The rise and rise of the centrist bore podcast

It doesn’t seem like 13 years since I strolled down to the Cabinet Office after work on a May evening to enjoy a bit of protest tourism. A largeish crowd of the usual malcontents – students, crusties and the Socialist Workers’ party – had gathered to harangue the Tory and Lib Dem representatives who were hammering out the coalition agreement. The government that emerged from those talks made reducing the deficit its priority, and in those far-off halcyon days, before Brexit and Corbyn and Covid, when Donald Trump was still hosting The Apprentice, ‘austerity’ was the great political battleground. And for almost all of the subsequent five years, it was Ed Balls and George Osborne who fought each other over government spending.

Sensibleism, like civilisation, is easier to recognise than define, but essentially it involves a kind of fetishisation of moderation and the centre ground

Now, a decade on, the two men have gone the way of all middle-aged male flesh and started a podcast, which will make its debut this week.