Speaker 1A row erupts at PMQs. What is a working person?
Speaker 2Why can't Labour define that or cut welfare? They seem to be, again, stuck in the 1970s, thinking that the big debate of Britain in 2026 is employee versus employer.
Speaker 1Yes, landlord versus renter, yeah.
Speaker 2Rich versus poor. Basically, you're talking about taxpayers and non-taxpayers. And I think that would be a good line of attack for the right because the battle is between those paying taxes for those receiving benefits. Well, jingle my bells, Tim. It's only the beginning of November. John Lewis has come out with his advert, I would say, six weeks too early. Yes. And everyone hates it.
Speaker 1They do. It features a grandma who opens the door to two miserable kids who don't even want to hug and kiss her. Brats! Who refuse to play with her lovely old toy. Yes. So to get their attention back, she goes shopping, and brings back lots of toys for them to play with. And through the magic of spending money, she earns their respect and love. It's disgusting, isn't it? It has the feeling of a failed task on The Apprentice. Yes, that's right. You can just imagine Lord Sugar saying to them, what a bleeding hell is this? You're fired. If those were my grandkids, they'd get a sodding lump of coal, I can tell you that.
Speaker 2Well, they're talking about a scene where the two grandchildren are only.
Speaker 1I don't know why I've turned Sugar into Dick Van Dyke.
Speaker 2I don't know, but I love it.
Speaker 1Christmas is on my mind.
Speaker 2Jim Jiminy. Also, there's a scene where these kids are opening cards and sort of trying to shake out the money. Oh. Oh, no. Also, I'm sorry, I do love her in Slow Horses. I've loved her since Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Speaker 1Who is she again?
Speaker 2Remind me. Kristen Scott Thomas. Oh, yes. But she's an ice queen. Is she really best cast as a sort of cuddly granny? Yes. I think that was wrong. I certainly wouldn't be decorating one of the rooms of my father's home into some kind of present emporium for two. Nope. snotty-nosed little kids who aren't grateful for anything. And frankly as well, by the way, there is a fallacy at the heart of this. If you give kids cash, they love it. They don't want some crap that's been produced by John Lewis. Okay. I mean, any teenager, at least, I know these children depicted are younger. Yes. I mean, kids love cash. Yes. The great thing about it is you can spend it on what you want, Tim.
Speaker 1When I was a child, I would get in my stocking a satsuma, some nuts and some boiled sweets. This is the most ridiculous thing you've ever said.
Speaker 2I was happy. I was born in a cardboard box in the middle of the street.
Speaker 1What would have happened if that seed had played out in my house is one of my grandmothers would have hit me.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1My mother and my grandmother would have spent the rest of the holiday rowing about whether or not she was allowed to hit me.
Speaker 2Whether or not your mother was a good parent. I know at some point.
Speaker 1Eventually, I would have refused to eat something. My mother would have hit me. Yeah, I'll tell you what. And then my grandmother would have said, I told you so.
Speaker 2I was going to say, if my children were jumping up and down on my father's sofas. Oh, hello. Absolutely not.
Speaker 1So. I wouldn't be able to. I wouldn't be able to sit down for the whole week.
Speaker 2No, it's a big thumbs down for the advert. Is it a thumbs up for PMQs with the reserves in place, Tim? You've just come from the House of Commons. So, Andy Burnham's in Antigua falling about a cricket wicket. Yes. Consequently, Louise Haig. Yes. of I had my mobile phone stolen but really I didn't fame. Yes. And indeed, Alex Burkhart, a lesser spotted Tory who happens to be Kemi Badenock's right-hand man. Yes. went at it over the dispatch box.
Speaker 1Well, Louise was the better looking of the two. I really like her hair. She's had a flick put in, which I thought looked very smart, like Charlie's Angel.
Speaker 2Can I just say you are an absolute sucker for red-headed Labour women? Yes. Because you've got a thing for Angela Rayner and her flame hair. Yes. And you've now got a thing for Louise Haig. She used to dye her hair. I'm into redheads.
Speaker 1Are you? No, I really am. It's my thing. It's your thing?
Speaker 2Oh, and you're obsessed with Fergie.
Speaker 1Yeah. And I kind of take Prince Harry's side over William's, so there you go. There's. Honestly. There's one for the royal curious of you. Okay. But having said that, she is also an intelligent. An intelligent and accomplished woman. Yes. I'm contractually obliged to say that, in case I'd be called a misogynist. But of the two, it had the feeling of a row between substitute teachers, I felt. There's always a. It's always a bit like that. His argument was, tell me, is welfare spending going to go down in this parliament? And he asked that question six times, but in a very kind of, I studied history sort of way. Yes. Don't you know I've got some legal training? Whereas Louise Haig has more of a touch of the rover's return about her and was doing a whole. Oh, talk to the hand because the face ain't listening thing. And yeah, she buffed it okay. But as sometimes happens when teachers have a row in a classroom, at first the class is spellbound. We didn't know adults could argue. And then when they get on to something about parking spaces, the class starts talking amongst itself.
Speaker 2And that's what was happening in the comms. It was also slightly like, oh, mum and dad are rowing again about which route to take in the car. Like they kept on repeating this. It was like, oh, God, they're on the same old row. Yeah. Yeah. She hasn't stopped. The dishwasher probably. Oh, God, dad hasn't taken the washing out.
Speaker 1So I thought that was a sideshow. What did interest me was that Daisy Cooper. Oh, bless her. standing in for Ed Davey asked about America.
Speaker 2Of course she did. Where's our Lib Dem bingo card? It's only got two things on it, Trump.
Speaker 1And the EU. and in the EU. I know. But although she didn't make an interesting point in and of itself, what she was trying to do was draw the government into distancing itself from America because we have real arguments with the White House. For instance, over American tech and the way it does business in this country. And she claims that it's able to avoid some of the larger fines on misbehaviour. So she's saying, now that you can see Trump is a lame duck, are you going to distance yourself from him and maybe push back against Washington?
Speaker 2Well, also, she was asking ridiculous questions about, do we need to further probe the Epstein files? And Labour are sitting there going, well, it didn't work out very well for our very own Peter Mandelson. So can you just leave it there, please, Daisy? Yeah. What Daisy wanted is a. Deke Karnian response to what happened in the midterms. And by the way, we've recorded a separate podcast on events in America. Congratulations to Democrats on a huge victory last night. I mean, let's be honest, Karn is the one who put up the baby blimp of Trump. They're not besties. Trump has repeatedly criticised the London mayor. With a focus on hope, unity and supporting families with the cost of living, their campaign was a true rejection of the damaging and divisive politics of Donald Trump. Karn can say this because he's not the prime minister. You're not going to get the front. Daisy Cooper. Daisy Cooper, come on, love. Yeah. You're not going to get the front bench coming out with all this now, as Burnham's still rubbing shoulders with world leaders at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.
Speaker 1No, of course you're not. And Trump is still president for two years and can do a lot of damage. Louise Haig was keen to point out that the Labour Party did not support the Iran war, whereas the Tories and reform sort of did. Yes. So that's one dig that she got in at them. But I think the most interesting, Raoul, all of that aside, is the ongoing argument, about what counts as a working person. I know this is a particular interest of yours.
Speaker 2Well, I started it because I had the temerity to ask.
Speaker 1Karl Marx started it, actually.
Speaker 2I know. I think he probably did. I had the temerity to ask Emma Reynolds, who was on the broadcast round on Sunday and therefore appeared on my GB News show. She's chief secretary to the Treasury. So basically John Healy's right-hand woman. And I had the temerity to ask her why she was taxing working people more in the last budget as the previous budgets had done, by putting up employers, national insurance, and in this case, in the case of Healy, putting up income tax on rents and interest. So putting it up on landlords and savers, pointing out that all of those people, employers, landlords and savers, are indeed working people. She then responded, as we discussed yesterday, with the classic line, which I didn't think she was going to say out loud. And by the way, can I just stress here, there was no gotcha moment. There was no, to use Burnham's current parlance, it was googly being bold. She came out with this of her own volition. I didn't force her into saying it. When she said it, I couldn't believe she said it.
Speaker 1Well, it was a nasty media trick to invite her to speak.
Speaker 2Indeed. Underhanded. To invite her to speak openly. She volunteered the information and then, of course, I seized upon it and then it went viral and then lots of other working people who happened to also run businesses seized upon it and all the rest of it. So she's in the House of Commons yesterday. John Healy denounces it. She then has to, well, let's just listen to it, correct the record, my lord.
Speaker 3And I would like to correct the record here. Of course, the brilliant men and women across the country who run small businesses are working people. I thank them for their contribution to our local economies and our local high streets. The bakeries, the cafes, the restaurants, the beauticians, the hairdressers and the local pub and so many more.
Speaker 2I love this whole, I would like to correct the record as if she is separate to what she actually said. It was the record who said this and not me, which is just extraordinary. So thank you for correcting the record. She then posts her correcting the record on her X feed and then it's hit with a community note saying, by the way, you're correcting what you yourself said. Yes. And this is why I think people are a little bit cynical about politics and politicians because there's a form of unique gaslighting, isn't there, in saying that you are almost as a third party correcting a record, that you have nothing to do with, even though you played the record and you wrote the lyrics and you sang the song.
Speaker 1In much the same way that in this session, Louise Haig kept trying to pin everything on the Tories. Fair enough. A lot of it is down to them, but you've been in for two years now. Two years in, love. And when is the statute of limitations on that? If Labour is now in power for like 100 years, are they still going to be bringing up the Liz Truss budget?
Speaker 2What a thought.
Speaker 1But Louise Haig appeared to offer her own definition of a working person.
Speaker 2Yeah, let's listen to that.
Speaker 4Working people are the millions, millions of people who put in every day and don't get back what they deserve. People who don't have savings, they can dip it. who would pay their way out of problems and people who rely on good public services. Those are the people that this Labour government are delivering through and the budget served last week.
Speaker 1So that's people who don't have savings and people who use public services. Now, in case she has to correct the record herself, she was asked by Luke Evans if she would repeat that and she said, I'm not going to repeat my answer, I've already given it. So she's had a chance to correct the record and she seems to be standing by it. Now, people without savings, who doesn't have some savings?
Speaker 2Well, some people don't have savings, but we're talking about a tiny minority of the country.
Speaker 1But also doesn't use public services. You cannot not use public services. If you call the police, you're using a public service.
Speaker 2So her definition of working people is basically people completely on the breadline only. She is talking about homeless people in Delhi, right?
Speaker 1She's talking about Burmese warrior people. She's talking about people who live in some far off mountain in Peru. I know, but. Not anyone in this country. Because she's just defined it as everyone and no one at the same time.
Speaker 2But this is all about, as you pointed out at the very beginning, the kind of feathering of Marxist unionist nests where they seem to be, again, stuck in the 1960s. Thinking that the big debate of Britain in 2026 is employee versus employer.
Speaker 1Yes. Landlord versus renter.
Speaker 2Rich versus poor. And I just don't think people see it like that. And I've been amazed, by the way, when I've looked on my own socials at the people then recording videos on the back of the interview, who literally are, well, it would have been the butcher's bakers and candlestick makers of yesteryear, but the hairdressers, the pie shop owners, the cobblers, the plumbers, the electricians, who have all taken quite understandably great offence at the idea that they don't work for a living. This will come back to haunt them, by the way. Can I just say this? We've got now, I think, three idiotic Labour statements that are going to come back to haunt them. The first is national security should not come at the expense of social security. As soon as Putin does anything, he's going to look really stupid, Andy Burnham, for coming out with that ridiculous phrase. Second phrase, employers aren't working people. And then third phrase, OK, it was actually honest when Pat McFadden expressed it. And again, it came back to haunt him at PMQs today. All I'm doing is taxing people to pay benefits to others.
Speaker 1Bingo, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2So these three catchphrases should be deployed, by the way, by Labour's rivals at every given opportunity. The Tories have weaponised the Emma Reynolds gaffe quite well. Haven't seen reform do it as well. The point is, that's what should be going on in rotation.
Speaker 1And we're keeping an eye on it as journalists because the point of the Emma Reynolds quote is Labour keeps saying it won't raise taxes for working people. So what we've been trying to get for several years now is a definition of working people. Because if they choose not to go for an election and they're in for another three years, at some point, looking at their plans, they're probably going to have to raise taxes. In which case, we'd like to know now, do I count as a working person? The other thing is, if your economy, it either goes south or changes, a lot of people shift from being employees to people working for themselves. They become sole traders. I mean, anyone who does sort of like consultancy work for online design or anything like that is now technically self-employed. So they've gone from Labour's basket of good person to Labour's basket of shame. But they haven't changed in terms of their social status. Sure. Just because you've lost your job and you've had to become like an Uber driver or something, and maybe you've got a small pot of savings, which you're still living off in order to keep yourself going, you've not suddenly leapt several rungs up the social ladder to the point where Labour shouldn't think of taxing you anymore. No. They have this totally unrealistic understanding of the class dynamics in modern Britain. They don't get how people live.
Speaker 2The right is simply missing a trick here. I mean, Farage has got close to it with Alarm Clock Britain. Thankfully, the Conservatives have moved away from the rather pejorative language of workers versus shirkers. Isn't it simply. Working people are taxpayers. Yeah. I mean, some pensioners still have to pay tax, obviously. Correct. Yes. And they're not technically working because they're retired. But basically, you're talking about taxpayers and non-taxpayers.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. I think ultimately, this is a government which is all about managing decline. It's going to try and do it in a softer. It's going to try and do it in a softer, gentler way than the Tories did. So it's all about protecting vulnerable groups and about protecting people on welfare. But there is no economic plan to turbocharge the economy and take it off so that the free market grows and we're all making money ourselves. It's all now just about parceling the cash out, redistributing the pie. And the odd tweak here or there to make your life a little bit easier, which might give the false impression to some people that the government is an activist government that's trying to do something in a positive way. In a positive way, as Bonham keeps saying. But the truth is, as Burkhart pointed out, we're now looking at a welfare bill of around £183 billion.
Speaker 2And we can't continue going down that path. Also, the pie. I mean, the pie's already been handed out. We're talking about what we do with the crumbs, right? Much of the pie is gone. The pie's gone. Yeah. The pie's being spent on benefits, debt, massive public spending. Just crumbs left. And that's why a budget comes out with 4p off a jar of gherkins, Tim.
Speaker 1I'm thinking about pie now.
Speaker 2Yeah, shall we go and eat some pie? We'll be back tomorrow at 5pm.
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