The Rest Is Politics

Dear both, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra was gently (and wisely) moved aside and is no longer minister for education (since 8 Feb -remained only in her post for 28 days). Yet, she has kept the role of minister for sports / Olympic games so we will carry on talking about her, no doubt. Thank you again for your podcast! Catherine Marshall

Incredibly disappointing in the conversation about Murrell and Nicola Sturgeon, that both Rory and Alasdair were incredulous that she could not have known what was going on and had the gall to trot out the examples of their perfect little partnerships where all is shared and open. It served no purpose. There are many many different forms of partnership and companionship and to suggest that it is the “right” and “normal” thing to do - to share all and know all, is absurd and naive. As Alasdair said, no-one knows what goes on inside a relationship, and just accept that. How many people actually can tell the price of something by looking at it??? How many people notice ??? I am not condoning Murrell in any way, he is a criminal, but I don’t believe it is correct or honest to judge others by your own practices alone. What I find interesting is that the people who attack Nicola are all people who are against independence! (Rory that is an issue that you should keep quiet about too - so bias, and inaccurate - good thing tough, is that listening to you on the subject makes every Scot rush in te opposite direction!

You keep complaining of the rise of the populist, hard right in the large European democracies. But why not spend an episode on the real reasons why European citizens are shifting their political support in that direction? Why not spend some time on the rising discontent/disgust with the political classes and their failure to address citizen’s concerns? And finally, why continue using derogatory adjectives like extreme, populist and hard if those sentiments are becoming the mainstream aspirations of European citizens all over?

I agrée… your analysis of Macron is quite strange for us in France. He is an exemple of a politician pretending to be something else to those like the young and the environmentally conscious, to secure his position before showing his real motivations. Please don’t refer to him as moderate and to the left of the spectrum.. he is a wolf slowly moving france in a direction the majority does not want.