Phase 2

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Right.

Apologies if it takes me a while to warm up.

It's been

several weeks.

Hello and welcome to Strong Message Here from BBC Radio 4, a guide to the use and abuse of political language.

It's Amanda Unicci returning.

And normally at this point, Helen Lewis would say it's Helen Lewis, but we have no Helen at the moment.

Her day job...

covering US politics for the Atlantic magazine has unsurprisingly taken up an awful lot of her time so she's working in the US over the autumn.

So, what we're going to do is copy the habit of Starma and have a bit of a reshuffle.

So, joining me this week is Rielina.

Hello.

Hello.

Thanks so much for having me.

Do you feel shuffled?

Are you ready to get to grips with your portfolio?

I'm not going to get too comfortable.

I'm expecting to be shifted out of this chair in the next episode.

There's something about the.

Well, we'll get into the mechanics of reshuffles and why it's just so odd at the moment.

But before we go into that, you've just come back from a summer in Edinburgh, I imagine.

I did spend mainly the August period in Edinburgh with thousands of other artists like myself, hoping to make and break it big.

And what did it feel like?

Because we took the summer off.

And normally the summer is seen as the kind of the lighter end of the political spectrum, you know, where it used to be called the silly season.

It isn't anymore.

But by God, this summer was just,

it was one apocalypse after another.

I mean, it was the most depressing.

If you covered the news over the summer, it would be the most...

to me, it felt like I just put my head in a bag of angry wasps for 10 weeks, really.

I'm quite relieved to have taken my head out of it now.

How did it feel in Edinburgh in terms of trying to get people to laugh?

Do you know what?

Edinburgh is a lovely bubble.

It's a bubble where you have an excuse, because it's a four-week-long festival, and especially if you're up for the entire month, as I was, it's a wonderful excuse to actually not pay attention to anything else.

Every day is the same.

It's Groundhog Day.

You get up your shows every day at 2.25 in the same venue.

You have the same person before you, the same person after you.

But it says something when the news trickles through, doesn't it?

If you're in that, if you're living that life and you still know what's happening, then you know that it's severe.

Was there a dominant theme?

Do you know?

I, I, I mean, well, first of all, I have to, full disclosure, I haven't been up in nine years.

So I didn't, a lot of people said to me, this one feels different.

This one feels different.

And you're still doing your David Cameron material, then, are you?

Or I, I, I, all of my jokes about pigs just fell flat.

Nobody knew what I was talking about.

They were like vegan.

I went, okay, I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to offend you.

So I haven't been up in nine years, and so apparently it was different this year.

The festival felt different, but I certainly felt that a lot of the same themes were there.

I mean, and there's three main shows that tend to make it to Edinburgh.

Either I've lost a loved one, I've just discovered I've been diagnosed with something neurodiverse, or I've overcome something, whether it be an illness or something else.

So those are the three main strands of Edinburgh.

And I think those will always be the three main strands of Edinburgh.

You know, it's almost as if you look, it's kind of like when you want to go on X Factor or what is now Britain's Got Talent.

And you sit there and you go, I think I can sing.

And they'll go, yeah, but what's your backstory?

Oh, yeah.

Because if you don't have a backstory, it doesn't matter how well you can sing.

And it feels a little bit like that with Edinburgh.

What's your 40-minute pathos moment?

That's right.

And if it isn't good enough, don't even bother.

I can play the piano.

Yeah, but are you broken?

We just want to know that first.

Yes.

But with all 10 fingers?

Oh, wow.

It's been done.

It's been done.

I mean, I took a break from the news in a way.

And a lot of people ask me, you know, what's it like?

Not I'm a topical political writer, but

people ask me, you know, is it difficult to make sense of what's going on at the moment or to make something funny out of what's going on?

And my initial thought is: I don't necessarily want to be funny about it.

There's a lot going on that I don't think a joke is required.

And someone who passed away over the summer was a great songwriter and satirist, Tom Leara,

who, when asked...

Oh, I missed that news.

Yes.

Oh, did you not know?

Oh, I did not know.

Oh, my God.

I'm breaking this news on air to you now then, that Tom Leara, who was about 97, died in July.

If it wasn't for him, I would not understand Catholicism anywhere near as well as I do.

Yes.

Or indeed, sadomasochism in

or indeed

bird poisoning in poisoning pigeons in the park.

Or the periodic table.

Yes.

I mean really my entire childhood education I can

but he retired from you know that public life very early on you know just as like Vietnam and Watergate and and it got worse and worse and he was one quote that's stuck in me that came up in all the obituaries of his was he was always asked are you tempted to come back and write something funny?

And his quote was, well, I often feel like a resident of Pompeii who's been asked for some humorous comments on lava.

You know, there's a time and a place to make light of what's going on.

No, it might not be it.

Anyway, we'll try and put that to one side.

We'll try and serve a less apocalyptic 13 minutes if you're listening to Radio 4.

32 minutes if you're listening to the podcast about the last summer.

Normally, we pick a word or phrase from the zeitgeist for for the week.

We're going to go with phase two, because not only is it phase two of Storm Message Here, but it was the description Kiostama used of his government reset.

Now, this was a week before Angela Reyna resigned and he reshuffled his entire cabinet.

Yeah, so does that mean that we're technically in phase three now?

I don't know.

Is phase two very short-lived?

Or is it a variation of phase two?

Is it

phase two the beta version?

Phase two Sports Extra.

Or phase two.

A spin-off.

We're in a spin-off phase two.

We're already in a.

The spin-offs are never as good.

I mean, there's, to my mind, one spin-off that was better than the original.

Even then, I would say it's a close call.

Okay, all right.

Phase two, Super Plus.

Phase two, Max.

Just relabel it, and it'll sound better than originally it was.

Oh, well, you know, that's exactly how I like my politics.

Relabeled.

So I don't know where I stand.

Well, have I got labels for you?

Okay.

So we started with him pre-reshuffle saying phase one is over, whatever phase one was.

That was about laying the foundations.

And then within a week of him saying phase two was over.

I mean, the foundations of U-turns.

That's what we're building this next phase.

Yeah, so maybe he was trying to rewrite those by the shuffle he had the following week, where everyone sort of moved round one, which is an odd thing to do with your foundation.

Well, I mean, it's just what's that childhood game that you play?

Musical chairs?

And we've just taken Angela's out.

Yeah.

Right.

Essentially.

But who's in charge of the music?

I don't know.

Very existential.

But

it is an odd thing we have in this country where people are expected to one day be in charge of the home office and the next day be in charge of.

Education.

Or education or policy on Gaza.

Yeah, no, and it's actually something I think that's absolutely insane.

I mean, one of the things that drives me nuts is how we feel that education can just be left in the hands of whomever we've decided to shuffle into that position.

Yeah.

I mean, you wouldn't run a business like that.

You know, yeah, you are new to this job, Rhea, right?

But it's not like someone just told you half an hour ago to come in and do it.

You know, you were given some advance warning.

I was given some advance warning.

And I was also told that there are, you know, parameters to the job in which I must, you know, follow.

You know, I can't come in here and say, listen, I really want to learn how to crochet, so I would love if this episode was about crocheting.

Okay, on the radio.

And I'm pearling and I'm knitting.

I think that's knitting, not even crochet.

I don't know.

I haven't learned it yet.

Well, the podcast will be a whole cardigan.

But, you know, but they tend to come into these positions and go, and these, especially education, they seem to think that they can have whatever opinion they have on it is

what gets followed through for the next 18 months to two years before they shuffle through again.

And so does it mean anything, though, anymore?

Well, already, you know, because Angela Rena has left, there's already a question mark over her signature legislation on workers and union rights, whether that's.

No, that was in phase one.

It is done.

It is achieved.

We can't go back on that.

All right.

Really?

Is it that watertight, phase one?

I genuinely don't try.

You know what?

Reshuffles, everyone, it goes in the news.

Everyone goes, there's been a reshuffle, and it's been given the word itself, reshuffle, we all have an emotion attached to the word reshuffle.

It also involves an element of gambling, doesn't it?

Reshuffle?

Yeah, it doesn't mean anything, especially if you have a three-line WIP system.

It really doesn't mean anything.

This gets down to, I remember the journalist Ian Dunt wrote this very good book called How Westminster Works and Why It Doesn't.

And he talks about the sheer absurdity of someone one day being in charge of hospitals and the next day being in charge of tanks.

And he pointed out that that doesn't happen in Europe, where

lots of governments,

the ministers are in place for the duration of their term.

And he said that's partly because quite a lot of governments in Europe are coalitions and they have to hammer out the coalition deal right at the start.

So, you know, you can have three of your people if we have six of your people and they're going to have these jobs.

So they have to stick to those.

There's no arbitrary reshuffle halfway through.

Obviously, we're seeing that system break down now again.

France has gone up to fifth prime minister in the last two years.

Now that's so you know um well that i mean that's the problem with that system is where where they have a much better in my opinion uh system of proportional representation with all of their flag coalitions yeah when it falls apart they end up without government.

And this is why we saw Rutte, I think he was probably not prime minister more than he was prime minister of the Netherlands while they tried to figure out well who's coming next.

And actually very interestingly, in the last election, they voted in a guy that nobody wanted as prime minister.

And then now now they've had to go, they're going back to election next month because the only thing they could agree on is that the leader of the winning party could not take the job.

Yeah.

And now we're starting all over.

And then there is also that bizarre.

Talk about a reshuffle.

Yeah.

The other thing that just struck me about the looking at the demise of Angela Reina is I do remember a political journalist telling me he was standing outside number 10 while Tony Blair was having a reshuffle.

And John Reena.

Maybe that just sounds a little bit rude, doesn't it?

While Tony Blair was having a reshuffle, you know, like, we'll just leave him.

We'll just leave him.

Do you need any paper?

You know,

and John Reed, a rather kind of

pugilistic Glaswegian who was, I think, transport secretary or home secretary at one point,

was brought in and had his meeting with Blair and then came out.

And the press and the reporters were shouting at him, any news, Mr.

Reid?

And he just shouted, fuck, it's health.

And that was his

kind of,

I've nobody, I've no got to deal with people's health for the next two years.

And that, to me, just,

it, it just crystallizes what an odd procedure, the whole business said.

And the other thing.

And how, and how

we live in a system where the word technocracy, if I'm saying that correctly, technocracy is a bad thing.

Technocracy is a bad word.

I mean, I know that we have MPs that are doctors, you know, that were GPs.

Yeah.

And they are not, they should they not be first in line to be in charge of health?

And yet we go, no, no, this should be someone who is in line with my political ideals or my economic ideals.

And who's very fond of apps and

has Sam Altman's phone number.

Yes, it is bizarre.

On the other hand, Naj Varaj has been saying that if there's a reform government, he's going to bring in to his cabinet leaders, business leaders.

To sell off the NHS, though.

I think he's not been, he's not.

Well, then we get into

two very different disciplines.

Yes.

I mean, you know, the whole point of government is to look after the people.

And the point of business is to make as much money as possible.

I mean.

Yeah, and keep costs down.

I mean, if you were in charge of health, would you just like say, well, we can't fund extremely costly illnesses?

So we can do ingrowing toenails.

We can do...

Well, those are the things that we can do.

We can do skin.

No, but we can't do bone.

Right, but that's what's actually been cut.

My son had a problem with his ear, and we were about to fly on holiday the next day.

So I had to take him to the AE in case he couldn't fly.

Yeah.

Because as we know, any issue with the ear,

you don't want to fly in case that bursts your ear drum.

So we go in and they have a look, and he has hard earwax.

You know, they're soft and hard.

He has hearty wear.

And it turns out that it had built up to such a level that it was causing him pain.

But then the doctor said to me, I'm really sorry.

I'm not allowed to remove it.

And I said, I'm sorry, what?

And they said, we,

the funding has been cut to remove objects from ears that are not foreign.

So if it had been a spider, they would have removed it.

If it had been a marble, they would have removed it.

If it had been someone else's earwax, they would have removed it.

They would have removed it.

But because it was his earwax, they wouldn't remove it.

And in fact, I said, this is crazy.

So they said they actually took all of the tools away to get into ears and noses, and they've locked them in a box.

And this was at about midnight, one in the morning as well,

you know, the day before we're flying because he was in pain.

They even said we can see evidence of an infection, but they've locked it in a box and the only registrar with the key isn't on site and he's not willing to come in to open.

And I said, this, this is crazy.

And they said, go to the GP the next day.

So we rushed to the GP the next morning and the GP told us exactly the same thing.

They actually came in and took all of these tools away and said, we are no longer doing this service.

So you say, you say, let's do the the cheap stuff like the handnails and the toenails and the ingrown.

That's exactly what they've actually farmed out to local service.

So, now we there are services on the high street where if you have hard earwax, you go.

Oh, yeah, I was going to say, is there some centralized, you know, centralized?

No, just a company with multiple sites.

Ah, so they've outsourced

earwax.

Well, they haven't outsourced it, they've just created a new market for it

because they don't do it anymore, right?

So,

you and I, after this, could go and start an earwax removal service on the high street and compete with all the others.

That is both literal and an extraordinary metaphor for

what's happening.

You see, this is why I enjoy doing this show because we came in with lots of

preparation and plans to talk about Angela Reiner, the rise of reform.

But fundamentally, 10 minutes on earwax removal has said everything

about where we are.

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Just talking about the summer there, because actually, especially because Stamer was either abroad dealing with various wars and

meetings of world leaders or on holiday, he didn't feel the need to put

a deputy in place to run the country while it was away.

I always remember when, you know, when Blair was off, Gordon Brown was off, Harriet Harmon was in charge for a couple of weeks or Prescott was in charge.

You kind of know there was some with a mind in the shop.

This felt very, very

like a vacuum.

And of course, into a vacuum, all sorts of people stepped.

That's where Farai started talking about we're on the verge of a societal collapse, civil disobedience on an unheard of scale is going to emerge.

This whipping up this sense of, you know, the looming apocalypse because of lawless Britain.

And there was no response to that because no response, no

rebuttal service had been put in place by the government.

Aaron Powell, I suspect, though, that Kirstarmer doesn't believe in engaging at that level.

And I think that's part of the problem.

I think that is part of the problem.

He goes,

I will not give that credence by even acknowledging that it's been said.

But however, it's effective language.

Exactly.

And it's not that you need to just do a Yabu sucks back and hurl insults at your opponent.

It's about addressing the issue, addressing the argument.

The government, I mean, Nick Thomas Simmons from the cabinet, in response to Farage's language, the tone of Farage's language, talking about an invasion of Britain being underway,

Nick Thomas Simmons said, We all use our own language.

I wouldn't use Nigel Farage's language, which is like the mildest.

of rebukes really.

It's like, oh, I think you said some naughty words there.

If you could just rephrase that, please.

Rather than a critique of what was underpinning that language, which was a whole other, extremely far more hostile take on immigration than has ever been expressed by Stalma.

Yes, and I think that's part of the problem with trying to maintain the high ground, the moral high ground, is that if somebody

is playing dirty and you refuse to stoop to their level,

nowadays they are going to win because people aren't engaging beyond the headline.

Exactly.

I mean, X is an entire platform that is built on headlines.

You cannot do more than a headline as well.

It's all about the headline.

And, you know, if you're just absolutely overwhelmed with the news, you're not going to go into the details.

So you just catch the headline.

And Farage is very good at making the headline.

Stalma is very bad at it.

I mean, he recently, to his MP, trying to do a rally, a rallying cold with his own memberships at the backbenchers after the reshuffle, he talked about

reform being plastic.

What was the phrase?

I better get the phrase right now.

Oh, plastic patriots.

Plastic plastic patriots plastic and the green party were plastic progressives progressives and i just thought this plastic is just an odd word to use there especially about the green pot well especially from kier starmer i mean you know one one might argue that i'd rather my politicians be articulated plastic than wood um yes i just what what is plastic meant to be bad well thinking of our finances

but what what is but it can also be recycled and it can also you know it can also be 3d printed.

I mean, it's very flexible these days.

Plastic can be quite good at times, really.

But I think he means hollow.

I think that, and I think there's a ring of truth in the case.

But why didn't he say hollow?

Why didn't he say?

I'm just obsessed with...

Because wood can be hollow, and he's wood.

He's trying to...

Who's telling him, say plastic?

Well, about all your opponents, call them plastic.

But we've seen this problem before.

I mean, remember he came into office last year and immediately started attacking the civil service.

Do you remember that?

Yeah, yeah, like the one bath of tepid decline or the warm tepid bath of decline right but then he later said no no that was me trying to rally the troops and i went well that's that's not how you do

rally someone with a promise of a tepid bath

no exactly and if you heat it up they'll feel like a frog you know it there's a no-win with that with that metaphor so i think i mean

What Kier Starman needs in his deputy and what he had in Angela is the other half.

He wants to be the wizard behind the curtain.

He wants to sit there and do his thumbs and get on with the job.

And he needs someone else to be that public-facing person who is charismatic, who people like, who people want to shake hands with and have a drink in the pub.

And the problem is that

he's not putting that or

he really should be, I mean, he really should be looking to his backbenchers going, who's got a bit of personality?

Okay, right.

Your time to shine.

Because in the meantime, Nigel Farage is filling that gap and he is being the face of politics that people are going, do you know what?

I don't agree with everything he says, but I know I can have a drink with him.

He's an all right bloke, even if he's made of plastic.

One of the things that came out of this summer that I did catch, despite being in Edinburgh, was Crink.

Do you know this?

Crink?

Crink.

It's our new acronym.

The new puzzle or something?

It's the new band in town.

It's the new K-pop.

So Crink stands for China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

Oh, wow.

All in one.

So they're meant to be like, you know, as far as the West's concern, they're meant to be the the baddies, but they're called crink.

It's hard to be scared of crink, isn't it?

It's not up there with Schmirsh and Spectre, is it?

Crink.

Crink.

Crinker on the phone.

Yeah, yeah.

Their fingers close to the button, and you'd be like, is it a button or is it a horn?

Mr.

President, yes.

Crinker on the move.

Yes, I don't care.

Sounds quite funny.

Does crink creep?

How does crink move?

Do they roll?

Does crink know about this?

Do they know they're called crink?

Are they called crink in their own languages, though?

Oh, right.

That's the other thing.

It might be called something.

It might be that they came up with it in their own languages and they all sat in a meeting and went, oh, yeah, this is good.

And it is good.

In their own languages, you know, it means fist, fist of power.

But here it's crink.

It's an unfortunate transliteration.

Yes.

You know, it's, you know, it's something that I've got.

Well, we say good luck to them, but I can't really, because they're meant to be the baddies, aren't they?

So they are meant to be the baddies.

So they had this massive military show in

Beijing.

It was in Beijing that they did this huge show.

And it was really quite, I have to say, it was really quite impressive.

I mean, we know what they did at the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

I expected nothing less, and they delivered.

But what was

all sorts of weaponry?

It was like a military Disney parade is the best way to describe it.

Laser weapons, nuclear ballistic missiles, giant underwater drones in this big parade.

And Putin was there.

How did they display an underwater drone?

That one, I'm not sure.

I think maybe like a sort of cirque de Soleil style tank.

Because of what they think.

That's just reminded me.

That's how I would have done it.

It reminded me that over the summer, of course, it was the Donald Trump military parade, which was very different.

It was a very different parade.

It was a very different parade.

The streets hadn't really been catered for massive tanks to go over them, so they had to reduce the numbers.

And I do remember, talking of drones, I do remember the drone parade was basically one soldier holding a drone above his head as if he was invisible and kind of moving it like a child would move a sort of an air fix.

Was he dressed like in a blue onesie model?

Yes.

They were going to just airbrush out later.

Do you know who else was dressed in all blue onesies for airbrushing out later?

Most of the crowd

at Trump's parade also was not visible in the footage.

It was sparsely populated.

Yeah.

I think it was either, you can either have tanks on these roads or you can have people.

Which ones do you want?

Can't do both.

It was, you know, his birthday parade.

But, you know, it was quite

an impressive feat,

this parade in Beijing, in China.

But what's interesting is that if you think about it, the Chinese military haven't really seen combat in a number of decades.

So it was commented quite a lot that Krink, they might be getting together, but I think that Russia and North Korea have seen much more combat recently than China and Iran.

And I suspect that might change quite soon.

Don't, don't, don't say it out loud.

Like, it might happen.

Don't bring it.

Did I say it out loud?

Oh, right.

Maybe I shouldn't have.

No, no, your face said it, and I just felt it.

So I suppose in centuries to come, historians will be writing books called The Dawn of Crink, which sounds a bit like Tolkien or Terry Pratchett, but far worse.

I like the creep of crink.

I think the creep of crink.

Yes, yes.

On that note, having covered in some depth earwax removal

and plastic.

You should have just said it was plastic and then the doctors would have taken it out.

They would have taken it out.

I said there's a tiny little reform MP in his ear.

He's full of microplastics.

He's full of microplastics.

He would be.

And they're not progressing towards

the exit.

Before we go,

I want to, first of all, update you on my headphones situation.

Regular listeners will know, and to new listeners, hi, I'm Armando.

I've discussed these newfangled headphones with the same make as the old headphones I had, but for my convenience, we're given so many new functions that they've become absolutely impossible to use in that there's no on-off switch anymore.

The headphones sends when you want it on and when you want it off.

It senses when you want the music to go louder or softer by how you wave your hand over.

It's a baffling, and somebody wrote in and said that in their family, they use the phrase, improving things worse.

Whenever someone tries to update something, it's usually far more complex and unusable than the private one.

I want to thank many people who, over the summer, have drawn my attention to Huttba's law, which is a law that states that improvement means deterioration.

It's founded on the cynical observation that a stated improvement actually hides a deterioration.

It was invented in the 1970s by Patrick Huttba, an economist and a journalist, who was city editor for the Sunday Telegraph.

And his view was if a company tells you that it is improving the service it provides, it almost always means that it will be doing less for you or charging you more or both.

So at the end of, I'm not going to say the new improved version of Strong Message Here.

I'm going to say phase whatever.

Phase beta.

Beta plus.

Beta plus phase.

There we go.

We just have time.

I did promise you something from Helen and Helen

in amongst the mayhem that she's covering in the US has had time to send us a note for her word of the summer.

Hello, Armando.

First of all, good luck with phase two of Strong Message here.

I don't know if it's a reset or a relaunch, but either way, I know I'm going to enjoy listening to it a lot while I'm off reporting in America this autumn.

Over the summer, I've been listening to lots of US politicians go on podcasts, and let me tell you, it is a bit different to Britain.

In one of them, the host gave California's Governor Gavin Newsome a pistol at the start of a four-hour interview.

You simply do not get that kind of service from Nick Robinson.

Anyway, I'm afraid that experience hasn't made me feel that much more positive about the quality of political rhetoric in Britain.

So my nomination for the phrase of the summer is one that Labour floated and then quickly dropped.

They wanted growth people can feel in their pockets.

Sometimes I really think that all slogans should be run past a 13-year-old first.

Anyway, that's it for me.

Look after the Kierstan metaphor tree and speak soon.

Bye.

Growth people can feel in their pockets.

I can always rely on Helen to

go to the nub of the matter and find that sweet spot.

I mean, that's an excellent find, especially given that they dropped it.

It's not the type of phrase you would want to associate with some people in American politics.

That phrase is going to go right to the top of the.

We have this Kiostama metaphor tree on which we hang various metaphors used by Kiostama.

Growth in your pocket is going up there, along, I suppose, with plastic progressives.

Plastic progressives and plastic patriots.

Yeah, maybe we could have little

plastic figures, actually.

I think this is an opportunity to merchandise.

I think for the Christmas tree, I think you could have a full set, right?

You'll have a you'll have a plastic Nigel Farage, and you'll have a plastic Zach Polanski, and then you'll have a wooden Keir Starr.

Excellent.

There's a little set of three.

Thanks for listening to Strong Message here.

We'll be back next week, and I'll be joined again by Stuart Lee.

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Meanwhile, from Rhea and myself, goodbye.

Goodbye.

Hello, I'm Greg Jenner.

I'm the host of You're Dead to Me.

We are the comedy show that takes history seriously and then we laugh at it.

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