EMQs: Why does Farage fall out with everyone?

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2:00Hydration that goes wherever life takes you. The Chancellor of the Exchequer. Getting a lesson from the Shadow Chancellor had a balance of books. It's like getting a lesson from Dracula and had a look after a blood bank. A steady as she goes a budget. What kind of ship does he think he's on? The Titanic? The Murray Celeste. Welcome to EMQs from Political Carnage. With Ed Balls and George Osby. So welcome to EMQs. We're recording it here in our studio in Hoxton, not Shoreditch as Ed consistently says, and introduced our last podcast with. We're in Hoxton, not Shoreditch. Are they different places? Yes. Okay. I met a really impressive person this week called Georgia Harrison. And she is a reality TV star who had essentially nude photos and videos of her

3:02used online by her boyfriend. She went to the police. The police have tackled her, the boyfriend, and he ex-boyfriend, obviously. And now she's created a foundation and she campaigns to protect young women and others from this kind of exploitation online. Really impressive person. Not at all what you would think of as if you had a sort of kind of lazy view of what a love island contestant might be like. When you meet her in person, she's really smart. She was also very smartly dressed. And she said she was off to the National Television Awards later that day. That was why she was so smartly dressed. And I was thinking you must have also been at the National Television Awards. You probably know Georgia Harrison because you probably interviewed her. But how did the NDAs go? Well, I have interviewed her a few times and more than that, she's really impressive and a brilliant advocate for change. And I've said to her a few times, you'd make a great politician.

4:02I mean, you leave. That's what you should go and do. And she's done some advisory work for the government. But I think in her book, which came out years ago, she actually says that I was giving a conference to go out there and be a public figure of making these arguments. And so I think she's absolutely brilliant. I've no idea whether she would be labor-occuent served. But who cares? That kind of person becoming a politician would be excellent. I did go to the NDAs. We were shortlisted in the daytime category. Unfortunately, we didn't win. It was won by this morning. This morning, I thought they had a, and they imploded. And that the whole you would be in for Philip will show that. It's all about the votes. And they're back, Ben Shepherd, and Kat Deely. And they're doing great. And they're kind of sister-show to us, even though it is IT. So you really was a, you kind of won. Well, we were all winners. And George, that's how we think about it. Had we won, we wouldn't be saying that. But given that we didn't win, we are clear we were winners.

5:02But it was a great night. And I had such a good time. Alison Hammond gave me a big hug. Gordon Ramsay comes over. Eddie said, get what he said. Love the goatee. He said, you've got to keep the beard. Lee Mack was sitting in front of us. He was nominated for three awards. I don't know if he won or not, but I mean, he's these so funny. I love him, would I like to. And I love these parallel worlds, you live in Ed. You've got your sort of politics, economics world, your, you know, professor at King's College, you're talking about bond yields on our pocket. And then you've got your, the light entertainment side of your life, the, you know, the Lee Max and Allyson's and, you know, Ben Sheppard. Walking down the red carpet. Ed Ed. Going to do some selfies. They actually shouted Susanna, Susanna, Roddell lot more than Ed Ed. And I was with Kate Garrowey and Laura Tobin, who is our weather reader. And also Ranveer. We say, rather, weather reader these days, not weather girl, I assume.

6:04No, I, I, I, I, I, I weather person. But the, um, we all, once we had one, sit out to go back, to go to bed, to get up again, three, three, three, four, three, four, Laura Tobin pushed on the road to the after party, went through, um, and she arrived the next morning. But I don't know whether we can get a clip of this. If we can, it'd be brilliant. The first words when she starts her 620 weather report. And we just to say that it was a deep voice. Oh my goodness. I mean, Laura Tobin, is she committed? I think she's got a book coming out about her weather and the climate in the next week or so. So maybe we should give that, you know what I might do? Get her to, um, do us a question for next week's EMQs on the series subject. But, uh, if we've got a clip of Laura's voice on, um, Wednesday morning, she didn't lose. She was a winner. I know I have had sleep. I promise you. And I, also, I didn't, I promised you. I didn't drink that much because you're there for the whole ceremony watching it without a drink. But it's just chatting to everybody and my voice then pays the price.

7:06Uh, could, could you give us the weather? Well, I can tell you some of the other winners yesterday, people who got rain in their gardens. We're slowly seeing that grass recovering. And actually, there was quite a lot of rain through southern areas yesterday. Respect. So let's turn to the questions. Our first question comes from pretty well known, Jonas. You know, he, I remember he did a brilliant account of the election in my constituency, Tatton before I was a candidate, the Martin Bell Neil Hamilton election. There's a brilliant John Sweeney account. This, this is a question from John. So my question arises from researching my book on Nigel Farage. And I was struck actually astonished by how many people he had first charms and then fell out with Rupert Lowe and the bell sound as soon as his former lover. Neil and Christian Hamilton, Neil says of Farage, he wants to be the bride at every wedding,

8:07the corpse at every funeral. And God-free, bongo, bongo, land, bloom, who used to be Farage's best friend in UKIP. And when I asked him about Farage, he said, I am not in the giving vein today. He bloom compares for Raj to Richard III. That's not good. So my question is, is being nasty the best way to political power to the top of the greasy poll? So good to have a question from John. He's also done some brilliant reporting from the Ukraine over the last few years. I don't know whether you've seen him. He's been wearing an orange hat, a woman hat to be on our program quite a few times and really, really doing good stuff. And I'm really looking forward to seeing what the detail in the book tells us about the question John is answering because, you know, it is true that Nigel Farage had these fallouts, but why was it about money that they fell out?

9:09That would be interesting. Was it because the people who fell out with their own agenda and that they weren't really committed to the party? Were they vain? Nigel Farage vain? In the end, does Nigel Farage just not want to engage with them in the way that they want and they get frustrated with him? I mean, I don't know why, but it does seem to be true, doesn't it? Well, it's a very good question from John and I'm sure his book will be full of interesting stories. Of course, in one to one, one says, you know, is it a bad thing that you've fallen out with Rupert Lowe, Neil Hamilton and Godfrey Bloom? Is that a black mark or is that Agia sign the Yolk? Quite a good judge of character. So I think that you wouldn't necessarily hold against him, but he doesn't get on with it. So you're saying it would be nasty not to fall out? I mean, if you say you could put this question the other way around. What do you think of someone who's best friends with all these people? I think there's two interesting points here, which

10:11John makes, which other time to answer. So first of all, I don't think it's unusual for very successful politicians, not just in this country, but through history, to be loners, to be kind of, when you get very close to them, they turn out not to have any friends. They're kind of one person, one man band or one woman bands, you know, I mean, is that fundamentally your problem? You have two main things. I was just saying what I had no mates. No, too many friends. I think you think there's a lot of Boris Johnson who was absolutely alone, wasn't it? Yes. No, I mean, Boris, you know, he, Boris absolutely had some sort of close friends that he'd been at Eaton with or Oxford, but politically he had no real close friends. Very different from David Cameron, who some of his closest friends were, you know, around him in politics. But I think it's true quite often of leaders. I also think being in a leadership position, I'm not comparing, you know, leading reform or you kept to being under the President of the United States or something, but quite often, there is a loneliness in power that also distances yourself from people,

11:16and you end up with a kind of small, tight entourage of, essentially, followers and kind of, you know, people in your court. So I don't think it's unusual to be a loner, and it's by no means a sign that you won't be successful politically, quite the reverse, quite often loners can be, very, very successful in politics. Now, nasty is where I think I disagree, well, I don't, sorry, John's asking us the question, so I'm not prejudging what I think he thinks. I think many successful politicians, it's a side of also being a bit of a loner, can be ruthless. I mean, ruthless when it's required, and take, you know, very, very kind of bold decisions that cut off people who thought they were friends or thought they were followers or thought they were supporters. There's a phrase in there about British politics that primers have to be good butchers is a phrase. They have to be prepared to kind of lay down their friends to save their own skin.

12:20And I think there's actually, there's that brilliant, it's one of the great phrases in British politics, way back in the 1950s, Hugh Gates School about Harold Mammillan, a great love-hath, no man that he lays down his friends for his life. And Harold Mammillan was a very, very successful politician, I think also from what I've read about him, a bit of a loner. But I don't think you want to be nasty. I mean, I don't think, if you're seen as a nasty person, but it's no distinction between being seen as nasty and being nasty. Well, it depends where you mean by nasty then, isn't it? I mean, if you're seen as nasty, people don't like nasty people, and they don't like to behave in a nasty way. But there may be people who are quite successful in covering up their nastiness in a smiling demeanor. I'm not going to kind of define nasty versus define ruthless, you know, exactly. I think there's a sort of, there's a nasty, there's a something about nasty which is sort of without any point at all. It's kind of random, your behavior towards people, whereas a sort of ruthless, calculating can be quite unpleasant.

13:24And that's why you may not want to be close to these people. But it can lead to successful politicians. So when Theresa May said the conservatives couldn't be the nasty party anymore, that was the problem for the conservatives when back in the early 2000s, I mean, she was talking there a truth. Yes, because at the time the party looked like it was kind of anti-gay, anti-immigrants, or people from different ethnic minority backgrounds, anti-women. I mean, it was like the old man on the pop bench sitting ever on the country was much better in the past than the normal says, I'm just much better without you. So no, I think that's what she, although it turned out, of course, to be something that came very controversial after she'd said it. Now, I'd be fascinated to see John's book, but it doesn't sort of surprise me that Farage is a loner, because quite a lot of politicians are. Thank you, John, looking forward to seeing the book, and we really appreciate your question. Our next question is from a sitting MP, and actually, electing 2024, MP for High Peak,

14:31and the former Parliamentary Private Secretary to Kierstarmher. Hi, Ed and George. It's John Peer's MP and the UK's special envoy for post-Holochorst issues. As you know, Ed, this week in Parliament, we have a special exhibition on what Britain knew about the Holocaust. It turns out a lot more than we would like to admit. What I would like to know is, do you think now more than ever that exhibitions like this and the planned UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre, which will stand beside the houses of Parliament, are important in making sure we are honest about our past, Britain's relationship with the Holocaust, whilst also honouring Jewish victims and survivors who may Britain their home. Thanks both. So John took over from Eric Pickles as the special envoy for post-Holochorst issues. I think it's a prime ministerial appointment, but it's works very closely with the Foreign Office, and on Monday, we were doing a launch in Parliament, Lord Eric Pickles and I, and we had a piece in the Jewish

15:37News and John came along. It's an exhibition, which will be in Port Colise House in Parliament for the next two weeks, and then he's then going to go to the Scottish Welsh Northern Ireland Parliament's assemblies. And it's about the content. It's the first look at the content for the Holocaust Memorial to be built in Victoria Tower Gardens next to Parliament. We're in the final stages of sorting out planning for that after a piece of legislation was passed earlier in the years. It's been going on for a long time. I remember you was chanced for announcing the funding for it back in 2015. So this 11 years ago, we are still going, there's been a pattern with Holocaust Memorials around the world about them taking a long time. So there's something about, for those who haven't followed it, what will it actually assume the planning goes ahead? Is it just a memorial you look at? That's a leading question, I don't think it is. There's a kind of education component to it. Is it a centre you go into? Is it what? So it will be the most visited Holocaust Memorial

16:37and learning centre in the world, all the experts say, because of its proximity to Parliament. It has an amazing design, which essentially digs under the grass of Victoria Tower Gardens. These are the gardens that not all, there's also a palace green, but it's got often reports from Parliament. That's right. TV reports happen on this grass. That's right. And then when you walk in through the memorial physical building, there will be a learning journey downstairs, which is an hour long, which will be the story of Britain's engagement with the Holocaust. And it starts with, the first place you go into is a mock-up of Parliament, and people can sit on green benches and hear the debates in the 1930s. And then it looks at the individuals, the communities who, in a positive and sometimes in a negative way, when engaged in Britain's engagement with the Holocaust through to liberation and then the aftermath which followed. And although it's a memorial to the Holocaust,

17:39it has that British perspective and it's warts and all. And I think this is very important, this is John's question, because if you take, for example, the Kinder Transport, which was, you know, an amazing, fabulous liberation for very many children fleeing from the Nazis at the end of the 1930s, it was also a moment where they were forced to separate from their parents, because the view that Parliament and the government took at the time was that the children could come, but the adults couldn't. And that was at a time when there was great concern about immigration, and in this case, Jewish asylum seekers. And there are very many other examples where decisions were made which, you know, are challenging to remember, but it's very important the week that we do and part of our exhibition. But it's not all the kind of, everything we've got wrong, hopefully it's got some of the things we've got right. Well, no, I think the accusation is that it's only going to be about what we've got right,

18:43and it's important that we also show, because, you know, why are we building this next to Parliament? It's both to remind Parliament's about their duty to tackle anti-Semitism, but it's also to remind Parliament's, and let's not forget, in January the 1930s, Hitler started as a parliamentarian in Parliament. Sometimes, Parliament's can make mistakes. And so, as I said, the article we had in Jewish news was about the importance of truth. And I think that it's vital in our memorial, that we celebrate the great heroes and the individuals and the successes, but also we're open. You know, think about what happened in terms of collaboration with the Nazis in Guernsey in the Channel Islands. The thing which we know, the last survivors are so old now, and it's when the last we've lived experience go, the history kind of is often kind of written. And I'm being over in the Holocaust Memorial in Washington and talking about the website. And they said, the thing you have to understand is whatever we do in terms of engagement with our website,

19:48we are outgunned, 10 to 1 and more by the social media and internet reach of Holocaust denial. And the only way you can take on Holocaust denial, and there are huge numbers of people around the world who will want to deny the truth about the Holocaust in the decades to come, the only way to take that on is for us to be open and embrace truth. And that is what our exhibition is about. And that's what the memorial will be about. And it's very much about the lessons we learn for contemporary Britain. Okay, I know we've got a lot of small questions. Just one question more on this. Some people would say, okay, you can't just talk about the Holocaust. What about genocide that have happened since we are taught? And is there going to be a sort of, you know, this continues to this day. And then how do you how are you going to try and navigate all the really difficult politics around Gaza and so on? There's some people use the word genocide. I'm not one, but some people are doing. Our remit is the Holocaust and subsequent genocides. And we will absolutely do

20:50that at the end of the journey, Sabineacher, Rwanda. As you know, Ed Milliband this week in his statement in Parliament said that, you know, that word was a matter for kind of, you know, the international lawyers. But that's something that we will deal with as things evolve. But it is the Holocaust. And you know, this is 85% the story of the Holocaust and Britain's engagement with it. There were six million Jews who lost their lives, including one and a half million children. But there were hundreds of British Jews who lost their lives in the Holocaust. And it's important that we recognize that story while also remembering one story I'm so striking, a Polish teacher who had come with her family, escaping in a previous intimidation and violence at the turn of the 20th century. She was teaching in Liverpool, I think, and married two children. And she traveled in the late 1930s back to Poland to meet her family and for them to meet their grandchildren.

21:53And the children made it out and she didn't. And so she lost her life. She is one of the six million. We managed to find her son in Birmingham. And to be able to talk to him about his mum, a British victim and her story. And I think, as you know, in anything like this, all that you're talking about a big global story and something a long time ago, people, and it's the same with the Bay of Tapestry, the individual stories, whether that's a story told in pictures or in video or in tapestry, are the things that start people's connection. And that's an important part of what we're doing. Thanks John for your question. And we're going to be back after this break. Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice message system. A missed call doesn't feel like anything. No red flag, no notification screaming at you.

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25:18Welcome back. Here's a question on the Burnham Agenda, which co-ocons back to New Labour. Hi, Ed and George. Cat here. I love the podcast. I've been thinking about the Government's ambitions on devolution. Back in the New Labor days, the focus was on regions rather than cities with John Prescott in particular really driving this idea. It's unsurprising that the PM as a former city mayor seems more focused on cities, but does it matter whether devolution is to cities or to regions? I think it does matter, so I think the difference between cities and regions, often regions don't have a genuine regional identity to them. In other words, the people who live in the regions don't feel. If you live in Liverpool, you wouldn't necessarily say

26:18you live in the north-west, you're a north-westerner. You might think of yourself as a northerner, you'd certainly think of yourself as a Liverpooler. One of the problems with these administrative regions is that they kind of lump a load of people together who wouldn't necessarily feel any particular attachment. Therefore, if you then try and construct political apparatus on top of that, like regional parliaments or regional assemblies, there's nothing that binds people together. If you think of the southwest region, there's a hell of a difference in living in Bristol and Cornwall, a Cornish-Visive religion, a middle of Bristol. In the north-west, there's a difference in living in the middle of Manchester and living in rural Cumbria. Yet those regions, incoming Kurdish and government, got rid of regional development agencies and the plans for the regional assemblies were scrapped altogether. One of the reasons we were able to do that was because there had been not much support for this sort of regional approach. I was an MP

27:23campaigning against the regional assembly in the north-west of England. My strongest partner, and we worked together as a team, was a Labour MP George Howarth from Nozli. Now, I can tell you, the two Georgians had had very different upbringing. George Howarth and George Osborne, we wouldn't, I don't think anyone would say, you would natural political bedfellows. Yet he was absolutely vehemently against regional devolution and regional assemblies in the north-west of England. We ran, I kind of kept when I was a backbench MP, ran a campaign. Even in the northeast of England, where John Prescott pushed for it, and I say even the northeast, because it was the smallest, most compact region, it didn't work. There was an assembly, there was a referendum that failed. So I think city regions is what emerged as the phrase. The wider city area, so Manchester's case, Andy Burnham was the mayor of Great Manchester, which is not just Manchester City Centre, but also Bolton, Holdum, Berry, Rochdale, which had fierce local identities, but still would see themselves within the kind of Manchester orbit,

28:27same true in Merseyside. And that's proved a much more successful, I think, basis for a devolution because there's a sort of genuine connection that people understand in order to get Bolton growing, you might have to take some decisions in Berry. It's harder to put people across region. So I would say there is a difference. That's right. The story of the evolution to where we are now, and I do think we have the best chance of embedding, as you say, a consensual, but identity-based way of doing economic policy that we've had in the past. The evolution is interesting. Back to the very late 1930s, when we were preparing for the war, these regions were essentially constructed in Whitehall as ways to manage war readiness based upon the traditional county boundaries, but it was, as you said, a completely administrative structure. And then, because this was the time when, partly also about the war effort, the government for the first

29:28time was collecting information and statistics. In 1940, they took that administrative organizational model and said, well, let's collect data around those big regions. And then if you go through to 1994, that is the first time John Major, as Prime Minister, says, we're not only going to have these regions as ways of collecting information. We're also going to have government officers and the government officers will look at public service delivery across those regions. But as you said, without John Gummmer initiative, isn't it? But without there being a clear identity basis to that, these were maps that were really drawn by civil servants in the 1930s. In parallel to that, you had work which came out of the European Commission, the British Commission of Bruce Millen, looking at the way in which you could drive kind of regional policy, it was called turning round the industrialisation. And John Prescott, as a sort of Bruce Millen disciple, latched upon this,

30:30did a piece of work. And it was from that that came the regional development agencies to look at economic development across those administrative regions. And then John, I think, always wanted there to be a political identity to that, because he's always worried. This was just civil servant he had administrative, hence his desire for elected regional assemblies. The problem you had in that first period of government, and why was it the treasury at the time, on the one hand you had these regions, which as you said, work kind of too big. And then it wasn't something that had identity, but then you had on the other side the core cities. And this was the big cities, Manchester Leeds, Bristol, Newcastle, who all said, it shouldn't be about these regions, it should be about us, the cities. And the problem with that was it was too narrow, because it was all very well say, well, let's back Newcastle or Leeds, but what about Wakefield or Bradford or Wigan or Stockport. And if you had gone for a city-based approach, that wouldn't have worked either, it was too narrow. And what evolved because of the work of the regional development agencies was city regions,

31:34whether you would look at a bigger footprint, but in the region of Yorkshire and the Humber, you'd have four or five city regions rather than just one, but you would make sure you included the towns. And that is where we've ended up, because what you started, actually what we started, but you accelerated, was to have a elected mayor looking across that city region. And I think that is the best model so long as, and this is important when you go back to the regional map, it needs to be comprehensive, because I don't think you can say to Bolton or Blackburn or Preston, really sorry, you know, you don't count. And so that is the challenge, the challenge for the government is to have something which is simultaneously comprehensive, which the regions were, but also based upon genuine areas of identity, where you can drive, economic decision-making, which is bigger than the individual local authority. And Michael Hessell time would say that's what he was trying to do with his local government reorganisation in the early 1970s, which then got ditched. What we're essentially doing is returning to a form of

32:39that again. Yeah, I mean actually, you know, the previous question was from John, who's the MP for High Peak. I mean, that's a high peak district around. It's sort of Darby's sheer, but it's actually near to a Denton Redditch and to Stokport, isn't it? I mean, it stretches across that part. Is it Manchester? Is it Sheffield? Is it Nottingham? Is it Darby? No, I mean, it's actually the high peak district, but it's all, yeah, so that's the classic, you know, which, where does that fit? And that is the challenge of it. So I can see why you want to have every part of the country covered, but to some degree, I think you have to be quite flexible and what works in cities isn't necessarily right for rural areas. That is true, but you won't, I don't think, I don't think it's possible for a labour government anyway to say the weir for the leads and the Manchester City region, but to Holland Grimsby on the outside. Oh, yeah, so the Bucks, I was thinking of the town in the middle of that, I think the high peak constituency, you know, where is that? It's a wonderful town. But connectivity to urban centres

33:43and to the realm network matters to them. I guess they're actually, although they're in Davies, they're kind of part of the West Yorkshire corridor with Huddersfields and Hanoffex. I mean, it's definitely, it's definitely, when you get to the big counties, it's more challenging, but, you know, at the moment the government's gone backwards on trying to reorganise the local government map to fit this agenda, and hopefully that's just a temporary thing, but I do think it's it's important. You can either make it too big or too small. Right, we're going to be back after this with two final quick questions. You stopped waiting for permission and started building yourself, your dreams, your credit. Experience boost could turn your on-time payments into instant FICO score gains. Every bill you paid could become proof of your power. Self made? Absolutely. Self-funded?

34:43Experience could help you get there. Download the Experience app today. Results will vary. Not all payments are boost eligible, some may not see improved scores or approval odds. Not all industries credit information impacted by Experience Boost. See Experience.com for details. Your daily supplement routine doesn't need to be managing a handful of different bottles. On its total human brings key research-based vitamins, minerals, herbs and amino acids together in convenient day and night packs. One all in one product designed to make supplementation easier. The day pack supports cognition, focus and cellular energy production. At night, the night pack helps you wind down and supports a calm, relaxed state. Less time managing your supplements, more support for your day and night. Shop total human now at oennit.com. This episode is sponsored by Hey Jen. Hey Jen turns a script, photo or presentation into a polished video of you. In minutes, no camera or crew required. It's how real estate agents, financial advisors, attorneys and creators show up consistently

35:45on every feed and build a brand that brings in clients without spending their whole week making content. Rated the number one AI video platform for small businesses on G2 with the most realistic AI avatars in the industry, trusted by a community of over 30 million people and 85% of the fortune 100 and built to work in over 175 languages so you can reach your audience in theirs. Here's a wild part. Record yourself for just 15 seconds and Hey Jen builds an AI avatar that makes professional videos for you on demand so you can post everywhere your audience is. As yourself, without filming every time, your first three videos are free at Hey Jen.com slash pod. That's h-e-y-g-e-n.com slash P-o-d. Welcome back. Quick trivia question from Robert. Hello, Ed and George. I've been a regular follower of the podcast ever since my son brought your insights to my attention. I continue to be impressed by the breadth of views and opinions

36:46that you're able to provide, despite being educated at the same university, namely Oxford. As you'll be aware, our new Prime Minister was educated at Cambridge. I wonder if you can then the last Prime Minister of prior to Andy Burnham to be educated at Cambridge. How did you explain the asymmetry in this pattern of tenure? Now the answer to this question is Stanley Baud. You looked it up. I did. He was probably the first to have been 1935 and 1937. I mean, I actually knew. And in the 1920s. I know, but he was the last Prime Minister. So the answer is Andy Burnham is the last one. It says 1937. Now, what is the reason for this? Why has Oxford had so many more Prime Ministers in recent years than Cambridge? I mean, do you think it's because? It's a better university. Well, I mean, yeah, but isn't Cambridge sort of, you know, dreamy spires and fends and rural and just sort of wears Oxford is more urban and around Cambridge and trusting and driving. Well, firstly, it's probably just entirely coincidental because there was a period during the 1990s when almost all the sort of Tory

37:52cabinet, John Major's cabinet, had been on much of the Tory cabinet, had been at Cambridge and they're all been in the community. They were all nearly ran. Yes, can you call on Michael Howard. Michael Hessell Time. John Gummer. I'm not sure it was Hesse time on them. Wasn't it? I thought it was a young thrusting entrepreneur, but maybe that's right. Anyway, they're all been in the Cambridge Union and so there was a sort of moment, it says it's partly coincidental, but I think there is probably something what you just said, or maybe put in a less pejorative way, which is, I think Oxford has a longer history of being engaged in kind of politics and economics. It has PPE. And Cambridge has more of, has had in the past anyway, more of a reputation for science. If you want to do PPE, if you want to do politics and economics, you could do Oxford and do PPE. Surely that is the reason. Yeah, I think you just try to wind be a block. And of course, we're all probably out of the way around to Oxford as well, David Milliband, Ed Balls, George Osborne, T.O.V. Hunt, George Osborne. Yeah. What a better rolling country would have been if, anyway, but the, I think it turns to winding people up. We're also winding up 99.9% of the country

38:58who didn't get Oxford or Cambridge. But it's interesting, it's not really out of touch. Our primaries have not until Andy Burnham been Oxford-educated. They've been Oxford-educated. Thank you for that question, Robert. And then our final question is from VioLen. Droughts and the UK's hottest summer on records seems odd timing to say the least. George, your party once led on this, under David Cameron, is rolling back on the climate really smart politics, according to you? Or does it just put off people like me who really care about how seriously we take this agenda? Thanks. So I think this is definitely a question for you. Are the Conservatives making a big mistake? And I should point out if you go back to my August interview with Kenny Baidnock,

40:02some interview, she said very clearly that she is not denying climate change. She's very committed to tackling climate change. She thinks it's about the how, not the weather and the method. But I'm not sure if that's the way in which it's coming over to people like VioLen. It feels like a different world in which the Conservatives campaign to say vote blue and go green. That was our slogan. Husky. I think it was Hulgo Hoodie, wasn't it? And then go sledgeing with the Husky. That was the... Oh, right. And of course the thing that Kenny Baidnock sets herself against, net zero, was actually a target introduced by Theresa May. And a champion by every other, the subject prime minister in government. Yeah. So do I think it's a mistake? Well, without getting into the detail of the net zero target, I think generally it's a mistake for the Conservatives to give the impression they don't care about climate change or that they don't care about the natural environment. And as I think we've

41:04discussed on this podcast before, there's a sort of natural etymology of conservative and conservation. And there's a kind of proud history, Margaret Thatcher lent into this as prime minister of concern for the environment. There was a lot achieved by the Conservatives, not just in policy terms, but in terms of broadening its appeal when it had a more overtly, its concern about green issues. But what I would also say is this I didn't think is unique to the Conservative Party. I think one of the most sort of dramatic things in the last two years was the way that the Labour Party in government did two things. It just ditched really, it's interest in international development. I mean, Kirstaama dramatically cut the international development budget. And if you think of one of the important parts of the sort of Labour story that had been over the previous 20 years, that's kind of remarkable. It's coming back though. Andy Burnham and Edelbert Leban say we're going to get back to 0.7. Right. Well, not anytime soon. But at least they're saying it. The second thing is one of the first Burnham announcements. I think it was to fund, was it not the cut in VAT on electricity? Or maybe

42:10it was one of these other, maybe it was the bus fare, actually, the bus fare cap of £2. Funded by raiding, remaining international development budget, four climate change projects around the world. I think it was the VAT. Yeah. So I would say unfortunately for VLN, it's not just from her body, it's not just the Conservative body. And broadly, I think it's worth saying also that the world has changed. The price of energy has gone up dramatically. And so I think some of the push for transition on things like electric cars just was too fast, too brutal. Look what's happening to the British car industry. And I would be very surprised if the Burnham government doesn't at some point announce that it's ditching the kind of new target of that a certain percentage of, I think it's like 80% of new cars or something, have to be electric by 2030, which and the British car industry is saying we should come back to on our main podcast because it is in serious trouble at the moment. Look, the truth is Donald Trump does deny climate change is a real issue. And so does Nigel Farage. And can we be made not to a decision to make as to

43:13even if she disagrees with the net zero policy levers? Is she wanting to pose as a climate deny? She says not, but that is her danger. Anyway, thank you for your question VLN. Can I just say this? I was part of a Labour Treasury, which abolished the married couples allowance. And George, to start flirting around, never reintroduced the married couples allowance. I'm right. I think I did. Did you? Yeah. Did you? Yeah. What did you do? You just offered him and claimed it. Are you sure? Yes. I'm very proud. While you were taking child benefit away from people. Well, I mean the richest people. Anyway, the thing I was going to say, I'd forgotten that, we are very happy, VLN, that you benefit from the political currency married couples allowance. Although you'd have to be married, whether your husband is a husband or partner, the fact that he's a gold subscriber means we're happy for you to listen to his subscription too. Are we? We're totally. Yeah. We just want to serve as many of these gold subscriptions as possible.

44:18So we don't care about relationships within the, we're like proper conservatives who don't want to who don't want to know what goes on in the bedroom. That's not the business of the state. If people want to listen to EMQs in the bedroom, that's fine by me. That is it from this episode of EMQs and do you send it? We don't want to know what goes on in the bedroom, but we're quite happy to get your questions on socials by email questions at plicacolcouncy.co.uk. I mean, if you want to tell us what goes on in your bedroom, I'll see you. We love variety, intonetra and subject. I don't know what that's for phone too. No. We're going to be back on Thursday with our main chef. See you then. Thanks for listening to Political Currency. This has been a Percephonica production. You stopped waiting for permission and started building yourself, your dreams, your credit.

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46:27brand that brings in clients without spending their whole week making content. Rated the number one AI video platform for small businesses on G2 with the most realistic AI avatars in the industry, trusted by a community of over 30 million people and 85% of the fortune 100, and built to work in over 175 languages. So you can reach your audience in theirs. Here's a wild part. Record yourself for just 15 seconds, and Hagen builds an AI avatar that makes professional videos for you on demand, so you can post everywhere your audience is. As yourself, without filming every time, your first three videos are free at Hagen.com slash pod. That's h-e-y-g-e-n dot com slash P-o-d.