Inside The Room: The Election That Never Was (Part 3)

Political Currency

Persephonica

Business, Economy, George Osborne, Westminster, Politics, News, Money, Ed Balls

4 • 855 Ratings

🗓️ 28 April 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

To Snap or Not to Snap?... As we turn to October 2007, election fever has taken over the UK - everyone from journalists to the opposition to Ed Balls himself is expecting Gordon Brown to call a snap general election. But with the polls lurching back towards the Tories, Brown gets cold feet.

In the final episode of this series, Deborah Mattinson rejoins the series to recall those final war room discussions with Gordon Brown himself and his closest advisors, discussions that end up with the election… aborted.

Brown chooses to make this public in a blockbuster Downing Street interview with Andrew Marr, who joins us in the studio for the second half of the show to take us behind the scenes at that momentous juncture. How did he end up with the scoop, what was Gordon Brown’s demeanor in the room, and why did he decide to break the news as soon as he walked out the door of number 10?

To listen our bonus 'The Inquiry' episode, where Ed and George reflect on this series, sign up to Political Currency Gold or our Kitchen Cabinet. Head to Apple Podcasts or www.patreon.com/PoliticalCurrency to find out more.

Producers: John Rogers and Miriam Hall

Technical Producer: Danny Pape

Executive Producers: Ellie Clifford and Dino Sofos

Political Currency is a Persephonica Production and is part of the Acast Creator Network

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Transcript

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