Further Reading

Transcript

EP36

Hello and welcome to episode 36 of the Partly Political Broadcast or, as I’m recording this on Halloween, the Partly Political Broadcast but with a ghost in it. By the time you hear this, it’ll no longer be Halloween so the ghost will probably be gone, but let me tell you, until I put the heating on, I definitely felt a chill down my spine. And my face. And well, everywhere. Central heating is great. I’m Tiernan Douieb and personally I feel like Halloween this year had one hell of a tough job considering at any point during the year so far you could have watched the news and witnessed the sheer horror of everything. I mean what’s your favourite horror film? I mean we are now at a stage where most people would welcome Michael Myers or the Blair Witch in with open arms, saying ‘thank fuck you’re here, now I don’t have to witness the US Presidential election’. I wonder if Guy Fawkes night is going to be a more mournful affair where instead of lighting billions of fireworks across the UK, we’ll all just hold a small candle and feel sad about the failed attempt to blow up Parliament. At least rebuilding from scratch it in 1605 would’ve been a lot cheaper than the current repair bill. Guy Fawkes wasn’t a terrorist, he was just an efficient economist. Sorry, I mean of course he wasn’t a terrorist, he was white.

So this past week has, as per usual, conjured up hideous things that even John Carpenter would baulk it. There have been calls for Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, to resign from his post, on account of saying that the economy will be shit thanks to Brexit. Because of course if he’d said everything was smelling of roses and then it turned out that Roses was an actually a 108 year old that passed away 12 years ago, I can’t imagine people would think he was doing his job properly either. The Chancellor Phillip Hammond has also been warned by some Conservative MPs not to warn of a collapse of economic growth and doom and gloom in his Autumn statement because it seems that while some of us like the escapism of say superhero films or Game of Thrones, hardened Brexiteers prefer just to lie to themselves until everything goes away or they die. Of course the office of national statistics say the UK economy grew 0.5% from July to September, which is, yes, after the referendum result and higher than the 0.3% rate that was predicted. However it’s also less than the 0.7% that the previous quarter had and the growth only seems to be in the services sector and the UK film industry. So yes, us who are terrified of the reality of the uncertain future went to watch films that distracted us from it and ultimately helped convince those who chose to swallow the very blue pill that actually it’s all sunshine and lollipops. Just not Chupa Chups as they’re from Spain.

Because much like the trolls who demean people’s stories on social media by just replying with ‘that didn’t happen’, it seems that the grown up way of ensuring that a hard Brexit is the correct thing to do is to close your eyes, put your fingers in your ears and sing lalalalalala until everyone else has got so exhausted with trying to tell you otherwise they just go along with your version of things while the world sinks around you. It’s like never revealing to your children that Father Christmas isn’t real then years down the line, in their adult lives they deal with years of years of empty stockings, now filthy and full of holes, by convincing themselves they keep getting invisible gifts and play with them in the park while people point and laugh. Now of course, I am being harsh, as we don’t really know if Brexit will be as bad for the economy as first predicted but that’s because we still don’t know anything about it at all, but more on that later. What we do know is that the Bank Of England’s fast actions of some quantitative easing and a cut of interest rates probably stopped the growth of the UK economy from being any lower. So thanks Mark Carney, not only for that, but for the wonderful irony of it all being down to an immigrant to save many people’s jobs. Carney has said he’ll step down in 2019, which sounds like he’s done the correct math to work out the best timing to avoid having to deal with any of the Brexit fallout whatsoever.

Meanwhile man who for best Halloween results should dress up as himself, Iain Duncan Smith, now somehow both on the backbench and yet also up in everyone’s grill, said that Ken Loach’s critically acclaimed film ‘I, Daniel Blake’ was unfair in it’s portrayal of people on welfare. As I said last week I saw the film and thought it was brilliant, if upsetting, but it does seem odd that the key figure in causing grief for those claiming benefits from 2010-2016 is the person who doesn’t agree with it. In fact, angry thumb Iain Duncan Smith said he didn’t believe people went through difficulties like that, which is interesting as I didn’t believe people could be quite so ignorant and bigoted as Iain Duncan Smith is, but evidence keeps proving me wrong. Second in line for idiot comment of the week was Conservative MP Glyn Davies who tweeted that he never thought of academics as experts, as they have no experience of the real world. Which is a) a stupid thing to say and b) strange as he became an academic at 50, doing a diploma in international law and politics at Aberystwyth Uni after having spent the entire rest of his life on a farm. Hmmm. As a side note, Davies was re-elected as MP for Montgomryshire with 45% of the vote, one of the votes for him being a drawing of a cock in the box next to his name which was counted as valid. I think that says it all.

So here we are episode 36 and there you are still listening, so thanks tons for that. Welcome listeners new and old to my voice returned to its full capacity, and I now expect many of you to write in and say you preferred it when my scorched vocal chords made the whole show sound more jazzy and I’ll have to go away and gargle whisky before each show. Which to be fair, would make some of the week’s news more bearable. It seems last week’s new jingle asking you to review the show on iTunes didn’t work and so, new tactics will be tried. Such as this, and I’m not sorry in advance:

NEW REVIEW THE SHOW JINGLE

So yeah, please do go and review the show on iTunes and I promise never to try being Zach De La Rocha again. Also, let’s be honest, I’m running out of things that rhyme with ‘review the show’. Couple of quick admin points this week before we crack on, first, still some tickets left to the show I’ve helped organise for Help Refugees at Conway Hall in London next week on November 8th with Frankie Boyle, Sara Pascoe and more. In fact as I record this, there are just 37 tickets left, so if you want to come, head to stand-up-for-refugees.eventbrite.co.uk asap. If you’re not in London we are planning more fundraising shows for Manchester and Glasgow in 2017 so I’ll keep you posted on those too. And if you’re in Bristol, I’m at The Cube on November 5th doing some US election based stand-up before a screening of Idiocracy, a 2006 film about two people who hibernate for 500 years and wake up and the world is, well, very similar to now. Its meant to be a comedy but I worry it might be a tad depressing. Still, come along if you can. You can get tickets from cubecinema.com and Fin Taylor is on too and he’s very very good. And don’t forget you can sponsor me to make this show via the Patreon at patreon.com/ParPolBro which, while I’ve still not done anything with, I will soon. But you know, it’d be nice to do something with it for more of you. So if you even want to give me a £1 a month that’d help a lot and allow me to spend more time making jingles that you love to hate. Or hate to love. Or just hate.

Right, this week’s show has an interview with comedian and US political commentator Erich McElroy on all the farcical mess that is the US election, I’ll be talking Heathrow and yes, there is more Brexit fallout. I mean, do I need to even say it anymore? It’ll almost certainly be a fixture every week until 2030 won’t it? At the earliest. Or we could just join them and I’ll spend 3 mins every show putting my fingers in my ears doing this. Lalalaalalalalaalalalalalalalalaalalalala

THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

A Labour demand for the UK to withdraw support for the Saudi led coalition war in the Yemen civil failed because, well, Labour didn’t support it. It was defeated by 293 votes to 193 as over 100 Labour MPs didn’t bother to vote, preferring instead to stoke not only the Yemen civil war but also their own, obviously as important, party one. I mean I don’t know about you, but a really clever way of trying to beat a leader you don’t like, is to condemn many Yemeni civilians to horrific war crimes carried out by Saudi forces uses British weapons. Saudi planes have, among other atrocities, bombed a funeral in Yemen, killing 140 and wouding many others, and Saudi’s only internal inquiries into the event have been pretty slow. I mean, you’d have got quicker results asking a 5 year old with cookie crumbs around their mouth to conduct a solo investigation into who ate the last biscuit. Boris Johnson’s opposition to Labour’s call for withdrawal was that if Britain don’t supply the weapons, another country with even less care for human rights might and god forbid someone steals the Tories’ fun by getting to earn money from causing suffering. The all party select committee on arms export controls say that the civilian casualties count as a breach of humanitarian law and that the UK government should pause arms sales until a proper UN investigation can be carried out. But there’s no sign this will happen, and that’s in big part thanks to the 100 Labour MPs who didn’t bother voting. John Woodcock, the MP for Barrow and Furness, said he abstained as he felt the last thing the Middle East needs is more gesture politics from the comfort of British dining tables. Because you know, its far better for the people at those dining tables to be eating with one hand and selling weapons on their iPad with the other eh John? I mean, what do I know. All that supporting war stuff did great for Labour’s electability last time didn’t it? Oh. Oh dear.

Loads of bills have been discussed in Parliament these past two weeks, so here’s a quick run down of some of them:

The Homelessness Reduction Bill is a bill that calls for local councils to refer homeless people to the council’s housing teams and gives them support for 56 days, after which I’m not sure what happens, but hey, a target has been met, so you know. I’m being mean as it is a good bill, especially as you’d normally expect the government to aim to reduce homelessness by just changing what the term homelessness means. So yes, it is good and action on homelessness needs to happen quickly, because it is a big issue, pun not intended, so it’s good that this was passed through stage one without opposition. But even if this goes through and passes as a bill, it’s just a small step and the government need to look at preventing homelessness in the first place otherwise it’s just reactive, not proactive. And with a lack of accommodation and growing numbers of homeless people, there might too many people still needing help on their 57th day. More updates and a more indepth look into this soon.

The Medical Supplies Bill is going to committee stage after an unopposed second reading. This bill aims to reduce in the constant inflation in costs of medicine, something that has added £15.2bn to the NHS England budget just since 2010. The bill was proposed by Jeremy Hunt who usually suggests things for the NHS that sound like he’s taken far too many pills, but even he expressed anger at one product having a 12000% increase in the last 8 years. Big pharma companies charging the earth means the NHS can’t afford to give some patients the medicine they need particularly in areas such as cancer of Hepatitis C so again, this is pretty urgent. I just hope, what with laughter being the best medicine, they don’t try and regulate my sweet sweet gags or I’ll have to start paying you to listen to this. What do you mean I should already? Yeeesh.

And the criminal finances bill is the government’s attempt to tackle money laundering, mainly I think, because those new plastic fivers melt on a 40 degree wash. Actually the bill aims to stop the UK’s role as a safe haven for corrupt deals on property and assets, which are often done using money from tax avoidance or stolen from health budgets from developing countries. Yes, those luxury flats are even more loathsome than you once thought, and it was bad enough when they just cost millions and had names like Royal Waterside that sound like a euphemism for the Queen’s bits. The bill proposes introducing Unexplained Wealth Orders which would be used by law enforcement agencies and would require anyone suspected of dodgy dealings to explain where the money came from or face legal action. So yes, also a good thing, though I swear I found that very washed fiver in an old jeans pocket and I have no idea how it got there.

And in the race to the bottom that is the UKIP leadership election, a man who described himself as ‘the Faragest’ candidate Raheem Kassam has pulled out of the race. Editor of Breibart News, the website for scared male emo virgins to glean how the world works through the medium of angry wanking words onto a page, Kassam has got a history for making homophobic, sexist and aggressively nasty statements on his social media so it’s probably a shame to many UKIP supporters that he’s dropped out of being head of Slapstick Hydra. Still I guess he was definitely the most Faragest candidate as he consistently lowered the tone and has now run away before having to take any responsibility over it.

INTERVIEW PART 1

At the time of recording there is just 8 days to the US Presidential election, after which, America will either have a war hungry, money obsessed, neo-liberal POTUS or one who could be left in an empty, windowless room by himself and still manage to break something. This week I spoke to very funny comedian and US political commentator Erich McElroy. Erich is now based in the UK and has recently been seen giving info on the upcoming presidential shitstorm everywhere from BBC Breakfast to whatever the one on ITV is with Piers fucking Morgan that I refuse to watch. So I thought it’d be good to get his thoughts with just over a week to go till the end of all days. We spoke on Saturday morning so the full extent of the Weiner emails had only just arrived in the news, if there is any extent of them at all. It does just sound very much like the FBI are having to wade through former Congressman Anthony Weiner’s dick pics, though by the sounds of it, he’d probably enjoy that thought. However, while it seems like the emails in question might not have anything at all to do with Hillary, they have given Trump a boost in the polls, and it looks like James Comey, the Director of the FBI may be in breach of the law by having revealed they were in possession of them this close to the election anyway. Oh and an investigation by Newsweek has discovered that over decades Donald Trump’s companies have deleted thousands of emails, often defying court orders but you know, no-one’s surprised by this because the only way Trump would really surprise us all now is if he gave up running in the election and it turned out ‘Bigly’ was actually the name of an abused puppy he adopted.

So yes, as this presidential race keeps rapidly escalating downwards our chat may be a tad out of date already, but Erich is a great at explaining just what on earth is going on.

So, here’s Erich…..

INTERVIEW

We’ll be back with Erich in a minute, but first…..

HEATHROW

If you’ve ever been to Heathrow airport and waited in a stupidly long queue to get your passport checked or through security then wandered around the departure lounge wondering why the people in the seats never seem to have a flight to catch, or do they infact just live there so you’re stuck looking at giant Toblerone wondering if they’re safe to take on flights after you really hurt the roof of your mouth biting one once, then you’ll know what that airport really needs is another runway to allow even more flights to land and take off from there and even more congestion between you and escaping this bloody country. Also if you’ve ever wandered through the 260 acres of reclaimed land that is Harmondsworth Moor, looking at the lush green grass, rivers, lakes and ponds, feeling all calm, you’ll probably have thought, what’d make this great would be a whacking great runway in the middle of it so planes can land on all of it and it would all die. And if you’ve ever breathed London air, I’m sure you’ve thought, if only there was some way to make this taste even more like things have died in my mouth. There you go, a third runway puh-lease!

So it makes total sense that the British government, like Sauroman in Lord of the Rings pulling down the trees for his new evil tower, has announced it’s support for a new runway at Heathrow saying that it’ll improve global connectivity, jobs and business opportunities, you know, for all those people they keep saying they don’t want coming here. Chris Grayling, the transport secretary and functioning cadaver, says it’ll bring £61bn to the economy over 60 years, so, just over £1bn a year then, 77,000 jobs by 2030, bringing lots of work to the UK steel industry – a factor hailed by unions – and an extra 16 million long haul passenger seats by 2040 if everyone hasn’t already left by then anyway. But it isn’t just that simple because there is a lot of opposition to a 3rd runway, coming from all sorts of people, including the 2009 edition of Theresa May who told her constituents in Maidenhead, an area that would be affected by it, that should would fight a third runway due to it’s detrimental impact. Something that the 2016 edition Prime Minister Theresa May seems to have had removed in the updates.

Part of David Cameron’s key pitch when running for Prime Minister in 2010 was ‘no ifs, not buts, no third runway’ a slogan that proves not only was he shit at keeping promises but also rhyming things. Boris Johnson has said he’ll lie down in front of bulldozers to stop it from happening, which I wouldn’t put it past him as he’s lied in many different other places to get what he wants. And there is also opposition from Zac Goldsmith, the MP for Richmond who you might remember from his failed racist mayoral campaign. He’s so adamantly against a third runway that he’s stepped down as a Conservative MP, causing a bi-election, and will be re-running as an independent candidate for the area, so he can oppose the plans. That’s right, he’s siding with protestors against the government, so I guess you could say he’ll be sharing a platform with extremists. The man who won the London Mayoral election is against it too, as are many residents including around 4000 who are due to lose their home under current proposals. Though they will receive the full value of their home plus extra to help them deal with having their home smashed so RyanAir can play their shitty jingle to say they were only 4 hours late to the 12 stag dos on board coming home from Shagaluf, as the wheels smash into the tarmac covered remnants of precious family memories.

Then you have the chief executive of British Airways, Heathrow’s biggest customer, who doesn’t want the runway funded by airlines, even though the government say it definitely won’t be funded by public money either. So hopefully that magic money tree isn’t growing on the proposed demolition path eh? And actually even if the airport isn’t funded by taxpayer money, roads railways and tube expansion will be needed, which will be paid for by…you guessed it! YOU! Well not you specifically dear listener. I mean all of us. Otherwise if it is just you by yourself you’re in for few really shitty bankrupt years and you should definitely get protesting about it. Then you have those who think the runway should’ve gone to Gatwick, where the airport has said it will definitely stump up the costs and there is more land nearby that could be used while causing less damage. But apparently Gatwick does mostly short haul European flights and is orientated towards tourism so Heathrow is a better choice because the Airports commission don’t seem to realise despite them having terminals, airports can change you know?

But the big one is the damage a third runway will cause to the environment and you have to wonder if the decision of where best to put a new runway, should have actually been, should we have a new runway near London or in the UK at all? World CO2 emissions breached 400 parts per million in 2015. That’s 400 molecules of CO2 for every one million molecules in the atmosphere which is pretty much ‘oh dear the world is burning’ territory and it may take many years to lower that. You know what won’t help? That’s right, a 50% increase in air travel in the UK with loads more planes spewing out carbon like polluting bile, meaning Britain definitely won’t meet the Paris Agreement, once again assuming we can do what we want when it comes to things agreed in Europe. Not only do planes affect air pollution which can cause asthma, bronchitis and emphysema, but studies also show that all the noise pollution of those magic giant metal birds screaming over your gaff every day can cause increased risks of heart disease and strokes. Yeah, weird that going on holiday can reduce stress but someone else doing it over your head increases it. The strangest thing is that HACAN, a campaign group for people who live under Heathrow’s flight paths, found a few years ago that a quarter of flights from Heathrow are domestic, with the government now planning to add 6 more regional locations with the expansion. You know what you could do instead? That’s right, travel there using so many other methods. Train, car, bicycle, even a donkey! I doubt the people of Harmondsworth would be half as bothered by braying and hee hawing as they are flight noise, nor would donkeys travelling through town mean you’d have to have your house knocked down. Admittedly, you get enough donkeys and don’t feed them well, then CO2 emissions may still be high. And I doubt the government would be encouraged to go along with the plan when it’d make asses of their business ideals. HA! NO I’M NOT SORRY.

So there will be political and legal challenges against this, and protests for many years to come. Some experts say that advances in technology mean it won’t create the jobs the government promise it will, and costs will likely raise especially depending on what happens wit Brexit. So if the Heathrow runway is going to happen at all, it’s going to take a very long time to get off the ground, which considering what it’s meant to do, means it a pretty useless runway indeed.

And now, back to Erich….

INTERVIEW PART 2

Thanks to Erich for chatting with me. You can find Erich on his website www.erichmcelroy.com or on Twitter @erichmcelroy and you can see him live at various comedy clubs over the next few months. I’ll be leaving the subject of the US elections alone next week as obviously, the next episode will arrive on the morning of the vote meaning unless Trump is suffocated by his own wig in it’s one act to save humanity, I couldn’t really predict the outcome. So next week is something different, then the week after, I’ll have another guest discussing the aftermath, if we’re all still alive by then.

If you have any people you’d like me to interview in particular or subjects you’d like me to find someone to talk to about, please do let me know @parpolbro on twitter, the FB parpolbro group or partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com

PPB QUESTION OF THE WEEK

Depending on when you listen to this, it was Halloween at some point in your past and will be again at some point in your future, unless President Trump bans it because he’s scared that all the people in costumes are real ghouls and that he’ll be surrounded by disappointed zombies who are looking for brains. On the Halloween theme, I asked you, the people, what Halloween costumes political types should have worn for their Samhein celebrations:

‪@gaiacaecilia ‬Peter Mandelson – Vampire, coz he seems to keep coming back from the political dead, amongst other reasons.‬
Definitely fucking draining.

‪@fancywookiee ‬
Zombie Thatcher.‬
‏‪@fancywookiee‬ ‬the ghost of Donald Trump’s toupé.‬

‪@Jason_Spacey ‬
@ParPolBro (Pic of Farage post crash) Braaaiiins!‬

Used to playing to the undead mindless hordes.

‪@rainy101 ‬‪Oct 29‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro Gove, Hunt & Johnson. Interchangeable as none of them have brains, hearts or courage.‬ (TIN MAN, LION, SCARECROW)

The thing is, there are so many contenders for the sham that is the Wizard of Oz.

‪@Vixie_75 ‬‪Oct 29‬
‪Reading, England‬‬
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ @Jason_Spacey not a costume, but still the most terrifying pumpkin ever…‬ (TORY MAJORITY ON A PUMPKIN) ‬

‪@al_vimh ‬‪Oct 29‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro George Osborne is just a labcoat and bottle of red hair dye away from being Beaker anyway.‬

Wasn’t that Danny Alexander?

‪@kendersrule ‬‪Oct 29‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro Jack the Pumpkin President of America‬

‪Sam Phillips /react-text ‬‪react-text: 192 /react-text Trump.‬‬

‪No mask. No costume.‬‬

‪Just Trump.‬‬

‪Matt Hoss /react-text ‬‪react-text: 152 /react-text Instead of the Headless Horseman, Putin could be the Shirtless horseman.‬‬

‪@lifecyclista ‬‪Oct 29‬
‪Birkenhead, England‬‬
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ My husbands last minute costume of last year. General Vampiric #Tory‬‬

‪@BrendonHope ‬‪Oct 30‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro Jeremy Corbyn – John The Baptist‬ – the jewish preacher bit might be problematic.

‪Rebecca Zaidee Gamble /react-text ‬‪react-text: 51 /react-text all I can think of is corbyn as dobby the house elf…and I like corbyn, but sure he wouldnt mind being cast as a freed oppressed worker .. generally the tory part y have most of everything else covered x‬‬

‪@GG70882020 ‬‪Oct 30‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro Boris Johnson The Blob. Theresa May being piggy backed by Boris Johnson. On The Blob.‬

‪EthanDLawrence ‬‪Oct 30‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro Glyn Davies as a doctor since, as an academic, they are from another reality.‬

‪@blue_wooster ‬‪Oct 29‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro @Jason_Spacey Michael Gove as a gaping wound. No make up required.‬

‪@AlKayeAlKaye ‬‪Oct 29‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro Surely this Chucky impression is enough?!‬

‪@RealNeilTurner ‬‪Oct 29‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro Jeremy Hunt with the shower costume that Karate Kid had but when you open it he’s the Alan Partridge vampire with drill bit claws‬

‪@foxacheUK ‬‪Oct 29‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro Clowns. The lot of ’em.‬

BREXIT FALLOUT

There used to be a radio advert for Nissan that had a really annoying American woman, who I think was meant to sound like the character in Singin’ In The Rain who can’t sing, and she would say ‘You can can with a Nissan.’ Well it seems that tagline was right as the carmakers say they will be building two new models of vehicle in Sunderland after the government gave them ‘support and assurances’ about the future of post Brexit Britain. Yes, that does sound sinister doesn’t it? ‘Support and assurances’ as though whispered by mister Burns as he rubs his hands together and redraws a map of the EU that somehow still has Sunderland in it, after drilling around it and pushing it into the sea. Greg Clark the business secretary refuses to say what was in his letter to Nissan, presumably because it was made from different letters from newspapers cut out and stuck together, but he does say that he told Nissan the UK would be seeking trade that was ‘free and unencumbered by impediments’. So, I can only guess that they’ll be doing the old trick of over using the word ‘Great’ and suddenly announcing that we’ll be staying in the ‘Great Single Market’. Or if the government really are seeking a tariff free EU deal for carmakers, then why won’t they seek that for any other businesses, or just stick with the single market and what are they smoking and can we all have some?

In the meantime Labour have decided to tackle the government’s lack of solid Brexit plans with their own lack of solid Brexit plans, proving that they too, can be just as useless. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell made a speech in London where as well as saying Breakfast instead of Brexit three times, which is an easy mistake to make when you realise the whole means Britain’s economy is fried – he also said Labour would prevent the Tories from delivering a Brexit that only cared about bankers and not manufacturing. His plan for doing this was to give all businesses access to the single market. You know, like they do in the single market already which McDonnell opposes. So basically they aren’t saying ‘stay in the single market’ they’re just saying ‘we should leave the single market but all our businesses should stay in the single market which is the bit that was the important bit for the single market anyway.’ Great. And I’ll give up eating cakes except for all the tasty ones that I like eating. Then McDonnell said that while they supported free movement, something must be done about the effect of immigration on low wages, which as I’ve mentioned SO MANY TIMES on this podcast, several studies show there aren’t any. So pro-freedom of movement, but also single market but not, which is fine with me, but how does that appeal to the population who voted for Brexit on the basis of not really wanting any of those things? Essentially you wonder if McDonnell could’ve stood at the podium, shrugged a lot, said ‘I dunno’ under his breath a few times and left and it’d have made as much sense.

Meanwhile over in the Europe, the EU have signed the CETA deal with Canada which means if you were pro-Brexit because of businesses trade deals you’ll be annoyed, but if you were pro-Brexit because of avoiding things like that you’ll be pleased, but if you were pro-Remain because of deals like that you’ll be annoyed, and if you were pro-Remain to avoid things like that you’ll be pleased. Either way, its not clear if the UK will get their own similar deal with Canada and it’s only a matter of time before the Chicken Farmers of Canada use the deal to sue Slovenia because it looks like a chicken on maps which undermines their industry.

END

That’s the end of this week’s podcast. Thanks as always for listening and don’t forget you can drop me a line via @parpolbro on Twitter, parpolbro on Facebook and partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com with all show related thoughts. Not even just this show, I mean, any show. I just went to see Dr Strange and no spoilers but aside from Cenedict Bumbersnatch’s terrible accent I thought the bit where he’s a training junior doctor strange and has to work 7 hour weeks on reduced pay is tough viewing. Odd that he can’t use his magic powers to create more beds and staff. Anyway, yes, drop me a line. Also if you like podcasts, which I presume you do otherwise what are you doing listening to this? What do you mean you didn’t know this was a podcast? How are you listening to it? You’re smelling it? Oh. Oh weird. Anyway, I’m a guest on my brother The Last Skeptik’s Thanks For Trying Podcast this month along with rapper Heems and it’s a lot of fun. All the beats on this show are my brother’s work and as I forget to credit him for that on most shows the least you can do is listen to his podcast. Manners. Next week I won’t be discussing the US election at all because it’ll be so imminent anything I say will be out of date by the time it hits your ears, but don’t worry, I’m sure there’ll be something else to fill the time.

This week’s show was brought to you by only great numbers, why would you ever say there are bad numbers why do you hate democracy and freedom? And the letter lalalalalalaallalaalalalalalalal

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