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You're listening to Luke's Englishpodcast.
For more information visitteacheluk.co.uk.
Hellolisteners, welcome back to Luke's Englishpodcast.
This is episode number 888 and it's an episode of the Rikt Thompsonreport.
It's been a while since I did one of theseepisodes.
So there's probably people listening to this who don't know what the Rikt Thompson reportis.
So let me just explain the concept foryou.
So the Rikt Thompsonreport, this is where I talk to mydad, RiktThompson, and he tells us about what's going on in theUK.
He gives us a kind of report about what's happening in the UK at themoment.
And that usually means inpolitics.
Infact, normally we talk about British politics in theseepisodes.
So that's what you're going to get from thisepisode.
My dad telling us about what's going on in the UK in politics at themoment.
And it's a busy time in British politics right now because we're about to have a generalelection.
That's where everyone in the country gets to vote for members ofparliament.
Those members of parliament take seats in the House ofCommons, in the houses ofparliament, inLondon, inWestminster, inLondon.
And depending on how the votes arecast, depending on which members of parliament for which parties win theseats, you might get a completely different arrangement inparliament, which means you might end up with a completely differentgovernment.
At themoment, the government we have in the UK is run by the ConservativeParty.
So we have a Conservativegovernment.
The Prime Minister is calledRishisunak.
The Conservatives have been in power since2010.
So that's 14years. And it's a longstory.
You can go back and listen to previous episodes of the Riktomsen report because we've probably covered most of what's been goingon.
Certainly since about 2015 when there was anelection, Brexithappened, David Cameronresigned, and we got a number of other Conservative PrimeMinisters.
As Isaid, it's a longstory.
Go back and listen to the old episodes of the Riktomsenreport.
But here we arenow,Rishisunak, the current PrimeMinister, has called a generalelection.
And just to give you a bit of information aboutthat, a government in the UK is allowed to stay in power for a maximum of fiveyears.
And afterthat, five-yearperiod, a general election has tohappen.
But the Prime Minister has the right to call an election anytime theywant.
And that's normally done for strategic or tacticalreasons.
Forexample, the party might decide this is the right time to call an election because the public seems to like us at thismoment.
Maybe things are going quite well rightnow.
So we should call an election now because people might vote for us morenow.
So it's oftentactical.
It's a question of choosing exactly the right time to call anelection.
Also, when an electionhappens, the party has to organize a lot ofthings.
The campaign has to bewell-organized.
They have to choose all their candidates to stand for election in those differentconstituencies.
Constituencies mean small areas of thecountry.
Each constituency is represented by one member of Parliament who sits in the House ofCommons.
That's the way itworks.
Though each constituency is represented by a seat in the House ofCommons.
And whoever wins the vote in that constituency gets to sit there and represent theirparty.
Number of seats iscounted.
So, forexample, you might have conservative seats or labour seats or liberal democrat seats or Scottish national party seats or otherparties.
The party with the most seats has tohave...
They have to have an outrightmajority.
You have to have certain large enoughmajority.
They have the right to form agovernment.
The leader of that party becomes the PrimeMinister.
Okay? So that's kind of the way itworks.
Rishi Sunak has called anelection.
Why did he callit? Why did he call itnow?
Who's going to win theelection?
How do the public feel about the conservative party who've been in power for 14years?
What's the general mood in thenation?
What are theTories? TheTories?
That's theConservatives.
What have they beendoing?
What kind of government have theybeen?
The opposition party isLabour.
The leader of the Labour Party is KiaStarma.
What are the chances that Labour are going to take power and we will have a Labour government with a new PrimeMinister, KiaStarma?
What are the chances of thathappening?
What do Labourwant? What are the challenges theyface?
What's goingon? That's theidea.
My dad is going to tell us all about this stuff in thisepisode.
We're going to start in just asecond.
Before we dothat, I've just got two things to tellyou.
First thing is premiumsubscribers.
Have you noticedP61, the first part of a new premiumseries, is availablenow.
And infact, by the time you listen tothis, P61 Part 2 might also beavailable.
It's going to be at least a four-partseries.
The idea in this series is that I am dealing with phrasalverbs, which came up in the previous episode of thispodcast, number887, where I did that walk andtalk, walking along next to the riverSenn, talking about health anddiet.
A number of phrasal verbs came up while I wastalking.
I think I've counted 28 phrasalverbs.
That's what I'm helping you to learn in variousways.
There's going to beinformation, important information about phrasalverbs, how theywork, whether they'reidiomatic, whether they areliteral,separable, non-separable phrasalverbs, a sort of overview about phrasalverbs.
With, infact, 18 phrasalverbs, that's in Part1.
Part 2 is going to be a vocab review of all the phrasal verbs I used in Episode887.
And then in successiveparts, there's going to be pronunciationdrills, some otherexercises, more practice for you todo, so that you can really learn useful phrasalverbs, which will make your English sound morenatural.
And you'll be able to express concepts in the ways that they are commonly expressed in English using these slightlytricky, but verycommonly, but very frequently occurring bits ofvocabulary, these phrasalverbs.
So,P61, Part 1 is available now for premiumsubscribers.
Just check your podcastlist, and you should see itthere.
If you are a premiumsubscriber, don't forget you can manage your account by going toteacherlook.co.uk-account.
That's where you goto, forexample, add LEP Premium to a podcast app on yourphone.
That's the best way to doit.
If you are interested in Luke's English podcastpremium, if you want to sign up and you want to knowmore, just go toteacherlook.co.uk-premiuminfo.
Okay? Second thingis, I just wanted to remindyou, I'm doing a stand-up comedy show inParis, which is where Ilive, and that is happening on the 19th ofJuly.
And I'll be doing 30 minutes of stand-up at thisshow, which is why I'm telling you aboutit, because I want to invite my podcast listeners tocome.
If youcan, obviously I know that most of you don't live in Paris or nearParis, so it's not really feasible for you tocome, butanyway, if you're in thearea, come and enjoy theshow.
I'll be doing 30 minutes of stand-upcomedy.
Friday, the 19th ofJuly, the show starts at half past eight in theevening, and I'll be doing the show with my friend CharlesPellegrin.
I'm doing 30minutes, Charles is doing 30minutes.
The venue is called Oh Soled de laBoute, it's at number32, RumeMuller, in the 18th hour on december ofParis.
So come ondown, enjoy theshow, sayhello, and hopefully I'm going to record a live episode of the podcast in the room after the comedy show aswell.
That's hopefully I'm going to make thatwork, so you could come and join and be part of the audience for that aswell.
Okay, so that's my comedyshow.
It's called SameDifference, Luke and Charles SameDifference, 19th ofJuly, 830pm.
All the details for that show can be found atteacherluch.co.uk.
slashcomedy.Okay,right, so let's get started with this episode of the Richthompsonreport, all about the upcoming general election in theUK.
Let's now hear what my dad has tosay, and here wego.
This is the Richthompson report withRichthompson.
Hellodad, welcome back onto thepodcast.
Thank you verymuch. Thank you for invitingme.
It's apleasure, ofcourse.
It's a tradition to start these episodes with a very quick weatherreport, so how's theweather?
Well, it's going to be the longest day in a few days as we recordthis, but we haven't had a summeryet.
So it's been a very weird year here inEngland.
It's beencold,very, very wet earlieron, and justgenerally,cheerly, everybody's complaining about itmadly.
We haven't had a summeryet.
We hope it'll turn upsometime.
It's better than having a heatwave,though, isn'tit?
Suppose it is other parts of the world are having really horrible heatwaves, so it shouldn't complainreally.
It's very traditional English weather with the clouds scurrying across thesky, but a fair number of showers aswell.
Okay,right, so do youremember,dad, the last time we did one of these Richthompsonreports?
There was a long timeago.
What was itabout?Well, the last time that we did one about politics was in October of2022.
Do you know what that wasabout?
Was it about a certain BorisJohnson?
No,actually, it was about hispredecessor, LizTruss.
About the Truss 49 days as PrimeMinister, after she blew theeconomy.
Yeah. And then as well asthat, we did one about the coronation of King Charles aswell.
Yes. It was you andMum, it was a Rick and Jill Thompsonreport, butanyway, this is the Richthompsonreport.
Allright,then,Dad, so why are we doing another one ofthese?
What's goingon?Well,elections, and in our country here in theUK, we are just a short way away from a generalelection.
And I know there's another one in France and there are one or two othersaround.
This is a particularly interestingone, Ithink, in theUK.
And it's a bit of asurprise, in the same way that Macron surprised everybody by calling anelection.
Our Prime Minister Rishi Sunak surprisedeverybody, including everybody in his ownparty, when he suddenly decided to have an election on July the4th.
And when he didn't haveto, the five years wasup.
You can't be in government for more than five years here in January nextyear.
So most people thought he just hang on and hope the economy improved and hope something would turn up to improve their standing in the opinionpolls.
Butno, he called an election and surprised members of his own party wereastonished.
They wondered why on earth he'd doneit.
And nobody quite knowswhy.
Anyway, there weare. We got an election and surprise election coming up on July the4th.
And at themoment, it looks like the currently ruling ConservativeParty, led by RishiSunak, is going to get a realbeating.
The opinion polls have been consistently shown that their milesbehind.
So it'll be a bigchange, Ithink.
Why isthat? Why are they so far behind in the opinionpolls?
Well, because they'reuseless, Imean, you know that I'm not obliged to be BBC independent and impartialanymore.
I could say what Ithink.
But most people agree that this has been a pretty awfulgovernment.
And they've been in power for 14years.
And a whole managed to mess up nearlyeverything.
And the character of the government has been brought intoquestion.
They are people who don't seem to believe in public service and seem to be working forthemselves.
And there've been a number of scandalsabout, youknow, ConservativeMPs, one way oranother, helpingthemselves.
And the main problem is that the public services have beenunderfunded,underfunded, because this is a right-wing government that doesn't believe in funding public services verymuch.
They believe in cuttingtaxes.
And which means you can't fund public servicesproperly.
And everybody's fed up withit.
And so we have a situationwhere, one of theissues, the health service is pretty much top of thelist.
The situation now is that if you have to go and have an operation inhospital, and that is a life-savingone, you have towait.
And youwait, and youwait.
And you can wait a longtime.
Forexample, for a replacement knee or hipoperation.
So you're in pain orsomething, but you justwait.
Because there's a hugebacklog.
Some people wait well over ayear.
And there are the lastcount, seven and a half million people on waitinglists.
Imean, it's just gone up and up andup.
And at the locallevel, if you want to go and see adoctor, that's become more and moredifficult.
Everybodycomplains. I can't just go and see my generalpractitioner, mydoctor, because there aren't enough of them and because of the amount of pressure onthem.
And it's the same where welive.
It's exactlythat. You bring up and they say there are no appointmentstoday.
Sorry. Youknow, you just can't see adoctor.
This is a healthservice, which is incrisis.
There used to be a lot oftargets, which had to bemet, such as how long before an ambulancearrives.
They've all beenmissed.
And the ambulance thing isfantastic.
Sometimes, ambulances just don't turn up atall.
There aren't enough NHSworkers.
There isn't enough staff in the emergency units inhospital.
There aren't enough operating theatres to meet thedemand.
It's all because 14 years of thisgovernment, they have underfunded the healthservice.
And everybody knowsthat.
So if theysay,oh,well, we're going to reduce your taxes a littlebit.
Isn't thatwonderful? Everybodysays, I want to be able to see adoctor.
It's not thepriority. So there'sthat.
There's a whole number of otherthings.
Imean, the issue of immigrationstill, youknow, like most other Europeancountries, there's still a big problemarea.
But the government have been ridiculous onthat.
Youknow, they'vecampaigned.
We will stop theboats, meaning the boats across the channel fromFrance.
Now, this is a small proportion of ourimmigration.
Most of it is people with visas who have the right to behere.
But they're obsessed with it and came out with some kind of crazy scheme that they'll send the people who come off to darkestAfrica.
They'll go toRwanda. They've got to deal withRwanda.
Well, Imean, I can't tell you how ridiculous itis.
An expensive and nobody's got the Rwanda because there are so many challenges tothis.
And so people aresaying, is that the best you coulddo?
Youknow, on the immigrationfront, there's the economy is particularly badhere.
They call it the cost of livingcrisis.
And this government has managed to preside over a growing number of very poorfamilies.
A lot of children are officially in poverty now because they have managed to fail to get any growth in the economy atall.
And they are obsessed with giving tax cuts to the people who don't really needthem.
So as you cansee, I think it's an awfulgovernment.
And they've most of the population seems toagree.
So going back to the fact that RishiSunak, whois, so we had DavidCameron, TheresaMay, BorisJohnson, then LizTruss, and then RishiSunak.
Right. He's the current prime minister after all of thoseones.
He called theelection.
What were the circumstances in which he calledit?
You said that you would no one really knows why he's done it at thismoment.
Do you want to speculate onthat?
Well, I don't have any side track onthat.
Imean, I must havebeen, I don't know why he didit.
I was predicting he would hold an election inNovember, which would pretty much with the last moment hecould.
So I don't know why he didit.
A lot of his closest supporters don't really know why he didit.
They weren't ready forit.
A lot of the constituencies where people elect theirMP, they hadn't even selectedcandidates.
Imean, lots ofthem. So they've been scrambling to get this election campaigngoing.
And it hasbeen, there's a hasty sofar.
Imean, it'sbeen, do you know what a Gaff is inEnglish?
AGaff. AGaff. That's like a big mistake that someone makes in the public eye in someway.
Yeah. It makes them look verystupid.
Exactly. So the conservatives election campaign has been full ofGaff's.
Okay. It has not gonewell.
It started right at the beginning when Rishi Sunak suddenly announced he was going to make a statement outside number 10 downingstreet.
And the little podium came out and the press allgathered.
What'sthis? What'sthis?
It turned out to be him announcing the date of a generalelection.
But it was raining and it was raininghard.
And he didn't have anumbrella.
That's planning foryou.
And he got completelysoaked.
Imean, visibly drenched as he was doingthis.
How long was hisannouncement?
I don'tknow. Five to tenminutes.
Okay. In the pouringrain.
There's all sorts of jokeshere.
When the last time labor were in government was with Tony Blair and GordonBrown.
Tony Blair for tenyears.
And the music that he'd use in his campaign was things can only getbetter.
Youknow, thatone. Ido.
It wasbetter.D-ream, a kind of British popgroup.
Things can only getbetter.
Well, thatbecame, youknow, a kind of a favorite song for politicalcampaigns.
So everybody in downing street started seeing things can only getwetter.
Imean, it was a good things can only getwetter.
So the gants wenton. Imean, it turned out that his very closestadvisor, a civilservant, but a close advisor to hisjunior, had actually placed a bet with a bettingcompany,Ludbrook's, on a Julyelection.
Three days before Tsunac announcedit.
And everyone is kind of agassed.
Youknow, obviously he knew and decided he'd make a bit of money on the side by putting down onit.
Why else would you doit?
And Imean, that'sone. Another gaff was the D-Daycelebrations.
Now, the sixth ofJune, there's a famous date in ourhistory.
It's when the British and American and Canadian troops invaded France to get rid of Hitler's Nazitroops.
The invasion ofFrance, biggest invasion in militaryhistory.
Amazing, verydangerous.
A lot ofcasualties. And it is the eight years anniversary thisyear.
And there were still a few veterans around who were there at thetime.
So it will probably be the last time that you have a big commemoration with some of those who werethere.
And it was a very bigevent.
And ofcourse, JoeBiden, the American president wasthere.
It was all hosted byMacron.
There were some terrificevents, reallyimpressive, with recreations andmusic, commenting onanother.
Richie Sunack wasthere, ofcourse, but he leftearly.
Suddenly he wasn'tthere.
And he'd flown back to Britain to do a campaign interview onTV.
And so the final events were the international events where you had the Americanpresident, the president ofFrance.
And in thelineup, there was no RichieSunack.
We're talkingabout, youknow, the day the invasion came fromBritain.
And heafterwards, youknow, everyone criticizedit, including members of his own party because you don't dothat.
An indication likethat.
And it looks like an offense towards the armedforces.
It looks like you don't care verymuch.
And Richie Sunack has got a real problem about relating topeople.
And I don'tthink, I think that's one of the reasons it makes him very unpopular that he's incrediblyrich.
And he's married to a multi-billionaire Indianwife.
And he's rich in his ownright.
And veryprivileged. And I think it's difficult for somebody who comes from that background to be accepted by people who are suffering an economic crisis athome.
Absolutely. There'smore.
They're campaigners not goingwell.
76 of the Conservative MPs have decided they're not going tostand.
They're not going to compete for theirseat.
Mainly because they know they'lllose.
Well, 76 of them are just going tosay, you knowwhat, I'mout.
We're not going tobother.
Yeah. So just to beclear, justsorry, just to beclear, he announced a generalelection, even though it seemed a lot of the rest of the people in his party were completely unprepared forthis.
That'sright. And so when an election ishappening, the parties have their candidatesready.
The candidates who are going to stand for election in the various constituencies around the country have a campaign that'szero-printed.
Everything has the campaign has to beready.
The candidates have to be chosen and everything has to be prepared andstuff.
Richie Soonack calls theelection, but the seats don't have candidates selected for theparty.
Those are people who are completelyunprepared.
Seems to be such a strange move to dothat.
Yeah, I can't explainit.
I'msorry, but that's whathappened.
And some people have said that he did that because he wants to haveactually, he wants to have a summerholiday.
Point. Imean, another thing that makes it very unpopular is the fact that he does have property inAmerica.
Apparently he's enrolled his children in an Americanschool.
Isn't his wife an Americannational?
She's got an Americanpassport, doesn'tshe?
Isn't something likethat?
He had a green card which is a American document which says you could work in America for years when he was a member ofparliament.
It only emerged quiterecently.
And to get a greencard, you have to swear an allegiance to America and say that this is yourhome.
So he must have done that in order to get the greencard.
So it says the prime minister of Britain has actually swore allegiance toAmerica.
And youknow, the whole thing is a bit of a contrast with the leader of the Labour Party who's called Sir KeirStarmer.
He's been accused of being a bit dull in thepast, but that's okay because it all doesn't matter as long as yourcompetent, not your trustworthy.
Obviously a big contrast with BorisJohnson, not being ashowman.
He's got a very goodrecord.
He's alawyer. He was the director of publicprosecutions, very senior position and the legalprofession, a very efficientone.
He came from an unwoundaryfamily.
His mother was anurse, his father was a machinist orengineer.
And it's a big contrast between the two ofthem.
And I think Sir Keir Starmer has also surrounded by very good seniorcolleagues, a lot of themwomen, very impressivewomen.
Whereas Rishi Sunak's front bench iscabinet.
There's a horrible bunch oflosers.
Imean, very rightwing, very rightwing.
So my prediction is the Labour will win thiselection.
And the questionis, by howmuch?
And I've been looking itup.
As Isaid, the Conservatives have been in power for 14years.
BorisJohnson, when he called anelection, called the Get Brexit Doneelection.
This is when everybody was completely exhausted with the Brexitnegotiations.
And he basically tapped intothat.
And so let's get Brexit done vote forus.
And people did majorityseats.
That was an effort by Boris Johnson to get the Conservatives a bigger majority inparliament, so that they could basically push through their decisions moreeasily.
Becausepreviously, what they had was a sort of they didn't have an outrightmajority.
So they needed the support of a Northern Irish party and stuff likethat.
So it was basically hard for them to basically push through theirdecisions, which were generally unpopular with everyoneelse.
So he used the mood of themoment, whichwas,look, we just need to get Brexit done and get on withthis.
He used that as a way to gain more seats inparliament, which hehad, which was asuccess.
He got80, he got a majority of 80s mainly through tellinglies.
I'msorry, but that's exactly what hedid.
You mentioned the the loyalist MPs in NorthernIreland.
They were worried about the implications for them having a border with theEU, the Republic of Ireland and how it would work and everythingelse.
He told them there will be nopaperwork.
Everything would be thesame.
Well, there was loads of paperwork and nothing was thesame.
And it's the same with everythingelse.
Youknow, we have an oven ready Brexitdeal.
oven readydeal.Well, hedid.
Well, he hada, youknow, just vote for me and we'll be out of the EU with a fabulousdeal.
Well, we did fall out the EU a monthlater, but without adeal.
Imean, it was amess. Sowe, youknow, all sorts of thingsunresolved.
Anyway, you'reright, that Boris Johnson got an agency majority of theTories, which they've been enjoying for quite awhile.
I look back at the Blair big revolution when it's going back a bitnow, when the last time Labour had a bigwin.
And Imean, it wasspectacular.
He, I think he got a majority of 179 seats TonyBlair, but he was prettydazzling.
And, andagain, the Tories had run out of steam and run out of ideas and people were sick ofhim.
Thistime, so it'll be interesting for people out there who have avague, interested air election that come the fifth ofJuly.
If you'reinterested, see what the majorityis, because I think there's no doubt that Labour willwin.
But will it be thatbig? 179 seatmajority?
possible. Justpossible.
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Isn't it possible though that lots of people are going to vote for the kind of far right wingparty.
What are they calledagain?
Reform.Reform. Aren't people going to a lot of people going to vote for the reform party because you know that kind of it's Nigel Farage'sparty, isn'tit?
Yes. He's the leader of theparty.
Yes heis.Right. Him and all the things that he standsfor, that still that has a lot more support than it did back in the days when Tony Blair became the primeminister.
So surely a lot of people are going to vote even further to the right of the conservatives thistime.
Yes they well might welldo.
Like in other parts of Europe there's a populist you know movement because people are unhappy about their standard of living and because they're unhappy aboutimmigration.
And this man Nigel Farage has been around for awhile.
He was prominent in the Brexit leavecampaign.
He was the inventor of the UKparty, the UK IndependenceParty.
And he's very recently decided that he'll join reform as itsleader.
Whether it's a party or not as anissue.
I mean it's certainly a business but nobody's quite sure whether it's actually aparty.
And they've launched a sort of manifesto which promises massive tax cuts and things that can't bedelivered.
I mean he might himself might become anMP.
He's tried seven times before and alwaysfailed.
But this time he might makeit.
He's standing in a Essex coastal town which is prettybrexity.
So he might become an MP but he might be the onlyone.
But the party will definitely siphon votes probably more from the conservatives than anybodyelse.
So it's not particularly bad news for Labour in that it's not going to damage them atall.
It might even damage the conservativeparty.
Okay so it's more a question of how much will Labour win rather than will Labourwin?
That's myview. What are Labour promising todo?
Well they're not being incredibly radical because Kirstama have decided that in order to win they've got to persuade people who voted conservative in the past to vote forthem.
And his predecessor was veryleft-wing.
Jeremy Corbyn was a very left-wing Labour and he was pretty wellunelectable.
Got to the point where you know this is one of the reasons why Boris Johnson won a big majority was that people wouldn't vote forCorbyn.
And Kirstama has changed the Labour Party since those days emphasizing that they're not going to promisethings.
They can't delivertrust,competence.
And so he's not suggesting they're going to bake tax cuts but he's not saying they're going to raise large taxes either because that's you know dangerousterritory.
People will see them as tooleft-wing.
So he's charting a middle course and basically the differences are that he does believe in in a green economy and the good terms thatdon't.
So he's talking aboutinvestment, a lot of investment in greenenergy.
He sees the target of getting to zero emissions net zero by 20-50 as an importanttarget.
Conservativesdidn't.
He's also committed to lifting people out of poverty in all sorts of little differentways.
Things like providing childcare is a very important issue for youngfamilies.
Women who want to go back to work and they do go back to work but they're spending all their money on childcare because there isn't enough visionprovision.
It has to beprivate.Yeah.
Childcare UK is ridiculouslyexpensive.
Absolutely. There's a whole number ofthings.
Another one is is waterpollution.
You might think it doesn't matter really but everybody is furious about the fact that our sewage system is very old and leaky and that there hasn't been any investment in that and it's becoming revealed almost by the week how much raw sewage shit is going into our rivers and seas because the sewage system can'tcope.
I mean it'sfantastic. So there's a whole number of issues in a row if you like that say we'll do better than theydid.
We're committed to doing better than they did and the word ischanged.
All they have to do is say it's time for a change and everybodyagrees.
Okay, it'll be difficult for Labourthough, won'tit?
Well, when they come into power and as I couldsay, I mean if they don't make it you could interview me again andsay,yeah,yeah, you've got it all wrong but I'm convinced they will get into into power and the challenges are incredible what they're facedwith.
I mean there is no money and they've got a whole number of things that require investment with thecourse, the health service upthere.
They'll have to try and look at how you can restructure it to make it work better and associated with that is what we call socialcare.
I'm sure a lot of your viewers and listeners will recognise this because it's a problem everywhere that as we get a bigger agingpopulation, more and more olderpeople, they demand their health services grow and when they get to the point they have to go into some kind of care home because they can't look after themselves and they haven't got family members will doit.
Then a lot of the people who don't have lots of money to pay for care home which can be incrediblyexpensive, they finish up going in and out of hospital because there's nowhere else from to go when they're going to hospital and they're quite ill and they can't be sent home because they can't be sent home and so that's called bed blocking and bed blocking means it's one of the reasons why the hospitals are kind of full and everybody's operations get delayed and soon.
So Labour are committed to try and find a solution to that and they'll have to put some money into the local authorities which provide social carehomes.
There's a lot ofissues.
Yes,absolutely.Okay, are there any otherparties?
What aboutScotland?Yeah, well I'm glad you mentionedScotland, they're actually quiteimportant.
They have currently 43seats.
There's a third biggest party in the House of Commons and this is the Scottish NationalParty, theSNP.
Now there is a devolved ScottishParliament, it has quite a lot of powers and the SNP have been the party of government in Scotland for along, longtime.
But things have gone wrong for theSNP.
Their formerly popular leader suddenly has discovered that her husband who was the party treasurer has actually been doing some strange things with the money and she was replaced and the guy who replaced her had to stand down and for variousreasons.
The Scottish National Party says they want independence but surveys show that the general population in Scotland isn't going to vote forindependence.
So you mightsay, how come they all vote for theSNP?
Well, it's because they're a socialistparty.
They are to the left of the Labour Party and they have introduced a number of popular measures over theyears.
Now that they're in a bit of trouble and they are thought to beuntrustworthy, those votes may go toLabour.
So Labour will probably do better in Scotland than they have done for sometime.
OK, so we're looking at probably a Labour government then inJuly.
This is what everybody issaying.
But howlong? Imean, they'll probably last for at least twoterms.
That's adecade. I wouldsay,yeah, don't youthink?
For the last 10years, obviously people will be disappointed after ayear, one and year two because they can't solve all theproblems.
Yeah, but the reason is that theopposition, theConservatives, will be in a state of disarray and who will they choose as theirleader?
It can take a political party quite a long time to fully recover from a situation like the one that the Conservatives are in at themoment.
It's a really interestingquestion.
What will happen to the Conservative Party if they get heavilydefeated, which I think theywill?
There is a movement that says they should embrace this small reform party of Nigel Farage because they're probably going to get a lot ofvotes.
So it might be effect might be to drag the Conservative Party even further to the right and it's pretty well on the right at themoment.
And the number of people that the commentators are suggesting will replace with she's sooner because if they loseheavily, he'llresign.
Fact probably shoot off toAmerica.
Exactly. That's mypoint.
He'llresign. He'll go on holiday and he will have towait.
He'll have any work todo.
And the process of the Conservative Party to elect its leaders is a bit of a torturousone.
It's not particularlydemocratic, I have tosay.
So they will have their process where a number of people put their namesforward.
They have to get a certain number of MPs supportingthem.
And then the MPs go through a ballotprocess, eliminating one and then having another ballot and eliminating another until they get down to the finaltwo.
And then the final two campaign around the country amongst the membership of the party and the membership of the party then vote on which one of those two's go to the PrimeMinister.
So that's a long issue and rather torturousprocess.
But ofcourse, it's a relatively small number of people who are electing our PrimeMinister.
Anyway, the people who are putting their names forward at the moment or said to be are all prettyright-wing, prettybrexit-y.
And I think that whoever itis, Imean, there's some pretty unpopularpeople.
So EllaBravaman, the homesecretary, is a particularly right-wingcharacter.
Herpredecessor, PritiPatal, is allegedly thinking she might be the next PrimeMinister, PennyMordent, is anotherone.
And when you look at them and you look at Kierstamer and his frontbench, you feelno.
They haven't got the caliber and they haven't got the ability to bring the partytogether.
So I think the conservatives will be in a bit of a mess for sometime.
And the relationship with reform will be veryinteresting.
The Lib Dems of the otherparty, LiberalDemocrats, they're the centreparty.
They only have 15seats, but they have ahistory.
They have done quite well in thepast.
And they'll probably do a bit better too because there are certain conservativeseats, particularly in the south ofEngland, where people can't bring themselves to voteLabour, which is a classthing.
But theywill, if they want tochange, they'll vote for the LibDems.
So I think they'll probably pick up someseats.
Yeah. There are the Northern Irish parties who at the moment have the same number of seatseach.
That's the DUP and SinnFein.
BasicallyDUP, the sort of unionistparty, SinnFein, the Republicanparty,basically,right?
Yes,yes. They want a unitedisland.
They would like to join with the Republic ofIreland.
And Sinn Fein don't take up their seats in the House of Commons because they would have to swear loyalty to the Crown if they were to do that and theyrefuse.
I'm just mentioning the otherparties.
There's also appliedCUNRIE.
That's the Welshparty.
Welsh Nationalistparty.
Do they want Welsh independence ornot?
Well, they don't talk about it much because the general opinion in Wales is we could do without an independencereferendum.
Thank you verymuch. And so they'reassembly, a devolved kind ofparliament, with not as many powers asScotland, because it's a much smallercountry.
And it has closer links to theEngland.
I think that they have been ruled by a Labour majority in the assembly for quite a longtime.
And I can't see that changingreally.
Okay. And then there's the green party who haveone.
She's beenterrific. Muchadmired, but she's not standingagain.
So they might finish up withnone.
They focus on environmentalissues.
They're also aparty. Imean, they say we would raise taxes on people learning more than certain amount and pour it into the publicservices, which I must admit sounds like quite a good ideasometimes, but the main parties are afraid to talk about raisingtaxes.
Reformers, we'vementioned, they currently have oneseat.
And then there are 20 otherseats, which are occupied by independentcandidates.
That's 20others.Okay.
Sobasically, the fourth of July is when the vote is going tohappen, theelection, and we'll know the results the nextday, the fifth ofJuly.
It's quite dramaticreally.
In thiscountry, it all happens on the sameday.
We have the firstpast, the post systemhere, which is in itselfcontroversial.
We don't have proportional representation with two rounds or anything likethat.
It all happensbang. And the person who gets the biggest number of votes in eachconstituency, even if it's justone, becomes theMP.
It's not a particularly democraticsystem, but it means that we start counting the votes as soon as polling booths close at 10 o'clock in theevening, count through thenight.
A lot ofplaces, results start being announced at two o'clock in themorning, three o'clock in themorning.
You start getting the idea of what the general picture is going tobe.
So it's quite good funreally.
Okay. Allright.Well, there yougo.
The thanks a lot for telling us all aboutthat.
It's going to be interesting to see exactly how it all turnsout.
Yeah. That'sokay.Well, I've made my prediction that it'll be a win for Labour and quite a bigone, but we'll see I might be entirely wrong and we've still got a bit of campaigning togo.
We're recording this for a couple of weeks togo.
Yeah.Okay. Maybe we can talk againafterwards.
Toend, let's talk aboutsports.
Are you watching the Euro2024?
So in twomonths, theEuropean?
Yeah.Oh,yeah. So we're recording this on the 18th ofJune,England, and we're probably going to talk a bit more about England because we'reEnglish.
England played their firstgame.
When wasit?Friday?Sunday.
England played their first game onSunday,evening.
We beat Serbia1-0. What did you think of thegame?
Well, I thought England weren't particularlygood.
Serbia is a toughopponent, but as long as the game wenton, the more unimpressed I was with the Englandteam, I think they've got to up their game if they're going to go far on the competition because I think they were lacklustre a bit slow anduninspired.
You compare that with Germany scoring five goals againstScotland.
Yousay, they've got to play better thanthat.
By the time this podcast isbroadcast, we will have paid Denmark for another strongteam.
We'll see whether they've managed to get past thatone.
Intheory, England ought to get quite a longway.
People who are not interested in football can turn offnow, but basically there are six groups of fourteams, 24teams, and the group stages are going on at themoment.
When your group of four teams will play with eachother, you finish up with the top two in each group going through to the knockoutstages, but also thefourth,third,sorry, the four best third place ones judged on how many goals they scored and things likethat.
Out of the six third place teams in eachgroup, four of those teams are also going to gothrough.
The bottom six are eliminated and two of the teams that came third areeliminated.
Nextground, if England win theirgroup, which I would have thought they shoulddo, but Denmark might beatthem.
Then in the knockoutstages, they will meet one of the teams that came third in theirgroup.
They'll be avoiding the big players likeItaly,Spain,Germany, all thatlot, and playing one of the teams that just managed toqualify.
We got lucky with thedraw.
Not only did we have a relatively easygroup, butalso, if we come first in ourgroup, we'll end up playing one of the third place teams in the nextround, which is prettylucky.
Intheory, we should definitely get to the quarterfinals afterthat.
Yeah, people are saying lots of things about England saying that they're one of thefavourites, and that we've got this fantastic squad andeverything.
I don'tknow. People always big up England before acompetition, but then when it actually comes down toit, we alwaysunderperform, don'twe?
It's a mysteriousthing.
We've got a greatpremiership, and so our club teams are allexcellent.
A lot of theplayers, the English internationalplayers, play at the highestlevel, but for some reason struggle to achieve the same things that they're achieving with theirclubs.
That's absolutelyright.
That's why people are baffled byEngland.
You look at theplayers.
Obviously, they've got a captain and a centre-forward who is a gold machine called HarryKane.
They've got terrific players all over thefield, including this guy called JudeBellingham, who is playing for RealMadrid.
He's absolutely incrediblygood.
And they've got a whole number of really good individualplayers.
It's a little bit baffling that they seem to struggle and only score one against a team they should have beaten andserved.
It'll be thesame,probably, thefrustration.
It's one of those things that if you're an Englandsupporter, you know you're going to bedisappointed.
As for who willwin, I am the faintestidea, but I think the home team always has anadvantage.
Don't rule outGermany.
Germany look verystrong.
Hometeam, as yousaid, and they always seem to raise their game when they go into thesecompetitions.
Even if people aresaying, our Germany don't have a strong team this year or blahblah.
They always somehow get it alltogether.
France are strongfavourites.
They've got a very strongteam,squad, individual players and stuff like that and lots ofexperiences.
It's a lot ofexperience.
Portugal have got a very good squad as well with lots of great players init, lots of depth in their squad and all thatstuff.
Anyway, we'llsee. We'llsee.
By the time people listen tothis,yeah, I'm enjoying ittoo.
It's always good to watch big internationalgames.
It's really goodfun. By the time people listen tothis, England will have playedDenmark.
Who knows what state will be in at thatpoint.
Okay.Well, thanks verymuch,Dad.
Veryinteresting. I hope it wasn't too boring for your viewers and listeners to hear a lot about what's going on inEnglish,British,sorry, politics at themoment.
But it is an interesting time and it's going to be a bit of achange, Ithink.
Indeed.Change.Exactly.
Allright,brilliant. Thank you verymuch.
Have a lovely rest of theday,Dad.
I'd seeyou. Nice to see youtoo.
Bye-bye.Bye-bye.Okay, so there yougo.
That was the Riktomsenreport.
June2024. The general election is happening on the 4th ofJuly.
Let's wait and see what happensthere.
Thanks again to Dad for doingthat.
It's always nice to have his contribution to these episodes and I hope that everyonelistening.
I hope you all appreciated being able to listen to him talk about thissubject.
Regarding thefootball, so I'm now recording this bit on Friday the 21st of June andyesterday, England played their second group match of Euro 2024 against Denmark and whathappened?
Well, the score was 1-1 and England wereunimpressive.
I noted down someadjectives,lackluster.
This word has come up on the podcastbefore.
It's a word that my brother used to refer to the Star Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi Disney Plusseries.
He said that waslackluster.
It's quite a niceadjective.
If something'slackluster, it means it's just not particularlyspecial.
It lacks a certainshine.
So it's kind of seemed a bit dull or not particularlyinteresting.
So England's performance wasunimpressive,lackluster, a bitslow, quiteconservative,right, meaning not veryadventurous, not verydaring.
They werepragmatic, which is this word that's used in football to mean sort of defensive or playing itsafe, let'ssay, playing itsafe.
Not taking very manyrisks.
There was not much creativity goingon, lacking a certainspark.
It was frustrating to watch England dothis.
I don't know if anyone outthere, if those of you in different countries even really care aboutEngland, you probably don'treally.
Maybe there's a certain level of support for the England football team in someplaces, but obviously you'll be supporting your ownteams.
Just to describe the team that Isupport, it's quite a frustrating experience with England because as I think I mentioned earlier on in thisepisode, the thing about England is that we've got this premiership which is verygood.
The club teams in England areexcellent.
And obviously we've got a lot of foreign players in thepremiership, but also most of the players in the England team play at the highest level for theirclubs, a lot of them in the premiership and they'reexcellent.
They're really top-class players and they play an excellent game with their clubteams.
But when you take these England players out of their clubs and you put them in England shirts and you put them on the field representingEngland, they always seem to have a problem jelling together and forming a really well-functioningteam.
It just doesn't seem toclick.
I don't really knowwhy.
I don't know what the issue isthere, but there was a lack of spark and none of the players seem to be able to unlock their talent that they show normally during the season when they're playing for theirclubs.
They just can't seem to make it work when they're playing forEngland.
I don't know what the storyis, but every single time I feel like every time I talk about England playing football on thispodcast, it's always the samestory,right?
It's always this story offrustration, of the mystery of why English players can't seem to switch it on when they're playing for their nationalteam.
Imean, still England are stillsafe.
They are still top of theirgroup, which means thatthey,if, depending on the result of the lastgame, so the thirdgame, which England really should win againstSlovenia, which is nextTuesday, I think England will probably still come top of thegroup.
We'llsee, but if we continue to perform likethis, then there's no way we'll get through the later knockoutstages.
And as soon as we hit one of the biggerteams, then I can't see really how we will be able to win if we perform likethat.
So, youknow, we'll probably get through to the knockoutstages, but I don't really fancy our chances of getting through to thefinal.
Even though before thecompetition, people were saying lots of verycomplementary, positive things aboutEngland.
A lot of people tipped England as being one of the favorite teams for thecompetition, but that's just onpaper.
That's just when you look at the players that wehave, when you look at the quality in theteam, but in terms of the way the team is actuallyperforming, it's anotherstory.
Okay, I would love to talk more aboutfootball, but I think that's probably enough at thisstage.
I expect that ourmanager, GarethSouthgate, is coming under a lot of criticism today in the media andstuff.
We'll see how the whole team responds toit, but I would love to see England playing a bit more adventurously and playing a bit like one of those really aggressive attacking clubteams, like Manchester City or Liverpoolteams, which do something called a high pressgame, which is where they essentially kind of smother the otherteam.
They play all the way deep into the other teamshalf, and they don't let the other team have anypossession.
Normally what happens in football is that so you got the two halves of thepitch,right?
You defend your half and you attack into the otherhalf.
And what often happensis, let's say the opposing team gets the ball in their half and your team sits back a bit and defends their half of thepitch.
And when the opposing team brings the ball into your half of thepitch, that's when you start todefend, especially when the ball is brought towards the penaltyarea.
You start to really defend and closedown, which means come in close to the players who've got the ball andtackle.
Right? But that means you're waiting until the ball is fairly close to yourgoal,really, before you start to press the otherplayers.
But this high press game is where your team pushes deep into the other teams half and you start pressing them or trying to tacklethem, trying to winpossession, all the way deep into theirhalf.
And you don't let the other team get any possession of the ball and you win the ball close to theirgoal.
And then youquickly, reactingquickly, thinking quickly and being quick on yourfeet, you're able to make something happen in every part of the pitch in asense.
So it's kind of like a very kind ofgregarious, veryattacking, dominating form of football that requires a lot ofspeed, a lot of quickthinking, a lot of fastteamwork, a lot of skill and a lot of kind of risk aswell.
Because when you dothat, you kind of also leave yourself a little bit exposed at the back if your team is stretched out through thepitch.
But it's a way to kind of make thingshappen, to be exciting and to make your ownopportunities.
AndEngland, I don't knowwhy, but then just not doing anything likethat.
They're not even defending thatwell.
It's just a boring kind ofconservative,safe, pragmatic form offootball, which no onelikes.
And I even feel like the team members aren't happy playing that kind of football that that's not what they're used todoing.
They're used to playing this other form offootball.
Anyway, that's enough stuff aboutfootball.
Allright, and that's the end of thisepisode.
Thank you so much forlistening.
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Allright.Great.Lovely.
Have a greatday,morning,afternoon, evening ornight.
If your football team is in theeuros, then good luck to themunless, ofcourse, they're playingEngland.
Allright. Speak to you nexttime, but fornow,goodbye.
Bye.Bye.Bye.Bye. Thanks for listening to Luke's Englishpodcast.
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