EMQs: Are betting markets more reliable than polling?

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1:29George Osborne: The Chancellor of the Exchequer. Getting a lesson from the Shadow Chancellor on how to balance the books is like getting a lesson from Dracula on how to look after a bloodbath.

1:38Ed Balls: Ed Balls. As steady as she goes budget. What kind of ship does he think he's on, the Titanic? They're married, Celeste.

1:46George Osborne: Welcome to EMQs from Political Currency with Ed Balls and George Osborne.

1:56Ed Balls: so hello and welcome to emq's ex-minister's questions george is recording emqs this week from california and given that you are out there in the sun we talked about driverless cars on the main episode how is steve hilton doing david cameron's former sven gali now seeking to be the next governor of California. Are things on track? It would be an upset for a Republican to win the governor race.

2:23George Osborne: Well, it would be more than an upset. It would be an earthquake, which is, you know, not a word to use lightly in California. But no, I think to be fair to Steve, and we've had our disagreements over the years, but I kind of admire the sort of gumption it takes to be a Brit in California and decide to run for governor. And I think a lot of people were very dismissive of it as an idea a year or two ago. And now he is topping the polls. And this is a race that's coming now. He has got to win the primary, which is at the beginning of June. And it's called a jungle primary. If you love American politics, I've had a great kind of immersion with a guy last night.

3:03George Osborne: I had dinner with someone who I work with now, but he's like a steeped, he's like, used to work in the White House, used to run big political campaigns. And he was explaining this is a jungle primary in California. A jungle primary is it's the first two candidates. Normally in a primary, you choose your Democrat candidate or Republican candidate, and then they go head to head in the autumn. In California, it's just the first two people who top the poll, regardless of whether they're Republican or Democrat. So although it's a Democrat state, or certainly it has been in recent years, the truth is there are so many Democrat candidates.

3:35George Osborne: Voters haven't coalesced around one Democrat candidate. So the Democrat vote is sort of utterly split. and as a result Steve and there is another Republican guy but Steve is currently topping the poll which means you know he comes out of the jungle first potentially and then he's on the ballot paper for the autumn and then you know all bets are off.

3:54Ed Balls: Although presumably even if he comes top on the ballot yeah if there is four Democrats coming two three four five splitting the Democrat vote once there's a Democrat candidate don't they then come around that candidate it's a bit like Macron beating Marine Le Pen.

4:09George Osborne: Yes, you're completely right, except that the number two in the polls here is also a Republican. So it's so split of the Democrats that the two Republicans, there are only two Republicans, they are currently polling number one and number two. And so everyone's been saying here, look, the Democrats will get their act together. They will force some of these other candidates to drop out now before the vote in early June in the primary. But it hasn't happened yet. And each month goes past. So it's early June. the voting starts 30 days in advance the sort of postal balloting so the democrat establishment in california is running out of time to get its act together to stop steve and steve's out there leading the pack and yes it may be a bit like one of those horse races where you know the horse goes out front for the first couple of laps around the thing and then suddenly comes last but you know there are also horse races where the horse that leads from the front stays in front what do the betting markets say do you know i don't actually know i mean there's a whole interesting thing which is a really really big feature now of american politics and all aspects of sort of you know public life like is trump going to strike iran there are these poly markets there are these betting markets digital betting markets they've become enormously popular and they're very popular with young i mean there's lots of kind of allegations of you know insider trading and you You know, there was a huge spike, for example, in people betting that Donald Trump would invade Iran just before it happened.

5:38George Osborne: I need to check them out. Actually, it's a good question. I think all I would say is that people would have said Steve would never get anywhere and he was never going to feature in this race. But, you know, he is the current front runner.

5:50Ed Balls: Well, I have teed you up nicely because our very first question comes from James and it's on this very subject. Hi Ed and George.

5:58Gyles Brandreth: I had a question following your recent episode, where Ed gave the Greens a 64 % chance of winning the Gorton and Denton by-election. That got me thinking about the rise of prediction markets in political analysis, as those odds mirrored what platforms like Calci were showing. It's interesting how these markets are increasingly shaping commentary, even though UK regulation doesn't allow users on platforms like Calci and Polymarket. It seems odd that we'd trust a form of opinion that doesn't involve the views of actual constituents. Yet, Big Tech argues these markets are more accurate because to have an opinion, you have to put your money where your mouth is.

6:35Gyles Brandreth: Given the result, with the Greens 12 points ahead, they appear to have captured something traditional polling missed, which framed it as a three-horse race. What do you make of the growing role of prediction markets in political commentary? And can they provide insight that polling can't?

6:49Ed Balls: We actually had this question from James a week ago, and we thought to ourselves, should we answer this question on last week's EMQs? But of course, at that time, we didn't know what the result of the Gorton and Denton by-election was going to be. And it turned out that the Greens won, and the Greens won quite comfortably. So I think the conclusion you have to draw to answer James' question is that, yes, the prediction markets, the betting markets did get it right in that by-election. And I think part of the story here is that increasingly these betting markets are quite effective at predicting politics.

7:29Ed Balls: But as you say, James, and as George just said a moment ago, talking about Steve Hilton, you have to be careful because the nature of betting markets is they are always influenceable. If you have a bookmaker where the bookmaker is making a book, you know that they have to be driven by them making a profit. And if a big bet comes in on one side, they will necessarily lower the odds because that's what they have to do commercially. And similarly, if you have a prediction market where you essentially have people betting against each other, it's still the case. If somebody comes and bets on one side, that is going to change the odds.

8:05Ed Balls: And so they are manipulable. It is possible if you wanted to choose to put a big chunk of money on, see the odds move, then go in on the other side while you can. And that's how you clean up. So they, you know, they're always in stock markets, you'd call that making a false market. But, you know, you can attempt to do that in betting markets. So you always have to be careful and the regulation matters. But in the case of Gorton Denton, the betting markets were right in the way that many politicians and actually people looking at the opinion polls, they were wrong.

8:35George Osborne: Yeah. OK, but I would draw a distinction here. You see, I think, first of all, it is true what you say, that compared to the amount of betting that goes on on a Premier League game or the derby or something, pitifully small sums of money on politics, even in the US. And certainly in Britain, I always thought this, it has always been the case, and I absolutely swear I never did this, but I always thought you could do this. even things like those charts you get what are the odds on i don't know current members of the labor cabinet being the next prime minister right shabana mahoud rachel reeves i won't say a vet because i'm going to spare your blushes but you know you take the kind of runners and riders west street and say you're 25 to 1 if you go and put like a thousand pounds bet at 25 to 1 you'd actually probably make yourself five to one right because the market will move on you know i I know a thousand pounds is, you know, I'm not saying it's not a substantial sum of money, but it's not very much compared to like, you know, trying to run a leadership campaign.

9:36George Osborne: And suddenly you become one of the front runners. Because when they say West Streeting is a front runner, they partly look at the kind of lab bricks odds. So it's quite a kind of shortcut. And I did always suspect there were one or two people who did that. Now, in the case of these poly markets and the greens, where I kind of guess I question is this. there's definitely the case and you've seen in the u.s where there are bits of information that people know i.e they're in the pentagon and they know there's going to be a strike or they know that donald trump's going to appoint this particular person to a job and then suddenly there's a spike beforehand and that is essentially kind of insider trading although the rules aren't really clear because the laws don't really you know have caught up with this new technology and that's a different thing which is those in the know essentially trading on that inside knowledge.

10:23George Osborne: When it comes to like whether the Greens are going to win this by-election, what is the superior knowledge you could have had in that constituency that, for example, the Labour Party didn't have? And the Labour Party were talking up their prospects, weren't they, towards the end? People were saying, actually, I think it's going a bit better. But, you know, the Labour Party would have had out on the streets, you know, not a vast army, you know, politics is much diminished from what it once was in terms of boots on the ground. But you would have had like, you know, a few hundred people coming back and canvas returns and, you know, the Greens would have had a sort of similar operation.

10:57George Osborne: It's not clear that, you know, there was out there that somehow the people betting on this market would have had sort of superior knowledge, some sort of insight that eluded the Labour high command.

11:10Ed Balls: Look, the fact is they got it right though. So we need to understand that more. And I'm not sure they always get it right but they didn't go on to Denton.

11:19George Osborne: No I know but the poly markets are quite interesting because they're also you can use them to predict things like the movement in shares. You can say this stock's going to go up and down or this currency is going to go up and down without necessarily actually buying the stock or buying the currency. It's also a kind of quite a threat to traditional financial markets. Anyway just an observation about the future.

11:40Ed Balls: Our next question is from Patricia and she's picking up a question we did a couple of weeks ago.

11:44Gyles Brandreth: Hi Ed and George it's Patricia McKenna and I'm the lead practice development nurse for internationally educated nurses at the Humber partnership I listened to your answer to Anne on management apprenticeships and for me apprenticeship levy funding for management courses is deeply personal coming from a lower income background it was thanks to student finance that I was able to qualify as a nurse in the first place but we were never taught management skills or how to lead others or how to move up the ladder those worlds simply weren't open to people like me my management apprenticeship was a lifeline.

12:15Gyles Brandreth: It allowed me to gain essential leadership skills, including strategic thinking. These skills have opened up doors for me and enabled me to win a Health Science General Award for staff wellbeing. Funding programmes like this, it's not a luxury, it's vital. My question for you, and maybe even the Cabinet Ministers listening, should we protect funding for management apprenticeships that train public sector leaders? Thank you very much.

12:39Ed Balls: So that is really interesting, Patricia. And, you know, when I go to the answer I gave a couple of weeks ago about whether or not apprenticeships should be focused on management skills. The argument I made was that surely management skills is the one place where you would expect an individual to be able to, you know, garner the benefits. If you go into an MBA, that'll be reflected in your higher pay or for the company to sponsor you to do so. But the argument you make here very powerfully is in the public sector, where the salary uplift will be less large, but also public services are under pressure for their kind of core funding, that actually for you, and maybe for many people like you who want to do leadership within the public sector, setting aside some money to support apprenticeships in this way can really work and make a massive difference.

13:27Ed Balls: And it may well be if there are other aspects of the public sector, as well as your example in healthcare. There's a long way of saying you got it wrong. Well, I didn't get it wrong because I think I was talking about the private sector, but I think the public sector may be different. Oh, I see. So in policing or in teaching or in other aspects of public service. You didn't get it wrong, you just like... Well, look, if I said it was wrong to support management as apprenticeships across the board, Patricia has pointed out I was wrong and I accept that because I think in the public sector it can make a big difference.

14:00George Osborne: There's a bit of an if there, but anyway, apology accepted.

14:06Ed Balls: Look, can I just say, in terms of the funding, of public services. I'm not sure I'm the one in... Excuse me, mate. I introduced the apprenticeship levy that Patricia is benefiting from. Yeah, having completely slashed the apprenticeship budgets, if I remember. But, you know, there we are. Do you... I mean, other than attacking me and self-justificatory blurb, do you have anything constructive to offer and answer this question? Shall we move on?

14:29George Osborne: Yeah, I think it's an interesting... I think there was... You get it a bit from both sides, and you certainly get it from the Conservatives, which is there are too many bureaucrats, there are too many layers of management, There are not enough doers in the public service. We want frontline staff. If you think of the number of governments, Labour and Conservative, who've kind of gone, we're increasing the number of nurses or increasing the number of doctors. And we're cutting the number of managers. But good management is completely essential for these public services. And having good health service managers, whether it's at the hospital level or the practice level, let alone the core NHS level, is really, really important.

15:04George Osborne: It was just a sort of lazy attack of which I absolutely indulged in myself. So I'm not excused. I'm also joining you in this apology. I think Patricia's case is a really interesting one of how, you know, actually she's got the education here through the apprenticeship to move up the ladder, become more engaged in the management of the health service. And that is a good thing. And anyone who looks at the British economy, both the private sector and the public sector, will often alight on poor management as one of the kind of challenges for the British economy and one of the reasons why productivity isn't as high as it might be.

15:43George Osborne: So can you accept, Patricia, from both of us a humble apology? And we will take a break and then we'll be back shortly.

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17:01Ed Balls: So welcome back. Here's a question from a fellow podcaster. He actually was in our building last week and so nice to see him that we actually nabbed him for a question. This is ex-Member of Parliament, Conservative Member of Parliament, Giles Brandreth. Look, this is a question for both of you, George, Ed, Ed, George.

17:20Gyles Brandreth: I know the billing is quite important. I want to ask you this. i've done lots of lovely things and i love doing my podcast rosebud and it's hugely popular which is fantastic ed's been a guest and george eventually but the truth is and i was merely a government whip in the 1990s and in john major's government but it's still for me the most interesting and exciting time of my life because the joy of being a whip is you're there you see at all but actually you have no ultimate responsibility but you two you've been proper ministers and george you've been the chancellor and i know of course it's fantastic having an award-winning podcast like yours but in your hearts in your heads when your head hits the billow don't you think actually the best days are behind you it's more difficult even for ed too because he has a wife who's now the foreign secretary he's just talking about chagos she's deciding about chagos can you admit to yourselves your secret selves and to us that actually for all the downside of politics the upside is that it's the most interesting and exciting thing that's ever happened to any of us thank you giles thank you very much yeah it's

18:37George Osborne: great that you contributed a question and uh plugged your podcast rosebud i'm going to disagree with you about your career and say you might be right about mine or indeed Ed's there's no doubt I'm unlikely to do anything in my life that is quite as kind of interesting and all engaging as being chancellor and in the cabinet and and the like although I've tried to find interesting things to do since and you know I'm certainly finding my new job in California pretty interesting but I would say looking at you Giles that I'm not sure you're five years in parliament as the for chester between 92 and 97 and being the junior whip were the high point of your career because i remember you with your big jumper on on countdown as the guy who what was his name richard the host of countdown i've forgotten his surname now richard whiteley was he called richard madeley no richard

19:29Ed Balls: whiteley madeley's the guy you ousted from gmb whiteley's the um didn't oust him from gmb he's a colleague of mine we both present during the week goodness me yeah but not mondays uh tuesdays

19:41George Osborne: Wednesdays are Ed's days. No, not Ed and Richard's days anymore. Anyway, you can't comment, of course, that you knifed him. But Richard Whiteley, yeah, you know, he would turn to Giles Brandreth and Giles Brandreth was the kind of dictionary guy. He was the sort of Susie Dent of my, you know, younger years. And I think that was a brilliant moment. I'm not sure, I don't want to diss you too much, Giles, but I'm not sure the kind of high point of the Brandreth life was being on that West Coast main line going up and down to Chester. In fact, you should say also that Giles' daughter is in Parliament.

20:14George Osborne: She's a Conservative MP in Cheshire. And I think she might go further than her dad did. I don't want to belittle your political career. I'm just saying you had an even better and bigger career before that.

20:25Ed Balls: I'm going to agree with Giles and say you're wrong about this, George. And, you know, look, you could look at me and say, surely climbing Kilimanjaro with Little Mix or playing the O2 for four nights was the high point of my career, but it definitely wasn't.

20:40George Osborne: Sorry, playing the O2? What do you mean playing the O2?

20:44Ed Balls: I did an arena tour. I've done a 30-date arena tour of Britain. Four nights at the O2. You know, look, Bruce Springsteen probably is complacent about it, but for me it was quite exciting. Live on stage at the O2 in front of 15 ,000 people. But the best thing I ever did was being in the cabinet and being a parliamentarian. And look, Giles has spent his whole career cheering people up. You know, I read this question and thought, God, it makes me feel a bit gloomy. The thing is, if you are a football pundit, you love being a football pundit, but you know your best days were on the pitch and our best days were on the pitch.

21:14Ed Balls: And it was the hardest thing either of us did, I'm sure. But it was the best thing. And when Giles said that being a whip, being in parliament, serving the public, all the exposure and the challenge of that is the best thing. I kind of believe in, but it doesn't mean that you don't go on to do great things afterwards. And, you know, I love presenting GMB and, you know, we have a duty and it's a public service to ask the questions and talk to our millions of viewers every day who really care about what's happening in the world. So I've really enjoyed what I've done since politics, but there's no doubt being in the cabinet was the hardest thing I've ever done and the best thing I've ever done.

21:48George Osborne: Yeah, no, I'm agreeing. I'm just saying that Giles did some other things. We've been to a couple of awards ceremonies where, awards we won, I should say, where he's been the compere. In fact, two years running, I think. And didn't he tell, what was he told some extraordinary story at the last awards? It was about Donald Trump and the mooch. Wasn't it? He basically told a sort of, you know, like a pornographic story, which left the room completely.

22:14Ed Balls: What was it about? I'm trying to remember. It was Donald Trump complaining that because it was a public service institution, the White House, he couldn't get porn channels on his TV in his bedroom. He also has some great undertaker jokes. you were chatting with him and you told him a story wasn't there a story about michael gove's

22:30George Osborne: dog michael gove's dog michael gove had a dog oh god i can't remember what it was called but it was you know utterly out of control say rover rover we do and uh you know this is back in the glory days that giles is talking about when i was uh we're spending the weekends at dawney wood and at Dorneywood, the Chancellor's Grace and Favour House, there were some chickens that were kept and these chickens existed before I arrived so I'm gonna hasten to add and the chickens were named not by me but by the team at Dorneywood after basically people who had been at Dorneywood before so there was like Gordon and Alistair and Margaret and this is what the chickens were all called.

23:16George Osborne: And the Goves arrive in their car. I don't think I would be in any way being mean if I said that, you know, the arrival of the Goves back then with their young, lovely, wonderful young children, Will and Bea. Bea's sent questions into our podcast. You know, it was all a little bit chaotic, let's put it that way, when they arrived. And anyway, the door opens of their car, out jumps the dog runs off to the chicken coop and bites the head off gordon the chicken well in fact i wish it had in some ways bitten the head off it didn't bite it half bit the head off gordon unfortunately gordon the chicken was wandering around with blood spurting out of its neck maybe i'm making this too graphic and like everyone was like oh what are we gonna do you know this poor literally semi-headless chicken was running around i had to kind of go in and deliver the coup de grace

24:09Ed Balls: no one else would do it so having been dogged by the daily mirror being chased by chickens around the country wasn't there a chicken which kept trying to grab you at press conferences

24:20George Osborne: this this was your revenge there was a chicken that used to pursue me the person dressed up in chicken suit this is this um i was at home once the um when i was in opposition this person who came in like a great person came in and cleaned the house she said to me george there's a giant duck outside the house i was like what it's a giant duck outside the house like okay and i looked through the windows and sure enough there was the daily mirror man sitting with what actually passed more for a duck costume than a chicken costume did you take him out a cup of tea no but i spotted he had his the hat off or whatever the head thing off a bit like gordon the chicken sadly that was my moment to leave the house and go straight leave and he didn't have time to put the head on see i'm a bit surprised by this story about

25:12Ed Balls: you and michael gove because my assumption always was um that you had a shotgun to shoot the birds and then the dogs went and got them in their mouths afterwards rather than actually the dogs

25:23George Osborne: biting the heads off that's more david cameron than george osborne okay fair enough that's more Cotswolds than Notting Hill goodness Charles

25:31Ed Balls: Brandreth you had no idea where this question was going to take us and neither did I we'll take another break and then we'll be back with a final question

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26:57George Osborne: welcome back and our final question it's great having a question from him is from david scaith

27:02Ed Balls: hi ed and george hope you're both doing incredibly well this is the mayor of york in north yorkshire here so this week we're launching our first ever growth summit and an area like ours which is

27:14Gyles Brandreth: heavily dominated by rural and coastal region we feel that we have a really strong role to play in growing not only the local economy in York and North Yorkshire but on the national stage as well what advice would you give to an area like ours that is heavily rural and coastal and what role do you see areas like ours playing in the national growth strategy going forward and Ed as someone

27:35Ed Balls: who also has a speech impediment I must admit at the minute I'm finding it difficult at times even say my own name so any practical tips that you've developed over the years that would be greatly

27:44George Osborne: appreciated. Yeah, I'll leave obviously the question about the speech impediment to you, although it's fantastic to hear David overcoming any of that, to rise to elected office in York and North Yorkshire. And it's also great to hear that we do have a mayor for York and North Yorkshire. When we introduced the mayors, the first was in Greater Manchester, and then we got one in Birmingham. You know, one of the biggest problems was we couldn't get one in Yorkshire, because the political parties basically wouldn't agree. So Labour and Conservatives in Manchester, I mean, to be honest, it was mainly Labour, you know, were happy to go ahead.

28:18George Osborne: And in the West Midlands, where there was very much a kind of strong Conservative presence, we nevertheless agreed. And we had, you know, a mayor in Merseyside, but we could never crack Yorkshire because essentially the kind of Conservatives and Labour disagreed what were the right boundaries. There was already a mayor for South Yorkshire. This was whether in West Yorkshire and North Yorkshire and East Yorkshire there should be different mayors or there should be one mayor for the whole area and no one could work out the political advantage and it was actually the conservatives who thought ah ha ha cunning we're going to have a mayor for York and North Yorkshire because that will definitely be Tory exactly this is the area where like Rishi Sunak is an MP and you know it's all the Dales anyway sure enough they are probably lost to David who's a Labour mayor for the area so congratulations David and it's great that you're doing your job and you're doing from the tone of your question you're doing exactly what you would want a mayor from an area to do which is what are the advantages we have what are the local things that are going for us what's special to our area that we can kind of draw together across the local authority boundaries of york and north yorkshire council and so on and so that the whole is bigger than the parts and it's a bit harder when you don't have a kind of obvious industry located in one place you know in manchester you could support i don't know financial services or tech or something like that or the university it's a big rural area that you represent but you have obviously alighted on as i might expect kind of the strengths of that the countryside the coast you have to work out what are the things that you can practically do and there'll be a lot of small businesses which can make it a bit more difficult because you don't have sort of one or two big businesses you can talk to but you could be providing kind of leadership and advice and kind of information sharing across all the small businesses not just the farmers i'm thinking more of the tourists in places like wensleydale and ark and garthdale and so on this is pretty important in the north yorkshire moors and on the coast and you could do some promotion you know it's a really beautiful part of it i I mean, I'm going to risk, you know, wrath from everywhere else when I say it's actually one of the, maybe the most beautiful part of England.

30:35George Osborne: And I remember I said England, not Scotland, Wales, but really, really stunning part of the country. And I think, you know, you can use the position of the mayor to promote the whole area rather than just one town or one local authority area. represent those voices because they're very small you know a little bed and breakfast little restaurants farm shops you know coastal tourist attractions and so on and you know you can be a voice it's really hard for those voices to be heard in Westminster and Whitehall because they're so small compared to the big companies and that's exactly what a strong mayor can do and you'll be plugged into the Labour Party but also plugged into the government and you know I would also the final piece of advice is work with the local MPs many of whom are still conservative because the one thing if the mayor becomes too partisan then the whole thing collapses you don't hear a single voice from the area that's what really worked in manchester that you had a like labour mayor a conservative chancellor at the time and they were kind of working in tandem

31:34Ed Balls: you can see george osborne is no longer a member of parliament because the idea that when he was representing cheshire in the northwest he would ever have said publicly that north yorkshire has the most beautiful places in England. I mean, you know, I winced and I thought to myself, you know, but what about Norwich and how about Castleford and how about the Lake District? But then actually, look, of course you're right. You've been around there. It's really beautiful, though. Totally beautiful. I have. And we live in North Yorkshire, actually just a couple of miles from where we live in Castleford.

32:06Ed Balls: I think to answer David's question, you are right, George, that you play to your strengths. And that is about, in the case of North Yorkshire, places where there is real excellence in history and in entrepreneurship but also of course tourism and the natural beauty but the other thing which is just so important and i know you'll agree with this george is connectivity because you can't go alone as a rural area with you know important places like york unless you are properly connected into the big urban centers and unless you have connectivity to leeds and then to manchester and there is now a much more effective train line running from Manchester to the south of Leeds, currently into York, making a big difference.

32:49Ed Balls: And being part of the big urban centres while also being proud of your sort of rural, smaller town roots is what it's about. You definitely need both. And that is why that sort of northern footprint, northern powerhouse, the northern connectivity is so important. Just to answer your question about stammering, David has a stammer. He's been elected as the North Yorkshire mayor. He's talked very publicly about how hard it is for him chairing a meeting and having to say his name when you're going around the table. Because for anybody with a stammer, that is very difficult indeed. I don't think I should be giving David tips.

33:24Ed Balls: He should be giving other people tips and maybe we'll find a way to get him to do that at some future point. I wrote a whole chapter in my book speaking out about this. And I think the most important thing is what you're doing, David, which is being open about it and talking about it. because that not only gives confidence to others, but it also relieves the pressure on you by being open. And it took me three years as a cabinet minister before I actually was willing to be open. And that was the most important thing that I did. And the problem is you're finding, David, when I was a cabinet minister, I had to practice how I managed my stammer with Nick Robinson on the green for the 10 o 'clock news or in the House of Commons facing Michael Gove when he was the shadow education secretary.

34:08Ed Balls: And that's, you know, I would work out something I'd try out and then practice it in real time. That's quite exposed, but that's the nature of it. But being open as you are, and you will be inspiring very many other young people, people in your constituency and across the country, by your example. So thank you for what you're doing.

34:22George Osborne: I'll tell you what I've been listening to recently, because it's sort of coming up on my Spotify, Wuthering Heights, you know, Kate Bush.

34:30Ed Balls: Because of the... The winding windy moors. Heathcliff, hiss me a Cathy, come home now. So cold, let me in at your window. That's not bad. That's the first time you've ever been complimentary about my musical anything, ever. I was doing the actions. Well, people can't see this. I'm doing the actions.

34:51George Osborne: And I'm seeing, don't worry, I'm seeing. Hiss me a Cathy, come home.

34:54Ed Balls: So cold, let me in at your window. It looks a bit creepy, actually. Oh, let me in at your window. It just looks a bit weird, just saying. I know, but that's okay.

35:01George Osborne: Being weird is okay, George, as you know well. Haworth is actually, I think, in West Yorkshire, isn't it? But it's a really evocative town, and it's where the Bronte Parsonage is. And there was a new film out. Yes, that's why it's been playing.

35:13Ed Balls: Which apparently is unbelievably raunchy. Have you seen it? No, I haven't. With Margot Robbie. Apparently, it's unbelievably raunchy.

35:20George Osborne: Yeah. I mean, it's a great book. Yes. And we love Margot Robbie, obviously. And Haworth is a great town, although, I'm afraid, David, not in your area, I suspect. It's in David's area. It's West Yorkshire, isn't it? Oh, is it? Yeah.

35:34Ed Balls: Maybe it is.

35:36George Osborne: Just. Just. But I think when you think Wuthering Heights, you do think of the North Yorkshire Moors, to be honest. That's kind of, certainly what I think. You know, you think up on those moors. Definitely.

35:46Ed Balls: Brilliant question. Thank you, David. That's all we've got time for in this episode of EMQs.

35:51George Osborne: Yeah, make sure you keep sending in your questions along with a voice note to questions at politicalcurrency.co.uk and they can be on anything, domestic, international, economics, history, personal lives. You know, well, in fact, we had that question from Charles Brambuth.

36:05Ed Balls: Within reason, our personal lives.

36:07George Osborne: Yeah.

36:08Ed Balls: And actually, you know, if it's funny or quirky, we like it. And if it's really serious, that's also fine.

36:12George Osborne: Yes. We're going to be back on Thursday with another episode of our main podcast. See you then. See you then.

36:26George Osborne: thanks for listening to political currency this has been a persifonica production

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