
Winter for boomers
Coffee House Shots
Intro
This chapter examines a political figure's recent address on potential tax increases and spending cuts amid scrutiny of past fiscal promises. It also highlights the complexities of pay settlements, particularly for junior doctors, and underscores the importance of improved financial planning in government.
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Speaker 2
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Speaker 3
Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast. I'm Katie Balls and I'm joined by John McTern and Kate Andrews. So on Monday, Rachel Reeves stood up at the dispatch box and said, despite perhaps previously indicating there'd be no need for additional tax rises, there could be more coming in autumn. And in the meantime, here are some spending cuts to boot. John, looking back on Rachel Reeves' performance on Monday, would you say it was good politics even if it perhaps wasn't 100% true? Well
Speaker 1
look, I think it was truthful and the total gap that was found by the Treasury exercise, by Rachel, Treasury-led exercise, was £35 billion, but then she took off that and account for reserves, took off that and account for some of the overspend that Treasury don't believe will happen around 7 billion. And so I think the anger was real because the gap was real. And the fact that immediately after the statement, about an hour after the statement, the OBR said they're going to be investigating how they came to give them such misleading information for the preparation for the spring budget. I think that shows you that Rachel's touched a nerve and she's found something real. And going forward she's going to legislate for a different discipline on chancellors. She genuinely believes that the government played fast and loose with the numbers. I think she made the point pretty well yesterday. And it's an important thing for her to do to say we had this inheritance from those people. And she wants to tie this deficit around the neck of the outgoing government. On the specifics of pay, there's only needs to be such a big pay settlement for the junior doctors because the dispute was allowed to go on for so long. It would have been a, it's not a one year pay deal in that sense. And doctors are being pushed from countries all around the world, particularly Australia. And finally on the pay settlements, the pay review body settlements are accepted. They're there as a form of arbitration. So you don't have industrial disputes So the government, previous government, the Tories, they accept the pay settlements. So accepting a pay settlement is not a change of policy. It should have been budgeted for, it should have been predicted. The government should have had an awareness in its budget if it had been going to be carrying on for the rest of the year, it could have done. So I think every single point that Rachel made was fair and the whole thing is this is to put a reputation on Rishi Sunak, on Jeremy Hunt and the previous Prime Minister and Chancellor's of the last Tory government.
Rachel Reeves wakes to mixed headlines today after she announced a range of spending cuts to part fill a £22 billion ‘shortfall’ in public spending for this year alone.
The most controversial move by Reeves on Monday was her decision to axe the winter fuel benefit for pensioners not eligible for benefits. That saves £1.5 billion but has already been blasted by Martin Lewis and Age UK as a blunt measure that will hurt those on modest pensions who struggle to make ends meet.
Is there more hard medicine to come? Katy Balls speaks to Kate Andrews and John McTernan, former political secretary to Tony Blair.
The most controversial move by Reeves on Monday was her decision to axe the winter fuel benefit for pensioners not eligible for benefits. That saves £1.5 billion but has already been blasted by Martin Lewis and Age UK as a blunt measure that will hurt those on modest pensions who struggle to make ends meet.
Is there more hard medicine to come? Katy Balls speaks to Kate Andrews and John McTernan, former political secretary to Tony Blair.