Who will 'take back control' of the economy?
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 29 October 2025
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kemi Badenoch continues to look more confident at PMQs – although there are always going to be some easy goals when you lead on the economy. Today she pressed the Prime Minister on Labour’s manifesto pledge not to raise income tax, VAT or national insurance – which he dodged – as well as repeating her offer to work with Labour towards a cross-party solution to the welfare problem. What do we know about the Budget at the end of next month? And are we any closer to understanding what a ‘working person’ actually is?
Lucy Dunn speaks to Tim Shipman and Michael Simmons.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
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Transcript
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| 0:43.3 | Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots. |
| 0:47.3 | I'm Lizzie Dunn and today I'm joined by Tim Shipman, political editor at The Spectator and Michael Simmons, host of New Economic Podcast Reality Chick. |
| 0:51.2 | Ooh, welcome. |
| 0:53.9 | Prime Minister's Questions has just finished and there's less than a month to go until the budgets. So there's a lot of questions on the economy. Tim, what did you make of Kimmy Bazanos' performance to do? I mean, look, whisper it quietly. She's done pretty well again. And actually, I think there's an argument that she's had three, if not four good outings out of the last six. |
| 1:12.5 | So I think as leader of the opposition, she's turned the corner a bit. |
| 1:16.4 | I mean, this was a very straightforward one. |
| 1:17.9 | She simply asked Keir Stalmer up front whether he stuck to his election pledge not to raise income tax national insurance or VAT. |
| 1:25.1 | And she used exactly the same words as when she had asked him in July, |
| 1:28.8 | and she got to a completely different answer. In July, Stama, in Baden-Ox word, said yes, |
| 1:33.5 | and then sat down with a smug grin on his face. And this time he went into contortions |
| 1:38.2 | and started explaining to us how well the economy is doing and made no pledge whatsoever |
| 1:41.6 | not to raise income tax for precisely the reason that |
| 1:44.3 | most media outlets have been full of speculation in the last week and that's precisely what |
| 1:48.6 | they're going to do. So look, the government's in a bit of a pickle and Bader Not was pretty |
| 1:53.9 | effective at pinning their feet to the fire. She offered to, as she did at party conference, to |
| 1:59.0 | cut welfare, help the government to do that. |
| 2:02.0 | Stama showed no sign of wanting to get involved in that and just kept saying, |
... |
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