Is New Labour back?

Am I tough enough? Strong and stable leadership. Hell yes, I'm tough enough. Shut the fridge. Not another one. It's the Molotov Show. F*** cast. Love podcast hate nonsense. It's the politics joke. Podcast ladies and gentlemen. Not that Monday. Yeah. The podcast. Every time you speak, you've got to click. Should we not be doing that for...

Very difficult. No, no, no, it's for anxious people. Oh, really? Yeah. You could definitely find anxious, I suppose. Well, I think if you're deaf, you would know that that was... You can still see that action. Yeah, but the anxious people can see that as well. No, but anxious people can hear it, that's the problem. All right. Yeah. I'm glad we got to the bottom of that. Me too. Nice weekend. Yes, thank you. You?

No, I had your sickness. In many ways, everybody has my sickness. Did you see that someone yesterday tweeted that you should be the host of Have I Got News for you when I think their phrasing was like when his look like cops it? What? So they said, they said Ollie should replace Ian Hislop. Yeah. I think Ollie would expedite Hislop's death in order to achieve that.

Could you? Yeah, I guess there's probably like a few people that hold positions in media that there's a running joke in my WhatsApp groups that like we just have to basically release Compromat about in order to make way for me to take their position. Who's in your way? I'm not going to name names. I'm curious. There's a guy called Ed Campbell. Right. I'm going to take him down. Okay. I think it was the different trajectories.

I think if we were on the same... You're going to the moon, sir. I think if we were on similar trajectories, we would not work at the same company. But you're going for Ben Leo's job. Yeah. She still blocked your job. Yeah, I'm so nice. I'm so desperate to know what he has to do. Why did you get blonde? Because I think I read to be one of his tweets. For the audience, if they don't know who Ben Leo is, which would be astonishing. He's a GB News reporter and he's the guy who went into green fees.

And I was like, where is everybody? And it was sick, and I just really enjoyed his content. And I think I just retweeted him, and then he blocked me. Because he was one of the guys doing live reporting from Sydney when Nigel Farage was in the jungle. Yes. Which is a dream job, if anything. Yeah, OK. Yeah. Pretty good cake.

I embarrassed myself in front of a whole bunch of them. The other guy who went to Australia from GB news went to took over from Ben Lio. I'm more a fan of Ben Lio than I am GB news. Okay. Well, there was a whole like fat like and then at the farmers protests last Tuesday to like get I wanted to go and get something like film something quickly. So I leapt over a wall. Obviously. And in doing so, there was like beer bottles. So like all they saw was like me getting over a wall and then like four beer bottles crashing to the floor.

Yours. No. No, I only have three beers actually when I'm working. But yeah, the Hislop interviews out. Yeah, I really enjoyed that chair. Watch it this weekend. Thank you. I thought it was on good form. I'm a transition this. I'll be watching it on New Year's Eve.

Give it a year in review. What's your, your Newsy programming? Do you, do you Big Fat Quiz of the Year? Just his slop on loop. There's, there's loop. You start by reading the private I manual. Annual. Annual. Annual. A guide to witty repartee. Yeah.

Yeah. That's that then, really, isn't it? It's supposed to be a good segment of the podcast. I'll enjoy that. Yeah. Should we transition to discussion of weighty matters? Or should we carry on here for a moment? Sure. I mean, I could tell you about how I'm inundated at the moment on TikTok with fan cams of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Yeah, I'm getting a little bit of that as well. That's creeping into my feed. Really enjoyable.

I get a little TikTok edits of Tony Blair vs William Hague at PMQs. Yeah. Do you think that the death of John Prescott has kind of reawakened new labour content creation? This was happening before. It was happening before, but it definitely reawakened the lion and me.

You're making edits to casual by Chapel Run. Well, see, bleachers have put out this really melancholy like Christmas song. Merry Christmas, please don't call. Yes, and it's kind of got, it's almost like, it's achieved like a level of melancholy not since her, had since wams last Christmas. You know what I mean? The internet girls have really jumped on it and they've like, they've made it about Brown and Blair and the fallout at the end and how they were best friends and now Brown's like, please don't call me.

It's wonderful. I'm strong. I'd like someone to do one to... That's so true by Gracie Abrams. I think that would... I don't like Gracie Abrams. Really? I've got a real vendetta against her and I cannot stand seeing anything from her. I think it's sort of like unabashed Nepo baby of all of it, just really annoys me. But it'd be worse if she was abashed. You want to hit her? You said unabashed. So I assumed... Abashed must be in the opposite. Okay.

Um, I just, yeah, I, I think the only one I don't mind being an epibaby is like Margaret Qualley and that's because she said that funny thing being like, what are you talking about? My mum fell off in the 80s. I thought that was quite funny. I don't know who you guys are talking about. Do you not? Nope. Gracie Abrams? Nope. JJ Abrams' daughter. Oh, yes. And as a singer. Okay. It has. But JJ Abrams makes films.

Yeah, but I suppose he probably knows some creative people. Right. It's sort of like how your children will probably end up, you know, with a podcast. Would you be, would you be proud if in like four years, give you the, the riches of the, uh, my podcasting empire, my empire of dirt. So in like 30 years, your daughter costs minor neighbor children have a podcast. Would you be proud of that? No, I wouldn't either. I would.

What was that thing that you said the other day about? You don't mind who your children bring home, as long as there's only one of them. Yeah, there was a funny meme that was like hashtag polyphobic. Yeah, should we tell? Yeah, we'll tell the story we just told about about being in Calais. So that story. Yeah, yeah, please. So, so Avra and I were in Calais reporting on

migrants and whether or not they're polyamorous. What's the stay of polyamory in the jungle? That's the most advice thing of polyamorous. Yeah, and turns out the guy who was shooting it with us. Polyamorous? Swinger? I think more swinger than polyam... No, no, no.

Yes, polyamorous because he had a relationship with someone else as well. Yes. They'd swing together and he was kind of detailing his swinging schedule to me in the front of the car. At which point after he'd relayed that he sort of has four other couples that he and his partner would see monthly and they were scheduled in so that they'd see them once a week they would swing. At which point I sort of

but fall only, or just sort of like quite squarely, said to him, oh, just the one for me actually, when he asked me what I was into.

Did you laugh when you were in the back of the car? To be honest, I was laughing through the entire conversation, but it's because I wasn't in it. I think that you both had forgotten I was in the back of the car and you were just... I don't really know how you involved turning round into the back seat being like, do you swing?

My junior colleague, tell me about your sex life, yeah, no. I think that's quite an odd work thing, but if Sean wants to have that conversation with you, then... Yeah, well, look, Sean's a fucking reprobate, isn't he? He's in Dublin, right, isn't he? Swinging, yes. Swinging in Dublin. He's boot-topping. I think he's actually with the calendar. Swinging with the calendar. With the torch to her right now, yeah. Him and me, Hall. Swinging. Yeah. Good Lord. Would you believe it? Yeah. Didn't that would have fit? No, no, they finished already. They've gone for, what's that chicken roll thing they like?

She can feel it roll. Leo Vrakar, of course, likes his spicy. He looks like he's going to his devs. Who else seems to be claire daily whilst he's over there? That's on the polljo YouTube channel. Can you check that out? That's worth your time. Absolutely. There's some good coverage. Very good work.

He's spent less time working and more time swinging whilst he's out there, to be honest. He's looking forward to getting back and dropping the accent. He's been exhausted over there. Ever to cosplay as an Irishman to get the interviews. It was a nervous thing, though. The first time he was on camera he put an Irish accent and went, and he just kept it up. It's impressive for it, isn't it? Yeah, no. Professionally complicated, but he's made his bed.

Which one? All four of them. Should we talk about new labour? Yes. Please, I actually did already tee you up for a segue, but you totally missed it. You were like swinging. Oh, really? Well, I was talking about Tony Blair and Bram, wasn't I? Yeah, thank you. And then you were like, no. I liked our Prescott fan cam.

Which one? On TikTok. TikTok. Oh, that one, yeah. I thought you meant Laura made one, but I don't think it saw the light of day. No, I don't think we published that one. That was just a little... That was just something for me, Laura made. Was that just like an actual fan camp? Yeah. Sick. What's wrong with it? We could put it in here, actually. Here we go. Do you think that there is an appetite for new labour?

I think there's a thirst for change. And things can only get better. Do you ream ask them to stop using that, didn't they? That's quite, that's tough. Well, do you want to know what, uh, kids are most favourite Taylor Swift song is? Well, fucking hell, if he's got one, fair play. It's a change. How does change go?

I don't think that you would know it, but you might also know it from it was Liz Truss's entrance song to one of the leadership debates. That was contention because she used scooter bronze version and not Taylor's own. And so the Swifties wasn't the conservative party. We're not going to vote for Liz Truss then.

It's impressive that he has a favourite Taylor Swift song because obviously today he doesn't have a favourite Christmas film. He's previously said he doesn't dream. He's previously said he doesn't have a favourite poem. He previously wasn't able to tell an interview what colour his tie was. For him to have an opinion about Taylor Swift's music is actually quite out there for him.

That's because he's all politics and no bollocks. He just goes home and lies in the mausoleum, doesn't he? He actually just goes into one of those, like, dry freezers of an evening and then they bring him out in the morning again. All pole, no balls. Just listening to focus groups. Over and over. Yeah. Yeah. He's mine. Four glorious groups. That's good. That, isn't it? So, I suppose they're coming back. Woo! The 2000s are back again, baby.

Tony and Gordon on TikTok. Asbo's on the streets. Who is? Are we going to hug them? I think it was the Asbo news that killed John Prescott. I don't actually know what he died of. Or do I? Alzheimer's. That's a fucking reason. Presumably he'd forgotten all about new mother. It's not even been a week. I love John Prescott. So it's OK.

All right, fine. Are they actually, I suppose? Respect orders, is the name. But in terms of their content, rather than the branding of them, the Vancouver said they're in the spirit of the original legislation. We're picking up the legacy. I think they're more narrow.

set of restrictions. The problem is that they don't have any court time available and so they had to make them more restrictive. And also no prison space. I actually do remember if there's very vivid memory of being in school and like they used to put your own like name on the board if you were... Asgard. Like yeah it was it was called like the Aspo and then she like put your name on there and then she'd be like it's not a badge of honor this.

See, that for me feels more presumably the kids weren't actually getting Aspos, right? She was just saying... You know, we did have a few with Aspos. But the Blackboard one wasn't. The Blackboard was more in the spirit of Aspos. Oh, in the spirit of Aspos, yes, sorry. I thought you just met in general. A couple of them did. But I remember them getting them for like, I think they were doing like balloons in the park or something like that. And I think they got them off of littering rather than like anything violent. Do you know what I mean? I think it was like a littering offence that they'd...

from leaving the canisters around. Yeah. It's basically British heritage now, isn't it, doing balloons in the park?

Do you know, I was on a date once and you know, when you're like, you got on a date and you're like, this is not gonna go anywhere or whatever. And then he's like, I'll walk you home and I was like, oh fucking hell. Like anyway, so then outside man, I'm like, anyone gonna go and then these boys outside who are regularly doing balloons outside my flat and they're like quite big guys. And he's like, oh mate, can I have a balloon? And I just open the door and just shut the door. I was like, that's enough. Enough.

That's what we just said with your first date, is just doing balloons. Yeah. Do we hang here? This is a pretty cool vibe. It's also like he was like the most public school boy, like, and these big guys. He's like, oh mate, can I have a balloon? You know, he says things like Cardi. Yeah. Oh, transatlantic leisure class. Yeah. Yeah. No, I enjoy seeing the huge crackers. You know, you know, the sort of like, they look almost like a two litre bottle of Coke.

and on quite often the way into work or whenever really you'll see like one of them and then like maybe a small bottle of whiskey or like Hennessy or rum or something maybe some rare nephews and you'll just be like this is like a relic of the past activity has taken place in this corner of this car park.

You're like an archaeologist. Yeah, exactly. You know the way they like, people say you can identify the anthropocene by like chicken bones. They think that's how people will be able to identify us. Wrong. It's the laughing gas casters. That's the mark of 21st century Britain. We would be remiss, I suppose, to make light of the scourge of hippie crack. Yes, yes, of course. And all the victims of the hippie crack epidemic. Yeah.

I had one of my friends, girlfriends, works in A&E, and she was like, at the time, she was like, it's so serious, you know, I just saw a girl the other week, who was in from laughing gas, like it's not funny. And it was like, well, how many balloons did you have? And she's like 40 a week. I'm like 40. If you're having 40 of anything. Of anything. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it does, it works by blocking oxygen to your brain, doesn't it?

Probably not the best. Do you know Bishop's Park in Fulham? No. It's like a lovely park on the river. And one summer's day, I was on a day on a Sunday afternoon and there was these two lads sitting with a speaker, blaring drum and bass, just ripping balloons. I was there for like two or three hours and they were just balloon, balloon, balloon for three hours. It was pretty punk. Have I told you, I used to sell balloons? I told you that story before.

Did you? You were a hippie crack dealer. Yeah, I was a hippie crack dealer, yeah. You destroyed families? Yeah, many families. No, it was a good little money-making scheme. If you throw a house party at uni, then you'd sell them all tickets to one of your nights out later that evening. Yeah, yeah, yeah, as a motor. But obviously, you'd only make so much commission on the ticket sales. I think maybe 50p or a quid.

So what you then do is then you'd sell laughing gas to everyone at the party and that way you're then making some pretty serious returns. I think if someone tried to sell me something at a house party, I would not buy it at university.

Yeah, but you wouldn't, would you, to my ass, you know? You'd get somebody else to buy. Oh, I got them against the big crap. When was the last time you got your wallet out, pal? Yeah. Head to bag fiend, getting everyone else to buy the drugs and then railing all of it himself. I'd be tricky in this day and age, wouldn't it? Because, presumably, you took cash. Yeah. Yeah. I had a float. Yeah. You had a float, yeah.

No, a lot of pound coins. With like a little bell. Wow, okay. I had a satchel that had all the canisters, the balloons. And they know George Orwell. Yeah, and of course, yeah, my copy of 9.0. It's my reading time.

I also had a mate, not at Cardiff with me, who, when everyone would go on a night out, just would stay in bed doing balloons. Right. Is he okay? He's fine now. Right. Yeah, he's fine now. I think that's more a symptom of something else. Yeah, in this era of men's mental health, I don't think that that would have just passed by. No, you'd have had to, like, put on a podcast for him at least. He'd been radicalised by...

Gee, I'm free. You're obsessed with high performance, yeah. High performance. That's the only remedy. Come on, let's talk about Aspos. Yeah. Are you excited? For the return, for a crackdown on anti-social behaviour? Starmus is something interesting on this morning, this morning. It's funny, it's clever that they did that, isn't it?

You know, yeah. Anyway, he said that theft under £200 has been essentially decriminalised, so they're bringing him back in measures to shoplifting. They won't take you to court over under £200, and they will now. Presumably this is where the restrictive aspos are going to come in. I don't really know how that's going to happen, though.

But this is the thing over and over again, isn't it? It's like the justice system's fucked. In the same way that you can point to all these problems at the decriminalization of ex crime. But the reason it's effectively been decriminalised is because they can't process them, right? Whether it's the police being under-resourced or whether it's the courts being jammed full or on the other side of it. Although I can't imagine you'd get a jail time off, shoplifting, 100 quid's worth or whatever.

But even if let's say they wanted to there's nowhere to put you in prison like in some ways is actually symbolic of like the broader The ginormous problem for starma in that the British state has been sort of eroded underfunded and has become sclerotic Matat Matasticized even it's sort of frozen Matasticized yeah, yeah, okay Cummings Did you see he did a two-hour long interview with like an Oxford college about AI?

I keep asking him to do things, he doesn't reply to me. Well, because you're not going to do two hours on AI, he replies to everything else. I know, but I say, would you like to come on and talk about WWE with me, which I think is right up his street? It's more of a WWF man. Yeah. Too modern.

Yeah, it would be good if he came on one. What's metastasized? It's like when... No, no, no, no, sorry. What did you think? Oh, sorry. The British state. It's because of the sort of structural problems underfunding. Anything that Starmer wants to do, he essentially has to

Simultaneously radically reform the area that he wants to deal with, whether it's health care, whether it's justice, whether it's house building. Simultaneously has to radically reform the entire process as well as plow tons of money into it. It's like an incredibly difficult thing for him to do.

Well, also, if he wants to do anything with the justice system, he risks being labeled as like an aficionado of like the police state. Because if you want to crack down on shoplifting, well, you're going to have to bring in more police officers, right? You're going to have to have bodies on the beat. But people don't want that. They think they want that. They don't. But they don't want more police on the street. They don't. Because you think about protests or whatever, or the moment that you actually do see a big horde of police officers, everyone goes, whoa, whoa, whoa. Look what Starman's doing.

I think 100 cops in riot gear marching on a Tesco in like a fucking retail park. I'm not sure that's the opinion of the vast majority of the British place. I think I think it's the censorious left, who objected to that, I would say. Do you agree the right object to that as well? I think most people want more police. Yeah. I think if they saw police arresting a short blifter, they would go, ah, great, job well done. Yeah. I think I maybe speaks to

The problem you've got the moment is that a lot of these companies having to outsource to like G4S and Circle and that to have like security guards at the front of shops. And those people don't tend to have, if you think about like the army being like the pinnacle of like upstanding behavior, camaraderie and like working within a team, then the police are sort of like the next stage of that, but broken down a little bit. Okay. And then if you go like all the way through like rats,

in hordes of animals and pigs, then you get to security guards. Like, what? When they have no care for your well-being, no due diligence, I would actually say they don't, they're really not upstanding individuals at all. They're worse than rats and pigs.

Why have I told you about my experience at the slugging letters from? I think if you point about Starmer, Starmer essentially wants the state to function. Yes. And that is his mission statement. And it sounds really, really weak. I did not that energizing because everyone wants the state to function. The state should function.

But it actually is quite radical at the moment because the state does not function in the capacity that anybody would like it to. So Starmer, in his messaging, seems unambitious, seems as if there's no mission of this government. Because getting the state back to kind of just like

zero, where it should be at all possible times. There's actually quite a big mission and just pointing that out probably isn't good enough. I feel like this question about the state is the most interesting place for me because I feel like the easy thing to say is

Starmer's new labor continued, that basically, Corbynism was a blip where the Labour Party, for a very brief period in time, pivoted back to its heritage and tradition of socialism or social democracy. But actually, you're inclination is to go right, Starmer's back. So actually, Corbynism was an outlier, and actually for the last 40 years,

the politics of the Labour Party have been centrist, capitalist, and broadly speaking, I would say, quite authoritarian. But the point about the state is different because the new Labour believes in the power of capital, the power of finance, and the power of deregulation.

And I'm not sure necessarily that Starmer is entirely on the same wavelength. I think he does see a role for the state. You know, for example, if you're looking at like green energy would be a pretty good example of that, as well as the arguments you're making there.

I think it's reductive basically to say he is Blair, and I've said he is Blair before, without the smile, but I do think it's slightly more complex than that, even though he's surrounded by all these new Labour figures. Well, I would say that where Streeting was Blair, he's the closest thing that you've got, because even if you look at the person who wants to bring in

banning smoking, banning vaping, facial recognition cameras, ID cards, all of that is where it's treating, and that is blarism. That's the outer blur, yeah, for sure. But I mean, they're all in there, right? They're all in this tablet.

Whether it was via peerage or recent election, like Douglas Alexander, Jackie Smith, then obviously MPs, Liz Kendall, Pat McFadden, Peter Carr. These are all people. I don't think Peter Carr is that Blair right there, really. He was an adviser. He was an adviser. No, I guess there are shades in this, but he was... Peter Carr wasn't... Shades of Blair. Yeah. Fifty Shades of Blair? Sure. OK. Yeah. Nice.

Peter Carr was an advisor in the new labor years, then gets elected as an MP. I would say his politics are on the right of the Labour Party, but I mean, that's a conversation we can have. Jonathan Powell, right? The only special advisor to Blair that lasted the entirety of his time in government has now become Keir Starmer's National Security Advisor.

And I actually kind of understand the impulse, right? Because I think if you look at Starmer's first 100 days in government, I wouldn't say they were a success. I think they were quite difficult for him, Tricky. I mean, his personal polling has tanked. And so I understand the reflex to go. The way we've been running this is perhaps a little bit amateurish.

We need to bring in more people that have been a part of government in the past and understand how this works. And so I think that's where you end up with like the Powell appointment in particular, which is obviously more recent. Those MPs have been part of the campaign. Pat McFadden, certainly for a long, long time.

Because that's a criticism that's leveled at Starmer often actually about him not understanding the inner workings or inimaginations of the Labour Party. He sort of rose to prominence very quickly and he never actually got to grips with how you elect people and how you appoint people because it doesn't work the same way as the Conservative Party.

Yeah, and I think one of the things that perhaps people on the Labour left, Ru, is not consolidating their power on like the internal mechanisms within the Labour Party. That if they hadn't been so sort of one-dimensional short-sighted and all in on Corbyn and actually thought a little bit about internal reform with the Labour Party and consolidating their power within the Labour Party, that perhaps they might have been able to

exclude someone like Kistama or minimise someone like Kistama who is now doing a very ruthless and efficient job of consolidating the power base of his faction in the Labour Party. But that's been going on for years and is not, I don't think that that's much to do with Stama. I mean, it is, but I would credit that to Morgan McSweeney. Would you? Yeah, absolutely. If you look at what happened in 2017,

When Corbyn became leader, Morgan McSweeney sets up Labour together.

starts raising donations, begins breaking the Labour Party away from outlets like the Canary, another left-wing and similar outlets, joining together, like Labour together in the Guardian, setting up the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, which is main focus was to counter anti-Semitism. All of those moves that he was making early on

He was making before he'd even selected Starmer as the heir to the leadership, right? In 2017, when he sets up labor together, he's not got his eye on Starmer. He's looking for the right candidate. It's not until 2020.

18, maybe late 2018, where he decides that Brexit secretary, Starmer, is the heir. I think the position was created for him rather than the position created around him would be my view. Got you. What do you reckon, Ed? Return of new labour.

No, I think your point about a much more status than New Labour hasn't, they were working. I really doubt that Star Wars goes to induce PPI's in that sort of like playwright. Get a big old black rock thing, didn't they? Oh my God, you forgot about that. PFI, what's a PPI?

Well, that's like the personal protection insurance. Well, actually, I also think Starmer as a litigator would be really reluctant to sign off on a PPI deal. But a PFI deal, I think, would be much less. There was something about them bringing back PFI's. What went wrong? There was something about that when

That Eli Lilly company was donating. What was that? It'd be good if I could remember. Would be good. We don't hear about the PPI anymore.

Do you think that's because they made all the claims? I think they must have run out. There is a ceiling. It's a tough market right now to be on PPI. That black rock. That black rock messaging was insane. The black, like just being like, great news lads. I've had dinner with Black Grog. That's not great. The storm on her. You put that sweet out on Friday, didn't you? To be on Friday saying I've had dinner with Black Grog. Very, like, phenomenal. Just had a very productive dinner with Black Grog.

That's so interesting, isn't it? Because that's what we were talking about with all of the farming stuff, that it was potentially going to be places like Black Rock would buy it all up. Oh, great news. I'm forcing the farmers from their land. So my good friends at Black Rock can make their own. We had a good pod back in the day as well, didn't we, with Matt from Commonwealth talking about Black Rock. Yeah, we all really enjoyed that.

I enjoyed it, but it was probably what we could tell. Me and Ed like, me neither sitting on that slate of detention. We actually were like, you were like, tell me more, tell me no more, enough.

Do you know what irritates me? Oh, here we go. Right, got to the tweet. I'm determined to deliver growth, create wealth and put more money in people's pockets. This can only be achieved by working in partnership with leading businesses like BlackRock to capitalise on the UK's position as a world leading hub for investment. I think pick a different company. I think that's like, we're picking a... I'm here as my good friend, Evil Incorporated to promote British businesses.

Like black girl is just a bi-word for like massive piece of capital. Well, when they want to do like, they want to use the private healthcare to blitz through the waiting list, they should use that company that lost like 200,000 COVID tests.

That would be a good one to use. Because, you know, Covid, fine. But if they lost cancer tests, well, then you could just say 200,000 people don't have cancer. Easy way. Great news, guys. Yeah. All clear. Yeah. We've lost the mammograms. Benefits crackdowns too. Benefits crackdowns floating around, aren't they? Liz Kendall, that's another Blair, right? That's another Blair, right? Liz Kendall.

Yes, if young people are going to have their benefits taken away if they're refused to go to work. Because young people, traditionally you would rather, as a single person claiming universal credit, you get so much money. Yeah, rolling in. You would obviously rather stay at home than go to work and be fulfilled. Do you know there is another group in society who I'm fed up of claiming their benefits and not going to work? Pensioners.

OK, but now it's going to make it look like my point was serious. I was joking. I mean, I kind of was joking, but also not. Yeah, I think it's just unfair, isn't it? Stigmatising. There is something very interesting about the argument of pensioners paid in their whole life to the system. And it's like, well, everyone's paid in their whole life to the system. People think that like their national insurance contribution

is basically like going into a pot that will pay their pension and it's not. It's just a tax and a pension is a benefit. Yeah. Sometimes I'm not even that sure that they're actually keeping track of what money has gone into that pension pot. Is that your private pension or is this? Oh, I've got no idea where my private pension is. I think there's more of a handle than that. I give it to my dad like he knows. And he spends it?

I don't think it would be worth it. He thinks I was just like giving him 20 quid. Great! Yeah, I don't think it'd be worth it. I think that he did make a joke once while I was at House My Pension and he was like, you should marry well. I think the good thing about Universal Credit is how life-affirming it is to be in that system.

What do you mean? You know people get from work and stuff. You get stressed out. Or you get a sense of purpose at least. Yeah, well, your men's mental health suffers. Yeah, absolutely. And got to pay bills. And do you know what I'm performing? Jumping through hoops? Yeah. Yeah, meeting work counsellors. But there's something what I don't quite understand is that the government, the ministerial brief shows that they've

identified that there is a real problem with PIP and how people get taken off of PIP unfairly and then they lose out for a couple of weeks and that could actually mean their entire life falls apart. But at the same time, the brief also seems to instruct them to say on the morning rounds that young people should be taken off of their benefits and pushed into work. Scrounging or living? It doesn't, it's sort of like, but you could, how can both things be true at once?

It's either bad to take someone off on cliff edge, off of the money that they need to live to eat, or it's not. Do you know what I mean? This is the kind of thing for me, and again, with Starmer's Labour party, I actually think there's quite a significant rhetorical gap, quite often with the way that they speak publicly, and the messaging they put in the media, speeches they give, and then the way they actually govern.

The example I've given before was when they gave the big public sector pay rises and then Rachel Reeves is up in the comments, barely mentions it and is talking about how painful the budget is going to be. There are similar examples and it's almost as if... I think it's quite a cynical thing to do because essentially what you're doing is eroding trust in politicians if...

the things that you say publicly and not what you do actually. The other way of looking at it is that it's sort of media management and comm strategy to essentially talk a hard game than you're actually implementing. The comms strategy is bad. Yeah, it's pretty dreadful. I'd say so. They have been announcing policies

realising that they don't sit favourably with the public and then spend the next four days backtracking and making the policy so convoluted and confusing that no one actually really knows what the detail is anymore.

Well, I mean, I was thinking with the farming as well, like Dan Needle, who's that tax expert, he originally said that there was no problem at all with what they were planning to do to farmers. And then a few days later, having looked at actually their policy, presumably because he'd been listening to the words coming out of the labor minister's mouths rather than actually reading the policy. And you would think that those two things would be the same. He would think so. And he was like, oh, actually, just revise everything I've just said. No, this is not great.

Oh, really? Yeah. Because I actually think I referenced him in one of our pods about this last week, perhaps, and him basically saying that you could offset it with certain types of treatments. He's majorly backtracked. Oh, really? Yeah.

Well, that's bad for them. It is bad for them because it's not adding up. It's sort of like the winter fuel policy when they originally announced that they were taking it away. They were quite proud of it. They were like, we're taking it away from all those people who don't need it. And then they backtrack for days and days and days. This pension credit line, it took three days to come out that actually we just want to move people into pension credit. No, you don't. You never did. You never wanted to move them into pension credit. But because your comms have been so abysmal, you're now having to try and wriggle your way out of it.

Bad at Combs Bad at Combs? Bad at Combs, good at war? Very good. That's another new Labour shade. No, because they were good at Combs. They tricked the entire nation into believing that Saddam Hussein could hit us with nuclear weapons in 45 minutes. That's what they're saying now about Putin. Regardless of

You know, the morality of lying about something like that. Everyone believed in. That's Com's master stroke. Why do you think that was? Because I guess it was a generation of voters who were fresh out of the Cold War, who'd been hiding under their desks and doing drills and things like that. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't that long after it was. If it's on the front page of all the papers as well, I mean, you probably believe it. The diagram of things, the bunker as well. That was on all the front pages.

Have you seen that they're gonna hit Liverpool before us? I always banked on, we'd be dead. That's what I want. We will die. No, no, no, but I'm like, don't, I don't wanna feel no acid rain, I don't wanna know that there's been a nuclear attack. We were talking about this in your face. I want to know that I'm just gone. I would be curious as to see what happens after it, brother. I don't think you do well in the apocalypse.

I don't know, I'm not saying, I do well at all. You got burnt one time on like a winter's day shoot when it was like 10 degrees outside. Do you remember that? You came back pink. Yeah. So what do you think you're going to be like? Okay, pink, like a salmon. We have any more details about the shoot you just made up. I can't remember what the shoot was. It was like December. Right. You came back and you looked like someone had embarrassed you in public. Right. Your face was red. Yeah. But actually that was just your, your palette.

You just caught the sun in December. I just don't believe that this is right. So I don't think that you'd be all right in life. I'm not saying I'd be all right, but I think I'd be curious. Do you know who Nikita Khrushchev is? Yes. The living will envy the dead. Yep. Yeah. You want to experience that? I'm saying you're not made really curious about it. Did you read on the road? Absolutely not. Pardon? Did you read on the road? The road or on the road? The road. I read. I actually know that you love carawak.

On the road was actually a dystopian novel. An exploration into men's mental health. I've seen Karthi's been cancelled. He had a 16 year old muse.

They were all acid back then, weren't they? I've not finished one of his books before, so... Did he... Have the same thing? Yeah. Oh... Do you know what? That means there's no good McCarthy's. What? Can you have another one being McCarthyism? Yeah, no, no. Because he was like this. I was thinking of Mora. I got to McCarthyism. Mick McCarthy? He's quite good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is it possible to have a muse and not, not Shagger? Like could she just? It's just like a woman. You have sex with, and you also do art. But basically you can get out of like talking to them afterwards. If you say that you're my muse and you have to run off and go and write immediately after the ads. Have I told you about the art exhibition in Portugal I went to?

This is going to, I don't think so. We're in Lisbon and went to this modern art museum and it was a Portuguese artist who curated his own, an exhibition of his own work, but he died during the process. So it was quite like a weird, that was like the tension at the heart of the exhibition was like, it was like a living memorial.

Lots of it was quite good. Lots of it was quite shit. But the funniest bit was there was a cinema element where in the 70s, so you went into this tiny projector room, in the 70s, this guy just got girls to come to his apartment and kiss and he filmed it. He said it was hard. He probably said they were his muses as well. I'm not sure that is art.

You're just getting women to kiss in front of you. You've just been getting away with it haven't you? You're way with it. Men are quite bad aren't they? Oh yeah babe. Come and kiss and I'll film it. Yeah. What are you talking about? I'll be there. Imagine falling for that as well. And back on his bullshit. But how old were they? I'm assuming adults. I hope adults. It's sort of like...

There is a reading of Lolita that I don't mind other women having made, like an interpretation of it, where they're like, you can see that he was clearly mentally ill and his brain was stuck in that age and that's why he fell in love with her. And I don't mind a woman making that observation, right? But one time I remember a man making it and I remember being like,

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You sick fuck. You read my letter and you felt sorry for the pedophile. What do you mean? That's like, that's like being like, well, it can't have been comfortable for Saddam in that hole.

It can't have been. You can make observations about human comfort. Or like, I don't know, that terrorist must have found flying that plane very confusing. He'd have been very anxious that day. He probably had to have a beta blocker. His men's mental health can't have been great. Yeah. Woody Allen made some good films. I bet one of you have one of those sort of observations. What would be Alan make some good films? What do you think? What do you think's worse? 9-Eleven or Woody Allen?

On New York, it's the main character in both. Exactly, yeah. So, because Manhattan, that was the... Woods. Question for you, okay. Or a statement. Would the island could have done 9-11? Bin Laden couldn't do any haul. It was bush out.

The one who the one who must not be named shouted, could be shouted. That was one of your best. Well... Well? I have no response. I don't know who a good bin lad of the English was, so it could probably be written in the script. Pretty immaculate, wasn't it? Was it? I believe so, yeah. I don't know. What language would you let it to America written in? He was an international scholar.

I'm pretty sure he studied in the West, didn't he? And that's how we'll get. Not being bilingual. I tell you what, actually, the aesthetics and politics of the early norties are actually, they've been back for some time. Why could gay? Letter to America was fucking... That was banging on TikTok for a while, wasn't it? Do you know what? Good for them. I always think of that tweet that's like, is school illegal in America?

because of later from America, to America. It's so good where it was like, they'd have the letter in the background and then they'd be on this green screen on TikTok and it'd be like some, like, well, beat Nick, knock off being like, you know, yeah. He's bang on this guy. Now to Google one thing about him. Gonna find out more about this Osama bin Laden. I think that's why I'm Prescott dying. I was like, I was trying to work out, it was like, why am I,

Sad about this and I was like I think it was because I think was I think was a result of aging because Jen process press got used to be on the news all the time when you're away No, he's dead Yeah, and now I'm 28 and I'm not six Prescott. Yeah Is he your Osama or your Obama? It's certainly more Obama than Osama

That's a good category of people. I do yern for politicians of his ilk though. I think it goes deeper than just a symbol of your childhood passing because I think he's actually emblematic of more that he's not just a part of a trapping of Y2K.

You know, he's like a working-class auto-didact who, like, was in politics for 50 years, wasn't afraid to make... He, like, he hit someone when they egged him, wasn't afraid to take his arguments to people that disagreed with him and was able to make them that clip of him on Top Gear is the one I'm thinking of that went viral where, like, the Top Gear audience basically hates him and he just stands up and starts having an argument with them. There is no way.

that a Reeves or a Starmer makes that does the same thing in that situation. I think the political culture lets them. Imagine a Labour front bench and I would hit somebody. Imagine Darren Jones thumped somebody. But Darren Jones isn't that personality. I actually could imagine him. If he got eggs, I could actually imagine him swinging. I think he's thinking, well, I love my job with the treasury so much that the Starmer machine would force me out because I don't think so.

I think there's no way that the political culture is so, they try to, well, the commons isn't great, but they don't want anything authentic or anything spontaneous. They really don't, I thought the write-ups of Prescott after his death were, a lot of them were appalling. Really? The real like, reliant on him being working class, stood up for working class values.

The tone was off. It was like he was a trade unionist, all right? He wasn't like, you know, he didn't used to stand at the dispatch box and he mild man's a dustman. Like, it's so patronised. I actually don't think he would have a place in Starmer's Labour Party. No, of course he wouldn't. He's red as anything. Yeah. He's okay. Trade unionist, very vocal on Palestinian rights. Yeah.

I wonder how long Bridget Phillipsen is going to last as Education Secretary. Oh, okay. What makes you say that? No, I was just tumbling it earlier. It's such a bizarre appointment. Do you think? Why? Zero personality.

as opposed to the cabinet. She sticks out like a salt bat. She's not even able to deliver a line effectively. You know, on last Monday, I was listening to her on Radio 4. It's the day the morning after the US have announced that they're going to allow US missiles to be used from Ukraine into Russia. The attack comes. And she's on Radio 4 the next morning. And the answers she's giving are

When you're talking about war, right? I don't think that you can fluff an answer. You've got to be really clear on it. Quite high stakes. Yeah. She's just like, well, a decision will be made. Look, you know, we'll have to wait and see what the Prime Minister is going to say. Just like continuously fluffing this answer. And it wasn't just in one interview. It was like over like the five that she did that morning. I listened to that and I thought, how long before they boot you out?

See, I'm quite concerned about the use of the weapons, to be honest with you. Right. Like the attack arms, the use of our storm shadow cruise missiles to attack Russia. Like that, that's escalatory. Do you know what I mean? Well, I would have thought so. And then the Russians fire like a missile that can be set up as an intercontinental ballistic missile and fire it at Ukraine. And you're kind of going,

Maybe we shouldn't have Bridget Phillips and out making the arguments about this. This is what I'm saying. I thought that that whole morning I was thinking why on earth is Bridget Phillips and on this media round they should have pulled the minister. This is what I'm talking about with Labour's comms. They should have pulled the minister altogether and they should have said this is a moment so serious in this war.

that actually we need to just regroup and have a quick ring over to America and go listen, Lance, what have you sent? Because we're not sure what we should send. The Arsenal signed football shirt to Putin for Christmas, shall I? Yeah. This is the logic of the Kremlin, right? And they're trying to impose this on the West and test the resolve of Ukraine's allies.

It's starting to force the issue when the Russians are deploying weaponry that's never been used in the battlefield before and can carry nuclear warheads. And so they had to use the nuclear de-escalatory channels to alert the Americans to the strike before they made it. You're sort of going, are a few eastern provinces of Ukraine worth nuclear Armageddon? And the answer is clearly no.

Um, okay, I didn't think we were going to have this big of a discussion moment. No, either. But as in, the argument is, are you willing to... God, I've been invited to play football against the politicians in December. Should I do it? Would you like to do it? Do you want to do it? Not particularly. Do you? No, then I don't want people thinking that I'm...

interested in all that. Back to the discussion. Back to the discussion. I didn't think we were going to have a conversation as big as this. My... It says war question mark on the run down. Oh, well, I'm sorry. I can't even have a look at my run down. Is there anything against, like, can you send up the Russian aggression? The argument that a good friend of mine makes, Luke McGee, who was... Defense...

at CNN for quite some time is that it is much cheaper to preserve the Crimea and to keep funding Ukraine than it is to annex that part of Crimea. Having said that, there is also an argument that if Trump is to annex it, that might de-escalate. Yeah, I think it's the escalation argument as well of once, right, if you stop,

looking at, stop standing up to Russia on Ukraine, they're looking to other border countries, like Estonia, and it just escalates. Because like cutinism, Eurasianism, part of it is the expansion of Russian ideas about a greater Russia. And so if you let them take this, it keeps expanding westwards. And is that something that we really want to contend with?

I do think we should be hearing a bit more about it. I would quite like to have a bit more information from the defence and foreign sex about it. Sorry. What's going on over there? You know? From the impersonator.

Well, I mean, I would quite like to know, at least under the Conservatives, you knew what was going on because he'd be flying over there all the time. Johnson, wouldn't he? And saying things like, we must fund. And then the Russians have said, we're directly involved. And you see, I'm not saying that the two things are necessarily connected, but there's been all these fucking drone sightings around military bases, bomb hoaxes all around the country.

You're sort of wondering, I don't necessarily think we would ever come into, this is wishful thinking, military conflict with Russia, you'd hope not when you're in two nuclear powers, but that the nature of conflict between our two nations is always going to be sort of cyber security, economic sanction, trade warfare, and obviously in the past the fucking Russians have been happy to assassinate people on British soil, so. Yeah, I'm not sure how much the economic sanctions have really worked on the Russia thing. Yeah.

And I guess that's part of the problem, right? Because the unintended consequence is that you drive Russia closer to China and Iran, because they're the only people who are prepared to sort of do deals on the natural resources with them. And you're creating this new axis of power within global politics. Scary times. It's a real moment for Britain, do you not think, that Biden went ahead and announced that they would be using their weapons,

in an offensive manner. Yeah, striking inside Russia. And quite clearly had not spoken to anyone in the UK government about it before. I think that's really interesting. Yeah, well, where they go, we follow, right? Sure, but I do think, at least with Blair and Bush, there was this sort of like, we're going to have a quick chat about this, you know, because you are the window into Europe.

Yeah. Whereas Biden and the administration clearly doesn't think that we are. I suppose also, but we were one of the few, like with Bush, we were one of the few people to go, great idea, Iraq. I love this. Like they needed us a lot more than they do now. I guess there's a whole argument though, isn't there, would like Gorbachev and Thatcher, that actually he didn't, well, he didn't really care very much about the UK. And Thatcher was just sort of pushing herself in and getting herself involved a bit. It wasn't really anything to do with us, but we were like, hey, new cast two.

You've got to go through words. Yeah. Should we talk about the next general election? Brought about imminently, I think, because of this petition. And that's the way the Constitution works. Is it is a gov.uk petition? Not if they nuke us first. That's true. That's a good point. She preferred nuclear annihilation or another general election this year.

Umm... This year, was that because it was only four weeks till Christmas? Oh, shit. Have you just remembered that? Yeah. Why did you panic then? Oh, so soon. It's got a baby now. It's got to be Santa. Sorry, I have to have to buy a beer that needs to put on weights! Fuck! I suppose you won't remember this. Nah, just the passing of time. She won't really be aware of this Christmas. The passing of time. It's a fucker. Right.

Why did you undermine my John Prescott point then? The petition. It's good. What do you like about it? I just love the breathlessness with which the people who like it's so opportunistic and so cynical to be like an unverified petition on the internet means that we're going to

go against the fix their parliament act. What is signing a petition if not seeking opportunity? Well, I've never considered it in those stars before.

That was amazing. The thing that doesn't make sense to me is that they're not... The person who's written the petition isn't even asking for anything that's like feasibly debatable in Westminster. Because if it was something like a revision of the Fix Time Parliament Act or something like that, then you'd be like, okay, well, there's actually a debate that could be had here. But if the debate is, should we have a general election? No. No. Do you know what I mean? So what do you... His answer was a bit strange.

The Michael guy. No, no, Starman, they asked him about it. I thought he came off all right in that. He said something like... Sorry, Ed, hand me your boot for a minute, if you don't mind. He said something like...

I understand some people want a rerun or something. He said, I didn't watch him say it. I just saw it written down and it didn't make any sense to me. Some people wonder, I suppose he's just like, maybe it's the point not everyone voted for me. So those people would like to go again. I thought that's what he's talking about. He'd been like, you guys are fucking losers. So you know what I loved this weekend? Well, on Laura Kinsberg, there was, they're talking about assisted dying and someone just wrote something. This should be subject to our referendum.

And it talks us to do that to be it. Of just declaring everything. Referenda! Everything should be a referendum. I declare a referendum. I'm so... I'm changing on assisted dying. Are you? Oh, yeah. I'm moving toward no. You were very Catholic. Very good. Catholic's getting me. No, I was thinking about... That's Mr. Pod that you all liked.

Do you know the pod, the death pod? Oh, the death pod, yeah. Not for me. Some people get strangled in that. We don't know, we don't know. Sorry, some people were allegedly strangled in the death pod. They got into the death pod, the death pod. Go, well, that was quick. Smash the glass open.

Nigel's Oxide, my art. It was the invisible hand of the market. Wait, is Nigel's Oxide in the death pod? Yeah. He replaced the Oxide with the gas. It's laughing gas. And you slowly like just drift off. Is it Nigel's Oxide or is it just nitrogen? It might be Nigel's. I don't know. I'm not a chemist. Just an advocate of the death pod. I suppose they do use that. They do use it as an aesthetic, don't they? Yeah, I've moved. Would you like to hear my reasoning? Yeah, go shoot, shoot.

The legislation is six to 12 months diagnosis for end of life, right? That's the only time that you can access it. You have to be dying within six to 12 months.

that I think is punitive and I don't think is because my whole why I think that you should be able to have it is if you are in chronic unlivable pain and life is a misery for you then I think you should be able to access it but it won't help those people no that's assisted that's assisted suicide what you're talking about but this is assisted dying and the other point was I imagine the burden on the person if you were suddenly god forbid you found yourself in

a terminal situation and you needed 24-7 care from your loved ones or expensive nurses or anything like that. I think there would be an onus on you or you would feel like you should go and kill yourself because you felt you were a burden.

And I also think that there's a situation where family members may even, it would turn ugly. And they'd be like, you have access to the death, to death now. Go and do it. What do you want to sell your house? What do you mean you want to sell your house? That's my inheritance. I don't think it's about that. I think it's more like, can you, because I'm thinking about like, my nonna, and I can imagine she would have done that to lift the owner's off of my mum, because my mum was having to look after her all the time. You would do it out of guilt.

that you were a burden on someone. Is it guilt? I've been feeling you were in the way. But not if you're the recipient. So typically the dynamic is parent to child, right? It's someone who's older and someone to be a burden on their children because they have spent their entire lives. The dynamic is reversed. Their job is to care, provide, facilitate for the younger one. And so the idea that they will become a burden

for their own children, like it's a, it's a, it's a, it's an ethme to, to a parent, right? If that is what they want to do, why not let them? Yeah, no, no, look, I get that because I do fundamentally believe that it's your body. So you should be able to choose what you do with it. But there's something about that that doesn't sit right with me that people would do it out of

I think the concern is about people being pressured into doing it, right? And they're obviously has to be safeguarding in place. But pressure, pressure comes about in all sorts of forms, right? Pressure is not necessarily someone saying, I'd like your house. Can you please die? Yeah. And I think that's why they're doing assisted dying rather than assisted suicide, right? Because it's only there if you're terminal. Not harder to exploit then. Yeah.

I'm not confident on it. I'm not confident on the current legislation. Two doctors and a judge would need to sign you off. I just, I wonder if the focus should be on end of life care and funding that rather than funding assisted dying. Enough both. You can have both, but it does sort of feel at the moment when you've got politicians going on and on about how there's no money and that it does feel like it's an either or.

I feel that often at times as well, palliative care does end up being assisted dying, right? Of course it does. They whack you out on morphine to such an extent that there's only one outcome. And you have a do not resuscitate or draw on you, then yeah. You're there, yeah. This is a cheery place to finish. We've ticked off.

A return to authoritarian centreism. We've ticked off nuclear Armageddon and we've ticked off assisted dying. And the filmmaking legacy of Osama bin Laden. Yeah, there was some there was some light in all the shade. Absolutely. That's right. Yeah. Which would the Alan films do you think he could have made?

I think a lot of the examples of the case studies that they're using for assisted dying won't even count under the legislation. This is like the duality of the podcast, isn't it? What? You just whittering on about Woody Allen films whilst Ava poses like quite serious questions about like end of life. I'm sorry. I know you want me to shut up. Sorry. No, it won't be like the beauty of the podcast. I actually kind of wanted him to shut up if I wanted. But also I was speaking for it. That is how it works. Famously, that's the one I know, but you had already made the

The Woody Allen joke. Yeah, and then you wind on about assisted dying for five minutes. We all have our advices. Please. Please. Let's all love each other. What's the youngest muse you've ever had? I didn't usually question, what's the oldest muse I'd ever had? Yeah, what's the oldest muse you've ever had? How old was your daughter? How old was my wife?

It only took doing this for 18 months before we descended to like, your mum jokes. It was actually your honour jokes. Yeah, different. Your mum's mum. Everybody happy? Your mum's mum is so old, she'd be my muse. Cut off with threshold. Your mum's mum is so old, she doesn't even qualify for assisted dying.

I think you made your mum joke to me the other day. It was your wife joke about two months ago. Your wife is two months old. She's my youngest muse, yeah. Right, right. Shall we? I think so. I think so. Yeah. That was abysmal. It was quite bad, wasn't it? I liked it.