Why does Rory Stewart say wealth tax leaks before budgets hurt the Labour government?

Rory Stewart argued that before every Labour budget, the party's left and allied think tanks talk up wealth taxes and capital gains rises that the chancellor never delivers. In his view this freezes investment, scares international business and makes the government look more left-wing than it is. He wanted Labour to own its fiscal rules as a pro-business creed, as Gordon Brown would have done, rather than treating them as an election tactic. Alastair Campbell replied that budget discipline had improved and that denying every story drags ministers into endless running commentary.

• Stewart credited Rachel Reeves and John Healey with sticking to orthodox economics despite the speculation.
• Campbell said the long gap between the election and the Starmer government's first budget had made the problem worse.

▸In their words

“budgets, they're like reshuffles. People just love to write about them in advance.” Alastair Campbell · at 12:45 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on The Rest Is Politics (2026-10-28). Read the whole episode summary →

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