Middlesbrough

The Turner Prize, that's what's going on.

So this year it's at MIMA in Middlesbrough.

According to the Guardian, it's a truly competitive year.

Kero fugitives, apocalyptic humanoids, trance everything in their path, even sculpture.

And we

all know these girls in Middlesbrough have not been fully trained in Stranger Danger.

So they will get into a van.

Because they didn't go to school.

And he's got them on the video and he's like, yeah.

Like, them lasses, like, they're going to go home with their lads and they're going to be getting caused trouble, aren't they? Yeah.

Because they're going to be watching, going, why were you talking to some brother just drunk lasses on a night out? I'd say what we do is we create a massive Faraday cage, right, that goes over the whole of Middlesbrough's town centre.

That's intelligent stuff for you, this man.

And that means we need somebody who knows the law inside out, who understands politics inside out, who understands economics in great depth, and Jamie Driscoll is that person.

Jamie grew up in the northeast of England with a dad who drove a tank in the army and a mom who was a youth worker, trade unionist, and set up the first women's refuge from domestic violence in Middlesbrough.

He left school at 16 and returned to education as a mature student, where he got a degree in engineering at Northumbria University.

He went on to run his own business as a software developer until, when his kids came along, he was married to a GP, he wound back his business and became the main carer for their children.

Okay, so in my view, you're one of the sharpest political brains on what we would call the progressive, sane left [laughs] of British politics, and you've held a lot of high-level posts where you've achieved a lot of stuff, and as a result, the establishment hate you.

So give us the edited highlights of how you got to where you are.

Um, well, grew up in a, a very working class town called Middlesbrough.

My dad was a tank driver in the army and then a, a shift worker at ICI.

And I've quickly realized this whole...

So I went to University of Middlesbrough in the UK.

It was a lovely town.

Honestly, it's one of those places you adopt as your own.

But then you go from Middlesbrough to Los Angeles.

It's quite funny.

So yeah, no, but I had a great time.

Five caps and one goal and is 23 years old.

Born in the Netherlands and plays for Middlesbrough in England since 2025.

But some of the bigger clubs in the Netherlands before that, Nijmegen and Ajax.

Sonji Hansen got his first cap in October of 2025 and then started four of the remaining six games, subbing in for one and on the bench for the one other.

So I guess I'm 16, I suppose.

And being at Middlesbrough Art College, I think it was

Cleveland, the art college.

And it

Excellent.

Okay.

There was no, yeah, the Linthope in Middlesbrough.

It was right on the corner.

Newcastle, and Vic and Bob obviously aren't from a million miles away from there.

Bob's from Middlesbrough, Jim's from Darlington.

We've had someone, I forget who, someone on this podcast who was probably from London, who said, oh yeah, Vic and Bob, they're Geordies, aren't they? He said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

It's very different.

They're not Yorksman either, are they? No, they're not Yorksman either.

What are they then?

And Neville says, well, Just people from Middlesbrough.

There's some sort of truth in that, you know.

Hello.

Okay, I'm calling from Middlesbrough.

Middlesbrough, okay.

Welcome.

In the UK.

I grew up on the Teesside coastline, south of the River Tees, so big shout out for the Yorkshire Naturalist Union, VC62, which goes up to the River Tees.

I grew up in Middlesbrough.

When I grew up in Middlesbrough, my mother would cross out Cleveland on any envelope that we wrote and she'd write North Yorkshire.

And we thought she was completely mad.

And now I agree with my mother.