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Coffee House Shots

Do chess players make for better politicians?

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Daily News, Politics

4.42.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 August 2023

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Rishi Sunak is apparently looking to expand the teaching of chess in schools, and to install chess sets in public parks, and will unveil the policy alongside a giant chessboard in the No. 10 garden. What is the Prime Minister thinking? And what does it say about Sunak’s idea of education? 

Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, a former special adviser and Westminster chess hustler.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:06.1

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0:11.7

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0:15.4

Go to spectator.co.uk slash summer.

0:22.8

Hello and welcome to this Saturday edition of Coffee House Shots.

0:25.9

I'm Cindy Yu and I'm joined by Katie Bulls and today we have a special guest.

0:29.7

Jamie and Draco Goodwin. Jamie is the head of UK Music where listeners might have

0:34.4

heard him promoting the music industry in Westminster and beyond and he is also a former

0:39.2

special adviser in the department for health. But we got Jamie on today because of his love for

0:43.8

chess. He's actually a self-described chess hustler. Katie the reason we're talking about this

0:49.7

is because it has been reported that the government is about to make an announcement

0:54.9

increasing chess playing and introducing chess even more into British life. Tell us about

1:00.1

what they've got planned. Well we know where she selects loves maths because he wants everyone

1:05.3

to learn it up to 18 and that was part of his leadership campaign and something that they've

1:10.4

talked about since then. He is now moving to chess which of course is a great lesson in logic,

1:17.2

strategy and so forth and also I think perhaps having an analytical mind is that fair?

1:22.0

Definitely absolutely. Great okay we got there. I don't want to say about me because I'm not

1:25.8

as good of chess as Jamie. But we did watch Queen's Gambit. We like that didn't we Katie?

1:31.2

Yeah and look I can play a bit of chess. It's just Jamie is into speed chess which I think

1:35.3

is an unfair way of doing it almost but that's probably for a different podcast. Anyway so the

1:41.2

the government plan is effectively to announce half a million pounds of funding for chess and then

1:46.6

this will be used for major support for the England's men and women in national chess teams

...

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