Quite right!: Rachel Reeves’s Budget ‘bollocks’ & Britain’s everyday crime crisis
Best of the Spectator
The Spectator
4.4 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Listeners on the Best of Spectator playlist can enjoy a section of the latest episode of Quite right! but for the full thing please seek out the Quite right! channel. Just search ‘Quite right!’ wherever you are listening now. This week on Quite right!: Rachel Reeves goes on the offensive – and the defensive. After her surprise Downing Street address, Michael and Maddie pick over the many kites that have been flying in advance of the Budget at the end of the month. Was she softening the public up for tax rises, or trying to save her own job? Michael explains why Reeves is wrong to say that Labour’s inheritance is the reason for our current economic misfortune and says that it is ‘absolute bollocks’ that Brexit is to blame.
Next, a chilling weekend of violence sparks a bigger question: are we witnessing the rise of nihilistic crime in Britain? From the Huntingdon train stabbings to rampant shoplifting, are we becoming used to the ‘anarcho-tyranny’ that is taking hold – where petty crimes go unpunished and public order breaks down?
And finally, from Halloween to Bonfire Night, the culture wars go seasonal. Michael and Maddie debate whether we should loathe ‘pagan’ Halloween and instead turn 5 November into a national holiday.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Subscribe to The Spectator and get 12 weeks of Britain's most incisive politics coverage, |
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| 0:09.7 | Not only that, but we'll also send you a £20,000 Amazon gift card absolutely free. |
| 0:14.9 | As a subscriber, you'll also be able to listen to all our other podcasts, ad free, |
| 0:20.6 | including quite right, the new podcast with |
| 0:22.9 | me, Michael Gove, and our assistant editor, Madeline Grant. Go to www.combe.combe. Terms apply. |
| 0:45.7 | Hello and welcome to Quite Right. I'm Michael Gove, editor of The Spectator. |
| 0:50.0 | And I'm Madeleine Grant, assistant editor and parliamentary sketchwriter at The Spectator. |
| 0:54.6 | And this week we'll be discussing Rachel Reeves' emergency statement in Downing Street. Was she attempting just to save her job or to save the country? And we'll be discussing Rachel Reeves' emergency statement in Downing Street. |
| 0:57.7 | Was she attempting just to save her job or to save the country? |
| 1:03.1 | And we'll be discussing the apparent rise of a new kind of nihilistic violence on the streets of Britain following on from the horrific attack in Huntington at the weekend. |
| 1:06.1 | And we'll be asking Halloween or bonfire night, which is the real festival to celebrate. |
| 1:15.4 | The Chancellor Rachel Reeves addressed the country and quite an unexpected address that was |
| 1:20.9 | televised in which she set out the difficulties facing her as she and her team prepares for |
| 1:26.3 | the budget later this month. |
| 1:28.2 | What was your reaction to what the Chancellor were saying? |
| 1:31.4 | I felt it was a bit like your girlfriend explaining a little while before she ditches you, |
| 1:37.1 | that she's not entirely happy in the relationship. |
| 1:39.9 | It's not really working out. |
| 1:41.4 | It's more about her than you. |
| 1:43.7 | And her ex-boyfriend left her in a terrible state. |
| 1:46.7 | Precisely. |
... |
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