Why is Boris Johnson waging a culture war? With Rory Stewart and Kim Leadbeater

The New Statesman | UK politics and culture

The New Statesman

News & Politics, Society & Culture, News, Politics

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2022

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

While polling revealed exclusively by the New Statesman suggests that voters aren’t divided on so-called culture war issues, the Johnson administration is putting them at the centre of its political project.

To understand why the Prime Minister seems intent on winning a war that doesn’t exist, Anoosh Chakelian is joined by Kim Leadbeater, Labour MP for Batley and Spen, who received an MBE last year for services to social cohesion, and Rory Stewart, senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and a former Conservative MP and leadership rival to Johnson.

They discuss why everything is being cast as a culture war and the strategy’s limited success, the real-life consequences of this way of doing politics, and ultimately how we can learn to disagree better.

Podcast listeners can subscribe to the New Statesman for just £1 a week for 12 weeks using our special offer. Just visit newstatesman.com/podcastoffer.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Have you got Amazon Prime?
0:01.8	Because if you've got it, you've got Amazon Music Prime.
0:06.7	All the music you love plus top podcasts add free,
0:10.1	included with Prime.
0:12.5	Got Prime, got Music, Amazon Music.
0:16.6	Download the Amazon Music app now to start this thing.
0:21.2	Picture this.
0:22.4	Static cars, idling engines, angry horns.
0:28.4	Now, picture you.
0:31.2	Zooming past it all.
0:33.4	Light and breezy.
0:36.4	Ah, the sweet feeling of whizzing past traffic.
0:40.4	Book your train journey via AvantiWestcoast.co.uk.
0:44.4	Avanti Westcoast.
0:46.4	Feel good travel.
0:49.4	Hi, I'm Anouche, and on today's episode of the New Statesman podcast,
0:58.4	I'm delighted to be joined by Kim Leadbita,
1:01.4	Labour MP for Batley and Spen,
1:03.4	who received an MBE last year for services to social cohesion.
1:06.4	She won her seat in a bi-election last July.
1:09.4	Her sister, Jo Cox, was the MP for the constituency
1:12.4	when she was murdered in an office by a far-right extremist in 2016.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The New Statesman, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The New Statesman and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.