Further Reading

Transcript

OH SAY CAN YOU SEE
IT HAS ALL GONE TO SHITE
WHAT SO PROUDLY WE HAILED
IS CURRENTLY ON TWITTER SCREAMING
WHO’S THIN SKINNED AND DISHONEST
AND PANDERS TO THE FAR RIGHT
FROM BEHIND OUR SOFAS WE WATCHED
WITH A DEPRESSED NUMBING FEELING

Ep39

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast episode 39, a show that US President elect Donald Trump called ‘the best podcast ever, the greatest. Bigly.’ Then two minutes later said ‘it’s a disgraceful show, podcasts used to be a safe space, we should apologize’ before ten minutes later saying we were closest friend but he spelled the show’s name wrong. I’m Tiernan Douieb or as The Sun newspaper called me ‘the greatest comedian and podcast that ever lived or will live ever, ever’ and yes, I’ve discovered that actually, there really is a way to use fake news for your own advantage. Just try it at home! Take something you just thought of, put it in quote marks and et voila! You could run an important election campaign or as the Times said ‘A genius idea by a total hero’. Ahem. They definitely said that. Definitely.

It’s not been an easy show to write this week, when global politics feels yet again like a blurb for a terrible sitcom.

BBC jingle

At 7.30 it’s Fawlty Powers, where on this week’s episode ‘The Leaked Memo’. It’s revealed that the only plans Theresa has for Brexit is trying to make it take so long to work things out that rising sea levels destroy either the UK or Europe first so she doesn’t have to bother. Meanwhile bumbling Boris upsets an Italian. Then after that at 8.30 it’s the Fall and Rise of Donald’s Fascism, where the President elect avoids a fraud case with a dodgy payout, then tries to find a safe space from musical theatre, but discovers everyone there is expertly trained in finding a space themselves. Then at 9pm it’s ‘Only Fools’ where blabby mouthed conman Nige tries to get a peerage in the House of Lords because he seems to have forgotten that he spent years rallying against the ‘unelectable political elite’ and Former PM Tony decides again that he might come out of retirement because nothing unites a country like having a common enemy. But first, here’s the 6 o clock news:

NEWS JINGLE – AAAARGGGGHHHHH

I really don’t know why I even try. The Chancellor Phillip Hammond has said the country’s debt is ‘eye watering’ and I don’t think he means tears of joy, or that the onion business is doing well. Yet despite this, the Treasury has announced that Buckingham Palace will get a ten year refurbishment, costing the taxpayer £369m. Not each. I don’t think. I mean it’s a pretty big building. Oh god. One palace official thought the British public would be fine with this as it’d appeal to their sense of Nationhood. What paying a lot of money to house a foreign family who don’t contribute to society in a massive home? Yeah judging by the current climate, I’m sure everyone in the UK is bang up for that. Apparently the Queen is only there a third of the year so I say it should be used for AirBnB the rest of the time especially because the manual reminding guests to regularly change the guards and not sit in the throne would be a great read. Meanwhile Prime Minister Theresa May told the Confederation Of British Industry that businesses should be seen to work for everyone, not just the privileged few and then u-turned on the promise she made in July to allow workers to be represented on company boards. I get the feeling at a dinner party she say to guests to help themselves then take all the food into a room by herself, lock the door and stuff her face. The Prime Minister also suggested that she could lower corporation tax below 15% which will really help that eye watering debt, and that the Autumn Statement – which I’ll be looking at next episode – will include an extra £2bn for science and research. The good thing about that is it means unlike May, at least some scientists will be able to come up with conclusions that are actually based on evidence. May’s speech also involved saying that the Brexit vote gives Britain a chance to shape a new future, in the same sort of way a severe accidental house fire allows you to look for a new home, and that British businesses need to open their minds to new ways of thinking, which based on the past week’s revelations of a total lack of Brexit plans, sounds a lot like she’s suggesting trepanning. The most entertaining moment of the mostly awkward and stumbled speech was when a moth nearly landed on the Prime Minister’s head but didn’t. I guess there weren’t enough bright ideas to attract it to stay.

More on all of those things later in the show. Except moths. No more moths. No, I’ll be making holes in that wool over your eyes using just truth bombs my friends!

Sorry, not sure what came over me there. Thanks again for listening to the show, podchamps new and old and hello to the super new listeners who joined last week after my chat with Ben Kissel. If you are an American listener or interested in US politics as of this week’s show there will be a new section that I’m currently calling ‘Thank Fuck The Atlantic Is There’ but I’m open to suggestions for better titles. Let me know. Also thanks to those of you who got in touch to say that you would like the Partly Big Society section to return. For those of you who don’t know about it, it was a section of the show where I tried, with minimal effort, to come up with fun ways to take part in local actions or protests for all of you to do, without having to take much time out of your busy, busy lives. These ranged from dealing with Stoke Gifford council when they tried to charge runners to use the park for a charity run due to wear and tear by emailing them asking how much they charge for other activities like practising robot dancing which may displace gravel too, or sending Hampshire council party plates & hats when they used taxpayers money to pay for the Queen’s birthday street parties while shutting down Sure start centres for families. So you know, stuff like that. However one person has been in touch saying they never took part as they didn’t think any of those things would actually make any difference, which is a fair point, so let me open this up to you lot. If I start Partly Big Society up again next week, send me local protests or things you’re angry about and suggestions of what myself and all of you can do to help change it that might actually work. Nothing illegal please, just fun stuff, which incidentally is also the name of my sex tape. As always all suggestions to @parpolbro on Twitter, Parpolbro group on FB or partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com.

Couple of other bits before we get into this week’s show which is at a normal volume due to me not being in a hotel room. Firstly previous guest Ian Dunt from politics.co.uk has a book out called ‘Brexit: What The Hell Happens Now? The Facts About Britains Bitter Divorce From Europe’ so if you enjoyed my interview with him back in episode 31 in September, do check that out as I’m sure it’ll be brilliantly clear and informative. Second thing, if you’re in Oxford or nearby and you listen to this before the end of the week, I’m hosting a show at the Old Fire Station on Friday 25th with an amazing line up including political song champions Jonny and the Baptists and the amazing Andy Zaltzman, host of the spiritual parent podcast to this show The Bugle which has recently thankfully returned. It’s a fundraiser for the Fire Station and Crisis who work in partnership to reduce homelessness in and around the area. You can grab tickets to that from oldfirestation.org.uk or from the link on the gigs list on my website.

And lastly, I don’t want to rant on this show as I hate smug ranting and have spent the past few weeks, months, years sighing at people’s self aggrandising facebook posts or Twitter threads about what they think the problem is based on what they had for dinner yesterday or what clever sketch they watched of a man who shouted things so they must be right. But, of course there is a but and as if this entire weekly podcast isn’t just my poorly explained personal opinions anyway, I’ve been quite fed up with the amount of commentary over the past few weeks that the people to blame for Trump, Brexit and the terrifying rise of fascism are those that oppose all of it and have refused to listen to the divisive, bigoted views of divisive bigots. ITS REMOANERS FAULT THAT WE’RE NOT GETTING A GOOD BREXIT DEAL. NO! I do believe a tons of people are regularly not listened to. What are they saying? No idea. Ha! I joke! No I mean that since 2010 (and really way before) austerity measures have constantly ignored the voices of all those suffering because of them and deflected them by pointing the finger at immigration or people supposedly being lazy. Now it seems that the best way to ignore that the result of this is people shunning the system, but also that the far right sneaking through the cracks in the UK, US and all across Europe, is to instead point the finger at people who’ve been pointing at the cracks for years saying ‘hey! See that! We should really plaster that up.’ Admittedly, some of those pointing at it were very privileged people who only noticed the cracks once it ruined the vintage décor of their gastro bubble and I do get that. But I think that rather than point fingers at anyone who has the best intentions of others well being, they should be squarely pointed at media outlets who hyper normalise situations that aren’t and present a lack of facts, and politicians who back that narrative. Also at racists who definitely are and aren’t just someone who needs us to listen to them. Trust me, if you listen to them you’ll just think ‘wow, they are racist. I wish I’d listened to something else like the new Tribe Called Quest album which is amazing.’ Oh and also at people who wear red trousers. I mean that doesn’t help does it? That includes Santa Claus. So, on this show I will be happily pointing out policies of prejudice and fascism when they happen, and refuse to be bullied that by doing that I’m somehow being elitist or a snob. And yes, I am aware that I will be doing that as a white man who accidentally sang the chorus of A Tribe Called Quest’s track ‘We The People’ in public last week completely unaware that I really, really shouldn’t do that.

CLIP OF TRIBE’S TRACK

Brilliant track, but really not a great idea for me to karaoke along with it is it?

Right on this week’s show I’ll be speaking to former Met police strategist, whistleblower and now author James Patrick on the many issues within the UK police force, Brexit fallout is back and there’s the new section on US happenings. But first…..

HEADLINES

The Investigatory Powers Bill aka The Snoopers Charter aka Theresa May Knows You Regularly Search For That Sort Of Porn Where People Sit On Cakes has now been passed by both the House Of Lords and the House of Commons and now just needs Royal Assent to become law. If you remember waaay back in Episode 12 I interviewed Privacy law specialist Paul Bernal and he explained why it’s terrible idea in terms of privacy rights but also how it’ll probably be an awful lot of work for internet providers which will mean increasing costs. While Labour succeeded in adding the need for judicial authorisation for intercept warrants and that mass surveillance powers can’t be used against trade unions conducting lawful activities, they pretty much agreed on everything else including allowing security services to hack devices. Which is mostly worrying but also if you’re passing by the Home Office they might be able to unlock your phone for cheaper than the apple store offer. Security agencies will also be allowed to do bulk hacking, which sounds like how I eat dinner but actually meaning they can gather information from a large number of devices in a specific location if they believe it will, say, aid terrorism investigations and they will be able to obtain bulk personal data sets, which are pots of data that hold personal information. Because these are usually gained in chunks they often contain information of loads of people who haven’t been accused of anything. Oh and internet service providers will have to store 12 months of everyone’s data of what you looked at and when, which could be useful if, like me, you can never remember what that funny mannequin video was called so you can probably just drop the Home Secretary a line and she can send you the link. And of course all of this sparks concerns that this will lead to a Stasi like system where your every move is monitored in case you speak out against the governmet or perhaps just ask what their Brexit plan is. But don’t forget, all this storing of information and invasion of your privacy that sounds like George Orwell drafted the bill, is all for your safety. I mean, if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear right? Except I have nothing to hide and I’m still scared of killer clowns, so how does that work?

UKIP continue to be a working guide on how not to do politics as former leader Diane James has now left the party saying it’s now time to move on. This proves the scientific theory that as soon as a UKIP member realises that time progresses forwards, they stop being a UKIP member. Diane lasted on 18 days as UKIP leader before seeking her own independence, and the new party leader will be announced on 28th November out of candidates Paul Nuttal, Suzanne Evans and John Rees-Evans. Nuttal wants a burqa ban and is the sort of man that ‘do not eat’ signs are made for, Suzanne Evans thinks educated cultured young people are what’s wrong with the country and John Rees-Evans thinks the death penalty should be brought back for paedophiles but not if the victims looked 18. So tough choice eh? I guess they’ll decide by seeing who’s best at shouting racist abuse while morris dancing or something. Former leader Nigel Farage is now spending most of his time representing the people by hanging out in golden lifts with a millionaire and main UKIP donor Aaron Banks talking about creating a populist, anti-establishment movement in the UK to unseat Remain MPs in mostly Leave voting areas. Banks has already used the Trumpism of ‘draining the swamp’ to describe it, which is an odd use for someone who’s mainly funded the political career of toad from toad hall. But if that happens either this new populist party will make UKIP seem almost reasonable or they’ll run their course as a party. And this all comes as an audit reveals they misspent half a million quid of EU funding on Brexit campaigning, which sadly, does sort of prove UKIP’s point about the incorrect use of the EU’s money. If the external audit confirms the money was used for domestic campaigning instead of EU activities, they could be forced to repay a lot of it while being refused any further money from Brussels. Makes you realise how, without the EU, they’d have really struggled to complain about it in the first place? Imagine trying to feed UKIP with your hands? Ouch!
Let’s hope for UKIP, Farage and Banks they work really hard to leave politics all together and fuck right off.

In an interview on The Marr Show, John McDonnell said that Labour would support the Conservatives cutting the threshold that people start paying the top rate of tax in the Autumn Statement. So you’d have to be earning over £45k a year before you pay 40% income tax and McDonnell said they’d support that because those it’d affect are being hit hard by the Conservatives mismanagement of the economy. Ermmmmm I mean, obviously those earning the most were totally hit hard by austerity right? I mean, can you even believe how expensive sourdough bread is now? According to an article by Stephen Bush in the New Statesman even if just one adult in a couple with two children earns £42k and the other doesn’t work at all, they are only 1.6% worse off than they were in 2010. Which compared to everyone in lower income brackets, and especially those without children, means they’ve been hit the least. And if both parents earn just under £45k a year they’ll both get tax cuts meaning they’ll be getting a huge tax break. All in all it’ll just cost lots to implement and loss in revenue. Corbyn and McDonnell which when said like that makes it sound like they should drive an 80’s ford escort and stop crime, they have said that they aren’t bothered about income tax, but want to target corporation tax and tax avoidance but really this just sounds like they’ll help the Conservatives pass a bill which will cause more debt which will probably allow more austerity which overall makes you worry that we’re back to an opposition who seem to think the rules are to just score own goals.

INTERVIEW PART 1

Last week Amber Rudd made her first speech as Home Secretary to police crime commissioners and chief constables in London where she stated that the police need to employ more people from sectors such as the military, civil service, finance or business in order to make up numbers. Because I don’t know about you but though but I love the comforting thought of ringing up 999 to say you’re currently being burgled only for an business adviser to turn up in uniform advising the burglar what they could take that would be most profitable on the black market. The police force is currently in crisis with numbers of officers falling by 17000 between 2010 and 2015, and the number of support staff and support officers falling by over 20000. Budget cuts by the government mean the police funding shortfall could be as high as £1.2bn in 2020 causing a further 17% reduction in staff. So it’s only matter of time before it’s no longer ‘allo, allo, allo’ when you need assistance from the police and more ‘Hello? Anyone? Helloooo?’

So this week I spoke to James Patrick. James is a former Met officer and a whistleblower. No I don’t mean a referee. Far braver than that, yes even at a Millwall game. James had to resign as an officer in 2014 when he exposed a scandal in the police force that they were massaging the crime figures across the board. If you fancy pausing this and googling James Patrick and police you’ll find a number of articles all about it. James is now a writer and his book about that period of his life called ‘The Rest Is Silence’ has just been released, and he still keeps a keen eye on all cop based matters. We had a really fascinating chat and at several times the information that James mentions makes me really think we all had better be working out our vigilante names pretty damn soon.

We’ll be back with James in a minute, but now on the podcast the Express said ‘was so brilliant and correct about everything it said, we set fire to all copies of our shitty paper to give up telling lies and work at a food bank!’ They definitely said that. Uh huh. Definitely.

Anyway, now it’s time for:

BREXIT FALLOUT

And oh what Brexit fallout there is this past week. The consultancy firm that constantly sounds like a character in a Tennesse Williams play Deloitte had a memo leaked that they say was intended for an internal audience, which I guess means their own company, not that they were going to eat it. However the memo made it’s way to The Times and it stated that the government had no plan for Brexit because you know, up until then we were all sure that ‘Brexit means Brexit’ was the greatest plan ever made since Richard Attenborough’s character in the Great Escape. I mean, if Squadron Leader Roger Bartlett’s plan had just been let’s all escape by escaping, obviously. Aside from that not at all shocking revelation, the Deloitte memo said that an extra 30,000 civil servants would be needed to cope with all the additional work Brexit would cause, and Whitehall alone is working on 500 Brexit related projects. This seems like a large estimate but the UK would need a lot more customs officials if we leave the EU’s customs unions, possibly 5000 additional staff. Then immigration control would have to be expanded, especially as there has been a reduction in staff for the Visas and Immigration directorate in the last few years. How many more staff would they need? It’s very difficult to say without knowing what sort of Brexit we’re having. And where will we get all the additional staff from considering it takes years to train these sorts of people up? Funnily enough, they might have to come from, yes, you guessed it, Europe.

Theresa May said the memo was nonsense and outie with a face Iain Duncan Smith said it was bogus and I guess he would know considering his wealthy experience with bogus facts and statistics. But The Institute of Government think tank also said preparing for Brexit would be unsustainable for some government departments unless more resources are handed to them in the Autumn Statement. God, this taking back control is expensive isn’t it?

As for the lack of plans themselves, the Prime Minister assured businesses today that businesses would avoid a cliff edge, but didn’t clarify whether that meant she supported a transitional deal to cover the UK leaving the EU until a new trade deal was found. So who knows what avoiding a cliff edge actually means, as it could just be that the government will put out a few badly placed warning signs and hope to loot the pockets of the bodies on the beach afterwards. Also the Prime Minister didn’t take into account how costs to cover Brexit may remove funding for business incentives and how damaging it may be to businesses if freedom of movement is stopped too. May said there was no need for running commentary on government Brexit plans which I guess is because it’s very hard to keep commentating on nothing happening. We all saw the BBC’s royal coverage of Princess Charlotte’s birth, god forbid we have that for two years while Nicholas Witchell dithers outside parliament having to mention everytime a pigeon appears just to stave off boredom.

Meanwhile Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has proven yet again why he should do all international meetings trussed up like Hannibal Lecter as when speaking to a Czech newspaper he mentioned that the UK will have to leave the EU customs union. No other member of government has mentioned this before and it’d be huge deal as the customs union prevents the UK from forming trade deals with other countries as we’d have to keep the EU’s common external tariff. So while it’d mean we couldn’t bring back half as much booze from trips to Calais as you’d like, though if free movement goes too, then getting to Calais might be such a faff anyway, we’ll all be better off doing home brewing and drinking ourselves to death with something you made yourself from old potatoes that tastes how Ed Balls dances. The government have denied that any decision on the customs union has been made, and the President of the Eurogroup of finance ministers suggested that as Boris also thinks the UK could stay in the single market, it’d then be impossible to leave the customs union. Basically BoJo is making it up as he goes along, which seems to be the basis of what he does with everything from his political career to his hair. My favourite slam of the week was from Italian economic development minister Carlo Calenda who was told by Boris that the UK should get what they want from Italy as otherwise they’ll lose a lot of prosecco exports to the UK. Calenda responded by saying that the UK will lose some fish and chips exports but the difference is that Italy will lose exports to one country, while the UK will lose them to 27. MIC DROPPED! PROSECCO EVERYWHERE AND ITALY DON’T GIVE A FLYING FUCK because chances are the prosecco they sell us, is their worst stuff anyway and now they’ll have something to clean the drains with.

Sixty Conservative MPs want are demanding they leave the single market which sounds a lot like they are just lonely. This is quite a change of tune from the Leave side who before the referendum were making the case for staying in the EEC, like Norway but of course were they to follow that train of thought, that’d mean having conviction and sticking to an opinion which, as we’ve seen since June 24th, isn’t really their thing.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said that Labour back Brexit and won’t be seeking a second referendum and won’t block triggering article 50 saying that Labour will push influence over terms and conditions of how we leave by using ‘moral pressure’ to influence the government. Because yeah, that’s totally worked before right? I mean why not just read Aesop’s fable about the Goose With The Golden Eggs during PMQs and I reckon May will be a socialist in no time! Many remain voters are angry that Labour won’t oppose Brexit, especially as 63% of Labour voters voted to stay. But if Corbyn is unelectable because he can’t appeal to non-Labour voters, then him and McDonnell appeal to mostly non-Labour leave voters but turn off Labour voters is he more or less electable? Why try and fail to please everyone when you definitely upset all of them at once? Similarly according to Labour MP Clive Lewis, the party’s stance on post Brexit free movement is that only people who are members of trade unions should be able to come and work in the UK. This of course means the Conservatives will say that Labour want every trade unionist to come to the UK forcing up immigration figures and Labour voters who are pro-free movement will be angry about this too. The only thing I can think is that Labour’s political plan is to embrace reverse psychology. Maybe if they all hate us, they’ll all vote for us! Well that is almost how the US election worked….

What this does mean is that even though the SNP and Lib Dems will likely vote against the triggering of Article 50, Labour and the Conservatives will mostly vote for it, meaning it should definitely happen next year. Or not. I mean, who knows? It’s such a shame Samuel Beckett died in 1989, as he’d have a new play about this in minutes. ‘Let’s Go. Yes Let’s Go’ says the government. They do not move.

And now back to James:

INTERVIEW PART 2

Thanks tons to James for chatting with me. I hope you found that as insightful as I did, and big thanks to Stephanie who put me in touch with him. James is on Twitter @j_amesp, and his book ‘The Rest Is Silence’ is available in all bookshops, and who am I to judge whether they are good or bad – though I would say that to find it on the internet ones James’s author name is JJ Patrick which makes searching for it a bit easier.

Next week my guest will be helping explain what the Autumn Statement is all about, but again if you have anyone you’d like me to interview or a subject you’d like me to interview someone about please do let me know.

PPB QUESTION OF THE WEEK

For this week’s question of the week, I asked you, them people who do donate your ears to my voice, that if Buckingham Palace is going to cost £369m of taxpayers money, what changes or improvements should they make to it?

‪Jacob Johannsen /react-text ‬‪react-text: 162 /react-text Repaint it with yellow stars on a blue background: £350m. Change the Brexit bus to say the EU money is to be spent on the Royal Family instead: £19m. The people of Britain have spoken!‬‬

‪react-text: 199 Jonathan Allison /react-text ‬‪react-text: 202 /react-text Turf out the current tenants/occupiers.‬‬

‪react-text: 48 Wayne Williams /react-text ‬‪react-text: 51 /react-text It would be cheaper to rebuild it in Lego. I’d use Lego.‬‬

‪react-text: 88 Sera-Marie Capaldi /react-text ‬‪react-text: 91 /react-text One room gets turned into a ball pit or bouncy castle. Or they turn half of it into a huge retro laser quest. Do you remember those???‬‬

‪@sjjc16 ‬‪Nov 20‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro Replace the whole thing with a massive bouncy castle.‬

‏‪@sarahbennetto‬ ‬18h
18 hours ago
Hackney, London
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ @TiernanDouieb Waterslides!!!‬‬

‪@tdurbo ‬‪18h‬‬
‪18 hours ago‬‬
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ spend it on barbecue firelighters and briquettes and set fire to it. Do it on New Years Eve. Big Ben and Dizzee Rascal soundtrack‬‬

‪@davidwhittam ‬‪18h‬‬
‪18 hours ago‬‬
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ turn it into an Air BnB pad.‬‬

‪@EthanDLawrence ‬‪Nov 20‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro QueenLand! Replace all mirrors with fun house mirrors, waltzer in the dining hall and glue the London Eye to the roof!‬

‪@Kevintangible ‬‪Nov 20‬
‪South East, England‬‬
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ Kids should be able to play on the Tennis Court.When I’m going to Victoria after the work Crimbo do, I’ll need to use the shitter‬‬

‪@Kevintangible ‬‪Nov 20‬
‪South East, England‬‬
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ Last year after the Crimbo do I pissed on the Queen’s saplings in St James’s Park, so in a way this’d be doubly progressive.‬‬

‪@jlsearle89 ‬‪Nov 20‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro turn all the unused rooms into social housing and community projects‬

‏‪@prinnychants‬ ‬18h
18 hours ago
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ yep, turn it into a people’s court of justice…maybe then the CSA victims will get the justice they deserve!‬‬

‪@prinnychants ‬‪18h‬‬
‪18 hours ago‬‬
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ oh, and those living within kick them out on the streets for a while, let them feel hardship for once‬‬

‪@SamPhillips13 ‬‪Nov 20‬‪‬‬
@TiernanDouieb @ParPolBro Renaming it the ‘Fathers4Justice’ balcony?‬

‪@TiltMyHat ‬‪18h‬‬
‪18 hours ago‬‬
‪Sedgebrook, England‬‬
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ Why has it all been left for so long? @PimlicoPlumbers isn’t exactly far away! @TiernanDouieb‬‬

‪larbertred ‬‪Nov 20‬
‪Falkirk, Scotland‬‬
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ Convert it into rent-free flats for the homeless.‬‬

‪@MrMMarsh ‬‪Nov 20‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro install glass walls, like we do for pet ant colonies or zoos. They’re basically very expensive pets the country owns, anyway.‬

‪@morefromchris ‬‪Nov 20‬
‪Chippenham, England‬‬
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ I’ve seen Grand Designs. If this doesn’t go over budget or involve a structural glass wall I’ll eat my hat.‬‬

‪@_adenrw ‬‪Nov 20‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro Fill it with Syrian refugees. Terribly inefficient way to spend £360M but would REALLY grind Farrage’s gears.‬

‏‪@AlKayeAlKaye‬ ‬4h
4 hours ago
‪@ParPolBro‬‪ refugee crisis solved.‬‬

‪@RealNeilTurner ‬‪Nov 20‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro 2 totalisers 1 shows all spend in palace 2 estimates country’s income from royal brand. Digitised Queen smiles/frowns accordingly‬

‪@flufflogic ‬‪Nov 20‬‪‬‬
@ParPolBro mount speakers, lights and a giant disco ball on the roof, and use for every changing of the guard. Easy!‬

THANK FUCK FOR THE ATLANTIC

So this section, temporarily called Thank Fuck For the Atlantic is going to be ParPolBro’s regular look at the US as it enters the era of Trump. And while there’s over 50 days till President Elect Donald Trump is inaugurated and there’s already questions as to if he’ll make it that far without being impeached because so far, he’s burrowing so far into possible impeachment, he’s basically through the hairy skin bit and hugging a pit. Last week Trump met in his office at Trump Tower with three Indian business partners who are building a Trump branded luxury apartment complex South of Mumbai. They also met with Ivanka and Eric Trump who will be handling Donald’s business while he’s in office. So there’s questions about if Trump is already using the presidency to boost his business. Even more so when you consider he’s trying to get security clearance for Eric and Ivanka in the White House and Ivanka joined him when he met Japanese President Shinzo Abe. And when the Argentine President called up Donald to congratulate him on his election win, they discussed an office build that Trump has been trying to plan in Buenos Aires. So no signs at all that Trump will separate business and politics and while that’s not illegal for a US president it raises concerns about business influences on his Presidential decisions and it goes against everything Trump said about draining the swamp. Though I suppose at the bottom of the swamp is that really sticky shitty mud and several confused reptiles so maybe that totally makes sense. However one thing that may be extremely problematic is that The Trump International Hotel in Washington invited representatives from local embassies to an event after the election to encourage them to use the hotel when leaders of their countries visited Washington. George W Bush’s ethics lawyer spoke to the website Think Progress and said that activity will violate the Emoluments Clause Of the constitution, under the title of nobility clause on his first day in office unless he sells the hotel by Jan 20th. Violation could either cause impeachment or for a rival hotel to sue the crap out of him. Still most fun inauguration ever right? I mean Trump swearing in, then immediately having to swear out, then going on Twitter and probably swearing a lot?

It’s not surprising he’s going to be as transparent as the brick wall he’ll never build when you consider his business past of refusing to pay workers, hiring undocumented workers, defrauding customers and likely bribing Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi in 2013 with a $25000 donation to her campaign at the same time her office was about to investigate him for alleged fraud. And on Friday he boasted about how he avoided going to court over allegations of fraud regarding Trump university with a $25m payout, which is a fraction of what he would’ve paid out if found guilty. Not only that but after saying throughout his campaign that he’d never settle, it seems he realised that business settlements like that are fully tax deductible so essentially he’s profited by screwing over working Americans who were conned into studying at his sham university. Again not sure about draining any swamp but he’s definitely unashamedly taken a lot of Americans to the cleaners.

Trump has also named Jeff Sessions as Attorney General in charge of the Department of Justice. If you think wow ‘Jess Sessions’ that sounds like an acoustic album of someone who’s been strumming the same racist tune for 69 years, then you’d be correct. President Ronald Reagan chose Sessions for a judgeship in 1986 but his nomination never got past committee after he was charged with making racist comments after saying a white lawyer was a ‘disgrace to his race’ because he defended black clients. So having him in charge of justice in the current climate of racial tensions about how the US police treat black people, is like hiring a man with a flaming head and a can of gasoline to oversee an initiative to prevent forest fires. Plus Trump’s adviser Kris Kobach wants a national registry to target Muslim immigrants and his newly named national security adviser General Michael Flynn says Islam is a cancer and not a religion. But hey everyone let’s give Trump a chance as we haven’t had any stimulus to make good war movies in ages have we?

The US was one of only three nations on Friday to vote against a UN resolution condemning the glorification of Nazism, because the US Mission said its overly narrow scope and politized nature means it calls for unacceptable limits on the fundamental freedom of expression. I mean really, they could’ve just said ‘look the next four years are going to be hard enough but if we have to try and ban the president from saying anything till he’s out of office in 2020 we might be really stuck.’

Oh and Trump took to twitter to take credit for keeping a Ford car factory open in Kentucky even though the plant wasn’t going to close in the first place. So no matter how it goes, I’m sure Trump will claim in his first 100 days his policies helped the sun rise, and the tide move and all while stopping aliens from invading. Though the latter may directly be to do with him, if they watched from above and decided ‘nah fuck it, they’re ruining themselves.’ And of course finally, as all the news has reported, Donald Trump took offence at Hamilton the musical after Vice President Elect Mike Pence attended on Friday and the audience booed before the cast read a careful prepared statement at the end of the show. Pence has already said that he enjoyed the show and that when the booing happened he turned to his daughter and said ‘that’s the sound of freedom’, but still Trump is demanding that the theatre should be a safe space, which makes me wonder if we should invite him to a British panto over Christmas? I reckon all the booing would make him cry, he’d spend a lot of time looking behind him feeling paranoid and there’s a chance he’d learn some morals. Still more worrying than the idea that a president who thinks he can defend the US against ISIS but gets flustered by a musical, is the notion that now tons of actors everywhere will add ‘radical activist’ to their CVs as an extra credit and god knows they don’t need that ego boost.

END

And that’s all for this week’s show. I’ll be back shouting into your brain next week with a look at the Chancellor’s Autumn statement and probably looking at Donald Trump demanding a safe space from art museums because he went to the Guggenheim and Picasso’s Woman With The Yellow Hair wouldn’t look him in the eye. Don’t forget to review this show on iTunes or stitcher or even just scrawled across someone’s wall in big pen. I mean, with the horrific increase in racist graffiti, they may see it as a relief and start listening. Do tell others to listen to this show if you think they’ll like it and don’t forget you can sponsor this show via the Patreon page at patreon.com/parpolbro. BYE!

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