Mel Stride: 'what I would do differently'
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 16 July 2025
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Last night, Rachel Reeves was the headline act at the Mansion House dinner. In her speech, she made the case that ‘Britain is open for business’ and that we must ‘stay competitive in the global economy’. Critics would say it is hard to claim to be open for business while having also overseen a £25 billion national insurance tax raid that is now known to be costing thousands of jobs.
She began by stressing that, despite what recent reporting might suggest, she is ‘okay’ – the economic indicators, however, suggest that the economy is far from okay. Just this morning, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that inflation hit 3.6 per cent in the year to June – well above the 2 per cent target.
On this special edition of Coffee House Shots, James Heale and Michael Simmons are joined by shadow chancellor Mel Stride, who offers his prescription for Britain’s ailing economy. He outlines how he would have conducted the speech at Mansion House, how he will spend the recess with business leaders of all descriptions in 'listening mode', and why – when it comes to the big institutions such as the OBR, the Treasury and the Bank of England – he ‘isn’t ruling anything out’.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
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Transcript
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| 0:41.2 | Hello. all to discuss your situation. And remember, investment involves risk. Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm James Hill and I'm joined today about |
| 0:44.3 | economic editor Michael Simmons and Samel Stride, the Shadow Chance of the Exchequer. |
| 0:48.4 | Now, yesterday, Michael, it was the Mansion House speech by the Chancellor Rachel Reeves. |
| 0:52.6 | What were the top lines from it? Well, she kind of started off with saying she's okay. She's here to stay. She gave this anecdote |
| 0:59.8 | of a child asking her what a dream job was going to be. And she made a joke about her after |
| 1:04.9 | what the events of the last few weeks, you might say anything but chancellor. In terms of what |
| 1:10.3 | was to be announced, |
| 1:11.3 | you know, |
| 1:11.4 | we'd already heard about these leads reforms, |
| 1:14.0 | which you wrote about James, |
| 1:15.4 | you know, |
| 1:15.7 | not really taking things much further |
| 1:17.4 | from the Edinburgh reforms from the previous government |
| 1:20.8 | and then also we've had the mortgage stuff. |
| 1:22.8 | But the bulk of the speech was an acknowledgement from her |
| 1:26.4 | that there's too much regulation and too |
| 1:29.9 | much negativity in regulation in terms of where it comes to investing. She wants Britain to be a |
| 1:36.5 | shareholder, de Moxie, she said, and that there was going to be various policies essentially to, |
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