Political F-bombs and Jacob Rees-Mogg “unbuttoned”
The Politics Show
The New Statesman
4.2 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 25 April 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The inevitability of the Peter Mandelson scandal, Jacob Rees-Mogg’s live show, and the rising cost of condoms…
Will Dunn and Anoosh Chakelian round up the stories of the week.
READ: https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2026/04/whos-afraid-of-olly-robbins
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/the-sketch/2026/04/jacob-rees-mogg-relishes-the-limelight
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The New Statesman. |
| 0:05.2 | I'm Anusha Kellyan and you're listening to The Politics Show from The New Statesman. |
| 0:09.5 | I'm here with my colleague Will Dunn for our usual weekly roundup. |
| 0:12.9 | Hi Will. |
| 0:13.3 | Hello. |
| 0:14.2 | Our first category this week is political F-bomb of the week. |
| 0:18.3 | Which F-bomb have you chosen? |
| 0:20.3 | So I have chosen |
| 0:21.7 | just fucking approve it. |
| 0:25.3 | That's not me |
| 0:26.9 | to the sub-editors. |
| 0:30.7 | On a Tuesday evening. |
| 0:31.8 | You're not supposed to read out your notes |
| 0:33.0 | to the producers. |
| 0:33.9 | When the news takes |
| 0:34.8 | when goes to press. |
| 0:37.2 | That is allegedly, it has been denied, but allegedly the former Chiefs of |
| 0:43.2 | Staff Morgan McSweeney, who was reported to have phoned up Sir Philip Barton of the Foreign |
| 0:53.4 | Office and used those words, as was described in this week's appearance by Olly Robbins, the former permanent secretary to the Foreign Office when he spoke to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee this week on the appointment of Peter |
| 1:12.5 | Mandelson as US ambassador. So McSweeney has said that he didn't make that call and he didn't |
| 1:20.1 | swear at Philip Barton. But the atmosphere of pressure that Olly Robbins described is, I guess, that statement really sums it up, that that was very much the feeling that they were getting from within number 10. |
| 1:35.7 | Ollie Robbins was quite classy about this and didn't name a lot of names. |
... |
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