Hello, I'm Hannah Barnes, and this is Politics from the New Statesman, where every Thursday we bring you the latest from Westminster and beyond. Today I'm joined by our Senior Editor, George Eton, and our Associate Political Editor, Rachel Kamliff. Hello. Hello.
We are going to do things a bit differently this week. We're going to include some of the questions that you've been sending to us via new statesman.com forward slash you ask us or by leaving a comment on Spotify or YouTube. And that is because tomorrow's show will be a conversation between our political editor Andrew Marr and the former shadow chancellor, John McDonald, who six months ago had the labor whip suspended for voting to remove the two child benefit cap.
So I'm going to dive in straight away. Our first question comes from Robert, who suggests that the government is clutching at straws to get economic growth? He asks, does it feel like a rabbit darting around a field trying to escape a fox?
And could this approach accidentally lead to a trust 2.0 moment? George, obviously the big political news this week, the Chancellor's speech, you were there. You've called it in the New Statesman, an attempt at a vibe shift. Was it just clutching at straws?
I think clutching at straws is a little too harsh, but what they're certainly been is a big pivot away from the rather gloomy, maybe excessively gloomy. That's certainly how some members of the Cabinet see it rhetoric that started in Labor's opening maps in office.
all of the talk of the 22 billion black hole. Kissama saying things are going to get worse. Obviously, then in the budget, you saw big tax rises as well as cuts such as the winter fuel payments. So Rachel Reeves, now no one's in any doubt what her focus is. And look, they have good reasons for caring a lot about economic growth. There was a clear link between growth and people's wages and living standards. And if you want better public services, the only way to really afford it in the long run is higher
productivity. The big question now, I think, is whether it will work. And it will be some time until we get an answer to that. I think it's also influenced by the arrival of Donald Trump in the US, undoubtedly. You see him trying to sort of fire up the animal spirits of the American economy. And there's no doubt that Labour's looked across the Atlantic and thought, are there things here that we could learn from?
Actually, one of the things that the Chancellor mentioned in her speech this week was about reviving this idea, investing in this Oxford, Cambridge corridor or arc, however you want to say it. But unless my memory is failing me, which it may well be, wasn't this having a moment of déjà vu? This has been around for years, right? I think it was started in 2003 by the last Labour government.
I just recycling old ideas. You could say they're recycling old ideas and that is kind of the point that many conservatives made this week because the conservatives can't attack the priority of going for growth because everyone agrees that we need to go for growth. So instead they were sort of saying these are these old ideas. Another way of looking at it.
might be that they are ready-made off-the-shelf ideas that you can announce sort of now as the first stage, and then go think up some more ideas of other things, and that the economic situation is such that we kind of need to be getting a start on this now, so it's not either or all ideas, new ideas.
Yes, and, but you are absolutely right that the Oxford Cambridge Silicon Valley corridor, whatever they wanna call it, has been an idea for many decades. And it makes sense because you've got these like two centers of research and sort of scientific innovation. And there, if you've ever tried to drive between them, it takes like, you basically have to come down to London and go around. And that if you could sort of build that corridor and build more lab space and you could attract,
more scientists, and it does make sense. It is, however, still very focused in the southeast, in the sort of orbit of London, and that being one of the headline announcements along with the third runway at Heathrow, which has also been something we've been talking about since the last Labour government many decades,
has led to the criticism that a lot of these ideas are London, Southeast, centric. What are they doing for getting growth more regionally distributed? You know, where's the Manchester Leeds innovation corridor? Where's the sort of expansion of transport in the north? And the argument for the government is, yeah, we're going to look into doing that too, but let's do the off-the-shelf ones first.
George, I mean, there's another point that Robert makes in his question, actually. He says that some of these growth announcements seem to be a bit contradictory, and that's why he's saying, clutching at straws, you know, he throw expansion versus commitment to net zero. I mean, Jason Cowley has written in the New Statesman this week, actually saying that the overall effect seems to be one of panic. Do you think there's some truth in that? Is that fair?
I don't think they're panics. This is a speech that they'd planned back in December, and I think there was always going to be a natural shift from the mood leading up to the budget, where they raised taxes by 40 billion, so they had to lay the ground for that, which meant talking about the mess that the public finances were in, to now going for growth.
I think they're worried. You could not be worried by the economy, basically, flatlining since Labour entered power. And on Heathrow and that, there is clear tension there. Ed Miliband publicly loyal to Rachel Reeves, privately. He does oppose third runway, but they can work together on wind farms and solar farms.
So there is sort of collaboration as well as tension. Some ways, though, it's healthy for governments to have a bit of tension. Some people think there hasn't been enough tension inside governments, and that's sometimes why mistakes have been made. Some say number 10 should have vetoed the Winter Fuel Cup. The key is, is it a kind of creative tension, or is it a destructive one?
Not the only place there seems to be an apparent contradiction, though. At one point yesterday, Rachel Reeves talked about learning the lessons from Grenfell, for example, but simultaneously then talking about de-regulating, cutting red tape. The lessons from Grenfell precisely cut red tape too much.
Well, yeah, the lesson from Grandfell is that there was a kind of culture of, was it one regulation in one or two regulations out? And that that mindset led to corners being cut and things being overlooked with really horrendous tragic outcomes.
You tend to get a sort of a cycle when it comes to regulation, which is like there's too much regulation. We can't move forward on things that we want to move forward on. We should sort of cut it and then something terrible happens and it's no, the government should have stepped in to stop this. We need more regulation to deal with that. And that
I think governments all across the world have that kind of tension. What I think the Rachel Reeves kind of agenda is, is there are some clashes, particularly with regards to environmental protections, and we can also like, we like environmental protections, and then you get these bizarre stories about bat tunnels that sort of block HS2. I think it was like £300,000 per bat life saved, and the... Michael Gove talks a lot about this.
Is he strange environmental protection? Is he true about that? And then of course you get the giant quested nukes. And basically, if you try and build anything and you run up against rules that you absolutely cannot do anything that could potentially cause any environmental harm whatsoever, what you end up with is not building anything at all, which is what we've been doing or rather not doing the last 20 years. I'll be sure the point of regulation is it's a common sense one, right? If it's about protecting
human life as in fire regulations or wherever it might be. You might need more regulation if it's something not so fundamental than we do regulate. I think you've also got to think of it like in the aggregate, like in a regulation on its own, what is this doing, a regulation in the context of all the other regulations for a particular project.
do they, as a whole, make it impossible to build anything? And do we then also have to think about the risk of not doing that building work, whether it's like a reservoir or a power station? And that comes with risks too, as we've seen. But no, it's not easy and it's not straightforward. I want to add to your newt that apparently there are complaints at the moment that the Hinkley nuclear power station has been delayed or will be delayed due to a fish being sucked into the cooling system.
There we go. Radioactive fish. There's a new head at the left leading think tank, the IPPR, the Institute for Public Policy Research. He's written for the new statesman this week saying that Reeves should be aiming for good growth, not just growth at all costs. I mean, first of all, just explain to us what he means by good growth. And do you think Reeves covered that in the speech?
Good, good growth growth that's sustainable, i.e. not an over inflated financial sector. Obviously, we saw that before the crash. Growth that I think is regionally balanced, and Labour's headline aim in the sort of plan for change that, like, here's someone else in the end of the year is, is to have living standards rising every, every region of the, of the UK. There's some concern from Northern MPs that the, you know, the emphasis on, on Heathrow, Marx,
Yeah, like Rachel's saying. A diversion away from leveling up. There's also some concern around the new focus on growth and less talk of living standards. So you remember, when they became in, they had this page, we're going to achieve the highest growth in the G7. That then became a tighter focus on higher living standards, because as we've seen at times in the last three decades, sometimes GDP can be rising, but wages are flatlining.
Some MPs worry that Labour is now emphasizing GDP too much. There's this famous heckle. Which obviously goes up if you have more people. As we've said, these immigration statistics. Exactly. So there's this famous heckle that was made at the think tank, Derek, Anand, Manon, during the Brexit debates. It was a debate in Newcastle. And he pointed out, economists forecast that if we leave the EU, GDP will fall. She reposted, that's your bloody GDP not ours.
And that is a sentiment that Morgan McSweeney in number 10 is very aware of the danger stuff. Nigel Farage said quality of life is more important than just a few extra percents on GDP. Now, the point Rachel Reese would make is that generally still high GDP does mean more money in people's pockets.
But I think Labor need to make that link much more clearly, or they are open to the criticism that isn't most of this growth going into other people's pockets, or isn't it just because we've got a much higher net migration than we've had at other times and so on. Rachel, how's the opposition responded to this? I mean, how long could the Prime Minister really just keep saying you ruin the economy?
Are they kicking back? Well, as I said at the start, it's a slightly difficult one for them because the Conservatives can't oppose the priority of let's go for growth. So instead, the messaging has very much been, you know what's harm and growth, it's Labour's policies, it's the budget, it's the rise in employer, national insurance,
It's the pressures that are being put on businesses, like that's the real barrier to growth. And, you know, Rachel Reeves can talk all she likes about having a growth mindset or, you know, going for growth or whatever. But look at what the government's actually doing. And at PMQ's this week, the target of that line of attack was the government's employment rights bill.
which is another really interesting example of where one government priority growth comes up against another government priority, we talked about net zero already, but the employment rights bill and basically giving much stronger protections to workers, things like banning zero hours contracts and getting certain protections and rights from day one. Now, you could say, and this is what Labor is saying,
You can be pro business and pro worker and we all benefit if people feel more secure and businesses should want their workers to feel protected and secure and that will increase productivity and you can make all of those arguments and labor is making those arguments. But what the conservatives are saying and what can be made, not we're saying at PMQs, is this is going to impose extra cost for businesses, particularly small businesses who are already having to pay the high minimum wage and
the increased national insurance and it's going to cost them so much that they will stop hiring or they will go under completely and, you know, how does that fit with your growth agenda? And she did quite a good job actually of picking out sort of key clauses and key provisions in the bill that she said could be a direct barrier to growth. I don't think it particularly landed this week, but if we start to see George has written this week about how labor is relaxed about the potential
for higher unemployment, if it means that there were more good jobs in the economy. But if we start to see job losses, if we start to see businesses not hiring or costing jobs, you're going to get the conservative line of, hang on, you said you wanted growth, and yet these are the policies that you haven't acted that are a direct barrier to growth. And I think that could be quite a compelling message for them.
Okay, thanks both. Well, don't forget that you can subscribe to the New Statesman and get your first five weeks for five pounds. Visit newstatesman.com forward slash Jan 25 for details. We are still continuing that into February and we will be back in a couple of minutes.
Welcome back to Politics from the New Statesman with me, Hannah Barnes. George Eaton and Rachel Conliff are still with me. I'm delighted to say. Just before we move on to some more questions, I just wonder what both of you were saying just a few moments ago. I think it chimes with a question here from Nowhereman. Do you think there's just, we've talked about it week and week out and she's just, labor has a messaging problem and Nowhereman 2710 to be precise. He asks, does labor have a charisma problem? Is that causing them difficulties?
Yes, I think you could say that Labour has a charisma problem, or certainly a charisma challenge. I don't think even Kisstham and Rachel Riese themselves would necessarily cast themselves as charismatic. What I think they would argue is we're going to deliver for people on the economy and public services and judge us by results. So I think that's the bet Labour's taking is that Kissthammer sees himself as
Serious policy focused, he said, look, if you want Panto, if you want entertainment, then basically I'm not the guy for that, but I will deliver. So that's the bet they've made, and we'll see if that works for them. When it links in with a theme of the week that we've spotted in your questions, and it's about how the media report on politics too. So David Banks asks us,
With all the recent frothing about Rachel Reeves and whether she should go, is it fair to say that media outlets addicted to the fibrillity they're used to from the twilight of the Tory years are finding it hard to adjust. Rachel, are you addicted to febri-bro garments? Absolutely.
No, I think the answer to this is yes, and I think that the Tory psychodrama, as we called it, it was just briefings from one end of government to the other end of government, factions in the Conservative Party, and because of various sort of quite
specific parliamentary quirks, the lack of a majority government, and the way the Conservative Party works, it really could be that one bad poll could be the thing that meant you had another leader, which meant you had another Prime Minister, which is really exciting. And as we have discussed before, when Labour have a 160 odd majority,
Like bad polls are bad for labor. They are useful for analyzing how the country is feeling. They're useful for framing the challenges that the government has of keeping this fractured voter coalition together. But they don't tell you anything about when we're going to have another election or when we're going to have another prime minister. And I think there is a bit of adjusting going on in the lobby. I don't know. You've been in the lobby longer than I have. Yeah. I mean, there's someone in number number 10 recently called them chaos junkies.
And I think there is an adjustment going on, which is that people aren't used to a government with a majority this big and this stable. The last time a Prime Minister had a majority, anything like this big, was Tony Blair in his second term. And every government since the Blair Browner has had the potential to fall. Even the coalition between the toys and Lib Dems, people didn't necessarily think it would last a full term initially and so on. So there is an adjustment. I think on Reeves,
It's an interesting episode to reflect on. I think, clearly, it reached an absurd degree of speculation. The salmon reefs are the closest p.m. chance of the partnerships since I was born. And Cameron, there was no sense in which a change of chancellor would mean a change of direction. So it obviously reached disproportionate levels. But there is genuine unhappiness with some racial racist policies, not just in the PLP, but in the cabinets.
particularly Winter Fuel, and I think a sense that then the messaging had been too negative. It's right that journalists reflect them. We're having conversations obviously that others aren't. This is not some Westminster confection that the Reeves speculation was built on a reality, which is that she's not
Personal ratings are not good and there is unhappiness in the Labour ranks too. Pretty punchy question next from John in Edinburgh. Do the media just hate the Lib Dems? I just want to explain a little more about what he says. In the last Parliament, the media treated the SNP as the third party based on their seat count.
despite the Lib Dems getting twice their vote share. In this parliament, the media are treating reform as the third party, despite the Lib Dems having more than ten times their number of parliamentary seats. Well, let's split this, right? George, you take this one. Is it fair to say that the SNP were treated better by the media?
No, I don't think it's fair to say the SMP were better treated. I mean, if anything, they received more condemnation because Scottish independence is caused most of the media oppose. But, you know, certitude say the SMP probably made for better copy. I mean, you've got big personalities, you know, Alex Salmon, Nicholas Sturgeon, these sort of totemic clashes. Now, you can't write anything about the Lib Dems at the moment where the stakes are as high as that.
I mean, they were running Scotland. So I don't think the SNP comparison is the right one. Yes, they were the third-party Westminster, but they were also running the Scottish government. Now, I feel I need to jump in before going to you, Rachel, because you've often covered the Lib Dems, right? And we have been very nice to the Lib Dems on this podcast, I would say. But do you feel that they are doing anything that's worthy of reporting at the moment that's being missed?
So I cover the Lib Dems when I write the weekly PMQs reviews and I try and, including this week's one, and I try and always touch on what Ed Davey asks because I think it's really interesting how the Lib Dems are positioning themselves, how they're using their role as the third largest party. They get two questions at PMQs each week, which they didn't get when it was the SMP who
who were in that role and how are they positioning themselves? Are they opposing labour or are they still fighting the Conservatives? What are their core issues? That is, I think, the moment each week when the Lib Dems have the biggest platform. What are they using that for?
key issues that Ed Davey wants to use the kind of influence of being the third largest party. One is closer ties with the EU. The Lib Dems are kind of the only pro rejoining at least parts of the EU. You put this on your PMQ right up this week, he did that.
actually it feeds into the growth thing because Ed Davies' point was, hey, if you're prioritizing growth over everything else, how about we join in the customs union or at least this new pan-European customs area, the thing that is being discussed. The other one obviously we talked a lot about, which is health and social care, Ed Davies' own personal reasons for pushing that. But a lot of his questions at PMQs have been about issues where the government moves like the increase in national insurance.
could hit pharmacies, could hit community health care centres, he asked about hospitals a lot. And one of the things that I have noticed is that Keir Starmer often looks a lot more unsettled and a lot more awkward when he's answering a very politely worded, could the Prime Minister just confirm that community health care centres won't be hit by the government's national insurance increase question than when he's facing a barrage of, you know, will the Prime Minister admit that he's a terrible person from from from Chemibate, so I think Ed Davies
demeanour and his tactic of being a sort of supportive but critical friend of the government actually is undermining labour or at least being more effective than Kerry Badernock is. I mean one of the reasons obviously people talk, the media are
talking about reform so much, just to push back a bit, John, is obviously that they're polling so high. I mean, it's pretty much a three-way split in the polls at the moment. Yes, there's no election between reform, the Conservatives and Labour. But going back to the Lib Dems, George, I mean, obviously during the election campaign, we had all these stunts by Ed Davy. You can't really do that in the House of Commons. He's taking a different approach. But should or could they be doing something else to get more attention?
Yeah, well, I think they have been getting more attention recently. So I recipes taking a detailed look at their elections strategy recently. That was to tie in with the speech that David gave on Europe, saying that the UK should rejoin the customs union, also setting out dividing lines on Donald Trump. So they like to see themselves as the only party that will criticise Trump.
they say Labour can't for diplomatic reasons and the conservatives in form don't want to. In fact, they're competing to suck up to Donald Trump. So that's how they get more attention. It's by setting out a distinctive policies, the same with social care, where David repeatedly challenges Keir Starmer in the house. We should remember that
The Lib Dems didn't receive a huge amount of media coverage before. The elections still ended up winning more than 70 seats. I think they're probably in some ways more relaxed than you might think about not always making the headlines, because for them it's about reaching the voters who matter and they've got a clear electoral strategy. But yes, the congenital, of course, the media should probably cover the Lib Dems more. I think we give them a fair hearing here, I'd say.
So if you cover the Lib Dems more, you are inevitably going to cover the contradictions inherent in the Lib Dems. Go on, tell us about them. Oh! They basically run as, they're going to hate me for saying this, but they often run nimby campaigns. They run sort of by elections as, you know, we're the local champions, and we're not going to build that block of flux or whatever. And then they go on and talk about how important it is that we build houses fairly, but not there. And we build infrastructure, you know, but not there.
And they don't necessarily have a, again, they would argue with me on this, but the sort of national agenda, there are certain key issues that they're focusing really hard on, which is great for drawing attention to those issues and reminding the Labour government that it's not just reform and the Conservatives they have to worry about. But I think if we covered them more, we might, they might not be favourable. They might not be too happy with some of that coverage perhaps.
So let me sum it up. Do the media hate the Lib Dems? No, of course we don't. Should they be covered a bit more? Probably. If we covered them too much, they probably wouldn't like it. Would they like it? Probably not. There we go. George, Rachel, thank you very much. Thank you also to all of you who have sent in questions. Please keep doing so. You've been listening to politics.
with a touch of you ask us. From the new statesman, with me, Hannah Barnes, my thanks to George Eaton and Rachel Kunliff. The podcast will be back tomorrow when Andrew Mar will be talking to the former Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, about whether he will take back the Labour Party whip.