The two major challenges facing Andy Burnham

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

0:27Ed Balls: so we are in the studio in hoxton it is the morning after the football match the night before and quite stressful because i thought england were going to blow it but then harry kane i've got to say you know harry came for prime minister i mean if he can save the nation quite like that Andy Burnham rollover.

0:44George Osborne: Yeah, it was good. I was coming back. It was a stressful day yesterday because I was at Wimbledon watching Yannick Sinner, the world number one, men's world number one, win easily. And then I got the tube back from Wimbledon. So I was missing the first part of the England game. So I was just sort of updating the BBC website and it kept saying, you know, Congo, one up, one up, one up. Anyway, but got home just in time to watch the two Kane goals. So, yeah.

1:11Ed Balls: And now we've got a huge dilemma. I mean, if you are a parent, what do you do about the fact that it's England in the last 16 and the game kicks off on Monday morning at 1 a.m.? I have to get up at 3.30 that morning to go to work. It's fine. Just get up a little earlier. Well, I think that...

1:30George Osborne: Well, push on through, Ed. How can you not watch it? Imagine it's like an easy jet flight back from Ibiza and you can just go clubbing and then you've got your gig on tonight. Anyway, you could just...

1:39Ed Balls: You know how to push through.

1:40George Osborne: You're a rock star.

1:41Ed Balls: But rock stars don't sleep. I have this view that if I don't concentrate, then how can I expect them to concentrate? So if I'm asleep, then will they be asleep in defence? Oh, the England team.

1:53George Osborne: I don't think you're not the mystic Meg. I'm not sure you have any direct impact on that.

1:59Ed Balls: No, but it's just like, I just think morally I should watch that.

2:01George Osborne: Yeah, okay. Morally is definitely the word we need here. I've been meaning to ask you a question for a whole week. And I reckon some of our listeners also want to ask you this question. What was Gordon calling about?

2:13Ed Balls: What was Gordon calling about? I haven't dared rig him back.

2:19George Osborne: For those who missed last week's episode, Gordon Brown literally called in the middle of a conversation about Gordon Brown.

2:26Ed Balls: Shall I tell you what he's calling about? He's calling to say, I'm really worried. I think they may be going to break up the treasury. I think he was actually calling to say, you've got to discuss this. Ed, you've got to discuss this with George on your podcast. But he called it mid-podcast, so it was too late. But, Gordon, we will make this right today. We'll make this right today.

2:48George Osborne: Yeah. Now, listen, we've got lots to talk about, haven't we? We are going to start by talking about the Prime Minister in waiting, Andy Burnham. He's just a couple of weeks away from taking office. And he's keeping a pretty low profile. But he gave a big speech this week, his first big speech, setting out, I guess, the sort of economic approach to his premiership. and in particular focusing on devolution. So we're going to have a look at how Burnham is getting ready for number 10.

3:15Ed Balls: And then we're going to pick up that issue that Andy Burnham announced, a number 10 in the north, a promises office in Manchester. And that maybe is a good idea. But is this actually something bigger? Is this a remaking of the British state? Is this saying we're going to take power away from Whitehall, away from the Treasury? is this going to become the new Wilsonian growth department? And what role should Andy Burnham want the Treasury to play? And what kind of Treasury does he need to back his devolution growth agenda? We'll talk about that second.

3:50George Osborne: And third, it's a birthday this week, isn't it? It is someone's birthday or something's birthday. It is the 250th birthday of the United States of America. So we're going to talk a bit about not just our own relationship with the United States, but how the celebrations are going and more to the point, how are things going to pan out for the US in the years ahead? And how should our new prime minister be thinking about his relationship with the person who sits in the White House? All that to come. But let's start with Andy Burnham's big speech at the beginning of this week in a museum in Manchester.

4:23George Osborne: It was a bit of deja vu there because I gave my first, my northern powerhouse speech in a museum in Manchester. I gave it in the Museum of Science and Industry. He chose the People's History Museum in Manchester.

4:36Ed Balls: Is there a coat of yours in a glass case in the museum?

4:40George Osborne: I think you're referring to Michael Foot's donkey jacket.

4:44Ed Balls: And Andy Burnham's black jacket where he did his COVID response to Boris Johnson on behalf of the North.

4:50George Osborne: I'm not sure you're selling the museum.

4:53Ed Balls: If Andy Burnham's got a jacket in there, why haven't you?

4:56George Osborne: Yeah, good question. Anyway, he gave a speech to an assembled crowd that included a front row of the various mayors from around England and lots of Labour MPs, presumably angling for a job in the Burnham administration. But, you know, it was a substantial speech. Here's a clip that I guess sort of sums up the ambition. My generation of politicians, including me, must take responsibility. We haven't been good enough. But instead of being honest about that, the parties have continued with politics as usual, finger-pointing points. The whole of Whitehall will now be required to get behind our places and work together with them to make quicker, more joined-up decisions.

5:44Ours will be a 10-year mission to raise living standards across the land. The political direction I set is not up for negotiation. I will build an inclusive team at the very highest level so that all parts of the party and the country can see themselves reflected and represented in it. There's a possibility in places that haven't felt it for a very long time. And I know because I heard that from people on doorsteps in the by-election. But let's give them that feeling, that ability to hope, to aspire to better. Imagine good growth in every postcode and hope in every heart. Well, imagine no more.

6:25Let's make it happen.

6:26Ed Balls: We cut off the rapturous applause there at the end, but we could have included that. What did you take out of that speech?

6:35George Osborne: No, I mean, there was lots in the speech. And as you just hear from the delivery there, we've been playing clips of Prime Minister Starmer's speeches over the last couple of years. And you can already tell that Burnham is a better communicator and there's more kind of emotional content to his speaking. All that said, you know, there are lots of things in the speech I like as someone who a decade ago or more was saying we should do more devolution within the UK. So he's quite specific about handing powers to local areas over things like employment support, creating housing funds for local areas, creating a number 10 in the north, which we're going to come on and talk about later on the show.

7:14George Osborne: The thing I think that was missing is the thing that was missing from Keir Starmer's premiership, which is where is the theory of economic growth that sits behind all of this? I mean, the suggestion that no politician before in Britain has wanted growth in every postcode is just nonsense. Every prime minister, Conservative, Labour has wanted to get the whole of the country growing. And, you know, as recently as Boris Johnson, you've had prime ministers talking about levelling up. There's a long history of this. And although, as I say, I welcome quite a lot of the sort of policy content, what I didn't hear is a theory of how are you going to improve Britain's economic performance?

7:58George Osborne: It's not just going to be sheer will. It's not going to be some new office. You've got to have some theory. And I hope he draws on some of the things that inform the Northern Powerhouse, which actually came from Jim O 'Neill, who's a leading economist and friend of Andy Burnham's, all around kind of cluster theories and agglomerations of knowledge and so on in city areas and how you connect towns to them. I want to see that. And it wasn't there in Keir Starmer's speeches. It wasn't there in Rachel Reeves, his speeches. And it's not at the moment there in Andy Burnham's speeches either.

8:29Ed Balls: I think on that point, the jury's out because we haven't yet seen the detail from Andy. Quite a lot of the writer's centre newspapers said this was back to the 1970s back to statism. But as we've said, that isn't Manchesterism. I have some sympathy with your argument. I think he would say, but the theory I'm setting out is a theory of devolution for growth. And that is part of the story. And you, as Chancellor, the academic work I've done at Harvin Kings in the last few years has all been about how you can drive through devolution change. But it's also about the investment you put in. I think it's also about the way markets work and the dynamism of markets, whether you have competition and entry and the new firm and a tax system and a finance system which supports the new company being established and growing.

9:18Ed Balls: And he didn't say anything about any of that, which allows the right wing papers to say, oh, no, it's just statism. It's going to be anti-market. And that isn't really the Manchesterism we're going to talk about. The other worry I have, which we'll talk about in our second section, is if this becomes a theory of the state, which says reject the treasury, that isn't going to work. And that would take us totally away from the vision for devolution and growth that you and I have talked about on this podcast and more widely in the last few years. But, you know, Andy and his new chancellor are going to have to set out a philosophy of what drives growth.

9:51Ed Balls: And that hasn't happened yet. I thought the other thing, you are right that it was very different from Keir Starmer in terms of the charisma and the authenticity of the communication. negotiation but it was also when it was quite presidential you know as we played in that clip the political direction i set is not up for negotiation it was quite i was a little bit messianic in the room with all the cheering and the applauding there weren't very many cabinet ministers in there a handful but there were the mayors but there's lots of cheering crowds and i think one of the things which keir starmer got wrong was it was too i it was too this is what I have decided there wasn't enough sense of the team and the collective.

10:35Ed Balls: And I also think Keir Starmer was inauthentic when he sort of went for the anti-politics, anti-Westminister rhetoric. And he does a bit of that. I know why he's doing it, but he's got to be really careful. If you remember Emmanuel Macron, the outsider, breaking up French politics, comes in to become president quite quickly from the inside. he looks like he's not delivering you know I'm not sure centrist populism or centre-left populism works any better than populism from the extremes just watch that because in the end he's got to unite a team and rebuild trust in Westminster and in politics rather than playing the anti-politics

11:16George Osborne: card from the inside it doesn't work yeah I I'm a bit more sympathetic to him I mean he's the candidate in theory in a leadership contest he's not yet the prime minister so he's setting forward his candidacy as his first maybe only speech of his leadership campaign. And he does talk about trying to build an inclusive team, which I take...

11:38Ed Balls: I'm not trying to be unsympathetic. I'm just saying that it runs out of road and that cannot be how he governs.

11:44George Osborne: I thought the interesting thing, which will be a real testament, it is certainly true that Westminster is absolutely set up to make this fail is his talk of bipartisan cooperation. I mean, that is quite a bold statement. And of course, you could argue our politics has never been sort of less, you know, collegiate and it's very fragmented. But if you go back to Keir Starmer's election, one of my critiques of him was right at the beginning. He was just utterly anti everything that the Tories had done and totally unsympathetic to his predecessors. Whereas David Cameron, who was the last incoming prime minister from a general election, was sort of generous towards, well, particularly Tony Blair and then a bit towards Gordon Brown.

12:32George Osborne: And Tony Blair, before him, made a link to the kind of Thatcher inheritance. I thought that was interesting. And of course, a key part of Manchesterism has been cooperating with conservative governments or conservative-led governments. So it's good that he's on to something. And, you know, it just reminds you, why on earth didn't we have the big act of devolution two years ago when when the Labour government came in? You know, it didn't happen.

12:57Ed Balls: We are publishing next Wednesday at King's. Right. We've got Michael Gove and Angela Rayner coming on our next Harvard. I think it'll be our final Harvard King's paper, because we said two years ago, here's what you should do. Yeah. And two years on, we're going to do a stock take of whether in the first two years the government embraced devolution and growth. and I'm afraid it's not a good story. There's been some parts of it very effective around backing the mayors and I think from the housing community's local government, particularly when Angela Rayner was there, they went for that agenda, but more generally, they didn't embrace it.

13:29George Osborne: No, look, I can't help but be a bit flattered that there's lots of references to me and what I did in Manchester, but that was over a decade ago and the fact that not much has happened since doesn't speak too well of the various governments that came after. You know, you are also reminded this week So he generates headlines with this speech. You're reminded of, I think, two of the kind of big challenges he's got coming almost immediately on becoming prime minister. The first is the fiscal challenge, the defence plan. I thought element the sort of military parts of the defence plan were quite brave.

14:03It's quite hard to tell the Navy, scrap your destroyer programme.

14:07George Osborne: We're moving to drones. And I would actually applaud the Navy for embracing that. And I wonder whether the RAF shouldn't be doing something similar. They're still pushing ahead with kind of next generation of manned fighter jets. But I remember when I was doing these defense bands, trying to tell the Navy and the Air Force to kind of retire the Harriers or scrap the old aircraft carriers. It's a hard thing to do. Anyway, the content feels to me quite strong. But the fact is entirely unfunded. I mean, really entirely unfunded. You know, there's a price tag to it. And A, there's sort of five billion odd pounds that literally we don't know where the money is coming from.

14:42George Osborne: And then there's another seven billion or so pounds, which other departments have to cut. Things like road and energy projects, which we've been saying and this Labour government for the last two years have been saying. And every economist looking at the UK has been saying is exactly the kind of long term investment in the economic infrastructure of the country that should be going ahead. So it seems entirely kind of counterproductive. And just a reminder for Andy Burnham that he has got, you know, where is the money going to come from? And if he can't tackle the PLP, the Labour Parliamentary Party, on welfare bills, and he can't go to the bond market, and he's got limited room on tax, although I'm sure some taxes will go up, where is he going to get the money for all these things from?

15:25Ed Balls: Look, it was classic Keir Starmer to announce without any qualification, a bold, big plan, a big solution, and then just to allow it to unravel over the course of the day when people find out it doesn't actually add up. And, you know, there was a five billion gap to be found in the budget, as well as 10 billion of efficiency unspecified. Keir Starmer then says to Prime Minister's questions, that is why we have a margin in the fiscal rules, why we overachieve. No, Keir, you don't have a margin in the fiscal rules in order to spend it halfway through the year on a defence plan. You have the margin in case the economy goes wrong and the public finances aren't as good as you wanted and you don't have to come back with more tax rises in an emergency way to fix the fiscal rules.

16:16Ed Balls: But your point is really important. Andy Burnham did nothing in the speech on Monday to depress expectations, to explain to people. I don't mean that in a negative way, because I know that he wants to be at hope and optimism. But he didn't set out to say, let me tell you how hard it's going to be, the challenges we're going to face, that I can't do everything quickly. I won't be able to make everybody happy in the start. And instead, he sort of did the opposite of that, which was to say, as we quoted, good growth in every postcode, hope in every heart. let's make it happen.

16:49George Osborne: Which, by the way, is a contradiction in terms. I mean, devolution means letting local areas succeed and brackets fail. If you're really going to trust local communities, not all local communities, not all local leaders are going to do well. Unfortunately, that's the nature of giving people power and empowering them to make decisions. Some postcodes are going to struggle

17:09Ed Balls: under a devolved system. But he is raising expectations. Meanwhile, he tells Keir Starmer and tells the media that he signed up to the Starmer plan on defence. Clearly, it wasn't told the fine print. So, you know, the first priority for the Andy Burnham government this autumn isn't going to be growth or every postcode or social justice. His first problem is he's got to find money for defence. So did he walk into a bit of a trap?

17:37George Osborne: Well, I think I can imagine him thinking, I just don't need a row with Keir Starmer at the moment. I just need the guy out of Downing Street. So I'm not going to say anything. I'm not going to contradict him. I'm not going to. But, you know, I thought the other thing that happened this week, I said there were two. One was the row about defence spending. The second was actually the stories on the news this morning I listened to, which were different stories, quite different stories, but sort of speak to essentially the political challenge he is going to face. So the first was that the guy who led the Rochdale grooming gang is being released from prison.

18:11George Osborne: And he said he was a dual national, a Pakistani and British citizen. His British citizenship has been stripped, but it looks like he can't be deported from Britain. And Andy Burnham's spokesperson has already said, and I think actually Andy Burnham himself, who's spoken about grooming gangs a lot before as mayor of Manchester, has gone on social media saying, I'm going to ask my home and foreign secretaries to do everything to deport him. And you just know in a year's time that's going to be like, well, we can't. And Pakistan's not going to have him back. And so on. And then the second story was a BBC investigation, a very good one from the BBC, revealing that a people smuggler who's been running the small boats across the Channel and was imprisoned in France, has come to Britain and claimed asylum under a false name and is living in the East Midlands in Leicester, sort of with impunity.

18:56George Osborne: You know, he's going to come in as prime minister dealing with all these other issues and a country that isn't very hopeful and isn't very optimistic at the moment. And I think he wants to bring hope. He's obviously very excited about him becoming prime minister and will feel I can make a big difference. The parliamentary Labour Party may well feel hopeful that, you know, they're going to turn a corner in terms of their political prospects. That's not going to chime with the national mood. And therefore, I think he needs to think very carefully about his communication in the first couple of weeks as prime minister and through the autumn.

19:31George Osborne: Yes, I do need a message of hope. Salma said it's going to be tough and then didn't set a kind of long term goal, really. So you want to lift people's hopes and aspirations, but you can't. It's not like Tony Blair turning up in Downing Street in 1997 with cheering crowds and the whole kind of mood of optimism. or even the sort of sunny first days of the Cameron-Clegg coalition in the Rose Garden and a sort of mood of the country, you know, was on the up. That's not the country he's inheriting as prime minister. And that's precisely the reason why the previous prime minister has imploded and the governing party has turned to him, an outsider from the current Westminster scene, to solve things.

20:16Ed Balls: The truth is that he is going to inherit a lot of problems. And however much your first two week plan is worked out in detail, and let's hope he's got a detailed policy plan, although it's going to be into August, which is going to be harder, events come along. And Gordon Brown was thrown entirely, of course, in the first days of his premiership by the bombs at Glasgow Airport and Haymarket. On the other hand, it turned out to be very defining for him in the first few months. And so you also have to have dexterity and your media operation has got to be top class. I actually think we could give Andy Burnham here again, just a little bit of advice based upon our experience and what we're seeing at the moment.

20:57Ed Balls: Because we had a conversation last week about the cabinet. There is a lot of stray briefing in the newspapers from friends of Andy Burnham, sources of Andy Burnham, people close to Andy Burnham. we've had Andy Burnham, the first woman prime minister, which he's obviously had to distance himself from.

21:19George Osborne: That, I have to say, was one of the most ridiculous. So for the people who didn't follow this, the Labour Party has not had a female prime minister. And they said, don't worry. In fact, Andy Burnham's going to be our first woman prime minister because he's so in touch with his feminine side.

21:32Ed Balls: It would drive him up the wall. All this, you know, we had Andy Burnham apparently...

21:37George Osborne: It was like the Thick of It episode, wasn't it? I can imagine, like, our first female Prime Minister. No.

21:44Ed Balls: Given the problems Keir Starmer had about what a woman is, I'm not sure Andy Burnham wants to go there. You also had, you know, Andy Burnham to start talks with the Lib Dems for a coalition. Now, I'm all for Andy working with parties on solving social care, but I'm not sure you should start now on your coalition talks. He was clearly very frustrated.

22:03George Osborne: Although I would be getting friendly with Ed Davey because you want a plan B in case you don't get a majority in the House of Commons.

22:09Ed Balls: But look, his people distance himself from the friends of Bernie Burnham saying these things. You have.

22:15George Osborne: But when you say his people, can I pick up who is that?

22:18Ed Balls: That is what I'm getting to. I think the other one I was just going to pick up was, you know, there's a lot. I mean, he was clearly frustrated on Monday about all of the cabinet speculation. He tried to make a joke of it and push it away. But there's quite a lot of, you know, unless you are a man who played in a football team in the early 2000s, you don't really have the stature to do the job. And there's quite a lot of...

22:37George Osborne: I'm quite hopeful for you, Ed. I mean, you were there.

22:40Ed Balls: You're in all those photos. I'm in all the photos.

22:42George Osborne: I had to put up with all the Bullingdon Club photos. You've now got all these, the football team in black tie.

22:48Ed Balls: Nothing winds up women politicians and members of the PLP. Look, I'm not sure that you and I are in a great position to tell women ever what they should think or feel. And neither is Andy Burnham. But what I do know is that stories appearing in the paper saying we need the men back and we need the men of stature back. We need the footballers back. I mean, let's be honest, the latter period of New Labour was not a great time for Harriet Harman when she was not made Deputy Prime Minister. Caroline Flint talked about a two-tier cabinet. The only people who resigned over expenses were Jackie Smith and Hazel Blires, both women, Margaret Beckett, ditched out.

23:25Ed Balls: They've got to be careful about this. These again, though, I mean, Andy Burnham is not through his... Burnham, Balls, Purnell, Tim Allen.

23:33George Osborne: They're all the old gangs getting together.

23:35Ed Balls: I'm getting to the serious point. Andy Burnham is not saying these things. I don't think the people who work directly for Andy Burnham, who are doing his media and telling people what events he's doing and what his speeches are going to say and planning the media strategy, they're not saying these things. But what happens in leadership elections and with new prime ministers is you have a whole bunch of people who think, well you know i'm a friend of andy and people want to know my views and so i can say here's what he really thinks here's what he really wants if you have going into downing street and we both experienced it in different ways gordon at the beginning maybe you with um different noises off if you go in with a cacophony of voices saying here's what he really thinks and you spend your whole time having to contradict what is being said in the newspapers it can be chaotic and catastrophic.

24:28Ed Balls: And my advice to Andy Burnham is you've got to get a grip on this. The only people who should be speaking for you are the people who you say speak for you, who are your spokespeople. When I was a cabinet minister, I said only I and Alex Ballard-Nelly, who work for me, speak for me and always as a spokesman for, if it's not me, because if you allow it to go out of control, it causes anger and frustration and confusion. Keir Starmer's number 10, a lot of the time in the last two years, has had open briefing wars between different members of his own number 10. If you lose control of that, it's very hard to get it back.

25:04Ed Balls: And Andy and James Pinnell, going to be his chief of staff, they've still got time. Get a grip of the media operation and stop all these noises off because it's really damaging.

25:13George Osborne: I think it's a particular challenge, isn't it, if you become Prime Minister halfway through a parliament? Because if you win in an election, you've spent a month talking about your plans in the election campaign and in the run up to it. everyone knows who the team is because it's assembled and ready to step in and it's an election so you've got to be and you know and you know you know who speaks on the economy because it's the shadow chancellor you know who speaks on home affairs it's the shadow home secretary and so on and they've got there's a press here you know he's got what who is his team he's literally got james pernell who said nothing as far as i can see in public as chief of staff he's got a press secretary he's got a you know that guy kevin lee who helped him in manchester but they're all really

25:52Ed Balls: good. They're not the ones who are appearing as allies, sources, friends. They're spending the whole time having to contradict what he said.

25:58George Osborne: So what would you actually do if you're him? I mean, you know, practically, how do you shut down friends of Burnham? You say publicly, I mean, he was trying to do that in his speech, wasn't he? He was saying, you're going to read a lot of speculation about the cabinet. I haven't made any decisions. I'm not going to announce anything for a couple of weeks. I mean, he was trying to do that. You referred to him.

26:16Ed Balls: He was trying to do that. But on the other hand, all of the briefings of the newspapers, which have carried on since, are kind of read and people try to understand what's really going on here. What you cannot have in your Downing Street team is 10 or 15 people who think it's okay for them to speak to the media. And once that starts, other people think, well, if they can, so can I. Young civil servants start doing it. You have to be really clear and you have to say this internally. If I find that you're speaking to the media and you're not authorized to do so, you're out. And you have to say to your team and to the media, The only people who speak for me, no allies, no friends, are me and this person and this person.

26:54Ed Balls: When we were in the Treasury, we were very, very disciplined about that. And I'm sure you were as well.

27:00George Osborne: Wasn't that briefing in the pub about the euro tests?

27:03Ed Balls: No, that wasn't a briefing. That was Tony Blair rigging Charlie Whelan to say what is going on with the sun. And I think Charlie said, Alistair Campbell, your press secretary was already rung them and told them we're not joining. I mean, that was not that was not Charlie's fault. Charlie was not doing the briefing on that day. But you just got... No, I agree.

27:22George Osborne: The Brown and Blair operations were very disciplined and actually the Cameron operation was pretty disciplined on the press front as well. So presumably all these journalists are going to have to traipse up north to number 10 north and stand outside that door, which might have the big advantage of not having the protester down the road drowning out everything that current prime ministers tried to say outside the number 10 door in Westminster. So we're going to turn now to number 10 North and to what the Treasury might look like under a Burnham premiership. And we're going to come to that next.

28:09Ed Balls: So welcome back. The big news story of the Andy Burnham speech on Monday was him announcing there is going to be a new office for the Prime Minister in Manchester, the new number 10 for the North. And this is Andy Burnham talking about it on his social media. I have to say his social media is good. I left the North again. I travelled South again. Well, there's a bit of a Smith's lyric there for you, but I'm back in London. After the speech, pleased with how number 10 North has gone down. you know what it will mean in future is that everybody doesn't have to come down here to have a serious conversation with the government if you think about it a north pole to the south pole it'll just make the country feel more balanced i hope you're excited by it i'm certainly excited

28:54George Osborne: by it so what do we think's going on here what what do we make of number 10 north well i think

29:00Ed Balls: there are two views about what this means and i think the big question is what is in andy burnham's mind and the people around him. On the one hand, this is showing symbolically that not everything is run from Westminster for London, that he's going to govern for the whole of the United Kingdom. He wants a symbolic office outside of London. It means that he can go into the office on a Monday or on a Friday. And if he wants to meet the mayors, they don't have to be summoned down to London. He can meet them in his Manchester office. I think it's challenging if you're the prime minister because you have to be able to do the secure conversations you need to do and governing tends to pull prime ministers to checkers into number 10 because of the pressure of the job but i think this is a good aspiration for him to want to have if that's what it is good there's an alternative view this has been you know in particular discussed on their subs on their sub snacks by tom watson and then patrick mcguire from the times over the last few days no no you're not understanding the scale and radicalism of this proposal.

30:06Ed Balls: This is a remaking of the state. This is Andy Burnham trying to do what Wilson failed to do in 64 and maybe Tony Blair failed to do in the mid 2000s. This is about saying that the only way to drive growth and devolution is to take power away from government departments, from Whitehall and Westminster, and in particular from the Treasury. It's the Treasury which has been the drag anchor on devolution and on economic growth. And that if we have an alternative to the Treasury, a growth department called Number 10 North in Manchester, some people are speculating, I think this is a widespread debate at the moment, is this going to be the Treasury broken up and part of the Treasury carrying on as a narrower finance ministry in charge of taxation and the fiscal rules, but having public spending or growth policy being moved out of the Treasury to either a new part of the Cabinet Office or to Number 10 North or some combination of the two, on the basis of all the work I've done, and I think the work that you did in the Treasury, if Andy Burnham were to think that the right way to drive his devolution growth agenda was to break up the Treasury or try and do it in opposition to a smaller Treasury, it will utterly fail.

31:38Ed Balls: And that is such a misreading of history. And I truly hope that is not what this is about.

31:44George Osborne: So, you know, there are several things that I think could work. First, there's no reason why you couldn't base yourself as prime minister quite a bit of your time in some other part of the country. Definitely not. I think some people made the comparison with like, well, Donald Trump goes to Mar-a-Lago. And that's not because, and Ronald Reagan had a Western White House in California. And that's because the White House and indeed number 10 are courts. I mean, they're a version of the kind of medieval court. And if you remember from your Hilary Mantel, you know, when Henry VIII travels around, so does everyone else.

32:19George Osborne: And so, you know, power is where power goes for prime ministers. And And yes, if he wants to spend lots of time in Manchester, then the civil servants and the support mechanism will grow up around him. Although these things are not remotely as straightforward as you think. I remember the very first week that David Cameron was prime minister, he wanted to stay living at home in West London. And then, you know, by the end of the day, his first day as prime minister, there was the roads were blocked off. The police had sealed, you know, local residents had to have a pass to go to go to their own homes.

32:51George Osborne: you know once that it's fine now and everyone loves Andy Burnham applauding him but once you get a big strike and a big demo and you know not quite so straightforward anyway but let's assume they create that office second thing I think is perfectly legitimate and I've always wondered why prime ministers haven't done it is really beef up number 10 you know I never really understood why you couldn't take over the cabinet office and create a proper prime minister's department Tony Blair did something a bit like that with the delivery unit but you know then that we made the mistake of getting rid of it.

33:23George Osborne: If that's what this is as well, fine. Big question, though, break up the Treasury. And here, where I'm going to disagree with you is, you know, fundamentally strong prime ministers have strong chancellors and strong treasuries working for them. And the clue is on the door, the original number 10 door in Whitehall, which says First Lord of the Treasury on it. That is what the prime minister is, and they should use the Treasury. but if you want to make some big change I don't think Burnham's got the time to do it now it's mid-parliament there's an open question of who's going to win the next election and these sorts of changes big machinery of government changes to the treasury will take a couple of years to actually happen so if you really do want to create a separate budget director or office of the budget as many countries have or separate economic growth away from budget decisions or put financial services in some other if you want to break up the functions of the treasury if you try and do it now then absolutely sod all is going to happen on the ground in terms of policy delivery in this country for the next two years it's going to be a massive whitehall turf battle whatever it's the very thing in his speech if you read it he warns against which is whitehall departments competing against whitehall departments but i think it's a bigger

34:41Ed Balls: danger simply than two years of light. Think of in the last 30 years, the times when governments were really driving the economic agenda, undoubtedly happened with Nigel Lawson, undoubtedly happened with Gordon Brown, undoubtedly happened with you. A strong, dynamic treasury using the levers of policy, which is about tax and spending and regulation, in order to drive a growth agenda, that is when governments are confident and succeeding. And the Treasury is not, in my view, an institution with a set of values and prejudices which don't reflect the Chancellor of the day. The Chancellor of the day and their standing and their leadership is what drives what the Treasury does.

35:30Ed Balls: All the work I've done academically about the devolution growth agenda shows that the big problem has been that even when you had strong chancellors trying to drive the growth agenda and devolution, Gordon Brown and you, the problem is unless the prime minister is fully throated and signed up to it and telling cabinet ministers that is what we're going to do and we are going to drive this devolution agenda, it doesn't work. So what you want is a better partnership between the treasury and the number 10 in which number 10 steps up. And if that is what number 10 of the north is, great. But if you take the Treasury out of that, if you say we don't want the Treasury to care about growth, it will still be powerful, but you narrow its ambitions.

36:15Ed Balls: What it means is that decisions being made about taxation or the fiscal rules or the regulatory macroeconomy are less inclined to be about growth than they should be. So it takes you away from that vision. And what happened with Wilson in 1964, he thought the Department of Economic Affairs would be his big growth mission led by George Brown. It failed. And the Treasury was narrow and obstructive because that's what the Chancellor thought their job was, to be the finance minister. You do not want your Chancellor to be a finance minister. You want to be a finance minister and an economic minister who really cares about driving the growth agenda.

36:52Ed Balls: So it is just a wrong reading of the history of the last 40 years to think the Treasury was the bloc, was actually offered number 10. And therefore, if you get the Treasury out of it, it will happen. It won't. So as well as blighting, if you want to drive northern powerhouse, southwest powerhouse, do not say, let's get the Treasury out of the way. Let's have a partnership between the Chancellor and the Prime Minister. They've got to be on the same page, of course. But the promise has got to step up. Don't ditch the Treasury.

37:24George Osborne: Well, we're going to end up agreeing with each other. I think the kind of challenge you've got, though, is here. So there's no doubt one of the... I don't think the Treasury has had a great decade, actually, the last decade.

37:35Ed Balls: And also, can I just say, in the last two years, if you were Lou Haig, who's now very close to Andy Burnham, was a transport secretary, she's been dealing with the Treasury in the last couple of years. The approach they've taken, I'm afraid, at political level, has not been to engage on the growth agenda enough or on the regional agenda. I think that's not true of the civil service. But more than that, the approach the Treasury took to spending reviews was to be arrogant, high-handed, dismissive. And of course it would wind them up. But the Treasury doesn't have to be like that. I don't think that you or we were arrogant and dismissive of departments.

38:09Ed Balls: We actually saw departments as being the partners to deliver change. That's what you need.

38:13George Osborne: That was partly because the whole cabinet, in my case, had bought into the kind of fiscal plan and therefore knew that the spending review had to. There was a kind of collegiate support for the overall economic approach. Right. Of which I know you were making fun of it last week. But the fact that Nick Clegg, 10 years on, is still writing in defense of the economic plan shows that the whole there was cabinet binding. The spending reviewers rather felt, you know, that they were a consequence of something that was politically all signed up.

38:44Ed Balls: Although you struggled to get cabinet ministers to sign up to the Northern Power's agenda, and the prime minister should have done more to back you.

38:51George Osborne: Well, I actually think...

38:53Ed Balls: On skills?

38:54George Osborne: To be fair, I mean, you know, I came too late, really, in my chancellorship to the Northern Power, so I didn't really turn to it until halfway through. The Manchester mayor, which, of course, Andy Burnham became, was driven by the Treasury, by me, by Jim O 'Neill, who was then a Treasury Minister, by John Kingman, who was the second permanent secretary, you know, very, very effective civil servant. And it had the support of David Cameron. And there is no way you could have created the Manchester mayor, or indeed the mayors that subsequently followed in the West Midlands and West Yorkshire and so on, if it had been left to the local government department and the transport department and the education department.

39:30Ed Balls: Although in the interview you did with us for our project, you say you still struggled to get some departments to sign up to the powers and to give away power. And I think unless the number 10 and the Treasury are absolutely demanding it, it won't happen.

39:46George Osborne: Yes. And so we managed to do it for Manchester. And then, you know, essentially the government ended up being kicked out. So I agree with that. But I think, you know, you still come back to this sort of central problem that the Treasury has had. You've had a succession, just like a succession of prime ministers. You've had, I don't know what, seven chancellors since me, right? You're about to get an eighth. And quite a few of them have, you know, not really had a kind of clear plan of what they wanted to do with the job or they were kind of dealing with the problems that inherited like Brexit.

40:17George Osborne: And then they didn't have the political authority because people thought, well, the government's not going to last. And, you know, the civil service, it's not that they make a conscious decision the government's not going to last. It's just like the whole system takes a view. How long are these people going to be around? And Andy Burnham is, you know, he turns out thinking I'm the new prime minister. I've got a huge mandate. I've won this. You know, I've become the Labour leader without even a contest. Everyone else is thinking, OK, but you may turn out to be yet another of these prime ministers only last two years.

40:48George Osborne: And your chancellor may be the eighth or ninth chancellor. So they don't start with the authority of I've just won an election. I've got a huge majority. I've got at least four years, probably five, maybe 10 ahead of me, in which case the whole system gets behind you. And it's much harder for these midterm prime ministers. There is a reason why there's a midterm prime minister. It's because everything's gone wrong with the government and they've got rid of the existing prime minister. And you can't just assume that you turning up with some new thoughts about how to reorganise Whitehall, which turn out to be the same thoughts everyone's had for the last hundred years, are the answer.

41:24George Osborne: It comes down to sort of political direction, a clear economic plan. Yeah, sure. And then get the machinery to deliver it. It doesn't matter where that's based.

41:31Ed Balls: Andy Burnham is not going to succeed on the devolution growth agenda unless he's got a chancellor and a treasury who are absolutely lockstep with him that is right and I don't think that has been where it's been in the last couple of years but I don't think Keir Starmer has been driving this agenda either and I think number 10 in the north can help with that what I'm saying is look you don't have to take it from me or from you or from you know Gordon Brown or from from other chancellors go and talk to some of the people who've been you You know, go and talk to Mike Ellum, who's in the Cabinet Office.

42:02Ed Balls: Go and talk to Richard Hughes, who is apparently one of Andy Burnham's advisors and was head of the OBR. Go and talk to Beth Russell, who worked with Andy when he was at the Treasury as Chief Secretary on Public Spending. She now runs the Darlington Treasury campus that is in charge of regional growth. And ask them, what role does the Treasury play in growth policy? Have they been a block on growth policy in the last 30 years? And would locking the Treasury out of the growth agenda help him or hinder him? My advice to Andy Burnham and James Pinnell is, of course, listen to the people who've had a tough time with the Treasury in the last couple of years, but also to talk to people who've been there in the last 30 years and really know what they're talking about.

42:38Ed Balls: Do not make the Wilson mistake. Do not waste years thinking it's going to either breaking the Treasury up or blocking the Treasury out of grave policy will work for you because it really won't.

42:50George Osborne: I've been changing my view a bit since we discussed this on the podcast the last couple of weeks about who should be the next chancellor. And I am actually warming to the idea of making Ed Miliband the chancellor. I mean, there's a big problem, which is the Tory press will hate it. The business community need massive amount of persuasion that he's pro-business, because the first thing you hear from business people is he's, oh, that'd be a disaster. But if you wanted a kind of really strong chancellor who knows the Treasury, who's shown in his own department, in the Energy Department, you might not like the policy, but, you know, he's clearly been delivering it.

43:24George Osborne: I'm kind of seeing why if you want to take a bit of a gamble and you've only got a couple of years to turn this around you haven't got five years maybe send for Ed and the idea of Ed Billiband

43:34Ed Balls: as chancellor being told all you about is the fiscal rules and about tax policy and you don't have a role in driving growth and driving reskilling of Britain and driving you know the the government's climate change objectives as well in a sensible way then you know I mean that's not job he'd want because he shouldn't want that because that would be antithetical to Andy Burnham's ambitions. And so...

44:00George Osborne: And look, optics is important. I can see coming back to where we started, you don't want to reassemble the football team, literally. But, you know, in this situation, the Labour government at the very top needs its very, very best players on the pitch.

44:12Ed Balls: Well, but these days, compared to 20 years ago, it's actually the England women who win the Euros.

44:21George Osborne: That's true, yes.

44:22Ed Balls: It's actually the England women who are doing a better job. And don't fall into the trap of thinking that it's the men who have stature.

44:29George Osborne: No, no.

44:29Ed Balls: Or the older men who have stature. Because, you know, there's some very, very powerful, effective women as well.

44:37George Osborne: I'd let Shabana Mahmood get on and deal with all these immigration problems and asylum problems, which I was referring to earlier. I mean, Burnham could definitely throw his weight 100 % behind her and have a much better story to tell on that front. Now, talking about a bunch of men who set out to build a nation, we should turn, shouldn't we, to the founding fathers of the United States of America, who I'm afraid were mostly men, as far as I'm concerned, but indeed entirely men. And 250 years ago, they set out to create the United States. They declared independence on the 4th of July in 1776. It's the 250th birthday this week.

45:16George Osborne: and we're going to turn to that amazing moment in history and what it means for our future. Next.

45:43George Osborne: so 250 years ago in Philadelphia the founding fathers of the United States signed the Declaration of Independence. And I think you have to remember that they were basically signing their death warrants at the time. If they had lost, if the British Army had succeeded in suppressing the rebellion, those people would have been executed. It was an amazing act of courage. No country in the history of the world was blessed with a more kind of wise and collegiate group of people than the people who signed the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson wrote it, and here's just to get us in the mood.

46:24George Osborne: This is the great actor Orson Welles reading us some of the most famous lines of that declaration. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

46:56Ed Balls: Fantastic. Absolutely brilliant. Of course, 250 years ago, America's celebrating now in a rather kind of more fractured, less united political environment. You know, we've all been reading the newspapers in the last few days about the huge problems that Donald Trump is having, getting the crowds to come to his great American state fair to get singers to come to his concert. If you'd thought five years ago...

47:20George Osborne: I was in Washington a few weeks ago. Many people have been to Washington. There's that big central mall, which is the green strip between, essentially, the Washington Monument and the Congress, and they've turned it over into what's supposed to be like a sort of state fair with lots of stalls and the different states represented. But the crowds look a little bit thin, don't they?

47:39Ed Balls: Well, it's because it's become a political, party political, rather uniting moment. If you think about, you know, if we were talking about this five years ago and you thought planning for the 250th anniversary, if you were going to have a concert with the greatest American singers of our lifetimes all on the stage, but then they're not coming because it's become divisive. Well, to be fair to say, it's Haley Swift, she's getting married. No, but... She's got another engagement. and you know into that very complex environment just a few weeks ago our king went king charles and did brilliantly he managed to unite congress democrats and republicans applauding his his words and i had this fabulous report of a conversation in those days from a very senior american saying to a british official um he's done extremely well your king um in congress today is there any chance he could be our president?

48:33Ed Balls: And the irony of that, because of course, that was the different course America took 250 years ago. As we are reminded every time we go to see Hamilton, I've been a few times. I don't know how many times you've been.

48:46George Osborne: I've been four times. I've been four times too. I saw the original with Lin-Manuel Miranda. I was very lucky in New York.

48:51Ed Balls: This is King George III telling the Americans 250 years ago that he may have some regrets. You'll be back, soon you'll see. You'll remember you belong to me. You'll be back, time will tell. You'll remember that I served you well. Oceans rise, empires fall. We have seen each other through it all. And when pushed... Well, of course, that didn't work, sending the fully armed battalion. and 250 years on, there's no going back.

49:33George Osborne: I remember watching, every time I've watched Hamilton, I always think I'm the only person in the audience with some sympathy for George III. What he's saying is it is cameo performances. Look, we both, I think, have a deep affection for the United States. So mine was shaped by going to college there in North Carolina when I was 18, by many visits subsequently, by now teaching at an American University, Stanford, and, of course, working for an American company. I mean, I have a lot of fond memories and warm feelings about the US. And there's a sort of strand of British politician, which I would count you as being, and Yvette as well, of people who've had some sort of formative experience in the United States.

50:15George Osborne: And it definitely shapes the way you think about the country, doesn't it? It gives you a kind of, well, I would say an understanding, but it certainly gives you a big sympathy, doesn't it?

50:24Ed Balls: It does. And I think it also shapes your view of politics. and you know there'll be some people on the um on the left who will completely recall from what i'm about to say but you know i went to america when i was 21 to graduate school at harvard first time i ever went on an airplane and uh in the early months you think god this is such a strange place it's actually it's far more foreign than you expect and um despite the language the language is um when you first arrive kind of draws you into a sense of familiarity and then actually things are not familiar. But over time, I just came to have such respect for the optimism of America and the sense of hope and aspiration and the potential for change.

51:09Ed Balls: And part of the reason why I think, you know, we sometimes, people like me might sometimes feel frustrated in America is not because you think that this is a failing country. This is a country the opposite of that, which aspire so high and sometimes fall short. But actually, that's because you hold America to such a high standard in terms of values and democracy and the rule of law. And they have been, you know, throughout my life. I mean, of course, America's made very many mistakes and done some things which we'd all disagree with. But they've also been the guarantor of openness and democracy and tolerance.

51:49Ed Balls: and you know without America where would we all be and so you know I and I was at the American Embassy on Tuesday where by the way I saw Kemi Badenock who said she heard our podcast last weekend really enjoyed it which is a good sign thank you thank you Kemi but um you know I was there to celebrate because I do celebrate what America has achieved and what it stands for and and what it still stands for today in 2026.

52:16George Osborne: On Monday in the British Museum we opened a small exhibit around the 250th anniversary and including a medal that was struck by Paul Revere, the kind of famous revolutionary, for the Continental Army, then given by the Continental Army to a Native American tribe who were supporting them in the conflict and then confiscated by the British when they defeated that Native American tribe and ended up in the British Museum. So you can see that and indeed one of the copies of the Declaration of Independence. And I gave the speech flanked by the American flags. And I thought, oh, I could get used to this.

52:50George Osborne: But I tell you what's interesting about the United States. I wouldn't bet against the United States going forward. I think there's been a lot of talk of American decline. And some years ago, there was lots of talk of we're entering a multipolar world and maybe the American dollar is not going to be so dominant. And you've got the rise of other great nations or re-rise. But it's very interesting if you look at projections, I'm getting a little bit technical here with you about the US's share of the world economy today and over this century by the end of this what it's projected to be basically the US's share of the world economy is projected to stay the same in other words it holds its own as the dominant economic power in the world its share of global population stays the same because despite Donald Trump's best efforts and perhaps because of the Supreme Court ruling this week there remains a strong influx of immigrants.

53:44George Osborne: And you look at China, which I have a lot of time and respect for, not everyone does, but I respect its kind of long history and its civilization. Its population is expected to halve over this century. It's expected to be 650 million people fewer living in China by the end of the century. And the European population is declining and Europe's share of GDP is shrinking rapidly. There's a nice thing, the UK, partly because of our immigration, is one of the few European countries which basically will kind of keep its own in terms of at least population share. But the main point I want to make is the U.S.

54:19George Osborne: is going to, you know, all other things being equal, and it's hard to predict the future, but on the current trajectory, and if you think of American power in terms of financial services, technology, AI, quantum computing, all of that, that country that was created 250 years ago, at least in the next 100 years, is going to remain the kind of key player in the world.

54:42Ed Balls: I agree with that. I don't think it's inevitable. And this is a country which has in the past fractured politically very seriously. But, you know, I hope and believe that the American political leadership will keep that country united and moving forward the way you describe. If you were Andy Burnham, you know, come back to our theme of this podcast, you know, the conversation of our times. If you're Andy Burnham coming in, there will be people advising him, you know define yourself early against trump have your love actually moment you know pick a fight what advice would you give andy burnham i think he's in a slightly different position from keir

55:19George Osborne: starmer so it's not the beginning of the trump presidency it's halfway through um trump's kind of political power is waning somewhat uh although he's still you know the dominant figure in washington i think it would be a mistake to do the kind of love actually but i don't think you want to do too much sucking up because I think Trump's just going to hit him around the head. I mean, there's some indications already from what Trump said. What Burnham really wants to avoid is some kind of retaliatory tax or tariff moved by Trump, which will be completely capricious against the UK because, you know, that will just make his economic job at home so much harder.

55:57So I think you want to be out of the firing line, but you don't want to be you don't want to be

56:02George Osborne: fawning i wouldn't like extend a second invitation to balmoral i think you just want to try and hold your ground i actually you know i mean i'm very party pretty because i admire him a lot and he's a friend of mine but i think the way mark carney is handling it it's pretty good and you know think of the how close the canadian economy is to the american economy he's respectful he's not kind of getting up on the podium and denouncing trump but he's very clear about canadian interests and canadian sovereignty and and he praises trump where he thinks trump's done the right thing and so i you know i think you just have to you have to be quite sort of sober and don't and not try and overthink the you know how am i going to play him i just think try to be the straight hitter and even if it doesn't work because you know ultimately trump is very hard to control at

56:51Ed Balls: least people see you're being the straight hitter of course um mark carney was provoked from the very beginning by Trump's 51st state rhetoric about Canada.

57:01George Osborne: Well, it didn't really. It actually helped Mark into the premiership. It was an election campaign, but he had a very big excuse.

57:08Ed Balls: I think Keir Starmer actually played it well because he was cautious and tried to keep things calm. And he had four years of Trump ahead of him. And Trump was less aggressive to begin with. But by the time Keir Starmer distanced over Iran, the timing was right. The issue was right. If you remember back before the election, I said about Keir Starmer that he should set out his principles, his view of America, the challenges that they shared, the values they shared, the aspirations for the world that Britain and America shared. Because if you have to say difficult things further down the line, it's easier to refer back to those principles.

57:44Ed Balls: And I still think that was quite good advice. I wonder if I was Andy Burnham, I wouldn't be thinking of doing the same thing because you don't want to pick a fight. But as you say, you have to be ready for a fight. The other thing is, with Donald Trump on truth social, you never know quite what's going to appear. But you need in place the relationships to keep things calm and to de-escalate. America is, the American government is more than just Donald Trump and the White House. And whether it's, you know, if you think about with the last couple of years, David Lammy, close to J.D. Vance. Yvette as foreign secretary, close to Marco Rubio.

58:19Ed Balls: Jonathan Powell close to Vickhoff part of the reason why when Trump says things which are antagonistic they don't then spiral is because there's lots of people with deep relationships keeping things calm and keeping things on track and I think that's something important for Andy to reflect upon as well.

58:38George Osborne: Well I think he's got a big domestic agenda which we've been spending most of the podcast talking about and so I think there's a very strong case for and I'm not just saying this because you're sitting here but keeping Yvette as foreign secretary and trying to persuade Jonathan Powell to remain as national security advisor because we've got a pretty solid foreign policy team.

58:55Ed Balls: And the potential for America and the world to throw your domestic agenda off track is very,

59:00George Osborne: very substantial. As we've seen this year with Iran. So that's it for the podcast. I will just reflect that it's quite possible that Andy Burnham's first sort of big foreign policy encounter with another head of state will be when we open the Bayer Tapestry exhibition at the British Museum. The French President's coming and King Charles, who also is featured in this podcast. Right. And

59:29Ed Balls: the chair of the British Museum?

59:31George Osborne: The chair of the British Museum will be on the steps to welcome them all.

59:33Ed Balls: Will you be flunking around? Of course. Possibly a cup of tea, Your Majesty. Possibly a cup of coffee, Prime Minister.

59:40George Osborne: Everyone's welcome to my home.

59:42Ed Balls: George will be Obadiary, slopery

59:46George Osborne: all over the place I will also remind people

59:49Ed Balls: all okay problems

59:50George Osborne: I will also remind people much as I love the north and the northern powerhouse we've got some pretty good things going on in London too

59:59Ed Balls: and talking of which I don't know if you're coming tonight Water Rats

1:00:04George Osborne: 8.30 Water Rats is the venue by the way

1:00:08Ed Balls: Centrist Dad live for the Joe Cox Foundation.

1:00:13George Osborne: Yeah.

1:00:13Ed Balls: I'll tell you, I'm Madonna like a prayer. I mean, it's memorable.

1:00:17George Osborne: Are you going to dress up as a nun?

1:00:18Ed Balls: No. I'm going to sit in the back. I'm very much the sort of the low key, behind the scenes pulse of the band. I'm not the performer. It is Donald. Don't worry,

1:00:29George Osborne: Robert Peston made that clear to me when I saw him yesterday. The spectator party.

1:00:33Ed Balls: Robert Peston will be today Carly Rae Jepsen.

1:00:37George Osborne: Yeah.

1:00:37Ed Balls: Charlie XCX.

1:00:39George Osborne: Yeah.

1:00:39Ed Balls: Madonna and Chapel Rowan in a memorable hour. And Henrietta, our...

1:00:45George Osborne: It reminds me of the conversation we were having about Andy Burnham being the best female Prime Minister.

1:00:50Ed Balls: Henrietta, our executive producer, will be there to witness this. And I think we actually have our prize winners from the kitchen cabinet as well coming along. And, you know, George is there. I mean, it's quite tight, but George will be pogoing with the best of them. I'm afraid Susanna Reid, she's filming this week and she actually sent me a message a couple of days ago because she'd bought tickets and she said she's so sorry because she's filming um away from london and she can't come she said i'm so disappointed i was so looking forward to pogoing with george osmond but others will have the chance and susanna we're back at the waterettes for christmas so you've got another chance that is all we've got time for today yep we're also back with this

1:01:32George Osborne: podcast on monday with ex-minister's questions where we answer all of your questions and political queries and of course if you want those episodes ad free and early and our weekly newsletter and a mug oh my gosh the list of gifts goes on and on uh then look at the show notes and you can become

1:01:50Ed Balls: a member of our kitchen cabinet next monday our kitchen cabinet briefing will have george on politics and me on culture and uh if you want to send your questions in for emqs you can message us on social media or email us at questions at politicalcurrency.co.uk. We love a voice note. We'll see you on Monday for EMQs. See you then.

1:02:18George Osborne: Thanks for listening to Political Currency. This has been a Persephoneca production.