Okay.

Welcome back to Garys Economics.

This week

I want to do something a little bit different,

which is to talk about

a discussion

which has been causing a lot of disagreements

here in Garys Economics offices, which is,

largely this kitchen and a WhatsApp group.

Recently we got contacted

by the Labour Party, basically,

which is the first time

we've ever been contacted by the Labour Party.

And, they said,

you know, we've been seeing

what you've been doing on the channel

and we would like to send some MPs

onto the channel to talk to you about,

presumably the economy.

And my initial instinct

when that happens was that

we have to let them on basically,

that was a kind of a,

I think, a moral like a, like an ethical response

because we criticise the government a lot.

Labour have been in government

for coming up to a year now.

We've criticised them a lot, before them

we criticised the Conservatives a lot.

But I felt that since we are criticising

these guys

a lot on the channel,

we kind of have kind of an obligation

to let them come on and defend themselves.

They are literally the party of government

in this country.

I think I might even have said on the channel,

you know, if you want to come on,

we'll have you on,

so I felt like we kind of

have to have them on, really, from a moral perspective.

So I chucked it out there to the team,

we have like a very small team now

we have Jack, here the videographer,

and we have Oscar, who's the channel manager.

And I said, these guys want to come on the channel,

I think we have to have them on.

And we had a little chat about it.

And basically, Oscar thinks we shouldn't have them on.

I think Jack probably thinks we shouldn't

have them either.

So I wanted to basically talk about

what's going on in my head,

what's going on in our discussions

about whether we should have them on.

And basically,

I wanted to put it to you guys,

the viewers, to basically let you guys

have your say about

whether you think we should have them on.

And I wanted to engage you guys in the thought process.

Yeah and just

encourage you to put in the comments what you think.

So I'm going to kind of go through the pros

and the cons as I see them.

So firstly

the pros, I think it's kind of the right thing to do,

to have them on

because as I say, we've been criticising them

and they're the party of government

and we kind of

should give them like a right

to reply to defend themselves.

Other pros,

look, I'll be clear about what I'm doing here.

You know, this is obviously a YouTube channel,

but those of you who've been watching for a long time,

you will probably be aware that,

you know, I'm not just doing this

YouTube channel to make videos.

I want to achieve political change here.

You know, I want to achieve a fairer tax system

which taxes

the very rich more and taxes ordinary working

people less.

I want to stop increasing inequality.

I want to try to stop falling living standards.

You know, and everything, the writing of the book,

it's all about trying to achieve political change.

And i’ll be very clear, like plan A for me,

and I think I've said this on the channel before,

is to try to influence the Labour Party

running up into the next election.

I think that they will fail on the economy.

I think that living standards will continue to decline.

I think that Labour and Keir

Starmer will become increasingly unpopular

because of that,

and I think they will be forced to,

if not replace Keir Starmer, at the very least

do a significant rebrand on economic policy.

And I think they will be forced

to consider a new direction

to consider, at the very least,

a new style of messaging.

But I think they will be forced to listen to new ideas.

And, I think that

if we can keep growing the channel at the kind of pace

we have been growing the channel,

I think that we

can be big enough

and can be powerful enough that we maybe can influence

that changing

economic direction for the party,

which will probably come in two years

time, three years time leading into the election.

That might sound crazy,

but the growth of the channel

is so quick at the moment,

and the growth in support is so quick,

I actually think that that is achievable.

But that obviously means

building some form of connection

with Labour and some form of influence in Labour.

I'll be clear about that.

I'm not trying to sort of

covertly become a member of the Labour Party.

My priority,

my plan is to make this channel so big

that they basically have to talk to us,

whether they like us or not.

I call this the Rupert Murdoch plan.

So Rupert Murdoch,

for those who don't know who he is, is

one of the richest men in the world.

He's an Australian media businessman.

He owns loads of newspapers.

And really,

he kind of indirectly controls

politics in a lot of countries, including the UK,

because he has so much influence

over the public through his newspapers

and his TV channels

that unless prime ministers get his support,

they basically can't win elections.

And I think I'm not wrong in saying,

wasn't he godson to Tony Blair's kid?

I think he...

double check me on that.

But,

you know,

I think one of the reasons Tony Blair was so successful

politically is because he got Rupert

Murdoch's support, basically.

And I think Rupert Murdoch is a great example

of how you don't need to be an MP or even prime

minister directly to completely control

politics, basically.

He is, he was? Yeah, yeah so I'm not wrong on this.

-Tony Blair Godfather to Rupert Murdock’s daughter.

Okay.

Tony Blair Godfather to Rupert Murdock’s daughter.

Okay, so they were close basically.

I think Rupert Murdoch shows you that

if you have a big enough media presence,

you can basically boss the political parties around.

And that's my plan A, basically.

The growth on this channel

is unbelievably quick at the moment.

I don't know whether we'll be able

to keep up that level of speed,

but to be honest, you know,

we're going to try to get some big media hits.

You know,

Diary of a CEO, Question Time, The Rest Is Politics.

Maybe we can keep growing at this pace.

And if we do

yeah then Labour will have to listen to us.

But either way if I don't want to set up

a political party myself,

which, trust me, I don't,

I think our best chance of influencing policy is

via the Labour Party. So,

obviously having them on is

a way to try to develop some sort of relationship.

Which I guess brings us onto the negatives,

because one of the obvious negatives is,

I am very, very critical of Labour

Party policy at the moment.

I think it will fail economically.

And if somebody comes on, I will say that.

And, you know, I'm not going to have them on

and be a soft touch, like I'm going to try to...

I'm going to tell them

that I think their policy will fail,

and I'm going to try to...

if they,

if they're unwilling to listen to that,

then I'll probably have to go for them

quite aggressively.

And there is a risk that we perhaps

sour the relationship with the Labour Party,

which might be problematic down the line. I don't know.

I want to be clear, I keep saying that,

I don't have a background in politics.

My background is in economics,

and I'm not a professional lobbyer.

I really don't know how this works.

My plan for a long time

has been to build

popularity with the public,

and it's only really

now the channel is growing

that I'm even starting to think about, okay,

how are we going to be able to leverage

this into political power down the line?

But yeah, that's one of the risks.

Number one is, you know,

we might potentially sour relations

with the Labour Party,

which might possibly influence

our ability to influence them,

affect our ability to implement them down the line,

which could be a problem.

To be honest,

I think if we get this channel big enough,

I don't think that'll be a problem,

because I think if we're big enough,

they have to listen.

But, you know,

maybe it is,

maybe you guys know more than me

about the Labour Party,

I'm not an expert, I'm not a member.

The second thing is,

it risks people

questioning the political neutrality of me

and the channel.

So I come into this as an economist.

I consider what I'm doing

kind of a single issue campaign.

We need to stop wealth inequality increasing,

that's how we stop poverty from exploding.

I honestly don't consider myself

to be particularly politically factional.

I voted for a number of different political parties

over the course of my life.

But obviously,

if we let the Labour Party

on, there might be people that say,

“Oh, Gary's let the Labour Party on, he's

a Labour Party stooge.

He's on the left.” I think we have to accept we live in

increasingly, extremely

factional times with regard

to politics,

where people who feel that

they're on the right often

hate people who are on the left,

people who feel that they're on the left,

often hate people who are on the right.

And

I

I want to appeal to people

in both camps on either camp.

I honestly believe that

we're not politically factional,

and I want to be able

to remain believably politically non factional.

And that might be a risk if we have Labour on.

I would be bringing Labour on

because they are literally the party in government and

I criticise them a lot.

And I would have had the Conservatives

on when they were in government and,

you know,

I'd be open to having the Conservatives on

now if we had Labour on, but that's a risk

we might be seen as nonpolitical, factional,

we might be seen as, yeah, not politically neutral.

Then after that,

if we have Labour on in order to,

you know, defend and justify

that we are politically neutral, which I think that

we are,

we might need to have

the Conservatives on, we might need to have Reform on.

And some people might say

we should even have the Liberal Democrats on,

and we should even have the Greens on,

and we should the SNP on.

And then it starts to become a situation

where we are giving up

a significant amount of our time

to basically other people when, primarily this is a...

I want this channel to be

an educational channel, an informative channel.

I work hard to put out

informative educational videos

every week that help ordinary people understand

what is happening.

And we only do one video a week.

It takes up a lot of my time.

It takes up a lot of my energy.

It takes up a lot of our resources.

We don't really want to start

giving up a huge amount of basically this space

we've created to a bunch of politicians

who we don't really trust or even really

like necessarily.

So that's the second question.

Is it going to sort of

start us on a slippery slope

of having to give a lot of our time and space,

which we've worked hard to create, to people

that we don't really like,

people that we don't support.

And I don't mean that just Reform

and Conservatives, I include Labour in that,

because there are a lot of people in Labour

that maybe I'm not a massive fan of.

And then the next problem, potential problem

after this is quite simply

that it might just be really boring, it’s

I think a very real risks.

So, I mentioned message

discipline in my video last week.

One of the reasons why MPs are often quite boring

when they go on TV

is because they get told what to say by the party.

That's the way that it works,

party tells them what to say,

they don't have a huge amount of freedom.

And there's a very real risk

that we allow someone on the channel,

he sits here with me at the kitchen table.

He or she obviously, could be a woman.

And it's just really, really boring.

And it's just talking,

just speaking the talking points

they've been told to say.

They're not really thinking about the economy,

they're not really listening.

And it could just be really rubbish

TV, could just be really rubbish video.

That is a risk.

And I take pride in putting out good,

interesting videos on the channel.

People have their opinions on

whether they're good or interesting,

I think we produce good content.

And I've always believed that

it's really important to produce

good, interesting content,

and that is a risk

when we bring them on that it’s just boring,

boring content.

And then

to, you know,

then we're forced to bring on Reform and Conservatives,

and we just get a string of boring videos

and we become Garys Economics, political...

boring political broadcasts,

which is obviously not what we want to be.

And the next risk is just,

you know,

I am obviously not a professional interviewer.

I'm an economist.

We've done interviews on the channel, we've only had...

we've only ever had three guests

on the channel, Matt Zarb-Cousin,

Stephanie Brobbey, and Jimmy the Giant,

all three people that I really like,

I really respect, I really respect their work.

But even so, you know,

people sometimes criticise

those videos and say, “Oh, Gary,

you're not a good interviewer.

You need to give the guest on to speak.”

And I think they're probably right.

I'm not a professional interviewer. It's not my job.

I would have to sort of sit

and think quite long and hard about,

you know, what do I would ask these people?

How do I want to run it?

How are we going to manage it if they're boring

and they don't say anything?

So it's just a lot of stuff for me to think about.

You know,

if I go too soft on them, people might say, “Oh, Gary,

you secretly support Labour.”

If I go too hard on them, people might say, “Oh, Gary,

you hate Labour.

You're on the right.” We might sour our abilities to

influence them down the line.

So yeah, that's basically it really.

We're throwing around a lot of ideas.

I think if I was thinking

purely explicitly about

like what is best for the YouTube channel,

probably I wouldn't have them on.

I think we, I think we've got a cool channel here.

I think we make great videos.

I think we make

we make fun, exciting,

accessible, educational, informative videos.

People like it.

We're growing really quickly, we're popular.

Everybody hates Labour,

I think they’re going to do quite a bad job.

Their brand is weak.

It's kind of toxic.

It's like, purely

from a growing the channel perspective,

it seems like an unnecessary risk.

But at the same time,

I think

and I'm kind of a lone voice in this in our team,

I think it's the right thing to do.

We attack them, we criticise them.

I think it’s the right thing to do.

These guys are literally

the government of this country.

Even if we don't have other parties on.

I think we have a

kind of a duty

to let them come on and defend themselves.

But no decision has been made.

I'm crazy, crazy busy,

and I haven't had a real chance to sit

and think it through.

So I thought we’d

try something different,

which is to just discuss here on camera

in front of you guys

what we're thinking,

what I'm thinking, and ask

you guys for your opinions, basically.

So, what do you think?

Should we have them on? What are the risks?

If we have them on, does that mean

we have to have on the Conservatives,

and Reform, the Liberal Democrats? What do you think?

Or is it a waste of our time

and we should just keep making the videos?

Of course, you know,

I can go back to these guys and say, hey, look,

I want to talk to you.

And I can sort of ask for, look,

if you want to come on the channel,

I need you to come and talk to me about...

are you going to give me what I want?

Are you going to be open to things like

wealth taxes, like a fairer tax system,

like raising tax on wealth and lowering tax on work?

So, you know, that is another option.

We can turn around and say,

“Yeah, we'll have you on the channel,

if you give us what we want, which is,

you know, a little bit more access to your policymakers

telling us how you make your policy.”

Lots of options here.

I have no background in political lobbying.

I'm not really comfortable in this space.

I'm an economist at the end of the day, so be nice.

No decisions have been made,

but let us know what you think.

Yeah, put it in the comments.

We'll be watching, we'll be reading.

And that's all.

Well, I should say

the reason that we're

getting these kind of approaches from Labour

is because the channel is growing

unbelievably quickly, and that is

thanks to you, the viewers.

So I'd like to thank everyone

who watches the channel, shares

the channel, everybody who has bought the book

shared, the book.

The book at the time I'm speaking, the book’s

been five weeks at number one.

This is one of the reasons why we get these approaches.

Yeah, this is something that shows we are

getting a bit of political power,

and if we keep growing, we could get more,

but we haven't yet decided what the best way

is to play it, to approach it.

So let us know your opinions, put them in the comments.

Thanks for your support and keep watching. Thank you.