Thelma and Tom Look Left

Welcome to this episode of Thelma and Tom.

I'm going to be honest here (no really, I am) - for one reason and another, we did no prep for this recording at all. And yes, I was a bit nervous how it would go. And yes, as it turns out I'm pretty pleased with it.

We discuss, among other things, the dire state of education in the UK, the unravelling of Boris Johnson, and portraying yourself as a respectable politician.

Thank you for listening to our podcast. If you have friends who you think may also enjoy it please do send them the link.

Left wing media is important, and in our small way, hopefully we can provide some balance to the barrage of propaganda coming from the Establishment.

We're back! 

Apologies for the extended Xmas break.

In this episode, among other things we discuss the latest shocking developments in the Labour Party. 

Please support Left Media. Now, more than ever, it is important to stay in touch, be it through Podcasts, Videos, Youtube, Twitter, or Facebook. Main stream media rarely, if ever, gives those of us on the Left any opportunity to put our side of the story. Lots of  positive stuff is going on.

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Welcome to the Thelma and Tom Christmas Special.

For our Christmas present this year we get to choose our very own Prime Minister and Cabinet. It was great fun, but seriously the government we have chosen would be so much better than what we have now - not a difficult challenge, I know!

We also treat ourselves and all our listeners to a wonderful brass band, a fabulous trombonist on a CWU picket line, and a full on throwback late 60s performance by Hurricane Rodriguez on his electric guitar.

If you enjoy listening to our podcast please do share on social media, and by sending the link to your friends.

And if you have ideas for people to serve in our sensible, compassionate, humane government, do let us know with names and reasons, either on Twitter or at tomwid909@gmail.com. 

Also, if you have been nominated by us for a post in our cabinet, and would like to chat about what it involves, and your availability, please do get in touch - we would love to talk to you.

Thank you so much for listening to our podcast, and we both wish you all the very best for the New Year. We have some great ideas for 2023 so please like and follow to make sure that you don't miss an episode.

Love and Peace, and Solidarity.

Say it myself, this could be one of the best Thelma and Tom's we've ever done.

The Labour Party are now virtually indistinguishable from the Tory Party, with even Farage this week, complementing Starmer on his immigration policies. How much worse does it have to get before everyone on the Left finally realises that we have been almost completely squeezed out of mainstream electoral politics by the UK establishment.

The Peoples Alliance of the Left is a serious attempt to help organise the Left into an electoral force.

If you are interested in being a part of this movement, please listen to the podcast, and please do check out PAL.

Solidarity.

Tom

In Part one Thelma and I talk about the Royals, and for Part two we are joined by our guests, Doug Thorpe of Left Unity, and Alex Mayes of Breakthrough. We have a great conversation loosely around the theme of 'what will it take to bring about a mainstream Socialist Party'.

A nice positive podcast to listen to in these sometimes quite tough times for the Left.

Please remember, if you enjoy listening to Thelma and Tom Look Left, please do follow, like and review our podcast on your podcast app, and even more importantly, please share with any friends who you think may also enjoy listening.

Support Left media - it is important. In a small way we can all work together to help counteract the myths of the Establishment narrative so mercilessly promoted by the Establishment media.

Welcome to Episode 36 of Thelma and Tom Look Left where the ageing hippy and the retired head teacher talk frankly about the state of the Left in Britain today. In this episode we chat about the future (or not) of the Left in electoral politics.

We also talk about the TorySewageParty and our utter disbelief that it can even be happening!

Thank you all for taking the time to listen to TTLL. If you do enjoy our podcast please remember to press the follow button on your app to ensure that you catch every episode. Also, please share the link with any of your friends who you think may also be interested. Left media may be small but it is very important - that alternative is grim.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Thelma and Tom Look Left.

It's great to be back after our slightly covid enforced Summer break, and we're straight back in there with our take on the latest political developments. 

In this episode we chat about the Tory Party leadership election, The Forde Report, and Starmer's visit to Liverpool, and of course, what a star Audrey is.

We also talk about how important it is for the Left to get the full story by staying in touch through our own media. 

If you enjoy listening to our podcast please give us a Follow on your podcast app - that way you will always get to hear each new episode. Also, please share the link with any friends who you think may also enjoy the podcast.

Thank you all so much for your support.

Do you ever wonder who the person is behind some of these big Twitter characters - if so, this is your chance to meet one of them - Cremant Communarde, or as she is known in the real world, Jane Heybroek.

Jane works as an immigration lawyer, and is well known for her crowd-funded 'big win' against a couple of well known celebs in a libel case - they backed down!

Among other things, we discuss the responsibility of having 35k followers on Twitter, Leaving the Labour Party, Being a practising Buddhist, The Breakthrough Party, and French politics.

Please remember. if you enjoy TTLL then give us a follow (and a review if you like) on your podcast app, and that will ensure that you get to know about every episode that we publish.

Thank you to you all for supporting our podcast. 

We had a plan, but so much has happened this week we just had to let it go and see where we ended up. 

We discuss, the media coverage of Philip Proudfoot's successful libel case, Thelma's Twitter Adventures, Angela Rayner's legs, and Rachel Reeves honest admission that she didn't want the Labour Party to win the 2019 election (ie, she preferred Johnson and the Tories to Socialism)

Please remember, if you want to be certain of not missing an episode of TTLL, make sure that you follow us on your podcast app.

Thank you so much for listening, and hope that you enjoy it.

When I started this podcast with Thelma I really wanted to make a platform for people to be free to speak their minds. Our guest on this podcast is Nuala Burgess, and to be honest, she speaks her mind, and it's really good.

Nuala is passionate about education, and Thelma is a retired headteacher - it's a great conversation, and we cover a lot of ground.

By the way, in the title I say Part 1, not because we have a Part 2, but because this is a huge subject which I am sure we will return to.

If you enjoy listening to the podcast please do share the link with your friends, and to be sure of never missing an episode, please do remember to follow us on your podcast app

Welcome to episode 29 of Thelma and Tom Look Left in which we take a closer look at the effects of power on the human psyche, everyones lives, and the planet. 

This is a huge subject, which to be honest we have really only just made a start on. We discuss the chaos that power can cause when it seems to almost inevitably 'go to people's heads'. We also discuss how we can manage power to help curtail the damage that its abuse causes

Making this podcast really did get me thinking - I hope that you enjoy it.

If you want to guarantee hearing about all new episodes of TTLL make sure that you follow us on your podcast app.

Welcome to episode 28 of Thelma and Tom Look Left,

Difficult times for everyone to make any sense off. In this episode we discuss our feelings about the dreadful situation in Ukraine. Of course we hope for a speedy resolution, and as always with war it's the innocent people who pay the price.

We also lament the fact that our leaders seem so devoid of the qualities so needed right now in this time of terrible crisis.

Not an easy podcast to make. Hope that you find it of some value.

Thank you for listening.

Love and Peace to all.

OK, no music, no editing, just uncut Thelma and Tom, plus a guest appearance by Alex Mayes, leader of The Breakthrough Party.

We wanted to get this episode out there as quickly as possible. It's good news for all of us on the Left who have been wondering how on earth we are ever going to come together as one. This may well be a big step along the way.

In this episode Thelma describes the work that has been done so far, and where we have got to at the moment, and how things might work out in the future.

And so nice to have Alex drop by too. Without the help of him and quite a few others this project would not have got this far.

If you enjoy listening to this podcast please do subscribe, and please share with your friends.

Welcome to our 2021 Christmas Special, with our very special guest, Jeremy Corbyn.

Subjects include, getting in to politics, the future of the Left, plus a great story about putting a plaque up in the House of Commons chapel.

It was a privilege and a joy to talk with Jeremy - what a lovely bloke!

Thank you to all our listeners for your support. I'm sure you will love this episode. We look forward to meeting up again soon, with loads more great guests, and a quietly confident feeling that 2022 is going to be a great year for the Left. 

Also, a big thank you to Hurricane Rodriguez for the music. And here is another little trailer for 2022, Hurricane is working on a new, fairly adventurous musical project which we are hoping TTLL will be able to premiere shortly.

If you enjoy this podcast please share, like, review, and subscribe. Let's get the message out there!

Hope to see you all in the New Year. Love and Peace, and Solidarity.

In this episode we talk about Hippies, Tories, Centrists, and Socialists, plus we discuss Thelma's visit to the European Forum. We also ponder on how we wouldn't be allowed to make this podcast in so many countries of the world. It seems astonishing that even this humble little podcast would be deemed 'subversive', and disrespectful to the state, and that is why we must fight. We must preserve the freedoms that we have fought for and gained over the last 150 years or so.

Thank you so much for listening. Please like, share and subscribe.

Solidarity!

If you only ever listen to one episode of TTLL, then make it this one. 

Our guest is Maia Thomas, who grew up in the West Country and is the founder member of the Exeter group of Black Lives Matter.

What's to say! Maia is 22 years old. The stories she tells need to be heard, and the clarity and energy that she is putting in to her activism is amazing (I don't really do praise but this is a seriously good listen)

If you do enjoy listening to TTLL, please do remember to subscribe so that you get to hear about every episode. Also, if you know other people who may enjoy our podcast, please do share the link. We have some excellent guests lined up for the next few episodes, plus of course, you also get to hear our take on some of the latest big events on the political scene. 

Great to be able to sit down and chat with Thelma and Alexei about all things Left. 

We talk about the woeful state of the Labour Party, the AS propaganda campaign, was there an exact point when Jeremy's leadership of the Labour Party began to unravel, and most important of all, we discuss how Solidarity is an absolute essential if the Left is ever to succeed.

We also touch on brown Lada Cars and the Communist Party in the 1970s.

If you enjoy listening to our podcast please subscribe, and share the link with your friends. 

Thank you all for your support. It means a lot.

With special guest, Hilary Wainwright, not quite a lifelong Socialist, but almost, and co-editor of Red Pepper. And what a lovely conversation we had too!

We discuss, Chris Packham, The Premiership, Red Pepper, The Late 60s, The Young Liberals and Revolutionary Socialism at Oxford University, The future of the Left, and much more. And not once did we rubbish the Labour Party (sadly, we ran out of time).

If you enjoy listening to TTLL please subscribe, and please tell your friends about us.

Thank you so much for your support.

The Labour Conference Special

Or, as the Novara show from the Conference was titled, 'Is Labour Dead?'

We're a bit late  with this podcast I know, but still relevant and well worth a listen. We recorded this about an hour after Starmer's 'most important speech of his life'. Thelma had just returned from a long walk to clear her head after listening to the speech, and I couldn't face listening - I followed it on Twitter.

As often happens on our show, we disagree about a few things, but generally speaking we're on the same page. And yes, we definitely reach the same conclusions about this conference.

If you enjoy listening to TTLL please remember to Like, Comment, Tell your friends, and most importantly, to subscribe. That way you will always get to hear about our latest episodes.

Solidarity!

Here is Episode 18 of our Podcast, Thelma and Tom Look Left, in which Thelma and I discuss some surprising signs of optimism for the Left, followed by a really lovely interview with the Rickard Sisters, the creators of the wonderful comic book version of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist. I am very aware that I say this a lot, but this interview with Scarlett and Sophie was very special, with a totally unplanned, but very appropriate ending. Don't miss it!

Regular listeners will know that we always try to end the podcast with a quote, found by Thelma (where she finds them nobody knows!). The quote in this episode is by Robert Tressell, the author of the original Ragged Trousered Philanthropist. Possibly the best quote so far - It truly says it all.

If you enjoy listening to our podcast please like, review, and subscribe, to make sure that you catch every episode.

Solidarity!

After our Summer break the Headteacher and the Hippie are back in town, and this time around we really do want to get down to business.

Can the left do anything to make the changes that so need to happen, or are we destined to just talk about it forever more.

This time around our podcast release dates are going to be somewhat more anarchic, so please subscribe if you want to be sure of never missing an episode. We have some great guests lined up for the autumn season, but most of all we guarantee 100% to always try and present, with as much kindness and honesty as we can manage, an honest assessment of UK politics from the Left side of the spectrum. 

Thank you all so much for your support. 

Remember, Like, subscribe and leave comments if you enjoy our podcast.  

By popular demand, we have our first return guest, Clive Lewis MP. First time around it was a great show, and this one is too.

We explore in depth, the possible implications of the UK implementing Proportional Representation, or not. How can we change the electoral system - what are the chances of it happening, and when might it happen by. And what would this huge change mean for British politics.

A big thank you to Clive for coming back on the show. Thelma and I agreed beforehand to give Clive as much time as he needed to say all that he wanted to say on this subject. It's a long show, because it needed to be. Stick with it, it's worth it.

A busy week for Thelma so no recording this week. So Hurricane and I have put together a collection of past clips, out takes, and music, from the last few weeks. Plus we end with a very rare opportunity to listen to one of Hurricanes very own classic songs.

My absolute thanks to Hurricane for putting this together - couldn't have done it without him.

And of course thanks to all our listeners. We love you all.

Let's all work together to make this a better world for everyone.

Well, can you believe it, we've made it to Episode 10 and to celebrate the occasion, we've come up with a really good podcast (to be fair, they've all been pretty good haven't they). 

It was such a pleasure meeting and talking with John McDonnell, one of the elders of Left wing politics in the UK. So much knowledge, so much perspective, so much honesty and integrity, but beyond all that, such a genuinely nice person.

We covered a lot of ground, including a stunning description of life as a constituency MP, John's optimistic future for the Left, and most importantly, how his lessons on the trombone are coming along. All good stuff!

Thanks again to Hurricane for the production work, and also for the added excellent special intro music for our guest. You are really appreciated Huzza, by both me and Thelma, and also by our listeners.

If you enjoy listening to this podcast please subscribe, share, and tell your friends. Thank you.

Thank you for checking out our podcast. 

In Episode 9 we are joined by Kate Hudson, the general secretary of CND. I'm going to say it, I was pretty worried about how we could make this episode 'not too heavy'. In fact, we have managed to record a really good discussion. Kate is  so knowledgeable on this subject, and so reasonable and balanced in the way that she presents her case. It's a genuine 'must listen'.

Thanks again to Hurricane for sorting out the tech stuff, and playing the music. Really appreciated - without that work this podcast could not happen.

Thank you to our guest, Kate, and thank you to my co-host, Thelma, for helping make this podcast - it's a good one!.

Solidarity! 

Here it is at last. Nightmare edit because of time lag between me and Thelma at the beginning of the record. All good now (I hope).

Really great conversation with our special guest, Ash Sarkar, including discussion about the Northern Independence Party, the prospects for the Left in and outside of the Labour Party, a chat about the Left media, Ash's musical tastes, and what it is like living in a country where the government tells us everything is just fine.

As always, thanks to Hurricane for the edit and the music - your efforts are really appreciated.

And a big thank you to our guest, Ash Sarkar, and to my co-host, Thelma Walker.

I really enjoyed being part of this podcast. I hope you enjoy listening to it too. 

If you would like to contact us we are at thelmaandtom@gmail.com. 

In this episode we are joined by our special guest, Clive Lewis. 

Among other things we discuss the Northern Independence Party, music, democracy, and the prospects for the Left in the UK.

A big thank you to Clive for sharing his forthright views with us. The discussion about the state of our democracy, and what needs to happen was excellent (or maybe I just mean, I agreed with almost everything he said).

As always a big thank you to Hurricane for production and the music - check out Hurricane's Deep House, Man!

And a big shout out for my mate Dave for episode 4 of Socialist Hour (on Soundcloud), which includes a great interview with Chris Williamson.

Thank you all for listening - Solidarity! 

In this episode we welcome our special guest Melissa Benn. 

We discuss so much it's hard to list it all, but topics include, education, music, the Labour Party, Melissa's childhood, and much more.

It was a privilege to be involved in the making of this podcast. A big thank you from me to both Thelma and Melissa.

As usual my thanks to Hurricane for the production and the music.

If you enjoy listening to our podcast please remember to subscribe - the numbers really help get us out there in to the big wide world.

Solidarity. 

Here we are - Episode three! It's quite a job getting a podcast episode up and running.  Big thanks to my co host, Thelma Walker, and to this week's very special guest, the wonderful Dawn Butler. 

Subjects covered include, dealing with the media, life as an MP, and hopes for the future, plus much more. I'm going to say it - this is a great episode!

Thanks to Hurricane Rodriguez for the tech help and the music - you are much appreciated.

Please remember to subscribe - I'm told it really helps with building up the numbers - how, I have no idea.

Thank you for listening. 

Kind regards 

Tom Widdicombe

Episode Two - More chat from Thelma and Tom about political events, mainly but not totally on the Left of the political spectrum. 

Plus our first ever guest, Rebecca Long Bailey, who it turns out has pretty forthright views on almost all topics, including among other things, lockdown, the environment, and the Socialist Campaign Group.

A special thank you to Rebecca for agreeing to come on to our podcast as our first ever guest - we hope you will come back again very soon.

And another special thank you to our producer and resident musician, Hurricane Rodriguez. I'll be honest here, we did have a few issues with the recording - so utterly relieved to say Huzza has saved the day.

If you enjoy listening to our podcast, please help us to reach a bigger audience by remembering to review, share and subscribe.

You can contact us on thelmaandtom@gmail.com  

And finally, a big shout out for my friend Dave Middleton, and his great podcast, Socialist Hour, on Mixcloud. Give it a listen - it's very good. 

In our first episode we discuss the implications for the Left of the continued march to the right of the British Labour Party.

We also have an interesting chat about our respective views on life and politics.

Next week we are thrilled to announce that we have as our guest Rebecca Long-Bailey.

If you have any questions for Thelma, Rebecca or myself, please contact us at thelmaandtom@gmail.com

I would also like to thank our resident musician and producer, Hurricane Rodriguez, for all his help.

If you have enjoyed listening to our podcast please don't forget to like, review and subscribe.

Thank you.

Hello. Thelma Walker and Tom Widdicombe here. 

Welcome to the trailer for our first podcast which will be out very shortly. 

In each episode we will be discussing all the news and views on our side of the political spectrum. 

We have some great guests lined up for the next few weeks.

We look forward to seeing you soon.