Off Air... with Jane and Fi - I find watermelons unwieldy beasts...

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

King and Queen Tut return today to discuss the big philosophical questions: banning flavoured hot cross buns, diplomatic slappers, and misleadingly dirty lyrics. Plus, Jane speaks to Labour MP Naz Shah about her memoir, Honoured. Our next book club pick is 'A Town Like Alice' by Nevil Shute. Our most asked about book is called 'The Later Years' by Peter Thornton. You can listen to our 'I'm in the cupboard on Christmas' playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1awQioX5y4fxhTAK8ZPhwQ If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfi Podcast Producers: Hannah Quinn and Eve Salusbury Executive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stuck in my head, the best things in life are free. Do do do do do do do. Why? Jane, why? And also, is that true? No. It isn't. I'm just trying to think it. It's a big philosophical question, isn't it? But no. I mean, I think we all know. It's just bollocks.

Anyway, thank you all for your contact with us over the last couple of days. In fact, in fact, we've just brilliant emails generally over the last couple of weeks. and I do say this often, but I mean it, I wish we could read them all out. And some of them are really long, and we really appreciate the effort you've gone to. We really do. Hugely.

And also, please do rest assured we do read every single one of them. And also, we do keep some back. So if you wrote, you know, even kind of two weeks ago or a week ago, I've got a plastic folder. You might be in it. And when we don't just jabber on too much, we do always hope to be able to squeeze in. stuff that we haven't squeezed in before.

Yeah, well, absolutely. Every word you say is true. And your cold has now become really quite unpleasant, isn't it? But you're wrestling with it and you're doing brilliantly well. I think, OK, here's a question for you, Jane. I don't think that you can, let's a cold, knock you out of work. But quite often, when we come to work, if somebody has got a heaving, heaving cold that is being sent around the office and great forceful man sneezes,

You and I do do a little bit of tutting. So I don't know whether I'm being a hypocrite because I've definitely got a bit of a cough on me now. And so I worry a bit about that. If I start coughing in the studio, studios are very small places, Jane. I'm going to cough on you. Oh, dear.

Okay. Well, perhaps I could be in a different studio today. Well, I'm not now. So I'm risking all sorts. But we are known, I think, in the office, but we are of an age. So we are allowed to tot. I think it's just,

a bit like groaning when you get up. You're just going to do it. Our tut level is very high. It's extremely. We are king and queen tut. Yes, we are. Let's welcome to the world, baby Nora. Congratulations to the mum, Ashley.

Thank you for the email. Nora was born via elective C-section, and Nora was born to the sound of, well, initially off air, but then we started talking about something that her mum didn't want to hear about, actually quite rightly, because it was bloody Epstein.

So, unsurprisingly, Ashley's partner whacked on a bit of Taylor Swift instead. But initially in the operation, in the procedure. And it's all very quick, isn't it? I've had a couple of C-sections that were elective. So very, very calm in there. And the baby's out in a couple of minutes.

It's lovely. That bit's lovely. So they were able to enjoy a bit of off air. So congratulations and welcome to the world, Nora. It's a challenging place, but I'm sure you'll make it better for all of us. Absolutely. And hugely well done to everybody involved

in that delivery. What a strange thing to want to be born into the world, accompanied by us. Although actually it was one of the loveliest things that I've ever been asked for. A couple of listeners at Five Live, they wanted a tape of, you know, the best of the late night show to accompany their birth, which, I mean, it was actually weirdly similar times. I think we're just, the world had just gone to war in the Middle East because I remember it was a little bit of a difficult tape to make

you know, which were the very important things that you left out. So what year was that? 2000? 2003 into four. Yeah. It has come around again, hasn't it? And we're spending an awful lot of time on the afternoon show, as we should, talking about the war and keeping you updated.

And I think it slightly changes our tone as well, doesn't it? Because I don't know about you, but on the podcast, I just want it to be full of frippery and fandango. Well, just what we talk about, and I genuinely mean this, is the stuff of life. And some of it is really, really trivial and ridiculous. And some of it is the exact opposite. And we'll keep doing that. And we're guided by the emails, aren't we?

We get very serious emails. We get very trivial ones. We like them both. But don't worry, because Jane and I, I, I, think, feel exactly the same way that you do, that actually we do need quite a bit of light at the moment. So we're happy to head towards the frippery. But we did start the podcast yesterday talking about the change in employment prospects, especially for delivery drivers and Uber drivers because they're just going to be taken

over by robots and automaton's. And this comes in from somebody who wishes to remain anonymous. And it's about pretty much the same fate for creatives. I've been working for 20 plus years in marketing the last decade or so as a freelance writer. Of course, there have been bumps in the road, but the current wobble caused by a combination of AI and a very shaky economy feels very different. So this is a person who's worked a very, very long time for some very big names as well and has now found herself applying for countless jobs, freelance and permanent, and despite a few close calls, nothing has landed. In one interview, I was told nearly 800 people had applied for the role,

at which point they'd had to close it early, and she's spending between five and six hours on each application that she makes, and nothing has come back. The roller coaster is real, and it's horrible. I've looked for retail and hospitality work to plug the gap but jobs are few and far between it's been 25 years since I worked in a shop or behind a bar so what chance do I stand of getting those jobs

especially if the market is also flooded with drivers and others all seeking work and she goes on to say maybe because we're all still technically employed by our limited companies the stats are hidden and that is a magnificent point madam yes that would that would be the case wouldn't it wouldn't it just

and I hadn't thought of that at all. And I've not really heard that picked up on in interviews. So good information there. And we should definitely pop it into the next chat that we have with somebody representing the money side of the government business. I really hear you when you say you have to spend up to five hours on an application as well. I mean, it's not just a question these days of pinging your CV off and hoping for the best with a jolly cover note

trying to make yourself stand out desperately. There's so much more expected of you these days, were demanded of you. And then, presumably, what you've written or what you've come up with is looked at by AI and discarded. I mean, it's so bloody tough. Isn't it just? Anyway, the email at ends and we really, really wish you the best of luck and keep us posted on your job search by saying I'd love to know, too, what happened to all of those 18th century farm workers. Weirdly, I've thought about this a lot lately too, and the coal miners. I'd like to think they went on to lead happy and productive lives in other areas, nearly said fields.

You should have, but I suspect it wasn't that simple. Sorry to be an eel, it is just really quite gloomy out there for us creatives at the moment. We'll never apologise and we'll carry on talking about that one. Don't you worry. Yeah, let's just turn to Beck who says, if it makes you feel any better, Jane, about your four jars of horseradish in the fridge, I have done something similar. I went to buy a new Pilates DVD but thought I should just check if I had one first. In fact, I had four. three of them hadn't been opened. I haven't touched any of them, in fact, since I checked, and that probably explains why my back isn't actually getting any better. I didn't know DVDs were still available, are they? I see them in the charity shops. I didn't think you could buy them. Perhaps, I suppose DVD players will still be working. Why wouldn't they be? But what do you play them on, on your TV? I suppose you would just plug your DVD player into the telly and you're good to go. It would come up as one of those AV ones, wouldn't it?

Yeah. Never quite know what that means, but, uh, as long as I can get BBC 1. That's all I care about. Oh, I'm BBC 4. Shall we call it alternative viewing? What does it mean? Auxiliary viewing. Auxiliary. Is it auxiliary?

God knows. Hannah's on the case today. Hannah is on the case. Now, Hannah is wearing a cardigan, and you describe it as apricot, would you say? No. Butter. Butter? Yes, butter.

Okay, it is very lovely. It's a colour that you just don't really see. I think it's got a bit of the 1950s about it, don't you? Well, I got it delivered to my grandma's house and she opened it for me and I tried it on and I came downstairs and she went, well, it looks better on so she didn't like it at all.

Well, I think she did like it when it was on. That's quite condemnatory, I think. But you do look lovely in it and I think it's a unique colour. I think there aren't very many people who can wear yellow. I think those of us who got a little bit of the red Celtic gene,

especially in our cheeks, ruddy of cheek. Yellow is terrible. It just makes you look sick, doesn't it? Well, yes, there's a hint of jaundice. There is. If Farrow and Ball did a colour, they might call it hint of jaundice. That would be nice.

I'm not laughing at jaundice. We have talked about, I'm not laughing at jaundice, that's a proud boast. Harry Stiles has a new album out, doesn't he? And we were talking about his high-wasted trousers. And indeed, apparently, he's almost single-handedly responsible for the return of the male suit.

That's what they're saying in The Times Today. But his new album, I love the title. Kiss all the time, disco occasion. Now that's just clever, but stupid and meaningless. And apparently the entire album, the lyrics of the entire album are completely meaningless. Oh, who cares as Harry Styles. According to the reviews.

But I was struck by this, by... This is by Mark Savage, who is the BBC's music critic. He says, I do think sometimes, and I'm not picking on Mark. Savage. I don't know the man and he's clearly an excellent, he knows his music. But sometimes, do you remember New Musical Express in its heyday? They would have such pseudo, pseudo-tosh in their reviews, wouldn't they? I mean, I bought it. Or the NME is. It was more often. Yes, New Musical Express, I called it. I bought it, but I would rarely understand what they were saying. I just wanted to be

in the mix and feel that I was involved, even though quite clearly in suburban Liverpool, I wasn't. but I used to think I might be. Anyway, Marcus said about Harry Stiles' new album, The muscular grooves are complicated by Stiles' vocal delivery. His gauzy harmonies regularly come untethered from the beat, floating over the songs like dandelion seeds in the breeze. Well, I think it's a lovely visual metaphor, but yes, I mean, that's just plinky planky plonk, isn't it?

Winky Wanky Wanky Wanky Wank will be one way of describing, I mean, look, I don't know the man. He probably, I know he knows his music. But I don't know. I thought that was perhaps a reach. So you and I discovered that we were on some pretty firm shared ground about reviews yesterday because we're both being keen to listen to U2's new EP. We're down with the kids.

Well, there's no point pretending that they're not of our time. I still love them. I still love them. I think they've written some absolutely amazing songs. So I was really, really intrigued to hear what they'd written because they'd had glorious reviews. You know, YouTube back to its heyday. You know, the protest song isn't dead. And it is.

It's about what's happening in America at the moment. But I plugged it in and saved it actually for a journey back on the Jubilee line. And I just, the congratulatory tone of the review, I just couldn't hear it in the music at all, at all. And you'd had the same... I was so underwhelmed. Experience, yeah. Completely.

So I almost don't might Mark Savage being all fluffy and dandelion puffy about it because I've listened to the music first and I know that it's just lovely and I'm going to listen to that album. Well, Harold's new album you've listened to, have you? I think it's the wrong way around when you read the review and head towards the music.

I think it's better just listen to the tunes. We've got another, a funny one actually, about watermelon sugar, I must dig out a bit later. I didn't realise that was naughty. I'm very, very naive sometimes. Also, let's bring in Madonna. She's email finally.

How many years have we've been waiting for Madonna to email us, and she's done it? She's currently in Brisbane waiting for a bus and listening to off air. Directly opposite me, I spied the attached advertisement for one of our major supermarkets. Isn't this just getting ridiculous? Hot cross buns in all these flavours. Why? Okay, I mean, Madonna is obviously having one of those days where she just can't take anymore. If it helps at all, I don't like these flavoured hot cross buns either.

I mean, they've gone too far. You've got butterscotch and harissa and the ones with chocolate in, lemon curd, molasses, Guinness. Just leave the hot cross bun alone. It's just being messed with wherever you look. It's clearly got as far as Australia. I'm sorry to hear about it. I share your pain.

I really, really do. I'd make an exception for the savory ones, though. I think they're a very, very welcome addition in the bakery aisle. The cheese and chili one that comes out of Marks and Spencers is superb. Oh my God, I'm sorry, I think that sounds revolting. It's worth converting to Christianity alone. Right, I think we need to put our matching undies to bed. This is from someone who wishes to remain anonymous.

Sorry, I'm just looking for that watermelon bear with. Yes, we can hear you. I match my undies to the shade of my clothes, so white or light bra with pale tops and dark, black with dark top. Same for trousers, light with light and dark with dark. This often leads to opposites. What would Fee do of wearing a black top with beige trousers?

I confess on a low exertion day, I love that expression. I'm going to use that myself now, a low exertion day. I might get two days from a bra, but never for knickers. Fee, are you just a one day for each? Does it ruin bras if wash too often? In short, I'm with Jane, but intrigued by Fee's approach. With thanks and best wishes. well thanks and best wishes back to you too

I would never ever wear knickers for two days in a row I don't approve of that just turn them inside out no no never do that come on feet and I would easily get gosh three or four days for a bra easily do oh god yes yeah and I'm kind of with you I'm kind of with you on matching the top

and the bottom but not entirely I would still be feeling a little bit uncomfortable about that. So I hope that we've covered every single base. Well, we're not quite, there's a question from IFA. Yes. Matching underwear. What's your bra to knickers ratio? If you're buying a new set, how many pairs of knickers do you buy to go with one bra?

I would say that my bra to nickel ratio, at the moment, IFA is one bra to three, forward slash, four pants. Right? I hope that clears everything up. What's your, well, you don't need to have a ratio, do you? No, I've got a ratio. No, I've got a mess. They're an absolute mess. I've just got an ongoing catastrophe.

Well, you have. And if somebody finds you face down in the street, by the time you get to hospital, you're going to have carted it, aren't you? Right, that's what an unpleasant thought that is. Do we, well, yes, we should mention this, shouldn't we? Dubai has been back in touch after events earlier in the week. Now, look, we neither, Fee nor I would, I think it would be fair to say we wouldn't want to live in Dubai, we wouldn't want to go on holiday. So that's just, let's just be, we've said it before, we're saying it again. we are that's right I've been to Dubai

it's not a completely uninformed decision there are lots of other places in the world which I would be condemnatory about two I also don't really approve of second homeowners in Cornwall

so I just leave that off the table there do you approve of them anywhere else not really no I think I've hollowed out Cornwall haven't they that's not just Cornwall so I'm just putting that in there because we've had a few emails and one of them does accuse me

of being very judgmental about holidays in Dubai. I said we were tutters. Just not a judgment about us worth things. I'm going to say we don't limit ourselves to Dubai. Far from it. It's one of the joys of late middle age. She can be judgmental about everything. And I'm just going to get better or worse at it, depending on your view, my judgment. I'm certainly going to keep

judging and keep tutting well into my, hopefully, my 10th decade. Right, this is from Kelly. She says she has email before. I just find it remarkable, she says, that two educated erudite women who I look up and admire could fall victim to the same racist, bigoted, lazy tropes about Dubai and the Middle East. I've lived here for close to 20 years. I came here footloose and fancy-free for a job offer. I wanted to experience a new culture and travel the world, which I've done in spades.

I've since built my career, met my husband and had a daughter. I've been really struck this week by the contrast between what we're experiencing on the ground in Dubai and how some of it has been framed internationally. I think the Western media coverage has been disgusting, open Schadenfreude as footage circulated of debris striking iconic buildings seem detached from the reality that this is home to millions of people. It's not just a skyline, it's a society, and it's an extraordinary city in an extraordinary country. And just to be clear, because this still seems to confuse uneducated people, Dubai is a city within the United Arab Emirates. It's not a country. Yes, there are skyscrapers and glamour, but they're also

ordinary people living ordinary lives, people doing school runs, people building careers, neighbours supporting one another. The only difference is that those lives unfold in a remarkably well-run and visually striking place. Newsflash, none of us want to leave and we don't want the UK's help, quite the opposite. We're bonded so strongly to the place to the incredible leaders who put their people's first, who make decisions guided by us and for us, who have protected us throughout this. I would choose the UAE over the UK over and over again. And for the record, we're not all here because of tax. I'd live here even if I had to pay tax to the UAE government. Right. I mean, that's a very spirited defence. And we hear you, Kelly. And thank you for being,

well, still a listener. And we appreciate that you see things from a very different point of view. You are there. You're doing your thing. And Dubai has been kind to you. It's just a fact, there, isn't it, for, that Dubai isn't all that kind to many of the people who have, well, been forced there to work in, let's be honest, searing heat to not very much money. Yeah, and you can't be gay in Dubai. You can't have a same-sex relationship. No, you can't be open about it, can you? No, and you cannot criticise the government. These are all punishable offences. And even those, and I'm reading now, but are taking in consensual,

extramarital relationships risk a six-month prison sentence if either person or spouse or guardian files a criminal complaint. I just worry about things like that not being as openly displayed as some of the good things about Dubai. Well, let's bring in another person who is in Dubai. And I mean, I do honestly, we really appreciate, you don't have to agree, as we've often said with either of us on anything. That is the beauty of this podcast. I live in Dubai. We came here not to avoid tax, all for the so-called glitz and glamour, which is so often the face of the city, and definitely what we anticipated with dread when we first landed here, saying we'd give it six months and leave it if it lived up to that reputation, but put simply it didn't. The move was due to a job,

relocation from Taiwan, and opportunity for promotion and career progression. We soon decided there's so much more to this place than the influences that everyone says they hate, but then goes on to give them so much time and airspace. The UAE is not perfect. Of course it isn't. Far far from it. But there's so much I don't agree with and I'm fully aware and well educated on everything that has and is happening here. But I believe you can make more change by being somewhere, no matter how small your part in that change is. And two, looking at the world right now, I don't think anywhere can really be put on a pedestal. However, it is safe to say the past few days have been surreal.

I've had to tell my mum to stop reading the news. I always knew to take things with a pinch of salt, but seeing the headlines coming out from around the world and being on this side of things is utterly wild. On one hand, we're all fleeing, supermarkets are empty, we're stuck in basements surrounded by chaos, fires and falling buildings. Huge exaggerations, by the way. On the other, we're all privileged, rich tax avoiders.

who came here because we thought it was the safest place in the world. We deserve a reality check and ha-ha, we're finally getting one. There's just no nuance. Of course there are rich, privileged and quite frankly awful people here, but there are also people here because they've escaped conflict and want to make a better life for themselves and their families. Iranians make up approximately 4% of the population and I can't imagine the turmoil their feeling right now.

keep up the amazing work truly it feels like a much needed safe space your podcast and sorry for the rant well that's what we're intending it to be aren't we and that's what I mean I really do mean it when I say you don't have to agree with us no totally and I don't know whether or not this is now going to sound of a critical

but I think you always do have to take note of people's personal experiences and give them respect for them you know Jane I don't live in Dubai and I do really like your point about maybe it's better to be in inside something and therefore be able to affect change. And lots of people who we know and hugely admire

are doing quite a lot of work in some of the Middle Eastern countries that are also condemned. Mainly Judy Murray has done some amazing tennis work. Her point is that if you don't train women to be teachers of sport, then actually you exclude so many young women in states and Emirates that haven't allowed women to participate in sport. very much so far. And Kate Moss has always been a huge, and that's Moss with an E, has always been a huge supporter of some of the literary festivals there against the kind of the criticism

of the censorship of some of those states, because her point is the same that actually if you take a little bit in with you, that's when you start to make the change. So, very much, very much both sides of the story are displayed there, and we love hearing from you. Yeah. So do you keep in. coming and you know this this war that has been started by the chief trumper i don't think it's going to end any time soon people with much much bigger brains than mine say that chaos is going to rain for a very long time you can be absolutely sure that if women were in a bad position before they're not in a better position now and we definitely need to hear more stories from people who are living in the

region. So Trump says at the moment, Jane, it would be four or five weeks. And people are sitting around, taking that at face value. I mean, this is a guy who said before he got into his second term that he'd be able to solve the Ukraine-Russia conflict within 24 hours. And of course, that didn't happen because, you know, there's just a moronic thing to say. And at numerous times during the very complicated path of that conflict, Trump has popped up and said, oh, it'll be over in a fortnight. Russia's going to get back to me in two weeks' time. I mean, These things are just meaningless. They're absolutely meaningless.

And the idea that the Middle East could be sorted within four to five weeks. A military campaign might be over because either side has simply run out of missiles to fire at each other. But it won't be over. It's been going on for centuries. It's so naive, it's so rude,

it's just absolutely ridiculous to think that a month from the orange blimp is going to be the thing that's been missing throughout history. Well, I mean, I think if we know anything, it's that Donald Trump is a hypocrite, he's inconsistent

and he's allowed to be, because quite often he's just not challenged. He's a friend of somebody's, then he isn't a friend, then he likes a deal, then he doesn't like a deal, he's against wars, he doesn't win a peace prize, he starts wars, I give up. I mean, we're

sick to death of it, and we do keep saying, he's probably crackers, and we've got to just keep that in mind for feet's sake. He's a diplomatic slapper. He's a, yeah. Yes, he is. Actually, I'm just reading more of this anonymous email from Dubai. And you know what? This really does concentrate the mind. We've never in this country live through anything like this.

She says, you've got to bear in mind more than one thing can be true at once. You can be fucking terrified as you see and hear missiles being intercepted with ear-splitting bangs, shaking buildings and fireballs in the sky, because you've never experienced anything like this before. And it's a gut reaction and you don't know what's coming next. At the same time your heart can be breaking for all the people who are living through so much more and so much worse than this every single second of the day. I cannot explain how angry I am at the misplaced confidence mediocre white men have

to follow through with these insane plans which bring chaos to the world but which they never seem to face any kind of justice for. It's sickening. And our correspondent says in Dubai, let's see in trepidation what the next few days hold. I really feel for you. I mean, it doesn't matter what I think about Dubai, really, because I haven't been there. But that, just living, and as you are very keen to point out, that your suffering is nothing to those people in, well, we know in Iran, but in places like Sudan, which we almost never talk about, where there's god-awful things happening all the time. Anyway, thank you. We really appreciate your honesty, and please do take us on.

Jane and I are very much backing the younger generation, and we always wish them well. and let's face it, it's a sensible thing to do because we've really cocked up the world. So we have to support the poor young people are going to have to sort it out for us. And incoming, Helen, who was our lovely... She headmistress. She is.

Or she's certainly very important at her school. So she played out our voice note. We did a voice note for International Women's Day, which has been played out already in the Assembly Hall at Norwich High School for Girls. It's a GDST school, and that's Girls, between 3 and 18. And we did a little thought for the day, didn't we?

About the importance of female friendship and just kind of sticking to your guns. And we're very glad that you liked it and we'd just like to say a very big hello to all of those young women. I hope that, you know, I hope things change, actually. I hope that you listen back to a podcast like this. I mean, not specifically this episode,

but a podcast like this in 30 years' time and it makes no sense because that would be our gift to the world, wouldn't it? If actually all of the things that we're wanging on about had been a little bit more sorted so you didn't have to go, oh God, yeah, I really understand that feeling. That reminds me, the guest is Nas Shah in this episode. We've shuffled a few things around today

and you will hear a little later on very soon, in fact, Honoured is her memoir. Naz Shah is the MP for Bradford West and she's just got such the backstory. She really has and she has been shaken up by the patriarchy and now she's trying to take it on herself. Boy, is she having an impact. But, God, it's been tough.

Childhood and adolescence were horrific. And she's been an MP for quite some time now. But it's just impossible to imagine, the sort of things that she went through. Just extraordinary. So she is well worth hearing. Coming your way in a couple of moments' time. Can we just say hello to Minnie and Penge

because we do love a Minnian Penge? And she says, Thank you for a veritable giddy selection of podcasts so far this week. They've been most welcome in amongst all the war-torn man spreading. Three thoughts follow. I listened with interest to your correspondent's story about changing homes and schools. I too moved a great deal as a child and now as an adult. I've clocked up a whopping 25 homes to date.

I know 25 homes across six schools and four countries. My sister and I were also unaccompanied minors on B-O-AC flying. to stay with parents during school holidays. It's quite something that unaccompanied minors thing. I think it does still take place now. But there were basically boarding school flights, you know, when term ended, that would head off across the world. And these poor...

They weren't stewards and stewardesses. They tended to be people who were just taking that role as a job would be in charge on a flight of, you know, up to 30 kids. Chaparone. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. To look after them. Usually, having never met them before.

and, you know, there's an element of the unruly involved in putting kids together at that age at high altitude. And we'll leave it there. I'd never really thought about it, but the reference to being good at small talk, as a consequence, really rang true your correspondent, is not alone. And secondly, regarding the coiled spring playlist, surely the aforementioned Diana Ross,

I'm coming out, is a contender, a call to arms for all the daffodils and gay male footballers. It's just so beautifully put. That's great. It is, it is. Louise, I found the email from Louise. And look, lots of love to you, Louise. She says, I've got secondary breast cancer.

It's treatable but not curable. I'm on a clinical trial of chemotherapy and immunotherapy, and it does take it out of me a bit. Well, I can only imagine. I did, though, have a lovely time this weekend as it was my birthday, and my three grown-up daughters came home to help me celebrate. We did a spa day, followed by a walk on the beach,

beach at Polzeth, lovely part of Cornwall. When we came home, they indulged me by watching this great film from the 90s. They were my words. It was sliding doors. Yeah, now, while watching it with three young women between the ages of 29 and 34, did make me see it in a different light, says Louise. Quite a lot in it doesn't really stand up these days. For a start, there's Gwyneth's awful British accent, John Hanna being just so much older than her, loads of gaslighting from her cheating partner, the fact that she got her loan approved and set up a business within three days, how they lived in a lovely and expensive part of London, and I could go on. It has made me think, she says, about when I next suggest another 90s classic. They did, though, come up trumps

because they're taking me to Wembley to see Harry Stiles. Brilliant. That's fantastic. High-wasted pants and all, which leads me to tell you over time when my age and lack of knowledge about how the young speak made me hot and flustered. Slop, pop, hot and flustered. I was driving with one daughter when watermelon sugar came on the radio. Oh, I love Harry Styles to come round to our garden and have some fruit salad with me, I said, innocently. There was a pause and when my daughter got her breath back and it probably finished texting her sisters all about it, she asked me if I understood what watermelon sugar meant.

Do you know? If not, I'm sure Eve will fill you in. Well, Eve's away. Can you remind me of the correspondent? Louise. Louise. Louise. I made the same mistake. And I was corrected by Eve and by Jane, who both just openly sniggered. I think we were talking, weren't we, about Taylor Swift when she had written that song which was dedicated to her partner's penis.

And I'd say if only she could stay as delightfully kind of sweet. as Harry Stiles has just talking about Watermanus. Both of them just collapsed Louise. So you and me both. Maybe as well as explicit lyrics, there should be a little sign that comes up when you play something like that

that just goes, finar-finar lyrics. Yes, yes. Well, that would help. They would guide the rest of us who aren't always entirely certain. But, I mean, I thought it's just so lovely that you thought it was just a tribute to the Watermelon, which I found a very unwieldy beast. I would never, never choose a watermelon.

I mean, they're enormous. I mean, they're all right. Yeah, they're okay. But, I mean, you wouldn't, it wouldn't sort of think, oh, crikey, what I want now is a watermelon. You'd lug them home from the market. You'd break your leg or something doing it, couldn't you? I don't know where you find joy in your life.

Louise says, well, not in watermelons. I'm telling you that much. Louise says, I've just read a town like Alice. Now, yeah, I won't read it because we can use that when we go through it, when we do the podcast on it. The Town Like Alice by Neville Shoot, Norway is our pick for the retro book club when we next do it.

What do you know what the thing that keeps not irritating me as I'm reading it and I am enjoying it is the use of the word upon. God of all of the things to pick, Jane, it's not that for me. It's just gone. Well, there's loads of other stuff in it, but it sounds so formal. They slept upon the ground.

She found it difficult to sleep upon the ground. And you think, did people, did we just, when did we stop saying upon? Upon all the time. I don't know. I agree. It's a very minor thing because there's so much else. There's so much else going on in that book. But the story is a great one.

The story is a great one. But by the end of it, because I remember watching it, it was a TV show, wasn't it? And it was. I think it's been everything. What's his name, Brian something? Yes, I was trying to think. Was it Brian Wood? I want to say Brian.

Brown. Oh, Brian Brown, I think it was. Yeah, he was one of the Australian actors. Yes, and he was... Just make sure that's true. He was superb, wasn't he, as the main character? Yeah, yeah. And I just remember it being actually quite a kind of

eye-opening love story, because if I watched it in the 1980s, I can't think there would have been very many TV shows around that depicted a young woman turning round the fortunes of a town. I mean, that seemed to be quite something. But obviously, the TV show, in my mind, wasn't accompanied with the kind of dripping sexism that is there in the book. But the way that Neville Schutes writing

is just to reflect the times that he's living in. He's not writing to affect progress, is he? No. Because if he were, then he would challenge himself through his characters on some of the language that's being used. But it is still a bold storyline for a man to write about a young woman turning the fortunes A of a group of other women

captured during a war around and then going to a very remote part of the world and turning the fortunes of a remote community around I mean that's incredible. It does go against his general view if we're to believe the narrative of a town like Alice that women are a little bit hopeless

certainly at the beginning of the book it's all these things that women wouldn't be able to do or understand but I'm only about 40 pages in but you know we should check in with ourselves there Jane because some of the coverage of yesterday's spring statement delivered by the first ever female

Chancellor in this country has elements of that. These are all the things that women can't do about it. We're not exactly solved that problem. I just want to say hello to Shelley. You try to say hello to Shelley for the last 10 minutes. Well, because Shelley has asked

whether we would ever do an interview with an unknown author about their novel. And to be honest, Shelley, we probably can't just because if we did an interview with you, I think there'll be a lot of people who would feel a little bit nose put out of joint that we couldn't then do an interview with them. But we're so happy to mention things along the way.

And your novel is called My Husband and Other Rats. And you are Shelley Klein, that's Klein with a K, and her day job, Shelley's day job, is as a psychotherapist. And she says during these difficult times, I believe some of the best therapy is to be able to find the funny side of life, which is why I like listening to the two of you giggling and laughing and simply chewing the cud. we'll completely understand if you throw this email into the virtual bin.

Well, we haven't done that. And props to you for having written a book anyway, my husband and other rats, I wonder what it's about. I don't know. There's no hint, is there? No end at all. Naz Shah has been the Labour MP for Bradford West since back in 2015. And if you think Westminster is simply too full of Identica ex-Loyers

with PPE degrees from Oxford or Cambridge, well, she is a contrast. At the age of 12, she was packed off to Pakistan on a supposed holiday that turned into a three-year ordeal and included forced marriage to her cousin when she was 15. When she was 18 and back in this country, her mother was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the murder of a man the family knew as Uncle Azam. In fact, he was a rapist who'd abused Naz's mother and forced Naz's mother to have sex with other men. Now, Nas Shah's memoir, Honoured, attempts to make sense of her childhood, and it is a childhood. explains how against the odds she didn't just survive, she triumphed. Just to warn you, the interview does contain descriptions of suicidal thoughts and domestic abuse that some listeners may find

upsetting. We began by talking about how very few politicians can claim that they spent their early teenage years in a remote village clearing up buffalo dung. But that was true for NAS. It is. You had the buffaloes. You had to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning, clean the buffalo crap and the clean crap which didn't have hair and things mixed in it, you'd take up, you'd put in a basket, take up to the rooftop, you'd turn it into like patties, so you'd dry them out with the sun and the heat during the day, and the next day they'd be used for fuel in the stove, if you like. So yeah, that was a normal daily routine. We'll get on to how you ended up doing this as a teenage girl. That was in Pakistan.

Yeah. Your book, Honoured, has a very sweet picture of you. in very smart-looking British school uniform. And you look studious, you look very sweet. Thank you. But that, well, there was an awful lot going on in your life at that point. And was, was that your last British formal school portrait? Yes, I was 12 years old. That was the last year that I was in school in the UK.

And what happened after that? I was sent to Pakistan. And then I didn't come back from Pakistan until I was 15 after a forced marriage. So I was 15 in November and I was forced into marriage in December. And then I came back to the UK, but I never went back to a British school again, simply because I went and started working. And I worked packing nappies. And then I went into, you know, I went up in the world and I went and started doing laundry, the NHS laundry at society linen and higher. And then I went up in the world and I started packing crisps, see, brooks, crisps.

So, and then my world came crashing down because my mum got arrested for murder. I mean, there's so much just in that answer. you've also been homeless at one point after your mum went to prison you were sleeping in a crack den when people say oh there's not enough real people

in politics I think you could quite legitimately turn around and say well there's me I'm very real I mean the truth is that anybody in life circumstances is only ever two to three steps away from being homeless

and I've been there I've done that I've slept in literally because I didn't have anywhere to sleep slept in a crack house. I've literally slept on, you know, the first time, second time I tried to kill myself was I was on a mattress that was in a spare room where the dog slept

and I was sleeping on that and it was Ead. And you've got like, there's, you know, being homeless, being not having anywhere to put your head down, not having the sofa surfing literally and sometimes you end up on sofas that you just wouldn't have thought imaginable and being in that and I can still smell the heroin, you know, a drug user, using heroin, using crack cocaine,

and that smell is really, really distinctive when they've just got the foil there. What is it like? It's a stickly sweet smell. It's a very, very unique smell. I've never smelled it, you know, since. And it's just, when you're on your, literally on your tod, if you like, and you've got nowhere to go, and you think you're at the space where you just don't want to wake up, you know. Yeah, you've had some phenomenal.

tough experiences. You have indeed. You just go back to the way the book starts with one of your earliest memories is your five and you're running for help. Tell us about that. Anvil Street running down,

up the stairs. It was a back-to-back house and you went into the bottom in the basement where the living room in the kitchen was. And I ran up because my dad was beaten my mum

and I went up to the neighbours another flight of stairs and crashed, you know, banged on their door to tell them to come and stop because my mum was saying go get somebody, go get somebody, go get somebody. You know, and she was just, her eyes, you know, there were moments in my life

when I still see my mother's eyes looking up to me, looking out to me. That was my first time that I saw my mum literally saying to me, help me. You know, and I was only five years old. Yeah, I mean, most of us were fortunate if we see that perhaps once or twice in our mother's eyes, perhaps when she's elderly and not feeling very well. Yeah. But to experience that when you were five, little wonder that I think writing this book did really impact you, didn't it?

Hugely. You know, I got diagnosed with PTSD in 2024. I mean, some of that book that was written in 2017. I was the first time it was pitched to me as an idea that I should write it was when I won my election, which was in 2015.

Then I realised by the time I got to 2024 when I started writing again and started doing the book again in 2020-3-24, then I got diagnosed of PTSD. Then I had EMDR therapy to help me through. and then I've, you know, and I'm still going through that journey of, you know,

healing from all that, all the trauma and the experience of trauma and understanding that it's, you know, when I used to work with the Samaritans, they used to be a volunteer with them, realizing, you know, the first time somebody said to me, it's okay to be angry, was when my dad got diagnosed as terminally ill, and I had a complete kind of like meltdown, and I couldn't understand it, and it was a home treatment nurse, it's Alme Yasmin, who came to see me, and she said, it's okay to be angry,

and it was like, oh my God, I've got permission to be angry because I didn't even accept that anger was a valid emotion to have. So at that point, you were how old? And that was 23 years ago, so I'm 52 now. Right. So that was in my 20s. And then you kind of like, you learn as you carry on and you have these, you know, and my daughter,

my daughter Leona and my niece, Inaya, I remember when they were 15 and they were sat there just giggling on the couch and with their phones in their hand. And they were just giggling. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. it was like, oh my God, at your age I was married and you're just carefree. The idea that they're just carefree

and in some ways it's really humbling because you think we've broken the cycle. You've done that? Yeah, we've broken that cycle. No more were my niece, my daughter, ever have them kind of, you know, patriarchal, that kind of attitude. They are raised to be the strong,

independent people that they are and young women now, you know, in their 20s. But it was just those little things, they always come and catch you up, no matter how, you know, where you get further in life at the age of 17, looking at my daughter, thinking, oh my God, at your age, this is what I was going through, you know, when I was 18 homeless and my daughter's 18 at university, you know, it's just you have, these things come back and then no matter how much you think you've put them away, at some point, that little filing cabinet that you think you've locked away,

the things seep out at you. So writing the book was really, really difficult. It wasn't the easiest job. No. Well, you've done a great job. Thank you. It's actually incredibly educational and I certainly learned a great deal from it. What I think people will need to try to understand is why when your dad eventually left your mom and he ran off with a, which was a teenage neighbor, wasn't she? A 16 year old. It was you and your mom and your siblings who paid the price for that. Now, that just seems extraordinary. So just explain how that all happens. So in a patriarchal society, It's a women that bear the burden of shame

and that's the whole reason the book is called Honoured is about women are honoured. You know, we talk about honour killings and there's no honour in killing. There's no, and it's always a woman who carries that burden. So the man can do what he wants. It's that age-old thing of, you know, a man can do what he wants and it's notches on the bedposts

and a woman does it and she's permissuous and she's whatever names they call her. It's the same concept. It's the idea that a woman doesn't have the honour and to me that's wrong and it's what Giselle has been saying recently about we need to flip the concept of shame that's exactly what honour is

honour is you the side of that and it's exactly the same thing I'm just saying in a different language that honour cannot just belong to men it belongs to women women should not be the carriers of shame they should be the carriers of honour because that's what women are

because women you know the amount of trauma that women carry you know when my mum went to prison it wasn't her who just went to prison we served that sentence with and yet women, the majority of women are in prison, have been abused or had some kind of, you know, they've had a life experience which puts them there. There are so many facets to this book that we need to understand in terms of experience, of women's experiences, of children's experiences, of experience of abuse.

The concept of it is that shuts women up that we don't talk about it, we don't talk about abuse, we don't talk about any of these things. Even today in Britain, women from mainstream society, not even having a cultural difference, you know, will not talk about these things because we just don't, when we're angry, we beat ourselves of why are we angry? We don't understand our mental health responses. We don't know how to unpick them.

The support services aren't there. So I think I'm really, really hopeful that this starts a number of conversations. Ultimately, the bottom line for me is I want somebody to read this and think, okay, if she can do it, I can do it. Well, I think a lot of people will be inspired. I really do mean that.

We need to go back to how you're, your mom somehow got a life together for you and your siblings. Unfortunately, it did involve a man who, and this is the really, and you're very honest about it, you rather like this man. Yeah. He was superficially good to you, good to the family. He bought down, you know, he owned a local warehouse. He bought fruit.

He bought, you know, sweets for us. To us, he was Uncle Azam. I didn't know what was going on behind the scenes. And when he died, I grieved. I genuinely grieved for him. What was going on? He had sexually exploited my mum for years. My mother was a vulnerable woman in her early 20s with three children.

Well, she was pregnant when my dad left her, living in abject poverty, wanting to buy a house, sold her jewelry. He bought the house in his name because she didn't qualify for a mortgage. The day he took her to the house, that was the first time he raped her. He sexually exploited her. We understand the concept of sexual exploitation now. She was a vulnerable single parent who didn't know of a language in a strange country. he exploited that abused her

you know literally when he went to prison he was a drug trafficker you know he exploited her from prison for favours on the inside and she when I was 12 my mum sent me to Pakistan because he in his words the grass was greener with your daughter now

you were in his line of sights yes so she sent me to Pakistan when I was 12 I didn't come back until I was 15 after a forced marriage and then my sister was growing up she was 11 and then it was like okay now she's growing up but at that point my mum killed him and she She went to prison and she was given a tariff of 20 years

and she never told the story. She never told anybody that she'd been abused. Initially, yeah, you were arrested as well, weren't you? I was. I wasn't at the time, Jane, it was really, I mean, I talk about it. It was like, this was the most exciting thing to have ever happened to me, to please come in and knocking me up, locking me up. You say very sweetly that the police were really nice to you.

There were, because I didn't think. Because to me, I knew I hadn't done anything wrong. So for me, I've got a real, big faith in the British justice system. So the police have got this wrong. Oh, this is an adventure. You know, they put me in this J-Clocked white suit. And I was laughing with the police officers.

And they were giving me magazines and they had the door open. Now I know that was because it was such a serious charge. I was on suicide watch. But to me, I had a whole different idea of it. To me, it was like, I'd never seen the inside of a police station. You know, these police officers would be nice to me. And you were how old? Just reminded us.

I was 18. Yeah. You know, but I wasn't a normal teenager. remember I let's school at 12. So I'd never had the normal things of teenagers and getting to know who you are and what you are. And that didn't apply to me because I was in Pakistan. Your mother did.

You didn't understand at the time, but your mother had murdered Adam. And she'd put arsenic in some food because of the horrendous abuse that she'd suffered for many, many years. It was only when a couple of pressure groups got together, the Southall Black Sisters and Justice for Women. And your mum somehow made contact with them.

How did all that happen? So if you remember in 1990s, there was a case of Gyrinjee Zilawalia, who then changed the law, South of Black Sisters. She was a woman who was driven to kill her husband who'd beaten her. And it was self-defense. And they took it to appeal and they won that appeal. And Gerenghiz was right, really freed. And what happened with my mum was she reached out to South War Black Sisters.

Now, when Pragna went to see her, she went to Pragna, it was very clear. You know, she's worked with women who have been abused. Why does a woman kill? Why does an Asian woman who, you know, has got three children, the house and wherever, killed, nobody gets up in the morning thinking I'm going to kill somebody today. So there must have been a reason behind it. So she counseled her, pieced it together. And it was a couple of years, it took them over in a year to get the whole story out of my mum.

And then my mum refused to talk about it. She was like, well, these are the grounds for appeal. And she was like, nope, because it affects my, is it? Right. That's the honour that, yeah. Is it is how it's been asked. Is it? Yeah.

Yeah. We should say she was serving a prison sentence for murder. So she was keeping company with some of the most notorious women in the British justice system. Absolutely. I remember going to Durham Prison and sat on the other couch as Myra Hindley, Rosemary West. I mean, Rosemary West had the audacity to once say, I don't want to eat the food because of the poisoner in the kitchen. My mum had an impeccable record, you know, of working in the kitchens and working in the prison. She never had a bad, she never got a red star, if you like, you know. Yeah. She was really, very good. Right. I mean, there are just no words about the Rosemary West anecdote.

I'm not even going to respond to that. And you, meanwhile, outside with your siblings, married at that point. But it was, I mean, the fact that you just somehow kept putting one foot in front of another is remarkable. To those of us who we now, well, I realise, you know, I've led such a sheltered life. How did you do that? You don't have a choice. It's flight or fight, isn't it? You have, you've got your mother in prison, you've attempted suicide, your mother's like, well, what's going to happen to me if you go and kill yourself?

Then you feel a really, really huge burden of responsibility. You've got two siblings, you have to. You don't, you really don't have a choice because I've tried to kill myself. That didn't work. I'm back here where I am. So I'm just going to have to get on with it. So it's like, suck it up, pull your foot boots up and get on with it. And then you've got a campaign to fight.

You know, you've got to get your mother out of prison. You've got to give stability to these siblings. You can't have them going for what you've been through. So you're trying to shelter them. You're trying to be mother, sister, you know, all other things to your brother and sister. And you haven't got a clue how to do it as an 18-year-old because they're 13 and 11.

I didn't. I just didn't know. And I didn't know how to manage a budget. I didn't know how to run a household, you know. There were times when you were just living on pot noodles. There was times that... I remember being, you know, getting a loan from the credit union to buy curtains and a suite and a carpet. And that was the best room in the house.

And we used to live in that room. You know, because the kitchen was bare. It was empty. You know, upstairs we had one bed and lots of curtains for my brother to sleep on. I mean, my sister took the bed. So I didn't have a clue, but you had to get on with it. You didn't have a choice because who was going to fight the fight then? I think people would be wondering, well, here she is, though, now an MP, strides around the Palace of Westminster. Yeah. People are going to have to read this book, I should say, to find out exactly how you made that incredible shift in your life. It really is a, it's a cracking story. But what I really appreciate about this book is that you raise a number of

of issues that probably, well, I certainly couldn't in book form or anywhere else. It would be thought of as racist. It would be thought of as wrong. But you go right in there. You talk about family voting. You talk about cousin marriage. I think I'm right in saying that your grandfathers were brothers, weren't they? Yep, my grandfather's were brother. My first husband was also my first cousin. Right. I mean, what do you think about that? So cousin marriages, I mean, the latest statistics I work closely with Bradford Royal Infirmary, it's literally something that is dying out. You know, it's not different to what It's just, look, how I look at my community,

my community, including the wider community, the non-Muslim community, elect me. They're the people that have honoured me. And they're people, like any society that move on. And society changes. So you take the community with you on a journey. What you don't do is try and throw the community under the bus. For me, the thing is, I look at when I, you know,

I was on an airplane and I watched downtown Abbey where the woman has got divorced and she's not allowed to be in the same room as the king anymore, right? Because she's bought shame. It's the same thing, but it was in a different era. But that society isn't where it was then. That British society isn't there now. And it's same with the Asian society.

We're not where we were 25 years ago. When I was campaigning for my mum back in the 90s, people would say, we support you, but we can't add our name to your petition. Now, in 2016, since being a member of parliament, Samya Shahid was murdered in Pakistan. She was raped and murdered. And every businessman, the top 25 businesses, Bradford, Pakistani origin, put their name to those tables and said, we honour her.

That is the change in society, you know, so it has shifted, massively shifted. Right. I think some people would perhaps take issue a bit with that and say it's got to shift more. I mean, we cannot have first cousins marrying each other in the United Kingdom in 2026, just not on. We can, well, the way to manage it would be about cultural shift, wouldn't it? Cultural change. It's not about legal things. It's about cultural shifts because what we don't want to do, there are people who still have relatives marriages and there are people who are you know we would encourage people not to it's not the dunn

it's not something that was you know prevalent back in the 80s it is not that thing it's not the same anymore contanguinity isn't that it isn't there is you know the risk of cousin marriage and disability if you look at the stats there's also the highest stat is also that risk it goes up to i think it's 3 in 100 an unusual marriage and it goes up to 6 in 1 100, if you have a cousin marriage, that is the same applies to once you have somebody who's

over the age of 30. So even your indigenous population, once you're over 30, that statistic still goes up to 6 in 100. So what we do is we try and encourage people and get testing, et cetera. And that's the way we move society. We move culture rather than, you know, you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. You literally take society on a journey with you. And my community is no different to any of the community. Can we talk about, I mean, you do say at one point that there are Bradford councillors who are in really prominent positions

and they don't really speak English properly or well. Oh God, yes, I've been campaigning about this for years now. They're still there, are they? So now it's less so, again, even in the last 10 years, 11 years since I've been in politics. But bradriism is like, it's a real thing. This is what brother? Bradri. Bradri means clam politics.

So it's no different to your Etonians. It's no different to unions. It's no different to, you know, blocks of women. you know, the parliamentary women's party, the Labour Women's Network, you'd say that is a clan of women coming together. Where it's different is simply because this one is, there is no political aim. It's about men having power for the sake of having power.

It's misogynistic in nature. It's about men having power. That is still an issue in Britain, in places like Bradford West. I will continue to call it out. And the young people have shifted. Young people do not do the bloc voting like they did 10 years ago. or even in Bradford. So young people will break out of those shackles. It's not about it. It's not about position and power. It's about actual policies now. So again, you have to take the community

with you to offer them an alternative. And I think in Bradford-West that is changing. Has it changed enough? No, it hasn't. Absolutely not. How do they regard you those men? I mean, some of them, frankly, must hate your guts. Well, some of them will. And you know what? I'm not in the job to be liked. I'm in the job to do what I need to do, right? So I'm not, you're never going to be, if you're liked by everybody, you're not doing your job. When I first got elected, I remember lots of them did support me. Not through my selection process, but once I'd been selected as a candidate, I had that support. Then what happened was there was an expectation that they would get whoever they wanted in as counsellors and not have a fair process.

And I said, no, no, no, I didn't make that deal with anybody. So it was like, they fell out with me. And then they, and then it was, and then I, they tried to deselect me. Every single selection process that they've had, they've attempted to deselect me. But all of this, everything we've talked about in the last couple of minutes, that is sort of why reform get votes, isn't it? I think reform gets votes. I think, look, there are bad practices in every single community.

There is not a community that doesn't have misogyny. There is not a community. If we look at misogyny, for example, right now, we had people who were raised in Buckingham Palace, right, who have lost their, you know, so the idea of misogyny just affecting my community is one for the birds, where we have to change things. The idea that abuse happens

just in my community is another one for the birds. What we have to do, what we have to accept is, from my perspective, reform of a magpie who shine a light on something that's small and bright

and make it shine in the sunshine and bang the drum. And people on the sensible side don't want to bang the drum because they don't need to bang the drum to get the attention. Their work needs to speak for itself. What we're not doing well enough

as far as I'm concerned, is being able to reach those communities and say, actually, this is what is happening? And is the problem, is one of Labour's problems, the man in charge, Sir Keir Stama, who, for all his, I mean, his decency, I don't think anyone doubts that he's anything other than a doubty and thoroughly decent human being, he cannot get a message across? Well, I'm hoping that's going to change. I really, really do. I think, look, from my perspective, as not coming from a political background, I'm coming in very, very, very from. a working class background. What I saw with Boris and what I saw in nine years of opposition and so many churns of Prime Ministers, Brexit became the vortex that took out the parliamentary debate. After Brexit, we just got passed for 19, 2019 election,

and then we had COVID. After COVID, we had party gate. So it's an extreme going from Boris Johnson, who used to ruffle his hair behind the speaker's chair and come in and the big I am, to that prim proper suited, former, you know, Director of Public Prosepian, and

leading a country. And he has, he is decent. That I absolutely agree with, and nobody's disagreeing with that. Is he the best communicator in comparison to, you know, the Boisius Boris Johnson? No, he isn't, right? But does he have a skill set in other things? Yes, he does.

And having, I think we've got a long way to go to be able to communicate our message because we've got that noise. We've got that noise of Farage on the opposite benches. So who would be better? Who might take on Farage better? Well, I think, look, at the moment, he's a prime minister, there's no vacancy. I don't know what's going to happen in May.

I genuinely don't. There's always this talk of, you know, if there's going to be somebody else, there's going to be somebody else. It might be that he's still very in 2020, taking us into the election. We don't know. Things can change. One thing I've learned in politics is never better, you know, because you never know what's going to happen around the corner. We didn't know Iran was going to get attacked over the weekend. We didn't know we were going to move on from the idea of Gordon and Denton within a 48-hour news cycle. I don't know what's going to happen in May.

I don't know what's going to happen in May. I don't know what's going to to happen in the next few years. I genuinely don't. So I'm not a betting person, but I was one of those people who signed the letter to say we should have let Andy Burnham stand. I really, really did feel that from a political point of view, he would have been good to be back into a parliamentary

Labour Party and to start getting our message across. That's what I did feel. One thing that comes through in the book and it did surprise me is your incredible love of dancing. Oh yes. When things were really tough, you'd take yourself off clubbing, presumably. I don't have very surprised

that you did it, what is your ultimate dance track to just get down to? Oh my days. It has to be something R&B, something Mary J. Blige or, you know, or jagged edge. It's those kind of floor fillers, yeah. I'd be like, sucks, I don't drink alcohol. It'd be lots of red bulls that I realised now that I kept me, kept me very, very slim because I danced a lot. But if I was having a bad day, it would be on the dance floor where I'd drown. I'd literally drown in the music and I'd be dancing for eight hours straight, you know, in heels and I was fit as a fiddle.

And I miss dancing because I just can't do it. Not that I can't do it. It's just I don't have a capacity to do it. Timing-wise, you know, being a mother, free children, all the rest of it. But if I can never dance at weddings and, you know, when there's things going on in the house, oh yeah, you get me on that dance floor. Great. Well, it's good to see you. Thank you.

Honestly, I've read quite a lot of political memoirs that there isn't anything like this. So congratulations on it although I do appreciate it must have been painful to write at times but... Thank you. Nas, good to see you, thank you. Likewise, thank you for having me. Naz Shah, not your typical British politician, Labour MP for Bradford West

and her book Honoured is out now and I've read quite a lot of politics books and biographies of politicians. I have never read one like that. So if you're not really a reader of political books, this is a great place to start because you'll learn an enormous amount. Right, we're back tomorrow.

Yes, go on for you. Well, I just wanted to say that, as Jane was alluding to earlier, we completely understand that everybody's living through difficult times at the moment. And if you want to have just a little bit of a laugh, and this one isn't at anybody's expense, because it is Frank, who is a cat belonging to Emma. And Frank is a large cat. And Frank also likes to do a little bit of cat spreading.

and Emma has managed to catch him in a pose that is just, just superb. It lightened my load when I looked at it and I can't stop looking at it actually. It's cat porn. It is cat porn. If that were a gent, he would be a portly person and he'd be leaning on your mantelpiece. Do you know what I mean? Yes. With that post-prandial sort of sense of ownership.

Well, there's something in Frank's eye which says, come here. hither. And Frank, no, mate. On the offer on today. So we'll pop that up on the Instagram. Have a long look at Frank and a bit of a laugh. And we'll rejoin your ears tomorrow at jane and fee at times. Dot radio. 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 it last, every day, Monday to Thursday, two till four on Times Radio. The jeopardy is off the scale. And if you listen to this, you'll understand exactly why that's the case. So you can get the radio online, on DAB, or on the free Times Radio app. Offair is produced by Eve Salisbury, and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler.