: “It’s hard to hear how the Tories approached the ULEZ debate from some kind of moral standpoint as if they cared about working-class people.” - Jess Barnard
In this week’s news roundtable episode, Chris Wright CBE is joined by two bright young political minds with opposing standpoints: political commentator, and Communications Officer at the Institute of Economic Affairs, Reem Ibrahim, and Labour Party National Executive Committee Member, Jess Barnard. The conversation kicks off with Labour’s recent political crisis over ULEZ in the backdrop to their by-election defeat in Uxbridge. They ask why green policies seem to be hurting working-class families. Chris and the panel talk about pay and taxation. Is the system fair? How do we solve the housing crisis? Is it just building more houses – or even, more affordable housing – or do we need the government to make laws that bring prices down in the housing and renting markets? Whilst discussing whether we should build on green belt land, Reem tells us what ‘nimbies’ are…
They turn to Nigel Farage and discuss how he manages to get away with portraying himself as a man of the people in this week’s media sprawl regarding his Coutts bank account closure. Finally, Chris turns the discussion to Elon Musk and why he seems to have bought Twitter to destroy it. Since his takeover, Twitter’s stock value reduced drastically and the recent logo rebrand from the iconic blue bird to an ‘X’ has caused outrage. The panel discuss the importance of Twitter in politics and political debate and the implications of Musk’s actions.
“It’s hard to hear how the Tories approached the ULEZ debate from some kind of moral standpoint as if they cared about working-class people.” – Jess Barnard
“The solution to tackling poverty is not taxing the rich more it is incentivising growth.” – Reem Ibrahim
In this episode we discuss:
- The Uxbridge by-election
- ULEZ
- Pay and taxation
- The housing crisis
- Nigel Farage’s bank account
- Elon Musk and Twitter/X
Tags mentioned:
UK Politics
