Travels in Euroland with Ed Balls - Season 1 Episode 3 -

Ed spends time in both Italy and France, exploring the role that austerity and the financial crash had to play in fuelling the rise of both right and left-wing populism across the continent. Ed’s journey begins in Milan, the wealthiest city in Italy, and the base of the deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini. Salvini and his party Lega have risen to power by promising the Italians a huge €10m tax break – but the EU have blocked their plans, and said that the country must continue on a programme of imposed austerity. Ed wants to know if the proposed tax cut has been a significant reason for why he picked up votes amongst the rich, and visits fashion entrepreneur and multi-millionaire Valeria Marini to find out. Valeria lives a life of luxury – and Ed joins her as she greets excited fans in the city centre. Ed then travels to one of the poorest regions of the country, Calabria. Here, the residents voted in their droves for another populist party, Five-Star, but one that, unlike Lega, is left-wing. Five Star are vociferously anti-EU and have said that they will try and look after the interests of local workers. Ed wants to know why the farming community here voted for anti-EU party – after all, you would imagine they would want to be able to sell produce, tariff-free, throughout Europe. Ed stays with local farmer Tomasso and his family – and is woken at the crack of dawn to help him milk the cows and do a shift running the farm. The second leg of Ed’s trip takes him to France. Here, Marine le Pen has increased the vote for her rebranded National Rally party (formerly known as the National Front). In part, she has done so by promising to protect French industry from the threat of foreign traders – but, unlike in Italy, the focus has been on countries outside of the EU. During the campaign trail, Marine came to the town of Caudry, in the north of France, famous for its traditional lace industry. The designers here have made clothes for Michelle Obama and Madonna – b