We Are The Anti-Growth Coalition Society – Growing pies, Party sadists and Mic Wright on just where in the binfire British politics is right now

Released on Tuesday, October 11th, 2022.

We Are The Anti-Growth Coalition Society – Growing pies, Party sadists and Mic Wright on just where in the binfire British politics is right now

Welcome to the Anti-Growth Coalition! Who else is in the club? Take a look around, its absolutely everyone except the Conservative Party, who weirdly aren’t helping to grow anything so you think they’d want in, but they get very angry when we ask. Well some of them anyway. There are quite a few in that corner telling Grant Shapps to transcribe how much they hate Liz Truss. Its everyone vs Truss, the end of conference season and a chat with writer Mic Wright (@brokenbottleboy) on the current binfire state of British politics.

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THIS EPISODE IS TAGGED WITH: • Brexit, Comedy, conference season, Conor Burns, Conservatives, Keir Starmer, Kwasi Kwarteng, Labour, Liz Truss, Mic Wright, parliament, parpolbro, Partly Political Broadcast, Patreon, podcast, political, politics, Rachel Reeves, satire, stand-up, Suella Braverman, The Last Skeptik, Tiernan Douieb

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast, the comedy politics podcast that has been a proud member of the anti-growth coalition since episode one where it’s continued to gain no listeners at all. I’m Tiernan Douieb and this week as the Prime Minister and lobotomised Helga Pataki, Liz Truss, plans to launch a charm offensive to appeal to her own Conservative MPs, which many have mocked as she has all the warmth of a fart lingering in a crypt. But to woo a bunch of personality free cold-blooded scrooges, you have to be one too and any actual signs of warmth would just make them nervous they were talking to someone who’d had to use skills to get through life.

It is an unfortunate and concerning state of affairs when the week’s politics news begins with someone making as careless and tasteless a comment as Scottish First Minister and retired EDF mascot Zingy the flame Nicola Sturgeon, who said during a live BBC interview that she detests the Tories. Wow, that is certainly not something I’d say on this podcast and not just because I’m nowhere near as verbose and would just have gone for ‘I fucking hate the Tories’ and possibly throwing in a ‘and I wish they’d all get in the shit filled sea they’re responsible for.’ I wouldn’t say it because as Minister for Equalities who works hard to make sure his ethics are as bald as his stupid head Nadhim Zawahi said, its divisive language. Yes, it is. In the same way vampires might say you keeping extra garlic at home top stop them from eating your neck is divisive, or mosquitos might say repellent that means they can’t give you denge fever is divisive, it just creates unnecessary animosity about the enemy of the people. Sorry, I mean government. Of course, Nadhim Zawahi would never say such things and when for example, in 2019, he suggested the then leader of the Labour party and scourer sponge Jeremy Corbyn might shoot rich people he was just trying to show what great policies the opposition had. Whereas now, if like Sturgeon you say you detest the Tories, it’s tantamount to punching down isn’t it? Just jumping on that bandwagon. Oh sure, it’s easy for you to say you think they’re worst bunch to ever be in charge of anything including that time a dog stole a tractor, now that everyone thinks that. You’re basically punching down pal. With many of the polls showing the Conservatives are 30 points below Labour, they’re looking set to become almost extinct at any minute, and then whose laughing? You know apart from all of us. While also being curious if they did become a minority would that now mean the Tories will have to work out how to wage a campaign of hate against themselves?

It’s not like Liz Truss who can only unify people with every word she says. Which based on her speech at the end of the Conservative conference last week is mostly pie and growth, usually still said together like she’s part of a secret cabal of sourdough enthusiasts, which I suppose might explain her appealing to the public like a jar of frothing yeast. That speech highlighted the threats the country faces from what Truss called the Anti-Growth coalition. Yes! Those bastards, who I presume are responsible for me only being 5’5”. Who are these people who are working together to stop growth? Well luckily the Prime Minister has a list. This anti-growth coalition is made up of Labour, the Lib Dems, The SNP even though they’re all about independence, the militant unions, the vested interests dressed up as think tanks which hang on, are they vests or tanks? Then there’s the talking heads, the modern lovers, all of David Byrne’s other musical projects, Brian Eno, the Ramones, Roxy Music, the Brexit deniers, the Brexit fishnets, the Brexit opaques and Brexit compression and support, Extinction Rebellion and your neighbour three doors down, the dry cleaners, that guy whose always outside Sainsburys, four of the presenters of the One Show, Basil Brush and some chinchillas. Basically, its everyone and I’m starting to feel left out. Maybe I am part of it? I’ve definitely used cream to stop a verruca so that makes me anti-growth right? Celebrity Chef and owner of face most like the rear end of a pet Jamie Oliver might be part of the anti-growth league but the government are yet to confirm, possibly because he insists he’s anti-obesity but then also waves desserts around so it’s very confusing. Thing is, this lot, who aren’t in power whatsoever and haven’t been for 12 years, have been using all the power they don’t have to be against all the growth and its not on right? I mean, without them not being at all in charge or having any policies, the Conservatives would’ve grown everything by now. We’d basically be living on a beanstalk that had a giant living on the top of it. But as Truss said, this lot and maybe Jamie Oliver have been getting taxi from North London townhouses, even if they live anywhere else in the country and going to BBC studios which are largely in Manchester, so I mean that’s quite a cost on Uber. Are you sure they’re not creating growth by fuelling the transport industry Liz? No? Sorry. They’re dismissing anyone challenging the status quo from broadcast to podcast. Oh shit it is me. Oh great. Do I get a badge? And they’re all, as in the majority of the country except the Conservatives that Liz Truss has kindly united together, they’re all against the growth the Tories are doing. Which I think is of inflation, national and personal debt, poverty, rich people’s offshore bank accounts and people who say out loud, but you can’t grow a pie you fucking idiot. What’s weird about this anti-growth coalition is it keeps growing too. I mean there were people from it at the Conservative conference. No, I don’t mean the two women from Greenpeace who brilliantly interrupted Truss’s speech with a banner saying ‘Who voted for this?’, thereby doing proper work in tackling toxic emissions by briefing stopping the Prime Minister from speaking.

I don’t mean them, because obviously they’re part of the anti-growth movement. I mean they’re actively against the growth of pollution and climate change which is so unhelpful to the Conservatives plans for growth and plans and pies. I mean Liz Truss said they’re going to deliver on their plans for net zero by opening more gas fields in the North Sea because nothing will cause a stop in emissions quite like killing off all of humanity as quickly as possible. No, the secret members of the anti-growth coalition at the conference, were all the Tory MPs there who also think Liz Truss is the worst thing to happen to the planet since whenever Kanye West last tweeted. Former Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, a man who increasingly looks like he’s had prosthetics to play a nearly dead version of himself, he revealed that he had recorded 237 conversations with colleagues at the conference on their doubts about Liz Truss. And what that really shows you, is you should never talk to Grant Shapps as the fucking creep is recording it. Fucking creep. All the old guard have come out against the current lot, from former Home Secretary and the only person who starts their kids bedtime stories by insisting they’re sitting comfortably Priti Patel who said the government must stop going for populist measures – I mean wow but yeah I guess Patel’s just defending her own brand, then former culture secretary and woman that boxes of frogs use as an analogy for bonkers Nadine Dorries saying this government’s actions will cause children to starve. You know, because up until the second Liz Truss became leader kids across the UK were eating fine and that Marcus Rashford was just a feeder who didn’t want kids to be healthy enough to take his job. Then Michael Gove, with his face like he forgot to wear a hazmat suit and checked on the reactor, has been complaining so much that Truss’s allies told the press he was a sadist, which the PM’s spokesperson had to then deny in parliament. Good. He’s not a sadist, he’s a spineless sadist and it’s important that we use the correct terms otherwise how will we distinguish him from all the other sadists in the Tory party?

Like for example, Home Secretary and Nazi Squidward Suella Braverman who is in a totally different league of tyrannical sadism. She said that her dream to see a flight take asylum seekers to Rwanda by Christmas. Now, I’m not big on dream interpretation but having looked it up, if that is what your night-time subconscious is playing to you, then you can expect that in life you face the risk of being dragged back to hell any point soon. Imagine that being your dream , your life time goal? It’s depressing enough she’s the Home Secretary but thank fuck she isn’t a sick kid or the Make A Wish foundation would have a really awkward day ahead of them. Braverman has expressed so many grim views in the past week it’s like someone put the Daily Mail comments section on sprinkler mode. She wished the government had kept the cut to the 45p tax rate and accused those who were against it of staging a coup, which isn’t true as they all hate the arts. If it was a coup I think they did it without any thought for blocking. Braverman wants to ban international students from bringing over their loved ones with them, which makes sense as how will they learn about British culture if they don’t have a constant longing for something they need that’s now only available in other countries? The Home Secretary said she wants Britain to train up its own fruit pickers rather than get people from abroad to do it, and yes we are the best at cherrypicking from a bunch of poor options. And Braverman would like to catergorise cannabis as Class A as it’s a gateway drug. That is true. It can lead to you being more relaxed and calmer about other stuff as well and then how will you have unnecessary panics about pointless culture wars? She said this just as over in the US, American President and man whose eyes are trying to emulate the Homer hedge meme Joe Biden is pardoning thousands of people who were convicted for possession of marijuana but I suppose we don’t just want to copy the US as otherwise our special relationship will become like one of friends again rather than two people who have to hang out occasionally because of circumstance and spend the whole time wishing the other was dead.

No.10 say there are no plans to make cannabis a class A, and the opposition have been super quick to tackle Suella Braverman’s comments about her dream of deporting people to Rwanda by Christmas. Yes, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who styles herself entirely on Anjelica Houston. In the Witches. She went full effective opposition mode by slamming the home secretary for her horrendous comments and saying that the government aren’t deporting people fast enough. Yeah! By Christmas? What are you on? A real Labour government would send people desperately seeking safe asylum to a country known for human rights abuses by next week, you slackers! Finally, a proper alternative political force for the country. Phew. I think we’ll be ok everyone as this lot are at least 30 points ahead so we’ll be condemning people to death in no time, probably for once reading about cannabis in a book.

The other member of Truss’s cabinet that’s been in the headlines this week is now former Minister for Trade Policy Conor Burns, who has the appearance of a sunburnt bao bun, who was sacked from the front bench and had the whip removed for allegations of ‘inappropriate behaviour’ at the conference. What could be considered inappropriate amongst a load of Tories? Did he accidentally say ‘refugees are people too’ or tip a member of staff? It’s actually suggested that he put his hand on a young man’s knee without consent, which I thought would’ve been stand Conservative fair. I mean, that was basically a qualifying factor to join the last Prime Minister’s cabinet. Tories love doing stuff without consent, like electing a new leader, letting companies pour shit into the sea or fracking in your garden. Still, Burns has now been replaced by what if James Buckley was in a car accident Greg Hands, who is the only other Conservative allowed to do the job of Minister for Trade policy which is why he’s done it 3 times since 2016. I suppose he is very good at swapping in for someone else that’s fucked up.

So now Truss is all about making the Conservatives leave the anti-growth coalition and rejoin her actually anti-growth party, by pushing some real anti-growth their way to show ‘em who does it properly. The Chancellor and Goggles the muppet cosplayer Kwasi Kwarteng has pushed forward his fiscal plan announcements to October 31^st as that’s the best day for those horrors to be unleashed and it’ll no doubt be full of tricks, and very few treats unless you’re someone who’s already bet again on shorting the pound as it descends into the underworld. It will mean that you can prepare some appropriate Halloween costumes though. Perhaps think about going as a u-turn, the ghost of the pound, Mr Jekyll whose no longer a doctor because the underfunded NHS has left him stressed and unwell, or any character from any slasher movie as they’ll be expecting more cuts. Despite calls to, it doesn’t look like the government will raise benefits in line with inflation, because I presume that would cause growth of the economy and children as they can eat, and you know, this anti-growth lot would only get sad on a podcast and ruin it. And it’s not time for divisive chat like that now. This is the time to unify people and that’s why Truss has got to work hard to persuade not just her MPs, but the country, that we need to be united. I reckon she will too. Just you know, united against her as one big anti-growth coalition desperately trying to make sure she doesn’t flourish as Prime Minister for another day longer. And let’s never let Jamie Oliver join either or he’ll just ruin it by waving around a trifle instead of eating it.

In other news, Liz Truss travelled to Prague last week to meet with over 40 leaders of other European countries to find out how many people on the continent think she’s a dickhead as well. Sorry, I mean to discuss Ukraine, but it totes wasn’t like being in the EU. It was very different. It was the European Political Community beyond the EU you see, and that’s different as there’s no way we’ll get suckered into forming part of an EU army like in the EU, and instead they just discussed using all their might together to take part in the war in Ukraine. Which is very different. While everyone else there was discussing the war torn nation, Liz Truss never let those who are truly suffering fall from her agenda and had to spend time pleading with Europe for helps so we don’t have a load of blackouts in the winter. Yes, since Brexit we do indeed hold all the cards, it’s just that now energy costs so much we’ve already used them to top up for October and will be really fucked come January.

Criminal barristers in England and Wales have ended their strike, accepting the offer of a 15% pay rise from the government even though its less than then the 25% asked for. But I suppose if I was a lawyer having to deal with the Justice Secretary and what if Silvio from the Sopranos fucked a hedgehog Brandon Lewis, I’d also do whatever I could just to reduce his sentences.

And Liverpool has been selected to host the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest on Ukraine’s behalf, which is great news for the city. I reckon it’ll be a GB winning year too, but only because the home secretary will ban all the other contenders from entering the country.

ADMIN

Hello hello. You might be able to hear that I’m a super croaky boy this week. My agent, sorry daughter, kindly brought a nasty cold back from school this week that she suffered from for I think, all of 5 minutes, and I and my wife have been ruined by since last Wednesday. I swear that if there was a mathematical equation for ‘my idea of hell’ its two ill parents plus one very active and totally not ill 4 and a half year old stuck in a flat equals. It is that time of year though eh? Its not the covid so I guess I got one of the other new ones. If it was going round the school I suppose I at least know I’m on trend for once which is nice and I have also been doing my bit for the economy by supporting the manufacturing of lemsip and helping growth. Of phlegm, but growth nonetheless. Are you in the anti-growth coalition? Do let me know. Perhaps we should have local meetings or something? Though it suppose it would go against the whole point of it if more and more people came along each time. I was so chuffed when Liz Truss mentioned the tyranny of podcasts and I really hope that when her government is brought down somewhere between the next 5 minutes and 2024, that this podcast was at least in a very minute bit responsible.

Absolutely nothing exciting to tell you this week. I think the highlight of the last few days for me has been my agent having a meltdown when she found out there were only guide dogs and not guide cats to the point where she sulked under her duvet for ages. Its time like that I do worry that on this show I’m not dealing with the real issues that will affect my daughter’s future but instead silly things like climate change or the collapse of society. Maybe I should do an episode on why cats have been blocked from partaking in supportive roles? Who I am kidding, they’d lead their owners to lie under a car or wherever there was sunlight. It’d be chaos. Though still arguably less dangerous for people with disabilities than the DWP. There you go, he brought it back. Otherwise thanks for the listening, thanks for the Ko-fi and Patreon donations and all that. And if you do have any ideas for what I should be doing on episode 300 which is now only 13 weeks away, please drop me a line otherwise like all birthdays I’ll just pretend it isn’t happening and forgot to release an episode at all as I’ll just be hiding and eating cake.

On this week’s show I’m chatting to Mic Wright about all of the shit, so you know, get on that why don’t you?

INTERVIEW WITH MIC

With just the SNP one to go, conference season is pretty much done for 2022, which is bad news for pears and great news for the rest of us as no longer will we have to hear long winded speeches that are sparse in detail yet convey heavily what the years ahead will be like. I’ve often wondered if political conferences are like fashion shows, whereby someone will walk down a catwalk dressed as a giant clamshell with a shoe on their head and their face painted in custard, then a year later an item will pop up in H&M that’s yellow with shells on it and a hat with a decorative lace. Party conferences see MPs spout how desperate they are to incarcerate anyone that speaks out of turn, how great it’d be to have more war or that they’d actually like to save the planet and then in 6 months’ time there’ll be a motion to arrest anyone found drawing a moustache on a poster in a train station, a commemorative coin to remember Dad’s Army and a call to make rubber ducks on 95% plastic. Was this year different? Was hearing Liz Truss garble on about pies again and Keir Starmer saying it’s a Labour moment, show that the next year of British politics will be er, crusty and full of pregnant pauses? Or more that it’ll continue to be led by vapid useless twats who talk a lot of empty bullshit with fascist overtones? And often undertones as well. And middle tones. Is it the speeches we look at though or the words written about them by hacks, how many people were asleep in the audience and the general response of the nation, or well, lack of one?

This week I asked brilliant writer and dismantler of the news Mic Wright if he could give an overview of just where we are now. As well as engaging in a regular forensic dissection of the output of political journalists, Mic manages to usually do it with an excellent sense of humour and so I thought who better than him to explain to which degree of screwed we still all are and what if any indicators the tedium of conference season gave us. I’ve been meaning to get Mic on the podcast for ages, but well, kept forgetting because I’m stupid, so it was great to have a chat. I should say, that when we spoke I was so full of a head and chest cold, and was several lemsips deep. So I’m not entirely sure my questions make sense and I’m pretty sure at one point I just repeat what Mic said to me, which is terrible skills. However, he gave fantastic answers so please ignore my snotty, paracetamol’d interruptions. I had to edit it out sooooo many coughs. Hope you enjoy. Here is Mic:

END OF INTERVIEW

Thanks tons to Mic for that great chat and for putting up with my cold addled brain asking Qs. Do follow him on Twitter @brokenbottleboy and sign up to his substack ‘Conquest of the Useless’ as its an excellent read every week. Obvs if you can do a paid subscription that actually helps him live and keep doing it too. I’ve popped a link in the pod blurb. And check out his regular twitch streams too. Also thanks to Marie who tagged us both into a tweet recently which reminded me that I’ve been meaning to ask Mic to do this for ages.

What other people shall I ask questions at while hopefully not 90% lemsip max? What other subjects shall I try to recall as I simultaneously work as a phlegm factory? Let me know and you can do that by dropping me a line at partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com.

END

And that’s it for this week’s Partly Political Broadcast podcast. If this podcast keeps you from simply walking to the sea and swimming till you hit any land other than here, then sorry, I should probably stop making them for your sake and do mind the poo on your way to a better life. If however you actually like this show then please recommend it to other people who aren’t the worst, give it a review on Apple podcasts or similar and if you can, donate to the ko-fi or patreon too.

Thanks lots and lots to Acast, my brother the Last Skeptik and Kat Day.

This will be back next week when Liz Truss announces her allies in the growth coalition are some herbicides and giving children cigarettes from the age of 3.

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

This week’s show was sponsored by Anti-Growth, the new remedy for anyone wishing to instantly lose their erections from Tories. Sick of being aroused? Tired of pitching trouser tents? Anti-Growth from the Tories works immediately by bringing up a random photo of any of their 249 MPs and you’ll never feel lust again. An instant extinguisher of any fires of passion. Anti-Growth by Tories, reducing population growth any way they can.