Further Reading

Linear liner notes

Week 2 of election campaign is about relatability and how absolutely no one involved has it, and making sure the only to look at policies is via the art of fearmongering. Election Flex looks at some of the policies announced over the last week and Tiernan (@tiernandouieb) speaks to political sociologist Paula Surridge (@p_surridge) about predicting what will happen.

Links and sources of info from Paula’s interview:

• • Paula Surridge on Twitter – https://twitter.com/p_surridge
• • Paula’s website at Medium.com – https://medium.com/@psurridge
• • Paula’s “How to read a constituency” slides – https://medium.com/@psurridge/how-to-read-a-constituency-4ea74d508986
• • Recent Guardian article: “It’s Tory remainers – not Labour leavers – who are the real key to this election” – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/15/tory-remainers-labour-leavers-election-voters-lib-dems
• • Explanation of MRP – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilevel_regression_with_poststratification
• • British Polling Council (BPC) on Twitter – https://twitter.com/britpollingcncl
• • List of BPC members (inc. list of polling organisations) – http://www.britishpollingcouncil.org/officers-members/
• • British Election Study on Twitter – https://twitter.com/besresearch
• • The UK in a Changing Europe on Twitter – https://twitter.com/UKandEU
• • The London School of Economics on Twitter – https://twitter.com/LSEnews
• • LSE blog post on polls and polling – https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/ge2019-campaigns-ideologies-and-strategic-voting/

Election-related links:

• • Full Fact website – https://fullfact.org/
• • Full Fact on Twitter – https://twitter.com/fullfact
• • How to Vote if You’re Homeless (from Crisis UK) – https://crisis.org.uk/get-help/information-for-crisis-members/member-news/how-to-register-to-vote-if-you-re-homeless/
• • Who Targets Me website – https://whotargets.me/en/
• • Who Targets Me on Twitter – https://twitter.com/WhoTargetsMe
• • Simple Politics on Twitter – https://twitter.com/easypoliticsUK
• • Simple Politics on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/simplepoliticsuk/
• • Register to Vote (just in case) – https://www.gov.uk/register-to-vote

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 165

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast, the comedy politics podcast that doesn’t understand the point of shitposting when most of it just gets stuck in the postbox & makes the postal worker sad. This is episode 165, I’m Tiernan Douieb and this week as Labour leader and star of Old Jack’s Boat Jeremy Corbyn announced a policy of free broadband for everyone by 2030, what better way towards a fairer society than by making sure everyone, young, old, of whatever class or ethnicity, can all see how doomsaying, hopeless and tedious social media is and all get depressed together as one nation.

Yes, party policies are now arriving and being treated with all the correct political scrutiny you’d expect from the discourse in 2019, such as insisting that somehow state funded broadband is a communist policy that will lead to gulags. Well that’s a very narrow-minded ludicrous view which ignores the bonus that as at least everyone will be able to google which is the best gulag near them and check all its Google reviews. ‘Telford gulag only has one star. They say the staff weren’t very friendly and wouldn’t offer any assistance with the really big rocks.’ ‘What if you like paying for your broadband?’ said others, unaware that were it to be implemented, they could take the money they would’ve used and spend it on something else often very unreliable instead, like their credibility, before spending 4 hours on the phone to their own answer-machine to replicate the same level of customer service. But to be fair this sort of fearmongering is the most fun way to look at all party policies as they arrive. Labour’s policy of free dental checks for example, isn’t that just the first baby step towards people covering their bodies in teeth and going round eating babies with their knees? The Lib Dems have pledged to plant £60m trees, replete with photo opps of party leader and I’ve always just walked in from the cold Jo Swinson using a spade like she was trying to bury her dreams of a majority. 60m trees? What next? Everyone has to wear a tree to work? Your children will have to live in trees? What’s for breakfast mum, trees again is it? Where’s the dog gone, oh sorry we’ve had to replace him with a tree. The Green Party are promising universal basic income by 2025 but what if everyone who gets it uses that money to buy bombs and then throws them at children?

This must be why the Conservatives are still so far ahead in the polls, because they’ve already taken policies to the most stupid place it can go, as they’ve pledged to create an equal immigration system, by being shitty to absolutely anyone from further away than Jersey. Immigration isn’t high on the list of voter concerns at the moment but that hasn’t stopped the Tories from dredging it up from the blame pit to make sure everyone remembers that it wasn’t them that have completely fucked things up for 9 years, but it was them lot from across the sea that Foreign Secretary and sausage casing pulled over a Lego shark Dominic Raab didn’t even know was there until about a year ago. No wonder he’s scared, only just learning about all that giant puddle and now he understands some people can traverse across it too, terrifying, what if they have other magic skills like horse whispering or laser eyes? Shudder. The Conservatives won’t put an, as they say, arbitrary figure on how much they’ll reduce immigration because it’s much easier to achieve a target if all it requires is Raab standing around at Heathrow, trying not to get scared of the big metal birds and telling one man who’s just arrived from Portugal that he has to go home again now. It is only unskilled migrants that they want to restrict, because nothing confuses people on both sides of the immigration argument like saying you’ll restrict numbers but only so those that do come can take all the best jobs.

Health Secretary and what if the Sonic Movie designers drew Olaf from Frozen Matt Hancock, announced that all non-UK residents will have to pay an NHS surcharge after Brexit by saying on Twitter that it’s the National Health Service, not the International Health Service. Matt literal Hancock there, which is why I assume he only uses Virgin trains and complains to people about the snowflake PC World. What an amazing advert to the highly skilled immigrants they supposedly want to attract right? Come and work in our NHS but don’t use it. What happens if you’re from abroad and work at the NHS and get injured while on duty? Would the NHS have to spend extra money getting you an Uber to bleed in rather than do a free suture? Nothing like conducting top level surgery then having to pop round the corner to have your own appendix removed by a shady figure with a penknife. But why would anyone have expected Matt Hancock to think any of this through, when just as the NHS reported the worst A&E waiting times on record, he insisted that actually in some ways it was performing better than ever. Unless he means performing as in acting, in which case it’s doing exceptionally well as a drama or classic tragedy.

What you have to hope for is that these policies are sold through relatability and Prime Minister and child’s first attempt at clay Boris Johnson has spent the last week working on that, starting with a Conservative party broadcast that showed him walking around his campaign office talking about normal things like how he couldn’t get a Thai takeaway at Number 10 because of security checks, in the analogy for post-Brexit trade deals issues that no one needed. He said that his Brexit deal was oven ready, slam it in the microwave, ready to go which is the confused metaphor that suggests he’s either never cooked anything for himself before or has spent a lot of time only eating very over or undercooked meals which might explain his pallor. But the biggest issue was with how Johnson made a cup of tea, as he poured in his milk while the bag was still in the cup, but I think that seems normal for a man who’s regularly in hot water but just seems to embrace it for far too long than is normal. The rest of Johnson’s week involved him trying to tell victims of the flooding in the midlands that he understood their situation perfectly, which in his head means he once had a bath in a really big tub, and they mostly told him that he’s not been any help, something that probably didn’t compute with a man who’s never intended to be as there’s normally people that he can pay to do that sort of thing. In a school Johnson appeared to not know the words to wheels on the bus, which is totally relatable for a man who’s never had to sing it to his kids as he doesn’t know how many of them there are. My daughter is 19 months old and knows the words to that song, so all I have to do is get to understand that there will be customs checks between Northern Ireland and Great Britain under Boris’s Brexit deal and I reckon she’s a shoe in for a more competent PM.

On BBC Breakfast Johnson told host Naga Munchetty that he last used the NHS when he was at a BBQ and someone dropped a cafetière which he then trod on while jumping around to music. Its stories like that that make you wonder if he’s just seen a few things on his journey there and constructed it like an idiot Kaiser Solzer but with a life more in line with the actor who played him. Or is this just how normal events go for him in his weird life? BBQs with cafetiers being flung around the shop while everyone stomps around to Toploader. I mean this is a man who’s ex-partner, potential preferential treatment receiver and whatever happened to Angelica from Rugrats Jennifer Arcuri has said that he cast her aside like she was some sort of gremlin. Casting gremlins aside is risky us as chances are they’ll go near water or someone might feed them after midnight and they could become dangerous. Whereas there’d have been no chance of that if he’d kept her nearby what with Johnson’s inability to even work a microwave. This was said as part of an ITV expose claiming Johnson and Arcuri did have a sexual relationship, something they’ve both denied, and it would mean that while the high court deemed the government money Arcuri received with Johnson’s backing was appropriate, this revelation could change that. It’s typically ironic that in his constituency of Uxbridge Johnson is contesting his seat against candidates Lord Buckethead and Count Binface, and yet he’s the clown that’s always covering something up.

At the beginning of the week the Labour Party were hit by two cyber attacks, which has to be the most boring Christmas Doctor Who story ever. Corbyn said the timing of the attacks was suspicious, which is odd as I’ve had said that was exactly why it happened. Chances are high that the perpetrators will be caught and the Labour leader will insist on inviting them to parliament for a peace-negotiations while they simultaneously hack his phone. Labour said that no data was leaked, which is fortunate as that means it’s still there for internal staff to leak first.  On an interview on BBC’s Marr Show, Corbyn was asked about Labour’s policy on freedom of movement, something that was voted for by members at their conference, and replied simply that post Brexit there will be a great deal of movement. What does that mean? People running to stores to find the last tins of things? The fits everyone will have who can’t get their medicines? Compulsory dance classes? Labour’s manifesto is out this Thursday, replete with full costings apparently, but what it won’t have is a commitment to a second Scottish referendum, Corbyn insisting that if his party are in government, then Scotland will see the benefits. What? Everyone will be on universal credit? I’m not sure they’ll be that excited.

Meanwhile the Lib Dems, ever ones to see a gap in the market and not enquire why it’s there, have decided that as the two main parties are promising more spending on services, they’ll be backing a return to austerity instead, promising government spending will always run a permanent surplus. Yes they aren’t just keen to reverse the clock on Brexit but also on all other policies of the time, and it’s likely only days before they pledge to lure former PM and human corn puff David Cameron from out of his big shed in order to appeal to no one. At the same time as announcing this, Lib Dem candidate for Cities of London and Westminster and only human with a gloss coating Chuka Umunna said that the party couldn’t back now the bid for now independent MP and rectangle with ears David Gauke to get re-elected because he presided over welfare cuts as a Conservative cabinet minister. Which is awkward as several of his new party mates from the Conservatives voted for those cuts as did his new boss. Maybe it’s the presiding over them that he doesn’t like as he’s far more keen to be part of a group that just supports them but pretends its someone else’s fault all along.

At the Confederation of British Industry conference, all three party leaders addressed the audience. Johnson said he was scrapping the proposed 2% cut to corporation tax in order to spend it on other national priorities like the NHS even though it doesn’t actually mean any more money for the NHS that he hasn’t already pledged. If anything this announcement just said, I’ll keep a tiny bit of the bare minimum of dosh you give us in order to spruce up our hospitals all nice before you buy them off us. Johnson also hinted at significant childcare policy pledges in their manifesto which will probably just boil down to him promising to visit the ones of his he knows of at least once a year. Corbyn told the CBI that they had so much to gain from a Labour victory, though he didn’t specify if that was in terms of finances or just more people being able to review companies badly on their new free broadband. Swinson said the Lib Dems were the natural party of business, which really sounds like a euphemism for being best at pooing.

And Brexit Party leader and man entirely composed of eye bags Nigel Farage has insisted that his candidates had been offered government jobs if they promised to step down to make way for Conservatives ones, something that Boris Johnson has denied. Horror Goomba Anne Widdicombe backed Farage saying she was offered a role in Brexit negotiations if she stood down but could not be buttered up, which is good as that’s not an image anyone ever wants ever. Farage has accused Johnson of corruption which must have caused a whole ton of pots and kettles to immediately give up. Still it does mean that one of them is telling the truth and only when we discover who it is will we all be able to get to the castle.

Lastly, an exclusive interview with man who’s like if someone stuffed a suit with the backing bit that you throw away from transparent graph paper Prince Andrew, all about his connection to convicted paedophile and man who definitely didn’t kill himself Jeffrey Epstein, was somehow both a cringeworthy hour of bullshit and the most boring viewing ever. Andrew’s excuses as to why he didn’t have sex with a girl who has claimed she was both trafficked and then raped by him, included that it can’t have been him as he was at home with the children, not something you want to say when associated with Epstein. He couldn’t recall ever meeting a woman that he had several photos with, said he’d never been upstairs in Epstein’s house then said one of the photos was taken upstairs, but somehow recalled going to Pizza Express in Woking because it was such a memorable experience. To be fair, being part of the monarchy, going to a normal restaurant is probably memorable on account of how rarely you ever do it. Whereas you might completely forget stuff that happens so frequently it’s not of note anymore. At one point Andrew claimed a description can’t have been of him as he has a condition that means he doesn’t sweat, an excuse that is so shit he should’ve at least been imaginative with it and said ‘it can’t have been me as I occasionally cease to exist except in the form of a tortoise.’ The whole interview did absolutely wonders for the credibility of anyone who isn’t Prince Andrew and has left everyone very much feeling like the royal family are just getting away with some very heinous activity because of who they are. Why am I mentioning this on a politics podcast? Well our current Prime Minister has refused to discuss the interview, but back in August Johnson defended Andrew’s connections with Epstein saying that he’d seen the good the Prince had done for UK business overseas. I guess we’ll never know exactly what type of industry that business was in or how legal it was.

And just as I’m recording this the Lib Dems and SNP have lost their High Court challenge to be included in the ITV leader’s debate on Tuesday that may have happened by the time you’ve heard this, and I hope for your sake you ended your Tuesday evening by doing something more fun like repeatedly poking yourself in the eye. The parties said it was biased as there is no pro-remain or Scottish independence viewpoint in the show, but the High Court said it wasn’t suitable for judicial review, probably because both Johnson & Corbyn’s lack of consistency on those issues could mean that both areas do get covered.

ADMIN

Howdy ParPolBrods. How’s you? Phew this week’s show nearly didn’t happen as the whole family got hit by the Norovirus this weekend, taking it in turns, one by one, to become disgusting fountains of horror. I got hit on Sunday and was kinda excited about the prospect of actually getting to stay in bed all day, until I realized that Norovirus is the one bug that means you have to leap out of bed every few mins or bed will become a bad, bad place of horrible things. My daughter had it Friday and Saturday and she very quickly learned that we would do anything to make her happy while she was having a terrible chucking up her guts which means she got endless Cbeebies and at one point I had to sing ‘Wheels On The Bus’ so many times based on her requests, that it ended up having not only all the usual bus things of windscreen wipers, engine, bell, driver and passengers. But also our whole family, all our friends, a farm, various exotic animals, every Cbeebies character she knows, some fireworks, a car, a rocket, a robot, a lot of fruit and veg and some pasta. I feel I have learned two things from this. One is that considering the Prime Minister couldn’t even remember one verse, and I did about 80 odd, I am clearly more than qualified to run things. The other thing is that based on what my daughter thinks should be on a bus, she must never ever become transport secretary. Ever. Rush hour would be just awful for everyone.

Anyway, I hope you are doing better than that and thankfully the podcast is here. Not sure who’s thankful though, I mean it’s just yet another outlet where you can hear that the Conservatives are doing well in all the polls because it turns out everyone loves NHS waiting times and food bank usage increasing. I mean, all we need now is some sort of massive infrastructure collapse due to neglect and they’ll gain another 10% because we clearly all hate ourselves. Oh god its so bleak. Sorry, what I meant to say was hello to all you new listeners that have joined thanks to, I assume, that one quite lazy tweet that I did that everyone seemed to like. I’m sure you’ve already unsubscribed but if not, welcome aboard the laugh so you don’t cry train. If you enjoy the show don’t forget to spread the word about it, if you can donate to the ko-fi.com/parpolbro to fuel me with oh so needed coffee or the patreon.com/parpolbro if you fancy that instead. I know you’ve all left the Patreon, I know its not popular anymore, I know I don’t do any perks but one day, one day I will and its worth it just for the possibility, the uncertainty that you clearly don’t have enough of in your lives. I mean come on, it works for the government, the possibility of hope, despite the clarity that it won’t come to fruition should mean you give me just £1 a month. Thanks. Also you can review the show on any of your pod apps what you use and I found a website that tells me all the reviews on Apple Podcasts from other countries that I couldn’t see on the UK version here. So thank you tons to MigaSpace9 in the US for your nice one this week, and Taneagrafika in Taiwan and many others who I just didn’t know where there. I mean how stereotypically British is that? Just completely ignoring viewpoints from anywhere else. I’m so sorry but ta for your lovely words.

Couple of things to mention this week. Firstly, I have made a little extra page on the partlypoliticalbroadcast.co.uk page which you can find on the menu called Election 2019 Pod Guide. I’ve listed all the episodes with interviews on that you may find useful in the lead up to this election and you can find them based on category from Brexit and Climate Change to Jobs, Disability Rights and more. Obviously, the jokes in those episodes will be super out of date so you may want to skip to the chat bits, but I hope even one of you finds that useful. The audio from earlier episodes is proper balls though so don’t get all hate mail in my face about that. I was but a learner back then. If there are bits of interviews you think are particularly needed, and you want to cut or use them for your own persuasive campaigning needs, please do so. If you drop me a line I can send you the original audio too. If I had time I would do it but I don’t because I’ve been too busy being sick. You’re welcome.

The other thing is that Sam Duckworth aka Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly is holding an event at Kings Place in Kings Cross on Sunday called Last Registration celebrating the right to vote, with loads of guests and stuff and it’s only a quid for tickets. I’m involved in some currently undecided way, but I’ll be doing something. Ticket links will be on Sam’s Twitter prob by the time you hear this, and he’s @forgetcape.

Oh and other other thing, I keep forgetting to plug it, but do check out the not as comedy podcast that I also host, Future Curious. The one about participatory futures is now out and is genuinely hopeful about the future so that makes a nice change doesn’t it? Available on all places where you get noises.

Right this week’s show is, yes you’ve guessed it, even more election stuff because what else is there? Well yes, all the impeachment stuff in the US and all the really grim stuff in Hong Kong but I don’t understand any of that as I’ve been too caught up in how Boris Johnson can’t make tea. I’m speak to Political Sociologist Paula Surridge about what on earth might happen and I waffle on a bit in the middle about some other things knowing full well that the leadership debates and manifesto releases will come out later this week and make it all redundant. FUN!

INTERVIEW WITH PAULA

One thing is absolutely certain this election and that is that no one at all is certain how it will go. Certain uncertainty is the kind of certainty we’ve had for years now what with Brexit and the like, so it does make sense that this general election is keeping the theme of our times. While I feel quite sure that we will end up with a Conservative majority, resulting in everyone centre and left blaming each other for it, while Johnson uses the distraction to grope the Queen, sell the entirety of Yorkshire to Trump to be used as a golf course, and deports anyone who’s surname isn’t the same as his, leaving just him and his 7000 children to run riot around the country. While I think that’s what will happen, in reality, there’s also a chance that it’ll be a Labour minority government or a coalition or possibly just a weird stand-off where everyone in the UK abstains out of sheer boredom of it all and the House of Commons remains empty till 2025 and we all actually enjoy our lives. Polls predict a larger than 10 point Tory lead but is that including silent Tory voters? What about silent Labour or Lib Dem voters, do they exist? Well no, not according to my social media. What about people who didn’t vote last time and might vote this time or might not? What about all those polling stations that may be under 12 foot of snow, or floating or will require having to sit through a Year 3 nativity play in order to get to it? There are so many variables, its hard to know where to begin or even if we should be beginning at all when there’s 4 weeks to go.

So this week I spoke to Paula Surridge, a political sociologist at Bristol University who does sterling work looking at all the info and trying her best to work out exactly what might happen. Though as you can hear from her very interesting answers, the main thing you might want to take away from all this is that, hey, its just too early to tell so you may as well ignore everything for at least a week or so and have a cuppa. Which as far as I’m concerned, is the sort of grade A advice that we need right now. Hope you enjoy, here is Paula:

INTERVIEW WITH PAULA PART 1

And we’ll be back with Paula in a minute but first…

ELECTION FLEX

Wow, that jingle doesn’t get any better does it? Yes it’s more election flex and this week it’s a speedy look at a few more of the policies announced so far by some of the parties. But damn, it’ll be speedy.

CONSERVATIVES

The Prime Minister told the CBI conference today that they would scrap their planned 2% cut to corporation tax which will generate £6bn that they can spend on the NHS because for some reason that £350m per week from leaving the EU that we definitely aren’t going to get, isn’t enough. Because it doesn’t exist. This isn’t extra to what they’ve already pledged to the NHS, they just hadn’t bothered to explain where the money for their big NHS pledge was going to come from. Now they have, except that Johnson also told the CBI conference that they’re going to review business rates and cut employer’s National Insurance contributions which, guess what, all go towards things like the NHS. No idea what those business rates reviews would be though or NI cuts but I guess we probably wouldn’t find out till after the election. Chances are high they’ll be high fiving everyone with one hand, while the other is punching you in the leg.

The other big policy announcement from the Conservatives was that they’d cut immigration figures but they haven’t said by how much, as apparently that’s arbitrary, you know, to make a policy achievable when they haven’t managed it before because all their claims about reducing to tens of thousands were stupid. They keep banging on about an Australian points style system, but they’ve also said most people immigrating to the UK would need a job offer before they could be allowed in, which means it isn’t an Australian points based system, it’s just like the one we’ve always had only now it’ll apply to EU citizens as well. Immigration to the UK has actually dropped since 2010, probably because more people have realized how grim our government are and that there’s much nicer places to go to where you won’t be constantly insulted for paying tax and working really hard. EU immigration in particular has fallen since 2016, and whereas non-EU immigration has stayed pretty much the same and last year 226,000 more people arrived than left. Though depending on how this election goes, I suspect the emigration numbers might leap a bit. Johnson also previously pledged that they’d fast track workers for the NHS on an NHS visa, which would cost £464, which half of what it does for other professions at £928. But added to this would be a surcharge to use the NHS for £625 a year, even though they know they’ll be coming to staff it because there aren’t enough workers there. I mean, how shit is that as a marketing incentive? Spend your money so you can get treated at a hospital that will be understaffed as you won’t be there!

This isn’t a manifesto policy but it’s worth adding that just recently the Home Secretary and person that all the Grimm Fairy Tales warned you about Priti Patel just blocked the extraction of 60 minors and orphans from Syria, some children of ISIS members, but all British nationals, on the basis that the kids are ‘security risks’. How on earth are they? I mean I suppose if they’re given a better life than the one they had under irresponsible parents, then I guess they might laugh or smile and that would be ruinous to the British Values Priti Patel upholds that involve being genuinely shitty and one of them might even protest against her punching kittens for fun as that’s definitely what she does. The reason that’s worth adding? Because that’s a glimpse at how tough she and the government will make things for anyone from anywhere else coming to the UK if they get a majority. On the plus side, anyone that isn’t allowed to come here, won’t have to deal with a home secretary who clearly spends her weekends scowling at babies.

LABOUR

Before we look at Labour policies, a quick fact check on what the Conservatives have said about them, as always handy to get them truths in. Johnson said that Corbyn’s corporation tax plans are to have the highest in Europe, which isn’t true as Labour are saying they’ll raise it to 26% which is the same as the UK had in 2011, and lower than France, Portugal, Belgium and Greece. That’s 7% higher than Johnson’s 19% current rate but still ain’t the highest but I can’t expect Johnson to be looking at facts about Europe now can I? In terms of immigration too, the Conservatives have said Labour plans would increase immigration to 840,000 a year but according to full fact Labour haven’t even said what their plans are yet and the way the Conservatives came to those figures isn’t at all credible. Yet we’re meant to trust them with the economy. Sigh.

Ok so Labour’s plan is to deliver free broadband for everyone by 2030, which is fairly important in a country where you need to have broadband to apply for universal credit or you know, to register to vote. Currently only 1.5% of all homes in the UK have full fibre broadband, which is the type that helps you poo. Sorry I mean gives you the fastest internet. Which is sort of the same except the latter means you consume shit. Labour say the whole thing will cost about £20bn but BT, which is what they’d be partly renationalizing to do this, say it’ll be £30-40bn, the National Infrastructure Commission say it’d be £33bn and the Conservatives say it’ll £40bn because they like to make up numbers. According to a sky news fact check, Labour’s figures add up in theory as they’ve covered maintenance costs by putting new taxes on companies like Google and Amazon, then minus that cost the £20bn they’ve pledged adds up to the National Infrastructure commissions costs. But there might be a ton of hidden costs such as buying private companies, legal fees and the BT pension costs that would need to be covered. Australia have a nationalized broadband network that is reportedly really crap with loads of delays, dodgy network quality and unexpected cost rises, but Labour say that is down to it only being part nationalized which meant it operates on a franchising model, and we’ve all been shit parts of a franchise. I’m looking at you Subway off the A1 near Peterborough. South Korea currently has 95% broadband role out via a mix of state and private investment that is deemed successful. Some argue that that role out isn’t enough as full fibre broadband everywhere by 2030 would mean we’d be where many countries are at now, so by 2030 they’ll probably be using some sort of magic internet that beams you trolls and pirate copies of the Mandalorian in less than a second straight into your brain. But aside from fears that Labour running it will somehow turn it into an East Germany style monitoring operation even though the rest of the time they’re also apparently too useless to do anything, it’s generally acknowledged that we have to do something like this to make the UK future proof, even if all other signs are that we’re rapidly heading into the past.

Last one, the Lib Dems have pledged to replace the business rates system with a land value tax and spend £100bn on tackling climate change, all while keeping a structural surplus equal to 1% of the national income. But what on earth does that mean? Well it means businesses would be charged according to commercial land value, rather than straight up banded business rates, which according to the Lib Dems would cut taxes by 92% in local authority areas. It would help smaller businesses, especially properly physically tiny ones and allow them to invest in renewable energy solutions which all sounds grand. But the CBI said the implementation of it would be so complicated and that it may not cut costs overall. The £100bn on tackling climate change hasn’t really been costed and is based on the money we’d have not leaving the EU, if that money isn’t being used elsewhere like I dunno, sending the EU endless ‘I’m sorry please forgive me’ cards and chocolates. I can’t find much details on the surplus, but in an election where after 9 years of cuts, both main parties are pledging more spending that might be a hard sell to say that there can’t be much hard buying.

That’s that for now, manifestos start coming out this week so I’ll look at them as they do. Any policies you’d particularly like me to look at, or election aspects you think need to be checked, do drop me a line. Ultimately I suppose lots of these things won’t happen due to being blocked in parliament or unexpected events or many other reasons, but it comes down to which provides a better option of hope. Do you want a future proof, climate change tackling UK, or one where Priti Patel is standing on the coast with a burning pitchfork telling children to fuck off back to a warzone? I’m just saying.

And now, back to Paula…

INTERVIEW WITH PAULA PART 2

Thanks to Paula for that. You can find her on Twitter @p_surridge and her blog is at medium.com/@psurridge. Do get following her asap for excellent election analysis. Paula wrote an article for the Guardian end of last week too about how Tory remainers, not Labour leavers are the key to this election and it’s worth a read. I’ll pop a link in the pod blurb.

There is hopefully a guest for next week though they may have just cancelled as I record this but I’ll try and sort something out if that’s the case. There’s one or two other people I have lined up while this short election somehow drags on, but who would you like to hear from in the lead up to the big day. Let me know and you can do that by dropping me a line at the contact page on partlypoliticalbroadcast.co.uk, the @parpolbro twitter, the Partly Political Broadcast Facebook group that no one uses much including me or email me at partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com. Or maybe just plaster it on several leaflets featuring bar charts with small print that points out how you’ve made them all up in your head based on a Mark Rothko paintings you’ve seen and I won’t have a clue if you’re recommending someone to me or if it’s just another election leaflet that I can give my daughter to scribble on then pop in the bin. It is, as always, probably just best to email.

END

And that’s all for this week’s Partly Political Broadcast podcast. Thanks again for tuning in via your old reliable wireless and do stay tuned for the shipping forecast, national anthem, the weird pagan curses that only happen when everyone goes to bed and a list of all my favourite swears in alphabetical order. If you did do liking this then why not give it a review on Apple Podcasts or any of them pod apps where you listen to this, donate to the ko-fi & Patreon sites and most importantly just tell other people that listening to this isn’t shit.

Thanks muchly to Acast for the hostings, to The Last Skeptik for the musics and to Kat Day for typing up the linear liner notes every week.

This will be back next week when the Conservatives warn everyone that Labour will nationalize their children, only for Johnson to realise that actually he would like that as then he wouldn’t have to have any part in looking after them.

BYEEEEEEEEEE

This week’s show was sponsored by Boris Johnson’s British Potential Brexit Teabags. Let everyone think you’re going to take them out, but keep leaving them in and milking it for as long as possible for your own benefit.

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