Rachel Reeves - potential successor?

Thank you. So the claim by @TheRealGoose that an "unemployed single parent with three kids will get a net 38k" is actually untrue. Because in that case the benefit cap would apply. Unless there are disabled people in the household.

It assumes 4 children. There is also an assessment with 3 and 5, and also if parents get pip, which increases it further,

The calculation is hugely distorted. It assumes one full time and one part time minimum wage income and doesn’t specify the number of children in this hypothetical family. It assumes no claim of in work benefits including child benefit and housing benefit. I can’t copy and paste it but you’ll find it here on page 9. Essentially there is no maths.

https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/CSJ-Benefits_Budget.pdf

You can google. The centre for social justice has published the maths.

An unemployed single parent with three kids will get a net 38k

Can you show the calculations for this?

A non-working single parent will be subject to the benefit cap of £22,020 per year, £25,323 if they are in London. If there are people with disabilities in the household, the cap doesn't apply, but you haven't specified whether that is the case in your example.

His actions speak of a man who cannot lead his party. Hes not 'far Left'. Hes a Centrist, which was partly why Labour are in power. What he can't do is get his hard Left backbenchers ( most of them who've only been MP's for 17 months) to back their own government despite them being elected on the back of a Labour manifesto. They all have paper thin majorities. Labour has always been almost impossible to hold together as a party because of the opposing factions within it. Only a very strong leader with a massive ' Malcolm Tucker' type strongman behind them have any hope of doing it. Labour as a party would rather be out of power than have to compromise. Half of them live in a world where they think they can trojan horse their way into power and we'll all live in a Scandi wonderland but without their pretty stringent welfare policies and the fact that they not only tax the rich, but tax the poor. A lot. The Tories were always past masters at party unity. Cameron and Brexit caused the end of that and collapsed the Tores eventually but its what had made Labour unelectable for most of their existence. They don't care. The unions don't care. They love opposition with no responsibilities so they can live in cloud cuckoo land.

There other examples of people that have been rather successful academically but do not have the right personality or temperament for this kind of roles. Kwasi comes to mind - stellar academics (Eton, double first at Cambridge, Harvard scholar, PhD), notoriously over-confident, not listening to advice from officials, etc. Liz Truss (less glowing academically but still PPE at Oxford), was the same. The self-assurance and dogged pursuit of issues that can be brilliant academic can tip into arrogance and self-delusion. I have always thought that she is not that different from Liz Truss in terms of her character at work.

What makes a good politician and good minister is much more than being academically strong.

Are you joking? She clearly mislead parliament and the public re: mythical "black hole" plus last budget being 1 and done. Re: the last one Trevor Phillips played her back a video of her saying to him that it was "1 and done" last year and they wouldn't need to come back for more.

Ffs 😡

Oxford and then a Masters at LSE. She must be intelligent.

Her last budget was a one off tax hike. The combined £70bn tax and borrowing meant the slate was clean.

I see similar for hounding KB on here which Labour seem quite keen to do. On this Starmer is as culpable or more so.

Why did she mislead parliament or voters. Thanks to years of Tory cuts and Brexit the state of our finances means tax rises are inevitable.

Personally it's another example of male oriented politics....a woman gets into number 10 or 11 and they are hounded

Good. They can’t just let this be swept under the carpet. What does it say about politics, if all our politicians say nothing. I’m no farage fan, but in this I applaud him, as I do the tories requesting the fca investigation.

we all know they aren’t going quietly, we all know starmer will get up and lie tomorrow, protecting her, protecting himself. And we all know it’s going to make it worse, treating the public like idiots.

the centre for social justice has now said An unemployed single parent with three kids will get a net 38k a year, 4 kids and it’s 44k, a family working need to be earning 71k before tax to even match what an unemployed family with 4 kids will now get in benefits.

Normal working families are now better off Unemployed. 2 parents on minimum wage can’t come close to what they can get given in benefits.

and Labour lied to do it.

Farage has called for an enquiry into a ministerial code breach, what on earth was RR thinking.

😂

Watching! I saw her this morning on Laura Kuenssberg. I don’t normally watch this government on TV but glad I did today.

No matter what we feel about the Starmer government, got to hand it them on deflection.

Tomorrow it will be as if it didn’t happen. Nothing to see here. And that is why Reeves did the rounds today.

Although I am sure he will make a statement tomorrow, about his full confidence in the chancellor, about raising millions of children out of poverty and about his mission to push forward, harder and faster to better the lives
of “working people”.

It is will be interesting though to see if
there is a FCA investigation.

Richard Huges Chair of the OBR, is appearing before the Treasury Select Committee on Tuesday. Another one to watch.

Mel Stride has written to the FCA asking them to investigate possible market manipulation by Reeves and the treasury, if she were to be found guilty of that she would be in a lot of trouble and would have to go, likely followed by Starmer.

Agree with both of these. It is of course why Reform are riding so high.

The public aren’t really with Labour though. And they’re unhappy with the budget too.

Nobody is interested in what the Tories want.

Yes I am not sure we are in opposing positions here really, I fully agree raising taxes does not make it far left. Raising taxes to the extent it’s the highest since records began, taking 70 billion extra in two budgets and giving so much of it in welfare that welfare recipients will in many cases be much better off financially than those who work is very far left. That’s the point I’m making.

its irrelevant though, I am not going to argue where it is in the political spectrum, I take issue with the lying, the freebies, them avoiding paying taxes, and then bloating the welfare hand outs by so much and taking money offf of average working people via a raft of stealth taxes to do it, when we are already in a col crisis, many working people now can’t heat their homes, go to food banks, or food suport services and live on very basic meals. Because they pay so much in tax which is now going to welfare recipients much better off than those who worked to give them the money,

and that’s before we get into the rest of the mess, the business taxes, the tax on oil and gas now up to 78 percent seeing them all exit or downsize, the going green by 2030 mantra, with heat pumps and evs, which they are also taxing the arse out of.

which ever way we cut it, and however we call the politics, this is far far away from tax the rich to give to the poor. It is tax everyone who works to give to those who don’t.

Not sure if RR is going anywhere - she is, imho, out of her depth (and I say this as both a former labour voter and someone with experience in senior economic roles in government and the budget process), but her self-belief or dissonance between her ability and reality is on a par with Liz Truss so she won't resign. And her fortunes are intrinsically linked with those of Keir Starmer, so he will be wary of opening the question of who would replace her - as it will probably signal even more how split Labour is.

If she was going to be replaced, there are quite a few candidates. Torsten Bell has a strong academic background but, despite being left-leaning but not popular with the left of the Labour Party (who feel he is a technocrat rather than a party person). And given that he was the brains behind this budget, appointing him will be seen as doubling down / not listening to people.

If we are looking for people with an economic background in the front bench, Yvette Cooper and Ed Milliband are options, but each one comes with questions, most notably EM given past history and fractious relations with business community. Pat MacFadden is always a candidate but he is now at DWP and his move will further signal that welfare reform is not a priority. And does Starmer want to move the top cabinet around again?

Darren Jones is another option, still close to Keir Starmer and familiar with HMT (not an economist but many Chancellors have not been economists), so he could be a "safe(r)" option.

So probably no clear candidate and not sure it will come to pass.

@TheRealGoose, I see where you are coming from but raising taxes, in today’s political culture doesn’t make this government far left, just as the low taxes of the previous government doesn’t make them far fight.

High tax, low growth, growing welfare state, economies are the apparatus of technocratic,
liberal, centrist governments. Dare I say it look at Europe.

I am trying to my head around this narrative that I am reading more and more about, that of
”managed decline”. Which boils down to managing low growth, low productivity, failing public services rather than doing anything to
actually change things.

Keir Starmer, though does have to appease his rebellious back benchers and the Unions, a
proportion of whom are far left and/or communist. I guess that is where you are coming from. I did read that this budget was to appease the backbenchers. Which doesn’t make Starmer a communist but does show his best middle
management skills.

Again, I fully understand how starmer portrays himself, absolutely he portrays himself as fairly central. However there is no part of me beleives that starmer was not in cohoots with reeves and signed off all these tax rises. 70 billion over the last 2 budgets. 70. With a massive bloating of the welfare provision. It’s far left.

now we could argue is he just a weak man, appeasing the far left to keep himself in power. Signing off in lying to the public to appease his backbenchers and give them what they want, sure, I think that’s likely the case. But what he’s doing is far left. Be it as he’s appeasing the momentum side of his party, or he believes in it. It is what he is doing.

they have lied and increased taxes by 70 billion over their two budgets. We now have the highest tax burden since records began much of it stealth tax. They even tried to take the fuel payment from pensioners, as they thought some didn’t need it.

so it doesn’t really matter what starmer believes in, what starmer does is what matters, and this isn’t reeves acting alone.

@TheRealGoose, Starmer is actually as far away from being a communist and from being far left as you could get.

What is he, I say he is a hollow man, but politically, he falls somewhere in the category of technocratic, liberal centrist. Now that deserves thread on its own. We could really start talking about instability and decline then.