Further Reading

A whole load of useless people have gone! Rejoice! Oh wait, they’ve been replaced by worse people. Boooo. Yes its cabinet reshuffle time again when any hopes of a better future are dashed within minutes as someone you’ve heard of and don’t like is replaced by someone you’ve not heard of but who is somehow worse. Who’s in the new cabinet? What does it mean? Why does everyone who’s into eugenics look inbred? Plus a chat with political analyst and writer Jeremy Gilbert (@jemgilbert) on just what Labour lost the election and what they should do next.

Links and sources of info from Jeremy’s interview:

• • Jeremy Gilbert on Twitter – https://twitter.com/jemgilbert
• • Jeremy’s website – https://www.jeremygilbert.org/
• • Twenty-First Century Socialism (book) – https://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9781509536559
• • It was the centrist dads who lost it (article) – https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/it-was-centrist-dads-who-lost-it/
• • Open Democracy on Twitter – https://twitter.com/openDemocracy
• • Keir Milburn on Twitter – https://twitter.com/KeirMilburn
• • James Butler on Twitter – https://twitter.com/piercepenniless
• • Richard Seymour on Twitter – https://twitter.com/leninology
• • Dawn Foster on Twitter – https://twitter.com/DawnHFoster
• • James Meadway on Twitter – https://twitter.com/meadwaj
• • Neal Lawson on Twitter – https://twitter.com/Neal_Compass
• • Red Pepper Magazine on Twitter – https://twitter.com/RedPeppermag
• • Red Pepper Magazine website – https://www.redpepper.org.uk/
• • Hilary Wainwright on Twitter – https://twitter.com/hilarypepper

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
• • Kat on Twitter – https://twitter.com/chronicleflask
• • Buy Kat a coffee (go on, spread the love) – https://ko-fi.com/katday

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast podcast, the comedy politics podcast that doesn’t like to get straight to the point as that’s how you get stabbed. I’m Tiernan Douieb and core design of a cartoon before any features have been added Sajid Javid has resigned from his position as Chancellor, because ever the jobs worth, he’s never not trying to prove that departmental cuts need to be made. After being told by the Prime Minister and child of a Dalmatian pelican and a silage dump wagon Boris Johnson, that he needed to fire his team of aides, Javid refused and stepped down. Very out of character for a man who’s usually happy to have people removed without any reason or evidence as to why.

While you might often think that a reshuffle is something you’d do to getter a better hand to play, the British government has once again defied the norm by swapping its cards to provide a real flush, just toilet rather than royal. Or perhaps I’ve got this wrong and the shuffle in the term ‘cabinet reshuffle’ refers to the dance, with its dragging sliding step, and to reshuffle merely means to do all over again until you’ve successfully dragged and slid the country all the way backwards. How else to explain the momentary respite the PM gave the country by doing away with human flotsam Esther McVey with one hand, before using the other to scoop up the sort of jetsam that’s usually thrown overboard in horror, Suella Braverman. Why try and save the sinking ship when you can merely stack all its debris back on board and end suffering by speeding up the submergence? Yes, out goes Energy secretary and mother Andrea Leadsom, probably on account of how much she drained and wasted just by existing. Out goes Northern Ireland secretary and Dominic West but if he’d died in a horrible way and then come back as a zombie Julian Smith, because the government seem to assume that position should be a power sharing agreement too, between every Tory MP for all of 5 mins, to make sure no one gets attached and it’s easier to let them go once Brexit starts. What if Christopher Biggins joined the Dark Side Geoffrey Cox is no longer Attorney General, because it’s only fair that he share his advice on how to be unlawful with the rest of the world. However, his voice will be retained for acoustical engineering needs on the Palace of Westminster during repairs. The aforementioned Esther McVey, the evillest of the Pokemon, has lost her home at the Housing department, which seems fair as under her most people didn’t get one to lose in the first place. And Culture Secretary and Postman Pat extra Nicky Morgan has gone, showing that actually changing in order to stay relevant isn’t a working plan at all. And of-course the Javid who couldn’t cope with the threat of his aides being taken away by the government, giving him, perhaps, the first glimpse ever of what it’s like having to deal with the DWP. Javid’s resignation, while he may have been pushed, supposedly wasn’t planned and he’s gone with the new government’s first budget due in just a few weeks. If he’d had any real conviction, he’d have written ‘go fuck yourselves’ and left it in the red dispatch box for his replacement to find on budget day. Or better yet, just a note with ‘I’m afraid there is no money’.

And who might his replacement be? Well its seemingly out with the cold, in with the coup as all the new recruits are a motley bunch of yes people who have a track record of unquestionably following the orders of the Prime Minister and the rat that sits in his hair and helps him cook up a recipe for disaster Dominic Cummings. The epitome of this is the new chancellor, Rishi Sunak, who looks like BFG the young and in the city years, and is best well known for appearing instead of the Prime Minister in a number of the election campaign debates, in the way you might put on an inadequate out of office autoreply on while you’re actually sitting in your office. Sunak previously worked for a billionaire owned hedge fund where his former partner was involved in a multi-million tax avoidance scheme. So, Rishi is perfect for the job of post Brexit chancellor where his entire job will be redirecting funds that should be used for public good but are instead hidden away on an island that only the rich will have access to. Sunak had tweeted in December a picture of him and Sajid Javid going to see Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker, saying ‘great night out with the boss – Jedi master’. Visually it did look like Yoda was taking Jar Jar Binks on a date, but otherwise neither could be Jedis when they were both clearly very happy to work for the empire. Still I bet they enjoyed the film as Sunak and Javid until last week, have shown no problem ignoring glaring plotholes to instead loudly repeat hollow fan service over and over again. The plan is now that there will be joint advisors for number 10 and number 11 because why have two teams be shit at two things, when one can fail to do both all by themselves? Even if the country’s finances won’t be, we can at least have solace that the points of failure will be very economical indeed.

One of the other particularly troubling appointments is the new attorney general Suella Braverman, who’s name makes her sound like a superhero but if she was, she’d see someone was in trouble, pop by to tell them to sort it out for themselves then piss off again. Braverman doesn’t like human rights, doesn’t think courts should have any power over parliament and is part of a controversial Buddist sect. They must be controversial if he beliefs seem to involve reincarnating outdated authoritarian ideals and harming all living things so it limits the chances of her coming back next time as quite such an idiot. Yes the government have again pulled their classic move of making you think the cabinet are the worst people in the universe until you see that the people who replace them are much, much worse and could only have been plucked from another bizarro dimension where rock bottom is merely the surface level everyone resides on. Of course certain cabinet members, such as Home Secretary and Grendel’s mother Priti Patel, and Foreign Secretary and giant blister Dominic Raab have been allowed to stay as its impossible to find anyone worse for their roles than a man who doesn’t understand what an island is and a woman who uses 1984 as a policy guide.

In the new cabinet’s first meeting on Friday, Johnson told them to focus on delivery, like a team of takeaway couriers, turning up with whatever shit the chef has made regardless of what was ordered. The PM did a call and response with his ministers, asking them how many hospitals they were going to build, as they all shouted ‘40’, how many new nurses ’50,000’ because if you know anything about rhythm, adding in ‘except the money we have is only for 6 new hospitals and 20,000 of the nurses are one that are already there’ takes a musical skill that I’m not sure any of them could manage. Actually, the call and response chant that would work best for this new cabinet of stooges, would just be singing ‘I don’t know but I’ve been told’ over and over again without any other lines of the song.

The big worry is just what they’re going to be told and then automatically do without question, as a newly recruited Conservative aide and lymphoma with a face Andrew Sabisky has been found to have openly supported the use of eugenics, suggesting that compulsory contraception would stop a permanent underclass. Pretty abhorrent views though nice that Sabisky is testing his theory out by being so grim no one will ever sleep with him and then hopefully he’ll be bred out of the genepool. Sabisky is one of Cumming’s recruits after he called for misfits and weirdos to work as parliamentary aides and he’s obviously got the job after fulfilling both of those criteria. In other blog posts he’s written he’s suggested there are racial differences in intelligence, which I suppose could explain why so many white people are unable to understand the concept of racism and that women’s sport is more comparable to the Paralympics than the men’s, which I’d argue has some truths in that neither gets as much funding and both sets of athletes have to work even harder to get where they are because of arseholes like Sabisky, ultimately making them better. Id assume finding someone in the Conservatives that’s into eugenics isn’t that uncommon, which is why so many of them look inbred, but the No.10 are refusing to sack Sabisky despite pressure from, well, anyone with a pulse and most concerningly the Prime Minister’s spokesman wouldn’t say if he agreed with aide or not and just that Johnson’s views on the intelligence of black people and eugenics are well known. Which is true and very worrying. On the plus side, if the government were to do some sort of horrific forcing through a cognative enhancer for children, as one of Andrew Sabisky’s blogs suggests, then at least in future we wouldn’t have dickheads like him or the PM in charge as they wouldn’t exist. Sabisky, as I record, has resigned from his position after all the scrutiny but are we going to see more and more shuffling incel potato people getting hired? Just before the reshuffle, Dominic Cummings said that the cartoon PJ Masks would do a better job than all of the then cabinet put together, which isn’t untrue as PJ Masks is a show about superheroes who fight crime at night, whereas most of the Conservative party aren’t even interested in fighting it during the day. But it is a cartoon and you have to wonder if Cumming’s sense of reality is even more warped than we thought? And also, if someone can very quickly make a cartoon where the protagonist, potentially children in hats so Dom can identify with them, and they fight the shit out of authoritarian eugenics loving fascists and put lots of money into the NHS that’d be great, thanks.

Over in Brexit, sorry, not Brexit negotiations, things are going as smoothly as we were promised they would, with the UK government complaining that the EU’s trade demands are unreasonable and tougher on the UK than they are on other countries. Yeah but did any of those other countries spend 4 years calling the EU Nazis, letting people burn their flags in Trafalgar Square and repeatedly making up lies about them? I mean, I don’t remember. Maybe Japan got really feisty at some point during their 7-year negotiation, but I don’t recall.  The EU are asking for the UK to align with its trading standards as well impose rules on our tax regime and it all seems a lot less likely that Boris Johnson will get Brexit done and more that Brexit will do him and Britain. The French foreign minister who looks like skin wrapped around a shrug, said he expects the UK and the EU to rip each other apart in negotiations, which may be more damaging to the EU but only because we’re already messily divided in the UK so I can’t imagine it’ll make much difference anymore. Meanwhile the US are looking to start trade talks with the EU before the UK on account of Johnson allowing Huawei to be part of our 5G set up. Still hey, we’ve always got the Faroe Islands and I’m sure we’ll be fine on a strict diet of er…hang on..let me check…frozen fish and er…chilled fish and ….dried fish and …salted fish and…aircraft. Hm.

In other news a number of Tory MPs have warned the government not to pick a fight with the BBC, as there have been rumours that Number 10 wants the licence fee scrapped and a subscription service in its place, but of course that’d make it tricky next election if people have to pay to get their unfiltered campaign material. The Prime Minister could face a parliamentary probe after Johnson declared he had accepted a gift of £15,000 of accommodation for his private holiday in Mustique over Christmas but the donor he specified, Carphone Warehouse co-founder David Ross, has denied it was from him. It has turned out that true to form from Ross’s business, that something was been lost in communication and spokesperson has now said it was him, but you still have to wonder why he did it and if we’ll soon be seeing government funneling investment into very unhelpful teenage staff in upsetting shirts or if they think they can just level up the country by paying a lot of money for upgrades.

And lastly, after Storm Dennis battered the country this past weekend but not in a good fish and chips way, several areas of England and Wales suffered from dangerous flooding for the second time in a week and over 500 homes were hit, prompting many to wonder if we’re going to reclaim our fishing waters post Brexit by just having them within the country instead of outside. Despite this, the Treasury’s figures reveal that only 1.5% of the infrastructure budget is being spent on flood defences. The rest is going on things like roads and railway lines, which is pointless as boats, submarines and sharks don’t need those things. But hey, maybe I’m being cynical, and the government’s bigger plan is to use eugenics to give us all gills and be done with it.

ADMIN

What’s kicking chickens? No, you’re right, I’ll never say that again. I know this bit is usually filled with nonsense waffle times and admin stuff, but this week it is going to be super brief, like Batman’s pants, as the interview is a long un. Oh but a good un. But a long un. So this bit is just full of a very quick thankses for listening – thanks for listening! That was it. Followed by the usual asks for reviews, donations and all that which I’ve tried to get some help on from the youth, who understand online engagement and all that:

CLIP OF AURORA

I expect the Patreon and ko-fi accounts to explode and Apple to get in touch saying the show has so many reviews they’re having to store them on the moon. Incidentally, after many moons of telling you not to do the Patreon, they are soon to be allowing pounds and euros and others as well as US dollars, so that should make it all easier should you wish to give me £1 a month, instead of like now where you have to give me $1 and the currency exchange means that costs you your home and then the bank charges you your firstborn as a fee too.

Also, what shall I do with the Twitter and Facebook groups? I’m aware I’m not posting anything on either of them other than when this podcast is out. What sort of things do you want to see on there that also won’t take up my entire life? Let me know if you have any good ideas, otherwise I will trundle along with tedious pod promo, occasional sassy gifs and pointless polls until the internet dies.

On this week’s show I spoke to Professor of Cultural and political theory at the University o East London Jeremy Gilbert all about why Labour lost the election and you’ll be surprised to hear that it’s not just one thing. I know right? It is, instead, 50 mins of chatting things. I know that’s long and you don’t have the time in your busy, busy lives, but make the time. This month has one whole extra day in it, so the least you can do is conjure up a few minutes. Seriously, at least try. Plus, a short introduction to the new cabinet. But first, get this in your lugholes:

INTERVIEW WITH JEREMY

The Labour Party, so called because while it should be natural to support them against the constant fuckstorm horror show pissfest that is the Conservatives, it still feels like hard work. After an election defeat in December where 60 of their seats were lost, her majesty’s opposition now not only need to work out just where they can sit down, but also who the new face of the party will be and what policies will they try to hawk only to be told they won’t work because that’d stop people suffering which is really un-British. The first bit, as in the who new face, is easier to predict as we know the new Labour leader will be one of three contenders, as the contest has collapsed into its final stage. On the left of the party there’s a candidate who will pose a threat to Boris Johnson on account of him spending all the time he could be enacting damaging policies trying to work out just where she is as he’s squeaked at from the opposite bench, on the right there’s a woman who will pose a threat to the PM by suggesting all his best damaging policies before he does, and in the middle there’s a man who is definitely best to take on Johnson on account of him also saying big words and never being quite clear exactly what it is he stands for. Are any of them what the party needs right now and what exactly is that? Conservative peer, 95^th richest person in the UK, a man who loves Britain so much he refuses to pay any tax here and someone who looks like a misshapen clay bust of Larry King, Lord Ashcroft, conducted a poll of 10,000 people asking them why Labour lost. The top 5 reasons that people who used to vote Labour didn’t this time were: Firstly because of Brexit which was, as we all know, entirely Labour’s fault from the moment then Labour leader David Cameron called the election. Secondidly because of party leader and half eaten corn cob Jeremy Corbyn because where ever you were in the country he’d definitely end up as your MP. Thirdmostly division because hey no one likes a maths smartarse. Fourthly because they no longer represent their traditional voters which is of course self-fulfilling if those voters don’t vote for Labour to represent them and five time because of undeliverable promises, which is obvs not good as that’s just stealing the Tories brand. But the same poll, said Labour members agreed that Brexit was the main reason, but then people being misled by the media, mislead by the Tories which is the entire point of the Tories, and that voters were just wrong or racist but if you will insist on being British then that’s what you’ll get. So, are they all right? Or all wrong and racist? Or did Lord Ashcroft fill in every answer while sitting in his pants in Belize while using £50 notes to wipe his balls while shouting what they could’ve gone to and laughing ‘saving children’s lives ahahahah’ wipe, ‘the fire service ahahahah’ wipe? More importantly, can Labour deal with all that now Brexit’s out of the way, or is the next leader, whoever they may be, going to spend 5 years dreaming the impossible dream, fighting the unbeatable foe and ultimately bearing the unbearable sorrow and also much like Don Quixote have people disagreeing about what it was all actually about for the entire rest of time?

Of all the recent analysis and op ed pieces into Labour’s election loss, most of which seemed to be from people saying I hate Labour and they lost because they’re shit, or I love them and they lost because everyone else was shit, the best & most thorough were a series of 6 articles on Open Democracy by Professor of Cultural and political theory at the University of East London Jeremy Gilbert. Jeremy writes for a number of publications, for think tanks such as IPPR and Compass and has actually advised the Labour party on policy and strategy though as you’ll hear, they’ve not always listened. Jeremy’s most recent book ‘21^st Century Socialism’ was published earlier this month and is his manifesto for the need of revitalized socialist politics that learn from the past to adapt to contemporary challenges. So I was very chuffed that he had the time to let me ask him all about exactly why Labour lost, what they should do next and their odd power synchronicity with the US democrats. A few heads ups: One, I talk about 4 leadership candidates when there’s obvs now just 3 as we spoke over a week ago when Jeremy was having a brief break from teaching at the Cogut Centre for Humanities at the Brown University, Rhode Island where he’s currently working. There are a few coffee cup noises and at some point a coffee drinking noise that I meant to edit out but I’ve listened through twice and can’t find it. Please feel free to never ever write in and complain about it and do something worthwhile with your life instead. Right, this is a long un but a really good un. Here’s Jeremy, enjoy:

INTERVIEW WITH JEREMY GILBERT PART 1

And we’ll be back with Jeremy in a minute but first let’s find out just…

WHO ARE THE PEOPLE IN YOUR CABINET?

Yes, the phrase only political enthusiasts or detectives interrogating a suspect about a very grisly series of serial murders get to ask. It’s that time again to ask ‘who are the people in your cabinet?’ That’s right, some people you’d never heard of before but didn’t like are out – I mean, Chris Skidmore, anyone? Nope but I bet he does – And they’ve been replaced by some more people you’ve never heard of but still are certain you won’t like. Sure, you’ve read all the hot takes, op ed, tweets, Facebook statuses and toilet graffiti so you know that many of the new lot are fans of kissing Boris bum. But is this a clever, devious plan from the Cummings & Johnson team, a double act who really sound like an awful Victorian porn show, or is it just that this is all that’s left from a very shallow pool of people who are hugely unqualified for the jobs they’re in? LET’S TAKE A LOOK AND SEE KIDS!

Replacing the Saj is the new chancellor Rishi Sunak, who in every photo looks like he can’t wait to sell you life insurance. What do you need to know about the man in charge of the new budget that is due in mere days? Well he’s clearly been put in the government to help take it to the elites, you know, as he’s an Oxford Uni, then Stanford Uni graduate then worked for Goldman Sachs, and then for the Children’s Investment Fund Management which sounds nice but is completely separate from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and doesn’t officially give any money to that. It’s just a hedge fund that has children in the title but likely has absolutely nothing to do with children unless they are employed to crawl through the tunnels to wherever their money is hidden in the Cayman Islands. And it is, at least some of it, as the billionaire that owns it, Chris Hohn has several links to companies with accounts there. Which is legal of course, it’s just morally like taking a shit in a hospital reception. Sunak’s associate when he worked at the nothing to do with Children’s Investment Fund Management was Patrick Degorce founded Theleme Partners, which Sunak helped start up. Its named after the fictional hedonistic abbey in Francois Rabelais’ Gargantua and Patagruel where only attractive people are allowed in and the motto is Do What You Want. Which is rather telling considering Degorce did some not so legal tax avoidance by using a film investment scheme and was ordered to pay £8m. Is it fair to blame Sunak for his friend’s fuck ups? Well no, in the same way its not my fault that my friend Mat ate pizza from a bin that one time. But when all your buds love the tax dodging and then he also happens to be married to a millionaire who’s a daughter of a billionaire and then he’s all like ‘yeah freeports are great’, it’s important to not be surprised when his budget has tax breaks for the rich while you have to pay extra to breathe air or think about a dog. Apparently, he has already told party colleagues that its right to invest in what people care about but it does depend on which people he’s talking about, as if it’s his friends and family then they care about fuck monks and shitting on hospitals. He’s only been an MP for 5 years so getting to the cabinet this quick is amazing. If it wasn’t that he’s also been a supporter of Johnson for two years, backing Brexit and the PM’s leadership campaign, before then appearing at several debates instead of him after the Conservatives realized a block of ice was more coherent and therefore dangerous. There is little to no chance that he’ll do anything to challenge his boss, and Number 10 and 11 sharing joint aides means he’ll likely be a glorified autocue reader when it comes to financial decisions for the country. So, Sunak is a sycophant, a toady, a lackey and it remains to be seen if he can be more than that. In a tweet after he got his spanking new role, he said he had a shared mission to unite and level up the country. So that’s a no then.

Working under Sunak in his old role is former Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay who…no, sorry, he’s too forgettable. He looks like a….blurry…grey bit of paper…which…blurreyness…nope. Sorry everyone. Try and look at him out of the corner of your eye or something. That might work.

The new Culture Secretary is Oliver Dowden who is suited to the role on account of looking like a one-man medley of different 90’s ITV sitcom leads. Dowden became the MP for Hertsmere in 2015 where Elstree studios are based and Eastenders is filmed, and so has referred to himself as the MP for Albert Square. All this suggests to me is a wish to make working class people suffer unnecessary and unrealistic never ending drama. It’s hard to say whether this means he actually has a fondness for the BBC in terms of decriminalizing licence fee non-payment, which if it happens may well lead to questions over its existence. But melted waxwork of Anne Robinson John Whittingdale is back in the department of culture and aside from his scandal involving a relationship with a sex worker where he lied about his job and said he was an arms dealer because somehow that’s not as offensive as a Tory MP, Whittingdale is mostly well known for saying things like the demise of the BBC is a tempting prospect. On April 1^st, which seems appropriate, Oliver Dowden will receive the responses to the public consultation on the decriminalization of the licence fee and how he deals with that may give us a hint of where things might go. And if he hands it over to Whittingdale to deal with then we’ll know Auntie beeb is in trouble as we’ll know what’s to come because he’s very willing to pay for that sort of thing.

Alok Sharma aka a hedgehog in specs is the new Business Secretary and head of the COP26 climate conference. The first bit makes sense in that Sharma, prior to becoming an MP for Reading West, was a chartered accountant, then corporate finance advisor in the sort of job escalation that says ‘I want everyone to avoid me at parties.’ It’s the COP26 President which is odd, and not least because its partnered with business which hasn’t been the planet’s best friend in the last 50 years. It’s like making someone the minister for hammer chucking as well as president of the egg safety association. Until Sharma was made secretary for international development last summer, he has barely mentioned climate change ever. He’s only voted in favour of climate protection policies twice, is a supporter of the Heathrow expansion. But then in the Department for international development he called on the world bank to put more investment into tackling climate change in developing countries and launched a UK aid package to protect a billion people in those countries from climate disasters. What I’m saying is, I have no clue. Maybe he’ll be in the business of tackling climate change, or maybe, as is more expected with anyone on Johnson’s team, he’ll make climate change work for business. Scuba gear investment packages anyone? Tax cuts for underwater HQs?

The new environment secretary is old child George Eustice whose response to the flooding that’s hit parts of England and Wales these last two weekends was ‘we can’t protect everyone.’ Great, thanks George. I bet he’s the sort of person that goes to festivals and immediately announces, well we won’t get to see all the bands. We know George, just at least pretend to want to try. He’s a former farmer which might mean he cares for the land and welfare of animals or might see a scorched earth as an easy way to a flame grilled steak, it’s hard to say. Well not that hard to say, as he’s rarely voted for policies that will tackle climate change. He did campaign very hard in 2012 against the government’s proposed VAT on hot food, known as the pasty tax, which they then backed down on. Not sure why he bothered though when he can’t eat them all.

The new Northern Ireland secretary is Brandon Lewis, a man who looks like a hobbit that was lured away from the shire by a double-glazing sales opportunity. Lewis has worked his way through the Conservative party from councilor through to the cabinet and his history includes claiming £31k of expenses for staying at a fancy hotel in London and voting against making homes fit for human habitation, while also being a landlord. I’ve no idea why he’s Northern Ireland minister other than that his predecessor Julian Smith was actually quite good at it and that wasn’t allowed so they’ve stuck this chump in to fit in line with everyone else in government being fucking clueless about what they do. I’m guessing he’ll help with divisions in Northern Ireland by everyone uniting just so they don’t have to talk to him very often.

Lastly, but not leastly, Suella Braverman is the attorney general which is a scary appointment due to her combination of being openly against the human rights act, saying that courts have too much power and using phrases like Cultural Marxism which is known as an anti-Semitic trope. And that she is known for being completely incompetent and disingenuous. Stories range from working with Professor Steve Peers on a report protecting EU citizens’ rights after Brexit and then voting against it, or misrepresenting a legal judgement, or voting against investigations into claims of torture in the Iraq War. Sounds great for the highest legal advisor in government. Does that mean she won’t manage to completely change the court system so like the US judges are elected leading to all sorts of abuses of power? Or does it mean that she’ll just do as she’s told and not question any of it as that’d hurt her brain? Braverman did practice as a barrister for 10 years before becoming an MP which is impressive as most accounts from people who’ve had to work with her over the years wouldn’t trust her to make an Americano. Arf, I confused barrister and barrista, ha. Though based on many accounts, so would she. Braverman is however, an ardent Brexiteer, ERG member and Johnson loyalist, much like Sunak and that means as Attorney General she probably won’t be giving the government legal advice they don’t want to hear, or maybe she will because she won’t understand which bits are which.

So that plus Truss, Patel, Hancock, Raab and Gove to name but a few of what collectively looks like a bomb exploded at Madam Tussauds, is a cabinet where all the power comes from the top. By that I mean Dominic Cummings. Or whatever kids tv show he’s watching at the time. Still at least now we know what to expect and when the BBC is reporting its own end, as half the country floods, judges are arrested for upholding the law and Rishi Sunak has made it so millionaires are allowed to eat schools, at least we’ll all be able to say ‘ah well, told you so.’ And that’s all that matters.

And now back to Jeremy…

INTERVIEW WITH JEREMY PART 2

It was great talking with Jeremy. You can find his articles about why Labour lost the election at OpenDemocracy.net and his very recently released book 21^st Century Socialism is available in all them book houses. You can find Jeremy on Twitter @jemgilbert and his website is jeremygilbert.org. I will pop links to all those things in the pod blurb and thanks to excellent pod helper Kat Day, they’ll all end up on the website soon too.

Who else shall I talk to for the podcast? What else should I talk to someone about? When else should I do it? No wait, I’ll sort that last bit out as I’m not showing you my diary or you’ll find out about all my secret meetings. But you can let me know the other two by dropping me a line @parpolbro on Twitter, the Partly Political Broadcast group on Facebook, the contact page at partlypoliticalbroadcast.co.uk or email me at partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com. Or why not graffiti your recommendation on a Banksy piece somewhere in Bristol and as all the newspapers try to work whether graffitiing over graffiti is vandalism or art because it’s confusing for them,, I won’t see your message as they’ll keep blurring it out in pics and I’ll just assume it said wanker and ignore it. As always, probably just best to email isn’t it?

END

And that’s all for this week’s Partly Political Broadcast. And once again, here we are team listen all the way to the end. Hmm. I need a better name for you than that don’t it? Team Endure? Team Let It Play On Silent While You Did Something Else? We’ll get there. Any suggestions, send them in. And your reward this week for sticking to the end, some secret political insight for you. Ok so Douglas Hurd yeah? But what did he hear? Douglas Hurd this. Wah. There you go. Bet you’re glad you stuck with it this week eh? More treats next week for you ParPolCompletists. And don’t forget if you do enjoy this show, please don’t keep it a secret like Douglas did. Spread the word, not like the Hurd and also give it a review on your podcast apps and maybe even chuck me a pound or several thousand at the ko-fi or Patreon.

Big thankings to Acast for pod housing, the Last Skeptik for music happy times, Kat Day for the linear liner notes on the website and Mushybees for all the pretty pics.

This will be back next week when the government reveals its eugenics roll out has been happening for years but as the Prime Minister has no idea who or where his kids are, it’s impossible to check the results.

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEE

This week’s show was sponsored by Sajid Javid’s principles, a card game for all the family where you have to guess just whether the former Chancellor would care about a moral dilemma or not. UK steel industry collapsing? No, you lose! He’s on holiday in Australia! People being deported despite being British citizens? Noooo silly, even though it could’ve happened to his dad. Not allowed his own special clever friends at work? Boo, that’s bang out of order and you’ve just been Saj’d! Recommended retail price of more expensive than whatever it was you were promised.

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