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Transcript

Ep 43

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast episode 43. I’m Tiernan Douieb and much like the actor Michael Sheen I too have given up acting in order to take up activism, except I did it ages ago and that’s definitely why I haven’t got any of the castings I’ve had over the past two years. It was definitely because I’m too busy with activism. Definitely. Ahem.

So look, it’s only a few days till Wintervalmass EvedayFest and the world of politics is suitably slowing down in time for enforced hibernation with just a few teeny tiny stories and happenings to tide us over so we don’t get too bored in this magical Consumermass season. You know, little stories like prison riots in HMP Birmingham where inmates set fire to CCTV cameras, presumably to give prison guards their own festive version of Netflix’s fireplace in your home, or strikes in the train sector that no one noticed as they haven’t been running for a year anyway and strikes in the air flights sectors which I think is just a pilot scheme. Russian and Syrian Army forces driving out the rebels in Aleppo which they’ve hailed as a victory, but for who? They caused so many deaths and so much destruction it’s like saying shooting your dog to stop it having worms is victory. Meanwhile a Russian ambassador was shot dead in Turkey by a protestor angry at Russia’s involvement in Aleppo, because they obviously haven’t heard of online petitions and now everyone is talking about World War 3 which, if it happens, I hope at least has a really cool logo where the 3 looks like a W but on it’s side. And while I record this, there has been news of possible terrorist attacks in Zurich, Brussels and now Berlin because 2016 seems to be in competition with itself for shittiest day ever, and I’m concerned New Year’s Eve’s fireworks will be aliens firing laser cannons at us all until we all die and they hail a surviving cockroach as the new king of earth.

And here I was thinking I could do a quick, Christmassy show where we just do things like laugh about how Chris Grayling, the transport secretary hit an oncoming cyclist with his car door, which isn’t funny, but does prove that Grayling is such a shit transport secretary that even when opens his door to people who commute by bike it causes more harm than good. Or how sheep now outnumber people three to one in Wales which explains their Assembly voting results. Or how Nigel Farage wants to be the government’s bridge between the UK and the US, which would hopefully mean shitloads of vehicles would have to drive over him and his stupid face every day.

What could encapsulate this season of goodwill more than MP Philip Davies, a man who looks like someone put a tie on that picture of a dog sitting so it looks like a penis, being appointed to the parliamentary committee of women’s rights and equality? A man who is outwardly anti-feminist and last year gave a 93 minute filibustering speech to block hospital carers getting free parking at hospitals. How lovely to allow the rest of that committee to really know the enemy, by placing the lumpy grey sexist hurdles they have to jump right in amongst them for good practice. It is the season of giving after all and just last week Davies gave a 77 minute filibustering speech to block a law designed to help women who are victims of domestic violence. I mean there’s nothing like defending equality and women’s rights than speaking for so long no one other than a white man is heard in a parliamentary hearing right? Lowlights include him comparing domestic violence to street crime because he obviously hasn’t heard of walls and roofs and how they work, and that men also die and have funerals too in some sort of bizarre alldeathsmatter protest. Apparently Philip claimed that he was protesting against the bill in order to ratify a bill against all violence, presumably realising that an awful lot of people would love to beat the shit out of him if they see him. Which sadly would only add to his views that men are more likely to be victims of street crimes and possibly also prove that men have funerals too.

So there’s all that and sadly, I don’t have a lot of time to discuss much else this week as I am spending most of this week doing Christmas shows for children and hugely underestimated how bad Christmas traffic would be, but it seems everyone is very keen to give each other lung disease and air pollution for their secret santa. So today, I had planned to spend hours on the show, but instead spent hours in a car on the M25 with brilliant comedian Bec Hill as we tried to pass time thinking about how a baby might do an observational comedy set. Yes our lives really are that fun, yes a lot of it was a baby just saying ‘what’s that all about?’ because if you’re a baby, you genuinely don’t know what anything is about. Sooooo….today’s show is largely an interesting interview I had with Paul Anderson at Homeless Link and Noel who is from homeless link’s advisory panel of formerly homeless people, there’s also a tiny but of Brexit fallout as always, and then stick a fork in me, as I’m done and apart from a mini-episode some point over the hols, this show will be on a break till January 23rd. So sorry about the shorter episode this week, and thanks as always for listening to this podcast. I was thoroughly chuffed with a review last week from Miphead – which I hope is a nick name? Like a tiny mop head? Or men in pink head? Anyway, Miphead said nice things about the show and said they were willing to listen, despite the jingles. Thanks Miphead. This is just for you:

AWFUL JINGLE

Thanks Miphead for the lovely review
The nice words you said were very kind too
If other listeners are just like you
And maybe also hate these lovely tunes
Then perhaps they too,
should leave a revieeeewww toooooo.
Thank you.

You’re welcome.

Also don’t forget if you’d like to contribute to the podcast which might mean, in future, I can avoid having to shout at children on days when I should be recording and researching this show, then please head to patreon.com/parpolbro and drop me a few quids. And if you didn’t hear last week’s show, if you head to nextupcomedy.com before January 1st 2017 and enter the code parpolbro you get 25% off the very cheap subscription fees to watch tons of comedy shows, including mine. Or you could just buy my shows from tiernandouieb.vhx.tv instead. I know people say it’s the thought that counts, but really they mean what counts is what I think of you, and if you send cash my way by buying things I’ve done then I’ll think loads of you. More than I think of say, Neil Buchanen.

Right, let’s get straight into interesting chat with this week’s interview:

INTERVIEW PART 1

According to Paul Young, wherever he lays his hat, that’s his home, a statement that undoubtedly false otherwise Foxtons would have bought out hatshops a while ago and probably spend their days driving around a giant hat showing people how spacious a fascinator is. I wish it were the case though as it’d make Britain’s current depressing homelessness situation a lot easier to fix. A recent study by Homeless charity Shelter said there were now over a quarter of a million homeless people in the UK, with numbers rising almost 300% since 2014. The Department of Communities and Local Government said it didn’t recognise these figures, because all their employees were obviously besieged by extreme dyscalculia. How do you not recognise figures? Was it just because you’d ever seen them close up before, preferring to keep them at arms length for your own comfort? They followed up that statement by saying ‘one person without a home is too many’ though I bet if there was only one person they’d still not recognise that figure assuming it was just a wonky I. Conservative MP Bob Blackman proposed the Homelessness Reduction Bill in parliament which is now in it’s second reading in the commons but this bill works on preventing homelessness, not necessarily helping those who already are. The bill will also put most of the responsibility onto local authorities who are already suffering huge cuts and a lack of resources. Still it’s nice to know this government are at least trying to push through any sort of bill to reduce homelessness. Back when Grant Shapps was housing minister in 2012 he said homelessness was a result of people just being too picky ‘cos they haven’t found the right home yet. As though many people were just thinking well if I can’t have a mansion with a garden and an attic I’ll just sleep under this bridge.

There are many contributing factors to this sharp rise in homelessness and just in the area where I live in North London I haven’t seen this many people on the streets since the 80’s and at this time of year particularly, it’s heartbreaking to see. It’s not just people on the streets too, it’s thousands of families in temporary accommodation and this Christmas 124,000 children in Britain will spend Christmas without a home. So this week, I thought it was important to speak to someone who knew what those of us with homes could do about it and what needs to be done politically to change things. So I spoke to Paul Anderson at Homeless Link, a membership charity for organisations who work directly with people who become homeless. Paul also arranged for Noel to be there. Noel, as you’ll hear was formerly homeless and worryingly, due to his uncertain situation, may become homeless again soon. I’m hugely grateful they both had time to talk to me.

Here’s Paul and Noel.

We’ll be back with Paul and Noel in just a minute but first a very quick:

BREXIT FALLOUT

There’s again been quite a lot of Brexit news this past week including everyone’s least favourite disgrace Liam Fox , the international trade secretary, proposing that the UK could just stay partly in the EU’s customs union in order to not disrupt the UK’s trade with the EU. He was then informed that that’d be illegal because Liam Fox has no fucking idea what he’s talking about. I’m fairly sure if he tried to set up a deal with Father Christmas in order to ensure the UK gets a better tariff on deals with the North Pole, that it would actually result in every British child having to pay for their presents while leaving twice the amount of mince pies. Meanwhile Prime Minister Theresa May attended the European Union summit in Brussels last week where most of the other attendees ignored her then proceeded to not invite her to discussions about Brexit where they mostly talked about how Britain can’t cherrypick it’s options. And that’s not just because we usually employ EU migrants to pick cherries for us.

But the big story on many tabloid front pages last week was that the EU will charge the UK an ‘exit fee’ of €60bn for leaving the union, prompting many cries across the internet of people saying the EU can fuck off if it thinks we’ll pay it more money and other sort of Daily Express fuelled rants that you know those expressing them wouldn’t be able to do in real life because they’re too old and they’d run out of breath before they got there. All of this, is of course, nonsense, in that the €60bn fee includes the UK’s obligation to pay into the EU until the end of 2020 which we’ve signed up to do already and all of Britain’s share of outstanding pensions liabilities and other payments for UK ex-pats. So if that’s an exit fee, then we should also start calling the bill a restaurant gives you at the end of a meal an ‘exit fee’. How dare they expect for you to pay for the food you’ve already eaten?

Meanwhile statistics show that over 120,000 leave voters have died since 23rd June, presumably being so intent on independence they left the land of the living at the same time. Only 30,000 remain voters have died meaning there is a difference of 100,000. When you consider the people how many elderly voters will be dead by 2019 and how many people who polls say regret their vote, then we’re two years away from a substantial remain majority. Of course, by then we’ll have triggered article 50 and will be firmly up isolated shit creek while Liam Fox assures us you can control the direction of travel using your mind because he had a dream about it once.

And now back to Paul and Noel.

INTERVIEW PART 2

Thanks so much to Paul and Noel for speaking with me. Homeless Link can be found online at homeless.org.uk or @homelesslink on Twitter. The app we discuss is Streetlink and please do download that and use it when you see anyone on the streets in need of help. It’s a fantastic app and as Paul says, while it may not solve someone’s problems immediately it does let those that can help them know they are there. Also the workshop that Noel is involved with at the Young Vic is called the Inbetween and is at the end of January. Unhelpfully there is nothing on their website about it at the moment but Noel said to contact the theatre and speak to Kirsten and they should be able to book you in if you’re interested.

As always if there’s anyone you’d like me to interview or a subject you’d like me to interview someone about please do let me know and drop me a line @parpolbro on twitter, parpolbro group on Facebook, partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com or just three big clouds, two small clouds, three big clouds if using smoke signals and 674 left waves and one lower right wave for semaphore.

PPB QUESTION

This week I asked you, the people, in true democratic style, what you thought Santa Claus, Saint Nicolaus, the weird bearded man who goes out in his pajamas, Pappy Festivetime, Henry J JesusBirth, aka Father Christmas should get for which politicians and why. Surprisingly none of you said that once he got rid of all the other presents, he should give Justice Secretary Liz Truss the sack.

Kat Day ‏‪@chronicleflask‬ ‬Dec 18 
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ Johnson = brain; Corbyn = courage; Jeremy Hunt = heart; Dorothy, I mean Theresa, new magic shoes.
‬‬


Veep ‏‪@PrincessofVP‬ ‬Dec 18 
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ A dummy for Trump so he can spit it out of his pram on a regular basis.
‬‬

Margo-ho-ho ‏‪@MargoJMilne‬ ‬Dec 18 
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ For Ken Livingstone: an ACCURATE history of WW2
‬‬

Al Vimh ‏‪@al_vimh‬ ‬Dec 18 
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ Trump should get a sack of coal. Dropped on him. From the top of his tower.
‬‬

♫ SifiChick ♪ ‏‪@Sifichick‬ ‬Dec 18 
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ David Cameron: Bacon, lots of bacon.
‬‬

Gibby ‏‪@gibbymcdibby‬ ‬Dec 18 
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ BoJo could do with a shoehorn to help remove his foot from his mouth following each time he speaks
‬‬
Gibby ‏‪@gibbymcdibby‬ ‬Dec 18 
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ I guess Putin’s been a really good boy this year as he’s already been handed everything he could wish for
‬‬
Gibby ‏‪@gibbymcdibby‬ ‬Dec 18 
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ he could give Zac Goldsmith lots of free time to reflect on what happens to people who run odeous, racist campaigns for mayor…‬‬
Gibby ‏‪@gibbymcdibby‬ ‬Dec 18 
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ corbyn could do with a presence rather than presents
‬‬

‪@nikeshshukla ‬‪Dec 18‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro someone send Theresa May a copy of my book. Cos…self promotion. Also her immigration vans were racist. Also self promotion‬
‪@MattHossComedy ‬‪Dec 18‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro Santa should give Farage a job.‬
‏‪@MattHossComedy‬ ‬Dec 18
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ Santa should give Keith Vaz the ability to lie better. Or sex toys?‬‬
‪@flufflogic ‬‪Dec 18‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro Philip Davies: everlasting gobstopper, and a copy of Clue.‬
‪@JakeMartinOfTom ‬‪Dec 18‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro Nigel Farage: A one-way passport.‬
‪@JakeMartinOfTom ‬‪Dec 18‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro Liam Fox: A gift card to the single market.‬
‪@UnrealMcKay ‬‪Dec 18‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro Meccano set for Farage so he can build all the bridges he wants.‬
‪Matt Kinson /react-text ‬‪react-text: 47 /react-text Once he’s done all the good girls and boys of the world, can he give them all the sack?‬‬
react-text: 55 Unlike /react-text · react-text: 59 Reply /react-text · 1 · Yesterday at 14:27
‪react-text: 89 Daniel Philbrooks /react-text ‬‪react-text: 92 /react-text He should give Nigel Farage a dictionary so he can look up the definition of the word “hypocrite”‬‬

‪@EthanDLawrence ‬‪Dec 18‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro Jacob Rees Mogg gets 600 DVD copies of the Iron Giant. No reason. I just think it would be funny.‬

END

And that is all for this week’s show and really for this year’s shows. As I said, I’ll try to throw out a mini-episode in the holiday period if I can, but there is a chance I’ll be so full of roast potatoes I won’t actually be able to move and at best I’ll record two hours of groans and fart noises that you can probably just hear in your own home. Last year I managed sounds that nearly attracted blue whales to the area thinking they might be able to mate. Otherwise this will definitely be back at the end of January so don’t unsubscribe or start seeing other podcasts as I promise Partly Political Broadcast will be back in 2017, even if I have to make each episode 4 hours long just to run through everything President Trump has done wrong that week followed by the list of ways the type of Brexit we’re getting that week in increasingly Dr Seuss style descriptions. Red Brexit, Blue Brexit, This Brexit has a little star that’s been separated from other stars, this one has a little very very expensive due to exports German car. Etc etc

If you’re new to the podcast, have a listen back to some older episodes. Ep37 with Emma McClure on the prison crisis is still very prevalent. As always you can get in touch via @parpolbro on twitter, the parpolbro group on Facebook and partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com. Thanks so much for listening to the show over the past year, I hugely appreciate all your comments and downloads and shares and complaints about the jingles. Have a splendid Christmas and fingers crossed 2017 isn’t terrible. If nothing else, on it’s side 2017 already looks like an angry bird with an Elvis hairdo so hopefully we’ll be ok.

This week’s show was brought to you by this festive poem:

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring as all of President Trump’s energy and environmental policies means all the creatures are dead except cockroaches and they can’t hold spoons to stir with them either despite having loads of legs.

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