Is Shabana Mahmood the heir to Blair?
Political Currency
Persephonica
4.1 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 20 November 2025
⏱️ 72 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A dramatic U-turn from Labour has stopped them from breaking their manifesto, but it has also left the Budget looking messy and wide open to risk. The expected income tax rise has been shelved in favour of what some insiders call a “smorgasbord” of smaller taxes. In this episode of Political Currency, Ed Balls and George Osborne dig into whether this was a rushed scramble or a smart political play. - and the extent to which it has knocked Rachel Reeves off the story she had been shaping in the run up to Budget week.
Away from the Budget noise, all eyes turned to Shabana Mahmood and her sweeping overhaul of the asylum and refugee system. The announcement has split Labour supporters. Is this the arrival of what some are already calling "Mahmoodism"? And will these measures work in practice, or just push parts of the left toward the Greens or the Lib Dems?
Finally, George and Ed look from Tehran to California, where George’s former colleague Steve Hilton is suddenly leading the race for governor. Can his Trump style rhetoric, polished social media - and even the promise to control the weather - deliver an upset in a solidly Democrat state?
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Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Political Coancy with Ed Bulls and George Osborne. |
| 0:32.3 | So we are in the studio in Hoxton and so much to talk about today. |
| 0:36.3 | But before we do, I have been besieged for the last week by people saying to me, |
| 0:37.6 | you've got to ask George, |
| 0:43.5 | because after last week's podcast, a story dropped in the Daily Mail about Peter Madison coming round to yours for dinner in West London and then getting caught short, waiting for his |
| 0:50.3 | Uber's late at night, which got cancelled and ended up being photographed i think by the daily |
| 0:55.0 | mail having um a piss against a lamp post outside your house and you know i'm not going to ask you |
| 1:03.0 | who else was there i'm not going to ask you what the subject of the discussion was you know i'm not |
| 1:07.3 | going to ask whether you were both sharing thoughts about your career plans and job opportunities and all that kind of thing. |
| 1:12.5 | I just want to know, why did Peter Mandelson stay outside? |
| 1:16.8 | I mean, did you not open the door to him? |
| 1:18.7 | If he was desperate to relieve himself, why didn't he come back in the house and say, can he use your loo? |
| 1:23.7 | Why do you decide to break the law, it seems, allegedly, outside in the street? |
| 1:29.3 | I mean, had you banished him? |
| 1:31.6 | I mean, what happened? |
| 1:34.5 | I don't really have a very good answer for you. |
| 1:36.2 | Other than, of course, I would have opened the door if he had rung, or indeed, if you had rung |
| 1:40.7 | and you wanted to come in and use our facilities. |
| 1:43.0 | I know, you know, I might have been walking past and suddenly think to myself, I, you know, I need to relieve myself. Shall I pop around to George's? He had been at your house for dinner for the previous three hours. Why didn't it occur to him to come back and ring the doorbell? He didn't ring the doorbell again, then? No. Anyway, you can ask him if you like, because goodness those. But I tell you what... |
| 2:01.7 | Can you not give us any insight to me? |
| 2:04.2 | Not really, except that I feel pretty sorry for him, to be honest. But, you know, and when you've got to go, you've got to go. Which is why I've gone before we sit down and record this podcast. When you've got to go, you've got to go. I mean, you know, there is so much in that phrase. Anyway, I'm going to use this as a rather clunky segue to something which is much more edifying, |
| 2:24.2 | which is we are auctioning on this podcast a very large bottle of Polroge champagne, which |
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