No Grown Ups In Charge Here, Sorry – Braverman’s emails to everyone, Sunak fixing no one’s mistakes and Dr Matt Winning on the climate crisis

Released on Tuesday, November 1st, 2022.

No Grown Ups In Charge Here, Sorry – Braverman’s emails to everyone, Sunak fixing no one’s mistakes and Dr Matt Winning on the climate crisis

I suppose if we’ve always wanted the government to be more transparent, we can’t be too upset that Suella Bravermen now wants to share her emails with everyone. It’s impressive to get the sack from a job after 6 weeks, be back in it within 6 days and then be even worse at it, but our Home Secretary really does excel at being a truly terrible human being. All of that, Sunak’s new cabinet, Brazil’s new President and Dr Matt Winning (@mattwinning) on the climate crisis.

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THIS EPISODE IS TAGGED WITH: • Boris Johnson, Brexit, climate change, Comedy, Conservatives, COP27, Dr Matt Winning, Home Secretary, Hot Mess, Humour, Keir Starmer, Labour, Liz Truss, NHS, parliament, parpolbro, Partly Political Broadcast, Patreon, podcast, political, politics, refugees, Rishi Sunak, satire, stand-up, Suella Braverman, The Last Skeptik, Tiernan Douieb

Transcript

Ep290

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast, the comedy politics podcast that can’t be infiltrated by spies as its content is already mostly hack. I’m Tiernan Douieb and as Conservatives blame the fire attack on a migrant centre in Dover on people’s frustrations with refugees, does this mean it’s a suitable form of protest because wow, people are really pissed off at the government.

It’s a very common trope in stories that the friend or aide that helped you along the way, is actually, shock and horror, big twist times, the enemy all along. In a clever, well written story, the character’s true evil intentions would be masked, with the occasional clue pointing you to the direction of who they actually are, but unfortunately the long running series that is the UK seems to be written by people who would be fired from Hollyoaks for having all the subtle narrative ability of a foghorn with a typewriter. In many ways it’s been like a Columbo episode where at the beginning we saw it was the Conservative government who were the biggest threats to the country and then within weeks everyone’s convinced it’s someone else entirely. No, it’s not the government who have vampired the country dry of its funds and public services, it’s definitely this boat full of people who have zero belongings and a ton of undiagnosed PTSD so make sure they go into a home that’s basically a human filing cabinet. Yes, they should probably be attacked for daring to assume this country was in any way friendly, and god forbid what might become of us if they contribute to society as they’d like to, rather than patriotically use it for personal profit as the world burns. And yes, it’s definitely terrorists and spies who want to take us down, but don’t worry, the Home Secretary is on the case by leaking everything herself first so it’s no longer as exciting once everyone on the internet has seen it. Are we even a target for violent political hijackers anymore, or would they land on our shores with their supposed devious plans and think, oh shit, no the Conservatives have done that already. There’s nothing left for us here, let’s go home. Perhaps I’m being naïve and this is the way the Conservatives protect us. We can’t be attacked if there’s nothing left to attack, we can’t suffer from high bills if we’re all homeless, the NHS won’t struggle if it isn’t there anymore and there’s no need to prevent climate change if they speed it up so much we can’t reverse it anyway. Phew, I’m so glad we’re in safe hands. Oh no sorry, those hands appear to be waving goodbye at us.

Is the Home Secretary and uncredited extra in A Bug’s Life Suella Braverman a villain, with her surname like a poorly thought through Marvel character? Or is she simply being the best Home Secretary possible by giving intelligence agencies extra work and keeping them on their toes? It’s tricky to say, except it isn’t because she’s clearly an idiot and terrible and a terrible idiot. Six days after she was forced to resign from being Home Secretary for leaking market sensitive information, and I don’t just mean which fruit and veg is going to be 2 for a pound on Saturday. That was under temporary Prime Minister and not the sharpest knife in the drawer or in fact a knife at all but a very confused child’s spoon Liz Truss, just before her own resignation. Braverman said she’d made an honest mistake by sharing an official document from her personal email address to a colleague in Parliament which is a breach of the ministerial code. Just a mistake, right? A one off? Maybe she was just known as Leaky Sue by Whithall staff because everytime someone asks Suella Braverman an even vaguely difficult question she pisses her pants.

But I mean, who cares right? Who hasn’t breached ministerial code in these last few years? Only real swots uphold an air of responsibility when being in charge of the country, am I right? Pretty sure it’s only there to single out how the losers that follow it aren’t fit for governance as there’s no way they’d prorogue parliament unlawfully, fail to declare loads of suspicious donations or try to let their friends off dodgy lobbying. And what’s the fun in that? Jesus, may as well get a job at the boring shop you dull faces. Luckily for Braverman, when latest edition of the worst Prime Minister and star of Flushed Away Rishi Sunak was the only person they had left for the job, he realised she was just trying to copy all the other Tory MPs and put her back in the job after 6 days. Sadly, it wasn’t just because after six days of having to deal with paper bag animated by a weak fart Grant Shapps, that almost anyone would seem better for the job, even the last fucking awful Home Secretary. No, Braverman was one of many of the cabinet decisions Rishi Sunak made after he announced that he was going to fix his predecessors mistakes, but then a few hours later just rehired them all instead. Not only did suet ball Therese Coffey go from Health Secretary to Environment Secretary meaning she could now endanger the life of the planet as well as people, but reconstruction of an early human who died trying to pet a rhino James Cleverly is somehow still Foreign Secretary, probably on account of everything being foreign to someone as stupid as him. But to cement these shit wads into the foundation of a supposedly new government made up of all the same people as the last two, in the same way that if you take two out of date meals and mix them together its technically a new meal though it will still make you sick, Sunak also brought back the only politician to have his own cellophane wrapping Dominic Raab to be justice secretary because he knows all the things wrong with the legal sector on account of causing them when he was last in the job. Then if a bollard was brought to life Oliver Dowden has been brought back, presumably because otherwise he’d be at home gurning and trying to eat his own shoes, I’m sorry I ran over your cat for a face Michael Gove is back at Housing Secretary and promises he will finish off the job of levelling up. Which sounds more like an assassination threat than a promise. And as well as hordes of other arseholes, worst ever education secretary, national security threat and zombie donkey Gavin Williamson has been made a minister without portfolio, so he can attend all the cabinet meetings and leak any details Suella Braverman hasn’t managed to.

Braverman got to come back just six days after being fired, because, as Sunak said, everyone makes mistakes and deserves a second chance right? Everyone. Unless you’re on benefits obvs. But apart from them. And refugees. And people convicted of minor offences. But other than those very, very few exceptions, if you are a Conservative MP, which hey, aren’t most of us really? Then it doesn’t hurt anyone to let them have another go. I mean, apart from all the people put into an unsafe processing centre that Braverman ignored calls about. The Manston immigration centre in Kent is only meant to hold between 1000 to 1600 people, but the Home Secretary had around 4000 crammed in there. What better way to help these poor people acclimatise to the UK quite like horrible uncomfortable living conditions, endless disease and a feeling that the authorities mainly wish you were dead? All they need now are some tips on how umbrellas are generally pointless and they’re basically British. Then you’ve got these lovely people like the man in Kent who threw petrol bombs at a facility in Dover, whose not a terrorist, not according to the police or the government and so we can only assume he too was trying to make all those who’ve asylum seekers who’ve suffered from horrific violence and war crimes, feel a bit more at home by continuing the atmosphere of fear. He was just a lone wolf, even though wolves work in packs, and as Tory MP and who might present The One Show if it happened in the underworld Natalie Elphicke said that tensions have been high because people are sick of illegal immigration. Yes well, I suppose its hard for her to campaign for safe routes so that refugees can get here legally when she’s too busy defending sex offenders and breaching ministerial code. But remember it’s definitely the war victims who are making things worse for us, and not her now ex-husband going round assaulting people so she could get a job. Elphicke said she was shocked to hear it had happened in her constituency, despite her article in the Daily Mail earlier that day saying what a threat refugees are. Its amazing she hasn’t yet been hospitalised by swing that she pushed expecting it to just hover in the air afterwards for ever. According to border force officials, the big problem is that our massively broken immigration system is a huge draw to people who have no choice but to escape their homes in order to stay alive, because it means it can take 6 to 8 years for them to get processed. What better tourist advert right? Have you barely avoided the Taliban even though your family didn’t? Well risk your life on a dinghy to the UK and we’ll make it all ok by shoving you next to 4000 other people in inadequate, disease-ridden housing for nearly a decade. Like Centre Parcs if it was run by an authoritarian regime, which you know all about right? So, you’ll feel right at home. Please free petrol bombings every Saturday followed by a disco. When addressing parliament about overcrowding at Manston, Braverman said the immigration system is broken, and when she became home secretary she was shocked how much money is being spent on asylum hotels. Which shows just how little attention she paid to any of the votes she took that approved of it. Braverman insisted she never blocked hotels. Which means she probably did all her hugest shits elsewhere. She warned that there’s an invasion on our Southern coast, which is just stoking fear but also probably means the Home Secretary is terrified of some children in a boat as there’s a chance they called all do her job better than she could.

BUT APART FROM THOSE POOR PEOPLE WHO ARE ACTUALLY GETTING HURT, who is Braverman’s total inability to do her job and dreams that you’d usually only see explained to a psychiatrist by a serial killer before they escaped, hurting? Exactly. Honestly you and your picky bloody facts. I can tell what kind of a person you are. Right life and soul of the party. Turns out Braverman, who its worth saying again, is in charge of National Security as Home Secretary, only sent six work emails from her personal email account, but she says none of them contained any secrets, which can no doubt be confirmed by the people she sent them to, and the 5 friends they sent it to, and the 5 friends they sent it to. I mean I often complain that there’s never enough transparency with the Conservatives so I should really be praising Suella Braverman that she’s been making sure everyone knows what’s going on in her department by directly emailing everyone in the country. And that’s why she’s getting to keep her job. Well, at least until later in the week when she’ll no doubt email her resignation letter to several members of the North Korean government by accident first. Maybe it’s just best to have the biggest threat to the country right there in the Home Office where all the staff can monitor her whereabouts at all times.

It’s not just Leaky Sue that’s been, er, leaking though. It was revealed that Liz Truss’s personal phone was hacked by spies believed to have been working for Russia, while she was foreign secretary. Though I’m sure for those poor espionage agents, it just meant they had to waste weeks trawling through millions of selfies of Truss trying to look like Margaret Thatcher, shopping lists full of cheese, the FET app and failed searches for recipes to grow a pie. The news about it was supressed at the time supposedly by then just a vague whiff of a Prime Minister and insides of an old chicken nugget that fell on the carpet Boris Johnson, but he would’ve been on his 13^th or 14^th holiday at the time. So, it sounds like its more down to current Cabinet Secretary and what if Will McKenzie was dragged behind a truck for several days Simon Case. Which is weird really as he’s always seemed so full of integrity and honesty, whether it was while having to step down from an investigation into Partygate because it turned out he attended most of the parties or when he defended the last, last Home Secretary and woman sharks avoid Priti Patel against claims of bullying. He’s clearly on the side of proper conduct. Like a thorn. Its funny how Boris Johnson is seen as an ally of Ukraine but quite happily hid all news that his foreign secretary had let Russian spies potentially get details of aide during the war straight from her phone. Though its unlikely intelligence of any kind was in there. And I suppose it was Liz Truss’s personal phone though and who sends work things from their personal accounts? Well apart from the current Home Secretary that is.

Maybe there’s just no need for national security when the UN climate council have said if we don’t reverse the present trend, we will be doomed. Which is the excuse I’m going to use for not buying anyone Christmas presents. The UN have actually said that phrase about our climate situation quite a lot of times now, but it turns out being doomed still seems preferable to many people than actually having to keep living through this shit state of affairs. Maybe it’s that dodging a tsunami would bring the sort of excitement in life they don’t usually get trawling through Netflix for hours to be enlightened on the existence of shows they think sound truly shit? I’m not sure, but it doesn’t help that with the COP27 conference at the end of the week, neither the UK’s monarch nor Prime Minister are attending. For the King and real time erosion cam Charles, he was told not to go by Liz Truss and as we know, she’s still got all the authority, so instead he’s hosting his own reception with business leaders, politicians and campaigners which will help the planet by meaning they’ll have to take two flights now to the UK and Egypt. Rishi Sunak isn’t attending because he has pressing domestic commitments, you know like working out which of his twelve homes they’ve left the family dog in. Some of his campaign donations to become leader were from donors with links to fossil fuel companies, but maybe that’s just because when he said his government would protect the most vulnerable, Sunak meant the energy sources that were becoming extinct. Its clear whose side he’s on in this very scary fight, or why else would he put Therese Coffey in DEFRA, a woman who will always side with fossil fuels because she 99% made of them? Shell announced a more than doubling in profits last week, even though their tagline is ‘ready for cleaner energy’ so I can only guess they’re hoping to keep the country warm using the heat generated by people’s rage. Shell have actually asked for a windfall tax but the Prime Minister apparently already put one in as Chancellor which he didn’t and it doesn’t work. What the government’s plan is, is to give incentives to companies like Shell. I’m not really sure to do what, but at the moment it just looks like they’ll let enough people die from the cold because they can’t afford their heating and then in several million years they can be dug up and used as fossil fuel too, so it’s a future investment. But Sunak tackling climate change part of his big weirdly robotic speech like siri had gone rogue, and he has brought back the ban on fracking. That’s because there’s so still no evidence that it’s not dangerous, whereas there’s tons of evidence Suella Braverman and Gavin Williamson are dangerous so they were qualified to return.

There is a chance Sunak could change his mind and attend COP27 if sufficient progress is made on exactly how many of the UK’s public services are going to be butchered even more. Councils have been told to make more cuts already, with several stopping free meal vouchers for kids during holiday time, and there’s been no commitment on the government keeping the triple lock pension either. So who exactly does Rishi Sunak think is the most vulnerable that need protecting, or as a multi-millionaire does he just mean those with not quite as much cash as him and will now spend his days trying to raise money for the monarchy? Sunak put out a video on the official government twitter that contained many party campaign references meaning it shouldn’t have been paid for by public money. While the content was as engaging as stubbing your toe, the music was a stock track that sounded disturbingly like that of Rock ‘n’ Roll by greasy paedo Gary Glitter. The government had to deny that it was his track, but I mean, it would have fitted if it was right? Especially as the Conservatives and Glitter have the shared values of enjoying ruining children’s lives. Oh, and shit awful hair.

I’ve seen some political dickheads say since Sunak became PM that ‘the grown-ups are in charge’. If that is true, then we’re clearly at that moment when kids realise their parents are also idiots, just even bigger ones.

In other news, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly urged LGBT football fans to be respectful of Qatar if they visit for the world cup. It’s illegal to be gay there but Cleverly said if you’re a visitor to a nation you have to show respect to that culture, which if that is what he believes he should probably have a word with the British empire. In Northern Ireland the DUP refused to form a power sharing agreement with Sinn Fein missing the deadline to form the assembly, meaning another election will have to be held and the country is again without a government. But you know, not in a good way. Sinn Fein have accused the DUP of causing a political limbo, which sounds about right as they have managed to lower the bar in NI politics for quite some years now. The Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris, who looks like he’s only ever had a photo taken using the eyes and mouth filter, has said he will call an election, which the parties don’t want, but he hasn’t set a date. That’ll really punish the DUP for their behaviour as they may have to last minute cancel loads of going round and tutting at people.

And some actually good news, as in Brazil, South American Brian Cox impersonator, the actor not the other one, and socialist Lula Da Silva beat Emperor Palpatine clone and climate change and covid denying, misogynistic, homophobic far right populist loon Jair Bolsonaro to become Brazillian president. Despite Bolsonaro’s allies threatening voters and putting up roadblocks to stop them voting, Lula took a 1% lead proving just how much people must’ve hated that creepy undead caretaker that’s no longer allowed near the school. Lula Da Silva was president in 2003, and 2006 already so it turns out that a third booster shot was needed to stop Bolsonaro spreading further and it’ll no doubt take him a while to come to terms with understanding that people directly affected the climate. The new president was banned from running in 2018 as he had been imprisoned for receiving a bribe, a conviction that was then annulled and overturned after 580 days. He says they tried to bury me alive and here I am which is an amazing comeback even it sounds a bit like a zombie telling a story. Lawmakers close to Bolsonaro won a majority in congress meaning Lula will have to fight for his policies, but he has called for peace and unity like some sort of weird actually decent human being who isn’t a fascist. He’s also vowed to help the Amazon. So, I guess that’ll mean he’s the first world leader who also does part time delivery driving?

ADMIN

Yes, that is the joke I’m ending on. I’m aware of just how shit it is and nope, I don’t care. So nice to actually have some good news even though Bolsonaro hasn’t conceded defeat yet and I’m sure he’ll do something completely nuts, unhinged and Trump like and call for a riot on the National Congress Building. But until then, it’s great news, especially for a socialist leader like Lula Da Silva, who the Labour party would probably kick out because he liked a tweet by the greens or something. How are you? Good Halloween? For my costume I wore a t-shirt, which is terrifying because it was the end of October and should not have been that warm. Someone replied to me tweeting about that with ‘oh but its sometimes warm in October’. Sure if you’re in Death Valley. My memories of Halloween were always of being too cold in a shit costume, before then having to wrap up in all the clothes for bonfire night. Not of it being 23 degrees and doing fireworks on the beach.

It’s a long old interview this week, but a good un, so just quickly, you know the drill, which is why you’re DIY experts. Thanks for listening, thanks for the ko-fi and patreon donations and thanks for slowing down when there was that cat in the road. Er, I think that’s it as this week I am talking to very funny comedian and environmental researcher Matt Winning and its such a good chat I just want you to dive into it face first. Here you go:

INTERVIEW INTRO

Isn’t it irritating all these protestors who keep throwing soup at paintings or blocking roads all because they don’t want the planet to die and humanity to become extinct? I mean haven’t they seen the last few years or ever logged on to social media? If they’d had they know that actually a swift end is probably what’s called for instead of you know, mildly inconveniencing someone for a fraction of their existence in order to highlight that we should do something to make sure Earth doesn’t become a galactic pizza oven. Yes, this is how I deal with my constant fear about the ever-warming state of the planet, endlessly pumped up by energy companies and billionaires assuming that when it all kicks off they’ll be able to just pay off a tsunami like they do everything else and it’ll be fine. It’s very clear the planet is now going to warm to a not great level and the UN have warned that unless we do something right now, it’ll be an even not greater level so yes, it’s the perfect time for COP27 to happen and all the world leaders to get together and say they’ll do something about it in several years’ time when they won’t have to do anything about it as it’ll all be on fire. Sorry, not all the world leaders. Rishi Sunak has really important things to do, you know, like work out which one of his twelve homes they’ve left the family dog in. From my point of view where I spend half my lifetime rinsing out plastic containers so the council can pretend to recycle them but dump them in a river in Turkey, it all feels quite bleak. But is it? Lots of good things are also happening such as Lula’s win in Brazil meaning deforestation of the Amazon rainforest should now drop by 90%, lots of initiatives are taking place, lots of protestors are highlighting the issues, and lots of people are more committed to doing something about it than ever before, just not, you know, the British government. Are we doomed to 2.5 C rise across the planet because of inaction? Or are we just doomed to things being shit but not mega shit with the climate so we can live through all the other shit things instead? Sorry, I mean, are there some reasons to be positive?

Yes, this week its back to the ever cheery subject of climate change and so I am talking to someone who is masterful at explaining it in a way that doesn’t just make me spend days trying to work out how to live on the moon. Dr Matt Winning is an environmental researcher and also a comedian who manages to be funny about the planetary crisis that we face. No, I have no idea how either, but he’s very very good at it. Matt’s book Hot Mess is an informative but also funny, and reassuring read and his Radio 4 show Net Zero: A Very British Problem is exactly the sort of conversation we need to be having about what next. I first met Matt many moons ago in the world of comedy and it was great to ask him to do this year’s dealing with my anxiety about it all. It’s a long chat, because there’s a lot to talk about and it was recorded two weeks ago but I don’t think anything he talked about is now out of date. Also, at the beginning of every time Matt starts talking the sound goes funny for a sentence, then fixes itself. I don’t know why, please don’t ask me. And Matt had a bit of a cold and I think I’ve edited out all his coughs, but also I may have missed a few. But I’m very pleased I got to have this chat and I hope you find it as enlightening as I did. Here is Matt:

INTERVIEW WITH MATT

Been meaning to get Matt on for ages, so great to finally get to chat to him for this. Matt can be found on @mattwinning on twitter or his website mattwinning.com, where you’ll find details of his brilliant book Hot Mess: What on Earth can we do about climate change? And also, his Radio 4 series Net Zero which is a brilliant listen and available on iplayer. I’ve put links to all those in the podcast blurb too, as well as his Radio 4 show with Mark Watson called ‘Seriously though, the planet’. Do check them all out.

Who else shall we chat to considering er, hang on let me check my notes, our place in the world as an economic, climate, security disaster zone? What else do you want to hear about politics wise or should I be delving into the politics of other countries as a necessary escapism or to help you know where to add to your list for places to escape to? Let me know and you can do that via the Parpolbro twitter or FB group or by email at partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com.

END

And that’s that for that claptrap, sorry I mean Partly Political Broadcast podcast. If you’ve managed to put yourself through what is essentially a blend of all most depressing bits of humanity and a clown car squished into audio form, then please do recommend this show to other people who may like it, donate to the ko-fi or join the patreon if you can afford to and give the show a noice review at Apple Podcasts or similar podcast hovels.

Thanks yeah to Acast, my brother The Last Skeptik and Kat Day.

This will be back next week when its discovered that Suella Braverman is actually called Leaky Sue due to a weird obsession with the vegetable often associated with Wales. It was found out after she put it in a work email from her personal account that 4000 people received.

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

This week’s show was sponsored by Braverman Protection Software, protecting your computer from all threats, but sending them your info first so they don’t have to hack into your system. Nothing will keep your important details more protected from spies than the spies having it all hand delivered to them in an organised file meaning there is no chance they’ll try to decode your password, leaving it completely safe. Braverman Protection Software, protecting your privacy by making everyone know about it.