Podcast

Hi everybody,
Max from the Butterbrot podcast invited me to talk about my view of the UK. The whole experience was very exciting, after all it was my first podcast. I'm always amazed at how strange my own voice sounds. And I should get out of the habit of always saying "yes" 😅. But it wasn't bad for my first attempt in the podcast world, especially as we produced the longest Butterbrot podcast to date. Thank you Max!

I can only recommend the series. In each episode an expert gives insights into his/her profession. You can find out more about the Butterbrot podcast by clicking on the picture above. (It is all in German, though)

My episode can be found via all common podcatchers. Max has set chapter markers for individual topics. Here is my episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify (again all in German):

The episode is a good introduction to British society. We were able to address some relevant topics. However, due to the complexity of the topic, we were only able to touch many points briefly, despite the length of the episode. If you would like to know more about the various aspects, I recommend reading my blog posts (for example on the cost of living, history, the education system, the political system and especially the healthcare system). These are also available in English!

Given the length of the episode, it's also no wonder that I misspoke a few times. Sometimes the sentence structure is not right, especially towards the end, sometimes I mixed some numbers or expressed myself inaccurately. So here is a short list of improvements/additions with time stamps:

48:09 - The East India Company has not been founded in the beginning of the 16th century, but in the beginning of the 17th century
1:31:50 - The House of Lords did not want to give up power, not the House of Commons
2:17:08 - The Conservative Party has about 172,000 members
2:18-2:20 - I gave a very abbreviated explanation of how Boris Johnson pushed through a new election in 2019, more here:
- Due to the Fixed-Term Parliament Act of 2011, a 2/3 majority in the House of Commons would have been required to call an unscheduled general election.
- There was initially opposition to new elections in the opposition, as a no-deal Brexit could not be ruled out due to the EU deadline for withdrawal at the end of October 2019 and the associated timing problems with new elections (negotiations on relations between the UK and the EU had to be concluded and the result confirmed in parliament).
- By extending the deadline for leaving the EU to the end of January 2020 and the possibility of calling a single, specific new election by a simple new law (with a simple majority), this solution was able to find a majority.
- Fun fact: The Fixed-Term Parliament Act of 2011 was abolished in 2022. As before, new elections will be announced by the monarch on the proposal of the Prime Minister within a 5-year period.
2:37:12 - Italy had around 5,000 registered new Covid infections on 12 March 2020, not 80,000
- 80,000 new infections would have been registered in the UK four weeks later with a reproduction rate of 2.5
2:45:00 - Start of lockdowns
- In Germany, the first lockdown started on 22/03/2020
- In the UK, the first lockdown started on 23/03/2020
3:23:12 - Premier League revenue from foreign TV rights, current rights period
- ~£5bn for three years, i.e. approx. £1.66bn per year
- equivalent to ~1.92bn Euros per year
- (Bundesliga: less than 300m Euros per year)