What Britain won't face
6/1/202627 min
While Westminster looks inward, the world is moving fast. Keir Starmer's government needs to focus on the urgent changes affecting all of our lives.
Tom McTague joins Anoosh Chakelian to discuss his latest essay for the New Statesman, and answer listeners questions.
This week, listeners ask: "Why have British politicians been so useless for the past 20 years?" and "is it finally time for voting reform?"
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First 90 secondsAnoosh Chakelian· Host0:00
[electronic music] The New Statesman. Hello, I'm Anoosh Chakelian, and this is The Politics Show from the New Statesman, listener questions edition. With me is the New Statesman's editor, Tom McTague. Hello, Tom.
Tom McTague· Guest0:11
Hello.
Anoosh Chakelian· Host0:11
We've got a couple of questions this week which speak very much to the topic of your latest cover story for the New Statesman titled, What Britain Won't Face. Before we take our first question, just talk me through the premise of your essay, because it was a bit of an essay crisis week, wasn't it? [laughs] A lot of people were writing essays.
Tom McTague· Guest0:28
Yeah, I feel like I maybe timed this, uh, this essay wrong, uh, or, or badly, because it was, uh, it landed the same day as, uh, as Tony Blair's [laughs] which was sort of- [laughs] ... I felt slightly blown out of the water.
Anoosh Chakelian· Host0:40
Well, it was much more elegantly written, Tom- Okay ... if there's any consolation.
Tom McTague· Guest0:43
[laughs] Well, there's, there's a lesson for journalists out there. It doesn't matter how elegantly written it is.
Anoosh Chakelian· Host0:47
[laughs] Yeah.
Tom McTague· Guest0:47
You gotta, you gotta have the scoop. [laughs] You gotta have the celebrity. Um, no, I, I, I think w- strangely actually reading, uh, Tony Blair's and mine, I felt that we were, uh, thinking at least about the same kind of subjects.
Anoosh Chakelian· Host1:00
Mm.
Tom McTague· Guest1:00
Thinking about the sense of, you know, political crisis, the s- the crisis of leadership, and the sense that so much of the discussion that goes on is almost irrelevant to the, uh, to the sort of fundamental problems facing the country. And I, and I think that was the, the basis of the essay. Like, I'd spent a week, um, having these meetings, a, a kind of unusually busy week for me actually in Westminster where I was having various, uh, one-to-ones