“How Incredibly Irritating” | Keir Starmer Backs Rachel Reeves Over Rental Rule Break

I saw this story. My initial sort of reaction was, oh my God, I can't believe you need a licence to let out your property. I've never heard of that, needing a licence to let out your own property. How incredibly irritating. How pen-pushing, how form-filling, how extra revenue-raising annoying is that? But, that said, it is this government that has not unravelled that system if it was put in place by the last lot, and therefore they should have to do it too. And whatever the oversight was, she's obviously trying to make it go away as fast as possible, but I was amused to hear about all the extra questions that are now being raised. Because she was letting the property without a licence, does that make the money she made from it in some way illegitimate? And will she have to give back £38,000 to the people who've been living in her house? Bad, bad, bad day at the office. She'll then feel how we all feel when we have to pay tax for absolute rubbish that she makes us pay for. Not exactly a taste of her own medicine, perhaps. Asked several times by journalists if the ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus was able to see any evidence other than the Chancellor's account of what happened, the Prime Minister's spokesman refused to answer. You would think going into a briefing with the lobby, the top political journalists in the country, you would imagine that you would be armed with that information, or maybe they're not telling us for a reason. He also declined, the spokesman, to say if Rachel Reeves had broken the ministerial code, or whether she would resign if she received a fine from the local council. The council themselves, Southwark Council, have given a very, very sort of wishy-washy statement here. Southwark Council requires private landlords to acquire a selective licence in order to rent out their homes if they live in specific areas. This is in order to protect tenants and ensure landlords are complying with housing requirements, providing safe, well-maintained homes. Selective licences are acquired by sending applications to the council, which we then assess and approve subject to conditions. When we become aware of an unlicensed property, we issue a warning letter advising the landlord that they have 21 days to apply for a licence. Enforcement action such as fines are reserved for those who do not apply within that time, or where a property is found to be in an unsafe condition. We cannot comment on individual cases, but for the sake of a £954 licence, not some to be sniffed at, but nonetheless, not £38,000 and not the kind of billions of pounds that Rachel Reeves is dealing with. My question is, if our leaders, if the Chancellor of the How can we trust her to get the budget right? Well, we can't. I mean, I've got no faith in her whatsoever to get the budget right. It's not like the last one she did exactly made the country any happier or better off or more prosperous, is it? And now we hear that she is contemplating raising income tax, not by the usual kind of penny on income tax that a lot of political parties seem to think is quite palatable because it sounds so tiny, but by two pence on income tax. Now, that would be a breach of their manifesto pledge, of the assurances that they repeatedly gave to voters in the run-up to the general election that they would not do that. And I think, I really don't think she'll go down the 2p route. I mean, even to put it up at all is going to be problematic. It seems far more likely to me that she would try to raise perhaps the top rate of tax, and nobody seems to be talking about that. I've got no information that she is, but it would be a much more natural thing for a Labour Chancellor to do. But it shows just how dire a situation she's in as she scrabbles around, desperately trying to find ways to drum up money to pay for a ballooning welfare state and, you know, apparent planned rises in the minimum wage, I think, is being mooted and, you know, yet more basically burdens on employers, wealth creators, and, you know, just ordinary people that are trying to make ends meet. And this is at every level, isn't it? It's people who are on low incomes, people who are on medium incomes, right the way through to people on higher incomes and are feeling absolutely hammered. Yeah, it's fascinating you mention that, and I wonder, I mean, some of the speculation I've been reading today as well, that income tax would go up but national insurance would go down. Well, that would hammer pensioners to a degree as well, because they, of course, don't pay national insurance. And I wonder if that jiggery-pokery would actually be in some way helpful to the Treasury. Where's the money going to come from? And also the economists, people like Liam Halligan, for example, who are saying, you know, we're actually teetering on the brink here. This isn't about 20 billion. This is about 40 billion. This is a possible IMF bailout territory. I don't want to be alarmist about this, but there are some economists who are saying it's far worse than even we're being told. Absolutely. I was very struck by a comment piece by a very respected City commentator a few weeks ago writing that he'd been at, I think it was some big economic forum in Washington, and he said, you know, there was fear in the eyes of those participants at that forum. And he said, I've been going to these things for decades, something is brewing. And it's not just a probably just a UK thing that's brewing. But, you know, so many people who are experts in this area fear that there is some kind of crisis coming. When it happens, we don't know. But it's that whole thing about markets losing confidence in the ability of this country to live within its means. Jane's been in touch and says, of course, Rachel Reeves should resign. She called for others to do so when in opposition. Also, does she rent her constituency home? So many questions. She does rent out her constituency. Well, we don't know about the constituency. Her constituency is Southwark, isn't it? It's in London. So I think she only has one home. Can we just check that? Actually, I think her constituency is there. No, it's Leeds. It's Leeds. Her constituency is in Leeds. So she will have a constituency home in Leeds. I'm pretty sure that she doesn't rent that out. Don in Chelmsford says, every Monday morning, I said to my wife, what disaster will hit Stormer this week? It started with Lord Ali Cluesgate followed by ministerial resignations. We have the Chinese spy fiasco and the Reeves scandal. Damon in Wigan says, good evening, Peter. Good evening, Damon. Can you just remind me if other ministers of the care service had confidence in? Because once he utters those words, you know you don't have for the front bench. And once again, Peter, scandal, scandal, scandal. I think Queen sang that song. Thank you, Peter. Well, let's try and remember. Peter Mandelson, Angela Rayner, he had full confidence in. Any others that you can think of? There's definitely more than that. Lou Haig as well. What about Tulip Siddiq? Tulip Siddiq, the anti-corruption minister, who is facing corruption allegations. Yeah, there's quite a few of them. I think there's a few more that we've not thought of. If they come to us in the next few minutes, we'll tell you what they are. Let's talk about somebody who definitely has, doesn't have confidence in Rachel Reeves. That's Kemi Badenoch. Earlier, the Conservative Party leader called for Sir Keir to sack Rachel Reeves if she feels with the economy, let's hear what she had to say. You want more of something, you don't tax it. It is a very simple principle. She put taxes on jobs, jobs disappeared. They tax farmers. Farmers are closing down. They tax businesses. They're taxing everything. They're taxing education. We're seeing schools closed down because they can't afford labour's taxes. Someone needs to get a grip on it. So Keir Starmer, you need to make sure that your chancellor gets a grip. If she cannot get a grip on controlling spending, then you need to sack her. Enough is enough. What do you make of that, Isabel? Well, I mean, it's Kemi Badenoch trying to get in on the narrative. You know, no one is really listening to Kemi Badenoch at the moment, and she's got precious few opportunities to try to get attention. She's calling for Starmer to sack her if she can't get a grip. It's not going to happen. I mean, I don't think it's going to happen. Sacking your chancellor is almost always becomes terminal quite quickly. Kwasi Kwarteng and various others, yeah. Certainly, and John Major, of course, never recovered after mind blank, brain fade. No, you're looking to me and I've got exactly the same. Is that stage of the week? Norman Lamont, Norman Lamont in office. Black Wednesday. Yes, Black Wednesday. Do you know what? His autobiography is brilliant, actually, in office. It's a really incredibly honest autobiography. It's a really, really good book in office by Norman Lamont. You are more of an anorak than I thought you were. This is how you get your thrills. This is, yeah, this is how I get my kicks. Let's talk about something else, Isabel, that I'd love your opinion on, because as you may know, we've been asking, even on Somerset Police, about Bob Villan, about Pascal Robinson Foster, who is the singer in Bob Villan. As we can see in our little graphic here, it is now 124 days since the incident at Glastonbury, where the singer for Bob Villan, Pascal Robinson Foster, made that anti-Semitic chant, death, death to the IDF. Now, we've been asking for an interview with the Chief Constable, Sarah Crew, of Avon and Somerset Police. We've been told for a second day that's not happening. However, in fairness to Avon and Somerset Police, they have got back to us and there has been a development. So I'm going to read you their statement in full. Avon and Somerset Police, inquiries continue to be carried out in relation to comments made during a performance on stage at Glastonbury Festival on Saturday the 28th of June. It is important we have a full understanding of any legal precedents, which is a complex process, and are working closely with the Crown Prosecution Service around early legal advice. This is the interesting bit. Advice from the Crown Prosecution Service was received last week and is currently being reviewed. The next steps in our ongoing inquiries will be decided with that advice in mind. We will continue to ensure the public and media are updated as our investigation progresses. Well, thank you for the statement, Avon and Somerset Police. It's still 124 days. Pascal Robinson Foster, to our knowledge, hasn't been interviewed, he hasn't been cautioned, he certainly hasn't been arrested, and we don't know if charges or a recommendation for charges has been sent to the CPS. But certainly you've given us an update. That's fair enough, but we're going to keep asking Sarah Crew for an interview. She can do it if she wants to. If there are legal areas she doesn't want to get into, that's okay. We'll accept that. We don't want to prejudice an investigation, but there are serious questions to answer here. Isabel, your thoughts on this? Well, I don't think you can really prejudice an investigation. So, I mean, I think that they, I'm kind of semi-impressed by that statement, because it does sound like they are sort of doing something, and in fairness to them, it may have been that they have been waiting, kept waiting by the CPS for the advice that they needed. But what I would say is the police are very, very quick to go knocking down doors of people that tweet things they don't like, or do undercover, you know, citizen journalism that they don't like. They batter down doors and, you know, seize people and make them go into a police cell for several hours, and, you know, I don't really think that they needed to wait to interview Bob Villan, did they? I mean, maybe they have, but they're not telling us that, but certainly 124 days seems a very, very long period of time, and the guy did it on national television. Yeah, it was not a subtle thing, was it? It wasn't, well, exactly. A bit of breaking news here, I'll get your reaction to this as well, Isabel. Keir Starmer and his independent advisor in ministerial standards have been passed new information, an email sent and received by Chancellor Rachel Reeves's husband regarding their rental arrangements downing street has said. Why didn't they just do all this in the first place and get this out of the way? Oh, I don't know. It's like these tiny little developments that just make it worse and worse and worse. And then you begin to think, is this going the Angela Rayner way, and I'm going to have to eat my words and she is going to have to resign. God, it's horrible being a minister, isn't it? I mean, just for a second, there's just a tiny bit of spare thought. You cannot do anything wrong, can you? You cannot do the tiniest thing, you can't overlook. I'm going to just stand up for politicians here. You know, my partner Richard Tice is a politician. I see it from that side of things. You know, they are dealing with a million and one things every day. They are, and I've worked with politicians and I'm somewhere close to you on this. However, however, when there's a scandal, when it involves really straightforward stuff that actually, emails, redacted, whatever, just first rule of... Put it all out there. First rule of crisis calms, put it all out there, get it all out there. Don't send a letter late at night. I mean, they were clearly worried about the markets. You know, when she cried the last time, the pound tanked. So clearly they were worried about markets. Yeah. Isabel, thank you, as always. I do love a scandal, obviously. That's what we're here for. Yes, indeed.