Adulting - #35 How To Raise Your Voice with Jess Phillips

Episode Date: June 23, 2019

This week I speak to Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, Jess Phillips. We discuss feminism, politics and how to get heard in a world that doesn't want to listen. As always please do rate, review and subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Hello, sorry, I have lost my voice a little bit as I record this. And I was also thinking I wish I had a word I could use for you guys that listen because I know that other podcasts do. And honestly, my first thought was adulterers. Now I know that other podcasts do and honestly my first thought was adulterers now I know that I'm supposed to be fairly okay with the English language having done an English literature degree but I was like oh adulterers that's good um but actually I've realized that that would be terrible so if you can think of anything that's slightly better than that

maybe um adults but I think there's the there's a query on that so and also it just doesn't have a cool ring to it maybe I'm not that cool maybe I just scrapped this but anyway in today's episode I speak to MP Jess Phillips I actually was quite excited about this because I know that she can be quite controversial and post me saying that I'm speaking to her on the podcast a few people have said that they don't agree with some of the things that she supports. And so I apologise if there are things that you maybe disagree with her on. But within our conversation that we have,

I actually found it really empowering and really useful. And I do think that she is a force for good within our government at the minute. I had to go to Portcullis House to record it. And I think I got a bit overexcited because during the interview, I do think I sound quite fangirly so apologies in advance for that and apologies for my awfully sore throat I have no idea where this has come from anyway I really do hope that you enjoy the episode and let me know what you think as always afterwards happy listening bye listening. Bye. Hi guys and welcome to Adulting. This week I'm joined by Jess Phillips. Hello.

So Jess Phillips is an MP. She's previously worked at Women's Aid and you're also now fast becoming one of my favourite Twitter users. Although I've been told off this week because of Game of Thrones spoilers. Although they were not spoilers, they were just like wild guesses about what was going to happen. Oh, see, I'm actually one of these people. I've never watched Game of Thrones. It is annoying me now because I think if ever I'm going to watch it, I can't because I know too much.

You know too much. Too much. But I think that would make it more stress-free. It's quite stressful watching it. Well, that's why I haven't watched it because I started a bit and then I couldn't remember everyone's names and when I went back to I just thought I cannot be bothered I've given this eight years of my life I still don't remember everybody's names I'm always like you know that one that one who did that one in that battle there's so much to catch up on I'd actually have to be I think it's quite

good though because if I do break my leg again or something, I've got something to do. Yes, that's true. Which is great. So apart from Game of Thrones, you often are found talking about kind of women's, I don't want to say women's focused issues, but they are. Women's rights, yeah. Yeah, women's rights. And how did you, obviously you've got a background in women's aid, but how did you actually get into being in politics? I mean, I've always been, I come from a really political family, so I've always been I come from a really political family so I've always been politically active my whole life when I was a kid you know the campaigns would be run from our garage and I was making leaflets on a gestetner duplicator which for a younger audience is like

a hand cranked it was making me sound like I'm'm 100 million years old a hand cranked duplicator that you had to print something onto and then you would just like crank it and it would spit out loads of um of copies of really really bad leaflets there was no there's no art on these leaflets it's just words where were you putting them we just handed them out to strangers in the street no no we were making thousands of them and giving them out and delivering them to people's houses and we used to make all the posters that would go up at um election times would sit with pasting tables and vote labour vote labour there isn't a surface in my parents house that doesn't have like it's like a history of vote labour stickers oh my god so you can see like you know the progression through the the different design of the labour party um in in sticker form like from

like the 60s to the current day uh they weren't red and white for a period I was against that um but um so my parents were they never held any political office um or even were um sort of have had roles within our local Labour Party they're just campaigning activists and um and as well as that they often would campaign on really specific issues so when we were kids we were taken along to lots of issue based campaigns and my mum was a very active member of the sort of 1980s women's movement and so the play group that I went to was called the Women's Liberation Playgroup. And it was set up by a group of women because childcare wasn't a thing then.

It was set up by a group of women who would like take it in turns to look after the kids in a church hall. I remember the toast and the oranges as if it was yesterday. And while they worked part time and they would all do sort of a shift of uh women's liberation play group um and so and we we were active at greenham common we would make signs for ban the bomb signs uh lots of stuff around local issues my mum um when I was tiny she was helping take a big legal action against a pharmaceutical company that they won so I've grown I was I was brought up in a you know don't get you know cross-organized that I was taught that you should never let anything go without fighting back it's amazing that you obviously brought up in such a feminist household

as well because for me I came to feminism fairly late and even though my mum I think has feminist ideas she was definitely a product of a very old-fashioned patriarchal marriage and Catholic upbringing and so a lot of my generation of girls we actually only really got to feminism and understanding our own rights and our own why the patriarch and so many things actually aren't useful and this systemic injustice how how much it permeates everywhere only like when I was at uni whereas you obviously grew up with it I mean not even just from my mum um who was a feminist and my dad was very is and remains today to uh be a very strident feminist but my family family, the rung above my mum and dad,

because of the nature of the war and what it had done to all the men in my family, there was basically no men left. And so there's a very matriarchal stream to my family. So my granny, my grandma Peggy, I mean, the woman voted for Thatcher she wouldn't be describing herself as like a left-wing feminist any day soon but there was a definite matriarchy yeah in my family where she and my her mum who um was like 90 when I was little but was still going

um they ruled like with an iron fist um they you know proper matriarchs who were the heads of our family um so but I mean it's not to say that there wasn't patriarchal elements to it I mean my mum gave up work for years and years and years to look after the kids while my dad went to work by the time she had me I was her fourth child it was obviously the straw that broke the camel's back so I'm going back to work or I'm just going to work, by the time she had me, I was her fourth child, it was obviously the straw that broke the camel's back, so I'm going back to work, or I'm just going to work, because, you know, she's been having babies since she was 21, and, you know, there's all sorts of elements of patriarchy in my childhood, but we were always basically taught to identify it, and to try and change it. Question it. So how do you feel like when you come

up against when you're in these situations where you are the only woman in the room and I've read so many transcripts of the way you speak and I I mean I find it hard when I'm one-on-one with a guy who just keeps battering back against my opinions I do not know how you sit there and come up with the things that you say and not feel like I just can't be bothered I mean again I think that that is a product of my childhood because whilst I am a very strident feminist um and grew up in this feminist environment I have three older brothers right and um and we always had uh different people coming to live with us when we were kids my grand my grandfather lived with us so it's me and my mum in a house with five permanent men but also because uh the nature of the my parents sort of socialism there was always people staying with

us so there's basically like 10 people for dinner in my house every single night and you know if you if you didn't fight to be heard you you probably weren't getting any dinner um so i have i was brought up when we would all talk about politics and um literally anything you can imagine under the sun we would sit down and eat dinner together every day with all these people with wild and varied opinions in actual fact and it taught me the art of just keeping going. And, you know, it's a very Brummie thing, is that the way you show love to somebody is to basically mercilessly take the piss out of them. Yeah.

And so I find it much harder when people are being really, really kind to me and agreeing with me wholeheartedly. Oh, sorry, I'll be doing that. I find, like, I don't know where to go with this but when I when I'm faced with challenge which I was faced with literally every single day of my life I can very easily rise to that you're like the part you're literally brought up in the perfect environment I know like a crucible but I think that round table that dinner table conversation about politics really important because I think we hear the word politics and immediately loads

people disengage because you think I don't know what that is. But everything is political in its own right. Oh, absolutely. And when I say we talked about politics, we weren't, you know, obviously it was the 80s. Margaret Thatcher got quite a drubbing every day. So there was some talk of mainstream politics. But it's like the art of ideas, the art of conversation.

So we would talk about what now I can see as philosophy, but I would never have thought of it in those terms then it would be talking about things that were unfair or things that had happened throughout the day and what even just like the way that the roads get dug up and everything is politics and everything that everybody talks about people are innately political and the things that they think I think that people don't have anywhere don't give themselves enough permission to think that people don't have anywhere don't give themselves enough permission to think that their lives is politics because politics has been made to seem lofty and grand yeah well I think that's where you're amazing at bringing it back and creating a focus where people can understand it because I completely agree I didn't even realise

conversations we have about like health and wellness are actually so politicised all the different facets that go into those issues and afterwards you realise actually I do know what I'm talking about but so often it is these white middle-aged men who use language that people can't understand or act so exclusively that people don't really feel like that space is for them or that they can even get a foot in the door oh yeah exclusionary language is like trained into people from especially people with power and privilege from a very very early age is that you there is a language and people use a different language so even just by virtue of coming from Birmingham or growing up in a very diverse community the language I use to get myself across what some people and what often happens in discourse about class certainly is that I'm seeing as being my language even if I say in a completely tempered manner I will be

seen as being aggressive and angry and so the language of one part of society is always sort of caustic you know if you ever hear um if you ever hear somebody speaking in a different language um whether that's Urdu or Polish it can sound because you don't know what's being said you don't know what the content it can sound aggressive yeah and so one part of polite society has all these flowery words of get talking around a point and so when people are just straight to the point people can be affronted by that and so in those flowery conversations people are just like what are you all blinking talking about yeah they can feel excluded and so people tend to flock together with the people who talk like them and sound like them and then the system never breaks and it's the same with gender again

because as a woman i get this all the time if i get impassioned about about something or start speaking a bit loud they're like oh you don't it's okay and you're like oh my god people do it to keep on winding you up yeah that no one ever says men are hysterical no I know and if they shout you think oh you should be passionate man isn't it nice yeah I mean it is horrible look at him he's got so much passion and they're like oh look at her whinging on again all right people can so easily roll their eyes but people have been given a script and everybody has it i say it's that you know we should all be aware of our own unconscious biases yeah yeah and because we have been given a script from birth about the way that we should feel if a man is crying or if a woman is crying and how we

should feel about if a woman is being assertive and a man is being assert if a woman is crying and how we should feel about if a woman is being assertive and a man is being assertive. And then when you get to thinking, I mean, the amount of stuff that gets said about black women being aggressive, that if a black woman just makes a perfectly salient point, people will be like, well, her approach is very aggressive. And it is just like, no, it isn't very aggressive.

It's just ingrained prejudice. I mean, my part in this podcast, The Biggest Learning, it's like, when I count out all my prejudice for so long, white, cisgendered, middle class, heterosexual, able-bodied, neurotypical. Like, it goes on forever. And that's why I've had to unlearn so many things. But it still falls flat on its head

when I recognise that I am a woman and there's still so many parts that that impacts oh yeah um and I think listening and having you as a voice also really I love that you swear I love that you're quite like fallible because I feel like we're all so angry because you've got a lot to fight for whereas the men can be quite chill about it because it's like well we've set up this little utopia for us and it's all the way that we want it and you do have to kind of come a bit guns blazing yeah the swearing thing is uh it defies it divides opinion quite a lot of people say to me i think people would take you more seriously if you didn't swear but in fact i i mean a lot of time i'm just losing my rag and so I'll effing blind. But in fact, I actually use swearing as a technique when I'm with my constituents to get them to feel relaxed around me so if even you know sort of mild-mannered older women who come in and they've got like a real

problem with their neighbor or this you know the the pension's not been right or something um and i you know you know how much it makes their shoulders drop that that it's okay that they're with me if i say i hope you don't mind if i say this but these people are bastards yeah they're like oh yes look you know it immediately puts you on a level with somebody where you can feel that they feel you're in a different position to them. And I want people to feel like they're on the same level as me at all times. And I think swearing is one of the ways. Because, I mean, I've met like three people in my entire life who've never sworn.

Yeah. Oh, my don't I swear all the time my mum hates it um but yeah that level of empathy I think is something we don't always see in politics and it's so true because normally what happens is you see politicians like putting up a wall and trying to separate you but they either try to make you punch down so you're not really focusing on what they're doing but they never really level the playing ground so I love the fact that that's what part of your thought process is with it. And what I want to talk about now, which has obviously just happened, and it's, if we can't talk about it, is the fact that the only thing,

well, not the only problem, one of the myriad problems is that you're actually, by speaking out, you're literally putting yourself in danger and facing part of my job I do online on Instagram, and I swear I get more rigmarole than some of these male MPs do for some of the stuff they say. I called up more for not saying like quite the right feminist thing than a man will for making a rape threat and i don't understand that's definitely true i don't understand how that happens yeah um there's sort of two elements to why you get criticized not you one women get criticized so that there is just that that we've got to try and control this shift that we perceive in a power balance where this woman is being listened to she

has a platform whether it's instagram whether it's politics whatever it is and so we have got to have some way of trying to control this um and they'll try all the techniques of normal power and control, which exist. Anyone who has ever worked with a victim of violence and abuse will know that it doesn't just one day turn up and bash you about, that there is a long lead in. And one of the first things that has to happen is that you have to, like, negging somebody.

You have to make them doubt saying it in the first place. Change their behaviour through doubt. So to even just sort of some people quite politely will point out things that I'm doing wrong. So you shouldn't swear so much is a good example. And sometimes it's said with good intention. But it is basically a tiny little pushback against the power structure changing. Power is the most resilient force in the world. It will fight to stay where it is and exist where it is.

If somebody has power and they can feel it shifting slightly to somebody else, they will fight. And so first of all, you have to be really negative about people and just make sort of sly comments about them when that doesn't work the next technique is to isolate you have to isolate that person and you have to make it feel like they're on their own um and so they'll start attacking the people who talk to you and online they'll start criticizing you and getting at that and then when all else fails like with domestic abuse or sexual violence they have to act and they have to threaten that it goes from the sort of soft threats to i'm going to control you i'm going to threaten you with violence and abuse um but the

other side of that so that is the sort of classic, the stuff that I suffer, the rape threats. It goes through many iterations where they try and stop people talking to me. They tell me I don't look nice, I'm awful, that I'm stupid, that my accent's stupid, et cetera, et cetera. So I'll get all that negging that will make me think, can I be bothered to say anything today? Because can I be bothered with being told on a day where, you know, I definitely have overindulged that my arse is fat and and you think oh can I be bothered and they've won then um but the other side of it which I think we are struggling with in an internet age is that people who talk from any sort of specific expert perspective so whether that's feminist perspective or talking from the point of view

of people of colour um or disabled people is that we then expect those people to be absolutely perfect yes and as soon as there's even you know in a sort of woke generation as soon as there's even a slight infraction where it the infraction doesn't even need to be direct it's just that you haven't yet commented on something bad that's happened that you might not even know about and it's like well why aren't you here for this person it's like what i didn't even know about that oh your feminism is selective um and it's just sort of like that i i worry dearly that that is part of the same level of control that it is expecting total perfection but I think what it does is it acts to create um a space where because it's so polarizing you

literally have to it's like with veganism you're either a perfect vegan or you might as well not fucking bother what it does it just keeps the status quo doesn't it exactly and wants it to say the same they go oh you're trying really hard well you're not trying hard enough and they're actually not the people who call me out will be like random people that don't even know what feminism means

to the point where I've even thought maybe I won't call myself a feminist I'll say I believe in feminist issues or I believe in don't let them control you

it's weird doesn't it but you see it happen I see it happening in everything now this polarisation this like you have to be with climate change I think it's one of the

biggest problems is that that whole wind did you last get on a flight it's a flight enough to not use a plastic straw if you still i don't know do whatever i can't even think but do you know what i mean yeah and that it's like but that's not how it works we all collectively and it's this lack of collective and it is that pointing fingers and i really do think it must be the people in the middle who can't be asked and they just shout loudly and unfortunately it lands because we're so scared of there's such a culture of making the wrong mistake and yet people can literally make rape threats to you and get away with it and nothing happens nothing happens and

they're allowed to stand on political platforms um the system is ultimately a farce and actually the people who do the rape threats and that sort of thing they lean into the farce of it because we we have all sort of joined in in this you were either perfect or you end up in the bin and so we have sort of created this platform um where it's quite so most decent british people think that what the UKIP candidate has said about me, saying I wouldn't even rape her and then saying, oh, I would rape her if forced. Most people are horrified. Decent British people are like, well, this can't be right.

That's just totally unacceptable. But then there will be some people and his response will be, well, it's only a joke. And there will be some people saying, oh, you know, these days you can't joke about anything. And in reality, the truth sits somewhere in the middle because people do feel like they can't be in any way fallible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this whole system, it needs humanity. Yeah, totally. To get back into it, nuance humanity and a lack of absolutes. Because it is absolutely not okay for somebody to make rape threats and

still be on a political platform especially not when you're trying to put through legislation that's helping with survivors and changing the way we talk about consent when that has been like the number one issue that i've prior to if we didn't have freaking bex and hope that that's what we'd be talking about exactly and yet someone with the power is able to joke it's not a joke that's not it's like the freedom of speech argument. It's like you have freedom of speech to a certain point, but not on issues which are... Freedom of speech has to be about everybody having freedom of speech.

It's not about you getting to say whatever you want so that I'm silent. Yeah, yes. Somebody's not got freedom of speech then, is there? So if freedom of speech is just for people who look like you, your freedom is bankrupt. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling,

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located in Ontario gambling problem call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca please play responsibly um but yeah that I mean that is entirely it's sort of got so ridiculous and I'm not saying you know I want us to be able to make mildly sexist jokes know, I want us to be able to make mildly sexist jokes. I don't want us to be able to make mildly sexist jokes. But the argument against, like, the Me Too movement is like, oh, you only touch your knee. And that is being put in the same category as rape. Yeah.

And the thing is, it's not us putting it in the same category. It's not feminist activists who are trying to change things putting it the same category it's the people who wish we'd stop trying to they put it in the same category so that they can throw it back at us and and and i just longed for a time actually what i i wanted to do whilst i had uh any sort of platform in politics was to make people believe that politics was about them and that it could be human again but we also all have to sign up to the fact that humans are not perfect and we need to have a reasonable nuanced debate about most things there is nuance about most things yeah there isn't nuance about rape threats there's no nuance in that space and like i said most of the british people know that. There is nuance with people who might want to put themselves forward,

who have said off-colour things on the internet when they were teenagers and or had criminal convictions. You know, there is a conversation to be had there. Totally. Ricky Gervais said something really good on James O'Brien's podcast. He said the problem with cancel culture and stuff is if someone does something wrong and you say that's it, what you're saying is you might as well carry on making mistakes because no one's going to forgive you exactly why they do it perfectly from the get-go or the minute you do something wrong

everyone's going to silence you and i do agree that is wrong and i think we're all part of this like problematic conversation i do think it's something's going to change but i just can't believe that it's 2019 and someone's literally making rape jokes that's all me making them how shit is a humor like can you get something better to i mean what what bothers me almost i mean it has it has been traumatic and harrowing actually i shan't diminish it but also it is just not funny no it's just a shit not a joke no i don't know what the punch line is well the punch line is me and and by that I mean literally in terms of it is to punch me take away yeah and to yeah to to hurt me and it does it works so and it's awful when you think that the message it sends is that if you as a woman step forward this is going to

happen but actually what I would the message I would send is, actually, what would be awful is if you didn't step forward because of this. Yeah. Because, you know, they will keep on stepping forward. Exactly. Do you want them to run the world? No. It only changes if you step forward.

Yeah, I think that's what it shows, that we need more voices and more, because if there was an army of you, not literally, but it would be, there would be less space for them to try and make these cheap really ignorant threats yeah that just are actors it's annoying because i agree with you like i think i heard you said something the other day wait or maybe i read it and you were like i need to stop acting like it's fine it's not fine it's not fine no one would think that and i definitely fell into that trap when it all first started years ago yeah of putting a brave face on it

because I I feel um as as a woman in public life I have a service to provide to say and I do all sorts of things that I've done not in my comfort zone to try and encourage other women to feel brave and it takes real bravery to do it but you've just said I'm a woman and you're more worried about your reaction to an action of a man who's in service to the public. Do you see how ironic that is? Yeah, I mean, it is. But you're more worried about how you're going to react

to someone making those threats to you than he was actually making those threats. And that's the perfect example of power and privilege, isn't it? It is. You have power, but you haven't got the privilege over him. No, absolutely. Also, I think I like to think that just is as well, just as I'm

a decent human oh totally yeah which is also really helpful raised properly yeah so I'm going to just yeah no empathy is something we should all strive for I think and look for in our politicians but unfortunately it's not always there um so going forward at the minute what are you apart from dealing with that what's on your manifest or what are you kind of fighting for at the minute i mean always the issue around equalizing uh rights um and that that isn't just necessarily a women's rights thing so there's something that i would really seek to try and change and that is the laws around parental rights in this country um and i think that men should be entitled to the exact same paternity as women are entitled to maternity because i want to see a shift in culture about

whose role is whose and i think that we can only do that by equalizing men's rights in in lots of areas um at the moment and this morning i was on on the television with Lou Haig, another brilliant female politician, talking about how we need to modernise the family courts and stop domestic abusers being able to just use those courts to continue abuse. And that is a piece of work that we've been working on for years and years um but I mean at the moment I suppose my absolute key role in politics at the moment it isn't about policy it is about emotion and I think we are seeing the rise of fascism in our country and across the world yeah and so my role is to be brave at the moment and to try and reach the public with a message that isn't about hate, that is about hope and about them, not about us. strategy for the next years i suppose i was about to say next year but i think we're in for the long haul is to try and make people believe in democracy and not throw the baby out with the bathwater with all the division that we've we're having because there's only one set of people who will benefit from a breakdown in democracy in our country,

and that is the established order. Yeah. It doesn't... When people opt out and think that this place is not for them or that politics is not for them, that doesn't hurt the people in this building in Parliament. That hurts the people outside and gives power, ultimate power, without any checks and balances to the people in this building and that cannot be allowed to happen and if making gags and going on mainstream tv programs

and talking passionately and becoming a meme if that makes people believe in it and protects our democracy even slightly then it has got to be worth it. Yeah. I think it all comes down to that thing of just recognising we all have power to educate. It's something I'm realising more and more, is that there's ways you can educate without being an educator and there's ways that you can spread stories. And also with those guys who are making those jokes,

sometimes I am a bit too, like, you know when you're so fed up with anti-feminist rhetoric that you're like, oh, I can't believe they've done this. But actually some men, guys might be all around like but why is that so bad yeah and sometimes I think we've got to remember we've all been conditioned women and men in the same way and sometimes we've got to be more open to talking to the men in our lives because I can sometimes be guilty of being like I just don't have the emotional energy to yeah why is it my job to educate you yeah yeah I'll go as my husband always says to me i'll

google that for you that's good great let me google that for you look it up yourself um but um because i'm like that oh what's this person who's just like look yourself um but yeah i think that that there is an element to all of this about not being a bystander to things and people getting people to speak up and people to feel be given permission to educate people yeah because for a lot of people they just think well it's not my place oh god I don't want to cause a fuss but actually then it leaves it on the shoulders of everybody of the people who are always saying it and they're easy to ignore because people look at me and roll their eyes and go she would say that yeah and it's just like well I need to expand this readership I need to take this message somewhere else because

it's it's reached the optimum amount of people it can reach so far you've got to expand it you've got to keep on pushing but you are having so much impact I really mean that I'm really I actually I'm really grateful for you and your voice and I think just even just every little tweet that you put out all the funny things that you say do trickle down and it does have an impact and it makes people want to listen and and hopefully stand up and make a difference I do feel you know I I mean that's very kind of you to say but I do feel that it works and I don't know why more don't do it actually um because I have genuine cut through to the general public um and I mean by no means am I like massively famous or anything um but I I do feel like just being brave is really

inspirational for people to see yeah and they you know I mean if you look around people write letters to me all day every day send me flowers and you know constantly every day pictures of their kids saying oh you know we just watched your video and You know, it means so much to my sons and daughters and keep on fighting and all that stuff. And it's from old, young, all over the world. And that, I mean, it's incredibly flattering. And my husband constantly says, what you need to do is write a book called Take Yourself Down a Peg or Two.

Yeah, I've always got my husband to meter out anything all the hearts and flowers in the world and he'll just be like i think you're a bit of a knob that's so good i also actually want to say i love i've listened to you talk i think i've listened to everything i listen to talk about your husband your family and it's really lovely like you've been together forever haven't you forever yeah yeah yeah so yeah i've known him since I was 12. Oh my god I love that. He's been my friend since I was 12 and he was my best friend since I was like sort of 19 um and uh but yeah we got together when I was about 20 when I was 21 and. But I just love I don't know any other politician that I'm quite emotionally invested in their relationship which is really nice. I would absolutely love my husband to hear you say that because he is literally like, stop writing about me on Twitter.

He is absolutely like, he's just like, he will tolerate anyone else putting a photo of him up on Instagram or Facebook. But if I do it, he's just like, somebody just said to me down the street, oh, I really like your trainers, man. And he was like, what are these? And he was like, no, the ones you were wearing on that photo. And he's like that.

I do not want people telling me they like my trainers. Yeah, my husband is brilliant and sort of very, very kind and gentle and empathetic, but also utterly curmudgeonly. That's an amazing word. He is so, I mean, he's basically like a young, what was that one put in the grave man called? Victor Maldro. He's like that, but he's young and knows trendy words. And he definitely knows much more trendy things than

me. But yeah, no, I like to, people told me not to include my family and to talk about my family in politics because they become fair game to journalists and certainly your kids I think that actually that advice there's been quite a lot in press regulation that has occurred in the meantime where uh people would be kinder to uh my children but um I just cannot be who I am and be honest and open without talking about my family because yeah they are like in every inch of my skin both my um my siblings my mum and dad my grandparents but also my husband and his family and my kids and my friends like fundamentally what we all want I think we all strive there's a really nice community around us and a happy life and so it's really nice to be able to see a politician who has those facets because you think

well I can probably trust their judgment that it's going to be good for the family and the friendships I have do you know I mean a lot of the time politicians seem so empty and cold and their lives are just papers and numbers and things and you think pointing at potholes I don't really know if you've got what I'm looking for here I don't know if you're well that you would design would be one that I'd fit into whereas you did a post with like your friends and family that is I sound like such a stalker I was like that's so nice to see because that's what's important and that's what what's valuable at the end of the day and also I'd really try and book that idea that I'm not allowed to have a life so as soon as you post anything like I posted a picture yeah of my

mates it was her 40th birthday and we were all around her house having dinner. People are like, oh, she's got quite a nice kitchen. My friends are allowed to have nice kitchens. I mean, we weren't even in her kitchen, I wanted to point out. But then immediately, you go on the defensive, I'm like, well, yeah, she's got a nice house. She's a midwife. And then I'm like, no, don't do that.

I'm allowed to have yeah nice things why what are we meant to wear like sackcloth and ashes projections i've learned so much about projection they put their insecurities onto you and get annoyed you just gotta know i've got loads of really brilliant mates who are excellent and some of them live in nice houses some of them live they're all living know, I'm not going to slag off my friend's houses here on this podcast. Some I'd pick to live in, some I wouldn't. But, you know, I have a nice life. And also the expectation that I'm meant to be at work all the time.

Yeah. That, like, on a Saturday evening, I'll go out with my mates and we'll post pictures of ourselves having a dance on Instagram. People actually like that. But the instant way to try and push back at that is like well why aren't you at work i'm like because it's saturday fucking night also if you're at work all the time you're only very good at your job why are you so exhausted so uh you know i also with my friends i have a very specific um relationship that i would not

be able to survive without there is a sisterhood element to it that I think is important to tell because I get really annoyed with the idea that the networks in the the power networks that exist in the world never include women and we never tell the story of and we diminish what women do for each other in their lives all the time um and I just really want to tell the story of how I would not be able to live my life I wouldn't be able to get up and get to work in the morning if it wasn't for my mates in my whatsapp group basically taking the piss out of me and being like you're not that I'm allowed five fancy mentions oh five fancy mentions a week and then my friend Jess

will literally come round to my house and slap me. That's so good. I love, I do, it's so important because the only stories you hear of women, it's getting better because women are writing stories now but it's just so and so's in an argument with someone or their house, this is the wife of, even though the husband doesn't do anything.

So yeah, I think it is really important to push that rhetoric and show that. Mates are all much more successful than their husbands their husbands yeah I think a lot of my friends are well we're not married but then the boyfriends they have currently they could get rid of them it's never too late anything else you specifically want to say not particularly also you look great because you were saying I can't remember at one point I was going to try to say I was like but you're like my people read you I think you look amazing. It's actually a great outfit. Thanks.

I've been on the telly, so I have telly makeup part. You don't need to say that though. I've got to learn, you've got to stop doing that when people give you a compliment. You know, I like your top,

you're like, sale, five years old, don't mind. I know. You can't just be like, thanks. Even if it cost you,

like, you're wearing it for the first time, and it cost you 300 pounds. Yeah. I mean, I've literally never had a top that that costs 300 pounds but if it did one you'd be like that one pound 50 down the charity shop why do you do that i don't know i've tried to learn to take a compliment i got a standing ovation recently um i think i was doing a speech and I literally physically recoiled on the stage. Like I was almost in the fetal position. I was like that with my hands on my face, like I couldn't look.

And this woman on the platform was like, what is wrong with you? Just take it. Just take the praise. But I have rote learned. This is another thing I've learned from my husband who's had to rote learn some more appropriate responses

to some things. I have rote learned to just be like, thank you, that's very kind of you. So I did it to you earlier. I started to just say something and then I went,

thank you, that is very kind of you to say that. But it is hard. We have got to condition ourselves. I think as women, you think that if you say thank you, you're being cocky. Yeah, like. you're pretty no you'll get above yourself yeah exactly

i think that is what it is we can't just say thank you because we have to feel like we're kind of reversing it because we come off as too and also i do definitely come from a culture where the the real love is basically telling you that you are basically just like a piece of shit like with me and my friend jess she once posted a picture of her kissing her husband in uh like that i think their kids had made a den and they sat in the den and kissed each other and literally every single response was just like den wanker and we have since like made photoshops of this one particular photo she's a really touching picture of her and her husband and i mean she's never going to live it down that and she once said strawbs and now we treat her

like she's literally aristocracy the actual fruit rather than the fruit the sweet not the haribos yeah no i have a friend who says bloobs which is even worse bloobs bloobs that that is literally that's the worst thing i've ever heard and i am subject to some horrendous things that blooms she said blooms i mean strobes it was about nine years ago she said it we basically we treat her like she's the aristocracy when we're talking about anything we're like well you wouldn't understand in your ivory tower straws do you know what actually was making me laugh when i was looking at your twitter what's your twitter by at the minute what did someone oh yeah it was uh george galloway said that i can't even remember what it was it

was basically like i was like an insignificant awful woman or something like that i think stuff like that is actually that's really powerful that that's what I think stuff like that is actually that's really powerful because it's so funny it's like just always say thank you for things never apologise

and just decide to take everything as a compliment even when someone's replied thank you so much for having arsehole love it so arsehole check me out

so yeah but Jess takes strawbs she's taking it on the chin now that is good I'll enjoy that yeah take loops back to your group so I think that yeah I've got to learn So, yeah. But Jess takes strawbs. She's taking it on the chin now. That is good. I'll enjoy that. Yeah, take lubes back to your group.

So I think that, yeah, I've got to learn because the way of genuine affection in my life is to basically be totally rude. So I've got to learn because not everybody's like that. And sometimes when people pay me a compliment, I've got to learn to accept it. Yeah. That's great advice, I think. If everyone wants to come and find you not literally in my life quite stressful um but online or is there anything

you're talking about or anything you're doing that they can come and uh be more of your wise sweary words oh well i'm writing a uh another book at the moment she says, stressed because she's not finished it and I will almost certainly be going around doing book festivals and things but there's I mean there's always, I'm always out there for people to be able to come and talk to me actually

but not anything that I can think of off the top of my head that I'm doing in the immediate I mean I'm writing a book. Would you have the title? That's what I'm basically... It's called Speaking... Well, it's Truth to Power is the title. Oh, nice.

But it's sort of a guide of how to call time on BS. It's essentially the tagline. I love that. Do you know what? There was someone on... Do you ever listen to How to Fail? Yes, I'm going on it. Are you?

Oh, my God, amazing. Amazing. Who else? Someone was on that and she is... Oh, gonna get this really wrong i think she's janice someone really important she has a saying like that that's like find the truth and oh i don't know i think it was yesterday's episode but it was something like that and it was really interesting yeah so i want to i want to encourage people to speak truth to power yeah always always and to think that they have some power and just recognise your voice. I think that's what you've done

is show people that you can, you will get listened to if you're saying, like you say, if you're talking from the heart, truthfully, that's really cringe. If you believe, no, but if you believe what you're saying,

don't talk about stuff you don't care about. Yeah. Politicians definitely, we all fall into that trap where, you know, I'm meant to be like a world-leading expert on every sort of cancer. I'm like,

I mean, I know quite a lot about the one my mom died of but otherwise i'm out yeah um and and people see through it voters and the public are quite shrewd um so i tend to talk about the things i know and care about and have experience of because of my friends family and constituents yeah and if you talk there's no greater expert on the life that you lead than you but people don't like mothers when they have a newborn baby believe everybody else is an expert there's literally nobody more expert in your baby than you so probably stop listening to all that other rubbish advice so true that's great advice we just won't listen to it then. Amazing. Thank you so much for coming on.

I've literally loved this. No worries. I've sweated quite a lot, I feel, but we'll be fine. You don't look sweaty. No, do I? I feel quite sweaty. Gloves, I'm going to keep that forever. Also, when I came through, actually, because they have to search, you don't know, and I

did apologise to the woman for being sweaty as well. And you stopped apologising, and she was like, don't worry, that's what the gloves are for. And that really made me laugh. Thank you so much, everyone, for listening, and i will see you next week bye fandu casino daily jackpots guaranteed to hit by 11 p.m with your chance at the number one feeling We'll be right back. Every day.