Pod Save the UK
How f***ed are we if Trump wins? + Is Jeremy Corbyn MP forming a new party?
Thu, 24 Oct 2024
The Government’s rallying cry to the nation to help fix the NHS via a public consultation has not disappointed. In what is fast becoming the National Health Service’s very own Boaty McBoatface moment, Nish and Coco dissect the wild and weird policy suggestions flooding the website.Then Jeremy Corbyn, former Labour Party leader and Independent MP for Islington North, joins to tell us how the left can make their voices heard in Parliament and whether a new leftwing political party could be on the horizon.Later, with the US elections looming, co-host of our sister show Pod Save the World Tommy Vietor calls in to discuss why the Labour party is under fire for sending hundreds of staffers to canvas for the Democrats and what the result next month might mean for US-UK relations.Finally, Nish and Coco discuss a protest from an Australian Senator who shouted directly into the ears of King Charles, which comes as the Government resists paying reparations - or even apologising for - slavery and the actions of the British Empire. Useful links:https://crooked.com/podcast-series/pod-save-the-world/ Guests: Jeremy Corbyn MPTommy Vietor Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media.Contact us via email: [email protected]: 07494 933 444 (UK) or + 44 7494 933 444 (internationally)Insta: https://instagram.com/podsavetheukTwitter: https://twitter.com/podsavetheukTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@podsavetheukFacebook: https://facebook.com/podsavetheukYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/podsavetheworld
Hi, this is Pod Save the UK. I'm Coco Kahn.
And I'm Nish Kumar. And today we're speaking to the independent MP for Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn, to understand what's next for the left.
And later, with US elections looming, we're joined by co-host of our sister podcast, Pod Save the World's Tommy Vitor, to discuss what it means for US and UK relations.
So the NHS is the government's topic of the week, and it's nice to see us focusing on reform and policy as opposed to just talking about how everything's getting worse. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has declared a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the NHS to be reformed, and that's great. But the way that they've gone about it has struck us as being a little strange.
Yeah, so on Monday, the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, announced an open public consultation on the future of the NHS. And in the grand tradition, it makes you so patriotic, things got very weird.
Yes, I mean, in something that any of us could have seen happening, the proposals that were coming in thick and fast were different flavours of nonsense. One of them included putting beer on tap in hospitals. Free cinema tickets from the NHS. Waffles for every meal. Just some of the highlights from day one of the consultation. Development of an alchemical panacea is an incredible piece of policy.
I'm not sure anybody would get behind the proposal for mandatory euthanasia to fill up hospital beds, but the suggestion to legalise recreational cannabis might make Cocoa happy.
This is ridiculous. You do this every opportunity you can. Just make some little dig about some false accusation about me and potential recreational drug use. It's just utterly absurd. I would never take recreational cannabis, not least because it makes me sick.
obviously there's a that's right in fairness i've never seen you taking cannabis and that's the end of that sentence that's the end of that sentence that's the end of it isn't making stuff up fun so obviously obviously there's plenty of uh you know actual productive suggestions to you know some of the uh the comments that have come in include clean the hospitals now and then uh better health care which is you know certainly one we could agree with as well as maybe actually providing some health care to trans people an actual good suggestion um
This is obviously the NHS's Boaty McBoatface moment. Now, again, I suspect most of you will be familiar with this. If there are any international listeners or viewers that don't remember this, there was a public vote on naming a new boat and the winner was Boaty McBoatface because the British public cannot be trusted to not play the fool. So look, I think there's definitely an argument
to be made that it is a good thing that reforms of the NHS start by a consultation with the public who use it. There will be people listening to this and watching this that will have very specific experiences of the NHS that they think would be useful for the government to hear in terms of improving the situation and outcomes for patients.
The only thing that strikes me as strange about this is I don't really understand why we're not talking about the rollout of the Labour Party's plan for the NHS that it's been building up. in its period in opposition. I'm slightly concerned as to why...
there was no specific plan for day one of a Labour government and what it would do to start to deal with some of the problems in the National Health Service.
Well, exactly. It is important that patients have an opportunity to speak about their experience and more information is good. But I would be surprised if there wasn't already a wealth of patient data out there and there was already stuff that they could be working on to, you know, stop this acute problem that's going to happen in winter because that's what people want.
So the... First solution I would have thought is an immediate cash injection into the National Health Service. And the idea that we're starting from a position of, okay, we need to make a list of everything that's wrong.
Yeah, it's like a fact-finding mission.
It's deeply concerning. Because when does that actually translate to policy? And when does that actually translate to money going into the service? We all know the key problem. I can't imagine how many of those... Public consultations are, we need more money, our hospital doesn't work, we can't get an appointment with our GP. You have to do something in the short term to fix a crisis.
Well, I don't think it's unreasonable for us as citizens, as voters, to expect that there was already a robust plan in place. Which actually leads me very nicely to our next guest, who famously produced two very thorough plans that he put to the public before two general elections.
Now, Labour might have won a landslide victory in the general election, but one of the more surprising outcomes was the unlikely gains made by the Greens and a surge in the number of independent candidates. With greater collaboration, could they become a real power in politics?
To find out, we're joined by former leader of the Labour Party and the independent MP for Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn. Welcome back to Pod Save the UK. Great to have you with us. Nice to be with you. So, Jeremy, what is life like for you outside of the party that you were a member of for over 40 years? Over 50 years. Over 50?
Over 50 years. I joined when I was 16. Wow.
Oh, actually, I remember us talking about this and I thought to myself, you should have had youth, Jeremy Corbyn. You know, 16 years old, could have been rock and roll.
Yeah.
And we also went to the Shepton Mallet Folk Festival in 1970.
I'm not going to press you for further clarification on the phrase high times.
Michael Evis was there as well. And he thought this is a great idea. So he set up Glastonbury.
Listen, if Evis was there, we know what kind of high times those times were. After the last decade and a half, how did it feel to see the party that you have been part of for so much of your life and led come to power in the election?
Well, I had very mixed feelings about it, the whole thing, obviously. One is that I was delighted to see the end of the Tory government. And I was pleased, delighted to be elected as an independent member for Islington North. which was, to me, an enormous honour to be re-elected by the people that have been elected me 10 times before. So that was amazing.
And I was just sadly disappointed at the paucity of promise in the Labour manifesto. No real change in any international strategy and fundamentally accepting very orthodox economic theories for the future.
The government will announce spending plans next week and Rachel Reeves has promised that there will be no return to austerity. But at the same time, there's a string of mixed messages about whether there is going to be spending increases or whether the purse strings are going to be tightened. How are you feeling about the direction of travel in the budget?
And what would you be hoping to see Rachel Reeves announced next week?
I fear it's going to be an attack on benefits. And we've seen a bit of a whiff of this with the promotion of the obesity vaccination to those people who are not in work. because of their levels of health problems or obesity. This is sort of headline grabbing, not very well thought out policies. So I look forward to listening very carefully to the budget next week.
But I hope, and I've signed the letter in support of it, there's going to be a wealth tax included in that. And we've got a surprising number of of people of most parties now supporting the principle of a wealth tax on those with disposable wealth of over £10 million.
So it's not going to affect you or me, or I suspect anybody watching this particular programme, but would bring in quite a lot of money that could be spent on the things that we actually need to spend on health, education, housing and environment.
So you use the phrase, you know, it's not very well thought out. And I'm glad you said that, because I think it's fair to say that's a concern Nish and I have had. You know, we were talking about West Streeting's public consultation for the NHS. Of course, you know, getting the public involved is wonderful. You know, increasing democracy in our political participation is wonderful. But also...
I thought you had a plan, mate. Keir Starmer stood in front of the public, you know, went on television and said, it's much worse than we thought. Now, we can argue about whether that is the case. It certainly seemed like the press knew it was much worse than they were saying.
But I guess one of the things I wanted to ask you is, how reasonable is it to expect the government to have had a plan before they, you know, on the run up to election that they should have already had these things in place? You went to an election twice. How much of a plan did you have for the first 12 months?
Well, I was accused of having an over-detailed plan because we had two very long manifestos. And when we were writing them, I remember saying to my team, I was becoming slightly concerned that they were very long. And I said, look, Let's be careful. If we put out something that's overlong, it'll simply not be understood or would be ignored.
But they said, no, no, we've got to go into the campaign and go into an election saying exactly what we will do. So we did produce these very substantial, very detailed manifestos. And you know what? It's the largest number of accesses online of any manifesto ever was made in the 2017 election.
manifesto and we had to reprint it after the election because there was still demand for it because it set out in quite a lot of detail a vision of how you deal with industrial, social, environmental, international issues that this country And I think the Labour manifesto in the last election was a bit thin on detail.
And so to suddenly announce that there was £22 billion nobody knew about, well, I find that slightly odd. Because, yes, I'm sure that the outgoing Conservative government wanted to hide things. And they did appear to make, in the six months before the election, a number of unfunded spending announcements.
But the idea that it was so large that now affects everything the government does, I think, is an odd way of doing things. It's allowing all your politics to be decided by the outgoing government. Surely we need a bit of vision.
Can I just ask, just before we move on, I'm thinking particularly of the 2017 manifesto. That was a very closely run election. Do you now maybe reflect that there's part of you that thinks maybe my instincts were correct, that an over-detailed document, whilst it appealed to people that are disposed to vote for the Labour Party, might have maybe put off some undecided voters?
Well, I was proud of the work that was put into it and the detail that was put into it and the sense of vision that was there. It did mean that if there were undecided voters, if you had the resources to do it, you could explain to them exactly what you were proposing to do, which is what we attempted to do. But remember, in that campaign,
We started the campaign from a very low point and Theresa May called the election because she thought it would be a walkover for her. We started on 24% and finished on 41%, all built up during the campaign with that manifesto. So I'm proud of what we did.
According to The Guardian last month, you spoke at the launch of a new left-wing political party, reportedly named Collective. It was attended by left-wing grandees such as yourself, former Unite head Len McCluskey, filmmaker Ken Loach. Can you tell us anything about this party? What is it?
I've never been called a left-wing grandee before. I'm not sure about this. I'm not sure about your choice of language.
You don't like grandee.
It does seem to be a contradiction in terms. Being a grandee doesn't seem very left-wing.
Okay, fine, fine, fine, fine.
It doesn't sound terribly democratic. It sounds like a sort of aristocratic entitlement.
Okay, all right, we'll work on it. We'll work on it. Everything's a process, Jeremy. These are just first attempts, okay?
So you'll work on your messaging, okay.
Well, this is linguistic communism.
Yeah.
Let's check the collected works on that and see where it comes out. What it's about is alternative political voices around the country. I stood as an independent and I stood on the issues that we've talked about and put them in both an election address and I produced a manifesto for my own constituency, online version of it. Others stood as independents.
My good friend Andrew Feinstein, for example, stood in a neighboring constituency. And we didn't really liaise very much before the election on what we're going to say, but we ended up saying roughly the same thing about housing. social justice, wages, full employment, and environment and sustainability.
And then in many other parts of the countries, independents were saying roughly that, such as Faisal Shaheen in Chingford, and the campaigns that were run by those that were successful, in Ilford. And so after the election, I thought it was important that we come together. And there was a discussion which was reported in rather exaggerated form in the Guardian after it happened.
But it is about voices coming together. But I don't want to see some sort of top-down political party formed. I think what's more important is grassroots democracy. And grassroots democracy means that you form local forums where people come along and express their views, some of which will agree with each other, some might not. But those forums are going to deal with local issues.
And we've held the first in my constituency last month. Now, that sort of thing is happening all over. I'm very confident that over the next few months, a lot of groups are going to come together from all over the country and an alternative voice will increasingly be heard, I hope, in a very unified kind of way.
So the politics of the future have got to be on demand for social justice, but it's got to be based in communities of the grassroots. I think we've had enough of manipulative politics of centralised parties.
So wait, so what we're talking about at the moment, you've got the new group with four independent MPs known as the Independent Alliance, which is not an insignificant number. You're the fifth largest block in the House of Commons and are tied with Reform UK and the DUP. So you've got that Independent Alliance.
And now you're also making these consultations around the country, which you said you want to be democratic, accountable and be about grassroots action that then translates itself into specific policy ideas on areas like housing and mental health. But then is there then a logical conclusion of this voting bloc with these grassroots groups that are generating ideas?
Does that then translate itself into a new political party under the name collective?
or political force. There's a lot of areas it could go into. That, I would hope, is where we end up with a sort of a voice around the country offering a political alternative. Because if you look at the economics of what's happening now in Britain, in most European countries, and to some extent in the USA, are levels of austerity, though nobody uses the word austerity anymore.
But in reality, it is about cutting public spending. It is about not increasing taxation on the very richest. It's about not tackling the grotesque levels of economic inequality within our society, some of which were products of profiteering during COVID. And I think there needs to be a voice that comes together. So I'm also working with various left groupings across Europe.
I can tell you're not going to give me an answer on whether it's going to be a party or not. But in the spirit of democracy, I'm going to give you my thoughts.
My thoughts are that... Well, I'd like to hear them.
Well, look, I'm a millennial and an ageing, ageing millennial. And, you know, I would say there's a bit of a deficit of democracy for my generation. Like we don't actually have a lot of choices. And part of that is because of the first past the post system. But also it's because no one's having these conversations.
So I'm not going to say whether you should or should not start a political party, but it is... Interesting. So hypothetically speaking, if we did have a new left-wing party, do you think it should be a separate political project or just really to influence the Labour Party, a bit like reform did with the Tories?
The end goal is a society where you don't have homelessness, you don't have impoverished hungry children, you don't have these grotesque levels of inequality, and you don't see the privatization of our National Health Service. The end goal is an international strategy which is designed towards peace and environmental sustainability, rather than more and more money being spent on weapons and war.
And so I think we should look at what the political objectives are that we're trying to achieve. How that comes about, what the structure is, it's got to evolve. I could sit here and say, okay, I'm forming a party now. All join. And I'm not going to do that because that's not the way I believe politics should be. The successful political movements that have had a massive influence on
on changes within their own society, have all been strongly rooted in communities and grown from that. Politics, to me, is about the inclusion of people in a popular way. And so it's not just about you and me having an economic chat with people. It's also about culture. It's also about music. It's about poetry. It's about art.
It's about imagination, people's experiences, and an education system that is, in my view, more inclusive and less competitive. I think we need to rethink our approach in our society in so many ways.
I sniggered a little bit when you said it's not just me and you having a conversation about economics. I was like, oh, no, that's not a conversation I'm having. I can assure you that's not my conversation.
I'm relieved. Thank you.
That is the conversation I'm having and I'm being invited to increasingly few parties as a consequence.
You're the one left in the kitchen with some cold soft drink while the rest of them are having fun. Is that it?
You're in my kitchen. That's where you are now.
Before you go, we've been asking all the MPs that we've been interviewing since the election. You're obviously in an interesting position because you're, you know, you're an experienced MP, but you're also coming into this parliament for the first time as an independent. It's a different experience. So I guess the question that we're going to ask you is the question we ask everyone.
Are you having any fun? Are you enjoying yourself?
I always do enjoy what I do and I enjoy life as well because I do what I want to do, which is to represent my area and work with people and take up and support the causes that I do. But I'm depressed and angry when I turn on the television and I just see thousands of lives being lost in wars in Ukraine, in Gaza, in Lebanon, and so on. Come on, guys, we can do the world better than this.
Jeremy Corbyn, thank you so much for joining us on Pod Save the UK.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Now, after the break, we'll be speaking to Tommy Vito, co-host of our sister podcast, Pod Save the World, about the upcoming US elections, what they mean for the international stage, and frankly asking just how fucked we might be.
In a year of way too many elections around the world, this one's been looming large over the lot. That is the American election. So November's US election will reverberate around the globe, really, for years to come.
So joining us now to discuss just how, I believe the official word is fucked, we are if Donald Trump somehow manages to find his way into the White House for the second time is the co-host of our sister podcast, Pod Save the World's Tommy Vito. Hi, Tommy.
Hi, it's great to see you guys. How are you? You provide me some emotional lift and relief when I listen to you because you're past the terrible big election. And I know it's not great, but it could be a lot worse.
How's your energy levels in regards to that? Because it's a bit of a marathon, the U.S. election.
I feel like I've said literally everything I have to say about this election a hundred times over and there's nothing new. You know, this is the part of the election where like there's no debates left. There's no big kind of, you know, there's no October surprise yet. There's just a relentless series of campaign events and interviews and speeches. And it's like, which ones move the needle?
We'll never know. How are you feeling just in of yourself at the moment? I feel horrible because the fact that it's a tied race is just hard to stomach and understand, given all that we've seen from Donald Trump over the last nine years or whatever it's been. I think with respect to sort of where the campaign is, I mean, look, I talk to smart people on the on the Harris campaign all the time.
They, I think, all sincerely and honestly believe that this thing is tied. There are seven key battleground states and all the public polls and all the private data we're seeing has it within the margin of error. And so what's really scary is sometimes elections in the U.S. kind of break one way or the other in the last two weeks based on something that's in the news.
You know, it could be a letter from Jim Comey scolding Hillary Clinton like 2016. It could be Bibi Netanyahu bombing a new country. Maybe we'll bomb Jordan.
Yeah.
What have they been up to? You know, King Abdullah, you're up. So I don't know. But that's the stuff that makes me worried.
I mean, this is a sort of, this is a sideline issue, but just on the specific issue of Netanyahu, why is the Democratic Party so concerned to offer support to someone who so openly has no respect for it as a political organisation?
Yeah, I mean, it couldn't be any more clear that Bibi Netanyahu wants Donald Trump to win. Most Israeli voters want Donald Trump to win. It's profoundly frustrating, I think, that Joe Biden's Gaza policy has been terrible. Since the very first day when he flew over and hugged Bibi Netanyahu, I thought that was a mistake, just sort of knowing the character of that man.
And if you look at what's played out over the last year, I mean, I don't know about you guys, but I think my Twitter algorithm has decided that I want to constantly be fed the most horrific images from northern Gaza imaginable. And it just like shakes you to your core every single day seeing what's happening and knowing the U.S. complicity in that.
I think the problem for Kamala Harris is that Joe Biden is the president and she just doesn't have a ton of space to break from him, especially on foreign policy. I think having talked to people kind of in her orbit, I think she shares a lot of the frustration that you and I might have about Netanyahu and what he's doing.
I just think it's very hard for her to break from her current boss, for lack of a better word.
Well, I mean, you know, Keir Starmer keeps talking about continuity and I suppose she's seen as the continuity candidate. I do just want to come back to this quite horrifying picture you painted of Donald Trump becoming president and just really pick your brains about what that means for us in the UK. I mean, lots of Starmer's cabinet have criticised him.
David Lammy, who you know well as well, you know, he's described him as a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath. Ed Miliband, current energy secretary, said the idea that we have shared values with a racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper beggars belief. I mean, do you think this stuff is something that Trump will not forgive us for?
You know, that it will prove a problem and out from the fire and brimstone that occurs, Nigel Farage will rise from the ashes.
Boy, that's a good question. I mean, I hadn't heard all those quotes, but I like them. They nailed it. He's going to struggle to refute a lot of these allegations. Yeah, he did say he would like to, you know, grab women by the private parts. I think what I think you're likely to see from Trump is just more kind of overt meddling in British politics.
You know, I mean, elevating people like Farage, inviting him to the White House. Kind of getting reform on the map even more. There's this weird connective tissue in the right wing in America where we're like they have these conferences where they invite Liz Trust to speak. They're the only people inviting Liz Trust anywhere. You know, it's like it's Bolsonaro down in Brazil.
It's Viktor Orban in Hungary. They all come together and kind of. exchange authoritarian best practices. So I imagine, you know, Trump has a long memory. He does not forget slights. I think he wants to be liked by the UK. He views you guys as one of the kind of places that I think he cares about his opinion over there. He wants, you know, the royal family to like him.
But yeah, it would make me a little nervous.
Then despite all of this official neutrality, there were news reports just this week that Labour sent 100 staffers over to the US. to help the Democrats canvas in swing states. Now, these are like political groups affiliated to the Labour Party. The Labour Party itself is not directly, I believe, sent over staffers.
Republicans have expressed their outrage at the plans, and Elon Musk took to his own website, Twitter, to accuse Labour of illegal election interference. If there's one thing Elon Musk does know, it's election interference, really, based on his plan to, I think, bribe individual Republican voters. Correct. So, I mean... Is this election interference?
I don't think so. I saw these reports. I mean, 100 people knocking on doors. It's nice. Thank you. Appreciate it. But it's a drop in the bucket. But you're right. Elon Musk is currently holding a contest where he's giving away a million dollars every day
to voters in certain key swing states who are registered to vote and who signed his dumb little petition, which pretty clearly seems to be in violation of election law, which says you cannot incentivize or pay people to register to vote, which is clearly what his plan is there.
But the, you know, the ties between Labour and the Democrats. It's quite well established. It does go beyond door knocking. I understand that Harris's team have for a long time swapped campaign tips with Labour, which I also find mildly amusing because Labour's whole campaign was just, we're not the Tories. I mean, that was the whole thing. I don't know what tips were exchanged.
But if Harris does win, what could a progressive alliance between the US and the UK look like? Like, what can we expect? Sunny uplands, rainbows, bunnies? What is this future that we might finally get?
Oh, yeah. You think the Labour Party tips were like, here's what you do. You let the other guys be in charge for 14 years. They ruin everything. They put a literal buffoon in charge of the entire party.
Tobi, you're a sports fan. You'll be familiar with rope-a-dope. The Labour Party has just been gone full Muhammad Ali in the Rumble in the Jungle.
OK, you need to explain that for us, for us people, please.
It was a fighting tactic Muhammad Ali employed when he fought George Foreman in the Rubble in the Jungle. He was older than Foreman and so he leant back on the ropes and let Foreman essentially punch himself out. So I'm suggesting the Labour Party essentially let the Conservative Party tire themselves out by being in government for 14 years.
Got you.
It was a brilliant log. It was a brilliant log, God.
They were like cicadas. They just did their time. Real quick sports question that I promise I'll answer. Okay. Do you guys follow American football at all?
No, friend.
We keep having a London game. Yeah, we just keep... Yeah. Are you offended by the fact that, like, this past weekend, my New England Patriots played against the Jacksonville Jaguars? Two of the worst teams in the entire NFL played some of the worst football I've ever seen. It felt worse than when Barack Obama gave the Queen an iPod. It felt insulting.
Hang on, again, again, again. I've missed this completely. So the US as a present sent us two bad teams. Is that what you're saying?
Well, the NFL is trying to expand into the European market. So there keeps being a London game every weekend. Yeah. But it's just been shit.
Oh, that's a bit mean.
The thing that... The Queen got iPod. I thought it was Gordon Brown that got iPod and some old DVDs.
Oh, yeah, I think he might have gotten some old DVDs, too. We suck to giving presents. But what could a Labour and Democratic Party line? I mean, imagine if we really coordinated and tried to make this upcoming COP climate summit. Yeah, something, you know, and actually did something on climate change. That would be amazing.
Imagine if there was some sort of effort to work together, not just the US and UK, but nationally on this sort of global refugee crisis and migration and figuring out ways so we can burden share across every country.
to help people, so you don't have these right-wing neo-Nazi parties demagoguing the issue and popping up in places like Austria, where you really don't want to see a right-wing neo-Nazi party. Germany. There's a couple of things.
Germany, the AfD. Yeah. Is there... Is there also some cooperation on wealth, like international tax stuff?
Because the reality is that with multinational companies existing in the way that they do, and especially with a lot of tech companies existing as the way that they do, essentially sort of registered kind of in countries that are favourable to their tax arrangements, but still doing business in our individual countries and opting out of the tax system. Is that something we could also cooperate on?
Yeah, I mean, it was some sort of, you know, global minimum tax. I know that was an idea that was floated early on in the Biden administration. But you're right. I mean, it's funny when every multinational just sort of pops up and is suddenly headquartered in Ireland. Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't make a lot of sense. Not sure how this works.
They're not there for the weather. Can I ask you just a question about mood? I mean, one of the things that I was really struck by here in the UK was the Tories were out. And I think there was a sense of relief for that. But there wasn't a sense of joy. You know, certainly I didn't detect it amongst my own peer group.
But even when I was out and about, you know, on election night, admittedly, I drank enough for everyone. So that was fine. But nonetheless... You know, it was very subdued. And I think that was a reflection of the, I would say, the Labour Party not giving a robust offering of hope. What do you think the mood is going to be like for you guys that next day?
I love the Coco hangover stories. You have like the occasional good one and they're always funny and they're always, you always paint a picture that just feels very familiar. Thank you. I think, well, sadly, there will be relief, but that relief will only really fully set in after Kamala Harris is sworn into office, given all the shenanigans we saw from Donald Trump the last time.
So I think there will be relief from a lot of quarters about kind of dealing with this unique threat that Trump poses and hopefully just finally being able to move on from this guy because he is starting to look really old. He's kind of losing the thread. I don't know if you guys saw – He did a town hall Q&A the other day where he just ended up doing a DJ set for 38 minutes. Yeah.
Where he's playing like cats and shit. It was crazy.
He just played a version of Hallelujah and I thought, I think this might bring Leonard Cohen back from the dead. Yeah.
Last question before I let you go. So, you know, we've just had our 100 days of Starmer. We don't normally go for the 100 days measure in the UK, but it's really caught on. If we check back with you after 100 days, do you think you'll feel differently? Yeah.
No. Well, here's the challenge. I think that right now Republicans are on track to take the Senate, which will block sort of any legislative efforts Kamala Harris might have. It's not clear to me yet how the House of Representatives voting is going to shake out. But there's a chance that, you know, it could be Kamala Harris versus the fully Republican Congress, which is just going to suck.
Because what Republicans do is they say government is bad. They highlight the ways it has failed or has not helped you vote. And they use that cynicism to drive people away from the Democratic Party, the people who support institutions and believe in government and fair taxation and yada, yada, yada. And so, you know, we're going to be in for a rough road, I think, either way.
I think, though, you know, the American system, like the president, is just so powerful, especially on foreign policy, that'll be an enormous relief to get rid of Trump if we can. But knock on wood.
So do you think we'll see more immediate impact on foreign policy than domestic?
Yes. I mean, she will have far more leeway to do things on foreign policy than in any other place. I hope that means more diplomacy. I hope that means getting back into talks with the Iranians about their nuclear program. I hope we can fix our idiotic Cuba policy in the United States. We've embargoed this island for decades now for no reason.
And now, you know, I think they're in the midst of a multi-day blackout because there's no power there.
for people so there's just a lot of things we could do a prioritization of human rights trying to you know continue to build up alliances whether it's NATO or the EU or other places um and just you know keep our friends our friends yeah tell me um thank you so much for joining us on Podside of the UK we are keeping everything crossed yes we will join you on this very long dreary road ahead I think I think that I think that we can all agree that's that's what it is isn't it for all of us
Thanks for having me. It was very fun.
Now, suitably following our chat with Tommy, we thought it might be time to look at some other international affairs. So the script is telling us to use our posh voices. So here goes. King Charles has spent six days in Australia bringing joy to local tat makers as they manufacture commemorative spoons and tea mugs doomed to live for eternity on the shelves of Aussie charity shops.
Charles's first tour took him to Sydney, where he and his wife Camilla were said to be touched by projections of their images upon Sydney Opera House before heading south to the capital, Canberra, for a state reception at Parliament House. Things were going swimmingly for the Windsors until a surprise interruption, as you can hear in this clip from The Guardian.
So the protester you heard there was actually independent Australian Senator Lydia Thorpe, an indigenous Australian woman and former member of the Australian Greens. She's long been an advocate of Australia becoming a republic and has drawn controversy over her years of service to Parliament.
Her time in the Greens was mired by a scandal that alleged that she was in a relationship with a member of a biker gang. And she controversially campaigned against Australia's failed Indigenous voice referendum, which would have established a presence for Indigenous Australians within the Australian parliamentary system.
Please go back and check out our Edinburgh Fringe episode with Tom Ballard to hear more on that if you haven't heard it already.
Thorpe's objection to the voice stated that if Indigenous Australians were to accept the terms, it would have amounted to a treaty, something that none of the many groups of Indigenous Australians have ever consented to, and arguing that it would be, and I quote, "...an easy way to fake progress."
She has instead supported the Pay the Rent campaign, named after a lyric in an iconic Indigenous rights song that encourages Australians to voluntarily pay reparations. So look, her protest directly to King Charles, you heard her there saying, you know, give us our land back, you stole our land.
She keeps saying you're not our king as well.
Right.
And it's, you know, listen, as a British person, Do I find it strange that our king is a king of Australia? Yes. Incredibly strange. I find the idea of the Commonwealth genuinely strange. You know, as both a child of Britain and also, I guess, a child of one of the countries in said Commonwealth, I do find the whole enterprise quite strange.
Lydia Thorpe's protest doesn't come as a great time for Keir Starmer and Ted Downing Street because they are actively trying to avoid discussion of reparations for slavery and the actions of the British Empire at the upcoming meeting of the leaders of the Commonwealth in Samoa that King Charles is also due to attend.
The UK has stated that there'll be no apology over the UK's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade.
Caricom, a group of 15 Caribbean governments, are likely to call for reparations that could exceed £200 billion. But Starmer has said reparations were not on his agenda, which is in line with the former Tory government who repeatedly resisted calls for a payout.
We should say this is in spite of some pressure from backbench Labour MPs. Labour MP Bill Ribeiro-Addy has said that the UK has a moral and legal duty to address historic injustices. And one of the former guests on the show, Clive Lewis, the MP, pointed out that David Lammy is a son of the Caribbean from Guyana.
And Clive said there are high expectations that he will move the dial in their direction.
Now, while Labour are resistant to pay slavery reparations, the British government did agree to pay a generous compensation package of £20 million to the slave owners for the loss of their, and I'm very heavily inverting the commas around this word, property, which amounts to about £300 million in today's money. This amounted to some 40% of the Treasury's annual income.
one of the largest loans in history, and the British taxpayer only finished paying this off in 2015. That is the largest single governmental bailout until the bailout of the banking sector after the 2008 financial crisis. That fact alone should be enough to boil the blood of any right-thinking person.
I mean, look... Most British people are not aware of the UK's role in colonising Australia. Well, I mean, certainly not aware of the role in, I mean, let's be frank, mass killing. Indigenous Australians killed. I think it's a genocide. It's an absolute genocide, yeah. And we have a collective amnesia about this. You know, so Thorpe mentions in the clip, you know, our children, our babies.
So that's a reference to the Stolen Generation where children of indigenous mothers were taken from their families to live with white Australians. I mean, how grotesque is that? You know, and it's really hard to deny that her protest, you know, it was just incredibly successful. I mean, it put it on the world stage. We're sitting here having a conversation about it now.
So, you know, I'd have to say if we were doing Hero of the Week, I might put her in for it.
You know, again, I think that... A lot of our country's historic crimes were not committed on our own soil. And as a consequence, I think we have escaped the kind of accountability that the individual countries of America and Australia maybe haven't in quite the same way. But, you know, these are all British people that are doing this. We have a
We had a tendency to say, well, the Australians did X, Y and Z. I mean, I'm sorry, who were the Australians? You know, you're talking about a lot of British people that are involved in that. The Stolen Generation is one of the most brutal and evil policies it's possible to conceive of. It's astonishing.
Yeah. And it was also not that long ago, which also gives me lots of chills.
Yeah. The film Rabbit Proof Fence is one that's worth watching. It's specifically about the Stolen Generation. You know, I'm almost loathe to bring this up, but I do think it's worth discussing just because of the lack of historical education in this country around Britain's role in the slave trade. But the former Conservative MP, Jacob Rees-Mogg, it's very sweet to say former Conservative MP.
It's very sweet to say that. The former Conservative MP, Jacob Rees-Mogg, was tweeting last week about the slave trade. And he said this, they ought to pay us for ending slavery. It is not something any other country had done and we were motivated by Christian charity. Now, the only reason I'm highlighting that... I really don't want to bring any more attention to this man.
The reason I'm highlighting it is actually because... it shows the lack of historical education around the slave trade. There is a total gap in our knowledge. The British complicity in the slave trade and Britain's participation in it is not something we talk about enough.
And just the very fact that he said they should pay us suggests that he has absolutely no working... I mean, this is a generous interpretation. He has no working knowledge that the British government did bail out slave owners in this country. It really is something that is massively under-discussed and...
To be charitable in interpreting Rhys Mogg's comments, I'm going to say that that's evidence of a profound lack of historical education in this country around the slave trade. I should also say that somebody, there is a television company and a television streaming platform that is making a documentary about the Rees-Mogg's.
Oh, really?
Like a Kardashian star. And the reason I know about that is they requested to come and see my show at the Edinburgh Fringe. They wanted Rees-Mogg. This is absolutely true. They wanted Rees-Mogg to sit in my show. Why? And they wanted to interview me about how I felt about him. in that moment. I mean, I would love to tell you the content of the email I sent my agent when she asked me.
I mean, she sent me that not in the spirit of a genuine professional request. She sent me that in the spirit of can you believe this shit? And the... A volley of expletives I unleashed at that point. Wow. Yeah, they wanted to film him watching my show and then they wanted to film like an interview with me afterwards with him.
Some weird form of couple therapy. I've no idea.
I've genuinely no idea. A friend of mine said you should have, you know, had him in there and given him what for, but he is congenitally shameless.
Well, I mean, that quote tells you that.
You can't embarrass someone that has no sense of shame. And I just think the immediate project from, you know, parts of the media in this country to rehabilitate him. And the consistent pattern of taking figures like Rhys Mogg, who, you know... did say that people in the Grenfell Tower would have survived if they'd been smart enough to exit their buildings early.
That is something he said in the lead up to the 2019 general election. He did attend a dinner at a society that is trying to encourage voluntary repatriation of black British people. These are not people that we should be indulging in the kind of entertainment sector. That's just, that's not really related to anything other than I've just been incredibly annoyed about it.
That is, Ugh, all of that, that whole, that all gives me the ick, all of that. It's really horrific.
But also you can't shame a shameless person. It's the old Lyndon Johnson quote of, there's no point in wrestling with a pig because you get dirty and the pig likes it. And Rhys Mogg is the piggest pig that's ever pigged. So, I mean, I just think that the sort of rehabilitation of this man is absolutely unbelievable. And also, buy a ticket! Yeah. If that's your problem, buy a ticket.
If you're that interested.
You don't offer like a sort of, you know, for a higher price, you get a VIP service where it's just you and them, is it? That's not like, you know, like Taylor had some of those experiences.
No, I mean, this would be a reverse VIP service.
The Nishkumar Findom experience. Buy a ticket, spend your money and then just get really abused.
Yeah, really abused. Abused to all of the confines of the law.
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