Further Reading

Linear liner notes

It’s episode 200! Yes somehow this podcast has survived three prime ministers, Brexit, Trump and that time Michael Gove did a rap and we all felt sick. To celebrate the double centenary of the show this episode includes some guest shout outs, plus the usual gags on the new Withdrawal Agreement shenanigans, everyone being upset they couldn’t buy a terrible newspaper and COVID case rises. Plus investigative journalist Emma Youle (@EmmaYoule) from HuffpostUK (@HuffPostUK) about the PPE contracts the government gave to companies that have never ever handled PPE before.

Key links and sources of info from Caroline’s interview:

• • Emma on Twitter – https://twitter.com/EmmaYoule
• • Huffington Post UK on Twitter – https://twitter.com/HuffPostUK
• • Huffington Post UK website – https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/
• • Financial Times on Twitter – https://twitter.com/FinancialTimes
• • The Guardian on Twitter – https://twitter.com/guardian
• • Byline Times on Twitter – https://twitter.com/BylineTimes
• • Byline Times piece about PPE contracts – https://bylinetimes.com/2020/09/02/government-awards-43-8-million-ppe-deal-to-dormant-firm/
• • The Good Law Project on Twitter – https://twitter.com/GoodLawProject
• • The Good Law Project website – https://goodlawproject.org/
• • The Sunday Times on Twitter – https://twitter.com/TheSundayTimes
• • The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) on Twitter – https://twitter.com/TBIJ
• • BBC Breaking News on Twitter – https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking
• • BBC News (World) on Twitter – https://twitter.com/BBCWorld

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

Ep200

GUEST SPOT

Hi, I’m Vladimir Putin, and I’m taking a quick break from sitting on a giant tortoise in only my socks to tell you that when people ask me ‘Vlad what’s your poison?’ Firstly, I have them removed by my secret police and never heard from again for asking me such insolent queries. But then I say out loud to their irradiated corpse, my poison? Well it’s the Partly Political Broadcast of course! I just couldn’t authoritarianate without it! Now gee up Cecil, I’ve uprisings to supress!

INTRO

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast, the comedy politics podcast that also thinks a free press is vital, but once you’ve tried it, you should probably pay for gym membership or they’ll get upset. I’m Tiernan Douieb and after four and half years that somehow feel much, much longer than that, this is episode 200. Yes, I’m surprised too. But it is, that’s for certain. Another thing that is for certain, is that despite these times of constant uncertainty, there is always some reassurance that no matter how bad or confusing things are, the British government will go out of their way to make them worse. Maybe it’s a Bullingdon Club ethos or something, but it certainly seems the mentality is that they may as well kick the country while its down as that seems more economical. In current times, you might consider this an EU turn by the government as it looks like they’re planning legislation to override key parts of the EU Withdrawal agreement. You know, the agreement they drafted, unlawfully pro-rogued parliament to push through, and then insisted they had got it done with an oven ready deal. It could be that this is all our mistake and it should have been clear when we elected a philanderer PM, that an oven ready deal was actually a code for a meal for one. Or maybe that we should have taken one look at Boris Johnson, a man who looks like what if Beaker from the Muppets had a stupid older brother with a thyroid issue and realised chances are high he’s never used an oven in his life and will either burn this to smithereens or leave it cold and untouched in a closed oven, wondering when someone else will come along to work it. Let’s be fair, I’m not a fan of anything they’ve done either, so I can imagine looking at it all a year later they probably are thinking ‘urgh, who did that?’ and with lack of accountability now being part of the Conservative way, chances are everyone pointed at everyone else and now someone who empties the bins in Number 10 has been fired. The key bits that’ll be affected? Oh, don’t worry, it’s only everything that was put in place to prevent border checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic, but as Children’s Halloween costume of someone trapped in the forever nightmare of middle management and Environment Secretary George Eustice said, that’s just tidying up ‘loose ends’. Though I get the feeling that’s also what he’d say as he cut the rope on his companions while climbing a mountain because he felt they were weighing him down by carrying all the food.

It’s likely that this is all the sort of brinkmanship we expect from Boris Johnson, who has seemed very happy to play a game of chlorinated chicken with the country ever since arriving at Number 10. You know, it’s all the return again of chat about how a no deal would be a good outcome for the UK, though it’s not certain if he means because food shortages would help his obesity tackling plan, or the lack of medicines would mean less people to cause pollution or spread the coronavirus. Johnson says if there’s no trade agreement by October 15^th then both parties should agree to ‘move on’, a phrase that he’s always just used to mean ‘quick look over there’, ‘haven’t you got something better to do’ or ‘please stop asking me difficult questions that I haven’t thought of the answers to, or I might cry.’ All of which does sound like this is just the government having a tantrum, so the EU are coaxed into my style of parenting and going ‘oh for fucks sake, stop whining, just have what you want if it’ll give me some peace.’ I mean why else make big idiot macho statements like the Chief Brexit Negotiator and that’s what happens when play-doh isn’t looked after David Frost, saying that the UK isn’t scared of walking away. Yeah, we know, that’s why the PM regularly does it from his job and a succession of partners. Why else have the Environment Minister do the rounds defending the potential changes, when the closest he’s come to a trading table was on his family fruit farm selling a bunch of strawberries for a few quid. This is possibly why he insisted on Radio 4 that huge tariffs on food will be fine even though just a few years ago he had an acorn hard on about fighting to pay less tax on pasties. But I guess pasties are the sort of food he can get on board with, because they save you having to ever check what’s inside and you only find out once you’re in too deep to turn back.

It’d be nice to not have to take everything anyone in the cabinet says with a pinch of salt so big that if you sprinkled it in a circle around Westminster then Michael Gove wouldn’t be able to travel anywhere. I can only assume that there are serious plans with a possible no deal ahead, for salt pinching to become the UK’s highest export. On Saturday, eco-campaigners Extinction Rebellion blocked delivery of newspapers including The Sun, Times, Daily Mail and the Telegraph, leading many like myself to worry we’d be seeing another toilet paper shortage. Actually, some people were angry, because they’ve not heard of the internet yet, and didn’t feel that trying to replicate their favourite newspaper articles by shouting xenophobic comments while standing topless spying on their neighbours, would do the same job. These delivery blockades that will have, at most, affected about 2m people from reading something about how Meghan Markle once walked on the wrong side of an escalator or how refugees are coming to take away your keep calm and carry on posters. Of course that’s much more important than saving the planet or even just making sure trees will still exist in 10 years so they can be given the worst punishment in death by being turned into one of those shit rags, and so both the Prime Minister and Home Secretary and Priti ‘if they call them French Fries I won’t eat them’ Patel as entirely expected, jumped into fervid online shouting to save the country from the more concerning extinction, that of scapegoats. Johnson took to Twitter to announce that a free press is vital in holding the government to account, which he’s right about and why it’s such a shame we have vast swathes of ours owned by billionaires who’ll unquestionably promote his bollocks and even pay him to write for them. Maybe he should really listen to whoever it is that runs his twitter account because as a Prime Minister who banned the Mirror from attending lots of the Conservative election campaign and won’t send any of their party to do Channel 4 news, or a number of others, he could learn something useful that he won’t read in any of his favourite free papers. In fact, the UK has been given a level 2 media freedom alert by the council of Europe after denying a foreign and defence policy news site Declassified UK from receiving any communications from the Ministry of Defence. Though to be fair to the MoD, that is high levels of defensiveness. I suppose when all that is taken into consideration, the Prime Minister’s comment about free press being vital in holding the government to account might’ve not been him backing the notion but more an explanation for why they don’t want one but could everyone still blame XR for not wanting our kids to spend every day swimming.

Priti Patel stepped to the virtual parapet to say that Extinction Rebellion’s attack on our free press, society and democracy is completely unacceptable. I understand that because if XR were doing all those things, then what would the Home Secretary have left to do on her list and frankly there’s enough redundancies at the moment already. Earlier in the week Patel had once again tweeted about activist lawyers frustrating the removal of asylum seekers from the UK, or ironically for the Home Office, translated into English, I am sad that the law means I can’t deport anyone who l think looks funny. Obviously, a lot of legal professionals were angry that they were being targeted just for doing their jobs and upholding sovereign British law, but I think it’s cool if Priti Patel wants to call lawyers activists, as long as every job gets an appropriate descriptive pre-cursor. For example: Disgraced Politician Home Secretary. Useless Prime Minister. Spineless Heath Secretary. And so on.

Speaking of the health secretary, you know, Matt Hancock, the one who always looks as though he’d say he’s into the Spice Girls just to impress some kids, he has blamed the big rise in coronavirus cases over the weekend on younger people. So, it’s great that all the schools have gone back now because I’m sure that’ll really help, what with everyone reassuring us that children would definitely be safe there. Hey, maybe we should all go to the schools till this is over with? Maybe not as 200 pupils and 21 staff members are currently isolating after positive tests were found at eight different schools in Liverpool. One health expert has said that ministers have lost control of the virus which I don’t think is fair, as it suggests they had control of it at some point first. It should be all ok soon though as Matt Hancock insists we’ll have a working vaccine by next year, which we all know means he’ll give several billion pounds to Dido Harding to see if eating a biscuit cures you from COVID and when it doesn’t, they’ll all so ‘oh well, we tried and it was a world leading try.’ Lockdown restrictions in Bolton and Trafford were put back in place just 24 hours after being lifted, as infection rates have tripled within a week. Still on the plus side, it’s a great way to make sure Westminster don’t keep ignoring the North. Cases have also been rising in Scotland with Glasgow now under restrictions on household visits have been imposed, which I don’t think is the sort of independence many were hoping for. Anti-lockdown protestors took to Glasgow Green to denounce the coronavirus as a hoax, though that could just have been the noise they were making when they coughed.

What might reassure everyone about these higher rates of infection is that Boris Johnson has declined to meet families whose loved ones have died of COVID, which is probably the most compassionate thing he’s ever done considering how much they’ve suffered already. The PM had told reporters that of course he’d meet anyone bereaved by COVID-19, but told a campaign group that actually, now he can’t. I suppose with the chance it’ll all kick off again this winter, Johnson knows that much like his kids, if he agrees to see one, suddenly there’ll be loads more he hadn’t even thought about and he’d have no time left for avoiding work. Especially when he’s been attending packed 1922 Committee meetings with over 50 attendees, even though the room had maximum capacity of 29 and gatherings of 30 are illegal. I suppose the difference is so many of those that attended are already dead inside.

So here we are, September, with schools going back, people going back to work, coronavirus cases rising and a Brexit No Deal back on the table. Still it’s nice that with most of March spent in lockdown that we’re getting to redo it all over again. Maybe I’m wrong about the governments recklessness and that actually, they do think about the future and how, with a no deal Brexit, no one will travel to us, or leave, so we can contain coronavirus on this island forever like a modern day Kaluapapa, just without the nice weather. Like a sort of reverse colonisation where we just stay exactly where we are, conquering ourselves with wilful ignorance. Perhaps that is a good outcome for everyone except us, after all.

In other news, Chancellor and star of Flushed Away Rishi Sunak has promised there will be no tax rise horror show, though it is hard to know what he means by that. As to Conservatives Robin Hood is a horror, whereas something like It, a film about a hideous clown who ruins children’s lives, is seen as a guide to leadership. Sunak has unveiled a £2bn kickstart jobs scheme for young people, which said was to prevent an entire generation being left behind. That’s nice, now they’ll be able to join everyone else in feeling depressed that they have adequate experience but still can’t get any work because there’s none left.

And lastly, social distancing in theatres could be dropped very soon, as Culture Secretary and nervous bollard Oliver Dowden has started an initiative called Operation Sleeping Beauty, because much like the story, a lot of people in the entertainment world have has their livelihoods put to sleep thanks to careless pricks. Dowden wants to get theatres packed again in time for Christmas so that pantomime season can happen as per usual but sadly Oliver, the time for venues getting a large scale show ready for December is behind you. Maybe in its place, we should just encourage families up and down the country to boo whenever the Culture Secretary is on the telly?

ADMIN

Yeaaaaaaah episode 200! What am I doing with my life? Sorry, I mean, yes, I made it! That’s over 4000 minutes of jokes that all rapidly became out of date minutes after releasing it, over 6000 minutes of interviews that haven’t yet helped us fix any of the world’s ills yet and more descriptions of MPs than you could shake a parliamentary ceremonial mace at. No, I didn’t count them. No, you do it. Over half a million people have listened although they could have also just been hitting ‘mark as played’ on the podcast apps but it doesn’t matter I will never know. Back when this podcast started, Brexit hadn’t happened, Obama was still President of the US, the Zika virus was about but mainly only affected pregnant woman so most of the world’s media and governments were mainly angry they’d have to have more time off work. In the UK, our Prime Minister was still ham souffle David Cameron, junior doctors were causing mangled pipe cleaner Jeremy Hunt to hide in bushes, and everyone was only angry at patchwork chair Jeremy Corbyn for not wanting nuclear war, like an arsehole. I mean if only he knew then what 2020 would’ve been like 4 years later, I’m sure he’d have been campaigning for Trident to be used there and then to get this over with. I mean, I would’ve. I’m not saying it’s this podcasts’s fault for the state of things now, but I mean, it has existed throughout that and there are no other connecting factors at all. None. Well that’s the story I’m going for anyway and I reckon if we can get everyone to blame everything on this show, it’ll get even more listeners from all those contrarian idiots who’ll do it just to own the libs or something and frankly if Mark Dolan can sell his soul for Talk Radio cash the rest of us need to step up. No, nope. Even joking about it makes me sad. Sigh. Anyway, I thought for the 200^th episode, as I haven’t planned really anything special, it might be nice just to listen back to the opening few minutes of just what this show was like on January 19^th 2016…..

CLIP OF EPISODE 1

Urgh terrible idea. The sound quality was shocking. No wonder so many of you dropped it after that first one. I don’t blame you in the slightest. Thank you to those of you who did stick around though because without you, I’d just be telling these jokes to my wife and she’d be very sad, and all my interviewees would just block my number from their phones and report me as spam. Worst still, I’d have not been able to claim any of podcast equipment as expenses and we all know, that’s the most important thing. Please do pay your tax though. You do it. Not me, I need to buy crisps. But you should. As it is episode 200, I won’t plug all the places you should give me money or review this show because you’ve already heard that 200 times. Or less. But instead, by popular demand, I asked my agent to do it again as she still repeats it like a mantra whenever she hears the word podcast because I am Britain’s Best Parent.

AGENT CLIP

She didn’t bloody mention the Acast supporter option did she? Honestly, you can’t just get the talent anymore. And thanks tons this week to Taz, somebody and Kim who donated to the ko-fi this past week. Don’t worry, I’ll bring back the same old mantra for the next 200 episodes until I’ve drained all of your money and every one of you has reviewed the show on your podcast apps of choice at least 16 times each.

Before we crack on with this 200^th episode, a few quick things. Firstly I am starting to put a few live gigs in here and there so do check out my website tiernandouieb.co.uk to see where those are. Hopefully more and more will appear. Also I’ve written a piece in this month’s Empire Magazine if you get that. It’s the one with the new Dune film on the cover which also looks a bit like its covered in sand. It’s not, you won’t find bits of it in your socks and pants. You’ll be fine. I’ve written about watching the Korean film Old Boy for the first time. That’s the original one not the newer Josh Brolin one where he’s not even Thanos in it so what’s the point? What’s the actual point? Stupid Americans thinking they have to redo it for people who can’t read subtitles. I don’t even think Donald Trump deserves films anyway. Also, also, this sounds a bit corporatey but I promise it’s not. Penfold pensions kindly made me an affiliate which means if anyone joins up and uses the code ‘Tiernan’ or the link I’ve put in the pod blurb, I get £25 in cash. The reason I did that is because I use it and it’s a genuinely useful pension site for self-employed people, in that it takes into account that I might be completely broke most of the time. Beforehand I’d generally assumed I’d work for the entire rest of my life and then beyond that as some sort of ghost tour guide, but this means I now might get to still work for the rest of my life but occasionally afford a coffee too. Anyway, they are at getpenfold.com and I def recommend them if you’re a freelance idiot like me and please do sign up with ‘Tiernan’ so I can have some money. Thank you.

Oh and lastly, nothing to do with me whatsoever but the amazing band Tunng have started a new podcast called Dead Club about our attitudes to death and the first ep with the amazing author of Grief Is The Thing With Feathers and Lanny, Max Porter and I can’t recommend it enough. Properly beautiful and insightful listen. You know, for when you’ve wasted all your shouting listening to this show.

On this, the 200^th episode, I am talking to investigative journalist Emma Youle about all the companies that have made money from government contracts during the coronavirus crisis and why a lot of questions need to be asked. Plus, because it’s episode 200, I felt a little Brexit Fallout was necessary. I know it’s your favourite jingle. No, I didn’t even do a survey. I just know. But if you want to wait for the Opinium results than I understand.

GUEST SPOT

I am Donald Trump and when I’m not grating America make again, or calling fallen soldiers losers, I mean I don’t fall over, only when the ramp is really really steep. And what about sharks? Why can’t we just bomb them? The Democrats that’s why. Some of them are sharks you know. They just wear suits and hats so you can’t tell. When I’m not injecting bleach or saying that some coronaviruses are good guys, then I’m listening to Portly Polhole Breakfast which isn’t fake news. Or it might be, but the chubby bearded guy talks so fast I don’t know, I just don’t know.

INTERVIEW WITH EMMA

I blame a childhood of watching the A-Team for making me think it’s important that the right people do the right job. I mean it made sense that Mr T did all the muscle work, Face charmed people and Murdock did anything unhinged that involved an invisible dog. It may also be this sort of education that lead to years of never questioning why the people in top global positions were old white men smoking cigars who really didn’t pull their weight. But I think it’s fair to say that most of us would be concerned if their brain surgeon was the Scarecrow from Oz, or the person who took your car in for an MOT was Amish and believed you’d travelled there by devil magic. And yet one of the main features of the last 10 years of Conservative government has been to do very much the opposite. To name a select few occasions, remember during the Olympics when G4S was hired to do the event security but didn’t bother turning up to do it? Though judging by some of the things they’ve been accused of since, perhaps it was safer that they didn’t. During all the No Brexit preparation, then Transport Secretary and JK Simmons most unrealistic character Chris Grayling spent millions on ferry contracts for a company that had absolutely no ferries. And of course, there’s been every single time Michael Gove was hired to do anything. Well except for when he became Justice Secretary and reversed everything his predecessor Chris Grayling did. So perhaps it shouldn’t be unsurprising, and well, it isn’t, that questions have recently arisen about some of the very costly contracts the government have handed out during the coronavirus pandemic, contracts that thanks to the Coronavirus legislation, were handed out with no tender process. No that doesn’t just mean there was no loving thoughtfulness in the way they were distributed, it means the usual stringent and transparent selection process wasn’t in place, because you know, it was an emergency and all that. So, while you’d hope that the seriousness of the situation meant the government were quick to choose only the utmost suitable recipients of, for example, a multi-million pound deal to supply PPE, instead they chose a company with absolutely no record of ever supplying PPE. Some of these companies may have had more tender process of the other kind, with links to Brexit lobbyists and some of the companies appeared to be completely dormant. Though I suppose now being completely inactive is considered Prime Ministerial. Of course, all of this might be totally fine and justifiable but a little bit of transparency and openness would be nice, to let us, the taxpayers whose dosh is paying for all of this, know just why this companies were chosen over UK businesses with a proven track record. And more importantly why I, with absolutely no proven record of ever supplying PPE didn’t also qualify to receive a quarter of a billion pounds. I mean, at least I’d have tried making some masks out of old pants or something.

This week I spoke to Huffpost UK journalist Emma Youle. Emma is a fantastic investigative journalist who has previously shed light on the contaminated blood scandal that affected so many in the 70’s and 80s, as well as working with survivors to look into historical cases of child abuse in Islington. Recently Emma has been looking at just who has been profiting in these times where so many of us have lost income, and her work has led to renewed calls for an inquiry into the how’s and why’s of the government’s emergency spending. Emma very kindly agreed to break it all down for me and I asked her just why we need to be concerned about all of this, if the Nightingale hospital was of any use at all and if she’d give me a few million quid to make a mask out of old pants. Ok I didn’t ask the last one but for you listeners, the offer is still there. Special 200^th episode promotion. Sorry, I mean here is Emma:

INTERVIEW WITH EMMA PART 1

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

GUEST SPOT

I’m Alexander Hamilton and let me tell you, the only thing I don’t like about the Partly Political Broadcast is that I’m not in the room where it happens. Well sometimes I am. Being a ghost is great. Except when you record it in your pants. I am not raising a glass to that freedom. Nope.

QS FROM YOUSE

One of the things I asked you all if you fancied sending in for this week’s show were any questions or comments you wanted to ask, and if you fancied recording them on your phone and sending them in. Well, as is the raging success of this podcast and the strong connection I have with you, the listeners, I received just one. In tweet form. So, thank you Ande for this, and his question was ‘Will we survive 3 more years of the corrupt, lying Tories? And how long until people still wrongly blame the EU and demand we rejoin?’

Well Ande, in answer to the first bit of that. Yeah I reckon so. I mean I will. I’m starting to collect bits of wood to board the windows up with and I’m trying to learn how to survive on only boxes of crackers and the knowledge that saying ‘I told you so’ will nurish my soul. I am also learning how to say it underwater for when climate change hits. Erm, in all seriousness though, I hope so. What will likely happen is many of us will survive but have a shit time, many of us won’t survive and will die thanks to further neglect whether that’s to do with coronavirus, or just a depletion of social care. And of course, Jeff Bezos will probably go and live on the moon and cryogenically freeze himself so that he’s still alive in the year 3000 which I think McFly sung about. But what we all have to remember is that kindness is radical, there are ways to fulfil things our community needs even if the government will neglect to do so, there are collectively more people that want a progressive future than people who don’t, it’s just that at the moment, the arseholes are louder. Though that will change when my daughter works out what a megaphone is. And most importantly, Boris Johnson can’t have that long left to live, I mean, he looks like shit. And in answer to your second question, I give it about 5 minutes.

If you want to send in any other questions for those sorts of insightful answers, either record them or write them or draw them or just scream them to all the usual places. And now….

BREXIT FALLOUT

The first Brexit Fallout on this podcast was back in Episode 25 on the 28^th July, as before then there was another shit jingle about living with or without EU that I’m sorry I put you through. Anyway, here’s what I recorded just over 4 years ago:

CLIP FROM EPISODE 25

How nice to think that here we are, all this time later and everything is all sorted and fine. Ha! But of course, it’s merely the same shit, different twats and the big news this week is that Johnson could be introducing a new Internal Market Bill. Is the Internal Market what you call it when you eat something, and your body exchanges it for poo? No, but we all should call it that. An internal market is like a single market, as in a free trade area, but the British government can’t call the UK’s own single market the single market as it’d confuse everyone and then we’d probably have to leave that one too and then we’d all just have to trade within our own households and yesterday my daughter, sorry agent, tried to sell me 3 crisps for either 10 minutes or £9 and I can’t keep getting fleeced like that. This Internal Market Bill is said to undermine the Withdrawal Agreement, yes, the one that the Conservatives all overwhelmingly voted for and the one Johnson said had got Brexit done. And yes, the one that was pretty much like former PM and wall hanging Theresa May’s deal, that Johnson resigned his position as Foreign Secretary over. So of course there is every chance that in a month or so’s time, this Internal Market Bill will be called inadequate, Johnson will denounce Remainers for not physically removing his fingers from his ears to warn him about it and then they’ll demand the EU let us stay in the single market or something as its awful of them to try and stop us. Number 10 have said this new bill won’t tear up the existing treaty and will just make minor clarifications in extremely specific areas, which probably means bits that Johnson hasn’t read and won’t bother to.

In the OG WA, the Northern Ireland protocol was the bit the UK and EU agreed on to try and vaguely solve but not really the issue of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, meaning that NI would follow some EU customs rules after Brexit and customs declarations would be needed between NI and GB, as well as GB to NI and the Republic. So Northern Ireland would sort of be more EU than UK, which as we all know, wouldn’t cause any issues at all what with history and everything. But now the government are saying they want to have something in place incase they can’t get something in place with the EU by the end of the year, something that would only happen because the UK government keep getting angry about things they put in their own agreement about fishing and letting people use tax havens because you know, we have to keep Britain for the hardworking fisherman and all those people who don’t really work but keep their money in the Cayman Islands instead of helping the NHS. True Brits. Or tax exiles. We don’t yet know what will be in this bill until its published on Weds, but it will apparently say that ministers can decide what goods were at risk of entering the EU when passing between Britain and Northern Ireland and so might be subject to tariffs. That would allow ministers to scrap export declarations for things between NI and GB and would mean EU State Aid requirements which require governments to home grown businesses, would only apply to Northern Ireland. At the mo, state aid means that the British government can’t subsidise companies in Northern Ireland that’d give them an unfair advantage over competitors in the Republic, and that can also include GB companies who have significant subsidiaries in NI. So obvs that’s the sort of thing that makes Brexiteers angry as it means EU law will still apply to some British companies. But by introducing a bill that stops the EU from having that power, could also breach the Northern Ireland protocol and then render the whole thing shat all over the floor and a no deal swinging through the roof into our face.

This could all be a load of bluster to try and get a great last minute deal so it looks like Johnson has managed to not screw up one thing and the EU have conceded to the UK’s might or some shit that he’ll probably pay several million to have a friend write a children’s book about. Or this is a full wammo push towards definitely saying yes to no deal and hey ho there’s no medicine now but at least we can get lots of fish no one in the UK eats. Maybe we can apply them to wounds or strap them to our faces as virus protectors? Worth a try. Will the government reneging on its own deal affect our trade deals with other countries? Maybe but also remember, most countries just want to sell shit and probably don’t care that much. What it might mean though is that the UK government could potentially get taken to the European Court of Justice and if that happens, I hope they televise it and I’ll buy in the popcorn. We will know more on Wednesday but as with the last four years of this, probably not that much more and likely somehow, less.

The last thing in this week’s Brexit Fallout is that the UK Government have missed the deadline to provide guidance on the correct labelling for food and drink after Brexit, because of course they have. This meaning that there could be food shortages in Northern Ireland particularly, as supermarket in Britain that sell to them would need completely different labels in order to fit with the EU regulations that NI will still have. On the plus side that might make it a good place to sell all that fish no one likes. Labelling is apparently really complex, something you’d think the government should understand on account of how regularly they label people they don’t like.

GUEST SPOT

Hello, I’m the ghost of Nye Bevan and while I founded the welfare state, nothing has been a greater gift to the British people than the Partly Political Broadcast. Listening to it is very healing indeed. Oh no wait, not for me it isn’t, I’m still dead.

And now, back to Emma…

INTERVIEW WITH EMMA PART 2

Thanks, so much to Emma for the chat, and also to Huffpost UK and their legal team for giving the interview the OK. Yes, all that had to go via the Huffington Post lawyers just incase we’d done the big libellous somewhere. But turns out it was all ok and if you want to join any dots together to form opinions on what the government may or may not be doing with all these funding allocation choices, then please do that in your own head on your own time and I’ll meet you by the third tree in the park at moonlight and we can exchange important info using coded semaphore or something. Sorry, what I meant to say was, you can follow Emma on Twitter @emmayoule, or find her articles on the Huffington Post UK site or their Twitter or Facebook. Also, as I’ve mentioned on this show before, the Good Law Project if you want to follow their cases against the government in line with the spending revelations, can be found at goodlawproject.org or on Twitter @GoodLawProject.

Who should I speak to for the next 200 episodes if we all survive that far into the future? What subjects have I completely failed to cover in all of that noise time of the last four years? What do I need to cover again? What cover bands shall I call in to do their own version of an interview I’ve already had on this show? No, sorry, not the last one even though I also really want to do that. Let me know any thoughts on who I should chat to, by dropping me a line…and I mean if you don’t know this bit after 200 episodes, then may your deity of choice help us all. Go on, sing along with. @ParPolBro on Twitter, the Partly Political Broadcast facebook group, the contact page at partlypoliticalbroadcast.co.uk or partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com. Or you could release it in an article in a shit newspaper then stop that newspaper from getting delivered meaning that everyone will share your article to own the libs and then I won’t look at it because it’ll only be posted by people I’ve blocked. But still, I’d be impressed by the effort. As always, come on, you know the words, it’s probably just best to email isn’t it?

END

That’s all for the 200^th episode of the Partly Political Broadcast and so I thought this week, as you reach the final minutes of what is a monumental number of episodes, here is a special self-indulgent PARPOLBROHOTPOLGOSSFACT. So, this podcast’s first episode was on January 19^th 2016, which two Conservative MPs have stayed in the cabinet throughout the duration of this show? No, I don’t mean like how Boris Johnson hid in a fridge, or Jeremy Hunt in some bushes. I mean which two MPs have survived successive prime ministers and despite catastrophic levels of incompetence, have jumped from role they don’t understand, to role they don’t understand. That’s right. Human bellows Liz Truss and the face of your children’s nightmares Michael Gove. Gove was Justice Secretary when this show began after a successful run at ruining education, then Chief Whip. Before then being Environment Minister and whatever his is now that mainly means he pops up to say he didn’t say things that he said and that its normal to test your eyesight by driving. Meanwhile Truss went from Environment Secretary, to Justice Secretary to Chief Secretary to the Treasures to where she is now, shouting about cheese as Trade Secretary and defending Tony Abbott while also being minister for woman and equalities, aka all the things Tony Abbott hates. So you might think that wow, that’s a depressing fact because so many successive years of failures and just generally having the personalities of misused dish racks and yet they still have top jobs. But I would say, I think it just goes to show, no matter how shit you are at something, at least you haven’t been so shit that David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson have all liked you. I mean, I don’t know what the opposite of a reference is, but I feel like handing in a CV that said that to most places would cause an inhalation of breath and probably the getting out of some sort of insect repellent. So let’s hope this podcast outlives the careers of Gove and Truss, and you can help it do that by telling everyone you know to give it a listen and a subscribe, plugging it on social media, giving it a nice review on all them podcast platforms and you can now do it on the Acast app too, and by donating a few quid to me at the ko-fi.com/parpolbro, the patreon.com/parpolbro or hitting the Acast supporter button.

Thank you 200% to Acast for hosting all 200 of these podcasts, my brother The Last Skeptik for supplying the music 200 times, to Kat Day for doing, well, quite a lot of linear notes of the episodes and to Katie Coxall for the artwork that I only learned how to use for imagery about a year in because I’m an amateur.

This will be back next week when Boris Johnson insists the deal was oven ready but it’s the EU’s fault for having fan ovens when he’s only ever had a true British Aga and that’s why it’s taken the UK ages to warm to an agreement while the EU’s been full of hot air from the start. But before he finishes the metaphor a journalist tells him Agas were invented in Sweden and he runs and hides inside a fridge again.

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

GUEST SPOT

Howdy, I’m Kim Jong Un, no I won’t do the accent, and yes, I’m dead! Dead good at doing reps, reading your thoughts and walking on the sun. Oh, and making successful sourdough starters. Yes, I can. Yes, I totally can. You know what I like when I’m absorbing the power of the Earth’s core into my buttocks and scaring off enemies with sonar nasal protrusions of immense strength? That’s right, I love staring at the picture on the Partly Political Broadcast podcast image. No, I can’t listen to it, that sort of thing is banned here. Duh.

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