Further Reading

Linear liner notes

Its second wave time even though we all know sequels aren’t as good as the originals. What happens with Wave 2? More Wave, more lockdown? Some electric boogaloo? No, mostly it’ll probably be just more vague messaging and inaction from the government. Surprise! But actually all of it is your fault for wanting tests, for getting infected a month earlier than expected and generally demanding anything from our poor PM who’s only earning half the salary he used to when he didn’t have any responsibility. Plus this week, a chat with several time podcast Dave Powell (@powellds) on where things are with climate change and he even manages to add a bit of hope in there too.

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

• • David Powell on Twitter – https://twitter.com/powellds
• • David Powell website – http://www.davidpowell.uk/
• • Sustaina Babble on Twitter – https://twitter.com/thebabblewagon
• • Sustaina Babble website – http://www.sustainababble.fish/
• • Sustaina Babble podcast on iTunes – https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sustainababble/id959391385?mt=2
• • Carbon Brief on Twitter – https://twitter.com/CarbonBrief
• • Carbon Brief website – https://www.carbonbrief.org/
• • Friends of the Earth on Twitter – https://twitter.com/friends_earth
• • Extinction Rebellion UK on Twitter – https://twitter.com/XRebellionUK

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

Ep202

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast, the comedy politics podcast that is not someone else’s problem, but is all of our problem. I’m Tiernan Douieb and as we are warned that the UK is at a critical point, that may explain why the Prime Minister and sandblasted bag of liposuction discards Boris Johnson is nowhere to be seen, as he’d can’t understand why it isn’t supportive of his achievements so far.

Chief Medical Officer and Doug from the cartoon Doug Chris Whitty and Chief Scientific advisor and Gregg Wallace Halloween costume Patrick Vallance have warned that the UK faces 50,000 COVID cases a day by October if no action was taken, something that the government have heeded by not responding to until at least 24 hours later.

The view from number 10 is that doing nothing is not an option, but neither is doing too much such as a full lockdown again, meaning that like most things this government have done, they’ll do the bare minimum possible, then demand praise for it. There’ll likely be a new three word slogan to instruct you to still go to work but don’t smooch anyone or you’ll get fined and Johnson will shout out ‘Slog, but don’t Snog, or you’ll get flogged’ or something and assume that should be enough to ensure everyone spends the next few weeks unsure whether they should go outside ever again while various members of the cabinet are caught having an orgy in the Parliament wine cellar but insist there was a no-kissing rule in place so it’s legal. It’s what they’re doing with testing isn’t it? There are some tests happening which means they can say the system is working because if it wasn’t working there’d be no tests, so this is all basically a success. Appearing in front of the parliamentary science and technology committee with a facial expression that says there’s something sharp in my shoe but I haven’t the skill to remove it, Dido Harding said that England can do nearly a quarter of a million tests a day, but problem is more people want one than that, as though she hadn’t realised there wasn’t just a top tier of infections that can happen at any one time. Like COVID-19 operates on a one in, one out policy like a particularly, ageist nightclub doorman. Harding said that demand outweighs capacity by 3-4 times and seemed to be pleased by that, as though unlike her days at TalkTalk, she finally has a product sought after by customers. Leave them wanting more and all that. There will be 500,000 tests a day within six weeks, which still won’t be enough judging by predictions of infection rises. In lieu of festivals returning, maybe COVID tests will become the new Glastonbury ticket, where people spend ages online trying to be one of the lucky few to get one, before travelling hundreds of miles just to have a terrible time in a car park, stick things up your nose and then find out you’ve caught something. Harding was asked why the upping of tests was planned for October not September, when schools went back, and she replied that no one was expecting to see a sizeable increase in demand like we have. It is particularly worrying that the woman in charge of testing, tracking and tracing is entirely unaware of the existence of children. I should say it’s remarkable that she might considered for the role of head of NHS England as of Spring next year, but of course she is. Who better to revamp a struggling health service than someone who’ll make people queue round the block to use it? Sure all the money for procedures will now be in the hands of a Serco rep who’ll be operating on you after one night’s training of youtube DIY vidoes, but imagine the Insta hits you’ll get for your pic of gaining access to the exclusive A&E ward where there’s only enough waiting space for a quarter of the people who need it? While there might be a testing increase in October, the Prime Minister has warned that it will be a while before pregnancy style COVID tests appear, though considering how often he disappears when there’s lots of positive results, you could say we have them already. Boris did insist though that children should stay in school unless they get a positive test, but with the testing system failing and Harding not even sure what a child is, that’s quite a challenge and means more than likely, contagious kids will just be sitting in classrooms gobbling COVID like a special 2020 edition of Hungry Hippos. If kids can find get a test, let alone a positive one, they should be immediately given their Duke of Edinburgh award as it’ll have involved several days of heavy orienteering.

No testing but also no lockdown either say the government, or at least no fresh lockdown although that could just mean there’ll be a stale one, brought in months after it’s no longer any good. Instead there’s just lots of local lockdowns with further parts of Wales gaining strict restrictions and the North East too, apart from Blackpool, which I guess is because infections there keep going up, then down, then round a loop, then up again, then down really fast before slowing to a stop. You do wonder if much like everything else, we’ll have so many local lockdowns but the government will leave just around the PM’s country residence in Chequers completely restriction free so they can declare the nation still open. Or you know, just wherever malevolent Toby Turtle Dominic Cummings happens to have to climbed over the stairgate and toddled off to this week. Whatever happens its likely all COVID restrictions will be removed for Christmas Day, which is a shame as that way my family will know what I’m getting them.

Health Secretary and tragic Noh mask Matt Hancock has been keen to fight back though and point out that the government are doing everything they can, like the snivelling jobsworth he is, insisting that the public shouldn’t believe the stories and that tests are available everywhere. So you know, if you were part of that 2 mile long queue outside a Sunderland testing centre last week, you’ll be gutted to know you probably could’ve just checked in a bin or under a cat or something and there’d probably have been a test there, so says the Department of Health. It’s all your fault according to Hancock, especially symptom free people who queue to get tests to selfishly not want to pass it to others. Nothing must infuriate this government more than people going out of their way to prevent doing damage despite no evidence that they might, as it’s the exact opposite sensibilities to what the cabinet has, and it really shows them up. Not only that but Hancock reckons if there’s another lockdown it’s all your fault too and I guess I agree. I mean when oh when will us members of the public make national executive decisions about major crisis, and just leave the government alone? Leader of the House and why ruin steampunk like that Jacob Rees Mogg said anyone complaining about a lack of tests should stop their endless carping. He wasn’t specific but I bet Mogg only meant common carping, as otherwise the fish is an invasive species and he’s probably a fan of the posh ones. Sure, the people elected the government to be in charge, but let’s have some sympathy for them, right? They didn’t ask for all this responsibility, apart from when they did and all that campaigning, they did, and so maybe we should just give them all a break? Or in the case of the Prime Minister, yet another one?

A source at Perugia airport told Italian paper La Reppublica that the Prime Minister flew there on September 11^th, which made a nice change for that day to have a catastrophic wreckage go into a plane, and then returned after a long weekend. Downing Street deny the story though, as actually the PM was at his son’s baptism. Something that clearly isn’t true as Johnson doesn’t believe in forgiveness for your sins and would much rather no-one asked about them and someone else took the blame. Rather than have his son’s head dosed with holy water, he’d probably prefer the priest teach him how to point at the EU and say ‘they did it’. Which means either it’s another one of Johnson’s lies, preferring everyone not to know that he went abroad for a jolly mid-crisis probably to see his pal Russian oligarch and ooh look Sheldon grew a beard Evgeny Lebedev. Or it’s a case of mistaken identity and someone just happened to be pushing a wheelbarrow full of hardened gruel through arrivals. Of course, Johnson could just prove where he was by providing photographic evidence of the private baptism, but that would make it harder for him to say the baby wasn’t his when he abandons Carrie for younger spouse in 6 months’ time. Who says he doesn’t plan ahead? It might be that Johnson realises that admitting to partying with rich pals of warped novelty bath plug Vladimir Putin isn’t smart this week as a leak of banks’ suspicious activity reports known as the FinCEN files have shown how dirty money has been moved around the world. It turns out a lot of it was, well, through banks just sort of happily taking it. There are more UK companies in listed in the leaks than any other country, because you know, we’re world leading and there’s a quite a few big Conservative donors listed in there too. Maybe it’s like how some people have gardening shoes though, and there’s just no point in using clean money from good causes on the Tories as they’ll definitely tar it somehow.

I should cut Johnson some slack though as the Prime Minister did warn us last week that the second wave is coming, everyone trying their best to react like he wasn’t the last to know, treating it with all the surprise of news of yet another Batman film. No one wants it but due to constant fuck ups and prioritising of money over people, it was inevitable. But maybe, much like Dido Harding, Johnson didn’t expect this, I mean it’s not as if he’s been around much heading to his secret Italian parties and apparently he’s finding being Prime Minister extraordinarily tough, with his income having dropped half of what it was to only £150k a year, his flat at Number 11 is taxed as a benefit in kind and he has to pay support to four out of his six kids. It’s terrible that these people don’t think whether or not they can afford to have children before they go ahead and do it, isn’t it? Maybe he should have his salary given to him on a special card so it can’t be used on booze and cigarettes which may help him budget a bit? I joke but £150k isn’t much when you need some of it to sneak off to Italy on a secret bender and use the rest of your money to pay off a priest.

According to the double act of Vallance and Whitty, one’s the straight man and the other is somehow straighter but with the face of an angry baby, the epidemic infection rate is doubling every seven days, like the opposite of the British economy. The virus is not milder than it was in April, it’s just that it says it’s learned from its mistakes and won’t treat you like its past relationships, but we all know that’s not true. ‘We have in a bad sense, turned a corner’ said Whitty, which translated means it’s only a matter of time before the government embrace their tradition of it becoming a full u-turn without explanation. Matt Hancock has announced a £500 payment for those on low income who’ve been asked to self-isolate but of course if you haven’t got a test or you’re a child and Dido Harding doesn’t believe you exist; you’ll never be asked. It’s nice to know that people in my industry of comedy and theatre can only get financial support if we go around licking things. Though to be fair, that’s standard for most people I know in theatre. There are also new exceptions for childcare in areas of local lockdown because if children can’t be ignored by their parents for extended periods of time, how we will we ever have any future Conservatives? I joke, as actually, childcare and £500 makes me almost look forward to another lockdown. It’ll be like a paid holiday, just not one to Perugia. If you’re told to self-isolate and don’t though, you could get a £10k fine. So make sure you work from home now, after you were told to go back to work just a few days ago and if you don’t self-isolate you’ll be fined £10k, which you can earn the money to pay off by going back to work.

By the time you hear this show the PM will have made a statement with any further new restrictions but it’s very hard to say if there will be anything major or as mentioned before, it’ll be the bare minimum for them to say they’re doing something. What we do know is that Matt Hancock says, he and the government are doing their best. A terrifying thought and considering that, thank fuck they aren’t doing their worst.

In other news it is currently the Labour Party Conference, not that anyone has noticed, which must be gutting for an online event called LabourConnected. Who are they connected to? Maybe it’s the political version of the Human Centipede as they just connect to each other, swallowing the same shit over and over again. They’ve discarded their old slogan of ‘Under New Management’ possibly because actually most of the people now in charge had never left, they’d just be ruining things from the sidelines, and they’ve now gone for the slogan ‘A New Leadership’ which has been chose to apparently build trust but mostly makes it sound like their priority will be that pointless expensive Royal yacht for the Queen. In her first conference speech as Shadow Chancellor, Herge drawing Annaliese Dodds vowed to restore trust with the private sector which is fine as long as they promise to restore it back rather than just take millions of pounds to not do a very good job. Though to be fair to Annaliese, the policy is in opposition to the current government who don’t trust private businesses unless their friends run them. Labour leader and dad in a 90’s CITV sitcom Keir Starmer will be making his speech on Tuesday where he will be focusing on appealing to the Northern Red Wall seats Labour lost in the last election and with emphasis on patriotism, failing to understand that any of those people who voted Tory aren’t likely to be streaming his speech online when they’ll either be in groups of 400 hunting grouse or telling someone on Twitter that lefties are loons because they want to earn money for working or something. Still good luck to Starmer, as I’m sure a new patriotic Labour will really enthuse voters just like it did in 2015. Oh. Oh well.

For some reason the government sent Foreign Secretary and what Skeletor looked like when he still had a face Dominic Raab over to the US to reassure senior government officials there about the Irish border situation what with the new ah sod it we’ll break international law bill. Sending Raab to reassure anyone is much like Jurassic Park advertising itself with an animation of a raptor easily opening a door. It sounds like he mostly insisted that its the EU that won’t rule out a hard border, something that sounds like it wouldn’t have convinced anyone who can read things but then again, he did meet Republicans so you never know. Chances are it was all Raab could think about after he’d wrapped his head around actually travelling over the sea, something he never thought possible. On the journey home, one of Raab’s bodyguards accidentally left his gun on the plane at Heathrow and has now been removed of his operational duties. I mean, I say accidental but after spending that long with Raab, it was probably the only way the guard could restrain himself from murder.

In just how do I fail that well news, aside from Dido Harding, Disgraced MP Liam The Disgrace Fox has reached the last five to be the next head of the World Trade Organisation which I’m sure is because other countries think nothing would be funnier than Britain having to take WTO rules and then Fox managing to collapse the entire organisation within a matter of minutes. Meanwhile sad mekon Chris Grayling has been given a £100k with a ports company, despite once losing millions after hiring a ferry firm with no boats. Either Grayling has got some amazing Jedi powers we don’t know, an extensive collection of blackmail photos or more likely, the ports firm know Brexit’s coming and chances are high everything they own will be on fire within 3 weeks so at least they’ll get the insurance.

Lastly, Barrister Amal Clooney has quit her role as UK special envoy over the government’s internal market bill and its plans to break international law. I hugely respect her for having such conviction, but I’m worried about her personal life when she finds out about the heists her husband has been planning with ten of his friends.

ADMIN

Second wave baby, the sequel. More locking, more downing. 2 lock, 2 furious. Sigh, sequels are nearly always shit aren’t they? Unless they are the dark middle part of a trilogy or are better because the jeopardy is even higher. This spate of infections has either got to have even more of them, and some sort of Queen COVID, then someone we think is an ally turns out to be a robot. Or its got to end really badly but then in a few years we’re saved by small singing bears. There are no other options. I’ve decided if its another proper lockdown, which the Prime Minister has insisted won’t happen so probably will, then I’m going to embrace it and do it better this time. I’ve been through one, so now I know just what to do to make this one worth it. I’m going to try and grow my own language, memorise a sourdough starter and I’m going to leave all my neighbours notes saying I’m around to help them if they need, but I’ll miss one digit off my mobile number and that should give them something fun to do for a while. See? I’m a caring guy. I went to see exactly four friends last night, as it was my best pal’s 40^th birthday and his big party that was planned, became a handful of us in a garden talking about all the work we’d lost. Good times. We did do a virtual escape room which was really fun, and if nothing else, means if there’s another lockdown I’ll be able to waste at least a day or two pretending I can’t leave the flat unless I find a clue hidden within a hat or some map co-ordinates. We gotta do what we can right?

I hope you are ok. I’m currently playing the fun game of watching the live comedy gigs I was just starting to get back in the diary, all disappear again. I knew they would but it’s still sad. I saw excellent comedian type Mark Watson tweet that he’s had an enjoyable 40 years but should probably get a job and I’m feeling much the same. What COVID proof jobs are there that mean you naturally socially distance from everyone? Telegraph pole fixer? Antarctic researcher? Jim Davidson’s agent? I’ll have to look into it. Anyway thanks tons to you for listening to this part of my not real job and especially thanks this week to Joe, Envoid and Anonymous who donated to the ko-fi.com/parpolbro and should you fancy helping this seem almost like a real job, please do donate there, or at patreon.com/parpolbro or the supporter button on the Acast page for this show. Obvs if you can’t do that because really, who has money anymore? I’m so tempted to try and get COVID just to get the £500 payment when told to self isolate. I’m sure it’s worth it. Hmm. Anyway if you can’t afford to donate then please do review the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, CastBox or one of them places or just tell every what which person type you know to give it a listen.

No other admin this week as well, there might be some gigs this weekend but I won’t know till tomorrow if they’re still happening but you can see at tiernandouieb.co.uk if they are. I mean, they probably won’t be. Otherwise I’ve been listening to The New York Times’s podcast The Rabbit Hole which is a fascinating and terrifying listen about people being radicalised by youtube, and this week’s Reply All on who might be behind the US conspiracy shit stirrier QAnon is so very interesting. On Wednesday clever clogs and comedian Robin Ince is doing a COVID Q&A with medical professionals on his Cosmic Shambles network at 8.30pm. You’ll be able to watch on the Cosmic Shambles youtube channel or at cosmicshambles.com.

On this week’s show, as its Climate Week which I totally didn’t realise when I booked this chat in, but aren’t coincidences amazing or maybe I’m a trendsetter and don’t realise? Anyway, I am speaking several time podguest and clever environment man Dave Powell who talks about the Earth being on fire but somehow manages to be positive. Plus a few facty bits because it seems more and more people are believing bonkers stuff about children in tunnels under London due to an elitist cabal when actually they’re all at school getting COVID.

INTERVIEW WITH DAVE PART 1

The Northern Hemisphere has just endured its hottest summer on record, and no it’s not just because I spent a lot of time in my flat walking around in just my pants. Though I’m sure that had an effect and someone should really investigate it. It is of course, down to climate change, the result of years of human made damage to the planet, and temperatures are now at the stage where vast swathes of America are not only experiencing a metaphorical political trashfire, but very much real, also dangerous ones burning across California, Oregan and other states.  Pictures of the sky looking like a scene from Blade Runner 2049. You know the orange skyline bits, not the gratuitous giant naked virtual woman bits. Though to be fair in that heat, it would probably be the only way to stay cool. More than half of Antartica’s ice shelves are collapsing which is even worse than if I’d done the DIY round there, and the UN have announced that we are at a crossroads when it comes to saving species from extinction, with over 1m now at risk, which sadly doesn’t include billionaires or that one wasp that keeps flying into my room while I record this. What’s odd though is that while most of us people types spent the lockdown marvelling at how nice it was to breathe for once without all the car fumes or how great it was hearing birdsong instead of Twitter, even though the contents when translated are largely the same territorial or sexual yellings. While surveys insisted people would now only ever walk, cycle or forward roll to work from now on and we all said we’d like a greener post-COVID world, the government instead have decided that eco-campaigners Extinction Rebellion are terrorists for not wanting to spend the future swimming all the time. I mean what could be a bigger threat to the country than some people who’d like the country not to sink? Though to be fair, based on the current situation we’re in, maybe that would be the best option. Brexit looks like it will also set the UK to miss all its net zero commitments, which is typical Boris Johnson that its only when we want a complete lack of output that he fails to achieve one. Meanwhile the world has failed to hit any of its 2010 targets to stem the destruction of wildlife and Donald Trump insisted that it will start to get cooler because he doesn’t think science knows, but I suppose that would be how you think if most places you go to, you go you get a frosty reception. So with everything feeling catastrophic right now, are we at a climate tipping point, or has there been any positive developments in planet saving, aside from white tailed eagles returning to the UK, which at the very least gives hope to my TV pilot of Britain’s Got Talons where various celebs get attacked by birds of prey and we vote as to who can have it done again the following week too.

So, what with it being climate week and even the trophy cup awarded to people for being in the right family Prince Charles has said swift action is needed on Climate Change and the pandemic was a wake-up call we can’t ignore. You know, unlike anything his brother’s been up to.  I thought it best to turn to someone who not only is fully versed in actual good info on where we are with climate change, but also, if it all possible, might provide a nugget of hope to pop on top of the flaming pile of poo that is 2020. Of course, that person is the excellent Dave Powell, expert on all things climate related, co-host of the brilliant Sustainababble podcast, former New Economics Foundation advisor and most importantly, several time guest on this very podcast. Dave has the enviable ability to inform about all things terrifying, while still being humorous and optimistic despite it all. I asked Dave to pop back on the show and update us all on if every summer will be a global barbeque from now on, did all those flights being cancelled do anything at all and how much of it was to do with me walking around in my pants because it will happen again. No, ok I didn’t ask him the last one. As always Dave was an educational and reassuring voice to hear, and yes there’s even some hope squished in towards the end. I hope you enjoy. Here is Dave:

INTERVIEW WITH DAVE PART 1

PLAY DONALD TRUMP CLIP

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

MIDDLE BIT –

This past weekend, for the umpteenth time this pandemic, thousands of anti-mask conspiracy theorists’ types marched in Trafalgar Square, super angry they have to wear a mask, but I bet many of them also annoyed they can’t go to costume parties on Halloween. Lots think the virus is a hoax as conjured up composite of pharmaceutical hair pieces and Microsoft owner Bill Gates. And to be fair, his own anti-virus software is so shit, maybe they have a point. This sort of thing has been prevalent throughout the pandemic and while the extreme are fans of disturbed lovechild of Pat Sharp and Sam Neill David Icke, on the other ends are COVID sceptics such as people in Bolton who’ve started a hashtag #thinkingforyourself and one MP says are responsible for the area having the highest infection rates in Bolton. Which isn’t fair as maybe they were thinking for themselves and thought it might make Christmas cheaper if there’s less relatives to visit. It’s clear that being stuck indoors and having time to scour the internet and find other people who believe the same batshit things does bolster beliefs, as does the way in which many websites are designed to radicalise you with video after video of the same extreme opinions and also possibly the fact that there’s really fuck all else to do, so wouldn’t it be fun if there were lizard people? No, no it wouldn’t. They’d leave their shed skin everywhere and it’d be disgusting. So here, as I did earlier in the big pando, are just a few, quick facts in response to what some seem to think are the real truth and I’m aware that some bits may be re-treading over what immunologist Sheena Cruickshank said on the podcast last week, so do go back and listen to that if you haven’t already:

YEAH BUT YEAH COVID-19 HASN’T BEEN CLASSED AS A HIGH CONSQUENCE INFECTIOUS DISEASE SINCE MARCH SO I CAN BASICALLY DRINK PINTS OF IT AND BE FINE

It’s true, COVID-19 was classified as an HCID in January but then a few months later, once more was learned about it, it was demoted which must have made all its pals take the piss out of it down the boozer. A High Consequence Infectious Disease is basically a proper deadly, something like Ebola, SARS, MERS but not Olly and there’s a handful of others. 16 in total. The proportion of all people who get those diseases and then die, is pretty high. About 50% for Ebola and 15% for SARS. Whereas COVID, is just 1%. So, you’re prob thinking, ah, that’s not too bad. I mean half the British population catching it would just mean 300,000 deaths and if anything, the roads are too busy as it is. But that would be 300,000 people and the thing with COVID-19 is it spreads very well, like one of those margarines that’s always soft and it’s both tasty but concerning. So, the chances of it reaching those 300,000 or more is high if the infection rate starts soaring. The other issue is that aspects about what’s known as Long COVID are still being discovered with studies so far showing at least one in 10 people experiencing breathing, muscular and even neurological difficulties months and months after catching it. So that’s potentially another 330,000 people affected by it. And I mean, even if you don’t get the long effects and it can still be a shitty and uncomfortable few weeks even if it means you don’t have to do any parenting throughout. So yes, it’s not high consequence infectious under the official death rate classification but that doesn’t mean it’s not bad in several other ways. It’s like how I’m not allowed to be officially classed as a ninja, because I’m very unhealthy and loud, but if I went round sneaking up on everyone, there’d be a good amount of people who’d get hurt, probably including me, so I don’t. I’m not sure that’s a great analogy but its there now and it won’t go away.

YEAH BUT NO ONE EVEN DYING FROM IT ANYMORE ARE THEY?

Yeah, they still are, with 27 across the UK being the stats for yesterday as I record. But they are lower, partly because doctors now know how to treat the ‘rona with steroids and shit so your cells get all pumped and smack it some. But also because infection rates have been low. As rates increase, there is a lag of 2-3 weeks before the death rates start to spike again, so to put it bleakly, wait and see. People don’t just catch it and immediately keel over, otherwise it’d be back in the HCID hall of infamy and get a badge or something.

THERE ARE SO MANY FALSE POSITIVES IN THEM TESTS THAT NEARLY EVERYONE THAT HAS BEEN TOLD THEY’VE GOT IT DIDN’T ACTUALLY HAVE IT

Here’s the thing. COVID-19 particles can hang around. If you get a test after you’ve had it, they might still be there, resulting in what’s known as a false positive, a phrase that I feel I should use for most things try to sell you. This is a problem with any test about any sort of lurgy because tests have to detect minute amounts so that they don’t miss it. Depending on what you read, false positives on COVID tests are anywhere between 0.8% to 2.3% of all cases though obviously if you’re doing a big old testing thing like Operation Moonshot of ten million tests a day that will never actually happen, that 2.3% could be quite a lot of people. But there are also false negatives, which fail to pick up the virus or the patient gets tested before the virus is in full swing, and that’s also dangerous as they could run around coughing at all their friends and family for LOLs and suddenly it’s like the end scene of Hamlet up in here. So yes, false positives are a thing, but so are false negatives though not as common, and so are people who aren’t able to get a test but have it, and so are hospital admissions, the death rate and the fact that with time and a proper system, you could have a more accurate test, that is brought back to you quicker and could get the most vulnerable tested first and reduce all transmission rates. At the moment, by the time most people in the UK receive their test results they may have got over the virus or have caught it from somewhere else. Even though it sounds like an easy own over the COVID, be less worried about the false positives than the overall lack of availability of testing. Usual scientific standards don’t matter anywhere near as much if you don’t have Deloitte losing your q-tip in a theme park 9 times out of 10.

WHAT ABOUT BILL GATES AND THE LIZARD PEOPLE?

Well yes, they are my favourite indie band. But the thing is, I just can’t fathom why you’d need to go along with a completely bonkers conspiracy when the real, awful shit corruption is happening very openly. The government have issued a lot of very, very costly contracts to people who haven’t bid for tenders and don’t seem to be qualified in any way other than being pally with various ministers or the PM or Dominic Cummings. Dido Harding has been handed big job after big job despite her only qualification being in charge of a telecommunications company when it was hacked by teenagers and being a jockey for a while. Frankly I wouldn’t trust her to look after a pet cat without worrying I’d come home to find it’d either escaped or she was trying to gallop it around the living room. But she is married to a Tory MP, is a Tory Peer, and is in charge of the Jockey Club so I guess that’s enough. Then there’s the £100bn Operation Moonshot plan for 10m tests a day to be distributed, which just happens to have been given to REVIV a health company where Boris Johnson’s younger half-brother Max, sits on the board. Which at least sounds more productive than the PM who just sits around bored. There’s the MP that’s been accused of rape but suddenly hidden from public sight and who’s name won’t be revealed, there’s Boris’s possible trip to Italy, there’s the laundered money of Russian donors and for those conspiracists that are all about ‘save the children’ there was the actual enquiry into historical child abuse that Johnson said was a waste of money. But sure, I get it, looking into all those things is hard and it’s a lot more exciting to pretend that Bill Gates, who I’m sure has done some awful things despite giving dosh to charity. But I don’t think he unleashed coronavirus. For a start, it would take even longer to get into your system and it’d have so many glitches you wouldn’t get a high temperature as you’d be too busy freezing.

And now back to Dave…

INTERVIEW WITH DAVE PART 2

Thanks tons to Dave for coming on the podcast again. You can find him on Twitter @powellds, his website is davidpowell.uk and his brilliant podcast that somehow always managed to make the bleakness of climate change quite fun, is Sustainababble which he hosts with Oliver Hayes. You can get that at all them podcast places and on twitter @thebabblewagon.

Any other suggestions you or your nan might have for who I should interview next, then gizzus a shout @parpolbro on Twitter, the Partly Political Broadcast group on Facebook, the contact page at partlypoliticalbroadcast.co.uk or email me at partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com. Or you could just leave it on a plane like a careless idiot in charge of a careless idiot. As always, it’s probably just best to email.

END

And that’s all for this week’s Partly Political Broadcast. Of course, it’s the very end of the show so here is this week’s PARPOLBROHOTPOLGOSSFACT. As the public once again get the brunt of the government’s blame for Coronavirus spreading again, do you know what the most ridiculous blame game example has been in political history? Yes I know this could be filled with the past 4 years of buck passing more than in a weird sport that involves lobbing a deer, but there is a long history of scapegoating and so let’s have a temporary break from it being all the fault of the EU, refugees, communists, civil servants, Mexicans, young people, black people, school teachers, firefighters, the NHS, China or Saturday Night Live. So was it in 2014 when the Turkish government led by veritable dictator and melting seal Recip Erdogan blamed widespread power cuts on a cat? Yep these power cuts that just happened to disrupt the vote counting of the local elections, were not at all to do with foul play and Erdogan’s party totally swept the electoral map all by itself, meanwhile firing water cannons at protestors. It was all down to one cat who entered the power distribution unit and I guess died in it. Clearly a load of bollocks but the government milked it anyway. At the same time if anyone is going to take down an authoritarian who looks like a mutant rodent, maybe cats are the best offence. But it’s not that example, and nor is it in 2014 when then Environment Secretary and stock photo of a Conservative Owen Paterson blamed the failure to reach the badger cull target on the badgers themselves, who Owen said, ‘keep moving the goalposts.’ Maybe it’s because he’s an idiot that Paterson was outwitted by badgers. Or maybe it’s because it’s hard for him to contemplate an animal so black and white when his entire existence has been in a grey area. But no, the winner, from the same year of 2014 was then UKIP councillor and necrophage David Silvester blamed that years heavy storms and floods on the legalisation of gay marriage. Something that was not only homophobic, but such a weird thing to be upset about. I mean, if it was true, why not harness that power and have as many gay marriages as possible in areas of wildfires or dehydrated land? Perhaps it was merely a cry for help from David, a man that looks like anyone he meets would dry up within seconds. So that’s this week’s PARPOLBROHOTPOLGOSSFACT and if you enjoyed it and the show then please tell everyone you’ve ever known or have heard about in a book or seen in a film. If you hated it, then please use the rage it gave you to power something useful like send in a ton of cats to infiltrate Westminster, or conduct several thousand same sex weddings in Oregan right now just incase. Please also donate if you can to the ko-fi.com/parpolbro, join the patreon.com/parpolbro or hit the supporter button on the Acast app. Don’t forget to give the show a nice 5 star review in your podcast app of choice too.

Big thanks to Acast, my brother The Last Skeptik, Kat Day, Scott Napier and Katie Coxall.

This will be back next week when the Coronavirus Alert level hits 5 but the government doesn’t change any restrictions and insists that’s its now out of 20.

BYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

This week’s show as sponsored by PM Support. Are you down that you’re only earning £150k a year and because you’re in the spotlight people expect you to do work and stop lying to your children? Give us a ring, we’re here anytime to help you work out exactly how much to spend on cocaine, how much on gambling at your oligarch friends party and if you can claim call girls on expenses. We’ve got brand new lies to tell your children such as ‘sorry I was at my new, most favourite ones secret baptism which is why I’ve not seen you in two years’ as well as quality covers for the country such as ‘I’m going to take direct control.’ PM Support, because while you’re not there for the country, we’re here for you.

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