Who do voters trust most on the economy?

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been in Washington D.C. this week at the IMF’s spring meetings, and will meet US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tomorrow. Cue the ususal talk of compromising on chlorinated chicken. Not so, reports the Spectator’s economics editor Michael Simmons, who explains that Reeves may offer a reduction in long-standing tariffs already imposed on American cars. But, it’s been a bad week of economic news for the Chancellor as the IMF downgraded the UK’s growth forecast.

We’re also one week away from the local elections – Starmer’s first big test since last year’s general election. The economy isn’t usually the number one issue at local elections but, as More in Common’s Luke Tryl explains, the cost of living crisis is still very much alive in voters’ minds. And, while Reform look set to have a good night, the economy is not their strongest policy area. What should we look out for on the night?

Michael and Luke join Lucy Dunn to discuss.

Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Spectator magazine is home to wonderful writing, insightful analysis and unrivaled books and arts reviews.
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0:31.3	Hello and welcome to Coffeehouse Shots.
0:35.0	I'm Lucy Dunn and today I'm joined by Michael Simmons and Moines-Look Trill.
0:40.3	Chancellor Rachel Reeves is spending the week in Washington at the International Monetary Fund Spring Talks.
0:44.5	And on Friday, she'll meet the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessett to try and push for a better trade deal with America.
0:46.2	Michael, we've been hearing a lot about the future of the car industry and chlorinated chicken
0:50.8	this week.
0:51.4	So what's up for discussion in these talks?
0:53.4	Yeah, so you can sort of rule
0:55.7	those out straight away. Reeves has been pretty clear that she's not going to accept, you know,
1:01.2	hormone-treated beef. She's not going to accept chlorinated chicken as part of sort of any
1:06.8	offer to the Americans, which I think probably does dash the hopes of sort of an immediate
1:12.0	trade deal.
1:13.3	But what she has indicated sort of ahead of this meeting that she's about to have with
1:18.4	US Treasury Secretary Scott Besson is that she will look at reducing these sort of long-standing
1:26.5	tariffs that we actually impose specifically on cars
1:30.4	and agricultural products.
1:31.9	So that won't be about sort of changing standards, but it will be about basically, you know,
1:36.1	taking away these tax barriers.
	...

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