07 November 2023 , 06:32
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The late Queen intervened to stop cuts to a Highland bagpipe school, George Osborne has claimed.
Speaking on his new podcast Political Currency, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer told co-host Ed Balls that Queen Elizabeth intervened in state politics to save an army music school. He told the story of how the Queen approached him and asked about a bagpipe school in the Highlands that was facing cuts. The then senior Tory politician investigated to figure out whether they were making the cuts - then immediately reversed them, he said. This came within the context of Osborne slashing almost half a million jobs, cutting welfare by £7billion and leaving state spending irreparably changed.
The late Queen Elizabeth (Getty Images)
Osborne said the late Queen 'directly interfered' (Political Currency)Speaking on the podcast, Osborne said the Queen “directly interfered” in politics to save the bagpipe school from cuts - while thousands of Sure Start children centres were being closed down.
He said: "I was at a state dinner and she came up to me and said ‘the chief of the defence staff is unable to answer my question, he told me to go speak to the defence secretary, I went to see the defence secretary and he told me to come and speak to you, you’re not going to close the Highland Bagpipe School of the British Army?’ I said ‘of course not your majesty,”.
Osborne then described how the very next day, he went into the Treasury and began asking after the Queen’s alleged request. He said his private office didn’t immediately know but later found out that they were in fact making cuts to it.
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“I said we’re not [making cuts] anymore”, Osborne recalled. “I immediately sent a message back to the Palace that she could be reassured that the pipers of the British Army would remain well trained.” Balls and Osborne then traded anecdotes about the royal, after alleging she interfered with British politics for her own wants.
Buckingham Palace refused to comment.