What on earth happened to Morgan McSweeney’s phone?

0:00Guys, it's no use putting it off. The best time for an underwear refresh is now. Tommy John underwear is designed for a perfect fit that stays put all day. There's zero chafe thanks to four times more stretch than competing brands. And their innovative horizontal quick draw fly is a game changer. With over 30 million pairs sold, there are thousands of men out there more comfortable than you. Don't settle for less. Go to TommyJohn.com today for 25 % off your first order with code COMFORT. That's TommyJohn.com slash comfort. TommyJohn. Comfort perfected. Every idea starts with a problem. Warby Parker's was simple.

0:36Glasses are too expensive. So they set out to change that. By designing glasses in-house and selling directly to customers, they're able to offer prescription eyewear that's expertly crafted and unexpectedly affordable. Warby Parker glasses are made from premium materials like impact-resistant polycarbonate and custom acetate. And they start at just$95, including prescription lenses. Get glasses made from the good stuff.

1:01Ed Balls: Stop by a Warby Parker store near you. Parles-tu français? Hablas espanol? Parle italiano? If you've used Babbel, you would. Babbel's conversation-based technique teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55 % off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com slash acast. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash acast. Rules and restrictions may apply.

1:58This is Political Currency with Ed Balls and George Osborne.

2:12Ed Balls: So it's Thursday morning. We are in the studio in Hoxton and we need to get on with this podcast because we've got a very important guest arriving in just over an hour. We have the former head of MI6, John Sawyers. He's coming to record for us our Inside the Room series we're doing on the Libyan conflict in 2011 when I was in government, you were in parliament, and John was running SIS, as the insiders call it, the secret intelligence service. I mean, he might be coming here because, you know, It's about time you were unmasked as the sixth man with your Trotskyite tendencies and your dodgy connections and the Oxford Labour Club and all of that.

2:52So it might be that he's killing two birds with one stone.

2:55Ed Balls: But it's also the case, isn't it, that is the intelligence on the ground as to what's going on in particular Middle East countries when initiatives are launched by NATO allies, whether it's France, Britain or America? Is the goal regime change? What happens when it gets a bit chaotic on the ground? How do you pull back? Do you make things better or worse? I think Donald Trump in 2026 ought to listen to our Inside the Room with John Sawyers because maybe there's some things to learn from Libya and its aftermath, which is, let's be honest, not brilliant. And is Donald Trump on track to the same outcome?

3:36I think you swerved the question about whether you were a Trotskyite agent, which I guess you would deny, wouldn't you? because you can't.

3:42Ed Balls: No, but of course I was. Because, you know... Oh, now it's a double bluff. Exactly, to hiding. Hiding in plain sight. We're also going to be speaking to Cathy Ashton, who was the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, and also to Hugh Powell, who was the Deputy National Security Advisor during the war in 2011. So it will be really interesting, I think. It's going to be very interesting to record this coming up. We're recording it later today, but it's going to be available for our listeners over the Easter break. And you will not want to miss our series on this. But this week and today, we have got what's going on in the news to talk about.

4:21And that is, of course, another intervention in the Middle East, as you were alluding to, conflict in Iran. But what about the spillover here in Britain and the announcement from the Chancellor that she's going to have to use some of that precious treasure chest that she's been trying to build up on potentially supporting household energy bills?

4:39Ed Balls: Then Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat politicians will be campaigning over Easter for the May local elections. But in the pretty clear knowledge that reform and the Greens are surging, expected to do very well in those elections. And what does the rise of reform and the Greens mean for British politics? Is it going to last? How do you respond if you are Keir Starmer or Kemi Badenock or Ed Davey? So we're going to look at the reforms and the Greens second. And then we are going to go across the Atlantic, not to the United States, but to Canada, because it is one year since Mark Carney, who we both know well, became the prime minister of Canada.

5:21It's his anniversary. And we're going to do a little health check. How's he been doing since he took on that high office?

5:27Ed Balls: We're going to start with another week of chaos, not just in the Straits of Hormuz and in Iran and its Middle East environs, but also in Washington, because, I mean, the contributions from the President of the United States, one moment suing for peace, the next moment issuing 48-hour threats that if Iran doesn't agree with him, that he's then going to kind of bomb civilian energy nuclear capabilities, completely wild, and the market's just in turmoil, gyrating up and down. I mean, sometimes Donald Trump does seem to, by giving the impression he's about to sue for peace, get the oil price down, and then things go back in the opposite direction again.

6:09Ed Balls: It has completely crazy the last few days. And there's also quite a lot of insider trading going on. I don't know if you've been following this, but sometimes before the president speaks, people anticipate quite accurately what he might say, and some big money comes into the oil market just before. So lots of strange things going on. I mean, it is quite wild. I guess the kind of central question, isn't it, which we don't know the answer to, the Iranians certainly don't know the answer to, and maybe even the senior American commanders don't know the answer to, which is, is Donald Trump bluffing?

6:44You know, he says, I want peace talks. We're close to an end. You know, I'd love to do a deal. We're actually talking to these Iranians. But he was saying something quite similar before he struck Iran. He was saying, oh, we want peace. You know, we've got a deal. The talks are going well. And then, you know, essentially out of the blue, possibly prompted by the Israelis going first, he strikes Iran. And is all of this talk of peace actually a smokescreen as large numbers of U.S. ground troops are moving into position in and around Iran, two big marine divisions? And there's lots of speculation that the Americans might either capture the oil island, the terminal island that is crucial to Iran's oil production and or potentially try and occupy the Iranian coast, sort of D-Day style, I guess, because then the Iranians won't be able to fly drones into the Straits of Ormuz.

7:38And I guess we just don't know. It's a perfectly plausible plan that you fool your enemy with talk of, you know, peace when in fact you're preparing for war.

7:49Ed Balls: Isn't the thing about Trump that he's pulled in two different directions? On the one hand, he's always had an eye on you know the domestic politics and his base you know the phrase taco trump always chickens out i mean quite often in his sort of bluff strategy he pulls away when he realizes this is going to be be risky and damaging right now look what's happening to the opinion polls for him look what's happening to people's worries about the cost of living which is going to get worse because of what's happening to global energy prices look at what his vice president jd Vance is saying, clearly reflecting the MAGA-based view that this war is a mistake.

8:26Ed Balls: We discussed Tucker Carlson last week. The midterms coming up this year. On the other hand, the thing you also know about Trump is that he doesn't like to lose. He doesn't like to back down. And if in the end, he feels as though he's being put into a position where he might have to retreat, he also does double down. Take tariffs. In the end, despite some setbacks along the way, he has not backed off on his tariff strategy. Is his strategy here with Iran to declare victory, even though everybody will say, well, you've lost and made things worse and nothing's better? Or is he, as you say, going to think, well, you know, I'll show them with a big use of ground forces?

9:09Ed Balls: I think genuinely we don't know. I kind of wonder whether Donald Trump knows. I would just say this one thing. The person who I think is probably quite nervous at the moment is the defence secretary, former TV presenter Pete Heskett, who, I mean, a slightly wild individual. He's the one who's been doing the most sabre rattling press conferences, saying the world should thank Donald Trump, including the livid Europeans. But there was a roundtable earlier in the week in Memphis. Donald Trump just started to muse about his defence secretary. This is what he said. We can take a stop and make a little journey into the Middle East and eliminate a big problem.

9:50And Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up. And you said, let's do it because you can't let them have a nuclear weapon.

9:57Ed Balls: So it was your idea, Pete. You were the first one to speak up. You know, I never thought this was such a great idea. I'm the peacemaker. But Pete said, do it. J.D. Van Spare said, don't do it. Pete said, do it. And Pete, what are you up to? Do you think Pete Hesek is suddenly feeling a bit more worried this week? Do you think he suddenly realizes he's in one of these American kind of target sites? I do think, however, there's quite a lot of commentary at the moment, which is, you know, the pressure's all on the US, the pressure's on Trump. Iran is, you know, playing this well. And I just think you have to sort of have a bit of a reality check on that.

10:35If you're the president of the United States, he was in Memphis, as you were saying. He was just like visiting Graceland, Elvis's home, which, by the way, is a fantastic place to visit if you've never done it.

10:45Ed Balls: I've done the full tour, including the plane and the tour bus. It's so cool. It's amazing. Anyway, you know, he's like visiting Graceland and there's like pictures of him coming off the golf course. I mean, yes, he's sort of under some political pressure, but he's not like these Iranian leaders who, you know, no one's seen the new supreme leader of Iran. They don't even know whether the guy's conscious and he might be badly injured. Certainly they can't move from their bunkers. So the kind of pressure on the Iranian leadership is very personal and lethal. And it's quite a different kind of pressure.

11:17And I think there's just a kind of central question throughout all this is to what degree can the Iranian government come to kind of collective decisions, trust each other in this extremely stressed environment where key people have been assassinated?

11:31Ed Balls: Completely. Although Donald Trump is saying simultaneously, I'm negotiating with the Iranians, I'm sending them the plan, they're sending me a present, there's a deal going to be done. And he also says, we've destroyed all their leadership, they've all gone. So who is he actually having these negotiations with? with. I mean, I think it's pretty clear that the Iranians had a plan, which was when under pressure, you decentralise and that the military decision making has been happening not from the centre. And that is partly why, you know, it's not clear either who Trump should negotiate with or whether the negotiators have control over what's actually happening now in Iran.

12:10Ed Balls: Meanwhile, you know, if you are Keir Starmer, and this will be true for leaders around the world, you know, it may be that, you You know, Keir Starmer goes to the liaison committee and said, you know, it's not my war. We were never involved in this war. We're not going to get involved in this war other than in a defensive way. However, the reality of the war and its impact through what's happening to global interest rates and to global energy prices is directly impacting on politics here in Britain and will get much, much harder over the coming months. I think isn't there a sort of irony to the situation that Keir Starmer finds himself in?

12:46And, you know, I think for Keir Starmer, read any number of other Western leaders, you obviously have no influence on what the United States is doing. And you are finding out in real time, just like everyone else in the world, from Donald Trump's social media messages, some of which are directly aimed at you. So, for example, Donald Trump posted, you know, a clip from the new Saturday Night Live comedy in Britain making fun of Keir Starmer. I mean, that was literally posted by the American president. So, you know, you're such an unusual approach to diplomacy. missing. Yeah, unique approach. You're not in any sense in control of events.

13:21However, you know, I would say for Keir Starmer, this is might be his sort of best period as prime minister. I mean, if you think of where he was just a few weeks ago, intense speculation about his leadership, having to stop Andy Burnham getting into parliament and losing a by-election as a result, you know, this might be a very temporary respite. But, you know, he is out there with a quite clear message, which was, I am not part of this war. I chose not to be part of this war. My political opponents would have got us involved in this war. The leadership speculation has at least abated for a bit.

13:55He feels to me a bit more comfortable in his messaging than he's been in recent months.

14:00Ed Balls: It's abated in public, although I'm not sure behind the scenes it will have abated. But if you listen to Keir Starmer, what he's saying at the moment, he's saying, we're going to tackle the cost of living. He says, you know, we're going to sort out the problem of the energy crisis. He says, we're going to spend more on defence and we're going to do it quickly. And he says all these things with complete conviction and determination. If you are Rachel Reeves in the Treasury at the moment, looking at all of this, I mean, it is a total nightmare. No, well, that's exactly the point. The irony is, it's all sort of, you know, he's got a more coherent message.

14:34The pressure, at least publicly, as you point out, probably not the case, has abated. but looming is the impact of all of this on the British economy on the cost of living which as you know Rishi Sunak will tell him doesn't matter what you do is lethal for a government and you know you had Rachel Reeves beginning to lay the ground didn't you in parliament this week for having to intervene and as I was saying at the top of the show you know all that headroom which has been debated in British politics over the last year and a half of headroom against the fiscal rules, extra money for departments like the NHS.

15:15Is she building up a war chest to be able to deliver some kind of tax cut before the election? That is all going to be wiped out if she has to deliver what she talked about in Parliament. This was her earlier this week.

15:25Ed Balls: I can confirm to the House that contingency planning is taking place for every eventuality so that we can keep costs down for everyone and provide support for those who need it most, acting within our ironclad fiscal rules to keep inflation and interest rates as low as possible. Mr Speaker, this is not a war that we started, nor is it a war that we joined, unlike the advice of the parties opposite. But it is a war that will have an impact on our country. The challenges may be significant, but I promise to do what is right and fair. Being responsive in a changing world and responsible in the national interest.

16:16Ed Balls: Look, the reality is inflation in February was 3%. It's going to go up. Bank of England was expected to cut interest rates this year. The markets now think they're going to raise them three times in the coming months. the fiscal position will deteriorate on the basis that the global economy has hit and slows down because of the energy price shock. You see, you know, your friend Nick Butler warning today, former BP guy who's number 10 advisor, warning that actually in two or three weeks time, we're going to start running out of oil and gas. Very serious. But you compared it to Rishi Sunak in 2020, when Rishi Sunak was dealing with a different, but also very serious crisis, COVID.

16:56Ed Balls: He'd just done a budget, like Rachel Reeves had done her spring statement. He'd just done an economic forecast, which were already out of date. But he was in a position where he could go out with a big package in March 2020, because of COVID, immediate support for all. I mean, this was furlough for everyone, paid for by borrowing, which was then followed up by an energy price subsidy, which went to everyone. And, you know, at a time when there's a big global crisis, I think back to George Osborne saying we're all in it together. What you normally want is everybody to make a contribution, but everybody to share in the benefits.

17:34Ed Balls: Rachel Reeves does not have the room for manoeuvre to respond as Rishi Sunak did. She's not going to be able to fiscally do an energy price support which goes to everybody. She can only do it to the poorest, as she said in her statement. This makes the politics of this much more acute for her. This is how Kemi Badenok responded to her statement on Wednesday in Paramus' questions. He could stop the fuel duty rise. We could drill our own gas in the North Sea. What's he doing? He is planning another giveaway to people on welfare. Yet again, he's taking money from those who do work to give to those who don't.

18:13First, we had the budget for Benefit Street. Now it's the bailout for Benefit Street. doesn't this just prove that they've given up being the Labour Party and they're now just the Welfare Party? I mean, I do think this whole attack on Labour around welfare and benefits is pretty effective. And what Kemi Baden-Ock is demonstrating there is a kind of consistency. She's coming back to the same kind of critique. I mean, there's some irony that it's all being done over fuel subsidies because, of course, she was in a cabinet and it was the Conservative Party, actually under Liz Truss, for that brief period she was Prime Minister, who announced a massive subsidy of energy prices, which at the time was expected to cost£150 billion, although it actually ended up costing just a fraction of that.

18:58That was trying to kind of cap overall energy prices. And we as a country have drifted into very heavy fuel subsidies as the assumed response to rises in energy prices, which was not the case in the past. And I wonder whether it's ultimately that effective because, you know, Certainly when I was chancellor, the period I found the hardest in policy terms was kind of late 2011, 2012, when inflation really spiked. Oil prices went up a lot. And your kind of mechanisms for protecting people from it are quite limited. And the cost of living attack, the inflation attack, is just so painful for an incumbent government.

19:38And historically, you know, thankfully, my point of view, things abated pretty quickly. But as you saw from the last Conservative government, or set of Conservative prime ministers, if it doesn't abate, you're politically toast, frankly.

19:51Ed Balls: Well, look, Keir Starmer desperately needs this to abate quickly. He needs this war to stop very fast. But he is hugely raising expectations that he and his government can cushion the cost of living below. And it's very hard to see how they can do that either on interest rates or on energy prices. And I don't think the chancellor is really in a position to do that, given the fiscal challenges that she's facing. I mean, there are options. She could have decided to move earlier on the September fuel tax rise, which is something which everybody or most people are affected by. I think we discussed this last year and we talked about whether she's obviously going to have to do anyway.

20:27Yes.

20:27Ed Balls: Why wouldn't you do that? So you can say I'm helping everyone. It doesn't look like you're caved into the pressure. You know, there's Kemi Badenok demanding it. If you do it now, it still looks like I'm in charge. If you wait till late August. And she could last year have just done something small, like cutting the VAT on fuel and energy consumption, which she's allowed to do now because we no longer have EU rules. The advantage is if then energy prices go up, the value of that VAT cut becomes bigger and everybody benefits. So there are ways in which you could try to do things. They have got a fuel subsidy coming in.

21:03I mean, they've got the£150 coming off household energy bills.

21:06Ed Balls: Yeah, but that is fixed and done. Whereas the great advantage of the VAT change would be that it would be related to the price. So you'd be able to say it's even more generous. There's also such a sort of muddle on overall approach to kind of energy and oil supplies. Because, you know, today in the news, Britain's announcing it's going to intercept Russian ships carrying sanction-busting oil. and, you know, I guess Marines or Special Boat Service or whatever are going to jump on these ships. And, you know, this is basically in the same week in which the United States has announced that it's lifting sanctions on Russian ships carrying oil.

21:44So, you know, there's a kind of muddle about also what are we actually trying to do in terms of sanctions and oil prices internationally. Could I just say that I suspect in Downing Street, they're only partly talking about all of this because they'll also be talking about Morgan McSweeney's phone because in the middle of all this. It turns out that the former chief of staff's phone, which was supposed to have all these WhatsApp messages with Peter Mandelson that were going to be published, was nicked. He reported it to the police. But despite that, and despite the police publishing the transcript of his 999 call, there's a lot of scepticism, I would say, in Westminster.

22:22There's a sort of conspiracy theorists are at large, aren't there?

22:25Ed Balls: When this news broke on Wednesday morning, we had Wes Streeting on Good Morning Britain. I have to say, on a difficult subject, he is a class operator. It was a very, very good interview. But in the end, his view was very clear. If my aide's phone was nicked, it would have gone straight to the permanent secretary and to the police because of the security risk involved. But he did, to be fair to McSweeney, he calls Downing Street and he calls the police. He's walking down the road. This has happened twice in the last few years. In fact, once when I was on a call with you And then suddenly the guy on the back came and zoomed up and grabbed my phone.

23:00And only you can tell me what subsequently happened in our conversation. But, you know, clearly his phone's nicked. And then he phones Downing Street to say my phone's been nicked or he gets in touch with Downing Street. And then he gets in touch with the police. I mean, you have to be. It's a bit far-fetched to think he...

23:18Ed Balls: Well, it's not clear that he ever told the police he was the chief of staff for the prime minister. He was some guy who lived in East London. I think they may have taken it slightly more seriously if they'd known who he was. Look, there are conspiracy theories around. And don't forget, back on our podcast in September into October, we had this conversation. At the time, after Peter Mandelson had resigned, there was a lot of conversation going on within the government about whether the Conservatives would do a humble address to require all the phone messaging records between Peter Mandelson and people like Morgan McSweeney would be revealed.

23:50Ed Balls: And if you remember, we said, how come the Conservatives have been suddenly distracted onto a debate about Chinese spies? How convenient this was for the government? And we wondered, given there was rather a large delay between the Chinese spies incident and then suddenly hitting the news, whether this was a clever tactic from Downing Street. Tim Shipman from The Spectator certainly looked back and said, was that what was going on? Now, I mean, it would be quite odd. It would be quite odd. And Neil Armstrong, did he actually make it to the moon? No, no. Did the mafia kill JFK? It would be quite odd for Morgan McSweeney to take the risk of throwing away his phone and then telling the police it had been stolen.

24:33That's a criminal offence.

24:35Ed Balls: I know. I cannot believe he would do that. That is so dangerous. I mean, you slightly wonder whether he was standing in Parliament Square with his arm out with his phone. He didn't know. Oh, come on. He didn't know he was going to have to. George, George, there was a conversation which we discussed on this podcast in September about whether there would be a humble address. And so there is no doubt it was a good thing. You're country-wide the image of the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff standing in Parliament Square holding his phone out, waiting for a passing ruffian to come and lick it from him.

25:10Ed Balls: I'm saying that to laugh at it and say, I don't believe either that or they made up the stealing. But I do think they were really worried in September, October, and the disappearance of the phone was quite convenient. The bigger point is this. I did say a couple of weeks ago, I don't believe these WhatsApp messages will ever appear. You did? because you know the during the covid inquiry surprise surprise rishi sunak and boris johnson couldn't find their whatsapp messages and uh you know we made that reference to rebecca vardy and wagger the christian dropping in the north sea but even by my stat you know although i suspected they never would appear to be fair i didn't actually come up with this dog ate my own work excuse the bigger point though is this there are messages which will come out which will be a problem there messages which have now been lost which raises questions and you know in some people's minds conspiracy theories there's a May election coming up which is going to be bad for the government Keir Starmer is now going to do an early King speech which he'll hope will be another reset relaunch for his government but frankly while these Mandelson emails and messages are still out there and it hasn't been resolved that is going to be very problematic.

26:20Ed Balls: The bigger point is this which you and I have said many times in government when you have this kind of problem you have to get it all out and move on and they haven't done and this latest morgan mcsweeney phone issue is just another example of how this continues to dog the government with questions and suspicion because you should have said all this months ago that the phone wasn't available no i agree and you know it comes back to the point you know okay britain might not be have any say really over what's going on over iran but there is a kind of prime ministerial response you know he's saying i didn't want to get involved in this war the chancellor saying we're going to help households and all of that is overshadowed because we've still got all the mandelson emails to come and they haven't got them out even though we've been saying and many others have been saying why didn't you just get them out and there is also a debate about the future of defense spending which is going to cause huge problems for keir starman rachel reeds as well so this is going to go on for some months and this week another installment in the ongoing Mandelson saga.

27:20Ed Balls: He is no longer in the government, but he is still with us. We'll take a break and then we're going to have a quick look at the local elections after that.

27:38Ed Balls: Taking care of your eyes shouldn't be a hassle. That's why Warby Parker is a one-stop shop for all your vision needs. Our prescription glasses and sunglasses are expertly crafted and unexpectedly affordable. Stop by a nearby store or use our app to virtually try on frames and get personalized recommendations. Did we mention we offer eye exams and take vision insurance too? For everything you need to see, head to your nearest Warby Parker store or visit warbyparker.com today. That's warbyparker.com. Guys, it's no use putting it off. The best time for an underwear refresh is now. Tommy John underwear is designed for a perfect fit that stays put all day.

28:17There's zero chafe thanks to four times more stretch than competing brands. And their innovative horizontal quick-draw fly is a game changer. With over 30 million pairs sold, there are thousands of men out there more comfortable than you. Don't settle for less. Go to TommyJohn.com today for 25 % off your first order with code COMFORT. That's TommyJohn.com slash COMFORT. TommyJohn. Comfort perfected. Parles-tu français? If you've used Babbel, you would. Babbel's conversation-based technique teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world.

28:54With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55 % off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com slash acast spelled b-a-b-b-e-l dot com slash acast rules and restrictions may apply

29:24Ed Balls: welcome back may elections now just uh six weeks or so away and um an expectation that reform and the Greens are going to have very good results. If you look at the Gorton and Denton by-election, the Greens had a staggering result. The reform would have been disappointed not to have won, but on the basis of that polling, they are going to do very well in reform-orientated seats outside the big cities, and Greens are going to do well within the big urban seats. And if you are the main parties. Interesting piece by Rob Ford on his substacker earlier in the week saying this is catastrophic for Labour, really bad for Kemi Bade, not really bad for Ed Davey and the Liberal Democrats.

30:11Ed Balls: All the three main parties look like they are under huge pressure from the rise of these two parties. And understandably, Zach Polanski and Nigel Farage are upbeat. Let's have a quick listen. No longer can we be said to be on the fringes or dismissed as not able to win seats. No, we are breaking through every single barrier that is put in front of us. It's funny, people ask me about defections all the time, and when I say people, I mean journalists. But you know what? I'm frankly a lot more interested right now in winning more elections, because our membership is at a record high. We have a record number of councillors, and many of you might have noticed we've got a new MP.

30:54Ed Balls: I am making a huge sacrifice. I don't need to do this, but I'm doing it because I want to put my country back on track. And all over the country on May the 7th, thousands and thousands of ordinary folk will put their heads over the parapet and stand for reform in those elections. Our membership is now the biggest of any party in the country. We are building a people's army. I'm not sure it's the best way to encourage candidates by saying you're putting your head above the parapet. But anyway, the main thing I actually wanted to ask you this week, it's a bit of a diversion, is what did you think with Nigel Farage getting his football shirt from Ipswich Town, which is your big rival in East Anglia?

31:32Did you see that?

31:33Ed Balls: I did. And look, the Norwich-Ipswich rivalry is very intense. And Ipswich are coming to Norwich to play on, I think, 11th of April. And in the last... My mother's birthday. In the last... Well, I mean, I think there's unrelated facts. And Ipswich has lost or drawn with Norwich pretty much every game in the last decade, other than earlier on in the season. So Norwich are looking for their revenge. But it's really hard to unite Norwich and Ipswich behind a single cause. But there were as many Ipswich fans as Norwich fans slightly appalled to see Nigel Farage posing with his Ipswich shirt. Of course, there'll be lots of Ipswich fans who might vote reform, but there's rather a lot who don't as well.

32:16Ed Balls: And so, you know, it was, I thought it was interesting. I thought it was risky from Farage's point of view. No, the reason I bring it up is, first of all, it was quite amusing. But, you know, I mean, I used to go visit football stadiums as chancellor. And I would quite often be given a shirt. I remember standing in like the middle of the Wolves Stadium with a shirt. And, you know, even though, of course, I was a partisan figure, I don't think kind of generally there was a kind of very adverse kind of fan reaction. And you knew you supported Chelsea, didn't you? Yes, I did. I mean, you didn't think you supported, I don't know, Brighton and Hove Albion or somebody who wore the same colour shirt.

32:51Ed Balls: Sorry, David Cameron. We shouldn't. I mean, you know, you can get mixed up. We are Aston Villa and West Ham are the same team. We are getting diverted here. But I just thought it was interesting, you know, that Farage is still sufficiently toxic that a visit that more mainstream politicians could quite easily pull off. And I'm sure loads of Labour and Conservative politicians have visited Ipswich Town when they go to Ipswich campaigning. You know, for him, you know, there is a toxicity. And I think it's interesting. There's no doubt reform is doing way better than it was some years ago. But if you look more recently, there was a pattern, I think about six months ago, where reform was clearly ahead of the Conservative Party and the Labour Party.

33:33And then some way behind that were the Greens and the Liberal Democrats. And what has actually happened in recent months is that the reform vote has fallen and the Green vote has come up. And maybe, you know, I wouldn't be totally surprised if there's some transfer between the two, even though people might think that's unlikely because where they sit on the political spectrum, although their actual policy agenda is quite similar in some respects. But the parties are all bunching together and reform is no longer the kind of clear front runner in the national opinion polls. and it has created a very, very complicated environment of five-party politics where, okay, in local elections there are, you know, different voting systems and we say local elections, they're also taking place, of course, in Scotland and Wales and in some degrees they will be the most important results on the night and they've all got different voting systems but it's incredibly hard to predict, you know, five parties all basically at around 20 % in the polls, some a little below, some a little bit above.

34:31But I feel as if some of the kind of steam has come out of reform, some of the momentum, it's not. It's not kind of dominating the conversations. And of course, now the Greens are sharing that conversation of the new insurgents.

34:44Ed Balls: The announcement made this week as a result of the review by former permanent secretary, Matthew Rycroft, there will be restrictions on foreign donors to political parties will also will have an impact on reform. The truth is that once you get high in the polls and do well in by-elections, then the scrutiny comes, and that's been happening for reform. It will happen to Zach Polanski, but it doesn't mean their support necessarily falls away. I'm going to take it... Did you see the polling? I mean, this story about Zach Polanski's career as a hypnotherapist and his claim that he could enlarge people's breasts with his hypnotherapy before he became a Green politician, If the public are made aware of that, when that is told to people in polling, the support for him dramatically falls, unsurprisingly, because it makes him sound like a quack.

35:34I think he's going to get a load more scrutiny.

35:36Ed Balls: And the Green press office line from their party is that Mr. Polanski has already apologised for what he said 10 years ago. But I'm not sure whether that quite does the trick. The strategic challenge for Kemi Badenok and for Keir Starmer in a slightly different way. Very interesting polling by More in Common, which asks different party supporters, who is the one party that you would happily vote against if you could at the next election? For Labour supporters, 56 % say reform. For Lib Dems, 63 % say reform. Greens, 79 % say reform. So for all of those parties, the centre and left parties, reform is the enemy.

36:19And which means you could, in theory, unite the left. If it looked like reform might win a general election, the message from Labour would be you've got to vote Labour to keep them out.

36:31Ed Balls: And similarly, on the Conservatives, 46 % of Conservative support is easily the biggest share, says Labour is who we've got to stop. And for reform voters, 68 % say Labour. So reform and the Tories want to stop Labour. And Labour, Green, Libnip voters want to stop reform. That is interesting. As you say, that sets up a political tactic. But then the other thing that seems to be going on, and I was reading a blog by an Oxford political scientist, Ben Ansell, talking about block politics and pointing out that compared to the past, it seems as though there is less switching happening between the centre-left parties and the centre-right parties.

37:11Ed Balls: We always talked about the switcher who may have voted Tory at the last election and now might vote Labour. The Morgan McSweeney strategy was how can we get Labour voters back who've gone to reform? But what Ben Ansell is saying is if you actually look at the polling, most of the movement these days is happening on the right between conservative and reform and on the left between Labour, Lib Dems and Greens. And so most of the people who are leaving Labour are either abstaining or going to the Lib Dems or going to the Greens. They're not really going to reform or to the Tories. So what that says is if you want to unite your bloc against the enemy, the left bloc against reform, you also have to make sure your strategy is uniting your bloc in support of the things you want to do can you build and hold a coalition together so if you take for example labor and the government jobs cost of living growth the national health service those are all things which unite labor green lib dem potential voters they all kind of will all think those doing those things is important there'll be some greens who don't want any growth but in general whereas if you take other issues gaza and foreign policy immigration and small boats asylum reform those are issues which fracture and divide your block yeah the thing which kemi badenok needs to do is to talk about things which unite a potential reform and tory voter rather than split them so i'm not sure i agree with this theory you see particularly when it comes to kemi badenok i I think the more you talk about the threat from reform and the more you lean into the reform vote, the more you talk up reform and the more it's like, well, if you want those kind of policies, why don't we get the real thing?

38:59And Nigel Farage is a match for Kemi Badenok in terms of the amount of attention he receives in the media. In fact, there's quite an interesting analysis that shows if you look at how much media he gets or how much the BBC covers him, for example. You know, he gets a lot of coverage. The Greens, it's different because they're actually not getting very much coverage.

39:16Ed Balls: No, but I'm not saying it's about... I think you still have your... You know, if the Tory party still got to, in my view, focus on the economy and try and get across the people who switched to Labour last time, who deserted the Tories. But her biggest problem is losing voters to reform. Now, if she does... But she's not going to... She can't out-immigration them. She can't out-culture war them. So the best thing is... But she can do it on the economy. I'm a credible... Yeah, but the whole point is that unites her bloc. If Badenock tries to pick a culture war issue to try and win reform voters back and loses centrist Tories who then go to the Lib Dems, she's dividing her bloc.

39:56Ed Balls: So what she should focus on are the things which unite her bloc, which, as you say, is the economy and tax and value for money and public spending and cost of living. And similarly, on the Labour side, if you are focusing on a big row about immigration and asylum, by the way, I think you have to do those things and talk about them. But if you make that your centrepiece, do you win back any Tory and reform voters to Labour? Maybe not. Do you lose loads of voters to the Greens and the Lib Dems? maybe you do. So the argument is you should focus on the things which unite your block against the other side, not on things which divide your block in the hope you might get a few switches over.

40:37I tell you, one person who's going to have to navigate all of this is Matt Britton, the new director general of the BBC, who, you know, I know reasonably well, and he's been a long term executive at Google. So they've gone for an outsider. And they've got, I assume his pitch, I don't know, but I assume his pitch has been, you know, the BBC's got to get with the digital age. I mean, sorry, the BBC already is with the digital age with its website and iPlayer. And, you know, that's actually a very important legacy of previous director generals that they did move the BBC into that space. But you still feel with like the rise of YouTube and, you know, the like, it's a big, big challenge for the BBC what its role is.

41:22so you know no doubt he is experienced and has knowledge of that but he is the more if you're in five-party politics the airtime you give to all these parties who gets to be the guests on question time you know the greens will say we're getting a fraction of the coverage that our current opinion poll rating would suggest you know that is really complicated stuff now may you know it's the head of bbc news who will kind of lead on that but ultimately you know as tim Davy found out and previous director generals, the idea that you can hand off these kind of key editorial decisions, avoid the inevitable rows and scandals that come with covering the news every day.

42:01That's not going to be the case. And Matt is going to have to really work out how to cover these local elections and then the general election, because the other charge is going to be you gave these fringe parties too much attention. And then you can imagine a general election result where, you know, the Greens only get a few seats and everyone goes, well, why did you spend so much time covering them in the election and that, you know, suppressed the Labour vote and let in Farage and so on. So anyway, it's going to be a very, very tricky set of editorial decisions of how to cover, you know, this very, very complex environment where it just wasn't that difficult in the past.

42:36I mean, there were always difficult issues, but, you know, you had like, here's the Labour government and here's the Tory response, or here's the Tory government and here's the Labour response.

42:43Ed Balls: Look, I don't know Matt Britton, and I'm looking forward to his first speeches and interventions. You are totally right. Funding of the BBC, taking on the streamers, dealing with the Trump legal case, delivering balance. That Trump legal case is hugely difficult. Or very hard. I mean, what a job. Do you know him well enough to have any sense of how he'll go about doing this? No, I don't. I mean, I don't know him as well as I know Tim Davey. But he's, yeah, I think he will be, you know, he's very level headed. And I think he comes from a culture, you know, Google has been a well-run company and he's been in charge of Europe and the Middle East you know for Google as well as the UK and he will bring to the BBC you know the most up-to-date kind of HR practices people management practices how to manage large organizations how to deal with you know the digital transformation how to deal with AI all of that what he will not be used to is like last night the 10 o 'clock news said this about Nigel Farage and he's suing us or Donald Trump's just won his case in Florida and the British government says the BBC can't pay or Glastonbury didn't take down a pop star making anti Semitic remarks, what are you going to do in the next 10 minutes, I mean what a job let us hope, I'm not totally sure when I look at the big Facebook meta or Google, I'm just not totally sure whether I think to myself that running those organisations is about kind of front foot complex political diplomacy No, although they are being sucked more and more into politics.

44:13I mean, we haven't talked today about the complex legal cases they now face around children's mental health and so on. Anyway, it's going to be fascinating. And these local elections, which we now know for certain are going to take place against the backdrop of either a Middle Eastern war that is continuing or has just ended and the impending impact on the cost of living are going to be, we will see, maybe a dress rehearsal for the general election in a couple of years time.

44:40Ed Balls: The former head of MXX is about to arrive and we've got one more item to discuss. We're going to talk about Mark Carney one year on. Let's take a break and then let's talk about that.

44:58Taking care of your eyes shouldn't be a hassle. That's why Warby Parker is a one-stop shop for all your vision needs. Our prescription glasses and sunglasses are expertly crafted and unexpectedly affordable. Stop by a nearby store or use our app to virtually try on frames and get personalized recommendations. Did we mention we offer eye exams and take vision insurance too? For everything you need to see, head to your nearest Warby Parker store or visit WarbyParker.com today. That's WarbyParker.com. Guys, it's no use putting it off. The best time for an underwear refresh is now. Tommy John Underwear is designed for a perfect fit that stays put all day.

45:37There's zero chafe thanks to four times more stretch than competing brands. And their innovative horizontal quick-draw fly is a game-changer. With over 30 million pairs sold, there are thousands of men out there more comfortable than you. Don't settle for less. Go to TommyJohn.com today for 25 % off your first order with code COMFORT. That's TommyJohn.com slash COMFORT. TommyJohn. Comfort perfected. Parles-tu français?

46:02Ed Balls: Hablas espagnol? Parli italiano? If you've used Babbel, you would. Babbel's conversation-based technique teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55 % off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com slash acast. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash acast. Rules and restrictions may apply.

46:46Welcome back. So on March the 14th last year, Mark Carney became the Prime Minister of Canada. And if you remember, it was a kind of late intervention into a row inside the Liberal Party, Justin Trudeau. The incumbent Prime Minister looked like he was heading for defeat. Mark is drafted in and then he calls a snap general election. and he, well, he almost wins it. He wins in the sense he becomes prime minister, but he doesn't actually have a majority in the Canadian parliament. That was all a year ago. And we thought we'd just check in on how he's been doing in the years since. And all I would say that I can imagine if you were in number 10 Downing Street, you would look across the water at Mark Carney's first year and say, how did we not manage to pull off a year like that?

47:31because, you know, Mark is in a parallel universe to the one that Starmer faces. Mark, you know, has done unbelievably well over his first year, certainly in terms of his own personal connection with voters. His personal approval ratings have gone up. Those of his party have gone up, dragged up by him. Let's be clear. He's the one who's kind of leading the Liberal Party revival. And although he doesn't lead on all issues, Interestingly, the Canadian conservatives still do better than him on the economy, which you might think is surprising, given his background. But he's, you know, again used the kind of threat of Trump, Trump's antics over Greenland, which is obviously very close to Canadians' hearts, to establish himself as, I would say at the moment, the kind of the undisputed kind of leader of the Western allies, is the one who at the moment has the most moral authority, the one whose speech in Davos is still remembered.

48:31This was him commenting on his first year anniversary. But we have moved forward on a very wide range of issues, including cutting taxes for 22 million Canadians, including removing taxes for first time homebuyers, including cutting capital gains tax, including having the lowest corporate tax rate on investment in the G7. Four and a half percentage points less than the United States.

48:56Ed Balls: That was something that didn't exist before I became prime minister. Of course, the thing he doesn't say in that clip, he's also increased his party's lead against the opposition. He's increased his own favourability ratings. He's improved the kind of government's net approval. He's had people from other parties defecting over to his own party. He's had four MPs defect and he's only one seat away. And they've actually got a by-election coming up near Montreal. And if he wins that, he will have created a majority in government. So it's interesting because it shows you that it is possible to be an incumbent and not see your position deteriorate, even at a time when families and household budgets are under pressure.

49:41Ed Balls: And that is not something which Keir Starmer or Emmanuel Macron or Mertz or Donald Trump have been able to do in the last year. But it also tells you something else, which is that it is possible when you have a party in power and that party has become unpopular and Trudeau's Liberal Party has become unpopular, it's possible to do a transition in power and improve your political standing rather than deteriorate. And if you are... Who's that message aimed at, Ed? Well, right now, if you are Keir Starmer, but maybe... West Street. Mertz. Or whoever. Maybe Mertz in Germany. Maybe J.D. Vance are all thinking, is it possible to improve a party standing in government?

50:30Ed Balls: And is it possible to do that with a change of leadership? If you think about British history, John Major succeeded in doing that. Yes, he did. Actually, Boris Johnson succeeded in doing that until it all went wrong, won the 2019 election. On the other hand, Jim Callaghan, 1976, didn't manage to turn round his party standing when the leadership changed. Gordon Brown did for a brief period, didn't have the 2007 election and then ended up losing in 2010. Of course, Rishi Sunak took over from Boris Johnson via Liz Trust, didn't manage to turn things round. So there are lots of examples where a leadership change in government doesn't turn things around.

51:10Ed Balls: But there are examples where it can. And Mark Carney is probably the current leading example of that. So the question is, what has he done? Which is different. I mean, he has come completely from the outside. He's a clean skin. Totally clean skin. He's a big contrast with Trudeau in terms of as an individual and a style. You know, that clip there is, you know, quite nerdy, like we've, you know, we're talking about 4.5 percent difference on this. So he looks like someone who knows what he's doing. You know, he's into the details where his predecessor, you know, was like more kind of grand eloquent.

51:47Ed Balls: He was given an opportunity by Donald Trump and he took it. You know, he jumped straight in to the Trump row and that is work to his advantage. he's been willing to ditch policy baggage when he thinks it doesn't work for him politically big changes on the approaches he's taken to kind of green environmental taxation over the last year he's also i think i'm right in saying been quite active with lots of different sort of media things all happening at the same time he he he talks about learning from the trump strategy of there being a kind of a lot of noise, which is interesting, rather than a hugely disciplined grid.

52:31Ed Balls: What else do you think? I mean, if you were Labour at the moment, or in Germany, or the Democrats, what other lessons would you draw from the Carney experience, which might be relevant to potential next leaders? Well, I think there's two things I would point to. I mean, the first is, you know, that I think his economic package is quite balanced. You know, he's a centre-left politician, a liberal politician. But as he was saying in that clip, he's cut capital gains tax. We've talked on this podcast, you know, many times about the fact that Gordon Brown and under Tony Blair's premiership cut capital gains tax.

53:09And that was an early move of the Labour government.

53:12Ed Balls: And Tony Blair knew about it, actually. We told him. And he was quite in favour of that. on the day. I think he wanted to abolish inheritance tax. Yeah, we told him we couldn't do that. He actually wanted to abolish all of capital gains tax. But the fact we got to 10 % was positive. No, but it was not a traditionally Labour thing. Right, that's what I mean. And had a big impact on sentiment. And Mark has also been more flexible on his kind of green credentials, which he came into office with. But he's actually promoted investment in like a big oil pipeline and, you know, new oil and gas exploration in Canada.

53:45So I think he's not been sort of too kind of dogmatic on energy issues, which are more important in Canada in terms of, you know, it's such a big industry as well as affecting households. So I think those are things. I think second is kind of Trump thing. You know, Keir Starmer, you know, has now kind of stumbled into like I'm against Trump, partly because Trump's turned against him. But he hasn't put together a kind of coherent kind of philosophy in the same way that Mark Carney did in that Davos speech. And then the third lesson, I think, for anyone is actually the one you kind of alluded to right at the beginning of this segment, which is, well, yeah, Mark came in and he called a general election whilst I mean, almost immediately he took a big risk, which is instead of the Rishi Sunak approach or the Gordon Brown approach, which is just give me some time to establish myself, see how I've been.

54:34You know, people will see the contrast. I've got to have something to show for myself before I go to the polls. He actually calls the snap election.

54:42Ed Balls: And gets a mandate during his honeymoon. Yeah. So, you know, I think, you know, it's totally understandable if you've, you know, become the prime minister. You know, you don't want to put it all on the line. But to succeed, you do have to make some big gambles in politics. And I think that that big bet from Mark paid off. And now he's using the new authority of being an elected prime minister as opposed to a kind of transitional prime minister to improve his party's position. And by the way, there's a lesson for the conservatives. I mean, it doesn't really apply directly to British politics, but they've made the mistake of sticking with the guy who lost the last election, who actually lost his seat and then came back thinking, OK, but, you know, he was doing pretty well and he just got knocked off track by Carney.

55:24But the truth is, you know, he looks like the old and Mark looks like the new.

55:29Ed Balls: Very interesting. I mean, you know, Keir Starmer did have a feeling of newness for a period. I guess Kemi Baden-Ock less so because she'd been a cabinet minister in the previous government. But interesting lessons for people reflecting upon how to turn around incumbent governing party fortunes. And there's going to be a few of them who will be, you know, I would think be trailing over to Canada to observe the Carney experience and wonder what the right lessons are to join. That is it for this week's episode. We're going to be back on Monday with ex-Minister's questions. And then we are setting off into our Easter inside the room extravaganza.

56:07Yeah, we were just telling you about it. We are going to be covering the Libyan conflict and we're going to be going through it in detail with the people who were inside the room, inside the war room in this case. And of course, there are lots of parallels with what's going on in the Middle East right now. And if you're a member of our kitchen cabinet, you're not only going to get the ad free versions of our EMQs and of course get EMQs earlier and our free members only chat and the mug, which there's a nice new mug actually knocking around here. We'll tell you about another day and the biweekly newsletter.

56:39But you'll also get all of the Inside the Room episodes in one go. So you can binge listen rather than having to wait like like the rest of our business.

56:50Ed Balls: Indeed, you'll get an extra episode just for Kitchen Cabinet and Gold subscribers where we reflect the end of our Inside the Room on what we've learned and the lessons we draw, which are, I think, going to be very relevant to the world in 2026. So that is all to come in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, if you are an ordinary listener, we'll see you with EMQs on Monday. And if you are a Kitchen Cabinet or Gold subscriber, you'll get EMQs, as always, early this weekend. And have a happy Easter. Happy Easter.

57:27Thanks for listening to Political Currency. This has been a Persephoneca production.

58:02Ed Balls: We'll be right back. on the latest innovations. All the newness is all on sale right now during the LiveWell sale. On the drop by GNC. Parles-tu français? Hablas espanol? Parli italiano? If you've used Babbel, you would. Babbel's conversation-based technique teaches you useful words and phrases to get you speaking quickly about the things you actually talk about in the real world. With lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts and voiced by real native speakers, Babbel is like having a private tutor in your pocket. Start speaking with Babbel today. Get up to 55 % off your Babbel subscription right now at babbel.com slash acast.

58:43Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash acast. Rules and restrictions may apply.