Should we brace for another financial shock?
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 24 March 2026
⏱️ 14 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Britain’s response to the conflict in Iran is dominating Westminster – but is Keir Starmer really keeping the country out of war? After a tense Liaison Committee appearance exposed divisions over defence spending, pressure is also mounting on the government’s economic strategy. With energy prices rising, mortgage products disappearing and fears of inflation returning, how prepared is Labour for the fallout? James Heale speaks to Isabel Hardman and Michael Simmons.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm James Heel and I'm joined today by Isabel Hartman and Michael Simmons. |
| 0:10.0 | Now, yesterday, Isabel, we had the liaison committee. I think it's the fourth time Keir Stama has done that. |
| 0:15.1 | What do we actually learn from it? |
| 0:16.6 | Stama went wanting to have another tough line on the conflict in Iran, on how this is not Britain's war, and he's holding firm on that, and Britain's not going to get further sucked into it. |
| 0:31.7 | And it was clearly, it was clearly a prepared line. And that was what he wanted the story to be. I think the inadvertent |
| 0:40.3 | extra story was over the defence investment plan where, and this is almost a liaison committee |
| 0:45.7 | tradition stretching back a couple of decades where Bernard Jenkins, one of the select committee |
| 0:51.0 | chairs, has been a select committee chair for a very long time, always manages to wind up a prime minister, largely by sort of brandishing a report that Bernard |
| 0:58.6 | has written and asking ex-prime minister why they're not implementing it in full. |
| 1:03.8 | So I remember a particularly testy session when David Cameron was prime minister, |
| 1:08.6 | where Bernard Jenkins was sort of was going on and on at him about why he hadn't implemented his select committee's plan for civil service reform. |
| 1:16.4 | And Cameron was getting pinker and pinker and go, well, the thing is, Bernard! |
| 1:21.1 | And then there were testy exchanges between Boris Johnson and Bernard Jenkir, Rishishanak and Bernard Jenkins. |
| 1:26.9 | You have, you're not really, I don't think Liz Truss actually lasted long enough to get her Bernard Jenkin, Rishishanak and Bernard Jenkins, you have, you're not really, |
| 1:28.1 | I don't think Liz Truss actually lasted long enough to get her Bernard Jenkin moment. So, you know, |
| 1:32.4 | she was never really prime minister. And yesterday, Stama lost his call with Bernard Jenkins. So |
| 1:39.5 | there we go. He's arrived. Jenkins wanted to know about the defence investment plan. He accused Kirstama |
| 1:46.3 | of complacency around the delay to this document, which was supposed to have been published back |
| 1:52.6 | in the autumn. And Stama got really ratty. He was saying, you know, this is the complacency of |
| 1:58.8 | the last government. And then immediately started talking about Ben Wallace, |
| 2:02.5 | who is one of Kirstama's favourite people, |
| 2:05.1 | comes up every PMQ's and every other opportunity. |
... |
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