'Well-targeted measures': Andrew Marr's expert analysis of the Budget

That budget speech, Andrew, it was a bit prudence and stability, wasn't it? It was very, very like that, yes. He's not Scottish, but he might have been. No, I know, he might as well have been. No, I mean, a lot of people are going to say, you know, he should have been much more radical. In fact, I think in the past I might have said, you know, why is he not taking much bigger, bolder decisions? They've got two years and nine months to go if they want to. They've got a big majority. Surely this is the moment. Jeremy Hunt was certainly saying that this week. But the trouble is, those people who want him to be bolder and bigger are actually speaking in bad faith. The left want him to be bolder and bigger by, you know, jacking up taxes on the wealthy, many of whom might then go, and on, you know, taking on the bond markets, possibly breaking the fiscal rules, certainly pushing the fiscal rules, you know, and spending the money on higher public sector wages and welfare and the rest of it. Fine, but that would produce, you know, a bond market crisis. It would probably produce a fiscal meltdown and possibly an early general election. That is not the kind of advice that if you're Andy Burnham or John Healy, you would be very wise to accept. And on the right, of course, we've heard it from Kemi Badenoch and from Reform Today. They want them to take an absolute chainsaw to welfare. They want them to cut public spending right across the board and spend some of that on defence, but also slash taxes. Again, fine. If you were a Conservative Party, you might get that through. The Labour Party would revolt in a really big way on that. There'll be cabinet level and other ministerial resignations, absolute political crisis and possibly, again, an early general election. Now, you can see why Kemi Badenoch might want that. I don't see why John Healy or Andy Burnham would. It's interesting because speaking with Lewis Goodall and Natasha earlier on, Lewis made the correct point, I think, about how sort of straight jacketed the prime minister and the chancellor of the government essentially is because of some fiscal realities and some global realities. and that that might cause him to want to take off at least one of those shackles, which is his decision-making powers by having an electoral mandate. You're not of the same mind, are you? I'm not of the same mind, though I think it's a perfectly reasonable argument that Lewis was making. The reason, in the end, I don't think he'll go early is, first of all, the most important thing that John Healy said, I thought, in his budget speech is, you know, people talk about fiscal headwinds or economic headwinds. We are facing a full-scale global storm. Now, we've got the midterm elections. We've just had the Middle East war. Do we think things are about as bad as they could get? I think many people would say yes, in which case, could they get better? Yes. There is no necessary reason not to wait to see if things improve and your position gets a bit better. But they could get worse. They could get worse. You're making a gamble. But I also think that Andy Burnham in particular has made it very clear he wants to give people – he keeps using the word breathing space or space or time – Now, the country has had so many elections. The country is exhausted with the political charade of endless leadership changes and elections and by-elections. And the markets would react to that too, wouldn't they? The markets would react. And after all of that, what you would get if you were Andy Burnham is you would get a general election entirely based around which taxes were you going to increase after it, where the tax rises were going to come. I can't think of a better ground for Kemi Badenoch not to fight that election. But again, I think Andy Burnham is a very acute, tactical politician as well as a good strategic one. And he'll be looking at that and shaking his head quietly. Well, we saw that in the last eight months or so. Indeed. Indeed. What did you make of some of the sort of key points? There was clear help there for people on fuel bills, wasn't there? Absolutely. There's always going to be. Now, of course, if the Middle East war kicks off after the midterm US elections again. And it could. And it could. And oil goes even further north. And that is going to overwhelm anything that John Healey is able to offer from the dispatch box today. So these are useful measures. I think they're quite well targeted measures. People with the least amount of money, household budgets to spend. But in the end, they're pretty small. Yeah. What about there was a sense, wasn't there? There was a lot of groaning in the Commons when the word business was first used by the chancellor. There is a sense that Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer got it wrong with business. After building up that relationship, they then trashed it, is how it kind of largely goes. Was there much rebuilding going on there? Yes, a lot. I mean, I think I've heard him talk privately. I think John Healey is instinctively the most pro-business Labour chancellor I've ever heard. I think that's what he wants to do. And I think lots of the things that he said about entrepreneurs and people building businesses. Partnering with them. Yeah, a lot of that. Giving them big tax relief. Exactly. Living expenses for founders. Founders relief. All of that kind of stuff. Again, in cash terms, maybe not very big, but in terms of where he wants to go, quite significant. And actually, if it facilitates, obviously, we'd hope it would be more than one, but just it might seem small fry. But if you want to try and and create a business and therefore potentially create jobs, sometimes what stops you is the ability because you don't have the bank of mum and dad or a load of a load of previous savings or what have you, because you're only 30. You need six months to try it out. Exactly. Exactly. That's quite significant, isn't it? Absolutely. What will the markets make of this, do you think? I think they won't move very much. I don't think there'll be a bond market hostile reaction to this. I think they'll look and say, here's a very, very cautious guy playing it steady as she goes. They will then start to think about the spending review coming next year. That'll be the next really difficult, more difficult moment, in fact. So I don't think they're out of the woods at all. But we are on a trajectory at the moment of no longer being kind of, you know, Mr. Bad Guy, as far as the markets are concerned, the most vulnerable country. The market's now looking at France and other countries. We've got that slither of praise from the IMF. Exactly. We have to take a deep breath and hope that continues and keep padding carefully. You mentioned the spending review. I mean, two things stand out today, don't they, as unresolved, welfare and defence. Absolutely. Now, in both cases, again, people will say, and I think the opposition is saying very vociferously, these are big missed opportunities. They should have been at the heart of the budget. welfare and defence, cutting welfare to pay for defence in effect. And that is really the Conservative position. And I can again understand it. However, again, if you're the Burnham government, you're thinking, actually, do you want to be pushed very quickly into another vote on the Labour backbenches about welfare? Or do you want to make the argument as well and as strongly as it can be made? And that means waiting for the Milburn review, which is coming very soon. And then, you know, softening the ground, making the argument before you actually put the legislation to the Commons. That way you can get real reform through. I think pushing it into the budget too quickly was the same thing applies, by the way, to defence. And he, Andy Burnham, will be quite relaxed, will he, about some of the political brickbats coming his way about that time lapse, lag between today, say, and that spending review and the sort of chasm in between. Because he knows it's coming. He knows all the time he's being pushed to take decisions even faster than he wants to. And you don't want a government, this is pushing a lot of the decisions into the long grass, kicking them forward. That's absolutely true. And you don't want a government that does that all the time. But at the same time, you want a government that looks hard at the evidence and takes the right decision sensibly in its own time. Which Timms and Milburn absolutely are. Absolutely. And I think up to a point, the same is true of defence. I am slightly more alarmed by the lack of detail on defence, because I think we are in a very dangerous moment. And I would like to have heard a bit more on that. Can I ask you before you go on, because you spend time around here in Westminster chatting away to people while I'm chatting away on the radio. This whole question of the 16 to 24 year olds and potentially shifting them from universal credit onto employment support, a new mechanism really to support them into work and staying in work rather than paying them to be out of work yeah how will labour backbenchers feel about that and how defined is that policy yet in your view i think they can be won round pretty easily um i think what went wrong last time round is that Keir Starmer who you know decent guy and all the rest of it did not do politics well he tried to have the vote before he'd made the argument wrong way around you know you have to make the argument first i think a lot of Labour backbenchers understanding their own constituencies know very well how unfair how desolating it is really for younger people to be pushed on to PIPs pushed on to infirmity benefits because they're stressed or depressed or feel unwell and then never get off and spend a life just on on the as we used to say on the dole that is no kind of progressive politics and Andy Burnham is a different politician he has as things stand at the moment he He has a great deal more political capital than arguably Keir Starmer ever had with his backbenchers. I mean, have the backbenchers learned the lesson of the welfare kicking they gave Keir Starmer and the sucker that that was to reform? Well, they had a lovely time doing it, Sheila. They really enjoyed it very much. They were all over LBC and various other places, you know, enjoying their status as rebel leaders. So the answer is probably that they should have learned a lesson, but probably they haven't. I mean, again, I come back to the point, you know, these are not irrational people. They're thinking very closely about their own constituencies. And I think that if Alan Milburn and Andy Burnham, who's a very good maker of arguments, in fact, they both are, make the argument properly about what is progressive and fair and decent to younger people and what is not, then they can win this. OK, interesting. That's an interesting one for us in the spring, isn't it? Thank you very much indeed, Andrew.