Louise Haigh

I mean, it's worth noting that probably the three most powerful people in the country didn't participate in the vote.

Louise Haigh, John Healey, and of course, the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham.

And the first two of those had voted yes at third reading last year and were now non-voters.

Now, I don't know why they didn't vote.

It, it's a bit of a mouthful.

It's called "The Simplification and Agency of Government." That's its title, and it's co-signed by John Healey, the Chancellor, Louise Haigh as the First Secretary of State at the Cabinet Office, and, uh, by, uh, the Attorney General, um, Ellie Reeves.

And it's fa- it's quite fascinating.

Okay.

It's- it's just disgraceful that we're still doing that.

No, we have to remember that Louise Haigh as well, who is essentially the deputy prime minister, has said in the past that a genocide is taking place, and, uh, she's- she's Andy Burnham's right-hand woman, so.

Mm.

Um, but, uh, on what Peter Oborne said, I think it is worth pointing out this would not have happened under Keir Starmer.

And that's Burnham's vision.

And it's implicit in everything that Louise Hay was saying.

This is someone who has no comprehension.

of actually how an economy works.

The plans, first reported by the FT, also include an internal reassessment of government preparations for a military attack by a hostile state affecting Britain.

The Cabinet Office minister, Louise Haigh, who is Andy Burnham's de facto deputy, is also understood to be coordinating crisis planning across departments in Whitehall to allow swifter assistance to affected communities." There's more to this.

I just wanna kinda say for sake of time, we'll stop here in the article, but it is good that the government is preparing for these things and taking these steps to do it.

It is bad that it is necessary that they must do so.

And like a dog with a bone when it came to helping her friend Andy Burnham become Prime Minister.

Insiders say it was Midgley, along with fellow MP Louise Haigh, who were organizing behind the scenes, finding Burnham the best seat to contest, devising a quirky northern soul inspired by-election campaign, even persuading her ex-husband, Bob Stanley, to let them use St Etienne's song Nothing Can Stop Us Now on the campaign trail.

And as we know, it paid off.

Midgley at Burnham's side when he was officially introduced into the Commons at the end of June, and just four weeks later, into number 10, a cabinet role, appointed chief whip.

They are trying a little bit on certain areas to push back, but they don't have much of a say In, you know, much ability to do so.

And then on top of that, you've got Louise Haigh, who is kind of operating her, as her own policy chief, from what I can tell, and to a certain extent, that is the job of that, you know, chief minister in the Cabinet Office.

But I think a lot of the policy work is going on with her and then her advisor, Nick Williams, and then they've got to figure out what role the Number Ten policy unit is gonna play.

I mean, we kind of know a few of the people who are going to be in it, but it is very much up in the air as to who is gonna take a lot of those key jobs.

How is this going to work with Whitehall? Uh [chuckles] and what's your early take?

I don't really quite understand the theory here because, and I wonder if this is a symptom of different people competing in different parts of government.

We know that Louise Haigh supported splitting the Treasury, as have plenty of people in the past.

Put one department in charge of spending and then one department in charge of growth.

Which branches on the money tree?

Mauricio and I worked on this sort of long feature, um, trawling through, uh, previous comments of ministers, uh, like Louise Haigh, who seems to have a, an outsized influence on, on tax policy, um, given she's not actually in the Treasury.

She's got a surprising hold on tax policy.

Yes.

... which is a, a sort of shake-up of property tax, which I know that Mart- is Martyn's bete noire.

Wasn't, wasn't a fan of this one.

So, so there is, uh, uh, Louise Haigh again in this paper that she wrote for, um, Renewal, uh, threw her weight behind this idea of a, a land value tax whereby, uh, you basically get rid of stamp duty, um, you get rid of council tax, um, and then basically fold both of those into one tax called the land value tax, which is an annual big tax on the property or lands that you own.

Um, it has a lot of support from economists who basically hate those two taxes that are currently in place, council tax and stamp duty, for various reasons.

The evening TikTok at 6:00 PM.

But look, it's even strange that they're saying this about Andy Burnham when the person who's basically driving his whole agenda is Louise Haigh.

Mm-hmm.

Right?

That's true

... what to think, uh, in my view, by Jim O'Neill and, and by Andy Haldane and by Andy Burnham, okay? That's why he got the job.

So one could argue the two most powerful people in government after Andy Burnham are Louise Haigh and Anneliese Midgley.

They're the real power brokers.