 What do you do when you want to distract from a decade of cuts affecting educational outcomes? Well, if you're a Tory MP, the answer is simple. You blame anti-racist activists blathering on about white privilege. You distract from the class inequalities you have built up in the country and in the meantime, you stoke a culture war. It's just too perfect. They couldn't resist. I'll be talking to Dalia Gabriel tonight about that report from the Education Committee on the Underachievement of White Working Class Boys. Dalia, how are you doing this evening? I'm good. I'm exhausted today. I think I went too hard in my weightlifting gym stuff today because I am exhausted. But I'm sure I'll perk up by my rage at the latest trotting out of this same story we've heard multiple times for the past several decades, basically, which is that black and brown people are to blame for the class struggle, class war. Yeah, I'm very impressed to hear about your exercise this morning. I've actually, I said white working class boys, it should be all white working class children. I don't think the report made a distinction based on gender. Tonight we'll also be talking. We've got a story on climate change. The government has a good talk. How do they walk? Also a police officer convicted of manslaughter. That was a police officer. He was he was on duty on duty when he killed the person. This is actually very, very rare. First time in 35 years, in fact, we will finish the show with the embarrassing song British school children are being told to sing on one Britain One Nation Day, which if you weren't aware, is this Friday. We're all very excited at Navarra Media. As ever, if you are new to the show, hit the subscribe button and do get in touch with your thoughts about any of the topics we are discussing tonight. You can do that by tweeting on the hashtag Tiskey Sour. The Education Select Committee has released a report on the underachievement of white working class children in British schools. The report lays out a number of statistics as to how attainment differs among low income students, according to ethnicity. So we're going to go up some of the some of the statistics they sort of begin the report with where this disparity has been identified. So first of all, when it comes to four to five year olds on free school meals, they look at how different groups, different ethnic groups within the free school meal category fare on that basis. So you can see here that 53% of white British children on free school meals meet their development goals by age four to five, which is below Black Caribbean and Black African students on free school meals and Indian and Chinese students on free school meals. It's above Gypsy Roma students on free school meals. That trend, which has been identified there continues up into GCSEs. So the attainment eight scores are the sum of grades achieved in different subjects. So GCSEs are now awarded on a one to nine scale, not on A to E. So here we can get up the statistics highlighted in the report. So they show that the scores, again, of white British children on free school meals are below those of Black Caribbean, Black African Indian and Chinese, and only above those of Gypsy Roma. I think also there is Irish traveller in that group scoring below white British children on free school meals. Finally, the same disparity when it comes to access to higher education. Here you can see the proportion of students on free school meals starting higher education by age 19 in 2018 to 2019. Among white British children on free school meals, it's 16% among Black Caribbean children on free school meals, 31% Black African, 59% and Chinese 72%. Now you'll have noticed none of those lists I showed you there are exhaustive. These are the stats that I've sort of lifted from their report. So they haven't always highlighted the results of groups not mentioned there. So for example, Pakistani children aren't mentioned in that particular summary of the disparities. Robert Halfon is the Tory MP who chairs the committee. He told the BBC what he thinks explains the relative underperformance of white working class students in Britain. There are a number of reasons why this is happening. It's partly due to place. Often money and policy is all thrown at the big cities and towns where many of white working class pupils live are often left behind and neglected. There is a family disengagement from the education curriculum, the multi-generational disadvantage as lack of care about these students who are not going to university. There's a host of reasons that this is going on, but there's also muddled and lazy thinking because the stock answer to this is people say it's because of poverty. But if it was down to poverty, we would not have most other ethnic groups who are also disadvantaged, who also on free school meals performing much better in terms of their educational outcomes. So he mentioned a couple of explanations there for this disparity. They've identified the evidence points to two key areas according to MPs, which they believe are central to understanding relative underperformance of disadvantaged white pupils. Now these four under two categories, place and culture. So they write place based disparities, not just relating to income deprivation, but also poor infrastructure, struggling job markets and lack of opportunity and multi-generational poverty and unemployment are more likely to affect disadvantaged white pupils due to the distribution of ethnic diversity in the country. Tackling these requires highly tailored local solutions. Cultural factors, including family structure, experience of education and access to community assets, including places of worship, youth groups and other social organizations may also disproportionately impact attainment for disadvantaged white pupils. Now we are going to go through some more quotes and data from this report. Dahlia first, I want your your initial reaction to the report when it comes to those two groups of explanations, place and culture in terms of and the culture there seems to be access to social institutions doesn't seem that reactionary but the whole framing of the report is pretty off potentially. What's your take? Yeah, I mean this is one of many reports that have been published especially using this particular kind of data set that have been or this kind of frame you the extraction of these particular data points over a period of time that have been published over the years to make the exact same point and the commissioning of these kinds of reports is not just limited to the concerns of government we also saw many similar reports under new labor and you know what we see here essentially is the extrapolation of a very specific data set that has been selected precisely because of what can be incorrectly extrapolated from it and so why do I say that it's selective? Well it's selective because it boils down the entirety of a child or a young person's experience in education to particular metrics so what is missing here is the fact that for example as you're going to mention not only is it that when you look outside of the free school meal data actually there is a lot more disparity that is racialized against people of color but also the fact that you know for example black and brown children are much more likely to be excluded from school which leads to sort of significant and damaging outcomes beyond school it also doesn't capture the fact that these disparities in this particular category do not translate to disparities beyond education so we see a racial attainment gap throughout university where you know students of color that enter the same university with the same grades and in the same course achieve lower grades by the end of their degree than their white counterparts and also like not to mention the fact that this sort of supposed outperformance at school by black and brown children which is actually not something that can be extrapolated unproblematically from the data does not actually translate into you know the things that we would think that educational attainment achieves which is you know more secure employment more livable wages home ownership savings decent living conditions etc you know ethnic minority workers in this country are 47% more likely to be on a zero hours contract you know how does that happen when supposedly everyone's doing so incredibly well at school and so when you look at these disparities holistically which this report very deliberately does not do then you cannot escape the fact that race and class are intimately tied together with those who are racialized outside of whiteness having a tent you know experiencing very negative consequences as a result of that and that being racialized outside of whiteness has a tendency to sort of generate very particular material conditions so what I'm saying is that you know is it true that white children on preschool meals in this particular category are faring poorly in comparison to their other counterparts yes clearly the data shows that does that tell us that much about the relationship between race and class in this country no it doesn't and most importantly are the conservatives or even new labor the ones who you know have the answers to deal with what is essentially a class disparity as you're going to kind of outline later where we see that the the real inequities and the real huge gaps are between white children on free school meals and white children who are not on free school meals so of course the Tories aren't the ones to to actually address that especially when they are the ones who have defunded the very provision of free school meals and you know they oversee and endorse a two-tier education system where those who can pay for it are given access to training and resources and preparation and you know care and all those kind of things that a child needs to learn and meanwhile everyone else in the rest of the country is sort of fighting for the scraps so there's many reasons why this is an exhausted trope but we still have to expose why it's so limited anyway even though it is exhausting I think your comment about this sort of encouraging people to fight for the scraps is very very telling when it comes to this because I take all your points about even within this group of children on free school meals it might be the case that while white kids on free school meals perform worse on certain educational you know tests or whatever than people from other ethnic groups on free school meals it could be that in other aspects of life they are they have privileges over those poor ethnic minority kids the bigger issue for me though I completely take that on board the bigger issue for me though is what this ignores which is that for some reason they've written a whole report which is only comparing people within this group of children on free school meals which by the way is only about 17% of the student population that's because it's actually the it's really difficult to get on free school meals there are loads more kids in this country in poverty than are on free school meals it's a bit of a crude method for assessing poverty in any case but what I want to bring up for you now is instead of just comparing the attainment of children on free school meals according to ethnicity comparing that to the total number of students and the attainment they are achieving who are not on free school meals so let's get this up so when it comes to gypsy Roma kids on free school meals 33% are meeting their four to five year development goals not on free school meals that's only 35% so clearly that's a community incredibly disenfranchised and regardless of whether or not you're on free school meals very difficult to achieve in education let's go on to white British so here on free school meals only 53% of children meet their development goals now that's a shocking statistic it's quite right there's you know that's the subject of debate as to how that can be improved the comparison to me here though seems to be that white kids not on free school meals get 76% of their meeting those development goals so and this this continues down through the ethnicity of Pakistani kids on free school meals 60% achieve those goals 65% on 65% not on free school meals achieve those goals and you can see that pattern throughout all of those groups and I think this is the real key thing because what you've got the nature of this report is it's essentially said look only 53% of white British kids on free school meals are reaching the desired development goals at age four or five fine decent point but then they say if only white poor kids could score as highly as black poor kids then then you know then then the problem would be solved let's put all of the focus on this difference between two underprivileged groups instead of saying it would have made much more sense for me to say if only white kids on free school meals could score as highly as white kids who aren't on free school meals which is 76% so it's a much bigger difference and I think what you see there is that actually class is the much bigger determinant of attainment in school but for some reason the Tory on the top of this select committee by the way the Labour MPs you can see the minutes of the report they tried to reject quite a lot of this so this was driven by the Tories on that committee they well for obvious reasons want to focus on the differences between student groups who were on free school meals instead of looking at what is the obvious explanation here for failure in school which is which is class and they don't want to talk about that most of the press around this is involved white privilege and the idea that the message being put out is that actually it's white kids who are doing the worst I mean this really kind of enforces that whole reverse racism idea doesn't it if we go back to that table I just showed you we can look now at the differences between here again we're looking at whether or not kids meet their development goals between the by the ages of four and five here actually white British kids perform very very well so here you've got black kids and South Asian kids really underperforming white kids and that could suggest oh that maybe there is a problem of racism in schools but no they've completely ignored all of that we're only going to look at the 17% of people in schools who are on free school meals and then make out that the whole problem is race it's odd to say the least well it's not odd it's cynical as I said most of the headlines were about white privilege when it came to this report they had a whole section on it about white privilege they wrote we are concerned that the phrase may be alienating to disadvantaged white communities and it may have contributed towards a systemic neglect of white people facing hardship who also need specific support it also says white privilege also fails to acknowledge the damage caused by other forms of discrimination including anti-semitism and the marginalization of people from Gypsy Roma and Traveller backgrounds now it's worth noting here the committee is chaired by a conservative who supports the police and crime bill which is specifically targeting Traveller community so it all rings a little bit hollow they say oh actually white privilege is it's not looking at the complexity which is anti-traveller racism you're promoting anti-traveller racism they go on the disadvantaged white pupils our inquiry focuses on do not have white privilege in the education system and we are concerned about the impact that hearing terms like that presented as fact will have on those children so I think they knew that all of the headlines coming out of this report I mean if you see Andrew Neal's monologue on GB news I saw that on Twitter he's basically saying this report shows white privilege is a nonsense concept and it's to blame for white working class kids doing badly at school those are the headlines they wanted from this deeply deeply cynical luckily quite a lot of Labour politicians are seeing through this to to be fair to them Zara Sultana tweeted it wasn't the phrase white privilege that called 750 plus youth centres to close since 2010 it was the conservative party David Lamme who's the shadow justice minister said the term white privilege didn't cause the neglect of white working class pupils a decade of conservative austerity in education housing and youth services did just as it destroyed the life chances of working class black and minority ethnic kids stop trying to divide us and James O'Brien from LBC actually had a very good tweet about this he wrote when I started presenting phone in shows black children were often reported to be doing worse in school every single white right-wing commentator was adamant that parents were entirely to blame funny that Dahlia what did you make of this attack on the term white privilege I mean as I said I think this was deeply cynical they wanted to get headlines about you know a moral panic about anti-racism disadvantageing white people at the same time should the left be rallying around the term white privilege do you think it's particularly useful or you know should we say neither this report nor the people who are you know constantly talk about white privilege is one of the most important organising concepts we have I mean I think that white privilege is not an entirely useful term I think that you know speaking about whiteness as a technique speaking about white supremacy and the relationship between that and the foundation and continuing existence of capitalism is much more effective and it's much more kind of reflective of what we're trying to talk about but that's not the conversation that these guys are trying to have so I think it's important to not kind of lend credence to what these guys are trying to do by sort of getting into the nuances of the term white privilege what they're trying to do is to create this on this idea of you know white people en masse are victimised by the kind of petty demands and the kind of petty realities of black and brown people and you know I mean as I've mentioned before I'm not surprised at all by the fact that this has been used the very real issue of poverty and of you know class inequality in this country is being used instead to kind of fear monger and create kind of a moral panic around white privilege and the growth of anti-racism movements you know but also this this technique of you know racialising work the working class in way into segments that are you know materially and socially organised very differently from one another and position and most importantly positions in opposition to one another you know that's an even older technique there's a centuries old technique and it's sort of the very reason why race is the global very fine-tuned system that it is today and why it is so entrenched but this sort of particular iteration of it was most recently used actually if we sort of cast our minds back in the discredited sewer report which was published not long after the Tories actually tried to cut free school meals right which would have had disastrous impacts on all of the children represented in this data who are on free school meals including surprise surprise the white ones and that decision was reversed following you know a campaign by you know a black man who was raised working class Marcus Resford who supports the black lives matter movement and I'm sure pretty believes that you know white privilege and white supremacy exist so clearly these things are not oppositional to one another but actually go very much hand in hand with one another but I think also when we're thinking about how we position ourselves in relation to this I think it's really easy to feel very fatalistic about it and to be like oh my god like how can people believe this like how can people look at everything that the Tories have done and every all these systemic things that have happened and be convinced that the very people who create when the very people who created this crisis turn around and say you know it's because of anti-racism which is basically a proxy word for black and brown people but that's you know this is an economic logic you know the reason it's so effective it's because it's an economic logic that is so as I said it's centuries in the making and you know if you think about how our world is so pervasively coded through racial means it feels like it exists at sort of every layer of society it's in order so that those very divisions and those very feelings of separateness can be mined on effectively in these particular moments and that's a very very complex and deep knot to undo and when I say these moments what I mean is you know it's quite easy to sort of brush this off as you know oh it's a distraction but I actually think of it much more as both a form of action and a form of reaction um which is to say um that you know action because it's part of that material and social organizing of working classes into different and opposing existences and you know it's essential to workforce discipline and it's essential to getting people invested in that the very system that disciplines them but it's also a form of reaction because you know we've just seen a very momentous summer where you know multi racial crowds took to the streets not just in metropolitan centers but in rural and suburban parts of the country demanding systemic change with a real literacy in the relationship between race and capitalism in what they were saying and you know that's a kind of literacy that we haven't seen in this country in anti-racism movements since you know the 70s and 80s and so this is essentially the state's way of trying to break that spirit and to kind of kick dust into our eyes and at a very moment where we have clarity um and so I think as disheartening as it can be to hear these stories and to think about how effective it might be I think it's also important to think about how you know trying to undo that knot is pushing a very heavy boulder up a very steep hill but also that the investment of resources that this government is putting into this backlash is precisely because of the very power that has been exercised which they recognize and to an extent are intimidated by. No I think that's all very important I mean I suppose where I stand on the white privilege thing maybe you'll disagree with me is that you know I think it can be useful I mean in a way I feel like I have white privilege you know my friends of color I notice you know they tell me about all the the racism's they're subject to that I'm not and it's such a relief that I'm not so on one level that that is definitely white privilege at the same time you know if if someone is struggling so if you've got a struggling white person say well at least you're white at least you've got those benefits it's a bit like telling you know anyone who's struggling someone who's a victim of racism in this country well at least you live in a democracy where you can vote you know everyone's got some kind of privilege unless you're the most unlucky person in the whole world and so sometimes it's not the most helpful thing to tell to someone well you've got this privilege which I think people inevitably take as well does that mean I don't have any right to complain does that mean I can't struggle on my own behalf do you think I'm being unfair Dahlia? I mean I think it's mainly I mean of course you know that's not I don't think that's the reason that firstly that's not what any serious anti-racist movement is invested in like that kind of pitting that kind of oppression Olympics and I don't even think that the the development of the term white privilege was was designed in order to to meet those ends I think that that idea that you know conversations around anti-racism or conversations even around white privilege are a way of pretending that the world exists in that binary where like if you're white then you know nothing can touch you and if you're not then then that's otherwise that was never something that came from our side that was always a projection and a caricature that came from the other side at least if you're talking about a sort of serious people who are involved in anti-racist organizing and you know I use the Marcus Rashford example again you know Marcus Rashford you know primarily he's a footballer I don't think that he's like one you know sees himself as a full-time anti-racist activist but in his conception of what it means for to be a supporter of Black Lives Matter and to understand why these kind of universal programs are really important for racial justice he has done more for those white boys on free school meals than the Conservative Party have done in their entire tenure and he's not even in the business of politics so I think that that kind of framing is very much not something that has come from movements and it's not something that's come from us it's come from those who try to discredit us by sort of caricaturing the argument because as you mentioned it is without question that whiteness operates in a particular way and does designate certain forms of protection but that was always the point you know when you think about the invention of whiteness as a legal category it was literally to separate you know African slaves from white indentured laborers now no one's saying that indentured laborers are having a great time but you know the they still were protected from that category of slavery and that's the point you know I think that's very well put I mean also I mean the argument the big argument we're making here which is the simplest one whether or not you think white privilege is a useful concept it's got absolutely nothing to do with why we have shocking inequalities in education and why why some kids are being completely neglected by the system it has absolutely no relation whatsoever and the reason the Tories are pretending it does is completely cynical. Let's go to comments Tom tweets on the hashtag Tiskey Sour thank goodness for Dahlia Gabriel and Michael Walker and Tiskey Sour I've been reading so much about this over the last day or two and I'm none the wiser to be honest it's amazing how clear it becomes when journalists just make it clear thank you so much for that comment I really do appreciate that very very kind I have to say that you know just comparing kids on free school meals to kids not on free school meals and seeing how much bigger a difference that is than any group within the on free school meal categories I think it's almost the end of the argument isn't it why are we even debating this when the difference is between being in poverty and not being in poverty is so huge well again we know the answer to that is because the Tories don't want to discuss that if you are enjoying tonight's show do make sure you hit the like button a police officer has been convicted of the manslaughter of the former professional footballer Dalian Atkinson in 2016 pc benjamin monk of the west mercy of force fired a teaser at Atkinson which he held down for 33 seconds the standard deployment is five seconds so he held down the taser for over six times the recommended period now monk also kicked Atkinson twice in the head he did so with such force that Atkinson's blood was found on his police issue boots whole things incredibly distressing Atkinson died from cardiac arrest passing away within an hour of being tasered his family expressed relief on hearing the verdict we knew years ago about the terrible injuries inflicted by pc monk on Dalian but we have been unable to talk about them due to the criminal process we are hugely relieved that the whole world now knows the truth about how Dalian died while it has been hard for us not to be able to talk about the details of Dalian's death it has been even harder to sit through this trial and to hear pc monk try to justify the force he used on the night that Dalian died he was vulnerable and unwell and he needed medical attention instead he received violence and died with pc monk's boot lace print prints bruised on his forehead we have been sick and to hear pc monk try to minimise the force he used on Dalian and exaggerate the threat that Dalian posed fortunately the jury has seen through the lies and the pretence we would like to thank the jury members for all their hard work and attention so as was referenced in that statement Dalian Atkinson came into contact with the police after experiencing an episode of poor mental health we can go to the bbc for more details of what happened in in 2016 so they report that the trial heard how the two officers were called to mr Atkinson's father's house in meadow close in the early hours of 15th of august where the sportsman had been acting erratically monk told the court he ran in fear after mr Atkinson who appeared to be having a mental health crisis made death threats and smashed a glass door pain the trial heard monk had discharged his taser three times at mr Atkinson twice unsuccessfully but on the third time he overrode the system holding down the trigger for 33 seconds more than six times the standard deployment the officer claimed to have no recollection of placing his foot on mr Atkinson's head as colleagues arrived at the scene however he conceded he must have kicked the x-foot baller twice in the forehead because boot lace prints proved he had now those boot lace prints were were on um the head of of Dalian Atkinson really really really awful really distressing um darlin i want to bring you you in on this because i mean you know we're telling the story the audience might think well of course he would get found guilty of manslaughter this seems like such a clear case the guy's got his you know his blood on his shoe laces he's held a taser down for 33 seconds when it should just be five you know you might say well how's this even a story why is it a surprise this guy has been found guilty well it turns out this is the first time in 35 years that any police officer has been found guilty of manslaughter and that's not because there haven't been people who've died at the hands of police officers so what i want to know i suppose from you is your analysis of why this time around this cop was prosecuted and found guilty when in so many other situations that's that's not the case why is what happened today quite so rare yeah i mean to add on to that before i get on to answering the question i think that it's important to remember that there are many instances not just in the us but in the uk where you know we literally know that a police officer you know it's not a thing of like oh they died following police custody so you know there's an attempt to cover up as like a self-harm or you know sort of quote unquote natural causes you know the killing of john charles de meneses you know that was a police officer killing a man in a tube station who was innocent now i don't think the police should be able to kill anyone innocent or guilty of whatever but if we'll go by those terms then you know that that's what happened and so i think that there's this sense you know there's this the the conviction rate and the way that this is treated tells us that the deaths of black and brown people particularly black and brown men um is seen as part of the collateral damage or in fact in part part part and parcel of the system of policing in this country that's that's what we are told when um instances where police officers have unquestionably killed um people who are disproportionately black and brown who are disproportionately black and brown men um that you know that is actually not a case of wrongdoing that that is actually in some ways in for some reason justifiable so that's sort of one one element but we can put that to one side i think the reason that you know we have seen this in this particular case i think you know as i it sort of connects to what i was talking about in the first segment which is we are in a sort of particular moment right you know for decades bereaved family members of those who have died following contact with the police or you know outright by the police as you can like as has been seen in plain sight um it's those bereaved family members it's overworked activists you know those are the ones who've been trying for decades to get accountability and for many years not only has that work gone without enough resources and without enough attention but you know at times it's been actively tampered with by the police themselves you know we know that the families of victims like Sean Rigg like John Charles de Menezes like Steven Lawrence, Joy Gardner um these families were all spied on by undercover police when they were campaigning to try and get justice for their family members and those family members as a result have struggled basically to get very meager forms of you know recognition and accountability that are available to them you know i.e a guilty conviction as we've seen here or even just a decent investigation um it's something that a lot of these families have campaigned for and not managed to get but you know then you have this sort of Black Lives Matter movement um which you know globally has created this groundswell with pressure um that has given weight to the work that has already been being done by by these families and activists and you know we saw something really similar in the conviction the momentous conviction of Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd which was undoubtedly partly shaped by the huge amount of consciousness raising and pressure that had been built up in the streets but obviously you know it shouldn't take this like it shouldn't we can't do this for every person that we lose at the hands of the criminal justice system like we can't get we can't have a global movement every time we need to have you know recognition accountability or justice which are three i think different things um as a you know what in the wake of those events and to think that even the most basic of those you know because i don't think that justice and i don't even really think accountability can be provided for by our existing criminal justice system because it would involve complete overhauling of that system to ensure that no one um is traumatized or tortured or killed um by the state ever and that's what you know real justice would look like and real justice would be you know all of these people that i've mentioned being alive today um but to think that even just recognition you know even just the idea of institutional recognition that what happened was something that shouldn't have happened and that it wasn't just business of you as usual and that you're not just going to have this kind of like kangaroo trial or whatever where you know the outcome is that no wrong doing was found the idea that just that takes this amount of work and energy and struggle um is you know really really tells us that whilst you know i'm sure that this is this is you know this is a momentous occasion and it's the consequence of a lot of struggle and a lot of movement work it just tells you actually and going back to the conversation that we've just had it just tells you that like when you look at the holistic lives and the holistic ways in which we live together there is no question um that race plays a crucial factor in the harms and the the vulnerabilities that people are exposed to in our current system i mean i i think as you say i mean this this ruling obviously meant a lot to to the family here you saw that in the in the clip we showed but the real test will be to what extent this can you know end the culture of impunity which is why police officers feel like they can get away with this kind of stuff that that's why it matters well there are a number of reasons why it matters but one of the key reasons why it matters that people do actually get found guilty of these these crimes they've done whilst serving as as police officers is because hopefully that means cops won't just assume they can get away with this kind of stuff and you know won't tase the people for 33 seconds or kick them so hard in the face that they get you know blood on all over their laces i mean as i say incredibly distressing story well done to everyone who's campaigned for this result um we're going to go straight on to our next story with cop 26 taking place later this year in Glasgow boris johnson's government have repeatedly suggested they will place britain at the vanguard of tackling climate change now when it comes to targets britain is doing pretty well we have committed to reduce emissions by 78 by 2035 compared to 1990 levels which is one of the most ambitious targets in the world however when it comes to our actions and actions are what really counts we increasingly have no leg to stand on it's reported in the times that a new north sea oil and gas field is about to be given the green light that's right we're aiming for net zero yet we're still planning to pump ever more fossil fuels out of the ground make it make sense i don't think you can for some specific details on the project let's go to the times report they say under proposal submitted to the government developers behind the cambo heavy crude field off the coast of the shetland islands expect to extract 150 million barrels of oil roughly equivalent to operating 16 coal power stations for a year setting up and powering the oil rig will emit more than three million tons of carbon over the project's lifetime so how was this able to happen how when we have a government who is talking the talk when it comes to climate change you're saying we want to reduce emissions by upwards of 70 percent by 2035 how is it the case that they've now gone on to approve new fields drilling for oil and gas well you might think this this shouldn't be able to happen the government did make a deal with oil and gas with the oil and gas industry in march and that essentially said that in order for the government to help support the sector transition away from fossil fuels so essentially subsidizing them to change how their industry functions all new fields licensed for development would need to prove they were compatible with the government's net zero strategy now this field is obviously not compatible with the net zero strategy but how it was able to be approved or how why we think it's about to be approved is because the system doesn't apply to this particular development as the times explains the project will not be covered by the government's climate checkpoint because it was licensed for exploration in 2001 and 2004 so they're saying sorry yeah we've said all all new licenses will only be given out if they can prove that they'll be consistent with a with a net zero target but if they were approved in 2001 or 2004 what can we do now this is not how a government would behave if they believed we were really in the middle of a crisis it's worth remembering this project is going to run till 2050 if we launch this project if we start development on this oil field it will be running it will be pumping oil out of the ground until 2050 now saying oh but we already approved it in 2001 I mean that's a bit like in March Boris Johnson stands up and say oh we will have social distancing and a lockdown but only after all the festivals we've given approval to happen first right sometimes when an emergency comes along you have to change plans and if you're serious about a problem that's what you'll do they don't seem to be doing that in this situation now obviously the company involved have tried to defend this they are called Sikar point energy and they're backed by the American investment group Blackstone and also by Shell Shell have a 30 stake in the company now in defense of the project Jonathan Roger who is chief executive of Sikar said we have proactively taken significant steps to minimize the emissions footprint through its designs they say don't worry we're going to minimize the footprint of this project and the times have a report on what that footprint will be so they say over the lifetime of the project it expects to emit about 3.4 million tons of co2 equivalents its operator argues that this is small in comparison with the 18.3 million tons of co2 equivalent that were released from upstream oil and gas operations in 2018 so basically what the developers are saying 3.5 million might sound like a lot but it's small in comparison to the 18 million we pump out every year when it comes to the other oil and gas projects we have running in Britain and on Britain's shores there's some obvious problems with this so first of all the whole challenge we have is we want to shrink the amount of emissions we have from every single sector so you can't say oh well this development will be small compared to the rest of the sector because the whole point is that sector is going to have to dramatically shrink while 3.5 million might not look at look like much compared to our total emissions from that sector if we're going to have any hope in hell of tackling climate change 3.5 million tons will be as big as the entire sector by the time we get to 2050 when this is still going to be running the bigger deal here though is they're only talking about the emissions involved in the extraction of this which is a bit of a distraction the whole point if we're taking climate change seriously we have to move away from burning fossil fuels what's the most obvious response to that need it's to leave those fossil fuels in the ground that's how are you going to incentivize companies and individuals to change their practices is by not flooding the market with oil and gas i mean quickly go to the government's viewer spokesman for the department for business energy and industrial strategy told the times we are working hard to drive down demand for fossil fuels but we also know there will continue to be ongoing demand for oil and gas over the coming years and finally it's also worth noting that before well before now before it seems that they're about to give this is this approval the government had commissioned a report from the international energy agency so they commissioned it themselves in advance of the COP26 conference and that report called for no investment in new fossil fuel supply projects so it's another one of those situations where the government says oh well commission this independent group which will tell us how we can tackle climate change the moment they give them a recommendation which might go against the wishes of their friends in big business in this case big oil and big gas then they ignore that recommendation dahlia i want to go to you on this i know you're probably going to find this very frustrating what's your take on why the government are i suppose willing to i mean this should be embarrassing right we're hosting COP26 they're saying we're going to be at the vanguard of tackling climate change and in the same year we're giving approval to new extraction projects well i mean it's because you know Boris Johnson's government is one of spectacle over substance so you know that he'll sort of invest some kind of like miniscule amount into you know green public transport while you know digging for new oil which you know and he'll just see it he sees it as a PR management and media management issue rather than actually an issue of what's going to kind of how we actually mitigate the crisis of climate change which is already underway but i think one side point actually that i want to make is that the north sea oil is actually this really massive question in British politics it's going to become really prominent in the next few years as you know murmurings of Scottish independence are likely to resurface so it's really important that on the left we have this like understanding of how we actually what we're actually proposing to do with the north sea oil and you know how we envisage and how we can cost and understand a you know just transition with you know large-scale job creation retraining re-skilling safeguarding worker rights you know it can't just be shut it down it has to be like what do we do with kind of like the workers and you know the reliance that has been developed on these fossil fuel kind of projects but i think this this reason as well that you know there's this idea of you know we can sort of oh you know we can sort of like say we can dig for new oil in this way and justify it by saying well you know yeah we have all these targets and we have all these ambitions but ultimately we still need to rely on oil and gas for the next few years or like for the foreseeable future is precisely because of the logic this logic which is being reproduced and it's this idea that you know we have time you know this idea that climate change is this future issue and it's an issue that we'll deal with when we get to it you know when it actually becomes a crisis which you know spoiler alert it already is a crisis for many people around the world and also oftentimes that idea of managing the crisis looks like one of two things it either means basically just mitigating the effects of climate change for the elite for the very powerful for the privileged few and leaving the rest of the world to kind of fight over the struggles and the various kind of socio economic and political impacts of climate change or it means you know what we've kind of seen gesture to hear this kind of science fiction fantastical notions of you know quick fix technology right like this kind of oh by that by the time that climate change becomes a problem which is like years ago by the way um we will have you know a technology that will actually just fix it all in one go without us having to change anything fundamental about our political or economic system and when I say it was gesture to in this story it's that kind of absurd suggestion that we heard from that chief executive which is this idea that you can somehow design an oil project to reduce its carbon footprint which is pure absurdity but this is also you know why kind of this whole and this came up a lot during labor for Green New Deal and all of this which is this question of net zero versus zero carbon now is it true that zero carbon will require much more dramatic systemic change than net zero absolutely is it much more difficult absolutely but the reason that I think a lot of activists fight for zero carbon rather than net zero is because you actually circumvent by fighting for net zero or by kind of settling on net zero you actually find a way to circumvent bureaucratic almost bureaucratically through a technicality rather than meaningfully the actual question of reducing emissions and reducing fossil fuels and you know keeping fossil fuels in the ground because you can just say oh well we're digging this this um oil project project or we're burning fossil fuels but it's fine because we're offsetting it by either buying carbon credits from you know the global south or which you know further entrenches global development or we're offsetting it through you know building trees or whatever in a way that cannot you cannot quantify the ways that you could actually meaningfully quote unquote offset the carbon produced by emissions by through a project like this so this is why there was always that problem with net zero and I understand the political problems of fighting for zero carbon because it feels so unachievable but the reality is that net zero basically offers a cover for fossil fuels to continue to be dug out of the ground for fossil fuels to continue to be burned it's just sort of the responsibility for it is just sort of shifted around through this like kind of fake economy of like credit and debit of like carbon credit and carbon debit but when we if we kind of go away from that sort of fake economy and look at actually the reality of what this means in material terms if we move through our current resources and if we move through the existing resources that are available to us in terms of fossil fuels we will go above 1.5 degrees within a matter of decades like it really won't be long and 1.5 degrees is widely considered to be the tipping point after which you know as I said climate crisis is something that is currently being experienced already 1.5 degrees is also a particular tipping point where a series of of extreme weather events and extreme impact on you know agriculture and all these different kinds of you know our food supply chains etc will be impacted in a way that cannot actually be curved like it will set off a chain of events that are unknowable in the magnitude and the scope and the scale of their effects and cannot actually be reined in in any meaningful way so that's the reality when we actually go away from this like science fiction like mad idea that or you know fake idea that like you can carbon credit your way out this crisis or you can somehow design your way out of this crisis when it comes to you know designing oil projects differently so yes you are right I'm extremely frustrated and it's you know obviously complete nonsense but as I mentioned earlier Boris Johnson sees politics as just essentially a media management strategy and in his eyes as long as he kind of like gives with one hand and takes with the other he can he can through orchestrating particular focus on what he's given take away attention from what he's taking away which is far which far outweighs what he is actually giving which is basically peanuts. We've got some great comments on this topic so Henry the Oat fake with a fiver says being shot in the face with a nine millimeter round may sound bad but it's nothing compared to being shot with a 30 39 millimeter from an ak-47 big oil logic very very well put Caroline Duvier tweets on the hashtag tisky sour but that poor poor company you can't possibly ask them to become an energy company instead of a fossil fuel company what if they have helped the masses instead of the few can't have that now can we which is very much the logic of this government talk the talk but as long as it doesn't create even a minor inconvenience for the fossil fuel companies. Ali Demirci with 10 pounds says hope I pronounced that right amazing content as always I wanted to ask if Navarra could cover the expansion of the Edmonton incinerator by the North London Waste Authority it would be great if more people were aware about the impact of expansion I will have to do some research on that I'm don't live too far away from Edmonton but I wasn't currently aware of the incinerator issue but I will look that up thank you for pointing that out to us as ever thank you so much for those super chats and thank you if you are a regular donor to Navarra media we do appreciate it so much it was what makes all of this possible if you are not a regular donor already please do go to navarramedia.com slash support and donate the equivalent of one hour's wage a month next story the ongoing clear out of Keir Starmer's top team has claimed its latest victim Starmer's political director Jenny Chapman has been forced from her job amid increasing disquiet from labor MPs now Chapman's departure follows that of Ben Nunn he was director of communications and Morgan McSweeney who was his chief of staff so that's free of the top jobs in Lotto so leader of the opposition's office have now gone as to what forced Chapman out Henry Zefman in the Times has some well-informed analysis he writes that after labor's defeat last month in the Hartlepool by-election Chapman came in for much of the blame she was accused of choosing a remainder candidate with a questionable social media history opting to hold the contest on the wrong date and botching the reshuffle that followed in flaming Starmer's relationship with Angela Rainer his deputy because in Starmer's orbit insist these criticisms are misplaced and that MPs desperate for somebody to blame for labor's problems are looking for an easy target perhaps so but the problem for Chapman was that her critics are on both the left of the party who believe Starmer is wrong to abandon Corbinism and the right who fear he is not abandoning Corbinism with sufficient zeal Chapman might have survived the chagrin of one group but to have lost the confidence of both was unsustainable so I mean we talked about some of those reasons why people thought Jenny Chapman had done a bad job holding the Hartlepool by-election on the same day as the local elections which meant that there would be which many people assessed would mean a higher Tory turnout because they had a popular Tory mayor in the region also starting that war with Angela Rainer which absolutely backfired everyone watching that was like what the hell is going on here obviously political director your job is kind of to manage relationships with MPs with the party that's all gone pretty goddamn wrong so it's not really a surprise she has moved by the way she hasn't she's not now unemployed she's been made um Brexit secretary so she will be in the shadow cabinet she's a lord so she can move from being in the office to being on the front bench some of the people pushing for her exit were to the right of her who didn't think Stammer has abandoned Corbynism quick enough now Jenny Chapman is not on the left of the party she was a vice chair of progress so this is very much a died-in-the-wall labor right you know figure right but there are people in the party who want him to move further to the right and more quickly now my assessment here is that this probably isn't about policy I don't think there are many serious people who are looking at the polls and thinking oh if only we would absolutely rule out any tax rises if only we would back more foreign wars if only we would promise to you know increase tuition fees instead of reduce them that would sort out our electoral problems I don't think anyone is actually stupid enough to think that that will help labor in the polls what I think is going on here is that there are people with cold feet on the right of the labor party who are thinking Keir Starmer is probably not going to last much longer we need to with the utmost urgency get in people who can stitch up the party as quick as possible so you want to get people in there potentially from labor first who was saying let's you know let's not faff about with with any of these niceties policy review what not let's just change the leadership rules let's just try and deselect the few left-wing MPs there are let's make sure that every selection in future is completely stitched up so the left can never have any influence in the party again that's to me what I think is the most likely you know underlying logic that's going on here and it's also you might not be surprised to know an analysis shared by our very own Aaron Bustani I want to go to a tweet from him he writes a senior labor source responds to Jenny Chapman being removed from Starmer's office Starmer is now a hostage of labor first people should be prepared for a fractional onslaught they'll shift gears after batley Aaron says now more than ever it's not about winning national elections so that's senior sources in the labor party was saying essentially that's what's going on you have some people who weren't on the labor left but more from the progress wing they've been pushed out now MPs have had enough of them fixes in the party have had enough in them and we can guess I mean they haven't hired anyone to replace them as of yet or at least we don't know that publicly I would imagine that in some of those roles are going to be some real fractional fighters who can stitch up the party as soon as possible for the right so that if need be Starmer can stand down and be replaced by someone well I'd say even further to the right than him but just as right wing as him I mean I think here is the issue is not so much who's going to be the next leader but can you lock the left out forever that's their priority and I think that's how we should probably read all of these internal reshuffles obviously this is happening in advance of the batley and spend by election which they seem pretty sure they're going to lose the daily mail today we're suggesting that the Tory campaigner saying labor will come third they're saying the real battle is between the Tories and George Galloway they might be trolling I wouldn't necessarily trust Tory campaigners on who is Labour's real challenge when it comes to batley and spend but I think that by-election is likely to go very badly this looks like the Labour right preparing the ground to say well if Keir Starmer's not going to win a general election let's make sure we've changed the rules before he falls let's go to our final story the UK government is promoting a new day of appreciation for this great country the Department of Education this week tweeted we're encouraging schools across the UK to celebrate one Britain one nation day on the 25th of June when children can learn about our shared values of tolerance kindness pride and respect now that's fairly it's a fairly cringy title for a day for us all to celebrate one Britain one nation lots of people pointing out there are actually four nations in Britain or free nations in Britain four in the United Kingdom anyway the name the cringy name isn't the cringiest thing about this particular day let's take a listen to the song that Britain's school children will be encouraged to sing this Friday now that video has had more than two million views on Twitter mainly because of people sharing it and mocking it I have to say I'm personally quite annoyed about this song because since I heard it on Twitter last night it's been going right in my head for basically the past 24 hours it's very catchy whatever you might think of the politics behind it Dahlia would you have sung that score that song at school if you were asked to remember this is this is primary school what do you think your reaction would have been I mean I just think even back then I would have just been like guys this is embarrassing and I was a very embarrassing child so like I think even I would have been like guys this is super like maybe let's not just for just for like street credibility purposes so yeah and I don't think you would have gotten away with it in my school which was a very kind of chaotic to be honest we talked we talked recently about a school in in Pimlico where a new head teacher would put up a union jack they'd pulled it down and then burned it off site so that was a secondary school not a primary school like that's the sentiment that's the growing consciousness that these people are trying to address with the song and I'm like I will come on to it a bit later when we've sort of like listened to all of this but basically it's like you can't respond to people's like serious issues with being like materially excluded socially excluded and disempowered and just try and fix that by getting them to sing a song it's like the more that you respond to those serious concerns with this kind of patronizing kind of sloganeering the more you're actually fermenting the very frustration that you're trying to quell um I yeah I sympathize with that for you let's look a bit more at this campaign because it's it's not as I think it's silly it's not necessarily as sinister as some people initially interpreted it as so lots of people say and this is like the Hitler youth etc it's not organized by ethno nationalists so one britain one nation day is organized by a bradford based group of the same name the website describes the purpose of one britain nation one britain one nation as the following one britain one nation brings us together not to focus on our differences but to celebrate the values we share tolerance kindness pride respect and a tremendous desire to help others today's britain boasts a wonderful array of cultures it is our multicultural identity that makes britain so unique our diverse cultures are inextricably linked by the sole fact that we are british it is this fact that has prompted obon um so one britain one nation to reinforce and revive what collectively unites us obon aims to give a new impetus for the creation of a harmonized society to make britain an international model of moral rectitude um so putting forward an inclusive nationalism there again even if I personally find it a little bit cringe um the organization was started in bradford as I say its founder is kash sing you can see an image of him there that's from their website kash sing is a former senior police officer and founder of the british indian association now the website also includes a video of a past one britain one nation day an apology in advance it comes alongside that god awful song i suppose this now that now that you've seen sort of what it's about the video i mean it's clearly not a white power thing they're trying to put forward a very ethnically inclusive vision of britain it's all about how multiculturalism is fantastic as you saw in that video i mean that wasn't loads of white kids singing um this is kind of a local project coming out of bradford do you think twitter has been a bit too harsh about it i mean absolutely not because as i've said whether you're not whether this nationalism is ethnic or civic or whatever the point is it's embarrassing and that's the key point here but you know paul gilroy wrote there ain't no black in the union jack in 1987 yet people are still flogging this dead horse in 2021 but the problem here and this is again what i'm this is related to two things here the problem here is that you know this idea of what of you know what unites us is you know it's a set of racially neutral values but the problem is that you know these values that are supposed to unite us moral rectitude which okay i don't think any of the primary school kids that are saying being made to sing this song know what that means but the problem is that those values are repeatedly violated by the british government itself contemporarily and historically so it's like that's why it doesn't it comes off as clownish but also because the divisions especially if we're going to talk about this in terms of like racial ethnic divisions like those divisions are not things that exist just because racial like you know ethnic minorities are just belligerent and like refuse to see themselves as part of the country even though that is you know kind of a very common and sort of world trodden trove is because they are literally materially spatially socially pushed out of the very things that they help to contribute to create so just trying to kind of like address those divisions with a song suggests that you know you think that the problem exists in the mentality of ethnic minorities um rather than in the system that you've created which has created like two tiered systems particularly for working class people particularly for working class people of color but i also think that you know this is a it's a response to kind of and this kind of whole flag waving nationalism kind of thing and this idea that you know we can kind of like redeem we can recuperate nationalism from its racialized implications and just make it into this like race neutral set of values um it's also kind of all like this generally neutral set of values that anyone can ascribe to um like it doesn't it's also a response i think to you know the the kind of um the fact that the union in that union jack is falling apart right like devolution you know irish republicanism scottish and welsh independence you know these these forms of politics are far more popular than they have been in a very long time they're also popular simultaneously um which is also quite unique you know you don't have a situation where they're sort of like further around one form of independence or nationalism um and not around others um but also there isn't a clear path for the establishment to really move through that and to kind of roll that trend back and we saw it um not so long ago and that legislation was passed to um which sort mandated the union jack be flown in at all government buildings all the time but like the flag initiative these kinds of initiatives are actually going to do more harm than good because it feels like we are trying to push this top-down notion of unity at a time when people are divided by very real material things um it kind of it doesn't take seriously people's concerns about how they aren't being represented in their political process and they aren't being represented and included in ideas of what normative britishness is and i'd also mention here that if what you're trying to do is like and this isn't what related to this particular song it's related to kind of the overall um kind of investment in pageantry and national pageantry that is you know happening from the government outwards where you're trying to kind of manage those multiple growing sentiments of national independence and to give people a sense of you know you don't need to become independent because you know you don't need to feel um like you need to kind of like or that you need to um sort of decolonize ideas of you know what britney is um or rather highlight the coloniality of what britain is um because you know you have enough autonomous power and you can just be part of this you know nation where we're all stronger together then maybe don't make people sing a song about being one nation when it actually isn't one nation it's like several nations that are trying to exist together and also when people look around them and see a nation that is materially divided along very serious lines so i think that ultimately you know this is sort of the more clownish end of a much broader initiative to deal with division not through substantive systemic change and through universal access to the services and things that people actually need but actually just kind of over investing in pageantry and also making the people who are experiencing the very brunt of that inequality be made to feel like the cause of the division in itself i've got a uh a tweet um that's also disagreeing with my kind of relaxed attitude towards this song um it's edward clark disagree with michael walker on tiskey sour obon day is not just cringe it is overtly fascist and sinister i grew up in an authoritarian state that did exactly this sort of thing in the schools um i think that's a point that should be taken very seriously i'd probably count i mean i do i do think they do this kind of thing in quite a lot of countries i mean front they have france day don't they i think the americans do this as well as i say i don't think it solves any you know social problems i think this is often being put forward to say oh we've got a community communities that are too divided we need to talk about britain more well france they talk about france all the god damn time they still have very divided communities so i think things like council housing that's in the middle of cities not on the outskirts it's decent quality we're not ripping communities apart by gentrification that's all going to be much more important to having communities that live together in harmony than singing these songs about flags and whatever um one more comment or a couple more comments in fact ricochet tweets on the hashtag tiskey sour one britain one nation would get zero points in eurovision everything we put into eurovision gets zero points so um they might as well give it a go andrew bergman tweets on the hashtag tiskey sour not even chris morris could conjure an an anthem that ridiculous and shiny warm with a fiver says please do more coverage of the climate and ecocide crises and actions as the cop gets near a tar um i can confirm we definitely we will be covering climate change a lot more as cop 26 approaches um for now darling it's been an absolute pleasure being joined by you this wednesday evening it's been lovely seeing you michael and thank you for watching tiskey sour tonight we'll be back on friday at seven p.m for now you've been watching tiskey sour on navara media good night