You join us on a steam train in Scotland as we head to the next episode of the BBC’s hit show Political Traitors. It’s like the celebrity edition, except that everyone is less comely – politics being the practice of show business for ugly people. For this week’s task, the players have to construct a “budget” of tiny crowd-pleasing measures, carefully balanced by invisible tax rises.

What makes the show so compelling is that the players don’t know the whole story. Only those of us on the outside can see what’s really going on. While John and Andy run around shouting about how they have faithfully met their “fiscal rules” in the third year of the forecasts, on our sofas at home we know that this incantation is entirely meaningless.

But people who’ve been on the show say that when you’re in the midst of it, it feels completely real. So much so that there are ongoing questions for the producers about safeguarding. Liz, who was a sensation of chaotic energy when she briefly appeared in 2022, is the most obvious example of someone who shouldn’t have been allowed to take part. She was last heard explaining her plan to colonise........

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