It's extraordinary how much trouble they've got themselves
into in this period of time. Winter fuel around what was
looking at, and I think even Rachel herself might probably
admit this now. No, it was a tactical disaster.
The single biggest disaster? Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer,
can they be prized apart? Can he sack her if the spending
review goes? Badly.
Look, he can sack her. Really sack her.
I don't think he will. Looking at Keir Starmer in a
political setting, he is utterly ruthless.
So will he sack Rachel Reeves? I think he's still quite loyal
to her, but could he? Yes.
Hello and welcome to the forecast.
Does Labour have a week to save its government?
Does Rachel Reeves have a week to save her job?
Ahead of next Wednesday's Make or Break spending review, The
Chance lays out and about splashing the cash on
infrastructure projects in reform leaning areas, funnily
enough. So why has it come to this?
Why does it seem to have gone wrong for Keir Starmer and his
new government surprisingly quickly?
Well, one person who might have a clue is Anushka Astana, about
to be Channel 4 News US editor but finishing off a 20 year
stint at Westminster with an update to her book chronicling
the inside story of Starmer's Labour taken as read out this
week. The contrast with the early
months of the last Labour government is stark.
But given the dire economic circumstances, could Tony Blair
and Gordon Brown have done any better?
Well, one man who was there and is still here is the political
commentator Andrew Rawnsley. He joins us as well.
Welcome to you both, Anushka. Today, big numbers splashed
about. Yeah, for buses, trams and all
sorts of things, not in London, but outside London.
And will that kind of stuff make a difference at all?
Well, they're really hoping that this will be the narrative of
next week and they are next week of next week when the spending
review gets published. They want the amount that they
are spending on capital to be the thing that we all focus on.
They are very frustrated inside the Treasury because they keep
getting attacked for refusing to change their fiscal rules, which
basically means that they need to balance day-to-day spending.
And they're frustrated because they said last year we tweaked
our fiscal rules and we allowed ourselves to spend loads of
money on capital all over the country and we're not getting
any credit for it. And so the race has started
today to try and make that the narrative of the next week.
The problem they've got is that the decisions facing Rachel
Reeves when it comes to the spending review, how much she
spends on the NHS, whether and how quickly they're going to
reach 3% on defence and what it means for all the other
departments are. It's not where they use
normally, but I would say ghastly.
Ghastly. Ghastly because it just isn't
enough. Whatever you do, it's really
difficult. I've been looking at the figures
this morning, you know, is she going to spend 3.4% increased on
the NHS every year? To do that would be only
sticking with the average so far.
To do it would mean real terms cuts for all other departments.
If you add in going to 3% on defence, then transport crime,
you know everything to do with local government is going to be
slashed or or going to be squeezed.
They wouldn't like the word slashed.
So when they wouldn't and they say it's not austerity, it.
Is of course, it's because the overall numbers going up, yeah.
But whether you call it slashed or salami, sliced or just
chopped or amputated, I mean, it's it's awful.
Yeah. So I want.
So, given the fact that the numbers are so dire, what any
good leader needs is a really good story to tell.
Do they have a story to tell? Well, some of them do.
I mean it's become a sort of consensus I think in our
profession as journalists and among a lot of Labour MPs.
What's the story? What's Starmer really stand for?
What is Starmerism? In fact, there are things you
can say they're doing, you know, whether you agree with them or
not. They do have a story on the the
big bill on employment rights, which is ending hire and refire
and banning 0 contracts. And he's probably the biggest in
advance for employment rights in a generation.
They've hiked the minimum wage by more than they needed to and
a big hike, particularly for younger workers.
But are they very good at telling a story?
I would agree with those who say no, they're not particularly.
And that's one of the big contrasts with the New Labour is
because whatever you thought of Tony Blair and in fact Gordon
Brown in a rather more prudence for a purpose.
So the way they were actually very good at conveying the big
picture story and I think both the Prime Minister and the
Chancellor who are the principal storytellers or supposed to be
anyway of the government, neither of them are particularly
good at portraying of issue, but.
But why would so just remind us why Blair and Brown were better
telling stories is they had more adjectives and adverbs in their
coffers? Some of it's just that it also
to be absolutely fair to this government, you always got to
put it in context. They did the one.
It is absolutely true. They inherited a pretty awful
situation. I mean, compared with when new
they became to power in 1997, you know, Tony Blair and Gordon
Brown inherited a growing economy.
The Tories have got thrown out nevertheless for other reasons,
but and a growing economy, a pretty stable economy and a much
lower national debt than we've got now.
And also say compared with 2010, Gordon Brown bequeathed public
services in the general public realm in a much better condition
to David Cameron than they've received from the Conservatives.
But they found quite quickly the current government that blaming
the last lot only gets you so far and the the public's
patience, unreasonably or not, is already running.
Out because the public already knew that the old lot were to
blame for the situation we were in.
They looked at 2010 when they shouldn't have looked at 2010
because in 2010 we had a hung parliament.
The country wasn't sure whether or not they blame Labour.
It's very clear if you look at 2024 that the Conservatives have
been blamed. And what's extraordinary is if
you look at the polling now, people and Keir Starmer and
Rachel Reeves more than the last one.
Which is astonishing. Already, and just on the telling
of a story, I'm not entirely convinced that it's about a
communication thing here. I think it's about the fact that
the more I've delved into Keir Starmer, the more I'm convinced
that he isn't an ideological politician, he is a pragmatic
politician. But that.
Doesn't necessarily mean that you can't tell a story well.
It does mean that it's not easy to find out what he believes in,
because what he believes in is doing the pragmatic thing at the
right moment. In some ways, a bit like Rishi
Sunak perhaps I see more parallels with with them.
What I mean is if when he was in opposition, Keir Starmer was
asked by Peter Hyman, who was an advisor to him, what do you
stand for? What's your vision?
And Keir Starmer says in response.
I don't have AI, don't like that word vision.
It's vague. I just don't like it.
That's how they ended up with the missions, because he
thought, OK, let's have concrete things that we're aiming towards
that are our missions rather than Keir Starmer's vision.
And the reality is in order to win elections, which is
basically been the thing he's been very good at, he won the
2020 leadership. He then won the 2024 general
election. Keir Starmer has done what he
believes he has to do to win over that electorate.
And in in 2020, it was to tell them, I support Jeremy Corbyn,
I'm Jeremy Corbyn in a suit, I'm really left wing, I believe in
nationalizations across the board and so on.
And in 2024, it was to tell them, even though they knew that
the economic situation was pretty bad, although it was
perhaps worse than they thought it was, to tell them we're going
to be able to do it probably without raising taxes.
So people don't know and they're trying to understand, who are
you? And is the other problem for
Stam at the moment is it we don't really care that much what
stories the Tories have got because they really haven't got
a clue what their story is. They're still trying to work
that out and they're licking their wounds.
They're so busy doing that they can't focus on the other.
But there is one bloke who has got a story and that's Nigel
Farage and they he seems to be the person they're most worried
about, hence the announcements today.
We don't know what he believes. It yes, at at the moment they
are obviously they're quite right to be.
Well, it's a good question because I mean you said right at
the beginning, is this the the make or break or beginning or
end of this government time purposes, I mean?
For broadcasting, keep those purposes so.
Now, now we've got. To the discussion here.
We can do a few caveats. We can go.
New we can do new. And conditions, I mean, there
are still potentially more than four years.
The next election doesn't legally have to happen until
August 2029, by which time Donald Trump may or may not.
If the Constitution applies, he will no longer be the US
president. Russia could have made peace
with Ukraine. Looks unlikely, but they could
have done and then reinvaded them by, yeah, at this point
that far ahead. So I wouldn't hang my hat too
much, too much on what opinion polls are saying.
But it's certainly true that Labour seems to have come to a
strategic decision, rightly or wrongly, that they want Farage
to be their main opponent. So extraordinarily, in some
ways, you've got the Prime Minister talking down the Tories
saying they're brain dead, They're heading for a a
Bolivian. And now Farage is the it's me
versus Farage. I think this is based on a
calculation A, it helps squeezed dissolutioned progressive voters
back into the Labour column ultimately, because whatever
they think of Starmer, they prefer to have him in #10 than
to have Farage there. I think it's also to sort of
instill a bit of fear in the hope that that leads to unity in
Labour's own ranks. And also to be fair, I mean, the
day after he became Prime Minister, I think Starmer made a
speech saying this is a challenge of our time, Radical
right wing populism. And if you look at Christ, is
there a fair West of Europe like Afd, Le Pen, all sorts of
places? Why should Britain be be immune?
But if but if taking on Nigel Farage means taking on some of
his language, right. So the Island of Strangers, all
that stuff that we had a couple of weeks ago, is that a danger?
Well, that's an interesting one because that's a actually, if
you read the actual speech, he goes out of his way talking
about how, you know, migration has enriched this country in all
sorts of ways. But of course, that's the bit
everybody landed on. And no wonder, because it was an
extraordinary thing for a Labour Prime Minister to say, I would
say not a wise thing. I mean, he doubled down on it
for the 48 hours afterwards, but he's not repeated it's.
Let's be absolutely clear, right?
First of all, they did not expect people to say it had
echoes of Enoch Powell, Which? I think did they really not
know? Quite naive because it's a very
famous speech. I believe that they didn't know
or that they didn't want that to be the thing that came out of
it. I also believe that they put it
in deliberately because they were worried about the story not
remaining in the news cycle for a number of days, even if it.
Remains there for the wrong reasons.
I mean, people told me explicitly it's there, it's
going to stay there. That's why they did it.
But I think they are upset or certainly a lot of people in
Downing Street are upset about the idea.
And, and I'll tell you what, Labour MPs, including many who
are from ethnic minorities, are distraught about it.
Not just upset, distraught about it.
And, and I get it, you know, of course there was lots else in
that speech. But obviously you understand
what you're doing in those situations.
Now what what Labour MPs say to me is, yeah, but we can't have a
reformed government next time. So we have to do what we can to
stop that. And obviously we need to talk
about immigration. That doesn't mean they're happy
with the language, but we need to talk and they're obviously
trying to find their way on that.
But he's. Defined the battlefield.
Nigel Farage on that issue is to find the battlefield for the
Labour Party. And is that a wise thing to?
I think the biggest risk here is, you know, obviously there is
a problem in terms of the numbers on immigration.
Obviously you need to reduce them.
But if you look at polls, 85% of people say anything above
100,000 people. Net migration is unacceptable.
At the moment we're at over 400,000 with it having halved.
I think they could end up as a hostage to fortune and also Keir
Starmer is talking up an issue and therefore talking.
Up it saying this is always the problem.
I mean, and it's been a problem for years.
Actually it was a problem with the Conservative leaders as
well. Sealing vote, dealing with
somebody like Nigel Farage, you know, if you don't address him
on his his natural territory, he says, ah, they won't talk about
it. Classic establishment elitist
uni party plot. And then if you do try and go
head to head with him, he says, oh, look, I'm setting the agenda
now, I'm winning. And so do your critics within
your own. But I mean, it's a really,
really difficult one. Just on, just on immigration and
no one talking about it. As you said, I've been doing
this for 20 years. As far as I can tell, everyone
has talked about immigration endlessly over that entire 20
years. I look back at a Tony Blair
speech, which was like, people say we can't talk about this.
We can. It's, it's always been a thing.
But just on Farage, can I just talk about him just for a
minute? Because he has things that Keir
Starmer struggles with somewhat, which is really appealing to
voters. One of them is authenticity and
you totally, totally know what he believes.
And that is the thing they are grappling to try and achieve
inside Downing St. and struggling with and their gamble
is we don't. In the end what people will care
about is that we deliver for them.
And that's why you began with the capital spending on roads.
That's the thinking there. They're thinking if we can make
the NHS better then people will just one thing, then people will
go for us. But on just on Nigel Farage, I
interviewed him for the book and I just think there are some
things which they should be really worried.
Worried about which makes it different to what?
Farage should be worried about or Labour.
Labour should be worried, but people who do not want Nigel
Farage to be the next Prime Minister should be worried about
which was that when I spoke to him he was thinking so
strategically and organizationally about how you
crack our first past the post system.
UKIP did very well in local and European elections in 2013 and
14 and then only got 1 MP. Reform have reached a completely
different tipping point. They got 32% of the to vote in
local elections and translated that into 40 plus percent of
seats. And when I asked Nigel Farage
what he was thinking about, this was before any of this, he was
looking back to Paddy Ashdown in the 1990s and he was saying, I'm
really interested in what he did organizationally to get the Lib
Dems to start to win more seats in our system.
Well, that's why he wants count. I mean, he's never been very
interested in local government previously, but that's really,
he's actually in some ways mirroring himself with a very
different an ideology obviously on the Lib Dems.
So if you build up a counsellor base that builds up your
activist base, then you use them as a beachhead into Parliament.
But we shouldn't get too carried away.
I'm a bit cautious by getting too carried away with for artism
because they're we don't know quite what it is.
But there is a ceiling to his support because there are people
and there are some people who say, although we appear to live
in this multi party politics, say actually, and I think this
is part of Labour's long term calculation will be a very
binary election. If Labour has its way, it'll be
do you want Starmer? If you don't, you better vote
tactically for Labour where it's going to make a difference.
Or do you want Farage or maybe Farage Coalition, right.
You really? Want Marine Le Pen to be?
I mean, it has, it's sort of worked.
It even worked in his disastrous election.
The risk the disastrous election Macro most recently called that.
Actually, if you say to people that's the alternative, you may
not like me, but they're a lot worse, you better vote the.
Risk. The risk though, and This is why
I asked you whether it was reckless, is that you talk down
the Conservatives. The Conservatives are killed off
in the idea that you're putting forward.
So you create reform as the alternative, whilst there is for
Labour an opportunity in the fact that the right is split and
if the Conservatives remain with some strength, then reform and
Conservatives. I don't think they are going to,
I don't think they are going to obliterate the Tories in the
end. But this gets back to the to the
original, to the starting point of this conversation is, you
know, where does their soul reside?
So I can't think, I can't remember a single government
that has managed to upset, you know, poor people and rich
people. I don't know if that's a recent
thing. I mean, if there is such a
thing. But it's amazing how they've
upset people with tons of money who they then try to win back.
You know, we want rich people to invest in Britain, but we just,
you know, encourage so many of them to to go to Italy or to the
United States or elsewhere. And then the winter fuel
allowance as well. I mean, this is a a disastrous
bit of even though it makes economic sense, there's an
argument for. It well the winter fuel
allowance what was looking back and I think even Rachel herself
might probably admit this now No, it was a tactical disaster
in that Max it will save the government about 1.4 billion a.
Year, but look what a cost of political.
Well, it's cost them in terms of political capital, and now
they're going to have to reverse on it anyway.
Who knows what savings they'll end up with in the end.
There would have been better ways to and you've.
Got lots of detail about this in your book I mean.
It's the single biggest disaster.
Right. So, so tell us how this came to
be. And, you know, the kind of
entrance of how the government started to work or not work, you
know, flush with victory in the initial weeks and months is
really fascinating. Yeah, so basically Rachel Reeves
and her team get into the Treasury on the Friday after the
election victory. They're absolutely knackered, as
is everyone across government. So many people said to me, this
is not a sensible way to go into government where people
basically start running the country on no sleep whatsoever.
They get pulled into a room to be shown the full disaster of
the economic situation. Although I should say sources
tell me they were very much offered to be shown that before
the election. Rachel Reeves team say no, no,
we were only ever told broad brush.
Sources say to me they wanted them in the room.
Rachel Reeves herself only went to one Access talk.
There were many others that she could have attended.
So maybe they didn't want to know.
Maybe they didn't want to. Know because then when Matt say
it's interviewing Rachel Reeves and she can honestly say, well,
I think it's bad. And then after the election.
So it's much worse than I thought.
I think that I actually am less cynical than you on that,
Andrew. I think that they took advice
apparently from Gordon Brown, who himself said it's not that
useful for the shadow chancellor to be at loads of access talks
and they were so focused on winning the election that they
didn't put enough into planning. So much so that every permanent
secretary met in Ditchley Park in the east of 2024 to discuss
how the access talks were were going on and the overwhelming
conclusion was they were wholly under prepared for government.
They did have quite a lot of time in opposition to think
about what they would do and the opinion polls are pointing in
One Direction. It's true and opinion polls
saying you're going to become the government.
It's a terrible mistake. I mean, those in there would
blame Sue Grey who had been brought in, they would say, to
prepare for government her her allies.
Well. Yeah, no.
Well, we'll come that. But her allies would suggest
that she wasn't able to actually focus them in on it because they
were so obsessed with winning and getting over the line that
they weren't willing to do the preparatory that that their
attitude was similar to the 2020 Labour leadership.
We need to win and then we'll fix the country.
We need to win, then we'll fix the party.
But obviously to them guys, you're going to win this
election, but not because you're necessarily winning because that
lot that are currently in power are really.
Good at losing. In hindsight, I definitely think
they would have won if they'd been a bit more honest about
some of the decisions they were about to make.
But I think that is easy with hindsight.
And I think at the time they genuinely believed that it would
massively reduce the majority. And if it did, they would have a
lot less political stability when they came into power.
So their gamble was we want political stability, that the
thing that has happened is they've lost public trust.
But on Winter Fuel, they're brought into a room.
Apparently they're sitting there and the marching band is going
past outside preparing for the State opening of Parliament in
Rachel Reid. Where there are only urinals
apparently. Urinal, yeah.
So that. Was an interesting detail
because 'cause it's assumed that no one would ever have that job.
Chancellors have only ever been men, and there is, yeah, a
moment where they're all stood. Around, but you're still there,
though isn't? It yeah, I think they.
Spanish you want to get rid of it, but they can't be in the.
End. Probably a protected or
enlisted. Heroin.
Ready, Ready for the next man who takes over.
I obviously not suggesting that's what will happen, not for
once. And they, they're told these,
this is the situation, things are dire and actually the
markets need a signal that there's going to be stability.
Here are the options of things you can do.
And on that card was take away winter fuel payments which lots
of civil servants have wanted to do for a long time.
On it was also get rid of free school meals for infant age
children, which I think the attitude was no way we can't do
that maybe post Marcus Rashford and so on.
And there were things like cut all the non core budget from
schools so sports, music and so on on the list.
They thought the least bad thing was to do winter fuel.
And as you say there is a principal argument that
millionaires shouldn't be getting this.
The problem was never the principal, it was the execution
because the means test was terrible.
And actually, from what I've heard, Rachel Reeves tells the
welfare secretary Liz Kendall, only the weekend before that
this is happening and letters are coming in from Liz Kendall
warning there are going to be worthy pensioners who lose out
here. So it was known that this was
going to be a problem, but they thought it was too expensive to
do any other means test. I mean, I think the other
interesting thing about this whole thing is how disengaged
aged #10 I mean, you know, my sort of specialist area of New
Labour, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had constant battles with
Gordon often concealing things from Tony to the last minute on
the ground. So #10 would leak them or
object. But Tony Blair was at least
quite interested in what's going.
I think Kia Kia Stara made an almost deliberate decision and
some people find this admirable. Rachel Reeves is the chancellor
and broadly she should be allowed to get on with it.
But a more political #10 end of that period and a more political
engaged Prime Minister would surely have said, hold on a
minute, this is a very good idea it.
Was dysfunctional because they had this situation where you had
Sue Gray as chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney as chief
political adviser. The political team, I don't
think knew about this until the last minute.
But extraordinarily, someone told me the only thing Keir
Starmer was shown was the scorecard and he nodded it
through. It and then come back to one
sorry, just say does it come back to 1?
Fundamental problem with Keir Starmer is that you know, he's
smart. That's what everyone tells me.
He's got integrity. That's what everyone, even the
people don't like him say. He's not a political animal.
He doesn't do retail politics. You watch him at a party
conference, Is he schmoozing with all the MPs?
Is he having a pint? No, there's that.
Great. Story when he was meeting Trump
you know before Trump became president with with David Lammy
that they were offered chicken in Trump Tower and he says I
don't eat chicken and pushed it away I mean I would have for the
sake of this special relationship I would have
swallowed that chicken you would have eaten I wouldn't eat the
chicken but then David Lammy apparently said I'll have yours
that's. That's good Starmer's value.
Good, good of Lanny to take one for the.
Team it it. It's true.
I mean I. See Vegetarian.
Too, I think one of actually Starmer's best moments.
Let's try and find something to give him a foreign policy.
Well, he's actually been given the Yang got much of A foreign
policy background. He's been good on that.
And, and, and weirdly, even though he's the least sort of
MAGA crowd guy you could imagine, I mean, him and, and
Donald Trump are clearly not twins separated a bird.
He seems to have found a way of getting on friendly terms.
You know why? Because Donald Trump loves the
title. I interviewed John Bolton last
year, who hates Trump, you know, with a passion.
What he did say is that he really likes Keir Starmer,
although he did call him Keith for quite a long time, because
he's a Sir. And that was it.
And I thought, are you kidding me, right.
He said no, it's true, he's a Sir and and Trump loves the
title. And also he and he won a big.
Win and he's a win and he's a win as well.
Well, apparently there's this phone call between them.
You know, Donald Trump had the assassination attempt.
And I think the next day, Keir Starmer rings to say, I hope
you're OK. You know, how are you?
And apparently Trump's like none of that, None of that, according
to people who may have heard this phone call.
But he's like, you got a massive majority.
You're a winner, man. You're a winner.
And it was always the case that they were kind of going to go
on. And I, I think they're really
happy with the way he's done on foreign policy, although some
would say it's a bit ingratiating, although I do can.
I met, there's the relationship with Elon Musk was something
that I found really fascinating because, and this is where you
see Keir Starmer's values. Actually, he comes back.
He's, you know, they're preparing for Trump and seeing
Trump and they feel it's all going quite positive.
And then Elon Musk suddenly starts attacking him.
I think it was on the 2nd of January.
I'd just come back to work. He's attacking him about
grooming gang. But it was absolutely
astonishing. And behind the scenes they're
planning for a speech I think on elective targets in the NHS,
which is going to happen on the Monday after New Year.
And they just can't. They're just kind of completely
taken about by this in Downing St. and they don't know what to
do. He's the richest guy in the
world. He's also incredibly at this
stage, close to Donald Trump and he's attacking Jess Phillips,
the Labour MP, really badly. And apparently behind the
scenes, Keir Starmer says the attacks are ethic being
outrageous, right? And actually says we've got to
come back on this. And then he did.
And, and he did. And I have to say on that Monday
in his, you know, they knew it would wipe the NHS stuff off the
front page. He did come out quite hard
against Elon. See the other example I was
gonna give was in in the summer, which was quite soon after he
become Prime Minister. So there's some are riots in the
wake of the yeah, he did well, murders.
He did very well because I think he'd sort of been there before
as DPP similar disorder. He sort of knew how to respond
very tough. He thought we'd got to get a
grip on this and very quickly because he went his in natural
element. Other areas where he's not sure
what instinctively he thinks, which means the rest of the
machine can't say what does the Prime Minister think?
And we'll work towards that. We'd better wait until we hear
from #10 what he wants to do. And the other thing I would say
where your point, Matt, he's not very political.
He can be. But when he U turns, it's
excruciatingly slowly. Just going back to Winterfield
again. Once you've decided you're going
to U-turn, you have to be quick and clean about it.
You say which pensioners are going to get it back and are
they going to get it back this winter, Rather than say, well,
OK, we're going to have another look at it, but I can't quite
tell you what we're going to do. Yeah, because then you're still
looking a bit floundry. By the way, they thought about U
turning in the summer, last summer in August, so not long
after they've done it. And someone who was in there
described it to me like a hurricane in Downing St.
They were so worried about it and they had all these meetings
and apparently the view was especially from the Treasury, we
cannot U-turn on this because it'll look like we will flex on
any pressure. And the attitude that was
described to me by someone as basically like fight, fight,
fight. And they even describe Rachel
Royds going. To.
See MP. They called her a boxer in the
ring and someone said to me even more recently, not long before
they were starting to decide to U-turn.
You can't U-turn on a decision like that.
I yeah, that's this obsession about clarity and not U-turn.
I think it's completely overrated by politicians.
And when I end on a couple of quick fire questions, Rachel
Reeves and Keir Starmer, can they be prized apart?
Can he sack her if the spending review goes bad?
Look, look, he can sack her. Really.
I don't think he will because, well, A, as they lash to the
same mass, broadly her economic policy is his economic policy,
and B, who would he appoint? Who would actually run a
different policy? I mean, any of the names rooted
about like Pat McFadden would broadly run the same policy,
partly because actually, you know, they are walking quite a
narrow path between. I know they've got a lot of
angry voters, but they've also got pretty angsty markets and
the the yield on a 10 year UK gilt is currently higher than it
was during the Liz Trust madness for slightly different reasons.
But when whenever they don't sweat, they're sweating for a
reason and they have fiscal rules for a reason.
Anushka, the spending review, can it make a big diff?
Can it in theory make a big difference next week on the
positive side and the negative side?
Well, if they can get their narrative going about the amount
of capital spending, they will hope that it they can.
But I do think the decisions they're going to have to make
are incredibly difficult. The thing I think that they're
not going to back down on, but I think it's a problem for them,
is the welfare changes. I've spent a lot of time around
the country talking to people about those.
They think they're popular with reform voters.
I was in Hartlepool the other week talking to the local MP
who's going to vote against them.
Quite loyal but going to vote against them in part because
they've just had a by election in a council seat safe.
Labour area lost a reform form and they said welfare was coming
up continuously on the doorstep. This is called the forecast, so
we do some forecasting here at your peril.
Andrew Ronsey Will Kier Starmer fight the next British election
as Prime Minister? Well, in so much as one can make
any of these predictions so far out, yes, at the moment I'd say
yes, he will. What about you?
I, I think more likely than not he will.
He's got a massive majority. They don't do a regicide, as
somebody said the other day in the Labour Party very often, and
they will. Discover the joy.
I was getting messages today from MPs saying W streeting is
definitely charming them all a huge amount.
Is that news? I mean, come on.
But in a quite active way. Look, I don't, I don't think
it's likely that he doesn't fight the next election, but I
do think it's extraordinary how much trouble they've got
themselves into in this period of time.
It is incredibly hard because of the economic situation.
Some would argue there are things they can do to make it
easier, but there have been missteps.
But just very finally, the other big thing I discovered from,
well, not discovered, but you may know as well about looking
at Keir Starmer. He is, because on a personal
level, his friends tell me he's completely unruthless.
He's a lovely guy in a political setting.
He is utterly ruthless at every single stage.
So will he sack Rachel Reeves? I think he's still quite loyal
to her, to the frustration of some colleagues around him.
But, but, but could he? Yes.
Anushka Astana, our new Washington US editor.
Welcome to the Welcome to the Madhouse.
Andrew Ronsley, welcome back to THE MADHOUSE.
Thank you very much. That was fascinating stuff.
That's it from this edition of THE Forecast.
See you next time. Goodbye.