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This week Coco is joined by the comedian Cody Dahler while Nish takes a brief break and there’s so much to talk about!

 

The Greens’ Hannah Spencer has become the unexpected bookies favourite to win the Gorton and Denton by-election but does she have what it takes to turn good odds into a win at the ballot box? We speak to her about the importance of fighting to improve lives, her favourite false rumour and why walking her dogs helped form her political outlook.

 

Plus Keir Starmer is back with another U-turn and another inquiry. We try to work out what he’s hoping to achieve this week. And Amnesty International’s UK Director of Law and Human Rights, Tom Southerden, updates us on their High Court victory as they challenge the proscription of Palestine Action.

 

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GUESTS 

Hannah Spencer, Green Party candidate, Gorton and Denton by-election

Tom Southerden, UK Law and Human Rights Director, Amnesty International

 

USEFUL LINKS

Gorton and Denton by-election candidate list https://whocanivotefor.co.uk/elections/parl.gorton-and-denton.by.2026-02-26/gorton-and-denton/

 

CREDITS

TikTok / @mrcodydahler

Green Party of England and Wales / Facebook

Hannah Spencer / Instagram

Paul Holden, Investigative journalist and author of “The Fraud”

High Court protest reaction – Amnesty International footage

@mrcodydahler / Instagram

Otto, Budding Comedian

 

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TRANSCRIPT

Coco Khan Hi, this is Pod Save the UK, I’m Coco Khan.

 

Cody Dahler And I’m Cody Dahler.

 

Coco Khan So Cody is helping me out while Nish is away this week. He was so good when he joined us on the show a few weeks ago. Of course, our fans wanted to see more of him. And how better to introduce you than your very own hot take on Starmer’s Woes.

 

Cody Dahler So Kier’s just about clinging on to the big wooden door, but it’s only a matter of time before Rose starts hacking at his head with her heel and casts him off into the Atlantic. Because no matter how many people star my sacks, he’s never going to get around the fact that he chose to ignore all of the evidence of the horrific abuse that women, girls and children endured at the hands of Epstein because he thought PPP to Mandelson would be a good ambassador. It’s going to be a tricky episode for people who aren’t a fan of my content this. It really will be. There’s lots of clips, there’s lots me, there are lots of ads for me. I’m so sorry about this. I’m so sorry

 

Coco Khan Well listen, we love, you know, you don’t pull any punches and that’s what we’re here for.

 

Cody Dahler Yes, well, we’ve also got more Starmer fun this week. He’s been at the U-turns again and causing absolute havoc on the political M25.

 

Coco Khan Other motorways are.

 

Cody Dahler They are.

 

Coco Khan We don’t want to be too London-centric on the M1.

 

Cody Dahler M1. Yeah, that’s big. That sounds foreign.

 

Coco Khan First up today, by-elections don’t normally dominate the headlines, but the upcoming vote in Gorton and Denton next week is getting a lot of attention. It’s being seen as a test of how badly Labour will lose and how effective reform support is, but someone is trying to challenge that.

 

Cody Dahler Now, there’s not been any reliable polling for the area, but the betting odds have Green candidate and plumber Hannah Spencer right at the top, above reform in second and Labour in third. Just as important perhaps, the Greens are also finding ways to cut through promising a different way of doing politics.

 

Coco Khan Hannah joins us now. Welcome to Pod Save the UK, Hannah.

 

Hannah Spencer Hi, thank you so much for having me.

 

So normally I co-host with the lovely Nish Kumar who’s away, hence the lovely Cody. And I was thinking to myself, it’s probably good that Nish isn’t here because he would almost certainly want to open this up with some turd-based humor. Something to do with reform and flushing turds. You’re a plumber, dirty bus. I’ll just leave it there. I can get some in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I can I can get some. Excellent, excellent, excellent. No, but seriously, you know, being a plumer, it is a dirty business. I guess you could say not a match for Westminster, though. How are you finding the world of politics?

 

Hannah Spencer So, you know, I’m not new to it in many senses because I’ve been a local councilor for the last three years and I lead the group of Greens on my council. So, yeah, I am sort of quite familiar with how things work a little bit, but this by-election, yeah. It’s everything sort of ramped up a little, a lot actually. And yeah, I have seen much more of the sort of dirty, dirty politics, I think, in a really short space of time.

 

Coco Khan I do want to talk to you more about that, but I also want to take the opportunity to just share how much you have risen above it. You’re actually talking about a much more hopeful message. Let’s take a look at your campaign video.

 

Hannah Spencer It was here that I got my first greyhound, Graham, the rescue dog, who definitely rescued me. It’s where I saw a first-hand who gets hit the hardest when there’s a cost of living crisis, who gets left behind when those in power forget who they’re meant to represent, and how those at the top benefit while it’s our housing costs that go up.

 

Coco Khan So it’s a beautiful campaign video. It’s honest about the problems that we face. Also really great to see a pet named after a man. That’s great. A Greyhound called Graham. Uh, this is just a sidebar, but obviously Coco is a really popular name of really small dogs. Oh really? Yeah. So I just go into every park has been such a challenge for me in the last three years.

 

Cody Dahler I see.

 

Coco Khan I’m just being summoned all the time.

 

Cody Dahler It’s a terrible world for the Cocos and the Grahams out there.

 

Coco Khan So your campaign focuses on the cost of living crisis, on high housing costs, on increasing bills and those left behind by politicians in power. The question is, is why should voters believe that a green MP is the person who can fix all of that?

 

Hannah Spencer It’s going to be quite blunt because we’re the only party that doesn’t have vested interests, like billionaires and millionaires, that are funding other political parties to look after themselves. We’re funded by members chucking in five, six quid a month, like us, and we’re answerable to the people that vote for us and the members that decide our policy. And that is really different from other political party’s and it means that we can, yeah, act in the interest of the people that live in our communities before… Upholding the things forced on us like the other parties do. And I’m just really proud that I can go out and tell the truth about stuff to people. We’re not selling people an impossible reality or trying to convince people we’ve got all the answers and we’re gonna change everything overnight. People aren’t stupid and they’re fed up with being lied to by politicians who try and sell them a dream. We’re going out and telling people what we can do as Greens. And the biggest thing that we can with an extra Green MP is hold the other political parties to account. Also being in the room when decisions are being made will push people in a better direction.

 

Cody Dahler You’re making a lot of your local links as well, Hannah. Do you think you being a kind of local resident who’s connected to the area is kind of having a big impact on the campaign that basically, to put it bluntly, people thought would just be handed straight to reform? Like, are you finding that your local links to the areas are swaying people?

 

Hannah Spencer Yeah, definitely, because I think people see that I’ve lived in the constituency before, but I still work here, and I still see, with my very own eyes, the situations that people are living in. And I think if you’re not embedded into our community, you don’t see that as much, whereas I know I’m on the ground talking to people in what we’re doing, campaigning, but I’ve also seen for a very long time with my own eyes how bad the situation has got and how people are living.

 

Coco Khan How do you feel about the, I don’t want to say criticism, but certainly the concern that there’s going to be a split of the left vote in the area and that in the end, reform will be let through.

 

Hannah Spencer Yeah, I don’t think I would consider it to be a split of the left vote. I don’t see the Labour Party being anything remotely similar to us. They’ve shifted, I think, certainly for the last few years, shifted away from working people and working class communities. But certainly since they came into government and they were voted in under the promise of change. And things have changed for people since Labour got in, but they’ve changed for the worse. Like we’ve seen our… Disabled communities, you know, thrown under the bus over personal independence payments, like living with all that uncertainty because the government refused to advocate for them. We’ve seen our older residents have their winter fuel payments ripped away from them. Again, they lived in uncertainty whilst working out what was going to happen there. And things like WASPy women who Keir Starmer stood next to for years and said, I’m going to help you. They’ve abandoned that. And when I lived here, I lived a couple of doors down from someone who was a WASP woman. Like that it was knowing her that I learned about that. So I just think people now are seeing that the Labour Party and the Greens are two totally different parties so I don’t see how we can be splitting the vote when we’re not even on the same page.

 

Cody Dahler There’s been so many MPs who have like stood down because of all of the abuse and the hate they get. And I can’t imagine how much more exaggerated that is as like a young woman in politics. Is there a kind of moment that you sort of decided that that kind of criticism was worth it for what you were trying to do?

 

Hannah Spencer Of course, I’ve really had to think long and hard about the threats of our personal safety. I’ve had that in my role as a counselor. I knew that would increase. There’s been days where I’ve have to have security with me, and that’s really worrying and really sad, but I know that however bad it will be for the next few weeks for me, and I thought this at the beginning of the campaign, that is a drop in the ocean compared to how it will feel for our marginalized communities under a reform MP. Like, I know I’m like, yes, it’s shit for me, but it’s gonna be even worse for our Muslim neighbors, our ethnic minority neighbors, like our trans neighbors, like everybody who already struggles, their life is going to get so much harder. And so it was like, I can do this. And if it was the other way around, like if I was really oppressed, like they would be doing that for me. I know that because I’ve lived amongst people in Gradesmanston, that’s what we do, we stick up for each other. So it was like, I actually don’t really feel like I have a choice. Like this is the only thing that I can do now to try and stick up for the area that I lived in and that shaped me as a person.

 

Coco Khan I’m really glad you mentioned this because in all the stories that are swirling about you there’s been reports about a post on Mumsnet in 2021, in it you say you were glad you moved away from Levensholm, have I said that right? Levenshoe. Levenshoe, see? A real local. Which is an area of the constituency. You described it as blighted by a mile long row of supposedly money laundering takeaways. And people said, oh, that’s you doing the area down. I mean, what would you say to that?

 

Hannah Spencer Yeah, I think, you know, it’s how I felt at the time. And it’s really sad, but like a lot of us, and I grew up in Bolton and I have the same feelings there where you think an area that’s been really let down and overlooked, like the only thing you’re taught to do is to get out. And I just had this feeling where like, I was like, that is really wrong. And I think had I not had that experience, I wouldn’t have seen the injustice between what happens there. But I also know that- That’s what shaped me politically. And I think I couldn’t change any of what happened because it’s that that made me realize like that the inequality is so stark. And people still complain about these things. Like the area has got work. Fly-tipping is so much work. Fly- tipping was bad. Like I complained about that five years ago. It’s worse. Like the Labour council are not looking after our streets. The bins, the communal bins that we have. Overflowing, people can’t recycle, there’s dirty mattresses everywhere. Like there’s all these things that could be fixed and I know when I lived here, and I have talked about this, like I lived it during a really challenging period of my life, like yeah, like probably one of the hardest parts of my life for the years that I lived there. And I know that when you’re going through those challenges, which all of us do, like, I’m no different to anyone else, the everyday parts of life make your life even harder. And I also just saw that when I moved, when I moved on I didn’t have. Pavement parking and I didn’t have fly-tipping and I didn’t’ have my dogs eating all sorts off the streets because it was just better everywhere. Like my life just was just a little bit easier and I thought I don’t want that. I don’t want people when they’re struggling like I did for their lives to be made even harder by things that could be fixed and I do really want to talk so much more about the difference in things like air quality and life expectancy. Like we should not live in a city that has one of the fastest growing economies in the world. It’s the fastest-growing economy in the UK and we just have a difference that we just accept that if you grow up here and you’re a kid like you’re more likely to live in poverty, you’re not going to breathe air that’s as clean as somewhere else, you’re not going get to go to a good enough school. Like I just don’t want to live in a world like that. And again, had I not had that like penny drop moment. It’s just shaped who I am and it’s the reason why I keep fighting, certainly through the abuse and fighting to try and do what’s right.

 

Coco Khan I love the honesty, and I think this is a side bar, but I think in Britain in general we have a problem with talking about class and understanding it. I’m not claiming that I’m an expert, not at all, but you know, I grew up in, says it on my passport, born in Barking, also reflects my mental health, I would describe it. And Barking in Dagenham is regularly named as one of London’s worst boroughs. And if you’re from those places, I think if you, if you being honest, you know what’s happened, you trying to punch the residents, because at the end of the day, you feel that they should have the same chances as someone else in a different borough. And I think sometimes there’s a tendency, particularly of like very comfortable middle class people, to almost want the working classes to sort of live crap, like stay living crap, because it’s authentic or something. It’s like, babe, this is not a takeaway. This is not meal. These are people’s lives. Anyway, I find it quite refreshing when someone can be honest and say, yeah, I did live there and it was, it was not nice.

 

Cody Dahler Yeah, you’ve been saying some horrific things about Dagenham to be fair. If you ever run to be an MP, it’s a no-go. It’s a No-Go.

 

Coco Khan Well, also, let’s talk about the multiple attempts to discredit your campaign from the right. So people claim you aren’t really a plumber. I guess you could say it drives you around the bend, huh?

 

Cody Dahler It’s brilliant.

 

Coco Khan I had another one that I wrote down, which was like, I wanted to say a valiant attempt or maybe a valent attempt, but that’s a bit too obscure boiler chat in a sense.

 

Cody Dahler Okay, there’s a floating voter joke truly.

 

Coco Khan Actually, let’s try and talk about the actual news. So this claim that you weren’t really a plumber, then there was claims that you lived in a huge gated property, which led to a fantastically titled article in the Manchester Evening News. The headline just No, Hannah Spencer doesn’t live in a massive house. With a weird chimney. And finally, accounts on X revealed that your partner was a millionaire senior executive of the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. Turns out that was not true. All of these are outrageous. What was your favorite?

 

Hannah Spencer Um, I don’t know, I did, I say I love the chimney one, but in all seriousness, that is actually someone’s house. Like the graphic that was shared with that, like that is a house in Hale, where I’m a councilor. I don’t live in Hales. Hales is a lovely, lovely place full of lovely people, but I don’t live in Haales. And I certainly don’t live in a three million pound house. I live in nice little terrace, which I love. Um, but yeah, it was, yeah, that, that one was quite bonkers. The plumber one is just absolutely wild and it’s so wild that I know yesterday I brought in all my certificates in the office because we put my plastering course certificate up because I finished my course last week. So I brought in on the plumbing ones and they’re literally like covering the wall. So I was like, yes, like very, very proud of that. Um, But I think the multimillionaire chief executive husband, like is just absolutely bonkers and that was the one how quickly that started. Like someone pointed out. That he went from, in the space of 24 hours, he went form being like a scientist, to then being promoted to like something else, to then promoted to chief executive, so now he’s a multimillionaire, and it was just like, wow, he’s done well for himself in 24 hours for a guy that doesn’t really exist. That’s crazy. And I’ve seen those rumors where, yeah, I think a couple of days ago, I saw a rumor that was like, she’s married to the boss of Pfizer, and I was like no it’s not, it’s AstraZeneca, and I’m like, oh my God, it is not even AstraZenica, I’m not married to anyone.

 

Cody Dahler I would never marry someone from Pfizer! Get it right!

 

Hannah Spencer I was like, please get the room on the conspiracy theory right!

 

Cody Dahler Now, you are up against the reform candidate GB News host and former academic Matt Goodwin. Matt didn’t seem to get off to a great start in the campaign after pulling out of the first hustings, citing serious concerns about impartiality. Here’s a clip about how you responded on Instagram.

 

Coco Khan So for the podcast listeners, it’s Hannah looking out of a window and doing very, almost panto style, where is he? Where is he wearing her gloves, which I assume we use for plumbing. That’s how much I know about this.

 

Cody Dahler The Golden Glove.

 

Coco Khan It’s an amazing video. I mean, you’re certainly very, very popular in social media and on social media. Are you the social media candidate?

 

Hannah Spencer I’m not sure. I think it’s funny because my Instagram has always been a place, like I had it since before I was political, like, I’ve had that account for a really long time and I’ve got this like amazing little group of us that’s grown quite a bit in the last few weeks that’s like, you can talk about really, really serious things and like certainly when you have a platform like I believe you should do that, but you can also have a laugh and like poke fun at the ridiculousness of the situation and try and have a space where, yeah, it’s just easy to exist without there being much. Hatred and stuff so yeah that is it’s a really nice little community we’ve got there.

 

Cody Dahler Also, you can’t challenge Zach Polanski. Zach Polonski is the king of the socials, Hannah, so you can be standing on his toes.

 

Coco Khan Well, I think we’ll see. We’ll see about that. Well, finally, PSUK is obviously all about building a progressive coalition. We want to think about hope. All too often we are dealing with you turn so and corruption and this feeling that, you know, wanting more is just too hard. Public trust is at an all-time low. I suppose my question to you, and it is a big one, how can we build a politics that changed this? Can we build it and can we built it quickly?

 

Hannah Spencer I definitely think we can. I think we’ve, in the last few months as a party, like we have absolutely come out fighting and people really see that. And that’s built on the decades of other people in the party working hard and chipping away. We’ve become an incredible force in very recent months. And I think it is possible, like so much of what I talk about is about encouraging and inspiring other people from like normal backgrounds to get into politics. And I’ve done that since I was a counselor. Like I always encourage every the day. To try and get involved like I did, because I think that is the only way that we’ll really change things by having more people who don’t just, as a teenager, decide, like, I wanna be an MP, and, like do everything in their career to get them to that path. We need more people from a more background in politics. But I know we need to earn people’s trust. You know, this campaign has been four weeks and I can’t convince everybody forever that I’m going to rebuild that trust in that four weeks, but I can do that over a term in parliament and that’s what I will do. And people are really recognizing that. Like, I know you can’t earn someone’s trust overnight, but I know that you can give them a glimpse of who you are and what you believe in and ask them to trust you. And then when you’re elected, like you can really earn and build that trust. And I think this election will send. Shockwaves through the political system because it will just show, one, that that old political party system has just completely, you know, died. But I think it will also show that it is possible for us to rip away the power from the elite and the establishment and get people like us sat on those benches, talking about what we see in our jobs, in our lives, like what our communities are saying, and have decisions that are made with us at heart because we keep the country moving like whether you’re A plumber like me, like a tradesperson, a cleaner, whether you stack shelves in a supermarket, that’s one that people always say, but it’s such a vital thing, like there’s so many jobs that if we didn’t have, like the world would just stop turning. But we never get a seat at the table, and politics is always made like really inaccessible for us. And I know if I get my foot in the door, when I get a foot in a door, I will force it open for everyone else to come through with me.

 

Coco Khan Hannah Spencer, thank you so much for joining us on Pod Save the UK.

 

Hannah Spencer Thank you for having me.

 

Cody Dahler And all the best to your husband, who I believe is going for a promotion at Johnson& Johnson.

 

Hannah Spencer Yes, he is. Yes.

 

Coco Khan So we must mention that we did reach out to the Labour candidate for an interview, but so far we’ve received no response. We will also make sure to include a link in show notes to all the candidates running in the by-election. Coming up, the latest from the U-Turn King, Keir Starmer. He must be so dizzy.

 

Nish Kumar [AD]

 

Coco Khan Ah, Keir Starmer. He sold himself to us as being sensible, right? Organized, prepared, a bit boring even. No Starmer, just drama. Oh, no way. No drama, just Starmer! Anyway, you get the point. You get the point. His time as prime minister has been anything but drama free. So instead of dull and predictable, we’ve got someone who U-turns as often as a bumper car driven by my gran. My gran is dead.

 

Cody Dahler That’s a terribly driven bumper car. You can’t get a worse driven bumper car than being driven by a dead man.

 

Coco Khan I think we should just leave it. I think leave it, my gran is dead. She is. I don’t think she’d be offended. She’s gone. She got me.

 

Cody Dahler She died in a bumper car crash. Because I’m not sure how much Keir Starmer sold himself to us. I think it was more that he was sort of left on the political shelf. He was the last thing available after, you know, like one minute till closing. And we’ve just picked him up. Yellow labeled him. Exactly. Reduced. Okay. He’s the yellow label of politicians for sure. And even during a parliamentary recess, he can’t leave the U-turns alone. This time, the government has abandoned plans to delay 30 local council elections in England, and as always seems to be the case, The change of heart means extra cost, extra work, and a reason for Nigel Farage to claim a victory, which I think we can all agree Coco is absolutely unforgivable.

 

Coco Khan Yeah, so this is all because of a decision to put off the elections until 2027. Ministers said the councils were in the middle of huge structural changes and the extra costs would be a burden. Reform was not happy and they launched a legal challenge.

 

Cody Dahler And in typical U-turn style, ministers continued to insist the delay would happen. In fact, it was only confirmed three weeks ago. On Monday, though, the local government secretary Steve Reid announced the climb down, putting it down to a change in the legal advice. Most likely, the new advice said something like, reform is going to win this one. Yeah, you’ve got to change it.

 

Coco Khan This is such a weird story, isn’t it?

 

Cody Dahler It’s, I feel like this is such peak Labour. The detail around this story is that Labour are bringing in some changes to local government structures, so there are some councils that aren’t going to exist in two years. But rather than explaining that fact to everyone and being like, okay, the reason these elections aren’t happening is because it’s not really like worth the time, you know, there’s going to be these councils won’t exist. I feel like if it’s just communication and they as always failed to communicate anything. So reform and the Conservatives have just been spinning this as Labour running away from the voters, which is what it does look like. But it should be said as well, the Electoral Commission have said the Labour government’s kind of excuse for not holding these elections is also not great. So it’s just on every turn, They seem to have mucked up.

 

Coco Khan Yeah. I mean, you’re a bit more generous than I am actually. Like, you know, I do take the point that the councils won’t exist, but you know they also do exist currently and there will be an amount of leadership that will happen in that time and people should always get the say over their leaders as much as I feel sorry for every single council that’s really struggling at the moment. So, you, know, part of me does think this was a little bit more political not having the embarrassment at losses, which I think are coming down the way. Um, and as usual, reform are going to look good, which I really resent. I really present this.

 

Cody Dahler I know. I think, like we say, this is the most annoying thing about it. I mean, you know, I think you’re absolutely right, especially in a world where we’re watching democracy crumble around the world. It’s not great visuals for the Labour government to be like, do you know what, we’re just not going to have these elections. And I think probably, I do agree with you on balance that they should just have had them because, you know, they’re kind of, the avenue they’re going down is they’re like, well, it would have cost money and it would have been a waste of money. Well, guess what? Now It’s been, there’s been a U-turn. And the government is going to have to pump £63 million into these councils to help them get ready for an election they said wasn’t going to happen in a matter of two months. So we’ve saved no money, and the Labour government has come out of this looking like they’re sort of autocrats that are just scared of the people who are going to vote in the council elections in May.

 

Coco Khan And it is worth saying that as much as we’re talking about reforms, when parties across the spectrum thought this was a bad idea, you know, so the shadow housing secretary, James Cleverly, who I saw in an Ikea recently, said that the reality is that Labour is scared of voters. I believe you have manipulated the democratic process to serve Labour’s political interests. Obviously, every single party wants to stand candidates. They want their opportunity to take their offer to the people. So you can see how across the board, this has upset people. Again. This inability for Labour to see how they are perceived by the public. And yeah, autocratic, particularly we’re going to talk later about Palestine action. This is how people are seen. This is not a good look.

 

Cody Dahler I know. Again, it’s more evidence, isn’t it, that Labour are just trying to run the country like a department. They’re like, oh, yeah, well, this actually makes sort of fiscal sense, so we just won’t do it. And then everyone else is like, yes, but it’s an election and you can’t not have an election get a grip.

 

Coco Khan Also, you know, money is never wasted when it’s spent.

 

Cody Dahler Also, what was James Cleverly buying in Ikea?

 

Coco Khan I don’t, I actually don’t know, and I’ve got to stop talking about this, it was years ago. Honestly, the moment I saw him, I had this feeling of, it’s James Cleverly in an IKEA. I was overwhelmed. I didn’t know what to do. I had so many feelings. Should I say something cutting? Should I offer some insight into politics? Should I show respect? It’s always hard with politicians, isn’t it? I know, I know. Anyway, he was in Ikea. So Keir Starmer’s other favorite hobby is ordering inquiries. And yes, he’s been at it again this week. This time it’s all about Labour together. Regular listeners will remember we spoke to investigative journalist Paul Holden last week about his reporting on Morgan McSweeney and the think tank. So do check out the episode to hear him talk about being investigated and reported to the secret services. Here’s his reaction to the latest news.

 

Clip Obviously I’m very shocked by the revelations and the extent of it. I knew it was bad. This seems to be even worse than we’re expecting. The extent to which they’ve gone out of their way to smear journalists trying to uncover their wrongdoing and their crimes over a long period of time. I mean what I’m worried about right now is what’s been suggested is not properly independent in terms of investigation. I don’t think the cabinet office should be investigating while Josh Simons is still in the cabinet’s office as a minister. I also think it’s absolutely mad and insane that he’s still serving in that position and hasn’t been relieved of it yet, or taken a leave of absence. But this, I think, is just the beginning. There’s so much ugliness here. There’s lots of journalists on the case. There is more going to be coming out.

 

Coco Khan Just for the listeners in audio, just listening to the podcast, Paul delivered that message to us from his car, which I really enjoyed. Just as an investigative journalist flourish, he’s in the car. I expect there’s a flask of hot tea in there. This is serious business.

 

Cody Dahler He was wearing a big coat, he had dark glasses on, and yeah, that’s not his real voice. Because Paul wasn’t the only journalist whose reporting meant he was targeted by Labour Together. They also paid £30,000 to APCO Worldwide, which is an American public affairs company, to look into Gabriel Pogran’s background. He’s the Whitehall editor for the Sunday Times.

 

Coco Khan So now the Prime Minister has ordered the Cabinet Office to investigate the Cabinet Office Minister, Josh Simons, who used to be the head of Labour together. So that’s the Cabinet office investigating a Cabinet Minister. Not sure an internal investigation is necessarily going to quiet the concerns over what’s happened here.

 

Cody Dahler It’s quite a weird story, I thought, because it feels quite like small fry and quite niche. It took me a while to get my head around the actual details of what’s happened. So Labour Together are a think tank associated with Keir Starmer.

 

Coco Khan They hadn’t declared some of their donations to the Electoral Commission.

 

Cody Dahler Right. And then their response was, we need to work out how this journalist has found out, so we’re going to pay £30,000 for a public relations company to work that out.

 

Coco Khan That seems weird to me. It does seem weird, but it’s worse than that because the donations element of it was of course a smoking gun, like there’s rules around that, that’s not really okay, and it is worth saying that the Electoral Commission did find that they definitely did do that. But there was also conversations being had about how Labour together were reshaping the Labour Party to completely push out the left and kind of irreversibly take Labour more right than it has ever been, which would obviously be very sad for a party that’s and so instrumental in social good. You know, hasn’t gone far enough in many places, but has been instrumental in a social good in this country. So it’s sort of a little bit bananas really. So just to give you a, um, a little of an insight into what AppCo found. So Josh Simmons said that he asked the firm to look into an illegal hack. Well, they wondered whether the way that these journalists had found out about these donations was because they had been hacked. And so they wondered if whether the journalists had received this information and how, and that was why. Now obviously the journalist and Paul himself said on our show that this was completely ludicrous. So the BBC reported that this report included information about Pogran’s Jewish beliefs. It had talked about his ideological positions. It was much more than looking into this little thing. It’s almost like giving you the tools for a character assassination. I think there is a point that I often come back to and sometimes when I talk about the things we talk about on this podcast with others and I was outrageous that they’ve And there’s people who often say to me. With the hope and joy gone from their eyes. That’s just politics, baby. That goes on all the time. And yeah, okay, fine. What you’ve seen is you peek behind the curtain, you’ve seen a little bit and you sit in your little lefty millennial world being like, I can’t believe anyone would do that. But actually this happens all the time, so why are you making a big deal out of it?

 

Cody Dahler Yes, and a part of me thinks it’s just, you know, because the SNP have come forward and said, you know, this is outrageous and there needs to be an investigation, which I’m not saying there shouldn’t, but it’s clearly being used in a political way when I don’t think this is necessarily a surprise. For the record, I do want to say like this is ridiculous. Labour together should be held to account. There should be an investigate. I just think trying to claim this as an outlier is a little bit dishonest, in my opinion.

 

Coco Khan So look, it turns out that Keir Starmer is actually facing another political problem this week, a new one. He’s got so many to choose from. He’s facing a choice and it’s already been conclusively proved that both options are the wrong one.

 

Cody Dahler He’s said to favor Dame Antonia Romeo as his new cabinet secretary, but the BBC’s political editor, Chris Mason, has added to the reporting about her workplace behavior. He says that she faced several complaints when she was the UK’s Consul General in New York.

 

Coco Khan Former officials said there had been only one official complaint, but the row means that the Prime Minister is already wrong to appoint her because of the complaints, but also wrong to not appoint her, because of claims the story is being pushed to prevent her from getting the job. Damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t, the Keir Starmer problem.

 

Cody Dahler The Keir Starmer problem continues, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s like a riddle. He’s like a human riddle that is unsolvable. How you can be Prime Minister, the leader of the country, and continue to make, slash not make, such bad decisions and seem to be sort of in a corner where whatever you do is a bad option. You can see why people are starting to think maybe he’s the problem, maybe it’s his decision.

 

Coco Khan It is funny, isn’t it? You know, he’s the man of ethics and standards. He’s the former lawyer, but somehow he finds himself surrounded by people who seem to be, for legal reasons, we cannot, you know, we speculate on what they may have done in a kind of official capacity, but certainly rumors swirl about wrongdoing at every turn. This is just a sidebar, but obviously a lot of the people join politics not thinking that they’re conduct. Would necessarily be an issue. Clearly, I mean, I would never go into politics for all sorts of reasons, you know, ethical, but also you wouldn’t take much to stitch me up, mate.

 

Cody Dahler You’re horrific. The dodgy dossier on you is outrageous.

 

Coco Khan I wouldn’t be putting this in, I wouldn’t dream of it.

 

Cody Dahler You’d be torpedoed, first thing.

 

Coco Khan Coming up, after the break, the latest on Palestine Action’s High Court battle.

 

[AD]

 

Clip Yes! What’s happened? They’ve overturned it! Hooray!

 

Coco Khan Those were the jubilant scenes outside the High Court on Friday after the decision to prescribe Palestine action was ruled unlawful.

 

Cody Dahler In July last year, Palestine Action became the first direct action group to be banned under terrorism legislation, which made membership or expressing support for them punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

 

Coco Khan The move triggered one of the largest civil disobedience campaigns in British history, around 2,700 people were arrested over the last year. We’ve become accustomed to seeing protesters, many of them pensioners holding up signs supporting Palestine action being carted off by police.

 

Cody Dahler Now, it’s worth noting that the band stays in place pending appeal, with a hearing later this week to decide how to proceed. To understand how we got here and what happens next, we’re joined by Tom Southerden, Amnesty International’s Law and Human Rights Director. Tom, welcome to Pod Save the UK.

 

Tom Southerden Thanks for having me.

 

You must be over the moon?

 

Tom Southerden Yeah, I mean it was a really exciting day on Friday. We didn’t feel hugely optimistic. The legal structure and the way the laws are written on terrorism gives the government a lot of leeway and the courts tend to be quite deferential to the government in this sort of thing. So it’s a really big important judgment and a really strong statement from the court that this time the government have gone too far in the use of these powers.

 

Cody Dahler Wow, that’s fascinating. So you weren’t you you were expecting the worst, because I mean, in the public consciousness, this is crazy. And this surely it would have to be overturned.

 

Tom Southerden I should say that if you talk to my colleagues, I always expect the worst, when we do cases like this and they ask, what do you think is going to happen? I don’t think I’ve ever said.

 

Cody Dahler It’s a Tom’s problem. Don’t ask Tom.

 

Coco Khan So can you just break it down for us? Why did the high court find it unlawful?

 

Tom Southerden Yeah, so it found it unlawful for two reasons. They’re interconnected. The first one is that the Home Office have a published policy on how it will use its terrorism powers, particularly its powers to ban an organization, prescribe an organization. In recognition of how broadly worded the general criteria are, not everybody or not every organization that could theoretically fall within the definition should in fact be prescribed. So that’s what the court saw the policy was there for. And what it ruled was that the Home Office went beyond the terms of that policy and essentially relied on reasons to do with how convenient it would be for the authorities if Palestinian action were prescribed as a justification for prescribing them.

 

Coco Khan I distinctly remember Labour MPs saying, no, no no, well, there’s Intel, we can’t tell you and that is why we have prescribed them. Was that not the case then?

 

Tom Southerden Well, the intel part of this is interesting. So in the case, there was a period called a closed material procedure, which is secret evidence that the rest of us can’t see. The government can see it, and a group of lawyers called special advocates who are sort of security cleared can see. The rest of don’t know what that was. We’ll never know what it was. And it doesn’t appear in the judgment. It’s referred to that there was closed hearing, but we don’t what that said. The court are clear that nothing in that closed hearing affected. The conclusion they came to. So whatever they were told didn’t change their mind one way or another. The government’s case was entirely to do with serious damage to property. Yeah. So just to go back to your first question, there were two reasons why the court found against the government. This first one is this point about going beyond the terms of the prescription. The second one is very important, which is that the court ruled that it was in breach of human rights, in breach article 10, article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is freedom of expression. And freedom of peaceful assembly and association, the court found that because it breached their own policy, it was not in accordance with the law. So if you’re the government and you’re interfering with human rights, there are circumstances in which you’re allowed to do that, but you have to do it, first of all, lawfully. And in this instance, they were going beyond their own policy. So the court firm that that was straightforwardly not in accord with the laws. And another factor is, is it, are you doing it in a proportionate way? So is there a less draconian thing you could do that would achieve the legitimate aim you’re trying to achieve? So national security in this instance. Um, and the court found, well, very obviously, yes, there is, there’s the criminal law, which is what everyone has been saying all along. And that is a sufficient, um, mechanism for dealing with this kind of direct action protest. It was disproportionate and excessive to go beyond that and move to calling it terrorism.

 

Coco Khan If the court in effect found that human rights were violated, why has the ban not been lifted immediately? It feels like that’s continuing to violate their human rights of every day,

 

Tom Southerden Obviously I would say yes to that question, so at the moment, one of the major reasons why it was ruled to be disproportionate is not just the banning of the organization itself, which is itself a major interference with human rights, particularly the right to association. We have a human right to gather and form groups to activate and to progress our interests. The point of a prescription is that it completely obliterates that right, so it’s major justification. But beyond that, the effect of prescribing an organization under our terrorism laws is the imposition on the freedom of speech rights and freedom of assembly rights that everybody else has. So you mentioned already, thousands of people have been arrested, but also, most importantly in this judgment, the vast majority of Palestine action-related activists are not accused of serious criminal damage and any of the other charges that are currently being prosecuted. They’ve engaged in what you would regard as more traditional protest, and all of that has been banned as a result of this organization as a whole being prescribed.

 

Coco Khan I see. So on Friday, the Guardian described the defeat as humiliating for ministers and even the Telegraph wrote that the prescription now looks ridiculous. I think this is a good time for a Cody video.

 

Cody Dahler Yes, let’s make this about me.

 

Coco Khan Cody, your video impersonating Keir Starmer’s advisor, a scouting out Palestine action terrorist. I think it summed up the sentiment well.

 

Cody Dahler For god’s sake. Yes. Hello. Kia. You almost blew my cover. Yes. I’ve got eyes on the terrorists. I’m in the bush now. Of course I’ve go footage. Yes. They’re looking very dangerous. Granny Sally on the left looks like she’s packing at least three to four deadly weapons in her slacks. I mean placards. Same thing.

 

Coco Khan I mean, obviously we always love a Cody clip on this show, but there is news around the placard as weapon business.

 

Tom Southerden As I said, there’s a great deal of chaos at the moment and things are moving. So on Monday, the Chief Magistrate that is ultimately responsible for specifically the cases of the placards protesters, let’s call them, what they’ve got to is postponing everything until the Court of Appeal has had a chance to look at this and make its own decision. And the key thing, as we’ve mentioned, is really what happens with the High Court’s decision about are they going to… Implement their decision now or are they going to suspend it until the Court of Appeal rules on it? Because if they implement it now, there really is no legal basis for any of this to continue.

 

Coco Khan I really do want to cling on to the fact that this is historic and this is a win, even though you have really laid out all the caveats, thank you for that, Tom.

 

Cody Dahler We should have got someone else from Amnesty International.

 

Tom Southerden I don’t mean to bum you out. It’s all just, it’s working its way through. These systems take time.

 

Coco Khan And I hope that it will work its way through and then, you know, all of these cases and charges and all of it will be dropped. But I do wonder if in the round, the chilling effect that was intended, well, I certainly feel like was intended to kind of get people to think twice about protesting at all, whether that still has been achieved. I mean, what do you think about what’s happened to protest rights in the UK? And, and, and… And should we be worried that the government, I mean, they seem to not be relenting on this, they’re saying they’re going to appeal, presumably they’re gonna keep pushing on protest rights.

 

Tom Southerden Yeah, I mean, they literally are pushing on protest rights at the moment because there’s another bill going through Parliament at the moment that imposes yet more restrictions on protests. So one of the reasons why we as an organization got involved in the prescription case was that we saw it as part of a much bigger crisis for protest rights in this country, following Black Lives Matter, following Extinction Rebellion, JSO, and now the Palestine movement. More and more laws have been passed going off to various forms of peaceful protest action. So that’s handing more powers to the police to restrict protests, criminalizing things that didn’t used to be criminal, prison sentences and various other penalties for other offenses have all been increased.

 

Cody Dahler That’s the kind of the environment that you see these decisions being made in. Do you think there’s an active effort on behalf of the government to crack down on dissenting voices?

 

Tom Southerden I think they say, and I basically believe them, that they’re quite happy for people to politely voice their displeasure at something that they disagree with, that continues to be possible, as indeed your video’s proof, right? Yes, I have been arrested, yes. But you haven’t yet been arrested. There’s no… But if you are, you know who to call…

 

Coco Khan But if you are, you know who to call, Tom.

 

Cody Dahler Yes, I’ll call Tom, yeah.

 

Tom Southerden He’ll be like, you’re going away for 50 years. There’s no hope for you, I’m afraid. But yeah, so specifically protests. Protests in the street, protests that’s disruptive, protests that a little bit, let’s say, edgy, protests that are a little not concordant with how they would like to see things going. That is being very seriously pushed back on by governments of both main parties, I should say.

 

Coco Khan These proposals about getting rid of juries, I understand that there’s costs saving around it and perhaps actually there’s a feeling amongst the public that we’ll leave it to the legal professionals, look what’s happened in this high court case. The judges found something, you know, they’re not afraid to stand up for people’s rights, but why actually is this something we must be very, very scared about?

 

Tom Southerden And it’s particularly an issue in relation to protest. There has always been a history of juries either not convicting or finding in favor of activists who are able to present to the jury their conscientious motivations for doing what they did. Their position is always, well, we’re not regular criminals. We were doing this for some greater social purpose, you know, some greater good. You know, one of the beauties of the jury system is it’s your… Fellow members of society viewing it and taking their own view about whether this is something that should be criminalized.

 

Cody Dahler So it’s the intersection of the law and the all important context of why someone does something that they’re being accused.

 

Coco Khan Final question though, how hopeful are you about the next hearing?

 

Tom Southerden That was a very long pause, wasn’t it? I apologize. I should have leapt in with it. It’s going to be great. It’s gonna be fine. Um, there’s a long way to go, right? As I said at the start, the, the structure of the way these laws are written puts the government in the, in the driving seat for a lot of this. It is very, very positive that the high court found it to be disproportionate. So the appeal will start from that premise. If you see what you mean, it’s much better than the other way around, for example. Um, so there’s definitely a lot to hope for there. Um, and then. On the human rights argument, on the thing that we care about most, this idea that this is basically fundamentally disproportionate, this is an abuse of very draconian, very serious powers that you look at what has previously been prescribed. We’re talking about al-Qaeda. Whatever you think of Palestinian action, you do not have to support Palestinian action to recognize that it is not the same thing. And that a use of the most serious powers the government have to completely annihilate. Human rights to association and massively impinge on basic protest and expression and assembly rights more generally, is fundamentally disproportionate and with every reason to think that the Court of Appeal will recognize that as well.

 

Cody Dahler Well, I, for one, feel quite hopeful, despite your very measured response, Tom.

 

Coco Khan That’s your permanent, that’s your permanent status. Yeah.

 

Cody Dahler Yeah, I feel optimistic about it. We need that. Well, Tom, thank you so much for joining us on Pod Save the UK.

 

Tom Southerden Thanks very much.

 

Coco Khan So we all hoped we’d seen the back of Britain’s shortest-serving PM, Liz Truss. Her time in office was a total disaster. Faster than you can say lettuce, she’d managed to wreak havoc. But if you fail in the UK, there’s always Trump’s America.

 

Cody Dahler Yes, on Sunday, Truss posted this photo of herself standing next to Donald Trump on X. The caption reads, write about everything.

 

Coco Khan So for listeners, the photo is of Truss and Trump with their arms around each other at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. Truss is grinning, but she’s finally got the prize she always wanted. Trump looks old, looks extremely old, which is strange. I think he obviously looks after his image very closely. I haven’t seen that. Yes. The neck wrinkles so closely before. He’s giving a very limp thumbs up. It’s giving big Florida retirement energy.

 

Cody Dahler It’s the stuff of absolute nightmares. He’s clenching so hard is the tendons in his neck look like they’re about to explode. And yet he doesn’t know what he’s doing with his thumb. I mean, what shocks me so much about this image is how kind of, you know, I’m very reluctant to be a man commenting on a woman’s appearance. But Liz Truss looks like quite formally dressed, and Trump has clearly just come off the golf course. So I want to know how long Liz Truss was there.

 

Coco Khan Was waiting was

 

Cody Dahler Was waiting and then she sort of jumps in they’re both looking in completely different directions and her caption right about everything all lowercase she must have been waiting for this moment for for years and that’s the best she can come up with right about everything.

 

Coco Khan So the Guardian reports that it was unclear how the encounter was initiated, how long it lasted, how long Liz Truss was waiting for this moment. But what is clear for us is America, you can have Liz Trus, just take her. Honestly, she did such an amount of damage in such a short time. It’s genuinely impressive to some, not us though. So please do your worst, take her!

 

Cody Dahler Are we sure it’s not like Madame Tussauds? Because I believe that, because Trump does not look alive. I’m not sure which one looks more like a wax figure, to be honest.

 

Coco Khan Have you ever come across that abbreviation, filth, like failed in London, try Hastings, about all the Londoners that moved to Hastings? Yes. At some point, we as a podcast need to have a think about what that could be.

 

Cody Dahler Yes, what would it be? Failed in UK. Or in Britain. Failed. In. Britain. So, fib. Yeah. Or, yeah. Fib. Try. USA. Fib-tua.

 

Coco Khan Anyway, Trump’s attempt to salvage her career has seen her adopt increasingly extreme positions. She is far to the right of the conservative party that she once led. They don’t seem to be catching on to her vibe though. Her YouTube channel only has 21,000 subscribers, which can I just mention is less than our subscribers. We just reached 25,000. Thank you to everyone who has subscribed.

 

Cody Dahler We should also add it’s not a good look for trust to say that a convicted felon is right about everything. Trump is mentioned thousands of times in the Epstein files and with more information coming out by the day, this could come back to bite her.

 

Coco Khan I don’t know, it feels like she’s at this level of shamelessness that honestly none of it would matter to her and her bass, but fortunately that bass is tiny.

 

Cody Dahler Yeah, I totally agree. She’s unbiteable, and she will maintain a stranglehold of support over the three or four people who are crazy enough to think she’s good.

 

Coco Khan Yeah. The problem obviously is if some of those supporters end up being like the leader of the free world, I mean, that’s not great. And there is a lot of the sort of mag a lot, you know, picking on British political figures, trying to push them forward. So I’ve sort of got, I go back, actually, this is very serious and we should take it seriously.

 

Cody Dahler We should! Yeah, yeah, we should. When the planet implodes, this picture of Liz Truss and Donald Trump will be all that’s left, singed around the edges, a sort of cinematic coda to Apocalypse Now.

 

Coco Khan When you hear that, you just think, I don’t fear death, you know. It’s fine. If that’s the alternative.

 

Cody Dahler That’s the alternative. I would take death any day.

 

Coco Khan Now before we go, last week we had Paul Holden on the show. It turns out his nephew is a big fan of Nish and is actually quite the comedy prodigy himself. He sent us a joke.

 

Clip Hi Nish and Coco, I’m Otto and this is my joke. I asked my friends if they’ve ever listened to Pod Save the UK before, they said they never heard of it. That figures. It is Niche Kumar after all.

 

Cody Dahler It doesn’t work, I’m afraid, because Nish isn’t here! Sorry, buddy. Back to the drawing board.

 

Coco Khan That was so good!

 

Cody Dahler I’m aware that I sort of heckled him there. I just want to, just for the sake of an edit, I just was like, good job. I’m not Nish Kumar. And we move on. Get your facts straight.

 

Coco Khan Do you feel threatened? Are you feeling threatened? Because he’s obviously a prodigy. Yeah. That’s really clever for an eight year old. And that’s it, thanks so much to Cody for joining us this week, while Nish enjoys a break.

 

Cody Dahler Yes, it’s been fun and a little terrifying. Yes, if you want to hear more from me, you can find me on Instagram and TikTok at Mr Cody Dahler.

 

Coco Khan And thanks for listening to Pod Save the UK. Don’t forget to follow at Pod Save the UK on Instagram, TikTok, X, and Blue Sky.

 

Cody Dahler Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media.

 

Coco Khan Thanks to lead producer, May Robson, and digital producer, Jacob Liebenberg.

 

Cody Dahler Our theme music is by Vasilis Fotopoulos.

 

Coco Khan Our engineer is Jeet Vasani and our social media producer is Nada Smilinich.

 

Cody Dahler The executive producers are Kate Fitzsimons and Katie Long, with additional support from Ari Schwartz.

 

Coco Khan And remember to hit subscribe for new shows on Thursdays on Amazon, Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.