Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe's Parenting Hell - S7 EP18: Ed Balls

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

Joining us this episode to discuss the highs and lows of parenting (and life) is the former politician turned broadcaster - Ed Balls. You can listen to Ed's new podcast 'Political Currency' HERE Parenting Hell is a Spotify Podcast, available everywhere every Tuesday and Friday. Please leave a rating and review you filthy street dogs... xx If you want to get in touch with the show here's how: EMAIL: [e-mail] INSTAGRAM: @parentinghell MAILING LIST: parentinghellpodcast.mailchimpsites.com  A 'Keep It Light Media' Production  Sales, advertising, and general enquiries: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello I'm Rob Beckett and I'm Josh Willickham. Welcome to Parenting Hell the show in which Josh and I discuss what it's really like to be a parent which I would say can be a little tricky. So to make ourselves and hopefully you feel better about the trials and tribulations of modern-day parenting each week we'll

be chatting to a famous parent about how they're coping or hopefully how they're not coping and we'll also be hearing from you the listener with your tips advice and of course tales of parenting woe because let's be honest there are plenty of times where none of us know what we're doing hello you're listening to parenting hell with lucas can you say Rob Beckett? Rob Beckett. And can you say Josh Widdicombe? Josh Widdicombe.

Well done, darling. Lovely. Who's that, Josh? Hi, Josh and Rob. I was late to the party and now almost caught up. I usually listen on the way home when Lucas is asleep in the car, thinking that way he won't pick up bad words. However, when I got him to do this intro,

I said Josh and he said Widdicombe. So it seems to be listening subconsciously. Love the podcast. Keep it being sexy and relatable. Abby, three, nine, two months from Chester. Lucas, two and a half years. Lovely stuff. Chester, nice place.

Oh, it's glorious, isn't it, Chester? Did you ever do that gig up there? It's Chester. Alexander's. No, the laugh, the laughing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's got the laughing, as in laughing. Yeah, yeah.

I don't think it's here anymore, is it? No, it's good, that gig. Right by the station. You love a train. Love a train. Josh, how are you? How's life? Life is good.

Can I ask a question? Yeah. Has your daughter, your son's probably a bit young, tried to be on roblox yet no but her friend who's got older siblings does it yeah so my daughter well it's weird though because they both got shown roblox by older kids uh friends and my oldest doesn't care less the youngest is banging to it so talk me through what roblox is roblox you create a little character

looks like a little lego person and you run around you can you basically buy robux with real money and that opens access to buying clothes houses and you can create your own little world it's like an open world where you can build a house you can build but you have to buy it all so you have to unlock different part different software packages to build and then you can make friends on it it's almost like a social media sort of platform where your friends can hang out with you in your house you've built right and it's all online as online world she was on it and then we deleted it and then she wanted to go back on it so i tried to log in i had to set up a new profile for it and when you have a profile you have to have like a unique profile name yeah you're not allowed to use your own name, so it gives a bit of like an online avatar alias thing.

So I said, what name do you want? And she was like, can I be called Emma? And I said, well, you know, probably about 20 billion people play Roblox. I'm like, yeah, Emma's been taken. She was like, I want to be called Violet. I was like, yeah, that's good as well. She was like, what about Violet, Violet?

I went, yeah, that's good. She went, what about Violet123et, Violet. I went, yep, that's gone. She went, what about Violet123? I was like, yeah, you wish. No, um,

so. Something her name's like, won't sound here, because it's weird, but it's something like, VioletEmma12308! Yeah, yeah,

yeah. But she was crying so much, going, I just want to be called Emma. I was like, I don't know, fucking Emma's got it. Um, Emma's a going, I just want to be called Emma. I was like, what the fucking, Emma's got it. Emma's a fucking dweeb, isn't she?

The nerdiest Emma. The nerdiest Emma in the world. The person who's got Emma on their Roblox. Have you had your phone? My phone consistently suggests secure passwords to me that are fucking mental. I see. And then it makes it really hard to just put your own in, mate.

I can't live like this with passwords anymore. There's a password for everything. And now you buy something in a shop. Do you want me to email the receipt to you? No. I don't want to sign up to another email because you're not saving the planet by not printing off. You just want my fucking details, you little data harvesting scum.

Fuck, I bought a pair of pants. I don't want to give my email address over. I hate it. Do you know what I had the other day, Rob? It was a real blast from the past. This felt like the old days. I needed to get a receipt for my taxi journey. Yeah.

Because the train terminated in Reading and so uh i can go home and the tv company said just get a taxi and bill it back to us yeah i'd forgotten about this i said can i have a receipt he gave me a paper receipt and he said put whatever you want on it i love the way they say that to you because it's like they don't these taxi receipts they're never like they've never got their name address and VAT number on no it's literally like taxi.com that's just like taxi cab yeah it's a bit it's a post-it note with taxi cab written on it and you write 400 pound on it yeah anything to do your massive favor I know I was thinking about this because I was trying to think because I was listening to an interview with Damon Albarn, unsurprisingly.

He doesn't have a phone. And they said, how did you do it? And he said, I just started leaving it at home. And eventually, but you're like, but maybe he just lives a life where he doesn't have to do these things. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, because you, so like if I, if I tried to go out for the day without my phone,

the main problems would be um paying for parking yeah if i want to get it so if i was going to the gym all my gyms now on a phone thing yeah i don't really go to the gym and the park is free there anyway so it's absolutely driving drive it yeah i wouldn't know where to get so i wouldn't be able to get anywhere or park when i got there but if you just want to go cashless and phoneless you've got no chance do you know though rob do you know who would be an expert in this who the former shadow chancellor had balls that's nice lovely stuff can we ask i'll tell you what we need to we should ask him yeah let's chat about your kids but also why is everything digital yeah what are you trying to

get from us yeah you watch what are you guys what are you trying to get from us? Yeah, you watch us. What are you guys up to up in government? Yeah. But, yeah, Ed Balls now. Yeah. We're going to ask Ed Balls, can't we? Is he the full-time host of that show? No, it sort of splits.

So you've got, you know, Piers Morgan's gone, kaput. Yeah. Madeley's on there a lot. Ed Balls. Adil Ray. He pops up. Ben Shepard. Ben Shepard. Who else? It's a tough gig, that. I can't do it. Adil Ray. Adil Ray. He pops up. Ben Shepard. Ben Shepard.

Who else? It's a tough gig that I can't do. I'd rather just work a normal hour job, please. So our kids now, my daughter now does swimming at 7.45am. We have to drop her off before school to do swimming at this swimming club thing. It's so early. I was speaking to my mate about it. His mate's mate, his kids go to that big old posh old school sort of posh school where they do water polo

and his water polo is on at 6 20 a.m in the morning oh they do water polo three times a week and they have to go to west london's do water polo at nine o'clock you're not going to be a water polo player and even if you are there's no money in it but I was like, why have they got to go to West London to do water polo? I was like, oh, because they've made the county team. But they fucking have. What? Out of a, excuse the pun, pool of 15 people, they made the top 12. No one's playing water polo, mate.

Of course you're in the county team. Oh, my God. I am not getting up at 6.20 for that. If comedy gigs were at 6 a.m., I wouldn't be a comedian. I can't operate. I'm so lucky that comedy's in the evening. I just couldn't do it. My dream tour, though, Rob, would be gigs at 3 p.m.

No. Yeah. No, for me, perfect would be 20-minute drive from my house, 11.30 a.m. start start and then an hour yeah finished about two o'clock that's me done yeah yeah yeah that's my best yeah nice i am in the morning i after lunch but not early morning yeah yeah but my morning my morning's about 10 11 that's when i start to really start firing um but i'm at it's 10 10.37 now, so I'm really sticking into that. I reckon you should just, I reckon your fans are loyal enough,

book your next tour for 11am every theatre. And just do Bromley. Just do Bromley. Just do a residency at Bromley Churchill. If I did a residency at Bromley Churchill, 11am, Monday to Friday, how many tickets do you think I'd sell? I don't think you'd sell as many as you'd hope. I don't think you'd sell as many as you'd hope.

I don't think I'd sell as many as if I traveled around. I'm not, you know, the Peter Kay level. No. I didn't shuffle it out to 20 people. Why do you know who'd know about the economics of that? You keep trying to get into it balls,

aren't you? Yeah. I want to ask him as well, how they answer questions at 6am on like the radio and on oh my god when the politicians are getting asked because now he's on the other side of it yeah so he must know the things to do to annoy him yeah and why can't they just go you're lying about that i just that's a lie rob i want to eat something before we interview ed balls it's 22 minutes to interview ed balls okay all right let me go and eat something right here's ed balls can i just say i just had a text you'll love this tom o'hara who is the um publisher of our new podcast my son has just started school where josh whittakin was the

quiz martyr at a parent's pub quiz recently i spent the entire evening being delighted and how funny my son's reception teacher was. Oh, there we go. There you are. So he thought that you were the teacher? He thought you were the teacher. I'm not sure what that says about him. That is a real kick in the teeth. So let's get this straight.

Your friends thought that Josh Whittaker was quite a funny teacher. They thought he was surprisingly funny for a reception teacher. I'm not sure what they thought he was doing. I mean, quite why he was kind of chairing the pub quiz in such a sort of, you know, ebullient fashion, I've no idea. Yeah, I'll take that. I'll take that as a good review. Definitely take it.

It was a good quiz. Tell him I'm doing another one just before Christmas. I will tell him. You love that, Josh. Ed, how involved were you? First of all, how old are your kids and how involved were you with the schooling? So I think when they were at primary school, I took them to school and picked them up. Any quizzes?

Actually, I took them to school more in the mornings, which generally went well. Yeah. Although I had one really bad experience, which I think probably quite a lot of parents will understand. It was a Mondayay morning and um my oldest daughter was five and we did the whole school walk and she had a lunch and a bag and we arrived there and we got to the gate yeah and it was locked and we stand outside for a bit thinking what's gone wrong and then a guy comes around and says i'm really sorry it's half term we had absolutely no idea. So it was shut.

But the thing that's bad about this story is the following Monday, a week later, I went confident that, you know, you could only make that mistake once. We arrived on the second Monday. This is totally true. And again, and this time I didn't believe it. So I'm rattling the gates thinking they've shut the gates early. And the same guy comes out and says, inset day. Unbelievable. thinking they've shut the gates early and the same guy comes out and says inset day unbelievable and my daughter honestly age five said to me dad she said could mum take us to school i was i was sacked but you're you know you're a details man aren't you i thought i was but it

turns out not about that yeah that was bad how old are your kids ed our kids now are 24 21 and 19 girl boy girl so i imagine though 20 years ago the shared google calendar wasn't really happening was it it's a bit more like the emails and stuff coming in how much was online because now i've got about five different apps about when my kids are in school off school you can download calendars to your phone and stuff like that but that weren weren't happening then, was it? This was well before any of that. I didn't get a iPhone until our oldest daughter was 16. And back then, I think I probably had got a BlackBerry.

But BlackBerrys you use for messaging or for texts or if you were a drug dealer for arranging your meetings because there was a whole sort of BBM thing, wasn't there? Yeah. But I never worked out how to use the calendar so we never used an online calendar anytime i was in politics it was always paper-based was it and because tony blair didn't have a mobile phone did he he'd have a mobile phone gordon brown didn't do emails until later when gordon brown discovered the email was a catastrophic moment in the life of the nation because he suddenly realized he could you know if he woke up early he could share his thoughts more widely yeah but this is honest with you when we arrived in government in 1997 so the beginning of the Blair

government none of us had ever used email for anything yeah we didn't use any email because it was so early on in email and also we had this view that if you wrote something down in the email and then sent it into the interweb, then somebody might get it and expose you, and that would be a disaster. So we did everything on paper. So when we got to the Treasury in 1997, the Treasury had moved over to doing everything electronically a couple of years before they were early. And I had this box of papers, which I was given,

and you're supposed to work on them and send back comments and I had for the first three months a tape recorder and I used to turn on the tape recorder and say on this paper this is what I think and then I had a secretary who would then transcribe my voice messages into emails and you were running the country we were running the country into the bloody ground i don't know if that's true or not i just thought it was funny to be yeah but i think actually not at the time that was later sancho crisis was still 10 years away at that point so we were overachieving at the time earlier yeah fair enough what was it like uh yvette cooper's your wife who's shadow home secretary at the moment and so are your diaries really intense?

What's it like for parenting when you're ministers or when you're, you know, shadow ministers? I think that it's when things go wrong that it's a disaster. But then I think that was true for all parents, really, that you have a system. And our systems had to be quite complicated because you had to be able to cover votes in the evenings until um you know getting home late at night but do you remember in 2001 when there was the train crash at Hatfield and all of the north south trains suddenly everybody went really risk averse and the train time went from being like two hours to Yorkshire where we lived to like four four and a half hours and we had no choice and so we just used to get these really really long trains with young kids so those times where it became much more stressful but I think um fundamentally life is about having a good mother-in-law

if at key moments you can make the call yeah so Yvette's mum was a teacher for head of maths for you know 20 30 years but she was retiring about the time our first child was born and she said to us you know would we like her to do like a couple of days a week and we said we didn't really because we needed to get some paid child care but if she could come one day a week but instead if we could have the second day in reserve so that any time when things went wrong you could ring could ring grandma oh that's good and i think that is oh i mean you know a supportive mother-in-law yeah so you lived up in yorkshire was that your constituency or a vet's constituency so no it was a vet's constituency and then it became my constituency later mine was next door to a vet

so she was elected 97 me not to 2005 by the I was elected, we had all the three children. But we lived in London from like Sunday night until Thursday night. And then we all moved up and we all moved down every week. So all of the children went up and down every week. And what did they do for school? So they were in school in London, primary school, secondary school. But to begin with, they were in nursery school up there on a Friday. And then because, you know, we had to be in parliament during the working week yeah yeah and so I would you know take small kids up to Yorkshire

every Friday it was really interesting I don't know whether this kind of corresponds with what you've seen with talking to other people there was a real difference between the gendered attitude of men and women on trains to people doing child care If a vet was travelling up with a pushchair and a government box and two kids on a Friday afternoon, all of the men would look at her with great support and sympathy, but they'd never offered to help because it was mainly men on the train at that time going home. It was a mix, but it was more men than women back then. Whereas if it was me, you'd get to about somewhere north know, somewhere north of Grantham and some guy in a suit

who'd been away all week and was looking forward to getting home to be with his kids would lean over and say, can I help? And take the baby. So our young children were regularly kind of, you know, nursed by men on the train. They never offered to help a vet, always offered to help me, getting the bags down.

Wow, that's fascinating. Because I think what think what it was it was the same with women women and men would offer to help me because actually i think i just probably looked a bit desperate and also um they didn't feel like it was an affront but to offer to help a vet might have been a criticism so people didn't do it right yeah we were done on a monday nobody offered. Because then what they were doing was they were going back to work. So they shut the door, left the kids behind. Our oldest daughter had this toy telephone, which at a time when telephones were a big thing, actually you could call it a toy mobile phone,

which had this really, really loud ring. And she would have it on the trade and then her phone would ring and she'd be mimicking a mum and dad. And on a Friday afternoon, all the commuters would smile. On a Monday morning, they complained, hated it. Oh, God, this bloody mobile phone. Shut her up. Is that because that's where your constituency was up there?

Is that why you had to go back? So Yvette was an MP for Normanton Pontefract, Castleford in West Yorkshire, just to the east of Leeds. And then I was the MP for the next door seat, which was called Morley and Atwood. So South Leeds, North Wakefield. And is she still the MP for that, presumably? Yeah, she's been the MP now for...

So do you still go there every weekend? We do. It changed when two things happened. One, I lost my seat in 2015, as you know. So suddenly I didn't have the same work reason to have to go all the time. And also as the kids got a bit older, their social life shifted a bit. And they ended up with more friends from school here.

Yeah, yeah. You know, Evat goes every weekend for three days, four days. I don't go every weekend. But we have a Ukrainian family who've lived with us now for a year and a half. So there's always somebody at home. There's always borscht or something, dumplings about to be provided. That's how it works. And do they have kids, the Ukrainian family?

They do. Actually, it's a brilliant story. Yvette was doing, for Rob Burrows, the Strictly Come Dancing fundraiser promoting your own disease. And it turns out there is this big network. I never really knew about this, a network between the north of England, ballroom dancing world, and Russia and Ukraine. And it sort of makes sense because Katya, who I dance with in Strictly, she's a Russian dancer from St. Petersburg who had come over. And we heard about this family. It was actually two families where the 10-year-olds were, you know, the top 10-year-olds in Ukraine at ballroom dancing. One dad was in the military.

One was in kind of logistics. Both families had to leave ukraine in a real hurry because they were living in kiev and the bombing was happening and they were separated and so they couldn't practice their dance partnership was shattered by the war and yvette hears this story and she got onto it and so one of the families which is the mum the older brother and the 11 year old who dances come and live with us and the other family which was an older daughter the younger son went and lived about 10 minutes away from us in casterford and they've lived there now for what's it now 17 months 18 months and they go around the country and the world they've been to amsterdam to blackpool to the south of England, competing in dance competitions.

And they practice in our back garden, in our sitting room, in a local church hall in Castleford. Amazing. So they are astonishingly good. It's amazing. And so we were able to put them back together again. And what do they make of your Gangnam style? I have showed them. Not on the first day.

They go back to Kiev. I think I probably did show them the first day and they were kind of like I think no words. I'm not sure what no words is in Ukrainian but they said it. I told them it was a salsa and that was a surprise to them. Right. It wasn't totally obvious from the steps.

So I'm sort of tolerated. It's quite nice because you get to a certain point. Our kids are now slightly the age where, despite my best efforts, I'm not as embarrassing as I used to be. So how old were they when you did Strictly, though? How old were the kids then? Oh, then was terrible. So our youngest daughter was 13.

Oh, my God. Oh, my word. Fucking hell, Ed. So the oldest one was 17 and 15. Oh my God. Oh my word. Fucking hell, Ed. So the oldest one was 17 and 15. Oh no. 17 and 15-year-old ones were able to come to the show. Yeah. We'd been incredibly careful, you know,

because we were both in politics, to keep them always separate from us. So there was never photos of them. They sat separately from Yvette on the live show so that nobody could have pictures of them, but they were able to be part of it. But our 13-year-old... Just too much shame, didn't want to come.

No, she wasn't allowed to, because they had this insurance rule, you couldn't go until you're 14, so she was not allowed to come. She wasn't able. Therefore, that's like, multiplied the embarrassment of the whole thing. And, you know, dads are supposed to be embarrassing,

I just like massively overachieved in that order. You did it all at once. Did you consult them before you did it? I don't think i not gangnam style i mean the show like psy i'm telling him as well no i mean to be honest i was against that i was against doing it but yvette was the person who said do it so that's why i did it she said you've lost your seat you lost your job what else is there to lose jesus you're not bringing anything into the house yeah no she said politics is wild go and do it and i

then rang jeremy vine who'd been on it the year before, and he said it was the best thing I've ever done. It was the most life-affirming thing. He said, Eddie said, if you ever want to be governor of the Bank of England, it might knock that on the head, but other than that, go and enjoy it. And he said his kids had enjoyed it. And I think actually, in the end, mine did.

I was banned, though, from going to parents' evening for two years after Strictly. That's actually, that's a carrot there for me to dangle i know i'm saying because the complication for our kids have been i was secretary of state for schools you know for education for 2007 2010 so if i ever went to parents evening the head teacher was always quite keen to come and say hello which was always like a bit embarrassing for 11 or 12 the secretary of state's here so i was told that i was allowed to come but never in a suit you've got to come wearing um like casual clothes that was fine until strictly on strictly you're suddenly in not in a suit so i was just entirely banned she just you can't come at all so a vet had to go and then make notes i think the only

reason i'd end up going on strictly would be my children demanding it do you know what I mean? I can't see that happening not at 13, 15 and 17 but I think it's what started your next career in a way is it? it definitely changes things but in a way which is simultaneously good and worrying

because the thing people would always say to me is after Strictly I even get it now people come up to me is after strictly I mean you know in the street I even get it now people come up to me and say are you Ed Balls and I'll say yes and they'll say I used to really really hate you they say but I don't anymore and you sort of think okay I mean I know you mean that nicely but then the other thing is that they'd say we always knew you're a politician it's good to see you've now become a human being and actually the idea of politicians not being human being is kind of like good to see you've now become a human being. And actually, the idea of politicians not being human beings

is kind of like a dangerous thing, you know, because in a democracy, if the non-human people are the only ones who are willing to be politicians, what kind of democracy do you end up with? So it's always worried me a bit. Well, the one we've got at the moment, I think. Well, I know. There's this big prism of glass,

which is really thick, called being a politician. And what Strictly let me do was step outside of it for a bit. And so people see you in a different way, maybe maybe in a more clear way i don't know the other thing i learned was you had to um put yourself aside and just go into character and that's the bit i really liked about it i learned something i'd never done in my life if you're a politician in some ways it's the same for you guys it's always you on stage do you know what i mean yeah whereas if you're an actor you put yourself to one side and play a character a role with a costume and and everything else yeah you don't take it too personally because you're one step away and i've never done that before in my life

so i realized this is what i had to do so they said to me um third week actually we had a problem in the third week i was supposed to do great balls of fire for movie week but the trouble was if it says to me like on the way home on the Saturday night, about one in the morning, she wrote on Wikipedia, she said, you do realise you're supposed to play Great Balls of Fire. They wanted it because of Flaming Piano.

She said, but that means you're Jerry Lee Lewis. And he, in the film, marries his 12-year-old cousin. So I think that makes you the paedophile and catcher the 12-year-old. And I'm not sure this is a good look. So we decided it was a bad idea. So I rang them and said, I don't think I can do play balls of fire. So then they said, in that case, how about doing the mask?

And I thought, well, only if I can have a green face. And it was the best thing I ever did. The following week was Paso Doble, where they asked me, I mean, I was basically dressed as a pearly queen, and I couldn't work out because they'd said to me, you've got to be macho because Pasadubla is really macho. But when I did it in rehearsal, you know, in front of all the producers, they just all fell about laughing

and said it was the most camp Pasadubla anybody's ever done. So I kept trying to think, what is the macho camp figure? So I said, can I be Adamant? But there was copyright issues. So then I said, can I be the dad from The Incredibles? Because he's sort of camp and macho. Yeah, yeah. I never got it right.

It was a catastrophe. It was a total disaster. You sound like you was really into it. I imagine I'd just turn up and be told what to do and got dressed and sent out, but it feels like you were, like, involved in it. You have to rehearse for 40 hours a week. Oh, that's too much.

If you don't do the rehearsal, you just collapse, because it's really hard to get it all in your head. Yeah. Anyway, the kids thought it was really embarrassing. They've gone from've gone from like super serious dad where you're in the broadsheets and people will be going i hate you i love you that's right that's wrong and and like you say you're being ed balls when you're interviewed ed ball's a politician but it is you it's you at work and what you think and you're trying to get your ideals into like policies and stuff so that is you and then all of a sudden they see you in strictly how did they feel when they saw you being this sort of super serious politician person was it quite a stressful

household or you know because it feels like you're going off to be interviewed on the news and it's all i'd be worried i'd be worried for my parents if they're going on to be questioned and you know i think it's partly because i mean see for them this was all they knew i mean yvette was the first ever government minister to have a baby while a minister. So all the rules about maternity leave and all of that, she just had to make up because the civil service said, you know, I'm afraid your employer is the queen. And I don't think we should ask her because, you know, we can't really get her involved, but there's nobody else who has the authority to tell you because you are just like a crown minister. How is she

the first minister to have a baby? That's mad. There's never ever been a minister. Nobody's ever had maternity leave. All the issues about how do you work out how to go away for a period and then come back again when you then could be responsible for all the things which happened in the intervening period because you always are. She had to work it all out themselves. But on the other hand, what it meant was, you know,

I remember the children being really little and, you know, a two-year-old saying, where's mum? And I'd say, just point to the tv she's on breakfast tv she said oh fine she'll be home in a bit and so they just knew that that is what we did you know the mum went on tv yeah we traveled in this way and i think obviously that changes as they get older and become more aware but it was on the one hand we totally shielded them from it because we just made this decision from the beginning that other than the baby photo, they could never become part of our political story. There's no election materials. You know, our oldest daughter put it incredibly powerfully when she went to secondary school.

I must remember her saying this. She said, when I walk across the playground, I want to be me first, not the daughter of cabinet ministers. And we had a duty to find a way to allow her to be herself in that way on the other hand she'd always been part of it so you know she was knew the conversation at home when things went wrong you know often there would be tv cameras outside the house you'd have to get arrangements to get them out to go to school without kind of so how does that work then if you're the paparazzi outside a politician's house because there's a big story breaking and you're going right i've got to get

the kids to school so does someone go out and say to them look the kids are coming out now don't film this and then ed or your vet will come out in a minute well it's all about not having double standards because if we had ever posed as politicians with our children or put them on our election leaflets then it's much harder then then to be hard-lined about it. I think it's really difficult if you are, you know, the royal family or if you're the prime minister, because then there is a public expectation to see your family. But I think for everybody else, there's a real cost.

So if you'd become chancellor, do you think you'd have had to show your family at that point? I think we would not have done, because I think that's how we had done things all the way through so we wouldn't have done the photos with us outside the house and and we wouldn't now what that then means is if you've got a big scandal happening or a big problem or whatever it is and the cameras are outside this happened lots and lots of times you can have somebody go outside often we'd have to ring to get somebody to travel over from wherever they were yeah to come into the house then they would then go out again and they'd say to the media whoever was

there that the children are going to come out to go to school and can you not film that and i would say 100 of the time full cooperation that's fascinating yeah there's never been a photo of our kids there was one time where we had a huge problem i think i can say this um a vet's driver was um arrested for child sex offenses on his computer oh my god and so we find out about this they get a phone call to a vet's office first of all to say this had happened and they wanted to talk to the children because had the children been in the car yeah of course with this guy when a vet or i had not been in the car with them so we had to kind of go through this whole kind of complex process talking to them about it and then three or four days later we get a call from one of the papers to say we have reason to believe that this

has happened that Yvette's driver your children were involved so I immediately ring Daily Mirror editor at Wilson and say just so you know there's no public interest in this kids are not involved they're only little they're primary school you've got to protect them and they say absolutely and it was never written in any newspapers but on the saturday three days later again we get it it was even worse the second time it was actually the mail on sunday saying that um you know that there were pictures of your children have been in which was ridiculous no so we kick in this whole process. Lawyers talk to the Mail on Sunday, telling them what they can and can't do. Big argument.

The Mail on Sunday say there is a public interest. In the end, they wrote a story on page 10 about the driver and the car. They never mentioned the children or their names. They played by the rules. And the front page splash of the Mail on Sunday, that Saturday night, Sunday morning, was Charles Clark, Ed Balls must be sacked. Where did that come from?

I said, to a bit. How has that happened? And she said, I think you've just taken one for the kids. Basically, to get their revenge, they wrote the story straight on our kids and didn't even instead, which is, you know, in politics, that's kind of what happens. But even in that one, which is our most difficult occasion, we managed to stop the children and their names and their photos being in the papers.

That's fascinating. But you can't do that if you have, if in an easy time, you pose the picture. Yeah, yeah. You can't in a difficult time and suddenly say, their privacy, there's no public interest, because people say, well, you know, that's what you've, so we've always been very careful about that.

And they also, obviously for that reason, their surname's Cooper. There's no other reason. There's no other reason. You don't need the balls following you around here. Oh my God, can you imagine? No, you know, that was the easiest decision of my life. I think we should go for, you know, a common surname, don't you? I think we should.

Yeah, I think we should, yeah. When did you have that conversation then? Was it like before you had kids or when they arrived? Like, how did it come up? Oh, I think, I mean, like well before there was even any prospect of kids, I think, to be very, very early on. I grew up in Norwich where we had. You're a big Norwich fan, aren't you?

Yeah, big Norwich. I had a page in the phone directory, whole page, balls. I mean, thousands of them. Thousands. And they're thousands. We were actually related to another family called Balls in the same village. In Norwich, never.

No, no, no, we were unrelated. What am I saying? I'm playing with the blood. Six fingers, three balls. Oh, yeah, come on. There was another family called Balls. We were totally unrelated to them. It's totally unrelated.

We moved to Nottingham. We go from a whole page to two names. Disaster. Yeah. I've never heard it before or since. So what is this Norfolk name of Balls? Every three times you pick up the phone, there'll be somebody there going,

Balls! Ah! Hang on. Oh, because they've seen it in a firework how many times can you put up with that there was one time though it was like semi-final of world cup game i'm gonna guess 1986 probably i know 82 it was a semi-final and there'd just been this terrible foul of the goalkeeper against the striker oh yeah remember that when you kind of take side is him out the phone rings i pick it up somebody says is your name balls i said god's sake there's just been

this foul what are you doing watch it i hung up i think from that moment on i never felt so bad about it the earning point but did a vet ever discuss taking your name at marriage no no i mean to be quite honest if my name had been smith i don't think she'd have taken it yeah but i mean this was like out of the park obviously he can't take the balls i mean yeah no no no definitely not no never never gonna happen i never i never would have proposed it either you know it's fine you're quite an enforcer ed you've got a you know i've read up on a lot on politics and there's periods where you're considered someone who you wouldn't want to take on.

Would that be the same as a father? Oh, no, I don't think so. I mean, the thing is, there's always a bit of caricature in politics and, you know, if you're bigger or, you know, bulkier in the House of Commons, cartoon's important. But, you know, there's also some truth to that. I mean, I look back on my time in politics there were times when we were definitely too macho

when we were younger and I sort of regret that and you know I'm doing this podcast with George Osborne which we're just about to start which I'm sure you'll mention a bit but we both say to each other we look back we were too macho, too bruiserish and we both feel as though that's something that you regret but I don't think I ever was

at home with the kids at all You never brought her home? No I think I don't think I ever was at home with the kids at all. You never brought her home? No. I don't think I've ever looked at George Osborne and thought, he's too macho for me. Really? I think maybe you, but Osborne, I've never looked at him and thought,

that guy's just too macho. The problem is, I can't connect with a tough guy like that. He said he was too macho, and I sort of went along with it. Do you remember that time when he stood in that macho way? Yeah, with his legs really far apart. He just looked like he'd got the wrong underwear on. My favourite politician photos, Ed, are the sleeves rolled up around a table. Jacket off, sleeves rolled up, like even though you know it's an air-conditioned office.

I know. The sleeves are rolled up just to show that they're cracking up. So when you are doing that, are you thinking, they must know what we're doing here surely don't you think that in life you can tell the people who are posing and the people who are real yeah yeah so in politics there's often the cameras in for the first five minutes and they go out and you can tell the people who sort of roll the sleeves up and kind of try and do it for the cameras but they always look a bit awkward and a bit weird yeah well i think the people who are matt hancock basically yeah whereas if you think the people who actually are relaxed to their own skin tend to look relaxed when they're

being photographed as well yes go back to the kennedys in the 60s they were like the first people who had this sort of that sort of informal style of photography around him the family the white house and it looks really natural because i think it was yeah whereas gordon brown always he didn't like the cat yeah i mean he hated having his photograph taken sunak looks like he's desperately trying to be a normal person like how would a normal person stand how would a normal family go on this yeah because obviously they live a mad life. It's difficult for them to try and pretend to be normal, I suppose. It is. It is hard. I mean, the other problem with photography and politics

is that these days you can have so many options and you choose one. I played football every Monday at a party conference in the kind of MPs versus the journalists. Oh, I've seen the photos of you playing football. And you'd have five snappers behind the goal, and they would take, like, 5,000 photos, and what you know is, if it was Wayne Rooney playing, you know, and Man United, of the 5,000

pictures, they would think, what is the best photo which would most capture his athletic excellence? Oh, they've done you in. Whereas it's politicians of the 5,000, which is the one which makes you look the biggest twat, and it was just every year. And you just have to sort of, you know, take it on the chin.

I mean, the warm-ups were always a nightmare. You cut someone's eye, didn't you? No, he... You elbowed someone in the head. No, I did not actually. No, no, no. He threw himself at my elbow. Honestly, it was that way around. I was turning to shoot, and as I put my arm out to shoot,

I didn't realise he'd had stitches until after half time. I mean, I felt bad about it in retrospect. But at the time, I just thought, why did he block my shot? It was totally undeliberate. Ed, these photos, they have done you so dirty. There's not even one of you just stood still waiting for the ball. Every photo is like a mad action shot. There must have been loads of them, but they all got cut.

You must have stood still once. I know, but honestly, the athletic, brilliant ones, they never make the papers. They're not the ones we sell. No. It's just life. Yeah, that is life, isn't it? So for Rishi Sunak, it's hard because they're always, you know,

actually, you know, of course the editors are always looking for the worst photo if it's politics. Yeah. Which prime minister would you prefer as your parent? As my parent? That is a really strong... Oh, no, let's just do it's politics. Yeah. Which prime minister would you prefer as your parent? As my parent? That is a really... Oh, no, let's just do it another way. You've got to leave your kids with one of our prime ministers for the week.

Who do you think is going to be the biggest laugh? God, biggest laugh? No, laugh. Or just the best parent? I think Gordon Brown would have been very focused on my mole direction. But I'm not sure if I would say that necessarily makes him the most fun. But if you had to leave your kids at eight, nine and twelve for the week with one of the prime ministers. I mean, I would have said David Cameron might be quite fun, but he left his kids in a pub.

Remember, didn't he leave his kids in a pub to get off with a Chinese prime minister? So he's out. Boris? Boris? He'll just think there is. There's a few of them. I mean, I don't think that's true. I don't think they are his.

But no, definitely not Boris. Can you imagine? Think how much damage could be done in that short period of time? Tony? Tony Blair? I think Tony Blair would be... Liz Truss. Let's not forget Liz Truss. She was the Prime Minister

for a bit. Liz Truss. She's just done an interview about how she failed because of a left-wing establishment conspiracy. And the left-wing establishment includes the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility. You think, if that's left-wing, oh my God.

So no, she's's out i'm actually struggling a bit i think i might go tony blair i might go rishi i'd argue though anyone that gets to that level of their job surely being a parent's not high in the priority you've got to be completely obsessed with that position and progress to get there surely you've got to put yourself before being a parent to get to that highest level. Or can you do both? I don't think you would ever speak to anybody who's done politics who doesn't say, I look back and regret that I didn't spend more time with my kids. And there's times when...

Alistair Campbell said that to us. Well, that's exactly right. And that the priority, the imperative. I think one of the really important things that Yvette and I had, because we were both in it, was we were both really good at understanding when the other person had to deal with a real problem and so you just say, you've got to do that and I'm taking the kids to Pizza Express or whatever, but also calling out bullshit. So if it was actually not real and you could say, you don't need to do that, that's not

a priority, we should put the family first. And we were kind of good at policing ourselves to try and make sure we put the family right. But I think that all the prime ministers I've known have really worried about it and cared about it. Gordon Brown totally devoted to his kids. I think the same is true with David Cameron, with Tony Blair as well. I'm sure it's true of Rishi Sunak. And because of the fact that they will be worrying about getting it wrong. Just skip Boris. No mention of Boris, though.

Oh, he doesn't even know who his kids are. George Osborne was saying to me, he and David Cameron tried to get Boris Johnson to come back into the cabinet, but he couldn't afford it. His alimony, his child support list was so big, it was so expensive. I mean, I don't think anybody knows maybe he's doing the ultimate what you're doing you have never named your kids to photograph them if he doesn't know who they are then they can never be in the paper maybe he's doing it right let's take it to another level i know but at least i do know you know our kids are i've

definitely got a handle on that if we go on this on this, it'll be a short start. Yes. On George Osborne, you and George Osborne have parked your tanks on Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart's lawn. No, we haven't. Of course we haven't. Everybody says, to use economics terms, the podcast market is not saturated. There's room for more podcasts. People who listen to one have listened to two or three or four,

and people who listen to yours then go listen to two or three or four, and people who listen to yours, then go on to another one which you talk about. And Alistair Campbell and Rory's is really popular. They talk a lot about foreign affairs. Has he sent you any abuse yet? Because he doesn't like competition. He got quite abusive towards us. Yeah.

In that case, I should be worried. He's not sending me enough abuse. Because maybe he's not thinking we're going to be a big enough competition. He sent me a message last Friday saying when is it launching good luck with it and give me a couple of tips that was very kind of him what were his tips because we could double check to see if he's not frying you under a bus here as seasoned podcasters ourselves did he say don't post regularly no he did do it very slapdash don't

mention it on twitter he said there's no need to get on with your um podcast person you're doing it with because nobody cares about that. Agree. Yeah. He said, don't worry about the listeners. Take them for granted. I'm actually trying to find his text.

But it was basically, I think you've always got to try and keep it fresh and keep it new and be thinking of the next thing you go on to do. And I think the thing which we will do, which he actually said to me. So it's you and George Osborne chatting about politics and what's been going on. So is it weekly or is it you take certain things? It's weekly every Thursday and starts this week. And it will have, you know, we'll do a bit more economics

than Alistair and Rory do because we were both in the Treasury. He was Chancellor, I was Economic Advisor, I was Shadow Chancellor. But we'll also still be quite about politics. And I think that compared to the Alistair Rory one, we'll probably be a bit more insider because George and I were there a lot longer than Rory was, kind of on the inside of decision making. And we'll talk about, you know, what's big in politics, what's the big thing happening which is going to affect the next election and the economy. And then maybe the thing which people haven't spotted is going to be a big deal, which we'll try and highlight.

What's that? Can we have a little inside scoop of what that might be? And then they can listen to it in more detail in your pod. You can. We might talk about what's happening in... Should I invest in AI companies, Ed? Is that what's going to... I don't think, I mean, George Osborne, maybe.

I'm not really the right person to give you advice on investing, although I'd be quite careful about crypto if I were you. But, you know, there's been a big rise in oil prices at the minute. What does that mean? How's that going to affect inflation? What will that mean to fuel duty prices? Is it going to be more expensive for the government next year? Will they make a commitment to keep fuel duty down?

They're gone, aren't they, Ed? They're gone, this government. It's over. I think it's really hard to recover from what happened with Liz Trust last year. Do you remember in – I'm not sure you do remember you're probably too young but 1992 black wednesday when interest rates went up to 15 in one day when we left the exchange rate mechanism it was like a catastrophic day i don't think the john major government ever recovered from that and for three or four more years it felt like there was going to change was going to happen and that moment a year ago when um they did a budget and they had to reverse it all

and suddenly interest rates started surging up, the markets went wild, people who were renegotiating fixed-term mortgages were suddenly finding their mortgage rate was going up one, two, three percentage points. That hit. And that continues. And that's going to continue this year, isn't it? And actually real-time impact as opposed to… Yeah, and it's going to continue this year isn't it and actually real-time impact as opposed to yeah and it's really hard to what the difference is back in 30 years ago everybody had

floating variable mortgages so your mortgage rate changed day to day whereas once you go to like now lots of people have their mortgage fixed for one two three years people are renegotiating the mortgage like every week there's new people getting a new mortgage and they suddenly find out that the rates have jumped up so it may be your three-year deal doesn't end until November on November you're finding out you're paying a lot more or next January or next March so the impact of what happened a year ago with the rise in interest rates people are gonna feel that economically over the next year and if they're feeling economically they

feel it politically too so we'll see I think it's really, really hard for the Conservatives to be re-elected. I think it's unlikely Rishi Sunak could be the Prime Minister. I think it's more likely now Keir Starmer's going to be... And is he a laugh? Is he a laugh? Well... OK, that's the end of that. If he hosted a quiz, would they go, this new reception teacher's really quite surprisingly funny,

like they did with Josh Whitaker? So I actually saw him yesterday. Yesterday we had the launch of one of my new, you know, one of the things about being a father is you have to find new ways to embarrass your kids. Yeah. And so we decided to form, it was Robert Peston's idea, a post-punk band.

Oh, my word. For Centrist Dad. Oh, my head's aired. No, don't do it to your children. I'm getting stressed just hearing about this, go on. It's you and Peston. Yeah, we only started three months ago. John Wilson, Our Cultural Life, son of Bob Wilson on bass, Chris Taylor on guitar. We start with the Ramones, Clash. What's your role in the band, sorry? I'm the drummer. You're the drummer? I'm the drummer. We ended with our last song with Teenage Kicks, Undertones.

But before that, our penultimate song was the Sex Pistols. Oh, my word. Robert Peston singing, I am an anarchist. Robert Peston singing. I am the antichrist. Robert Peston's a singer at the York Rise Street Party. And as we're looking out onto the crowd of the hundreds,

the throng who had come to see Cent century's dad in their lodge. Standing together was Ed Miliband and Keir Starmer. Both bopping away because they both live basically in this street. Keir Starmer sent me a text after to say he was brilliant. But I watched very carefully. He did not sing the words to Anarchy in the UK.

Did he not? He's very careful. Very, very wise. Lovely. Very wise. And so what's he like as a dad? I think he will make a lot of time to make sure that his kids have time and come first. And I think one of the hardest things to do is carve out that time, but you've got to. Yeah. And I think he does.

And I know his wife pretty well as well, Vic, and I think they really think hard about making sure that they support their kids. Do you think Centro's dad are going to go on to some bigger gigs, or is that it, one gig and done? I think I set the bar low, but our kids were slightly surprised on the upside. I found a photo. If you type in Robert Peston singing, it's actually worse than you playing football. Which is hard to say, Ed, no offence. But how tight was the drumming?

The drumming looks great. I can see you there. I'm in there. You're drumming under a gazebo behind Peston. Oh, my God. I drummed so hard I got a blister on my left finger. Did you? Yeah, I did actually.

No, it was, I don't know. It may be the end and the beginning, but who knows? We may get rebooked. What did your kids think of this, Ed? They are totally against the name Sentryrist Dad. Yeah. I think it's like really, really embarrassing and ridiculous. Yeah. They weren't totally sure of the song list. I

said, look, I wanted to do Dua Lipa or Lizzo, but unfortunately Pest didn't come here. It wasn't in his range. So we had to return to the Smiths because that was a bit more comfortable for them. Did he do the Smiths? Yeah. He did Morrissey. He did Heaven Knows Him as well now. Oh my word that was a bit more comfortable for us. Did he do the Smiths? Yeah. He did Morrissey.

He did Heaven Knows Unreasonable Now. Oh, my word. With a bit of syncopation on the drums. Imagine if you were just walking past and you saw this happening. No, this is what happened. Yvette said she was standing like three-quarters of the way back. And she said, all the time we were playing, people get walking past and saying, is that Robert Pesny?

And people were genuinely mystified. It was surreal. How can this possibly... There's a video, Ed. Do you know there's a video? There's a video. There's loads of videos. It was on Good Morning Britain this morning. Oh, right, yes.

We talked about that as well. We had a discussion on Good Morning Britain this morning about should there be etiquette at gigs? If you're a performer, you're singing or whatever, should you be able to say that you want the audience to be quiet, not talk, not sing along? No, I think at that point you've lost the crowd. If you're having to tell them to sing along or be quiet.

That was the argument. We had this brilliant response from, she was absolutely, called Rowetta. Oh, yeah, from Happy Mondays. Happy Mondays. Oh, my God. She totally laid into our other guest who had done the etiquette thing,

Lucy May Walker. I can say to you, there was no worries about etiquette during Sentry's dad's set. Sing, talk, dance, anything went. Well, it looked like

it went pretty well to be honest, Ed, from the videos. Cam's a new journalist if you want to see a zoomed in shot of Ed Miliband front and centre.

I know. As he always is as i said i keep trying to kind of up it my until this moment i think my best one was climbing kilimanjaro with little mix so that wasn't embarrassing they would love that wouldn't they well no actually my son said just um don't not get to the top of little mix because do you think how embarrassing that would be in school i said said to him, what are you talking about? They're trained athletes. They're the fittest 20-year-old women in the world.

What are you on about? He said, please don't let me down. Did you also say to Yvette, I'm just going away to climb a mountain with the fittest 20-year-old women in the world? He did. And there's a cherry attached, is there? Don't care. I said, Little Mix and Danny Dyer.

Little Mix and Danny Dyer, of course. As my daughter says, the Danny Dyer, not the old guy, the Danny Dyer from Love Island. Oh. The proper Danny Dyer. Oh, it was her, not the dad. The Danny Dyer, not the old guy. So it's just you and 20-year-old women, Ed.

And a few, Alexander Armstrong, Dan Walker. So there's a few of us. It was for comic relief. So that was cool. And the other thing I've done, which is in the same category, is I played the banjo live at the Royal Albert Hall on BBC One in front of Her Majesty the Queen with Harry Hill and Frank Skinner and 30 members of the George Formey Society

for the Queen's 92nd birthday concert. We played When I'm Cleaning Windows. You've had a weird life, haven't you, Ed? Ed, did you want to be a politician, really? Think down. You wanted to be a musician, didn let's be honest we came off afterwards we're waiting to go on for the encore prince charles says to me because i knew quite well i was education he says to me what has happened to your life what have you done and i had no answer i didn't know what to say i think it's better now ed isn't this more fun than being a politician oh it's definitely more

fun and with less stress. But, you know, politics is really important. And are any of your kids going into it? I don't think so at the moment, but, you know, I would like them to. But I think it's a hard thing to do in modern society because it's so exposed and so harsh. But, you know, you want the next generation to be inspired to make the world a better place. And that's what politicians are supposed to do. And if the people who aspire to make the world a better place don't go and be politicians, who are the people who are going to be inspired to make the world a better place and that's what politicians are supposed to do and if the people who aspire to make the world a better place don't go and be

politicians who are the people who are going to be the politicians because in a democracy you have to have somebody if it's the bad guys or the people who are out for themselves well where will we be as a country so if i could inspire them to do it i'd love to but you know they've seen it from the inside so they know how tough it can be yeah they know how bad it can be did you ever have like when you were um one of the secretaries of state, have security with you when you were with the kids? Like, if you went to parents' evening, could you do that on your own? Or was there always some sort of security or people around you?

No, we never had any security. In fact, all the time Gordon Brown was Chancellor, he had no security at all. There was only security at the very end of the Labour government. Alistair Darling was the Chancellor after the financial crisis. But we've had lots of kind of issues we've dealt with. So Yvette has had two different people who've kind of been convicted and served sentences for threats against her. So we've had to have a lot of security in the home and we have banks behind the door to make sure if somebody tries to pour something in the letterbox. And so the children have had to learn about, you know, that more intense security, much stronger windows,

knowing how to be careful. But we've never had any kind of actually people doing security. That's really expensive. And it's really only the prime minister and defence, the Home Office who have that. So no, we never did. And to be honest, that's a huge relief because I think it would be, I think it's pretty miserable having to spend your whole time being

accompanied by other people and getting in and out of cars and so we haven't we haven't ever had that josh would you like to ask the final question ted yeah we always end on the same question oh do you this is quite a juicy one because we all know your other half right yeah particularly because we know you know your other halves well in a year possibly with the home secretary yeah almost certainly uh is there one thing that your partner does parenting wise that takes your breath away you could never do it yourself shows you what an amazing parent they are and the second half of the question is what one thing do they do as a parent that really annoys you but you've never brought it out with them but were

they to listen to this that'd be your way of communicating. Don't do that anymore, please. I think that even when she's really tired and there's been loads of other things going on, whether it's on Christmas Eve or on the kids' birthdays, she'll always be up much, much later than me. She'll decorate the room downstairs, sort of making sure that everything is right. She thinks birthdays are really important.

And I think there was one year when her dad didn't come to her birthday when she was little. And ever since then, it's been a total three-land whip. Me and her were always there. And she just wants to make sure that it's always a special day. And so Christmas night, she'll be up to two or three in the morning. And I'm just thinking, they're not going to care. They'll sleep in. But she doesn't see it that way.

I'm trying to think in terms of things which i haven't told her if i'm honest with you you see we have the kind of relationship where we tell each other so um i mean she sets a bad example on so many fronts in terms of just trivial things so i think i have told her a lot before is she's the worst person at putting anything away if you go into the kitchen you can see a vet's made a cup of tea and made toast because you can see you vets and made a cup of tea and made toast because you can see you know the open tea thing where the tea is and you can see the milk's out and then the butter's off that's what lou says that's exactly what i did does she leave cupboards open it's like a snail you can basically see a trail going around and the other thing is you

know if a vet's had a shower because there'll be wet towels on the floor and i think one of the things i learned about relationships is that there's a certain point where if you keep mentioning it, it becomes really annoying because it's never going to change. And therefore you just have to just absorb and smile. So I love Yvette for very many reasons. And every day I pick up her towels and hang them up. And I've done that every day now for 30 years. And I never mention it.

And if she was watching this podcast I'd love it if she picked up a towel put it away but I'm never gonna mention it because it's part of never gonna mention it now but now she can if she listens to this or if a journalist picks it up and it gets in the paper she might well I know but it's just part of the deal you just have certain things where you just have to think that's who they are and this is who I am and so the thing which really annoys her about me is every three months I'll say we've got to tidy the house yeah my wife does that I go all the way around the house and put everything into a big box and I dump it on the kitchen table and then say we've got to sort it out and then Yvette thinks it can then sit there for weeks no no it's got to be

sorted out now god so we have under our kitchen table is eight bags of things that vets promise you'll sort out in due course and they've been there since before christmas nightmare i'm looking forward to having to cover on good morning britain shadow home secretary leaves towels on floor as a news story just don't tell her because i'm not gonna tell her because i just sort of think in the end you know it's what i do okay we won't we won't mention it to her and also let's see the power of the podcast if you don't tell her we don't tell her and she comes over and goes what's this tail problem let's see if it gets back to her your podcast political currency with george osborne and ed balls out uh well it's out. And tell your mate to come up to me at pick up and apologise.

No, all he wants you to do is do the next pub quiz. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. The best reception teacher comedy guy he's ever known. Thanks, Ed. Cheers, mate. See you later. Thanks, mate.

Good luck with it. Ed Balls. Ed Balls. There we go. I don't know who that guy is at the Thanks, mate. Good luck with it. Ed Balls. Ed Balls. There we go. I don't know who that guy is at the school, Rob. Also, I felt like I started that interview badly when he said we were, and I said running the country into the ground

as a bit of banter, but because he's a politician, I don't think he sort of... Oh, no, but I don't... That kind of thing is water off a duck's back with a politician, isn't it? Duck's back. All right, mate.

Duck's back. That's like water off a duck's back, that politician, isn't it? Doc's Buck, aren't they? Doc's Buck. What's wrong? Doc's Buck, that is. What happened there? Also as well, is it okay, Josh,

if I admit this now? You know that I'm not a major prepper. You don't know who he is. Nah, I didn't realise his wife was still a politician and I didn't really know

he was in politics. I literally just thought it was like a news person that did streaming. That is, and I was really, really working backwards in that episode.

I know. But I think I covered for you. We're like, you know, like when you've got a midfielder who's making runs forward. I was... Yeah. I was covering all your runs, Rob.

I was there. The first 10 minutes, I was a bit quiet as I tried to work out. Oh, so it was actually... Because it's different if someone was like, oh, they were in a band or whatever.

Yeah. But with politics, it's always so loaded because you don't really know who to bring up or not bring up because you don't know yeah what was what you know what they can take you know i mean but yeah anyway good to know now that's the ed ball's outro listen to their podcast probably could have done that before he came on tour about that josh yeah i don't matter we were doing our own podcast but But I just, for me, he's just the gang name guy. Exactly, Rob.

But he knows his stuff, doesn't he? Rob, if you were, if you'd done research for that, you wouldn't be being you. Be you. I wouldn't have been being me, would I? Be you, Rob. I tell you what, when he said Peston was singing, I'm back in now.

There we go. All right. All right. All right. He's a lovely bloke. I do like him. I'm a big fan of his work on Good Morning Britain and Strictly, but I didn't know about his previous career, really. Oh, there you go.

There we go. You win some, you lose some. Right. See you on Tuesday. Bye. Bye.