EMQs: Car doors, pole dancers and Diary columns
Political Currency
Persephonica
4.1 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 8 September 2025
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How should a politician respond when a voter blames all their problems on immigration? In this week's Ex-Ministers' Questions, Ed Balls and George Osborne offer competing strategies for handling difficult conversations on the doorstep. They also tackle a stark warning from a Gen Z listener: is the political establishment's failure to listen pushing an entire generation of young people towards Nigel Farage?
Then, the pair turn to the insider's playbook of political survival. They debate the pros and cons of the 'chicken run' - is it cowardly for a senior MP to abandon a marginal seat for a safe one, or simply smart politics? Ed reflects on his own experience of staying to fight a losing battle, while George makes the case for jumping ship.
Plus, a listener's confession about leaking a story to a newspaper diary column prompts a hilarious look at political gaffes. Ed is forced to relive the moment his ministerial car door hit a pedestrian, and shares a mortifying story involving a fellow minister and a pole dancing pole.
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Credits:
Producer: Jarek Zaba
Senior Producer: Silvia Maresca
Assistant Producer: Miriam Hall
Video Editor: Oliver Geraghty
Executive Producer: Ellie Clifford
Political Currency is a Persephonica Production and is part of the Acast Creator Network.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, it's Adam Grant from Worklife, a podcast from TED. |
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| 0:45.3 | This episode is sponsored by Specsavers. Over our political careers, we've mastered the art of selective hearing, but we do know it's important to make sure our ears and hearing are working |
| 0:49.1 | well. Now, many people might not realize that spec savers aren't just about eyesight. They're also trusted hearing experts as well. |
| 0:56.7 | And we know how important hearing is, don't we? |
| 0:59.0 | I mean, in the House of Commons, I think what people don't realize, even if you watch it |
| 1:03.0 | on television or listen to it on the radio, is just how noisy it is, and how if you're standing |
| 1:07.7 | there giving a speech, standing at that dispatch box, you've got to be able to hear the individual interventions, the sledging, ed balls on the other side of the chamber being incredibly annoying. You've got to have your razor-sharp hearing on as well as your eyesight. That's true. And you do need to make sure that your hearing is clear, so it's important to get a hearing check. Spec savers have been helping people with their ears for the last two decades, so when you're |
| 1:30.5 | thinking about your regular eye checks for yourselves and your loved ones, don't forget about |
| 1:34.5 | your ears too. |
| 1:35.8 | Book a free hearing check with Speck Savers today. |
| 1:39.0 | This episode of Political Coency is sponsored by Indeed. |
| 1:42.3 | Okay, so Ed, Indeed is a trusted platform which connects |
| 1:45.6 | people with jobs that are right for them. What they do is interesting to me as we get so many |
| 1:50.4 | questions in from listeners of the podcast about the challenges of finding a job that's right for you, |
... |
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