The Andy Burnham we know

0:14This is Political Currency with Ed Balls and George Osborne.

0:27Ed Balls: so we are in hoxton on a very very steamy thursday morning yes i've just got off the

0:33George Osborne: eurostar from paris where it's even hotter and uh also they're breaking records with temperatures in paris but i have to say our uh our new studio is nice and air conditioned isn't it. I'm feeling kind of cooled down after my travels.

0:48Ed Balls: It's even aggressively air conditioned. But that's because Ellie came in an hour early and said, put the air conditioning on high because we've got to keep George cool.

0:56George Osborne: Are you pro air conditioning or against it? Have you noticed this debate? Basically, it says where you are on the political spectrum, but this is a feature of French politics at the moment. Basically, the left say, turn all the air conditioning off. And if it's too hot, people shouldn't go to the office. And the right are saying, that's mad. All the workers should have air conditioning.

1:16Ed Balls: I want air conditioning, but it's very important. It's powered by renewable energy. And that's what I'm just very keen. Not the North Sea. I'm very keen for it to be renewable. But generally, I think cold is good. In fact, the right thing to do is just sit in a car and drive around London, which is also bad for the environment. It's also been a steamy week in politics. And we've got loads of British politics to do today. because it's so dominant. But just before we do, just to mark a moment, on the global stage, Alan Greenspan was a titan. He was the head of the US Federal Reserve, the chair of the Open Markets Committee, and he died this week aged 100.

1:57Ed Balls: And we've often talked in this programme about obituaries and your legacy and securing the first paragraph of your obituary. And this is in the Financial Times. Alan Greenspan, the US Federal Reserve Chair who dominated global markets in the late 20th century, only to see his legacy tarnished by the financial crash, has died at the age of 100. Whatever happens in life, this is a lesson for Keir Starmer, for Tony Blair. In the end, you never escape from the fundamental truth. And that was the fundamental truth for Greenspan, that he was the head of the Fed when the global financial system went into turmoil.

2:34George Osborne: Yes, I was such a huge figure in the early part of my political career. When I was chancellor, every day I come into the Treasury building, which would have been magnificently renovated. It was hugely controversial, expensive at the time, as all these big kind of government renovations and infrastructure projects are. But then when it's done, everyone goes, oh, thank God they've done that. And you walk into this building and in the big atrium, there was a huge brass plaque that said this building has been opened by Alan Greenspan. It was always, you know, he was present with me every day. Now, I don't know what he would make of British politics at the moment.

3:11George Osborne: I suspect he would have a kind of somewhat dim view of everything that's been going on. But we are going to cover that in this episode, aren't we? We're going to start with a conversation about who is Andy Burnham, because since we did our emergency podcast on Monday, it has become a dead cert that he is going to be the prime minister. He's going to be the prime minister on the 17th of July. And he's been down to parliament. You and I both know him in different ways over many years. We've been political contemporaries of him. You were in the cabinet with him and a football team with him. I worked with him in Manchester.

3:43George Osborne: So I think the central question at the moment is, who is this guy who's about to be our prime minister?

3:48Ed Balls: Then he will have, as all new prime ministers have when they come in half with you at parliament, a decision to make. And this is what faced Gordon Brown in 2007. Theresa May in 2016. Do they have an early general election to secure a mandate? And there's been speculation about that in recent weeks. And I think sensibly, Andy Burnham is trying to hose it down. But we're going to give him some advice. What actually should he do, or at least what should he think about in making the decision about whether to go long or whether to go early?

4:23George Osborne: Yeah. And by the way, if anyone thinks that's not really a question at the moment. It is about to become a question in British politics, which is why you listen to this podcast so you can hear about what's coming next. And then finally, we're going to reflect on our own memories of those sort of last days in Downing Street, because of course, there is still a prime minister in Downing Street, Keir Starmer. It's only this week that he resigned. I know it feels like an age ago. We're just going to talk about what it is like in those final couple of weeks. Most prime ministers don't experience this because they lose at a general election.

4:53George Osborne: Well, I say most, quite a few don't experience it. But quite a few do know. They know when their sentence is coming and they sit in their cell waiting for it to be executed. So we're going to talk about the final days in Downing Street and what a prime minister can do with those last moments in the highest office.

5:10Ed Balls: Whether Keir Starmer wants any advice from us, I highly doubt. But we'll give it to him anyway, as we always do.

5:16George Osborne: I'm going to be a little bit immodest here and say that if Keir Starmer had paid attention to our podcast, and I won't even speak about the things I was saying, but to the things you were saying, including before his general election victory, I don't think he'd be on the way out. That's my personal view. Now, let's start with Andy Burnham, though. It's been a hell of a week. He's returned back up north, having arrived on the train at the beginning of the week with a sort of parting wink at Kemmy Badenock, who had a go at him in Prime Minister's Questions for wearing black T-shirts and having big eyebrows.

5:52George Osborne: And he posted a kind of funny thing on X saying, actually, they're dark blue T-shirts. And then essentially kind of winking at her or raising his eyebrows at her. But let's just let's get everyone in the mood by reminding everyone the kind of key moment of the week, which was not so much the prime minister announcing his resignation, but the new MP for Makerfield taking the oath of office before the speaker in parliament. I swear by almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles, his heirs and successors, according to law. So help me, God. Hear! Nothing, sorry!

6:35Naughty voice. Naughty voice.

6:40George Osborne: So for those who don't know what on earth Parliament was talking about there, right at the end, an MP heckled. He's not the Messiah. Andy Burnham himself said naughty boy. And that is from The Life of Brian, the Monty Python movie. And if you think this is all too retro, Andy Burnham himself has been talking about Zed Cars, which was a very famous TV show in the 1960s set in the part of the world that he comes from. So it's all been a bit retro. And I thought he showed, you know, quite a relaxed touch there that he could respond to a heckler while doing the swearing in. I mean, they're quite opposite from some of the wooden performances we've had at the dispatch box.

7:20Ed Balls: Look, his social media is good and he's using kind of film clips and on socials in a very kind of modern and I think effective way. Of course, you know, this is a huge challenge, not just for Andy Burnham becoming prime minister, but also for the impressionists of the nation. Because if you are a political impressionist, Rory Bremner or Matt Ford, then suddenly there's this new guy who, if you can't do him well, then your act kind of collapses. And poor Matt Ford has got an Edinburgh show. Got four weeks to sort this out. This is Matt Ford explaining this week how he's trying to mimic Andy Burnham.

7:58OK, here's a quick guide to doing an Andy Burnham impression. It's quite a gentle voice, so dial back on the scouts a little bit, middle of the skull, and quite softly spoken, a bit nasally, but not too much. And as he goes along, he'll ask himself questions, won't he? And you'll notice that a lot, won't you? And it can sound quite consensual because he's trying to bring people into the conversation, isn't he? But it can also sound a little bit unsure or uncertain, can't it? So look out for that. Black shirts, glasses, and then pivot very quickly from levity to seriousness. Look, there's nothing I love more than going down the hill, Dickie, with the lads and, you know, having a few beers and seeing the toffees and then getting a kebab.

8:41But in all seriousness, Iran, don't stop what they're doing. We will launch a nuclear attack, won't we?

8:48Ed Balls: the key thing about impressions and this is true of impressionists or cartoons is you have to kind of get to the heart of the caricature and then make it even more extreme that's how it works and there's lots of um kind of caricatures about Andy Burnham at the moment you know he's a guy who flip-flops he's a guy who's desperate to be loved he's a guy who flashes his eyelashes at every opportunity and let's be honest we've all in politics when we were there changed our views on things and we all want to be loved whether that's in the House of Commons or at the Olympic Stadium and also we all, if we can every now and then flash your eyelids.

9:25Ed Balls: The Andy Burnham we know.

9:26George Osborne: If you're trying to flash your eyelids it should be your eyebrows. It's your eyelashes and your eyebrows. That's where you've been going wrong all these years then.

9:34Ed Balls: Your lashes are on your lids. Listen, can we start? I'm actually practicing at the moment. I think I'm doing both.

9:39George Osborne: Let me start. I'm going to start with asking you a question because we're about to get into him and his maiden speech and what he was like because we came in in the same year into parliament um and he was obviously a political contemporary voice but you you crucially play football with him yeah and obviously the nation's not remotely interested in what's actually going on in westminster this week despite our best efforts they're interested in the travails of the england and scotland football teams what was he like as a just explain you played with him in the kind of labor mp's team that used to play the media at conferences and you were both strikers is that right we were the twin strikers we have played together the messi and ronaldo of our generation yeah it was sort of more it's more um it's more

10:22Ed Balls: malcolm mcdonald and alan shearer um although they're from different eras playing for newcastle but um i played with him loads of times and normally at that sunday game at the beginning of the labour conference but in other matches as well charity games we we played and look the The caricature about Andy is that, you know, playing up front with him, you know, it was always quite hard to get him to pass the ball. And I never quite knew where he was going to be on the pitch because sometimes he drifted left and sometimes he drifted to the right wing. The truth was, though, he actually was a good person to play with.

10:52George Osborne: And he puts the ball in the back of the net.

10:53Ed Balls: And he puts the ball in the back of the net. There's been a clip around all week. I think it's 2012. And I think it's Clive Betts commentating. From the back and Toby Akiba's got a really long kick. then Ed really did well timed his header and the ball's kicked out and I go up, nod the ball on with my head Andy Burnham runs through and scores I then look this up, it turns out we actually won 3-0 that day Andy scored one, I scored two no come up, you know, kind of one upmanship there but I actually did score more than him on that particular occasion Andy, you know just waited for the right moment and ran onto it and really finished brilliantly down in the corner.

11:36Ed Balls: We actually played a match, a big anniversary, the parliamentary lobby versus former MPs a couple of years ago at QPR. I arranged it and we lost the game, but there was a penalty at the end and I picked the ball up.

11:48George Osborne: Is this where they're wearing the political currency strip?

11:51Ed Balls: Where they're wearing the political currency strip, which we sponsored, and I picked the ball up because I was sort of the captain of the team, or at least I'd organised it, and I thought to myself, who wants to score most on this team? So I just gave the ball to Andy and he put the penalty away. And, you know, in the end, he delivers.

12:08George Osborne: OK, so here's a question for you, because I think the reason I ask you about the football is not just because it's kind of amusing. He's a striker and he wants to score and he wants to be the centre of attention. But I'm going to ask you, I don't think it was obvious to me in 2001. You know, I came into Parliament the same year as him. There were a lot more Labour MPs than there were Conservative MPs at that time. And it was the beginning of the moment when the Blair and Brown advisers were starting to come into Parliament in their own right. And you you were you didn't come in, did you, until 2005 with Ed Miliband.

12:42George Osborne: But Andy Burnham, David Miliband, the people who've been in the kind of backroom of the New Labour victory in 97 were starting to get themselves elected to Parliament. And he definitely you know, we knew about him. He'd been a special adviser to Tessa Jow. He was a known character, but I'm not sure I would have said there and then Andy Burnham is going to be the one of this generation of Labour politicos who makes it to number 10. You know, I think at the time, most people would have said David Miliband, actually. And then, you know, people when when you came in, they thought, well, Ed Ball's probably going to be the chancellor at some point and maybe prime minister and so on.

13:20George Osborne: But to be honest with me, looking back to that period, you know him really well. Was anyone saying the one who's going to make it from our generation into number 10 is Andy?

13:32Ed Balls: No, not in 2001. But the thing Andy has done with dogged consistency is stay on a steadily upward rising trajectory throughout that whole period. And I think that the caricatures are just don't understand who he really is. Back in 2001, he shares an office with James Pennell. James Spinell, the guy who tried to force Gordon Brown out in 2009.

13:58George Osborne: Yeah, he resigned from the cabinet after local election results.

14:02Ed Balls: Saying the public spending cuts needed to be bigger.

14:06George Osborne: And then David Miliband doesn't join in and the whole thing peters out.

14:09Ed Balls: Seen at the time to be the arch Blairite, the guy who Andy Burnham has just decided to bring back as his chief of staff. Let's come back to that in a moment. But if you look at Andy Burnham's maiden speech in 2001, Is it the maiden speech of an arch Blairite? He actually talks about the huge challenges in Lee, his constituency on the edge of Greater Manchester.

14:31George Osborne: Which overlaps now in Makefield, doesn't it? It's part of his old seat, his new seat.

14:35Ed Balls: The loss of manufacturing jobs, the fact that globalisation has treated people badly, the West Minister has let them down, and what he wants as a Member of Parliament is to deliver for the people of that constituency the jobs and the prosperity and the hope and pride that they've lost and politics isn't given them. It's very, very consistent with the Andy Burnham of 2026 or the Manchesterism of his last 10 years as mayor, which we've talked about. And so, I mean, it's interesting in the same way when you go to 2010 and he stands for the leadership. His slogan is aspirational socialism. But the biggest contribution.

15:14George Osborne: Where does he come in that leadership contest? That's the one Ed Miliband beats David. That's right.

15:18Ed Balls: He comes fourth. Who comes third? I came third. But it's not first or second. So both Andy and I didn't win that leadership election.

15:26George Osborne: Yeah, but you beat Andy.

15:27Ed Balls: But in that little microcosm of contest I won, but Andy probably will never forgive me for that. But his biggest contribution is to argue really strongly, as I did actually in that contest, against the open migration we'd seen in the previous few years, very critical of Tony Blair, in particular on migration. This is in 2010.

15:50George Osborne: This is long before Brexit.

15:51Ed Balls: Long before Brexit. I actually think, I mean, the interesting thing about the 2007 moment, and then 2009 when James Pinnell is forcing that issue with Gordon Brown, Andy Burnham never takes sides. He never wants to be seen as a Blairite or a Brownite. He doesn't want to be a factional figure. The conversation I had with him, I was thinking back on this, when he was culture and health secretary. On the one hand, look, we did an amazing visit, the two of us about youth services, where we went to an adventure playground in South London. All these cameras there.

16:24George Osborne: Is that the one where you're on swings? I just said to Andy, look at those swings.

16:28Ed Balls: Andy said, shall we? And I said, yeah. So we just got on them. The press officers were going bonkers. And we enjoyed it so much. We then got off. We then got on again. He was always up for it. He kept coming to me and saying, we've got to promote free swimming for all.

16:42George Osborne: Thank God he's improved his communications advice.

16:45Ed Balls: It's a brilliant photo for upcoming young ministers. And free swimming. Now, you know, I remember at the time thinking, is that really the big issue facing the nation? On the other hand, it was like a retail issue. Maybe it was promoting preventative health. He always had his eye on the catchy thing. The key thing was he goes to Anfield to deliver that powerful speech. A powerful speech, but almost at the beginning of his speech at the Hillsborough anniversary, he's booed and he's booed because he's delivering a message from the government which they don't like about you know a lack of accountability not having an independent inquiry and he is both mortified by that i think it changes his whole view politically but he does the whole speech and he stands there and he takes the booze and he says i understand and i'm with you even as i deliver this difficult message and i think that was you know a hugely brave brave thing to do the way he did that i remember um at the time somebody saying to me that guy could be prime minister so i think i think that as that that decay was going on he was he was emerging and he comes

17:54George Osborne: second doesn't he in the 2015 leadership contest to jeremy corbyn he does but listen here's another

18:00Ed Balls: fascinating reflection nobody will remember this i'm sure um andy was the shadow health secretary under Ed Miliband, we never had a crossword, Andy and I. We didn't agree on everything, and he probably wanted to spend more than I thought we could afford, but we never really had an argument. We were good colleagues. We played football a lot together, came to visit me in our home with his family. But then after the 2015 election, he, in the early weeks, led the charge that Ed Miliband and I had been unwilling to propose the scale of public spending cuts which were needed. You know, it was like we should have signed up to a lesser version of George Osborne's austerity.

18:39George Osborne: What's wrong with that? Actually, there's a very good article by Nick Clegg in the FT this week defending austerity.

18:44Ed Balls: Yeah, it was a ridiculous argument. I mean, what a flaky article that was. Come on, Nick, you've got to do better than that, frankly. Let's put that to one side. That's not what we're talking about. The point is that Andy Burnham, the lefty caricature, I mean, that's blown out of the water by what he did in 2015. Look, I don't think he was right at all. And he had to then shift very quickly because, of course, Jeremy Corbyn from the left blew him and Yvette and everybody out of the water. He ends up losing that leadership election. But the idea of Andy Burnham, I mean, tough on immigration, calling at that time for tough decisions on public spending.

19:17Ed Balls: but at the same time the aspirational socialist who thinks globalization is harming his constituents this is more complicated he doesn't either fit into the caricature of the sort of intellectual london lefty or the right blairite the right blairites would never have used the word socialism

19:37George Osborne: would you no indeed although i think he's now started calling himself social democrat i mean actually is he a browner or a blairite i mean maybe it doesn't matter anymore these days but I was thinking just before we did the show, well, whose camp was he in back then when it did matter? Was he in everyone's camp? I don't think Andy has ever wanted to choose.

19:57Ed Balls: I think he's always wanted to be in the centre. And I think that was the case in 2010 and the case in 2015. And what happens sometimes in politics is when things are uncertain and unstable, you know, moving from Harriet Harman advocating welfare cuts to Jeremy Corbyn being leader of the Labour Party. and he was his shadow home secretary for the first year. He stayed in the shadow cabinet when many others refused to serve. The problem about wanting to be a uniting figure in the centre...

20:23George Osborne: So, of course, Keir Starmer was also in the shadow cabinet.

20:25Ed Balls: I mean, there's a lesson there, isn't there? Well, there's a lesson because the point is, if you want to be the uniting figure when the centre of the equilibrium is shifting around, that can end up with you looking like you shift around quite a bit as well. And that's something which I think has done him a little bit of harm. Right now, he's got to decide if he's going to be the centre, what is the centre he's going to choose?

20:47George Osborne: No, I think the shape-shifting is part of surviving in politics over 20, 30 years.

20:52Ed Balls: Sometimes he did it a bit crudely, but everybody has to do it.

20:55George Osborne: No, and the Manchester morality is when he really kind of steps up and starts to own the front of the stage, even if he'd always wanted to be on the front of the stage. Suddenly, it's him, his personality, albeit on a much smaller stage than the national one. You know, as I knew him in Parliament, I knew him when he was a cabinet minister and I was a shadow cabinet minister and vice versa. But I did really kind of get the obviously I was instrumental with the Labour leadership in Manchester in creating the mayorality. They were very suspicious of Andy Burnham as a candidate. That's not who they wanted.

21:26George Osborne: They really wanted someone from their own kind of council leadership. But he had the national profile.

21:31Ed Balls: They didn't really want a mayor at all.

21:33George Osborne: They didn't want a mayor at all.

21:34Ed Balls: Especially a high profile one.

21:36George Osborne: Yes, they did. Exactly. I mean, I essentially insisted on having a mayor. And then Andy Burnham was the big character who'd been in the cabinet, who was a Greater Manchester MP, even if he came from Merseyside originally. It's the second time I'm going to mention her in the last few weeks. Jennifer Williams, who was the correspondent for the Manchester Evening News for most of the time I was an MP.

21:58Ed Balls: Now at the Financial Times.

21:59George Osborne: Now at the Financial Times, has written a really, really good piece this week. Very good. It's a long piece. It's an essay on basically Burnham's time in Manchester and what you can learn from it. And I thought it was basically spot on because it speaks to his strengths, that he's very personable. He likes people. A lot of politicians don't actually like people very much. They have to put on a show. Whereas he, you can tell he's sort of genuine in kind of engaging with people. He's very good at storytelling and creating a narrative and finding the essential points you need to go. Those are all vital things, which this government's been.

22:37George Osborne: We desperately need some of that. Which we've been saying on this podcast that, you know, the government doesn't have a story to tell for the last two years. So all of those are enormous strengths. And I thought there was a really interesting point, which you have already mentioned, but she mentions in her column, which is in all of these years of being a reporter in Manchester, Andy Burnham never, or his people, never briefed against anyone. He never played that game, which, you know, there's a lot of it going on at the moment in the cabinet. Those are all his kind of strengths. And I would say dealing with him both as chancellor and then as a local MP briefly, and then as chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, which I created after leaving office.

23:16George Osborne: you know he always engaged with it and when we i remember we had an away day essentially in in yorkshire not in manchester and he came all the way to take part in the away day and engage in it as mayor of manchester he also is prepared to be unpartisan when necessary and work with people you know of different political hues and i've always had a kind of good friendly relationship with him but if you look at the jennifer williams piece it also tells you something else which is For example, he's against decentralising NHS control to Manchester and then he's in favour of it. He says he's going to end rough sleeping in Manchester as one of his big pledges.

23:56George Osborne: I'm going to abolish rough sleeping homelessness in Manchester by 2020. Today, as he stops being mayor, it's back at the levels it was when he became mayor. So he's not achieved anything in that space, really. He says he's going to prioritise social housing and then that doesn't materialise. He he doesn't engage with problems in the Greater Manchester Police, which is actually the chair of the police authority. And they they fester. These are all in the Jennifer Williams piece. And so this, you know, there is a kind of case against him, which is it's when things are easy and there are simple choices to be made.

24:32George Osborne: and you have to be the front man and you have to do the tough, you know, standing in front of the Hillsborough victims, families, or that awful moment when the bombing happened at the Manchester Arena. You know, he united the city and he has worked with the local Labour leadership there to deliver in Manchester, as we've talked about before. But when it's hard and difficult and people need to hear messages they don't necessarily want to hear, he sometimes backs away from it. Now, Now, sometimes the most successful politicians do do that, you know, if you look through our history. I would say this kind of central challenge is in Manchester, he inherited a plan from his Labour colleagues.

25:09George Osborne: And I would argue the Conservative government or the coalition government. The trouble is now he's not inheriting a plan. He's walking into essentially a broken government, which has ejected its prime minister, despite having a huge majority after just two years. and does he have the capacity or has he got people around him with the capacity to come up with his own plan because I'm not sure Andy Burnham has ever done that yet in his career.

25:32Ed Balls: Which is why being Manchester Mayor was such a great job for him because he didn't have to make difficult choices which people would have to pay for in their taxes. He didn't have enough discretion. It was a communication leadership job but look I think you are right and if you think about Keir Starmer's difficulties in the last couple of years. On the things where Andy Burnham can deliver a uniting, galvanising message, he has the skills to do that. And on the economy is so desperately needed. But I would say on the National Health Service, on jobs for young people, maybe on foreign policy around how he handles Donald Trump and the Middle East, you could see how he can do this in a way which is uniting for the government and maybe more broadly in the country.

26:18Ed Balls: But there's going to be issues around Europe or welfare reform or migration and the Shemala Mahmood reforms, climate change maybe too, where actually he's going to have to make some choices and he's going to have to lead when it's going to be contentious. And he's going to have to lead in a consistent way in the way that Keir Starmer has just failed to do in the last two years. And that is something which he has less experience of doing in frontline politics where you've got the levers. But that is, I have to say, I think bringing James Pennell back is a good move from his point of view. James Pennell is not going to come back.

26:57Ed Balls: You know, he's been at the BBC. He's been the vice chancellor of a university in London, London University of the Arts. He's now running Flint Global. He's not coming back.

27:07George Osborne: That's an advisory firm, isn't it?

27:09Ed Balls: Big advisory firm. He's not coming back because he is sort of, he needs the profile. He's coming back because he wants to do a serious job. And he's also somebody who has a track record of being willing to make tough decisions on welfare, on public spending. And I played five-a-side football with James Pinnell every week for the last six years. I know him really well. I think he's a more thoughtful, reflective, rounded person than all of us were when we were in our 30s into our early 40s. but he's a good person for Andy Burnham to be bringing in to do this job. But they're going to have to make, you know, they're going to have to make some big choices and some controversial choices.

27:49Ed Balls: And can Andy do, look, of which, by the way, the most important is what he's going to do on tax. We should probably come to that. But just on that point first, can Andy Burnham lead when it's divisive and challenging?

28:01George Osborne: No, I think James is a really excellent appointment because it's quite rare to find someone who has all the experience to do the chief of staff job, has seen it and done it. And so they're not kind of brand new to Downing Street and to Westminster and Whitehall, but also has the personal relationship with the prime minister. So they're not just some new hire. Dominic Cummings had no relationship to Boris Johnson. Sue Gray barely knew Keir Starmer. You know, two pretty spectacularly unsuccessful chiefs of staff appointment from the view of the prime ministers.

28:34Ed Balls: He has less economic track record, James. and we've talked in the past about how important that is but on media, politics, communication the personal relationship, you've been essentially the Chief of Staff, we've talked about Joey Hayward, the importance of the Chief of Staff we've talked about the challenges that Keir Starman Gordon Brown had finding the right person to be the Chief of Staff and James Pennell feels like a good choice to me

28:55George Osborne: What about we could obviously spend the whole show speculating about the Cabinet and so on but it does seem to me the key appointment is his Chancellor I mean, there is no prospect of Rachel Reeves staying on. I don't know what she's not being well served. I like Rachel. So this is meant genuinely. And I found myself in a not totally dissimilar situation a decade ago. Right. She should just say I'm stepping down as chancellor. And of course, I'm ready to serve in any other role. But I think I should go with Keir Starmer. She should not allow herself to be in this position where she's going to get fired as chancellor.

29:30George Osborne: and that he can't possibly hold on to her. His whole campaign is about change and what Labour has done wrong. And she has been instrumental in some of the decisions that have caused these problems. Ultimately, the responsibility of the first law, the Treasury, Keir Starmer. So who, assuming it's not her, and if I were her, I would take a junior cabinet job and not be, you know, too grand about it. But what about the kind of runners and riders at Ed Miliband? He's attracting all the headlines at the moment. Where's Streeting, who's folded into the Burnham campaign, and Shabana Mahmood? I mean, they seem to be the, I mean, obviously it could be someone else, but who of those three, where do you think the smart money is?

30:11Ed Balls: Well, I think as with the Chief of Staff, with the Chancellor, you should start not with the names, but start with what you need in the job. What is the challenge? And by the way, the biggest challenge Andy Burnham is going to face is he's letting expectations rise. He wants to spend more on defence. The economic policy needs more investment in infrastructure. The fiscal position this autumn is going to be worse. He's boxed in by a set of manifesto commitments on tax. Let's be honest, there isn't a big pot of money outside those manifesto commitments to find the resources. Does he go for an early election?

30:47Ed Balls: Does he break the manifesto? Or does he play it long and deal with the disappointment? This is a hugely difficult challenge. But in terms of the chancellor job, the person who has to deliver that for him, he wants somebody who knows the economics and who can think creatively about growth. He needs somebody who can have credibility with the markets because of the fiscal challenge. He wants somebody who deeply understands Manchesterism and the challenge of driving growth in the regions. He needs somebody who can communicate better than we've seen. and he also needs somebody who he can work with closely, who's going to be an ally.

31:25Ed Balls: And he will probably think, I mean, by the way, I think mistakenly that the Osborne-Camben relationship is the best relationship. I've always thought you need some challenging grit in that, but he will think he needs somebody who you can work with closely. And the nature of politics is always this. There is never anybody who ticks all the boxes. Wes Streeting is clearly a great communicator and he made a very good economic speech. Very good. But he's not deeply an economist. Does he have credibility with the markets? Does Andy Burnham really trust Wehrs to be his guy? Shabana, no economic track record at all, doesn't like doing communication.

32:03Ed Balls: I mean, she doesn't like to come on breakfast television or, I mean, she's good in the House of Commons. She doesn't do much of that. But I think she'd be credible as a figure. Ed Miliband knows the Treasury, knows the Manchester model. But is he somebody who will be credible with the markets? Does Andy really trust that they will? I think Andy, all the things I hear is that that relationship is close. And Andy does trust Ed Miliband to work in partnership. But there's still questions about whether Ed is the right person because of the market challenge. Although I think it's likely that that's the road he will go down.

32:36Ed Balls: He will go down. I think it's likely.

32:38George Osborne: No, and, you know, I have actually much more time for Ed Miliband than some of my conservative, former conservative colleagues do.

32:45Ed Balls: Look, on climate change, he winds people up, but he knows the Treasury and he knows the importance of fiscal credibility. The idea he's going to go play fast and loose with that. In 2015, he didn't with me because we both agreed we weren't going to.

32:58George Osborne: No, and I think, you know, a lot of people don't like his policy, but he's been one of the most effective cabinet ministers that are actually delivering a policy and sticking to it and trying to be consistent and get across a message about what he's up to. I think the kind of challenge for him is twofold. One is he comes as the former leader of the late party, so he comes with a lot of baggage. And, you know, that is, you know, a big issue. You know, your chancellor is a former leader of the late party. Second, you know, just look at all the headlines. He starts with the whole of the kind of centre-right press and right-wing press and, you know, being against him.

33:35And the inflexibility on the Green, the flip side of being consistent on Green is he's been utterly inflexible and not helped Keir Starmer.

33:44George Osborne: And even when there was a scheme to maybe use money in the North Sea to help solve the defence funding, he refused to budge. You need your chancellor to be really helping you, not just helping themselves. I hope Pivet's in the mix. I mean, she's the foreign secretary. She was the chief secretary to the Treasury. So she's obviously very experienced, not expecting you to comment on that.

34:06Ed Balls: Well, look, she has a master's in economics. She knows the Treasury. She was Andy's opponent in 2015. But, you know, Andy is not steeped in foreign policy. And the foreign policy situation at the moment is as dangerous as it's ever been. So, I mean, who knows what he'll decide to do.

34:22George Osborne: We did have a reminder last night, Donald Trump already having a swipe at Andy. But, I mean, that is going to be an unbelievably tricky relationship. It's all very well to say, you know, put two fingers up to the American president. That is not an easy thing. For a British prime minister, you have to be very, very careful to go down that route. Anyway, we will see. I think if it was me, I'd choose either Wes Streeting or maybe Siobhan over Ed Miliband. But I'd have Ed Miliband as a kind of key figure in my government, an anchor figure. A bit like William Hague was an anchor figure in the Cameron operation.

34:56Ed Balls: Andy Burnham doesn't need to choose Wes Streeting for reasons of political balance. He'll only choose him if he thinks actually he'll do the best job.

35:01George Osborne: You do need someone who's going to help you govern and win that election and so on. We're going to come on and talk about whether there's going to be an early election. I just want to ask about the five tests, not the Euro five tests.

35:16Ed Balls: The Al Kahn's five tests.

35:18George Osborne: Al Kahn's. We've been talking about him on this show. I'd never even heard of him until I'd mentioned him to me a few weeks ago.

35:23Ed Balls: I said to you, he might be a leadership contender. He's in the mix.

35:26George Osborne: He's still flirting with it, it seems. Anyway, he's the junior defence minister who was himself a brave soldier who resigned at the same time as John Healy. And now he's published his own five tests of who he will support in a leadership contest. Not that at the moment there is a front runner, if you can put it like that. Anyway, he's got these five tests, which are all the things like keep the lights on test or the 10 percent test.

35:52Ed Balls: They're all like he's going to add a trillion pounds to the economy. He's going to get defence spending up. He's going to find 10 % efficiency everywhere.

36:02George Osborne: Do we feel he's overplaying his hand a bit, Al Carnes? Enjoying his moment in this very hot sunshine. If you hang out in this sunshine for too long in politics, you can get burnt.

36:14Ed Balls: If I was Al Carnes, I think I've got nothing to lose. Go out there, see if you can get the nominations. He can stay until the 16th of July and see whether he gets the 81. I think the thing which is actually rather striking about these five tests, is that there was no politics in them at all. I mean, there's no values in no sense was the Labour tests. I mean, these could have been a senior Conservative or a reform person putting those tests out. And I slightly read them and thought to myself, are these the tests where Al is going to decide whether or not he actually supports the next prime minister rather than his own manifesto?

36:48Ed Balls: So, you know, I just wonder what this all means and where it's going. By the way, on Monday we speculated about whether Al Cairns, also Darren Jones, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, would get into this race. I don't know whether you've heard the news. I think this is actually an announcement which I've just seen, that Darren Jones has now announced that he's not going to be playing centre-forward for England against Panama on Saturday night. He's spoken to Harry Kane. He's been reassured by Harry Kane that the miss in the last game was a one-off. and on that basis he's not going to put his name forward to be sent to Ford I think you know Harry Kane and all the England team will be relieved that there will be stability

37:26George Osborne: I'm looking forward to his TikTok video explaining the offside rule

37:32Ed Balls: Darren Jones I love him he'll be in the next cabinet good on him but he's not going to be the Prime Minister and I'd be surprised if he's the Chancellor

37:40George Osborne: yes maybe the Duchess of Lancaster

37:45Ed Balls: watch Johnny Reynolds very close to James Pennell moved out by Keir Starmer to be the chief whip. I saw him yesterday. I was in seeing the speaker with Erica Pickles, Lord Pickles, about him, the Holocaust Memorial. I saw Johnny Reynolds on the way out. Used to work for James Pinnell, moved to be chief whip, bruisingly. I think Johnny Reynolds is good and will end up playing a bigger role than some others in this government. Watch that space.

38:11George Osborne: Okay. Now, listen, we are going to turn next to the question that all new prime ministers who take office inside a parliament face. which is, are you going to have an early general election? And that is going to be the question after Andy Burnham gets into number 10 Downing Street. So we're going to tackle it after this.

38:40George Osborne: Welcome back. Some of you who are fans of this podcast would have listened to our Inside the Room episodes on the 2007 election that never was. This was some months after Gordon Brown became prime minister in the summer of 2007. He got off to a really strong start so that by the time he got to the Labour conference in the autumn, there was huge speculation that he would call an early election. And we were looking through, you know, the conversations that were happening behind the scenes and how the opposition were thinking about things. We did this episode with Andy Coulson, who was the Tory comms director, Andy Marr, who got the scoop that there wasn't going to be an election.

39:19But the person I want

39:21George Osborne: you to listen to now is Deborah Mattinson, who was Labour's pollster at the time. And this is a very interesting insight into the kind of issue facing a prime minister and that question of whether to have an early election. One thing that's worth saying is I had got some of the people in my team to do some analysis of looking at new prime ministers into the role and particularly looking at transitional prime ministers, i.e. ones who'd come from, you know, ones who hadn't won the job in an election. And it was really clear that three months in tended to be as good as it got with your poll ratings.

39:57That was as good as it got.

40:00George Osborne: So I think that's a really key piece of information. Obviously, history doesn't always repeat itself. But usually, new prime ministers, things don't get better for them the longer they stay in. It peaks at about three months in, and already there's loads of things about how Andy's going to do different things differently from Keir Starmer, and he can communicate, and he's going to have a Downing Street in Manchester as well as in London, and all this kind of buzz you get. But three months in, the reality of governing hits you. And there's then this question of, should you go for the early election?

40:34George Osborne: And usually prime ministers shy away from it. But not always. Theresa May did have an early election and it was a disaster for her. She lost the Tories overall majority. And in the end, that was the kind of beginning of the end of her premiership. Boris Johnson did call an early election and won a huge majority, although he was later ejected by his own party. You know, that was a very successful example of calling an early election. And then Rishi Sunak didn't have an early election. I think kept hoping that things were going to get better. But actually, his ratings after about three or four months really started to slide and he became very unpopular, only to be trumped eventually by Keir Starmer in terms of unpopularity.

41:16George Osborne: So this kind of question, if Andy Burnham gets off to a good start, obviously, if he doesn't, it's a bit mute the question. But let's imagine things go well and you get to the autumn. The Labour conference is good. that maybe the Tories are struggling to land blows on him. Can he resist the pressure down early in general action? What do you think? Well, first of all, the lesson from Gordon Brown

41:40Ed Balls: is if you don't know the answer to that question, do not let the speculation run out of control. And I think there was a danger of that a few weeks ago and they've been hosing it down, but they're going to have to come back to this again. As you say, if Andy Burnham has a honeymoon, Theresa May did hose it down, then had the early election and didn't work for her. Gordon Brown didn't hose it down and ended up being forced into having an early election, even though he didn't want one. And I think he was right not to want one. But the time he didn't call it, he had to have one. So he got himself into a terrible mess.

42:10Ed Balls: Three tests. First test, if you have the early election, are you going to end up in a better place than you are today? Andy Burnham currently, when he becomes prime minister, has got a big majority.

42:21George Osborne: Yeah.

42:22Ed Balls: What is the chance of his majority going up? I would say zero. Yeah. He's going to end up with a smaller majority, but he may have more years and he may be able to claim a mandate.

42:34George Osborne: So, yeah, he goes back to potentially having five years and he can write his manifesto.

42:39Ed Balls: That's right.

42:40George Osborne: And he has a mandate. So it's not just about the size of the majority.

42:43Ed Balls: The second thing is, if he doesn't go for the early election, do things get better or worse? Now, the danger for Andy Burnham is that there's disappointed expectations. something happens which goes wrong. On the other hand, he desperately needs the economy to improve, and it might. But if you think of the political situation, we had Nigel Farage on Good Morning Britain this week. He was then on BBC Breakfast and other outlets. I mean, Nigel Farage is in a real mess on this 5 million donation, currently being investigated by the parliamentary authorities. He didn't seem to be in a happy place. At the moment, in Makerfield, Andy Burnham succeeded in saying to Green, Lib Dem, maybe even Conservative voters, support me to stop reform.

43:26Ed Balls: Who knows what happens over the next couple of years? Who knows if Nigel Farage is still a Member of Parliament if this investigation goes against him? In those circumstances, does the galvanising reform poll weaken? Does it make it harder for Andy Burnham? Is Kemi Badenok resurgent as Farage fazed? does reform go into chaos or does Farage become a hero being done to by the Westminster establishment? He doesn't know the answer to that, but it is not clear that things get better for him over two years. They could get worse. But I think this is the most important thing.

44:02George Osborne: Well, before we get to this, I mean, that's the problem, isn't it? You don't really know. And I don't think anyone's expecting, even if he delivers the most brilliant, you know, Manchesterism for the whole UK, that the economy is going to dramatically improve the next couple years. the global environment won't allow for that, nor, as we were discussing earlier, is there some pot of money he's going to discover to solve all of his spending pressures.

44:26Ed Balls: So on those first two tests, I hear you saying, test one, look, the majority may be a bit smaller, but if he goes when he's popular and he gets five more years, that's worth having. And secondly, look, it may get better for him, but it may get worse. And they take the moment now. But here's the third thing, which I think is the most difficult for him, which is why. Yes. If you go for an early election halfway through the parliament, in the case of Boris Johnson, it was really clear, get Brexit done. Yes. It was obvious.

44:53George Osborne: He defines the question.

44:55Ed Balls: Completely clear.

44:56George Osborne: And it was after months of complete stalemate and paralysis in the commons. And, you know, Theresa May couldn't get any legislation through and couldn't get Brexit done. So, you know, he did define the question.

45:09Ed Balls: In the case of Theresa May.

45:10George Osborne: Although he was up against Jeremy Corbyn, people forget as well. That's true. And the Brexit party stood down.

45:14Ed Balls: In the case of Theresa May, she never, ever answered the question. In fact, she'd answered the question so much the other direction that nobody could ever understand why she was having this election. And then the manifesto that she was suddenly asking for a mandate for made no sense. Gordon Brown, it wasn't clear what the question was. The problem for Andy Burnham, what is his biggest dilemma? Go back five minutes, 10 minutes in this podcast. His biggest dilemma is this. Can he really make the sums add up, in particular on defence, but also on the economy, and keep to the manifesto? tax pledges.

45:45Ed Balls: If he goes for an early election, doesn't Cammy Baden-Ock just says, well, we know what this is all about. This is an election so Andy Burnham can raise your taxes. Is that the election he wants to fight? Has he got a bigger reason for having an election than the Baden-Ock charge? It's just to raise your taxes.

46:00George Osborne: You're right that that's the central question you have to answer if you're going to have an early general election. What is it for beyond me, beyond I'd quite like to, you know, get a mandate? I'm asking the country to vote for what reason. And I think this comes down to actually the central dilemma, which goes beyond even the economics and the fiscal situation, which is what is this change that he is promising? So the Maker Fielder by-election was all about the country needs change. Labour's got to change. Labour's been disappointing. We've let you down. I am the change. Now, to do that, he has to dump on Keir Starmer.

46:34Right.

46:35George Osborne: He can't be all nicey-nicey with Keir Starmer saying, Keir Starmer did a great job. Yeah, we decided to get rid of him and now I'm in charge. That's not a story or an explanation. We're talking about him being a good storyteller. You have to explain to the country why you challenged Shakir Starmer, why you got rid of him, what the failure is that you are changing from. We've discussed before, but I thought Rishi Sunak made a huge mistake when he became prime minister not to define himself against not just Liz Truss, which he did a bit, although only after a few months. But Boris Johnson, he was the chance exchequer who resigned and brought down Boris Johnson as prime minister.

47:14George Osborne: And yet when he was asked about Boris Johnson, he said, oh, he's made a huge contribution to our party and I wish him well. And you've got to be ruthless.

47:21Ed Balls: Gordon went for continuity in 2007 as well. And actually, it didn't add up because he obviously wanted to be changed, but he wouldn't tell us what the change was.

47:29George Osborne: Right. And, you know, if you're the striker in front of the goal, who cares who provided you with the assist. Hang on a sec.

47:37Ed Balls: If you don't have somebody who gives you good assists, you never get in a position to score.

47:41George Osborne: But ultimately, he has to really dump on Starmer. And by the way, painful as this is going to be, dump on Rachel Reeves and their legacy. And he has to say, I am the change, right? And he has to define what that change is. And the change has to be sufficiently dramatic if he wants to go for this election that it justifies a general election.

48:03Ed Balls: And it's not possible for Baden-Ock simply to caricature it as continuity with the tax rise.

48:09George Osborne: So I think it's another way of thinking about an early election question is who will be most scared of an early election? You know, in 2007, we in the Tory party, we didn't want an early election. I mean, we were we said, bring it on. David Cameron famously in kind of party conference speech said, bring it on. But, you know, we definitely wanted a bit longer to establish ourselves and get ourselves ready, looking like the alternative government. Kemi Baden-Lock's definitely doing well. She had pretty sharp exchanges in the House of Commons this week. But, you know, she's establishing herself as a kind of big political figure.

48:40Ed Balls: Can she be Neil Koenig 1987? Can she be the person who says this is a staging post? No, no.

48:46George Osborne: I think if she loses an election, the Tory party doesn't put up with people who lose elections.

48:50Ed Balls: On that basis, she doesn't want an early election.

48:52George Osborne: So she doesn't want an early election.

48:53Ed Balls: Nigel Farage definitely doesn't have to make a field. Although, to be honest, an early election may be the one thing which actually keeps him in play.

49:00George Osborne: Right. I just think it is the reason why we chose this topic is at the moment, everyone's saying, of course, there's not going to be an election. I think by the time you get to the autumn, it's possible that the environment might have quite substantially changed. And if he's had a honeymoon, Burnham, and he's a skilled communicator. So the one thing you can do for the first three months as prime minister is, you know, sound good, look good. Get those first few weeks right in a way that Keir Starmer never did. such a crucial part, you know, get the launch right, clear the launch tower if you're on the rocket, it's more likely there will be an early election than people are giving credit for.

49:37George Osborne: I still think probably on balance it won't happen, but I think it's going to be the discussion in October. Look, three tests.

49:45Ed Balls: Will you be in a better place after it? If you delay, will it get worse? And do you know why you're going for what the story is? But the lesson of 2007 is until you've decided, do not let the speculation run out of control because that kills you.

50:01George Osborne: Now, we are going to turn finally to what it's like for the current prime minister, Keir Starmer, in Downing Street for these next couple of weeks. Some prime ministers just go out on election night. And even if they know they're going to lose, they never really have those moments where they say goodbye to Downing Street. But David Cameron had a couple of weeks between announcing his resignation and Theresa May taking over, partly because the leadership election there also collapsed. And there was only one candidate. So Keir Starmer's got a couple of weeks. How is he going to spend those couple of weeks?

50:34George Osborne: What's it like for the people in and around him? You and I have both been there in the past, and we thought we'd share some war stories after this.

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51:48George Osborne: welcome back in 2010 after i had become chancellor and the coalition government had been created these incredible photos came out of the very last days of the brown administration this was after the general election the five days between the general election and gordon leaving office and And they were by a photographer called Martin Argles. And they had pictures of Gordon Brown, pictures of you, Ed, pictures of Alistair Campbell. I don't know what he's up to these days. But all of you in these rooms, actually in number 12 Downing Street, not in number 10 Downing Street, which is where Gordon Brown's operation was based.

52:27George Osborne: and you're all sort of sitting, leaning back on chairs, feet up on the desks, sort of waiting for events essentially beyond your control as the Tories and the Liberal Democrats are negotiating things. I thought they were very evocative political pictures of what happens in Downing Street when power goes somewhere else. No, I thought you really captured, Ed, the emotion at that moment when you gave some commentary to the Blair Brown documentary that was made afterwards about that period and about Gordon's departure from Downing Street. Let's hear that commentary now. I felt proud that he was able to walk down

53:07Ed Balls: with his two sons and Sarah.

53:12Ed Balls: That he had managed to protect them all of that time when they were in Downing Street. But he wanted to give his kids one photo and one memory so they would know their dad had been the Prime Minister. I remember that being a very emotional thing to see. Because you knew an era had finished. It was done. After all those years.

53:38George Osborne: Oh my God, I'm almost in tears.

53:40Ed Balls: You are in tears. I'm not in tears. Yes, you are. You're welling up. No, no. I think that's not a bad thing. The music, Peter Maxwell Davis, Farewell to Stromness, is so powerful. I've been learning to play it myself. and those pictures of Gordon Brown with his sons, they had protected them all of that time, but they did want that picture. It's not an exact parallel with Keir Starmer, of course, because Keir Starmer has been forced out and Gordon Brown had lost a general election, but there were those days when, you know, could he stay on? And on that particular day, it became clear over the afternoon that it was all over and actually Nick Clegg was begging him to stay on because he was trying to negotiate with you and in the end, Gordon Brown said, no, I'm going to leave.

54:23Ed Balls: And in that room, when we all knew it was done, all these people came back from the previous 13 years. So, you know, all people who at times had been in the media seemed to be fighting each other. But actually, it was always much closer and more cooperative than that. But Alistair Campbell, Andrew Donis, Peter Mandelson, me, Ed Miliband, Douglas Alexander, Sue Nye, Stuart Wood, so many others in there. And we had to kind of play for time. And it was tense. as the photos reveal you know we reminisced we told old gordon jokes and then laughed at the punch lines and remembered moments you knew that what a privilege it had been to be in there all those years and it was finishing and you just wanted to sort of to kind of savor that that moment and then um with his kids one thing i remember though which is you know kind of to me interesting and if you think back to last weekend um it wasn't simply keir starmer paying tribute to his children and to Victoria, his wife, in that speech.

55:25Ed Balls: I thought that was the only good bit of the speech, but that was a good bit. And he didn't have pictures with his kids, but they're older, and I understand that. But all that weekend, there'd be all the briefings in the newspaper about how it's Victoria who, with him, will decide. And in that couple of days with Gordon, Gordon was very keen at all times to have Sarah, Sarah Brown, his wife, there. and she was always there. She was such a... My phone is just rung and it says mobile Gordon Brown.

55:57George Osborne: Gordon Brown is literally called in the middle of this conversation.

56:01Ed Balls: In the middle of this conversation. Do you know what? I'm not going to answer the phone because if Gordon ends up in the podcast, he will be slightly annoyed at me, especially given we're talking about such a sensitive thing. Isn't that just, oh my God, serendipity.

56:14George Osborne: But don't pull your punches just because he's on the phone.

56:16Ed Balls: No, no, I'm not going to pull the punches. The thing is, in a moment when you are so politically exposed and all the people are giving you advice and you're thinking, I know, but is that really the best advice? For me. Best advice for me. And Keir Starmore had been being told by cabinet members and even his staff members, you know, time to move on. And he's thinking, I know, but is that right? And are they doing that?

56:38George Osborne: It might be okay for you, but what about me?

56:39Ed Balls: And in the same way, I think Gordon in that day wanted Sarah there because he utterly trusted her and she was unequivocally on his side. And she wasn't thinking about, you know, in our case, the leadership election to come, you know, what was going to transpire, you know, what was the next political move. And she was just there so that Gordon always knew that there would be could be somebody who 100 percent. Lots of us were, you know, quite high ratings. None of us were 100. Of course we weren't. who could say that's the wrong call and when gordon said i'm done i'm telling nick clegg i'm going to the palace sarah said that's right and i think the same i don't know whether i mean of course you went through exactly the same thing in overnight with the referendum result the disappointment of losing and you were there with david cameron but of course there's part of you which is moving on to what happens next do i stay in my job is he going to resign could i be the next leader um i don't know whether sam cameron was there and there's a parallel there but was there the same sort of sense of emotion and occasion and an ending there was um yes very much

57:48George Osborne: i mean there was this kind of horrific meeting at about three in the morning of me and ed llewellyn and kate fall and david and sam about are we going to go ahead with the plan to announce his resignation in a few hours i absolutely remember that but then you have these weeks afterwards So it was a couple of weeks. We're coming up, actually, to the 10th anniversary on the 13th of July of the day he left Downing Street and I left Downing Street as well. And the odd thing about those weeks between announcing the resignation and leaving office is that the power just drains away from Downing Street.

58:23George Osborne: And it's something I mentioned last week, but I'll just elaborate on. You know, in Downing Street, you're the centre of attention and probably an inflated view of, you know, the importance of British politics in the world and the importance of Downing Street in British politics. But nevertheless, you think everything emanates from this building. We never have enough time in the day to tackle all the issues. Everywhere the prime minister goes, he or she is the most important person. And then suddenly you're utterly irrelevant. You are you go back to being spectators of politics, having been principal actors for, in our case, 11 years because you include the opposition.

58:58George Osborne: And it's very odd when you're when it's someone in your own party who's becoming prime minister. And there's a leadership contest in your own party because you used to run the leadership contest. You used to be in the leadership contest. This was all your your world that you were in charge of. And I just remember David and I just spent like days watching the television about like, oh, you know, is Andrea Leadsom going to get the numbers? Is Theresa May going to win? What's happened to the Boris Johnson campaign? It's a very, very odd experience. And it's quite kind of shattering. There are still a couple of sort of formalities.

59:32George Osborne: I mean, there's sort of chairing cabinets and attendings and meetings. But I mean, no one's paying any attention at that point. and the idea I would say that Keir Starmer can sort of get anything done in the next couple of forget it I know there's talk of well let's get this you know special education needs package done I mean it's over it's over there are a couple of funny meetings I remember a couple of funny events which I just end on one is there's the resignation honours discussion which was a very odd like the lavender list well lavender was Harold Wilson wasn't it and Marcia Falkander, his political secretary, written on her lavender shaded notepaper and basically rewarding a lot of fairly dodgy friends of Harold Wilson, as you remember.

1:00:15George Osborne: David Cameron was like rewarding his own staff and, you know, people would be like people like his agent and his secretary. And, you know, people hate these resignation honours lists, by the way. But there is that to be done. And then there's this extraordinary thing. I remember there was a room in Downing Street where they had laid out all the gifts that foreign leaders had given David Cameron over the six years he'd been prime minister. Gifts from Barack Obama, gifts from the king of Saudi Arabia, gifts from the French president, the German chancellor, you know, visiting dignitaries. And you can't keep them in the British system unless you pay for them.

1:00:53Ed Balls: unless they're below a dividend

1:00:54George Osborne: below like 150 quid or something and so they lay out all these gifts which they've been storing for you and then you can go around and choose the ones that you want to keep and then you have to pay for them essentially at a not unreasonable rate, they're not extortionate but there were these sort of elaborate kind of gold palm trees from various sort of gulf leaders and he was like I think he took one because he just thought it would be quite amusing to have one of these things there was a kind of John F. Kennedy's book, Profiles in Courage, signed by Barack Obama. So, kept that one. And you have to, you go around, it's a bit like, it's like the Generation game.

1:01:35George Osborne: It's literally these items are brought before you. And you have to... Cuddly toy. Yeah, while we're talking about Zed Cars and Life of Brian, the Generation game, younger listeners again. Matching suitcases. What on earth are they talking about? Cuddly toy.

1:01:47Ed Balls: Cuddly toy.

1:01:47George Osborne: Anyway, so it's just a very odd, and it's, and I, you know, Keir Starmer will be having an utterly miserable couple of weeks.

1:01:56Ed Balls: I'm going to end, though, on one serious piece of advice for Keir Starmer. And as I said in the beginning, he may not want it. But I think there is a real danger for Keir Starmer and his team in this period. We said on Monday that it's about legacy now. And I think his legacy depends on Andy Burnham succeeding. and if Andy Burnham succeeds then people will say Keir Starmer made an important contribution. If Andy Burnham fails, people will say it was Keir Starmer who messed it up. But if you look at the reporting in the last couple of days, there's lots of stuff about Keir Starmer being angry and betrayed and he's been shafted and it all has, there was an anonymous piece by a Downing Street insider in The Spectator which was slightly wild and it's all a bit Liz Truss.

1:02:46Ed Balls: Since Liz Truss left being prime minister, it's been kind of, I think it's a bit embarrassing that it was a conspiracy, the civil service, the Bank of England, her colleagues, they all did her in. No, Liz, you messed it up. She made mistakes and Keir Starmer, look, he needs to own the errors he got wrong. It is valedictory speech when he makes it properly. He needs to own that as well as his achievements. and his staff need to understand the reason why Andy Burnham has done what he's done, the reason why Wes Streeting did what he did wasn't because of Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham's overweening ambition.

1:03:21Ed Balls: It was because there was a collective, desperate need across the cabinet ministers and the party and the country, I'm afraid, the polls say, for change because it wasn't working. You have to own that. And if the angry lashing out briefing, I mean, I understand that people feel upset and and i hope the good people stay on and get jobs in the new burden administration but this this is not this is not the way to secure kirsten's legacy and actually there is a maybe we should have

1:03:52George Osborne: answered the phone to gordon because there is a lesson in gordon brown and in john major which is even if at the moment of departure you're written out of history everyone thinks you're utterly you you know, hopeless and you've been kicked out. You know, if you're patient, the pendulum comes back and people appreciate some of the things you did. And you get ridden back into the script. And even though, as we were saying earlier, I think Andy Burnham has to distance himself from Starmer. Starmer should understand why he's doing that and just play the long game.

1:04:27Ed Balls: That is right. That is it for this week's episode of Political Currency.

1:04:31George Osborne: Don't forget now, you can watch the show when we drop it, the full episode on YouTube every week. You can listen where you get your podcasts, but you can also watch us on YouTube as increasing numbers of people are doing.

1:04:43Ed Balls: EMQs on Monday. You can get it early if you're a Gold subscriber or Kitchen Cabinet member. Members only chat a mug, bonus content, a newsletter every week for George and I. That is the whole panoply of goodness that you get if you're a Kitchen Cabinet member.

1:04:59George Osborne: And the newsletters have been pretty interesting, I would say, in the last few weeks because politics has been moving very quickly. Although we've had some emergency podcasts, the newsletters are also a very good way for us to keep you updated on what we think is going on in a fast-changing political environment.

1:05:15Ed Balls: Plus a longer description of my cultural recommendation, America's Sweethearts, the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, on Netflix at the moment. You've got to watch it. I'm on episode five. It's compelling. I mean, it's like politics. It's unbelievable.

1:05:31George Osborne: Thea and I are watching your recommendation about the French village during the Second World War. The line. And what do you think?

1:05:37Ed Balls: It is really, really good. On ITVX. That is right. Now, don't forget, you can send your questions for EMQs on social media or email us questions at politicalcurrency.co.uk. We always like a voice note, and you can ask us about anything. We like humour, we like serious, we like history, we like classical civilisation.

1:05:55George Osborne: See you on Monday for EMQs. See you then.

1:06:05George Osborne: Thanks for listening to Political Currency. This has been a Persephoneca production.