Comedian Ahir Shah: 'We spend more on debt interest than we do on education'

London-born stand-up comedian Ahir Shah has won the Best Comedy Show award at the Edinburgh Fringe, had an HBO special and appeared as a guest on numerous TV and radio shows, including Have I Got News For You?, Live At The Apollo and Mock the Week.

As part of Big Issue’s PM for the PM series, we asked Shah: what would he do if he was thrust into the 10 Downing Street hot seat for an afternoon?

If you suddenly found yourself in high office, what’s the first thing that you’d want to fix?

We spend more on debt interest than education. Feels like a pretty on-the-nose indictment of current attitudes toward past, present and future.

What was the big political issue you remember from your childhood? How did it impact you?

I don’t really remember any big political issues that I recognised as such during my childhood, because childhood is sort of the bit before you realise the stuff you’re swimming in is water.

The first politician I remember seeing on the television is then-prime minister John Major, when I was sitting on the sofa watching the news at my grandparents’ house. I was very visually taken with Major, not merely because he (at the time 52 years old) looked like the second-oldest man I had ever seen, but because he seemed to have the exact same glasses as my grandfather (at the time 62 years old, and the oldest man I had ever seen).

That was 30 years ago. I am a grown man now, with glasses of my own. My grandfather is long dead. Major somehow looks slightly younger now than he did then.

Who do you admire in politics, or generally, as a leader? 

Anyone who has successfully MC’d a wedding after a certain point in the evening is someone I would follow into battle.

You have a red telephone that can connect you with anyone. Who do you call? 

I used to wear a gold chain around my neck that my maternal grandmother had worn on her wedding day.
On it, I hung a small pendant my paternal grandmother gave me when I was born. I would spend hour after hour after hour recounting the incredible life stories of Ramila Vaishnaw and Jaividya Shah, with as much detail and love as I could, to the man in Barcelona who ripped it off my neck in broad daylight a few weeks ago. 

Read more:

• Taboo: Comedy hasn’t lost its edge yet
• Comedian Vittorio Angelone: ‘Landlords should have to look you in the eye when they take your rent’
• Jon Richardson: ‘My first gig was terrifying’

Who would you award a knighthood/damehood to?

At this point it may be worth just giving it to AI in the hope that, when the time comes, it will take pity on me.

What’s your big idea to save the world?

That anyone who can answer a question this expansive without making a deeply unsexy point about agriculture or something like that is almost certainly deluded, dangerous, or both.

If answering these questions has convinced you to stand for election, what’s your slogan?

Oh, I won’t be doing anything like that.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. 

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