Is the Chancellor about to break her manifesto promise?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 4 November 2025
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
At 8:10 this morning the Chancellor made a speech in Westminster. 45 minutes later no one was any the wiser. She promised to be honest with the public but refused to confirm tax rises or a commitment to her manifesto pledge and rule them out. So what was it all for?
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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. |
| 0:08.1 | This is a global player original podcast. This isn't about relitigating old choices. It's about |
| 0:15.9 | being honest with the people about the consequences that those choices have had. It is my job to deal with the world as we find it. |
| 0:25.6 | Not the world that I might wish it to be. |
| 0:28.6 | Not to commentate or to speculate, but to act. |
| 0:35.6 | It's hard to overstate how unusual this morning's event was. |
| 0:39.8 | Chancellor's don't come out and do a speech just three weeks before they stand up and give the budget. |
| 0:47.7 | And when Rachel Reeve said, it's time to be honest with the people, what was she exactly honest about? |
| 0:54.6 | She didn't answer a single question that she raised. |
| 0:59.7 | Kemi Bainaut called that speech a waffle bomb. |
| 1:03.3 | Might she be right? |
| 1:04.9 | Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:10.8 | The News Agents. |
| 1:12.3 | It's John. |
| 1:13.3 | It's Emily. |
| 1:14.1 | And at 10 past 8 this morning, |
| 1:17.3 | Rachel Reeves goes into the Downing Street briefing room |
| 1:21.3 | and addresses the nation on the state of the economy. |
| 1:25.3 | And as I say, three weeks before she's due to give her budget. |
| 1:29.8 | And as I kind of heard the vague platitudes, I kept them thinking, what is this all about? Who is this for? |
| 1:39.0 | What are we actually learning from this? And if the answers to that, I don't know, then realistically, what has been |
| 1:48.2 | gained by doing it? And as I sit here now, five hours later, I'm still not sure I can |
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