PoliticsJOE Podcast Economist spells out how Labour's Budget helped the super rich | Grace Blakeley interview
Nov 29, 2025
Grace Blakeley, a political economist and author of 'Vulture Capitalism,' joins to dissect the recent Budget's impact on wealth inequality. She highlights the modest wealth tax moves and income tax threshold freeze that hit low earners and graduates the hardest. Discussing the limited effects of the mansion tax and lobbying influences, she advocates for structural reforms like public ownership and improving social housing. Blakeley also critiques the flawed 'growth will save us' narrative and emphasizes the need to strengthen the labor movement to redistribute power.
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Threshold Freeze Hits Low Earners Hard
- Rachel Reeves combined modest wealth measures with a broad freeze to income tax thresholds that disproportionately pulls people into higher tax bands.
- The threshold freeze will bring nearly 800,000 low and middle earners into paying income tax and worsen pressures on households.
Wealth Measures Are More Symbol Than Scale
- Labour's mansion-tax-style changes and aligning dividend/rental income with earned income rates are largely symbolic and raise limited revenue.
- Blakeley notes the mansion-surcharge raises about £450m versus £8bn from the tax-threshold freeze, showing scale differences.
Organise To Counter Lobbying Influence
- Organise and mobilise to counterbalance corporate lobbying power and make politicians fearful of ordinary voters.
- Politicians only act when they face electoral pressure from organised people, not just intellectual arguments.
