Chapati Gate

Released on Tuesday, May 10th, 2022.

Chapati Gate

Britain is now such a place where a boring man having a curry is somehow the equivalent to corruption, law breaking and doing an interview in a suit you just done a sick on. No the Labour leader isn’t very interesting, or good, but our Prime Minister doesn’t know who Lorraine Kelly is and you have to wonder if he’d pass a citizenship test. Or a breathalyser one. The usual jokes and a chat with Jessica Garland (@JessicaJGarland) at the Electoral Reform Society (@electoralreform) on our now even more broken democratic system.

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THIS EPISODE IS TAGGED WITH: • Boris Johnson, Brexit, Comedy, Conservatives, Keir Starmer, Labour, NHS, parliament, parpolbro, Partly Political Broadcast, Patreon, podcast, political, politics, satire, stand-up, The Last Skeptik, Tiernan Douieb

Transcript

Ep271

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast, the comedy politics podcast that every time it loses listeners acts all Prime Ministerial and insists it’s just proof they love what I’m doing. I’m Tiernan Douieb and this week as Russian President and star of 2015 animation Bird Boy The Forgotten Children Vladimir Putin blames West for the war in Ukraine, I can’t believe just how much Kanye still riles people up.

Yes Putin has all the youngest sibling energy as he’s said him attacking Ukraine is actually their fault because they didn’t want to play with him. Putin made a big speech on Victory Day, a national holiday commemorating the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany something they seem to be commemorating this year by continuing an illegal invasion of Ukraine. It’s like celebrating the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic by dressing as a giant iceberg and ramming yourself into ships. The war has been devastating for Ukraine, but Russia have also had thousands of soldiers killed and failed to really secure any victories at all, so Putin had to find a way to justify the ongoing attacks with his people somehow. And he went with ‘well they started it’. If you’re wondering how they started it, it was by apparently asking NATO for security help, which if that’s true, means that it’s time to get rid of your burglar alarm and buildings should fire their security as frankly you’re all just asking to get broken in to. It was a far cry from Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky, a man with the constant appearance of the lead singer of a band you liked 20 years ago announcing a comeback tour no one asked for, who in his Victory Day speech accused Russia of a implementing a bloody reconstruction of Nazism, which is a bit harsh because at least the Nazis were organised. The last two and a half months have been horrific for the people of Ukraine and Zelensky told them they won in WW2 and they will win again, which is the sort of empowering speech he’s very good at. Then he ruined it by having Bono and The Edge from U2 do a special show in one of Kyiv’s subways turned bomb shelter, and you think, haven’t the people suffered enough? Though I suppose if they survive that, whatever Russia brings next will seem easy.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that a leader like Putin thinks every consequence of his actions is actually someone else’s fault, because that’s totally on brand for leading parties in 2022 and all the rage amongst them. I mean here in Blighty, after the local elections where Conservatives lost almost 500 seats, it was of course anyone’s fault but their own that voters went elsewhere. A defeated Tory councillor in Wandsworth blamed the increase of young left-wing voters in the borough, because no one ruins votes like people with the right to vote using their vote. Total arseholes. What next? Members of the public wanting access to public services or something bonkers like that? Someone needs to step in before it goes too far. The Prime Minister and only burlap sack that’s bad for the planet Boris Johnson insisted that the lesson voters had given them was that they had to keep delivering their agenda and didn’t once mention any of the usual needing to listen to voters, as if it say its everyone’s fault for not voting for them and they’ll keep doing what they want anyway. It’s this way of thinking that makes me wonder if Johnson does indeed love his kids and hence why avoids them and wants nothing to do with them as he thinks that’s clearly the best way to show it. He’s still in his position after losing all those seats, which is double standards as for anyone else in the country it’d definitely mean they lost their job at IKEA. But it must be that the Prime Minister and his party really think they aren’t to blame. It’s not the cost of living crisis, the recession we’re now plummeting into, endlessly botched Brexit, or partygate or Boris Johnson’s interview on Good Morning Britain last week where he didn’t know who national television treasure Lorraine Kelly was which has to show how out of touch he is when most people in Britain have her existence burned into their minds from birth and I’m certain she’s at least 5 answers on the citizenship test. Then again, maybe he just understood Lorraine Kelly’s true talent because who does know who she really is, when we’re never sure if its Lorraine Kelly or Lorraine Kelly the actor who plays Lorraine Kelly that we’re seeing. The interview with Susanna Reid also included the incredible moment where she told Johnson about a 77-year-old pensioner who uses her free bus pass to ride the bus all day just to stay warm, and he countered with how as Mayor, he’d introduced the 24-hour freedom bus pass in London. Is it a sociopathic lack of empathy or is it just proof that the PM’s love for buses is so real that he sees that as the ideal way to spend a lifetime? I’m sure there’s a big part of him that would give anything to leave the stresses of No.10 and spend hours and hours on the top deck of a 210, staring out the window as he fumbles with himself while thinking about Churchill. Can’t imagine why that didn’t convince voters, the idea that the Prime Minister is the sort of person who’d remove a dam, so your home got flooded, but then boast that he’d leant you the plastic bags you’re wearing on your feet as though it’ll make up for all your belongings becoming sea faring. Actually though, as you’ll be unsurprised to hear, Johnson didn’t introduce the freedom pass, he just changed it so it applied for 24 hours a day, meaning pensioners whose homes are too cold can now sleep on the bus for free as well. A true hero of our times. Five days after that interview the party trotted out the excuse that Johnson had actually had food poisoning and was sick on his suit before the interview, which is funny because I didn’t think it was called food poisoning if it’s from booze.

Perhaps being sick on himself was just the Prime Minister’s suggestion for keeping warm or getting the most out of your food if you’re struggling with money? It’d be another of the Conservatives top tips to add to Environmental Minister and man who looks like he’s just about to morph into a small dog, George Eustice’s ideas that families should buy own value brands rather than own-branded products which is a great idea. Which value brand energy companies are there again George? I don’t remember seeing a Gas Essentials range but maybe I missed it. What about a rent basics? No? Yet many Conservative councillors running in the local elections tried this trick, thinking that if they just put ‘local’ in front of their name and didn’t at all mention the Prime Minister, then maybe people would think they too were a brand with some actual value. You know, local Conservatives for local corruption. Local Conservatives for when you really want someone to focus on just ruining your area. And it didn’t work. What’s your favourite murder story? Because mine now is last week’s local elections where it was stated that if the Conservatives lost 200 seats it’d be a disaster but instead, like they always do, they managed to take a disaster and then somehow make it worse, though luckily the only victims this time of their magical ability to see a shit covered fan and turn it in a room full of other fans, is themselves. In England they lost 338 council seats, and councils in areas that you could only previously describe as one of those places so Tory that everyone uses NextDoor to complain about suspicious people lurking in the area, even if they are collecting the bins. Oh, but they did well in the red wall if you consider the red wall to actually be just a bit of brick masonry somewhere in Croydon and not the North of England where they didn’t do very well at all.

The main winners were the Lib Dems, which will worry everyone as it means even more chance they’ll do some sort of awful victory stunt soon where leader and gurning mole Ed Davey will dress as Godzilla and stomp on a building saying ‘Tories’ and shout ‘that’s levelling the country’ and all of us will cringe so hard we turn inside out. The other big winners were the Greens, who had the highest vote share increase of all the parties as voters thought best than to let the other parties pollute their council.

And Labour, did well, ok-ish, especially in London where it took Barnet, Wandsworth and Westminster which has been Tory since its creation in 1964. So that’ll be hilarious when the Conservatives deny it funding like they have done all Labour councils and then they find they can’t get to the House of Commons due to sinkholes. But really considering they are up against the worst of people who are now, as revealed last week, knocking the country into a recession, Labour only did fine. Nowhere near as well as the last election for these seats in 2018, and only 35% share of the vote, which were it the same in a general election would mean they’d pip being the biggest party but not with a majority. They did as well as Labour did in local elections in 2014 under Political Milhouse Ed Miliband who, as you know then went on to do very well. In podcasts that is but not at all in the election. Of course, as political pundits will tell you, local elections are a very different beast than general elections, but then will also tell you exactly what this local election means for the next general election every single time. In some instances, this time round people voted for local reasons, or for specific councillors they like, or with turnout lower than 30% in many areas not wanting to vote at all because what’s the point when your options are just different degrees of how shit you want life to be. You have to ask why Labour is still less appealing to many than a party lead by a man who was sick on his own suit before an interview and then still wore that suit to the interview?

It is probably a lack of vision, a lack of campaigning and canvassing as mentioned by many voters because for a party with that name they really don’t want to put any work in, and of course a leader like Keir Starmer who creates all the public enthusiasm of a notice board outside a park. Yet while there are many reasons to think he’s absolutely not the man to become Prime Minister unless we want our main export to be fence sitting, one of the reasons not to not like him is the current furore over what’s being known as beergate, when in April 2021 he was pictured having a beer and a takeaway curry with workers in a Labour party office in Durham. Yes, I too am disappointed with yet again the lack of imagination of the press as I would definitely have called it chapati gate. This was during the bit of lockdown that wasn’t lockdown and when pubs were open but you still couldn’t see friends and really no one gave a shit that Starmer ate what was almost certainly a very, very mild, spice-free korma, and the Durham police said they found nothing to investigate. Though that could just be proof they aren’t very good at finding things, like when former special adviser with his forehead like an anvil Dominic Cummings was in their turf during lockdown and they did nothing about it. But pressure from the Conservatives and the press means Durham police are investigating it again, due to new evidence of a memo that shows having food was pre-arranged as part of work which was allowed and also says social distancing is required while eating. I have a feeling all his memos outside of lockdown time say exactly the same thing. The issue is if Starmer broke the rules at the time, then the Conservatives say he’s a hypocrite after all his criticism of the times the Prime Minister and pals had massive parties getting fucked on all the booze which is apparently exactly the same. And it is the same right because I reckon most people would have as little fun at a party with the Conservatives as they would having a curry with Starmer. Both feel like really awful ways to spend an evening. They’re also both the same as they were all work events right? Apparently at the event known as the ABBA party at the No.10 flat, Johnson says he did carry out a job interview, so maybe he was working. But what position was he interviewing for exactly? Dancing queen? Government super trouper? So we are once again in a stupid place where the leader of the Labour party is being accused of horrendous hypocrisy and rule breaking for doing something the police have already investigated once and said he didn’t do, while the Conservatives are still where they are despite 4 billion illegal parties and losing all the seats. Has Starmer lied about breaking the lockdown rules? Unlikely, as he only lies about the polices he’d run on to become Labour leader. There is an optimism from some that if Starmer promises to resign as Labour leader if he’s broken the rules that it will force Boris Johnson to reciprocate and also resign. No, it won’t. The only rulebook the Conservatives follow is one that says ‘lie, cheat and steal to rule’ and if Starmer resigns we’ll just be subject to years and years of Labour being the party of rule breaking resigners and hypocrites while the government rush through legislation that means it’s illegal to resign unless your initials are K and S. According to a poll, 74% of the British public have heard about partygate, but only 41% about beergate meaning its not cutting through. 20% though claim to have heard about Hikegate which is a made up scandal involving Ed Davey, which knowing the Lib Dems involved him trying to pop a balloon that said Westminster bubble on it and three passers by telling him to go take one.

So, what will make Johnson go? Maybe the state of the union, if you can call it that when all of the countries are doing their own thing and wishing they could see other people. There are no more blue councils in either Scotland or Wales, well apart from the ones in the Highlands or North-West Wales where it gets very cold in Winter but that’s different. In Northern Ireland the political ground has changed dramatically as Sinn Fein gained the majority in the NI Assembly for the first time since it was formed in 101 years, meaning the DUP are now in second and they’ll just have to understand that’s what god wanted. This should mean the First Minister is now Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neil aka Bridget Jones the Edge of Ra-son. Except the First Minister can’t be in place till the second party, this time the ever difficult DUP, representatives of all the villains in Dan Brown’s books, agree to it and put forward a deputy leader. One can’t hold office without the other under the power sharing agreement and the DUP haven’t yet said if they’ll do this because they have to wait for a sign from god which to them is probably hearing about a gay couple divorcing or something like that. Actually they say they won’t nominate leaders until the British government take decisive action on the NI Protocol, the one the British government put in place but don’t like and can’t work out where it came from and the one the Brexit supporting DUP think is the worst thing ever. Though NI currently has better business growth and lower inflation than the rest of the UK because of it. Maybe that’s why the DUP are sad though, because for NI to be properly aligned with the rest of the UK, they’ve got to be having as shit a time as everyone in England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland Secretary and upside down paintbrush Brandon Lewis said the parties must form an executive by themselves and the government would address issues with the protocol soon but if they scrap it, it’ll be trade war with the EU time. Still, I suppose that is one way to make sure we can all cope with price rises by just making sure there’s nothing on shelves for us to buy. The Alliance Party won 17 seats in Northern Ireland and are now in 3^rd,which is great and going to be fun for them sitting in the middle just wishing everyone would get along. I feel like much of their time in the assembly will just be standing up and saying ‘if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all, before insisting everyone has quiet time and thinks about what they’ve done.’

The Queen is going to prove she’s still alive, or at least how good the royal puppeteers are, as she opens parliament on Tuesday with her speech full of all the worst bills ever, except Cosby. It’ll probably also be full of platitudes about how hard it is to deal with cost of living rises as now we all have to pay even more for her heating bill, so her paedo son doesn’t try to warm himself up on other people again. The Bill of Rights is expected to be included because nothing says democracy like a super-rich lady on a gold throne she inherited telling us we’re going to have our basic rights threatened, the Brexit Freedoms Bill too which will contain the removal of more EU regulations which will allow things like gene-editing which is great news for denim lovers , and the schools bill that will work for every child, parent and family, which is weird as families don’t go to school though I guess if we all got free lunches it might help with cost of living. Johnson says it will deliver on the promise of Brexit so I can’t wait finally this year for that £350m for the NHS then.

In other news, the Food Standards agency has scrapped a rule on radioactivity levels in produce meaning Japan can now sell fish and vegetables from near the site of the Fukushima nuclear plant to Britain. More proof of this country being a global superpower, just you know, like the hulk, or mutants. On the plus side glowing in the dark will help us save on electricity bills in the winter. The UK is now officially facing a recession with inflation likely rising above 10% later in the year which is bad news for everyone except balloons. Secretary of State for housing and last item at the fishmongers Michael Gove has said the cost of living will make levelling up even tougher, which is impressive levels of imagination as I can’t work out how you make something that doesn’t exist actually more difficult. The government’s key plans to reduce regional inequalities are being impacted which must be why they’re trying to make sure everyone all over the country is equally fucked.

ADMIN

Greetings ParPolBrods! How goes you on this actually 5 day week? I know everyone loves a bank holiday and I know everyone says this but just spread them out a bit eh? We really need one in October for everyone to sleep through but last week’s plus the Easter on then the jubilee one for celebrating just how long someone’s sponged off the state. No, its too much and I am running out of affordable places to take my daughter when there’s no nursery. Or go the other way and have a 4 day week and then we’ll be so used to it within a year it won’t matter. Or just no week and give everyone loads of money then we could all go on holiday forever. This is why I’m not in politics right? I did decide last week that my policy for the economy shrinking would be we all shrink with it, using a special ray gun or something. Then everything would be cheaper as we wouldn’t need fuel, we could ride on bees. One pea could feed a family. One match could heat a home. Dangerously obviously but homes would probably be cheaper as they’d be made of card. Or if you’re rich, Lego. Uncomfortable though. Anyway, this is my solution for us all to GET SMALL. Vote get small. Who’s in? Everyone if we were all shrunk, because we’d fit.

How’d the locals go for you? My council went from Tory to Labour which is actually great even though I’m not yet sure if I should be excited or if it’ll just mean all our local public buildings will be sold off to different contractors instead. Still, change is as good as a rest etc. I haven’t dared look, but my wife checks next door and apparently its full of people furious it’s a Labour area and dreading LTNs and you know, less people dying on the roads. They love a bit of that round here. They all drive 4x4s and ignore zebra crossings so I guess they’d be livid if someone stopped them having their weekly knocking over of school kids. Why do other parties insist on stamping down on people’s hobbies like that? No its not a definitive bit of hope but my, watching the Tories losses stack up definitely cheered me up a bit. More of that please. Thanks. I’ve been spending today trying not to look at bits of twitter as a tweet of mine went viral, which as it sounds generally is now a bad thing that just makes you feel rotton. I tweeted about the new Doctor Who, who is going to be the brilliant Ncuti (SHOO-Ti) Gatwa and put that it would irritate the Home Office that a Rwandan man would be able to travel where he liked through time and space and Priti Patel wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. A lot of people liked that, but I also got loads of accusations of racism because he is British, which I know, I googled it but he was born in Rwanda which means the home office would probably still try to remove his citizenship under the new nationality and borders bill if they wanted to. All those affected by the Windrush scandal horrors were British too, and all the people shoved onto the Jamacia 50 flights. But this sort of nuance about it being a criticism of the home office was too much so apparently, I’m racist for saying the Home Office is. And misogynistic for picking on Priti Patel too. One person said ‘no she wouldn’t he’s British, they’re only against illegal immigrants like I am as they steal all the jobs, you’re racist.’ I mean, where to even begin? I’m pretty sure if there was a venn diagram of people who are racist, people who complain about cancel culture and people who complain about jokes they don’t like is one big circle. Anyway, I muted and ran and was reminded why it’s much better to put jokes on there no one likes and hide in obscurity.

Thanks to you all for listening to my weekly twitter and politics gripes and big thanks this week to Joe and Kat for upping their patreon donation, and Freya, ko-fi supporter and Dave S for the ko-fi donations all of which are so damn appreciated at the moment. If you fancy supporting the podcast and by podcast I mean me, during the cost of living crisis and the oh god live comedy is dying crisis, then please throw your cash, even £1 a month at patreon.com/parpolbro for absolutely zero extras but hey, there’s too much to watch and listen to already right? So I’m doing you a favour. Or you can do a one off donation at ko-fi.com/parpolbro.

Nowt much else to say this week except, my usual warning of no guest lined up for next week yet but I may embrace that and do Queen’s Speech explainer if you want that? Or even if you don’t. Yeah ok, I’ll try and get a guest, yeeesh. Right, now have this:

INTERVIEW WITH JESS

Did you do a vote last week? I don’t want to boast, but I did one and it was great. I went to our local polling station which was in a church this time that has a café that I’ve always wanted to look at and I got to, but they didn’t have any cakes because voting which ruined it. Then I showed my card, they found my name and asked me what it was, and I said it then they said it wrong and then I took a bit of paper to a small booth and used a small pencil to put a cross by a name which felt a tad inconsiderate in a church. Then I put my bit of paper in a box and the pencil in a tray that said used pencils and I hope they are recycled as they are full of things that can be drawn from them. I like voting, not just because it means I can sneak a peak at cafes I wouldn’t normally get to see, but also because it’s an important part of our flawed democracy that we get to vote for who we believe in. Well not really, as Odin the Allfather wasn’t on the ballot paper and frankly I didn’t believe in who I voted for I just went for the ones who are shit but might get rid of the shitter ones. And it is a flawed democracy. We have a whole bunch of unelected peers who get to have a say on laws because their dads did or they donated enough money to the Conservative party. First past the post system means different vote shares mean different things in different places, and we’ve been stuck with a two party system for years apart from Boris Johnson who usually attends way more than that especially during lockdowns. Then there is a need to opt in to vote, the fact its always on a Thursday when people have to work and the lack of a none of the above or better, ‘ok ok I’ll do it then’ box. But, its not the worst and yet changes that kicked into play with the Elections bill just before the end of the last parliamentary term a week or so ago, could lob it further towards that title. If you voted on Thursday, that’ll be the last time you get to do so without voter ID, and if you don’t have the right kind, that’s the last time you’re gonna get to vote. On the polling station I went to, it had a big warning about pretending to be someone else, but more fool them because as I crossed the box in my head I was Captain Smallbeard, terror of the low seas and there is nothing they could do about it. Part of the bill also removed the independence of the Electoral Commision so it’ll now be up to the government to decide if the government has breached electoral law, in the same way they made very sensible decisions about Johnson’s flat decorations, Rishi’s wife never paying tax or all of those parties. I’m sure it’ll be fine and anyway, who needs votes when chances are even if the Conservatives lost every single seat in a general election. Johnson would just announce that’s the public’s way of telling him to scrap voting and just make him the Emperor of England?

This week I spoke to Jess Garland, the Director of Policy and Research at the Electoral Reform Society. The ERS if you don’t know them, and you should, are an organisation that campaign for your democratic rights and had been working hard to oppose the Elections Bill or at least get changes made to it for the better, but sadly and unsurprisingly the government paid little attention to any sensible requests as I think the only way they do that is if you donate to the party first. Jess was on this podcast waaay back in 2019 and it was great to get her back to ask her just what the elections bill could mean for voting in Britain in future, and if the next time we go to a polling station, the ballot paper will just have Boris Johnson’s name on it and small print warning what will happen if you don’t cross the box. Here is Jess:

AFTER INTERVIEW

Thanks for Jess for coming back on the podcast again, despite how terrifying the state of our democracy sounds. You can find and join the electoral reform society at electoral-reform.org.uk, and they are on Twitter @electoralreform, on facebook at electoralreformsociety and electionreform on Instagram. And you can find Jess on Twitter @jessicajgarland. Also, I don’t mention this often enough, but the links, writers etc that guests mention always end up in the linear notes for each episode as put together by the brilliant Kat Day and then they end up on partlypoliticalbroadcast.co.uk. So if you ever want to look up what was recommended at the end of an interview, do head there.

And of course, any suggestions for who else to chat to, chuck that my way at partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com and I shall endeavour to get that sort of talking on the show.

END

That is it for this week’s Partly Political Broadcast. It’s over. Yes I’m sorry, you’ll just have to get over it. But, don’t worry, it shall return but you’d best make nice and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or elsewhere, donate to the Patreon or ko-fi or tell others to listen in, or I’ll tell you what, it won’t stand for it and it’ll be off again in a flash. It has standards you know?

Murky buckets to Acast, my brother the Last Skeptik and Kat Day.

This will be back next week when Keir Starmer is revealed to have been lying. Not about breaking rules but about eating curry as he could only handle very plain and slighty wet rice.

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

This week’s show was sponsored by Boris Johnson’s Bus Tours, 8-hour bus rides with running commentary about how it was him that provided the bus rather than help you afford to be at home. Special sights include the ditch he didn’t die in, all the places they’ve lost seats in and where he’s been sick. Boris Bus Tours, if you sit near the back you might get warm enough to last you so you won’t need a return.

Chapati Gate

Released on Tuesday, May 10th, 2022.

Chapati Gate

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