Going for Growth: Rachel Reeves v the markets
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 917 Ratings
🗓️ 16 January 2025
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Chancellor Rachel Reeves says she will go ‘further and faster’ in the search for economic growth after a week of market turbulence that pushed up the cost of government borrowing.
Nick and Amol are joined by Today business presenter Sean Farrington to explain what bonds and gilts are and why they matter so much. They also talk to Paul Mason, former economics editor and Labour Party supporter, about what Rachel Reeves could do next.
To get Amol and Nick's take on the biggest stories and insights from behind the scenes at the UK's most influential radio news programme make sure you hit subscribe on BBC Sounds. That way you’ll get an alert every time we release a new episode, and you won’t miss our extra bonus episodes either.
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The Today Podcast is hosted by Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson who are both presenters of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. Amol was the BBC’s media editor for six years and is the former editor of the Independent, he’s also the current presenter of University Challenge. Nick has presented the Today programme since 2015, he was the BBC’s political editor for ten years before that and also previously worked as ITV’s political editor.
This episode was made by Lewis Vickers with Izzy Rowley and Grace Reeve. Digital production was by David Kaplowitz. The technical producer was Dafydd Evans. The editor is Louisa Lewis. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.0 | How much trouble is Rachel Reeves, and more importantly, the British economy in? |
| 0:09.6 | The market has been nervy, government borrowing has risen in cost, and the value of the pound has fallen. |
| 0:15.3 | How much of that is down to the politics of Rachel Reeves and how much of it is down to underlying economics? |
| 0:21.6 | Yes, this is a week in which the chance was being compared to that lettuce with people wondering whether |
| 0:26.7 | she would survive longer than Liz Truss managed to survive. There have even been comparisons |
| 0:31.8 | with great historic figures, Dennis Healy, back from the 1970s. But are we really in that sort of trouble? |
| 0:41.4 | And given that everyone agrees that the British economy isn't performing well enough, |
| 0:45.0 | what should Rachel Reeves do about it? |
| 0:46.7 | We're going to be asking the Labour supporting journalist Paul Mason, |
| 0:49.8 | what he makes of the current approach and also what needs to change. |
| 0:52.8 | But before that, we've got our business presenter and mega brain, Sean Farrington, |
| 0:56.6 | on to explain all of the economics. |
| 0:59.4 | Shall we do it? |
| 1:00.6 | Yes. |
| 1:01.3 | And shall we get Steve Rosenberg to do the honours this week? |
| 1:03.9 | Yeah, go on then. |
| 1:04.8 | The light is doing. |
| 1:05.6 | Ha ha ha. Hello, it's a mole in the Today podcast studio. |
| 1:24.4 | And it's Nick here too. |
| 1:25.3 | And if you missed our bonus episode with Steve Rosenberg, |
| 1:28.0 | our Russia editor, you can hear him not just saying, let's do it in Russian, but the description |
... |
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