Further Reading

Linear liner notes

So many things to talk about on this week’s show which you can listen to while on lockdown. There’s the coronavirus, and the COVID-19 virus and maybe we should also talk about that nasty bug that’s going around. No not Michael Gove, I mean the one that makes you cough. Anyway it’s all covid up in here with economic historian Chris Colvin (@cliochris) guiding us in what lessons we should take from historical lurgies. Plus a look at the Windrush Lessons Learned review which has nothing to do with any sort of virus. Apart from the virus that is racism. Ahem.

Links and sources of info from Chris’s interview:

• • Chris on Twitter – https://twitter.com/ClioChris
• • Chris’s website – https://www.cliochris.com/
• • Chris’s piece on the coronavirus & Spanish flu – https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-and-spanish-flu-economic-lessons-to-learn-from-the-last-truly-global-pandemic-133176
• • An Economist’s Guide to Economic History, book – http://www.blumandcolvin.org/
• • VoxEU on Twitter – https://twitter.com/voxeu
• • VoxEU website – http://www.voeu.org/
• • Economics in the Time of COVID-19, free eBook/pdf – https://voxeu.org/content/economics-time-covid-19
• • VoxEU piece on the Spanish Flu – https://voxeu.org/article/coronavirus-meets-great-influenza-pandemic
• • Article: Public Health Interventions and Epidemic Intensity During the 1918 Pandemic – https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/104/18/7582.full.pdf
• • Article: An Economic-History lesson for dealing with the corona virus – https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/an-economic-history-lesson-for-dealing-with-the-coronavirus
• • Article: The War on COVID-19: Lessons from Wartime – https://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/markharrison/entry/the_war_on/

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

Ep180

Hey. Just before I go into the usual weekly ranty jokey bit, I firstly wanted to say I hope you’re doing ok and coping with all this oddness, whether you’re self-quarantining, a heroic key worker or part of one of those new death cults that has exercising in the local park during a pandemic on their doctrine. I mean, isn’t the cycling counteracted by the virus catching? No? Who the fuck knows. I am unsettled by all of this too and it doesn’t help that as well as shitting myself everytime I cough – which isn’t a symptom of the coronavirus I should add, just one caused by fear of getting it. Though that would explain the loo roll hoarding – but as well as that, as a stand-up comedian I’ve lost all my work for the next 2, possibly 3 months. So, have all my pals in the industry and many other performers and self-employed people. While the government are supposedly meant to be rolling out extra help this week, who knows if it will be so in the meantime, why not keep yourself entertained and help out by checking out the Stay At Home Festival at cosmicshambles.com where they are livestreaming gigs and raising money for comedians by doing so. I did one on Sunday night, alongside Josie Long, Mark Watson and more that you can watch again on youtube if you missed it. There is also hecklethevirus.com from the brilliant NextUp Comedy, and they too will be livestreaming some of the comedy specials on their platform alongside live interviews with the acts and all sorts of other content. If you head to nextupcomedy.com/tiernanisgreat and subscribe to their platform you can watch a ton of excellent stand-up specials from loads of acts and also my three really old ones too and I, and those acts will get some money from you doing that. There are loads of great initiatives and streaming gigs going on and I’ll be plugging some more things in the admin bit but please do support those two and enjoy yourself with all the comedy content while you do. And of course should you fancy chucking me a quid or two to my ko-fi.com/parpolbro or joining the patreon.com/parpolbro it’s more appreciated than ever. Thank you tons. And now back to the usuals….

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast, the comedy politics podcast that advises and insists on social distancing at all times. What virus? No, I just meant because most people are fucking awful. I’m Tiernan Douieb-19 and the Prime Minister and porridge backpack of a man Boris Johnson announces that you can only leave your home for essential reasons, based on his record means including to run away a younger, more attractive lover.

Yes there are strict new curbs on life in the UK, as everyone is told they have to stay at home for three weeks, an announcement that had Johnson made in February when the Coronavirus started and while various storms battered the UK, we’d have all been much happier about. You can leave for medical needs, basic necessities, which I think means you can take a shit outside, or for one form of exercise, which may be running away from the person who’s house you’ve just shat outside of. Shops selling non-essential goods will be shut, meaning that finally the M&M Store gets what it deserves and gatherings in public of more than two people who don’t live together are prohibited, meaning that if you’re really craving human contact it might be best to get arrested or sent to a detention centre. All social events are allowed, except for funerals, as let’s face it, at least one person there will already be immune. If you disobey, the police now have the power to arrest you, though I’d argue you can probably cough up an apology and they’d back away pretty quickly. Or you might be lucky and get apprehended by one of the 20,000 more police the Conservatives promised in the election, in which case you can just remember they still don’t exist and carry on infecting the masses like a dickhead.

There is something remarkable about watching the Prime Minister, a porridge backpack of a man who’s spend his entire life persuading people that the downright stupid or shitty things he’s said were jokes or weren’t meant to be taken seriously, fumble around with informing the public how to stay safe but still announce it like he’s written a second speech contradicting it in-case it isn’t popular. I don’t remember the story of the boy who cried wolf but in this modern-day version we’re watching in nightly installments, I’m wondering if it ends with him coughing far too much to warn of anything. After a weekend of huge gatherings taking place at events like farmers markets, where they just must’ve had an organic spread to die for, the government said they are shocked that people aren’t taking their advice to self-isolate and blamed them for being selfish to ignore it. You know the same people that were told just a few years back by a senior member of Johnson’s cabinet, you know the one that looks like what’s left in a pan after you’ve scraped scrambled eggs out of it, that they’ve had enough of experts. You know, the same people who were told by Johnson that they could turn the tide on this virus in just 12 weeks, while only a month before he was too cowardly to visit places actually full of water. The same people who are hearing about the need for enforced social distancing from a parliament full of MPs all packed in close to each other. The same people who’ve been told by the Queen, aka melted Christopher Walken candle, that we have to work together as one, even though we’ve all been told to stay separate. Or maybe she meant we all have to work as her, because she’s going to hide, what with being far too important to catch COVID-19. These are the same people who’ve been told that at the end of a meeting last month, the PM’s special advisor and what if a knee was cognizant Dominic Cummings, allegedly said the strategy for the virus was herd immunity, protect the economy and if some pensioners die, too bad. Which is an odd thing to say from a man who looks like he’d be taken out by a strong breeze and a party who if they let a few pensioners die will mainly be losing their own voter base. These people who hear that the Prime Minister said a call out for more ventilators to help those with severe virus systems could be called operation last gasp, which is not only callous but also rubbish when he could’ve been positive and clever and gone for operation lung inspiration. These are the same people who are supposedly meant to take what the Prime Minister says seriously and yet have been told that if he falls ill, his replacement will be Foreign Secretary and oh no someone’s sculpted a henry hoover out of cured meat Dominic Raab, who just last week during a question in the commons thought Lima the capital of Peru, was in the Philippines. Sure, not everyone would know where Lima is, but then not everyone is the foreign secretary being asked pertinent questions about global issues. There is a high chance that within days, we could have an acting Prime Minister that every time he eats a Lima bean thinks he’s just teleported to South East Asia.

I’m not at all surprised pubs had to be closed to stop people gathering in them because Boris Johnson only vaguely advised they should be for days. How can you be Prime Minister of the UK and not know that the only way you’d put a large chuck of the public off drinking is by telling them all beer was halal. People won’t stop going to pubs while Johnson’s septuagenarian dad Stanley, a amalgamation of rejected parts from the Henson Studio skip, was on TV insisting he’ll keep going to the pub, meaning people knew if they had the coronavirus they might actually have a chance of taking the old bore out. Panto Lion Costume worn upside down and Wetherspoons owner Tim Martin was on every station saying there had been very little transmission of the coronavirus in pubs, which he would have no way of knowing. Though let’s be fair, most of the morning drinkers in Wetherspoons probably disinfect the place with their breath more efficiently than any hand sanitizer.

Drastic idiocy requires drastic measures and so of course pubs have had to close, just days after schools did meaning a lot of children’s first homeschooled lessons would’ve been trying to problem solve why mum and dad were quite so grumpy. Pupils were told there would be no exams in May or June, their GCSE or A-Level grades now being dependent on what teachers think they would’ve got, in what is the biggest most brutal take down of class clowns seen since episodes of Saved by The Bell. Or well, since the government announced absolutely no support for the self-employed during this, destroying the comedy industry in a fell swoop. Personally, I think all pupils affected by this school closure should call UCAS during clearing and announce they got a COVID and get an immediate placement. Who am I kidding? We’ll all be trapped inside for at least 10 years and open university will pretty much accept anyone. Then it was restaurants, clubs, nightclubs, theatres and the pubs all told to close too, with some idiots complaining that this is a bitter blow as even the blitz didn’t close our pubs, ignoring that actually it did close quite a few, just with bombs. McDonalds announced all its outlets would be closing, proving there was at least one clown taking all this seriously. The Glastonbury festival has been cancelled proving many to worry that the virus had now advanced to the Pyramid Stage and it’s just been announced by veteran IOC member and man who’s name suggests that he’s in the wrong endurance sport Dick Pound, that the Olympics is being postponed to 2021. A shame as I think they could’ve embraced the crisis and have a patient who’d tested positive for COVID-19 at the start line of every race, no doubt spurring each athlete to reach record times, as they try to get away from them as quickly as possible.

Financially the Chancellor and gormless cheese string Rishi Sunak has announced massive measures of financial support for everyone except the self-employed, prompting me to wonder if his parents were murdered by two freelancers when he was a child and now, this is his revenge for he is the VAT man. Those with employment will get 80 of their wage covered, but self-employed have to go on universal credit because why be told outright that no one gives a fuck about you when you can wait five whole weeks to find out. There’s £330bn in loans, £20bn in other aid, a business rates holiday and help for airlines is also being considered because it’d be terrible if once this coronavirus is dealt with the government weren’t able to deport anyone properly anymore.

And so now we are here. In parliament, the Health Secretary and Matey Shampoo mascot Matt Hancock delivered the Coronavirus Bill, a name that makes it sound like a poorly conceived mascot for a public service announcement campaign. The only unrealistic part of that being that the government happily shelled out millions on adverts asking if people were ready for Brexit when no one knew what it was they needed to be ready for, but couldn’t be arsed to spend a few quid telling people to wash their hands before they fornicated to Countryfile. The bill could mean that, unless changes are made, the government could have absolute power relating to who the police detain, accessing of information and the banning of large public gatherings for over two years. Good news for four-day old phlegm wad Nigel Farage then that any of his marches that he plans will still be able to go ahead. It is, as is always with Johnson’s government and likely his sexual technique, nothing at all, then too much, too late. Do we need to stay at home to stop this virus yes? Would we have had to if our Prime Minister hadn’t insisted that he’d gone round a hospital full of coronavirus victims and shook everyone’s hands? No, unlikely. That’s what happens when you have a leader who doesn’t think things through and just goes whichever way he thinks will suit him best. Hence now, why after all that we’ve been through, he’s hoping we just accept him as strongly in favour of remain.

In other news, depressed hacky sack and former SNP leader Alex Salmond has been cleared of all charges of sexual harassment, with one account reaching the verdict of not proven. Critics say they still believe the accusers, but at least Salmond is being released at a time where if he does now try to have unwanted contact with someone he might end up in hospital.

And in some good news, this time about a convicted sex offender, collapsed unshaven pustule Harvey Weinstein has been tested positive for coronavirus, and it seems like entirely appropriate karma that something threatening has entered him without consent.

ADMIN

High elbows, self-isolating quarantine buddies. How are you coping if you’re coping at all? I sort of am, but I’d be feeling a lot better about being stuck indoors if all the storms from previous weeks would turn up about now. I mean, I know they were windy bastards but this current endless sunshine while everyone is meant to be staying at home is just full on trolling. I have been outside a bit in the past week. We’ve walked mini-Douieb aka my agent to the empty park a few times and back which, after having to look at every wall incase Humpty Dumpty was sat on it, and every flower to ask if it’s a daffodil, does take up most of the day if not year. I’ve made a few crusades to the shops, only to find everyone in there understands personal space even less than usual and I had to mutter fuck off to a number of people that were either trying to get in front of me or embrace me. Hey I understand the want for the latter but not now buddy. I’ve seen enough zombie films to know how that goes. Then of course the shop only had a handful of things in that we needed and a security guard was standing by the bananas which made me feel both pleased and like I should’ve been wearing a handmaid’s outfit and whispering under his eye to everyone around me. It’s impossible not to see all of this like a film or TV amalgamation isn’t it? 28 days later combined with outbreak, handmaid’s tale and then today my parents did a drop off of belated pressies as it was my agent’s birthday on Sunday and they parked at the end of our road, so the little one wouldn’t see them incase she wanted a hug, which is heart breaking. Then my mum appeared with a scarf round her face, placed the bags on the floor. I had to wait till she moved back to the car, then I went and picked them up. It was like being in an episode of the Wire. I probably should’ve soundtracked it with Tom Waits and sirens, before getting rid of my phone on the way back to my flat. Such strange behavior for such strange times. Though I should add that my agent had a fantastic 2^nd birthday, involving her eating cake and pasta and taking off all her clothes to do it, in what I consider to be the ultimate in lessons of how to self-isolate. Let us all learn from her. We’ve also now accidentally stockpiled cake. The wonderful Sarah Millican posted on Instagram today that if we all come out of this fat, then no one will be considered fat and I think that’s the wisest thing I’ve heard anyone say in this entire crisis.

So loads of you have donated to my ko-fi or patreon pages over the last week and I honestly can’t tell you how much that’s appreciated right now. I mean, it is basically my only income. I am aware that I’ve got a bit of savings because, well, I’m self-employed and after 10 years of not realizing that I had to save money for when things were shit, I have spent two years saving up. But no, I had no idea they’d be this shit. This is usual January x 10. But with better more trolling weather. What I mean is obviously food banks need help right now far more than me, so many charities desperately need help too. But once you’ve helped them if you can throw me a few quid at ko-fi.com/parpolbro or patreon.com/parpolbro it is hugely appreciated. Big shout out to, deep wheezy coughing breath, Madely, Dave, Tim, Anonymous, Ruby, Helen, Anonymous but another one, Baldie, Sim, Taz, Matt G, Phyl, Anne-Marie, Somebody who is a somebody and not anonymous, Scotty, Jeremy, NeverFadingWood, Daniel, Pablo, Steve just Steve and James for your so so appreciated ko-fis, and to Helen, Bradley and Matthew for joining the Patreon. As I mentioned at the top of the show, Next Up Comedy are also supporting comedians who’ve lost all their work, at hecklethevirus.com and there you can see what their livestreaming program each week is too. If you sign up to nextupcomedy using the forward slash tiernanisgreat, no I didn’t ask for that, promise, then I get a few quid too, which is handy. The Cosmic Shambles team are also doing the same at the Stay At Home Festival and I had a lot of fun doing their livestreaming comedy club gig last night, which damn its odd just shouting jokes at my computer and not hearing any responses, but you can watch that gig on their youtube channel, see all their livestreaming events including astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield answering questions on Thursday at 6pm I think, at cosmicshambles.com/stayathome. I will pop all those links in pod blurb too.

I’m also releasing regular comedy club 4 kids podcast for the weans, I’m hopefully going to be livestreaming a kids gig too for all those kids stuck at home and the comedyclub4kids.co.uk has worksheets, puzzles and loads of vids on it too. I recorded a silly vid for the Royal Albert Hall this week for children who might be worried about everything that’s going on and you can find that via their socials. I’ve also been popping some stupid, mostly kid friendly isolation tips on my twitter, Instagram and even linked in because I have that much time to kill. Yes, really. But there’s tons of stuff going on, loads of people making good things and streaming shows, and I guess the question is, what do you need? Have you got too much? Would it be best if we all just left you alone to enjoy some peace and quiet? I can’t remember if I released the recording of my work in progress shows from last year, but I can do that. Or if for some awful reason you really wanted me too, I could release the audio from my early solo shows from 2009, 2010 and 2011. I mean, its proper shit though and full of jokes I really don’t think I’d make now. But I’ll do it for you goddamnit. Do you want some ParPolBro livestreaming? Q&As? Or should I just stream my current 20-30 minute set? Or me reading description after description of various politicians? I am open to suggestion so drop me a line at partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com and I mean, hey, we’ve all got a while before this is over so do put your requests in and let’s be honest, I’ll probably get round to doing all of them.

Also, though, what do you want from this podcast? Its gonna get pretty boring if all I do is report on the coronavirus each week and what I’ve found in the backs of my cupboard instead of the rice I was hoping for. The news is changing everyday while also being very similar so its hard to know what you might need. Someone suggested I speak to a mental health expert for next week’s show, which I’ll try to do. Who else? What else? Give me a shout to tell me, or even just say hey because let’s face it, any contact is nice right now isn’t it? I spent a good few minutes even contemplating taking a spam call survey the other day just for the human chat. I’m here, this show is here, my agent throwing toast at the wall is here. We all have nowhere else to be so I may as well make it something you enjoy, need or can play loudly out of your balcony to upset the neighbours who won’t be able to leave their house to complain.

On this week’s show its coronavirus, coronavirus, a chat with economic historian Chris Colvin about, yes, the coronavirus but in the past, and a look at the Windrush Lessons Learned review which everyone has ignored because of the coronavirus. I don’t remember this bit in outbreak do you? Where Dustin Hoffman and everyone just sat around at home in their pants thinking, fuck me, I miss when the news was full of just 12 less awful but still awful things that at least weren’t the virus.

INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS

There are so many political issues going on in the world right now that its hard to know exactly what to talk to guests about on this podcast. I mean, should I talk about the coronavirus outbreak, or possible the coronavirus outbreak? I could of course cover COVID-19 but then that might take up time best used to discuss Novel coronavirus pneumonia. But this week I thought it’d be most useful to focus on, yes that fucking infectious lurgy that’s ruining everything aka virus bastard aka coughing shitter illness. Now you might think you know everything about this virus and its friends, all 6008 ways to be patronizing to someone about how they wash their hands or even all the best body parts to direct your cough into that don’t belong to someone else. But actually, this virus is brand spanking new. Newer than Disney+ and probably in as many households this week and ruining as many parents’ lives. So when there’s new crisis that we haven’t quite encountered before, how exactly do we work out what to do to cope with it and predict how things may pan out? Well you can either make racist stuff up in your head and shout it online as loudly as possible, you can ignore it and hope it goes away or more sensibly, you can look at the past at times when things nearly like this, or that look vaguely like this have happened and work out what lessons we should learn from them. Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it said philosopher George Santayana who died in 1952, after world war 2 but somehow still believing in eugenics because it turns out, everyone’s a massive hypocrite.  But on that he was right, and right now we’re having a virus bastard and massive financial crisis as a result. Guess what? In the past there have been many virus bastards and also many terrible recessions. And what can we take from delving into those events? That they were all shit.

But actually, it’s a lot more than that and this week I spoke to Chris Colvin. Chris is a senior lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast and on his website describes himself as a ‘general purpose economic historian’ but right now, when his research involves among many other things historical banking crises and the effects of events on those, he has got a very specific purpose which is looking at exactly what we can look back at it to work out exactly how things may play out. Or rather in this climate, play in. Chris wrote a piece in the Conversation last week about the economic lessons learned from the Spanish Flu and so I got in touch to ask him to talk to me in more depth about what those lessons are. But first, you might be wondering exactly what an economic historian is. Well, to be honest, so did I. Luckily, Chris explained all. Here’s Chris:

INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS PART 1

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

Er…middle bit this week. What to do. What to do. Hang on maybe it should be a…

BREXIT FALLOUT *Bit of jingle*

So this week in Brexit news er….. *SOUND OF TUMBLE WEED*

Hmm ok. How about…

PARTLY GLOBAL BROADCAST

So er, everywhere ever has coronavirus…sigh ok. Hang on. How about this week I give us a tiny breather, which is probably the wrong word, from coronavirus chat, and instead focus on another area that the government has got completely wrong in recent times and is also not that easy to find any humour in? Sound perfect? Good. So, the Windrush Lessons Learned Review, was published just a few days ago. The report looked into the 2018 scandal where members of the Windrush generation, rightfully citizens in the UK, were wrongly detained and deported and denied rights by the Home Office as part of their hostile environment policy. And as you’ll be entirely unsurprised to know, it said that the UK’s Home Office was more racist than Cheryl Tweedy watching repeats of old sitcom Love They Neighbour. I mean, I’m paraphrasing but the report, by inspector of constabulary Wendy Williams, said very clearly that the Home Office showed ignorance and thoughtlessness on the issue of race, due to institutional failures. But I mean you gotta stick to your brand right? I mean I joke but for the last 10 years, the Home Secretary position went from Ursa while she’s stuck in the crystal chamber Theresa May, to I bet she spends her weekends pushing children over Amber Rudd, to now, what if Picasso only painted total shits Priti Patel, all of whom have insisted on being harsh on immigration. We’ve had phrases like ‘if you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere’ which isn’t true because the world is somewhere. I mean that doesn’t make any sense. Insistences that workers must speak English in order to fit in with British culture even though to do that they’d be better off speaking their own language and just pointing and shouting at stuff they’d like. Incorrect accusations of foreign workers taking British jobs or pretending health tourism is a thing when it isn’t, or even getting vans to drive round with go home or face arrest written on them. Language that Theresa May herself organized as she said the first draft wasn’t harsh enough. I’ve no idea what it said but I’m guessing it was something like ‘where are you from? No, I mean, originally.’

So, for the home office to be called institutionally racist, albeit in slightly different words, is a relief, even if it’s much overdue. There were several key and very important findings in the review, starting with that the scandal was predictable and preventable, saying that the causes could be traced back to successive rounds of immigration policy and legislation all the way from the 60’s to now, all of which had the intention of restricting certain groups from living in the UK, because we’re a hospitable welcoming bunch like that. The Immigration Act 1971 confirmed that the Windrush Generation had the rights to live in the UK, but didn’t give them any documents, meaning they couldn’t prove it and its not expected of people to keep up with all the constant changes to law, and its far more expected for the government to not get rid of all the documentation they have. Well I mean, it was expected but in recent years, I mean, we’re generally just surprised if they don’t fall over when walking more than 3 feet in a straight line. The Windrush Generation were largely forgotten about by several governments which meant the hostile environment policy caught them in its net, like dolphins. Not dolphins near tuna, just dolphins were the net was meant to get dolphins because it was thrown by bastards who didn’t think it through and assumed if someone didn’t have documentation that they were here unlawfully. Honestly, even if they had been given a flimsy bit of card, most people wouldn’t remember where something like that was if they were given it over 60 years ago. I spend 90% of every day trying to find things I only put down 5 minutes before. Like my daughter.

The report states that the home office didn’t heed any of the warnings and then when stories did start coming out, were too slow to react. Yes, I’m still talking about the Windrush report, no I’m not talking about coronavirus, but yes, it is uncanny. I mean, I could also be talking about flooding. Or so many other things, but I guess you gotta stick to your brand right? Williams says the victims were let down by organizational and operational failings, saying there was a lack of empathy for victims with lots of instances of dehumanizing jargon and clichés, something the current government has dealt with by taking that out of the home office and letting the Prime Minister be in charge of.

There are 30 recommendations for the Home Office in the report. The first being that Home Office ministers offer an unqualified apology to those affected by the Windrush scandal and the wider black African-Caribbean community. Something Priti Patel should find easy as she’s very unqualified with everything she does. Actually, Patel has apologized already, saying last week that there was nothing she could say that would undo the suffering of those affected and that on behalf of this and successive governments, she was truly sorry. Not sure how she managed to do that without smoke arising from her head or her face slightly melting in anguish, but it was really good that she did. Other recommendations include a review of the whole hostile environment policy, the need to establish an overarching strategic race advisory board and while it doesn’t explicitly mention the deportation of foreign born offenders as we’ve seen in recent months, one of the recommendations says data on other commonwealth cases needs to be looked at, as well as Caribbean nations. Wendy Williams has also offered to return to the Home Office in 18 months and see how they’re doing with progress on all of those things, like a badass teacher. I mean, this is assuming anyone will be allowed outside in a year and a half’s time.

But despite all this the report does not say the home office is institutionally racist, as apparently they carefully considered whether the concept of institutional racism as originally outlined during the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, was relevant to describe what happened with the Windrush Scandal but Wendy Williams said they didn’t satisfy that criteria in full. Amazing, the Home Office is so incompetent it can’t even do racism thoroughly. I mean, I’m certain Williams wanted to say it was, but wasn’t allowed and in a few years’ time someone will realise that if you only read the first letter of every paragraph it’ll spell something like ‘they’re all more racist than people who order chips and omelet in an Indian restaurant’. That so much of the Home Office’s policy failed to understand why their hostile environment strategy would directly affect so many black British people is why 15 race equality and migrant rights organisations are calling for a review into the department’s institutional racism and whether its immigration policies are in accordance with equality law about racial discrimination. An apology from Priti Patel, as unlikely and incredible as that is, isn’t enough and this review has shown that the whole Home Office needs a reform, as does immigration policy. While I’d like to think that several months of no one being able to travel anywhere might give the pause for thought that’s needed for things to change once it’s all back to normal, it’s been reported this week that the home Office are still insisting on deportations even during the pandemic. Which, as well as being unnecessarily aggressive and badly timed will also just potentially spread the virus more. I do wonder if they’re just so institutionally stupid that they think someone from another country with the virus is a foreign body in a foreign body so they need to go doubly quick. I hope Wendy Williams does check up on them soon or there’s every chance they’ll have half the country scheduled to be on a plane within a few weeks.

And now back to Chris…

INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS PART 2

Thanks to Chris for that. You can find Chris on Twitter @cliochris and his website is cliochris.com where you can find links to his articles and courses, as well as his book An Economist’s Guide To Economic History, co-written with Matthias Blum and available, well, let’s face it, probably just in online bookshops at the mo. But do try and get it from an independent one yeah? The book’s website is at blumandcolvin.org. And all of those links will be available on the podcast blurb and website too.

What else do you need to hear in coming weeks? More about coronavirus, perhaps other aspects of what it all means, or do you need some escapism and visions of other political possibilities? Or should I just replace the interview bit with 30 minutes of solid terrible jingles? Let me know and you can do that @parpolbro on Twitter, the partly political broadcast page on facebook, the contact page at partlypoliticalbroadcast.co.uk or email me at partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com. Or you could…no, actually just stay indoors and email me. Please just stay indoors and email me. Thanks.

END

And that’s all for this week’s Partly Political Broadcast. Thank you for listening despite all of this that’s going on. And of course because you’ve listened all the way to the end, because you’re part of team finale. Hmm. No, Team Pack It in. No that’s not right. Anyway, because you’re here, here as promised is your reward, some top hot political goss. Default computer avatar Andy Burnham, was Culture Secretary during the last pandemic in the UK, swine flu and he lived up to his name during that by flaming 6000 tons of pig meat in an alcove in the Peak District to single handedly fight the virus. Or did he? We’ll never know, but there’s a reason they call him Andy Burnham. Which is because its his name. OR IS IT? There’s your hot politics goss for this week. You’re welcome. And if you enjoyed that, or hated it so much it made you feel more alive than you’ve felt in years, then please do recommend this show to others, review it in Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you get your pods from and please do donate to the ko-fi or patreon sites because, well, its basically my only income until the world is all fixed.

Thanks as always to Acast, my brother The Last Skeptik for music things, Kat Day for all the linear liner notes and Mushybees for all art things.

This will be back next week when I’ll replace this show with a new ASMR podcast of sounds you used to hear outside before the lockdown such as pub fights, drug deals at the end of your street and various shades of road rage from beeping of horns to wanker.

BYEEEEEEEEEE

This week’s show is sponsored by Boris Johnson’s stay at home advice. He left two and look at the fucking state he’s in.

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