UK Meningitis outbreak and Starmer’s abortion policy shame
Planet Normal
Louisa Wells
4.7 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 19 March 2026
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
You can watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/QVXFsa07Rpo
In this week’s dispatch from the sanctuary of sweet reason, co-pilots Pearson and Halligan examine a growing sense of national insecurity as Britain faces a perfect storm of energy, military, and financial fragility, and the unfolding meningitis outbreak.
With oil climbing back above $100 a barrel and the Strait of Hormuz remaining shut, Liam argues that it is time for the government to junk the ‘Net Zero virtue signalling’ and urgently greenlight drilling in the North Sea.
Allison discusses her recent column on a controversial clause in the Crime and Policing Bill that would effectively ‘decriminalise’ abortion up to birth. Labelling the move ‘legalised infantcide’ she and Liam explore the ethical implication of late-term viability, drawing on Allison’s moving personal experiences and her observations from a neonatal ICU.
The duo are joined in the rocket by Linden Kemkaran, the Reform UK leader of Kent County Council. Representing the ‘border county’ at the forefront of the small boats crisis, she discusses her decision to declare an ‘illegal migration emergency’ and her demand for the government to provide full funding for the local impact of arrivals.
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Read Allison ‘Britain is about to make a sickening change to the abortion law’:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/17/britain-sickening-change-to-abortion-law/ |
Read more from Allison: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/a/ak-ao/allison-pearson/ |
Read Liam ‘Labour needs to be grown-up about the North Sea’:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/03/15/labour-needs-to-be-grown-up-about-the-north-sea/ |
Read more from Liam: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/liam-halligan/ |
Read Liam’s Substack: https://liamhalligan.substack.com/ |
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Telegraph. |
| 0:09.0 | They are simply refusing to understand the physics and the chemistry and the logistics |
| 0:15.5 | and the engineering of the situation that we find ourselves in. |
| 0:19.4 | What did Lord Glassman Morris say to us? |
| 0:22.8 | He said, when the doctor tells you it's progressive, it's never good news, is it? |
| 0:26.6 | Three. |
| 0:28.1 | The idea that some kind of feminism on steroids can justify, |
| 0:33.2 | let's have abortions all the way to just before birth, |
| 0:36.5 | is completely insane. |
| 0:39.7 | This will have a huge effect because if it gets doughty through, it can become council policy. |
| 0:45.5 | One. |
| 0:49.0 | We have left off. |
| 0:52.1 | Welcome once again to Planet Normal, the Telegraph podcast with Alison Pearson. |
| 0:55.9 | Hello. |
| 0:56.8 | And me, Liam Halligan. |
| 0:59.1 | During times of anguish when the world seemed to be a difficult place, Winston Churchill |
| 1:03.7 | will take to the airwaves, inspiring the nation with his honest, defiant oratory. |
| 1:09.3 | Churchill's US contemporary Franklin Delano Roosevelt would do the same. |
| 1:14.0 | FDR's nationwide fireside chats are seared into the American story, part of the country's |
| 1:19.9 | national consciousness, as the US emerged from the Great Depression to bestride the post-war world. |
| 1:26.6 | But what, dear co-pilots, will future historians make of Keer's now near-weekly weak missives? |
| 1:34.3 | Middle East is in turmoil, energy prices are spiraling, and as unemployment rises, the cost of living is also shooting up. |
... |
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