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Coffee House Shots

Is immigration not a priority for Labour?

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.42.1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2024

⏱️ 12 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

There is a feeling of deja-vu in Westminster today as Keir Starmer unveiled his plan for change and six 'milestones' (not pledges) to turn the country around. They are: raising living standards in every part of the UK; rebuilding Britain with 1.5 million homes and fast-tracking planning decisions on major infrastructure projects; ending hospital backlogs and meeting the standard of 92 per cent of patients being treated within 18 weeks; putting police back on the beat; giving children the best start in life; and securing homegrown energy and putting the UK on track to 95 per cent clean power by 2030.

The problem with setting out any list of priorities is that others are conspicuous by their absence, namely immigration. This looks especially naive on the day when one national poll put Reform second place and ahead of Labour. Has Keir got his priorities straight? 

James Heale speaks to Michael Gove and Katy Balls. 

Produced Oscar Edmondson. 

Transcript

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0:00.0

Get a free bottle of Johnny Walker black label whiskey when you subscribe to The Spectator in a Black Friday sale.

0:06.1

Go to spectator.com.uk forward slash Friday.

0:13.0

Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm James Seal and I'm joined today by Katie Balls and Michael Gove.

0:18.3

Now this morning Katie, we've had the big reset speech that is definitely

0:21.1

not a reset. And this is the one in which the Prime Minister is setting out his six milestones

0:24.9

for government. Talk us through them. We've gone from missions to milestones and from five to six.

0:31.1

And I think a lot of this has already been pre-briefed out in advance. So I don't think there

0:35.5

are too many big shocks. The various milestones

0:39.0

include NHS, you know, cutting down the waiting lists. You have some in early years building all

0:45.6

these homes. A new announcement was on infrastructure projects and 150 and so forth. And then I think

0:52.8

more generally, I think that the framing of the speech was trying to

0:57.0

say, we're about change. It was at the Pinewood Studios, so at the film backdrop. And you had

1:04.2

Angela Rainer saying, we're trying to draw things saying, I think a superhero is needed to

1:09.8

fix the horrible Tory inheritance

1:12.7

in terms of the job they have to do. But it's still thought probably a little bit more

1:16.0

positive in vibe than the fiscal black hole speech we had from Rachel Reeves near the

1:21.9

beginning. I think that one of the things that did come through was the sense that the state

1:26.2

is not working as it is.

1:33.6

The most memorable phrase I thought was when Kistama said, I don't think there's a swamp to be drained here, but I do think too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath

1:37.9

of managed decline, which I think points to frustrations that ministers feel that they haven't

1:43.1

been interested to get a grip on things.

1:44.9

I suppose just initial thoughts on the speech, it was quite long.

...

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