The Transatlantic Tea 22

Between Thanksgiving and a huge amount of US foreign policy and domestic news - I hope you weren’t expecting a very lengthy Tea on how the UK budget went down out here. But let me show you how it was covered….

UK Budget/economy

The Chancellor may be happy with the NYT headline on its main analysis piece - ‘UK Budget Plan Calms Markets and Labour Faithful. Will it appeal to voters’, but it was full of pretty negative commentariat quotes, such as ‘It was a weak budget by a weak chancellor, trying to shore up a weak position.’ from Robert Ford, a Professor of Politics. A further piece led with ‘$30bn in tax rises’ and covered Reeves’s argument that global economic shocks meant a change in approach was needed. They also did a deep dive piece on youth unemployment, with a focus on Bristol. Breitbart covered the Budget under the headline ‘Economic Doom Loop’.

WSJ has two brutal opeds from their Editorial Board:

• Britain’s Big Welfare Con Job which says ‘Stirring up a phony fiscal crisis helped Ms Reeves hide an annual £16bn in new welfare spending in plain sight’ and describes their approach as a warning for American Democrats.

• Britain Budgets for National Decline which describes the budget as ‘A Laffer Curve tale for the ages.” and concludes “it’s hard to imagine who would want to work or invest more under this tax regime.” It also includes the line ‘As for spending restraint, fuhgeddaboutit.’ - and am including here just because I’m really confused why it didn’t just say ‘forget about it’. Any ideas?!

Best of the rest:

• On Thursday, Breitbart’s front page led with a story that Labour Together was trying to destroy them (and other ‘new media’), blaming Morgan McSweeney. They site the efforts Starmer has made to court the President but then adds their evidence "‘makes clear the “Starmer Machine” worked diligently to destroy the new media ecosystem around the now two-times President.’

• Newsmax covered Reform’s £9m donation, giving the critical context for Americans who may be bemused as to why this was big news by adding “The size of donations tends to be much smaller than in the U.S.”

• CNN did a video story on ‘Why are there so many Trader Joe’s bags in London’ (….but Times readers will already have read about this phenomenon in July)

I may write The Transatlantic Tea, but I won’t say no to a coffee.
If you’re enjoying the read, buy me a coffee to keep the content brewing

And if you’re looking for the perfect Christmas present for your comms colleagues….