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It’s conference season, and at the Labour conference in Liverpool – flagshagging, snake-oil merchants and leadership jockeying – is it Keir Starmer’s final chance for a reset? Nish and Coco are joined by political journalist Zoë Grünewald.

And later – as Trump reveals his plans for peace in Gaza, including a bizarre role for former PM Tony Blair – is the UK doing enough for Gaza? Nish speaks to Labour MP for Stroud, Dr Simon Opher, who earlier this month was denied entry into the occupied West Bank. Simon also fills Nish in on an innovative new prescription medicine – Laughter.

Finally – we open the mailbag to share your wonderful stories of immigration in the UK – and Nish furthers his feud with a beloved British comedy icon.

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Zoë Grünewald

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I am an Immigrant Podcast

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TRANSCRIPT

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Nish Kumar Hi, this is Pod Save the UK. I’m Nish Kumar.

Coco Khan And I’m Coco Khan. This week on the show, it’s conference season, and at Labour Conference in Liverpool, is it Keir Starmer’s final chance for a reset? We’re joined by political journalist, Zoë Grünewald.

Nish Kumar And later, as Trump reveals his plans for peace in Gaza, will Israel face any accountability? I speak to the Labour MP for Stroud, Dr. Simon Opher, who earlier this year was denied entry to the occupied West Bank.

Coco Khan Then we share your wonderful stories of immigration in the UK, and Nish will further his feud with a beloved British comedy icon.

Nish Kumar I will not be furthering any feuds. Also, I think if the feud is created by people describing the things you have agreed to do in your working life, then the problem is with you.

Clip The purpose of this government, end decline, reform our public services, grow our economy from the grass roots, and with resolve, with respect, with a flag in our hands, we will renew this country until we can say with total conviction that Britain is built for all. Thank you, conference.

Nish Kumar That was Keir Starmer playing to an audience of a lot of people and a lot of flags giving Labour’s vision of renewal at his big speech at the Labour Party Conference, but hot on the heels of new Ipsos polling, branding him the most unpopular leader on record and putting reform in the lead by 12 points over Labour. The question is, will it be enough to turn things around? Joining us now, fresh from the conference, is political journalist and… Sometimes host of this show, Pod Save the UK. I don’t know why I said the name of the show. You don’t need the show! Just in case you’d already forgotten it, Pod Save The United Kingdom. It’s Zoë Grünewald. Zoë, welcome back to the show.

Zoë Grünewald Thank you for having me back. And I apologize in advance for my cranky voice. Is that from all the flag waving, whooping and…

Coco Khan Hollering and singing God Save the King at full pelt.

Zoë Grünewald You know me, Coco, absolutely.

Nish Kumar Or is it from getting absolutely lashed whilst watching various members of the front bench put their ties around their heads and sing Sweet Caroline?

Zoë Grünewald We have such fun here, honestly. It’s great. Is that what happens? It’s sort of like end of the wedding energy. Is that? Honestly, Coco, it’s really tragic. Like it’s not. It’s a lot of people jumping around to things that can only get better. It’s not that fun.

Coco Khan That’s genuine. Like at the Labour Conference this year, people jumping around to a song from 1997.

Zoë Grünewald They do it at every conference.

Coco Khan They really do think things can only get better. Oh, I just thought they could pick a more up-to-date song. Anyway, this does lead me nicely to ask genuinely what is the mood like there?

Zoë Grünewald It’s always a funny question because there’s like always several moods. There’s the general mood, which is what the country is feeling and people take that in with them, which has obviously been pretty despondent. There was an extra additional mood this year because obviously there was a challenge from Andy Burnham that was quite blatant. And I think actually did quite a good job at uniting members and cabinet ministers and things around this, okay, we need to get our act together a bit, guys. It’s almost like a kind of. A common thing to rally around. And then there is, and this is where I’ve been because I’ve done quite a lot of event chairing, the mood from business and industry and the unions about what this means for them. And I actually think that has been very interesting because there is a real fear of Labour not backing itself enough. And therefore injecting a lot of uncertainty into business. And they’re very, very worried about what a reform government would mean. I mean, I’ve done a lot of events on net zero, energy sustainability and businesses are really worried about reform coming in, tearing up the rule book. And I thought that was quite interesting because reform will tell you businesses hate net zero. They hate all these obligations, they hate this. A lot of them are in it now. So yeah, several different moods. I would say all of them though are, this hasn’t been a great year, has it guys? We really need to pull our socks up.

Coco Khan Well, in his big conference speech, Starmer did come out swinging at reform. It sounds like that would have been quite welcome. Well, here is the PM.

Clip If you want to stand against grievance and renew Britain, then this is your fight too. Because even in a world this dangerous, I do think the politics of grievance is the biggest threat we face.

Nish Kumar So that’s Starmer drawing a pretty clear line between Labour and reform, presenting it as a binary choice between the project of national renewal and the politics of grievance. What do you make of this strategy, Zoë?

Zoë Grünewald This was the speech Starmer should have given last year in many ways. I think, I’m not saying this speech is going to particularly move the dial when it comes to Starmer’s approval ratings. I think they’ll probably stay pretty much where they are. What Starmer did this year, which he should have done much, much earlier, is setting up a pretty clear story of what this government wants the country to be. And this kind of case for what they would call progressive patriotism. I think that was almost the theme of the entire conference. It was that actually… Labour wants a country that is fair, progressive, proud of itself, and gives people the things they deserve. And the enemy, which is Nigel Farage, wants to divide Britain and create this politics of grievance. And he said, you know, Nigel farage hates Britain. And I think that people have been begging Starmer to come up with a narrative, which is almost us V them. A story of what we can be and how we build our identity in opposition to that. And I think that is what he did. And it’s interesting. The Tories barely featured in Keir Starmer’s speech. They were mentioned really kind of towards the end with a quip of, you know, remember them. And whereas Richard Reeve spoke a lot about the Tory legacy and trying to put that dividing line between Labour and the Tories, Keir starmer’s was much more about looking forward. This is what I want this country to be. And I that has… I don’t think it’s a reset, but I think it has offered a reprieve for Keir Starmer, which is that the membership are thinking, okay, maybe we are on a more progressive path now with a clear vision of what we want. But I think, you know, all of this is said with caveats that there’s a hell of a long way to go. There are still a lot of issues bubbling around the Labour leadership, but I do think this has offered to reprieves.

Coco Khan I mean, when you talk there about a story to rival the story of Nigel Farage, I mean that’s something we’ve been discussing on this podcast for a really long time. So that is heartening to hear. I hear you that it may be too late. And also, I think there’s an issue that it is just story, isn’t it? So the week that Starmer rebrands reform, you know, calls them essentially racist or certainly the politics of grievance, talks about it as being immoral. That is an actual quote. Yet we have Shabana Mahmood now offering a semi-skimmed version of it, right? So people seeking indefinite leave to remain now have to meet even tougher conditions. So we talk a lot on the show about story, but actually there’s story and then there’s reality. How is that gonna play?

Zoë Grünewald I think this is the fundamental issue, isn’t it? Which is that there were a lot of pretty warm words in Starmer’s speech, but you’re right. There is still a lot of punitive immigration policy going on in the background and there’s still a a lot of lurching to the right on social issues. This Labour government believe they can draw a clear distinction between Nigel Farage’s proposals on indefinite leave to remain and what they are proposing, which is based on contribution and wouldn’t be retrospective in the way that reforms policies are. But. It is still based on this idea of contribution. You know, it undervalues things like unpaid care. It also kind of reinforces this hostile environment logic that people must prove their worth when they come over here or they’re not valuable to us. And of course, I was in a panel discussion about violence against women and girls. And one of the panelists pointed out that when you talk about contribution and people having to give something back to their community. You are excluding vulnerable groups like people who are survivors of domestic violence or coercive control, who may not be able to work, volunteer or integrate in any way. And then of course, there’s disabled migrants as well or people with chronic illness. So all those issues that have been plaguing this Labour government about how they are excluding, vulnerable groups, how they’re not standing up for the very people they’re meant to represent. That’s still happening in the background. And I think it is going to be hard for them to. To really put themselves in opposition to Nigel Farage without some very clear, strong moral dividing lines. As you say, Coco, that are actionable and not just warm words.

Coco Khan Meanwhile, of course, we’ve been hearing about your party. They’re up and down the country holding events. Zack Polanski, our guest last week, was at Labour conference outside causing trouble. And I understand that Keir Starmer threw in some jabs at the left in his speech as well, throwing us all in the same pot of snake oil merchants, which includes Tommy Robinson. I mean, first of all, do you feel personally attacked, Zoë? Because I do. And second, what was the nature of these jibes at the Left?

Zoë Grünewald Yeah, I definitely was a little bit like, this is play about us. When Starmer says it, I don’t know, I just feel like it’s so blatant what he’s doing. It feels really, really kind of inauthentic and contrived. You know, you cannot suggest that the people who are suggesting that we tax wealth in this country are the same. As the people who are saying that if you are a person of color, you are not English, it is a ridiculous comparison to make. And I think it just, I mean, maybe I shouldn’t just scoff at it, but I do, because I think, come on, they’re a bit different, aren’t they? They’re kind of different suggestions. I want it would be great. I think a lot of people would like to see is this Labour government be a lot braver on tax. And okay, fair enough. I’m not a tax expert. I’m very good at economics. I’m gonna say that. I think there are lots of positive arguments for a wealth tax, but I can see why some people say it might not work. It might not generate enough revenue. So I would like to see an overhaul of the entire tax system, you know, looking at things like capital gains tax as well. And that was very much the kind of nature of Keir Starmer’s attack. It was that, you now, the left don’t understand economics. And I’m not doing much to assuage that, to be honest. So maybe as a point there.

Coco Khan But I do want to talk to you about possibly the biggest omission from the conference speech and certainly the biggest news I would expect from the whole world of the Labour Party in recent times. So on Tuesday afternoon, following from the speech, the Guardian published a story saying that the two child benefit cap will finally, finally be lifted or certainly tapered. Why wasn’t this in the speech Zoë? Yeah, it’s interesting because there was definitely a sort of

Zoë Grünewald sharp intake of breath when he started talking about Labour wanting to give children the best start in life. And he said something about child poverty as well, wanting to reduce child poverty. And I think there was a kind of moment where I was like, oh, are we gonna get, are we going to get the announcement? But obviously we didn’t. But then you’re right, the Guardian have reported that it will be lifted. I suspect this is because they haven’t quite figured out how they’re going to do it, whether they’re gonna taper the cap or whether they gonna lift it entirely. Details like how many children, what families, what the tapering formula could look like probably are still unresolved. They must have a sense of how they’re gonna pay for it, which is interesting. It might be also that there is a lot of difficult things coming in the budget. So it’s something to kind of offer to satiate people who are concerned about that and therefore to leave it till November because it will have the greatest kind of political impact then. And I also think. This speech was probably the clearest narrative we’ve had yet from Starmer, as I was saying, in terms of a story. Maybe they just didn’t want to kind of rival headlines going at the same time. Maybe Keir Starmer felt that the most important thing was to take that fight to Farage and to leave the two-child benefit cap announcement to November.

Nish Kumar Another one of the big announcements outside of the speech was the government’s plan for an introduction for mandatory ID cards. They’ve called digital IDs an enormous opportunity to secure borders and make it harder to work illegally. At the time of recording, 2.6 million people have signed a petition opposing the scheme. Has this backfired, Zoë?

Zoë Grünewald I just think, again, the comms around this has been so bad. There is definitely a contingency of voters who would understand the prospect of ID cards if it was announced in a way that it’s gonna make your experience interacting with government services a lot easier. It’s gonna join up your data. It’s going to be used a lot better. It’s gotta make it easier for you to access services. It’s got to make them more modern and usable, like. When you use any other app on your phone. But the way this was announced as just, it’s gonna make actually it harder for a certain group of people to interact with services. Also, at a time when the right are making hay out of this idea that Keir Starmer is an authoritarian clamping down on free speech, clamping it down in your freedoms, it’s just, it was kind of the worst time to introduce this policy and to sell it to people. It did nothing to convince the progressive left. Because it was all framed in kind of anti-migrant rhetoric. And it did nothing to convince the critics on the right who are deeply concerned about their freedoms and privacy and security and all those kinds of things. So I don’t think it’s been a hit. I’ve spoken to a number of MPs who are frustrated that they are being expected to go out and sell this without having any clear benefits to offer to citizens.

Coco Khan So I suppose the big question is, in terms of Keir Starmer, what have we got here? His work at the conference, have we a stay of execution? How has he moved the dial in terms the public?

Zoë Grünewald I don’t know if he’s moved the dial. It’ll be really interesting to see what polling says next week. And I have to say, I’m getting sick of all the polls, but I think this is an interesting time actually, because there was a reset. There was almost a leadership challenge. There was a really controversial policy announcement in terms of ID cards. And there was some quite expressive language towards Najaf Raj. So it’d be interesting to if that has moved the deal. Also, Najaf Raja’s response has been a little bit crybaby snowflakey. It’ll be easy to see how that goes down with his own voter base. I suspect the polling won’t move. If it does, it will return, unless Labour actually change course. I think the next big test will be the budget. The two-child benefit cap. It’ll really interesting to see what happens with that. I think a lot of people are hoping Labour makes a movement on that. It felt, if I’m being really optimistic, like maybe Labour has learned that shifting to the right isn’t working for them. And maybe they are ready to try a new tack, but the same advisors remain around Keir Starmer. He remains the same Prime Minister. So I would say, don’t hold your breath on that. Wait and see.

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

Zoë Grünewald Thank you.

Nish Kumar Now, after the break, I’ll be speaking to Labour MP, Dr. Simon Opher, who’s recently denied entry to the West Bank.

Coco Khan [AD]

Nish Kumar So while Keir Starmer hoped to keep Palestine off the conference agenda, it continues to be a major headache for him. Not only did party members vote to recognize Israel’s assault on Gaza as a genocide, but the start of the event was upended by protests with around 66 people arrested for holding placards in support and prescribed terrorist group Palestine Action. Question now is what the government decides to do next. If it decides to ignore this momentous vote, they could find themselves not only globally isolated but also at war with their own party. Joining us now to give you thoughts is the Labour MP for Stroud, Dr. Simon Opher. Simon, welcome to Pod Save the UK.

Simon Opher All right, yeah, thanks for having me.

Nish Kumar You’ve just returned home, we understand, from the Labour Party conference, but I saw some photos of press crowding around you. You seem to have got papped, Simon. You’re a sort of conference celebrity.

Simon Opher Well, I sat behind Andy Burnham at an event, actually, that was always an event. And actually put me off any sort of leadership challenge, not that I’m anywhere near that, but he was just hounded, that poor guy. Actually, what was been interesting since I got back from trying to get into Israel is that I’ve become a sort of go-to person for issues around Gaza.

Nish Kumar Let’s just quickly contextualize for listeners a few weeks ago. You tried to visit the West Bank as part of a parliamentary delegation, specifically to try and understand the healthcare challenges facing Palestinians. But on arrival, you were denied entry. Can you just give us a bit more detail on what the purpose of that trip was and what happened when you tried to get into Gaza?

Simon Opher Yeah, so it was sponsored by Karbu, it was an organization for Arab and British sort of understanding, and also for medical aid for Palestine. And so we had all these letters of permission or introduction, et cetera, from the embassy and from MAP, et cetra. We actually flew to Jordan and then went over land to get into the West Bank in that way. I was actually with a Jewish doctor as well, so another doctor who’s an ENT surgeon. And when we got there, basically we were refused entry after about three hours. Nothing unpleasant happened, I never felt in danger, it was just extremely boring actually. But from the passport sort of center, we actually phoned the foreign office and spoke to the foreign minister. One of the interesting things, it was quite clear that they really have no leverage, I think now, almost no relationship with their Israeli counterparts. So we got blocked at the border and basically sent back. And so these two over six-year-old doctors were… Considered to be a public order danger in the West Bank, which was sort of frankly ridiculous really. So strangely what happens then is we got much more publicity than if we’d actually been allowed to go round and… It’s clear that in the West Bank, what’s happening is that a lot of the money that’s meant to come through the Palestinian authorities being siphoned off by the Israelis. And so hardly anyone’s getting paid, often they either get that or getting half pay or not paid for three or four months. So the healthcare system is on the edge of collapse in the west bank and that’s not even in Gaza. So my particular interest as a GP is how… Healthcare is being used as a sort of a corrective tool. And one of the things that’s really distressing in Gaza is it’s quite clear that healthcare workers are targets. There was a GP like myself. Who was shot and killed, shot in the head, at very close range. People are not leaving hospitals or what’s left of them in Gaza in their scrubs because they get immediately arrested. And there’s something like one and a half to 2,000 healthcare workers that have been killed in Gaza. So… Healthcare is now being used as a sort of instrument of war. And it’s something that we have to shout out about because war is inhumane anyway, isn’t it? Let’s face it, but actually killing medical staff who were just trying to treat the injured and the fallout of war is really getting to a level of barbarity, I think.

Nish Kumar Peter Prinsley is the other MP and he sort of wrote up his experience as a Guardian article when this happened a couple of weeks ago. But if my timelines are correct, this was when the recognition of a Palestinian state was still just a threat by the UK government and actually hadn’t come into force. And so even just that conversation around the possibility as it was then of recognizing a Palestinian State, you think it was enough? The Israeli government to deny two British MPs entry to the West Bank.

Simon Opher Yeah, I think so. And I think, actually, although the UK government has heavily criticized, we have actually gone quite a long way down the line of criticizing Israel very strongly. And we’ve re-recognized UNRWA. As well, my government is gradually inching their way to a better position. It’s just taken rather a long time. And I have said we’re a bit behind the curve. And recognizing Palestine, although in itself didn’t mean anything much, actually at Labour Party Conference, one of the most uplifting events was the, well, the new ambassador to the UK because obviously previously there was no ambassador because they have no technically country. He gave this really heartfelt speech in a big reception. Although it was a symbolic gesture, it felt like we were getting on the right side, actually. So we’re beginning to get there.

Nish Kumar And at the conference, Labour members actually backed emotion, urging the government to employ all means reasonably available to it to prevent the commission of a genocide in Gaza. You said that the recognition of the Palestinian state is one of the levers the UK government could pull. Are there tools available to the UK Government beyond this now to continue to exert pressure on Israel?

Simon Opher The two main tools we’ve got now are a complete arms embargo. I mean, they have suspended a lot of license, 30 licenses, but you know, absolutely. To be honest, it should have been done months ago, but that is, I think, a threat. And then there’s a trade embargo, which I think we have to pursue as well because… We need to stop what’s happening in Gaza. It’s been described by the UN as a genocide. There’s no reason to think it’s not that. I mean, when you have a vote in a Labour Party conference such as that, it has no binding sort of features to it. But it’s just another thing which is swaying the government and making us think that actually there’s support for this, very widespread support for a change. And I think what you were saying about the other doctor that came with me, Peter Prinsby, what’s interesting about him is that he’s a Jewish doctor who’s quite senior in the Jewish community in the UK. And I, I think the article in The Guardian was interesting because he was saying basically… What’s happened to my, our country, you know, we’re going down the wrong route. And that was a very strong message, much stronger than anything I could say because it came from a Jewish voice, I think. It’s slowly moving and many of us wanted it to move much quicker than this, but we’re getting there, I would say.

Nish Kumar The International Freedom Flotilla, which is trying to bring aid to Gaza, which includes the activist Greta Thunberg and British citizens, is soon to enter waters off the Gaza coastline. Now, at the time of recording on Wednesday morning at the 1st of October, they’re on high alert for interception. More than 80 MPs have written a letter urging the government to ensure the safety of British citizens on board. Spain and Italy have deployed warships after drones attacked the flotilla. But they’ve said that they will not engage militarily. So what’s the responsibility of the UK government here? I mean, it feels quite straightforward that there has to be scrutiny and oversight over the actions of the Israeli military to this flotilla, particularly from the perspective of Britain protecting its own citizens.

Simon Opher I think that’s a must really. And it’s sort of unbelievable, we’re talking about it, isn’t it? I mean, this isn’t, they’re not trying to liberate Palestine or anything. They’re just trying to take food in there. I mean that’s why my post bag is so full of stuff about Gaza, because it’s clearly inhumane. And our government, my government, has to be on the side of getting food in. And they are very forceful in their language about ending the famine, et cetera. So I think they need to speak up about this boat and just say, any sort of interception of it is just absolutely wrong and we must call it out as such.

Nish Kumar At the conference, Keir Starmer unveiled the online hospital plan to help cut waiting lists in England. And that’s gonna be rolled out from 2027. It’s an ambitious scheme and it involves a massive expansion of the NHS app. So Simon, obviously, you’re in a unique position to comment on this as a member of parliament who is also a GP. Is this a good thing? Is this really, is this a positive step?

Simon Opher Yeah, no, I think it is. I think the sort of delivery models more, they want it to be really slick in terms of healthcare, like Amazon and so people can access it quickly as part of their lives. And I’m quite in support of doing that. And I think we also, as an NHS, need to make sure that people can contact health professionals. In a digital way, for example, I would say maybe about sort of 10 to 20% of people that come in probably could have just emailed me actually and just said, I haven’t got my appointment yet. I’m feeling a bit worse. Can you do something about it? And so I could then action it without them having to come in and about me giving an appointment. So I think there’s a lot of scope in that sort of communication. So yeah, I’m quite excited about that. I mean, I think something like 38 million of us have got the NHS app. As it stands. And I think we’re just gonna add more function to that. So yeah, I think that’s exciting. It’s exciting, I thought actually Keir was on, he was on a slightly more robust sort of footing compared to other speeches. And I there was a feeling that that was quite a positive speech actually. What was it specifically about the speech? I guess it’s-

Nish Kumar Is there somebody in the room that you felt made it more robust?

Simon Opher I mean, one of the things that some of us in the party were when they came in to power, it was all like, oh, God, this is awful. And the NHS is broken and you know, and actually I don’t think the NHS was broken. I think 85% of it was working great. And I don’t know if you’ve had many interactions with the hospital, but I’ve had one or two in last year with relatives, et cetera. And it’s pretty damn good and our staff are brilliant. And actually still it’s absolutely brilliant services just fraying at the edges from a long. Period of under-resourcing, I think, and sort of a sort of lack of care of it really. So what I really liked about Keir is that he was a bit more hopeful, I suppose, and saying, just speaking the country up. And I think you can actually- You can talk it down very easily, those sort of things. And I think he was going, right, this is what we need to do. And it was a quite enlivening conference because it wasn’t just about the big announcements. This was about how are we gonna deliver this stuff? Also, there was this thing going on that we have to get going because the alternative may be a reform government. And for us, I think that’s quite galvanizing. Actually, to me, that doesn’t mean we need to go reform light. And in fact, my feeling is we need to make sure we don’t lose a lot of people on our left flank, so to speak. And there’s a slightly more openness about stuff, which I think is quite good. I’m not a critic of the government, but I say what I think. It was very difficult when you’ve been a GP for 30 years, not to say exactly what you think, but I think that there’s an understanding that that’s sort of more tolerated now. And that’s gonna be a healthier government, I think.

Nish Kumar I wanna ask you about your mental health work because I believe some of it actually pertains to my profession. But just before we get into that, I just wanna ask from the perspective of somebody who’s worked in the NHS for 30 years, what are your concerns?

Simon Opher What reform are saying about the NHS is basically they’re gonna scrap it. They’re gonna encourage people to go privately, and what will then happen is that you’ll get a bespoke, really high quality healthcare service for people that pay, and then you’ll this public health service, which will be just about scraping by. And we can see that in many other countries. That’s what happens. If it’s not free at the point… Of delivery, then you will get this two-tier system. And so I think what reform is saying is really worrying. What they said at their conference about vaccination, I think it’s really worrying because actually medicine isn’t political. Medicine is based on evidence, and the evidence around vaccination is incredible. It’s the single most effective thing we’ve ever invented as a species, vaccination. It saved over 500 million lives. It’s saving lives now. And actually in Liverpool, recently a child died of measles, right? So as a doctor, I haven’t seen measles. Well, in fact, I saw my first case about a year ago, and that’s because there’s this scandalous conspiracy that somehow the MMR caused autism, and they’re backing that. And that’s what I think is something that we need to be really fearful of. They’re spreading stories like this, which are not founded in science and actually harm people’s health. So. I think that health-wise, they cannot really be trusted to continue the NHS, and I think we all need to get behind what we’re doing with the NHS and make sure it works for people and make people quite clear what will happen to healthcare should reform take over. And what’s interesting about the NHS as well is that, you know, people moan about it, and quite rightly, you know it’s difficult to get a doctor’s appointment, you have to hang on the phone for hours, et cetera. But if you look at the data around it, the one thing it really reduces is our anxiety about getting ill, because we know if we’re ill, we will be looked after. And emergency care, although it’s stretched, is still fantastic in this country. And if you take that away and make it a fee-based thing, the amount of anxiety that everyone will feel will go through the roof. And I don’t think we can imagine in this county what it feels like to think, shit, if I get ill. I’m gonna have to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds. We just don’t even think that it costs money. And so we need to think about that, and then we need need to make our own political choices what we want, I think.

Nish Kumar So look, finally, as a comedian, I was chuffed to see that you’ve been backing trials to see if comedy on prescription can help improve people’s mental health as an alternative to antidepressants. You’ve also got a football by prescription program going on in Stroud too, in collaboration with what I believe is England’s only vegan football team. So what I would say is, as somebody who supports Manchester United, and has done some truly appalling stand-up comedy, I would question the efficacy of football and comedy as a way of improving mental health. But from a medical perspective, do programs like this work?

Simon Opher Yeah, well, I mean, the actual specific things with the comedy and football are quite new ventures. And we’ve never really tried it before. But I’ll come on to that in a bit. But I mean what I have done for 25 years is something called social prescribing. One of my main sort of passions in the health service is we’re getting a bit over-medicalized as a society. So that means you go and see the doctor and you’re pissed off with your girlfriend or your boyfriend’s left you. And that becomes medicalized. So they say, oh, you’re depressed and then you get prescribed medication. And actually the rates of antidepressant medication are really disturbed. Like 8.7 million people in England alone are on antidepressants. That’s one in five of us. And sometimes antidepressants are absolutely brilliant and they’re really good drugs. And that’s really important that some people get very severe depression. But life is a series of ups and downs, isn’t it? And. If we medicalize the downs into depression, we’re gonna be over-treating. So one of the responses medically for me is, okay, go and try something different. Go and try doing some art, exercise. Access to nature is really important and dancing and music is really. Effective. And in fact, we’re beginning to get proper evidence that it really does improve mental. But we all know that if you go out dancing, you feel great the next day, don’t you? I mean, it’s exercise and it’s fun in that way. So that side of things, the social prescription is becoming much more major in healthcare. And I’m really pleased about that. And then coming onto the comedy. The comedy is really interesting, I think, because what you do, you comedians, is you look at life and then you take a massive twist on it and look at it in a slightly weird and funny way. And actually that’s exactly what you’re doing in psychology. You do a sort of reframing of what’s going on. So that’s why I think it’s got, in itself, has got sort of slightly more profound ways of making people aware. The other thing, of course, it’s just good to laugh in that way. Apparently the evidence is that if you laugh, you release endorphins from your intercostal muscles as well. So that’s why you, when you’ve had a good laugh, you sort of feel a little bit high in some ways. And that’s a really good view. And laughing together has got quite a bit of evidence now to it makes people feel better. And then on the football side, so Forest Green Rovers is our club in my constituency. And we were sort of six minutes from a playoff at Wembley and then the South End scored and then we lost our penalties. And I thought, how is that good for your mental health? And you know that at Man United as well, I’m sure. But actually we were sad together as a group of supporters. When you suffer, you don’t suffer on your own in football. And then when it’s good, it’s Good. And the other thing in football, I think is, so what we’re doing is prescribing actual match day tickets to people and they go along. And I don’t know about you, but you can absolutely roar your head off at football. And I think you can do that at any other place in the UK, certainly not in public anyway. So that’s good for you as well I think.

Nish Kumar Well, next time I do a gig and the audience doesn’t laugh, I’ll say, it’s your own mental health, you’re spoiling with that. So think it through. Think it through, think it though. Don’t quote me this. Simon, thank you so much for joining us on Pods over the UK. Thank you very much. Now, if you wanna hear the latest on Trump’s peace plan for Gaza and the bizarre news that Tony Blair is going to oversee the transition as part of his Board of Peace, whatever that means, I have no idea why anyone has decided that Tony Blaire is the person to sort of resolve peace in the Middle East. We may as well put Jack the Ripper in charge of women’s healthcare. Like I have idea why this is something that’s happened. But please, for more news about that, head over and listen to Ben and Tommy on Pods over the world. And after the break, Coco and I discussed the not particularly funny story about Saudi Arabia’s comedy festival. String of words I can’t believe is falling out of my own mouth. And as an antidote to all of these terrible stories we’ve been hearing about immigration plans and immigration policy, we hear some of your stories about migration.

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Coco Khan Now, dear listeners, after Nish weighed in on the Jimmy Kimmel saga last week, we return to the world of politics and comedy.

Nish Kumar Yes, I’ve just had a conversation with Simon Opher where we discussed the idea that comedy could be good for people’s mental health. There’s been a few too many stories recently involving comedy that have not been particularly good for people mental health to engage with. I guess we’re gonna talk about the Riyadh Comedy Festival.

Coco Khan You put it earlier, not a phrase we thought we’d be saying, but here we go. So the Riyadh Comedy Festival, it kicks off this week. It’s a Saudi Arabian state-organized and state-funded event that’s part of the country’s ongoing Saudi Vision 2030. So that’s a campaign to rebrand the country as an international entertainment destination. Sorry, I’m trying really hard to say this, straight face, but like you, I have this feeling of the fuck is this? What is the entertainment? Human rights violations, what is this. According to Human Rights Watch, this endeavor of theirs is, and I quote here, deflect attention from its brutal repression of free speech and other pervasive human rights violations. So again, not a lot of laughs to be found here. So the star-studded list of comedians who will take part in the whitewashing event includes British comedians Jack Whitehall, Omar Jalili and Jimmy Carr. Sadly, our own Nish Kumar was not invited. Are you feeling snubbed, Nish?

Nish Kumar Yeah, I don’t know what I’ve done to not get an invite to the Saudi Arabian Comedy Festival. I’m not sure what it is about me that they felt was not a good idea. I will say, from what I read, when people of my ethnicity go to Saudi Arabia, they end up having their passports taken away from them. As a man of South Asian extraction, it doesn’t seem to be a particularly safe part of the world for me to be operating in. Listen, I think… It’s particularly egregious that this festival takes place on dates that coincide with the seventh anniversary of the Saudi state-sponsored murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. And it takes place just months after Saudi authorities executed a journalist, apparently just for public speech. I think it’s worth acknowledging that a lot of these events are sponsored by the Public Investment Fund, which is directly linked to the Saudi Arabian government. So you aren’t going there just to entertain. The people of Saudi Arabia, you’re going there to participate in a state-sponsored event. And that is a nuance that’s often been missing from some of the defensive positions that people who are performing at this festival have taken. And it’s really important to note that the comedian Atsuoko Okasuka turned down the offer and this week actually revealed some of censorship rules that are in place in the contract. That you sign in order to perform at this. She actually posted bits of the contract that said, artists should not prepare or perform any material that may be considered to degrade, defame, or bring into public disrepute, contempt, scandal, embarrassment, or ridicule. A, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, including its leadership, public figures, cultural people. B, the Saudi royal family, legal system, or government. And C, any religion, religious tradition, religious figure, or religious practice. I know that I shouldn’t be shocked because of the total contempt I have for the vast majority of people that work in my industry. But even for me, the Saudi Arabian Comedy Festival was shocking, you know? And yeah, there’s been so much fucking talk, spurious, nonsensical talk about the dangers posed to comedians line of work by freedom of expression. But I’m afraid to say, if you’ve taken the fucking Saudi dollar, it’s time for you to sit these conversations out because you are participating. State restricting what a comedian can and can’t say. And the reason you’re participating in it is because you wanted the money. You took the money, shut the fuck up. And I mean, I think people are more disappointed and confused by some of the American comedians. With respect, nobody is surprised that Jimmy Carr is doing it. Also, none of these fucking people need the money! Okay? None of these people need money. Like, I like Jack Whitehall, but he does not need the the money currently or ancestrally. He does not need that Saudi Arabian money. He has got family money and his own Netflix money.

Coco Khan Just curious, what if this is all an elaborate way for Jimmy Carr to transform his reputation because he’s gonna go to Saudi Arabia and say the censored things?

Nish Kumar I don’t know where I’m plucking this from. It’s just a random phrase that’s come to my head, being dismembered with a bone saw. I don’t know why is that specific phrase has come into my head. But broadly, that is something that tends to happen to people who are critical of the Saudi regime. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, dear listeners, we want to move to a more…positive thing, which is the incredible response to last week’s show. We did want to share some of your excellent contributions, particularly given the kind of last couple of weeks.

Coco Khan So firstly, clearly our interviewer, Zack Polanski, struck a chord with many of you. So the best planet is Earth wrote, wow, Zack is so refreshing, great policies, charismatic, actually has a sense of humor, rare in a politician, and genuinely seems to prioritize the broad left movement over his own ego, even rarer.

Nish Kumar Gone on holiday by mistake, what I assume is a Withnail and I fan, or either that, there’s a spectacular coincidence, has written, Zack has such a good sense of how modern politics is played, for example, making the focus on bills, not the environment is exactly right. Understanding how the public perceives you is so important. Really, really wonderful correspondence on the Zack interview. And also Coco, we had a lot of chat about immigration.

Coco Khan Yeah, so we asked to hear your stories of immigration and you did respond in droves. A worried anonymous listener wrote in to say, I am Japanese, I met and married a Liverpoolian and came over to this country 10 years ago. I pay tax, I pay the bills, and the only thing that even comes close to claiming benefits for me was the few weeks I had to take sick pay. I also work in the primary care sector for the NHS. I jumped through all the legal hoops like a good citizen and paid all the fees that I’m yet to see any benefits of. But decided I wanted to hold on to my Japanese passport, at least while my parents are still there, with the promise of indefinite leave to remain and didn’t actually become a British citizen. Dual citizenship is not an option in Japan. You can imagine how my heart sank after reading the news about some comments made by a person with such wealth, power, and bad intentions. Yeah, I mean, that story about dual citizenship not being allowed in certain countries, I think that’s really missing from the conversation. Or where does that leave people who have to choose between their family here and their family? In another country. So this is a horrible choice.

Nish Kumar The scandal of that story is not that a person has immigrated to this country and is applying for indefinite leave to remain. The scandal in that story is the pressure being put on people that work in the NHS. The conversation around immigration is not just xenophobic, nativist, unpleasant, and at times just straight up racist. It also prevents us from actually having the real conversations we need to be having about the things that are going wrong in this country. There is a kind of moral obligation which I’m definitely not undervaluing. And I think sometimes. Even on the left, people have a tendency to undervalue the kind of moral side of this. There is also a side to it that means because of our national obsession with immigration, we actually don’t have sufficient conversations about the actual problems that afflict this country, which are not immigrants. The actual problems that are afflicting the country that are manifesting themselves in that listener’s story are the pressure put on NHS staff. I’m so grateful to that person for writing it anyway. Daryl has also written in to say, I’m a Scotsman born and raised. It took an immigrant Pakistani to rescue me from homelessness and allow me to get my feet back under me. The reality is we’re all immigrants and I really don’t care whether you come from Russia, China, North or South, East or West. I only care whether want to be here.

Coco Khan Dylan also wrote in with his family story. My great-grandparents emigrated to South Africa when it was a British colony to escape pogroms in Eastern Europe. One grandparent was an RAF tail gunner through the whole Second World War, brackets average life expectancy was less than three months. And the other was a farmer supplying the war effort. Without the colonies, Britain would not have survived World War II. My parents were educated in British schools in apartheid South Africa, became minor anti-apartheid activists while at university. And fled the country with my infant sister to escape government crackdowns.

Nish Kumar So Dylan went on to say I was born in the UK in 1987 and issued a South African birth certificate, including a racial categorization white. I was not officially British until a few years later when my parents were allowed to naturalize. Since then, they worked a combined 75 years in full-time frontline roles for the NHS and raised three painfully English children to adulthood. While I’m proud of my family story, it’s not unusual or even particularly noble. Most of my migrant friends have similar backgrounds.

Coco Khan I mean, again, as with all of these tales, there’s so much to take from it, but I think that assertion about the colonies and World War II is always welcomed, particularly when certain parts of right-wing politics like to draw upon this part of the history and willfully ignore certain communities who contributed to that war effort. We should also say, you know, Nish and I are both children of immigrants. Our producer, James, was born in Australia. Our executive producer, Tanya’s partner. Was born in Vietnam. And our digital producer, Nada, was born in Serbia. Here’s her story.

Nish Kumar Nada wrote, My parents decided to leave Serbia in 2003 when I was eight years old. These were the years following the Yugoslav wars and the fall of the Milosevic regime. And with an unstable economic and political situation, they wanted me to have better prospects. My mom’s skills as a doctor meant we could relocate to the UK, but the move didn’t come without sacrifices. My dad, now a taxi driver, was moving to a new country aged 43 without speaking English, while my mom had to abandon her doctorate and retrain in the British system. They later separated, never easy, especially when your entire support network is in another country.

Coco Khan But it’s not as easy as just moving, of course. So Nada writes that, in the years before we got British citizenship, the periodic uncertainty around whether our visas would be extended made for anxious times. My dad’s passport was once held at the home office for nearly a year due to a backlog, meaning he couldn’t see his unwell partner. The threat of having to uproot your life against your will or be separated from loved ones is a reality known to many immigrants.

Nish Kumar She says, If we’re talking about this, Coco and I actually met initially. Because we were both contributors to an anthology called The Good Immigrant, which was released in 2016, that is again a string of first-person stories written by first and second generation, and I think in some cases third generation, immigrant authors.

Coco Khan Well, no, exactly. And it’s strange as one of the listeners said, oh, you know, I’m a good immigrant and it sort of gave me shivers a little bit because of course we met on a book called The Good Immigrant. It’s so strange because it’s coming up to 10 years since that book was released, which makes me feel fucking anxious. But anyway, put that aside. 10 years, has the conversation got better? No. Are we still talking about good migrants versus bad migrants? Yes.

Nish Kumar We have to stop a conversation that others immigrants and immigrant communities, because we are you and you are us, you know? We come from your, we live in your communities. We work in your schools, we work in hospitals, we drive your busses, we’re your doctors, we’re you nurses, we are your lawyers, we are accountants. We are all part of the same community and the efforts to kind of splinter that community and splinter, that cohesion will end up. Serving nobody. And look, we just wanted to shout out Ice and Fire Theaters podcast, I Am An Immigrant, which aims to bridge the gap between how the UK public perceive immigrants and how immigrants perceive themselves. Check it out. It features interviews with a mix of regular and famous people, including Siobhan McSweeney of Derry Girls fame and the actor Babu Sisei stars in Alien Earth, which incidentally is also a story of interplanetary immigration. Maybe not quite so positive though. You can find a link to I Am an Immigran in our show notes.

Coco Khan Finally, Nish, we actually have a note for you. It’s from one of our listeners. It’s a bit more of a reality check, I’d say. So Alison, a listener in her 40s says, I well remember that thing around your 40th birthday when you mope for a bit about being past it, but then you just get on with life, embrace hobbies like gardening and realize in a few years, you’ll be 70, looking back on your 40s with nostalgia for how spry and full of life you were. So there you go, Nis. You had your 40 birthday recently, time to take up gardening.

Nish Kumar I really appreciate that message from Alison. I think whenever you enter a new decade in your life and you feel a little bit sort of weighed down by the transition process, think of taking up a hobby as a great idea. I think gardening is not the one for me. I have so many hobbies.

Coco Khan Can I understand from this that you’re not going to have a midlife crisis then? Because I’ve been kind of waiting on that for some time and I’m looking forward to eagerly watching it with popcorn to see what this midlife crises will be. You’re going to start wearing shoes. You could do a new diet. You could take weird drugs. You could move to a commune. You could, what else do they do in midlife crise?

Nish Kumar None of this sounds good, man. It all sounds kind of shitty. Oh, you could-

Coco Khan Oh, you could become right wing. Oh my God, no one would expect it.

Nish Kumar Yeah, I mean, that would be the pivot. That would be a pivot. Put it this way. I don’t see myself turning right wing, banking a cool couple of mil and heading off to Riyadh to do the Saudi Arabian Comedy Festival.

Coco Khan That’s it. Thanks for listening to Pod Save the UK. Don’t forget to follow at Pod Save The UK on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter and Blue Sky. Pod Save UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media.

Nish Kumar Thanks to senior producer, James Tyndale and producer, May Robson.

Coco Khan Our theme music is by Vasilis Fotopoulos.

Nish Kumar The executive producers are Tanya Hines and Katie Long with additional support from Ari Schwartz.

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