Hello and welcome to Not Another One, the podcast with me, Steve Richards, Tim Montgomery, Ian Martin, Miranda Green.

Thank you for joining us in what is an epic week.

We'll be focusing in our two podcasts on two of the themes of the week.

One of which, of course, is Rachel Reeves and the hole she is in and how she might be able to dig herself out of it.

Before we get to that, this is the first time we've been in the studio together for weeks a couple of weeks

at least a couple of weeks i mean i've been traveling in portugal and tim was ill and and it's

it's nice to see you all great to see he says well i have to say you look a bit irritatingly healthy

after your drip to do i i i was thinking if you could just tone down the whole Bonnene thing, that would be great. I made the mistake of going into Uniclo in Oxford Street on the way here. I love Uniclo. Why is that a mistake? That's the best decision you can ever make. They now must be our sponsors. Yeah. I'm happy to talk up you today.

The mirrors in that bloody shop, you know, because they're lit.

Yeah.

And they make you look about 95.

Well, they made me look 95.

And anyway, so I'm in despair actually at the moment.

But another person who has caused to be in a degree of despair is Rachel Rees.

And what we thought we would do, given there is much scrutiny on this extraordinary week

and her week, is to do something slightly different, which might shed light on the constraint

she is in and the varying options, given our differing political perspectives that she might be able to

use in coming months. We know what she's using at the moment. She's sticking to fiscal rules,

etc., etc. So here's some context. And then we're going to become Rachel Reeves and say what we

would do. For a start, all of us, in spite of our differing views, I think agree

that she put up the wrong tax in her autumn budget. I think we all agreed that the most

sensible route would be to reverse the national insurance cuts introduced by the Tories

...