 Hello and welcome to the fix. I'm Michael Walker today. I'm joined by Aaron Bostani. What's up? How are you doing? See you again Michael. Very good to see you Aaron. Always a pleasure We are in day three of the UCU strike Britain's lecturers are on strike due to changes in their pensions We're not going to talk about that now, but later. I will be interviewing Amelia Horgan Who's going to tell us all the details about that in this section? We don't normally do this but we're going to dedicate This episode to a very special person who's had a very good week. Who's that? Jeremy Corbyn's lawyer Okay, I don't know who they are, but They've they've done some very good social media work. I'm sure it wasn't just Seamus Milne sort of trying to pull a fast one I don't look it was a legal it was a legal letter I think if Seamus Milne pretended to be a lawyer that would you know, we'd be in another legal quagmire I was very well penned. I'm very very well communicated So as we talked about a lot last week on various Navara shows There was a botched smear attempt at Jeremy Corbyn saying he had Gone gone Michael. You're obstructing the camera. It's your camera See if I was doing this gone. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. That's fine. You can see Aaron now So Michael's so eager, right Michael is such an eager beat. I'm gonna lean back to talk about what he gets Ben Bradley then Bradley okay, so Ben Bradley he had smeared Corbyn by saying he had sold Information yeah, that's right British state secrets to check spies. What secrets? We've already been through this. It was what that was gonna wear the next day No, what state secrets did I really want to know what state secrets to Britain have in the 1980s? Well, we had loads of state secrets in the night. Well, how to start a state agents how to privatize shit. I Don't know. I don't know anyway all the good all the good state secrets were in the 50s and 60s jet technology All that stuff. Oh, you think we didn't have enough International power and really for anyone to actually really want our secrets. I mean, I Realistically, I mean maybe a few little things, but no not really. No, yeah potentially So you think spies just wouldn't even have bothered they'd want to know about the location of assets and stuff But it wouldn't be like big-state secrets military hardware and stuff, you know anyway, we're deriving Sorry, we've gone. Yeah, Jeremy Corbyn didn't sell spies. No to the checks and bed Bradley had to give a groveling Apology So Corbyn got his lawyers on bed Bradley and said you have libeled Jeremy Corbyn leader of the Labour Party And not only should you delete the tweet not only should you donate 10,000 pounds to a charity in Ben Bradley's Constituency, but you should tweet an apology with two fateful words at the end, right? What were they please re-tweet, you know with tweets the problem is when you say please retweet Nobody ever retweets it. Yeah, normally it looks a bit desperate if you say please retweet right But maybe that was a mistake on Corbyn's lawyers behalf Well, I think there's something about Ben Bradley where people really believed it people really listen to this guy People really wanted to respect this request and retweet the tweet right because he meant it He really meant it. He really wanted it to be retweeted and the British people have retweeted this tweet I think we're gonna get it out 50,000 times very impressive that's photoshop It's really 50,000 that's 50,000 it makes it The most tweeted tweet by a Tory politician ever including the Prime Minister I've heard that it's got more retweets than all the tweets put together by every Tory for 2018 Is that correct? For 2018, yes. Is that correct? I mean it might be ever I don't know I haven't done that song Well if it carries on with the present right because it only went out what Saturday night? It went up on Saturday night. Yeah, so he tried to bury it He tried to bury it with a lot of retweets and he did it at 10 30 But obviously we weren't going to let him bury it and it's exploded Very sad. I mean it's kind of ended his career, right? Yeah, I suspect because majority of them promoted him because he became a vice chair of the party at the age of 28 very impressive then it turned out he wanted to give vasectomies to the poor or to the unemployed specifically And it's from the eugenics wing of the Tory party Yeah, which I think probably It had its moment a couple of months ago But I think it's Cachet's on the on a downward trend Yeah, I mean his majority I think is a thousand and eighty There was unseat at the weekend in Mansfield He comes across as just an idiot So I I'd put money on Labour winning that seat They should have won actually the last summer election If it wasn't for the idiocy of Labour Party HQ and the likes of Ian McNichol More of which later I've predicted 10,000 Labour majority in Ben Bradley's seats of Mansfield I think the good people of Mansfield 10,000 Let's say for 10,000 10,000 Look, it's not as many retweets as Ben Bradley got Okay, but it's still pretty impressive Anyway, I'm not sure if we're going to get it up But this means that Sebastian Payne political correspondent at the FT Right Has potentially had one prediction come true It doesn't happen very often It's just the only one right By inch the Conservatives are understanding how to communicate on social media He's right Happened quicker than we thought they've gone viral They've gone viral I mean, hey look, Jeremy Corbyn doesn't get many tweets 50k That's a lot of tweets He gets quite a few to be honest But 50k, I mean, not very often, right? I think the last one was about Trump Yeah, the NHS Nothing like beefing Trump to get a lot of retweets We're going to move on to the next story We had some big news on Friday night Which was a giant of the Labour movement Oh my god, yeah Absolute giant A latter-day Kia Hardie Uh, resigned He's gone Who are we talking about, Aaron? We're talking about Emmett Nicolle Who is the gentleman on your screen right now Former GMB man, Emmett Nicolle He was the general secretary of the Labour Party since 2011 He wasn't Ed Miliband's first pick And, yeah, I personally hold him responsible for the fact that Labour aren't in Tendowning Street Right now I wrote an article for Navara Saying why the next general secretary should be Democratic-elected We'll talk about that in a second But I briefly, and as a brief excursus over his record as general secretary Which includes using the funds of the organisation to prohibit 130,000 members legally from voting for their next party leader Oh, that's not very nice Which includes the protracted defunding of critical marginals Which Labour broadly won anyway Which includes the fact that he passes to Labour's south side headquarters for the leader of the opposition's team Were revoked on the night of the general election And the behest of Ian Nicolle Why? Because there was a presumption that they would lose There would be a coup immediately And that they would install a Labour establishment favourite instead in a consequent leadership election So no love lost for Ian Nicolle No love lost for Ian Nicolle Why has it happened now, do you know? Any insight? A few, there's a few bases, a couple of people in the Midlands who've been naughty And they've been involved in ongoing allegations around just inappropriate behaviour in workplaces But Nicolle wouldn't get rid of them None of it's been proven This is the hearsay that I'm just going back over again Which you can find, I think it's on Huffington Post It was mentioned explicitly It's the only place that's mentioned it And he didn't deal with it And they said enough is enough I think on Tuesday Jeremy Corbyn and Carrie Murphy went to see him They said Ian, you're a loser You're a shell You seem to get nothing right Maybe it's time you moved on Yeah And the gossip is that he will become a Lord So he's going to the right place Lord MacNicolle Well, I mean it'll be Lord something else It'll be like Lord Macallan of Stranra I mean they get these weird names, right? God knows what it'll be But he's gone, he's gone He's gone, he's gone What's going to happen now? Who's going to replace him and how are they going to replace him? So at the moment United the favourites They have a candidate, Jenny Formby She's their southeast coordinator Excellent Some people are saying Andrew Murray would be phenomenal He was a member of the Communist Party until 2016 It would terrify the melts in the PLP Yeah, more importantly, forget his political history He's very effective, he knows what he's doing He's been key, it was revealed today actually He's been a consultant in terms of Labour's position on Brexit He was seconded into the leader's office during the election He's good at his job He's effective at politics He's all of the things which the melts can't do He's all of the things which the losers are so terrible at So it's time we've got something like Andrew Murray And he's not my personal favourite I don't know how it works I think like I said it should be elected But it looks like it'll be Jenny Formby Because obviously I think most people would agree The Labour Party isn't just a progressive party The majority of its members are women And yet, London Mayor is a man Most MPs are men The leaders are men The deputy leaders are men So, yeah, I think a woman would have to take the role I, like I say, would like to see it democratically elected Yeah, I mean, I'd like to see it democratically elected In the future, I'd like there to be a bit of creative tension In an organisation, and I think Shuins, if it looks like a coronation That's not particularly helpful It looks bad, right, in a way Well, I don't think optics matter that much, to be honest Because we all know that in elections No one cares who the general secretary is Or how they got the job So I think it's more about the effect on the organisation But I think I mean for party members I don't mean for the audience Like the mass, I mean like, you know, it's again This is what's interesting, right? My nickel trended on Saturday night on Twitter The general secretary of the Labour Party is trending on Twitter So why is that? It's not because most Brits even know who the guy is It's because Labour has 600,000 members I think 570,000 And most of them now are really engaged Yeah, most of them are engaged Make a change of the time, right? Most of them are engaged Most of them probably know this guy Probably don't like him So I think it's bad optics Which is to be a coronation Backroom deals Oh, here we go What's this? Mr. Bean Oh, Mr. Bean What are we looking at now? Macnickel Oh, this is to everyone Macnickel hasn't resigned yet Extra fake news? It wasn't fake news It wasn't fake news No, it's gone, fortunately So, yes, it's bad optics for those people, the party members And if we want to see a party of a million people I would submit that You need to open up more roles Because people are going to give their all They're going to give their weekends They're going to give their late nights Because they really believe they have a stake Not just ideologically With this manifesto Because they agree with it But also in the decision making process is fundamentally Also, I mean, the manifesto is fabulous The Labour Party still needs wholesale transformation So, I mean, we do want a disruptor in there We want a disruptor We're not your Silicon Valley chat, aren't you, Michael? Yeah, we're going to need a disruptor We need a project manager disruptor We need a... Not a project manager, really Go in set We want a Steve Jobs We need bean bags We need HQ full of bean bags Sand pits And ex-Google execs Ant farms Hey, maybe you should be the next General Secretary I don't want to work for you This sounds like a great office Free beers, craft beer Maybe I'll apply That'd be good, right? Craft beer Free craft beer We'll have craft beer We'll have bean bags Pizza We'll have memes Vegan pizzas We'll have a meme department You're basically describing the failed BuzzFeed, right? Are we calling the BuzzFeed the failed BuzzFeed now? Well, Jim Waterton, who to my mind Is the best young journalist in this country, is now left Yeah Although apparently... To the failing Guardian, though But failing because of a secular crisis of print media It's online operations doing very well If it got rid of its print operation, it would make money, right? But apparently, this is extraneous to the conversation Melinda Gates wants to buy BuzzFeed That's a lot of money, right? Buy shares in BuzzFeed Can buy shares in BuzzFeed? Jim Waterton's gone Sell BuzzFeed No, but if Melinda Gates buy... Stocks go up when you're going to have a merger Yeah, this is what... This is what Labour HQ should look like This is what Labour HQ will look like Under Secretary General Michael Walker It looks a bit like Fort Collins House Where the MPs hang out That place is a fucking... And they're not very productive That is a nightmare, that place All right, we're going to move on to our next big story of the day Well, this is our only big story of the day Because the last one was the story of the week Though it's been a big... I mean, normally we do two stories on the fix, right? Those are two massive stories Two massive stories Especially when Nichols, a big story Just a brief, let's finish that This was the final barrier To basically like the left taking over the Labour Party They have the NEC, they have the leadership They're doing pretty well in candidate selection They're doing pretty well even in local government now With Harry and Gay Robin Wales is now... This is going to trick a ballot It looks like he's going to probably not win that So things are going really well Yeah, things are going really well But it's not the final barrier, that's not true Because the PLP whilst it's still incredibly Corbyn-skeptic That's what could bring down a Corbyn government So even if you control what... At the moment, what's happened is Corbynites control the machine True And they control the leadership True But councillors, the PLP These are all incredibly important aspects Of the party Which is why when people try and make out that these Moves to increase the power of the left within the machine Are anti-pluralistic They're ignoring those sections of the party Which are still dominated by another faction Labour is still very plural, you know Slightly dysfunctional So what would you say is the final barrier? Manage re-selection Manage re-selection, yeah And then finally This would be the moment of Conclusive ecstasy For the left in the Labour Party Oh, I want to know what's going to happen What? Well, if there's a mandatory re-selection, that'd be it Oh, that was it, right? I thought you were going to tell me one more thing I thought there was like this Secret ecstatic But we already have sort of We already have re-selections for councillors Yeah That's just people undoing it Because people don't know the ropes Yeah, yeah, yeah You know, I've heard some amazing stories About re-selections of councillors This will be key though In terms of the next General Secretary Because not everyone on the left Is in favour of mandatory re-selection So we want to make sure that Not only does the party become more favourable to Corbyn It becomes more favourable to democracy in general We're going to move to the next story Let's move to the next story I had a great vignette about a councillor We won't go there Ready? I don't want to do it, Ben Bradley Shove it in there afterwards All right, we're going to talk about the customs union Corbyn gave a speech today Establishing Labour's Brexit position Or further developing Labour's Brexit position I think we're going to see a little bit of that now Can we get that up? We will remain close to the EU That's obvious Every country Whether it's Turkey, Switzerland or Norway That is geographically close to the EU Without being an EU member state Has some sort of close relationship with the EU There are some more advantages than others And Britain will need a bespoke Negotiated relationship of its own Labour would seek to remain In a customs union with the EU And within the single market Labour spelled out the need For a stable transition period last summer Both the TUC and the CBI agree on that We thought the government had accepted that case But they now seem to be very surprisingly In disarray on this issue yet again Time after time with this government Anything agreed at breakfast Is being briefed against by lunch And abandoned by tea time Up to now, so watching that are impressions Are that he should have straightened his tie And that he might need to trim his beard Eh, I said centred Because he's done it nicely Then obviously somebody's put the clip mic on him And they've not put it back properly All conspiracy I wonder who put the clip mic on him It's a media conspiracy To wonky his tie Because he's got a great suit Lovely shirt Just as he's getting business on side Anyway, what was announced today was that Labour would support Britain staying In a customs union This is after the Tories reaffirmed That they would leave it After their meeting last week In checkers, which is the Prime Minister's retreat What do you make of this, Aaron? Do you think Britain should stay in a customs union? It's the correct position I mean, it's the only position I think that Okay, let's be serious It's the most progressive outcome That right now The majority of the British electorate would back So what does it mean, fundamentally, the customs union This customs union Would be a very different set of arrangements To the EEA, the European Economic Area Or the EFTA, the European Free Trade Association So you have what are called variable geometries In the European project You have the Eurozone You have the EU You have the EEA You have the EFTA This proposal would add almost another concentric circle Which would be a new customs arrangement Just with the UK And it would be on just goods So the customs union always is on goods Yeah So at the moment So the option If we say we're going to join the customs union We'd be exactly like Turkey So the customs union means that you have free trading goods You don't have free trading services Which means you don't have to sign up to the four freedoms Of movement of capital, labour I don't know what the other two ones are Everyone always says the four But people only remember two of them, I think Oh, goods services People LSE, LSE, LSE grad, Michael Walker Good services, people What's the fourth one? Hey, I'm a Euro skeptic Okay, right, it doesn't matter I think it's good services, people and capital now Good services, people, capital Yes, that's it All right, we got to all four We got that So the customs union means you have free trade in goods You don't have to check a lorry as it goes across the channel What this does mean is you have exactly the same trade agreements With the external world, with the outside world As everyone else in the EU Because otherwise Britain could Import something from America on its trade agreement On lower terms than Europe So right now, for instance, when Britain's trade agreements With non-European countries like Brazil or the US That's decided through the World Trade Organization, the WTO We have nobody at the WTO, right? The EU, the Commission Basically decides European trade deals Through the WTO So the Commission is unelected The proposal is that would still happen But there'd be quite a lot of deliberation Conversation between the Brits Between the European Commission beforehand So to be, if we're being honest This is not propaganda, this is not bullshit It is actually recentering Sovereignty around trade arrangements Back in Britain, quite significantly Whilst keeping a customs union Whilst protecting jobs, wages, the economy So to speak So to be honest, I think it is a really good compromise That's it, the EU accept it That's the thing, yes So do you think the EU will accept Britain To stay part of the customs union But not become completely dependent On them for external trade deals? Will they be happy to have a third party involved? I don't think they would be Because obviously Britain is getting the good bits Of being in the EU It's access to the single market This huge market, it's the world's largest market On its doorstep And yet it's not tying itself Into the free movement of people So we would not have freedom of movement anymore A number of other arrangements It wouldn't be paying into So it's hard to see people like Guy Verhofstadt For instance, or Jean-Claude Juncker Being particularly happy But in a way, I think that's part Of the genius of this proposal Is that it's going to really piss off Farage And the hard core Brexit is And it's really going to piss off people Quite frankly, who I view as undemocratic Anti-democratic within the European project And in a way, that's where you want to be Especially for a politician Jeremy Corbyn Who historically has been very critical Of the European project more broadly So something we've not mentioned yet Is very important Is that they would want certain opt-outs On privatisation directives and state aid So for instance, Port Talbot Within the EU, there's very few things That really apply to steel Is undeniable The kinds of state intervention That we would want to put in there, for instance You couldn't do it in the EU We would want this customs union And we'd want certain opt-outs Around things like that, for instance So what I think is that They might be able to get the thing About trade deals Because I think the idea that We have some input when they sign A new trade deal with another country Probably wouldn't be that controversial Because we have quite similar interests Anyway, anything which gave us Opt-outs from the European Court of Justice i.e. state aid for Port Talbot I think is going to be harder Yes So that'll be the red line And C Anyway, Corbyn got some unlikely support today Which was from business, the CBI I don't know if we're going to get a headline up there So the Confederate of British industries And the Institute of Directors Have both said that Corbyn's proposal On the customs union is a positive one They're more in favour of Labour's Brexit position Than the Tories one They will still bat the Tories in the next general election They will still bat the Tories in the next general election Because they're fucking idiots And they let down their members Yeah, well at the bottom of the statement Supporting the customs union position The CBI put that They are also very unhappy about Corbyn's proposals to nationalise some stuff Yeah, because they're the party Particularly in their interests The Tory party could literally Have a national policy of drilling a hole Into everybody's heads And turning puppies into sausages And the CBI would still back them Because you know There's a nexus of political power and economic power And it runs straight through the Tory party and the CBI It's like they're twins So no matter what Labour do They won't support them Which makes that a remarkable statement This is risky, but we haven't discussed this before But why could this announcement on the customs union Bring down Theresa May? Well, fundamentally Labour's position on this has been an outgrowth Of a rebellion amongst her own backbenchers Including Woke and Asubri Again, very small majority Again, I'm going to make a prediction Ben Bradley's going to lose by 10,000 Anna Subri, 5,000 Notwithstanding that Yes, it could If the final deal goes to Parliament Which is going to It's going to be a vote on Brexit day in 13 months If it doesn't meet the red lines That Labour have outlined today If it doesn't look like it If it doesn't resemble it Then They will vote it down The SNP will vote it down The Lib Dems And of course these Tory backbenchers Will vote it down In which case We could see it fail And we could see another general election There's a vote coming sooner than that So this is timed in a way Because Anna Subri has put an amendment Woke Subri has put an amendment To a current trade field Which would commit Britain to staying In a customs union Yeah The Tories are opposed to it They've said we're leaving the customs union And we don't plan to form a customs union They want more divergence With Which was a great checkers, right? Yeah, than any customs union could provide They've been The Tories have been stalling On hearing this amendment for a long time What this speech by Jeremy Corbyn does Is it gives Labour justification To whip all their MPs To vote for Anna Subri's amendment Which they'll be potentially enough Tory MPs In favour of as well To defeat the government The Tories are terrified If they lose this that they'll look incredibly weak What they're hoping to do Is get their rebellious MPs to vote for The amendment No, to vote against the amendment Sorry To keep Jeremy Corbyn out of Ten Downing Streets So they're going to make this vote Into a vote of confidence If they lose Theresa May is going to be under a lot of pressure To resign But she's already under lots of pressure to resign She's going to be under a lot more pressure to resign I don't think she will resign But the key point is this Labour's position today is very popular As we've already seen the CBI is backing it So I don't think that Come Brexit Day, which is in 13 months It'll be voted down And I think there will have to be a general election I just don't see how you have a government after that So people talk about a general election in 2022 I take it as a given because of the Fixed Town Parliament Act But I think Labour's offer today on Brexit Is so clear I mean it's not crystal clear It's still ambiguous because it's not them Who are negotiating this But it's a lot clearer than the Tories And I think most reasonable people inclined to live them As the 48% Remainers They have to know that Most of the country Either doesn't care Or votes remain and doesn't really want a second referendum Or they voted leave So this is the best they're going to get And I think actually it's going to I think it's going to draw a lot of people towards Jeremy Corbyn Who otherwise weren't really that persuaded by him Aaron, thank you for your insights on the weekend's news Oh, my pleasure Today's news We're going to take a break now We're going to look at a video that was made last Thursday On the first day of the UCU strike And then we'll be back with Amelia Horgan To talk about the UCU strike See you in about two minutes Today is the first day of a strike Involving 61 campuses Called by the University and Colleges Union Over 40% cuts to their USS pension scheme This strike's really important for the UCU Essentially it could determine the future Of collective bargaining in the sector Because if the universities defeat them here Academics may be in a lot of trouble For me and a lot of people in my position Retirement and a defined benefit contribution Is actually the last kind of form of job security that we have So I don't know where I'm going to be working next year If I'm going to be working next year But I know that if I stay in academia Even if I bounce from contract to contract I'll be able to plan for retirement With the current situation I'll know that I'll have income and retirement Exactly what that is And I can plan for that It's not a good situation to be on a defined contribution scheme And one that depends on the market So it's stripping away the last form of job security That I have and people like me have The significance of this strike Really cannot be overstated The future of the sector is determined Over the next 14 days And if academics lose Well, it could have huge impacts On the rest of the sector Marketization, pensions, holidays Everything could go We're all in this together We all have to take part in whatever way we can In supporting this action Not only that It's totally legal for you to do so Everybody can refuse to cross a picket line Everybody should refuse to cross a picket line If they want to defend their pensions We would encourage everyone Who works at the university Whatever pension scheme they're in To participate and support the industrial action here Simply because their pensions are going to be next Students should not cross picket lines Even if their lectures are still on It's really not that hard Like if you can't be able to just go to the picket Just stay in bed If students are wanting to support the strike They need to be going on picket lines They need to not go to classes during strike days But most importantly I think taking direct action I think that's going to be a way That people are going to win the strike That means protest That means occupations That means sit-ins Those are things that we need to be Seeing students doing across the country I think the strike is going to go really well I think we're going to win this I mean just the energy on the first day Is so great I'm hoping that this carries forward in the next 14 days I'm really excited I think that we're going to win this dispute Amelia Horgan Hi Thank you for joining us on the fix You have your finger in two union pies The UCU and the NUS And the NUS, yeah Great Tell us about that so that in the NUS you are I'm the postgraduate taught rep on NUS NEC And you're in the UCU because you're a PhD student PhD student doing what? Philosophy Yeah, I know So fill us in on this UCU strike It's all about pensions Exactly, it's pensions So there's this university superannuation scheme And changes to that are going to mean that staff who are in that scheme Which is at pre-1992 universities So that's academic and non-academic staff Are facing cuts of £10,000 per year to their pensions So they're out on strike And that's because the universities have said They can no longer afford their current pension liabilities The amount they're going to owe their staff And so they want to change it from a This is where it gets wonky So a defined pension scheme to a contribution Defined benefit to defined contribution Defined benefit to defined contribution And defined benefit means that you know How much you're going to receive Defined contribution means you know How much they're going to give And then the stock market decides how much you get It's at the whim of the market, right And they're saying there's a deficit But it's based on really, really dodgy figures So the model they've used is if all universities In the scheme This is pre-1992 university So a lot of them have a lot of money So within their model All of these universities collapse on the same day It's not going to happen And that's why they're saying there's a deficit Yeah so it's If you think of industries that are too big to fail I mean British universities If they all failed at the same time That wouldn't be very good for the economy Or our international standing I can't really see it happening One theory I read was that it was because Oxford and Cambridge especially And a lot of blame has been going on them I'll ask you about that in a second But it was the idea that they want To compete with American universities And the amount of money they can raise On the financial markets And you can raise more money cheaply On the financial markets If you minimise your liabilities On things like pensions But what is What was the controversy about Oxford and Cambridge? People think they've had A lot to do with this strike So the Oxford Colleges Got to contribute to this To put in their statements As employers Even though You know the university They do employ people But as individual colleges They don't even recognise unions So it's like It's the same as the university challenge scandal As the way to understand it Scannals are a bit too strong For the university challenge But we all know That an university challenge Oxford has an advantage They've got more colleges So they get to enter more times The same thing has happened But actually some of the Oxford Colleges Are now saying well You know Some of the colleges with less money Who perhaps are less invested In making as much money as they can Are saying actually this isn't what we wanted So this is Yeah this is playing out as well So instead of Oxford and Cambridge voting It was all their colleges Which is about 30 each Got to vote So they outweighed everyone else Exactly And the responses seemed fairly Strong Fairly united Yeah Uh How many universities are we seeing strikes You know there are any that didn't strike 61 universities strike Are going on strike 14 day strike It's the longest strike In the union's history 88% of UCM You members who were balloted Voted for the strike Impressive Huge numbers And we're saying like Huge student support The NUS has live policy On supporting the strike Very different situation to In 2009 When the then president of NUS West Streeting Said A favourite of us in the world of media Yeah yeah good good good boy West Streeting What West Streeting said was Students need a lecture strike Like a hole in the head Right So yeah So we're seeing a big change since then We could be doing more But things have changed a lot We've got students Across the country Organising teach-outs Standing in solidarity I was in the King's picket King's College London picket earlier It was great Loads of students there Loads of music Teach-outs Students would turn out We'd explain to them what was going on They'd go home They'd WhatsApp their mates They'd tell them not to come to class It's really really It's really positive It's really inspiring Yeah no it's really impressive Because I mean obviously A strike is most likely to lose If you can create some Division amongst the workforce But the workforce is more likely to be divided If the students seem particularly upset But 61% of students supported the strike Which is incredible figure Exactly And it will go higher Yeah it will go higher Good we like that phrase as well And all this is paying off So the employers seem somewhat divided So initially the position of universities UK Which is the alliance of all the universities We're saying this is our position We want to impose these changes On the pension scheme Since the strike started A lot of those universities have changed Their tune What's happened there What's your analysis So the Vice-Chance is speaking out I think 17 is it 17 Vice-Chance is I think it's 17 on Friday Yeah It keeps going up Including Cambridge, Southampton They're all saying No not Southampton Newcastle Southampton is where they had a flash occupation To try and get the Vice-Chance to speak out against it So there's pressure from lots of angles The Vice-Chances are saying This isn't working We need to pay our staff properly This is a crisis This is like Universities are at breaking point And what would winning mean For the lecturers to win with that mean That there's no changes at all Or are they asking for Slightly different changes To the ones currently being suggested So given that the changes are based on A completely messed up model It's demanding that you know Pensions are kept the same But this is about more than just pensions Right This is about marketisation And neoliberalisation Throughout higher education So in real terms Academics have had a pay cut of 15% I think Since 2009 52% of academics in Russell Green University So the richest universities Are on temporary contracts But there's money swishing around Actually right now Channel 4 Dispatchers I think Is doing an expose on VC's Vice-Chancellors expenses So we had Glyllys Breakwell at Bath Who expents biscuits She breaks well apparently So she was on 450k a year And charges expenses for her biscuits So the students pay for the biscuits Yeah yeah yeah So this is So this might I don't know why If this is one of the reasons The VC's are more willing to speak out Because they know there's a storm brewing Yeah Let's talk about the next big Sort of crux points So we've got this week Three days of strike The following week Four days of strike The week after that Five days of strike What are the chances that Something happens which means Those are called off What's going to be The likely point at which we can see Whether this strike is going to escalate Or whether the management Are going to give in to demand So it's whether the UK will get back to the table And negotiate Which we're not seeing yet And that's going to be it basically And we've got We've had huge support from students We had a demo outside the university's UK today Big turnout There's local things going on as well There's another demo on Wednesday So if you're in London Get yourself down And the main thing is keeping up momentum from students That student worker solidarity Is what's going to win this It's the most important thing And we have to remember That the same people Who triple fees The same people who are cutting our courses Are the ones that are Slashing these pensions And I think that's something that We need to stand In solidarity with striking staff Brilliant, thank you Amelia Horgan Thank you If you're a student Get out on the picket line If you're a lecturer Get out on the picket line And In the snow In the snow Strike must And we hope for the best This was The Fix We'll see you next week For now, goodbye