The Trawl

In this Trawl, Jemma and Marina dive into the political earthquake shaking Reform UK after former Welsh leader Nathan Gill was jailed for taking bribes linked to pro-Russian interests. With the party insisting there’s no need for an internal investigation, social media has been left... unconvinced.

We pick through the online reaction, the disbelief, and the dark humour as Westminster scrambles to respond. From Farage’s denials over his own past controversies to questions about transparency inside Reform, the timeline is an absolute mess and the internet has thoughts.

Plus: the memes, the meltdowns, and the moments that defined a week where one conviction sets off a political chain reaction.

Thank you for sharing and please do follow us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTrawlPodcast

Patreon

https://patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTrawl

Twitter

https://twitter.com/TheTrawlPodcast

If you’ve even mildly enjoyed The Trawl, you’ll love the unfiltered, no-holds-barred extras from Jemma & Marina over on Patreon, including:

• Exclusive episodes of The Trawl Goss – where Jemma and Marina spill backstage gossip, dive into their personal lives, and often forget the mic is on

• Early access to The Trawl Meets…

• Glorious ad-free episodes

Plus, there’s a bell-free community of over 3,300 legends sparking brilliant chat.

And it’s your way to support the pod which the ladies pour their hearts, souls (and occasional anxiety) into. All for your listening pleasure and reassurance that through this geopolitical s**tstorm… you’re not alone.

Come join the fun:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

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

Brace yourselves, trawlers... Marina and Jemma are back and flailing through another chaotic week online. In this episode they dive into everything: Musk’s unhinged Grok responses, the bot-farm MAGA fiasco, and a Musk appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast that is so painfully sad it should come with a health warning.

Then it’s onto the budget: the leak, the playground antics from Kemi Badenoch’s and the most compelling and layman's terms summary of the whole thing you'll ever hear. 

There’s ranting, there’s cackling, and there’s an incredibly moving moment from Channel 4’s Go Back To Where You Came From documentary, plus Mike Graham (who now has a lot of spare time on his hands), manages to be more unhinged than ever. 

Thank you for sharing and please do follow us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTrawlPodcast

Patreon

https://patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTrawl

Twitter

https://twitter.com/TheTrawlPodcast

If you’ve even mildly enjoyed The Trawl, you’ll love the unfiltered, no-holds-barred extras from Jemma & Marina over on Patreon, including:

• Exclusive episodes of The Trawl Goss – where Jemma and Marina spill backstage gossip, dive into their personal lives, and often forget the mic is on

• Early access to The Trawl Meets…

• Glorious ad-free episodes

Plus, there’s a bell-free community of over 3,300 legends sparking brilliant chat.

And it’s your way to support the pod which the ladies pour their hearts, souls (and occasional anxiety) into. All for your listening pleasure and reassurance that through this geopolitical s**tstorm… you’re not alone.

Come join the fun:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

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

It’s beginning to look a lot like chaos, Trawlers! In this 'starting to feel' festive-but-feral episode, Jemma and Marina wade through glitter explosions, Christmas tree catastrophes and a BBC News bauble-gate blooper before heading straight into the most unexpected love story of the season: Donald Trump going full heart-eyes for New York’s new Mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani.

What was meant to be an explosive Oval Office showdown somehow turned into a political rom-com, complete with cheesy poses and Trump posting Mamdani like a teenage crush. We unpack the memes, the madness and the moment Trump’s ego got speared by Cupid.

But don't get too cosy because from there it’s back to the grim stuff: Trump resharing posts calling for Democrats to be hung, a “peace plan” for Ukraine that appears to have been written in Moscow, Europe’s furious backlash, and the Kremlin fingerprints smeared all over MAGA’s online army.

Plus a bang-on satirical closer from Alex With Pen.

It’s festive, furious and fully unhinged - exactly how you like it. Enjoy!

This is the link to the petition Marina mentions in the episode to 'call a public inquiry into Russian influence on UK Politics & Democracy'. Follow the link to sign your name: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/744215

Thank you for sharing and please do follow us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTrawlPodcast

Patreon

https://patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTrawl

Twitter

https://twitter.com/TheTrawlPodcast

If you’ve even mildly enjoyed The Trawl, you’ll love the unfiltered, no-holds-barred extras from Jemma & Marina over on Patreon, including:

• Exclusive episodes of The Trawl Goss – where Jemma and Marina spill backstage gossip, dive into their personal lives, and often forget the mic is on

• Early access to The Trawl Meets…

• Glorious ad-free episodes

Plus, there’s a bell-free community of over 3,300 legends sparking brilliant chat.

And it’s your way to support the pod which the ladies pour their hearts, souls (and occasional anxiety) into. All for your listening pleasure and reassurance that through this geopolitical s**tstorm… you’re not alone.

Come join the fun:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

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

Jemma and Marina are back, sifting through another load of digital debris so you don’t have to. Luckily, the weekend is in sight… though Christmas is also looming, the cosi-livs crisis continues to chew through bank accounts, and the UK's politicians? Well, they’re arguing amongst themselves as usual.

The Trawl ladies check in on the incoming budget, beautifully skewered by Cody Dahler, before plunging into the asylum “crackdown” that many Labour backbenchers are struggling to defend. Jemma and Marina explore the prospect of refugees building 15 years of life in the UK… only to be told “tara mate, off you pop” when their home country is reclassified as “safe”.

LBC's Tom Swarbrick is quite happy with what's being mooted, but the Greens are not having it. Zack Polanski blows a gasket, at Labour’s “give us your jewellery” approach.

Marina and Jemma talk polling, panic, the pointless race to the bottom and why none of this actually solves the inequality at the heart of the problem.

Then, in true Trawl fashion, they veer sideways to a DOGE update, and a chef’s-kiss Pudding from Munya Chawawa.

Another week. Another avalanche of nonsense. Another Trawl.

Thank you for sharing and please do follow us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTrawlPodcast

Patreon

https://patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTrawl

Twitter

https://twitter.com/TheTrawlPodcast

If you’ve even mildly enjoyed The Trawl, you’ll love the unfiltered, no-holds-barred extras from Jemma & Marina over on Patreon, including:

• Exclusive episodes of The Trawl Goss – where Jemma and Marina spill backstage gossip, dive into their personal lives, and often forget the mic is on

• Early access to The Trawl Meets…

• Glorious ad-free episodes

Plus, there’s a bell-free community of over 3,300 legends sparking brilliant chat.

And it’s your way to support the pod which the ladies pour their hearts, souls (and occasional anxiety) into. All for your listening pleasure and reassurance that through this geopolitical s**tstorm… you’re not alone.

Come join the fun:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

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

This is Part 2 of an Epstein emails Trawl deep dive. Once again, Marina and Jemma dive into the online storm surrounding newly unsealed Epstein-related documents and the political reactions that have set social media ablaze. From Megyn Kelly’s widely-shared comments to the way his most cultish followers are handling it, the Trawl ladies explore how the discourse spiralled, who said what, and why the internet collectively has lost its mind.

Jemma and Marina also look at the New York Times’ much-mocked headline, examine how different factions are spinning the story, and discuss what these reactions reveal about broader culture-war dynamics.

It’s a wild week online — chaotic, furious, meme-heavy — and The Trawl is wading through it so you don’t have to.

Thank you for sharing and please do follow us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTrawlPodcast

Patreon

https://patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTrawl

Twitter

https://twitter.com/TheTrawlPodcast

If you’ve even mildly enjoyed The Trawl, you’ll love the unfiltered, no-holds-barred extras from Jemma & Marina over on Patreon, including:

• Exclusive episodes of The Trawl Goss – where Jemma and Marina spill backstage gossip, dive into their personal lives, and often forget the mic is on

• Early access to The Trawl Meets…

• Glorious ad-free episodes

Plus, there’s a bell-free community of over 3,300 legends sparking brilliant chat.

And it’s your way to support the pod which the ladies pour their hearts, souls (and occasional anxiety) into. All for your listening pleasure and reassurance that through this geopolitical s**tstorm… you’re not alone.

Come join the fun:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

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

This Trawl comes in TWO PARTS because there was simply too much to cram into just one episode.

This episode has Jemma and Marina diving face-first into the internet’s latest swamp: the Elon–Trump–Epstein–AI hell-spiral nobody asked for but everybody is talking about.

From Grok’s “alternative facts” rewriting reality in real time, to the newly released Epstein emails, which are lighting up X like a Christmas tree in hell, they break down the stories the press are tiptoeing around. The ones Fox News would rather swallow its own tongue than cover.

Marina and Jemma look at what the emails actually show, wonder who Bubba might be and have a live 'this is two episodes' moment. 

There's also 'that' Piggy moment to rage at and Marjorie Taylor Greene's epiphany to discuss.

It’s politics, chaos and receipts — trawled so you don’t have to. Part two will be in your ears tomorrow

Thank you for sharing and do tweet us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTrawlPodcast

Patreon

https://patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTrawl

Twitter

https://twitter.com/TheTrawlPodcast

If you’ve even mildly enjoyed The Trawl, you’ll love the unfiltered, no-holds-barred extras from Jemma & Marina over on Patreon, including:

• Exclusive episodes of The Trawl Goss – where Jemma and Marina spill backstage gossip, dive into their personal lives, and often forget the mic is on

• Early access to The Trawl Meets…

• Glorious ad-free episodes

Plus, there’s a bell-free community of over 3,300 legends sparking brilliant chat.

And it’s your way to support the pod which the ladies pour their hearts, souls (and occasional anxiety) into. All for your listening pleasure and reassurance that through this geopolitical s**tstorm… you’re not alone.

Come join the fun:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

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

In this episode of The Trawl, Jemma and Marina dive head-first into a planet-sized pile of billionaire bullshit — starting with the news that Elon Musk is on track to become the world’s first trillionaire. Yes, trillionaire. As in: “bigger than the GDP of Saudi Arabia” trillionaire.

They roll out a brand-new listener-made jingle for the “Trickle Down Update of the Week” and ask: What on earth is Tesla doing? internet?

And as the Epstein situation develops, Trump is playing chicken with the food-stamp programme that keeps 42 million Americans fed. Payments frozen, families panicking, the Supreme Court involved, and Trump using hunger as a bargaining chip. Marina and Jemma discuss the fallout, the food-bank queues, the voters caught in the middle, and the grim Oval Office moment that shows exactly how little he cares.

Then: chaos at The New York Times, where a catastrophically misjudged opinion piece sparks the question: who keeps approving this?!

And finally, JoJoFromJerz delivers pudding - a clip that lands somewhere between cathartic, furious, poignant and funny.

Enjoy!

Thank you for sharing and do tweet us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTrawlPodcast

Patreon

https://patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTrawl

Twitter

https://twitter.com/TheTrawlPodcast

If you’ve even mildly enjoyed The Trawl, you’ll love the unfiltered, no-holds-barred extras from Jemma & Marina over on Patreon, including:

• Exclusive episodes of The Trawl Goss – where Jemma and Marina spill backstage gossip, dive into their personal lives, and often forget the mic is on

• Early access to The Trawl Meets…

• Glorious ad-free episodes

Plus, there’s a bell-free community of over 3,300 legends sparking brilliant chat.

And it’s your way to support the pod which the ladies pour their hearts, souls (and occasional anxiety) into. All for your listening pleasure and reassurance that through this geopolitical s**tstorm… you’re not alone.

Come join the fun:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

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

From baked potatoes to pension raids, it’s another rollercoaster week in the weird and woeful world of UK politics.

Jemma and Marina pay tribute to the glorious Pauline Collins, salute a life well lived, and then plunge straight into the nation’s latest highs and lows, including the latest (Not Prince) Andrew news. It involves a late night snack and what amounts to culinary catastrophe frankly. Somehow this segues into chat about Kim K’s thongs with a difference, and Rachel Reeves apparently testing just how unpopular she can make saving for retirement.

Throw in a Tory montage, some tax turmoil, and a side of existential dread, and you’ve got a trawl that’s equal parts hilarious and horrifying.

Thank you for sharing and do tweet us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTrawlPodcast

Patreon

https://patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTrawl

Twitter

https://twitter.com/TheTrawlPodcast

If you’ve even mildly enjoyed The Trawl, you’ll love the unfiltered, no-holds-barred extras from Jemma & Marina over on Patreon, including:

• Exclusive episodes of The Trawl Goss – where Jemma and Marina spill backstage gossip, dive into their personal lives, and often forget the mic is on

• Early access to The Trawl Meets…

• Glorious ad-free episodes

Plus, there’s a bell-free community of over 3,300 legends sparking brilliant chat.

And it’s your way to support the pod which the ladies pour their hearts, souls (and occasional anxiety) into. All for your listening pleasure and reassurance that through this geopolitical s**tstorm… you’re not alone.

Come join the fun:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

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

This week on The Trawl, Jemma Forte and Marina Purkiss are knee-deep in the latest wave of outrage from poppy politics to a BBC in apparent crisis.

As Remembrance Sunday came and went, the usual suspects found new ways to weaponise the poppy, turning a moment of reflection into yet another battle in the culture war. Jemma and Marina unpick the hypocrisy, the viral clips, and the veteran being used for clicks.

Then, it’s onto the Beeb: two top resignations, a leaked memo, and a right-wing press party that smells blood. Is this really about “bias” or something far more coordinated? The pair dive into how the BBC’s latest wobble has been spun into a full-blown assault on public broadcasting.

With new jingles (thank you, Simon Brown), the usual sound effects, and plenty of righteous rage, this is The Trawl doing what it does best — diving deep into the week’s digital nonsense so you don’t have to.

Thank you for sharing and do tweet us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTrawlPodcast

Patreon

https://patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTrawl

Twitter

https://twitter.com/TheTrawlPodcast

If you’ve even mildly enjoyed The Trawl, you’ll love the unfiltered, no-holds-barred extras from Jemma & Marina over on Patreon, including:

• Exclusive episodes of The Trawl Goss – where Jemma and Marina spill backstage gossip, dive into their personal lives, and often forget the mic is on

• Early access to The Trawl Meets…

• Glorious ad-free episodes

Plus, there’s a bell-free community of over 3,300 legends sparking brilliant chat.

And it’s your way to support the pod which the ladies pour their hearts, souls (and occasional anxiety) into. All for your listening pleasure and reassurance that through this geopolitical s**tstorm… you’re not alone.

Come join the fun:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

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

It’s a week of whiplash on The Trawl. Marina and Jemma begin with words - literally - as they find the perfect Susie Dent–style term to capture the emotional chaos of the moment. From there, it’s a hard swerve into horrors too big to scroll past: Netanyahu’s meltdown over leaked footage from a detention centre, the ongoing genocide in Sudan, and why it's practically impossible to absorb it all.

But even in the darkness, the absurdities keep coming. Trump throws a “Great Gatsby” party (because of course he does), JD Vance gets intimate AF on stage with Erika Kirk and Marina and Jemma have a chat about the pros and cons of plether leggings.

In the Under Rated section Billie Eilish restores a little faith in humanity by donating $11 million to feed the hungry.

From genocide to greed, from linguistics to lunacy, Jemma and Marina trawl through a week that shows us the best and worst of what we are.

Thank you for sharing and do tweet us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTrawlPodcast

Patreon

https://patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTrawl

Twitter

https://twitter.com/TheTrawlPodcast

If you’ve even mildly enjoyed The Trawl, you’ll love the unfiltered, no-holds-barred extras from Jemma & Marina over on Patreon, including:

• Exclusive episodes of The Trawl Goss – where Jemma and Marina spill backstage gossip, dive into their personal lives, and often forget the mic is on

• Early access to The Trawl Meets…

• Glorious ad-free episodes

Plus, there’s a bell-free community of over 3,300 legends sparking brilliant chat.

And it’s your way to support the pod which the ladies pour their hearts, souls (and occasional anxiety) into. All for your listening pleasure and reassurance that through this geopolitical s**tstorm… you’re not alone.

Come join the fun:

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

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