Coffee House Shots
Does Rachel Reeves need an 'escape route' on winter fuel?
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Before the summer recess, it was part of the big look at this huge fiscal black hole I found moment. We're going to take some immediate steps, but then more steps in the budget. And so it was a spending cut. There was also some infrastructure projects that were cut. And then the prospect of tax rises when we get to the budget at the end of October. Since then, it's been quite clear that the backlash has been growing within the Labour parliamentary party is also an area where I think every party is opposing Labour's position. So you have reform saying it's unfair, you have the Tories saying it's cruel, and you also have the Lib Dems going for the Labour. And the Lib Dems I think is interesting because they are trying to work out a way to provide opposition to the Labour government, but they really still see the Tories as their main opponents and where they want to build. But on this issue, they are willing to attack Labour. And that all meant they were looking for opportunities to try and force Labour MPs to have to vote on it in a clear manner. And I think Labour said, actually, let's just rip the band out and get on with it. So it will be the first time, I think, to see what the scale of rebellion is. Now, I think it's worth pointing out, no one's expecting Labour to lose the vote. Actually, most MPs will go along with it. You have Rachel Mascall won a Labour-backed venture. She said that she will struggle to vote for this. So I think that would probably be one rebellion. Rosie Duffield has said she shares those concerns. And then I think, you know, some are saying perhaps you're 10 rebels, that's what we get to, but also the abstentions will be interesting. And how the Labour government responds to this, because of course, with the two-child benefit rebellion, if you rebelled and you voted against it, you temporarily lost the whip. So what's the approach going to be on this one? And I think there's a question as to, you know, will it put the issue to bad? I suspect it will still be an open-source party conference when you have the Labour grassroots meeting could lead to the reopening of issues like, you know, the two-child benefit cap. But you have Ed Balls, who's of course married to the home secretary on a, I don't know if they are a rival podcast, we have pro podcasts, but on an alternative podcast that you should always listen to after listening to our podcast, political currency, Ed Balls has been speaking about the saying that Labour need an escape route on winter fuel payments. Here's a clip and film. If you're a kid's starman, Rachel Reeves and your teams, you'll be looking at the polling, you'll be looking at the focus groups, they will be saying, this is a big problem and it's going to get worse. I don't think you can just plow on, I don't think you can do a U-turn for what they need is an escape route, they need to find a creative way to do what they said they were going to do, close the india black hole and find an alternative way to do it, which could either be modifying what they're doing on the winter allowance or finding things some other way to do the same thing, I think I would be thinking creatively. I would not say this is the most helpful intervention, unless of course, Ed Balls is acting as, you know, someone to go and float the idea before the treasury do it. But I think if there isn't the case, it's unhelpful because lots of people are thinking, well, Ed Balls is very close to the Labour government, is he saying this to plant the seeds? And then since these comments were made, I think we've had various points where people have said, oh, what are Labour going to do about this backlash? One is, you know, they're increasing household support fund, that was something they've already pointed to, but could they go even further? And I think Rachel Reeves tried to say, no, we're pressing on with this. I think these comments said, well, maybe they'll find something else to soften it. And potentially find a way to offer more support to those pensioners who are not the millionaires, but the ones because it's quite a crude mechanism by which to decide who gets them into fuel allowance and who doesn't based on, you know, whether you're eligible for benefits is the way, you know, the gist above that part to get some extra help is quite complicated to do. But I think this is slightly reopening the debate again at a time when if Rachel Reeves does water this down in a significant way, I think that is going to be quite embarrassing and make a look like she has a chance to, you know, one of your first big moves, if it can't hold, how does that vote for the budget? And also the comprehensive spending review next Easter, which is going to be really tricky for the Labour Party, because all the cuts at the Tories priced in, but didn't actually have to deliver. The everything that jumped out to me in that Edwell's podcast was how he said this came about in the first place. He said that basically the Rachel Reeves would be given a list of things by the Treasury officials and told she has to do one of them and he was saying he thinks she's probably quite annoyed at the Treasury for pushing her into an immediate decision like this. Now, of course, Edwell knows what it's like he's been in the Treasury. All the blinds who have been the Treasury say the same thing. They always try to push this. When you go in there, ahead of the budget, they say, okay, if you were to mean to test winter fuel payments, you would save this amount immediately. It's one of these little ready, wrecking her things. Now, this is a classic example of what the civil servants say will get you money, but a politician is supposed to say, well, if I did this, it would cause me political difficulties next to Y and Z. Now, the last person to make this mistake was George Osborne and what's now known as the omni-shambles budget. So that's when he took a whole bunch of decisions proposed by his officials and decided to wave him through and then go off to join Cameron or a trip to America. Now, he then found out all of these things, politically, backfired the pasty tax and more, and he was faced, forced into these humiliating reversals. That was seen at the time, to be honest, born being politically naive and politically lazy, not really applying himself. Now, this is not just Bose's speculation, but as you say, Katie, he's married to the Home Secretary. I mean, so in Bose's reflection, I wonder if we can hear echoes of a conversation being had in Cabinet? How did we get into this mess? Now, of course, taking away winter fuel payments for millionaire pensioners, and let's remember one in four pensioners in Britain lives in a millionaire household, that is a lot. But the problem is the borderline cases, the ones right on the edge who are getting it taken away and who need it. So politically, you could have done more for that group there. Nothing was done, but what we see here is basically a rookie error, it seems, by a chancellor who basically went along with what her officials pushed her into without really thinking of the particular ramifications in the same way that Osborne is. It's not an omnichambles budget, but it's starting to look like a mini-chambles one. And I think when it comes to the dynamics within the Labour Party, I think the left on the Labour Party, it's funny that Fraser mentions that Osborne example, saying, is this just dressed up Osborneism? And do you have a chancellor who is repeating those tactics? And you're going to have a Labour conference, I think the Unite Union potentially pushing motions about Osborneism and moving away from this type of tax cut to spend. And will rates have been able to hold that position? Because we are quite early days into the Labour government. But this is, I think, I think welfare is always one of the most difficult areas for the Labour. And this is ready, I think, to child benefit, you also have this, and then you've got difficult decisions coming on welfare. And I think it's going to be probably the most uncomfortable area and right for Labour Party in its first year. But Katie, I think you put your finger on it. I mean, I think she has made a mistake here, although I agree with the policy, it's a mistake that she's implemented it. But if she caves now, if she's seen to respond to this sort of pressure, we're talking 10 rebel MPs next week. If they're seen to respond, then they will guarantee more pressure, a lot more pressure. That's why I think politically the bigger mistake for her could be seen to basically be rushing back into the kitchen and recooking edition of the way. Because if that is a sort of a kinetic relationship that's set up, and Starmer says something, Reese has something, 10 back banchers, make a fuss, she's persuaded to go in, then when it comes to the far tougher stuff, like welfare reform, based on no chance. And of course, we did have one member, the cabinet, Lucy Powell, over the weekend, when she was defending them into fuel allowance, actually saying, well, we needed to do it because I'm obviously paraphrasing, so maybe a bit clumsy in this, but the way it's reported at least was we needed to do this, because otherwise we could have had something like the run on the pound. Now, that's obviously trying to say we're not going to be irresponsible, like Liz Truss was, we have to take measures to support things. But it does mean now he was somehow not doing the winter fuel allowance. Well, your own ministers are saying this could result a run in the pound, being a bit perfect. But they've got themselves into such a position here. I think it's quite hard to go back from. I'm going to now trail our Saturday podcast, because I think we're going to be broadcasting our live coffee house shots that we did this week. And I actually think Jonathan Ashworth, obviously no longer an elected politician, probably made one of the more convincing arguments when it comes to the winter fuel allowance and about what's happening with pension benefits elsewhere, as to why maybe you could move that because you have more money coming in at other places. But that isn't the, I think one of the issues that doesn't seem to be too much of a narrative setting on clear argument, or even when it was first announced, enough kind of taking people with you, which means it's now a trickier position now. You mentioned there, Katie, in your answer about Yvette Cooper, of course, the Home Secretary today is at an intelligence summit in London at the headquarters of the National Crime Agency. Fraser, one of the things they've been talking about is stopping the boats, all the live investigations going on there. And it comes after the UK press picked up comments made by Jeremy's Migration Commissioner, talking about the possibility, potentially, of Germany using the facility's pay for whether UK taxpayer to look at sending some of the migrant arrivals to Germany and processing those claims overseas. Tell us about that and maybe the likelihood, perhaps, if there were under scheme living on under another country's flag. Well, this is Joachim Stamp, who, as you say, is the, he is a special representative from immigration agreements as a governmental position. But he was speaking, again, on the podcast, Table Briefings in German. But he was speaking in his role as an FTP politician, and he stressed that. This was his musing as a backbencher. So he was basically trying to save a German, he could use the existing capabilities originally prepared with the Rwanda deal with the British. Now, but I tell you why this matters, because right now, after the stabbings north of Cologne, a couple of weeks ago, and the two state elections in Germany last weekend, the entire German political class is in crisis. It's not just seen AFD surge and did very well, but it's also seen the German opposition is now using far more harsh language or an immigration. They're now facing up with two populist parties on the right and the left, neither of whom care really about tearing up international conventions to resolve this problem. So they feel as if they have to say something radical. And if it's not going to be Rwanda, it'll be something very similar. My own hunch is that the Germany will probably be running ahead of Britain in either pulling up a leash of the European Convention of Human Rights or breaking from it entirely. And I think they'll have to do that because the crime situation in Germany is getting really out of control. 40% of suspects, according to German police, are non-German passport holders. And you are getting such political pressure that I think they will have to break. And I think Britain will start to look quite stable by comparison. But then again, you can also, there is another way of doing it. I do praise this country rather a lot in this podcast, but Sweden has just become the first country in Europe to achieve negative net migration. So they have managed a system. Effectively, they're paying people, even Swedish citizens, if they're immigrants, to go home under certain conditions. So they have show in that what fresh discusses as a kind of moonshot dream, achieving net migration, or zero net migration, is actually achievable. It's a very interesting experiment. And I think that Britain probably learned quite a lot of stuff or wants to achieve it. I think Sweden has shown that it is doable. But I do think that the German situation is going to escalate quite quickly. And this Rwanda suggestion will not be the last sort of semi-crazy thing we hear coming out of the German political debate. Thanks, Katie. Thank you, Fraser. Thank you for listening to "Coffee Our Shots." [MUSIC] (soft music)