It’s official. The election results are in and we are in the era of a Labour government. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has stepped up the 10 Downing Street – but one of the key questions for Nish and Coco is will things concretely improve under his leadership? What can we hope for in this new era?

 

The results of this election has shown massive changes in all directions and with all the parties. Joining Nish and Coco to analyse all the seismic shifts is political journalist, Zoe Grünewald. She discusses whether the Conservatives and the SNP are on the brink of collapse, and the implications of Reform getting seats in parliament.

 

We also hear from newly elected Labour MP for Swansea West, Torsten Bell, and Femi Oluwole looks at the early stats around tactical voting.

 

 

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Guests:

Zoe Grünewald, political journalist

Torsten Bell, Labour MP for Swansea West

Femi Oluwole, journalist and campaigner

 

Useful links:

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/pod-save-the-uk-live

 

Audio clips:

Channel 4

Sky News

BBC

Femi Oluwole

LBC

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

[AD]

 

Nish Kumar It’s over. It’s finally over.

 

Coco Khan After a disastrous result for the conservatives. They might be over too. I’m Coco Khan.

 

Nish Kumar And I’m Nish Kumar, and this is the first episode of Pod Save the UK under a Labour government.

 

Coco Khan We’ve got a massive election special for you today. We’ll be bringing you highlights of the results, checking in with new Labour MP Torsten Bell and hearing what political activist Femi Oluwole thinks about the result. But first.

 

Clip We said we would end the chaos and we will. We said we would turn the page and we have today. We start the next chapter, beginning the work of change, the mission of national renewal and start to rebuild our country. Thank you.

 

Nish Kumar That was Keir Starmer announcing the long awaited and heavily foretold victory at the Labour Party, ending 14 years of conservative rule and starting, hopefully, a new positive chapter for the UK. How are you feeling, Coco?

 

Coco Khan Honestly, yeah. Hung over. I’m really, really hung over it. But I think that’s actually quite a good metaphor for today, don’t you think? Yeah. You know, very exciting change, but also a bit of anxiety that.

 

Nish Kumar Whoa. Would you like to tell the listeners what you were doing last night to contextualize it was you weren’t just out on a sort of election night bender.

 

Coco Khan I was hosting an election party. Yeah. Which is very, very lovely. It was a Marina Perkins from the troll. Yeah. What was most interesting about it is that I am. Any listeners of the show will know that both of us have been quite conflicted about the current Labour leadership, but nonetheless, I was happy to see the conservatives get their just desserts, so to speak. Not in the room, though. It was really subdued.

 

Nish Kumar Yeah, right.

 

Coco Khan You know, there’s a lot of talk in the media today about this landslide Labour victory. But I think amongst Labour voters it’s bittersweet.

 

Nish Kumar Yeah, it’s there’s a lot of problems facing the country. There’s a lot of issues to discuss it. Your dress is on backwards. We should probably cover that off of the top.

 

Coco Khan Why did you tell everyone?

 

Nish Kumar I just think it’s a good. Just like it’s a good visual metaphor for where you are.

 

Coco Khan Yeah.

 

Nish Kumar In yourself at the moment.

 

Coco Khan Yeah.

 

Nish Kumar At this current moment in time. So it was it was an official event.

 

Coco Khan It was an official event.

 

Nish Kumar It wasn’t you weren’t just hosting a soiree. It was an event. There was an audience.

 

Coco Khan Yes.

 

Nish Kumar There were people talking about the election.

 

Coco Khan And it was obviously very, you know, grown up in the sense that we talked about the challenges that the future government will face and what it means about the rise of reform, but nonetheless, well, there was a lot of worry, just me on my own. I was bringing a lot of Woo. Jäger bombs were consumed.

 

Nish Kumar Jäger bombs?

 

Coco Khan I know, I know, Nish. I know.

 

Nish Kumar Jägermeister is like, I don’t know. It’s some sort of like it feels like the sweat of a person that needs to think about their life choices. But we should say that as we record, to about 9 a.m., on the Friday morning, Labour of one 411 seats, that’s 210 more than the 2019 election. The numbers for the Conservative Party, sobering in a way that would be helpful at this point in time for Coco conference. It would be the ultimate hangover cure for cocaine. It is. The Tories have had a hell of a bacon sandwich this morning. The margin of Tory destruction is staggering. They’ve won 119 seats again at the time of recording, losing a whopping 249 seats since the 2019 election, where, of course, they won an 80 seat majority with a total of 365 seats. They did lose a few, on the over the course of the Parliament, as is normal for any parliament. But it was a very, very strong position to be in. Labour’s new majority is 291. This is from the perspective of analyzing the Conservative Party. Objectively hilarious. It is objectively hilarious because it’s very funny and very refreshing. Just to see actual political consequences for, I mean, we can depends on how far you want to zoom out for it, but certainly, at least within the course of this Parliament, five years of scandal, sleaze, uninterrupted political failure. It is a party that has repeatedly pushed the self-destruct button and has largely forced those consequences of that self-destruction on the public in this country. And it was nice for one moment to see the consequences of that self destruction blow up in their faces.

 

Coco Khan So I know we’re being enthusiastic right now, but if you’re a regular listener, you’ll know that we’ve had some reservations about what Labour has been saving up lately. We’ll get into more of that later with our special guests, new Labour MP Torsten Bell and political activist Femi Oluwole. But first, there’s been some absolutely delightful results coming in overnight. Joining us now to discuss some of the very best results of the night is political journalist Zoe Grünewald. Welcome back Zoe. Did you get much sleep?

 

Zoe Grünewald I had about two hours, so I’m just going to I’m just going to warn listeners now.

 

Nish Kumar Coco smells like Oliver Reed. So.

 

Zoe Grünewald I think you’re doing very well Coco I really do.

 

Nish Kumar I think you’re holding it together. The reason that I didn’t do anything more expansive with my evening, yeah, is that I would not be able to hold it together at all. Let’s talk before we get into Labour, let’s talk more about the, what we previously called the Portillo moments, which is a moment in 1997 when conservative cabinet minister Michael Portillo lost his seat live on air. I guess we now call them breakable moments, the moments where a conservative did so badly.

 

Coco Khan I am worried about this being crystallized in my life. You know what I mean?

 

Nish Kumar What? Jäger bomb moments?

 

Coco Khan I’m worried about in 30 years from now. Someone will be like, ah yes, you are the journalist of the Jäger bomb moments.

 

Zoe Grünewald We have we have spoken about Jäger bombs like a lot, like a lot in the last 30 minutes.

 

Nish Kumar But today’s podcast is brought to you by Jägermeister. Do you want a spirit that tastes as bad as it makes you feel the next day? Jagermeister. Let’s talk about a new moment. Forget the Portillo moment. Forget the Jäger bomb moment. It’s time for the Truss moment.

 

Clip Recorded for each candidate is as follows.

 

Nish Kumar This is Sky new’s coverage of the moment Liz Truss lost her seat.

 

Clip Independent 6000.

 

Nish Kumar The camera is now zooming in on Liz Truss.

 

Clip Douglas.

 

Nish Kumar It looks like a spirit has left her body.

 

Clip Out of Britain sitting.

 

Nish Kumar She’s staring off into the middle distance.

 

Zoe Grünewald She’s disassociating.

 

Clip David Truss. Liz, the Conservative Party candidate.

 

Nish Kumar Here we go.

 

Clip 11,217. Oh, I think she’s lost. Yep. She’s lost.

 

Nish Kumar Yeah. So that was the moment that Liz Truss, lost her seat. But just that was not all. So many high profile conservatives lost their seat. Gillian Keegan, the education minister, who was caught on camera saying that no one had praised her for doing a fucking good job. Turns out you didn’t do a very fucking good job. Grant Shapps, the defense secretary, Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons and some people’s, pick for the next leader of the Tory party. Greg Hands, who’s the business and trade minister, who? One of our producers actually interviewed because he was the a member of parliament for the constituency that the recording studio we record this podcast is him. Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister, Simon Hart, the chief whip. Michelle Donelan, the science secretary. Lucy Frazer, the culture secretary. Mark Harper, the transport secretary. The Scottish Tory leader, Douglas Ross lost his seat to the SNP to Rhys Coffey lost his seat after Labour candidate Jenny Riddell Carpenter overturned a 20,533 majority. Michael Fabricant, who people will recognize as being sort of it looks like a kind of AI generated image of Boris Johnson. And this one, this is the one that Tice the sweetest. This is so sweet that even hearing it gave me diabetes over the years. Jacob Rees-Mogg lost his seat. There’s very few things in life that are unambiguously pieces of good news.

 

Coco Khan Yeah.

 

Nish Kumar Just listing them has made me so happy. I actually, in the process of listing them, I also received a text message on my computer that said there is a new Kendrick video and the Tories are out. I’m just checking that you’ve not jazzed yourself to the moon and rescue. A lot of people don’t know that James II has to come. Workplace. A lot of people don’t know that. It. Yeah, it’s an astonishing list of conservative MPs.

 

Zoe Grünewald Absolutely.

 

Coco Khan The question I wanted to ask you, though, Zoe is is this the super majority everyone was banging on about?

 

Zoe Grünewald Well, it’s a big majority. I mean, the word supermajority is actually meaningless, as we know, because it is. It’s an Americanism. It comes from a very different, set of political and electoral circumstances. It’s a great result for the Labour Party. The problem is, we had so many polls beforehand which were predicting absolutely astronomical results for the Labour Party. And so anything less than that kind of by default looks like Labour have slightly failed. Definitely. We’ve seen a narrowing, which was to be expected. That is what usually happens. And the conservatives, I mean, some people are saying they would get under 100 seats, including me, hopefully. But you know, they haven’t they, they’ve got over that. And that is now going to be seen as a success for the Conservative Party. It is not a success. You know, they have absolutely depleted their vote share. What is good about this big majority is it will give Starmer space and time to do things that are hopefully consequential to make a difference to people’s lives. So one of the big things that Labour wants to do as soon as it can is planning reform, which sounds really boring, but actually is vitally important because one of the biggest problems with our economy, with our with the political system in this country, is we don’t have enough housing and we don’t have enough infrastructure. And a lot of that is to do with our archaic planning system. We don’t have enough actual planners, people who are going through planning applications and approving them. Developers. Hold on. To land for ages, hoping to sell it. I inflated rates to councils which mean they can’t build on it. Labour wants to overturn all those things. They want to make it much easier to build. If Labour has a big majority, it just makes it so much easier to get legislation like that through.

 

Coco Khan But isn’t there a bit of, an issue for Labour in terms of the majority being so big that probably certain MPs with the backbenches, for example, won’t feel like they need to toe the line all the time.

 

Zoe Grünewald That is a problem. There are pockets of discontent, both in the Labour Party but also on the progressive side of their support. And that is going to be a problem for Starmer, because at the minute, what he’s got is a very kind of broad pool of support, but it’s quite brittle. It’s quite shallow. And, you know, it isn’t too long till MPs in constituencies with really narrow margins, like, for example, Wes Streeting, we saw he barely clung on to a seat this time. He’s going to be feeling the pressure from his constituents. I mean, he’s probably not the best example because he is extremely close to Keir Starmer and he’s a shadow cabinet member. But there’ll be other MPs in similar positions with small majorities also. If you have a big majority, you have lots of MPs stuck on the backbenches hoping one day they might get a ministerial position. And the less and less it seems that that missed ministerial position is coming, the more and more people start making their own demands. So in some ways, if you have lots of ambitious MPs who aren’t, in their view, being rewarded for that ambition, that’s when you start to get dissent.

 

Nish Kumar How good a night was this for the Liberal Democrats?

 

Zoe Grünewald It’s an excellent night for the liberal democrats.

 

Excellent. Let’s get the paddleboards out.

 

Coco Khan Yeah.

 

Zoe Grünewald Excellent night for the Liberal Democrats. They have absolutely exceeded their vote. I think the highest vote share, that they, they’ve got Ed Davey absolutely smashed his say is, you know, he’s done extraordinarily well.

 

Nish Kumar And actually physically smashing his seat is one of the few publicity stunts he did today.

 

Zoe Grünewald We probably really surprise yeah. 71 seats. So extraordinary result for the Lib Dems more than was actually predicted. Yeah. In the, in the opinion polls, but also the exit poll, they’ve outperformed the exit poll. Yeah. So they’re going to be really pleased. Now we have to realize a lot of this is tactical voting. And that’s why we’ve seen a lot of strong support for Lib Dems in those sort of true blue areas where people didn’t want to vote Tory anymore.

 

Nish Kumar We should also say it was a very good night for the Green Party. I mean, particularly for the co-leaders, because Adrian Ramsey, the co-leader, gained, Waveney Valley from the Tory party and, Carla, a former guest of this show, green, co-leader of the Green Party, won in Bristol Central. They’ve got four seats in total. That’s a huge night for the Green Party, right?

 

Zoe Grünewald Absolutely. For us in some ways, best case scenario, I think for the Green Party. So they’re going to be really, really pleased. Obviously that comes at the extent of a Labour loss in Bristol Central with Thangam Debbonaire who was a shadow cabinet minister. That’s going to be felt by the Labour Party. But it was expected. Bristol’s got a, you know, really strong, student constituency. Lots of progressives there who have been disappointed not only by the party’s approach to Gaza, but also rowing back on the 28 billion green plan, which, you know, it’s hard to actually quantify where and why Labour is losing support. But there are some specific things you can point to. And and I think particularly in Bristol, that’s where a lot of that support for the Greens is, is coming.

 

Nish Kumar We are obliged, though I suspect none of us are particularly enthused by the prospect of doing so. To talk about the Reform Party. The sum total of all of this is that reform have won the same number of seats as the Green Party. I mean, in terms of the media coverage, you would see that reform were now the official party of opposition. I do understand some of that, because there were a lot of seats where reform actually beat the conservatives into third place, and came second to Labour. So Nigel Farage finally, won his seat. Richard Tice, won his seat. Lee Anderson, who was a former conservative MP, the former Southampton Football Club chair, Rupert Lowe, also want to say, their vote share was very high, 15.3% of the vote share, which compared to the Tories vote share, which was 25.9%, is an alarmingly high figure. So does this mean now that we’re going to see the conservatives tack, I mean even further to the right?

 

Zoe Grünewald It’s interesting. I think the most influential part of this is the fact that Nigel Farage is now going to be in the House of Commons. Yeah. So he is going to be putting pressure on the Conservative Party almost from the inside every day. He’s going to be putting them on the spot. And we know that there are conservative figures in the party like Suella Braverman, who is pretty supportive of Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch and other kind of right wing conservative figures who are pretty keen to lay the failure of the conservatives at the door of not moving rightward enough. Yeah, the thing I wonder about reform. Nigel Farage is an anti-establishment figure. If you put him in the establishment, that can sometimes take away some of their sheen. Yeah. So look at what happened to George Galloway. He came in as an anti-establishment figure. He lost his seat last night. This happens because these figures come in. They promised their constituents the world, they say. You know, you vote for me. I’m going to represent your interests in Parliament every day. I’m going to sort stuff out and then they don’t do that. It doesn’t happen because it’s not that simple. With Nigel fraud, that’s even more the case because at least with George Galloway, what he was, what he was telling his constituents was he was going to be a voice for Gaza. That’s quite quantifiable. You can stand up in Parliament, you can make interventions, you can do, parliamentary questions. For Raja’s vision is much more incoherent.

 

Coco Khan Yes.

 

Zoe Grünewald So when it comes to the people of Clacton, who, you know, collection is a deprived constituency, there’s a lot of disillusionment, a lot of disenfranchisement. Life is not going to magically get better for the people of Clacton just because Nigel Farage is your MP. So I wonder if maybe, I mean, maybe this is very hopeful, but actually Nigel Farage could be slightly neutered by by being put into Parliament. And I just wonder how solid reform is as an entity or if people are going to get sick of this being the Nigel Farage party. And my hope is they’re actually not that solid on bringing them into Parliament might be the best way to watch them disintegrate.

 

Nish Kumar Let’s look at the devolved nations. It’s been a terrible night for the SNP. Absolutely terrible. They lost 38 seats. Here’s SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn talking to the BBC about the result.

 

Clip Can you hear me? Stephen Flynn. Hi there. Can you hear me? How are you? I’m fine. More to the point. How are you? I can hear you. Oh, jolly good, jolly good. Most to the point. How will you? Because, it’s not looking good for the SNP. No. It’s, it’s a very bittersweet night for me. I’m obviously delighted on a personal level.

 

Nish Kumar For the benefit of, people who were listening to that. I didn’t watch that clip and thought maybe Stephen Flynn was on some kind of delay. He wasn’t. The silence that you hear is him puffing out his cheeks and looking like Dustin Hoffman at the end of The Graduate.

 

Zoe Grünewald Yeah, he doesn’t have a poker face, does he? No, that was that was pure sadness.

 

Coco Khan Yeah, because, I mean, you know, when we’re talking about the victory of Labour, I mean, let’s be realistic here in terms of vote share, Labour actually didn’t really improve enormously. But in Scotland now that’s where this a real victory. Most of the votes returned to Labour. They won 37 seats. Yeah I mean what do you think about the SNP in general now.

 

Zoe Grünewald And the SNP were already struggling. We know that the party is under investigation over its financial situation. We know that has involved Nicola Sturgeon, the former leader, and her husband. They now have new leader John Swinney, experienced SNP member, but plunge straight away into a general election. But the other thing is the independence, which has united the SNP has had so many setbacks. Yeah, and now the party is lacking its identity and it’s split because there is one side of the SNP party that is actually quite conservative, it’s quite nationalist, there’s another that’s very progressive. And it’s really hard to reconcile the two. And because the SNP aren’t presenting any, you know, any convincing reason to vote for them over Labour. Then they’re just going to hemorrhage votes. And they knew they knew this was coming. And I think, you know, it is a real shame because where the SNP is at now with John Swinney in charge, and I think Stephen Flynn is in many ways a very impressive communicator. I think he’s quite an impressive politician. Unfortunately for the for the people of Scotland, it looks like their priority is making sure the Tories are not in Westminster anymore.

 

Coco Khan So let’s move on to Wales. The headline there is that it is a total conservative wipe out. They lost 12 seats. It’s the first time in nearly two decades that the Tories have failed to win any seats. You know, as progressives on this podcast, we could probably take some joy in that. But what do you think that means in terms of Wales position in this Labour government? You know, are they going to be more important now, do you think?

 

Zoe Grünewald It’s really interesting because, Wales was constantly used by the Tories as an attack line. Look what’s happening to the NHS in, in Wales. They really wanted to demonstrate that, you know, Labour was failing Wales actually Labour’s done very well is won an extra nine seats got a total of 27. The thing that is interesting is allied country won an extra two seats and they now have a total of four. And I think to some extent that’s to do with the leader’s quite impressive performance in some of the debates. I came across really well. And the Lib Dems are taking the seat as well, which is interesting. But yeah, I think absolutely. Now we have a Labour government who care a lot about, devolution. They they’re talking a lot in their manifesto about uniting, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, wanting to work together as that kind of strong union.

 

Nish Kumar Let’s talk about Northern Ireland. Sinn Fein have seven seats. They are now the largest party, in Northern Ireland, meaning that they are the largest party at all levels of government. They’re now the largest party. The DUP, lost three seats. They’re now in five of the DP. The Democratic Unionist Party have been sort of mired in a variety of scandals. Most recently some, some horrific, allegations of sexual abuse and sexual assault against Jeffrey Donaldson, who’s a former leader of the DUP. It’s a fascinating position for Sinn Fein to be in now.

 

Zoe Grünewald Yeah, especially when you sort of compare it to the SNP, which is of Scotland, which has sort of moved in the other direction. It’s moved away from the nationalists. Yeah. Hold and you now see Sinn Fein take, take, you know, become the largest party, taking all these, these votes and being a, you know, very heavily kind of nationalist party and, wanting to have that kind of, you know, that that representation. I think it’s I think it’s a really interesting shift. And we know there’s been really poor tensions between, Westminster and Northern Ireland for a long time. I think now conversations as well about leaving the bar, even though it’s not on the cards under a Labour government, have definitely worsened those those tensions because, you know, the Echr underpins the Good Friday Agreement. So I think there is a sense in Northern Ireland that Westminster use Northern Ireland as a political football. And I think that probably goes some way to explaining this increase in vote share for Sinn Fein. It’s going to be really interesting to see if Starmer is able to improve those relations. But it’s you know, it has it has been a real mess. The government have made a real mess of it.

 

Coco Khan So so we’re going to come back to you a little later. But after the break, we’re speaking to the new Labour MP, Torsten Bell.

 

Nish Kumar He’s hung over.

 

Zoe Grünewald He should be.

 

Nish Kumar He should be.

 

Zoe Grünewald He smashed it.

 

If anyone’s earned the right to be hung over.

 

Coco Khan The word smashed is giving me. I’m feeling triggered by the word smashed it.

 

[AD]

 

Coco Khan Joining us now Pod Save the UK is Torsten Bell, the new Labour MP for Swansea West in Wales. Torsten is the chief exec of the Resolution Foundation, a think tank that aims to improve living standards for people on low and medium incomes, and was formerly head of policy for Ed Miliband. It’s quite the resume. How are you feeling? Congratulations, by the way.

 

Torsten Bell I’m feeling my dominant feelings are obviously tired due to the no sleep phenomenon that everyone has been going through, and then very lucky indeed to be embarking on a new stage of life and in a lovely place in the country.

 

Nish Kumar This is a big shift to you, right? Because you have worked in policy for many years, in government, for the Labour Party and a think tank, and now you’ve shifted into a job with, let’s say, different responsibilities. What was the driving motivation to become an MP?

 

Torsten Bell That’s a big question. I mean, mainly I spent the last nine years, as you kindly said, running a Resolution Foundation, a think tank. I’m not saying the only thing that we do is to draw charts, but we do draw a lot of charts. And a lot of them, if I’m honest, are a bit grim right there about things that haven’t been going very well in in Britain, whether it’s Charles, the wage is not growing or it’s charts of food bank queues going up or it’s charts a minute just waiting there. So at some stage you have to say, right, that’s enough drawing of the charts. What are we going to do to try and change them?

 

Nish Kumar One of the one of the concerns that a lot of people have is about the living standards of people on low and middle incomes. That’s been a huge part of your remit at the Resolution Foundation. For example, with something like the two child benefit cap, you in April wrote, it has to go. And we know that it would lift a half a million children out of poverty. Are you going to continue making the case for scrapping it now that you’re in government?

 

Torsten Bell Well, listen to the big picture. First, the government that has just been evicted from office has the worst record of any of our lifetimes on the economy. You know, wages stuck at the same level they were back when, as you said, I was working in the Treasury in 2008. So I think a lot of what this election is about, and a lot of what the big question facing Britain is about is about living standards. It’s about how do we get living standards up, particularly for low income workers. And that’s about making sure that we are growing the economy and wages are going up. And that’s why I’ve just written a book about about how do we make sure that we have got an economy where wages are growing and inequality is coming down. Now, specifically on the question you’re asking on the two child limit. So just to remind everyone who doesn’t spend their lives, either in politics or in policy, well, this is the the decision taken by the conservatives that if you have a third child born after 2017, then you don’t receive any additional benefits for those, those children. So the reason this gets a lot of discussion is the reason you pointed out just then, which is the rise in child poverty that we’ve seen in recent years, is driven by a rise in poverty amongst larger families. By larger families, we mean people with three or more kids. Now, one of the reasons for that is the two child limit. So, now the policy is one that everybody in the Labour movement who Labour MPs, everyone thinks shouldn’t be there. And like in lots of things that the Conservative Party have done. We would like to see it go. But, you know, you’ve been hearing Keir Starmer all through this campaign and he’s saying, look, look where the country is. People are fed up with politicians promising things that they can’t deliver them. And so this is one where, you know, yes, we all like to see it go lobby. We’ve been lots of things. I mean, more money for the NHS. I’m sure you do like to see that. More money. For schools, I suppose those are all would have to be things that we show how we can pay for, because people aren’t going to believe us if we just say, you know. Oh, yes, definitely that thing as well.

 

Coco Khan Can I ask you, what is the feeling within the Labour movement about tax? Because obviously tax has been the one thing the conservatives have been trying to, criticize the Labour Party on. They’re saying, you know, oh, inevitably they are going to raise taxes. Just so you know, on this show, we’re kind of we think tax is cool. So we don’t mind the idea of there being tax raises. What what’s the.

 

Torsten Bell Feeling? Are you two lobbying for our present?

 

Nish Kumar My non-dom status is my own business, Torsten. Okay. Just to clarify, that is a joke. Oh, yeah. I’m very much stumped. You need to feel that there was a better wife.

 

Torsten Bell I think that’s what everybody with a trust fund would say.

 

Nish Kumar Like the I on several occasions, in the BBC coverage I was watching last night, conservatives raised the specter of more tax, and they were held to task by the presenters a couple of times of saying, well, there is there seems to be this discrepancy. Do you think that that was a mistake in the conservative campaign, this kind of fear mongering around tax rises, given that there is public support for increasing taxes on the richest people in society?

 

Torsten Bell Well, I mean, there was a lot of mistakes in the campaign. Yeah. So let’s not be like wandering around in the rain. Yeah. What, Monday? Yeah. The rain mistakes. Day mistakes. The election when you’re 20 points behind in the poll mistake. So we haven’t got a lack of mistakes to, have a chat about, I think on the monomania, on thinking you can hang a whole campaign. Don’t vote for the other guys. They might increase your taxes.

 

Coco Khan But taxes are good. Taxes are good. We’re talking. Think about it again like it’s a negative attack. Taxes. Taxes are good. I’m just curious. It’s is there a just a change in the feeling?

 

Torsten Bell No, to be a bit careful because, you know, people have had a really tough time, right. Food prices are up by 30% over the last two years. As I said, taxes are up significantly. Energy bills are significantly higher than we used to. And that comes on the back of a I that you before wages not growing for life. You say taxes are good in the sense that we do all need to fund a civilized society, and they are a prerequisite to that. And if we talk about taxes, as you know, just taking away from people out of spite or something, then yeah, then we are doing a disservice to because then what allows us to have public services that allow us to live in dignity and and all the rest. But but there’s a danger that another way of going the other way, which I sometimes hear from people, which is taxes in of itself a good thing. Yeah. And obviously when people are feeling really hollowed out, you need to be careful about because it really matters who is paying those taxes and what you’re using the money for. And the public definitely think both those things and they’re right to. And I think sometimes there is a bit of a kind of amongst kind of better off people. Sometimes there’s a bit of a dismissive, oh, everyone should just like be happy about that. That’s no, that’s definitely wrong. We, we need to make sure people’s living standards are rising. And so it doesn’t matter whose taxes go up. That’s why if you look at what Rachel Reeves is focused on in the manifesto, it is tax rises to make sure, you know, there’s some upfront money into public services, whether it’s into the police or it’s into hospitals, extra appointments or it’s into our schools. But that is coming from carefully calibrated tax rises, VAT on private schools, closing some of the non-dom loopholes, oil and gas and levies them because he shouldn’t be Dong ho about tax rises on ordinary working people. As I say, when food prices are up by 30% and by the way, food prices up by 30%, people definitely raised with me. They didn’t say 30%. They say all the expletive filled princesses about going to the shop on Friday had that yesterday. Women literally going into the polling station yesterday saying to me, you know, clearly worried about that Friday shop.

 

Nish Kumar I’m aware that you’ve been up all night. And this is maybe quite a heavy question to hang on somebody that’s, I think, drinking a much needed coffee, by the looks of things. But.

 

Torsten Bell First coffee first and only coffee. You ever get.

 

Nish Kumar Respect, man. I’m on number four and I got some sleep last night. We’ve seen a low turnout of this election. We know from available polling data that trust in our political system is an all time low. What can be done by this incoming government to change that and help fix the trust deficit?

 

Torsten Bell I think that is, exactly the question you should be asking people like me and others, because I think it’s too heavy. And if people do want to talk about that, then that, because that is the situation we’re facing. I mean, look, what’s the lessons from last night’s election results? Well, one, people want to change and they want a Labour government. They have. And that’s very clear. But also that one of the other outcomes of the scale of Tory failure of the last 14 years isn’t just that. People say, oh, look, things didn’t get better. It’s a lots of people have started saying they can’t or they won’t get better. And that does lead exactly the kind of dangers. That’s why I think about it again in the book that is just come out, there, I’m talking about, look, think about this economic failure. It’s not like a nice to have that we start turning this around. And it’s not just, oh, we’d like to consume more stuff. Although I think that’s a completely legitimate desire for people to have. It’s if you don’t turn this around, it takes you to a very dark place for us politics and economics. And we shouldn’t have a reform party on a significant share of the vote. And that’s what happens if we don’t start seeing material progress in people’s lives. Because, remember, you know, we’re not a kind of hierarchical society of the 19th century. We don’t have widespread religion. So the things that bind us together as a democracy in a society has been for lots of the second half of the 20th century, the idea that together we get better off the we’re a healthy society, that we provide the public services people need. And yeah, and some of that better off also turns into our day to day living standards. And that has come to a halt. And it is not surprising that people are really pissed off and asking questions about whether, you know, the system delivers for them. So then that’s the first half and you asked, what do we do about it? I don’t think that I have all the answers to that, but I’ll give you my partial answer to that question. You’ve got to start delivering on the bread and butter issues, which are jobs, housing, wages, security, potholes. And there’s something that people love, right? Oh, you know, they talk about potholes again. Every street you walk down, every door you knock on. What’s wrong with potholes? Well, one, it’s really annoying, right? Yeah. It’s driving around or cycling around where you’re doing. It’s not just that potholes have become a symbol, but if we can’t even do that, we can’t even have roads. Every day you’re reminded that we’re not doing the basics. And so I think it’s we should be talking about potholes. We should go on from that to talk about how. Do we start delivering what I would call bread and butter? Social democracy. But if you don’t know the word social democracy, call it what you want. But better jobs, more housing, better quality housing, wages that grow a public realm that we’re proud of. That is how we start rebuilding trust in the areas that I know about. I’m sure there are lots of other areas. I’m not going to start getting a better popular culture. I don’t know you guys, I know them, but I’m on the stuff that I know about. That’s what we need to do.

 

Coco Khan Listen, some of the potholes around me, you cycle into those. You’re not coming out. They are. They all craters. I’m sure you’ve been aware of the hype around you. People have been whispering. He’s going to be the next Chancellor one. How does that feel? And you know, this is quite a. I would be quite stressed by that. You know, this this expectation of me. How do you feel personally about those rumors? And also, are they true? Do you have big plans?

 

Torsten Bell They say, I’ll go. I’ll tell you the secret to not getting stressed about them, okay? Knowing them. Nonsense. Look, I’m going to be. But I like I, I do think I mean, this is a slightly trite point, but the country has just elected the first female chancellor I can remember, have been doing interviews in my previous job, having to correct interviewers when they asked questions that were implicit that there would only ever be a male Chancellor of the Exchequer, and there was about to be a female Chancellor of the Exchequer, the first in a hundred years, and a woman with an economics background. I don’t think she needs any bloke who knows a bit of economics like I do. Tell her what to do. She is going to be a pretty great chancellor and I’m going to be standing behind her, dropping everything she does and being it because, you know, Rachel Reeves is a brilliant woman and she’s going to be a great chancellor. And that’s the only chancellor that this Labour government’s going to need.

 

Nish Kumar Thank you so much for joining us. Please go celebrate and for the love of God, get some sleep.

 

Torsten Bell Thank you very much. Lovely to see you both.

 

Coco Khan Thanks Torsten.

 

Nish Kumar Thanks Torsten.

 

Nish Kumar Joining us now in the studio is the activist and journalist Femi Oluwole. Welcome back to PSUK, Femi. You were at the Stop the Tories election party last night. How was the mood?

 

Femi Oluwole Everyone was really happy. But also everyone’s still, like in a holding position because they’re waiting to see what’s done. What is next, because he’s basically been trying to pretend to be like he’s a Tory for the last four years. And so we’re essentially hoping that he spent the last four years lying to us, which is a kind of a weird place to be in politics that you hope your Prime minister is a complete liar.

 

Coco Khan I mean, last time you were on the show, we talked about the kind of emotional element of voting tactically, just on an emotional level. How are you feeling knowing that you voted tactically rather than who you believed in?

 

Femi Oluwole So I got lucky. I recently moved to a place where I could vote for whoever I wanted, so I got to vote green yesterday.

 

Coco Khan Oh, right. Okay.

 

Femi Oluwole But if I was in, still in Solihull, I might have probably still voted green, even though the tactical choice would have been away. But I think a lot of people did vote tactically according to the stats, because they are not happy with this. Like, it’s very, very clear the majority of the country is to the left of Keir Starmer. So that’s going to be the fight.

 

Nish Kumar Now given the huge vote share, especially compared to the last election that the Lib Dems received. You know, the Greens winning four seats, it did suggest that there was some element of tactical voting and maybe some element of sensible cooperation between the, I guess, at least notionally, progressive parties.

 

Femi Oluwole Yeah. So the tactical vote was definitely a major factor, especially with people like the movement forward and stop the Tories vote, basically pushing the idea that if we really push a tactical vote, then we might be able to push the Tories into third place, which would have been awesome. And so that that was there was the big as the big carrot.

 

Coco Khan But yeah. So at the time we talked about how, you know, if we’re looking at voter reform, looking at PR, we are also looking at welcoming reform. And also I would describe as harder right parties into government. We’ve seen that last night anyway. You know what I mean. How are you feeling about reform.

 

Femi Oluwole So reform is the stick. Reform is the thing that will happen if Keir Starmer doesn’t deliver for working class people, if he doesn’t pull every lever at his disposal, that means wealth tax in order to help working class people. That means rejoining the EU single market in order to make food cheaper and in and increase and the money in people’s pockets. It does involve, actually addressing the systemic inequality in terms of regional inequality and helping those northern towns, those Welsh towns, those rural areas that were forgotten, which led to the Brexit vote. If he doesn’t do those things, then come 2029, Nigel Farage is going to walk into Parliament over the bones of the Tory and Labour parties.

 

Nish Kumar Last week you were unceremoniously ejected from a reform rally in Birmingham. Let’s have a quick listen to this.

 

Clip So right here. Show me over here. Show me over here. Right here is my press pass. You can see that right there I press pass I’m a member of the British press. Okay. Yeah. I’m being escorted out without any justification. You’re not allowed in the venue. So? So we’ve been after you. What do you want to say? Once on the right. Okay. That is reform UK, reform UK kicking out a member of the British. French. Right. Very good. Nice, nice. See, I’m being physically manhandled. I have just arrived. I’ve done nothing and they are kicking me out of the venue.

 

Coco Khan It’s powerful stuff saying that, isn’t it? Although, can we be honest? Were you surprised by that?

 

Femi Oluwole No, I wasn’t surprised because, about a week before that, I went to Stafford and I recorded three of the other candidates saying that Brexit has made the UK poorer, and if elected, they would do a no deal Brexit, which would make it even worse and damage our food supply for the next 20 years. But it would be worth it. So they’re on record as saying that they will be damaging the country, hurting working class people, and I exposed it last time I was there. So of course they’re not going to want me to do that again. So I was kind of worried when I got to the front of the queue. And so I started filming and then that happened. So not only have they proven the whole the narrative that they are the answer for working class people, that they attack immigrants, etc., because they care about working class people. That’s proven to be bull because they’ve already admitted they plan to make people poorer. And their other narrative that they’re the champions of free speech kind of falls apart when they start censoring journalists and dragging them out of buildings.

 

Nish Kumar Femi, you’re somebody who sort of came of age politically as a campaigner around Brexit. Keir Starmer originally wanted a second referendum. He’s now saying that one won’t happen within his lifetime. And he also can’t envision the country rejoining the single market or the customs union in his lifetime. What do you think? Is this the time to start campaigning again?

 

Femi Oluwole Well, if we go back to the thing I said about how Nigel Farage is the stick, the threat that if Keir Starmer doesn’t improve people’s quality of life in the next five years, then he’s going to walk into Parliament. The biggest lever that he can pull in is pretty much Brexit. It is rejoining the EU single market. Given that there is, I can’t think of any other single policy that almost. All economists agree, is a major drag on the UK economy. And if he doesn’t pull it, he’s just handing Farage power. So in terms of what he can do, that is the lever to pull.

 

Nish Kumar Yeah. I mean, there’s so much the Labour plan is contingent on growth. Several economists have warned the Labour Party that its growth plan is unachievable without at least a move to rejoin the EU customs union. Politically, that was considered to be a kind of poisoned chalice for Labour to raise at all in this election. Given the size of the majority, is there a possibility of something like that being approached nowadays?

 

Femi Oluwole It’s not even the size of the majority. That’s the issue. The issue is that all the defenses you had of Keir Starmer were all based on. I’ve got to say this, I’ve got to say this in order to get the Tories out. Otherwise the Daily Mail will allow us into power. He has power now, even if it was just a majority of one. He has power. He can do it now. So if he wants to rejoin the single market and improve people’s quality of life, he can do it. Choosing not to would be extremely worrying.

 

Nish Kumar Femi, thank you so much for joining us on Pod Save the UK.

 

Femi Oluwole My pleasure.

 

[AD]

 

Nish Kumar Okay. Zoe is now back in the studio. Let’s zoom in on some of the, I guess, caveats to the successful night for Labour that we’ve sort of alluded to. Let’s talk about Islington North. That’s the seat of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Here’s a clip from the count.

 

Clip Jeremy Bernard Corbyn, commonly known as Jeremy Corbyn. Independent 24,000.

 

Nish Kumar That was a clip from the BBC that Corbyn won 24,280 votes, comfortably beating his Labour rival Prof Flanagan, who took home 16,873 votes. Another interesting see is Chingford and Woodford Green. Now regular listeners will remember that that was the seat that was going to be contested by a leftwing Labour candidate, Faiza Shaheen, before her candidacy was spectacularly revoked. Shaheen ran as an independent alongside official Labour candidate Shami Tatler and Conservative Iain Duncan Smith. Regular listeners will also remember, is one of the principal causes of politically induced vaginal dryness, which was a.

 

Coco Khan Zoe is furrowing her brow, and I understand why you would say that.

 

Zoe Grünewald I don’t disagree. I’m just. I just you.

 

Coco Khan Just curious.

 

Zoe Grünewald I wonder why it to be said? Why you had to put that on my head this morning.

 

Nish Kumar A few weeks ago. We found a piece of campaign literature that Iain Duncan Smith was holding a special clinic to talk about the menopause. In, in Chingford. It’s a talk to ladies about the menopause that then spun out into a conversation between me and Coco about vaginal dryness, and it was suggested that Duncan Smith himself may be the primary instigator of vegetal dryness, regardless of the age of the person involved. Now. So it’s sort of unfortunately, the the vote was split 5050 between the Labour candidate and Pfizer. Shaheen and Ian Duncan Smith came to the middle. So the numbers involved, Iain Duncan Smith on 17,281 sham attack live on 12,523 and Pfizer Shaheen on 12,445. So it is clearly a majority full, left of center and left wing votes. But somehow he and Duncan Smith has come through the middle of this, Pfizer. Shaheen afterwards, tweeted, they said we wouldn’t go anywhere. They put out graphs they knew were lies in order to confuse local people. They lied about me to mislead people. But in four weeks, we achieved the same vote as a political party that has been around for 100 years. I’m so angry that the Labour Party has done this to Chingford, Woodford Green. They’ve returned Iain Duncan Smith to Westminster. We should be ashamed. Labour’s candidate will now go back to Brant. Well, we have to deal with the consequences. You’ve given me so much support I can’t express how grateful I am. We will fight on, in a sort of night of, huge amounts of success for the Labour Party. Specifically, what happened in Chingford and move for green feels like a completely unnecessary self-inflicted wound by the Labour leadership, by Deselecting Faiza Shaheen, who ran against Duncan Smith, ran extremely close to it in Duncan Smith in 2019 had a campaign that attracted a huge amount of attention. It’s a very high profile people, including Hugh Grant, going down to campaign for this huge amount of support behind her. She’s from the area. She’s, you know, she’s incredibly qualified person. Somebody knows a huge amount about the academics behind inequality. She comes from a working class background in the area, and she was deselected over liking a tweet, of a Jon Stewart video. It all seems a truly spectacular, goal for the Labour Party.

 

Zoe Grünewald Yeah. I mean, you can’t talk about this without rehashing the conversations we were having not so long ago about why she was deselected and, and and Diane Abbott’s treatment. Yeah, because the two work went hand in hand. It’s a massive own goal for Labour, you know, and they’re going to be looking at this. And there’s no way that I think that they can’t see this as a misstep.

 

Nish Kumar I think one of the most interesting results, again, we cannot stake this enough. This was a hugely successful night for the Labour Party, but it’s worth considering a couple of the caveats here. The Labour shadow cabinet minister, Jonathan Ashworth, has lost his seat to an independent shocker, Adam, with a margin of 979 votes. Now, Ashworth has been under sustained pressure in his electorate around Labour’s position on Israel’s war in Gaza and shock. Adam has been a fervent pro Gaza voice. Now, according to a 2021 census, Leicester has around a 33% Muslim population. Ashworth had a number of unpleasant interactions of protesters, many caught on video, which can’t be good for his image in the electorate. Ashworth I mean, he’s a shadow cabinet minister. This quite high profile Labour MP that appears to have lost his seat over Gaza. And again, just to return to something that you said, Zoe, there is a big driver in Caledonia winning that seat in Bristol from Thangam Debbonaire, again, another member of the shadow cabinet, very high profile Labour MP, because the anger around Gaza doesn’t just confine itself to the Muslim community.

 

Coco Khan So let’s talk about Jess Phillips, former guest on this show. She was another target of protest. She was booed during the announcement of her results. And here she is talking to channel four after the fact.

 

Clip Well, British British politics has got caustic and nasty and dishonest. And we have to be really careful not to fall for it. And these people. Shouting and screaming. I didn’t meet those people behind the doors. People were upset. People were kind. People were thoughtful. And yes, many of them were disappointed in the Labour Party has got to win back their trust. But these people and what they did throughout the campaign, they do not represent any part of my constituency. That is not. Not what I saw. I had lots of very heartfelt, deep, difficult conversations with people. And I get that, you know, there is a massive piece of work to do and I will do it.

 

Nish Kumar It’s just Phillips a strange target for this amount of hostility, especially on the issue of Gaza, because she did resign her position in the shadow frontbench, in order to vote for the ceasefire amendment.

 

Zoe Grünewald She actually did, you know, quite strongly compared to a lot of people on the Labour frontbench come out and say, yeah, a ceasefire. I think. For some voters, it doesn’t matter.

 

Nish Kumar You know, stories about tires being slashed in people’s cars. The kind of relentless sort of hostility that various people are describing at that particular campaign in Birmingham, in Yardley, that does not feel like the useful or productive way of channeling that frustration at all.

 

Zoe Grünewald I don’t think so. And, you know, I think politicians try really hard to rise above that and keep the debate at a level. And obviously when it’s an issue like this that really does upset people, it’s it’s hard to and I. You know, she she she clung on to that, see. Yeah. You know, you can see she’s getting emotional in that clip. I mean, it’s just it’s just a really it’s just a really difficult thing.

 

Coco Khan Just to put into context how close that was. Phillips got 11,275 of the votes, while second place was the Workers Party of Britain. That’s George Galloway’s party on 10,582. Oh that’s tight. Yeah, it was an interesting seat as well. All the independents in the seat stood down to make way for the Galloway party. You know, we’ve been talking about independents and their impact on on the voter share. But now that they’re actually in are we overstating the power of the independent MP?

 

Zoe Grünewald I think as an independent MP, it’s hard to be as effective as if you were an MP from a party. And that’s because you don’t have the party machinery behind you. Right? So, a lot of these candidates are elected, not on a, on a single issue, but a lot of them have an issue that they’ve been campaigning on in many cases. That is Gaza. And, you know, you can, as I said earlier in the podcast, you can be effective or not. You can raise it in parliamentary questions, you can statements, idms all these things. But actually, it’s very hard to be kind of effective on a policy basis and you to be a good constituency MP. But it is hard for independents to maintain that support. I think, you know, people just pick up on the fact that there isn’t this party machinery behind them and the level of influence they might have as a result might not be so, so influential.

 

Coco Khan I mean, I know we’re we’re talking about the progressive side of things because obviously our interest, but also because that is the majority. But just to return to the conservatives and reform, you know, are we also going to see on their side the opposite? Do you know what I mean? Like a moving further to the right? Which is hard for me to imagine given me and Suella Braverman. But you know, this is real.

 

Zoe Grünewald It’s going to be a total battle for the soul of the Conservative Party. Now it’s going to be the Suella Braverman. The can be bad knocks, the Nigel Farage’s versus the more moderates in the party who are going to say we’ve lost seats to the Lib Dems and to Labour, we need to move back to the center. And I don’t know who’s going to win. The other thing is donors who is donating to the Tory party anymore, when a lot of those kind of big name businessy donors are now looking at Labour because they’re in government, who would donate to the Tory party and what do they want? Because there will be some sway over the Tory party’s direction. Yeah. Depending on who is talking to them, offering them funding. And that’s something that would, you know, is worth a journalist with more energy than me looking into this.

 

Nish Kumar Coco, ready to step into the energy breach?

 

Coco Khan Listen, my energy is back. I believe this is called a second wind. So I’m. I’m ready. So over the campaign and last four and a half years, we’ve had so many incredible gaffes from the conservatives. But to end the show, Wes Streeting is ready to take up the mantle. In this clip from the BBC.

 

Femi Oluwole And yes, the implosion of the conservatives and the SNP has put wind in Labour’s sails. But the only reason we’ve got sails on the ship and the ship is shipshape is because Keir Starmer took the vessel from the shipwreck in 2019, rebuilt it and made it ship, you know, shipshape shape and seaworthy. Again.

 

Coco Khan I relate to that so much right now. You know what I mean? Like he’s he’s gone in hard on the metaphor, but he’s committed. And then there’s a moment where he’s like, oh no, I’m lost. I’m lost.

 

Nish Kumar But that was that was early on in the coverage of the election.

 

Coco Khan Yeah.

 

Nish Kumar Your body’s trying to process Jägermeister.

 

Coco Khan But that’s how I felt when I came on the show. When you opened up and said, how are you? I’ve. I’ve committed, here now, but I am lost. There is panic in my eyes. For those of you who are not following us on YouTube, please. do you see, the panic in my eyes.

 

Zoe Grünewald That was painful. I mean, he does come up sometimes, comes out with some good lines, but that was.

 

Coco Khan Shipshape.

 

Zoe Grünewald He said shipshape maybe five times, which you don’t need to say if you’re doing a metaphor about ships.

 

Coco Khan He was just trying to show off that he hadn’t had a drink. He’s like, oh, look at me.

 

Coco Khan I can say shipshape.

 

Zoe Grünewald It didn’t read like that at all.

 

Nish Kumar It sounded like he’d been on the Captain Morgan.

 

Coco Khan Very good. I see what you did there. We’re keeping it nautical.

 

Nish Kumar Well, I am a semiprofessional. Zoe, thank you so much for joining us. I hope you can get some sleep soon.

 

Zoe Grünewald Thank you.

 

Nish Kumar Coco, you’re my hero.

 

Coco Khan Yes.

 

Nish Kumar I’ve never seen anyone power through with as much aplomb as as as you have done this morning.

 

Coco Khan All I’m saying is that in the break, you very kindly looked up. If I could get a kebab before midday. So that’s a good friend Nish.

 

Nish Kumar I’m an ally.

 

Coco Khan You are an ally.

 

Nish Kumar I’m a supporter of women. I, yeah, I think that. What? We discussed this idea that you were hosting this event. I think there might be booze involved, and I sort of had committed, to being sober. I thought, you know, the Coco card reflects the national mood. She’s got caveats, she’s got concerns. But maybe. She’s sort of hung over and, from toasting the demise of.

 

Coco Khan You gotta take the wins where you can get them, Nish.

 

Nish Kumar Yeah, exactly. You got to take the wins when you can get them.

 

Coco Khan 14 years, You’ve gotta take the wins.

 

Zoe Grünewald If none of us have been hung over, it wouldn’t have been realistic. No, it would have been like a pathetic attempt at trying to speak to the nation. Like one severely hung over person.

 

Coco Khan The people’s princess. That’s what they call me. No, no. No one calls me that.

 

Nish Kumar They call her the Empress of Jagermeister.

 

Coco Khan Zoe, thank you so much for joining us. I hope you get a nice nap.

 

Zoe Grünewald Yes. Me too. Me, too.

 

Nish Kumar You deserve it.

 

Nish Kumar And that’s it. Thanks for listening to Pod Save the UK. The Tories are toast. A new era is upon us. We want to know what you want us to follow over the coming weeks. Thanks very much to everybody who joined me on the discord yesterday. It was a much more pleasant election night for me this time around, as opposed to 2019 when I was on the television being asked by Boris Johnson’s dad if I wanted Muslim women to be fighter pilots. That is genuinely, genuinely true. This was a, in every sense, 100% improvement on my 2019 election experience. So yeah, I would love to hear from the people that I talked about the discord yesterday, or any of our listeners emailing us at PSUK@reducedlistening.co.uk or drop us a voice noteon WhatsApp. Our number is 07494 933444. Internationally that’s +44 7494 933444.

 

Coco Khan And don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter. Our handle is at Pod Save the UK. You can find us on our new YouTube page by the way, catch full episodes and highlights there. It’s in color. You can see my pallid hung over face in full Technicolor cola.

 

Nish Kumar Technicola. She’s been on the whiskey and Technicola. Guys give Coco the campaign for. I don’t even agree with the honor system, but the campaign to give Coco a knighthood begins here.

 

Coco Khan For what? Services to Jägermeister?

 

Nish Kumar Services to Jägermeister.

 

Zoe Grünewald Lady Jägermeister.

 

Nish Kumar Lady Jägermeister.

 

Coco Khan Oh, my God.

 

Nish Kumar Here she is Baroness Jagermeister.

 

Coco Khan Oh, my God. I really felt that in my chest.

 

Nish Kumar Baroness Jäger bomb of east London.

 

Coco Khan I’m hung over enough that I will cry. I will cry. Anyway, please do drop us a review. That would be lovely. We would like that very, very much.

 

Nish Kumar Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media.

 

Coco Khan Thanks to senior producer James Tyndall and digital producer Alex Bishop.

 

Nish Kumar Theme music is by Vasilis Fotopoulos.

 

Coco Khan Thanks to our engineer Hannah Stewart.

 

Nish Kumar The executive producers are Anoushka Sharma, Dan Jackson and Madeleine Herringer. With additional support from Ari Shwartz.

 

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