Further Reading

Transcript

As I watched the SpaceX mission launch towards to the international space station on the television at the weekend and I screamed ‘ESCAPE WHILE YOU CAN’ at the astronauts on board, several things ran through my head. Firstly, were they only travelling 220 miles out of the Earth’s atmosphere in order to check their eyesight, and secondly, have I been getting this all wrong all along?

What if as 60,000 people or thereabouts are dead due to government incompetence, we should, like Health Secretary and that kid in school who had a briefcase while everyone else had lunchboxes Matt Hancock said, think that it’s wonderful news that horse racing is going to come back, as if the Department of Health weren’t having enough of a mare already. Maybe it just explains a lot that Hancock finds it calming watching an animal be forced to take risks that may result in death at the behest of people who have money. Maybe as the country remains in Level 4 of the coronavirus alert system but lockdown is being lifted to nearly level one policies, with those shielding being told ah fuck it have a go why not, as though the government have realised they’ve screwed up so they may as well go all the way hard. Maybe, just maybe we shouldn’t be hoping for a vaccine or proper government guidance or financial support and instead like Chancellor and natural born estate agent Rishi Sunak see Nando’s reopening as the good news we’ve all been waiting for. Even though you’d have been certain he’d and his colleagues would be terrified of a chain known for roasting chickens.

Maybe as Deputy Chief Medical Officer and Edna Mode Jenny Harries says it is too dangerous to open playgrounds as you it’s impossible to make children do social distancing but also hooray schools are back, well except the private ones as they wouldn’t want to risk it. Maybe just maybe instead of repeatedly asking why the Prime Minister’s Special Advisor and the main cause of itchy teeth Dominic Cummings can still keep his job despite committing a breach of the law, we should just move on, though not 260 miles to Durham Castle or you’ll get a fine for not being important enough.

What if maybe as President of the United States and Mistreated Tuba Donald Trump says, antifa are terrorists and the real fascists because what could be more fascist than er, opposing fascism. Maybe we should also be concerned about antipasto? Are antenatal clinics safe for woman or are they actually against babies? Maybe America had to step up its vile racism within its police force and government because the coronavirus doesn’t discriminate, so you know, I guess someone has to, right? Wow, I mean, imagine being less moral than a virus.

Maybe I’ve just got it all wrong and I should embrace the pointless hate and complete stupidity of humanity, because isn’t what we’re all really looking for amid this pandemic, a return to normality? And what could be more normal than white Western governments doing all they can to endanger the lives of minorities and the most vulnerable. I realised as I watched that SpaceX Dragon spacecraft fly into the sky, that I’d just witnessed the beginnings of the privatisation of the outer realms, and the next time we see a launch from the Kennedy Space Centre it’ll be a transport full of only white billionaire Amazon Prime subscribers shouting fuck you at all of us left on a burning globe as they begin a new life on Neptune, the only planet where the climate will match their empathy levels. Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast, the comedy politics podcast that says Black Lives Matter. I’m Tiernan Douieb and its clear that the world is currently being run by absolute fuckwits.

I’m not sure if you’ve heard of the term Hanlon’s Razor, based on Occam’s choice of shaving tools, Hanlon’s is an aphorism that says, ‘Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.’ Right now in the UK, or rather England specifically thanks to devolution, it’s very hard to tell if the government’s new lockdown lifting policies are born of malice, stupidity, malicious stupidity, stupid malice or a simple want to make people ask them about anything other than Dominic Cummings, even if the replacement question is ‘why have we got the highest death toll in the world?’ Because at least that can be waved away with a lifetime of um’s & ah’s, explanations that other countries might not count as well because they only invented numeracy or how you can’t say all those people have actually died as there’s a chance they’re just doing a long sleep or it’s your fault for not being optimistic enough.

I mean take the Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a sinking feeling wrapped up in a self-collapsed lung, and his appearance last Wednesday at the Commons liaison committee to answer questions on the coronavirus tackling plans. It took excruciating television to a whole new level as Johnson failed to answer or even understand almost anything, he was asked by select committee chairs, and it would have been more comfortable viewing seeing Robert Durst choose his first wife’s disappearance as his main subject on Mastermind. Of course, one of the big topics was about Dominic Cummings and queries on if any sort of accountability or apology might come from a man who’d not only fail the sociopath test but also the Voight Kampff. Johnson’s response was just to ‘move on’, treating important issues with all the care he treats relationships, thinking he can flit to another before bothering to finish the last one. This has been the message from the government overall on the case of the Special Advisor who needed to go 260 miles for childcare and test his eyes driving to a castle, an action that not only showed that there is one rule for us plebs and another for those in charge, but also increased my pandemic anxiety as now I not only have to socially distance from people while out and about, but also have to be worried about getting hit by someone driving with their eyes closed. But it’s not been entirely possible to move on as estimates say MPs nationwide received over 1500 letters each complaining about Cummings actions, and 99 Conservative MPs have publicly said he should resign, even including Psychoville character Philip Davies, whose usual opinions only ever range from being angry that equality exists and is probably any second away from typing ‘All Lives Matter’ in all caps into Twitter. But the government continued to defend the SPADNOONELIKES, firstly starting with testicle ulcer Michael Gove saying that he too would drive somewhere to test his eyesight with a child in the back, and then Michael Howard said the same in a rare daytime appearance despite sunlight being a threat to his existence. It seems bizarre to think that two government officials would condone dangerous driving but at the same time maybe this is how the elite interpret rules and it would certainly explain every time Prince Philip got in a car. On their right-hand Cabinet members kept insisting what Cummings was reasonable, lawful, exceptional circumstances and you should all move on, while with the other also right hand, insisting that it’s your civic duty to isolate if you have symptoms. Though that does fit with their beliefs as if that’s how they class it, that means it won’t apply to anyone who doesn’t believe in the notion of community. Durham police revealed that Cummings had indeed breached the law by taking a day trip to Barnard Castle while experiencing COVID symptoms, but it was only a minor breach so they wouldn’t be retrospectively charging him. You know, those minor breaches of the law. Like say if you only sell a handful of drugs, or stab one person instead of 30 its basically like you haven’t done anything right? Meanwhile the government said that they won’t review fines given to families who travelled for childcare in lockdown as it seems its only exceptional circumstances if you’re an exceptional piece of shit.

The rest of Johnson’s liaison committee meeting included him saying that he was forbidden from announcing anymore government targets, meaning that either he as the Prime minister takes orders from Cummings or the Queen has got really bored of quarantine and decided to pull rank for laughs. His plan for youth unemployment post pandemic is an apprenticeship scheme because as we all know young people will definitely be able to pay their rent with exposure. And Johnson seemed shocked that foreigners living in the UK had no recourse to public funds, something that is clearly stated in the immigration bill he back that went through parliament the previous week. Maybe he just assumes that everyone in the country is able to get £53m to not build a bridge whenever they like. It was Johnson’s first ever appearance in front of the liaison committee in his 10 months as Prime Minister, and while he kept thanking them for asking him to appear, he also complained about them asking him any questions and wouldn’t agree to return before September by which point he’ll probably have decided to take his paternity leave. The Prime Minister doesn’t want a close examination and questions on anything his government are doing, as that’d mean he’d have to read them and find out what they are.

Not that reading them would really explain it though as lockdown lifting has begun what with the coronavirus level being nearly at a 3 but you know in the way that it’s definitely still at a 4. In the same way the R is lower than 1 because it’s at 0.7-0.9 depending on the day and which way up you look at it. Any unreasonable idiot would see those stats and say ‘hmm maybe lockdown should continue for the safety of everyone’ but the government always like to pretend numbers are smaller than they are, whether that’s to do with the economy, unemployment or the Prime Minister’s children. Like someone who’s sworn off drinking but then ruins it with one and decides, fuck it, it’s a cheat day and gets battered, every day of last week brought a new lockdown lifting policy. The government insists they are following the science, but there are still 8000 new infections a day and several SAGE scientists have said it should be longer before lifting measures, so which science are they following? Or is it following in a spy or hitman manner, where they lurk behind it and strike it in the back when it least expected? What does help is that we have a world beating track and trace system, though it’s not world beating just yet, as apparently the Prime Minister said the aim was just that it would be eventually, you know once everyone else doesn’t need their anymore and ours is the only one left. 25,000 contact tracers have now been trained but Number 10 can’t say when the system will be fully operational, like the no deal of coronavirus legislation though the difference here is that track and trace actually does need to happen and probably won’t. Reports say staff aren’t medically trained experts but people employed by Serco on zero hours contracts who have apparently just been sent a PDF and then do an online quiz. God knows what on, but I guess once they find out which character in sex in the city they’re most like, they’ll be able to know exactly what tone of voice to call people in. A number have told journalists that they have spent hours being unable to log onto the system at all let alone track anyone. The tracing might just refer to them having to copy each others results in order to get any sort of figures to report.

As Matt Hancock says, the virus only exists to reproduce, you know just like the Prime Minister. Which may be why he’s so unwilling to deal with it as he sees it as a kindred spirit, and it’s clear from the last week or well several years, he likes to protect his own. So here we are with a number of schools having reopened and people back at work, because as the official government video says all of us have a part to play, it’s just that for many of us, we’re the cannon fodder extras, while once again all the private school kids take the lead roles. Rishi Sunak announced that the furloughing scheme will end in October, at some point during the 15^th wave, probably on account of whoever’s left having at least 15 jobs each by then to fill all the vacancies. Employers will have to pay 10% of wages in September and 20% in October, meaning that most of the entertainment and arts world will cease t exist after August, petering out like one of the many ballads you’d get in one of those musicals you’ll never see again. Meanwhile self-employed support will continue in August at 70% of the applicant’s profits, in line with furloughed workers apparently, who get 80% of wages and for three months more. So, it’s obviously a much shorter line with an abrupt stop, like an exclamation mark placed in shock at how clearly Sunak doesn’t understand how self employment works. Or rather right now, doesn’t. He doesn’t understand much though poor simple boy, as when asked by a member of the public what his plans for women who have newborns and have been on maternity leave so don’t quality for furloughing is, he replied that they are helping parents by opening schools. Yes of course. A bunch of corona filled 5 year olds will look after your baby. I’m sure it’ll be fine and you won’t come home to find they’d painted your precious one in water colours and let them eat Duplo. People who have been shielding from coronavirus are allowed to see loved ones from this week, though NHS England hadn’t been warned that the government would make this announcement and it seemed a bit like it’s something the government just made up on the spot. Still if you are feeling vulnerable and suffer from underlying health conditions I’m sure nothing will make you feel more confident about just heading out and about now like the Housing Secretary and James Corden but what if he was somehow even worse Robert Jenrick saying they are ‘reasonably confident’ that the virus is now manageable, a phrase usually only used in government before someone is fired. Jenrick said they aren’t advising people to stop shielding, just saying they can stop shielding if for some reason they’ve watched the news and given up on life. It’s like a passive aggressive version of Dignitas.

And Culture Secretary and man in the background of every shit wedding photo Oliver Dowden announced that competitive sport is returning, which probably means their only real plan for workers is some kind of hunger games at the end of the year.

So that’s sports players, your kids, and you all going back to normal during a level 4 coronavirus alert, but whose being the national traitors and complaining about playing their part? Well many MPs are saying they shouldn’t be heading back this week, what with the Commons being even more toxic than it usually is. The government say that parliament need to set an example to the rest of the country, but they already do and so far its told us that if the people setting the rules haven’t got a clue how germs work, then maybe we really shouldn’t listen to them at all.

There have been mass protests in the US for 6 days after an African American man named George Floyd was brutally murdered by a white police officer in yet another example of America being run by white supremacists. Demonstrations became violent on the first day, because well, they’d have enough of this endless racist shit, and of course US police have seen it as a reason to retaliate even more violently, attacking not only protestors but also journalists because it seems riot police is much more an instruction to the ‘roided up klan members than a title. Many right wing Americans who were protest against the government taking away their freedom as it imposed lockdown rules just weeks ago, are now ecstatic that police officers are brutally attacking black people like the militia of an authoritarian regime because there’s nothing more patriotic and American than purposefully not understanding your own values. There is a lot of condemnation of the protestors, with people saying that by looting and being violent there aren’t protesting properly, but I think there’s no better compliment of a protest than the people you’re protesting against being upset by it. Otherwise it’s just a love in. Though to be fair in a pandemic, that might also be pretty effective.

Donald Trump as usual helped the situation like a Molotov cocktail might help tackle a kitchen fire, by tweeting a quote from a Miami police chief who was notoriously racist towards black people during the 60’s. When the looting starts, the shooting starts, it said, which isn’t true because the looting only kicked off because shooting and strangling had already happened. Twitter flagged his tweet as containing violent content which meant Trump then tried to take out an executive order against them and Facebook, which on the plus side might lead to him doing weird lip sync rants on Tik Tok or trying to say racist things with an IG filter that makes him look like a dinosaur. Trump also cancelled all funding to the World Health Organisation which in any other week or lifetime would be one of the worst things he can do, but it was only the 3^rd worst thing in three days. Its either because he’s a clueless dangerous fuckwit, or arguably it could be because he felt threatened whenever one of his staffers said to him ‘you’re giving money to WHO’ and he thought they were asking about his tax returns. The Hacktivist group Anonymous re-emerged after 3 years away to support the protestors and post on Twitter that Trump had paeodo Easter Island head Jeffrey Epstein killed to cover up his own involvement in child trafficking, and they’ve threated to expose the police force too. I often dream they’d pop up in the UK to unveil lots of horrible shit about Boris Johnson but I worry it’d be stuff we already knew and would have to come to terms with the fact that people just happily elected an absolute arsehole.

In other news, seven former Foreign secretaries have urged the UK government to form a global alliance to form a response to the current crisis in Hong Kong where China is enforcing its secretly drafted authoritarian national security laws on the country. Foreign Secretary and human wet towelling Dominic Raab said the UK would not turn a blind eye, which either means it’ll drive the situation to a castle to test it, or more likely just ignore it and keep repeating that they’re giving it the support it needs while doing absolutely nothing. Raab said the new security law very clearly violates the 2 state autonomy as signed by the Sino-British joint declaration in 1997, and up to 3m people registered as British Citizens in Hong Kong could be eligible for UK citizenship if China go ahead with the law because nothing could be a greater offer than escaping oppression to hit a two week quarantine before being launched into a leper isle with no jobs.

Labour MP and teacher from a bbc drama who is well meaning but keeps missing the point Rosie Duffield has resigned after she breached lockdown to meet her partner. She apologised and quit her role in the shadow cabinet, which is stupid as if she’d just shouted about being reasonable a lot & then driven to a castle with her eyes closed, she could’ve stayed in the job. Yeah, I’ve used that punchline a lot this week but that’s because I’m still lived that the arsehole can’t even say the word sorry, which is a shame as its perfect description for everything he and the government do.

And lastly the Queen has said that Boris Johnson is allowed to exercise in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, though its entirely likely that he misunderstood her telling him to jog on.

ADMIN

Slightly different intro this week but felt it was necessary. It’s been one of those ‘has the world gone completely bonkers’ few days of news hasn’t it, combined with the ever surreal nature of being forever at home in a lockdown that feels like if Sisyphus’s daily punishment had been persuading a two-year-old to eat her dinner by giving every single item on her plate a different character and voice, all persuading her to eat them. You might think this sounds fun but you try finding constantly varied accents and voices for a bowl of rice. It is hard, there are so many of them. I started with one gruff voiced rice who sells rice cream, one high pitched rice who starred in Miami rice and then it descended quickly till I ended up with one who worked for the US Rice border enforcement and I had to stop. On the plus side it is a welcome distraction from turning on the TV and seeing that American police are being violently racist again or the British government has given up and gone back to the herd immunity plan. How are you all coping? Have you sent your kids back to school? Its tricky isn’t it because while I definitely don’t want to risk spreading the virus more than it already is and let’s face it, it seems to have been given more freedom of movement than EU citizens with settled status, I also really, really want someone else to look after my daughter, sorry agent. How do you weigh those odds up? Do I let 1000s more people potentially die as a result of my agent wiping her nose on small plastic chair? Or do I keep doing different voices for her dinners until she eats something smaller than rice, like say cous cous and my brain stops in order to save me? Tricky.

Thank you for coming back to this show and I hope you are all doing ok what with all that’s going on out there, wherever you may be, whichever currently despot ruled horror town you live in. And firstly, before we get into anything else this week, there is no interview. I’m sorry, I let you all down, but I tried and tried to get someone from the National Education Union to have a chat and everyday, of last week it looked like there might be someone else available but they weren’t. Obviously, they are super busy right now and I’ll try to get someone for a later date, but that’s my bad for not having someone else lined up as a back up. I will make sure I do that for next week. Which brings me to a review this show got from Marie in the US just today, thank you tons for the 5 stars and Marie has asked that I look into the cops that killed George Floyd on this show. Look, I would love to, but I feel there are better equipped podcasts and shows and legal people to do that. I’m a comedian not a top researcher and I worry I’d struggle trying to access or look into details of racist American law enforcement with any sort of gravity to it. However, I am trying to speak to someone from the UK Black Lives Matter movement to have a chat if I can. It’s hard because the majority of you lot that listen are in the UK, so I try and cater this to UK audiences, especially as there are zillions of good US politics ones out there. But George Floyd’s death has resonated around the globe, and obviously we’ve had and still have massive issues of inherent racism and police violence towards black people in the UK for years and years, so it’s something I want to cover too. How to do it? Should I speak to US commentators, or UK ones? And how much more pandemic stuff should I cover? Is it worth me still trying to get an epidemiologist on? How about someone that can talk about how the arts have been entirely screwed over? Feedback would be great and if you want to stick it into a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts, that does of course really help. Oh and shout out to DataTater too for the nice review as well. What I will say is that if you can support and donate to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, please do as its helping to pay bail for black people in the US arrested during the protests. I’ve popped a link in the podcast blurb as well as the BlackLivesMatter list of donation sites, and if you know of any other good places to donate to or support please let me know and I’ll happily plug them here and on my social media places.

Of course if you somehow after all that have extra bucks that you’d be happy to send to me to buy dinner things with that I have to give more characters to than Game Of Thrones then please do that at ko-fi.com/parpolbro or patreon.com/parpolbro and big thanks to Scott for joining the latter and Mike, Claire, Christine and Anonymous for the former. I don’t think that’s Anonymous as in the hacktivist group btw but shout out to them if it is as I’m big fan of that thing you do with your voices. Oh and shout out to James who paypal’d me something direct on account of refusing to give any of the sites any cut which I like. Acast, the platform what this podcast is on, have started their own donation thingy called ‘Supporter’ that sticks a link on every podcast and I’ll be honest, they charge like 12% of each donation so I’m gonna put it on here, but maybe don’t use it unless it’s really the easiest way to send something over.

Right that is it for admin chat. As I said, no interview next week, I will try my best to sort something out for next week & instead I thought I’d treat you to a look at just whether the UK’s five tests for lifting lockdown have been met, SPOILERS, NO THEY HAVEN’T and I mean, just turn off now and enjoy your life. This episode is shorter than usual so I do hope you use the extra time to either listen to something calming, or listen to this show all over again but while singing along.

MIDDLE BIT –

There is a chance that you’re listening to this while standing in a park with friends, realising that months of social distancing mean that you have very little to talk to them about so you may as well catch up on podcasts. Or perhaps you’ve been shielding due to health conditions and because you know that the UK government are extremely trustworthy you heard they said it was ok to see friends and family and are listening to this while running around a garden centre trying to catch people’s coughs with your mouth. But if you’ve been watching the stats bit on the daily briefings, you know where someone supposedly clever says ‘its clearly going away because no one caught the bus’ or something, you’ll notice that we haven’t actually moved yet on the coronavirus alert levels, or met all of the 5 tests that we had to, to progress. Yet here we are with schools in, work going back and Matt Hancock getting excited about horses like he’s a 6 year-old at a petting zoo. So, what’s going on? Well I obviously have no clue, but you might hazard a few guesses that either the herd immunity strategy has come back, even though all advice was against it as it’d lead to many unnecessary deaths a bit like the ones we’ve already had. Or maybe it’s because they were running out of ways to pretend any actually likes Dominic Cummings and wanted to get public approval back by letting everyone leave, as Johnson calls it, captivity. Or maybe they were so worried about the economy that they don’t realise that actually what’s worse for the economy is everyone being dead as dead people aren’t very good at buying stuff, though great news for the funeral industry. Or maybe people were naturally bored of lockdown and struggling with and rather than incrementally lift things the government thought fuck it, let’s tell them to do what they want while also saying not to and then it’s their fault instead of ours. Or maybe, just maybe, they’re just really thick and think germs are the size of dogs so you can just sort of hop over them if you try hard enough?

Anyway this week I wanted to give you a quick rundown of the 5 tests and exactly where the UK is with all of them and then you can decide for yourself if it’s safe to go out hopping over germdogs with everyone else at the beach.

Test one was making sure the NHS can cope with coronavirus surges and can continue to have sufficient capacity for patients. I mean, yeah it did cope it and only, let me make this clear, only because you all clapped and no other reason obviously. It’s like with Tinkerbell or something. No really though, it did cope because the NHS is amazing but damn it had a hard struggle with more healthcare worker deaths than ever should have happened due to a lack of working PPE, hospital beds having to be bought from private providers and so many other appointments, operations and treatments having to be postponed which could have led to further deaths or complications in some patients. But now less than third of hospital beds in the UK are occupied by COVID patients, and the nightingale hospital in London, opened just to meet demand, is non-operational and on stand-by. So yeah this test has been met. Would it have been met easier without 10 years of cuts or lockdown happening at least a week earlier and preventing thousands of cases? Of course. Does the fact that the NHS managed to cope on a shoestring budget mean that the government will pretend its fully functioning and cut more from its budget as though it’s some kind of endurance challenge? Of course. Let’s see how they do a second wave but with a bed disappearing every time the music stops! I mean I wouldn’t put it past Hancock at all. There are rumours, and by rumours I mean people in the NHS on twitter and my mother in law, who’ve all said that staff are semi-preparing for a second wave of patients in July due to lockdown being lifted so all I’d say if you do fancy getting the old COVID, best you do it a week or so ago or you’ll have to queue in mid summer when its all the rage again.

The second test is whether there has been a sustained and consistent fall in the daily death rates, which there has if you count the deaths in hospitals that we hear about and some of the care home ones. But there’s a lot to say that the government are still missing a lot out, not including today where they announced the daily death rate was 111, but the overall count increased by 556, because you know maybe they happened just before midnight so didn’t count or something. While the current government figures suggest there have been just under 40,000 deaths from coronavirus, the Office for National Statistics a week ago said it was close to 51,000, with excess deaths at this time of year compared to previous years, being over 60,000. We have the highest death rate in Europe and the second highest in the world after the US, but per million people, we’re still on top like ABSOLUTE CHAMPIOOOONNNNSSSSS NUMBER 1 NUMBER 1. No? Oh. Oh. Is our death rate going down though? Yes, definitely. As down as we’d like it to? No, not at all. On Friday for example, Spain had 2 coronavirus related death, Ireland had 6, the UK had 324. Its like watching a race where you see first and second come in, but the one you’re supporting doesn’t arrive until several years later because it turned out they’d worn all the wrong kit and run a completely different route due to lack of planning. Has the UK passed this test? Sure, I mean why not say it has? Deaths are going down, but it’s like saying one of the tests was me eating less crisps in a day, then one day I drop a crisp on the floor so don’t eat it and therefore I’ve passed, rather than me actually not eat any crisps. Is it safe to let me back into the world where I might eat more crisps? Definitely not, I’ll definitely eat some crisps. Is it safer than before when I’d have eaten even more crisps? No, its worse because now I’m one crisps down and need more…no I don’t think this analogy works either and now I just want some crisps.

Test the third: Is the R down to manageable levels? You remember the R right? George RR Martin has two, same with Tolkien. It means the reproduction numbers. Yes that’s right, George RR Martin and Tolkein have or had the fertility of rabbits. That’s why George can never get that book finished. Sorry, what I mean is it’s the number of people one infected person will pass the virus onto, with COVID averaging about 3 but estimates are varied. The aim for the government was to get the R level down below one, because over 1 and it quickly jumps up higher than that and spreads quickly. So currently as of yesterday, the estimate for the UK was 0.79 with just under 2000 confirmed cases, but different places in the country have different R rates. Windsor and Maidenhead was 1.47 because stop licking things, stop it The Queen. Whereas Fermanagh and Omangh had -0.99 which I think means everything is reversed and actually the virus has been infected by a few people there. The rate has dropped which is good, but various estimates also show it starting to rise again over the last 4 days, and with it being between 0.7-0.9 its not as low as many government advising scientists say it should be before lockdown is lifted, with 0.3 being more of an ideal. Have we passed test three? Well yes, but again not as well as you should. It’s like my pal who just scraped a degree by just writing his name on the exam papers and little all else. Did he qualify? Sure. Should he ever be allowed to teach children. No definitely not.

Test Four: Ensuring supply of tests and demands of Personal Protective Equipment can be met for the NHS. Uh oh. It’s a no no on this one with PPE, with mishap after stupid mishap, ranging from Turkey sending cloaks that weren’t suitable to be worn by an am dram Dracula production, to it being uncovered that individual gloves where being counted as separate items. Care homes still don’t have enough, certain dental practices won’t be able to open as they don’t have enough and schools in certain areas are getting them for staff too which is good, but means demand will increase. As for tests, well according to the government they hit over 200,000 one day last week but won’t reveal figures for how. When they hit 100,000 that included ones that had been sent out but not taken so there’s every chance that this time they’ve counted pregnancy tests, diabetic blood tests, SAT tests and eye tests at castles. Yes, I’ve done the joke again and I WILL KEEP DOING IT TILL HE AT LEAST SAYS SORRY. Pretty much everyone ever is allowed to get a test now, all the way from under 5s to your nan’s budgie. There is also supposedly capacity for 40,000 antibody tests for healthcare workers but the government haven’t released any figures for how many anti-body tests have been carried out so we have no clue how that’s doing. There is a lot of concern that tests are being pushed out and not done properly just to meet targets and actually, the government should scrap targets and just try to test people properly as much as possible but then what would Matt Hancock announce at the press briefings? Oh wait, maybe all those deaths he keeps forgetting. Anyway, that’s a big hairy nope for test 4.

And the finals, Test 5: Being sure that any adjustments to lockdown restrictions wouldn’t risk a second peak. Well, without a vaccine you can’t really say ‘yep’ ever to this one, but four different SAGE scientists, the Association of Directors of Public Health, the Royal College of Nursing and professors at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical medicine have spoken out about how lifting lockdown measures right now means there’ll almost certainly be another peak and it’s a stupidy, stupid risk. The government have said its worth it due to our world beating track and trace system that is so world beating its not actually operational yet, none of the staff say they’ve been trained properly, the app steals all your data and sells it to big corps and no one is sure how they’ll stop scammers from ringing you up and telling you you’re full of COVIDs because of that person at the bus stop you did sex with and now you have to give all your savings to this definitely NHS registered bank account in outer Mongolia. Saying that, there is hope that the warm weather will aid in killing of the coronavirus, that it is harder to catch it outdoors if everyone does keep their distance and if everyone’s sensible and doesn’t all go to Durdle Door on the weekend we should be fine…oh. Oh well.

Look hey, 3 out of 5 ain’t bad. Ok, 2 and a bit out of 5. Ok, 1 definitely, 2 sort of mostlys out of 5. I’m sure it’ll all be fine and if it isn’t? Well I wouldn’t worry as Matt Hancock will just forget to tell you at the daily briefings they won’t be doing anymore and you so you won’t have to care. Good luck out there and maybe don’t do a sex with that person at the bus stop just yet.

END

And that’s all for this week’s Partly Political Broadcast podcast. No hot pol goss fact this week because you haven’t earned it what with this week’s show being a damn sight shorter. You hear me, it’s only for them long episodes. Yeah that’s the rule I’ve just made up because I haven’t written one, that’s right government, I can do it too. Yeah maybe everyone who hated the hot politics gossip facts and shielded themselves from it are safe to listen to this show again right now even though I’ll bring it back next week, yeah. Thank you for listening. Promise I’ll try to get an interviewee for next week’s show and if you do enjoy any of this at all, please spread the word on all your socials, give us a nice review on your podcast apps of choice and chuck us a quid to the ko-fi, patreon and probably not the Acast supporter thingy.

Thanks tons to Acast except for their supporter thingy, my bro The Last Skeptik, Kat Day for the linear liner notes and Mushybees for artistic wonders.

This will be back next week as it emerges Donald Trump only classed ANTIFA as a terrorist organisation because he thought they were an international football club for ants and he doesn’t like ants because they’re too small for him to understand.

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEE

This week’s show has been sponsored by Matt Hancock’s funeral service. Come to us with all your family’s needs. Sorry what needs were they? Oh no, I don’t remember you telling us about anyone dying. Are you sure? Maybe they’re just asleep, I wouldn’t worry about it.

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