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On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti

Modern conservatism and its discontents in Britain

On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti

WBUR

News, On Point, Npr, Talk Show, Daily

4.33.9K Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2022

⏱️ 49 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Britain is on Prime Minister number three, in just the past two months. What's going on with Britain's conservative party, and with the nation they've been elected to lead? Emily Maitlis and Jack Beatty join Meghna Chakrabarti.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is on point. I'm Megna Chakrabardi.

0:08.8

Conservative party leader Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister of Great Britain on Tuesday.

0:14.2

Yesterday in a typically raucous session of Prime Minister's questions in the British

0:18.2

Parliament, Labour leader Kier Starmer lobbed this at the new PM.

0:22.6

Even his own side knows he's not on the side of working people.

0:26.8

That's why the only time he ran in a competitive election, he got trounced by the former Prime

0:32.7

Minister, who herself got beaten by a lettuce.

0:37.4

The Pithy produce mention was in reference to the newly former Prime Minister, Liz Truss,

0:43.2

whose leadership was on shaky ground from the moment of her election on September 6th.

0:47.9

Her Primeership fell apart so quickly. On October 14th, Britain's daily star tabloid went

0:54.1

to the supermarket and bought a head of lettuce. They put some Google eyes on a blonde wig on

0:59.4

it and put a 24-7 live stream on it and the question could the lettuce outlast Truss?

1:06.0

In the end, it did. She announced her resignation last Friday and officially served a mere 48

1:12.4

days as Prime Minister, which brings us back to now Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

1:18.0

The third Prime Minister of Great Britain, after Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, in just two months.

1:24.4

However, even in the face of Starmer's lettuce joke, Sunak would not wilt.

1:30.2

Mr. Speaker, he talks about mandates, about votes, about elections. It's a bit rich coming

1:35.6

from the person who tried to overturn the biggest democratic party in all countries history.

1:43.9

The Prime Minister is based on a manifesto that we were elected on to remind him an election

1:49.5

that we won and they lost.

1:53.3

Biting humor has long been a part of British politics, but our guest today believes it's

1:58.3

not funny anymore. That beneath the wit and theater, there's a deeper force, a chaos

...

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