Jon Stewart & Armando Iannucci: has the special relationship become a kiss of death? | Westminster Reimagined
Daily Politics from the New Statesman
The New Statesman
4.4 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 November 2022
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The legendary writer, satirist and broadcaster Armando Iannucci returns to the New Statesman Podcast to co-host our third series of Westminster Reimagined. Across six special episodes, Iannucci explores parts of British public life he believes to be broken, and is joined by guests from both inside and outside the Westminster world to work out how to fix things.
In this episode, the American satirist and broadcaster Jon Stewart and British radio presenter turned Arizona podcaster Sam Walker join Iannucci and Anoosh Chakelian, the New Statesman’s Britain editor, to compare US and UK politics. They discuss whether the chaos and division of US political life is a warning for the UK, and whether discourse in Britain is heading in a similar direction.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, it's Anouche here. Just before we start, this episode of Westminster Reimagined |
| 0:09.9 | does include some strong language, so if you have children in the room, then just be |
| 0:13.8 | aware. |
| 0:14.8 | Hello, I'm Anouche. And I'm Amanda. And in this episode of Westminster Reimagined, |
| 0:23.7 | we'll be joined by John Stuart, comedian, satirist and popcaster and Sam Walker, journalist |
| 0:29.0 | and broadcaster who's moved from Manchester to Arizona. Both cover politics and see |
| 0:33.8 | how similar and how different we are from our neighbours across the pond. We ask if British |
| 0:38.4 | politics is becoming more American, or if we're lesser like than we like to admit. |
| 0:43.6 | Now, Amanda, there is a bit of an obsession in UK politics with the US. Everyone seems |
| 0:51.7 | to make West Wing references all the time, and often we use the language as well of US |
| 0:56.9 | politics from the word woke to slogans like defund the police. And you've got phrases |
| 1:01.5 | like let Boris be Boris, which comes from let Reagan be Reagan and midterm blues for |
| 1:05.6 | local council elections. |
| 1:07.6 | Power outages is a new one that's made its way in, sort of just power cuts. But it's more |
| 1:12.8 | than a succession act. We were told after Brexit that we'll be able to do this amazing |
| 1:16.7 | trade deals, and the top of the list would be a fantastic trade deal with America. Now, |
| 1:22.4 | that's looking very unlikely now. And I think this throws a spotlight on how over obsessed |
| 1:29.0 | British politicians have become with America. As if we're going to be more economically healthy, |
| 1:34.4 | the closer ties we have to America than with Europe and the rest of the world. So I thought |
| 1:39.4 | it would be useful to speak to two people who are in the front line of commentary on US |
| 1:45.0 | politics, one of whom has had, is British to see just what's coming our way, given that |
| 1:51.6 | we tend to have politicians who ape what they watch on American television. |
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