Off Air... with Jane and Fi - The smut-o-meter will be taking a battering

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

Fi's a bit giddy because she's going on holiday. Both are very much looking forward to the weekend, but not before this episode of Off Air hits your feed. Today we're talking big babies, dentistry, and our most prized possessions.  Jane and Fi are joined by How to Win an Election's Polly Mackenzie. 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! @janeandfi  Assistant Producer: Megan McElroy Times Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on. Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Hello.

We're new at this. No, we're not. If only we were. If only we were fresh-faced ingenues. When was the first time that you, that the red light went on and you spoke into a microphone? Oh God, 1987. 87, I know.

That was when the earth was still flat. Dinosaurs roamed forests. So that was in a previous long-form Conservative government run. Yes, that's very true. Yes, that's right. It seemed completely unthinkable that anybody other than a woman called Margaret could run the country. Oh, you hadn't met Tony yet? No, Tony had not crossed my path. So where was that?

Well, that was in Worcester. Okay. Yeah. And did you... Where were you in 1987? Still at primary school. Oh, no, that breaks my heart. So... Where were you in 1987? Still at primary school. Oh, no, that breaks my heart. So I was at university in 1987. But I didn't...

So I didn't do any on-air radio stuff until I'd finished the training scheme at the BBC. So that was 1993. Yeah. But there's five years between us anyway, so that kind of makes sense. And I didn't get on the training scheme. Okay.

I didn't realise that we had this bone of contention between us. It now makes so much sense. I'm over it. Are you sure? Pretty much. Okay. Well, yeah. I mean, you've done okay for yourself, though, Jane.

What can I say? I mean, I've had to battle through without any of the official training. You haven't at all. But I tell you what, the difference will really show if we're ever in a hostage situation and we have to report on it because I have learnt that technique in Grafton House on the Euston Road where we all had to hide under our desks for a good couple of hours and That's quite standard at the BBC anyway isn't it?

and report on an ongoing hostage situation that was happening in the next-door classroom. Oh okay. So that's where it might show that I did the training course and you didn't. You passed that particular bit of the course did you? Very much so. Right okay, well I very much look forward to it. One of my finest days of journalism training, I think. I think rather

weirdly, it was suggested that the Queen Mother had been taken hostage. It is just very alarming. Well, I wouldn't wish that on the dear lady who left us some years ago now. I think anyone taking her hostage would need to have a very, very well-stocked cocktail

cabinet. I don't think they get far. Right, OK. What have you got? Dentistry. Yes. Because I was mulling over just dentistry the other day because it's been very much a topic in the UK. I mean, we very much welcome contributions from our many, many listeners on the continent and elsewhere about dentistry in your neck of the woods. But this contributor says, I am an NHS dentist. I nearly changed my profession last year as I was completely broken.

On average, I had about seven minutes for each checkup. I was probably seeing 35 patients a day just to make reasonable money. The system was simplified to make pricing simpler, but ultimately it put a cap on how much was spent on NHS dentistry every year. It might mean that after around two to three hours of work split over different appointments for one patient, the dentist might take home around 30 quid. I've studied for five years to do this job and it didn't always seem fair. always seem fair. Some days I'd work my arse off and make around £120. Bearing in mind, I then have to pay my laboratory bills on top of that for things like making dentures and crowns. I didn't know that the dentist paid for that. Anyway, there's also a huge suing culture in dentistry and consequently we have to pay big indemnity fees every year to cover us. Luckily,

I have stuck it out and I found a lovely practice that makes it easier for me still on the NHS. Private is alluring as there's so much more time per patient with a fair income. But I want to stay with the NHS for as long as I can, says our listener. Well, well, thank you for that. Yeah, because clearly it would be easier if you did go to the private sector. But there were some very notable pictures, I think it was from this week, of people just queuing literally round the block in Bristol to register for an NHS dentist. Something's gone very badly wrong.

Yeah. What do you think to the suggestions that actually, you know, kids need to have their teeth brushed or have supervised brushing uh throughout their early years of school well I think if it's necessary do it it does seem incredible that schools have got to take on yet another task that you might normally associate with the home but if that's really required it's very sad but yeah go for it I don't know how teachers or support teachers feel about that um and I'm not very sad but yeah go for it I don't know how teachers or support teachers feel about that

and I'm not quite sure where they would do it would they gather round those little tiny loos and sinks they have in primary schools which you only ever see now when you go to vote which obviously we'll hope to do later on this year in the UK I'm always slightly devastated

by the really low level of the coat pegs because you just think were my children this tiny when they went to primary school that seems almost well I think it's dreadful it's more preferable that they do do their supervised toothbrushing in front of a basin rather than in the playground I know you couldn't do it in the playground but would there be enough room in a loo well I suppose you just send them in five by five, ten by ten. The logistics will need a bit of thinking. They will, yeah. But I wonder, and it's one of those things where initially I thought oh god don't make teachers do something else, but actually if it could be incorporated as actually quite a fun part of your day because quite often kids are much better at

doing things when they're part of a group and they all join in. So maybe there would be much less resistance to scrubbing teeth than there often is at home, and it would solve something huge. In this country, aren't a third of all admissions to hospital A&E to do with kids' teeth? For kids, not a third of all admissions, but a third of all admissions for kids. I think it's to have emergency extractions. Which is so traumatic for kids.

I can also foresee a situation in which children simply do a lot of spitting around learning to brush their teeth at school. I think there could be some incidents. Well, I'm sure there would be, but I think it could really, really work. But if you are a teacher, would that be the straw that breaks the camel's back? Because you are doing everything else for our kids, as well as just the learning. You're making sure that they're completely aware of every single nuance of current political events and all the culture wars as well. So I'm sure you've got plenty of time for flossing.

And then you've got toilet training as well. But apart from that, you've got loads of time in the staff room to have a gossip. We love you teachers. We do. We do. Susie says this. I love listening to you both, but i'm always a bit behind so i'm sending my first ever email to you in this life or your previous life slightly expecting the moment to have passed we quite often go back suzy don't worry about it i sat bolt upright last night as you shared other listeners birth experiences and a possible link with an aversion to anything around their neck. Fee, you pondered whether there might be other birth connections with forceps or von Tew's births,

and it was this that caused my vertical moment. I was a traumatic forceps birth. I was 10 pounds, 10 pounds one, 10 pounds one ounce, and I got stuck. That's big, isn't it? That's huge. It was so big I could hardly say it, Jane. Exactly. Two doctors were involved,

one with his arms around the other's waist. That's terrible. In their fortunately successful attempts to safely pull me out, over my entire life, I've never liked wearing a hat of any description. I found the one Indian head massage I had akin to some form of torture

and I've never liked anyone stroking or touching my head I dread going to the hairdressers could this be linked I now wonder well you will come to the bit in the podcast if you are a bit behind Susie and I don't know I mean welcome to your summer by the time you listen to this where actually a psychologist said that that she's done a lot of work on this and it absolutely is a kind of trapped memory for lots of people. But Susie goes on to say,

as a birth-related aside, my sole claim to fame is that I was at the time the second biggest baby to be born in Westminster Hospital. I don't know the weight of the biggest baby, but I've always been weirdly proud of this fact. I'm 54 years old and I know my record will long have been broken, so I really need to find another claim to fame I'd stick with that one actually it is really delightful but obviously

if we can find a bigger baby than that we're very happy to celebrate congratulations honestly from me because that is that's a big size and rightfully you should be extremely proud of yourself yeah and also I've read the whole of that email because Susie is the executive director of talent development. I also noticed that and I was going to read it out too. So if you're thinking of developing any talent we're here for you. We're very much here for you. We were talking about possessions and people's prized treasures that probably wouldn't mean a thing to anybody else but do mean a great deal to individuals And Caroline has emailed to say that my neighbour of nearly 40 years died suddenly in January. She was 88. We spoke every day.

And I'm really struggling with witnessing her and her late husband's prized possessions being distributed to charity shops and the tip. I'm still listening out for the click of her walking stick, which indicated her whereabouts. And I realise now her safety as well. She was old school, feisty, shared her vast knowledge and experience with me on childcare, on cooking and on gardening and also how to hang out my washing to create a windsock effect. She was a legend and Margaret I miss you says Caroline. I think that's really lovely and thank you for that Caroline and I'm sorry that Margaret is no more and not walking around your neighbourhood with her stick anymore. But

that's a very, very positive clutch of memories you have of her. Yeah, it's very nice. Now, lots of people have been in touch over the last couple of days with their lovely recommendations of how to kind of break the ice when you find yourself in a new community. And in fact, Colette, who is our original correspondent on this subject, she sent another email as well just to say how grateful she was for all of the lovely suggestions from people. And we have actually put Colette in touch with some of the people who are in her area in Staffordshire who've also said,

why don't we actually meet up physically and see what happens from there on in? So will you keep us posted? I think Pamela in particular had made an offer of kindness. And Lynn has just a quick suggestion to make, saying when I moved to a village a few years ago, a happy byproduct of redesigning my front garden, I don't think it's a euphemism did i hope not i hadn't even thought about that was that was that neither had i told

everybody this is setting me up for jay malkerians next week where's the number of neighbors who responded my neighbors certainly would respond right move on to sophie now i'm gonna get to the end oh yeah go on then just to be fair what was the happy byproduct because lynn didn't write it in a no way i'm so sorry he didn't i'm so sorry it was the number of neighbors who responded to a hello you're very visible doing your front garden okay it's just getting worse you are very visible doing your front garden guys is just the just least draw the curtains come on get to the end give it to me I'm going to read this I know oh it's not even that funny I tell you what I've just got a little bit giddy

because I'm on holiday next week. Sorry. Second para. You're very visible doing your front garden. And it helped me to make friends very quickly. Even if your listener isn't a keen gardener, just sitting out front... Just sitting out front with a book might encourage people to stop

okay that's pathetic from both of us sorry how old are we oh god combined age of i'm not going there uh sophie says just a short and sweet example of the sisterhood i recently went to a pilates class and while out and about, I'd noticed a rogue, serious chin hair, which I couldn't stop worrying about. Evidently, I touched it enough times during the class in that telltale way that in the changing room afterwards, a lovely woman came over with a pair of tweezers and a knowing look. Solidarity at perhaps its most trivial, but still very much appreciated,

says Sophie. Isn't that wonderful? Yes. Nothing needed to be said. No. Actually, a friend put on a WhatsApp group last night a very funny picture from, do you follow, I'm not on The X or Twitter anymore, but there is quite a funny person called the Archbishop of Banterbury.

Yes, I know who you mean. Yeah, and they are funny. And they had posted an image of a clutch of people in fleeces and appropriate outdoor wear in a village somewhere in England who had gathered with a birthday cake to mark the first birthday of some temporary traffic light. of some temporary traffic lights. And basically it is England or Britain in a nutshell. It's a passive-aggressive protest. We don't do revolutions in this country. But it involves craft, doesn't it?

This is just a way of saying, right, enough is enough. What does the word temporary suggest to you? Bloody lights have been there for over a year. We're getting a cake and we're going to mark its anniversary i mean i'd love to know what's happened to those lights since the cake was baked oh lordy so it was john mage's big election winner the cones hotline and i think this well i mean there's definitely still a need for that well i never understood it you were supposed to ring up if cones had been in place but no work was going on. Was that what it was? Yes, it was a way

for people to vent their anger as they were driving around Britain's many and varied motorways, A roads and B roads going, there's nobody working! You don't get post, you can't get your teeth done and nobody's working. But do come to visit Britain if you're elsewhere. It's wonderful. Shall we take ourselves to Zimbabwe with one of our listeners, Kate, who grew up in Zimbabwe, where Kate and her siblings went to boarding school. My sister attended a school in Harare,

and when she was in sixth form, she and her friends adopted a fluffy yellow chick from a stall on the side of the road. They used to keep it in the boarding house illegally and would refer to it by the code name TV, which would allow them to dismiss any untoward cheeping sounds by saying loudly, oh, it's just the TV. Anyway, obviously the TV outgrew school and so Kate had to take it back to the farm. Her sister was tasked with the job of rehoming the

rooster at the end of the term and brought him back to live in our farmyard. We were subsequently disabused of any notion that all roosters are sweet and entertaining. As he continued to be known as TV he grew to be enormous and became the terror of the yard. He fancied himself as a guard dog and would launch an attack on anyone who entered his personal space. I shall never forget the sight one day of my then 11-year-old best friend being discovered by TV during a game of hide and seek, chased unceremoniously across the garden lawn, her shrieking terror and him flapping his wings with his beak outstretched in menace. I'm sure most roosters are benign and friendly. Perhaps TV was the exception to the rule. It's very odd, isn't it? I mean, there's no reason why TV wasn't...

Yeah, he clearly was an exceptionally angry and aggressive rooster. Yep, an aggressive man. Was he little? Because sometimes you do get that. No, I think he grew to be huge. He was huge, so he wasn't particularly short. Yeah. OK. I'm generalising about short men, but some of them can be Napoleon syndrome, can't they?

That does happen. Napoleon himself suffered terribly from it. Do you think if you're a medium-sized man you feel very left out of the stereotypes? Because the big men have got one and the little men have got one. What happens if you're just in the middle? What is medium these days? I think it's probably about 5'7".

Oh, no, that's quite short, isn't it? Is it? I mean, look, neither of us are... It seems big to me, Jane. It seems huge to me, but I'm just... Where was that function we went to where... Oh, yes, it was Claire Balding's book launch and she had a couple of male relatives who were 6'8".

Oh, it was painful trying to talk to them, wasn't it? I mean, I would have needed to stand on a stepladder. Yeah. I mean it was yeah I think posh people are just making them bigger. Do you think? I don't know. I work in the NHS says Jo and along with colleagues from across a lot of different specialities I've noticed a real rise in abusive behavior from both patients and their families being shouted out often for things that you have no control over at all such as the waiting time for an appointment used to happen infrequently now we all agree it happens regularly through the working week it's definitely got worse since lockdown and whilst we all appreciate there are huge problems with our healthcare system that people may well feel justifiably upset about,

it is really hard to manage people who you've never met before getting irate and personal with you. I'd be interested to know if this is happening in other sectors such as retail or hospitality. I think it's only in recent years that we've seen people shouting at frontline staff. Are we just becoming more of a shouty society? So let's just throw that one out there. Because people, let's be honest, people have always abused radio presenters, haven't they? As soon as it was possible to contact a radio presenter, the abuse came flying in. Yes, although I don't think, because the first people to ever contact a radio show were Jimmy Young's listeners, weren't they?

And he would say, a phone call has been received from Barry. And then he'd read out what Barry had told his... It was very carefully typed out for him, wasn't it? Yep. He didn't mess with Jim. A leagued researcher. But you're right, we are now the endless butt of people's bad days, aren't we? Yeah, and I completely accept that because for reasons best known to myself,

I've chosen to do this for a living and nobody has to like you. But there's absolutely, I'm always stunned to see these little signs everywhere you go saying, please don't abuse our staff. And it's always in the post office or the supermarket. Yeah, post office is a classic, yeah, and supermarket and, you know, why do you need to shout at somebody in a hospital or a GP's surgery? It's just awful. And people, I think, I think Jo's right. I think it is happening more often.

But we'd love to hear from you because you may well be in one of those people facing jobs. And I think it can make you very upset. And why should you be made upset at work? Yeah, I agree. I would love to just hear a random selection of the phone calls that are played for training and recording purposes. So, you know, if you are always being recorded, then there have got to be dreadful phone calls that are then used in workshops

to try and teach the poor people on the other end of the line how to moderate calls and I know that sometimes I've definitely been way less understanding and more antsy to somebody on a phone than I would be actually in real life so I think that all builds something up as well doesn't it yeah it does and um i agree with you i think i've probably been the same and it's it's horrible and you obviously you shouldn't do it um we were talking about the way uh doctors and specialists can refer to patients as pleasing pleasant pleasant kind and you think you've got the answer well i was contacted on the twitter oh right okay well uh jane says i don't know about consultants but both my partner and i were described as pleasant by our physio.

We laughed about it at the time as it sounded a bit odd, but we are both pleasant most of the time. On another topic, if anyone's struggling to find friends in a new town, if they're at all active, I'd recommend park run. You can walk it as well, of course, can't you? You don't have to run. Jane, thank you for that. But your friend or the person who made contact said? Said that it can be a little bit of a code with doctors simply because if you aren't describing somebody as pleasant, it might alert them to the fact that you're not pleasant.

Oh, I see. So it's the inclusion of pleasant that just goes, this is a kind of nice person to be dealing with. But if they don't say that and they just maybe just give you a profession then they're kind of saying good luck with this one okay yeah right so and because i think i think the word pleasant is the key it's being used a lot that's the code word yes it's it's clearly a code word and i'm going to i'm going to cherish it now yeah that i've been we've both i'm going to aim for pleasant nothing higher never anything higher

i should be so lucky it's not going to happen you're looking at your phone no because i was going to find out who it was who'd said that so i could be nice and kind and you know uh make sure that i attribute the right piece of knowledge to the right person. But do you want to crack on and read the Polly Mackenzie cue? No, I just want to mention John, who says, I'm a bloke, I'm 64, but despite this, I've listened to the pair of you for years. No bar to entry. No. I heard you read out an email about a woman being outnumbered in her house

by quite a few males. Well, says John, I have been lucky enough to have had four daughters. Even the dog was female. I have lived with enough to have had four daughters even the dog was female I have lived with menstrual tension for 38 years John you need to speak to somebody about that because 38 years is a long time to have had premenstrual tension it really is in my humble abode someone was always about to kill me for absolutely no reason he says luckily I now have five grandsons so things have evened out. Keep your podcast coming, he says.

I really enjoy them. John, thank you. And thank you very much for listening. We hugely appreciate it. And how lovely to have five grandsons now. So you've got your own five aside there. Brilliant. Absolutely. Not that girls can't be in a five aside.

Oh, well done. Anna Piggott, laughing out loud at this pleasant broadcaster description in a consultant's letter. I think the absence of being pleasant is supposed to mean you aren't pleasant. So there we go. Yeah. Anna, thank you very much indeed for that. And you were talking about facial hair, facial hair, a bit of a black there, but then it is in the blood. Nancy in Wisconsin just wanted to add to this debate about facial hair. This is very, very lovely, actually. Your chat about facial hair and who will care for us when we can't manage it really hit home with me. My mother lives in a memory care facility. It's understaffed and somewhat underskilled, she says.

Unless I'm around, her whiskers are left to grow. She was a very dignified and well-groomed person and she would be embarrassed if she realised how she looked. Dementia is such a cruel disease. I'm sure it is very challenging to help people who are confused. But I think little things like keeping up with those whiskers can help them to maintain some dignity. And that's Nancy in Wisconsin. And thank you very much for that, Nancy.

And you're absolutely right. Yeah, I mean, I think it's just, it's turned out to be, hasn't it, from all our correspondence to be what you might think of as a very small thing, but actually of such deep meaning in its various forms. Who does it? Who's thought about it? You know, and, you know, we just know, we just know that we don't want to be the whiskery woman. You know, somebody's kind of talking to the hair on your chin instead of looking into your old eyes.

So let's not be those people. We can add that to the list of things that we need to set up and do and form later on in life. It's a very busy third age at the moment. You and I are never going to. When are we going to be able to stop? I don't know. Right, shall we hear from Polly McKenzie? Who is Polly McKenzie?

Polly McKenzie is a political veteran. She is a former Liberal Democrat policy advisor and speechwriter. She was Director of Policy to the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, for five years from 2010. So that was during our coalition government between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives in this country. five years from 2010. So that was during our coalition government between the Lib Dems

and the Conservatives in this country, dear listeners from abroad. She's also run a think tank and she ran operations for the Women's Equality Party as well. And she now works at the University of the Arts in London, an irony that I think is not lost on her because the Liberal Democrats and their failure actually to succeed in the coalition government has often been attributed to a stratospheric U-turn that they did on tuition fees. So free education, free university education being available to all was a promise from the Liberal Democrats that they then didn't keep. So I'm just putting that in there, Jane, in case people need a little bit more knowledge.

Well, I'm wondering whether people outside the UK, you need to talk more about who the Liberal Democrats are. Would you like to do that? Well, I'm just going to say that they are Britain's third party. So we've got on the right, the Conservatives, on the left, Labour, and in the middle, usually eating pita and hummus, we've got the Liberal Democrats. They're sort of neither one thing nor the middle, usually eating pita and hummus,

we've got the Liberal Democrats. They're sort of neither one thing nor the other, a little bit of both, some good, some bad, harmless, some would say ineffectual. I can't make it stop. Is that enough? Stop. Okay. I think, well, I love the description of them as harmless, but I think you can answer the emails on that one.

Right. She is also, back to Polly, she is the vital fourth voice on the How to Win an Election podcast, which is presented by Matt Chorley, our esteemed colleague, and also Danny Finkelstein and Peter Mandelson, who are kind of, gosh, they are bruising gurus in their own different political corners. Oh, yes, yes. I wouldn't want to upset either of them. No, so please don't. So just shush. Oh, shush. Polly came into Times Towers to talk about all of this, and I started by asking her what it would take for the Lib Dems to make a real impact in this forthcoming election.

Some sort of unexpected event like, I don't know, a dog shooting scandal for both the other political parties. I think, you know, the reality is in a first-past-the-post system, as you know, it would have to involve an alpaca, wouldn't it? If Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer were caught together killing an alpaca, that would help the Liberal Democrats. In a first-past-the-post system, it is almost impossible to be a third political party.

You know, in the run-up to 2010, the Lib Dems were by far the biggest third party in a first-past- a first post system anywhere in the world the SNP are a bit different because they're just a regional party in one place and and so once you are kind of off the map the ability to break back into contention in any individual place in any election campaign is just it's just phenomenally difficult um i think it took what 80 years for the liberal democrats to really build up to that position of being the minority party in a coalition probably be another 80 before that happens again

so the alpacas are safe really aren't they well i mean i don't know i don't know what rishi sunak is planning um he he does seem to make some interesting political judgments. Maybe he's got something up his sleeve. So given all of that, what's the mindset of somebody who wants to join the Liberal Democrats or work for the Lib Dems or try and represent the Lib Dems in Parliament? That's a great question. So I actually joined the Lib Dems about six months after I started working for them.

I wanted to be a political journalist. And I was working as a property journalist. And I thought, well, I'll just get some political experience because I couldn't seem to get a job working as a political journalist. And I sort of fell in love actually, with the idea of being a campaigner. There's something incredibly tribal about all party politics, but especially in a small party where, you know, you have this sense of righteousness, maybe self-righteousness, a belief that... There's a line Tim Farron used once at a party conference

where he said, I am tired of being right and coming third. And, you know, if you feel like that's who you are, it is so powerful as a way of building a sense of tribal loyalty and distinctiveness. And so it's a bit like supporting a football team. It's not completely rational. It's a sense of belonging. And you can get swept up in that for years and years and years.

I think it's why people find it so difficult to change their political affiliation, because it is like switching from Liverpool to Everton. But what does it say about our kind of national psyche that a party that is largely regarded as decent from, you know, both other ends of the political spectrum is the party that always does least well. Is that on us as well as on the people who are in the Lib Dems? Well, I mean, democracy is always the fault of the voters, isn't it, really? Half of voters have below average intelligence.

That's just maths. But in a way, that's the beauty as well as well as the horror so do you want to just say do you want to just kind of shout stop being thick no no you can't because again people are also um well i like people i'm on i guess team human but even even then right half of people are below average kindness it's just it's maths right so um it is partly the logic of the two-party system that in most circumstances it just makes sense to vote for the established parties um and in the run-up to the first election i worked on the 2005 general election there was there was a campaign that lib dems were doing, you know, like party election

broadcast, which was a poll that we had done of, if you ask people, if you thought the Liberal Democrats could win in your area, who would you vote for? And the Liberal Democrats would have won, I don't know, something grotesque, sort of Putin-esque, 87% of seats. And so we had this visual of the whole of the United Kingdom, a bit like a weather map, but just exploding with bright yellow light as everybody turned to the side of righteousness. And that was attempting to persuade people that it was worth voting with their heart.

I used to be Nick Clegg's speechwriter and I remember writing him a line in the run-up to the 2010 election, which was, again, you know, vote with your heart. Don't worry about who's up and who's down, because you're trying to fight that gravitational pull. But actually, a couple of things happened. First of all, 2010 to 2015 abolished the idea that liberal democrats were just a sort of inherently decent sort of also rams who could be the repository for any vote because they uh we you know i was involved it spent five years being uh absolutely involved in difficult decisions that lots of people disagreed with so that sense of just being everyone's second choice vanished completely.

And it forced the party to really confront a sense of its identity and what it was there for. And to be honest, I think it still really struggles with that, struggles to think what its unique role in British politics is. So it's kind of the emergency waterproof that all sensible people pack on holiday but never get out of the suitcase. Nick Clegg, do you keep in touch with him?

Are you in touch with him now? I had lunch with Nick at some point in November I think in Putney. It was very nice and he paid which is good because he's richer than me. Well, I did want to ask you about his remarkable salary at Meta, which is variously estimated to be... I don't know what it is. I don't know. Someone said it was a kind of seven million

pound package or whatever. He will have made a lot of money out of failing upwards, basically. But I wonder whether you have any sense of slight disappointment. I mean, Meta, I think, is in quite a difficult and dark place at the moment in terms of its responsibility, in terms of tackling one of the major problems of our time, which is safety online. Do you think that your former colleague could say more and do more? I mean, he is in a powerful position within the company.

No question. And I think he took the role, or at least, you know, that's how it was talked about at the time, partly because increasingly these vast companies, especially in that sort of media, social media space, are making decisions which in the past only really governments would have got involved in and for them at least I completely understood the idea of having somebody yet who knew what it was like to be hated but also somebody who was capable of thinking about public benefit and societal benefit and the role of institutions in that you know I mean Nick and I probably disagree on some stuff we always did when I worked for him, spent 11 years working for him and disagreeing with him all the time. So, but at its heart, I think there's a dilemma that all humans face around the way in which you want to try and make the world better. assuming that you do want to make the world better,

but I think most people do, is, you know, do you go on the inside of a potentially bad thing and make it better than it would have been without you? Or do you stay on the outside and retain your purity? And I often think about a Jean-Paul Sartre play that I was forced to study at 18 called Les Massales, Dirty Hands, which, I mean, it's sort of about terrorism as well, so I'm not endorsing political violence.

But there's this speech about, you know, sort of the main antagonist, really, who says, I have dirty hands, I have plunged them in blood. And that's the thing. I think that is Nick's theory of change, right? Is it's better to be on the inside. And he firmly believes that it's better than it would have been without him.

Is he right? I mean, it's for everyone to decide and he and his maker, if he believes in one. And lots of people feel much more comfortable as a movement, as activists, not being responsible. I think the world needs both kinds of people. And I think I, having been in government, I do respect those people who are willing to, I guess,

put their reputation on the line, put their necks on the line and be sort of a profound disappointment to their activist friends and neighbours in the service of secret progress. Yeah, I think that is a beautiful answer, if I may say so. I think it's ticked the box of friendship, which you clearly have with Nick Clegg, whilst at the same time alerting us to the fact that you might not be his biggest cheerleader in that role.

So congratulations. Can I ask you a serious question about yourself are you in the same place that you would now be if you'd been a man with your political and advisory career do you know i ask myself this quite a lot actually because uh some might say that i myself have failed upwards in that I wasn't I was part of a political movement that took the Liberal Democrats into government and then you know basically obliterated 80 years of progress for that party and somehow I still have jobs I still even get to go on the radio. How cool is that? But equally, I do sometimes reflect on the challenges that I faced during that period of government. I had two periods of maternity leave whilst I was on Nick Clegg's staff. And I and a couple of other female colleagues both had the experience of going away and coming back

to our jobs kind of having gone from underneath us and male colleagues who went on sabbaticals came back to pay rises and promotions and it wasn't out of malice or sort of active misogyny but just that sense that politics moves at such pace that it's quite easy for people to be forgotten I didn't get an honour when I left government. And lots of people told me that I should be really angry about that. But I like to imagine that if I'd been offered one, I'd have turned it down because they're a bit silly. So I quite like the mystique that maybe I was offered an honour. But I also think I'm not sure I would be on the radio at all if I wasn't a woman,

because Liberal Democrats are kind of relatively inconsequential these days, and I have the benefit of helping people with their equality numbers. Oh, no, I think that's terrible, Polly. I'm sure it's true. Do you really think that? Do you think that, you know, there's a box that goes,

need a woman, here comes the tick for it? Well, obviously I'm also terribly personable and charismatic. Don't know. But I think it's a good thing, actually, that producers or everybody is forced to think about who whose voices are you representing but nevertheless that I sometimes do think yeah that there was a space made for me voiceover describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. Voice over on. Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books.

Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. We're talking to How to Win an elections polly mckenzie i asked her if she had ever been

disheartened that her role was undermined because of taking maternity leave even in government i think it's really um difficult for organizations especially those that move at pace, like politics, to take that pause and think about the way that the working environment is making it possible for people to be in or be out. You know, I would drop my daughter off at childcare at about 8.30, and so I could be in for nine. But, you know, in politics, the day starts at eight. And it was almost impossible to get anybody to recognise

that there might need to be a different way of working if you want a different kind of person. You know, when I was in number 10, we had a civil service policy unit that was recruited, nine people, one woman who was sort of very actively engineered to come and take that role from maternity leave. Somebody had to go and visit her at her house to persuade her to do it. And she was phenomenal.

But there were three old Etonians. And so, I don't know, of course, these places of work like that need to rethink. Why is it that only a certain kind of person who can cope with a certain kind of toxic masculinity wants to work here? But it comes from leadership, right? Like, I think if a prime minister wants to change the culture of his workplace, he can, or she can. And unfortunately, we haven't always seen that from our leaders. What do you think the Labour Party is going to have to do to reassure people that U-turns aren't just a standard part of its driving practice. So we're talking the day after there's been an unholy row about what Rishi Sunak said in Parliament about Labour's U-turns and we'll park that element of the trans debate

and just focus on changing direction. Isn't it a very bad look, even in opposition, to not really be able to tell people firmly what it is that you're offering? The dynamics of being in opposition basically suck. They suck for democracy, because in government, you can spend, you know, 28 billion or not spend 28 billion, and everyone takes it as sort of obviously deliverable. You know, the budget can easily have a big gap in it where,

oh yeah, we'll just take 47 billion out of public expenditure in 2028, 29. And because it's in a budget document and looks authoritative, people don't question that. When you are in opposition, everything you say is torn to shreds by the people who have much more power which is the government obviously one of the reasons for for for asking anyone who is involved in the coalition government about u-turns will be you know what's that yell I love talking about tuition fees. It's almost as much as I love singing the song about putting the kettle on. It's just my life's burden.

Is it? Is it, though? Do you wake up in the middle of the night and there's still a bit of cold sweat somewhere? No, I don't, actually. So I think that the mistakes of tuition fees were political rather than policy. And I period, relatively protected from austerity and to continue to widen participation. People from poorer backgrounds continued to go to university in more numbers than they ever had before. And the proportion of poorer kids who went to university went up faster than the proportion of richer kids. And during that period,

that widening participation agenda continued apace. It was after 2015 when the Conservatives got rid of maintenance grants and changed the profile of how you pay back your tuition fee with your loan, that it became a lot more unfair and you started to see a kind of deceleration of that progress. And so, you know, the politics of tuition fees

was mishandled from start to finish and people are absolutely entitled to feel betrayed or angry with me, if they like, with the world, with Nick Clegg totally fine but actually the policy continued to have the the goals that I think matter most which is educating people reducing the gap between rich and poor in terms of opportunities in life and keeping our universities thriving that has all been lost but it at least wasn't my fault are you still chief social purpose officer at the University of the Arts London? I am. You can tell that I like universities.

Yes. I'm just book talking, yeah. Do the students there listen to the podcast? I don't know. I mean, if they've got any sense, of course. We don't teach any politics, but our students, like so many students, are incredibly politically engaged.

They are activists. they have this vision of a different world and they absolutely dedicated to bring it into uh into reality even if it's just making a film about it would they do you think know who peter mandelson i want to say was but um that's dangerous is is the correct term that's like we should we should survey them i'm sure i'm sure people do you know peter is a controversial figure and you know lots of politics is incredibly controversial on campus protecting freedom of speech and freedom of expression is important for all universities especially for an art university, where, you know, there is a really deep understanding that artists need freedom and they need freedom from the state.

And so I expect there are lots of people who have enough political history to know that they really, really hate Peter Maddison and others who might deeply love him. Are you enjoying doing the podcast? I am. It sounds like you enjoying doing the podcast? I am. It sounds like you are. Well, it's lovely.

I think Peter considers me an oddity. How does that manifest itself? Well, he just sometimes looks a bit surprised when I tease him. He thinks of me as a very young creature. I'm not very young. I'm in my mid 40s. But nevertheless, to a, I guess, no, what's what's the male version of a grand dame? I don't know. But that's what he is, isn't he? Of, of the Labour Party. And so I don't know, the fact that I am, in his mind, a young woman who doesn't take him very seriously. I don't know.

Interesting dynamic. And until this week, you have been a very rare female voice, actually, on political podcasts, they really have been dominated by men. And I don't think it does us any favours actually to dwell entirely on the fact that you're a woman but uh have you ever felt that you have needed to kind of uh you know simply get to the end of a sentence before a man interrupts or whatever have you felt that pressure at all i think absolutely but i think every woman feels that quite a lot in a lot of meetings, a lot of engagements. The challenge with, I mean, radio, you obviously know a lot more radio than I do, but like people who talk over each other are really annoying.

And so finding a way to elbow your way into the conversation without interrupting or being the shouty one is genuinely difficult. I think, you know, Matt Chorley does a great job. He's brilliant at trying to remind us to, you know, make space for the other. I think Peter and Danny have such amazing stories. And also, they live in a different world from me. They have dinner parties with all sorts of famous people. And I don't't but that's okay i don't mind being the also ran that was polly mckenzie and you can hear more from her on the podcast how to win an election available from wherever you get this podcast from actually

and do you know what jane i'm always hugely admiring of and grateful to women and men who talk very honestly about the difference that having kids made to their work particularly when they went back to work so maternity leave in this country we are way behind other countries way ahead of the united states aren't we we are ahead of the us but but we are so behind countries that would be our comparators in Northern Europe so you know we tend to overwhelmingly still have mums who take the time off for long periods of time and although there is access to shared parental leave which was brought in by the Liberal Democrats in that coalition government it isn't taken up nearly as much as it is in other European countries.

And it's complicated as well, because you do have to liaise between those two employers, I think, in order to make it work. And of course, it has an effect. And, you know, we know, don't we, from conversations we've had with younger women, that it puts women off having children, because it's still seen as to be such a terrible kind of speed bump in your career and the cost of of child care and and the trouble people have getting a nursery place i mean it is mind-boggling you have people now

certainly in the uk whose mortgage is less than what they're paying in child care fees every month and i mean that just strikes me as being completely unsustainable. For the overwhelming majority of people who have time to think before they get pregnant. I think a lot of them are thinking and they're thinking, I won't bother. Or more sadly, I can't, I just can't. Or I could maybe have one child. But I honestly don't think I could afford another. But I think it is especially disheartening to hear that even if you work in government which you would would hope would be full of people trying to solve the problems of the nation that actually that key thing of you've got to drop your kids off at

nursery so you arrive in the office after other people have started and that puts you back a bit. I just really slightly despair at that memory actually. But I was very grateful to Polly for saying it because that's the other thing, isn't it? Sometimes I think we are fearful of telling our own truths in case it weakens people's perception of us. So you keep it all in and that's not a good place for it either. And then actually, if you're certainly at my vantage point, you sort of forget about the incredible stress of the last minute.

You know, because a child can't go to nursery within Patago or if they've had a, you know, they've suddenly got a really high temperature half an hour before they're supposed to go. And then what do you do? Well, you've got to call in sick yourself and take a day off. And it's just it's immensely stressful but for me, I must be honest, I have slightly forgotten about all that now and I shouldn't because I think the battle is still very much being fought. And I think it's not going to be an easy war to win at all but there are just such immediate lessons to be learned from other countries who are doing it better and they're not complicated lessons they are expensive to the

state for a while but it is very expensive for the state to lose parents to parenting it's just a fact yeah but then i did when was that did i did i hear somebody on a radio station or did i read a letter in a newspaper from somebody actually just making the incredibly unfashionable point? Is it fair to children to put them into these nursery settings? Oh, no, I agree with that hugely. You have to think, OK, God. So from my vantage point, a long way off this, I do. I can see what they're getting at. Well, I all right for me, though, isn't it? I can see what they're getting at. But I think if it's something that everybody does with their children, it's just accepted that you have a really, really decent childcare facility

within 10 minutes, 15 minutes of where you live, that is state-subsidised and everybody goes along to it. It's a communal thing. There's no judgment going on there is a lot of judgment about child care choices in this country i think that's a step forward that might ameliorate that um but also i personally there's a little bit of me that just really wants to weep for both the parent and the child that i inevitably see on a tube train going home quite a long way home at 6 3030 in the evening.

Knackered. But that's because our working hours aren't allowing that parent to do anything different. So that changes too. But look, people will have their experiences and it just is better an empty hoose than bad tenants, as my mother always used to say. Best to get it out.

If you'd like to get it out, then we say, best to get it out. If you'd like to get it out, then we are your place to get it out. Very well. What a lovely thought. We're your place to get it out. Well, now you put it like that. Put it back in. You don't want to see it. Have a lovely couple of days. Fi, have a lovely week off. Yeah. And because Jane Mulkerrins is my podcast co-host next week. Yeah, good luck. Well, the smutometer will be taking a battering. It's going in for a service over the weekend, so it's still able to

function. Do you want me to bring you some kind of, I don't know, some kind of high-vis defence wear? I might have to just wear a crash helmet. Anyway, Mulkerrins is is lovely she's lovely she's just a bit fast living and that presents something of a contrast for myself that's good thing right um we're back what he's dying back and fee will be back uh jane and fee at times.radio um again we cannot emphasize enough we love your emails keep them coming

and just thanks for being a part of this little bit of sincerity there it's not all smut sometimes we can be quite nice bye Well done for getting to the end of another episode of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. And don't forget, there is even more of us every afternoon on Times Radio. It's Monday to Thursday, three till five.

You can pop us on when you're pottering around the house or heading out in the car on the school run. Or running a bank. Thank you for joining us, and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. Don't be so silly. Running a bank? I know ladies don't do that.

A lady listener. I know, sorry. I'm