YouSaid · the spoken record

Sonia Sodha

lines on the record: 16
first: 2022-10-21
most recent: 2022-10-21
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Anyway, so why not just give Boris Johnson another shot in case you can pull something out of the bag? I think it would be absolutely terrible for the country. I think it would be really bad for the Conservative Party brands as well. I'm not sure it would recover from it. But I do think it's more of a possibility than I thought yesterday.”
2022-10-21 · Intelligence Squared · Party’s Over: Liz Truss’s Resignation, with Sonia Sodha and Sherelle Jacobs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think a lot depends on whether Boris Johnson can get the minimum number of 100 MPs. I think if he doesn't, I think if he does, even if he gets fewer MPs than Rishi Sunak, I can't see him, you know, in the indicative vote of MPs that there's going to be. I can't see him voluntarily withdrawing and avoiding the need to go to members. So I think he will probably run and I think he would probably win amongst the membership. I think it's a dead cert, but I think he would probably win. So I think a lot depends on what happens this weekend and how many MPs back Boris Johnson. That's a really critical thing. When the leadership contest was announced, sort of 18 to 24 hours ago, I thought there's no way that conservative MPs would do this. They know that Boris Johnson's a toxic brand. I now think it's more likely. And I think that's because MPs, conservative MPs are quite desperate. And I think when they're desperate, they will do things. We've seen this from the Conservative Party before that aren't necessarily in the national interest, but I think they'll also think, well, you know, we've as good as lost the next election.”
2022-10-21 · Intelligence Squared · Party’s Over: Liz Truss’s Resignation, with Sonia Sodha and Sherelle Jacobs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of GDP in the long term. Now, that sounds like a statistic, but actually that is real people's money, that's people's wages, that's taxes that go into the exchequer. It's something, it's a huge negative shock, totally self-inflicted, that we couldn't afford before the last kind of two, three years. And it is certainly something that we can't afford now. So I think the headline is really tough time globally and it's one that Britain has chosen to make much, much worse through Brexit and then through this awful mini-budget that Liz Truss kind of threw into the mix. But the Brexit thing is a long-term structural thing. We've made exports much harder. It's exactly the opposite of the fix that our economy needs to address long-term productivity growth.”
2022-10-21 · Intelligence Squared · Party’s Over: Liz Truss’s Resignation, with Sonia Sodha and Sherelle Jacobs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We've got an economy that has relied too much on consumption, on consumer spending for growth that's been fuelled by a house price bubble and by debt, people sort of remortgaging their houses. And George Osborne in 2008, after the financial crisis, 2009, the shadow chancellor promised to rebalance the economy away from consumer spending more towards investment-led and export-led growth. Now, we've actually gone backwards on that measure. that some economies have been seeing recently after the pandemic and even in the face of the global oil shock, it's all been export-led. We've actually gone backwards on exports, and that is because of Brexit. There is no doubt that throwing up trade barriers with our closest and biggest trading bloc, the EU was going to have a profound impact on GDP. And some estimates have said that it's going to cost us 5%.”
2022-10-21 · Intelligence Squared · Party’s Over: Liz Truss’s Resignation, with Sonia Sodha and Sherelle Jacobs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it absolutely has had an impact. So, of course, there are global forces, global headwinds in the economy, the energy price shock that's resulted from the war in Ukraine. That has had a big impact on the economy and it's affecting economies all around the world. But there is no doubt that the UK has made our issues a lot the global issue a lot worse. First of all, we've got this long-term productivity issue that really dates the sort of last, you know, it was masked by the buoyant financial sector in the 2000s. But really, the growth that we've seen since 2008 financial crisis, it's the second lowest in the G7. And it's very sluggish. So we have this issue with productivity and growth that we've never addressed that requires long-term economic reform to sort out. And I really think investment, as I was saying, in skills and infrastructure.”
2022-10-21 · Intelligence Squared · Party’s Over: Liz Truss’s Resignation, with Sonia Sodha and Sherelle Jacobs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I think it really marks a low point for the Conservative Party. I can actually see it happening. I could see 100 MPs potentially backing him and him going forward to a vote of the members. But I think it says a lot about the Conservative Party, their governability, their levels of desperation of Conservative MPs looking at the next election, thinking, well, you know, it's really bad. So why not just better the devil that you know? So yeah, I don't think it's going to go down well with the country. And I think if you talk to pollsters, they say he's still a toxic brand in the country at large. I think there's polls actually that show sort of potentially him versus Rishi Sunak that show that. So, yeah, I think it's a real indictment of the modern Conservative Party and shows that they really do need a spell of opposition.”
2022-10-21 · Intelligence Squared · Party’s Over: Liz Truss’s Resignation, with Sonia Sodha and Sherelle Jacobs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The Standards and Privileges Committee investigation ongoing. Well, actually, it hasn't got quite got off the ground yet, into whether he misled Parliament. Now, that could be incredibly damning. It could result in a suspension for him from the Commons, depending on what they find. It could even result in a recall petition and a by-election potentially. So I think the fact that the Conservatives and some Conservative MPs clearly are talking him up and considering bringing him back, I think it's quite snub to the electorate, to voters who had so clearly lost faith in him, which is one of the reasons why so many ministers decided to resign from his government 65. Let's not forget. And I just think it's extraordinary that a governing party might think about bringing back a prime minister who is under investigation by the standards and privileges committee. I mean, even that investigation is quite unprecedented in and of itself.”
2022-10-21 · Intelligence Squared · Party’s Over: Liz Truss’s Resignation, with Sonia Sodha and Sherelle Jacobs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think it makes us a bit of a laughing stock. And we were a laughing stock at the point at which Boris Johnson departed in many ways. I mean, the stories about Downing Street parties were being reported on by media all across the world. But I think also there's a sort of deeper point about what it, the message the Conservative Party sends to the electorate. Boris Johnson was deeply unpopular, not quite as unpopular as Listrus, it has to be said, but deeply unpopular by the time he left office. And there was a lot of anger about the way he conducted himself in public office, not just the facts around kind of the gatherings in Downing Street, the Downing Street parties. I think sort of, you know, very clearly broke COVID regulations at a time when people were making huge sacrifices in order to protect the NHS and save lives during the toughest times of COVID. But also the way that he handled himself in Parliament.”
2022-10-21 · Intelligence Squared · Party’s Over: Liz Truss’s Resignation, with Sonia Sodha and Sherelle Jacobs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like free universal childcare, you know, an NHS style entitlement to older care, for example, quite sort of society at shifting ideas, but they all take money and it's quite hard to pledge that credibly at a time when there's a lot of economic uncertainty. So I think they really need to focus on.”
2022-10-21 · Intelligence Squared · Party’s Over: Liz Truss’s Resignation, with Sonia Sodha and Sherelle Jacobs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Very eyes, and it's very hard to see how they're going to unite behind one leader, one new prime minister, whoever that is. We're not going to have a general election, though, unless conservative MPs wish for there to be one because you have to have enough of them to vote for it to make it happen. So I think what Labour really need to focus on is ensuring that the next general election, they're not just winning it because the Conservatives are losing it, but because people are proactively getting behind Labour because of the vision that they set out for the country as well. I think they started to do that quite well, actually, in recent months, but they've definitely got further to go. And I think the difficulty for them is that in times of great economic uncertainty, it actually becomes harder to sort of carve out an alternative vision because the kinds of things that really say what you're about as a party, you know, I'm talking about really big ideas.”
2022-10-21 · Intelligence Squared · Party’s Over: Liz Truss’s Resignation, with Sonia Sodha and Sherelle Jacobs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think they're doing exactly the right thing in calling for a general election. And actually, I think if you look at polling, it shows that there's a very, very large majority of the public in favour of a general election, which isn't really a surprise. This would be the second prime minister imposed on the country without a general election, without people getting a say. We're now in circumstances completely different from 2019. We've had a COVID pandemic. We've had a massive global economic shock. And the 2019 manifesto appears to have been ripped up and Liz Truss tried something that she had absolutely zero democratic mandate for in terms of a general election. So you can see why Labour have positioned themselves in the way they have. And I think they're actually right to do so from a kind of ethical substantive perspective too. I think what they also need to do, though, is, I mean, in some ways, you've just kind of got to see the conservative party sort of imploding before our”
2022-10-21 · Intelligence Squared · Party’s Over: Liz Truss’s Resignation, with Sonia Sodha and Sherelle Jacobs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Benefits for those in low paid work, people with disabilities. So that's the first most important legacy. The second legacy is in terms of the conservative party. I mean, I personally think that the Conservative Party is basically reaching the point of ungovernability now. And it's extremely divided. There will, of course, be those who share Liz Truss' sort of ideological devotion to trussonomics on the right of the party. And what they will say will be that it just wasn't done right. And then actually, if we had a chance to do it right, it might work. But I do think that for now, it puts to bed this idea that you can achieve growth at any point in time through a low growth, low regulation.”
2022-10-21 · Intelligence Squared · Party’s Over: Liz Truss’s Resignation, with Sonia Sodha and Sherelle Jacobs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think there's two legacies. So, first of all, there's the sort of real legacy on the economy. And I think that the damage that she caused by announcing the mini-budget, the reaction that we saw, the market reaction, which plenty of people forewarned, that has done long-term damage to the economy. And you can't ever take that back, even though most of the mini-budgets measures have been reversed. You can't ever get back that level of confidence there was before the mini-budget. So things are going to be worse over the next few months directly as a result of actions at LizTruss and Kwasi-Kwatang have taken. And that can't be taken back. And those are real impacts in terms of the impacts on people's mortgages, the impact on inflation, spending cuts that may be required as a result, although we'll have to see, but which will really affect things like hospitals, schools, potentially people.”
2022-10-21 · Intelligence Squared · Party’s Over: Liz Truss’s Resignation, with Sonia Sodha and Sherelle Jacobs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But the Conservatives first of all try to make it a confidence vote, then a three line whip, then possibly a confidence vote, again, who knows. But it became very clear through the course of that vote and the scenes that we saw in Parliament with MPs sort of arguing and surrounding each other in the voting lobbies that Liz Truss had completely lost the authority of her parliamentary party. And once that happens, I mean, it just doesn't work in a parliamentary system. If you can't govern as prime minister because you don't have a majority of MPs in parliament supporting you, you can try and go on, but it's very difficult to do so. And I think that's why she decided to resign. And then I've forgotten the first part of your question or the second part of your question. What was it, Connor?”
2022-10-21 · Intelligence Squared · Party’s Over: Liz Truss’s Resignation, with Sonia Sodha and Sherelle Jacobs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, first of all, was I expecting it? I mean, I have to say, I thought after the mini budget and the market reaction, I thought it was over for her as Prime Minister. And I didn't know how long it was going to take. I thought possibly it would take months, but I thought at that point, after I saw the market reaction, I thought it was very unlikely that she would fight the next general election as Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader. I've been surprised at how quickly it happened though, I have to say, I thought that when she replaced her Chancellor Kwasi-Kwatang with Jeremy Hunt, I thought that might buy her some time with her party, although I have to say that I thought it left her completely and utterly powerless, her authority completely shocked with her own parliamentary party. And I think the reason why it all started to move very quickly was we saw those scenes on Wednesday in Parliament this week where there was a pretty critical vote. It was a Labour opposition day motion.”
2022-10-21 · Intelligence Squared · Party’s Over: Liz Truss’s Resignation, with Sonia Sodha and Sherelle Jacobs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was surprised that she actually stayed for an extra week. I was shocked by her decision to sack her chancellor and attempt to distance herself from a economic strategy which was completely her own. And I was disappointed actually with the lack of honour which she demonstrated. And I think that It's not surprising that it only lasted a week, that she had, at the end of the day, pivoted so far from what she sold to the MPs who elected her and how she presented herself as the prime minister that she wanted to be, that it was only a matter of time before people lost confidence in her. In fact, the very people who supported her so vociferously had to withdraw that support.”
2022-10-21 · Intelligence Squared · Party’s Over: Liz Truss’s Resignation, with Sonia Sodha and Sherelle Jacobs · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT