We Read Tony Blair So You Don’t Have To. Plus: Who Really Owns Britain? w/Hettie O’Brien
Pod Save the UK
Pod Save the UK
4.6 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 28 May 2026
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Nish and Coco head back to Makerfield, where the by-election campaign is already turning into a political demolition derby; Andy Burnham is just ahead of Reform, the far right is fighting itself, Elon Musk has wandered into the discourse, and Nigel Farage has reappeared after questions over his £5 million gift.
Plus: they’re joined by Hettie O’Brien, journalist and author of The Asset Class, to break down how private equity quietly bought up the services we rely on, from nurseries and care homes to vets and water companies, and why that matters for the broken economy we’re all living in.
GUESTS
Hettie O'Brien, journalist and author of The Asset Class: How Private Equity Turned Capitalism Against Itself
USEFUL LINKS
Amnesty Report | Like a snowball: the growth and impact of the gender critical movement in the UK
Tony Blair Article | The Labour Party Is Playing With Fire Over Its Future and the Future of the Country by
CLIP CREDITS
Carol Vorderman via Instagram, (@carolvorders)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Pod Save the UK. I'm Nish Kumar. And I'm Cocoa Card. We are three weeks out from a monumental |
| 0:07.5 | by-election in Makerfield and campaigning is in full swing. In two weeks so far, we've witnessed |
| 0:12.6 | a candidate withdrawals, an Elon Musk cameo, and enough Brexit chat to take you all the way back to |
| 0:17.7 | 2016. We'll be discussing it on today's show. Plus, we speak to author |
| 0:21.2 | Hetty O'Brien about her groundbreaking expose of the private equity industry and how it's |
| 0:25.5 | contributed to our broken economy. We're three weeks out from the most consequential by-election |
| 0:31.2 | in recent memory. Polling date in Makerfield is set for Thursday the 18th of June. The candidates |
| 0:36.2 | have been announced and there has been no shortage of headlines. That's right. So in just two weeks, a Green Party candidate |
| 0:42.9 | was announced and then withdrew on the same day. Reforms Robert Kenyon has been labeled a |
| 0:47.9 | misogynist by Carol Vorderman. Tony Blair has taken a swipe at Andy Burnham and others in a bizarrely |
| 0:53.9 | timed 5,700 word essay |
| 0:57.2 | and Nigel Farage did a disappearing act for seven days. |
| 1:01.3 | So let's start with the most recent polling data in Makerfield. |
| 1:04.7 | The polls have the Labour candidate and leadership hopeful Andy Burnham, |
| 1:08.3 | only slightly ahead of reforms candidate Robert Kenyon. |
| 1:11.7 | So that's a poll of 369 respondents in Makerfield with undecided voters stripped out that put |
| 1:17.2 | Restore Britain on 7%, reform on 40%, and Labour First on 43%. |
| 1:23.2 | The far right party Restore Britain was set up by former Reform MP Rupert Lowe. |
| 1:28.7 | Just to be clear about this, Rupert Lowe was too extreme for reform. |
| 1:33.2 | So here he is in Restore. |
| 1:35.3 | In regards to the sort of Restore surge, the pollster Luke Trill of More in Common said, |
| 1:40.0 | in general, we are noticing Restore being raised more in focus groups, |
... |
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