Welfare cuts: are Labour copying Tory homework?
Pod Save the UK
Pod Save the UK
4.6 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 20 March 2025
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After weeks of speculation, Liz Kendall has confirmed what benefits are to be axed in order to save £5 billion from the welfare bill - but at what cost for sick and disabled people?
Keir Starmer says the rising benefit bill is “devastating for public finances” and has “wreaked a terrible human cost”. But many of his own Labour MPs have accused him of selling cuts as compassion and in the words of Clive Lewis “causing pain for millions”. Zoë Grünewald steps in for Nish to survey the fallout with Coco.
And the cuts don’t stop there - NHS England’s abolition and unprecedented cost-cutting could see up to 30,000 jobs lost. Zoë and Coco discuss the “high-stakes” move, which the Institute of Fiscal Studies has said is “not fully thought through”.
Next up, the Tories and Reform are trying to seize the news-agenda with a pair of not-so special special announcements. And Coco has one of her own…
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Guests
Mikey Erhardt
Zoë Grünewald
Audio Credits
Sky News
BBC
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Pod Save the UK. I'm Zoe Greenwald. And I'm Cocoa Khan. Great to have you back, Zoe, |
| 0:08.4 | in the seat finish. What you've been up to? Well, I've been a wedding plume, literally. |
| 0:13.1 | Very nice. You've got a venue sorted? No. And actually, the venue thing has been a bit, |
| 0:19.6 | it's been a bit strange. When we went in to look around, the guy clearly felt very embarrassed, didn't really want us to be there, was a bit rude. |
| 0:26.0 | And every room he took us into, there were people in there setting up for that evening's event. |
| 0:30.4 | They were setting up bed frames and mattresses. |
| 0:33.2 | Yeah. |
| 0:33.8 | Putting candles on the stairs. |
| 0:35.5 | They had some gothic decorations. |
| 0:38.3 | And we were like, this is awkward because they're setting up for a sex party. |
| 0:42.2 | Have you ever been to one of those? |
| 0:43.6 | No. |
| 0:44.2 | Okay. |
| 0:44.5 | I haven't. |
| 0:44.9 | And I'm not just saying that. |
| 0:45.8 | I genuinely haven't. |
| 0:46.8 | No, I haven't attended as a real attendee, but I have been as a sort of favour to a friend who wanted to go and I just |
| 0:56.9 | sort of tagged along because they needed company. Anyway, look, there doesn't matter. Sure, but the point is, |
| 1:01.3 | it's no of our business. Okay. But the point is, what I found fascinating about sex parties, |
| 1:05.6 | they're really boring. Yeah, the one that I went to, I'm not even joking, there was a queue for the spanking corner. A queue? A queue for the spanking corner. |
| 1:14.2 | Yeah, they'd like erected an area for spanking. |
| 1:16.8 | You had like a fixed amount of time that you had to be in, be out. |
... |
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