Labour’s Andy Burnham tells Nish and Coco why he doesn’t mind being labelled ‘The King of the North’ and why he thinks our political system needs a complete rewiring. He also gives his reaction to the demise of his old pandemic-era foe Boris Johnson, and shrugs off concerns about the city of Manchester getting into bed with Abu Dhabi – the owners who’ve brought such success to Manchester City F.C.  

We celebrate the 75th Windrush anniversary with a member of the Windrush generation, Catherine Ross, who tells us how Caribbean people introduced the British to moisturising amongst many things! Nish and Coco meanwhile, take the Home Office to task for backtracking on promises made in the wake of the Windrush scandal.

Plus, the mortgage time bomb set to go off before the next election, the return of austerity twins David Cameron and George Osborne, and why Rishi Sunak is “chicken shit”. Coco also reveals why footballing hardman Graeme Souness made her cry, and who is the mystery PSUK fan known only as ChickenNugNugz?

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

Contact us via email: PSUK@reducedlistening.co.uk 

WhatsApp: 07514 644572 (UK) or + 44 7514 644572

Twitter: @podsavetheuk

Guests:

Andy Burnham, Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester

Catherine Ross, Founder and Director of Museumand, The National Caribbean Heritage Museum

Audio credits:

Good Morning Britain (ITV)

BBC Breakfast TV

BBC News

TRANSCRIPT

Nish Kumar Hi, this is Pod Save the UK.

Coco Khan I’m Coko Khan.

Nish Kumar And I’m Nish Kumar.

Coco Khan Coming up, Labour’s King of the North, Andy Burnham.

Nish Kumar And we ask him the question, Can Mayor save the UK?

Coco Khan Also, is the Home Office failing the Windrush generation all over again.

Nish Kumar And why you may have to sell a kidney to pay your goddamn mortgage.

Nish Kumar Hi, Coco.

Coco Khan Hi.

Nish Kumar How’s your week been?

Coco Khan Yeah, it’s pretty good. I went to the seaside. Did it rain? Yes. Did I swim in possibly sewage also? Yes, But not as bad as Boris Johnson’s week. That is for sure. He’s on his birthday. He found out that only seven out of 650 of his work colleagues actually liked him. Which, by the way, is my number one workplace anxiety nightmare.

Nish Kumar Well, the people don’t like you.

Coco Khan Yeah. Do you not have that? If you go for drinks, like with your work colleagues in the next day you wake up and you’re just standing there making a fucking cup of tea like they all hate me. They all hate me.

Nish Kumar Is this a specific reference to the fact that you and I went out on Friday?

Coco Khan It is, yes.

Nish Kumar I don’t hate you.

Coco Khan Oh, great.

Nish Kumar We went out to celebrate our friend, Dekesha Claire, writing a Spiderman comic. Yeah. I got to take you to a comic book shop, Coco. I feel like you should take me to a rave as a sort of exchange program.

Coco Khan Yeah. And then afterwards, should we vote on whether we still like each other? That is genuinely horrific.

Nish Kumar Yeah, that’s right. There was a vote to approve the report by the Privileges Committee into whether Johnson misled the Commons as Prime Minister. 354 MPs voted for it. Seven voted against it.

Coco Khan All no marks. I think it’s very important to say. The list of the seven. In fact who are you mate?

Nish Kumar The person I’m really excited about was Rishi Sunak, because Rishi Sunak took a very, very strong position on this vote and the strong position that he took was, Please don’t ask me. I’m simply too frightened. Listen to this clip from him being asked about the committee on Good Morning Britain.

Good Morning Britain Clip Well, this committee was established under the former prime minister. Come on to the confidence of the House at the time, and I’m sure that they’ve done their work thoroughly and I respect them for that. Obviously, this is a matter for the House, not for the government. And that’s why each and individual colleagues will make up their own mind when the time comes. So you don’t get to be there. I said each an individual colleague will make up their own mind when the time comes. This is a matter for the House rather than for the government. That’s an important distinction and that’s why I wouldn’t want to influence anyone in advance of that vote. But you promised professionalism, accountability, integrity at every level. Boris Johnson has undermined all of those. Do you not need to set an example and vote for him to be punished for that? As I said, this is a matter for the House. It’s not a government matter.

Nish Kumar This is why it’s important that Sunak didn’t take a position on this. Right, Because in some ways you can see the argument he’s trying to make that, look, this is a matter for parliament and it’s as you know, it’s not as Prime minister. It’s not my responsibility to influence it. But one of the things he pledged to do when he became prime minister was to bring integrity and accountability to the government. And he has not done that. And the reason he has done that is that there is still a small core of conservative voters who, let’s be clear, did not vote for Rishi Sunak. They specifically voted for Liz Truss. He lost that leadership election and then he was put in office by Tory MPs. They didn’t let him go to the electorate, the Tory electorate, because there was this still this fear that they wouldn’t vote for him. So we have a Prime Minister who still remains afraid of the party membership and is governing on that basis. The problem for Sunak here is that by dodging this entire issue, he’s failed really to deliver on his promise of bringing integrity and accountability to number ten. And the reason that that is even bigger a problem for the chickenshit asshole is that he’s not exactly delivering anything else, is he? Cocoa, you know, very excited about the issue of people not being able to pay their mortgages. Right. Right. So if we’ve got a situation where people are struggling on a month to month basis with their living expenses.

Coco Khan Absolutely.

Nish Kumar And he’s not doing anything there. At least you would think. Well, at least he’s, you know, done something about Johnson, but he’s fucking doing nothing.

Coco Khan Absolutely. Absolutely. As it happens. And we are going to talk about inflation and interest rates. But as I was coming into this recording on my it’s not iPod Shuffle anymore. It’s not what it’s what is it called?

Nish Kumar iPod Shuffle.

Coco Khan I don’t have an iPod. I promise I don’t have an ipod. I’m very young and hip.

Nish Kumar Every week you fight the label that you and I have become South Asian uncle and aunties. And yet here you sit, saying I was just on my iPod shuffle.

Coco Khan I meant I was on.

Nish Kumar Your new MiniDisc player. Did you fire up the gramophone? Auntie Coco.

Coco Khan My Walkman

Nish Kumar You’re on the discman.

Coco Khan I was on my mobile phone. It’s an Apple iPhone, actually. And I was listening to.

Nish Kumar It’s a Nokia with an iPod stuck to it. I’m looking at it right now.

Coco Khan I was listening to some music on it and whatever the thing is where it just plays random songs, shuffle, is it called?

Nish Kumar It’s called shuffle yeah

Coco Khan Um was a song by Janet Jackson, and that song was, What have you done for me lately? I think that song is the song of right now. You know, you’re looking at the fridge. Everything in there has cost you up to 20% more. What has he. Done for me lately? Rishi Sunak nothing. As we record this on Wednesday, we’ve just learned that the UK’s inflation rate stayed at 8.7% despite hopes of a fall, and so interest rates are expected to rise for the 13th. Lucky number 13 consecutive time as the Bank of England attempts to tame the highest rate of inflation in the G7 ahead of Italy, which hit 8% in May. Just in case anyone was unclear, as I admittedly have been until recently, I didn’t realize that the Bank of England’s only weapon against inflation rates was picking up interest. I didn’t quite realize it. And the way that functions is this If the average household has to spend more on their debt, on their borrowing, so for example, their mortgages, they don’t have more money to spend on like, I don’t know, concert tickets, avocado toast or whatever they’re spending on now. That hasn’t worked. That’s why they keep interest rates up. I have a theory. That’s because we’re not actually buying avocado toast. We’re actually just buying like, electricity.

Nish Kumar Just like toilet paper.

Coco Khan Just the essentials. So I don’t think that our discretionary spending can really be changing. We’re just spending it on essentials and therefore we’re just being squeezed. The government, of course, will point the finger at anyone but themselves about why that problem has happened. It’s because of Ukraine. It’s because of something else that isn’t to do with Brexit or to do with that woman who look like a lettuce and blew the hole in the economy. You could also argue that the stamp duty holiday was actually an error because it incentivized people to take out mortgages and to move. And now many of those people who are on fixed term mortgages are now facing unbelievable hikes, hikes that they cannot afford. That is a nightmare for rishi Sunak. You’re going to have a lot of homeowners who are really, really furious by the time it comes to election, nonetheless. Jeremy Hunt has ruled out any mortgage relief.

Nish Kumar The government not doing anything obviously has very, very serious consequences for people living in this country. And with that, it probably has very serious consequences politically for the government because one of Sunak’s other pledges was that he was going to halve inflation and there’s unlikely to be any improvement before the next election In terms of the interest rates on 400,000 householders are estimated to be coming to the end of their fixed term over the course of the next year. So this mortgage crunch is going to hit right in time for the election, which has to be called some point before February 2025. So it does sort of feel like it. It could be a chicken that’s going to come home to roost quite unpleasantly for soon. Some solutions have been coming in. Joe McDonald, the former shadow chancellor, is written article that’s published in The Guardian on Wednesday morning and suggested that the UK’s five big banks would be required to pay a windfall tax of 15%. Now, the precedent he cites for this is the building society has actually made a customer payout equivalent to about 15% of their profits, have actually put that money back into customer accounts. So he isn’t suggesting something without a very current, very relevant precedent. You know, if nationwide are able to do this, then it seems unfathomable that the banks wouldn’t be able to do this. Last month, they they said they announced they’re going to pay £340 million directly into customer accounts for the first time after a jump in deposits and higher interest rates drove annual profits up 40% and the payout is only worth 15% of those annual profits. So again, there is quite a specific precedent for this. Maybe they could take heed from John McDonnell, although I think that that is as likely as me being elected the next leader of the Conservative Party. I think the Conservative Party taking what I would say is a very, very good idea from John McDonnell is as likely as me going. You know, I just think at the end of the day, people shouldn’t pay tax.

Coco Khan Well, you say that. But, you know, Boris Bikes was originally the previous mayor’s idea, so and he just put his name on it. So I’m just saying maybe you could do the same.

Nish Kumar Well, we’ll put a call out. If John McDonnell is willing to forego the credit for this policy. Well, maybe. Maybe we can trick Rishi Sunak into doing something good.

Coco Khan Well, on the subject of prime ministers that annoy us.

Nish Kumar Briefly, I just wanted to say that another Tory prime minister was back in the limelight as David Cameron and his Chancellor, George Osborne, made their appearances at the COVID inquiry and their tone was very much, We’re fucking amazing, we’re the best. They actually argued that the austerity program that they enacted had actually helped the UK be better prepared for the COVID 19 pandemic. But I mean, that flies in the face of all evidence that flies in the face of all reasoned analysis of this Anushka Kelly and he’s written a brilliant piece in The New Statesman this week detailing how the freeze in public sector payment over two years after Osborne’s emergency budget in 2010 has kickstarted a decade that’s had doctors and nurses essentially running on good. Well, NHS spending did rise, but at the slowest rate since the service was founded 75 years ago. In November, in 2019, just before the start of the pandemic, for the first time, every major A&E department in England missed its four hour waiting time target. There were also massive cuts to social care. The massive cuts to education spending, all of which impacted negatively. I know this is now becoming a weekly section, but fuck David Cameron and fuck George Osborne. I find them to be two of the most reprehensible British political figures of my entire lifetime.

Coco Khan Well, I mean, coming up next, we have Andy Burnham, Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, will talk about the imbalance of power in the UK. Manchester City’s impact on the city. And the Hillsborough disaster in which 97 Liverpool football fans were unlawfully killed and how that defined his career.

[AD]

Nish Kumar Joining us now is a man who could be described as one of the most powerful Labour politicians in the country. Andy Burnham is the mayor of Greater Manchester, is a former MP and party leadership candidate and has been described as Labour’s king of the North. Andy, how do you feel about the term king of the North?

Andy Burnham Not even sure I’m king of my own, my own house nevermind the north of England so ugh a bit of an overstatement. But it’s the kind of reflect so that mayors in the north of England are giving the place more voice than it’s had before. So that’s that’s got to be a good thing, hasn’t it?

Nish Kumar Yeah. I mean, I think that you’ve received sort of national attention for the way that you fought for the resources needed to keep people in great Manchester safe during the COVID lockdowns. We’ve actually got a clip, a very famous clip of the moment during the negotiations when you were told by text of the offer from Boris Johnson’s government whilst live on television.

Clip Right. It’s going to come into effect on Friday. At one minute past midnight on Friday. This is what’s being said to MPs. It’s going to be £20 million only and they are going to try and take off individual council seats. Right. Great. It’s brutal, to be honest. Isn’t that what this is? In a way, this is no way to run the country in a national crisis. It isn’t. This is not right. They should not be doing this, grinding people down, trying to accept the least that they can get away with £22 million to fight The situation that we are in is is frankly disgraceful.

Coco Khan How was that? Watching that back.

Andy Burnham God a bit a bit hard because it just takes me right back to that to that moment. You know, I was looking out at a pretty desolate city from where I was. We’ve been really kind of through the mill with it all because we’ve been under restrictions for months. And, you know, this kind of whole thing brought through just everything. I can’t stand about this country, to be honest, the way the North gets treated. And here it was yet another example. Couldn’t have been more blatant, actually, probably the most blatant example ever of people in the north of England being treated as second class citizens. And, you know, it was Clive in front of all of those cameras. I mean, I was told basically that we were just going to get kind of railroaded into Tier three, not enough money. And all of that was coming in from the bank of the world’s media. So it was a pretty, pretty devastating moment.

Coco Khan It was devastating for you, I know. But from here, it was really moving to see that a politician actually care like genuinely to see it not perform, not use a scripted line. I I’m not surprised that the jacket you wore is now in a museum.

Andy Burnham I It is. Can’t believe any of my wife and kids are still amazed that any item of clothing that I own is. I mean, there we go. This life is strange, isn’t it? But now I kind of I don’t know. I mean, when I was in Westminster, people used to sort of laugh a bit. And I understand the I look like a professional northern at times and I, I get that. But I’ve always been that because that’s what brought me into politics in the first place. It was obviously a very a very real reaction. But I kind of went into Westminster to advocate for the North and strangely, I left it to advocate for the North in that I didn’t feel I could do that job properly in Westminster. I had to sort of come out and start again. And yeah, in this role as mayor, I’ve kind of really fell back. I can give voice to how people here feel and it all came pouring out on that occasion.

Nish Kumar That’s such an important point. This kind of journey that you’ve been on, of going, you know, from the kind of north of England to Westminster and then back again and what you might have picked up on in that journey. And we definitely want to come back to that. I just want to briefly stay on COVID for a moment. There’s two things I want to ask you about. The first thing is how you feel in light of what’s happened with Boris Johnson. And I mean, I don’t know, do you take any satisfaction? I mean, satisfaction is probably not the right word, but is there any sense that to some extent he has met actual consequence?

Andy Burnham Oh, God, it isn’t satisfaction. It’s just, I don’t know, a sense of well, at least there’s been accountability is what I feel. Because when we were in negotiations with Downing Street, we could see that they just did not have a handle on things at all. They were living a very different pandemic to the one that we were living here in Greater Manchester. Yeah, we could see that. And here they are. And the things that they were saying to us, you know, we’ve been under restrictions since July here at that point. And here we were months into that situation and they were just a laughing joke in and on it. It just it really brought home for me something that has been a bit of a theme of my life of this country is two worlds, you know, people living very different lives from different social sort of backgrounds and circumstances. And I have such a profound sense of that. That particular moment in time because we had no household mixing since July. You know, everyone was suffering. Everyone was struggling. And it just felt that there was no understanding of that at all in ten Downing Street. And I had a sense that they were doing things, you know, in a way that no one else was. And it yeah, it it’s not it’s not satisfaction, but it’s just right that there is accountability for all of that.

Coco Khan You know, I think we’ve all grown very tired, tired, sorry, of people in Westminster who have no relationship to the communities who probably never stepped foot in them, who don’t know how people live and how they work and know anything about them making decisions about their lives. I know that John McDonnell was saying in The Guardian today that it’s overdue, that the mayors of our big cities are given the power to control rents. I know you’ve spoken about Germany being a great example. What do you think is is are more mayors what we need to fix Britain?

Andy Burnham I got more involved. Power is what we need, Coco. It’s not necessarily always Mayors because, you know, Mayors may not be right for some places, but what we need is more power at the local level so people can can break down this, the sort of silos that you get in Whitehall and make more sensible decisions that are right for that area. You know, you make change from the bottom up. It tends to be better change because you can involve people in the discussion about it. That is what we need and actually it’s working. If you look around England, the places with a degree of devolution are making things happen. There’s change visible in the cities. Look at look at the skyline of Manchester City Center. This places is really changing at this moment in time. And yeah, we’re kind of an outlier because most of the countries have a form of of of regional or local devolution. You know, we, we don’t. And that is one of the reasons why I would say we’re a very unequal country. We’ve centralized power on one postcode and a part of London. Nearly all decisions have been made out of there. And it’s not surprising, is it, that that’s giving us this huge North-South divide that blights millions of lives?

Nish Kumar I mean, in terms of the North-South divide, you know, one of the signature policy pronouncements made by George Osborne was supposedly this idea of the Northern Powerhouse. Then Boris Johnson kind of was elected essentially in part on a platform of leveling up. How do you see if at all the effects of the Northern Powerhouse, whatever the fuck that was supposed to be? Well, all leveling up. Why the fuck that was supposed to be?

Andy Burnham Yeah, it’s. You know, everyone can have a degree of cynicism about it, but let me try not to be completely cynical. I have said on record that George Osborne was the first chancellor to talk about the North in a very passionate way, and I welcome that. That was refreshing. Now, did all of the kind of rhetoric get marks with sort of the powers and the funding? Well, no, it didn’t, but it did signal a change. And obviously we’re building on that change at the moment. And it’s not it’s not synthetic. There is real change happening here. So, for instance, I’m the first mayor in England, supports busses back under public control, and that will come in from September. And that will change things here more than in some ways, any policy in Whitehall can change things here because every bus will change color. You know, the kind of transport system on every street in Westminster will look very, very different. So actually there is meaningful power that has been devolved. It can change things for the better. I would go so far as to say the combined authorities and mayors across England are the most functional part of of governance in the UK at this moment in time. That is Wales as well. Wales is doing well as well, but I think Wales plus elsewhere where the functional power of government in the UK.

Coco Khan So does that mean you’re never going to go back to Westminster.

Andy Burnham No time soon. And I mean when I say I’m standing for a third term because I love this job, I don’t know if it comes over, but I’ve been a bit liberated in the last six years. I’ve been very energized by this. I came into politics, as I said, to kind of fight for the north and the north west of England, whose place I care about, and I kind of feel we’re getting somewhere. But it’s definitely not not job job done. And I think the problem with the question I’m sort of playing you Coaker ask the question, but the problem the question is it implies that Westminster is the only place really that matters at the end of the day, and everyone would in the end want to be back there. I genuinely believe that myself. Steve Rotherham in Liverpool. Tracy Brabin in West Yorkshire. We’re building something here that is about fixing politics in this country in the long term and to abandon it too early would be a real mistake. But one day, one day I wouldn’t rule out a return to Westminster.

Nish Kumar So you were an MP for 16 years. You’ve been may have for six years. What? How would you compare those two experiences and what have you learned about the way the country is run and ways that we could improve it?

Andy Burnham Yeah, so I don’t want to sound like I’ve always got a massive downer on Westminster because I loved a lot of my time there and it obviously was a, you know, incredible experience. But I did hit a moment there where I kind of knew that it really wasn’t a place where I could be myself. So it was Hillsborough when as culture secretary, I was asked, well, I was I was invited by Steve, who was then Lord Mayor of Liverpool, to go to Anfield on the 20th anniversary. But I, I knew I couldn’t in some ways because I was in the government hadn’t done anything for them. And it kind of sparked something of a personal crisis, to be honest. And I didn’t know whether to accept, I didn’t know whether to go. I just didn’t know what to do. You know, I’m speaking of somebody was at the other semifinal on the day of Hillsborough, so I knew inside out from the start and all of the lies and the injustice of it.

Nish Kumar Why weren’t you allowed to go?

Andy Burnham Well, the advice was not to go. So the civil service advice was you shouldn’t go. You know, this was dealt with back in the late nineties by the Stewart Smith inquiry. You should go. And for me, I just was just really not an option. So in the end, I kind of took a personal decision in consultation with my family that I would go, but I wasn’t going just for show. I was going to reopen Hillsborough and that clearly was not signed off by anybody in the government at all. But I was kind of consciously staking what political capital I had on on Vox because I would have resigned from the Cabinet. Have I not been able to do it? So that is the decision I’d made before I went. But the way I talk about it is that unlike Day in many ways, when I stepped out to address the Kop, I was stepping to towards the very edge of the abyss between the government I was in and the people I grew up with. And I was, you know, staring at them in the face. And I was kind of at military up at crossroads. And it kind of, I suppose, was the day, you know, I took my first steps out of Westminster because I kind of begun to realize the kind of Westminster doesn’t let you be yourself. You have to vote in certain ways. You have to say certain things. And it’s not surprising Is that the end of all of that, you don’t come over to the public, They don’t know who you are or what you’re about. And kind of that experience said to me, Well, in the end, I didn’t come in to be that kind of politician, that honestly, it may have looked like I was, you know, always in the suit and always on message and always doing the sort of loyal thing. But in the end, that wasn’t me. That wasn’t why I came into it. And it was the experience of being culture secretary, the 20th anniversary of Hillsborough that basically started my path out of Westminster.

Coco Khan I think what you describe there is I would echo completely, but as a voter, as a voter, I’ve become very disillusioned with party politics because of the just clear toeing the party line, not really knowing what anyone believes, not really knowing what anyone’s values are and how they relate to me and what I believe in, and ultimately safety and security for my own family. So I wanted to ask you a question that I asked Emily Thornberry. I vote Labour always have done. I vote Labour because I see it as a coalition. But increasingly the voices are saying it is no longer a coalition, that there’s only one type of center left person that is allowed to exist in the Labour Party. Do you agree with that? Is it still the Coalition?

Andy Burnham Yeah, it is still a coalition, but I’ve spoken out about a similar concern about Labour having too much internal factionalism between the what people will call the right of the party and the left of the party. You know, if I go back to that period when I was a younger politician, as Labour were coming into government in the nineties, I think there was a sense of all parts of the party having a voice and being kind of part of that part of that movement as Labour kind of went into into government. You know, John Prescott was in a position where he was speaking to a certain tradition and and other politicians as well. And I do think that I do think that’s important. It’s still there for sure, because some might say, you know, Angela Rayner is sort of fulfilling that role these days. And you know, we’ve got a huge degree of support and loyalty to Sir Angela here, but also to all of the, all of the, all of the shadow cabinet to the leader of the party. Now we want Labour to go into government, but I think it’s a really important thing in this from where we are now, is to build that sense of everybody involved, everybody playing their part, you know, everybody with a contribution to make. Because some of the policies that Labour brought in in the early part, the time in government, for instance, the national minimum wage, that that was championed by Ian McCartney and John Prescott, and that is Skinner. So people who perhaps were not in the heart of new Labour, but still the policy agenda reflected the breadth of what different voices were calling for. So yeah, I think that’s a really important thing that you’ve put your finger on Cojo and I do. You know, I do think, you know, there’s a risk if factionalism goes too far and and people kind of don’t feel involved in what’s being done.

Nish Kumar What’s your relationship like with Keir Starmer? Because there’s been some talk that Labour HQ might have been briefing against you. I mean, do you are you on sort of good terms with the Labour leadership at the moment?

Andy Burnham Well, it is well, I speak directly to Keir, absolutely. I think I see those anonymous briefings in Westminster, but I think that’s one of the unappealing kind of parts of the Westminster culture. And, you know, I don’t think it helps to be honest, and it never did help when I was in Westminster when it happened. So now I just go well beyond the kind of relationships I have with people and I’ve built over many years, and particularly the people in elected office. And I do draw a distinction. So I have a good relationship with key members of the shadow Cabinet and colleagues from across the Labour Party. But in saying that, I would also always want them to understand that I have a different job to do. I do have to speak for the place first, because if you don’t, you’re not being a good mayor. You’re not really doing the job that you’ve been elected to do.

Coco Khan What are your thoughts on proportional representation? Arguably, Westminster, as it is, just cannot give the public what it needs in terms of reflecting its views, reflecting its opinions, reflecting its desires. I know you’re now in a position where you can say things like that. So I just wondered, you know, what do you think? Should we go back to the drawing board on how Westminster is run?

Andy Burnham Certainly we should. I’m wholeheartedly in favor, and I say that with the zeal of the convert. I know I’ll be honest about that, because obviously when you’re in Westminster again, you kind of can’t see it how other people see it sometimes. And I think it is a place like that, it makes you absorb the traditions and, you know, and people do get drawn in a bit to all of that. But when you’re outside in a place like mine, and when I’ve been thinking deeply about the position of the North in this country, you cannot put conclude that there has to be radical parliamentary reform, a rewiring of this country. Every person and every place in this country won’t count equally until every vote counts equally. It’s as simple as that. And then if you combine it with the unelected lords, you know, we have a parliament that doesn’t reflect and represent all the regions and nations of the UK equally. It’s a ridiculous state of affairs. So a complete rewiring is what’s needed. And yes, proportional representation has to be at the heart of it.

Nish Kumar Is that what’s drawing you back to Westminster? Because I have to say, listening to you talk so passionately, passionately about the job you’re doing now and the place that you work in and your personal connection to it. What of the things I’m thinking back about mind is why fuck with this bloke, go back to Westminster.

Andy Burnham Well, exactly

Nish Kumar He’s having a good time

Andy Burnham I could try to say about it. It’s been for ages. Like I’m not going back anytime soon. But when I put the anytime soon, Bill on it, all of the crinlin isn’t what they call criminologist in Westminister. Ha! Oh, that means so. But that’s the thing. The Westminster sort of game is always like, what’s the code here and what’s what’s this mean and how can we deconstruct it and create a story out of it? I mean, the point is I left and I tried to do politics differently. When I left, I said, I’m not going to do that anymore. You know, it’s a. And get something right? I’ll say. So if they get it wrong, I’ll I’ll, I’ll loudly say so, but I’m going to try to answer questions honestly. You know, I was for all of my 16 years in in Westminster, I would you must get text from my wife in block capitals after doing media interviews, which kind of went along the lines of answer the star softball questions. And so I used to say to her. I will I’d like to if I, but I’m not really able. So we used to have a joke about that all of the time. But when I left, I decided to answer the whatever question I’m trying to say to people, honestly, right, this is where I am. I always in the last six years, people have put the old Westminster, you know, decoded the message and then written these stories. But I am really proud of what we’re doing here. I am passionate about the North and particularly great ones to gain a stronger voice of standing for a third term. I fully intend to complete it, and I think that’s hard for people to understand sometimes, isn’t it? But but that is where I am in my life right now.

Nish Kumar Yeah, I think there’s just an assumption that, you know, that every politician’s ultimate ambition is to end up in Ted Downing Street. Like, I think everybody sort of just assumes, Well, if you it’s interesting. We all want our politicians to have the ultimate ambition of doing the best for the people that they serve. But also, we simultaneously harbor this idea that, well, they must just want to be prime minister. Well, I mean, do you what do you want to be prime minister?

Andy Burnham Well, if you ask the 16 year old me who was watching the Smiths on the Queen, is that or Salford University, whether I’d well, I’d feel about being mayor of Greater Manchester, I think I would have said I think it will as well. I would have. But I think I did find that that comes across as a different style.

Nish Kumar Johnny Marr is a very good guitar player. I thought, Well, I can understand that.

Coco Khan Is it bittersweet thinking about that after what’s happened to Morrissey?

Andy Burnham I know, I mean, I know. I mean, it’s it’s a difficult one because for us in that era. Morrissey he did change lives. There’s no getting away from, you know, it gave us a sense of aspiration that we didn’t feel in other areas. And, you know, I got to university and, you know, all of these other people, all the parts of England love the Smiths. I said, Well, I’ve seen them. It was like we had finally from the north something that they wanted. It was like a really empowering thing, to be honest. So, yeah, I mean, I you know, the Smiths were massive in my, in my early days and yeah, I do, you know, I feel it, you know, I sat in some ways about it. But the way things are in terms of just one point I was trying to make though, is. Mayor of Greater Manchester is beyond my wildest dreams, and I’m doing a job that I really love doing. And so if this is where it ends, I’ll be fine. Thank you very much. And I feel honored to have done it all. Who knows, though? I mean, I’m not going to give you a sort of a a recording answer. If there were if there was a if there was a path back to Westminster beyond me doing this role. And I obviously I’ve not ruled out at all and would consider I’ll probably be a better a much better politician down there than I was if I were to take it.

Nish Kumar Let’s talk about football, but let’s try and sail past Everton for your benefit.

Andy Burnham Thank you. You’re very kind.

Nish Kumar I think that that got a bit of fun season. I want to talk about Man City and the impact that the Abu Dhabi ownership is having on the wider city. There has been there’ve been a series of articles written, a really great piece written in The Guardian by Aditya Chakraborty about the city council selling swathes of land to the club’s owners and what that effect, what effect that might be having on the city. Is it something that concerns you?

Andy Burnham Well, what I would say to people, you know, who say that to make commentary about to go to East Manchester now and look at photographs of it 30 years ago, I mean, this is people use the word transformational these days. Well, this actually lives up to that, too. That word and a large amount of investment has come in from from the owners of Manchester City. So they are more than building a football club. They are they are building a part of a city. They are investing. We’ve got the biggest indoor arena in the UK opening later next year now actually co op live, which will be an amazing addition to that to the campus. They haven’t just invested in commercial facilities, they’ve invested in colleges, housing. You just have to judge them on the record of investments in Manchester. And obviously they built a team that’s broke City, the Treble. And I would say, you know, I think I’m right in saying that we are now one of only two cities in Europe where two teams have won the Champions League. This is the football capital of Europe and the players they brought in, my God, you know, can I just say Jack Grealish, thank you. Single handedly restored our reputation as the home of 24 hour. Boris Johnson and ten Downing Street made a kind of a pitch for our crown, didn’t they, with all of the stuff that was going on down there in the pandemic. But Jack, as has put them right back in their place then.

Coco Khan I mean, I do want to stick with Man City, and especially when we consider the the reputation of Abu Dhabi, you know, torture, detention, criminalization of gay people. You can understand why people are concerned about this right?

Andy Burnham Yeah, I. I hear what, what people say. I’ve got to judge for what I see in, on what I see in Manchester and how I see the owners run Manchester City and what they do to to improve life here. So, you know, those issues obviously are for the government to raise a different level. We’ve had a long standing kind of way of work in this country. We where we’ve we’ve welcomed in investment from other parts of the world into our utilities, into other walks of life. And we can all debate the rights and the rights and wrongs of that. But if I’m just seeing where I am judging, as I find they’ve they’ve been huge partners for for the city and they’ve improved a lot of lives here. And I, I need to be honest about that and give credit where it’s due.

Coco Khan As someone who is from London, please just may I warn you that foreign investors are not great? The housing in London is horrible. Many communities displaced can’t live where they were. Is that is that something that you can assure the citizens of Manchester won’t happen to them?

Andy Burnham Well, no, I hear what you’re saying. And obviously, you know, we we do look at what happened. And, you know, Manchester is in a good moment at the moment, but I understand that things can turn quickly and housing is a real challenge in the city for certain. Some of the homes actually that that Citigroup of have helped build have been affordable homes in place, past places like Ancoats. So I hear what you’re saying and we’re very conscious that Manchester City Council are having a huge drive now on building homes for social rent. We have a lot of work going on on homelessness, as you probably know. So now we hear that, you know, we are taking steps to ensure that the the kind of city is truly for everybody, that this is a place where where everybody can live. And that’s the approach we’re taking as we go forward from here.

Coco Khan Andy, I know you are a music lover. We are as well. So I just wanted to take this opportunity to say I’ve been looking into night life in the UK. London It has gone the way of the dodo, but Manchester’s still thriving. So thank you for that. Congratulations on keeping the stalls open. Although there is one the Night and Day cafe, which is having a little bit of an issue. I just wanted to ask you, can you get that sorted please? And for our listeners, Night and Day Cafe is an iconic venue in Manchester. It was home to a number of really important bands, you know, Elbow and right now they have been served with a noise abatement order from a new resident who moved to the area during COVID, said it was too loud, even though that venue arguably helped regenerate that area to make it desirable for such luxury flats that the person moved into. But there we go. If they have to keep the noise down, it may force their closure and you sort it out. Yeah?

Andy Burnham Yeah, I’ll put it up to my best. I was there last week. I love it as well. It’s a fantastic venue and we’ve got loads of brilliant venues across the city. I will do anything within my power to to ensure that night and day doesn’t just survive, but thrive know. So we’re all behind it. Obviously there’s a legal process that we can sort of just wish away, but we are going to support them. Whatever the outcome of that.

Nish Kumar Is, it feels like how I relate to London ten, 12 years ago, whereas now a lot of those fun venues in London are shutting because, you know, people have bought luxury flats and they don’t want to live in the areas that have items that made them desirable in the first place. Like how could what’s a practical is there a way that we can fight that kind of the throttling of our nightlife by the gentrifiers?

Coco Khan Maybe we could do it a bit like flatmate interviews where I think community you get to interview the people buying the luxury flat. Have you heard of New Order? Do you know what the hacienda is?

Andy Burnham You’d be off the list straight away if you do it. A test, we could have a little mic.

Coco Khan Yeah. Yeah. That’d be good

Andy Burnham That means all the houses they got housing in city, but I don’t think they’re all luxury flats. So that’s one thing to say here. I mean, we have this quite a mix and the City Council have made sure that what I do find is and I know as so to Londoners who may not like be say this book, there are a lot of somethings on 30 somethings from London living here now because they’ve realized they can have a different life here than they could in London. So they live in the city, they live in Ancoats or they live in the northern quarter and they have not a luxury flat but an affordable flat undergraduate job. And I think that’s one of the reasons why Manchester is going to have a good decade ahead of us, because, you know, we’ve got a lot we’re a young city, we are younger and getting younger. We’re fast growing. We have a lot of music happening because of that. A massive new arena being built, as I said, but loads going on in our in our smaller venues and to show we’re not old money. And I’ve taken the decision to put policies on the public control. So we’re going to have a transport system soon that looks a bit like London. So we’re taking the best of London definitely and bringing it here. I don’t see how it’s a myth that we all hate. We thought we love London, but we just want a bit more on. London’s got up here without the buppets.

Nish Kumar Before we go, Andy, I want to ask you the most probably the most difficult question we could possibly have asked you at this point. A hypothetical question. If you could only have one, would it be Everton winning the Champions League? All

Andy Burnham Let’s stop there is you want.

Nish Kumar Okay, well, this is going to make headlines because the alternative was going to be Labour winning the next election.

Andy Burnham Well, my heart still says, won, I’m so I know I’m desperately keen for Labour to win the next election and I Yeah, I but I love Everton.

Coco Khan Oh I think I think we can leave it there thanks Andy.  I  think you’ve summed it all up.  Thank you so much for your time.

Andy Burnham Great talking to you both. Thanks for having me on.

Nish Kumar Thanks Andy. Thank you so much.

Andy Burnham Cheers

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Nish Kumar 75 years ago, on the 22nd of June 1948, the HMS Empire Windrush first docked in England at Tilbury Docks in Essex. On board were men and women from the Caribbean who answered Britain’s call to help fill postwar Labour shortages. Those 800 people and their children and grandchildren helped get the country back on its feet and helped transform Britain into the vibrant multicultural society is today.

Coco Khan The Windrush generation is a poetic term for people who arrived in the UK from Caribbean countries between 1948 and 1971 when British immigration laws changed. Despite answering the call to help rebuild the UK, they faced horrific discrimination, including from our banks. Unable to open accounts, they relied on a traditional community saving system called apart and a hand handing over their cash to a trusted member of the community who would then give the total sum to a different saver each week. Catherine Ross is the founder and director of Museum and the National Caribbean Heritage Museum. It’s just opened a new exhibition at the Bank of England Museum about pardon the hands. And when I spoke to her earlier, she told me how important they were to people rejected by the banks.

Catherine Ross One thing about Caribbeans, we are creative and very resilient. So when they said that eureka moments went on up and down Britain and people decided to use that age old tradition and create the parkland. And so it was a community, a form of savings that people then use not just to save money and send back home, but to create for themselves communities and infrastructures so that they could thrive. So people use it to build churches. People use it to create community centers. People used it to create educational facilities because in schools at that time, educationists were saying that black children were educationally subnormal. We knew that was rubbish. So we created afterschool weekend clubs for children to learn, but then we were told for time in out the children by making them work on a Saturday. But now everybody goes to private tuition and afterschool clubs. So again, that’s a thing that we have introduced into Britain.

Coco Khan Can I just ask a little bit about your back story? You came from St Kitts when you were seven. I have to say, Catherine, I’m looking at you on screen that those numbers defy me.

Catherine Ross Oh, you’re my new best friend.

Coco Khan Thank you. Thank you. There’s so many moments in the 75 years of the Windrush generation, which you are part of to be proud of. I know it’s hard to pick one, but could you? For me.

Catherine Ross The music. We’ve contributed 52 genres of music to Britain. So that was great. Now, when I said this to somebody, they said to me, Oh, but we plays black music from America. Exactly. That These 52 genres were our music that was affected by the Black Caribbean experience. So I’m proud of that. We impacted on that. I’m pleased also the fact that we and reintroduce Moisturizing to Brit to black skins, sensitive and delicate and the need to be regularly moisturized. When we came and went to school, English kids or the parents used to spit on a hankie on their face. That was the closest I made it. We were not into that. We didn’t find that very a good practice. But what we did use, what we had to use to keep our skins beautiful were things like cocoa, butter, aloe vera and so on. But when you put that as a child and your white friends saw you, they invariably said, Well, saffron, but keep putting on yourself. Now that foreign mask is bottled in beautiful containers and everybody use it, as we now say, through the museum. Even men moisturize nowadays. So we’ve made a great stride there.

Coco Khan Absolutely. I mean, look, you know, I don’t want to end on a serious note, but as much as the Windrush generation and the community has done so much for Britain, hasn’t always been treated fairly and it hasn’t always been reciprocated. What would you like to see happen for for the Caribbean community in the UK?

Catherine Ross I’d like them people to acknowledge what we’ve done, to recognize us for what we’ve done. So, you know, all documents, policies and whatever will say this idea came from, or we’ve adopted a practice that came from the Caribbean. I’d like that. Acknowledge we we were here for centuries and we’ve made a difference to all aspects of life. And that is not in the history books. That is not necessarily in novels or anything like that. I’d like that in there. So that’s one thing. But I want. People to take responsibility as well. In most Caribbean houses, Windrush arrivals they had on the top of their wardrobe the suitcase that they came with and in that were important papers, just in case you had to run back to chase back to your country of origin. So I want all black people to have in that suitcase on the top of their wardrobe or somewhere similar evidence of the contribution that that person, that individual has made to life in Britain. So early records of of achievement, cups, medals and things that they’ve made. I would like to see people keep and store and show that they have indeed made a contribution to the UK.

Coco Khan That was Catherine Ross, founder and director of Museum and the National Caribbean Heritage Museum. They’re exhibition part and hand. A Caribbean answer to British banking exclusion is free and runs at the Bank of England Museum until June next year. You can hear more from Katherine on their new podcast, Objects and Things, which celebrates 75 years of Caribbean people in the UK through the objects they cherish the most.

Nish Kumar While lots of events are taking place to celebrate the 75th anniversary, including the release of a new 50 pence coin. We shouldn’t ignore the fact that the name Windrush is also synonymous with one of the biggest scandals of the last decade. In 2008, it emerged that thousands of British citizens, mostly from the Caribbean, were wrongly detained, deported or threatened with deportation despite having the right to live in the UK. An independent review uncovered a profound institutional failure that destroyed hundreds of people’s lives. Many were deported to countries that they’d not lived in since they were children. 24 of those people died before the government could contact them to apologize for its error. Now the Windrush is as a scandal, something that I think is a profound stain on our national character and our national government. And when something like that happens, what you want is an apology, but also you immediately want the machinery to start working to ensure that something like it could never happen again. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case. Emily Gentleman was the Guardian journalist who originally reported on the scandal, has been speaking this week about the fact that the Transformation Directorate, which is the unit tasked with handling the changes and it’s meant to actually help stop something like this from ever happening again has been shut down by the current Home secretary, Suella Braverman. On top of that, there were 30 recommendations made by the Windrush review and only eight of those have been met. 13 of them have been partially met and nine had not been met or were dropped. And there’s a BBC investigation that’s been published on Wednesday morning that hundreds of long term sick and mentally ill people from the Windrush generation were sent back to the Caribbean. So there’s a there are even further layers to this scandal that are still being uncovered. And the scandal within a scandal is that the Home Office is now quietly trying to roll back some of the recommendations and ignore others and also has shut down the unit that was designed to stop this from ever happening again. It’s absolutely. Unfathomable to me.

Coco Khan And I mean, yeah, as part of that, what’s happening with the Windrush compensation scheme that’s been previously described by Human Rights Watch as just not being fit for purpose, the reason it’s not fit for purpose is, is because it places too much of a burden on claimants around documentation and just this level of detail, this kind of bureaucratic detail, which is not possible for the average person to kind of navigate through without the support of a lawyer. So immediately people that don’t have money from that are locked out of that justice. Even the people whose applications have been successful, they’ve been very slow to pay out. Jacqueline McKenzie, partner at the law firm Leigh Day, says it takes about 12 months to get an initial decision. Then those initial decisions are often wrong. She cites the case of a man who was initially told he was entitled to zero zero compensation, but when it was reviewed he was told he’s actually entitled to two £289,000. Just as an aside like that. That approach, in my view, is hostile environment. The fact that they are making it so hard for you to get justice, so hard to get compensation is an extension through paperwork this time of the hostile environment.

Nish Kumar Yeah, and I think we should be clear because obviously we do have listeners that aren’t from the UK who might not be aware of some of the background and the details of this. Let’s be absolutely clear here. The Windrush scandal was not an accident of poor administration. It was the direct result of a policy announced by the Government in 2012 that was labeled the hostile environment that was designed to make a hostile environment for immigrants and undocumented undocumented migrants and ultimately pushed them to leave. The policy tasks the NHS, landlords, banks employes and many others with enforcing immigration controls. The then Home Secretary, Theresa may, was in charge at a point where there were vans being driven around areas densely populated with immigrant communities, encouraging them to go home. This is not this is not just to do with, you know, people’s IDs being mislaid. This is to do with systemic institutional racism. A lot of the people from the Windrush generation arrived as children on their parents passports. Then on top of that, the Home Office destroyed thousands of the landing cards and records that would have given them documentation to prove their right to remain in the UK. This is plain and simple, the result of systemic racism and the result of how systemic racism manifests itself in political policy. This is the fault of the Conservative government at the time, and as a consequence of that, I think the absolute least the current Conservative government could do is absolutely to accept the recommendations of the findings, keep the organization within the Home Office that’s designed to stop something like this from ever happening again and roll back on some of their rhetoric. Because if anything, it’s escalated even further under Priti Patel and then Suella Braverman. And just on a personal level, this is specifically anti-black racism and is profoundly disquieting to me as a British South Asian person. It makes me very upset to see South Asian faces being the face of this anti-black racism. It’s I, I feel embarrassed by it. I really I really, really do.

Coco Khan This is outrageous. This is a stain. This is an injustice. And, you know, the fact of the matter is it has a is anti-black, but nonetheless, it has ramifications for all people who were not born in the UK or even just people of color, Like, we should care about this. This is important. They might be trying to let it go, but we certainly won’t be. So it’s time to hand out our prestigious pod, save the UK hero and Villain of the Week awards. Nish, I think you’re going for a gathering of villains this week.

Nish Kumar It’s the event that was organized around the campaign for unsuccessful London mayoral applicant Shaun Bailey. Yeah, this is the video. This emerged this week. There was obtained by the Mirror newspaper of the party, the, shall we say, bent lockdown lockdown rulings. It obviously is an absolute disgrace. Even the Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood has said that Shaun Bailey should actually turn down the peerage. The Boris Johnson awarded him. Mr. Bailey has told ITV News he was upset to watch the footage and said that he had left before the timing of the video and said it obviously turned into something once I’d left. And what it had turned into was based on the invites that the BBC has obtained was a jingle and mingle Christmas drinks. Yeah. So this was a photograph that we actually had already all seen. It was on the front page of a lot of newspapers, but now the video has emerged. And in the video we can hear people at the party talking about how this was a violation of the regulations. It’s a fucking disgrace. Is a fucking disgrace on any number of levels, not least because it looks like the worst party in human history. It is absolutely embarrassing. I mean, more than anything else, everyone who’s at that party should hang their head in deep shame. This is whatever the anti grealish is. It’s this. It’s an absolutely awful party. But also, you know, this stuff does matter. There are people who couldn’t see their loved ones dying. And what we have here is a bunch of people who are working pretty close to the heart of government who weren’t following the lockdown regulations. It is truly a fucking embarrassment. And I hope that if ever you find yourself invited to a party with one of the people in this video, you make it your business to make sure that they feel deeply unwelcome and leave immediately if for no other reason than the vibe is going to be shit because they clearly don’t know how to have a good time. Coco Save us all. Inject some positivity into proceedings. I’ve talked about this, these lockdown people. David Cameron, the racist government, Rishi said. I’ve brought a lot of negativity to show. We even asked Andy Burnham about Morrissey. We’ve brought. There’s been a lot of vibe killing. Get us on a positive note. Give us all here of the week.

Coco Khan Listen Nish, you need to lie down. You need after all of that. But I do have some some good news. The Pod Save the U.K. Hero of the week is dunt dunt da dunnn Graham Souness, former Liverpool and Scotland footballer, self-styled hard man who has just swam the channel to raise £1 million for charity. I’m obsessed with this story. I genuinely. Oh, you know, I was talking about anxiety earlier.

Nish Kumar Yeah, yeah

Coco Khan yeah. Well, in that moment of anxiety, I read this story and I genuinely welled up. Maybe it was chemical. I don’t know, but I think it was. It’s quite a beautiful story. He. He was inspired to swim the channel after meeting a 14 year old called Isla Gris. She suffers from a really rare and painful skin blistering condition called. And I hope I say this right. Epidermolysis Bullosa. She’s had that condition since birth, and it means she has to be wrapped head to toe in bandages. They need to be changed three times a week in a procedure that is extremely painful. As soon as he became aware of the disease about five years ago and it just floored him, just her strength, her courage, her ability to be optimistic despite all of that. And yeah, he decided to raise the money for her. So he’s Graham telling BBC Breakfast why he did it.

Clip You know, this disease is the cruelest. Excuse me. I knew this would happen. It’s the crew’s nastiest disease out there that I know of. And, you know, for someone so young to be so brave and you know, I was aware of the impact this was on a mom and dad. And she. She she helps them. This is a very special young lady. You’re in the company of.

Coco Khan I felt emotional again. I could feel myself going, Oh, I hope the listeners feel the same as me. Soon as completed the 21 mile swim as part of a six person relay team that also featured Eli’s father, Andy. They did it in 12 hours and 17 minutes. What I like about this story is, you know, the kindness of strangers, the ability for people from completely different walks of life to support each other. The compassion. I love it when a hard man cries anyway, but also just as an aside. Graeme Souness is 70 years old. He is an inspiration to all of us. You can find out more by visiting the website of the charity. It’s WW dot Deborah Debbie r a dot org dot UK. They do amazing work supporting people with. Again, I’ll try to say this correctly. Epidermolysis Bullosa is also known as butterfly skin.

Nish Kumar Just time for a quick dip into our inbox where there’s a lot of positive reaction to our guest. Last week, Labour’s Dr. Rosena Allin-Khan Marcus de Walters called her a marvel of humanity, while another person who has contacted us under the name Chicken Nugg Nuggs, which is not the name that I wanted to be reading out in conjunction with this story about chicken nugget, Nug said. She’s a credit to our country parliament, hoping she gets far more prominence in the future. What a woman, What an erudite thing to be written by someone called at Chicken Nugg Nuggs.

Coco Khan I love chicken nugg nuggs.

Nish Kumar But that suggests that about to be tweeted us from their account and didn’t realize that they all do this from my academic account. I hope I don’t get this mixed up with my chicken enthusiast Twitter account Chicken nugg nuggs. If you did miss that Interview with Dr. Rosena Allin-Khan, I recommend you give it a listen. You can find it in episode seven on our feet. But be warned. One of our listeners at Dr. Zaius said the emotional whiplash from this episode broke me. I’m sure UK could do that too. You also I hope that that is Dr. Zaius, the real buzz in the Monkey Delta from Planet of the Apes.

Coco Khan I just. I just can’t stop thinking about chicken nugg nuggs.

Nish Kumar At Chicken Nugg Nuggs. If you do want to get in touch with us, a guide, please let us know your real name. Or if you wish to remain anonymous, just give us a shout and say, I’m quite happy for you to continue to refer to you as chicken nugg nuggs.

Coco Khan I want to send chicken nugg nuggs. Some nuggets. Please let us know where you are so we can send them. Sadly, that is it from us this week.

Nish Kumar If you want to be like at chicken nugg nuggs and get in touch with us, email us at PSUK at reduced listening dot co dot uk or you can send us a voice note on WhatsApp. Our number is 07514644572. Internationally, that’s +447514644572. If you need to the show, remember to hit follow on your app, but you get a new episode every week.

Coco Khan Pod Save the UK is a reduced listening production for Crooked Media.

Nish Kumar Thanks to senior producer Musty Aziz and digital producer Alex Bishop.

Coco Khan Video editing was by David Koplovitz and the music is by Vasilis Fotopoulos.

Nish Kumar Thanks to our engineer David Dugahe.

Coco Khan The executive producers are Louise Cotton, Dan Jackson, Madeleine Heringer and Michael Martinez.

Nish Kumar Watch us on the Pod Save the World YouTube Channel. Follow us on Twitter and TikTok, where we’re at Pod Save the UK or on Instagram through the Crooked Media channel.

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

Nish Kumar Chicken Nugg Nuggs Forever.

Coco Khan Oh, he’s made my day!

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