0:00

This is a Global Player Original

0:02

Podcast. Now,

0:14

today we're in the heart studio. We've

0:17

been promoted. So basically I'm Jamie and

0:19

this is Amanda. Hello.

0:25

I feel overdressed to be Amanda.

0:28

And underpaid. Well, quite. She

0:31

gets quite a whack apparently. But

0:33

then all breakfast hosts do, don't they? Is

0:35

that, are they the breakfast show? Yeah. What do you mean

0:37

are they? You don't know who does the heart breakfast show.

0:39

I do listen, obviously. I mean, you are part

0:41

of the global family. And I listen

0:43

to global stations. I listen obviously

0:46

to LBC and if I can't get them to turn

0:48

it off in the cab, I listen to...

0:52

I listen to Smooth and I listen

0:54

to Classic FM. Not Radio X? Isn't

0:57

that the one that they sold as being... The moon.

1:00

Oh yeah, we've had this discussion before. That

1:03

was 10 years ago or maybe 20 years ago. Well,

1:05

I'm sorry, I've got a long memory. I hold a

1:07

grudge for a very long time. I know you do.

1:10

Now, do you want to know who I've had lunch with? Oh no,

1:12

come on. Who is it? You've got 10 questions

1:14

to guess. Oh, OK. All right. I like playing

1:17

this game. Is it a politician?

1:19

Yes. Is it a

1:22

Labour politician? No. Is it

1:24

a Conservative politician? Yes. Corey's

1:26

keeping count. Are they

1:28

in the House of Commons? Yes.

1:31

Is it... Are they... Presumably

1:35

not a Cabinet Minister. That's not a question. That

1:37

wasn't a question. That was me thinking out loud.

1:41

Are they currently a minister? No. Have

1:44

they been a Cabinet Minister in the past? Yes. I

1:49

don't think it's David Davis. Is

1:53

that a question? Is it... No. That wasn't a question. That was

1:55

me thinking out loud. God,

1:57

you listed those cogs wearing... Is it... Oh,

2:00

for fuck's sake. I think it's

2:02

somebody that you don't necessarily always

2:04

have lunch with. Yeah.

2:07

So it's not... Sorry. So it's

2:09

not David and... Cory! It's not

2:11

Brandon and it's not David. Did we decide it was a

2:13

man? This is great listening, this, isn't

2:15

it? Um... I

2:18

thought this would be really good stuff. So you used to have

2:20

a whole TV programme about like this. Twenty...

2:22

Maybe that tune in one. Is it... Is

2:26

it Simon Clarke? No. Are you

2:28

plotting? No. We'll

2:30

come back to that. Was it Kosei?

2:33

Kwateing? No. Um, okay. How

2:35

many have I done now? Eight. God,

2:38

put me out of my misery. Is it, um... Oh...

2:42

It's a woman. Cory!

2:45

Oh my God. Um... Oh,

2:49

well, that's Liz. Correct.

2:51

The Lizster. The

2:53

Truster. Yes. Oh, brilliant. How was

2:55

she? She was in fine form,

2:58

actually. Good. Good fun. Good company.

3:02

We had a very good chat.

3:05

Are you going to be joining the

3:07

popular conservatives? We did talk about

3:09

that, actually. A relatively small group. How many more groups

3:11

can there be? Shaba, this isn't

3:13

a parliamentary group. This is for the party. Right.

3:17

So, um... So what will it

3:19

be doing, then, the popular... And for the

3:21

many listeners, Jonathan Isabie was there. Bless

3:24

him. And for the many listeners, Brandon Lewis was

3:26

there. Oh! So,

3:28

um, many reputations. I was just going to

3:31

say, who did you... I mean, obviously, nobody's

3:33

listening. Who did you most slag off in?

3:35

No, it was a very constructive lunch. Come

3:37

on. No, because I wanted to give her

3:40

the benefit of my professional advice on how

3:42

to market her book, Beth. Okay.

3:45

Is she going to be coming to do the, uh, For

3:48

the Many live at Toy Party Conference for us?

3:50

Oh, fuck, I never asked about that. I'll

3:53

tell you who I met yesterday, who said they were

3:55

a fan of the podcast and would be very happy

3:57

to come on, Tom Thuganhat. Yes,

4:02

yes that's a definite possibility. No actually

4:06

that might be rather good. I

4:09

think it'd be interesting. I

4:12

want to get a different venue though because I thought that one we

4:14

had in Birmingham last time was a bit cavernous. Yeah,

4:17

I mean Penny managed to fill it didn't she?

4:20

Would Tom get as many as Penny? I

4:22

don't think anybody would get as many as Penny. Corey's holding

4:25

up a sign, what's it say? Who was

4:27

that? He spoke about the Kama Sutra the

4:29

other day. Tom! Yes he

4:31

did didn't he? What did he have to say

4:33

about the Kama Sutra? You

4:35

can speak Corey. I'm

4:38

miming. Are

4:41

you saying here the whole time? Corey get up off the

4:43

floor. Yeah

4:46

and Jesse get off him. Do you want me to

4:48

join you? I'll do me back in. Right,

4:51

here's the... See I didn't

4:53

bring my glasses up, I can't read it. You'll

4:55

have to read it out yourself. Tom Tugendhat said

4:57

that Keir Starmer has adopted more positions than the

5:00

Kama Sutra and not held any of them longer

5:02

than a teenager on prom night. That's

5:08

very good. At least he didn't talk

5:10

about masturbating lemons though. Oh

5:12

yes, who was that? You've had masturbating on

5:14

your show. That was the on-course question, now we

5:16

have this fun question at the end, which some

5:18

are funnier than others. So

5:21

this one was have you ever blurted anything

5:23

out and lived to regret it? And

5:26

Labour MP Sarah Champion who was on the

5:28

panel, she said well I can't think of

5:30

anything I blurted out before so let me

5:32

blur something out now. And

5:34

then she said I'm chairman of the

5:36

all-party group on zoos so I

5:38

visit a lot of zoos. And

5:41

you wouldn't believe the number

5:43

of masturbating lemurs I've seen

5:45

in zoos around the country. It's a real issue.

5:48

That is excellent. What's a lemur? It's

5:50

a monk, sort of monkey. Oh

5:52

yes, it's like a little... Yeah they look really weird. Cory looked

5:54

them up earlier on. Monkeys do like to

5:56

play with themselves don't they? But I

5:58

misheard it. I thought she said... Mr. Boating

6:00

Llama. I was thinking, well

6:02

how does that work? I had a problem with

6:04

Cloven who's masturbation. Exactly. But I

6:07

thought it wouldn't be much fun would it?

6:09

You'd have to click the screen here. Corey's

6:12

started, he hasn't started fanning it. Oh yes, he

6:14

is fanning himself now. Sorry Corey.

6:17

Goodbye. Ooh. Ooh.

6:21

Ooh. Shall

6:24

we start with the serious political analysis? Because

6:27

we have a lot to get through today don't we? Yes

6:30

we do. We have a list as long as your

6:32

arm. As long

6:34

as I'm masturbating a Lima's arm. So

6:38

we may be today, maybe

6:40

one of those days when we

6:42

are not going into enormously insightful

6:44

and in-depth analysis of each of

6:46

the items that we're covering. Well don't say

6:49

that because it makes us look a bit amateur

6:51

compared to the professional efforts of

6:53

George Osborne and Ed Bools. Well do they go into

6:55

it in depth? No they do. I mean they go

6:57

into it in depth. It's actually a very listenable

6:59

podcast I find. Well you can't say

7:02

it. You basically, what you do... I

7:04

love it when you go off on the run. You do. You love this

7:06

don't you? So first of all it was all, ah the rest

7:08

is politics this, the rest is politics that. Until

7:11

I basically said if you say that one more time

7:13

I'm going to smack you. And

7:15

now it's, mmm, political currency this,

7:17

political currency that I love Ed

7:19

and George. Why don't you

7:21

just go off with Ed and George if

7:23

you love them so much? Who

7:27

would you replace me with then? Your

7:30

good friend Quentin Letts. Possibly

7:35

not. Your new

7:37

love Ed Vasey. Oh yes

7:39

Ed, yeah. I was on with him last night. Last

7:44

night? Yeah I did Politics Hub

7:46

last night with Ed. I didn't see you on

7:48

that. So I

7:50

have a sky screen in front of me. I didn't see you on

7:52

that. I was definitely on there. Just

7:55

after Emily Thornberry had done her sterling

7:59

defense. Of labor's

8:01

defense policy without spending any

8:03

money. Excellent job. And

8:05

had been challenge to buy safety rage

8:08

about the fact that she had. In

8:10

the past cold blood. Donald Trump's.

8:13

A racist and a sex pest

8:15

and Will says going to be

8:17

difficult is Donald Trump won the

8:19

election and did she stand by

8:21

and good for You Gotta love

8:23

em As I do Said yes

8:25

I stand by it. I'm arts.

8:28

Obviously Nice pivot. I wouldn't want to

8:30

tell the American people how to vote

8:32

and please He was elected by the

8:34

American people them we would work with

8:37

him. But she's not

8:39

for the Cmb phone sex or doesn't really

8:41

matter anyway as and know but. presumably.

8:44

You. Know being as we have a

8:46

special relationship with the Americans, the whole

8:48

have any future. Labour government would

8:50

need to consider their relationship to the.

8:52

U. S with nice now of course

8:55

as it looks. Posts New

8:57

Hampshire as this Donald Trump

8:59

will be the Republican. Candidate.

9:03

We do have an interesting. Situation.

9:06

Where the Us

9:09

election will happen

9:11

and. A. He might win.

9:13

And then a week later, The.

9:16

Uk Election. General. Election

9:18

will probably. Be. Taking

9:20

place that you think that is the

9:22

most likely Now that. Sounds are

9:25

so. Difficult will that be? All.

9:28

British. Politicians. I

9:31

don't think it will impact the election

9:33

but was injured could impart feel like

9:35

some because I think a lot of

9:37

media coverage will. Pivot. Towards

9:39

America and of Scintilla, Relax

9:42

and. But.

9:45

It could take the attention of any

9:47

sort of some things that might be

9:49

controversial or visitors paying possibly so I

9:51

think it it will have an impact

9:53

others out of of impacts on the

9:55

result. of the more people I talked

9:57

to the more people think that labour.

10:00

Get the most watching majority ever looked

10:02

at them. Blur of the Tories. We

10:04

don't have a hundred and fifty seats.

10:06

Yeah, Now iced odds

10:08

are not sure. I believe that

10:10

that some. Am

10:13

puts it in some ways of it

10:15

would be. I

10:18

wonder whether Storm with Night the same states

10:20

the Blair made in the says terms himself

10:22

admits that he didn't go far enough. Him

10:24

radical enough. Because

10:26

at the moment you have to say there isn't much

10:28

of a radical offering. The. Know that there isn't much

10:30

money. I that as even less money. I mean you

10:32

know. Tony. Benn Gordon Brown

10:35

tight themselves. To Tories ending Tanzania.

10:37

If the what makes a result know. In

10:39

Go but my point is that then after

10:41

that because the economy was in a better

10:44

position than it is in now because there

10:46

was gray say had more money to spend

10:48

it will be more difficult first armories government

10:50

because I will not pay money to spend

10:53

and as the as the all has said.

10:55

This week the

10:57

current government's spending.

10:59

Plans are no better than a fiction. Because

11:01

Jeremy on to says not to really

11:03

spell out on public spending will be

11:05

post. An Election.

11:08

So I'm. Rachel

11:10

Reeves. In. Order To.

11:12

Suggest to the British public that. Labour.

11:15

Will be responsible with their. Tax

11:17

pounds is of the see. Pledging.

11:20

Not to increase income, the

11:22

rates of income tax all

11:24

the eighty, or a national

11:26

insurance thoughts. I'm. Or.

11:29

Will also have an enormous amount of pressure to

11:31

actually. Spend. Money on Public Services.

11:35

But. Do you think of this are

11:37

a big tax cuts in the budget

11:39

which are sigma will be empty. Think

11:41

Labour moved commit to not reversing them.

11:46

I think it's partly depends. What

11:48

they are. So.

11:52

let's say hobbes inheritance tax

11:54

t put takes to pencils

11:56

the bottom rate of income

11:59

tax and expands the 40p

12:01

and 45p thresholds? I

12:05

don't think he will do the thresholds by the way,

12:07

but out of those I think Labour would probably reverse

12:09

the first and not the other two and they may

12:11

well save that as well. Of

12:13

course the other interesting thing, the

12:16

clever thing that he could do

12:19

is if you think about it, well

12:21

there are only three areas of taxation

12:23

that Labour has been very

12:25

clear about and that is VAT on

12:27

private schools, now I don't think the

12:30

Tory government would do that, non-doms to

12:32

fund the health service and

12:35

a private equity thing

12:38

which I don't think the Tories would do but

12:40

supposing Jeremy Hunt said, this would be an interesting

12:42

political thing to do, Jeremy Hunt got

12:44

rid of the non-dom thing and

12:47

therefore took away all

12:49

of the money that Labour is currently

12:52

proposing to spend on health improvements. What

12:54

would Labour do then? Answers

12:58

on a postcard please or an email

13:00

to www.fornmaniacglavel.com Politically clever thing. That's the

13:02

sort of thing that George Osborne or

13:04

Nigel Lawson would have done. Would Jeremy

13:07

Hunt do something like that? It's possible

13:09

I suppose. He's

13:11

pitching himself as

13:13

the new Nigel Lawson, he's going to have

13:15

a radical budget. Well I don't see him

13:17

as a radical Chancellor and

13:20

I don't believe that had this not been an election year

13:22

that he would be talking in this way at all. I

13:24

don't think there would be any tax cuts in the budget

13:26

if this wasn't an election year and

13:29

I think again if Labour play their cards right

13:31

they can make sure that people see through that.

13:35

To go back to your argument about what

13:38

you think the general election result is going to

13:41

be like, are you

13:43

part of the Frost-Clarke

13:45

axis? Are you basically

13:47

talking up how terrible it's all going to

13:50

be on the basis that you want to

13:52

boot out Rishi and be part of this

13:54

having had lunch with Liz Truss? Are you

13:56

plotting against our current Prime Minister

13:58

as part of that new group that

14:00

apparently has 10 MPs in

14:02

it and this guy from number

14:04

10 called Will Dry who nobody had heard

14:07

about until he decided was in

14:09

the papers this morning. The

14:11

answer to that is no, no, no, no.

14:13

Would you like to

14:16

tell our listeners when you sent

14:20

me your suggestions for the list

14:23

what you called Simon Clarke? I

14:26

can't remember. Called him a dickhead. Yes

14:29

because that's what he is. Anyone

14:31

that believes

14:34

that it is a good

14:36

idea to replace a Prime Minister a

14:38

few months before an election should look at

14:40

the example of Patricia Hewitt and Jeff Hoon

14:43

in 2010 where they went over the top

14:45

and looked behind them and nobody was following

14:47

and that's exactly what Simon Clarke has done.

14:49

You didn't need to be Einstein to work

14:51

out that he wouldn't have much support. The

14:54

only other MP that's publicly

14:56

declared against Rishi Sunak is that

14:58

magnificent brain that calls itself Andrea

15:01

Jenkins. Now he

15:04

may have had people say to him that

15:06

they would support him but actually saying

15:08

it and doing it in the Tory

15:10

party in these circumstances are two very

15:12

different things and I thought

15:15

he made an absolute fool

15:17

of himself. I was speaking

15:19

to a Tory MP in the

15:21

break on cross-question. He'd just come

15:23

to the, I think it

15:26

was Dean Russell, he'd just come to

15:28

the studio from the chamber

15:31

where all Tory MPs had been lined

15:33

up for a photo and

15:36

he said that everyone was really united. I

15:38

said oh was Simon Clarke there? I said

15:40

no I didn't see him. I said no.

15:42

Is it not his own at the back?

15:44

Quite. A ludicrous move. I

15:46

mean some of the arguments that he put forward

15:48

in his Telegraph column you could kind of have

15:50

a bit of sympathy with but

15:53

if you're going to launch effectively

15:55

a campaign To get

15:57

rid of the current leader you've. For

16:00

have an idea of who the next

16:02

leader would be and in. Twenty.

16:05

Ten that would have been David Miliband

16:07

that was a king over the water

16:09

of folks. A he wasn't coming out

16:12

to play here. There is nobody those

16:14

no obvious successor own people are talking

16:16

about Kenney Baden Off as a Sees

16:19

Some house. The solution to everything on

16:21

this is relatively new and pay. Sees

16:24

has a stratospheric rise. she talks to

16:27

good game but she still relatively unproven

16:29

of them. so she the candidates. I

16:31

was a leadership election as he said

16:34

he would be an automatic to it.

16:36

So I think people. Have. To

16:38

search party is basically having a collective nervous

16:41

breakdown. Neither should we do not have to

16:43

an election not before it because effectively I

16:45

mean devo if it's if a license on

16:47

Nov the fourteenth which I think is the

16:50

most likely day. He

16:52

felt what? nine and a half months to go? And

16:55

in those nine a half months issue

16:57

continue to say the kind of divisions

16:59

that they've been showing over we really

17:01

sit mock of cause I since Christmas

17:03

of the last few years. I'm delighted

17:05

isn't gonna vote for you at and

17:07

the thing that they that the Conservatives

17:09

have got to see a most is

17:12

a stay at home. Those is not

17:14

people defecting to Labour from the Conservatives

17:16

are there will be some of those.

17:19

But. She think back to ninety

17:21

ninety seven, Tony Blair got a massive

17:23

majority because four million conservative state a

17:25

home. It. Wasn't because for the four

17:27

million defected and voted for him. I'm and

17:30

I think the same kind of thing is

17:32

going to happen this time. So what they

17:34

got to try and do is motivate their

17:36

own voters to go out and vote not

17:39

to try and convince Liberal Democrat or Labour

17:41

supporters to vote for them because I'm not

17:43

going takes the just concentrate on those people

17:45

feel so pissed off and and don't see

17:48

a cast on me. See this was the

17:50

same the Tony Blair and Ninety Seven's. Ordinary.

17:53

Centrist conservative voters didn't see a Tony

17:56

Blair and either to make it fair

17:58

kissed on are either. In

18:01

defense of Simon Clarke, of course, as he pointed out,

18:03

the person on the Titanic who shouted

18:06

iceberg was also

18:08

not listened to, but he was

18:11

nevertheless right. Although

18:13

as Nigel Fletcher, friend of the podcast points

18:15

out, had they, if I get

18:18

this right about the Titanic, apparently

18:20

had they aimed straight at the

18:23

iceberg, they would have been less

18:25

likely to sink than going to

18:27

the side where they got hold. I'm

18:30

not quite sure that. I think Nigel would

18:32

need to... This comes from that world famous

18:34

icebergologist Nigel Fletcher. I think Nigel Fletcher fancies

18:36

himself as Leonardo DiCaprio, frankly. No, he

18:39

probably just fancies Leonardo DiCaprio, although maybe in

18:41

his younger years, it's a bit of a

18:43

blob now. So you're

18:45

not joining the popular conservatives? No. You're

18:48

not joining the Clarkists or whatever they

18:50

call... I'm not joining anybody. Okay. I'm

18:53

not that kind of person. I'm my own person,

18:55

Jackie, with my own views. I don't need to

18:58

be led by anybody, apart from you. Next.

19:04

Shall we talk about... Let's talk about

19:06

what I did do yesterday and

19:08

the launch of the Joe

19:10

Cox Commission report. What

19:12

you did yesterday is what you normally do on

19:15

these occasions. When you're launching some August report, you

19:17

then get into a row with another woman. Not

19:22

until later on in the evening, I made

19:25

the point... Progress, I suppose. Exactly. It

19:27

was pretty immediate, I remember. It was even

19:30

before we got to the... Shut up,

19:32

Isabelle. I

19:34

made the point in my introduction

19:36

to the report that

19:39

in tackling abuse and intimidation of elected

19:42

politicians, you are not somehow or another

19:44

trying to sanitise political debate because I

19:46

like an argument as much as the

19:49

next person, in fact, slightly more than quite a few

19:51

of the next people. The

19:53

point about abuse and intimidation is it...

19:55

And we have evidence increasingly of this,

19:57

is it prevents people from wanting...

20:00

to come into politics and it's even

20:02

the reason why some people are choosing

20:04

to go out. So actually abuse and

20:06

intimidation isn't part of lively debate. It

20:09

stifles debate because fewer people want to

20:11

take part in it. So

20:13

we have a report from a

20:15

commission jointly chaired by the Splendid

20:17

Vernon Coker and the Splendid at

20:19

Gabby Burton that has

20:21

taken evidence from former

20:23

politicians, from academics, from

20:26

organisations like the Electoral Commission,

20:28

the Committee on Standards in

20:30

Public Life, Ofcom, the social

20:33

media companies, all sorts of

20:35

local government association, Forces

20:39

Society, Centina Reactia, anyway

20:41

loads of people who are

20:43

supporting and has made 28 recommendations

20:49

which was what we were launching yesterday. We got

20:51

a very good response, very

20:53

strong cross-party support. The Prime

20:57

Minister's endorsed it and

21:00

its recommendations. The

21:02

Speaker of the House of Commons came to

21:04

our launch, the leader of the House of

21:06

Commons, Penny Morden, came to our launch. So

21:08

it was a very good launch.

21:11

Now of course the task is to actually

21:13

get these recommendations

21:16

delivered and implemented and

21:18

some of them are quite short term because an

21:20

election year is going to be an enormous challenge

21:23

in this area. So

21:25

I didn't fall out

21:28

with Carol Vorderman but

21:30

Carol decided that she

21:32

would... My new colleague at LBC no

21:34

less, Sunday afternoon 4-7. What

21:37

she did was Penny

21:39

Morden had posted a photograph of

21:41

her at this launch talking about

21:43

how important the commission was and

21:47

how much she was supporting it. So

21:50

Carol decided to have a go at

21:52

Penny and the Tory government in

21:54

the way which she likes to do on Twitter.

21:58

I was a bit cross that something

22:00

that we'd worked really hard to get cross-party

22:02

support for and that was, you

22:05

know, I think I would argue

22:07

is really important and virtuous and significant for

22:09

our democracy, was being used

22:12

as a stick to hit this current

22:14

government with. You know, Carol however has

22:16

a lot of followers, people

22:18

like the robust approach she takes to the

22:21

government, so a lot of people supported her.

22:23

I just pointed out to her that it

22:25

might have been good if she'd done it

22:27

on a different thread and

22:29

if she had a look at the

22:31

commission report and perhaps used her public

22:34

status to publicize

22:36

it. Whereas what you really wanted to

22:38

tweet was, do you want some? Well

22:41

she came back effectively saying do you want some?

22:43

So you know me, I don't back off a

22:46

fight, so it's me and

22:48

Carol, Lester Square. Carol, invite

22:51

me on your show, let's have... You should have

22:53

Isabel Oakeshort as your seconder, because

22:55

in boxing they have Do

22:58

you think Isabel would hold me coat? I

23:00

think she'd be holding Carol's coat.

23:03

Who'd be holding my coat then? If

23:08

I wanted somebody sort of, you know, okay,

23:10

are you a good fighter? Well

23:13

people might say I am on

23:16

the basis of Brighton Sea Front, but

23:18

I'm not at all. I haven't got

23:20

an angry bow in my body. If

23:22

anybody looked at Brighton Sea Front they would realize

23:24

that you are a pitiful fighter. I know, and

23:27

I've never actually hit anybody in my life

23:29

or kicked anybody in my life apart from

23:32

on a football field. So

23:35

please, if you have not already had

23:37

a look at it, go to jocropsfoundation.org/commission,

23:40

take a look

23:42

at our report.

23:45

Please find ways to support it, perhaps

23:48

if your organization is one of those

23:50

that has a recommendation, or

23:52

if you can donate money for the next phase

23:54

of the activity, that

23:56

would be brilliant. Thank you. But

24:00

all in all a successful launch. All in all

24:02

a successful launch, a very good report though I

24:05

do say it myself, and some practical

24:09

things that we could actually

24:11

do because as I also said

24:13

in my introduction, you know, everybody I talked to about this, it's

24:15

a problem, but it's so difficult, isn't it?

24:19

What could we do about it? Well, you know,

24:21

Jo was a very practical sort

24:24

of person who didn't believe in the

24:26

too difficult pile and

24:28

I think we have done her justice in

24:30

coming up with some really practical recommendations that

24:32

we think will make a difference. Everything from

24:34

sort of reasonably short

24:37

term things around the

24:39

election and protection

24:41

for candidates and more

24:44

protection for families and staff,

24:46

support for the security

24:49

responses that have already been made, but also

24:51

some longer term stuff around

24:54

political literacy and education because quite often one

24:56

of the reasons why people abuse

24:59

politicians is because they're unclear about what

25:02

elected politicians actually are responsible for,

25:05

can do, particularly

25:07

at different levels of government. So there's an

25:09

element of education that I think will also

25:11

in the longer term help this. Good,

25:13

let's move on. We

25:22

also, I wanted to

25:24

talk about measles, not

25:26

least because of course the

25:31

situation in the West Midlands is really

25:33

now pretty serious in terms of the

25:36

number of children and

25:38

young people who are getting measles,

25:40

which is a very dangerous disease.

25:42

And it brought back rather horrible

25:44

memories of when I was in government in

25:47

the Department of Health, when

25:49

we were responding to

25:51

the Andrew Wakefield

25:53

original allegations

25:56

that the MMR

25:59

combined vaccine was

26:02

a cause of autism. This

26:04

was one of the most irresponsible

26:07

things that a medic

26:10

could do. He of course

26:12

now is struck off and...

26:14

He's unrepentant. He is unrepentant,

26:16

which is really appalling because

26:18

the results of his trashing

26:22

of the vaccine program are

26:25

seen in children and young

26:27

people getting seriously ill or dying

26:31

because there is an insufficient level

26:33

of measles vaccination

26:35

in order to prevent its

26:38

transmission. So he

26:41

should be ashamed of himself. Sadly he

26:43

isn't, but I think now quite

26:45

a lot of work is going to be

26:47

necessary in order to get the vaccination levels

26:49

up to the level that is going to

26:51

protect children and young people. How much is

26:54

Covid responsible for this? Obviously

26:57

we had long discussions about the

26:59

ethics of vaccination and a

27:02

lot of people I think as a result of that have

27:04

now decided they don't want to be vaccinated against anything. We're

27:08

now effectively two, three years

27:10

on from Covid, so I

27:12

guess it could be those people

27:14

that are causing this more than the

27:16

Andrew Wakefield support. It

27:18

is mainly Andrew Wakefield, but I

27:21

think Covid... I mean arguably of

27:23

course what people learnt in Covid was

27:26

how important vaccination is. So I think

27:28

for some people you're right, if they

27:30

were sceptical about vaccines Covid

27:32

and all the arguments around the Covid vaccine

27:34

will have made them more sceptical. If

27:37

they were largely supportive of vaccines Covid has

27:39

given them the evidence

27:42

that vaccination can literally save lives

27:44

and prevent the more serious

27:47

development of a virus

27:50

like Covid is. Business

27:52

may hear me being

27:55

slightly husky today that's

27:57

because I woke up this morning with a sore chest. and

28:01

insert own joke and

28:04

a sort of I couldn't actually talk

28:06

as I was on my way to Good Morning Britain

28:08

this morning I was trying to talk and I couldn't

28:10

really talk anyway I can

28:12

embarrassing the cab driver they're listening wouldn't it

28:15

what if you're sort of trying to

28:17

practice your voice and can't think of anything to say that

28:19

you think you've gone off your rocker but

28:22

they frequently do and they're driving me but

28:25

just to reassure our listeners and reassure you

28:27

in seeing as I'm reasonably close to you

28:29

I have done a COVID test and it

28:31

is not COVID I am not now in

28:33

my fourth bout of COVID well I've had

28:35

this cough since Christmas and I can't get

28:37

rid of it and it's at

28:39

the stage now where after the program

28:41

I'm really croaky and

28:44

I not

28:46

every word sort of comes out and I

28:49

listen back to a bit of the program the other

28:51

day and I thought oh my god my voice has

28:53

become so weak and weedy which

28:56

I don't like I've always

28:58

had quite an imposing voice I thought aren't

29:02

you I can remember when I was doing

29:04

some LBC work I

29:06

did after about a week find my voice

29:08

was going and somebody gave me some very

29:11

good and strong sort of

29:13

pastel things in to suck

29:15

what do you suck to

29:17

help yourself stay healthy I

29:20

usually suck on a fisherman's

29:22

phone no

29:25

I don't actually I used to

29:27

like boots used to do some wonderful black

29:29

current sort of pastorly things they stopped doing them

29:31

and I used to go and buy them just

29:33

even when I didn't have a cough because they

29:35

were so nice I don't

29:38

have those anymore Jo

29:40

Tanna gave me some lemon

29:42

honey lozenge things which she

29:44

said she thought were really good but

29:47

what I found normally it used

29:49

to take me maybe a week to get

29:51

through a cold or a cough now

29:54

it takes me more than a month are you

29:56

taking your vitamins and your other supplements I'm

29:58

taking my as which

30:00

has got extra calcium and

30:02

vitamin D tablets. I

30:05

don't take any other vitamin tablets.

30:08

Now I don't think I like vitamin C. You don't

30:11

eat very well. I eat

30:13

a lot better now actually. You know,

30:15

I've gone the whole of January without

30:18

buying any sweets or chocolate. I

30:20

think I said this last week. I had gone

30:22

the whole of January, not least whilst I was

30:24

doing my zoe testing, which I've now had the

30:26

results for and apparently I should be eating more

30:28

almonds and more avocados. There's

30:32

a bit more complicated than that, but I

30:34

have not had any eating bad until today when

30:37

I was feeling a bit weak on my way

30:39

here and I thought I'm not going to get

30:41

through this time with Ian Dale with low blood

30:43

sugar. So I had a chunky kick out. Well

30:46

I nearly sort of relented yesterday

30:49

and then Marks and Spencer's where I

30:51

saw this packet of chocolate covered raisins.

30:54

Oh, well that's like the fruit. I know.

30:57

Well, no, it didn't. These

30:59

raisins that you get in packets, they are just full

31:01

of sugar and I

31:03

looked at them for about 30 seconds thinking,

31:05

shall I, shan't I? But the

31:07

angel beat the devil on that particular

31:09

occasion. You are so virtuous. I know.

31:11

You were an example to us all.

31:15

Shall we talk about

31:17

Labour's crime week now?

31:19

Today they're talking

31:21

knives. As are the Conservatives. As

31:24

are the Conservatives. Labour of course pushing

31:26

out their stuff yesterday in order to

31:29

preempt James Cleverley's announcement that he will

31:31

eventually be doing something about zombie

31:33

knives and we discussed

31:35

it this morning on Good Morning Britain and Yvette Cooper

31:38

was on and that

31:40

also took me back. Was Ed on? No,

31:42

he wasn't. No, no, no, no. So I wonder

31:44

what they do about that. I wonder if they

31:47

have her on when he's on. He

31:50

was sort of slightly criticizing Labour's position

31:52

on Rwanda and I was thinking, well,

31:55

that's going to be an interesting argument

31:57

if Ed lives to listen to this

31:59

podcast. You can't, that's

32:01

the problem, isn't it? You can't

32:03

not, you can't allow your

32:06

love and relationships to cloud

32:09

your ability to be a commentator. I don't think they

32:11

could have him interviewing her. No, I don't think they

32:13

could. I

32:15

mean that would be, just to do a little

32:18

sort of side wiggle, that

32:21

would definitely question their partiality, wouldn't it, in

32:24

a way in which the BBC's has been

32:26

questioned. They certainly

32:29

have. How did you

32:31

feel about Lucy Fraser's interview with them?

32:33

Well, I didn't hear any of her interviews,

32:36

but I guess they weren't very identifying. I

32:38

think it was basic error number one. If

32:41

you're going to accuse the BBC of

32:43

impartiality, have at least 10 examples that

32:45

you can reel off the top of

32:47

your head in any particular interviewer, and

32:49

she didn't have one. Yeah. She

32:52

said there was a... A basic error. There

32:54

was a... Oh,

32:56

I've forgotten the word now. People felt

32:58

that the BBC wasn't... And I

33:01

think a lot of people do feel that. And

33:03

there is some evidence in

33:05

the news coverage of Israel and Gaza, for

33:07

example, the BBC has not been particularly impartial

33:09

on that. But

33:11

if you're going to make that accusation, at least have a

33:14

little bit of evidence to back it up. Well,

33:16

and then Hugh Merriman weighs in, and he

33:18

has some evidence that the news quiz was

33:20

nasty to the government. I'm

33:22

not sure that counts as evidence. Did

33:25

you see my response? My response to him was to

33:27

assure him that when I was in government, I got

33:29

absolutely monstered by the news quiz, so he

33:31

can be confident that they'll have a go

33:33

at whoever. You see, I had this last

33:35

night. Somebody emailed after cross question and they

33:37

said, you gave the Tory MP a really

33:39

hard time, but you didn't question who was

33:42

on with him yesterday. The SNP, Kirsten

33:44

Orswald and George Monbiot, but you didn't

33:47

have a go at them in the

33:49

same way. And I was thinking,

33:51

well, no, I didn't because they're not the government. Yeah.

33:53

And the government are the ones that are to

33:55

be held accountable for doing stuff. Yeah.

33:58

I mean, you can't. In in

34:00

the Eyes and. As a

34:02

broadcaster you com when because there will always

34:05

be people who think that you are. you

34:07

have a motive even if you don't. And

34:10

that will be people in the

34:12

news media who use their jobs

34:14

to further their own I'm Fees.

34:16

I didn't think that majority by

34:18

answer to the imagination and as

34:20

the job of editors to make

34:22

sure that doesn't happen and as

34:24

a safe and in the coverage

34:26

of Israel and Gaza for the

34:29

From the baby say on too

34:31

many occasions has shown a degree

34:33

of partiality towards the Palestinian cause

34:35

a being slightly anti Israel now

34:37

at the I'm An exit come

34:39

up with. Examples of that, I'm

34:41

but it's not me making these

34:43

accusations really is is a sleazy

34:45

Fraser and I think she undermines

34:48

the case if she tom. Provide.

34:50

Any evidence at home? Mom. Sister

34:53

that tonight, son. Just briefly

34:55

because this. Was another instance in

34:58

which has taken back to my happy

35:00

days as Home secretary. In this particular

35:02

case, when I'm. Yvette

35:05

was rightly talking about the range

35:07

of that since as he to

35:09

lay the government would take on

35:11

the knife crime and the couponing

35:13

that was reflecting on the way

35:15

in which people feel enormously worried

35:17

and concerned about knife crime and

35:20

then sat sick as said that

35:22

it's increased I feel very concerned.

35:24

I also feel optimistic as possible

35:26

to do something about s because

35:28

when I was Home secretary honestly

35:30

nine Action. Plan. Deed

35:33

brings. Out a knife crime so

35:35

that all these things. It

35:37

as if you have a broad. Ranging

35:40

approach that fulfills the requirement

35:42

to be tough on crime

35:44

and tough on the causes

35:46

of crime You can. Make

35:48

a difference. There is no

35:50

inevitability of knife. crime but

35:52

it does need a government

35:55

that is going to be

35:57

so pissed broadly own as

35:59

strategy that can have an impact over

36:02

a period of time long enough

36:04

to actually have impact

36:08

rather than fighting amongst

36:10

themselves as this government is doing. There is

36:12

a real problem, not just in terms of

36:14

this policy, but I do think

36:17

there is a real problem now that the government, never

36:19

mind that they're fighting with each other, look

36:21

as if they're not really taking

36:24

problems seriously. They're feeling it

36:26

from the outside when they try and

36:28

engage with ministers. They're sort

36:30

of already checking out

36:33

or overly focused on

36:36

culture wars and dog whistles rather than

36:39

solving problems. The meat of what James

36:41

Puebli has announced today, as far as

36:43

I can see, is effectively what Labour

36:45

want and yet of course they've done

36:47

the usual opposition thing of saying yes

36:49

we doesn't go far enough. I

36:52

think mandatory prison sentences is

36:56

quite far actually just for

36:58

carrying a knife, but

37:00

I have to say Idris Elba, as

37:04

you know I am not a fan

37:06

of celebrities intervening in politics particularly, but

37:08

he did this a couple of weeks ago and said

37:11

the government needed to take strong action to prevent knife

37:13

crime. Government takes strong

37:15

action to prevent knife crime by

37:17

announcing this mandatory prison sentencing,

37:19

Idris Elba's response is, oh no we

37:21

mustn't do this, this could involve with

37:23

black youth going to prison. Well

37:27

you can't have it both ways mate, if

37:29

you want tougher action then

37:31

and the government gives you tougher action, what

37:33

is there to complain about? Well

37:36

what you might complain about is that there

37:39

needs to be both a criminal justice

37:41

response, tough preferably, but you

37:44

also need the broader

37:46

policies that Labour was

37:48

spelling out today around

37:50

reinvestment in youth services,

37:52

partners working together. Where's the money coming from for that by

37:55

the way? I don't know,

37:57

I bet announced it so presumably she's cleared it

37:59

with you. It'll be be a thing

38:01

that the non dom thing is painful than

38:03

say a thing that would disappear without me

38:05

On to such as as as as similar

38:07

in the budget. But

38:11

we don't need to worry because

38:13

ah, we won't need money when

38:15

I forget since to power because.

38:17

We will have a society service.

38:19

Oh did you listen Sick Kids speech on

38:22

on. The seats. I sound like I'm taking the

38:24

piss out them, but yeah, thought it was really. Very

38:26

good speech I heard that is it. weird.

38:29

I'm. A

38:31

loss of currency policy and and fairly

38:33

that it did make quite an important

38:36

point about civil society, about the nature

38:38

of the society that were in. So

38:40

essentially, you know he said Margaret Thatcher

38:42

believed that there was no such thing

38:45

as society. David Cameron. What which has

38:47

he didn't say burning Okay, But

38:49

David Cameron then came up with the

38:51

idea of. Society which at

38:53

the time I actually thought was

38:55

really an interesting idea. but as

38:57

customer says, austerity here and it

38:59

became poor society thought. Never really

39:02

went said us know what we

39:04

have is the government's. His.

39:06

Argument. That. Is more interested

39:08

in fighting a culture war and civil

39:11

society than it is about actually supporting

39:13

them and to use example of the

39:15

National Trust and the Rnl. I were.

39:18

I do think that this is a

39:20

strange position for conservatives find themselves in

39:22

that they're having a go at the

39:24

National Trust for the supposedly to work

39:26

on the having a go at the

39:29

are analyzer. Were screwing people from

39:31

the channel? These. Fields mean

39:33

I considered actual job. Will

39:35

quite. Otherness

39:37

interesting are already there is a case

39:40

because I think I have been quite

39:42

welcome to take the full on slavery

39:44

issues, but they. do

39:48

deserve a little bit criticism for those

39:50

stance or malware simon jenkins he said

39:52

seven us from frost on was costs

39:54

on monday and us through what was

39:56

your view on this and of he

39:59

effectively said that they

40:01

had been their own worst enemy on it. So it's

40:03

not surprising that people have come after them. I

40:07

don't think I'm misinterpreting as well. Is it something

40:09

that you would

40:12

want, as a conservative government, to

40:15

be spending your time doing, kicking the

40:17

national trust? I'm just not... Even

40:21

from a Tory point of view, I don't

40:23

think that's where... I think if you feel

40:25

that an organization like the National Trust has gone off

40:27

the rails a bit, I don't see any problem in

40:29

pointing that out. I don't see it as a culture

40:32

war. It's a bit like the RSPB has become a

40:35

political organization now, an anti-government

40:38

organization. And

40:40

they've said it publicly that their aim...

40:43

Well, I won't say

40:45

what I was going to say. But

40:49

they can't have done, because what

40:51

the Charity Commission has done, arguably

40:53

part of this whole thing, is

40:56

to... supported

40:58

by legislation, I think, is to

41:00

really tighten the extent to

41:02

which charities are able to lobby

41:05

politically. Well,

41:07

that's what many charities were set up to do, isn't

41:09

it? Nothing wrong with lobbying, but when

41:12

you set yourself up as an overt

41:14

anti-government organization, it rather undermines your lobbying

41:16

efforts, I would have thought. Well,

41:18

if you believe that the government is doing something

41:20

that undermines your charitable objectives and knows that you

41:23

are serving, then it's your duty as a charity

41:25

to speak up about that. You can

41:27

speak up, but to speak out

41:29

in a party political way, I would

41:32

suggest, means that you're unlikely to get

41:34

your way with a government you're supposedly

41:37

lobbying for your point of view. Well,

41:39

if you spoke up in a party political way, you'd

41:42

also be falling foul of the Charity Commission. So charities

41:44

are pretty constrained now in what they can do. Overly

41:47

constrained, I would argue. But anyway, they are

41:49

constrained. We'll see if

41:51

you argue that with Labour and Power. Notice

41:54

I say, when, not if. Mmm,

41:57

you see, I'm less, I'm not complacent,

41:59

Ian. Can I just bring out

42:01

something that we talked about last week where

42:04

Keir Starmer in

42:08

PMQs used

42:16

the phrase to the Prime Minister,

42:18

he said he doesn't understand Britain.

42:21

And some people interpreted that as a little bit of

42:23

a dog whistle, because he's not white,

42:25

therefore he's a bit foreign and therefore he doesn't

42:27

understand his own country. Now I gave

42:29

him the benefit of the doubt on that, because I thought no, I

42:32

don't think he would do that deliberately. But

42:34

he did it again this week. And

42:37

you think you must know,

42:39

or your advisors must know that you've

42:41

got quite a bit of criticism for

42:44

that last week. Why would you do it again?

42:46

Perhaps they believe it as I do

42:48

to be illegitimate criticism. What

42:50

Keir Starmer, I suspect would argue

42:52

is I'm making the case, which will

42:54

be an important part of Labour's

42:57

election campaign, that this Prime

42:59

Minister by dint of his background, by dint

43:01

of his wealth is out of touch with

43:04

the majority of British people. That's

43:07

not racist. That's just

43:10

true. No, I don't think that that is

43:12

necessarily racist. But when you say it to

43:15

a person of colour, I

43:17

think it does have connotations that it doesn't

43:19

if it's a white person. And

43:21

you can use all the thing about what he's a millionaire and all the rest

43:23

of it. But it doesn't sit well,

43:25

I think. And I think he should be very,

43:28

very careful of that kind of language. What

43:30

it does, I

43:32

will give you as much as to say that

43:34

one of the things that of course, was

43:37

part of the discussion yesterday around the

43:39

abuse and intimidation is the

43:43

court, Joe Cox Foundation

43:45

Commission Report is how

43:48

nasty and general election campaign it's going to

43:50

be. I think it's going to be a

43:52

grim year in terms of

43:54

the tactics that will

43:56

be used. And as you

43:59

rightly point out, we're beginning to... to see that now

44:01

whenever Kistama and Rishi Sunak

44:03

come head to head at Prime Minister's questions. We've

44:07

been quite serious in this podcast, haven't we? I

44:12

think I... have we? Yeah. I'm

44:15

feeling... Apart from the beginning. I'm feeling quite

44:17

serious. I think my voice with its

44:19

sort of depth and gravity...

44:22

Your voice is no different to how it is

44:24

normally. Oh, okay. I was thinking I

44:26

was sounding sort of serious and

44:28

full of wisdom. No. Gravity.

44:31

I'm sounding my usual trivial self. Is that what you're facing?

44:33

Exactly. Can I

44:35

just ask you, did you take a photo of me earlier on? I did. Did

44:38

you ask my permission? No. Well... Because

44:41

then you'd say yes. Do I look good in it? Shall

44:43

I have a look? Yeah, have a look. Well,

44:45

I've only done it, so I've got the photo

44:47

of you behind the heart muff. Oh. You

44:52

have a photo of me with my mouth near the muff.

44:54

Is that what you're saying? Actually,

44:56

you can't even tell it's you. Look. Actually, you can't

44:58

tell it's me. You're almost a... I'm a shadowy figure

45:00

in the background. I quite like that idea. I'll tweet

45:02

that. Yeah, okay. Who is this?

45:05

Or are you tweeting it saying it's me? Well,

45:07

I was going to, but I could... Anyway. Right.

45:11

Now, one of the reasons we're being serious is

45:14

because you had a massive great long...

45:22

I had a long list. You had a long list.

45:24

We're only halfway through it. I've got to go out

45:26

to dinner later. We've got a few questions. Who are you going

45:28

out to dinner with? I'm going out to dinner

45:31

with my former chief of staff. Oh. Yeah.

45:34

Who is a listener to the podcast. Has

45:37

she already bitten the dust? She

45:39

has moved on to another challenge. She's only been

45:41

there about a year. She... She... Are

45:45

you that bad to work with? Yeah, I'm a

45:47

terrible, terrible boss. I can't keep anybody

45:49

with me. No,

45:53

she said I was a good boss.

45:56

I said I was a good boss. I said shut up.

45:58

So have you got a new one? No, I am sharing

46:00

one now. Oh, so you're saving health service

46:02

money. Exactly. I am

46:04

an NHS saving. I'm not saving health

46:06

service money at the moment. No, over the next

46:09

four weeks, I've got four hospital appointments, one a

46:11

week. A different thing. I've

46:14

got eye injection and one

46:16

eye, laser treatment in the other

46:18

eye, follow-up appointment, because I had an

46:21

MRI scan on my knee in October and they just

46:23

forgot about it. So I rang them up on Monday.

46:25

I said, do we not, should

46:27

we not have had an appointment by now? And

46:30

I could hear them talking in the

46:32

background because they didn't put it on mute. I

46:36

think somebody's talked to Bollock here. Did they actually

46:38

say that? Yeah. Excellent. So

46:40

anyway, I've got an appointment on the 12th of February

46:43

to see about those bone fragments in

46:45

my knee. What's the other one? There's

46:47

another one as well. Marta

46:50

to Ms. Seve. I'm one of these old

46:52

people now that just talks about that element.

46:54

Exactly. Well, you've been there for some time

46:56

now, you don't mind me saying people? Can

47:00

I just say I get that at home as well? He's got

47:02

a bad shoulder. Yeah. Oh, God.

47:06

You see, whereas look at me, this is a flea. Yeah,

47:09

for now. Because of all those avocados

47:11

and almonds that I'm going to be eating. If I

47:13

had to eat avocados and almonds for the rest of

47:15

my life, I don't think I'd bother to

47:17

eat. I

47:19

love an avocado. No. On

47:22

toast. Horrible. So you get

47:24

a piece of brown toast. No, no, no. You put Marmite

47:26

on the stove. Oh, even worse. And then you mash avocado.

47:29

That is a lovely breakfast.

47:31

No. And clearly healthy and good

47:33

for your gut biome. So

47:37

if you, if the

47:39

Russians were going to invent,

47:41

right, and you had

47:44

to play a role in the defense

47:46

of our country, what

47:48

would you do in the newly

47:50

conscripted army? Well, first of

47:52

all, at the age of 61, I wouldn't

47:54

be in the newly conscripted army. But

47:57

if I was a young pop, are you

47:59

a- asking which of the armed services

48:01

I would like to be a member of?

48:04

You could answer that if you like and more

48:06

specifically what would you like to do? I think

48:08

the Air Force. Okay. Because you're least likely to

48:10

die in the Air Force. In the Army you

48:12

might, you're probably going to die. Do you see

48:14

yourself with a sort of moustache and a...

48:16

No, I see myself

48:19

on an aircraft carrier waving

48:21

the jet into land. Okay.

48:24

I see myself doing. Okay. What

48:26

about you? A bit, sort

48:29

of officer and gentlemeny.

48:31

Yeah. I think I

48:33

would quite like, I think I'd probably like

48:35

to be quite senior in the Army. So

48:39

not actually have to fight? Oh of

48:41

course not, no. I'd be one of those...

48:43

Just give the order. One of those generals

48:46

that just, you know, stays back and... no,

48:48

no, sorry. I have an enormous amount of

48:50

respect for our military and for the Army

48:52

but also it

48:54

would enable me. I'm going to do

48:56

a... Let's

48:59

talk about this conscription thing and then I'm going

49:01

to do a little pivot to something else that

49:04

you want to talk about. So the reason we're

49:06

doing this is because obviously this week there

49:08

was a little flurry when

49:11

the current head of the Army

49:13

didn't say that he believed in

49:15

conscription but did say

49:18

that the current

49:20

size of the Army and the

49:22

current potential threat from Russia meant

49:25

that perhaps there needed to

49:27

be some thinking about who

49:29

you would get to swell

49:32

the ranks of the Army. Obviously first

49:34

of all you would bring in reservists

49:36

and territory army and what I didn't

49:38

know until this morning was if you've been

49:40

a member of the armed forces you can

49:43

be called up again up to a certain

49:45

age. So Tom Toukenhart,

49:48

James... Lovely.

49:51

Was he in the Army? Yeah, well maybe

49:53

he was a reservist. James Heepee,

49:56

the defense minister. You'd have

49:58

to lose a few pounds. Prince,

50:02

what's the one in America called? Harry. How

50:06

quickly we forget. He

50:09

could be called up. So

50:13

there is not going

50:15

to be a bloody dad's army and there is not

50:17

going to be National Service. What if I do not

50:19

understand, well, in fact, I think I do understand why

50:22

the head of the army made this speech and caused

50:24

a lot of trouble and was immediately

50:26

denounced by number 10. Why

50:29

wasn't it cleared with Grant Shapps or even

50:31

number 10? Are they

50:33

really free to make any speech they like? No,

50:36

I was reading this morning that the whole point is

50:39

in the past they were much freer to

50:41

speak. Now they're very heavily censored.

50:43

They're not allowed to go to conferences. They're not

50:45

allowed to make speeches. So I think this was

50:47

a little bolt for freedom from the head of

50:49

the army who's stepping down in six months. They probably

50:52

thought, fuck the lot of you. I'm going to say

50:54

there is another theory which I heard that

50:57

the Ministry of Defense

50:59

is incandescent because

51:02

somebody, and I don't know who this

51:04

is, leaked the fact that we were going

51:06

to hit the Houthis a few hours before we did.

51:09

And see that Swinford at the time has got the store and

51:11

printed it. Now, if a British plane,

51:13

they've been shot down in those

51:16

when that happened because they've had prior warning.

51:18

I mean, imagine the hell to pay for

51:20

that. That is highly everything. Exactly. And so,

51:22

of course, I was on air

51:24

when the Swinford tweet went out.

51:26

So, of course, I then read it out and then

51:30

say overtly, that means that

51:32

there will be an airstrike in the next

51:34

few hours. That's what I'm predicting. Ben Kentish

51:36

will bring you all of the latest. That's

51:38

exactly what happened. So you were putting our

51:41

troops in danger by your use of

51:43

that leak? Unknowingly. So

51:45

that's all right then, isn't it? So,

51:49

I mean, that is what some people are attributing

51:51

this speech to. I mean, I think you slightly

51:53

underplayed the importance of this speech because he didn't

51:56

just say all of that. He

51:58

said that this generation should consider the... themselves

52:00

a pre-war generation effectively

52:02

saying we are going to go to war with Russia,

52:04

it's just a matter of when. I

52:07

did, no, I wasn't, if it sounded as if

52:09

I was underplaying it, I didn't mean to. I

52:12

have said about it that I think it had

52:14

two functions. Firstly, it

52:16

had the function of identifying the way

52:19

in which the numbers, particularly in the

52:21

army, have been reduced. It

52:23

was a bid, as military

52:25

chiefs have a way of

52:28

doing, for resource, for defence

52:30

spending, and

52:32

an identification of the situation

52:34

that the army is currently in. Plus,

52:39

and I agree with you here, it was

52:41

an attempt to make us all

52:43

understand quite how significant Russia's

52:45

ambitions are in terms of the threat,

52:48

not just to us, but to the

52:50

world more widely. This is a fundamental

52:52

change in the strategic environment within which

52:55

we have to make our defence policy,

52:57

which is why, of course, Labour's

52:59

responses will have a strategic defence review

53:01

as soon as we get into government.

53:03

Which is what they should do. This

53:06

government, I think, have had at least two since they came in. I

53:10

did a phone-in on this last night, essentially asking,

53:12

would you fight for your country? Rather

53:15

dreading some of the calls, actually, and

53:17

I wasn't disappointed, in that

53:19

they were divided between those who said, well, if

53:22

we were invaded, of course I would, or if

53:25

there was a threat of invasion. But

53:28

several people said, well, I'm not going to

53:30

fight for Estonia, basically a faraway country of

53:32

which I know nothing. I didn't use those

53:34

words, but that's what they meant. And

53:37

they felt they would just be being

53:39

used as pawns by NATO politicians. So

53:41

you were asking not if the UK

53:43

was invaded, but if a NATO ally

53:46

was invaded? I wasn't asking that

53:48

either, particularly, but that was the

53:50

consensus among people that if

53:52

we were invaded or had the threat of

53:54

invasion, yes, we would sign up.

53:57

But we wouldn't fight for another country.

54:00

Well, I don't think that's a

54:02

very controversial view,

54:04

is it? I mean, that's the reason why we have

54:06

a professional army and why we have NATO.

54:10

Yes, but people were conscripted in the First World War

54:12

and the Second World War. I think

54:14

we have a generation now, and this would really

54:17

apply primarily to the under-30s. I

54:19

mean, maybe wider than that, but

54:21

primarily the under-30s. We

54:23

have a generation now who are not the same as the

54:25

1914 generation, who were rushing

54:28

down to the recruitment centres, as a lot

54:30

of jingo isn't going on. 1939

54:33

was different, but again, there was a willingness

54:35

to fight. They could see who the enemy

54:37

was, and they understood it all. Nowadays, we

54:39

don't have any deference. We have an

54:41

educated class of teenagers

54:43

and 20-somethings in a way that we

54:45

didn't really in the 1930s, and

54:49

they would have accepted what their elders and

54:51

betters told them. That doesn't apply now. Which

54:54

isn't necessarily a bad thing, but also everything

54:56

is everything, isn't it? If

54:59

you'd visited Ukraine five years ago, you

55:01

would have looked around the streets and thought to yourself, these

55:03

don't look like people that are going to pick

55:05

up a machine gun and

55:08

learn how to use it, but they have

55:10

done that. Now, there is something very brave

55:13

about the Ukrainian people that means that they've

55:15

done it, but also, I think if your

55:17

country is under attack,

55:19

you respond differently. So,

55:21

you know, you're sort of implying

55:24

that we've got a younger generation

55:26

full of irresponsible softies. I'm not

55:28

so sure that that's true.

55:30

Well, my boys are good boys. I will

55:32

have you know. I'm not saying that it

55:34

would even be the majority, but I think

55:36

there is a general feeling now. Why

55:39

is this country even worth fighting for?

55:41

It's a shambles. Why would we want

55:43

to fight for it? I'm not

55:45

sure that's true, you see, because the things are

55:47

different. I think this country

55:49

is a shambles, but I'm extraordinarily

55:51

proud of it, and I would defend it.

55:54

Well, I... It's a shambles because of this

55:56

bloody government. It is still Great Britain as far

55:59

as I'm concerned. I'm

56:05

standing up and saluting. I am cocking

56:07

my rifle, ready

56:10

to... I'm bayoneting somebody in a

56:12

Lima-like way. Yeah,

56:16

it was a really interesting hour actually, and I

56:18

wish I could have done it for longer, but

56:21

I don't think I'd ever done a phoney on

56:23

that before, which when you've been doing it for

56:26

14 years, there aren't that many subjects that

56:28

you can find a new one. Let me do this pivot

56:30

for you now. So one of the reasons why I

56:32

would be a senior person in the army is so

56:34

that I could wear one of those dress

56:37

uniforms that

56:40

Michelle Watsoname is wearing at the beginning

56:42

of Fool Me Once. Do you remember

56:45

the scene I'm talking about when

56:47

she meets her husband? I do, with lots of

56:49

tassels on. Yes,

56:51

well, in the sort of dark navy with

56:53

gold wovets on it. Yeah, yeah. You

56:56

put this... See, I'm helping you out here. You put

56:58

this on our

57:01

list today. I think you may well find that

57:03

you are way behind most

57:06

of the British people, and

57:08

in fact internationally, who have lapped

57:10

up Fool Me Once. Well,

57:13

I watched the last episode last night, and

57:16

without spoiling it for anybody,

57:18

I mean, the whole way

57:20

through, I was thinking, I really want

57:22

to like this, but there was something holding me

57:24

back from liking it, and I think it's seven

57:26

episodes, and it was a strange number. I assumed

57:28

there was going to be eight. And

57:31

it got to the end of

57:33

episode six, and there was a

57:36

complete surprise, and it almost rendered

57:38

the other episodes redundant in

57:40

a way. Now, okay, in the

57:42

last episode, it did all fall

57:44

into place, but I

57:46

hate watching a series and getting to the end

57:48

of it, thinking, well, that

57:52

was ridiculous. I've wasted sort of

57:55

the best part of six hours watching this. No, but you

57:57

enjoyed it whilst you were watching it, didn't you? I

57:59

enjoyed it. I thought of, but there was just

58:01

something lacking in it. I'll tell you what else I'm

58:03

watching. I don't know if you've seen this, but

58:05

I think you would enjoy it. True love on channel four. No,

58:08

what's that about? It's about a

58:10

group of elderly people, i.e.

58:13

a few years older than us, who

58:15

decide that they will

58:17

assist each other to die, if

58:20

necessary. I'll just leave it there. It then turns

58:22

into a thriller. It is really good. You

58:25

like your death things, don't you? Honestly,

58:27

if nobody's getting killed, basically,

58:30

I'm not interested. How about...

58:32

What should I watch next? Well, traitors?

58:36

No, I'm not a sheep. I

58:38

don't... I

58:41

know this sounds terribly pious, but I

58:43

don't like watching programs that overtly seek

58:45

to bring out the worst in people.

58:47

Yeah. I know what

58:49

you mean. I just don't see the point of it. That's why

58:51

I was very happy to do

58:53

strictly, but I wouldn't have liked doing

58:55

the jungle, because that's the difference between

58:57

the... Well, I don't think that's... Bake-off. It's

59:00

about positivity. Pottery

59:02

throw-down, which I love. It's about... Pottery

59:05

throw-down? What's that? It's not

59:07

the great pottery throw-down. It's a bit

59:09

like Bake-off, but they're doing pottery. But it's in Greece,

59:11

and you chuck plates at walls. No!

59:14

If you've got a big... Shall

59:17

me and you act out that scene in

59:19

Ghost, where they're doing the pottery

59:21

wheel? Do you know

59:23

the scene I'm talking about? I don't remember it. She's

59:26

got the pottery, the

59:29

clay on the wheel, and she's sort

59:31

of doing it with her fingers. And

59:33

then Patrick Swayze, who is actually dead,

59:35

but who was her husband, is

59:39

there sort of with his

59:41

hands around hers in a slightly sexy

59:44

pottery sort of way. I

59:49

do vaguely remember that. Have you

59:51

ever done that pottery wheel thing? No. OK.

59:54

I can see the second section. So you

59:56

get your bit of clay and you throw

59:58

it down. fiddle around with it

1:00:01

and make it into something else. How

1:00:03

did we get off this? Traitors.

1:00:07

You haven't watched it. I've barely watched it.

1:00:10

But a lot of people are watching it. It's

1:00:12

enormously popular. Yeah, it really is. And John Burko

1:00:14

is doing the American version. I mean, how

1:00:17

does that work? And Alan Cumming, you

1:00:19

know, the Scottish actor, he's the host of it

1:00:21

in America. And he's a

1:00:23

celebrity version of Traitors. I

1:00:27

suppose it must be. Or is he just an

1:00:29

ordinary? No, no, no, I think it is a

1:00:31

celebrity version where he was on Jane and V

1:00:33

show the other day and was

1:00:35

talking about it. Alan Cumming or John

1:00:37

Burko? Alan Cumming clearly doesn't

1:00:39

like Burko. Oh, really? Right,

1:00:51

we're on to the sort of dregs now.

1:00:54

Oh, no, sorry. Corey's writing talents. Corey

1:00:57

at quarter to four in the morning

1:00:59

last night sent me an

1:01:02

article he'd written about for Simon Clark.

1:01:05

He said he couldn't sleep. So he thought I'd write an

1:01:07

article. As you do. Corey, there

1:01:09

are other things that young men like you can do at four

1:01:11

o'clock in the morning rather than writing about Simon Clark.

1:01:14

And it was brilliant. Seriously, brilliant

1:01:16

article. He's a clever young chap. He doesn't seem to

1:01:18

think he is. And he's nervous about publishing. I said,

1:01:20

well, I'll publish it on my website if you like.

1:01:22

And then I talked to the digital team at LBC.

1:01:25

And I said, do you want it as a sort

1:01:27

of article on the website? And I said, yeah, we'd

1:01:29

love it. But he's worried

1:01:31

about all this. Yeah, but he's a producer. He's

1:01:33

not a writer. And therefore, people

1:01:35

might think he has views. I said,

1:01:38

yeah, but your view of Simon Clark is one

1:01:40

that 99% of Tory MPs will

1:01:42

share. So yeah, you're doing yourself any damage,

1:01:44

but it's brilliantly written. I'm

1:01:47

looking forward to reading it, Corey. He's got a very

1:01:49

good turn of phrase. Is he? He's

1:01:51

like, proper columnist turn of phrase. He

1:01:53

said, I think it's a bit too flowery. I said, no, that's

1:01:55

what you need as a columnist. That's why I don't think I'm

1:01:58

a good columnist because I don't have enough. of

1:02:00

flowery terms. Is he a bit sort

1:02:02

of Boris Johnson-esque? Corey,

1:02:06

did you write two versions and then decide what

1:02:08

you wanted? Anyway.

1:02:11

You have also put on the list speeding.

1:02:13

Yeah, I got some good news today. Oh,

1:02:15

go on. Because I have nine points on

1:02:17

my license. Yeah. And I then got done

1:02:20

again. Totally unjustly, I thought. But anyway. You

1:02:24

can't do the time. Don't do the crime.

1:02:26

I wasn't sure. When I did

1:02:28

my last speed awareness course. Because

1:02:30

I knew it was in Covid,

1:02:33

but I wasn't sure how far into Covid. Anyway,

1:02:35

the letter came today and it's

1:02:37

offered me a speed awareness course online.

1:02:39

So result. With one bound, you were

1:02:42

free. Yeah, but I've still got to

1:02:44

get through to next October before points

1:02:46

come off my license. So

1:02:49

anyway, it means I can buy a new car now. How many

1:02:52

speed awareness courses have you now been

1:02:54

on? At least four. Goodness me.

1:02:56

I've been on two. And I've

1:02:59

learned me less than I have. I think it's the thing

1:03:01

among radio presenters because again, I was listening to Jane and

1:03:03

V. They did a thing with Times

1:03:05

readers and they were very, very funny. You should

1:03:07

listen to that episode going back to sometime

1:03:09

around Christmas. And they were

1:03:11

talking about they've both got done speed awareness courses

1:03:13

and they've got points. So we're not alone. You're

1:03:17

just yawning now. You're boring me. Do

1:03:19

you think we seem a bit tired

1:03:21

today? I think we are a bit. A

1:03:24

bit. Somebody said that they thought I was perking

1:03:26

full of beans last week back from my

1:03:29

holiday. But now I've got this slight sore

1:03:31

chest. I think I'm probably not quite as

1:03:33

energetic. Plus, of course, I started the day

1:03:35

with Quentin, who isn't doesn't

1:03:37

invigorating me like you do here. And I

1:03:40

think it would be fair to say we

1:03:42

were on fire last Friday. We were we

1:03:44

were we were arguing, weren't we? We were

1:03:46

practically wrestling verbally, obviously.

1:03:49

Just whilst I remember, could I give

1:03:51

a massive great big thanks to Mackie

1:03:54

and Noah and Nicky because I have

1:03:56

finally got your Christmas present to

1:03:58

me. Ian has finally passed it. on

1:04:00

which is a really lovely picture

1:04:02

of me and you Ian and

1:04:04

those three superfans at the

1:04:07

London. Anyway,

1:04:10

it's lovely and I will put it up on my

1:04:12

wall. Thank you very much. And thank you for

1:04:15

me as well. Yeah. And talking for the many

1:04:17

lives now we have news. I've not told you

1:04:19

this yet I don't think. Oh great. Well

1:04:21

you're just going to announce that I'm doing something and

1:04:23

I may not necessarily have said yes. We've got

1:04:25

a few dates that we could do Sheffield. So

1:04:27

he's found a venue. It's 170 seater.

1:04:30

We can either have 170 seater or

1:04:34

400 seater. I think 400 might

1:04:36

be a bit big for Sheffield don't

1:04:38

you? Could be pushing a lot. What was the other one? 170. So

1:04:42

anyway he's sending me

1:04:44

some dates for that. I'm

1:04:47

in touch

1:04:49

with people in Australia. So we

1:04:52

could be going down under. Insert your own

1:04:54

here. But

1:04:57

that wouldn't be until 2025

1:04:59

because we might need a lot of planning

1:05:01

for that. But it basically means that somebody's got

1:05:03

to sponsor us to go there. So I'm in

1:05:06

touch with people who know people who do this

1:05:08

sort of thing. But I did

1:05:10

actually calculate what the sponsorship would have to

1:05:12

be because you and I are not slumming

1:05:14

it in steerage. I am not going

1:05:17

economy darling. No. And the

1:05:19

business class. We don't have

1:05:21

to go first class unless of course Mackie can

1:05:23

sort that one out like he didn't before. We

1:05:28

could. Business class to Sydney

1:05:30

is about between three and four thousand

1:05:33

pounds. It's quite a lot isn't it? It's quite a lot

1:05:35

of money. Yeah. So

1:05:38

the idea is that we would do

1:05:40

Canberra Sydney Melbourne and. No way. We

1:05:42

do not have enough listeners in Australia

1:05:44

for that. Well I don't know. Well

1:05:47

let's talk about that. I mean I will

1:05:49

need to hear from a few I will

1:05:51

need to hear from a few Aussies that they

1:05:54

would actually turn out for me to make me think

1:05:56

they would. And it's. I

1:05:59

think when. British people who are

1:06:01

involved in politics go to Australia and do

1:06:04

speeches. They always get a good audience. So

1:06:06

whether we do them all as sort of

1:06:08

commercial things where people don't have to buy

1:06:10

tickets or whether it's part of the sponsorship,

1:06:12

I don't know. But anyway, discussions are underway.

1:06:15

But, um, and there

1:06:17

was another one as well. Where was

1:06:19

he? Oh, Foy in Cornwall. You

1:06:21

emailed me about that the other day and

1:06:23

they had, they were blanking. They were ghosting you. Ghosting me.

1:06:26

And they still are ghosting me, but my publisher has been

1:06:28

in touch with them and said, yeah, they definitely want to

1:06:30

do it. That I think would be a Saturday

1:06:34

or Sunday after the local

1:06:36

elections. Ooh. They're

1:06:39

not counting in London until the Saturday.

1:06:42

And you think, well, it's not a PR thing anymore. It's

1:06:44

first pass the post. Why can't they do it on Thursday

1:06:46

night? I hate

1:06:48

these. No fun, no fun, is it? No, it should

1:06:50

all be done at the same time. Um,

1:06:53

keep yourself free election, local election night as well.

1:06:56

Oh, okay. Um, we're

1:06:59

running quite late. And

1:07:01

I need to go out to dinner in a bit. So should we do

1:07:03

a few questions? Yes. Okay. Um,

1:07:07

well, I've got one from, um, this,

1:07:09

this, there was another one that related to this as well,

1:07:12

uh, Katie Stevenson says disappointed. This

1:07:14

came out after recording. Well, the

1:07:17

good news Katie is that it didn't.

1:07:19

Is this normal for all politicians? And she

1:07:21

retweeted a post from politics for you that

1:07:24

says Nicholas Sturgeon urged

1:07:27

to apologize after leaked

1:07:29

WhatsApp messages describing Matt

1:07:31

Hancock as weaker than a nun's

1:07:34

piece, please

1:07:36

leave trust as about as

1:07:38

much use as a marzipan

1:07:41

dildo. Um, that'd be

1:07:43

quite tasty. And

1:07:46

referring to Swela Braverman as

1:07:48

Schittler. Oh my

1:07:50

God. I'm sorry. Speaking

1:07:52

of somebody who thinks that abuse and intimidation of

1:07:54

elected politicians is a bad thing. Can I just

1:07:57

say I did not laugh at that. Oh no.

1:08:00

No, never let it be said. Do

1:08:02

you think Nicola Sturgeon actually said that or is

1:08:05

that some sort of AI? Well they're either WhatsApp

1:08:07

messages or they're not. I

1:08:09

thought she didn't have any WhatsApp messages. Perhaps

1:08:14

they were on, perhaps a bit, it

1:08:16

was on Matt Hancock's perhaps. Matt

1:08:19

Hancock released his WhatsApp

1:08:21

messages and there's one from Nicholas saying, by

1:08:23

the way Matt, you're as weak as Nun's

1:08:25

piss. I

1:08:27

don't think she would have sent that direct to Matt Hancock. No,

1:08:31

I was joking. Oh, were you? It's

1:08:33

sometimes difficult to tell. Eeee!

1:08:36

Um, oh god, I

1:08:39

wish I'd remembered to bring my glasses up here. Um,

1:08:42

right, this is from Ryan. I don't

1:08:44

know whether I'm too late for this week's edition

1:08:47

but here's my question if in time. I'm

1:08:49

a member of the Conservative Party. It's

1:08:51

okay, Ryan. And I'm

1:08:53

growing increasingly frustrated with certain MPs.

1:08:56

These MPs who are speaking out

1:08:59

most vociferously against Sunak are the

1:09:01

precise reason why the party is

1:09:03

in the situation it's in today.

1:09:06

In my opinion the blame lies

1:09:08

largely at the door of Liz Tuss's

1:09:10

short period in office. And the same

1:09:12

MPs that put her there, the ones

1:09:14

that voted for her over

1:09:16

Maudant just so they could secure a

1:09:19

minister or post, are now the ones

1:09:21

wanting Sunak out. I

1:09:23

was incredibly surprised yesterday when I read

1:09:25

the story from Chris Hope suggesting that

1:09:27

there was a campaign amongst those MPs

1:09:30

to ditch Sunak from Maudant. My

1:09:32

question is, why do you think MPs

1:09:34

have gone through such a dramatic conversion

1:09:37

from forcing

1:09:39

Maudant out to backing her?

1:09:42

I personally wanted Maudant at

1:09:44

the last two leadership elections but

1:09:46

this change in attitude shows their

1:09:49

utter foolishness in the first place.

1:09:52

Thank you for everything you do. You

1:09:56

reflect the frustration of many, many

1:09:59

Conservative members. I

1:10:01

do think it's a little, you're right, it's a little

1:10:03

odd. I hadn't seen this from Chris Hape suggesting that

1:10:06

these MPs would ditch Sue Knapp from Moreton because

1:10:08

I don't think she's on their wavelength at

1:10:11

all. So I think that is quite surprising.

1:10:14

But what you're doing effectively is giving

1:10:18

a prelude to the discussions that will

1:10:20

increasingly happen in the Conservative Party. If

1:10:22

everyone thinks, yeah, we're definitely going to

1:10:25

lose, obviously the discussion then goes to

1:10:27

what next? And I don't

1:10:29

know what Penny Bordent would do, but I mean,

1:10:31

Kemi Badenok is one that everyone

1:10:33

is talking about at the moment as the natural

1:10:36

successor to Sue Knapp if he did go. And

1:10:41

she has a lot of talents, but would

1:10:44

she, say he decided

1:10:48

after disastrous local elections in May, you

1:10:50

know what, fuck it, I've had enough.

1:10:52

I'm buggering off to California. And

1:10:56

say Kemi Badenok was elected leader

1:10:58

then. I mean, she can talk

1:11:00

a good game, but there

1:11:02

are so many people who have massive

1:11:04

doubts about her work ethic. People

1:11:08

say she's lazy and I'm offering

1:11:11

no judgment. I'm just passing on what people say.

1:11:14

I mean, you could say, well, it

1:11:16

can't be any worse than under Sue Knapp, I

1:11:18

suppose. And at least she's quite a sort of

1:11:21

spunky lady. Well,

1:11:24

no, I mean, she's got a

1:11:26

bit of a vavoom about that.

1:11:28

I know what you mean. I

1:11:30

was just being innocent child and

1:11:32

giggling at the word spunk. Anyway,

1:11:34

next question. Spunk. We'll get

1:11:36

a feeling off the back. Oh,

1:11:39

dear. It's quite

1:11:41

observably so. Oh, gosh, no, I'm sorry. I'm

1:11:45

getting all confused. Next

1:11:49

question from Amy. She says

1:11:52

non-political question. Have you got anything coming up that

1:11:54

you're looking forward to? I'm going

1:11:56

to see the 1975 in a couple of

1:11:58

weeks and can't wait. 1975

1:12:01

are a popular beat combo. Yes, I have heard

1:12:03

of them. Okay. Can't think of a song with

1:12:05

song, but I have heard of them No, no,

1:12:07

you're pushing me. There's lots of people that would

1:12:09

be played on. This is hard. Oh I

1:12:12

think What

1:12:14

have I got to look forward to I'm

1:12:19

gonna see the scorpions. Oh, yes You've

1:12:22

got a telling off about that. Did you see on Twitter?

1:12:24

Did I? Yeah, somebody said that you and actually

1:12:27

they had a they had a point because

1:12:31

Hashtag more Dan bought that ticket for you and

1:12:34

then on air you said oh I'm not

1:12:36

I didn't really want to go and it was pointed out

1:12:38

to you that that was a little bit Churlish when somebody

1:12:40

has bought you a present. Yeah, but it's dance

1:12:42

my best friend. I can say anything Somebody

1:12:45

else I saw in a tweet was saying that they

1:12:47

loved our discussion about German rock But

1:12:50

we should have mentioned Rammstein Okay,

1:12:53

I've never heard of you. No So

1:12:56

I might You

1:13:00

see I like heavy so do I I like a bit of it

1:13:03

Yeah, it's gonna be a bit of a tune

1:13:05

to it though. I don't like that. Just the bash bash bash

1:13:08

Like you're not a thrash metal

1:13:10

fan. No, okay Well,

1:13:13

I'm very much looking forward to my

1:13:15

trip to India in the second half

1:13:17

of February Talking of

1:13:19

which do we have do you

1:13:21

have you managed to find anybody who can

1:13:23

stand in for me in I have for

1:13:27

the first week And

1:13:29

that will be Carolyn Quinn Excellent

1:13:32

Michael cheese like a proper broadcast I know But

1:13:35

she doesn't have a she will admit that

1:13:37

she doesn't have views because she worked for the BBC

1:13:39

for 40 years So my

1:13:41

task in that is to tease a few views

1:13:43

out of her I'll be poking her to get

1:13:45

a few views. I I suspect

1:13:47

she might be quite good on the smart

1:13:49

side though. Oh really? So she's half promised

1:13:51

to be okay But I'm

1:13:54

not well, we'll see. Okay Yeah

1:14:00

Well, I have had an offer

1:14:02

for the second week, but there

1:14:04

is a logistical difficulty. Okay. So

1:14:06

I'm not sure that will... because did you

1:14:10

hear what happened on Cross-Question on

1:14:14

Tuesday? Well, we

1:14:17

had our fun question for the end of

1:14:19

the program. We started talking... Did we? Podcast

1:14:21

talking about that. Did we? Yeah. Lemus.

1:14:23

Lemus. Oh yeah. Masturbating. Oh yes, yes

1:14:25

we did. Sorry, I think I am

1:14:27

getting dementia. You are. Yeah,

1:14:29

a little bit worrying isn't it? Anyway,

1:14:32

Sarah Champion, who did that, she

1:14:34

has offered to do it, but she is

1:14:36

going to be abroad and

1:14:39

the day that we would need to record it,

1:14:41

she's flying back. So I might have to postpone

1:14:43

that pleasure because I need to get someone I

1:14:46

can actually rely to come. I'm not sure

1:14:48

I want somebody who talks about masturbating lemurs.

1:14:50

Well, you talked about far worse. Taking the

1:14:53

place of my informed political colleagues. I'm

1:14:57

slightly worried that she will out-smut

1:14:59

me from the sound of

1:15:01

it. Well, it's very possible that... By

1:15:06

the way, I am going to California

1:15:08

for August. Oh my God. No, but

1:15:10

it's okay because I'm going to be

1:15:12

like working from home stroke California. Right, so

1:15:14

you can still do the podcast. I will still do

1:15:16

the podcast. It would be nice if I didn't have to do

1:15:19

it in the middle of the night, but I promise I will

1:15:21

take my microphone. There's good Wi-Fi, so

1:15:23

I will just as I will be

1:15:25

working, I will... It's an eight hours difference, isn't

1:15:27

it? Yeah. So

1:15:29

if we do it on a Friday, you could

1:15:32

have your breakfast and then do it after that,

1:15:34

couldn't you? Yeah. Do

1:15:38

you remember, was it last week or the week before?

1:15:40

I was telling you about my friend

1:15:43

that I met in Los Angeles in 1994. It

1:15:47

was a dirty story, wasn't it? It was

1:15:49

a... Yes. Yes. There was shenanigans going

1:15:51

on. Well, one

1:15:53

of our listeners might have tracked him

1:15:55

down. Oh my God. One

1:15:58

of our listeners who I won't... name, but thank

1:16:00

you, has got access to

1:16:02

all of the population records in the

1:16:05

United States. Data

1:16:07

breach, data breach. Well,

1:16:09

I think it's more like this sort of, what is

1:16:12

it in Britain, where you subscribe to. Anyway,

1:16:15

there are 7,600 people with

1:16:17

this guy's name in the United States. So

1:16:19

he started looking through all the California ones.

1:16:21

And I'd given him the email address that

1:16:24

I had. And there

1:16:26

was, he found a Facebook profile with

1:16:28

the first bit of the guy's email

1:16:30

address. Oh. So his name and then

1:16:32

LA at the back. Yeah. I

1:16:35

actually said the name last week, didn't I? Yeah, you did. Mike

1:16:37

Reynolds. Were you able to give any

1:16:39

distinguishing features? Well, he then, so

1:16:41

he sent, he found this guy's Facebook page

1:16:43

and sent me a picture and said, is

1:16:45

this him? Oh my God. And the honest

1:16:47

answer was, I didn't know. Because... What

1:16:50

was the picture? I mean, when I met him, he was 22 or something.

1:16:53

But he's now 49. And he

1:16:56

had a much fuller face than I remember him

1:16:58

having. And... Most of

1:17:00

us do at 49. Well, exactly.

1:17:02

But the clue was, he was

1:17:04

wearing this rather trendy cap, which

1:17:07

I remember that he used to wear

1:17:09

a cap like. Well, he's still wearing the same cap. Well,

1:17:11

not the same one, but the same style. Okay. So

1:17:14

I've sent him a message saying, remember

1:17:16

me? Ooh. But

1:17:19

he hasn't used Facebook for some time. Or

1:17:22

not, actually. Did he send it in on messenger? Yeah. So

1:17:25

this is, oh my God, this is like a soap opera.

1:17:27

Well, we can't wait to hear next week if he gets

1:17:29

in touch. Well, he hasn't so far. Well, no, but it

1:17:31

would be... Probably thinks I'm some weirdo.

1:17:33

We need to, this needs to

1:17:35

be like a boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I

1:17:39

mean, if it all sort of happened all at once, there'd

1:17:41

be no anticipation. So I could join you in

1:17:43

California and we could have a happy reunion. Oh, yeah. I could

1:17:45

go... San

1:17:47

Diego was, that's where we went for the weekend.

1:17:49

Of course it was. Yeah. Or even

1:17:51

if you don't join me... But he lives in

1:17:53

Seattle now. Oh, does he? Oh, I'm not traveling

1:17:56

all that way. I was going to say otherwise

1:17:58

I could sort of take a little note from you for that. him.

1:18:02

There are other ways of communicating nowadays. There

1:18:04

weren't in 1994 but there are

1:18:07

now. We would

1:18:09

write each other letters like two or three times a

1:18:11

week after all of that. You did?

1:18:13

Yeah. Oh my god it was a love job

1:18:15

then. It was quite intense.

1:18:19

Oh that's really sweet. And

1:18:21

then I met Simmo. Yes. In

1:18:25

the olden days we did used to write each other letters.

1:18:27

Yeah. Nice to be a good letter writer. I

1:18:30

bet you did. I had a boyfriend

1:18:32

that used to not only write me letters, he

1:18:34

also used to, he was an

1:18:36

artist and he used to decorate them with pictures.

1:18:38

I mean how cool is that? It

1:18:41

was lovely. What of? Like, I

1:18:44

mean we were a bit into sort of prog

1:18:46

rocky type things so you know it was like

1:18:48

a picture of a,

1:18:50

like a

1:18:53

wizard or a fairy. You see now it'd be

1:18:55

people would take pictures of their willy wouldn't they?

1:18:58

Yeah there's no romance amongst the younger generation. You

1:19:00

see I had a picture of a wizard

1:19:05

and now you just get a dick pic. Yeah.

1:19:08

Have you ever sent anybody a dick pic? No I have

1:19:10

not. Is that true? Possibly

1:19:13

not. Have you

1:19:15

ever had a dick

1:19:18

pic? Yep. Well

1:19:21

that was from a patient

1:19:23

in one of the hospitals. Oh God. Okay. Mackey. Mackey, a

1:19:25

man who I'm sure

1:19:31

would appreciate a dick pic says, PMQs

1:19:34

has become a farce under SUNAC as

1:19:37

the Prime Minister simply refuses to answer

1:19:39

a single question. Instead favouring

1:19:41

pre-prepared attack lines and statistics,

1:19:44

what can should be done to ensure

1:19:46

this important accountability mechanism actually works? Can

1:19:48

I add a riser to that? Have

1:19:52

you ever, or can you think of a

1:19:54

Prime Minister that ever hasn't done

1:19:57

what he's just accused of with SUNAC on?

1:19:59

Yeah. They all do. It's not nothing

1:20:01

new. I was even going to, Mackie, much

1:20:03

as we love you, I was even going

1:20:06

to disagree with you. I don't think that

1:20:08

Prime Minister's Question Time is an important accountability

1:20:10

mechanism. I think it

1:20:12

is a bit of political theatre

1:20:14

about defining the difference, geeing up

1:20:17

your troops, delivering a few

1:20:19

good lines. That's what it's about. Although,

1:20:21

of course, if you want to know more about

1:20:23

Prime Minister's Questions, you could, of course,

1:20:25

read the excellent book written by our

1:20:28

friend Aisha Hazarika about Prime

1:20:30

Minister's Questions. Indeed. Have

1:20:33

you got any more? I'm going to have to go in a minute. I

1:20:36

actually have quite a lot more, but let

1:20:39

me just, sorry, I got distracted

1:20:41

for a second. Right, I've got

1:20:43

one. Kath Fenerballs, a hundred years

1:20:45

after Margaret Bonfield was the first

1:20:47

woman to be appointed as a

1:20:49

Minister. Congratulations. That is true, isn't

1:20:51

it? 1924. Exactly, and

1:20:53

it was this week, and there still

1:20:56

is not a portrait of her in the House

1:20:58

of Commons. No. There

1:21:00

isn't. Alison McGovern is campaigning

1:21:03

for one. Isn't there a biography of her? Well,

1:21:06

there's a chapter in Honorable Aid about

1:21:08

her. There is. Anyway,

1:21:11

Kath Fenerballs' question is, who

1:21:13

was the third best woman Secretary

1:21:15

of State after Jackie

1:21:17

and Mrs. T, obviously? Well, I thought

1:21:19

you were going to say after. I

1:21:21

mean, Margaret Bonfield is a pretty amazing

1:21:23

Secretary of State. Barbara

1:21:26

Castle. Yeah, probably. Yeah.

1:21:30

You wouldn't say so well away from him, would you? I

1:21:33

would not say so well away from him. Right,

1:21:35

Graham says... Not that one. No,

1:21:37

not that one. Graham from Bushe. As

1:21:39

we may be looking to get people to join

1:21:41

the army, the two of you will be more

1:21:43

suited to the Home Guard from Dazami. How nice

1:21:45

of him. I'm going to have a day.

1:21:48

Which characters are you

1:21:50

most liked from Dazami?

1:21:53

Which ones would you like to have played? I

1:21:57

think I would like to be... The

1:22:00

one that was the spiffy one What

1:22:03

was he called? With

1:22:05

a moustache. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know

1:22:08

I would like to be Corporal

1:22:15

James no I'd

1:22:17

like to be John LaMazuria. Yeah you I knew

1:22:19

you were gonna say that I knew you're gonna

1:22:21

say that Okay, I'll be I'll be corporal judge

1:22:27

Good question William

1:22:31

says You

1:22:34

just scroll it up a bit oh fuck But

1:22:38

actually before mouth out before we go to

1:22:40

that this is a good one Why

1:22:45

do they keep disappearing Simon

1:22:49

in illford says please open

1:22:52

during the recording of the podcast

1:22:55

Which I must admit I did open it before this Here's

1:22:59

a sign on a train station. Can

1:23:01

you read that from this distance? So

1:23:08

the sign from the station says keep back

1:23:10

from the platform edge or you may get

1:23:16

That's a talk about station It's

1:23:20

the way I tell No,

1:23:23

I like that Let

1:23:25

me just see if I do This

1:23:29

one and one more then that clears

1:23:31

all the ones that have come in today Right

1:23:35

William says following to Simon Clark's call

1:23:37

for Rishi soon act to be replaced

1:23:39

What's the most self-indulgent thing either of

1:23:41

you have ever done? My

1:23:43

god is a whole list of that isn't there? Also

1:23:46

was just wondering if he was still

1:23:48

planning a for the many live in

1:23:51

foie well We've covered that it'd be

1:23:53

great to see you both in the

1:23:55

southwest Well, hopefully that is going to

1:23:57

happen and you could possibly get Andrea

1:23:59

Ledger as your guest. Well

1:24:01

I don't think Andrea would want to travel

1:24:03

from Northampton to Foy. So I

1:24:06

think I guessed, didn't we say we'd

1:24:08

get Johnny Mercer? Oh,

1:24:10

he's just up the road in Plymouth, that can't

1:24:13

be too far away is it? Nice train ride

1:24:15

that, have you ever done that? Yes,

1:24:17

I think I have. The

1:24:20

train goes along the D

1:24:22

doesn't it? Yeah, really lovely neck

1:24:25

of the woods down there. Always happy memories for me

1:24:27

for Foy because on the way back I broke my

1:24:30

hip. Oh I'll hold

1:24:33

you up this time. Thank you. Perhaps I'll wheel

1:24:35

you in a bit of a chair. You

1:24:39

get to go in first class. Do

1:24:41

you? Yeah, I'll take you in a wheelchair and we'll get those

1:24:43

seats. Is that right? I

1:24:45

think so, yeah. I

1:24:48

mean I travel first class anyway, paid

1:24:50

for by myself. Right,

1:24:54

this is from Tim

1:24:56

in Melbourne. I

1:24:59

think we've heard from you before, haven't we? Two and

1:25:01

a half years ago I moved to Melbourne with the

1:25:04

intention of doing six months

1:25:06

down under, travelling and working.

1:25:09

As time has gone by it's become

1:25:11

harder and harder to envision moving back

1:25:13

to the UK. For

1:25:16

one, I'm thoroughly enjoying life

1:25:18

out here. My wages as

1:25:20

an ICU nurse are almost double what

1:25:22

I'd get in the UK and my

1:25:25

quality of life is significantly better. Plus

1:25:27

I've got myself an Australian boyfriend now.

1:25:30

I do envision that one day I will move

1:25:32

back home and be with

1:25:34

my family again when the UK doesn't

1:25:36

look like such a downgrade in my

1:25:39

quality of life. We hear

1:25:41

so much bad news and doom

1:25:45

and gloom constantly and

1:25:47

that really gets me down as I really do love

1:25:49

the country where I'm from. Please can

1:25:51

you give us all some cheerful predictions

1:25:54

about what aspects of UK life will

1:25:56

really start to improve over the next

1:25:59

few years? PS I'm home in

1:26:01

August and coming to see you in

1:26:03

Edinburgh Ian Jackie you're a let down

1:26:05

for not coming Things

1:26:09

that will get better over the next five years go

1:26:11

that's a good thing things can only get better I

1:26:13

would say Bloody

1:26:17

trains they can't get

1:26:19

any worse. You see I think it depends

1:26:21

on where you live the trains where I live are actually

1:26:23

not bad Hmm What

1:26:27

would be Because worth time are going to

1:26:29

win the Champions League and Villa will be

1:26:31

in the chat in in the Champions League God

1:26:38

I don't know we can't think of anything

1:26:40

isn't it I? Think

1:26:42

the health service will get better on the basis that it

1:26:45

would be difficult for it to carry on getting worse

1:26:48

She is That's

1:26:52

quite difficult one for labor isn't it though because

1:26:54

I saw Emily Thornberry on something the other day

1:26:57

And she was saying what a state the

1:26:59

NHS is in and it's terrible I was

1:27:01

thinking if I worked in the NHS I'm

1:27:03

not sure I'd be very impressed no but

1:27:05

most people who work in the NHS Also

1:27:07

know that it's really not doing what they

1:27:10

came in to the NHS to do In

1:27:13

my experience has been totally the opposite of all

1:27:15

of that There aren't

1:27:17

really really happening in any sense there

1:27:19

aren't problems, but I Mean

1:27:22

when I when I had my eye injection they

1:27:24

said right once every four weeks for the next

1:27:26

five months, and they're Very

1:27:28

quick getting back with an appointment. I haven't

1:27:31

had to wait for anything It's

1:27:34

not before anybody says it it's not because no

1:27:36

people know what I do and all the rest

1:27:38

of them I

1:27:41

don't I'm not honestly not getting special

1:27:43

treatment I'm

1:27:45

very glad that you are getting the good

1:27:47

experience that we all know the NHS can

1:27:50

offer But too often

1:27:52

it's proving very difficult for people to do that

1:27:55

Do you think generally that people

1:27:57

do judge the NHS on their

1:27:59

own experience? rather than all of the

1:28:01

lurid reports that we all see today.

1:28:05

I think it's a bit of both. I

1:28:07

think it's a bit like what people think about

1:28:09

politicians. They think that all

1:28:12

politicians are crooked and

1:28:14

awful, apart from the one they know who they

1:28:17

think is okay. And in the

1:28:19

NHS, they sort of know that things are really,

1:28:21

really tough, but then they appreciate the care that

1:28:23

they have individually, even if it's actually

1:28:25

pretty substandard. Let

1:28:27

me just text Corey to say that we're nearly finished. Yes,

1:28:29

we are. I'm going to be late to dinner. What

1:28:32

time is your dinner? Six. Oh,

1:28:34

where? Just up the road. That's all right.

1:28:37

Ronan Fox says, Type

1:28:39

2 diabetics, or me, are

1:28:41

munching their way through 10% of

1:28:44

the NHS budget. Next stop, 20%. How

1:28:47

can this be stopped? More carrot or

1:28:49

time for the stick? Good

1:28:51

question. Well, that's because of

1:28:53

a failure to tackle the

1:28:56

root causes like obesity. Isn't

1:28:58

it obviously not in your case? No, nevertheless it

1:29:00

be said. I'm feeling quite

1:29:02

trim at the moment. I haven't weighed myself. I'm feeling

1:29:04

thin. Well, I said, didn't I, following

1:29:06

you into the studio, looking

1:29:08

at your ass as I was. You're

1:29:12

very welcome to look at my ass. I don't mind people

1:29:14

looking at my ass. You've got quite narrow hips,

1:29:16

haven't you? No. Yeah,

1:29:18

I think you sort of were quite...

1:29:22

Slim across the hips. And

1:29:24

you're not looking, you know, many of your age can be

1:29:26

a bit on the belly side, but you're not looking

1:29:29

like that. No, it's because I have a long

1:29:31

back. If I put weight on, it tends to go to

1:29:34

my face. Oh. And

1:29:36

okay, I mean, I could still lose quite a bit at

1:29:38

the front, but it's not obvious because I have a long

1:29:40

back. No, no. Short legs. You're

1:29:43

looking good. I thank you.

1:29:45

So are you, if I may say so. Yeah, thanks. Hot,

1:29:48

hot, hot. Why

1:29:51

won't it scroll down? I

1:29:53

hate this computer. I'm going to have to get a new one. You

1:29:55

keep saying that. I know, but I'm too mean to fork out two

1:29:57

and a half grand for it to get... I've only had this one.

1:30:00

one less in a year. Can't

1:30:02

you get it something done on

1:30:04

the guarantee? That's a good point. Yeah but I

1:30:06

have to send it away then and it just disrupts everything. Well

1:30:08

it's not bloody working anyway so how will it

1:30:10

disrupt anything if you send it away? Well I

1:30:12

don't know. Obviously. Clive

1:30:15

says I live in Woking and I'm

1:30:17

a regular listener. In your last podcast

1:30:19

you commented on the debt that Woking

1:30:22

Council have. Yes it's high but for

1:30:24

the record it was built on capital

1:30:26

spending redeveloping the town centre. Boy

1:30:29

did it need it. All the

1:30:32

local councillors voted in. I think you said

1:30:34

that Ian and we talked about

1:30:36

it last week. Did I? Yeah. All

1:30:38

the local councillors voted in favour of

1:30:40

the development and some of them are

1:30:42

still in post yet try to deny

1:30:44

they have any responsibility. These individuals are

1:30:46

not conservatives. How can we hold

1:30:48

them accountable for the collective action of

1:30:50

all the sitting councillors? I could test

1:30:52

the hypocrisy of these individuals. We'll vote

1:30:55

them out in May then. Simple as

1:30:57

that. Exactly. We have disgraced

1:30:59

ourselves in this podcast, Cory, where

1:31:02

Jackie repeatedly said spunk. I

1:31:06

did, I said spunk. Right

1:31:11

we will be back next week I

1:31:14

hope and we

1:31:16

haven't been fired for too

1:31:18

much spunk. Well that's true.

1:31:20

Well Cory's now twiddling around

1:31:22

on his chair. Remacing. And

1:31:24

fanning himself. Goodbye. You've

1:31:35

been listening to For the Many, a

1:31:37

global player original podcast. I

1:31:40

also have some other podcasts for you. The

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1:31:51

entertainment. I also have a

1:31:53

new 15 part podcast series called The Irish

1:31:55

Taoiseach, which covers the life and political careers

1:31:57

of all of the 15 people who live

1:31:59

here. served in the office of Taoiseach of

1:32:01

the Republic of Ireland. And

1:32:04

if you like that, you'll definitely enjoy

1:32:06

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1:32:08

covers 55 British Prime

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1:32:25

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