00:00Shabana was a shadowed junior treasury minister 10 years ago and I don't know if this has annoyed
00:05you just as much it's annoyed me clear I imagine so that already she's not even started she's not
00:11day one in the job and there are some commentators saying that she's just going to be a puppet of
00:16number 10 I suspect those people have not in fact met Shabana Mahmood or in fact understood the
00:22proper dynamic of what it really is like between the chancellor and the prime minister even at
00:27the best of times. I agree but also it's misunderstanding of how you think number 10
00:32works to say things like the economy is going to be driven through number 10 it's there aren't
00:37actually that many people in that building there's a reason the treasury is a very powerful force
00:42because it employs literally thousands of civil servants experts in their field and it's just
00:48not a good use of of the skills of someone like Shabana Mahmood to um to not use her properly
00:55I
00:55was really surprised to see that and I also think it just if if you're going to characterize her as
01:01a
01:01puppet like that it really doesn't help actually that she's a woman and she'll be the first ethnic
01:06minority woman to hold that post and then to have this idea that she's not really in charge anyway
01:11is so undermining and damaging and if I were any of the Labour women MPs I'd be furious to see
01:18it.
01:19Absolutely and I think one of the things that people say about Shabana Mahmood when she arrived at the
01:23Home Office which is one of the reasons that we think she's great is that she didn't spend a few
01:29days reading her way in and thinking about things and having 84 meetings and wondering about life she
01:35just got in really clear this is what I need to do on migration this is all I'm focusing on
01:40I am doing
01:40this here we are let's go and is really good at taking decisions really tough really clear listens to
01:47people takes advice but then gets on with it and actually you know that's that those are all great
01:52strengths in the minister. Yeah which is exactly not to pull the receipts on you but you've you've said
01:57this on the podcast a while ago about the chancellor is someone that does have to project massive amounts
02:02of confidence and you know we we talked on Tuesday about how Rachel Weaves is sort of showing her
02:10personality a bit more now and she was she made this joke about you know for incumbent don't cry on
02:16national television but the markets responded extremely badly to when that did happen to Rachel
02:23Weaves and I think the fact that the rumors the strong rumors that the chance is going to be Shabana
02:29Mahmood and that the markets have rallied the pound has risen and our borrowing costs have gone down is a
02:33really good sign that you know aside from the fact that she is just a very good minister the markets
02:41who everyone was terrified would respond badly to the wrong kind of pick obviously are going with
02:47her so far very encouraging. It turns out Andy even Andy is in hock to the bond markets when it
02:53comes to
02:53his chancellor pick who knew who knew. Yes not so good one of the things I have been thinking about
02:59though is you said a while ago that um the reason that she you predicted actually that she would be
03:06a
03:06very very good chancellor she's the kind of pick that that you would go for because you want someone
03:10clever well regarded and tough enough and another person who has said in the past hell yes I'm tough
03:17enough is Ed Miliband and I was thinking about if I were running one of the attack teams at
03:25conservative headquarters or Lib Dems or Reform or wherever the reason Shabana Mahmood is such a good
03:31appointment she's really hard to get purchase on because she's done a great job with home secretary
03:37but Ed Miliband has got a well-documented series of quotes you can use about him or at least at
03:42least
03:43lines you can use so he was known as Red Ed during the 2015 general election we've all seen the
03:48picture
03:48of him eating that bacon sandwich which you know all he was doing was eating but it didn't look and
03:52feel
03:53competent it was amazing how much traction it got at the time and also the public by and large are
04:00moving
04:01away from a lot of the net zero agenda that he's most passionate about so all these crises have the
04:08same ultimate cause our dependence on fossil fuels and all of them and all of them have the same
04:15solution low-cost homegrown zero carbon power for our country we talked on Tuesday about how he
04:22was allegedly willing to um kind of put all that to one side in order to become chancellor I don't
04:30think that's great either from a sort of principal's point of view but Shabana Mahmood is a curious
04:37character because she's had such a strong record at the home office she's she's very difficult to sort
04:42of land a punch on and you can you can bet your bottom dollar that for every other cabinet appointment
04:48um obviously including the prime minister these teams will be working on sort of dirty dossiers
04:54on all of them what is the best way to undermine them attack them because both writ large in the
05:01media and in election cycles and in the house of commons when you have the the different debates
05:07you want to try and land the best possible punches and I think one of the advantages of having
05:14Shabana Mahmood in the treasury is that that that Pat McFadden comment that do you remember I said
05:19would go on every every leaflet it was a text that he'd sent to Peter Mandelson saying all my meetings
05:25with Labour MPs are people telling me to tax tax people more in order to spend more on those on
05:33welfare and um it's going to be very hard to make that case with her
05:38you
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