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Is Nigel Farage becoming more left-wing than Keir Starmer? | LBC
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May 25, 2025
Nigel Farage will commit to restoring the winter fuel payment to all pensioners and to scrapping the two-child benefit cap, reports have suggested. The Reform UK leader is expected to appeal to left-wing voters with the moves in a speech next week. LBC callers debate if Nigel Farage is becoming 'more left leaning' than Keir Starmer or wether this is just an 'opportunistic' move by the Reform leader. 0:00 - Angela Rayner brands Farage a 'snake oil salesman' 3:08 - Caller Edith says people need to take 'accountability' for having children 6:00 - Caller Daniel says Reform's policy is 'full-costed' 8:49 - Caller Anthony accuses Nigel Farage of 'jumping on a bandwagon' 11:47 - 'Farage is a once in a hundred year politician', says caller Chris 13:58 Caller Chris and Ali Miraj debate over what Farage is 'offering to the public' Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #alimiraj #nigelfarage #keirstarmer #poverty #rightwing #leftwing #conservative #labour #ukpolitics #benefits #debate #LBC LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/
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0:00
If the Labour government doesn't or doesn't fully commit to one policy change
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lifting this cap that was introduced by George Osborne, which is accepted to lift 250,000 children
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out of poverty in one go, is that a Labour government really worth the name? Because quite
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a lot of their own backbenchers that I speak to say, look, what is the point of us being in
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government if we just take away benefits from disabled people, if we just take away benefits
0:30
from pensions and we don't do anything on really totemic labour issues like child poverty
0:37
I want to alleviate children out of poverty. It's one of the main things I came into government for
0:42
I grew up in a workless household, free siblings and child benefit, you know, didn't save us from
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the poverty. But there was a council house that supported us. Being in work is one of the main
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drivers have been able to contribute and support the family. So there's a number of measures
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that I think will alleviate and bring down those child poverty figures
1:04
But the question, this alone, this one decision, regardless of everything else you're talking about
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this one decision would, according to independent experts, lift a quarter of a million children out
1:13
of poverty overnight. I mean, why would a Labour government not do that
1:17
Well, as I say, we're looking as part of our child poverty task force, that is in scope within that
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task force but we're looking at all of the issues that are creating child poverty and it's not a
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silver bullet ben that's what i'm saying to people the reality is this is not but it is for those
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quarter of a million children who see themselves out of poverty out of poverty so for example the
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free breakfast clubs that we've rolled out that's going to increase save families over 450 pound
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a year and will give children the best start in life getting into the school ready and being
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before they get into school and able to learn. So we're already taking measures
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And when the economy improves more, we want to take further measures
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And we'll outline that as part of our child poverty task force later this year
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Even Nigel Farage is reportedly going to come out this week and say reform, if it was in government
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would lift that two-child limit. That according to the Sunday Telegraph today. You've been outflanked on child poverty
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as a Labour Party by Nigel Farage. Well, Nigel Farage says a lot of things, but the reality is, like for my employment rights bill that lifted, you know, gave people secure work, banned zero hour contracts
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He didn't vote for it. He voted against it. He voted against working people. So he can say he's going to give jam tomorrow. But with all things, Nigel Farage, snake oil salesman, it's not real
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And he's not said where the money's coming from. And therefore, I wouldn't believe a word he says on it
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If there's any government that's going to do something on this and eradicate child poverty, it's a Labour government
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And we're determined to do that through our task force by looking at child poverty in the round
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And as we grow the economy, using that money to protect young people and give them the best opportunities in life, which is one of our key plan for change
3:07
Where do you want to start? Child benefit cap or winter fuel? Child benefit cap. I think that, to be honest with you, there needs to be a bit more accountability
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in this society, there was a fair amount of notice given that there was going to be a cap
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if you have more than two children and if you're on benefits. I think if you can't afford to have
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more children then you shouldn't. I happen to know several people that have got one child and are
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deciding not to have any more because of affordability. They're also the same people that
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pay the higher rate of tax into this system. I also know several women and couples who've decided
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not to have children because they don't feel at the right time, they can't afford it. They want to make sure that the children they bring into this world
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have nice experiences, have a good quality of life. They don't feel they're at that position
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so they making the decision not to have children whereas other people reproduce But aren you Even if that right Edith aren you punishing the children for what you might think is a failure or a mistake of their parents
4:08
No, I think another solution, and I don't know what that is, needs to be found in order to help the children that are already here
4:16
I did hear it last week. What do you mean when you say already here
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Because these are the people we're talking about. These are the people who maybe, maybe you're right
4:24
Maybe their parents simply had more children they can afford, or maybe they had children they could afford
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and then their circumstances changed. But either way, we've got 3 million or so children
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in this country living... In fact, 30% of all children in this country right now
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live in poverty. I think that's an absolute disgrace. That is a really high number and that is really sad
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30%? Yeah, no, and they need help. I'm not saying that children should live in poverty
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because of the mistakes adults have made. But this is the one thing, more than any other
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that the government could do to lift a quarter of a million of those children out of poverty
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And I would say, I hear what you're saying, but I would say, regardless of what their parents might have done wrong in your eyes
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or anybody else's eyes, you don't keep children in poverty because you don't like decisions their parents have made
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No, I think there needs to be something done to address that. I'm not saying they should be left to sit in poverty
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but I think the danger of scrapping the two-child policy is that
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OK, now you can have three children. OK, well, actually, no, now there's another, you know, three million children in poverty
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So now we need to increase it to four child cap policy. I just think where will it stop
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So I think there needs to be more education. And also there is a bigger picture in the sense that if you've got children who are in households where, you know, they're not getting the support they need
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they're not getting the time, the attention they need, parents are having to work, you know, all the hours of the day and so on
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These then become children that left on the street, get into all kinds of trouble
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like the education needs to come at a different angle and I don't think giving people a green light
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to have more children and you know regardless of it don't worry we'll help you
6:01
So reform's 28 page policy document is actually fully costed to the tune of 141 billion pounds
6:08
and in the context of raising the two child benefit cap and reinstating the winter fuel
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allowance universally we're only talking about five billion pounds out of total government spending
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alley of a trillion pounds five billion pounds could be found tomorrow you could for example
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for example reduce the overseas climate aid budget from 11.6 billion to around six billion
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by doing that and and overseas countries would still get six billion pounds but we would be
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able to help the poorest children in this country and help pensioners who've worked all their lives
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well also uh to be fair uh daniel zia youssef reforms party chairman has said that the party
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would pay for policies like the reinstatement of winter fuel payment and this two-child benefit cap
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being scrapped by cutting the foreign aid budget and closing asylum hotels and ending net zero
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subsidies. I mean, just to give a flavour of this, overseas aid in the last year, 15.3 billion spent
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on it, 0.5% of GDP. And also on asylum hotels, we've spent about 3 billion. So there is money
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there to be saved? There is, absolutely. Look, the Home Office itself agrees that asylum
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accommodation is costing us £4 billion a year over this Parliament. That's £20 billion. So when
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we're talking about money for the poorest children in this country and pensioners who deserve their
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winter fuel allowance, it's peanuts. And it really frustrates me, Ali, and I'm grateful to you for
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highlighting on LBC, that there is this sort of false argument, this logical fallacy, mostly from
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people on the left that say, oh, where are you going to cut? Where are you going to cut? How are
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you going to raise the money? How are reform going to pay for all of this? When we're talking about
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a trillion pounds of government spending, when we're talking about this current Labour government
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wasting £22 billion on untested carbon capture, £4 billion a year on asylum accommodation
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billions of pounds on over aid we talking about tens of billions of pounds of money that is going to causes that are not in the UK that deserve to be Do you think endless welfarism is where the public is
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No, absolutely not. I don't think endless welfarism. I think people want to see their taxes spent properly
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But I think, Ali, if we're talking about great British values and if we talk about the values of reform that Nigel and
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