Off Air... with Jane and Fi - And do ya?! (with Baroness Hodge)

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

It's blowing a gale outside, so hunker down with us... Jane and Fi chat rain-induced night-time tinkles, bosom vacuums, mega-powerful candles, the flying-out smock, and being soup positive. Plus, there's news of a production celebrity sighting...Margaret Hodge, Baroness Hodge of Barking, also joins to discuss her memoir, Battleaxe.You can buy tickets to the Cheltenham Literature Festival here: www.cheltenhamfestivals.org/events/jane-garvey-and-fi-glover-with-anneka-riceYou can check out our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@OffAirWithJaneAndFiOur most asked about book is called 'The Later Years' by Peter Thornton.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producers: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm sorry. Let's move on to other things. Yes. Lighten the mood. Lighten the mood. We're talking about some very, very, very serious modern political problems. What a day it is today. It's been pouring down all morning. Well, it started in the wee small hours. It did. It did, because I had my window open because I like to be breezy. Oh, all the windows open. Yeah, now that the heat of the summer has passed.

And the rain was so loud. It woke me up. It also frightened the little cats. I haven't seen rain for three months I didn't know what it was Actually it's a good point Dora looked very puzzled What's this? Yeah Oh yes well of course

And if you wake up in the night and hear rain you have to go for a tinkle You do There's absolutely nothing stops that happening Furiousing Right yeah Should we just briefly

Mention Mental Lode And I thought this is a very interesting And subtle point We have many subtle point makers Who listen to our podcast Jane and Fee Amongst many many other Household tasks

and responsibilities My brother organises mine, our parents, and my adult children's gifts, our get-togethers, and he keeps the chats and calls going. My sister-in-law does none of it, because she's chosen not to. Now, the feminist side of me celebrates, but the sister in me doesn't. And I'm torn between wishing I'd have had such brilliant boundaries during my marriage and feeling a bit sorry for my brother. I know the latter is utterly ridiculous, but is honestly the default feeling,

that I sometimes have until I check myself. Don't you find that fascinating and also very honest, I think? Well, I think it's a great point to make. And also, I think we should acknowledge that even within the sisterhood, quite often you can find yourself having feelings of resentment or jealousy about other women who've got a better balance in their lives. And I will openly confess, Jane, I was very envious of the fact that your ex did all the cooking. and for a moment I took against you in my head

occasionally I miss that no but it's true isn't it and you know you may well want to I mean I think most right-minded people do you know try and have a warm heart towards everybody else's circumstances because there'll always be something about somebody's life that isn't terrific

but I think especially when it comes down to the domestic battle no two households are the same and I think we should be honest about the bits that we go home and go well she doesn't have it that about what she's what she's meaning about Anonymous goes on

The responsibilities for running a family are ingrained for women Yeah that's true And as women we make a choice to let it continue My sister-in-law has chosen to make sure her boundaries are solid I don't get a birthday card If he doesn't remember to send one

And that has happened Conversely, my mum has spent her entire marriage moaning that our husband never cooks but she let him never cook. I didn't get my boundaries right during my marriage but seeing my brother organised things does give me hope for women in the future. Thank you, Anonymous.

So you've definitely, definitely got to discuss it at the start, haven't you? And just work out and don't do that thing of, well, I'm better at that than you are. So Eve Pollard always used to say, didn't she, that just don't ever say that you're good at ironing because you'll end up doing the ironing. Is anyone good at ironing?

Don't say that you're good at cooking because you'll end up cooking. Just don't say that's the thing that I excel at because you might end up just having your fill of it. Finding it that's very much your responsibility. Yeah. This is quite a cheery one though from Meg who says the subject of parenting,

including mental ode, has been lighting up my group chats and book clubs recently were all Gen X boomers, so entering the grandparent phase. I know you're very close to that. I've got a couple of friends who've just become grandparents. Yeah, one of my school friends as a grandma. She loves it. Yeah, it's a real turning of the cogs, isn't it?

It is heartwarming to see our sons, son-in-laws and partner-in-laws, so involved in all aspects of care, not just the baby, but of their wives and partners. We're in Australia. Good day to you. No accents. And everyone's circumstances are different,

but these are the common threads through the people I know. Most of the young mothers take a year of parental leave, often at half pay, and the fathers take four or five weeks to support their partners. The fathers get up to resettle the baby when it doesn't need to be fed

or is finished feeding. When asked, they say it's more important for the mother to have a good night's sleep because it's a harder job to stare at home with the baby. Massive tick there. I mean, I'm the biggest tick of all. Yeah. Most of us grandparents

had good husbands who worked hard and helped when they were at home, but ultimately baby care was seen more as something we mothers had to get on with, especially at night time. And the pumps, the breastfeeding mummers just pop silicon breast-shaped pumps in their bra and get on with whatever they're doing. Brilliant. It's honestly amazing and so much better than the dreadful manual pump we tortured ourselves with. There is a place in hell reserved for the old-fashioned breast pump, Jane.

a thing, I mean, just an article of absolute torture. I never successfully used it, I'm afraid. I did have one, but... And I think, let's just be brutally honest about this, once you've seen your bosom disappearing into a pot with a vacuum at the other end of it, a little part of your life has gone. Something shrivels, doesn't it?

While I couldn't be happier for this next generation of parents, it's hard not to feel a little sad looking back about how we went through it quite alone. No group chats, no social media, no streaming services or podcast to pass the time, and no expectation that somebody will bring you breakfast each morning, prioritize your rest and get up to settle the baby during the night. It is a beautiful thing to see young mothers treated as fully human and respected for the amazing job they do, bringing babies into the world

and feeding and caring for them. Well, we would totally agree with that, and you are completely allowed to have a little moment of sadness. for, you know, the fact that you were operating in a sphere that just had slightly different parameters. Just let yourself do that. I think that's totally fine. But hopefully people were able, women were able to get together

with other women in similar positions and say, this is shit, isn't it? We were sold a bit of a pop here. I thought this is going to be great. Well, I think that's where the success of the book club came from as well, wasn't it? It was just an opportunity to meet under the guise of doing something, but actually it was quite a festival.

of letting rip. Let's talk, Bess of Hardwick. Oh yes, we've been informed. We have been informed and we are most grateful to Anonymous, who is a guide at Chatsworth House. How good is that? Now we have some Chatsworth House news that again, we're not allowed to say

it's another one of Eves' tantalising deadlines. Yes, we're buying Chatsworth House. Oh, I've given it away. Well, Eve's a very big fan of Chatsworth because it features as Mr. Darcy's House in the 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Thank you very much. Thank you.

And we will go back to Eve a little later for news of her celebrity encounter. Bess of Hardwick built the first Chatsworth House in 1546. It was a Tudor, a Tudor home, obviously, altered to a Baroque house in the middle of the 17th century by her great-great-grandson, the fourth Earl of Devonshire, who was given the first dukedom by William of Orange. Now we're on the 12th Duke of Devonshire. Bess also built Hardwork Hall in the late 1500s. Both of these properties are in Derbyshire.

Thank you very much indeed. So let's hear it for Bess, who got about a bit and built the first Chatsworth back in 1546, just before 4 o'clock. Are you a fan of the guided tour? Do you know, I'm just trying to think, I don't think I've been on one in living memory. So when you go to a National Trust property, and I know that they're... act as a magnet to you at weekends. It's just you get stuck in Westfield. I always intend to go to a National Trust property but find myself looking a bit haphazard in jigsaw. What have I done wrong? And then I'm drawn to the little calf. Before I know it, I'm back in the food hall. But yeah,

what happens to me? I don't know. Why can't I bum on my way to when I used to go to National Trust properties all the time when the kids were little, just to go to the tea rooms. Yeah. I was really admire the people who do the guided tours because they so know their stuff and I'm not a big fan of putting the headphones on and wandering round that just I was just I think it's a bit on hygienic but but also there's something rather wonderful about even at the age of 57 just kind of going no I'll just walk around at my own pace I'll have a look and if a little nugget appeals to me to learn about but that's a slightly wasted experience isn't it? I was um I was I was a I did see Channel 4 News last night had to, I realised I've been mispronouncing it for years.

How do you say the name of the tapestry? Bayou. Is it? Okay. But I'm wrong about all of my pronunciations. You don't want to take it from me. No, well, I thought you, because you said you'd been. Yes, but that doesn't mean that. Oh, okay.

I know. You haven't been to the exhibition. Bayer, Bayer. Anyway, the tapestry. It did make it look actually like something I really should go and see, by the way. So I will make an attempt to get a ticket to go in the new year. I think they've all sold out, haven't they? Up until the end of the year.

But gosh, it did make me think the women who made the tapestry, how good must their eyesight have been? Because they can't have had glasses. Yeah, or bright lights. Or bright lights. So how are they doing it? Well, I would imagine that... Candles can't...

I mean, there's no way. Did they have mega powerful candles? They probably just had very young girls doing it, didn't they? They must have done. But it's the same for all of those arts and crafts. Extraordinary. I mean, how they managed to build anything in the relative darkness of...

our climate and without glasses is just beyond me. I mean, you and I, we just wouldn't have made it through past about 25 because we just would have stood in front of something or fallen off something. You in particular, love. What would I have fallen off? You would have walked in front of a cart horse. A moment's notice. Fallen off a hay bale, tripped over a pantry.

Slid in some animal excrement in the road. Yes, it doesn't bear thinking about it. No, oh Lord. Okay. Now, the pronunciation of Induja and as our delightful correspondent has titled the email, Or Endocher.

Very good. We've been getting this wrong, Imichin. How amazing. As about Induja. I was in a cafe in Margate a couple of years ago for context. It was and is a cafe where there was a chicken sandwich for 20 pounds and everything is covered in chili crisp.

Is it a cafe? golden chicken. I don't know. I'd like crisp to go away. It just should remain the potato snack in a bag. Yeah. Onion crisp, crispy hips, crispy cabbage, all of that type of stuff.

And Doja was new to Imogen and Imogen pronounced it. Induja. I was quickly corrected by the waiter who told me that it's pronounced Enduya. Enduja. Enduja. Enduja. Enduja. I'm from the north, which in Margate can be perceived as being directly linked

to a low IQ and has tone perfectly communicated. That's not how you say it, you stupid cow. I felt so small. Hence every time you say and do you, I had a little cringe on your behalf. I could have done with the trigger warnings. Sorry about that. Imogen goes on to say on trigger warnings. I was again in Margate this weekend. My daughter's partner has a studio in Tracy Emmons TK.E. Studios and had the opening of his first solo show on Saturday. He's a talented portrait artist called Brogan Bertie. Tracy, I'm pretending we're on first-name terms, curated the show in which there is a portrait of her a rare privilege. I was thinking about your discussion of the trigger warning for her Tate show.

This weekend, I went to another show, Margate, on entry. I was told I was going to encounter some disturbing themes and advised if I needed to step away and take time to process things I could do. I then spent the whole time looking without success for something I might find disturbing. And I felt a bit inadequate because I didn't have any feelings about most of it. I can really relate to that. I feel really embarrassed if I'm completely failed to be offended by something I've been warned

might be really offensive. I know, I know. However, I've reassured myself that a lack of response is still a response. And this is delightful, Imogen. You have a new fan. I took my 80-year-old mum to the show opening. It's a 12-hour round trip

from the Filed Coast to Margate and our relationship is complicated. All maternal relationships have that propensity. I propped on your pod and the unremittingly negative of critique of everybody in our family balls for a couple of blissful hours. She loved it. So we've got one more. Oh, few. Welcome to

Imogen's mum. And you have attached a brochure for the show. And the portraiture in that is just superb. And in fact, the portrait of Tracy Emin, I think, is a banger. She's a very technical art critique term. Yes, it is. But I think Tracy Emin does great work in Margate, doesn't she?

I know that's not particularly interesting observation, but I think a lot of young artists have been really Oh my gosh, I think she has really helped turn it into a mecca for people, especially artists who really needed to leave London for all of the rents and all of the difficulty of pursuing a creative career. She's made Margotta a real hub, and obviously it's where she's from.

That's why she has. Big Cat Sightings. Linda says, you mentioned the numbers of reported Big Cat Sightings were down this year. Well, Bodmin Moore has come up trumps, and she's enclosed. an image it's not the clearest

but there's an absolutely enormous cat crossing what looks like an A road Well I looked at that and I thought Is that A-R generated? Is it? But then it says

it's from a police dash can Oh well it must be absolutely right then I don't know I'm honest Linda Thank you and if you are

anywhere near Bobman Moore be very very alarmed because that thing is moving around I mean it looks like a panther It does look like a panther Yeah, certainly not a tabby. Rachel says, I'm just listening to this episode,

and it's about weighted blankets. I wanted to tell you about my husband. Rachel has a very famous son. Have you seen that? Who her son is? I have seen her son. Well, it's Luke Jones. Congratulations, though, Rachel.

Rachel says she wants to tell us about her husband, not her son. He loves his weighted blankets so much so that when we travel abroad on road trips in the winter, he has to take it with him. Bloody ill. I've managed to find an oversized bag for life, and it rolls up quite well into that. The problem we have is that when we check out in the morning,

I'm always concerned that a reception think we've gone one step further than the dressing gown pinches, and we're actually stealing all the bedding. Well, that probably, Rachel, thank you. I mean, that probably is exactly what they're thinking, isn't it? It is, but what devotion to the cause to take your weighted blanket around with you? Yes. You wouldn't be able to take it on Ryanair. you'd have to pay 755 pounds in extra baggage, wouldn't you?

Oh, yeah, you would. I mean, the flight would be £8.90. Yeah, but then you'd have to... The weight of blanket would be, yeah, you're right, it'd be another ground. And Luke Jones is, he is very famous. I don't want to put Luke Jones down. We did an episode of the podcast with him, didn't we, when we were back at the old place, and it's actually one of my favourite episodes.

He's a little scamp. He is a little scamp, but he also scamped us. Oh, yeah, no, he's quite a... I think absolutely. And his most recent podcast series, The Surgeon of Centalina, I can honestly say is highly recommended. Should we have a bit more of Eve and her celebrity encounter?

Yes. I think it's worth celebrating. As long as the tickler in your throat's okay. Thank you. It's died down. Oh, God. Just in time for Jane to hear this anecdote for the third time. Yes, that's right.

On Thursday evening, I went to the National Theatre to see Pride, which was amazing. and I would highly recommend if you can get tickets. It was so good. And you might know in the film version, Bill Nyey features. And I saw him at the interval, and I thought,

I can't disturb him because I'm at the theatre and it's not proper. No. But then I had a couple of wines in the second half, and I decided that actually I must take this chance. So at the end, I waited patiently until people had milled away, and I approached him.

And I said, I think you're fab. And we had a wonderful chat, and he was very friendly and very warm and we got a photo and that is my screen to save. It is a lovely photo. And our big question immediately was, well, did you book him?

I decided not to let my job ruin that moment but I'm going to send a follow-up email saying we'd love to invite my close personal friend. Personal friend Bill Knight. Well, I think we ought to create a little the beginnings of an Instagram collection of production staff

with incredibly famous people we want to get on the podcast because Rosie's got a great one of her and Rod's Stuart. I think that's on the Instagram. Is that up there? I do hope so. I would happily immortalise this photo. Now, I don't think, though, that you had discovered his amazing podcast. No, I haven't. So tell me more about this. Well, have you, let me just get the title right for it.

Bear with me, Culler. Bear with me. A bit of jeopardy here while we await the title of Bill Nihis podcast. Let me quickly bring in Claire. I'm at one with the correspondent who emailed concerning a possible half-priced pedicure for just one foot. I'm in a similar situation when I visit the hygienist. I still get charged for cleaning a whole set of teeth, but my bottom half are false,

and get cleaned daily by me and then spend a restful night in a cup of that wonderful steridant disinfectant. I've yet to pluck up the courage and demand I only pay half the exorbitant price, but I'm now determined to be brave and at least ask. Definitely ask. Of course you should.

This is, they're bloody getting away with murder down the hygienist there. That's outrageous, the full price for half a set of teeth. It must only take half the time. Of course. And half the equipment and half of the vacuum. All of that. All of that. Come on, Claire.

So we're behind you. We're in the room with you. We're wearing the strange, dark glasses and we're slipping down the dental chair. But we're very, very much behind you. Ill-advised is the name of Bill Nye's podcast. And if you like Bill Nye, you'll really, really love it, Eve. It's him answering listeners. questions and dilemmas about behaviour and etiquette and life problems and it's superb.

I believe he would be perfect podcast host material. We should do an off-air ill-advised mash-up. Oh my gosh. Well, I'd actually love to. And his, you know, sometimes people seem to kind of, when they're doing stuff like that, they definitely reach for stuff on the top shelf and the very bottom shelf to try and sound a bit kind of wacky. and counterintuitive and all of that.

And he just doesn't at all. His advice is really delightful and sometimes really full of compassion as well. I would very much recommend it to your ears. He is, by some margin, well, I think he's my favourite dresser amongst mature men. Well, you say that, but you haven't met Sir Paul Smith. I was about to say we have a leading male fashion designer

on the podcast tomorrow. Thursday. Thursday. I think Bill and I you wears a lot of Paul Smith. There we are. I would imagine. There's a link. Yep, he likes a suit.

So we don't want to give away too much of this of Paul Smith interview because, in fact, even I've already recorded it this morning. But he does tell us this fantastic anecdote at the end about how during COVID he went into his shop every day. Quite often he was the only person who still went into the shop because it's where the business is run from. And he didn't realize until the end of COVID and the lockdowns that he had worn. a suit to work every day. Even though nobody could see him, it wasn't for show. He just wears suits, that's just what he does.

But he has completely mastered the unstructured suit. So it's not a Savile Row suit. Sorry, what is an unstructured suit? Well, if you read the book, A Life in Threads, you will discover, and I didn't know this at all, that a structured suit will have

attached to it, attached to the material as part of the lining, and ironed on or fused lining. So that's what gives certain parts of the suit a stiffness. So they cannot change its shape? No. So it will stay more rigid. It will have shoulder pads in it.

But that is that smart suiting. It will have a fused lining. So kind of like cardboard, basically, but obviously not cardboard. And the unstructured suit is cut differently. It doesn't have shoulder. had that will only have one dart at the back or no dart at all and it won't have that kind of fused lining oh well you tell you what every day it is isn't it's a school day yeah it is very much to your he's very very sprightly for eight years old he swims every morning at five o'clock

but i'm not as sprightly is bernie eccleston who's going to airports with weapons at 95 do you see that's right i didn't anyway i think that's quite but Bernie 95 Come on now. Don't take a shotgun to an airport, love. Well, even if you're younger. And I don't think suddenly, when you're a non-a-generian, you get special access to wet buns. I hope not.

Do what you like. Wonderful coincidence is the title of this email from Lisa Marie, who does say in a PS, if you never need dried flowers, please let me know. I quite like dried flowers. No? I don't. I'm not a big fan.

I like them, Lisa. So Lisa Marie, to give you a full name. I'm a long-time listener and discovered you at the other place before you moved. I was devastated at first and then quite thrilled to be able to continue. I listened religiously and you do keep me company mainly while I'm cooking dinner or working in my studio. My partner can now recognise your voices. I often go to write in and then I just forget why I was going to. But this time I just had to. You said Jane that you'd read out a message from Charlotte who just returned to the UK from Australia and who who bumped into Jane at Baker Street Station. I thought about emailing you first, but decided to resurrect my Facebook account, sent an out-of-the-blue message to Charlotte, and it's the same Charlotte I worked with over a decade ago in a well-known clothes shop called Toast. Other fancy smock-like retail outlets are available.

She was a good friend of mine who I spent many happy days in Oxford with. Thank you for being the common thread and reminding me of good times in my early 20s. Well, Lisa, I'm so glad that you're back in touch with Charlotte. But toast, they do do smocks, don't they? And I've always, they do some quite nice knitwear. It's quite promising.

But the smocks, I always feel that I'm just not, I'm not statuess enough to properly carry out one of their sort of country, carry off their country women's smock wear. I think I'd just look a little bit like Wendy Miller from Camberwick Green. Do you remember him? I do. And I think, actually, both of us got the wrong shape of toast. I think, yes.

Because I mean, but that's not the bread From Very popular Very popular bread product But the problem with the smock Is where the smocking is Isn't it?

Because on you and I Once it hits the boob area And flies out It never comes back in I think I think you have to be quite tall To crack But this is not

I'm not disson I think you have to be tall And slender And we're just not Well, not No We're not No

Toast is a It's a funny I mean it's interesting they've called it toast because it does conjure up a sort of warmth and a... I think their clothes are beautiful. Yeah, yeah, they're nice thing.

I would love to be one of those. Willowy, elegant women who only wears toast. It's not going to happen. It's not so much willy-will-wily and elegant as sort of just... I picture somebody by an aga in a toast product and I don't have one. No, I think it's very classy stuff.

Yeah, so it's classy stuff, yeah. Anyway, Lisa Marie. So glad you're back in touch with Charlotte. That was the slightly drunken encounter I had with Charlotte on the platform at Baker Street Station. I think it was while you were away. And on the dried flowers thing, we do have some dried flower arrangements in our house. But the cats eat them quite often because perhaps my dusting isn't as fine as it should be. I walked past our big bunch of dried flowers the other day,

and they just aren't quite a lot of moths and flies. It's kind of stuck in it. Yeah, we had a fruit fly in the food bin episode last night, which I don't want to relive. It was absolutely vile. A fruit fly, they're tiny. They're the really minuscule ones. I know, but I think for a couple of days, my housemate and I had simply neglected to do anything about the fruit.

I'd forgotten there was food in the food bin because for much of the hot weather, we'd ignored it completely and we just hadn't used it. Sorry to the council for that. But we had started reusing it and then we'd forgotten about it. Didn't have maggots? Yeah. I've taken to our fantastic correspondence

suggestion to put the food bags in the freezer and then put them out in the morning and that has just worked to treat. I'm very, very grateful. No more horrible slime, no nasty smell and for the binmen, no maggots. Win, win, win. Incoming from Kristen Melhoes, Melhoos, Melhoos. Mel who's, Kristen, Mel who's? Where do we find? Where do we find, Kristen? She's in Norway. She's 56 English and teaching English and psychology and an upper secondary school something that she's been doing for a few years now Kristen says I live in a rural part of the country

not far from Allison which is worth a visit with my partner and our two dogs of the national breed now this is Norwegian elk hounds called Loki and Odin now aren't they beautiful? Did you take a look at the hounds? I did. They're very majestic they are I always mistakenly call them huskies but I would imagine they are different from huskies, but boy, they look like they can get through a winter. Absolutely no problem at all.

It's quite common for dogs of this breed to be named after Norse gods. I originally come from Trondheim, which is really worth a visit. Founded by a Viking king in 997 AD, the Nidaros Cathedral is said to have been built where St. Olaf, that is Norway's patron saint, but you knew that, Jane. Yes, I did. It was buried in 1030. I could go on and on about both my hometown and the... beautiful scenery, which many of us experience up close, but I just attach a picture of one of the

sunsets I enjoy. Now the picture of the sunset is just so, so glorious. Look at that. Oh my goodness. Wow. Glowing red across the mountains. And I suppose the sunsets would be particularly vibrant, wouldn't there, Norway, because of the amount of sea. So you're just getting that reflection all the time as well, which makes it all seem incredibly bright during the day and then a sunset. It really does glow in quite a kind of neon way. They are incredible. Did you see sunsets like that? Yes, we did, and we were just mesmerized by them. Really, really mesmerized by them. Well, we were just mesmerized by Norway, actually. Kristen goes on to say, I'm not a royalist, but I am sad that King Harold has died. He's often mentioned as everyone's granddad, although being royal, he seemed very

down to earth and likable and had a really good sense of humour. There have been quite a few scandals involving the royal family, but the king and queen have never been involved in any of them. On Norway being expensive, you are of course right, but most of us manage. And this is why, Jane, there are no school fees, nursery school fees, although we have a great health care system, which is also highly subsidised. But you go on to say that new books in hardcover are between 30 to 50 pounds, yep, which is not too bad, says Kristen, and cinema and theatre and you've actually put in brackets fee needs to read that part

due to her individual style of pronunciation I still don't know what's wrong with it Kristen tickets are about the same as in the UK I could say a lot more as teachers are often prone to but we'll end here for now well it's not enough actually I'm quite happy

here way more I would like more I would like more shall we stay in that part of the wild fee and don't for me Judith Charmers and hear from Nick who is with her husband at the moment riding bikes from the Arctic Circle to Helsinki. Well, that's just madness. In some, she acknowledges it, in some sort of madcap, month-long retiree adventure.

Good Lord, you could just do the garden. What's got into you, for heaven's sake? Also, a coincidence, as you've just been discussing, a recent Scandinavian trip, so I feel very in vogue right now. It's day four, and we're still in the Arctic Circle, she says, it's quite a lot bigger than you might imagine. But at least the rain has... stopped. Plus, Finland does have some really pleasing attributes. Many birch trees and also reindeer,

which, crossing the road, regard us little people on bikes with such curiosity and absolutely no fear. So much so that we had to wait for a passing car to come to scare them away before we could pass. I do have bear spray with me, but who knows if that works on a charging reindeer, or even a charging bear, come to that. I just hope that's never tested, Nikki. I mean, what do you speak? The, the bear. bear comes towards you and you stay completely calm. That's when you're going to need Bernie Eccleston's gun. You and puppy just reach for your bear spray and deal with the situation. I just hope that never happens.

Also, pleasing attribute number three, the naked sauners, a really surprising esteem booster in its revelation of all manner of others' lumps and bumps and sizes and shapes. And number four, certain definite culinary delights, mostly fish and reindeer based. we stayed at a fish cafe last night and were offered a choice of salmon rolls or salmon soup. We had both, but we probably could have given the latter a miss. Our lovely hostess told us she didn't know why salmon soup wasn't a local delicacy. Sadly, we did come to appreciate why that might have been the case.

Right. We sometimes have salmon in soup here, don't we? We do. And there was one memorable, memorable occasion where there was hake and kale soup. right and you just get the feeling on that day that they just had some leftovers and they just thought shit what can we do the churine remained very full i don't think there were too many takers but i wouldn't be averse of trying a salmon soup so what why would salmon soup be so much worse than something like the beautiful and lovely cullen skink which is scottish fish soup

yes it's a good point i don't know why but salmon isn't normally put into soup it's certainly not in Britain. And as everybody knows, throughout the world, Britain is the home of good cooking. It always has been. Well, it's kind of the home of soup. I think we do like soup more than other countries like soup. We might do. We're soup positive. We've got one of those, we've got a tub of a very well-known variety of soup. It's mixed vegetable soup. It's lived at the back of our fridge for over two years now. And nobody will go near it because of the colour of. of the packaging, which is? Which is a rather kind of vomiting green

because they've got a picture of mixed vegetables on the front. Yeah, it doesn't help, does it? It doesn't help at all. And we're kind of as a slight family joke, aren't we hilarious? We're just going to see at what point we get to where we're so hungry that someone thinks, yes, I'm going to have the mixed vegetable soup.

But it's one of those weird ones where I did buy it two years ago and I think I've still got another two years to run on it and the best before. It's never going to be eaten for. I don't know. One day, might. Why don't you bring it in? Because the youngsters here will eat anything. Okay, I've got to do my next interview. You've got to do a next interview.

Okay. In that case, I will leave it right there. But lovely to see you. Nice of you to come. And love you see you. And our guest today is, actually, I think people will enjoy this interview. It's wide ranging. We talk about the news of the day

regarding Britain's relationship with Israel, but also venture deep into the long and I have to say rather glorious political career of our guest, Baroness Hodge, Margaret Hodge. She's been a counsellor, the leader of a so-called loony left council. She's been an MP and a minister. So if you've got any interest at all in recent British political history, you'll learn a great deal from her new memoir. It's out on Thursday.

It's called Battle Axe. Now Margaret was born in Egypt in 1944 to Jewish parents and came to this country at the age of four, stateless. She's fought battles all her life against the British National Party. Party, anti-Semitism, and the hard left. She's been condemned as a champagne socialist and celebrated as a national treasure. Does she, though, embrace the term, battle acts? My agent suggested it, and it's, of course, a term that is a bit derogatory. And then I thought about it, I thought, I think we're going to recapture this term,

because it's sort of about women who are pretty strong, which I am, pretty direct, pretty determined. and why should those be seen as derogatory characteristics in a woman? So it's a little bit recapturing that term and reclaiming it. It's also a bit of a joke. Yeah, it's fun and it screams out at you and that's absolutely no bad thing. Can we start with the present actually?

And I'm reading the book and hearing about your family story and some of the battles you've had over the years, anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, barking, seeing off the British National Party. You've been through it both personally and politically. But here we are today, and the big story is the West Bank trade ban. Has it divided the Labour Party, would you say? I think it's divided a lot to the Jewish community. It's a really difficult issue, and it's impossible to get right. I mean, I think what Netanyahu is

doing on the West Bank of the settlements is beyond the pale. Yet, every time the British government takes action, on anything to do with Israel or anything dramatic happens, there is a spike in anti-Semitism here because nobody distinguishes between one's Jewish identity and somehow you're seen as a paid-up member of the Netanyahu fan club. So it will create huge difficulties. And there is some concern as well that this is a few weeks before the election in Israel.

And desperately we need to get rid of Netanyahu, or they do and will this help him that's your concern that if that's within the Jewish community I mean I think on the whole we couldn't ignore what was happening but it is extremely difficult

it's really just a very very difficult there's these tensions and I hope that when Ed makes his statement which I should say we're speaking in the morning so we haven't heard it yet so when Ed makes his statement he will be absolutely clear about the government commitment to fighting anti-Semitism

and that he also is absolutely clear that he believes in the existence of the state of Israel and he believes in this two-state solution. In fact, one justification for the intervention is that if they do build all these settlements there, they kill the concept of a two-state solution. So it's just really, really difficult. I feel torn.

I just feel emotionally torn. I can't think what's the right thing to do. Would it have been better to wait later until after the election, will it have an influence? And I'm sure it will have a spike in anti-Semitism here. And that is at a time when anti-Semitism is at a level even higher than it was when we were fighting it in the Labour Party. That is depressing.

As you've mentioned that part of your political life, let's talk about that because I must admit reading this book, I was on your behalf just devastated by the abuse that you got at that period of your working life. I mean, without using some of the words, give people an idea of what people were saying to you. They used expressions which were abusive physically of me. They wanted a lot of death threats, you know. There was misogyny as well.

There was misogyny, there was ageism, there was anti-Semitism. And those three coming together, think, I think led to a torrent of horrible abuse. There was one two-month period when actually there was discussions as to whether or not Jeremy Corbyn would be readmitted both to the Labour Party and to the Parliamentary Labour Party because of his refusal to accept that any responsibility for anti-Semitism under his watch and I was pretty tough at that point I got 80,000 80,000 mentions on social media

and what I felt looking back on it it was a sort of it was an attempt to not just to attack me, but to demolish any credibility in who I was and what I stood for. So if I said anything, it almost silenced me. Because if I said anything about anything, not necessarily about anti-Semitism, I was such an awful person. It wasn't worth listening to my views and my opinions. Something I didn't appreciate was that back in 2019, you had a vote in the general election in that December of 2019

in Jeremy Corbyn's constituency where you live. What did you do that day? Well, I can now admit it. So normally I always had a postal vote because I had to get to the constituency, my own constituency. Which was barking. Which was barking, which I represented.

So I had to get down there to work down there. That, 2019, I thought I can't do it because I've no idea how we'd fill it in. So I went into the bowling station very early in the morning because I was on my way to barking. And I thought, what do I do? Do I vote labour? What do I do?

What do I do? I just could not put my cross by his name. So I sparked my ballot paper and put anti-seumite on it. You just wrote that and walked out. Did you want Labour to win that election? That was my red line. That's why that was the most awful battle that I described in my book. I didn't want Jeremy Corbyn to become Prime Minister.

No, I had absolutely no confidence in it. about being able to do that job. And I had by that time decided that he was himself anti-Semitic. But a lot of people left the Labour Party. I stayed in because I was determined at the party that I'd been a member of all my adult life was not something I was prepared to give up easily.

And I thought one more fight for me inside was really important. But I had created a red line in my own mind. had we won or had there been a hung parliament, I would have used my position vote to prevent him becoming Prime Minister. So when that morning, this very close friend of mine said to me, Charles Clark says it's going to own down a Labour politician. Yeah, yeah.

Sorry, Charles Clark, who's another old friend of mine whom I'd worked down the years, said there's going to be a hung parliament. I was in despair because I thought, that's it, my red lines come into being. I'm going to have to do this. By 10 o'clock at night, I was ready to...

Ready for the exit poll. Then the exit polls came and I think for the first time ever I felt a sense of relief that's terrible isn't it? But a Tory victory for Boris Johnson. I know which was also terrible. But that's politics.

I mean it is... How did the Labour Party get itself into that position where Jeremy Corbyn was leading it into a general election? Partly, I can understand and I relate it in the book back to 1979 when the Labour government fell

and the hard left took over the Labour Party then. There was a lot of disillusioned by people with actions of the Labour government, particularly over Iraq, in some extent over tuition fees and to some extent over the cuts that came out of 2008 financial crisis. And the austerity, yes. The austerity that came from that. And that's not unlike us in 1979, which was the winter of discontent,

and there were cuts in public services and grave diggers weren't digging the graves and there was rubbish all over the streets. So there's the same thing. And that allows the sort of soft left to come together with the hard left and create a majority. That's the one factor. and a lot of the young people had always had a Labour government so they didn't remember the Thatcher major era and what a conservative government could do.

They were much more, you know, Labor government was much more the sort of establishment government to that point. The other thing was that Edmerevan changed how you became remember. It hardly cost anything. So it cost a fighter to join and vote. And that allowed entryism to occur. And I do remember, I don't think. I talk about in the book, but I do remember when the idea was mooted, and they introduced it very

quickly, but I happened to see Ed in the lobby when we were voting. And I said, this is completely mad you're going to let in all the trots again, and we're going to lose control of the party. And we'd had a good thing with Ed, the difference with Ed and Jeremy was Ed did engage in an argument on the issue. And at the end of it, he said, well, I'm leader, and I'm deciding. You'll just have to go along with it. But I think it was a mistaken decision on his part. He just allowed that the people to come in. You talked disillusionment earlier,

and I really want to talk about something you acknowledge in the book, which was that the Labour government, you got it wrong on immigration. You just were not prepared to understand the very real concerns of some communities. And it's led to a situation, well, even in the last couple of days, in Dover, in Portsmouth. this is all very miserable, isn't it?

And you believe that actually had you engaged a little earlier, it might have been avoided. Yes. I think it is one of the most distressing aspects of contemporary politics. But going back to the 90s, really, when the BMP was beginning to grow in its popularity, everybody felt that if you talked about immigration, you'd give the right, extreme right,

the oxygen of publicity and strengthen them. I was attacked for just that, whereas I have always believed two things. One, you only win arguments democratically, so you've got to have them. And the second thing, which is really important, one of the key powers we have as politician is our voice, and we need to use that voice, not just to listen to people and reflect what they want, but also to engage in debate and convince people. And we've done that in the past. So if I can take you back a bit, in 1979, we had Margaret Thatcher, who said there's no such thing as society.

I was really worried that we would ever turn that round and restore confidence in the importance of collective endeavour and collective services and public services. Both Tony, Gordon, everybody argued that case. So everybody challenged her concept of no such things. and we won. If we had done that around immigration, if we hadn't sort of pushed it under the carpet, remember Gordon in his exchange at the election campaign when he called the elector a bigot,

that was all part of it. If we'd really engaged, I think we'd be in a completely different place now. And the other, that's one thing. The other thing that I felt so strongly from barking was that it was all very well, all us trendy lefties at the centre saying, you know, you're a racist if you don't support open immigration.

Actually, most of the immigrants were settling in working-class communities and the poorest communities. And embarking in particular, it was transformed really, really quickly from being a completely white working-class community to being as multiracial as any part of London. If you suddenly your neighbours change and suddenly, you know, the faces of the kids in the school, playground change and the food that you've got at the local shop changes, if all that changes.

That is unsettling. You'd find it unsettling. Oh no, I would. I'm finding it. And nobody understood that, really. And you should be allowed to say these things. It doesn't make you a racist. And then you've also got to understand. So it was a thing on which I changed. You've also got to understand where, so, you know, the blaming of the other for their own frustrations. You've got to understand what they came from. So, you know, I was holding coffee. afternoons, I was really spending my time reconnecting with my constituents to build their support and build their confidence in me. And if I hadn't done that, then I would have ended up with first BMP. But when they say to you, they think it's unfair that asylum seekers are getting homes

because, and they're not, or they think it's, you know, I sign them to see who's getting benefits. You've got to listen to that. Engaging it. I never, ever, ever said we should stop immigration. I never, ever, ever accepted the racism. It meant I didn't win every argument and conversation I had with individuals. But you can listen to those things which I try to do around the allocation of housing. And you can respond and hope that you can burst the bubble. But what are we to do about the small boats and indeed, they're not small, some of these boats these days, and the balaclava-clad men who are intimidating people on Britain streets?

Well, I do think Shabana Mahmood is one of the most effective. Home Secretary. And successful ministers in this government. And what we have to do is show that we control immigration. And I think she's doing that. I would, I think giving a commitment around the small boats was not thought through because it's such a difficult issue to tackle. But just, you know, speeding up asylum seeker applications,

not letting them hang around. And if people are allowed in and they're, they commit to abiding by our rules and they break our rules. I think sending them home, I think that's perfectly legitimate. So if we can show that very strong control of immigration, which she's beginning to do, and even the small boats are done, I think that is a very tough ask. And if we can also show that we expect people to abide by our customs,

our rules and our laws, I think then you can engage in a positive conversation about the positive contribution and the brilliance of really London or other parts of the country by having multicultural, multivational societies. If they read the book, we'll appreciate that you have a voice because you come from a particular position and that was that I was really struck in the book

by the occasion from your childhood when an official from the home office came round frankly just to work out how English you were and really sweetly your father had made, I think it was you and your sister, have a particular snack, which I don't think you'd normally have had. It was shocking. It wouldn't happen today. No, I didn't know it happened then. Well, I didn't.

The interesting thing is I remember it, isn't? I was nine, so I remember it. So it was obviously traumatic. And we were stateless, so we didn't have any passports at all. And that was terribly unsettling. Remember my parents had sort of been German Jews, German-Austrian Jews, so they ended up in Egypt. We were now leaving Egypt because of anti-Semitism.

And so he was desperate to get a passport. And this inspector comes to tea. I was there with my younger sister, so I was nine, I think. She was six or six or six. My two older siblings were away from home. My mum was in hospital because she was dying of cancer. And she died when you were ten, did she? Yeah.

And this inspector arrives, and my dad makes us sit in the... sitting room. He wasn't there. We have cucumber sandwichers. Never had that in my life. And then dried fruitcake. And of course, I'd come from a culture of mangoes, fresh mangoes. You would live in Egypt, don't you?

That's the last thing you wanted. So I hated dry fruit cake. But what was awful, A, why did he come? He spent an hour with us and he literally quizzed us on who our friends were, the games we played, the books we read. So it was a cricket test. It was

hardly a sort of warm welcome to a family that was escaping from anti-semitism. There's so much in your political story. I mean, you were the leader of a, well, it was known by everybody, and I'm afraid of a loony left council in Islington. I do remember this very well. And there were all sorts of stories. You had red flags of go-go. I mean, you had all sorts of support groups, you know, left-handed lesbians. I'm not sure we had that. Well, yeah, something like that. You know what I mean? And there was a bust of Lenin, is that right?

And everybody knows that you banned Bar-Bar Black Sheep. We didn't. Didn't you? No. Absolutely not. What happened was, this was, you know, post-1979, really, when the hard left and the soft left came together. And then it took Neil Kinnock and his determination to bring the party back to the centre for us to be able to compare. completely demolished the influence of the hard left.

So in 82, we won the council back from SDP. Right. And we were very mixed and I had hold them together. And we did some radical things then, which were absolutely lambasted. Oh, would they be run of the mill now? And things like we opened a workplace nursery. Right. That was considered bonkers.

We made much more generous maternity provision for people who come and work for Islington. and from day one would be entitled to them at an early leave. That was considered bonkers. We had monitoring of councillor housing allocation. There was a lot of racism. That was considered bonkers. All those things have become right now. But we did do some bonkers things, you're right?

We just raised the red flag. We did have that best possible lemon. And we did, it's not, I'm going to come to the Barba black shooter. We did have an animal rights charter, which involved banning fox hunting from the, A1, which runs through the BRONCUS. But on Bar-Bar Blab, we didn't do that. That was invented.

There was still a Fleet Street in those days. And the journalists would go into the pub and just think up the latest Loonie Left Bonkers story. They could. They really invented that. I think they invented it happening in Haringay and then it was in Hackney. And then what happened, it became so commonplace that a nursery worker in an Islington nursery stopped a child from singing bar bar black sheep because she'd heard it. She genuinely thought it was right.

So she thought it was our real product, but we never did that. And in fact, I had to take action. The SDP in the 83 general election tried to use that as a showing how well, a lonely left lot we were. And I took action and got that stopped. I got a political. I'm so glad we've cleared that up. I really are.

Just very briefly, because there's a lot in the book, are you feeling a burn and bounce? Oh, yes. I think he's been incredibly successful in the early days. Just in sort of, you know, he's able to connect to people in a way that couldn't before. He's bringing hope back onto the agenda. You know, we are going through tough times in all sorts of ways. But he's bringing hope back onto the agenda. And I think he's got huge empathies.

And he's using actually social media. My grandkids, you know, know who are on social media and now getting lots and lots of stuff from him and they keep you know so he's he's also energizing and and educating literally the next generation up so he's been brilliantly successful of course the challenges we all now know is that what's he going to be able to deliver so he's raised um our hopes he's talked to people in a language that they understand and now the challenge will be the delivery and that is really tough but i don't know what Burnham, what role Andy Burnham played

in those tough years you had under Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour Party. But what you do say in the book is that Keir Stama, although he certainly made real efforts to rid the Labour Party of anti-Semitism after he took over, he didn't appear to cover himself in glory when things were really tough. Did he reach out to you? I reached out to him because I did think, I kept thinking that the Shadow Cabinet,

if they were really tough on Corbyn, they could stop it. It wasn't a battle I wanted to be engaged. It really wasn't. It was a horrible, horrible, horrible battle. Not just in the abuse I was getting, but the fact that it was in the Labour Party, the fact that I thought it went to the root of all the values that had brought me into the Labour Party.

And I had thought that if people like he had voiced loudly and more openly, Emily Thornberry, Ed Miliband, there was a group of them that if they had been much more vocal in Cabinet, I think they could have. But they weren't more vocal. were they? No, and they could have been. And I think that what that led me to, and I think I do describe it in the book. I can't remember the first testings we had after Corbyn had gone and we were going for a new leader and it was in the parliamentary Labour parties. It was in, and there were,

you know, six or seven of them. And some people, Lisa Nandy, who stood then and who I supported, had been very supported. Rachel Reeves had been supported, West Streeting had been support. I think Yvette Cooper, you also say. there were a lot of people who did openly condemn and support. But all these candidates, which included members of Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet, first thing they said was anti-Semitism is the worst thing that ever happened to the Labour Party. And I honestly, I mean, I cried because I thought, you know, you're saying it now. God, if only you'd said it two or three years ago.

But I literally was fighting back the tears in the room because I've been, I've been. found it just two just got to bear. Margaret Hodge, and if you're interested in recent British political history, I do urge you to have a look at her book. It's out on Thursday. It's called Battleax, a memoir. We'll be back tomorrow. All of your emails are considered. They are read, they are filed, and they are put to very good use. Jane and Fee at times. Radio. Bye-bye now. Congratulations. You've staggered somehow to the end of another off-air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live, every day, Monday to Thursday, 2 till 4 on Times Radio. The Jeopardy is off the scale.

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