Further Reading

Linear liner notes

ARE YOU TIRED? I’M SO TIRED. Parliament’s halted, there’s no election, Boris has been politically snookered with talk of a trick shot but no actual ability. This week is mostly intro, with a teeny tiny smidge of HS2 and Tiernan (@tiernandouieb) managed to, in between watching parliament like it’s a soap opera, interview Jordan Ryan (@jordanjryan) an investigative journalist and former Leave campaigner about supporting Leave.

Links and sources of info from Jordan’s interview:

• • Jordan Ryan on Twitter – https://twitter.com/jordanjryan
• • Dr Richard North on Twitter- https://twitter.com/richardaenorth
• • Flexcit, the pamphlet (website) – http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=85981
• • EU Referendum on Twitter – https://twitter.com/eureferendum
• • Oliver Norgrove on Twitter – https://twitter.com/OliverNorgrove

All the usual ParPolBro stuff:

• • Twitter – twitter.com/ParPolBro and twitter.com/TiernanDouieb   
• • Facebook – www.facebook.com/groups/ParPolBro 
• • Website – www.tiernandouieb.co.uk/podcast
• • Donate to the Patreon – www.patreon.com/parpolbro
• • Buy me a coffee – ko-fi.com/parpolbro
• • Review the show on iTunes – itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/partly-political-broadcast/id1075342863?mt=2 
• • Review the show on Stitcher – www.stitcher.com/podcast/partly-political-broadcast
• • The Last Skeptik – www.thelastskeptik.com

Transcript

Episode 155

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast, the politics comedy podcast that is best consumed within minutes of opening or it may rather rapidly sour. This is episode 155, I’m Tiernan Douieb and after a week of humiliating parliamentary losses, Prime Minister and personification of that road sign that warns you of falling boulders, Boris Johnson, has suspended parliament earlier than expected, desperately hoping that the same tactic he employs with all his illegitimate children will somehow work with MPs, if he just ignores them maybe they’ll all leave him alone and go away. Johnson is still insisting that a no deal Brexit would be a failure, but judging by the past week where his partly have lost their majority, the government lost several major votes and Johnson repeatedly lost his ability to make any sense whatsoever, this might just mean that it’d be entirely keeping with his theme as leader so far.

A lot can happen in a week, or in Boris’s case, a lot can’t happen, and long story short, we start this week with parliament closing, everyone that wants an election not wanting one, everyone that doesn’t want one wanting one, the Brexit Party offering the Conservatives an electoral pact anyway to form some sort of Axis of Feeble, the government having no majority but still being in charge and it being illegal not asking for an Article 50 extension but Number 10 saying that won’t do it anyway making it the first time criminals have been in charge of the country. Or at least ones that we knew were criminals at the time. On the plus side, if this all ends with Boris Johnson in a cell, we might finally have a prime minister who’s keen to work on progressive prison reforms. Yes, this season of British Politics has really picked up with an explosive gripping storyline, despite a rather rocky start with too many unbelievable characters. Its lovely character arc to have the Prime Minister, someone who the audience have always been aware was all stupid hair and no trousers, suffer defeat after defeat and have his bravado crumble like a tantruming toddler who’s just realized that when his parents gave in and said fine you don’t have to get in the car, they did just drive off without him and now he’s in the park all by himself with no food, no money and a very shitty nappy. Now he’s gone and shut down shop rather than deal with all the customer complaints that what he’s peddling is complete tat, and parliament is suspended till October the 14^th as Boris does the political equivalent of closing his eyes, sticking his sausage fingers in his ears and humming an old xenophobic poem hoping it’ll all go away.

There are many lessons to be learned from all of this. Lesson one, for example, is that telling your MPs that if they don’t vote with you that they’ll lose the party whip, isn’t all that much of an incentive to do what you say if not having anything to do with you & not voting for something they hate are both much better options. It’s amazing Boris learned nothing from his predecessor and badly taxidermized terror bird Theresa May when she offered everyone a deal that absolutely no one wanted and they all said, no its ok, you can shove that in your pie hole. But instead maybe he supposed his charm, wit, complete lack of preparation, an entire absence of having a clue what to do, and his hiring of Dominic Cummings, politics very own Lemongrab, drunkenly running round shouting at ministers that he has no idea who they are, that somehow all that might just persuade Conservatives that having no medicine would be worth it. Starting with MP for Bracknell and what if Michael Douglas ate more and took MDMA Dr Philip Lee, who crossed the floor as Boris was already floundering at Prime Ministers questions, and joined the Lib Dems right in front of him. Imagine that blow to your confidence. It’s like if one of your gang at school who used to happily cheer as you all threw stones at the poor kids, suddenly during breaktime, in front of everyone, went off to snog that boy who keeps getting his head stuck in the railings. That was the government’s majority instantly gone, quicker than most of Johnson’s London Mayoral projects could lose money but even while witnessing that happen, Boris announced that like Churchill he would never surrender to the bill to block a No Deal, which was very apt as Churchill is also a dead Prime Minister. Luckily, he didn’t need to surrender as the government were just outright defeated as 327 voted to for the emergency motion to block no deal and only 299 voted against. That’s pretty much a 52/48 split so it’s odd that Boris didn’t just accept it and move on.

21 Tory MPs voted against the government including the Father of the House and haunted pillow Ken Clarke, Churchill’s grandson and what if orcs got tired Sir Nicholas Soames and former chancellor and AWOL shadow Philip Hammond. So that’s rejected from his hero’s family, his political dad and spreadsheet Phil, the latter only really being a blow if Johnson had wanted to keep anything on the table. Some of those Conservatives knew they would oppose the PM as soon as Boris announced the threat of whip removal, but others like background Star Wars character and MP Guto Bebb said it was the arrogant, out of touch speech from The Hooded Claw and Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees Mogg. Creepy wand Mogg had told parliament that what they were proposing was constitutionally irregular, because apparently going through the correct means to oppose a bill isn’t usual fare but it turns out several of Mogg’s colleagues thought that actually suspending all of parliament to push through something no one likes and summoning up John from Peter Pan but when he’s older and scarred by life, just to vouch for it is far more bizarre. Mogg was slammed by several MPs and many online for arrogantly reclining during the debate, but it’s really not unlike him to be lying in parliament is it? Weirdly hate verruca Iain Duncan Smith didn’t make anyone resign despite sitting in the Commons picking his nose throughout. Still I guess he’s got to get ready and have the food he needs for a no-deal right?

Once the valve had been opened Tories couldn’t stop pouring out of the party all week with another 6 going over the week including Boris’s younger brother and failed clone Jo Johnson, who resigned as Universities Minister saying that he had been torn between family loyalty and the national interest, which shows immediately why they don’t get on as siblings when those are two things the Prime Minister has never been concerned with. Work and Pensions Secretary and that neighbor who invites you to local events but also keeps reporting you to the police for being too noisy Amber Rudd also resigned on the weekend because as she said in her letter to the PM, of Brexit inaction and a lack of negotiations. It does make a change that someone in the DWP quit their own job because someone else couldn’t be bothered working. So, the government now have a majority of minus 43 and a large number of those former Conservative MPs will be standing at the next election without their party. Still maybe that’s what Boris meant when he goes on about Brexit protecting Britain’s independents?

The second lesson of the week is realizing that it’s probably best not to call someone else chicken when you’ve had to shut down your entire place of work just to stop people being mean to you. Now look, I won’t pretend it’s not been a confusing week. There’s been a Spending Review where Chancellor and giant hazelnut Sajid Javid announced loads of money going to loads of things in what was less a budget announcement and more a desperate attempt to get people to like him and his party. You want more money for the NHS you got more money for the NHS? More for defence? Yeah you got it and how about we do lunch on Saturday yeah? I’ll get the drinks in…no? Ok what if I said we’ll put more money in education, then you’ll come round and tell my mum I’m definitely popular at school yeah? It seems access to the magic money tree has been reinstated but while Javid promised to turn the page on austerity, he hadn’t pointed out that the rest of the book isn’t finished yet and like a George RR Martin novel could go anywhere with all sorts of gory twists, and a no deal shitting all over everything and Javid having to come back and say it turns out it was a choose your own adventure novel about austerity after all and sadly we have to return to the beginning. After that Johnson told parliament he didn’t want an election but then said there would have to be one as No Deal had been blocked, then Labour leader and judgmental scallop Jeremy Corbyn said he did want an election but currently didn’t want one thanks, or at least not until the motion to block no deal becomes law. This prompted Johnson to call Corbyn a chlorinated chicken which is odd as that means he’s something that Johnson has promoted as part of trading with the US so it could be that that was a compliment but it seems unlikely as the Conservatives churned out mocked up pictures of Corbyn dressed as a chicken with the label JFC, which again is an odd choice of restaurant to copy when KFC had a chicken shortage last year due to supply issues, something that would likely happen again under a No Deal. The whole thing felt like a mega Freudian projection of the type you could pop on in an IMAX. Johnson’s aides said the reason he wanted an election by October 15^th is that it could limit the amount of students able to vote, because I don’t know about you but a democracy is only a democracy if those who’ll be affected most by future decisions don’t get any say in it. I mean really, based on the fan base of the Johnson government right now, if Boris really wanted positive results he’d only have an election late on a Tuesday morning with ballot boxes only in home counties Waitrose stores. Actually I say that but the Tories are still somehow ahead in the polls, with only polls showing what an election after October 31^st would be like having Labour in the lead. Maybe it’s because there’s public confidence that Johnson is able to push Brexit through and as soon as he does he can fuck off. Yet everyone in parliament seems very clear that he’s so shit that it’s better for everyone if he remains in office as chances are, nothing will happen while he’s there. He’s Schrodinger’s Prime Minister in that he’s both doing something about Brexit and definitely not doing anything about Brexit and ultimately most people would prefer him to be sealed in a box and not hear from him either way.

Lesson three would be to be careful what photo opportunities you choose as the past week saw Boris get heckled in Morely by a man telling him he should be in Brussels, which I’d like the default response to Johnson to be even when he’s not PM. You should be anywhere but here. There was a picture with a bull which either screams a lack of self-awareness or too much of it but in a smarmy way where everyone still hates you for knowing it. But the worst was when the Prime Minister stood in front of a bunch of police officers, which was odd not only because he’s often railed against PC culture, but also because one of his policies is more police on the front line and yet there he was actively wasting their time standing next to him waffling on incoherently instead of stopping crime. Not only that but if your government is talking about breaking the law, positioning yourself so it looks like two van loads of coppers are about to take you down doesn’t look great. One of the officers behind Boris, a young woman, became unwell during his speech and had to sit down, with Johnson checking she was alright, saying he should wind up the speech and then going on to keep criticizing Labour for ages. Then again maybe this is all why police services have been on Twitter this weekend telling people what to put in a bag for emergencies, knowing full well that every time the Prime Minister makes a speech it renders several of their force useless. Or as Boris said in front of the Yorkshire officers that he’d rather be dead in a ditch than delay Brexit, maybe they all visualized exactly how great it would be to get that call out and one of them keeled over in excitement?

So as of recording this, the motion to block no deal by requiring the Prime Minister to ask the EU for an extension has passed through the commons twice, once with an amendment added to it seemingly by accident. Stephen ‘I’ll be lead vampire one day’ Kinnock’s addition to the bill was that parliament had to have a vote on the Withdrawal Agreement aka May’s shitty deal for a fourth time and as there were no tellers for the no side, it passed immediately. But of course it wasn’t an accident, how can there be no no tellers when the commons is always full of naysayers? The government did it on purpose and I’m now certain that its only when May’s awful deal stops appearing in parliament that we’ll realise we’ve actually died and it was up to use to work out what to change to stop it happening all over again. The whole bill then got through the Lords and that means it’s law. Various papers have touted ideas as to how the government could subvert that law by perhaps writing one letter to the EU asking for an extension and another saying the other letter was horseshit. Or maybe Boris could write one letter and have his fingers crossed behind his back while he does? Or maybe he could write the letter in disappearing ink or even just say it got lost in the post and say he didn’t remember what was in it and maybe the dog ate it? It doesn’t matter though as the government aren’t even going to bother with shit excuses, for the first time ever, and just say they won’t ask for an extension, meaning they’ll be breaking the law. Ooooh maybe that’s why all those police were there, but they’d got there just a tad too early? Though at the time of recording it seems like walking plunger and Chancellor of the Duchy Michael Gove might be appealing to the European Courts of Justice to overturn the law because irony has long since died. To be fair it’s a clever move as if it works in the government’s favour it’ll definitely turn many people towards leaving the ECJ.

Johnson visited the Irish Taosich and stock photo of a man who’s successfully used hair tonic Leo Varadker and he told Boris that the manner of the UK’s departure will determine whether it’s possible for the UK and Ireland to remain allies and friends, which considering Boris’s last week as PM means will Ireland hate him immediately after Brexit or a bit further down the line when he ill-advisedly threatens them. After doing what looked like he was trying to conduct semaphore as Varadker spoke, maybe a sign that Johnson is really flagging, the Prime Minister insisted he has ideas of how to solve the Northern Ireland backstop issue but didn’t want to share them right now. Yeah sure and I bet his uncle works at Nintendo and his girlfriend goes to another school. But Boris did say once again that he didn’t want a no deal, it’s just that he’ll probably not ask the EU for extension, and he’s closed parliament earlier than expected because Prime Minister’s Questions isn’t very fair how they all keep asking him questions and stuff. As this records the government have just lost yet another vote meaning they’ll have to release the full Operation Yellowhammer correspondence, so while chances are they’re just a big pile of post it’s with question marks drawn on them, it could also be that various ministers will be using the downtime to delete loads of WhatsApp messages and buy several shredders for documents that they can then later claim they were gathering as fuel for fires when all the heating fucks up. This was followed by an emergency debate put forward by Corbyn on the importance of the government following the rule of law, because that’s where we are with British politics now, politely discussing if the potential for authoritarianism is cool with everyone or if it’s a tad out of order. Corbyn started by saying ministers needed to tone down the rhetoric and that he doesn’t wish anyone dead in a ditch even if it’s their own doing. I get that, I mean if Boris was dead in a ditch, he’d somehow have managed to avoid PMQs yet again.

Debates are likely to go on till pretty late tonight so in order to get this show out on time, a small prediction. It’s likely that parliament will have voted against a snap election by the time you hear this which means MPs are now off till October the 14^th, so that’s Boris becoming the first prime minister ever to lose their first three commons votes, not getting an election, no No Deal and now no parliament either because he did that and its his fault. But still, it’s really nice that finally we have a British Prime Minister that emulates proper British values by, you know, losing all of the time and still pretending its worth carrying on competing.

Sort of in other news, former Labour MP and Change UK MP and extra in Netflix’s Big Mouth Luciana Berger has now joined the Lib Dems because it seems that the Change UK logo was actually just a tracking barcode on all their MPs as they made their way to the middle road. Sadly, for Luciana she left Labour originally due to all the racism in the party, so it must upset her quite a lot that Paul Whitehouse character Angela Smith has also joined the Lib Dems. That’s now three extra MPs for the centre party, one from the Tories and two from Labour so that should provide them with a strong election stance of being for and against austerity all at once.

Labour MP sort of and the sort of person who would definitely call into TalkRadio between 3 and 5am John Mann has left the party in a total shock that no one expected after several years of saying how much he opposes what they do, how much he hates Jeremy Corbyn and voting against most of their Brexit motions. It turns out he was just waiting for the right job to go to and it seems that was with the government as an anti-Semitism tsar, a job title that feels hugely inappropriate considering how anti-Semitic most Russian tsars were but then John Mann was a Labour MP who repeatedly voted against social justice so he’ll probably fit in just fine.

And lastly Speaker John Bercow is going to stand down either at the next general election or more likely, and well-timedly for the Conservatives, on October 31^st, in order, ORDER to spend more time with his family.

ADMIN

Well hello to you. That intro was most of your life wasn’t it? Who knew that last week would be such a cavalcade of shittery when it came to Westminster. Oh, all of you? Really? Ok fair. It has genuinely made me wonder if I should do this podcast about something more static and easier to understand like, I dunno, quantum fluctuation. Or maybe just something less stressful like a podcast where every single episode I move to a new house. How are you all coping? Been enjoying parliament TV? I think it’s one of the few stations I wish had adverts, maybe just of the various businesses MPs lobby for & have investments in as they speak. Every time Priti Patel pauses for breath they could chuck in a cigarette advert or something. But as turbulent and incredibly frustrating for podcast writing it is, I have to say, its fascinating and weirdly exciting. I mean, as someone who hasn’t voted for a winning team in a long time, watching Boris have his bottom handed to him on a plate time and time again over the past week has been genuinely enjoyable, almost like the sort of karmic victory you’d find in a kids film. The crowd realizes the loud brutish one is all mouth and no trousers and really the only way this would be really perfect was if Johnson somehow got covered in custard or even better, everyone just pretended they couldn’t see or hear him anymore. Either works for me. Actually, that’s all unnecessarily vitriolic isn’t it and as you’ll see later in this show I’m trying my best not to be too divisive. I did some gags about Boris at a gig on Saturday and I was heckled by someone shouting ‘Corbyn’s a terrorist’. Which was odd, not because I don’t think people should heckle with their political views, far from it, and I’ve got gags about Labour too, I just hadn’t done them as last week was rife for Johnson jokes. But it was more the immediate need to say ‘well the others are worse’ rather than be able to laugh at their own party first. That abilty has very much died in the last few years and its a damn shame. I think we should all be able to mock Boris Johnson having a shit week together and if we’re not united by that, then there’s no hope for any of us. Strange strange times.

Anyway, must keep this week’s admin brief as much to get through. Firstly thanks for coming back for a listen, and please do keep spreading the word about the show, any tweets, facebooks, hey even LinkedIns if you’re that way inclined and can spare two minutes inbetween advising people the top 5 ways to impress a houseplant or whatever. All of it helps and it turns out the pod platform I use is changing the way it monitors listens which means about 40% of listens will immediately not count, which means I’ll make even less pittance from this show than I do already and its harder to justify spending so much time on it. So help me fix that by getting 40% more people involved and if you can, donate to the ko-fi.com/parpolbro or the endlessly depleting Patreon site, yes I know it’s in dollars and is awful so do try the ko-fi one instead if that’s a problem as that’s in pounds which you’ll probably soon be able to replace with dead leaves or warm breath or something. Sorry, I mean the patreon is patreon.com/parpolbro. And please if you can, review the show too. Thank you. Someone on Twitter, sorry I can’t remember who it was, asked why I release this show on a Tuesday when its so often out of date so soon. Good q, but whichever day I’d have released it last week it’d have been out of date mere hours later. Plus comedy-wise there’s not a lot of gigs happening on a Monday so I can spend time on this show whereas sadly I have to earn money the rest of the week. I’m not saying you should donate to this podcast but if it suddenly got 10 billion listeners and they all gave me a £1 a month, then, well, I’d do one more month of podcasts then go to Hawaii and buy the moon. Sorry, I mean, then I’d definitely consider releasing it later in the week. Ahem.

Last thing is that the live podcast I’m doing at 2Northdown is now up on their website and I’ve popped a link in the pod blurb. It’s on October 29^th, yes I’ll be doing a podcast the day before, no I have absolutely no idea what we’ll be talking about or even if gigs will be allowed by then. But please do grab a ticket and come along as I’ll be planning some fun things.

On this week’s show I am interviewing Jordan Ryan who is a journalist and who has worked and campaigned for several leave groups. Yes, after a request from a few of you, I thought it’d be good to ask someone about the views that we do and don’t share and Jordan kindly obliged. Plus a little chat about HS2 because I thought that’d be the right track for this week. Arf. Yes it’s full of jokes like that, no don’t stop listening now, come back! Now it won’t count as a listen, sigh. Ok, here’s this:

INTERVIEW WITH JORDAN PART 1

Brexit Brexit Brexit, you can’t go two minutes without Brexit happenings, but as I say most week’s, nothing is really happening and still hasn’t, three and a bit years after the referendum, actually happened. It has all been argy bargy about whether the UK should leave this very second and just storm out without any of our stuff and assume we definitely live on all our homegrown fruit and veg because there’s nothing like a of potatoes with a side of potatoes and a dessert of whipped potatoes. Or should we all just remain and make potentially 50% of the country really goddamn angry that their vote they made because they weren’t being heard is now not being heard. And is the EU all that good really when you consider the latest ignoring of the Spitzenkandidat election methods, the reluctance to help the Catalonians and the way they totally dicked the Greeks even though had it been Ancient Greece they’d have loved that and put it on a vase. The issue is there’s little nuance and less room to move than a flat Foxtons are advertising and with all debates and all political decisions, there should be middle ground, listening to what people want and need and working out how to get there. But Brexit instead has brought othering, divisions, accusations of people being traitors or stupid or traitorous stupids or being sponsored by one billionaire or another. Long time listeners of this show know my views on Brexit, I’ve candidly mentioned them lots, but to clarify, I voted remain as I gig in Europe a lot and I like cheese and wine. But also I’ve got issues with the EU, have spoken to people within the EU that have issues with it and really, were these different non-austerity based times with a very different government that wasn’t now lead by a glorified village idiot, and it had been suggested that we could leave over 15 years with a clear plan, then maybe I’d have voted differently. But then maybe also the question wouldn’t have been raised in the first place. Who is to say? Well me, I did, but it’s also not me.

This week, as requested by several listeners and rightly so, I have finally got a leaver as an interviewee. My ethos with this show is to allow people to talk and to discover rather than Paxman them in a headline causing way, and frankly its silly that while I’ve had a few Remainers, but also EU policy experts, law policy experts, immigration researchers and more, I’ve never actually had anyone that’s said ‘yeah but I voted leave because’. So this week I have fixed that by speaking to Jordan Ryan. Jordan is an investigative journalist but during the EU referendum campaign he worked for Leave.EU, then Labour Leave and Brexit Central. He made a short film called Lexit about the left wing argument for leaving and he kindly agreed to talk to me for this show. As you’ll hear Jordan has various points of view that I don’t agree with, but also several that I do and a genuine concern about the possibilities of a no deal. There’s lots I didn’t ask him about and perhaps things I could’ve questioned him more on, but this was a chat with the aim on finding out his opinions why and what he wants next and it was an interesting and enjoyable chat. After we finished recording, Jordan said ‘I won’t get hate emails from this will I?’ and I assured him that you lot are far too nice for all that, so even if you’re a remainer and disagree or a leaver and still disagree, these are probably, in a sensible world, the sorts of conversations we should be having even though potatoes are really great. Hope you enjoy, here is Jordan:

INTERVIEW WITH JORDAN PART 1

And we’ll be back with Jordan in a minute but while there’s not much time for a middle bit this week, here’s a short look at this:

MIDDLE BIT

There are lots and lots of unnecessary sequels nowadays. It 2 doesn’t feel needed when there’s enough scary clowns on TV already, why do another Terminator film when its clear all it does is give Jeff Bezos ideas and no Martin Lawrence and Will Smith aren’t bad boys for life, they’re very obviously quite tired middle aged men. But probably the worst and least asked for sequel is HS2, the follow up to the channel tunnel except instead of connecting countries, it will just plough through the Midlands, missing out a lot of cities, not getting even as far as Scotland and generally only shaving enough time off your journey for you to have more time sitting at the train station searching for wifi that isn’t there. Transport Secretary and haunted gerbil Grant Shapps announced last week, in amongst all the Brexit larks, that HS2 could not be delivered for its original budget of £55.7bn and its cost had increased by £22bn. Plus on top of that, its now unlikely to be completed until 2040, seven years later than planned and by which point it’ll just serve as something we can look down on from our flying cars and point and shout, what the fuck is that? It looks pointless and expensive. So, this has brought talk as to whether or not the project should be scrapped and that the government will decide by the end of the year.

There are big arguments as to why it should definitely be scrapped, with the obvious being that it is beyond budget and delivery, but also environmentally, while most trains are indeed better than cars or planes, the HS2 somehow manages not to be. The work needed to build it, plus its emissions over time as HS2 will use 50% more carbon emissions than Eurostar, will all cancel out any benefits it’s made plus simply building the thing will really screw up wildlife in the area when a great ruddy fast train is smacking a ton of badgers and squirrels out of the way every day. There’s also little evidence that high speed trains deter people from taking domestic flights. Several other big problems revolve around whether or not it’d actually bring more work to Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds, or if it’d just mean more commuting to London via those cities and mostly the biggest argument is, couldn’t we be spending £88bn on improving current transport systems and, well, almost anything else? I mean, you could get a lot of crisps with that money and then you probably wouldn’t have to travel anywhere. Surprisingly, the companies involved in HS2 disagree and think that by cancelling it, it’ll raise costs of future projects but they would say that because you’re not going to spend £100m each on bidding for contracts on a thing and then turn around and go, actually, fuck it, let’s just tie a skateboard to a horse instead. But there is a real back and forth argument about whether or not it’d be worth it. The TUC, CBI, British Chambers of Commerce, many Northern mayors and the Lib Dems all back it being built. Labour have been more critical wanting to know more about its economic & environmental and its governance.

The government commissioned a review last month, which is supposedly independent, but it is headed up Douglas Overvee who briefly chaired HS2 Ltd, and is a pal of Johnson’s from when he was mayor and the review is expected to be finished by October, and I guess if it’s fraught with delays that won’t be a good sign. But opposition is increasing, not least from the people who’s homes are on the route and while the review is happening, work is still ongoing and money is still being spent. So hopefully, soon, we’ll find out if spending nearly £90bn on a fast train that may only be useful in disrupting hedgehogs, is really the best use of all that money and who exactly is this for, or if the whole idea of HS2 is completely off the rails. Yes, that was all leading to that sentence. Yes really. No I bet you are glad you listened.

And now back to Jordan…

INTERVIEW WITH JORDAN PART 2

Many thanks to Jordan for that interview. You can find him on Twitter @jordanjryan and look out for his articles in a number of papers, especially keeping an eye out for a rather big story he’ll hopefully be reporting in the next few months.

Several of you asked I speak to someone from the Leave campaigns so thanks for that. Who else would you like to hear on the show? More Brexit stuff? Less Brexit stuff? Anything that may contain an iota of hope like I dunno, someone who can tell us when the sun might explode? If you know of any experts, campaigners, futurists, activists, political minds, or just people who don’t mind me wasting 30 mins of their week, then please let me know who you’d like to hear from or what political subjects you’d like to hear about and you can do that by dropping me a line via the contact page at partlypoliticalbroadcast.co.uk, the @parpolbro Twitter, the Partly Political Broadcast facebook group or by emailing me at partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com, preferably with the subject line ‘Losing like a PM’ so I know its important.

END

And that’s all for this week’s Partly Political Broadcast podcast. Thank you once again for lending me your ears, and I return them to you now, hoping you’ll consider them to have added interest. If you do enjoy the show then please do tell other people types what you like to subscribe and why not give it a lovely review on your pod app of choosing or even go so far as to donate to the podcast via the ko-fi or patreon pages knowing that all your hard earned cash can just go towards me buying sound proof padding so my neighbours won’t have to call the police everytime I scream at the news. Though I guess that would be fairly prime ministerial of me I guess.

Thanks once again to Acast, to my brother The Last Skeptik for all the plinky plong sounds and to Kat Day for typing up all the linear liner notes every goddamn week.

This will be back next week when the government proudly break the law, leading to the government suddenly becoming the UK’s most well known crime syndicate and making the opposition instantly change from Labour to the Mafia and PMQs is turned into a reservoir dogs style interrogation session where weirdly a lot more gets answered every week.

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEE

This week’s show was brought to you by Mogg’s recliners, a comfortable mat disguised as the back of a suit jacket to allow you to lie with contempt wherever you go. Family occasion that you don’t want to be at, just slip on a Mogg’s recliner and soon you’ll be looking down your nose at your father in law letting him know just how intolerable he is asking how you are and offering you a drink. Homeless person asks you for money? How ghastly, just whip out the Mogg’s recliner and right there on the street you can be more comfortable than them while letting them know they don’t belong. Being arrested by police for breaching the law with your political ideology? Just relax, its far more comfortable reclining in handcuffs than you’d think. Mogg’s recliners, when straight up lying isn’t enough.

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