Hi this is Pod Save the UK. I'm Coco Khan and I'm Nish Kamar this week we're leaving the Westminster bubble behind to focus on the politics that really matter

to our everyday lives our councils are going bankrupt and that affects the local

services we all rely on. It's the crisis that no one wants to talk about.

Apart from us, we'll be joined by Joe Harris, a council leader and vice president of the Local Government Association and Zoe Billingham, the Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research North.

Hi, Nick. Hi, Coco Coco how are you? Do you want the the real answer?

Oh we're starting off. This is like when the Fresh Prince does a very special episode.

Yeah yeah yeah this is a serious issues episode.

It's not, it's really not. But basically I'm knackered because I've been having mad dreams.

I've always had very vivid dreams always, but you know I'm doing dry January now. I meant to be sleeping better. Right, yeah, yeah. No, not better. It's like all the little weird goblins that live inside my brain are like not they're not being

kind of held back by Malibu and Cokes and now they're like oh yeah here we go

baby flying around like dementals in my mind.

Are the dreams nightmares?

Well this is the thing.

Or just very vivid?

A little bit of both right.

Last night I had a dream that someone that I used to work with and I decided to embezzle one of his rich relatives.

So we faked a marriage and at some point we have to go on the run like kind of

of Bonnie and Clyde and this kind of wealthy relative that we're embezzling is

he's quite grotesque he's always got egg yolk over his face and he's really like sort of old and

posh and he lives in this grand old house and it's red red curtains and oak panels

everywhere and there's also some sort of light nudity going on with other minor characters, but in this kind of scary way

What does that mean? Just like passing characters in the dream. Do you know what I mean?

...