Labour MP: This budget is make or break for Starmer

In an exclusive PoliticsJOE interview, Labour MP Neil Duncan-Jordan speaks candidly before Rachel Reeves’ budget lands tomorrow. After widespread leaks suggesting the two-child benefit cap will be lifted, Duncan-Jordan joins us to discuss what this moment means for the country, the current Labour government, and the cost of living crisis.

Duncan-Jordan, who lost the whip after repeatedly voting against the government on welfare cuts, calls the expected abolition of the two-child limit a “massive victory" and the single most effective step the government could take to lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty. But he also questions why it has taken so long, arguing that Labour failed to "put its arm around the nation” when it entered government and instead made decisions that worsened hardship for pensioners, low-income families, and disabled people.

Ahead of the budget, he sets out what he believes a “budget for living standards” should include: fairer taxation on wealth, council housebuilding funded through pension investment, a nationwide energy social tariff, a stronger safety net, and higher wages backed by collective bargaining. He also warns against relying on stealth taxes like frozen income tax thresholds, which drag low-paid workers and pensioners into paying more.

Duncan-Jordan also takes aim at corporate lobbyists, questions the government’s restrictive fiscal rules, and criticises Shabana Mahmood's recent immigration reforms as “one of the most un-British things" he's ever heard.

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