Well, today saw a big speech from Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party. And what did he tell us today?
Well, he told us that he would stick to tough spending rules in order to give us economic stability.
He'd set up Great British Energy, a publicly owned clean power energy company.
He'd cut NHS waiting lists by providing 40,000 more appointments each week, funded apparently by tackling tax avoidance and non-dom loopholes.
He'd launch a border security command to stop the gangs arranging small boat crossings, and he'd provide another 6,500 neighbourhood police officers to reduce anti-social behaviour. And there'll be new penalties for offenders.
I think what's interesting about those six pledges is that there is absolutely nothing new there at all.
And this idea that somehow you remove tax breaks as they're seen for private schools, and that gives you the money to recruit an extra 6500 teachers. Oh, it's all nonsense. It's all nonsense.
Yet everybody in politics and the media keeps asking the question, how will you pay for it? And you would think, literally, that we take tax off one thing and give it directly to another. We don't. It's all baloney, actually.
All the money, whether it's tax, whatever form of tax it is, National Insurance all goes into a central part. We don't have what is known as hypothecated taxes in any way.
You know, we don't run balanced budgets either. So that bit of it I find insufferable. But don't worry, Rishi Sunak does exactly the same thing.
He sat down after the speech with GB News's political editor Christopher Hope, and the first question that Chris asked was about tax reform.
And then Hope asked him, well, who do you support? Where's your consistency? What do you really stand for?
Well, of course, he's like Tony Blair. He's aping Tony Blair in absolutely every way. It was Blair back in '97 that came up with the five-point pledge card.
Compare and contrast the pictures of Blair with Starmer today walking around the stage very much as Blair would have done. Do you notice the shirt, the rolled-up shirt? So that's very, very similar.
It's absolutely identical. Now look there is an argument that if you find a winning formula you keep using it. But I just put this to you folks. This is Blair without the flair. This is almost a charisma-free zone. But crucially, does this win your vote?
