Further Reading

Transcript

Ep35

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast episode 35. I’m Tiernan Douieb and after calls for proof of my age, I would like to say that despite my beard, crow’s feet around my eyes, and an inability to stop sighing at people being idiots, I am actually only 35 and a half so take that cynics! Yes, a weekly podcast and a comedian’s life on the road can really take it out of you.

Often it’s hard to work out what Britain is best known for. Is it the ‘two world wars and one world cup’ that prove that since the 60’s we’ve been pretty useless? Is it our tea, jam and biscuits that Andrea Leadsom thinks by exporting we’ll restore the British economy back to it’s great levels? Well no, especially as all our tea is imported from elsewhere in the first place, all the fruit for the jam will have to be too once we lose all the EU workers who pick our fruit and really, have you tried travelling with biscuits? They just make your bag full of crumbs. So it’s not that. No, I’ll tell you what it is. Pointless xenophobia and shameless hypocrisy. Sure America are really neck and neck with us on this, but this week we really showed our strength at first class bigotry as the UK allowed the first group of child refugees in from Calais and photos printed by the Telegraph of them showed that they were young adults rather than tiny tots wearing nappies and sucking their thumbs. I mean, who’d have thought that escaping a warzone, travelling across a sea, then living in a makeshift camp for months wouldn’t be great for your complexion? There goes Gwyneth Paltrow’s new fad! This of course enraged the tabloid press and several politicians as we can’t be letting older children in can we? I mean how can we have compassion and empathy for those who’ve escaped a war zone if they already shave and might have their own opinions so can’t be brainwashed into becoming a proper Brit and hating other immigrants like their relatives who are still stuck in France? I mean, considering how much the government hate young people already, why would they want more? More to not be able to afford university fees, or more to struggle to survive on a non-paid apprentice scheme as there’s no real work for them? Then of course it’s only a matter of time before they become adults then, god forbid, they might contribute to society which would ruin all the current narrative wouldn’t it? That’d be awful.

Tory MP David Davies – no not that David Davies, the other incompetent awful ignorant Tory one – suggested that as they don’t look like children, British hospitality is being abused. You know, that hospitality we have where you get the Daily Mail as you arrive in the airport basically saying ‘welcome, now fuck off again’. Davies suggested they have a dental check to prove their age which isn’t proved to work and are only accurate to within 2 years of age. Now some facts. The Home Office says that two thirds of asylum seekers who claim to be under 18 are in fact older than that. But this is the normal asylum process, not the Calais situation so can’t really be compared. So it’s actually 2/3rds of the numbers screened. Stats up to September actually show that 85.5% overall were not children. Secondly the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child health say there is no good way to determine someone’s age, not even asking if they know what a cassette is or how to make a noise like a dialling modem. Thirdly, everyone develops differently. I went to school with a Turkish boy called Ufuk, which yes, is an unfortunate name if you go to a British school. He had full on facial hair by aged 13 and looked much older than that, though I guess years of easy teasing about your name will do that to someone. Fourthly NONE OF THIS MATTERS BECAUSE THE FACT IS WE SHOULD JUST BE CARING ABOUT REFUGEES OF ALL AGES BECAUSE WE HAVE THE FACILITIES TO TAKE IN 85,000 MORE IN THIS COUNTRY THAN WE DO AND THEY ARE ALL HUMAN BEINGS WHO DESERVE AT THE VERY MINUMUM TO BE TREATED WITH DECENCY AND A RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS. I mean, you all know that, you listen to this show. Part of the narrative is that if you take adults in, they may be terrorists, which is nonsense because a lot of them are fleeing groups like ISIS in the first place and most terrorist groups used homegrown cells as relying on your operative for a big terrorist act to makes it all the way across the Mediterranean with 200 other people on a lifeboat built for four, and through several checks in several different countries, is a properly shit plan. And this is all discriminatory towards children who I’m sure could be just as dangerous as adults if they wanted to be. I’ve seen The Omen.
Basically I’m saying is that David Davies can fuck right off, especially as he looks like he’s just been freshly dug up from a grave, despite being only 46.

And of course this all lead to The Sun smearing football pundit Gary Linekar for saying on Twitter that the treatment of refugees was racist, because it is and he’s right. Then more politicians and the paper said he couldn’t be a political activist and a football commentator and that the BBC should sack him from his job. So there’s two things we can take from that. One is that if activism is tweeting a compassionate statement then global activism is far more alive and well than we thought and it’s only time before the world is righted again due to millions of people shouting into the online void. I knew it was worth it. And that’s not a slur on Linekar, I’m very pleased he did what he did as he has an audience and someone like him showing that empathy and compassion are still decent human traits is great. Which leads up to the second thing we can take from this week. Apparently the angry commentators only like it when people say what they think as long as what they think is along the same lines as what the angry commentators think. Case in point, Jeremy Clarkson being sacked for punching a co-worker and previously for making racist remarks. The campaign then was to help him keep his job at the BBC as freedom of speech is important. Linekar tweets, the campaign is for him to be sacked as freedom of speech about helping other people and kindness really doesn’t help racists strive towards their dream of walling themselves in and inbreeding till everyone is the colour of tip ex. So here’s the thing, by the time you read this, the Calais Jungle will have been at least partly, if not fully evicted. France swears it’s relocating many of them to camps all over their country, but the UK has promised it will take in many more refugee children, with over 200 arrived in just the last few days, all thanks to Lords Dubs’s amendment. I’ve said it before on this podcast and I’ll say it again, I’ve very pleased Lord Dubs fights for human rights but with a name like that he really should be a grime DJ. So yeah, the UK is taking in many more refugee children who may look like they could eat an ice cream in a hilarious way and it’d be a viral GIF in seconds, or they could look like they spend far too much time on Snapchat while sitting on your front garden wall smoking cigarettes even though you’ve asked them not to but look you just don’t understand what they’re going through. Either way, they’re people in need of other people treating them as people. It’s not hard. Unless of course if you’re David Davies who struggles to treat anyone as people when all it looks like he wants is to eat their brains to satiate his 400 year old undead corpse.

Oh and BHS CEO and tax avoiding bastard Philip Green who always sounds like he’s from some shit version of Cluedo where his character has the alibi that he was offshore and didn’t know about it when the shit hit the fan. Well MP’s have decided to strip him of his ‘Sir’ meaning he’s no longer and Topman in anyway, and he no longer has a knighthood. So yeah hahahah his knight will get wet when it rains. Good.

Thanks as always for listening. Again there seem to be new listeners on board after last week’s show so if you are one of those, please send proof of age and dental records just incase. I JOKE! What I would say though is if you are new, feel free to go back and listen to older shows. While some of my gags pretty much age the second I finish saying them, loads of the interviews, in fact, almost all of them back to episode 1, are still pretty relevant because sadly the world isn’t fixed yet. But don’t worry, I will keep trying. If you fancy giving us a rating on iTunes, please do. A few weeks back, I played a really awful jingle that I thought might spur you on to give some more iTunes reviews and it seemed to get a few of you to do that, I think mostly on the hope that if you did, I wouldn’t play it again. Well, guys, 4 reviews isn’t enough so here’s a new awful jingle to encourage you to review the show. You did this to yourselves:

REVIEW SONG

So there it is. Please get on the case. Also please do continue to spread the word about this podcast if you enjoy it and don’t forget you can drop me a line about, well, anything on @parpolbro on Twitter, the ParPolBro FB group or partlypolitcalbroadcast@gmail.com. Couple of quick things. 1) The gig for the amazing charity Help Refugees that I’m running on Nov 8th at Conway Hall in Holborn is nearly sold out, so if you want tickets head to eventbrite and search for Stand Up For Refugees or check out Conway Hall’s website at conwayhall.org.uk. The bill is now Frankie Boyle, Sara Pascoe, Kerry Godlimann, Doc Brown, Tez Ilyas, Jen Brister, Richard Herring and me. So should be fun. 2) I know I haven’t put a video on the Patreon site yet but I bloody well will do soon. Until then huge thanks to the few people who’ve sponsored: Chris, Nick, Mickey and Sera-Marie, you are all bloody champions. If the rest of you would like to help with my online gambling and crack addiction. Sorry, I mean, help sponsor this podcast so I can do more with it, then head to Patreon.com/parpolbro. And lastly 3) I realise I never plug my own mailing list, but my November one will go out next week and has all the gigs and other bits and pieces on it, so if you’d like to sign up to that head to tiernandouieb.co.uk and fill in the mailing list link at the bottom of the page and a bit of my should arrive in your inbox next week. That’s sounds a bit wrong doesn’t it?

Oh also I saw I, Daniel Blake on Saturday. It is a moving and powerful film and I’d highly recommend it. It really portrays just how bleak the UK benefits system is and why the UN wrote a whole report on how our government were breaching the human rights code with the way it treated people with disabilities and illnesses. You remember that report right? The one no one paid attention to because everything else was broken? Anyway, go see it, its great. Also the lead Dave Johns is superb in it, and that particularly pleases me because he’s one hell of an amazing stand-up comedian and many years ago hosted the show at the Comedy Store when I did my first proper 5 minute spot. That night I received one of the worst heckles I’ve still ever got to this day and when I left the stage he came on and absolutely destroyed the woman that shouted it at me and I’ll never forget how brilliant that was, so I’m super pleased he’s now in Palme D’or winning films that pack a solid punch on societal commentary.

This week’s show is guestless. Due to timing muck ups and me recording this early on Saturday as I’m in Wales on Monday, there just wasn’t time to get someone on board. So, it’s a shorter show and all me this week. If that sounds horrific, well ha! I’ve already made you hear the new shit reviews jingle, but yes sorry, there will be interviews again next week so see this week as a sort of catch up to tide you over for a few days. Until then there is, as always, more Brexit fallout, some US election shitstorm updates, and some chat about CETA the TTIP of Canada. But before all that, first some things you may have missed:

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:

Alan Turing was a famous mathematician who helped win World War 2 and was thanked by the UK for doing this, with a prosecution for homosexual acts in 1952 and a chemical castration, before dying of cyanide poising in 1954. Yeah that’s not quite the Military Cross is it? The Turing Bill, named after him and rejected in Parliament this week, aimed to pardon all men living with UK convictions for same-sex offences before the law was changed because it was stupid and discriminatory. It would have set aside 50000 convictions, 15k of which are for men who are still alive today and still carry a criminal record just for being gay. But it was talked out in Parliament by Conservative MP for East Surrey Sam Gyimah, who despite tweeting earlier in the day that he supported the intentions of the bill, thought on the day it’d be better to filibuster the whole thing. Yes, you can still filibuster a private member’s bill by just talking endlessly until the debate time is up which yes, does make me think I should be an MP as I could totally ruin so many government bills but also, SERIOUSLY WHAT YEAR IS THIS?
So what’s the story homophobic Tory?
Well while on first accounts it seems like Sam Gymiah is just trying to get a quick boost up the Tory ladder by stomping on more human rights in the way Theresa May loves so much, it is that, but also, it’s a number of other reasons too. Firstly the Turing Bill was proposed by John Nicolson an SNP MP, and the government have their own proposed amendment to the Policing and Crimes Bill which was announced last Thursday, to pardon those were convicted who have since died. So they didn’t want to allow the first SNP bill to pass that would also outdo their similar bill. Only the government’s bill doesn’t pardon those who are still living as they say it could lead to some people being cleared of convictions that are still crimes, because they know just how bad the cuts they’ve made to the legal sector are, and they’re fully aware it could mean an zero hours intern just chucking out all the records instead. The argument is, those who’ve been convicted for say, sex with someone underage or other serious crimes would now go free, but the Turing Bill’s clause 1 stated that wouldn’t be the case. And really if the government were serious about dealing with crimes like that, wouldn’t they be making sure the CSA Inquiry was actually being run properly? So ultimately, less Sam Gyimah being some sort of vigilante who bores for justice, more that this government only sees people as human once they’ve died. This must be why they let David Davies talk a lot.

IP Bill

Speaking of Human Rights, remember the Investigatory Powers Bill that I interviewed Paul Bernal about waaay back in Episode 12 where we discussed how it’d not actually help stop terrorist attacks and instead it’d just infringe on everyone’s privacy and make internet companies struggle to provide a decent and cost effective service? Well guess what? This week, just hours after the investigatory powers tribunal said that MI5, MI6 and GCHQ had illegally collected data since 2015 without proper safeguards, Labour peers voted with Conservative ones to give new powers to all of those sorts of places so they do all that without being illegal. So now they can get all of your data for the past 12 months, even though the government suggested it should be only 6 months. I guess most of the Lords are so old they still don’t know what the internet is, or are so rich they have someone else search it for them. The Investigatory Powers Bill isn’t fully passed yet, with a third reading in the Lords on October 31st which seems apt considering how horrifying it is and look, worst comes to worst, if this all goes through, I suggest we all write to the Home Office asking if they can let us know what that great web comic, or article or hey, porn site you looked at earlier in the year was because your browser history can’t find it and eventually I reckon they’ll have to reverse it.

PENSIONS U-TURN

The treasury has made a u-turn on allowing pensioners to collect all their existing annuities as a fat cash sum, saying that it’s too risky. They say its because the current market means those cashing in annuities won’t get a decent deal or protection which is a shame as I really liked the idea of tons of people in their 60’s all helping the economy by splashing out on fresh out of the box Adidas and Playstation VR sets. Previous surveys say many pensioners annuities receive such small weekly incomes that they can’t do anything with them, so many will now be disappointed in government u-turn number 678 or something. Still I guess all those who wanted this probably voted Conservative in 2015 and may not be around to vote for them again in 2020, so what do the government care? And if they do pass away before they protest, I’m sure based on the rest of their behaviour this week that the government will endeavour to listen and honour their views once they’re dead. I’ve only just realised, is this all some sort of Halloween themed set of policies? Do you think they’ll finally reveal Peter Bone and Michael Howard are vampires? Will they relocate Parliament to the Hellmouth? I don’t know about you but I might spend October 31st dressed up as an adult refugee and that way I know I won’t be in danger from any of them as they’ll definitely just leave me alone and ignore me.

BREXIT FALLOUT

There we all were wondering if we fancied a hard brexit which is much harder to swallow or a soft brexit that is quite light and makes movement afterwards easy and it turns out, Theresa May really just wants a smooth brexit. Yes, a smooth brexit. So does that means any attempts to buffer a disastrous outcome will slip right off it? Or that it’ll generally be more prone to infection but on the surface it’ll seem clean? Or like smooth jazz it’ll just be boring and shit and something that there’s never an appropriate time for?
No matter how waxed this Brexit is, it definitely won’t be smooth for some who clearly will be on the part where they missed a bit. Theresa May has stated that foreign students won’t be made exempt from the overall immigration figures as the International Passenger Survey said over 90,000 stay in the UK after their studies. However many other surveys show this is inaccurate and actually barely 1% of international students stay, and most bugger off after their studies as now they can go home and drink everyone under the table so what else do they need in life? Public opinion on international students is high with recent ComRes polls saying 75% of the public think the numbers should be the same or higher and foreign students bring in about £8bn to the economy. Also take into account non-economic benefits such as 55 world leaders having been educated at British universities. It’d be pretty useful for a country that’s about to need to make new trade deals with most of the globe that we can say ‘hey remember when we strawpedeo’d then threw up in the union when that Craig David tribute act was playing?’ before negotiating some sweet sweet sums. Also you take foreign students out of the ‘immigration’ equation and guess what? Net migration is instantly down a bunch. So why does May want to ensure we cut how many people come to the UK to study? The only reason I can think of is that it reduces the amount of intelligent people who’ll be returning home to their countries blabbing on about how much of a fuck up the UK prime minister is making of Brexit.

MPs also voted against a motion protecting the right of EU nationals to live and work in the UK after we Brexit. 293 votes against 250 meant the bill was rejected just to make Europeans currently living here really welcome. Conservative minister for immigration said it was because the bill didn’t also cover the rights of UK citizens in the EU, which is a reasonable excuse but then why not put forward an alternative bill that does? Or is it because yet again it’s an SNP bill and like the Turing Bill I’m pretty sure outdated Westminster think if they let the Scottish party push anything through, then where will it escalate too? Will they start turning up to parliament wearing blue face paint and shouting about their freedom?

And for people of Gibraltar, a smooth Brexit isn’t much comfort for an island that voted 96% to remain, and now has Spain talking about Brexit being it’s best chance to take the country back. The Rock, so called because Spain and the UK are regularly grappling with each other about it, has an economy that is based on nearly half of it’s workforce having free movement between there, Europe and the UK. Now the islanders want to have British rule, because they clearly don’t think about it much being that far away, but Spain are talking about joint rule to allow free movement or may even want to take it back entirely in exchange for decent trade deals for the City of London and the UK. It seems the Rock is between itself and a very hard place.

Oh and the last thing that may not get a good deal from a smooth Brexit is the CETA, or the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement which is like Canada’s version of the dreaded TTIP. I presume it’s exactly the same in reducing workers rights and allowing big businesses to shit all over people, but it’s polite while doing it and says sorry at the end. The European President and template for fuzzy face magnets Martin Schulz is pushing to get it signed off as it’d eliminate 98% of tariffs between the EU and Canada, while you know, allowing corporations to sue countries and ruin everything at the same time. The Wallonia region of Belgium is against it, and Belgium can’t sign off on it till all their states do so there is still a chance CETA could just be SEE YA. And of course, Brexit might mean that the UK is exempt unless our government signs their own rights depleting deal which they definitely wouldn’t do right? I mean, based on their record they wouldn’t right? Right?

Meanwhile back on our shores, Hilary Benn, a man who took rebelling against his parents just a bit too far, has been made chair of a cross party backbench Brexit committee. The committee will be shadowing the work, or more likely lack of work of David Davis’s department. No not that one that hates refugees, the other one that hates European immigrants. Benn says he’ll use his new position to scrutinise the government and provide some certainty on their plans, though judging by his last spell in Parliament he’ll probably just try to bomb them and then get Jeremy Corbyn fired when it doesn’t work.

Oh and Germany now call Brexit Der Brexit, and France call it Le Brexit, meaning they’ve decided it’s masculine. Probably because it won’t stop trying to fuck everything.

US ELECTION

Just a quick bit on this before I end this week’s show. It was the third and final presidential debate in a US election that’s making the new episodes of Black Mirror seem like a hopeful outcome at best. Now there’s been a lot of coverage on how awful it was once again with Trump saying this like Hilary’s stance on pro-choice would mean doctors could rip a baby out of the womb just a few days before the due date. Yes, Trump clearly doesn’t understand what a Cesearean is, or how babies work which is odd for someone who mimics so much of their behaviour. Hillary did play him at his own game by interrupting the Donald and slamming him on his use of Chinese Steel for his hotels and calling him a puppet of Putin, which would explain many of Trump’s weird hand gestures.

Wikileaks have now revealed 26,803 emails from Hillary’s campaign manager John Podesta, which while they don’t show anything illegal as Trump would suggest, or particularly damning they do show the cold business mind of the Clinton Campaign. But Hillary has a 12 point lead in the Presidential polls because a cold business mind is still preferable to an overwarm mostly melted mind that is oozing out of Trump’s ears onto his gropey gropey hands. So it looks like Hillary will win and America will be thrust back into it’s neo-liberal bliss that it’s been in since Reagan. But that isn’t that worrying. Well not as worrying as Donald Trump saying that he will only accept the results of the election if he wins which is the sort of statement that entirely undermines democracy and the vote and may cause a lot of people to react angrily and protest if it doesn’t go his way. Which is won’t. And a lot of those angry idiots have guns.

The only way I can think to stop this is to create a ton of other awards such as ‘biggest bellend’, ‘massivest baby man’ and so on and announce Trump as the winner, meaning he’ll have to accept them. Ok, it wouldn’t stop possible turmoil in the USA, but at least it’d give everyone a bit of a laugh before we all have to watch The Purge for research.

END

And that is the end of this week’s mini-episode of all me. Don’t forget to review the show on iTunes or I will play that and possibly the other crappy jingle again, and drop me a line @parpolbro on Twitter, parpolbro group on FB or partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com about suggestions for the shows, things you liked, things you hated, why a jar of honey is always sticky on the outside even before you’ve opened it, why wombats poops are cubed, I mean, anything like that. This show will be back next week with an interviewee I promise! Until then keep spreading the word about the podcast and hear you in a week. I mean, I won’t. You’ll only hear me. It’s one of the bits I like most about podcasting. I mean, I have no idea what you’re doing while listening.
This week’s show is brought to you by the numbers £10.5bn which is the Conservative Government’s way of saying £4.5bn and a letter from Gibraltar saying that they miss Spain.

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