Can politics survive a post-truth world? with Armando Iannucci | Westminster Reimagined

Daily Politics from the New Statesman

The New Statesman

News & Politics, Society & Culture, News, Politics

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 25 November 2022

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The writer, satirist and broadcaster Armando Iannucci returns to the New Statesman Podcast to co-host our third series of Westminster Reimagined. In six special episodes Iannucci explores parts of British public life he believes to be broken, and is joined by guests from inside and outside Westminster to work out how to fix things.

In this episode, Iannucci and Anoosh Chakelian, the New Statesman’s Britain editor, look at how politics can operate in a post-truth world. Is there any way to counter misinformation and disinformation? And what effect are they having on our politicians and elections?

Our special guests are James Ball, journalist and author of Post-Truth: How Bullshit Conquered the World, and Mae Dobbs, a digital campaigner who worked on the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Plus, we hear from former BBC executive Pat Younge on how the broadcaster could do much more to tackle a culture of outright lying among politicians.

The panel discusses whether objective news really is now harder to find or whether it’s always been difficult, the extent to which social media is making things worse, and what can be done to tackle the problem.

Podcast listeners can subscribe to the New Statesman for just £1 a week for 12 weeks using our special offer: visit newstatesman.com/podcastoffer to learn more

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is a paid advert from BetterHelp. At the New Statesman, I've been working with the data team
0:04.8	to look into mental health in the UK. We found something really shocking. The number of people
0:09.4	since before the pandemic, who say they suffer from mental health issues because of work,
0:13.2	has almost doubled. If you're thinking about giving therapy a try, BetterHelp is a great option.
0:18.6	It's therapy online that has served more than 3 million people around the world,
0:22.0	and is now available in the UK to make therapy both affordable and accessible.
0:26.3	It's available via video, phone, or even just message chat, so you don't need to see someone
0:30.4	on camera if you don't want to. No waiting rooms, no commutes. BetterHelp is not an emergency
0:35.7	service, but can help with the day-to-day issues we're talking to a trained person can make a big
0:39.8	difference. With over a thousand therapists in the UK already, BetterHelp can provide access
0:45.3	to mental health professionals with a wide variety of expertise. The New Statesman podcast is sponsored
0:50.4	by BetterHelp, and listeners can get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash New
0:56.0	Statesman. That's BetterHELP.com slash New Statesman. The New Statesman.
1:11.3	Hello, I'm Anouche. And I'm Arrando. In this episode of Westminsterier
1:15.4	Imagined, we'll be joined by May Dobs, political campaigner and digital strategist,
1:19.9	and James Ball, investigative journalist and author of Post Truth, How Bullshit Conquered the
1:25.9	World. Both have tracked the rise of post-truth and misinformation and can give us an insight into
1:30.0	the effect it's having on our politics. We ask if the UK is now fully in a post-truth world
1:35.2	and how we can counter it. Now, Arrando, I was looking this up. I thought the term post-truth
1:44.8	politics was first applied to Britain during the EU referendum campaign when we had all of those
1:49.2	sort of souped-up promises from the leave camp, but actually it was in the run-up to the Scottish
1:54.4	independence referendum, which I do remember is quite nasty. I remember Nick Robinson, who was then
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New Statesman, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The New Statesman and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.