Is Rachel Reeves Facing a Budget ‘Groundhog Day’?

Newscast

BBC

Politics, News

4.4 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned the Chancellor she’s risking being stuck in ‘Groundhog Day’ when it comes to her upcoming Autumn budget.

Adam is joined by Faisal, who’s been speaking to Chancellor Reeves at the IMF summit in Washington DC, and Helen Miller, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, who have published their Green Budget document today. They discuss why Rachel Reeves should fear being stuck in an economic doomloop, the taxes that could rise in November’s budget, and what the chancellor has said to Faisal about ‘targeted action’ on inflation and the cost of living.

And, BBC Security Correspondent Frank Gardener has been at a lock-in listening to the MI5 boss Sir Ken McCallum giving his annual speech on threats to the UK. Adam and Frank discuss what Sir Ken said about the UK’s relationship with China, following this week’s collapsed China spy case.

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New episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bbc.in/4guXgXd Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. The presenter was Adam Fleming. It was made by Miranda Slade with Shiler Mahmoudi and Sophie Millward. The social producer was Beth Pritchard. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:07.5	With American politics, everything seems to be changing by the second.
0:11.9	Yeah, sometimes the news does a full 180 while we're recording the podcast.
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0:19.9	Makes sense of what's happening in the US
0:21.7	with new podcast episodes throughout the week. America's. Listen on BBC Sound. Hello, we're recording
0:29.2	this episode of Newscast on Thursday, the 16th of October. And today, the Institute for Fiscal Studies,
0:34.4	the think tank that looks at the public finances, published its green budget
0:38.2	where they look ahead to what the chancellor might say and some of the things she'll have to weigh
0:42.4	up in her own budget in November. And they warned that doing the bare minimum of the budget
0:48.1	would risk another fiscal groundhog day next year. In other words, ducking difficult decisions now means just having to
0:56.1	address the same set of decisions next year. That's the serious bit. We then thought, well, hang on,
1:01.3	in the spirit of Groundhog Day, what was on newscast on the 16th of October 2024? And it turns
1:07.5	out it's very similar to what's going to be on today's episode of Newscast, because we had quite a long chat about the economy with Faisal Islam. I mean, when they made that film, they were really onto something. And let's see what we can get into in this episode of Newscast. Newscast from the BBC. Fat boy sliver me in the classroom doing our violin lessons. I was the tapplet tail in the class. Can I have an apology, please?
1:28.0	I trust almost nobody. That daddy has to sometimes do strong language. Next time in Moscow. I feel delulu with no salulu. Take me down to Downey Street. Let's go have a tour. Blimey. Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio. and shortly we will catch up with Frank Gardner, our security correspondent,
1:46.0	because the head of MI5 has been doing... Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio, and shortly we will catch up with Frank Gardner,
1:44.7	our security correspondent, because the head of MI5 has been doing his annual speech, and he's
1:50.2	been talking about China. What a week to be doing an annual speech about security where you talk
1:55.2	about China. Frank Gardner will reveal all. But first of all, we're going to talk about the
1:59.6	economy, and we're going to talk about the public finances because the budget speculation is in full swing ahead of Rachel
2:06.0	Reeves' next budget on November the 26th. Two things have been happening today. One is in Washington
2:12.2	where the big international meetings of all the big international economic organizations and
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