YouSaid · the spoken record

Zia Yusuf

lines on the record: 69
first: 2025-02-07
most recent: 2025-02-07
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

“I did read the Harry Potter books. I read those myself before going to bed, so that was the thing that I did. But I still remember, for example, my mother would, four times a week, without fail, and there were no excuses allowed, I had to read with her a chapter of the children's encyclopedia. Holy chap.”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Indeed, so my parents didn't have much in the way of resources, but they gave me a lot of love, they gave me education, which I'm extraordinarily grateful for. And I think those things are both incredibly important to create social mobility. What do you read?”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, well, so when I was a student, I would describe myself as very much center-left. And, you know, when I was younger, probably even more left, you know, when you're a young person, you often have this sense that you have all of the answers to all of the world's problems. And I don't think I was by any means unique in that. But what I do think has happened, bringing us to where we are today. You know, I often describe this Labour Cabinet as a bunch of overpromoted student politicians. Most people who then go out and do real jobs in the real world, regardless of what those jobs are, gradually start to understand incentives and understand how the real world actually works and have a good model of that. Unfortunately, because this labor cabinet has spent 14 years in opposition, none of these ideas that they have in their head, regardless of how smart or not they are fundamentally, have ever been tested and unfortunately now they're being tested with the British people as guinea pigs.”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, somewhere in between, you know, moderately. So politics did come up. We weren't a hugely political family. As I said, I've always been very interested in history. I remember when I got my GCSE results, I got a prize from the headmaster, which was Neil Ferguson's book, Empire, which I absolutely loved and Wolf Dan very quickly. But I think politics has been something that we've talked about. A lot of it has been about the NHS just because that was obviously what my parents focused on. And because I came at it from a slightly different perspective, they came at it purely from the caregiver perspective. I came at it more from, I tried to look at things at a systems level and look at incentives. And when I hear the stories...”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mama, a nurse. Yeah, and she's working care home, and she still practices as a nurse to this day, age 70. And you could not, you know, I still remember talking to my mom when she would be, she was earning $21,000 a year. And I said, you should go and ask for a pay rise because you haven't had one in many years. And she'd always say, Zia, I would much rather they spent that money on more medicines or better care for the patients. And that's the mentality of Agav. And I think that is representative of our frontline NHS workers. So I know, frankly, the appalling conditions in which they've had to work. And by the way, I'd often tell my mom, well, actually, unfortunately, that money is not going to go for more medicines or anything like that. It's going to go to more extraordinarily well-paid NHS administrators who are failing at their jobs.”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My father wanted to try to create a better life, I think, for my mum and ultimately for the time they had one child, my older brother. And so I think it was that very archetypal immigrant story. And he'd qualified as a medical doctor. My parents between them have given half a century of service to the NHS. So the NHS is very close to my heart.”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, there was one which was one of the most interesting, so people loved wildlife experiences. So, for example, there was a trip to go guerrilla trekking, actually in the Congo with former Marines. That was a really cool experience.”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. Well, most of the businesses revenues came from actually booking flights for people and booking hotels and things like that. But yeah, there were some very cool and quite extraordinary things that people could book through the app. Yeah.”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly. And so, what we tried to do was create a customer experience that worked for them that allowed them to take holidays, for example, right? I mean, that was a big piece of it. And I hear that feedback from customers all of the time. So that's what that business focused on.”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As somebody who worked, all my career I've worked incredibly long hours, whether it was in the city or then obviously anyone who's listening to this, who's run their own company knows that job never ends, you're on the clock all of the time. So you have precious little time, actually, to do almost anything else. And I think to live a life, ultimately, I think life is about looking back on your life at the end and saying that's a life I'm glad that I lived. And there are so many aspects to that. And so a lot of what we tried to do with our business was cater for that person who has resources, but very, very little time. And I saw these people who”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The point being is that I'm thankfully in a position where I no longer need to work for money. That's the first point to make. I've long had the view, I've loved reading history, I love this country. I think social mobility, Nick, is incredibly important. Any student of history will tell you, a society that doesn't have social mobility is a short-lived society. And that's the direction we are headed in. So I think I'm a reasonably good example of social mobility. I have been long concerned and frankly, in some cases disconsolate about the direction of travel of this country, the source of that in many ways is the caliber of the people in Westminster, both from a competency standpoint and from an integrity standpoint. And so I thought, well, if I'm not going to do this, I could see there was an inflection point happening last summer when Nigel said he was coming back. By the way, I still remember I checked the betting odds just to see because it's always useful to look at.”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, when you go on an entrepreneurial journey, you want to do everything you can to make it successful. But I do really firmly believe this. Look, I've worked very hard.”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that's right. So I've not been particularly politically active in my adult life. I graduated from the London School of Economics. I did a BSc in international relations. I started my career working in the city for a couple of American investment banks. Did that for about five years then left that to go and start my own technology company, which I absolutely love doing. Thankfully it was quite successful and I sold that company to a big American bank in 2023.”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Document had to be drafted conscious that this will be the constitution of the party that we believe will be the constitution of the next party of government, but also one that can govern effectively the party as we move through multiple terms. So the point I want to make is it's a really thing that nobody”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And no one is clearer eyed about the scale of the challenge at hand than me. It's what I wake up in the morning thinking about, you know, I speak to Nigel incredibly early in the morning almost every single day and very late in the evening about these same points. And how do we build infrastructure? How do we build a party? And going back to your actual question, which was, and again, I think it's really important that people understand this about the reform movement. So much of what we do, maybe even the majority of what we do and have been doing over the last seven months, is about laying the foundations for something that will endure for generations to come. We take that really seriously. It's why we put a lot of time and effort into the party constitution, which was ratified by members a few months ago.”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, I think there's any doubt if there was to be in a general election tomorrow, reform would win somewhere between 140 to 200 seats, you know, depending on the pollster. By the time we get to the next general election, we will win between 350 to 400 members of parliament. And if you... We will.”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, first let's be clear about what I said, which was that is our goal. That is what we're working towards. Clearly today we have five incredible members of parliament. We are on a journey. And by the way, one thing I learned in business as someone who was a tech entrepreneur, but it's true, actually in most aspects of life, that momentum and trajectory are much, much more important than absolute position. And seven months ago, the general election reform won 14% of the votes, 4 million votes, astonishing achievement. Returned five MPs, and that's really a function of the first past-the-post system, which really punishes parties below 20%. But once you get to where we are now, it starts to act as a massive tailwind. So if you look at most of the MRPs that are coming out, and you'll see this in the coming weeks with MRPs.”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What it means is one in four British people eligible to vote and who intend to vote would now cast their vote for reform, which is a party remember that had zero members of parliament seven months ago, that to this day still only has twenty four employees. I don't think many people necessarily appreciate just the scale of what has been achieved in a short time. And the people who deserve credit for that, by the way, are the millions upon millions of reforms supported across the country.”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was a lovely moment, and it's incredibly important, as I said to the team, to enjoy the milestones on what is going to be a long and no doubt sometimes very challenging journey and will have downs, will have ups. Some days will be better than others. But I think the words enthusiastic, the words electric, would be the words I'd use to describe the atmosphere in HQ, but that's exactly how you would describe and characterize the atmosphere at our conferences, all of the events we do, however big or small in these days they're obviously getting bigger and bigger. So there's a real sense of enthusiasm and optimism about the reform movement and also what it means for the country because Nick, what that means, you know, the poll you're talking about, of course, which was the UGOV poll, and obviously there's many great polls out there, but you gov are considered to be the gold standard. It put us not only leading but quite decisively in the lead and meaningfully ahead of the Conservative Party.”
2025-02-07 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Zia Yusuf One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source