 Joe Biden has announced that by September the 11th this year, all US troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan. The war has now lasted 20 years, meaning Afghanistan is the longest war the US has ever been formally engaged in. And at this point, few are willing to portray the war as a success. The rhetoric surrounding the withdrawal is more mission-exhausted than mission-accomplished. But while the US can remove itself from the country and wash its hands of the mess it's made there, the people of Afghanistan cannot simply move on. Tonight, I speak to a Kabul-based journalist about the scars the war will leave on Afghan society and what the withdrawal means for the country's people. That's not our only story tonight. I'm also gonna be talking about a war over rent controls in Berlin, Kierstahmer's record low polling, and Jeffrey Sachs humiliating the BBC over their pro-Western bias. I'm joined all evening by Aaron Bustani. Aaron, how are you doing? Very well, Michael. How are you doing? Yes, no, I'm well. I'm looking forward to a big, meaty show. Lots to talk about. Two great guests, as you just say. Absolutely. We'll be speaking to someone from Berlin on that Berlin story as well. You know the score. If you are enjoying what you're watching, do share this show. Link tweet on the hashtag TiskeySauer. Put your super chats in the comments and comment under the Twitch stream. Now, on October 7th, 2001, George W. Bush delivered this address from the treaty room in the White House. On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al-Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime. At the same time, the oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and our allies. As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine, and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan. The United States of America is a friend to the Afghan people. And we are the friends of almost a billion worldwide who practice the Islamic faith. The United States of America is an enemy of those who aid terrorists and of the barbaric criminals who profane a great religion by committing murder in its name. The name of today's military operation is enduring freedom. We defend it not only our precious freedoms, but also the freedom of people everywhere to live and raise their children free from fear. The battle is now joined on many fronts. We will not waver. We will not tire. We will not falter. And we will not fail. Peace and freedom will prevail. Thank you. That war that George W. Bush launched in 2001 has led to tens of thousands of deaths, created 2.7 million refugees and hasn't defeated the Taliban who 20 years on still control large parts of Afghanistan. Now that's the context of military and diplomatic failure that sets the scene for an address Joe Biden gave this week, once again from the treaty room in the White House. I'm now the fourth United States president to preside over American true presence in Afghanistan, two Republicans, two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility onto a fifth. After consulting closely with our allies and partners, with our military leaders and intelligence personnel with our diplomats and our development experts, with the Congress and the vice president, as well as with Mr. Ghani and many others around the world, I concluded that it's time to end America's longest war. It's time for American troops to come home. When I came to office, I inherited a diplomatic agreement duly negotiated between the government of the United States and the Taliban, that all U.S. forces would be out of Afghanistan by May 1, 2021, just three months after my inauguration. That's where we inherited that commitment. It's perhaps not what I would have negotiated myself, but it was an agreement made by the United States government, and that means something. So in keeping with that agreement and with our national interest, the United States will begin our final withdrawal, begin it on May 1 of this year. We'll not conduct a hasty rush to the exit. We'll do it, we'll do it responsibly, deliberately and safely. And we will do it in full coordination with our allies and partners. So, Joe Biden, they're promising that America's exit from Afghanistan will begin on May 1. That was the date agreed in agreement between Donald Trump and the Taliban, and all troops will be withdrawn by September the 11th, exactly two decades on from the attacks on the World Trade Center. Now, Joe Biden is getting some criticism in Washington, especially from Republicans, saying this unconditional exit is a mistake and will hand the whole of the country back to the Taliban. But what does the withdrawal mean for the people of Afghanistan? To discuss where 20 years of war has left the country, and what the imminent U.S. withdrawal will mean for the people living there, I'm joined by Ali M Latifi, a journalist based in Kabul. Thank you so much for joining us this evening, Ali. We really do appreciate it. Thank you for having me. We've shown two presidential speeches that bookended the war from the American perspective, George W. Bush and Joe Biden. I wonder if you could start the conversation by explaining, describing in what state 20 years of war has left Afghanistan. Well, you know, it's been years since I've seen that George Bush clip. So it's quite interesting to look at the contrast between the two statements. You know, George Bush talked about peace and freedom, which I don't see here, but okay. He talked about like dropping food aid and medical aid and so on, which is ironic given the current COVID pandemic. You know, and the Afghan people and the Muslim people and Islam and the religion of Islam and how they're not at war with the religion of Islam. And then if you look at Joe Biden's statement, other than dropping the name of the president of Afghanistan, there's no mention of the Afghan people whatsoever. His entire statement, his entire speech was about the US goal, the US mission about their allies. He didn't say, at least not in that clip, he didn't bring up the Afghan security forces. You know, he talked about the work that their allies had put in, that, you know, the 30 something countries that are still here at 34, I believe. But he didn't, in that clip, mention the Afghan security forces who are continuing to pay the price in this war. So I just think it's quite interesting that contrast between the start and the end of the war and how sort of little lip service Biden was willing to pay to the Afghan people, whereas, you know, Bush, in the beginning of the war, so much of it was about all Afghan women are oppressed, so people are hungry, you know, the Taliban are this, they're that, but in terms of Biden's address, there was nothing even remotely alluding to, he didn't even bring up the number of Afghan civilians that have been killed in this war. Actually, I can't remember if it was the exact day of his statement or like within like one or two days of it, the United Nations put out its latest report on civilian casualties, which showed that in the first quarter of 2020, the number of civilian casualties went up. Most importantly, the number of women and children went up by more than 30% that were killed and injured in this war. And, you know, Biden made no mention of that whatsoever. And in a way, it's good in the sense that like he's not posturing the way that Bush did, you know, he's saying very clearly, like, I don't care about you, I care about my country and my soldiers and the Allied forces that are within with me. So on one hand, at least he was up front. The reality on the ground is, so I've spent the last few months traveling between three provinces, Haidath in the West on the border with Iran, Ningerhaar on the Durand line, and Lohgad, which is 40 minutes south of Kabul, and obviously living in Kabul itself. All of those provinces are in worse shape than they've ever been in years, each of them. In Ningerhaar, you have the so-called Islamic State forces who used to be, their bases were in the districts of the province, right? If you remember, the so-called mother of all bombs was dropped in Acheen district of Ningerhaar province in 2017, with no actual proof of who was killed in that bombing. But the largest non-nuclear armament on earth was dropped on a village in Ningerhaar in 2017 with no real evidence of who was killed. And yet the so-called Islamic State forces, now they're in the provincial capital, they're in Jalalabad. They've claimed responsibility for killing journalists, for killing female media workers, for attacking a midwife training center, for attacking education centers, for attacking Kabul. So again, like the danger has moved from the districts to one of the biggest cities in the country. If you look at Herat, which borders Iran, that province has gotten less and less secure in the last two years. To the point where there were districts I could easily go to even one and a half, two years ago that were, again, only 40, 50 minutes away from the provincial capital from the city of Herat, that now are total no-go zones. The city itself has come under attack several times, insecurity is rising, Lohgat is a province that's only 40 minutes out of Kabul. It's the province the current president Ashraf Ghani comes from. But again, until 2015, 16, you could at least go to the district closest to the city of Kabul, which is again like only 40 minutes from the city of Kabul. Now you can't even go there. And then in the city of Kabul, you now, it used to be when we went to these provinces we were afraid of IEDs and landmines and things like that. Now those are in Kabul. I gave this example on another network a couple of days ago where when we were leaving Lohgat coming back, as soon as we entered the city of Kabul, the driver was like, welcome to Kabul, the city of landmines. And then you also have the targeted killings, right? You have an advancing drug war. Like I was just again in Heiraut in the West doing a story about meth, about how big the meth trade has become in Afghanistan and how it's interlinked with Iran. So there's still, you know, all of these things that George Bush was promising, none of it's really, the peace and freedom are not here. The peace is definitely not here. The freedom people feel like, you know, the last election, the last presidential election had the lowest turnout, less than two million people voted. Even then that took months to resolve, there were even two inaugurations on one day. The president and his chief rival both held inauguration ceremonies within, you know, kilometers of each other in the same compound. So they, you know, there's, on the one hand, like George, you know, again, Joe Biden said, like the conditions on the ground will never be right. And the truth is the reality on the ground proves that, that whatever they've managed to do, hasn't actually made the country safer. It hasn't brought basic services to the majority of the, it's obviously, you know, there's a lot of advancement, there's a lot of development, but it's not properly distributed. And it's not, it doesn't seem stable, you know? It doesn't seem as something guaranteed. What is your personal response then to the withdrawal? I mean, do you, do you think it is premature? Do you think they should stay on the ground and try and, I don't know, bring about security? Is it even possible for the Americans to bring about security? They haven't done it in 20 years. So how are they gonna do it now? If they haven't done it in 20 years, right? If the suicide bombings continued throughout the last 20 years, if a new force claiming to be part of the so-called Islamic State, if that developed over the last 20 years, if the governments claim that there's like 20 other alleged armed groups in the country and that even Al-Qaeda is allegedly here, all of that happened in the 20 years that they've been here. So the question, the reality is one of those things like, okay, how much longer would they stay and what would they do that would be different? That would actually bring about peace. Because at the end of the day, all the Afghan people, even those who may not agree with the withdrawal or who may not agree with the way the peace process is being played out, the one thing they all want is an end to the war and an end to the violence. And as far as I've seen, I came back, I mean, I left when I was little during the Soviet occupation, came back for the first time in 2011, I moved back in 2013. So for like the last decade I've been here basically, I haven't seen a vast change. If anything, places just keep getting worse. The situation just keeps getting worse and new dangers. I mean, the fact that in Kabul, you fear IEDs and you fear targeted killings. Or a few days ago, I was sitting right here in my living room and I just heard gunfire. I mean, I heard gunfire like you would not believe, like from all, it sounded like a movie. And I was freaking out, I was like, what is going on? And I asked some of my cousins and my friends and whatnot. And they were like, oh, an MMA fighter defeated an Afghan MMA fighter defeated his Russian opponent. For more than 30 minutes, literally one of my friends was like, is it a coup d'etat? This city sounded like coup d'etat because there's that many guns and the police for 30, 40 minutes were not able to stop these people from shooting every, I mean, it literally sounded like a movie. I wanna talk about what could happen next once America does withdraw. And I wanna bring up a statement by Mir Rahman Rahmani, who's the Afghan parliamentary speaker. And he is reported as saying that withdrawal of these forces is a desire of the Afghan people. But at the moment, the conditions have not been made for this to happen. There is a possibility of the return of civil war and this will change Afghanistan into a hub of international terrorism. So I suppose what Mir Rahman Rahmani there is suggesting is that while the situation might be terrible now, without the few American troops who are on the ground, if they leave at this point in time, a full blown civil war could break out. Is that something you're concerned about? Or do you think he's got it slightly wrong there? What do you make of that statement and that warning, I suppose that he's delivered? Well, on the one hand, I mean, he is right in that, you know, the Afghan people are okay with them leave because for the last few years since Trump has been in office, you know, since about 2018, he's been talking about some kind of a withdrawal and people have been just saying like, if you're gonna withdraw, just tell us when, you know, just go through with the withdrawal. Say, certainly there's a chance of a civil war. There's no doubt about that, but then you have to ask what responsibility does someone like Mir Rahman Rahmani who claims to represent thousands of people in the parliament, who is a very well to do businessman who has a lot of political influence, what can he do over the next four months to try and ensure that militias don't form across the country, that people feel safe and secure? What can he do with the government to make sure that, you know, like something is happening, some kind of effort is being made. It's very easy to paint this doom and gloom scenario, which is very much a possibility, but at the same time, what is the responsibility of someone like Mir Rahman Rahmani in this? What can he do to other than just saying, okay, then the US should stay? That's not a productive answer, right? I mean, what do you think he can do? He claims to be an influential man, you know, make sure that militias aren't forming in areas that, you know, he comes from, make sure that people feel a sense of security, work with the government, ask the government what they're doing, make sure the government actually has a plan for September 12th, push the government to bring that plan forward because again, the parliament approves ministerial candidates, right? So, you know, grill the minister of defense, grill the minister of interior, grill the head of intelligence, you know, and don't rile up because the other worry of a civil, a civil war doesn't come out of a vacuum, right? People incite a civil war, their statements, their actions, the way they approach their people, the kinds of things they say to their people, all of that can contribute to a civil war. So, Mir Rahman Rahmani bears a responsibility, the government bears a responsibility. The thing is like about the conditions, what everyone is saying is, is that, look, you don't need intangible conditions, your conditions could have been very clear, they could have been a reduction in violence or a ceasefire. That, because that, at least in that way, you know that the Taliban isn't preparing for some kind of a massive offensive starting September 12th. You know, if you can at least hold them to that, to say like, look, you're gonna get what you want, we're gonna leave, you know, and we're still starting on the date that Trump said, it's just logistically, it's gonna take us longer, but in return, you're gonna have to give us some kind of a ceasefire. I will say my thank yous now to Ali Amnatifi, thank you so much for joining us this evening. It was incredibly insightful, incredibly interesting, listening to all of those perspectives. We're gonna go straight onto our next story, which is about a war over rents in Berlin. If you are enjoying what you're watching, do hit the subscribe button. As you know, we go live every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at seven PM, and we put out videos every day. Berlin is known as a city where the quality of life is pretty good, affordable public transport, great nightclubs, and an abundance of green spaces inspire jealousy among many visiting from the UK. However, Berlin shares a problem with its Western European counterparts. The rent is too damn high. To solve this problem, last year, the red-green coalition that governs the city instituted rent caps, freezing private rents at their 2019 level, and mandating landlords not to charge rents more than 20% above the local government set rates. However, this week, those rent caps were overturned by Germany's constitutional court. They judged Berlin did not have the authority to cap rents, which they have ruled as instead within the jurisdiction only of the federal government. The ruling leaves landlords free to renegotiate rent, and most dramatically allows for them to retrospectively demand back payments from tenants to cover for the now reversed rent freeze. To discuss the decision and what this all means for the politics of housing in Germany, I'm joined by Venker Christoph, who is secretary for housing in Berlin's state government, so an incredibly relevant person to have on the show. Thank you so much for joining us this evening. Before getting on to the court decision, could I get you to sort of briefly explain how the rent control policy works and how it was working? Well, yeah, of course, it was working for more than a year, and you did explain a bit about it already, the first part of the rent cap was the rent stop. So no one saw any rent raises or almost all tenants in the city did not see any rent raise within the last year, which is great, which was great already. A lot of people were already very much used to getting raised every two or three years as it was regulated, is regulated by federal law. Then you have the reduction of rents in new contracts. So if you were looking for a new flat and the landlord had to stick to prices regulated by the government, when they were giving you your, or like when you were signing the contract plus, as you said, we had a reduction of rents in existing contracts starting from last November that was, we are estimating in effect for more than 300,000 households in the city. And in terms of its effectiveness, we did see that for the first time in, I don't know, more than 10 years, we did not have raising rent statistically in the city. The first time that rents were actually going lower than the year before. And we also saw some lower sales prices for residential buildings. So some of what we wanted to do was actually already showing effect after one year that people were having lower rents and we were also starting to influence the speculation in housing prices and in houses in the city. And this decision by the constitutional court, I mean, it must have come as a big blow to you guys. Do you interpret it as a political attack on your policy or is this just judges who are, you know, honestly giving their interpretation of the constitution? I mean, what's your assessment of how this decision was made? Well, usually it's not good form to criticize judgments, especially of the constitutional court. So let's just say that we were disappointed and surprised because before the decision, there was like ample evidence and lots of legal arguments also in support of our decision or our position that the federal states in Germany also have the possibility to regulate the rent market. We do actually have, the states do actually have a lot of competence, for example, for building social housing. And this was a competence given to us by the federal, by the federal states in 2006. So our argumentation was, okay, this is the, we have the power as states to legislate rents as well. That this is, like this argument was not followed by the constitutional court and I would say that means two things. First thing is then it's the necessity of the federal level that they regulate rents better than they used to. And that's lots of holes and the tenant protection regulations on the federal level. And this is like a, this is a big issue and a big challenge politically for the federal level. And the second is that politically and practically for tenants in the city, we are back to square one. So to say, we are back to a situation that we had one and a half years ago where people could barely afford to pay rents, especially if they were just moving into the city or just had to move to a new flat and we're afraid of the next race. So, and this is a situation that we will have to tackle again and we will take up the challenge of course, together with a lot of the tenant initiatives in the city that were, for example, yesterday demonstrating spontaneously on the day of the ruling of the constitutional court, they were more than 10,000 people in the streets of the city. And I think that there was a powerful sign that the tenants movement is back on the streets and we'll also argue and fight for different and better regulations. And the fight is not over, I would say. Well, does this all mean that the fight now moves to the federal level? And of course there are federal elections this year. So it's potentially the case that we could have a new government in Germany, a red-green alliance like you have in Berlin and they could put in their manifesto nationwide rent controls. Is that the next front in this battle for housing justice? I would say it's one front, definitely. We will, as you said, we will have a federal election in Berlin in Germany. We also have state elections in Berlin and we also have a referendum campaign in the city that I use for the expropriation of big housing companies. So there's lots of arenas to fight this battle and I think that, of course, the fight moves on the part of the fight will have to move to the federal level. This is where we could easily implement a rent cap for bigger cities in all over Germany or the federal level could open up the legislation like by law for cities and states to do so. And I think this is going to be, definitely going to be an arena. And the second part is, of course, we will, this does not mean that we will stop trying to regulate rents or to influence the housing market in the city. This, the expropriation campaign is one part of the movement, of the tenants' movements that is, I think, very important at the moment but also apart from that, I think one of the big things that we are still working on here in the administration is to raise the share of public housing and of cooperative housing in the city and this is something that we will have to go on and that we are planning to go on. Thank you, Christoph. Thank you so much for your insight and I have to say, I really hope you get this back on track in Berlin because we need the example because I am so desperate to get rent controls in London and we need to point to some successful cities in Europe where you've done it and we can say, now let's do it now. So our fingers crossed. Thank you. Aaron, I want to bring you in on this particular topic because, I mean, it hasn't actually been publicised that widely, I suppose because he doesn't actually have the power to make it happen but Sadiq Khan is pledging in his campaign to be re-elected as London mayor that he is going to campaign for rent controls. Do you think that is something that is going to be on the horizon in Britain over the next five to 10 years? Yeah, super interesting. I've been told by people that actually there are certain ways of implementing forms of rent control in London, which are a little bit esoteric. You're kind of tweaking certain rules and regulations. You might introduce certain charges for landlords if they don't do certain things. So you can change the incentives around to push down rents. That's what I've been told within the existing kind of framework. That's what I've been told by green activists, for instance, and of course, they've been demanding rent caps for much longer than Labour. I think Sean Barry went into the last London elections saying that. I think so the people around her were pretty confident they could kind of carve out a policy which wouldn't be subject to what we're seeing in Germany. Maybe that's the case also for Berlin. Maybe they might not be able to implement something as overwhelming as they have so far, but perhaps something can be saved from this, even just at the municipal level. It's interesting. I think in London, it's obviously going to be hugely popular. And I do think Sadiq Khan, his kind of overwhelming message, he's going to win, right? I don't think it'll be as huge a win as some people think because obviously Sean Barry is literally the worst candidate imaginable, but he's going to win. When you think the major issues sort of affecting Londoners, expensive public transport, super expensive housing, the crushing really of culture for working class people, whether it's pubs, LGBT venues, live music, ultimately Labour aren't doing very much of these things. And that's not what Sadiq Khan, it's just this as an issue is just waiting. It feels like it's waiting to blow up high rents because it can't carry on forever. And of course with COVID, I suppose it's taken some of the sting out of it because rents have actually been flatlining for the best part of four years in London. If we saw again a kind of spike up, I think it would catalyze a mass movement for sure. There's a bit of an electoral problem, isn't there? Because this is very much a Labour voter issue. The Tories, their electoral coalition doesn't include renters, so there's probably not much incentive for them to allow this to happen on a nationwide level. I think if you had a Labour government it would be much more likely because their coalition is so heavily based on urban renters but until they're in power, I probably don't see it happening. I would push on, can I push back on that a bit, Michael? Tories ultimately like to win and there are two policies that would appeal to younger people. First is scrapping tuition fees or just reducing them. The second one is some kind of rent cap. Now, I don't, like I agree with you, I don't think they'll ever do the rent cap thing. I do think as a kind of, as a gestural policy, I think, you know, I think, I know what you're saying. They won't ever do it on rent. I mean, maybe, we may see Tories say some strange things at a local level on rent caps, you never know. That's what politicians do. They try and seize opportunities. We're seeing it in West of England, by the way. The Tory candidate for West of England mayor is on board with franchising bus services. That was unthinkable a few years ago because everybody is saying we have to do this. We've often complained on this show that the BBC and other mainstream outlets have a pro-Tory bias. However, there is another bias that's more all-pervasive and more costly to criticise in our mainstream press. That's the bias that assumes the West is virtuous and a force for good and that countries outside the West should be treated with suspicion. It's a bias and an assumption that rarely goes that nearly always goes without notice as it's taken as a given as common sense by hosts and guests alike. However, this week after a report on Newsnight, which listed China's human rights abuses and asked whether that should stop Biden engaging with the country on climate change, the world-renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs challenged the framing of the programme and in the process punctured the illusion of Western superiority. Jeffrey, if I can begin with you, the Biden administration has been strongly critical of China's actions on human rights but engaging on climate change. Do you see that as a strategy that can actually work? I'm not sure why BBC started with listing only China's human rights abuses. What about America's human rights abuses? The Iraq war, together with the UK, completely illegal and under false pretenses. The war in Syria, the war in Libya, the continued sanctions against civilian populations in Venezuela and Iran, walking away from the Paris climate agreement for the last four years. Unilateral trade actions that have been deemed illegal by WTO. So one can make anything one wants but we have really serious human rights violations by the United States abroad, not to mention an insurrection on January 6th in our own country, not to mention the continued massive racism of white supremacism and abuse of incarceration of hundreds of thousands of people in the US, African American people of color. So I think that the whole premise of this story is a little bit odd. No, but sorry, I'm looking, I'm sorry. We have to look- If I may, we have to look- I found the framing of it, not what I expected. I thought we were going to talk about climate change, which we should, but I think that the idea that there is one party that is so guilty, how can we talk to them is just a strange way to address this issue. Now, I thought that was a really impressive intervention from Jeffrey Sext, eminent economist. I think if you were known as a left-winger and you said that on TV, you'd probably never get invited again, but he's of the stature where he can call out the BBC for that kind of thing and essentially get away with it because he's earned his place amongst the establishment. Interestingly, he actually used to be one of the pushers of neoliberalism in post-communist Eastern Europe. So he's had a bit of a transformation, but what he's saying there, I think, is super important. He's not denying that there are human rights abuses in China, not at all. I've seen some people suggest that on social media. That's, is it's ridiculous to approach this particular issue, which is, should two countries engage with each other on dealing with climate change and only thinking this is problematic for one side? Are China worthy of America's attention or are they beyond the pale because their record on human rights is so, so poor? Has news not ever asked that question about a country dealing with America? I can't remember a time. And that's Jeffrey Sachs says, if you're looking at the various records of both countries, you're looking about the amount of lives they've ruined, the amount of regions they've destroyed, America doesn't come out very well at all. And it is just, you know, I think he called it out brilliantly. Aaron, I want to get your thoughts on that particular clip. Yes, it's patently ridiculous. And the idea that, oh, he's saying this, he's an apologist for China. Come on, anybody who says that isn't serious about climate change, you know, Saudi Arabia is responsible for abhorrent human rights abuses. Nobody's saying, obviously a conversation about decarbonizing. Saudi Arabia has to be in the room. Iran has to be in the room. I think Saudi Arabia, I think it's maybe the sixth biggest consumer domestically of fossil fuels, you know, in terms of its CO2 emissions, not a huge population, but of course, it produces a great deal of them and so the price is so low if domestic subsidies, people just burn them for fun in Saudi Arabia. We can't have a proper conversation about going beyond fossil fuels if Saudi Arabia is not included. Or Iran, right? Or a bunch, or Russia. You know, if you're only going to talk to the countries, you already agree with a Western liberal democracy or the parliamentary system, you know, who you politically agree with and happen to have leaders who aren't, you know, at odds with your agenda. You know, you're going to have about 10, 15 people in the room. Grow up. And so again, I think it really speaks to the sort of, the tenor of political debate, particularly on the BBC. Come on. This is just not serious politics. We're talking about climate change here, right? Climate change is going to define, climate change is not about this or that border, this or that flag, this or that language. This is about what happens the environmental systems for our entire planet over the next several centuries slash millennia. And actually, incidentally, it turns out, if we don't get things right over the next couple of decades, we may go past the point where actually, what we do thereafter doesn't really matter. And I think people will look back at these kinds of conversations as ridiculous. They'll think, what on earth was going on? What was going through their heads? The seas were acidifying, temperatures were rising. There was biodiversity loss. Forests were being swept away with wildfires and development in Southeast Asia and Brazil. And the BBC was talking about, well, you know, are we really going to reduce our moral standing by talking with the Chinese? Again, do you know how many countries have Chinese military bases in them beyond China? Two. Meanwhile, America has 800 military bases beyond its own borders. You know, nobody's, well, I'm not going to talk to America about climate change because they've got 800 military bases. That would be an absurd thing to say. It's the world's largest economy. So, you know, time for a serious conversation in politics, first and foremost about climate change and the BBC needs to grow up. This is the Asian century, right? China is going to be the world's largest economy probably by 2030. By price purchasing parity, it'll be twice the size of the United States and at some point in the 2030s. So this kind of perspective and, you know, holy than now kind of thing that comes from British journalists, get over yourselves, right? Because if we keep this attitude, we're going nowhere as a species in terms of solving our problems. Ridiculous. Contemptible, Michael. I agree it's contemptible. Obviously, Emma Barnett, you could probably hear from that first clip, wasn't too pleased at the framing of Newsnight's show being questioned by a guest. Let's now take a look at how she pushes back against Sacks. We're also using the framing of the Biden administration. We're also talking from the perspective of how Joe Biden himself and those around him have talked about the human rights abuses. In China. So, you know, sorry, just to say. The US always, excuse me for one moment, the US always attacks other countries. It holds itself sacrosanct. It's really outrageous because I know what goes on in American foreign policy and I know how abusive it is and I know what it's like to live in a racist society which I happen to do where a significant part of this country is racist followed a racist president who led an insurrection on the Capitol. And so the framing of this issue is strange. That's what I'm saying. But by your own country as well as the rest of the world. I believe by the government, not by my own country, by the government of my country. So I believe that the two leading polluters absolutely need to clean up their act. This is crucial for the sake of the world. And so of course we need to clean up our act because the United States is emitting 15 tons of CO2 per person in this country twice what China is emitting per capita. And the two countries together are about 40% of the CO2 emissions in the world and we are wrecking the climate. Now that defense was, I think, you know, it was pure ideology but so on show. It was like the emperor had lost its clothes. That was the most obvious example of the ideology of the BBC and so much of the Western press absolutely on show. Jeffrey Sachs is saying, why have you come up with this biased framing? She says, oh, it's not our framing. It's Joe Biden's framing. Well, when BBC, when Emma Barnett, when whoever produces Newsnight have you done an episode of that show where you've just taken Xi Jinping's framing or you've just taken Fidel Castro's framing? It doesn't happen. So what they are doing is they're saying, we're taking the perspective, the framing of one particular politician who has their own political interests and we are presenting that as a neutral question. That's what they did. It's the definition of ideology. You take one person's perspective and then you say, that's reality. We are looking at the world through the eyes of Joe Biden. That's also not what journalists are supposed to do. You aren't supposed to look at all the big different issues in the world, climate change, human rights abuses in China even, whatever you're looking at and say, the important question here is what should Joe Biden do? But why? And especially what should Joe Biden do given we're accepting all of the reasoning he says he is taking into account publicly? What if the guy isn't being particularly honest? You're journalists. You're supposed to take that kind of thing into account and critically assess the merits and downsides of what both parties are saying, not take on the perspective of Joe Biden when someone calls you out on bias, say, oh, if the bias is anyone's, it's Joe Biden's bias. The whole point of bias is you're taking on Joe Biden's perspective. Aaron, I want your perspective on Emma Barnett's defense because I just thought it was really, really pathetic, actually. It's not journalism, is it? I mean, the whole point of, so journalism, you've got two ways of looking at journalism. The first is, let's get to an objective truth, right? Not easy. Of course, we'll bring our biases to it or here are two competing views and let's get them to play out their antagonisms. And she's not doing either. She's just, she's saying, here's a point of view and I'm gonna sort of uncritically repeat it. And that's definitely not in the rule book. And there is an increasingly the BBC because it's meant to be this gold standard increasingly does stuff like this. Now, I was listening to the world at one yesterday and they were talking about Green Cell. I thought, great, Green Cell, it's a huge story. We've done three shows on it in the last four days, huge story. And then they were going interviewing people doing Vox Pop saying, is it cutting through? Is it cutting through? Isn't the story? There's loads of important stories that haven't, imagine if Watergate broke today, right? And, oh, a president, he needs to resign. It looks like there's questions of legality at hand and so on. Well, we don't think it's cutting through It's not a story. You're the journalists, make it cut through, right? It's literally your job to make it cut through. And Emma Barnett, like you say, it's literally your job to not ventriloquize one side of a debate. That's literally your job. Otherwise, we just listen to Joe Biden. We just listen to Gigi Ping and we make our own mind up. We don't need you to do that. You're not a press officer. So it is worrying. I just think standards are really slipping at the BBC. Look, the BBC has never been perfect, but I don't think you had that. Maybe you did before the Iraq war, but I just don't think it was so overt. I just don't think it was so overt, like you say, it's ideology. And then she's like, yeah, I'm making an ideological claim. Really strange to watch. She's like, if you've got a problem with it, the problem is America's problem. She's almost blaming Jeffrey Sachs. You think I'm biased? It's the American people who are biased. Yeah, but the problem is you're uncritically repeating what is the dominant ideology of the United States right now and apparently knowingly do that. There was no disclaimer at the start of the show. By the way, everything we say on this show is from the perspective of Joe Biden. We don't claim that it's in any way an objective analysis of the situation. We're going inside his head. So don't take it very seriously what we say. They didn't say that. They just said, you know, this is a completely natural way of looking at the scenario and we're looking at it according to Joe Biden's stated vision of the world and pretending that's normal and natural, unbelievable and well done to Jeffrey Sachs for calling it out. I'm not gonna check your comments because I have not got enough screens in front of me. So I'm just gonna assume that you're putting really articulate points into the Super Jacks and I'll thank you for them anyway. Yeah, go on, you take a couple, Aaron. Let me look, I'm focusing it very upset now because this is not the process. Some really lovely comments feeding back. Michael is the goat, which means the great full time. Is it Haim Jackson? Five pounds. I love Navarra Media because you are real. We've got, wow, Chris Hill, that is amazing. Thank you so much, Chris. 50 pounds, Aaron and Ash on Twitch, go for it. We're definitely gonna go big into Twitch. And I'll be honest, I didn't give the whole story on Twitch when I said that nobody will let me do it. Joshua Youngman, Aaron, will you emcee my wedding? Starmer, Rantz and Must? Maybe it depends where you live. Very possible. If you're near me, I don't mind. That's fine, that'd be quite fun. Jen Haywood, welcome back, Michael. And great job for covering Jeffrey Sachs versus BBC. I think that's the super chance, we've got a few more. No, that's all, there was one more. Some young persons, isn't they very kind? But I think that's fine. I think we're there, Michael. Some really nice comments. And I think people are just very happy to have you back. I'm very happy to be back. And again, yeah, I want you to emcee, well, if I had a wedding, I'd invite you to emcee it. And you'd have no excuse not to. In fact, because you'd be there anyway. A new wave of polling from YouGov has come out, and it's not looking particularly good for Keir Starmer. It's a significant time for this, because we're heading into local, regional, and national elections on the 6th of May. And it turns out, if we believe YouGov, Labour are trailing the Tories by 14 points. The Conservatives are on 43%, Labour on 29%. The Lib Dems and Greens both on 8%. And as you can see there, the direction of travel is probably what's most significant here. The Tories are up two, Labour are down five, and both the Lib Dems and Greens are up two, to finish the picture reform UK, which is the replacement for the Brexit Party, which was the replacement for UKIP, is on 3%. As we should always say when we show you a poll, this is just one poll. There are margins of error here, but the direction of travel is fairly clear. And we can get up the YouGov Westminster voting intention tracker, which is essentially showing that since January, the Tories have been going up, but not phenomenally. They've gone up sort of a couple of points, whereas Labour are going down in a more notable, to a more notable extent. So when we see people on Twitter saying, this is a vaccine bounce, I don't think that tells the whole story because this isn't just the case of the Tories are going up and Labour are staying steady. The Tories are actually staying fairly steady, going up a little bit, but Labour are dropping by a much greater degree. And obviously from that poll, you will have seen that according to YouGov, it's partly the Greens and the Lib Dems who are picking up those votes, which is hard to put down to a vaccine bounce. Now, as I should say, this is just one poll. I want to also show you, I'm a salvation poll from today, which has Labour up two from their previous polling on the eighth of or in March. So that the previous was from the month before and this one has the Conservatives still beating Labour by 7%, but by a much smaller gap than was suggested by YouGov. Aaron, this is just one poll, but that is quite a big gap and this is the lowest score Labour have had since Keir Starmer became leader. Is it significant that they've gone below 30? Yeah, I think the poll is terrible. I mean, even the salvation one, Michael, I know they've gone up, but it looks like, oh, that's good, they've gone up, but that's because salvation last week, I think it went down to 32, did it? It would have gone down to 33, because they're now on 35. 33, because I think there was one, I think there was a salvation one because that was when there was a salvation one that came up. I think maybe it went from 32 to 33. And people are like, whoa, that's something. You know, obviously all the pollsters had different methods and so on. So opinion tends to be with the observer, no comment. They tend to be more favourable to Starmer. Right now the YouGov ones seem to be less favourable. Of course, a lot of that's because of waiting and so on and so forth. But yeah, these are all very serious pollsters. YouGov is not a sort of joke pollster. You know, take it very seriously. 29 is terrible. The worst result that Labour have had in modern history in 1983 was about 28%. And I think the floor for Labour, people say, well, they go into single figures and of course they won't. The floor for Labour is probably the high 20s. So I think that's why it needs to be taken seriously because this is a plausible figure and they're there. So will they be? So actually you're going to bring it up in a second. So I'll hold that point. But you know, the context here is we've got local elections in three weeks. So even just for that, yeah, exactly. Go on. Hold that point because you said the floor for Labour is in the high 20s. We should, for the sake of balance, point out that when Jeremy Corbyn was leader in the start towards the beginning of 2017, again, this was just before council elections where Labour did perform pretty poorly. They were on 24. I was looking to bring this up here. The Tories were on 48 and Labour on 24. And Will Davis, I think, quite reasonably points out this time four years ago, it was about to go higher. So he's saying there that when people who supported Corbyn saw the polling at 24, they said, well, it will go higher. We shouldn't, polls change. And in that case, they did change. Now, when people who don't like Starmacy a poll that's on 29, they say, well, this is a catastrophe, the only way is down. Now I should point out, Will Davis did say, obviously, we can't necessarily just map from one situation to another. Maybe there are underlying conditions that mean that it's going to be harder for Starmacy to pick up votes than Jeremy Corbyn. Also, of course, Boris Johnson, less of an unknown than Theresa May was when it comes to political campaigning. But at the same time, we can read too much into polls, can't we, Aaron? And also, is it that healthy for the left to be obsessing about movements in polling directions instead of thinking about things that are slightly more fundamental? No, I think that's very fair. And I think that's true. I think that, however, you look at this and you look at all the other polls and there are a few big, essential takeaways. One is that the Tory vote is really stable, right? I mean, again, that's not about paying attention to this or that poll or that they're on 43 plus let's say reform, that's 46 if they take their three back in an election. And the whole thing about, when I said floor, I don't mean the floor in the polls. I think, you know, because Labour in a European election just two years ago now did obviously much worse than high twenties as did the Tories, you know? I mean, in terms of a general election, I think Labour's floor is the high twenties. I should be clear about that. So, and that's going off recent history. So Gordon Brown in 2010 got 28.5%. I think they got 28% in 1983. So that is the floor. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying in terms of polls, I'm saying in terms of the general election and will making that point, which is an important point, yes, they can change, but there are a bunch of elections in three weeks time, right? And that's not, and they are the biggest set of elections for a really long time. So we've got two years of local elections. We've got a bunch of Metro Mayor elections. We've got Wales, we've got Scotland. So actually polling 29, three weeks out from those really big elections is in itself a big story. Although I do agree with your broader point of we shouldn't all be paying attention to the last poll. In a way, you know, I said it when Starma came in, I said ignore polls for six months. And actually it's done really well. Now we're a year and we should be paying attention to the polls. But I agree with the point, but look, Michael, on the whole, well, Corbyn polled poorly, so it's okay for Starma. Starma's whole shtick was his electable. Starma's whole shtick was that this wouldn't happen. At least with Corbyn, he was saying, look, I want to get a bigger party. I want to mobilize people. I want to change the political conversation, which I think undoubtedly he did. And I really, really believe that. Yeah, he didn't win. So that's why when Starma comes and I'm saying, I'm electable, people go, great. But even by the standards he's setting, he's doing very poorly. And you have to look at, you know, Labour's laying off 90 people in May because members are leaving. The polling's not great. His personal approval ratings aren't great. And I think actually in some ways, Michael, that's the biggest story than this. You know, you've got his approval ratings, not who will be best PM, but do you think he's doing a good job? I think last week were minus 24. You know, that's a really serious indictment on a person whose entire pitch was, I'm the big professional, shiny politician. Well, that hasn't worked. And so a year into his leadership that has to, surely for the people around him, the people that support him, even people watching this who want Starma to do well and they voted for him and they like him, that has to be food for thought. And if it's not, then I think things could get worse. Well, there's another interesting poll. I mean, we're saying, oh, we shouldn't obsess over polls. I think this one is actually genuinely interesting because the margins are quite big. This was of Labour members. And what for me is slightly surprising here is as Aaron said, Starma said his big pitch was that he's electable. He's not looking that electable. So I'd have thought maybe some of his supporters and some Labour members would be tiring of him. That doesn't seem to be happening. So YouGov did their survey of Labour members. They tend to be fairly accurate these ones. They got the leadership right. So I do kind of trust what they're saying here. They've asked Labour members if Keir Starmer is doing well or badly as a leader. And 64% say well and 34% say badly. And of people who voted for Keir Starmer, 81% say well and 17% say badly. It's only Rebecca Long, Bailey supporters who overwhelmingly think Keir Starmer has done badly. So that to me says the Labour membership is still giving him the benefit of the doubt. Obviously this could be the case that there's been a significant amount of churn in the parties, other people who are unhappy with how Keir Starmer's leading the party has left and then some people who are attracted to him have joined or more likely actually the membership has shrunk slightly. But yeah, they're giving him the benefit of the doubt. And what's interesting here is this isn't because Labour members are convinced that Keir Starmer will pull through in a general election and have a turnaround of the form that Jeremy Corbyn did. So YouGov also asked Labour members, do you think Labour would win in a general election if it happened tomorrow? And 84% say no, the Conservatives would win. Only 12% think Labour would win a general election if it were to happen tomorrow. You might say there's not gonna be a snap election. More important is the election which will likely happen in 2024. I think while in 2023 is also quite possible. But let's say for the purpose of argument 2024, then 43% say Labour will win and 40% say the Conservatives will win. Obviously there, more people think they'll win them won't but you've got 40% who think the Conservatives will win and the approval of Starmer is way, way higher than the 43% who think Labour will win. So there are lots of people who are willing to have a Labour leader even if they don't think they're going to win a general election. And to really push home this point, let's look at the popularity of leaders, Labour leaders among Labour members and what you'll see from this is it has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not you can win election. So the most popular Labour leader among Labour members is Gordon Brown. 81% have a favourable view of Gordon Brown. Obviously he didn't lose, he didn't win an election. Sorry, as Aaron often says, he actually took Labour down to one of the worst polling percentages in history. Ed Miliband again, he didn't win election. He's the second favourite, 78%. Clement Atley, he would probably be a bit higher if more people had heard of him. I think he probably would be top if you exclude the don't knows. Then you've got Keir Star, McKinnock and the two least popular are Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Blair. Obviously Tony Blair, as we're often told, won three general elections. Corbyn had that very impressive boost in 2017 and then a poor election in 2019. But when it comes to success in elections versus popularity among the membership, I think it's pretty clear we can say no correlation. Are you surprised by that, Aaron? Given that one of the explanations for Keir Star was success in the leadership election in 2020 was that people thought, well, we want a leader who can win, so we'll vote for Keir Starmer. Turns out they don't seem to really care if the leader can win. Well, yeah, it's about the sample, like you say. If 100,000 people have left and they're all Jeremy Corbyn fans, the fact he's still polling above Blair is kind of interesting, actually. That is in itself surprising. And I would agree with all the people that are listed there. The two most successful politicians, clearly, I think, if you just look at the results, Tony Blair and then Jeremy Corbyn, we go, Jeremy Corbyn, they fell to this 2017 result was very good. They had very good local election results in particularly in 2018. He did very well on a bunch of other fronts. So I think they're clearly the most successful out of that bunch. I assume you're forgetting about Clement Attlee. I'm talking about, yeah, the contemporary leaders. Yeah, the contemporary ones. Since Blair, so you've got Blair Brown, Ed Miliband, and then Corbyn and Stammer. Stammer to be fair, we can't judge him so far because he's not actually had an election. We can probably do that after May. So I thought, actually, going back to the Rebecca Longbailey supporters, think Stammer's doing a bad job. I suspect that's because they're just better informed. They're probably more likely to get their news from new media. They're probably younger. That's not to say that other people can't be well informed, but I think there's probably something of a trend there. I think people who are highly informed politically will know that, actually, Stammer's pitch is electability, and in polling, he's not doing very well. Whereas I think there is clearly a big chunk of people who voted for him who, yeah, they might pet into politics once a fortnight, and they'll be thinking, oh, yeah, he's doing okay, and they might watch BBC Question Time where, of course, people lie through their teeth, and they'll say, well, they're neck and neck, or BBC Any Questions, oh, they were really close. Simon's done a great job. But what the polling showed is that they're not actually deluded and convinced that Labour are eschewing for the next general election. There are lots of people who both think that the Conservatives will win the next general election, and Geir Stammer's doing a good job. But I don't see that as a problem, no, no. So my point is purely about, is he doing a good or bad job? And I think the people that are saying he's doing a bad job, which just happens to be, maybe be younger, better informed. I think it's possible to say Stammer's doing a good job and that Labour won't win. I think that's a plausible thing to say. I don't think Labour will win the next general election. I also think Stammer's doing a bad job, but I can see why you wouldn't think that. And again, we're looking into a bunch of... Michael, people are immersed in lies and spin and bullshit. Rather than say, Labour lost the last election by, I think, was it 11, 12 points? What was it in 2019? 32 to 44, something like that? I mean, whatever. Yeah, people say, rather than do... And that's the... By the way, that's the baseline because it's a general election. We're not talking about a sample in a poll of 3,000 people. We're literally talking about tens of millions of people voting. That's the most accurate way of working out who people want. But rather than do that, they say, well, there's a poll in January where Labour with 25 points behind. So actually he's doing okay. How can you appeal to something with a sample of 3,000 and not a general election? And one month before, with tens of millions of people voting, like it's just basic mendacity and deception. Clearly, let's use as the baseline the last general election. And if we're using that as the baseline, Stammer on a bunch of polls, I think one was Sevation, one was YouGov, maybe one was Comrez, but Sevation had a couple of really bad ones and YouGov, Stammer has gone nowhere, right? And that of course is not the official, that's not the official line. The Sunday Times last week did that awful, awful profile of Stammer and into you rather. And they said, he's taken the party a long way. It's like somebody, they had a gunshot wound in the last election. He's stemmed the bleeding. What are you talking about? They're losing members. Their polling numbers are the same. I mean, we'll find out and may, right? I mean, it's all speculation and conjecture really, but right now, Labour are going nowhere fast. And the big thing is Michael, I'll finish with this, you know, again, Will Davies is right, you know, people say, well, a government's only won, I think five or six by elections in history. Yeah, one of them was in Copeland in 2017, like four, five, six weeks later, we have Labour get 40%. So yes, things can turn around, but what's different this time is that before, that was just the Tories running away with it 45% of the vote. What we're seeing now instead is that the Greens and the Lib Dems are on 8% each, right? So you've got two parties arguably pitching to the left of Labour, both edging up. And I think that's a real problem for Labour. I think that's the real problem. If the Lib Dems and Greens both do well in the general election, by which I mean, both get between eight and 10%, I think Labour have huge problems because all of a sudden then the electoral kind of arithmetic looks very, very bad for them. And they could get high 20s rather and be decimated because you've got the Northern Independence Party getting 2%, 3% in 2030 seats. You've got the Greens in a bunch of marginals around London, for instance, or in bigger cities. So it's very complicated once you start to move back to a four or five party system. And I think the Greens and the Lib Dems doing well, I think that's what should worry Labour more than anything else. Very interesting. It's going to be super interesting to see how those elections go soon. And we're definitely going to cover all the regions and nations of the UK between now and May the 6th. I had a few comments about that on Twitter. We're really keen to cover, especially Wales and Scotland. Thank you so much for watching this evening. Aaron Bustani, it's been a pleasure. An extra big thanks to you today for covering while my computer decided to reboot. Happens. We'll be back in the studio, Michael, soon. So, you know, we'll have no excuses then. Absolutely. And thank you as ever to our guests and to all of you for watching tonight's show for your super chats. We do really appreciate them. And especially if you are a Navarra media supporter, you make this all possible. If not, please do. If you're not already, please go to Navarramedia.com forward slash support and an equivalent of one hour's wage a month. For now, we're going to get off. Have a great weekend. You've been watching Tiskey Sour on Navarra Media. Good night.