Further Reading

Linear liner notes

A tired, later than planned episode because Dominic Cummings can stop not regretting breaking the law. A look at driving to test your eyesight, responsible parenting and more exhausting tedious shit that the government keep getting away with. Plus two interviews! One with Christine Berry (@oeufling) and Shreya Nanda (@shreyagnanda) at IPPR (@IPPR), and one with Ghazal Haqani (@socialistinside) at London Renters Union (@LDNRentersUnion)

Links and sources of info from Christine and Shreya’s interview:

• • Christine Berry on Twitter – https://twitter.com/oeufling
• • Christine’s website – https://www.christineberry.net/
• • Shreya Nanda on Twitter – https://twitter.com/shreyagnanda
• • Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) on Twitter – https://twitter.com/IPPR
• • IPPR website – https://www.ippr.org/
• • Who Wins and Who Pays report at IPPR – https://www.ippr.org/research/publications/who-wins-and-who-pays
• • ACORN Union UK on Twitter – https://twitter.com/ACORN_tweets
• • ACORN Union website – https://acorntheunion.org.uk/

Links and sources from Ghazal’s interview:

• • Ghazal Haqani on Twitter – https://twitter.com/SocialistInside
• • London Renter’s Union on Twitter – https://twitter.com/LDNRentersUnion
• • London Renter’s Union website – https://londonrentersunion.org/
• • Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay campaign page – https://londonrentersunion.org/cantpaywontpay/
• • Form to download template letter to send to landlord – https://londonrentersunion.org/c19rentcrisis/
• • Kent Renters’ Union on Twitter – https://twitter.com/KentRenters
• • Oxford Tenants’ Union on Twitter – https://twitter.com/oxtenantsunion

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

Ep189

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast the comedy politics podcast that would follow its instincts but screaming into a microphone for an hour wouldn’t sound very nice. I’m Tiernan Douieb and as the Prime Minister’s special advisor and haunted Giacometti sculpture entitled ‘Entitled Twat’ Dominic Cummings admits that he took a 60 mile long car journey just to test his eyesight, I’d say that was unnecessary as it’s clear from all his other decisions just how short sighted he is.

YOU IDIOTS! ALL OF YOU STUPID IDIOTS! Yeah you! Spending lockdown in your homes like massive stupid ‘oh I’d like to stop the spread of the infection’ twats. Oh, you thought stay at home meant stay at home did you? Well morons because if you were a reasonable person, you’d have interpreted the rules and understood that you can return to work when you’ve had COVID19 symptoms, then could have driven a 260 mile trip with your family while fully symptomatic, popped to the woods and then done another drive while you can’t actually see to test if you can see, then drive all the way back to London. That’s what a responsible parent like Dominic Cummings did, but not you, you stupid! And Cummings is definitely a responsible parent because top responsible parent and what if a traffic island fucked a crème brule Boris Johnson said he is. Johnson knows what parental responsibility is because otherwise how would he be able to avoid it so easily? I can’t think of anything more responsible than saying ‘Oh I might not be able to see, let’s put the boy in the car for a drive’, take that super nanny. I sympathise because whenever I’m about to have a diabetic hypo attack, I’m feel like the most sensible thing I could do would be to put my daughter on the back of a motorbike and take a trip to the busiest shopping centre near me to see if I’m ok to race around at high speeds or if I’ll have a coma onto the handle bars near Boots. See that’s why he’s hired for special advice? Who else would have given the sort of advice over the last six months, that the Prime Minister should strap the country in and drive forwards regardless of whether they can see what’s ahead?

Sitting in No.10’s rose garden, an appropriate location for a man who is constantly a thorn in Britain’s side, Dominic Cummings said that he believes he’s behaved responsibly and legally, proving that the government’s lockdown message was so vague and useless, even the people who wrote it don’t actually fucking understand it. I mean, so much so that he even flouted rules in his press conference by being in a pal’s garden and not a park or open space. This has been the message over the weekend since it was revealed that Cummings drove all the way to Durham during lockdown, a breach of the rules of the kind that has already seen the Former Chief Medical Officer in Scotland have to resign and a government scientist step down. Though the former was just popping to her second home and the latter having an affair and as the PM said in Cummings’ defence ‘at least he wasn’t visiting a lover’. I mean I think that was in his defence but with Johnson its likely he’d think that a better reason than showing any sort of responsibility for a child. Whereas Dominic Cummings, responsible reasonable man Dominic Cummings, breached rules for his child that was unwell, and the welfare of a child is the sort of thing a responsible parent must put first said the Prime Minister before re-iterating that schools will re-open on June 1^st in the midst of a pandemic.

It’s amazing we even got a non-apology out of the man who looks like he’s composed entirely out of clothes pegs, as at the beginning of the weekend when the story first broke, he stayed very quiet indeed. At that point in the week Boris Johnson had been told that he wouldn’t face a criminal investigation over his relationship with business woman and person who looks like if they did breeding just for reality show fodder Jennifer Arcuri, who received quite a bit of government funding around the same time she was in a relationship with him. Then again, maybe it was pity money from people who knew what it was like to spend more than 10 mins from Boris. The Independent Office For Police Conduct did find evidence of an intimate relationship between Johnson and Arcuri but apparently it was too much to say it was a conflict of interests, potentially because they were in so much shock that he hadn’t got her pregnant at some point they couldn’t carry on. So, off the hook for that but within 24 hours, the Mirror and the Guardian revealed a joint investigation that Cummings had travelled to Durham after Number 10 had said he was self-isolating. It must’ve just been that he was self-isolating in in several different locations at once, you know, like you can as long as you ignore the existence of anyone else there.

Durham is where Cummings family are, and if he’d just explained that when he said ‘if some pensioners die, too bad’ that he’d meant his own parents we’d have been less appalled by it and just assumed he’s never stopped being an angry 14-year-old. Police confirmed they’d visited an individual who’d travelled from Durham to London and advised them about the lockdown guidance which for Cummings must’ve been not to offer to sign it for them throughout. Then days later his parent’s neighbours said they spotted him in the garden listening to ABBA. How ill could he have been if he was dancing to the Swedish pop legends? Well I’m not sure but I’ve seen bits of Mamma Mia and everyone in that is clearly unwell. The story was that him and his wife were ill and needed help with childcare for their son, something that they clearly couldn’t get in the area of London where they live, because everyone there thinks he’s a bellend and probably would find almost any excuse not to. Sorry Dominic, I can’t help right now because I’m too busy counting all the individual fibres in a carpet I’ve thought of. Imagine being ill and having to look after a child? A situation so exceptional that I’m certain absolutely no one else during lockdown has had to deal with it and wouldn’t have been able to without travelling half the country and fobbing off care to someone else. It wasn’t his parents after all it was his sisters and young nieces, because you’re not a proper Tory unless you unnecessarily put the youth at risk at every opportunity. They volunteered to help, but they stayed in a separate house and didn’t actually help and you sort of wonder why anyone bothered but Cummings said he acted responsibly and legally, just you know, not as responsible or legal as anyone who’d have stayed at home and looked after their kid there.

The defences of Cummings started jizzing in from all the typical suspects. Deflated pigs bladder Michael Gove tweeted that ‘caring for your wife and child is not a crime’, yes but leaving your six year old son in a hotel room by himself for six hours like you did a few years ago Michael definitely is. So’s cocaine abuse. But hey ho, I guess if anyone knows where to draw the line, its Gove. Enflamed nostril Dominic Raab tweeted that those seeking to politicise Cummings Durham drive should take a long hard look in the mirror, something that Raab is incapable of doing due to a lack of reflection. There’s every chance Raab also thinks Durham is somewhere in London. Rishi ‘I wore a suit in my sixth form’ Sunak also criticised anyone politicising a government employee breaching government rules because lets face it, he’s incapable of bailing out anyone without ruining it somehow. The sort of man who boasts about a talent contest he won without revealing no one else entered it Matt Hancock, who a week before said that Professor Ferguson’s flouting of rules was extraordinary and the police should take action, had a very different view on his pal who was entirely right unless you check that bit when he also said staying home was not a rule but an instruction. Picture next to an article about how the killer was a quiet type Oliver Dowdon tweeted that Cummings followed the guidelines and looked after his family, end of story. Which shows why he’s a terrible culture secretary as that’s a shit story with an unsatisfying end and would definitely flop at the box office. Even Cummings himself appeared outside his home, saying that he didn’t care how it looked, told journalists to stand 2 meters apart and walked off with a tricycle and a football, the latter of which is one of the games you aren’t allowed to play in public areas under lockdown rules.

Papier mache corpse from a 70s murder mystery Grant Shapps was wheeled out for the daily briefing to take the initial hit, because it’s obvious they made him transport secretary in order to throw him under the bus first. Shapps tried his best to respond to every question with how he actually wanted to talk about his plans to upgrade the A66, because he’s so shit even his route out of awkward questions involves a road that goes through Country Durham and will eventually allow Dominic Cummings to flout rules even quicker.

Turns out Oliver Dowdon was wrong, and on Saturday night it was revealed that he breached lockdown rules again, being spotted in Durham a second time on April 19^th, after returning to London on the 14th. But weirdly all those Conservative MPs didn’t quickly rally round to tweet that breaking the law isn’t a crime. Odd. Instead several Conservative MPs said Cummings must be sacked including arch Brexiteer and small paintbrush Steve Baker, but of course he’d say that as all he’s ever gone on about is how everyone should leave. The Lib Dems and SNP insisted that Cummings should be sacked, and Labour chose not to say anything for a bit probably because four of their MPs have also breached rules and somehow kept their jobs. The government said those later incidents weren’t true, that the police weren’t telling the truth, and it made everyone start to wonder if this was just a massive dead cat to distract from how Grant Shapps is going to tarmac the A66 with spare PPE and hoping no one will get to ask him about it. Johnson took the daily briefing and said that Cummings followed the instinct of every parent, thought I’m guessing that was just through facebook data. The PM said it was up to each individual how to follow lockdown rules which means for the past few weeks I could have been interpreting it as though stay at home meant have a holiday in Barbados which I’m gutted about it. Behavioural scientists working with the government said that Boris Johnson’s press briefing in just a few minutes, managed to trash all the advice that they gave on how to build trust around the COVID19 measures, including that we are all in this together. But that’s not true as most of the country has united around thinking Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson are useless twats.

Finally, after all that Labour Leader and tower fan Keir Starmer made a statement about how there needs to be an investigation because that’s always the best way to get immediate action on an urgent issue, you know in 4-5 year’s time. Starmer didn’t demand that Cummings get the sack but did say if he was PM he’d have sacked him, which is obvious as you’d have a Conservative advisor otherwise and he won’t need one of those when he already has Rachel Reeves.

And then after a weekend of all that, Cummings did his own very long, press briefing where the tactic seemed to be to bore his critics to death. It started 30 minutes late as no doubt the traffic on the A66 had been terrible, and mainly ran through how he definitely had COVID but didn’t get a test and went back to work, flouting the rules, then went home and his wife also had it so they all drove up North and his wife and son went to a hospital which later had a ton of cases and then after being ill he also flouted the rules by deciding to test his eyesight by taking his son on a sixty mile drive before deciding actually it was fine to flout the rules and drive all the way home and return to work. But apparently that was all being reasonable and lawful and he has no regrets because regrets require emotion and an understanding of morals. Cummings blamed the media for telling mistruths before admitting that both he and his wife wrote articles about having coronavirus where they didn’t say they’d gone to Durham and that was fine. He didn’t tell the PM that he was travelling during the lockdown because he said Johnson’s time is the most valuable commodity in government, probably on account of how little he’s actually at work. Cummings says he filled up before his drive and didn’t stop the whole way because it turns out his car runs on magic and his 4-year-old son has the bladder of a blue whale. And mostly he didn’t apologise at all and everyone questioned every detail of what he said but none of it matters because HE SHOULDN’T HAVE LEFT HIS HOME IN THE FIRST PLACE. Johnson held a press conference after Cummings mega dull speech that will one day be recreated by Benedict Cumberbath doing his best infinite head cold and entire body made of wood acting. The PM mainly announced that car showrooms would be opening soon because if you can’t see family, you may as well consider getting a new vehicle to drive up to see Dominic Cummings family in instead as that’s allowed. On Cummings eye test drive, Johnson said he’d needed to use spectacles for the first time in ages since he got ill, so maybe it does affect your eyes, which may explain why he’s unable to see just how transparent this all is.

As it stands Cummings is still in his job, Johnson in his too and you’re stuck at home not allowed to drive to Durham because you don’t care about your children enough. I would say this is the perfect time for a revolution, but we won’t be allowed to march on parliament to start it. Maybe instead we can all drive there on mass in order to check if our eyes are ok?

In other news, Home Secretary and physical embodiment of the website NextDoor, Priti Patel announced a 14-day quarantine for anyone arriving in the UK after June 8^th, by which point the country will be back on lockdown again with its 17^th peak and they can walk around as they please. When asked why the quarantine wasn’t coming in till June instead of immediately, Patel responded with we are bringing in the measures now. Though to be fair, I’ve lost all concept of what day it is in this lockdown, so for someone who struggles with numbers, the Home Secretary probably thinks it’s the 300,034, 974,000^th of June already. Just days earlier Patel’s immigration bill passed its second reading as she boasted about how, by restricting who can come to Britain, we were gaining access to the world, as though now our club entry is exclusive everywhere else will welcome us in, rather than say fuck it, I’d prefer to wear trainers and not be surrounded by racists so I’ll go elsewhere. During the bill reading, Patel insisted that NHS fees paid by foreign health work staff must stay, but said they were continuing to do what they could to support frontline NHS workers, because somehow she thinks draining them of all their money so they can go to work on a day off for healthcare is supportive. I’m not sure treat ‘em mean works on health care workers otherwise after the last 10 years of cuts the NHS should be vastly overstaffed with doctors and nurses. What other supportive plans did she have? Daubing abuse in paint on their walls? Tying them to train tracks? The surcharge was backed the next day by the Prime Minister as he waffled on about how they’d saved his life but it was important they still fork out if they need treatment. Almost as though you might’ve thought this was unfair till you remember they kept Johnson alive and you don’t do shit like that without comeuppance. The PM said it was the right way forward as it raised £900m a year for the NHS which would be difficult to do without actually funding it properly while also not exploiting people and he wasn’t sure how to do that. But within 24 hours the government had u-turned on this charge with Patel saying through teeth that had likely had maximum grit that they’d remove the surcharge as soon as possible with further details soon, which is great but probably means it’ll be only for two weeks or something before returning with interest added for lost months and a new name of something hugely unimaginative like NHS addition charge or NHS pay to play.

Former Chancellor and host body for HIVE George Osborne popped his head over the parapet to say there should be more austerity and oh, he has a new girlfriend. I hope she’s careful as judging by his keenness to push Britain back into hard times, there’s every chance he’ll do nothing to give her any benefits and she’ll wake up one morning with a whole load of unwanted cuts. Auditors have found that the now disbanded Independent Group For Change, inappropriately destroyed their financial records. You might remember the group that said politics is broken and they would change it, went through several names and members before being broken by politics and having all the impact of a dart missing its target and someone landing on its throwers foot. All the party’s bank statements and files recording details of donations to the party were destroyed by former staff. Which begs the question, did they have something to hide, or was it the only logical thing to do to save donors dying of embarrassment that they basically pissed their money into a venture so pointless if anyone does remember they existed in a year, it’ll only as they remember how they kept thinking the printers had accidentally left a barcode on the ballot papers.

Along with the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and yawn made of tweed Prince Charles has launched the Pick For Britain campaign, persuading furloughed workers to harvest fruit and veg, saying that it’ll be hard graft but very important. Which is why he won’t be doing it himself as he’s never managed to fulfil anything in either of those categories before. He’s called for a new Land Army, a movement that in WW2 put women in agriculture replacing all the men who’d been sent to war & died. The difference here being that this time it’s our country’s xenophobia that means we have no farm workers. Still, maybe lots of MPs on their week off will help, especially as they’ve proven time and time again how good they think they are at cherrypicking.

And Primark have announced they are re-opening in mid-June, but don’t worry because even if you think you’ve caught COVID19 from being in there, it’ll actually be a really cheap copy of it made by children in sweatshops

ADMIN

Oh god, how long will this week’s episode last? Who knows? There’s every chance that by the time you hear this footage will have come out proving that Dominic Cummings held up a Shell station at gun point while his 4-year-old took a leak on the forecourt before the whole family intentionally coughed on a care home. I mean, I hope not as that’s grim and also because he’d somehow still get away with it by just saying that he believes he acted reasonably, and seven thousand Conservative MPs will all tweet that they’d eat his shit. I honestly have no idea how or if this will play out and there’s every chance we’ll be gaslit on it and no one will say anything ever again and this week’s podcast will just seem very odd for those of you that listen at the end of the week, wondering why I’m going on about Dominic Cummings driving to Durham when the big story now is how Priti Patel spent lockdown standing on Kent beach fronts swearing at France.

So, the plan, usually, just to give you a glimpse of the magic, a look behind the audio curtain. Usually I write up a couple of bits on a Sunday, then spend the Monday hammering away at the keyboard all morning and afternoon, before recording early evening, editing all night and then it’s with you for one min past midnight on a Tuesday morn all packed up neatly into one shouty package. But this week, er, it’s now 8pm as Dominic Cummings spoke for all of eternity, then Johnson said er 6 million times at 7pm and so all I’m saying is there’s no proper middle bit for this week’s podcast as I’d like to sleep eventually. But I have quickly grabbed together all my descriptions for Dominic Cummings, as asked by Taz who kindly donated to the ko-fi this week and look, I’ll do almost anything for money. Almost. There is however two interviews so it should all bulk out nicely to waste more of your lockdown time. More on that in a min.

First, thanks again to all of you for listening to whatever this week’s mess is. Big time thanks to Jayne, Helen, Emma and Taz for donating to the ko-fi and should you wish to, I mean this week, buy me some sort of sharp, strong alcohol, then please wang your coins over to ko-fi.com/parpolbro or join up at patreon.com/parpolbro. And of course if you can’t do that or would prefer me to suffer the news while sober, then a nice 5 star review will do on any of them podcast sites, and even a shout to your chums to pop an ear towards this show and even a subscribe would do lovely.

Right that’s it. No more admin. Instead let’s just follow Conservative wishes and move on. On this week’s show I am talking to both Christine Berry and Shreya Nanda from the Institute of Public Policy Research about why the government’s bail-out plan isn’t progressive at all, WHAT I KNOW RIGHT? And also there’s a chat with Ghazal Haqani at the London Renters Union all about their new Can’t Pay Won’t Pay campaign too which is also about a whole ton of people that aren’t getting any support right now. But of course that is all our fault as if we’d only interpreted all the lockdown rules correctly, we could’ve used every day since March 23^rd eschewing our needs to be tenants and roaming the land freely as responsible adults trusting our instincts. FFS.

INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE & SHREYA

You remember when Boris Johnson said his government would put their arms around every worker, even though it was right at the time where that would have breached all social distancing rules? It now seems that they thought pledging virtual hugs would mean no one noticed the complete lack of actual support they’ve given to vast swathes of society. You remember when Rishi Sunak said they’d stand behind businesses small and large; it turns out that was mainly so he wouldn’t have to look them in the face as those same businesses realised they weren’t being helped all that much at all. In fact, when you look at the fine detail of the whole bail-out plan, it seems the only ones being given any sort of sustainable help at all, are those who earn a living by not really earning a living. You know, banks, whose entire job is to charge you for not stuffing money into your mattresses and property owners who grabbed all the homes so you can’t and now make you pay more for them than they’re worth. They are the ticket touts of buildings. If that’s your life ambition then don’t worry, you’ll be able to emerge into the non-corona world making sure people can’t have affordable access to basic things just like before. What more do you expect from a government whose brand has always been trying to sell things to people they would already have if they hadn’t taken it from you in previous years? Sovereignty? Oh, sure we had that before you sold off all the assets to companies abroad. Control? Cool, we had that till austerity made many dependent despite three jobs. A stable economy? You get what I mean. Of course, that’s not how this current plan has been sold. Suddenly its progressive and like nothing that’s ever been done before to do the bare minimum you have to do to keep institutions alive that weren’t very helpful in the first place. I’m not sure you can use the word progressive when it’s for something that actively takes us back to the situation we were in before but worse. Oh wait, no I see it now. Progressively worse. Like saying you’re futureproofing something by living in an Armish existence and refusing to accept what year it is. You have to wonder if those arms around every worker were there to pop them in a sleeper hold before they ask any detailed questions.

This week I spoke to former pod guest, writer and researcher Christine Berry and her colleague & economist Shreya Nanda, who were two of the co-authors of the Institute of Public Policy Research’s report ‘Who Wins and Who Pays? Rentier Power and the Covid Crisis’. The report is a look into just who will benefit from the government’s plan, who will lose out and what steps should be taken to address the inequality that will be caused if the government continue down this path, which they definitely will do. I asked them why the current bail out plan isn’t as progressive as we’re told it is, what other countries are doing right and just what on earth a rentier is, as it sounds like a character from Dogtanian and the Three Muskahounds. It’s not, it’s not that at all. I think you’ll find this a very eye-opening interview and I’ll pop a link to the report in the podcast blurb to have a look at once you’ve listened. Here’s Christine and Shreya:

INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTINE AND SHREYA

Thank you to Christine & Shreya. You can find IPPR at ippr.org or on Twitter @IPPR and you can find the Who Wins and Who Pays? Report on their site under publications and I’ve popped a link to it in the podcast blurb too. Shreya is on Twitter @shreyagnanda and Christine is @oeufling and you can find her other writing and articles at christineberry.net.

And there’s another interview in a minute but first….

CUMMINGS DESCRIPTIONS

I was going to do a lengthy middle bit about just why you should care about the Cummings story even though, let’s face it, you’d have a much nicer life if you didn’t give a shit about it and couldn’t pinpoint who it looks like every time you do the IG filter that makes the middle bit of your face really small and the rest really big. And yes you might say but really really we should all be focused on the reports saying that coronavirus infections spread from 200,000 to 1.5m in the nine days before Johnson even bothered with a lockdown which will have directly lead to more deaths and also I wouldn’t have had to do one gig that I didn’t enjoy but still yes you should care about the Cummings thing and then reasons and stuff. But I am not going to do that now because well, time. Well ok very briefly it’s because pushing through the coronavirus bill as emergency legislation meaning it happened without debate, then turned into law giving the government powers to do what they like, then them letting their own people flout that law is some authoritarian level shit. Sure, everyone must burn all the books except those in your private library that you enjoy. I mean add to that the Prime Minister saying Durham police lied, or Cummings saying the media lied and then admitting to him and his wife lying in the media and you’re finding yourself in a place so gaslit that you could get away with farting as no one would be able to tell. Changing the rules while the pandemic is still in place just to suit one man is extremely dangerous and undermines all safety measures and scientific advice and because now we may as well all drive to Durham except for me it’d be pointless as I don’t have family there and I’ve been before so I don’t even want to do sightseeing and I don’t have any gigs there right now because well, you know. Look I’ll just stay here ok? But as so many have lost friends and family and not been able to see them, and struggled with childcare and not travelled for help, then they now might and I’m not sure if you know how germs work BUT IT WON’T HELP. Then there are issues of Cummings driving unsafely which at the least should mean his licence is revoked, and the fact he’s just a massive bellend. But instead, as its late, here as requested by Taz, are the not that many things I’ve described Dominic Cummings as over the past few months, with a few extras thrown in for funs.

Only man who’s Nintendo Mii is the default one but with the hair removed

A man who definitely bases how life should be on computer games and no doubt spends nights playing Call of Duty online just so he can swear at children in other countries

A man known for looking like if Phil Collins had been withered by a curse

A walking dead cat, or at least, that’s what he models his appearance on

Stupid moon

Roger in American Dad

Politics very own Lemongrab

haunted Bunsen Honeydew

original Dr Finkelstein

What if Morph’s friend Chas was an upset incel

The owner of lil bits in Rick and Morty

The Cloud City Lobot

Lovechild of Butthead and some discarded overfried egg white

INTERVIEW WITH GHAZAL

As mentioned in the first interview on this week’s show, if you’re one of the 4.5m households that live in privately rented accommodation you might be feeling a tad hard done by, with the government’s only ounce of support for you being that the 3 month eviction ban ends in the summer and it’ll be warm enough to sleep in the park then. Six in ten renters are saying they’ve suffered financially from the crisis, one in five of those say they are having to choose between rent or food and one in four have said they’ve had to voluntarily leave their homes and move in with friends or parents. And you can ask my daughter, sorry agent, who might only be two, but she’s already aware that being in lockdown with her parents has definitely made the situation worse. Renter’s unions have called on the government to suspend rents for the duration of the pandemic, but they’ve not done it because that’d mean for a lot of MPs they’d lose one of their extra incomes. That’s not fair to expect that from them when there’s also so few after dinner speaking for lobbyist opportunities right now and George Osborne took all the other jobs available back in 2017. I’m a renter because like an idiot, I was born in London, grew up in London and do a lot of work in London which means that the last time I checked, if I had any sort of deposit I could potentially buy a garage off the Hanger Lane roundabout, but chances are I’d be turned down for the mortgage as I’m self-employed. So, Iike many others I don’t really have a choice and having looked up my landlord and found out he’s pretty wealthy and may be developing property in occupied territories of the West Bank like a bastard, I feel like it’d be nice if he and others said ‘hey I can see that totally not of your own accord you now have no income, so why not chill on rent till coughing in public isn’t a hate crime anymore?’

The second interview this week is with Ghazal Haqani at the London Renters Union, a grassroots organisation that stands up for rights for renters and calls for affordable housing for those in the capital who are currently spending 70% of their income or rather no income at all right now, on their rent. Their current campaign Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay, is calling on renters in the capital to only pay what they can, as a protest and Ghazal kindly agreed to tell me all about it. For those of you listeners who aren’t in London, yes I know this is all London centric and what about all the other places on Earth like Lilliput or Coronation Street. Well there are renters unions all over the country and I’ll list a handful of non-London ones after this interview. If you have any you know of that I don’t mention and would like me to give a shout out to their campaigns during this crisis, please get in touch. Here’s Ghazal:

INTERVIEW WITH GHAZAL

Thank you to Ghazal for that. You can find the London Renters Union at londonrentersunion.org, and their Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay campaign is at that, forward slash can’t pay won’t pay, or you can head to cantpaywontpay.uk. They’re also on Twitter @LDNRentersUnion. Ghazal is also on Twitter @socialistinside. If you are outside London and rent or want to support renters, then check out, as Christine mentioned in the first interview, Acorn at acorntheunion.org.uk or @ACORN_tweet and they have various regional centres too including Acorn Manchester and Acorn Liverpool. There are also lots of local renters associations, with a quick Twitter search bringing up @KentRenters and Oxford Tenants Union @oxtenantsunion. So do search for where you are and see what you can find.

Who else shall I speak to on this podcast? Let me know at all the usuals @parpolbro on twitter, the Partly Political Broadcast facebook group, the contact page on partlypoliticalbroadcast.co.uk or email me at partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com. And in fact just do one of those things because I feel there’s already been far too much of people not getting the message this week.

END

And that’s all for this week’s Partly Political Broadcast podcast. Thank you once again for connecting your aural receptors to this week’s babble wave and of course, you’ve made it to the end of the show. So, what is the hot pol goss fact this week? Well as the main news this week is all about the Prime Minister’s special advisor, I thought you might want to know who the worst ever special advisor in history was. No it’s not Hollyoaks extra Adam Smith, the Department of Culture SPAD who had to resign after being more in bed with despotic prune Rupert Murdoch than his nightime catheter. Nor is it, surprisingly, a joint win by the Location, Location, Location presenters for the Upside-Down Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy who advised the only person who could grimace with her entire body at all times Theresa May to somehow be even more shit than she already was. No the worst ever special advisor actually goes to the person who advised part man part pipe Harold Wilson, to have special advisors. Now you might think I mean Julia Davis character Marcia Falkender, but actually it was his local optician Susan who told Wilson that for help with long distance he might need a special visor, which he misheard entirely. Thanks Susan. Thanks very fucking much. That’s it. That’s the hugely underwhelming HOT POL GOSS fact of this week, seriously Susan. FFS. If you need more like that, or infact less, why not persuade so many people to listen to this show that I’m too embarrassed to do something so rubbish every week? You can do that by shouting all about it where you live as everyone else might be in, if they aren’t on their way to Durham by now, or better yet, just post it on your social media places. Give the show a nice review on Apple Podcasts or the like, and if you can, donate to the ko-fi or Patreon sites.

Appreciation station in the nation to Acast for hosting this, my bro the Last Skeptik for music times, Kat Day for the linear liner notes and mushybees for artistic wonders.

This will be back next week when the story develops and its revealed that Dominic Cummings also broke lockdown by having a massive party in his local park with 600 friends and family but gets away with it by insisting they were all there to do childcare because you know what kids are like when they’ve had cake.

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

This week’s show was sponsored by Cummings Eye Tests. Worried that you can’t see ok? Join up at Cummings Eye Test and we’ll strap you to one of our selection of fun fast vehicles and if you manage not to die at 120mph in a landspeeder on our specially designed death trap, sorry race track, then you’re more 2020 than this year and ready to go! Please note we will not be held responsible if you don’t survive as our business is reasonable and lawful.

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