Episode 91 – Clarity Carrots

Released on Tuesday, February 20th, 2018.

Episode 91 – Clarity Carrots

Episode 91 – Tiernan (@tiernandouieb) dissects Boris Johnson’s Brexit speech and surprise surprise, inside it’s full of stupid. Also a brilliant chat with Master Youth Coach Bob Singha (@bobsingha) about the current rise of youth crime and cuts to youth services. Oh and a new jingle that no one will like.

Donate to the Patreon at www.patreon.com/parpolbro

Buy me a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/parpolbro

Follow us on Twitter @parpolbro, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/ParPolBro/ and the webpage at http://www.tiernandouieb.co.uk/podcast




THIS EPISODE IS TAGGED WITH: • , , , , , , , , , , , ,



Further Reading

Partly Political Broadcast episode 91, 20th February 2018

Clarity Carrots

http://www.tiernandouieb.co.uk/podcast/

Linear liner notes

Tiernan (@tiernandouieb) dissects Boris Johnson’s Brexit speech and surprise surprise, inside it’s full of stupid. Also a brilliant chat with Master Youth Coach Bob Singha (@bobsingha) about the current rise of youth crime and cuts to youth services. Oh and a new jingle that no one will like.

Links and sources of info from Bob Singha’s interview:

All the usual ParPolBro stuff:


Transcript

Episode 91

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast, a podcast that is the sum of comedy + politics + referring to Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson as Forest Lump and then dividing everything by Brexit. I’m Tiernan Douieb and this week I agree with Education Secretary and gormless hairy potato Damian Hinds when he says more variety is needed in the price of university education which is why I’m pitching that MPs allow students to pay for their studies with juggling and trapeze performances.

This week’s hot topic that’ll cost £9k to study, is university fees, as Prime Minister Theresa ‘perpetually smelling something awful on her own shoe’ May is announcing a review into why UK has one of the most expensive systems of tuition in the world. Student finance isn’t working May announced in one of those statements that makes me wonder if Sam Beckett just quantum leaped into her. I mean we all knew it wasn’t working and unlike her we didn’t vote to raise the tuition fee cap in 2010, and aren’t in charge of the country so if she’s only just finding out about it all, that’s pretty worrying. Are we going to get her making a statement in 2026 that ‘Brexit is pretty ropey tbh’? I mean I hope not, as that means she’ll still be PM by then which would be grim. Not only that but this review was actually announced in October so again if she’s only just heard about it that’s a little bit concerning. Does she constantly get baffled by where food has gone after she’s eaten it? Actually that does explain her cake and eat it Brexit stance. But yes, this tuition fees malarky is yet another review that could be avoided by Theresa May looking in her bathroom mirror to see ‘You Did This’ written in the condensation. Well that’s not entirely true, it was a joint effort by New Labour and then the Coalition government like when you realised that 2Pac and Biggie Smalls did a track together, only rather than a substandard hip hop track, we got a vapid apologist crying in auto tune and a lot of very poor students. Yes poor beyond the stereotype of living off pot noodles, freebies and an old Che Guevara poster. At £9250 a year with a loan you pay back for the rest of your life, this is more bringing up your kids on pot noodles and having to explain to them why you’re all living in a dorm room and that yes him smoking dope is a great reason to like the pope. Still it doesn’t look like there’s any actual plans to lower or scrap fees as yet, just to offer, as Damian Hinds suggested, more variety, say by giving students an option to maybe only do two years of studying so they can get to unemployment even quicker. Instead there is a plan to make some courses cost less than others depending on their supposed importance, which I guess means that to study modern politics it’ll require a cost that you don’t notice but ruins everyone else’s bank accounts. May’s is also railing against out dated attitudes that favour university over technical education, which is apparently not in the same category as all the out dated attitudes she loves such as island mentality or the feudal system. I don’t disagree with her on this though – WHAT? I KNOW! – and I hope she pioneers this by hiring her next bunch of advisors with NVQs in plumbing, then at least they can deal with all her u-bends and constantly draining policies.

Aforementioned animated pork bun Boris Johnson made the first of the road to Brexit speeches proving it’s not so much going to be a highway as a dead end alley that you wouldn’t walk down by yourself even in the daytime. Johnson said he wanted to show Remainers their concerns would be allayed to the best of his abilities which isn’t reassuring at all considering his abilities involve thinking he’s helping a woman wrongly imprisoned in Iran by lying about her job. This is essentially the same as a dog telling you it’ll allay your concerns about your mortgage repayments to the best of it’s ability. BoJo quipped that the right aviation or visa free travel deal could lead to more stag dos going on cheapo flights to ancient cities, something that probably instantly killed off a number of possible trade deals with countries who realised it’ll be more beneficial to deter a bunch of twats drinking their own vomit and trying to shag all their sacred monuments. Boris also mentioned how many sex tourists Britain sends to Thailand, that he can measure the channel with his sausage fingers and then completely forgot to mention Northern Ireland or Ireland whatsoever. Boris said that Brexit is an extension of liberal idealism because as you know, there is nothing more liberal than closing borders, promoting nationalism and then assuming Thailand will still let us pop by for a boning session. Ladies and gentlemen, the British Foreign Secretary, a man who’s ideal promotion seems to be to become Prince Philip, wanting to unite the country by the common denominator that everyone else around the world fucking hates us.

During a press conference with Theresa May, the Chancellor of Germany and the depressed Mushroom Kingdom Angela Merkel said she wanted as close a relationship with the UK as possible because she’s obviously heard that phrase about where to keep your enemies. Merkel said that Germany deplore Brexit, which many Brexit supporters have been angry about but that just goes to show that if they were more open minded and bothered to learn other languages they’d realise she meant ‘Die Plass’ which is German for the badge. They the badge Brexit. Yep. See? No I’m only joking, they think also it’s really shit.

After 13 months Northern Ireland still has no government and again, if Westminster is anything to go by, they’re having a lucky escape. The stalemate, or more, stale acquaintance, was meant to be over last Monday as Theresa May flew over to Belfast only, in a move that pretty much sums up her career as Prime Minister, nothing useful happened. Leader of the DUP and Paul Merton’s evil twin Arlene Foster, said May’s visit was just a distraction. Imagine that, paying someone a ton of money for support then being shooed away as an irritation. I guess that is the closest May will get to having kids.

Depressing news in the US as yet again, the good guy with a gun still nowhere to be found, as 17 people were killed in a Florida high school by a gunman, the eight school shooting in 2018 so far. It is now sadly becoming more shocking news to hear a day has gone by where it didn’t happen. US President and what happens when clown make up won’t wash off Donald Trump has blamed the shooting not on the lack of gun control, but on the FBI being too busy proving Russian collusion to pre-emptively stop it. No Donald, just because you are unable to do, nay even think, more than one thing at a time, doesn’t mean everyone else is the same. Before that he blamed the incident on mental illness, saying that we need to tackle the issue of mental health. Considering he signed an executive order in 2017 to make it easier for people with severe mental health issues to buy guns and is currently slashing funding from mental health programs. If that’s what he considers tackling things then I guess he plays American Football by walking on the pitch and handing the opposition the ball and a ton of Colt AR-15s.
Again pro-gun Americans are insistent that the problem isn’t the ability for anyone to buy assault rifles in a Wall Mart if they like, but are instead wheeling out the old shitty arguments about how guns don’t kill people, people do, which mostly makes me really hope they get done in by a drone strike. The Mueller investigation has unveiled indictments against 13 Russians for interfering in the 2016 US election something that Trump criticised on Twitter by saying ‘they are laughing their asses off in Moscow, get smart America’. Which again is entirely correct as a statement, but not in the way he thinks it is.

In South Africa President Jacob Zuma was forced to resign after clinging onto power despite mass unpopularity for even longer than, well, Theresa May. Zuma openly upgraded his home while parts of the country were starving, he’s a proud polygamist and has constantly had allegations of rape and corruption made against him. The former he defended by saying he’d showered to avoid catching HIV because it seems he was legally advised by a schoolboy from 1988, but he was still somehow acquitted. The corruption charges though caught up with him, with a court reinstating 18 counts in December last year and the ANC giving him his ninth vote of no confidence causing his resignation. Yes. Ninth vote of no confidence. He’s like a giant cat. Feeding well and not giving a shit who feeds him, shagging around and taking nine goes to die. Although based on my past pets, someone should’ve just sped down the road Zuma lived on a few years back and problem solved. Zuma has been replaced by Cyril Ramaphosa who aims to rid the ANC of corruption, something that I hope happens but also based on his name, hope it doesn’t happen as Ramaphosa will sound great when chanted angrily by crowds.

Lastly, UKIP have agreed to sack leader and Andy Serkis creation Henry Bolton after a scandal involving his girlfriend sending racist text messages. This means they are now on interim leader Gerald Batten who just openly puts racist messages on his website, so maybe the party’s problem was that Bolton was a bit indirect for them. I honestly can’t work out if putting ‘fired from UKIP’ on your CV is a help or a hindrance. UKIP are on the verge of bankruptcy too after a judge ruled that they owe £660k of legal bills following a defamation action against one of their MEPs so it does make sense that they scrapped the pound sign from their logo in place of a lion, a species that is hugely declining in numbers. Back in 2014, then party leader and rice pudding skin wrapped around a jizz sock Nigel Farage promised UKIP would bring a political earthquake. Last Saturday Wales felt a minor 4.2 tremor and UKIP sacked another leader and become broke. Based on Farage’s other promises that seems about right.

Oh and The Sun, a paper solely created for people who think Brillo-Pads are a vegetable, reported that a former Czech spy paid Labour Leader and Captain SideEye Jeremy Corbyn for intelligence over 30 years ago. A claim that has already been refuted by Czech officials and it seems more that Corbyn met a spy in the commons who he thought was a diplomat. But I like that Corbyn flits between being called an idiot who can’t win anything to being a radical dangerous spy informant within days. Which is it? Or is it both and maybe having a spy informant who’s an idiot is the best as that actually keeps info safe from foreign governments because all they do is divulge drivel? Oh wait…is that why Boris is foreign secretary?

ADMIN

Yo yo yo yo yo, yeah yeah yeah, how are we doing? That is my Wu-Tang circa 1997 intro. When I bought the partly good Wu-Tang Forever it came with an enhanced CD which when I put it in my computer it took about 4 years to load then was just full of videos of each member of the Wu-Tang leaving a message for you which mainly went ‘yeah yeah yo yo yo yeah it’s the Method Man, yeah yo yo yo yo yo yo’ for about 4 minutes then my computer would crash. Super cool. How are you all? I am T-minus two and a half weeks till the arrival of Baby Douieb, if they have the same date in their diary and fancy being on time. I spent a good portion of my Sunday trying to put the baby car seat we have into my car and it turns out it won’t click in safely until after I’ve sworn so loudly that all my neighbours are upset, which is an interesting design perk. I haven’t yet tried all the swears but ‘fucking chair bastard’ definitely seems to be the magic word so far.

So the big pod news this week is that as promised, I have made a jingle for all the usual shit I say on this show because frankly it’s got boring telling you where to contact me about the podcast or donate or review so let’s see if this musical adventure works instead:

CONTACT, REVIEW, DONATE JINGLE

THANKS VERY MUCH FOR LISTENING TO THE SHOW
HERES SOME THINGS THAT YOU SHOULD KNOW
IF YOU WANT TO DONATE TO PARPOLBRO
THEN DO IT AT THE SITES I’LL NOW BELLOW
PATREON.COM/PARPOLBRO
KO-FI.COM/PARPOLBRO
WHAT IF YOU WANT TO REVIEW THE SHOW?
DO IT ON ITUNES OR OTHER PODCAST PLACES YOU KNOW
WHAT IF I WANT TO JUST SAY HELLO?
GO TO THE TWITTER AT PARPOLBRO
OR THE FACEBOOK GROUP WHO’S TITLE IS LONG
OR EMAIL ME AT PARTLYPOLITICALBROADCAST@GMAIL.COOOOOOOOOOM
LOVE YOUUUUUUUU

Yeah so that happened. If you’d like to never hear that again, I suggest you er donate and review the show accordingly. Yep. I had a twitter @ this week from a listener called Yosuke, I hope I’ve pronounced that ok, who probably didn’t really want or require a response but I thought he hit on a good point. So Yosuke tweeted ‘Listening to both ParPolBro and the Guardian’s Brexit Means weekly is developing an incredibly nihilist feeling inside me. Good practice towards life in the UK I suppose. Now firstly, thanks tons for listening to the podcast and secondly, that is pretty much exactly what you need to live in the UK. That and a basic comprehension of queuing and really waterproof jacket. But seriously though, does this podcast depress many of you? I am regularly fed up with all of it at the moment but if my attempts to joke about it aren’t quite uplifting enough, please do let me know and maybe I should add a section for actually fun or good politics news each week? I mean the Australian government have had to place a ban on ministers having affairs with staff due to the deputy prime minister having an affair with one of his office workers. Now there is a good 5 minutes about how on earth you enforce that ban, and all that but I suppose on the surface that’s not actually good news is it? Just sort of still depressing that adults have to have restrictions on their personal lives because of irresponsibility. I mean when it comes down to it, I think the actual key is just to listen to this show and any bits you feel are really depressing, just pretend that’s all a sketch I wrote based in a dark timeline. Does that work? All other suggestions to cheering Yosuke and other listeners up please to:

JINGLE

Last adminature bit is that occasional pod guest and person in charge of the excellent Simple Politics website Tatton Spiller is doing a talk in London which may cheer you up if this podcast is too much, as it’s on Positive Politics in A Divided World. That’s on the 28th of February at The Lighthouse in Shoreditch at 7pm and you have to book via funzing.com which seems to have a booking process based on how to be as un-user friendly as possible so enjoy cracking that code. Anyway if you do go, I’ll probably be there as well trying not to ask Tatton annoying questions throughout, so do come say hello.

On this week’s show I interview Master Youth Coach Bob Singer and seriously this is one of those interviews I couldn’t wait to release because it’s important. It’s a long chat so I’ve not put too much else on this week’s show but have a listen, enjoy and then tell everyone else to listen to it as well. But incase that inspires you too much there’s also some Brexit where I’ll be looking at Boris Johnson’s speech and dissecting it only to find that inside, it’s full of stupid. But of course, to start things off here’s some things:

HEADLINES

DISABILITY RIGHTS

Do you remember some years back when the Department of Work and Pensions, then headed up by stupid big toe Iain Duncan Smith, do you remember when they said in 2012 that benefit claimants should be banned from irresponsible spending of welfare payments on luxury items such as booze or cigarettes? Well it’s just been revealed that the DWP have, in the last two years alone, spent over £100m on administering reviews and appeals against disability benefits decisions. I mean, that’s a lot of money to be spent on trying their best to not give people any money. That’s like trying to stop people polluting so much with cars by blocking the roads with a coal burning plant. If that isn’t irresponsible spending from the DWP I don’t know what is.

Last week the Commons Work and Pensions Committee presented their report to parliament of their inquiry into Personal Independence Payments and Employment and Support Allowance and seriously the stuff that claimants told them about the way they were treated was full on bonkers. Once claimant was asked when they caught Downs Syndrome as though it’s just something you get when someone else who has it sneezes at you, one claimant had in her report that she was able to walk her dog even though she couldn’t walk and didn’t have a dog and someone who reported having suicidal thoughts regularly was asked why they hadn’t killed themselves yet. Seriously who was hired to do the reports? Ralph Wiggum? The companies in charge of these are Atos and Capita who the DWP spent nearly £255m on last year to do assessments. Capita have a target of only 3% of having only 3% of assessments failing to meet quality standards and in the three months to November last year alone, 8% of reports had that grading and in 2015 56% did. Was the thinking that if the government pay these useless bulks to be fit for work then no matter what disability you might have, if you’re even one iota smarter than a Capita assessor you’ll definitely be fine?

Since October 2015 87500 disability benefit claimants have had their payment decisions changed at mandatory reconsiderations and over 91000 have won appeals at a tribunal. Challenges to Employment and support allowance decisions have equally high results in favour of claimants. So that’s great but so much money has been spent wasting time and stressing people out that you can’t help but feel if the DWP had just spent that money on people’s benefits in the first place everyone would be a lot happier. The Commons Work and Pensions Committee have said that the whole disability benefits process needs urgent change with elements like recording the face to face assessments being necessary to increase transparency and trust though that does require the Capita staff knowing how to record the interview not just trying to eat the camera or filming their shoe the whole time which is likely. The DWP have of course patted their own backs and said that actually the majority of claimants say they are happy with their overall experience, but as we have no filmed proof of that we’ll never know if that’s the truth. They did say in January that they’ll review all 1.6m PIP claims to make sure they aren’t unfair, which all in all will cost another £3.7bn which is good because it should be done thoroughly but WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST NOT MAKE IT SHIT IN THE FIRST PLACE? Perhaps from now on the DWP should have their budget paid onto specific cards they can only use for sensible purchases and correctly made assessments?

INTERVIEW –

I am now in that middle aged bit of my life where I often look at young people and feel a mix of jealously and annoyance. How dare they be able to pick things up from the floor without wheezing, what do they think they’re doing staying out all night having fun and it not ruining an entire week of their lives as they recover? Urgh. Disgusting behaviour. But increasingly there is sadly less and less to be jealous of young people for, with housing, employment, education costs, benefits and living costs all stacked against them like a very well built Lego wall. That is what young people like right? Lego yeah? Between 2010 and 2016 just under £400m was cut from youth services in Britain, and, now look it could be a coincidence, but knife crime was falling until 2011 and has been increasing since. Like I said, possibly just a total and utter coincidence I mean maybe Lego started making more knives in 2011 or something but chances are without youth workers to have interventions with teenagers who might otherwise resort to crime, they will, likely, yep, resort to crime. Knife crime doubled again last year and with no obvious future prospects for many from disadvantaged families and idiot grown ups assuming you kids just like Lego it creates a clear picture of the anger and disillusionment felt amongst today’s teenagers. A £45m fund has been set up in London as a three year initiative for young people at risk of being caught up in crime, as well as a separate £7m fund to tackle knife crime which is good news, but that might not be enough to recover from 8 years of cuts and this is a nationwide problem affecting many cities, so it needs a nationwide solution. Like you know, lots of free Lego or something. I dunno.

This week I spoke to Bob Singa who I met some years ago at a live mayoral election debate where we both bonded over how much we hate Boris Johnson. Bob is a Master Youth Coach which not only sounds like an excellent title but refers to the fact he’s spent over two decades working with young people, their families and training youth workers. He has worked on a number of projects that took young people at risk and supported them with projects that utilised their skills. I remember him telling me ages ago about helping lots of teenagers get hired for a big graffiti art project at an airport. Bob’s also advised a ton of charities, the government department of children, schools and families amongst others. So basically, when it comes to youth support he very much knows what he’s talking about. I was really pleased Bob had time to chat because, as you’ll hear, he’s so very passionate about supporting young people and also a very funny man who is brilliantly blunt about how he feels about current politics.

Here’s Bob:

INTERVIEW PART 1

BREXIT FALLOUT

I don’t know if you get that feeling when you’re abroad somewhere and people you speak to can speak fluent English to you and yet you have no clue where to begin with their language and then you get an overwhelming feeling that maybe they are better at this than we are. I get that a lot. And while Theresa May was in Germany doing a joint press conference with Angela Merkel, I got it again, as Merkel said to the press that she is curious what the UK’s goals are from Brexit. Yes! So am I! The Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadaker also said that his government don’t know what the British government want Brexit to mean. A BMG poll said 74% of British people don’t have a clue what May wants to do with Brexit yet the only politicians asking what the fuck is going on are the German chancellor and Irish Taoiseach. Is it time to treat politics like football where we’ll hire in a better manager from elsewhere for a while and May and her cabinet can go coach an under 18’s club in Abu Dhabi or something?

Last week May said she would be setting out exactly what the UK will be seeking from a Brexit deal in a speech she dubbed the Road To Brexit, alongside six other speeches from cabinet members. Finally everyone thought, some answers. And then the first speech was from Boris Johnson and we all realised, oh, oh well, we’re definitely super fucked then. Why would May let that happen? You’re about to lay down some era changing plans and you decide the best way to kick start it is with the dog from Up without his translator collar or good nature. If Boris’s speech is anything to go by then what we will be wanting from a Brexit deal is for Ireland not to exist, we’ll be able to travel where we like insulting people and we’ll happy spew empty rhetoric with absolutely nothing to back it up. Which to be fair, based on how Boris does politics, that’s pretty much exactly the same as now, so you wonder why he’s not up for staying in. Unsurprisingly most of his speech was about how we just have to deal with whatever they’re going to do, how it won’t be bad if we basically lie to ourselves and then at one point Boris blamed the housing crisis on the EU which was an interesting stance, especially as once freedom of movement stops we’re going to lose even more much needed construction workers. Then when being asked about clarity, BoJo thought the journalist had asked about carrots, then went on about clarity of types of carrot proving that he can even answer the most basic of questions without resorting to crudités.

Now I’m not again saying that politicians elsewhere have things straight up nailed, but EU Commisioner Jean Claude Juncker said Boris’s speech was nonsense, as his ideas that the EU want to build a super state is not true and against European Union code. Something that Boris wouldn’t know because he spent too many years making up his own code about bendy bananas. To be fair to Johnson, which is sentence I hope I never have to say again, Juncker has been openly talking about instilling a directly elected EU president and a larger EU budget, but to be unfair to Boris that’s still not quite the same. Guy Verhofstadt the European Parliament representative in the Brexit negotiations, called out Boris on the idea that Brexit is a liberal event which I mean, yeah. If liberalism is based on the prospects of liberty and equality and you’re making a point of stopping freedom of movement that doesn’t quite feel like you’re embracing the philosophy. It’s like saying you’re part of an anarchist government, or a fascist diversity training day. Minister for Irish party Fianna Fail Stephen Donnelly said Boris completely forgetting to mention Ireland or Nothern Ireland was insulting, reckless behaviour. So you compare those responses with Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell who when asked why Boris’s speech was low on substance and don’t people want facts now, he responded with ‘actually I’m not sure that they do.’ Thanks Andrew. Of course he won’t bother to check if they do because that’d be actual facts. He then went on to say the Northern Irish Border issue would be easily solved after Brexit but didn’t say how. Ok maybe the best theory on the what the Road To Brexit will be is just to tell everyone that if we all just close our eyes and pretend to be dead then maybe it’ll leave us alone? Meanwhile in Germany Theresa May warned the EU not to put ideology in front of the safety of its citizens. Incredible. The other big statement in her speech was that the UK will be puling out of the EU’s joint foreign policy making body next year so we can make a truly independent foreign policy. Because why do we need them EU lot when we’ve got Boris forgetting countries and accusing others of being giant brothels? Ok scrap my earlier theory, I think it has to be that by acting this stupid maybe the EU will just take pity and be nice to us while we quietly fall backwards off a wall?

In other Brexit news, Labour have received 20,000 emails from party members asking them to be clearer on their Brexit policies which shows that still the leaderships views or lack of them, aren’t in line with the party it keeps saying are the ones that decide the policy. It also says, holy shit they have a good amount of storage in their email inbox. Mine collapses if I accidentally cc in myself to a group email. Former Labour leader and constant bridesmaid Neil Kinnock has warned Corbyn that they need to stop Brexit to save the NHS, which is not incorrect when considering both the economic effects on an already faltering system and the amount of NHS staff who are EU migrants. Then there is likely the fact that no one has considered which is that NHS wards will be overfull and stretched to the limit due to vast amounts of people injured from violently kicking themselves when it all goes wrong too. Apparently many in the shadow cabinet are going to confront Corbyn this week demanding Labour’s stance to be to stay in the single market and customs union but until they do, the party just seems to be backing a jobs first Brexit which is a bit vague and considering what the UK will lose first, sounds like it could be the same as the governments.

Lastly a transatlantic group of conservative thinktanks is trying to lobby ministers to avoid converting EU safety standards as part of the EU withdrawal bill, so that a US trade deal can be set up for a ton of meats, drugs and chemicals that are currently banned. Ok Ok new theory, the plan is to make us all so full of weird hormones and opioids that we won’t notice whatever happens. Oh and Japan has said they see Brexit as an act of self harm and that comes from a country who’s ancient history had samurais commit seppuku or harikari, but there’s nothing in their comment to suggest Britain will be doing it to die with any honour at all. Still at least we’ll be full of weird chemicals so won’t feel a thing eh?

And now back to Bob….

INTERVIEW PART 2

Thank you to Bob for that. He is a such a good, clear, down to earth speaker and I hope you found that as useful and galvanising as I did. We actually had about 20 more minutes of chat after I tried to wrap up the interview and I’ll edit that and send it out as an extra in the week too. Bob can be found on Twitter @bobsingha and I do pop those on the podcast blurb with links and everything if anyone’s ever noticed. Bob’s website is bobsingha.com and the people he recommends are Robin Lockhart who is on Twitter @robinlockhart68, David McQueen who is on Twitter @davidmcqueen and Dr Brian Belton who seems to have eschewed an online presence because he probably enjoys life or something weird.

As always if you have someone you’d like me to interview or a subject you’d like me to find someone to interview about, please let me know. And since asking for grassroots organisation contacts last week I’ve had just one person recommend a group, so, er, thanks for that one person and everyone else, pull your finger out. Unless it’s keeping a dam blocked, in which case, leave it there and I totally understand why you haven’t sent me any ideas. Anyway, if you do want to send on any of that stuff, you can do that at, and yes, the jingle is happening again:

JINGLE

END

And that’s all for this week’s Partly Political Broadcast. Thank you for listening and don’t forget to:

JINGLE

Should that still be there next week? No probably not. Still if nothing else, it’s probably made you miss me tediously repeating it. No? Oh. Well if you have a better jingle then please feel free to send it to:

JINGLE

Hee hee hee.

Thanks to Acast for hosting the show and to my brother The Last Skeptik for the beats and plinky plinky sounds.

This will be back next week when no doubt Theresa May will be exclaiming shock and disgust at what she had for breakfast that morning while planning to have exactly the same breakfast the next day but more of it.

GOOD BYENESSS

This week’s show was brought to you by Boris Johnson’s Lonelier Planet travel guides containing maps of your chosen destinations that have no actual bearing on reality, a brief history of the country but only up to 1951 and a selection of phrases you can say to make sure you get hit in the face within minutes of arriving. Boris Johnson’s Lonelier Planet guides, for the travellers who don’t like to see past their own massive ego.

Email Tiernan