The British Dream

The Tories Are Hot For Labour

Fri, 12 Oct 2018 04:00:49 GMT

She'll deny it if you give her the chance... Let's rip up Theresa May's conference speech.

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Labour is Preparing For Government

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 04:00:02 GMT

It was good, but is it good enough? Let’s rip up Jeremy Corbyn’s Conference Speech!

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How the British Government Splits Children Up From Their Parents

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 11:00:51 GMT

Earlier in the summer the world looked on in horror as Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance border policy led to the separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents. Audio recordings of crying infants and pictures of kids surrounded by border guards could hardly fail to move you.

But do we have the moral high ground in the UK? The separation of children from their parents at the hands of the border system is something that goes on in the UK, but it’s much less well known.

This week the British Dream talks to Nick Beals from Bail for Immigration Detainees, who tells us the group has tried to help 328 children separated from their parents by the border regime in the last year.

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How Far-Right Rhetoric Became the New Normal

Mon, 13 Aug 2018 23:00:00 GMT

Are we seeing the normalisation of fascism? There's a disturbing pattern of politicians making extreme statements, columnists writing apologia for racism, and far-right figures taking to the airwaves for soft interviews with sycophantic journalists.

On the British Dream this week, Simon Childs chats to Hussein Kesvani about what to make of this new reality, and look at how far-right ideology related to mainstream conservatism and gullible journalism.

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Can Northern Ireland End Its Stasis On Abortion?

Mon, 30 Jul 2018 12:00:02 GMT

Remember in the spring when Ireland voted to legalise abortion? People in Northern Ireland do. They remember how everyone looked to Northern Ireland – with its exceptionally harsh abortion laws – and wondered if they would take a similar step.

Northern Irish women took to the streets demanding their rights with banners reading “the North Is next”. With the Conservative government being propped up by the anti-abortion Democratic Unionist Party, it felt like the pressure might even topple Theresa May’s government. Then the news cycle moved on, as ever. But today we’re going back there and asking, ‘what happened with that?’

Goretti Horgan is Policy Director at ARK, a social policy hub started by researchers at Queen’s University Belfast Ulster University. She’s an activist and she gave The British Dream podcast the lowdown on the fight for women's rights in Northern Ireland.

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How Politics Shaped Grime and Grime Shaped Politics

Fri, 29 Jun 2018 04:00:00 GMT

Grime has gone from a music genre that the police tried to snuff out, to one of Britain’s most in demand cultural exports, all the while maintaining its anti-establishment edge. We spoke to Dan Hancox, author of Inner City Pressure: The Story of Grime, about why the genre sounds like a riot that’s about to happen, its adversarial relationship with the state, and its roots in a London taken over by luxury flats and privatised public space. We also chatted about the moral panic currently surrounding Drill and knife crime, and asked whether violent music leads to violence.

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Does Brexit Have to Be Like This?

Fri, 15 Jun 2018 12:00:38 GMT

When the British people voted to “take back control” and leave the EU, you have to wonder if they were doing so looking forward to passing references to technocratic policy detail filtered through a Westminster melodrama, a sort of Tory Battle Royale played out by Jacob Rees-Mogg, Boris Johnson and Anna Soubry, with people’s opinions wielded as a weapon to shut down debate. But here we are. As Brexit shudders on, We spoke to Dr Marina Prentoulis, from Another Europe Is Possible, about the politics, the press and the possibilities.

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What's The Deal With The Left-Wing Anti-Semitism?

Tue, 05 Jun 2018 04:00:27 GMT

In April an obscure, sub-cultural, iconoclastic, left-wing Jewish group called Jewdas made tabloid news by inviting Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to a Seder, in which a beetroot was held aloft as attendees shouted "F**k capitalism". In the context of an anti-Semitism scandal that is dogging the Labour party, this was interpreted as further evidence that Corbyn wasn't taking the problem seriously. Somehow, Jewdas themselves ended up being accused of anti-Semitism. We spoke to two members of Jewdas about being front-page news, where left-wing anti-Semitism comes from, and wether things are getting better or worse.

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The Police's Artificial Intelligence Technology Is Going To Get Better At Spying On You

Fri, 18 May 2018 11:00:51 GMT

"It was disturbing for us to see young people targeted in this kind of way"

Silkie Carlo is a Director at Big Brother Watch, an independent non-profit organisation leading the protection of privacy and civil liberties in the UK. She chats to Simon Childs, Home Affairs Editor at VICE.COM, about how scary the police’s use facial recognition technology is.

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Why the Windrush Scandal Was No Accident

Fri, 27 Apr 2018 04:00:47 GMT

“What gets talked about is immigration and borders—what doesn't get talked about is people and people's lives"

Gracie Bradley is an Advocacy Officer for Liberty, campaigning for human rights in the UK. She chats to Simon Childs, Home Affairs Editor at VICE.COM, about where the Windrush Scandal fits into the Government's "Hostile environment" project.

Recorded 10am on Thursday 26th April 2018.

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Did The Government Create UK Gang Culture?

Fri, 13 Apr 2018 04:00:00 GMT

"Our kids are bearing the brunt of institutional racism and ultimately paying with their lives"

Stafford Scott is a Race Advocacy Officer at The Monitoring Group, an anti-racist charity. He chats to Simon Childs, Home Affairs Editor at VICE.COM, about the knife crime epidemic, the influence of social media on young people, and state racism.

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Uni Students Feel Like Consumers And They Don't Like It

Fri, 30 Mar 2018 04:00:00 GMT

“We are paying to learn how to work in jobs that no longer pay”

Students from all over the UK have joined the University strike in solidarity with their lecturers this year. Hear an oral history from those who have been protesting, hogging the picket lines and running the occupations at Universities around the country. Hosted by Simon Childs, VICE UK's Home Affairs Editor.

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Is The Far Right On The Rise?

Fri, 16 Mar 2018 04:00:00 GMT

So much has changed in far right politics. The British National Party have come and gone, the English Defence League have disappeared, and lord knows what's going on at UKIP. As part of Hate Island, our special investigation into the far-right, Simon Childs, VICE UK's Home Affairs Editor, is in conversation with journalist James Poulter, Broadly Editor Zing Tsing, and Henry Langston, VICE Producer.

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Did The Iraq War Lead To The 2010 Student Protests, And Did The Student Protests Lead To Jeremy Corbyn?

Fri, 02 Mar 2018 05:00:06 GMT

Matt Myers has written an oral history of the 2010 student movement that cast off the cliche of an apathetic youth, embarrassed Nick Clegg, sacked the Tory HQ, but didn’t quite manage to stop tuition fees going up. Simon Childs, Home Affairs Editor at VICE.com, discusses with Matt why the Iraq War and 2010 student movement is helpful lens to look at what’s going on today, particularly because a lot of people who were angry then are movers and shakers in the movement behind Corbyn now.

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Can We Trust Labour's Foreign Policy?

Fri, 16 Feb 2018 05:00:49 GMT

Most people didn’t hear Jeremy Corbyn’s foreign policy speech to the UN Assembly in December 2017. But basically it set out what you could call the Corbyn Doctrine on UK foreign policy for the Labour Party. Simon Childs, Home Affairs Editor at VICE.COM, kicks off the first in our "Speeching" series. It’s all about corruption, solidarity and putting Britain on a level playing field with the rest of the world.

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Is Tony Blair To Blame For Everything That Happened Last Year?

Fri, 02 Feb 2018 05:00:00 GMT

Is Brexit a hangover from Blairism? Are we living through the political comedown after Tony's Britpop party? Richard Power Sayeed, author of the book "1997: The Future That Never Happened" chats with Simon Childs, Home Affairs Editor at VICE UK.

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A Hell of a Year

Thu, 21 Dec 2017 12:00:00 GMT

It’s been a quiet year, with only one of the most surprising elections in living memory to distract us form Brexit, the Grenfell Tower Fire and the Westminster sex abuse scandal, to name just a few. Join the British Dream as we travel back 12 months, to a completely different political landscape where Theresa May was riding high in the polls and Jeremy Corbyn was far from the absolute boy.

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Cough Cough

Fri, 06 Oct 2017 11:33:58 GMT

Join the British Dream to round off conference season with the podcast that the Prime Minister named her vision for the country after. We dive into the content of Theresa May's ill fated conference speech and find out that even if she delivered it properly, it would have sucked anyway. And a conversation with Solomon Hughes, journalist for VICE and Private Eye, who has spent years sniffing around political party get-togethers on the look out for corporate lobbyists and dodgy influence.

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Bunker Mentality

Mon, 18 Sep 2017 11:00:00 GMT

With summer coming to an end and politics whirring back into gear, we’ll finally get some more Westminster podcast fodder soon, but for now we’re still focussing on trivial things like the end of the world. Tune in for an interview with a guy who sells nuclear bunkers, an update on Brexit, and we dissect the weird story of Activate – the so called Tory Momentum.

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#12 What Do the Tories Do Now?

Mon, 14 Aug 2017 11:00:00 GMT

As the summer recess sits uneasily with the potential of nuclear winter, Tories are writing confused think-pieces, while Corbyn is sticking to what he knows, heading off on another campaign tour. We ask what the Conservatives should do next, whether Moggmentum will give the Tories any impetus, and discus nuclear war – Good or Bad? We also head to the Manchester International Festival to hear about whether the youth vote rocked the election.

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Who Is Actually In Charge?

Sat, 08 Jul 2017 08:48:36 GMT

Welcome back to the British Dream. A lot has changed since the election. Jeremy Corbyn is the Prime Minster, except he's not. Theresa May can't be leader, but somehow, technically, she is. Tory austerity is coming to an end, in the form of a £1 billion sop to Northern Ireland to keep the Tories in power. So who's really in charge here? Join us outside the VICE office for a big bag of cans as we try and sort through the mess, and talk to Simon Elmer from Architects for Social Housing about the Grenfell Tower fire, as well as a Emily Stewart, a Brussels insider, to give us the Brexit 411.

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It Was the Young Wot Won It

Fri, 09 Jun 2017 13:00:30 GMT

Well, that was weird. After an election result that Theresa May couldn’t have anticipated and Labour could hardly have hoped for, The British Dream is back to dissect a momentous night and look to a bumpy future.

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Very Accurate Election Predictions

Mon, 05 Jun 2017 11:05:18 GMT

Could anyone really win at this election? While the election seems less of a foregone conclusion than it was, somehow it still feels like ultimately, we all lose. In the week of the election, the British Dream sets itself up as a hostage to fortune, and predicts who'll be in the least worst position on polling day. We promise eat shards of broken glass outside Parliament if we're wrong.

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How the Election Stopped Being a Foregone Conclusion

Fri, 02 Jun 2017 11:03:06 GMT

As the big day gets closer, it feels like a very different election to the one we started talking about a few weeks ago. Theresa May, sweating like she’s taken a bad pill, Jeremy Corbyn looking like he’s mainlining Xanax – what’s changed? We try and suss it out, and interview Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party and consider why the biggest existential threat facing humanity isn’t a blip on the electoral map.

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Voices Of Manchester

Fri, 26 May 2017 11:00:28 GMT

After the atrocity at the Manchester Arena, we headed to the city to hear how people are coping and how people are banding together in grief. We spoke to people in shock, communities refusing to be cowed, and young Muslims determined to show that the atrocity doesn’t represent them.

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Why Do Politicians Never Answer the Question?

Fri, 19 May 2017 10:59:39 GMT

With rigorous academic analysis showing Theresa May giving a straight answer just nine percent of the time, how can we expect to hold anything to account, ever? Maybe all we can do is click the “angry” button on Facebook live. Certainly, it’s difficult to know what to make of the Conservative manifesto, launched this week resembling the order of service at a posh funeral. Conversely, the Lib Dems headed to a nightclub to talk about drugs. Have a listen to the latest edition of the British Dream to catch up on another exciting campaign week.

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Generation Ungovernable

Fri, 12 May 2017 11:07:16 GMT

Welcome to Broken Britain: a housing crisis with no end in sight, hospitals that look like war zones, a welfare state in tatters. This week Theresa May finally spoke about what’s really at stake in this election, saying she’s always been in favour of fox hunting. Less significantly, Labour’s manifesto was leaked on Wednesday night giving the clearest indication yet of what’s on offer to the electorate. We discuss all this and more on this weeks' podcast, and meet France's ungovernable generation – anarchists who were so angry at their political system that they didn't vote in the presidential election.

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Mayday Mayday

Fri, 05 May 2017 11:39:39 GMT

So far this bizarro election campaign has seen Theresa May embarrassing herself, and Jeremy Corbyn surprisingly looking vaguely like he actually wants to be there. Not that anybody seems to care. With the public having the opposite perception, does any of this even matter? Meanwhile in Brighton, angry workers were taking to the streets to make their voices heard about crappy wages and unstable jobs. Theresa May made a scary speech about the EU, and UKIP have taken a shellacking at the local elections. Join us for another episode of the British Dream as we try and find some meaning in all of this.

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Springtime for Jolyon

Fri, 28 Apr 2017 11:01:08 GMT

Strong and stable Strong and stable Strong and stable Strong and stable Strong and stable Strong and stable Strong and stable Strong and stable Strong and stable Strong and stable We discuss the first week or so of the election campaign: Jolyons, bank holiday banter, strong and stable government.

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Oh, Snap

Thu, 20 Apr 2017 10:02:51 GMT

After saying she wouldn't seven times, Theresa May has called a snap election. She's decided that yes, actually, she would like a mandate - so if the people would kindly give it to her she can get on with Brexit and you can't grumble. It's nice of her to ask. Fortunately The British Dream Podcast is here to articulate your hysterical delight, soothe your concerns and pretend to understand what's going on. Recorded on Wednesday 19th April 2017.

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Casual Labour

Fri, 03 Mar 2017 15:03:23 GMT

Following Labour’s less than great byelection results last Thursday, this week kicked off with Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell writing that a “soft coup” against Corbyn was happening, and UKIP was having an existential crisis all of its own. Meanwhile, a video emerged of Uber's CEO arguing with the driver of one of his own taxis, and some Deliveroo riders in Leeds were feeling aggrieved because they weren't getting enough hours to pay the bills.

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