The Trawl

Marina's back from holiday and the Trawl ladies barely know where to begin. They start with a quick GB News debrief - a roll call of presenters who've been suspended or sacked, and then it's straight into political nitty gritty.  Apparently we're a nation of drivers and Labour (who haven't been in power for 13 years) have waged a war on motorists? Jemma and Marina hadn't noticed this war and are a...

It's been a particularly ludicrous week in Tory Britain. And that's saying something. Jemma and Marina plough through what feels like some sort of political fever dream. Starmer has announced he wants to renegotiate the Brexit deal, only we're pretty sure no one's told the EU and, unless we re-join the single market, is there any point just tinkering round the edges? Watch out everyone, Truss is o...

This Trawl focuses entirely on the recent allegations against Russell Brand. Jemma and Marina deliberately don't go into any of the detail outlined in The Times piece or C4 Dispatches as obviously the subject matter could be fairly triggering for some listeners. Instead, they take a look at the varying reactions to the allegations and discuss why they might be so polarised. It seems that everybody...

This episode of the Trawl features a fine mixture of people soiling themselves on telly and also being magnificent, starting with Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly doing the former while being quizzed on Tory maths by Good Morning Britain's, Kate Garraway. Then you're in for a treat - with some pure Trawl gold courtesy of GB News presenter (if you can call him that), Martin Daubney, who demonstrat...

This Trawl is a trawl in it's simplest form - a meander through clips and tweets that have caught Marina and Jemma's attention. First up, Johnny Mercer has posted a picture of his child which led to a lot of Twitter (or X) questions surrounding privacy, permission and safety. The mere mention of the Mercer's leads nicely into a chat about the fierce Carol Vorderman magazine cover in The Times last...

It's back to school week, or at least it is if you don't go to one of the 104 schools which have been deemed unsafe due to crumbling concrete. If you were in a position of power and had been warned for years that school buildings weren't safe, what would you do?  Jemma and Marina are hot and bothered, in the week when Britain went all Club Tropicana weather wise - only the drinks aren't free, noth...

The Trawl Meets is a brand new series. Each month, Jemma and Marina will meet someone they admire and find interesting. Their first guest is Dale Vince. Jemma and Marina first became aware of Dale when he appeared on Question Time and spoke persuasively on wealth taxes and climate issues, leaving his Tory opponent looking utterly flummoxed. When Dale’s not sticking up for what’s right by doing the...

Marina opens with an idea... one inspired by the Tory Government last week. Though the ladies can't see it flying outside of Westminster - just like most of the shenanigans they get up to, which would never be acceptable in the real world.  Then it's good news! Well sort of good news, well, maybe not quite... after Ofgem lowered the energy price cap. Though as always with this Govt and its client...

Jemma and Marina open on the latest from kiss-gate featuring Spanish player, Jenni Hermoso and Spanish FA president, Luis Rubiales, and the plot twist that no one was expecting. Then they cross over the Atlantic to discuss that mug shot...though is it the most famous in the world? Marina thinks it has contenders. The ladies discuss the hilarious fall-out from Trump's fourth arrest including the fi...

It's an odd opener in this episode - as it's not every day you hear news broadcasters laughing at people dying on air. But it is a clip from GB News, so perhaps not so surprising after all... Then it's onto the education minister, Gillian Keegan showing that she doesn't actually care all that much about education, when she implied that there's no need to care so much about A-Levels because in 10 y...

Jemma and Marina open with a tribute to Parky, plus a few of his best bits, including one clip that showed he may have shared some Trawl values. Then it's onto some of the reaction to the Lionesses reaching the World Cup Final - brace yourself for the clip of Andrew, who called into LBC to offer some opinions that made Jemma think that perhaps Andrew has never had a girlfriend - or indeed friends....

Jemma and Marina are so blown away by Russ Jones' 'Week In Tory' thread on Threads, they set some of it to music to open this episode. After, there's time to wish the lionesses luck, before diving in to the latest Tory calamity. You see the same government who bought you 'Stop The Boats' week, decided to bring you a sequel. This time it's 'NHS Week' and they're celebrating our National Health Serv...

It's August so the news is slow and the papers and the debate shows are scraping barrels for topics. And yet, Marina and Jemma are confident they've still found enough content for two Trawls this week. This one begins with a few bad 'politician turned journo' takes, including one from Boris Johnson who insists on labelling Britain as 'Brexit Britain' which doesn't feel like a moniker to boast abou...

Jemma and Marina open with a segment on businesses being bells... First Just Eat have a moment, then a PR company gets itself in a pickle after trying to get a bakery to work for free in return for celeb exposure. Last time they checked, exposure doesn't pay the bills. Then the ladies shine a light on radio hosts not taking any shit - and with Tory MPs doing the media rounds, there’s a lot of it t...

Jemma and Marina are back from Wilderness Festival where, if Jemma's voice is anything to go by they might have slightly overdone it. Still, fully recovered, they're ready to Trawl and start by regaling the Twitter (X but who's ever going to call it that?) tale of Georgie Grier. Georgie took to her socials with a teary face when only one person turned up to her show at the Edinburgh Fringe. Cut to...

Jemma and Marina have noticed that Carol Vorderman is getting under the skin of all the right people. In fact, the more Carol holds the government to account, the more the right-wing press sharpen their pencils. The more Carol spits facts, the more vitriol she’s exposed to on social media. In this trawl Marina and Jemma ponder why and read out some tweets which wholly champion her efforts. It’s ca...

The ladies open with a brief, but apt, reaction to the continuous wall-to-wall coverage of Farage and his bank account woes, and touch upon the high-calibre nature of some recent GB News bookings.  Then it's a trip down memory lane to Cop 26 - when the UK hosted and championed a global summit committed to achieving net zero. Fast-forward to three Prime Ministers and one Uxbridge and S.Ruislip by-e...

The episode opens with Marina reminding Jemma how she once hoped that Sunak taking over might have resulted in the adults being back in the room. Update: they're not.  Because this week Sunak put out a tweet that proved he's just as base as 30p Lee...just wears a more expensive suit.  Then, let the Barbie chat commence - and what a weekend it was for cinema with two huge summer releases. Joyful. T...

Jemma and Marina open with tributes to the BBC's George Alagiah and singer Sinéad O'Connor who we both sadly lost this week - RIP.  Then it's onto a story that has rightly been dominating the news this week (apart from the frog-faced old man who can’t bank with Coutts) - and that's climate change. They chat through the hot (and not so hot) takes of what's happening in Rhodes and Palermo, with expe...

Jemma and Marina open with a toast to the 10th anniversary of the Same Sex Marriage Act - the way Cameron and Sunak have been tweeting about it would make you think the Conservatives are to praise for it - spoiler: they're not.  Then it's on to the trade deal of the century - the £12 trillion trade boost to the UK via the CPTPP! What joy...the ladies ponder what the Conservatives will spend it all...

Jemma and Marina discuss the devastating Conservative by-election results - or as GB News optimisically put it:  Rishi Sunak AVOIDS horror triple by-election wipe out. Ok hun...  Johnny Mercer continues his run of revealing himself to be a massive bell by aluding to the 25 year-old Keir Mather who took the Selby seat as an "inbetweener" - apparently he's too young for people to relate to him, to k...

Marina and Jemma are trying to make sense of the BBC presenter scandal, the timing of it, the execution of it, the point of it. They wonder if it might be distracting from more important news, like global warming, the mortgage crisis or Johnson refusing to give up his phone. But, it's trending so they trawl and then there's also the Osborne wedding to discuss. It was all happening for the happy co...

It’s been an interesting week for the Mercers. Tory MP, Johnny Mercer, said repeatedly that if veterans were using food banks it was about ‘choices’. Lovely.  Meanwhile, Johnny’s wife, Felicity, wrote a pretty vicious piece in The Telegraph about Carol Vorderman. Jemma and Marina discuss the inevitable Twitter storm that followed.  Sunak has been busy. He’s had questions to answer although the one...

Marina's back from her holidays. Back to a broken freezer and a load of rotten food, which feels like a great metaphor for the state of the Tory party. To cheer her up, Jemma gives her a few welcome home treats.  There's the audience reaction to the Rwanda plan, the very definition of tumbleweed, a particularly poignant question for Helen Whatley to answer, and some excerpts from Lee Anderson's sh...

It's all kicking off in this episode of The Trawl. Twitter polls are not getting the results pollsters want with hilarious consequences. An MP is using his platform to lay into people in a manner that feels neither fitting nor appropriate. And Johnson's column in The Mail is stoking hatred. Marina and Jemma discuss the submarine tragedy and why it's led to Johnson accusing anyone who was fearful o...