 Welcome to a Monday night edition of Tisgy Sour. We have five massive stories for you this evening. And we have someone's debut appearance. Jake, Jason, Okundaya, how's it going? Very well, thank you. How are you? I'm very well. Jason is standing in for Ash today, super excited to have him on board. A writer you should be following on Twitter. And also, shockingly, even from tomorrow, he'll be too young to book a vaccine. Yes, from tomorrow, all people who are over 25 will be able to go and book their Pfizer or Moderna jab. Unlucky for you, Jason. I mean, that's quite sad, but I'm enjoying my youth, frankly. Yeah, although I need to actually get myself booked into a GP because I got taken on my GP list, and I have absolutely no idea why. Well, you'll be able to book it online when it opens to you. So do not worry. I don't think you even need a GP to do that. It's a very good system. Everyone's been singing its praises. What other stories do we have for you tonight? We're going to be leading with whether or not a G7 deal, so that's an agreement between the seven rich nations who are part of the G7, can that fix the global race at the bottom on tax? Very excitingly, we are going to be speaking to a guest live from Peru on what is proving to be an absolutely nail biting election between a leftist and someone on the far right. The states could not be higher, and the results could not be closer. Before we get going, you know, the score, you can tweet on the hashtag TiskeySour, and if you haven't already, do make sure you subscribe to the channel. You do that by hitting the subscribe button. Let's go straight to our first story. Free market globalization has been a paradise for giant corporations, on the one hand. That's because they've been gifted ever-growing markets to sell their products, but just as importantly, it's also increased their power vis-a-vis governments. That's because if a country wants to raise taxes on a corporation, the corporation can just say, well, we'll move somewhere with lower taxes. That means that all countries end up being scared to raise taxes. That's why it's called the race to the bottom. However, a deal struck at the G7 this weekend may have the potential to end this. The leaders of the Club of Rich Nations, including Germany, the US, Japan, and the UK agreed to implement a minimum corporation tax of 15% and force companies to pay tax in the countries they operate, not just in the jurisdictions where they house their headquarters. This was how Risi Sunak described the deal. Well, I'm delighted to announce that today, after years of discussion, G7 finance ministers have reached a historic agreement to reform the global tax system, to make it fit for the global digital age, but crucially to make sure that it's fair so that the right companies pay the right tax in the right places, and that's a huge prize for British taxpayers. It's a very proud moment, and I want to say thank you to my G7 colleagues for their collective leadership and for their willingness to work together to seize this moment to reach a historic agreement that finally brings our global tax system into the 21st century. So that was the British Chancellor, Janet Yellen, also made a statement. She's Joe Biden's Treasury Secretary. For too long, there has been a global race to the bottom in corporate taxes, where countries compete by lowering their tax rates instead of the well-being of their citizens and natural environments. The G7 has taken significant steps this weekend to end the existing harmful dynamic. So how will these new rules work? Well, that is less clear. On making companies pay tax where they operate, not just where they are headquartered, we can go to what the communique of the finance ministers says. So they say, we commit to reaching an equitable solution on the allocation of taxing rights with market countries awarded taxing rights on at least 20% of profits, exceeding a 10% margin for the largest and most profitable multinational enterprises. Now, that's a little bit of a mouthful. In short, my interpretation, I'll check with my guests where I've got it quite right, is that for any company which is operating in your country, be that Apple or Google, if they have a profit margin of over 10%, they can't say, well, we're not gonna pay tax on our profits here, we'll pay them in Ireland where they've got 12.5 corporation tax. You'll be able to say, no, you're operating in this country, you're gonna have to pay at least some of your tax here. That's if they're a company making or whose profit margin is over 10%. On the global or minimum tax rate, the communique says, this is much more simple. We also commit to a global minimum tax of at least 15% on a country by country basis. So this is what should end that race to the bottom. There are obviously a lot of tax havens that wouldn't meet that threshold. Although, I'm sure we'll be discussing whether or not it should be a little higher. And joining me now to discuss all the issues raised by that agreement, I'm joined by Robert Palmer, Director of Tax Justice UK. Thank you for joining us this evening. Good evening. From your perspective, is this agreement as historic as Rishisuna and Janet Yellen both say it is? So I think the first thing is, this is definitely a step forward. This is definitely an end to what we've seen over the last 10 years where countries like Ireland and frankly, the UK have tried to out-compet each other on having ever lower tax rates. So I think we should give the G7 leaders their due and say, yes, this is a step forward. As you can imagine, those words you flashed up on the screen hide lots of potential loopholes lots of technical details that still need to be worked out. And as you suggested, a 15% tax rate is really low. The starting point for these negotiations, President Biden from the US suggested 21%. The UK's own headline tax rate is going up to 25% in 2023. So 15% is basically the bottom of what we expected. And then the final thing I'd say is these deals are about raw power and raw political power. This is a group of the richest countries saying we want to get more tax from some of the biggest companies in the world, really excluding the rest of the world from these discussions and these debates. And there are real concerns about how much money lower income countries will get from this deal. Why is that? Why would lower income countries not get money from this deal? I suppose, especially in that 15% minimum, I know it's low, but presumably that should benefit everyone because anyone can get undercut by the tax havens who charge. Yeah, so there are 5% tax, whatever. There are a couple of things hidden behind those words. So first of all, the way the 15% works is if you have a country like Ireland, which charges 12.5%, the home country for the multinational gets to top money on 15%. Who are home countries for the biggest companies in the world? It's the D7. They're the ones that are going to benefit from the most from the minimum tax rate as it's currently designed. And then the other part, which is taking some money from some of the very biggest companies in the world. Again, it's unclear how the formula that will unclear the details. What we've got from this weekend is essentially a political agreement from a bunch of rich countries saying this is where we want to go. The details will be hammered out. There'll be negotiations. But I really do think this is a step in the right direction. We should definitely criticise it for not being ambitious enough. We should definitely criticise it as a stick chuck from the richest countries in the world. But it does represent a fundamental change in the debate about corporate tax. It represents a change from, as I said, this race to the bottom where countries try and charge ever lower amounts of corporate tax rates. So I think I'm cautiously optimistic about what we can build on from this deal. Our audience will probably be watching this thinking, oh, look, the devil's going to be in the detail. It's going to be whether or not they create these loopholes that Amazon or Google or whoever can jump through. And they might say, look, why would these people not create the loopholes? These leaders work in the interests of these big businesses who they're purporting to try to regulate. Do you think this could all be just for show? Or do you think there is actually an interest for these governments in clamping down on these big tech giants who, in many contexts, they're actually quite close to? So I think there are two things. One is cold, hard cash. Governments want to try and raise more revenues and going after corporate is a popular thing to do. So I think the political calculation is, how do we get more money? Well, going after big multinational companies like Amazon and Google and Facebook is a pretty much vote winner way of doing it. But as you say, we'll really have to see how this agreement is implemented in practice. The biggest companies in the world spend huge amounts of money to reduce their tax bills. They are expert at finding loopholes. I just want to end by saying, I do think we should be a bit optimistic. And I also think, from a kind of left-wing point of view, two months ago, the UK was blocking this deal. And in the last two months, we as campaign groups have helped get this issue on the media. The Labour Party has come out in favour of a really strong, ambitious deal. And that's put pressure on the government and they've come to an agreement. It's not as good as we want, but it's definitely better than what we had before. So, a very nice positive note to end. And I suppose I should say, you know, congratulations, you've been campaigning on this kind of thing for a while. And it seems like the ball is finally moving, if that's the correct case. In any case, Robert Palmer, thank you so much for joining us this evening. Let's go to a comment. Raji Adi with a tenor says, woohoo, finally some good news. Hope that extra money gets spent well. Yeah, I mean, let's hope. Big if. But I mean, it's obviously one of the big problems for governments of even progressive stripes who would have spent the money on decent things was that it's so difficult to do. So when you've got the financial markets who are sort of bullying you to lower taxes, etc. So it's a good starting point if it can be made to work. I'm going to go straight on to our next story. The idea of the no-go zone, that there are parts of European towns and cities that are so dominated by ethnic minorities that white people cannot even enter is a far-right myth that just won't die. And that's partly because even though it's patently untrue, it's constantly pushed by the mainstream media, including here in Britain. This weekend, the Daily Mail ran a story with the headline, British towns that are no-go areas for white people. Muslim authors study of mosques reveals children attacked for being white, parents making families live under Taliban-like rules and women who can't leave home without permission. Now, when it comes to no-go zones, whichever town the Daily Mail had picked, this would have been a divisive and bullshit story. There aren't any no-go zones in Britain for white people. If you've ever lived near one of the places or in one of the places they've called a no-go zone, so for me, that's Tower Hamlets. My experience as them calling Tower Hamlets a no-go zone and me thinking like, no, Tower Hamlets is great and there's no one that's remotely worried about going there or moving there. In fact, rent's really high because it's a nice place to live. Private rent is. But this article was ridiculed more than the usual piece on no-go zones because of the nature of at least one area it picked out. Let's go to their no-go zone map. So this is their no-go zone map of Britain. And you can see in the middle, they've picked out Glasgow, Edinburgh. I mean, I've never seen that picked out for that particular reason before, but in any case, let's go to the ones they've got picked as well. They've got Blackburn, white men, fear violence if they enter no-go areas. Bradford, local sphere, it will become an apartheid city within 30 years. Jewsbury feels like a different country and century. And Didsbury, sharia court within the mosque, which was once a church. Now, it was the inclusion of Didsbury that raised the most eyebrows. That's because it's in fact, one of the whitest and wealthiest parts of Greater Manchester. The 2011 census showed that Didsbury West was 84.1% white and Didsbury East was 77.9% white. As I've said, it's also one of the poshest. So many social media uses came out and said how ridiculous this was and how clear it was that the Orvad had no idea what this place was like because there's no way that you could, even as I say, any idea that there is a no-go zone in this country is ridiculous, but the idea that you would put this in that category even more ridiculous. I wanna bring up a tweet from someone commenting on this. I used to avoid Didsbury when I lived in Manchester only because I couldn't afford to live there and I once ordered fish and chips in a restaurant and got eight chips piled up like Jenga and the amount of fish wouldn't have filled a fish finger. Now, I could show you a lot more comments like this from social media, but I don't need to because debunking this story is also the Daily Mail itself. This was from just three weeks ago. That's when Didsbury appeared in the paper, not as an example of Britain's no-go zones, but rather as an up and coming location for property buyers. So the article here reads, a posh and leafy Manchester suburb has been named as the most popular place for buyers actively looking for their new home. Didsbury on the North Bank of the River Mersey is 4.5 miles south of Manchester city centre. It is an attractive suburb with plenty of pubs and executive homes. It has been identified by RightMove as the most popular local neighbourhood for buyers signing up to the property website to find out about properties for sale. Now, you really could not make this up. I mean, the purpose of that map that the Daily Mail put in their weekend newspaper was it's supposed to be this double spread. You look at that and you think, oh, the whole country's being taken over. Look at all these hotspots that we can't go to anymore because of the Muslims. Three weeks prior, they'd been saying, this is a hotspot precisely because we think you guys should move there. Our readers, you'll love this posh, leafy suburb. So it just shows you, I think, how disingenuous, how ridiculous, how, I mean, I suppose also the editorial standards here, you know, for your paper one week to just completely contradict your paper three weeks previously, the whole thing is of course, well, it's more than embarrassing. It's also incredibly racist, but it is embarrassing as well as being incredibly racist. On the issue of no-go zones more generally, as I say, anyone who's lived in a so-called no-go zone or near one knows that this is complete bullshit, but I want to bring up a couple more perspectives as well. My colleague Ash Sarkar put it well. Whenever she's away for a week, I like to bring up a tweet anyway. I just can't do without her insight. She says there aren't any Muslim no-go areas in the UK. Only places that the Daily Mail are confident that its readership would feel uncomfortable in because there are too many brown people walking around. One of my favorite tweets was a quote tweet of that tweet from Ash. So it's someone who said, I'm A4 paper white and I live and work in one of these no-go areas. If by attacked for being white, you mean the neighbors come round with a pot of biryani and samosas whenever they have a religious holiday, then yes, I've been attacked multiple times. Jason, I want to bring you in on this story. Why won't the no-go zones myth die? Well, I mean, this is, you know, based on this book by Ed Hossein called Fear and Loving, which at the moment is, you know, being praised by the times, but it's been thoroughly debunked and kind of ripped apart by an author called Submirah Rahim, I understand. But I think at the moment, it's very convenient to entrench this idea of no-go zones for white people because of the current cultural particularly around London. I mean, I know that London doesn't quite feature in this case in terms of, you know, places which have been taken over by Islamification or whatever. But we keep on seeing, you know, these videos coming out of, you know, knife crime and people talking about, you know, Siddique camps, leg niches and things like that. And they're trying to really cement this idea that there are certain cities and parts of the country which are, you know, in a kind of stranglehold and have been taken over and therefore, you know, the white majority is, you know, starting to go extinct in that sense. And, you know, the minorities are really running the show there. And once it's difficult to take seriously, you know, these myths really begin to take hold. People really do believe in this idea of, you know, white extinction. People do really believe that they are parts of the UK which they simply can't go to. And it also deflects from the fact that, you know, the billionaire owner of the Daily Mail, Lord Rothmere, owns significant portions of the United Kingdom. 30% of land in the United Kingdom is owned by Gentry and aristocracy. I think the status that half of the land in the United Kingdom or in England is owned by 1% of the country. Those kinds of areas are never described as these no-go areas of places which you are kind of, you know, isolated from because of class stratification. Everything always has to be kind of about race and racism. I mean, areas where I grow up in, you know, South London where I grew up was always seen as a kind of no-go area in the Pamora State. But now, as we've seen, we now have the kind of like infinity sky pool in the nine-ounce area which is right next to the state where I grew up. And we have, you know, all sorts of yuppies and we have like those like tiny little Chihuahua dogs and things like that going around now. Whereas when, you know, I was even those places that was kind of a place where you'd be like, oh no, you can't go there. I mean, I remember next to the Pamora State there used to be, oh, it's still there. There's this like Newton Prep primary school where it's kind of like private school for posh children, basically. And I remember you would never see the kids kind of go beyond this like bridge because that was seen as going into the kind of like the layer of where the ethics are, where everyone is getting stabbed and places like Brixton were described as that as well. The ideology of white flight has always kind of, you know, been described for these areas. So yeah, it's interesting how they're, you know, similar to this before I understand. I don't think it's without its context. As much as we can say, you know, Ed Hussain's book is absolutely bullshit. He doesn't know what he's talking about. I mean, I think that his book is a bad investigation of different mosques and apparently looking at, you know, hostility and the conclusions that he's making is basically that, you know, if Muslims can't integrate them, they should simply be deported. These are credible ideas. These are completely silly solutions to questions of racial integration, but they are hot topics. And I think it's going to be especially hot topic around the issue of the battling and spend by election, which is coming up as well. Battling and spend has a significant Pakistani population, a significant movement in population. And I've got a friend up in Leeds who basically kind of gave me the rundown of what that place is like. And he basically said that the ethnic tensions between, you know, white groups there and Muslim groups there are kind of at an all-time high. And even with the, you know, assassination of Joculs in 2016, I think it was in 2017, although, you know, most of the major parties stood down for Labour, the parties, they're the kind of like far-right parties which stood up. It was kind of seen as almost like a referendum on Joculs' death to say, no, do you approve of it? And it's still, there was a sizable vote for some of these far-right parties. So yeah, I think it fits with the kind of broad community economy, trying to look at these kind of like race, potential race riots and kind of like race revolutions, supposedly popping up across country. Whilst these are most mythical in a sense that there are no-go areas and white people, it is true that there are pockets in the country where actually like tensions are bubbling and we are actually going to start, you know, seeing it's coming up, you know, the increase in revitalised far-right movement and how that's linking into culture wars at the moment and, you know, the kind of bru-ha-ha around BLM as well. I mean, we're going to talk about a bru-ha-ha about BLM in a moment. I suppose first of all, you know, of the responses to this story in the Daily Mail, I mean, beyond just sort of playing debunking it and saying, you know, a lot of people saying, I live in this place, it's clearly not a no-go zone, have been people saying, look, the only reason there are no-go zones in this country is because, as you say, rents are too high because of people like Lord Rovamir hoarding the land. I have seen a lot of other people, POC, saying, actually, there are some no-go zones in this country, but there are no-go zones for non-white people. It's when you go to areas where you think people are going to, you know, look at you funny or where you're going to be more subject to racial abuse than when you're in a multicultural part of the country. I don't know if you saw any of those comments or if you had any thoughts about whether or not there are no-go zones for non-white people in Britain. I mean, there are absolutely no-go zones for non-white people in Britain, but I think that something which was, you know, quite interesting was the response to the inclusion of Ditsbury. As you said, you know, the kind of response was like, you know, this is a kind of like affluent area, and I read up on some of the articles that you mentioned and they were basically saying, you know, this is like wag central, like, you know, all of the kind of like Manchester footballers and their wives live here. But there was no self-awareness when people were kind of saying this. It was, I remember, it reminded me of this kind of line that someone once wrote about the kind of difference between like, remainers and Brexiteers where Brexiteers say they're going to let all these Turkish people into the EU and, you know, the remainers are like, oh no, of course we wouldn't do that. It kind of had that kind of veil of like, liberal racism and saying that, of course, that area isn't affected with Muslim, you know, we're white there and we're affidant and we're posh. And those kinds of areas are no-go places for people like me for visibly Muslim people as well. The areas where you might fear, even if not necessarily like, you know, physical or racial abuse, you might fear some kind of, you know, hostility. And it's interesting, the area where the young boy, the young 14-year-old boy, I don't want to get his name wrong because I can't remember so I'm not going to say it, was murdered in the past week. Would that now be described as a no-go area for Black people? Will we have articles basically, you know, determining different areas where you're more likely to experience some kind of, you know, racist incident? Because even the links that story has to, you know, Stephen Lawrence is quite interesting because, you know, the area of Southeast London where Stephen Lawrence was affecting Lynch did in some ways become a no-go area for Black people. The BMP had set off a kind of like library there which operated as offices. They used to go on marches. They used to put up posters around St. George's Day which had St. George slain the dragon. That kind of made it very visible that, you know, this is not a place where you can go and, you know, even like say like the bearings of the St. George's Cross and things like that. These are very visible markers of, you know, no minorities here, no immigrants here, no Black people here. You can't name parts of the country where you have that kind of like open anti-White display of hostility either in the past or now. So, you know, it is fragrant bullshit to suggest there are no-go-white areas but there are absolutely no-go areas for PSU. Yeah, I mean, I suppose this is never about whether or not you can go to an area. Whether or not you own an area. I think that's the issue of no-go zones really, isn't it, saying that we no longer as White people own this space, we have to share it with other people and we don't like that. I'm sure we could talk about this topic for a long time. We're gonna move on to our next story. If you're enjoying the show, please do like the video. It helps us on the algorithm. On Sunday, Peru went to the polls to elect a new president. Now, the candidates couldn't be more different. This is definitely an election that matters. One is a leftist. The other is a right-wing populist. And the results could not be closer. So, at the time of broadcast, the results are being counted now. Pedro Castillo is on 50.1%. The opponent is on 49.99%. Now, that could not be any closer. That is absolutely nail-biting. That's with 94.5% of the results processed. And let's take you through some of the candidates. So, Pedro Castillo is running as the candidate of the left-wing free Peru party. He's an elementary school teacher and was a leader in Peru's 2017 teachers strike. He's promised to tackle inequality and give the state a bigger role in economic management. And he's also campaigned on corruption. He said, I come with clean hands, and which is contrasting himself to the many other previous Peruvian presidents and politicians who have been investigated for corruption. Let's look at who he's up against. This is Keiko Fujimori, who is the leader of the right-wing popular force party. She's also the daughter of jailed ex-president, Alberto Fujimori. Her father is serving a 25-year sentence for corruption and human rights abuses. Fujimori had said that if she were elected, she would pardon him. She's also facing corruption charges herself and could be jailed if not elected. Now, this is an incredibly close race with a lot at stake. Unfortunately, we can't tell you quite yet who has won. But I think probably from the votes that haven't been counted yet, we should be able to get an idea. So, to discuss that, to discuss this battle between left and right, I'm joined now by Matt. Sorry, I didn't have your name in my script. Matt, how are you doing? When will we know who has won this election? It could take anywhere up to about 10 days is what we're hearing until all of the final votes are counted. What we're dealing with here is that 94% of the votes have come, as you said. And most of them have come in from Lima, they've come in from other parts of the country. The 5% that still remain to be counted are a mixture of votes with, well, here they're called actas. So, at each little table, a voting table, those votes are tallied up right then and there and are written on to another document called an acta, which will, it's about 250 votes. There are some number in the thousands of those with certain problems here and there. Maybe there wasn't a signature, maybe the numbers don't tally correctly and these will be litigated and fought over in a harsh battle over the next 10 days. And as you said, the stakes couldn't be higher in this moment. It's really going to be all important that the international community keeps their eyes on this because I can say here in Peru, all of the institutional power, all of the institutional force is certainly behind one candidate and that candidate is Keiko Fukimori. All of the press, all of the judiciary and many of the other sources of political power here in Peru. So, I think it's just of utmost importance that we watch this very closely. We, of course, have an international delegation from the Progressive International, including parliamentarians from across the region and union leaders and electoral experts. There are others here from all across the world and it just really demonstrates the importance of these electoral observation missions in such critical moments. There's going to be tension. This could be a disputed election. I mean, from your perspective at this point in time, given what votes there are left to count, how confident are you that Castillo should have rightly won this? I mean, we saw initially that his opponent was in the lead because it was the cities which counted their votes first. He's more popular in rural areas and so as those votes came in, he gradually caught up and is now overtaken. As I understand it, it's still mainly rural votes that are to be counted. So, presumably, if he's already over the line, we should expect Castillo to have won. It's unclear. I mean, I would say that I am slightly confident. I would hedge my bets towards Castillo, but I think it's still just a hair's breath away from a toss up at this point. From what I understand, most of the votes that remain to be counted that don't have any issues fall into two camps or really fall into two or three camps, one being rural areas and areas very pro Castillo, such as Cusco, the city of, of course, in Highlands here, very indigenous city, the former imperial capital of the Incan Empire. There's also votes in the Amazon, which could take up to two days to count, to transport and to consolidate. Those votes tend to actually fall against Castillo. And we have a third group of votes, which is the foreign votes, especially the votes in the United States. These are Peruvian immigrants voting abroad and all across the world, of course, but the United States has a large share yet to count. And we would should expect that those should go against Pedro Castillo. And then, of course, we have our famous ballots or actas with problems. So it's still very difficult to project. I would, you know, I think that the lead is really growing for Castillo at every moment. As you said, he came from behind and now he's right around 40,000 votes ahead, a lead that's still growing. And I would probably anticipate will continue to grow, but I've heard that, you know, that we've heard estimates at least that the actas with problems could, you know, potentially be slightly in favor of Fukimori because a large percentage of them come from Lima here. So that's a bit of the mathematical situation so far. I wanna talk about how this election has been reported from Britain. So the British Press has generally reported it as a fight between two sides, I mean, essentially neither of which are fit to govern. I wanna go to the Financial Times editorial board and they've called it an unhappy election. And they said, both candidates were divisive and ill-qualified. We've also got a headline in this week's Observer, which read, Peru faces pole dilemma, a leftist firebrand or the dictator's daughter. I wanna know what you make of this characterization of what's at stake in this election. Two populists, two people who aren't fit to govern, two extremists, essentially, is how this is being portrayed by many outlets in this country. I'm sure in the United States as well. Yeah, I couldn't disagree with that characterization more. I mean, the leftist firebrand cliche especially is it just rings hollow in this case. Pedro Castillo is a soft-spoken, humble man, rural teachers union leader, a farmer himself. He grew up without running water, without electricity, selling newspapers on the street. And he was not a political figure up until really 2021. So this is not a man who's been plotting his political rise for decades. He's truly a man of the people from the working class and he's running on a two-part slogan. One is no more poor people in a rich country. And the other is to just emphasize his teacher roots. It's the word of a teacher or teacher's honor, teacher's word. And I think that really sums it up. It's not a sort of a fire-breathing campaign by any stretch of the imagination. And on the other hand, of course, the characterization of Keiko, in my opinion, probably doesn't emphasize her father enough. The dictator Alberto Fimori came to power in the coup in the 90s. And she really needs to win this election if she wants to avoid prison time herself. She's also said that she will pardon her father who's currently serving prison time, should she win. So this is, and I also wanna emphasize that this is her third strike at bat here to use a United States baseball reference here. She lost in 2011, she lost again in 2016, only by the smallest of margins, 3% than less than 1%, and now, of course, possibly. Again, it will be within, it will certainly be within 1% one way or the other. But this is really not only her political life that she's fighting for, it's also her very real freedom as a stay out of jail. So I think the dual populist sun fit to rule just does not tell the story of this situation. Peru is in a moment of major upheaval. It will have had four presidents within one year. People are clamoring and demanding a new constitution to be done with the constitution of Fimori. Much like Chile has now just accomplished being done with the constitution of Pinochet and writing a new constitution with popular demands and with economic rights and with a plural nationalism at the heart of that constitution. So this is a popular demand, as poll after poll has shown, it just remains to be seen if there will be the, how these last votes shake out to determine the course here. Finally, and it's not probably the most important question, but it is the one that's been tantalizing me the most and many people have seen on social media. What's with the giant pencil? So Castillo is always campaigning with this giant pencil and lots of people in the crowds are carrying giant pencils. What's that about? Well, I think there's a two-part symbolism, really. I mean, one is, of course, emphasizing that he's a teacher and he comes from education. That's his background. Those are the workers that he organized and his comrades. But the other part of it is, as I said, touching this new constitutional demand to write a new future for the country, to put the pencil, so to speak, back in the hands of the Peruvian people and so that they can actually chart a new course with a new document and a new future. So this is how we've interpreted the pencil so far. It's also just very, it's great. It's a pre-made emoji for the country. It's handmade for Twitter. It's a beautiful symbol. Matt Kierkegaard, thank you so much for joining me this evening and sorry, I didn't have your name in my notes when I introduced you initially. We really do appreciate you speaking to us on what I imagine is a very, very intense day in Lima. Thanks, Michael, really an honor. Cheers. Let's go straight on to our next story. After being postponed for a year, Euro 2020 begins this week. I would have called it Euro 2021, but it's up to them. Alongside drama on the pitch, we already have an idea of what political controversies will accompany this tournament in England's warm-up match on Sunday against Romania. All players took the knee in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and a bunch of fans booed. Now we're not gonna show you direct footage of that moment because whenever we show you clips of football, the stream gets taken down. Instead, here's a video uploaded by a man watching in his living room. Now, I mean, that was a hilarious video, I mean, it's obviously a very serious topic. Jason, I wanna bring you in on this. What did you make the booing? Were you surprised, disappointed? What's your reaction? I mean, I'm not really a football fan, but I know that in kind of like England fan base kind of conducts itself like the social wing of the British army or something. And my understanding is that, you know, both here and in other countries, whenever there's a kind of like English football victory or there's a match of some sorts, you know, they go around singing two World Wars, one World Cup, and then they have the audacity to say, you know, keep politics out of football when people decide to take a knee to mark their respect. So, you know, of course it's not surprising at all. That's a good, I hadn't actually, I've heard lots of people talk about the poppy and stuff when they say, oh, people who say you should take politics out of football, then what about the poppy? The two World Wars, one World Cup is a very good example. Let's go to England manager, Gareth Southgate. He had a really strong response, actually, I think let's take a look. Well, the first thing is that, you know, we are collectively really disappointed that it happened. I think you have to put yourself in the shoes of a young England player about to represent his country. And because we're all trying to support, move for equality, move for supporting our own teammates, some of the experiences they have been through in their lives. Some people decide to boo. I think those people should put themselves in the shoes of those young players and how that must feel. And if that was their children, if they're old enough to have children, how would they feel about their kids being in that sort of situation? So, most important thing for our players is to know that we are totally united on it. We're totally committed to supporting each other, supporting the team. We feel that more than ever determined to take the knee through this tournament. We accept that there might be an adverse reaction and we're just gonna ignore that and move forward. I think the players are sick of talking about the consequences of, should they, shouldn't they? They've had enough, really. Now, that to me was exactly right. You're saying they're doing it in solidarity with victims of racism, including, you know, racism experienced by the players themselves. And you're saying it's something the whole team believes in, it's non-negotiable. I'm not here to listen to and weigh up the arguments. We've had this conversation within the team. We're all agreed, we'll be taking the knee and if that boils your piss, so be it. Obviously, he didn't use quite those words. Now, someone whose piss was boiled by Southgate's defense of his players was Nigel Farage. Let's take a look at his response. Gareth Southgate doesn't seem to understand that the BLM movement is not only Marxist, but divisive too. England fans will hate this. They just want to watch a game of football. Now, calling the Black Lives Matter movement Marxist or anyone who takes the knee or supports the Black Lives Matter movement, Marxist has become a bit of a meme on Britain's far right. In fact, I think Marxist was trending last night precisely because of this. Now, obviously on this show, we don't think there's anything wrong with being a Marxist. In fact, we think it's pretty cool, but a response from many people who take the knee or who are in support of this action is to say that it's kind of implausible to suggest that these millionaire footballers, by taking the knee, are endorsing some sort of Marxist ideology and this is a much simpler symbol of solidarity against racism. Jason, I want to bring you in on this and I suppose particularly what you think about the Marxist BLM meme. Should we be embracing it? Should we say, yes, it is Marxist? Or should we be saying, like, no, you know, there's nothing wrong with Marxism, but at the same time taking the knee does not make you a Marxist? Yeah, I think it's interesting and you know, that video of Gareth Southgate, like he's pretty quite emotional about it. And what I get the sense of is that they, he wasn't quite prepared for this level of backlash and hostility. That's because, you know, I've said this before, but I think that the Black Lives Matter movement at large at the moment was built and it's still built on quite an unstable coalition because you have people who just think, you know, I don't want my teammates to, you know, throwing bananas and I don't want the audiences to be making chip noises, like they've done at some Black football players. And then you do have Marxists. You do absolutely have Marxists. You do have people who view anti-racism as the work of undoing racial capitalism. So when it comes to whether or not, you know, people should embrace, you know, Marxism or not, you know, I'm all for people embracing Marxism and these ideologies. And it's obviously ridiculous, you know, to claim that the, you know, these England football players are Marxists, it's all considering their wealth portfolios. But I think it's interesting to work through the kind of contradiction, the tensions and what's also being translated as well. Because of the actual institution, Black Lives Matter UK, which does define itself as Marxist, which does define itself as pro-Palestinian or at least, you know, it has members who are Marxists and is, you know, incredibly radical because this is seen as the more kind of like radical and the BLM and because it uses the name BLM, it's always used as the kind of front within the right-wing process. I would say, you know, any reference to BLM is therefore invoking this very specific organisation and its specific operations and ideologies. That's not to, you know, make any kind of condemnation myself of the ideologies and the modern motives of BLM, but it is being conflated with general support for at least the sentiment Black Lives Matter. And so it's kind of made the term kind of like unsayable without, you know, you basically pledging that you know, you align yourself with Karl Marx and you would align yourself with communism and you align yourself with this kind of dismantling of the state. So yeah, I think that's interesting whether or not people should embrace it. I mean, if footballers want to redistribute their wealth, I'm, you know, very open to that. I mean, Marcus Rapsford topped the financially list. I think it was something like that in the times. So, you know, I don't see a particular issue with that. I think that football can be like an inherently politicised sport because it's populated by so many working class boys who come through through raw talent. But yeah, a lot of people have found themselves in a really kind of sticky situation. And I think that an interesting example of this, you know, moving away from football even. Say for example, pretty little thing, boohoo, all those companies like that, last year came out with their kind of show the Black Lives Matter statements and said, you know, we're in solidarity with Black communities and we're going to start supporting Black businesses and things like that. And then I think like a month later, the story about the Leicester factory workers broke and it was found that they were exploiting immigrants, majority, you know, South Asian women and garlic workers. And it's like that very chain of exploitation, the fact that they're subcontracting to infinity to the point where, you know, these women were being paid poverty wages is entirely counter to the principles of Black Lives Matter as, you know, most people understand them. It's not just about, you know, treating people nice and, you know, not saying racist things to people. It's also about the working conditions of, you know, people of color and Black people. It's also about the conditions that places closest to death as well. And so these different, you know, corporations and these different brands can't quite understand that actually they can't declare, you know, and make these statements about Black Lives Matter when they are not just complicit, but when they are literally running the machinery, which is placing people's lives closer and closer to danger and closer and closer to death. And that's not really a challenge that I can make of the England football team or the England football players or something like that because it's not a corporation in that sense. But it's interesting. I kind of think, you know what, this is what you guys are signing up for. And I almost kind of liked the challenge. And obviously it's difficult for the Black football players and, you know, they are kind of bearing the brunt of that. But it's also very interesting to see white people actually kind of drawing and seeing that, actually, if you want to make the stand and say, you know, I want to support my colleague because it's getting racist abuse, you might also want to look at this entire spectrum of, you know, oppression and action which is happening outside because, you know, as much as, you know, what's happening to a, you know, for the football player and the pitch is, you know, condemnable, that Black football player was also not the kind of ground zero. He's also not the most oppressed person in the United Kingdom, in the context of Black lives, in the context of the kind of like food chain of, you know, who's being fucked over by the same and who's not. So I think maybe perhaps it could help some of these footballers to kind of like stop and think, you know, why is the reaction so aggressive if it's just about, you know, how we treat people as I think actually beyond that. Perhaps we can start to see the football team to become more politicised. I would be quite interested in seeing that. It might invigorate an interest in football which I don't have at the moment. Well, it's interesting you say that because it does seem that in this situation, once again, they found themselves on the other side of a political debate with the Prime Minister. So the previous obvious example here and was Marcus Rashford campaigning for free school meals over the summer holidays and Boris Johnson eventually had to back down on that particular issue. I think eventually in autumn, there was a period where they weren't free school meals over the holidays because in that period of time, Boris Johnson didn't back down obviously completely outrageous. He didn't make him look particularly good. But on this one again, he seems to be saying, look, these footballers might think one thing. I think another. Today at a press briefing, this is one of the ones that happens behind closed doors with the Prime Minister's spokesperson and people from the press. The Prime Minister's spokesperson refused to condemn the fans booing. So it's obviously very different to what Gareth Southgate was saying. Gareth Southgate saying it was very disappointing to hear them boo. The Prime Minister refuses to condemn it. On whether or not the Prime Minister supported taking the knee, the spokesperson said, Prime Minister's spoken on the record on this issue before, on taking the knee specifically, the Prime Minister is more focused on action rather than gestures. We have taken action with things like the Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparities. And that's what he's focused on delivering. Now, Jason, I want to know a couple of things from you. So one, what do you make of this idea? Boris Johnson is almost in a way, taking on the language of the radical left by saying, I'm not interested in symbolism. I'm interested in action. But then his example of action is the Commission on Racial and Ethnic Disparities, which was pretty much written off as just an exercise in saying racism doesn't exist. And at the same time, what I want to know is, do you think this is a mistake for the Prime Minister to constantly find himself on the other side of political debates with footballers who are obviously some of the most popular influential people in the country? Or do you think this is potentially an intentional strategy, a bit like Donald Trump and players in American football? I feel that actually quite strategically, Boris Johnson tends to keep his interventions in the cultural to a minimum, all things considered. I think that you tend to hear from Robert Jenrik or from Oliver Dalton more. On the kind of statement of, I'm more into action over justice. I mean, it is a case of kind of co-opting the language of radical anti-racism and of the left and kind of co-opting the idea of, I'm not about the superficial and the ancestors of it. But then the action that ends up getting taken is by redefining what he considers to be racism. With the commission on race and ethnic disparities, I think that's something that was kind of like missing from a lot of the public discussion from that was that it's attempting to shift away the definition of racism from anything institutional, anything that implicates government, anything which implicates our prisons or education system to look at individuals and individual liberty in the sense of autonomy and self-determination, because that's the kind of language of this government about leveling up about helping individuals kind of unlock their powers. So when the conservative party, at large, starts speaking about racism, they talk in defense of say, Preeti Patel or Kemi Badenok, but people say they're seen as, they're kind of forced to think in one way or they're being disciplined by the left and by other minorities because they're conservatives and because there's this kind of perceived incompatibility between being conservative and being a black or brown person. So that the focus is kind of there. And so I imagine the kind of action that he imagines is that he's going to appoint some black secretary as a state or things like that. That action for Boris Johnson, action for him is taking kids out to prison for minor weed offences. Like action for him isn't actually implementing a comprehensive public health strategy for life time in London, for example. It's all about benefiting those around him and kind of enabling a kind of like black and brown tourism and enabling this kind of share in the capital's pie for certain black and brown people. That's action for him. So yeah, on whether it's wise for him to be kind of warring footballer as well, since we have no seriously functioning opposition at the moment, I mean, he seems to be getting away with it. You think that going up against, you know, Marcus Rashford is very popular footballer. It would be something which would massively den his popularity. And I think that, you know, from Dominic Cummings testimony, it was revealed that his advisors were saying, you know, you don't want to pick on a fight with Marcus Rashford. But I think that what's kind of aiding Boris in this sense is that, you know, he's meant to be seen as this political figure. And the way Marcus Rashford's campaign was run was to make sure that it was, you know, party-neutral and political-neutral. It's about the whole idea of, you know, it's not politics. It's just about, you know, feeding kids and this about, you know, benevolence and things like that. And, you know, he has to do that because he's a charity law, because if you're working with charities, you can't be explicitly political partisan. But then to the kind of wider public, it does mean that it becomes somehow it becomes the politicised in the heads. It's kind of more seen as, you know, a kind of dispute that's taken to task and a kind of like celebrity philanthropic influence rather than a kind of like real interrogation of government and the very basis of government and the very basis of how this conservative government works. You know, it should be, you know, the lame party kind of defining the ideology of the conservatives and how they operate right now. And the reason why Marcus Rashford's campaign, what it can't explicitly state itself as political but is necessary because of the consequences of the past 11 years of Tory austerity. But where the fuck are they? So yeah, he's getting away with that. Where the fuck are they is a good place to finish that segment on. Obviously a reference as a reference to the Labour Party. The footballers, they are actually standing up to be counted. So thank God for that. Our final story of the evening, I think we can get a picture up and before we start this one, there we are. An English cricketer has been suspended from international games due to the resurfacing of racist and sexist tweets he sent as a teenager. Olly Robinson made his debut for England in last week's test match against New Zealand, but his suspension by the England and Wales Cricket Board pending an investigation means he will miss the second test, which begins this Thursday. The racist and sexist tweets were sent in 2012 and 2013 when Robinson was aged 18 and 19. Now before the suspension, but after the resurfacing of the tweets, Robinson made the following apology. On the biggest day of my career so far, I'm embarrassed by the racist and sexist tweets I posted over eight years ago, which if today become public, I want to make it clear that I'm not racist and not sexist. I deeply regret my actions and I'm ashamed of making such remarks. I was thoughtlessly irresponsible and regardless of my state of mind, at the time my actions were inexcusable. Since that period, I've matured as a person and fully regret the tweets. Today should be about my efforts on the field and the pride of making my test debut for England, but my thoughtless behaviour in the past has tarnished this. Over the past few years, I've worked hard to tell my life realm. I've been considerably matured as an adult. The work and education I've gained personally from the PCA in my county and England cricket team have helped me to come to terms and gain deep understanding of being a responsible professional cricketer. I would like to unreservedly apologise to anyone I've offended. My teammates and the game as a whole in what has been a day of action and awareness in combating discrimination from our sport. Now, you can tell he's a cricketer, not a public speaker, but it was a comprehensive apology, the reference he made to combating discrimination in sport involved an anti-racist t-shirt that players had worn on the day his tweets emerged. So was the decision to suspend Robinson over the top? Culture secretary Oliver Dowden thinks so. He tweeted today, Ollie Robinson's tweets were offensive and wrong. They are also a decade old and written by a teenager. The teenager is now a man and has rightly apologised. The ECB has gone over the top by suspending him and should think again. Jason, I want your thoughts on this. Do you stand with Oliver Dowden or the Cricut Board of England and Wales? I don't want to say that I stand with anyone because I think the issue is quite complicated and I don't want to get cancelled on Twitter for my views on this. But I think the problem really is that social media technologies are still quite new to us and we don't know how to respond to the fact that what we might have once considered the kind of private space, tweeting to your 300 followers some bullshit 10 years ago, now has particular implications for the public run because we kind of assigned that upon us to Twitter and someone could be quite an anonymous character and suddenly be propelled into public fame through sporting achievement, through journalism, through whatever and then have someone trawl through their historic feats and find some kind of moral run. And I've become firmly against the kind of need to practice this through someone's historic tweets because my first question was, what's the reason that these have come up and what was the reason that someone searched for them? Did he do something racist now? Did he make some kind of transgression now which meant that someone thought, oh, let's look if he's got a trapped record? Or are journalists routinely going through the social media profiles of typically young people to find new stories? It would be easy to contend to this now because they were wild tweets and I don't think anyone's arguing that the tweets were fine. They were sexist, they were racist unequivocally, they were pretty disgusting. But the examples of when this has happened to other people, it's usually been people of color. I mean, there was the footballer Mason Holgate who made lots of homophobic tweets which were one day just randomly unearthed and I can't remember what consequences there were for him but he had to make significant apologies and that's now on public record. And I as a gamer myself, I remember thinking, I just don't know why this has been brought up now and why I need to see these. I thought the same when they were unearthing stormed these tweets is why I just thought, who has gone and searched that out and said, search out this. Probably the most sinister example of this was perhaps Zara Sultana when she was a PCC for Coventry South because the really fucked up thing about those was that the screenshots were taken like 30 minutes after the tweet was sent years and years and years ago. So someone had this loaded in a database waiting for her to become public enough to then release them. And it then makes me wonder, did I say something really off 10 years ago that someone's held in a database and is going to release in five years time when I do whatever? I think that there's a kind of risk if left being people cheer this on and say, good, get this races out of here that we kind of just kind of bang the drums for a little of kind of intrusion into our lives and we give consent to employers to start dictating over our personal lives and dot dictating over our personal conduct and historical personal conduct as a way to deny employment. And that kind of thinking is also what is maintaining things like criminal records where you have to be vetted and screened before you get a job and you need to declare whether or not you robbed some sweets from a corner shop when you were 15 years old or something like that. So I just, I can't in good conscience invest myself in the idea of stripping someone of their current position based on historical conduct because I also asked, who is the accountability for as well? I mean, they were racist tweets. Is it that I need to ask for accountability for this guy that I don't know? I know that people are racist all the time every day that's not necessarily always direct that me or that, sorry, that's not the right thing to say. I know people are racist, you know, in their private lives all the time every day and I don't know that it can really be the job of individual people to constantly take these people to task or even people from my past life who have been racist to me in some context. I mean, when I was at school, there was racism and particularly homophobia all the way up until I was 18, you know, all the way up until my final year of six, when I was getting homophobic abuse at school and I kind of think, you know, based on this logic, can I now go and name one of the boys who was homophobic to me, email their employer and say, I want accountability and I want this person to do the job? I think some people would say, you know, that's quite unhinged and that's not really the way to go about this action. So why do we now do this for public figures? I just, I think it's my goal and I think it's the kind of power that we shouldn't be so happy to have and willed over people and we also shouldn't allow the conservators to kind of like monopolize a kind of moral common sense because most people do have the instinct that, you know, perhaps people shouldn't be over punished for things that they have done to jump people. And I know that people keep saying, you know, 18 is it really teenager? It is, as much as, you know, in 18, Doug Yord loves no right from wrong, absolutely. He knew that those tweets were wrong. He was probably saying that because that was a time of, you know, the kind of like edged Lord into that culture and perhaps there is some kind of accountability process that is necessary for these kind of altweeds but because social media technology is so new, we just don't know. And so we have to go to the more extreme and say, you know, this person needs to lose their job or this person needs to be outcast from society. And I don't know what we actually gained from this. And so I don't know what's been gained for anyone. No, I mean, I have to say, I totally agree with you on all of that. I think that was very well articulated. And it is annoying. I find it very frustrating the way now, everyone's saying like, oh, the left have canceled this guy. It's like, we had nothing to do with this. There was no, there was no one on the left who was saying this guy could not play for England anymore. This was a decision made by the cricket board of England and Wales who I imagine aren't, you know, closet Marxists. Yeah, but I also think that, you know, there's lessons to the left in kind of saying, you know, whenever something is brandish in front of you and it seems to be defeated to your enemy, you actually need to assess whether or not it's going to have consequences for you as well. I mean, it's public knowledge, you know, that one time and these were tweets I made in real time. I had tweets which were put up in the Daily Mail and it had significant implications for my personal life. And I remember I was in my second year of university at the time and I remember my biggest fear was, am I going to get a job in the future when this employer can literally just search up Jason, I could die first page Daily Mail. And what was interesting was that I at the time actually had a job. Obviously I kept that private because otherwise they would have emailed my employer. I had a job, I wasn't a kind of an internship and obviously I had to tell them straight up, look, this has happened. I don't know how to deal with it. And I remember, you know, they didn't suspend me. They kind of cared about my wellbeing and my welfare, but I think what was good and important then was they kind of made the judgment that we shouldn't be taking disciplinary action on what someone has done in their private life that has not quite brought the company into disrepute. Now, if you are a public figure and there is to be anything you do is attached to your kind of brand new company to the English cricket team. Whereas I as someone who at the time was just a private citizen and not particularly well known at all could kind of get away with it because, you know, this is behind the scenes and my name wasn't publicly associated with this company. But looking at that kind of grace that was extended there, I do think that was the right decision of the company, but it becomes difficult when it's someone you disagree with. Lots of anti-racist would be like, well, you can't be racist to white people. So Jason should keep his job. Other people will say, well, this person was actually racist and that person should lose their job. And I just think, you know, based on the quality law, what I said technically was racist because quality law defines racism as against any ethnicity. Based on the quality of the law, you can be racist to white people. So I don't think people should uphold the law as, you know, this kind of like barometer and this measuring tick for whether or not we take a caution action and whether or not we consent to this putitiveness because it will be used against you and it has been used against people. So, yeah, that's kind of my view on that. No, I mean, as I say, I agree with that take. And I do actually think that from the left-wing accounts I follow people seem to be generally agreed in this case that people shouldn't lose. I mean, he hasn't quite lost his job. He's been suspended. He'd be quite likely to be welcomed back, I assume, but that you shouldn't have harsh punishments for things that people tweeted when they're teenagers. It's just not good practice. It's not going to end well. Jason, it's been an absolute pleasure being joined by you tonight on Tiskey Sour. I'm sure we're going to have you back soon if you're up for it. Absolutely. A brilliant debut. And thank you all for joining us tonight, tomorrow night from 7 p.m. Here on Navarra Media YouTube, Ash Sarko will be speaking to Alastair Morgan ahead of the Daniel Morgan Murder Inquiry Report due to be published next week. That is going to be, wow, that is going to be a massive show. That's such a big story and obviously the perfect guest for it. Now, you'll be redirected to the page for that show when this stream ends. So stay tuned and then you can set a reminder. For now, you've been watching Tiskey Sour on Navarra Media. Good night.