The Rachel Reeves Runway for Growth
en
January 29, 2025
TLDR: Chancellor Rachel Reeves spoke in favor of a third runway at Heathrow Airport for economic growth (100,000 jobs) and better global market connections. Implications on emissions remain unclear, discussed by Dharshini David and Ben Chu.

In the recent episode of the podcast, titled The Rachel Reeves Runway for Growth, hosts Adam and Chris dive into Chancellor Rachel Reeves' impactful speech advocating for the construction of a third runway at London's Heathrow Airport. The discussion hosts insights from economic correspondents Dharshini David and Ben Chu, who help dissect the implications of this proposal on economic growth and environmental concerns.
Overview of Rachel Reeves’ Speech
Rachel Reeves emphasized the importance of the proposed third runway, claiming it is "badly needed" for stimulating economic growth. Key points included:
- Job Creation: The government estimates that the runway could create around 100,000 new jobs.
- Global Connectivity: Improved connectivity to international markets is expected to enhance business growth and trade.
- Government Stability: The government, bolstered by its parliamentary majority, appears committed to seeing this proposal through despite historical hesitations from previous administrations.
The Economic Context
Adam and Chris highlighted that this call for growth comes at a crucial time, as economic performance in the UK has been stagnant. Rachel Reeves mentioned "growth" a total of 51 times during her speech, suggesting a strong focus on economic revitalization. Dharshini David remarked that the proposals outlined are intended as long-term solutions to chronic issues plaguing the UK economy.
Major Components of the Growth Strategy
Third Runway at Heathrow: Advocacy for a third runway aligns with a broader agenda to stimulate economic growth, suggesting the government is ready to face political pushback for the sake of progress.
Transport Network Improvement: Reeves advocates for improved transport links between regions, particularly between Oxford and Cambridge, known for their innovation hubs. This connectivity is seen as essential for enhancing the UK’s tech capabilities, often likened to creating the Silicon Valley of Europe.
Challenges Ahead
Despite the optimism, several challenges are posed:
- Environmental Concerns: Significant opposition exists regarding the environmental impact of expanding the Heathrow airport, with critics citing climate change implications and increased emissions.
- Political Opposition: Notably, London’s mayor Sadiq Khan has voiced strong opposition, indicating a fragmented political viewpoint even within the Labour party.
- Economic Modelling Uncertainty: Economists express skepticism about the forecasts surrounding the runway's profitability and the actual increase in jobs and economic activity, as market volatility and external factors can greatly influence outcomes.
Key Discussions
The episode covered various sentiment shifts among politicians and economists regarding the growth narrative:
- Historical Reticence: Previous government attempts to push for growth faced significant hurdles; therefore, there’s skepticism regarding whether the current government can overcome similar challenges effectively.
- Need for Private Sector Involvement: For the overarching plans to succeed, there is a clear need for private sector investment, with Reeves needing to instill confidence in businesses to engage with her vision for growth.
- Trade-offs in Growth Strategies: The discussion also touched on the broader implications of growth, weighing potential job increases against the backdrop of inflation and whether expanded airport capacity would outweigh environmental costs.
Takeaways
- Ambitious but Questionable Plans: Rachel Reeves’ plan reflects an aggressive approach towards reviving the UK economy, but the feasibility is under scrutiny.
- Incremental Progress Over Time: While the airline industry may see growth, other sectors could suffer due to increased travel, suggesting the need for balanced strategies across growth targets.
- Symbolic Value of Infrastructure Projects: Projects like the Heathrow expansion serve not just immediate economic purposes but also signify a willingness to break from past stagnation, albeit they come with their own political and public relations challenges.
Conclusion
The podcast episode concluded with a reflective tone on how economic recovery strategies need to be adaptable and sensitive to public concerns. As Chancellor Rachel Reeves navigates these turbulent political waters, the discourse surrounding growth and infrastructure remains crucial for the UK's future economic landscape. The true measure of the government's commitment to growth will not only depend on ambitious speeches but their ability to manage opposition and realize these projects effectively.
This summary encapsulates the essence of the podcast, providing insights while being structured and engaging, making it easy for readers to grasp the key points discussed in the episode.
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This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. BBC sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Chris. Hello. Were you here for the episode where James Landale was reminiscing about Vox popping the fawns? Yeah, you were. Yes. Yeah. I remember that the actual day it happened still so well. It is one of those
moments, isn't it? That he'll never escape. Well, it got lots and lots of attention from use casters. And we thought, well, seeing as one of the big news stories today to emerge from Rachel Reeves's speech about growth is the government backing the third one we at Heathrow. Why don't we go back to the fawns 15 years later and get his reaction? What a great idea. Well, yes, great idea in theory until you then get the actual reaction from Henry Winkler's publicist, which is thank you for asking, but Henry has no comment on this.
Well, you've got to admire our journalistic endeavour and appetite for news, even if in this occasion it was found wanting. But is that a non-denial denial where in fact he could be in favour of it? Well, yes, this is it. He's maybe planning a major intervention a little further down the track.
Well, Henry Winkler, aka the fawns, had no comment on today's announcement about Heathrow. But lots of our colleagues do, and you will hear what they've got to say on this episode of Newscast.
Hello, it's Adam in the Newscast Studio. And it is Chris at Westminster. And we're joined by Ben Chu, who used to do Economics on News Night, and now works for BBC Verify. Hello, Ben. Hello, Adam. And Darshini David, OBE. I know. I know it's hard to believe. How am I only finding out about this now? I don't know. Maybe you're a month behind. I don't know. I mean, how do these things happen?
I have yet. Sorry, I don't be sent to a crowd. I don't mean the actual process. The actual process. I'd love to know. You get nominated. You get vetted. People check you've not done anything wrong and bad in your history. And they clearly didn't uncover anything I didn't want them to. And then you suddenly get this mysterious letter. Is that how it works? The letter lands on the doorstep. And was that the first time you had any inclination of it?
Totally, you get it about a month before the list comes out, and you get told, it's a very sort of, you know, cloak and dagger. Sign this form if you want it, and then scan it and email it back, and then you get an automated reply. So you have no idea if you're going to be on this list, but not. It could still be a scam, you know. Was it for services to pithily summarizing the point of Rachel Reeves' speech today?
I think it's the services of staring at spreads. It serves economics, they called it, but you know, I think it was all the pain of the spreadsheets over the years. Okay. Well, would you like to just set the scene for why this was such an important speech today for Rachel Reeves? Yeah, growth, growth, growth. I counted them all up, 51 mentions of growth. And it's, I don't know, this is going to show my ages now. I thought of Bruce Springsteen and 57 channels and nothing on. Well, there's been nothing on when it comes to growth.
over the last six months as far as we're aware, it's pretty much flat and the big question is how are they going to achieve this number one mission and we've suddenly had this revitalised Rachael Reeves for 2025 coming out there and telling us it's incredibly exciting and she has a plan and that is why she's trying to convince us that yep there is a plan we're going to and confidence has been a big problem for this government of course in the last few months because of what
was unveiled in the budget and in the run up to the budget we were told it was going to be hard. So this is kind of an attempt really, she says to kickstart growth but when is it going to deliver?
I think we will look at the big picture kind of in the second half of this conversation, but the things that really leapt out from for me from the speech were kind of the individual elements of that picture. Chris, the first one being or the biggest one being government support for a third runway Heathrow airport. Yeah, I was just opposite the chief executive of Heathrow. And he said to me afterwards, actually, he regarded it as sort of Chachillion that a government was willing to say yes. And you know, when I asked him, well, yes, but
previous governments have made positive noises and it's never happened, so why would you believe this one? He said, and it's interesting because the government is leaning into this argument about the full plethora of stuff that they're announcing.
that they've got a big majority and they're going to last at least one parliamentary term. In other words, there is the prospect that they've got the numbers to win arguments as long as they have the stomach to win them, then they can press ahead and get on with stuff to the point, so those who hope that these various projects go ahead, get to the point even if they're not finished, and clearly the runway wouldn't be in that time frame, that they're sufficiently on that they're not going to get.
they're not going to get stopped. So I thought my takeaway from today was one of, yes, the government wanting to sound positive, yes, they're trying to turn the page and all of the gloomy stuff that Darshini was talking about there that critics fling around their necks in their opening months, but also that determination to say, well, hang on, we do have this big majority. We can actually use it. We can get stuff done if we have the stomach to do it. And they were arguing today that they did. The test will be how that stomach
You know, it feels when the criticism starts flowing, which they already have and the arguments have to be won, not just numerically but emotionally. And let's hear how Rachel Reeves broke the news when she was doing her speech in Oxfordshire on Wednesday morning. I can confirm today that this government supports a third runway at Heathrow and is inviting proposals to be brought forward by the summer.
We will then take forward a full assessment through the airport national policy statements. This will ensure that the projects is valued for money and our clear expectation is that any associated surface transport costs will be financed through private funding. Now Ben, we'll get on to the pros and cons as people see this airport expansion stuff in a minute. But first of all,
I'm a bit confused about what the government's actually said yes to today because, I mean, we know that Heathrow, the company's been in favor of building this one way for ages. I remember in 2018 as a much younger political correspondent reporting on the vote in the commons to approve the government position there and being building the third one. And then I vaguely remember in 2020,
There was a court challenge that went all the way to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court said, oh, this runway can go ahead. So I'm just wondering what difference does today make? Well, they're essentially saying we are going to back this project. And as you say, that's something that other governments have said in the past. But they're saying, we really, really mean it. And we are going to back it because it fits with our growth agenda. As you said, it was gone to the courts. The courts have finally ruled that it can go ahead on those grounds. So that's not a problem.
What will be a problem, as Chris was saying, is facing down all that opposition, some of which which is already coming from within the Labour Party, Saidik Khan said he will oppose it through any means that he can. That's going to be the real test. And I think it's important to recognise that, you know, previous governments have said this, this government wants to push ahead with growth because
It's vital for their whole mission, really, as Rachel Reeves was articulating, and you can't do that. I think the significance of Heathrow was that it's the same. We are willing to take political pain to deliver this, because it won't make a huge difference in this parliament, in all probability.
you know, maybe even the next part of it, because these things take so long to do. But it does bring a whole load of political grief on them. And I think what they're calculating is we're sending a message to business, we're prepared to take this political pain. That just shows you how serious we are about everything we're saying about growth. And Chris, that opposition came pretty quickly. In fact, it came in advance from Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, saying he's going to challenge us however he can.
Yeah, so you had protesters in the car park of this medical facility, Siemens Place in Oxfordshire, making an argument around climate change and their opposition to a third runway. And then, yes, a deep car, labour mode of London, being absolutely explicit and unflinching that he thinks on noise pollution, air pollution and climate targets
reasons. It's not sustainable or viable to have a third runway and he will argue the case against it all the way through and if necessary in the courts he acknowledges he's yet to see you know the proposal that Heathrow will put forward this time but he is very much in the opposed camp. It's interesting that broadly speaking up to now those senior labour figures within the Parliamental Labour Party, some of them in the Cabinet,
the not least Ed Miliband and Steve Reed, the energy and environment secretaries respectively, have sounded much more positive compared with their previous opposition to Heathrow expansion. They ultimately are in the government and so collective responsibility kicks in. Sadiq Khan isn't and so it doesn't.
And Ben, listening to those ministers on the airwaves of the last few days, they seem pretty convinced that they managed to square the circle, that you can have the number of flights in the UK going up and the UK's carbon emissions overall coming down at the same time.
Yeah, well, this is going to be a really contentious point because the climate change committee, which is the government's official climate watchdog, which is supposed to sort of say, are you sticking within your legislated carbon budgets, the caps on how much emissions nationally you can produce or not, they have said in the past that there should be no expansion of airports until there is a proper framework for this. And there should be no net expansion of particular airports.
on the unless you can guarantee that capacity will go down in other areas. So the government, as far as I know, isn't saying we're going to close down or reduce the capacity of regional airports. So it's a real question about whether this fits in with what that mandate is, what that command is from the Climate Change Committee. So we'll see in the next few days what they say about this, but that could be a real test for this government. And Darshini, do we know for a fact
that building a third runway at Heathrow, whether it's in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, will make the economy much larger, a bit larger, significantly larger, the same? The government's been sort of saying, look, there are various people who've done various forecasts, et cetera, to say that, yep, it will have a significant boost and outside of London and the southeast. But anyone who does economic forecasting, anyone who's being upfront can tell you these numbers are highly uncertain. And all sorts of things can happen to blow us off course.
and to increase those gains or reduce them. And as we were hearing, there's all sorts of trade-offs to consider as well. So I don't think we should take these things that seriously. Ultimately, does that mean more opportunities, particularly for businesses and for trade? Yes, quite potentially. But on the other hand, one group of economists have told me today, well, actually, you could see more people going abroad for the holidays, for example. And that could actually mean that
overseas visits increase substantially more so than the number of people coming to the UK for leisure reasons, and we could be a loser in that sense. So there's all sorts of things to weigh out there. But Chris, back to your point, I mean, it is a massive giant symbol that actually probably would be visible from space about the direction the government wants to go in. And that has value beyond just the actual pounds and pence in GDP.
Yeah, I think it does, because symbolically it matters. Granted, there are other things that critics of the government point out that the government could do that might have a significant bearing on growth. Liberal Democrats make an argument, for instance, about a much closer economic tie.
with the European Union. But the government has ring fenced off that as things they are willing to do. It's certainly as far as the big ticket elements are concerned, the single market and the customs union. I think had they done, had Rachael Reeves given this speech and set out the various ideas Oxford, Cambridge, the other ideas elsewhere around the country and not addressed, he throw. In other words, the government wasn't willing to commit to where it's got to. I guess one of the first questions, you know,
or could vote like me would have asked would have been well what about Heathrow because that has been for so long this kind of course a lab infrastructure project that critics who've been desperate to see it happen have said is a classic example of how a project can get bogged down in
legal action and a lack of political will and a million other things that that sort of bias towards the status quo argument that we're seeing the government prosecuting with sort of increasing kind of volume you know that would have been thrown straight back at them and weakened substantially I think they're overall case so I think that matters
politically. I think it also matters in a signaling sense because they are conscious that lots of these projects buy their nature a longer term and you know it's worth a saying isn't it? Very often criticisms made of governments is that they are sort of genetically disposed to act in the short term because that's where the electoral opportunities and dangers lie. Therefore you know perhaps some credit is due when governments are willing to look to the long term beyond the potential window from which they might
politically benefit but there's a shorter term benefit too because of that sense certainly as far as he throws concerns that might be shorter term wins for some of the other projects more specifically in the coming months and years that you are signaling that intent that seriousness of purpose around channeling as much as you can within government towards economic growth that perhaps businesses looking in considering investments etc etc. begin to believe it.
Chris into there at one of the other announcements, which is support for better transport connections between Oxford and Cambridge, and one of these phrases that has been ushered probably every year I've known about politics, which is creating the Silicon Valley of Europe in the UK in between Oxford and Cambridge. Darshini, why is that triangle, that slice of a particular bit of England? Why are politicians so fixated on it?
Decade after decade after decade. Decade after decade, because there is so much untapped potential there and it's hard to realise it. As you know, personally, that transport link is pretty abysmal. It takes you three hours to get between the two. And also, Oxford and Cambridge are particularly unaffordable places to live. So if you're trying to track the brightest, the best, and there is the research facilities there and there's more happening there all the time, it's very difficult indeed. So these are the kind of bits of infrastructure you need to see put in place.
But yet again, what the government wants to see delivered there is going to take a couple of decades. If you're graduating today, you're going to be pretty far along in your career before you actually feel the benefits of that, or indeed the economy feels the benefits. But as Chris was saying there, economists are looking at this, saying this is actually to be applauded, a government with a long-term vision for growth.
The markets are less excited today, we should say. They've hardly budged. And we know they've been very reactive to what Rachel Reeves has had to say in recent months, because they simply seem to be saying, OK, this sounds promising, but show us the money. You get those spades on the ground, start implementing these projects, then we might start believing you're about growth.
And Chris, I'm not trying to sound like an old codger here, and also tarring you with the same brush, but how many times have we done news stories as journalists about ministers saying, oh yeah, we need to improve the transport links in Cambridge, and we need to build loads more houses outside Cambridge, so that people can go and work in all the labs that they're going to build.
Yeah, completely, and it's the same with Heathrow as well, isn't it? Now, either that means that a splash of skepticism is justified, or if you're looking at it from the perspective of this government and, and this is the big end, and we don't know the answer to it yet, they actually managed to pull it off,
then they will be able to say, well, yes, lots of others tried and failed and they have managed to actually do it. Now, the reason it's failed in the past often is because opposition to various ideas has been enough to come in a combination effect, put governments
Off it, there's a big old row in Oxfordshire about this idea of a new reservoir near Abingdon. Some people call it a megazvoir because it's so big and there's lots of protests and campaigning against it. Similarly, some of the stuff in and around Cambridge might sound familiar.
because it kind of is. Some of it's in train already. Now it's a case of whether or not this government can turbo charge it or prevent it kind of running into the sound or not delivering versus how it was billed at the outset. So there's definitely a sort of familiarity to all of this.
Now, if you look back at the parliamentary numbers and the politics of the last 15 years, I mean, you know, Newscast and Brexit cast of conical this every day, it's been a time of political turbulence. It's often been a time of governments not being certain about even their short-term future. And then it's been a time of big international kind of macro events that take up a lot of political
bandwidth and you think of Brexit and the referendum and you think of Covid for just two and there's others alongside those. In other words, the political landscape against which you might achieve other difficult stuff was difficult.
That's not necessarily to excuse the limitations of previous governments that plenty of people have strong views pro or anti, but it is a, I think, a reasonable description of the backdrop. Now, there's plenty of challenges this government faces, not least delivering economic growth, but they hope that these are the mechanisms via which they can, they can nudge that along. And they hope that they have the political tools, the time and the majority to at least have a, perhaps a better chance of having a reasonable stab at it than some of the previous governments.
And Ben, this is a slightly philosophical question, but I sometimes think with these speeches, the politician giving them, they're at the most powerful as they're saying the words. And then the power starts ebbing away, because you then remember that actually the global economy is governed by things like, oh, does Donald Trump do to the UK what he threatened to do to Colombia at the weekend, which is to put massive tariffs on their exports to the US to get something else that he wants politically, or does a little Chinese
A.I. firm come up with the new model of A.I. that upends everyone's expectations about how much artificial intelligence is going to cost. All that stuff happens outside the room where there is no lever in the treasury you can pull, which says growth on it. It will magically generate growth, not least, because you say there's lots of things that happen outside of the U.K. economy, which affect the U.K. economy. It's quite interesting that Rachel Reeves was very
clear in her speech that she wanted to work with President Trump, perhaps with an eye on that risk of tariffs landing on the UK, which would be very, very bad for her growth aspirations. In terms of the question of why it might be different this time, why there might perhaps be some hope is that I think there is a dawning realization right across the political spectrum, not just in the Labour, that growth has just been so bad for so long.
And all the parties are saying we need growth and there's disagreement about how to get it. But on the essential prescription, I think everyone is kind of lined up. So this isn't, by any means, to say that it's a done deal, that it will happen. But I think I sense the mood is slightly more, well, it's time to find solutions rather than just point to the reasons why it can't be done. But there is one more factor, one more piece of this jigsaw, which is kind of, hasn't really been mentioned today, which is
business, right? And a lot of what was talked about today relies very heavily, of course, in the private sector to get that moving. Now, to get this vision on the road and keep it going and delivering racial needs needs to enlist the private sector, right? How do you take people on that journey with you? How do you give them that confidence?
Well, at the moment, a lot of businesses we hear from are saying, we're just too busy worrying about these tax rises, the change in employee rights and how we sort of figure those out. And of course, we've got that chart in the middle of the OBRs book that came out of the budget, which says the budget measures are actually going to slow down growth in the private sector.
So when you look at those kind of things, you think, well, could she have done this a slightly different way? You know, should she have shown this character business, first of all, get them to buy into the vision and say, by the way, I'm going to have to attach you a bit more to get this going? Yeah, and that's an interesting thing, because irrespective of whether you agree or disagree with increasing employers, national insurance contributions, business is angry about it. And there is a parallel universe where they weren't angry about it, and Richard Reeves wasn't having to
to patch things up and that is irrespective of whether you agree or disagree with the actual thing that she did with the tax rises. Darshini Obie, can I ask you another very big philosophical question? What is a modern, cool, clever way of thinking about
what the right amount of economic growth is. Because a few years ago, people were talking about degrowth, actually, but we don't need any growth at all. And then you get politicians saying, no, we need as much growth as possible. But then equally, we have just had a period of very high inflation and too much growth can cause inflation. And so that's bad too. So like, what's the Goldilocks?
The gold looks interesting. And also then it's like an economy like Britain with our size of our population and the structure of the economy. Like what's the, what is the sweet spot for a country like this? What is the sweet spot? What's interesting? I mean, as soon as it's an impossible question to answer. Yeah, thanks for that. Or in your OBE live, you're on Newscast.
Well, if you ask a chance in the Prime Minister, you say, well, what does this mean when you say we're going for growth? They say, we want people to feel better off. Now, as you well know, by I know that you've got your own collection of OBR books that you look at very closely, you will. Yes. Transured possessions. Such possessions. Every single parliament in modern times, we've seen that happen. Living standards, when you look at income per head, take away inflation. That has risen. But how did you get to that point where we're actually able to see growth go at a steady clip
without the risk of, as you say, overheating, without the risk. I'm old enough now to remember, do you remember no return to boom and bust that we had on the Gordon Brown, right? And we thought for a while, we cracked this and we got to the stage of steady growth and then long came the financial crisis. And guess what? Ever since then, our growth record has been intact. What was it that Ed Balls called it in that post-neoclassical... Post-neoclassical... Post-neoclassical... Post-neoclassical and dodginess growth theory. Yeah. And what did that mean?
Oh, it's basically government intervention can make the economy grow faster than it would otherwise. So it was a kind of reaction to the government just needs to get out of the way for loss of the 1980s. Anyway, Darshini, what is this sweet? What's the number? Well, there is no one number that sounds like an absolute get out and it is. What we've seen. OPE for blacking.
If it works, do it. You know, what we've seen in recent years, obviously, and this is, you know, when we heard Rachel Reeves today talking about things like reform and investment, all of this is about basically raising our productivity game, right, making us more efficient. And that's been the missing part of the puzzle in the last 15 years or so. Our productivity has done appallingly compared to the past, compared to other countries. And that is what you need to unlock if you can have faster growth and have sort of manageable inflation at the same time.
So all of it depends on that really because at the moment, we're not doing very well at all. Just on the numbers, Adam, I think it is a really important question because what are they aiming for here? I was looking at these today. So before the financial crisis, the UK was growing around two and a half percent a year. We're projected by the office of budget responsibility in the medium term. So by the end of this parliament to be only growing by about 1.6%. Now, it may not seem like a huge difference between those two numbers.
But over a long period, that really, really adds up in terms of the impact on the level of the growth and also therefore the impact on our wages, our incomes, our general living standards. I think the government would like to go for something, get back to about two and a half percent. We'll be a stretch.
It would be a lot where we are. Don't forget, Europe is really slow at the moment in terms of their growth. America is a real outlier in having growth anything like those levels. So we would be really bucking the trend if we got to two and a half percent. But I suspect they'll be aiming, they'll really want to get something closer to that than what they are projected to get at the moment. Although what they are projected to get at the moment, actually by the standards of the last 15 years, if post financial crisis ironically isn't bad at all, which just goes to show how frankly we have lost speed.
And that cumulative thing, working in reverse, I suppose, just listening to your two points there, that the accumulation of those apparently small gains can add up to quite a lot, but the lack of them over such a long period of time. I don't know, I feel contributes to that sense of economic lethargy, and I think there's then a read across from that to a kind of political cynicism, that kind of sense of
can any political leaders make enough of a substantial difference that I feel better off? You know, that kind of sentiment, the two I think are really tied in terms of the kind of national mood. I think the big lesson, well, I've had two lessons and I'm not going to tell you them both to try and get my OBE as well.
is that I used to think, right? Actually, no one notices growth that they were potentially gonna have but that which didn't materialize because it's not like back to future two. You can't go and visit yourself in the future and see how richer you were if there hadn't been a financial crisis or there hadn't been COVID or there hadn't been the war in Ukraine and loads of inflation as a result. So you don't notice growth that didn't happen. But actually, people do have a sense of what growth was like in the past.
And what your parents, your grandparents, even yourself felt as your kind of trajectory. So I've learned that is a big lesson. And then the micro lesson I've learned in the last year or so is the threshold at which the officer budget responsibility looks at government policy and actually incorporates it into their forecasts for what growth is going to be.
Because all summer I was saying, Rachel Reeves might get some instant growth from the OBR because of the announcements they're making about changes to the planning system. No, come the day of the budget, the OBR says those changes to the planning system aren't in law yet. They're just consultations. We ain't including them in our calculations. Your growth rate is going to be lower than we thought it was going to be before the budget. So I'm now kind of obsessed about how far has the government got in these first few months to satisfy
the number of crunchers at the office of budget responsibility to incorporate actual government policy into their growth projections. So that's a macro point I've made and a micro point, as I try and show off to our economist colleagues. You convinced me, but I'm not an economist. Right, Chris, very quickly, just before you go, I noticed your question to Rachel Reeves was, along the lines of does she have a plan B for if this doesn't work? What did you make of her answer?
I thought it was interesting, so I tried to frame it in that context of the last generation, financial crisis, Covid conflicts around the world. The contributors, if you like, to the economic malaise, as well as that big geopolitical shift of the last quarter of a century, which is the rise of
the rise of China. And interestingly, she was saying, and actually, this is a great thing for you, Ben and Darcy need to kick around. She was trying to make an argument in her reply. She kind of acknowledged those contributory factors, those knocks to our economy, which obviously have had impacts on other similar Western economies too. But that sense from her that the UK up until now has been disproportionately hit, or perhaps less capable of bouncing back as quickly as other
comparable economies. We are systematically one by one removing the barriers that have held back our growth performance for too long because you take those shocks that you mentioned. Well, those shocks have affected countries all around the world. But every time one of them comes along, it seems to affect the UK more and the impact of it lasts longer. So we've got to build a more secure and resilient economy and these investments and cracking on with them. That's why it's different this time because we're reforming the planning system.
I thought that was an interesting critique, but off the top of my politically focused, rather than economically focused head, certainly beyond these shores, I found myself pondering how legitimate and reasonable a case is that. Well, we shall let our economist colleagues ponder that because we're running out of time on this episode of Newscast. Luckily, Newscast will go forever. So we've got plenty of other episodes to see how that goes. Chris, thank you very much. Ta. Ben, thank you to you. Thank you, Adam. And Darshini, thanks as well. Thank you.
Now, the last few days, we've been talking about politicians making cameos on TV shows because so Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, is on the 10,000th episode of Amadeel. Well, there has been a plot twist.
because a newscaster was instrumental in one of the great political cameos of our time. And he's here now, is Dietrich Santa. Hello Dietrich. Hi, it's great to be here. Now, reveal to your fellow newscasters which political cameo you were involved in. OK, well, it was 2009.
We were in, I think, East London. I think the Queen Vic. I'm talking about Boris Johnson coming to East Enders when he was mayor of London. His car breaks down in Albert Square. What does he do? He steps into the Queen Vic for some refreshment and a chat with Landlady Peggy Mitchell. Played by Barbara Windsor.
the much-missed brilliant Barbara Windsor. And what was your role in that? It was my dear. Right. So I was the exec producer of the show at that time. And we had a good relationship with sort of London institutions, like the Mayor of London's office and Transport London. You used to have to make sure that the graphics on the tube station, Warford East, were correct. Right. And we were chatting to the Mayor of London's office and the idea came up that it would be great for him to come and visit the show and see this kind of venerable London institution. And then
You know, I was talking with our story team and I said, wouldn't it be fun if he came into the show? And we thought that it was an interesting idea. It would be fun for our audience. He was a London figure. And we were always trying to sell the idea that Woolford was a real place. Well, that's what I was going to say, because London Borough of Woolford. Yeah, and you have references to news events. They exist in our world. Right.
Yeah, we sometimes used to, and they still do drop in. If a big thing happened on the day, we would shoot a scene on the day and drop it into that night's episode. So we thought it would be fun to have this real figure come into the show, it would be fun for our audience first and foremost. And Barbara, Dame Barbara loved the idea. And so a scene was written by a brilliant writer, Rachel Flower Day, within her episode.
And he came and we sort of toured the works and we talked about the show and then the time came for him to come down to the studio and do his scene, which he very much enjoyed. And what did you make of his performance? Because when I was talking about it on Newscast a few days ago, I was saying it was the proof that actually maybe Boris Johnson wasn't the great actor that people sometimes accused him of. There's a little bit of wood in this there, isn't there?
I don't know. I mean, I listened to it. I heard it on a newscast edition today. And I think Dame Barbara is as energetic and humorous as ever. And Boris Johnson is also in the scene, isn't he? He's a performer, whether he quite nailed it. I don't know. But we did it in about 12 minutes flat. And I think it can be
a bit of a rabbit in headlights thing even for someone with his natural confidence there he was on set with Peggy Mitchell and the Vic and you know the director saying go again well you know well I think it was I suspect I suspect he was out of his comfort zone for once. How many takes do you think it was?
I can't remember. But generally Barbara from her carry on days like to nail it in one. She would say, well, in a carry on, if you got to two, they get crossed with you. So Barbara was always a sort of a one-tape wonder. If we went to more than one, she was always slightly disapproving. Do you think Boris Johnson was a little bit starstruck?
Yeah, I think he was. One of the most interesting things about the day, and I reflect on this a lot, was taking him around the set, meeting some of the cast, but also showing him the set. And this curious thing happened where I took him onto the square, which is impressive Albert Square. You walk onto it, and there in suburban Hartfordshire is a
is a East London Victorian square. And I remember him saying, gosh, how fortunate that there's this square here next to the studio. And he kind of going, sorry, it was built. It was built by these designers in the mid 1980s for the show. All right. Oh, great. Wonderful. And then we turned onto Bridge Street. And he said, oh, goodness me. What a stroke of luck. There's a railway going right across it. And I said, again,
we built that out of wood. It's made out of wood. It's not real. And I've reflected on it. And because I thought, well, maybe he thought that it wasn't real. Maybe he didn't understand. But I think he was just taking the Mickey out of me. I think he was ribbing me. There's me, this slightly earnest, youngish producer taking him around. And he was the opposite of Starstruck with me. And I think he was just sort of trying to get through the day and just needling me a little bit.
Do you think in retrospect it was it was the right thing to do or is real life politicians coming into wallford may be not the idea. I think yeah I think I mean at the time it's a 16 years ago to 2009 and he was a much less partisan figure than he is now yes he was an elected politician he'd been a conservative MP.
But he wasn't a prime minister, that love or loathe you have a really strong opinion about. He wasn't that guy. Also, we were away from election cycles. And he was, in real, the mayor of the city, the show ported to existing. The scene wasn't about political stuff. Not everyone appreciated the scene. And I think it was perhaps on aesthetic grounds, but also on sort of impartiality grounds. But we had long chats with our esteemed
editorial policy friends here at the BBC at the time, and they gave us a clean bill of health. So we went for it. And I don't think there's no reason why it couldn't be Sadiq Khan, the current mayor doing it, except for maybe they feel they've done it. I don't know.
I'm really intrigued about this idea you mentioned about you film a scene on the day when something happens because i always thought it was like oh if it's the olympics you know about that in advance you can film like the sort of generic olympics scene a few weeks before and then make it sound like it's on the day i didn't realize it was that that that close we used to do it very occasionally and i think they they still do it sometimes you know with the olympics and i think they did a thing recently where
Two of the characters, Honey and Jay, ran the marathon and they sort of plotted that. And I think they did some inserts on the day as well. But there was one I remember thinking about US elections. When Barack Obama was elected, yes, we can. We all woke up to that. And we thought, well, not every character on our show, but some of our characters would resonate with that. And we dropped a scene in with them.
with the characters Jean and Stacy where Jean said yes we can and Stacy said what are you talking about? What do you mean? Because Stacy doesn't really, at that time didn't really listen to the news and didn't have a world view where Jean did. So you'd always try and tune those scenes to the
to be true to the characters and consistent with how they would be. Fascinating. Right. Here's a deep philosophical question. I don't know if you're still working TV now. Do you think we'll ever have a new hit soap opera? Because I'm very aware that they try and launch new ones. And over the last few decades, there's never been really a new one that's taken hold. I think it's really hard. I think the soaps are fantastic and, you know, Hollyoaks, EastEnders,
Emmerdale, Corey, Long May, they continue. But the climate is different. With streaming and with on demand, there's so much on. You can watch anything at any time. When we were younger, when we were kids, this would be the moment where we'd all sit together in front of the one screen in the house.
and shows have to compete not just with there being more screens in the house but with TikTok, with Instagram, with YouTube, not just other channels or streamers. So I think it's quite hard and I think the soaps
have to and are successful in working harder to bring those audiences in and serve that multi-generational audience. That was the thing I always loved about producing EastEnders was this was a show for kids, teens, mums and dads, aunties and uncles, nannas and granddads. And I loved it when I would hear about families that would watch the show together. I think that's harder, but it's not impossible. But I think in that climate, it's quite hard to launch a new one.
Yeah, and just very self-indulgently, like when I was a kid, it's less so now. I mean, we were obsessed in my house with neighbors and home and away. So I'm afraid to say it was the imports, not necessarily the homegrown ones. But I think doing newscast now, I still think about neighbors and home and away because I think, well, they were things I couldn't wait to consume each day. And I was really invested in and in between episodes, I'd be thinking about what was going on. And I think, well, actually, with newscast, I try and create that
like sense of must listen, must join in. I wonder what's going on with this podcast actually now that I think about it. Well, I think that's the relationship that I show like newscast and a soap can have and does have with its audience. It's a conversation. I mean, you're very good at this in terms of, you know, you read the email that I sent in and you have a conversation with your audience. You know, you and the other presenters are always,
making sure that it's a conversation. And that's what we try to do on East Enders is reflect the concerns of the audience and sort of be in their lives. And exactly that, you know, it's interesting for the cast, you know, there's a kind of connection. Well, thank you for all your hard work on East Enders. Thank you for your email. But mainly, thank you very much for listening to newscasts. Not at all. Thanks for having me.
And on that cliffhanger, we will end this episode of Newscast. But don't worry, like EastEnders, and Hollyoaks, and Cori, and Emmerdale, and Home and Away Neighbors, there'll be another episode along very soon. Bye!
You clearly do, in the words of Chris Mason, ooze stamina. Can I also gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? Tell everyone you know, and don't forget you can email us anytime at newscast at bbc.co.uk or, if you're that way inclined, send us a WhatsApp on plus 440-330-1239480. Be assured, I promise, we listen to everyone.
you
Yoga is more than just exercise. It's the spiritual practice that millions swear by. And in 2017, Miranda, a university tutor from London, joins a yoga school that promises profound transformation. It felt a really safe and welcoming space. After the yoga classes I felt amazing.
But soon, that calm, welcoming atmosphere leads to something far darker, a journey that leads to allegations of grooming, trafficking and exploitation across international borders. I don't have my passport, I don't have my phone, I don't have my bank cards, I have nothing. The passport being taken, being in a house and not feeling like they can leave.
World of Secrets is where untold stories are unveiled and hidden realities are exposed. In this new series, we're confronting the dark side of the wellness industry with the hope of a spiritual breakthrough gives way to disturbing accusations. You just get sucked in so gradually.
and it's done so skillfully that you don't realise. And it's like this, the secret that's there. I wanted to believe that, you know, that
Whatever they were doing, even if it seemed gross to me, was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't yet understand. Revealing the hidden secrets of a global yoga network, I feel that I have no other choice. The only thing I can do is to speak about this and to put my reputation and everything else on the line. I want truth and justice.
and further people to not be hurt for things to be different in the future. To bring it into the light and almost alchemise some of that evil stuff that went on and take back the power. World of Secrets Season 6, the Bad Guru. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
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