Swamp Notes: Elections across the Atlantic
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 15 June 2024
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Margaret Thatcher’s election in 1979 foreshadowed Ronald Reagan’s a year later, and the Brexit vote in 2016 took place just months before Donald Trump’s stunning presidential victory. The FT’s Whitehall editor, Lucy Fisher, and US politics news editor, Derek Brower, join this week’s Swamp Notes to explain why British and American politics often rhyme, and what the phenomenon could mean for upcoming elections in both countries.
Mentioned in this podcast:
Parallel US and UK elections could bring dangers
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK overtakes Conservatives in new opinion poll
From the Political Fix podcast: “the Tories’ ‘kitchen sink’ manifesto”
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Swamp Notes is produced by Ethan Plotkin, Sonja Hutson, Lauren Fedor and Marc Filippino. Topher Forhecz is the FT’s executive producer. The FT’s global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. Special thanks to Pierre Nicholson.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The F.T. News briefing is supported by Equinor. |
| 0:04.0 | The UK's energy partner. |
| 0:06.0 | Learn more at equinor. |
| 0:09.0 | UK. |
| 0:10.0 | The last time the U.S. and the UK held general elections this close together was in 1964. |
| 0:18.8 | That year we saw a Democratic incumbent return to the White House |
| 0:22.8 | and a labor government take charge |
| 0:24.7 | after more than a decade out of power. |
| 0:27.6 | Could history repeat itself this year? |
| 0:32.0 | This is |
| 0:45.5 | is Swamp Notes, the weekly podcast from the FT News briefing where we talk about all of the things happening in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. I'm Mark Filipino, and this week we're asking, one, could next month's U.K. election be a preview of the U.S. election in November, and two, what |
| 0:50.5 | does 2024 mean for the special relationship going forward? |
| 0:54.6 | Here with me to discuss is Lucy Fisher. She's the FT's Whitehall editor and the host of political fix our UK politics podcast. |
| 1:01.3 | Hi Lucy. |
| 1:02.3 | Hi, Nock. And in New York we've our UK politics podcast. Hi Lucy. |
| 1:03.0 | Hi, Mark. |
| 1:04.0 | And in New York, we've got Derek Brower, the FTE's US political news editor. |
| 1:08.0 | Hi Derek, welcome back. |
| 1:09.6 | Thanks, Mark. |
| 1:11.2 | All right, so the UK is holding elections in less than three weeks now and the US election is in November, |
| 1:18.0 | but if both contests were held tomorrow, according to most polls, Sir Kierstormer would be British Prime Minister, and Donald Trump |
| 1:27.0 | would be the American President. |
... |
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