Rocket around the Christmas Tree!
Planet Normal
Louisa Wells
4.7 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 25 December 2025
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s a Merry Christmas from the Rocket of right thinking at Planet Normal to everyone stuck on Planet Earth
Your intrepid co-pilots reflect on a year of political thrills and economic spills, honouring the "citizens of Planet Normal" while handing out awards to the figures in public life who impressed - and those who most certainly did not.
Amidst the Christmas cheer, your hosts offer a heartfelt thank you to their "intelligent and inspired" listeners for their tireless contributions throughout a tough year, before signing off with a promise of more wit, reason, and levity when the podcast returns in mid-January.
The festive spirit is bolstered by a special interview with British tennis star and Wimbledon doubles champion Henry Patten who straps in to tell us what a Wimbledon champion has for Christmas Dinner and shares his journey from the grass courts to the top of the sporting world.
Sign up to our most popular newsletter, From the Editor. Look forward to receiving free-thinking comment and the day's biggest stories, every morning. telegraph.co.uk/fromtheeditor |
Read Allison 'Non-crime hate incidents may be gone, but don’t expect the police to stop censoring you': https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/23/good-riddance-to-non-crime-hate-incidents/ |
Read more from Allison: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/a/ak-ao/allison-pearson/ |
Read Liam ‘Why I’m not cheering the pre-Christmas rate cut’: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/12/21/why-im-not-cheering-the-pre-christmas-rate-cut/ |
Read more from Liam: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/liam-halligan/ |
Read Liam’s Substack: https://liamhalligan.substack.com/ |
Read Tim Sigsworth ‘Father Christmas is ‘too white’’: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/21/santas-naughty-list-too-colonial-museum/ |
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Telegraph. |
| 0:09.1 | We hoped, didn't we, Liam, that Woke was in retreat this year. |
| 0:14.2 | But, you know, coming up with the late entry for Ludacristness, yes, the Brighton and Hove Museum. |
| 0:20.6 | Four. |
| 0:21.8 | When I'm in the UK, we've always gone to my granny and grandpas for, you know, |
| 0:26.7 | big Christmas lunch, see the whole family. |
| 0:28.9 | Three. |
| 0:30.3 | Robert Generic has almost single-handedly redefined what a Conservative Minister can do. |
| 0:39.0 | I'll need to frame it because I can't spend it because no one takes cash anymore. |
| 0:47.0 | Welcome once again to Planet Normal, the telegraph podcast with Alison Pearson. |
| 0:54.8 | Hello. There she is, there Telegraph podcast with Alison Pearson. Hello. |
| 0:55.6 | There she is, there she is. |
| 0:57.7 | A subdued, hello. |
| 0:59.0 | And me, Liam Halligan. |
| 1:00.8 | Happy Christmas to Planet Normal citizens and of course to you, dear co-pilot Pearson. |
| 1:05.5 | This is our last voyage on the rocket of right thinking of 2025 as we huddle up in our flying refuge of reasoned views |
| 1:12.7 | to spend a while at least away from the madness of planet Earth on our beloved planet normal. |
| 1:18.5 | It's been quite a year and over the next hour of news and views from beyond the bubble, |
| 1:22.8 | we'll be looking back at the thrills and spills of 2025 and assess what's over the horizon in the new year. |
| 1:29.1 | We'll be naming some award winners, those in public life who've impressed and not impressed, |
| 1:33.9 | those deemed worthy of Planet Normal citizenship, and those not. |
| 1:38.0 | We'll be discussing good news, some tough news, of course, these are tough times. |
... |
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