Reeves's Spending Review ‘gamble’: continuity or change for Labour?

0:00Hi, this is Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman. I've been writing about food and restaurants for almost 50 years, my whole career, really. And what I know is that the good restaurants all have something in common. They're busy, genuinely, chaotically busy. And somehow in the last few years, the best of them have begun to make it look easy. And do you know why? Because they're running on Toast's technology. Toast is built for restaurant owners who understand that Toast's tools keep the line moving and keep their customers happy, with fewer mistakes and hiccups in ordering and paying.

0:38For owners, that turns busy into business. To learn more, head to toasttab.com. That's T-O-A-S-T-T-A-B, toasttab.com. Toast, built for busy. This message is brought to you by today's sponsor. Walden University. Set a course for change. Now is the time to make a real change in your life, career, and community. At Walden University, we give you the support and flexibility to get the W. Walden's online programs are designed for working professionals like you. You'll gain hands-on skills to take on real-world challenges and succeed. Your future is waiting and Walden is here to help you achieve it.

1:20Take the first step to make your impact. Visit waldenu.edu. Walden University. Set a course for change. Certified to operate by Shev. Is there anything better than your team bringing home a W? How about a personal W for your health? If you're 45 or older and at average risk, it's time to screen for colon cancer. Now the number one cancer killer of people under 50 in the U.S. It's easy to put off when screening feels like a hassle, but Cologuard Plus makes it simple. It's non-invasive, requires no prep, can be completed at home in about 15 minutes, and is 95 % effective. Talk to your healthcare provider or request Cologuard Plus online, Rx only.

2:16Ed Balls: This is Political Coancy

2:18George Osborne: with Ed Balls and George Osborne.

2:30Ed Balls: So we are back in the studio in Shoreditch after our trip out last week to the South by Southwest Festival just down the road. Hope you enjoyed our EMQs and our live Q &A. George, I get an email every day called Speller News, the early bird. This is John Speller, now Lord Speller, stalwart Labour MP, former minister. He writes a daily email which comes out at around 7.30. his choice of the big stories of the day, always quite a lot on Unite and their financial scandals, always quite a lot on Australian politics, reflecting John Speller's personal interests. But it says in Speller News this week, he's quoting the outgoing political editor of The Sun, Harry Cole.

3:12Ed Balls: His tweet, Busy day in Mayfair, writes Harry Cole. My spies tell me. Hear David Cameron, George Osborne, and Deripaska's old mate, Lord Barker, lunching Robert Jenrick. And then he says, only to find Nigel Farage and Nick Candy and Bear Grylls at a nearby table and Jacob Rees-Mogg also in the same restaurant. I mean, presumably you were looking for a discreet lunch and were a bit surprised to find Nigel Farage and Bear Grylls and Jacob Rees-Mogg in there. But, you know, is this the old band being put back together? Is this the nascent generic team? Well, first of all, I didn't know John Spenner did an email.

3:55George Osborne: And why am I not on the distribution list? I think I was kind of going on with John. You may disagree, which is why he's blocked me. But that is, to me, the most important thing.

4:05Ed Balls: It's a cracking read. And he has this commentary on stuff. He'll have all the links, but then in a sort of amazingly concise spell away, there's all these acronyms which you have to know in order to understand what he actually means.

4:21George Osborne: All deep in the labour movement.

4:22Ed Balls: Well, it's actually, I think, I mean, it's probably labouring, but it's not only labour people get it. There'll be Toys and Lib Dems get it as well. Sad day for the conspiracy theorists, he'll say, or clearly a wounded elephant or whatever.

4:38George Osborne: It is a sad day for the conspiracy theorists who think that the generic campaign is being put back together. But when I was invited...

4:45Ed Balls: It's a powerful group. Cameron Osborne. When I was invited to the lunch.

4:54George Osborne: I swore I wouldn't talk about it. I wouldn't reveal it had happened. It's just between us, this. It's just between us and our listeners. Specifically, I was told I can't talk about it on the podcast. But it is true to say.

5:05Ed Balls: And I brought it up rudely. It's Speller's fault. It's Harry Cole's fault. It's probably Jacob Rees-Mogg's fault. It's probably Bear Grylls' fault.

5:13George Osborne: Well, I didn't see Bear Grylls in the restaurant. Your old mate, Bear Grylls. But the son of a Tory MP, of course.

5:20Ed Balls: I know.

5:20George Osborne: But when I sat down for this secret lunch, I couldn't help noticing that two tables away was Nigel Farage in one direction. The two tables away in another direction was Jacob Rees-Mogg. And so I got...

5:35Ed Balls: What was the point of the lunch? That's what we want to know.

5:37George Osborne: Well, you know, we wanted to... Chat. We wanted to chat about politics.

5:41Ed Balls: Shoot the breeze.

5:42George Osborne: I was quite impressed by it.

5:44Ed Balls: Read the runes.

5:45George Osborne: I was quite impressed by Rob Jenner, it has to be said. I thought he had some interesting ideas about what the Conservative Party needs to do to... Well, of course he used to be. Get back on its feet. He used to be an ally of yours, didn't he? Yeah, well, I thought he'd run the most effective of the leadership campaigns until the party conference.

5:59Ed Balls: No, but going back some years before, I mean, he used to be a centrist Cameroonish Remainer.

6:04George Osborne: Well, everyone was back in those days.

6:07Ed Balls: He's been on the journey. Liz Truss was one of the key.

6:10George Osborne: Kemi Badenock was a Cameroon A-lister.

6:13Ed Balls: I had a message from Jake Richards, you know, who we said looked and sounded like a young Tony Blair to say, you know, kiss of death what are you doing to me and i think you may have done the kiss of death to robert

6:24George Osborne: jenwick you know the list trust parallel no but you know he wanted to know how parties get out of opposition into government and who better to speak to than david cameron and his crew anyway we are going to get on and talk about this government in the episode today but we should just note there is breaking news uh absolutely terrible breaking news as we sit down to record this podcast that there has been an air crash in India with a jet coming, a big passenger jet flying to London. There are many scores of Brits and Indians on board. And it's really early days, but it just says to me tragedy. And there'll be a lot of people extremely worried at the moment.

7:04George Osborne: And I suspect it will completely dominate the news. But, you know, we are going to talk about politics and government and we're going to start on this show talking about the the spending review yesterday rachel reeves's big moment big moment for the government it's going to set the terms of good departmental spending over this parliament so lots of questions about what actually was in there if you look into the meat of the statement and we're going to look at that it's always a

7:31Ed Balls: question with spending reviews and budgets what is the day two story what happens the morning after the Institute for Fiscal Studies are doing their presentation on all the facts and figures as we speak but luckily they sent us over there and their slides and Paul Johnson's opening statement so we're right up to date but of course the other news this morning was the monthly GDP figures the output of the economy actually shrank in April by 0.3 percent after a strong first quarter the economy's gone back into reverse and we're going to talk second about the wider economic and political context in which the spending review has to be seen and how things are going to develop

8:13George Osborne: between now and the budget and then our friend donald trump has been falling out with people again this week he's fallen out spectacularly over the last week with elon musk he's fallen out with not that he was ever particularly in with the governor of california gavin newsom over the deployment of soldiers into Los Angeles. And it looks like he might have fallen out with the British government, or at least British government and other Western allies, over the decision here to sanction some members of the Israeli government over the ongoing tragedy in Gaza. And we are going to have a look at that and say, is this the beginning of a split in the transatlantic relationship that Starmer has established with Donald Trump, or is it a bit of a one-off?

8:55Ed Balls: But we're going to start with the spending review. yesterday. Rachel Reeves announced in last year's budget the overall path for public spending for the next three, four years. And what she did yesterday was announce the Treasury's allocations to departments for next year, the year after, and the year after that, all the way up to 2028-29. And before we get into the wider economics and politics of this, we thought we should unpack what these figures are actually kind of telling us. What are the numbers that she announced. I think we should start with a little bit of Rachel Reeves in the House of Commons and then we're going to hear from what will be I think a much missed voice in British politics.

9:37Ed Balls: But first of all Rachel Reeves. My driving purpose since I became Chancellor is to make working people in all parts of our country better off. To rebuild our schools and our hospitals. To invest Invest in our economy so that everyone has the opportunity to succeed after 14 years of mismanagement and decline by the party opposite. Defense spending will now rise to 2.6 % of GDP by April 2027, including the contribution of our intelligence agencies. A new affordable homes program in which I am investing£39 billion over the next decade. We are investing£7 billion to fund 14 ,000 new prison places and putting up to£700 million per year into reform of the probation system too.

10:28I am providing investment rising to nearly£2.3 billion per year to fix our crumbling classrooms. In addition,£2.4 billion per year to continue our programme to rebuild 500 schools and to make sure that the NHS is there whenever we need it. I am proud to announce today that this Labour government is making a record cash investment in our National Health Service, increasing real terms day-to-day spending by 3 % per year for every single year of this spending review.

11:02Ed Balls: Lots of figures, lots of billions. Paul Johnson from the IFS, his first reaction after the speech was that it was incomprehensible, very hard to work out what was really going on. Paul is standing down after 13 years as the director of the IFS. And I think this is the last big kind of fiscal economic event he's going to be covering. So we thought we should give you Paul Johnson's first reaction.

11:25George Osborne: What she didn't do was tell us how much money she's going to spend. She told us that all the way back in the autumn. What she did was give us some idea where that money is going to be allocated over the next three years. As we expected, the big winner here is the National Health Service. Three percent a year increases in spending on that. The consequence is there's not much left over for most other bits of government. We wish Paul well and we will miss him on days like this. But Ed, he's making the point this isn't a budget in the sense that we didn't get a forecast on the economy. We didn't get any tax measures.

12:06George Osborne: but in many ways it's more important than your regular budget because it's going to set spending for departments over the next few years. We're going to get into all the kind of details of it in a moment but what was your overall impression? What was she trying to achieve and did she succeed?

12:22Ed Balls: Well the numbers which she inherited when she became chancellor last summer were of public spending which had been rising quite quickly in the last two or three years of the conservative government after the pandemic and then suddenly went into basically flatlining in the next two or three years that was the Jeremy Hunt inheritance that she picked up those were the figures that Paul Johnson and others said were fantasy figures and what she's done as Chancellor is carried on that rising profile for public spending although it's rising quite quickly last year and this year And then the growth rates slow down quite a lot.

13:05Ed Balls: So by the time you get to 28, 29, much slower growth in public spending. Overall, there's a lot of capital spending. Capital spending is rising quite fast, continuing the growth rates we've seen in recent years. Current spending, much tighter. As Paul Johnson says in his best comments today, it's not austerity overall. but the large bulk of the public spending increases goes to the health department and to defence as well and therefore for lots of other government departments spending settlements as paul said are going to be very tight indeed and if you look down the the list of i mean of the winners and losers clearly health social care get the biggest increase that's all the nhs rather than social care followed by defence but once you get down to budgets like dcms museums libraries local government farmers rural communities the non-police home office the cabinet office the foreign office those are departments which are going to be having real term cuts and for a lot of those departments it's going to feel like austerity is continuing yeah i say i've got an

14:14George Osborne: interesting observation which i think neither political party will agree with because it's not in their interest, which is that, frankly, this is continuity, SUNAC. This is a rather technocratic statement from a government that is not delivering a kind of radical change in how the country is governed. The big increases in spending from the austerity period over which I've resided, in fact started under the Boris Johnson government. And what Rachel Reeves is doing is continuing the increase in the size of the state and the increase in the tax burden that Boris Johnson and Sunak started. And if you look at departmental spending, you can get into kind of all the kind of details of it.

15:03George Osborne: But if you look at departmental spending over this parliament, according to the IFS, it's going to be 2.3 % in real terms. Under the last parliament, it was actually much more. It was over 3%. Capital spending increasing at 2.6%. It increased at 2.5 % in the last Tory period. Now, that bunch of Tories don't want to admit that they were increasing the size of the state, increasing taxes, and it was bigger government. And this Labour government wants to say it's making a big change and a big break from the Tory years. But if you look at the the kind of overall spending numbers. And indeed, you know, Paul Johnson says today in the press conference, he's actually giving while we do this podcast, but he sent us his remarks in advance.

15:47George Osborne: He says the real achievement of this government is to maintain the high levels of spending the last government reached. And no one in the political system wants to admit that because it's not in anyone's interest. But that's what's happening. And the central question which I think faced the last Conservative government, which is how on earth are you going to pay for this all? and Rachel Reeves says there was a black hole because they didn't have an answer is going to be the same question that comes to this government. And so that, you know, in amongst all of the numbers and it's quite continuity.

16:17George Osborne: It's not particularly exciting. It's not particularly radical. It's not a break from the past. It's more of the same.

16:26Ed Balls: Of course, within those numbers under the last Conservative government and then this Labour government, quite a big increase in capital spending. Much tighter current spending than, for example, you saw in the Labour government of Blair and Brown. Much higher expenditure on debt interest payments, which takes up a lot of that uplift in overall public spending. Of course, a lot of spending on incapacity and welfare compared to the past, which is taking on quite a lot of that spending. But if you go back to your point about Rishi Sunak and the struggles he had, and then you think about this spending view.

17:02Ed Balls: I mean, Rishi Sunak really struggling with very high waiting times in the National Health Service, really struggling with his cabinet colleagues pressing him to raise defence spending and him trying to do that and finding it difficult to do, really struggling with crime and law and order, trying to get police numbers up. And then you think about what's going on in this spending review. I mean, I think it's really dangerous, but we all do it to kind of fall into the who are the winners and who are the losers. Because actually, the departments which look like the winners may actually going to be some of the departments which cause the greatest challenges for this government over the next two or three years.

17:39Ed Balls: Because the growth rates don't tell you what the need is, what the economic or political expectation is. This is a point actually made by Sam Friedman in a substact this morning, which is really worth reading. If you look at the NHS, for example, the big winner from this spending review, but also the thing which in terms of waiting times the government is massively exposed on, they're delivering growth for the National Health Service of 3 % a year. The historical average is 3.6%. So this is below average spending in the post-war period. If you look at the period when Labour really got waiting times down aggressively after 2001-2002 with the national insurance tax rise, at that time, NHS spending was rising by 6 % a year plus.

18:29Ed Balls: I mean, over twice the increases we're going to see here. So the NHS has taken 90 % of that uplift in public spending. That's what the Resolution Foundation say. Increasingly dominant in overall departmental spending. but the question for Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer when it comes to the politics of the next election is is it enough is it actually going to get waiting times falling as opposed to simply static when you're delivering an NHS uplift which is below the historical average at a time when drug prices are rising waiting times are still high so much of the money has been absorbed in public sector pay the same thing applies with with defence I mean it is true the big difference of this spending review to conservative spending review is normally under the conservatives defense spending goes down it's rising as a percentage of gdp here but it's rising to two and a half percent at a time when the defense review is saying it needs to be three and nato says no needs to be three and a half trump says it needs to be five trump says it needs to be five and almost all of the money in this defense settlement which is mainly capital is going to be spent on existing defence plans which have already been announced are running over budget.

19:43Ed Balls: So it's not clear there's much money in here for more troops, let alone the new equipment which the Defence Department would like to hire. So the two winners look actually under quite a lot of pressure. And that's before you start talking about the people who we call the losers.

20:00George Osborne: No, this is definitely not the sort of mid-Blair Brown period when, which of course you were very involved in, where they turn the spending taps on for the public sector. I think for most departments, it's going to still feel very tight, especially departments where real budgets are being squeezed. But as you say, in health, the pressure on the health service at the moment, you know, remains, you know, continues to grow at an almost exponential rate. A lot of this extra money is going to be absorbed in pay settlements and workforce growth There's a workforce plan. There's still a threat of a doctor strike out there and they're way off the target.

20:40George Osborne: And again, compare it to the kind of, OK, so they're getting 2.7 percent day to day budget growth over this whole parliament over inflation. But, you know, it's not so different. It was it was 2.3 percent over the conservative period. It's not like a huge change. And I thought the other kind of interesting point overall about the spending. view. And I actually think it's quite a good thing for our country, but I wouldn't necessarily feel this way if I was a Labour MP. It's quite technocratic. There's not that much sort of political imagination here. You know, the money is going on defence. Okay, great, but we need, not great, sadly the world is dangerous and we do need to spend more money, but that's not, that's not going to deliver a lot of votes for Labour MPs and their constituencies.

21:29George Osborne: The money is going on a big new nuclear power station in Suffolk. Absolutely needed. Long overdue. You know, recent Conservative Prime Minister's talked about nuclear and weren't able to deliver new nuclear projects.

21:42Ed Balls: Prison building. Prism.

21:43George Osborne: But, you know, and a lot of the kind of expenditure, which we haven't seen all of the details of, because I think next week we're getting the kind of National Infrastructure Review coming up, but it seems to be investment in transport and rail that is attempting to improve the productivity of the economy. That's fantastic. This is not what the Tories in the later years were trying to do, which is the sort of leveling up, spending it all on the tarting up the town centres of marginal seats. So I applaud money for defence, money for nuclear power, money for important transport improvements, particularly in the north of England.

22:21George Osborne: But it's not a kind of political game changer. And I don't think today, you know, the Labour government, if you're sitting there, is in a completely different political environment than the one it was 24 hours ago, obviously.

22:35Ed Balls: And a few things to watch as this unfolds. I mean, there's been obviously a huge amount of noise from the police who are saying that this is not going to mean more police officers, it's going to mean less, and doubting whether the government's commitment to 13 ,000 more neighbourhood police officers can actually be delivered. Council tax rises seemingly baked in.

22:56George Osborne: To pay for the assumptions on police numbers.

23:00Ed Balls: But also for the local government numbers. And the local government numbers, I think, you know, it looks like local government isn't doing as badly as some departments, but they are so under pressure on children's services and social care. So is there enough money to keep local government from not becoming a noisy item for the government over the next year?

23:20George Osborne: Just on council tax before we move on. I think it's a classic. I think there was something. there is an echo of the Blair government where there was a kind of assumption you could get away with kind of increases in council tax and no one would notice. And like always with tax, if you over rely on one tax, suddenly the kind of elastic band snaps. And I remember in the kind of mid to late Blair period, suddenly council tax increases became politically very contentious. And as a conservative opposition, we promised to freeze council tax, which was like what oppositions do when something like that happens and and you know so assuming that because the council tax kind of dog hasn't barked in recent years it won't in the future is you know at least

24:01Ed Balls: you're running quite a risk not least because this is clearly where reform can things it can make political traction in the local elections next year the year after then you look at education a tight settlement for education a lot of that money going in free school meals which which is

24:16George Osborne: good that was that was the only really big i mean i know it was announced last week to me that's the only really big new thing that this spending review delivered that's really kind of consumer facing and that I can get my head around and means a great deal to of course to parents with children who are going to be eligible.

24:33Ed Balls: But you have huge pressure on special needs spending pupil numbers are falling but it's not clear yet I don't think we know this yet does this mean per pupil spending is going to continue to rise is it going to be flat could it fall you know I I think that education budget is definitely something to watch.

24:52George Osborne: It's not an education, education, education spending review. Definitely not. I mean, in the clip we had of Rachel Reeves, she says it's for schools and hospitals, but it's much more for hospitals and schools, to be honest, this spending review.

25:03Ed Balls: And the school stuff is going on, big expansion of free school meals, but not necessarily on teachers' numbers or teaching assistants. You know, it's a three-year spending review.

25:13George Osborne: Anything else, just before we move off the departments, I just kind of highlight a couple others. DEFRA, farmers. I mean, farmers have been hit by, or the wealthier farmers have been hit by the inheritance tax changes. But this is an assault on the countryside payments they get for managing the landscape. I personally think this was inevitable after Brexit. Once farmers came off the common agricultural policy, which governments like the French and Spanish governments insisted were very high. And once you had British governments in charge of this, the money was going to be squeezed, whoever was in power, frankly.

25:50George Osborne: And so, you know, the farmers who voted for Brexit, you know, I'm afraid they're a bit like the turkeys who suddenly discovered it's the 25th of December. On the other department, I think I don't really understand the politics at all. And I declare an interest as someone involved with the British Museum. But why would you squeeze DCMS and the culture budget? it's a rounding error for the treasury you know tiny tiny sums but a noisy uh stakeholder group many of whom have been very supportive of the labor movement over the years and you know these are going to be cuts in in institutions and arts organizations that do a huge amount not just to you know support the creative industries and bring tourists to britain but actually do a huge amount to regenerate communities around the country so i thought that's a bit it doesn't make any difference the treasury numbers makes a big difference to the sector and talking about

26:47Ed Balls: culture foreign office getting kind of really hit five percent real terms cuts over the full period within that um is the bbc world service going to continue to be funded well um they fought off cuts last autumn and we'll find out in the coming weeks whether um they're going to survived that as well all things to kind of watch the big winners were economic capital spending not actually public service capital not really schools and hospitals but um local transport the um energy and green investment and um yeah your friend ed milliband he he's he came out fairly unscathed didn't he a winner i mean i mean i don't remember him being a massive fan of big

27:32George Osborne: nuclear power stations back in the day but you know he is now but then uh the reason is rachel reeves is is needing growth no i i would applaud the focus on you know in as much this is not an exact science and economists of you know great repute will disagree about what is the most effective way to spend public money but the the in in kind of orthodox terms there is a direction of money towards the things that people think is going to lead to higher growth and a more productive economy. And the kind of question is going to be, how quickly can the money be got out the door? Can the planning laws be changed fast enough to make it happen?

28:19George Osborne: Because even on housing, which we haven't mentioned, but there's an increase in the social housing budget, that comes at a time when planning permissions for new housing in the last three months have hit a 13-year low. So it's all very well allocating the money, being there the chancellor at the dispatch box. If you have an economic growth-focused program, you've got to make sure that the money actually reaches the front line. I mean, that's a good moment, isn't it, to turn to what's the overall economic message of the government? Where does this spending review sit in that? And what did we learn about Rachel Reeves as a chancellor from her performance yesterday?

28:57George Osborne: And we're going to turn to that next.

29:06Hi, it's me, your gutters. I want to start by saying I'm fine. Everything is totally fine. There's just, there's a lot of debris up here and I've been managing it mostly on my own for about eight months now. And I just thought maybe you could find someone on Angie to clean me up. You don't have to make it a whole thing. It doesn't need to be a whole thing. I just I could really use your help. Your gutters have waited long enough. Find a pro at Angie.com. Too many credit unions are still the best kept secret in their communities. Tansley Stearns, CEO of Orsa Credit Union and leader of the Backbone Coalition, is changing that.

29:50In episode 86 of Believe in Banking, she shares how storytelling can build visibility and drive real growth. From Adrenaline, search Believe in Banking, episode 86, and listen now. A BetterHelp ad. Matching with my therapist was very quick and easy. I just filled out a couple of questions. Before you know it, I was matched with the therapist. I just felt like a weight just was lifted off of my shoulders. And I felt like it was a good match from the first time we talked. BetterHelp is there to meet people at their knees, giving them a space to feel safe. There is a stigma about therapy. But with BetterHelp, I meet people where they are.

30:30Wherever you are, that's where BetterHelp begins. Visit BetterHelp.com slash random podcast to get started. Paid testimonials. Results may vary.

30:44George Osborne: I remember when we discussed last week the spending review, we anticipated that when the chancellor was at the dispatch box a lot of numbers would be thrown around and it would sound like a lot of money was being spent and if you're sitting there as an mp whether it's a government mp or an opposition mp is extremely hard to work out what's actually going on you have to wait for the ifs to tell you or the resolution foundation or whoever to tell you and the normal reaction after a chancellor speaks is for the party to rally round and she seems to have had a good performance at the and a good reception crucially at the parliamentary Labour Party meeting that happened afterwards but what were your thoughts about her performance in the chamber and in particular how she sort of structured her speech in the language she used?

31:32Ed Balls: I think it was very hard to understand what was going on but the overall impression that she wanted to convey in the House of Commons to her own side really was that I am delivering that this is a labour programme.

31:48George Osborne: When you say I, you mean very specifically Rachel Reeves.

31:52Ed Balls: I, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, am delivering. Forget all this stuff about me being forced into U-turns. I am delivering. This is a labour programme of spending for our manifesto priorities. I mean, just listen to how she ended the speech. These are my choices, Mr Speaker. These are labour choices. These are the choices of the British people and I commend this statement to the house. And the very striking thing, I mean, I've not done the numbers on this, but she used the word I a lot of times, a lot more than I think a chancellor normally would. I mean, you know, and...

32:31George Osborne: You might be thinking I, but you use the word we. I seem to remember. I definitely used to think I'm the one putting in all the effort here, but I better use, better talk about we.

32:43Ed Balls: But she was saying, you know, stick with me. I am delivering. And I think that the reaction she got in the House of Commons and in the Parliamentary Labour Party in the evening meeting afterwards would have been strong and supportive. But I also thought, though, that it was a real gamble that she took. And it was a surprising communication decision. I mean, she could have said, you know, on the one hand, growth is returning. There are sunny uplands. We are turning the corner. We are delivering. but it's going to be hard. The global environment's difficult. We haven't got the growth coming through strongly yet.

33:22Ed Balls: I've got to make tough choices. I'm sorry, some departments are going to see real-term cuts. That is the price we pay for our long-term plan. She didn't really do any of the latter. It was all on the we're through, we're delivering, growth is here. That argument that she and Keir Starmer have made, which we were sceptical about last week, the reason why we can restore the winter allowance is because we've dealt with the black hole, the economy's back, we've got our trade deals, the fiscal situation's improving and therefore we can afford it. And that all depends upon it turning out to be true that the economy is strengthening and the fiscal position is getting better.

34:03Ed Balls: And she didn't give herself really kind of any insurance against that. And I guess the thing which concerns me is that there is a strength that she's seeking through a stubbornness. I will prevail. This is the same kind of view which said last autumn, I've raised taxes and those are all the tax rises I'll need for the parliament. These are my fiscal rules and they are non-negotiable. These are our spending plans and they are affordable. And the problem between now and the budget is, is growth going to be stronger or weaker? Well, it actually fell on the last monthly figures. Is she on track for her fiscal rules or is the OBR going to say she's off track?

34:51Ed Balls: She's got welfare reforms, which she says she's not going to back down on, but lots of MPs think she's going to. She's got to pay for the winter fuel allowance U-turn and what's going to happen on the two-child policy. And if she's not changing the fiscal rules and these public spending plans are now set in stone and they're pretty tight and she's not going to raise taxes anymore because she said she's not going to, and she's not building any insurance into her communication, where's the give going to come from? I sort of feel as though there are clearly people in the Treasury who said to her, to be strong, you mustn't U-turn on the winter allowance.

35:29Ed Balls: The same people are saying, to be strong, you mustn't give any inch to doubt or concern about the growth plan and the fiscal path this year. But she's so boxed in that that all depends upon outcomes and events of which now they have no control. I mean, between now and the budget, what is her room for manoeuvre?

35:51George Osborne: Yeah, I mean, I think the language around I and the emphasis solely on all the kind of public expenditure goodies without setting it in the context of difficult decisions and, you know, a very uncertain economic environment probably speaks to some insecurity, an insecurity about her own political position, because for what it's worth, those polls done of Labour members say she's the most unpopular member of the cabinet. It's not a bad place necessary for a chancellor to be if you're doing things that are difficult and against the grain of what the party wants to hear, but you are confident are going to deliver the results.

36:26George Osborne: Maybe an insecurity in number 10 Downing Street, that while their Their foreign policy program is looking much stronger these days. Keir Starmer strikes a good figure on the international stage. Domestically, he's not cutting through in the way that he would like. And there's an insecurity, too, about their political opponents, not the Conservative Party, but reform. I mean, there were quite a few mentions of Nigel Farage in the speech itself, which I guess is pretty revealing. so i guess there's an insecurity about way the way you present it um i thought she's still not doing and this would apply equally to number 10 there's still not a clear slogan or narrative if i listened to her today program interview uh this morning and that's you know the bit and there were lots of other interviews done this morning that she but you know the today program one is the longest and often in some ways the hardest and i was trying to think what is the one slogan that she's trying to ram down my, well, shove into my ears since I was listening to it on my headphones.

37:32George Osborne: I couldn't detect, where's the long-term economic plan? Where's the no more boom and bust? Where's the sort of slogan that you get a bit sick and tired of, but at least the government's communicating to you? I couldn't even detect what it was, and I'm quite attuned to these things compared to most people. And finally, this is all being done within the constraints of a fiscal envelope set out in the budget. that are required to meet the fiscal rules. And we talked again in the previous podcast about you can turn that into economic stability that's delivering lower mortgage rates than would otherwise be the case for homeowners and avoiding the kind of Liz Trust disaster.

38:16George Osborne: That's the kind of political way to package that. And you could make that a big part of a spending review, even if it's only a spending review, not a budget. and and again that that wasn't happening either and i guess my full final observation therefore is it opens the door to the counter-attack which is you're spending today but you're going to tax tomorrow and i thought the shadow chancellor mel stride did a pretty good job of landing a slogan it's hard you and i've both done this the shadow chance spending review days it's not an easy job to do you have to get up and give an immediate response and i i you have to show your you know on top of your brief and have got some salient points to make.

38:55George Osborne: But the main thing you're trying to do is land a slogan. And that spend now, tax later line was something I think that Mel Stride pretty effectively landed. Let's listen to him in the House of Commons. This spending review is not worth the paper that it is written on. Because the Chancellor has completely lost control. This is the spend now, tax later review.

39:23Ed Balls: The reason I think why that succeeded is partly because it was a good line. But I do think it's because she left him that space. She wasn't putting in place the warnings, the global challenges, the importance of staying with tough decisions for the long term. And as a consequence, because she sounded like it was all fine and now she can spend, it opens up. that space for Mel Stride. By the way, if there's one lesson the Conservative Party should take from today is let the Shadow Chancellor do the morning round, including the Today programme, because the leader of the opposition should never be on the Today programme at 7.30.

40:06Ed Balls: They should always be at 10 past 8. They should never be on the same day as the Chancellor of the Exchequer. And, you know, I thought Emma Barnett gave Kemi Badenok no chance to answer a single question in that interview. I thought it was very hard on Kemi Badenok, but she also had no message. She wasn't really delivering the Mel Stride message. Mel Stride would have done a much better job than Kemi Baden-Ock this morning. But it goes back to that big point.

40:30George Osborne: I don't think either the interviewer nor the interviewee would regard that as a great interview.

40:35Ed Balls: It was a catastrophe. But it goes back to this bigger point, which is it's important to be an iron chancellor. But the thing about iron is that it's a malleable metal. You have to be able to... Well, only when you heat it up a lot. But you have to be able to stick to your long-term course, but be able to bend in the face of global challenges and headwinds. And if you have a fiscal rule which is set over the economic cycle and the growth is weaker, that buys you some more time to meet your fiscal rules. If you set them according to the calendar year, much harder to change course. If you say, I'm not going to raise taxes, I've done my tax raising for the parliament, that's fine unless you have to raise a tax.

41:22Ed Balls: And this is not a spending review where when you look at it, we discussed it a moment ago, you don't look at this and think the pressure is going to be downwards. I mean, there's going to be lots of issues over the course of the next six months and beyond. before you start talking about the winter allowance or two-child policy or what's happening to the pace of the uplift in defence spending where people will be saying, are they actually delivering the spending to meet their objectives? I mean, there was almost no mention of the government's missions in that spending review statement. But these are missions which are in the manifesto.

41:54Ed Balls: So Rachel Reeves thinks she's getting strength from deliberately boxing herself in. But that depends now on a whole series of domestic and global events, long-term interest rates, growth, Trump, all of which are outside her control. And, you know, everybody else who watches this economically says the only thing which she'll be able to move on is tax. And did she prepare the ground for that yesterday? Not at all.

42:26George Osborne: I think that's right. Right. In some ways, the real world intruded, didn't it, immediately after the spending review. When we woke up this morning, the day two headlines were those GDP numbers you mentioned showing the economy contracted.

42:39Ed Balls: And they would have known that the GDP number was coming out the day after the spending review when they announced the date on spring statement day. I don't know about you. We would never have chosen to do a spending review on a budget when there was a big number the next day, which we couldn't know and could go the wrong way. But, you know, maybe they rolled the dice back in March and thought, you know, growth, it'll be good.

43:00George Osborne: Or maybe they thought it's a monthly figure. But nevertheless, you know, you wake up this morning to headlines that the economy was contracting. It is worth noting that the backdrop continues to be, you know, best sluggish and at worst somewhat worrying. At the moment, unemployment is rising in the UK. And that's quite a marked development that should be, you know, potentially a warning signal of worse times to come. and the borrowing costs for the UK are now higher than they were when Liz Truss was prime minister, albeit in the context of higher borrowing costs around the world, but the highest in the G7.

43:35George Osborne: So it remains a kind of very difficult economic backdrop. And I do worry from her point of view and the government's point of view that I applaud the spending review for focusing on economic development. But if it's all taking place against a drumbeat that there are further tax rises coming, and they're coming in the autumn, whatever she said about no more tax rises, that's going to be quite a pull on investment. Because I think the business community is probably going to assume, well, they're not going to be targeted on the general public, these tax rises. They'll find another way to clobber business.

44:12George Osborne: and there's still not enough in the government's message that is sort of pro-enterprise, pro-the entrepreneur, the kind of things that Gordon Brown and Tony Blair did to win over the business community all those years ago with the last time that was the Labour government.

44:26Ed Balls: And then on the other side of the ledger, Labour MPs worrying about the two child policy and child poverty, which will cost, but also the welfare reforms. The Treasury on page 25 produces was a very good impact of decisions, the distributional impact by decile.

44:44George Osborne: I think you'll find I was the first Chancellor to publish that.

44:47Ed Balls: No, we didn't.

44:48George Osborne: No, no, I promise you. By decile? I used to publish. This was an innovation of the Osborne Chancellorship.

44:56Ed Balls: I think you were the first Conservative Chancellor to publish it. I was the first Conservative Chancellor after you. We absolutely published it because we would show the progressive nature of our tax and benefit changes.

45:06George Osborne: I think you stopped publishing it as the global crash to coal.

45:08Ed Balls: I can't comment on what happened after 2007. I just know what happened 10 years before. However, there was a Labour government for the three.

45:16George Osborne: You were in the cabinet.

45:17Ed Balls: The striking thing in this chart is how regressive the welfare reforms are. The biggest hit in the poorest second, third and fourth decile. So the people with below average incomes hit much harder. But they would be by welfare changes, wouldn't they?

45:32George Osborne: I mean, that's where welfare goes. What I'm saying is it increases the pressure.

45:37Ed Balls: The other thing just...

45:37George Osborne: Were you surprised in the statement there was not more on welfare? I think we had anticipated there would be more on welfare in the statement than there was. I mean, they'd done the winter fuel payment U-turn. I'm told, you know, maybe Drew may not be. We'll find out that number 10 was somewhat blindsided by the way that Rachel Reeves then announced the details of that. Maybe because she had been blindsided by Keir Starmer announcing it at PMQs.

46:03Ed Balls: And they didn't. And in passing, they didn't do what we said. we just said we said do it clean just say look we did this and it didn't work and we've listened and we've made the change and instead the the explanation is because growth is stronger we can now afford not to do it which of course means if growth isn't stronger in the autumn or next year other conservatives of reform going to say well you know in that case they'll be planning to take

46:30George Osborne: the winter fuel allowance again away again i mean the poor ministers wriggling in the interviews when they were confronted what what do you mean the economy is stronger the say you got it wrong and moved on move on but why didn't the government why didn't downing streets you know downing street numbers 10 and 11 backtrack on the disability cuts there's been a lot of trailing of that and why didn't why did they park the two child policy are they saving that up for the budget i think

46:55Ed Balls: because the chancellor wanted to say i set the envelope in last year's budget this is not a fiscal event. This is simply the allocation of something which has been declared to be affordable. The moment she starts raising changes in the welfare reforms or changes in the two-child policy. But she did win the field payment. But she didn't do it in the spending statement. She did it two days before on Monday to try and get it out of the way. It's not something which is paid for in this statement. And I think the moment you open that up, you also open up the question of what's happening to the fiscal rules, what's happening to growth, what's happening to tax.

47:31Ed Balls: I think they wanted to keep it as narrow as they could. But I agree with you that in terms of preparing for tough decisions in the autumn, that's where I would have been on that broader agenda. But they chose not to do that. And there we are. There we are. It means that this is going to be a very, very challenging few months between now and the budget. And, you know, it's just hard to see now what levers the Treasury's got.

47:59George Osborne: And, of course, the person who has probably more influence at the moment on the state of the British economy and certainly much more influence on the state of the world economy than the British Chancellor's Exchequer was also enjoying his week. And we are going to turn to the President of the United States next and the various fights that he's been picking, including a fight with our own government over Israel.

48:29Business is booming. Is your fulfillment ready for peak season? Switch to ShipStation now and handle more volume with confidence when it counts. ShipStation connects Shopify, Amazon, TikTok Shop, and over 200 more integrations with one platform that does it all. You can manage orders, sync inventory, track returns all automatically. Everything your operation needs all in one place. Right now, qualified shippers get a real dedicated person to get you set up and switched over for free. So when peak season hits, you're ready to go. Switch today at ShipStation.com, code audio. This podcast is brought to you by Thompson Reuters.

49:02The best don't just do their work, they change what's possible. Cases won, audits completed, jobs saved. Behind every one of those moments is a professional who needed to get it right, and did. Thompson Reuters builds the technology that sharpens insights, speeds up decision-making, and powers the outcomes that matter. So when professionals act, the impact is felt by everyone. Be a changemaker. Visit tr.com forward slash changemakers. This is Hannah Berner from Giggly Squad. O-Pill is the first over-the-counter daily birth control pill available in the U.S. Let's be real. Getting a birth control prescription is not always easy, and it's so much admin.

49:42In fact, about a third of women face barriers to access prescription birth control. Between scheduling appointments, missing work, class, or just trying to exist, it's a lot. But now O-Pill is putting birth control in our control. O-Pill is a daily birth control that's FDA approved, full prescription strength and estrogen free and 98 % effective when used as directed. Grab it online or at most major retailers, no prescription or doctor's appointment needed. So if you're thinking about birth control, check out O-Pill to see if it's right for you. Use code Giggly for 25 % off your first month of O-Pill at O-P-I-L-L dot com.

50:17That's code Giggly at O-P-I-L-L dot com. Birth control in your control. We love to see it.

50:30Ed Balls: So welcome back. And it's been an increasingly wild rollercoaster of a ride in American politics over the last few weeks. Let's start with the blowing up of Elon Musk. He's kind of stormed off in a flurry of tweets and accusations. I think my favourite one was, without me, Trump would have lost the election. Can you think of anything which should wind Donald Trump up more than being told by Elon Musk that he won the election, not the Donald?

51:01George Osborne: Well, yes, I can, because he then tweeted, time to drop the really big bomb. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they've not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT, Donald J. Trump.

51:15Ed Balls: Goodness.

51:17George Osborne: He must have woken up from it. Obviously, we don't want to be sued by the richest man in the world. But there are allegations that he's been taking quite a lot of drugs recently. And maybe, you know, anyway, he woke up in the morning and probably thought, oh, dear.

51:32Ed Balls: I think he recanted, didn't he? He said he'd gone slightly too far.

51:36George Osborne: He says as much as I regret.

51:38Ed Balls: Although the interesting thing, though. I regret some of my posts. They went too far. The great irony of this, you know, for these kind of free market, small state guys who Doge style want to cut the public sector. The thing which Elon Musk is really smarting from isn't simply the fact that Donald Trump's got some big budget bill in which he's going to borrow loads more for tax cuts. As part of that, there's some spending cuts too. and all of Elon Musk's kind of business activities depend upon substantial spending and tax breaks from the American federal government for his space missions and for his electric cars and they've all been cut.

52:20Ed Balls: And so therefore the irony of the free market libertarian throwing his toys out the pram because his welfare benefits are being cut.

52:27George Osborne: It feels a bit like a big family row because I was with that. It's been London Tech Week, which I have to say to the people who organised it. It's been very, very successful. over the last week. But there were some of the big US venture capitalists who are big Trump supporters who found themselves now torn between Trump and Musk. But maybe they'll get that band back together again. There's a theory, isn't it, that partly to sort of divert attention from this, Donald Trump sent the army into Los Angeles. I mean, we should explain, you know, Donald Trump was elected in part on a promise to deport illegal migrants, people, many of whom have been in America for a long time, built lives and families here.

53:06George Osborne: And the aggressive action of the enforcement officers is creating local protests, not just from the people who they're trying to deport, but also kind of liberal minded people who think it's outrageous. And then Donald Trump does what an American president can do, which is send the National Guard in. I mean, it's been used, for example, in the civil rights movement, it was used by American presidents to override racist

53:32Ed Balls: 60 years ago, the last time an American president sent in the National Guard without the agreement of the local government.

53:38George Osborne: Right. But that was to defend the rights of black people in the South. That was Johnson who did that. But then, you know, here is like Trump's deploying the Marines into Los Angeles. I mean, here's him. First of all, we're going to get into this because it's quite interesting. And it's not quite clear where the politics lands for this. But this is, first of all, Trump at Fort Bragg explaining what he's up to. Generations of army heroes did not shed their blood on distant shores only to watch our country be destroyed by invasion and third world lawlessness here at home like is happening in California.

54:18As commander in chief, I will not let that happen. It's never going to happen.

54:26what you're witnessing in california is a full-blown assault on peace on public order and a national sovereignty carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags within the span of a few decades los angeles has gone from being one of the cleanest safest and most beautiful cities

54:45George Osborne: on earth to being a trash heap with entire neighborhoods under the control of transnational gangs and criminal networks. It's horrible.

54:55Ed Balls: This is kind of Trump's old playbook. The thing I thought about this, what do you think about this as a theory, is that Trump in his first term was brilliant at being in opposition. He was in opposition to the Congress, in opposition to the judges. In his second term, he's got Congress on his side. He's got the Supreme Court in his image. He starts off actually trying to be the president in charge, you know, what he's doing on tariffs and the economy. And it's actually becoming quite controversial. So what he's done is he's gone back to Trump 1.0, which is in opposition against the system. In this case, the governor of California, the lawlessness of that state, the immigrants under foreign flags.

55:39Ed Balls: He's so much happier picking a fight in opposition. And he's willing to do it, as we heard in that clip, in the most dangerous, inflammatory way. Saying about Los Angeles in California, in the United States of America. I mean, it's amazing.

55:56George Osborne: Trump will probably be aware of this, but his attacks on Gavin Newsom. Now, Gavin Newsom is the governor of California who has to stop being governor at the next election because he's time limited out. You know, he's a tall, very sort of classically good-looking guy. And there's an interesting personal thing because his ex-wife went on to date one of Donald Trump's sons. He is one of the frontrunners to be the Democrat nominee for the president next time. And he has used the deployment of soldiers into L.A. as a kind of opportunity for him to launch an attack on Donald Trump. Let's just hear Gavin Newsom's response, which he's putting out these kind of things every day at the moment.

56:35George Osborne: Democracy is under assault before our eyes. This moment we have feared has arrived. He's taking a wrecking ball, a wrecking ball to our founding father's historic project. Three co-equal branches of independent government. There are no longer any checks and balances. Congress is nowhere to be found. Speaker Johnson has completely abdicated that responsibility. The rule of law has increasingly been given way to the rule of Don. So that's an interesting kind of political fight. But I do think it's hard for the Democrats because I think a lot of Americans are looking at what's going on. There is violence happening in Los Angeles.

57:15George Osborne: There is some disorder. There are protesters. And you could say the Trump reaction is a vast overreaction. But nevertheless, sympathies will probably lie with the soldiers more than the protesters. And you find the Democrat Party, again, completely split by Trump. There are those who are saying, including more moderate senators, look, let's pipe down and let's not go on the side of the protesters. And then you've got the more radical wing of the Democrats led by people like Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. And, you know, she's been the kind of young congresswoman who leads the kind of radical left caucus saying, you know, why are we not standing with the protesters?

57:56George Osborne: And, you know, for people who are thinking how on earth are Democrats going to rebuild after the Trump landslide? And how are they going to how is someone like Gavin Newsom going to win the next presidential election? Being on the side of disorder is not the right place to be.

58:09Ed Balls: That is why this is so dangerous. And it's totally deliberate. I mean, if you look at the Trump advisers, they were talking about the importance of finding the illegal immigrants in Home Depot and 7-Eleven. and then the pictures on the television are ice agents dragging people out of 7-Eleven and Home Depot. So they went after this fight. But you're totally right. Once you've lost order on the streets, it's very hard to defend the rioters against law and order. It puts them in a very, very difficult position. And as you said, will this be the making of Newsom or will it be the breaking of him?

58:44Ed Balls: I don't think we know the answer to that yet. There is a read across, I think, into the UK here because we've talked about how Mark Carney in Canada, Albanese in Australia, Mertz actually in Germany, around their elections chose to play a tough political accord against Donald Trump. That is not a road Keir Starmer has taken so far. I think for understandable reasons, been trying to stay in with Trump to keep him engaged in Ukraine, to try and avoid huge tariff hits to British exports to America. But the more Trump becomes kind of wild and divisive, the more not speaking out becomes a moral problem for a political leader, the more under pressure the British government is going to feel.

59:33Ed Balls: I'm sure in recent weeks they've been worrying about this and they'll have been worrying about it not probably over Ukraine or over tariffs or even about what's happening in Los Angeles as much as what's been happening in Gaza and whether or not the British government needs to speak out in a more decisive way. and a couple of weeks ago, David Lammy talked about suspending trade talks with Israel. What we saw a couple of days ago alongside Australia, Norway, Canada, New Zealand, but not the United States, was David Lammy and the British government sanctioning two members of the Netanyahu cabinet, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, both key members of the cabinet, both from the far right, who had said deeply provocative things about stopping humanitarian aid going into to guards guards has been seen to to incite extremist violence and the british government has decided i think probably for the first time to do something which was intended to and has provoked a negative reaction from the trump administration well now

1:00:44George Osborne: it's interesting you say that they probably anticipated and wanted a reaction from the united states under the biden administration there probably would have been a joint statement by allies. It wasn't always easy to get Biden on side on these things. But the fact that you've got key Western allies, you've got four of the Five Eyes network here speaking out and sanctioning these Israeli cabinet members. But the reaction from the United States was very strong, maybe stronger than they anticipated, because Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, said, we remind our partners not to forget who the real enemy is.

1:01:17George Osborne: The United States urges the reverse of the sanctions and stands shoulder to shoulder with Israel. I mean, here, I think there's, aren't there two things going on? I mean, the first is the situation in Gaza, where the Netanyahu government has gone way beyond what many people think is a remotely responsible or acceptable response to the tragedy of the hostages. And the fact that, of course, are still some hostages being held by Hamas. And, you know, he's a very good friend of mine, Daniel Finkelstein wrote, I thought, a really interesting column in The Times saying, you know, he's an undoubted supporter of Israel.

1:01:53George Osborne: He's a key figure in the Jewish community here. But he said in his column in The Times that what is happening in Gaza today is undefendable. And so there is a real world situation where even allies of Israel, of which I would count myself as one, are very, very unhappy with what is going on and unhappy is an understatement. So there's that. And then second, there's the domestic politics here, which is partly, as you were saying, you know, when's Stalin going to stand up to Trump? But Gaza and the situation in Gaza is causing a lot of deep upset in what was across the UK, but particularly on the left.

1:02:33George Osborne: It's where it's manifesting itself in the politics. there are Gaza protest MPs in parliament who defeated Labour candidates at the last election and they are surprisingly effective in parliament I think they although they're small in number their voice is heard if you if you sit in the chamber there and so the Labour government here has got it's it's a it's a bit like the sort of Democrats we were just talking about having to deal with their issues you know here you've got this the government have maintained a pretty pro-Israel line. But the situation on the ground is changing. They're coming under the domestic pressure from the left.

1:03:10George Osborne: And they probably think they could risk a reaction from Trump because they put a lot of money into the bank of the Trump relationship and got key things out of it, like the trade agreement. And I think the fact that Rubio and Trump, in the end, they're kind of criticizing their allies, but they're not taking further action. They're not in some way sanctioning us or tearing up the trade deal or whatever, which is the kind of thing Donald Trump would do, probably says that, you know, they've got away with it in the UK.

1:03:38Ed Balls: I don't know that they intended that reaction from Trump and Rubio, but I think they would have undoubtedly decided to do it knowing that could well happen. And we talked about this last year, how you handle Trump. And I think you have to set out, you know, your values. Sometimes you have to set out a principal position i mean it's not really pandering to the left because as you said danny finkelstein is agreeing with what david lammy is doing and the fact that you have donald trump picking in such a extreme way a fight in los angeles the fact that britain is doing this at the same time you know i'm cautious about saying that it's causal but i think in number tenant in the foreign office they'll have decided that that is okay that they don't mind that juxtaposition at the moment and they'll be worried about what it means for um what happens in economic policy and in nato policy but in the end you know you can't afford to um to be uh to be silent and they haven't been i think that's a good thing that is all for political currency this week we'll be

1:04:47George Osborne: back on monday for ex-minister's questions yeah or of course you can hear it earlier and ad free if you become a member of our kitchen cabinet you can find the link to subscribe in our show notes and of course whether you're a kitchen cabinet member or otherwise keep sending the questions in keep sending the comments in and keep giving us those reviews five-star reviews of course so that other people can find the show and we'll see you next week see you then

1:05:21George Osborne: Thanks for listening to Political Currency. This has been a Persefonica production.

1:05:34Some days, getting the work done isn't the problem. Staying locked in is. Alpha Brain is Onnit's daily nootropic formula for cognitive support, designed to support memory, focus, attention, and mental clarity. Its formula with science-driven ingredients include theanine and huperzine A to support focus and memory, and it's caffeine-free. So when you're deep in the work, AlphaBrain helps support enhanced productivity and tune-out distractions. Get focused on what matters. Shop AlphaBrain now at onnit.com. Dom Perignon spent his whole career trying to get rid of champagne's bubbles, And that famous line, I am tasting stars?

1:06:16He never said it. Somebody invented it for an ad 170 years after he was already dead. Every drink has a story like that. Distillate finds it and tells you the real one, not the label. Season 2 starts October 6th. Follow now and pay attention to what's in the glass. Why can't we get AI to production? Our competitors are all ready. How do we keep data secure? When do we actually see ROI? All this talk about AI, but talk doesn't transform businesses. AWS AI cuts through the noise, making AI easier to securely deploy and scale. With ready-to-use agents and the broadest set of AI tools and services, you can build, buy, or partner your way.

1:07:02Stop overthinking. Start building. AWS AI is how.