Naomi and Alex talk through the weeks news, including the NHS report, winter fuel payments, the OBR report into national debt and immigration. And they speak to special guest, former UK-US ambassador Sir Kim Darroch on the latest Russian threats over Ukraine and the US Election. WHAT A PACKED SHOW!If you can afford to help, you can back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi.Sir Kim Darroch on Trump's plan to end the war in Ukraine: "It's a ludicrous thing to say. He's giving away any leverage on Putin by preemptively announcing he will stop weapon supplies to Ukraine. That's a negotiating mistake. What Trump is actually proposing is a deal in which Ukraine allows Russia to win. That looks to me like a huge defeat for the West. It's ending the war by, effectively, forcing Ukraine to surrender."Naomi: “Is the Winter Fuel Allowance a moment like tuition fees were for the Lib Dems - something from which they will not recover? I don’t think so, for one key reason: With that u-turn, the Liberal Democrats hurt their own core voters. Well-off older people are not voting Labour.”Alex: “The country with the highest immigration is America. Which also happens to be the richest country. Those two things are related. There is something very particular to the energy migrants bring to a country. If you're looking for people with what you call get-up-and-go, you can’t do better than those who actually got up and went.”Find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod and on Bluesky. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com.Our THIRD Starter Pack to accompany this Special can be found here.Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack.Click here for a second Bluesky Starter Pack.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

Scottish politics klaxon! This bonus episode is a real treat for Quiet Rioters, featuring the insight and wisdom of Strathclyde University politics professor Sir John Curtice.Sir John, Britain's best-known polling expert, is a regular fixture on TV and radio (for those of you who still watch telly...) and no election night is complete until he has cast his eyes over the political landscape.Naomi and Sir John look at the state of Scottish politics, the challenges for the big parties, the skip fire that is the Scottish Tory leadership race and examine the differences between politics north and south of the Border ... you may be surprised about how different things are (and are not).For an even bigger fix of Sir John, check out his podcast Trendy, with former Downing St adviser Rachel Wolf.And for an extra hit of Quiet Riot, find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod and on Bluesky. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com.Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack.Click here for a second Bluesky Starter Pack.Our THIRD Starter Pack can be found here.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 and Naomi, along with wonderful guests Alexis Conran and Simon Radford, discuss the fallout from Trump's "They're Eating The Dogs" humiliation by Kamala Harris. Followed by a discussion of why is regualtion of the gambling industry so lax, considering the lives gambling addiction destroys. Plus the return of Arlene On Me.If you can afford to help, you can back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi.Simon: “There’s probably been three occasions in the last few decades where a debate has been decisive. Some people point to the Nixon-Kennedy debate, where Nixon won on Radio but Kennedy won on TV. Reagan cleaned Carter’s clock and it went from being a tight race to a landslide for Reagan. And then Trump versus Biden, which knocked the latter out of the race entirely.”Alexis: “We’re getting up to just under 500 suicides a year, which are thought to be related to gambling. I don’t know why we can’t force the industry to be a bit more responsible. You can’t watch sport without being prompted to gamble. You go to a PG film and there will be a gambling advert before it.”Alexis: “I think we need to make gambling a health issue. Just under half a billion quid from the NHS goes to helping problem gamblers. If we take it our of DCMS - why is it there? - and make it a Wes Streeting problem, you might see more action.”CALLS TO ACTIONInformation on the Gambling White Paper can be found here.Anthony O'Shaughnessy's "cougary" TikTok is here.Alexis Conran's documentary on gambling addiction is here.Find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod and on Bluesky. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com.Our THIRD Starter Pack to accompany this Special can be found here.Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack.Click here for a second Bluesky Starter Pack.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 gives his sleepless review of the Harris-Trump debate - complete with the best (and worst) clips and renders his verdict.If you can afford to help, you can back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi."So, DID SHE LOOK LIKE A PRESIDENT? I’m not sure. We associate so much of what makes a leader with masculinity - and often toxic masculinity. She didn’t look like a President because no President has ever looked like her. Did she look Presidential? She looked calm, centred, optimistic, and in control. Is that what people consider Presidential? By Jove, I hope so."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.)Our THIRD Starter Pack to accompany this Special can be found here.Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack.Click here for a second Bluesky Starter Pack.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 review the week's news, including the Grenfell report, Green Party conference, Tory leadership contest, Russia's election interference, Johnson's annoying columns, and Starmer's visit to Ireland. They're then joined by Cripps partner, chair of UK French Foreign Trade Advisors and Chevalier, Olivier Morel, to talk through the shock appointment of Michel Barnier as french PM.If you can afford to help, you can back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi.“Barnier is probably the only person who could manage it… His first speech was non committal, but he at least said he would speak to everyone, which is the right stance. And through his experience of Brexit, Britain was not the hardest task - keeping 27 countries on board for that long process is an extraordinary feat.”“Everyone is looking at 2027, the next presidential election, which is the big one. It’s a poisoned chalice to be in government right now. You and others regard this [left] grouping as one. But as soon as they are confronted by the reality of voting on this issue or that, I can see them fracturing very easily.”That French polling can be found here.You can watch the Private Member's Bill ballot here - they were chosen by Tory MP Nusrat Ghani.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.)Our THIRD Starter Pack to accompany this Special can be found here.Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack.Click here for a second Bluesky Starter Pack.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

Electoral changes are a-coming in Wales, but that's not the only challenge facing politicians in Cymru.It's a country of contrasts, from the rugged scars of the Valleys and the beauty of Bannau Brycheiniog to the urban bustle of Cardiff and Swansea, and the bookish haven of Hay-on-Wye.Naomi Smith is joined by journalist Will Hayward for a timely stock-take of political life in a part of the country that we Quiet Rioters love, and a look at the contrasting fortunes and, indeed, difficulties looming for its political leaders.Find Will on X, if you still loiter in that odd place, @WillHayCardiff ... read his work on @WalesOnline ... and subscribe to his popular newsletter here.As for us, well, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod and on Bluesky. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com. Our THIRD Starter Pack to accompany this Special can be found here.Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack.Click here for a second Bluesky Starter Pack.IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO CONTRIBUTE, PLEASE DO, IT MAKES SUCH A FABULOUS DIFFERENCE. 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, with the LSE's Professor Paul Dolan, and More in Common's Luke Tryl, make their way through the news - including the Grenfell report, changes in how schools are assessed, and the Tory leadership race. And then we talk happiness. What is it? Why do we feel less of it? And how can we get happier in a polarised world. An illuminating and uplifting conversation.HELP US KEEP MAKING THIS PODCAST: CLick here to back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi.Paul Dolan: “It’s much easier, much of the time, to hold someone else responsible for how you think the world is than it is to do anything about it yourself. The path of least resistance is blame.”Luke Tryl: “One of the bigger drivers [of online abuse] is the desire for in-group approval that social media gives you. It’s not just that you don’t see the impact you are having on the people you’re targeting. You also get lots of validation from the in-group.”CALLS TO ACTIONGrenfell United can be found here.Paul Dolan's books and other projects can be found here.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.)Our THIRD Starter Pack to accompany this Special can be found here.Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack.Click here for a second Bluesky Starter Pack.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

Pollsters got the result and party shares broadly right - the one significant error across the board was an overestimation of the size of Labour's vote. Why?Naomi looks at the data trickling through - some of it EXCLUSIVE and yet UNPUBLISHED - to glean why. Part of the answer seems to be a misrepresentation of Muslim voters and the more-prominent-then-usual presence of "late switchers" away from Labour.A perfect 10-minute listen.IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO CONTRIBUTE, PLEASE DO. Click here to back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi.More in Common's detailed blog and data is here.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.)Our THIRD Starter Pack to accompany this Special can be found here.Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack.Click here for a second Bluesky Starter Pack.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 and special guest, journalist Annette Dittert in Berlin, go behind the dramatic headlines to discuss what yesterday's victory of the far-right extreme party Alternative für Deutschland in the Federal election in the obscure region of Thuringia actually means. What are the implications for national German and European politics and especially the war in Ukraine? A deeply insightful discussion, which morphs into a broader conversation about why formerly communist states may be more susceptible to far-right messaging.IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO CONTRIBUTE, PLEASE DO. Click here to back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi.“In 1932 Hitler had his first electoral breakthrough in Thuringia. And in a way it is highly symbolic that this happens again in Thuringia. On the other side Thuringia and Saxony together do not even form 8% of the German population. So, what has happened there yesterday is in not representative of the whole of Germany, although it will radiate far and have huge implications.”“It’s misleading to describe Wagenknecht as far left. She insidiously merges far right and far left topics and tropes, only to create a whole new toxic brew-up. Far from being a bulwark against the AfD she has turned out to be a resentment machine that has paved the way for more right-wing thinking, by routinely normalising anti-democratic narratives.”“Many of the younger generation in these states, they feel left behind. AfD has managed to be massively successful on TikTok, which is used by younger Germans. And the mainstream parties did not clock that fast enough. Nowhere else in Germany have far right organisations been allowed to be so much at the centre of society.”“The underlying subtext of this election is that East Germans - and this is something you will find across the rest of Germany - are hugely dissatisfied with the current coalition gov’t, which is basically dysfunctional. If you set aside the AfD’s victory, what actually happened is that these three parties hardly got any votes.”“It’s important to emphasise, this is East Germany, it has to do with very specific factors and although hugely influential, it is not representative. But it is a dangerous ‘first’ and what matters now is how this will affect the national conversation - especially the Christian Conservatives who are in danger of learning the wrong lessons and pandering further to the right.”“We, Germans, don’t really do ‘early elections’ unless absolutely necessary. However, if the next East German election in Branderburg in three weeks time is as awful for the Social Democrats and if - and this is a possibility - they come in below the 5% threshold that is the minimum in order to be part of Parliament, within the SPD, Scholz’s future will be heavily discussed.”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.)Our THIRD Starter Pack to accompany this Special can be found here.Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack.Click here for a second Bluesky Starter Pack.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 (SHE'S BACK! YAY!) and Alex try to look behind a wall of very mixed signals from Labour on the EU. Is there a sophisticated strategy in play? Or a tug of war between the economically obvious and the politically toxic? And is it a cowardly betrayal of Remain, as the Guardian asserts – or a dastardly reversal of Brexit as the Express believes?IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO CONTRIBUTE, PLEASE DO. Click here to back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi.“There’s no such thing as ‘Rejoin’. There’s not some fast-track, ‘We made a mistake! Do-over! Do-over! There is just ‘Join’ and it takes years at the best of times. It takes time.”“There is a lot not to like about the CPTPP. But it was negotiated, the ink has dried, it’s going to happen… We are beggars, not choosers, when it comes to trade deals. And to turn our nose up at those we can do, while resetting our relationship with Europe, would be churlish and at odds with the govt’s message on growth.”Join Best for Britain here.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.)Our THIRD Starter Pack to accompany this Special can be found here.Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack.Click here for a second Bluesky Starter Pack.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