The Chaser Report - Suella is Out, Smoking is In!

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

Dom and Charles chat Barnaby's wedding, the recent departure of Suella Braverman, and also smoking is back! Yipee! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. And Dom, you look very happy. Oh, look, I'm so happy at the news that David Cameron is back as the UK's Foreign Secretary. That's a bizarre story which we'll get to as well. I'm also happy because Barnaby Joyce, that great lover of multiple family values, made an honest woman out of Vicky Campion over the weekend.

The father of his two boys, he had the four girls with his first wife, Natalie. That wasn't enough. And now he has two boys. And apparently he even buried the hatchet with his father-in-law. So a beautiful story of love at a bush wedding in Walca. But the main reason I'm happy, Charles, is that, well, admittedly, I'm a little bit late to this. This was an article four months old. I'm not very fashionable, as you know.

But you know what is fashionable in 2023, Charles? I am. What? Smoking. Smoking is back. It's back. Wonderful news. Oh, great.

It's back again. The kids are doing it again. It's all happening. And some of the coolest people in the world are once again fanging siggies. Well, let's get into it straight after this. So where to start with this smorgas board of news, Charles? Shall we start on the love story just to really make things lovely and inspiring? Yes, I think so.

It's Barnaby Joyce got married, did he? I didn't know. Yes. And it's not everyone who knocks up a start. who actually ends up marrying them. So, well done, Barnaby. I mean, true love is, it's never smooth, is it? It was love at second sight, wasn't it?

Yeah, yeah. Love at first. Photocopy. I'm not quite sure what she did. So yes, Stafford was princess in 2018. And that, of course, produced the bonk band from Malcolm Turnbull. And Barnaby Joyce, with typical modesty, said in the past week that once Malcolm Turnbull had lost Barnaby Joyce, that was the end of him as Prime Minister.

Probably true. So there you go. wasn't at the wedding, unfortunately, at the Joyce estate. Was there alcohol at the wedding? There was. It's a great photo of Vicky Campion smashing a shampus. And apparently, Joyce warned his guests not to punch on because of the media were around. So I presume that was a joke and they all got absolutely tanked.

In my experience, Barnaby Joyce tends to just drink with the media. Like, I've not seen him out. Barnaby, haven't you? Near Barnaby? Near Barnaby. Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't say weird. I'm sorry to be a bit of a sucker for love, but I can't get mad about this story.

There's nothing, I just feel like, you know, he may be a fuck-wit, he may be a total cunt, he may be, you know, arguably probably quite corrupt and, you know, have done stuff that really was against the national interest, and indeed against farmers' interests, you know, what with all the mining stuff, but love is love. Love is love. Yeah, it strikes in mysterious. various places in the office. And generally, Chuck, there's an old-fashioned view now, it seems, that it's Malcolm Turnbull

view that when someone's working for you, you shouldn't really impregnate them as a general rule. But that's, I mean, what are office ethics and workplace safety rules compared to love? I ask you. Well, I think they are about, you know, providing a safe workspace for people, particularly women who are often completely whose lives can be destroyed even by having those breaches between personal and private lives. Yes, and we've seen many high profile examples recently in Australian public life where

appalling things have happened to women who've gone to work in Parliament and their lives have been ruined. But this one example, Charles, and this one example of all... One example, yeah, that's right, yeah. Well, obviously, yeah, yeah. Vicki Campion's dad initially said he wanted to take a show. shotgun to Barnaby Joyce when he heard of the affair. But now he says he gets along really well with his son-in-law. It's probably about the same age, let's be honest. And the four Barnaby Joyce

daughters were absent. But the father-in-law says, look, there are still a bit been out of shape. They would have been accepted at the wedding, but they were not in attendance. So his daughter's not, not huge fans. But look, who are we to judge love and when it tears a family apart to create another family? Exactly. That is not worthy. That would be beneath us. But any to us to comment on, certainly to make extensive comedy sketches on as we've done in the past. So there you go. Congratulations, Barnaby and Vicky. And she's done well out of it too, hasn't she?

Isn't she on Sky News a lot now? Column for the telly. She already worked for the telly at the time. Yeah, I think she was. Previously, didn't she? Yeah, she was a staff. She was one of those News Corp people. I mean, the distance between News Corp and being a staffer for the coalition is, it's a porous line, isn't it?

A bit like, a bit like employee and sexual partner in the Barnaby Joy's office. I think actually they've now, just to cut costs, they've now started to put it on your News Corp Lanyard, the backside is a Liberal Party membership card, or a National Party, just so you don't have to carry around two cards. It does get very inconvenient, doesn't it? So there you go, so that's a happy story. Congratulations to them.

And congratulations also to David Cameron, the former UK Prime Minister, who is, through the fairly bizarre circumstances that would only happen in the UK, is now the Foreign Secretary, the foreign minister. Basically, they punted a very hard, right politician called Sula Braverman. She was the home secretary.

They moved a guy called Jeremy Cleverley into that portfolio and brought David Cameron out of retirement and into the House of Lords. He's now, I think, Lord Cameron, Charles? Yes, and look, I think that this is a centuries-old tradition.

Isn't it magnificent to see this like the coronation? Yeah, dates back hundreds of years. It's the way the British Empire basically expanded. around the world, which was just the history of mediocre white men failing upwards. Yes. So, you know, he went to the right school, failed as prime minister. And then, you know, like having failed as prime minister, there was only one thing for him

is he had to go upstairs to the House of Lords. At this rate, he'll probably end up definitely an Earl or a Duke or something like that. He may even become the king. Like, I'm predicting King David. Why not? Yeah, and it would totally work, I think, yes. Yeah, yeah. And look, a lot of people are very angry at David Cameron.

They sort of seem as, well, he is the person who said, hey, let's have a referendum on whether we should leave the European Union and destroy our economy. And he opposed it. He went, oh, no, yeah. He didn't want it to happen. So the best way for it to not happen was to have a referendum on it. See, what he should have done is he should have got some tips from Alba. Oh, look, absolutely.

Albo could have taught him a bit more thing or two, couldn't it? Because the Brexit referendum was much tighter than Albo's one. The Albo's was 6040. Cameron was only 52, 48. It was actually quite tight. I kind of feel we should import that style of failing upwards more into Australian life. I agree. We need a House of Lords.

I mean, you can't get unilaterally appointed to a job for life just because you're posh in Australia. It's much harder anyway. I mean, you can if News Corp hires you to their board even after you've, you know, failed as Prime Minister like Tony Abbott. That's one way of doing it. But the House of Lords, he just got appointed by the government in the UK for a job for life in the Lords with power for life. and now he's a foreign secretary without ever the inconvenience of having to be elected. Well, the thing is, we've probably got enough ex-prim ministers now,

especially mediocre male ex-prim ministers now, to be able to form a House of Lords. Oh, it's a very good. And wouldn't Tony Abbott love being a lord? And I think, frankly, you know, maybe Albo would not be, you know, holding on tooth and nail fighting, you know, the next election, if he knew that, well, actually, or I could just, You don't give up now, knowing that he's going to lose anyway, and because I'm going to get a place in the House of Lords.

I don't think Malcolm Turnbull would have taken it. I think you would have seen as a demotion to be in the House of Lords. Where would the House of Lords be located? Like, where would we, you know where we should put it? Malcolm's place, wouldn't we? Yeah, well, that's big enough. I was in Menace Island, but yeah. Yeah, you know where I think it could go, actually.

There's a great space in the Parliament for it in Canberra. What about the prayer room? The prayer room. We both thought of. Expanded a little bit. It'd be perfect. You'd have to dry, clean it beforehand. So the amazing thing, too, about this Swellabreberman story is she wrote, and this is

a tradition I really wanted us to bring in in Australia. She wrote the farewell letter. And what happens in the UK is that whenever anyone loses office or whatever, it'll get sacked, they always get a speech in the parliament to complain, and they write a letter. And her letter to Rishi Sunak was just the most. undermining letter imaginable. She basically laid out the campaign against him for him to be replaced before the next election,

saying he'd failed, he'd done nothing, he'd betrayed her, he hadn't kept the deal. And basically he'd deliver it on none of the things he would promised to deliver when he became Prime Minister. So it's pretty extraordinary stuff. Which is great. I mean, it does follow a rich tradition that I think we started here in Australia,

which is you just stick around long enough to really undermine your party and destroy it. So I believe Scott Morrison actually said that tradition. Oh, Kevin Rudd did a pretty good job too. Yeah, Kevin Rudd. I mean, I've got the letter here. It's quite extraordinary. And apparently she asked for four separate things in return for her support,

in which he's delivered none. One of them being, by the way, to stop the boats, the whole Crosby-Texter mantra that's made into UK politics as well. And she also demanded all these very far-right things, basically suspending human rights in order to dump on refugees. And also some pretty mean, some pretty mean. and stuff to trans people as well, and particularly trans kids. So, Jacob Olland has been on board with that one.

Look, I'm not going to talk for the British House of Lords, but she sounds exactly the sort of person we'd want in the Australian House of Lords. She would. Yeah. She'd fit right in. Her and Tony Abbott. They'd get along. They would be in lockstep.

They'd love it. I can only surmise, she wrote, this is because you have no appetite for doing what is necessary, and therefore no real intention of fulfilling your pledge to the British people. So you don't need an opposition. Someone needs to be honest, she writes. Your plan is not working and we're running out of time. You need to change course urgently.

Yes, and I think, I mean, the subtext that no one ever says is that by change course, she actually means change race because I was talking to the British political observer last night who was saying one of the things that's really undermining Rishi Sunak is the fact that he's not white. So he got elected. because he promised all these far-right things that appealed to the Conservative Party base. Yes. But then they sort of realised that he was South Asian.

And so all the polling suggests that just as long as he could somehow become white, then they'd actually, you know, be more inclined to support him. Well, the interesting thing, this is the thing about Soella Braverman, is that like Rishi Sunak, she is also South Asian. Yes. And the daughter of migrants. And it has been, it's been so inspiring watching Suella. absolutely shitting on every migrant in the UK,

despite being the child of one herself. And it's just been so inspiring to see that despite her racial background, that's no bar to her being massively racist against people of colour in the UK. She's really done an incredible job. It just goes to show, Charles, you know, for so long, people of colour have been excluded from being racist politicians supporting the white cause. But Suella shows that you can be on board with that. And she's a real pioneer.

Racism doesn't see colour anymore. I mean, that's one of the great things. It's open to all. It's a real equal opportunity pursuit now, those. Absolutely. The other thing that I should just mention while we're talking about UK politics is, I heard whispers last night that they're looking to draft David Miliband for the Conservative Party. Really?

So David Miliband ran and lost for trying to become the leader of the UK Labour Party. He went up against his own brother, Ed Miliband. That was one of the most fabulously awkward moments in political history. But David's very good looking, and he immediately quit politics and went into high finance, right? I thought you were going to say high fashion. No, high finance. He's been doing very well, becoming very rich. There are suggestions, and this may be a little bit defamatory to sort of suggest this,

but there are suggestions now that there might be a sort of Malcolm Turnbull-esque turn to his prime ministership because he's very charismatic. Like he, he, and he, it's a thing. He could come back as a Tory. He could come back as a Tory. What would the Labor Party do? They wouldn't be able to say, well, he's not Labor, because he is Labor. Like, the Tories would literally run as the Labor Party, and they could win.

That could work pretty well. There is actually, I mean, I'm just looking at this, as you mentioned, I'm quite shocked by this. He did float the idea of running for Labor last year in an interview. So he was quite keen to sort of put that out there. But he's probably made a bill since then. And once you're a billionaire, there's just no way you can support people. Is the Prime Minister allowed to come from the House of Lords?

Because that could be a really easy way to get him in there, couldn't it? Oh, look, I don't know. Probably not. Probably the one minister who can't. But look, there's probably a thing, knowing the UK, there's probably some convention where it can just be anybody or they can just appoint anyone they want without need to be elected. Because they don't have a written constitution.

So there's actually no rules. Oh, yeah, they just make it up. Yeah. And I think the one person who's not allowed to be prime minister is King Carl. Yeah, the king. Except that he probably could be if you wanted to be. Who's going to stop him? Well, I think he'd put his hand in the ring.

I'm sure he thinks he'd do a wonderful job. All right, in a moment, smoking is back. None of the medical advice contained in the Chaser report should legally be considered medical advice. The Chaser Report. So, Charles, this is very good news. I'm normally late to these trends. Four months late is quite soon for me. Yes.

Because, yeah, there's an article here in The Guardian from July about how smoking is coming back. particularly stars like Lily Rose Depp, keeping Johnny's legacy of making massive mistakes in public alive. She's been smoking. All the cool kids have been smoking. And the vibe seems to be that wellness has finished, Charles. And it's not before time. We don't care about wellness anymore. Well, this is where I feel like I'm ahead of the curve.

I don't actually smoke, but I am very unwell. Just generally out of breath. Like, my dog just said to me the other day, you might as well be a smoker. Oh, wow. My cardio health is just so shot at the moment. I'm thinking maybe I should just complete the circle and at the age of 48, take up smoking for the first time. Well, if your body's as bad as if you were a smoker.

Might as well get the pleasure. Yeah, why not? I mean, it could compound the effect and kill you, but at least you'd die cool. Die cool. And I think that that's what all the cool kids are after. That's why you take up smoking. And I think part of the reason for that is that,

vaping's been so popular because at first was just the teens with the sort of cherry flavoured completely. The ones that they pretend aren't marketed as kids, but basically are like cabbage patch vapes. Yeah. My little vapy. And then the older people got on board as well because they went, oh, hang on, if I take up the vapes,

I'll still have a lot of the bad health effects, but I won't be quite as bad as smoking. So we've got the old people to blame, really, for this. Yeah, because now it's like, well, if the old people are doing, I want to do something else. I know, smoking, no old people's smoking. No one's doing that anymore. And this makes me think, Charles,

And I'm going to be the first to predict this. I reckon, you know what I reckon the next big social network is going to be? Facebook. I reckon the YouTube today. I'm going to get back on Facebook. I love it. I breathe fresh life into it, just because it's so bad and so daggy. Yes.

That they'll make it cool again. They'll post pictures of themselves smoking on Facebook. Yep, I love it. So I'm thinking of taking it up. Do you think I can get away with it? Well, the thing is... I am an asthmatic. You do the Facebook thing.

I don't think you should do smoking. I think you'd last. about three days, Tom. But you'd be in hospital. Yeah, but I'd be cool. No, but you should. I'd be remembered as this cool guy, wouldn't I? You should take up Facebook again,

or if you want to really be ahead of the curve, take up Friendster. Friendster. Yeah. The reference is so obscure that very few people listening. This is the thing that existed before Myspace. Yeah, Myspace. Yeah, it's good.

It's the first busher network. I love it. I can make friends with Tom from Myspace. He probably had no one to. contacted that guy in like 20 years. I'll ICQ you the link to my friend stuff. Oh, amazing. I see Q still exists, you know.

I was talking to a friend about this the other day. Oh, really? It's incredible to just start something and then it just gets eclipsed by a much more profitable versions. It's kind of like the Chaser and Batuta, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. I was reading the academic literature on platforms recently. Friendster gets like a sentence on the way to the discussions of the ones that actually

succeeded. See, that's what you want. You want to be a sentence in the history of something else. Yeah. First, just not best. that's right that's what it is so there you go three uplifting stories shows we haven't always delivered an upbeat take on the news but i think today oh yeah barnaby joyce david cameron um and by the way if you want if you want some light

reading just put into your browser the words david cameron and pig and it'll just make you realize that there's if you're the right kind of white man there is absolutely no scandal that you can't recover from i mean barnaby joyce could probably tell you a thing or two about that as well who knows if pigs appeared at his wedding i hope they did now um the other thing is just before we go, I do have to assure listeners that I will never replace Dom with an AI bot ever again. We've had a few listeners email in saying, promise never to do that again. I haven't heard that one yet, because I must say I felt threatened when I heard the plan, but then I remember the state of AI. I must say, there are a few temporary co-hosts that could

have made people miss me probably quite as much. It was like, you know what it was like? It was like co-hosting with some sort of preppy FM presenter without a brain. Like, it was sort of, it had no opinions about anything. Like, on the one hand, you know, murder is bad. On the other hand, murder is good. That sounds like our time at Triple M, doesn't it? Yeah. I'll listen to that one.

That sounds like a great way to make me feel like I'm worth something. I like it. Our gear is from Ride. We are part of the Iconiclass Network. Catch you next week. Catch you next time.