Getting Rid Of Everyone – Net migration, Windy Business and Joeli Brearley at Pregnant Then Screwed

Released on Tuesday, November 29th, 2022.

Getting Rid Of Everyone – Net migration, Windy Business and Joeli Brearley at Pregnant Then Screwed

Net migration is at a record high, which is shocking as it means people still want to come to the UK even though you’d wait longer for an ambulance than to do interspace travel and colonise a planet we haven’t ruined yet. Tories complaining about wind, Michelle Mone’s pants PPE and the protests in China. Plus Joeli Brearley (@Joeli_Brearley) at Pregnant Then Screwed (@pregnantscrewed) on the diminishing childcare services in the UK.

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THIS EPISODE IS TAGGED WITH: • Boris Johnson, Brexit, childcare, Comedy, Conservatives, Humour, immigration, Jeremy Hunt, Joeli Brearley, Keir Starmer, Labour, NHS, parpolbro, Partly Political Broadcast, Patreon, podcast, political, politics, PPE, Pregnant Then Screwed, Rishi Sunak, satire, stand-up, Suella Braverman, The Last Skeptik, Tiernan Douieb

Transcript

Ep294

Hello and welcome to the Partly Political Broadcast, the comedy politics podcast that is proud to have contributed to Britons cutting 10% of their energy consumption, because as soon as they hear this show, they turn off their devices and sit in the dark till they forget it happened. I’m Tiernan Douieb and this week as Tory MPs argue over onshore wind farms, I wonder if the trick is to promise to build loads but cancel them out by removing another noisy, annoying eyesore but one that’s harmful to the environment? That’s right, the Conservative Party.

It is, as I’m sure you’ll agree, shocking to hear that net migration to the UK is at a record high. I mean, who needs that many nets? Isn’t our fishing industry fucked? How many goals do we need to build? How much hair do we have that must be contained? Ha, I of course joke. The real reason it is beyond concerning that migration to the UK is now over half a million at 504,000, is because it means for some really odd reason, people still actually want to come here. Haven’t we done enough to put them off yet? What else do we have to do to let the world know that this island is one step away from becoming a floating skip inhabited only by dogs scripted by Wes Anderson? Actually, scrap that last bit. That sounds like an improvement and would surely only encourage people to visit even more. It makes me worried and concerned that hope has died even for those willing to travel miles to flee a war zone, if the place they choose to end up in is not Finland with its happiest nation in the world ranking, Sweden, Denmark or Canada ranking top 3 with best quality of life in 2022, or even Italy which despite a big Nazi Prime Minister has the best ranked food in the world. No, no, they’ve risked their all and faced death just to end up here, the land of ambulance waiting times that are so long they’d be better off spending funding on decent hold music to listen to as you die, where neither option of live to work or work to live is available and where our cultural high points are watching as a man responsible for letting a lot of people die gets paid a lot of money to gargle a kangaroo dick. Then again, maybe I’m overlooking that if you come from a country where you are persecuted and possibly even executed for who you are, coming to a country where they’ll just let you perish in your own home from hyperthermia looks like a golden opportunity? Maybe it’d be too much to go somewhere where you’re treated as a human being and its much safer to wean you off authoritarianism in slow baby steps?

That might explain why the Labour Party are taking about immigration like it’s a drugs issue? Either that or they just keep getting high off hatred like Sith Lords and I suppose that is definitely one way to prepare to take over from a Conservative government. Labour leader and like if someone put their face through the hole in a massage table and it got stuck and they just had to wear it forever Keir Starmer, said that the common goal must be to help the British people off its immigration dependency. What a bizarre way to talk about it. What’s their plans then to slowly allow seasonal work only, then extended holidays, city breaks and finally once we feel strong enough just erect giant walls around the island and finally only Brits can have low paid jobs and shit living conditions? Ah the dream. That’s the issue isn’t it? These people coming over here, holding up all our public institutions that refuse to pay properly? I suppose if everyone stopped arriving, then nurses wouldn’t have to go on strike as there wouldn’t be any in the first place? Maybe I’m being a cynic and I should be lauding that in this ever-divided political climate there is at least one issue that the major parties are agreed on. No not austerity, the other one. No, not selling weapons to oppressive regimes. Yeah still the other one. That’s right, none of them want anyone at all to come here. And I mean, perhaps that is right? What if those hopeful, intelligent, brilliant humans who’d just like a decent existence, come here and then you know, infect us with optimism or politeness or something horrible like that. Imagine the awful cultured place we might become and there is nothing British about that. Thank goodness we have a Prime Minister like tryhard cheese string Rishi Sunak who during his campaign said how proud he was of being the son of immigrants who were allowed to come here. That is important and exactly why Sunak’s not a hypocrite if he just changes the rules so absolutely no one else is. The Prime Minister’s latest ingenious way of curbing the figures, is by suggesting they may block numbers of foreign students allowed to study in the UK. Yes! Get those bastards that just want to learn and fund our higher education institutions! I mean there is zero point in those young people travelling over when all they’ll learn is that universities have been sucked dry of funds, all the staff are on strike and there’s little evidence that any of the jobs you may become qualified for are worth it anyway. Medical student? May as well just practice not sleeping, or eating for days. Studying law? Why bother when you could get the same experience by watching most of a murder mystery but not seeing the end for 4 years due to delays.

The several time disgraced Home Secretary and what if Abby Cadabby had a crack habit Suella Braverman is apparently working flat out to resolve the issue of high immigration figures, by which I think they mean she’s bullying staff even out of office hours. She wants to find a way to return those travelling from safe countries, like Albania, back to their country as quickly as possible. Well Suella, have you tried just welcoming them personally when they arrive? I reckon they’d turn around in seconds. It’s the Home Secretary’s only plan for anything. Fix a problem by giving it to someone else to deal with. I reckon if she got into a car accident, she’d just swap its licence plates with a nearby parked one and drive off. The Manston Asylum Centre was closed after controversy about overcrowding and Braverman appears to have done that by just sending everyone in it to other inappropriate places so they can be overcramped instead. Presumably she’ll keep doing this until asylum seekers have been shoved into every possible space in the UK when she’ll finally realise the TARDIS is fictional. So far this mistreatment and lack of caring about people’s lives has caused several diptheria outbreaks, which is odd as you’d have thought the Home Secretary would do everything she could to stop foreign bodies from causing harm but it seems instead she’s pivotal in helping them spread. Braverman admitted to the Home Affairs Select Committee last week that we have failed to control our borders, which is of course what happens if your method of control is just tell everyone to fuck off because you don’t like their face. If you ran a venue with no safe entry of getting in, you can’t really get angry if the people who bought tickets online start climbing in the windows to see the gig. While she was unable to answer the committee’s questions about how someone fleeing a war torn country might access a safe route to the UK, Braverman still seems to think the key is just for the Home Office to be more efficient. So she’ll probably start bringing a cat o’nine tails into work. Former Brexit Secretary and man composed entirely of orange pith David Davis is one of the backbenches bores demanding people from safe countries get deported quickly, saying that its those people who are paralysing the whole system. Really David? You don’t reckon it’s because it’s a shit inhumane system, oh and because as soon as left the EU anyone coming from there suddenly counted as an immigrant because they no longer had a right to work? I mean you know one way you could just cut those figures in half right?

Sorry, sorry too soon, too soon. You still can’t say anything is the fault of Brexit as everyone gets all a bit upset about it. It’s like when someone gets a shit haircut, you’re only allowed to say how bad it was once it’s grown out. Sadly, we’re coming up to three full years of Brexit and that’s not happened, not least because it’s stunting any possibility of growth. But still the government plough on with it being a good idea, like someone whose got lost on a journey and is now out of food and water but assures the rest of the family what they need to do is throw the map away and follow their instinct. The Prime Minister is keen to go harder and push ahead with removing 4000 pieces of EU law from the British statute book by December 31^st next year, but senior civil servants, businesses, unions and well anyone who’d ever like to sell anything outside of the street they live on, have all said he really shouldn’t do that. You know at least for another 3 years hoping by that point it’ll be safe to look back and go ‘see mullets didn’t look good on anyone, let’s make sure we never do that again. Scrapping these laws, according to people who know things and by that I mean no one in government, would threaten fixing any sort of treasury black hole but then I suppose how else would Sunak keep making sure the British public had to push wheelbarrows of cash to buy a Freddo? There appears to be a vast amount of Brexit consequence blindness even when it’s highlighted by businesses or the Office of Budget Responsibility. When the Chancellor and inspiration behind Urban Myth The Grinning Man, Jeremy Hunt was asked on Sky News if he accepted the OBR’s report saying Brexit had harmed trade he said no before then accepting all the other bits the OBR said. You can’t just pick and choose like that mate, it’s all or nothing. I’d be a shit vegetarian if I only read and agreed with the ingredients in something that weren’t meat. Hunt said he hoped the British pubic would understand the tax rises aren’t misery for misery’s sake, which we all know it isn’t right? It’s misery so Jeremy Hunt’s beady little eyes can glint with glee at the thought of ordinary people’s life expectancy ticking lower. We’ve all got to just use less energy apparently as not only will that save money, but as the Chancellor says, it will stop the UK being blackmailed by people like Russian President and vintage man in the moon drawing Vladmir Putin. Will it? How? I had no idea he owned Shell and BP too. Or is it that Vlad’s already told the Tories he’ll release a ton of info about what all the Russian donor money they had was spent on, unless people leave Russian gas for Russians?

It is tricky to say but the UK households have cut energy by 10% apparently, so take that Putin you dick. Nothing like helping Ukraine than eating a raw potato while you can no longer feel your fingers. Still at least it’s better than the British government whose currently aiding in the war was sending over Foreign Secretary and Napolean fish with glasses James Cleverly to Kyiv. Come on, that’s not fair, they’ve got enough to do without having to show a grown man how to put his jacket on and eat with a spoon. Cleverly announced that the UK would be sending 24 ambulances to Ukraine, which judging by current waiting times, means they won’t get there till long after the conflict is over. Saying that, if they’re full of British patients in need of assistance, they’ll probably get seen quicker travelling across Europe to a war zone than waiting in an NHS A&E. The healthcare system is now that character in a film that says ‘no, go on without me, save yourselves’ as staff shortages are very high. Apparently since Brexit we have 4000 fewer European doctors, and 58,000 fewer nurses. Sorry I mean nothing. Forget I said anything. With all these job vacances it’s a shame there’s no one around to fill them at all. Sigh. Now everyone, carry on loading up the catapult with asylum seekers. Nurses will be going on strike to protest about their real terms pay cut meaning they are currently getting 10% less than they did in 2010, with action taking place on December 15^th and 20^th, meaning routine services will be hit. But don’t worry, the government has said the army could step in and help. No, I didn’t have an appointment for that kind of shot. I’m sure there’s nothing like the bedside manner of someone whose been trained to kill. If you do have an appointment and an army sergeant asks you to undress so they can check you, do cry for help if they also make you wear a bag on your head. Classic UK in 2022 that ambulances go to help in a war while the military go to help in hospitals. Perhaps it doesn’t help that our Prime Minister obviously thinks the NHS is such a state that even he won’t use it. He’s registered with a private GP who charge £250 per appointment and are available 24/7 and it does seem like such a shame he spends all that money, and they still can’t work out why he’s unable to grow taller than a thumb. This is probably what you’d have expected if it wasn’t for the fact that Sunak insisted during his summer leadership campaign, you know for the time he lost, that of course he and his family use the NHS. Though he didn’t say as what, so it could’ve just been as a bargaining tool in business meetings or perhaps something to point at and laugh when they have friends round and a private doctor is handing out anti-depressants as aperitifs.

While most of the country are worried about affording anything and would prefer nurses got paid properly rather than them having to have a corporal treat their ailment by telling it to do 100 push ups, the Conservatives are rowing about wind. Sunak pledged to keep a ban on new onshore wind farms maybe because he’s being blackmailed by Putin or something. But a number of Tory MPs want it overturned, no I haven’t checked if they have investments with windfarm companies yet or not but it can’t just be because they believe in renewable energy can it? That would so out of character. Apparently, the issue is that Sunak wants to focus on offshore wind as that way its someone else’s problem and can potentially just blow all the sewage elsewhere or, and I bet Braverman has plans drawn up for this, dinghies. It is the in party squabble and as much as it seems ridiculous, not least because those who are opposed to wind farms are often also the lazy bastards who insist technology will fix climate change but then don’t like it when it does, I would be super happy if the Conservatives fought each other again because of poweful air. Though I suppose in many ways it’s not that different to when they got angry about Liz Truss. The other problem the government have is that of Baroness Michelle Mone, the kind of person who you wouldn’t let anywhere near government even in a Hallmark drama. The peer received over £200m of contracts to make PPE despite the fact that owning a lingerie company she’s most famous for the least protective clothing out there. From these contracts her and her children received £29m of personal profit which she then popped in an offshore trust. Mone has a history of tax avoidance, quackery and racism so it makes total sense she had access to the VIP lane for PPE contracts and to be honest I’m surprised with those qualifications she wasn’t made Brexit Secretary at some point. The government are going to be questioned about how they explain Mone was fit to receive government cash, and what checks they carried out. But I suppose we do have to remember there is a treasury black hole that doesn’t exist so I’m sure she’ll get to keep it all because it’s not fine for people to come over here, but our money going over there because a pants lady asked nicely, is all tickety boo. At least the man responsible for all this will be flying back from Australia any day now, as former Health Secretary and son of a pear and a knee Matt Hancock, came third in the ITV reality show I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here. Many have questioned just why people would vote to keep Hancock in the show he was getting paid £400k to appear in, but I suspect it’s because the longer he was in a jungle in Australia, the less time he was in the UK. If there was some option to leave him in that jungle for 30 years, I reckon ITV’s telephone lines would’ve collapsed under demand. Still, despite letting over 150,000 people die unnecessarily because he was horny and wanted to give all the money to his pub landlord, Hancock didn’t get into the final two. He said he went in there to show his human side, which proves that he does indeed have two faces and that he wanted to raise awareness of dyslexia which he then didn’t talk about much at all. Maybe it’s because like when he was health secretary he thought he could solve conditions by saying them out loud a few times then doing fuck all about them. There is something comforting to know that no matter how bad the British public are at voting and opting for bantz rather than justice or equality, that prick didn’t win and still had to eat kangaroo dick. From that we can take it that if this is the beginning of the further televisual descent we’re heading into, at least audience votes will mean the ghost of Harold Shipman won’t make it past the quarter finals of Strictly.

In other news, there have been more bullying complaints about Justice Secretary and what it’d look like if you skinned the Grinch Dominic Raab, but Raab insists he behaved professionally at all times. He didn’t say for what profession though, and there’s every chance he meant head chef or PE teacher. 12 Conservative MPs have announced they’re standing down at the next election, with supposedly more to announce they’re doing the same later this week. The the average age of the Tory MPs leaving is 48.6 so are they jumping ship while they know they still have the energy to swim elsewhere? Or have they just already sorted enough sweet lobbying deals to retire early. MP for Norwich North and cross between Olive Oil from Popeye and a head injury Chloe Smith didn’t give reasons for not running for the seat again, but just said it was the right time for her and her young family. Which is a shame as after her tenure in the DWP the right time for everyone else’s families would’ve been about 15 years ago.

How you might imagine a used car salesman in an advert warning people against using them MP David Warburton, was found in breach of Parliamentary code last week, over a £150,000 loan from a Russian businessman that he failed to declare. He’s avoiding all punishment though as he said sorry. Yep, turns out that’s all you need so if there’s anyone else out there taking money from suspicious sources you should be fine if you just tell the cops ‘apologies guv I’ll be on my way.’ Warburton said he didn’t declare it as the cash had nothing to do with his job as an MP and in no way influenced him, but he’s also being investigated for grievances and substance abuse so it’s tricky not to assume he was under the influence of something. Still, I bet even with Russian backed money, I bet he’s stuck it to Putin by turning the heating down slightly in one of his homes.

And lastly, mass protests are taking place all over China against the government’s continued zero Covid approach which includes strict lockdowns whenever any cases are found, which is all the time so no one is getting to do anything. The symbol is a piece of blank paper held up to challenge authorities to see if they will arrest people for not saying nothing. I mean, it does run the risk them taking a picture and superimposing crude willy drawings on them before posting them on twitter though. Protestors are calling for President and man who always looks like he’s in the midst of doing a fart impression Xi-Jinping to stand down, which unfortunately isn’t really how authoritarian states work. But people have power and the government will have to either reduce restrictions or import vaccines from other countries which would ruin their nationalistic vibe. I would suggest they take a leaf from the UK’s book and operate a zero Covid policy by just pretending it doesn’t exist anymore and not talking about it ever again.

ADMIN

Sorry, a slightly ill-informed bit on the China protests at the end there as I realised I hadn’t read enough about it before doing this week’s show and then thought about it and wrote jokes anyway. Who lets facts get in the way of not very good gags? That’s cancel culture talk. I am the one guy railing against us comedians having to be more factual than politicians. Ahem. I will actually research it a lot more for next week. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I have a job at the moment where I got asked ‘are you happy doing the research or should we hire a researcher too, as we know you do it for your podcast?’ I said yep, I’ll do it and now I’m just hoping they don’t realise all I do is search things on twitter until I find a comment I can do wordplay on. If I was a museum researcher all the info cards would be very vague but on the plus side, funny.

Thanks chums for being here or wherever you are. Big thanks to Doug for joining the patreon and you know if you fancy bunging me cash for not doing research properly, no wait in fact. Don’t research that and you won’t know. Er, bung me cash for all the hard research I do. Don’t look it up! Then you can join the completely unrewarding patreon.com/parpolbro or if you fancy one off flingings of cash, then chuck ‘em at ko-fi.com/parpolbro. All are super appreciated in these times of crisis of costs of livings. Mega thanks too to Ande for the lovely Apple podcast reviews. You have all stepped up to my whinging that I hadn’t had any for ages, and lemme say, I appreciate that. By you all, I mean Michael last week and Ande this week, but you know, if 52% can be the will of all the people…I’m just saying.

Nothing much else to say this week really. There’ll be next week, then one after and that’s it till a bit of a Christmas break while I spend weeks trying to work out new ways to describe people and make jokes about exactly the same issues for the 6 billionth time. But until then, on this week’s show I am chatting to the brilliant Joeli Brearley at Pregnant Then Screwed and I manage to bring up Whitney Houston because that’s the kind of professional I am. Look we sang ‘Greatest Love Of All’ in my Year 7 music class and it’s been on a loop in my head ever since. It’s not right, but its ok.

INTERVIEW WITH JOELI

If you hate yourself enough to spend time on social media, you’ll see on a daily basis many comparisons of the Conservative government to George Orwell’s 1984. Thought police, the ministry of truth, that bit where they put rats near Winston’s face as a punishment not being at all unlike every time we’ve had to see Grant Shapps on TV. But really, I’ve always thought of it as much more like Joseph Heller’s Catch 22. A never-ending series of self-caused difficult situations made inescapable by their own ridiculous needs. I mean obviously it’s not as well written as that, or funny, or has anywhere near as many likeable characters. But just look at, the current government ethos on working. They are focused on getting everyone into work, as one measure to fix the deficit. But also, to fix the deficit, they won’t be making work pay any better, and will be making even more cuts to support services so even fewer people who need them will be able to work. By fixing these support services people could work but it’d also cost the government money ruining their whole stupid argument about the need to get people into work in the first place. It’s some catch they’ve made for themselves. One of the many, many reasons people, and in particular women, can’t work is the cost and availability of childcare. Human kids are so selfish, aren’t they? I mean while a baby ibex would be up and running within minutes of being born, our children need years of attention and care meaning you can’t just leave them in front of the telly for 40 hours a week while you head to the office. But at the same time, sending them to nursery costs more than you’d be earning at work, so hey ho, now you’re both at home in front of Cbeebies. Which is, arguably, a great way to spend your time. Maybe there is very little care about childcare in the UK because most Conservatives, when they are born, are immediately packaged up and sent to a boarding school until they’re 40, checked if they have any emotions left and if not, are made Prime Minister. Even if that’s not entirely true, it was left out of the Autumn Statement entirely by Jeremy Hunt a man who regularly looks like if he saw a child, he’d just assume they were a grown up standing very far away. The cost of childcare as part of the cost-of-living crisis is putting particular pressure on mums, single parents and for a number of people is putting them off having children entirely. So good luck trying to, as they keep saying, look to British workers not immigration in 20 years when we’re going to have a population of just double digits and they’ll all be the offspring of Boris Johnson. Currently the only vague solution the government have even mentioned is just to reduce the safe staff to child ration in early years care, as I assume that’ll save costs when your kid is in A&E which is much cheaper than the nursery day rate. Which is of course, what every parent wants. How big an issue is this? Why is childcare in the UK so bad? And is the big problem that if proper support and care for children was given, the Conservatives breeding program would fail and they’d be extinct within a few decades?

This week I spoke to Joeli Brearley at Pregnant Then Screwed, the brilliant campaign group arguining for better rights for parents, better childcare provisions and flexible working. Set up when Joeli was fired after informing her employer she was pregnant, she set up Pregnant Then Screwed in 2015 to support mothers who’d been discriminated against, and it’s become ever more needed every year since. Just a few weeks ago, thousands of people took place in the March of the Mummies, organised by the group, to protest for government reform, on childcare, parental leave and flexible working. I asked Joeli about what impact inflation will have on childcare providers, why the UK is so far behind the rest of the world when it comes to this and if we’re looking at a future where the UK is just overrun with tiny Johnsons? Not the last one, but also, tiny Johnsons. Hahah. This is a great chat with Joeli, so I hope you enjoy whether you’re a parent or just someone who has once seen kids in a film or read about them in a book. Here’s Joeli:

END OF INTERVIEW

Thank you to Joeli for having the time to let me interview her, and to Celia at Pregnant then Screwed who helped to arrange it. You can find Pregnant Then Screwed at pregnantthenscrewed.com, @pregnantscrewed on Twitter, Pregnant_then_screwed on Instagram and @maternitydiscrimination on Facebook. Announcements will be coming up soon for the 2023 Reset Festival of motherhood and mental health so do sign up to all their socials for details on that when it happens.

Who shall I talk to on this podcast next year? Lemme know your hot picks for necessary political chats for 2023, and send them over to me @parpolbro on whichever social media sites are still standing by then, or at partlypoliticalbroadcast@gmail.com.

END

Fin. No sorry, that’s how you end a podcast about sharks. I mean, that’s the end of this week’s Partly Political Broadcast podcast. If you want all the other kids at school, work chumps round the watercooler or, er, monks at the alter to join in your chat about this week’s episode then why not tell them to give it a listen and subscribe. If you can please donate to the ko-fi.com/parpolbro or join the patreon.com/parpolbro. And if you have any spare time after all that, please pop a nice a 5-star review for the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or other such homes of pod.

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

This will be back next week when Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman decide the best way to lower immigration figures is by not letting anyone into the country and making everyone in it leave and the whole of the UK has to stand very closely together in Jersey until the next bunch of figures are taken.

BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

This week’s show was sponsored by Dr Army. Do you need to see a doctor? Or do you just need to stop being a wimp? Dr Army is here to tell you that the way to treat that severe pain in your leg is a 5km obstacle course through mud. Eyesight problems? We’ll see if it clears up when you have to choose if the person you’re aiming it is a friend or foe. Worried you’re losing your memory? You’d better remember what you went into the room for when I order you into a village to steal cultural artefacts. Dr Army, who needs GPs when we’ve got GPS tracking on all our drones? Now stop bleeding out in reception.