5. The Politics of Denial

The cheese is locked up. The Navy can't sail to a war. Reform won't touch the triple lock pension. And nobody, apparently, has anything to answer for. Top political comedian Matt Forde convenes his Focus Group in front of a live theatre audience with a forensically matched panel — journalist and author Helen Lewis, conservative commentator Tim Montgomerie, and former SNP MP Mhairi Black — to ask whether denial has become the default setting in British politics.

From a shoplifting epidemic that politicians have decided not to notice, to the vast gap between Britain's naval self-image and its actual capacity to put to sea, and the cross-party conspiracy of silence around a pension policy everyone suspects is unaffordable but nobody will touch, this is an episode about the uncomfortable distance between what politicians know and what they're prepared to say.

Written and presented by Matt Forde
With additional material from Karl Minns, Ruth Husko and Richard Garvin
Produced by Richard Garvin
Co-Producer: Daisy Knight
Sound Design and Edit: David Thomas
Executive Producers: Jon Thoday and Richard Allen Turner
An Avalon production for BBC Radio 4