Reeves reverse ferret and Mahmood's immigration gamble
Planet Normal
Louisa Wells
4.7 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 20 November 2025
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week the Rocket welcomes former Prime Minister Liz Truss to discuss next week’s Budget as well as the co-pilots diving into the latest political issues. From the dramatic U-turn on immigration by the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, to the creeping tax rises hidden in Rachel Reeves's upcoming budget, there’s more than enough madness to unpack.
They ask if the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood's new rhetoric to crack down on immigration is real, and will her plans work? Alison dissects the proposals, arguing that a new 'work and study' route for migrants is a disaster and a perverse incentive to enter the UK illegally. Liam, while acknowledging the political risk for Mahmood, suggests the reforms are more rhetorical than real.
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Read Allison ‘Why Tesco Cancelled Christmas’:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/19/why-tesco-cancelled-christmas/ |
Read Allison: ‘Why Shabana Mahmood’s asylum plans won’t make a blind bit of difference’:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/18/shabana-mahmood-misguided-asylum-plans/ |
Read more from Allison: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/a/ak-ao/allison-pearson/ |
Read Liam ‘Milei’s ‘shock therapy’ makes Britain’s current reforms look utterly feeble’: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/11/16/mileis-shock-therapy-britains-current-reforms-look-feeble/ |
Read more from Liam: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/liam-halligan/ |
Read Liam’s Substack: https://liamhalligan.substack.com/ |
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Email: planetnormal@telegraph.co.uk |
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Telegraph. |
| 0:09.0 | TESCOs have joined other retailers trying to avoid using the word dread word Christmas. |
| 0:15.8 | Four. |
| 0:17.0 | And I think it would be absolutely terrible if we abandoned the idea here in the UK of wishing each other a happy Christmas. |
| 0:26.9 | Shabana Mahmoo, despite striking a pose of toughening up, is basically saying if you arrive illegally, you can work. |
| 0:36.4 | The first principle is that you cannot tax your way to growth. |
| 0:40.8 | If you put up corporation tax too much, you're going to be uncompetitive. |
| 0:45.4 | One. |
| 0:48.9 | We have left off. |
| 0:52.0 | Welcome once again to Planet Normal, the Telegraph podcast with Alison Pearson. |
| 0:56.2 | Hello. And me, Liam Halligan. The UK's being torn apart by immigration. I wish I could say |
| 1:03.3 | there isn't a problem, and this is all an invention of the far right, but there most definitely |
| 1:08.0 | is a problem. These were the impassioned words of Home Secretary Shibana Mahmood, |
| 1:13.4 | as she told the House of Commons about her plans to crack down on immigration. |
| 1:17.6 | The Labour Party's proposals have caused outrage among the Lib Dems, Green Party and plenty of Labour MPs too. |
| 1:24.3 | They've been dubbed to the right of both the Tories and reform. |
| 1:29.9 | But does Mimud really mean it? |
| 1:35.5 | And will her plans work? You think not copilot, as you've outlined in Wednesday's Telegraph, |
| 1:41.2 | link in the show notes to this episode. As legal and illegal immigration continues to soar, |
| 1:45.3 | the number of UK nationals leaving is also spiraling upward. |
| 1:49.8 | Some 257,000 left last year we've just learnt. |
| 1:53.2 | Why above an earlier estimate of just 77,000? |
... |
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