Pod Save the UK
Dear Donald: Can Starmer Tame Trump? w/ Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Ed Davey
Thu, 27 Feb 2025
War - what is it good for? Absolutely nothing. But this week we found out that defending the UK from it is going to cost us a lot of money. And the losers will be the world's poorest people - the money for Britain's boosted defence budget will come from foreign aid. Sir Ed Davey - leader of the Lib Dems - tells Coco he has an alternative: bigger taxes on big tech (and some other ideas). And Coco goes a bit Yoko Ono, wondering how we give peace a chance. Zoe Grunewald steps in for Nish as the pod asks what Macron can teach Starmer about Trump wrangling. And we send out a search for Kemi Badenoch… Has anyone seen her? As Ed Davey presents a credible opposition voice to the Government - the Tory leader is missing in action: last seen in a right wing podcast vortex. While Kemi Badenoch struggles to cut through, the Climate Change Commission has thought of an ingenious way to get us to act on net zero. The humble kebab. CHECK OUT THESE DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORSVOY: https://www.joinvoy.com/psukAURA FRAMES: https://www.auraframes.com Code: PSTUK GuestsEd Davey Zoë Grünewald Audio CreditsUK GovPBS News ABC News Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media. Contact us via email: [email protected] Insta: https://instagram.com/podsavetheuk Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/podsavetheuk.crooked.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/podsavetheuk TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@podsavetheuk Facebook: https://facebook.com/podsavetheuk Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@PodSavetheUK Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who are the main hosts and guests in this episode?
Hi, this is Pod Save the UK. I'm Zoe Grunewald. And I'm Coco Kahn. This week, Keir Starmer is preparing to visit the White House, but with Trump clinging to Putin, can he persuade the US president to change his tune on Ukraine? I'll be speaking to the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Ed Davey. And later, where is Kemi Badenock? No, seriously, have you seen anything from her?
Have I seen anything from her? I haven't, which I'm kind of fine with. But I'm probably not the right audience because my entire X-Feed is just Rupert Lowe. Oh, no. Rupert Lowe and hardcore porn, I think. Weird combination.
I didn't know you were a Rupert Lowe superfan.
don't try it don't do this fake news to me this is not fair but anyway we'll also be asking why the official opposition is missing in action So Zoe, it's lovely to have you back filling in for Nish this week. He's on tour in the States and you're here with me.
I'm here with you and I'm very happy about it, so thank you.
Well, before we get into the big news of the week, I need to tell you about this Elon Musk story. I hate talking about this man, obviously, but it's just a bit mad. So Musk is leading the US Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and he issued hundreds of thousands of federal employees with an ultimatum. And it basically said to respond to an email with the subject line...
what did you do last week? They had to respond to this or resign. So yeah, the email said, please reply with approximately five bullets of what you accomplished last week and CC your manager. Musk then followed up on X, failure to respond will be taken as a resignation. So I guess Zoe, the question is, What have you been doing?
This is like every worker's worst nightmare, right? This is actually why I went freelance. I used to have recurring nightmares about my manager asking me to provide five examples of what I'd done that week. I've actually been quite productive. I've been writing a piece about how the far right is obsessed with violence against women and girls. I can see you sort of shifting in your seat.
I've done loads of things, I promise. This is a conversation I only ever need to have between myself, now I'm freelance, and my accountant once a year. So I'm not used to it. And apart from that I've just been enjoying lots of great TV. Oh that's good to hear.
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Chapter 2: What is the controversy surrounding UK's defense spending?
Wow. OK. And she's not even mentioned that. What are you doing? You're not online enough. But on a serious note, James Cleverley, he must be rubbing his hand together, right?
James Cleverley is really interesting, right? Because the other sort of successors, I guess, are Priti Patel, who was sat next to Kemi Badenoch in that clip. And then there's Robert Jenrick, who is, you know, we have lots of thoughts on Robert Jenrick. But they are trying to make themselves known and quite vocal. You know, Robert Jenrick is always chiming in about various culture war issues.
James Cleverley is keeping his powder dry. He's not really doing much. I think he's trying to disassociate himself from Kemi because when it all goes pitong, which it probably will, he can jump in as the next Tory leader. And I genuinely think James Cleverley is someone who Labour would be pretty scared of.
Because we've spoken before about how it seems like Badenoch has just sort of seen Nigel Farage and said, I'm going to emulate that. Implicit in that is this idea that Farage is brilliant. But the latest YouGov poll shows that there's a bit of a decline in reforms numbers from 27 to 25 percent. You know, this like Trump-Farage balance.
or what unrequited love thing that's going on, you know, it could be starting to hurt him. I mean, what do you think about Nigel Farage's potency right now?
The vast majority of people in the UK support Ukraine and they don't really like Trump and they definitely don't like Musk. Surprisingly enough, British citizens don't like it when people try and interfere in UK democracy from other countries. Yeah, it is funny, isn't it? So... Farage hitching his wagon to Trump and Musk in the way he did was always foolish because they're erratic.
They're ego driven. They're not going to be your loyal friend. And they were always going to. I mean, Musk did turn on Farage, as we saw. But, you know, Trump... Do you think that's why I'm getting loads of Rupert Lowe content? Oh, I wouldn't be surprised because Musk loves Rupert Lowe. I have heard other people say that as well.
And, you know, Musk is known to try and alter the algorithms to get his content front and centre stage.
We should also mention the election result in Germany as well. So the Conservative CDU, led by Friedrich Metz, won the most seats and is likely to form the government taking 30% of the vote. But... The big winner in terms of voter gains was the far right, the AFD party led by Alice Weidel, which won the support of one in five German voters and nearly doubled its vote share.
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