Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Takes the party who now change the country and is
it tough going? Are the plenty of people and noises off? Yes,
of course that always are, that always have been, that
always will be. But the important thing is to focus
on the change that we want to bring about.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Salas Kris Dahmer on Wednesday, dismissing talk of rebellion as
a distraction one you turn later. Has the prime minister's
authority been dealta blow? You're listening to Bloomberg UK Politics.
I'm Stephen Carroll.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
And I'm Caroline Hepker. Welcome to the program. So the
prime ministers spend the end of this week in late
night crisis talks trying to stem the biggest rebellion of
his premiership so far. This over the government's plan to
save or try to save five billion pounds per year
by cutting welfare payments. But many members of his own
party have rejected it, with one in four of his
(01:00):
own MPs threatening to vote it down. So in the
face of that opposition, kissed arms back down.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
So changes to that plan to cut welfare payments. It
also means the budget calculations for the Chancellor of Rachel
reeves get even more complicated ahead of the budget later
this year, and at the same time, the Labor leadership
is watching the extraordinary rise in the polls of Reform
UK closely watched Yugov seat by seat pole in the
past few days found that Niger Farrag's party would emerge
as the biggest, although short of a majority, if an
(01:30):
election were held this year. So the political consensus that
delivered the Labor majority almost a year ago is to
be praying at both edges, under pressure from both the
left and from Reform UK on the right.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Well, joining us to discuss is John Steppek, who writes
our Money Distilled newsletter. John, really good to have you
on the program. I just sort of want to start
by the issue that is at the heart of this
controversy and what the climb down actually means for recipients
of these benefits.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Well, basically, far as we can tell, they climb down
involves star marks, saying that everyone who's currently on these benefits.
So what they are personal independence payments, which are basically
payments designed to help people, and they're not they're not
means tested. It's more about whether you qualify depending on
your condition and the reforms we're going to make it
(02:20):
harder basically to qualify. So now what's going to happen
is that if you're already on them, you're not going
to get them taken away. It's only going to apply
to new recipients. Now, of course, you know some people
have pointed out that all right, okay, so you're applying
one standard to people have already got this, they're going
to apply a different standard to people who are about
to get it. But I think that this particular change
(02:41):
so far looks as if it's probably appeased enough for
the rebels that it might pass, although there's no foregone
conclusion that still has to happen on Tuesday.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
How significant to climb down is it for the Prime minister?
We're thinking about the confidence in his leadership.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
I mean, to be honest, I think anyone objective would
have to say it's pretty significant. I mean, you're getting
a rebellion of this scale where the government is forced
to uturnt on what is actually a flagship policy to
save money to which originally was to avoid a repeat
of the Leeds Trust moment in October twenty twenty two.
(03:20):
So the government somebody climbed down on it, having climbed
down on the kind of non situation somewhat having climbed
down in the winter fuel payments situation. So you're kind
of like getting this sense that the government already is
paralyzed by its own members as well as you know,
forces from outside, and that it can't get anything done.
(03:41):
And you know, there are also kind of like conversations.
I mean, obviously, I've seen a lot of think pieces
recently in the sort of center left publications like News Statesman,
for example, looking at Cure Stammer's leadership style and sort
of question whether he actually believes in anything, questioning his
kind of managerial kind of competence. Or there was one
(04:01):
kind of comment from one Backpaine tomp libor MP, who
was seeing complaining he hadn't had the conversation with Justama
at all since you know, Libert won the election. So
I think there's that sense that you know, the team
around them are sort of somewhat high handed, or who
knows if that's true or not. The point is the
fact that stuff's getting talked about shows that that is
(04:23):
dissent and the ranks and whenever you've got what kind
of looked like a LANs lead on this office. That
is surprising at this point in someone's leadership.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
But Labor still has a massive working majority. I mean,
you were writing this week about how maybe the best
way to understand this government is as a coalition, and
u K has been governed by kind of broad coalition
parties in most of its modern history because traditionally we've
only had two really big parties, powerful enough, you know,
(04:54):
to kind of dominate. Do you think that this coalition,
this grouping is actually in trouble.
Speaker 4 (05:01):
I mean, I think that you only have to look
at what's happened to suggest that it is. I mean,
perhaps the I think that's really interesting that you put it.
So I kind of thought of it as a coalition
because I guess I was partly writing for overseas viewers,
and sometimes people don't from the outside, the UK looks
(05:22):
as if it's got a strong and stable government. Yeah,
because it's got one party with a massive majority.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
And the prime minister lasting a whole year is quite
a long time.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
It's like how many lettuces have gone off during that period.
Quite a few, I think, But no, I think it's
it's and so it's partly it's sort of get people
to try and think about because actually the UK in
reality is probably a lot like a lot of the
European countries that are like incredibly splintered in terms of
their leadership and in terms of where different factions within
want to go. And I think you're absolutely fair to
(05:56):
say that although we've had we've only back we've had
one post war coalition government and that was the you know,
the one in twenty ten, yeahselves and lad Deams. But
you could certainly argue I think that since then we
have basically had uneasy coalitions, certainly within the Tory Party,
(06:18):
you know, between the pro European law and the anti
European lot, and then you know, an absolute mess of
different kind of power bases.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
In the less of a mess the previous ten years.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
I think the problem with this one is that we've
got basically and what I think again we need to
remember is that so Jeremy Corbyn nearly one election in
twenty seventeen, and an awful lot of people who are
even in the front bench of Labor right now would
have been more than happy to say under Jeremy Corbin's
government and Jenremy Corbin's government would have been a very
(06:52):
hard left government, whereas Keir Starmer kind of certainly sold
his pictures being kind of Blair late, you know, in
the center left, or we were happy, we people making money,
et cetera, et cetera. We just want to go back
to the wee things we are in the nineteen nineties,
and that is that's no longer an option.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Well, yeah, and also in the nineteen nineties it was
a much better economic time forbidden, and also that Blair
and Brown were able to push back much more on
the unions than maybe is evident in this Also, I
would pick you up on one point though, I do
think that it's it is a coalition and it is group.
It is different groups, but those groups for this labor government. Interestingly,
(07:38):
because they were out of power for so long and
they didn't really know who was going to be elected
in it has taken some time for those factions to
coalesce and that has been quite interesting and under the
surface that is what people have been watching, actually who
are the leading MPs and that has taken time to
shake out, like for example, Meg Hillier leading in this
(08:00):
instance on the welfare cuts. So against the welfare cuts.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Yeah, and I think that's fair enough. I think, you know,
one of the problems and you know, to give Keir
Starmer some you know credit or at least, you know,
some some compensation. Now we are talking about a party
that was, you know, kind of where the Conservative Party
is now and around about twenty fifteen and has slowly
(08:26):
been kind of rebuilding itself from you know, some pretty serious,
you know scandals, you know, being found to be institutionally
anti Semitic by the Equality Commission, for example, and trying
to kind of clear that out and deal with that.
That's something that Starmer's had to do, and he actually
did a good job of getting Labor back to the
point where they were not only electable, but they won
(08:48):
a landslide. Okay, they won a landslide against a Conservative
Party that everyone was completely sick of. But it's not
I don't think it's I think he had actually a
very difficult job to do buying. That is also the
part of the issue that he's facing just now, because
so much of what they do is not just outward facing,
its internal facing. It's kind of crowd control for their
(09:10):
own MPs. So I think that's I do think that
that's probably a bigger issue. I mean, don't know, it's
a function of the polarization of politics more broadly, but
it just makes it hard dirt to get stuff down,
and unfortunately we need to get stuff down.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
Well to that point, I mean, this now leaves the
fiscal calculations much more difficult. I mean, is this the
labor parties version of their own Brexit to Beth about
getting between tax rises, spending cuts, you know, none of
the above. Essentially, how do you manage the public finances?
Speaker 4 (09:41):
I mean, definitely the public finances. I mean, public finances
is the problem here, and it's going to It's to
be fair, it's going to be the problem for any
party that gets in next. But that's why somebody needs
to pick a path and goop it. And the problem
is that we all that we've sort of got to
the point where there is no compromise that isn't going
to result in some you know, I'm putting court marks here,
(10:03):
a bit deserving losers. It's always going to be somebody
that loses out whatever choice you make.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Which is why I thought the idea that Liz Ken's
or the Work and Pension Secretary is now committing to
speaking to disability representatives and groups. I thought was interesting
because it is that issue that it's so difficult to
make change when people want to be heard and should
be heard. In terms of the other point refom UK,
(10:30):
I mean it was about a month ago, but the
TUC's Paul Novak made that big kind of intervention saying
you're criticizing Reform UK Nigel Farage that he was cause
playing being a working class person, very very critical of
and the contradictions within Reform UK's offer, which again doesn't
seem to cut through when you look at the poll
that we mentioned at the beginning of the show.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
I don't think it cuts through because I don't think
that's how most people think about politics. I think most
I mean the whole lane. The Nigel Forage being poshe
and therefore he can't be someone in the working classes
might respond to is stupid. I don't really.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
That's but having contradictory policies are the issue, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
That's an issue sort.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Of making a lot of offers for you know, both
on non doms but then also on the lower end
of the of the scale and trying to park the
tanks on Labor's loan as.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
It were absolutely and I don't think, I mean reforms
sums do not add hop remotely. You know, Simon French Panemer,
who's a kind of constant go to guy for me,
pointed in the Telegraph that if they did what they
said they were going to do in their twenty twenty
four manifesto, then there'll be on Sterling and Gilts because
(11:48):
they're basically an eighty billion pound black hole in the budget.
And that is completely any of the election manifestors in place,
you would have ended up with that sort of I mean, yeah,
I mean, I mean, this is the flip side of that.
We are four years away from a government and to
an extent, I mean the will obviously reform are just
playing politics. You know, they don't They're not under that
(12:08):
much pressure to make it add up until we get
close out of the big day. I mean, I think,
you know, their ideas a kind of like putting up
you know, the income tax personal allowance to twenty thousan
pounds is just crazy. It's you know, we need to
widen the tax base in the UK, not make it
even narrower. The non doms idea does not work in
practical terms, though you can see what they're getting that
(12:30):
the idea of I mean, I hate the idea of
a hypothecated tax, but you know, if you've got this
sense that the more rich people we get in, the
more the poorer are going to get helped, and you're
making that direct link, I can see that they're social
idea there. But I think that again it's it doesn't
actually work. And the problem is when they get pushed
back from perfectly reasonable commentators like Simon, like Dan Needle,
(12:53):
all they do is kind of flannel and kind of
get defensive and angry rather than engaging. So I mean
actually saying of an adolescent party, I think, and it's
like growing pain the light that I have to get
over or they won't make it to the next election
with the same support they've got now. I mean, I think,
I think unless they can prove a series about that stuff.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
Okay, John, great to have you with us. Alther of
our money distilled newsletter you can sign up for at
bloomberg dot com slash Newsletters. That's it from us for today.
If you like the program to catch subscribe, give it
five stars so other people can find it on Apple podcasts, Spotify,
or wherever you listen.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
This episode was produced by James walk Up and Harry Black,
and our audio engineer was Andrew Gavin.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I'm calling Meet and I'm Stephen Carroll. We'll be back
at next
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Week with more