Further Reading

Linear liner notes

It is only week 3 of the election campaign even though it feels like week 3003. Manifestos are out, the Conservatives are promising nurses that are already there, Labour want be Brexit neutral like a baby soap and Jo Swinson doesn’t want to kill squirrels but I guess she can’t help it. Plus a chat with Professor Tim Bale (@proftimbale) from UK In A Changing Europe (@UkandEU) on if this is or isn’t a Brexit election. Again.

Links and sources of info from Tim’s interview:

• • Tim Bale on Twitter – https://twitter.com/ProfTimBale
• • Time Bale’s blog – https://proftimbale.com/about/
• • Footsoldiers: Political Party Membership in the 21st Century by Tim Bale (book) – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Footsoldiers-Political-Party-Membership-Century/dp/1138302465
• • UK in a Changing Europe on Twitter – https://twitter.com/UKandEU
• • UK in a Changing Europe website – https://ukandeu.ac.uk/
• • David Allen Green on Twitter – https://twitter.com/davidallengreen
• • Sam Lowe on Twitter – https://twitter.com/SamuelMarcLowe
• • David Henig on Twitter – https://twitter.com/davidheniguk
• • Brexitcast (links to iPlayer and podcast) – https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008cx6

Election-related links:

• • Full Fact website – https://fullfact.org/
• • Full Fact on Twitter – https://twitter.com/fullfact
• • 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/

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 166

NEXT UP ADVERT – SPONSORED BY

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast, the comedy politics podcast that always makes sure it’s fully costed, by not having any budget whatsoever and also completely failing to deliver anything substantial as a result. I’m Tiernan Douieb, this is episode 166 and this week as Prime Minister and walking bonfire heap Boris Johnson has announced the Conservative manifesto and vowed to forge a new Britain, is that because once they’re done with the country, the only way to hold onto any credibility will be with a fake ID?

We are halfway through the life of the election, which must be why everyone seems to be having a crisis. Apparently, the Conservatives are avoiding a manifesto calamity which is a curious way of saying they’ve realized if they tell people what they’re really going to do, no one will vote for them. Instead their Necronomicon lite promises more money on potholes than childcare, which makes you wonder exactly what they plan to fill the potholes with and if popping a 9-month-old in an A road is going to be more feasible for parents than nursery. The big pledge is for 50,000 new nurses, though it’s been revealed that 19,000 of them are ones that are already there. I suppose you could forgive the Conservatives that error considering nothing they’ve done in the last 9 years makes it clear that they knew any nurses at all existed otherwise they might have valued them before. Tranquilized plush toy Nicky Morgan insisted that it was 50,000 more overall which calls into question other Conservative promises. Is it really 20,000 policeman they’re pledging, or does that include all the ones that are already there, plus anyone who featured in Line of Duty or Luther? Will they really be spending £6.3bn on disadvantaged homes or does that include the money that’s already been spent on any homes by anyone ever in the last 200 years?

The manifesto also contains a promise to end the fixed term parliament act, to stack boundaries in the Conservatives favour & voter suppression methods, meaning that while Johnson keeps promising and end to groundhoggery which isn’t a thing, we could be going through this shit every year as a pointless exercise in just watching them win because the only 4 people in the country with the correct combination of ID and DNA get to say so. Still there is also something vague on page 55 about supporting a British Space Command so hopefully this means at some point a few of us will get to escape to a less toxic atmosphere. Though considering what we know so far, that Space Command will probably just include spaces that already exist, most of which are in the knowledge banks of the party where there used to be a vague idea of how to seem like they weren’t completely stupid. Overall of course, the message was that Johnson will Get Brexit Done, claiming again that his plan was oven ready, meaning its likely filled with unnecessary harmful ingredients, doesn’t look anything like it does on the packaging and leaves you with an overwhelming sense of having spent too much money on something that wasn’t in any way satisfying.

This is the Conservatives winning formula though and they are ahead in the polls quite substantially in a way that suggests Britain has realized our only hopes of a strong economic future are for Johnson to catastrophically crash us out of the EU and for other nations to put on a fundraiser for us out of pity. That must be it, because it’s hard to fathom what other reason voters may be keen when everything stupid and openly callous, they’ve done over the past week would only be appealing to someone writing a script for a sitcom set in the administrative offices of hell. The first leader’s debate was between Johnson and Labour leader and physical manifestation of the feeling you have when you’re stuck in a long queue Jeremy Corbyn and it was predominantly about Brexit because that’s all the Prime Minister wanted to talk about, including when asked about being accountable for his own racist comments, he instead preferred to query his political opposite’s Brexit stance. Nothing says I’m concerned by racism quite like sidelining it in order to talk about pushing through a hard Brexit that will likely lead to an increase in racism. Other lowlights included both overrunning with their answers which bodes well for any Brexit timeline deadlines, Johnson regularly having to check his notes despite, and I’m assuming this based on his answers, them clearly only being a beermat with ‘Get Brexit Done’ written in crayon, a crude drawing of a cock and a phone number he got off a toilet wall. Corbyn was laughed at for Labour’s 4-working day week policy, though it’s obviously something Johnson likes the idea of, or he wouldn’t have insisted Parliament take so much time off in September. When asked about what if the internet loading symbol was a sex pest Prince Andrew, the Labour leader said the monarchy needed improvement. I guess for most of them, a 4-day working week would be.

The Prime Minister was laughed at by the audience when he insisted the truth matters, as its clear he only means that if there wasn’t such a thing as truth, he wouldn’t know what to lie about. That laughter was especially prescient as during the debate, the Conservative Press Office changed its Twitter handle to Factcheck UK before posting lots of pro-Tory statements prefixed by the word FACT and while you might think that was misleading, deceptive and downright crooked, there is a chance it put off many of their voters who mostly seem to be afraid of facts. Party chairman and Mr Peanut stand in James Cleverly was wheeled out yet again to defend the party’s actions because I’m now certain he lost a bet against the other members and is still paying it off. He said they did it to call out Labour’s willful misinformation regarding the NHS, yes because obviously the Conservatives are where you go to look for facts about the health service. And if I want to find out facts about workers’ rights, maybe I should go ask the Egyptian Pharaohs before popping in to see The Ringmaster from Dumbo about animal rights. The next day Foreign Secretary and botched surgery leftovers Dominic Raab defended it by saying no one who looked at it for more than a minute would’ve been fooled, which makes you wonder why do it? But also people don’t do that, otherwise the Conservative Party wouldn’t be popular anymore. The polls after the leadership debate showed the public thought Corbyn was more trustworthy and in touch with ordinary people, but that Johnson was more likeable and prime ministerial. Prime Ministerial? Is that because he’s already prime minister and him and the last two have really lowered the bar for what it means? I mean now, if I can’t remember how many kids I have, I’m being prime ministerial, or if I lie a lot and waste money on projects no one will benefit from, ‘Miss, Jonny said my dad is prime ministerial, tell him please.’ ‘Well Jonny we both know your father tried to have a journalist beaten up and set fire to some money in front of a homeless man.’

Between that tv debate and the next it was like someone uncorked a bottle of arsehole as horrific comments kept pouring out of the Conservatives. Home Secretary and only politician to get all her policies from Cards Against Humanity Priti Patel said that you can’t blame the government for poverty, because she’s the sort of person who probably blamed everything shitty she did on an imaginary friend when she was a kid. And imaginary friend who she’d likely decided was not British or rich and therefore responsible for everything. Secretary for International Trade and 98% air 2% British cheese Liz Truss was asked on TV by sea cow Andrew Neill how many starter homes the Conservatives had built, and couldn’t remember that it was completely none. Either she’s always assumed zero was a quantity thus being able to convince herself that the lack of credibility she’s always had is a plus. Or maybe she was including in her mind all the starter homes that had been built previously. Meanwhile the aforementioned spam piping bag Dominic Raab announced that the government will seek legal costs from the family of Harry Dunn, the boy killed by the reckless driving of a US security official’s wife. The family said they felt like they’d been treated by dirt by Raab, who said that he had to protect taxpayers money. I guess prioritizing the shitty driving of diplomats over justice for grieving parents, does now explain the manifesto budget for potholes instead of childcare. The Tory candidate for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire and what if they animated south park using potatoes Lee Anderson announced that he wants council house tenants to made to live in fields and pick food for 12 hours a day. Which basically sounds like a fascist camp but I guess if we crash out of the EU in January 2021, they’d be the only ones with decent access to food sources, so maybe somewhere in that potato is a heart, or at least an eye. The only Conservative not publicly vying for classic villain of the year is Judge Doom template Jacob Rees-Mogg who’s not been seen or heard from since his horrific comments about the victims of Grenfell. I’m betting he’s sitting in a room because someone told him to stay there and he lacks the common sense to leave of his own accord.

The second leaders debate was a Question Time special featuring each party head being confronted by an audience in Sheffield who were like a verbal firing squad with such cutting and excellent questions I was certain at one point they’d just ask Johnson ‘why can’t you make a cup of tea you useless lying fuckhead?’ But sadly, they didn’t. Johnson again repeated that he didn’t want an election, in the same way he probably didn’t want to cheat on his ex-wife but just kept having a go anyway. This time he defended a question about his racist comments by saying that he never intended to cause pain or hurt to anyone, which means he did it out of incomprehensible stupidity. So that’s great, our prime minister is either an intentional racist liar or a complete fuckwit. As for the other leaders, Corbyn announced that his official Brexit stance was to be neutral in a second referendum, like a car that’s going nowhere. Prime Minister and life vessel for a pipe Harold Wilson was neutral during the vote to join the EEC in 1975, as were the Conservative Party, not individual members, but the party, during the referendum in 2016. But the thing about neutral in a divided world is that you fall into the middle crack and where three word slogans are trumping, in more ways than one, the polls, ‘Sit back and watch’ might be one too many for the voting public. Corbyn was also questioned on why when the NHS needs money would he spend so much on free broadband because we clearly live in a world where only one or the other is possible and its either going to be hospitals that have to keep patient records on pieces of slate, or one where everyone has to google how to treat themselves as the hospitals have closed. SNP leader and everyone’s cool aunt who is a legend because she openly called your younger brother a prick in front of your parents, Nicola Sturgeon, was the strongest candidate mainly because she could construct a full sentence coherently. She did, of course, mostly talk about Scottish independence as if Corbyn is PM she believes she’d be able to persuade him to have a 2^nd Indy Ref as though she hasn’t realized that he’s not changed any of his views during the 30 years he’s been an MP. You’d have better luck persuading Johnson because chances inbetween his 600 changes of mind depending on what he’s advised to say, there might be 2-3 minutes where he’d agree.

And then there was Lib Dem leader and kid who chooses to stay later at school to help the teacher tidy up as a cover for not having any friends Jo Swinson. After going to court to demand she be included in the first debate you do wonder why she went to so much effort, when really based on this appearance Swinson should’ve been trying harder to not do any. She wasn’t so much hoisted by her own petard as much as the audience took her and her petard, hoisted everything and then threw them all into the sea. Swinson was called ridiculous for suggesting she could be PM, leavers and remainers berated her for insisting on revoking article 50 instead of backing a 2^nd referendum and when she was questioned on her voting record as part of the coalition she told them that her party also had plenty of fights with the Conservatives and they lost some and they won some and she was sorry they didn’t win more, though I guess that might’ve not been helped by her regularly siding with the Tories. It is also a tricky answer when one of the things they won was the referendum on alternative voting which they then lost. Though that may explain her insistence she could be PM if Swinson assumes that by losing overall somehow it’s still a win.

Earlier that week the Lib Dems had unveiled their manifesto which contained a 10 year emergency climate plan and a pledge for 20,000 more teachers, presumably unlike the Conservatives, they’d be all new ones and not 10,000 old ones and some bottles of whisky. There is a pledge to legalise cannabis and full credit to Swinson for saying that she enjoyed smoking weed at uni even though we all know she likely only tried it once, coughed a lot, made the roach too wet, pulled a whitey and then wasn’t invited to do it ever again but she does still own a Nightmares on Wax CD. There is also a really odd plan for help to rent, where they would provide loans for young people to be able to pay a deposit on renting a flat, which feels all sorts of confused. Hey kids, you like being in debt, would you like be more of it? It’s seeing a problem and deciding what was wrong with it was that it wasn’t problematic enough. What next, a canvas bag hire scheme for young people going to food banks? Earlier that week Swinson had also denounced a joke story that someone had mocked up on twitter about her killing squirrels because nothing legitimizes fake news quite like bringing it up to deny it. Even if Jo doesn’t kill squirrels for a hobby and she didn’t completely deny it so you know, this past week has definitely seen the rapid political demise of one bright eyed and bushy tailed individual.

The Labour manifesto was also released which Corbyn announced as one of hope, which shows how out of touch he is as hope is one of the least popular trends in 2019. It includes a raising of the minimum wage, a scrapping of universal credit and a lot of nationalization proposals for several public services, something that’s publicly popular but there is concern over the cost, as the British public seem to prefer if taxpayer’s money was used by Dominic Raab to upset bereaved families. But there is a lot of spending involved in Labour’s policies, which has particularly riled all the hard Brexiteers who said that we needed to crash out with no deal as some things were more important than money. It turns out though that those things were not getting your medicine rather than paying less for heating & broadband. But to be fair it does depend on who will be in charge as knowing that say, someone like the man you’d send into a hostage situation to ensure everyone died and a ransom was still paid Barry Gardiner may be in charge of it would probably mean your radiators will only work intermittently every other hour while your top google searches keep changing their mind about what results to give you. There is a policy to stop MPs taking second jobs though that may be hard if they don’t do enough in their main one for that to count as employment and big taxes on oil giants, but I assume the bean poles to get to them are pretty slippy so that could be hard. Corbyn told voters at the launch to vote for yourself, vote for your family and vote for your community, which sounds great but I’m pretty sure if I try, I’ll get done for electoral fraud. I’ll make sure to buy a lot of hats, fake moustaches and glasses.

Oh and the Brexit Party didn’t launch a manifesto but as party leader and slipper that really should’ve been thrown away by now Nigel Farage said was instead a contract for the people, which is what you have to do if you’re a private company that charges people to stand as candidates and tries to swindle them out of time and cash. One of their main policies is to stop the UK from exporting its waste, but if they do that, how will Farage go on all those right-wing US shows he likes doing? Former Farage cohort and constant hate eel Arron Banks had his twitter account hacked and all his private messages leaked online. The contents haven’t legally been cleared yet but it is amazing that Banks is such a nasty piece of work that he’s the only person who’d get hacked and they’d troll him by posting less offensive tweets.

The Electoral Commission has published a list of donations & loans of over £7500 to all parties so far in the campaign and of the overall £6.5m, £5.7m has gone to the Conservatives which is why it’d be even funnier if they lost. £1m was donated to them by theatre producer John Gore, and to be fair, I’ve only worked in theatre a little bit but I can see how hanging around with actors all the time might just want to make you give money to any party that will entirely destroy the arts. The Grime4Corbyn movement has started up again in support of Labour because nothing says aggressive beats like Labour’s performance in the polls, Coldplay are supporting the Lib Dems which is pretty much what everyone expected. No news on other parties yet but I reckon we’ll see Elgar’s ghost come out for the Tories, some sort of Womad highlights album for the Greens and it should be any day now and Morissey will probably announce some sort of album of him backed only by the noises of bubbling chip fat, vegetable oil of course, in support of the Brexit party.

And after his disastrous interview about his connections to convicted pedophile Jeffrey definitely didn’t kill himself Epstein, Prince Andrew has stepped down from all his public duties, because its only in the Royal Family where you can be a national disgrace and be punished by living your life never having to work and rolling in fat, fat dosh that the public gives you. Personally, I can’t help but think it’d be safer for everyone if he was in public at all times, trussed up like Hannibal Lecter with mittens secured on and some sort of warning scrawled on his face just to be sure.

And channel 4 have announced that their election leaders debate on Thursday will be entirely on the emergency climate crisis. Boris Johnson isn’t attending so well done Channel 4 on already reducing the toxic atmosphere.

ADMIN

OH MY GOD THAT WAS SO LONG. How is this only week three of the election campaign? It feels like it’s been going on for most of our lives. I haven’t been doing enough but I’m exhausted. I feel like I should be running around knocking on everyone’s doors screaming ‘BUT HE WON’T GET BREXIT DONE’ through their letterbox. But instead I’m mostly working and parenting and trying to find moments in between to post things online to say ‘yeah but can you please see all these facts that say Johnson is really shit though.’ I did a gig last night, quick humble brag o’clock, where myself and Tatton from Simple Politics went onstage after Lily Allen, yes that one, and told people to register to vote about 600 times in a row and I explained that you have to register to vote before you can vote, like you have to peel a banana before you eat it or you’re just hitting yourself in the face with a banana. I was proud of that, but I also know, if anything, I’ve probably dissuaded at least two people from voting. You are registered to vote aren’t you? I haven’t been banging on about it on this show because I assume, but listening to this, you have the wherewithal to do it, but you know as they say, assume makes an ass out of ume and while I like Japanese plum blossom, I’m not sure I’d want a butt made of one. So if you’re one of the Gold team who listen to this on the first day it’s out, you’ll have but a few hours to go to gov.uk/register-to-vote and sort that out and if you don’t then you can’t enjoy spending the next 5 years going ‘well I didn’t vote for them so this is all your fault.’

I am now getting genuinely terrified of a Conservative majority which would be bad for so many reasons that I point out every single week on this show. But how to persuade people otherwise when they just go ‘oh but if Corbyn’s prime minister, on day one he’ll run around shooting anyone who earns over £20 and then nationalize all the cheese.’ Which is odd, because as everyone knows, everything run at government level takes forever to happen, so you’d have at least 12-18 months before the first £20 earners were shot and cheddar was packaged in council headed paper. At least. The best advice I keep hearing is to talk to people, especially family and friends who may want for vote for Captain Strawpig, but I have successfully got rid of all my friends and family who may do that and now exist in a perfect social echo chamber. I mean I say that, I just don’t go out anymore. But if you have relatives or chums that need persuading do just speak to them honestly and try and instill some empathy in them and whenever they say, for example, ‘but Labour’s plans are fantasy’ just show them page 55 of the Conservative manifesto where they’re planning a Space Command. Yep.

Right as you heard at the very top of the show, this episode is sponsored by the brilliant comedy streaming platform NextUpcomedy.com where you can not only find my, now quite old stand up shows, but also loads from lots of brilliant very funny acts. They are properly supportive of the comedy world and it’s a great site so do sign up. If you do it via nextupcomedy.com/tiernanisgreat, no I didn’t choose that promise, then you get a month’s free subscription which should see you through the winter. So please do that.

Thanks, this week to Ed and somebody for the ko-fi.com/parpolbro donations. I need coffee right now, I need it in my eyes, so if you fancy donating please do that there or at patreon.com/parpolbro. Or you know review the show on one of your podcast apps with a phat 5 stars please or just spread the word that everyone should hear this thing. All are appreciated.

Couple of very quick admin plugs. Myself and Tatton who I mentioned earlier, are doing a last minute ‘How Does This General Election Thing Work Then?’ kids show at Greenwich Theatre this Saturday at 11am, which will be much like our other show but with a few pointers for those aged 7+ as to what on earth is going on. And all the support gigs I’m doing for Frankie Boyle are now on sale on the Soho Theatre website and are selling super quick so hurry if you want to hear me have 20 mins of breakdown on stage before Frankie does some eloquent summaries of our current hellscape.

On this week’s show I am speaking to Professor Tim Bale from UK in a Changing Europe all about the parties Brexit promises and what they mean, plus a mini-look a few manifesto pledges. It’s only a mini-look though because this podcast is already the longest show ever and yet still doesn’t feel as long as watching Jo Swinson on the leader’s debate. I mean that felt like a lifetime.

INTERVIEW WITH TIM BALE

This is apparently a Brexit election. You know the second one, after the last Brexit election which solved nothing, and the Brexit referendum before that and the local elections which were apparently Brexit based and the European Parliament ones that were so Brexit based they weren’t meant to happen if Brexit had happened but it didn’t so they did. Maybe all elections from now on will just be Brexit ones and we’ll reach a stage where the meaning of the word has been completely forgotten becoming simply, another word for general. Though to be fair, we are probably nearly there now. The NHS is now the top voter concern this election but once again The Conservatives are neglecting the health care service. As they are certain this is all about Brexit, only talking about Brexit in-between wanting gulags for poor people, forgetting they’ve not built any houses and criticizing people who died in a fire. But mostly it’s been getting Brexit done, having a deal that’s oven ready and mostly trying to sell their party like Barry Scott sells degreasing spray by shouting the same few words over and over again. But can they get it done, will we be crashing out at the end of 2020 or will they manage to get a full trading agreement with the EU by then, or will it just be extension after extension until we turn the whole country into a purgatory theme park? What about the other parties? Does Labour’s new deal and referendum and Corbyn being all neutral like a baby soap make sense or will it somehow still cause tears? And what if like the Lib Dems want, we just remain? Will the EU want that after the last few years or would they much rather we just fucked off and left them alone to have nice cheese?

This week I spoke to Professor Tim Bale, professor of politics at the School of politics and international relations at Queen Mary’s University. Tim is also part of the brilliant UK in a Changing Europe, the academic thinktank that has been working on Brexit since before the referendum. So, who better to ask about this supposed Brexit election. Tim explained all about if Brexit can get done, if we’re really still a divided country and I asked him nothing about nice cheese even though its nearly Christmas and that’s all I can think about.

Here’s Tim:

INTERVIEW WITH TIM PART 1

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

ELECTION FLEX

Party Mani Festo might sound like an extra from the Sopranos but instead it’s collection of all the election promises each party has made neatly packed up in a brochure containing lots of pictures of said leader wearing different hats alongside people who are pretending to like them. It’s like a holiday brochure for the next 5 years of your life, if your life was entirely watching the news and shouting at some idiot in a variety of hats with people pretending to like them while they don’t follow through with any of their promises. Sorry, I mean it’s like a holiday brochure for the next 5 years of my life. For this week’s show I was going to do a lengthy look at each party’s manifesto and what you might find in there, but then I realized this podcast was already 12 years long, you can read them online yourself and the Conservatives haven’t actually said anything that new in theirs apart from a weird sentence about creating a Space Command which I assume is either Special Advisor and the very angry caterpillar Dominic Cummings desperate frustrated child want for a moon base spewing out into print form, or Dominic Raab’s confused pleadings for someone to show him how to use a computer keyboard. Who knows. But there are a few bits and pieces in each manifesto that you might not have read because you have lives. So here they are:

CONSERVATIVES

Ok, so Get Brexit Done is 90% of the Conservatives Manifesto, with some confusing pictures of two candidates that are nurses and one who’s an ocean scientist and all of whom, I guess, have never ever heard of the party they’re standing for before. But in-between all that and the promises for nurses that are already there, there’s a sneaky bit about protecting our democracy. What does that mean from a party who unlawfully prorogued parliament? Well as you can probably guess, it’s a tad slim shady. They say they’ll get rid of the fixed term parliaments act which yes, means you might not have to wait 5 years to get rid of them but it also means that the Prime Minister can choose the date of an election so its most advantageous to them. Johnson could, in theory, only put elections on when all students are out of Uni, or something else that may hinder voters for other parties getting to vote like doing it on a religious holiday or the day Disney Plus comes to the UK and all the young types are too busy streaming the Mandalorian which they totally haven’t already pirated. Ahem. Something like that. Following the FTPA pledge, they also promise to make boundary changes, which does make sense in a way, due to some constituencies having higher populations than others but in reality, all previously proposed boundary changes would hinder Labour and benefit the Conservatives as they’d expand constituencies in cities so they’d require less MPs. The aim would be to cut it from 650 MPs to 600, which studies say would give the Conservatives a better chance of winning 40 more seats than they usually do under the current system. In the US its known as gerrymandering where boundary changes favour the ruling party. They pledge to bring in voter ID despite all studies showing it just stops people from voting rather than reducing the already almost non-existent cases of voter fraud and there’s a vague paragraph about improving the use of data, date science and evidence in the process of government which post Cambridge Analytica could be terrifying or it could just be that they’ve worked out an even more efficient way of ignoring all those things. It’s all a lot like the US but don’t worry because if you look at how things are over the pond then you’ll see everything is…oh. Oh dear.

And one last bit, they are promising life imprisonment without parole for child murderers, which is funny, as that’s already what happens, obviously dependent on the case and court sentence. 50,000 already existing nurses anyone?

LABOUR

Labour are pledging to bring forward the net zero target to the 2030’s. What does that mean? Well by 2030 something we’ll have no nets left, football will be more dangerous, hair will be crazy, fish be escaping. No sorry, it means within 10-15 years the UK will have net zero carbon emissions and yes, that is what needs to happen and what might mean we have the faintest of chances of saving the atmosphere from turning into a global version of the morning after too much chili sauce. But is it doable? Well yes but only if absolutely everything drastically changes. In 2017 transport was the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in the UK, followed by the energy sector, business, residential and then agriculture. There was also 2% of other which I’m sorry about and I won’t be eating that again. So flights will have to be cancelled, petrol cars will need to go pretty quickly, homes need to be insulated, solar, wind and tidal power need to come in quick enough and vast enough to replace current power and look, yes, basically this all sounds necessary to me but that’s not just implementation changes but lifestyle changes, making alternatives affordable, somehow making everyone eat less MaccyDs, and wrangling all those stupid 4x4s off twats that clog up streets with them might be harder than you think in a country full of people very stubborn about that sort of thing and who actually like Piers Morgan, and unions who still have a large say in Labour being concerned about job losses. 2030 is a bold promise but realistically, and depressingly, it might take a bit longer than that. Unless of course, Labour rally all the school children to go all lord of the flies for their future and work in teams of 30-40 taking on a 4×4 each and carrying them off to be melted and used as armour. I’m sorry for being a realistic billy but hey, I’m a big fan of being a trying billy.

LIB DEMS

The Lib Dems have pledged to legalise cannabis which while it might be a great idea if she became PM for Jo Swinson to smoke loads of it in office so she won’t hit the nuclear button, it’s also a long overdue idea. It’d raise a ton of tax from people purchasing it, it’d reduce crime and free up police time on petty drugs cases and being regulated may mean people don’t get their hands on stronger more potent stuff like skunk. The arguments against it are that actually none of that stuff happens, that cannabis is a gateway drug and that more people will use it, but hey I think if it results in the country chilling the fuck out for a bit, I’ll take a few cons. Imagine if the only way to fix a divided country post-Brexit would be to passing the dutchie on the left hand side? Seriously though, as someone who can’t physically handle drugs anymore, check out the brilliant Stop and Search podcast and Suzi Gage’s Say Why To Drugs for lots of good stuff on why drugs laws in the UK are hugely outdated and in need of reform for so many reasons.

The Brexit Party, yes I’m mentioning them because one of their policies is to ban the exporting of waste from the UK as lots of ours is exported across the world and buried or burned or dumped. Weirdly, the BP’s being all patriotic about our waste is a very environmentally friendly plan. It’d mean lots of UK businesses would have to build treatment plants and improve their recycling but we’d keep a lot more card, paper and plastic over here meaning we could reuse it ourselves and it’d stop unnecessary travel emissions. I mean I guess we should’ve seen this coming really. Farage has been reusing the same wasteful lines again and again for years now.

And the Green party are pledging a universal basic income of £89 per week, which is an idea that’s been mentioned a lot in recent times and some studies show it would lift people out of the worst poverty though others have replaced benefit systems with UBI which hasn’t quite worked. There’s a lot of other complicating factors and it’s something the Labour Party have also looked at, but its good to see it being touted by one of the main 5 parties if only to get the notion of it back on the table. And if I had an extra £89 a week I’d definitely stop asking you for coffee donations. So there’s that.

So, as I said, just a teeny tiny overview. All the manifestos are online to look at, the BBC site has helpfully written a top 12 key policies article from each one and its worth having a look just to see what might be possible or in the Conservatives case, all the rights we might lose so you can prep for it. Let me know if there’s things in the next two weeks you would like more on. Or less of. Except the jingle, that’s staying.

And now back to Tim…

INTERVIEW WITH TIM PART 2

Thanks, so much to Tim for having time to chat and for kindly stepping in last minute after an interviewee had to cancel. You can find Tim on Twitter @proftimbale or his blogsite proftimebale.com. You can also find the The UK in a changing Europe site at ukandeu.ac.uk or on Twitter at @ukandeu or on Facebook too. Big thank you as well to Lizzie at the policy institute and to Ben at UK in a Changing Europe for helping to arrange me speaking to Tim.

I’ve got the next couple of weeks of guests lined up as we head into the election but I’ll still need guests for next year. God knows what about, but I have a feeling many current issues will by that point be so old, they’ll be raisin issues. YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE? So look, have a think, tell me what you need to know more about or think others should. What causes, campaigns, issues or just nice chats about them politics that you need to hear. Drop me a line at the contact page on partlypoliticalbroadcast.co.uk, the @parpolbro twitter, the Partly Political Broadcast facebook group or by emailing me at partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com. Or you could just promise yourself to get recommendation done and then I’ll likely not hear from you until 2030 when this podcast no longer exists. It’s probably just easier to email isn’t it?

END

And that’s all for this week’s Partly Political Broadcast podcast. Thanks to you for choosing this hour of noise over any other. I mean you could’ve picked one of those shows where they play incidental music while not solving a mystery that no one has ever cared about or one of those ones where 5 men shout over each other and laugh a lot but ultimately feel empty inside. So I appreciate you went ParPolBro instead and if you are pleased about that choice, please do review the show, tell others to have a listen to it via your social medias or even just by talking with that mouth hole on your face blob and maybe even donate to the ko-fi or patreon sites if you can too.

Thanks, as ever to Acast, to The Last Skeptik for all the music noises and don’t forget his new and excellent album ‘See You In The Next Life’ is out now. And also to Kat Day for typing up the linear liner notes.

This will be back next week when the Conservatives lose points in the polls after several prominent left wingers cleverly announce that actually, they quite like Johnson now and finally his fanbase think there’s something wrong with him.

BYEEEEEEEEEEE

This week’s show was sponsored by Morgan’s All New Washing Powder. Wash your clothes with this powder that scientists have created by taking all the old powder you’ve spilt down the back of your machine. Your clothes will smell of damp pipes but if you just imagine enough and forget all logic, it smells as new as new can be when its old. Morgan’s All New Washing Powder, who needs new when you can have the same old shit and lie?

CLICK TO GO BACK