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'.***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***"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 ITYou 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 quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com. ***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD*** With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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?"***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***Stephen Bush's FT article on calls for an inquiry into grooming gangs.Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com. ***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD*** With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. ***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***Statista's monthly figures on boat crossings. Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com. ***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD*** With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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! ***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***“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 quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com.***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alex, Naomi, and Kenny discuss the most important trends of 2024 and what they might augur for 2025. PLUS their most out-there predictions!***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***Alex: “The reaction to progress is not an attempt to stand still, to remain the same, but an active attempt to reverse progress. Progress is not some axiomatic force that will do its thing without our shoulder to the wheel.”Naomi: “Big Tech enjoying access will continue and end up crossing every conflict of interest boundary. It’s not going to be about kickbacks or corruption. What we will see is the capture of whole sectors of the economy by Big Tech.”Kenny: “The power play between Trump, Musk, and Putin is going to be fascinating to watch in 2025. The world’s three most powerful narcissists feeding off one-another.”Find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod. On Bluesky click here for our Starter Pack. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com.***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Attention polling geeks, politics geeks and students of the world ... what can Taylor Swift tell us about the world of politics? How about Beyoncé? And, sticking with a pop theme, how about Waterloo?Naomi Smith returns with the second part of her festive Poll The Other One special, this time with Focaldata chief research officer James Kanagasooriam who, as well as being heroically knowledgeable about all things polling, also coined the phrase Red Wall. Yes, *that* Red Wall.This episode is absolutely chocka with fascinating insights and, as a bonus, it will equip you to drop the following phrases into your political discourse: race depolarisation; zero-sum thinking; culture-nomics.If that's too geeky-sounding, there's also stuff about Waterloo Station's liberal clientele, the Democrats' religious vacuum and Keir Starmer's sandcastle. I know, the sandcastle has hooked you. ‘Across the West, no political parties seem to do what they say on the tin.’'Zero-sum thinking was a really interesting trend that came out of this year … if I do well, you do badly.‘‘It’s a very powerful tool, optimism.’‘The Lib Dem vote just follows a trainline out of London.’‘Politicians now know, irrespective of their ideology, that at the end of their four or five years they have to have grown the economy.’Show NotesSubscribe to James's splendid Substack, The Political WhiteboardCheck out Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated, a recent paper co-authored by Works In Progress founder Ben SouthwoodWant more Quiet Riot? Find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod and on Bluesky. Click here for your Bluesky starter pack. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com.***If you can afford to, please sponsor us at ko-fi.com/quietriotpod ... it means a lot to us :-) ***With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

LOBBY JOURNALISTS DO BATTLE FOR THE QUIZ CHAMPION CROWN. Quizmaster Naomi grills The Guardian's Zoe Williams, The Times' Caroline Wheeler, Politics Home's Adam Payne, Conservative Home's Henry Hill, and award-winning Welsh politics guru, Will Hayward. And they also share their political moment of the year. Which one will triumph and who will disgrace themselves? ***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***Find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod and on Bluesky. Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com. ***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD*** With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alex Andreou and Naomi Smith welcome two very special guests - their best friends Nigel Smith and Nigella Lawson. Recorded with a special live audience of many of our previous guests, in this PART II we look forward to 2025, take questions from the audience, and - of course - talk all about FOOD!!!***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***“If you hurry the cooking of an onion, all is lost.”“I would win Ready, Steady, Cook. I would be very good at that.”“I don’t like gadgets that lock you out of the cooking process.”“Whenever there is a new fashionable ingredient, I tend to feel sorry about the old ones. So, I pivot to carrots.” “Channelling Alex’s radical optimism, where are you all going to find joy in the next year?Wherever we bloody well can!" "Joy is in the small things. The way the light falls in through a curtain. Or having a vodka-martini so cold it hurts. Or the perfectly constructed sentence in a book you’re reading. I don’t know you can start worrying about where it should best come from.” “The connections we build with people is the thing we really build our lives from. It starts with the personal. That’s how we make a better future.”“The small unexpected kindnesses give me joy, because they give me hope, that there is something underneath all the darkness, and we just have to find a way to mine it.” CALLS TO ACTION: The charity Praxis can be found here.Food decorations from Sous Chef.Nigella's recipe for Fig and Olive Chutney. Find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod. For Bluesky click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com. ***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD*** With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alex and Naomi talk to a pantheon of special guests to dissect the week's news. Arthur Snell on the attack on the Magdeburg Christmas Market and a new breed of self-radicalised individual who fits no profile. Ian Dunt on the latest peers elevated to the Lords. Zoe Williams on the backlash over gov't denying compensation to WASPI women. Peter Geoghegan on the first cracks appearing in the Trump/Musk bromance and dark money. A special episode to end the year. ***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***Arthur: “A classic example of self-radicalisation. People in a very isolated way online can be drawn into a very personal version of a dangerous ideology. You can end up with people with very bizarre uniquely generated private views.”Arthur: “Whilst it’s a slightly bewildering case, it’s a fairly neat illustration of the way that radicalisation has become a profound danger and that you don’t have to have pale skin and ‘Aryan’ looks to be radicalised into far-right ideology.”Peter: “Labour’s failure [to proactively regulate money in politics] has put them in this position and they still don’t have a strategy. When the Musk story broke, they briefed that they might cap donations, now that they may do something by 2026, or that they may limit the amount a company can give. This is very piecemeal, very reactive and not being led from the front.”Peter: “We have seen time and again how unlimited donations, dirty money and dark money in British politics, has warped the political agenda. Musk unintentionally is illuminating this, shining a great big light onto it. And the public care about this. That’s the most compelling reason to act, rather than party political ramifications.”Zoe: “A lot of these plans, like the winter fuel payment withdrawal, are not well formulated. I’m not sure that a blanket ‘no’ to the WASPI women is the right thing to do. At the same time, this government is being treated atrociously by the commentariat. Conservative gov’ts, and the coalition before them, introduced waves of extreme hardship and barely a peep was made about it.”Zoe: “I don’t think anything [Labour] do would be enough to restore trust in democracy…  We went from austerity, which was often just performative cruelty, into the fecklessness of Brexit, and then into a pandemic that was defined by corruption. I worry that that did taint the reputation of politics so profoundly, I don’t see how you turn it around.”Ian: “We cannot have PM after PM just come in and just cram the place with their cronies… and see the numbers just expand and expand. Even for those of us who are defenders of the Lords, it makes our job impossible, because you cannot support this stuff, you cannot defend the way they are behaving.”Ian: “Starmer is the most consistently underestimated politician in my lifetime. People cannot stop looking at him and going ‘he’s so boring’, ‘he’s got no ideas’, ‘he’s bad at politics’, ‘he’s got no connection to the public’. There’s loads to criticise him on, but some of the stuff he’s doing is huge. When you look at planning, labour practices, local gov't, net zero, criminal justice - in 15 years, we will look back on this period as engine room policy change.”Ian: “Having a surging Farage - which will be the story of next year, because that is what the press wants the story to be - is poison for the national conversation and will pull us further to the right. But electorally, the basic boring answer is still the correct one: a surging Reform just divides the right.”CALLS TO ACTION LINKS: Peter's substack Democracy for Sale. It's free and you should subscribe. Find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod. On Bluesky click here for our Starter Pack. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com.***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***Hallmark has pumped out over 800 of these original movies - and I use the term original very loosely. Its countdown to Xmas generates over a third of its entire revenue during this one month. But where do these films have their roots? Are they a new phenomenon or just the modern version of Pride & Prejudice? Are they an anti-capitalist subversion teaching that work and materialism do not equal happiness? Or a MAGA misogynist festival that seeks to humiliate women who have the temerity to seek a life, education, or career outside their home town? Alex compares notes with film critic Linda Marric, to get to the bottom of their enduring, and - given their quality - pretty surprising popularity. GOOD FESTIVE PICKS The Holiday *batteries not included The Family Man When Harry Met Sally... SO BAD THEY ARE GOOD FESTIVE PICKS Harvest Love A Law for Christmas 'Tis The Season to Be Merry Christmas at the Holly Hotel Sister Swap - City Edition Sister Swap - Country Edition Hallmark's daring interracial effort: Something from Tiffany's Hallmark's first gay starring couple: The Holiday Sitter Hallmark's does Hannukah: Love, Lights, Hannukah! Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com. ***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD*** With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices