Deals, donations and damage limitation
Political Fix
Financial Times
4.2 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 5 December 2025
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sir Keir Starmer started the week with not one but two speeches defending his party’s Budget decisions in the wake of claims that chancellor Rachel Reeves had misled the public and fellow MPs about the state of the nation’s finances. Was his sell convincing? The prime minister also brought up Brexit, but as panellist Robert Shrimsley points out, Starmer was characteristically unclear as to whether the Labour party was ultimately leaning into or out of the EU.
Plus, host George Parker and the rest of the panel, Miranda Green and Jim Pickard, discuss the FT report that Nigel Farage told Reform UK donors he expects his party to do some sort of deal with the Tories in the run-up to the next general election — potentially helped by the single biggest donation any UK political party has had from a living donor.
Follow on Bluesky: George, Miranda, Jim, Robert
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | And I saw a leak on the front page of the Financial Times this morning, |
| 0:04.5 | where apparently the leader informed says he wants to merge with the party opposite and sit down here with them. |
| 0:11.3 | An absolutely unholy alliance of austerity and failure. |
| 0:14.9 | Kier Stama there at Prime Minister's Questions this past Wednesday, |
| 0:18.8 | kindly giving us a little promotion. |
| 0:22.2 | He was talking about our scoop that Nigel Farage told Reform UK donors he expects his party to do some sort of deal |
| 0:28.1 | with the Tories in the run-up to the 2029 election. Farage had more to say on that, which will |
| 0:34.2 | come to later. While it also emerged this week, that reform had received the single biggest donation |
| 0:39.5 | any UK political party has ever seen from a living donor. |
| 0:44.1 | It's the kind of money that Chancellor Rachel Reeves could have done with for Budget Day. |
| 0:48.7 | Meanwhile, the Prime Minister was out and about this week, |
| 0:51.9 | mopping up the fallout from the budget, |
| 0:55.0 | just five days after its delivery. Defending his Chancellor's handiwork and denying that Rachel Reeves misled |
| 1:00.1 | the public over the state of the public finances. How did the selling job go? Welcome to Political |
| 1:07.0 | Fix with me, George Parker. Here with me in the studio, the FD's UK Chief Political Commentator, Robert Strimsley. |
| 1:13.8 | Hi, Roberts. |
| 1:14.4 | Hello, George. |
| 1:15.1 | Our Deputy Opinion Editor, Miranda Green. |
| 1:17.6 | Hello, George. |
| 1:18.4 | And the Deputy Political Editor, Jim Picard. |
| 1:20.8 | Hi, George. |
| 1:23.7 | So, before we get to a discussion about the political fallout from last week's budget, |
... |
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