Quiet Riot

How can Britain begin to undo the damage to our freedom of movement that Brexit inflicted? Well, we could start with a positive outcome from this week's Brussels meeting between PM Keir Starmer and EC President Ursula von der Leyen. Naomi Smith bangs the drum for musicians, studies the situation for students and ... well, you get the idea. Post-Brexit travel restrictions have been a pain for all a...

Naomi and Alex discuss Baroness Warsi's resignation as a Tory peer and whether that Party is now lost to islamophobia. Plus, why does right wing politics find climate action so difficult. All this, and a BOMBSHELL revelation from Naomi about her undeclared relationship with Lord Waheed Alli. (Also, you must listen to the end. Trust us.) If you can afford to help, you can back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi....

Naomi downloads ALL THE GOSSIP from Labour Party Conference - and juicy it is too - before Alex chats to guest, former Middle East diplomat Arthur Snell, about the situation in Lebanon, Ukraine, and the first UN General Assembly for David Lammy and Keir Starmer as Foreign Secretary and PM respectively. Plus a hilarious WOKEY DOKEY and brand new feature GRIN AND SHARE IT. If you can afford to help,...

Alex goes on a (very calm and reasoned) MEGA RANT about the mass hysteria over a Labour peer giving a make-over to the top team for the election campaign. You don't expect to have the book thrown at you, when you do everything strictly by that book. "We have a comically unserious top tier of political journalists. Most of them have spent the last fourteen years, in a scandal-rich environment, with...

Monica Harding is the hard-working Lib Dem who scared Dominic Raab (remember him?) clean out of the Esher and Walton constituency, and has just been rewarded with an International Development brief in Ed Davey's top team. In our latest Quiet Riot Mini, Naomi Smith gets Monica's take on the Lib Dem conference and on life as a new MP. If you want to hear more about how she took in a new dawn for the...

Naomi and Alex zoom in on the Reform UK Party Conference and consider whether it is possible for Nigel Farage to professionalise the party and rid it of bigots - as he says he wants to do - and whether that makes it more or less dangerous to the health of our body politic. Plus a whistle-stop tour of other news, including the allegations agains Al Fayed and Harrods and the extraordinary scandal en...

A FUN mini edition of Poll The Other One, in which Naomi digs into the cross tabs and break points of a frivolous aspect of a very serious piece of polling: How does your favourite takeaway correlate with your age, location, party preference, and even newspaper of choice? Which are the only constituencies where 'chicken shop' is Top 3? What is a Sun reader's fave takeaway? And why will so few of u...

Recorded live at the Radio Academy Festival 2024, Alex and Naomi, along with special guest, comedian and impressionist, Rory Bremner discuss #frockgate and Starmer's generally falling popularity and problem image, a second attempt against Trump's life and his lies, as well as a guide to Party Conferences. Plus regular features You Gotta Troll With It and Wokey Dokey. If you can afford to help, you...

Naomi and Alex talk through the weeks news, including the NHS report, winter fuel payments, the OBR report into national debt and immigration. And they speak to special guest, former UK-US ambassador Sir Kim Darroch on the latest Russian threats over Ukraine and the US Election. WHAT A PACKED SHOW! If you can afford to help, you can back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi. Sir Kim Darroch on Trump's plan to end...

Scottish politics klaxon! This bonus episode is a real treat for Quiet Rioters, featuring the insight and wisdom of Strathclyde University politics professor Sir John Curtice. Sir John, Britain's best-known polling expert, is a regular fixture on TV and radio (for those of you who still watch telly...) and no election night is complete until he has cast his eyes over the political landscape. Naomi...

Alex and Naomi, along with wonderful guests Alexis Conran and Simon Radford, discuss the fallout from Trump's "They're Eating The Dogs" humiliation by Kamala Harris. Followed by a discussion of why is regualtion of the gambling industry so lax, considering the lives gambling addiction destroys. Plus the return of Arlene On Me. If you can afford to help, you can back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi. Simon: “Th...

Alex gives his sleepless review of the Harris-Trump debate - complete with the best (and worst) clips and renders his verdict. If you can afford to help, you can back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi. "So, DID SHE LOOK LIKE A PRESIDENT? I’m not sure. We associate so much of what makes a leader with masculinity - and often toxic masculinity. She didn’t look like a President because no President has ever looked...

Naomi and Alex review the week's news, including the Grenfell report, Green Party conference, Tory leadership contest, Russia's election interference, Johnson's annoying columns, and Starmer's visit to Ireland. They're then joined by Cripps partner, chair of UK French Foreign Trade Advisors and Chevalier, Olivier Morel, to talk through the shock appointment of Michel Barnier as french PM. If you c...

Electoral changes are a-coming in Wales, but that's not the only challenge facing politicians in Cymru. It's a country of contrasts, from the rugged scars of the Valleys and the beauty of Bannau Brycheiniog to the urban bustle of Cardiff and Swansea, and the bookish haven of Hay-on-Wye. Naomi Smith is joined by journalist Will Hayward for a timely stock-take of political life in a part of the coun...

Naomi and Alex, with the LSE's Professor Paul Dolan, and More in Common's Luke Tryl, make their way through the news - including the Grenfell report, changes in how schools are assessed, and the Tory leadership race. And then we talk happiness. What is it? Why do we feel less of it? And how can we get happier in a polarised world. An illuminating and uplifting conversation. HELP US KEEP MAKING THI...

Pollsters got the result and party shares broadly right - the one significant error across the board was an overestimation of the size of Labour's vote. Why? Naomi looks at the data trickling through - some of it EXCLUSIVE and yet UNPUBLISHED - to glean why. Part of the answer seems to be a misrepresentation of Muslim voters and the more-prominent-then-usual presence of "late switchers" away from...

Alex and special guest, journalist Annette Dittert in Berlin, go behind the dramatic headlines to discuss what yesterday's victory of the far-right extreme party Alternative für Deutschland in the Federal election in the obscure region of Thuringia actually means. What are the implications for national German and European politics and especially the war in Ukraine? A deeply insightful discussion,...

Naomi (SHE'S BACK! YAY!) and Alex try to look behind a wall of very mixed signals from Labour on the EU. Is there a sophisticated strategy in play? Or a tug of war between the economically obvious and the politically toxic? And is it a cowardly betrayal of Remain, as the Guardian asserts – or a dastardly reversal of Brexit as the Express believes? IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO CONTRIBUTE, PLEASE DO. Click...

Naomi and Alex review the latest Alien interquel from the London IMAX - and talk about the politics of the franchise, more generally. IF YOU CAN AFFORD TO CONTRIBUTE, PLEASE DO. Click here to back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi. “Aliens was made a few months before Wall Street. And you really can see that anxiety: Is capitalism now too rampant? Almost forty years later, that creeping fear, that suspicion, th...

Alex, Kenny and guest TIME Magazine's Yasmeen Serhan, discuss Keir Starmer's moRose Garden speech, whether the difficulties were predicted or are additional, whether the rhetoric is expectation management or augurs Austerity 2.0. Palestinian-American, Yasmeen Serhan then leads a hugely illuminating conversation on the US Election and why so many Arab-Americans remain Uncommitted to Kamala Harris....

An enriching and uplifting conversation with Professor Harvey Whitehouse, chair of social anthropology and professorial fellow of Magdalen College at the University of Oxford. We come equipped with three deeply ingrained biases: tribalism, religiosity, and conformity. How do we overcome them? By working with them, says Whitehouse in his new book: INHERITANCE. Nothing is off the table, as Alex chal...

Alex talks through every aspect of BlueSky, from its genesis to how it may look familiar but is a completely different model of social media, to what is coming in the short and medium future, with its Chief of Operations in the San Francisco head office, Rose Wang. Hidden features, hints on curating your feed, tips on etiquette ... it's all here. Click here to back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi. “We are exp...

Alex and special guest Brian Klaas, with their 30-minute review of the entire Democratic National Convention - complete with the best clips. Can the Democrats maintain this momentum? Can Trump find anything that will stick - or will he turn on Vance? What next before the first Harris vs Trump debate in September? TW Testimony of rape survivor. Click here to back Quiet Riot on Ko-fi. “A lot of Demo...

Is there a glimmer of light at the end of the (Channel) tunnel for young Britons wanting to travel more freely in Europe? This week's headlines hinting at a Youth Mobility Scheme suggest there may well be, and polling tells us that even old Brexity types aren't against helping Generation Z win back some of the European travel freedoms that us oldies took for granted before You Know What happened....

Naomi and Alex, with guest Sir Vince Cable, discuss the lack of policy flesh on the meat of an American election that seems all about vibes. Meanwhile, the new Labour government seem willing to devise an industrial policy - but it will take more than words. Rachel Reeves bought into BIDENOMICS - but with Biden gone, and Harris more mercurial, is that still a thing? Click here to back Quiet Riot on...