YouSaid · the spoken record

Andrew Griffith

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44
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2026-03-13
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2026-03-13
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  1. “I think it's quite, I've got quite high nervous energy, Nick. And at the end of the day, if you've been sitting down, this energy has to go somewhere. If you're standing up at your desk, hopefully, I don't have a bat back in the future, but your nervous energy dissipates as well. So that's the logics.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “People is we have consistently about the two child benefit cap when my wife and I decided how many children we were going to have you know there wasn't the opportunity of going to you know my employer and saying well actually we've had a third or fourth child can I have a pay rise that's just not how the world works and we've been very honest about that”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Look, the thing that you could, I don't worry a lot about the wider politics, Nick. The thing that we can control is can we, the Conservative Party, be the best version of ourselves? And the electorate have a choice. But can we be united, as I believe we are? We're working well as a shadow cabinet team. We're not dismembering our leader at every opportunity as happened previously. Now that'll take time, right? I mean, we can say now we've had a good 18 months. Let's see how that extends. I think Kemmy will lead us into the next election, at which point we will be able to say to the electorate, we've got somebody who we have all united around. Can we bring in a new generation of conservative candidates? Hopefully some from business experience, others walks of life, perhaps some people from a new generation who can articulate their own form of conservatism. And then can we put together plans? I don't think people should vote for anybody without looking at the plans. What are the trade-offs? Are we going to be honest? Are we going to tell?”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Look, people have choices at elections, to be clear, Nick. The job of work that I, my shadow cabinet colleagues and Kemi have is to rebuild the Conservative Party to be a credible force, I think particularly on the economy. I think we can be that on the economy. More of us have that background in business, not just myself across the shadow front bench. People do trust us on the economy. The polls are saying that, and they increasingly recognize that the government has gone too far. They're doing damage. Their policies...”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Which caused the huge difficulty for all of the wonderful financial regulation that we'd had, it was actually Nigel Wilson and Amanda Blanc, the leads of some of the biggest pension pots in the country, who phoned me up because I happened to know them from my business life and say, hey guys, we've got a bit of a problem here.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “That was a big issue. I did raise eyebrows about that. I'm not saying publicly, I'm not trying to rewrite it with hindsight, but like when someone said, we're going to pay everybody's electricity bill for nearly two years as a small state conservative, like, okay, that's quite bold. I was also the minister that identified the Bank of England to the LDI risk because I was sitting at home on a Sunday. This was the pension. So the fact that all of our pensioners”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Have all these The big one, and it's worth, it's not rewriting history, it's worth just clarifying, the big one was the energy support package. That was the big potatoes in terms of the number, the actual tax cuts were relatively modest, right?”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Look, I mean, I don't know if you know a lady called Lucy Rigby. Lucy Rigby is today the city minister. I was the city minister. You don't actually have any input into the budget. I was proposing a set of financial service reforms.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “A little bit Well, look, I think you can be in favour of voluntary activity every single day of the week. That is a good way to run an economy, try and work with people rather than tell them what to do. I'm not someone who believes in mandates or bans. You try and work with the grain of human nature. But to your bigger point, notwithstanding all of that, the world has changed very significantly. Others did not follow Alad, right? The UK sometimes leads, but in this case the big competitors did not follow India, China, the places that our jobs are being exported to. Secondly, the cost of energy itself post in particular Ukraine has increased very significantly. And then this government has made it, I would argue, incalculably worse with its attitude towards things like the hydrocarbons under our feet, even in opposition to the own climate change committee's belief that we will continue to depend on those hydrocarbons for a very long period of time.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “And that was all about voluntary endeavor by businesses, which I fully stand behind him. If businesses themselves and some do want to take action, set themselves targets, often because their own suppliers or their supply chain or the people that they need.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “I think a lot of the facts have changed actually, Nick. There was a thought at the moment in time, probably around then, that the whole world might move together. And that would render some of the difficulties that we have saddled our own businesses and households with in a rather different context if we weren't exporting jobs to China, who is building factories and powering their grid with more coal-powered.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “And if you think, look, if you think about one of the biggest challenges for young people today getting on the housing ladder, you have to reset the dial. You can't be in a position where there are so many people in the system who are all empowered to say no, and in many ways they're incentives. You know, my favorite phrase, which isn't always used in politics, is Charlie Munger, who was Warren Buffett, the world's big investor, very successful. phrase was, you know, show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome. Now, if we stuff ourselves up with regulators, with red tape, with a legal system, where people are only really incentivized to say no because they've got quiet, a nice life and a civil service pension and job security, but if they ever say yes, they might get that hedge chopped off, then we'll get the system that we've got. And I passionately believe the best days of our country are ahead of us. But I want to help and play in my way supporting Kemi and colleagues, cutting through that thicket so we can unleash the power of...”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Your candidates not having got your MPs to sign up to it, not having got a plan, and then say, well, we said we were going to cut red tape. How about doing that now? You've got to have a plan in advance.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Well, look, first of all, I think that is fair, right? I mean, as you say, I'm just over 50 and all of the different politicians and all of the different parties always say they're going to cut red tape. So I don't think it's saying it. I don't think it's even believing at the moment you say it that matters. I think it's an actual plan. Secondly, you have to honestly litigate the risk. So the best job I did in government was city minister, and that was responsible for a huge part of the economy. We had a plan for reform. And as part of that, you did have to say we need to take more risk. The 2008 financial regulatory settlement, you remember 2008 when the financial crisis came, the regulators and probably parliament all said, well, this can never happen again. And I think the pendulum swung too far in the other direction. And we've got a sorotic economy and people can't get the money for their business idea and things like that. So you've got to litigate that up front, Nick. What you can't do is I think go into office, not having to...”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Team in number 10, they were all united, all putting in one direction, and then the much larger parliamentary party on whom any prime minister serves, they were all pulling in the same direction too. I don't think anyone would say with fairness that that was the case. So coming from business, I would say a lot of it was about the leadership and how you lead people, but also people have to want to be led.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Look, if I try and unpack, and I won't be able to do so perfectly or have perfect hindsight vision like all of us, I think there was something in that 2019 Parliament, I think COVID in particular, I mean, clearly there were different strains before I even got there. There were still people sitting at other ends of the tea room when I went in as an MP because of the positions they had taken on Brexit. But that predated me. I was a post-Brexit, if you like, politician. But that COVID, that situation around COVID, we as new MPs locked out of Parliament, unable to do our job of scrutiny at the mercy of people putting in more and more money and thinking that that was the answer. I think that drove a certain, you know, not quite madness, but it drove a certain character. And then that was not a united team. I don't think anyone looking back in that period who was involved would say, well, that was great. There was a great team.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Business have to one degree or another failed or let me down, as it were. But he's undoubtedly a good and strong communicator.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “I deplored the malaise that the government had been in, and I'm not blaming her, but under Theresa May. I mean, I would sit there with other people from business, you know, with Sky or BBC News on silent on the screen, watching yet another sort of failed attempt to lead us out of the morass of Brexit, whatever. And I thought, we do need some fresh leadership in this country. Remember Boris as mayor of London, outward-looking, positive, a positive vision for this country. Much the same in his leadership campaign to take over the Conservatives, and someone who actually did unite the Conservative Party at that moment. He did get Brexit done and lead us out of that particular morass, and then went on to win a very successful election. So look, I mean, to one degree or another, I'm being completely honest, all of the different political leaders I have served loyally because I am a team player because that's what you learn in”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “I think that's probably right, and there's a certain amount of people that seek to put themselves out there, right? I mean, we haven't done this before. I'm not super confident about talking about myself. I'm much more excited about talking about cutting red tape or having a simpler tax system or unleashing power of the economy. We're going to do that. I don't regret doing it. There's all sorts of things you live and learn, but I do think this is still a good way of making a contribution. You need people in society who will put themselves forward, whether they've come from military leadership, whether they've been farmers of the land, successful people in business. And I would love to think there is somebody listening to this who thinks, yeah, you know, I could do it too.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “A cultural thing. But yes, that's what you mean. No, look, I grew up in an ordinary part of southeast London. I don't have expensive tastes. I don't have all of those things that you talked about. That sounds quite nice, but I chose my path aged 48 to come and do this. I think that politics is a noble profession. I don't think that everybody in it is always noble and we attract, I was always shocked. I mean, I'm naive. I did not grow up in this world. You know, I would find out late at night, you know, the same as everybody else that such and such colleague had done such and such thing of any different party and, you know, be appalled. I mean, it's not that that does not happen in the BBC or in the working environment, but I think it happens at a lot lower an incident than it does in Westminster. What is that?”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “You're making it sound very tempting now. No, no, I mean, I had that sense of sort of slightly Catholic guilt. You should try and try and put back. Now, there are easier ways of doing that.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “I don't 17 million banners and I pay tax every year to be clear. But one of the reasons I think one of the reasons why I'm doing this and there are easier forms of public service believe me but one of the reasons why I'm doing this is that psych Catholic sense of putting something back. I had a very lucky journey. Yes, I made some money that allowed me to come back and I hope make a contribution to our country and give other people an opportunity.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “I mean, I have Catholic guilt. I don't feel that comfortable talking about that. That is a fact, as I say. I mean, I lived the British dream. I mean, there were opportunities to get on the housing ladder, to get a good job. I worked hard for that. I spent 20 years. Okay.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Well, I'm not part of the family. I mean, I didn't find it scary, Nick. I'm a fan. You know, we worked in the television side of it. I know there were some issues with the newspapers and no one would take away from any of that. But I worked in Sky. It was also a public company which gave us our own separate governance at a time when it's always a bit bumpy on the stock market. But in those days, again, you felt that the stock exchange had your back as well.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “I'll let the authors of succession answer that. I will all get into legal trouble. But look, it's a very talented family, very competitive. I work with James his son.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Yeah, challenging incumbents is always exciting. Growth is exciting. And it was a company that was growing, you know, there were sort of limitless possibilities. I don't say protected me. I think you had this environment in which if you went to an IN colleague sitting on the board, if we'd go with a plan to launch a new product or enter a new market, the answer never came back, oh, we don't think that's too risky. The answer always came back, couldn't you go twice as fast? And are you sure it couldn't be a bigger opportunity? And that's quite innovating in business.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Oh, happy days those would be. I loved business. I had a charmed life there for 20 years. It was my first. No, I don't regret it. If I'm honest, I don't regret it. I had 20 years working with fantastic people, changing or being part of a change in the broadcasting landscape. Now that's been eclipsed and things have moved on again as technology does, working with Rupert Murdoch, who whatever you think of him was one of the business brains of a generation, a real risk taker. The best boss I ever had created real psychological safety to take risks, but with a great degree of personal accountability. I mean, you knew you had to deliver or change course accordingly.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “They did. It was Nottingham, so I chose my university to get a sort of, not as far away from home as possible, but, you know, to strike out and get some independence from where I grew up in South London. And you could still feel the scars. It was the home of the UDM and the National Union of Mine Workers, two different unions that had conflicting views. It was a post-industrial town. Lacemaking was Nottingham's heritage, but it was also reinventing itself as a university city. And again, I don't remember everything, but we used to have people like Kenneth Clark and Kenneth Baker and Norman Fowler, I think, just lived down the road. So, you know, that was a time when conservatives or politicians came on campus and you had big public meetings. Tony Benn as well, it was ecumenical. Yeah.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “I was interested in current affairs. I don't think it was completely aberrant aged 11 to be an a war, to be quite dominant.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “And in parallel, you know, you'd got Mrs. Thatcher leading the country. There'd been a period of economic malaise. I hadn't caught most of that, but I was born in the 70s. And then with things like the Falklands, which I grew up listening to those dispatches on the BBC radio from Brian Hanrahan on the Falklands, she restored pride in our country. Now, I guess I'm looking, you know, when I look at governments of any flavour, I'm looking for their ability to do that, to give young people the sort of chances I had in life when I saved up to buy my first flat i remember taking sandwiches to work because i couldn't afford to buy sandwiches you know watching the petrol pump clock tick up £4.99 before you you know you pull the nozzle out before it was five pounds but got on that housing ladder because at that time they were building on Brownfield land in Wandsworth in London we were building 16,000 homes a year which was a ladder of opportunity I want that back for our country”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “I do. And look, I think we've lost a lot of that. I mean, my life story in some ways, with a great deal of luck and fortitude, was what you'd call the British dream. I went to my local comprehensive school. I came from humble backgrounds. I was the first in my family to go to university at a time when if you went to university there was a premium for being a graduate. I joined an accounting firm six years after the Big Bang when jobs were abundance, the city of London was growing very fast.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Desire to reduce red tape, reduce the size of regulators and pare back the sort of law fare system we have that every decision always gets second guessed.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “No, sorry. Often accompanying the Prime Minister after BMQs, you'd go behind the speaker's chair. He's got a big office in Parliament behind the Speaker's chair before they retreat to number 10. And all too often, many of my Conservative colleagues, again, perfectly respectable, but they would say, look, we want action on X. And that's the transmission mechanism. It's not an unhealthy thing in a democracy, but sometimes you also need that fortitude, resilience and to understand the second order consequences of always thinking the state has the answer. I want the state as a servant, not master. And we keep inviting it in to these domains. We keep establishing new regulators. We tie ourselves up in more and more red tape, and we convince ourselves that nothing can ever fail. But the flip side is there's never any risk. And if you can't take risk, you cannot grow an economy. It is why I'm a bit passionate about this.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Think first of all, we've changed our position. So under Kemi, we oppose that eventual act to establish a statutory regulator. Secondly, there were regulations. There were self-regulations, if you like, a voluntary code, but there were football administrators. But look, I think I've only been in that parliament, Nick, from 2019 to 2024. And I think there was something about that, partly to do with COVID and the expectation of people that the state had all of the answers, partly due to the dynamics of bringing in a big coalition. You know, it was the biggest ever at that point, you know, Conservative Party representing very different backgrounds.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Is not to do anything, and that needs a certain level of perhaps understanding, maybe from the business world, needs a certain level of resilience and fortitude to say not the answer to not everything is always just pass another law.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “I think the political class, if you like, to broaden the point are sort of slightly world class at spotting the political risks. They might get into trouble on the today program. They might be seen not to act too quickly. When I was in number 10, not for very long, but when I was in number 10 as business advisor, you saw things like Burry Football Club went bankrupt, bad, incompetent maladministration, whatever. But of course the whole clamor goes up something must be done. And as a result today, we've now got a very, very successful global industry. The Premier League now has a new regulator. People are coming up and saying, we've got a minister for sport, we're going to have diversity targets on, you know, no. I mean, sometimes the answer is yes, you know, there is failure in a system, in that case, Burry was anyway rescued. A new team came in. It's now getting back to good performance on the pitch. Sometimes the best answer.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Yeah, I do think so. I mean, I don't think everybody in politics should have a business background. It's not business. It's a lot harder than business. Politics is people trying to do very difficult things. They're trade-offs. You don't have as much data. They're not single point decisions. It's harder to rally and establish a team and get people working together. But I do think that business is a huge part of our economy. If I look at the law that I think is passed in Parliament the most...”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Look, I don't think that's right. I really don't think that's right. Do you proactively go after and try and take out threats, the sort of threats where we've seen Shahids flown at UK military bases on the soil of Cyprus, our ally in that respect? Absolutely. No ifs, no buts. That's completely different from a broader question about war aims, about our contribution to it. I think like many of us and the people that I speak to in my constituency, we feel a bit embarrassed about the laxadaisical contribution of our military assets. Yes, there's been some that is not to criticise any of our armed forces, the people who serve and put themselves in a harm's way. I think we feel a little bit embarrassed about the level of commitment that our government has shown in this very difficult time.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “Running away from anything, Nick, absolutely standby, the fact that when our US closest ally, a partner in our nuclear deterrent in the Five Eyes, in many of the exquisite military and intelligent assets that we have, when they ask for our support, we should not be found wanting. And I hope that the reciprocal would also be true because our safety, the safety of people listening at home depends on that US umbrella on their commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that's kept peace in Europe for a very significant period of time.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Now, I think people are putting constructions on that, if I may. The US asked to use their bases, some of them hosted on sovereign UK territory. That is a fundamental part of our closest ally. Anyone who's been in government understands the flow of intelligence both ways, the assets that each other put to try and create the more peaceful world. And I fundamentally think that was wrong. And leader of the opposition thinks that was wrong. A request.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “No, and I don't actually accept that construction. I think that a decisive moment of action was being taken by our very closest allies. Requests for our support in that using their bases to support that action that they took was appropriate. I think the Conservatives have been very clear they would have made a different decision. People can agree with it or not. But on that particular point, it would have been a different decision had Kemi been in government.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Well, we'll see. I try not to shoot from the hip. It's relatively early days. So I think it's right that the government are switched on. I think things like announcing today they wouldn't be proceeding with increasing the duty on fuel, putting up the price of petrol would be a sensible thing for them to do, not an overreaction. It feels more like Ukraine. COVID was the complete unknown. I don't think anyone had ever lived through that before. Now, this is perhaps more like Echoes of Ukraine. That of itself was clearly very difficult because suddenly everyone discovered just how much energy cost is and it's crept up and up and it's not been helped by a policy environment.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “Well, it's making that cacophony of different headwinds for business even louder, Nick. So it is, you know, it's again all of those things. It's your energy. It's can you get hold of raw materials? And of course, raw materials themselves have a lot of embedded energy costs within them. How do I feel? Look, I'm fearful of the economy. We have for a while been running on fumes. The government's not balancing the books. It hasn't balanced the books for actually a very long time in government. And we've all been living as an economy slightly beyond our means. So you throw any extra shocks into that. It happened with COVID. It happened with Ukraine. It's happening again now. That's just not good for ordinary folk sitting at home thinking, am I going to get better off over the next year?”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “Yeah, I do think that that is the motion that people have this week. I mean, let the filtile for a while in fairness, and I'm not going to say everything was about the 5th of July 2024, but clearly that has made things from a business perspective quite a lot worse. They've had their pockets picked on things like national insurance. They do feel there's more red tape when they try and hire people.”

    2026-03-13 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · From Sky boss to Number 10: Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source