Further Reading

Linear liner notes 

Brexit talks are still happening. Still. It doesn’t matter when you listen to this show, they’ll still be going on forever. Much like the coronavirus. Much like 2020 which now must be the longest year in history. And there are gunboats to save fish. Luckily the brilliant Moya Lothian-McLean (@mlothianmclean), Politics Editor at gal-dem (@galdemzine) chats to Tiernan about where we go next on this last ParPolBro for the year. Plus Brexit Fallout because it wouldn’t be Christmas without it.

Key links and sources of info from Moya’s interview:

• • Moya Lothian-McLean on Twitter – https://twitter.com/mlothianmclean 
• • Moya Lothian-McLean’s website – https://moyalothianmclean.co.uk/ 
• • gal-dem zine on Twitter – https://twitter.com/galdemzine 
• • gal-dem website – https://gal-dem.com/ 
• • Northern Police Monitoring Project on Twitter – https://twitter.com/npolicemonitor 
• • New Economy Organisers Network (Neon) on Twitter – https://twitter.com/NEON_UK 
• • Neon website – https://neweconomyorganisers.org/ 
• • Carlos Manwelly on Twitter – https://twitter.com/carlosmanwelly 
• • Excluded UK on Twitter – https://twitter.com/excludeduk 
• • Black Lives Matter Wales – https://twitter.com/BLMCymru 
• • Kids of Colour on Twitter – https://twitter.com/kidsofcolourhq

All the usual ParPolBro stuff:

• • Twitter – twitter.com/ParPolBro and twitter.com/TiernanDouieb   
• • Facebook – www.facebook.com/groups/ParPolBro  
• • Website – www.tiernandouieb.co.uk/podcast 
• • Donate to the Patreon – www.patreon.com/parpolbro 
• • Buy me a coffee – ko-fi.com/parpolbro 
• • Review the show on iTunes – itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/partly-political-broadcast/id1075342863?mt=2  
• • Review the show on Stitcher – www.stitcher.com/podcast/partly-political-broadcast 
• • The Last Skeptik – www.thelastskeptik.com 
• • Kat on Twitter – https://twitter.com/chronicleflask 
• • Buy Kat a coffee (go on, spread the love) – https://ko-fi.com/katday 

Transcript

Ep215

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast, the comedy politics podcast that has agreed for talking to continue because otherwise this would be a really boring podcast to listen to. I’m Tiernan Douieb and this week as the Royal Navy puts four gunboats on standby in-case a No Deal Brexit means they need to protect British fishing waters, I ask, wouldn’t fish be much safer in tanks?

The Brexit process still has legs according to a UK government source, though there is no clarifying if they have a head or are just running around aimlessly, bleeding out till a pitiful death. That’s just one of the many metaphors that has been hashed out this past week another being that the trade talks will go the ‘extra mile’ which isn’t helpful when they’ve already been driven into the ground. But really, in the words of old Bill Shakespeare ‘I’ve had the vaccine.’ No, sorry I mean the other one from them past days, it is all much ado about nothing, and such is the Christmas tradition that really the past few weeks have just been showing repeats because there’s a lack of new content or imagination. The Prime Minister and giant fart putty pot Boris Johnson has started the week insisting that ‘sweet reason’ would get the UK a good deal, making it sound like that was his character name and he might don a wig and some eyelashes and try his best to charm the EU. But after a meal with President of the EU commission and amalgamation of Narnia characters Ursula Von Der Leyen, the reports were that the two sides were still far apart with large gaps, something that was meant to sound negative but in 2020 it just sounded like the only way to meet people now and maybe for safety they should also have been in the park. It is hard to believe that having dinner with Boris Johnson would charm anyone to give him what he wants, as spending an hour while he shows he can do gargling noises with his drink, make a napkin into a penis shape and tell that same one anecdote about Jaws, would make even the most stoic of us do whatever you could to make sure you’d never have to see him again. Instead, though it was just agreed that talks would, like this year, go on much longer than anyone is happy with. They will probably continue right up to the 31^st of December, with a decision made as people ironically belt out about auld acquaintances they shouldn’t forget as businesses scrabble to work out how to begin the new year when suffering from a four-year hangover that’s left them with no clue where they’ve woken up.

An Australian style deal would be wonderful for the UK, said Johnson, no doubt thinking flip flopping is appropriate when promoting a trade deal from a country with a hotter climate. Of course, they call them thongs in Australia, which also works as never before has a country bared its arse in such an obvious way. The Australia style deal, so good that even former Australian Prime Minister and how you’d cast the part in a low budget daytime TV show Malcolm Turnbull said we shouldn’t want it. What’s the opposite of a seal of approval? A walrus of rejection? A sea cow of despair? Why would it be wonderful for us then? Well according to the Prime Minister it means we’ll be able to do what we want from January the 1^st; you know like become a tax haven and watch as people fight each other for food. Yeah freedom! Actually, according to the business secretary and AWOL easter island head Alok Sharma you will still be able to buy food if there is a no deal, though he didn’t specify how many wheelbarrows of cash you’ll need or if anything will be available other than potatoes. Culture Secretary and personification of a failed immune system Oliver Dowdon also insisted the country would survive a no deal. What is it that has made Conservative MPs over the last four years assume that everyone will be on board if they can reassure us we’ll all get to live in the biggest version of Bear Grylls The Island yet, as though it’s not just Conservatives that enjoy the notion of people going days without anything to eat. I’m certain under this lot, that they’d even make the Lord of the Flies a peerage position and give it to one of their mates. Brits have been told not to stockpile which works as well as telling someone to stay very still as they have a wasp in their hair, and businesses have been subject to a brand-new government campaign called tactfully ‘Time Is Running Out’. Nothing more galling than being told to hurry up and sort it out, by the people who’ve spent four years saying they’ll be there in a minute but they’re just finishing their game, while you’ve been standing at the door, jacket on, tapping at your watch. It is safe to say that if you just think of what the worst possible thing to do in any scenario would be, that’ll be what the government opt for, with all the social awareness of a brick thrown through a window with a note saying ‘fuck off’ attached. So, while haranguing businesses for not being ready for regulations that don’t exist, the government has also readied four Navy gunboats to patrol the country’s fishing waters that we don’t eat any of the fish from. With 75% of our fish sold to the EU, this plan only makes sense if the boats threaten European fisherman at gunpoint to still take our herring or else. The government couldn’t give a fuck about anyone in care homes, but fish now have machine gun security, then again I guess many of the Conservatives have less in common with British people, than they do cold blooded slimy creatures with very short memories.

The EU’s preparations for no deal are a tad more courteous than just insisting we’ll get shot if we try to fish snatch. Instead, they’d do things like give UK lorries 6 months access to the EU as long as the UK did the same, which they won’t and so maybe lorry drivers will have to fill in the gaps themselves, forming a relay system across the channel where a trade-based Charon would have to ferry a raft between them, dodging gunboats to safely transport some brie to a black-market Waitrose dealer. Meanwhile according to stunt cadaver Michael Gove, Northern Ireland will now get the best of both worlds. Though he didn’t say which worlds those are and there’s a high chance the small print says the Underworld and that one from Star Wars that’s made of lava. A no deal is likely, but also with talks continuing, it’s not. As the Prime Minister said, ‘where there’s life, there’s hope’ which must be why he’s trying his best to stamp both of those out. The one plus side of all of this of course, is that with EU talks going on over Christmas, hopefully it’ll ruin any chance Johnson has of a Caribbean holiday paid for by a lobbyist and that sort of schadenfreude should keep us all going till January. Maybe the EU are hoping that on Christmas Eve Johnson will be visited by three ghosts who will show him that things were shit, are shit but could also be more shit and he’ll change his mind. Or more likely just keep badgering the Ghost of Christmas Future to show him what various women look like now they’ve all grown up. I know Scrooge was visited by four ghosts by the way, but Marley was his pal and if Johnson was visited by a friend who’s dead or at least dead inside, he’d probably just give them a contract to supply PPE.

It’s not Brexit talks that are being dragged out forever by the government, but also the coronavirus, maybe because they’ve realised that as soon as the pandemic is over, everyone will realise that the cabinet are shit at a whole lot of other things as well. The capital has gone into Tier 3, weeks later than it should have though that might be due to London weighting. The tier system was meant to be reviewed on the 16^th, but the Health Secretary and scrapped Peanuts character Matt Hancock said it had to be brought forward for London, Essex and parts of Hertfordshire due to a variant of the coronavirus which spreads faster. Typical. The south always gets new releases first and at a higher cost for everyone. Hancock said the news on COVID is not good and that they need to act fast, just you know, in a day or so and only then it’ll just be for a few days and before you know it, you can go cough on your mum again for Christmas. Germany, the Netherlands and Italy are going full lockdown for Christmas to curb the massive second wave rise that they are having but it seems in this country the government’s opting instead just to keep going with the regional tiers that are working so well they have to keep changing them before no doubt announcing on Christmas eve that actually you’d all better stay indoors because the virus has now learned to mutate so it works tenfold if you say any festive related words and has a rapid effect on anyone who’s just eaten stuffing. January will probably be another nationwide lockdown but if you start as you mean to go on, what better way to ready us for the first post-Brexit year than by having the country grind to a halt because we refused to listen to everyone else in Europe.

Schools have already been closing early in the South, even though the government are only allowing ones in England to close a day earlier than planned because the virus baulks at the idea of a long weekend. So, everyone, the extra day would give teachers and pupils six days before Christmas, and with the government recommending that you need 10 days to self-isolate, how many days will that mean everyone misses seeing their family by? Most schools would like to break up a week early, but the government say it would affect under privileged children because it’s not fair if they don’t have the same chances of getting the virus like everyone else. Plus, I suppose the Conservatives could think of nothing that’d ruin their Christmas more like having to help feed children for a whole extra week. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that 2m children are being pushed into extreme poverty by the pandemic, but the government just responded by saying they are making sure every child gets the best start in life, which I think is code for them saying that they don’t care once they stop being babies.

Why on earth do they think any students will miss any learning in the last week of school before Christmas? If anything, it’s much easier them all watching Christmas films via zoom at home than a teacher having to wheel out that big telly and work out where the scart cable connects to the VHS player. They won’t have to do a nativity play which is good as it’d be even more boring in 2020 where Joseph can’t attend the birth, the Three Wise Men have to do facetime and all the gifts are hand sanitiser, loo roll and a sourdough starter sent by Amazon prime. Schools minister and crime watch mug shot Nick Gibb wrote a threatening letter to a school in Hertfordshire saying that if they closed early, he’d direct the board of trustees to keep the school gates open and had the power to do so under the coronavirus Act. If he could also force them to keep the doors and windows open, it’ll help ventilate the area plus provide more ways for the kids to escape before their parents drive straight into the playground and whisk them off home. All private and independent schools have already broken up but more fool them as now all of their families have paid thousands just to have to neglect them back at home instead. Wales have already closed all schools and are warning that a post-Christmas lockdown is very likely unless they succeed in turning the tide of the virus, which for a country that is regularly flooded I’m not sure that’s a great analogy.

Vaccinations are now being rolled out around the country, with the second ever person to get one being a man called William Shakespeare. Though I heard it was actually Christopher Marlowe and the other guy took all the credit. Groups of GPs, also known as a referral, will start inoculating patients in vaccination hubs and the NHS is recruiting 30,000 volunteers to get trained to give jabs. If this is what staff shortages are pushing the healthcare system to do, at least work with the justice system and help rehabilitate dealers who are good at injections to help out and gang members who have no problems with stabbing old people.

In other news, the All parliamentary group for dark skies, who sound like some sort of secret spy contingency, are calling for the government to designate a minister of the dark sky, who I hope would be dressed like either Batman or Spawn and only appear when signalled. The minister would be in charge of regulating excess lighting and policy recommendations include to dim human illumination, which I think the government have already managed by putting some of the dimmest humans possible in the spotlight. Alok Sharma who as well as being Business Secretary, is now in charge of the climate change talks next year, has said that world leaders are failing to show the necessary level of ambition when it comes to tackling climate change before then voting through a taxation bill that will give the most polluting companies in the UK between £30-300m off tax payments with no strings attached. It’s very hard not to wonder if he thinks making progress on climate change just involves having it happen even faster. MPs will not be getting their pay rise this year as the Independent parliamentary Standards Authority said it would not reflect the reality of the pandemic. No but to do that, you’d also need to make a lot of them redundant, give a load of them no financial support at all and tell them all they’ll just have to retrain.

Police have dropped the investigation into the Conservative MP accused of rape, saying claims did not meet the evidential test. Apropos of nothing, Conservative MP and Billy Bunter cosplay act Mark Francois has reappeared after months of disappearance which is funny as he’s usually someone who doesn’t care for evidence when making decisions. The Home Secretary and woman who only gets stronger when children cry Priti Patel has announced that more money will be given to victims of the Windrush Scandel with the minimum payment now going from £250 for ruining their lives to £10,000. Patel said it was her mission to correct the wrongs of the past, so I can assume that by still deporting people who she shouldn’t be, Patel’s just trying to make sure she still has something to do in several years’ time.

And finally, former Labour leader and car boot Santa Jeremy Corbyn has announced he is starting a global social justice organisation called the Project for Peace and Justice. A totally futile affair because he should’ve called it Project for Peace and Equality and he’d have gained millions in funding from the government based on its initials alone. Meanwhile current Labour leader and ice scoop Keir Starmer failed to even question a white supremacist caller to an LBC radio show he was on, even as she mentioned the great replacement theory that suggests white people are becoming a minority. Which isn’t true but if it was, it’s because of racists like that that makes no one want to breed with them ever again so hopefully they’ll die out. Then again, Starmer did abstain from dealing with it so maybe I’m the idiot and that’s providing an effective forensic opposition or challenging unconscious bias by being mostly unconscious or something. And just before the electoral college announced that they have chosen him as President, TIME magazine announced both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as their person of the year, which either means black women in America continue to be invisible to the media or they are indeed the very same and Biden is indeed just a Halloween costume of an old man worn by Harris. There was controversy that US President and Heat Miser Donald Trump was in the shortlist for the Time Person of The Year, but it does make sense as he has a really big face and two small hands.

ADMIN

Hey! Seasonings Greetings, which is when I throw salt and pepper at you. Do you feel Christmassy? I do, but only in that I don’t want to do anything except sit still and eat cheese, so I think that’s being festive. As you can probably hear, I am full of a cold that my daughter has graciously brought back from her nursery, it is the season of giving after all. I was going to do a long rambly bit this week about the lovely live gigs I’ve just done this weekend and the ones I had next weekend but then all next week’s have been cancelled again due to London being in tier 3 and the effects of the Lemsip are running out and my capacity to talk without just sneezing is getting limited. It’s not quite what I planned for the final show of the year, but then what’s more 2020 than nothing going to plan? Also, this episode is quite long due to the excellent interview, but again, what’s more 2020 then something going on longer than you had expected? If anything, maybe this is a perfect way to finish this year’s run. So before I sign off for a few weeks so I can pretend to enjoy Christmas even though its just more sitting at home, eating and spending hours scrolling through Netflix trying to remember what it was like having a job, I just wanted to say thank you for being excellent ParPolBrods through what we can all agree, has been a bullshit year. Now you know I’m not one for sincere moments of gratitude but having this podcast to do and knowing you lot out there actually listen to it, nay even laugh at it, has really helped me get through, well, all the live comedy dying. Not to mention the relentless dealing with a toddler, sorry agent, who keeps checking when the radiators are on, taking off her trousers and sticking her bottom right on it and shouting ‘Hot bum! Hot bum!’ This is my life now. But seriously, you’ve helped me, and all of you who kindly donated genuinely made me able to pay rent a few times, and I hope that this show has helped you, even if it’s just as you see it pop up on your phone and think ‘oh shit, I must remember to unsubscribe’ and in those few seconds you’ve forgotten about the virus.

So big weekly thanks to Christina, James, and Claire for the ko-fi donations which is so kind of you, and should you wish to donate over this holiday period then you can do that at the ko-fi.com/parpolbro or give yourself the Christmas gift of joining the Patreon where I add absolutely zero extra content because I’m lazy, and that’s at patreon.com/parpolbro or via the Acast supporter button that I’m still uncertain how it works. Or you know review the show or just tell people or maybe, just maybe, have a rest for a few weeks if you can and tell someone you know that you like their hair or the way they say the word discombobulate or just how magical it is when they float through the walls and stare at you from the corner of your room in the middle of the night. Whatever it is, let them know.

I’ll probably be bringing this show back in January to report on Brexit things, but it’s also my birthday then so I might wait till after that as I’m turning special old age and will want to wallow in lockdown despair to celebrate. There will no doubt be some ParPolBonuses over the next few weeks and I’m sure Newstradamus will make his annual appearance for the new year too. Also, on a not this podcast thing, my pal Sarah Fox who is a work coach for people in the arts and creative places, has started a lovely podcast called Do Good and Do Well where she talks to a whole load of fascinating people about how it is that they keep doing what they do, even when they consider giving up. At some point I will also be on an episode and ruin it. I’ll pop the links in the podcast blurb so do like it and subscribe to it. And don’t forget I have a supposedly live podcast of this show at the Leciester Comedy Festival next year on the 6^th February, at 2pm and if it doesn’t happen in a real place, it’ll be live online all virtual and shit. So if you buy a ticket you will get to see something, promise.

Right, I shall wish you all a merry having a goddamn break at the end of the show, but for now on this week’s I have a chat with the Politics Editor at gal-dem magazine Moya Lothian McLean about, well, loads of things and she’s brilliant. Plus, it wouldn’t be Christmas without a little Brexit Fallout would it? I mean it would. And it’d be a better one. I’ve done it anyway and you can’t stop me. Festive lols.

INTERVIEW WITH MOYA

It is nearly, finally oh god finally, the end of the year that has felt like three years in one.  That means that for this here political comedy podcast, it’s time for an end of year review. Sure, that could just be a long groan that is too tired to be a scream because how else to describe a year that started with many places actually on fire and that turned out to be the least bad thing. If you had written this year as a film script and handed it to Roland Emmerich, he’d have shouted ‘fuck that, it’s too unrealistic.’ However you have heard my thoughts throughout the year and despite them, somehow kept on listening to this here show. So, I thought it best that for the interview this week, I got someone else to give me their view on it all, just who has been forgotten this year and, dare I even risk asking it, will next year be any better? Who better for all these issues than Moya Lothian-McLean, the recently appointed new politics editor at the amazing gal-dem magazine, a publication that is committed to sharing perspectives from women and non-binary people of colour. Moya is a fantastic journalist and writer who specialises in focusing on underrepresented voices and underreported stories. I have really enjoyed several pieces that she has written over the last couple of years and was very pleased she was happy to have a chat. This is a long one, but it’s a good one and Moya not only made some amazing suggestions for just where on earth we go from here but also manages to expose my secret of being in the pockets of big COVID. This is such a good, thought provoking and grounded chat and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here’s Moya:

INTERVIEW WITH MOYA PART 1:

And we’ll be back with Moya in a minute but first…

BREXIT FALLOUT

No nothing has happened with Brexit yet but something could be happening with Brexit soon even if it’s an agreement that nothing more will be happening for another 50 years as various different leaders keep agreeing to postpone talks again and again, until the UK is forever getting Brexit done and never having done it, until no one remembers why it is happening anymore and we celebrate every October 31^st, January 31^st, whatever that July date was and probably new year’s or something with an effigy of Boris Johnson made with uncooked dough and repeatedly promise to do something with it and say it’s oven ready, but no one ever actually gets round to it. So why a Brexit fallout bit this week? Well it’s the last one of the year isn’t it and what could be more in keeping with the spirit of the season than looking at some bollocks loads of people believe despite a complete lack of evidence, before starting the year by giving up something you actually enjoyed. There is obviously a chance a deal will be struck before midnight on the 31^st December, there is also a chance it won’t but that doesn’t mean a deal can’t be struck later once we’ve run out of food and are tired of eating each other. I have, over the past four years of this podcast, bored you a million times with what a no deal would mean for the country, and its varying degrees of hellstrom depending on if the government have bothered to stockpile things at the time or not, and it’d be easy to summarise right here by just saying ‘fucked’ and then sort of gesturing with my arms at everything. And it would be, with the exception of our 25 trade deals and supposedly WTO rules to get us some exports and imports. However, the government also waved through changes to the Customs Safety and Security Procedures regulations that will breach WTO rules too, as will the new policies on state aid subsidies. So, we could be out of the WTO fairly quickly too. Basically, a no deal might mean we’d all better grow crops in our gardens or in my case upstairs flat somewhere, I mean some parts of it are definitely damp enough for mushrooms, and we might have to become one of those historical re-enactment theme parks where people come to see what it was like before humans discovered fire. Actually, I’m being a tad OTT there. Fire is probably the one thing we’ll have loads of due to a lack of health and safety regulations on electrical goods. We might get a deal, but if it do it’ll be a shit weak deal aka a hard Brexit if you like, with all possible options of a soft Brexit going stale and hardening under the last PM. It will ultimately make everyone worse off, destroy worker’s rights and everything will get more expensive just you know, not as expensive. Just in this case, Brexiteers will be angry with Johnson too so it has the bonus of absolutely no one being happy with him. Which way will it go? No one has a clue.

Whatever happens, a no deal, a shit deal, Boris Johnson insisting the last four years have never happened and he’s never said any of it out loud, whatever it is, some things will change on January 1^st and the UK will officially be out of the European Union. So, what be those things? We’ll get ready for Brexit, no wait a few months, ok get ready, what are we ready for? No idea, doesn’t matter, but get ready. Here are things that will change:

Going on holiday to Europe will mean you gotta have at least 6 months left on your passport, blue or otherwise, travel insurance with health cover because if you get ill there’s no covering your ass. Not just because those patient gowns always leave a bit for the bum. If you wanna drive on the right side, which is obvs the wrong side though, then you’ll need all sorts of new International Driving permits and special cards from your insurance company which you just know they’re gonna charge you for because they hate your guts. If you wanna take your pet over so you’ve got at least one person in Europe that doesn’t think you’re a total prick, then that’ll need permits from your vet four months before you go and there’s a chance it’ll cost more to call people from your phone as roaming charges might return. This is all assuming that you can go to the EU at all after January 1^st as Britain will no longer be exempt from the COVID safety restrictions prohibiting travel to many of the EU countries. People in Northern Ireland will though so they should totally go over loads to Malaga and tell everyone there that no one likes chips or alcohol anymore and ruin it for when English people can go visit again.

If you’re flying, you’ll have to go in the long queues at the airports that you used to point at people and laugh at them in the olden days. Now that people is you. However, ONE ACTUAL GOOD NEWS, is that duty free to Europe is returning. So if you ever leave the queue, have the documents and your dog doesn’t abandon you, then you can at least bring lots of cheap booze back if the pound hasn’t plummeted to below the worth of gravel by that point. Hooray endless basically free cigarettes that you won’t be able to smoke anywhere but that won’t matter as hospitality will still be closed by coronavirus. Hooray the biggest toblerones you’ve ever seen that can maybe be used as a weapon to batter people away from the only loaf of bread in Sainsburys that now costs £400.

If you’re thinking of moving to the EU it’ll depend on the country how it might work unless you are going to Ireland which should still be ok but otherwise it’ll be more paperwork than an origami master gets through in a year. If you’re an EU citizen in the UK, not from Ireland, then you’re all ok until 30^th June 2021 after which you either have to have applied to the EU settlement scheme or applied for British citizenship or Priti Patel will turn up in one of those horrible Union flag minis with a siren on the top and bodypress you out of there because she heard you say a word she didn’t recognise. Of course, if you’re a foreign citizen that for some reason wants to move to the UK because, I don’t know, maybe you’re into aid work, then you’ll have to pay for visas and health surcharges and it’ll all be about how many points you get depending on how much you’ve donated to the Conservative Party that year or how many homes you’ve bought Robert Jenrick.

Trade will change big time because all imports and exports will need new customs declarations and various products will need to be labelled different. How different? No one knows! There will be six-month delay on full controls on goods entering Britain from the EU, so that means businesses should know what they need to do when the government release the details exactly 5 months and 29 days from January 1^st. Things will be different for Northern Ireland and trade to Northern Ireland from Britain, but full guidance won’t be published until just days before everyone needs it because being prepared is for cowards/people who like to eat food. The Internal Market Bill will supposedly make things easier, but it may also breach international law still despite the government saying it would remove those bits before all the Conservative MPs voted not to.

Sure, you might think, that doesn’t sound great. Or maybe you’re too excited about buying massive toblerones to think about any of it. There is a chance none of it will affect you, but it will affect a lot of people who have to pay more for stuff or suddenly aren’t sure if they can stay here in this country anymore. So look out for them. And let’s be hopeful for a second, there is a chance all of that could change and that other deals may come through or that after 6 months of a nationwide famine, we as a nation descend on Number 10 and eat the Prime Minister while promising never to tell anyone and explaining to the EU that he’s disappeared which renders everything Johnson did null and void. Not that we could explain to them obviously, as we won’t be able to pop over to tell them after they build a wall in the middle of the channel as a response to the gunboat incident in May. It’s impossible to say till it all happens. Either you can prepare for all outcomes or take after the government and wait till 5 minutes before it happens and think about doing something about it, like buying a good book for the airport queue because it’s going to take a while.

And now back to Moya…

INTERVIEW WITH MOYA PART 2

How great was that? Yes exactly. Super great. Thanks so much to Moya for that fascinating chat. You can find Moya on Twitter at @mlothianmclean and her website is moyalothianmclean.co.uk. She is of course the Politics Editor at the brilliant Gal-Dem magazine which you can find at gal-dem.com or on all the social media places.

That is it for this year but even though I’ve asked Father Christmas for a bit of a breather next year, it seems political issues will still be happening in 2021. Just disgraceful really. Very inconsiderate. So, with that in mind, what do I need to cover apart from all Brexit and COVID stories with a big rug and hope no one asks what the horrible bump in the floor is all about. Let me know issues, ideas, campaigns, angles, spangles and bangles to talk to people about in 2021, as well as just who the people be to ask the things to. And of course, you can drop me a line @parpolbro on Twitter, the Partly Political Broadcast Facebook group, the contact page at partlypoliticalbroadcast.co.uk or email me at partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com. Or write a letter to Father Christmas at the North Pole and ask him to deliver me your suggestion for Christmas and watch as I see your suggestion land in my stocking instead of alcohol, or something soundproof that I can wrap around my head and hide in for 6 months. As I disappointedly see that thanks to you I haven’t even got a satsuma, I shall lob your suggestion into the fire while doing festive swears like ‘Season’s Wankings’ or ‘Piss On Earth’. Ha! I joke. I don’t have a fire; I live in a small flat. I’ll have to eat your suggestion instead. As always, it’s probably best to email isn’t it?

END

And that’s all for this week’s and in fact this year’s Partly Political Broadcast. As this year’s war on Christmas has been largely hidden by a war on coronavirus and seemingly a war on fish, I thought it was a shame that we haven’t had the usual shit from some idiot claiming that heathens are trying to cancel the festive season even if coronavirus means this year it would be really sensible for at least one person to have suggested it. So, for the final PARPOLBROHOTPOLGOSSFACT this year, when did complaints about people trying to cancel Christmas actually start? It wasn’t in the early 2000’s when US political commentators insisted the term Christmas was being censored as they said it on every single public platform available and everyone heard them say it and no one stopped them. But it was around that time that public opinion in the US was that using the term ‘holidays’ instead of Christmas was political correctness gone mad. Which is probably because due to the demolition of worker’s rights and unions no one in the US is actually allowed to book time off work regardless of the season, so it would have been factually incorrect. It wasn’t in 1998 in Birmingham when the city council used the term ‘Winterval’ for a whole load of seasonal events that covered Christmas but also Diwali, Hannukah, New Year’s Eve, Chinese New Year and more, so of course they got many complaints that they were trying to cancel Christmas. Even though it said Christmas on all promotional material for the event. Makes you wonder if some people just start saying it’s Christmas as soon as the weather gets cold and refuse to let the liberals win by celebrating it relentlessly until the Summer Solstice. The earliest though, was in 1957 when the Church League of America, of which I understand the Zach Snyder director’s cut is better, complained that using the term Xmas was a blasphemous emission of Christ’s name, as X is symbolical of an unknown quantity. Just that just make Jesus even more mysterious though? He’s an unknown quantity, who knows how tall he is, how wide or what dance moves he could bust? Also, if Christmas is of an unknown quantity doesn’t that mean that Wizzard’s wishes of having Christmas everyday could indeed be a possibility? Anyway, they were idiots as X has been used as an abbreviation for Christ, and a symbol of the cross throughout history, as well as the X-Men who could do miraculous things akin to Jesus which means he could’ve been a mutant. And of course X marks where pirates find booty and Jesus rode an ass to Jerusalem so he was clearly into that too. That was this week’s festive PARPOLBROHOTPOLGOSSFACT and will there be more in the new year? Or will I have finally thought of a better and less research heavy way to end each episode? Who knows. Not me, that’s for sure. But if you enjoyed it or at the very least didn’t hate it with every inch of your being then please do tell all your pals, gals and local canals to like and subscribe, give the show a lovely 5 star review with some nice comments on whichever podcast app you use and if you can, donate to the ko-fi, patreon or acast supporter pages.

Merry thankings to Acast, my brother The Last Skeptik, Kat Day and Katie Coxall.

This will be back next year when everything will be the same but we won’t be able to blame 2020 for it anymore. Have as lovely a Christmas as possible and here’s to 2021 being at least a bit less of a total dick.

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

This week’s show was sponsored by the Save The Fish campaign. We’re so worried about all the fish that we believe the only way to save them, is by arming each and every fish individually with its own massive gun. What can four gunboats do? Nothing. What can a school of herring, each with an automatic weapon do? Well not much, they don’t have fingers, but they’d look pretty scary and I reckon that might work. Save The Fish, Arm The Fish, Maybe Also Give Fish Arms, Then Give Them Guns That They Can Use Due To The New Arms and then Let The Fish Rule. Rule Fishtannia.

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