Coco Kahn
speaker
1,632 appearances
19 recordings
2 series
first heard Sep 2024
last heard 12 Jun
Coco Kahn’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 5 in all, peaking in Feb 2026 with 3.
Appearances
What are you thinking about Labour, though? Because they are they're walking something of a tightrope. They have to show diplomatic support for the new administration, but they also want to stand up for Ukraine. But they're also quite clearly afraid of pissing off Trump. Would you count that as effectively cheerleading it on?
But I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head that he's someone who is personality driven. He likes to work with people he likes. And so there is always a risk if you stand up to him and tell him some hard truths. Perhaps he'll respect it, but perhaps he wouldn't. I mean, this might be a problem that you face yourself.
So I noticed that Elon Musk recently called you, and we quote, a sniveling cretin. Congratulations on that, by the way. I think if Elon despises you, you're doing something right. Yeah. If you found yourself having to work with his administration, what would you do? Surely there'd be consequences to the outspokenness.
And he does seem to like Macron as well. So that doesn't seem to have backfired.
Let me talk to you about defence spending, though. So you've been saying that spending needs to go up. Today, the government announced plans to do just that, promising 2.5% of GDP. The big surprise, though, in Starmer's speech was how he intends to pay for this increase. So it's our international aid budgets. It's obviously attracted immediate criticism from organisations like Save the Children.
They've called it a betrayal of the world's most vulnerable children. What do you think of this?
Do you think it's genuinely possible to put money into defence and not feel the pinch at home? Because, look, all the polling suggests that the reason people are losing faith in the government and politics in general is because of the cost of living.
And I think there will be some people in some parts of the country who, rightly or wrongly, will say, hang on a minute, why are we paying for a conflict that's really far away when in my neighbourhood there's so many children and so many things that need fixing? I mean, are these two things at odds?
Okay, well, putting aside the pinch that could be coming or shouldn't be coming, I feel like to say that you're anti-war, if you said that out loud, people would just scoff at you and laugh at you. This is ridiculous. What a terrible perspective to have. But there is just something here where an increase in defence means we're becoming a bit more militaristic, we're becoming a bit more war-ready.
And on a personal note, that does make me a little bit anxious. What does it mean to be anti-war in this day and age?
It is strange, though. I can feel myself sometimes when I'm talking about like, can't we all just get along? But I'm like, you know, trying to put flowers into machine guns or something, which seems all very passe. Nobody's doing that anymore. But it does feel like the global temperature is rising in terms of aggression, in terms of the prospect of war. I mean, how worried are you at the moment?
Okay, what about being more neutral?
I just felt I had to ask that for all the pacifists listening in.
So Starmer is meeting Trump on Thursday. If you were in his shoes, shaking his hand with an iron grip, what would you say to him?
Well, I mean, if you want a suggestion from me, I know he's a big fan of the royals and there's so much great royal goss out there. Affairs, so many affairs, secret children. You just need to get yourself on Reddit, Ed, and you'll find it.
Probably not the best idea.
The price of gold, by the way, is very high. I'm Asian. These are things that I know. Sir Ed Davey, thank you so much for joining us on Pod Save the UK.
Exactly. It's a stylish digital picture frame you upload directly from your phone. It's been named number one digital picture frame by Wirecutter and loads of other places for a really good reason. And I'll tell you why. It's easy. It's easy. Your parents can understand it. That's how easy it is.
It takes about two minutes to set up. Again, I've said it before, but I'll say it. It is really, really easy. And it's a really good gift. Every frame comes packaged in a premium gift box. You can add unlimited videos and limited photos. You can get people access to it so they can directly upload their photos, which I think it's kind of asking for trouble in certain friendship groups, isn't it?
Yeah, but come on, if you gave me access, I would put up trolley photos that would appear in your house when you least expect it. That's obviously what I do. But anyway, you have settings against that.
Showing 881–900 of 1,632 · page 45 of 82
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