Just how much power do the economists of Threadneedle Street really wield? As the Bank of England grapples with whether to keep interest rates at an all time high, host Sascha O’Sullivan goes on a mission to find out.

In this week’s episode, she speaks to those who have been at the very heart of Westminster's relationship with the Bank for the last three decades.

Former Prime Minister Liz Truss tells Sascha exactly why she believes Bank of England economists were attempting to pull apart her mini-budget and "take her down."

Former shadow chancellor and Gordon Brown adviser Ed Balls explains how the Bank's independence came about in 1997, and suggests some of the people sitting on the Monetary Policy Committee have developed a spot of group think in their decision making.

Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation and former adviser to Alistair Darling, talks about how the 2008 global financial crisis changed the powers the Bank could deploy in times of emergency.

And Andy Haldane, the former chief economist for the Bank of England for more than 30 years, reveals how close to a political intervention the then-Governor Mark Carney came during the Brexit years and how, after the pandemic, the Bank's economists missed inflation coming down the track.

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After the Tories' drubbing in the local elections and the many, many rumors about efforts to unseat Rishi Sunak, Aggie Chambre talks us through how to prepare a secret Conservative leadership campaign.

Former No. 10 head of political comms Adam Jones takes us inside Liz Truss's "fizz with Liz" soirees, explains why she took *that* picture in the tank, and says his former boss got "punch drunk" on love from Tory members.

Former adviser Lucia Hodgson, who ran Andrea Leadsom's 2019 leadership bid, explains the years of work they put into that campaign, and reveals why you need to know everything you can about your opponents.

Aggie speaks to former Tory contender Michael Heseltine about what he did and did not do before his infamous run in 1990 — about his regrets, supporters and missteps.

And former Cabinet minister Nadine Dorries claims it’s nigh on impossible to get any work done in government when everyone is so obsessed with who the next leader of the Conservative Party will be.

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In the first episode of season 14, host Aggie Chambre tells the inside story of how POLITICO broke the Westminster honey trap story, and goes in search of who is really responsible.

She hears from most of the key characters involved in the scandal that rocked SW1.

Two victims tell Aggie about their messages and one of them explains what happened when he organized a meeting with the catfisher.

POLITICO's own Dan Bloom reveals for the first time that he received a message from the mysterious catfisher and talks through his part in breaking the story.

The BBC's Henry Zeffman describes what it was like to be targeted and why he initially smelled a rat.

The Times’ Aubrey Allegretti gives behind the scenes details of his initial phone call with William Wragg, when the MP admitted some involvement in the scandal.

And Ciaran Martin, former CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre, explains how the scandal shed "a lot of light on the vulnerabilities of our political system."

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.