What I didn't get to say on BBC Newsnight

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Am I tough enough? Strong and stable leadership. Total ruba.

Seán (0:03)

Hell yes, I'm tough enough. Shut the fridge. Not another once.

Ava (0:07)

It's the PoliticsJOE podcast. Love podcast, hate nonsense.

Hi Seán.

Seán (0:16)

Hello Ava.

Ava (0:16)

I've been catching a bit of heat.

Seán (0:18)

Yeah, you have, haven't you? Unusually for you.

Ava (0:21)

It's actually, there's a really cool guy called, he goes by Novo, and I saw him on Sunday.

He's really, he's a great, he's an independent journalist. He's really cool. He's just about to qualify as a solicitor. And he does some really great videos. If you, you should go follow him. He's great and really, really nice guy. And like one of the first things he said to me was, we read something bad about you this morning. And I was like, yeah, I know which post you're talking about. And unfortunately, I mean, they're taken out of context, but I did say all of those things. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Seán (0:51)

Pope's Catholic, bears shit in woods. People are saying bad things about you.

Ava (0:56)

I think it's only a short amount of time before people start clipping me up, like disparaging the Church of England. And I'm gonna be like, well, I did, but.

Seán (1:04)

That is the way the narrative's going though. Slowly but surely, we're getting into a more traditional, fundamentalist right-wing society that eventually people are gonna rally behind the female Church of England, or Archbishop of Canterbury. I really said something else there.

Ava (1:23)

Accidentally. I actually, wow, goodness.

I don't even know how they're gonna frame that, because I suppose it is slightly sectarian, but not in the way that my rule is in Italy. I don't even.

Seán (1:36)

Romish. I love the way, God rest his soul, Ian Paisley Senior had some fantastic ways of describing Catholics, like papists being one of them.

People who were of a Romish.

Ava (1:49)

That's amazing, isn't it? Because that has a horrible connotation to it. But it's like.

Seán (1:54)

But it's so colourful. Papish, or sorry, Romish sensibilities.

Ava (2:01)

I think it's fruity. I think there's something nice to it. It's like none of this matters, all right?

My guy's in Vatican.

Seán (2:09)

Yeah, exactly. He's got the nice buildings. He's got all the gold.

Ava (2:12)

Yeah. And he's been doing some other bits as well that we shall talk about.

Seán (2:16)

We don't need to talk about that. The Boston Globe will talk about that.

Ava (2:19)

Well, of course. Great film, that.

Seán (2:21)

It is. It really is.

Ava (2:22)

So anyway, the Pope was down at the Lesbian Bar, and...

Seán (2:27)

They really have it all at the Globe, don't they?

Ava (2:29)

They do. That was one of the most extraordinary days on Twitter that we've had in a long time.

Seán (2:34)

No, I enjoyed it wholeheartedly. Should we get into some of your Newsnight bits?

Ava (2:38)

Yeah, I feel like there was something else I wanted to add to that about the Pope debate, but I'm sure I'll think of it.

Seán (2:45)

Yeah, he's always at the front of our minds.

Ava (2:49)

Okay, so should we do...

Essentially, I'm going to talk to you today, and we're going to talk to you today, about my appearance on Newsnight following the arrest of Danny Tomo, who has been charged, so we can't go into detail about that. There was a protest outside the Amazing Stoke police station that was happening concurrently while I was in the studio, and there were three people who were arrested, one of them for assault on an emergency worker. That was a woman, I do believe, who was 32, which is very young. I don't know, is that about right for... Anyway, look, we can't go into those charges, so let's not, let's leave that there. That's just a point of information. We'll roll a...

Seán (3:34)

I want to ponder.

Ava (3:35)

We'll roll a clip. I'm not trying to downplay, but I would say that I do think this has been over-sensationized. I would also say that some of these people...

Seán (3:43)

You asked me if I was downplaying it because you're saying you're happy to live next to an asylum hotel, which many people are not.

Ava (3:47)

I wasn't necessarily happy to live next to an asylum hotel. Well, are you unhappy to live next to an asylum hotel? But I wasn't going to demonise every black and brown person in this country because I live next door to an asylum seeker hotel, which is becoming the onslaught of what people are doing after seeing the coverage day in, day out. I think it's very dangerous.