Further Reading

Linear liner notes
It’s the last full show of the year! How long will this week’s episode last before it’s irrelevant? 10 minutes? 5? Who knows. This week there is no confidence in anything as Brexit rages nothingwards, plus Tiernan (@tiernandouieb) talks to Tatton Spiller at Simple Politics (@easypoliticsuk) who explains it all. Plus some stuff on workplace reforms and hey, it’s CHRISTMAS!
Links and sources of info from Tatton’s interview:
• Tatton Spiller on Twitter – https://twitter.com/tattonspiller
• Simple Politics on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/simplepoliticsuk/
• Simple Politics on Twitter – https://twitter.com/easypoliticsuk
• Simple Politics on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/simplepolitics/
• Simple Politics website – http://simplepolitics.co.uk/
• Buy Simple Politics Guess Minister! or Max Points! Card games – https://simple-politics.myshopify.com/
And if you’re tired of all this politics nonsense, you can always listen to a lovely Christmas story by Kat Day on the Cast of Wonders Podcast scheduled to air on 23rd December – http://www.castofwonders.org/ MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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

Transcript

EP125 – EGGNOG IN SPAIN

THERESA MAY LETTER TO SANTA

Ho Ho Ho

‘Ooooh what’s this? It’s in a very fancy envelope. Smells a bit like, er..sulphur. Hm. Let me see here. Well this is written in very nice crayon. Dear Santa. I’m not a deer, that’s Rudoplh silly, hahaha I’m brilliant me. Dear Santa, please for Christmas can I please have MPs vote for my deal and for someone, other than my weird weird husband, to have confidence in me for something, even if it’s just my sharp moves? All the best, Theresa aged 62, ps its these presents or no presents or worse presents.’

Bloody hell. I’m Santa, not a fucking miracle worker!

INTRO

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast, the podcast that usually laughs in the face of politics but in the last few weeks has decided it’s probably just best to emit a long continuous high-pitched noise until it’s all over and the sun explodes. This is episode 125, the last one before Christmas, I’m still Tiernan Douieb and who’d have thought that after two years of insisting we leave, it seems Prime Minister Theresa ‘Krampus’ May just keeps remaining. What I want to know is, usually when a Conservative leader has ‘confidence’ in someone or something, they resign or it collapses and they u-turn on it within days. So, with all these no confidence votes, are they actually just strengthening her?

Like the UK’s own Sisphyan curse, Theresa May is still Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative party for now, after winning a no confidence challenge but not because anyone had confidence in her, more that they had even less confidence in anyone else. Imagine knowing you only got to keep your job because the other people applying for it were so awful that keeping you is damage limitation. I mean do you want Theresa May, a Prime Minister whose main achievements in office generally include losing at things that no one else wanted but she insisted on doing, deporting people who had every right to stay in the UK, and dancing like malfunctioning silly string. So, there’s that, or someone like say, dinghy full of meat jelly Boris Johnson. Imagine him as Prime Minister? We’d be having Foreign Office officials trying to sort trade deals by telling other countries ‘sorry our Prime Minister has never heard of you, but you aren’t on his map from 1794. But he says he likes your big smiles and would like to touch your hair. Give us free stuff or we’ll invade’. So, the European Research Group or ERG, one of the rare groups who acronym more aptly describes them than their full title, finally got 48 letters of no confidence in May, and handed them into the 1922 Committee, so called because that’s when they last updated their procedures. You’d think all May would have to do is get 52 letters of confidence in her and that’d the sort of resounding victory no one would be able to question without upsetting democracy. But instead there was a secret ballot which I believe is where they all perform swan lake but no one’s watching or something, and May had to race around beforehand making promises to get MPs on her side, including that she won’t run in the 2022 election. Which does mean she will either run in any snap elections before then or that she’s scrapping elections and becoming our forever undying overlord in a horrific dystopian possibility that’s still somehow better than Boris Johnson being Prime Minister for even a week.

200 MPs voted for May but 117 voted against, averting a leadership challenge but the Prime Minister does now know just over a third of all Conservative MPs think she’s rubbish. Now normally that would be enough for a leader to resign but in May’s mind that’s probably less than she had thought and no doubt she’s handcuffed herself to number 10 anyway and won’t leave unless someone brings a saw and a lot of gusto. But Trees does know now for sure that her deal won’t get enough votes in the Commons unless she makes some drastic changes, like you know scrapping it and giving up. May is the absolute Queen of the Pyrric victory to the extent that such a victory should really now be known as ‘doing a Theresa’ because even King Pyrrhus would’ve felt uncomfortable at her continuously losing wins. May went straight back to the EU to try to renegotiate her deal to make, well, anyone like it. While meeting German Chancellor and leader of the Mushroom Kingdom Angela Merkal, our prime minister got locked in her car for an excruciatingly painful amount of time. Yes there is nothing she can do that isn’t a metaphor for Brexit and her career as Europe patiently waiting while May was trapped in a vehicle of her own choosing. I’m pretty certain the child safety was on. The EU, who are probably now super sick of May just popping in with ever fewer enticing offers like door to door salesperson who’s supply is now down to just some cloths she’s woven out of her own pubes, told her there is no changing the deal they’ve already said is the best one she’ll get. Apparently during her meeting with them the Prime Minister tried to get legal assurances on the backstop, warning them about the deal and using class tactics like saying ‘Brexit is Brexit’ like a cry for help from a broken parrot. But President of the European Commission and gerbil that was magicked into a human by a curse Jean Claude Juncker said there’d be clarifications but no renegotiation. Which is an odd way of just saying ‘we’re definitely, definitely saying no, stop it, go away, please leave us alone, we have other shit to do. God you’re so annoying. No shush, go away.’ Footage showed May and Juncker arguing after the Prime Minister accused the EU President of calling her nebulous, whereas she said her plans were crystal clear. Sure, I mean Brexit is Brexit isn’t vague or uncertain at all is it? Or wait, by crystal clear did she mean they were so vacant of content they’re basically see through? It could also be that Juncker called May nebulous because she reminds him of the cyborg daughter of Thanos. I honestly wonder if they’d have given her some more leeway if she’d been a bit more humble and promised to change the name of our country to Sort of Ok At Best Britain or Ideas Above Our Station Kingdom. Or just, you, Uptight Shitisle.

Several Conservative MPs still want May to resign because they don’t respect the result of the vote and should get over it. Former prime ministers have been rising from the grave to chip in their £350bn’s worth. Cheshire Cat with a wasting disease Tony Blair popped up like a bad smell to say that MPs might back a second referendum if none of the other options work, because you know, Tony’s always been a man who really values public opinions. May responded by telling Blair that he was an insult to the office he once held though considering she’s now in it, it’s a bit like insulting that office’s ex that it left long ago, and couldn’t care less about while its now trapped in this seemingly endless one sided draining relationship with a year round arsehole. But while the words of one former Prime Minister aren’t helpful to May, she has, for some reason, enlisted the help of another, old Captain Spam himself David Cameron, who is apparently advising May. I guess this means there’s every chance she’s just going to fuck off and leave everyone else to do it, before buying and expensive shed and writing a shit book in it.

Foreign Secretary and whiffling alpaca Jeremy Hunt insists Britain would flourish and prosper under a no deal Brexit, but then he also said when he was Health Secretary that he was continuously improving the NHS as it was obviously falling apart. So, there’s every chance his idea of Britain doing well involves most of it in the sea while the rest of us queue for 6 days to fight for a bean. Hunt says the UK have faced much bigger challenges in the past than a no deal Brexit, and again, I can only imagine he’s talking about when he was health secretary and Boris Johnson did his job. Meanwhile work and pensions secretary and woman who’d definitely ID you if you had to collect a parcel from her, even though you live next door Amber Rudd, has said that MPs need to forge a consensus to stop Brexit getting stuck. But I think they have, and the consensus is that May’s deal is shit and they don’t want that. Number 10 are still insisting there’s no options other than May’s deal, refusing to pander to the idea of extending Article 50 and saying a second referendum would mean politicians lose the trust of voters. What by trusting them to vote? I mean honestly, as if she’s kept the trust of anyone up to now anyway. It’s like a stand-up comedian worrying that if they swear the audience won’t like them, after they’ve driven two thirds of the crowd away by being so unfunny some of them were violently sick. May keeps insisting that MPs must not let the perfect be the enemy of the good, which is an odd phrase to say when her deal is neither perfect or good so it’s not really relevant. What she should of said is, why not let perfect and good join forces to be the enemy of the really shit that no one likes.

Labour were urged by the Lib Dems, SNP and others to push for a vote of no confidence in parliament but they originally said they were waiting for the right moment, either because they know May will be even weaker if her deal gets voted down in January or maybe because over Christmas Labour MPs are being sent on searches for her seven horcruxes in order to make sure she can actually be destroyed. But Labour leader and Saint Fickleness Jeremy Corbyn was going to warn the Prime Minister that unless she set the date for the vote on her deal, he’d push for that big no confidence challenge. Originally all we knew is that the vote would be before January 21^st, which could’ve meant on that date, which would be brilliant as that is Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year. Now that has been dismissed by scientists as pseudoscience, but you never know, in 2019 with the help of this government, they could’ve made it a strong reality for the first time ever. But May announced to parliament that the vote would be in the week of January 14^th which would also be appropriate as that day is the medieval celebration of the Feast Of The Ass. Then after May announced that and Labour said they wouldn’t tabled a vote of no confidence in May as Prime Minister, BAM, they did. The only thing is though, the government has to agree to give time to a no confidence vote in May, after Labour only tabled it because the Prime Minister hasn’t given time to a vote on her deal. So, will there be time? Is there ever any time? Number 10 haven’t granted Labour time for the debate as they said it is silly political games with no status under law. I mean to be fair, they would know considering how much of their activities over the past year have fallen under those very catergories. So will Labour now push for a no confidence vote in the government which could lead to a general election where everyone in the country will show how little confidence they have in any of it and then we end up with a coalition of the Monster Raving Looney Party and the Wessex Regionalists, and a Brexit that mainly involves us being part of some sort of custard union with movement restricted only to people who can do a perfect Devizes accent? Who actually knows but once again there’s every chance you’re listening to this after its all already happened.

Meanwhile travel to Europe for British citizens won’t cost a VISA but it will cost the very small fee of €7 every three years for the new European Travel Information and Authorisation System document. Sure €7 over three years doesn’t sound much but once the government’s done with dropping the pound through all their crap negotiations, that’ll be at least 7 wheelbarrows of notes and your first born just to pop to the Costa Del Sol.

In France protestors in yellow hi-vis vests took to the streets across the countries cities for a 5^th Saturday in a row to show solidarity with either the Beastie Boys, or 90s ravers, I’m not sure which. Sorry, I mean it started out as a protest about fuel prices, with many setting fire to things which feels like a terrible waste of fuel considering. Its since become a protest in anger against many of French President and proud owner of the nights away scout badge Emmanuel Macron’s economic plans and growing inequality. Seven people have died in the protest though I’m guessing in those vests it wasn’t by crossing the road at night, and Macron has scrapped a fuel rise tax, and promised tax cuts for pensioners and a rise in wage for minimum earners. But it really doesn’t seem enough and he’s going to have to change how he governs, as Macron’s ratings are now at just 23%, which is the sort of score his wife and former teacher would have had to call his parents in to talk about.

Back in the UK, Labour MP and stunt double for Chris Evans, no not the good Chris Evans, the other one, Lloyd Russell Moyle caused chaos in the Commons after he protested against all the Brexit faffing by the government by seizing the ceremonial mace. Because you know, we live in a modern society with a parliament to match. I mean what about a 5-foot silver gilt fancy stick being needed to pass laws because it represents the Queen doesn’t say ‘hey we’re totally 2018 right now.’ Next, you’ll be telling me that MPs mustn’t step on cracks on the floor in parliament in case it breaks their mamas back. Ok I’m being harsh because let’s face it a ceremonial mace isn’t the worst idea, but with all the recent harassment and bullying allegations in the Commons over the past year, maybe it should just be a can of the spray kind so it at least has some practical use.

MPs have revealed their Christmas cards before the Commons goes to recess on the 20^th. Corbyn’s has a picture of his cat, El Gato, asleep by the fire, because what better message to send out for the Labour leader than a picture of a bewhiskered white-haired creature dozing off while things are set alight all around him and he does nothing to notice or stop them. Chancellor and collection of old tea leaves Philip Hammond featured his two dogs on his card, one of which is sitting on his open budget red box, highlighting that everything within really is a load of old dogshit. Meanwhile Prime Minister Theresa May asked children to design her cards, picking three winning designs all in order to promote her favoured policies of bringing back child labour.

ADMIN

Yeah podchamps, how goes it? Feeling festive? I wasn’t really and was generally just feeling slightly grumpy about it all. Several of my friends have been in touch to say ‘we must see you before Christmas’ and all I could think was why? What’s going to happen to me that you know and I don’t? Creepy. But thanks to some lovely festive gigs and a tree and that, I’m now in full on Christmas mode and prepared to eat myself into a coma, which as a type 1 diabetic isn’t actually all that hard and doesn’t require that much eating, more just carelessness with my insulin. I used to have to do the really horrible comedy Christmas gigs where you’re entertaining works dos who are only there because its somewhere indoors they can drink and spend the whole time generally full of animosity that they have to spend more time with people they already spend too much time with. But the past few years including this one, I’ve been lucky enough to only do nice Christmas shows like a very fun one I did for the brilliant Jonny & the Baptists on Sunday night, or kids gigs where the audience are genuinely excited about Christmas which is lovely. Its very hard not to feel festive when children are handing in jokes they’ve written to you such as, and I quote, ‘What did Rudolph want for Christmas?’ ‘A poo’. Superb. That was from Saturday’s show in Birmingham and I really hope that’s got you in the festive mood too.

So, this is the last Partly Political Broadcast podcast of the year because I’m in need of checking out for a few weeks and let’s face it, nothing exciting is going to happen till the new year now anyway is it? Oh god I’ve jinxed it haven’t I? This will totally be out of date 5 minutes after I release it again. I mean I already had to add bits just after I thought I’d finished thanks to Labour’s no confidence vote in May. Grrr but also yey but also grrrr. Its amazing because as a person I really want May and the Tories out. But as a comedian, I will lose so much material if they go. Hard huh? Ok anyway, hopefully this is the last podcast of the year, before it likely returns on Jan 14^th. But I know that podcasts are a comfort to some over the holidays as it can be a fun time or a glum time depending on your situation, so I will be putting some bonus bits and bobs out to keep your ears company whether that just helps pass the time or you to ignore crappy relatives. So make you subscribe for those things as I’m unlikely to tweet about them as I’ll probably be spending most of my time trying to make sure my daughter doesn’t try to eat the Christmas tree. Similarly, as it’s Christmas, I would usually bang on about donations to this podcast via patreon.com/parpolbro for a monthly thing or ko-fi.com/parpolbro and thank you to Matthew, Annie, Jenny and Ruby for yours over the past week, those coffees were hugely needed. But while donations are always welcome, there are far more worthy causes in this shitty cold weather so rather than buy me a coffee, take some food to a food bank, buy a homeless person a coffee, and hey, let me know online about local worthwhile causes to you and I’ll happily tweet and Facebook them too. What I will ask though is that you give this show a review because you’ll have several days to do it and look, Doctor Who isn’t even on, on Christmas day so what else will you be doing? Just pop a few nice words and 5 stars on your fave pod apps or inside Christmas Crackers and watch the joyous confusion as friends and family pop on a paper hat and then read out ‘awful jokes and weird irrelevant crap about diabetic comas. One star’ from a small bit of paper. But reviews are always appreciated, as is spreading of the word of this goddamn show.

Couple of things to mention before the long festive break. One is that I did a podcast that isn’t this one. Gasp! I’m on the very fun Sitcom Geeks podcast hosted by brilliant comedy writers Dave Cohen and James Cary and I spoke to them about, well surviving as a comedian. If that sounds even remotely interesting to you, check out episode 99 of Sitcom Geeks for that. In other podcasts that I’m not on, my brother who does all the beats for this show, his podcast Thanks For Trying is excellent all the time but on Christmas Eve he is releasing an episode with a very special guest, who if you’re a Marvel fan or just good comedy films fan, you may well be interested in. So check that out.

This week’s show is slightly more coherent than last week’s but again, there’s not much that’s actually happened with Brexit so instead of a Brexit Fallout section which was last week’s entire show, this week I am interviewing my pal Tatton Spiller from Simple Politics who breaks it all down step by step and then has a nice theory about Steve Jobs’s effect on politics and then we contemplate authoritarianism. Merry Christmas! Sounds fun? Yes it is. Also, a little bit about the workplace reforms because Christmas! So let’s crack on straight into the interview this week. Get this in your lugholes and listen to this while you munch on a mince pie and ignore whatever your uncle is saying:

INTERVIEW WITH TATTON

One way to sum up the past couple of weeks of politics news is to say that lots has happened but nothing has actually happened. If running on the spot was an Olympic sport the Conservatives wouldn’t enter as they’d be too busy complaining that some people in their party didn’t believe enough that they could travel while doing it and so had ruined it, while others insisted their previous position of sitting still was far better. But while the tendency to say ‘oh sod this I’m so sick of Brexit I’d prefer to watch the Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas Special while pulling my own teeth out with a mini pair of pliers I got in a Christmas cracker because that is the only thing they can be for after reading those jokes’ it’s good to know just what is going on before we delve into hibernation mode for a couple of weeks before resurfacing as parliament emerges all fresh faced only to fly headfirst into a heap of fan flung shit. When I want to know things where do I go? Well first the internet and when that mostly just tells me I have some terrible disease despite what I type in, then I head to a specific website which is simplepolitics.co.uk, a fantastic site that actually breaks down where a bill is, what that bill is doing, how much that bill is and who ordered the marguerites? Ok not the last bit.

Tatton Spiller is the creator of Simple Politics and informs adults and children all about politics, including going into primary schools and explaining Brexit to kids. Yeah, he can do that. Yes, I wish politicians would listen to him as well, so they knew what it was about too. Tatton is also a pal of mine and we have been touring our kids’ politics show ‘How Does This Politics Thing Work Then?’ where he does all the clever breaking down of how democracy works and I mainly show the children stupid cat pictures because it’s good to know your strengths. So, after a confusing few weeks, nay months, nay years, I thought we’d end this year with some simple politics explaining from him. I laugh like an idiot throughout this interview. Its Christmas. I was probably drunk. And this interview starts serious, and then gets progressively sillier towards the end because, you know, Christmas. So, I hope you enjoy. Oh and of course, this was done last Friday before we knew about Labour’s no confidence vote tabling this week because I swear everyone is out to ruin this show. Anyway, here is Tatton:

INTERVIEW WITH TATTON PART 1

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

WORKPLACE REFORMS

Workplace Reforms could be the name of a really crap changing rooms spin off. You leave your office for lunch, some haphazard daytime Tv presenters pop in and hey hey, you now have a ball pit instead of a seat and your computer is currently being weed on by a 4 year old. Instead its actually something that a lot of workplaces need in terms of workers rights, working conditions and getting rid of that one person in the office who always eats really smelly food at lunch. Stop it Carol. It smells like you’re microwaving dead sanitation workers. This week the government have introduced a whole load of new legislation that they say will protect workers on zero-hour contracts, or gig economy employees doing things like closing a loophole that allowed them to be paid less than permanent workers, and the right to request more predictable hours. That’s as in hours that you will have booked in advance and along more regular timetables, rather than, you know, where you can guess exactly what you’ll be doing and take bets on it. But it’s still only the right to request it, not the right to have them, so ultimately it just means you can say to your boss ‘hey Steve’ its always a Steve ‘can I work some normal hours next week?’ and Steve can still say no, before eating what smells like someone has reheated a muddy tyre. The legislation is from a report called The Good Work Plan, because I mean, they obviously didn’t think about the name that much.

And there are lots of bits of the legislation that are good, or at least a move in the right direction.  Like scrapping the agency worker loophole for pay, or increasing the maximum fine employers will face at tribunals from £5k to £20k or providing workers with a statement of rights when they start, showing them their leave entitlements for maternity, paternity, sick pay or holiday. Yes, telling workers what they’re entitled to is helpful rather than just springing it on them one day that oh, you don’t maternity pay but if you want to force the baby out in the printer room during a lunch hour, you can use one of the paper bins. But as the Trade Union Congress and Labour have both pointed out, these reforms really aren’t far enough. Allowing workers to see what their entitlements are is great, but again it doesn’t stop those entitlements being terrible. Really if you’re stuck in a zero hours job, none of this Good Work Plan is going to reform your workplace very much. Zero hours contract jobs rose from 1.6m in 2016 to 1.7m in 2016, and while the government have insisted that wage growth is at its highest in a decade, that’s only if you don’t count for inflation, which you know, affects everything you might spend your wages on. So actually, it’s only the highest it’s been in two years which means its still lower than it was over a decade ago. It’s the same way that you count as employed if you’ve done even just one hour of work in a week. So when the government claims more people are in work with rising wages and new legislation that gives them rights, what that could mean is that you’ve done one hours work on less money than it would’ve been in 2007, and if you’re lucky your boss will show you how you only get 10 minutes sick pay per year because you definitely still deliver pizzas when you have the norovirus.

So good but not great, a beginning towards better work rights but one that the government will likely use to not bother doing anymore for ages. If anything, they could do with workplace reform, so they only get called in when needed and paid by the hour. Or going back to my other idea maybe they’re away over Christmas Nick Knowles and Laurence Llewelyn Bowen and that one with the glasses should all pop by the palace of Westminster and replace all the fittings with slightly wobbly, ill made things. Replace the floor with an ice rink and windows that are always slightly open. Then see how ministers like feeling unsecure at work.

And now, back to Tatton…

INTERVIEW WITH TATTON PART 2

Big thanks to Tatton for that chat. I wasn’t sure who else could do the last show before Christmas other than my pal who is so good at clearly explaining politics. Simple Politics is a godsend of a website if you need clear explanations of it all, I use it loads for this show. Do check it out at simplepolitics.co.uk, on Twitter @easypoliticsuk and on Facebook too. The weekly mailing list mail outs are super useful and there’s a Simple Politics podcast too. All the Simple Politics card games can be found at simple-politics.myshopify.com and well worth it to at least make those family Christmas arguments informed and competitive all at once. The kids politics show I do with Tatton is kicking off again in February with a load of dates that I’ll let you know more about next year.

So that’s it for this year but of course I’ll be needing guests for next year’s shows so if you have anyone you’d like me to interview or any subjects you’d like me to interview someone about, assuming we aren’t just forever stuck in a Brexit haze like Dante’s secret 8^th circle of hell reserved just for us, then please let me know via @parpolbro on Twitter, the Partly Political Broadcast facebook group, the contact page on partlypoliticalbroadcast.co.uk or by emailing me at partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com. Or you fill your Christmas list to Santa with all your recommended guests and then feel both bewildered and disappointed as on Christmas morning you wake up to find several crumpled campaigners and academics thrown at the base of your tree, while I’m still none the wiser and so don’t interview them and you’re stuck with unwanted extra dinner eaters. As always, it’s probably just best to email.

END

And that’s all for this week’s and this year’s Partly Political Broadcast podcast. As I mentioned before there will be some bonus bits and piece for subscribers so make sure if you’re not one of those that you sort that out. But otherwise there’ll be no full episodes till January 14^th. Thank you so much for listening for the past year or even years and please don’t forget to review, donate, and generally spread the word. Why not do it at during Christmas dinner when you’re arguing with your family about Brexit? Just throw in ‘well if you all listed to ParPolBro maybe you wouldn’t such stupid ignorant idiots’ and then as your children are crying grab their phones that they shouldn’t have at their age and subscribe them to the show. Thanks in advance.

Big thankings to Acast for popping this noise present in its sack full of pod goodies. To my brother The Last Skeptik for all the jingle beats and don’t forget to check out his podcast ‘Thanks For Trying’ as his guest on the Christmas Eve show really is exciting. And to Kat Day for another whole year of typing up linear liner notes like a champ. You can find her and her excellent science & fact blog @chronicleflask on Twitter.

This will be back next year when everyone in the government takes confidence building classes and scraps all no confidence motions in place of a variety show where everyone does their favourite musical or performance number. Theresa May chooses to dance and then they all feel sad and have to table a no confidence vote again.

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEE

This week’s show is brought to you by the European Research Group’s Book Of European Research, full of fun facts that we’ve made up because the thought of crossing water terrifies us. Did you know France is actually on the underside of Spain? Did you know the Dutch word for thanks is written only in emojis? Did you know Germans? Plus some of those big Brexit questions answered. How to solve the Irish Border problem? Simple, just pretend Northern Ireland isn’t there anymore and close your eyes and put your fingers in your ears when its mentioned. The European Research Group’s Book of European Research, available in just one language on a stall in a village hall on a Sunday in June.

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