This Trawl starts with a confession that absolutely nobody asked for. A Norwegian Olympic medallist wins bronze… then goes live on TV to admit he cheated, not in sport, but on his girlfriend. Gold medal in biathlon, emotional own goal in life. Marina and Jemma unpack public guilt, performative remorse, and why the Winter Olympics still feels like a collection of sports invented during a long weekend in Oslo.

But from awkward to outright alarming…

Reform UK are floating policies that sound less like a manifesto and more like a Handmaid’s Tale mood board. Nigel Farage is hinting at fewer divorces and abortions under his leadership. Matt Goodwin thinks childfree people should be taxed more - a literal fertility surcharge - and has suggested girls should be encouraged to have babies earlier. Yes. Really.

From Natasha Devon’s brilliant LBC take, to Argentina erupting under Javier Milei’s chainsaw economics, to Nadhim Zahawi proving once again that being out of touch is a lifestyle choice.

There is rage. There is swearing. There is Catherine Tate.

And just when you think it can’t get more absurd, Rupert Lowe launches his own party.

Plus: a resurfaced Stone Roses press conference clip that is the chaotic pudding we all deserve.

Gold medals, fertility taxes, and five pence off a pint.

Completely normal country.

Thank you for sharing and please do follow us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTrawlPodcast

Patreon

https://patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTrawl

Twitter

https://twitter.com/TheTrawlPodcast

If you’ve even mildly enjoyed The Trawl, you’ll love the unfiltered, no-holds-barred extras from Jemma & Marina over on Patreon, including:

• Exclusive episodes of The Trawl Goss – where Jemma and Marina spill backstage gossip, dive into their personal lives, and often forget the mic is on

• Early access to The Trawl Meets…

• Glorious ad-free episodes

Plus, there’s a bell-free community of over 3,300 legends sparking brilliant chat.

And it’s your way to support the pod which the ladies pour their hearts, souls (and occasional anxiety) into. All for your listening pleasure and reassurance that through this geopolitical s**tstorm… you’re not alone.

Come join the fun:

https://www.patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marina and Jemma pour the champagne, light the cauldron and gather the coven because honestly, what in the hallucinogenic hell is going on?

First up: America’s Health Secretary says something truly eye-watering. Then, from villainy to heroism via a brilliant moment highlighted by Vic Derbyshire the Trawl ladies celebrate a woman calmly, powerfully doing the right thing (even if their GCSE French can’t quite keep up).

But alas, back to the rogues’ gallery: billionaire Jim Ratcliffe has waded into immigration with talk of “colonising” Britain prompting an unusually swift response from Keir Starmer. Is this… backbone? Is this growth? Is this a new era?

Gary Lineker features, as does Cilla, plus Zack Polanski shining on Sky and a pudding that asks the eternal question, how can anyone claim politics doesn’t affect them?

Heroes. Villains. Billionaires. Populists. And a pub full of witches trying to make sense of it all.

Bring snacks

Thank you for sharing and please do follow us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTrawlPodcast

Patreon

https://patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTrawl

Twitter

https://twitter.com/TheTrawlPodcast

If you’ve even mildly enjoyed The Trawl, you’ll love the unfiltered, no-holds-barred extras from Jemma & Marina over on Patreon, including:

• Exclusive episodes of The Trawl Goss – where Jemma and Marina spill backstage gossip, dive into their personal lives, and often forget the mic is on

• Early access to The Trawl Meets…

• Glorious ad-free episodes

Plus, there’s a bell-free community of over 3,300 legends sparking brilliant chat.

And it’s your way to support the pod which the ladies pour their hearts, souls (and occasional anxiety) into. All for your listening pleasure and reassurance that through this geopolitical s**tstorm… you’re not alone.

Come join the fun:

https://www.patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marina Purkiss and Jemma Forte dive headfirst into the political absurdity of the past seven days and honestly? You couldn’t script it.

First up: the US Congress hearing that left jaws on the floor. Attorney General Pam Bondi arrived armed with a massive binder and a promise of transparency and delivered… evasions. With Epstein survivors present in the room, the exchanges were tense, emotional, and deeply uncomfortable. The Trawl ladies unpack.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump continues to generate headlines for all the wrong reasons from tariff confusion to podium moments that raise more eyebrows than answers. Is this strategy, chaos, or something else entirely?

Back home, Reform UK has decided that working from home is apparently the enemy of civilisation. Marina and Jemma look at the party’s push against remote working, the glaring inconsistencies, and why critics say the policy raises more questions than it answers.

Plus: Jewish activists heckle Nigel Farage, Melanie Stansbury refuses to mince her words, and The Marsh Family deliver the pudding.

Buckle up, Trawlers.

Thank you for sharing and please do follow us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTrawlPodcast

Patreon

https://patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTrawl

Twitter

https://twitter.com/TheTrawlPodcast

If you’ve even mildly enjoyed The Trawl, you’ll love the unfiltered, no-holds-barred extras from Jemma & Marina over on Patreon, including:

• Exclusive episodes of The Trawl Goss – where Jemma and Marina spill backstage gossip, dive into their personal lives, and often forget the mic is on

• Early access to The Trawl Meets…

• Glorious ad-free episodes

Plus, there’s a bell-free community of over 3,300 legends sparking brilliant chat.

And it’s your way to support the pod which the ladies pour their hearts, souls (and occasional anxiety) into. All for your listening pleasure and reassurance that through this geopolitical s**tstorm… you’re not alone.

Come join the fun:

https://www.patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, we start with cursed Valentine’s poetry from...Greg Wallace and a rogue “dangler", before plunging straight into the political sewer. Rory Stewart decides that £94k counts as “low income”, Trump posts a racist video in the middle of the night and then immediately blows up his own press office’s cover story, and Labour descends into full‑blown chaos as Morgan McSweeney finally exits stage left.

Marina and Jemma pick through the wreckage: Wes Streeting’s leaked war‑crimes admission, Mandelson’s potential fingerprints over Palantir, and a Labour Party so busy chasing Reform voters it’s forgotten its own base. It’s maddening, it’s bleakly funny, and it’s exactly why The Trawl exists - because someone has to sift through this BS.

Thank you for sharing and please do follow us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTrawlPodcast

Patreon

https://patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTrawl

Twitter

https://twitter.com/TheTrawlPodcast

If you’ve even mildly enjoyed The Trawl, you’ll love the unfiltered, no-holds-barred extras from Jemma & Marina over on Patreon, including:

• Exclusive episodes of The Trawl Goss – where Jemma and Marina spill backstage gossip, dive into their personal lives, and often forget the mic is on

• Early access to The Trawl Meets…

• Glorious ad-free episodes

Plus, there’s a bell-free community of over 3,300 legends sparking brilliant chat.

And it’s your way to support the pod which the ladies pour their hearts, souls (and occasional anxiety) into. All for your listening pleasure and reassurance that through this geopolitical s**tstorm… you’re not alone.

Come join the fun:

https://www.patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Olympians dare to distance themselves from Trump, Bad Bunny turns the Super Bowl halftime show into a love-soaked middle finger, and Kid Rock delivers what may be the worst miming incident in broadcast history.

Then it gets darker. Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s trafficking network run a Super Bowl PSA demanding the truth while the US government, British media and political class continue to redact, deflect and downplay. Why are names still hidden? Why is the press treating this like an inconvenience rather than the biggest abuse-and-blackmail scandal in modern history? And why does Peter Mandelson get a soft-focus Sunday Times makeover like he’s the victim here?

Jemma and Marina dig into the Epstein files, the media blackout, the aristocratic audacity of people bragging about their proximity to a convicted sex trafficker, and the jaw-dropping clips you have to hear to believe. Plus: Reform, Farage, Russia, Israel, the monarchy, Melania’s film getting absolutely savaged and a pudding that might be the only sane thing left.

It’s rage, receipts and gallows humour — because apparently that’s where we are now.

Thank you for sharing and please do follow us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTrawlPodcast

Patreon

https://patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTrawl

Twitter

https://twitter.com/TheTrawlPodcast

If you’ve even mildly enjoyed The Trawl, you’ll love the unfiltered, no-holds-barred extras from Jemma & Marina over on Patreon, including:

• Exclusive episodes of The Trawl Goss – where Jemma and Marina spill backstage gossip, dive into their personal lives, and often forget the mic is on

• Early access to The Trawl Meets…

• Glorious ad-free episodes

Plus, there’s a bell-free community of over 3,300 legends sparking brilliant chat.

And it’s your way to support the pod which the ladies pour their hearts, souls (and occasional anxiety) into. All for your listening pleasure and reassurance that through this geopolitical s**tstorm… you’re not alone.

Come join the fun:

https://www.patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marina and Jemma wade through the moral swamp of Reform UK’s latest masterplan: cutting beer duty by keeping children in poverty - because according to them the nation’s biggest crisis is Dave paying £4.80 instead of £4.75 for his pint.

Labour doesn’t escape the drag either, with Rachel Reeves floating the idea that only graduates should pay for their degrees - a policy so anti‑youth it might as well come with a free copy of the Daily Mail. Meanwhile, Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick manage to accidentally vote to abolish the two‑child benefit cap after wandering into the wrong lobby. God help us if these people end up running the country.

Farage continues to dodge debates like it’s an Olympic sport, all while his name keeps surfacing in the Epstein files. And across the pond, Trump tells a female reporter to “smile” when asked about a paedophile ring - because it's a smiley kind of subject, right? At least misogyny is the one thing he’s always consistent on.

Plus: dating‑app despair, cortisol levels that should come with a health warning, and a perfect clip capturing the spiritual emptiness of people who proudly declare they’re “not political.”

Thank you for sharing and please do follow us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTrawlPodcast

Patreon

https://patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTrawl

Twitter

https://twitter.com/TheTrawlPodcast

If you’ve even mildly enjoyed The Trawl, you’ll love the unfiltered, no-holds-barred extras from Jemma & Marina over on Patreon, including:

• Exclusive episodes of The Trawl Goss – where Jemma and Marina spill backstage gossip, dive into their personal lives, and often forget the mic is on

• Early access to The Trawl Meets…

• Glorious ad-free episodes

Plus, there’s a bell-free community of over 3,300 legends sparking brilliant chat.

And it’s your way to support the pod which the ladies pour their hearts, souls (and occasional anxiety) into. All for your listening pleasure and reassurance that through this geopolitical s**tstorm… you’re not alone.

Come join the fun:

https://www.patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

January nearly finished us off, and February hasn’t exactly come in with flowers. Marina is abandoned in the news‑cycle trenches while Jemma wafts around on a boat, and together they pick through the week’s mess: Marina’s run‑in with Reform, her viral roasting of Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the spectacular failure of the Melania documentary, Bezos’ suspiciously sculpted torso, and the grim, sprawling, still‑redacted Epstein file dump. There are tributes, tangents, tech meltdowns, and an unholy amount of swearing at wires. Chaotic, cathartic, and unmistakably The Trawl.

Thank you for sharing and please do follow us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTrawlPodcast

Patreon

https://patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTrawl

Twitter

https://twitter.com/TheTrawlPodcast

If you’ve even mildly enjoyed The Trawl, you’ll love the unfiltered, no-holds-barred extras from Jemma & Marina over on Patreon, including:

• Exclusive episodes of The Trawl Goss – where Jemma and Marina spill backstage gossip, dive into their personal lives, and often forget the mic is on

• Early access to The Trawl Meets…

• Glorious ad-free episodes

Plus, there’s a bell-free community of over 3,300 legends sparking brilliant chat.

And it’s your way to support the pod which the ladies pour their hearts, souls (and occasional anxiety) into. All for your listening pleasure and reassurance that through this geopolitical s**tstorm… you’re not alone.

Come join the fun:

https://www.patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For many, comedian and writer, Stewart Lee, is the GOAT so Jemma and Marina were thrilled to sit down with him to chat about the state of the world, how to deal with mad relatives, Brexit, Trump, how he fills his spare time and everything in between.

Lee is described on Wikipedia as having an onstage persona that alternates between 'that of an outspoken left-wing hero and that of a depressed failure and champagne socialist who criticises his audience for not being intelligent enough to understand his jokes.' This is all like catnip to The Trawl so Marina and Jemma knew their meeting with the comedy legend would not disappoint. Spoiler, it didn't.

This episode is sponsored by AG1 - the daily foundational nutrition support drink which helps you combat the winter season both mentally and physically. For a limited time, get a limited edition AG one Green Steel Tumblr plus five travel packs, and a welcome kit to get you started.

That's all worth £80, but it's free when you sign up for a monthly subscription at drinkag1.com/thetrawl

Thank you for sharing and please do follow us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTrawlPodcast

Patreon

https://patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast

Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/@TheTrawl

Twitter

https://twitter.com/TheTrawlPodcast

If you’ve even mildly enjoyed The Trawl, you’ll love the unfiltered, no-holds-barred extras from Jemma & Marina over on Patreon, including:

• Exclusive episodes of The Trawl Goss – where Jemma and Marina spill backstage gossip, dive into their personal lives, and often forget the mic is on

• Early access to The Trawl Meets…

• Glorious ad-free episodes

Plus, there’s a bell-free community of over 3,300 legends sparking brilliant chat.

And it’s your way to support the pod which the ladies pour their hearts, souls (and occasional anxiety) into. All for your listening pleasure and reassurance that through this geopolitical s**tstorm… you’re not alone.

Come join the fun:

https://www.patreon.com/TheTrawlPodcast?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.