How Ann Widdecombe’s killing has reshaped British politics

0:00George Osborne: This is going to be an extremely busy month. I have to watch 104 soccer games, follow the pregame, the postgame, yell useless opinions at the TV. It's a lot. So I knew that when it comes to screening for colon cancer, the choice was clear. The Cologuard Plus Test. It can be used at home and can only take 15 minutes. So I can do it during halftime and not miss any action. If you are 45 or older and at average risk, ask your healthcare provider about screening for colon cancer with the Cologuard Test. You can also request a prescription at Cologuard.com.

0:48This is Political Currency with Ed Balls and George Osborne.

1:01Ed Balls: We meet in Hoxton in a state of mourning. England are out of the World Cup, lost to Argentina last night. Got to play France Saturday night. Got to play France in the third place game who cares.

1:15George Osborne: Yeah, the Bronze Cup. But I tell you what, there's something that England and France can celebrate today. And that is today is the day when the Bayer Tapestry is taken out of the box that it is in, in the British Museum. It is unfolded and it is laid flat for its display. Are you sure you've not damaged it? We are 100 % sure. I went yesterday to see all the kind of dry runs for how this very delicate moment is going to unfold, literally. And we've got 100 people who are going to be kind of unfolding this tapestry and laying it around flat. And then the French culture minister is coming with the British culture minister to the British Museum tomorrow to inspect the good work that's been done.

2:00Ed Balls: And will you be there? I will be there. Do you give commands? Do you say as chairman of the British Museum, may I say now, unfold? No.

2:10George Osborne: I know, like all good leaders, I've delegated that authority.

2:13Ed Balls: I'm very much hoping that I'm going to get like a private viewing before it goes on to the public because the queues will be really long. I mean, do our listeners and our viewers, do we get a preview?

2:20George Osborne: Well, I mean, David Beckham queued to see the late queens.

2:26Ed Balls: Well, and famously, some ITV stars didn't, but let's not go there.

2:30George Osborne: No, I think as given there will be many opportunities for the media, including maybe this podcast, to get in there and report from the tapestry. Great.

2:42Ed Balls: I'm looking forward to that. I'm very excited to see the bio tapestry. It will, as you say, some compensation for the hardship of last night. I mean, all this stuff about Thomas Tuchel, was he too defensive? Look, I'm afraid the Argentinians were really good. And once we went a goal up, we went deep and we defended. And I think he probably thought that was what had to be done. Because, I don't know, there is an analogy with Baz Ball, you know, in the cricket.

3:07George Osborne: Yeah.

3:07Ed Balls: Baz Ball, all out attack. Go on the attack. It was like the thing with Ben Stokes as captain until we played the best teams. and we found out that just going all out attack didn't work. And now Basel has sort of slightly been discredited. And I think in the end, this idea that if we'd gone on the attack in the second half, we would have beaten the Argentinians. I think in the end, maybe this team wasn't quite good enough to do that. And maybe Tuchel knew that. And that's why he went defensive. I thought the other thing, I'm just going to say this, really interesting reflection, I think. This is the first World Cup of the conspiracy age.

3:45Ed Balls: it's the first world cup where you have um not just var but you have this view not just in britain but around the world that it's all a conspiracy and so if egypt get beaten by argentina that must be because fifa want argentina to be in the finals and the same thing happened

4:05George Osborne: and like red cards are rescinded after the event just because the president puts in a call to fifa i mean who would believe such nonsense sometimes conspiracy theories have some that's the problem it with a conspiracy theory you know it's normally cock up in life but uh sometimes it is a conspiracy

4:20Ed Balls: but all my life uh i think i've always assumed that when you watch the world cup match you're so much was the world cup match and i do still believe that to be the case however that's what's

4:29George Osborne: so nice about you you're there's a sort of innocence to you but it's the first world cup

4:33Ed Balls: where unfortunately my innocence seems to be not in the majority but you said you just said the best team won well i believe that to be the case right i see i don't think it was stitched up by FIFA because they want Argentina in the final because Messi has got to have his last hurrah, which of course is what even some of our own players seem to believe. But, you know, in politics, the conspiracy ages amongst us. And that's, of course, what Donald Trump tries. It's an establishment stitch up. And even prime ministers can sometimes jump on the conspiracy bandwagon, as we're going to discuss today.

5:04Ed Balls: But it's even infecting the World Cup.

5:07George Osborne: Yes. I mean, I feel I might have jinxed it when at the 85th minute I said to Thea, Let's go to the World Cup final. Come on. Let's try and get tickets. Let's get on a plane to New York. And about a minute later, you know, that was sorted for us. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah. Now, listen, I'm talking about a very serious conspiracy, which is the murder of Anne Whittacombe. So we have got to focus on that, obviously known to both of us. I worked very closely with her about 20 years ago. And I say conspiracy because, you know, it's clear she's been murdered. and it's clear now that with the terrorism police involved that there may be a political motivation now whether that's one individual or not we will soon find out but we're going to talk about I guess the sort of political reaction to this it's still very early days but we think it's worth dwelling on.

5:59Ed Balls: Then of course we are on the brink of the Andy Burnham premiership he's going to become Labour leader tomorrow when nominations close today. Next Monday is the handover from Keir Starmer to Andy Burnham. Keir Starmer's on his farewell tour off to Ukraine today. Not off to New York for the final. Not off to New York for the final, despite, you know, the best laid plans. We're going to talk about how things feel in the days before Andy Burnham becomes Premier. And in particular, we're going to go looking for flashing red lights. Where are the warning signals? What are the things that Andy Burnham and his team need to be seeing this week and worrying about.

6:40Ed Balls: We're going to give them good ex-ante advice.

6:42George Osborne: And finally, we're going to take a look at the last couple of years at Rachel Reeves' time in number 11 and Keir Starmer's time in number 10. And we're going to attempt to write their political obituary. We're going to say, what will they be remembered for? What did they achieve? And what is just passing ephemera? So lots to discuss in the show. But let's start with the absolutely horrific and tragic death of Anne Whittacombe, which I think shocked everyone. I mean, she absolutely was not everyone's cup of tea and there will be people who, you know, very much opposed her politics. And, you know, she was a strident conservative who then moved to reform.

7:21George Osborne: But I think across politics, people were genuinely shocked when the news emerged in a slightly strange way. Initially, we were told she was died and there was a sort of series of radio interviews and TV broadcasts about her life. And then it emerged a few hours later, she'd not only died, she'd been murdered. And then we got, I think it's worth just following the sort of chain of events, starting with the statement by the Devon and Cornwall police. And listen to this timeline here.

7:51Ed Balls: While we work closely with our partners and have consulted counterterrorism policing as part of our initial inquiries, the incident is not being treated as terrorism. It is clear that this was a targeted attack.

8:03George Osborne: We are still working to understand the extent of any planning or preparation and the motivation that sits behind that attack.

8:11Ed Balls: I've broken no law. I've broken no tax law. I haven't misused a penny of public money. I've claimed zero personal expenses at an MP for the first two years. And if Anne Whittacombe's death doesn't convince my critics that I need to look after myself the rest of my life, then frankly, nothing will.

8:29George Osborne: ...that is raised as a result of this murder, which relates not just to the security arrangements for sitting members of Parliament, but for those who have left this place but nevertheless retain a public profile as a result of their political party membership or their political activities. You heard Shabana Mahmood at the end, the Home Secretary, talking in Parliament about the protection of politicians. That, of course, was Nigel Farage. before her. And then you had, as I said, the Devon and Cornwall chief constable, who said there was no terrorism, there was no political motivation to this attack, that their initial view was that this was a robbery that had gone wrong.

9:07George Osborne: And that was a couple of days later, essentially turned out to be wrong, as far as we know today. Of course, there's still lots more investigating to do. And the counterterrorism police have taken over. And I just want to start with that, because, you know, we were talking about conspiracies in a light-hearted away at the beginning of the show. But in terms of fueling a view that the authorities keep things secret from us, that the public are kept in the dark, that, you know, certain political parties are kind of excluded by the establishment. I mean, unfortunately, I think the statement by the local police force will have contributed to that.

9:43George Osborne: I remember listening to it and thinking, why are they going out with such certainty to say this is not politically motivated, this is not terrorism motivated, when you think it's got to be a consideration when a well-known politician is killed. And the fact that that now looks like a mistake, I think, does make this whole thing more complicated for the authorities, more complicated for the police. And if they now do establish there was a political motivation, in other words, she was murdered because of who she was, not because she happened to live in a house that someone was trying to burgle, then I think the police will have made yet another misstep in the way they communicate these very sensitive incidents.

10:28George Osborne: And, you know, the whole Starmer premiership began with arguably some miscommunication by the police around those terrible murders in Southport.

10:36Ed Balls: There are echoes of the two-tier policing conversation you had a few weeks ago. You're not saying, are you, that the Devon and Cornwall police were deliberately trying to cover something up and saying something they knew not to be true?

10:50George Osborne: No, I think, and I don't know, obviously, this is one of the problems you end up speculating and contributing to all this. But I think they were probably going out of their way to say, this is not some big conspiracy. This looks like a burglary that's gone wrong. We're on it. We think we know who's done it. Instead of saying what I think you could have legitimately said, saying, you know, there's no evidence to suggest that it was politically targeted at this point, but it's very early days and it cannot be ruled out with such a high profile individual. They didn't say that. And that was a misstep.

11:22George Osborne: And let me just say, I want to say in passing, because, you know, Thea and I have been the subject of, you know, a stalker, which has been absolutely horrific for us and for our family. This woman has been convicted now and the Crown Prosecution Service have been brilliant and the police have been utterly brilliant, utterly brilliant in handling our case. So my own personal experience of the police at the moment has been nothing other than exactly what you would want from British police officers. So this is not a general like all the police are rubbish. It's just these cases, you just feel on the communication.

11:58The way they communicate, it's sort of like a press conference from the 1980s.

12:02George Osborne: And we're living in 2026. It's a very, very different media age.

12:07Ed Balls: Of course, in the case of Southport, the criticism of the police was they didn't say enough early on to clarify what was going on. And there has been a sort of a pressure on policing to be more open early. my guess is if this was the the met or west yorkshire police big forces very used to dealing with these kind of cases they may have been um done it in a different way and they clearly mishandled this why didn't they just say that all avenues for inquiry are still open but at this stage the evidence is because what clearly happened the once the new suspect was arrested and turned out to be based in south yorkshire they obviously discovered things there which weren't available in Devon and Cornwall on Thursday or Friday of the week before.

12:50Ed Balls: But the shocking thing in the last few days, other than the terrible murder of Anne Whittacombe, is the extent to which this has all been politicised so fast. When you had the murder of Joe Cox, the murder of David Amers, sitting MPs, not hugely high profile, in some ways less high profile than Anne Whittacombe, although she was no longer a member of parliament, the early response would have been shock and mourning and reflection. Actually, what happened in this case was it went high politics, very fast indeed. You end up with Richard Tice saying, it is as though someone in the establishment wants us dead.

13:29Ed Balls: We're treated differently because of our views. I mean, you jump from police cover-up, a terrorist plot, to repeated accusations from a reform that this is an establishment.

13:42George Osborne: And that's a member of parliament speaking.

13:43Ed Balls: Richard is a member of parliament saying that about a former member of parliament on the basis of what evidence. I mean, we've discussed before what's going on in reform and the extent to which reform have to choose as to whether they reach into the sort of old golf club conservatives, pro-police, pro-security, pro the defence of our realm, or whether they tilt the other way to take on Rupert Lowe by playing to the conspiracy theory audience. I've always seen Richard Tice as one of the guys who didn't want to go to the conspiracy side, to go to the Trumpian wing, thought you had to build a consensus into mainstream conservatism.

14:27Ed Balls: But saying that this is the police part of an establishment plot to cover up what is, As he said, people in the establishments who want them knocked off. I mean, what is going on?

14:38George Osborne: OK, but here, you know, it pains me to ever agree with Nigel Farage. But when Nigel Farage has said consistently, I am not being properly protected by the British state, I don't get the security that I need. It's quite hard to argue today after Anne Whittacombe's death. And I think it was quite hard to argue before that there isn't some truth to that. I mean, the Home Secretary in Britain gets a load of police protection. And lots of people have no idea who the Home Secretary is. The Foreign Secretary, your wife, gets loads of police protection. The Defence Secretary gets police protection. You know, marks out of 10 for anyone even listening to this programme who knows who the Defence Secretary is at the moment.

15:19George Osborne: And yet Nigel Farage is probably after the Prime Minister, the most kind of high prominent, sort of high octane politician out there. I'm arguing more high octane than the current Prime Minister. And he gets next to no protection. He gets a bit of protection. His whole argument has been around the money he receives from Christopher Harbin, the five million pounds. I needed it for my protection. And I had to pay for it myself because the British state wouldn't provide it. And, you know, you and I both know about that. Do you know that to be true? Well, I think he was offered some protection by the parliamentary authorities.

15:56George Osborne: There is a parliamentary system.

15:57Ed Balls: As I understand it, he was offered the same level of protection as would currently go to the Chancellor. and to the leader of the opposition, which is not armed met protection. Okay, so why does the Home Secretary get all that police protection and Nigel Farage doesn't? Well, because there is an independent process, which is the Ravik process, which makes a security assessment. But George, the MPs have lost their life. Joe Cox, David Abus, they didn't have protection. In fact, they had far less profile than Nigel Farage. The idea that this is people targeting the most senior people in our society, That wasn't true of Joe Cox and David Amos at all.

16:33Ed Balls: No, of course. By the way, that's not an argument against Nigel Farage getting security. Should Nigel Farage get armed security, you know, which the Chancellor doesn't get and the Leader of the Opposition doesn't get? Well, we can have that argument, but the security assessment has been no.

16:49George Osborne: OK, but does that mean the security? I don't know. You know, the people in this security assessment world are not perfect, right? Yeah, but you're not saying they're part of a conspiracy.

16:58Ed Balls: They're not part of the establishment who wants to take out reform, a la Richard Tice. You have to be careful how you allow yourself to be drawn into this narrative, which is a narrative about the establishment against us. It's not reform MPs who were murdered.

17:12George Osborne: It was David Amos and Joe Cox, a Labour and a Conservative MP. Well, in the case of David Amos, the person who killed him, tried to kill Michael Gove beforehand, right? So what I will say, my own personal experience of the way that ministerial security and political security is handled, it is very located in the deep state. Alistair Darling, the late Alistair Darling, called me up on the day I became Chancellor's Exchequer and said, they are going to try and take your police protection away from you. The police protection I had as Chancellor, said Alistair to me. And you won't even know because you probably didn't even know I had it.

17:45George Osborne: And I had to argue very hard for it. And he said to me, it's ridiculous. The defence secretary, who no one knows the name of, gets all this armed protection because, you know, it's all coming out of the same security budget and the defence secretary and the home secretary and the foreign office secretary and sit on top of that. But the chancellor is a very high profile figure. And there may be someone who's lost their job or had their welfare cut by this person or, you know, blames the chancellor for something. Alistair said to me, you know, is out there by themselves getting no protection. You've told me in the past that Gordon Brown had.

18:18Ed Balls: Gordon Brown had no security protection at all for the 10 years he was chancellor until the final months when he was about to become prime minister. Look, I look back on that and think that is quite surprising. But I don't think that was an establishment plot. It wasn't that Gordon Brown was thought to be not as important as Tony Blair. I presume that's because they didn't think there were threats against him.

18:38George Osborne: OK, here's a simple question. Do you think Nigel Farage is at the moment much more likely to be targeted, maybe by a lone nutter, than frankly senior members of the Labour cabinet? Well, that may well be true, in which case he should get protection.

18:53Ed Balls: I'm not against Nigel Farage getting protection. The issue, though, is has he not got protection because the establishment has a conspiracy against reform and Nigel Farage and they've deliberately excluded him from that. And therefore, he has to stand up against the establishment and have a by-election in Clacton, me versus the establishment to get my protection. I mean, is that really what's going on?

19:16George Osborne: Well, I think one consequence of this horrific murder is that the whole argument from Farage's opponents that he doesn't need the money for his protection, I'm afraid, has melted away. It's going to be extremely hard to lay that charge. Now, there are a set of other charges against him around posh George's money and, you know, the donations to reform and so on. But his simple argument, which is I needed the money to protect myself. It's going to be much harder to say what a load of nonsense. You didn't need the money.

19:47Ed Balls: I would say on that, let us wait and see. There is going to be a by-election. I think if I were Count Binface, I would go quiet now after the death of Van Willekombe. And he's done so. But after that by-election. He's got a bin on his face. He's always quiet. But after that by-election, all the same questions are going to arise for Nigel Farage, which is, first of all, did posh George pay for the security? In which case, what was the£5 million for? This is George Cottrell, we should say. George Cottrell. What was the£5 million for? Has any of it been spent on security? What was it actually given for?

20:20Ed Balls: What was expected in return? All the things which are being investigated by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner. I don't think, in the end, those questions go away from Nigel Farage. And what you're seeing in reform at the moment is this desperate desire to say, we're not going to answer any of these questions because all of you are now part of this establishment plot against reform and Nigel Farage. And therefore, even to ask these questions is illegitimate. And I don't think in the end that washes. It will be very powerful an argument for that certain group of people who might go to Restore with Rupert Lowe and have a sort of MAGA view of the world.

20:59Ed Balls: But I think people in the mainstream, in the centre ground of politics, Labour and Conservatives still think, hang on a sec, five million pounds, where did it come from? He's not going to avoid the scrutiny after the by-election.

21:11George Osborne: Yes, but these things are part, as you know, sometimes there's a kind of coming together of forces and some momentum behind an issue. And I'm saying that this tragic murder will have diffused some of the momentum there.

21:23Ed Balls: Although, you know, I quoted Richard Tice earlier, who I think wants to take the reform towards the centre ground, saying that this is the establishment wants us dead. This is Robert Jenrick on Sky earlier in the week. I mean, Robert Jenrick, who I thought wanted to be Chancellor or Prime Minister, who I thought wanted to be a serious politician bringing reform back towards the centre ground to beat off the Conservatives. When you listen to this interview with Sky, I think it was Adam Bolton, Sam Coates are there as well. It's wild. Political establishment, of which Sky News is clearly a part, is trying to hound Nigel Farage to try to get him to leave public life by putting pressure on his family.

22:08Ed Balls: Well, it's not going to work. No one's putting pressure on his family.

22:12George Osborne: No one is putting pressure on Nigel Farage's family. It is perfectly legitimate.

22:17Ed Balls: And tired old journalists like you, Adam, who have been part of that consensus for my whole life, are going to have to realise that the public are sick of this. Listen, hang on a second. I mean, tired old Adam Bolton of Sky, part of the lefty establishment and reform is going to rise up in the form of Robert Jenrick to defend Nigel Farage against this establishment who Richard Tice says want them all dead. They're losing their marbles, George.

22:44George Osborne: I seem to remember there was a big row Alistair Campbell had with Adam Bolton in 2010 because he was being accused of being part of the Tory establishment.

22:51Ed Balls: When you listen to that, what do you think is going on?

22:54George Osborne: Well, I think Jenrick is trying to advance the argument that has worked well for Trump in the United States that arguably worked for the Brexiteers, which is there's a swamp that needs to be drained. There's an establishment plot that the experts, you know, keeping the true information away from you or don't know what they're talking about or whatever. I mean, he's trying to do that, but of course it comes across as shouty and not deranged as he's wrong. But, you know, it's a bit... Does it work in our politics in the end? Well, unfortunately, there is evidence that that kind of approach has worked in the last 10 years, that there's a bunch of experts in establishment that are keeping you away from, you know, the promised land, which turns out to be a bit sun-parched when you get there.

23:41George Osborne: We should just say on Anne Whittacombe, I mean, I spent so many years working very closely with her. I mean, she was shadow home secretary, shadow health secretary when I was helping William Hague in opposition. There are lots of stories you could tell about her. And, you know, she was very formidable and knew her own mind. And I think a difficult thing in politics, which is, you know, she carved out an identity for herself in a world where that's quite hard to do for any politician. Back then, actually, for a female politician to be able to define herself in a way that wasn't stereotypical was very impressive.

24:13George Osborne: But I remember hearing this conversation, which was there's a rather lovely, sweet man called Oliver Henley, Lord Henley, who was in the home office with her as a minister. And they were both junior ministers to Michael Howard. He objected to Anne Whittacombs telling the civil servants that they could call her Anne rather than minister. And Anne Whittacombe says to Oliver Henley, says, well, I don't understand Oliver. I mean, God calls me Anne. What does God call you? And he goes, well, Lord Henley, of course. Of course, probably her most famous moment in politics, wasn't it, was when she scuppered Michael Howard's leadership campaign in 1997 to take over once the Tories were in opposition.

24:59George Osborne: We've been searching for a clip for this and we can't find it. I think she first said it to Michael Prescott at the Sunday Times, who was the political editor then, and then in Parliament. But we can't seem to find a clip. And she described Michael Haddard as having something of the night about him, which is a lethal phrase because it's quite hard to sort of pin down what it actually means.

25:18Ed Balls: It was devastating. And look, she, I'm sure, in politics made many contributions. I hadn't remembered she was Shadow Home Secretary under William Hague. And she was a great champion for free speech and anti-fox hunting.

25:31George Osborne: Which was a difficult position to take in the Tory party at the time.

25:36Ed Balls: Anti-abortion. But that line, you know, it's I think it's on the same level as Lloyd Benson saying of Dan Quayle in the 1988 vice presidential election. You know, when Quayle claimed to know John F. Kennedy and Benson says, you know, I knew John Kennedy. John Kennedy was a friend of mine. And let me tell you, Mr. Quayle, you are no John Kennedy. and it was devastating. And that line, something of the night, has the same, I think...

26:04George Osborne: It killed off Howard's leadership campaign and back in 97 and opened the door to William Haig, who at the time was supporting Michael Haig.

26:11Ed Balls: And then, of course, the other contribution she made, which I came into direct contact with many years later, she went on Strictly Come Dancing. Of course. She came sixth. That famous dance where she's twirled around the room in a yellow dress.

26:26George Osborne: Isn't she thrown through the legs to some Korean DJ? Oh, no, that's your dancer.

26:31Ed Balls: That's mine. She does. I mean, I was in the shadow of Anne Whittacombe. You know, Anton Dubeck, who was her partner, I mean, he was still in trauma. This is years afterwards from this. This is Anne Whittacombe talking to Bruce Forsyth on Strictly Come Dancing. Is it sad if you get through next week? Do you blame me for doing comedy? No, of course not. It makes me look... Cheer up, Bruce, and following week it's the rumba. She established a connection there with the wider public, which went way beyond politics. And, I mean, it's still up there. It's one of the great iconic moments of Strictly history.

27:10Ed Balls: There we are.

27:11George Osborne: Yeah, well, she will be missed, even if you didn't agree with all her views. And what a terrible way to go. What a terrible way for any life to end.

27:18Ed Balls: I know, and it's just, look, there's going to be a proper debate about MP security, which will include Nigel Farage's security, and Andy Burnham has said he's committed to that as well. And, you know, we had on Good Morning Britain this week, Nadine Dorries, and she said that she wouldn't want any of her 20-something daughters to go into politics now because it's too dangerous. And that is disastrous for our democracy. So from the tragedy of Anne Whittacombe's terrible murder, still to be properly investigated, let us hope that we can make some progress on making sure that we don't deter the next generation of people from coming into politics.

27:55Well, talking of the next generation, Andy Burnham is about to be the Prime Minister,

27:59George Osborne: and we're going to turn to that next.

28:11George Osborne: This is going to be an extremely busy month. I have to watch 104 soccer games, follow the pregame, the postgame, yell useless opinions at the TV. It's a lot. So I knew that when it comes to screening for colon cancer, the choice was clear. The Coligard Plus test. It can be used at home and can only take 15 minutes. So I can do it during halftime and not miss any action. If you are 45 or older and at average risk, ask your healthcare provider about screening for colon cancer with the Coligard test. You can also request a prescription at coligard.com.

28:48Ed Balls: So welcome back. nomination is closed today for the Labour leadership. There's going to be only one candidate. Although Catherine West, who challenged Keir Starmer a few weeks ago, who if you like started the ball rolling, she did get one nomination. Unfortunately, he needed 81 rather than one. So she's not going to make it. Andy Burnham is going to be the Labour leader on Friday, will become Prime Minister on Monday. It is astonishing to have somebody who a few weeks ago wasn't even a member of Parliament. The only vote for him was the people of Makerfield. There's been almost no scrutiny of him in recent days and weeks.

29:21Ed Balls: No hustings, very few interviews. Not only is he about to become the Prime Minister, having been only an MP for a few weeks, he only made his maiden speech on Tuesday in the third reading of the Hillsborough debate. And this was quite unusual because Keir Starmer, as Prime Minister in his valedictory week, chooses to do the opening third reading speech in Parliament about the Hillsborough reforms. He wants this to be part of his legacy. And then Andy Burnham pops up in what is normally a short and rather nondescript debate at third reading to make his maiden speech in which he took up the cudgels, not just on behalf of the Hillsborough families.

30:03Ed Balls: Of course, he has a hugely long track record there, but also more widely. For 20 years, an entire English city was crying injustice correctly, and yet this place ignored them for all of that time. We cannot forget that, and we cannot take away the hurt that that caused. We cannot forget that postmasters and mistresses serving communities up and down this country were branded as petty thieves and carried that stigma with them for years. Likewise, those who were infected by infected blood and were blamed that they had brought it on themselves through their lifestyle. We can't forget that. Andy Burnham's maiden speech, it didn't sound prime ministerial.

30:57Ed Balls: I guess he's kind of getting his whole backbench new MP fighting against the system, railing against the establishment, standing up for the for people who've been wronged over this week, because then he's going to be prime minister answering all the questions on behalf of every aspect of the British government in short.

31:17George Osborne: order yeah i mean i think it's well first of all it it's worth just pausing and um reminding yourself what an amazing achievement i mean to come out of being mayor of manchester two months ago to the prime minister of britain to be completely unchallenged in your party for the premiership think of all those mb not every member of parliament wants to be prime minister but quite a few do all a lot of people in the cabinet would fancy a crack at the job and looked at it closely and yet he ends up with 91 % of Labour MPs backing him. I wonder who the 9 % of Labour MPs is. He said, I'm not part of this stampede.

31:55George Osborne: I sort of admire their independence. So that is, you know, and you've got to hand it to him. That's not some sort of happy coincidence or some, you know, piece of good fortune. You know, that's because he had built up a reputation as the, you know, someone who could do the job, who had built up a personal appeal in Manchester, who was the answer to Labour's problems. And then he ruthlessly pursued it by gambling everything on the by-election and seeing off all challenges. But I think the kind of question...

32:23Ed Balls: If it hadn't been for the storming nature of the by-election win, it wouldn't have worked out this way. The fact that he had more votes than reform, restore, the Greens, Tories, all combined. I mean, I think that is a thing which just made him suddenly unchallengeable. This is not, though, without risks. We said at the beginning that we would look at, you know, the kind of flashing red lights which should be on his radar as he goes into Downing Street in the next few days and one of them is that there'll be lots of people including lots of just ordinary voters who think where's this guy come from I mean you know we didn't vote for him we didn't vote for him to leave his party he didn't stand on the 2024 manifesto there's been very little scrutiny we don't really quite know who he is and what he stands for and he is going to have a mandate a mandate from essentially Labour MPs, not from Labour members, not from voters outside of Makerfield.

33:15Ed Balls: How he goes about the early period is going to be very important. He'll need to do this with humility. I think if he sounds like that he is relying upon a deep mandate, then it could backfire, because lots of people will say this is just not legitimate.

33:33George Osborne: So I think there's two things I'd say to that. The first is this mandate issue, I think, is a bit of a red herring. So Rishi Sunak, when he is asked now, why did you not, right at the beginning of your premiership, you know, make a big break, not just with Liz Truss, but Boris Johnson, who, after all, you had brought down by resigning as Chancellor of the Exchequer? He says now, and I didn't have the mandate. You know, I'd been in an unopposed leadership election, not unlike Andy Burnham. And I was, you know, seen as the only answer for the party at that moment. But I felt I had to kind of, I had to earn the mandate.

34:10George Osborne: I think that's a huge mistake. The mandate is a, you know, as Keir Starmer discovered with the mandate at a general election, it's only an ephemeral thing. You make your own mandate as prime minister. And then second, I think there's a kind of risk equally of sort of misjudging the mood. There is no mood out there in the country of excitement about Andy Burnham arriving. Andy Burnham is literally the next in a long line now of prime ministers who have come and potentially gone, who the public are not really focused on anymore because there have been too many of them. And there's no great like, oh, the king in the north is coming to save us all.

34:48George Osborne: That might be the feeling in some parts of the parliamentary Labour Party, but not beyond that. And there's a big mistake.

34:53Ed Balls: And I think the point I'm making is that mustn't be in Andy Burnham's head. He mustn't come in thinking that he's riding in on that sort of wave. No, he's not. Because it's not there. And if he assumes that, that's where the popular backlash will come from. So he has to come in with caution and humility.

35:11George Osborne: Well, I would say with humility, but not so much caution. So I disagree with you. because I think what people want to see, they don't want like long, you know, spiels about injustices of the past. I thought that the trouble with that speech he gave is he's sort of wallowing in nostalgia about past injustices. He's preying on a country that's overly focused and sorry for itself about its past. And, you know, where there are some leaders in the world at the moment who are all about the future, relentlessly talking about the future and how their country is going to lead in the future. Britain has got itself into this hole where it's feeling, you know, aggrieved and that kind of grievance culture.

35:52George Osborne: And I'm not saying these aren't very legitimate campaigns and injustices have been done in the past. But, you know, if your big issue is what happened, you know, at the Hillsborough Stadium decades ago, what happened to the postmasters, what happened to the infected blood victims. That's an important part of the government dealing with those past injustices. But it can't be your central theme. Your central theme, you know, politics is the future business. And we have not yet heard enough from him, partly to be fair, because he hasn't had a contest and he's been careful in his communication about the future business.

36:26George Osborne: And the caution is this. He's got to just get on and show he can run the country. That's what Keir Starmer couldn't do. When Keir Starmer became prime minister, it all started to go wrong very quickly. The internal problems in Downing Street, the early decisions were mistakes. We'll come on and talk about that when we do his political obituary in a minute. But, you know, what he's got to show, which recent prime ministers have not been able to do, which is I am in control of this machine. I have a plan. I know which direction the country is going into. And we are heading into the future. And he's got to communicate that over the next couple of months.

36:59Ed Balls: I don't disagree with that. I think when I say caution, he mustn't assume a national uprising of popular support for him. He has to build that. I agree. Oh, totally agree with that. So that's what I mean by caution. Secondly, he's also raising expectations in that maiden speech that he can deliver for people who have been wronged and faced injustice. Now, that is a hard thing to do.

37:22George Osborne: I think in the in the in the by-election, he didn't he nodded towards the waspy women and then had to retreat.

37:28Ed Balls: Because that's billions of pounds. He's also said in recent weeks he's going to act on the cost of living crisis. He's going to deliver stronger defences. And he's going to stick to the Labour tax manifesto. And growth in every postcode.

37:44George Osborne: If that's not already something hanging around your neck when you enter Downing Street.

37:48Ed Balls: So the caution is also not allowing expectations to run ahead of what you can deliver. He has to explain to people how hard it is and how long it's going to take. And that is, it can't all just be delivered fast. He's also got hundreds of Labour MPs on the back benches who've all nominated Andy Burnham, and they all think that he's about to deliver. He's about to give them a call. And there's going to be lots of people who are disappointed. He's also got a lot of uniting to do. I don't know whether you saw, they've announced to the existing Downing Street staff that I think the large majority, that most of them are going to be staying on on three month transition contracts before they then move on.

38:27Ed Balls: So there's going to be continuity, although there's going to be quite a lot of people in that Downing Street who are not great Andy Burnham fans. But he's appointed Graham Cook to be his head of policy, currently in the Keir Starmer team, former aide to James Pennell, somebody who is strongly on the accelerate welfare reform side of the political argument, who's going to be working very closely, if we assume this is right, with Lou Haig, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, if she gets that job, the Cabinet Office coordinating policy job. Lou Hague, who led the rebellion against Kirstam and Rachel Reeves' welfare reforms last year in Parliament.

39:05Ed Balls: So he's got a lot of consensus building to put in place as well. And that's just one example. There's going to be very many others. So it's not going to be a straightforward thing coming in and dealing with some of the challenges he's got to face.

39:18George Osborne: But is it consensus building or is it leadership? I mean, do you lead by trying to make everyone happy or do you lead, you know, a government and a Labour Party by saying this is the path we're on. Let me explain, you know, why we're doing this. Here's our theory of what's gone wrong with the country. Here's our theory of what's gone wrong with the Starmer government. Because you've got to have some explanation of why there's a change of prime minister. And it can't just be Keir Starmer did a great job. We pay enormous tribute to him. You know, you've got to. That's not enough. It's like, OK, well, why did you get rid of him?

39:53George Osborne: Totally. And then you've got to have your answer. And then I think Labour MPs will rally around something where they feel like this person knows what he's doing. The problem for Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves was things like the winter fuel payment cut, the attempt to cut the welfare budget. You know, they didn't they kind of came out of the blue. There was no context. There was no story. There was no argument. He's put in an important pillar of that with his regionalism and his Manchesterism. But that is only one pillar of the overall story about what you're doing for the country. And we have yet to hear that from him.

40:27Ed Balls: I'm not disagreeing that he's got to lead, but you have to lead by making and winning the argument. What he can't do is assume that people will come with him because he's Andy Burnham. There is a big brewing rebellion happening within Labour at the moment about the Shabana Mahmood immigration reform proposals, in particular around indefinite leave to remain. And Andy voted for the second reading at the beginning of the week. And lots of people who didn't want to vote for it were either let off or did through by holding their nose because there was a briefing to the newspapers that Shibana Mahmood is going to do a U-turn on this policy area.

41:02Ed Balls: But he'll have to build a consensus on welfare reform and on immigration reform and around the funding of defence, which takes people with him. He can't assume that it's going to be OK because he's not Keir Starmer. he's now Andy Burnham and therefore it's all going to be okay.

41:20George Osborne: Do you think the parliament, because it's often put to me by people, the parliamentary Labour Party just are not prepared and unwilling to take any kind of difficult decision. So you say you want a consensus on immigration reform or a consensus on welfare. For many Labour MPs, that's like do nothing. And then you continue to drift into a reform victory because you have abuses in welfare and abuses in immigration, which, you know, everyone can see out in their community and the government's doing nothing about.

41:53Ed Balls: I'm going to say back to you what you said a moment ago, that's about leadership. If you come along with welfare reform or the winter fuel allowance and say, we've just got to do it because we need the money to make the sums add up, that is not a winning argument. It's not a principle to come around. It doesn't have a vision of the future in it. And people recoil against that. you have to win the big argument about purpose and where you're taking the country and why welfare reform is essential for the jobs and well-being of young people in our country and why the immigration reform is necessary in order that we can show in a fair way we are managing our borders you just have to go out there and win the big arguments i think the other thing i'm going to just highlight because we mentioned this a couple of weeks ago we said they had to get a grip of

42:39George Osborne: the briefing and the media speculation.

42:43Ed Balls: And the last couple of days have been completely wild. You've had allies of Andy Burnham out there suddenly saying that Ed Miliband is no longer going to be the chancellor. He's been blocked. You have, I guess, the allies of Shabana Mahmood saying no, Shabana Mahmood is going to be the chancellor because she can make the tough decisions for the markets and Ed Miliband won't. And Andy Burnham sort of sits in the middle saying, you know, this is all speculation. You'll have to wait till Monday.

43:11George Osborne: But hold on. The Financial Times says Mahmood set to be named UK Chancellor by Burnham. I mean, that's right. I mean, that's the Financial Times, which is going to be read internationally.

43:22Ed Balls: And that was written last night. And then overnight, there is a BBC story written by Ian Watson, which is much more cautious about that and says decisions haven't been made. Announcements will come next Monday. That, to me, was a big rewinding. I think it's just important to explain, because you and I understand this. Not everybody listening to our podcast understands that these allies of Andy Burnham, they aren't necessarily speaking with his authority, but they are people who are part of his circle. They're people who think they can go out and say these things. They're doing them because they're trying to win the argument or push things in a particular direction.

43:58Ed Balls: And as we said a couple of weeks ago, if Andy Burnham and James Purnell allow a culture, and it's not happening in his prime ministership, it's happening even before he's arrived, that there are all of these noises off, speaking in his name, in contradictory ways, fighting things out in public, but anonymously, then the government will fall apart. and you have to grip the briefing operation. I would have James Spinell and Andy Burnham speak to all the political editors and say, unless a story comes from me, James, or my head of comms, it is not authorised from Andy Burnham. And if you write that, we will come out and dump on you from a great height.

44:41Ed Balls: I don't know if they've done that yet. It's what they should do. At the moment, it is ill-disciplined and destabilising for markets, but also for politics. And this whole question of the chancellorship, despite the financial times, I think it's still up in the air, but it looks disorderly. It looks wobbly. I mean, I think a week ago, you and I assumed Ed Miliband was going to be chancellor and suddenly it's all up in the air before he's even arrived.

45:06George Osborne: Yeah, I mean, I said initially, I thought it should and would be Shibana Mahmood. And then I said, however, I've absolutely now seen and come around to the argument of why it should be Ed Miliband. But it's not actually my decision. So I'm allowed to have two candidates. If you're the prime minister, you've got to have one. What would you be? I mean, let's just pause on this because, you know, we'll know in a couple of days. I was thinking what I would do if I was genuinely undecided. Maybe, you know, maybe he's made his mind up. I would say to Ed Miliband, prove to me that you can be my number two.

45:40George Osborne: You're not going to be number one ex-Labor leader with your own agenda. prove to me you can work for me to help me deliver the Burnham agenda, not the Miliband agenda, and win over the business community. Because, you know, if he becomes the chancellor, you start with the business community entirely offside. That is any Labour politician listening to this. That is not to be underestimated. The business community are very, very suspicious of Ed Miliband and need a lot of persuading. Shabana Mahmood, I would say to her, prove to me you are going to be able to make the treasury work for you rather than just become a creature of the Treasury, which quite a few recent chancellors have become.

46:19George Osborne: Why will I appoint someone who's not versed in all of this? Could you bring him with you? Gordon Brown had you, Ed Balls, and I had Rupert Harrison, who had come from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, who knew the workings of the Treasury, could help me deliver my idea. If it's just Siobhan and Mahmood turning up on day one, I would be a bit nervous. So those are the two questions I've put to those two in private. And first test would be, if any of that comes out in public, I'd say, well, I'm not having them, because the other thing you need from your Chancellor is utter discretion.

46:51Ed Balls: I think that is right. And you can think of this as the questions you put to the two of them. Or you could think of the conversation that Andy Burnham and James Pennell have about who is the right choice. And I go back to something we said a couple of weeks ago, which is you should start not from the who, but from the what. What do you want? What you want in this job as Chancellor. I think we said a couple of weeks ago five things. You want somebody who is steeped in economics and is not going to be pushed around by the Treasury and can come in with that sort of understanding of how you think about economic decision-making.

47:24Ed Balls: And I think the markets really care about that. You want somebody who is steeped in, if you like the Manchesterism agenda, the devolution agenda. You want somebody who's a good communicator. You want somebody who can reassure business and the markets. You want somebody who will work with Andy Burnham in the Andy Burnham style and will want to be part of it. And I think what's happened in the last couple of weeks...

47:44George Osborne: And someone focused on winning a general election. That was always the complaint against even great politicians like Roy Jenkins, that he didn't care enough about getting the... You winced when I say great politicians. But, you know, in 1969-70, you know, he just doesn't deliver the victory for Harold Wilson. And arguably, you know, I have a huge amount of time for Alistair Darling, he was not political enough for Gordon Brown running into the 2010 election.

48:09Ed Balls: That is what I mean about being part of the kind of Andy Burnham purpose. The politics is an important part of that. So if you think of Ed Miliband, steeped in the economics, steeped in the Treasury, he's, I think, a much better communicator than he used to be. And he was the best communicator of the two Miliband brothers back in 2010. I think he's been part of the Burnham project for some time. He understands the Manchester agenda. His question has been, can he bring business in the markets with him? And I think on the business side, an ongoing challenge, I think on the market side, he's been working hard at that, the signals he's been sending.

48:43Ed Balls: But the question you then have to ask is, if there's an alternative, it's not good enough for them not to be Ed Miliband. The question is, how do they do on these tests? And I think that is a challenge which they have to ask about Shabana Mahmood as well as Ed Miliband. It's not obvious to me. Shabana has been an effective Home Secretary. She's a lawyer. She has no track record on the economy and economics. She was in my Shadow Treasury team for a short period, but she has no depth in that. And you and Gordon Brown were both historians, but you were Shadow Chancers for five years and brought in people.

49:19George Osborne: You were steeped in it. I think both of us knew what we didn't know and the help we needed. I mean, Gordon assembled a very formidable team of advisors. Of course, not including you, but Ed Miliband. And hopefully people would say I did the same. I mean, isn't there a – can I just question this, which is we are doing what a lot of the newspapers are doing at the moment, which is we're talking about personalities, who's going to be the chancellor. We're talking about – I'm trying not to do that. I'm trying to talk about what you want, what the capacities you want, and then compare that to the people rather than simply starting with the person.

49:53George Osborne: Isn't there a problem about – maybe we can bring this to a conclusion here – that the problem at the moment with the Burnham premiership, we started with he is very excited, obviously, he's about to be prime minister. So the parliamentary Labour Party might be full of hope and expectation. The country is not in that mood at all. You know, we have not much to go on because he said very little publicly, but his most recent communication, his speech in Parliament, was very backward looking, very nostalgic. All the talk is about the cost of having a number 10 in Manchester, the who's going to do what job.

50:26George Osborne: It's all kind of internal wiring and moving deck chairs and offices and whatever. He's not yet been able to articulate, except in the sort of broadest sense, the sort of substantial thing he wants to do for the country. And, you know, it's like on Monday he's going to be the prime minister and tomorrow he's going to be the Labour leader. Maybe he's waiting till the day he's standing in front of number 10 to start communicating that. But his generalities have taken him a very long way, so they are not to be dismissed. I didn't. But now is going to be the time to show, not tell, isn't it?

51:00Ed Balls: That is true. but there's going to be three moments. There's what he says when he takes over. It probably will be in the kind of vein we've seen in recent weeks. You know, you don't define yourself in policy terms on the first day. You've got his conference speech in September and he's got the budget. And the truth is, of all these decisions, and we've said, you know, he can have continuity in the cabinet. He can do his big reshuffle later on. Who he chooses as the chancellor has a massive impact. And that's why he has to be thinking about that very hard right now. He wants somebody. And that budget of all those events.

51:34Ed Balls: The budget is the biggest.

51:35George Osborne: Because it's the tax spending and debt decisions that have undone Starmer.

51:40Ed Balls: And if you come in as a chancellor and say, the fiscal rules will all count. And, you know, I'm just going to say I'm tough, not weak like Ed Billaband. I'll make the tough decisions. I'll sort things out and I'll tell the cabinet, these are your spending cuts and you just go on and do it. I'm not going to brook any opposition on any of that. If I'm tough and I deliver, Andy Burnham will be sitting there thinking, well, hang on a sec, what happened to the Manchesterism agenda? And I've got to take my cabinet with me. And actually, I need some hope. And how are you going to solve these problems for me?

52:10Ed Balls: And we've got to win an economic argument, which also works for us politically in two years time. You know, just be careful that you don't end up making the wrong choice.

52:20George Osborne: Look, it's not an impossible task that we've said it before. There are successful liberal or centre-left leaders out there in the world with high poll ratings delivering purposeful agendas. So anyway, talking about someone who sadly was not able to do that, Keir Starmer and his right-hand woman, Rachel Reeves, we are going to discuss their political obituary next.

52:53George Osborne: This is going to be an extremely busy month. I have to watch 104 soccer games, follow the pregame, the postgame, yell useless opinions at the TV. It's a lot. So I knew that when it comes to screening for colon cancer, the choice was clear. The Cologuard Plus Test. It can be used at home and can only take 15 minutes. So I can do it during halftime and not miss any action. If you are 45 or older and at average risk, ask your healthcare provider about screening for colon cancer with the Cologuard Test. You can also request a prescription at Cologuard.com.

53:30Ed Balls: so welcome back so much of the focus is on Andy Burnham and what he's going to do next but we thought we should mark this moment we know that Keir Starmer is ending his two years as prime minister widespread expectation including in our last discussion that Rachel Reeves is ending her two years as chancellor, even though she may stay on in a cabinet job in the new Burnham cabinet. So worthwhile reflecting on these two years. And it's been a tough two years for both of them. And Rachel Reeves in her Mansion House speech, Keir Starmer, in his words this week, saying, you know, the economy's growing and inflation's coming down and, you know, the plan is working but i would say uh that's not how either labor mps or voters uh feel and both kieran rachel's approval ratings historically very low should we start with rachel reeves and how you know how will her political obituary um begin when we look back on her time as chancellor

54:35George Osborne: what will the verdict be well you know i like her personally so some of this is going to come across as pretty harsh but if possible should not be seen as too personal i mean she's obviously known as britain's first female chancellor but i'm afraid that's probably it i mean she will be put in a line now of several chances as exchequer we've had seven or eight chances as exchequer since 2016 and um people are not going to be able to remember them all they may remember her because she was a woman but not because of much of what she achieved i think if you look at her period in office there will be a couple of things.

55:12George Osborne: You know, she sort of entrenched Treasury orthodoxy by passing legislation that sort of entrenched the role of the OBR. And she has overseen a big increase in public expenditure and a quite significant increase in the tax burden. But I think that's on a continuum with what was starting to happen under the Boris Johnson government, where there was a big increase in public expenditure and a big increase in taxation. So this will be seen as a period after the Brexit referendum when Britain moved from being a kind of lower tax, lower spending country somewhere between the United States and Europe.

55:45George Osborne: And ironically, post-Brexit is more in the European model of being a higher tax, higher spending country. It's just, of course, the country doesn't really feel it's getting much value for that money that has been committed. But other than that, I'm afraid she will be seen as someone who ultimately was more, you know driven by the treasury than driving the treasury i think you're right that we not only

56:09Ed Balls: both like rachel reeves a lot but also we wanted her to succeed and i i really wanted her to succeed

56:15George Osborne: i genuinely people will think oh you're a tory george i promise you i wanted rachel reeves to

56:20Ed Balls: succeed and i wanted keir starmer to succeed and all the conversations we've had on this podcast have been you know in real time saying here's what she needs to do here's what we're worrying about the reality was she was part of the partnership which won the election in 2024 and then that early decision to abolish the winter fuel allowance set her off in a doom loop and it spiralled after that. I don't think politically she ever recovered from that. Now, there's a lot of other things which happened.

56:46George Osborne: But it was symbolic of the fact that it had a real-world consequence of taking money away from pensions, but there was no plan. Where was the big early plan for the Treasury?

56:57Ed Balls: And it made no sense given the manifesto or her values or her purpose. I mean, the manifesto, I think, was too boxing in. They went too hard on health in the first budget in terms of quantum of spend. But also the National Insurance employers' rise was too big a tax rise for employers to bear. And, you know, such a challenge given the manifesto. And then the welfare reform, all of the U-turns that could terrible mess last autumn about whether she was going to break the manifesto and raise taxes. and then a kind of weird press conference in Downing Street. The problem is, though, that too often she doubled down.

57:36Ed Balls: She boxed herself in on the manifesto. She then does the first budget and says, that is it for the Parliament, no more tax rises. And then she has to come back for more tax rises.

57:45George Osborne: It's that wrong lesson as a Chancellor. You think, like, chancellors have to stick to their guns, they have to be tough. But in fact, the kind of trick, I think, as Chancellor, is to look tough and be unbelievably flexible. Very. and move around over the battlefield as you have to.

58:01Ed Balls: And then there were moments when she could have broken out of it. I think she could have broken out of the straitjacket in the early months. She could have broken out of the straitjacket over defence spending. Donald Trump was saying the things. A year and a half ago, yeah. And she chose not to take the... But the fundamental thing is this. There was never an argument about growth, a diagnosis of why the economy hasn't worked. I thought she went in the wrong direction when she went sort of anti-competition policy. That was anti-dynamism. She never embraced the devolution regional growth agenda.

58:34Ed Balls: What she did on public spending, on public investment, they were reducing spending on innovation and on skills and local transport was flat or not rising by anywhere near enough for science spending flat. And all the money was going on defence and health, which is fine, but that wasn't a growth plan. And in the end, you have to anchor your view of the future in your diagnosis and make your policies flow from that. And it wasn't something she ever did.

59:01George Osborne: And what about Keir Starmer, first Lord of the Treasury? I mean, again, it's harsh this. I mean, he will in the history of the Labour Party. He will be the man who, you know, took Labour out of the wilderness of the Jeremy Corbyn years. And there was a real question mark when he became leader of the Labour Party about whether Labour would survive as a party, whether some new political party had to be created. There were prominent Labour figures, including Tony Blair, going around saying, well, we need to create a new party. So he leads Labour Party out of the wilderness.

59:35Ed Balls: And just to say that is not only a Labour achievement. I mean, it was it was done very fast. It took him less time than Neil Kinnock and Tony Blair. But more than that, there's only three prime ministers in the last 50 years who won a majority from opposition. Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Keir Starmer. Since the Second World War, there's only four Labour prime ministers who won a majority after Attlee, Wilson, Blair, Starmer. I mean, actually, as an electoral achievement, not just for Labour, but for British politics, what he did was exceptional.

1:00:12George Osborne: Yes. Although the election result, and this was part of the seeds of the problem, was, you know, the majority was hugely helped by the split on the right with reform. Definitely. They got only 33 % of the vote, which is what William Hague basically got against Tony Blair in 2001. But that was a winning share of the vote in 2024. floor. I think with Keir Starmer, the problem is, you know, he's also the shortest serving Labour prime minister ever. You know, I mean, that's quite a thing, isn't it? If you think of Jim Callahan and, you know, he's the short of Gordon Brown, he's the shortest serving Labour prime minister ever.

1:00:49George Osborne: And yet he had a huge majority.

1:00:50Ed Balls: And his ejection wasn't contested. I mean, his ejection by Labour MPs was near universal.

1:00:56George Osborne: And that's because he just simply proved to be unable to do the job as prime minister, Not because he had the wrong values or, you know, he was not a sort of decent individual as far as we can tell. It's just he just couldn't do the basics of running the Downing Street operation. He had all these chiefs of staff, directors of communication. You know, it's very striking. Actually, unlike Andy Burnham, when you meet anyone who's ever worked for Andy Burnham, they are full of praise. When you meet people who work for Keir Starmer, they are actually not very praiseworthy of him.

1:01:23Ed Balls: So many unforced errors.

1:01:25George Osborne: So many relaunched. That's because he couldn't run the operation. And he was very on the sort of skills that had made him the outsider, the non-politician, the solution to Labour's problems turned out in government to be a huge weakness.

1:01:40Ed Balls: If we did a medley of all Keir Starmer's relaunches, I mean, it would take up most of this programme and there would be so many different slogans and purposes. And sometimes he ended up, you know, having to not only move on from his last relaunch, but to contradict what he said a couple of weeks ago. I mean, the idea that you make a speech about immigration where you say island of strangers and then a few weeks later say I didn't even read the speech in advance and I didn't know why I was saying what I said. And then too often when things went wrong, he blamed other people and ended up sacking them from his own team.

1:02:13Ed Balls: Fundamentally, I don't think he ever felt either politically he needed to build an alliance with the nation or politically feel he needed to build alliances within his own team, whether that was his staff or whether that was his cabinet colleagues. And it was like, well, I'm the prime minister and therefore I should just do it. And in the end, if you do take that approach and it doesn't work, people say, well, in that case, you're out. There was no loyalty in the end to Keir Starmer.

1:02:38George Osborne: But yeah, and therefore in the kind of scheme of things, he's not going to be remembered. I mean, frankly, he's going to be, you know, one of the string of ex-prime ministers at the Cenotaph in the next couple of decades, you know, assuming he's in good health. And he's going to be part of a period of British history when the prime ministers came and went. And I think Andy Burnham's kind of challenge is to realize in a way that I think Keir Starmer didn't. You know, the reason why there's been a string of prime ministers is not because they're all incompetent or they're all stupid. Although it's because they've not been able to prescribe for Britain a plan.

1:03:16George Osborne: They've not been able to come to terms with a post-Brexit Britain or Britain in the age of a new form of political communication, you know, Britain in an age of Donald Trump and waning European and British economic power. They've not been able to come up with a kind of prescription of the problem other than, you know, the last person was rubbish and I'm much better. And that is you've got to have some organizing principle and some organizing theory. And Keir Starmer did not have that.

1:03:45Ed Balls: But this may be the galling irony for Keir Starmer. If Andy Burnham goes on in the next couple of years to falter on the domestic agenda or in foreign policy, and people look back and say, well, actually, you know, Keir Starmer, rather better than Andy Burnham on this or that. Keir Starmer may feel good about that. But if Andy Burnham loses the next election, people will say it's because of what Keir Starmer with Rachel Reeve did wrong in the first two years. And it was just not recoverable. So the galling irony is that Keir Starmer doesn't want Andy Burnham to fail. He needs him to succeed. If Andy Burnham wins the next election, sees off reform, there's a chance people will say that was partly what Keir Starmer did.

1:04:29Ed Balls: He rescued the Labour Party. He won in 24. He laid the foundations. Look, there were some missteps. But in the end, Andy Burnham could take over and build upon that. Andy Burnham is the key to Keir Starmer's legacy. and, you know, Keir Starmer may hate that. I think it's true. If he's listening to the podcast, he'd say, pass the sick bag, Ed. I think it's true. Keir Starmer needs Andy Burnham to succeed because if he fails, they're all going to go down in history. There we are. That is it for this week's episode of Political Currency.

1:05:01George Osborne: Yes. Make sure you check out in our show notes how you can become a kitchen cab or gold subscriber, get your EMQs early and all sorts of other perks.

1:05:08Ed Balls: We're back on Monday for EMQs, Ex Minister's Questions. We'll answer all your biggest political queries and ideas. And if you're a Gold member or a Kitchen Cabinet member, you get it early. And send us a question to emqs, questions at politicalcurrency.co.uk. We always like a voice note. And any question works for us.

1:05:26George Osborne: See you on Monday for emqs and a new British Prime Minister.

1:05:30Ed Balls: Oh, my gosh.

1:05:31George Osborne: See you then.

1:05:39George Osborne: Thanks for listening to Political Currency. This has been a Persephoneca production.

1:06:11George Osborne: halftime and not miss any action. If you are 45 or older and at average risk, ask your healthcare provider about screening for colon cancer with a Cologuard test. You can also request a prescription at Cologuard.com.