Trump’s Iran Strike and Britain’s Dilemma

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2:00This is Political Coancy with Ed Balls and George Osborne.

2:13Ed Balls: So we are recording remotely again, two in the afternoon here in Britain, slightly later, because George Osborne is once again on his travels, 6am on the west coast of America. Now, a number of people have said to me in recent days how's your hand ed because you know my drumming injury my agents um thea and eve bought me this special tool they said you may think ed this is to strengthen your hand with a bit of hand exercises they said but it's actually a tool to stay calm when george osborne's diary is once again in complete turmoil so if things get tense just do a bit of this it has the double advantage it's curing my hand and also lowering my blood pressure when you are once again miles away i used to have a little ed bulls stress ball actually

3:03George Osborne: that the tory party made back in the day and i could always just squeeze you when i was getting

3:08Ed Balls: a little bit stressed at work i need to dig out my head ball stress ball was it actually was it a commercial proposition was it a fundraising tool for the tories yeah you know it was like a free

3:17George Osborne: giveaway at the Tory conference there was like a bottler brown that was like you could buy a beer of like Gordon Brown and you could buy an Ed Balls another play on your surnames it was a ball that was old point and oh I see and then you could squeeze it it was like a squeezy ball with a picture of your face on it and you could get like we had an Ed uh no not Ed Miliband sorry a David Miliband banana stall and you know this is what the best brains in the Tory party used to spend

3:43Ed Balls: their time dreaming up look it might be that the george osborne stress grip catches on as a way for people to manage partnerships in business political and public life sorry it looks like you're working

3:53George Osborne: at tesco's like putting the prices on the on the entry and now your phone's going having just

3:59Ed Balls: complained about uh what i'm up to i'm ignoring them george do you know why because i am focused on you how is it in california yesterday we had a little chat on the phone with our producer ellie and Caitlin to discuss the podcast today. And you were in a car and shockingly, there was no one driving it.

4:19George Osborne: Yeah, driverless car. They're so cool. I've been using them a lot. You know, this is the alternative now to hailing an Uber in San Francisco. And I think they're coming to London. I've noticed a couple of them sort of doing test runs around London. They are great. They're utterly reliable. Once you get over the somewhat bizarre experience of being driven around, you know by nobody you don't sit in the driver's seat you know you sit in either the passenger seat or the back seat although i got a good piece of advice yesterday because i was talking to someone about these cars and this person said to me you know you've always got to sit in the front seat in the passenger seat front passenger seat i said why well i've why don't you sit in the back he says well there's a bit of a meme going on in san francisco a bit of a trend which is people have sex in the back of the driverless car because there's no driver there to look behind there's no driver so people get in and it's a bit like the kind of you know i guess it's a sort of tech equivalent to the mile high club you know you you've scored one in the back of a driverless car as a result you know i don't know if this is true or not and um you know i'm maybe i'm just propagating you know false rumors but as a result i'm definitely always getting the front passenger where I feel it's less likely any hanky-panky has gone on.

5:36George Osborne: Goodness me.

5:37Ed Balls: I thought scored one referred to cocaine use, but, you know, look, I don't think you should go there. You can do that in any seat in the car. Surely they have cameras on the inside as well as the outside of these driverless cars. Don't they capture on film the illicit act?

5:51George Osborne: They do, I think, yeah, but I don't think they can do anything about it. There's also something someone else told me yesterday, which is there's a brand new job in San Francisco, which is there are people who are paid to go around and close the doors of these cars because some people get out of the car and they don't fully shut the door and you know when you get out of a cab and the taxi driver says sorry mate you haven't shut the door properly right but of course they can't do that in the driver's car and then the car is stuck they can't move off and so um there's a group of people you know you essentially sign up to a kind of app that alerts you to a door that hasn't been shut properly on a nearby driverless car.

6:31George Osborne: And you go and you get$5 for going and shutting the door. Which is proof, by the way, that you can't anticipate the new jobs that are going to be created by technology.

6:39Ed Balls: This podcast is providing our listeners with information they never knew they needed and facts they never knew they cared about. Yep.

6:47George Osborne: And they may still not. I think they're coming in a big way to Britain, these cars. It's not impossible now that in 10 years' time, no one will be really driving their own car except they really want to.

6:59Ed Balls: The funny thing was, when you were in this car and we were on that call, I stopped speaking every time you went around corners because I thought, at least somebody's got to concentrate on the driving. It wasn't you and it wasn't your driver because there wasn't a driver.

7:11George Osborne: You honestly feel very safe in them, I promise you. I know the first time you do it, it's a very surreal, the first or second time. But then I get completely used to it.

7:19Ed Balls: Let us go on with the podcast. We're going to start off by talking about the huge global conflict launched by the US and Israel on Saturday morning with that attack on the Iranian leadership in Tehran, which has dominated the last week. I think will dominate weeks to come.

7:36George Osborne: Yeah, and then we're going to turn to, because it's such a big topic, we feel we have to treat this separately, what's going on in Britain? Britain's response, the use of British air bases, the war cabinet mutiny against the Prime Minister. We're going to look into that and the implications of this big, big geopolitical development on British politics.

7:58Ed Balls: And then we're going to third talk about the Chancellor's Spring Statement. third not because we thought it was dull and boring and had no content in fact I think it was actually fascinating and important but third because a couple of things which we noticed in there which I think other experts have seen but maybe not all of our listeners so we're going to talk about the spring statement and what it tells us about the government's economic and political strategy third but as I said we're going to start with that conflict the launching of Operation Epic fury on Saturday morning, unusually to have a military assault launched in daylight rather than in the middle of the night.

8:38Ed Balls: But of course, that was when Israeli or possibly Israeli and American intelligence had worked out that this Iranian high command was going to be meeting at ground level rather than deep in bunkers. This is how Donald Trump announced that military assault.

8:56George Osborne: A short time ago, the United States military began major combat operations in Iran. Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.

9:13Ed Balls: That was one of the explanations that Donald Trump gave for this attack, one of the war aims. At different times, he's also said it was to eliminate the nuclear capacity or ferment popular uprising. He, in the early hours, called upon Iranians to rise up against their government, but also to make America safe, to make the region safe. Interestingly, last week on our podcast, we were talking about him pivoting to the domestic agenda in the State of the Union address, in which foreign affairs didn't have anywhere near such a high profile as you might have expected. And then suddenly you see this assault on Saturday.

9:50Ed Balls: It seems to me the The Americans have been in their politics and their communication a bit all over the place in the last few days. At one point, you had Secretary of State Rubio saying the reason they acted was because the Israelis were going to attack anyway. And then Donald Trump says, no, no. In fact, we were the ones who were in the lead. His spokesperson, Caroline Levitt, actually said yesterday in the White House, the reason why he acted was because he had a feeling. Donald Trump had a feeling about Iran, and that was the thing which provoked him into action. But I'm sure in military terms, they were prepared.

10:26Ed Balls: It didn't feel as though politically they had prepared the ground very much at all. But you've been saying on this podcast for weeks, you said it was the conversation at Davos. You've been pointing every week to the buildup of US military capability in the region. doesn't it surprise you that given that it feels as though politics was not prepared for this

10:50George Osborne: i think it is pretty surprising i mean uh you know on this podcast back in january i reported a conversation i'd had as you say in davos where an american official had said to me we're going to hit iran and then we put you know you could follow the aircraft carriers moving into the region, the planes being flown over the Atlantic to kind of preposition. And we even made a joke last week that presumably Ayatollah Khamenei, having seen what happened to other world leaders who've defied Trump, like the Venezuelan president, was like sitting in a bunker. But it turns out Ayatollah Khamenei was not a gold subscriber to this podcast, because he wasn't listening and quite unbelievably put himself in a position where he could be assassinated along with, I think, 40 of the most senior leaders in Iran who all gathered in, not in public, but nevertheless, as you say, above ground in a government building.

11:46George Osborne: And that's when the attack came because they spotted they'd all gathered and they were eliminated. And it is an interesting feature, I would say, of all of this recent actions, this sort of decapitation strategy, which is first things first, you try and kill or capture the president of the country. That's quite a change in war doctrine from previous decades, where it was never felt right that the first thing you try and do is kind of eliminate the head of state. I mean, it's something else that I guess has been a theme of this podcast over the last couple of years, certainly what I've been saying on it, which is just another reminder of the predominance of US military power, that they can launch this attack, they can launch it with impunity, they don't need to bother going to any international body to even pretend to get international consent.

12:32George Osborne: You know, the Europeans are barely consulted. There's no kind of military capability they need from their allies. You know, Iran's allies, Russia, China, are utterly powerless and can just sit on the sidelines. I mean, there's been no response and no support from, you know, the axis of authoritarian states that we were told, you know, stood behind Iran. And it is just a kind of reminder that it's far from a world that's fragmenting and the rise of the big powers, which is, you know, you always read. It's an America first world and everyone is still operating in that paradigm.

13:10Ed Balls: I understand that. And I'm sure that comparing that to the 1930s and 40s or to the 1980s into the 90s, that that point stands up. But if you go to 2002, 2003, and the launch of the attack on Iraq, I mean, America at that time also had kind of huge power dominance. But George Bush Jr. went about it in a different way. I mean, he did go through a process at the UN. He did go through a process of building support from allies in the end of coalition of the willing. There was a conversation about the aim and what would happen afterwards. I mean, there is a lesson I think people draw, which is if you go in without knowing what the end game is, without being properly prepared, Iraq shows how dangerous that is.

13:58Ed Balls: Donald Trump, far from learning that lesson, seems to have entirely disregarded it. I mean, he, as you said, without, other than the Israelis, any substantive conversations, it seemed, just went in. I mean, no boots on the ground. This is Libya too. Yet at the same time, he's telling people to rise up, telling people in Iran to rise up who had seen their friends and colleagues massacred by the Iranian regime in the last two months. I mean, there is no sense at the moment from America about what the future path is, what success looks like, how they are to manage this conflict as it develops. I mean, it's almost as though Donald Trump thought there would have been, you know, a quick victory and the killing of the high command would lead to a popular uprising.

14:47Ed Balls: That now hasn't happened. And at this point, it's just not clear what the strategy is. that is so different from George Bush Jr. or from other American leaders. Isn't that not an expression of American power? It's just a very different kind of presidency. This man rolls the dice, takes a risk, and just thinks, you know, if I shake it up, let's see what will happen. I think if you're Netanyahu, you think, well, actually, that's what we've always done. And they've got an election in Israel, which is going to come along. It probably works to their advantage. But I mean, isn't this Trumpian rather than American?

15:19George Osborne: Yes, you're right. And the kind of, of course, the eccentric style in which it's carried out. But I think you could argue that he has, in fact, learned the lessons of Iraq, that he is a product of at least that generation. And I think he was against the Iraq war, wasn't he, at the time? And he would say he's not bothering with all that charade of trying to get some kind of international agreement, which you're never going to get, or going to the UN, which, remember, Tony Blair was really urging George W. Bush to do and get that second resolution for those who remember all this stuff. and the weapons inspectors using them as a casus belli.

15:52George Osborne: He's just gone in with like, we're going in, we're going to eliminate the nuclear program. There may or may not be regime change. I think within the first few days, they did succeed in killing the Ayatollah. And by the way, for everyone who's like, oh, you know, this Ayatollah is this theocracy. It's a big move on from the Shah. The fact that the Ayatollah's son is the most likely successor would suggest that there's still a hereditary element to rule in Iran. But I think what are the risks for him? I think they're quite limited if you're Donald Trump. I mean, the risks for George Bush, which of course materialized, was that you were deploying American soldiers, you'd be bogged down there for years, as turned out to be the case.

16:34George Osborne: Here, of course, there has been some loss of American life. Half a dozen American soldiers were killed at a port in Kuwait. But fundamentally, you know, this is an air campaign, and a naval campaign, it's worth pointing out, they are sinking the Iranian Navy at the same time. If he said, tomorrow, I declare victory, I mean, who's going to challenge him? He'll have said, you know, I've eliminated the nuclear facilities and the ballistic missile things. I've decapitated the Iranian regime. You know, if they restart all that, I'm going to hit them again. And, you know, I think he's actually in a position where he can decide when to say, you know, mission accomplished, to use the language from back then.

17:11George Osborne: At the moment, normally an American president would say, you know, this is going to be a short operation. He's sort of playing it long. He's giving himself the scope because he's saying, I don't know, I could go on for a long time. You know, fundamentally, the risks for him and his political position and his administration are quite limited. And then you have to go for the kind of armchair general type thing of like, oh, well, you know, this will destabilise Iran and who knows what's going to happen in the region. I mean, it's not as if the current situation with a theocratic regime that murdered 30 ,000 of its own people on the streets a month ago was like a model of stability and an anchor in the Middle East.

17:48George Osborne: So, I mean, almost anything is better than, you know, what we had at the moment.

17:52Ed Balls: I want to push back with you on this. opinion polling says that a third of americans support what he's done and a larger group are worried about it this is the president who said i'm the peacemaker when jd vance first endorsed donald trump he said the reason i'm endorsing him as president is because he's the guy who stops wars he doesn't start wars this is jd vance who has been noticeably silent in the last five or six days. It's actually been discussed that he hasn't been tweeting other than a very early picture of him in the situation room. And because J.D. Vance and Tucker Carlson and the MAGA right are all saying, we thought we were about stopping American overseas adventurism rather than embarking upon it.

18:40Ed Balls: This is Donald Trump listening to the defence establishment rather than to his supporters. Once again, like on the Epstein files, he's disregarding what his core supporters think. And he started a process which is going to lead to higher oil prices, higher gas prices, higher energy prices in general, at a time when the opinion polls say, as we discussed last week, he's on the back foot on pretty much every domestic indicator of public support in America. So he's destabilising the cost of living and the global economy at a time when he was exposed on those things. If you were thinking to yourself, is he going to shift the dial between now and the midterms.

19:20Ed Balls: This feels like shifting the dial in the wrong direction rather than the right direction.

19:24George Osborne: So isn't this kind of, it's partly legacy, which is I'm the guy who took out the Iranian nuclear facility when all these previous American presidents warned about it and, you know, couldn't do it. J.D. Vance is in a different position from Donald Trump. J.D. Vance wants to run for president in three years' time. He needs the MAGA coalition to be intact. He needs the people who are saying you know i thought we elected trump to stop the foreign wars on side

19:51Ed Balls: but that's a very interesting view of trump i mean you're saying trump is no longer dynastic you're saying that trump no longer thinks his test is what happens in the midterms and in the next presidential election but he's done the right thing and he pays the cost for that politically that's okay for him and that doesn't feel to me the donald trump that that i thought i knew

20:12George Osborne: Yeah, but I think we're going to come on and talk about the economic impact. But, you know, there's certainly an argument that it could be very short term. And there's also, you know, if you want to do big kind of geopolitical strategy, I mean, where does most Iranian oil go? It doesn't go to the United States of America, it goes to China, who is the country that most suffers when the Straits of Hormuz are these days blocked. It's China. In fact, American oil production is now ramping up because you can kind of turn it on with fracking and so on. So America is not nearly as dependent as it was 20 years ago on Middle East oil.

20:45George Osborne: And again, if you're sitting in Beijing, over the last couple of years, the Syrian regime has collapsed. The Russians have been kicked out of Syria. Venezuela, which the Chinese were getting more and more involved in, has been decapitated and is now a kind of American client state. Your big ally in the Middle East, Iran, its leadership have literally been killed. Your key oil supply has been choked off by your former allies. And the Gulf states, we should mention them because, of course, a big part of the story has been the attacks on Dubai and Oman and Kuwait and Bahrain. Some of whom played a kind of even-handed game.

21:24George Osborne: And there was, you know, Putin was invited to Abu Dhabi not so long ago. The Chinese president's been on a big state visit to Saudi Arabia. You know, they're all being pushed more into the American orbit. So I think if you were playing kind of, you know, the kind of modern version of diplomacy, you know, that kind of great First World War board game, the sort of American chips on the board are increasing and the, you know, opponents chips are decreasing.

21:48Ed Balls: If I had paid as a head of state three billion pounds to join Donald Trump's Board of Peace, I'd be wondering where my peace dividend is this week. Yeah, I feel it's... And, you know, the Iranian most senior command has been taken out. We know that they delegated authority. We know that there's a network of Iranian operatives around the world. We've seen the footprint of the conflict grow in the last five days rather than narrow into the, as you said, a range of different targets being struck. Now, it may be Donald Trump can put this back together very quickly. In the case of Venezuela, they did so.

22:27Ed Balls: they were in league with the opposition they were in league with the vice president i know but that is not the case in iran and so you know i'm just not i mean who knows how this is going to go but does donald trump really know how this is going to develop in the coming months it just seems to me it's like a massive roll of the dice and i'm not sure the domestic politics is going to work for

22:47George Osborne: him i was interested first of all being here in this i've been in the states since this happened it doesn't feature that much in conversations quite interestingly um it's not as front of mind as you might imagine it is right now. Whereas in Britain, it is front of everything. Yeah, yeah. But it's quite strange. Maybe that's a kind of Californian thing where they feel a bit more detached. But the other thing is, you know, I did see a very good interview I felt with Anthony Blinken. He was the former Secretary of State under Joe Biden. You know, very smart individual and essentially a sort of career administration type.

23:18George Osborne: And he said it's all going to come down to munitions and markets, two Ms. These are the things that are going to put a limit on American power. If the markets continue to fall, and it's not temporary, and it starts to have the impact that you're talking about on American cost of living, inflation, you know, semi-permanent increases in oil prices and so on, that, he says, might lead, you know, Trump to back down, not back down, but kind of declare victory and end the conflict. And then second, you know, munitions, you know, there is this whole story, backstory, which, you know, has been there with Ukraine as well, that, you know, the West's munition supplies are depleted, its missile supplies are depleted and so on.

23:56George Osborne: So those are two particular things. But, you know, I was doing my class here at Stanford. That's one of the reasons I'm here. And we were discussing Iran and David Cameron very generously kind of came in on the Zoom link to talk to my class at Stanford. And he said, you know, it's the sort of taco fafo chart that people are trying to work out. So the taco chart is the taco line on the chart is Trump always chickens out. Right. And people are saying Trump always chickens out when the markets go down. But equally, there's the FAFO line, which is essentially F around and find out with Donald Trump.

24:30George Osborne: And the Iranians fell victim to the F around and find out. And literally, those who thought he wouldn't attack it are now dead.

24:38Ed Balls: Look, I'm just interested to know what we are going to find out in the coming months. But while you've been in California, it has been dominating British politics, the front page of every newspaper every day since Saturday. And we'll turn to that next after this break.

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25:51George Osborne: Parles-tu français?

25:53Ed Balls: Hablas espagnol? Parli italiano?

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26:36George Osborne: Welcome back. Now, I think it's true that for most of our adult lifetimes, Ed, certainly when we're in politics, America's sort of partner of choice when these things happened. was the UK. Not just in the Iraq war, but I was watching this Channel 4 documentary about Tony Blair, and it was reminding me all about Kosovo. And, you know, there was actually an earlier air operation against Iraq before the Iraq war. You know, the Americans could rely on the Brits. Now it seems like Israel's become the partner of choice for the United States. And Britain has made a very deliberate decision. And Keir Starmer has made a decision, which I think previous conservative prime ministers and some previous Labour prime ministers would definitely not have made, which was not to participate in the initial strikes, but also not to allow American strike aircraft to use British bases in Diego Garcia on the Checos Islands, in Cyprus, and indeed in bases here in the UK.

27:36George Osborne: Let's just hear what Keir Starmer said at the beginning of this week. This government does not believe in regime change from the skies and I thank him for his question. The lessons of history have taught us that it is important when we make decisions like this that we establish there is a lawful basis for what the United Kingdom is doing. That is one of the lessons from Iraq. And that there's a viable thought through plan with an objective that can be achieved or has a viable prospect of being achieved. That is the principles that I apply to the decisions that I made over the weekend. He was very deliberately, wasn't he, positioning himself against Tony Blair.

28:19George Osborne: I mean, when he says the lessons of history, he means the lessons of the Blair government, doesn't he?

28:23Ed Balls: This is the starkest moment. Look, there have been moments of tension in foreign affairs between British prime ministers and American presidents. Think of Margaret Thatcher and Grenada with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. But this is the starkest moment of disagreement between a British prime minister and an American president in the conduct of war since Harold Wilson refusing to act in support of the Americans in Vietnam and the row he had with President Johnson at the time. And I would say that this is the opposite of what I was just saying about Donald Trump. If you think Donald Trump was rolling the dice, hadn't really thought about the messaging, wasn't talking about the end game, wasn't focusing on the domestic political implications, Keir Starmer has done that in a very, very deliberate way.

29:10Ed Balls: He explicitly referred in his video message on Sunday to learning the lessons from Iraq. He said you have to have a clear view of the end game before you embark. He said that Britain wasn't going to support the initial attack with the Americans and the Israelis, including the use of bases, because there wasn't a clear enough legal basis. And that phrase which we just played, the government does not believe in regime change from the skies. I mean, that is as clear as you could expect rebuke of an American president for acting because there's no question of boots on the ground. Donald Trump was talking about regime change from the skies.

29:49Ed Balls: And so whether you agree with it or not, I mean, this was very carefully, politically thought through from Keir Starmer.

29:56George Osborne: But it's not about Trump. It's about Blair, isn't it? I mean, it's about the history of the Labour Party and the last Labour government and, you know, regime change from the skies. That's exactly what Tony Blair thought he could deliver in some of these operations. And so this is much more to do about Labour's internal politics than anything else. Because I think people had assumed, OK, well, the attorney general who's, you know, Keir Starmer's big mate in the government, Lord Hermer, had given the advice, the legal advice, extremely hard for a British government in our law based system to overrule that.

30:29George Osborne: But now it's emerged that there are other things at work or there were other forces at work. So, you know, for example, we have this story from Tim Shipman that inside the war cabinet that met on Friday, actually, you know, there are a number of cabinet ministers, including Yvette, but also Rachel Reeves, Shabana Mahmood and Ed Miliband, who, you know, are putting pressure on Starmer to say, look, we are not going to get involved in this. and we are also not going to give some automatic right if Iran retaliates, which presumably everyone assumed it would, that Britain would take part. So I guess the question to you is like how much of this is to do with Blair, the history of the Labour Party, the Gorton by-election, etc., the pressure from the left, and how much of it is more, you know, Keir Starmer, the international human rights lawyer who wants to follow a rules-based order and won't do Donald Trump's bidding?

31:24Ed Balls: Look, it is absolutely about the last 20 years of politics and the impact that's had on the Labour government, but maybe on politics more widely. Let me come to that in a minute. I mean, just on the Tim Shipman piece, which is incredibly detailed, and he splashed the Telegraph with his Spectator piece this morning. This is weekly magazines once again. The New States has been doing this in recent weeks, driving the daily news. What he says in his tweet this morning, it was fully agreed that the UK, for legal reasons, was not going to allow the use of bases for the first offensive attack. But once that had happened, which happened Saturday morning, the question then arose, would in the second stage UK bases be used?

32:10Ed Balls: and what Tim says that in the National Security Council on Friday, the Prime Minister and John Healy wanted it to be agreed in advance. By the way, I don't think they knew the attack was happening Saturday morning, that when that happened, they wanted there to be an agreement. There would be full support for the Americans to use bases. And what happened in the National Security Council, which is now leaked, that list of ministers you just referred to said, no, we shouldn't make that decision until we've actually seen the strike and the aftermath. We shouldn't make an ex-ante in principle decision.

32:41Ed Balls: We should wait. And then on the Sunday, once the Iranian retaliation was underway, then they agreed to allow the use of bases for defensive purposes. So the disagreement was not about the first strike. It was about the second strike. It wasn't about whether in practice you would allow the use of bases. It was whether you should agree to it before you'd even seen the Iranian response. But your bigger point, which is about, you know, ever since Iraq, from the moment Gordon Brown became prime minister, the aftermath of Iraq has hung over the Labour Party. I think successive governments in some ways, the legacy of Iraq, the legacy of what Tony Blair did.

33:20Ed Balls: I mean, the 2005 election, Labour was hit in that election. Ed Miliband became leader of the Labour Party to never repeat the mistake of Iraq. Arkeer Starmer would never have become leader of the Labour Party in 2020 if he said he had voted for the Iraq war with Tony Blair. And, you know, it absolutely shapes politics, which is don't just go in without a legal basis and without a clear plan, because that could end up in absolute and political catastrophe. That is the lesson which is learned. The idea which has been around the last few days, that the outcome of the Gorton by-election two days before was driving Keir Starmer.

34:00Ed Balls: I think the Gorton by-election is completely irrelevant in the decision-making. It's the last 20 years, not the last two days, in the way you said, which shapes this. And of course, the other interesting thing is, if you go back to 2003, Michael Howard decided to support Tony Blair in supporting George Bush Jr. Kevin Bainock has just decided in the House of Commons to say Keir Starmer should have been even more in support of the Americans than Keir Starmer is. I remember having a conversation with you where you said, look, if Michael Howard had decided in 2003-04 to say, I'm not sure Tony Blair's getting this right, the result of the 2005 election might have been quite different, but he didn't.

34:37Ed Balls: So in some ways, you could say Keir Starmer has learned the lesson, Kemi Badenoch is deciding not to learn any lessons.

34:43George Osborne: No, well, that's a very interesting point. I mean, at the time, of course, it was Ian Duncan Smith who was the Conservative leader, but he was actually playing the Kemi Badenoch role of Tony Blair, you're not hawkish enough. We should be doing more to eliminate Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction.

35:01Ed Balls: But Michael Howard could have changed that position in 2003, 2004 into 2005 and chose not to.

35:07George Osborne: But nobody, then he tried, of course, Ed. Do you remember? He tried to say, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have voted for the war. We actually unveiled a post in the 2005 election, which was, you know, Tony Blair lied about the war. What else is he lying about? And it was absolutely hopeless because everyone goes, well, hold on, you were the biggest cheerleaders. I actually remember being on question time, BBC question time as a kind of young conservative opposition spokesperson, you know, having a go at Charlie Faulkner and Claire Short, who were on the panel. They had two Labour people on the panel.

35:36George Osborne: You know, I was kind of new to it and very naive and saying, oh, look, they disagree. And then Charles Kennedy, who was also on the panel, came in and said, hold on, George, people remember that the Tories didn't vote for this war, it would never have happened. You brought the house down and I felt very small at that moment, I remember. But so Kemi Baden-Lock sort of positioned herself as the sort of super hawk. So you're saying that she's taking the Ian Duncan Smith position? She's taking more of the Ian Duncan Smith position, which is you're not doing, you know, you're not doing more, although, you know, it's different because, of course, Blair was seen as pretty hawkish at the time, unlike Keir Starmer.

36:09George Osborne: I mean, can I, so two kind of thoughts on this. The first is, it looks pretty messy now, though. You do need consistency in messaging in politics, right? People, you know, who aren't tuning in the whole time, who aren't listening. And believe it or not, there are one or two people in Britain who are not listening to this podcast who go, oh, hold on. I thought we were against this thing. And now we are involved somehow. And, you know, the fact that this destroyer, HMS Dragon, is only now leaving Britain to get to Cyprus, you know, it's weeks of sailing. that today Keir Starmer is sending four jets to Qatar when America's been pre-positioning jets in the Middle East for the last two or three months.

36:48George Osborne: I mean, why on earth did these things not happen earlier? And you end up in this ridiculous situation where Cyprus, you know, a strong British ally, we've got two bases there. You know, literally the Cypriots are saying, where are Britain? You know, we're relying more on the French at the moment for our defence than we are for the British. I mean, this is the opposite of the cheese-eating, surrender monkey French from the Iraq war days and the Freedom Prize and all that for people who remember. And it just feels very, like, utterly bizarre that Britain had not forward-positioned its military, that it hadn't thought through some of these contingencies.

37:23George Osborne: And now, I think, sends very, very mixed messages. If you're not watching this, you know, hour by hour, you would say, hold on, I thought we were not getting involved, and now we are. Like, the headlines today, tonight, will be Starmer deploys jets into the Middle East.

37:39Ed Balls: And that was announced just now in the press conference, which is going on at the same time as we're recording this podcast. If you take it as an assumption, as you were arguing 15 minutes ago, that this is going to work out well for Donald Trump, then it's going to be harder for Keir Starmer. But the counter argument is nobody knows how this is going to work out. And Keir Starmer has been very careful in simultaneously criticising the objectives at this stage of the venture, but allowing the use of bases and putting in place capacity in order to deal with the aftermath. And the opinion polls say Keir Starmer is rather closer to the British public view at the moment than Kevin Bainlock on the issue.

38:22Ed Balls: By the way, I do not understand the point you made about where the naval capacity was. Were they so focused on what was happening in the Arctic, that they weren't looking to the south and to the east, although that doesn't kind of make sense given how much reporting and intelligence there would have been about this. But I don't think Keir Starmer will feel as of today he is in the wrong place. And I don't think actually in the cabinet or in parliament, Labour people will feel that he's in the wrong place. Of course, the wild card in this, I made that reference to Johnson and Wilson a moment ago, the reaction of Donald Trump in the last couple of days to Keir Starmer is very striking.

39:05Ed Balls: The irony of Donald Trump in the White House sitting next to the German Chancellor berating Keir Starmer for not being sufficiently Churchillian. By the way, this is the Winston Churchill who spent two years urging the Americans to come in and support Britain when we were under threat from Germany and, you know, our greatest ally, America, was a little bit sluggish in its initial response. I mean, this is a breach. Let's hear this extraordinary remark from Donald Trump.

39:36George Osborne: By the way, I'm not happy with the UK either. That island that you read about, the lease, okay, he made it for whatever reason, he made a lease of the island. Somebody came and took it away from him. And it's taken three, four days for us to work out where we can land there. It would have been much more convenient landing there as opposed to flying many extra hours. So we are very surprised. This is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with.

40:03Ed Balls: I mean, can I just say, we have done rather more to support the Americans in the aftermath of Saturday morning's attack than the Germans have. But that wasn't a point Donald Trump chose to make in the White House that day. But look, where does this go? I mean, for Keir Starmer, his whole foreign policy was based upon getting close to the Americans and trying to mollify and modify what Trump was up to. He's now gone into full frontal attack. Trump is in full frontal attack. What will this mean for tariffs, the economy, the wider special relationship? Is a special relationship so deep that it can withstand a rift between Donald Trump and Keir Starmer?

40:40George Osborne: Well, I think elements of the special relationship, Gam, you know, the cooperation between militaries, you know, the commercial cooperation between American companies and British businesses, and all of that, but the relationship at the top is very fractious, for sure. I guess I would take issue with you about one thing you said earlier, because I think, you know, it must be playing into Keir Starmer's calculations that the strategy of kind of being close to the Americans, which of course was partly, you know, Peter Mandelson's mission when he was the ambassador in Washington, to kind of get in with the Trump camp, you know, that he didn't call out the kind of Trump language, you know, he wasn't playing the kind of Mark Carney role.

41:16George Osborne: He was, you know, that it feels to me, surely some of the kind of immediate political pressure now on Starmer, because of the by-election, because of the rise of the Greens, you know, we should note now they're second in the opinion polls, because of the weakness of Starmer's own position within the Labour Party, and his own cabinet demonstrated by, you know, not being able to carry even his own war cabinet on decisions. You know, that must be playing into these calculations, you know, I can't afford anymore to bite my tongue and I've got to be a bit more public in my criticism of Trump. And on these decisions, which, you know, we did actually talk about this in this podcast a couple of years ago, that something like Diego Garcia, which is the base that Trump's referring to in that clip, would come back to be a kind of major issue for, potentially for Starmer and undo his, essentially his strategy of being close to Trump.

42:07George Osborne: Look, there is no doubt that the by-election

42:10Ed Balls: will have sent a massive shockwave through Labour politics. There's no doubt that the Cabinet will be very worried, and so will the Parliamentary Party.

42:19George Osborne: You say worried. Hold on, Ed. You say worried. Don't you think Ed Miliband's doing a bit of... I mean, there's a bit of positioning here. It's not so much worry as... Ed Miliband's doing the opposite of what the British military were doing over recent weeks. He's forward positioning his troops.

42:36Ed Balls: and would you criticise a military leader or a politician for doing that? I think he, like others, will be existentially worried about the position they find themselves in. And there's no doubt from the Greens' point of view, what's happened in Gaza and Starmer and Labour's support for Israel over the last two years has caused them big political problems. We've talked about that a lot of times before. In the same way, there's a stagnation of living standards. It's causing huge problems for Labour vis -à-vis the Greens and reform. All I'm saying is, if there'd been no Gorton Denton by-election, if that hadn't happened, if that wasn't an issue, take that out of the equation.

43:13Ed Balls: I think that they would have made the same decisions over the weekend. I think it's 20 years of Iraq legacy and angst rather than two days. That is all. So I don't have to deny it's important. I think it would have happened anyway, because I think it's like a really, really big deal.

43:28George Osborne: Do you think I was going to I was thinking about this, that you can absolutely see to pick up on what you're saying earlier that from Keir Starmer's position, you know, you get to the end of this week. And although it's been a bit messy now with getting the British military into position, fundamentally, you know, you'll be quite relieved that you weren't part of this initial strike, that, you know, you're sort of handling the politics of the Labour Party. and although there's a Green MP in Parliament and the Greens are ahead of you in the polls, you'd also be pretty relieved that Andy Burnham is not a Member of Parliament sitting in the House of Commons right now.

44:04George Osborne: At the same time, whilst both of those things are true for Keir Starmer's position, they're not necessarily true for what's in the interests of the UK or indeed possibly the Labour Party, but certainly for the UK. You know, in the case of the UK, wouldn't you want your kind of talented mayor from the north to be in parliament? And it says something of the kind of weakness of Labour that that can't be accommodated. And from the UK's overall position, one thing, you know, I really notice here in California and all of what we're talking about speaks to is sort of Britain's diminishing role in all of these things.

44:39George Osborne: You know, we're part players. We're not central anymore. We're not, you know, no one really cares. I remember when we were speculating in government about what we would do if the Obama administration struck Iran. We kept being told there are very special British capabilities that will be required for an American strike on Iran. You know, that just doesn't apply 10 years later. And the kind of demotion of Britain in the global power stakes is something that's not great. And I think the last week will have contributed to.

45:09Ed Balls: There is, I think, an assumption which has held in British politics for very many years that it's un-British not to back the Americans. Tony Blair did the right thing by saying yes in all circumstances. There's certainly aspects of the media, politics in all parties, the security establishment who hold that view. But I think the counter argument is that we paid a very heavy price in the aftermath of Iraq for taking that approach in an unthinking way. Some of the reporting suggests if Richard Herman said as attorney general, we should look at the legal advice. Somehow that is, you know, a disaster, un-British, against the national interest to actually look at the legal position.

45:47Ed Balls: I actually don't think the legal position drove Keir Starmer's decision making. I think it was politics. But look, we will find out whether he's made the right call in the coming weeks and months. I hope he's as worried as he should be about the current state of the Labour government. And I also hope Rachel Reeves, as Chancellor, is as worried as she should be about the economic state of the country and the state of the Labour government. Because, you know, listening to her spring statement on Tuesday, it sounded like it was all working well. And I think that jars with rather a lot of people in the country.

46:20Ed Balls: And we'll take a break and then we'll have a look at the spring statement next.

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48:14George Osborne: Welcome back. So, Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, he took a break, didn't he, from tipping off the Metropolitan Police about Peter Mandelson and doing Strictly Come Dancing in Portcullis House. And he presided over the spring statement, because, of course, this wasn't a budget. And for those who are real nerds, you'd know that the speaker doesn't preside over the budget. And let's just hear the clip of him introducing and Rachel Reeves starting the spring statement, which we were discussing last week. It was deliberately billed as not a budget.

48:48Ed Balls: I call the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

48:57Ed Balls: Mr Speaker, this Government has the right economic plan for our country. A plan...

49:09Ed Balls: A plan... A plan that is... Order, order, order, sorry. Look, both sides, if you're not interested, please, you don't have to stay in the Chamber. but I'm interested, my constituents are interested and your constituents as well, Chancellor.

49:24George Osborne: So that was a, having done quite a few things in my life, that was a classic, like the opening line was, you normally want to start with what I used to call a kind of throat clearer, because you get up, you've got to sort of settle the chamber. Everyone's quite excited. The opposition are all primed to shout and scream at you. So you want to start with a, you know, somewhat kind of neutral sentence that just kind of gets you into your stride. before you deliver the big, you know, our plan is working and we've got the right. So you could have started, you know, at a time of enormous uncertainty with our thoughts, you know, with the British servicemen and women who, you know, are in danger.

50:02George Osborne: You know, this budget addresses this world of global economic instability. Or something like that. I haven't got it exactly right, but something like that. And then you kind of neutered the opposition. And then you can deliver the bang of, you know, our plan is working. And I'm not, I'm getting, I think she's got the right overall thing of saying we had a plan, we're implementing the plan, and then trying to convince people that the plan is working. Because I think if you're a chancellor, what's the alternative? I don't have a plan. My plan's not working. And you've got to create some kind of rallying point.

50:36George Osborne: But what's this, you know, let's kind of turn to the kind of substance and the way she presented it. I mean, she was like, it's all sunny uplands, isn't it? It's all working. Things are good. Is that what you would have done?

50:48Ed Balls: I think there was two things she was trying to achieve. One was to say the plan is working. And secondly, to say this is not a budget or fiscal statement. This is really boring. And there's no news story. And I'm not even totally sure why I'm here, which is why she didn't do any media that evening or the next morning. There was no kind of government document to support the statement, just a press release. But frankly, I think it was very significant. There was a lot of content. It wasn't boring at all for a range of reasons, not all of which are comfortable for the government. First of all, this was based upon forecasts which were completed in January and are now out of date because of what's happening to energy markets because of the Middle East conflict and also to long-term interest rates.

51:37Ed Balls: And so compared to November, the fiscal position had improved somewhat, but it's not at all clear whether that's even accurate this week, let alone will be accurate in November.

51:46George Osborne: there because we should say shouldn't we the improvement in the forecast a mild improvement not this year crucially which actually there was a bit of a downgrade but in future years was due to lower inflation expectations than previously thought to be the case lower bond yields and uh i guess higher growth prospects a little bit and all of those things although growth was

52:09Ed Balls: downgraded for this year yes downgraded this year slightly but i think the growth was inflation

52:14George Osborne: Inflation, yeah, sorry, yes, inflation more tax rich, as you say. But, you know, we don't know what's going to happen in the Middle East and how enduring the conflict in Iran is going to be. But it's already put the price of oil up and it's also put bond yields up because they now don't expect the Bank of England necessarily to cut rates in the same way they might have done.

52:34Ed Balls: The second reason it was interesting is because since the last budget, there have been major policy announcements made, a number of them forced upon the Chancellor, for example, the U-turn on farming taxation, but also there's been new announcements on special educational needs. The Resolution Foundation actually pointed out that this non-fiscal event by the Chancellor updating the House of Commons showed a bigger policy impact on borrowing of measures since the last budget, bigger than the large majority of fiscal statements made since the beginning of 2010. All of your non-budget statements, your autumn statements, were tiny in comparison to the boring and fiscal impact of this non-fiscal statement.

53:24Ed Balls: So, you know, the World of the Resolution Foundation doesn't really stack up that claim. But of course, the interesting thing is that...

53:30George Osborne: Although she wasn't making a big deal of it. She wasn't packaging it as a big fiscal event. It was more, I guess, an acknowledgement of fiscal decisions or U-turns or whatever in recent months, wasn't it? This is the moment, the reckoning.

53:43Ed Balls: But of course, the third thing is, since the budget, the Prime Minister has said there needs to be a U-turn on student loans, which is currently uncosted in the numbers. The Prime Minister said he wants defence spending to rise to 3 % of GDP in this parliament, currently not in the numbers. This is a fiscal statement and a forecast which shows living standards absolutely falling for working families, non-pensioner, non-getting tax credit working families between now and the next election. It's a fiscal statement which has taxes rising and public spending falling for non-protected departments in election year.

54:25Ed Balls: So there's a whole series of fiscal risks in here which are implicit in the OBR forecast, not mentioned in the Chancellor's speech, which are all very material to the question, is this currently a sustainable plan?

54:41George Osborne: No, I agree that the big fiction is that Labour's going to cut public spending going into the general election. And, you know, if you assume they're not going to do that, then there's going to be an increase in borrowing. and the other thing that you you know point to is that um taxes you know are steadily creeping up it's quite striking that you know it used to be the case i think an assumption of both parties that there was a limit to what the sort of british people would accept in terms of sort of tax as a share of gdp but now taxes as a share of gdp under both conserved previous recent conservative governments and now this government you know have markedly increased since covid they're six percent higher as a percentage of GDP than sort of pre-COVID Britain.

55:20George Osborne: What about that point you made about falling living standards? Because I think one of the things, she actually pointed to the fact that the last parliament, the Tory parliament, the Johnson-Sunak Trust parliament, was the first parliament, you know, since the Second World War, that living standards had fallen over that parliament. But you're, and I think she was trumpeting that actually kind of GDP per head was rising in this, and that the forecast has somewhat upgraded it. But you're pointing out that if you exclude certain categories, like pensioners, that's just not the case where you're basically all working people.

55:53Ed Balls: Wages and productivity have stagnated for 20 years. The last parliament with the tax rises too was the biggest squeeze on living standards in any parliament since the Second World War. The OBR say the current parliament we're in is the second worst squeeze on living standards in any parliament since the Second World War. There's a slight uptick in living standards this year, although the OBR is very pessimistic. They say just a quarter of a percent on average rise in household disposable income this year. As the Resolution Foundation says, it's falling for the next two years and particularly for non-pensioner households, particularly for households who don't get tax credits.

56:32Ed Balls: And so every time the government says you're going to be better off and we are tackling the cost of living crisis, well, at the moment, that is out with the numbers which are being presented. Slightly oddly, the Chancellor says she's going to announce a growth plan, but she didn't do it in the statement this week. She's doing it in her May's lecture in two or three weeks' time, presumably, again, because they didn't want to suggest that this was like a fiscal event. But I think probably the growth plan would have been quite helpful to have had this week. The other kind of unnoticed thing in here by many commentators, not everybody, is that although there was a downgrade of migration numbers in the OBR forecast, the downgrade they've done is only because they're assuming 50 ,000 fewer British people will leave the country in the net migration numbers.

57:18Ed Balls: All of the changes which are currently in the pipeline from Shabana Mahmood in terms of reducing migration, she's saying by 100 ,000 a year by restricting both visas and tackling the asylum system. She's made a speech about that today, which I'm sure we'll come back to. None of that is currently in the OBR numbers. The IFS say that could add 5 billion a year to borrowing in 2030. The Resolution Foundation say, no, it will be 10 billion. But either way, there's a big fiscal risk in here. I think the other thing, though, which is kind of strange about this...

57:50George Osborne: Britain accepted ever since the Brexit referendum, didn't it? Essentially, Britain said, we're going to be poorer, but we want fewer immigrants. I mean, that was the Brexit vote.

58:00Ed Balls: That is right. But there is going to be an argument between Rachel Reeves and the Home Secretary over the course of this year about whether that will make the fiscal arithmetic easier or harder, make delivering people being better off easier or harder. I'm just saying to you, there is a big route. Aside from the post-Gorton and Denton politics for Shibana Mahmood about asylum policy and the Parliamentary Labour Party, there's going to be a Treasury argument about what this will do to the OBR's forecast in the autumn.

58:31George Osborne: Do you think she will, we should come back and do it as a big item, but just in passing, because she's giving a big speech today, Shibana Mahmood, do you think, you know, is she going to have trouble with the PLP on things like extending the indefinite leave to remain from five to ten years, or temporary refugee status, when these things actually come to vote, are they going to be pretty problematic for her?

58:51Ed Balls: She's definitely going to have problems. And I think she's strong and brave. And these are important arguments to make. But she has an article today in The Guardian. I mean, it's notable she chose The Guardian. The storing order at the borders speaks to Labour values. Without that, we won't be able to do anything else. She says, we're not going to be like the Reform Party and close the borders. We're not going to be like Greens and open the borders. We're going to do this in a Labour way. But I think it is going to be controversial. There's a number of reasons. It tends to be the detail, which is controversial.

59:23Ed Balls: As you know, she is proposing lifting the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain from five years to 10 years. And she's doing that because of the Boris uplift in migration and also what's happened to arrivals on boats and asylum since 2020, 21. But she has an argument which says that she will do that faster for people who have made a bigger contribution. I think the Labour Party likes rights and responsibilities. They do think that is fair. But then she says, those who contribute the most, such as doctors, nurses and high earners, will have a faster path to settlement. I think there's a lot of people, including on the Labour side, who would say, well, quite a lot of the people who came to our country since 2020 came not because they were higher earners, doctors or nurses.

1:00:13Ed Balls: They came to work in social care on low wages because there was a big social care labour gap. And people came in good faith because we asked them to come. And the idea that those people should be penalised because they're in low wage employment, that frankly, they're in low wage employment because somebody needed to do the job. That's the kind of thing which will cause her a lot of difficulty when it comes to getting this through Parliament in the coming months. We should definitely come back to this because, you know, I think controlling the borders and getting a grip of the asylum system is exactly the right thing to do.

1:00:45Ed Balls: But this is definitely going to be very controversial.

1:00:48George Osborne: And what did you think about the way the Chancellor ended her spring statement?

1:00:52Ed Balls: which was unusual, wasn't it? It was, I think it was very striking for Labour backbenchers going into the statement on Tuesday. They've been told things are getting better, the plan's working. They've been told, look, this is going to be boring because we only want to have one budget a year. And to be honest, I agree with that. I'm sure you do. Having one budget a year is enough, one finance bill. You don't need to have two budgets a year, but you're doing two forecasts. You've got two platforms. This is the moment. So they all went in there thinking that if things are getting a bit better, surely she's going to have something to say, which will cheer us up, which will be good news, which we can use on the doorstep.

1:01:31Ed Balls: We've just had a terrible by-election result. We've got the May elections coming up in May. Surely there's something within this which is going to be a good announcement. And there was nothing. I mean, there was no story. They all walked out at the end thinking, what was that all about? I mean, she was heavily party political in her statement, much more than you ever were, much more than Gordon Brown, attacking the reforms, attacking Greens.

1:01:58George Osborne: Or more openly partisan. I mean, I would say both Gordon and myself, the whole statement would have a kind of political position to it. But it was never, you wouldn't actually, you didn't use the word Labour when I was standing up. That was not, you know, you would say some people have said we should do this. We're not doing it.

1:02:14Ed Balls: Her statement has a redacted sentence every two or three sentences. But when it came to the big politics, did she do something which meant that people went out thinking that's what it's about? Prudence for a purpose. That's why we're in government. There really was nothing at all. There was no news. There was no good news. There was no uplift. It was like they were so desperate to prove to people who've criticised them, which includes you and me on this podcast, who in the last year have been saying, don't not take the opportunity of a big statement in Parliament to get your message over and to set out your stall and then have a big announcement which shows you've got momentum.

1:02:54They were so desperate to prove this wasn't a fiscal event that she did the totally unpolitical thing.

1:03:01Ed Balls: I mean, nothing to say.

1:03:02George Osborne: I guess she would argue, she was saying, we have a plan and the plan is starting to work. And this is the first fiscal forecast I've been able to deliver as Chancellor, which is giving some evidence that things may be a little bit better rather than a little bit worse. I think the tactic of having only a dry fiscal statement would not have worked if she got up and announced that the OBR said she was missing her fiscal forecast, which is what happened last year. you know so i didn't i didn't think this is a sustainable strategy in all environments

1:03:34Ed Balls: well the other press conference straight after said there is massive fiscal and economic risk because of what's happening in the middle east which was not in their forecast so even this one if it had been a week or two later would have been much more difficult to pull off i think you could

1:03:49George Osborne: have done i think in the speech you definitely could i'm a bit more sympathetic to the we've got a plan the plan's working let's move on but i think you could have done more on the kind of risks in the Middle East. Because I think it's actually a moment for a Chancellor to be, I'm the big person keeping an eye out here for the, you know, I'm always vigilant about the risks. Jordan, I would have had some good news.

1:04:10Ed Balls: I'd have made an announcement. I've had something at the end of the speech. Just one little thing. This technocratic idea that we don't want rabbits out of the hat. Come on. This is politics. You've got to beat reform and show mainstream parties can deliver in government. The IFS did, I thought, a really interesting presentation the day after, of the new traffic lights, I think is really good, really interesting, quite complicated, a positive addition, but you still need to have a clear fiscal rule. And you don't want to have two budgets a year and two finance bills a year. And it's fine that you have a big event, and then the other one is a forecast.

1:04:48Ed Balls: However, it is also fine to do something in it, which shows governments work and can make a difference, something positive. And telling people the plan is working when let's be honest most people in the country don't think it is because they feel worse off and then giving backbenchers nothing to cheer in terms of the fruits of your hard work when it comes to the message on the doorstep i mean there is no way you would have done anything like that when you were chancellor nor gordon brown and i think that was the right approach

1:05:20George Osborne: i guess there's an overall conclusion as well which is you know and maybe i'm a bit affected by the californian air here where you know if you think of our whole podcast it's like okay britain's not involved in the big geopolitical events and the chancellor is trumpeting the fact that fewer people want to come to britain i mean all of that is sort of britain saying we don't want to be the big player anymore we're not trying to attract the talent anymore we're not trying to be at the top table of the world's councils we're not you know and i just think that lack of ambition which a lot of people say yeah george got us into a load of trouble in recent decades but i would say i don't know it's a bit a little bit depressing

1:06:04Ed Balls: in no way am i suggesting that you sound like an influencer in dubai who may have gone there for tax purposes and now finding things a bit uncomfortable but all i'm going to say is good job you in california saying that because it's easier to save from nine time zones in the opposite direction but uh that is all for this week's episode of political currency at this moment historically george looks for the final script for the end well that's because i'm not i'm unscripted in these podcasts to get more from us you can tune into x-minutes questions

1:06:34George Osborne: which releases every monday yeah and if you can't wait you can get it early and ad free by becoming a member of our kitchen cabinet or a gold subscriber. And what else do you get? You get a members only chat. You get, of course, the political currency mugs. You get a biweekly newsletter packed with insights. You get all sorts of cultural things. I'll tell you what, if you're a global leader who Donald Trump doesn't like, you also get advance notice that you might be eliminated. I know.

1:07:03Ed Balls: You know, normally on this podcast, we say get out of your bunker. But there's times when it's safer to stay in it. Yeah, there's lots of benefits to listening to this podcast. And we will see you on Monday for EM Keys. See you then.

1:07:23George Osborne: Thanks for listening to Political Currency. This has been a Persephoneca production.

1:07:56Ed Balls: We'll be right back. The Drop by GNC, bringing you all the newness that matters, hand-picked by the pros who actually know what's up and what's proven to work. We keep you on top of the trends and dialed into what's next. Whether you're crushing it at the gym, leveling up your game, or thriving every day, The Drop by GNC is where the latest solutions in health and wellness land first. Non-stop innovation and fresh finds daily. Explore what's new and what's next on The Drop by GNC.