I really enjoyed speaking to Ryan Henson, CEO of the Coalition for Global Prosperity, for the Political Journeys podcast.
We explored my path from an Italian migrant family to advising a Prime Minister in 10 Downing Street - covering social mobility, Conservative messaging, and the realities of public service.
I hope it’s a candid look at why politics matters and where it can go - and understanding a little bit more about what makes me tick.
Have a listen, and let me know what you think!
Interview Transcript
Ryan Henson: Welcome to another episode of Political Journeys with me, Ryan Henson, and I’m afraid no Stewart Harper, Stewart is not available this week, I promise we haven’t fallen out. He will be back in time for our next brilliant interview, but it’s just me for now. This is the podcast which explores the journeys of people in politics. I’m really excited to welcome Mario Creatura to the podcast this week. Mario has had an extraordinary career in politics for someone who’s still so young. He has served as a local councillor for over a decade in Croydon. He served as the very first digital special advisor to the Prime Minister between 2017 and 2019, and he stood for parliament in his home seat in Croydon in 2019. He’s not just someone with a long and varied history in politics. He’s someone who thinks very deeply, who cares very passionately and who articulates all those things in really eloquent ways.
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Ryan Henson: Mario, thank you so much for agreeing to participate in this podcast. My first question is, what makes a very intelligent, very accomplished individual put aside business, put aside, I don’t know, finance or whatever, and choose politics?
Mario Creatura: There is clearly something wrong with me, is probably the short answer. But I guess my longer answer starts with my family, and it wasn’t until many, many years later that I realised that they are completely to blame for my obsession with politics. My dad is Italian and he came to the UK when he was 16 years old. Which for anyone, if you remember when you were 16, is probably hard enough to get to the end of the road without messing it up or getting in some kind of trouble, but he made the journey because he wanted a better life, he wanted to be successful, he wanted to have a family that were doing well. He worked in catering, a good Italian trade, and he stayed there for 40 odd years. He’s still working in the industry. And then when you look at my mum, who comes from Italian immigrant stock, but was born in the UK in Kent, her parents worked in the service industry, so they were literally the maids and the cooks and the valets of a sort of manor house in Oxford and then settled in Maidstone in Kent and worked in factories. And when they met, they had me as the eldest of three boys. And we were taught from a very, very young age that it’s all about working hard. It doesn’t matter if you fail, keep going and you will eventually succeed. We might not understand what it is you’re trying to do, but if you’re trying to do it well, then we will back you and support you. And that got me through school. I went to a state school and did relatively well, went to secondary, did well, went to college, and then decided to go to university, which was an anathema to my family. They had never thought it would be something that I could do or should do. And when I started at university, I discovered a whole universe of people and places and issues and subjects that I was interested in, and those sort of foundational values of working hard, of doing the right thing, of trying to give back to people meant that I spent a huge amount of time volunteering, meant that I dove into different societies and groups and meeting people from all sorts of different backgrounds. And then I fell in love with politics, mainly because a friend of mine who perhaps slightly egotistically at the age of 18 decided to run for local council and over a pint bribed me to deliver some leaflets for him and then told me that I was now a political activist, to which I initially recoiled in horror. And then I graduated in the run up to the 2010 general election and caught the bug and it sort of never left me, and that was kind of where it all started.
Ryan Henson: There’s so much there that I’m eager to dive into. I’m gonna resist doing so right now because I just want to give listeners a flavour of what came next. So could you talk us through the next step, because it’s extraordinary in the last decade, what you’ve done in politics. Can you tell us about it?
Mario Creatura: Yeah, sure, so I left university and did a marketing job, and it was a sort of low level entry level graduate job that I was very grateful for at the time. And at the same time, I sort of got involved in politics, properly got involved, and it was mainly out of boredom initially, I had this friend who’d introduced me, I’d done a little bit of student politics and quite liked speaking and coming up with ideas and solutions to things and trying to help people in whatever way I could. And so I literally got up the Wikipedia pages of the three big political parties and thought, yeah, that one sounds more like me, signed up and started knocking on doors. And it was a bit haphazard at first because it wasn’t particularly well organised and they sent me to the wrong constituency and things like that and I didn’t really know what I was doing. But I caught the bug and then a few years later after volunteering lots and learning lots, I was offered a job in Gavin Barwell’s office in Parliament. He was at the time the Member of Parliament for Croydon Central, who was my local MP and I got to see an incredibly hardworking, diligent public servant trying his best, getting up at ridiculous o’clock every morning to try and make the world, the country, and his constituents’ lives better. Helping him with legislation, helping him to respond to queries from constituents, helping him with events and his comms and trying to sort of formulate ways of dealing with these tricky problems, and I fell in love with it. And after getting him re-elected in 2015 I decided to leave. I had three years or so working there and I went to work for Heineken, the brewery, which was a lot of fun. It involved travelling the country and showing MPs pubs, but in a sort of more emotional sense about how they contribute to community cohesion. They’re good for mental health, they’re good for social activities, and they’re good for sort of the broader economics of the community. And I got to go to loads of different places in Scotland, and Wales, in the south of England, in the Midlands and that included really bad travel connections and poor Wi-Fi and lack of access to cash and people being kind and generous, but it not being like what my life was like in London. And then Gavin, while I was working at Heineken, lost his seat in the 2017 election, and I was very, very lucky that I then got a phone call a few months later because Gavin had been made Chief of Staff of Number 10, quite a good consolation prize for losing your constituency. And I was in the brewery in Amsterdam with some clients at the time, and I got a phone call from an unknown number, which is never usually a good thing. And it was Gavin and he said that the Prime Minister at the time had had a not particularly well performed party conference speech. You might remember the letters fell off, the coughing and the comedian with the P45, but they’d sent a tweet out from the Prime Minister’s Twitter account that was a picture of her ministerial red box, a copy of the speech surrounded by Strepsils and Olbas oil and cough sweets, that sort of thing. And just the word 'Coughs' was the word, and it had been seen by 30 million people and Theresa May wasn’t au fait with social media. She would be the first, and said many times that social media was not her thing. But it went so well that Gavin thought, well, we should probably get someone in who knows how to do comms, how to do social media to help the Prime Minister do that properly and so in November 2017, I was asked to become the first ever digital special advisor in Downing Street, and then spent two years walking down those crazily historically-informed corridors and trying to fit in and make a difference and respond to all of the craziness that was happening and at the same time try to push through a plan that ultimately was about trying to get a message to people who oftentimes didn’t want to hear it or didn’t realise how important it was to receive that message and that was a fun challenge, it really, really was.
Ryan Henson: And then, Parliament. Yeah, tell us about that.
Mario Creatura: So in the midst of Downing Street, while that was going on, the parliamentary selection started being advertised and my home seat came up, which was Gavin’s. He’d decided after his sad loss in 2017 that he wasn’t going to go again, and so I put my name forward for it. And I thought that it would be a great opportunity to again put some of those principles into practice. I had things that I believed in. I’d campaigned for loads of people. I’d been behind the scenes orchestrating campaigns and writing leaflets and arranging meetings and that sort of thing. So it was quite novel to have my face on a leaflet and be able to talk about what I’m interested in and what I was going to do if I were lucky enough to be elected. And I loved it. It was a year of campaigning, everything from helping people in sort of chip shops with their casework all the way through to the hustings and standing on a stage in front of 200 people. It was a wonderful experience and thoroughly exhausting, particularly when the election was finally called in the December of 2019. I didn’t entirely believe that you could get trench foot at that point in time, but it turns out traipsing through the snow and the rain constantly for several months in the dark can do that to a person. So yeah, it was a wonderful experience and it’s something that I’d love to do again if the opportunity presented itself, because I genuinely believe that being an elected representative is a, is the highest calling. It’s not easy and you will rarely be able to succeed without consensus and without a drive to actually make a particular thing better, and it’s always going to be difficult, but the best things in life are difficult, especially when you ultimately achieve them.
Ryan Henson: I mean, it’s an extraordinary story given the background that you opened with and the story of your parents, I mean, how, how did it feel walking around the historic building, but what was that like in practice? I mean, were there days where it was just a job where you’re just like, I’ve got all the problems that I would have if I was in another office building or were you aware each day of the magnitude of the office and what I suppose what sort of surprised you most about going in there, yeah, we’d love to hear more.
Mario Creatura: So there’s two immediate situations that sprung to mind when you asked that question. The first was that if you’re a member of staff working at Number 10, they do this thing where you’re allowed to, on a weekend when the Prime Minister’s not resident, you can invite your relatives to come and visit you in Downing Street. And so we had a few months’ notice and I managed to get some tickets for my parents and my then fiancée’s parents to come along, which for a number of reasons strategically was quite astute of me, I think. The number of brownie points I got from my future in-laws was, I think I’m still cashing them in. But my parents didn’t entirely believe that I worked in Downing Street until that moment, and they thought, oh well, we knew he was in parliament, and we knew he was in politics, and we knew he likes that sort of thing, but now he’s advising the PM. But they thought that I was inviting them up for just a nice meal with the future in-laws. When I told them to bring their photo ID and not to carry anything sharp in their bags, the penny kind of dropped when they walked through and walked up to the front door for the first time. And my dad is a, maybe you could call him a stereotypical sort of Italian. He keeps his emotions sometimes close to his chest unless it’s about sort of football or food. And he got a bit emotional, because where he comes from in sort of rural Italy, my grandmother still lives there, it’s a small village, and my family comes from a background of sustenance farmers essentially. So the idea that you can go from a background where you’re struggling to make ends meet, loving family, but struggling all the time where what you deliver is based on what you believe and what you achieve and the work that you put in to one or two generations later, having your kid advising the Prime Minister of a major country in some way is mind blowing and that that is something that is even possible is never something that I’ve taken for granted and it’s something that has always stuck with me, just how lucky I am. I guess the second story was that on a particularly gruelling day, and you’ll remember during that period there was, it was not a particularly easy time for our Prime Minister. There were lots of negative briefing in the press, lots of political enemies throwing various types of grenades at her or near her. And on a particularly tough day, Mr May, Theresa’s husband, Phillip, he gave us some advice. I think we were gathered around a table, back in the times when you were allowed to gather around a table and innocently. And he said that look, you can in one day change the course of history in this place. It is a privilege to work here, but far too often many of us walk out of the back door to avoid the press, to avoid scrutiny, just to go home like a normal person. But on a day when there is particular aggression being thrown in your direction, walk out the front door, right? And remember that you are working in this incredible building, the big black door with the crooked number 10 on it, and remember how important and privileged it is every day, even on the days that you described with where just normal stuff is happening, internal agro or external pressures or whatever, just like any job. It’s not just any job cos you’re doing something that could make a massive difference and to always try and remember that. It was a really, really good piece of advice that I still cling to.
Ryan Henson: And your CV to that point eminently qualified you to do that job. You had the trust of the Chief of Staff in Downing Street. So I ask this question more because I’m revealing my own insecurities than yours, but I’d love you to comment on it. But did you ever feel a sense of imposter syndrome? Because it is extraordinary, right? It’s been there for hundreds of years. The UK is a G7 country, and Philip May is absolutely right, isn’t he? He nailed it when he said you can change history from here. Was that a factor? If it was, how did you sort of go about managing that?
Mario Creatura: It was absolutely a factor, and it’s kind of probably not a good thing to admit, imposter syndrome, the idea that you feel out of place, that you shouldn’t be somewhere. But I guess there’s two ways of taking it. You either let it eat away at you and think, well, I shouldn’t be here, and that therefore affects your confidence, your work, your belief in yourself that you deserve to give that support to in this case the Prime Minister, it could be a leading a school, it could be working in a hospital, it could be anything that you deserve to be achieving success. If you let that get to you, then you’ll never get out of bed in the morning, particularly if you come from a background where traditionally that sort of thing doesn’t happen. Or the alternative view is to say forget it, I’m gonna do this, and even on the days where you do feel a wobble, you realise, well, no, I was offered the job because someone thought I had the skills to do it. Someone who had seen me at close quarters thought that I could add value. And so damn it, I’m gonna add value, and some days it will be really easy to do that, and some days it’ll be like wading through treacle, but on those days where it is tough, it’s all the more important for people from working class from backgrounds that are traditionally not represented in the professions more generally, I think it’s incumbent on us to do as much as we can to, I don’t know, push the open door a little bit wider for whoever’s coming next.
Ryan Henson: Do you think we talk about, I say we as in other conservatives, do you think conservatives do enough to elevate these sorts of messages because, I mean, my dad, for example, was a lifelong trade unionist, but he was always impressed by the Conservative Party because of John Major, because the advert, I think, in, so I’m told in 1992 was, what did the Conservatives do for a boy from Brixton, they made him Prime Minister, spot on, yeah, absolutely spot on. That’s a London politician, but we don’t really tend to talk about that anymore, do we? Or do we? What, what do you think? And do you, would you like to see that sort of messaging come back? How does it, how can it be adapted for this age of populism that we’re in?
Mario Creatura: So the very, very short answer is yes, we need to do more of it. It’s in fact one of the reasons that I first joined was this idea that your talent, your ambition, your energy, and with a bit of luck, you can achieve anything, was a foundational part of Cameroonism, right? He talked about it a lot, that if you break down the systemic barriers of opportunity and you give people the tools they need to ultimately succeed, then they will, if they want to, they will. And I think that we have in recent years lost our way on that. And I think if you think about what Labour are currently offering, they’re talking about growth and not to be too partisan, I do not believe that their recipe for growth makes sense. If you think of it like a sort of an equation, if you want growth, then you have to add potential and good ideas and allow people the freedom to pursue those ideals, those ideas. And so if you’re a business, it doesn’t work if when you have a mild amount of profit, that that is suddenly taken away from you in the form of an overly aggressive tax, not against taxation, it’s very important for public services. But if you’re an entrepreneur and you want to make something, grow something, build something, you need capital and to have capital you need not to have it all taken away from you at the earliest opportunity by the state. And by doing that, you remove any hunger for generating the next idea, for thinking about how you grow your business, employ more people, help them to put more food on the table. And so when we talk about aspiration and about social mobility and about opportunity, it’s foundational, I think, to the modern offer of what the next generation of the Conservative Party should be that when Kemi talks about going back to values, it should start, I believe, with that foundational philosophy of aspiration, cos on top of that, from that foundation you can say we will help you to do whatever you want to do, we will get out of your way, we will lower your tax in the right way, a sustainable way and in the right areas to enable you to chase your dreams, and if you do that, the country gets better, you’re happier, you’re healthier, and everything that follows from that is a sort of logical argument about self-empowerment and the ability for you to grow and develop in a way that you and your family unit feels is correct for you. And I think that answers a populist question as well, because people aren’t stupid. People know that you can’t get something for nothing, and that does seem to be the sort of the populist argument, that just by pulling up the drawbridge and kicking out migrants, all of a sudden there’ll be thousands of jobs unlocked, you’ll be paid treble and we’ll slash your taxes. It’s, to quote a recent prime minister, a sugar rush that doesn’t actually satiate you or is good in the long-term interests of the country, I think.
Ryan Henson: I’m interested, your time in government was fraught. I actually think having read the Anthony Seldon books of all our contemporary prime ministers, I think Theresa May comes out as an absolute beacon of integrity and decency, and I think that reflects well on everyone who works for her, but hopefully that goes without saying. But do you look back on those couple of years as opportunity missed? Do you think you did everything you possibly could, and how does it compare to running for parliament yourself? I know it’s a big question, but if you could run for parliament again or go back into Number 10, perhaps not right now, but at that time, which would you choose?
Mario Creatura: So I guess I’ve always thought of being Prime Minister as being a bit like musical chairs. You can spend decades trying to become an MP let alone becoming Prime Minister, it may never be something that is open to you just because of timing, right? A lot of politics is skill and resilience, but a lot of it is luck and good timing. Theresa had, I think she stepped down in July after 27 years of being an MP. And for most of that time she was on the front bench either in opposition or in control in government, and when David Cameron decided to step down, it was largely unexpected after the loss of the Remain side in the referendum. And so you sort of grab the opportunity with both hands, and I guess if you speak to someone who’s been Prime Minister and you asked them or before you went in, what would you like to do? And you saw some of that in Theresa’s opening speech, the burning injustice of speech talking about helping women and inequality and tackling the systemic issues that hold people back. And Boris came up with a version of it levelling up very similar idea. And in fact, if you go back to the sort of aspiration argument, David Cameron’s Big Society was all about helping people and providing opportunity. Burning injustice was about removing the obstacles to opportunity. Levelling up was about trying to give people access to more opportunity. So there’s that thread there and all of them had that great vision. Big Society didn’t really take off. Theresa’s time was occupied with Brexit, understandably, and Boris’s time was occupied with among other things trying to navigate our way through a global pandemic. That’s what I mean by musical chairs. When it’s your turn to sit in the chair, you sit and you deal with whatever problem confronts you, and frankly to hell with your individual ideas and what you would like to be done, you try and squeeze them in. And I guess I was told this analogy that running government is quite difficult, but you can sort of do 15 things at once, right, 15 projects, consultations, big reforms, you can try and push them through any one time, one per government department pretty much. But during the Brexit years, 12 or 13 of those slots were taken up with Brexit and so you’re trying to squeeze in all the other things that you passionately care deeply about. But I guess ultimately it’s about public service, right, and just like it’s the Prime Minister’s turn to sit down in the chair when it’s there when the music stops, that’s same is true for advisors. Our time is limited. Special advisors are employed and tied directly to the sponsoring minister. So when they go, usually you go and so you know that the clock is ticking on your role as well, and that means you try to make the best possible use of your time you can with whatever problem, issue or query is put in front of you at any given day.
Ryan Henson: We’re both interested in social mobility and I think you’ve articulated your reasons so powerfully that I’m gonna, I admit now copyright infringement, I’m gonna be copying some of them in my future talks and stuff, but what advice would you give someone with a similar background to ourselves, what would you say to them if they’re interested in getting involved in politics? Because I think, and I’m aware that many people listening won’t have stood for parliament, won’t have stood for local council, certainly won’t have worked in Number 10. And from the outside looking in, it can look pretty toxic. It can feel like a hostile environment, particularly on social media. So what would you say to them?
Mario Creatura: So if you are someone who has come from a working class, comprehensive style education background, the thing that I think that teaches you probably more than anything is resilience. And that is something that you’ll need in spades if you’re interested in any senior career. It doesn’t have to be politics, it could be any sort of professional level career where there is a historic lack of access for people from your background. And from a political lens that could be everything from joining a party in the first place, that is a nerve-wracking experience if that doesn’t exist as a concept in your family, that voting isn’t really a thing, that being affiliated to a party isn’t a thing, why would you do that? That’s a slightly weird thing for you to do. But that requires a level of resilience and bravery, I think. And then turning up to your first meeting to debate policy with people that may have been there for 30 years arguing about fixing the welfare state or how to repair the NHS or whatever, that takes a level of guts as well. And particularly if you look at the demographics, the people that are broadly speaking actually engaged in politics. We know the average age of Labour members is over 60, the average age of Conservative members is over 70. So if you’re someone who is, let’s say under 40 and you’re thinking of getting involved in politics, let alone if you are a woman, that is traditionally a represented group that is not represented well in politics, or if you’re an ethnic minority, let alone someone who comes from a traditionally low socially mobile background, to walk into that environment is nerve-wracking, and I think to be able to succeed and to smash down those personal barriers, I think you need to just swallow it, swallow the nerves, have a brandy or whatever your tipple of choice is, and just do it. And you will say stupid things and you will make mistakes and people will look at you weirdly, but there will be people in the room that smile and nod and push you forward and make you do uncomfortable things. And ultimately that will stiffen your spine and will mean that you can do the next thing. I mean, I was, I joined the Conservatives in Croydon in 2009, as I said, and I was running for council in 2010. It was a no-hoper seat, but I had no idea it was a no-hoper at the time. But someone said, well, just do it. What’s the worst that will happen? You’re probably not gonna win, but if you do, great. And then four years later I became a councillor, and that was because that person gave me that initial shove. And if that person hadn’t been in the room and they might not have done, so that’s why I believe that if you’re interested in public service or a profession of any kind, just do it, just find out and if no one’s gonna help you because of your background and you don’t have the connections, then Google, attend free things and just use your elbows like you have been your entire life to make sure that you’re actually doing something that you’re interested in that you could potentially do for the rest of your life.
Ryan Henson: Did you, I mean, you were obviously close to Gavin, now Lord Barwell. Was he a mentor, did you or did you have mentor figures who guided you or were you in that latter category where you just had to swallow it and crack on?
Mario Creatura: So I mean, mentors are incredibly important and I’m currently a mentor for the Social Mobility Foundation, which I find incredibly rewarding, but they come in different forms. And if I reflect through my life, the mentors that have often had the biggest impact are the ones that are there for almost an intensive and short period of time. It could be the sixth form lecturer who took me aside and talked to me about career options or my CV or volunteering and encouraged me to study harder in a different way or help them with the subjects that I picked. It could be a university lecturer who allowed me to talk possibly for slightly longer than the other students in the class because they saw that I was passionate about something. But equally, Gavin is, has been a tremendous support over the many years, particularly when we were working closely together, partly through observing his actions, so sort of a passive mentor if that’s the thing. And seeing how to do the job well and when he made mistakes, well, why did they happen and talking them through with him. But then afterwards, being able to call him up or to meet up and run ideas by him is incredibly powerful. And he’s basically the reason that I met my wife, so it’s entirely his fault. She was a teacher in a special needs school and we went for a visit, and then a few weeks later she got a letter asking her if she wanted to become a councillor. She signed up and our eyes met over a soggy campaigning leaflet and the rest is history. But mentors, I say it slightly in jest, but mentors have a phenomenal capacity to support in a million different ways, either short and intense or long and deep and so I owe a lot to those people that have given me advice over the years. And I think that if you’re someone from a background that doesn’t traditionally have that, like I remember as a child, you had to get your passport photo signed by someone from the professions. I didn’t know anyone who was a councillor, a doctor, a lawyer, a solicitor or whatever. It took us ages to find one. An extended family friend was a solicitor at one point. But if you’re that sort of kid, then taking advantage of programmes of advice, even informal networks is possibly the most important thing you can do to access a world that otherwise you may not have been able to experience.
Ryan Henson: OK, my final question is, let’s say it’s 5 years’ time, maybe 10 years’ time, the Prime Minister, Prime Minister Badenoch calls you up and says, come into the office, because it’s good news, and front of your front door, yeah, and she says, Mario, I want you in the cabinet, what job would you take? But I’m gonna put a spin on this because, and I, you’ve listened to previous podcasts, I don’t say this at all, I guess, but I think you speak with an extraordinary force and personal story. So I’m going to broaden this out. You can do that or she’ll also says, the London mayoralty’s coming up. So that’s an option too. Which, which would you, what job in cabinet or would you take the nomination for mayor?
Mario Creatura: So it is a very tough question, because serving in any capacity is obviously an honour and you do, you sit in the chair when it’s your turn and you do the best job you can at the time. But if I reflect on my values, the things that I care about most are breaking down barriers of opportunity, are trying to ensure that education works for everyone from every background, that parental choice and freedom is at the cornerstone of our culture, that people are proud of the culture within which they operate, that they’re proud to be British, that Britain’s doing good in the world. And that those sort of values are essential with the way that we conduct ourselves as a nation. Then I would have to pick education secretary. It’s the start and the end of everything comes down to what you’re taught in school, what you’re taught in college, what you’re taught in university if you go there, and how you navigate your life and character comes a lot from your family, but it also comes from your education. So if I had to pick, I would pick education secretary. But to answer your question, the Mayor of London is a very tempting gig. I think it’s the third most powerful city in the world. 8 million people, 11 million if you include the commuters. It has a huge power on the global stage. So at the moment, I don’t think it is being fully utilised. And the ability to do good when you have direct control as an elected mayor almost exclusively does is something that’s very, very hard to resist. And if I may, there’s a distinction that often I think is missed in politics between where power is and where influence is. And they’re two very different things. A member of parliament doesn’t have power. They don’t ordinarily have control of big budgets. There are massive bureaucracies to navigate. There’s campaigns and lobbying and persuasion that needs to take place. So your skills are, when you’re fighting for a cause, all about trying to influence people, influence events, not directly putting a lever and that thing happens. But being a mayor or being a councillor or being someone that is directly elected does give you a greater degree of power to be able to do things, but in a much smaller sphere of influence that is often controlled by the environment and the government and the budget that you’re operating in. And I think it’s worth considering that when Prime Minister Badenoch does call me into the office, that that will be something that I think that all of us involved in public life should wrestle with that what, what is, if we’re doing this, if we’re doing public service and we’re doing it right, are we doing it for the right reason and are we trying to seek power where there may be is none, or are we trying to influence things to try and make them as best as they possibly can be?
Ryan Henson: Thank you so much, it’s been absolutely fascinating. Thank you for being so generous with your time. I have one more question, I’m gonna put you on the spot. Stuart is obviously not here, he’s had transport problems, will you come back in a year’s time and do this again, because I think we could have used triple the amount of time, and I know Stuart will have lots to ask.
Mario Creatura: Yes, absolutely. Very happy to.
Ryan Henson: Mario, thank you so, so much. I really appreciate your time and I look forward to seeing you as education secretary, hopefully in 8 years rather than 12, but we’ll see. Thank you very much.
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Ryan Henson: I thought that was incredibly thoughtful. Mario isn’t just an intelligent guy, he’s someone who really reflects on the things he believes and why he believes them. And the reason I asked him about the mayoralty, it’s partly because of course he’s more than capable of doing it, but because I think these messages around social mobility and aspiration and imposter syndrome are not spoken about anywhere near enough, especially on the centre right. I so, so enjoyed that podcast. I hope that you did too. Mario is definitely one to watch. I really, really, really hope he ends up in the chair one day. I think we’d be absolutely fine even if you’re not necessarily a conservative. His values are such that I feel confident he’ll always do the right thing. Thank you very much for listening.
