Is Angela Rayner on resignation watch?

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I remember when the Prime Minister said that tax evasion is a criminal offence and should be treated as all other fraud. If he had a backbone, he would sack her. That's Kemi Badnock at Prime Minister's Questions this lunchtime. Talking about Angela Rayner, who in a bombshell interview has admitted that she made an error on her taxes and says she's devastated. The question is, was it tax evasion or tax avoidance?

One is illegal, one is not. And that, of course, raises the even bigger question for Keir Starmer and this government on day three of the great reset. Can she survive? Welcome to the newsagents. The news agents. It's John. It's Emily. And the old Scottish phrase for Angela Rayner's position is that her coat hangs by a shuckly peg.

In other words, there is some doubt now over her future as a result of the admission that she underpaid on the property tax on her home that she bought in Hove, in Sussex, where previously her government department was saying everything was in order and as it should have been. Yeah, she's given an interview to Beth Rigby today on Sky News. After days of Pretty intense speculation about her tax arrangements and whether she underpaid tax. and whether she underpaid tax deliberately.

And she admitted, and I have to say this came as quite a shock. We didn't think that we'd be talking about this today, but she admitted that she has referred herself to the standards watchdog after admitting she didn't pay enough stamp duty on that second home. Let's hear from her. I have a court order that was in place around confidentiality regarding that order was lifted last night. I applied to have that order lifted so that I could give people the information.

Yn 2020, fy son wedi'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i the decision was because that home was adapted to support my son who has lifelong disabilities as a result of that injury that occurred to him.

Mae'r trws wedi'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i'i' where we could provide for my child in our family home which is our family home and remains our family home.

Rydyn ni'n mynd i'w gweithio'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau ac rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd i'n mynd and that expert counsel said that the advice that I received was inaccurate. Right.

So the way she explains it, which is pretty complicated, she's outlining the personal details about a trust that was set up for her son with special educational needs after her and her husband divorced and they were using the Ashnunder Limehouse

we now understand as a place where the children would grow up and the parents would, if you like, come and go. The nesting arrangement she means is that she would be there with the kids sometime, then her husband would be there at other times, even though they would be divorced.

And what she says crucially, I guess, is that she'd taken legal advice before buying the flat in Hove, but when these media reports started circulating, she wondered if it had been good enough, and she went to get expert counsel advice. So let's bring in now Natasha Clark, LBC's political editor, who's been watching this closely. And it's not a slam dunk.

She was just lining her pockets. It's a really complicated story. Sad story. Disabled son, a house that's specially adapted. They keep hold of it. When she bought the place in Hove, was that a second home or her primary residence? Exactly, and that is the the central to the question of today. And I don't think we're going to find out any time soon exactly what her primary residence was. And Angela Rayner in that very lengthy detailed statement that she's given today

talks about how she's got everything from her, you know, dentist to her doctors to her bills, going to that Ashton under Lyme home. It's her children's main property. It's the subject of a very complex legal deal, which is essentially done, there's a trust involved, it's to do with her ex husband. We were told by number ten yesterday that this was all due to some very, very complex

court order that was confidential and now that's been lifted. She's decided to be as transparent as she feels she can with this big statement, with this media interview that she's done today. Obviously ahead of Prime Minister's questions, I'm sure they thought they were going to get some questions on it.

but we don't yet know whether any wrongdoing has actually happened. She has admitted she has made a mistake, at least according to the second set of tax experts that she's he's contacted. It raises

So many questions though for Keir Starmer, doesn't it? When did he know that potentially this had this had all gone on? When did she know? And obviously the accusations that have been in the newspapers for a long time are that she deliberately did this. She's saying today, no, I did not deliberately set up this.

But of course it's it's not a fantastic look for Angela Rayner, is it? She is the one that's been Time and time again the attack dog for the government really laying into the Tories over sleaze, over impropriety, over Nadim Zahwe's tax returns, that feels like a long time ago. uh delivered to the to the Chancellor and to the Exchequer means that it damages our public services and we know the state they're in.

So the former Chancellor, when he was Chancellor last summer, made it clear at the time when he was questioned that he pays all his taxes. ac mae wedi gwneud rhywbeth iawn ac wedi gwneud rhywbeth ac wedi gwneud rhywbeth ac wedi gwneud rhywbeth ac wedi gwneud rhywbeth ac wedi gwneud rhywbeth ac wedi gwneud rhywbeth ac wedi gwneud rhywbeth ac wedi gwneud rhywbeth ac wedi gwneud rhywbeth ac wedi gwneud rhywbeth.

But whether she can weather this political storm is now the question for Angela Rayner, rather than whether she did something wrong. It's worth going to a tax expert to try and understand a bit. I'm gonna read you a little bit of Dan Needle, who we quite often hear from, who tends to be the person that you go to when there is the whiff of scandal on either side, we have to say, politically, and he has very helpfully tweeted out a chart

where he puts the least egregious sort of problems at number one and the most egregious at number five and he calls it tax avoidance versus tax evasion, you know, the one being legal, the one being illegal. He puts Angela Raina at number four, which he calls non compliant. In other words, Tax was legally due, but you didn't know and you weren't dishonest.

You didn't comply with the law, you have to pay the tax and full plus interest and civil penalties if you were careless, which you probably were. Now, he doesn't have an authority in this, but he is trying to give us guidance as to where this falls on the scale. It sounds to me like from what he's suggesting There was wrongdoing, but if it was ignorance at the heart Does that make it a sackable event?

I think it's a tricky one for Keir Starmer to whether whether it's a the answer to that question is yes or not, right? Because we've had ministers resign over a lot less recently. Rushanara Ali, the homelessness minister, a recent example.

Chulip Siddiqui o'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r Kirst Starmer at Prime Minister's questions just a uh you know a few hours ago now.

Absolute fully throated defence of Angela Rena. Let's just listen to that. In relation to the Deputy Prime Minister, she has explained her personal circumstances in detail. Absolutely. She's gone over and above in setting out ydyn nhw'n ydyn nhw'n ydyn nhw'n ydyn nhw'n ydyn nhw'n ydyn nhw

Rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'n rwy'. yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n So as you say, completely full throated defence.

yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n on the week of a reset in government when you're trying to say, Look, it's we're positive and we're on our front foot now.

I mean it's the last bloody thing you want. So where does this go? I think y we're gonna have to wait a couple of days to see the anger and whether there is anger and frustration from Labour MPs, that's where this is going to to land I think and whether the public will accept. That Angela Raynor has made an honest mistake or not. She clearly did not get the adequate legal advice here, and it's interesting in her statement, she talks about lawyers, she doesn't talk about tax lawyers.

So perhaps she should have and could have done more to back herself from from those accusations. But number ten basically saying today they've got full confidence in her. That is, you know, Kiss Darmer is choosing today to really go in and really back her. And let's not forget, that is not the same Full throated defence that he gave to Rachel Reeves when she was on the road.

He is clearly nailing his political colours to her now, taking a bit of a gamble that this is all going to blow over and pay off. But actually I think it feels a very dangerous political moment for Kirstamer today. I think the visuals of PMQs were really interesting because he is sandwiched between two women whose heads have both been called for. In other words

Will you support Rachel Reeves? And we remember what happened when he stood up with his back to her and he didn't actually give a full throated defense. And she was in tears. And she was in tears. This time, you know, he's got Angela Rayner on his right, he's got Rachel Reeves on his left.

and he's d defending he's basically tied himself to both of them. But we will be recalling that on Monday we heard about this new position, Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, you know, a brand new invented position that brings in

Darren Jones, formerly of the Treasury, and many people were asking at the time, well is that going to be a de facto deputy PM? And he slapped that down very quickly In the light of what we know today, it's almost impossible, I would say, that Keir Starmer didn't know all this before Monday, didn't know all this at the weekend. And may very possibly have been lining somebody up

In case she she goes. And potentially it just sort of goes back to whether the public can accept this as a reason for why Angela Rayner may have made an innocent mistake and a lot of people will have a lot of sympathy for her.

her financial s uh arrangements with her ex husband a very complicated legal arrangement. It is not quite black and white. We don't understand this, do we? Let's say No, we don't, but we do know that she's often the lightning rod, Natasha. And I think it is worth saying that that there are

You know, the tabloids love Raina, whether it's, you know, in a dinghy, or whether it's having a G and T or whether it's at the ancient or her sunglasses whatever she does, she becomes the focus of them. And and so I think that makes it

sort of slightly easier for people to go, Oh, you're doing it this again. Oh, you're doing the kind of misogynist thing again about, you know, the woman in the centre of government with the long red hair. It's not like that. It's more than that, don't you think? It's much more than that. I totally accept that. It's much more than that.

But I think that might be why people have been slow to work out whether there was any legitimacy in this or whether it was just another sort of harangue of a woman, you know, a very high profile woman in politics. Can I just talk about one other aspect of this? Because It was absolutely clear this clip dropped about fifteen minutes, twenty minutes before Prime Minister's question. And you thought, right, okay. Kemi Baton Duke. Kemi, your script is written and we heard a clip of her raising it.

But she didn't follow through on it because she then went off onto Labour and the economic woes and the cost of borrowing and Rachel Reeves and the U.S. She had the old scripts. And you kind of came away at the end of it thinking and I saw David Frost, you know, he of Brexit campaigns and all the rest of it. retweeting stuff about Kemi has totally screwed this up. She's made a complete mess of Prime Minister's questions today.

I mean what an irony it would be if it's Angela Rayner who goes into PMQs with people wondering whether she can survive and you come out of PMQs with people wondering whether Kami Badenok survives. It just goes to show that Kemi Badenok is not as adaptable and as agile at Prime Minister's questions as she needs to be in that role.

She clearly had a ready prepared script ready to go on the budget and she delivered it with a few peppered lines in about Angela Rayner rather than go in what is going to be the political story of the week.

Angela Rayner and her tax affairs. Ironically, that's the best thing that's happened to Keir Starmer so far this week. Thank God for Kemi. Thank God for Kemi. Yeah. Yeah, all hail Kemi. And we'll be back in just a moment with the story of Graham Linihan and his arrest at Heathrow Airport for those tweets.

The news agents. There is so much that is so puzzling. And frankly disturbing about the arrest that took place yesterday. Of Graham Linehan, the creator of Father Ted, the comedian, who had posted anti-trans stuff on X. And as his plane landed at Heathrow Airport, so five armed police officers come onto the plane to arrest him.

And you're left with a whole pile of questions like, well arrested at whose behest? Was it the complaint from an individual? Or was this the police acting on their own back? Where does this leave the Public Order Act? I mean so much of it. Is so murky, and you just have this instinctive sense that you might not like what he said, and you might find some of it offensive. It doesn't require five police officers to take you into custody when your plane lands.

Yeah, you say there are so many questions. I mean the first of the questions I think, the one that would hit everyone in the face, is why we we're using police time in this way when we have so many unsolved crimes when we have so much domestic violence, when we have, you know, rape cases that never get convicted, when we have shoplifting that happens on a sort of mega scale every single day. Why are we using five police officers to arrest a guy who's getting off a plane?

The other thing we have to do is try and work out and this is the hardest one of all. where language becomes incitement to violence. And I certainly don't have the answers to this, but when you look at some of the tweets, and we should say that Graeme Linnihan has got a I mean this isn't off the bat, you know, he has got a long history of pretty offensive, pretty rude

pretty personal tweets and statements, many of them going after a very marginalized community, the trans community. But we are dealing with something that seems to call upon a definition of what is intent to harm and what is kind of Hyperbole. Yeah, let me read the tweet itself. If a trans identified male is in a female only space, he is committing a violent abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops, and if all else fails, punch him in the ball. I think that sounds like an attempt to

at humour. Well it's trolling. I mean it's trolling of of trans people. You made an important point earlier about some of his tweets have been very personal. This isn't personal, this is generic. Exactly. You can maybe go across the whole kind of all the things that he's ever tweeted and say, Well, he's on the wrong side of it.

But those three tweets, why are you being arrested for that? So we should explain that the reason he was coming back to Britain on this ten hour flight from Arizona where the police met him at Heathrow, is because he's actually facing trial for a totally separate question, but also of online harassment. Which he denies. Which he denies.

Public order is a is a key one here, right? Because it's not so long ago we were talking about Lucy Connolly, you guys were talking about Lucy Connolly on the programme, and I think many will be saying, Well, this is part of the same thing. Lucy Connolly, who was the woman who Essentially incited Violence pleaded guilty to a tweet which said burn down a hotel with asylum seekers in it. She then deleted it. But you're gonna say but I'm just I'm just saying that I'll read out her two.

We say where is the line? Yes. So I've just read you out the tweet of Graeme Linahand. Yeah. What Lucy Connolly wrote was set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards. Now that was at a time where Ryot is a very good thing. That was at a time when riots were taking place on the streets. When property was being destroyed, when mosques were being attacked. Destroyed. And arguably you'd say that was incitement. That's what she was charged with. And she

Pleaded guilty to that charge. Now she may regret ever having pleaded guilty, but that wasn't a question of her was her free speech being affected or not. She was charged and she said, Yeah, you know what? I am guilty as charged. But you can see why from the police's perspective, like they're not syntax police. They don't want to be sitting there saying is there a subjunctive in this clause?

that means it's not an actual threat of an attack or it's not an imminent attack, it's something generic, you know? If that's literally what our police are spending their time doing, we're all buggered, quite frankly. Because there will be so many cases. of online abuse, online criticism, online vilification,

And it seems pretty unfair to sort of throw all this at their feet. Where's Streeting, the health secretary, was asked about exactly that this morning. Is it the police's fault or is it the actual laws? How supportive are you of the arrest of that comedy writer, Mr Streeting? So as a government minister I am not allowed to comment on live cases or p operational policing decisions, but I do want to address the principle

that you are raising. Um I think the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have been very clear that when it comes to the challenges facing this country at the moment, particularly on law and order and keeping neighbourhoods safe. Mae'r prioryt yw mewn gwirionedd yw mewn gwirionedd yw mewn gwirionedd yw mewn gwirionedd yw mewn gwirionedd yw mewn gwirionedd But frankly, as a politician, I just want to be clear with your listeners, the police are enforcing the laws that Parliament has passed.

So if the balance isn't right and we think they should be doing other things or prioritising other things, that is also on legislators to think about. And one of the things the Home Secretary So that was Wes Streeting speaking to Nick Ferrari on LBC this morning. I mean some of the questions that I raised at the top. I can answer. I mean, you know, why were five or six police

Going on board the plane? Well, because there are sometimes public order issues where people are angry, they'd want to get off the plane, and the police are there in numbers. To keep it under control. That would be me, the person behind. Yeah, going, Come on, I just want to get off the plane. I just want to go home. I've got a taxi waiting. I'd take four of those police straight up. Exactly. Why were they armed? Because the police are always armed at Heathrow Airport, no weapons were drawn.

But there are other bits of it and I've spoken to someone involved at policing at Heathrow Airport who g he said what I don't understand Is why we had to perform an arrest off a plate. If you had said to Graham Linhard,

We've got an issue with these treats, we want you to come into the police station. I mean he's not flight risk, is he? He's not gonna be fleeing the country if you get an alert like that. I think you've got to be very careful that one, if you're being arrested for three tweets and I just thought Really? Are any of these three tweets? You are arrested for a specific thing.

There's no such thing as an arrest for being just unpleasant or a wrong. So I cannot see how there can possibly be any ground.

For rest. And this comes as, you know, Nigel Farage today is going off to Washington, he's in Washington, to speak before that one of the House committees that is looking into alleged infractions of free speech in Britain and Europe. And in some ways this sort of makes his case. I'd said on the podcast a few days ago, when talking about the problem of free speech, is it worse here or is it worse in America? And I was saying, look, no one scrubs their phones

of their social media content when they're coming into Britain. They only do that when they're going into America. And you look at the arrest of Graham Linnah and you think, oh my God, maybe we do. And I do understand why people are arguing about the free speech elements of this. And whether the police have gone way over in making this arrest.

Well let's remind you of what J.D. Vance said when he came over to the Munich conference earlier this year, and his ire was directed at the UK. In Britain and across Europe Free speech, I fear, is in retreat. In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town. And under Donald Trump's leadership

We may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree. And I really do believe that allowing our citizens to speak their mind will make them stronger still. Now let's be honest. When it comes to free speech, free expression is

Censorship issues. JD Vance has all the moral authority of a marshmallow. He's part of an administration that literally goes after protesters, that literally goes after students, people who've written op-eds. people who get taken off the streets without any form of due process. There are so many libraries.

now where books are being removed because they don't fit in with the administration's view of American history. The Smithsonian, which we've talked about on the newsagents USA, is having its very museum recreated to take out all the awkward bits of American history. So the idea that for one moment either Trump or Vance have anything to tell us about freedom of expression is absolute bullshit.

But the annoying thing about this is just for a moment it opens up that crack. It gives people who you might otherwise despise this sort of position of martyrdom. And it just so happens. I mean the timing could not frankly be worse. You know, not only is it the sort of the reset for Starmer day three of the first week back at term, but it's the day that Nigel Farage goes off to plead the case.

Of how Britain has lost its way over freedom of expression because of the Lucy Connolly case. And he's going to the States, he's going to Congress to make that case. Now, it would have been so easy to knock that down twenty-four hours ago, and now you're just left in this position where you're thinking, Oh my God, that is a a massive own goal. Well, look, I think someone who has got

more moral authority than a marshmallow, which I I mean it's a great metaphor. I you have got the moral authority of a marshmallow is Sir Mark Rowley, the Head of the Metropolitan Police, uh the commissioner of the Met and he has had to speak about the kind of dilemma that they themselves face over this public order act and its interpretation and where you go with it. And he's you know, he's

Reasonable people would agree that genuine threats of physical violence against an identified person or group should be acted upon by officers. Such actions can and do have serious. and violent real world implications, but when it comes to lesser cases where there is ambiguity in terms of intent and harm, policing has been left between a rock and a hard place by successive governments who've given officers no choice but to record such incidents as crimes when they're reported.

So there is a police the head of the police saying Can you give us some bloody clarity over where this line is? There's a very good piece in The Atlantic today by Helen Lewis who says that part of the problem is this selective enforcement of it. And it goes to the the Mart Rowley point, you know, and she reminds us of the case of a transactivist.

Sarah Jane Baker, who'd previously been convicted of torturing a teenager and then attempting to murder a fellow inmate whilst in prison, who then told a pro-trans rally, if you see a turf, punch them in the fucking face. Now, In terms of the content, that's pretty much where Linehan is, right? Pretty much the same thing, face, you know, whatever.

But the magistrate in that case found Baker not guilty of encouraging violence, saying that she wasn't making a serious threat, she wanted the publicity. And I think then you're getting into this weird area of mens rear. Does Lynhan want people punched? Does she want people punched? Is there a real incitement to violence? And actually

How can you say one is fine and the other isn't? There is it's completely selective. I mean it comes back to grammar again. I didn't think in 2025 we'd be kind of like Oh you won't get anyone to help you with your burglary and y you won't be able to stop people who've just like run off with your phone and try to hold a knife up to you. But boy, if you get your paraphrase wrong, they'll be at your door.

If you start clamping down on free speech in one place and you say, Well, that's unacceptable, then then you apply it to some other place and another place. and another place and then you're making Nigel Farage's case for him for when he appears before the House committee later on today in Washington D. It seems to me, with all the arguments sort of around this, everyone's pretty much ended up in the same place.

Except for Zach Polanski, we should say. The leader of the Green Party said yes it the new leader who just got elected on sort of eighty four percent of the vote yesterday. and he came out last night on News Night and said, No, it was right to arrest him. I think most people have ended up in the same place on this which is what makes it so complicated in a way because if the head of the police disagrees with it

If the politicians in cabinet disagree with it, if the right disagree with it and if the left are kind of left shaking their heads and going, What was all that about? Why aren't you solving, you know, more of the crimes that we really care about? I don't see how this wasn't a massive blunder. But the question is, the one we can't answer is Where did it come from? Who initiated it? Who initiated it? Was it a complaint? In which case did the police really feel

they had to arrest him on the back of a complaint from an individual because no individual is named in That's the thing, isn't it? Yeah. Or whether it was the police proactively having looked at his tweets thinking, Oh right, he's you know we'll he's back again He's back again, we'll arr we'll arrest him but Y that would have meant an a arrest warrant having to be issued, which presumably it was, because otherwise why would the police at Heathrow have known?

to get information and arrest him. And I just think it again, you know, we've talked before about contempt of court and court reporting in an age where social media people are commenting left, right and centre, on a case that's ongoing in a way that traditionally you weren't allowed to do. All we could do was report what the defendant is accused of, charged with, and uh the date of the trial. And now people are commenting the whole time. We have got a whole series of laws That haven't caught up.

with where social media is today. And the Public Order Act is one of them. Contempt of court is another one. And I just do think that, you know, I'm sure the Home Secretary is looking at this amidst the million other things she's got to deal with. But I do think it's a problem. Do you remember Giles Coran, the Times columnist? This is about fifteen years ago, really at the beginning of of Twitter, and he posted that the

kid next to him, it was over the Christmas holidays, had been given a drum kit for for Christmas and he put something on Twitter like if that kid plays the drums one more time I'm gonna kill him. Which is kind of what you say when you've been woken up too early on Christmas morning. Boxing day, whatever. And I think he got pulled up for

hate speech. I mean, I don't think it went very far and I think he, you know, got a good column out of it. But this is something that we have weirdly been grappling with. For nearly two decades now. I mean how old's Twitter? Right, it's it's nearly twenty years old. We will be back in a moment with Rachel Reeves and her upcoming budget.

The news agents. Britain's economy isn't broken, but I do know that it's not working well enough for working people. Bills are too high. And you feel that you're putting more in but you're getting less out. And that has to change. The cost of living pressures I know is still very real. We need to bring inflation and borrowing costs down. And we do that by keeping a tight grip on day-to-day spending and by enforcing my non-negotiable fiscal rules.

Renewal is our mission and growth is our challenge. Investment and reform are our tools. The tools to build an economy that works for you and your family and rewards you. More pounds in your pocket. An NHS that is there when you need it, and opportunities for all, including your kids and grandkids. Those are my priorities as your Chancellor. They're the priorities of the British people, and it is what I am absolutely determined to deliver. Are you still with us?

Just checking. We've got you. That was Rachel Reeves telling us in a slightly longer form than we are going to do now that the budget is upcoming, but not quite as up or as coming as we originally thought. We were expecting it end of October. We've both booked lovely holidays off in November. And now the budget's coming whack right in the middle of the week that we didn't anticipate on the twenty sixth of November. Because essentially I mean I was listening to this

Yesterday, we suddenly realized that the Office of Budget Responsibility has to have ten weeks to look through her uh yeah, her findings, then numbers, all the rest of it. And so once you've calculated that, you realise that we're already in September, October, it would be mid November at the earliest So and it also suggests that the budget is then made on figures that are kind of going to print now. Whatever happens in the next

Two months I guess. Yeah. I mean look, there are those in government who think far too much attention is given to the OBR. And that they give one verdict on what the numbers are and what they're doing. We didn't say that with Let's Trust, did we? No, no. Exactly. But I mean Labour are now hidebound and they cut and if

If Rachel Reeves did anything to say, Okay, get rid of the OBR I mean she'd be roundly criticised and condemned. You're going on holiday. I was just gonna go over to Paris to watch Spurs play Paris Saint Germain. But it's ruined now. I can't go to that game. I'm gonna be stuck here in the studio. Trying to work out if you can get to the game in time. We should say that this announcement comes at a time which is really uncomfortable.

For the government anyway. In terms of the cost of borrowing now, which is the highest that it has been for twenty five years, we all talk About the cost of borrowing during the Liz trust time, but it is not looking great. And so there is a world in which Rachel Reese probably wants as much time as she can get. And the question is, can she stick to those manifesto commitments? Can she raise the money she needs?

Without raising income tax, without raising VAT, without affecting employee national insurance contributions. Because there are an awful lot of people who say it just can't be done. There aren't the pots of gold there that can be plundered to do it without doing that. So if that was you Would you say I'll take the hit and break my word because the simplest, biggest way is one P on income tax?

Or would you say, I'm gonna be a genius and find ten different loopholes which will get me some of the way there? The problem with ten different loopholes is you create a you know, you look at what happened with winter fuel allowance, you look at what happened with welfare reform measures

So you would you break a manifesto commitment? Well I th I I mean uh no, I wouldn't want to be in that position. I think Labour's original sin was to have when they were clearly going to win the election, to have committed themselves to such a financial straitjacket. And they've got these manifesto commitments and everyone remembers George H. W. Bush, no more taxes, there were more taxes. He got he was a one term president and got booted out as a result. There are no easy answers.

For Rachel Reeves. And we'll be back, and talking of George H. Bush and one-term presidents, we'll be back on the NewsAgency USA a little bit later today. But otherwise, we will see you tomorrow. Bye-bye. Bye. This is a global player original podcast.