My memories of Matt Hancock

‘You could be the next Ed Balls.’ That’s what I told a doe-eyed Bank of England official called Matthew Hancock when I was introduced to him at a drinks party 18 years ago. I needed a fiercely intelligent, hard-working, exuberant aide who could help me as shadow chancellor – just as Ed had been the brains behind Gordon Brown. As you can all see from the leaked WhatsApp messages, we’ve been in touch ever since. When I tell this story now to Matt and Ed, they’re both offended by the comparison. I guess these reality TV stars are hard to handle.

It’s not the first time messages meant only to be seen by Matt have gone astray. On the eve of the 2007 Tory conference an email containing all of the week’s announcements – such as my surprise promise to raise the inheritance tax threshold – was sent by mistake to Lib Dem MP Mike Hancock instead. If he had read his inbox and published it, then our conference would have been a disaster not a triumph, and Gordon would have called a general election rather than cancelling it. It was a sliding-doors moment, but thankfully for us Mike was engaged in other affairs.

Ed has just co-authored a Harvard paper on why regional disparity has grown across England over the past 40 years. His prescription of better transport links, regional science clusters and skills, decentralisation of power and (counterintuitively) more housing in the South-East is one I strongly support. I would also give local areas much greater powers to raise or cut taxes, and spend the proceeds. If Rishi Sunak applies the same acumen he’s using to get Brexit done to the levelling-up agenda, he could turn another Tory slogan he inherited into something substantial. 

If we’re going to support the arts in cities beyond London then we must sustain the tax credits for theatres and other creative industries that I introduced and Rishi temporarily boosted.