In This Episode
Nish’s inappropriate occurrences report at Glastonbury is in: there were people kissing, some people had their butts out and nobody seemed to be slapping on the SPF – all very inappropriate. But this isn’t what the right-wing press or the government has taken issue with…
You’ve heard it already – the controversy around Kneecap and Bob Vylan’s sets engulfed the political discourse over the festival weekend. But is the controversy the real story here? Nish and Coco shine a light on some of what was REALLY said at Glastonbury and question why those messages didn’t receive as much airtime.
Later, as the government recovers from the brink of political crisis and the Chancellor’s position is drawn into question, Nish and Coco are joined by journalist and author Frances Ryan to discuss the u-turns on u-turns that led to the government’s welfare bill passing. But the battle isn’t over yet.
Finally, Men’s health in the UK is in a sorry place. Nish is joined by Movember’s Dr Zac Seidler to discuss the government’s upcoming Men’s Health Strategy and why young men are being sucked into the manosphere.
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Guests:
Frances Ryan
Dr Zac Seidler
Audio credits:
BBC
Parliament TV
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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, and Nish, you’re back from Glastonbury, seemingly with all your faculties intact, your voice is working, you don’t seem sunburnt, you’re, dare I say coherent, bit disappointed with your mates, what’s going on here?
Nish Kumar I came back very late on Sunday evening and so I’ve had a pretty long lead recovery time. I’d say I’ve been more exposed to the sun in the last two days than I was at Glastonbury.
Coco Khan I feel like I asked you the wrong question. I shouldn’t have asked you how Bassenbury was. I should have been like, so how was your climate catastrophe weekend?
Nish Kumar Yeah exactly, yes, yes. But anyway on today’s show we’ll be talking about those Glastonbury sets and the sort of unfathomable and incredible political fallout that they seem to have caused.
Coco Khan And the other big story of the week, Keir Starmer’s authority is in tatters after he managed to get a gutted version of the government’s welfare reforms over the line at second reading. But what does it actually mean for people who need those benefits to live and work? To talk it through, we’re joined by journalist and author Frances Ryan.
Nish Kumar And later, we need to talk about men’s health, and I’ll be joined by Movember’s Dr. Zac Seidler to chat members, masculinity, and the manosphere.
Coco Khan Okay, so Nish, last week we sent you off with your clipboard and pen to do your journalistic duty of checking off all the inappropriate things, things that Keir Starmer would find inappropriate while you were partying over the weekend. What’s on the list?
Nish Kumar There was a lot of inappropriate stuff. People were kissing each other. Some people had their butts out. Oh, it was inappropriate, Coco. I’ll tell you what was the most inappropriate. I was actually willing to put myself forward for this, for next Glastonbury. Next year is a fallow year because Glastoni happens on a real farm. And so all farms have to have fallow years where they, I’m getting into a conversation about farming that I don’t understand. I know they have to have fallow years. I was about to say they need to turn the soil. I don’t think that’s a real phrase, but so there won’t be a festival next year, but in two years I would like to put myself forward and I’ll have a stand that’s just called Cream the Whites because the great myth about sunburn is that A, people of color can’t get it and B, we don’t have to think about it because of our naturally occurring melanin. Uh, which prevents protect us from the sun, but actually like every person of color, you uh, know, it actually takes quite a lot of care about sun and doesn’t go directly in the sun and like wear sun cream and stuff like that. But the amount of cooked pink skin I saw, like if Keir Starmer wants to deal with inappropriate things at Glastonbury, he should start by giving people instructional videos on how to apply sun cream. One of the kneecap guys, uh, observed in the crowd, a lot of boiled Irish hams, I believe that was the exact quote from it.
Coco Khan Let me just go back to cream the white soap because I find the idea of you. Are you saying that you will apply the sunscreen? No, I’m not a perv. Well, look, I’m glad we can do our public duty and report on boiled Irish hams, because unsurprisingly, the controversial sets of both Kneecap and Bob Villain became lightning rods for column inches.
Nish Kumar Yes, and I did do my journalistic duty and rocked up to both sets for you, dear listeners. We can get into the scandal around Bob Villain’s set in a bit, but I think one of the things that’s been very concerning to me about the way that this has been reported on, you know, as someone who was there and saw all of these newsworthy incidents as they I think it’s really, really crucial. That even before we start a conversation about it, we have to establish exactly what was said because I’ve been absolutely staggered by sections of the British media’s comfort in distorting and outright in some cases lying about what was on stage. So let’s just compare a couple of things that have been said about what was said to what was actually said. The first one is pretty accurate. The mail says, kneecap lead glass to return to fuck his drama which as we’ll be able to hear in this clip is accurate
Clip The prime minister of your country, not mine. Sani didn’t want us to play. So fuck Kirsten Armer. Fuck Keir Starmer! Fuck Keirs Starmer!! You’ll never meet, gentlemen!
Coco Khan It’s absolutely incredible since you know, I was at the Glastonbury where Jeremy Corbyn came out and did he read a Wordsworth poem? Is that what happened? I can’t really fully remember
Nish Kumar I wasn’t there, but he did read a poem before Run the Jewels.
Coco Khan Oh, sorry, I’ve had a note from the producers. It was not Wordsworth. It was Percy Shelley.
Nish Kumar And I do think it’s worth leaving all that in, because that is a level of journalistic integrity and a commitment to accuracy that has been sorely lacking in a lot of the coverage of kneecap and Bob Villain sets, you know, and also that’s how straightforward it is. That’s how straight forward it is, getting the name of a poet wrong is not as dangerous as willfully misreading statements and making allegations that what was said was racist or anti-semitic. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. Fair enough, they did lead John to fuck his mother. But what you’ve probably not heard is any of the longer excerpts from the show where kneecap member Mo Carah is incredibly articulate about the cause that has brought them such controversy, led to a chair of charge that he’s currently on bail from.
Clip This situation can be quite stressful for us at Hangs, but the stress that we’re feeling is minimal compared to what the Palestinian people are going through every day. We’re from West Belfast, a place still under British occupation, Aunt Derry. So we understand colonialism. We understand how important it is for solidarity internationally. The Irish suffered 800 years of colonialism at the hand of the British state. But the Irish, we were never bombed from the fucking skies with nowhere to go. The Palestinians have nowhere to fucking go, literally. Not only are they being bombed from the fucking skies, they’re now being starved to death. Kids being starve to fucking death in this day and age. I don’t have to lecture you people. We’re all watching it. We all have a phone. There’s no fucking hating it. Israel are war criminals. It’s a fucking genocide.
Nish Kumar That was a powerful moment in the gig and it’s an extraordinary articulation of a position that I think a lot of people, obviously in that field, but I also think a lot of the people across the British Isles feel right now.
Coco Khan Yeah. And I have been wondering recently if, if part of the foray around Bob Villain and kneecap is because this realization that our generation, we are united on this cause and actually seeing the numbers of people there, you know, chanting what they were chanting, holding the flags that they were holding that intimidated certain sections of the press and and sections of. Certainly like right-wing politics and I wonder if that was part of it you know my I can’t help but recall watching a documentary about the emergence of gangster rap in the US and how you know everyone was fine with it when it was young black kids singing this music but as soon as white middle-class kids started singing these these lyrics you know especially if they started saying fuck the police that’s when it became like a national story
Nish Kumar Yeah, and that’s a point that Niqaf have made a couple of times, and they did make a game at Glastonbury on Saturday. They believe that the issue people have is not with their position on the Palestinian people, but the fact that at the Coachella Music Festival in California, the seeming overwhelming majority of the young Americans in that audience also shared that view. And actually a couple times they pointed out in the press that that’s the reason they feel. That they’re being sort of hounded by the security services at the moment.
Coco Khan And kneecap are far from alone in voicing support for Palestine. So what you might not have heard is that, uh, Irish singer C-Map, for example, led a chant of free Palestine at the end of her set on the pyramid, which is the festival’s biggest stage.
Clip Free Palestine! Free, free! Free, Free!
Nish Kumar Australia’s Amel and the Sniffers also picked up on the concept of colonialism.
Clip I think about schooling and I think about media and I say we don’t learn nothing about colonization, we don’t learn nothing about sexual education, we don’t know any of the right things, we don’t see any of right things in the media and so of course most people don’t know about this shit and that’s what’s so fucked up because they don’t want us to know and they want us to shut the fuck up because if we think about Palestine then back home in Australia we think of the indigenous people there.
Coco Khan And former Little Mix singer Jade listed off many of this podcast’s biggest concerns.
Clip Say some things and I want you to shout fuck you back to me okay? Are you ready? Like Lord of the Rings?
Clip Justify your genocide!
Coco Khan Incidentally, Jade, if you’re listening, please do consider this an open invitation to come on the podcast.
Nish Kumar Ha ha ha
Coco Khan Especially for the smelly toilets bit. I’ve got a lot to say on that. Really must be said.
Nish Kumar Glastonbury is and always has been incredibly politicized. The history of the festival is inextricably linked with the campaign for nuclear disarmament. And the politics is baked into the festival, but it felt absolutely ubiquitous this year. And that’s by design, according to the founder of the Festival, Michael Eavis. When asked by the festival’s free newspaper, if Glastonsbury still stood for something, he said, oh, heaven’s above, yes, of course it does. And I think the people that come here, uh… Into all those things people that don’t agree with the politics of the event can go somewhere else.
Coco Khan But there’s one particular thing that was said this weekend that has infuriated, I think that’s a calm word, but yeah, has infurated the press and politicians more than any other, and of course, Nish, you were there for that too.
Nish Kumar Listen, it’s nice to be present for something that riles up the conservative press without actually being the instigator of it for me. Look, if you’ve not heard it yet, let’s lay it out. Bob Villain, a punk rap duo from London, took the stage before Kneecap. The set was extraordinary, kind of the sort of visceral combinations of punk music and rap music. And like the other acts that we’ve spoken about, vocalist Bobby Villain took the moment, streamed live by the BBC, to say his piece on the war in Gaza.
Clip We have seen a strange reaction to people that come out and voice support for Palestine. Even though anybody with any kind of moral compass can surely tell that what is happening over there in Gaza is a tragedy. So look, we’re not pacifist punks here over at Bob Vylan Enterprises, we are not pacifist puns. We are the violent punks because sometimes you’ve got to get your message across with violence because that is the only language that some people speak, unfortunately.
Nish Kumar Now, look, we just need to say right away that on this podcast, we do not endorse violence in any capacity. But what Bobby went on to say attracted the attention of the press, the British government, the UK’s chief rabbi, the police and even the US government.
Coco Khan We’re not going to play the clip, you would have already heard it, but Bobby Vylan went on to lead a chant of death, death to the IDF, referring to the Israeli defense forces, the military force that has been active in the war in Gaza and has been frequently accused by international human rights organizations of discrimination, unlawful killings and indeed genocide against the Palestinian people.
Nish Kumar Shortly following the broadcast, the BBC pulled the stream and the police announced a criminal inquiry and the UK’s chief rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mervis, said this is a time of national shame. The airing of vile Jew hatred at Glastonbury and the BBC’s belated and mishandled response brings confidence in our national broadcasters’ ability to treat anti-Semitism seriously to a new low.
Coco Khan Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told the House of Commons on Monday evening that while it’s now a matter for the police, the government will be keeping a close eye on it.
Speaker 8 This government will not tolerate antisemitism. It has no place in our society. It is a poison and a cancer that must be rooted out. And we will be relentless in our work to do so.
Nish Kumar Look, there’s a lot to digest here and we need to reiterate that we don’t believe violence is ever the answer. And also it’s worth noting that in a statement Bob Vylan say that violence was not their intent. This is what they said. Today a good many people would have you believe a punk band is the number one threat to world peace. Last week it was a Palestine pressure group, the week before that it was another band. We are not for the death of Jews, Arabs or any other race or group of people. We are for the dismantling of a violent military machine, machine whose own soldiers were told to use unnecessary lethal force against innocent civilians. Waiting for aid, a machine that has destroyed much of Gaza. We like those in the spotlight before us are not the story. We are the distraction from the story and whatever sanctions we receive will be a distraction. So the consequences for Bob Vylan have been immediate and severe. The U S visa that they needed to tour the U S have been canceled. There has been a lot of discussion about meriting the debates of whether this intervention was helpful to the cause of the Palestinian people, but all of it sort of misses a larger point here, which is that we’ve lost our ability to critically evaluate where comments are coming from. And it means that we’re in a situation where we give the same weight to things said by a punk band on stage as we do to politicians working for a government that is in the process of by its own acknowledgement attempting to essentially destroy Gaza. And we’ve come to this strange situation where we spend a lot of time hand-wringing over comments made by artists and musicians and performers, and maybe not as much time we should do evaluating the statements of. People with actual political power who are making the decisions that are instigating these conversations to be had in the first place. I do think that there’s a vacuum that’s been created in this conversation by our two main political parties refusing to say anything on Gaza that echoes the views of a large section of the population of our countries who feel very strongly that this military action taken. By the Israeli government was first disproportionate and then transcended into full-on war crimes. And again, when we use words like genocide and war crimes, a huge reason for the justification for people using those words is the things said by high-ranking members of the Israeli government and Benjamin Netanyahu. And specifically, when I talk about Netanyahu, it’s really important to raise the fact that this weekend. His trial on corruption charges has been suspended and the reason for the suspension is the situation that the Israeli government is in regards to the wars in Gaza and Iran. Netanyahu needs this to be a forever war for his own personal and political survival and whenever we talk about this we should raise that issue because so much death is coming down to the political career of one man and that’s what’s important here not what a punk band said. That’s the crucial piece of information that we should be talking about.
Coco Khan You know, we played a compilation there of just some of the comments in support of Palestine that were at Glastonbury. And, you know, if you compare the column inches, it’s clear, isn’t it, that, like, they were covered, but not widely enough, I would say. And you know that amazing speech from NECAP where they talk about, like I don’t need to tell you, you’ve seen it on your phone, we’re all on the internet. We all see this genocide playing out in front of us every day and it lingers in our mind every single day. That’s not replicated in the kind of political conversation, in the press conversation.
Nish Kumar And look, it’s worth flagging up that as we record on Wednesday, MPs will vote on an order to designate the group Palestine Action as a terrorist entity for breaking into an RAF base and spray-painting a plane. Should the order pass, it would make it an offense punishable by up to 14 years in prison to belong to or support the group.
Coco Khan CEO of Amnesty International, Sacha Dishmukh said, the question before parliament is not whether MPs think that Palestine Action’s approach is tasteful or distasteful or even effective or ineffective. If Palestine Action is prescribed this week, by the weekend, any MP’s constituents wearing a Palestine Action sticker, badge or T-shirt could face a terrorism charge. Do MPs and peers really believe that Palestine Actions activities justify such a grave misuse of anti-terrorism powers? So the prescription of Palestine action along with these attacks on the artistic expression of Bob Villain and Niqap, I mean it all just feels part of a wider effort to silence opposition to Israel’s campaign of genocide, let’s call it what it is, against the people of Gaza.
Nish Kumar And to the claims of antisemitism, as the story was beginning to erupt, we reached out to Professor David Feldman, the director of Birkbeck’s Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, who is one of the authors of the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, a document designed to outline the bounds of antisemitic speech. We should note that the Jerusalem declaration isn’t the only definition of antisemitism and has its critics, but that’s probably for another podcast down the line.
Coco Khan David very kindly shared his thoughts on the scandal and he said, Anti-Semitism is racism directed against Jewish people. The chant targeted Israel’s armed forces. It didn’t target Jews in general. It did not employ anti-Jewish stereotypes, conspiracy theories, or hold all Jews responsible for the actions of the state of Israel. And it did not call for discrimination against Jewish People. These are the customary criteria we use for recognizing anti-Semitism. Some criticism of Israel does cross these red lines, but Bob Vylan didn’t do so.
Nish Kumar David went on to say that the claim that the chant is antisemitic is the latest episode in a long-running campaign by Israel and its supporters to shift the meaning of antisemitism so that it covers not only the rights of Jewish people, but also the interests of a state, Israel. The campaign creates confusion. It makes us less able to recognize racism directed at Jewish people when we do encounter it, and it makes us able to combat antisemitism effectively. The controversy created by the chant at Glastonbury also distracts us from the dire reality in Gaza where the IDF kills civilians daily and according to many authoritative voices is committing war crimes.
Coco Khan Now, look, there will be more to come in this story, I’m sure, and we’ll be keenly watching the progress of the police inquiry alongside NECAP’s Mo Chara’s upcoming court date. And as always, dear listeners, we want to know your thoughts on everything that we’ve discussed. We’re sure you’re going to have some opinions, so please do email us at psukatreducelistening.co.uk. They can be about anything we’ve discussed, even Nishkumar’s explanation of fallow farming, which I found particularly amusing. Did you ever read War and Peace?
Nish Kumar Uh, no. I’ve never read War and Peace.
Coco Khan It’s like 30% of it is just about farming. And I remember reading it when I was in my 20s being like, the fuck is this man? I’m just learning about loads of historic Russian farming. And I had that feeling when you were talking just then. But anyway, email us with smarter thoughts at psuk at reducelistening.co.uk.
Nish Kumar Now after the break, as Jay Toe perfectly articulated earlier, fuck welfare cuts. The government’s controversial welfare reform bill has passed its first vote, but what does it actually mean for people living in this country who need those benefits to live and work? We’re going to be speaking to author and journalist Frances Ryan.
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Nish Kumar As we record on Wednesday, Keir Starmer’s Labour government has never appeared weaker. Headlines this morning have included words like, humiliated from the sun, utter capitulation from the express, bruised from the Guardian and shambolic from the Times, which is obviously not ideal reviews. And I say that as someone who’s had their fair share of not ideal reviews, to be absolutely fair to me. The headlines are referring to the passing of the government’s welfare bill, which has scraped through on its second reading, passing by a majority of 75 votes. After it was torn up and taped back together again.
Coco Khan The vote came down to a knife edge, with the Prime Minister forced to offer concession after concession to appease rebelling MPs who were trying to sink the bill. Fearing a humiliating defeat, at the last minute the government was forced to make a final massive U-turn, saying it would now not change PIP rules until it had time to consider the conclusions of a review into the system in partnership with disability groups. This is not expected until November at the earliest.
Nish Kumar This move has created a huge headache for Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, who will now have to find a further £2.5 billion of savings in her autumn budget. And more concerningly for number 10, it’s drastically undermined Keir Starmer’s authority, which has been called into question by a series of U-turns recently.
Coco Khan But most importantly, for the people who are claiming these benefits, it’s been an incredibly worrying time. Latest figures show that almost one in four people in the UK live with a disability. But what do we really know about the reality of living with a disability and what does the much revised bill actually mean for those claiming these benefit? So here to tell us more is Frances Ryan. She’s a Guardian columnist and author known for her work on disability rights. And she was recently named as one of Vogue’s 25 women defining Britain in 2025. Frances, welcome to Pod Save the UK.
Frances Ryan Thanks for having me.
Nish Kumar What a time in our nation’s history to be defining Britain.
Frances Ryan That isn’t a compliment, is it? That is not a compliment.
How do you define it? Like, noun? Verb? You know what I mean?
Frances Ryan Can I swear?
Nish Kumar Yeah, you can absolutely swear, yeah.
Frances Ryan Absolute shit show.
Coco Khan I think that’s fair.
Nish Kumar This has been a sort of chaotic 48 hours, but Francis, can you help us make sense of what has actually been passed here?
Frances Ryan I shall try. So as you say there was a huge rebellion which essentially pushed Labour into a bunch of quite embarrassing concessions and we all know that was going to happen but actually it got even worse for them last night and an hour before the vote they effectively abandoned the central tenant of the of the bill which were these massive cuts to PIP and they might come back in, but they’ve been pushed so that this review… The system that happens up until next autumn has to happen first. So there’s this huge climb down over the central part of the bill. But I should also say really importantly that even though it’s getting fewer headlines, one cut did make it through already, which is the cut to what they call the health component of Universal Credit, which is essentially extra help for people that are too ill to work. And those people are already some of the poorest in the country so even though it isn’t getting much attention today that has gone through and that’s obviously not a good thing if you believe that people who are too ill to work should get some support.
Coco Khan I just want to read you a quote from Mikey Earhart. He’s a former guest of this show from Disability Rights UK. And he said that policies don’t happen in a vacuum. We’re not numbers on a spreadsheet. This is about people’s lives and MPs tonight voted to make big cuts. There’ll be hundreds of thousands of people affected by the changes to universal credit that were in the bill. Our reaction is deep disappointment and not just disappointment at the substance of the bill, but of the pure chaos and mismanagement that we’ve seen. This process has led to disabled people trusting even less that the DWP and ministers in charge of it know what they’re doing and that they’ll listen to us when implementing any reforms moving forward. I guess I just wanted to ask you about that sense of confidence in this government and DWP after this. I mean, presumably it was already quite low.
Frances Ryan Again I feel like I should ask permission to swear. I think most disabled people’s experience of the benefit system throughout the last 15 years of the Tories has been pretty atrocious. We’ve seen sweeping cuts to all sorts of support, the social safety net generally has been completely scissored and disabled people as people who rely on the system more than others generally have been the hardest hit. So I think absolutely going into it, there was very little confidence there, but at the same time people did, or some people at least, had hopes that a Labour government would be an opportunity to create something that was more humane, shall we say. Unfortunately what we’ve got is some of the most sweeping cuts that we’ve seen in this generation. So, I think for most disabled people looking at this, it’s been a sense of… Betrayal to be honest. It’s human beings at the end of the day who are affected by this and people having to watch people debate whether the money they need to live on is still going to be there. What you’re doing isn’t some abstract debate but is actually survival for people.
Nish Kumar Frances, I just want to clarify that you have what we on this podcast call an OFI, an open fucking invitation to swear at any point.
Frances Ryan I’m used to the BBC and I appreciate that.
Nish Kumar Frances, you’ve got to the center of why I think so many people are upset with this, which is this is not why people elect Labour governments, is it? I mean, speaking after the vote, Liz Kendall said, I wish we had got to this point in a different way, but still defended the bill, arguing that it put in place really important reforms to help those who can get back to work. We continually hear this rhetoric coming out of this government, but the fact is that there are many disabled and sick people that simply can’t work in this country, right?
Frances Ryan Yeah, absolutely. There are a minority of disabled people who, no matter what support they’re provided with, and there isn’t enough support, won’t be able to do a paid job, absolutely. But I think the really important thing is that PIP is not an out of work benefit. And I do feel this part, I will get that tattooed to my face. You hear Ministers. As you say, constantly referring to this, is about getting disabled people into work. But PIP is not anything to do with employment, it’s to pay for the extra costs of disability, that we saw this week scope say on average £15,000 a year. Stuff like having to pay for an accessible taxi to get to work because you can’t get your wheelchair on the tube. So actually PIP was often used by disabled people. To help them stay in employment. But instead what we’ve heard from the government is this real misinformation and that somehow cutting PIP is gonna help get people into work. It’s just a lie. And I think disabled people watching it, that has made it even worse because it’s not a genuine conversation. You’re just repeating manipulative lines that will encourage the wider public to believe this. To watch a Labour minister do this, I think it does feel genuinely awful. You can have a low expectations, can’t you, politicians? But I think at absolute minimum, you don’t want them going on TV and lying, and you don’t want them scapegoating disabled people. But I just think that is what it’s felt like to a lot of people. When you see those lies on your TV, you just want to… Scream at the TV don’t you? It’s been so awful to watch to be honest.
Coco Khan So in your latest book, Who Wants Normal? The Disabled Girl’s Guide to Life, you note that just 1% of people working in the House of Commons and 1% people working the media have a disability. So at the same time, one of the reasons there’s been so much controversy around this bill is because its provisions have not been subject to a formal consultation with disabled people or co-produced with them or their carers. If that had happened, what were the changes you think you would have seen?
Frances Ryan I mean, Parliament has, I think, nine MPs with a disclosed disability. And one in four people, as you say, in this country are disabled. So, yeah, we should be a quarter of the Commons, but instead there’s a handful. But I think that does have a knock-on effect, just like if you removed all ethnic minorities or gay people or working-class people, who you are impacts. Policy that you create. So I think a real lesson in all of this is always to have more disabled people in the room. As you say in my book I talk a lot about the various things in life that affect you with a disability but more than absolutely is that we are still excluded from so many public spaces whether that’s getting into the pub physically, going to a shop, being employed or being represented in these beads. Industries like politics or the media, and you can’t help but think that if there were more disabled people in the cabinet for example, or any at all, that things would have turned out differently, and because of that you end up in this kind of position where that disabled people are all too familiar with, which is non-disabled people making decisions. About your life. It doesn’t end well on a day-to-day basis but it really doesn’t end well when its politicians doing it.
Nish Kumar Disability in the UK has increased across the board. So there’s now 16.8 million people living with a substantial long-term condition. I feel like we have to keep repeating, we all just live through a mass disabling event and it’s an aspect of COVID-19 that has been wildly under discussed. But also if you’re a young woman, the odds of you being classed as disabled also increase. So one in seven women in their 20s in England and Wales were classed as disabled in 2021. And it’s their experience that actually is the focus of your book. What is it that’s remarkably sort of different or unique that you wanted to draw attention to about the experience of living as a disabled woman?
Frances Ryan When I started writing the book a few years ago, it’s only just come out, but I started it like four years ago and there wasn’t this big trend then. But as I continued writing it, the number across the board has increased and for women, of course, we’re also affected by sexism and the way those two things interact. So simple stuff like, you know, I know your friend. Rosie Jones, lovely Rosie.
Nish Kumar Lovely Rosie, lovely Rosie to everybody else apart from me.
Frances Ryan Well, I know that you’re very abusive to her and constantly pushing her over, you know, very, very behavior, but to me, obviously, Rosie is a bit innocent. She told me in the book that her experience of dating apps, for example, and how she felt unsure whether to disclose her disability. And when she did do so, she didn’t get any matches. And that’s kind of one of the latest samples of how… Women, whether you’re gay like Rosie or having God help us to deal with men, it is a different kind of life because you are treated simply differently as an disabled woman and that’s the case in so many parts of life, like school, university, careers, body image.
Coco Khan I mean, one in seven women in their 20s, that is a huge number. And yet there is this mass knowledge gap. Whereas I know loads about Eton, I know fucking loads and loads about eating. And that is, what is that in percentage of people? It’s got to be less than 1%, right? You really get the sense of people who are pushed to the margins, people who were made invisible. I do want to ask you though, just before we say goodbye, that now the bill has passed. What’s next? You know, can it be tweaked at later stages? And what can our listeners do to keep the pressure on the government?
Frances Ryan Yeah, so the government are trying to get it through pretty fast. It’s coming back, I think, on the 9th of July for more scrutiny. And MPs will have to see, because it was pushed through so fast yesterday, genuinely, some of them are saying they’re not sure what they voted for. So they have to actually see whether the government has actually kept their promise to cut out what they said they had and there’ll be further scrutiny through Parliament for your listeners. I think what you said just then about how disability is marginalized is really, really important because I think disability is one of those things that people just don’t really think has anything to do with them unless they have a disability. I think you see progressives, shall we call them, big accounts, quite likely tweeting about, you know, what’s happening with trans rights, for example, in this country, which is fantastic, they should be doing, but those same people. Never say anything about disability justice. And I think that has to change. I think people have to feel a bit more comfortable, perhaps, talking about disability. They have to think it’s something that does involve them, just like other social justice issues do. And being an ally is such an important thing, because disabled people are absolutely very fantastic at fighting for their rights, what we’ve seen over the last 24 hours. Is a testament to how hard they fought, but we need your help too, so please absolutely over the next week write to your MP for example, it’s a fantastic thing you can do.
Coco Khan Hmm.
Frances Ryan Letting them know that you want them to vote against this. I feel if another vote comes up that you want the PIP cuts to not go forward next year. And please do get involved with it, because it absolutely affects you and what sort of society you want to live in, I should always say. But Britain actually is a complete shithole.
Nish Kumar Ha haha ha
Coco Khan No, you’re absolutely right. And I think it’s important to say that, you know, we need to share the load with the disabled activists who was speaking out about this. And yeah, in the end, it benefits all of us anyway, because a Britain that can look after people when they fall on difficult times is a Britain we want to live in. And also as a new mother, I would just say I push a pram around and I have really noticed that the work of disabled activists in my area to get ramps put in and do things like that has benefited me. And what did I do? I didn’t do enough. So hold my hands up to that. It’s
Frances Ryan It was all for you. I did it for you.
Coco Khan Oh, thanks guys!
Frances Ryan We’re always facing other problems.
Nish Kumar And I think it’s also important to note that I have never pushed Rosie Jones over.
Coco Khan Yeah, yeah, sure.
Nish Kumar She has developed a habit of throwing herself to the floor and shouting help help Nish Kumar pushed over a disabled girl.
Frances Ryan Hate crimes at every turn.
Nish Kumar Um, Frances Ryan, thank you so much for joining us on Pod Save the UK. Frances’ book, Who Wants Normal? The Disabled Girl’s Guide to Life is out now.
Frances Ryan Thank you so much.
Nish Kumar Now after the break, I chat with Movember’s Dr. Zac Seidler about the UK’s upcoming men’s health strategy.
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Nish Kumar Listeners, just to let you know, before we start this section, we are about to have a discussion that touches on mental health issues and death by suicide. Men’s mental health is in crisis. Suicide is the leading cause of death for men under 50, and the rate of death by death is three times higher for men than women. These may be stats that we’ve heard before, but still, how often do we really make space for discussions on male mental health? And what are we doing as a society to support men who are really struggling. Last year, following the election, the charity Movember released the real face of men’s health report. And following on from that, the Secretary of State for Health Wes Treating committed to creating the first ever men’s health strategy, which has been opened up for public calls for evidence. The UK established its women’s health strategy in 2022 following similar calls for evidence to help us understand how a system-level policy response can improve men’s mental health and reduce the risk of suicide. We welcome to the show, Dr. Zac Seidler, who’s the Global Director of Men’s Health Research at Movember. Zac, welcome to PSUK.
Dr. Zac Seidler Great to be here, Nish.
Nish Kumar Shall I call you Dr. Zac? What would you prefer?
Dr. Zac Seidler That’s Dr. Phil vibes. I don’t know if I’m going with that, but I’ll take it. I’ll Take it.
Nish Kumar Yeah, I hadn’t really thought about the fact that Dr. Surname respectful. Dr. Seidler respectful. Dr. Zac, Dr. Phil vibes.
Dr. Zac Seidler You’re on my couch. We’re doing some weird stuff. Yeah, yeah.
Nish Kumar Yeah, that’s got open investigation vibes.
Dr. Zac Seidler Exactly.
Nish Kumar Zac, why do you think men’s health has been a sort of long-standing blind spot in policy?
Dr. Zac Seidler There’s been an inflection point recently where talking about men and masculinity has become something of interest. It’s become a crisis of sorts that people are trying to respond to. Historically, it’s been an extremely fragmented and disconnected sector as well. So the sector is convening, finally, speaking to one another. And we also have this situation where politicians are saying, oh shit, we actually need to start to talk to men. We need to understand them and a really good way of calling them in. And actually saying we want your vote is to say, we give a shit if you live past 75 and we want to create a system that actually listens to you and responds to you. So that’s why we’re actually seeing across the globe, because Movember works in over 20 countries, we’re seeing that type of movement happening now.
Nish Kumar Has there been a specific flashpoint that shifted the conversation?
Dr. Zac Seidler I think the fact that the conversation around men’s mental health and male suicide has really been gaining momentum is definitely an important factor. The show like Adolescence was a boiling point for this conversation as well. But I also think what our report did, the Real Face of Men’s Health report, it showed that poor men’s health fundamentally affects women and girls as well, there is a real ripple effect to everyone else. And so rather than saying, let’s do this men versus women binary bullshit, instead we actually say… You as a mother or a wife are dragging your husband or father or whoever it might be to go and see the doctor or the therapist, you’re making all the bookings, you are carrying the emotional Labour, that hurts you, that sucks emotional and economic prosperity from So we’re trying to find ways to clarify that this is a situation that directly affects 50% of the population but really indirectly affects everybody.
Nish Kumar In terms of the report itself, what did you find was driving the mental health crisis in men? And particularly, I just want to talk for a second about young men.
Dr. Zac Seidler What we’re witnessing is that economic precarity is definitely playing a massive role in the way in which young men’s belief about the future and optimism about their capacity to be the type of man that their father or grandfather was. They’ve got this really strong success failure dichotomy that they talk to us about, where if they do not reach this unattainable standard of masculine prowess, they’ve failed. That tends to trigger feelings of depression and anxiety. And so we have… This idea of what a man should be and the reality of what is actually possible at the And when you’ve got influences driving around in Bugattis with nine girlfriends saying, this is what it means to be a man, and you’ve a guy living in a town where he cannot get a job, we’re really going to see that tension point there. So I think that we have systemic problems that young men are telling us about. We see their educational attainment going backwards. We see their employment statistics going backwards. And really what we’re also seeing is that the system and society around men are not really attuned to their distress. So as a psychologist myself, I see this all the time which is that guys are kind of willing to express what’s happening to them in different ways but the way in which we respond kind of tends to shut them down. That’s where stigma stems from as well.
Nish Kumar Do you think that that stigma is still prevalent? I mean, I’ve got my issues with my own mental health and I have spoken about them on this podcast and also on stage as well. And the audiences at shows are so supportive, but I will also say that sometimes I’m interviewed by people that go, well, this is a problem that you as comedians have. Journalists can sometimes be very keen to still create this idea that it’s something specific to comedians and not really about.
Dr. Zac Seidler Wider society. The fact that you have a platform and the confidence and the social connections and the ability to voice this stuff, the vast majority of guys, especially young men, don’t have that. They don’t the language, they don’t have the friends, and they don’t have the safety to do so. And so I don’t actually necessarily think that it’s a stigma situation as much as it is the emotional muscle. It is the fear around the repercussions of that, what it means to their identity, to their. Ability to succeed in the workforce, whatever that might be. And rather than focusing on pure awareness, which is what Movember has done for a number of years, we’re now moving into that system based work, which is that you cannot keep more responsibility on the shoulders of a guy who is struggling to get out of bed and just be like, just get your shit together. And we’ve done that for a long time. Just open up, just be more vulnerable, just talk about what’s happening and everything will be fine. When we’re talking to guys and we spoke to 4,000 of them, and 41% of them regretted opening up about their mental health, that’s a serious issue that we have as a society, which is that we are actually not ready to listen.
Nish Kumar And also it’s very easy for me to sit here, now in the position that I’m in, you know, I don’t know why I’m reticent talking about it, we shouldn’t feel that it’s crass to talk about this. The reality is, I have money now. That’s why I have sorted out my mental health. It wasn’t that my mental problem suddenly happened. A lot of them are things that I now understand have dogged me for my whole life. But now I have the financial means to see a therapist, which I pay to do. I often see people online being very flip and using the phrase get therapy or go to therapy with current NHS waiting lists for mental health support. There’s also a huge economic and access issue here, right?
Dr. Zac Seidler Huge. So there’s a number of different factors, which is that, yes, you’ve got massive wait lists, you’ve also got men who are much more prone to waiting until crisis hits. So if you’ve got a three to six month wait list, that is not good if you’re in suicidal crisis. That plus the health literacy, which has that lots of young guys, especially don’t really know what to look for when they’re talking about their mental health, they don’t know how to describe it. Is this serious enough? Is this just me not being man enough, you know, tough And so you end up in this really complex situation where guys are saying, I don’t belong in the health system. It doesn’t work for me. It’s too expensive and I actually don’t know how to navigate it. If we do not fix that, the suicide numbers will not decrease.
Nish Kumar So it’s not just a problem of, you know, we’ve been often just say on this podcast, we just need more government spending and clearly we do need more funding to the NHS specifically to deal with the mental health crisis. But what you’re saying is it’s just not about spending money, it’s about actually thinking strategically, right?
Dr. Zac Seidler Exactly. So we talk about it at Movember under a number of Rs, the reach, respond and retain. We’re doing a lot of trying to reach. We’re like, oh, just come in, come through the door. But we’re not thinking a lot about what happens on the other side. If you spent a heap of money trying to get them into therapy and then the therapist is not attuned to the way in which men’s depression tends to shock, the fact that rejection and shame tend to be really common I mean, lots of guys. The fact that substance misuse and risk taking and violence are all thrown in there. If we don’t respond and then find ways to retain them in long-term care and show them that actually the health system is a place for them, you’re dealing with this thing. Come in now, this is how this works. This is what it will look like. So you need the campaigns at the front end saying, hey, there’s an NHS health check for you if you’re a 40-year-old guy. You should probably go and do that. And you should do it because it’s good for your kids, it’s for your wife, and it’s good for you and your friends. Our messaging is just off at the moment.
Nish Kumar Is the consultation something that you would welcome? Will Movember be chatting with West Reading and the Department of Health to try and help shape this policy?
Dr. Zac Seidler Oh, we’re in the room consistently and working with a number of partners, because we can’t do this on our own. But you know, that idea of what a strategy can be, what it can look like, like it requires funding. You can’t just have one of these blank documents and just hope that it’s going to work, but we need men to show up. The call for evidence is open until the 17th of July. You can fix the thing if we’re just doing this top-down ivory tower. This is what we think. So that’s why we’re so lucky to have such a huge community that we can call on. Who can come forward and go, this is what happened to me. This is what I would love to look a bit different. And I think that having that consultation leads to a way better strategy long-term.
Nish Kumar You wrote a beautiful piece in The Guardian about losing your dad to suicide and it’s really powerful and I really draw listeners’ attention to it. And the only real reason I want to discuss it is we should talk about this as a problem of men, right? Not a problem of a specific generation. This is a holistic issue, right, this is a cross-generational male problem.
Dr. Zac Seidler Exactly. Yeah. And thanks for that, Nish. What we’re doing in November is we’re creating a life course approach here, which is that there are transition periods when you see massive upticks in suicide amongst men. And we’re really attuned to the younger guys, because obviously losing a man in his teens to suicide is really difficult for society. But the vast majority of suicides are taking place for men in their middle years, and they are unseen and unheard. It’s often in the wake of a relationship breakdown, it’s often the wake new fathers, trying to grapple with those transitions in identity of who they are now, what it means to be a provider and a protector. We need to have those conversations of expanding those definitions so that guys can feel like there is not this rigid notion that is that success failure, but rather, here are all of the different ways that you can show up. And social connection is so important here because as men age, you see the suicide rate go up. And you also see their number of friendships tank. They de-prioritize connection. Community is life-saving and life-giving. I’m not really sure when we lost sight of the beauty of male friendship, but it is so important that guys do not lean on this self-reliance, but actually find other ways. And that’s kind of what happened with my dad. He receded. We need to find access points with these guys earlier on in order to show them what is possible.
Nish Kumar How does the strategy differ, say, for men in their 50s versus men who are sort of 18, 19?
Dr. Zac Seidler Again, by taking that life course approach, we’re actually going to say, what are the things that are happening in your life? We always talk about going to where men are. So we need to talk about fatherhood. We need to talk about relationship breakdown. to talk about unemployment. And then when we’re talking about young guys, we need to be connecting in a cross-departmental way. This is the thing. If you create a strategy and it doesn’t connect in with education, it doesn’ connect in with farmers in rural communities and doesn’t connect in with tech and violence, it’s just going to fall over. And so when we’re talking about young men, especially, it’s like, what matters to them? We do a lot of work in gaming and e-sports, you know, they’re all showing up there, create something that actually matters to them, that connects with them, don’t just go, oh, no, you need to go and sit in this group program that they don’t give a shit about. It’s not going to work. And we’ve done a lot of talking at young men this commentary of, you know, in the wake of adolescence and other things that’s like everything’s in crisis, everything’s toxic. You’re a problem. You’re broken. And they’re like, fuck this, I don’t wanna be a part of the solution. What this strategy should do is say, you matter, we’re gonna create an aspirational idea of what it means to be a man and we’re going to look after and support you and your family.
Nish Kumar Before we finish, Zac, it’s worth circling back to something that you mentioned almost as soon as we started this episode, a subject that we’ve sort of consistently returned to, which is these bad actors. In the kind of void of a conversation around men’s mental health, that void has been filled by radicalizers, online influences like Andrew Tate. Has sort of presented himself as a self-help guru offering advice to men on women and money, but really what he is, is a kind of hate preacher and a kind of radicalizer who is looking to spread a violent, misogynist agenda. How much of a problem is this? It’s the thing that spooks me the most about, especially the new generation of men younger than me. Am I overstating the influence here? Am I paranoid for no reason.
Dr. Zac Seidler The proliferation of this type of content is staggering. But I would say we have a lot of hope for young guys. When you sit down with the 16 to 25 year olds, they will tell you consistently that they can discern the bullshit. We just finished a report with 3,000 guys across UK, Australia, and the US. And what is really clear is that there is this scapegoating, resentment building narrative that the likes of Tate and others are pushing. They are trying to create. This adversarial relationship, especially between men and women. And what we are hoping to push as a counter narrative is the fact that actually this is not women’s fault. And the unmet need that young guys have, which is to feel a sense of purpose and connection and belonging and meaning, they are weaponizing it. They are saying, I understand what you are feeling and we’re gonna find a way to create that sense of dominance and power within you because you feel so powerless. They’re hacking their uncertainty and trying to commercialize it. When what we should actually be saying is that while these guys offer you a sense of short-term optimism, what we found in our research is that long-term, you’re actually gonna be far more distressed, much more likely to risk-take, much more like to be anxious, and it’s not benefiting you. Guys are really good at critical insight. That’s why they listen to three-hour podcasts. They wanna hear different perspectives. Let’s use that to our advantage. Let’s leverage healthy ways of showing up as a guy. And let’s make sure that we don’t say, oh, we need a Rogan or a Tate of the left. Rather, let’s say, where are these guys that the people are actually already connecting with, and let’s turn the volume up. Let’s amplify those narratives to try and drown out some of this other shit. I heard a great quote the other day, which is like, young guys dip their toe in to things like the Manosphere, and it just pulls their whole leg through. Regardless of what their natural intent is, what their values are, it actually starts to shape their values without them even knowing. And when we myth bust for them, when we show that back to them, hey guys, this isn’t who you thought you were or who you wanna be, that’s how we’re gonna make traction here.
Nish Kumar There is never going to be one answer on an issue this kind of fraught and complicated, but it’s positive to hear that the government is having a consultation about this and trying to engage with the sort of complexity of it. What can our listeners be doing in the short term? Presumably this participation in this consultation is really important.
Dr. Zac Seidler Definitely, so, you know, going out and engaging with this consultation, reaching out to us at Movember if you’d like us to be the middleman for you there and really creating connection with your mates. It’s saying, hey, this is not working for us. I know that you went through this situation and your doctor sucked and your therapist didn’t hear from you and you waited this long for this. Most importantly, we want you to stress the fact that this is your health system. And it should be attuned to the needs of men. And that does not come at the cost of women and girls, rather it’s gonna come to their benefit.
Nish Kumar Thank you so much for joining us on the show, Zac. If you want to contribute your views on the government’s open call for evidence, you can find a link in our show notes. But remember the deadline for submissions is the 17th of July. So get on it and get it done. In the meantime, Dr. Seidler, thank you so for joining us on Pod Save the UK.
Dr. Zac Seidler Thanks Dr. Nish.
Nish Kumar My parents will be so proud. That’s it for this week’s show, and a quick reminder, the final tickets to see us this Sunday at Crossed Wires Festival in Sheffield are on sale. Come and see us, bring your mum. I swear I will try fucking hard not to offend her. Click the link in our show notes to find out more.
Coco Khan Absolutely, do not bring your mum! Don’t bring your mum!
Nish Kumar Of course bring your mom!
Coco Khan Bad idea!
Nish Kumar Why? That’s a great idea!
Coco Khan Nish, you know, as well as I know, that your language is profane.
Nish Kumar Yeah, a lot of people’s mum’s language, mine included, is profane.
Coco Khan Maybe it’s just my mum, then I don’t know. The C word in front of your own mother was happened. What happened to this country? That’s all I’m saying. What’s happening?
Nish Kumar My mother’s heard much worse to be upset with that.
Coco Khan Anyway, thank you for listening to Pod Save the UK. Don’t forget to follow at Pod Save The UK on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter, and on bluesky at podsavetheuk.crooked.com. And again, we want to hear your thoughts. Please email us at psuk at reducedlistening.co.uk.
Nish Kumar Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media.
Coco Khan Thanks to Senior Producer James Tindale and Producer May Robson.
Nish Kumar Our theme music is by Vasilis Fotopoulos.
Coco Khan The executive producers are Anishka Sharma and Katie Long with additional support from Ari Schwartz.
Nish Kumar And remember to hit subscribe for new shows on Thursdays on Amazon, Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
