54: War of Position (with Andy Beckett)
The Alexei Sayle Podcast
Alexei Sayle and Talal Karkouti
4.8 • 610 Ratings
🗓️ 9 September 2024
⏱️ 80 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The book covers 5 rebel Labour MPs and their journeys through the growing and changing Britain around them. Featuring top-tier interruptions by Wilf the cat.
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The Alexei Sayle Podcast is produced and edited by Talal Karkouti
Music by Tarboosh Records
Photograph from the Andy Hollingworth Archive
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everybody. Welcome to episode 54 of the Alexis Hale podcast. And this week in a break between comedians, we have Andy Beckett. |
| 0:17.5 | Andy Beckett is a guardian columnist and also a kind of historian of the |
| 0:21.9 | post-war era in Britain and he's just published a book called The Searchers, which is about |
| 0:27.9 | five socialists, really Tony Ben, Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott, John McDonnell and maybe it's four. |
| 0:37.1 | Ken Livingston, Ken Livingston. |
| 0:39.1 | Yeah. |
| 0:40.2 | And it's just, you know, if you're interested in Labor history and, you know, social history, it's a fascinating read. |
| 0:48.1 | I forgot to point this out to Andy Beckett, but I, you know, one of the things I'm doing podcasts is you can get free books really, but I had already bought the book and, oh no, you do mention that. Oh, do I? Yeah. You made that clear at the beginning. Oh, did I? Oh, okay. All right. I didn't realize. All right. I suppose that's quite a nice thing for an author to hear. Yeah. |
| 1:11.6 | Yeah, I bought his book. |
| 1:12.8 | Pay me with my own money. |
| 1:15.5 | So, let's go on with it. |
| 1:17.6 | Andy Beckett. |
| 1:18.1 | Thank you. So my guest today is Andy Beckett, a journalist, guardian journalist and social historian historian, would you say? |
| 1:40.8 | Yeah, I think I can just about get away with that. |
| 1:42.7 | I have to say that if you go to the bathroom, there is a book in there by, I don't know if he's your nemesis, Dave Kynaston, who occupies perhaps. I think similar territory to you, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I can, more right wing. Yeah, I mean, he's doing that mega project, isn't it, |
| 2:01.3 | of going through British history, like, you know, in little chunks. Right, is he? I mean, I've only read a bit of his stuff. I think he's very good. He's always very friendly when he meets me, but maybe in private he has contempt for my kind of less academic style. I don't know. well you know it's |
| 2:17.0 | I mean |
| 2:18.7 | well I don't know it's a long time |
| 2:20.8 | since I've read style, I don't know. Well, you know, it's, I mean, well, I don't know. |
| 2:20.1 | It's a long time since I've read any of his stuff. |
| 2:23.6 | I've got austerity, Britain. |
| 2:24.9 | But you wrote, I think the last thing I read of yours was, promised you, a miracle. |
... |
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