[Lynne Titley]

Without getting political… there wasn’t a massive difference between the headline policies of the Tory & Labour manifestos on defence spending or policies. Shapps (ex-Defence Secretary) and John Healey (new one) have quite similar profiles on the face of it – very long political careers with appointments in a pretty wide variety of ministerial/opposition posts. So – not a lot to report on that side of things. I think I saw mention somewhere that Labour were going to prioritise domestic defence procurement, so that would be something.

On the wider economic & tax outlook for industry, who knows?! – it’s going to be fascinating to see how things turn out, isn’t it? You can only get behind them, and hope that they walk the talk. I do hope that they are deadly serious about cracking down on tax avoidance (and presumably evasion) as I think this is widespread & far too easy for people to get away with. Someone in a senior position once said to me “It’s just what you do…”… if that’s what they think, then things seriously need to change on that front.

I can’t leave this post without celebrating the appointment of the first female Chancellor – huge congratulations to Rachel Reeves. Hope she smashes it out of the park.

[Chris Argent]

Yes, congrats to her! Rachel was part of my NCT group 11 years ago! She was lovely. Her hubby was in the Treasury. A guest for the podcast one day!

[Lynne Titley]

You’re kidding!! That would be a hell of a scoop ????