New Year, New World?

TALKING POLITICS

Catherine Carr

News, News & Politics

4.7 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 7 January 2021

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David and Helen look at what's changed - and what hasn't - since we last spoke, from Brexit to Biden to Covid. Has the Brexit deal really given the UK a chance to do things differently? Do Democrat wins in the Georgia Senate races open up new possibilities for Biden? What is at stake in the politics of vaccination? Plus, we talk about where things now stand for the future of the Union.

*Recorded before the events in Washington on Wednesday *

Talking Points:

What can the UK do that it couldn’t do before Brexit?

From the start, the two biggest issues for Cameron were freedom of movement and financial services regulation.
For the City, Brexit is a tradeoff. Although financial services will not be regulated in the EU, the American investment banks in London are unhappy about being shut out of equivalence for trading.
Johnson is talking about innovation and dynamism. He doesn’t seem willing to say it’s about migration and the City of London.

Northern Ireland and Scotland will both be key questions that we will talk about in greater depth this year.

There will be a growing sense of Northern Ireland’s separateness. The deal creates opportunities and risks for the government in Dublin.
A trade deal changes what Scottish independence would mean.

Meanwhile, in the USA… the Democrats now have control of the Senate.

This election could indicate the potential of a remarkable new coalition for the Democratic party.
Or it could indicate a future where everything is contested.
What can Biden get done before the next midterms?
During the Obama years, the Republicans were extremely effective at voting as an oppositional bloc.
Holding the Democratic senators together won’t be easy and Biden will not be able to blame oppositional Republicans for any failure to get things done.
However a key benefit for the Democrats is that they will be able to confirm nominees.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Further Learning:

And as ever, recommended reading curated by our friends at the LRB can be found here: lrb.co.uk/talking

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, my name is David Ronserman and this is Talking Politics 2021. It still feels quite
0:16.4	a lot like 2020, but maybe not for much longer.
0:23.6	Talking Politics is brought to you in partnership with the London reviewer books. If you enjoy
0:28.3	listening to Talking Politics, you'll definitely enjoy reading the LRB. That's why they publish
0:33.9	a reading list of relevant writing from the archive to a company every episode on
0:38.5	lrb.co.uk and also why you, Talking Politics listeners, are invited to subscribe for just
0:46.6	one pound of an issue via the url lrb.me slash talk.
0:53.7	Talking Politics in partnership with the London reviewer books.
1:00.7	So today for our first episode for the new year, I'm talking with Helen Thompson and we're going to try and just look ahead a little bit to some of the big themes coming up.
1:05.7	There's a lot of fun to watch.
1:13.7	So today for our first episode for the new year, I'm talking with Helen Thompson and we're going to try and just look ahead a little bit to some of the big themes coming up.
1:21.7	There's a lot going on as usual. There's a lot going on even this morning.
1:26.7	We're going to get to the Georgia Senate results in a bit. We're going to call them as results, even though the votes are still being counted as they always seem to be.
1:33.7	In American politics, maybe they're going to be counted forever.
1:37.7	Helen, when did we last speak about three weeks ago?
1:41.7	I think.
1:45.7	We haven't spoken since the Brexit trade agreement if that's where you're heading.
1:49.7	That is where I'm heading.
1:51.7	And whatever kind of time we're in now, that's one of the ways we can date it.
1:55.7	So we'll start with Brexit. Of course, we're also in a new lockdown.
1:59.7	That's happened since we last spoke. Brexit. Finally, we have a deal.
2:05.7	We've been waiting for it for so long.
	...

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