EMQs: When Boris met Monica Lewinsky

Political Currency

Former ministers George Osborne and Ed Balls answer a variety of listener questions, blending personal political anecdotes with discussions on

Key takeaways

• George Osborne describes his practice as Chancellor of holding private dinners with predecessors like Nigel Lawson and Geoffrey Howe to gain candid, non-public advice.
• Ed Balls recounts a union relaunch event in Wakefield where only one guest attended, who later revealed that he was typically the only member present besides the chair.

Main topics

• British Museum and Egyptian antiquities
• Political party conference fringe events

Notable quotes

The best committees are the ones that never meet.

Conclusion

The episode provides a reflective look at the intersection of personal

Transcript preview

Speaker 5 (0:00) Welcome to EMQs, Ex-Ministers' Questions, with me, George Osborne, and with Ed Balls. I hope you're going to enjoy this show. We've got questions about being a spy at a Tory or Labour conference. We've got questions about whether you should talk to your elders and betters, whether the Chancellor should get the ex-Chancellors round the table. And I'll tell you about the moment when I introduced Boris Johnson to Monica Lewinsky. So you're going to want to listen to all of that. And of course, you can send in your own question to questions at politicalcurrency.co.uk or you can message us through YouTube or through whichever social media channel you're listening to us on. Speaker 4 (0:38) So hello and welcome to EMQs, Ex-Ministers' Questions. And this is the second time we are doing our EMQs on YouTube. We had a really good response from people last week. And so I thought, given that this is, you know, people might be watching on their TVs and it's a big TV weekend. This is the kickoff of the new series of the Celebrity Traitors with Claudia Winkleman presenting this. Fabulous TV. I am told by people who've seen the first episodes that this series is going to be even better than the first Celebrity Traitors series. It's proper appointment TV. But, you know, it's a thing with traitors for people now to play the game when they're with friends, you know, for the weekend or if they're away on a trip. And I just wondered, I know you were in Egypt last weekend on a British museum trip. And I think, you know. all of your board were there. Were you tempted to... Including Claudia. Were you tempted to play traitors in your off hours in the evening? Speaker 5 (1:40) We did not play traitors. Claudia is a great member of the board and she was not giving anything away, I will say, to the producers of Celebrity Traitors. She says it's great fun and she says it's a bit wild, but it's definitely worth watching. I'll tell you what we did see, though. You know, we went to Cairo. Went to Luxor, had a board meeting, met with the Egyptian authorities and saw some of the sites. But I was quite excited to see on the River Nile this steamer boat sort of moored up. And someone pointed out to me. Was it Speaker 4 (2:14) kind of Death on the Nile? No, it Speaker 5 (2:15) was the boat. Speaker 4 (2:16) No! The Speaker 5 (2:17) boat in Death on the Nile. The original boat from the original Agatha Christie one, not the remake. Speaker 4 (2:23) Oh, my gosh. Yes. Isn't that cool? When was the original one filmed? I wonder, like decades ago. But it's Speaker 5 (2:30) a Speaker 4 (2:30) great film. Speaker 5 (2:30) So you can't help but, when you go around the Egyptian side, it's the second time in my life I've done it, but I was a student last time I did it. I mean, they are just, you can't quite believe it's the pyramids, it's the sinks, it's like Tutankhamun's mask. You know, they're amazing objects and they're, you know, the whole thing was sort of overwhelming. But, you know, you also can't help but think of the film. So Death on the Nile. And then we went around the Temple of Karnak. And then you go, ooh, this is the place where Jaws throws the block of stone to try and kill James Bond and The Spy Who Loved Me. And it's also full of film sets. And Cairo itself, we did a reception at the British Embassy. Thank you very much, British Embassy. And, you know, this is the place where Churchill and... General Alexander and General Montgomery, you know, all met. And there are all these photos on the wall. I mean, the whole place has a, you know, a kind of a great romance to it, as well as amazing sights. Speaker 4 (3:33) What, if you're on like a British museum shindig like this, I mean, you're there. And of course you say you, famous sights, famous film scenes, historical moments. But what is the... The British Museum thing you do. I mean, when you nudge and wink, do you say, point at things and say, we've got one of them? Or we pinched that in the 19th century? Or that's what we ought to give back? I mean, what is the kind of... Speaker 5 (3:58) When you do walk around the sites, they go, you know, there used to be an obelisk here. It's now in the middle of Paris. It's interesting because obviously this is not the case with every country in the world. We have a really, really close relationship with the Egyptian authorities and the museums there and the chair of the committee of antiquities came to our reception and we signed an memorandum of understanding with Egypt. So it doesn't have some of the kind of deep politics that go with our relationship with other countries. Like the French. Speaker 4 (4:36) I mean, you have good relations with the French these days. And Speaker 5 (4:37) we also Speaker 4 (4:37) have very good relations. Even though you damaged the tapestry. Speaker 5 (4:39) Well. Remember, you know, the tapestry depicts their invasion and occupation. So when Speaker 4 (4:45) you say the ones that are a bit tougher, I mean, do you just mean the Greeks? Speaker 5 (4:49) Well, I would love to deal with the Greeks, but it's some other places as well. You know, the history is quite raw in some other places. They don't tend Speaker 4 (5:01) to be the British Museum away day locations. Speaker 5 (5:05) But we're also learning there's an amazing new museum in Cairo by the pyramids for a lot of their antiquities. They've still got the old museum, which is definitely worth going to see because that's by Tahrir Square, famous for the spring and everything. And that's a brilliant kind of... redolent of the history of the museum. But the new museum, you know, we're building, we're doing a big extension of the British Museum, a big rebuilding. So to go and see the biggest rebuilding of recent years, which is this new Cairo Museum. Speaker 4 (5:36) And how's it going with the queues? Speaker 5 (5:38) At the tapestry. Yeah. Speaker 4 (5:40) I'm asking you to put your British Museum hat on for a moment. I'm asking actually for a friend. My sister is bringing eight friends down in the third week of December, afternoon to see the tapestry at the British Museum, evening to see Century's Dad at Speaker 5 (5:53) the Speaker 4 (5:53) water res. Speaker 5 (5:54) Ah. Well, the queues will be similar, won't they? Speaker 4 (5:56) Well, we'll have to make sure we manage both of them well. Speaker 5 (5:59) It Speaker 4 (5:59) could have a good door policy. We are Speaker 5 (6:00) managing the queues, I would like to think. And the truth is that people, when they get in and they see the tapestry, they... As you know, you had the rare privilege of basically seeing it by yourself. Almost no one has had that. That's great. That's not what the king got, but all the prime minister. But Ed Balls, we rolled out the red carpet. Speaker 4 (6:19) We did. Well, thank you very much indeed. I mean, I actually loved it. And if you, when does the next batch of tickets come out? Speaker 5 (6:25) In the middle of October. Cool. I think it's the 21st of October. Speaker 4 (6:29) Fingers on the bottom. We should get on with our podcast. Speaker 5 (6:31) We should definitely. Now, our first question comes from one of our fans on Instagram. And this is a question from Sam. Speaker 1 (6:40) Hi, Ed and George. This is actually a question for George. I want to know if he remembers this event that happened in 2005. Former number 10 advisor Theo Bertram on Twitter has been talking about it. And it's about a fringe event hosted with George and William Hutton in 2005. Do you remember it? I also wanted to ask about any memories of fringe events at party conferences that both of you might have. Thanks. Bye. I'm Speaker 4 (7:07) just going to prompt George's memory a bit. This is before you were Shadow Chancellor. This is Theo Bertram. He now runs the Social Market Foundation. No, I think I was Speaker 5 (7:15) Shadow Chancellor at this point. Speaker 4 (7:17) Oh, were you? Speaker 5 (7:17) No. Speaker 4 (7:18) He said it was before you'd... come to prominence. Maybe you were then Shadow Chancellor. I was appointed Speaker 5 (7:24) Shadow Chancellor by Michael Howard, not by David Cameron. Speaker 4 (7:28) Oh, so he thought you hadn't yet been appointed. Yeah. Which explains why this fringe event. He was there actually as the Labour Party spy. He was doing the same job as you had done at a Labour Party conference at the Conservative conference, but it was 20 minutes away in some church. Unfortunately, the only people who came were the organisers, Will Hutton, you and Theo Bertram, who's there as the Labour spy. Will Hutton then says, I'm not sure there's any point in having like a formal meeting. Let's just have a conversation. Let's introduce ourselves. Go round the room to introduce yourselves. But of course, Theo Bertram can't introduce himself because he actually works for the Labour Party. So he says, I just kept awkwardly brazenly mute. They all looked at me as if I was either terribly shy or not very bright or both and then carried on with Wilhut and asking interesting questions and probing questions about Osborne's economic policy. But do you remember? Do you remember? Obviously, it's burned in Theo Bertrand's memory because it was so kind of traumatic for him. Speaker 5 (8:32) Yeah, I do. Well, I don't remember Theo being there. I mean, I do know Theo Bertram. I don't remember him being there. Sorry, Theo. He was Speaker 4 (8:40) the guy who didn't say anything. Speaker 5 (8:41) Yeah, no, of course, I didn't know he was a spy. I mean, you could Speaker 4 (8:45) have Speaker 5 (8:45) given him Speaker 4 (8:46) tips. Speaker 5 (8:46) I have been. I've been the Tory spy at the Labour conference. So I could have given him tips. But I do remember, I definitely remember the meeting with Will Hutton. And I do remember now, I'm forced to remember it. the near-empty fringe meeting. At that conference, all the action was on the leadership contenders. And although I was the shadow chancellor, as I had been appointed by Michael Howard, everyone was interested in the four or five people who were running for leadership and the speeches they were going to give and so on. Speaker 4 (9:15) It is true as well, isn't it? Even if you're a big figure, you arrive at an event, especially if it's outside the security cordon, you walk in, you have no idea whether it's going to be packed. and 200 people or three. Speaker 5 (9:29) I mean, I have lots of, obviously we have so many conference stories between us. But the fringe meeting that gave me, I think, the most trouble in all my years as Shadow Chancellor and Chancellor, it was like 11 conferences, I guess, was very early on. It might have been 2005, but I think it probably