The News Agents: Wes Streeting on class, trans rights and binge drinking

This is a global player original podcast it has been a hell of a week are you okay no

really are you okay I hate to start all holly willoughby but of course it's been a hell

of a week in all sorts of ways and we have covered the ins and outs and ups and downs

of the BBC story Boris Johnson as usual and all sorts so we thought that on this Friday

weekend edition of the news agents we would give you something a little bit different

an extended conversation of one of our extended conversations with politicians and in this

case it is West Street shadow health secretary in Elford MP and it's off the back of what

I think is one of the most extraordinary memoirs that I have read it's called one boy two

bills and a fry up a memoir a tale his story and his wider extended family story outlining

his journey his personal journey from the East End to Westminster and who knows how high he will

rise it is very very unusual to have a politician like that with a story like that and so in this

extended conversation we thought we would explore some of those themes about class politics

Christianity and even a bit of binge drinking it's really worth a listen and we hope you

enjoy it it's Lewis here welcome to the news agents the news agents so where's the boy in

one boy two bills and a fry up is with us in the news agent studio where's thanks so much for

doing this now thanks for having me let's just start with that title just for people who haven't

read it yes what does it mean what does it refer to yes so the book is one boy which is me two

bills and a fry up the two bills are my granddad's one on my mum's side of the family one on my

dad's both of whom i think in some ways epitomized to very stereotypical but different east end

families so on my mum's side of the family the notorious granddad's string of convictions

from robbery in and out of prison throughout my mum's childhood my childhood pops yeah granddad

pops and then on the other side of the family my dad's dad bill streeting royal navy veteran

in second world war civil engineer for his entire life Tory very patriotic yeah absolutely proper

wildcore working class Tory sort of pull yourself up by a bootstraps only ever voted liberal in tower

hamlets to keep labor out that's how staunch a Tory was and then the fry up is the fry up that

literally saved my life because when i was conceived of certainly an accident my parents were both

teenagers they were 18 right 17 18 and my mum decided she was going to keep the baby against all

all kind of pressure on the rest of the family advice in the family and so on the day the abortion

was booked she cooked self-fulfilling this breakfast because the one thing she was told she couldn't

do on the day of the abortion was to eat before the procedure so having that fry up was the insurance

policy i guess that even if my nan kicked off as she did she couldn't go through with it because

she'd eaten breakfast so your nan as you recount the book your nan and other members of the family

were we're not happy they're furious understandably as far as i'm concerned i mean they were my parents

were young their relationship unsurprisingly didn't last and it was only really when i got

to their age i thought having a child at this age is a massive sacrifice i mean my mum and dad

sacrificed a huge part of their youth and your dad didn't raise me your dad was unhappy himself

yeah he didn't want absolutely did not want to be a father wasn't ready to be a father

didn't alter the fact that he was there for me from day one and has been there for me ever since

but i can totally understand how he would have felt at the time which is i'm not ready to be a dad

and yet i've got no agency or choice in this and they didn't have a lot of money yeah no they were

in real poverty yeah i've been sort of trying to find a way of phrasing this question i've been

thinking about it and i've sort of loathed to it in a way because you know this interview is about

you but the thing that i felt reading your book repeatedly i mean it's a great book you know

beautifully written it's very direct and you know it's a it's a real story and it's a very unusual

political memoir in that sense but i've read a lot of political memoirs right and i don't think

i've ever read a political memoir where i have seen and felt a connection to that story in that

way because like you i'm from a working class background my mum was a teenage mum as well

and there were there were real sort of similarities and sort of parallels to it and what i sort of

felt about it is that actually the fact that that's unusual really stood out to me right like

probably like if i were Boris Johnson i've read loads of sort of political memoirs quite a lot

of them are you know they will probably seem quite similar if you're reading a sort of your

Boris Johnson you're reading about Harold Macmillan or Anthony Eden but that tells you something

doesn't it it tells you something about class in this country it does and i'm so glad you said that

because this book wasn't written for the political class the west minster bubble your sort of classic

literary reviewers it was written for people from backgrounds like ours and the best thing for me

apart from the feedback from my family as i was writing it the best reviews i've had have been

from people who've been able to email me because unlike a lot of authors my email address is publicly

available i'm a politician so people can write to me directly and i've been really moved by the

emails and letters i've had from people who've read the book and have connected with parts of the

story because i actually think that publishing is not too dissimilar to politics the media and

other elitist professions in the they are often you know publishing is full of people who are from

more affluent backgrounds largely writing for and publishing for people from more affluent

backgrounds and part of the mission of the book for me and for my editor tom perrin whose idea the

book was actually he approached me with the idea it wasn't my idea at all was that this book was for

and about people from working class backgrounds and more than anything else i hope that they're the

people who buy it most and the kids from my sort of background you know are reading it in school

libraries and the theme of class is dominant throughout the book just in case people don't know

i mean what was your family situation like when you were a kid in terms of money income class the

east end and so on just give people a sense of what it was like it was very difficult growing up

because my parents were young and they were poor i mean my dad had a job in fact my dad's worked

throughout his entire life at that time he had a job as a shipping clerk on what was the bare minimum

wage even in those days my mum was in and out of casual low paid jobs throughout my childhood but

obviously as a young mum she didn't have a job at all and was reliant often on the benefit systems

put food in the fridge money and electric meter and you talk about going down the social as yeah

and that was just a totally dehumanizing experience which i saw firsthand and i think explains why

contrary to a lot of the instincts of the left which is pro-state the role of the state in helping

people from backgrounds like mine actually lots of people feel like victims of the state rather

than supported by it because of the way in which public services relate to them particularly

what was then dss and isn't today the dwp job centers and sometimes my mum was treated like she

was a scum of the earth and i'm afraid to say looking at some of my case work today as a constituency

mp there are still job centers that treat people like the scum at the bottom of their shoe rather

than extraordinary as people extraordinary although it's not extraordinary actually as you say it would

be redolent of a lot of people's experiences every day but there's an extraordinary exchange that you

recount that your mum had with a particular social security or job center work yeah my mum was called

into a room at the back of the dss office which was in itself unusual normally they would interact

through the counter and she was basically sat down and interrogated about her kind of circumstances

and this woman said to my mum don't you realize that we pay for your son out of our taxes

and my mum sort of had enough of this and basically said you know i think you'll find

my mother pays for my son out of her taxes great riposte yeah and this escalated into

point where my mum had had enough and and i think she'd be basically called insolent or

something by the dss officer and my mum my mum turned around and said well you're the most obnoxious

bastard i've ever met in my life and sort of walked out and my mum's main anxiety about that whole

exchange was whether or not the word obnoxious was right in that con section she went home and

looked in the dictionary and sort of breathed a sigh of relief that she got the word obnoxious

right sounds like it was completely spot on she was worried about yeah and there were lots of

i mean i have to give you loads of other examples of some of this in my family dss offices housing

offices and you do see it i'm afraid reflected in some public services does that inform your

politics now it does very much um and certainly informs the way that i run my office and the way

in which my constituency staff relate to people and it also informs the way that i advocate

on people's behalf with some of these public services and it's why i think we in terms of

public services we should never forget that public services are there to serve the public

and to treat people with respect when they encounter them because actually there are a lot

of people facing a lot of hardship who often feel like they're being judged or looked down their

nose by people from more well-heeled middle-class backgrounds who are there on the other side of

things making decisions about the services that they receive but you've already alluded to it i mean

what's more extraordinary even unfortunately than the kind of cliche rags to riches being

working class and making it to Westminster story is it's not just the working class side of your

family on your dad's side which is you say perhaps more traditional working class but on your mum's

side i mean it was actually a family which was involved in quite serious crime it's right both

your nan and your granddad yeah it had really big consequences for the family so when my

nan was pregnant with my mum she was serving time in Holloway prison where she had a prison

cell with Christine Keeler who was at the heart of the profumo affair amazing and they became

lifelong friends actually but it meant my mum was born at the Whittington hospital when my nan

basically handcuffed to the bed and surrounded by prison guards as well as midwives she was

handcuffed to the bed and wow my granddad's criminality had a big impact on my mum's childhood

growing up a very disruptive childhood there was lots of instability at home lots of poverty at

home and domestic violence at home it also had consequences for my nan because she got caught

up in some of my granddad's criminal dealings how she ended up in prison and it had a really big

impact on her life i mean my nan once she got divorced from my granddad she turned her life

around she ran the local tenants association where she lived in whopping she was involved in the

joint docklands action group campaigning against the gentrification of london's dockland she was a

real activist social campaigner she could have been a great labour council or even a labour MP but

she was always ashamed of her criminal record and was worried that it would embarrass her and therefore

her life choices and chances changed so here's a question i struggle with if some people ask me

sometimes what class do you consider yourself to be now class is clearly really important

and this book as i say it's a central theme someone says to you now what class are you what do you

say i would describe myself as being from a working class background leading a middle class life do

you still feel working class now in feel it yes and no i don't think your class ever leaves you

but i wouldn't kind of patronize either members of my family or other people that do not have the

level of security that i have now i mean you know i've got mortgage i'm on a decent income i don't

worry about money in the way that i used to it right up to becoming an MP actually when i left

university had it and finished in the national year students i had loads of debt not just student

debt but commercial credit card debt and i had a career development loan as well so i was sort of

saddled with a huge amount of debt that i only paid off once i became an MP so even though i was on

decent salaries relatively decent salaries in working for different charities in the voluntary

sector it wasn't until i became an MP that i would probably say i had real financial security

but you always feel isn't it the truth about class though is and you've alluded to it in a way

you always feel slightly betwixt and between i mean particularly i mean when you went to

Cambridge i'm sure you felt this especially acutely that you you're always slightly between

two worlds as easily as you might sort of flip between them i don't know about you but when i

went to oxford i always sort of slightly played up to wherever i was i mean this is the only time

this has ever happened right i remember girl oxford saying to me oh louis you're so lovely you're

the college is a bit of rough it's the only time that's ever happened to me believe me and i would

sometimes play up to it did you ever have that well i was never particularly open about my background

in the way that i am now i mean people knew that you know when i went home from university i was

working full time in Comet to pave my way through universities there's a blast from the past yeah

a blast from the past yeah it worked on the customer service this which was which was and mcdonald's

which yeah works at mcdonald's as well during my levels it's funny in a way when i launched my

book a few weeks ago i had this kind of launch event where i had my family school friends

university friends people i've worked with outside politics people i now work within politics

all in the same room and years ago that would have been my worst nightmare of all my worlds

colliding in one place because for years and years i was i was actually ashamed of the poverty that

we grew up in you know certainly when i was at school i was aware that we weren't we weren't as

well off as other kids in in the classes that i was in despite going to in a city state schools in

london i always felt that we were the sort of the sharp end of even the poorer kids in the class

and you know so it's not something i would have talked very openly about and one of the

interesting things about the book is the number of friends you've got in touch say i had no idea

things were this bad do you still feel any discomfort talking about it no actually if you'd

asked me this a week before the book was launched i would have said i was utterly terrified and

nervous about the reaction and white having second i think because in a way for a labor

politician right i mean you will not be unaware that it's it's a pretty good story to tell right

it is rare like we started this in tutang it's a rare thing to have a politician who has come from

genuine poverty who can talk to people authentically about poverty and empathize with them in a way

that millions of our fellow citizens experience every day in a way i'm surprised you didn't want to own

earlier i think my anxiety was that the book isn't just my story it's my parents my grandparents

my family and i did start to have some doubts along the lines of am i now just opening up

my entire family to a level of scrutiny and criticism that normally only i receive as a

politician because we live in a social media age where people are just unbelievably unpleasant on

social media and i've got a skin like a rhinoceros it doesn't particularly bother me anymore and i

tend to laugh at some of the ridiculous things that written about me on the internet but i think

it's different for my family but actually the reaction's been great and i think we've all

sort of breathed a bit of a sigh of relief about it what is the political message of the book because

i can say i mean class is a big theme but in a way you could read and i know you address this

to some extent but you could read your story in two ways right you could say that as we've said

it is a shocking indictment at british society that there aren't more west readings in the house of

commons but of course some people were looking at it and so well look he's pulled himself up by

his bootstraps he worked hard he applied himself he got to cambridge he became the president in us

he became an mp he's now in the shadow cabinet staring down the barrel of being a cabinet minister

in a year or so it's possible for west reading it's possible for others i think consistent with my

center left politics the only sort of really hard political bit of the book is comes at the end

in the conclusion where i basically say look hard work matters individual effort counts and that

isn't acknowledged enough i think on the left but similarly what people on the right of politics

just simply do not understand is that i would not be where i am without the transformational power

of a great state education the security provided by the social housing the safety net that was

provided by the social security system which unbelievably was more generous under mrs stature

than it is under mr sunak and without those foundational pillars there would not have been

the extended east end family networks support my mum when she was doing casual waitressing

or when she needed a bit of extra help with the shopping or the electric meter there would not

have been the mrs dodds and the mr nashes and the other teachers i described in the book

because i would have been shoved from pillar to post and school to school as lots of kids now

are in in our country in my community in particular you know that safety net and springboard of the

welfare state has been eroded and family matters individual effort and hard work matters but in

and of themselves they're not always sufficient and the state has a role to play in you know as

kier put it just the other week smashing the class ceiling that still exists in our country today

and i'm really glad actually that kier and bridger are talking about smashing the class ceiling

because i think that when we were last in government we almost declared victory too early

and tony blare john prescott would talk about a classless society not without justification i mean

the last labor government lifted more than a million children out of poverty school standards i

mean it's one thing that is different now from the 1980s school standards under the last labor

government were transformed in this city in london and although the things have gotten a bit worse

with the attainment gap widening under the tories london schools are still better than they were

in the 1980s but the class divide is still there and we've seen that i think writ large with the

populist politics we've seen in britain in europe in north america and so unless you deal with the

deep entrenched class inequalities in our society you will not get a country firing on all cylinders

you will not have a cohesive country that's at ease with itself and i think we've seen a backlash

in western liberal democracies because political leaders have not taken that class divide seriously

enough right we're going to pick up some of these themes with west reading right after this

this is the news agents

welcome back where's what we talked about class we should talk about some of the other big

elements of the book and sort of themes of your life one of which is really interesting is christianity

and your christian faith and something that you inherited from your dad's dad your grandad

i'm struck there are an unusual number of senior politicians not just in this country but actually

around the world who slightly unusually now given how secular modern britain has become

are religious and for whom religious faith is important do you think there's some

connection between those two things between religious faith and the centrality of it and

politics and the sort of person who ends up in politics you've got to have a sort of drive and a

mission don't you yeah although i'd say that that driving mission and values don't have to be

informed by faith and there are other people i sit around the shadow cabinet table with or in the

parliamentary labor party or actually more broadly across the house of commons with who would not

describe themselves as being remotely religious but maybe it gives a sort of have a kind of an

ethical foundation and a moral mission about what they want to do one of the reasons i'm

now talking about my christianity more is first and foremost i'm at ease with it and at ease with

myself in a way that i wasn't when i was growing up i wasn't even when i came out as gay at university

it's taken me a long time to reconcile my sexuality and my faith and i have done that so i'm comfortable

talking about both issues more than i than i was i mean you describe it in the book that was very

tough yeah that was the biggest obstacle to me coming out was my faith and i'm keen to talk about

that more partly to religious audiences than to the secular public the other reason why i'm keen

to talk about my faith more is actually more directed towards the secular public because

i'm really fed up with people only ever hearing about people of faith in politics when they are

invoking fire and brimstone to vote against people's social rights and equality we've seen a bit more

of that of like yeah and i'm sick of it and i think we see the worst bit in america where for

reasons i cannot understand a bunch of gun-toting lunatics seem to think that if jesus was alive

today he'd be carrying an ak-47 i'm going for trump and vote for trump i mean i don't know what they're

reading or what they're smoking but i that's not the message of the gospel that i take

but even here in britain i kind of see too often the headlines associate christianity with opposing

a woman's right to choose or voting against lgbt equality i've totally you know respect people's

orthodox religious views on those issues but for me the message of christianity is fundamentally

about love care and compassion for others and social action and when i think about what i see in my

own constituency which is one of the most religious constituencies in britain with you know christians

muslims jews Sikhs hindus buddhists who got some zoroastrians all living alongside each other

i associate faith in my community with social action with action on homelessness with running

food banks with fundraising for international disaster appeals and i think that's the fundamental

motivation of people's faith not kind of invoking kind of hatred and bile up people who are different

well you've talked about that and talked about people invoking that sort of fire and brimstone

thing i mean do you feel that maybe we are sliding a little bit in terms of social conservatism

and around lgbt rights that there's something in the air at the moment we see it may be involved

in certain news stories we see in terms of some of the rhetoric that we're hearing not just in

america but here in britain around lgbt rights yeah i must say the recent years have shaken my

almost inexhaustible optimism that things can only get better and nice blur reference well you

know that's that was the zeitgeist of the 1990s and that was the mood and the optimism that i was

sort of coming of age around in politics and and actually just in terms of my own identity as well

you know labor was busy changing laws and hearts and minds on lgbt equality and created a culture

where i felt more comfortable coming out and now it feels like the lgbt community is being

reminded that the clock can be very easily turned back and even in the conservative party where

i applauded david cameron for being the prime minister that supported equal marriage even though

majority of his conservative nps voted against it he took a stand and he recently wrote a piece in

which he described his pride at being the prime minister who oversaw the introduction of equal

marriage i can't imagine rishi sunak writing such a piece and i think his party is descending very

rapidly into of a diet version of the worst elements reactionary elements of the u.s republican party

and by some of the things some of them are saying and the deafening silence from from others i mean

with some honorable exceptions where are the one nation tour is where is the moderate mainstream

of the conservative party where modern conservative tradition that took them from opposition to power

they're cowed by they're cowed by the populace in their own ranks and i think the risk at the next

general election for the conservative party it's and for conservative voters who are much more

mainstream is you might think you're going into vote for rishi sunak but are you sure he's still

going to be there if the conservatives are the largest party or in the position to win a majority

or is he going to be replaced with a more extreme conservative leader i think the conservative party

is becoming a basket case and i think that's another reason why at the next election the

risk isn't changed with a new government led by kia starma the risk is continuity with the

conservatives more of the same in terms of a weak economy and failing public services and

growing inequality but also a risk that they will once again change their leader to an even worse

face of the conservative party than rishi sunak do you think wider society may be egged on by that

buoyed by it in some way do you think wider society or our discourse is taking a more homophobic

turn i mean you'll be aware that there were some people who argued not getting into the

particulars of it that at least some of the noise around say the scofield scandal was because this

was a gay relationship and that it would have been treated differently if it were a man and a woman

i'm not sure about that actually i'm not sure about that if it was you know an older man and

a younger woman i think people would still be concerned about the appropriateness of a relationship

but i would certainly say that there is a culture in this country at the moment that's making the

lgbt community feel unsettled trans people in particular but i think it applies to the wider

lgbt community and in terms of where we are on trans equality there are some difficult issues that

need to be worked through in terms of children and young people and how we can best support

children who are questioning their gender identity and making sure they're receiving

appropriate support there are issues in terms of the anxiety that some women's groups and

campaigners have about single sex spaces and i think what we saw in terms of the gender

recognition act in scotland and the case of that prisoner who identified as trans

but do you regret the tone of that debate at the moment yeah i think we can do a lot better on

tone and if we get the tone right we'll get to better outcomes because i think what the

Scottish gender recognition reforms showed was why you can't just legislate with good intentions

you do have to legislate with worst-case scenarios in mind because i think lots of women felt gas

lighted when they were concerned about well what happens if a male sex offender chooses to self

define as a woman and how will they be treated in such a scenario you do have to work through

those scenarios because the law has to protect people against the worst elements of society

not just hope for the best and i think we could have a much more reasonable conversation if we

were a bit more open and honest and creating a culture where people can raise concerns without

fear of being silenced and shut down and similarly you know thinking about this from

you know the trans rights side of of the debate we often have these discussions absent of trans

voices and i think if we saw and heard more of trans people in the media on the airwaves

talking about their lived experiences their anxieties i think that would generate much

more understanding empathy and insight that would enable people to have a much better

conversation about the challenges and the issues talking about empathy and insight i mean in terms

of the tone it was only a month or two ago that the home secretary was at a conference which i was at

and she made a joke about trans people she made a joke saying that kia starman might

you know transition you know the next thing we know he's flip-flopping around all over the place

i paraphrase but that was the thrust of it i mean in terms of the tone change i mean we are it feels

to me heading into a pretty dark place sometimes with some i just i think it's so unedifying to see

some of the most powerful people in our country punching down and using as punch lines and punch

bags some of the most vulnerable people in our society i think the prime minister is guilty of

it i think the home secretary is guilty of doing it and i think it demeans them demeans their office

and frankly rishi sunak saying oh i i know what a woman is well if you know what a woman is why

maternity services in this country is so appalling that women describe childbirth as a traumatic

experience and are not receiving the care they need often being diverted to different hospitals

than the one they were expecting to give birth in because there aren't enough midwives available if

you know what a woman is why are so many women afraid to walk down the streets at night because

there aren't police around there aren't world lists and safe streets for women to feel that they can

do normal things and go about their lives without fear of harassment or worse still violence i think

often these cultural issues that they're trying to use as a wedge are also about distracting from

their appalling record on the things that count and i would just add to the very long list of

reasons why the conservative party is a bust of flush and ready for opposition is that they don't

want to talk about how you're going to deal with the cost of living and improve people's incomes

and livelihoods they haven't got a plan to rebuild the nhs out of the ashes of its worst crisis in

history they haven't got a plan to make sure kids are well supported and educated in our schools

they've failed on all the fundamentals and they hope that by stoking some culture was over here

that people be distracted and i just don't we're certainly not going to fall for that in the labor

party but i don't think the country will fall for it because i think this country for all of the

challenges we've got at the moment this is a country full of fair-minded decent and compassionate

people i think are turned off by this behavior so given we're just in the privacy of the news

agents studio hq working-class lads usually very ambitious what's the upper limit for your ambition

where's would you like to be labor prime minister you might be the most working-class prime minister

labor has ever had if you were to achieve that summit is it something you'd like to do people

talk about your ambition a lot you know that why is get this i always get asked this question which

why i find it so tedious now because there's no good way of answering it i mean i always answer it

honestly and then i end up seeing these silly headlines saying you know streeting reveals

ambition i mean every politician wants to be prime minister what streeting reveals ambition to be

prime minister and then loads of my friends roll their eyes and say how's this news but there's a

serious point here which is i have a leadership role in the labor party i think we can win the

general election which given where we were in 2019 is nothing short of a miracle not under any

illusions that one of the reasons we've got wind in our sails at the moment is because of the Tory

disaster the smp implosion but i'd also say the only reason we've got sails on the ship at all is

because of kia's leadership i think he has gripped the labor party taken it from its worst christ in

history changed it fundamentally to a point where people now look at the labor party and see him as

a credible prime minister us as a credible team and the party as a credible party of government

he deserves so much more credit than he gets if the only thing i have achieved in politics is being

the health secretary who takes the NHS from its worst christ in history to building an NHS that's

fit for the future that will that will be more than enough for me and by the time i finish doing

that there'll probably be a new generation that come through and say all right thanks grandad you

can go and write your next book now the next bit of the memoir the second fry up we start with class

i'm going to end with class we said there aren't that many ways streetings in the house of commons

do you ever look around the house of commons and some of the people that you meet

and in whitehall at the top of british society and think how did you get here that maybe i always say

i always say to students actually if ever you're struggling with imposter syndrome you can just

turn on bbc parliament channel and you'll see a bunch of legislators who will make you feel so

much better about your own qualities and abilities having said that and being rude about some of my

colleagues it's fine keep going i do think for all the cynicism most people in politics are in it

for the right reasons are good people trying to make a difference and we might disagree on the

best way to do that that's the space in which democratic politics is contested but i have been

this is your tori grandad yeah yeah it is a bit you know also i've just seen a few things recently

where people have talked about you know marie black did this when she said i want to get away

from the toxic culture of westminster now i'm not not for me to speak for marie i think she's very

clear about where she stands that's obviously how she feels and i've quite a lot of admiration for her

and the way she kind of spoken up in the last eight years but i also think westminster

can also be a very kind place when i was going through my experience with kidney cancer i had

an outpouring of love and support on all sides of the house of commons i think that this is the

best job i've ever had in my entire life it's a privilege to be a member of parliament and i would

hate people to read the headlines about the worst of westminster and allow those headlines and those

behaviors to put them off because we have got a problem with bullying we have got a problem with

harassment we have had problems over the years with basic trust whether broken promises or expenses

no sorts of issues but that is still a minority of behavior and i'd say to people if ever you

turn on the tv and you see someone in politics that you think shouldn't be there or doesn't

represent you be the change you want to see if you are reading about behaviors in politics that you

think are appalling come and get involved and help us clean up the culture my anxiety is that

it'll be people from underrepresented backgrounds who see those headlines and think oh that's not

for me and those people who think that's not for me are exactly the people we should be trying to

attract so absolutely finally shadow health secretary the reason i've got a dash right now

as much as i'd love to talk to you all day is because i'm going to get a flight to my stag party

and understand from your book that everything in moderation you're a bit of a binge drinker

i'm your health secretary so what what should i be imbibing on my upcoming stag start off with

some still water oh here we go glass of milk to line your stomach when was the last time you had

a glass of still water shadow health secretary when you were at about still water down here well

yeah we don't normally provide booze but i think we should actually be quite nice other be so much

more fun emily make this is always on the app or all spritz in the when she's usually sat in that

if anything's ever going to get me in trouble in politics it is my tendency to answer questions

honestly and to be quite blunt and direct about things when i do so thank you to simon hatston

when he did the interview for me around my book we were out walking down white chapel road and

looking for a pub that was open and i sort of confessed to being a binge drink for a night

it's her favorite tip oh i think it tends to be a pint of lager or a packet of gin and slim or a

snowball i'll tell you what i really like now is espresso martinis they're good not a porn star

martini no espresso martini is because i have to keep awake because i'm always so busy espresso

just worked too hard oh you see you got that in there that that's the politician espresso martini

i just say to listeners as shadow health secretary everything in moderation everything in

moderation east em boy to west minster to espresso martini's where's pleasure enjoy exactly one boy

two bills are available in all bad and presumably even good book shops as well yeah good book shops

excuse me is this it was a sunday times bestseller can i just oh yeah he didn't take long before he

got there all right that's a book shop she can't find it in bad but anyway there's no such thing

as a bad book quite so where's thanks so much thank you

this is the news agents right well that is it from all of us for this week i am off to san serrini

on a stag do yeah really remember you can catch up on all our shows from this week on global

player and you can find our new podcast the news agents usa wherever you get your podcast thanks

as ever to our production team on the news agents it is presented by emily where's my fridge mateless

john shut the fuck up soapel and me louis goodall we'll see you bright and early or hung over an

absolutely bloody knackered on monday have a lovely weekend this has been a global player

original podcast and a persophonica production

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.