Strangeland: Jon Sopel on how Britain stopped making sense
The News Agents
Global
4.2 • 4.3K Ratings
🗓️ 4 October 2024
⏱️ 38 minutes
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Summary
After eight years as North America Editor Jon returned home to the UK, but things weren't quite as he had left them.
In his book, Strangeland, Jon recounts what it was like in the US, looking back to the UK - and the strange feeling when he returned home to realise that either Britain had changed, or he had. Lewis sits down with Jon to discuss just how much the British political landscape has changed over the past 10 years.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.4 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:11.9 | Did you know that John has a book out? |
| 0:15.7 | No, I was only dimly aware of it myself. |
| 0:18.0 | You wouldn't know it from the great man staccanovite work ethic on this |
| 0:21.4 | podcast, but somehow he has found the time in between recordings to write his latest tome, |
| 0:26.9 | Strangeland, how Britain stopped making sense. And after weeks of tense negotiations with our |
| 0:33.0 | lawyers, we've come to an agreement. If we give him this one episode where he can talk to us about it at length |
| 0:39.6 | without too many mocking remarks, then he'll never mention it again. And they say that some |
| 0:45.7 | contracts aren't worth the paper they're written on. In all seriousness, it's a great book from one of |
| 0:50.1 | Britain's great broadcasters, tying together 40 years of thoughts on politics, where we've |
| 0:55.1 | been, where we're going. And given so many themes of the book, most of all, the mutations in our |
| 1:01.3 | liberal democratic policies are those we talk about most and think about most on the podcast. |
| 1:06.8 | It seemed remiss not to have the man himself in for a rare Friday appearance to talk about what it is he wants to say, |
| 1:14.1 | why we must guard the politics we have far more zealously than we have been. |
| 1:19.4 | Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:23.9 | The news agents. |
| 1:25.7 | Right, John, so obviously the deal for this is that we do this and Strangeland, or I'm sat in Emily's chair, so Strangeland in Her Honor, is never mentioned again? Is that, is that right? Is that what we've, is that what we've agreed? I think I have had to sign in blood that I never, ever mentioned the book again as a result of it. Why don't I believe you? Why don't I believe? |
| 1:45.3 | No, it's really, I think it's really, really interesting to talk about. Because in some ways, |
| 1:48.8 | like, I mean, the book, it sort of, it orbits around a lot of the themes that we've talked about |
| 1:54.6 | for the last two years, doesn't it really, in terms of kind of like the changes in politics, |
| 1:58.3 | the developments in politics. The changes in politics, which is the whole premise of the book, since you left the UK, having covered British politics, |
... |
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