Naomi and Alex chat to special guests Labour MP for Brent East Dawn Butler and former Tory SpAp Salma Shah through the fallout of the riots and how we can carve a way forward. And we go through the Tory Leadership race candidates. Who will it be? And will anyone care?PLUS a very special Wokey Dokey about idiots blowing up their motorbikes and we give our guests a chance to showcase their favourite not-a-fans in You Gotta Troll With It.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.)CALLS TO ACTIONClick here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack.Click here for a second Bluesky Starter Pack.Click here to buy the Hate Has No Home Here poster.Click here for the WWF's Greek Wildfires appeal.Click here for Dawn Butler's 21 Days to Go.With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou, and Kenny Campbell - in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ukraine's push into Russian territory took plenty by surprise (though probably not western defence chiefs). So what has changed in the war, and what do we know about the F16 jets that have been assigned a role in the conflict?Naomi Smith seeks reassuring words on the war from former diplomat, writer and podcast host Arthur Snell, whose career is an A-to-Z of diplomacy from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. But you'll have to judge yourself if his insights are reassuring...And, for this Quiet Riot Bonus episode on foreign affairs, we also look to Northern Syria, where Islamic State has been making headlines again.Subscribed to our show? Thank you! If not, you know what to do...Find us on Facebook and Twitter as @quietriotpod and on Bluesky. Email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com. Or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com. (Yes, we are working on threads and YouTube.)Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack.Quiet Riot is brought to you by Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell, in cahoots with SandStone Global.Call to actionCheck out Arthur Snell's fantastic podcast on foreign affairs, Behind The Lines ... and feel free to subscribe too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alex has boiled down an INTERMINABLE three hours of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, finally becoming TRUSK, into 20 minutes WITH a few comments. TL;DR - there is none. You really have to listen.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.)Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack.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, both here and across the Atlantic, with special guest Zoe Williams.“The Spectator is in a really difficult position. They’re not like the Daily Mail. They cannot turn round and hold the exact opposite point of view to the one they held yesterday, without intellectual consequences. If they wash their hands of Douglas Murray now, they will have to admit they’ve been promulgating race hate for as long as they’ve been publishing him.”“Musk is testing his own strength and he’s testing the strength of twitter and he’s testing his own convening power - how many people can he get in his online army. But the reason it doesn’t ring true or make any real sense and Starmer seems nonplussed by it, is that the attacks don’t relate to the politician or the man. It’s a sort of symbolic act.”On which of the Tory leadership candidates has impressed Zoe most: “To be honest, I’m really, really revelling - like it’s a warm bath - in the experience of not giving a shit about the Conservative Party.”On the US Election: “It’s not groundswell support that matters. It’s Stans. It’s superfans. If you can see someone developing superfans, there’s something going on that you need to pay attention to.”On the Harris/Walz campaign: “For the first time in years I am just loving watching a political process. I’ve got almost no anxiety. Everyone is saying ‘watch the polls, watch the polls’, but I’m thinking ‘this is just not happening for Trump.” 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.)Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack.With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou, and Kenny Campbell - in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why is Northern Ireland the only UK nation other than England where the riots took hold? Alex talks to Belfast MP Claire Hanna, who has seen thuggery in the last few days on her patch, about what factors make Northern Ireland different on this - and what wisdom, from decades of dealing with this sort of violence, actually applies more universally. A thoughtful and illuminating chat.“People have been consuming the same media landscape, the same messaging that dehumanises immigrants from the top, and there is here - there’s no other way to put it - a ready-made pool of recreational rioters.”“South Belfast has the second highest concentration of asylum seekers in hotels, due to the catastrophic failure of the Home Office to efficiently process people’s applications. But the community, in the main, has really, really tried to wrap itself around them.”“I spoke to somebody two days ago who said they were sitting in their house with the lights off, the other night. And it really shocked me to my core that that was happening in 2024. Because the violence seems so random.”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.)Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack.Click here to buy the Hate Has No Home Here poster.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 special guest James O'Brien chat about the riots in England, the people who stoked them and now claim refuse all responsibility, and the toxic influence of social media. And in the second part, we look at Harris's VP pick, Tim Walz, and the remarkable turnaround in the US election. PLUS Wokey Dokey and You Gotta Troll With It.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.)Click here for your Quiet Riot Bluesky Starter Pack.Click here to buy the Hate Has No Home Here poster.Click here to find out more about C-Span.Click here for James O'Brien's podcast.With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou, and Kenny Campbell - in cahoots with Sandstone Global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alex - a former regulator by trade - talks through the issues of social media regulation and the ultimate sanction of banning Musk from having history's most destructive midlife crisis at the expense of UK democracy. Please take a minute to subscribe to the podcast, like, review and rate us, and share Quiet Riot pearls on social media because sharing is good, is it not? You can find us on twitter @quietriotpod, email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com, or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com. It really helps!You can find Hope Not Hate here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Naomi and Alex talk about the Far Right riots up and down the UK, the extent to which they are an omen of worse things to come, or the final spasm of a faction of sore losers, the role disinformation has played, and what Starmer can do.Alex: “The far right have had a pretty bad year. The European election did not go their way in the mega-wave they thought, Modi lost his majority in India, Le Pen came third in France, Starmer won a landslide here, and now it looks as if Trump might even be in danger. It’s not a good moment for them and something about this feels like their final tantrum by the checkout.”Naomi: “The far right are always with us. They never go away. It is a fact of life. They have peaks in their activity and while this has been nowhere near as bad as it could be, you have to have constant and ever vigilance around those that seek to divide us.”Please take a minute to subscribe to the podcast, like, review and rate us, and share Quiet Riot pearls on social media because sharing is good, is it not? You can find us on twitter @quietriotpod, email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com, or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com. It really helps!You can find Hope Not Hate here.You can find Kick It Out here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Naomi Smith chats to Conservative Home's Henry Hill about every aspect of the Tory leadership contest, who are the runners, who are the riders, who doesn't know if they're afoot or horseback, and what is at stake. A free-roaming and illuminating conversation - and a perfect illustration of our mission here at QRHQ, to build understanding.Henry on the length of the contest: “I think Conservatives may regret not having a new leader and shadow cabinet in place for [the budget]. And then, just three days after their new leader is announced, we’re going to have the US Presidential election. And that’s going to be like a news nuke.”On Jeremy Hunt staying on as Shadow Chancellor: “[Jeremy Hunt] just lost the election. I don’t think he is a credible message-carrier with the voters for criticising Rachel Reeves’ agenda.”On morale in the party: “The thing I think a lot of Tories don’t quite realise yet is how hard life in opposition is. Because a huge share of Tory MPs have entered Parliament at or since the 2010 election.”On what the task of the next leader is: “Both sides of the current conservative classic division are out of date. One of them is stuck in 1975. The other one, the sort of self-consciously modernising one, is stuck in 2005, when Cameron became leader. Neither of them seems to be oriented towards the problems of 2025.”Please take a minute to subscribe to the podcast, like, review and rate us, and share Quiet Riot pearls on social media because sharing is good, is it not? You can find us on twitter @quietriotpod, email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com, or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com. It really helps!You can find Henry's Conservative Home pieces here.And his substack musings here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The new buzzword in American politics is Weird, and it seems to be having an effect.Alex Andreou and Naomi Smith are joined by transatlantic academic, author and podcaster Brian Klaas, Associate Professor of Global Politics at University College London, to talk weird politics, Kamala's crowds and a whole bunch of other fascinating stuff around the US presidential race.There's also a look at what happened when Rachel Reeves and Jeremy Hunt squared up in the Commons for their first post-election tussle, and we ask whether the changes to the Winter Fuel Allowance are going to prove chilling for the Chancellor.And don't miss our amazing new features – we've got two of the critters, one of them cultured, the other somewhat less so. Confused? You'll have to listen in...Do please subscribe to the podcast, like, review and rate us, and share Quiet Riot pearls on social media because sharing is good, is it not? You can find us on twitter @quietriotpod, email us at quietriotpod@gmail.com, or visit our website www.quietriotpod.com. Love you guys xCALL TO ACTIONThe Lincoln ProjectRepublican Voters Against TrumpHow just 80,000 voters in three states made Trump presidentHow to contact your MP Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices