Join us for some group therapy! Naomi and Alex welcome back 38Degrees CEO and former Obama campaign staffer Matthew McGregor with some first impressions of Trump's low-energy inauguration speech, his high-energy overflow speech, Melania's get-away-from-me-energy hat and Musk's chemically-enhanced-energy salute.

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"So much of it was about him. So much of it was about how he's the best and how he's suffered and how he's the victim. Contrast that with 'ask not what your country can do for you'. It was an extraordinarily self-centered inauguration speech."

"Once he was in the other room, he gave the speech he really wanted to. He wanted to talk about January the 6th. He wanted to open up old wounds. He will never ever let go of the injustice that he perceives happened to him back in 2020.”

"We should be outraged. We should stay angry. And we should be up for resisting what Donald Trump is going to try to do to America. But there's no point in pretending that he is a novice, an idiot, someone who is deranged. He knows what he's doing."

“John McCain said it's always darkest just before it goes completely black. I'm glad to be, experiencing the pain, with you both, in a group therapy setting.”

CALLS TO ACTION

To find out more about (and donate if in the US) to Planned Parenthood click here.

To find out more about and help Bloody Good Period click here.

To find out more about and help Level Up click here.

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With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global.

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Naomi and Alex look at the week's news, focussing on Starmer's visit to Poland and Donald Tusk's dream of a "Breturn". Also, the markets have made a remarkable recovery and the media, obsessed with gilt rates until last week, appear not to have noticed - it's almost like there's an agenda there. Plus, TikTok "goes dark" in the US, but has Trump changed his mind?

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“Tusk is successful where the Remain campaign was not. He makes the emotional appeal. He goes for hearts instead of minds. It’s not a coincidence that he is also the person reversing the trend for ever-further-right governments in former Eastern Bloc countries, by bringing together a broad coalition. He is pointing the way on a lot of this stuff.”

“Both the UK and the EU need to capitalise on current circumstances and bake in some stuff that is hard to reverse. They don’t know with whom they will be negotiating next time. I think Donald Tusk gets that and has gone out there and shown Starmer some pretty difficult-to-squirm-away-from love.”

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With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global.

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Alice Jolly taught at Oxford for 16 years ... until she had the temerity to complain about her pay.

Sacked from a job she loved, she took the university to court over her employment rights and won a famous victory.

But what are the broader lessons for the world of academia? In this Quiet Riot special, Naomi Smith talks with Alice, an award-winning writer and academic, about a sector that contributes £265billion to the economy yet where a deeply disturbing number of universities are running at a loss.

Are neo-liberal managers destroying the heart of Britain's higher education sector by prioritising areas such as property development over teaching?

‘When it is very difficult I remind myself that we are fighting for the future of higher education ... it is the basis of our civilisation’

'I loved Oxford University and the dream of that world’ 

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Find out more about the University and College Union

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With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with SandStone Global.

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Alex Andreou, Naomi Smith with special guest Guardian columnist Zoe Williams assess Labour's first 200 days in power, in pretty frank, no-holds-barred conversation. And, as the Trump cabinet confirmation hearing stun Capitol Hill, the gang engage is some preemptive group therapy on how to survive the next four years of Trump.

Plus 'Wokey Dokey' and 'Grin and Share It'.

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“There is a real problem with Keir’s cabinet and Keir’s government… He will not let anyone go out and build their own brand, persona, ideas - anything. He won’t let anyone go out and be the person they want to be. And so when you get a situation like Reeves at the mercy of bond markets nobody looks at her and thinks: she’s got this.”

“Debt markets are a beauty pageant and you don’t want to be the ugliest contestant. What is happening now is not at all like Truss, because at that point everyone else’s bond markets were relatively calm and ours was the only one shooting up. That is a very different situation.”

“What is this government’s growth theory? I don’t know. Every government has one - it might be bullshit, but they have it. This one’s seems to be a Jack-And-The-Beanstalk theory: ‘I will take my desire for growth to the market and buy a bean and then let’s see what happens.’” 

GRIN AND SHARE IT

You can read about the amazing advance in battery technology here.

CALLS TO ACTION LINKS:

Zoe's piece about quitting Facebook.

The petition calling for an independent evaluation of the Cass Review.

Find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod and on Bluesky. Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack. Email us at [email protected]. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com.

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With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global.

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Naomi and Alex look at the week's news, focussing on the market turmoil and pressure on Reeves, Trump's felony conviction, and Farage under increasing pressure from his own members for - WAIT FOR IT! - being too moderate.

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“Trump did this before his 2017 inauguration. He is manipulating markets. Causing a volatile period with negative movement. He threatens lots of stuff. He then gets sworn in and tones it down. Everything resets and he comes out and claims: Look at Wall Street. Even in my first week everything is going gangbusters.”

"An enormous number of [Reform voters] are aspirationally wealthy, golf-playing, what I would call 'red corduroy trouser guy'. They do not like the working classness of a man like Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. They don't want him invading their club. And I think that's true of Farage.”

“The government needs to pursue a policy of dynamic beneficial alignment with the EU. Most of us do not work for a large corporation that can box and cox around regulatory changes in our largest trading market. Lots of SMEd and sole traders just can't do it.”

“There are unilateral things that gov’t could be doing right now to boost the economy and the reason it’s not is because it’s chicken. They are letting the perceived political price, of being seen to get closer to the EU, dictate policy choice. It is a discredit to them. These lost months, you ain’t getting them back.”

Reform UK trying to introduce a bill - the video is here.

CALL TO ACTION:

Tell your MP to attend the debate on Youth Mobility.

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With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global.

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Alex Andreou talks to top economist Vicky Pryce, to get to the bottom of what is behind market volatility and high gov't borrowing rates, how much of it is inherited, how much of it international, how much down to the gov't, what can be done to fix it, and why it isn't being done.

Much of it not as you might expect.

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“The US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England missed a trick. The confidence of central banks was impacted quite badly when they were seen to be too slow in moving rates up, so now they’re being a little bit too cautious about moving rates down.”

“There is a serious issue. Right now in most countries there’s fiscal retrenchment [gov’t measures to reduce debt]. With tight monetary policy too, you’re almost stuck with low growth.”

USEFUL READING

Vicky Pryce's blog on inflation is here.

The FT's round-up of analyst views is here.

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With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global.

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Alex Andreou, Naomi Smith with special guest Dame Emily Thornberry try to decipher the incoherent tweets of Musk, the incoherent strategy of Badenoch, and the incoherent ramblings of Trump. Plus 'Wokey Dokey' and 'Grin and Share It'.

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"The idea that they can just play political games on the bodies of these girls, whose lives would have been turned upside down by what happened, to have it all raked over again and again for petty point scoring. The stakes for the victims are very high.”

“The next few years is going to be all about realignment on the right. Who's going to eat whom? In our current system there's only really space for two big political parties.”

“I don't really know what's happened to the leadership of the Tory Party. They have so profoundly lost their way.”

"The one thing we should take very seriously about Donald Trump is that he is completely unpredictable. It's like the whole table has been thrown over and we're picking up the pieces trying to see how to put it back together."

"The way forward is essentially to work out what are his interests and how to align what's in our interest with it. On Ukraine, Trump doesn't want to be seen as a loser. He wants to win the Nobel Peace prize. We can be there saying, here is a way to do that, just sign your name and have your photo taken."

GRIN AND SHARE IT

You can read the story of Bear, the hero dog, on the BBC website.

CALLS TO ACTION LINKS:

Find out how to write to your MP here.

Details of how to contribute to the Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry on Soft Power.

Find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod and on Bluesky. Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack. Email us at [email protected]. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com.

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With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global.

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Naomi and Alex give their instant reaction to the rapidly spiralling Musk breakdown, Starmer's strong response, the Tory Party's weak response - and Justin Trudeau's resignation.

"One thing that UK gov't could do straight away, is to move all of its departments and ministries off X. What are they still doing there? What are official gov't accounts still doing on X, while the PM is saying that it is now a site dedicated to disinformation?"

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Stephen Bush's FT article on calls for an inquiry into grooming gangs.

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With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global.

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In the words of Jon Snow, "winter is coming". Naomi and Alex look at the cold winds blowing in from the East, as Ukraine cuts Europe off its Putin habit, from the West, as Musk goes too far right even for Farage's taste, and from the South, where Suella Braverman can be found admiring the Italy-Turkey border.

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Statista's monthly figures on boat crossings.

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With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global.

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Alex chats to eminent scenario planner, futurologist, and best-selling author Richard Watson about whether there is any point predicting anything in such a volatile environment and finds that scenario planning is not a passive pursuit but about shaping the future. A wide-ranging, illuminating, and inspirational conversation.

Stay tuned to the end for a goodies giveaway!

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“I’m not trying to be right about things. I’m trying to help people be less wrong. What I’m trying to do is get people to think and my experience is that most people are putting out fires dealing with quarterly results, annual results, four- or five-year election cycles. There are very few people thinking a generation ahead.”

“The thing that’s problematic at the moment for a lot of people running organisations is not so much the speed of things, the volatility, or the unexpected events, but the sheer amount of information. I can’t pay attention to everything, so to what do I pay attention? How do I pick?”

“The one trend organisations should be paying more attention to than anything else is societal ageing and declining fertility. Related to that is ‘the war for talent’. You have a shrinking workforce and moving into a more protectionist era. The fight to attract and retain talent will intensify.” 

“People tend to think of the future in binary terms. That something new will happen that will kill something that’s been around for a while. But the future is ‘and’ not ‘or’. Look at Ukraine, you have First World War trenches on one level, but also drones and satellites.”

“I think the future has always been open and we should spend more time thinking what we want it to be, rather than only what it will be.”

Richard Watson's books can be found here.

Richard Watson's bookshelf can be found here.

Richard Watson & Lavie Tidhar's children's book can be found here.

Find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod. On Bluesky click here for our Starter Pack. Email us at [email protected]. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com.

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With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global.

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