Who let the Mogg out?
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2022
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
‘After the Patterson affair, there is now a clear distance between No.10 and the whips office. As we both know Isabel, when that is the case, that is when Parliament begins to unravel quite quickly' James Forsyth
Also on the podcast, the decorations to the Downing Street flat debacle has resurfaced and the Colston four trial, which has been dominating the headlines over the last couple of days is discussed.
Isabel Hardman speaks to James Forsyth.
Subscribe to The Spectator's Evening Blend email, from Isabel Hardman and Katy Balls, for analysis of the day's political news and a summary of the best pieces from our website. Go to www.spectator.co.uk/blend to sign up.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, The Spectators Daily Politics Podcast. |
| 0:07.0 | I'm Isbaugh-Harbman and I'm joined by James Forsyth. |
| 0:10.0 | Well, we've had a cabinet intervention in the cost of living debate that's going on in the Conservative Party, |
| 0:16.0 | Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the House, is reported to have told the cabinet that the planned rise to national insurance should not be going ahead. James, why has he been saying this and what impact is it likely to have? |
| 0:31.1 | Well, Jacob Rees-Mogg is a kind of long-standing opponent of this increase in national insurance. Back in September, he was one of three |
| 0:37.9 | cabinet ministers to argue against it in the meeting that discussed it. One of those other |
| 0:43.1 | cabinet ministers, David Frost, has since quit over the political direction of the government. |
| 0:47.7 | I think one thing worth noting about what Jacob Rees-Mogg's position is, he thinks that you should |
| 0:51.7 | just cut spending elsewhere to fund this. And that's going |
| 0:55.8 | to be his kind of longstanding view. I think his intervention will is getting so much attention |
| 1:02.6 | because everyone knows that the cost of living is going to be the big political issue of this year. |
| 1:09.9 | And one of the big problems for the |
| 1:11.6 | government is that in April, its opponents are going to accuse it of making things worse because |
| 1:17.4 | it's putting up personal taxes. It's going to increase national insurance. Everyone will get a little |
| 1:21.9 | bit less in their pay packet each week. At a time when people risk their pay packet's not going as far, |
| 1:28.4 | because inflation is 5% and rising, that is not well timed. And I think what you will see here |
| 1:36.5 | is more Tory pressure on this to scrap this national insurance rise between now and it coming |
| 1:43.4 | in April. Now, ultimately, |
| 1:45.0 | I don't mean the government are going to you turn on this. I mean the government's view is, |
| 1:48.6 | but, you know, but the tax rise isn't ideal, but the one thing a Tory government can't do is |
| 1:54.9 | go into an election with, you know, the NHS waiting list having ballooned to kind of, you know, |
| 1:59.7 | it's kind of 10 million or something like that. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Spectator, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Spectator and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.