In This Episode
High streets across the UK are being overwhelmed by betting shops. They gobble up £4.6 billion from punters every year – and local councils have almost no powers to block them.
Labour MP Dawn Butler’s constituency, Brent East in North-West London, has 81 licensed enterprises alone. Jumping into “Betsy”, Dawn’s prized old-banger, Coco is taken out and about in Willesden to see first hand how betting shops are popping up everywhere and hear what local residents think.
Along with 37 council leaders and mayors, Dawn is calling for a reform of the Gambling Act 2005 and a hike in gambling duties. With hints she might stand to be London mayor at the next election – could this be the first glimpse of her campaign?
Then, Nish and Coco give their assessment of Keir Starmer and the European moral support squad’s visit to the White House – is Putin still calling the shots on Ukraine? And as Starmer’s Government slumps to an all-time low in the polls, Sadiq Khan has a spicy take on Labour’s first year in power. But a glimmer of hope: is that a don’t-call-it-a-wealth-tax on the horizon?
On a less hopeful note, what on earth is going on with Labour’s social media account? And Nish and Coco struggle to get their head around the new Gen Z additions to the Cambridge Dictionary. Is politics all “delulu with no solulu”?
CHECK OUT THIS DEAL FROM OUR SPONSOR
https://www.wise.com
USEFUL LINKS
See us Live in London!
Stop the Genocide Special – Tuesday 2nd
https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/words/pod-save-the-uk-x-amnesty-international-uk-stop-the-genocide/
Future of the left – Sunday 7th
https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/comedy/pod-save-the-uk/
Sign Dawn Butler’s Petition for Gambling Reform
https://www.dawnbutler.org.uk/gambling_reform_petition
Gambling Support
https://www.gamcare.org.uk/
GUESTS
Dawn Butler MP
CREDITS
IG / @UKLabour
TikTok / @politicsprincess
Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media.
Contact us via email: PSUK@reducedlistening.co.uk
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/podsavetheuk.crooked.com
Insta: https://instagram.com/podsavetheuk
Twitter: https://twitter.com/podsavetheuk
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@podsavetheuk
Facebook: https://facebook.com/podsavetheuk
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@PodSavetheUK
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
TRANSCRIPT
[AD]
Coco Khan Hi this is Pod Save the UK, I’m Coco Khan.
Nish Kumar And I’m Nish Kumar and Coco, I hear you’ve been zooming around in one of our favorite Labour MPs cars, codenamed Betsy?
Coco Khan Yeah, this week I’ve been out and about with Labour MP Dawn Butler getting into Betsy was not what I was expecting also wasn’t expecting her car to be called Betsy but we definitely bonded over our love of the not so open London roads more on that later but what have you been up to Nish?
Nish Kumar I’m still at the end of Refringe, but I’m about to leave. I have completed my shows up here and my world tour. Thanks, as ever, to the PSUK listeners who came to see the show, some of whom passed off very specific greetings to Coco, which I have not passed off. I’m sorry to say, but they were very specific about you and your child.
Coco Khan Oh bless you. Ummm, how are you feeling though?
Nish Kumar I feel physically and mentally exhausted, and I think my voice has got a bit more of its color back into it, but after last week’s podcast, our friend Nick Eschukla texted me and just said, Jesus, man, you’ve got to get some rest.
Coco Khan Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nish Kumar He said he sounded like Tom Waits, so it’s like, I’m glad that I’ve got a bit of the texture back to my voice.
Coco Khan But anyway, this week on PSUK, we’re going to be talking about Keir Starmer’s moral support network, plus the government’s plans to reset ahead of the upcoming Labour Conference.
Nish Kumar And yes, Coco is getting into Betsy and joining Dawn Butler to talk about how gambling in the UK needs reform.
Coco Khan Plus, sorry to our Gen Z listeners, but you’re also skibidi? I hear that’s a word. I’ve told it’s a world. I’m not sure if I’m using that correctly. But we’ll be talking about all the words.
Nish Kumar I think they call it Gen Z as well. I think, I don’t think, I think Gen Zed is not. What do you mean? I think it’s mainly Gen Z.
Coco Khan We say Zed, we’re British.
Nish Kumar I think, unfortunately, the young people of Britain have adopted the American pronunciation.
Coco Khan I stand by what I said. You know I have this thing with my other half when he goes to a coffee shop he always says can I get a coffee and it drives me mad and I’m always behind him like excuse me we’re British it is may I have a coffee so I think this is my
Nish Kumar This is the thing that’s gonna push Coco Khan to join reform.
Coco Khan Yes, exactly. This is my move. It’s Gen Z, not Gen Z. Alright? So let’s start with the big international news this week. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has returned to the White House and this time he brought back up.
Nish Kumar Yes, that’s right. Keir Starmer and an ensemble of European leaders were in tow. Their aim was to push Trump to take a tougher line with Russian President Vladimir Putin, trying to avoid a repeat of Zelensky’s last trip to the White House when Trump and US Vice President JD Vance accused him of being rude and ungrateful.
Coco Khan Yeah, so the European moral support squad were hoping to coach Trump out of the pro-Putin position he’d taken after their super friendly Alaska summit last Friday. But while they went all in with an upbeat tone and maximum flattery, the gulf between Russia’s demands and Ukraine’s willingness to concede remained vast.
Nish Kumar Yeah, and we’re once again seeing the limits that European leaders seem to have in spite of their constant flattery of Donald Trump’s ego to actually persuade him to shift his position too far on this particular issue. I do worry that Trump’s natural political alignment puts him in agreement with Putin on a great many issues. And the key sticking points remain Zelensky’s firm red line against giving up land beyond the present occupation or legitimizing Moscow’s control. And there’s the thorny issue of what security guarantees can be offered to Ukraine to enforce any peace deal.
Coco Khan Yeah, I mean, I have quite mixed feelings about Stama, as you know, as listeners to this podcast will know. But there is a part of me that thinks, okay, a situation like this, maybe this is what Stama is made for. He is a lawyer. He’s also, I don’t know, a calming presence. One might say an energy vampire, which given how heated it was last time, maybe it could make a difference, although I suppose that all remains to be seen. While Trump seemed convinced that Putin was ready to make a deal, a series of drone strikes overnight suggested otherwise. Now, of course, as always, we encourage you to tune in to Pod Save the World for more updates on this.
Nish Kumar Yeah, on this week’s Pod Save for the World, Tommy Vitor is back with Ben Rhodes to unpack what those meetings mean, why last week’s Alaska summit flopped and where the war goes from here. Plus, Representative Ro Khanna joins for an interview.
Coco Khan New episodes are every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts.
Nish Kumar Now, speaking of Donald Trump, previously on the show, we’ve covered the fact that he’s not particularly a fan of London Mayor Sadiq Khan for reasons that will remain racist. We can only speculate. We can’t only speculate on why Donald Trump has a problem with a high profile elected official. With a Muslim name and Muslim heritage. I mean, it remains one of the great mysteries of our age. Trump called him a nasty person who has done a terrible job at a press conference that Trump had with Keir Starmer last month.
Coco Khan But speaking at the political party show with Matt Ford at the Edinburgh Fringe, no less, it’s all happening there, Nish, Khan hit back saying Trump was not a force for good and that he inadvertently could be radicalizing people with views that could lead them to doing things that are dangerous. It’s pretty spicy stuff.
Nish Kumar I mean, I would say inadvertently he’s being very generous to Donald Trump, but he didn’t stop there. Kahn also took stock, and this is very interesting for us, on the current situation in the United Kingdom and said that Labour needs to really pick things up after a tough first year in government. And he also acknowledged that there is a feeling that people lent Labour their vote to get the Conservatives out and that the party would be delusional if they didn’t recognize the difficulties they’d had over the past year.
Coco Khan Are you ready for a brutal stat though? So according to YouGov, the government is currently hitting a net minus 56 approval rating, which as it happens, matches the final rating of the Tories before last year’s election.
Nish Kumar I don’t know what number reset we’re at, but it’s starting to remind me of when I would play football management simulator games on the computer and just consistently restart if I lost a match. It started to feel a bit like me in the 2000s trying to get Manchester United past a particularly complicated Arsenal team. Whatever it is, the government is clearly in need of a reset. I’m sure that there will be disquiet about this. Among Stan’s leadership team that Sadiq Khan has been taking this kind of position in a public forum. I would say Labour would probably be minded to listen to its most successful electoral politician of the last decade. We’ve consistently told that it won this whopping majority, but Sadi qan is essentially echoing what a lot of pundits and journalists analysts have been saying, which is that it’s a big majority, but a shallow one.
Coco Khan We’ll label this and we don’t know, but they are certainly rolling the pitch for what looks like significant shakeups, particularly in tax. So don’t call it a wealth tax, but there looking at stamp duty. And as a former guest on this show, former director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Paul Johnson advised, it also looks like they’re mooting a shift in how council tax works.
Nish Kumar For people who don’t live in the United Kingdom and are confused by this, if you’re wondering how council tax works, it doesn’t. It’s based on massively outdated property values that don’t have any direct relation to the value of the property right now. The unequal distribution of the way council tax work is adding to the massive strain on council budgets that talked about a lot on this podcast.
Coco Khan And just this morning, we’ve heard that Reeves might also be considering a tax on high value homes. So, one proposal being considered would be to remove the long-standard capital gains tax exemption on primary residences over 1.5 million, that’s according to the Times. Homeowners selling properties above that level would be subject to a capital gains tax at 18% for basic rate taxpayers and 24% for higher taxpayers.
Nish Kumar Now look, we’re still at the stage of a lot of this stuff being hypothetical, but it’s at least pointing in the right direction. We keep hearing that the government has a fiscal black hole that it needs to fill, and so far all of the methods it’s tried to fill that fiscal black hole are austerity economics inflected policies. And so it is good to hear that they will be pulling from the people with the broadest shoulders to use everyone’s favorite aphorism for rich twats.
Coco Khan In some slightly less positive news though, particularly if you’re a bat or a newt, which is a perfect opportunity for me to give another Coco Khan a wildlife fact. Did you know that newts could also be salamanders, but I think they’re related. If they lose a limb, it grows back. How’s that for poetic? So the environment secretary, Steve Reid, is now taking charge on planning. If you remember, he said decisions on new homes and infrastructure would no longer be taken on a bat by bat basis. When launching a bill allowing developers to dodge environmental concerns by paying into a nature fund, which I guess means that Steve Reed is signing off on not caring about the environment when it comes to planning. So this will be contentious. Infrastructure projects in the UK are absolutely blowing out in terms of cost. But what about the nudes, bruv? What about the
Nish Kumar A quick Google has revealed that a new is a salamander.
Coco Khan I knew they were related, you know, I’m just saying they’re magical creatures, we should take care of them. Do you know what I mean?
Nish Kumar We also need to briefly mention a significant high court ruling following on from our conversations last week on asylum hotels. The Bell Hotel in Epping, which is the epicenter of a lot of the recent anti-asylum protests, will be closed as asylum accommodation within 28 days. As we discussed on the show last week, the tricky thing about ending asylum accommodation is that we still need somewhere to house asylum seekers.
Coco Khan Of course, this is just one hotel, but the case brought by Epping Forest Council will set a precedent and may precipitate a number of other closures. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage is rubbing his hands together, saying that he hoped the ruling would be an inspiration to people in other parts of the country.
Nish Kumar If you missed it, do go back and check out last week’s episode to learn more about the difficulties around asylum hotels. Um, we had a great conversation with the new statesman, Zanush Chakalian, who’s been doing incredible reporting about this. Um, this is going to be a substantial issue for the home office to deal with over the coming months. And also it’s not insignificant that it’s being used as a victory by Nigel Farage, um, and there’s a concern that it is going. Legitimize the anti-immigrant sentiment that’s been brewing here in the UK for the last few months.
Coco Khan Speaking of which, by the way, we also had an interesting note in our inbox. Listener Hannah wrote in to say, I live in Bournemouth and a new volunteer group has formed called Safeguarding Force. They are patrolling Bournemoth streets and using social media to promote themselves. Critics have called them a vigilante group and police in Bournmouth Council don’t endorse them.
Nish Kumar She goes on to say that while the group claims to be apolitical and for everyone, just one look at the comments on their social media shows the support for them definitely includes a lot of anti-immigration rhetoric. I find it really troubling that this group has formed. I think it’s going to end badly. To me it seems like they’re trying to resemble ICE in America. I also think they’re try to create some kind of movement because of the amount they post on social media. I’m scared of where it could all lead, wondering what your thoughts are. I mean, my thoughts primarily are if I was living in Bournemouth. It would make me feel uncomfortable.
Coco Khan Hmm
Nish Kumar If there are people going around essentially claiming to be a kind of safeguarding force and they have expressed some troubling views, I think that is concerning. We have enough problems with the official police force and some of the troubling views members of, say for example, the Metropolitan Police in London have found to have expressed on various forums, but But the police are still. To some extent accountable to the government. This is a different thing and it sort of exists outside of a sphere of accountability And that is something that I would be very concerned by if I was in Bournemouth right now
Coco Khan Yeah, of course. So I just want to read Dorset Police’s statement. They’ve said, we are not in a position to support or endorse the group or their activities at this time. We will continue to engage with the organizer to ensure that they operate within the law. I mean, I guess we can only hope that this group, despite its quite strong sounding name and scary statements that are found on social media, that it will operate the same as any of neighborhood watch organization. But you can imagine… Can imagine how something like this could go wrong if it wasn’t operating within the law, if it was not closely monitored, and if there was just any incidents or even rumors that were sparked. It is certainly troubling. Safeguard Force say, At Safeguard Force, our mission is to create safer, more supportive communities by providing visible, compassionate and non-confrontational patrols that deter harm, promote wellbeing and protect the most vulnerable members of society.
Nish Kumar You know, it’s something that we talked about in various iterations, not just on this podcast, but to be honest, over the last decade of the kind of contagion of bad ideas that spreads itself between Britain and America and kind of gets passed back and forth and the way that ICE is being, I guess, militarized in the state. And the social media output around that, I would be very concerned about the British right starting to ape the rhetoric of ICE. And if Safeguard Force is serious about its mission to create safer and more supportive communities, then it has a moral responsibility having set itself up as a kind of moral guardian to actually actively police the social media output of people within its organization. You know, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that you’re sort of. An organization dedicated to keeping communities safe when individuals within your organization are posting things that are likely to be inflammatory and target sections of your communities.
Coco Khan Now after the break, I’m hitting the streets of Brent with Labour MP Dawn Butler to talk about the need to reform gambling planning laws.
[AD]
Coco Khan Okay, so I’m here in North West London because, I mean, I’ve got to be in my bonnet basically about gambling. So here’s a list of facts here, right, just to show you how bad it is. The UK betting and gambling sector took a record £11.5 billion from hunters in the last reported period. So that’s, you know, April 2023 to March 2024. Just to be clear, that’s the money extracted after winnings are paid out. Putting that into… Bit of perspective on a personal level that’s £166 for every person in the UK and yet the NHS estimates that gambling harms cost at least £1.27 billion every year. So I think there’s a lot to be upset about but I’m out here on the high street in Wilsdon for a reason and that’s to talk about bricks and mortar betting establishment. These gobble up £4.6 billion from UK punters every Oh, yeah and one politician is on a mission to stop them.
People in the Distance I’m so excited! I’m excited too!
Coco Khan I’ve come down to meet Labour MP for Brent, Dawn Butler, who has been waging a campaign against the rise of betting shops on our high streets. Dawn takes me for a short wander down the streets of Harleston, and I’m surprised by how many gambling places we see. Bookmakers like Ladbrokes and William Hill, but also loads of adult gaming centers, which, of course, are known by another name, Casinos. So I’ve just done a very short walk, and, I mean, like minutes. And in that time, we’ve seen five, maybe six betting establishments, gambling establishments. Some of them are like sort of slot machines. Some of the more traditional bookies. And it’s weird because if you don’t use these services like I don’t, it’s quite easy to develop a feeling of invisibility towards them. You don’t notice how many there are. And then when someone starts pointing them out, you start to see, okay, wow, how can there be so many to serve such a small community? How many people are in there? How much money is being taken off these people?
Dawn Butler I mean very few people come out with money, like it’s so addictive that you’re there and you’re just spending, spending, waiting for the big win or waiting to get into what they call like a feature on the game and then you just spend.
Coco Khan I’d never actually been inside one of these adult gaming centers before so Dawn dragged me in to see what happened
Dawn Butler I wouldn’t know what time of day it is, but as you’re in there, it’s very dark. I mean, it smells clean. It smells nice. It smells clean, it looks nice.
Coco Khan It smells nice, it smells clean, like it’s temperature controlled. Yeah, you’ve got a cash machine. So we’ve just come out of a casino, I guess they’re called? Yeah. Called Silver Time. I’ve never been in one of those before. And it was sort of completely honest, it was weird being in there. It was weird in there because you walk around and it’s a bit like, you know, I was really into computer games in my youth. It’s a big like being in an arcade. You think for a minute, oh, it’s going to be quite fun. But then as soon as you give the money, it… The speed at which it takes your money and the lack of skill and it just the fastness of it is, it’s horrible. You feel that you are going to be rinsed and you are rinses. Luckily we stopped ourselves after like five minutes where we were relieved of two pounds. I mean, over an hour, that’s quite a lot. And we put in the lowest stakes. Yeah. These are really, it changes the design.
Dawn Butler Right it’s designed to literally sort of suck you in there’s actually no skill to it so it’s not like you’re holding or you’re having to work anything out with just pressing the button you put it on autoplay it goes even quicker.
Coco Khan Yeah so i guess the question is why why are there so many of them i’m with the mp and you don’t want them to be why are they so many of them it doesn’t make sense.
Dawn Butler Well, I mean, there doesn’t need to be so many. So I’m not saying ban gambling. I’m saying that we don’t need the abundance of adult gaming centers and casinos in a small area like this. It’s unnecessary. And part of the reason why it’s come to this is because there’s something in the Gambling Act, 2005, called Aim to Permit, which means that basically councils have to permit these gambling establishments if they want to go up. Councils have more of a say on where chicken shops can be placed than they do gambling shops. Wow. Yeah, because they will take into consideration how many fast food shops there are, how close you’re situated to a school, their health implications, and so they can say no and prevent a chicken shop opening, but not a gambling shop. And when you think about it as well, gambling doesn’t affect just the person who’s addicted. If they’re addicted, not all gamblers are addicted, but those who are addicted. It also affects the whole family.
Coco Khan So these shops are everywhere, but it’s not like the locals actually like them. Here’s a few of the people that came up to say hi while we were walking about with Dawn.
Dawn Butler What do you think about all the
Person on the Street I think it’s pathetic that some people have got no money and the little money that they’ve got they’re coming and wasting it in the place and it’s making their lives much worse.
Person on the Street We’ve got too many betting shops, we’ve got too much gambling houses, or we’ve got these fast foods. There’s nothing really substantial. This used to be a thriving community where every community would be here, would be out, would be talking. Now everybody is being isolated. So we’ve had an event.
Coco Khan Of morning walking down the high street a very short walk and seeing all these whatever you want to call them gambling establishments adult gaming centers casinos seeing loads of them and now we walk past one that is coming soon they’ve made the announcement the company silver time a lot of the people that you know just passed us on the street saw a door wanted to say like we don’t want these betting shops and i think actually the graffiti here kind of sums it up kind of thumbs up the feelings and it just says ban gambling deprived areas stop promoting Gabby
Dawn Butler Quite intuitive graffiti, I think.
Coco Khan Yeah definitely an improvement on that has her piece after showing me around town dawn popped me into her sweet ride the little car betsy for a chat down the road
Dawn Butler I don’t normally sit with somebody that’s more colorful than me, by the way. This is my smart shirt. I love it, I love this. This is what my office looks like. It’s like, it’s more colorful than me.
Coco Khan It’s a Givenchy. Okay, so we’ve come off the high street, we’re in the office now, and I can get some backstory for you. So what I wanted to know is why is why this campaign? Why has it become such a big thing for you?
Dawn Butler Um, in 2021, uh, there was going to be a new gambling shop opening and I, and I just thought, oh, you know, let me ask my constituents, what they feel about it. Cause I know it was sort of my bug there. And, um, and that’s it to the council. No, the count constituents are not feeling it. Can we decline their application? And the council’s like, well, no, and there’s not enough people have said no. So then I did a whole. Survey of everybody, thousands, I think it was about 7,000, 8,000 got tons of responses. I was just like, look, 75%, here are the facts and figures, you know, 75% of those who responded said they didn’t want another gambling establishment, but I couldn’t do anything about it. So it didn’t matter that the majority of constituents said they don’t want it. The law prohibited the council from saying no. And what the council was scared of was being taken to court. Because if they get taken to court, then that’s going to cost them money, and that’s money that they can ill afford. And the gambling establishments have a lot of money. So that is why this aim to permit, which says that councils have to permit these gambling establishements, has to change, because the gambling establishment is going to fall to go to court.
Coco Khan Councils can’t. So your campaign is to get this particular aim to permit. Get rid of that.
Dawn Butler Yeah, get rid of that. So we can do like, what in parliament record like a statutory instrument, which is where you make a tweak to legislation. And we can put that through and we can remove aim to permit. And that would mean so I’m not saying close down all the gambling shops, I’m saying, we’ve, we’ve got enough. We’ve been we’ve been to the Halston, you see, there’s enough, right, we don’t need any more. And give people a say. I mean, that’s what democracy is about, right? Give people a Bye. So this will allow that, it will allow the ability to give people a say, let the council judge it on how many gambling assortments are in the area, what the impact will be on the immediate community.
Coco Khan And that’s how I think we should run it. I mean, you said to yourself that you received around 7,000 responses. The vast majority of those people said they didn’t want this establishment. Presumably some of them shared stories about people who have been impacted by gambling. Is it not like a duty of care here for the community?
Dawn Butler Last week, I went out on the streets and I said to people, design your perfect high street. And we had a magnetic board and everything, you know, the office was there. The office were very creative. Do you know what I mean? We had little pictures and everything. Nobody chose a betting shop or bingo or a gambling shop. They chose laundrettes, a pub, a florist. You know, and they want a nice high street. And we’ve done loads of these sort of vox poppy things. And this guy came out of one of these gambling shops. I don’t know why they call it adult gaming centers because that makes it sound fun. It’s not really, you know, I don’t consider it to be fun, but anyway, a gambling shop, he came out a gambling shot. I was just like, so design your perfect high street. And he put up a barber shop, he put a cafe, he put out a laundry, he put on a gym, he didn’t pop a gambling show. And I thought, he’s just come back. So I said to him, you didn’t put up a gambling shot. And that was my own prejudgment there, which I shouldn’t have really. And he said, no, gambling is ruined my life. Oh. And that’s how I felt. And he moved me to tears. And he says, it’s ruined my family. My family don’t talk to me anymore. He said, it is an addiction, just like alcohol, just like drugs. I can’t stop. He said, if I get money, I’m immediately in the gambling shop. He said there’s seven of them here. And he was pointing down the road. And then he said, I’ve been banned from them. He said because I get angry. And he says, I get abusive. And then, he said I’ve being banned. I said, could you, would you like some help? Would you call the help line? He said it’s no point. He said you can’t help me. I’m addicted. Oh my goodness. I didn’t prompt this at all. He said if there were fewer gambling shots, that would help me. He said that would helped me. And I was just like, I’m trying. I’m doing this for you. I’m do this campaign for you, I am trying.
Coco Khan Strange, isn’t it? Because I mean, I don’t gamble. I’m interested in sports, but I wouldn’t call myself like a, I’m not like a massive fan. So much of gambling’s marketing doesn’t really reach me. I don t really know how far its tentacles go. But when I think of it, I often think of event day gambling. I think Ascot, I think people doing a punt and the World Cup. And in a way, they’ve worked very hard to publicize that image of gambling. And it’s all kind of closely linked, but this campaign only goes for the high street bricks and mortar shops.
Dawn Butler Well, yeah, well, the this part of it, but the tax they should, because the can you imagine the gambling industry is under taxed in most countries and most industries, they’re taxed like a 40% gambling industries at 20%. So that needs to be increased. I mean, that would bring in over 2 billion pounds a year. We need some money as a huge hole. That’s tax the gambling industry. They make an enormous amount of profit. Yeah. One year. The CEO of a gambling establishment made 400 and something million pounds for the year. Wow. I think on average they make 200 and something million a year. That’s not money that you’re making from selling lovely shirts or something. Do you know what I mean? This is coming out of the pockets of the poor. To the bank accounts of the rich. Not always, though we have to be measured.
Coco Khan Of course, of course, you know, gambling touches people from all walks of life. But these areas where we’re seeing these betting shops, I think it’s fair to say they are targeting lower income areas.
Dawn Butler Yeah. I went to a, oh, I can’t remember the high street now. Couldn’t find a gambler’s job at all. Beautiful high street.
Coco Khan Beautiful. I bet, I bet. And just focusing again on this change of aim to permit. This has got cross-party support, even Duncan Smith, one of our least favorite politicians on this podcast. You know, he backs it. So are you feeling confident this change is going to happen?
Dawn Butler Get a love attentive yes. Yes, because it makes no sense for it not to happen. It’s like what are your arguments for not changing the law? So that’s yeah that’s my thing. I haven’t spoke to the ministers yeah I mean we’ve had Fiona um Tricross came down and um just to see it because sometimes you’ve got to see, it right because just having it on paper. I hadn’t gone into one these places until I started. This period of campaigning. And I thought, you know what, I need to go in there. Otherwise it’s, it’s not that it’s hypocritical, but I need to know more about what I’m talking about. And you kind of got to see it to believe it. And so it’ll be like, explain to me why we shouldn’t change this. Explain to me why my local constituents can’t say no to another double-fronted gambling establishment opening up on their doorstep that attracts problems.
Coco Khan I mean, I hope you’re right. But if it didn’t happen, I don’t think it’s cynical to suggest that maybe the £400,000 that the Labour Party has received from the gambling industry in donations over the last, I think, it’s five years. Look, you know, look, the gambling lobby is big, it has money, it has influence. Perhaps that might explain why up until now there’s… Certainly in my perception, not been enough in terms of taxing them, chasing them, regulating them. Does that seem fair?
Dawn Butler Well, look, I know, and I know they don’t like me. OK, OK, bro. But actually… Because I’m doing this for my constituents in Brent and constituents all over the country because constituents who can least afford it are being enticed into this. And for me, this is a public health emergency. If we want to tackle violence against women and girls, we’ve got to get groups to gambling. If we wanna tackle mental health, especially within young men, we need to tackle gambling. We wanna tackle suicide rates, we need tackle gambling, it’s that. That we need to tackle and it’s all very interconnected. So I don’t care if people don’t like me, I’m doing this because it’s the right thing to do.
Coco Khan I think it’s worth saying as well, you know, when you look at it through a health lens, I mean, the NHS has said it cost them £1.27 billion. Government reviews said the wider economic costs were as high as £1,77 billion. So there’s the economic uptick.
Dawn Butler It costs them £100,000 as well because then you’ve got housing issues, you’ve got people defaulting on rent, you’re got people needed to be re-housed, you got people that have had divorces and so then they’re homeless, all of them.
Coco Khan Yeah, and we see in other walks of life, you know, when we know stuff is harmful, we make it harder to access it, you know, tax sugar, cigarettes are behind that pull down thing. You can’t even get a beer in a football stadium now. Well, not in the stands anyway, because there was too much violence. And we’ve all survived. I didn’t know that. Yes. Okay. So I like, you know, When you look at it from a public health lens, I think it’s an argument that is, how can you how can you fight against it, which is why I keep returning back to this thing, this thing? Why is it taking so long? Why hasn’t it happened before and what is this relationship between the gambling industry and politics?
Dawn Butler Yeah, well, I don’t know, because they’ve never given me any money. But the thing is this, they’re not going to go out of business, right? They’re making billions of pounds every year without opening another gambling shop. So they’re going to be skinned, do you know what I mean? So actually, this isn’t going to affect their bottom line or their profits that they’re making. So what’s the problem?
Coco Khan I think the thing that I like about the campaign is that it’s getting people talking about gambling. Gambling is a harm that is in sight, as you say, it’s affecting young men. So I’m excited about that. I would love to see it go a little bit further. Right. Are you giving me more work to do? Yes, is that possible? That’s what I mean, you know? Okay, so for our listeners that want to get the ball rolling, what can they be doing?
Dawn Butler OK, so please write to your MP. I’ve got EDM, an early day motion that I’ve tabled, if they can get their MP to sign up to that. I’ve put in for a backbench business debate on aim to permit and taxing gambling. Tell your MP that you agree. And I’ve a petition on my website if people can sign that petition so that I can show that there is a groundswell of opinion around this. And I’ll say it will help me because, you know, when the gambling people are coming after me, I need people to like.
Coco Khan Tell you what though, that 50% tax on them to help child poverty. Gordon Brown’s been talking about that as well. That’s music to my ears, look it to my veins. I love that. Exactly, it’s like…
Dawn Butler It’s such a no-brainer. You’re like, this is money anyway that you’re taking from people, the majority of people who can least afford it. Let’s give it back. Do you know what I mean? Let’s help lift children out of poverty. So if people can join this, it will be incredible. And think about the high street that you want and we can make that happen.
Coco Khan Worth taking a punt on. See what I did?
Dawn Butler See what I did? Is it too soon for gambling and puns? I feel like that’s the one good thing we can take from this. I mean yeah well plus that as we discovered every single gambling establishment has a free cash machine. If you can go in get your money and go straight out I mean I couldn’t believe that. We’ve got no banks on the high street you I can’t get it. Yeah. And there’s a toilet.
Coco Khan Okay.
Dawn Butler If you need a toilet, go in there, go to the toilet and piss off out of there afterwards. Maybe that’s too much.
Coco Khan Dawn Butler, thank you for joining us on Pod Save the UK.
[AD]
Coco Khan Okay, now, Nish, we reached out to the betting and gaming council, the lobby group for bookmakers, and they said this. Betting shops alone support 46,000 jobs, contribute nearly 1 billion a year in direct tax to the treasury, and a further 60 million in business rates to local councils. There are currently 20 betting shops in Brent East employing over 100 people and contributing £200,000 to the local economy and business rates. The number of betting shops has actually decreased in recent years with significant job losses. In 2018, there were 33 shops in Brent Central dropping to 25 in 2022 before falling again to the current number of 20 in the area, resulting in the loss of 65 jobs in her constituency.
Nish Kumar I have to say, I’m not clear on what the purpose of that statement is. Dawn Butler is proposing regulation. It might just be my perception, but it felt like the implication of that is by proposing that regulation, it has had an effect that can be backdated to the last three years. I’m, not clear what that statement supposed to be saying, if I’m completely honest with you.
Coco Khan Yeah, and I mean, I get a
Nish Kumar I get a little whiff of bullshit. That’s all I’m saying. There’s a slight whiff. It may be that a cow has left me an unwanted surprise in my Edinburgh Fringe accommodation, which would be a surprise, but I get a slight wiff of bullshit.
Coco Khan And we should also say that previously Joseph Cullors, who heads up back to that lobby group for adult gaming centers like the casino that Dawn and I went into, he told The Guardian that scrapping the current rules around planning would create legal uncertainty and put legitimate local businesses at risk, adding that the aim to permit clause didn’t mean automatic approval. And he also said that they provide safe, low-stake entertainment in well-regulated, supervised and alcohol-free environments. So I think he’s trying to add some credence to claim there but…
Nish Kumar I’m not sure where alcohol-free has come into it. Gambling is addictive. That’s like a pub saying, we shouldn’t have any licensing laws. We’re not exactly serving heroin here. Like, there’s definitely a problem in that as a statement.
Coco Khan Also, I just feel that even just the language low stake into, I mean, it’s not, it’s no low stake when it’s, you know, a pound for 10 seconds, isn’t it? I have to say, walking around the streets with her, I had no idea how popular she is. It was, it was like walking around with, it was like, walking around with Eunice. It was like she was around with an actual recognizable face. It was really touching that people knew their local MP, waved, knew to approach her. She was approachable. It was, I was quite taken aback by it really. Here is a perfect example that we managed to catch on camera.
Person on the Street Hiya, how are you? Good? Good to see you!
Coco Khan For listeners to the podcast who aren’t watching this on YouTube, it’s just a car passing by and a kid rolled down the window to wave at her, particularly her. There was a part of me that thought, oh, maybe it was us with her film crew. No, no, no. It wasn’t. It was Dawn. And those instances were replicated in so many different formats. Yeah, it was just really, really touching. And I also should mention she dropped some pretty mega news earlier this week. She’s planning on putting her hat in the ring to be the mayor of London if Sadiq steps down, which seems like that is certainly very possible, is what everyone’s saying.
Nish Kumar Well, that’s, that is huge. I mean, I think it’s also worth saying that, you know, the value of constituency MPs is really significant and it is good to see that people in Dawn Butler’s constituency, both recognize her and recognize that they are able to go up to her and have a conversation. I think that’s a, that a really important, that link between. You, you and your constituency MP is really significant because it is your direct channel to the government. And it is how. Can engage directly with the process of politics. That is great. I mean, that’s it. That’s huge news for sure, if she’s throwing a hat in the ring. I guess it must all be very hypothetical at the moment because we don’t know for sure if Sadiq Khan is not going to stand at the next election. But certainly, listen, it seems clear that Labour could do worse than getting an already popular MP in London.
Coco Khan I wouldn’t like to say all politicians should be like her, but definitely a sprinkle of that is certainly missed in politics at the moment.
Nish Kumar Well, listen, while we’re talking about social media, we’ve actually been scrolling through Labour’s Instagram page, so you don’t have to, to bring you the government’s weirdest and most cringe-worthy attempts to engage Gen Z. Or Gen Z, depending on how nationalistic you’re feeling.
Coco Khan So first up is a meme titled Admin in the pub tonight with a picture of a pint. The first half of the pint glass is labeled I promise I won’t start talking about politics and the second half is this video.
Clip Don’t forget what they have done. Don’t Forget Partygate. Don’t Forgot the Covid Contracts. Don’t for get the lies. Don’t forgot the kickbacks. Don’t forgotten the cronyism. Don’t forgetting the division. The scapegoating of minorities.
Nish Kumar I don’t know why that music was underneath it. I guess that Labour’s pulled it from its own social media channels, but it sounds like the music from the end of a World War II movie.
Coco Khan I mean, I thought it was like not terrible, right? I get the idea of it after half a pint, which seems very low, can I just say, but after half a pine, you know, you get on your soapbox and you’ll deliver these emotive speeches like Keir Starmer’s. It was weird hearing it because it reminded me that, oh yeah, once Keir starmer used to give really rousing speeches. I remember that time, you now, and I wondered if perhaps that could actually be a bit of an own goal because it seems like a different man, the one that we have today.
Nish Kumar I will say the phrase scapegoating vulnerable minorities, given what’s happened in the last year, did hit my ear badly.
Coco Khan Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly
Nish Kumar It hit my ear badly is what I will say about that.
Coco Khan And then there’s another post, it’s a video which is captioned, me and my boyfriend, now the sea won’t be full of shit emoji. Well, shit, you know, we use the emojis cause they are still the government.
Nish Kumar And so what we’re watching for listeners of the podcast is, it’s a now very sort of meaned clip of Christian Bale and Natalie Portman from the Terrence Malick film Night of Cups. A somewhat quite unmemorable rom-com from a filmmaker who makes very few films and this one is widely considered to be something of a misfire. I’m sure people have seen the use of this or across the internet but it’s Bale and Portman, Hiking and Diving in the Sea, which obviously is going to be great once it’s shit free in 2030. I think right now, Christian and Natalie would be absolutely up to their eyeballs in waste material. I mean, I think this is an aspirational post rather than a statement of something people should be doing right now in the sea.
Coco Khan Not that we’re going to get into ranking Labour posts, but I would rank this one much worse than the previous one. You know what I think? I think it’s just a bit too literal, Nish. Do you know what mean? It’s just too literal. Like, oh, yes, the sea looks nice. Let’s talk about it. That’s not what the meme is for. It’s meant to talk about other things. And it’s good to see that I’m not the only one thinking that. One commenter said, Siri, make me something that a middle-aged person would think young people like.
Nish Kumar But while Labour is struggling to get down with Gen Z slash Z, this thing’s doing my head in, politics has been capturing the attention of the youth. Nostalgic videos of Gordon Brown and Tony Blair at the peak of their rivalry have been trending on TikTok, posted by teens who weren’t even born at the time. Here’s one of the most popular posts from 18-year-old Ellen, who runs the account at Politics Princess. Okay, so what I’m seeing is a string of edited clips from the 1997 Labour election campaign soundtracked by the Justin Bieber and Nicki Minaj song Beauty and the Beat. The sort of occasional images of Saddam Hussein and Ed Balls. It’s a real mixed bag of late 1990s and early 2000s nostalgia.
Coco Khan It really reminds me of the, do you remember the Millie fandom, don’t you, Nia Nia?
Nish Kumar Yes, I do. Yeah, yeah.
Coco Khan When he was Millibay.
Nish Kumar Yes.
Coco Khan It’s strange though because Ed Miliband is still in politics and no one’s calling him Ed Milabay anymore.
Nish Kumar He’s still kind of a darling of the internet, isn’t he, with his sort of Charlie XCX soundtrack to TikToks.
Coco Khan Yeah, I suppose so, although I don’t think it’s the same as when people did, like, flower crowns on him and stuff like that.
Nish Kumar I mean he was the leader of the Labour Party at that point. This is interesting because this seems to be the sort of political wing of a wave of nostalgia for the late 90s and the early 2000s and so it seems to sort of be in line with kind of fashion trends bringing back baggy jeans and also a fondness for like indie sleeves from the early 2000s.
Coco Khan Yeah, yeah, at all.
Nish Kumar And, you know, the strokes coming back into fashion and, I mean, Oasis reforming as well and being the kind of subject of a lot of the cultural conversation. So it seems like as part of that kind of late 90s, early 2000s nostalgia, there’s now a sort of nostalgia for New Labour Britain. And I will say, you, know, it wasn’t all good news in general. There was a lot of, you know, Iraq war and. New metal to contend with.
Coco Khan Sorry, I’m still processing that Sadam Hussein appears in the clip. I can’t get over it. What is happening?
Nish Kumar Saddam appears in the clip. It wasn’t all smooth sailing in the late 90s and the early 2000s.
Coco Khan Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nish Kumar If you are nostalgic for a particular thing, let me just try and drag you back into the present by saying we do have an unpopular and divisive Labour government who are pursuing support for a potentially illegal war in the Middle East. Things have not moved on that much.
Coco Khan Yeah. Well, well, yeah. Be careful what you wish for, Gen Z. So these internet crazies, obviously, they always capture headlines. And just on the subject of that, we do need to talk about the Cambridge Dictionary and the latest words that have been included. One of them is skibbidi. I still… Don’t understand it. Not sure how it’s used, but I’m delighted to see that Delulu has made an entrance. And you know what a skibidi is, Nish? You know?
Nish Kumar Skibbidi Toilet is a video that I’ve seen, it sort of just seems to be heads popping out of a toilet saying the word skibidi. I don’t fully understand it, nor do I believe should I. I am 39 years old. I think that the millennial desire to understand these things is palpably tragic. It’s like we’re middle-aged, allow young people to have their slang and crack on. I there’s a weird thing happening with people our age Because, I don’t know, we maybe don’t have some of the same markers of capital that our parents did and we’re having children later that means that we’re trying to hold onto some of youth. Guys, let it go. I know. If you’re a millennial, it’s fine for you to not know what skibidi toilet is. It’s completely fine.
Coco Khan I know, but I don’t have a house. At least let me say butters. That’s not my favorite word. And now the kids don’t say buters anymore, Nish. They don’t save butters, they barely say pink.
Nish Kumar I know what Dululu is because Sophie Duker did a whole show about it last year and it was very good and Sophie’s a very good friend of mine.
Coco Khan Well, Delulu is kind of easy to understand, right?
Nish Kumar Yeah, it’s an abbreviation of delusional. I think that word has transcended because back in March the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese used the phrase delulu with no salulu to attack his opponents in parliament, which means delusion with no solution. So I mean, listen, maybe delulu has transcending. I will say I don’t expect to see Keir Starmer calling Kemi Badenoch a skippity toilet within the next couple of weeks. I don’t expect that to happen. I think Delulu was a more easily comprehensible thing transgenerationally, whereas I think skibidi toilet might be something that we just sort of leave Gen Z slash Zed to crack on with.
Coco Khan I have, that’s like a political tactic. I think trying to use slang is a really dangerous one.
Nish Kumar It’s so high-risk, it’s soo high- risk, it-it-it’s fraught with risk.
Coco Khan I’m just having, I’m having chills come up in my body, imagining Keir Starmer talking about, did you watch, this is just an aside, do you watch Love Island, Nish?
Nish Kumar Of course I don’t watch Love Island.
Coco Khan There was a woman on Love Island who kept trying to say scapegoat, but got it wrong. Cause they said escape goat.
Nish Kumar The escaped goat. Yeah, sure. I can see that feels like quite a common spoonerism, right?
Coco Khan Right, right, but that’s the sort of thing that would happen on, it would be that sort of thing. Anyway. I digress.
Nish Kumar Skybird Eye.
Coco Khan What is Cyberdyne?
Nish Kumar Skybird Eye. That’s somebody trying to pronounce skibidi without having full knowledge of what it is.
Coco Khan God, I really feel like I’m showing my age here. Um, oh, and, uh, one more thing that made it into the dictionary. Yes. Work spouse. Oh, I like that. You, you’re my work husband. Yeah, that’s right. We quarrel all the time and regret our decisions. It’s nice.
Nish Kumar That is nice.
Coco Khan And that’s it. We’re taking a break next week, but we’re back for our two fantastic live events in London on the second and seventh of September.
Nish Kumar Yes, we’re very excited about these live shows. The first one on the 2nd of September is going to be a really, really special show. It’s being presented in collaboration with Amnesty International. We’ve got some fantastic guests for you, including the Garzane journalist Wael Aldahtu and the comedian Jen Brister. We’ve also got a very, very special musical act in the works.
Coco Khan Music and politics. They said the two should never meet, but on Sunday we’ve got something a little spicier. We’re talking big picture political left with one of the leaders of the movement. You don’t want to miss it.
Nish Kumar Grab your tickets now from King’s Place or search the London Podcast Festival. You will also find a link in our show notes. We can’t wait to see you and your mum.
Coco Khan That sounded like an attack when you said that.
Nish Kumar Well, it’s just I’m still trying to undo some of the bad PR you caused when you said, advised people to not bring their mothers to the live show.
Coco Khan Didn’t that make me cool and relevant? Didn’t it make me cool and skibidi?
Nish Kumar No, we just cut our number of tickets.
Coco Khan Thanks for listening to Pod Save the UK. Don’t forget to follow at Pod Save theUK on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter and BlueSky. Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media.
Nish Kumar Thanks to Senior Producer James Tyndale and Producer May Robson.
Coco Khan Our theme music is by Vasilis Fotopoulos.
Nish Kumar The executive producers are Tanya Hines and Katie Long, with additional support from Ari Schwartz.
Coco Khan And remember to hit subscribe for new shows on Thursdays on Amazon, Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcast.
Nish Kumar Don’t say skibidi millennials. Don’t do it. Resist the temptation.
