 Hello and welcome to Tisgy Sour. Tonight is a very special edition because I'm joined by co-founder of Navarra Media, Aaron Bostani. How's it going? Good. But that's not the special reason. I am also joined by the next Chancellor of the UK, John McDonnell. Good to be here. Thank you so much for finding time in what must be an incredibly busy schedule. I mean, how's the campaign treating you? Feeling energised? You feeling a bit knackered? A bit of both? I love election campaigns. There's a sort of element of masochism in me that quite enjoys being up all the hours, short nights, long days, that sort of thing. And yeah, that was brilliant. And you must have felt it. The enthusiasm out there is just unbelievable. And I'm turning up at meetings where you're getting hundreds of people and they're just, they're just buzzing. They're absolutely buzzing. It's tough when the weather is foul, you're canvassing in the rain, you're cards of paper mache, you're frightening people on their doorsteps because it's so dark and things like that, but people are enjoying it. It's one of those things, isn't it? Before the election is called, everyone's sort of like, oh, please don't have the election. I can't be bothered with it now. I've got things going on in my life. The weather's horrendous. And then the moment it is called, everyone is absolutely united. We're doing this. We're doing it as hard as we can. I love it as well. I have to say. Well, I think the buzz is there. I really do. You're up in Lancaster today announcing your latest policy in, I suppose, a splurge recently laying out your vision of socialism in Britain for the 21st century. A free, high-speed broadband for everyone run by the state. I suppose it's fair to say this has opened up a bit of a new front with the establishment, with the press, with the opposition, with business, who are all questioning whether this is a policy that they can support. Why have you decided that broadband was the next battle you were going to have? Okay, look, take it in sequence. The whole thrust of our campaign is positive. Laura Pigock, in one of the discussions we were having on strategy, she said, look, we've got to be sickeningly positive. We've just got to be positive about everything we do. Go out there, tell them you're going to change the world, and we're going to do it. And as simple as that. And then you hit them every day with something positive in terms of, yeah, of course I can do the austerity, but going beyond that, so it isn't just about ending the cuts. Let's move on about, we end the cuts, and then what do we do next in terms of just changing people's lives? That's what it's about, really. So we've been doing all the traditional stuff on national education. So it was Angie Rayner and Jeremy Rapture in the week. They launched the NES, go through it in detail. Absolutely inspiring, you know. And we then went into, of course we had to do the NHS. The most inspiring thing about that was just the nature of the way it was done. John Atherich and myself were just sitting down with junior doctors and paramedics and others and health campaigners. And the idealism you could almost feel within the room, and it was just terrific, you know. So then we're trying to get the economic debate going seriously. Very difficult because the Tories are running their traditional campaign, trying to focus it on Brexit, but then also immigration. It was like a rerun of every Tory election campaign you've ever seen. So we thought, how do we get into a really economic debate? But it's going to be about the real economy, what the future is going to be. How do you inspire people about that? And I think it was three years ago, I did a speech. Soon after the Jeremy appointment, we had a chance there. I did a speech about where the economy needs to go in terms of artificial intelligence, new technology. That's where the jobs are going to come from. Fourth Industrial Revolution, we've got to be ahead of the game, and we're going to harness the Fourth Industrial Revolution for our own ends, about redistribution of wealth and power, making sure that it's environmentally sound as well. All of those issues. I did a speech then about new technology and where we go from here, the investment levels we want. I called it Socialism with an iPad, which went down like a lead balloon. You can imagine that. Well, it wasn't. I got all sorts of criticism. Do you know where the iPad is made and the exploitation involved? Anyway, since then, we've been just working up the ideas. And I've been doing, if I go on too long, just shut me up. You can never go on. No, I mean it. Sometimes I don't rub it on too much because I'm excited about all this. I've been touring around the country every other Saturday doing these town hall meetings where you invite local people in to talk about their local economy. It's absolutely knackering. Every other Saturday, my Treasury team are out there. We should film some of those. We have done, and they've been really good. Some of the short clips we've been put up for a while. Yannis, who does a lot of film, he's done quite a bit of those. We should actually write, we should actually do more in terms of the longer discussions from them. But I mean, anyway, the idea is we go along and say, here's some statistics about your economy. But you tell us what it's really like. And then we say, here's our menu of policies we've been developing. Will it work here or won't it work here? What would be your priorities? Are there any other ideas? And so you sort of write in the manifesto from across, so it's up. On every occasion, these are in small towns. It goes from Hastings to Mansfield to Blackpool to Pendle. You name it, we've been all over. Scotland, Wales, et cetera. Every time it's always, the infrastructure here is falling apart. Rail, buses, but everyone, they've said broadband. Speed's are appalling. Brakes down. Four out of five people think this system doesn't work for them. And so interesting enough as well is often what you get is we live in a beautiful area, but we have to commute to work, distances, or we have to move away, or our kids have to move away. And interestingly enough, on one occasion, I went up to Colm Valley to Thelma Walker's constituency, and they said, how did you get out? I said, by train. And they said, was it delayed? Yes. Was it canceled? The second time? Yes. And I said, that's classic. And they said, we'll show you our broadband speeds here. Really, appallingly slow. And so when we try and invite investors up here, they'll go through the same experience where the train must probably be delayed, the railway will let them down. And then startups here are almost impossible because of the broadband speeds. So that's where the broadband policy came from. We looked at how elsewhere, how connected we were in comparison with others. So we've got anything that's 8% to 12% best in terms of fiber, full fiber connectivity. You look at South Korea, 97%, 98%, same with Japan. Look at Stockholm. The municipality is doing it there. Ireland, they're rolling it out in their rural areas under a state scheme. So the idea was, we're not going to be able to deliver in terms of the new economy that we want, the high-skill, high-pay jobs, unless we get the foundation stone laid. And effectively, one of those foundation stones is broadband. People talk about 5G, but actually 5G relates to broadband as well and isn't as reliable as the full fiber broadband that we want to put along, although it does relate to it. So we looked at what model we wanted. We actually explored what the government was doing because there'd been a review of the new technology infrastructure. We looked at the costings of what was needed. And what came out of that was basically to roll out full fiber broadband, like the cost of country, 20 billion. Government put up 5 billion, but they were going for this gigabyte system, which was reliable on the old cable, so it wasn't really good enough either. We looked at how it was done elsewhere. South Korea, what they did, they did have a state investment, state company, rolling it out. We looked at the way in which what resources we had at the moment to do that, and there was open reach of the sort of eight, whatever, say 10% of what there is out there already, 8% of that was done by open reach. The rest was done by the other companies. So here was the ideal vehicle that we could use to do the full roll out if we got the investment in there. But if you're going to put that sort of money in, public money, well, the public should own it. It should be for the public benefit. The other issue that came up in the discussions was the discussion around equality of life in our society. So you look at different aspects of life, and you try and gauge how we've arrived at such an unequal society, and it is about income, poverty, it's about housing, it's about social care support, all of those issues, but actually also it is about what support you get right throughout your life in terms of connectivity too. Libraries were invented because people wanted access to reading materials, culture, et cetera. This is the equipment of libraries. All those kids out there, if you're in a relatively poor family, you won't have access to the internet like a middle class kid. You must probably go to the library. Actually the facilities aren't good because lots of libraries have been closed anyway. So you're already in a race where you're falling behind already because you haven't got the equipment to be able to engage with education or culture generally. Lots of isolated elderly people now. Again, cut off from their families and others. This is a useful tool. Facebook has become something used by older people much more than some of the younger people now. So we thought this is a fantastic opportunity, a limited amount of investment that's needed. Do it through a public of your own company so we all get the benefits properly. Offer it as a free universal basic service, and on that basis actually, you create the foundations of a new economy. And we looked at some of the research around that. One of the institutes that came forward with their assessment of what it would do on productivity, £59 billion gain. Just unbelievable opportunities there. And you then look about if we are going to be globally competitive, if we don't do this now, we're just going to fall behind. And we're going to be trapped in what the toys are creating at the low wage, long hours, insecure economy, insecure jobs economy basically. So this was a real breakthrough. And when we talked about it and thrashed around the ideas, we've got some brilliant researchers, you know. My two economic advisers, Roy McQueen and Max Harris worked on it in detail. Max in particular focused on this area of work. And they just thrashed out, almost tested to destruction the ideas that have come forward. Met with CW, sat down with them. What do you think? You represent the workers at the front end of this. Would this work? Wouldn't it work? What benefits for your workforce and the wider community? They did a hell of a lot of work on it. And we put the proposals together and thought, Dan, let's go with it. Announced it today. Of course you're going to get the backlash. Of course you are. Toys have gone ballistic. I think they've quadrupled, or at least the level of money that's supposed to be done. I said, actually, no, we're using your figures. The £20 billion came from government research that you commissioned. Some of the individual companies themselves of course have come at us as well with exaggerated figures, but that's fair enough. It's forced the debate onto the table. Today you've been doing the media rounds with some media organisations that are quite hostile to this idea. Obviously, the idea of a free, publicly owned high-speed broadband service is the kind of thing that we at Navarra Media are quite ideologically attuned to this particular policy. But I know that there's been some quite outlandish opposition to it. Aaron, you've been collecting some of the wildest criticisms and the wildest critiques of a policy of free high-speed broadband. The first thing that can come up if Fox can get this up is obviously the evening standard front page. So let's see if we can get that up. Yeah, so huge backlash at Labour's BT Grab evening standard obviously. That's incredibly supportive for the evening standard. I mean, obviously, that's kind of obviously the polling we saw from YouGov. They asked two questions. Even the negative framing said 32%, thought it was good, 31 opposed. But then the regular framing is, do you think people, businesses, should have free high-speed full-fiber internet? I think it's like 62%. I mean, what do you make of that dissonance between the front page of the evening standard and that polling? Do you think George Osborne genuinely thinks that most people think this is a bad idea, or is it something he thinks, oh, God, this is a really good idea and I want to sort of attack it as much as possible? Well, this is the reaction of vested interest, isn't it? This is the reaction of vested interest because we're challenging the vested interest. If the private sector system as it operates at the moment was so successful, why is it we've only got 10% in terms of rollout of full-fiber? It's failed significantly. At the same time, you know, the average cost for people was identified as about 30 pounds a month, 30 pounds, 30 a month. But then if you fall out of contract, you get really hit hard with higher bills. So people are being ripped off at the same time. You pay for a land line you never use. Exactly. The whole system is weighted against you. So no wonder these people are going to squeal because we're actually exposing what their role has been. So failed in terms of making sure that we're sufficiently wired. But at the same time, ripping people off, so no wonder they're going to squeal. They've made big profits. One of the questions I've got today is these chief executives are on million pounds salaries and things like that. Will you continue to pay them? Well, the talent is out there. We're not going to be short of talent or anything like that. Are we going to replicate their system? No, we're not. That's great. Get some of your other ones. You've collected a few, no? No, I have. I've got this one. This is a good take. If we can get this one up. Danny Finkelstein. A very broad band that only works four days a week. What do you think of that? He's witty at times, but obviously not today. I like the four-day week theme. Let's go through that one, shall we? Here we go. This is just classic Tory reaction and Tory press reaction. What I said at Labour Party Conference about since the 1860s, we've, as a Labour movement, sought to reduce the working week. And the way that we've done that is that as workers, we create the wealth. So when we negotiate with employers about how that wealth is shared, some of it goes into wages, but workers themselves actually have prioritized free time. So that was the battle for the eight-hour day. And then right into the 30s and into the 40s, it's trade unions rather than legislation. It's trade unions rather than government. Trade unions have negotiated as they create, as they become more productive and work, as they create more wealth, they then say, actually what we want to do is negotiate some of that because we aren't free at times. So, for example, holidays in the 1930s, let's have a week's holiday. Then after that, the reduction in the working week, and yes, other elements, six-page, so the social wage. So we get to the 70s and all of a sudden there hits a brick wall and that stops. So we're trapped in 42 hours and it doesn't go any lower than that for quite a period. So all I said quite reasonably, I thought, is as we invest in our economy and grow it and we become more productive, there's been a productivity crisis under the Tories because of lack of investment. So as we invest, we become more productive. How about the idea that we share out the rewards of that productivity more fairly, so yeah, higher wages, but also people might want to reduce their working week. And the idea is over a decade, we're talking about 10 years to aim to reduce that to 32 hours a week, averaged out over the year. So there's that flexibility there. You'd think from the reaction of some of the media and the distortion of it that we were in a revolutionary situation. No, we're not. We're simply asking let's do what we've done for the last century and a half, which is as we become more productive, share it more fairly, but some of that isn't just about wages, it is about hours work. I always use this example, a couple of years ago I went along to one of my local schools and the kids there did their own play. It was about drugs because they were learning about drugs and what's happening in society. And there was a young woman who was playing the child and the young woman who was playing the mum and another one for the dad. And they're telling off the child about going on to drugs and all the rest of it. And the youngster turns around and points to her parents and said you're not my parents, I never see you. We never sit down together. You only pass in the night, that's true. So in my area where housing costs are so high in West London I've got the airport who provides the jobs. Used to be really good wages at the airport but actually they've been suppressed so we've been running low-way campaigns there. People work all that as godsend for their heads. So the mums and dads will be working often in different ships so they'll pass in the night. The family never actually gets the time to sit down together around the same table. It undermines social cohesion in that way and one of our campaigns over there is about low pay but it is about conditions of employment as well and a lot of that is about long hours. We've got a long hour's economy now. I just say time and time again we don't live to work, we work to live and we've got to try and restore that principle. Do you think that people like Danny Finkelstern and George Osborne would have opposed the weekend 100 years ago? Well they would have had long weekends they would have most probably gone grouse shooting for most of August, wouldn't they? Seriously they wouldn't have washed, got up in the morning and washed their shirts. They would have had staff to do that, wouldn't they? So they would have had leisure time but I think they live in a different world from all that. Let me just say this people who have money or are born with money or whatever I don't blame them for that. That's just what's happened to them but those people who earn quite a bit or who've inherited quite a bit I just say to them, have care when you're talking about the lives of people who don't earn as much as you I don't expect empathy but at least a bit of understanding and people at the moment a lot of families in my concern people working all hours got to send just to get by and it's tough and why not just aspire over a decade to reduce the working week and I've said to them, we'll do it like the minimal way set up a working time commission so employers and reunions get round the table and they work out and agree and negotiate when's the right time to start reducing that and it will be it will depend on the creativeness that we put into developing our economy and that's what the investment is today. I mean John Maynard Keynes was predicting in 1930 but that by 2030 10 years from now it would be 20 hour week so it's not particularly new thing. So you're also quite a conservative not particularly new audacious. John Maynard Keynes would have given us 20 hours. I've become a centrist in my old age obviously haven't I? It's gone to billionaires in a moment but first of all you are watching Tiskey Sauer you're watching Navarra Media as you know this show this organisation is only possible because of your kind donations if you are already a supporter thank you very much support.navarramedia.com and donate the equivalent of one hour's wage a month so we can continue working round the clock we're happy to work for seven days a week during an election but only so in the long term we can work ultimately a three day week I think in maybe the third term billionaires this has been I suppose the surprise theme actually of the first week of the election or should we not abolish billionaires what's your take? What we need to do is create a more equal society where you don't have the extremes of billionaires and at the same time people sleeping on the streets it's as simple as that we've got to create a society that's more equal so it's not so much about abolishing it's about creating a more equal society there's a phrase that people around AOC have been saying in America which is that every billionaire is a policy failure yeah but can you remember in a very British coup by Chris Mullen when they filmed it they asked the socialist prime minister are you going to abolish first class? he says no they're all going to be first class and that's what this is about this is about creating the wealth so that wealth is more equally shared so you haven't got these extremes and the reason this is serious more than just are you going to abolish billionaires Richard Wilkinson years ago when he did his first book on health inequality that was fundamentally important there was a real breakthrough and then he went on with Pickett then to do the other work later on more broadly but his first health analysis on inequality it was in the 90s then the early 2000s and I invited him down to the House of Commons to brief people and he just demonstrated to me very very clearly the more unequal the society is the more levels of crime the more anti-social behaviour the more lack of engagement in the political process actually he was relating it to health as well so the more unequal society the greater the levels of morbidity on certain conditions as well and that I think objectively statistically with fundamental research you demonstrate what inequality actually does to a whole society and I think that actually that debate needs to be had again so I know sometimes you get in these interviews you sort of strike questions about billionaires or whatever but actually the real issues about the grotesque levels of inequality that we've got now and that since austerity was introduced in 2010 just how bad it's got as well the Tories throw at us about the genie coefficient hasn't moved at all that isn't the measure that we want we want to look at some of the other social metrics that goes on 723 people died on our streets last year so how can you have those extremes of wealth and poverty when they're dying on our streets those are the sort of measures we need to do Tony Benn always used to say on the news they always bring on the last bit which is about what's happened to shares and he always used to say why don't we at the end of the instead of do the shares how many houses were built this week or what the levels of poverty are or in the winter how many pensions are dying as a result of excess deaths that's the sort of debate we've got to have I mean billionaires might present you I mean the moral argument is quite simple I think and quite simple to make but the argument that will be made about your entering government is that billionaires will provide a challenge because your model for paying for many of these ambitious proposals is that you're going to tax the top 5% and especially the top 1% and especially the top 0.1% and so the argument is that even if it's fair even if it's moral and righteous to tax these people they'll leave and then ultimately all those plans about revenue raising you know collapse so I mean are you worried about them leaving if they talk about leaving how do you stop them leaving how does this work I don't think it happens every time any Labour government any Labour government is like you always have these stories about there'll be this mass migration of wealthy people it never happens it never happens and also you know there's an offer to people in the city you know on this what they call the tea offensive so there's no such thing as a free lunch so I mean I was going around the city meeting with asset managers and really wealthy people actually they don't want to step outside their office and step over at homeless person they want to go home and feel safe actually they don't want to live in gated communities you know and yeah actually when there's an emergency they do rely upon the NHS their private schemes and Bupa and all that sort of thing so I actually think most actually believe they want to live in the sort of society we want to create and most of them actually are quite willing to pay the levels of taxation we're talking about to enable that to happen so I don't think there will be this huge flight of the wealthy the other thing as well is that I've been talking to quite a number of company chief execs as well and saying look this is the sort of things we're doing like some but you might dislike others but it's going to happen anyway, get used to it and people have got used to it you know I've been talking to them in the city about financial transaction, tax, a Tobin tax they don't like it, it's not massive or anything like that but I just say it's going to happen so get used to it because actually that money will be out of providers with the investment in skills training and education that you've all been talking about you need in your companies so I don't, there's always that shocker although we mass migrate there won't be I suppose you could say, they're obviously not that keen on these ideas otherwise you wouldn't have this huge establishment counter-offensive you're being elected but once you get there they'll basically accept it but what happens is it's all the smoke and fury of an election campaign or every time we announce a policy that they don't like but it's like anything else, a lot of it's huff and puff and then they settle down and see the reality of it and then often either sign up and then you'll find a couple years time they'll tell you it was their idea in the first place I mean also the reason why the media have responded in the way they have let's look at the papers in this country Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph Spectator owned by the Barclay Brothers they live on an island just off Sark in the Jersey Islands hugely worthy guys they're non-doms Lord Rothermere, 4th, 5th counter-othermere owns the mail on Sunday they're worth 8 billion by the way he's worth a billion in France, legally he somehow inherited it from his father Rupert Murdoch he's worth 20 billion you know, he founded I think news group whatever it's called now, that's changed the name they're restructured there's news UK now and they're UK holding Sunday Times Times, Sunday, Sun on Sunday these are all billionaires that's 75% of the UK print media we know that broadcast replicates the print agenda so it's a perfectly you know, it's perfectly explicable the response that John's elisted the issue during a general election campaign is that we always argue that the media are legally obliged to give us some semblance of coverage and that we get it but it is a semblance because exactly as you just said particularly because of the cutbacks that there's been in the BBC over a number of journalists and researchers etc is that actually the broadcast media will take their headlines from the press do you think that's got worse? I'll tell you I've been on picket lines outside the BBC Jeremy and I set up the National Union Journalist Parliamentary Group so over the years we've been campaigning for resources in terms of BBC broadcast, national but also local papers as well local papers have actually disappeared in many areas so we've had campaign after campaign I can remember being on picket lines outside the BBC, well Paul Mason was on one we were out there and that was about what we were taking place so as those broadcast organisations lose the number of journalists and researchers that they've got they become more dependent on the press and that press is extremely, it's not just biased it's just invent stuff, it's just bizarre That's an interesting argument actually because people often say, I mean quite rightly when you're getting these attacks in opposition and during an election campaign it's also going to be a huge challenge when you're in government having these attacks and you're going to reform the media but I haven't really heard the argument that all you need to do is give the BBC a bit more money because if they've got a bit more money they can be a bit more independent it's about resource, it's about resource most journalists want to do their job I have a great respect for journalists and I think it's an honourable tradition honourable career, when we set up the NGA Parliamentary Group part of what was about not just journalists in this country we were campaigning about what was happening in terms of journalists being murdered in Russia there's about 70 journalists a year that get killed globally so journalists provide us with a fundamental public service that I think a healthy society needs but as soon as you start eroding that and the BBC is a good example as soon as you start eroding the basic number of staff and therefore the ability to research and report effectively then you're losing the quality of the product in itself then you become dependent upon replication of either press releases from political parties as well or replication of what goes on in the media and we know who exactly as Aaron said who owns the media for me the paradigmatic example that was how the Sunday papers and by the way the most read weekend newspaper in this country now is the Mail on Saturday it's not any Sunday papers they're seeing their circulations just fall and you had before the Mars show you know, you had the news they lead on that story goes to the Mars show, you know the first three papers Sunday Telegraph, Mail on Sunday, Sun on Sunday all with the same story coordinated four days earlier the political editor and the editor of the Daily Mailers now did they talk about that we have no idea okay but we can infer reasonably you know and like you say I agree with you and often when I attack I've attacked the BBC about this stuff it's coming back at me I'm not saying they're bad people there's clearly like you say it seems to me Newsnight as well started to do a paper review in the last 18 months it's weird how broadcast is amplifying print media rather than being a counterweight you can see on Newsnight that's filling time because they've got the staff and there isn't that level of research independent programming that goes on so yeah what happens is the media sort of swallows itself you start talking about each other so you start doing reviews of the paper sometimes that's interesting but not continuously you know the mail is my favourite the mail is my favourite it goes beyond anything you'd ever imagined years ago really as they did a story on me a few weeks ago and I did this speech in Parliament think about six or seven years ago about housing in my area and about the development by to that landlords which by to that's fine but actually by to that landlords who actually don't maintain their properties and I said actually in my street about a third of my street have been taken up and you can tell what your by to let's and not manage properly so what the Daily Mail did they went and knocked on all my neighbours doors but they mentioned my name of course the neighbours all cooperate because they thought someone was canvassing on my behalf so they were and then they ran a story about a third mostly by to let's etc actually they didn't do the assessment properly within three days they put photographs of my home then the street itself within three days of that we have a children's nursery at the top of the road huge white wall three days within that was covered in swastikas saying leave means leave, McDonald out and all the rest that's the sort of stuff in the last general election as you know you may know my wife of going origin she's born in Kenya but she's a family her mum and dad have moved back to their traditional home and go every time they're in the late 80s in the last general election the mail sent journalists and a photographer out to Goa to knock on their door and of course they're nice people they just invite people they ain't coming for a cup of tea and they sort of getting slowly interrogated about do we own do I own properties in Goa anyway they sussed it and just threw them out then very politely but that's the level of injury all of my family have had people parked outside their homes at some stage for a week has it made you a more suspicious person if you meet a stranger and someone wants to come in for a cup of tea you do start thinking maybe these people are daily mail journalists I try not to be but you have to be careful you have to be really careful I'm much more careful now what I say I've dropped myself in the mire a number of times I'll wrap it in off at things I don't have any occasional speeches as you know but you do have to be more careful about what you do and to for me I'm not bothered because they can take me on whenever they want and I'll respond accordingly but it's when they impact your family that's the worst bit that invasion of privacy on your family but also when they make your family vulnerable so pictures of my home everyone knows where I live anyway but it's only 18 months ago I wake up in the morning I go out in the morning there's a pile of turds in my doorstep in the 80s I had bottles broken in my children's and my windows put through the one which was the most bizarre is someone poured maggots through my letterbox and they must have been their hours because we woke up in the morning there's this layer of maggots at all I didn't even fish at the time they were completely useful useless but anyway you just get used to it but it's when they have a go at your family that's the worst bit and Jeremy has just been appalling really but what's good about it is that when you're portrayed as almost having two heads in the media and then people meet you they really well not me but they meet Jeremy they realise he hasn't in general a concern that many people have in this general election is that Jeremy's ratings are fairly poor you can have whatever analysis of it that you like but I mean what how do you see that being turned around before the 12th of December the key issue for us is as I say in that media coverage at least you get some semblance legally you get some semblance about this coverage but also you get more coverage naturally you get more coverage you get more opportunities of sitting down like this in different forms of media we're trying to make sure that Jeremy now does as much of that as possible and that people just see what he's like and then when people you know you've met him enough times when you see him what he's like people like him he just comes across as a genuine nice bloke but also he comes across a very principle and I think he comes across that sort of leader you want you want someone at I think things have moved on so dramatically in our politics in terms of the experiences that people have had that actually people want a leader who listens who brings people together who's calm and reassuring but quite firm as well of their view and as a history of being firm on the basis of their beliefs I think he's the ideal leader for our times and I say that genuinely because that's the way I know him so I think when he's on the media in any form whatsoever if he can get that across I think we'll turn those ratings around we did it last time I think we'll do it this time he's had much more of a battering of the last since the last general election by the media itself and you will get stuff on the doorstep but then actually what happens then is people do see him on TV and all that sort and they come by and think actually he's not a bad bloke is he so another turning point in the last general election was the manifesto it was the fetish object of 2017 everyone was like this manifesto had almost magical qualities that it was positive turning around labors fortunes I've never looked on Andrew Fischer as a fetish but there you are that could be, oh you haven't that would be a nice little break in news some gossip on Andrew Fischer live on Tisgizawa if anyone in the audience doesn't know he's head of policy and he does the drafting of the manifesto he brings it all together and tomorrow you've got your clause 5 meeting so that's when the manifesto is now drafted it's now a written thing the various stakeholders people in the shadow cabinet, people in the unions people in the BLB they read through it and decided they want to keep it we go through it line by line line by line what happens is everyone comes in the morning they sit down with their copy most of them have been involved in some element of drafting already because the policy had been developed that way they'll have the opposite for a few hours just to read it through and also check anything that will have all our researchers and policy advisers did you take away people's phones? I don't think we did last time well you obviously did last time no but it wasn't leaked from the course it wasn't leaked from the clause 5 it was leaked subsequently I almost got the blame for that everyone thought clever weeds McDonald's leaked it that's what I said next time but what happens is you have a couple of hours which you can go through it and also you've got the policy advisers there to test anything and then we formally meet and we go through it line by line and people will say look I think this doesn't go far enough I think there's a problem with this and literally there and then we start amending and there is an element of sort of negotiation but last time we're through pretty quickly last time and it was there's no ranker what's interesting there's no ranker it's more about will this worker want it unions will obviously be that represent their members and the broader agenda the NEC members will be thinking as well as the just tactically as well about coming back from their different areas of expertise and regions etc will this be a flyer will it be an issue in our will it be enough and then at the end of the day once we get to the end of the meeting it's then signed off it goes to print there might be sometimes at the end of the course last year there was a couple of issues where we said look can we leave that to a further discussion because we know the parameters of that discussion can we leave it to John and Jeremy just sit down and go through it and that's what we did and so one of the big debates I suppose coming up to tomorrow to that clause 5 meeting this year in particular it was the first Labour Party conference where there were lots of policies that came from the conference floor and they really in a way shifted official policy to the left or made it much more radical you've got the abolition of private schools you've got defending and extending freedom of movement you've got zero carbon emissions by 2030 very radical proposals and there's been speculation as to which of these are going to make it into the manifesto so I don't know what your thoughts are in terms of how the party should deal with that if it sees any of these as a tactical mistake or if it has to just say well it was passed on the conference floor so it's going to have to be in the manifesto there's always a debate about how much, how far we can go within a period of office five years how far you can get there there's always a debate about what's pragmatic in this what's practical about being able to do but what you want to do is try and install as much as you can from the conference policies into that and that will be the debate tomorrow and you'll see it I think if it goes through as it is from the bits I've seen I think it will be pretty radical and reflect a lot of what went through conference but it's always about I'm a bit of I get accused of being a bureaucrat which I am to be honest I'm quite proud of it but it's all about a lot of it it's about the sequences of implementation and how you can get to different plateaus of policymaking that you can then leap a bit further on but it is it's not horse trading it'll be a genuine political debate last year it was over fairly quickly there was a couple of key issues there was a discussion about tuition fees do you really want to go this whole hog on tuition fees we said actually we do and there was a really good debate is this practical, is it pragmatic yes it is, but actually it's more fundamental this idea I always say education and give from one generation to another not a commodity to be bought and sold establish that principle and that's how now we've gone to the National Education Service under that principle there was a genuine discussion should we apply the same principles from the NHS into education of course we should universal basic services I wish we could find a different term for them so people are clearer about what they are there's a big debate about universal basic services how we extend them so today the broadband was universal basic service can we go any further on this at this stage in the first term for Labour government some of it might do you have to do it in the second term when you've won the argument a bit more or when you've been able to create the growth in the economy that we want big debate that we'll have this year will bound to be as with the IFS again this doesn't never accepts that the multiplier effect of the investment that we put into the economy so again the debate is how much of a multiplier effect are we going to get for this scale of investment we're putting in last time we had the round with the IFS because it's bizarre I thought they were large and Keynesians and they'd understand this more effectively the scale of investment we're putting in this time they've got to accept we'll have a multiplier effect in our economy overall it's those sorts of discussions that we'll have in some detail I'm just going to say I'm going to go to questions from the audience in a moment but first of all with this one with the UBS of full fibre it would obviously have a multiplier effect let's not even talk about the things about region inequality reducing carbon footprint etc etc it would productivity is going to be stale that's basically it so I was going to say it would have a multiplier effect it would obviously just purely from final demand great productivity perspective great is there a part of you that thinks the financial times should get behind labour and back us ahead of the general election? it's interesting because the FT when they did their analysis of some of our public ownership proposal like on water they came as near as damn it to support in the policy they did an exposure on water which completely echoed everything that we've said what poor privatisation it was and how people were being ripped off and the levels of investment that hadn't gone on and the way that they'd loaded the companies with debt even though they were privatised without any debt so it's interesting the FT at times have given us actually an element of fair reportage which I'm quite pleased with they've got the hump today a bit because we didn't give them the broadband in advance and we did to the BBC because we wanted to get the films sorted out in advance rather than have the rush around on the day so we did, I did an interview at the Kernsberg that was embargoed and then went on the 10 o'clock news so the FT we've got a bit of the hump with us why don't you give it to us as well so if they recommend against voting labour in this election blame me we've got our first question, it's a really good one Ben Jay Banjo asks can we get an easy concise version of the manifesto for those out on the doorstep Yes there will be first of all there will be a summary of the policies that's the first thing secondly we're looking at how we can use film and social media etc to get that out there so yeah, that'll happen the manifesto is quite broad so there'll be also some of the policies that are flagged up in the manifesto they'll be spelt out in more detail in policy statements in the run up to the actual election day itself so that people have those as well do you worry, so I mean I'm very confident that the manifesto that comes out is going to be a vision that makes Britain much much better than it already is and then it's been in a very long time I suppose the one concern that some people might have and I think is a real one is that as the manifesto has got more radical it's become slightly more complicated and it's a bit harder to explain so there was something about the 2017 manifesto which was all scratch tuition fees, I get that we'll build a lot of council homes I get that when it comes to inclusive ownership funds when it comes to bringing in new sectors of the economy into universal basic services especially when it comes to these big numbers in these investment funds when we're talking about 250 billion here 250 billion there I suppose there will be lots of people watching you are saying I'm going on the doorstep and I want to know what's the story, how do I get across what the point of this manifesto is and how it's going to change people's lives look at what happened in Australia the Labour Party there had a great conference they had a multiplicity of policies which were great couldn't discreet with them they were very supportive of them they then go into an election and they couldn't narrow it down to basic themes and they lost because they were up against an opponent that just hammered a couple of individual messages what we've got to do is be a bit more sophisticated than that in terms of have a broad manifesto that people will be interested in all different aspects where it ranges from investment in our economy right the way across to animal rights green industrial revolution all that so people can actually seize upon those areas that they're interested in but it is then boiling it down to a few key issues and a few key messages free broadband it just symbolised everything we're about so it isn't just about making the statement that we're in favour of universal basic services it's actually saying this is an absolute concrete example of what we're all about the sort of society and economy we want to create and that I'm hoping tonight I'm hoping tonight that people have got any engagement whatsoever in the news or the media today we'll go to bed thinking actually free broadband that's what Labour Party came up with I think about it all might be discussing in the pub or might be at around the dinner table tonight with their family we put it on the agenda and what we've also done is we've just got a serious debate going again you know rather than rather than this sort of bluster and bravado that we've had from Boris Johnson you know how many times can he be seen in a white coat in a hospital you know it's extraordinary I don't think he can, I think it's not working now I think the the rambling speeches with bizarre language of onanism and all the rest of it there's only so much you can take you know I look, Simon Fletcher who headed up Ken Livingston's office and was involved in the election campaigns between Ken and Boris he basically did a note for us and said this is the sort of thing he'll do he will not engage in a debate in terms he'll never answer a question he'll always interrupt and be quite rude about it as well he'll bluster and huff and puff he'll keep smiling etc and he said you just have to try and find a mechanism to cut through that and I think the way that you do cut through is just actually it is about it is about having a serious debate and I just say look this is the reality the real world is intruding on people's lives and that's where we are at the media games let us as grown-ups get on with dealing with the real issues and I think that's the sort of cut through we're getting as we announce individual policies NHS the other day you know how he tours around well he stopped going to hospitals because they're booing him as they go there you know people are turning up and and demonstrating Hillington Hospital which is my hospital is his hospital he's my next door neighbour in terms of constituencies now they've just closed the children's wards because they're unsafe because a lack of investment we've been campaigning his predecessor was a local conservative MP he lived in the community he actually was really respected a good traditional constituency MP who worked hard on half his constituents we've been campaigning together on a cross-party basis to get investment in the hospital and build a new hospital for a decade we've been doing that Tories wouldn't budge now the children's wards have closed they're unsafe what does Boris Johnson do he turns up for a photo call that's it that's why Ali Milani stands a good chance of taking the seat at this time I've got a question I like reading these ones out one because it's got a personal experience in it and two it's got a phrase and an acronym I don't understand so I like taking the risk of reading it out giving that I don't know what it means but this is from John as a proud socialist this is from Jarrow R's 1976 as a proud socialist but also a fibre planning manager for an alt-net rolling out FTTH I'm not sure what an FTTH is but the question will make sense either way I'm conflicted what's your answer to inevitable skill surplus and job losses in the telecoms industry right okay from what we're doing in terms of our plans at the moment 10-year program of quite intensive work if we're going to succeed in that 10 years so all the jobs that we've got at the moment will desperately need and we'll most probably have to expand that in that program itself but remember what we built into our national education service is first of all the ability to have free education from cradle to grave and that means a lot more investment in FE and skills training as well so as a particular skill within the tech sector is developed and used and may not may be acquired you're always able to update those skills and move on now what we're putting in place on the on over this decade is full fiber network and people say well actually it might develop on that 10 years actually I think it'll most probably the most stable thing that we'll have for quite a long period but we're also putting a lot of money in the research and development and that will enable new developments to take place but alongside that you're training people in the skills for those new developments so I think it's just it is just a matter of keeping pace rather than just running on the spot but he's right they're in in areas where we're introducing new technology there will be the development of skills for the long term new jobs appearing we've got to keep pace with that but also I'm hoping that the use of new technology will help us to be more productive and therefore reduce the working week and in that way yes you know you you're not dis placing people you're just giving them the quality of life and work life balance that we're all aspiring to as a question and this relates to I think was it any in some of the some of the criticisms today were about if you have free broadband why not have free everything else so this is free water was one this relates to it so Richard Margarison Margarison I might have pronounced that incorrectly does John support the idea of subsidized or free at the point of use food in the future right you have to be realistic about what we're going to do in the first term of a Labour government and you look at what the priorities are the priorities for me is to make sure that we've got a productive economy where the wealth is more equally and that we tackle the grotesque inequalities we've got the reason that we use it we're using broadband as a universal basic service in that way because it does a number of things it tackles the social inequalities it tackles the issues around climate change reduction of commuting etc and therefore taking carbon out of the equation and for many people but also what it does it's exactly as Aaron said it stimulates the economy in such a way to become more productive and in that way the calculation of £59 billion worth of increase in the economy overall as a result of that productivity increase in that way we can use those resources then to pay for our public services tackling inequality etc so you have to do this in what is realistic phases because I got asked a question today if not broadband why not water well actually you said we're bringing water back into public ownership we'll reduce bills as a result of that and we'll be able to harness that public utility much more effectively in tackling climate change too so it's just a matter how you stays these things no I was going to say there's a few things firstly food is a more rivalrous good than the internet so anybody right now go you know click if you're using an iMac or a MacBook go to that little logo at the top which is your wifi network look at how many networks are available right the point is you're excluded from that in economics that's called excludability so the way that you access these things that abundance is already there but it's gating away because we live under capitalist social relations so that's already there right but it's being closed off so that's a very different way of accessing something then to food which is incredibly rivalrous if I have a burger and John wants the burger and I want the burger we either share or one of us eats it but we can't both have the one burger each it's a very different good and then secondly the cost of entry to building a national full fiber infrastructure tens of billions of pounds the cost of entry to creating food are quite low so who can afford to do that generally for high cost of entry it's either a state or it's a monopolistic multinational which tend not to be particularly transparent which tend to engage in tax avoidance in the case for instance of an Amazon or a Google for instance so I think the argument is very very different the idea that this is like food is a weak one and obviously like John said this is a natural monopoly but there's different solutions isn't there for everything which is the issue at the moment is that what we have a government at the moment that can't feed its population can't house its population can't even keep them safe so how do you tackle them well the way in which you tackle the issue of making sure people can put food on the table is making sure they own a living wage so there's different solutions so rather than providing food free it's making sure that you have people earning enough in work or if they're out of work having this appropriate safety net so they can afford food you know I'm going to end with a comment and a question that's being asked by many so the comment is from our very own Max Shanley not a question but I just want to thank John for helping me get an education you helped change my life for the better mate I can't wait for you to transform the lives of our class for the better too he's a star Max he's such a great activist and thinker as well he's done really good work in bringing others together just to think through some of the issues we have to face and you can find his podcast all the best on our website and the final question which is being asked by a lot of people how do we get Sajid Javed to debate you that's a good point actually that's a very good point last week he did this big bravado thing I'll debate John McDonald wherever we said well yeah we know because we've already asked you and then when we were fixing up it was meant to be this Sunday it was Channel 4 and they came back and just said look he's putting all these different obstacles in the way so they didn't well he said well is it off he said well shall we talk shall we say it's postponed I said okay go back to him and say it's postponed but just get on with it now and it's interesting yeah just I don't know what I don't get I'm I'm trying to be nice like Jeremy Corbyn and not get personal about this okay I keep telling people on the Jeremy Corbyn niceness course but I keep getting halfway and sent back again to the beginning that sort of thing so I got to be careful but with so look at the debates in Parliament I just some of the stuff he I don't mind Philip Hammond actually has the chance and I was born before him they'd have a bit of knock about but actually you would get to a discussion about an element of the intellectual roots of their economic policy and you would get a discussion about some of the detail of that economic policy and so at least you're engaged in the debate that doesn't happen such a job what happens is you just repeat the Tory headquarter script time and time again and I think that's why he doesn't want the debate itself because I think actually we could expose his exaggeration and distortion of our own policies but we could get to the roots as well of some of the fundamental elements of the Tory policy of the last well generation really what he didn't like in the last Parliamentary debate is that he was going on about Labour's crisis and I thought I'm not having this you know this was a bankers crash you're a director at Deutscher's bank you were selling the CDOs which were seen as the weapons of mass destruction that brought about that crash so I'm not having that so we just quietened him down a bit and he sort of slunk off and you've said Channel 4 was saying he was putting lots of conditions in front of it and I don't say unambiguously you will debate Sajid Javed any place any format we've said that time and time again we've said it so often and again I said it with Osborne I said it with Hammond as well this is my third chance so yeah we've said that time and time again what conditions was he sort of stipulating don't know my Commons officer was basically pushing and saying can we have that date can we get it sorted out now and Channel 4 don't go into details it's going to be very difficult so they've said well he said is it off shall we say it's postponed let us know the date and we'll sort it out there's always lots of negotiations around these things but I said to Andy Whittaker who's our Commons officer don't put any conditions down just say let's have that discussion come do it on Navarra media Sajid yeah why not wouldn't exactly be neutral I mean if he said no to Channel 4 he's probably not going to say yes to that one thank you for joining us this evening keep fighting a good fight pleasure my pleasure thank you for watching this evening we've hit 2K we want to keep doing these shows more and more often get more big names in before the general election to make that happen please go to support.nfrahrmedia.com and donate the equivalent of one hour's wage a month or if you already do as well as saying thank you very much maybe give us a little election bonus I think that seems fair good night