Is Labour finally on the front foot in the energy crisis?
The New Statesman | UK politics and culture
The New Statesman
4.4 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 16 August 2022
⏱️ 21 minutes
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Summary
The Labour leader Keir Starmer has announced that the party wants to tackle the energy bills crisis by freezing the energy price cap, to be chiefly funded by a windfall tax. Has Labour finally shown its economic competence?
Rachel Wearmouth is joined by Freddie Hayward and Ben Walker to discuss the plans, whether they’ve come at the right time, and what the Conservative response will likely to be.
Then, in You Ask Us, they answer a listener's question on whether Labour should now be repurposing George Osborne’s austerity-era attack line about the governing party not fixing the roof when the sun was shining.
If you have a question for You Ask Us, email [email protected].
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Picture this, static cars, idling engines, angry horns, now picture you, zooming past |
| 0:12.4 | it all, light and breezy, ah, the sweet feeling of whizzing past traffic, book your train |
| 0:21.6 | journey via AvantiWestcoast.co.uk, AvantiWestcoast, feel good travel. |
| 0:30.1 | The New Statesman |
| 0:40.9 | Hi, I'm Rachel. I'm Freddie and I'm Ben. And you're listening to The New Statesman |
| 0:45.2 | podcast. On today's episode, we're looking at Labour's plans to solve the energy bill crisis, |
| 0:50.3 | and you ask us, why aren't Labour using the George Osborne attack line of |
| 0:54.3 | their fail to fix the roof while the sun is shining on the conservatives. |
| 1:07.9 | Kirstauma has returned from his summer holiday with a big plan to deal with the ever-increasing |
| 1:12.0 | energy bills crisis. So they've announced Labour has announced it would freeze the energy price |
| 1:16.6 | cap for six months at its current level, which is £1,971. It costs about £29 billion, their plan. |
| 1:23.2 | £8 billion would come from expanding and backdating the windfall tax, £14 billion from |
| 1:27.6 | the money earmarked for their £400 billion to build scheduled for October, and £7 billion |
| 1:33.0 | from reduced inflation resulting from the policy itself. So the price cap was forecast to rise |
| 1:38.8 | to £3,600 in October and up to about £4,000 in January, so it saved households at least £1,000 |
| 1:46.0 | in Labour's set. So Freddie, how do you think the policy has gone down? |
| 1:49.8 | I think the reception thus far has been quite positive. There was a lot of expectation because |
| 1:55.9 | people have been waiting for Labour to come out and say what they would do about the cost of living. |
| 1:59.9 | There's been a little bit of criticism directed at Kirstauma for being on holiday, which is |
| 2:05.1 | quite predictable, but also I don't think the criticising politicians are going on holiday |
| 2:08.5 | in the summer and all these normal sticks. So they're back now and what they've said, I went to |
| 2:13.3 | Edinburgh on Friday to see Starmer speak and he was talking about how they've been planning |
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