Episode Transcript
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USA. A. You know, some
0:29
of it's pretty good actually. Bob Marley's
0:31
on there. Bioncet's got a track on
0:33
there. Some of it is a bit
0:36
less cool. Michael Bublay and possibly everyone's
0:38
like least favorite Kylie Mano track. Well,
0:40
Coco, you're wrong there because there's no
0:42
such thing as a bad Kylie Manoke
0:44
song. This is all low-hanging fruit so
0:47
far. Where are the sex pistols? Where's
0:49
God Save the Queen? Where's anarchy in
0:51
the UK? There's a level of self-awareness
0:53
there, Nish, that I don't mean to
0:55
disappoint you, but it's not something that
0:58
we often get from our beloved royals,
1:00
but speaking of anarchy and God. certainly
1:02
the Messiah at least. Today we're going
1:04
to be discussing the all-out civil war
1:06
in reform UK. And Kirstaama says that
1:09
our benefit system is the worst of
1:11
all worlds. So they're going to make
1:13
it harder for people with disabilities to
1:15
claim. We'll be speaking with Mike
1:18
Earhart, Disability Rights, UK. So let's
1:20
kick off of the first piece of good
1:22
news I've heard so far this year. Reform
1:24
is falling apart again. I will not be singing
1:26
it to the tune of Lovell Terrorist
1:28
Apart. regardless of how much people
1:30
want me to do that. I don't wish to
1:33
associate that song with Nigel Farage in any way
1:35
shape or form. You have to admit it is
1:37
fitting them. Well look the producers have banned
1:39
me for making any jokes about my
1:42
erections in this segment so let's just
1:44
say I am ragingly engaged with this
1:46
story. Nurse Mitch is having a moment. I
1:48
think the word you were looking for by
1:50
the way is engorgged. Oh God, it's AAM
1:52
in Nashville Coco, I don't need to
1:54
hear the word engorged at this time
1:56
of the morning. So look, here's the
1:59
basics. Rupert Lo, famously fan-boyed by Elon
2:01
Musk, is out of reform. Why? Well,
2:03
the story from the reform side is
2:05
that he bullied staff and made threats
2:08
of violence against the party chair Zia
2:10
Yusuf. The Met Police have now launched
2:12
an investigation. Rupert Lowe denies any wrongdoing
2:14
and says the allegations are untrue. The
2:16
story from Mr Lowe's side is that
2:19
he's being pushed out because he dares
2:21
to question the party's messianic leader. The
2:23
rancorous war of world has played out
2:25
across social media over the last week
2:27
and if it were possible has somehow
2:30
managed to make them appear even less
2:32
ready for any kind of serious rolling.
2:34
So as a quick reminder, reform had
2:36
five MPs, so with the loss of
2:38
Rupert Low, they've lost a whopping 20%
2:41
of their MPs. That puts them on
2:43
the same footing in the commons as
2:45
the Greens. Not that you'd be able
2:47
to tell by the enormous amount of
2:50
press they seem to receive. We've seen
2:52
so, so, so, so much bluster about
2:54
reform from the right-wing press over the
2:56
last few months. So what do you
2:58
think, Nish? Is this going to finally
3:01
shut up his cheerleaders in the right-wing
3:03
press? Reform is a sort of chaotic
3:05
rabble, a kind of motley crew of
3:07
opportunists, gold coin sales people, and racists.
3:09
I mean, during the election campaign, activists
3:12
for the party were filmed on camera
3:14
using racial slurs about the then prime
3:16
minutes to Rishisunai. There's nothing about them.
3:18
that's ready for any serious role in
3:21
government and nothing about Nigel Farage's political
3:23
career has ever suggested he has a
3:25
real interest in playing any role in
3:27
government. The thing about Farage is that
3:29
he is a campaigner. He's not actually
3:32
a political leader but that isn't going
3:34
to stop the right-wing press from cheerleading
3:36
for him relentlessly. I don't see this
3:38
as denting Farage because I imagine it
3:40
will lead to a slew of op-head
3:43
pieces in the telegraph of the mail
3:45
and the times talking about how brilliant...
3:47
forages and how Rupert Low was the
3:49
problem. Where it could create an issue
3:51
for them is this kind of issue
3:54
of will Elon Musk intervening British politics.
3:56
because there was this idea that he
3:58
was going to make this enormous reform
4:00
donation. Then he said that Farage has
4:03
stepped aside. His relationship seems to cleave
4:05
closer to Rupert Low at the moment,
4:07
so that's where it could cause problems
4:09
for the party, though it does seem
4:11
like that Farage's bridges with Musk have
4:14
already been burned. I think it's worth
4:16
stating as well that the creative differences
4:18
that these two are having is about
4:20
whether complete... actual far-right nutters should be
4:22
allowed in the party. Tommy Robinson, for
4:25
example. That's what this creative difference is
4:27
about. So it couldn't be more grim,
4:29
really. Also, the thing that kicked all
4:31
of this off kind of is the
4:34
right-wing press. So Lo complained to the
4:36
Daily Mail that reform had remained a
4:38
protest party led by the Messiah under
4:40
Farage. Lo also claimed that he himself...
4:42
was barely six months into being an
4:45
MP and in the betting to be
4:47
the next prime minister which seems a
4:49
bit much isn't it? You've only been
4:51
an MP for six months and you
4:53
think you're going to be the next
4:56
prime minister? Also everyone's in the betting
4:58
for everything. That's not how betting works.
5:00
I could technically say I'm in the
5:02
betting for the Nobel Peace price. I'll
5:04
send an email niche. Yeah, exactly, yeah.
5:07
Your odds are like several billion to
5:09
one. Exactly. I'm in the betting to
5:11
be the next James Bond. I'm putting
5:13
it out there. Okay. I've put a
5:16
bet on myself to be the next
5:18
James Bond. Oh no, we're going to
5:20
see this in the mail. I imagine
5:22
it's going to be pretty weird because
5:24
Jeff Basis has taken it over and
5:27
so I guess the next Bond film
5:29
is just going to be James Bond
5:31
beating up climate protesters and union workers.
5:33
with an Alexa. That's what the next
5:35
James Bond is going to be. So
5:38
I'm not sure anyone really wants to
5:40
be part of it, but I'm saying
5:42
now of the same logic that Rupert
5:44
Low is in the betting to be
5:47
the next Prime Minister. I'm in the
5:49
betting to be the next James Bond.
5:51
I have this theory about Rupert Low
5:53
that you know he's a boomer that's
5:55
online too much. You know I'm sure
5:58
some flagshaggers and bots have said you
6:00
should be the next Prime Minister. and
6:02
they've tweeted that to him, but that
6:04
doesn't mean it real, just like it's
6:06
not real that like hot girls in
6:09
your area are not looking to meet
6:11
guys like you. You know what I
6:13
mean? None of this is real. But
6:15
nonetheless, as reform flounders, this week the
6:17
government is rolling the pitch for upcoming
6:20
cuts in the spring budget. A couple
6:22
of months ago, all signs were pointing
6:24
to this being something of a non-event.
6:26
There was even hints of it being
6:29
skipped. huge benefit cuts to the tune
6:31
of six billion pounds. More on that
6:33
with our guest Mikey Earhart later, but
6:35
we've also heard plans from the Health
6:37
Secretary to cut half, that's right, half
6:39
of the staff of NHS England. So
6:41
we'd already expected the loss of around
6:44
2,000 jobs, but the latest is that
6:46
6,500 jobs are set to go. So
6:48
these are office-based jobs, not frontline medical
6:51
staff, and alongside this announcement there's been
6:53
an exodus of almost all of the
6:55
staff at the top of the top
6:57
of the organization. And this is just
7:00
the first step of the government's plans
7:02
to cut back on the number of
7:04
civil servants in Whitehall, the bonfire of
7:07
the bureaucrats as the Daily Mail is
7:09
calling it. This week, Cabinet Office Minister
7:11
Pat McFadden will set out plans to
7:14
disrupt the status quo to achieve an
7:16
active and modern state. Now, without further
7:18
clarification on what all of these cuts
7:21
look like, it's all starting to feel
7:23
vaguely trumpet, you know, in the
7:25
absence of any actual specific information
7:27
on... where these cuts are coming
7:29
from, this general idea of a
7:31
sort of bonfire of bureaucrats,
7:33
it does feel a bit doge, that's
7:36
all I'm saying. Part of the measures
7:38
will mean that any civil servant
7:40
performing below expectations may be incentivised
7:43
to leave their jobs with McFadden
7:45
promising a new mutually agreed exits
7:47
process. So it's not quite a
7:49
chain saw, but it is a
7:52
very hefty pair of garden shares.
7:54
Performance related pay is also on
7:56
the cards alongside more digitalisation of
7:58
the civil service. service. I mean
8:01
we all think computers are good and
8:03
better than paper I guess but you
8:05
know what does that actually mean? Shadow
8:07
Tory Home Secretary Chris Philp has said
8:10
that the plans are weak and anemic
8:12
compared to what they would have done
8:14
but even the very suggestion that These
8:17
are in line with Tory plans, suggests
8:19
heavily that they're not going to be
8:21
facing any real meaningful opposition to these
8:23
in Parliament. And look, we should say
8:26
that in a week where reform is
8:28
kind of imploding, and the Conservative Party,
8:30
I mean, appears to have gone absent
8:33
without leave. I don't know if anybody's
8:35
heard from the Tories, or if anyone
8:37
has seen any of them, if you
8:39
have seen a Conservative MP recently, please.
8:42
phone in where possible because they do
8:44
just seem to have sunk without a
8:46
trace and whilst that is obviously incredibly
8:49
funny it is also concerning that we
8:51
don't seem to have functional or meaningful
8:53
opposition to the government from the largest
8:56
party of opposition like that is a
8:58
genuine concern. The unions of course they're
9:00
speaking up against it so the civil
9:02
servants union accused the government of delivering
9:05
a sound bite not a credible plan
9:07
for change and described it as a
9:09
retreading of failed narratives. At the end
9:12
of last year Starmer was accused of
9:14
using insulting and Trumpian language by the
9:16
head of the FDA after he said
9:18
that too many people in white talk
9:21
are comfortable in the tepid bath of
9:23
managed decline. I mean it's kind of
9:25
poeticic but... Wow, I mean that doesn't
9:28
sound like a Labour Prime Minister does
9:30
it? Well I mean the whole country
9:32
has been in a tepid bath of
9:34
managed decline for about 15 years. You
9:37
know your energy bills are still increasing,
9:39
your food shop is still increasing, the
9:41
government's telling you that it's set fire
9:44
to a load of bureaucrats. It all
9:46
feels a little bit like... my roof
9:48
was falling in and someone said you
9:50
need to install a better burglar alarm.
9:53
You go dealing with completely irrelevant problems
9:55
at the moment. But now let's look
9:57
beyond our borders. So Canada has a
10:00
new leader and it's a name that
10:02
you might be familiar with. It's Mark
10:04
Kearney, former governor of the Bank of
10:07
England. succeeded Justin Trudeau to become Prime
10:09
Minister. It was quite strange. I was
10:11
in Canada. I started this leg of
10:13
the tour in Toronto and at the
10:16
time Mark Kearney was obviously being heavily
10:18
touted as the next Prime Minister of
10:20
Canada, the person who would lead the
10:23
Liberal Party into the elections this year.
10:25
Obviously Mark Kearney is Canadian. I knew
10:27
that and yet he was such a
10:29
fixture on British news that when I
10:32
arrived in Canada I was like what
10:34
the hell is Mark Kearney doing in
10:36
Canadian news? Like what how was this
10:39
happened? It was like seeing Joey Trebiani
10:41
turn up in an episode of Frasier,
10:43
like it was so odd. Carly's presence
10:45
has upset everyone's favorite former British Prime
10:48
Minister of course Liz trust tweeted yet
10:50
another inadverted commerce impartial British bureaucrat goes
10:52
into left-wing politics at the Bank of
10:55
England carnie backed ruinous net zero policies
10:57
and money printing the British state is
10:59
completely rigged it's worth pointing out at
11:01
this moment that Mark Harnie was appointed
11:04
by George Osborne the Conservative Republican leftist.
11:06
Yeah, that well-known leftist George Osborne. I
11:08
mean, Karney becoming Prime Minister is probably
11:11
good for the UK in terms of
11:13
UK and Canadian relations. He backed Rachel
11:15
Reese for Chancellor and he was instrumental
11:17
in creating our new national wealth fund.
11:20
I just find it funny like that
11:22
this conspiracy that so many figures on
11:24
the right have, including a former Prime
11:27
Minister, that everyone that does an impartial
11:29
job is secretly a lefty. I wish,
11:31
babe. Oh, babe, how I wish. You
11:34
know, the universities are full of lefties,
11:36
not my university. You know what I
11:38
mean? Like, the BBC's full of lefties?
11:40
Really? I wish you're about that. I
11:43
think some of them have tried to
11:45
run for your party. I just, it's,
11:47
what a strange conspiracy that I have.
11:50
Are these lefties in the room with
11:52
you now, Liz? Anyway, Kearney's going to
11:54
be an interesting foil to the US
11:56
president, power force heats up. But as
11:59
always, for more on this, you should
12:01
tune into Pods Save the World, where
12:03
Tommy and Ben discuss the growing trade
12:06
wars, the hints of peace in the
12:08
Ukraine, and how Carly might fight Trump.
12:10
And also a quick reminder that we
12:12
want your questions for our up and
12:14
coming mail bag special. They can be
12:17
stupid, they can be funny, but you
12:19
can also ask us a serious political
12:21
question too. As a sneak peek we've
12:23
had this response from Simon who didn't
12:25
have a question but more of a
12:27
comment. He said I can't believe you
12:29
ended your episode on feminism by calling
12:31
it a male bag. Hashtag cancelled. What
12:33
is he suggesting instead then? I
12:36
guess a female bag? No, we can't
12:38
have female bag. That's, you know,
12:40
a bag is a vessel. It's
12:42
just, it's, it's, it's, it's saying
12:45
things that I don't think we
12:47
really want to be communicating. We
12:49
could do it gender neutral. We
12:51
could do it as a veil bag. Huh?
12:54
I mean, listen, I don't hate it.
12:56
I felt my most auntie there
12:58
when I said it. I
13:00
was like, oh God, this
13:02
was like a glimpse into
13:05
my future. Now, after the
13:07
break, we're speaking to disability
13:09
rights campaigner, Mikey Earhart about
13:11
the government's brutal ideas for
13:13
reforming our welfare system.
13:15
Hot Save The UK is brought
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to you by Sky Sports. Coco,
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F1 season? I mean truthfully I'm most
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Ferrari back to the top? Will the
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much? F1 isn't just about speed. It's
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about the live experience and the raw
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emotions that Coca-Cola's partner goes. of seeing
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the drivers come alive. The ecstasy,
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Restrictions apply. That's according
15:13
to the Prime Minister,
15:15
speaking to Labour colleagues
15:18
on Monday evening. Here's
15:20
the Prime Minister at
15:22
PMQs on Wednesday. We inherited a
15:24
system which is broken, it is
15:27
indefensible economically and morally, and we
15:29
must and we will reform it.
15:31
We will have clear principles, Mr
15:34
Speaker. We will protect those who
15:36
need protecting. We will also support
15:39
those who can work. to work,
15:41
but labour is the party of
15:43
work. We are also the party
15:46
of equality and fairness. This drug
15:48
rhetoric arrives ahead of heavily-trailed cuts
15:50
to the welfare budget, which
15:53
ITVs in Uzbekistan reports to
15:55
be in the ballpark of
15:57
£6 billion a year, £5
15:59
billion. of that saving is to
16:01
be made through cutting personal independence
16:03
payments, commonly known as PIPs. PIPs
16:05
are benefits not linked to work.
16:07
They exist to help pay for
16:09
the extra costs in life of
16:11
having a disability and according to
16:13
the DWP there's around 3.6 million
16:16
claimants across the UK. Disability and
16:18
poverty charities have urged the government
16:20
to rethink its plans. Writing in
16:22
an open letter that without PIP
16:24
a further 700,000 disabled households could
16:26
be pushed into poverty. So joining
16:28
us now to understand how this
16:30
is going to impact the lives
16:32
of PIP claimants across the country
16:34
is Mikey Earhart from Disability Rights
16:36
UK. Welcome to the pod. Hi there. Thank you
16:38
so much for having me. So these feel like,
16:41
I mean brutal cuts. How would they
16:43
affect the lives of people claiming? I
16:45
mean they're going to be... hugely challenging,
16:47
I think. We don't have a
16:49
benefit system in this country that
16:51
provides right now for most people.
16:53
I think trying to find further
16:55
savings, trying to find ways of
16:57
reducing the amount of support people
16:59
get, it's just going to push
17:01
people into further poverty. Those who
17:04
are on that sort of cliff
17:06
edge into deeper poverty and beyond
17:08
that as well, I think it
17:10
just further entrenches that divide that
17:12
we have in this country between
17:14
disabled people. working class people
17:16
who require state support in some way
17:18
and people who don't and this gap is
17:20
going to continue to emerge. PIP is not
17:22
that much money. It's not like a life-changing
17:25
sum that people might think. It isn't. And
17:27
the way that PIP is talked about and
17:29
the way that I guess much of the media and
17:31
ministers and their common steam like to
17:33
talk about PIP is to put it into
17:36
this big model of how the benefit system
17:38
works and it's important to split these things
17:40
out, right, right? There is universal credit and
17:42
sometimes things like employment and support allowance on
17:44
one side. These are your benefits that you
17:47
get as a result of being unable to
17:49
work or unemployed for some reason and the
17:51
amount of money you get which is pretty
17:53
inadequate right? It speaks to any poverty charity
17:55
and they will tell you it's not enough
17:57
but you get those very defined criteria and
17:59
reasons. and there's lots of stripped
18:01
assessments for those. There's a whole other
18:04
ballpark of strict assessment for PIP, but
18:06
PIP is there to accept in some ways that
18:08
it costs small money to be disabled. A
18:10
round about 12 grand a year to be
18:12
disabled to be disabled to be disabled to
18:15
live the life of a non-disabled person, right?
18:17
If you take sort of rough averages,
18:19
that's where the disability charity
18:21
scope puts it. Really hard to do like
18:23
a ballpark average figure for what you
18:25
get from PIP, but if you really
18:27
draw it like down the middle. you
18:30
might get like 7,000 pounds a year
18:32
from PIP, right? If you're right down
18:34
the middle and some people get more,
18:36
some people get less, but those two
18:38
numbers, right, I'm not an economist, those
18:40
are not the same. 12 is more
18:42
than seven, your listeners might be pleased
18:44
to hear, good job if they did
18:46
that at home, but like, it's not
18:49
an amount of money, and to try
18:51
and find savings within that almost
18:53
always means, and as we're sort of
18:55
seeing trail that... we might have the
18:57
level of PIP frozen, so it
19:00
won't go up with inflation, that
19:02
is just people losing money, and
19:04
we're going to make it harder
19:06
to qualify for PIP, which is
19:08
really quite devastating, really quite depressing
19:10
I think for a lot of
19:13
people receiving that news at the
19:15
moment because as we said, right,
19:17
PIP is there, it acknowledges that
19:19
it costs more to be disabled
19:21
because suddenly you don't qualify. So
19:23
when Kiastama says that they'll protect
19:26
those that need protecting, what's he
19:28
talking about there? Because I understand
19:30
the half of his rhetoric that's
19:32
associated with efficiencies, we understand how
19:34
that's going to manifest itself, freezing
19:36
pit payments. What's the other half
19:39
of this equation? It's a bit of
19:41
an oxymoron, right? To say we're going to take
19:43
money that we know you need for essentials away
19:45
from you, but don't worry. We somehow have
19:47
your back. It's pretty frustrating, it's quite
19:49
worrying. I think for a lot of
19:51
disabled people across this country, this isn't
19:53
new, it feels a bit like DeJavu,
19:55
right? Like, this is yet another Prime
19:58
Minister, seeing economic damage. or
20:00
poor economic numbers and pulling at the
20:02
level that they seem to have at
20:04
number 10 that is cut the benefits
20:06
bill. You know, when you were talking
20:08
earlier about the cost to be disabled
20:11
is around 12,000 pounds. People that are
20:13
disabled and working will be made poorer
20:15
by these changes. So it doesn't even
20:17
serve their fucked up ideology if that
20:19
makes sense. It's going to disable people
20:22
across society, right? And not just disabled
20:24
people with long-term health conditions. And some
20:26
of this like... rhetoric around an explosion
20:28
of claimants is just not true, basically.
20:30
Quite a lot comes down to us
20:33
raising the pension age for and over
20:35
again, and then, yeah, surprise, surprise, as
20:37
people aren't getting state pension, they're around
20:39
without support for longer, they're getting older,
20:41
they might require things like pay up,
20:44
that explains a little bit of the
20:46
growth there. It means we've ended up
20:48
where we are not, where it's easier,
20:50
right? It's easier to do, in some
20:53
ways, the horrible thing of cutting benefits
20:55
than it is to do. a bit
20:57
of to use the government's own language
20:59
hard work to roll up their sleeves,
21:01
a bit ironic that they might be
21:04
scared of doing something like that, but
21:06
to test the different approach, build a
21:08
different benefit system, do something that actually
21:10
provides people tangible support day to day.
21:12
That feels too difficult to do. And
21:15
so we pull the same lever again
21:17
and again. Is it possible to also
21:19
make the argument that not only we
21:21
viewing disability through completely the wrong lens,
21:23
we're also even viewing the economics of
21:26
these payments completely the wrong way around?
21:28
Estimates from pro bono economics suggest that
21:30
for every pound of money spent on
21:32
PIP and disability living allowance, payments actually
21:34
get around one pound 48 of well-being
21:37
improvements, you know, at a time where
21:39
every pound you spend seems to be
21:41
going less far than it ever did.
21:43
This is actually an example of something
21:45
that is... genuinely good value for money.
21:48
So is this also, are we completely
21:50
wrong headed, not just in our approach
21:52
to disability, but also in our approach
21:54
to the economics around this conversation? Oh,
21:57
absolutely. The benefit system exists as a
21:59
safety net for everyone, right? You can
22:01
become disabled. can become unemployed at any
22:03
point in your life, right? There's almost
22:05
one in five people are disabled in
22:08
this country, where massively diverse group, loads
22:10
of different backgrounds, lifestyles, impairment. Our lives
22:12
are not defined by economic value, but
22:14
if you want to go down that
22:16
line of thinking, yeah, of course it's
22:19
bad economic thinking. But what it comes
22:21
down to is it's easier for the
22:23
treasury for the D.W.P. to look at
22:25
this from a money in, money out
22:27
type perspective. to do something on a
22:30
spreadsheet that has really, really negative impacts
22:32
for people, then be brave and look
22:34
at it like you said through that
22:36
different lens of understanding what the benefit
22:38
system is there for. If you're supported
22:41
by an adequate benefit system, you might
22:43
be able to find better work in
22:45
the future. You might become as the
22:47
government wants everyone to be more economically
22:49
engaged. because you have that support system
22:52
there, right? It's so hard. I don't
22:54
think people understand how difficult it is
22:56
to live on the benefit system and
22:58
how difficult it is to live on
23:01
the benefit system for a long period
23:03
of time. You're not going to do
23:05
the things the government want you to
23:07
do, which is, you know, get in
23:09
a position to find work. We do
23:12
have to ask the question of like
23:14
what work, where, where do these sort
23:16
of jobs exist that the government in
23:18
particular seem to say what people could
23:20
just fall into and not doing enough
23:23
of. So we've spoken about how these
23:25
cuts have a wrongheadedness in terms of
23:27
the economy, but there's also a wrongheadedness
23:29
in terms of just... political gaming, right?
23:31
Like is this is clever for labour?
23:34
So the usually moderate trade union Congress
23:36
Secretary Paul Novak. He's warned that a
23:38
major lesson from the Tory years is
23:40
that austerity damaged the nation's health. We
23:42
must not make the same mistake again.
23:45
So you know, trade unions themselves are
23:47
speaking out against labour and then there's
23:49
dissent within Labour's own ranks. So here's
23:51
Nadia Witten speaking to BBC Radio Force
23:54
Today program. Look, I was on these
23:56
benefits. My mum had to stop work.
23:58
when I was a teenager to care
24:00
for me. I represent disabled people, all
24:02
of us do, and we all hear
24:05
their stories every day and just how
24:07
scared they are about this and what
24:09
a difference these payments make to their
24:11
lives. I can't look, I can't look,
24:13
my constituents in the eye, I can't
24:16
look my mum in the eye and
24:18
support this. Hearing that, are you hopeful
24:20
the government might change its tack? We've
24:22
got a long time to go with this,
24:24
right? It's a green paper that's going to
24:27
be coming out, and I think for listeners,
24:29
don't know there's just a process that well.
24:31
Green papers are the consultative stage. What this
24:34
sort of week of media has shown is
24:36
that people know this bill is not going
24:38
to make a difference to the long-standing issues
24:40
across society. The effects are pretty obvious.
24:43
People are going to get sicker. We're going to
24:45
undermine people's right to a decent
24:47
quality of life and we're going to
24:49
continue to entrench barriers to access and
24:51
employment and social inclusion that we always
24:53
disable people have a right to. And I
24:56
think most politicians know that as well and it's
24:58
the time for them, you know, to be brave
25:00
to stand up in the way that we've,
25:02
you know, heard politicians stand up for their
25:04
constituents in the last week and we have
25:07
to commend those who do that. It's not
25:09
always the easiest thing to do. But I
25:11
think the other side as well is for
25:13
disabled people across the country to remember that
25:16
we represent a enormous group across society. There
25:18
are millions of us. And whilst a bill
25:20
like this is in its consultative stage, that's
25:22
the time where... It's often most important
25:24
to, as an individual, do the things
25:27
that sometimes feel not as meaningful,
25:29
reaching out to your MP, going
25:31
to constituency surgeries, responding to the
25:33
consultation as an individual, and those are
25:35
like things that you can tangibly do, that
25:37
listeners can tangibly do, because this is the
25:39
stage in which the government has to see
25:41
that there is no social majority for this,
25:43
and I think they know that, but they're
25:45
going to apparently keep ploughing ahead anyway, and
25:47
they need to know that that's not something
25:49
that... that they can get away with. Like
25:51
you were saying, lots of people haven't interacted with
25:54
the benefit system. For people who have, I think
25:56
we all know that like it's like getting blood
25:58
from a stone and like you say... do get
26:00
some blood, you can barely live off
26:02
here and that's putting aside all the
26:05
like way that it hinders you from
26:07
actually getting better and just the indignation
26:09
of it all. Do you think it
26:11
would be worthwhile in the kind of
26:14
public consciousness of separating out disability and
26:16
so for example Universal Credit, right? Because
26:18
I think in the mind they just
26:20
see everyone as being and I quote
26:22
on benefits and they have this bogeyman
26:25
of being on benefits, would it be
26:27
helpful to disabled people for there to
26:29
be a separation or is actually the
26:31
fact that they are sort of rolled
26:33
up together makes sense because there is
26:36
a relationship between poverty and poor
26:38
working conditions and bad health? I
26:40
genuinely don't know. What do you
26:42
think? It's an interesting question. I think
26:44
the two ways I'd approach that is the
26:46
first thing to sort of understand is that
26:48
no one's worth is defined by your ability
26:50
to work. Right, there are lots of people
26:53
who just won't, no matter how we change
26:55
the world of work, be able to work.
26:57
And we're not changing the world of work
26:59
fast enough, right? Like, some of this hinges
27:01
on the idea that the, you know, the
27:03
employment rights bill is going to completely change
27:06
Britain's working conditions. And even if you take
27:08
that at face value. It's not happening any
27:10
time soon. But I think the other element
27:12
to unpick and you chat to any government
27:14
minister at the moment and you'd think the
27:16
whole point of our social security system, our
27:18
benefit system, is to get people into work.
27:21
But it's not. It's meant to be a
27:23
safety net that supports you when you need
27:25
it. And I think that's the separation that
27:27
we need. It's not a funnel for you
27:29
to get into work. It's a safety net.
27:31
Like I think the last thing I'd like
27:33
to say is that you cannot take. what is
27:36
happening in the benefits system, what's happening
27:38
this week, and will probably happen over
27:40
the next like months with this bill,
27:42
away from how poor our public services
27:45
are, and how little they support
27:47
disabled people, right? We aren't going to
27:49
get change on social care until potentially
27:51
the end of this Parliament, right? We're
27:53
getting a review on something that
27:55
is fundamental for lots of disabled
27:58
people to live in independence. live
29:41
You What's
29:46
safe the UK is brought to you by
29:48
Shopify? That sound you just heard is the
29:51
sound of another sale on Shopify the
29:53
all-in-one commerce platform to start run and
29:55
grow yuck. this
32:30
question multiple times to Amazon
32:32
representatives about recurring strikes at
32:34
their warehouses in Coventry. Here
32:36
was their response at the
32:38
Business and Trade Select Committee
32:40
in December last year. If you are
32:42
that great a place to work, why have
32:44
your workers in Coventry gone on strike so
32:47
much? Our
32:49
employees have the right to join a
32:51
trade union or not to join a trained
32:53
union and we totally respect that. I'm really,
32:55
I'm, Mr. Paul, I'm pulling teeth at this
32:58
point. Neither of you answer that question so
33:00
far. I'll ask it once more. I'll ask
33:02
it once more and then I'll give up
33:04
because I don't think I'm going to get
33:07
an answer. Why have they gone on strike
33:09
so much? What is the reason behind it?
33:11
You talked to workers every day you've told
33:13
us and that's what your teams do. So
33:16
when you asked them, why are you going
33:18
on strike? What's their answer actually? Why
33:20
are they striking? They were demonstrating
33:22
their right to support the trade union
33:24
that they were a member of, simply
33:27
put. So while Amazon bosses repeatedly failed
33:29
to give an answer there, Laura
33:31
Carrera's award-winning new fiction film on
33:33
falling draws on her personal experiences
33:35
and interviews with warehouse workers around
33:37
the country to give unique insight
33:39
into the human cost of today's
33:41
algorithm-driven gig economy. She joins us
33:43
now, Laura, welcome to Ponce, the
33:45
UK. Hi, thank you for having
33:47
me. So first of all, congratulations
33:49
on the film, it is excellent.
33:51
For the listeners, please do go
33:53
and see it. It follows a
33:55
young Portuguese woman living in Scotland
33:57
who works as a picker in a huge warehouse.
34:00
She's one of the many migrant workers who
34:02
make up the workforce. So I guess my
34:04
very first question is, what inspired you to
34:06
make this film? I've been kind of interested
34:08
at looking at our relationship to work
34:10
because I think it's something that we
34:12
normalize so much and we don't question
34:14
it. I started reading more and more
34:16
about insecure work and it got me to
34:18
discover the job of a picker, logistics
34:20
industry being an issue that is rife
34:23
with precarious labor. This job to me
34:25
was just so surprising the way it
34:27
existed, you know, when companies brag about
34:29
how fast the parcel gets to you,
34:31
you rarely imagine someone that is surrounded
34:33
by millions of items being told by
34:35
a scanner, like down to the seconds
34:37
that along they have to get to
34:40
the next item. It felt like kind
34:42
of dystopian and it felt important to
34:44
show that reality. You have those scenes where workers
34:46
are being essentially hounded by the beep of
34:48
a machine saying go faster and it's... you
34:50
know, the juxtaposition of some of the sort
34:53
of ridiculous absurd items that they're picking up
34:55
that are not meaningless and not important and
34:57
the stress of someone trying to get it
34:59
to you. I mean, how did you pick
35:01
out all these little details? How did you
35:03
come to them? So a lot of them
35:05
came from conversations that I had with pickers
35:08
questioning, like, would you do every day? Would
35:10
you do outside work? Like, how is your
35:12
routine? It felt like people were actually really
35:14
engaged to tell me about their lives.
35:16
I think all of these ridiculous things
35:18
like you know how the rewards can
35:20
be like chocolate bars you know that
35:22
really don't seem to like be rewarding
35:24
the hard work that is behind it.
35:26
People know what's going on you know
35:28
and I think they understand these dynamics
35:30
and you know they're very happy to
35:33
share their stories when they're asked. I'm
35:35
glad you mentioned food there because it
35:37
was one of the details that stood
35:39
out to me you know the lead
35:41
character is always eating bread all the
35:43
time because it's easy and it's cheap.
35:45
sometimes portrayals of poverty can fall into
35:47
sensationalism in Les Mies in Les Mies
35:49
Rob. I think I'm pretty sure one
35:51
of the characters sells Ed Heath and
35:53
you know in this it's the sort
35:55
of subtle little details of every day
35:57
that lead to despair. There's not this...
36:00
big massive thing that happens. It's just
36:02
a small incident. In this case it
36:04
was the simplicity of a phone screen
36:06
smashing and that knocking on the knock-on
36:08
effect to like can't pay this bill,
36:10
can't socialise with people, now you're feeling
36:12
isolated, now your confidence is not, now
36:14
you're all alone and you captured that
36:17
really really well. I suppose what stayed
36:19
with you, what were the testimonies from
36:21
the workers that haunted you and what
36:23
was some that didn't make it into
36:25
the film? it existed in almost all
36:27
the conversations that I had, the sense
36:29
that maybe another job would also not
36:31
fix their problem. And I think it
36:34
comes from this sense of vulnerability, you
36:36
know, or our experience is this insecurity that
36:38
is financial, but then she's also, like you
36:40
said, it kind of taints all other aspects
36:43
of her life. And I think it's also
36:45
what it does to you, you know, like
36:47
to your sense of self, because a lot
36:49
of the conversations were obviously around how like
36:52
physically demanding the job is. but then a
36:54
lot of the times these conversations would turn
36:56
slightly darker and kind of you know people
36:58
would say how actually psychologically it was really
37:00
difficult to be on your own for that
37:02
amount of hours and then also you know
37:05
by the end of the day if you're
37:07
too tired that you can only kind of
37:09
rest then it's also very hard to develop
37:11
a life outside work and so yeah you slowly
37:13
begin to you know get more and more
37:15
isolated and yeah that was part of the
37:17
struggle that I was trying to bring into
37:19
the film. Also because so many of these
37:22
topics sometimes are kind of framed within like
37:24
the individual's fault, this entire discourse of placing
37:26
the blame in the individual is completely wrong
37:28
to me. And when so many of us
37:30
are struggling with these things, I think it's
37:33
more and more important to start looking at
37:35
it collectively. Yeah, well when they call it
37:37
a livelihood for a reason, it's meant to
37:39
be, it's meant to enhance your life rather
37:41
than deprive you of life. This is just
37:44
a small tangent. When my mum moved to
37:46
this country, her husband worked at the Ford
37:48
factory, we're from East London, there were loads
37:50
of South Asians working at the Ford factory and
37:52
she talks about how like they, a lot of
37:54
their friends were from the Ford factory and everyone
37:56
kind of knew each other from the Ford factory.
37:58
And I often think about that. I'm sure the
38:00
work itself wasn't the greatest, but they have
38:02
this real vibrant community and essentially like the
38:05
job is made great by the other people.
38:07
And you do have a little bit of
38:09
that, these little bits of light from other
38:11
people. But there's clearly a relationship, isn't it,
38:14
between exploitation and migration? I just wondered
38:16
what your thoughts were when you explored
38:18
this film. Yeah, I mean, I think
38:20
I brought a lot of my experiences
38:22
over those first years of moving to
38:25
Scotland. So I moved to Scotland 12
38:27
years ago from Portugal. I was 18.
38:29
It was the first time that I
38:31
started working. And I think those first
38:33
jobs, you know, those first minimum wage
38:36
jobs really kind of made me look at
38:38
life slightly differently. And I think yeah,
38:40
any time, you know, you move to
38:42
another country and you don't have the
38:44
social ties, then, you know, your life
38:46
becomes slightly more defined by work and
38:48
you're put in a position of more
38:50
vulnerability. As I was researching, I realized
38:52
a lot of the workers I was
38:54
speaking to were migrant workers and so
38:56
it felt like it was important
38:59
to bring my own experiences into
39:01
the film. Over the past few
39:03
years workers at these distribution warehouses
39:05
or fulfilment centres are sometimes called,
39:07
which I think is really dystopian little
39:10
ironic. Yeah, they've been demanding better paying
39:12
conditions. So a 2024 survey of
39:14
frontline workers by Quinnix found that 60%
39:16
of them experienced workplace stress, 39% blame
39:19
low pay for it. Many people
39:21
say just go and get another job.
39:23
Why do you think people put
39:25
up with it? I think
39:27
necessity, you know, there's that idea of like,
39:29
oh yeah, you can go out and get
39:32
a better job. I think a lot of
39:34
the people I talked to question that actually
39:36
because that was sometimes something I even questioned,
39:39
you know, are you looking for another job?
39:41
And sometimes I'd get the answer, I don't
39:43
know if another job is going to fix
39:45
my situation. So there was that real sense
39:47
of like that the job was almost also,
39:50
you know, not just removing the agency that
39:52
you have over the work that you do,
39:54
but also like. a sense of hope
39:56
in the future and you know what
39:58
you could go on to do. And I
40:00
think that's maybe also what kind of
40:02
contributes to sometimes this idea that like
40:05
you're stuck, you're just trying to keep
40:07
up and you're not moving. Yeah. I
40:09
do want to talk about the performance
40:11
monitoring because I mean listen, my instinct
40:13
is from just even just talking to
40:16
my own relatives in an anecdotal way
40:18
that there's something about this particular moment
40:20
which is uniquely disturbing about it and
40:22
it's the tech element of it. So
40:24
a survey by the GMB Union last
40:27
November reported that Amazon workers were stressed
40:29
and burnt out. There's been attempted suicides
40:31
recorded at multiple warehouses. The numbers
40:33
are genuinely quite shocking. Ambulances have
40:35
been called out over 1400 times
40:37
in the past five years. A
40:39
spokesperson for Amazon refuted the suggestion
40:41
that it's dangerous to work for
40:44
them. They said that safety is
40:46
always the absolute priority. In your
40:48
research, did you find that the
40:50
more tech there is involved, the less
40:52
hopeful the situation is, the less good
40:54
it is for well-being? It was interesting because
40:56
sometimes I would ask, what is the rate?
40:58
Like how many items are you expected to
41:00
pick per hour? And people really struggle to
41:02
give me a number. And this is because
41:05
I realized it was hidden within this algorithm
41:07
that actually they would only know if they
41:09
did well or not well at the end
41:11
of the week. Oh wow! So you just
41:13
live in fear the whole time. Yeah, and
41:16
I sometimes heard people say to me, oh,
41:18
some days I thought I did quite well
41:20
and then I would find out I was
41:22
wrong. And then other days, I thought, okay,
41:24
you know, there's been a couple of missed
41:26
items, I think I'm going to get
41:29
into trouble, and then they would be
41:31
considered the top pickers. And so there
41:33
was this real disconnect, even from what
41:35
was demanded of you and the same
41:37
from like, you know, when I would
41:39
ask about like relationships with managers and,
41:41
you know, you know, what the sort
41:43
of sort of, also don't really have
41:45
a real sense of what the goals
41:47
are. Right. And it was part of
41:49
what I was trying to look at
41:51
the film is actually how it's really
41:53
hard to like notice where power is
41:55
coming from because it seems like it
41:58
doesn't exist but it is coming. from
42:00
Sibwair. So the government is attempting to
42:02
make life in the gig economy a
42:04
little bit better. Labour's employment rights bill
42:06
is back in the commons this week.
42:09
It's full of ideas to improve working
42:11
conditions. It's been received well by trade
42:13
unions and introduces tougher restrictions on exploitative
42:15
zero-hour contracts. Also fire and rehire practices.
42:17
However, the bill doesn't go quite as
42:20
far as some people would have liked.
42:22
Trade unions and lawyers have argued for
42:24
a single workers status that would give
42:26
gig economy workers more protections, but from
42:28
your point of view. What do you
42:31
think you really need to see from
42:33
government? What were the things that stood
42:35
out to you as being sort of
42:37
low-hanging fruit to protect the well-being, mentally
42:39
and physically of these workers? Of course
42:42
protecting people from zero-hour contracts would be
42:44
great. Giving them rights straight from the
42:46
first day of employment. Fantastic. I know
42:48
that the bill was also going to
42:50
propose the right to disconnect and I
42:53
think now that's... that's kind of been
42:55
dropped so that's kind of a shame
42:57
because again it's just assuming that our
42:59
free time should still be consumed by
43:01
work and also protecting workers that are
43:04
trying to unionize in their workplaces you
43:06
know in a lot of warehouses it
43:08
is extremely hard to unionize and you
43:10
know we've seen a few efforts in
43:12
the UK that so far haven't been
43:15
successful and they haven't been successful because
43:17
it is so hard. to get enough
43:19
numbers and then companies, you know, hire
43:21
a bunch of workers right at the
43:23
time when vote is happening to dilute
43:26
the vote. So yeah, it is it
43:28
is incredibly hard. And I feel like
43:30
those jobs are also seemed to be
43:32
designed. in a way that prevents people
43:34
from forming connections with their colleagues. The
43:37
breaks aren't long enough for people to
43:39
get to know each other. This was
43:41
something I heard a law. The turnover
43:43
is so high that people don't stay
43:46
in the job for long enough to
43:48
like form meaningful bonds and like trying
43:50
to fight for better working conditions. So
43:52
yeah, it's good if at least some
43:54
of these rights can be fought. from
43:57
the government for sure. I definitely had
43:59
a thought of being like, also I
44:01
pay them more. I sometimes read so
44:03
many pieces about being like, how do
44:05
we solve the in-work poverty crisis? I
44:08
think, well I've got an idea. You
44:10
could pay a little more. Groundbreaking. Yeah.
44:12
And also tax companies, you know, there's
44:14
a lot of money out there that
44:16
is, that could be taxed. Having spent
44:19
a long time immersed in this world,
44:21
meeting real people and all their problems
44:23
that they face, but also their human
44:25
beauty, their camaraderie, do you have hope
44:27
that things could get better if we
44:30
just know about them a little bit
44:32
more? Yeah, I do have hope. I
44:34
think, you know, part of the ending
44:36
of the film was a little bit
44:38
about that. a few pickers I was
44:41
in contact with got in touch in
44:43
this week to tell me that their
44:45
warehouses experienced these outages and that during
44:47
that time managers weren't sure when the
44:49
system was going to go back up.
44:52
So they just played games got to
44:54
know each other even like getting they
44:56
got to know each other's names Which
44:58
seemed like something so simple and yet
45:00
really humanizing and so to me that
45:03
moment I think represented something about how
45:05
you know the possibilities are there and
45:07
for us to like build another world
45:09
and to You know build a life
45:11
outside work and how you know the
45:14
world is an end if we stop
45:16
it and so it's a glimpse into
45:18
what could be an how easy and
45:20
quickly we could get there if you
45:22
know if there was will. It's a
45:25
really really touching beautiful ending given that
45:27
it's human connection that is what will
45:29
improve the life of workers both on
45:31
an emotional level but also in terms
45:33
of organizing. Are you in a union?
45:36
Like how have your union experience has
45:38
been? I am, I am part of
45:40
an union and it is good to
45:42
know that, you know, collectively we're fighting
45:44
for better rights within the industry because
45:47
it's also a really tough industry to
45:49
be part of. You know, it can
45:51
be precarious. It's also an industry that
45:53
has a lot of issues in terms
45:55
of, you know, accessing it. Yeah, and
45:58
I believe that, you know, being part
46:00
of the union helps us. kind of
46:02
tackle those things. Just for the listener,
46:04
I'm in too. Nice. Oh yes, it's
46:06
not a competition, but I am in
46:09
too. But you're winning. Exactly, I win.
46:11
Laura Carrera, thank you so much for
46:13
joining us on Potsave the
46:15
UK. Thank you. On Falling is
46:17
Out in Cinemas now, go and check
46:19
it out. So Nish. I know we
46:21
spoke about the King's playlist at the
46:24
top of the show. I can't let
46:26
it go. We have got to talk
46:28
about this. For anyone that's missed it,
46:30
he's done a collaboration with Apple Music
46:32
to release The King's Music Room that
46:34
features music from the Commonwealth. So I
46:36
don't know what you think about this is
46:38
a PR win. Some of the songs are,
46:40
you know, genuinely quite interesting. He's got Grace
46:42
Jones on there. He's got Bob Marley on
46:45
there. He's got... Anish Kachanka on
46:47
there who is your friend, Noneish?
46:49
Yeah, it's not, you don't necessarily expect
46:51
to see the Kingmaker playlist and recognize
46:54
one of the names on there. Yeah,
46:56
that was, all of that is a
46:58
bit of a surprise. I mean, listen,
47:01
so the premise of this is that
47:03
it's a King's playlist to cover songs
47:05
from Britain and the Commonwealth. And I
47:08
guess in lieu of returning the stolen
47:10
jewels that were taken from a lot
47:12
of these countries, they're just going to
47:15
have to make do with King Charles
47:17
putting, I guess, songs by people from
47:19
their countries on a playlist. I
47:21
think that is right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess
47:23
this is like in lieu of giving
47:25
back the Kona Diamond to India,
47:28
shunkers on a playlist. Oh
47:30
my god. That's the compensation for it.
47:32
Every country, if you demand, like
47:34
we need to get some Greek
47:36
musicians on there to avoid giving
47:39
the back the path of the
47:41
marbles. We might as well extend
47:43
out this program of playlist-based diplomacy.
47:45
I feel like we could do a
47:48
better job. So what do you think?
47:50
What would be a good, what
47:52
would be some cool tunes for
47:54
the alternative King's playlist? Well, obviously,
47:56
God save the Queen by the sex
47:58
pistols, surely. is it? there. I mean
48:00
maybe like the the the National Anthem by
48:02
radiohead is an alternative National Anthem. Vossie
48:05
Bob by Stormsey just because it would
48:07
be funny for the king to include
48:09
in his playlist a song that's a
48:11
song that features the King to include
48:14
in his playlist a song that features
48:16
the line Fuck the government and Fuck
48:18
Boris. Surely you were going to put
48:20
forward some Bob Dylan I mean I'm
48:22
surprised at you. I'm always putting forward
48:24
Bob Dylan Coco I'm always putting putting
48:27
forward Bob Bob Dylan I'm going to
48:29
tell. the Bob Dylan Centre, which is
48:31
the largest collection of Bob Dylan's
48:33
papers in the entire world. Anything
48:35
like Times Zero Changing, Only A
48:37
Port in their Game, Slimes of Death
48:39
of Hattie Carroll, these would all be
48:41
interesting songs to a stick in there.
48:43
There's about 10 songs he wrote that
48:45
are, my girlfriend's gone on holiday to
48:47
Italy and I'm sad, and the rest
48:49
of them are all, rich people are
48:52
the worst, racism is awful. we've got
48:54
to get rid of all of
48:56
these useless people that are doing
48:58
all of these terrible things to
49:00
us. That's basically a curt summation
49:02
of most of Bob Dylan's recorded
49:04
output between 1962 and 1965. I
49:07
took it really seriously, this challenge,
49:09
and I've got some suggestions. You
49:11
can veto them if you want,
49:13
but don't, right? Sure. Okay, so,
49:16
uh, Kelly Clarkson's, because of you.
49:18
That song, incidentally, is about a
49:20
child who will not make the
49:22
same mistakes as their parents. So,
49:24
what do you think? He lived in
49:27
the Queen's Shadow, right? Yeah, that
49:29
would be good. That would be a
49:31
positive song for him to sing,
49:33
I think. Okay. Destiny's Childs, Bill's,
49:35
Bill's, Bill's, Bill's, because the chorus
49:38
is like, you know, can you
49:40
pay my telephone bills, which is
49:42
basically his message to the public.
49:44
I mean, we'd say something. From
49:46
Australia Midnight Oil beds are burning as
49:48
a song about the theft of indigenous
49:51
land. Yeah great but I'm very aboard with
49:53
that. So apparently we are actually going to
49:55
make this into a genuine playlist so if
49:57
you want to have a listen to the
49:59
songs... Genuine playlist. We're going to make
50:01
it into a genuine playlist. We're not
50:03
going to... Ride my pony, King Charles!
50:06
Yeah, but PodSafe UK is not going
50:08
to put out our bespoke genuine playlist.
50:10
Oh my god, that would be so
50:12
good if it was just... Ride in
50:14
my pony is excellent for a King
50:16
Charles playlist. He's a horsey guy, no? And
50:20
that's it. Thanks for listening to
50:22
PodSafe the UK and a reminder that
50:24
we want your questions for our upcoming
50:27
mailbag special. If you've got a burning
50:29
question, for Nish and me, drop us
50:31
a line at PSUK at ReduceListening .co .uk.
50:33
We'll be pulling these out in a
50:35
couple of weeks and check out our
50:37
show notes if you want to hear
50:39
our counter -programming for the King's playlist.
50:42
Don't forget to follow at PodSafe the
50:44
UK on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter and
50:46
we're on Blue Sky now too. Follow
50:48
us at PodSafeTheUK .Crooked.com and if you
50:50
want more of us make sure you're
50:52
subscribed to the YouTube channel. PodSafe the
50:54
UK is a reduced listening production for
50:56
Crooked Media. Thanks to senior producer James
50:59
Tyndale and producer May Robson. Our theme
51:01
music is by Vasilis Fotopoulis. The executive
51:03
producers are Will Yates, Tanya Hines,
51:05
Madeline Herringer and Katie Long with additional
51:07
support from R .E. Schwartz. And remember to
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