Why no one can 'land a glove' on Farage

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

0:27Ed Balls: the osborne has landed george osborne um 8 a.m this morning landing from san francisco into heath row we are in london but remote because you know you had to go back and um shave and recover and shower and all those kind of things but you're back i am back i wasn't on the state

0:45George Osborne: visit in a parallel universe. I might have been, but I wasn't. I was at a company offsite. I don't know if you've ever done one of those, Ed, but do you know what swag is?

0:55Ed Balls: I know what an offsite is, but I don't know. I thought swag is what you steal if you are like a global capitalist baron trying to steal from the people.

1:05George Osborne: You're thinking of your old Marxist days. Swag is the stuff that the company gives you with all their brands on it. So I've got a rather nice kind of open AI jacket as a result of my trip.

1:17Ed Balls: Well, it's a step up from the hoodie.

1:18George Osborne: It is a bit of a step up. It's more like a kind of artist's apron, I would say.

1:23Ed Balls: Why do they want to give you a jacket?

1:25George Osborne: It's all to do with company loyalty.

1:27Ed Balls: With motivation.

1:29George Osborne: Team building and all that, remember?

1:30Ed Balls: Yes, I suppose so.

1:31George Osborne: Remember that in politics? I know none of the political parties are currently doing that kind of thing, but, you know, there was a time when we had away days and off-sites and the like in politics, wasn't there?

1:42Ed Balls: It is interesting. I still wear my Canadian Ottawa 1998, I think it was, G20 green jacket, sort of fleece thing. So I was about to say, other than Rory McIlroy, Rory, who gets a jacket? But then I suddenly realised I've got one. So there we are. Historic swag.

2:01George Osborne: I'm not sure there's a direct comparison between the jacket you get for winning the US Masters and the bit you get for being a bag carrier at some international gathering. But if you like it, did you? Of course, I've missed your this week. You've broken onto the big screen, haven't you? I mean, you are now a film star, a TV star, because you have a key role in the new ITV drama, Secret Service, by our friend Tom Bradbury. He's written it, and it's now been turned into a very successful TV show.

2:31Ed Balls: The right phrase is guest star. Susanna Reid and I guest starred in the new Tom Bradbury. It's his novel, onto the TV screen, Secret Service, starring Gemma. Arterton, brilliant cast. It's all about Russian infiltration into British politics and it's all on ITVX and I have to say I've only seen the first three episodes of five. It is really, really good. Although I'll let you into a secret which I shouldn't do. Tom Bradbury is in there reading the news. Susanna and I are there interviewing the Foreign Secretary on Good Morning Britain. But Robert Peston also interviews the Foreign Secretary, brilliant actor.

3:08Ed Balls: What, Robert

3:09George Osborne: Or the Foreign Secretary?

3:10Ed Balls: No, the Foreign Secretary. But I was talking to Tom Bradby because, you know, we deliver our lines so well, Susanna and I, that I think we might be in Series 2. I'm sure Robert Peston will be as well, but the actor was told, you know, just prepare yourself because there will be, as there always is in dramas like this, eight takes. They said the possibility of Robert Peston asking you the same question each time, let alone the same question once in the eight takes is very very low because that's just not what he does and so robert basically rewrote the whole script in order for his cameo but

3:46George Osborne: there we are i think it still worked so you were playing yourself but uh your wife was played by

3:52Ed Balls: someone else um it was a man and uh the suspicion is that they are controlled by the russians and

3:59George Osborne: so it's definitely not of course anyway we should get on with this podcast and let's start before we get into the big subjects we're going to talk about by just noting these horrific crimes in Golders Green, the stabbings of two individuals. Obviously, it's all sort of unfolding bravery from passers-by, from members of the Jewish community who helped defend that community and by the Metropolitan Police. But I think it quite rightly has sparked a big, big debate about anti-Semitism and that anti-Semitism now spilling into very serious threats to the life and limbs of the Jewish community here, who are the most threatened community in Britain.

4:44George Osborne: And a big question about how they're being policed, the intelligence support that they're getting, and I think a broader question about how we monitor these threats in our society and more to the point confront them. That's right.

4:59Ed Balls: On this podcast, sometimes we refer back to past conversations we've had. And of course, on EMQs last week, prompted by the former DEFRA Permanent Secretary Tamara Finkelstein, picking us up on the fact that most schools in the UK will not go through a shooter drill. But that is something which is routine in Jewish schools. We were both saying how the Jewish community doesn't just want to be told that they should feel safe. They don't want to live in a country where this threat is even kind of real and being talked about. It shouldn't be part of their lived experience to have to go through these extra security protocols.

5:41Ed Balls: I think the interesting thing is that even though this was a 45-year-old man who's been arrested with mental health issues, It's been treated as a terrorist incident. And, you know, there'll be lots of investigation to see whether it is linked kind of wider. I know that the Met in recent weeks have talked about the Iranian threats, although whether that applies in this case, time will tell. But it's shocking and terrible. and there will be a big sort of scrutiny about lots of different aspects of our security, but also our politics and why events happening in other parts of the world are being used as a weapon to attack British Jews in gold is green.

6:25Ed Balls: I mean, it's just so, so wrong.

6:27George Osborne: Yeah, I think we will take a much longer look at it once the facts are clear and the kind of immediate aftermath of the shock has passed. But for this show, we're going to look at three different topics. We're going to start with the King's historic state visit to the United States to celebrate or commiserate, maybe, if you're the King, the 250th anniversary of US independence. How did the visit go? What does it say about US-UK relations? and has there been any reflected glory on the British government who sent the head of state there or are they still in the hole called Peter Mandelson?

7:10Ed Balls: And then we are one week away from local election polling day and these local elections are set to be historic in Wales, across England. It looks like the first victory for Plaid Cymru ever in Wales but potentially a record-breaking worst ever result for the Labour government next Thursday. We're going to look ahead to the local elections, what to look out for, and also where this looks like it's going to leave Kemmer Badenock and Keir Starmer.

7:44George Osborne: And then finally, we're just going to have a quick look at what has happened to the assisted dying bill. This is about helping people legally end their life if they have a terminal disease. It was one of the first big announcements of the Labour government a couple of years ago that it was going to give time and support to a Labour backbencher who brought this legislation. A bit of an echo of the 1960s and the great social reforms back then. Well, now it's kind of run into the brick wall of the House of Lords. Part of the parliamentary session has ended. And we're just going to take a look at what happens next on something that is causing a pretty profound debate in our country.

8:22Ed Balls: But we're going to start with the King's visit. Still underway while we're recording this podcast. I think they're going to the National Cemetery in Arlington today before a farewell from Donald Trump. Of course, the weekend saw another assassination attempt on Donald Trump's life at the Correspondents' Dinner, which risked overshadowing this visit. But I have to say, those people who said this was a mistake, the king shouldn't go, that he would be embarrassed, Britain would be embarrassed, pull the trip. I just think they've been totally proved wrong by the hugely skillful way in which the king, but also the palace, have handled this.

9:05Ed Balls: We've in the past talked about the great skill of the royal palace speechwriters, but also the people who put together these trips. They have such decades of understanding and know-how. I just think it's been pitch perfect from the king, despite the odd noises off from Donald Trump, culminating on Tuesday, the address to Congress, where the king had 12 standing ovations while delivering a whole series of very pointed but beautifully and diplomatically delivered warnings about politics and extremism and ignoring victims and not valuing our history. And then on to the White House dinner. I think the joke which had most attention was the king saying to Donald Trump, just to point out, when you say, if it hadn't been for America, all of you Brits and Europeans could have been speaking German after the events of 1939, 1940, the king reminded him as if it hadn't been for British engagement with America in the fight against the French in the 1750s, and Americans could all have been speaking French rather than British today.

10:17Ed Balls: My favourite one, though, was the little dig he made in the context of Donald Trump's Greenland extraterritorial ambitions. And it's funny, and it's just on the nose. Have a listen.

10:32George Osborne: This land of opportunity has nourished some of humanity's greatest minds from the industrial age to the space age. so many miracles of the modern world have been and still are invented in America. Indeed, we have followed the voyage of Artemis II, or Artemis II, as my family and I might like to call her, with close attention. Now, I know you have big plans for the moon, Mr President, but I have actually checked the papers, and I rather suspect it is already part of the Commonwealth, I'm afraid. So, yeah, I agree with you. a very well done state visit and if you think back just as you were saying a couple of weeks ago everyone was saying oh maybe it should be cancelled ed davie saying it should be cancelled remember in parliament i mean that all looks pretty foolish now and it's a reminder the value of these things that that our head of state isn't political and therefore can be sent into situations like this and of course marking a big historic moment in the history of our country and our culture but also pouring kind of oil and troubled waters and sort of smoothing things over and I thought it was interesting that even in an environment like that where the king is very constrained in what he can say some of his own personal priorities came forth actually he had a section for example in his speech in the congress on the environment and the melting ice caps which you know wouldn't have been recommended by um I suspect that you know number 10 or or particularly welcomed by the Republicans, but he wanted to say it and he did, but he did it in a way that didn't look aggressive and imposing.

12:09George Osborne: I actually met someone, I was in California while this was all happening, and I sat next to someone at this offsite, I was out with my company, who had been in the room at that shooting, the correspondence dinner at one of the tables. And it's just a reminder, I mean, he said to me, you have no idea, George, how close they got this shooter. it was a bit like the assassination attempt a couple of years ago you know of donald trump where the bullet just misses him um here the the shooter penetrates the security cordon is running into the room and it's only because he trips that he's actually stopped and the guy i was with he said it was all you know obviously utterly confusing and no one quite knew what was happening until suddenly all the secret service popped up and the paramilitary forces popped up but you know if you'd been armed with an automatic weapon which you might well have been in america he almost certainly would have gone into the room and started killing people so the whole visit could have obviously taken place against a very different backdrop or indeed not taken place at all but i agree with you great it went ahead i can't you know i'm always very careful on this show not to ask you what does yvette think or what do you talk about at home because i'm a respecter of uh of her job and you did your job as well so but I can't help ask because you must have spoken to her and she's been at all these great events these dinners and these congressional speeches and as foreign secretaries do on state visits she's been accompanying the king and queen what yes

13:36Ed Balls: can you tell us what she's been saying the one thing which um she said to me it was late at night midnight in America um after the White House dinner um early in the morning for me I was in the Good Morning Britain studio. She rang me on the way back to the hotel. I don't know the detail of what happened in the bilateral between the King and Donald Trump and her and Rubio Vance, the ambassador, because, you know, that wasn't on camera. What she did say was that she actually found the speech to Congress to be deeply emotional. She said she was actually tearful. And the reason was this, that we have all grown up as huge fans of America.

14:18Ed Balls: You know, you, Yvette and I, we've been there many times. Yvette studied. Studied at Harvard. Yvette studied in Harvard. She did. And America is such a divided society today. It's so worrying and dangerous. And there she was in Congress with our king, delivering messages, including about the dangers of unchecked executive power and making sure that you listen to victims. But he did so with such skill that you had Democrats and Republicans all standing up together to applaud what he was saying. She said it was so impressive, but also important to watch this moment and to think that it is possible through speech and leadership to get that sense of unity.

15:07Ed Balls: And I do think the lasting impact of this is that for Republicans and Democrats in Congress, if Donald Trump in the next few months suddenly starts sounding off, attacking Britain, singling us out on tariffs, that will jar with some of the things he was saying about the King's speech and what a brilliant speech it was and what a good friend he is and what close allies we are. So I do think these things have an impact and that is a powerful thing to see. Interesting, I don't know whether you saw this, Robert Hardman, the royal biographer, he and the Daily Mail did some research, which came out on Monday.

15:45Ed Balls: I'm sure this would have been discussed in the meeting. I don't know if it did to reveal that Donald Trump and the king are apparently 15th cousins. This all dates back 500 years.

15:56George Osborne: Aren't we all like seventh cousins? Well, that was the point.

16:00Ed Balls: So they are 15th cousins, all back to Donald Trump's mother, her line, all the way back to some lord in Scotland in the 500 years ago. I actually asked, thinking I was going to be chatting to you, chat GPT and Claude, how many 15th cousins I or the king would have. And the answer is, if you assume, this is over 400 to 500 years, two and a half kids in each generation, by the time you get to the 10th cousin, you've probably got 4.6 million. And therefore, once you get to the 15th cousin, you are, I mean, it's almost impossible to calculate, but you've gone through hundreds of millions into the billions.

16:40Ed Balls: But who cares? Because if Donald Trump on that day thought, here I am with my 15th cousin, he was quite well behaved. I mean, he had the odd moment telling everybody in the White House banquet the king's view on Iran and nuclear weapons. But then actually afterwards, after the king had gone up to New York saying, well, you know, of course, if King Charles had been in charge, which Donald Lee isn't in Britain, then he would have supported Donald Trump in his attacks on Iran a few weeks ago in the way that Keir Starmer didn't. The thing is, though, a week or two weeks ago, you would have thought that would have been a massive moment.

17:13Ed Balls: And in fact, it wasn't a massive moment because actually the king just, you know, styles it out, looks at his menu, shrugs it off. Nobody really minds, nobody thinks that there's any truth in that. By the way, while we're talking, I've got to say to you, because for the last two weeks, I've been saying to you, Trump, Iran, you know, I'm not totally sure whether your optimism is quite bearing fruit all price soaring you know the straits of homus look to be shut for months not quite going according to i don't know whether it was jd's plan but whosever plan it was not sure

17:43George Osborne: it's going according to plan well two things are true on there one is um i said that the ceasefire was going to be permanent that there wasn't going to be a resumption of fighting and i don't think that looks remotely likely and despite the threats from donald trump but it's also proving being really difficult to solve this conundrum of how to reopen the straits and who has control over them. And, you know, the US is blockading Iran, but Iran is sort of not blockading the straits, but making it impossible for ships to go through. I guess the optimism that there would be an earlier solution to this has gone, although markets are still assuming that there will be a solution.

18:20George Osborne: And at the moment, everyone's still in a wait and see pattern. I mean, we've got the, The Fed has kept rates on hold and the Monetary Policy Committee this morning hasn't yet reached its decision while we're recording this, but is expected to keep rates on hold, too. That's all true. I mean, I guess the only thing that did kind of blow back a bit from the visit was the comments of our ambassador, the actual ambassador to the United States, not the person who the government wanted to send to the United States, Peter Manus. I'm coming on to him in a moment. But Christian Turner, who's one of our most experienced diplomats, after the Mandelson fiasco, they've gone for a safe pair of hands.

19:01George Osborne: He had been talking to some students a couple of months ago and was caught on camera saying, I guess, some home truths, which people listening to this will say, well, yeah, that is true. and maybe the job of ambassadors is to speak truth to power, but was a little bit uncomfortable because he said that Britain didn't have a special relationship with the United States, which goes counter to the Foreign Office insistence that you always put special relationship into any speech you're giving in and around a US president. And in fact, the special relationship was with Israel. And then finally says that the prime minister himself might be gone.

19:40George Osborne: All of this is potentially true, but it was certainly surprising to hear the ambassador say it. Here's what he said.

19:47Ed Balls: Special relationship is a phrase I try not to utter.

19:52George Osborne: Because it's quite nostalgic, it's quite backwards looking, and it has a lot of baggage about it. I think there is probably one country that has a special relationship with the United States, and that's probably Israel. and Keir personally is a you know he's a stubborn guy he's never lost a fight he's in and so I think Keir saying I'm quitting is quite a high bar so probably the moment I would look to is the May elections if Labour does very badly in the May elections I suspect the party will will move to go over that threshold and removing so there was clearly an enterprising young

20:33Ed Balls: journalist in that group of Gloucestershire six formers who were on a politics a-level trip to America and had a chat with a British ambassador and you know whoever recorded it has made a splash although it's probably going to queer the pitch for any future.

20:50George Osborne: Sorry it's not the right thing to do if you have a private meeting. If the ambassador's gone out of his way to meet a bunch of school kids like I'm sorry it's not right for the school kids to and and to obviously you know pull back the curtain a bit and, you know, give them some really interesting thoughts.

21:06Ed Balls: And as I said, I don't really approve of that. It will mean that future sixth form groups will not get the same amount of access, certainly from this ambassador, but maybe from all ambassadors. I mean, look, it was undiplomatic, whether it's true or not. I think for Christian Turner, it will be chastening. You know, it's one of those times where the phrase lessons learned is appropriate. But interestingly, other than being a great scoop for the FT, it didn't have a lot of blowback here in British politics. There was too much going on. The thing I actually thought to myself was Christian Turner telling it how it is.

21:41Ed Balls: I mean, there but for the grace of McSweeney, it could have been you. The interesting thing, while this was all going on on Tuesday, Philip Barton and then Morgan McSweeney were giving evidence to Emily Thornbury's Foreign Affairs Select Committee. It was actually kind of quite powerful stuff, especially Philip Barton, some of the things that he...

22:04George Osborne: We should say, he was the head of the Foreign Office at the time of the Mandelson appointment, wasn't he?

22:08Ed Balls: Who Ollie Robbins then took over from. He's the guy who felt strongly pressured and stood that up in the committee. A week ago on our podcast said that Keir Starmer is saying at PMQ's there was no pressure. He was going to have to get off that very fast. And he got off that with an interview in The Times on Saturday where he said, well, look, there's different meanings of the word pressure before essentially saying, yes, we did put them under pressure. I think the interesting thing was that in the media, sometimes you have two competing stories, the King's Visit or the Foreign Affairs Committee evidence.

22:45Ed Balls: And in the end, the British media decided The King's visit was a bigger and more significant story on the day. And that, I think, had more impact here in British politics than that testimony. But within it, Morgan McSweeney, speaking really for the first time publicly, not just since he's been removed as Chief of Staff, but while he was Chief of Staff and before, he explained to the committee that there were, in fact, two candidates. Two candidates who we now know went through the due diligence process. Here is Morgan McSweeney. I could see there was pros and cons in the appointment, and I worried that it would go wrong.

23:23Ed Balls: So I didn't try to push anything through. We procured two strong candidates for him. One was Mandelson, and the other was George Osborne, the former Chancellor and Exchequer, who I'd met as part of it. And my view was that we had, and I said to the Prime Minister, So you have two appointable candidates. Others agreed that there was two appointable candidates. I can't recall anyone saying that Mandelson was not appointable. I presume you passed the vetting.

23:58George Osborne: The vetting, as we now know, was due to take place after the appointment.

24:04Ed Balls: Yes, but there will have been a Cabinet Office due diligence report on you. The thing which is so shocking about this is that Keir Starmer had in front of him, when he made the decision before Christmas, before the formal vetting process, this red flag ridden due diligence report. Look, I think that we all knew there was risks with the Mandelson appointment. I think both of us could see, given Trump going to the White House, there was a case for an unusual political appointment. And, you know, you were a really credible candidate. So was Peter Mandelson. And once you sat with that report with all the detail of the Epstein meetings, the Russian non-executive investments and all the other kind of commercial things in that report.

24:51Ed Balls: I mean, that was all there before the decision was made, well before the security briefing.

24:56George Osborne: Yeah, I mean, look, I would have obviously been honoured to have done it. I was rather surprised to have been asked to be considered. but um i i do wonder whether it would have worked because i would have been stuck between the parliamentary labor party and donald trump and uh you know kia starma strategy certainly in the first year of of essentially kind of not sucking up to donald trump but certainly not antagonizing him and trying to land the trade deal and all the things actually mcswini was talking about in this hearing i think if you know if i'd been associated with it that they may not have the parliamentary or some elements would have kind of taken it out on me rather than taking it out on Keir Starmer.

25:35George Osborne: But who knows? Who knows? That is one of those sliding doors moments. And I'm very happy and enjoying my life at the moment. What about the kind of domestic situation for Keir Starmer? Because we're going to come on to the local elections. We should just touch on this of Commons vote, shouldn't we? So, Kemmy Baden-Ock was essentially trying to repeat the trick that happened a few years ago and did for Boris Johnson, which was to try and get Keir Starmer referred to the Standards Committee in Parliament. And the reason why that works, if you can make it happen, you get referred to this committee, which is sort of essentially police's kind of ethics and standards in Parliament.

26:15George Osborne: And it can recommend a suspension if someone lies to Parliament, which is what it did in the case of Boris Johnson. it's a way partly of kind of getting around a large Labour majority because there's a much although there's a Labour majority on the Standards Committee it's only a few MPs and suddenly Starmer's fate is just in the hands of a few individuals and you know Boris Johnson was unable to control the Standards Committee or rather the Tory MPs on it even though he had a quite big majority about four years ago and so they were trying to attempt the same thing Kemi Baden-Lock and get it referred to the Standards Committee but it was not nearly as kind of explosive a case as Partygate which spoke to you know personal behaviour and you know what the whole country had had to go through with Covid and this isn't you know much more of a kind of Westminster argument.

27:06George Osborne: What do you think I mean you know if you were Kemi Baden-Lock you'd say well we never expected to win the vote but it kept the whole story going for another few days It put Labour MPs in an uncomfortable position. And indeed, we get some Labour rebels. But it is also kind of cut off that route because Labour quite comfortably won or Keir Starmer quite comfortably won the motion by whipping his MPs against it. So would you say Camille Veydenox shouldn't have played that card that early?

27:33Ed Balls: There is an argument that if she had waited until the week after the local elections, although it would actually be a while longer than that because there's a whole King's speech process to go through first that she might have had kind of more impact in the vote but what she was doing was kind of building up the charge sheet and I don't think it was so comfortable for Keir Starmer over the last week even though the motion didn't work for Kemi Baden-Ock and Darren Jones managed to do a rallying speech to the faithful in the Commons on the afternoon of the vote. The rebellion wasn't huge, although there was 50 people who stayed away.

28:17Ed Balls: It was a skirmish rather than the killer blow. And the killer blow in the case of Boris Johnson was Chris Pinscher rather than any particular procedural vote or motion anyway. When it got to PMQs on Wednesday, the last Prime Minister's questions before the local elections, you could hear Kemi Badenock's strategy unfolding.

28:39George Osborne: They're going to have to go to their constituencies and explain to all those people why they did what they did last night. The fact is the Prime Minister was reduced to whipping his MPs to save him and pleading with a tax dodger to rejoin his cabinet. How much longer do we all have to put up with his shambles? Mr Speaker, I changed my party and I won a general election. She's changed her party, Mr Speaker, because when I became leader of my party, their party was three times the size it is now. She's changed it. It's now even smaller than when she started at leader, because half of them are up there.

29:22George Osborne: And, Mr Speaker, the stunt they played yesterday because they don't like what we're delivering. More rights at work. More security for renters, lifting half a million children out of poverty. That's our mandate, that's our mission, and nothing's going to hold us back.

29:39Ed Balls: The thing is, George, we have been saying for weeks, months now, two things. First of all, you've got to get all the mandolin papers out in public and move on. And even if there was no killer blow from Philip Barton, Morgan McSweeney, or in this Commons vote, this story is not ended. there was still a lot more documentation to come out. And so that is still a vulnerability for Keir Starmer. And, you know, the sacking of Ollie Robbins this week, I mean, it's just even harder to understand what was actually going on in Keir Starmer's mind when he made that decision. But the second thing we said was, they have to change the agenda before the local elections.

30:21Ed Balls: They've got to get onto a big message about the economy and delivery and what the government is doing. and despite that peroration from Keir Starmer, you know, they haven't managed to do that at all in this local election campaign. They've never changed the narrative. They've never got on the front foot and that's why the local elections are coming towards them like, you know, a big juggernaut down the middle of the road.

30:49George Osborne: Yeah, they're going to happen next Thursday, aren't they? Although lots of people have voted already by post and we are going to turn to what to look out for as we try to interpret the results of the local elections and what it means for the big players in British politics. And we'll come do that after this.

31:17George Osborne: Welcome back. And I guess if we'd been doing this podcast in a previous generation, if that would have even been technically possible, and you were kind of reporting from the campaign trail, you would only really have had to clip the Conservative leader, the Labour leader and the Liberal Democrat leader. Maybe you would have had one or two clips from the Nationalists. But now we've got lots more players in British politics. And to give you a flavour of what, if you've been tuning in at all to the local elections, you might have heard, here is a medley of what the political leaders contesting those elections have been saying.

31:50George Osborne: So as we go into these elections, we're fighting for international leadership. We're fighting for a focus on the cost of living. And we're fighting for pride in place across the whole country. We can keep council tax down for struggling families. Somewhere we can deliver better public services, fix potholes, run better schools. Somewhere we can back business, back our high streets and get our villages, towns and cities working again.

32:16Ed Balls: We go into the test match of the May local elections confident and determined to stand up to people, to beat the Conservatives, beat Labour and be the ones to hold off reform. Britain does need reform and reform will fix it. We've got the character, the attitude, the mindset, the optimism, the belief. Nothing will stop us from doing it. We will fix it. We can reject the hate of reform and instead we can bring in a politics that actually benefits people's lives, that improves their living standards, lowers bills and redistributes power and wealth from the super wealthy into our communities. No more bending to Westminster's will.

32:58George Osborne: No more towing the London Party line.

33:02Ed Balls: No more defending the status quo. And no more saying no to Wales. For an SNP government that will deliver more cost of living support, a stronger NHS and a stronger economy. But it is by trusting us also with your second vote that the SNP can win a majority, a majority that will secure a referendum, a referendum that we will win.

33:28George Osborne: So that was Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenot, Kemi Badenot doing a bit of an impression of the West Side Story song somewhere, I felt. There was Ed Davey on Test Match Special, Nigel Farage, that former hypnotherapist, now Green Party leader, Zach Polanski. You get a special bonus point for Reap-Yorworth from Plaid Cymru and John Swinney, the leader of the SNP. And they've all been on the campaign trail because it's local elections, although we should say it's also national elections in Scotland and Wales, where they're voting for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senate. And there are also big elections in London.

34:08George Osborne: These are the London councils, not the London mayor. Yeah. So, Ed, I mean, all the predictions are it's going to be a shocking night for Labour. And also the Conservatives are going to have some heavy losses and that the gains are going to be sort of spread between reform, green, plied and SNP. And the Lib Dems kind of standing still. What should we be looking out for? I mean, we've got a week to go. We can discuss it on polling day in a week's time. But just now, if you're sitting there as a kind of Labour cabinet minister thinking, well, just how bad is this? Do I make my move? Whatever. What are you looking for?

34:45George Osborne: What are the things to look out for? I wouldn't say on the nights, it's going to take a couple of days to count everything. But over the coming weekend after those local elections next week.

34:54Ed Balls: I think there are certain things which are already in the price, but still very significant. So, you know, it looks like there is going to be an SNP government again wanting an independence vote. It looks like you're going to have the first Plaid-led government displacing Labour ever in Wales. It looks like Reform and the Greens, who are both still, even compared to last year, taking huge amounts of votes according to the opinion polls from, in the case of Reform, the Conservatives, in the case of Green, Labour. It looks like it's going to be a bit disappointing for the Lib Dems, although they may do OK in some of their heartland areas.

35:31Ed Balls: But I think for Kemi Badenock, if you are a new opposition leader, you want to make progress. William Hague, Ed Miliband, early, won councillors. The Tories are going to lose councillors in large numbers to reform. How much? In the case of Keir Starmer, incumbent governments tend to do badly. But it looks like Keir Starmer is going to be off the scale bad. I mean, if it is really true that Labour is going to end up losing close to 2000 councillors, that means not just a worse result than Labour in 2009, not just a worse result than Margaret Thatcher in 1981. It's set to be the worst result ever for a government in power in local elections.

36:24Ed Balls: If they only lose like 500 seats, it's on average worse than how governments normally do, but they're going to massively poll worse than that. I think if you are Labour, you are thinking, are we actually going to lose Wakefield, Barnsley, Gateshead, not just the council to reform, but are we actually going to end up losing, you know, potentially most, even all of our councillors to reform? I mean, you could see wipeouts in those northern town heartlands. In the case of London, are you actually going to see the Greens not just making advances? Are they going to take control in Hackney of the council?

37:08Ed Balls: Are they going to do the same in Waltham Forest? If you are the Conservatives where you need to come back in places like Swindon or Milton Keynes, are you not only not going to make progress, but actually seeing your party entirely displaced by reform? for the Lib Dems do you do okay in the places where you need to do well in the general election or do you even as it's happening I think lose out to Greens or to reform in those areas there'll be lots of MPs looking at how things happen in their own constituency but also they'll be they'll be looking for these broader patterns how much is reform entrenching itself across heartlands how much are the Greens actually breaking through?

37:58Ed Balls: And for the Conservatives, are they being displaced by reform across the South in areas where, you know, they have to be willing to come back next time around?

38:09George Osborne: Look, some of these things we've seen before, we've seen governments doing badly in local elections. Okay, this could be the worst ever. And that will have a sort of shock factor. You know, we've seen the SNP doing really well in Scotland on a number of occasions now over the last 20 years and the assault on the kind of Labour northern heartlands we've seen that happen before with Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn in the Red Wall I think what will be kind of shocking for Labour will be if the Green Party makes inroads into those London boroughs because even at the heights of Boris Johnson's popularity or the Margaret Thatcher premierships you know never did those sort of inner London Labour councils go, you know, to another party, you know, and they have huge activist bases, don't they?

38:59George Osborne: And they're a big feeder of people who end up being Labour MPs and so on. So I think those London boroughs are going to be really significant on the day. And I think also in Wales, I mean, Wales is a kind of complicated story. But, you know, it is so tied into the history of the Labour Party and its origins. And there's a possibility of a kind of Labour wipeout in Wales because of a sort of pincer movement of reform implied.

39:24Ed Balls: It's true that the word existential is often overused, but there's times when it's actually a good word to use. And I think for both the main parties, there will be results which potentially, you know, sow those kind of deep doubts about whether this is recoverable from.

39:40George Osborne: Yeah, I mean, I remember back in 97, the absolute shock to the Conservative Party, even after suffering a big landslide defeat in Parliament of essentially being wiped out in Wales and Scotland. And Labour's already been through that experience in Scotland before, and felt it was coming back at the 2024 general election. So to be kind of knocked right back in Scotland, and then to face that white plan in Wales. I think that let's start with the Conservatives, and we'll come on to Keir Starmer's position. I think, you know, it may well be a big reality check for just how well or not well the Tories are doing.

40:13George Osborne: Because I think Kimi Badenoch has definitely done much better over the last six months in as a individual performer in parliament and she's sort of demonstrated fight and kind of get up and go and she's landed some important blows on the government not least over the whole mandelson scandal so she you know she's got kind of feathers in her cap but the truth is during this period the tory party poll rating has continued to be at rock bottom and to some degree her performance in parliament has rather obscured that fact. It has parallels, actually, with William Hague doing quite well in Parliament in the 97 to 2001 Parliament.

40:50George Osborne: Then you get to the election, you just get clobbered again. And, you know, the fact is that there have been defections to reform, as Keir Starmer was alluding to there. And I thought you had such an interesting incident in the last couple of weeks, which also speaks to Labour. You know, this incredible story emerges that Nigel Farage has been given, not reform, Nigel Farage personally has been given five million pounds with no strings attached. Well, no strings attached in the sense of what he's supposed to spend the money on by this kind of crypto billionaire funder who lives overseas of reform called Christopher Harbin.

41:29George Osborne: And, you know, no one's really been able to land a glove on Farage, either that he should have properly reported it. He wasn't an MP at the time, but new MPs are supposed to report, you know, any existing kind of financial entanglements they have. And neither the Tory party nor the Labour party have been able to turn this into a huge scandal about one of the big frontrunners or the frontrunner in British politics at the moment, Nigel Farage. Some people would say now they're kind of clear favourite to be the British Prime Minister. And if you think of all the rows about funding in the past and, you know, this thing just sort of sails through and i'll come on to labor but i think in the for the tories it is partly because they have not had the kind of ethical reset they have not really said why did we lose last time they point to things like well we weren't you know we didn't deliver on immigration and so on but you know i'm a strong believer they've never really taken on the kind of boris johnson period and the legacy of that and christopher harban gave a million pounds to boris johnson personally or to the office of Boris Johnson whatever that means and so it's quite hard for the Tory party to say having not complained about that oh but we do complain when he gives money to Nigel Farage there needs to be the kind of performances in parliament are great and the alternative is much worse for Kemi Beynot which is being on the you know on the ropes and about to be deposed and so on which was where she was a year ago but you know getting into office she is going to have to really confront the kind of Tory party legacy if she's provide any kind of platform for really pivoting into an attack on reform?

43:05Ed Balls: The truth about the parliamentary performances is that they've given Kevi Baden-Ock some time. I mean, I don't think she's going to be turfed out the week after the local elections, even if, as it looks, these are going to be bad results for the Conservatives. But as you say, in politics, you've always got to know what is the big question. And I think there's two, actually. One is, as you just said, have the Conservatives really changed and faced up to what went wrong? The second question is, if you can vote reform, why would you vote Conservative? What is it about voting Conservative which is different from voting reform?

43:44Ed Balls: And I think they are still sitting back and thinking, well, you know, in the end, Nigel Farage, it's a bubble, it will burst, he'll blow himself up, and he might blow himself up over the donations. and if it turns out there are strings attached or whatever. But there is a bigger question. What do the Conservatives offer, which is distinct from, different from, and better for the country, better in terms of values than reform? And I just don't think that she's sought to answer that question either yet. She's still, I mean, Robert Jenrick going has given her a bit of breathing space, but has that meant that she has sort of doubled down on a economic message which differentiates from reform or a view of Britain which differentiates from reform even a view of of how you manage our borders which differentiates from reform and I think until she does that then why wouldn't you just vote reform and that's what I mean the fact is compared to last year's local elections she has lost loads of support it's still the drift to reform from conservatives has continued over the last 12 months.

44:54Ed Balls: And I don't think waiting for that to stop is a strategy.

44:56George Osborne: What about Keir Starmer? I mean, you know, obviously there's lots of talk that there was going to be a reshuffle. That's been ditched. He was going to bring Angela Rayner back into the cabinet. Maybe Lucy Powell, who he only just fired and then she became deputy leader of the led body. Louise Haig, who he fired shortly after getting into office over a mobile phone theft, I think it was. there's so much talk that people are waiting have been waiting for these local elections I think the Ollie Robbins sacking was the moment when he lost the cabinet I think at that moment the cabinet are like frankly we're not with you anymore but there's always that problem then in politics who is going to be the first to move you know is there a sort of first mover disadvantage of you know he or she you know plunges a knife and never wears the crown not true by the way if look at the career of someone like Margaret Thatcher, but, you know, a potent myth in British politics.

45:52George Osborne: And then not to talk about Labour Party rules making this so difficult and Labour Party being loyal to its leaders, even when they're unsuccessful. I mean, what I, I will speak for what I pick up. The mood in the cabinet is absolutely thunderous about the Prime Minister. But I still don't really see anyone who wants it enough to go, I'm gonna go for it. I'm gonna grab the crown.

46:16Ed Balls: Let's go to the question which is going to be asked and just in passing don't underestimate the emotion of the Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday after the local elections. I remember and you've had the same experience George being a member of parliament in the governing party when you do badly in local elections and you have to go to the count as a member of parliament and councillors are losing their seats and their friends who may have just won are angry on their behalf as well there are it seems likely to be you know thousands 1500 1800 2000 councillors who lose their job and their income. They will think through no fault of their own.

47:11And they,

47:13Ed Balls: and MPs who have relied upon them as part of their teams for years are going to be, I mean, they'll be angry, but they'll also be like deeply upset. But then this is the point, it goes to the question, what is the question? If you think about those kind of big moments where you have governing parties doing badly. Margaret Thatcher, 1981, rising unemployment. Tony Blair, 2003-04, the Iraq war. Gordon Brown, the global financial crisis. In the case of Boris Johnson, the aftermath of the pandemic and then Partygate. And people saw what had gone wrong, what the problem was to fix. If you go back to a year ago, when Labour did really badly in the local elections, what was the issue then?

48:01Ed Balls: What was everybody coming back and saying? By the way, in 2008 with Gordon Brown, it was the abolition of the 10p tax rate. Last year, it was the abolition of the winter fuel allowance. I mean, it was so deep and scarring for the Labour vote. And therefore, sort that out. Sort out, you know, got to do a U-turn and a U-turn is done. What is the question that people will be coming back? You know, what's the diagnosis? What is it which has gone wrong? What do you fix? Is it policy? But it's not a policy, is it? They're going to have a king's speech to relaunch in policy, but is that the reason? They're going to have a reshuffle because we want to change the cabinet.

48:38Ed Balls: Is that what people are going to see as the reason? I mean, what Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer will now want to say is, you know, it was Donald Trump and the war in Iran. But the squeeze on living standards and in the opinion polls preceded the war in Iran. And in the last couple of weeks, the briefing from number 10 was actually Keir Starmer is doing better now because of his leadership on the war in Iran. And I think when you have coming together a big loss, an emotional reaction, and people want to know what the diagnosis is, you know, what has gone wrong, which we can now fix? And I don't know what the Keir Starmer diagnosis is.

49:20Ed Balls: And when you listen to him in Prime Minister's Questions, which we played in our first segment, you didn't really feel as though there was an acknowledgement, a diagnosis there. But when you get devastated politically, unless, you know, Gordon Brown could say it's a global financial crisis, but we'll get through it. Or the Tempe tax rate, we're going to do a U-turn. And Tony Blair could say, well, the Iraq war, but this is how we're turning things around. And, you know, I guess you would have been able to say in 2011, 2012, the economy is going to grow. I mean, what's the question which has got to be answered?

49:57Ed Balls: And, you know, as you say, very many people will be thinking, well, actually, the British ambassador in Washington got it right.

50:06George Osborne: The current British ambassador. No, I think if you listen even to the Keir Starmer clip we played at the top, it says we're fighting for international leadership. And that's a funny message to take onto the council election doorsteps. We're fighting for a focus on the cost of living. Well, yeah, he said he is fighting to focus on the cost of living.

50:24Ed Balls: If Labour MPs and councillors have heard on the doorstep saying, look, I'm not going to vote for you because there's not enough focus on the cost of living and there's not enough international leadership. Well, then maybe that will help you turn it around. I'd be very surprised if that's what they're saying on the doorstep.

50:38George Osborne: No, I mean, we should end here because we've got the vote still to come. But who knows? That's the great thing about democracies. You don't know what the result's going to be. But, you know, it's interesting that when these elections were held four years ago and most of these elections, it was the catalyst that brought down Boris Johnson. Because the issue actually was not the economy or anything. It was it was the prime minister. And I suspect the focus this time is also going to be the prime minister.

51:03Ed Balls: But we will see. quick punt um national adjusted voting share because that will all be calculated in the days after um i don't think we should start trying to make predictions of um what the numbers will be um although i think we've got a pretty good idea who they're going to be good for who they're going to be bad for the five main parties in um you know in england is more complicated when you're looking at scotland and wales what do you think i'm going to punt on this i'm going to say reform comes first, Greens come second, I'm going to say Labour third, Tory fourth, Lib Dems fifth. Although the Lib Dems may be annoyed because I say actually we're doing a bit better and the Tories will say we can displace Labour.

51:42Ed Balls: I think if Keir Starmer comes third, that's a really bad result. If he slips to fourth or fifth, it's even worse.

51:51George Osborne: I think he's going to come fourth. I think the Tories will come ahead of Labour. There's a whole question of why the Liberal Democrats aren't

51:57Ed Balls: doing a lot better by the way are you saying reform greens reform green tory labor liby dem by the way we have the right to revise our predictions in a week's time because when we when we do our podcast next week um it will still not um be known so we can come back to the week's time but you know or we just delete this episode anyway we are going to turn finally and briefly

52:21George Osborne: to the Assisted Dying Bill, which has died in this session of Parliament, but may be revived in the next. And we'll come back after this break.

52:41Ed Balls: Welcome back. It's been a year since we last discussed the Assisted Dying Bill, which has just run out of time. it's stalled in the House of Lords and Parliament is being prorogued and that is the end of that piece of legislation.

52:55George Osborne: Yeah I think there's a big question of the government's leadership here and it gave huge support to this bill at the beginning of its passage and then that all seemed to peter out towards the end but it leaves open this question of what happens next in the new session of Parliament which will begin after the local elections but I think it's worth going back to the conversation we had in December 2024 about this legislation, where you were giving some pretty clear advice to the government and, of course, the campaigners led by the MP Kim Ledbetter about how to get this onto the statute book. This is a reminder of what we were saying about a year and a half ago.

53:32Ed Balls: What should happen after the opening speeches, there should be a statement in the House or publicly or from Downing Street to say, we think that Kim Ledbetter's done a brilliant job of raising this issue. We don't think yet we've got to a place where we can see a way forward. What the government is now going to do is start some kind of review process, could be a Royal Commission, could be judge-led, it could be small panel expert-led to report with a fixed date next year. At that point, Kim Ledbetter says, look, I've gone as far as I can with this bill, she withdraws, the bill drops the private members bill, we have that process, and then we come back if it can be made to work with government legislation next year.

54:15Ed Balls: That is the best way. And I think it may be the only way. And the campaigners will be frustrated, but the thing which will really frustrate them is if this gets kicked in the long grass. And Keir Starmer has realised...

54:24George Osborne: Well, if it's defeated, it's defeated for a generation. So that's the big question. I mean, isn't it way too late now to kind of do a royal commission and the like? And the government doesn't have the political authority to introduce government legislation in this space. It would be a hell of a fight now. now so maybe they you know that was a route they could have taken in the past i think the simple question is you know we've got the new session of parliament coming up because of the house of lords act if you go back to lloyd george and all that and the way our constitution works uh you know the house lords can't block it again if it's introduced in the same way into the house commons and passes in the house commons but that will require the starmer government to give it time so it doesn't get killed off in the house of commons in the way that private members bills often are.

55:10George Osborne: So it's all a bit technical, but it sort of comes down to a decision in the cabinet and from the prime minister, which is we're going to throw our weight to get this bill onto the statute book. Is that, do you think, is what going to happen? Or is, as I was saying there, it's now been defeated and defeated for a generation?

55:27Ed Balls: I don't think it's necessarily defeated for a generation. The opinion polls are clear that there is a majority in the country for action on assisted dying. The opinion polls also say...

55:41George Osborne: So in other words, the debate from the opponents and all the frustrating tactics and all the issues they've raised, many of which are legitimate issues, have not really swayed public opinion. Public opinion remains convinced that this is the right direction to go.

55:54Ed Balls: But if you look at the YouGov polling, there is also a majority of people who say that significant numbers of people would take their life because they can't afford care or because they think they are a burden to others. And I think part of the problem with legislation has always been that because it hadn't gone through enough of a substantive government process, there were questions about how it would work, which haven't been resolved. And I think there's lots of people who will oppose this bill, who in principle are in favour if you could be sure it would really work properly. Now, look...

56:31George Osborne: I know, but isn't that kind... I mean, this is the legislation. And if it's not this piece of legislation, there ain't going to be another piece.

56:37Ed Balls: I think you have to play a long game. I don't think the I mean, they'll try. I don't think that this is going to succeed in the next session through another piece of backbench led legislation. I don't think the private members bill route is now going to work. I also don't think I'd be very surprised if the government wants to bring legislation in the next parliament government legislation at a time when the health secretary, where streeting has been opposed, when the justice secretary now, the home secretary, Siobhan Mahmood is opposed. And when these issues haven't been resolved. And I just don't think they have been.

57:16Ed Balls: So I don't think this will now get onto the statute book. unless it is delivering a manifesto commitment. So I don't think it's for this parliament. So what do you mean?

57:26George Osborne: You mean in the next general election, they would have to put it into its... So that's a long time. And it also assumes Labour wins the election, which is not currently on the cards, right?

57:37Ed Balls: But it's also for Kemi Badenoch to make that decision as well. And if I was Keir Starmer and I wanted to lead this, because he clearly wanted to lead this at the last election, but then as I was explaining 18 months ago he had an option as to how to lead it and he hasn't done so and therefore it's sort of collapsed around him I would now set up a independent government commissioned process to report before the election which not only looks at the principle but the practicalities which seeks to build a consensus it doesn't have to be a royal commission but some kind of process to see whether you can get the Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives, the government on side.

58:20Ed Balls: The ideal thing would be to get to more than one manifesto commitment. We've talked before about how tuition fees were introduced after the election through manifesto commitments to keep tuition fees but to reform. We've talked also about how that's happened. In the end, it happened with bank independence, with the national minimum wage. It happened with the pension age. It happened also with auto-enrollment for pensions. So the government should set up a process to report before the election. The campaigners should say, we support this. It's not a big betrayal. It's the right way to go. You should seek to build in the country a way to deliver public opinion's aim, assist the dying, without their fears, which are real.

59:07Ed Balls: And then if you then get manifesto commitments, then in the next parliament, you legislate. Other than that, I don't think it's going to happen. And my fear is that things will become more divided and more acrimonious in the next Parliament through a second failure of a private members process. And I don't think that's in the interest of the campaigners. Now, there'll be lots of campaigners who'll be annoyed at me for saying this and say, no, no, the Lords can't block it. It's not just about filibuster. There was filibustering in the Lords, but that wasn't the fundamental problem. The government's got to lead this and you've got to win the big argument about how as well as the principle.

59:40Ed Balls: And if you don't do that, then it just gets mired in division and controversy.

59:46George Osborne: Yeah, I'm not sure I completely agree with you, because I think if you go down the route you're suggesting, it is kind of in not just into the long grass, but because there's no real expectation that Labour is going to be elected a second time with a big majority. I mean, it's possible they get elected with a small majority or in coalition with Liberal Democrats and the like. But this is not sort of setting up a process that is going to deliver in board of years time i don't think the conservatives given their divisions on it are going to step into this space so it is kind of so you think it's over for a generation now well i think it's if i was a campaigner i think it would be worth having another go in the commons trying to assemble the majority in the commons and then kind of shaming the labor leadership at the you know probably kirsten or possibly kirsten maybe someone else by then to say hold on like we've twice passed this now you you know now government you do what you can do to use the parliament act and force it

1:00:40Ed Balls: through the house a lot i hear you my worry is that i fear now is the strategy which definitely consigns it not to happen in this generation and sometimes you have to play a long game and

1:00:53George Osborne: sometimes big reforms take time that's true but also you can miss the moment and they don't come back for decades. Hmm. OK, sorry, we haven't been able to give unified advice to the campaigners on that. But it's certainly very interesting, isn't it? I mean, and obviously something people feel very deeply about on both sides. And quite a change from the assumption, I think, shortly after the Labour government got in that this would definitely be on the statute books by about now.

1:01:19Ed Balls: Not an assumption that you or I ever made, I have to say.

1:01:22George Osborne: We were more sceptical. But anyway, not a clear route forward. You can pick Ed's advice or mine. Or you can try both, possibly. Anyway, that is it for this week. Thanks for listening.

1:01:35Ed Balls: Join us on Monday for Ex-Ministers Questions, where we answer all your biggest political questions and ideas.

1:01:40George Osborne: Yeah, and if you can't wait until Monday, you, of course, can get the episode early ad-free by becoming a member of our Kitchen Cabinet or one of our Gold subscribers.

1:01:48Ed Balls: EMQs, three days early, special newsletter, bonus content, a mug. What more could you want?

1:01:55George Osborne: Well, actually, you get members only chat as well. so you can get more and if you want to send your question into emqs you can message us via our social media outlets or email us at questions at politicalcurrency.co.uk please include a voice note with your question and i know those of you are regular listeners to emqs you will know we have lots of cracking questions every week so we'll see you on monday for emqs oh that was ed's phone going he's already getting a question for emqs see you then

1:02:31George Osborne: Thanks for listening to Political Currency. This has been a Persephoneca production.