As Westminster anticipates the budget next week, Labour HQ threatens to steal the limelight with a row across the pond.
Read all about it in this week's Who's Top Who's Not.
Top: Rachel Reeves
The worst kept secret in Westminster was confirmed this week when Rachel Reeves confirmed that she will use next week’s budget to free up £50 billion for extra investment spending by changing the way the Treasury measures debt. This will allow the government to invest more in infrastructure projects.
Many economists support this move to generate growth, particularly with intertest rates and inflation on a general downward trajectory (although gilt yields have risen slightly since the announcement). Former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King told LBC’s Andrew Marr on Wednesday night that it’s “reasonable” that the chancellor wants to “borrow more to spend more.”
Politically, the move leaves Labour open to traditional Tory attacks (though not from their new leader – see below) of being irresponsible with public money, and there is a danger of mixed messages since the rest of the budget will be dominated by tax rises and spending cuts.
Mischievous/ambitious/locally focused (delete as appropriate) Labour MPs could also see the £50 billion as an opportunity for some American-style pork-barrel politicking to secure extra spending in their own constituencies. The queue outside No.11 Downing Street could snake around onto Whitehall come November.
Still, Reeves and her team will be pleased at the rolling of the pitch ahead of the fiscal changes next week. Media reactions have been more positive than negative so far and the markets seem well-prepped (and they are the most important audience when it comes to changes to government debt rules). Now for the Budget itself.
Middle: Kemi Badenoch
It is difficult for Leaders of the Opposition to respond to Budgets. All the focus is on the Chancellor; you still have to do the prep for PMQs that falls just before the budget even though no one cares about it that week; and you have no advance sight of the budget itself so you have to read out a pre-prepared speech and hope that it all remains relevant once the Chancellor has finished.
Perhaps that explains the reports this week that Tory leadership favourite Kemi Badenoch was the only leadership candidate to oppose changing the election timetable to allow the new leader to respond to the Budget for the Tories. Instead, it will be lame-duck Sunak who will need to pause his California day-dreaming for a few minutes to put on a good show for the Opposition.
Is this savvy politics by Badenoch to avoid the Budget’s sticky wicket? Or are Jenrick’s team doing some underhand negative briefing to paint Kemi as cowardly? WTWN’s DMs are open.
Bottom: Labour HQ
The redcoats are coming!
It is something of a rite-of-political-passage for a few Labour staffers to head off to the states for a spot of door knocking for Democrats in Michigan or Wisconsin every 4 years. Those that go, do so on their own dime and in their own time.
But an unfortunate LinkedIn post by a Labour staffer who was trying to coordinate things has backfired spectacularly and turned into a diplomatic incident as Donald Trump’s team has claimed foreign electoral interference and filed an official complaint.
To be clear, these are party staffers using their annual leave to knock on doors, not government officials participating inappropriately. But this is going to make Starmer and Lammy’s diplomatic jobs harder should Trump win next month.
Much like Starmer’s freebeies, this seems to be a scandal that was hiding in plain sight. Many British politicos of all parties have historically headed to the USA to experience presidential short campaigns, and it was no secret that senior Labour party staffers attended the Democratic national convention earlier this year.
None of these were issues until they were, and Labour will be frustrated at their prominence. But no one said governing was easy and Labour was always going to get a harder ride from the media once in government. But Labour also needs to be a bit savvier; they are in government now and that means extra levels of scrutiny, as many are only just finding out