Why are Labour so aggressive on the Greens?

0:00George Osborne: This is a Monday.com ad. TheSameMonday.com designed for every team. TheSameMonday.com with built-in AI, scaling your work from day one.

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0:31This is Political Currency with Ed Balls and George Osborne.

0:44So we are remote, even though we're both in London.

0:49Ed Balls: Our studio is being revamped and I'm excited to see how that looks. But it's a sunny day. It's May. It's polling day.

0:58George Osborne: Yes, I've just been to vote, actually, in my ward. And, you know, Thea and I went, and it's really sweet. We brought our three little children. And it's, of course, the first time they've sort of been into the polling station. And certainly Bo, the oldest, he kind of understood. You know, we explained what was going on. And it brought back all these memories of, I remember kind of going into the polling station with my mother in the 1970s. And that's one of my early memories. So that was great. What have you been doing this week anyway? Where have you been voting? You can vote several times, right?

1:33George Osborne: You can vote in the Castleford. You can vote in London. Do you vote early and vote often?

1:38Ed Balls: No, I voted once and I voted in Yorkshire and I voted by post. So my ballot paper went off a couple of days ago. But I was also in Yorkshire.

1:47George Osborne: So when Labour lose your local council in London by one vote, they'll go, well, thanks a lot, Ed Balls.

1:53Ed Balls: Well, like you, I am not revealing how I'm voting, Although you are right, I've not voted in London. So if that's what happens, then I mean, either the winner or the loser will be crossed with me or pleased with me, but they won't know which it is. I was actually in Yorkshire the weekend. I was on Monday at the world snooker final. I went to the afternoon session, which was amazing. Wu Yuzat, the young 22-year-old Chinese, lost the first five frames.

2:19George Osborne: This was at the Crucible, was it?

2:21Ed Balls: The Crucible. The Crucible, which has got the snooker now until 2045. I was with the chief executive.

2:28George Osborne: Well, it's had it since about 1970.

2:30Ed Balls: Well, it has, and it's going to carry on. And the chief executive of the council, Kate Josephs, was there. And they're so pleased to have got this new deal and to kind of invest in the facilities. But a guy came up to me during the interval, halfway through the session. He said, I have been to all 17 days of the World Snooker Final. I said, how did you manage that? And he said, I just kind of got the tickets. He said, I'm also a great fan of political currency. I love the podcast. And so I said to him, send us in a question. So I'm hoping he's going to send us in a question for EMQs this week, maybe about politics and snooker.

3:08Ed Balls: Who knows? But it was an almost ecclesiastical experience being in the quietness of this Crucible Theatre in this incredibly tense game. Sean Murphy, the other thing just to say, this is a political parallel, Sean Murphy, who lost to Wu Yuzsa, made the most brilliant in defeat speech. It was an interview and it was just superb. I mean, such kind of grace and poise and humility and it's really good.

3:35George Osborne: The religion of snooker. I think the last time I tuned into The Crucible, I've never been in person, was probably around 1980 when I was watching with my dad and the live, as millions of people were, and then it got interrupted by the breaking news that the SAS were going into the Iranian embassy. That is such a power. Talk about memories of my childhood. I mean, that is, I'm sure for anyone of my age, that is one of those key memories.

4:03Ed Balls: I used to watch it when I was really little in the late 70s with my grandma, but she only had a black and white TV. And so the commentary was really important. You know, was he going to go for the light grey, the medium grey or the dark grey when he's off the colour, off the red? But it was anyway. And how about you? Where have you been?

4:20George Osborne: Well, talking about religious experiences, I've actually been at the Vatican this week.

4:24Ed Balls: It's not an AI summit at the Vatican.

4:27George Osborne: Yes, I told you that before we came on out. Well, you know, it's like one omniscient, omnipresent being talking to another omniscient, omnipresent being. Now, you know, I've done the Vatican as a tourist, you know, in the kind of height of summer when it's boiling hot and you traipse around the church and St. Peter's and all that. But it's the first time I've ever been in any kind of, you know, official capacity and been behind the scenes. I mean, it's a statement of the obvious. It's an absolutely spectacular place in terms of the kind of grandeur and the art. And it's quite interesting dealing with all these archbishops and cardinals and priests and monks and nuns and so on.

5:07George Osborne: And indeed, the Holy Father, Papa, as the crowds were chanting when I saw him. I mean, it's interesting because, of course, the people I was meeting all have kind of essentially positions like the foreign minister of the Vatican. and they're not parish priests. But it was actually a very impressive setup. I'm not Catholic myself, but if you're a true believer, I can see why coming to the Vatican is quite an experience.

5:32Ed Balls: Well, I'm not going to ask you whether you had a personal meeting with the Pope, just as I'm not going to ask you to confirm that you met with J.D. Vance in Washington a couple of weeks ago. I'm just going to let that hang in the air as a possibility. Have you been meeting with the Foreign Secretary? I have, yes. Although not that much. She's not around much. but no it was when you said two all-powerful and omnipresent beings coming together i assume you meant you and um and the holy father but i i didn't know you were talking about the large language model and uh god we should get on with this podcast we're gonna be in trouble we're gonna

6:04George Osborne: be in trouble on all sorts of fronts um this we're gonna talk about the local elections we're recording this as voting is underway uh so we're not gonna try and anticipate the result but we We are going to tell you, or help you understand, I hope, what the result will mean for British politics and some kind of unexpected angles to look at the result and developments over the next couple of weeks. So we'll take a good look at the aftermath of the local elections.

6:31Ed Balls: And then after another few days of international market turbulence, the oil price surging up and then falling back again yesterday. What is going on in the American, Iranian, Pakistan-mediated peace talks, if they are underway? And what is the economic consequence of this going to be? In particular, we've seen in the last week the huge dilemmas that this is posing for monetary policymakers, with the Bank of England getting into a very convoluted description of its monetary policy strategy. So we'll talk a bit about the economic blowback of the ongoing standoff in the Strait of Hormuz.

7:12George Osborne: And then talking about money, it emerges from reports this week that the price tag the EU is putting on a closer relationship between the UK and the EU, which is something that Keir Starmer is promoting, could be a billion euros or more. and that of course throws up quite a dilemma for the Labour government and indeed for pro-Europeans but it might also pose some challenges for those against a closer relationship with the EU so we're going to have a look at that because that could be one of the big issues in British politics over the coming months but let's start with the local election so as we were just saying voting's underway you voted by post I voted in person we are among 30 million people at least eligible to vote.

7:59George Osborne: I suspect, of course, all 30 million are not going to vote today. And it's, you know, there are lots of English councils up for election. There's the London councils. There's the Scottish Parliament. There's the Welsh Senate. And, you know, we last week, we talked through some of the potential scenarios, but there's a general expectation that Labour is going to lose lots of councillors and MSPs and Senate members, that the Conservatives are certainly going to lose a lot of councillors in England and across London, that it will be a big night for reform and a big night too for the Greens and maybe a kind of treading water night for the Liberal Democrats, although to be fair to them they might become the largest party in English local government at the end of it all.

8:46George Osborne: So that's the kind of background to all this but what we thought we'd do is look at a couple of interesting topics. And should we start with, let's go to Scotland and Wales, Ed. Very likely outcome in Scotland is an SNP government. Question, does it have an overall majority or not in the Scottish Parliament? Now we've had 20 years of Scottish nationalist governments in Edinburgh, so that's not new, but they have committed themselves to another independence referendum. And in Wales, we don't know who's going to come out on top in Wales, whether it's going to be Plaid or Reform, but Plaid, of course, is also an independence party, a nationalist party.

9:29George Osborne: So I guess the question for us is, is independence, is the breakup of the UK back on the cards?

9:37Ed Balls: It's certainly a huge moment if, as the polls strongly suggest, we're going to end up with three first ministers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, all leading nationalist parties who are in the long term committed to breaking ties between Scotland and the UK, Wales and the UK, Northern Ireland and the UK. And that's not happened before. An overturning of decades of history in Wales. I'm not sure that it immediately puts independence on the agenda. Plaid have been very clear. They are not seeking an independence referendum in this parliament if they win. It's low down the list of priorities for Welsh voters.

10:24Ed Balls: It's likely they will be governing with either Labour or the Greens if they are the largest party. But you can see a parallel with Scotland where when the SNP came into power back at the end of the 2000s, their strategy was to build confidence in them as a governing party in order to build confidence that a nationalist government could run Scotland or in this case Wales in a coherent and effective way. And then say, and if we were freed from the shackles of London and Westminster, that would be even better. In Scotland, John Sweeney is committed to a whole series of price controls, which I can't believe he's going to deliver.

11:06Ed Balls: He's also committed to holding. What do you mean by price controls?

11:10George Osborne: He says he's going to hold down the costs.

11:12Ed Balls: He said he's going to cap the prices of the 50 most important household foodstuffs, milk, bread. And he thinks he can deliver that to deal with the cost of living crisis. John Sweeney is an economist. I'm not sure what he thinks he's doing. It's not going to work. That'd be an interesting question for their credibility. He's also said that he's going to have a referendum. Of course, Scotland doesn't have the power, the Scottish Parliament doesn't have the power to call a referendum. It's kind of clear in law that that is a UK-Westminster decision and there'll be no majority for a second referendum in Scotland.

11:44George Osborne: No majority in the Westminster Parliament.

11:47Ed Balls: In the Westminster Parliament to allow a referendum in Scotland. I mean, it's not clear there is a referendum majority in Scotland either, but there certainly won't be in Westminster. What I think, though, the thing to look for is how do reform do in Wales and in Scotland in these elections? Do they do well? Do they have an established presence? Do they do less well? Because I think that the thing which we could see in this Parliament, if reform do well in these elections locally, they are running councils, by the way, a big challenge for Nigel Farage's party, and they continue to advance. and there was a real question of a reformed government in Westminster.

12:27Ed Balls: What I think you could see is that becoming, especially if Nigel Farage doubles down on the English nationalist position, which he's tended to do in the past, as Boris Johnson used to do as well. And that is something which starts to supercharge secession and nationalist sentiment in Scotland and Wales. So does Farage present himself as the English nationalist and start to push Wales and Scotland out of the UK door? Or does he do well enough in Scotland and Wales that he thinks to himself, you know, I need to speak more for the United Kingdom because I think I've got the opportunity to advance in Scotland and Wales too.

13:09I don't think we know which way he'll go.

13:11Ed Balls: My instinct, he'll go for English nationalism. And I think that is the thing which starts to push Scotland and Wales down that path. But if reform does better in these elections in Scotland and Wales, maybe that is a check.

13:24George Osborne: Well, my guess is, you know, if he does well, if reform do well in Wales, which seems pretty likely, and if they do well in Scotland. But even if you, you know, even if they don't do so well in Scotland, I think he presents himself as the only national party. He says, you know, the Conservatives aren't winning in parts of the country like Scotland.

13:44Ed Balls: By national, you mean UK national?

13:45George Osborne: Yeah, UK. I'm the UK party. You know, Labour's unrepresented in, you know, big swathes of the South and the Greens are only in our cities. And, you know, I think that will be what he tries to claim. And obviously that will be the sort of central outcome will be, are we on course for a reformed government? I mean, that, you know, if they do as well as predicted. but it does it's related to the independence question this because you know the only scenario I can see Westminster again voting for a referendum in Scotland which of course is what it did in 2014 you know it was a it was a Westminster Act of Parliament that allowed for a referendum in a deal with Alex Salmond you know I was in the government at the time around the how that referendum would be conducted and the question and who was eligible to vote and so on but it It was ultimately a Westminster decision and the courts, you know, the legal advice was very clear to both governments, the Scottish government and the UK government, that it had to be an act of parliament in Westminster.

14:44George Osborne: The only scenario I can imagine in the next decade where Westminster votes for a Scottish referendum is if there's a Labour minority government after the general election and they need SNP votes to stay in office and to kind of keep out maybe the reform and the Conservatives combined or something. And that's the price the SNP extract, not for a coalition potentially, but just a kind of supply and confidence deal. And I think it comes on to what I think we should be looking for in the next few weeks, which is what are the deals that are done locally in these councils and in these parliaments in Wales and Scotland?

15:23George Osborne: Because, for example, there's a lot of speculation that Labour will go into coalition as the minority party with Plaid Cymru in Cardiff. There's certainly been no objection expressed, as I can see, strong objection to Labour propping up applied nationalist government in Cardiff. But it's hard at the moment to see Labour MSPs supporting a SNP minority government if they don't have an overall majority in the Scottish Parliament, casting forward to other places across England. Will the Greens, who will be doing well at the expense of Labour, form local pacts with Labour councillors to run councils?

16:04George Osborne: will conservatives form pacts with reform? Well, it's going to be the kind of pattern of local pacts that are deemed to be acceptable, not just by the national parties, because actually sometimes national parties don't have a huge amount of control about what their local councillors do, but also what's sort of deemed acceptable by local parties and party activists. And I think the patterns of the coalitions you're going to find will give us a clue if we really are in seven-party politics now in Britain, if you include those nationalist parties, a clue to what might happen in a general election or rather in the aftermath of a general election if it's a hung parliament?

16:40George Osborne: Who can do a deal with who?

16:43Ed Balls: See, Kimi Badenoch has been very clear. She doesn't want conversations about reform, conservative deals, locality by locality. But as you say, she won't be able to stop that happening if that is the only way to govern. But that does pose a dilemma for her on the national stage where there was still a question. Could you imagine there being a UK-wide pre-election or post-election deal between the Conservatives and reform? I think similarly for Labour, it will be hard for the leadership to stop there being local Labour Green understandings, as we've seen in areas historically. I mean, I mentioned being in Sheffield.

17:25Ed Balls: I mean, that's exactly how Sheffield has been governed for some time. But the new direction that Zach Plansky has taken at the national level, much more kind of hard left anti-Labor and the rolling debate we've had very difficult for him. But I think this is not going to go away in the coming weeks and months debate about anti-Semitism linked to what is happening, you know, free Palestine being on the ballot in local elections here in the UK. I mean, that is going to make it, I think, much harder for there to be any kind of constructive conversation at the national level between the UK and the Greens.

18:07Ed Balls: And that is a difference from where we might have been three, five, seven years ago. I think it was much more possible to imagine that if there were Green MPs, a Labour Green understanding post an election, much harder for that to happen now. The one thing I'm just going to note is that the two parties who fight each other rarely in our local elections are reforms and Greens. But they also have supporters who hate the other. So there's nothing more galvanising for reform than to say, stop these Greens, the eco-warriors, these people who put up your fuel and stop you driving, getting into power.

18:43Ed Balls: And there's nothing more galvanising for the Green vote than, you know, vote Green. We've got to stop reform, you know, these kind of anti-immigration, I don't know, could be austerity warriors. And so both of them have an interest in taking massive lumps out of each other. And we've seen that in the last week. You had Nigel Farage saying our migration detention centres will only be built in areas where the Greens are doing well politically. So don't worry if you are a reform majority area. We're going to build it in the green areas because they deserve it. And the Greens fighting back. I think the reform, I mean, they have a mutual interest in hating each other.

19:24Ed Balls: It galvanises both of their votes. They don't actually fight each other in head to head elections very often. But it will be interesting to see how that also plays out.

19:34George Osborne: I think it's interesting also the Labour rhetoric against the Greens. If you listen to the Conservative rhetoric on reform, it tends to be they're not serious. Their sums don't add up. They're a bit of a fraud. You know, Kimmy Bainock's language is actually quite moderate because she doesn't want to say, I'm against people who vote reform. I want to persuade them to vote conservative. But the Labour language on Zach Polanski from members of the cabinet in the last week has been very, very aggressive on the range of problems or issues he's run into, like retweeting the criticism of the police who stopped the alleged attacker in Golders Green or issues.

20:15George Osborne: issues around his council tax and issues around his CV and whether he lied about representing the Red Cross. But, you know, I've noticed that Labour cabinet ministers go in on the morning news and really kind of trying to hit, you know, lay gloves on the Green leader. It's a different tactic.

20:34Ed Balls: The scars are deep here, partly because Keir Starmer had to fight so hard to deal with the anti-Semitism scourge within Labour, partly because the Jeremy Corbyn General Secretary of the Labour Party, Jenny Fornby, has just defected over to the Greens. Owen Jones, supporter of Ed Miliband, initial supporter of Keir Starmer, now a fervently opposed to Labour and Starmer because he's now firmly with Zach Polanski. I mean, I think what they see is, this is Corbyn hard left, reformed with a green tinge. The Zaha Sultana, Jeremy Corbyn, new party is sort of a bit irrelevant in these elections because the Greens have assumed that mantle.

21:22Ed Balls: And after five, 10, 20, 30 years fighting, as people would say in the Labour Party, fighting the trots, they're now called Greens, but it's many of the same people. And those, you know, that that anger runs deep on both sides. Yeah.

21:39George Osborne: No, no, it's interesting. And it's, I think, where the Conservatives started with UKIP many, many years ago and have ended up, in fact, with a somewhat more moderate message so that they're not trying to antagonise reform voters, even if they feel pretty strongly about reform MPs. Anyway, very interesting. What about Keir Starmer? You know, we'll be talking about this definitely next week. What about his future? is sort of set up as the big test. And there's lots of speculation that there either will or won't be leadership challenges. Lots of newspaper reports of Wes Streeting putting together a campaign or Angela Rayner putting together a campaign or dismantling their campaigns or whether Andy Burnham's going to come back into Parliament.

22:23George Osborne: We've been talking about this for months as the moment of maximum danger for the Starmer leadership. What's the kind of state of play today?

22:31Ed Balls: Well, I think it is a moment of huge danger and it's hard on Thursday to fully appreciate. As I was saying last week, I was describing being in the Wakefield counts and the toxicity in 2008 and 2009 when Labour councillors were being defeated seat by seat. And that emotional reaction hasn't begun yet. And that will happen through Friday and Saturday. And if Labour is on course to lose 1 ,500, 2 ,000 council seats, there's going to be lots of very angry people.

23:02George Osborne: I think you make a very good point. You can talk about results in advance, but it's not until you see them and feel them that they have the impact. Until that point, it's all hypothetical and all speculative. It's when it actually happens that the political impact is felt.

23:17Ed Balls: And that will be crystallising person by person, count by count, MP by MP, through in particular Friday afternoon into Friday evening, then into Saturday. But I think it's too early to feel that yet. The Starmer operation has clearly decided that they are going nowhere. Briefing the Financial Times that Keir Starmer is planning a blitz after the polls. He's going to have new policies announced in a speech. Don't divide. Stand together. There's a war on. I'm the man. You know, it's very policies.

23:53George Osborne: The reporting is there's going to be a speech on Monday, isn't there? And he's going to talk about closer links with the EU, social media ban for under 16s and so on. That's right. It's going to be a kind of set of crowd pleasing. Well, crowd pleasing potentially if you're a Labour leader under threat policy announcements.

24:09Ed Balls: That's right. Now, he's saying the status quo is not good enough. but the question is will there be acknowledgement that things have gone wrong is there an explanation for why things have gone wrong there is a danger always with these kind of fight back strategies that it ends up sounding tone deaf uh out of touch not facing up to the full reality of the defeat and if that interacts with that emotional reaction over the weekend who knows where we get to if you think back in history i'm not sure i can think of an example of a leader losing very badly thinking kind of fight on is a winning strategy that was what margaret thatcher said in um september into october in the early autumn of 1990 after the first ballot of course anthony mayer the backbencher had set up the conflict uh the year before the stalking horse and then it was michael heseltine who challenged he'd lost but um margaret thatcher just didn't win well enough.

25:03Ed Balls: She said, I fight on, an echo of her 1987 on and on and on message. And it went down very badly with Conservative MPs and the Conservative cabinet, because she wasn't facing up to the reality and she was gone within days. But I think what's going on is that they're calculating in number 10 that however bad the results are, there isn't an alternative plan which people are yet willing to enact. Angela Rayner has not had a HMRC report. Andy Burnham isn't in Parliament. West Streeting doesn't want to be the guy who's seen to wield the knife. Their calculation is that there isn't going to be an early putsch and therefore Keir Starmer can say I'm fighting on and get away with that.

25:48Ed Balls: And of course the risk is that in that emotional reaction something happens which is unexpected. What happens if Al Kahn, the defence minister, junior defence minister, suddenly goes out on Saturday evening and says, the cabinet are cowards, but things have got to change. And Keir Starmer is no longer the man to lead this country. And if nobody else will, I win. Suddenly, that's the kind of unexpected event which can tip all of this into spiral into chaos. So I think at the moment, the calculation in number 10 is that I'll get through the next few days. And I don't see at the moment who wants to put their head above the parapet but things could go out of control on Saturday and Sunday in ways which aren't expected.

26:31And suddenly at that point, cabinet members think,

26:34Ed Balls: well, you know, if it's happening, it's happening. And that's not the judgment they made back in February when Anas Sawa decided to put his head above the parapet. Will they make the same judgment this weekend?

26:44George Osborne: It is interesting. You mentioned Sawa, you know, the Labour leader in Scotland. I mean, he may double down on this if he loses heavily or Labour loses heavily in Scotland. And I think there's a sort of lesson there of, you know, you can't just announce you want to get rid of the Labour leader and then do nothing about it. I mean, you know, you've got to be consistent then in pursuing that objective.

27:05Ed Balls: I just think the other thing, I said this on the MQs last week, the Liz Truss impact. I mean, people, I think, underestimate how big an issue this is within Parliament and amongst on the Labour side at the moment. Tory MPs wanted Boris Johnson out. They wanted Rishi Sunak to be the new Prime Minister, but because it went to the members, they ended up with Liz Trust and that was a catastrophe. And I think the reality is that it's incredibly risky handing over party members the decision to choose the Prime Minister and having a two-month fight about that and all the things which gets said in that contest.

27:48Ed Balls: And I think Labour would probably think it's harder for Labour than for the Conservatives because of all the pressure within a leadership contest to start saying we want to spend more or are we going to borrow more at a time of fiscal challenge. And I think people are just really fearful of what that process would look like. I've always thought in government you want members of Parliament to choose the Prime Minister. And that was a change William Hay made, Ed Milliman made. Labour avoided it with Gordon Brown. Trees are made by mistake, avoided having to have a contest. In the end, Rishi Sinak became Prime Minister without a contest.

28:24Ed Balls: If you can avoid it in government, OK. But I think people look at this at the moment and they think, if Keir Starmer has to be pushed out and there is then a divisive contest, which the members decide, the potential for chaos is so great that they can't see the path. But then, as I said, then Al Cairns pops up and says, I'm doing it anyway, and off we go.

28:44George Osborne: Yeah, I mean, of course, this is the dilemma. You're sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place, which is, there's not, I don't think, as many Labour MPs who think that on the current trajectory, Labour is on course to win the next general election. And it's not like Margaret Thatcher in the early 80s losing local elections. I mean, you referred to her in the early 90s. But in the early 80s, the Tories are losing. But they go, that's fine. You know, this is the cod liver oil. We're delivering it to the country. It's tough medicine. But we're going to see the benefits of it by the time of the general election.

29:17George Osborne: Of course, there's also the Falklands War, which comes out of the blue. But, you know, I think a lot of times you can persuade yourself. It's part of the kind of conservative thinking, which is we deliver the tough message. But the tough message ultimately is one that the country understands is required. And we benefit from it politically, ultimately, when people get to a general election. I think, you know, the problem for Keir Starmer, we're two years into this Labour government. this big landslide win two years ago, this huge potential landslide defeat today in the local elections and Scottish and Welsh elections.

29:51George Osborne: And what's it all for? Has there been some really difficult reforms that Labour are pushing through that people will see the benefit of in a couple of years time, just, you know, you know, hold tight with our plan. You know, there's that just, I think there's just a sort of moment of a feeling of despair amongst the Labour folk, which is, like, how has it all gone so wrong? And then you get quite rightly to the mechanics of all this, Yes, but, you know, we don't want to let the members choose. And Keir Stummel will be relying on that. And of course, in the scenario you're referring to, the Thatcher in the early 90s, there is a big beast in the parliamentary party, Michael Heselstein, who's sort of like the Angela Rayner character, used to be in the cabinet no longer, who does decide, I'm going to trigger the contest.

30:35George Osborne: So it's a different situation here. I personally think, well, everyone's going to kind of coalesce, or certainly when I say everyone, people who are not Starmer supporters, or certainly a faction of the Labour Party is going to coalesce around this sort of narrower question, although important one, of whether Andy Burnham should be allowed to come back into Parliament. Because you can be in favour of that. Lucy Powell, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, was out this week openly saying Andy Burnham should be allowed back into Parliament. She's the deputy leader of the Labour Party. And you can say it without it being disloyal.

31:09George Osborne: You can say it without saying Keir Starmer should go, even though, of course, that is the implication, really, of him coming back. And I think it will come down to this whole issue of who controls the NEC, the governing body of the Labour Party, which I think under Morgan McSweeney, there was a very tight number 10 control of who got elected to it, who the union representatives were, who the parliamentary representatives were. and Keir Starmer had a big majority and that was also crucial in changing the Labour Party in the run-up to the last general election and ejecting Jeremy Corbyn and so on.

31:40George Osborne: Whereas now you know I wonder how much control he does have over the NEC or will have over the rest of this year and the NEC elections will become kind of proxies for being anti-Starmer and proxies for let's let Burnham into Parliament because I don't think there's any doubt that Andy Burnham turns up in parliament with the objective of triggering a leadership contest and probably with the 80 or so Labour votes he needs to make that happen. There's no doubt that people are traumatized by the fact

32:14Ed Balls: that within less than two years things have gone wrong and as you said it's not easy to point to the massive Thatcher economic reform and monetary policy choices of 1980 and you know and say the medicine's tough, we'll get through it. It's quite hard to point to the individual mistake, which can be reversed, like the Tempe tax abolition for Gordon Brown, and then reversed by him and Alistair Darling, or an international conflict. And the problem is, it comes back to a series of policy, political and communication errors made by Keir Starmer. And on your scenario, you have to say, well, we're just going to carry on with that for month after month after month.

32:56Ed Balls: until we see whether through an NEC process and what is potentially a difficult by-election, somebody else comes along. I just wonder whether it's possible for that to be the scenario. Once the debate has become so much about change, is it possible to hold off those pressures? And then the other thing is the leader still has a lot of patronage and a lot of control. And so I'm sure you're right. There's less focus on the NEC post-Morgan McSweeney. And yet at the same time, while you're the leader, you're still the leader. Well, there's a general rule. I think people will worry that just becomes a way of deferring rather than facing up to you.

33:32George Osborne: I mean, in all the years I was working for various Tory leaders, some of whom were deposed, some of whom weren't. It's very clear. If you're sitting around wanting to be in charge, waiting for the person who's currently in charge to just implode is usually a pretty poor strategy. You know, you have to go and grab the crown. It's normally the lesson. or get someone to grab, you know, at least trigger the circumstances in which you can grab the crowd.

33:58Ed Balls: And the one thing nobody in Labour wants to be accused of is being a David Milliband.

34:03George Osborne: Who could have been our ambassador if Kamala Harris was president, I was reading today. Anyway, we are going to turn to international events because they do also provide a backdrop to what's going on. They provide a platform potentially for Keir Starmer, but they also are bringing some tough economic news, which is the last thing the Labour government needs on top of everything else. and we're going to turn to the situation between the US and Iran next.

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35:12Ed Balls: So welcome back. For the third week running, I can ask George whether or not the war with Iran is over or whether the conflict is still underway. We've had messages from Pete Hesketh, the defence secretary, and from Donald Trump himself saying the ceasefires are holding. But at the same time, both Iran and America blockading the strait. Iranian boats sunk by US missiles, Iranian attacks in retaliation, but also trying to keep the strait closed. For a period earlier in the week, all prices soaring. Donald Trump now claiming that the talks are going better. There's a single piece of paper with Pakistan, which the Iranians are now considering.

36:00And, you know, as before, Donald Trump brushing off the idea that there's going to be long term economic damage.

36:08Ed Balls: This is him describing the state of play.

36:10George Osborne: They want to make a deal. We've had very good talks over the last 24 hours. And it's very possible that we'll make a deal. Yeah, please. But I thought we'd be down maybe 20 percent and we're up. The stock market's higher now than when we started this war. and I thought oil prices would go to$200,$250. It's at$100 now. And I think you're surprised and I'm surprised. But even if it went to$200, it would have been worth it. I understand that. We had just set a record,$50 ,000 on the Dow,$7 ,000 on the S &P, a record. And I said, I hate to do this, but we have to make an excursion down to Iran because we can't let them have a nuclear weapon.

36:54Ed Balls: Two days ago, the markets were in turmoil, had gone pessimistic. Things got a bit more optimistic yesterday, but it's still hard to see the path to peace. I was reading a piece on Substack by Lawrence Friedman. Clearly, this war is doing lots of damage to both sides, as well as the global economy. The Chinese calling for talks and for peace meeting the Iranian foreign minister yesterday. But at the same time, I mean, is there going to be a deal?

37:23George Osborne: Well, we are in, it's deja vu all over again, isn't it? We're in the same situation we were in a couple of weeks ago, which is there's a ceasefire, which I said a couple of weeks ago, it's not a ceasefire, it's a permanent end to the major military operations.

37:38Ed Balls: Although they're still fighting. there's still occasional incidents but donald trump and all the people you know under him in

37:47George Osborne: the american administration have gone out of their way to say the major war operations are over the fighting's over although trump does occasionally say and if they don't do a deal i'm going to hit them but um the actual uh ships we were talking about this the other day you know are all being diverted away the u.s kind of carrier groups and the assault ships and so on so i don't think this really any prospect or much prospect of major fighting to restarting. And if anything, actually, the US, who were looking at a kind of convoy plan to try and get ships through the Straits of Hormuz have backed off that as well.

38:21George Osborne: And at the same time, you know, there's clearly a dialogue happening between the Iranians and the US on a pretty regular basis, albeit at the moment via an intermediator, Pakistan, on the details of a negotiated peace. So it's certainly taking longer than markets had anticipated, you know, and I thought it would be over sooner than it has been. But I think the kind of central calculation, which is we're in the end game, is correct, and remains the case today. And at any point, you know, we might get the news that a deal's been done. And that's why markets, you know, I think Donald Trump, I'm not saying he's right, but, you know, he points to the fact that the US stock market is, you know, very buoyant.

39:05George Osborne: Isn't it? You know, one of the interesting features of this is that one of the biggest kind of winners from this conflict and the higher oil price has in fact been the US oil exporting economy. I mean, the US is one of the biggest oil exporters in the world these days. There's things like fracking and development of oil and gas reserves around the US. And so these, you know, oil and gas companies are posting huge profits. And it's the regions of the world that least wanted the war, Europe and China, and indeed, more broadly, kind of Southeast Asia and East Asia, who are struggling because they're not their energy importers, they're oil and gas importers.

39:46George Osborne: So there's a kind of irony there that the people are doing well out of it are the US, the Russians, the Iranians themselves, soil exporters, the Gulf states, and the people who have been kind of watching from the sidelines, wringing their hands about it, all the ones who are losing out.

40:00Ed Balls: It's an interesting conversation about what changes as a result of this conflict. As you say, I mean, the one thing you can definitely say is that for people going on holiday or going to the supermarket in Britain and across Europe, also in America, for the next probably three to six months, even if the war is over and the straits open quickly, they're going to pay a price for that. Other consequences, the new Iranian regime, the old one is destroyed, the new Iranian regime, is it weaker or is it more consolidated than in the past? The one thing they absolutely know is that if they want to, they can have America and the world over a barrel by closing the Strait of Hormuz.

40:44Ed Balls: And so that sort of changes a bit of the dynamic. I'm not sure in a good way for everybody else. The other thing is, in the opinion polls, J.D. Vance has taken a bit of a hit, and Marco Rubio is on the up. The guy who delivered Venezuela has been the person who's sort of been more seen as consistent with Trump. So I wonder if it changes the dynamic for the next American presidential election as well.

41:09George Osborne: Well, I think it's too soon to tell. Although, you know, Rubio, it's been a big stage, hasn't it, for Rubio to present his credentials on. and also we discovered a hidden talent or something I didn't know about but he turns out to be a DJ as well the Secretary of State there's been some footage of him DJing at a party

41:28Ed Balls: during all this Not the first wasn't the former US Secretary of State Blinken was also a rock guitarist and he would often join a band and play when he was on tour diplomatic tour in his Secretary of State duties so you know it's obviously catching

41:43George Osborne: Yeah and of course the Argentinian president is also in a rock band

41:47Ed Balls: um and this and and and your podcast co-host as well oh of course all the world leaders and rock stars i teed you up for that and you didn't take it

42:00George Osborne: you're in the venn diagram between world leader and rock star right you um well no potential world leader with marco oh yeah of course of course um

42:14Ed Balls: that was such a foolish thing to say i knew as i said it this this is a disaster but i thought you

42:18George Osborne: know for the podcast i'll plow on i know i know i'm glad that you see yourself as a potential world leader um talking about world leadership i mean there are some big geopolitical things at work here uh i think one of the biggest developments of the last week has been the UAE, the United Arab Emirates, that's, you know, essentially Abu Dhabi, but also Dubai, leaving OPEC. And they're one of the world's biggest oil and gas producers, huge weakening of OPEC, big win for the US. Your point about the Straits of Hormuz, I will pick you up on a little bit. It's not that they got the US over a barrel, because the US has not been relying on oil imports from the Middle East.

42:58George Osborne: It's they've got the kind of rest of the world over a barrel, And that puts pressure on the US and, you know, does to some degree set the kind of gas price at the pump in the US. But also the Iranians know this Iranian leadership. There's a strategy called mow the grass, isn't there, which is not a very pleasant term, which is, you know, the Iranians know and the Israelis and the US can always come back and bomb these nuclear facilities if they get them up and running again. And that's called the mow the grass strategy that the US and Israel might be pursuing in the future. What about, let's talk about the UK.

43:34George Osborne: I mean, I think it is still striking, isn't it, that of all the G7 economies, the one that is seen to have been most affected by this conflict in terms of its economy is the UK. And I think that does require some explanation for people, doesn't it? Why are we more affected than France or Germany or Canada or Japan, the other members of the G7? We're not directly involved. And it's been reflected, although they go up and down these prices, but the bond yields on UK government debt earlier this week hit a multi-decade high, i.e. the cost of Britain is paying more than anyone else in the G7 to borrow.

44:16George Osborne: So why has the UK been particularly exposed to this conflict?

44:20Ed Balls: You have to start with inflation and what has been happening to UK inflation and interest rates, what was expected to happen. Before the conflict, markets were expecting UK interest rates to come down, but to come down less than in Europe or in America. I worry there was a more persistent inflation problem in Britain. And then when the conflict started, the UK, like many countries, opened economy, exposed to international oil, petrol, food prices. But the worry in financial markets was that we were going to be harder hit by that inflation shock because there was an underlying inflationary problem in Britain anyway.

45:06Ed Balls: And therefore markets...

45:07George Osborne: Which is a harking back to the kind of 70s, 80s. It's a reawakening of a fear that the British economy has more of a tendency to high inflation than others.

45:17Ed Balls: And just based on the fact that inflation has been slower to come down in Britain since the global pandemic and the Bank of England was struggling to get it down. Markets are now still expecting interest rates not to fall in the UK, but to rise twice by the end of this year in order to get inflation down. They're expecting in the US interest rates not to go down, but not to go up either. As I've said on the podcast in the last few weeks, I don't think that will end up being what happens. Because I think in the end, the Bank of England needs to look through the short term price shock and worry about the dangers of recession in the second half of the year from this slowdown.

45:56Ed Balls: But that is not what markets are currently expecting. What the Bank of England did last Thursday, they didn't cut or raise interest rates. They kept them on hold, but they broke from their historic pattern of publishing their forecast for inflation. And instead, they set out 18 different scenarios, three different broad scenarios. One, oil prices come down. Two, they come down, but much more slowly. Or three, that you have like a big long term oil and inflation shock, which really lasts. and the Bank of England, they have five different policy or I think six different policy responses in each one, most of which say they'll have to raise interest rates, but not all of them.

46:42Ed Balls: I looked at this and thought, this may be an unusual and smart thing to do at a time of great uncertainty, but for the Bank of England, it's been hugely important for their accountability that they have a clear inflation target. they explain how their actions are meeting the inflation target that the conversation in the monetary policy committee is about what we are doing to meet that inflation target based on our forecast if the bank of england starts thinking it's a good idea to have 18 different scenarios every time they make a decision i think they're going to get into big trouble let's just hope this is a one-off don't move away from the clarity and accountability of the single forecast and the inflation target and the MPC conversation minuteed in that context.

47:30Ed Balls: But as I said, I think they're going to cut rates, not raise rates, but markets disagree.

47:34George Osborne: Is it just an inflation issue in the UK? Is it also a concern around some things we've been talking about, the fiscal position in the UK? The connection there is people think it's a weak Labour government, there might be a leadership change, there might be coalitions after the next election with fiscally incontinent parties like Reform and Greens.

47:51Ed Balls: I think there is also a fiscal worry in Britain, partly because of political instability, partly because the debt GDP ratio is high. If you look at markets this week, markets were assuming that interest rates were not going to come down as fast. And therefore, at the short end, they ticked up. but that meant that the yield curve which is the path of interest rates one, three, five and seven years in America and in Germany became flatter. It was higher at the short end. In Britain the whole curve moved up at one year, three year, five year, ten year. That says markets are thinking it's not simply about short term interest rates it's also about an underlying fiscal risk and I I think there definitely is a worry that is the UK suddenly going to borrow more for some big energy price cap?

48:46Ed Balls: Could a leadership contest destabilise that? My personal view is, I talked about the Liz Truss effect earlier. I think there's a second Liz Truss effect in British politics, which is I don't think any candidate trying to get elected is going to start saying, Labour or Conservative, is going to start saying in a leadership contest that they're going to want to, in a big time way, borrow more and drop fiscal rules. I think if they try to, the market reaction, unless they are languishing in the polls, will be very negative. And the sense of economic and political risk from doing that will be so intense.

49:26Ed Balls: Every time Andy Burnham has flirted with it, he's been not very hard. I think he's learned his lesson. So I don't think that's how it will turn out. but markets are sceptical, cynical, worried. There's definitely some UK fiscal risk too.

49:41George Osborne: What's the solution to all this? Maybe we should be getting closer to the EU. Perhaps we should even be rejoining it. That is a conversation being had inside the Labour Party at the moment and there's a promise of a big speech from Keir Starmer we mentioned next week about closer EU relations but it might come with a price tag and we're going to talk about that next.

50:13George Osborne: welcome back so keir starmer when he wasn't campaigning in the local elections this week was in armenia of all places which has been hosting the european political community summit and the epc is a creation of emmanuel macron as a sort of post-brexit and uh ukraine guided attempt to create a meeting of all the European nations, which apparently include Armenia. There was a discussion there about the need for closer alignment with the EU. He raised it, the prime minister, in an article in The Observer. But there is a potential price tag. We are being told, so far just briefings, nothing public, that the EU is saying to Keir Starmer's government, if you want to get back into the single market, or even if you want to enjoy some of the benefits of the single market.

51:02George Osborne: And remember, he's already announced and Rachel Reeves has already announced that we're going to be following single market rules much more closely than before. If you want to do that, then you have to pay again into the EU coffers. And the price tag is around a billion euros a year. And for those with memories of 10 years ago, this brings back the pictures of the bus and whether the money should be spent on the EU or spent on the NHS and so on. So let's hear Keir Starmer, first of all, speaking at this summit. It's in our national interest to be closer to Europe. And whether that's the EU loan scheme, which we are discussing with them, that's of great benefit to Ukraine.

51:46George Osborne: But it's also a great benefit to the United Kingdom as well in terms of the jobs that it will create in the United Kingdom. So the benefit there outweighs the cost. But more generally, it is important that we see our future as a closer relationship with the EU. That's in our national interest. And that's what I've been discussing here and on previous occasions, of course, at our summit that will be coming up in coming months. So what do you think, Ed? A, do you think it's a good deal for Britain? In other words, just on the merits, we should pay to play, as the EU diplomats put it, we should make a contribution in order to get access to parts of the single market.

52:25George Osborne: And B, you know, tell us about the kind of politics of the Labour Party. Why is this where Keir Starmer's going as his response to his political problems?

52:34Ed Balls: Let's talk about the policy first in this Times piece, which, you know, I think is a good piece of journalism. I've had different people say to me, it's a complete punt and it's a statement of the obvious.

52:45George Osborne: Both can be true.

52:46Ed Balls: Yeah, exactly. There's been no, as I understand it, demand from Europe that you would have to pay a billion pound entry fee. And in fact, the negotiations which have happened between Britain and the EU over the last few years haven't required a payment into the European budget. On the other hand, we've always talked and the Brexiteers talked about, could you have a Swiss type arrangement or a Norwegian arrangement as an out country with the EU? But of course, Switzerland and Norway, they do pay money into the European budget. And what happened was Switzerland negotiated a new deal last year in which they agreed to pay in return for market access 375 million euros a year.

53:29Ed Balls: And if you extrapolate from the size of the Swiss economy to the size of the British economy, that's how you get to your billion pounds. And so there's a bit of a punt in that. But the Europeans have said...

53:40George Osborne: It's still a fraction. I mean, a billion euros or pounds, either way, they're about the same these days. It's like one thousandth of the UK annual budget or less than. I mean, it sounds like a lot of money, but in the scheme of the UK government budget, it's tiny, right?

53:56Ed Balls: And the Europeans are saying, if you want to move on to your next discussion, for example, about access to the European electricity market, you would need at that point to make a payment. But I mean, I think most economists would say the benefits you get from being part of or more aligned to the single market, the same might be said of the customs union, would give substantial economic benefits, which would absolutely make the pay to play price worth paying. And the truth is, if you are a Remainer or a Brexiteer, you ought rationally to be able to agree on that. I think the difficulty is this, that if you start to get into a closer relationship with the single market, the European approach in the past has always been, well, you can only do that if you sign up to the fundamental tenets of the European Union, one of which is free movement of labour.

54:54Ed Balls: And Switzerland, not a member of the European Union, not only pays into the European budget, but in order to get its single market access, also has to agree to free movement. They have an emergency break. It's very, you know, to get out in exceptional circumstances is very controversial. There's a referendum happening in Switzerland about this coming up very shortly. I think actually the controversy in the next stage of talks for Keir Starmer and for Britain would be less, you must make a financial contribution, although I'm sure that would be contested. But if people start to say, well, you have to start agreeing to open your labour market borders.

55:34Ed Balls: And if you listen to Kemi Badenoch's response to Keir Starmer earlier in the week and you listen carefully, it's the free movement issue that she is really focusing on.

55:47George Osborne: If Keir Starmer starts rowing back on the instruction that the country gave us on Brexit, that we will reverse the changes he made. If he starts new deals on free movement, we already have a huge immigration problem at the moment. We need to bring immigration down. If he does anything that brings free movement through the back door, we will reverse it. Same if he starts paying new money to the EU. We cannot afford it, for example. There are a lot of things which Keir Starman needs to make sure he does in the national interest. My worry is that when Labour negotiates, Britain loses.

56:20Ed Balls: And I think the point is, George, I don't think in this parliament, I don't think in the next parliament, any British Prime Minister, including Keir Starmer, is going to be renegotiating with the European Union to open up free movement. I think that is much harder than the European budgetary contribution, which would be very controversial. Nigel Farage, of course, would make that a big fight. The problem for some European countries, think about France at the moment with the presidential election coming up. If you give the impression that it's possible to be a member of the European Union or as an out, a member of the single market without free movement, that is very destabilising within French politics.

57:06Ed Balls: You know, the Le Pen successor party jumps on that immediately and says, well, shouldn't that be our path? And so I think there is a lot of resistance within parts of the European Union and the Commission to allowing that kind of deal, even if Britain is paying a billion euros a year or whatever, that may not be enough to unlock the door.

57:28George Osborne: Yeah, I certainly agree that free movement is the bigger trap here. I mean, on the money, you can still put a billion euros on the bus and say, oh, we'd rather spend the money on the NHS. And, you know, without relitigating Brexit, you know, the money that was saved from the EU contributions was, you know, vastly wiped out by the loss of trade and smaller UK economy that would otherwise have been the case. But, you know, Nigel Farage absolutely can get out there and say, I'd rather spend the billion euros on, you know, your local hospital. It's much harder, I think, for Kemi Bednock. And hopefully in that passage, you know, we played there.

58:06George Osborne: She's trying to pick her way between these two things, because I think if you get to the general election and Labour is paying a billion euros a year, but has got significant access to parts of the single market.

58:19Ed Balls: This is the trap you've often talked about.

58:21George Osborne: Yeah. Then, you know, the Conservative Party goes into that election saying we will tear, you know, we're going to renegotiate. We're going to take our money back. And the business community says absolutely no way we're having that again. And I don't think the Conservatives can win a general election without the support of the business community. I think that is a kind of minimum requirement for Conservatives in opposition to get back into power. And certainly it's historically been the case. And there were lots of periods when the business community supported Labour and Conservatives were stuck in opposition.

58:48Ed Balls: So your argument is that for Keir Starmer or for Labour, being willing to pay an amount of money to get a good deal for investment and jobs, if you can entice Kemi Baden-Ock and Nigel Farage into opposing that, that is potentially a political opportunity.

59:05George Osborne: It's less of an opportunity against Farage because I think everyone, you know, his position is sort of baked in. But the Tory party wants to be the party of business again and, in fact, seize an opportunity because of the lack of support for Labour's economic plan amongst the business community. I think for Keir Starmer, this ticks a number of boxes. First of all, it's a plan. Plan beats no plan. And one of the big criticisms about him is he hasn't had a plan. And second, you know, most people, of course, will be contested by hardline Brexiteers, but most people say this will likely lead to an increase in UK GDP compared to what it otherwise would be.

59:39George Osborne: And he's got to ultimately, the prime minister, get the economy growing between now and the general election. This is one of the few levers he can pull that will actually make a difference. And third, I think it probably shores him up within the Labour movement, because among Labour supporters these days, and certainly Labour body activists and Green supporters, being pro-European is still a very positive thing. I mean, it does beg the question, we should leave it here, but, you know, we could have a quick conversation about it and then come back to it later. There's some speculation now that having an EU referendum again might even be in the Labour manifesto at the next election.

1:00:19George Osborne: But on the grounds that the kind of people who wanted Brexit don't support Labour anymore anyway, reform will hoover up in the Red Wall. Anyway, where Labour can get its support is amongst and where it needs to stop people drifting off to the Greens or the Liberal Democrats is amongst kind of pro-Europeans, middle class people, professional people in the cities. And you might even peel off some people who otherwise might vote Conservative.

1:00:42Ed Balls: It's certainly the case. Peter Kellner was writing this in his substack a few weeks ago, that Labour has been losing far more votes to Greens, the Liberal Democrats or not coming out to vote than they've been losing to reform. And as you say, a more forward position on Europe is attractive to that greater bulk of people Labour has been losing. My worry is, and I always thought the second referendum was a catastrophic error for that part of the Labour movement at the time. And Keir Starmer was part of that because it gave the impression that we were going to go backwards to try and remake the past as it was.

1:01:25Ed Balls: And people don't have a particularly rosy view of that past even now. And I don't think that Keir Starmer, whether you're talking about paying some money to the European budget for better single market access or jumping to a bigger argument about Europe, I think if it's going backwards, that's a problem. What I think Keir Starmer needs to do is not simply, or the Labour leader needs to do, is not simply be technocratic about details here on energy markets or border controls or young people. you have to make a bigger argument about Britain's future relationship with the European Union. It needs to have a bit more vision in it, a bit more excitement, a bit more, you know, linked to what's happening in Ukraine, paralleling with the Swiss negotiations, a new relationship for a new era.

1:02:15Ed Balls: Because I think if people see this as being a backward step, and a backward step, which includes a backward step into free movement, I just think that ends up being a politically losing argument for Keir Starmer and for Labour, as was the case back in 2019. I don't think a repeat of the 2019 election is in anybody's interest. So there is a view which says, there's a very interesting Simon Nixon sub-stack, it used to be a Times leader writer, saying there's no halfway house. Either you stick with the status quo or you have to go back in. because trying to find the closer relationship from the outside is just doomed to failure.

1:02:59Ed Balls: But I wouldn't give up on trying to find a new relationship because I just don't think repeating 2019 is a good idea.

1:03:07George Osborne: I seem to remember someone called Peter Mandelson giving a speech about how Britain had to either be all in or it was going to be out. I don't know what happened to him.

1:03:16Ed Balls: I remember being at a conference with you in about 2012, 2013, where you made a similar argument. And I was arguing you could be outside the euro and still in the European Union. And you were more cautious about that.

1:03:29George Osborne: Well, I certainly thought it was a difficult position to maintain, which turned out to be the case. That is true. Much to my own cost and the country's cost, I would say. Not that those two things are necessarily related. That is it for this week's episode of Political Currency. We're certainly going to be talking about all these issues in the coming weeks ahead.

1:03:50Ed Balls: Join us on Monday for Experiences Questions, where we'll answer all your biggest political queries and ideas.

1:03:55George Osborne: And if you can't wait until Monday, you can get that episode early and ad-free by becoming a member of our Kitchen Cabinet or indeed our Gold subscriber.

1:04:02Ed Balls: That's right. EMQ is three days early. Our main episode is ad-free. Bonus content, all of our Libya series from a few weeks ago. A mug, a members-only chat and a regular newsletter.

1:04:17George Osborne: Yes, you get the newsletter, voice note, photos of what we've been up to. We talk about news, history, culture even, occasionally. Pop music, in your case. Snooker. The Sistine Chapel. Everything's covered.

1:04:32Ed Balls: Pigeon fancying. Our next edition is out on Monday and we'll be giving fresh thoughts on the local elections and what the results mean.

1:04:38George Osborne: And if you want to send in your own questions to EMQs, you can message us on our social media or email us at questions at politicalcurrency.co.uk. See you on Monday for EMQs.

1:04:48Ed Balls: See you then.