The Chaser Report - Boris's Resignation Party

Episode Date: July 14, 2022

Dom Knight and Chris Taylor celebrate the long and hilarious career of the British PM the only way Boris would approve: an underwhelming party. Join the team as they not only farewell Boris, but take a satirist's trip down memory lane at all the bonkers dude's who were insane enough to rule the world over the last decade. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chase of Report. Yes, welcome to the show. It is Friday the 15th of July. Dom Knight here with Chris Taylor. Hello, Chris. Hello. Charles is doing school holidays this week. Yeah, look, Charles do school holidays more often. I've enjoyed this week with you and Ange. I feel the podcast is sort of finding a rhythm that hasn't had. And there's only one conclusion we can draw from that. The key different factor

And that's the absence of Charles first So, you know, we love Charles I hope he's having a lovely time I think he went to Ukraine, didn't he, for his holidays? Well, you never know until they crop up. This is one of the great things about trips to Ukraine. I was talking to a political reporter a couple of weeks ago And I was going to ask them on air,

is Albo going to Ukraine? Like, surely he is. He's going to Europe, like inevitably. I thought you can't. Don't we all pretend it's not going to happen until someone does? So if Charles crops up in Ukraine next to Fort of me, Zelenskyy, and he'd be like, oh my gosh, Charles went to Ukraine, what a surprise, because you can't ask it.

You can't, and you can't tell. I mean, give Charles two drinks and I'm sure he'd tell you. But, yeah, it's sort of really interesting that the secrecy required, I guess because, you know, the security stakes are huge. I, for one, and I'm incredibly grateful that we've got someone on the case repairing the damage of every relationship that the previous government broke. But, yeah, I assume that there's always two certainties. One, he'll call in on the regular troops, you know,

Where are they now? Afghanistan or... There's surely not in Afghanistan. No, no, we left there a while back. Yeah. There aren't many. It would not be funny if you still dropped in. Like, he didn't get the memo that we'd be drawn.

Imagine the awkwardness of that. Turns out like up in Kandahas like, oh shit. Where's the photo bomb? Oh, they've all gone. What? Oh. But no, and the thing was as well, I remember thinking, surely Vladimir Putin doesn't really give a shit about assassinating albo.

Like, this is not going to be a big priority. And then I was like, oh, no, it's Zelinsky. Because Zelensky will be next. to him. He definitely wants to kill. That's what I think it was. Imagine being the crossfire in that, that would give Alba a bigger place in history

he would have otherwise deserved, I suspect. I think Albao was almost angling for that. Like, you know, still not completely confident in the job, still a bit surprised he even won the election. Just thought, oh, I could guarantee my place in history. Like, to be more than just the answer to a pub trivia question if I go out in a really spectacular way. So, boys, book me a trip.

I want to stand next to Zelensky. And I'm happy, you know, I don't care if you tell people, you can follow protocols if you want. I don't. I don't mind if you don't. I'm relaxed about it. And I reckon we should meet in a really outdoor area. Like I just, you know, COVID's still a thing. I don't want to be indoors. So let's just go really outdoors with Zelensky.

And look, look, book me in for a week. The only world leader to go there twice, Chris, if I'm not mistaken. Boris Johnson. And I'm just wondering at what point does Lottombego actually, mate. No, don't worry. Don't bother. Don't come back. Because he's still PM for a few months.

Right. Surely he's going to try and get the trifecta visits there. Because I think I was watching his press conference when he resigned. And part of me thinks, reckons that he can still, I'm thinking that somewhere in the back of his mind, you can see he reckoned he can turn it around. It's always as kind of a surprise to see. You know, with Bojo a bit like Trump, you're not quite sure who he'd support in that war. It's true. Trump, you'd kind of back to support Putin.

Oh, 100%. Strong man, a strong man. But Boris Johnson, you kind of think would, you know, cut from the same cloth as Trump in many ways, when I saw him side by side with Zelensky, go, oh, oh, you're on that team. Oh, good for you. Yeah, no, that's good. That's a few. There's one thing.

And it was the thing he kept hammering home, like in these dying days. When the writing was on the wall, where everyone could see that he was a goner except him. And it was that thing where, you know, when you've only sort of done one good thing, you keep hammering that home. Yes. It was sort of like Turnbull when he was knifed, and everyone kept saying, oh, what's your legacy? And he just had same-sex marriage plebiscide. That was sort of the only thing he could name.

Kind of done despite him in some ways, yeah. As much as he supported it, but it was such a torturous and horrible way of doing it. Johnson couldn't say COVID because he'd made a balls up at that. Brexit was starting to bite him on the ass and be turned into a disaster that even he recognized. So the one thing he kept falling back on, not just as something he'd achieved, but as a reason to keep him there,

Oh, only I am really supporting the Ukrainian situation. He was out in front of that. But I guess he was used to people getting constant bombardment. This is what it's been like. I still can't believe 50 ministers resign before he quit. How does he even have 50 ministers? It's crazy. In what Western government system do people have that much accountability anymore?

Like, we should have had 50 ministers resign under Skomo, but, you know, no one fell on their sword. I guess these weren't falling on sword so much as, you know. They were tweeting a terse letter. This is the thing I love about you. Passive aggressive, I resign because it hopefully makes you resign. I just feel that for the good of the country, I can't die. I can't put up with this anymore, the standards of good governance. And last week, they were mates.

And my favourite was the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, his name escapes me, the new treasurer. He'd been, he'd signed up for the gig a day earlier. A day earlier, Chris, he'd said, yep, I'll be the new top economic minister, whatever it is. And a day after that, I couldn't possibly be in the forestress of government. This is a disaster. The man has no integrity. They wouldn't have even put the plaque up on his door. Like, I don't think he even would have got his login for the computer in the department.

That's how short he was there. Was it the BBC? One of them did the almost like the honour roll of all the people who resigned that day. It was 50, as you said. Yeah, yeah. And they did it to the tune. They did it to a bit of sweet symphony, the verb song. And I'm going to 50, and that's not all of them.

That's like still only half of them. How big is their ministry? I know it's a massive country. It's always looked so squashed when you see footage of UK Parliament. Yes, they're in the smallest building in the world. It's the least COVID safe room in the world. Half of them are the size of Boris Johnson. So they're all squeezed into their suits, sit in there.

And they keep adding ministries. I reckon they were only resigning just to create a bit more leg room and some seat room in the bloody House of Lords or the House of Commons. No, no, it really was quite a... Everyone gets a prize of a ministry, it seemed like. No, I think there's something like 150 or 200 people actually in the... like in the Tories. It's a massive parliament.

I can't imagine what they'll do. Anyway, look, I'll kind of miss Boris a bit in a way. As inept as he seems, as hopeless as he seems to have been. I mean, he somehow had the most lockdowns and the most deaths during COVID, which is an extraordinary achievement. And he led from the front, he almost died himself. He really did go. It was actually in ICU, I think, wasn't he?

Oh, absolutely he was. No, he very nearly died. Do you reckon part of him's regretting he didn't go then? Would have been a good way to go out. Gone with more dignity than his final exit. It's quite amazing to think that this is a man who managed to survive, getting busted for having a party on the eve of Prince Philip's funeral at number 10 during lockdown. I mean, anyone else in the world is it, maybe Donald Trump would have been toast at that point.

It was extraordinary how he rode that out. Because, yeah, that's the thing. Like, I think all of us who observed us thought he was toast, yeah, during party gate. and then in the end he kind of weathered that storm and it was it was the giving the promotion to the guy who had allegedly groped a couple of people years ago Yes, yes, and I think it wasn't just that

But the rumour doing the rounds was that he'd said And the guy, the MP's name was Pinscher. Pinchia by name, Pinscher by nature What do they call that, nominative determinism? Yes, I think at the point where that pun was doing the round I just kind of go, okay, look, I think this is the point where it's too undignified being to remain prime minister

They're joking about the molester. Yeah, it's like an Evelyn War novel. You know, like those novels where they, or PJ Woodhouse, where they give the person a surname that actually sums up their characteristics. Stinky or something or whatever it is. Pincher. Oh, terribly shocking news. What's that?

Pinscher turns out to be a molester. Well, I never saw that coming. It's a pitch. Everybody's bottom back at college. None of the medical advice contained in the Chaseer report should Legally be considered medical advice. The Chaser Report. When you say you miss him,

do you mean just because it's sort of fun to have a clown overseas to make us feel less bad about our own? He is physically ridiculous. Really. The image that will endure of him is that amazing moment when he was the mayor of London. London's hosting the Olympics.

And he ziplines in to open an event. And he had the helmet on, the crash helmet, and he gets stuck in the middle of the zip line and just sways backwards and forward. When I saw that, stupid flag. I said, there's a state's,

There's future PM material. From a comedic perspective, we'll miss Boris Johnson. It's a bit of a weird thing. It is hard to know how you recover from these great comic figures of politics. I mean, Donald Trump was such a gift. Boris Johnson. Tony Abbott was a huge gift. Him going from Abbott to Turnbull was a real come down for political comedians.

And then ScoMo, fortunately, gave us some fairly vintage years there of doing satire. I mean, Albo's, this is not going to be a golden period of satire. It's just going to be a little bit dull and tepid, isn't it? Well, I've noticed this organisation included, the Chase. It's, you know, they're still sort of feeling their way. And all those people who sort of made Twitter careers out of, you know, creating Scomo hashtags and just dumping on SkoMo every day, not without cause, I should say, but it became a bit broken recordy.

They've all gone very quiet, haven't they? Well, Skomo will then do some tiny thing. Like there'll be a rumor that he wants to join the board of the rugby league or something. the rounds this week. I know. Which is pretty amusing. And then everyone goes, oh, we can write a scomotopical headline again.

Yeah. He's back. No, it's sort of interesting. I mean, you know, without naming names, there was always a discussion amongst people who do the kind of things we do for living in topical comedy. And there's always,

when you've got a conservative government in for as long as the, the Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison years were, you always get these people to say, oh, why don't you ever make fun of, you know, Labor or the left wing? And you go, well, because they're not. not in power. You go where the power is. That's where the stronger material is. That's where the satirist roll is. And now that it's changed, I'm sure a lot of those people are going,

oh, they're still sort of feeling out where the jokes are with Albao, because look, I mean, this will sound incredibly partisan. And I don't mean it to be partisan, but I actually think they've had an incredibly good honeymoon now. I actually think it's, it's just been like you could breathe again. You didn't, it's that, you remember when Trump was in power? and you woke up every day and you sort of wretch for your phone and go, oh, what's he done overnight? And it was always, it was literally the first thing. And it was kind of like that on a much less horrendous scale with the Morrison government.

Like the levels of corruption or alleged corruption and the lack of accountability and just the blame shifting and all of that. It just sort of made you cringe. And it's just been nice to wake up and not feel that. I'm not saying Albanesey's a saint and that this government's, I've got great confidence that the Labor government will prove to be a great disappointment. Give them a year or two. But it's, for the last two or three weeks,

it's kind of just being, like the Bernard Colliery, just dropping the prosecution on him. It's just, oh, thank God, that we're no longer playing political games with that. And just good sort of common sense decisions. And I guess you can always do that in the honeymoon period. Like you've got your mandate. You can kind of undo all the worst excesses of your predecessors.

Yeah, so then I assume the satirists and stuff, will, you know, we'll certainly have enough to go on with. It's telling, is it not, that Sean McAuliffe decided to retire his show. Oh. No longer mad as hell. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've got no elbow jokes. I don't think that's the reason at all.

And, of course, it's not. It has a very long run. I mean, really, by ABC comedy, Stan, and has, Sean said he's... That's five lives longer than most. He's turned 60 and, um... No, please, don't let anyone think. I genuinely think it's because, like,

can't make fun of the new government. But I'm glad I'm not in the game at the moment because it's sort of when a government doesn't give you the shit, it is harder to do what we do for living. Another one that comes to mind, Chris, is the Nata Salingham family, the Bill O'Ela family. Oh, yeah. Just had for so many years been used as a football.

It's like, oh, let them go. I mean... And how easy was it in the end? Like, that could have been a phone call Alex Hawke could have made a thousand times before. There were no votes in treating them the way the coalition did. I honestly don't think... Even bigots really cared about that family. No, even Barnaby Joyce was against it.

Look, I don't want to shit on Bilaueila. I haven't been there. But having looked at some of the photos, there aren't a huge number of people who are keen to go back to Bila. Chris, it's not a popular destination. There's a lot of local Bilohele of people looking at Christmas Island and going, oh, gee, they've got it easy. The guy worked in Bidoisa in Bila.

Let him do it. For fuck sake. Yeah. Be grateful. We need 100, we need thousands more people who are willing to do that kind of thing. No, but it is a good point. I have enormous faith in Labor as an organisation to get to the point. Do you remember, with the New South Wales Labor Party, 16 years into the government there, you know, in the state here in New South Wales, the point where every single week there was a minister resigning because of some sort of horrible sex scandal, there was massive corruption.

One of them was a pedophile, yeah. Milton or Coppolis. I mean, that was. So give Labor Tyler, I'm sure I'm sure I'm talking about Angus Taylor, but I don't think he ever molested a child. Yeah, like Labor, Labor. That's not we know.

But yes, but they are shiny new. And the bizarre thing about this government is how easy it's been to sort a few things out. How, it took Penny Wong a week to fix the Pacific, it seems like. Like to basically get China to go easy. She was there less than a week before she'd sort of humanlyated the Chinese foreign minister and won the argument as far as I can tell. Which makes you ask the question, was it incompetence of the previous mob that, you know, they were just genuinely bad at the job of governing?

Or was it sort of more ideological and misplace ideology? Certainly I think with Bernard Colliery and Witness K, that was ideological. They just had a vindictive desire to... At the point where you're on the side of bugging East Timor, that's just not a good position to be the... As I said, just a huge exhalation of relief to just see a government quite simply. And fairly to say, oh, no, this nonsense has to stop. We're not going to score cheap political points of this stuff anymore. And I mean, thank God we're not really doing street school TV shows anymore.

We're not really doing that mess, that scale, satire. And thank goodness, Chris, in a couple of years' time, Donald Trump's going to come back in to give us something to talk about. Yes. Well, Chris, thank you for cameoing on the podcast this week. It's been, it's been delightful. Any time Charles is giving you the shits or annoying you or pretending he's on holiday, it's my pleasure to drop by with you, Dom. our gears from road microphones. We're part of the ACASTCRAIDA network.

We'll catch you next week.