New chancellor, new rules
Political Fix
Financial Times
4.2 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 25 October 2024
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rachel Reeves has rewritten her fiscal rules on the eve of her seismic first Budget next week. She says her new borrowing rule will help get Britain building, but how will it go down with voters – and the markets? Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer is in Samoa, where a debate about reparations for slavery has threatened to overshadow the Commonwealth summit. Plus, the PM has had to grapple with Donald Trump’s allegations of illegal election interference by Labour. Host Lucy Fisher is joined by Political Fix regular Stephen Bush and FT political correspondent Anna Gross, along with the FT’s deputy Washington bureau chief Lauren Fedor.
Will Labour’s budget boost growth? Ask the FT’s economics editor Sam Fleming and colleagues at a Political Fix live subscriber webinar, hosted by Lucy Fisher, on Nov 1 at 1300 GMT. Register for your free pass at ft.com/ukgrowth
Follow Lucy on X: @LOS_Fisher, Stephen @stephenkb, Anna @AnnaSophieGross and Lauren @LaurenFedor
Want more?
Rachel Reeves confirms change to UK fiscal rules to help fund £20bn of annual investment
Rachel Reeves: My fiscal rules will provide the stability on which growth depends
Keir Starmer flies to Samoa to answer tricky questions from Commonwealth allies
Donald Trump accuses UK Labour party of interference in White House race
Labour paid for top Starmer aide to attend Democratic National Convention
A Trump victory would end ‘normal’ politics between UK and US
Sign up here for 30 free days of Stephen Bush's Inside Politics newsletter, winner of the World Association of News Publishers 2023 ‘Best Newsletter’ award.
Presented by Lucy Fisher. Produced by Clare Williamson. The executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Audio mix and original music by Breen Turner. The FT’s head of audio is Cheryl Brumley.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BP is working to bring more lower carbon energy to the UK, like designing two hydrogen plants, |
| 0:06.2 | and we're keeping oil and gas flowing from the North Sea. It's and not all. That's how BP is backing Britain. |
| 0:13.0 | While today we're mostly in oil and gas we increased the proportion of our |
| 0:17.0 | global annual investment that went into our lower carbon and other transition businesses |
| 0:21.0 | from around 3% in 2019 to around 23% in 2023. |
| 0:26.4 | VP.com slash and not all. |
| 0:31.9 | Welcome to political fix your essential insider guide to Westminster from the Financial Times with me Lucy Fisher. |
| 0:38.0 | Coming up, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are on their travels in a big week pre-budget. |
| 0:43.6 | Starmor is in Samoa, fending off allegations of election meddling in the US and trying to stop |
| 0:48.8 | calls for reparations from overshadowing the Commonwealth Summit. |
| 0:51.9 | Meanwhile Reeves is at the IMF in Washington |
| 0:54.6 | and has unveiled changes to the UK's fiscal rules. |
| 0:57.8 | With me here in the FT studio to discuss all this and more |
| 1:00.8 | are my FT colleagues, Stephen Bush, hi Stephen Stephen, Hi Lucy, and Anna Gross, Hi Anna. |
| 1:05.6 | Hi Lisa. |
| 1:07.6 | So as I said, Stephen, it's a big week. We know that the Chancellor will be crossing the |
| 1:15.0 | tease and dotting the eyes of her budget. She's made this slightly unusual move to |
| 1:19.8 | confirm publicly what frankly we've all thought has been coming for some weeks now |
| 1:24.3 | rolling the pitch which is changes to have fiscal rules explain the changes she's |
| 1:29.3 | going to make so essentially she's going to redefine the measure of government debt in a way that will increase the amount that she can borrow for infrastructure spending. |
| 1:41.0 | And Anna, how are markets going to react to this do you think? |
| 1:45.0 | Well, I think this is part of the reason that she's taken, as you say, the unusual step of coming |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Financial Times, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Financial Times and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

