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Transcript

Ep296

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast, the comedy politics podcast that is always striking 24/7. In appearance that is. Yes, I know its audio. Shhhh. I’m Tiernan Douieb and this week as Prime Minister and man who likely thinks Father Christmas gives toys to too many children Rishi Sunak keeps complaining about striking workers demands for pay rises, I bet if we rebranded it to ‘pay out to help out’ and everyone took pics on the picket lines using Instagram filters, he’d be straight back onboard.

I do often wonder if a Conservative mind set gets in the way of Christmas time? Do members of the government let their children write extensive lists to Father Christmas before telling them there isn’t the budget for those because they’ve had to buy themselves three new cars? And anywhere there’s no way of posting it so instead they get their nannies to help the kids scribe ten reasons why postal workers should stop ruining it for everyone else by demanding they can eat at Christmas too. Do, the Home Office boo at their children’s school nativity plays as a refugee family from Bethlehem is allowed to stay in an stable that isn’t overcrowded or full of disease? And hey, those stables are heated by the taxpayer don’t you know? They aren’t for you. Is each door of their advent calendar just the front entrance to another one of their houses and instead of going round houses to sing carols they just pop a note in the door asking why they aren’t working in the office anymore? Of course not, I am just being silly. Most of them never see their kids as they send them to boarding school about two weeks after being born and refuse to take them back till they’ve had all their feelings removed. The government do 100% promote the idea of a season of goodwill, but only because that’s what you’ll need to ensure your offspring receive anything at all once you pop off early due to not affording any heating.

As we hurtle into the Christmas holidays Rishi Sunak is all about keeping people warm, by making sure they are indoors and not on picket lines wanting better workers rights. Cobra meetings are taking place, yes you know the kind that the Prime Minister only attends for emergencies – no not global pandemics, but people wanting to actually earn enough to live which of course must be stopped. These strikes are damaging says sad candle Oliver Dowden, no I don’t know what his job title is, I think he’s a glorified draught excluder. Disruption must be kept to a minimum, probably because otherwise the government won’t have anything left to do themselves, and Rishi Sunak has promised to bring in anti-strike legislation to protect lives and livelihoods from the strikes that people are on to protect their lives and livelihoods. It feels a lot like locking someone in a cupboard to ensure they don’t lose their freedom. Adding to the current roster of workers taking action are now Border Force who will be walking out for 8 days from the 23^rd of December until New Year’s Eve. So, everyone, we finally have a chance to escape. I joke but we all know Home Secretary and only inhabitant of the maze in Labryrinth to make the cabinet Suella Braverman will be personally walking the coasts of Britain with a pointed stick to ensure no one arrives or leaves as she tries to achieve her own one true Christmas wish of drowning a foreigner with her bare hands while singing the National Anthem. The big one though is ambulance workers going on strike on December 21st and nurses on the 15^th and 20^th. The latter of which the Royal College of Nurses said could have been paused if the health secretary had seriously negotiated over pay. The problem is, the health secretary is a man…no wait who is it…hang on let me look him up…oh yeah Steve Barclay…ah no wait I’ve forgotten again sorry. Steve Barclay says he is happy to talk to unions but its not his job as they should be talking to their employer the NHS. Is it that he’s such a fucking nothing of a man he doesn’t even exist in his own job? What do you think the health secretary does Steve? Does he think his job role just involves every now and then telling people to take their vitamins and maybe do some stretches on a Wednesday? Maybe he’s misread the title and thinks he only deals with people called Heath and as he doesn’t know any, he spends every day staring at a blank wall as the track popcorn plays on repeat behind his blank eyes? The government say its out of their hands as they can’t overrule the independent pay review body on nurses pay, which is 5%, meaning it’s a real terms pay cut and that they can’t overrule that even though the government dictate the independent pay review body in the first place and overruled it in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2021. So, either the independent pay review body has somehow been empowered by terragin crystals or found a mythical artifact that gave them super strength or we are just led by a bunch of people who have absolutely no idea how their jobs work. Or they’re barefaced liars but you know, that just doesn’t seem like them. Still I’m sure a Cobra meeting and anti-strike legislation will fix all these unhappy workers problems as opposed to sitting down and negotiating with them, in the same way levelling a city before Godzilla can arrive there is definitely the best outcome for all sides.

We are very lucky as a nation though that we finally have a real opposition to stand up against this hand washing of responsibility, which I’m sure they do with very hot water and charge it all on expenses. Yes, Labour leader and the man who tells his children that neither naughty or nice are correct and maybe they should just sit still and hope Father Christmas doesn’t notice them at all Keir Starmer, has accused government ministers of a profound lack of leadership on the nurses strikes. Yes! Nice one Starmer you stand up for the people! And he’s also said..oh wait…sorry…he also said the nurses pay demands are unaffordable. Fucks sake. So close. Oh well, maybe for Christmas the Labour leader has asked for the fence to be surgically removed from his anus? Though it seems like were he to fall off it, he’d land firmly in the garden on the right hand side, as the Labour party refuse to confirm if they’d reverse any anti-strike legislation the government put in, as though their name now only refers to the fact that they want to make life in the UK really fucking hard work for everyone. Poor fanart of Alan Carr on an uncooked potato and Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting accused NHS staff of demanding more investment without wanting better standards for patients, which none of them have said, before saying they need to tell unions no and promote vested interests in the health service. I mean, at least he’s a politician who is really putting in the hours though right? No one can say he isn’t working to represent. Not the people obviously, but the £15,000 he receives from John Armitage who has vast investments in private healthcare companies. Starmer backed Streeting’s comments saying the NHS needs a can do attitude, which is tricky when it’s so devoid of funding it can’t do. Labour are now the sort of party who’d pull the legs off a beetle then berate it for not moving quickly enough and insist this was proof it needs Virgin branded robot legs.

The UK economy shrank even more from August to October with I suppose the hope being that soon it’ll enter the quantumverse and as a result become outside the limits of time and space and therefore untouchable. The Chancellor and shaved giant aye aye Jeremy Hunt has said the economy will get worse before it’s get better. Yes, because you did that. It’s like warning the killer will strike again, as you finish the interview, pop a scream mask on your face and stab someone walking past. What is definitely going to help though is the planned ripping up of all the banking rules put in place to stop a financial crash like that of 2008 happening again. As you know, its been 14 years so they’ve definitely learned their lesson right? There is no way the banking sector would gamble with the country’s finances when they’ve seen it could lead to them getting bailed out by the government and the country being in an endless spiral of austerity. Though ha, more fool those bankers as the country’s finances are already screwed and we’re already in an endless spiral of austerity. Yeah you just try and have your fun now bankers? Ha! We showed you. Hunt has been warned that the reforms are a dangerous mistake, but he insists these changes are needed to make the UK more competitive. With who? Pirates? Bernie Madoff? The Oceans Eleven films? But again don’t worry because Labour really stepped up by saying the City had been sold down the river by the Brexit deal so need some regulation easing…oh. Oh well. Sigh. Fucks sake.

It really does feel like Number 10 have got a tick box list of all the worst possible decisions they could make. On top of letting bankers go back to the heady days of trashing your pension so they can do an extra line at lunch, the government are also looking to downgrade their commitments to human rights in order to get closer diplomatic ties with a bunch of countries that aren’t so caring about those sorts of things, possibly because ideologically they’ll get on really well. It’s got a real vibe of not being allowed to hang out with the big kids anymore, so in desperate need for friends we’ve pretended we got a gang tattoo because actually we want to and its none of your business who we’re hanging out with actually. Foreign Secretary and stupid kumquat James Cleverly has said we must not simply rely on the comfort blanket of traditional alliances. Why not James? What kind of fucking idiot doesn’t like comfort? Why does everything have to be harder? Its Christmas, all I want is an announcement that actually, let’s all have things easier for at least ten minutes. To be fair, there is some sense to what this plan which is to make better diplomatic ties with countries that will likely be more powerful in years to come, though of course Britain can only do that by throwing other humans under the bus first as otherwise we have to pretend to have morals and as we’ve already colonised a ton of those places and nicked all their gold they likely won’t go for that much. Cleverly says that China can be a partner for good, which yes, if you mean in the way that once you’re with them they will never, ever let you go except in death.

We are such a global Britain, so global in fact that we are still intent on ruining things for the whole planet and not just ourselves, which is why the Secretary of State for Levelling Up and the last turkey in the shop Michael Gove gave the go ahead for a brand-new coal mine in Cumbria. Either he actively wants the earth to burn or he just got overexcited when he it was for digging up coke. Absolutely no one wants a new coal mine, or needs it as the coal dug up would be for steel production we don’t have any more and steel plants abroad are now using hydrogen in the process instead, so all this will do is a make a big hole in the ground. Unless Gove knows that’ll give him and his fellow cabinet ministers somewhere to crawl into when they finally leave government and can plot a plan with the other mole people for when it’s safe to return?

Gove has also been back on his Islamaphobic horse, claiming that Islamic activists are trying to push intolerant values on Muslim communities, which again, if they are really won’t leave much for the government to do. He’s most angry about the New York Times ‘Trojan Horse Affair Podcast’ which exposed the lack of evidence concerning a letter that detailed extremism in Birmingham schools, a letter that Gove then used to push through a number of racist policies even though he was told it was all bogus claims. Gove now says the podcast creators are useful idiots. So now he doesn’t like experts or useful idiots. Is it only not useful idiots he’s a fan of? I suppose he’s part of a cabinet made of them. If you were a useful idiot or expert, say, in charge of the Department of Health right now you’d either make things better for nurses or at least understand your job so it’d be a marked upgrade.

You might think after a year of three Prime Ministers and constant division maybe this cavalcade of shit ideas means the Conservatives are finally united as a party again? But of course not, no, which I suppose is what happens when your entire personality is built on division and hate. A group called the Conservative Democratic organisation, which is of course, a paradoxical name, are challenging the way in which Rishi Sunak was made leader. They say the only way to restore the ‘electorally fatal gulf between voters and the leadership’ is to let Conservative members have a vote. Yes, nothing boosts us public up by knowing who runs the country is decided by slightly more millionaires than last time. The group who bloody love democracy, is headed up by never elected life peer and unwell rugby ball Peter Cruddas, and he’s backed by former Home Secretary and woman who the term cold front was invented for Priti Patel as of course she’ll think the best route to becoming leader is one that doesn’t let anyone in at all. The group say Rishi Sunak has pulled the party left of centre, which is hilarious and only works if you consider them so right wing they’re out of all political spheres entirely as their centre is themselves as the universe revolves around them. Maybe they’ve realised that what everyone really wants for Christmas is another leadership campaign followed by another, and another until the Tories use up everyone they have left and become classified as extinct by the IUCN.

In other news, Home Secretary Suella Braverman plans to make sexual harassment on the street a crime in England, as she says ‘every woman should feel safe to walk our streets.’ Well you know, unless they’re not British as then they’ll be sniffed out and hunted down by Braverman herself. This is obviously a very good thing but doesn’t solve the problem of just how women will feel safe to walk the streets if the Met Police still exist. Are they the ones policing the sexual harassment too? Or will there need to be a greater employment of bus drivers? Downing Street are mouting a challenge to the law set by Scottish parliament simplifying the legal process for anyone who wants to change their gender. This would cause serious issues with the devolution bill and questions over the legality of the UK government having grounds to challenge it. Funny how the UK government have no problem with wanting to change the national identity of a law if it suits them.

And lastly, Former Health Secretary and always world’s most confused insole Matt Hancock has announced he’s standing down from representing his area as an MP at the next election. So, no change from the last 6 years then?

ADMIN

And that’s it for this year.

It was going to be longer but …. NATIVITY PLAY / SNOW

If you’re one of the listeners who stuck with this show through the year, it’s very much appreciated. If you’ve donated to this show happening, then it’s a mega thanks for keeping me in coffee rations too. It’s been yet another stupid one that started three Prime Ministers ago, yes really. Yes, I know. Oh god it’s been stupid and awful. But look, it’s the end of 2022 right and 2023 can’t be as bad, can it? If only because we’re at rock bottom now and with time, we’ll learn how to at least make it a bit more comfy. Some throw cushions perhaps or a small indent in the mud and shit to curl up in for a bit?

I am now going to switch my brain off all things news for a few weeks, while mainly letting it ferment in Christmas booze and food until the new year. Hope you are able to as well and can treat yourself by putting the heating on for a whole five minutes on the 25^th or at least do that Netflix fireplace for a while as hey, it’s the thought that counts right? Thanks for suggestions of where else to post or do anything with this show and I have taken them onboard and done absolutely nothing with them and will not till January. If you’ve got more thoughts till then, about anything at all really, drop me a line at partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com or one of the socials. If you’re striking, solidarity and good luck to you

END

And that’s all for this year’s Partly Political Broadcast podcast. If you’ve enjoyed any of the past 12 months of audio despairing disguised by jokes, do recommend others start 2023 with a whole new batch of it by liking and subscribing to the show. If you can afford to, please give me a ‘wow you survived the year’ donation to the ko-fi or join the Patreon, and give the show a lovely end of year 5 star review on Apple Podcasts or similar.

Merry thanking times to Acast, my brother The Last Skeptik and Kat Day.

This will return in 2023 when James Cleverly announces that aliens from Mars could be a partner for good, as Rishi Sunak signs controversial deal with the green skull faced creatures to protect British people’s lives and livelihoods by letting them enslave us in return for party donations.

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

This week’s show was sponsored by Steve Barclay’s Wellbeing Guide, a surefire way to make sure you escape your everyday by refusing to remember who you are or what it is you actually do. Worried you don’t have enough me time? With Steve’s Wellbeing guide you won’t even know who me is and you’ll be so forgettable that no one else will either, allowing you to avoid all responsibly at all times. Steve Barclay’s Wellbeing Guide, no better way to deal with life’s problems than by being so useless you barely exist.

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