Will Healey’s budget burst the Burnham bubble?

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1:17George Osborne: Coming up on Political Currency. Here we are, this is like Andy Burnham's first big budget. This is supposed to be surely the budget that ends 40 years of neoliberalism. None of that at all.

1:27Ed Balls: Andy Burnham is a pragmatist. I don't think he carries dogma and ideology in a very heavy-handed way.

1:34George Osborne: Normally, the rule in politics is, when you have your first budget, do your big things, because your political capital starts to evaporate.

1:42Ed Balls: It makes no sense politically. That just won't wash with anybody.

1:49Ed Balls: so we're remote this week and um our intrepid on the ground foreign correspondent george osborne has i believe traveled to be right where the action is this week yeah you know those stories

2:05George Osborne: of the kind of uh hotels that the war reporters hang out in in places like sarajevo and carble Anyone watching us on YouTube will see I'm in a kind of rather sort of nondescript hotel corridor right on the front line in Paris, in a very nice hotel in Paris. I am reporting live for political currency listeners and viewers from the riots in Paris. I mean, I have to say I'm very close to the Place de la République where the kind of center of the action was. I've been there and all I can see at the moment is some people scrubbing some graffiti off and some street cleaners cleaning up some broken glass.

2:46George Osborne: So I'll have to do, I think, a bit more. I'll have to push deeper into the front line. You wouldn't know. Basically, you wouldn't know anything. I've been searching for burnt out cars. I can't find anything.

2:57Ed Balls: We'll come to the menu in a moment, but we're going to be talking about, of course, France, also the budget one week away. But next week, a very important thing happening. A book is being published. I think to coincide with the budget, a short book by former Prime Minister Liz Truss. And it's called Bank Job. A short book on how the Bank of England broke the bond market and brought down the government. And a picture of Liz Truss on the front of the book. And behind it are five Tarantino-esque reservoir dogs style mafiosi attempting to, and she says successfully, bringing her down. And the five people are Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, Mark Carney, I think Mervyn King, former governor of the Bank of England, although it could be Andrew Bailey, and George Osborne.

3:48Ed Balls: You are, with Blair and Brown and Carney and King, you are one of the five mafiosi who brought down Liz Truss. Did you know?

3:59George Osborne: I'm in the pantheon at last. I was thinking, I think if you advertise your own book as a short book, that's a bit of a clue, isn't it? She literally says it on the front. It's a short book, don't worry. I thought it's an interesting take. Of course, this is, I think, an ongoing part of her explanation of her short premiership, isn't it? That essentially she was brought down by the forces. I think, you know, we've discussed it before. I think there's no doubt that essentially, you know, her government broke the bond market. But there is an argument that the Bank of England did contribute to the fall of the government.

4:41George Osborne: So she might be half right. We will have to read the book and see. Anyway, I'm absolutely flattered to be on the front cover. Thank you, Liz.

4:49Ed Balls: I saw this front cover and I thought to myself, you know, George Osborne, he's not yet written a book. And given he's got so many jobs, it would probably have to be a short job. And maybe it would be called Brexit Job, how the establishment conspired to stop me becoming prime minister. And I thought to myself, if you're writing that book, who are the five people you would put on the front cover as the mafiosi who denied Osborne the crown?

5:14George Osborne: Oh, well, I guess Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson.

5:21Ed Balls: Michael Gove.

5:22George Osborne: Michael Gove. David Cameron. No, I'd be a bit mean, aren't I?

5:28Ed Balls: The one I was going to choose was actually Theresa May.

5:30George Osborne: Oh, what about the Labour, Jeremy Corbyn?

5:33Ed Balls: Jeremy Corbyn.

5:34George Osborne: Labour didn't show up in the Brexit referendum.

5:36Ed Balls: But actually, I was also going to choose Theresa May, not because she then dumped you out of the cabinet, but and I remember our conversations during the Brexit referendum she went AWOL she was the home secretary you needed to make an argument about migration and she never turned up so I think you

5:53George Osborne: could put Theresa May on there as well I might have to take to the streets like these youngsters

5:57Ed Balls: in Paris who can't get a job yeah I mean you could always do Ed Ball's treasury job why I

6:03George Osborne: failed to become chancellor I'm you know I think Gordon Brown is the main there could just be one

6:07Ed Balls: blessing on the front cover of your book but but in the end don't you think that for both of us the reflective thing to do it's the person we look at each morning in the mirror when we shave I mean maybe it's both of our fault well no I'm looking at you at the moment I know but I'm just saying I don't I don't think I I don't think I stopped you becoming prime minister um but but but you know maybe we both stopped ourselves but we're happier for it Ed we're happy for it

6:33George Osborne: think of all the richness of our life here i am in this hotel corridor talking to you uh we should get on with our podcast we're going to be talking aren't we about the budget um about the decision in advance of the budget to restart or allow drilling to proceed in the jackdaw field in the north sea and uh and the whole context for next week's i guess sort of central the first really really big event of the burnham government then because you're in paris

7:01Ed Balls: on the ground. You are our John Simpson today. We're going to look at the riots in France, which have obviously dominated not just French, but European reporting in the last few days. And I know you've also been in Germany in recent days. And so what this all means for the next French presidential election, but also wider European politics.

7:24George Osborne: Yeah, it's a pretty anxious Europe. And then we're going to take a look at riots in the UK context. We thought it'd be interesting to draw our own experiences of how do governments react to civil disorder on the streets? What are the lessons? Could the riots that have happened in Paris and across France happen in Britain? And how should the government respond if they do? So all that to come up. But first of all, let's turn to the budget. We've got a week to go to the budget. And John Healy made this big announcement, didn't he, on drilling in the North Sea. And it kind of set the context of the budget.

8:03You could start to see the budget narrative being deployed.

8:07George Osborne: But let's start with the budget or perhaps let's start with the big announcement this week, which I think, you know, in the kind of sweep of British history would have been a kind of trivial thing, which is the British government has given a license to a gas field in the North Sea. I mean, that's been happening for decades since since oil and gas were discovered in the North Sea in the 1970s. But this had become a really controversial decision. And the conservatives had tried to give the go ahead to drilling in the jackdaw field. They have been blocked essentially by their own legislation and the kind of judicial review process.

8:43George Osborne: Labour come in saying we're not going to have any more drilling in the North Sea, part of a kind of green manifesto a couple of years ago. But here we are. The Burnham government has kind of cut through the judicial red tape and given the go ahead. And I guess risks the wrath of its own, you know, environmentalists and the kind of Ed Miliband's and the Miata van Bullas who are now in the cabinet and used to oppose this kind of thing. So what should we read into this announcement? Is it a big deal?

9:11Ed Balls: Well, I think if you have been a careful listener to this podcast over the last couple of years, this shouldn't be a surprise to you in any way. And I actually think for three reasons. First of all, back in September 2024, in the early months of the government, I remember us having this conversation. I was up in Aberdeen at a conference and we both said the political logic is going to mean that the government will end up agreeing to this extraction of gas. And we thought it would for both fields. And of course, they've got the second decision still to come on Rosebank, because in the end, from a point of view of jobs of Scotland, but also energy security, it made sense.

9:59Ed Balls: And that's where they've got to. Secondly, we said when we talked about Andy Burnham before he became prime minister, Andy Burnham is a pragmatist. He actually, he tends to look to the thing which works politically. I don't think he carries a dogma, an ideology in a very heavy handed way. You know, I remember us talking about the fact that he had a go at me about not being in favour of public spending cuts in 2015 and a big champion of the private sector, the National Health Service in the late 2000s when he was the health secretary. And all those people saying, I can't believe this, Andy Burnham, we thought he was going to be on our side on these green issues.

10:36Ed Balls: I mean, this is the pragmatic judgment. And that's what Andy's done. And then the third thing is that, you know, clearly energy bills are going to go up a lot, maybe£50 a month in£40 a month in January. In the budget, they need to show they're doing something. And it's not all clear that this decision is going to have a material impact upon household energy prices, even in the long term, let alone the short term. But it shows they're trying. It shows they're trying to do something. And it takes away what would be a running sore attack from Kemi Badenok through the autumn if they hadn't done this.

11:13Ed Balls: So every indication, by the way, I think if Eddie Miliband had become Chancellor, he'd have done it as well as a signal. But he didn't clearly block it.

11:21George Osborne: I mean, he has spent two years blocking it under the Starmer government. I mean, the Starmer government could have made this announcement. And indeed, kind of, there was speculation it was going to make the announcement. But I guess sort of Starmer was not strong enough vis-a-vis Miliband. And Miliband gets the best of both worlds, doesn't he?

11:38Ed Balls: I mean, he can both be in the forward office now and shake his head. And it's happened. What I'm saying to you is I think if he's become chancellor, this would have been a good signal that I'm in the Trojury now and I'm a pragmatist. This is a very pragmatic and critically sensible decision.

11:53George Osborne: Yeah, I mean, hasn't like two things driven it? I mean, the first is, as you say, of course, the global context and the rising price of energy and the forthcoming rise in energy bills, which is the big central event coming in British politics in the next six months. And then second, the Conservatives won the Aberdeen South by-election. It was not really noticed because I think it was on the same day, wasn't it, as the Makerfield by-election, which all eyes were on that. But it was a pretty significant moment because and it's the first time in decades the Conservatives have won a by-election in Scotland.

12:27George Osborne: So, you know, suddenly there's a kind of political cost as well for Labour. And I guess they also feel the Greens are somewhat enfeebled at the moment after losing their own by-election or not winning in Hoban. And so they can kind of take some risks and then the kind of cost of living versus environmentalism arguments inside labor. But it is another nail for whatever the government says. And Miata van Bula, the new energy secretary, says it is another nail in net zero, the drive for an end to the oil and gas culture. Because let's be clear, I would be amazed if the Burnham government doesn't do a retreat on the time limit on combustion engines being built in Britain.

13:11George Osborne: That's kind of set now, I think, to be they're supposed to be phased out by 2035. I'd be amazed if that timetable doesn't also slip. So, you know, cost of living, energy, getting energy bills down is got the upper hand in the labor movement now, as well as with the general public. um what do we think of the way what do we think of the way it was announced what did we think of the speaker lindsey hoyle was um having a go at uh the government um for announcing this essentially on the media rather than in parliament he got himself pretty het up about it i mean he got

13:47Ed Balls: himself very very het up and this is straight after promises questions before the statement to Parliament on this energy change. And just have a listen to the speaker. It is shameful that this announcement was not made to the House first and it is an immense discourtesy to the House that the Secretary of State did not come here to make the statement. I'm sorry that Sky News is more important rather than the members of both sides. It is appalling treatment.

14:22George Osborne: It is the fact that Sky News is more important. It's also a government that's got its comms priorities straight.

14:30Ed Balls: Well, I'm not sure. I think, look, important context. The minister doing the statement, not the Secretary of State, Miata Van Bulla, but Michael Shanks. This is the second time that this has happened. And the speaker thought last time he'd ticked them off and then they'd listened. And so it is a massive insult to injury. And, you know, the Speaker always wants you to make the announcement in Parliament. But the truth is, it's market sensitive and it makes sense for it to be at seven o 'clock on the Today programme before the markets open. And the Speaker sometimes kind of gets quite het up about that.

15:06Ed Balls: But for the Secretary of State twice not to show up, she chose. He had to wake up in the morning and found she decided it was better to be in Aberdeen on Sky News than in Parliament. I would say from her personal point of view, it would be much better if she'd said to number 10, look, I'll do the announcement. John Healy's going to Aberdeen. I should stay and do the announcement in Parliament. Because, you know, George, he was so angry and it's the second time her life's going to be a misery. He's going to be granting UQ's left, right and centre. He will be making her statements run two or three hours.

15:42Ed Balls: I mean it's not what you want as a new Secretary of State to have the Speaker that wound up about you.

15:48George Osborne: Yeah it's interesting I think she's you know she's obviously one of the bright stars of the Burnham Cabinet and I don't know her personally so I just think it's interesting the first few weeks the kind of coverage of her is ducking statements in the House of Commons having a row with Shabana Mahmood about her immigration reforms which we should come back and discuss on this podcast. in the future.

16:13Ed Balls: It's going to be a big deal. It's going to be a big deal in the coming weeks.

16:15George Osborne: Yeah, a big deal. And I just think the first thing you need to do is a brand new Secretary of State is kind of get a show you've just got a grip on your department and you're doing the job. And then you can start to play like, you know, a wider position across the football field. But first thing you've got to prove is like, I can actually do what I'm being asked to do. And anyway, I've noticed it sort of triggered something when I saw some you know her um ducking this statement i thought you know if i was her i'd just like concentrate on the day job at the moment but um what about the kind of broader budget narrative i mean why make this announcement a week before the budget and um how does it you know what do we now know about the um the budget narrative i mean there's some context here isn't there there's been some new economic data.

17:07George Osborne: So actually, unemployment has come down a little, which is very welcome. But borrowing figures are higher than expected and inflation numbers are a little bit higher than expected. So the kind of context is at best mixed. At worst, you know, actually the kind of fiscal and inflation situation is worse to be thought. And Britain passed through this milestone, which is not economically significant, But I guess, you know, in terms of kind of setting the context significant that we now have a national debt of more than three trillion dollars, sorry, three trillion pounds, don't we? We just punch through that particular milestone.

17:48George Osborne: Here's John Healy setting the context for the budget. People can see prices rising, they see it at the pumps, they see it in their bills, they see it with monthly mortgage costs, and they can see it's driven by the conflict in the Middle East, and we're a week away from the budget. and I think if people look at what we did in this first week of the government, you know,£2 cap on bus fares, we cut VAT off electricity bills, we reduced business rates for pubs, clubs and venues and I will look to do more as I can to give a bit of breathing space on the cost of living and the cost of business at the budget.

18:25Ed Balls: I think that this is of a piece in the sense that they know that they can't solve the cost of living crisis this autumn but they want to show that they are doing their best and doing stuff that they're being active and um that was um john healy with robert pestle on itv a week before the budget and you could see how he wanted to get his defenses in in first the i think the other significant thing was andy burnham and promises questions also without their using the international context to explain um why this is going to be tough and this is him responding to Kemi Badenok. Does the Prime Minister accept that his failure to control borrowing is contributing to higher inflation?

19:07Prime Minister.

19:08Ed Balls: She may notice that there is a situation ongoing in the Middle East where we don't have full control of that situation. But what I can say to her, the fundamentals of the British economy are getting stronger and stronger under this government. we will take the right long-term decisions and she should wait for the budget and she will see that laid out in this house. But I actually think, George, the more significant thing happening is the interview in The Times today. Patrick Maguire in The Times interviewing John Healy, the Chancellor. By the way, congratulations to Patrick Maguire. London Press Club, Political Journalist of the Year.

19:47Ed Balls: Gabrielle Pogren won Journalist of the Year. And Larissa Brown won a special Political Journalist Prize. So well done to all of those guys from The Times. But in his interview, John Healy says...

19:59George Osborne: It's quite unusual, isn't it, for a Chancellor to do an interview a week before a budget? A big newspaper?

20:04Ed Balls: As opposed to doing it in a speech. I think that is right. He's going out there and trying to shake the message. What he's saying in this one is, I'm backing business. I want business to make profits. That is the key to wealth creation. he sort of implicitly distances himself from the big business focus tax rises of the last two years. I think they've been quite careful not to leak budget policy. So most of the policy announcements in the last week have been things the government is not going to do. They're pretty clearly signaling they're not going to act on capital gains if they do something on the banks.

20:41Ed Balls: but for the first time there was a private sector focused investment focused economic message I think they can do more to explain why backing business is the right thing to do for the economy and how to do it maybe we'll see that in the budget but I did feel as though I think last week we were I was saying it was quite statist the economic message about mayors and about taking control this felt like a rebalancing it was actually quite Gordon Brown-esque in its talk about kind of business and regulation and wealth creation and of course john healy um sat at the feet of gordon brown for many years in the treasury so maybe it's no surprise but here's sort of two

21:21George Osborne: kind of challenges you know which let's see what you think the first is this i mean andy burnham came in with a promise that he was going to tear up 40 years of neoliberalism this was going to be the most revolutionary government that britain had seen since the thatcher era he was going to reverse the you know damage of de-industrialization privatization etc etc there's a kind of uh there was a good column by martin wolf in the financial times this week um saying how you know potentially risky and damaging all of that was and and interestingly martin was um kind of praising um relative to andy burnham kemi badenock's message um which he thought was more plausible but you know here we are this is like Andy Burnham's first big budget he's the first Lord of the Treasury this is John Healy's first but and and where where is where is this is supposed to be surely the budget that ends 40 years of neoliberalism this is this is supposed to be the big moment none of that at all in fact as you just say they're talking up the private sector and saying oh don't worry there aren't any going to be any wealth taxes or increases in capital gains or assaults on the private sector.

22:37George Osborne: It's just completely inconsistent with the narrative in which Andy Burnham came into office. And then second, here we are a week before the budget. And I challenge you to answer this question because I can't answer it. Is this going to be a big budget or a small budget? Quite a lot of budgets are quite small budgets that you know they happen and of course on the day people notice that I don't know beer duties cut or fuel duties frozen or you know something happens but in the big scheme of things like the whole wagon train moves on a week later and you know a couple of the budgets I delivered were a bit like that and and then there are other budgets that I delivered and Gordon Brown delivered and so on that you know were big but big kind of defining budgets that set the political terms of trade for the next year or two.

23:26With a week to go, is this going to be a big budget

23:29George Osborne: or a small budget?

23:31Ed Balls: So taking those two points in turn, first of all, this doesn't feel like the rolling back of 40 years of neoliberalism, but they need the economy to grow. They need some wealth creation. And John, he's right to say those things. There's this great first paragraph in a piece by George Parker and his team in the FT a couple of days ago, tight inner circle, prioritises fiscal control in budget. And this is the first paragraph. It's very simple, said one person close to Prime Minister Andy Burnham last month. This is very much Andy's budget. And he chose John Healy to deliver it. And the piece goes on to say, however, things aren't quite working out that way.

24:07Ed Balls: And I think it's rather good having Andy Burnham and John Healy reflecting similar messages about the global challenges. But I feel as though John Healy is asserting himself. And look, Andy Burnham, the pragmatist, he always knew the private sector was really important and wealth creation was really important. So I've never quite understood all this 40 years of neoliberalism stuff anyway. But that feels as though that's been slightly pushed onto the back burner, and that is a good thing. In terms of big or small...

24:32George Osborne: I mean, sorry, but your message, you're basically saying, we want to end neoliberalism, but we do need the economy to grow, so let's carry it on for another year or two.

24:40Ed Balls: Exactly. But, you know, thank God neoliberalism is over. Yeah. And we're beyond the last 40 years. Although, you know, maybe we do need a little bit of economic dynamism like we had in the 1980s and 90s and 2000s. And therefore, and maybe actually we shouldn't be raising capital gains tax. Maybe we should be cutting it. And maybe actually businesses being profitable is quite a good thing because they can reinvest their profits and create more jobs. Anyway, so that is fine because you have to say things. And, you know, he's a prime minister. And now they're going to, you know, actually see the philosophy of the budget and in the 10-year plan.

25:13Ed Balls: But in terms of big or small...

25:16George Osborne: You would agree with me that some budgets are big and some budgets are small, right? Yes.

25:20Ed Balls: But sometimes a decision to do something small can end up feeling quite big. And I'm not totally sure how this one is going to go. I think they are wanting it to feel small because they don't really want to have to make their big decisions about next year yet. and I think they don't want to kind of restore the full fiscal margin. We both said that was a good idea last week. The hints are small tax rises rather than big tax rises. You know, John Healy's saying don't worry about the public sector because it's becoming more productive. There'll be some pro-business measures. But as we said last week and as the Institute for Fiscal Studies pointed out, Their huge challenge is that at the moment, public spending is going to be falling pre-election, and they've got this huge problem about how to sort out our defence spending.

26:15Ed Balls: And that's before we get to Andy Burnham's promises about education and social care and the role of mayors. And are they going to use the budget in order to set out the public spending strategy for the rest of the parliament? That would be a big budget, even if it was sort of slightly slipped in. Or are they going to park all of that and try and hope nobody notices and come back to it next year?

26:39George Osborne: It's the latter, isn't it?

26:41Ed Balls: I mean, I think they're going to have to now.

26:42George Osborne: I always think, you know, we've discussed this before on the podcast, but in politics, you have to think of like always what the alternative, you know, what the budget you could be giving next week. This could be a massive budget to roll back privatization, to give huge new tax powers to mayors, to set out the plans on social care reform that Burnham has spent the last 15, 20 years of his life championing. massive set out how it's going to be paid for, how it's going to be delivered, get it underway. He could set out the defence plans that John Healy resigned from the Starmer government in protest to and Healy could say, now I'm Chancellor, here's what I thought was vital for national security.

27:28George Osborne: They could set the fiscal framework for the next few years and the spending plan. I mean, they could be doing all of these things. You could put all of that into a budget right now. there's nothing they could announce the milburn reforms you know which are being published in a few weeks time the milburn these are plans to get young people off benefits you could you could put all every single one of those things are decisions that could be taken now then you know we're not waiting on some new piece of information in any of those cases and um and they have they've chosen to go for the oh i want to help people a little bit times are tough and we're going to ease the squeeze and sure it's kind of it's a very you know it's clearly it's if it's not a deliberate political choice if they've just stumbled into it then that's probably a bad sign about the kind of strategic thinking of the government if it is a deliberate choice which is play it long get ourselves established it it's an interesting decision because normally the rule in politics is when you're new when you have your first budget do your big things because your political capital starts to evaporate.

28:36Ed Balls: It may be that what they're thinking is that the 10-year plan sets out the ambitions and they then have to come back and show how the sums add up to meet those ambitions and they weren't able to get to the 10-year plan quickly enough and they decided to kind of get a housekeeping budget out of the way but you know we've discussed this before how many budgets do you have a year how many fiscal events do you have a year and this idea you only have one is it makes no sense politically and if they're doing what you're describing pushing these things back to next year they're going to have to have a big shaping budget style fiscal event in the spring to set the spending review up and to solve these problems around defence and public services and they're going to have to go out from the 10-year plan and explain to the country there's big choices we face and by the way expose the fact that when Kemi Badenock says she can make this all add up through between, you know, by tens of billions of welfare cuts in this parliament, that is for the birds.

29:38Ed Balls: I mean, you know, I think Alan Milburn will deliver a very tough, important report, but he's not going to say there's savings in this parliament. It takes years for them to come through. But if they park the big politics next week, then the big politics has to come in the spring. And the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have to have a plan from the budget and the 10-year plan through to that moment to take the country to big choices. And if they think they can just get out of that by saying, don't worry, we'll make the public sector more efficient, that just won't wash with anybody.

30:11George Osborne: I thought there was one significant decision in the last week that was actually underreported. And it's tangential, but I guess everything in politics is connected. That was the decision by Andy Burnham and Defence Secretary Wes Streeting to send British jets to Saudi Arabia to conduct what they call defensive operations against the Houthis. I think if you'd asked Andy Burnham, you know, four or five months ago, sitting in Manchester, if you become the Prime Minister of Britain, will one of your first major acts in your first, you know, months in office be to send British forces into the Gulf?

30:50George Osborne: He would have said, you've got to be joking. And of course, you know, Starmer got the ire of Donald Trump for keeping Britain out of the Iran conflict. But it was a pretty significant moment. And all I would say is, you know, for me, that could be one of the most significant early decisions of the Burnham government, because once you deploy British forces, including, you know, yes, OK, they're not soldiers on the ground, but fighter jets are up there in the sky. Fighter jets can be shot down. pilots can be captured uh defensive operations can become offensive operations and it just reminded me of something which which was quite seared in my memory back in 2006 you know quite a long time ago when john reed then defense secretary announced that um they were sending british soldiers to a place no one had ever heard of called helmand in afghanistan but we none of us needed to worry it wasn't a big deal um and this is going to be a kind of routine peacekeeping operation.

31:50George Osborne: I dug out the clip to remind everyone what John Reid said and it's just a kind of cautionary tale for current defence secretaries and current prime ministers.

31:59Ed Balls: We would be perfectly happy to leave in three years time without firing one shot because our mission is to protect the reconstruction.

32:09George Osborne: It wasn't three years and it wasn't one shot being fired that is for sure and many families of British servicemen paid a terrible price. Anyway, we don't have to discuss it at length today, but it happened in the last week. It's a pretty significant decision and probably the biggest decision Andy Burnham had to make in the last few days.

32:31Ed Balls: As you were talking there, I was thinking to myself, stepping into conflicts which have been going already for 10 years without it being in any way clear what the path to a resolution is it's always risky not least if you join one side of that fight and the others are rather angry and there'll be quite a lot of Yemeni kind of politicians and people who have quite a lot of beef with Saudi but what I thought to myself was George last week he was in Oxford I think the last thing you said on the podcast last week is you have to have a chat with William Hague and I can just imagine you and William Hague sitting together shaking your heads and saying this is how it starts Chancellor Hague Chancellor Hague he was he he's absolutely loving

33:22George Osborne: it he was when I saw him he was exuding enthusiasm for the job Chancellor Hague ripped Chancellor

33:31Ed Balls: Hague yes next week we have the budget on Wednesday we're going to do a hot take reaction straight after the budget, as we've done for the last few budgets. And then we'll be back, as always, on Thursday with our normal podcast, where we can reflect upon where the budget leaves politics for the year ahead. But that's coming up next week. And we're going to take a break. And then we're going to turn to our investigative reporter on the ground, John Simpson Osborne, who can give us a view about what's happening in France.

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36:23Ed Balls: So welcome back. Weekend pictures of terrible riots looting in France. the French political establishment and the government so on the back foot. I think President Macron was off at the opera on Friday night when things were starting to kick off. And then his interior minister on Monday tries to resign. The president says no. This is Macron responding to the riots on Sunday night. And the sort of the pain in these words is kind of very clear. Watching these images, we all asked ourselves, what are they thinking? How can French people do this to France? How could they do this to France?

37:11George Osborne: Yeah, I mean, you can sort of, I think, sense the frustration in Macron's voice. I mean, he's coming to the end of his term as president. There's some speculation that he would like to run for the presidency again in five years time. You can't run now because the Constitution prevents three consecutive terms. But unlike the United States, you can you can, you know, then sort of a bit like Putin did. Russia got to put yourself up for president again when that when a term has expired. And, you know, I think if you think of what Emmanuel Macron's tried to do with France, you know, he's trying to make it the investable go to place.

37:52George Osborne: he's tried to make Paris a kind of rival to London as the kind of European center of finance and technology and you know his obviously his frustration when those pictures of burning cars and graffiti and crowds in the Place de la République which is just down the road from where I am go around the world and Donald Trump goes out and says oh it's all the you know it's all jihadists and communists who are taking over France. And it feeds that kind of American Republican narrative that Europe has lost control, you know, of its population and its culture. I think if you take a step back, there are sort of some interesting questions here.

38:37George Osborne: The first is, you could just say, well, France is always like this, you know. I've been listening to the episodes on the rest is history at the moment, which is, you know, the Tom Holland, Dominic Sandbrook podcast about the Rob Speer reign of terror. That's like their current episodes. And, you know, it's just a reminder that French history is, of course, replete with street violence and mobs. And that's partly how French politics is conducted. So you could just say, well, you know, as I like France's, you could also say, oh, well, some of these issues, they're just like pan-european they're not kind of specific to france um you know there's frustrations with the cost of living and and as always when there's kind of street protests and a minority use it for looting and violence and you know you can read too much into the looting because kind of fundamentally it's just some people who want to go and steal some things and using kind of street protests as an excuse but all that said i think it you know it it's it's added to this kind of sense that France is in particular crisis, more so than anyone else in Europe.

39:46George Osborne: And France is such a big and significant player in the European economy and the European political community, that that's a challenge. And it's the combination, isn't it, of the protests in the street and the violence, the situation France faces in the bond market with very elevated borrowing rates at the moment, and the paralysis in the French political system, because essentially you have a president who doesn't control his parliament and the parliament doesn't have any single majority in the far left and the far right are kind of you know each have a sort of veto and all is set for a presidential election in a few months time which might deliver a le pen presidency a far right presidency so i i think it is significant beyond just some smashed up shops and burnt out cars which are just a kind of mob getting out of control.

40:38Ed Balls: As you said, there have been often instances in the past of French public uprisings from the trade unions or from the left protesting. But the thing which is distinctive about this is the weakness of the government's response and the hollowed out political centre. And in the past, you can think of lots of examples Think of Nixon 1968 in America benefiting from the anti-Vietnam, the student riots, the race riots in 68. But in this case, the winners are the far right candidate Le Pen, who, as you said, is now benefiting from this and rising in the polls, or the far left candidate Mellachaud. And if he gets onto the final ballot, that supercharges her chances.

41:29Ed Balls: chances. This is not de Gaulle standing up in 1968 to the riots and being strong. It feels weak. A government which can't pass a budget, a budget which would require big cuts in public spending when the legitimate demonstrations are about investment in schools. A government which has a high level of national debt, much higher than Britain, and in which the The bond markets are moving against them. But also, if you just think about French culture at the moment, and the underlying state of France, a year ago, on the same weekend, you had Paris Saint-Germain win the Champions League, beat Arsenal.

42:13Ed Balls: And Arsenal, who've won the Premier League, are defeated. But on the same weekend after the game, In Arsenal, you have a million people out in the streets in North London, the parade of the Premier League trophy from a team which is just lost. In Paris, you had days or certainly a day or two of rioting and looting in the streets. I mean, even when they won the Champions League, young people go out and riot and loot. And I mean, it's shocking. It's not just trading in demonstrations or the gilets jeunes. It's actually when they win a football match.

43:03George Osborne: Yeah, I mean, these are all quite distinct elements because I think the rioting, you know, tends to come from youth, you know, young people in the, what they call the banlieue around Paris. And, you know, there's definitely a challenge, as there is in many countries, but I think particularly here around integration and segregation. There are, as you say, the Gilets Jeunes are more like the kind of Pujadiste right wing supporters who are just sort of angry. They wore the yellow vests because they sort of petty fogging French bureaucracy said you had to carry a kind of high vis vest in your car at all times.

43:39George Osborne: Not that I had a problem carrying a high vis vest in my car at all times back in the day.

43:44Ed Balls: In case you saw a TV camera and somebody wanted 15 seconds for the news.

43:49George Osborne: Yeah, exactly. And then, of course, the trade union movement in the far left has always been, I guess, more radical than it was in Britain. But I think you made a very significant observation, which is something we will come back to in the coming months as the French presidential election unfolds. it's not unusual in the french presidential election in our recent lifetime for the far right candidate to get onto the ballot paper the final two that's that's happened a number of times it's been the marine le pen it was actually her father uh who was the first le pen who was on one of the ballot papers um so that you know that often is the case and then what happens is left and right, moderate left and moderate right, unite with whoever is the other candidate.

44:40George Osborne: And, you know, that's how Hollande won and that's how Sarkozy won. That's how Macron wins. That's how it's normally played out in French politics. I think what's significant here, as you say, is that we might well have a situation where there's a far left candidate and a far right candidate. And that's it on the ballot paper. Because in the French system, it gets down to a final two. They kind of weed out the other candidates. And the far left candidate is this guy, Mélenchon, who's associated with some of these protests, which, as you rightly pointed out, actually, with protests about the quality of school buildings and education and classrooms and education opportunities.

45:20George Osborne: But so he associated himself with those. And then you've got Marine Le Pen cleared by the courts to now be the candidate for the right. And most people think they may be wrong, but most political commentators in France think that if that's the ballot paper, then you get Le Pen. Because actually the country will unite more around her than around the far left candidate, Mélenchon. and so that's the that's the path that leads to a um a le pen presidency and if that happens i've just been in berlin where i actually met um chancellor mertz who's got his own travails but he was it was a big conference to try and get companies to invest in germany it was a pretty pretty impressive conference actually um and you know and he was going out of his way you know he didn't he wasn't explicit but he was saying you know germany it's the rule of law applies it's a very predictable jurisdiction.

46:19George Osborne: I know people think Germans are boring, but boring is not a bad thing when you want to invest in a country. You know, he was definitely taking the opportunity to say, you know, brackets, take a look at my neighbours and Germany's not looking so bad by comparison. But you also sense with him a kind of feeling that the leadership in Europe is paralysed, Paralyzed in the face of war in the Middle East, rising costs of living, rise of extremist parties, potential for a Le Pen presidency in France, the United States, you know, acting increasingly unilaterally, Starlink being turned off in Ukraine without anyone else's consent.

47:04George Osborne: And, you know, frankly, Britain is part of that European feeling of malaise at the moment, despite the best efforts of Andy Burnham to try and pull us out of it and get us to hope again. If you're looking at Europe from a distance, we're all in the same basket. And the riots in Paris actually do reflect on how people think about Britain and Germany and other European countries, too. They don't go like, oh, they're in better shape. They just say, isn't the whole thing a bit of a mess at the moment?

47:34Ed Balls: And it is interesting, isn't it? I mean, Germany, from a lower level, but still a high level of national debt, have the national debt on a rising path as a policy decision to invest in defence substantially. And the bond markets are dealing with that. And Germany has not been in the firing line. It's actually the United States and France, which, as Chris Giles was saying in his FTPs this week, it's America and France who look like the countries with a political system which isn't able to cope with governing at the moment. and as we were saying last week if you are um i mean andy burnham and his team have got a short term negotiation to get through the next few weeks and i don't know whether these events in france make it easier or harder to get to a deal around student fees and youth mobility and um the other things that they'll want you to try and get a more sensible approach to um trade barriers and the made in europe policy for british car manufacturers but if you're thinking that over the next five years we're going to be negotiating with European leaders a new relationship which could involve returning to the European Union for Britain I mean this is um this is going to be a hard sell to the the British public that the people we're negotiating is are with other kind of people you want to be our mates well I went it was a private conversation but um

49:04George Osborne: suffice to say that Friedrich Burtz was asking me quite a lot about what he what I thought was really going on with Andy Burnham's comments about rejoining the European Union he was Andy Burnham had been seeing him and he was enthusiastic about that meeting but he was saying George explain to me you know is are we are we going to take this seriously and if we are what does it mean for um germany and british relations and should germany be getting gearing up for our negotiation with britain rejoining the eu so very interesting we've got a good question haven't we on emqs from gloria del piero former labor mp about this which we will be answering absolutely

49:47Ed Balls: and um and you know in the meantime for this podcast um when i was making the argument that in Britain. It's different in our approach to public disorder and unrest. I made my point about Paris, Saint-Germain and Arsenal. And we have very regular demonstrations in the capital, but we're not expecting them to turn to overnight arson, looting and violence. Sometimes it happens spontaneously, but not in this organised way. But of course, we have had moments in our history where we've had similar times. And we thought we would just end the podcast by reflecting a little bit on leadership in a time of riot and what political leaders might learn from the past times in Britain that we've had these kind of events.

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52:10Ed Balls: so welcome back here is a medley of three british prime ministers margaret thatcher in 1981 tony blair in 2000 and david cameron in 2011 all dealing with substantial public disorder on the the streets with all the ways of protest and demonstration and democratic methods we have, that anyone should attempt to take it out on the police or the citizens of the area by turning over cars, looting property, setting it alight and throwing bombs and missiles at the police. Nothing justifies that, and I cannot condemn it too strongly. Whatever the protesters' feelings, and I repeat, I understand the real difficulties people have over the high price of petrol, it cannot be right to try to force a change in policy by these means.

53:05We will do whatever is necessary to restore law and order onto our streets. Every contingency is being looked at. Nothing is off the table.

53:14Ed Balls: So as I said, that was Thatcher after the 81 Brixton riots. Tony Blair when fuel depots were being and refineries were being blockaded to stop the flow of petrol and diesel to the gas stations, to our petrol stations. And then David Cameron after the 2011 London riots, although they also spread to other parts of the country as well. And of course, you were chancellor with David Cameron during that August. what do you recall about what it was like to be on the inside when that sort of public disorder

53:52George Osborne: is happening around you so i mean i was actually on holiday uh it was in the middle of august i was on holiday with my family in the united states and you know had to fly back um immediately um because i think let's start with this i mean disorder on the streets is is a is a terrible for a government i mean it's terrible for the people involved um do you know when i was very young uh i just left university and i was doing a essentially a kind of work placement with the with the um with the sunday telegraph i was thinking about becoming a journey trying to become a full-time journalist and they sent me to cover a riot in east london which was actually a um a kind of far-right march that was being confronted by what they were self-described anti-nazi protesters and then there was a charge of the police forces and it was one of the most kind of scary things i've ever been part of and there's something when the when it kind of gets out of control there's just you know the violence is everywhere and it's essentially a lot of young men not just the rioters but the police officers of young men all kind of clashing with each other and it was really kind of uh left a very strong impression of me and for a government it's a bit like a kind of prison breakout or a bank run.

55:09George Osborne: It's like you're not in the basics is you're supposed to keep order in the country and you're failing. So it's it's kind of terrible for a government.

55:16Ed Balls: And that point about bank run is really important because I think one element and you see this in all of the cases we just displayed there is you have this copycat element that people see. back then it would have been on the television now it would also be on social media on people's phones, they see people looting or the violence starting and in 81, starts in Brixton, ends up in Manchester, West Bromwich, all across the country, in 2011 Toxteth famously

55:46George Osborne: in 81

55:47Ed Balls: but in 2011 it starts with a particular policing incident in Tottenham

55:53George Osborne: they shoot someone who's Mark Duggan was his name. Yeah. He was a drug dealer, but the question was whether he was armed or not.

56:03Ed Balls: But it spreads. And so there is often a copycat element in this. And you absolutely saw that in France at the weekend. And like a bank run, what you worry is that you're losing control because it's kind of spreading and spreading.

56:20George Osborne: No, my strong impression of that was, so the first thing about riots is they are, unbelievably violent and terrible for governments because they signal loss of control. The way governments get back in control is through a absolutely merciless demonstration of the power of the state. And I remember Cameron in the kind of emergency meetings that were being held, just essentially shouting at the police chiefs, get every single police officer onto the streets and deploy thousands of police officers and the you know the metropolitan police i remember the you know saying oh it's a bit complicated it's also a community policing because you know the situation as we were just alluding to it you know it started with a you know essentially a a kind of disturbance in the community in tottenham and whether this guy you know essentially there was a kind of race relations element to the beginning of the riot and and the police were like we've got to be careful and the police have been heavily criticized for policing the was it the G8 or demonstrations where someone had been kettled and I think under the outside the Bank of England and someone had died and so they were really they didn't want to kettle people which is when they kind of control people and you know block people in the streets and you can't leave so they were reacting to all they would say you remember last time we tried this we got heavily criticized and Cameron was basically get you know get everyone on to get your police flood the streets with police.

57:50George Osborne: And interestingly, Keir Starmer threw it to public prosecutions at the time. Like the courts are going to meet through the night. Exemplary sentences are going to be handed out. Very, very swift justice is going to be delivered. So people can see within 24 hours, you were on the streets last night. You are now facing five years in prison tonight. And all of that worked to bring the riots to an end. But it was a kind of, it was like the British state i mean in the broader sense of the police the army the courts the prime ministers all you know exerting the power of the state which is what the macron government here was criticized for not doing last um last weekend which was you know not flooding the streets with police and and stopping

58:33Ed Balls: the violence but but there's a there is there's a really interesting tactical question for leadership in not the what but in the how i mean you can imagine uh thinking about margaret thatcher in in 1981, David Cameron in 2011. I mean, if voices are saying to you, we must be careful if we're too heavy handed, we might provoke the violence. As a political leader, you know, if it's the other way around, you lose control. You don't have enough people on the streets. The buildings are burning. The looting's happening in an uncontrolled way. That is catastrophic for your reputation and standing. And you can't afford that.

59:11But what you can't do as a politician is take operational control.

59:18Ed Balls: You have to leave that to the police. Is that true? Well, if you think about Margaret Thatcher...

59:23George Osborne: Basically, Cameron did take operational control back then. Well, did he overwrite? Well, not area by area. No, he wasn't like deploying.

59:32Ed Balls: See, Margaret Thatcher in 81, she was in the Met Commissioner's office in Scotland Yard for eight hours until three in the morning. But I don't think she ever wanted to be the voice of what to do operationally. She was there giving them the strength. But, I mean, do you actually want area by area to decide when you go in and when you don't? I mean, that is so dangerous politically.

59:57George Osborne: Yes, of course. No, no, I'm not saying operational control, that level of detail or granularity. But Cameron did override the sort of policing fear of like kettling tactics and, as I say, kind of community relations and said, we've got to just stop. You know, we can't have another night. You remember in London, they were kind of tearing through restaurants and destroying shops. It was absolutely, you know, if you were caught up in it, it was absolutely.

1:00:24Ed Balls: Huge looting.

1:00:26George Osborne: And people locked in their houses. actually you know north london where we were just talking about um you know going door to door and sort of smashing up you know you've got and and he just said stop it get get flood the police streets with police what about um i think there's an interesting thing then of should you read to quite often quite a lot is read into riots even if they're kind of a bit opportunistic and people looking to loot and you know basically young men having a good time you know it's not everyone's definition for a good time but it'd be their kind of definition for a good time um you know because after after um brixton in 81 there's the scarman report which is all about kind of inner city conditions race relations in the uk after the fuel protests um basically no chancellor ever since has put up fuel duty it's been frozen ever since and uh and tony blair and gordon brown felt they had to respond and you know it it'll be in you you know and there was a response after um uh 2011 as well to um you know how policing was you know community relations and stop and search and stuff like that what um what's the um what's the right thing to do if you don't do if you do do something are you rewarding kind of street violence as a way of delivering political change but if you don't do anything is that sort of too tin-eared i mean take the take the fuel duty protests you know they were calling for a change in taxation and they kind of got it i mean let's be honest they didn't they did get it not just from gordon brown but from subsequent

1:02:02Ed Balls: chancellors myself included right see i think that there's a difference between responding and how and the way in which you are seen to respond so going through them in order in 81 I mean driven by Michael Heseltine there is a big investment into toxin and regeneration at the time the chancellor Jeffrey Howe says he's quite skeptical he says throwing good money after bad but it happens anyway but I think Margaret Thatcher is the person who is able to be tough about the response and Heseltine underneath that so you sort of manage to get both at the same time I think it's harder if you're a left of centre government, which is why it's so difficult for Macron.

1:02:48Ed Balls: Back in 2000, we'd actually come off the fuel duty escalator the year before. But then petrol prices had gone up globally. And so we were under pressure to cut them. We actually did in the pre-budget report a few weeks later, we made a change in petrol taxation. But we did it under the banner of new incentives for ultra low sulfur petrol. We certainly didn't want that to look like we were doing it in response to the demonstrations. And then if you think back to you in 2011, I mean, I don't know what the internal debates would have been, what the Liberal Democrats were saying. But I think probably for Nick Clegg and for David Cameron and you, any sense that you were responding to a legitimate concern about public spending cuts would have been such a problem that you didn't want to do that.

1:03:40Ed Balls: Although, you know, in the end, think about you in 2016, when you get overturned on tax credits by Nigel Lawson. If you don't respond, I mean, there wasn't riots, but if you don't respond to legitimate concerns, it's a problem for any government. But how you do that, you have to be quite careful. And you don't want to look like you are jumping to the tune, even if it's legitimate, when it's led to public disorder.

1:04:06George Osborne: Yeah, you see, I just don't think those 2011 riots had anything to do with austerity. but people who were austerity critics wanted that to be what they were about the more you know clearly linked to a government policy right was in 2010 the student rights in parliament square um where students were complaining about higher tuition fees and sort of smashing up buildings um and there we didn't we didn't actually change the the policy um although from the liberal democrat point of view maybe we should have done but you know there's a there's a risk there is a risk with these things and I think with these French riots you know is this really about the state of education in France is it about the kind of missed opportunities for young people these days you know where are the jobs I think that's probably where you should look if you're trying to find a legitimate answer to a legitimate kind of question from the population whereas just kind of complaints about the cost of living it's just a you know I'll end my comments with this riots happen and revolutions happen almost always when there's high inflation and high cost of living the crisis that there is often very economically correlated and as we were discussing in the segment on the budget there's actually a limited amount of do that limited amount of things that governments can do in the face of that because these are essentially forces beyond the control of any one national government.

1:05:35And the problem for governments

1:05:38Ed Balls: when you know that a lot of the public may be concerned about the cost of living and those issues, but what they're even more concerned about is not feeling safe in the streets. I mean, the reason why Le Pen can benefit from what's happening in France isn't because she's got a better argument on the cost of living, it's that she's saying they've lost control and they're not any more governing properly and time to take control. And even if you know there's a legitimate concern about the cost of living, if you become a government which looks like you aren't gripping public order and keeping the streets safe, then you're in a lot of trouble.

1:06:21Ed Balls: And so it's when those two things come together, it's so dangerous. That is it for this week's episode of Political Currency.

1:06:28George Osborne: Yeah, make sure you check our show notes to see how you can become a Kitchen Cabinet or Gold subscriber and all the benefits that that brings. And do send us questions as well for EMQs. We were just talking about how we're going to be answering some questions on these topics and others in our episode, which comes out on Monday or Friday, a couple of days early, if you are one of our subscribers.

1:06:52Ed Balls: That's right. And if you're watching on YouTube, you can always send your questions in by going to the comment section on YouTube or other social media kind of platforms will get your questions to us or you can always use email, which apparently is the new snail mail, although it still comes quite quickly. I'm not sure there was. Why is it so outdated? I think it's fine. Email's good.

1:07:15George Osborne: Yeah. I'm not sure there ever was a thing called snail mail. I think they use pigeons and horses to deliver messages. Main thing, next Wednesday, join us in the afternoon after the budget for our budget special and we'll be dissecting the budget and we'll be doing that, of course, on our main podcast next Thursday. See you then. Bye.

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