This episode of John Richardson, the Future Norrisons, has brought you from the end of a very long night for John Richardson.

Please bear this in mind as you consume the following.

Hey, listen, if we start issuing caveats every time one of us is tired and slightly afraid at the start of a podcast,

we're going to have to go back and reinsert a lot of stuff, right?

Actually, many of our listeners would have assumed that you've been partying, but actually you've been working very hard on a secret project, so that's why you've been up on this. Yeah, grafting, mate. But, you know, what's the difference to him work and partying in my life, right? Well, yeah, I mean, you know, as a celebrity, that's how we imagine that, you know, the two are intrinsically intertwined.

Series 6, episode 6 of John Richardson and the Future Nots, and we do start with big news. Exciting, really hopeful. After last week's episode, where we were talked about how things are changing and getting better and we don't always hear about it. I think, Ed, you should lead on this one, given your future

political ambitions. Well, I mean, it was very ironic. So I'm standing as a Green Party

County Councillor in my neck of the woods in South Norfolk. And on the very first day that I go

out canvassing, we get a by-election result like that with the extraordinary win for Hannah Spencer, the plumber

in Gorton and Denton. So, yeah, I woke up with a huge smile on my face this morning because

it wasn't just a win. I mean, she won by 4,000 votes. So it really was a vindication, I think,

of... And there's only 2,000 people that live in that area. So it's extraordinary.

Yeah. Well, they cheated, of course, according to Nigel Fras.

I mean, this is the Steve Bannon playbook coming out straight away, isn't it?

It's like, we're going to see so much of this where, you know, if you lose,

then you get the accusations of fraud or meddling, you know.

And I think it's going

to get vicious because they don't like it when actually people stand up for values and then defeat

them on those values. I mean, Matt Goodwin said something like, oh, we were beaten by a whole

bunch of wokes and progressives and ethnic minorities. It's like, well,

hurrah. Welcome to 21st century Britain, Mr. Goodwin. Good. But I don't think that playbook's going to work very well in the UK because I think there's something in the British sensibilities accusing people of cheating. When you lost, you just come across as a bit of a twat. I think it's also in the teeth of this complete moral collapse of the government we were tacitly welcoming in 18 months ago.

They've turned their governing into a bleak piece of performance art where they're consistently

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