Could sacking Rayner make her a ‘backbench martyr’?

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1:57This is Political Coancy with Ed Balls and George Osborne.

2:10Ed Balls: So we are back in the studio in Hoxton. It is September. It's raining. It's autumnal. Politics is back to business as usual. Government's in chaos. Another tax scandal. you know normal september activity and george has had i think you know a very different a more

2:30George Osborne: exciting morning i've had a lovely morning and well quite you know it's always a bit traumatic for the parents for theory but we dropped bo off for his first day at school i think it turned out to be a bigger thing for us than for him he's invited he trotted on into the school look as a

2:46Ed Balls: parent you want your kids to be kind of traumatized first day at school when they run in really happy glad to leave you behind i know and get on with it it's actually quite emotional you think hang hang on a sec, you know, it's supposed to be tough for you, not for me.

2:58George Osborne: I know, we were left crying on the pavement. He was smiling and running in. Anyway, hopefully he's having a wonderful time while we are recording this podcast. And there is a lot, there's back to school for politics, isn't it? In this episode, aren't we? We're going to talk about Angela Rayner and her tax affairs, which have just exploded to dominate the political headlines this week.

3:17Ed Balls: And then we're going to talk about August into September and the way in which Nigel Farage and reform have really been dominating and driving the political agenda, even with Nigel Farage this week off in Washington, giving evidence to a House committee on free speech. It's still been the case. We've been talking about those reform issues all week, and we're going to talk about how that's happened, how the government's handling it, how the opposition's handling it, and whether this is a sign of things to come.

3:49George Osborne: And then how is Downing Street equipped to deal with all of this, whether it's the personal issues of members of the cabinet dealing with Nigel Farage, dealing with Donald Trump. Well, there's been a reshuffle, not the big reshuffle I think people were expecting of the cabinet or even most of the ministerials ranks below that. But there's been a reshuffle of Downing Street. I think the second time this has happened since Keir Starman became prime minister. We're going to look at some of the appointments, the officials behind the scenes, but also this new job of Chief Secretary for the Prime Minister, which is a brand new invention in British politics, Darren Jones.

4:26George Osborne: And we're going to look at, you know, is this going to make any difference? Does it matter how you set up your Downing Street? The answer is yes, but maybe not as much as people think. But I don't want to give away the punchline right now. Should we start then with the thing that I guess the government definitely don't want to be talking about right now, which is the Deputy Prime Minister's tax affairs.

4:48Ed Balls: Keir Starmer says this week was the beginning of phase two of his government. Phase two wasn't supposed to be like this.

4:53George Osborne: No. So the background to this is Angela Rayner, who we saw some lovely holiday photos of, behaving, I think, like many Britons, sitting in a kind of paddleboard in the English Channel with a vape in her hand.

5:05Ed Balls: Probably an Aperol spritz as well.

5:07George Osborne: Yeah. And she has bought an apartment in Hove and she said she paid the right amount of stamp duty on it. Some of the newspapers, some of the Tory press went after on this. And then this week, as we record this podcast just really 48 hours ago or so, she has declared that she actually didn't pay the right amount of stamp duty. In other words, the kind of newspaper critics were right. And she's volunteered or not volunteered. She is going to pay the full amount and maybe pay an HMRC penalty. But her case has been referred by the prime minister to this independent ethics advisor called Laurie Magus, who was actually appointed by Rishi Sunak.

5:49George Osborne: And so Westminster awaits her fate. And I guess there's broader questions of how the government handled this scandal, if you can call it scandal, what the opposition parties are doing about it. And is it one of these things that's going to come and go? Or is there a wider damage for the government here?

6:07Ed Balls: Well, just to kind of talk through the last week up to this referral to the commissioner first. I mean, this is Angela Rayner, who probably more than any other Labour politician in opposition went heavily after Tory cabinet ministers who are getting into trouble, whether that was Boris Johnson, Preeti Patel, Nadeem Zahawi.

6:29George Osborne: On tax issues.

6:30Ed Balls: On tax issues. I mean, he ended up having to pay£5 million back to the HMRC after an investigation. Angela Rayner was saying he should resign before the investigation was complete. Every pound not paid in tax, she said, was a pound lost to public services. So she certainly went pretty heavy on these issues, on the attack in opposition. She also had challenges around taxation in opposition, was chased heavily by the Conservatives. Saw that off, but I mean, you know, it was a kind of draining process.

7:04George Osborne: On a similar issue of having multiple residences, wasn't it?

7:06Ed Balls: And whether she'd paid the appropriate tax. This then breaks last week in the, I think it was in the Telegraph and in the Times, in the Daily Mail, all those papers were reporting it. And her people go out and say, no, she paid all the tax which was owed on the purchase of this flat in Hove. The issue then kind of crystallised as, well, had she paid the stamp duty, which everybody would normally pay if they're buying a house or should she have paid more stamp duty because this was going to be a second home on which you pay a higher stamp duty charge that's uh thanks to me

7:44George Osborne: by the way i introduced that additional stamp duty charge but it is there are complicated situations where it's not obvious what your second home is for most people it would be but uh as we'll

7:56Ed Balls: see in this case it is quite complicated keir starmer on monday out saying as he announced the new phase two of his government, that big support for Angela Rayner, how important she is in his government, that she was being briefed against and introduced. Other cabinet ministers out supporting her. And then on Wednesday morning, Angela Rayner announced that just before Prime Minister's questions, in fact, she had discovered, having asked for extra advice from a Casey, a King's Council, that the initial advice she'd had that she could pay the lower stamp duty charge was wrong and she was referring herself to as you said the independent standards commissioner we were um interviewing bridget philipson the education secretary this morning about child care of course the whole industry is on good morning britain dominated by angela uh rayner um it was bridget philipson on sunday who was out defending angela rayner one of those um those moments where as a cabinet minister you really hope the lines to take you've been given are correct.

8:56Ed Balls: And this was the exchange which we had on Good Morning Britain, in which we played back to Bridget Phillips and what she had said on Times Radio just a few days earlier.

9:07George Osborne: You were, as late as three or four days ago, defending Angela Rayner. Let's have a quick look. Angela Rayner has been clear that she's followed all the rules and requirements of her. She has done everything that has been asked of her. She's an adult. If she wants to buy a flat, she can buy a flat. You must feel a bit miffed or a bit silly that it turned out she hadn't done it all properly. I mean I set out my understanding at the time it was also Angela Rayner's understanding that she'd acted in good faith that she paid what was necessary but because of all of the discussion that was taking place she took the decision to seek further advice.

9:43George Osborne: That advice came back and concluded that there was additional stamp duty to be paid. Angela admits therefore that she made a mistake.

9:49Ed Balls: So you can see from Bridget Philipson's point of view, from Angela Rainer's team's point of view, Keir Starmer's point of view, they've all gone out and said she paid the right amount of tax. This is all Tory smears. And then she's on the basis of new advice. Now, it's complicated what's happened here. She's revealed lots of private information about her family situation, her disabled son. She explained there was a court order preventing this being made public, which she had lifted in order she can explain it. She thought that having sold her stake in the family home in the North West to her son, who has a trust fund with compensation money in that from the cause of his disability, that she thought that at that point owned no properties, was buying a new property in Hove with her partner, her only property, and therefore she would pay the lowest stamp duty charge.

10:50Ed Balls: She says that the advice she had from solicitors, from lawyers, was that that was right. But then following these charges against her, she's had King's Council advice, who says, in fact, the complexity of trust law means that it's not her first property, and therefore she is liable for the higher tax charge. And that's what's been referred to the Independent Standards Commissioner.

11:14George Osborne: But isn't it? I mean, the problem she's got is it both fails the actual test of how much tax should you have paid and it fails the smell test because, by the way, she's also living in a taxpayer-funded grand apartment in the Admiralty in Whitehall. So her primary residence, where she spends most of her time, she may not own, the British people own, but they're housing her there. And, look, there is absolutely no doubt, in my mind, two things. One is, if this was a Tory minister and Angela Rayner was in opposition, she would be going full guns at this Tory minister, telling them they had to resign.

11:51George Osborne: And second, if she was more junior, less powerful, not the elected, and I think that's crucial for people to understand, she is the elected deputy leader of the Labour Party, which is not the same as being the deputy prime minister. She could be a backbench MP and still be the elected deputy. But if she was not this person of real power in the Labour Party, she would have been fired by now because Keir Starmer has been ruthless in getting rid of more junior people. There was the junior housing minister, Rosh Hashanah Ali, who was essentially fired at the beginning of the summer because of the way she had let out her apartments in East London.

12:28George Osborne: So, A, if this was a Tory minister, she'd be the first out of the trench. attacking them. And second, do you agree with me that if she was a junior minister, she'd have been fired by now?

12:41Ed Balls: Yes, I think that is completely right. I mean, I think there is some sympathy for her personal situation. Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, who himself has a disabled son, said supportive things about her yesterday, while the Conservatives obviously called for her to resign immediately. And when people turn around and say, I know, but Nadim Sahawi didn't resign immediately. Priti Patel didn't resign at all when Alex Allen, the Independent Ethics Commissioner, found that she had been involved in bullying behaviour. Conservatives turn around and say, I know, but Angela Rayner was the person who was on the moral high ground demanding others resign, and it's hypocritical of her.

13:20Ed Balls: One rule for everybody else, a different rule for her, for her not to resign. The case you didn't mention was Louise Haig, who, as a cabinet minister, was essentially told by Keir Starmer to resign over something she had disclosed to him, an event which had happened around the stealing of a mobile phone 10 years before. So I think this is interesting for two reasons. First of all, a bit like the allegations against Keir Starmer in COVID and whether he had broken COVID rules over that beer he had on a visit up to the North East. This has been put into an independent process. In his case, it was a police investigation.

14:00Ed Balls: In this case, referring this to the independent ethical advisor means that Angela Rayner can now wait to see what the result of that investigation is. We'll see in a few days. Will he say that she was clearly aiming to avoid tax or hadn't handed over all the proper information to the solicitor who gave her that first advice, in which case she's clearly gone? Will he say that while she was given this advice, she should have known better? She is the housing minister. She is a cabinet minister. She's somebody who has been in the spotlight in this case, and therefore she should have known better. I think in that situation, she's in a very difficult position as well.

14:44Ed Balls: Or does he say she acted entirely in good faith on the basis of the advice she was given? and therefore the moment she found out there was a problem, she's now declared it publicly and said she'll repay the tax, in which case, you know, does she stay in her post, as you say, with massive attacks on her for double standards and her hypocrisy or at least incompetence. But I think the really interesting question is for Keir Starmer here. In the case of Louise Haig, he acted immediately, did that with other junior ministers as well. He could have said to Angela Rayner on Wednesday, Angela, you've got to go.

15:21Ed Balls: But she had already handed this over. I don't know whether with his prior agreement to the independent ethical advisor. Let's say that Keir Starmer had required her to go. And then five days later, next Tuesday, she gets a clean bill of health. Suddenly what he's done at a time when the government standing in the polls is quite low. Keir Starmer is under quite a lot of political pressure. where next spring's local elections are going to be a very difficult moment for Keir Starmer as for Kemi Badenok. He's put onto the back benches an elected deputy leader with a lot of Labour Party political support who at that point looks like she didn't do anything wrong or at least it was a mistake on her part in good faith.

16:05Ed Balls: He's had a clean bill of health from the independent ethical advisor and Keir Starmer sacked her anyway. Keir Starmer does not want to be in that position at all. So I think all he can do now is wait for this report. And you know the phrase, better in the tent than out of the tent in.

16:22George Osborne: I think it's a Lyndon Johnson phrase, I think.

16:24Ed Balls: Well, I think Keir Starmer is almost certainly thinking, in this case, very different to Louise Haig, who has had standing on the backbench since she was sacked. He is worried about, you know, a martyr like Angela Rayner on the backbenchers becoming a pole of political opposition with strong support. Now, if the independent report is damning of her, then she's finished. But Keir Starmer can't afford to prejudge this. And that's why this is in such a delicate balance. On the other hand, I think you can definitely say, even if it looks like a clean bill of health narrowly, I mean, she's heavily damaged in the short term.

17:01Ed Balls: The Tories are on the rampage. I'm not sure what a good outcome is for Keir Starmer now.

17:05George Osborne: Well, I'm going to stick my neck out. On the basis of what I've read to date, and assuming there's not new information, I think she stays. She's too powerful, too important to be got rid of. And this independent process, we'll see what Megha says. I mean, you know, in the past, until this independent ethics advisor was appointed and this role was created in the sort of middle of the Tory period, what previous prime ministers would have done is ask the cabinet secretary to do a report. And I used to see some of these, you know, the cabinet secretary. In fact, Sue Gray was the person, ironically, used to do this for David Cameron under Jeremy Hayward's authority as cabinet secretary.

17:47George Osborne: And, you know, I remember the meeting. She'd come in and say, well, this is what we found, prime minister. And, you know, it wasn't that independent. It was independent in that the prime minister was told, you know, what the facts were. But there was definitely a kind of prime ministerial steer on how he wanted the report to then land up, where there was any kind of room for, well, do we want this person to go or not? You know, the Prime Minister could steer it. And that's not the case. So, you know, her fate is now in the hand of this independent person. But if you're Keir Starmer, I don't think you want her out of the government.

18:21George Osborne: As you say, you know, she'd become a magnet on the backbenchers and she's the only other person other than Keir Starmer with an elected position in the Labour Party itself. So that's the first case. Second, however, I think, you know, the kind of challenge for the government is, And I think it's a challenge particularly for Labour governments, although I'm sure that people will start screaming at their podcasts and say, you know, Tories are just as guilty of this. But I think sometimes there's a sort of blind spot amongst Labour politicians that they think like we're so obviously morally superior to the Tories.

18:54George Osborne: I don't think Tories think they're morally superior to Labour politicians. But Labour politicians, can't people see we're good people who want the best for the poorest in our society? How can people possibly think ill of us? Don't they understand she just made an honest mistake on her tax return, whereas obviously, you know, Nadeem Zahawi is some Tory crook. And I think that leads to this blind spot of which, by the way, Keir Starmer's accepting of the donations for his clothes and tickets at the beginning of the government was lethal to his reputation. And he, I think, from all the accounts I've had, people who know him and spoke to him about it, he just didn't see it.

19:31George Osborne: He couldn't see why this was a problem. And I can imagine at the moment people say, well, you know, she just made an honest mistake. And of course, she's got this very difficult family situation. But for the rest of the for the public, it just stinks of hypocrisy. And I think, you know, whatever happens, I think she remains in the government. And maybe it's not that personally damaging to her. Maybe in a year's time, you know, or even six months time, you know, wagon has moved on, although it definitely makes property taxes in the budget a bit more complicated. But for the Labour government, it's just yet another kind of blow and yet another moment when they're wanting to kind of start a different story about this government and in effect kind of relaunch it.

20:12George Osborne: And they've been knocked back and it plays, and we're going to come on to Farage, but it plays absolutely not so much into Tory hands, because I don't think anyone's sitting there going, oh, I don't believe a Tory politician would do this. But it plays into the hands of people who say you're all as bad as each other. you're all this politics we've got at the moment is corrupt and the you know this it was it's it's a kind of version of the brexiteer argument of the establishment's corrupt they're all as bad as each other you know we need to drain the swamp and i'm afraid it it does absolutely play into that in a very in a way that a lot of people are going to be able to understand we had a poll this

20:48Ed Balls: morning on good morning britain within an hour over 2 000 people 78 saying she should resign immediately. So I think at the moment, that is where a lot of public opinion is likely to be to be located. I think if the independent report is damning of her, either of her motive or her competence in revealing information, or the judgment that she was making, then she's in a lot of trouble. But if not, I think that you are right that she stays. But that's not because Keir Starmer is thinking she's a great asset to my government. He's thinking it's too dangerous in that circumstance for her to leave the government.

21:29Ed Balls: But if you were Keir Starmer, given, as you said, that wider political context, would you decide the risk averse thing to do is to keep her in the government, which I think is what he will do? Or do you think you would decide if you were Margaret Thatcher or you were Tony Blair? Tony Blair got rid of Peter Mandelson

21:45George Osborne: twice.

21:46Ed Balls: So what would you do?

21:48George Osborne: Well, this is a good question. I think if I was literally in his position, I think I would keep her. But I'm not necessarily sure that that would be the right decision because that's all sounding a bit convoluted. I mean, I think if you're sitting there right now, you can't really get rid of her. She's the elected deputy leader. It's too much trouble. On the other hand, his government is in a lot of trouble. and his reputation, you know, his personal ratings are pretty poor. They're not catastrophic, but they're very poor. And, you know, there is a widespread feeling that this government has not established who it's for and what its agenda is.

22:27George Osborne: And so, you know, this is yet another piece of damage to that. However, I don't think firing her would have also, would be the dramatic pivot you need anyway.

22:37Ed Balls: So subject to this report being damning, which it might be, You and I are both saying that we think that she will stay in the government. And that's a decision Keir Starmer will make. The one thing you can definitely say is that Keir Starmer announced phase two of his government on Monday. This is the first time for a lot of weeks that the Nigel Farage agenda has been knocked off the top of the news, although not necessarily in the most comfortable way for Keir Starmer and certainly not for Angela Rayner. but what we're going to turn to next is why August was so Farage reform driven and how the government should respond, are the opposition responding the right way and what this means for the next year of British politics and that's what we'll turn to next.

23:23Ed Balls: But first of all we'll go to a break.

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24:48George Osborne: Welcome back. So at the beginning of the summer, Nigel Farage said he was going to dominate the agenda through August. He announced his plan to essentially have weekly press conferences. And since delivery is the theme of Keir Starmer's relaunched government this week, we have to say Nigel Farage did deliver on what he said he was going to do because he dominated the political headlines, with the exception of the interlude around the Ukraine war and Keir Starmer having to go to Washington, trying to get Donald Trump to listen to European views on Ukraine. But if we set that aside, we'll no doubt come back to that in a future podcast.

25:30George Osborne: Farage did do what oppositions are supposed to do, which is occupy the moment when the government ministers go abroad on their holidays. And I would pick up just a couple of issues which we can unpack. He started off, didn't he, saying, I'm going to deport illegal migrants who are here. And he was the first politician, sort of mainstream, I mean, he is now mainstream, he's in the House of Commons, first politician to put that on the agenda in a big way in Britain. So that's the first thing. Then, of course, there was this whole issue around the hotel in Essex and the court cases, which he leapt on and the government's legal argument about why they needed these hotels to house asylum seekers.

26:13George Osborne: And there are a couple of other issues as well. There's been this issue of the flags, whether you are allowed or should or should be encouraged to put up Union Jacks and crosses of St. George around the country, which he's certainly dived in on. And then finally, he is at the moment right now, he's got his party conference this weekend, But he is in Washington and he's been giving evidence to the House Judiciary Committee around this issue of what he would call free speech or two-tier justice or, you know, these cases of which the one this week is the Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan, who tweeted things about transgender people and was arrested when he got off the plane by five police officers at Heathrow.

26:58George Osborne: And Farage is sort of jumping on these quotes, free speech issues. What's your feeling about how did he come to dominate the summer in the way that he has?

27:08Ed Balls: Well, if you take the previous conversation we were having about Angela Rayner, Prime Minister's questions yesterday, in which Kemi Badenot kind of rather oddly chose not to go on Angela Rayner, calling for her to be sacked and making that a big deal at PMQs.

27:23George Osborne: But she was following our advice to stick to the economy.

27:26Ed Balls: We can't blame her for that, Ed. No, no, but this is my point. Her operation said, you know, but she wasn't just talking about kind of Westminster insider issues. I mean, I have to say, I think the Angela Rayner tax issue is like a massive cross-nation issue. I don't quite understand that. If Kemmi Badenoch and her team had every day for the whole of August gone on the economy, had a weekly press conference, demanded action from the government on growth, calling them out on their tax decisions. If they had made that their August campaign, then by the time you got to this week's PMQs and she had done that, people would have said, well, of course, Kemi Badenok is doing that.

28:06Ed Balls: Because that's what they've been doing for the last six weeks. But the truth is, the Conservatives were really fairly absent on that economic issue. Mel Stride popped up every now and then. But frankly, what they spent the whole time doing is chasing Farage. Well, she did give that rather strange interview where she said, being opposition is a bloody hard job and you're bloody lucky I'm doing it. and I don't have to by the way but she was also doing interviews where she's sort of you know trying to claim that the Lucy Connolly who pleaded guilty and went to prison that this was an example

28:36George Osborne: of two-tier justice you guys this is the woman who tweeted about burning down asylum hotels during the riots wasn't it and she was sentenced to prison but following the Farage agenda

28:46Ed Balls: basically the conservative saying kind of wanting to agree with what Farage was saying around you know his mass deportation scheme what Farage set out to do at the beginning of the summer was to link crime immigration and asylum and hotels and the cost of that and to do that in a weekly press conference where he drove the news and he did that in very effectively I think in the early

29:10George Osborne: you've explained why there can well you haven't explained but you've you've shown why the conservatives didn't respond to that why did the Labour government allow that to happen well I think

29:19Ed Balls: I think in the first period of August, when if you remember, Labour was signing their landmark treaty with France for one in, one out. There were riots, which I don't think was something that Nigel Farage had sort of organised or encouraged. He wasn't really controlling that. There was a risk to him about sort of the elision of his press conferences with this sort of kind of more Tommy Robinson style kind of aggression and protest. I think in that period, it wasn't clear that Farage was breaking through. But I do think the court case changes everything, because at that point, suddenly the government is on the back foot legally.

29:58Ed Balls: You know, it looks like what they've done according to the courts is wrong. They're going to have to move people out of the Epping Hotel. It then gets subsequently overturned by the Court of Appeal with actually a kind of rather coruscating judgment on the original judge decision. but in in the second half of august i don't think that the government had an alternative message or strategy and at that point they were on the back foot on the migration issue and it probably goes back to you know a question of um your point about about delivery think about um where the government is on this farage agenda they could try not to talk about it it's actually really hard to say let's talk about something else let's talk about the national health service or childcare when the newspapers, but also kind of a lot of public concern is on these issues around migration, hotels and small boats coming over.

30:45Ed Balls: You know, as it happened, the August small boats numbers were quite low, but they'd been higher earlier in the year. I think when you look at the government's strategy with reform on these issues, there is kind of definitely a worry around past Labour voters about Farage's cultural attacks, the veering into xenophobia. I think actually some of the free speech stuff as well, claiming that the online safety bill is flawed. But people also want to know that we're not wasting loads of money on asylum hotels and that we're managing the borders. And until the government is showing that it is gripping that and really delivering improvements, they're on the back foot.

31:32Ed Balls: And I think they are still on the back foot because even though deportations are up and even though overall immigration is coming down, there's still a lot of people in asylum hotels, even though they've accelerated processing because there is such a backlog in appeals. And the French deal might turn out to be really important, but so far, although there's people in detention, nobody's actually yet been sent back to France. That's not going to happen until this month. very hard to go on the pushback against reform and farage um on those issues until you're showing you're delivering and the delivery has not yet happened has it but if you were a say you were

32:08George Osborne: you know progressive liberal small liberal supporter of labor wouldn't you be sort of frustrated that you're kind of chasing farage's tail and you're not you're never going to out bid him you don't want to outbid him but you know yes the tories are trying to outbid him and And Robert Jenrick is this week saying, you know, I actually want, you know, net migration from the country. We want, you know, Britain shrinking as a country. So the government's response is quite kind of managerial. We're doing this change. We've got this agreement with France. We're making these, you know, changes to asylum rules.

32:42George Osborne: But they're not making a kind of defense of why immigration is a good thing, why a plural society is, you know, beneficial to us all, why we should celebrate Britain's cultural diversity, why Britain's got a proud reputation for being a home for people fleeing. I think there'll be a lot of sort of progressives feeling like, who's making that argument? All we're hearing is Farage, Farage, Farage, and kind of Farage-lite from political opponents who see his poll lead and are kind of transfixed by it.

33:16Ed Balls: That is right. And if you look at the numbers, I mean, it looks like Labour's gone down in the polls and reform has gone up. Your automatic thinking is that must be people who previously voted Labour who are now switching to vote reform. But actually what we know when you analyse those numbers, there's very little of that going on. The big surge in reform voting is really happening from a collapse in Conservative support. and Labour is more challenged by losing votes to the Greens or to the Liberal Democrats or to the nascent Corbyn party on the left. So you're completely right.

33:56George Osborne: And by the way the Green party now has a new much more populist left-wing leader Zach Polanski.

34:02Ed Balls: Who doesn't really want to talk about Green issues as much as the wider range of Corbyn style left issues. He wants to leave NATO have a kind of more open migration, have a wealth tax. I mean, all of those things which are worried to Keir Starmer on his left flank. I think having said that, centrist voters and Labour voters are really worried that we need to control migration. And it is hard to go on the attack on the Farage's plan wholeheartedly until you've started to get delivery on your side. and they've got more work to do there, clearly, doesn't mean, though, you can't pick off kind of individual issues.

34:45Ed Balls: I mean, one of the things which was very striking in the Faraj speech is when he talks about not just deporting, but they're setting aside£2 billion, not simply to incentivise, they will pay people to go home, but they're also going to pay countries to take them. And he said, yeah, well, I mean, if they've come from Afghanistan or from Iran or from Eritrea, then that's where they should go back to. Now, this is a bit of a dilemma. When pressed, he then says, well, you know, maybe not women and children first. I asked West Streeting about this on the R. John G &B earlier in the week. If you are a gay man who has come seeking asylum here in Britain from Afghanistan or from Iran, I mean, being sent back there by Nigel Farage as a fighting age man, I mean, it's sending you, if not to your death, at least to kind of imprisonment and persecution in countries where being gay is against the law, you would think that would be something you would be calling out and going for pretty aggressively.

35:45Ed Balls: But at the moment, Labour doesn't seem to want to do that. I gave West Street in the opportunity to really go for that. And he was careful in his language. And at the moment, it feels to me as though Labour thinks, this is the broader Labour, They're either thinking that until we've got delivery, it's hard for us to go full frontal on those cultural issues or the racism issues or the sums not adding up.

36:09George Osborne: You've got to demonstrate competence and control of the border before you can make the pro-immigration case.

36:14Ed Balls: Or they're saying, well, you know, we're more vulnerable to losing votes from Labour to reform than people think. And therefore, we have to appease the reform style arguments. We have to kind of go softly on that. My personal view is that is, for the reasons you said, a mistake. You've got to control your borders. You've got to grip migration. but you've got to call out Farage not only then on economic gaps but also on the things which culturally people find offensive because if not you're going to drain votes to the Greens and the Liberal Democrats and that is Keir Starmer can't afford to be squeezed on both sides and he should be as worried about that left flank as the reformed right flank.

36:57George Osborne: I mean what Farage has done not just this summer, but in the last couple of years, is he has made himself, you know, much less toxic, much less fringe, and more, to use a word I used earlier, mainstream.

37:14Ed Balls: Although the polling says, who would you want to be prime minister? He polled very badly on that question compared to Keir Starmer or even Kemmy Baden-Ock.

37:22George Osborne: So that's a big challenge for him to continue to sort of build his credibility. But it's quite hard to argue that a person who is giving evidence to the U.S. Congress today, you know, is is, you know, a loony, is irrelevant, is or is a kind of dangerous populist. And, you know, we should ignore it. I think, you know, he's definitely put reform center state. And I think given that they are there, you do now have to engage full on, don't you, in the kind of political attack that Labour would deliver against the Tories, for example, the Tories would deliver against Labour. And of course, it's hard to work out.

37:58Although I think it's in many ways much easier for the Labour Party to work out how it would take on reform much harder for the Conservatives.

38:05George Osborne: Because, you know, they're fishing more in the same pond, although not exclusively.

38:09Ed Balls: And they spent all of August fishing in that pond. For what result? I mean, I just don't see how saying we agree with Nigel Farage helps Kimi Baden-ecker or Robert Jenrick at all. It may help Robert Jenrick become leader of the Conservative Party, but I don't see how it helps the Conservatives. I mean, so many centrist conservatives must be appalled by what they're seeing.

38:29George Osborne: Yes, I think they are. And there's still that kind of Cameron coalition, which is sort of splintered out there in the country and not really found a home. Although I would say if you're the Labour MP for Kensington or the Labour MP for Chelsea, you're probably feeling a bit more secure than the Labour MP for Hartlepool and the Labour MP for Sedgefield right now, which is a kind of, you know, an interesting commentary on where our kind of politics has got to. And I think it's also interesting that at the party conferences reading they've got coming this weekend, you still don't have the kind of business community turning up.

39:01George Osborne: So there's not yet the kind of establishment saying these people may well be the next government.

39:06Ed Balls: There is a lounge being sponsored by Heathrow.

39:08George Osborne: Yes, I saw that. And I think the sort of shooting conservation organisation is also turning up. But I've got one thing where I feel like the government could do something and they're just not. This issue of free speech, you know, Wes Streeting, you mentioned him earlier, and by the way, thank you, Wes, for being a gold subscriber and also taking part in our summer episodes. You know, he says the police should concentrate on the serious job of fighting crime. This week, when he's asked about the arrest of Graham Linehan, that's the comedian, he says, yeah, it is. He essentially says, yeah, it's ridiculous.

39:43George Osborne: The police should get on with policing. And Keir Starmer or Number 10 said, yeah, the prime minister thinks the police should get on with policing. but the metropolitan police commissioner says well in which case please will you change the law because we are following your laws by the way not labor laws but laws passed by previous governments so i i i think these these free speech issues are you know they are creating real anger out there and also a feeling particularly when you know don't people don't always see the police on their streets and they feel like if my car was stolen no police officer would turn up and five police officers come to arrest this guy.

40:19George Osborne: Although, to be fair, it was at the airport where the police tend to be heavily armed and turn up in numbers. So it seems to me you could do something there. It's a sort of defensive maneuver, perhaps. But I think the Labour government should address this issue, because I think more and more of these cases, if they happen, are going to fuel this feeling that the country and particularly the government's got a totally wrong set of priorities. and you know there is in fact there was a very good article um in the news statement this week by someone called george manahan who just reminded us of you know john stewart mills arguments and george orwell's arguments and voltaire's arguments about free speech and why you know the labor government must not let this particular aspect of the farage case which he's you know advocating today in in washington uh go unchallenged or unaddressed look i totally agree with you and um

41:11Ed Balls: I bet you the senior leaders in the Metropolitan Police Force were saying down the line, what on earth happened here? How on earth did we end up taking this action at Heathrow in this way? I'd be very surprised if this was a big strategic decision by the police. but you are right that there is a running sore here and it would be a good thing for the government with the police to to grip it and if that means reviewing the law in the same way as they also need to review aspects of the operation of the ECHR our plate the right to family life is clearly causing problems you don't have to leave the ECHR and give in to Farage to get on that reform agenda they're right to say of course you should fly the St George's flag and the Union Jack you You can't allow the flag to be taken over by the far right.

41:57Ed Balls: There are things you can do which you need to do, which aren't defensive, to close off those kind of attacks from Farage, while at the same time making the case that his economic sums palpably don't add up on his border plans or on the economy more widely or on the NHS, and making the case that the language he uses is divisive and dangerous. and you know we had Steve Baker the former Brexiteer calling out the Conservatives for not going after Farage on that dehumanizing language that they have been following Farage down that line. The truth is George though really hard to go after Farage on the economy if you haven't sorted out your economic argument and that's what Rachel Reeves needs to do.

42:42Ed Balls: We'll talk about that in future weeks. Really hard to go after Farage full throat on the divisive and nasty language around migration when you haven't yet made the progress you wanted to make on sorting out the borders and they've done a lot of things and you know and i'm going to champion their successes while at the same time saying you know clearly it is not yet delivered in the way in which kia starmer and yvette would have wanted in the first year and they need to do that the good thing is they've not got a general election this autumn um but also their language out remember kia

43:15George Osborne: starmer apologized for his island of strangers speech this year which was i thought one of the

43:19Ed Balls: more bizarre on the other hand you know what was the briefing this week the solution from number 10 is we're back to compulsory id cards um nigel farage you were always that you were always a fan of those weren't you um i i've never been against him in principle i don't have a free speech or a libertarian view my view has always been is massively expensive it may be less expensive than it used to be um making pensioners who haven't got passport sign up to get an id card in order to go to the GP has never seemed that sensible. It wasn't a surprise to me that West Streeting this week was rather cautious about the idea of compulsory ID cards.

43:57Ed Balls: But when it comes to small boats in the Channel, nobody on a small boat is arriving or going to be arriving with a British ID card. But in order to...

44:07George Osborne: Surely that's the point.

44:08Ed Balls: Well, I know, but in order to legitimately work in Britain now as a non-British citizen or to live, you now have to have, since the summer, an e-visa. you have to have a digital id as a non-british passport holder to function legally in britain doesn't stop you coming on a small boat and it doesn't stop you doing illegal work with an illegal employer the idea that id cards compulsory id cards solves any of those problems at all so

44:36George Osborne: the i think one of the ironies here is that i was a conservative backbencher who voted against id cards but thought it was a mistake when i was doing so and i was just sort of towing the party line and you were a Labour government MP supporting Tony Blair's ID plan whilst actually thinking he was not very good.

44:52Ed Balls: Can I point out that the Chancellor's Exchequer who then ditched them was you and I thought it was a very wise decision. And the idea, if you want to take Nigel Farage on his crazy plans which don't make any difference and whether sums don't add up, I'm not sure compulsory ID cards is the best thing to lead with.

45:13George Osborne: What about talking about digital solutions? Elon Musk, we should just mention our old friend in passing, because for those who haven't followed this, although he has obviously a very, very big following on X, which he owns. You know, he has this week been laying into Nigel Farage and he posted this yesterday. He said Farage is weak, runny sauce. Not sure what that means. Weak, runny sauce, I guess like a thin gravy. He won't let reform even stand up for their own people and e.g. punishing their Epping member and he will change nothing of significance politically. Go with Advance UK, Ben and Tommy, for the real change that's needed to save Britain.

45:57George Osborne: And he has Ferris Union Jacks. He posts on this thing. And of course, this is Tommy Robinson, the far right leader, and Ben Habib, who used to be a UKIP MEP, didn't he? And he was essentially fell out with Farage. I mean, there are splits on the we talked about splits on the left. And obviously, we've talked about the conservative reform battle. But there is, you know, this further split on the further right on the spectrum.

46:25Ed Balls: It will do Nigel Farage no harm being attacked by Elon Musk for not being extreme enough and not joining Tommy Robinson, who has a very, very nasty checkered history himself in terms of his entanglements with the law. But also, you know, the BNP style rhetoric he uses in a white nationalist way around immigration. The thing I should ask you, though, because it's not only Elon Musk. I mean, I mentioned this on the podcast while you were away. I know where you're going. There were you in the Cotswolds convening dinner with J.D. Vance and rising star conservatives. J.D. Vance, Trump's vice president, has himself got into some of this rather AFD, Elon Musk style leaning.

47:16Ed Balls: did you put him straight that backing tommy robinson is not the right place for jd vance to be

47:20George Osborne: um i did make the case for uh you know the center ground of british politics i think the um by the way which jd vance is these days quite a long way i will tell you one thing though which i i'm quite struck when i meet americans not just the vice president you know this view that free speech is under attack in britain on university campuses and in the liberal media and people are being arrested for their poster is amazingly widespread when i go and teach at stanford and go to the you know you meet people who are not active politicians who absolutely believe this to be

47:57Ed Balls: the case and we are now north korea according to the daily mail and nigel farage north korea

48:02George Osborne: yeah well i haven't yet seen um uh keir starmer appear at a big military parade in beijing I think Gia Starber would wish at moments that the Labour Party, and particularly the Labour Parliamentary Party, voted the way they vote in the North Korean Parliament. No, anyway, I'm just saying it is, you know, I think if you think this, particularly this free speech issue is somehow a total distraction or totally overblown, the view has gone quite wild wide that Britain's quite intolerant.

48:33Ed Balls: I'm going to spend the coming weeks drawing out from you the kind of inside reflections on the J.D. Vance dinner and how that all went. But in the meantime, we have one more thing we need to talk about.

48:45George Osborne: He had some good Elon Musk stories, I'll tell you. Do you want to do one now? I can't do one on air.

48:51Ed Balls: The great thing about George Orson I've learned over the last few years is he always says, I can't say it on air. But if you wait long enough, he'll crack. So listeners, have patience. We'll get there in the end. And in the meantime, we're going to take a break and then we're going to come back and talk about the Downing Street reorganization.

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50:26Ed Balls: welcome back so as part of our summer episodes we did brilliant interviews you mentioned west streeting earlier also quasi kuateng sarah vine emily thornbury thank you to all of them and we also had some thematic discussions which which we had one of which was about um whether kistama would be having his first big government reshuffle and the lessons that you could learn from past big first reshuffles which we talked about in our um one of our episodes it turns out that despite the speculation kistama was not planning a big government-wide reshuffle but he did put in place at the beginning of this week a reshuffle of number 10 which had some ministerial consequences a shake-up in his media operation in particular bringing into a political senior communications role, Tim Allen, the former deputy communications director in the Tony Blair government, deputy to Alistair Campbell.

51:26George Osborne: Where is he now? Alistair Campbell. What's he up to?

51:29Ed Balls: I've not heard of him for ages. No.

51:31George Osborne: Anyway, Tim Allen is in number 10.

51:34Ed Balls: Secondly, a change in the civil service leadership in Downing Street, the appointment of a new Principal Private Secretary, Dan York-Smith, previously the Budget Director at the Treasury, also the appointment of a new economic advisor to the Prime Minister, Manoush Shafiq, former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, former President of Columbia University. And then thirdly, as you mentioned at the beginning, which did have cabinet repercussions, the moving of Darren Jones, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Rachel Greaves is number two, over to become the new chief secretary to the prime minister a new post i don't think we've had that title before and as a consequence a new chief secretary to the treasury james murray promoted within the treasury knock on junior ministerial consequences so three changes there alongside some other name changes as

52:28George Osborne: well perhaps we should talk about them in turn yeah and we should say you know this is the second time there's been a reshuffle. So, of course, early on, Keir Starmer got rid of Sue Gray and he shook up his media operation and he brought in a new principal private secretary, you know, the senior civil servant.

52:47Ed Balls: Brought in Liz Lloyd to be his head of policy, brought in James Lyons to be his head of media. And they've left, right? They've left within, you know, a matter of some months.

52:56George Osborne: So let's take them in turns. Let's start with communications. I mean, you know, I know Tim Well, he is excellent, incredibly smart, built a very successful business after leaving Tony Blair's Downing Street. And he actually only spent one year in Tony Blair's Downing Street, but he did his time in opposition. Interestingly, you know, he is from a group which I would call, I don't know if you get this right, the Guildford Labour lot. There's him and James.

53:23Ed Balls: You almost said Guildford Conservatives there. And I don't know whether that was Freudian.

53:27George Osborne: Yeah, I mean, you know, Tim's views certainly on enterprise and business are definitely on the kind of free market end.

53:34Ed Balls: As Steve Richards reported at his leaving due, Tony Blair said that he was markedly to the right of Tony Blair.

53:41George Osborne: Yeah. But, you know, interestingly, he grew up with James Purnell and with Liz Lloyd, who left Downing Street, in, you know, sleepy home counties, Tory Guildford, as it was then. and had a role, along with Angie Hunter, in connecting New Labour to people who previously voted Conservative and understanding that kind of part of the country. So, you know, I think he will bring a lot of expertise and judgment to that role. And, of course, he comes in alongside David Dinsmore, who was the former editor of The Sun, who's shaking up the kind of official communication machine in the departments, which is quite antiquated.

54:20George Osborne: But the problem with always with communications is, you know, Politicians say, our problem is we're not getting our message across. You know, our problem is, you know, we're not getting our media handling right. Almost always it's because they don't have a message to get across. Or, you know, you, of course, have to get your comms right. But I think what Tim will find is he is dragged more and more into the kind of core decisions. Like, what do you do about Angela Rayner this week? How are we going to address, you know, the small boats issue? is it's not just about communications, although clearly having a highly professional communication operation is pretty important in any political system.

55:03George Osborne: So, you know, we'll see what happens. But I think, put it this way, it's going to be hard to claim having hired Tim, we need to go and find a communications supremacist because they've now got one. So in some ways, they'll have removed the excuse, which is we're not getting our message across.

55:19Ed Balls: And there is no doubt the communications need to to improve i mean just we mentioned it earlier that complete mess downing street got into over the island of strangers remark in keir starmer's speech i mean first of all that goes into the speech it's then briefed out it's then said that this is what keir starmer strongly believes in keir starmer then says no i didn't believe in it at all and you do wonder you know kind of what was the comms operation around that similarly the briefing of the kind of angela rayner's comments in the cabinet around migration, which were clearly taken out of context.

55:56Ed Balls: And so this feels to be like a good move and a positive change. I mean, Steph Driver, who's in charge of the day-to-day media operation, is really good. But you also need to be planning the grid and planning the messaging in a strategic way. You also need to have people who can go and take on senior leaders in the media and have the tough conversations, grown-up to grown-up. to the BBC and ITV, but also to the Mail and the Times and the Telegraph about the way in which they are reporting, the way in which they are operating with the government. We do seem to be in a period, in the times when you and I were in government, I think the big newspapers, when there was a big government announcement, reported it.

56:39Ed Balls: They may have had commentators who then said critical things, but they reported the news and what the government was saying. That seems to happen less now. I think having that combination, if they can get on, of Tim Allen and David Dinsmore, who can have those conversations with editors about the way in which the government media relationship is working, that is going to be a good thing. But the thing I'm going to agree with you on is, in the end, it comes down to whether or not the prime minister has a sense of purpose and drive for his government and can communicate that. That can't be done by Tim Allen or David Dinsmore.

57:16Ed Balls: and if that isn't happening you need senior people who can not only talk to the editors and the BBC but also talk to the Prime Minister and say we've got to do this better and stick to it together and let's hope they can do that because it feels to me so far that hasn't happened yet.

57:32George Osborne: And we should say there's a huge part of communication these days which is not about talking to editors and the BBC. I mean that's how you know we would have done it but there's the social media side of this And, you know, I think the question is, again, I know Tim and David. OK, I'm not sure I would say they are the world's leading experts on social media communication. So they certainly need to have that part. They need to hire in that part of the operation, too, because, you know, even Robert Jenrick with his I think he's got like a 21, 22 year old kind of guy who works for him. And, you know, he's making more effective media videos than the Labour government.

58:12George Osborne: And he's just like a one man band, two man band shadow cabinet member. I mean, I'll tell you, J.D. Vance had watched his video on the London Underground.

58:24Ed Balls: It took about 10 minutes. I told you this is how it would go. The reveals begin.

58:29George Osborne: The thing is, though, I mean, I'm saying is that the communication these days is more than just having trying to get the Daily Mail to. I don't disagree on that.

58:37Ed Balls: Although Robert Jenrick has a good way of doing videos. The government should replicate that. Is the Jenrick message the right message?

58:47George Osborne: That's a different point.

58:48Ed Balls: Yeah, but that is what Tim Allen and David Dinsmore and Steph Driver need to sort out with Morgan McSweeney and Keir Starmer. What is the message? What is the purpose? How are you going to communicate that? And then you can then operationalise that. It seems to me that it's a cop-out or an excuse to say we haven't quite sorted out our methodology because there's a bigger problem.

59:08George Osborne: I totally agree. And of course, the other thing is we should say about roles in Downing Street. You can say I'm looking for a comms director, but obviously Alistair Campbell was much more than that for Tony Blair. And Andy Coulson was much more than that for David Cameron. So, you know, in some ways, you've got to the people will shape the roles more than the roles are just filled by people. And that's also true of the official civil servants. And we should turn, shouldn't we, to the economic team that he is hired in. So Dan York Smith, who used to work with me when I was chancellor, he was my head of comms, civil service head of comms at the Treasury.

59:44George Osborne: I know him extremely well, super bright, best of the British civil service. you know begs the question why on earth they didn't hire a you know top flight treasury civil servant to be pps last time around and we've now had a string of prime ministers because this was also what boris johnson and theresa may refused to do you know who have not had top flight treasury civil servants in downing street and have paid a price and so anyway that is corrected minush shafiq who is also well known to both of us i appointed her to be deputy governor of the Bank of England. But more important than that, she is a fan of your band, isn't she?

1:00:20Ed Balls: She is. She's a Centrist Dad fan. Although I think I may have told this story before, but I just will again. We're playing our band concert at the Water Rats. Which is a pub near King's Cross, right? Robert Peston and I are ready to go on stage. Notice Manoush Shafiq in the bar, go over and say, Manoush, what are you doing here? She's a bit surprised to see me. She says, what are you doing here? And I say, well, what are you doing here? She said, I've come to see Centrist Dad. I'm told they're really good. I said, you do realise I'm the drummer, and Robert Peston is the singer. She looked quite shocked.

1:00:47Ed Balls: She'd been told by some friends she'd heard this band and they were really good. She had no idea it was us. I think she's expecting a rather higher quality of music. No, no, no.

1:00:57George Osborne: Although I think it's possible she was the only member of the audience who wasn't knowingly a friend of the band, although it turned out to be a friend of the band.

1:01:04Ed Balls: I think she came to see your pogoing.

1:01:07George Osborne: So what about that economic team?

1:01:09Ed Balls: Well, we have been saying from the outset that they have to have stronger economic clout in Downing Street. And that is in the interests both of Keir Starmer and also of Rachel Reeves, the chancellor.

1:01:23George Osborne: And did you used to say, oh, I wish that Tony Blair operation had some, you know, proper heavyweight economic advice to hold us to account in the Treasury with?

1:01:33Ed Balls: Jeremy Haywood, the Dan York Smith of his day, absolutely played that role and he was vital. And so, yes, if they hadn't had Jeremy, I would have said you need to get a Jeremy, former Treasury civil servant who'd moved over into number 10. So absolutely. I mean, you know, I'm not sure whether we necessarily thought Tony Blair needed his Alan Walters figure. But I mean, Derek Scott was very nice and we often had a cup of tea and I kept him up to date with our thinking and he kept me up to date with his. But we were strong.

1:02:03George Osborne: Anyone who just listens to that, you can't keep a straight face. said right so we should just explain by that alan walters was margaret thatcher's economic advisor who forced essentially forced the resignation of nigel lawson george we don't have to explain everything no derek scott was um the very nice man who claimed to be number 10's answer to ed

1:02:22Ed Balls: balls yeah the point i was going to make was there was a i thought odd telegraph front page this week saying this was all a terrible blow to rachel reeves these people being moved into downing Street, an affront to her. And there was an important corrective column in the Times by Patrick Maguire saying, actually, this is what Rachel Reeves had been urging on Keir Starmer for some months. And I think that is right. To the extent that Rachel Reeves is under pressure, it's because of Treasury decisions which haven't gone well in the last year on the winter fuel allowance or on welfare reform. I think their lack of a growth message, the challenges on the public finances but she and the government will be strengthened by having um the these figures in

1:03:03George Osborne: downing street rather than although the you know the i mean dan york smith will you know used to be the budget director in the treasury and you know in the best traditions of the british civil service you know he helped do the mini budget and he helped to rishi sunak's budgets and he helped do um uh jeremy hunt's budget so you know he knows that back to front but i think minutia's challenge You know, she is she's a very credible, incredibly well connected and experienced international economist. And she can help on the kind of macro theory of where the British state should be. She can probably help on sort of theories of redistribution where she's written a very interesting book about that.

1:03:44George Osborne: And again, I don't think this government has in the same way that the Blair Brown administration did a kind of theory of what we're trying to do on child poverty and redistribution of income. question for her which i would say you know be interesting to hear from her you know can she really engage into the kind of hand-to-hand combat of linking all of this to a kind of political economy to a plan that works politically in your budget for example well i think that goes to i was

1:04:11Ed Balls: thinking about this over the course of the last couple of days thinking about the podcast today and thinking of what our podcast is about and how we've talked about things experience we've had in our time in the Treasury and in government. And there is no doubt that Dan York-Smith brings into Downing Street a knowledge of the budget process and the Treasury process. There's no doubt that Manoush Shafiq fills a gap. If Keir Starmer wants to know what's happening in the bond market, what's happening to debates around growth in the IMF or in UK economics, that Tim Allen fills a gap in terms of experienced media operation.

1:04:47Ed Balls: but the thing which we know to be really effective is you need to have people who can both do the economics and the politics at the same time and and that could be chancellors you could do that gordon brown could do that as chancellor it could be advisors i think jeremy hayward could do the economics and the politics that was absolutely what i was known for doing there were certain rupert harrison rupert harrison absolutely i was going to mention rupert but you could think about you know, Mark Carney, new economics and politics. He's now the Prime Minister of Canada. Think about certain journalists we know, like, I don't know, David Smith, or Bill Keegan, Robert Peston, who could talk the economics and the politics.

1:05:30Ed Balls: And you have to be able to do both. You can not only understand what's going on, and the economic arguments, but see how you shape that as a political argument and win that political argument. And, you know, Mike Ellum, somebody we work very closely with, he's in the Capitol office doing a different job, can do that. And John Kingman can do that. The question for Keir Starmer is, does he have that economic politics together? And I really hope he does. And that's going to be the challenge for Mnuch and for Dan and for that wider operation clearly that is not something that morgan mcsweeney does it's not something that tim allen will bring and they have different roles because morgan mcsweeney can win elections and tim allen can think about media relationships but you've they've got to get the economics and the politics working more effectively they've had in the last year and downing street pulling its weight alongside the treasury in that is really important but um i mean fundamentally that's the

1:06:32George Osborne: You do need a prime minister who knows what he wants to do with this unique opportunity of being the country's leader. And, you know, Keir Starmer has not been able to articulate that. What about this Darren Jones appointment, chief secretary to number 10, I think, or chief secretary to the prime minister, brand new position. is this the prime minister department that has been much talked about over the last 50 or 60 years in British politics there have been endless reviews saying number 10 is underweight compared to departments like the treasury and you should have a prime minister's department in the same way that for example in Germany there's a chancellor's department chancellor of Germany's department is that what he represents or is he just another version of you know a sort of cabinet office minister who delivers for the prime ministers you know the i mean in our government i thought one of the real unsung heroes of the coalition was oliver letwin you know who absolutely had the confidence of david cameron to go and fix problems speak to the home office and get the home office to agree with the foreign office about this and speak to the treasury and try and get the education department to speak to the health department and so on and he worked tirelessly at it.

1:07:45George Osborne: I think Oliver Dowden in the Sunak government, although he was called Deputy Prime Minister, you know, a lot of what he was doing was actually making, you know, the operation function behind the scenes and getting the departments to talk to each other and sort of resolve disputes between departments. Is this, because it's got a much sort of fancier, well, it's not a fancier title in some ways than Deputy Prime Minister, but it's a brand new title. So it It was a sort of aura to it. Is it a new thing or is it just a reincarnation of that kind of person?

1:08:16Ed Balls: Well, I don't think we know the answer to that yet. And I think the real question is, does Keir Starmer and Darren Jones know exactly what they want this job and this role to be? As you said, it can be like Oliver Dowden or Oliver Letwin, Charlie Faulkner for Tony Blair, Ed Miliband of Bitfair, Gordon Brown in 2007, where you're off sort of fixing things, but you're not the core deliverer. Let's be honest, in the Cameron government, you were that person as Chancellor. The fact that Gordon Brown was chairing a daily meeting for Tony Blair, he was really that person for Tony Blair on a lot of the domestic agenda.

1:08:53Ed Balls: Even if they disagreed on some aspects, they were also working very closely together. Darren Jones, clearly very competent, being Chief Secretary for the year. What is his job? Is he, on the one hand, the person who is going to be with Keir Starmer, working really closely with Rachel Reeves, driving the core important parts of the government agenda. If he is, he needs to know economics, he needs to do politics, he needs to be totally trusted by Keir Starmer with him all the time. He'll be a lightning conductor. Is he going to do that?

1:09:26George Osborne: Or... By the way, the moment the system and other members of the cabinet think he's not speaking for Starmer, he's finished. So his authority flows directly from... And that's entirely the responsibility of Keir Starmer to make sure that that is the case, that people think when Darren Jones speaks, I'm hearing the Prime Minister.

1:09:45Ed Balls: Absolutely. Absolutely right. But there's been quite a lot of stuff in the papers this week. It's a different job, which is Rachel Rees was able to get on and do the big strategic things in the Treasury because she had a deputy, Darren Jones, who was sorting out everything else. And that Darren Jones is not going to be with Keir Starmer shaping the big issues. He's going to be doing all the other stuff that Keir Starmer doesn't want to spend his time on. So he'd free up Keir to do the big things. Of course, all those other things are maybe not the biggest priority for Keir Starmer this week, but they make a massive difference to every other cabinet minister.

1:10:20Ed Balls: If they go wrong, they cause huge problems for the government. It's even more important that Darren Jones knows what the prime minister really wants and knows the economics and the politics of all of those issues. I mean, it is more likely to go wrong or as likely to go wrong if he's sorting out all this other stuff which Keir Starmer doesn't want to be involved in because he needs to know instinctively and deep in his bones what Keir Starmer will want. And if it goes wrong, every other cabinet member will know that and will be immediately having a go at him. So I think this is quite hard. I always kind of think about my Gordon Brown three rules of management, which I've said this to you before.

1:11:00Ed Balls: One is the Gordon Brown three rules of management are never appoint somebody to a different job than the one you want them actually to do. Never appoint somebody to a job which is different from the one they think they're coming in to do and never appoint somebody to a job you've already given to somebody else. Does Keir Starmer know what he really wants Dan Jones to do?

1:11:21George Osborne: Why is it different from Pat McFadden's job?

1:11:23Ed Balls: Well, that is a good question. And Pat McFadden sits two seats to Keir Starmer on one side and Dan Jones is two seats to Keir Starmer on the other side within the cabinet. although neither of them are facing the Prime Minister where the big beasts are. But does Keir Starmer know what he wants Darren Jones really to do? Is that the same as the job Darren Jones thinks he's coming in to do? Is Morgan McSweeney and Dan Yorksmith and Tim Allen and all the Cabinet signed up to Darren Jones doing that job? And is Keir Starmer going to empower Darren Jones to do all of that day by day, week by week, every conversation, every issue?

1:11:58Ed Balls: I think this is a really, really hard job to do. And good luck. but it all comes as you said back to um you've got to have something to deliver does he know what he wants and is he going to empower down i'm not sure whether darren jones wouldn't have been a more effective person doing this job for keir starmer if he'd stayed in the treasury as chief secretary to the treasury and that darren jones rachel reeves and keir starmer didn't have a daily meeting working out what they wanted the slight problem is you move darren jones out of the treasury and its massive ecosystem and influence into downing street where he doesn't have a daily meeting with the prime minister and he ends up floating kind of exposed without the

1:12:45George Osborne: means and without a big official machine behind every time i ever looked at this when we were

1:12:49Ed Balls: in government is it in the prime minister or the chancellor's interests to move the chief secretary out of the treasury into downing street we always concluded that was actually both weakening for the treasury and weakening for the prime minister and you know if i were if i were darren jones i think i might have done a more effective job for the prime minister in my old job than in this new job but it doesn't have to be that way that entirely depends upon dan jones's relationship with the chancellor which must stay strong and with keir starmer which has to become much much stronger than any relationship he's had in the last year and don't think that doing the second order issues lets him off the hook that is even more exposed and even harder so this is a challenge but you

1:13:30George Osborne: know good luck right feels a bit like telling a second lieutenant don't worry the enemy trench

1:13:37Ed Balls: is empty just so you can walk across don't worry it's what they've decided to do and um i hope that morgan mcsweeney dan york smith tim allen minush shafiq rachel reeves james murray and in particular keith kirstama are fully signed up to this vision and also that they agree on what the vision is and by the way they can also then get a vision for the government and the message and that will

1:14:00George Osborne: all be fine by the way can i just say dan is the civil servant in all of this so he's he's not

1:14:05Ed Balls: necessarily in the same category as the rest well that is kind of true although jeremy hayward yes or charles pole the great civil servants in these roles played that is a very good point

1:14:17George Osborne: we should conclude there gosh there's a lot uh to look forward to if that's the right way to put it this autumn and uh we're going to come back as well in the next couple of weeks and look at the big economic challenges facing the government and the budget that's looming at the end of November. All the while, you know, we haven't talked about it much on this programme. Of course, bond yields are up, inflation is up. And that's the kind of macro context to everything.

1:14:40Ed Balls: That is right. But for now, that's it. We'll be back on Monday with ex-Ministers' questions. And don't forget, you can hear it earlier and ad-free as you become a member of our Kitchen Cabinet or a Gold subscriber. And you can find out how to do that by following the link in our show notes.

1:14:55George Osborne: and you should know i hope and if you don't you do now that we're on youtube so search political currency and you will be able to watch all of our best episodes including these summer interviews we did with quasi quateng sarah vine west streeting and emily thornbury they are great

1:15:09Ed Balls: watchers that is right check them out if you haven't already done so and uh see you next week

1:15:13George Osborne: See you then.

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