Cheat Sheet | Reeves's income tax U-turn, renting reforms and Ariana Grande ambushed

0:00Well, hello. You might be expecting the daily, but Anna Jones and I are here to interrupt your regular scheduled programming to give you a taste of another offer from Sky News. This is called Cheat Sheet. It's a podcast that gets you up to speed with what's happening without all the doom scrolling. So I do hope you enjoy. And if you do, give us a follow. Hello and good morning. You're listening to Cheat Sheet, the podcast that gets you up to speed without all of the doom scrolling. I'm Kamali Melbourne. And I'm Anna Jones. It's Friday the 14th of November and this is what's happening today. Yeah, the government seem to have U-turned on breaking their promise in the budget.

0:38Later reporting says the income tax won't increase on November the 26th. But where will the Chancellor get the money to fill that£30 billion shortfall in the nation's accounts? That's the big question. Also, the BBC has responded to Donald Trump's$1 billion lawsuit over that edit of a Panorama episode. This comes hours ahead of his deadline of 10pm tonight. And an intruder has gotten on to the yellow carpet for the Wicked Premier in Singapore. So we understand the Chancellor is dropping plans to raise income tax in what's a massive U-turn, less than a fortnight from the budget. That's despite weeks of hints from Rachel Reeves that a hike might be needed to plug a huge fiscal black hole.

1:25It was first reported by the Financial Times and it's thought that she ditched the plans over fears that breaking promises the party made to voters before being elected would spark a backlash. And Kamali, it really does look like an extraordinary U-turn by the Chancellor, doesn't it? So close to the budget. We're just two weeks away now. And we saw all that groundwork that Rachel Reeves had been doing. Just last week, we got that news conference that was really unusual in the first place that appeared to be laying the ground for exactly this move. She ruled out the other options for filling the black hole, like increasing borrowing or cutting spending.

2:07And she said everyone has to play their part. And apparently behind the scenes as well, there was lots of schmoozing of MPs in the tea rooms, trying to get them round to their way of thinking and saying this was going to be necessary. But now they look like they've got cold feet. They're obviously worried that MPs are fearful of trying to sell this to voters. They went into the election on this manifesto promise of not raising taxes on working people. And they're really worried about backlash. And it comes after these last few days of seeing all this internal warfare within the party and these leaks about the government apparently being worried about some kind of leadership challenge.

2:47So this kind of plays into those fears that the fact that they are worried about disgruntled MPs and perhaps all that discussion about warfare has made matters even worse. Yeah, it suggests weakness, doesn't it? I'm a little uncomfortable even using the term U-term because this wasn't going to be the plan, was it, right? This is true. And it's also not in black and white. The budget hasn't been announced yet. Yeah, but apparently they have reported this to the Office for Budget Responsibility in their submission, which they have to do to make sure that the OBR are happy with the Treasury's figures.

3:20So I don't think they are going to raise it because it would have been manifesto busting promise. And after the week that they've had, they want to make sure that they keep Labour Party members on side. I think you're right to point out that they're terrified of having to try and sell this on the doorstep, breaking a manifesto promise and raising the tax burden when we're already at the highest tax burden in, what, 70 or something years. It's not the sort of thing that such an unpopular government is going to be willing to do. But how are they going to fill the hole? This is the question, right?

3:47Adding 1p to the higher rate of income tax would generate about 5.8 billion over the next three years. That's HMRC data. So it goes some way towards it. The government are going to do little things to try and get towards that amount. Remember, this is the second time they're coming back to try and fill this huge space in the public accounts. And on the sort of left of the Labour Party, there are calls for this wealth tax. an idea to put 1 % levy on annual wealth over 500 ,000. The Wealth Tax Commission claimed that that could range£160 billion. That's£30 billion annually. So that would be a huge thing.

4:25It's not something the government's going to do, but it just shows you those are the options they have in front of them. And one wonders which option they're going to pick. Now, the BBC has had to apologise to President Trump over the way that they edited his speech on January the 6th, that speech which preceded a riot, an attack on the US Capitol, and death threats to members of Congress. But they've rejected his call for him to be compensated. Two of their most senior executives, the Director General Tim Davey, and the Head of News Deborah Ternes, have both quit over all of this. Lawyers for the Biebs say they sincerely regret the edit but disagree.

5:00It is the basis for a defamation claim. The Corporation Chair, Samir Shah, has also sent a personal note to President Trump saying sorry. Now, earlier in the week, Trump gave the BBC a deadline of 10pm today to retract and apologise before he would launch his billion dollar lawsuit. And now that they've apologised officially, one wonders how Trump will respond. Is it going to be enough in any way to assuage his issues with the BBC? I know that's the question now. And we're all waiting for Trump to post on his true social to tell us, I guess. And he asked for three things, didn't he? He wanted a retraction, an apology, and compensation.

5:36And they've kind of ticked two of those boxes, haven't they? We've had the apology. We've seen the chair of the BBC send a personal letter to Donald Trump saying that it was a mistake and the panorama made an error of judgment. We've also got a retraction. The programme won't be broadcast again in this form or on any BBC platforms, but they're not offering compensation. And they clearly do feel that they have a strong legal case. And perhaps they're also mindful of the fact that if they were going to pay any money, It would come from license fees. Absolutely, absolutely. But it's interesting this because the BBC do have form in paying damages to a foreign leader.

6:12Back in 2019, they played the former president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, damages for a report. And here's how the irony of all of this. This actually related to Donald Trump as well. The apology was because of an incorrect report claiming a payment was made to extend a meeting between President Poroshenko and President Trump. It's amazing how Trump just fills in all of our sort of history in recent years. So the BBC have done it before. Will they do it again? I don't think they're going to want to in this particular instance because of the reasons you point out. But as everyone has said, Samir Shah himself, the chair, Trump is a litigious man.

6:46And he has said in recent days that it is his duty essentially to sue the BBC and get damages out of them. So let's wait and see for that on his Truth Social. sure. Now, thousands of medics will gather on picket lines in England this morning as a five-day strike gets underway. Leaders at the NHS Confederation and NHS providers have warned if walkouts continue, they may have to cut frontline staff plus appointments and operations. So the trade union representing the doctors, the BMA, the British Medical Association, says that pay is still a fifth lower than it was in 2008 once inflation is taken into account.

7:22And that's why they're taking this action. The government, though, is pointing out that its 29 % settlement last year was one of the largest in the public sector and was intended to draw a line under two years of walkouts. The last strike in July was estimated to have cost the health service£300 million. And this is the 13th walkout by doctors since March 2023. Yeah, it's reportedly, according to a survey in The Times, quite an unpopular move. 48 % said that the strike should be called off and the remaining 19 % said that they were unsure. But it would seem as if resident doctors, formerly junior doctors, are digging in and perhaps actually becoming a little bit more militant with all of this.

8:04There is now the threat that they could strike every single month in 2026 if their pay demands aren't met. And as you point out there, they are, they say, still way off pay parity with where they should be because of the cuts. But no sign that the health secretary is going to give in to those demands. Now the government has said that landlords will be banned from evicting their tenants without reason from the beginning of May next year. It's part of huge reforms to the Renters' Rights Act. Landlords won't be allowed to increase rent more than once a year, and they'll be prevented from allowing bidding wars between prospective tenants.

8:37The government has set out the timeline to give landlords and letting agents time to see the changes through for their tenants. But there's been a lot of backlash over the plans. Now, under the plans, the landlords will no longer be able to discriminate against tenants for being on benefits or having kids and will not be able to unreasonably refuse requests for their tenants to own pence. Now, for the Labour government, this is quite a significant move for them. It's something that they promised while in opposition and now they've finally got it through. But as we've laid out there, there is a bit of resistance, certainly from landlords, that this is going to make it more complicated for them to be able to rent their properties out.

9:13Well, yeah, tenant groups, happy about it. Landlords worried that more red tape, potentially higher costs and dealing with tenants who they think might take advantage of the new rights. Some of them are saying, well, we might sell out and get out of the business of landlording. And that could mean fewer properties on the market, which could push prices up. That's what the fears are around. And we already know there's a housing crisis and people are short of home. So anything that does that will be a problem. now i'm not sure if you've seen the video of ariana grande at the premiere of wicked for good well the singer and actor was sort of ambushed by what looked like a fan the man jumped over a barricade ran up to her wrapped his arms around her and to be fair she did look pretty scared in the video didn't she and ariana grande has previously spoken about her struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety following the bombing at her manchester arena concert back in May 2017, which left 22 people dead, of course.

10:13And we did see her co-star Cynthia Erivo come to her rescue. She lent over Ariana and separated the man from her. And she's getting a lot of praise for that online. This man is a prankster, TikTok prankster, apparently. He's got a history of doing this sort of thing. He got on stage in Singapore in June as well at Katy Perry Kig as well at a concert for the weekend in Australia. He also got onto the track for the 100 metre finals in the 2024 Paris Olympics and the 2023 Cricket World Cup finals. But as you point out, Ariana Grande has suffered an immense tragedy while out in public. So this sort of thing will not help her PTSD that she'll be suffering from that situation in any way, shape or form.

10:55All right, well, that is today's Cheat Sheet. If you've got a story you'd like us to cover, do get in touch and let us know about it. The email is cheatsheet at sky.uk. Remember to follow the feed so that you never miss an episode. Goodbye.