Naomi and Alex, go over the US result, with a special focus on what it means for the UK and Europe, and what leassons we can learn from it. With two extraordinary guests: Former diplomat and UN Deputy Secretary General, Lord Mark Malloch Brown, and former Obama campaign staffer and CEO of 38 Degrees Matthew Mc Gregor. ***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***Mark: “There is, frankly, a class-versus-identity issue. Some latinos, for example, feel that they are entering the middle class and want their vote to be consistent with their life in the suburbs, membership of a country club, and resent Democrats who tend to lump them together by identity and assume that they want certain services or support from the state.”Matthew: “Yes, economic issues were front and centre, but there are other issues in this election. For a lot of Americans, the impact of the roll back of reproductive rights, the fact that women are losing their lives because of it, was not a deal-breaker. And this is going to be an incredibly painful fact for people to absorb.”  Mark: “The person who lost this campaign was Joe Biden and those around him, who cynically kept him propped up long after he should have declared himself not a candidate, and prevented the primary process, in the white hot heat of which a candidate is toughened up.”Matthew: “There is a real danger from this result for the UK, that the Labour Party, and progressives more generally, will suffer a crisis of confidence. In the current environment, caution is the riskier option. The gov’t needs to drive forward, probably even more boldly than Reeves set out in the Budget.”Mark: “If Trump goes with these very high tariffs, he is not only going to throw the American economy into deep confusion, in the medium term, he is going to throw the global economy into a chaotic state. And anaemic growth is going to be even more anaemic.”Matthew: “Feelings don’t care about your facts. Keir Starmer said something that really concerned me during the election campaign: ‘I believe in actions, not words.’ If you want to be a successful PM in the year 2024, you need both.”LINKS: You can join the fight with 38 Degrees here.You can join the fight with Best for Britain here.You can join the fight with Hope not Hate here.You can find out about Open Society's work here.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 talks to Rose Wang, BlueSky Chief Operations Officer in SanFrancisco - one of two women at the top of this social media startup. about the rollercoaster of the last few months, the coming election, and what is next for the platform.***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***“It was happening in real time for all of us. I don’t think the team slept for 48 hours, trying to keep the service online, and I am proud to say we had no down time, despite the fact a couple of million Brazilians came on BlueSky over the course of two to three days.”“This election is going to be a moment for our different platforms to show what we care about, what our values are. BlueSky welcomes political debate, unlike Threads which down-ranks political content. We are giving users the tools and authority to make their own decisions, rather than being a partisan platform that elevates one candidate over another, which is what’s happening on X.”“This is exactly the world that we want to prevent. Overnight, X has become a platform with an opinion as to who should win the US presidential election. That’s pretty wild. It’s no longer a public square. It’s now a partisan walled garden. At BlueSky we hope to showcase the technology we need to build more of a democratic republic online.”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 discuss Kemi Badenoch's prospects and Rachel Reeves' budget, before an extended therapy session about the coming US Election. With star cameos from Salma Shah and Henry Hill. ***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***“Kemi Badenoch has been elected with only a third of MPs and just over a third of the membership behind her. In a party addicted to factional strife, is that enough support - especially for someone who plans to pick fights?" "This was a Brexit Tax Budget. We are paying the price of Brexit, in no small part, through this budget. Brexit contributed to the stagnation of our economy and this budget is trying to rectify some of that. But because of the tightrope Labour is walking on Europe, they aren’t going to come out and say that.”"We need to make psychological space for the possibility of a Kamala Harris victory, for for the possibility of a Trump victory, and for the possibility it might be so close, we are in limbo for ages. It is easier to prepare for all three in the abstract."LINKS: Here is the Cost of Brexit summary from Best for Britain.Here is the breakdown of the process between election and inauguration.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

How is the new Labour government perceived in the EU? How much of a 'reset' is realistically achievable? What does the club we just left make of our slow change of heart? What does it want in return? And how much of a priority is our renegotiation in European capitals?  Alex spoke to Professor Jacob Öberg for a European perspective on our long journey to rejoining. ***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***“There is a feeling that Labour haven’t really decided what to do and where they want to go with [the UK-EU reset] - particularly in terms of things that the EU would request or require from the UK. Labour has been very hesitant to give any space to that. And in that situation no-one gives in and nothing happens.”“All of these things, if we talk youth mobility, vet agreement, things like these, it is a big complicated negotiation and you need everyone on board - the EU Commission the UK negotiation team, everyone needs to be fully focussed on this. If you do this with your left hand you’re not going to get much done.”“The framing of an alliance - primarily by Thatcher in her later, rather mad period - as something hostile, over there, to which one must go prepared to handbag other leaders in order to not be somehow exploited is one of the most wrong-headed and damaging political narratives of the last few decades.”LINKS: Jacob's brief piece on imporving the TCA is here.Jacob's free book can be downloaded here.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, go over every aspect of the Budget, including the undercurrent of misogyny in much of the commentary, with very special guest prominent ecocomist, professor, and former joint head of the Government's Economic Service, Vicky Pryce. As well as Wokey Dokey and Grin And Share It. ***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***Vicky: “In reality you can redefine [debt] any way you want, as long as the capital markets believe it is sustainable and you convince them it makes sense. How do you get markets to lend this to you? The good thing is that we are now talking about longer term assessments of what benefits to the economy particular spending might bring.” Alex: “The last few weeks have been a parade of people saying: we need to invest much more in the country, but please not from my money. The chance [the gov’t is] taking is that people won’t mind paying more tax, provided they see an improvement in the public services they use.”Naomi: "Is the Labour gov’t missing a trick by not going further and faster in liberalising our trade relationship with the EU?" Vicky: “Completely and utterly. The cost of bringing in the skilled people we need on complicated, costly visas, the extra bureaucracy, has been calculated by the Home Office to be nearly £40bn. Which is huge. It’s what Reeves just raised in taxes.”LINKS: On how the US avoided a recession in 2023, read here.On how Germany just avoided a recession, read here.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 Smith chats to journalist Amanda Ferguson about a series of scandals which have rocked politics both north and south of the border. Sinn Féin were widely expected to win the next election. Is that still the case? ***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***LINKS: You can link to Amanda and find her latest work here.Brief explainer of why many think it will be an early election.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 goes through the week's political events, and looks forward to next week, both here and across the Atlantic, with special guest Zoe Williams. ***SPONSOR US AT KO-FI.COM/QUIETRIOTPOD***Zoe: “I don’t want to get lectures from the right of manifesto promises, when the 2019 manifesto was insulting in its lack of detail. I mean what possible impact did ‘levelling up’ have? Does anyone even know what it meant? And yet lectures are what we’re going to get. And I don’t want to roll over to the idea that all politicians are the same - there is no conceivable comparison.”  Zoe: “Everything [about the coming Budget] is about ‘don’t expect too much; don’t think we can help’ and that just strikes me as an incredibly sad and dangerous place to start. If you’re swept in on a wind of change and hope and the first thing you say is: ‘abandon hope’.”Alex: “Imagine living there. Imagine being a woman in America right now. Imagine being a muslim woman or a trans woman. This is existential stuff.”Zoe: “I do think there’s a kind of misogynistic groupthink [in polling], which just doesn’t take the things that women take seriously, seriously.”Alex: “What makes [the Republican attack on women’s reproductive rights] doubly frightening is that it doesn’t feel random. It’s strategic. Because if you buy into notions like the Great Replacement Theory, it follows - although rarely articulated - that you need white women to stay home and have lots of babies. And that doesn’t happen with their consent.”LINKS: Vanity Fair interview with Stuart Stevens. ABC report of Musk's contact with Putin.The Bulwark on Washington Post spiking its endorsement of Harris.NPR on the LA Times pulling its endorsement of Harris.***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. With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou, and Kenny Campbell - in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

American polls are pointing to a perilously close result in the looming presidential election but can they be trusted?Naomi Smith talks with Luke Bailey, Head of Digital at inews.co.uk, to find out more about the strengths, weaknesses and sundry foibles of Stateside polling.Discover how corporate group-think may play a role, find out all about Recall Weighting – and gasp as we reveal that even gambling markets are not the reliable indicators many thought.It wouldn't be Quiet Riot without a dollop of positivity though, and Luke does offer some grains of hope to our nervous listeners. Grab them and cherish them, people.Show notesRead more of Luke's insight on US polling hereFollow him (and his Herculean profile photo) on Bluesky, where he is @lukebailey.bsky.socialAs for us, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter (shudder) as @quietriotpod or, best of all, hook up with @quietriotpod.bsky.social on Bluesky, where our Starter Packs will supercharge your introduction to politicos and sundry fine people.If email is your thang, we're at quietriotpod@gmail.com and our website is an extremely predictable www.quietriotpod.comOh, we're a tiny team without the backing of media behemoths, so we will be eternally grateful if you support us in any way on Ko-fi – heartfelt thanks to all who have already chipped in.Quiet Riot, in case you already forgot, is Alex Andreou, Naomi Smith and Kenny Campbell, in Cahoots with SandStone Global. Seeya. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Naomi and Alex, with guest Salma Shah - a former No.10 advisor under Cameron - explore how mich of the Trump Campaign's complaint against Labour is real and how much is trolling. And then discuss the future of the Tory Party. Or lack thereof. And the most momentous by-election coming up (possibly). As well as Wokey Dokey and Grin And Share It. If you can afford to help, you can back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi.“It probably is a mountain out of a molehill. But it is a legitimate line of questioning for anyone, especially a journalist in this country, to ask: how much is the Labour party trying to associate itself with the Harris campaign, and is that wise on a diplomatic level?”“It’s not just about Trump or Labour. It’s about the world being more difficult, about the way we perceive Western liberal democracies becoming fractured, the way we think about engagement with other states and politics internationally - all of that is fraying.”  “In the same way that previously the left had this identity crisis, the right is having its identity crisis, we’re all having one big identity crisis. Because what we’ve understood as left and right for the last 40 years is no longer true.”“In 2019, Boris Johnson - like him or loathe him - did this amazing thing, where he stretched the Overton Window, beyond its natural conventions. But we always knew that elastic would snap back at some point and it snapped at the last election.”“If Rishi Sunak does step down and that amazing gem-of-a-Tory-seat comes up, there will be a lot of people contesting it, but who wins that selection will be totemic about the future of the Conservatives. Are we looking back or are we looking forward?”CALLS TO ACTIONSubscribe to Aaron Rupar's newsletter and his YouTube channel.Donate to Meidas Touch News here.For the Grin And Share It on magic crystals click 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 quizzes special guest, Emmy-award-winning Luke McGee, on how a referendum in a country like Moldova, interconnects with everything from EU immigration policy, to the war in Ukraine, the US election, and a secretive meeting - the first of its kind - between NATO and South Korea. A truly mind-bending episode. If you can afford to help, you can back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi. “Ultimately what you’re seeing is - I don’t like using the term “Axis of Evil”, I think “Axis of Autocracies” is the better way to think of it, Russia, Iran, China, and North Korea - what you’re probably seeing is these new alliances, these new dividing lines forming.” “[The US Election] does feel like it’s a coin flip. Both sides now aren’t really campaigning to try and flip voters. What they’re trying to do is get voters who are perhaps uninspired by their campaign, but really hate their opponent to bother and turn out to vote.”  LINKS:Luke in Prospect Magazine: To help itself, Europe must do more for Ukraine.Luke in The New Statesman: Ursula von der Leyen has lost the Europhiles.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