Bonus Q&A – 'None of the Above' on ballot papers & election night cliché bingo.
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 2 July 2024
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Should there be an alternative to voting for the least-worst candidate? Why are we obsessed by cult of personality politicians? And what are the election night words to avoid?
Amol and Nick return with another bonus question and answer episode as The Today Podcast prepares for polling day.
If you have a question you’d like to Amol, Nick and the Pod Squad to answer get in touch by sending us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to +44 330 123 4346 or email us Today@bbc.co.uk
Episodes of The Today Podcast during the election campaign land on Mondays and Wednesdays. Look out for bonus episodes like this one. Subscribe on BBC Sounds to get Amol and Nick's reaction to the election results this Friday, with insights from behind the scenes at the UK's most influential radio news programme.
The Today Podcast is hosted by Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson, both presenters of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the UK’s most influential radio news programme. Amol was the BBC’s media editor for six years and is the former editor of the Independent, he’s also the current presenter of University Challenge. Nick has presented the Today programme since 2015, he was the BBC’s political editor for ten years before that and also previously worked as ITV’s political editor.
You can listen to the latest episode of The Today Podcast anytime on your smart speaker by saying “Alexa, Ask BBC Sounds for The Today Podcast.”
The senior producer is Tom Smithard, the researcher and digital producer is Joe Wilkinson, the producer is Hazel Morgan. The editor is Louisa Lewis. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths. Technical production from Jack Graysmark.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:04.8 | Hello, it's Amol. |
| 0:06.0 | And it's Nick, and we've got a bonus election week Q&A for you. |
| 0:10.3 | Yep, so many questions coming in from all of you lovely listeners. |
| 0:13.3 | It's almost crashing the BBC servers, |
| 0:15.9 | buckling under the weight of your interest in this podcast, which is really humbling. |
| 0:20.0 | So, let's do it. |
| 0:21.0 | Now, one of the things I haven't been able to do enough in this election campaign, |
| 0:36.9 | but the little I've done, I've enjoyed, always do, is to get out of London, to get out of studios, to not just |
| 0:44.4 | sit in political meetings, listening to politicians, give speeches, but to meet voters, because |
| 0:50.8 | the more you do that, the more you get a sense of what is really driving the way in which |
| 0:55.8 | people are voting. The candidates have seemed extremely reticent about doing that, very controlled |
| 1:03.2 | environments that most of them are operating in, very few of what we used to call the walk about. |
| 1:07.9 | I suspect because they're worried about the risk of one thing going |
| 1:11.0 | wrong, becoming a social media clip, and running very hard with millions of people watching it, |
| 1:16.5 | many more than watch the original clip on the TV. Maybe that's one of the reasons we got this |
| 1:20.9 | first question we'll think about today. Good morning. I'm all in Nick. My name's Debra. My husband, |
| 1:26.4 | Peter and I attended the hostings in Bolton on Monday the 24th of June. |
| 1:31.3 | I suggested to Nick that I would like to see a none of the above option as they have in Australia on the ballot paper. |
| 1:38.3 | From having spoken to lots of people, family, employees and friends, one of the strong themes is that none of us are tired of politics, |
| 1:46.0 | but we are tired of politicians. Perhaps having the chance to show this and be counted by voting |
| 1:53.0 | none of the above would encourage more people to make the effort, get out and vote, and be counted. |
... |
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