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We are at the peak. Not of coronavirus cases, but of collective stupidity. Badges for NHS staff instead of PPE, a Prime Minister that can’t even be bothered to attend meetings and everyone happy that the health service has to now be funding by elderly people doing exercise. A normal podcast episode again, if such a thing is possible anymore, with some COVID-19 myth dispelling and a chat with antenatal teacher and comedian Pauline Eyre (@yespaulineeyre).

Links and sources of info from Pauline’s interview:

• • Pauline Eyre on Twitter – https://twitter.com/yespaulineeyre
• • Pauline’s blog – https://paulineeyre.home.blog/
• • NCT on Twitter – https://twitter.com/nctcharity
• • NCT website – https://www.nct.org.uk/
• • The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists on Twitter – https://twitter.com/RCObsGyn
• • Royal College of Midwives on Twitter – https://twitter.com/MidwivesRCM
• • NHS on Twitter – https://twitter.com/nhsuk
• • NHS website – https://www.nhs.uk/
• • Search for local hospital(s) – https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/other-services/hospital/locationsearch/7/hospitals
• • The Institute of Health Visiting on Twitter – https://twitter.com/ihealthvisiting
• • The Institute of Health Visiting website – https://ihv.org.uk/
• • Information about registering births – https://www.gov.uk/register-birth
• • Information about claiming child benefit – https://www.gov.uk/child-benefit

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, the comedy politics podcast that much like the lockdown is still having to continue almost entirely due to the failures of the British government. I’m Tiernan Douieb and as the spokesperson for the Prime Minister and melancholy yam Boris Johnson says that the coronavirus could spread exponentially again if they move too quickly, it’s great to see they’re being inventive with how to justify the PM sitting on his arse since January.

There are lots of things you might miss from the before times. Maybe you long to see somewhere outside of the 100-meter radius from where you live, bin day or that time a bag blew down the street in the wind being the only way you know time has definitely passed. Maybe you miss going to the supermarket without shouting ‘but why would some arsehole buy all of the fucking eggs?’ as another shopper ignores all social distancing measures to shove you out of the way to claim the last 6 free range while they cough loudly all over them. Or maybe, like me, you are yearning for a time when the news told you something you didn’t already know, as hearing, thanks to an expose in The Times, that Britain’s current COVID situation is largely in part down to the Prime Minister not bothering to turn up to COBRA meetings about it, is what you expected right? I mean we wouldn’t have been surprised if it had turned out that Johnson had, himself, rubbed a pangolin on his nutsack as part of a hilarious and yet also culturally insensitive party trick during a diplomatic trip to Wuhan, somehow inadvertently causing the combination of scaled mammal and ball germs to mutate together into COVID-19 which he then spread by continuing to try to hump various things around the globe. Knowing that the very least he could have done was turn up to briefing meetings on the seriousness of the virus back in January but didn’t bother, is very much on brand. While Johnson has made it very clear his hero is Churchill, it should really be Francesco Schettino, the captain of the Costa Concordia cruise ship who just abandoned everyone onboard when it capsized, for his own safety over theirs. The only difference being that Johnson wouldn’t have turned up to steer the ship in the first place, and instead the drowning passengers would have congealed protein shake Dominic Raab telling them not to worry as Captain Johnson was in good spirits, as he sunned his bum on a desert island. Our prime minister has a long case history of tackling danger by running away from it and hoping it just gives up and goes away, from being on holiday during the London riots, to hiding in a fridge from reporters during the election campaign, to hiding from floods and now, in the midst of a virus, barely being seen as he recovers from his own coronavirus symptoms with his fiancée in a massive country mansion at the taxpayers expense. Is his plan to just stop turning up to things altogether until everyone forgets what he or his role are about, and he peters out of public knowledge like an 80s power ballad but with no nostalgic value? Skipping away blame free as all anyone can remember is that the government consists of several barely lifeforms flailing their arms around and managing to do nothing.

Apparently, the Prime Minister isn’t expected to always turn up to COBRA meetings but I wonder if that’s whoever is in the role of PM, or just Johnson. But Chancellor of the Duchy Michael Gove said suggesting the PM skipped important meetings is grotesque, which is quite an accusation from a man whose very own face was only created in an attempt to ward off spirits. Gove said that considering what happened to the Prime Minister not long ago, nobody can say he wasn’t throwing his heart and soul into fighting the virus, though as it mainly targets the lungs this just proves that once again Boris has failed to listen to scientific advice. Saying the man in charge is giving his heart and soul, the former of which no one would assume is in top condition and the latter isn’t real, is also very much on brand as it’ll be noted in the annuls of history that the only real tangible thing the British government were on top of was presenting the most complete range of hollow gestures in the shortest time. Health Secretary and walking apology Matt Hancock announced a new NHS badge, with ‘CARE’ on it in big green letters, as if to remind him and the rest of the cabinet office of what they need to pretend to do. Which is of course exactly what care workers need, so they can use the pin to hold together the bin bags they are using for personal protective equipment while extra supplies fail to appear. With over 80 health care staff dying from the coronavirus and the one thing all of them are asking for being protective gear, it is odd that Hancock has decided what they really need is something they might stab themselves with by accident while putting it on, exposing them to even more germs. Why do care workers need the word ‘care’ on them anyway? Is it just so the Health Secretary can pretend to have the vaguest ideas of what it is that they do? Or so they can identify their bodies as NHS staff, enabling them to give accurate figures of lives lost for the first time during the crisis? With PPE deliveries delayed yet again, the official advice now is that NHS frontline workers need to reuse gowns and masks, because Westminster are only keen on enforcing recycling when its excuses for their ineptitude or life-saving equipment. But at least there are badges to remind staff as they don something meant to contain litter, and a pair of swimming goggles, that ‘CARE’. Not to care, or to take it, or care about the staff who are giving up their lives for a shitty salary and false platitudes from those in charge. No just care as an aggressive one-word statement like a psychopath might repeat at themselves in the mirror to maybe force empathy into themselves. But you see all these healthcare workers are heroes and heroes need badges and medals and plastic trophies and as they say, not all heroes wear capes, usually because there is a lack of supply and they’ve got a bin bag on instead. Heroes don’t need a pay rise because they just do it out of CARE in big letters, and they die during a war and at some point there’ll be a big statue that everyone will stand in front of and say how all these heroes were really great for doing the jobs they were trained to do in a public service that should have supported them back, and then the Prime Minister will lay a wreath upside down on it and cut spending on the health service at the next budget because it can now be funded entirely by elderly people doing laps in their gardens and all tax payments will now go to the PM’s year round holiday expenses. Meanwhile Matt Hancock will hear the continued pleas of nurses and doctors and announce that he has heard their demands and so will be spending £17bn on a contract with Clinton’s Cards to get them all soft toy rabbits dressed as doctors with ‘I heart Hop-sitals’ written on them.

Of course, none of how the government are handling this really matters, as what is most important, the press insist and we must know right now, is just when will this lockdown end? What is the exit strategy? When can we go outside and remember how much we hate being near people again? Why won’t you just let us outside instead of trying to stop people dying? The media has become the irritated child asking are we there yet, every 2 mins, with no understanding of why you need the journey in order to get somewhere. The lockdown will last until at least May 7^th, allowing May the 8^th to still be the 100^th anniversary of VE day, when we can all get together to remember how people pointlessly died a century ago as well. The Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, a man who looks like someone playing a member of the royal family in a student film, said that schools will only be returning once the government pass five tests. Though alternatively he could just get his last teacher to decide what he’d have got and say that’s final. While Williamson couldn’t give a date that schools might start again on, some disadvantaged secondary school pupils currently in Year 10 will get given laptops so they can do online lessons and prep for next year’s GCSE’s. Though if they were really smart, they google most crowded areas, go there, cough and then chances are exams won’t happen again until 2022. Online lessons will be happening presented by teachers, with worksheets and a quiz, so that children can quickly learn how to paste up a picture of them looking like they’re paying attention while going on twitter to troll people, so they’ll be nicely prepared for self-employment in the jobless future we’re heading to.

Housing minister and your friend’s old school friend no one knows who ruined the stag do with boring anecdotes then drinking till he passed out Robert Jenrick has promised councils an extra £1.6bn in funding for social care services, which councils have said, isn’t remotely enough to cover all the support they’re giving after 10 years of cuts. Jenrick’s pledge isn’t so much a life-ring but more a way to stem the bleeding so local services die more slowly. Estimates are most councils are having to spend £30m a week during this crisis, but if Jenrick promised to cover that, there wouldn’t be any expenses left for all his various homes. Meanwhile the Chancellor and stickman from the children’s book stickman Rishi Sunak said these are tough times as the economy is predicted to shrink by 35%. He said it was important that the government was honest with people about what may be happening, though if they were they’d have to admit that so far they haven’t been honest about what may be happening. Sunak said he doesn’t think it’s right for the government to move to a 100% guarantee for emergency business loans as you know, that’d 100% mean they’d have to pay them to businesses to keep them afloat, whereas this way, they can continue to do what they’re best at, a hollow gesture that allows them to say they did something, while letting loads of people run out of money. They wouldn’t throw water on a house fire as that’d be a waste, but they’d happily spit at a bit of it to show you they’ve tried their best and not just let you burn. Minimum effort made, and I only hope in the future its rewarded by the public with them making some badges to show their support that say VOTE in huge letters, but then don’t turn up to the polling stations to let the Conservatives in again, because that’d be excessive.

Former Prime Minister and main boss character in a 90s film where someone’s new job is in Hell but disguised as an office Tony Blair says the government were probably slow in dealing with the virus, as he’d have likely bombed it by now without waiting for any evidence. Current Labour leader and skiffle board Keir Starmer has had a call with Raab and senior government officials where he raised concerns about lack of PPE and asked what the exit plan was, because it seems his main political strategy right now is asking questions that journalists have already asked days before, while providing a real challenge to the Prime Minister by being as absent as he is. Disgraced MP Liam The Disgrace Fox popped his concertinaed head into the news to say that the level of debate needs to be improved, like someone who’s spent years taking shits in your front garden complaining that you should do some work to make it look nicer. Fox said that information should be given about the types of PPE that are missing and questions should be asked of the NHS, because you know, if anyone’s to blame, it’s all those doctors and nurses carelessly using this equipment when they could be leaving it in boxes for proper doctors like Liam to use to protect himself from his own toxic emissions.

Parliament returns this week, but with limited capacity and MPs being told to space themselves out, though no word on if Michael Gove will help them do that with his own personal supply. Various efforts are being put in place to make sure MPs can work remotely, though many would argue that’s what they’ve been doing for years anyway. Hundreds of workers are being flown in from Romania to pick fruit and veg in the UK after British workers largely rejected the job offers. Seems that’s not the sort of cherry picking most are keen to do.

And lastly, business magnate and face like radiation burned genitalia Richard Branson has pleaded with the government to bail out his Virgin Atlantic airlines and save it from collapse. Branson, who is the 7^th richest person in the world with a wealth of £4.7bn, doesn’t pay any tax and sued the NHS via Virgin Healthcare for private contracts lost, is now asking for £500m from the British government. He should really change the company name considering how many times he’s fucked Britain with it.

ADMIN

Yo yo yo yo yo. How goes you? I mean, that’s the wrong way to say hello isn’t it. You probably goes nowhere as you can’t yet. I goes absolutely nowhere and I’m so bored of my local area, even though everyone in it seems to think lockdown isn’t happening anymore and are regularly standing around on the pavement, not distancing from anyone. Either they have all had the virus and now feel a sense of invulnerability that may be misplaced, or they’ve all watched the news too much and now think humanity deserves it so they don’t care. It is such a strange mix of giving a shit where I am. On Clap For The NHS nights, everyone is letting off fireworks, unaware that one accident and they’ll be putting unnecessary pressure on A&E departments. But then they also all dawdle about outside, don’t keep 2m apart and all vote Tory. But then I guess that does make sense doesn’t it? Well I’ve clapped and burned off my own face with a dodgy Catherine wheel so I care about the NHS, but I just don’t want anyone else to get to use it.

Urgh, I don’t know but I am an expert at people dodging so have been dandy on my essential trips to the supermarket where I walk all the way there to go ‘oh the queue is miles long’ then don’t go in and walk all the way home again. It is funny how many are sad that the Edinburgh Fringe isn’t happening this year, but much like the fringe, I’m seeing the same room every single day, I’m barely going out in order to avoid people, and getting disillusioned by only trying to entertain a very small amount of people every day. My wife and daughter are fed up with it too. Still we kept ourselves entertained the other day by me letting them cut my hair and I now have a full on lockdown haircut, or as I call it, reclaiming Nazi hair from the far right. It’s sort of all short on the sides and back and then hair on the top because I got scared of the lack of care that scissors were waved around with. I am now sort of hoping that lockdown continues for at least another 4-6 weeks or however long it’ll take to grow back.

Anyway, here we are, here this is yet again. Thank you for still tuning in, and I hope last week’s not proper pod was ok. Thanks for your lovely messages and emails over the past few weeks and shout out to Alistair for the excellent guest recommendings which I’m working on sorting out. This week, I had a brilliant plan for the interviews and had some frontline pathology workers lined up to chat to me about the pressures they’re dealing with and then, as you’ll hear, my pal Pauline was going to talk to me about issues for new parents. And me with my galaxy brain was like, yeah it’ll be the effect of the pandemic from birth to death, but then obviously, the frontline workers were swamped with work and it didn’t happen. I entirely understand and would by no means prioritize them doing this over their needed work, but as a result you just get the babies chat. Still, it is a lot cheerier than what the other one would’ve been so that’s probably for the best. I am contacting other people and places to speak to all the time but as you can imagine, a lot are pretty busy right now, so all suggestions to the usual places are highly recommended.

Thank you also this week to Somebody, Baldie, Kate, monkeyspangles, DJ Hamsauce, Helen and Claire for your so very appreciated ko-fi donations which I can’t thank you enough for at these silly times where our landlords are still demanding full rent because they seem nice like that. If you do enjoy this show and can join the Patreon at patreon.com/parpolbro or chuck me a few quid at ko-fi.com/parpolbro it is very appreciated and I promise I’ll use it on something nice like not being homeless, or alternatively, some sort of zorb ball to go to the shops in. I do keep thinking about doing that and I reckon I could live in one too so it might be really worth it.

No other admin this week though if you are homeschooling your kids and fancy making it more fun, we have tons of free worksheets on how to do stand-up comedy on the Comedy Club 4 Kids website at www.comedyclub4kids.co.uk which incorporates language stuff, story telling and building confident performance. I also did some online youtube vids for the Pauline Quirk Academy, yes that is a thing, yes that is what she’s doing now, on how kids can write their own short stand-up set and each video has tasks for them to do in it. I filmed it in my flat in week one of lockdown and it was all done with a very, very precariously balanced phone and my wife doing excellent script replacing throughout. I’ll pop the links to those on the podcast if they are of any help at all.

This week’s show is a chat with antenatal teacher, comedian and pal of mine Pauline Eyre about the crisis new parents are having right now and the dangers of heroizing health workers. Plus, I dispel some Coronavirus myths, even though one of them I basically said was true several weeks ago because I’m less consistent than your sourdough starter. Is that meant to be consistent? I don’t even know. I keep reading that people are doing them but no idea what it means or if they’re sourdough finishing or just starting forever. So confusing.

INTERVIEW WITH PAULINE

The problem with babies is that they have no concept of appropriate timing. I mean you’d think that given the current state of crisis the UK is in, and how busy hospitals are, that unanimously, all soon to be born babies would have a meeting – I’m not sure how but maybe the umbilical cord works like a landline? – and just say, hey, we won’t come out for a few more months till this all blows over. Obviously, that wouldn’t be fun for mums, but social distancing would be pretty easy when you’ve essentially been weighed down from the inside. Of course, none of that can happen and babies do just get born, women in pregnancy do need medical attention and support and all those things that usually, outside of a pandemic, are available, sometimes. But much like everything, if you have sprogs on their way, things are considerably harder right now with limited hospital space, limited staff, health and safety precautions. Support services and prenatal classes can’t happen how they used to, and while there were moments when my wife was giving birth where I’d have selfishly been happy to stand outside rather than be in the room, it’s not ideal when that’s what’s forced on you. Not only that but being a new parent is a pretty lonely time anyway, so what happens when people can’t come and visit? Although again, for me that would’ve been handy a couple of times and yes that is why we haven’t been in touch since. Ahem. But thing is, babies gonna baby so just what is in place to help them baby well during COVID season?

This week I am speaking to comedian, pal and for the context of this interview, antenatal teacher Pauline Eyre, who very kindly answered a call out where I asked just what areas I need to interview people about during these times, while also doing the heroic duty of delivering us some flour as she had some spare. Basically, she’s a lovely person and total legend. But on top of flour delivery, and all the other many jobs that she does, or at least did, pre-pandemic, Pauline volunteers for the NCT, national childbirth trust,. She told me all about how things now work for new parents, just where they can find support but also why charities are in dire times and why heroizing health workers really isn’t all that helpful. There’s also a bit of chat about the now online comedy world too. I didn’t ask her about the possibility of asking babies just to stay in for a bit longer because I didn’t think of it till after but I’m certain there’s something there. Anyway, we had a lovely chat so hopefully if this affects you or someone you know it might be helpful and if you don’t know any babies, then enjoy for it actually having some cheery bits to an interview for once.

Here’s Pauline…

INTERVIEW WITH PAULINE PART 1

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

MIDDLE BIT – DISPELLING MYTHS

Lockdown is a great time for creativity, I keep hearing from people who don’t have children. But they aren’t wrong, as being stuck at home means that once you’ve seen everything on every streaming channel available and digested all of the internet and told yourself for the 600^th time that you’ll sort that cupboard out but again, can’t be bothered, then you might find yourself with time to do something that uses the imagination. While some opt for art, or writing, it seems quite a lot of people have decided the best place for their creativity right now, is making up complete bullshit about the coronavirus. No. That wasn’t what everyone meant. Pick up some crayons and stop causing trouble. Anyway, there’s a lot of nonsense out there and I thought rather than let you all stew over whether the coronavirus was caused by an angry bat pangolian radioactive mutant hybrid using 5G, or if a group of dancing nurses are hoarding all the PPE for their eventual Britain’s Got Talent audition finale, that it might be best to dispel a few fakeries. It’s truth bomb time, embrace the blast and as you’re recovering use your fanciful mind to paint something nice.

Labour activists within the NHS are stirring up trouble and actually there’s enough PPE for you to wear it casually to parties as a sexy ICU nurse.

No there isn’t and it’s not just the one nurse who happens to support Labour – I mean, I wonder why when he works in the health service, baffling – but also many NHS workers and bosses who’ve also highlighted this. Some areas have enough PPE in their hospitals but not all, with London and Yorkshire being two places that definitely don’t as well as many, many care homes. PPE can is usually gowns, masks and gloves, though due to the way coronavirus spreads, the most at risk workers are being told to wear face shielding visors too you know like riot police, but saving lives instead of ending them because peaceful protest means nothing when you get to have a hitting stick. Gowns are a big problem at the moment because they have to be proper medical ones and not like the ones you might wear to a ball, otherwise NHS staff would be a-ok and looking really fancy too. Water resistant gowns are at dangerous low levels in several places around the country. Why so low? Well partly to do with 10 years of underfunded NHS meaning hospitals don’t have what they should in many areas, and in 2017, then Health Minister and always old bit of someone’s jumper caught on a nail Jeremy Hunt rejected a recommendation for PPE for all frontline staff as it was too costly. Cuts were also made to NHS supply chains to save money, in one of those hindsight ‘oh but it didn’t save you money did it’ moments that you’d have if it wasn’t all so grim.

But while austerity measures have definitely played a part in this, also with 1.6m NHS staff and coronavirus having the ability to spread like margarine on hot piece of toast on a warm day, it means more PPE is needed than was expected. Some kit can only be used once before it becomes unsafe for reuse and there have also been delays and faults with kit that has been ordered in, meaning it’s also unusable. Currently in the UK, 11m to 22m bits of PPE are needed per day. The government said on Tuesday that 761m pieces of PPE had been delivered to 58,000 locations over the last few weeks, but that does also include clinical waste containers which you can’t wear. I mean, I don’t you can, but I guess if the situation gets continues as it is then it might be worth some doctors or nurses wearing it like makeshift armour. Depressing, similar things have already happened, with bin bags being used as gowns and borrowed skiing goggles for eye protection, something that at least in theme is appropriate for the COVID situation going downhill fast.

It’s not easy to get hold of either as there are current worldwide shortages, what with the coronavirus being everywhere and prices have surged on all PPE costs because we all know money is more important than lives. Priorities people, priorities. Nothing like supply and demand when the lack of supply might mean you never ever have demand ever again. Idiots. A delivery of 84 tonnes of PPE from Turkey was meant to arrive on Saturday but has been delayed so who knows when it will arrive. The Royal College of Nursing are suggesting health workers refuse to treat patients until they get adequate gear as with over 30 NHS staff now dying of the virus, it’s just not ok for them to be working without the protective equipment they need. Though adversely I’m all for seeing riot police have to turn up to protests wearing a bin bag and ski goggles.

China didn’t give the UK enough information and they’ve covered up all their deaths and its their fault for eating bats or something.

Firstly, while we do know Coronavirus originated in bats, we don’t think it was passed onto people via them. While the source remains a mystery, there are some clues it may have come from a pangolin, which sounds like a magical instrument in a computer game. But it’s actually an endangered scaled mammal that is hunted illegally and used in Chinese medicine. But look, really, while everyone needs to leave those weird what if a rat fucked a snake creatures alone, there is no full evidence for any of this and please stop blaming Chinese people for this virus. I don’t think whoever first got it intended to and if that pangolin ate a bat just to pass it on then frankly, I wouldn’t blame it either, especially if it had seen any reality TV to bring it to that conclusion. So look that conspiracy aside, China informed the World Health Organisation on 24^th January that COVID deaths were rising quickly, the provision of PPE for health works was strongly recommended, to test for the virus immediately and that it has pandemic potential. Which sounds a lot like my careers advice report at school. That report came to the UK, was discussed in a one-hour COBRA meeting that the Prime Minister didn’t even turn up to and then the whole issue was largely ignored for over a month. In fact, on the day China’s info came in, the PM was too busy with the Brexit withdrawal agreement being signed in the EU and just gave the statement that the UK was well prepared for any new diseases. You know, in the same way we’re well prepared for flooding except for all the flooding that keeps happening and for Brexit except for all the regulations that businesses don’t even know about yet.

China might be covering up death rates, with the mortality numbers for Wuhan suddenly being revised by 50% more several weeks later. I mean either they’ve been hiding them or they really just thought a lot of people were having a long nap and were too afraid to check. But we have no way of telling just yet, and the UK government haven’t been clear on ours either. They haven’t included deaths in care homes, or any outside of health facilities. Deaths are only being reported once the family is informed rather than on the same day they happen, and The Good Law project said it obtained a leaked document telling doctors they can put cause of death as pneumonia or community acquired pneumonia instead of COVID-19, which is really dodgy and very unimaginative. At least put ‘a curse’ or ‘potential aliens’ just so historians in the future will be able to do a good channel 5 program about it.

MORE PEOPLE DIE FROM THE FLU WHAT ARE YOU WORRIED ABOUT

No no no, but I can see why you originally thought that, as did I when I mentioned a bit on this podcast some weeks ago. Seasonal Flu, which is flu with salt or pepper in it, has variable mortality rates every year as it depends on the strain. In the UK for example, the average deaths from flu annually are 17,000, but in 2014/15 it was 28,330 and in 2018/19 it was much lower at 1692. But also, that’s annually, over the whole year. So far the UK mortality rate from coronavirus is, as I record this, over 17,000 but with however many not counted and we’re only a month into this, with symptoms taking over 2 weeks to occur. So, it’s definitely worse than flu. It’s like flu is the pal who tells you a story so unnecessarily full of detail it takes an hour instead of 3 mins, but its brought its friend COVID along who can make ordering from the menu take so long the restaurant closes before you get to eat.

OTHER COUNTRIES HAVE BEEN FINE WITHOUT A LOCKDOWN, IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE AND ITS JUST A FORM OF AUTHORITARIAN COMMUNIST FASCIST CONTROL OVER US ALL

The thing about comparing the UK’s COVID-19 response to other countries is that other countries have done things differently and well, mostly people in other countries don’t suffer from English exceptionalism. Except the US who have their own special brand of stupid for that. South Korea didn’t have a lockdown and had 9000 cases of coronavirus, but only had 236 deaths. That’s largely due to them doing a lot of testing from very early and people being very careful about social distancing. They’ve been tactical with how schools are kept open and strict on isolation for people who do have symptoms. On top of all that, they’ve had very few people being stupid, saying the measures are against liberty and freedom and they have a leader that took it seriously and didn’t boast about shaking hands with everyone.

Sweden has been cited as not having a lockdown and having less deaths than the UK, except compared to other Scandinavian countries, the death rate is much higher, and population density is a fraction of that in the UK. There’s just less people around to pass it to. The UK should’ve taken warning signs from Italy and Spain and just how badly it spread there and how quickly the death toll escalated. But we didn’t, so a lockdown was entirely necessary. Do they work? Well yes, because people aren’t going near people and therefore can’t spread things unless they’ve found a devious way to cough through walls. China’s lockdown in Wuhan appears to be the only thing that slowed it down, we’re beginning to see the effects of it in Italy and Spain. But of course those are other countries and we Brits like to do things our own special way, so its best just to assume we would survive most by going to pubs and drinking the virus to death or maybe singing God Save The Queen in mass rallies at it till it died of extreme eye rolling. FFS.

Just a few myths dispelled by me, er, looking on the internet for you. It’s not all that hard. Full Fact have a full page of coronavirus factchecking up at fullfact.org that I got a few of those bits from, should you need to send some people to truth town while in lockdown. I’m a poet and am fully aware about it. Now that’s the sort of creativity you should be doing.

And now, back to Pauline…

INTERVIEW WITH PAULINE PART 2

Thanks, so much to Pauline for that. You can find Pauline on Twitter @yespaulineeyre where you’ll find details of all comedy things and the 5 other jobs she does on there. The NCT can be found at nct.org.uk or @nctcharity on Twitter, and the other links Pauline mentioned will be on the website soon.

So, if all goes to plan, over the next few weeks I will be speaking to pathology workers, hopefully an ICU doctor if they have time, a care home worker and a charity dealing with domestic violence rises right now. However, all that could change as they are all extremely busy and the news is also changing every minute. So, are there other aspects you want to hear about? Or something not at all COVID related? Let me know and drop me a line @parolbro on Twitter, the Partly Political Broadcast group on Facebook, the contact page at partlypoliticalbroadcast.co.uk or email me at partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com. Or you could get it printed on a badge and charge me nearly £10 to buy it, which I won’t do as it’s completely pointless, massively unhelpful and I’ll definitely stab myself with it by accident at least 3 times trying to put it on. So as always, it’s probably just best to email isn’t it?

END

And that’s all for this week’s Partly Political Broadcast podcast. Thanks once again for listening and getting all the way to these last few minutes of the show and because you have, you shall be mightily rewarded with some hot political facts! That’s right, today’s secret top goss pol fact is one you just won’t believe. We all know the current WHO director general is Tedros Adhanom right? Of course you do. Everyone does. Even my daughter. But do you know how he got the job? Well sure you might think its because he held high positions in the Ethopian government as minister for health and then foreign affairs, but its actually because he came up with the gym phrase ‘no pain, no gain’. Except he meant it about French bread because he loves French bread. But it was misconstrued by gym bros and the rest is history. That’s definitely true. Yep. Definitely. No you won’t find it on the internet. It’s the sort of chat you have to know the right people for, and I’ve got pals who eat French bread so they know. Uh huh. More hot, definitely definitely sort of true-ish facts next week but don’t forget if you like them and the rest of this show, please do tell other people you know to tune in, give it a fat 5 star review on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or Castbox, and donate to the ko-fi or patreon. Or why not do that even if you don’t like this show? As Tedros would say when having a baguette, no pain no gain. Which doesn’t really make sense now but there you go.

Yeah cheers and that to Acast, my brother The Last Skeptik, Kat Day and Mushybees.

This will be back next week when Matt Hancock announces that all doctors and nurses will be given badges so big they also count as visors, forgetting that visors need to be transparent, but his badges just say HEALTH AND THAT in big letters.

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEE

This week’s show was sponsored by Matt Hancock’s homemade PPE guide. Is your hospital lacking in the necessary protective equipment? Well don’t waste what you have by using it for your and your patients safety. Instead get this guide and you’ll be wrapping plastic bags around your head in no time so you’ll no problem breathing. Try tupperware lids for visors and wearing an old foil blanket as a gown. Even if it doesn’t protect you, you’ll cook nicely and then keep safely for tomorrow’s lunch. Hancock’s homemade PPE guide. CARE.

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