 The minority of fans who reacted to England's loss with racism have been condemned by people across the political spectrum. That includes the Prime Minister, who said, this England team deserved to be lauded as heroes, not racially abused on social media. Those responsible for this appalling abuse should be ashamed of himself. Now, those condemnations of despicable abuse are, of course, welcome. It would be terrible if we had a Prime Minister who said, oh, I don't have good people on both sides, whatever. But do such condemnations ring hollow when they come from politicians who have pursued racist policies and made racist statements? Gary Neville thinks so. Well, I was reading your breaking news. It says the PM condemns racist abuse of England players. Is that the same Prime Minister that a few weeks ago? I mean, Darren Southgate and the players a few weeks ago, about five days on the trot, told us that they were taking the need to promote equality and it was against racism. The Prime Minister said that it was OK for the population of this country to boo those players who were trying to promote equality and defend against racism. It starts at the very top. And so for me, I was surprised in the slightest that I woke up this morning to those headlines, I expected it at the minute that the three players that missed missed. And, you know, the fact of the matter is there is an issue obviously in football, there was an issue in society where we feel it's acceptable basically to criticise players for sporting actions because of the colour of their skin. But I have to say, you know, accepting and validating that players who take the knee, I would say we're promoting equality, inclusion and defending against racism is coming from the very top. And, you know, you know full well that if your parents do something, your children will follow. And I'm not saying that each individual person who was obviously directed that abuse towards the players shouldn't take accountability, they absolutely should. Social and social media companies, you know, we know full well now, it's a well told story that social media companies have to come down harder on racist abuse. I think we have to start to isolate these individuals who are attacking the players in a racist manner and isolate them by writing to their employers so that ultimately there is total accountability and there is suffering and consequence, but also that to be fair, there is consequence within the game through the FA, the Premier League and other organisations, UEFA and FIFA. And we start to see, you know, sentences and punishments for these incidents that ultimately fit the crime because people are being abused. It's absolutely ridiculous in 2021. We're still talking about this, but we are. Gary Neville, they're saying this comes from the top. He mentioned in other interviews as well, Boris Johnson's comments about Muslim women looking like letterboxes. He's saying we have a racist culture which comes from the top, essentially, which is very different from what's being put forward by, for example, Boris Johnson, who's saying this is just a minority of people who need to crawl back under a rock. Aaron, I want to get your thoughts on this. Do you think Gary Neville's right to say that this comes from the top? Yeah, I think 100%. I don't think there's any doubt about that. I think it would be a more interesting conversation if you didn't have somebody like Boris Johnson as the Prime Minister and if you made that same point about how Britain, because of course, then the conversation becomes incredibly abstract, doesn't it? But when you've got a figurehead like a Trump or a Boris Johnson, Johnson is not as bad as Trump, but he's still pretty bad, then I think it personalises things that makes it much easier to sort of say that and say, look, these aren't a few bad apples, these aren't isolated incidents actually, they reflect a far deeper structural problem. And I think in a way, and this might seem quite harmless, Michael, but I think you can kind of look at the problem through the prism of how Harry Kane was on most front pages of most newspapers the day after England played. Now, of course, England didn't lose any of their games in normal time, so you always had a good front page the next day, had a great tournament. But for me, I don't think Raheem Sterling or Harry Kane played particularly well last night because they were up against two of the best centre backs in the world. But for me, actually, Raheem Sterling had a much better tournament than Harry Kane. I thought he was probably, Harry Kane's a little very good tournament. I thought Raheem Sterling was really exciting. I thought he was really working hard. He's not had a great season in Man City. I thought he was brilliant in this tournament. I think if England won last night, I think he would have been in the team of the tournament, him and Kane both up front. And yet, you know, how many times do we see Raheem Sterling on the front page or on the back page of a newspaper? Not often. Generally speaking, it was Harry Kane. He was seen as the talisman of this England team. And let's be honest, that's because his name is Harry and because he's white. Raheem Sterling is a very telegenic guy. He's very affable. He has a really good amazing story. And yet, he wasn't seen as the talisman. And the simple reason for that, Michael, is the fact that he's black and Harry Kane is white in my opinion. And so I think, yes, that may just seem harmless. It may seem that, you know, oh, come on Aaron, that's ridiculous. Some people might think that. But I think that does show you the fact that clearly we are talking about something quite structural here and quite profound. And there are lots of people, Michael, in the mainstream media. There's at the very least a culture of permissibility. So on the one hand, I think it's true. You've got somebody like Boris Johnson who says outrageous things. And I think that shows a real problem. But I think for me, the broader cultural problem within the media and the political class, per se, is permissibility. How many people on the right in this country would stand up and say, no, that isn't acceptable? No. When you've got a pitch and 50% of the players on the pitch are black and they're involved in anti-racist movement, which starts because a black guy was killed by a police officer. And they all know the reality of living with racism day in, day out. And so I think for me, the big problem is the permissibility. And this is where we end up, right? This is where we end up. And I think that's the key takeaway that we sort of have to impress over the last 24 hours. If you have a culture of permissibility, if you allow people to say things and get away with things and claim things, which frankly do allow and enable and facilitate a culture of racism, this is where we finish. A 19-year-old guy on Instagram being called all manner of outrageous things by anonymous trolls. That's where we end up. And so I think permissibility is the key word for me. Someone who has encouraged that permissibility is, of course, pretty patelle. She weighed in on the abuse suffered by players saying, I am disgusted that England players who have given so much for our country this summer have been subject to vile racist abuse on social media. It has no place in our country. And I back the police to hold those responsible accountable. Now this pretty patelle who is now speaking out against racism in football is the same person, the same home secretary, who said only a couple of weeks ago that fans have the right to boo players for taking the knee and that she doesn't support the anti-racist protests of footballers because she sees it as gesture politics. Now, as we've shown you earlier in the show, actually those players taking the knee has had a material impact on attitudes to race and racism in this country, which is probably why the Tory parties weren't in favour. They of course don't have any opposition to gesture politics. They do it all the time. That's what clapping for the NHS was while offering them a real terms pay cut. That's what Boris Johnson was doing when he was standing with all those flags outside Downing Street. These are people very, very comfortable with gesture politics. They're just uncomfortable with anti-racist politics, yet they're all crawling out from under their rocks to condemn the consequences of their giving permission to racism. Labour have come out and pointed out some of the hypocrisy of this deputy leader Angela Reiner tweeted, let me be clear, the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary gave licence to the racists who boo to England players and are now racially abusing England players. Boris Johnson and Pretty Patel are like arsonists complaining about a fire. They poured petrol on total hypocrites. In terms of party politics, what you have seen over this tournament is the Labour Party have discovered, oh, look actually, Gareth Southgate, he's doing something which is potentially consistent with what we want to do when people like him, so we're going to lean into it. Keir Starmer obviously was not capable of coming up with his own inclusive version of patriotism. I would imagine he would have sat on the fence when it came to taking the knee. Obviously, he did it last summer since then. He's been a bit more lukewarm when it comes to Black Lives Matter, but Labour now leaning in now that Gareth Southgate has given them a mission.