Episode 84 – Progressive Failing | Partly Political Broadcast

Episode 84 – Progressive Failing

Released on Tuesday, December 5th, 2017.

Episode 84 – Progressive Failing

Episode 84 – Tiernan asks Christian Wolmar (@christianwolmar) all about trains. Plus a look at Trumpings, Brexitals and passwords.

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Transcript

Episode 84

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast episode 84, the podcast that combines politics and comedy to create, er, politedy which erm, isn’t a thing. I’m Tiernan Douieb and this week like Secretary of State and depressed salad potato Damien Green I too watch porn while doing work. Ha! I’m joking, of course. I’m definitely not looking at porn while doing this week’s podcast. Or am I? No, I’m definitely not. OR AM I? No I’m really not. OR AM I THOUGH? Ladies and gentlemen, the magic of audio. But I’m definitely not though. OR AM I? Ok I’ll stop now. OR WILL I?

Now it’s regularly said that Parliament is full of wankers, but this past week that has been taken to a new low as Conservatives huddled around Damien Green, although hopefully not too closely, after a now-retired police officer said in an interview that he did find pornography on Green’s work computer back in 2008. Green has of course denied these allegations which are being investigated internally which really just sounds like more innuendo but isn’t, but this hasn’t stopped MPs such as MP for Mid Bedfordshire and one of the few people in the world who really does make me wonder if freedom of speech is a good idea after all Nadine Dorries. Dorries said she would like to see Green’s computer, the search history and all the evidence – I bet she would – before he falls on his sword, which again, I mean, this is too easy right? Dorries then took to twitter to say that her staff log into her computer everyday including interns and that she often has to ask what her password is, even though I’m pretty sure it’s password. And MP for Grantham and Stanford and what happens when a mouse is magically transformed into a human Nick Boles said he did the exactly same, even though I’m sure his is also Password but with 1234 at the end. So now there’s even more questions about parliamentary data security, who on earth can access MPs computers when they like, why aren’t and is this why they’re constantly tweeting such stupid stuff or is there just no excuse for that? More importantly if it wasn’t Green who accessed all that porn and someone else did, then they really need to get a grip – ahem – on data security.

Brexit Secretary and man who’s computer password is definitely his own name but he still forgets it David Davis said that he would resign if Damien Green was fired proving that yes, he really, really just wants to leave his job. I’m betting he hangs around Green’s office hoping some intern will shout the password to his computer so Davis can log in, load up Porn Hub and leg it with all fingers crossed. Davis was called up in front of the commons after the Brexit impact reports submitted to the Brexit Committee had large bits of information redacted because releasing them could hinder the government’s negotiations. But after the committee demanded the information be given it appeared the reason it could hinder the negotiations is because Europe would once again see that no one has a fucking clue what they’re doing and our general tactic for Brexit is to run around like headless chickens hoping eventually we’ll die of blood loss and be left alone. The department of Exiting The European Union said they couldn’t submit the analysis the committee asked for in time because it doesn’t exist and considering civil servants have everyone’s passwords you think they’d have found them if they did. Yes the reports that originally Davis said didn’t exist, then said obviously did and the Prime Minister hadn’t bothered reading them and now they don’t exist all over again even though some of the non-existing bits have somehow been redacted. So do they exist? Have they ever existed? Have the Brexit impact reports been in our hearts this whole time? Or maybe they’re the friends we made along the way?

But it’s ok because just when you think the UK is the greatest shitshow on Earth, America asks us to hold their weak, weak, hang on isn’t this just piss water, beer. US President and man who’s computer password is whatever it writes when you bang tiny hamfists on a keyboard because shouting at it doesn’t work Donald Trump retweeted failed GCSE project and convicted far right extremist group Britain First on his personal Twitter account. No a white supremacist endorsing a white supremacist isn’t remotely surprising, as is little Trump does now. It’d take him tweeting something like ‘having spent time staring at Monet’s Water Lilies I understand the fragility and beauty of both art and the nature we are surrounded by’ for us all to be like ‘woah, that is unexpected!’ The Britain First tweets were Islamaphobic and insinuated that a video was an Islamic extremist pushing a Dutch teenager off a building and killing them, when it was in fact just a Dutch person killing a Dutch person which is less of a global threat but still a very disturbing video and probably an upcoming European crime noir. The White House defended the retweets by saying whether or not the content was what they said it was, it was right for Trump to tweet it as it’s all about border security. Which borders are those? The ones between the Netherlands and the Netherlands? Prime Minister and woman who’s computer password is strongandstable but with letters missing Theresa May for the first time ever condemned Trump’s actions saying he was wrong to repost those tweets, which prompted Trump to attack her on twitter saying she shouldn’t focus on him but instead on the radical Islamic terrorism that is happening in the UK something that he seems to think is rampant here but sadly not rampant enough to put him off visiting in February next year. And attacking May will surely backfire when he arrives and there’s no one to hold his tiny hand as he walks down stairs leaving him stranded on the landing for weeks. Several members of the government have said they still think a visit to the UK should happen as Britain and America have a special relationship. Yes special in the way that it’s definitely not friendship but somewhere between hostage and carer. Britain First have gained popularity since the publicity from Trump. With any luck they’ll fuck off to America asap, then be immigrants there and have to spend their days hating themselves.

Meanwhile Trump’s former security advisor and man who’s password is parol’ General Michael Flynn has admitted lying to the FBI during the Mueller Inquiry into the Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Flynn admitted to a count of ‘false, fictitious and fraudulent statements’ which is probably what any member of Trump’s team has to have on their CV to qualify for the job. Trump then tweeted on Saturday that he’d had to fire Flynn because he lied to the FBI, meaning that either Trump was lying about why he fired Flynn or he knew he lied and was implicit in covering it up. Like an evil villain giving away their plans before – and we all continue to keep hoping it is – their final stand. Trump has since blamed that tweet on his lawyer because it seems absolutely no one in power keeps their passwords to themselves anymore, but it also means either again, he’s lying or he has the worst lawyers possible. Either way while that wall Trump keeps promising doesn’t seem to be coming along very quickly, he’s making a lot of headway with that massive hole he’s digging.

While Theresa May being insulted by Donald Trump almost makes you side with her until you wish there was a way they could both lose, May’s credibility in the UK continued to get more battered last week than a Mars bar in the context of a stereotypical joke. The entire government commissioned social mobility board resigned on Saturday night blaming a lack of progress towards a fairer Britain. C’mon now, with the current government it’s very much like a fair, what with the rigged games that cost a lot but can’t be won, rides with endless spin that make you feel sick and a ton of clowns. Oh sorry. I see what they mean now.

Conservative MP and man who’s computer password is a quill dipped in ink Jacob Rees-Mogg met with former Trump advisor and man who’s computer password is blank as that’s the most white it can be Steve Bannon to discuss helping Conservative movements win in the UK. It’s not known if the Vulture, Green Goblin, Electro or any other members of the Sinister Six were also present. Bannon also reportedly met with anal fissure in a suit and man who’s computer password is the word English with no numbers as he can’t cope with too many languages or anything that looks like facts Nigel Farage who on the Marr show on Sunday defended Trump’s retweeting of Britain First before claiming no one has done more to stop the rise of the far right in the UK. A laughable claim unless you consider that if people see someone as loathsome as him being part of a movement, it’s likely to put them off.

And lastly Labour leader and man who’s password is about 4 paragraphs worth of characters but he insists his computer shouldn’t work for a few Jeremy Corbyn has responded to Morgan Stanley saying he’s a threat by, well, agreeing. Not sure what a threat to Morgan Stanley is considering they do well when the economy doesn’t crash but even better when it does. Maybe they’re worried that Corbyn will challenge their system but not quite to do enough to win resulting in them rapidly destroying themselves instead.

ADMIN

Greetings parpolbro-ers! Are you all feeling Christmassy yet? I am but by that I mean all I want to do is eat, get drunk and watch tv. Whoever came up with the ‘it’s the season of giving’ nonsense has clearly never had to try and buy a present for their dad. While all those idiots proclaim ‘oh you can’t say Christmas anymore’ or whatever it is they say based on no evidence at all, I do wish we could rebrand the whole month to be a bit more ‘it’s the season for sitting on your arse a lot and drinking endlessly which is fine if it’s festive’. Admittedly, nowhere near as catchy. Anyway thank you for listening despite the cold winter making headphone and woolly hat combinations harder than they should be, and thanks to all the people that reviewed the show on iTunes last week including whoever gave us a 1 star review because I’ll be honest the idea that someone sat through a whole hour plus of this and hated all of it really makes me laugh. It’s now on 90 reviews on iTunes so please, as it is the season for giving, if just 10 of you could give nice reviews then it’ll hit the big 3 digits on there and I can’t pretend to my family that I do a proper job when I see them over the holidays. Similarly if you can afford to donate then please do to the patreon.com/parpolbro or a one off buy me a coffee thingy at ko-fi.com/parpolbro and I know I say this all the time but I’m planning on doing some sort of extras for Patreon subscribers over the hols as well as some sort of extras for all of you as next week will be the last show of the year and I’m aware that means there will be at least a few weeks of Brexit negotiations that I can’t explain badly to you and you’ll spend Christmas day burning your potatoes out of worry as to how you’ll understand things if I haven’t described David Davis as John Inman’s evil twin first.

Before we crack on with this week’s show which is slightly rushed as I’m going to see Gorillaz tonight. The musical ones, not the ape or warfare ones, even though either of those would be amazing, especially if they did music. I mean there was that Cadbury’s advert where the gorilla played the drums and based on that I reckon they’d be damn good. ANYWAY, sorry, before episode things, firstly this week’s interview is not great sound quality wise. Yes I know that’s a total flashback to the early days of this show but it’s more a wow shellsuits were flammable rather than a ‘wasn’t the theme tune to Streethawk awesome’ flashback. I spent an irritating amount of time trying to make it better but it’s still not great so just a heads up if you’re listening to this week’s show while travelling you might want to save those bits for when you’re somewhere quieter, like say, the recesses of your mind. Or a library. Second thing I’ve realised I’ve been crap at mentioning things about parties other than the Conservatives lately. While this is obviously a partisan show because I love Italian hard cheese, I do think it’s important to mock all parties when needed. But, as you’ve probably noticed, the government are being so ridiculous lately that I’ve decided to give stories about Labour, SNP, Lib Dem and others less priority. Is this annoying? Shall I try and dedicate a section to everyone else each week? If yes, how long should this podcast be? Several days long? Years? As always, I am interested in all your thoughts even ones about what you want for dinner or what to buy your dad for Christmas or why some families decide to walk side by side on the pavement so that no one can get past them in a move I now call famspreading. So please do let me know on the usual messaging methods.

So on this week’s show I am chatting to, with not great sound quality, Christian Wolmar all about the railways and driverless cars and other transport things. Also I’ll be looking at the last week of Trump. Though sadly not his last week, just the last week because he seems to survive everything. I do wonder if his reign will be like war of the worlds where they find out all the shit he’s done and somehow still can’t impeach him but then he dies of a common cold. Speaking of which there was a news story last week with the headline ‘White House maintenance requests show building infested with cockroaches and vermin.’ I DON’T KNOW WHY I BOTHER. Sigh. But before that, here’s this:

HEADLINES

On Saturday night the entire board of the Social Mobility Commission resigned. I mean how socially mobile is that? They all walked out together! The SMC as no one called it, was lead by ex Labour minister Alan Milburn and was given the position by the Coalition government, remember them? The double act that got on less well than Gregg Wallace and anyone who ever has to work with Gregg Wallace? The job of the commission was, as an advisory non-departmental public body that monitored progress to improving and promoting social mobility in the UK aka the idea that effort and talent should count for more than the circumstances of your birth. So that’s quite a blow to the Conservative government who’s slogan is building a country that works for everyone, that the commission said they resigned because of a lack of progress. Then again they can barely construct homes so expecting them to speedily build anything is a tall order. Now Milburn is an ex-Labour minister so many have said that this resignation is his way of political point scoring but he’s said that it’s not at all to do with that. I mean to be fair, working for the government since 2012 just to points score is really playing the long game. Milburn says he’s worked for Labour, Conservative & Coalition governments and been professional and non-partisan but he’s done this now because Brexit is all consuming for the government and they are ignoring other key areas such as social equality as a result. The government have of course tried to pass this off as the board’s contract being up and that they had already decided to get some fresh blood in, a terrifying statement from a group that have so many ministers who look like vampires.

There’s a lot of areas where the past 7 years of government have hindered social mobility, especially in the education system where right from early years the government provided free nursery care but didn’t give enough funding for it to work out, all the way to funding cuts for adult learning. But just to hammer it home for May, this resignation of the Social Mobility Commission has come just as research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has released figures saying 700,000 children and pensioners have, in the last four years, fallen into relative poverty. No that doesn’t mean they have a really poor selection of family members. Everyone suffers from that right? But instead it means they are from households that get less than 60% of the median income. That’s the first time it’s risen in 20 years and is largely due to stagnant wages, benefit freezes, crappy universal credit fuck ups, uncertain jobs and a rise in the cost of living. Now the government have pointed out that since 2010 the number of people in absolute poverty, which is income and access to services, has fallen by more than 500,000. So hooray people aren’t completely fucked just mostly fucked! Well done everyone!

The government have said they’re already planning to appoint a new chair to the commission but whether or not this will make them more focused on working with a new board is unknown. We’ll have to wait and see if they’ll be relatively as stubborn to push for greater social mobility as they are now, or absolutely worse.

INTERVIEW

What is more of a British institution than trains? What do you mean excuses for train delays? Ok, maybe that. The railway system in Britain is the oldest in the world and like most old things in the UK, the government want them to keep working until they die despite a lack of provisions to get them on track. See what I did there? Track? Hm. The privatisation of British Railways started under Margaret Thatcher’s government with John Major finishing them off in 1996. Since then with ever increasing costs, services like Southern Rail working less as a train service and more a ticketed series of cold platforms you can stand on for hours, and the fact that the Labour Party have been mentioning it again, re-nationalisation of the rail is a hugely popular notion in the public opinion. Last week Transport Secretary and Dan Dare’s arch enemy Chris Grayling announced a £47bn investment and a split up of two of the largest rail franchises including GTR, the group that runs Southern. Rail I mean, not that they run things southwards, although I guess really, that’s also relevant given the last few years. But what does this split mean for train travellers? Or for the future of British trains? Are the transport department sending the right signals or have they gone off the rails? How many train puns can I get away with on my own platform?

Well once again, like every week, this is an area I have absolutely no idea about, despite having been on a train more than once and even occasionally reading about them or seeing them in films. But one man who does know a lot about transport politics is Christian Wolmar. Christian is a railway historian and writer who’s written many articles on the problems of rail privitisation and the transport industry, and has authored several books on rail history including his most recent one ‘Railways And The Raj: How The Age Of Steam Transformed India’. Christian has also run as a Labour party candidate for selection for the London mayoral elections and for election as an MP in Richmond Park in 2016. So I asked Christian all about what this announcement means and about transport politics in general, and we also got talking about driverless cars too as he’s quite opinionated on that as well. Now before I play this interview:

EXCUSES EXCUSES

As I mentioned at the top of this show, this recording is not great. Despite lowering the volume on my computer the recording peaked a lot meaning, well I suppose fittingly, it sounds not unlike Christian was talking to me through a train tannoy system. What I would say, having listened to it several times is that you do get used to it after a minute and parts are easier than others, however it might be tricky if you’re well, unfittingly, on a train. So huge apologies as I found this an interesting chat and I’d really like you to be able to hear it. So I hope you can bear with it and sorry sorry sorry.

Right, here’s Christian:

INTERVIEW PART 1

And we’ll be back with Christian in a minute but first…
TRUMP UPDATE

The good thing about America being in a terrifying situation with a maniacal despot in charge is that every time I’m stressed about UK politics I look over there and go phew! At least things here aren’t THAT bad. That’s sometimes all you need right? But this past week has been yet another one in the Chronicles of Trump aka why you shouldn’t pick at scabs that really makes you go, oh wow, he is really unlike anything we’ve seen outside of films about awful things. No I don’t mean people, I mean things. Like for example, King Kong. A giant ape destroying America and grabbing women. Now this is just an update and I don’t have time this week to go into all the details of all these things, so do check back to episode 77 with John Aravosis for some of it, and I’ll recommend some US podcasts to listen to at the end too. But first let’s go to the bit of last week’s news about Tangerine Scream’s twitter habits that you probably heard about the most.

That’s right, the retweeting of Britain First, a group who’s name is short for a longer title that continues ‘In A Race To The Bottom’. There are some very obvious issues about Trump retweeting debunked videos from a far right extremist group, not least the spreading of divisiveness and hatred towards Muslims, the spreading of misinformation and the further confirmation, as if you needed it, that Trump is a big old white supremacist even if he’s mostly orange. Oh and it meant TV everywhere was interviewing far right commentators who mostly seemed to sound like someone was repeatedly punching a parrot and it caused Britain First to gain a ton of members despite Jayda Fransen, who Trump retweeted, recently being found guilty of hate crime, religiously aggravated harassment and is due to appear in court in Northern Ireland for using threatening and abusive language at an anti-terrorism demonstration earlier this year. Yeah she sounds lovely doesn’t she? That’s the sort of rap sheet that could, at best, get you a job as an early end level boss in an 8 bit beat ‘em up. It’s the last bit of info that’s linked to something that’s been largely ignored with this story though, which is that by Trump retweeting Fransen and Britain First, he’s promoting a group who have been spending time in Northern Ireland trying to push to bring back paramilitary extremism that was a big part of The Troubles. There are a number of links between Britain First’s ex leader and loyalist paramilitary groups as well as currently with Fransen, with an earlier altercation in July then this charge she now has for August of this year. The whole British values ideology of Britain First has been picked up by Northern Irish loyalist groups and now Trump has retweeted them, there are worries this is him saying he’s taking sides in Northern Ireland’s identity politics, a country that currently doesn’t have a government and may very soon have a physical border. What is it with Trump and places that have a divided North and South? Carolina and Dakota should be very afraid.

The next ingredient in last week’s awful pie was the tax reform bill passed in the senate at 51 votes to 49 that barely anyone had read by the time of the vote due as amendments and revisions were still being added by the Republicans as it was being passed. No, no I’m sure that’s not dodgy at all, I mean why make sure your political opponents can’t see what they’re voting for? It must just be to save them reading time right? What we do know about the bill is that it included a massive corporation tax from 35% to just 20% which really helps, you guessed it, Trump’s businesses. It will also undo the Obamacare individual coverage mandate which required all Americans get healthcare. We also know that the non-partisan Senate Joint Committee on taxation said this bill would add to the federal deficit over the next decade despite the white house saying it would cause economic growth – what? The White House giving misinformation? WHAT? – And that while most Americans would see tax breaks, after 2026 those earning under $75k a year would see much higher taxes. So it’s basically a trickle down tax cut which as we know with all trickle down systems they’re only called that because those earning everything at the top insist that what’s trickling down is gold when in fact it’s piss. Which is exactly the sort of thing Trump is into, on all levels. This hasn’t yet become law as it still needs to pass the the House of Representatives to do so, but already several economists are saying it could cause a recession if it goes through. Also you have to wonder what a 20% corporation tax will do to corporation tax globally as it could set the standard competitively. Then that’d mean companies like Amazon or Apple would, well, I suppose, act pretty much like they always do to be fair and not even pay that. But this whole bill is giving away money to those who already have it and it will be taking money and services away from those who need it. Still many of those are Trump’s core fanbase so I guess it’s what they wanted.

And lastly there was the story about General Michael Flynn pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador during Trump’s election campaign. By pleading guilty Flynn could face a maximum of five years in prison and $250k fine, but it could also mean he ends up with no time in prison and a fine of only $9.5k. Flynn’s admission that he met and worked with Russian officials on two separate occasions and in consultation with the Trump team mean that the Mueller investigation have evidence to go after more senior figures, above Flynn. But the only real senior figures above Flynn, who was the national security advisor, are Vice President Mike Pence or Trump himself. Trump’s son in law Jared Kushner is also likely to be under fire next as there is evidence of his meetings with Russian officials who claimed to have dirt on Hilary Clinton. But Trump of course defended himself on Twitter with a comment about how he had to fire Flynn because he’d lied to the FBI. This was basically a written omission that he had known Flynn lied and that was why he fired him, making him implicit in the crime. This also puts into question why he fired FBI director James Comey and though he tweeted on Sunday that it was because the FBI’s reputation was in tatters, he has previously said it was because Comey was looking into the Russia thing as he put it. So all of this points to Trump, at least, creating an obstruction of justice. Trump blamed his initial tweet about Flynn on his lawyer because anyone being able to wrangle his phone out of his tiny hands has managed that before. But then his lawyer John Dowd admitted he had told Trump what to say and he did that in comic sans, because he’s either the worst lawyer anyone’s ever hired or he’s fucking sick of Trump too and knew that might mean he can get a new client or he’s Trump in disguise or all of the above which oddly feels possible. However John Dowd has said that Trump is unable to obstruct justice being the president which many are unsure of because he seems easily able to obstruct pretty much everything else like a massive arse boulder.

So that’s last week’s Trumpings in a nutshell. What does any of it mean apart from the fact that he continues to be a terrible yet farcical human being? Does any of it mean the apocalypse is coming or perhaps the alternative that he’ll finally be banished from the White House? I have no idea. What I do know is things aren’t just unstable in the US, they are as though the horses never had anywhere to live in the first place. I hope that’s caught you up to it all though, now go listen to Unpresidented, Pod Save The People, Pod Save America, Abe Lincoln’s Top Hat or many other US podcasts for the details, because my brain hurts.

And now, back to Christian:

INTERVIEW PART 2

Big thanks to Christian for taking the time to chat and again apologies for the quality of the recording. One day I’ll have a producer and no doubt they will just say weekly, Tiernan don’t do that. Anyway you can find Christian on Twitter @christianwolmar and his website is christianwolmar.co.uk. Christian’s latest book ‘Railways and The Raj’ is on all of those book shops and sites and his new book about Driverless cars will be out in January too. Roger Ford who he recommended is on Twitter @captain_deltic and I have followed him and it’s worth noting that he doesn’t tweet very often and when he does it’s pretty much just about trains. Probably worth finding his articles instead.

There’s only one show left before Christmas and I’m really hoping the guest I’ve asked is able to fit in a chat before next week for that one WHICH I PROMISE I WILL RECORD PROPERLY! But I’ll need all new guests for next year so who shall I seek out for their wisdom? What subjects shall I find clever bods to enlighten us on? You, the listener, tell me, the Tiernan and I shall try my goddamn best to make 2018 full of sensible thoughts from excellent people interrupted by terrible questions from me. You can as always contact me @parpolbro on Twitter, the partly political broadcast group on Facebook or partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com. Or as it is the 25th anniversary of the text message you could try and text me, though I’m not handing out my number so why not keep hitting all 40m mobile phone number possibilities until you can finally send me an incoherent message full of emojis that I’ll attempt to get back to but you won’t receive it due to being carted off by bayliffs for not paying the world’s most extortionate phone bill. Again, email is easiest.

BREXIT FALLOUT

Very quick Brexit Fallout this week as basically the government said progress had been made towards moving to Brexit trade talks. Because yes, 18th months later and we’re not even past stage one yet. This government’s idea of progress is always in the same way falling forwards while running for a bus is progress. In that you’ve missed the bus, but you’re now scrabbling on the pavement, looking stupid, a whole slab or two ahead of where you started. But despite these promises of progress, EU Commission President Jean Claude Juncker has said that its not been possible to reach an agreement today. Why? Well the UK government conceded on how much to pay for the Brexit bill which they didn’t reveal to the public but we think it’s around £50bn because why fuck yourself over for cheap? But there is still no solution to the Irish Border problem. In a desperate plea to the EU for compromise, the UK government said they were prepared to accept that Northern Ireland could stay in the customs union and single market, which prompted Nicola Sturgeon to ask if Scotland could do the same and Sadiq Khan to ask if London could to, and you start to wonder if there isn’t just a way that we all split into a multitude of different countries with some in the EU, some not and walls around the places that want borders with free movement between those that don’t? We could be called the United States of United Kingdom or USUK for short, which would probably sum things up well. It won’t happen though as the DUP said they don’t want a deal that would threaten the territorial integrity of the UK, even though, I mean, isn’t that what Brexit is? There’s still no news on EU citizens rights in the UK and as with tradition the pound has plummeted again, but the EU are insisting this isn’t a failure and Juncker has said he’s confident they’ll reach sufficient progress by the end of the week. Just how much falling on our face onto hard pavement progress that will be, we’ll have to see.

END

And that is all for this week’s Partly Political Broadcast. Thank you once again for listening. No no thank you! No I insist, thank you. And if you listen to this and enjoy it then please do spread the word and let other people know, harass the Guardian to pop us in their weekly pod recommendations, graffiti the iTunes web link across major historical tourist attractions near you. Ok don’t do that one. Unless you live near Woodhenge which is near Stonehenge but, well the remains of chopped down trees. Why anyone would go there leaves me stumped. Ha! Also don’t graffiti there. Perhaps instead encourage them to branch out a bit? I’M SO NOT SORRY. But yes, please spread the word, please review the show and help it get 100 reviews on iTunes, and if you are able to and can afford to and want to, please donate to the Patreon at patreon.com/parpolbro or do a one-off donation and buy me a coffee at ko-fi.com/parpolbro.

Huge thanks to Acast for being the host body for this audio parasite, and to my brother The Last Skeptik who’s currently on tour DJing for Doc Brown if you’re going to see that and you should as it’s an ace show.

This will be back next week when the department for exiting the EU will announce they’ve made yet more progress but in reality will have forgotten to undo their seatbelt while leaving the car and just slowly half fall out.

BYEEEEEEEEEE

This week’s show was brought to you by John Dowd’s legal tweetings. Are you unsure where you stand with a case? Hire John Dowd and he will advise you on the very best tweet to send in order to make legal matters as clear as possible, just definitely not in your favour.

Episode 84 – Progressive Failing

Released on Tuesday, December 5th, 2017.

Episode 84 – Progressive Failing

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