certainly me and Diane, I'm sure I've learned something. And I'm sure our listeners have as well. It's been very interesting. Thank you.
00:31:45
Dejan
Thank you.
00:31:45
Ryan
Cheers, guys. Really appreciate it.
00:31:47
Dejan
See you next week.