Will the budget fallout bring down Keir Starmer?
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 2 December 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The arguments over last week’s budget continue; first chancellor Rachel Reeves was accused of misleading MPs and the public over the state of public finances, then the chair of the budget watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, resigned. So how did this row unfold and where does it leave the Prime Minister?
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Guest: Oliver Wright, policy editor, The Times.
Host: Manveen Rana.
Producers: Olivia Case, Shabnam Grewal.
Read more: Did Rachel Reeves lie — and will she resign?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From The Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. I'm Manvina. |
| 0:08.5 | It was meant to be a speech building on the budget, setting out some of the government's plans to reform welfare. |
| 0:15.9 | We also have to confront the reality that our welfare state is trapping people not just in poverty, |
| 0:23.8 | but out of work. But instead, as the Prime Minister addressed the nation, he faced a barrage |
| 0:30.5 | of questions about whether the Chancellor had lied. We found out from the Office of Budget |
| 0:36.6 | Responsibility that the Chancellor with your |
| 0:39.3 | backing misled the public on November 4th when she warned about a black hole in the public |
| 0:44.6 | finances. A cabinet minister has told me this morning they do feel misled. How do you respond |
| 0:50.9 | to that as Prime Minister? Isn't the reality that in failing to be candid about the breadth of what she knew at her pre-budget news conference, the Chancellor misled us? |
| 1:01.0 | To Rachel Reeves talking about a black hole that wasn't actually there, trust matters. |
| 1:06.0 | How can our viewers trust anything you say? |
| 1:10.0 | None of this is normal. The days after a big budget are |
| 1:13.7 | usually reserved for pouring over the details of policies, but all of that is now on hold, |
| 1:19.6 | because the Office for Budget Responsibility, in an extraordinary move, has made it clear |
| 1:25.9 | that the Chancellor hasn't been entirely transparent, |
| 1:30.4 | and it's detonated a political bomb. |
| 1:34.7 | Even the Cabinet are up in arms. |
| 1:37.6 | Ministers are accusing Sarkir Starmor and Rachel Reeves of misleading Cabinet |
| 1:41.4 | about the public finances in the build-ups of the budget. |
| 1:44.5 | The Chancellor has denied misleading anyone. |
| 1:46.9 | It looks like what she was doing was trying to pitchroll her budget, tell everyone how awful it |
| 1:52.3 | would be, and then they wouldn't be as upset when she finally announced it. |
... |
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