# Numpties, Captains Calls and the Populist Menace (LIVE with Helen Clark)

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/cross-party-lines-7562106/numpties-captains-calls-and-the-populist-menace-live-with-helen-clark
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/cross-party-lines-7562106/numpties-captains-calls-and-the-populist-menace-live-with-helen-clark.md
Podcast: [Cross Party Lines](https://stenobird.com/podcast/cross-party-lines-7562106)
Published: 2026-08-10T16:32:00+00:00
Episode link: https://crosspartylines.substack.com/p/numpties-captains-calls-and-the-populist
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/210550652/9f6a5ebfe60d8be2637c15288d27f0c7.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/cross-party-lines-7562106/episodes/numpties-captains-calls-and-the-populist-menace-live-with-helen-clark
Duration seconds: 3728

## Resource

Hosted by Phil Goff and Chris Finlayson , Cross Party Lines goes live at Q Theatre in Auckland — with a very special guest: the Right Honourable Helen Clark, former Prime Minister, former UNDP Administrator and member of The Elders. An episode that moves from a government having a terrible week to the West Bank, and doesn’t pull a single punch along the way. All thanks to Frank Risk Management, the 100% Kiwi Owned Insurance Brokerage. Find out more at frankrisk.co.nz. In this episode: * A bad week for Luxon, a worse week for Peters — and a referendum nobody asked for — The week opened with unemployment at 5.6% nationally, 6.5% in Auckland — the highest in eleven years — wages up 2% against inflation running at 4.1%, and Labour leading National on all five of the top issues in the Ipsos poll. Then came Luxon’s comments to small businesses — essentially telling them to stand on their own feet — which he backtracked on within hours. Helen’s verdict is pointed: to change something as fundamental as the electoral system, you need a royal commission, a proper process and a mandate — not a prime minister who’s sick of his coalition partners. * Populism, The Elders and the rise of the illiberal right — Chris is reading a book called Centrists of the World Unite and using it as a frame for the episode’s most wide-ranging conversation. He is genuinely alarmed: a potential President Le Pen next year, the AFD in Germany and Pauline Hanson in Australia. Helen welcomes Andy Burnham as a confident new leader capable of dispatching Farage and makes the structural point: social democratic and liberal centre parties have failed to build the kind of cross-bloc flexibility that the German FDP or the British Liberal Democrats offered at their best. The Opportunities Party, both Chris and H…

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