Further Reading

Transcript

Ep48

Hello and welcome to Partly Political Broadcast episode 48! I’m Tiernan Douieb and like Donald Trump I too believe that on Friday there was a tack in Sweden that the media didn’t report. But that’s because they are such polite people they say thank you all the time and it’d make the news very boring. Sometimes they even say tack tack or tusen tack but it’s hardly headline news.

This past week in politics there has been more lying than a Mufasa calendar as it seems truth took a week off along with Westminster. UKIP leader and bespectacled toe Paul Nuttall admitted during a radio interview that his website statement about losing a close friend at the Hillsborough tragedy wasn’t true. Hey look, we’ve all tried to curry favour with potential friends by pretending we like the same music as them, or make up that we know the area they’re from or just lie about having a close friend die in a horrific tragedy even though they didn’t and it’s dubious you were even at the event in the first place. Right? Well, no. I’m almost certain Paul Nuttall was the weird kid at school who’d get everyone to crowd round while he showed them how he could blow snot bubbles only to find he now had even fewer friends than before. However candidate for the Stoke by election did the grown up mature thing after admitting he’d so insensitively lied by firing a press officer who took responsibility for Paul lying on his own website. Well some sources say the press officer so appropriately named for being involved in such sketchy untruths Lynda Roughley actually resigned rather than being fired, but who actually knows? Chances are she’s just so traumatised from her whole family being killed in the Haymarket massacre riot of 1886 that she can’t work anymore. Of course Nuttall says it’s a smear campaign that people have bothered to fact check anything he said and pointing out he also lied about being a professional footballer or that he served on a charity board that he was never invited to. Though to be fair, it was probably a far more charitable thing that Nuttall isn’t involved with the North West Training Council, otherwise he’d probably have demanded all the funding go to the school he never went to. UKIP have supported their leader by posting a picture of campaigners in Stoke that was actually taken in Bolton. Two UKIP chairman in Liverpool have resigned over Nuttall’s Hillsborough lying and I’m sure it’s only time before he pens a book called ‘How to lose voters and alienate everyone’. You wonder if Nuttall is actually running in the Stoke by election at all. There’s every chance he made that up. By now I’m not even sure he exists. He might well be an animated potato character rejected by Viz.

Next on the lie list, Tony Blair has returned to rise up against Brexit in the way you might suggest closing the stable door once the horse is on a plane halfway to Acapulco. Now this will hurt to say but….oh god…Blair said…oh I’m so sorry….a number of good things. Oh I feel sick. But he did. He talked about how dangerous Brexit will be and how it’s stopping the government or anyone else for that matter, focusing on other much needed issues in the UK. He also said that that having Britain in Europe is a much stronger standing for the Transatlantic Alliance with the current US maelstrom of horrors. And personally, I don’t think he’s wrong about any of that, but…but couldn’t he have asked someone else to say it? Someone maybe the public like? I don’t know. Ant and Dec? They could have split it with Adele and she could’ve sung the important bits. Because having Blair, the man who is to the notion of metropolitan liberal elite what the Sugarhill Gang is to hip hop, doesn’t persuade anyone except the handful of people who still like him, who were already anti-brexit. Yes Blair did some very good things, but he also lied to help blow a country to smithereens and in the public eye that’s like saying ‘well he always says please and thank you but he did take a shit on your kitchen table and then smash up all your furniture’. However maybe Blair’s return to politics could be a good thing. I mean, Britain’s pretty divided right now yet his speech last week had people on the left and the right wishing he’d fuck off again.

And of course the biggest liar is the man who wears a falsehood like some sort of monk of deceit, it’s President of the USA and batshit fuzz pumpkin Donald Trump. Trump’s national security adviser resigned after it turned out he thought he should save Russian hackers some time and just give intelligence about US Russian sanctions straight to a Russian ambassador over the phone. The transcripts of those phone calls were leaked to the Washington Post which is indicator number 6003 that Flynn was bad at his job. If anything, by resigning, he’s probably made America a lot more secure already. Meanwhile on Thursday Trump gave a 77 minute monologue that some might call a press conference, and others might call hey who let this drunk guy into the wedding, don’t let him have the microphone, oh god why is he saying that? He’s knocked over the cake! Oh god! It was a mish mash of incoherent nonsense including him explaining what he thinks uranium is, saying that he’d inherited a mess, at home and abroad so I guess he means his dad’s business, and he generally attacked the media for spreading lies. Probably because that’s his job and how dare anyone try to take it from him. He tweeted on the Friday that the media are the enemy of the American people, so I guess he’ll be amassing an army of soldiers armed with TV remotes and scissors to cut up newspapers in order to save the US. And at a rally on Saturday Trump backed up his fear stoking about immigration by saying you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. But thing is, nothing had happened in Sweden. Though I’m sad to say Paul Nuttall had many friends that died in the event anyway. More on all that later.

However I did notice that while it was easy to say Trump’s press conference last week was like listening to a the ramblings of a talking computer after someone let their puppy stamp shit into the keyboard, maybe we’ve just been listening to it the wrong way. It was a 77 minute monologue and you know who else was good at monologues and loved big performances? Shakespeare. Exactly. And Trump has much in common with say Mark Anthony in Julias Cesear when he proclaims ‘I am no orator, as Brutus is; But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man’. So this week I’ve rewritten, for your listening please, some of Trump’s speech into iambic pentameter, in case it helps us understand what he’s actually on about and I’ll think you’ll find that underneath that persimmon crust there might lie a poet and maybe these incoherent ramblings might actually be his cry for help, wanting us to know all Trump really wants is to express his creativity. I mean, he definitely doesn’t, but at this point I’m trying to find any upside to this endless car crash where all the cars are made of everything you loved and everyone driving them is a shouting apricot moron so y’know….

We’ve pursued this rebuilding in the hopes
that we will never have to use this
military, and I will tell you that is
my – I would be so happy if we never
had to use it. But our country will
never have had a military like the
military we’re about to
build and rebuild. We have the greatest
people on earth in our military, but
they don’t have the right equipment and their
equipment is old. I used it; I talked about it
at every stop. Depleted, it’s depleted
it won’t be depleted for long. And I think
one of the reason I’m standing here instead
of other people is that frankly,
I talked about we have to have
a strong military.

Right, more of that pointless silliness later. While researching to see if there were any Shakesperian characters Trump matched I found an LA Times article that quoted a Shakespeare scholar called Anne Barton who when someone made a comparison between Margaret Thatcher and Julius Ceaser responded with ‘it is unfair to Ceaser’. Amazing.

Anyway, thank you for listening. You specifically. This is a personal thank you this one. Don’t share it. I wouldn’t want someone who only thought about listening to this podcast but didn’t to hear any sort of thanks from me, or anyone who say, listens to the Polity Partical Broadbean instead. So yes, thank you for listening and thank to Huw, Rob, and James who all donated to the Patreon last week which is very much appreciated and if you too would like to throw cash my way to make this show even better, either aim exceptionally well when you see me next or head to patreon.com/parpolbro. I’ve also set up a Ko-Fi account which isn’t some website where you sponsor your own clone of the seventh secretary general of the UN, but instead a place where you can make one off donations supposedly to buy me a coffee. Thing is, if I have too many coffees I get all floaty and therefore can’t write anything so I’ll probably buy tea instead. But while Patreon does dollars and is a monthly thing, this is pounds and a one-off. So if you’d prefer to contribute to the show that way, head to, and look this is a pointlessly difficult link but there seems to be no option to make it easier so it’s ko-fi.com/A065LHJ. Oh god, reading that out aloud, even I can’t be bothered to type that in. I’ve posted it on my website and the PPB Twitter and FB accounts.
Also if you can’t contribute financially, won’t contribute financially or just don’t understand what money is and can you eat it, then why not give the show a review on iTunes? Hit the ol’ 5 stars and say what you want really. Oh and my last ask, because I’m a needy mo fo, is that I’m planning to enter this weekly waste of your ear life into the British Podcast Awards and need to submit up to 4 15 minute clips to do that. So do you have any fave bits of the last 48 episodes? If so, please drop me a line @parpolbro on Twitter, the parpolbro group on Facebook or partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com and let me know as I just hate my own voice and wonder if I should just send in clips of the Bugle instead.

Non me thing to plug too. My pal and wonderful author man all round hero Nikesh Shukla has a new project. His last one was the brilliant Good Immigrant book that collected essays from 21 asian, black and minority ethnic writers, actors and poets writing about what it means to be an ‘other’ in the coutry you live in. I’ve stolen that straight from the book blurb because it sums it better than I can but I have read it and it’s entertaining, moving, educational and just bloody wonderful. But, Nikesh is crowdfunding a new book called ‘Rife: 20 Stories from Britain’s Youth’ which is, as it says on the tin, a collection of essays and stories by young people about life in Britain. So firstly it needs crowdfunding and if you fancy doing that please head to Unbound and search for Rife. Secondly, if you are under 24, like writing and have an interesting story to tell about growing up in the UK whether its about – and this is the list I’ve got but I’m sure the scope is even wider – money, mental health, sex, gender, equality, education, crime and the future. If you’d like to submit something on those lines, drop an email to editor@rifemagazine.co.uk and Nikesh may well pop your tale in the book.

Right, on with the endlessness bleak spectacle that is global politics and on this week’s show I’m speaking to Josie Naughton at the charity Help Refugees about the Dubs Amendment being shut down early, there’s more Trumpings and I’ll also be taking a look at the French and Dutch elections in a little global PPB update. Oh and this week I’m skipping Brexit Fallout because I’ll deal with the Lords debate next week. YEAH A PROPER BREAK FROM BREXIT STUFF! WOOHOO! And I’ll also look at the Stoke by election results too because lets face it, who the fuck knows what will happen there? There’s every chance everyone in Stoke will realize the futility of voting for any of the shoddy shitshow of candidates, all spoil their ballots with large pictures of nobs and run the area as communal land. But before all that, there is of course, this:

PRISONS

Liz Truss is a justice secretary only in that if justice is blind, she emulates that well by never being around to notice anything. After last week saying there was no quick fix to cut the problem of prison overcrowding, choosing terrible words considering the current drugs issues in the penal system and ignoring that letting them all go or killing everyone would be a quick fix, though neither are advised. I’m just saying it does exist. I mean I’m sure there’s more sensible ones too but don’t just dismiss the idea eh Liz? Anyway after she said that, Liz Truss has announced Frontline prison staff in London and the south east will get up to £5000 more in a pay increase. The Prison Officers Association responded by saying that won’t really help at all and is like putting a plaster over a gaping wound, a statement that really shows the sort of violence they have to put up with. And it probably won’t, as discussed back in Episode 37 with Emma MClure, the prison system is pretty banged up itself with the amount of staff leaving the profession doubling since 2012. It needs a lot more investment, more help rehabilitating prisoners before release, a look into how they are managed, specific help for drug offenders, new prisons to be built and Liz Truss to not be an idiot. Sadly none of those are likely, especially the last as she told the Sun that we should look to the Shawshank Redemption as it shows prisons can be very difficult places, but they can also be places of hope where people decide to do things differently. Sure Liz. And I guess if all prisoners escaped by digging a tunnel behind their fave poster it’ll reduce prison population in no time! See? There was an easy fix all along.

ESPIONAGE ACT

You probably haven’t heard of the new Espionage Act because THAT’S WHAT IT’S MEANT TO DO. I’m only joking, it’s actually because it is currently only something that has been proposed by government advisors so it is future proofed. Now we all know that to really future proof something you should probably pop it in a tin can, but in this case its by putting leaking and whistleblowing in the same category as spying for foreign powers. Leaking and whistleblowing you say? So referees and bad pipes will be arrested? No silly billy. It’s actually hugely worrying as it means journalists, politicians, hackers and NGO’s could all be imprisoned for leaking evidence. For example the Edward Snowden leak which was hugely important in revealing just how much surveillance governments are using without the public being aware, well if this bill had been in place then, the Guardian staff who broke the story would also be arrested. This could be pretty dangerous as it’ll mean any dodgy beeswax the government or government affiliated groups get up to would stay unreported due to fears of repercussions. It’s currently in open consultation until April the 3rd, then will probably go to a first draft so hopefully it’ll be revised to not have such frightening silencing measures. Or, like the Investigatory Powers Bill no one will object to anything and it’ll pass through with flying colours and I’ll get in trouble because I told you about it on this. Still, with any luck prison will be just like the Shawshank redemption any day now and I’ll be in the Caribbean before you can say the NSA know your Snapchat password.

INTERVIEW

Crisises or is it crisees? Or just crisis? Or maybe crisiscles? Anyway, crisis’ range in size from a crisis at work which is usually when someone’s left a yoghurt in the office fridge for 6 years and it’s now eaten Mary, or when you realise you hate your boss but without them you wouldn’t know the joy you feel when you leave for the day. Then there is the mid life crisis which is when you get a motorbike and a leather jacket then realise you don’t have life insurance so sell them again. Then there are the big ones like the banking crisis or as the world is currently seeing, the refugee crisis. There are currently around 60 million displaced people having fled from on-going conflicts in many countries including right now, largely Syria. It is the highest amount of displaced people worldwide since World War 2.

But of course it’s all fine because every other country is taking those people in and being lovely humans about it and helping their fellow man so all is fine yeah? In the words of Donald Trump’s Twitter account, NOT. No sadly there has been mass opposition across Europe to taking people in due to all sorts of un thought through excuses such as increasing possibilities of terrorism or how there isn’t any space left even though I’ve been to many parts of the UK where there is really fuck all happening. And of course last week the UK government decided they didn’t want to take in any more unaccompanied refugee children because Theresa May is really working her way towards being a Disney villain. As someone who mostly likes other people and can’t understand the lack of compassion that’s been shown in the government’s early closure of the Dubs Amendment scheme, I feel pretty angry that as a country we aren’t doing our bit to help out. Luckily there are a number of MPs, Lords, charities and well, good people who are all angry about it too and are seeking to overturn the decision both in parliament and court.

So this week I spoke to Josie Naughton from the excellent charity Help Refugees. Or as Josie calls it, not a charity, but a movement. Set up by Josie and her two friends a couple of years ago they have raised funds to get services directly to refugees. As you’ll be able to hear, Josie spoke to me from Greece where she’s currently working with various organisations to help shelter the many refugees there.

Oh before we start a small:

EXCUSES EXCUSES

Josie is calling me from Greece. Skype is useless when speaking to someone in the same country so it the occasional word is lost. Also the odd clicking noise from episodes long gone is back and I realised it’s because it’s me clicking the sound volume as I or Josie speak to get levels right. I am hugely sad it’s not a phantom digital dolphin. Why is nothing in life the fun possibility anymore? Anyway, all those things aside, this is the closest I’ve ever had to an optimistic interviewee on this podcast, so enjoy.

Here’s Josie:

INTERVIEW PART 1

And I’ll tell you what else I see. I see tone.
You know the word ‘tone’? The tone is such hatred.
I’m really not a bad person, by the way.
No, but the tone is such – I do get good
ratings, you have to admit that – the tone
is such hatred.

GLOBAL PPB

So it turns out that other countries have elections too. Who’d have thunk it? I mean it’s not the sort of thing you’d guess when you pop over for holidays and get drunk all the time but some of those people who put up with your shouting and pointing also have votes in a democratic systems. I mean, there’s one in France in just a few months! I know! Here I was just assuming they had a 6 hour lunch break and whoever didn’t nap could be President. Ha! I thought it was just who shrugged best and smoked most as a child. Ha! I joke! Oh god I’m an awful awful man. Anyway, France has the first round of their presidential elections on the 23rd April but it’s not at all clear who the champignon might be. Yes, I know that means mushroom. In this ever openly global world we live in the outcome of France’s elections could affect the UK quite a bit with our Brexit negotiations, or in the case of one of the candidates the terrifying rise of the far right across the Western world. So it’s not simply se la vie more some seriously merde important. So for this section:

Bienvenue à la diffusion partiellement politique!

There are currently cinq candidates in the running for the top job of top dog, with Benoit Hamon for the Socialist Party, the party the current President that no one likes Hollande is from, then there is Francois Fillon for the Republicans, Jean Luc Melenchon for the Left Party, Marine Le Pen for the big ol’ racist Front National, and Emmanuel Macron with his own invented party En Marche! Now this is an interesting selection and not just because all their surnames rhyme – Hamon, Fillon, Le Pen, Melenchon and Macron. I know! But it’s also because unless Melechon and Hamon don’t look like they are in with much of a chance, especially as they seem to be attacking each other. Typical left eh? Eh? Melenchon is considered hard left and wants to share France’s wealth and raise spending, prioritize environmental stuff and work with the EU to renegotiate treaties to end austerity in France. Hamon has similar values but wants to go with a universal wage, have a 32 hour working week, tax robots and legalise marujana. That last one totally making the previous two about short working weeks and robots make a lot more sense. Hamon and Melechon are set to come in 4th and 5th place respectively and while there was talks of an alliance, it won’t really matter because it looks like they’d probably just lose together if they did.

Then there is Francois Fillon who looks like a football manager that constantly thinks he’s seen a ghost. Fillon was prime minister under Nicolas Sarkozy from 2007-2012 and the French media referred to him as Mister Nobody and Sarkozy apparently privately referred to him as a ‘sad case’ so you’d be forgiven for thinking he wasn’t disappearing into the background of these elections, but actually, he’s a firm fave to win. Maybe in the world of over the top political figures one that is at best, vaguely describable is a relief? Fillon though is pretty right wing, wanting to scrap tons of public sector jobs, scrap the 35 hour working week and raise the pension age. He’s also against gay marriage, wants to be tough on terrorism and is a big old catholic. So more Mister Nobody wants to hang out with you, your chat is awful. Fillon’s ratings looked like they would fall when it turned out he’d hired his wife for an assistant’s job costing the state half a million euros. Now it’s not illegal to hire a family member, unless they aren’t actually doing the work. It also doesn’t look great if you, like Fillon is, are running a campaign on being honest and sleaze free and it’s not particularly enticing for the public if like Trump you’re just going to get the family in on your little coup. I mean also really who can trust someone who’s happy to spend their time at home with family and their time at work too? That’s creepy right? It is currently being investigated and Fillon is still running, oddly with most French conservatives still backing him even if two thirds of French voters aren’t.

Now the other two. I’m sure you’ve heard of Marine Le Pen, leader of the Front National, daughter of a mega racist neo-nazi, friends with Farage, fond of Trump, looks like she’d probably eat a puppy raw and is overtly nationalistic and very anti-Islamic. But since the terrorist attacks in France over the last couple of years and the shots fired at the Louvre last week, her party has gained a lot of ground and she’s currently in the lead in opinion polls. She’s considered to be the best for security because what’s more secure than getting a $30m loan from Putin’s friend’s bank to help your campaign? I mean those Russian connections totally worked for Trump’s National Security Adviser eh? Oh. Le Pen has also softened her stance on the EU, no longer advocating for a Frexit, she’s not opposing gay marriage anymore and she plans to lower the retirement age to 60 and add funds to public services. So basically she’s covering bases with both right and left wing racists. Le Pen’s headquarters were raided by police today after investigations that she used EU funds to pay people to do non-existent jobs. Of course, anti-EU types would say, isn’t that all the EU does as well? But Le Pen paid her bodyguard €45k saying he was an EU parliamentary assistant, which isn’t true as if he really wanted to assist the EU parliament, he’d have stopped protecting Le Pen. Then she paid her assistant nearly €300k despite her also definitely not qualifying for having an EU parliamentary job.

Lastly is the wildcard Macron. An independent candidate who worked for President Hollande in 2014 as his economy minister. But he is a centrist and so is appealing to both the right and left, you know, like politicians in the UK used to. I suppose the Lib Dems still do but when it comes to them, appeal is probably the wrong word. Now Macron at the time of recording this, still hasn’t released a manifesto of policies but we know he wants increased labour market flexibility which I think means more builders doing yoga, economic reform and increased social mobility. He’s pro-EU and was doing pretty well with all sides until a few days ago when he said that France’s colonial past was a crime against humanity when he visited Algeria. This of course has led to Fillon and Le Pen saying he has a hatred of France’s history, which lets be fair once you’ve read up on it, makes sense. I mean, there’s a whole bit where all the people killed their own monarchy. Macron specifically meant the French rule of Algeria that finished their independence in 1962 after a lot of violence. So not wrong unless you’re a right wing French person, sorry just a French person in which case why wouldn’t everywhere want to be ruled by France. Have you ever had petit fours? After upsetting the right, Macron then pissed off the left by appealing to right wing voters who opposed gay marriage by saying they’d been ignored. So from centrist who appeals to everyone, he’s now bang in the middle of a venn diagram where neither side touches as they’re ignoring him.

But this round only narrows it down to two candidates and then the President is chosen in a second round vote in May and right now who knows? A lot of French people are conservative in wanting to keep France as French as possible which in itself is a very French thing to do. So Fillon appeals to them but Penelope Gate, as it’s so called and sounds like a sixties actress, may mean Le Pen is the next best candidate for that. Even though she pays people for jobs they don’t do, wants to be Putin’s buddy, and thinks Trump’s win was a global revolution which is only correct if she meant it was the beginning of the earth spinning backwards. But then witnessing Brexit and Trump, many are lured by a centrist candidate so it could be Macron who comes through if he doesn’t fail because no one told him you can’t please everyone especially if you upset all of them instead. So who will win and be the next President of France?

FRENCH SHRUG

Now back to Josie:

INTERVIEW PART 2

A huge thank you to Josie for speaking with me. I’ll be candid with you, I was hoping to chat to Josie or one of other two at Help Refugees in a few weeks time but the guest I did have dropped out super last minute so Josie helped me out because she’s a champion of humanity in so many ways. Help Refugees website is at helprefugees.org.uk and you can donate to them there or find out how to help with frontline services if you’d like to. I’m hoping to head out to Greece at some point later this year if I can. They are on Twitter @helprefugeesuk and the same on Facebook. I’m a big supporter of the charity and myself and comedian Jen Brister are running a number of comedy gigs to support them called Stand Up For Refugees. Our one at the Lowry in Salford in March has already sold out, but we currently have shows at the Birmingham Rep on May 31st with Joe Lycett, Nish Kumar and others, the Bristol Tobacco Factory on June 12th with Gary Delaney and Josie Long, the Hertford Theatre on June 20th with Andy Zaltzman and the Brighton Dome on June 21st with Shappi Khorsandi, Mark Steel and a mega special guest that I can’t name yet. So if you live in any of those places head along and support. And more importantly if you know anyone who gives crappy reasons as to why we shouldn’t be helping other human beings, hopefully Josie’s quick fire answers will help. And if they don’t help then don’t tip when you leave the cab and they’ll get the message.

As every single god diggety damn time, if there’s someone you’d like me to interview for this show or an issue to interview someone about, drop me a line @parpolbro on Twitter, the parpolbro group on Facebook or partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com.

Well, I guess one of the reasons I’m here today
is to tell you the whole Russian thing,
that’s a ruse. That’s a ruse. And by the way,
it would be great if we could get along with Russia,
just so you understand that. Now tomorrow, you’ll say
“Donald Trump wants to get along with Russia,
this is terrible.” It’s not terrible.
It’s good. We had Hillary Clinton try
and do a reset. We had Hillary
Clinton give Russia 20 percent
of the uranium in our country.
You know what uranium is, right?
This thing called nuclear weapons like lots of things
are done with uranium including some
bad things.

PARTLY BIG QUESTION

This week the Partly Big Question came from @realneilturner on Twitter because I’d got a cinabon from CostCo for £3.50 and my brain wasn’t working. The question was with Blair rising from the political grave to block Brexit, what other uninvited figure would you not want backing your cause and what would the cause be?

Dan Meier @minimeier says I wouldn’t want that meerkat that says “simples” supporting animal welfare, because I want to kill him.

‪@gibbymcdibby ‬‬‬
‪@ParPolBro‬‬‬‪ I was surprised when Paul Nuttall endorsed my Hiroshima survivors support group. Turns out he, and several close pals were there.‬‬‬‬

‪@F00LEDAGAIN ‬‬‬‪‬‬‬
‪More‬‬‬‬
‪@ParPolBro‬‬‬‪ @RealNeilTurner Boris johnson‬‬‬‬

‪@magicdarts ‬‬‬‪Feb 19‬‬‬
‪More‬‬‬‬
‪@ParPolBro‬‬‬‪ I don’t want Magneto suggesting a return to the Iron Age.‬‬‬‬

‪Niki Di Palma /react-text ‬‬‬‪Gove going vegan‬‬‬‬

Matt Kinson: Skeletor, having decided not to endorse my body building system, throwing himself into advertising my facial skincare range
Donald Trump putting his face on my golf club… although come to think of it

‪Matt Hoss /react-text ‬‬‬‪react-text: 55 /react-text Having David Cameron helping out RSPCA?‬‬‬‬

TRUMP SHIZZ

I’m in two minds about President Trump constantly saying most of the media is fake news. Firstly I think it’s a terrifying dictator like stance to ensure the people only believe what he says and wants to be true. But then secondly I think, well if it was all fake, it’s all about him, and that’d mean the absolute torrent of horseshit that’s come in every day since his inauguration was fiction and this was all some War Of The Worlds over elaborate many part drama that we’ll all laugh about when it’s over. Of course that won’t happen because sadly the fake news is real news based on Trump’s fake news and now we’re all in a circle of Hell that Dante tried to report on but everyone said wasn’t true. The past week has once again had so many stupid Trump happenings that I can’t possibly talk about them all or we’ll be here for a week and by then god knows what he’ll have done. There was Flynn’s resignation, staff layoffs in various State departments, cuts to important domestic programs, talks of a new travel ban, a draft memo about the National Guard rounding up and deporting unauthorized immigrants which is apparently fake news because people found out about it and really really hated it, more staff resigning after disagreements with Trump, some staff not passing FBI checks, the Republican health proposal giving more money to the rich and that’s only a few of the things. Oh yeah and he admitted he thought there was an event in Sweden because of something he saw on Fox News which is concerning as it’s only time before he believes weird plunger trashcan robots have invaded the UK if he accidentally flicks over to Doctor Who. So you can see why in a Harris Poll 66% of Americans feel stressed about the future of their country. I feel stressed about the future of their country and I don’t live there. I mean, sod the future, I feel stressed about what he’ll do next week.

But this week I wanted to look at the fact that Trump is currently costing the American taxpayer nearly as much in a month as Obama cost them in a year. So far his trips to his golf club Mar-A-Lago and his son’s business trips that required security staff, come to $11.3m. Obama’s for all each year of his eight year presidency averaged $12.1m and that’s not taking into account how much Barry must’ve saved by not using his phone to tweet every two minutes while watching Fox News. Then there are the currently unconfirmed costs of having to have security detail for Melania and Barron while they live in New York. I mean, part of me feels like that’s a public service allowing the first lady to be as far away from her pig husband as possible. Considering Trump’s destruction of women’s rights, I do feel like he’s unintentionally proving Melania with a shelter from sexist abuse simply because she’s nowhere near his grabby tiny hands. But Trump is expensive to America and I think it’s important to focus on this because it’s becoming more and more clear everyday that he is in it for his own personal business benefit. And yes, I know that’s potentially always been obvious, but look at how his Trump Clothing line couldn’t get a trademark in China, then he said he didn’t back the One China plan, then he said he did and now his clothing chain is trademarked so everyone in China knows exactly which set of clothes are the official ones that make you look like American Pat Butcher. He’s been boosting his Mar-A-Lago golf club with every visit which is currently 25% of his time as president so far, and he’s currently looking at repealing a number of business legislations that were put in place to stop corruption because if you. He’s running the US like it’s his business. Which is concerning considering how many times in the past he’s been bankrupt. But it also means every rally is boosting his brand, every bit of publicity even if it’s about him saying the publicity is fake, is still publicity and every deal with foreign countries is going to be made based on what he can get out of it. So, perhaps the way to defeat him is with rival business plans? Open a Rump Organisation, use all the rules he’s put in place to make cheaper versions of everything he does and build towers and golf courses just opposite his but with everything being 1¢ less than his. Start a TV show called Work Experience which is like the Apprentice only it has 16 year old kids on a week off school having trying to win a week’s shift work for no pay in WallMart. Ok, it’s a terrible idea but if nothing else, it’ll distract him from being president for a bit and then I can finally have a week off having to talk about this sort of shit.

We’ve begun preparing to repeal and
replace Obamacare. Obamacare
is a disaster, folks. It is disaster.
I know you can say, oh, Obamacare. I
mean, they fill up our alleys with people that you
wonder how they get there, but they are not
the Republican people that our
representatives are representing.
So we’ve begun preparing to repeal and
replace Obamacare, and are deep
in the midst of negotiations
on a very historic tax reform to bring
our jobs back, to bring our jobs back to this
country. Big league. It’s already happening.
But big league.

END

That’s all for this week. Thanks so much for listening and again, please do give the show a review on iTunes, drop me a quid or two at the patreon.com/parpolbro site and maybe even tell someone you like to give the show a listen. Or even just a download. I still have no idea if you actually listen to it, so like Trump, I just want the numbers. Fuck it, fake a graph, send it over saying this show has the most listeners, the best listeners, I won’t even look at the axis. I’ll just feel oddly comforted. Oh god, this is how it begins isn’t it?

Do drop me a line @parpolbro on Twitter, the parpolbro group on facebook or partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com and I will be back next week when I’ll be comparing Theresa May sitting in on the Lord’s Brexit debate to a vulture threateningly hovering above a ton of ancient elephants who honestly couldn’t give a shit.

This week’s show was brought to you by the number 0 which if you draw a face in it, looks a lot like Paul Nuttall’s lying face. BYE!

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