The Stepping Out of Line Podcast

In this episode, Leo speaks to Shama Tatler, Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Planning & Growth in the London Borough of Brent. Shama offers insights into how to be a 'pro-growth' and 'pro-housing' local politician, who delivers on their promises. Together, we deep dive into London's housing and infrastructure crisis, and I hear about what can be done by local leaders to improve our capital's dire situation. An extended version of this podcast is available at: https://www.patreon.com/posts/88434982?pr=true

In this episode, Leo sits down with Ruth Anderson, former Labour MP and current life peer in the House of Lords. Ruth reflects on her time representing Stoke-on-Trent and why Labour lost its 'Red Wall' in 2019. We discuss Britain's cultural divides and I ask whether there is a way back for the party in towns like Stoke.In the later part of the episode, Ruth opens up about the antisemitism she experienced in the Labour Party. She reveals how an abject failure of leadership in the party, led to a damning investigation by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. 

In this episode, Leo sits down with Harry Pitts and Matt Bolton, authors of Corbynism: A Critical Approach. Their book offered a left-critique of Corbynism, keenly examining how Corbynism’s truncated view of capitalism as a ‘rigged system’, led to an embrace of populist natavism and provided fertile ground for conspiracy theories.Matt & Harry open up about their political background as Marxist academics and left-wing activists, and their motivations for writing the book. They reflect on the response their book received, and how their political outlooks and attitudes have changed since they first sat down to write it. Together, we discuss the missed opportunities of the Corbyn years and try to find some lessons from its ruins.

In this episode, Leo is joined by Liam Duffy, a researcher, speaker and trainer in counter-terrorism. Our conversation took place not long after the 'Wakefield school incident', where a copy of the Quran was accidentally damaged by a pupil at Kettlethorpe High School. Liam helps provide context to the anti-blasphemy demonstrations that followed, and together we dissect the response from the police, the school, and the local authority. The rest of the podcast is spent reflecting on counter extremism in modern Britain, and its success and failures. Together we contemplate what is extremism, and difficulty in challenging threatening ideologies, while protecting free speech and community cohesion.

In this episode, Leo sits down with feminist writer and pop culture critic, Sarah Ditum. Sarah has written extensively on sex and gender and has faced a backlash for her 'gender critical' views. During our discussion, we reflect on changing attitudes towards sex, free speech and pornography. We discuss 'cancel culture' and the impact it has on the personal and the societal. Sarah reflects on how debates around gender and sex have changed rapidly over the last decades and she makes a compelling case that difficult and uncomfortable conversation on these topics, cannot be kicked down the road.

Over the past thirty years, Gary Kent has been one of the most influential figures in shaping Labour foreign policy. Yet few people know his name. From the Good Friday Agreement, to the Iraq invasion, to the decision to go to war against ISIS, Leo gets the inside track on some of the most important and controversial decisions in Labour foreign policy, from the man with a front row seat.In the second of two episodes with Gary Kent, Leo asks Gary about the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the enduring legacy of the conflict in the region and back home. We hear about his work leading the Iraq solidarity movement and we hear in depth about Gary's relationship with the Iraqi Kurds and his current work developing their ties with the U.K Government.