New MPs, new government... new politics?
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 11 July 2024
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s Keir Starmer’s first full week in government and he’s already facing an impending crisis: overflowing prisons.
Amol and Nick speak to the former justice secretary Alex Chalk, who tells us what his successor, Shabana Mahmood, should do to fix it.
Journalist and podcaster Helen Lewis swings by to assess Labour’s first week and the Conservative leadership race.
And – what a row over an AI candidate who turned out to be real says about the way rumours circulate via direct messaging.
If you have a question you’d like to Amol and Nick 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 continue to land twice a week post-election and look out for bonus Q&A episodes. Subscribe on BBC Sounds to get Amol and Nick's take on the new government, 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 any time on your smart speaker by saying “Smart Speaker, ask BBC Sounds to play The Today Podcast.”
The producer is Izzy Rowley, the editor is Tom Smithard. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths. Research and digital production from Joe Wilkinson, technical production from Hannah Montgomery.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:04.8 | It really wasn't a surprise, let alone a shock to most people that Labor won the election, |
| 0:10.0 | but the sight of that many Labour MPs in that photograph with Kirstama, |
| 0:15.6 | and then crowding way beyond the government benches, |
| 0:19.0 | simply not enough seats for them in the House of Commons, |
| 0:21.6 | filling that in a tiny number in comparison of Conservative MPs really brought it home this week. |
| 0:28.3 | This was the week we really knew that power had changed hands. |
| 0:32.1 | Yep, and with that power and with leadership comes the need to make decisions, decisions about who you appoint, |
| 0:39.4 | hard decisions about policy choices. |
| 0:44.5 | And to quote someone else who's popped up this week, Tony Blair, when you decide, you divide. |
| 0:48.0 | And that's the nature of politics and government as opposed to opposition. |
| 0:53.2 | And some of the time, those decisions are not ones you want to take, they're ones that you're forced to take. |
| 0:54.9 | And one of the surprising ones that is going to be taken probably this week is about prisons. They don't do something |
| 1:00.9 | about prisons policy. The prisons are going to get overcrowded. Not theoretically, not one day, |
| 1:06.5 | maybe, not perhaps in five years time, this summer. There's a decision to be taken. |
| 1:11.8 | And we're going to be discussing that with the man who was Justice Secretary until just a matter of days ago. |
| 1:16.2 | Alex Chalk, who didn't just lose his job, he also lost his seat, but has got lots of interesting things to say. |
| 1:22.7 | Great guests for us to have. |
| 1:23.9 | So new MPs, new government, new politics, and a new podcast. |
| 1:28.1 | Let's do it. |
| 1:44.5 | Hello, it's Amol in the Today Podcast Studio. And it is Nick, alongside you. |
| 2:17.7 | We've got an important update, haven't we, from one of our listeners? Oh, indeed. Cross-stitch update. Alex sent an amazing cross-stitch in, which we're going to have an update on my Instagram later. But basically, we've got a second listener who cross-stitched the election map of the UK. Leah from Derby, hello Leah, sent us a picture of her completed map after being inspired by the efforts of Alex, who we last heard from on, I think it was maybe a petrol station or somewhere on the M4 heading to Wales. And Alex had done a heroic little cross-stitch, but she mostly focused on the West Country. Well, we've been promised an update from Alex, |
... |
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