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Not Enough Champagne

Come for the political analysis, stay for the bad jokes and wrong predictions. Not Enough Champagne is run by Steve Haynes, who in a previous life was a Parliamentary Candidate for the Liberal Democrats, and Cory Hazlehurst, a Labour activist who has written about politics for the New Statesman. We try to work out what the hell is going on with British Politics and take a step back to shed new light on issues most news outlets don't talk about.
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Now displaying: October, 2016
Oct 30, 2016

In this Halloween special, we discuss the politics of fear. Why did Project Fear work so well in the campaign against Scottish Independence, but did not work in the EU Referendum?

Links

The article by Ipsos Mori's Gideon Skinner in the Daily Telegraph which we discuss can be found here.

James Forsyth's two articles on Project Fear in the EU Referendum can be found here and here.

Some Yougov polling which we also discuss in the podcast can be found here.

If you enjoyed this episode, please do subscribe to us on Itunes and tell whoever you can, however you can about this podcast.

We're back next week looking at political bullshit. See you then.

Oct 12, 2016

Our second series of Not Enough Champagne is based around the theme of Taking Back Control. In this episode, we discuss how ordinary people could take back control of political parties.

Voters are now more educated than ever before. They identify less and less with political parties, and join single-issue groups rather than vote. Political parties are seen as controlled by a narrow elite and only interest in people's votes, not their views.

How true is this narrative? What solutions are there to try and engage political parties with ordinary voters? That's the subject of this week's show.

Links

The Electoral Reform Society's consultative report on the future of political parties can be found here.

Sam Power's essay on party funding can be found in the truly excellent More Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box, published by Biteback.

 

Oct 12, 2016

In this episode we discuss the concept of electability. The evidence suggests that being "electable" is a meaningless concept which changes over time. Does having no hair matter more than having no policy positions? Can candidates with extreme views ever get elected? And why is it that it's only losers that say they're more electable? 

Links

You can read about politicians with beards here, about bald politicians here and here, and about the effect of alphabetical ordering of candidates here and here.

The excellent Vox articles on the electability of Cruz, Trump and Sanders can be found here and here.

Three more excellent articles on electability from an American perspective can be found herehere and here.

The whole idea for this podcast is stolen from a tweet from the anthropologist David Graeber.

Please subscribe to us at Itunes and rate us as that helps more people discover the show. You can follow Cory at @paperbackrioter and Steve at @centreradical. 

Oct 9, 2016

In this episode, Steve and Cory discuss how we can take back control as consumers. Does the art we consume make statements about the kind of society we would like to see? As the film Birth of a Nation appears in the US, we discuss the past of director Nate Parker and ask whether or not you can separate the art from the artist. We also discuss the ethics of consumer boycotts and cheap food.

Please rate and subscribe our podcast on ITunes if you enjoyed this one as it helps more people to discover the show.

Oct 2, 2016

In this episode we summarise the Brexit postmortems from some of the key thinktanks such as the Resolution Foundation, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and British Futures. These found three key factors decided the Referendum in favour of Leave: Education, Living Standards and Immigration. 

We discuss all three factors, look at some policy solutions proposed to these issues (is introducing Grammar Schools really going to help tackle Educational Inequality?) and argue that Britain really isn't as divided on Immigration as the referendum result would suggest.

Links

The Resolution Foundation report can be found here.

Lord Ashcroft's exit poll, where we got the data for our Introduction questions, can be found here.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report can be found here.

British Future's report on Brexit and immigration can be found here.

Please subscribe and rate us on Itunes as that really helps people discover the show. You can follow Cory on Twitter @paperbackrioter and Steve is @centreradical.

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