YouSaid · the spoken record

Daisy Cooper

lines on the record: 44
first: 2024-11-22
most recent: 2024-11-22
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I mean, probably not. I'm not really one for going in the water too much these days. Growing up in Suffolk, I did paddle in the sea quite a lot, but I think driving a tractor, maybe going on Thought Park, that's probably more my kind of thing.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Did the bungee jumping? Not really. I think Thought Park might be my kind of thing, or possibly riding the tractor. That was definitely a good one.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I think it's far too early to know what the fault lines of the next general election will be. If you think back to 2019 and the election we've just had, nobody would have predicted all the global events that would have happened and nobody, I think, would have guessed that the 80-seat majority of the Conservatives would have swung so far in the other direction towards Labour. In terms of where I want us to be at the next election, I want people to see that we have been a force for good in Parliament, that we have made a difference, that we've won the moral argument, that we are leading and winning the battle of ideas still. I believe we did that in the last parliament. I believe we can do it again in this parliament. And I hope very much that that then translates into support in the ballot box.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There are lots of other think tanks that say that these are good ideas. So, for example, we have been calling for the windfall tax loopholes to be closed. We do think that reversing the tax cuts on the big banks to where they were in 2015, of course that could be done. That's where the tax levels were just a few years ago. That's not impossible to do.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So we have taken the approach of being a constructive opposition, and there are plenty of things in the budget that we did support. So we voted in favour of, for example, of raising the windfall tax, including the loopholes in the windfall tax. We voted in the voting lobbies with the government on that. It was something that we had called for. Davy was the very first party leader to call for the windfall tax many years ago, so we were very happy to vote with the government on that particular measure. But you're right, you know, we're a separate political party, so we'll support the government where we agree, but where we don't agree, we're not going to support them.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, probably down to my mum actually, she's instilled that in me a young age. But look, we just had a terrible Gemin election result in 2019. Joe Swinson had lost her seat. She was our party leader at the time. And it felt really important to me that as I was one of the very few that did get elected in 2019, that we used every single platform going to talk about liberal values. And that's what I was determined to do.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But sometimes someone will say, are you that Lib Dem woman off the telly? So people who haven't quite remembered exactly who I am, but it is quite fun.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, it's quite fun. I do get recognised quite a lot, but people can't quite place me. So I often get, are you on the telly sometimes? Are you an actress? And I say, no, no, no. I sometimes pretend I'm Emma Thompson, right? Which gets you a better tale?”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, I feel I'm lucky to be here every single day. I really do. Even the day is when I wake up and I'm a bit grumpy that the alarm's gone off too early and I've got some meetings that I may not be looking forward to. I genuinely feel lucky every single day. And it's a little phrase I often use when I talk to my husband. I often say we're watching the news or what have you. I just say look, we're so lucky. We're so lucky. We're so lucky to be alive. And when you look at scenes of horror happening around the world or you hear of people who've lost their lives too early, you just have to grasp it. And even though I've been involved in politics before, I had the diagnosis of Crohn's, you know, it does drive you and it makes you a bit more sort of fearless because you think, well, once you face mortality, what else is there to be scared of?”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Pretty much. And the Crones was very extensive. And at that point, a number of my internal organs were at risk of the disease spreading. And so, yeah, at that point, I said, okay, well, I'll sign the form then. And it was quite a transactional conversation because it seemed like a common sense thing to do. And it was only later, I remember my mum came to visit and she helped me wash before the operation because I didn't have the strength to do it myself. Yeah, she helped me wash. I remember her, I do remember my mum drying my toes because I was losing sensation and feeling in my toes and my limbs. And so I could barely, barely feel it, but I could just feel a very light sensation when she had the towel on my toes. And I think she was preparing for the worst. And I think she was thinking that this might be the last time that she might see me if I didn't make it through the surgery.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was incredibly weak, and I remember struggling to hold the pen when I had to sign the consent form to have the surgery. It's a very strange phrase to hear, and I think I sort of went into the little energy I had left, I sort of said, well, what happens if I don't have the surgery? Because they said, we need to operate. We need to operate in the next four days. And I said, well, what happens if you don't? What happens if I don't sign the form? And I said, well, you'll die. I said, right, well, I'd better sign the form then. So it was a very kind of transactional conversation at that point. Absolutely clear.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was told that I may not ever work again. And that really crushed my soul because, as you said before, and I get my campaigning gives me meaning and purpose. And to feel as though this illness could effectively take my life away, I'd still be physically living, but ultimately wouldn't be able to do what I wanted to do. It just was really deeply upsetting. And I guess it made me realize that there's a phrase of one of my friends who's disabled says to me, there's no such thing as being not disabled, you're only just not disabled yet.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I was only diagnosed with Crohn's disease in 2012. I think I probably had it my entire life. But I was diagnosed because I had become very severely ill very, very quickly and I needed life-saving surgery. And without it, I only had four days left to live. And there were quite a few things that I found to be quite a profound experience. The first was the extraordinary level of care from the doctors and the nurses and the consultants and everybody else. You know, there are times when you're lying in a bed in the middle of the night and you're in extreme amounts of pain and a nurse comes over and just holds your hand and administers some pain relief and you're just so grateful that someone is showing you some human compassion as well as giving you that medical relief. And I was struck time and time again during the time I was in hospital at just the amazing quality of the care. But there was a broader issue as well, which is that after the surgery,”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We're in a situation in this country where people are facing a cost of living crisis, where they're choosing between their heating and their eating. When you have a war in Europe and where there's no public transport or very poor public transport, the idea that you're going to put up people's petrol prices is nuts. We need to invest in public transport. We have to invest in transport. And as people have alternative options, then of course you can then turn to look at that issue.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We were really clear in our manifesto and elsewhere that we see climate change as an existential issue. You know, we have tackled the climate emergency and Ed Davy himself was a climate minister in coalition. So it is an issue very close to our heart. The case that we were making in the general election was that if you invest in tackling climate change, you can actually reduce people's energy bills by insulating their homes. And what worries me Yeah, well, I think the issue on that is that obviously we've got a war in Europe”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But we said we were going to reflect the concerns of voters. And when voters say to you on the doorstep, my life is in crisis. I can't afford the petrol to drive my elderly mother to hospital. I can't get an assessment for my child. I'm going to have to give up my job because nothing works. If we were to turn around and say, well, have you thought about rejoining the single market? We would have looked so out of touch. And that's just not something that people want in politicians. People want politicians to be talking about the issues that affect their every single day lives. And that's what we were determined to do.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like, my passion for being an internationalist is not dimmed at all. You know, we do remain a pro-European party. We want the UK back at hard part.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, like we suffered some really bad election results, you know, 2015, 2017, 2019. And Ed Davy was really clear that we had to get back to the job of listening to voters and what their issues were. And when we knocked on doors and we did knock on millions of doors across the country, people just said to us, it's the NHS. It's social care. It's special educational needs. It's mental health. These are the issues that are plaguing us day in, day out. We can't access public services. We're paying taxes through the nose and we can't, nothing works, everything is broken. And so we made a very clear choice that if that's what the voters were telling us, that's what we had to talk about.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, I think our party I think our party changes with the times, you know. I have always been, say, a campaigner through and through. And there are causes very close to my heart that I campaign for. And I did that when I was a member of the party and now was Deputy Leader.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was six years old. I'm not sure I had much of a choice. My mum took me on the CND march. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with the cause.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, that's right. I mean, I had stood as a candidate in the 2010 general election, and we had made a promise in that campaign. I put it on my leaflets. And as a party member who was not elected in 2010, I felt very strongly about that particular policy. I think what we can all see now, of course, is that the Labour government have now been forced into a position where they've now put up tuition fees themselves. And many parties of all stripes have not tackled the issue about serious university funding. But yeah, at the time, that was a policy I didn't agree with. But I did remain a member of the Lib Dems because it's a party whose values I share and with whose values I'm most closely aligned. I think many members felt the same.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think if the Commonwealth itself, you know, it's a modern Commonwealth Association, states want to be voluntarily their members, I think they themselves have to work out what they want the future of the association to look like”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think one of the concerns here is that the British monarchy and the monarchy of a few other Commonwealth countries is still head of the Commonwealth. And there was certainly when I was working there a sense in which a number of countries thought that that wasn't appropriate for a modern association. So there are many Commonwealth countries that think that the monarchy is fantastic. I think Prince Charles himself I met him when I worked at the Commonwealth and he was campaigning then on climate change and for the protection of small island states and for more action from the UK and others. And there's no doubt that he takes his role very seriously. But I think there's a question for the Commonwealth Association as a whole as to whether it wants to be a modern association and how it makes that transition from the past to the future.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The point I was trying to make then, and which I would sort of make now, is that the Commonwealth Association is always developing. And there was a very strong sense at the time that if the Commonwealth was going to continue as an association that promoted democracy, human rights and the rule of law, that it was really important that the Commonwealth looks to try and break its link with empire and with the past.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Look, I have been in so many international meetings where some countries are demanding cash and there's a form of negotiation that comes out with something else at the other end. So I think there has to be a form of negotiation about what it is that UK and other OECD countries within the Commonwealth can do to support other Commonwealth nations.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think there should have been an acknowledgement about how deeply felt some of these issues really are. We absolutely should apologise for our role in slavery as well. But I don't think that reparations are the right way forward. Certainly when I worked for the Commonwealth and I was there for between eight and ten years in different roles, what people wanted was they wanted the sort of the rich OECD countries in the Commonwealth, so the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, they wanted them to be advocates for them on the global stage. They saw the Commonwealth as another association to get them through the door. And certainly when the UK was still a member of the European Union, some of the smaller Commonwealth countries saw the UK's role as being advocates for them within the EU campaigning for and arguing for free trade against some of the more protectionist units.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's probably a little bit of both, and it depends which bit of our history we're talking about. I think we as a country, and I think the Commonwealth as a whole, is still struggling to come to terms with the legacy of empire. And when I worked for the Commonwealth and I worked amongst staff that came from around 50 different countries and I met with Commonwealth leaders and foreign ministers and officials, Why this organization is you know why we're still part of it, et cetera, et cetera. And of course, the legacy of Empire still exists through homophobic laws and blasphemy laws and things like that. And so I think we've struggled as a country to reconcile ourselves with that. I think the Commonwealth Association continues to struggle with it too.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sure, but in the end they dropped some of those measures because of the outcry about what they were trying to do. And there's always a balance, isn't there, between security and freedom? And it was clear to me that my commitment to freedom needed to be fought for. And so that afternoon, I thought, right, well, I think I can do a better job. I'm going to sign up. I'm going to join the Lib Dems. I'm going to find out how to become an MP and that's what I'm going to do.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's right. Yeah. So it was a Sunday morning. I think I may have been out on the town the night before. But I was eating my cereal in my pajamas on the television and suddenly had the TV shows on, as we often do on a Sunday morning. And I was really shocked to hear a minister use some fairly sort of strong language. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was something along the lines of this was the tail end of the Labour government. They were looking at introducing 42 days detention without charge. They were sort of rolling out stop and search even where there was no sort of suspicion. And they were sort of talking about the homegrown, the war on homegrown terrorism and how they were going to be sort of, the language they used sounded to me like they were going to start rounding up people in communities. And it found it sounded really alarming. And I remember just all the kind of civil liberty injustice sort of hackles suddenly felt on edge. And I just thought, where have we got to if a minister of state, whichever party therein, sort of uses this kind of language that sort of stereotypes”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think I have always had a very strong response to anything where I see injustice. And, you know, just looking at the campaigns that I've run in Parliament over the last few years on the CADIN crisis, for example, a huge injustice that the government at the time was perpetuating by saying that leaseholders had to pay for things, I campaigned for the immune compromised, many of whom are still shielding after COVID because they still don't have any proper vaccine protection. And so whenever I see an injustice, it just gets me in my gut. It really does. And it makes me want to fight to fix those injustices.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So they changed the school uniform policy, and they changed the provider of the jumper, and the new jumper they introduced was incredibly itchy and scratchy, and it was quite expensive, and a number of the families couldn't afford to buy the new jumper when we only had a year left of wearing it. So I campaigned on this and got the headteacher to change the policy so that you only had to buy it if you had the full three years at the high school. So it was a cost issue as well as an itchy issue.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They often made a donation but refused to take the tree because they couldn't plant them in their London flats. So I pledged to plant them on their behalf, which I duly did.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Party politics no but big political issues yes I think one of the first campaigns that I ever wanted to do was I remember talking about climate change and acid rain and things you know I used to go and collect conquers every autumn and plant them and grow little trees and growing up in Suffolk we had all these kind of holiday makers up from London you know the townies that used to come up as we called them and I used to try and flog them these trees and say if you don't buy my trees you're going to be responsible for killing the planet you know I was only about five or six years old”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly, and she didn't feel able to join them, so instead we cut out some of the travel coupons on the back of the washing powder packets to send them so that the women could go home and see their kids. So there was always some kind of activism that we were doing.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, I wasn't interested in party politics until my late 20s, but having sort of looked back, because people ask me these questions, having sort of looked back at growing up, there are clear moments when I was absorbing this sense of campaigning. So yes, went on that march. I also remember my mum wanted to support the Greenham Common women.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The memory I have, and goodness me, there's probably some footage somewhere, was I think it was an ITV camera and they just said, why are you on the march today? And I remember holding up a little white dove and saying, because I don't want to grow up in a world full of nuclear weapons. And I think it's entirely possible I turned to my mum afterwards and said, what's a nuclear weapon? But I learnt my lines.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, two quick examples, both led by our party leader, Ed Davy. One was around calling for the government to tackle the scandal of the carer's allowance over payment penalties. The government has committed to doing a review of that. That would not have happened if it wasn't for Ed Davies and the Lib Dems campaigning. And the other issue was raising, which was announced in the budget just the other week, the Chancellor name-checked Davey when she did her speech and said it's down to his representations and that of others that we are going to raise the number of hours that carers can work until they forfeit their allowances. So yes, I think those are two very clear examples within just over 100 days of this new parliament where we lib dems are making a difference.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“What I would say is it's incumbent on every political party to listen to those areas where people feel powerless. And actually for us as a political party, it was the NHS that came up time and time again. It was the sense that people felt that everything was broken. Everything was broken. Nothing worked and they wanted people to fix it. And I think that we managed to navigate that particular issue by saying, well, look, we agree with you that it's broken and this is how we would fix it. So we did give solutions. We did give answers and people certainly voted for us on record levels.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Here in the UK, in the general election, what we heard from people was that people felt powerless to get a GP appointment. People felt powerless to see a dentist. They felt powerless to be able to access the healthcare they needed. They felt powerless. It may all be true, but it's my...”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“do think that people of all political parties should always be reflecting on whether they're getting things right or wrong but I reject the idea that these are somehow elite ideas you know Boris Johnson introduced the phrase liberal elites in this country and he used it as a form of division to try and other people with different points of view and I fundamentally reject the idea of othering other people I fundamentally reject the idea that politics has to be divisive and that you can't you know you kind of cut people and communities up into different sections I believe fundamentally in the power of every single individual to control their own lives to play an active role in their own community and I think it's incumbent on all of us who want to be responsible politicians to provide a vision for the country that is unifying so I simply reject that language”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think right around the world, and including here in the UK, people feel very powerless. I think one of the reasons why people feel powerless is because to a very large degree they are. And we saw it here in the recent general election, right? We saw people talking about one of our favourite subjects as Liberal Democrats, sewage, right? We talked about sewage a lot, not just because it was environmental catastrophe, but it really pointed to this sense that the big companies are getting away with stuff and it's the little guys who are having to pay for it. And there is that sense, I think, around the world that the big guys are getting away with stuff and the little guys have no power over their community. And the answer to that as liberals is to give power back to people in their local communities. And I really hope that we can use our platform to make that case.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think in many parts of the world, we are seeing the rise of illiberal democracies. So they're democratic in some ways, the elections are happening, people win the elections fair and square through the number of ballots they have in the ballot box, but there are many other important parts of our democracy that are under threat. So whether that is the independence of the media, whether that's the independence of civil society groups, we are seeing that sort of slow trend happening right across the globe, and I think it's really imperative on us who are liberals and also people who want to see democratic values pursue, that we can continue to campaign.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's very possible that Donald Trump and his regime will pose threats to security and to trade. And we are particularly concerned about Russia's illegal war in Ukraine. I think many of us are very concerned that Donald Trump says he wants to see peace, but we have no idea what terms he wants to see peace. I think, of course, previously when he was president, he was soaking up tariffs and trade wars. And if that happens again, then clearly that's going to have an impact on our economy here in the UK as well.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think I very quickly started to flip flop between feeling depressed and determined. I'm completely honest, I think we had all certainly I had hoped and many liberals had hoped that Kamala Harris would win, but I think we were prepared for that not to happen. I'm very much one of those people who hopes for the best and plans for the worst.”
2024-11-22 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Daisy Cooper One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source