Does Labour need to own its move to the Left?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 27 November 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
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Summary
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have been out defending their Budget - denying that the tax-raising measures contained within it break the Labour manifesto's promises around taxes on working people. Instead they have been trying to focus on the additional money for the NHS, lifting children out of poverty, and raises to the minimum wage.
Yesterday's package of measures amounts to a fundamental shift in both the size of the State and the size of its tax take. It looks set to draw the political divide and define the political debate into the next election. So does Labour need to start making a better case about why it has moved the country in that direction?
Jon and Lewis speak exclusively to Labour's deputy leader Lucy Powell. She broke ranks before the Budget to warn against the idea of raising income tax - how does she feel now?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.7 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.1 | I absolutely do believe that we've got to lift children out of poverty. |
| 0:15.6 | We've had a two child cap in place for the best part of 10 years. |
| 0:18.1 | The net result of that is hundreds of thousands of children have been living in poverty. That has a massive impact on their health. Go to any hospital, |
| 0:26.2 | ask them what is the link between poverty and health? It's a direct link and those children |
| 0:31.5 | will not have the opportunity to go as far as their talents will run. I'm not going to apologise |
| 0:35.6 | for lifting half a million children |
| 0:37.5 | out of poverty. That is the Prime Minister Kea Starma, sounding irritated, perhaps even |
| 0:42.1 | Tetchy, on questions around whether his government's budget delivered yesterday has broken |
| 0:48.2 | Labour's manifesto promises. Make no mistake, this budget shows a Labour government that wants to spend big and tax big. But if that's |
| 0:58.0 | where they are, why don't they own it? Why don't they lean into it and stop pretending they're |
| 1:04.2 | something different? Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:12.8 | The Newsagents. |
| 1:13.6 | It's John. |
| 1:14.2 | It's Lewis. |
| 1:21.5 | And the thing that has struck me in the sort of 12, 24 hours since the budget is the tetchiness of Stama, of Rachel Reeves, of Torsten Bell, who we had on the podcast yesterday afternoon when we |
| 1:29.4 | were trying to put. So, serious questions about, isn't this? He went down well with all of you. |
| 1:33.1 | Yeah. Isn't this a breach of trust? Haven't you? Can't you just admit that you have raised taxes |
| 1:39.3 | and that you have increased spending massively? And that this is not what you said you would do in the manifesto, |
| 1:46.6 | which we were all consuming less than 18 months ago. |
| 1:50.4 | And it's really striking how they must have known |
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