What Liz Truss wants Britain to learn from Trump

Hello, Patrick Baker here. Sasha and I will be back with more Westminster-insider deep dives from next week. But in the meantime, we have some extra episodes from my colleague Anne McElvoy, who's bringing you some top political interviews to keep you plugged in to the latest from Westminster. I hope you enjoy listening. Liz Truss is rarely far from the shores of the United States these days, hobnobbing with the folks seeking to make America great again. So what does she think Britain can learn from the second Trump era? Welcome to Westminster Insider. I'm Anne McElvoy and this week I travelled to Washington, D.C. to talk to the former Conservative Prime Minister, Liz Truss, on a mission, as she puts it, to remake the UK in the image of Maga Land. It's exactly three years since she left Downing Street after just 49 days in office following a mini-budget that sent the markets into free fall and has haunted her party ever since. Far from shying away from her record, she remains defiant about the events that led to her demise and she believes the Conservatives haven't yet come to terms with their shattering defeat last year. When I sat down with her, she took aim at those inside and outside her party for leading Britain into a new economic crisis and a few surprising predictions follow. Have a listen. Liz Truss, welcome to the Politico office here in Washington, D.C. How long have you been in the States? I've been in here for about four days. And do you come pretty frequently to the US these days? Fairly often. It's one of my most travelled destinations. So tell us a bit about why you're here, and particularly why you're such a regular visitor. Obviously, the speech circuit is very alluring for former leaders, but are there other reasons that you like to come across to the US? I am a big fan of Donald Trump and what he is doing. And I think there's a huge amount we can learn from him and what is happening in America and the Maga Revolution in the UK and Europe. So that is one of the reasons I come here is to learn about what is happening and to talk to people who've been through it. Because the parallels of what's going on in America and what's going on in Britain are this great deal of similarity. I've been interested for some time. So it was back, I think in about 2017, 2018, when I was chief secretary of the Treasury, I visited the then Trump administration to talk to them about what they were doing, the opportunity zones, how they were deregulating, how they were taking on the American deep state. So this is a long-standing interest I've had in what we can learn from what they're doing. And do you feel you get more of a fair hearing over here in the US than you get at home? And do you even feel more at home in Trump's America than Stammer's Britain? Definitely. And I think Trump is a bigger patriot about Britain than Keir Stammer. That's definitely true. Maybe it's because people here are able to be more objective because they're not directly involved. And they might say that in Britain we're able to be more objective about what's happening in America. But it's certainly true that I find a greater willingness to actually analyse the facts. It's interesting that you say you feel that you get more of a hearing here, there's more objectivity as you see it here in looking at your record. But some of the bigger themes that flow from that, not just what happened to Liz Truss in your short Premiership, would you think of moving to the US full-time? No, because I want to say Britain. I'm a patriot. I think Britain is the greatest country on earth. I think we are in very, very dire straits and we need every possible person who is on our side to fight that battle. And that's what's important to me. I think America is doing well. I think Trump is turning things around. I still think he's got a battle against the same forces that I faced. I think the global left is very powerful. I think that it's not a done deal that Trump will prevail, but at least he's in the fight. Whereas in Britain, we are now under the rule of pretty authoritarian socialists. That's what's going on in Britain. You've long been a free marketer. Do you support Trump's use of tariffs as a tool to protect US economic and industrial interests? I do support the tariffs, particularly with respect to China, because China doesn't play by the rules. And there's this thing which the diplomatic world go on about. I remember the Foreign Office trying to indoctrinate me to say it all the time, the rules based international order. It doesn't exist. China does not follow the rules. India doesn't follow the rules. Russia, the UK follows the rules. The UK is not a particularly well. The EU is extremely protectionist and actually Trump has got a point when he says they've got massive barriers to American food going into the EU. They've got massive barriers to American cars going into the EU. So essentially what's been going on at the World Trade Organization is the rules have been followed by Western countries. They've not been followed by our adversaries like China, Iran and Russia, and we have all been completely done over. So I think Trump is right to take that on. And I think some people will say, yes, it's true that China has been cheating, but surely it would be better if you did it in this ordered fashion. And my answer is, having been in those jobs and been in the hot seat, it's impossible to do it in an ordered fashion because you were facing a very powerful adversary and you've got to take them on any way you can. But when it comes to say the tariffs that are now applied in Britain and the fact that the steel tariff hasn't really shifted despite a lot of negotiation, despite the state visit, you know, the entire machinery of the British state, do you think that Britain deserves the tariff rate that the Trump administration has placed on it? It's not really a question of does Britain deserve it. The fact is that we don't allow very much American agricultural produce into Britain that we had a bigger tariff on their cars than they had on our cars. This is a negotiation. It's a trade negotiation. And I did dozens of trade negotiations. It all comes down to what leverage do you have? What is perceived as being fair? This is how the negotiations work. I think since we had our own independent trade policy in Britain, we have not been tough enough on our trade partners, including China, but also including the EU. So I think tariffs are a, they're a geopolitical tool. And this is, it's a mistake to see it as pure economics. It's about geopolitics. But broadly speaking, when you come here, do you see a society at ease with itself? You admire Donald Trump. You seem to admire the Trump administration in its actuality. You dominate in effects in the moment on America. But do you think, you know, you're coming to quite a polarized society, driven by a lot of political anger and violence that the killing of Charlie Kirk is something that you've referenced yourself in your speeches? Yes. It's very divided here. It's very divided in Britain and Europe. And I'm on one side of that argument. You know, I am on the side of Trump, of the Republicans, of the people who believe in free speech, of the people who believe in national sovereignty. I'm against the sort of woke left who are Mandami, who's likely to become the next mayor of New York. I think that's very, very worrying. You know, there's a, somebody who's openly a communist Islamist taking over one of the great cities of America. I mean, he would surely take issue with that description. Well, he's called for the defunding of the police. You know, if you look at what... The communists say he's known for defunding their police services, right? I mean, as I'm wondering whether the language already becomes, should we say, a bit heated and obfuscated? Well, it's not, it's calling these people out for what they are. If you look at the situation in Britain, you know, we have the highest taxes for 70 years. We have a government that believes in more state intervention. We have people being arrested for posting on X. You know, Graham Lineman arrested at Heathrow Airport for posting on X. We've got people who've been visited in the middle of the night. You know, this is an authoritarian government in Britain. And those are some of the tendencies that the Democrat Party, which has moved massively to the left, want to see happen in the United States as well. I understand you're where you are positioned against the left in politics generally and in the US. But what do you make of critics here who say the president's undermining freedoms of speech? And we've had a Ronald Reagan era appointed judge recently accusing the administration of a full-throated assault on the First Amendment for targeting and deporting some pro-Palestinian academics and threatening to do so. We've also had indictments. We've got a new one of John Bolton, a very senior figure, really, in the foreign policy, in the conversation that you like to be in. I mean, is there an aspect of the Trump administration that you have qualms about? I haven't looked into the details of the Bolton case. But what we are seeing in the United States, and I've experienced, as I've said, the power of the deep state in Britain myself, are people who have subverted their positions in government over a period of many, many years. Do you think that applies to everyone who's being targeted by Donald Trump in some way through injustice? I'm not going to go through every single person just as I don't know the details of the case. But what I do know is that the system back in 2016 when Donald Trump first became president tried to bring him down. Look at the whole Russiagate scandal. These were deliberately coordinated efforts. It's my view that the left of politics has gone from being a genuine interlocutor who sought to win the argument and sought to win at the ballot box to a group of people who now seek to take over institutions. You can see that in the British civil service. You've got very anti-Israel sentiment in the foreign office. You've got Keynesian economists in the Treasury. You've got people who are pro, very, very pro Islamism in the home office. So they sought to take over the institutions and they sought to weaponize the justice system. And there's no doubt that they sought to weaponize the justice system against Donald Trump. So what we have seen and the worst- We don't think that Donald has a case to answer on his dealings with Russia before he became president. No, I don't. You don't? No. So the Russia hoax, which has become a sort of catch-all phrase, but it means sort of nothing to see here. But what I'm saying in more broad terms is that the left are no longer arguing in good faith. They're going around with protests of no kings or whatever. They're not actually arguing against Donald Trump's policies. They're trying to delegitimize his existence. And this really goes back to the cancellation culture that we've seen operate across social media, across the media, you know, not platforming people. And it's the type of left-wing politics that used to be practiced at universities is now predominant. And what I'm saying is that Donald Trump and people in a Trump administration are trying to take this on. They're trying to take that on and it's a massive job. We have President Zelensky visiting the White House. He's going to ask the administration for Tom Hawk missiles to help repel Russian advances, reverse the tide of the war. I think you've been quite a strong supporter of Ukraine historically, but there has been bad blood, undoubtedly, between President Zelensky and President Trump. And I come back to a sort of similar question. Do you have any advice or any reservations about a slightly zigzag policy that the US has followed on defending Ukraine and any concerns about where that might leave vulnerability to an aggressive Russia? Well, I was both Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister when the war broke out and when Russia invaded Ukraine. And we did, you know, we put in place tough sanctions. We were the first European country to ship weapons to Ukraine. And my frustration throughout that period was that the US, under Biden, were constantly not really doing what needed to be done to actually give the Ukrainians what they needed. But nor were they proposing an alternative solution. So there was no exit strategy. There was no end game. And what I think we are seeing now is Trump putting pressure on both sides to get to that end strategy. Now, my position is that I do not want Putin to benefit in any way from this war. You know, that would be a dreadful message to send to the world, and it would be a dreadful message to send to President Xi, which is that aggression works. You know, we simply can't allow that to happen. What does need to happen, though, is, you know, the war needs to be brought to an end. That is clear. Right. And my view of the best strategy to bring the war to the end is to flood the market with oil and gas, because the reason the Russian state is able to carry on going is because of the masses, amounts of cash they're making from oil and gas. So I think the energy dominant strategy. Let me put it directly. Would you say that Donald Trump has done all that he could do, given this somewhat wandering line of sometimes being rather hostile to Zelensky, after all, is the personal leader in Ukraine at this moment while the war is continuing? The fact that we're still having an argument here, maybe Biden missed the moment, but we're still having an argument here today as I'm talking to you in DC about whether Tomahawk missiles could be sent to Ukraine. Do you think they should be? And do you think Donald Trump should lean further into that support? It's difficult when I'm not, you know, privy to exactly what is going on underground to common... Well, what's going on the ground is that Ukraine is under massive pressure militarily, which is not a secret. The point is, when I was in a position of responsibility in the British government, I was seeing the intelligence. I understood what the situation was on the ground. I understood the situation, you know, with respect to Russia, Ukraine. I think it's easy to be an armchair critic and say, these people should do this, or they should do this. You don't know. You don't, you know, I'm not, I don't have access to the... Well, I mean, why would anything wrong to send more support to Ukraine? The most effective weaponry, which America has. There were circumstances where, you know, we did send support and there were circumstances where we didn't send support. One reason not to send support in all of these circumstances is the ability of the enemy to get hold of the equipment. And if you remember, that was one of the things that happened in Afghanistan and the hurried Afghanistan withdrawal, you know, that they were able, the Taliban were actually able to get hold of all the, all the equipment. So do you wish you'd had more Trump-like instruments at your disposal? You had that famously short-lived premiership at 49 days. I don't know how much that still haunts you in terms of putting aside for a moment the reasons of what happened there, but just that being it's the absolute peak and apogee of a politician's aspiration here to lead their country. Do you just sometimes still feel some hurt about it? Well, I always feel frustrated about it. But the reality was, when I got to that position, I didn't have the power to actually do things. And what I am compared to my successes and predecessors is I'm honest about that. I'm honest about the problem we now have in the British system, that the Prime Minister is not actually able to get the stuff done that they want to get done. And that to me is a problem. So it's a false grail. It's not the case that by staying there longer, I could have got more things done, which is what I care about. I didn't aspire to be Prime Minister to sit in the office or travel round in the track. That wasn't what motivated me. You were very motivated to do what you wanted to do. You told a lot of the other big officers of state. It just must have been incredibly bruising, partly the circumstances, partly the 49 days, partly the jokes about the shelf life of the elitism. And did you feel emotionally upset by it? Did you shed a tear over it? Well, of course I was upset to be deposed. But the people who joke about it or take the mic, if I had been just a truly mediocre, incompetent Prime Minister, I wouldn't have been deposed. Because we've had plenty of those. That's the reality of the situation. I was deposed because people didn't like my agenda and wanted to get rid of me. And also because there was a panic in the markets and also because there was a turmoil. The turmoil in the markets was, and the Bank of England themselves admitted this, two-thirds of it was about the failure to regulate LDIs. The turmoil in the market was not the result of the mini budget. And this is one of the things the British media don't want to talk about. The Bank of England wrote a report in 2024 saying that two-thirds of the market fluctuation. The Bank of England report, retrospectively, they said there were concerns about the pensions of the way that that market was working. But that would still leave a portion of responsibility to go around for someone who came in and wanted to do things in a tearing hurry in terms of tax cuts and the viability of that. So it wasn't only about this LDIs, means a particular instrument. But they clearly, you know, there were bigger doubts, weren't they, about the pace and actually the direction of what you were trying to do. There were bigger doubts from the economic establishment who have run the British economy into the ground for the last 30 years. And they didn't want to change. So the Bank of England said in their own report that two-thirds of the market movement in 2022 was down to the failure to regulate LDIs, which was something I simply didn't know anything about. But that was two-thirds. There were two other things the Bank of England did. On the night before the mini-budget, they announced the sale of £40 billion worth of gilts, which again had further effects on the market in addition to the two-thirds. And they failed to raise interest rates as much as the Federal Reserve had again the day before the mini-budget. So I think you can make the argument that the vast majority of it was the Bank of England. And what they didn't do on the Monday following the mini-budget is confess to that and say, we messed up here. Instead, an unelected, unaccountable official pointed the finger at the mini-budget. And I think it's important that people understand. First of all, we were not talking mainly about tax cuts. We were talking about not raising taxes. We were talking about cancelling a tax rise. And the biggest measure was about not raising corporation tax from 19% to 25%. Now, it was my belief, and it still is my belief, that actually raising corporation tax has driven business away from Britain. We now have the fastest number of millionaires leaving Britain of any country in the world. And the debt has become higher. So I have been proven right in terms of raising taxes was the wrong thing to do in 2022. It's created an economic doom loop. And even if you take the Treasury's numbers, the fiscal package that I announced was smaller than Rishi Sunak's spending package. It was smaller than Rachel Reeves' spending review. Can I come to the situation now in the economy at Rachel Reeves, for instance, is in town by happy happenstance? In fact, you could have had a quick coffee together. How would she was around, actually? I'm at meetings at a reception last night. If you bump into Rachel Reeves, what would your conversation be like? Well, I think she is a disingenuous liar. I have no time for Rachel Reeves. I don't think she's telling the truth about what is wrong with a British economy. I think she's desperate. The public are now cotting on to the fact that our country is in serious trouble. She constantly attacks the mini-budget for being the cause of Britain's problems. Actually, the mini-budget was the only opportunity to solve Britain's economic problems. Let's talk about now, Rick. Do you not feel any sympathy for Rachel Reeves to this extent that she is also, basically, her sort of strong, this fiscal discipline message and was in part a response to what she'd seen happen to you and your leadership and your Chancellor. Now she's kind of a bit-- She bought the narrative of the Bank of England, which was a false narrative, and now she is being hung on her own petard. That's what's happened. Is that because you think that because the Bank of England is constraining the ability to act as Chancellor? So the Bank of England spread a false narrative in 2022 about me being responsible for the market, you know, the market ructions. That was false. How does that affect Reeves now? Well, because she bought into it. So if you remember, she was, oh, yes, it was all about this fiscal decision that Liz Tross made, even though none of the policies in the mini-budget actually got enacted. So she said, and if you remember, the minute she got into office, she legislated to give the office of budget responsibility more power. Well, I suppose what I'm saying is now she has, and Andrew Bailey and the Bank of England, she has policies which, in effect, raising interest rates when she needs, badly needs to stimulate the UK economy. Do you think that's why I thought you meant by hoist by her own petard to enact? She bought into the narrative of the economic establishment, which is a false narrative. I think we need to go back to where, where do Britain's economic problems stem from? So why, why is the country in so much trouble? Well, first of all, our taxes are too high. Our regulations are too high. And that has been the case since the year 2000. So this is a, we're talking now about a 25 year economic problem of stagnation. But I mean, the government's position right now is to switch lines to a certain extent and say, yes, there are underlying problems, some of which they agree with you about, some they don't. Brexit is- What do they agree with me about? I suppose a sort of low productivity, for instance, they probably- Yeah, but they don't agree the reason. I think it's because taxes are too high, energy costs are too high, and regulations are too great, and that is killing British business. And I actually used to work in business. I understand what drives business performance. So what about- And what about the Brexit factor, which the government's now put back on the table, Rachel Rooves here in Washington, and also a conversation with my partner in crime on our podcast with Sam Coates from Sky, who's very clear, said that we were still suffering Brexit after effects and aftershocks, your view. I mean, you weren't actually a Brexiteer. Agreed with the EU has actually gone up since Brexit. So it's ludicrous to blame Brexit for a 30-year problem. What happened 30 years ago? But you yourself were not convinced by the Brexit argument. It's just- These arguments like the mini-budget or Brexit or austerity, they're just like distractions from what the real problems are. The real problem in Britain is taxes too high, companies and rich people are leaving the country. Regulations are too great. So you can't actually build anything in Britain. Energy costs are four times what they are in the US, which is killing our car industry and our steel industry. We've got two high levels of migration, which is killing our GDP per capita. It's making everybody poorer. Those are the actual real problems. And these things like Brexit, which they're put out there for people who don't understand economics, who know, "Oh, it's Brexit. Oh, it's the mini-budget. Oh, it's austerity." This is why I find that level of economic argument just so low grade. It's so low grade. We have a direct comparator here, which is the United States. So in the year 2000, British GDP per capita was almost the same as the United States. It's now the case that their income per capita is 50% higher than the British income per capita. What are the big differences between what the United States has done and what we've done for the past 25 years? One is they've fracked, so their energy prices are much, much cheaper. They're a quarter of what our energy prices are. Their taxes are lower. Their regulations are lower. Those are the key drivers of economic performance. I will bang on about this because people... I must have been able to ask you another question. You say you've got it, but unless journalists actually understand this and ask the questions from a position of knowledge, you know, we're all just playing monkey tennis. I hope we're not playing monkey tennis on this podcast. Hang on a minute. Let me ask you. Let this monkey serve you from the baseline. I'm a total evangelist about journalists actually understanding the core of Britain's economic problems and understanding what happened in 2022 because if they don't, and they're just point-scoring about stuff like Brexit, which is its a rounding error, frankly, in Britain's economic performance, I think the British public have a sense that things are seriously wrong. I think Rachel Reid just makes up a load of stuff to try and justify what's happening. The country's in an economic doom loop of higher taxes, higher spending, higher debt. Do you think she'll be Chancellor next year when we come back? Yes, I do. I think so that she will remain as Chancellor. Yeah, and I think there'll be an economic crisis. It doesn't matter who the Chancellor is. She is not running the economic policy. The economic policy has been set for the last 25 years. The institutions like the Bank of England, the Office of Budget Responsibility and the Treasury and the people with the power. I listen to you speaking so passionately. I mean, a lot of people will be wondering how you see your own political future. I mean, you weren't around at Conservative Party conference. I didn't really know what you think of reform and Nigel Farage. Would that possibly be either a relationship or a segue or a change that you think, well, this would advance the agenda that I, Liz Tross, have laid out? The fundamental problem in Britain is that the power has been taken away from Parliament and elected politicians and been put in the hands of the unelected. We haven't talked about the legal system and the justice system, but everything I'm talking about in economics, the fact that the Bank of England, the Treasury run things. The same is true of the judiciary. They are now a self-perpetuating oligarch. Where is Liz Tross' party politics? This is what I'm saying. The journalists obsess about party politics. Well, it's not obsessive to ask someone who's been a politician which party they now feel affinity for. But I care about changing the system. I think until we actually have a properly accountable bureaucracy and a properly accountable judiciary, nothing will change. How would that happen without a change in party politics? It doesn't matter if Nigel Farage is in number 10 or Kemi Badenock or Keir Starmer, if the system doesn't change. How would the system change other than by a radical change in election outcomes, therefore party politics? That's true. But what I'm saying is that is not enough. That's unnecessary but not sufficient. I just feel you've not been quite entirely straight with me, but what do you think about A, Kemi Badenock and B, Nigel Farage? I don't want to get into this discussion. We've had years and years of pantomime personality politics, Angela Reiner's tax bill, all this stuff. It doesn't actually change the fact that the country is going down the tubes. Until the public and journalists understand where power in the British system actually lies and start to challenge it, start to question it, start to actually hold people like Andrew Bailey to account, nothing will change. I mean, you're a conservative for many, many years. You've often asked difficult questions of your party and you've often, as you've been very proud of just being in a position that's a bit challenging to the status quo, but you are still a very frustrated but you are a natural conservative. I can tell you. Why are you frustrated? Because I don't believe the conservative party has come to terms with why we were kicked out after 14 years. The answer is that the conservative party, rather than taking on the Blair agenda of installing, frankly, a leftist state, we accepted it. So we were playing on a left-wing playing field for our entire time. Do you think that Kemi Badanock has taken that on as- No, she hasn't. She hasn't. Why not? I mean, she would see herself as not as- Well, I would say because the same people who were there when I was there in office still have a lot of power within the conservative party and it's the conservative, well, they used to be called modernizers, but that sort of faction in the conservative party is still in control. Okay. And it's why- And Kemi Badanock would see herself as being quite distinctive, wouldn't she? I mean, she came in conference talking about cutting stamp duty. She's seen as being not exactly a Blairite blob, right? But the issue is not about cutting stamp duty. The issue is about taking on the unelected power of the OBR, the Bank of England. You know, she's not willing to actually contemplate reversing the Blair government. So unless- It's clear, would you like to see, for instance, the Bank of England back under political control? Correct. Yes. There you go. And what would you- And the OBR- The record abolished. Just abolished. If you look at the record of, on inflation, on things like asset prices, since the Bank of England became independent, it's been a disaster. If you look at their performance against their mandate of 2% inflation, it's hopeless. But it's become an unquestionable shibboleth that they should be independent. The most disruptive force at the moment in British politics is who, what, were formed? Yeah. Can we agree on that? Yeah, I agree with that. Maybe Zach Polanski, I guess. Oh yeah, what if you- He might- He might end up leader of the opposition at this rate. How would you feel about that? Look, I'm no fan of these kind of socialist, communists, Islamists, and his deputy leader is absolutely terrible. But I think there's a certain kind of honesty about the Green Party that you don't see in the Labour Party. And this is why they're now level pecking with the Labour Party in the polls, because there's nothing for people to believe in. I don't want this kind of technocratic managerial crap anymore. They don't want it anymore. And what about reform then? I mean, there's one view, which is, you put Tories and Reform together in some constellation. You've got a block on the right of politics, as you rightly point out, you know, it looks like a more fragmented spectrum that we could be looking at. And would that be an attractive proposition to you? I think maybe something like possibly Robert Jenrick and people are slaming for is, who knows how we put those two things together. You've got a more radical force there because you've got reform in the leadership rather than, you know, you see as a bit of a conservative blob. Would that be attractive to you and reform to retire? What has happened in British politics is exactly what's happened in American politics, which is, it used to be left and right on economics. It's now, are you part of the left wing establishment or are you against the left wing establishment? That's the key question in politics. Are you a globalist or a nationalist? And what I was trying to do back in 2022 is shift the conservative party into the nationalist space. And what I faced was huge resistance from the conservative blob, who generally represents seats in places like Surrey, who actually want to count out to the woke agenda. They want to be part of the kind of transgender ideology, green climate change stuff. And the problem for the conservative party is they still haven't chosen. They need to choose. Are they the party of Rotherham and Norfolk or are they the party of Henley? They haven't chosen. And that's a fundamental, a fundamental issue. And what Nigel Farage has done is he's moved into that space. And that's an existential threat for the conservative party. But you know, we're still four years away from an election. I think the question is who can develop a Trump style agenda, which is what Trump, if you remember, Trump didn't achieve that would fit with Nigel Farage. I mean, other than yourself is one of the most frequent visitors to the US. He's seems close, perhaps even closer than you are personally to President Trump. Couldn't you see yourself working with him on that? If it's the magnification agenda, you could work on it together. The key issue for Britain and the most important part of the MAGA agenda for Britain is taking on the deep state. That is a really important part of the agenda. And frankly, I haven't really heard Reform talk about that. And I haven't heard the Conservatives talk about that. But that is what needs to happen. And if they approach you and said, you know, we'd be listening to what you're saying, because they didn't listen to this podcast. Do they? They do. But if Nigel Farage were to sort of get in touch, say, you know, hi, there's, I can see what you're doing in the way you're very, you know, focused in what you're doing, you're going over to the US, you're making these contacts, you know, you're bottoming out your argument about the state needs to change radically and that Donald Trump MAGA shorthand is a model, would you come and work with reform? What would your answer be? I'm doing what I'm doing on an independent basis. That's for now, for now. And should you're a professional politician? It's quite nice to have somewhere to hang your hat, isn't it? I've been active in politics for a very long time. Being a government minister for 10 years is very constricting. You don't have the ability to reach out to people to network to understand the life of the land. So I'm enjoying that. And I'm not going to say on this show, you know, my definite plans for the future. What would you think about having a more political appointees? I mean, particularly if you're driving through the sort of doge agenda or, you know, there's way that the MAGA machine has been able to sort of go at the problem in the US in a way, I think you've suggested that you largely admire. I mean, could you have, for instance, political appointees to shake up the home office, to push through deportations. Do you think that's a sensible way to proceed? I think it's essential. I think if you don't do it, nothing will happen. So you'd have political appointees would, would outrank civil servants. Well, they wouldn't outrank them. The civil servants should be higher and firable. So you should be able to replace civil servants who aren't doing their jobs with people that can. I mean, can you imagine going into a company as chief executive and not be able to replace anybody that works for you? I mean, it's a ludicrous, it's a ludicrous situation. And even in America, by the way, they still have a problem with career bureaucrats. Embedded sort of Democrats or borders here. What about the judiciary? See, that's an area where, you know, when Robert Jenrick sort of indicated it, conservative... I did agree with his policy on that. I did agree with his policy on that. He's right about that. So he's right that we need to restore the Lord Chancellor in the role of being the most senior judge in the country. And we need to abolish the Supreme Court. He's right about that. And all of these things like being able to deport illegal immigrants or being able to pursue a righteous welfare policy will not happen until you restore the role of the Lord Chancellor. The pushback on that, of course, including for a lot of judges and legal professionals... What a surprise. They love the unaccountable power. It's just like the Bank of England love the unaccountable power. Of course they do. But there are reasons why, you know, separation of powers between the judiciary and politics. The British constitution is based on the principle of parliamentary sovereignty, not the principle of separation of powers. And prior to 2005, we had a system that worked where the Lord Chancellor was the most senior judge in the country. It was a system that worked. Blair got rid of it. We now have an unaccountable judiciary that is losing the respect of the public. And I think that is very, very dangerous. He says that you're quite like Robert Jenrick. In fact, that's the sort of possible area. I don't like everything he says because he has criticised the mini-budget and refuses to apply the same lessons that he applies to the judiciary to the Bank of England. But it's the same problem. The same problem is huge amounts of unaccountable power being given to these people by Blair and the Tories doing nothing about it. And that's why the country's in a mess. We should move to a close. It's been a big and wide-old conversation. I hope not only too much monkey tennis, but what of your previous leaders and people you served in Cabinet with who you still in touch with, who do you still feel affinity with from the broader conservative movement in the UK? Well, I still see Boris from time to time. I'm still in touch with people like Jacob Rees-Mogg and people like that. So, yeah. As you know, Anne, you can't avoid people in Westminster. What's your relationship with Boris like he says? Oh, it's friendly. It's friendly. Is there a world in which Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Jacob Rees-Mogg, you get the band together again? Probably not, I think. Probably not. Not ruling out, Ed. Nothing ruled in, nothing ruled out. If you think where we were 10 years ago before Brexit, the world completely changed. Then you had Covid, the world completely changed. And God knows what's going to happen in the next few years. I think we're actually in a very exciting time, although it's a dangerous time, it's exciting. Got a message for Nigel Farage and reform of what to do or not do at this, as you say, pivotal moment in our politics? Well, my only message is if you don't dismantle the British deep state, you won't get anything done. Prepare to go along and give them a hand with that? I'm not offering my services. Liz Truss. Thank you very much indeed for joining us. Thank you. That's it for this edition of Westminster Insider. Patrick Baker will be back next week to kick off a new season of Our Deep Dives, looking at the do's and don'ts of setting up a new political party. The senior producer is Peter Snowden. I'm Anne McElvoy. Thanks for listening.