Further Reading

Transcript

DID YOU VOTE FOR BREXIT BUT FEEL LIKE NOTHING HAS YET CHANGED YET AND FEEL ANGRY THAT BRITAIN HASN’T BUILT 400FT HIGH WALLS TO BLOCK OUT THE REST OF THE WORLD AND THE SUN? ARE YOU SLIGHTLY SCARED ABOUT WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN TO THE COUNTRY SO SEEK SOLACE IN PRETENDING THAT IF YOU HARK BACK TO THE OLDEN DAYS OF BLUE PASSPORTS AND POUNDS AND OUNCES EVERYTHING WILL BE WORTH IT? Well look no further as for just £3 plus postage packing and VAT, we’ll send you some homemade sewage to dump on your nearest beach to return to the proper British state it was in before the EU interfered. Clean European beaches? No thanks. There’s nothing more British than seagulls being sick and getting a rash from the sea.
Just get your increasingly useless credit card and call 0800-Pointless- desperate-nostalgia and receive your steaming turd today!

EP 27

Hello and welcome to episode 27 of the Partly Political Broadcast. I’m Tiernan Douieb and this week I am recording this while sitting on the floor and wearing a burkini. Not for any political reasons, it’s just that my chair is broken and I forgot to put a wash on.

I’m sure many of you have been thinking since we returned ‘Tiernan, the people voted for a Brexit, along with Blue Passports to match the depression we’ll all have in a post EU recession, and grocers selling things only in ounces so they all sound like drug dealers, why can’t your podcasts emulate Britain’s sovereignty by only being available on wax cylinder and by being delivered to us by carrier pigeon?’ Well that is a good question, and thanks for asking it. Sadly such is the nature of this podcast, I would only want to use an ethical pigeon courier company which is quite costly. So instead, not wanting to demean this desperate attempt at reliving the ‘good old days’ that the media are having, I will be releasing this podcast as a strain of smallpox in different cities around the country as soon as I can.

This week’s show, like a virgin train, is so rampacked half of it is sitting on the floor. There’s further Brexit fallout, a look at foreign aid and I’m pleased to say, an interview with comedian and political columnist Frankie Boyle. Hello to any new listeners who’ve arrived at this due to this week’s guest and thanks as always to all of you who put yourself through listening to this every week because you hate your ears. Thanks too for your itunes reviews and comments. They are, as always, very welcome and I’ve had a couple of nice emails and posts to the new Facebook group which are great, even though I really don’t understand what it is or why it exists. I really hate FB. I’ve spent so long narrowing down my friends in real life, there is definitely no way I want to come to your event random person I can’t remember from school. But if you do want to join the group, and haven’t, check out facebook.com/groups/parpolbro and hopefully over time there’ll be more discussion and bits on there. Also as promised, a proper plug this week for my new stand up special which is new but the show is from January this year so pre-the world being on fire. But it’s only £1.99 and you can stream or download it from my website tiernandouieb.co.uk so please do that. Every penny myself and director Ben Hilton make on it will go towards being able to film another one in the future. Hope you enjoy!

Right, first things first, here’s some things you may have missed:

CATCH UP:

CAMERON

Do you remember that guy Dave? Yeah it was a while ago but I recall he did things like leave his daughter in a pub and probably have sex with a pigs head. Oh and he was in charge of the country till he ballsed it all up and ran away. Remember? Well it seems that despite spam sculpture David Cameron no longer being Prime Minister, like all good super villians, he’s still managing to ruin things from beyond the political grave. Firstly it seems that in the final year of working for him, Cameron’s Special advisors received a 24% pay increase, worth about £15k, or, as you might like to put it, the annual salary of someone on the not actually living wage. Because you know, what better way to deal with times of austerity, pay freezes for civil service workers and economic uncertainty than to let all your mates have even more money and, for some of them, peerages, for essentially giving you terrible advice on how to continually screw over everyone else since 2010. Special advisors, or spads, a portmanteau that in itself, sounds like an insult, are people who are appointed by the government, seemingly because they’ve done something to earn it like conveniently go to the same school as the Prime Minister or you know, genuine hard working reasons like that. They then support the government whilst supposedly reinforcing the political impartiality that the Civil Service has. They are very useful at resigning and taking the blame when the minister they work with has screwed up, a la Jeremy Hunt, or in the case of former Labour Spad Damien McBride when they set up a website just to slur the opposition with sex scandal gossip but then get found out.

Amazingly David Cameron recently mocked Labour for re-hiring McBride and spoke out several times about Labour’s use of Spads under Gordon Brown’s government. Although maybe that was just because he felt they weren’t being paid enough. I assume Dave won’t resurface just to back his decision to give his Spads tons of taxpayers money, but I bet if he did, he’d just say they advised him too. And with a 24% increase and peerage in the bag, they’ll probably say whatever he wants. Total bunch of spads.

CAMERON 2

The next bit of legacy Cameron has, in the way that the UK has a habit of only finding terrible things out about people once they’re not longer able to be responsible for it, involves his promise of extra free childcare of up to 30 hours a week. This was one of the few promises in the Conservatives last election manifesto that they didn’t u-turn on within 5 minutes of being elected. Instead they ploughed ahead with it, despite no sensible methods of making it work. Not that you’d ever have though the Conservatives know what childcare is, only seeing their children during the summer holidays when they have to, or in Theresa May’s case, when they’re brought to her house so she can use her evil mirror to steal their youth. Originally they stated that 630,000 3-4 year olds would benefit from the free childcare. Then they revised that down to 600,000, then 390,000 and currently it looks like it’s actually about 50,000 that will benefit, if any. And due to such an incredible lack of funding for childcare many nurseries are going to be left hugely underfunded by the scheme and as a result, will have to charge parents for the free service. Yes, a free service that costs. Which perfectly sums up David Cameron’s time as Prime Minister: Getting nothing for far too much something.

DIGITAL BILL

The Labour leadership campaign sleepwalks on and with several hustings that are so repetitive you may as well just record one and watch it on repeat for the same effect. Highlights include Owen Smith making yet another ill advised statement, this time a joke about the size of his penis then immediately retracting it, which gives you good insight into his love life. Jeremy Corbyn said in a statement about improving arts funding that he didn’t consider himself wealthy even though he’s on just under £150k a year. Though I guess while that is a lot of money, it’s probably counteracted by his judgement being so poor.

But in announcing some actual policies Corbyn this week proposed a new digital bill of rights in, as he said, an attempt to democratise the internet, proving he definitely doesn’t read his @ replies on Twitter or he wouldn’t bother trying. The bill would get high speed broadband to even the most remote parts of the country allowing them too to see just how awful people can be online. Some of it does sound great, such as the broadband roll out, but also a free to use online learning service for the National Education Service, a push for voting online and Open Source licencing for publicly funded programs. But there is also a pledge for a ‘digital citizen passport’ which would, as it says in the brief, be a voluntary service to give British citizens a secure and portable identity when interacting with public services online. Which sounds a little bit like exactly the sort of thing Theresa May and the GCHQ wanted to roll out, only at least with Jeremy’s version you get a choice if you want your internet movements spied on. So a bit of an odd one. Plus I’m not sure if it’ll go down well with those that voted Brexit. I mean, will the Digital passports even be blue?

NHS CUTS

Plans to make more cuts across NHS services in England are being made because really the best way to help a struggling, underfunded service, seems to be to just slowly kill it off and end it’s suffering, according to the Department of Health. The plans will be signed off by October and will involve closing acute services in one out of three hospitals in an area. Acute services aren’t the ones that look nice, wear a bow and bring you cupcakes, but specialist treatments for people whose illness or injuries can’t be dealt with by GPs. So stroke victims, diabetes care, respiratory illnesses and so on. Many hospitals will have a 20% reduction in beds too. So if you’re recovering from a stroke, you’ll only have to trek for a few hours in your numb, dizzy condition, and when you get there you’re unlikely to be able to get a lie down to deal with it. It’s a bizarre way of getting a more efficient and cost saving service, when it’ll just cause longer waiting times overall and worse treatment for everyone. Thank goodness the Department Of Health aren’t working as doctors or anyone with a broken leg would just be given less & less oxygen and blood till they were thrown down the body shute to the morgue.

INTERVIEW PART 1

Bit of a different interview this week. I was lucky enough over the last few weeks to support, as Wikipedia hilariously calls him ‘pessimistic and often controversial’ comedian Frankie Boyle. It’s the third time I’ve had the pleasure of doing that for him and after his increasingly popular satirical columns for the Guardian, his stand-up shows becoming ever more heavily political in tone and many backstage chats about the state of the world, I thought it’d be nice to get Frankie on the show. So firstly, while we do laugh about a few things, it’s not a comedy chat, it’s a mostly serious one about Frankie’s views on current political issues such as media censorship, Scottish politics and a number of other things.

As always, with my complete inability to record anything properly there are some sound issues, and in fact, rather than apologise I thought I’d embrace it with a new mini jingle:

EXCUSES EXCUSES

So this week’s excuses about sound recording are: It was recorded at the always brilliant Phoenix in Cavendish Square in London, many thanks to them for letting me chat to Frankie there before our show. However as you’ll notice, I’m stupidly loud and despite me having the microphone far away from me, and right by Frankie’s face, he speaks quietly and so the excellent Mark Struthers spent time amplifying him but that does mean you can hear the air con in the back. Oh and stupidly we both had drinks with lots of ice in, so I hope that adds to the ambience for you. Maybe don’t listen if you’re thirsty. Or are scared of ice. Or drinks. Or me or Frankie.

Right, here he is. Enjoy:

INTERVIEW PART 1

And we’ll be back with Frankie in a minute, but first….

SKETCH 2

ARE YOU ANGRY THAT YOU VOTED FOR BREXIT BUT BRITAIN HASN’T YET SPENT MONEY SEPERATING OUR ISLAND FROM THE LANDMASS UNDERNEATH AND FLOATING INTO THE ATLANTIC, AWAY FROM EUROPE TO RETAIN OUR SOVEREIGNITY? Well for just £5 very british pounds, we’ll write your boss a letter stating that you really want to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week with no holiday, sick pay or parental leave, just like how it used to be in good old days of the workhouses back before those bloody Europeans meddled with our perfect British system. No more will you feel you have to enjoy your weekend when instead you could just never have one again, like a true Brit! Just get your increasingly useless credit card ready and call 0800-Why-Can’t-Things-Be-Shit-Again right away!

FOREIGN AID

This week the Mail On Sunday, a glorified toilet roll masquerading as a racist hand out, celebrated the success of their campaign to reduce foreign aid spending as the government has announced it will divert spending for traditional aid projects to use for national security instead. Yes, in typical Mail fashion they love that instead of helping them foreign types, we’re now happily going to fund more ways to kill them. Now this is a pretty vile thing to be happy about, and with Priti Patel in charge of international development, despite her seeming to have struggled to develop basic human emotions, it does seem like this is the insular aggressive direction the UK is going in.

Foreign Aid seems like a good thing to someone like myself who generally likes the idea of helping people unless they’re Piers Morgan. And in theory and some practice, it is. The UK spends £12.2bn a year on foreign aid, which is the UN defined goal of 0.7% of rich country’s Gross National Product to developing countries to aid with medicine, dealing with famine and helping develop infrastructure. You know, useful actually helpful things. Only five other rich countries in the world give the 0.7% amount, which are Sweden, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Norway and Denmark – yes, of course it’s the Scandinavian ones. And the US gives the most money at around £22.5bn a year though that is only 0.17% of its GDP. And bare in mind they probably don’t know where most of the countries it goes to actually are. About 40% of the budget goes to the multilateral organisations, including the UN, with the rest going to countries such as Pakistan, Ethiopia or say, Afghanistan as some sort of terrible sorry note that probably goes straight in the bin. This all sounds great and lovely and how wonderful that we help those in need. But, there is of course a but.

The huge but is that while there are cases such as the group Medical Aid For Palestinians who use the aid to deliver trauma support, there are equally as money countries where the aid money goes straight to the government for them to distribute. This can help fund a corrupt government or exacerbate local issues. In an interview back in 2005 a Kenyan economics expert asked for the UN to stop giving aid to Kenya as food donations where being unfairly divided to only tribes that politicians favoured, or sold on the black market undercutting local produce and damaging the local economy. This week it’s been discovered that an aid program in Syria has been giving tens of millions of dollars to people associated with Assad who’s regime has had many Syrians killed. The Un fund gives aid to Syrian agriculture and state-owned fuel supplier, both of which have been sanctioned by the EU and the World Health Organisation has spent money supporting the national Syrian blood bank that is controlled by Assad’s defence department and are likely only going to military casualties. So the only way it seems to be helping some people abroad, is by assisting them in killing other people abroad. It’s like doing wars by proxy. The UK’s foreign aid program gives £498m a year to contractors such as Adam Smith International who go to developing countries and set up privatised water or privatised education systems.

The UK only recently stopped giving aid to India, on account of it’s growing economy, something that we’d been doing for years on account of assuming we just owned their country some years ago. It was essentially our embarrassing way of giving pocket money to the forcefully adopted child that went its own way after never needing our help in the first place. And always having been a fully grown adult. When the government decided aid to India would end there was much rejoicing from both UK and Indian politicians. But the problem is that the wealth divide in India is so vast that while there may be more billionaires there than in Britain, the aid money we supplied went to those in poverty and by 2020 they’ll be left without it.

So really Foreign Aid could be a good thing if, as many have suggested, it was reformed and targeted properly, to those that actually need it working both with and outside of governments and working on local successes. But – and here’s another big but, meaning this section on Foreign Aid alone sounds like some sort of Sir Mix-A-Lot track – with many Conservatives, UKIP and many of the right wing press calling for a huge reduction in foreign aid, it’s unlikely that reform will happen. Instead it looks like it’s going to lead to the International Development budget instead funding British troops tackling terrorism. Because that’s the way we help other countries over here, by helping put those who are suffering out of their misery with a few bullets and bombs. Still on the plus side, if any of the foreign aid budget is used on services in the UK, then all those refugees fleeing wars we’ve helped to make worse, will hopefully benefit from them when they get here. And I bet the Mail On Sunday and their readers will bloody love that.

And now back to Frankie….

INTERVIEW PART 2

Frankie has more warm up dates at the Pleasance Theatre in Islington and Leicester Square theatre through September and October, and I think there are a few tickets left for some of them. You can find all the dates at frankieboyle.com and his US Election Post Mortem will be on the iPlayer in November.

Hope you enjoyed that and I’d love to hear your views on whether you’re happy to hear the odd chat with other political comedians to break up the more specific political interviews, and as always I’d love to hear if you have any recommendations of who I should chat to, or what subject areas I should try to find an interviewee to talk about. And you can drop me a line, as always via the FB group, the @parpolbro twitter account or partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com. Next week is columnist, campaigner and author of ‘Stitched Up’ Tansy Hoskins on the politics of the fashion industry. I will be interviewing her in a café so expect the excuses section to go on for about four days.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

The question of the week returns! Last week former head of UKIP and the lovechild of a big sneeze and 70’s sitcom, Nigel Farage went to America and shared a platform with US Presidential candidate Donald Trump. No, I’m not sure which one could be accused more of sharing a platform with an extremist either. And yes, Farage did have a go at Obama for coming to the UK and advising on Brexit back in July, but let’s face it, Farage isn’t known for sticking to his principles which is why him and Trump probably got on great guns. Personally I’m still waiting for the moment all Trump’s supporters realise Farage is an immigrant in the US and it all kicks off. But until then, I asked you what TV shows or formats would suit the Trump Farage double act of disgust and you did reply!

‪Kahn Johnson /react-text ‬‬
Wife Swap ‬
‪A Place In The Cuntry‬‬‬
‪Top Gear‬‬‬

‪react-text: 235 Graeme Tait /react-text ‬‬‪ Minority deport‬‬‬

‪react-text: 274 Matt Hoss /react-text ‬‬They’d probably fit nicely to host the Oscars.‬

‪react-text: 313 Graeme Tait /react-text ‬‬ Xenophobia, warrior princess.‬

‪react-text: 352 Philip Alexander /react-text ‬‬Man vs Good‬

‪react-text: 391 Philip Alexander /react-text ‬‬‪Everybody Loves Ray-cism‬‬‬

‪react-text: 44 Willard Foxton Todd /react-text ‬‬‪ ‬‬

Clever double meanings:‬
‪Fear Factor‬‬‬
‪Big Brother‬‬‬
‪Celebrity Squares‬‬‬
‪Biggest Losers‬‬‬

‪Just rude:‬‬‬
‪Cuntdown‬‬‬
‪Strictly Come Twatting‬‬‬
‪Great British Racist off‬‬‬

‪Surreal nightmares:‬‬‬
‪Wheel of Farage‬‬‬
‪Love island‬‬‬

‪react-text: 105 Brendan Dodds /react-text ‬‬
The Big Berkfest‬

Veep ‏‪@PrincessofVP‬ ‬‬Aug 28
‪@ParPolBro‬‬‪ Pointless. Because they both literally are.‬‬‬

‪@AllRedGaming1 ‬‬‪Aug 28‬‬‪‬‬‬
@ParPolBro @TiernanDouieb Wankety Wank or is that too crude?‬

‪@beaubodor ‬‬‪Aug 28‬‬‪‬‬‬
@ParPolBro More Dumb Than Wise‬

‏‪@rainy101‬ ‬‬Aug 28
‪@ParPolBro‬‬‪ The Generation Blame (the immigrants).‬‬‬

‪@Daniel_Woodrow ‬‬‪Aug 28‬‬‪‬‬‬
@ParPolBro ‬
Bigot Brother‬

‪@al_vimh ‬‬‪Aug 28‬‬‪‬‬‬
@ParPolBro @TiernanDouieb Remember “The Odd Couple”, yeah? Well that, but with more sharks.‬

‪@flufflogic ‬‬‪Aug 28‬‬‪‬‬‬
@ParPolBro Wheel of Fortunately Not In Power‬

‪@flufflogic ‬‬‪24h‬‬‬
‪24 hours ago‬‬‬
‪@ParPolBro‬‬‪ has anyone done “Great British Hate Off”?‬‬‬

‪@1Rafz ‬‬‪Aug 28‬‬‪‬‬‬
@ParPolBro Top Gear but they only review second world era tanks wot won the war.‬

BUT WHAT WOULD RIGHT WING BLOGGERS PROTEST IN IF THEY GOT FIRED?

‪@bruceb_uk ‬‬‪Aug 28‬‬‪‬‬‬
@ParPolBro The Golden Shot #wishfulthinking‬

‪Jacob Johannsen /react-text ‬‬‪react-text: 45 /react-text X-files: They’d be great at investigating alien invasions.‬‬‬

‪@budgie ‬‬‪Aug 28‬‬
‪Richmond, London‬‬‬
‪@ParPolBro‬‬‪ ‬‬‬
‬
Pride and Prejudice‬

‪@kateweb ‬‬‪Aug 28‬‬‪‬‬‬
@ParPolBro Cannon and Ball – ideally, both of them being fired from one.‬

‏‪@LIAMREILLY20‬ ‬‬Aug 28
Warrington, England
‪@ParPolBro‬‬‪ @RonMooreMoreRon the Fartrump saga, never ending‬‬‬

‏‪@SamPhillips13‬ ‬‬Aug 29
‪@ParPolBro‬‬‪ Universally Challenged – two teams competing to come up with the most unintelligent statement possible. Paxman stays as host…‬‬‬

‪@beaubodor ‬‬‪Aug 29‬‬‪‬‬‬
@ParPolBro ‘Hate Actually’‬

BREXIT FALL OUT

A Quick Brexit Fallout for this show despite a foreseeable Brexit gaining speed like a boulder rolling down a hill towards us, a bunch of geologists, our curiosity meaning we keep looking at it and studying it rather than moving out of the way. Does that work? No? Good then it’s a more apt for Brexit than I thought.

So according to the Telegraph, Theresa May has been told by government lawyers that she doesn’t need parliamentary approval to trigger Article 50, the procedure that starts at two year countdown to leaving the EU. Which is hilarious in a way, because part of the anger against the EU was unelected bureaucrats making decisions we have no say in, yet here we are with a Prime Minister no one voted for about to make a major decision for the UK, without any other MPs getting a say. Several MPs have started a legal challenge against this happening which will take place in October, so it’ll be delayed till then either way. There is still the issue of whether Article 50 can be triggered at all anyway until the PM has a mandate to leave the single market which we still don’t have because still, no one HAS A CLUE WHAT THEY WANT!

In amongst all this the German Vice Chancellor and owner of a name that makes him sound like an A Wing Pilot Sigmar Gabriel said that Brexit could send the EU ‘down the drain’ in an event that I guess would lead to some serious horrible clogging. Imagine having to plunger that out? It’s bad enough when I’ve eaten Brussels. Ha! A poo joke! Gabriel thinks the UK can’t have the nice things from Europe, which I presume are cheese and wine, without taking any responsibility. Like not eating so much cheese and wine you then sick it up, like my last trip to Paris.

Lastly but not leastly, Home Secretary Amber Rudd – a woman who once referred to nuclear power stations as beautiful and so presumably is on some sort of watch list for possible enemies of Superman – Amber Rudd is meeting the French Home Secretary to discuss keeping the Le Touquet agreement keeping UK border checks at Calais. There is growing support in France to end the agreement and just let the UK have all the border controls at Dover instead. So the Brexit vote, a vote against not having control, a vote against too much immigration, now looks like it’s given the UK even less democratic control and will result in even more immigration. I’m starting to wonder if they should change the dictionary definition of a Pyrrhic victory to just a picture of the Boris Johnson’s face the morning he announced the result. Though I’m pretty sure that’d just result in less dictionaries being bought, and let’s face it, the English/French ones are probably already in trouble.

END

And that’s it for this week’s Partly Political Broadcast. Thanks again to Mark Struthers for his editing magic, do check out his Radio Stockton Heath podcast on Podbean, it’s great. Also to Matt Hoss for helping with admin and all a you chumps for listening. Do review us on iTunes, drop me a line on Twitter @parpolbro, Facebook on the Parpolbro group or email me at partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com, or you know, embrace the good old days and send round a secret message in a loaf of Hovis delivered by a child on a bike with a flat cap and an oddly cheery disposition despite his obviously shit job and terrible life.

And please do check out my stand-up special ‘The World’s Full Of Idiots, Let’s Live In Space’ at my website www.tiernandouieb.co.uk because if enough of you buy it, I might be able to afford a cold meal on a hot day. I’ll be back next week with more vague attempts at making you laugh at the world instead of crying.

This week’s show was brought to you by whatever number and letters you like. What number and letters would you like? No you can’t have those ones. I don’t remember ever saying you could choose.

And that my friends, is British democracy.

SKETCH 3

ARE YOU UPSET THAT DESPITE HAVING VOTED BREXIT WE HAVEN’T IMMEDIATELY GONE TO WAR WITH EVERY EUROPEAN COUNTRY TO PROVE THAT BRITISH PEOPLE ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO DESERVE TO LIVE ON THIS EARTH? Well mop your brow with that Union Jack Tea towel you obviously have and worry no more, because for just £20 we’ll arrive in your area and hang a minor criminal or someone you think looks like a minor criminal, just like they used to do in the good old days when Britain was Britain and children could smoke. Just get your wheelbarrows of almost defunct pound coins ready and call 0800-IM-SCARED-TO-LEAVE-MY-VILLAGE right away!

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