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Transcript

Ep238

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Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast, the comedy politics podcast that always sticks by the rules it makes and wishes the first rule wasn’t that the rules have to be sticky. I’m Tiernan Douieb and as disappointing Brazil nut Matt Hancock resigned as Health Secretary on Saturday, I think it’s great that he’s finally done something to save lives.

If months ago, you had said to me that the final nail in the coffin of Matt Hancock’s time as Health Secretary, would be his kissing technique so awkward and upsetting it resembled a teenage boy lobbing a dying sucker fish at a brick wall, then I’d have said well, yes of course it is, we live in a thoroughly broken society. But then maybe I’m naïve for luckily having never been on the receiving end of Matt Hancock’s stuttered fumbles with all the romantic qualities of a toilet brush and perhaps his snogging is so bad that its considered a worse crime than policies that let 150,000 people unnecessarily die, giving Covid contracts to friends who were so unqualified for the work it was almost a Dadaist protest and that time he thought he could fix the social care system by making a little badge saying ‘CARE’ in all caps like it was shouting at you, that staff could wear in-case they were wondering what was missing from government strategy. CCTV footage was leaked last week to the worst funeral you can give to a tree The Sun of Hancock getting off with his aide in a Whitehall office, even though the untrained eye may have just thought some poor woman was trying her best to carry an old maternity pillow around a room. The footage was from over a month ago but was held back till last week by the unknown source who either saw this as a perfect time to prove that actually Matt Hancock isn’t just fucking hopeless but also useless at first and second base too or had just decided that the best way to ensure people continue to remain socially distant during the rise of the Delta variant was to put everyone off having sex for months. There are many questions to be asked about just who had access to the footage from a secure Whitehall camera and sold it to the press, especially as it should be quite easy to find the culprit on account of them being unable to stop retching for the past four weeks. But before we even get to that, Hancock had to take ownership for breaching the very Covid restrictions that he had helped put in place, one of which was no sex outside of established relationships. Though I suppose to be fair to him, both Hancock and his aide were married at the time. Just not to each other. The affair itself isn’t the concerning bit, as in 2021 you could just say that by having a mistress, he was just trying to be more prime ministerial. Maybe he’d just woken up that day and wondered what he could do to save wives? Obviously not his though. But no, no one cares about affairs in politics anymore and Hancock’s face hugging is nowhere up to scratch with the kinky escapades of 90’s MPs but that’s pure Hancock isn’t it? His idea of excitement is untucking his shirt. I could well be wrong, as someone online pointed out, for all we know, Hancock might be secretly polyamorous, which would make sense as his whole political life he’s been fucking many things at once.

You might well ask just what it is that would attract anyone to Matt Hancock, despite being a walking anxiety dream? And the answer of course is PPE contracts. Or you know, maybe I’m just a cold cynic and really it’s true love that drove the aide in question, millionaire Gina Coladangelo – with her unfeasibly small head which may explain her attraction to Hancock with his 12 foreheads for balance – to accept £15,000 for 15 days advisory work in the Department of Health in a position where she could help allocate NHS contracts to her brother’s private healthcare firm. Maybe Coladangelo knew that by taking the job it meant that she could be closer to her university romance that she still so desires, but you know, just for 15 days a year. Which considering its Hancock, still feels a bit much. The past few years have shown that like many of his colleague in government, it pays to know Hancock and potentially pays even more to tug him off every now and then. Matt Hancock said he was very sorry, but you know, only about this one thing then on the Friday the Prime Minister and the walking aftermath of an 80s action film chase where a car drives through many boxes of live chickens Boris Johnson said that he accepted Hancock’s apology, even though we all know the Prime Minister first heard about his cabinet minister shagging someone on the side while giving her public money and no doubt just felt proud he’d had such an influence on his colleagues. The message was that Johnson stood by Hancock, though hopefully not too close or that’d be another breach. But by the Saturday, the papers and several Tory MPs were calling for him to go despite all his successes with the vaccine rollout, which as we all know was the NHS’s doing and really the only way Matt Hancock can take credit is by being too busy boning his pal to interfere and fuck it up. Then on the Saturday Hancock handed in his resignation to Johnson, finally going like pumpkin jack Dominic Cummings has wanted for ages. Though Hancock did prove Cummings wrong in a way by showing that he’s not as fucking hopeless as thought because showing that members of the cabinet can be accountable for something is the first sign of hope I’ve seen in ages.

Hancock said those who make the rules have to stick by them, so I guess it’s because he didn’t make the rules about the lawful tendering of government contracts, he didn’t need to give a shit about those ones. His letter said that the last thing he wanted was for his personal life to distract attention from the single-minded focus that is leading us out of this crisis, but that is what you get when you hand all the contracts to deal with it to everyone in your personal life. That’s why he’s been accused of using his personal email account to conduct party business too, because his Westminster one wouldn’t have had all his friends and families emails already saved and then he might’ve accidentally given contracts to someone who could actually do it. Labour leader and dysfunctional telex machine Keir Starmer – who’d oddly stayed very quiet during the story about a politician having an affair and we just can’t work out why, but maybe someone should have asked Jenny Chapman, just saying – finally said that Hancock was right to resign but Johnson should’ve sacked him. Which is odd because back in February, Starmer said the public didn’t want Hancock to go after he’d acted unlawfully. Not sure what happened but just maybe the focus group on Saturday actually had some of the public in it for once. Johnson is now saying that he did tell Hancock to resign on Sat even though he’d said the matter was closed on Friday. Maybe he just meant closed in the same way borders were to stop variants coming in. Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and ceramic garden hedgehog Brandon Lewis said that Hancock was right to quit and he was putting his family first. Really? By leaving them for his mistress? First where? In the firing line? Hancock and Coladangelo say they are leaving their families to move in with each other, which must be particularly galling for Martha Hancock and their children whose hopes of getting a PPE contract now are dashed.

The Met police won’t be investigating Matt Hancock’s breach of the Covid rules because it’s a retrospective issue, which I mean, all crimes are, aren’t they? Is there any point to call them up and say ‘I’ve been burgled’ only to hear if you’re not actively being burgled at the time they can’t be arsed as its passe now so get over it. Are the Met now only tackling future crimes like a low budget minority report? Maybe it’s because more than 160 police officers were found to have breached Covid restrictions during the pandemic, either failing to self-isolate with symptoms or attending parties. Sadly, though all of that has now already happened so I doubt they’ll bother to look into it. Definitely brings a whole new meaning to the term Trojan unit.

There will be an investigation by the Department of Health into who leaked the CCTV footage which based on their success with test and trace means they’ll never ever find out. Just last week in the midst of Hancock’s cockhanding it broke that test and trace had lost nearly 600m lateral flow tests, which should kill off Stuart Little star Dido Harding’s chances of becoming Chief of NHS England. But in reality they’ll probably hand it to her even quicker knowing she can reduce the waiting list immediately by just losing all the info of everyone on it.

Then again, now her horseracing pal Hancock is gone, who’s to say what will happen to Harding. Though I’m guessing he’ll do a handover week with his successor, showing them all the ways to give lucrative contracts to pals and where best to bonk aides so the CCTV will see you and give you an easy way out? Who is the new boss at the Dept of Health? Well as is always the case with the Conservatives, you cheer the departure of an awful minister only to find they’ve somehow managed to replace them with someone so bad you almost want the previous one to return. So post-Hancock, who could be even more fucking hopeless? Dr Doom? The ghost of Harold Shipman? Jeremy Hunt again? No, it is none other than featureless Mr Potato Head Sajid Javid, the man that resigned as Chancellor in Feb last year after he was told by Cummings he had to fire all his advisors. Of course, they probably should’ve been saying that to Matt Hancock considering. Seems Javid has no hard feelings though, unlike Hancock, as he’s come straight back to the cabinet at the drop of a Matt. Who better to lead us through the end of pandemic than a man who once dealt with a crisis by running away to Australia until it was over? Javid has been spending his time between roles that he’s not suited for being an advisor to JP Morgan, a bank that is a major player in the private healthcare industry, so its likely he’ll be the sort of health secretary that puts money before people. Well, that’s pretty smart right? I mean how can Covid overrun the NHS if Javid’s dismantled it first?

Javid’s first speech to MPs as Health Secretary had him telling them that he is honoured to take the job and has been frustrated this past year not being able to play his part in fighting the virus. Its ok Saj, there was already someone in the job of totally useless health secretary that had it covered for you. As cases rise to 22000, Javid said in his usual robotic speaking clock manner that the plan hasn’t changed and all changes to the roadmap are irreversible, so I guess he’ll be u-turning and charging at them head on. Hong Kong has banned all flights from Britain as we’re being classed as high risk, and Germany is trying to ban UK travellers to the country too. But both Johnson and Javid have said everything going ahead from July 19^th is very likely to return to pretty much life before Covid, you know except for everyone whose since died. Covid cases in schools in England have risen 70% in the last week, meaning tens of thousands of pupils have been missing lessons in order to self-isolate. Luckily schools will be out for the summer on July 19^th so all those kids will no longer be able to spread it round their classrooms and can instead give their friends and family a go. While it seems that Covid is responsible for children losing learning, according to the Education Select Committee its actually terms like white privilege that are letting down poorer white students, and saying it was divisive. That’s true, and why what you should say is that all pupils are being let down by white privilege in that successive Education Secretaries have got their roles because of it, despite being otherwise unqualified and barely having any idea what children are let alone how to teach them. One way the government thought they could cheer children up, was by encouraging them all to celebrate One Britain One Nation Day last Friday, even though Scottish schools had already broken up by then but of course no one had bothered to check. The Department of Education said it was for pupils to learn about our shared values of tolerance, kindness, pride and respect so I can’t work out why they thought it needed a whole day. Children were encouraged to sing a song that was written by schoolchildren but sounded like it was done by an AI who’d been fed the words North Korea, 80s charity hit and the sound of an air ventilation fan. The song contains lyrics such as ‘we are Britain and we have one dream, to unite all people in one great team’ which feels like the exact opposite of Home Office policy, right down to Home Secretary and woman with all the personality of cheap car insurance Priti Patel only having the same repetitive dream every night where she single-handedly pushes everyone into the sea. In fact next week Patel will publish proposals to send asylum seekers overseas. This already happens in Australia and has resulted in a human rights disaster, so I’m worried that’s what sold it to the Home Secretary. Still with the Delta variant rising and all our many other problems right now, it’ll backfire when those sent offshore are the only survivors and end up coming back to rebuild Britain.

Several more countries will be added to the green travel list from this Wednesday, including the Balearic Islands, Malta and Bermuda where you won’t need to quarantine on return, but you may get abducted by aliens or disappear without trace. Also on the list is the British Antarctica Territory, which many people mocked on account of it seeming an unlikely holiday destination, but if it means that International Trade Secretary and wafer cone Liz Truss has to go there to strike up a deal with an elephant seal then I’m all for it. The government have been criticised for sending soldiers overseas before they’ve had all their jabs, but it does make sense as it’ll save them a ton of money on biological warfare. A bit like all those years they’ve not supplied soldiers with the right equipment but that means opposing forces will be stuck with having to buy proper gear direct from the British weapons industry instead. There may be exemptions that allow people who’ve had two jabs to travel, which means if we plan it right and have a snap election over the summer, all the Conservative voters will be abroad and unable to vote.

Last Wednesday marked five years since the UK voted to leave the EU, and of course like true Brits rather than deal with the hangover we’ve been hair of the dogging it ever since. The Prime Minister marked the occasion with a speech where he insisted Brexit will aid the country’s post Covid recovery. How? Is it like if you hurt your arm, having someone kick you in the knee makes you forget about it? Johnson hailed some of Brexit’s successes as freeports which we also had while in the EU from 1984 to 2012, the vaccine rollout which has had absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, protecting jobs in the UK by I presume putting them into hiding and saying they don’t exist so no one can get near them, controlling the immigration system which we could do before and signing a historic deal with Australia. Though its only really historic because it fulfils such a small amount of GDP that it would only have been a useful amount of money in Victorian times. The EU look set to find a solution to the chilled meat ban affecting Northern Ireland’s access to not warm British sausages, something they could have overcome by just being Matt Hancock’s aide. Meanwhile in the UK, EU citizens have been told they have till June 30^th to apply for settled status but can apply late if they have a good excuse. I’m guessing you could just miss it, then take a leaf out of the PM’s book and insist actually you definitely did it on time.

In other news classified ministry of defence documents were found at a bus stop in Kent. Typical. You wait for ages for breaches of national security then several come at once, right? Some of the papers contained information on the HMS Defender ship that was shadowed by Russian jets and ships in Ukrainian waters last week, with Russia claiming that warning shots were fired, but the UK govt saying they weren’t. But then Johnson has taken notice of any warning shots given to him over the past year so there’s a high chance he just wouldn’t notice and say everything was fine to go ahead. Johnson said the UK doesn’t recognise Russia annexation of Crimea and that the Navy was sticking up for British Values, by which he probably means charging ahead without any proper plan or risk assessment.

And lastly, Conservative MP and person who smiles in a way that looks like it really hurts Joy Morrissey, is campaigning for every British person to have a portrait of the Queen in their home. Downing Street isn’t backing her, but if it does go ahead I’m hoping I can just put a first class stamp on our bin. Shadow Leader of the Commons and Edna Mode if she had absolutely no skills Thangham Debonaire has said that Labour wouldn’t introduce free social care as it’d just give the Conservatives a stick to beat them with. Yes, why do anything the Conservatives might criticise because the way to get everyone to vote for you is definitely to shout ‘we’d do the same as them we would but you’d get different weird clueless faces disappointing you for a bit.’ If they did drop the pledge for free social care, that would mean Starmer has got rid of nearly all the promises he campaigned to become leader on. Maybe he thought being the opposition leader meant he had to say everything that he was opposed to?

And in his further attempts to do all of the jobs so it stops normal people from getting them, former Chancellor and inspiration for Westworld George Osborne has been announced as the new chair of the British Museum. Which is perfect for him after all his experience of taking things away from people who needed them and claiming it was for the greater good.

ADMIN

Hey, hey, hey, ParPolBrods. Isn’t it amazing that any joy at Matt Hancock resigning as Health Secretary is immediately ruined by the fact that it wasn’t for all the better reasons he should’ve gone and then Sajid Javid getting the job after him. I mean how do the Conservatives even manage to ruin the joy of cabinet minister you hate finally going? Is there anything they can’t destroy the joy from? I bet even if Jacob Rees Mogg fell down a well, we’d find out that actually he loves being in wells or something and that champagne you opened for the occasion just wouldn’t be as tasty. How are you getting on? I did a gig to a real audience on Friday in Nottingham. I mean they were socially distant and all in masks so it felt like a bit like doing a corporate to ninjas if they’d let their guard down but they were much nicer than that. Honestly I haven’t felt that knackered from the come down of an adrenaline buzz since the early days of gigging and then today I am also hungover because it seems the past year has totally removed any ability to say yeah I should prob stop there because it’s just too exciting being out and having beer again. This weekend has basically reverted me mentally to my early 20s but sadly I’m still aged 40 and probably physically around 400 something, so everything hurts and is very tired. Still this week is not a proper episode as yet again a guest had to pull out last minute, as though having a real life is important or something. There’s definitely guests for the next two weeks and then the last ep before a summer break may or may not be a full sized one on July 20^th by which point you’ll all be too busy having a very normal life going to work and going out and getting Covid and self isolating for two weeks and then going to work again and going out again and getting Covid again and self-isolating. So anyway, all to say for this week is big thanks to Keith for joining the Patreon like a goddam hero, and of course if you fancy doing those levels of big time kindness then do join up at patreon.com/parpolbro where you will get absolutely zero extras other than the knowledge I will tell all the deities that count, you know Odin and er, the other ones, that you are a proper good un. Of course you can also do a one off donation at ko-fi.com/parpolbro or via the Acast supporter button but I will only tell the demi-gods about those ones. Big thanks to all of you who’ve been retweeting and saying nice things about the show too, especially Marie who I feel I should probably pay for PR but you know, I can’t afford to. So just relish in my absolute gratitude which is of course, totally shit for paying bills with or eating. Sorry.

Also, also, last week’s guest was great but I couldn’t say it on the episode incase she listened but all her recommendations to follow journalists at the Spectator were terrible. Don’t follow any of them, they are awful, but I was too polite to say at the time. Also, also, also I’ve guested on the Parody Boris Johnson podcast which was a lot of fun, but the episode won’t be out till the summer unless you are on their Patreon too, but do check it out if you are.

Right, all that’s left to do this week is, as tradition, this:

MATT HANCOCK DESCRIPTIONS

Farewell Matt Hancock, the worst health secretary we’ve ever had apart from Jeremy Hunt and Andrew Lansley and probably now Sajid Javid. What has been your fave Hancock moment? Was it when he said footballers had to play their part and then a week later Marcus Rashford did more for kids in poverty than he ever had, and Hancock got all confused on telly and called him Daniel Rashford? Maybe it was the first time he broke coronavirus regulation rules by drinking in the Westminster lobby bar after 10pm but just pretended he didn’t? Maybe it was when he tried parkour on the Southbank and made Vic and Bob’s free runners look professional and sadly didn’t fall onto any concrete bits face first? Maybe the fake tears on Good Morning Britain, standing too close to the Tory candidate for Warrington, or making his own app that breached privacy and security permissions? Or you know, all the policies he made that he based on one viewing of the film Contagion leading to loads of people dying and his sister and pals getting really rich? It’s really hard to choose. There’s so, so many times I’ve had to bring up his stupid name on this podcast and describe his awful massive forehead in imaginative ways and so, as is tradition, here are all of those times and the many, often very lazy ways to think of Matt Hancock:

89. man so non-descript his driving licence probably has no pic & just a caption saying just imagine dreariness in a shirt
90. Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and politics’ version of Tim Lovejoy

116.Bash Street Kid

119. What happens if you aim a hairdryer at a chipmunk
120. a man who always looks like he’s about to tell you a really boring story about the day he wore odd socks,

XMAS EP: STUPID APPLE

128. Bewildered gopher
129. Life vessel for teeth
130. that drama teacher who tries to invite himself on student’s nights out
131. face drawn on an apple
132. Enthusiastic children’s dog puppet
133. Beano character
134. Champion five head
135. Mr Ratburn’s partner in Arthur
136. Gormless bollard
137. personification of pulling your trousers up too highly
138. what if the Sonic Movie designers drew Olaf from Frozen

what if Olaf from the Frozen films was even more unlikable

Jimmy Neutron’s thick twin

elbow patch

Stupid Grape

man who I’m certain still has his name written on tags on his underwear otherwise he’ll try and put on a dishcloth or pretzel or something

Matey Shampoo Mascot

Woody from Toy Story but shit

Dog Chewing Toy

Hair glued to a crash test dummy

Walking apology

Spotty from Super Ted

Face you made on your plate using only vegetables

Sorry insole

oh he’s only allowed to take calls for delivery as we don’t trust him with the pizzas

The sort of man who boasts about a talent contest he won without revealing no one else entered it

The sort of man who boasts about a talent contest he won without revealing no one else entered it

Foam Shrimp

World’s saddest quaver crisp

the sort of person who buys all the Now That’s What I Call Music compilations to be down with the kids

nervous scallop

shin pad for a head

the my ding a ling kid

man who definitely carries around his school swimming certificates just in-case

One long forehead

the one who always looks as though he’d say he’s into the Spice Girls just to impress some kids

Upside down scarab beetle for a face

Tragic Noh mask

oh god who left the work experience kid in charge?

Startled butterbean

skin wrapped around inexperience

frightened butterbean

the sort of person who calls builders ‘mate’ and assumes they will immediately like him

scrapped Peanuts character

pig in spam kit

what if there was a Japanese mascot for back alley surgery

drawing of a Canadian in South Park

taking nerf bullet

man who definitely tries to impress his kids by showing them he knows all the words to a rap but changes all the swears to things like ‘oopsie’

Japanese Uba Noh Mask

Undercooked flatbread

Victorian spoon

how to have a furrowed brow for your entire face

Mr Poopybutthole in Rick and Morty

Human worry lines

dad who’s so cringe he embarrasses other people’s kids too

a man whose mirrors in his home have to contain a picture of someone else in-case he catches sight of his face and cringes so hard he gets rigor mortis

terrified baked bean

gormless chopping board

a man who definitely makes explosion noises as he bumps elbows with people

sad trowel

END

And that’s all for this week’s Partly Political Broadcast podcast. Normal service will resume next week, maybe, possibly. See this is why I should do all the Covid restriction lifting news. Yeah, it’ll prob be fine but who can say so you may as well not stress. Cuppa anyone? Actually, then I’d have to make a lot of cuppas. I’m glad it’s not my job. If you enjoy the lack of cuppas that come with this show then please do tell others who can make their own cuppas, donate to the patreon, ko-fi or Acast supporter sites and maybe even give this show a fancy review if you so wish.

Muchos gracias to Acast, my brother the Last Skeptik and Kat Day.

This will be back next week when Sajid Javid announces that he will end the culture of giving Covid contracts to friends but only on account of him not having any.

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

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