This is John Bachelor. Conversation with my good colleague Joseph Sternberg,

editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. He's in London.

He writes political economics column, looking at the Labor Party, now in dominant control of Commons for at least five years, more than

400 seats, any direction they want.

During the campaign, they pledge not to raise taxes on such and such Joe goes through the list.

Well that doesn't work anymore so Joe gives us the colourful image of labor all 400 plus of them scrounging in sofas at the

Commons to find pennies they can pay for their programs.

There's Joseph Sternberg on the gang that can't govern straight led by

Sir Kere Starmer. More of this tonight. So national insurance here is sort of

the equivalent of the US payroll tax.

It primarily funds what they call the old age pension,

which is the British equivalent of Social Security.

And it is emblematic of the pickle that the Labor Party has gotten itself into because they promised that they were not going to increase taxes on work.

You promised they wouldn't increase income taxes, they promised that they wouldn't increase the national insurance payroll tax, and yet now because they've also made all of these spending commitments that they're discovering they can't afford.

They find that they need to tap dance around some of those promises.

So you might see an increase of the national insurance tax, which like the payroll tax in America, half of it is paid

by employers and half of it is paid by workers, but really all of it is paid by workers

at the end of the day and you know labor otherwise is basically now

scrounging around the sofa cushions looking for extra pennies anywhere they can find them ahead of this

budget that they're supposed to be coming out with later this month and it just creates the

impression that this is a party that does not understand how you go about governing

responsibly and doing basic things like writing a budget.

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