In This Episode
Coco and Nish listened to Rachel Reeves’ budget so you don’t have to. But hang on, we could all have skipped the speech and read it online. Someone screwed up big time, pressing a button and releasing the budget before Reeves even stood up. That cock up was possibly the most exciting thing about Labour’s second budget.
A bit vanilla for you? Too much tax for ordinary workers? Too little for the wealthy? Journalist Zoë Grünewald tells Pod Save The UK why this budget might have done enough to pacify the Labour backbenches by lifting the two child benefit cap while soothing the markets with tax and spend plans…
Dr Faiza Shaheen, Director of Tax Justice UK, was hoping for bolder action on wealth taxes, but she spots some reasons to be cheerful in the mix.
In other news, Nigel Farage gets rattled by questions about his past. Nish and Coco enjoy the novelty of seeing him squirm but wonder if it will harm his electoral chances. And bring a bottle and bury the hatchets, can ‘Your Party’ make this weekend their kiss and make up moment?
Send in your questions for Nish and Coco and they’ll answer them in our mailbag special. Email us at psuk@reducedlistening.co.uk
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GUESTS
Zoë Grünewald, Journalist
Faiza Shaheen, Director of Tax Justice UK
USEFUL LINKS
https://www.yourparty.uk/founding-documents/
Aditya Chakrabortty Guardian article
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/20/wealth-tax-left-super-rich-britain-budget-2025
CREDITS
House of Commons Live
Sky News / BBC
The New Statesman
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TRANSCRIPT
[AD]
Nish Kumar Hi, this is Pod Save the UK, I’m Nish Kumar.
Coco Khan And I’m Coco Khan. Today, can reform weasel its way out of a Russian bribe scandal and allegations of Nigel Farage goose stepping in the playground?
Nish Kumar And a co-leadership model has been ruled out for your party after endless public spats between Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn, could this finally, finally mean some peace?
Coco Khan But first.
Clip We beat the forecasts this year and we will beat them again. By boosting trade, not blocking it, by increasing investment, not cutting it, by championing innovation, not stifling it, by backing working people, not making them poorer.
Nish Kumar That’s an exuberant Chancellor Rachel Reeves delivering what’s been framed as a make or break second budget for the government. The challenge facing Reeves is the need to plug a black hole estimated to be between twenty and thirty billion pounds and raise the funds to turn around crumbling public services, all while keeping taxes at an acceptable level.
Coco Khan Now, the run up to the budget has been pretty chaotic and drawn out. Over the past four months, we’ve seen thirteen, yes, thirteen different tax policies floated, leaked, denied, and dropped. And all this has made it harder for Reeves to convince the markets and voters that she has it all under control, prompting speculation about her future, and Keir Starmers, whose leadership has recently come under fire.
Nish Kumar Then it turned out that the leakiest budget in history was also leaked in full. Rachel Reeves’ big reveals, many of which we did know about anyway, were mistakenly leaked early by the Office for Budget Responsibility, which published the details accidentally in an enormous cock-up, whilst blaming a technical error. So he actually, helpfully for us, knew what was in the budget before she even stood up.
Coco Khan Yeah, Reeves opened her address discussing this. She seemed absolutely fuming. None of it adds to the sense that Labour has got things under control. So the question is, will Reeves’ budget be enough to unite restless backbenchers? Will it please the markets and will it make voters feel that Starmer and Reeves have a grip on all of this? So here to help us wrap our heads around it as political journalists and sometime host of Pod Save the UK. It’s Zoë Grünewald. Hello. Hi Zoë. Welcome back to PSUK. So what did you think of it? What did you think of Reeves’s speech?
Zoë Grünewald So I think it’s probably done just enough. To keep those fractious backbenches at bay for a little bit.
Nish Kumar Sure.
Zoë Grünewald I think it was a budget designed to calm the market and quiet the backbenches, not to radically change the country. And the problem is a lot of people would say that’s actually the latter is what we need. But I think if you’re thinking about where this government is politically and the dangers that they see immediately surrounding them, I think they’ve done just enough to keep those MPs on the left happy, some on the right happy, and crucially buy them more time until potentially May when we’ll get the next pinch point with the election. So I think it’s a political budget, I would say, rather than a kind of radical budget that is going to fundamentally upend our economy or improve our living standards.
Nish Kumar So just some of the sort of background to this is that Rachel Reeves went into this facing a less bad situation than had been anticipated. So the OBR forecasts initial higher growth than was expected. So it’s one and a half percent instead of one percent. As always, when these things happen, it’s always worth noting. Boy, we can really feel that extra 0.5%. You walk around, the air’s a bit cleaner, the birds are chirping a bit more musically. It’s a real 0.5% difference in our quality of life. But then its forecast was also downgraded, which is obviously not great for Rachel Reeves’s growth hopes. The headline figure in all of this is that there’ll be 26 billion pounds of tax rises by 2029 to 2030. Reeves has acknowledged that this is tough but promises some reform, saying, I’m asking everyone to make a contribution, but I will ensure that the wealthiest contribute the most. So Zoë, just in purely political terms at this stage, has she broken a manifesto commitment or has she got out of it on a technicality? Because the manifesto committed that there’d be no new taxes on working people. Technically, these tax rises come from a variety of sources. Some have changes to the council tax system, which is supposed to put pressure on wealthier households. But a lot of it, the bulk of it comes from freezing income tax thresholds. Does that break a manifesto commitment or have they got out of it on a technicality?
Zoë Grünewald I think I mean it it kind of hardly matters to some extent because what it is is a budget that is essentially balancing the books on the back of ordinary people. You know, that the the twenty six billion in extra tax, the line share of that is coming, as you say, Nish, from freezing, personal tax thresholds and higher national insurance contributions on pensions. So you know, you can argue, oh, we didn’t technically break our manifesto commitment, but people are going to be pushed into those higher tax brands. They’re gonna see more of a disincentive to save for their pensions. So we can argue over oh, have they you know, have they broken a manifesto commitment? That is important, but ultimately what is happening here is are working people gonna feel that this Labour government has their interests at heart and are going to tax wealth over work, and I don’t think this budget is reassuring in that regard. Well, Reese did manage to pull one.
Coco Khan One rabbit out of a hat, here is the Chancellor.
Speaker 4 Because I am tackling fraud and error in our welfare system, because I am cracking down on tax avoidance, because I am reforming gambling taxation, I can announce today, fully costed and fully funded, the removal of the two-child limit in full from
Coco Khan They’ve dragged their feet over lifting the child benefit cap for so long. I mean, at one point reform was even calling for it. So do you think Labour’s gonna get the credit for this?
Zoë Grünewald I think you’re right. They’ve dragged their feet. You know, they’ve already had MPs lose the whip over this. It has been a real source of tension in the party right from the very beginning. We shouldn’t underplay the impact of removing the cap. Yeah, yes. 450,000 kids, the subestimates say could be lifted out of poverty. I mean, that is that that is a great thing to do. But I think what is stinging about this is it just feels like something that could have been done or should have been done immediately when Labour came into government. Because who are the Labour Party for, if not bringing kids out of poverty? It was in their manifesto. They want to continue bringing kids out of poverty. They’re proud of the legacy they had previously on this. So I think it’s frustrating for a lot of Labour MPs that this has been such a public spat. It’s gone on for so long. They’ve seen colleagues lose the whip over it. And now it’s been lifted. Are they going to get an apology? Is there going to be an acknowledgement of the campaigning that’s been done? And I think that is the frustration. And I think it also rings to this image of this Labour government being one that is so obsessed with the technical details over any ideology or vision or you know, feeling of what this country should be. I mean, a lot of Labour MPs feel that fundamentally it’s just in Labour’s DNA that they should be doing that kind of thing. It shouldn’t be something that you have to spend a year trying to make balancing the books work. So they should get credit for it for it having this impact on children in poverty, of course. But I think. The way it’s been handled and how long it’s been dragged out is going to dampen that quite a bit.
Coco Khan Let’s just talk about younger generations and how they might feel about this budget. So there’s growing concern that current tax and spending policies help pensioners, but are unfair on younger generations. High taxes, student loan repayments, and rising costs has led to people under thirty feeling like a pack horse generation, saddled with debt and few opportunities to build wealth. Is this budget going to go anywhere to tackling that intergenerational fairness?
Zoë Grünewald There are a few things in here, I think that are aimed at young people, and we should talk about them. There’s five million for libraries and secondary schools in England, 18 million to improve playgrounds, funding to make the training for under 25 apprenticeships free for small and medium-sized businesses. There’s a youth guarantee funding, and of course, there’s the raising of minimum wage as well. But all of this is set in a backdrop of the fact that young people already face high taxes, as you say, student loan repayments, rising rents, stagnant wages. Nothing here massively shifts that burden. Freezing income tax thresholds and adding new national insurance contributions on pensions will disproportionately fall in under 40s. Because if you’re under 40, the one meaningful incentive you had to save into a pension was probably a salary sacrifice scheme. And now scrapping that is going to be a major disincentive. And of course, the other fact is older homeowners who’ve benefited from decades of rising property wealth aren’t really touched by this. I mean, we have the mansion tax, but it’s quite a small proportion actually of properties. We don’t have any kind of radical changes to the tax system that would see the taxing of assets over income. And as we say, this is a budget that mostly gets that 26 billion from work. So ultimately, if you’re talking about the real systemic issues that are affecting younger people in this country, nothing here shifts the dial.
Nish Kumar Can I also say that just to add to that, that there’s been changes to the savings system. So the cash icer allowance has now changed. So it previously was £20,000. That’s now cut to £12,000. You can still, however, have £20,000 in an icer is just £8,000 of that has to go on shares. So the premise of that is that Rachel Ruiz is trying to get people to invest in Britain because that 8,000 investment is only protected from taxation if it goes into companies that are working and investing in Britain. So there are provisions in there. Martin Lewis, the money saving expert who’s been, you know, doing his usual blow by blow analysis, it’s it’s really, he’s really genuinely brilliant. He has pointed out that this icer change will not apply to over 65s, who will keep the 20,000 pound cash icer limit. That’s again gonna play into this idea that along with the fact that they haven’t touched the triple lock on the pensions, is gonna play into this kind of intergenerational warfare a bit, isn’t it, Zoë?
Zoë Grünewald Yeah, I think so. I think I think there are a few things in here that if you’re a young person you’re gonna be looking at and thinking, Oh, I think that might impact me, it might impact my savings, it might impact my pension. Does that mean I’m gonna take home less money in my paycheck? And these are all things that, you know, when I mean when you’re talking about pension contributions as well, we know we’re already kicking quite a big scary can down the road with that. So anything that is sort of disincentivizing people or making people worry about their pensions, I think it’s not particularly helpful. I think one thing that it maybe is good and will be helpful, but will have slightly missed kind of our our generation is I the government is now. Of course. Well, we we’re all we’re all missing from this particular legislative change. The government is now going to make, I believe, financial education compulsory in schools, which will help with people understanding things like savings and pensions, because I’m here talking about it as a political journalist and I’m like, I don’t know, it sounds bad, you know. I don’t think this is gonna be good for me. So hopefully the new generation of political journalists will tell you exactly this what that means.
Nish Kumar Yes, what that means. Is there an argument that they shouldn’t do that because they’re being taught exactly how fucked they are?
Zoë Grünewald Yeah, actually maybe that was why we were never taught. Yeah, knowledge is power, guys. So there we are. But yeah, absolutely, I think there are things that are fundamentally huge issues for young people and I don’t think the budget does anywhere near enough to deal with those issues. As I said, I think this is a bit it’s kind of a sticking plaster budget. It’s dealing with political issues. It it isn’t radically touching much.
Nish Kumar Well, let’s move on to those political issues. But just before we do that, when it comes to with the raising of the minimum wage, the resolution foundation, so you know, think tank that we talk about a lot on the show, they do a lot of work in inequality. The Resolution Foundation has said that minimum wage hikes risk causing more harm than good, as they risk deterring firms from hiring younger workers. Now, the number of young people not in education, employment, or training is poised to hit one million for the first time since twenty twelve. So what do you make of that as an argument?
Zoë Grünewald I mean, I don’t I don’t want to dismiss what the Resolution Foundation says because you know, they do a lot of good work on this. And I think I think there’s often a that you you do get a lot of concern over minimum wage hikes. We’ve all we’ve always heard that from businesses. But I think when the Resolution Foundation is making a point, we do have to listen and understand the nuance.
Nish Kumar Yeah.
Zoë Grünewald I think what they’re pointing out is there is a real economic tension here. If a minimum wage rises faster than productivity, of course, that can make employers cautious about hiring inexperienced young people. And the UK does have very weak employer investment in training. So firms who are already struggling sometimes just won’t take a chance on someone who needs development. But of course that’s only one part of the picture. And I think blaming the minimum wage can become a distraction. It helps young people stay in work and escape poverty. What we actually need to look at are the real drivers of youth disengagement, like a collapse in apprenticeships, which the budget is trying to go some way to erectifying, cuts to further education, colleges, the stagnating economy that’s creating fewer entry level jobs. I mean, we’ve all read the horrible headlines about how AI is removing so many graduate and entry level jobs from the market. And of course, poor mental health amongst young people. So it could be one driver, but I think ultimately there are so many other things again we need to look at that is preventing young people from getting into work, then focusing on something that once they’re in work would help them stay out of poverty.
Nish Kumar Right.
Coco Khan So let’s go back to this political crisis. Everyone’s been talking about the budget as make or break for Starmer and Reeves. The Prime Minister is under siege from his own party. So Labour MP Clive Lewis has said he would step down to allow Mayor Andy Burnham the chance to be Labour leader. He wouldn’t be able to be unless he was an MP. And Labour MP Nadia Whittam has joined calls for Starmer to go. What do you think? Is this enough to settle these upcoming leadership struggles?
Zoë Grünewald I think it removes the budget as a flash point, right? The the markets have reacted fairly well to this, you know, our overlords are best pleased with us. That’s great. I think there’s enough in there. I think the two child benefit cap, I I hate to frame it as a clever political move because we just said for loads of reasons it isn’t. But in terms of having a bunch of Labour MPs across the spectrum who are irate and nervous and are saying we’re not being Labour enough, and that’s part, you know, that’s the major issue here. I think that that helps relieve some of that. There’s other kind of progressive elements in here, you know, you can talk about the mansion tax, gambling tax as well, which would raise more than one billion, the freezing of Russian assets, and then the little things like 18 million pounds for playgrounds, the rail freeze. You know, there’s enough in there. I think that Labour MPs will feel this is sufficiently Labour y enough, progressive enough. But it’s not enough to deal with all the other things that are happening, you know, prisons overcrowding, NHS waiting lists, the crisis in send and in schools, you know, all these things that are happening. So all you’re doing really is with this budget prolonging the pain. It isn’t enough to fundamentally change the economic or political context. You know, reform is on the rise, Labour MPs are still worried about their seats. I think it buys them more time. I think it might bring them together because there’s some good stuff in there they can rally around. But I don’t think it’s gonna stop people from saying that Keir Starmer is gonna be gone before the next election. No.
Nish Kumar In terms of the way that it handled the various opposition parties. I mean, the there was a clear reference to the policies and the gifts that they’re offering to the Welsh government as being an example of a Labour government talking to another Labour government. There were specific policy announcements to Scotland and Northern Ireland that came in the case of Scotland with a kicking for the SNP. There was a sort of pretty direct dig and a re reference to his sort of hypnotherapist past at Zack Polanski and the Green Party. And there was an attempt to sort of bunch the Conservatives and the Reform Party into kind of one economic sort of bracket, which is people who just want to offer tax cuts, which will inevitably destroy public services. Do you think that Rachel Reeves has done enough with this to silence criticism from the left from the Green Party and from the right from reform?
Coco Khan No.
Nish Kumar Right.
Coco Khan It’s true that.
Nish Kumar Basically no.
Coco Khan I I was sort of hoping that w there would be a moment where what would rise to the top of this budget, or certainly what would rise to the top in the coming weeks, in the coming months, now that Labour are really feeling quite shook about the you know, the the green threat and what’s going on with reform, that the the vision the ideology might start creeping out now. It
Zoë Grünewald still feels very technocratic and managerial to me. You know, like if you talk about, for example, the cost of living measures. So energy bills, they they said that scrapping this ecosystem and other legacy costs would cut about 150 pounds from the average energy bill. And then the railfare freeze. Okay, but it really is a drop in the ocean to the economic hardship people are dealing with.
Nish Kumar Yeah.
Zoë Grünewald And you know, for a railfare freeze, voters won’t thank you for stopping rail fares from going up more. They’ll say, My railfare is still too high, it needs to be cut. So I don’t think that they can massively prove that they are helping with the cost of living. And we know the cost of living is the major driver to people from departing from the center ground. I think if you’re talking about the Tories and reform, the parties that want the big tax cuts, they’re just going to lead with £26 billion of tax rises and public spending is going up. And then you’re going to get the Greens and those on the left saying, we should have gone way more. Why are we only doing mansion tax and not a complete reform of the council tax system, which is regressive? Why are we praising ending the two child benefit cap, but they’re still going to push ahead with some kind of reform to the welfare system that is undoubtedly going to be punitive? So I think no, they haven’t done enough, basically.
Nish Kumar So just from a purely political perspective, your appraisal is still bad but no worse.
Zoë Grünewald Still bad, but they might have bought themselves a little bit of time internally with the party. I mean, that is the you know, it’s the best I can it’s the best I can give you, Nish, I’m sorry.
Coco Khan Zoë, thank you so much for joining us on Pod Save the UK.
Nish Kumar Now, dear listeners, this is a reminder that we’re gonna be running a new year mailbag special where we answer all your questions. That is right. Any and all of your questions. You might, for instance, be interested to know if Coco Khan has really kicked her chat GPT habit. I’ll answer that now. She hasn’t. And she used it this week for some medical advice, which is objectively insane.
Coco Khan How many times are you going to use this show as a form of bullying to me?
Nish Kumar Until
Coco Khan How long is this going to go on?
Nish Kumar Until you stop using Chat GPT, I will not stop in this agenda.
Coco Khan Perhaps you want to know what it’s like being in a parasocial relationship with Nish. Sorry.
Nish Kumar Bad. It’s bad.
Coco Khan It’s really weird because Nish is actually famous even though he is in denial about it. So when I talk to Nish about his life, he’ll tell me about what pizza he ate or what what I don’t know what film he’s going to see, and then I’ll turn on the fucking TV and he’ll be on TV talking to Ian Hislop. And I think I just don’t know why you wouldn’t have mentioned that in our chat yesterday.
Nish Kumar I’m more interested in discussing the films I’ve seen and the pizza I’m eating.
Coco Khan Anyway, look political questions are also very welcome in our mailbag special.
Nish Kumar Now, after the break, we go back to the budget. Rachel Reeves has said that it’s progressive, but we’re going to be speaking to the Director of Tax Justice UK about what it actually does to address wealth inequality in this country. Our chat with Faiza Shaheen is coming up next.
[AD]
Coco Khan Rachel Reeves has insisted that this is a Labour budget and promised to get a grip on the cost of living, especially for lower earners. But what does it actually do to tackle inequality?
Nish Kumar Here to break it down for us is economist and self-proclaimed inequality geek, Dr. Faiza Shaheen. Faiza left the Labour Party last year after she was blocked from standing for a seat in Chingford and Woodford Green and is now the director of Tax Justice UK, a nonprofit campaigning for a fairer tax system. Faiza, welcome to Pod Save the UK.
Faiza Shaheen Hello, it’s good to be here. So, what did you make of the budget? To be honest, I’m pretty underwhelmed. I think a lot of us were hoping to see much more on inequality and in wealth in particular. And we want to see that because wealth has been growing so much for those at the very top. And meanwhile, income has barely risen at all since 2008. And the biggest thing that was announced today, or at least the revenue that will be raised is coming from this freeze in personal tax thresholds. That means income taxes and national insurance contributions, which basically drags a lot more people into playing higher taxes, but in general means that people will be paying higher taxes. And I just think that’s a huge contradiction between what we’re hearing on the rhetoric from this government that is essentially they’re doing something about cost of living. Because whilst there are measures in this budget on that side, they could almost be canceled out by this, or maybe more than canceled out.
Nish Kumar Everybody sort of generally agrees that if we want public spending to increase, we need to increase the money going into the Treasury. What would Tax Justice UK have liked to see those increases look like if not a freezing of the income tax thresholds?
Faiza Shaheen Yeah, so even where they have done something con wealth, so for instance, the mansion tax, that’s gonna raise about 400 million, which is nothing when you compare it to say equalizing income with capital gains tax, which would raise around eight billion, eight to ten billion, a wealth tax, which is something that a lot of people are talking about, even taking into account that some people will find ways to avoid it, it’s still 24 billion pounds a year. And what we didn’t see in today’s budget is that sense of scale of change. Like I really got this sense that they’re trying to muddle through, right? They’ve got their political drama, they’re trying to keep their jobs, they don’t want to upset the bond markets, they don’t wanna like make anyone say this is absolutely wrong. And so they’ve kind of just done enough to sort of hang in there and they haven’t announced anything bold. And this just doesn’t give us a sense of ambition for this country.
Coco Khan So with the the mansion tax, and that’s what people are billing it as a mansion tax, when you say that, of course it conjures up an image of the ultra wealthy, right? A mansion. So do you think Labour are going to say that that is a wealth tax, that they are not scared of taxing those with deep pockets? Or I’m trying to work out if we have to give them credit where credit’s due that this is a big deal, or if this is just a move to appear braver than they are.
Faiza Shaheen Yeah, I think it’s actually quite cosmetic in when you, like I said, if you look at the amount of money that it raises, it doesn’t raise as much if they had taken some other steps. So one of the things that we were really hoping to see, for instance, was an exit tax, which would have raised a few billion more than this. And it seems as though, as what we’re from what we’re hearing from both our the officials we know within government and the treasury and from others in similar positions to us that try and lobby government to do more progressive things, is that they were lobbied very h heavily by the city, by the super rich to not do this. There were other things trailed as well, new NIC contributions and profits from partnerships. We know that the big four accountancy firms pushed really hard on that. So we know that they were lobbied hard on dropping some of the things that would have really made the big difference on taxing wealth more. The mansion tax, yeah. I mean, look, it’s better to have it than not to have it. But one of the things they’re really going to come up against is that our housing stock has not been valued since 1991. So we’re like on old, very old valuation. So it’s a really it’s a system that’s really complex and just incorrect. And now they’re saying they’re just gonna revalue the top end, which is notoriously more difficult to do than like a normal house in a terrorist street. And so they’re also kind of walking into this bureaucratic nightmare. It’s puzzling to be honest that they would choose this. And it does say something about. To who they’re listening to. I mean I know that they were thinking about some of these things until they were lobbied. So i I guess it’s also for us to lobby them harder from our point of view. Faiza, can I just get you to define what an exit tax It’s basically saying, well, when you leave this country and you’ll sell your assets or you try and move your assets and some of your money to different parts of the world, that you will have to pay some kind of exit tax. Because actually it’s just saying you made your money in this country, used British infrastructure, British workers, off the back of that, you owe a tax bill to this country. And actually most other rich countries, including the US, have something like this in place. So it is disappointing to not get things like that.
Coco Khan For a really long time, people have been saying, on this podcast included, that we don’t know what the Starmer project is. And I’m don’t think anyone would look at this budget and necessarily say, okay, well, a philosophy has m emerged to the top. But could it be that perhaps they are tinkering around the edges because they’re testing things out? They want to see what might be popular. For example, this mansion tax. Could it be the start of something bigger?
Faiza Shaheen I think we could, yeah, maybe be hopeful for that. I didn’t get the sense from that from the conversations that we’ve been having. One really good thing is that they’ve got rid of the two child benefit cap. And I think had people not lobbied quite hard, then that wouldn’t have happened. And there’s part I feel mixed about it because on the one hand, I’m like, finally, this will actually make a big difference for people on low incomes, but then it’s a Labour government. Like I would have thought that they would do that straight away. So the fact that we’ve had to work so hard and lobby so hard to make that happen, it’s a mixed situation. But I do I mean, I didn’t get a strong sense, and I was talking to other economists on the left. We didn’t get a strong sense of a vision again or where growth is going to come from. And they are betting on growth because they’re not raising enough money to really turn around 14 years of austerity. They’re just not. So they are hoping still that over the next year or couple of years, growth emerges and they would need that to be higher than the kind of one point five percent average that they’re that is being predic predicted right now. They would need that to be higher so they can get higher tax receipts and then start spending more towards the end of this parliament. So it’s kind of an old political trick that we’ll just hold back for now and then hopefully we’ll have more money towards the end and we’ll show we’ve spent all this money. But I just think that’s a huge risk to take.
Nish Kumar What about cost of living? So the budget was pegged as being you know something that was going to address that. Rachel Reeves announced that rail fares will be frozen and that they’re going to take £150 off energy bills in April by cutting the energy company obligations scheme. Now, if if you go back to the last couple of episodes of the show, we’ve discussed at length the environmental implications of that. So there’s probably not much more for us to say on that particular issue. But just in terms purely of cost of living, do you think that this goes far enough, Faiza?
Faiza Shaheen Well, it’s good that they’re listening on costs of Libyan finally. And but again, it’s underwhelming because you have to think, okay, rail fares are so high in this country already, especially when compared to comparable countries. And it’s just a freeze. So it’s not like people are going to see a reduction in the costs. They’re just not going to see a massive increase like they used to see in every year. And then alongside that, you have, yeah, energy bills. Again, that’s really, that’s really great. But you have other ways in which energy bills are going to go up next year. There’s nothing on, say, council tax bills, which are expected to go up again in April. And you’ve got this personal income tax thresholds frozen. So it’s kind of gets canceled out. So it’s not again, it’s not really clear that it’s people are gonna feel like markedly better off. It’s just a bit piecemeal. And next year, local elections in May, are people gonna feel any better off under a Labour government? I don’t I don’t see that. And so they will still take that political political hammering. So they’ve just sort of kicked the can down the road on that front.
Coco Khan I keep coming back to this problem that we keep discussing on the show about this government not having a a big idea or a philosophy and you know, it could be a philosophy that I don’t necessarily agree with or doesn’t go far enough, but w what is it? Just on the subjects of that, what would you have liked to have seen?
Faiza Shaheen I mean, just in terms of the tax side, we would have absolutely have liked to have seen the equalization on capital gains. That would finally mean that people earning their money from sort of going out day to day income, wages, you get your pay slip, are getting the same amount, are taxed at the same level as people that are getting it from dividends and property and the rest of it. And so that would have been a really positive move in terms of tax justice. And would have loved to see an announcement and more resources to start building us towards a wealth tax because we do need a bit more information on the rich. We actually have a very poor handle of how much money the very rich have in this country. Just a really clear story about we hear you working people in this country that say we’ve been squeezed year after year and we’re struggling. And so we are going to shift this tax contribution towards those people that have, you know, a huge amount of assets at the very top. You know, the billionaires have 650 billion worth of money. I mean, that’s just insane. We can’t even like comprehend how much money that is, right? And so, you know, and we always ask for this two percent rate on over 10 million. Again, 10 million pounds, can you imagine? Anything under 10 million, you don’t get charged on. So, you know, these are really not big things to ask. So I, you know, I would have loved to have seen that. And I would have loved to see more serious plans on how they’re gonna do things like have a free universal childcare system, for instance. It just is just so small in comparison. And like you say, yeah, the energy companies, okay, yeah, people need a reprieve, but there needs to be something much more. Harder done on companies that are making so much money. And I do I think the thing that I know from being in the Labour Party and listening to some of the leadership before they came into government is also that, yeah, they are timid around some of these things. They are, they do want to be seen as pro business. So that’s why they get sort of stuck and end up not pleasing anyone and not doing the bold things.
Nish Kumar You’ve criticized its lack of ambition. What are the things that you’re pleased with in terms of what’s been announced?
Faiza Shaheen Yeah, I mean, I have to say, as someone that spent part of my childhood on benefits and was one of three, I mean, I’m absolutely delighted for those families. So, yeah, the end of the two child benefit cap feels really important and significant. I guess for us, and this is, you know, you can’t just be like negative about things. You have to think, okay, where do we go from here? Like the mansion tax gives us an opportunity to talk about how the council tax system in general needs to be reformed. And I mean, it’s so outdated. I mean, there’s all kinds of weird anomalies. Like we just started talking about it in the office, and like I’ve got a two-bedroom place, someone else got two bedroom place, even though we’re both in London, we’re in different local authorities, therefore we pay different amounts, even though we’re in the same band. It just makes no sense. So this is an opportunity to say, okay, you’ve taken this one step. This is actually how you could solve it. So I think there’s some things that just give for people like me that work to change the system ultimately to work for working class and middle class people in this country. It gives us an in to say, okay, you’ve done this, this is what we could do next.
Coco Khan Well, speaking of wealth taxes, they have come under fire recently, not just from the usual suspects, I would add, but also people on the left. And we we wanted to put some of those arguments to you as tax justice. So Aditya Chakrabortty wrote in The Guardian last week that it was it was a pantomime. It doesn’t really tackle the fundamentals. What do you say to this?
Faiza Shaheen Yeah, I’ve been meaning to text Aditya about this and just be like, thank you for this article. None of us advocate that this is somehow gonna solve everything. But what we what we do say is that we need to start taking wealth concentration at the very top much more seriously. And not just as a money-raising thing, but as a point about how inequality is really affecting this country. We know that it’s the same sort of very rich people that are, for instance, funding reform and the Tories and division in our country. And we know that it’s undermining the economy to grow overall, just because of the way it’s balancing our economy towards the very, very rich and their assets. And so 2% wealth tax is a way to just say, okay, look, now we’re gonna one measure how rich the rich are, do something to start taxing them, and just make this much more of a mainstream economic and social policy position. So yeah, I mean, I I agree that it’s it’s not everything, but we need to start somewhere. And it is, it has really opened up the conversation. Like I just saw someone on the bus who I’ve known for a while a couple of days ago, and he’s a teacher, and he said one of his politics students had brought it up, and then they had a whole debate on it. Like that just doesn’t happen on, say, even like capital gains. Like people just don’t know what that means. So, you know, we have to be honest about the fact that you also have to get the public behind something. And a wealth tax is a really helpful policy in that people understand it. And it just gives us a sense of what we could be doing instead in a way that the public can support and get behind.
Nish Kumar Your sort of task now, I guess, in terms of Tax Justice UK is to continue the lobbying to turn this budget into a starting point for a conversation rather than a kind of silver bullet, right?
Faiza Shaheen We were never gonna get everything that we wanted. And there’s always more to fight for. And also really importantly, for people out there that just feel like, oh, what’s the point? They need to feel like, okay, yeah, we are getting bits and pieces and we do wanna keep fighting this fight to make sure that when it comes to the next election, or even May, I mean, May is such an important time because local elections, if Labour does really badly, which I think many people expect them to lose loads of seats to the Greens and reform, and they’re sort of hunting for ideas, then that’s a really opportune time for us to say, look, take wealth far more seriously and talk about wealth tax. You know, that’s a kind of big idea that someone like Andy Burnham could come in with. So it’s all to play for.
Nish Kumar Faiza, thank you so much for joining us on Pod Save the UK. After the break, what’s got Nigel Farage on the back foot and have your party finally put the feuding behind them?
Coco Khan [AD]
Coco Khan Now, a lot of shit never seems to stick to Nigel Farage, but finally he looked a little bit rattled this week.
Nish Kumar Yes, first there’s the awkward fact that Reform’s former leader in Wales, Nathan Gill, was jailed for ten years for taking bribes from Russia while he was a UKIP member of the European Parliament. There was lots of condemnation of Gill from Farage, but no commitment to investigating links between Reform and Russia. Because as Farage put it, I am not a police force. First of all, thank God. That’s the last thing we need is Nigel Farage being the head of his own private militia, but also not really a good enough excuse. It’s an extraordinary piece of obfuscation.
Coco Khan Well, unsurprisingly, Keir Starmer had a field day with this during his statement about Ukraine in the Commons. Interestingly, Farage chose not to be there when Starmer told MPs, You can’t be pro Putin and pro Ukraine. You have to choose between the two and reform is pro Putin.
Nish Kumar So in addition to this, there was a really old story that has also put Nigel Farage even further on the back foot. There are allegations that the teenage Farage racially abused non-white and Jewish pupils in his school. Now these allegations have actually been around for more than a decade, but The Guardian has once again been digging away at them. But when the BBC Wales political editor tackled Farage this week, the wheels started to come off.
Clip The question is, did you ever racially abuse fellow pupils in school? You’ve caveated it with a hurtful way. Not with intent. I d I don’t understand what you mean by not with intent. What does that what does that mean? But what does that mean?
Clip No.
Clip No what?
Clip No, I have never directly really tried to go and and hurt anybody.
Clip You’re opening the door there to perhaps you did it without meaning to a thing.
Clip Have I said things fifty years ago that you could interpret as being a b banter in a playground that you could interpret in the modern light of day in some sort of way, yes. But isn’t it funny? She did say stuff to these people then. I’ve never directly racially abused anybody, no.
Coco Khan Now we discussed this briefly on the pod last week, but that interview on Monday has really escalated the story. Reforms of the claims were without foundation and an attempt to smear Farage, but hearing Farage’s interview, ex pupils then went on to the BBC to challenge his account.
Nish Kumar One Jewish former classmate said, One of the most vivid memories of my school life is Farage repeatedly coming up to me and knowing I was Jewish, saying Hitler was right and gasem, and that was frequently followed by a s you know, kind of imitating the sound of escaping gas.
Coco Khan After that, Nigel Farris doubled down, telling GB News I categorically deny saying those things to that one individual and frankly, frankly, for the Guardian and the BBC to be going back just shy of half a century to come out with this stuff shows how desperate they are.
Nish Kumar I mean, it’s also worth pointing out, just because I think it’s is something that doesn’t necessarily tally with Farage’s public image as a man of the people. The school in question is a very exclusive private school, a Dulwich College, in South London. But what I would say is Farage has had a very easy ride in the British press. But I would say this is what it looks like when he’s faced with direct and tough questions, right?
Coco Khan Yeah. I I think the thing that is so surprising is that this is the story that’s cut through when actually there will be some who hear his argument that is, you know, it was over half a century ago. I was a teenager, I’ve always been a provocator, you know, whatever, and we’ll accept that. Whereas we could just look at things that he’s done as an adult man and the far right parties, let’s be honest, Nazi leaders and characters that he has liais with. We don’t need to go back to what happened in the playground.
Nish Kumar On the Russia front, clearly Starmer thinks there’s mileage in it. Also the Lib Dem leader Ed Davies said that Farage was previously paid to be on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s TV channel Russia Today, and has asked, we must all ask, where do his loyalties really lie? Meanwhile, Mike Katz, the Labour peer and former Jewish Labour Movement chair said Farage is essentially arguing you can racially abuse people without it being hurtful and insulting. While Liberal Democrat MP for Eastbourne, Josh Babarinde, christened him no answers Nigel. Listen, outside of his school career, Farage has a history of indulging in conspiracy theories that are either directly racist or racist at their core. The sort of responsible, supposedly responsible right in Britain and America have consistently indulged in the cultural Marxism conspiracy theory. And cultural Marxism is a phrase that was actually invented by the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s. And it was a specific way of attacking the Jewish intelligentsia in the country. And I’m sort of amazed by how frequently I’ve heard it used in the last 10 years. We talked about it on this show, I think, with Suela Bravman. I’m amazed at how often it’s used by supposedly reasonable conservative politicians or center right conservative politicians. Also, Nigel Farage did address the AFD, which is the German far right party. So what I’m saying is the the problem that he has, I think with these allegations about things he said as a schoolchild is. Too much of his adult behavior means that when these allegations are made, it’s not a huge leap for them to be believed.
Coco Khan Yeah.
Nish Kumar Okay. I think the adult that addresses the AFD and indulges in you know, conspiratorial thinking, which is very frequently comes out of anti Semitic global movements, it’s not a very big leap.
Coco Khan Right, exactly.
Nish Kumar It’s like Trump and the Epstein Files, you know, we don’t know if he’s in them or what he’s named as doing, but when it comes out, no one’s gonna be like, What? Donald Trump?
Coco Khan And so, you know, it’s hard for me to put myself in the mind of a big reform lover, but I would imagine that what they rank in terms of what they like about Nigel Farage, the idea that he’s inclusive with his language is probably pretty low. You know, we’re applying progressive standards to a man whose entire brand is eschewing that. So will any of it make a dent on him? I don’t know. If we want to look at racist stuff that Nigel Farage has done, we don’t need to go back to his teenage years. There’s stuff that he’s done right now, is doing right now. I mean, you know, I mentioned earlier about his liaising with far right parties. What I was referring to there was when he was in the European Parliament, he was working very closely with the Swedish Democrats, which was founded by someone from the SS.
Nish Kumar Yeah.
Coco Khan So, you know, we don’t need to tie ourselves in knots about his teenage extremism.
Nish Kumar Yeah.
Coco Khan That said though, it has been good to watch him fall over himself and to look rattled about this question which he has sidestepped in for far too long, which is, You’re a racist though, aren’t you, Nigel? You are though, aren’t you? Like it’s it’s about time someone pressed him on it, even if he’s gonna keep sidestepping.
Nish Kumar So look, last week we checked in on the chaotic start that’s engulfed your party over the last few months. But just a few days before their conference is due to happen, there might be a bit of peace in the air. We should say that there was another resignation of one of the steering committee last week. But listen, w w once you’re on that drama train, it can be hard to get off it.
Coco Khan Yeah. So some of you reached out to me after my small rant last week where I talked about how everything that’s happening with your party isn’t really good enough. Well, it seems like maybe they actually agree so
Nish Kumar Yeah, it certainly struck a chord with the listeners, I believe, you saying that it it wasn’t good enough.
Coco Khan Exasperation for you.
Nish Kumar Yeah.
Coco Khan Both Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn have made public apologies in the last few days. Here’s a clip of Corbyn speaking to the news statesman.
Clip Sorry if you are at all disappointed. I hope, however, your wish and your determination to have a democratic, serious left voice that will challenge reform, that will challenge austerity, challenge the Tories and so on will be there.
Coco Khan So that video dropped on Tuesday and Zarah Sultana issued a statement on Monday saying that the your party founding process has been challenging, to say the least. I know many members are feeling frustrated and disillusioned, but the need for this party has not disappeared. The opportunity to reshape our society has not been foreclosed by a run of regrettable media coverage. Debate and disagreement are part of any healthy political project, but they must be conducted in a respectful manner. It concluded by saying, let’s make this the moment we get the party back on track.
Nish Kumar The other big your party news is connected, I think, to this, because it seems designed to limit the drama going forward. So the party has ruled out the co-leadership model originally floated that might have seen Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana leading the new party together. Instead, they’re putting to their membership the choice between single leadership or collective leadership, which your party describes as a model where they would be collectively led by ordinary members elected to the Central Executive Committee, with the chair, vice chair, and spokesperson in particular serving as the public political leadership. That would mean that they wouldn’t necessarily need to be MPs or publicly elected people in order to be on a kind of steering committee for your party. So, Coco, having expressed exasperation last week, how do you feel this week?
Coco Khan I’m glad that there’s been contrition and I’m glad that they have understood that that for a lot of people it’s really disappointing and it’s heart wrenching and heartbreaking and that there’s a lot of emotions pinned to this, you know, and they r they understand that. So, you know, that it’s not just an intellectual exercise, but one of, you know, heart and soul for so many people. So I’m I’m glad to see that. I’m not sure what I feel about this ruling out the co leadership model. I wonder if all the people that donated thought there might be a co leadership model. I don’t know necessarily if ruling out is fair. Should it not have been one of the options in terms of I thought everything was gonna be run by committee and everything was gonna be still that.
Nish Kumar Well there’s still that o there’s still that option for people to have it. What does seem to have been taken off the table is the idea that this will be led by two people. I think the tr thing that they’re trying to posit is this idea of a kind of executive committee.
Coco Khan But is that because the two people that everyone had in mind don’t want to do it?
Nish Kumar Is that why? Listen, it’s hard to escape the sense that that’s what’s going on.
Coco Khan Okay. Look, it’s their conference this weekend, right? Yes. So l let’s see. Perhaps there will be headlines coming out out of that that really rouses people like us who have been you know, quietly watching but maybe fool feeling a little bit disappointed. We shall see. But at the moment, I yeah. I I’m just not feeling great about it.
Nish Kumar If you want more details on what the membership is actually going to be voting for at your party’s conference this weekend, we’ve dropped a link to their founding documents in our show notes. I think we will also have a name for this party, which is probably also pretty useful for them. Just as they were trying to put all the drama behind them, we should mention that Zack Polanski stirred the part by inviting Zarah Sultana to join the Greens. So.
Coco Khan Zack Polanski’s getting very good at stirring the pot. You have to you have to give it to him.
Nish Kumar Finally, we should say there has been a sort of a cherry on the cake for the good news for one of your party’s founding members. Jeremy Corbyn’s panto appearance has received rave reviews. So apparently he enters with it’s me the wizard and then says, I’ve been very busy planning a party, a new party. It’s harder than it sounds. He he to be clear, I I th I think we’ve talked about this on the show before. He’s making an appearance, he’s filmed an appearance that is played in as part of the panto that’s playing at the Pleasants Islington at the moment. And I I was I I did a benefit gig at The Pleasants this week. It’s just very funny because you know, I’m used to going into venues and seeing pictures of other comedians on there. I’m less used to going in and seeing a picture of Jeremy Corbyn on a venue that I’m about to do stand-up comedy in.
Coco Khan There’s always this thing where people say to MPs, Well, when this vote was going on, where were you? You were on holiday. What what what was Jeremy Corbyn doing? It’s me, the wizard.
Nish Kumar Well, he was appearing by video. You know, he’s basically
Coco Khan So I’m here for it. His support for the arts, we respect him. He’s on the verge of something.
Nish Kumar He’s on the verge of sort of abavoyaging himself. I I think that that’s the sort of thing we should encourage more of our politicians to do is to make appearances by video. Like harness some of that hologram technology.
Coco Khan Yeah.
Nish Kumar And do some of the more pointless events that employed the thing.
Coco Khan I think you should be very careful what you wish for, given all your longstanding feelings about Cuban Pete aka Ed Balls. You should be really think closely about whether you want to see more politicians partaking in, you know
Nish Kumar I’m sort of fine with them doing doing it by hologram. Also, Ed Bulls is free to do Cuban Pete is free to do as he pleases now. He’s member of the media, he’s free to act as he pleases. If you if you live in in or around London, I I can’t even plug one of them. I’m doing about seventy-five benefits in the next month and a half. The you can find the details of them. It be as part of my brand of tediously left wing comedian. Even I’m sick of it now. I keep turning up on stage at Benefit Gigs and you can see the audience going, geez, again. Then you have a social life.
Coco Khan And I can answer that. And the answer is no. Does not have a social. So that’s it. Thank you for listening to but that was a dig at you for outing me about chat GPT.
Nish Kumar I will never stop arguing about chat GPT.
Coco Khan Like I said, it wasn’t for medical advice, it was understanding a paper, okay? As a second reference. Another reminder, please, to send us your questions for our mailbag episode.
Nish Kumar Definitely asked. Chat GPT is Coco’s Dulich School Days racism. It’s got her absolutely rattled. Normally she’s unflappable and composed. Now she is.
Coco Khan You wouldn’t understand, would you dish you would not understand?
Nish Kumar She’s not a police force. How could she how could she police her own behavior over the course of a week?
Coco Khan Oh god. Please don’t forget to please don’t forget to follow at Pod Save the UK on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter at Blue Sky. We’re pleading there, wasn’t it?
Nish Kumar Yeah, please. I it doesn’t actually say that on the script. I don’t know why you’ve added a please.
Coco Khan Please. I’m just desperate for love because I know I’m gonna get outcast of all this chat GPD business. Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media.
Nish Kumar Thanks to producers James Tinesdale and May Robson.
Coco Khan Our theme music is by Vasilis Fotopoulos.
Nish Kumar The executive producers are Louise Cotton and Casey Long with additional support from Ari Schwartz.
Coco Khan And remember to hit subscribe for new shows on Thursdays on Amazon, Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcast.
