Quiet Riot

Laura Hood, Senior Politics Editor at The Conversation UK, tackles the latest twists in the Conservative leadership saga with humor and sharp insight. She dives into class dynamics in Britain, arguing that gig economy workers face unique challenges despite seeming independence. The discussion also sheds light on the Labour Party's struggles with EU relations and the need for greater advocacy for youth mobility, calling for cross-generational support to ensure opportunities for younger generations.

Naomi, Alex, And Kenny try to understand why everyone is losing their mind over the Chagos Archipelago deal, talk local election results and why they may be a problem for Labour, and present an alternative biography of Boris Johnson. One in which he doesn't get to gloss over the catastrophe that was his administration. If you can afford to help, you can back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi.BOOKS:Sayeeda Warsi's Muslims Don't Matter.Musa Okwonga's One of Them.Alison Dupernex's Knitting for Absolute Beginners.Find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod or use our Starter Pack on Bluesky. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com.IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO CONTRIBUTE, PLEASE DO. Click here to back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi.With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou, and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Here is the full - AND VERY FRANK - conversation between Alex Andreou and More In Common's chief Luke Tryl on all four Conservative leadership hopefuls.And if you think “why should I care?” - this is why: our entire political system, for good or ill, is adversarial in nature. The quality of the opposition to the government shapes policy. Ideas that have had their tyres properly kicked, will always be better ideas. Luke: "What we hear from our focus groups is that Kemi is refreshing."Alex: "So is an enema."Luke: "You're being mean." Want some more? You can track us down on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod, or hop over to Bluesky for our starter pack action. If email is your thang, our address is quietriotpod@gmail.com. And we even have a website, www.quietriotpod.com.We make all our content available free to everyone, regardless of ability to pay. But we depend on those who can afford to support us with a few pounds doing so. You can do so on Ko-Fi by clicking HERE.Oh, we are Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell, in cahoots with SandStone Global. But you knew that. x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this lively discussion, Guardian journalist Zoe Williams, US politics expert Brian Klaas, and social cohesion advocate Luke Tryl delve into the Tory leadership contest and the recent Vice Presidential debate. They craft insightful critiques of political performances while exploring the challenges faced by opposition parties. The guests also highlight innovative strategies for migrant integration and reflect on the impact of public opinion on political discourse, especially around contentious issues like abortion. Expect humor, sharp analysis, and engaging anecdotes!

Alex stays up all night to bring you the quickest, freshest, and most sleepless, reaction to the VP debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance. The answer of who won will surprise you. A special thank you to everyone who has helped Quiet Riot smash through the 500,000 downloads milestone (smilestone?) in just four short months. If you want more, find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod or use our Starter Pack on Bluesky. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com.IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO CONTRIBUTE, PLEASE DO. Click here to back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi.With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou, and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How can Britain begin to undo the damage to our freedom of movement that Brexit inflicted? Well, we could start with a positive outcome from this week's Brussels meeting between PM Keir Starmer and EC President Ursula von der Leyen.Naomi Smith bangs the drum for musicians, studies the situation for students and ... well, you get the idea. Post-Brexit travel restrictions have been a pain for all and a disaster for many, including those trying to come into Britain as well as those of us trying to slip out of these punch-drunk islands.Naomi's impassioned plea to the PM is backed by some beefy statistics from her team at Best for Britain – in short, Starmer could do everyone, himself included, a huge favour by starting to dismantle some of those travel barriers that have been thrown up so carelessly in recent years. Might even be that rarest of beasts, a vote winner.Call to actionFind the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants HERE and give them your backing!A special thank you to everyone who has helped Quiet Riot smash through the 500,000 downloads milestone (smilestone?) in just four short months. If you want more, find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod or use our Starter Pack on Bluesky. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com.IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO CONTRIBUTE, PLEASE DO. Click here to back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi.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 discuss Baroness Warsi's resignation as a Tory peer and whether that Party is now lost to islamophobia. Plus, why does right wing politics find climate action so difficult. All this, and a BOMBSHELL revelation from Naomi about her undeclared relationship with Lord Waheed Alli. (Also, you must listen to the end. Trust us.)If you can afford to help, you can back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi.CALLS TO ACTIONBest for Britain's tree-planting donation is here.Baroness Warsi's apology to the LGBT+ community.Baroness Warsi's full interview with James O'Brien.Alex's 2014 piece on the floods.MET Office's rain research. is here.Compernicus's heatwave research is here.Find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod or use our Starter Pack on Bluesky. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com.IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO CONTRIBUTE, PLEASE DO. Click here to back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi.With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou, and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Naomi downloads ALL THE GOSSIP from Labour Party Conference - and juicy it is too - before Alex chats to guest, former Middle East diplomat Arthur Snell, about the situation in Lebanon, Ukraine, and the first UN General Assembly for David Lammy and Keir Starmer as Foreign Secretary and PM respectively. Plus a hilarious WOKEY DOKEY and brand new feature GRIN AND SHARE IT.If you can afford to help, you can back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi.Naomi: “I have never seen so much EU representation at a Labour conference. They were there in force. They see [Labour] as people they can do business with, for the first time in a long time. Officials from Brussels, member state reps, the EU delegation to the UK - they were present, happy… the level of excitement about what the EU and UK are going to do, was palpable.”Alex: “The last time we experienced a leader winning an election, then going into No 10, without having already been in situ as PM, several ministers already at departments, and experienced staff ready to shuffle around, was 2010. It’s a steep learning curve. There will be a certain amount of finding their feet. The metric that matters is: is this a government that learns from its mistakes? And that is not a judgment anyone can make yet.”Arthur: “Netanyahu needs another war. He looks at the Gaza situation and, ultimately, a ceasefire and return of the hostages might be getting closer. The Israeli public want the hostages back above anything else. If they get back to anything close to politics as normal in Israel, then attention turns to him.” Arthur: “What Zelenskyy is trying to do, as best he can - and of course his options are quite limited - he is trying to Trump-proof western support that he is getting, build some guarantees into it and certain elements of long-term commitment.”CALLS TO ACTIONBest for Britain's tree-planting donation is here.Arthur's podcast Behind The Lines is here.Ukraine Smart Medical Aid is here.UNICEF's Emergency Lebanon Fund is here.Grin And Share It good news story from Barcelona is here.Find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod or use our Starter Pack on Bluesky. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com.IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO CONTRIBUTE, PLEASE DO. Click here to back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi.With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou, and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alex goes on a (very calm and reasoned) MEGA RANT about the mass hysteria over a Labour peer giving a make-over to the top team for the election campaign. You don't expect to have the book thrown at you, when you do everything strictly by that book."We have a comically unserious top tier of political journalists. Most of them have spent the last fourteen years, in a scandal-rich environment, with their volume permanently on 11, where they filled all the air time and column inches they wanted with anonymous briefing, court intrigue, screengrabs of WhatsApp groups, and very little actual journalism.""Starmer’s cardinal sin is that he is not Corbyn. He is someone who has dirtied himself by winning power. Nothing will ever placate the left of the Labour party." "The right wing is using this confected outrage as a tool to reframe their own rule-breaking and venality of the last decade, through false equivalence. This is especially so for Johnson fans - both individuals and newspapers. There is a huge effort to whitewash BoJo’s failure hanging on this peg." Find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod and on Bluesky. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com. (We are working on threads and YouTube.)We make all of our content universally available for free. But we do need your support to keep making it. Click here to back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi.With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou, and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Monica Harding is the hard-working Lib Dem who scared Dominic Raab (remember him?) clean out of the Esher and Walton constituency, and has just been rewarded with an International Development brief in Ed Davey's top team.In our latest Quiet Riot Mini, Naomi Smith gets Monica's take on the Lib Dem conference and on life as a new MP.If you want to hear more about how she took in a new dawn for the country with her family, or how she dodged asbestos in Westminster, then listen in for 25 minutes of insight and laughter from someone who has done plenty of hard miles in politics before being elected.We make all of our content universally available for free but we do need your support to keep making it. Click here to back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi. This Thursday, our Ko-fi family will get the chance to take part in a Quiet Riot editorial meeting with Naomi, Alex and maybe even producer Kenny, so do head on over and sign up :-)Find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod and on Bluesky. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com. (We are working on threads and YouTube.)IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO CONTRIBUTE, PLEASE DO. Click here to back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi.With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou, and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices