The Chaser Report - The Starmy Army

Episode Date: May 20, 2026

Dom wants to talk about sport, however Charles has a cautionary tale from The Chaser's past that taught him to find another topic. Thank god for Kier Starmer.BUY TICKETS TO CHASER REPORT LIVE: https://events.humanitix.com/the-chaser-report-live-and-arty---Listen AD FREE: https://thechaserreport.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @chaserwarSpam Dom's socials: @dom_knightSend Charles voicemails: @charlesfirthEmail us: [e-mail] CEO’s Super-yacht upgrade Fund: https://chaser.com.au/support/ Send complaints to: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal 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. On this happiest of days, Charles, for... Hello, do you like listening to this podcast but hate the fact that you can't sit in a room while it's being recorded? Yes. Now you can. On Sunday the 24th of May,

at 6pm, the Chaser Report is doing another live recording of The Chaser Report, Live and Artie. At the soda factory in Surrey Hills in Sydney, tickets are now available at chaser.com.com.com slash live. So see you there. Bye. For me and for all right thinking people with the news that after 22 years of waiting, Arsenal, the men's team, have won the English Premier League. A triumph that was all the sweeter because we didn't have to do anything. Another game happened.

Bournemouth drew against Manchester City and that was it. They couldn't possibly catch us in the race. We are champions of England. I am so glad that your basketball team won their game. Dom, that really fills my heart with joy. I don't think you understand quite how much this means to not just me, but to Spike Lee, the director. and perhaps the most famous current fan of Arsenal.

So Keir Stama, Prime Minister of the UK. We might have some thoughts about it. Maybe the tides have turned for Keir Stama. He's won something. Let's find out after this. We'll also find out what happened when the Chaser tried to get into sport headlines. It didn't go well, apparently. So, Charles, we used to, on the back cover of the Chaser newspaper,

we used to do a sports headline every week, every fortnight. There was a sport headline, despite the fact that the master's, majority of us know almost nothing about sport. Yes, well, I seem to remember that it was, we used to get other people to, I mean, actually really good writers. Wasn't Richie Cook and he do sport pro-off? Joel Gibson. Often the sport headline was to do with things like drugs or players committing crimes and

things that were more in our Baileywick. We were lucky that we were doing the newspaper during a time of such consistent terrible behaviour by our footballers. But I am worried that we started. with the sports story today, Don, because John did that the other day on our Chaser Weekly newsletter. And apparently,

we just lost thousands of people. Thousands? Yes. Thousands of people unsubscribed because they saw a sports headline and they thought, what's this? Rubbish.

What was the sports headline? What was the offending headline? I don't think it was anything offensive. I think it was just, you know, profoundly boring. Yucky sport. Which is sort of... I mean,

let's have a look, where is it? While you're looking at up, I'll just explain how excellent this is. So the thing to understand geopolitically, Charles, about Arsenal's victory is yes, our team is now owned by an American billionaire. Sorry, don't, but isn't it a joke that Arsenal never wins?

Isn't the whole, it's a punchline, isn't it? It has been. We finished second three years in a row before now. And yeah, the last victory was, as I said, 22 years ago. But the point is, we are owned by, and I'm, pleasant American billionaire. But the team we were competing against Manchester City is owned by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, Charles.

It's sponsored by Etihad. And a lot of teams now just have this untold, you know, petro dollar wealth from problematic countries. So it feels like not only have we defeated Manchester City, but we've defeated Abu Dhabi with all that stands for. Yes. Okay. So this is actually, this is like a turning of the tide for civilisation.

and democracy is what you're saying. Well, yes, I mean, there's some very happy billionaires in the US right now, but Manchester City also massively cheated. They completely afforded the salary cap. There's, I think, 110 odd charges sitting against them, and they've never had any penalty for them. They just sort of suspended over their heads

that no one seems willing to act for all the instances of cheating. So not only were they incredibly wealthy, but there's 115, there you go, charges sitting over the heads of Manchester City of financial wrongdoing. And there's never been any sentence. It's as though they'd never have had a trial.

Yeah, right. Okay. Well. So for you, Charles, on your brand of liking rich people copying it, I'd have thought you'd be very happy for Arsenal today, even though despite this victory, you know, other rich people are very, very happy. There's no way avoiding rich people being happy. Right, okay, yeah.

So we might as well take our wins where we can. Exactly right. Yeah. Okay. So what was the headline? I can't find it. I think John might have changed it in unsubscribe. I think he's, um, oh yeah, maybe I did.

No, he's changed the name of our, newsletter. Really? Yes. Search for it. Yeah, it used to be called the Chaser Weekly, W-E-A-K-L-Y. Did he change it because that was Sammy's joke?

Well, but I came up with it. I came up with it like in 2015. It's just called the Chaser, I think. It's now called the Chaser, but that's really hard to search for because there's lots of things. Particularly if you're us. Yes, because every email has chaser in it. Is about that.

Yeah, now that seems unfortunate. Yeah. So, look, I just. I don't know is the answer. I mean, unless there's sort of one of these emails is about sport, but I don't really know. You just don't understand what it is. Because I don't know enough about sport. I mean, I don't know something about sport.

Oh, yes, here we go. I found it. Yeah, okay. 28th of April. Update on our slur policies. See, it lost me a dear AFL community. Ah, yeah, that was it. Yeah.

You'd think they would get the Melbourne audience excited. Everyone in Melbourne follows the AFL. Yeah, it's heavy-handed. sarcasm with a story that I don't really understand. Yeah, right. Okay, well, and I suppose that that gives you an insight into what people who don't follow politics must think of the chaser normally. Like, you know, it's heavy-handed sarcasm with a dose of politics, right?

And sort of all this stuff that, you know, so maybe we should just empathise. But should we talk about something sort of more in our wheelhouse, Dom? Well, I thought we might actually get on to. Oh, yeah. The celebrity fan, just to be clear what this is about, there's an homophobic slur that's been used by a young player from the Brisbane Lions. That's what that story seemed to come.

So it's also about Queensland. And were we in favour of the homophobic slur or against it? I think the chaser was against. Right. I think that's the idea. Yeah, no, it's, I think I must have been surviving after this. I'm sorry. Despite being a co-founder.

No, look, what we can talk about, which is probably more relevant to most of our listeners, Yes. Even though I'd happily talk about Arsenal for the next hour, Kirstama, the celebrity fan of my team. Is he out? I mean, he posted something saying, yay, 22 years we're champions. And everyone just, just the replies included,

you're not allowed to support Arsenal anymore to don't get distracted from writing your resignation speech. So I think that, and I'm about to be proven wrong, I'm sure, but to me, I think Keir's Tamer might be a fucking genius, right? Really? Because the thing that I have never understood about any of these leadership spills, right? In both Australia and the UK, right, is that usually, especially in the UK, it actually requires the leader to agree to step down to the still to come on.

And that also happened, I don't know whether you remember that Malcolm Turnbull was under lots of pressure when he was Prime Minister. And the thing that actually ended up bringing him down was he agreed to have. have a vote about whether there should be a spill, but he could have equally just gone, nah, I'm not going to have that vote, right? And it was his prerogative. Like he had to sort of say, okay, well, I'll bring on this spill to bring on the spill that then led to his downfall, right? What Kirstama has done, which I think is fucking genius.

And I don't understand why, you know, politicians didn't think of this hundreds of years ago is Kirstama's just gone, no, no, I'm not letting, no, I'm just not going to stand down. I'm just not going to do anything that helps you. Like, you're going to have to just dislodge me. You're going to have to blow me out with some TNT at this position, right? And not only that, for months, he's been standing in the way of all the charismatic people who want to take over from. Are they charismatic people?

Yeah, well, there's one. They've identified somebody in Northern England. He's not part of anything at the moment. Andy Burnman is his name, Nigel Farage? Well, Nigel Farage. Raj will probably be in jail by the time of the next. Oh, really? I put a pin in that one.

So, Keir Starma won a stonking victory, to use an English term. It was only July 2024. Like, he's not even two years in. Yeah, that's right. And aren't they five-year terms over there? So isn't he... Yeah, there's five-year terms. He's not even halfway through.

So the notion that he has to go because of council elections where reform did well and then he can't turn around the next three years is a big call. Although, I would say, based on the last two years, you'd have to say he almost certainly can't turn. I was going to say, despite the total lack of evidence since the victory. The Chaser Report, news you know you can't trust. I've never seen anyone so immediately pivot to being underwhelming. And one of the, well, and the thing is, and the reason why is,

because during the council elections, they went and did vox pops in sort of, actually previously traditionally labour places, like, Wigan was one of the places when they did a whole of voxpops. And the level of animosity towards Kirstama is nothing like you'd ever see in Australia. Like even at the height of the bushfires in 2019 when Scott Morrison arrived home from Hawaii and, you know, no one was shaking his hands. He was beloved compared to what Kirstama was getting in these voxpops. And the reason is because the first act of the Stama government was to cut.

But the subsidy that allowed old people to not die in their homes during winter. Oh, yes. The heating subsidy. The fuel subsidy. Let them actually fund the central heating. Yes. I don't know people know this, but the UK is unpleasant. It's a horrible place to live in unless you've got heat. Yeah.

And Kiyosama got in. Everyone assumed that he'd be a bit of a Labor government, maybe in favour of poor people and old people and, you know, the less well off. And instead he just went, okay, we've got to do some savings. why don't we get rid of the pensioners? He did. He just successfully killed hundreds of them. He brought in austerity, basically. Oh, yeah, yeah.

The exact thing he was elected to stop. Like, he literally came in and went, okay, how am I going to be a Tory? And then became a Tory. And so he was just so behated. I don't know whether that's a word. Well, maybe he made it a word. Yeah.

He's so be hated that there's no dislodging that. Like, there's no, it's not like he's ever going to be able to turn around. Because it's like, I don't know, when you go to a party, right, and you say, oh, okay, now I'm going to put on a whole lot of ABBA really loudly. Yeah. Everyone behates you, right? And then there's no turning around. You can't then turn on some, some Beatles or something.

I love that. Your idea of what would win the crowd around is the Beatles. I don't know. Taylor Swift was, I mean. It's 200 to 300 pounds a year that they were getting. It was a universal winter fuel payment. So everyone got this. Right.

Despite Tory, the fact that the Tories had. cut it during austerity when they cut everything. Tells you a little bit, doesn't it? Yeah. And so a lot of people died. But look. But for the greater good, is that the argument that he made? Their sacrifice was he.

So Andy Burnham. So Andy Burnham's the mayor of Manchester. A few months ago, somebody died. And there was a place open where he could have run for Parliament and become a member of Parliament and threatened Kirstama. Kirstama at the time blocked that. Just went, nah, you're not running. Fuck off.

So he may not be able to run the country, but he's actually very good at stopping anyone else. He's better than him running the country, right? Like, I think that's one of his core competencies, right? And then now Andy Burtum's going, well, fuck this. I am going to run because somebody has actually resigned up in Manchester, specifically to let Andy Burnham run so that he could take on Kirstama. The thing that's going to happen this time around is Kirstama has crashed the popularity of the Labour Party so hard that it seems likely that Andy Burnham,

who's actually quite charismatic and good, will lose to reform. We'll lose to reform in this little by-election, and then Kea Stama gets to hold onto it. So I think he should be prime minister for life. I'm just looking at this Charles in detail. The week, which our friend Arien worked for for a long time, I think he still does,

has the five moments where it all went wrong for Stama. And they're pretty extraordinary. Do you know what changed his mind on the winter fuel subsidy? which they still haven't completely restored. They brought it back for many people. MPs were saying that a year in, everyone still keeps talking to us about this, and they did some testing,

and they discovered that the only thing that people could remember about Labor's year in office was that they cancelled the fuel subsidy and that all these people had died and so on. That was one of them. But then I'd forgotten the other thing, which is you've got to hand it to Geoffrey Epstein. That guy was amazing at bringing governments

into huge popularity problems. I mean, they appointed Peter Mandelson as U.S. ambassador. They knew he had links to Jeffrey Epstein, and they went ahead anyway. There were emails that Stama was CCed on about Epstein and Mandelson, and they went ahead and appointed him anyway. Yeah, and Kirstarmer basically went, no, this is a captain's call. It's fine. Trust my judgment.

I'm going to exercise my judgment here. Yeah. If there's one person, one time I'm just going to, if there's a line, you can't cross. It's appointing a mate of Jeffrey Epstein's to be U.S. ambassador. And look, maybe he thought that that would mean was the one thing that could win Donald Trump back. Anyway.

But then the other, so there's Andy Burnham is one of the competitors. The other guy who seems a bit interesting is this guy called Maddox. Oh, yeah. I think he's John Maddox or something. And the funny thing about him is he's a right-winger, right? And apparently on the British Labor Party, right-wing is standard. no chance at all. But this guy's interesting because he can communicate.

No. What? Yes, he can string a sentence together. And he's one thing that he's hanging everything off on, which I must admit it sounds like a pretty compelling idea, is that Brexit was a complete fucking catastrophe and that England should just do whatever it can to get back into the EU. I mean, a lot of people think that, including both of the rest is politics presenters. Yes. And also all the people who voted for Brexit. Remember, the Brexit vote was like over 10 years ago now.

A lot of them would have died mainly out of cold because of Kirstama. I would think so. I would think so. But also, you know what? Because they were all the old people. You know, you remember Michael West, the Aussie Jano? Michael West Media. Michael West.com?

Yeah, yeah, Michael West Media. Crusading kind of news website and so on. His sister was the first person out of the blocks taking on Kirstama. So you've actually got a. an Aussie who went to Ravenswood in Sydney. It was a student of University of Sydney undermining the British government. It's a great payback, don't you think?

Yes, that's right. I mean, very well done to her. Yeah. So I would love it if we had an Australian-born, I don't think she'll be a leader. I think she's sort of there as a stalking horse. But if due to some sort of... Stephen Bradbury style.

Yeah, if there was a Stephen Bradbury moment, you know, an Australian-born British Prime Minister, I think that we could get behind. We could really do the place some damage. Yeah, and then we'll... We just start dismantling the place from within. We'd do all these things that were just terrible. Like we'd get rid of that heating subsidy.

I don't know. We'd point a whole lot of pro-pedophile friends to the cabinet. No, wait a minute. No, no, they'd want to change from the Stama government, I think, would be the idea. Anyway, the point is, like, everyone goes, oh, everything's moving, everything's moving, something's going to happen. I think the point is, Ki-Starma might just be so, like, brilliantly pig-hound. headed. Unfushable, I think the term is.

Yes. He's just the turd that floats around. But you know what he's learned, Charles, to come full circle a little bit. He's just seen today that if you hang on long enough and you fail long enough and you keep believing in yourself no matter what the evidence shows, no matter how widely you are despised by everyone. Because Arsenal are hated, by the way, the moment. 22 years later, you can win again.

So pencil it in. 248 Kirstarmer will win his next victory win his next election We're part of the Iconiclass Network Catch you tomorrow