Quite right!: should Rachel Reeves go?
Best of the Spectator
The Spectator
4.4 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 3 December 2025
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week: Rachel Reeves reels as Labour’s Budget unravels – and a far-left Life of Brian sequel plays out in Liverpool.
After a bruising seven days for the Chancellor, Michael and Maddie ask whether Reeves’s position is now beyond repair. Did Keir Starmer’s bizarre nursery press conference steady the ship – or simply confirm that the government is panicking? And is the resignation of the OBR chair a shield for Reeves – or a damning contrast with her refusal to budge?
Then: the inaugural conference of Your Party delivers pure comic gold. As Zarah Sultana’s collective-leadership utopians clash with Corbynite diehards and Islamist independents, Michael explains why the far left’s civil war matters more than Westminster thinks. Could independents erode Labour’s urban base? And with Jeremy Corbyn now looking like the centrist dad of the movement, what does this chaos tell us about the future of the British left?
And finally: Christmas is coming. Maddie and Michael share their rules for 'sound' gift-giving and give their book recommendations.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
To submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie, go to spectator.co.uk/quiteright
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, this is Madeline Grant, host of Quite Right alongside Michael Gove. |
| 0:04.3 | If you want to hear the latest episode of Quite Right in full, then you can do so on its dedicated podcast channel. |
| 0:10.1 | Just search Quite Right wherever you are listening now. |
| 0:13.1 | Listeners on the best of Spectator playlist can enjoy a section of our discussions, |
| 0:17.0 | but for the full thing, please seek out the Quite Right channel. |
| 0:20.3 | While you're there, click the follow button to never miss an episode. |
| 0:23.4 | And why not give us a rating and review? |
| 0:25.4 | It really helps us out. |
| 0:26.9 | Happy listening. |
| 0:33.7 | This is Quite Right. |
| 0:35.4 | The new podcast from The Spectator. |
| 0:37.3 | I'm Michael Gove, editor of The Spectator. |
| 0:40.0 | And I'm Madeleine Grant, assistant editor and parliamentary sketchwriter of The Spectator. |
| 0:44.1 | And this week we'll be looking at Rachel Reeves' future. |
| 0:48.2 | Does she have one? |
| 0:49.4 | Your party and what Jeremy Corbyn's travails can tell us about the future of the left, and of course |
| 0:57.0 | we'll be discussing with Maddie what you should give your loved one this Christmas. |
| 1:07.4 | It's nearly one week on since the budget, which was, of course, supposed to reset Labour's fortunes, |
| 1:14.5 | but far from a restoration of Rachel Reeves Authority, it seems as though it's contributed to a further unraveling. |
| 1:20.2 | She was quite feisty on the day. |
| 1:22.7 | But since then, there have been a series of revelations, not least from the Office for Budget Responsibility, that suggests that not only was she leaking like a colander before the budget, |
| 1:33.3 | but she was also almost deliberately manipulating the background in such a way that's led |
... |
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