The Trawl

Oil prices soar, the global economy wobbles, and the media politely wonders whether there might still be a master plan inside Trump's helium-filled skull. Marina and Jemma sift through the chaos: Fox News telling the truth, Russia helping Iran and Trump being OK with that and Trump casually flirting with admitting war crimes. But first: a brief cultural detour as Timothy Chalamet manages to annoy...

Oops… he did it again.  This week on  The Trawl , Jemma and Marina are trying to keep up with a news cycle that’s moving faster than the White House can change its story about why it just started another war. Is it about nuclear weapons? Oil? Israel? Distraction? Take your pick, the explanation seems to change by the hour. But first, after a weekend of International Women’s Day posts (an...

Marina and Jemma dive back into the escalating crisis in Iran as Trump and Netanyahu continue bombing, apparently without checking if that’s a good idea with… anyone. As oil prices surge and the world edges closer to something that looks suspiciously like a wider war, the Trawl ladies compare the responses from the leaders of the main UK political parties. Meanwhile, Spain’s Prime Minister shows w...

Join Jemma and Marina who are trying to process the latest news cycle. At time of record, Donald Trump has bombed seven countries in twelve months. Super - really earning that peace prize he's after. Diplomacy with Iran was reportedly within reach just 24 hours before US–Israeli strikes began yet here we are. Still, ignorance is bliss because some Dubai influencers are mainly worried about missing...

This week on  The Trawl , Marina and Jemma enjoy one of life’s small but deeply satisfying pleasures: Nigel Farage losing an election and immediately blaming everyone except himself. Instead of the predicted triumph, Reform got absolutely walloped by a Green candidate who is, among other things, a plumber. Which is awkward when your entire campaign strategy revolves around telling everyone yo...

This week on  The Trawl , Marina and Jemma sift through a news cycle that feels less like global politics and more like a lads’ WhatsApp group with state power. In the US, the Epstein saga takes another disturbing turn as fresh reporting suggests dozens of pages have vanished from the public database — including material relating to allegations against Donald Trump. As questions swirl around...

In this Trawl, Jemma and Marina survey the political carnage and ask: what's Reform's problem with equality? While America wrestles with peak what-the-fuckery, back home “Trump Lite” is workshopping his strongman routine and Reform are busy torching the Equality Act, apparently “for the boys.” Because nothing says protecting young men like removing the legislation that protects them. Then, the Tra...

ALL CAPS were exchanged. Cushions were screamed into. Andrew has been arrested. Jemma and Marina dive headfirst into the breaking news that Prince Andrew was arrested at his Sandringham residence on suspicion of misconduct in public office. The internet did not disappoint. The memes were memeing. The birthday irony was exquisite. The startled-wombat visuals were unavoidable. But amid the satire an...

Jemma and Marina first 'met' Misan on Instagram having been struck by his incredibly powerful photographs of people protesting against what they were witnessing in Palestine.  Misan is a Nigerian-born British photographer, entrepreneur and social activist. As well as being one of the most widely-shared photographers of the Black Lives Matter movement, Harriman is also the first Black man to s...

This Trawl starts with a confession that absolutely nobody asked for. A Norwegian Olympic medallist wins bronze… then goes live on TV to admit he cheated, not in sport, but on his girlfriend. Gold medal in biathlon, emotional own goal in life. Marina and Jemma unpack public guilt, performative remorse, and why the Winter Olympics still feels like a collection of sports invented during a long weeke...

Marina and Jemma pour the champagne, light the cauldron and gather the coven because honestly, what in the hallucinogenic hell is going on? First up: America’s Health Secretary says something truly eye-watering. Then, from villainy to heroism via a brilliant moment highlighted by Vic Derbyshire the Trawl ladies celebrate a woman calmly, powerfully doing the right thing (even if their GCS...

Marina Purkiss and Jemma Forte dive headfirst into the political absurdity of the past seven days and honestly? You couldn’t script it. First up: the US Congress hearing that left jaws on the floor. Attorney General Pam Bondi arrived armed with a massive binder and a promise of transparency and delivered… evasions. With Epstein survivors present in the room, the exchanges were tense, emotional, an...

This week, we start with cursed Valentine’s poetry from...Greg Wallace and a rogue “dangler", before plunging straight into the political sewer. Rory Stewart decides that £94k counts as “low income”, Trump posts a racist video in the middle of the night and then immediately blows up his own press office’s cover story, and Labour descends into full‑blown chaos as Morgan McSweeney finally exits stag...

Olympians dare to distance themselves from Trump, Bad Bunny turns the Super Bowl halftime show into a love-soaked middle finger, and Kid Rock delivers what may be the worst miming incident in broadcast history. Then it gets darker. Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s trafficking network run a Super Bowl PSA demanding the truth while the US government, British media and political class continue to redac...

Marina and Jemma wade through the moral swamp of Reform UK’s latest masterplan: cutting beer duty by keeping children in poverty - because according to them the nation’s biggest crisis is Dave paying £4.80 instead of £4.75 for his pint.  Labour doesn’t escape the drag either, with Rachel Reeves floating the idea that only graduates should pay for their degrees - a policy so anti‑youth it migh...

January nearly finished us off, and February hasn’t exactly come in with flowers. Marina is abandoned in the news‑cycle trenches while Jemma wafts around on a boat, and together they pick through the week’s mess: Marina’s run‑in with Reform, her viral roasting of Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the spectacular failure of the Melania documentary, Bezos’ suspiciously sculpted torso, and the grim, sprawling, st...

For many, comedian and writer, Stewart Lee, is the GOAT so Jemma and Marina were thrilled to sit down with him to chat about the state of the world, how to deal with mad relatives, Brexit, Trump, how he fills his spare time and everything in between.  Lee is described on Wikipedia as having an onstage persona that alternates between 'that of an outspoken left-wing hero and that of a depressed...

Why does Trump obsess over comedians? Why do authoritarian regimes always come for artists first? And why is laughing at fascists one of the oldest forms of resistance we’ve got? In this special edition of The Trawl, Marina and Jemma trace the dangerous present moment back through history from Charlie Chaplin and Marlene Dietrich to Jon Stewart, Jimmy Kimmel and the journalists refusing to blink....

Marina and Jemma are trying very hard not to lose the actual plot while the world insists on setting it on fire. Trump U-turns on tariffs. He insults British troops. ICE kill an innocent man in the street and continue abducting children in broad daylight. Suella Braverman defects to Reform (yes, really). Andy Burnham makes his move. And democracy continues to wobble like a shopping trolley with on...

Trump wants Greenland and he's going to stamp his feet until he gets it. Jemma and Marina look back over a week which has included a lot of tariff threats, 'no comment' on military force, and a President who expects the rest of the world to just… nod along while he makes demands. Marina Purkiss and Jemma Forte wade through a truly unhinged news cycle: from Trump’s Greenland obsession and the fallo...

In this episode, Marina Purkiss and Jemma Forte are rifling through the internet’s sock drawer - separating facts from absolute tat, pairing up what still makes sense, and binning the stray underpants. Talking of stray underpants, Robert Jenrick and Andrew Rosindell are the latest Tories to defect to Reform.  Before that however, the ladies start with the social media trend that is dragging u...

In this Trawl the world lurches from crisis to farce and back again at breakneck speed. Trump is turning Greenland into his latest imperial fixation, NATO's scrambling to respond, while here in the UK we're quietly realising the ole 'special relationship' may be less special than advertised. Meanwhile, the BBC is perfecting its long-standing talent for underreacting to events that could fracture g...

This Trawl starts with some  actual  good news before Marina and Jemma get it into the latest dyed in the wool Tory to join Reform.  Nadhim Zahawi has defected declaring “nothing works”, despite having personally had several goes at running the place. Reform continue to collect disgraced millionaires like badly laminated Pokémon cards, and the Trawl ladies are armed with some very a...

History's repeating itself …loudly. In this  Trawl , Marina and Jemma struggle to keep things light as America spirals deeper into terrifyingly authoritarian territory. They discuss the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent, the disturbing footage that followed, and the speed with which Trump’s administration moved to justify, sanitise and defend her death. From the tripling of ICE’s budget t...

Trump tries to slap his name on the Kennedy Center and the internet responds with satire, cancelled shows and an all-time zinger of a legal reply:  “Confusion is a legal requirement, not a feeling.” Beautiful work 🫡 Then the mood shifts, hard. Marina and Jemma confront the unbearable disconnect of cosy Christmases in the West while Gaza freezes and floods. From Netanyahu’s Mar-a-Lago sleepov...