 Good evening and welcome to tisky sour we're guessing you are joining us straight after the final head-to-head debate of this general election from now until December the 12th. The only thing that can really shift the polls is you guys knocking on people's doors and telling them why they should vote for hope and socialism over. I suppose Boris Johnson calls it getting Brexit done but we know that this is going to be years of wrangling with the United States. I'm potentially selling out our public services there's all to play for. I'm in terms of that debate wasn't the most insulating TV I've ever watched but you can go knocking on those doors knowing that. Our leader your leader Jeremy Corbyn has straight glasses this time around so he looks prime ministerial but I mean in my opinion some of the truth obviously will break it down as we go along I'm joined this evening. By James Butler good evening how did you find that our long experience yeah I mean I say I I kind of I've always been sort of very skeptical about these debates in general they're sort of American import into politics and actually people been. Leaders have been very hostile to them in the past I actually thought this one was fine I actually thought it was maybe I think less interesting but also sort of perhaps a little more informative than the ITV one the previous ITV one like you I felt most of it was a dead heat I thought it became most interesting in that five minutes sort of towards the end where you've got some conversation actually some back and forth some real disagreement there in the room and then I think the closing statements were interesting as well. I do think it is significant that the Tory statement the Tory closing statement you know repeated the mantra the get Brexit done but also went very heavy on the sort of negative attacks and this is I think characterizing the Tory approach in these sort of last few weeks of the campaign I think it's also going to characterize the next six days as well I thought you know Corbyn's final piece to camera I thought was strong I thought it was a very clear and a message of optimism and hope for the rest of it I mean you know. What was pretty clear was that both of them were really speaking past each other right they were speaking to their respective bases is why Johnson's going hard and get Brexit done he's going hard. You know on on attempting to undermine any sense that he's a threat in any way to public services he knows that's very much a weak point for him is why Corbyn is also going very hard on the NHS. Why is also going very hard on public services and I thought he could have gone harder didn't go hard enough really on linking Johnson to the Tory party that was very clear at the beginning of the debate. But it you know it's essential for him really in these next few days is essential for for all of us really to be making very very clear the point is that Johnson did this a lot I've only been in power for 130 days. Well you've been a pillar a central pillar in a support of Tory governments for years and years and years and years you were thrilled to argue about breaking you know the monopolistic and monolithic NHS is back venture back in two thousand two. You voted enthusiastically for austerity voted enthusiastically for Foxhunting voted you know enthusiastically you know on the sort of introduction you know against sort of funding social care properly for you know gutting councils so it's all this stuff I think it's very very important news obviously Corbyn was trying to do that a bit and Johnson was very very much rowing back away from it and trying to take the focus away from himself as a toy so that's what was going on though really it wasn't a debate it was addressing through the medium of television their respective bases in this point in the campaign. I was interesting I was just thinking just before we went live why because we've done two of these shows now straight after the debates we didn't do one after the question time because to be honest I was I didn't realize it was going to be such a big a big event you know the time we had the four leaders seven who are asking for leaders one after the other answering questions from a live studio audience and it's a shame we didn't do a live show after that because that was electric and I was thinking why is it that after both debates which I think in both cases we said we're fine it was a bit of a truce. Jeremy Corbyn got his point across Boris Johnson got his point across last time it was a shame there was no real you know zingers this time around last time there was Corbyn bringing the receipts about Boris Johnson in a trade deal with the end with with the Americans and talking about the NHS he had a good line on that will go to later but the receipts this time which we're fine there's going to be some custom checks between between Britain and Northern Ireland yes I think that is something that actually could you know cause damage in a general election but it doesn't really fit with. What are Jeremy Corbyn's values which he is passionate about you know when he's shouting at him about trading away the NHS of the United States I mean that ticks actually loads of Corbyn boxes you know he's never been that keen on deals with the United States he's a big fan of the NHS and. I mean there is this like long standing division within the Labour Party right and it's a kind of instinctive cringe that attends like most Labour politicians right is and it goes right the way back to if you remember and it's come out. You know recently again it's now kind of lying that the Labour activists like to trot about the tourism that they're lower than vermin it's a quotation from. Speech given by Nye Bevin just before the introduction of the NHS. But it you know at least wrote to Bevin saying saying oh I wish you hadn't done that that's very bad please stop doing that because you want to bring it in as consensus we're respectable politicians with statesman like. And everyone was like yeah but they are actually scum though. But that division within the Labour Party has always been there and it's you know that figuring out like how to have a class politics while also you know making yourself look like a party of government it's a very difficult thing to do and people tip from one way to another. You know personally always with me I would always like to see more attack on the tourism that gets me going it doesn't necessarily get everyone else going. Well I think it that's actually I think when I started my previous point I got distracted by talking about the NHS and the United States but I think why the question time event was electric and the debate wasn't. Is because the thing that Jeremy Corbyn the thing that's refreshing about Jeremy Corbyn and the reason he inspired people and the reason I mean he had a breakthrough and when he was running to be leader of the Labour Party is that he answers questions quite honestly. So one thing that was quite impressive in that question time was he was asked it was really niche I don't know how this question got through but someone asked him a question about Bolivia and why he'd sent out a tweet in solidarity with Evermore Alice. And Jeremy Corbyn was just there thoughtful and he gave a sort of like three minute very considered obviously it was quite right but he gave a three minute very considered speech about Bolivia you know he answers questions directly and after that half an hour you're like well that's a guy who just you know he answers questions saying what he thinks. He seems very knowledgeable you can ask him questions about anything and he has sort of like a reasonably long answer that he can deliver to it and which is fairly convincing and I think that's why people see he's an honest guy we can we can understand that. In a debate as we saw today it really is about message discipline because it's very difficult to I suppose answer a question you know in an honest considered manner when one you only have 30 to 60 seconds to answer it and two when you're standing next to someone whose whole job is to trash it. So you do have to be you know engaging more in a disciplined battle. Absolutely I mean just why hate these debates I mean like they're not debates. Well some people you could say Bernie Sanders is a is a more probably rounded politician than Jeremy Corbyn because he can do both he can do that sort of considered answer to a crowd of people where people like yeah I really get his values and he can do the message discipline this is what I'm attacking you about because if Jeremy Corbyn was a bit more of an aggressive chap. You could have Labour message discipline in in a debate like that and it would be based on who do you stand for. So I think many of the answers that Boris Johnson gave you can have the response who is it that you stand for you know when it comes to getting Brexit done what why are you so keen to get your deal through as quickly as you are. Let's look at your past you are the person who said you have been kinder to bankers and you have been the best friend that bankers have had in this country. Why are we to trust you that when you are signing a trade deal it is not going to be in the interest of the elites in this country when you were behind closed doors he should also talk about his record. So whenever there's a topic which comes up about the NHS operation and Corbyn does do this to be fair but not in the personalized way that I think it needs to be which is that you are standing here as a member of the conservative establishment. You've been a leading figure in the party for the last 10 years and for the last 10 years this party has decimated our services everyone in this room understands this everyone watching at home under stands this and yeah I think he could have returned to that slightly more. This is exactly as I was saying I think one has to be really relentless in making the case that this guy is not exceptional he's not unusual he's not you know particularly distinctive he might be a particularly execrable example of a conservative politician he might have a slightly more flamboyant line in lies and deception he might have you know a slightly. I don't find it charming actually I don't you know I think various people in the press do but I've never found it charming this sort of bluster and sort of ill-concealed smirking and ill-concealed sort of fury and entitlement when he's called on these things. I don't you know I mean this is who this guy is it's not very distinctive from the Tory party and I think you have to make it very much about his political record but also you know like. There's nothing exceptional about Boris Johnson government is 130 days more of the same of what we've had for nine years. I think actually the first clip we were going to show is is I can't remember if it's Boris Johnson giving a lie or Boris Johnson being called out on the hospital's lights him being called out on the hospital's line go to it in a moment. That's something that I think you know Jeremy Corbyn was strong on the Labour Party have been strong on and has cut through people do understand that when Boris Johnson has made claims about the amount of hospitals that will be built or the amount of nurses that will be added to the NHS they have been simply untrue. Where I think a greater connection could be made is it's not just that Boris Johnson is a pathological liar so that's the narrative is often you can't trust this man he's a pathological liar but it's I think the answer could be more of course he's lying. Of course when this man said he was going to build 20 hospitals of course when this person who is as establishment as they come who has you know never struggled in his life who was always dined with the wealthy and drunk at drinking clubs in Oxford University. This is not a man who is going to redirect the resources of this country as I would to rebuild our NHS which is the greatest social democratic institution we have of course he's lying. I think it would potentially land a bit more and I'm sure people are doing this you know on doorsteps throughout the country which is of course he's lying because it's not in his interest to be building 40 hospitals or creating 50,000 new new jobs as nurses in the NHS. I think maybe there was a trick that was missed there but should we should we look at the clip anyway so we're going to look at Corbyn calling out Boris Johnson on his hospitals lie. The Prime Minister the day after he was appointed announced there was going to be 40 new hospitals a week later that became 20 a bit later on it became six new hospitals. He seems to have a problem with the figures about hospital building in Britain. Perhaps I could elucidate Mr Corbyn who has a problem with Brexit policy but the reality is that we have a very clear agenda which is to upgrade 20 hospitals to build 40 new ones. It's perfectly true that the cash allocation for the whole hospital build is for six initially but we're putting in the seed funding now so that they can do the architect's drawings, do the plans, do all the business case so that in 10 years time as a result of the decisions taken just in the last 130 days by this government there will be 40 new hospitals in this country. Well what's wrong with that is 12 hours or 15 hours after being appointed Prime Minister he came to Parliament and grandly announced there was 40 new hospitals. It turned out the words that's when he was asked where they were going to be but that was then reduced to 20 and then it became seed funding for six. It's not credible to make those kind of statements and not be able to back it up with any serious plan. We're back on. I'm going to go to you, resident boffin. Are there going to be 40 hospitals built or six hospitals built? No, I mean it's not even six really, only one of them really will count probably, this is the Whips Cross refurbishment which counts probably it's so extensive as to count as a new hospital. The Whips Cross is a shithole, that's my local hospital, it was my local hospital. Third place all the staff, wonderful people but that place is a shithole. Yeah, look this is very much in the line of the same stuff that the Tory party has been saying about national insurance contributions, right? So they're going to raise them to 12,500 being the income threshold at which you start paying national insurance. But then that turns out to have been an aspiration and that turns out to actually not even be something that they intend to achieve within the life of a single Parliament, so within the next five years. So lots of this is stuff that, you know, it's not even in the pipeline. Same is true with the proposals to reverse the kind of beaching railway cuts, so these are the cuts that were decimated, British railway networks. Reversing has to be extremely expensive, they've only put 500 million into their budget for it. I think you would maybe get a stretch of one line, one very short line there, but more importantly in the government pipeline documents, they're not even there. They're not even doing the kind of basic research from them. The seed capital funding that Johnson is talking about there will go absolutely nowhere. What's your take, I suppose, on why the Conservatives have, I suppose fiddled with the truth so much when it comes to the NHS? I mean the argument with the nurses, so that also came up, is there 50,000? Are there 31,000 new nurses? One option for the Conservatives would have just been to announce 31,000 new nurses. That's uncomplicated. They are planning to introduce 31,000 new nurses. Why did they have to add on the extra 18,000? Is there something, is there a three-dimensional or four-dimensional game of chess that's being played that I don't understand? Well, I mean, you'll hear messaging people say sort of 50 numbers are better than 30 numbers, stuff like that. So when you've got like a halfway to a hundred, you know, that's better, whatever. I'm always pretty skeptical about that stuff as if it's sort of like astrology for kind of political messaging. But look, I mean, you know, the reason that, well, I mean, it's curious. Obviously I don't have kind of psychic access to the inner workings of Tory strategists. But what I would say, what I would suggest is that they recognize that the 2017 manifesto contained a lot of problems for them, right? So the dementia tax being the most obvious one. But one of the reasons that dementia tax was so, you know, so strikingly part of that campaign is because actually people have been talking about this manifesto as if it's, you know, really, really pared down. Actually, the last manifesto was pretty pared down. So it didn't have much policy in this one has even less. It has sort of all sorts of concerning things which, you know, maybe we'll come on to about, you know, amending or rewriting the Human Rights Act. That's in there in Tory manifesto, sort of unpleasant part of their kind of constitutional packages. But, you know, on the NHS, they recognize that it's a weak point for them. They recognize that it's always been a historic weak point for the Conservative Party and more particularly that it's a strong point for the other party. You know, I want to read something here. I'm just very short. It's from a report written for a key, thatcherite organizations entity within the Tory party called the Economic Reconstruction Group in that kind of exciting Tory euphemism. This is back in 1977. So it's just before thatcher comes to power, written by Nick Ridley, who was a chief architect of the poll tax. But he writes, and this is about nationalizations or denationalization privatization. So denationalization should not be attempted by frontal attack, but by preparation for return to the private sector by stealth. We should first pass legislation to destroy public sector monopolies. We might also need to take power to sell assets. Secondly, we should fragment the industries as far as possible and set up the units as separate profit centers. Now this works for thatcherites in a lot of industries. NHS in particular needed that stealth approach. So they went in, they did things like privatize cleaners and stuff like that. And then it goes on, it gets taken up by let win and people like that in the late 80s. Colors, the Blairite approach, frankly. But they know that, you know, that we're in a winter election and a winter election in which the NHS is an issue. There are more people using the NHS. There are more people, you know, frankly confronted with the reality of A&E waiting times. So they have to sound big and they have to sound generous on it. And, you know, I was surprised about the 50,000 figure because it was so easily taken apart. Just as I was surprised by the kind of 40, the vanishing hospitals. You know, I thought they'd be a little more cunning than that. But their hope, and it's not an unreasonable hope, is that people read headlines. They don't read details. They read headlines. I think it's come apart from what they've gone on TV. So it seems to have cut through when Nikki Morgan has sat there and being told by, you know, this is a lie so flagrant that even Pierce Morgan recognized that it was a lie. Can that clip was viewed 7 million times? It's likely that that's cut through. It wasn't just viewed 7 million times, it was shared and shared and shared and shared. The hope was that, you know, the other side of this is that maybe through stuff like this, you create a huge ambiguity about the kind of promises that are being made in the selection. And so you feed the sense that actually you can't trust any politician at all. So when Jeremy Corbyn comes and says like, actually, the hope, the power to do this actually does rest in your hands. That you can do it, that you can for perhaps the first time in your life, trust a politician. And then part of what they're doing with this kind of, you know, squid ink approach to public policy is say, actually, you can't. Lies are everywhere. Lies are high up and low down in public places. They're in our manifesto. Don't trust anyone. Don't trust anyone. And if you don't trust anyone, then come home to the Tory party. I mean, that's the challenge actually, I think, to Labour or any progressive is how to... So let's put this a different way. The Conservatives know they're weak on the NHS and strong on Brexit. Well, strong on Brexit in that they've got a simple line which has some cut through. We might not think it's a particularly good policy, but they want to be talking about it. Now, you win as a Conservative after a debate if during the NHS part of the conversation, people are confused and bored. And during the Brexit part of the conversation, people know what's going on because they want people to be switched on at the Brexit part. And I suppose so long as we're debating, is it 31,000? Is it 50,000? Is it four hospitals? You know, the moment seed funding is mentioned is when so many people are watching that debate. You cannot be trusted. Yeah, which is why you make it about values. So the task of the progressive is to make sure during that NHS section people are thinking about values, people are thinking about whose side do people stand on and they are clear about what struggle is going on. If you're having a debate about numbers in that part, I mean, we need to see polling on it, but what the Conservatives are going to 100% be hoping is that the NHS part people got a bit confused and bored, the Brexit part they were paying attention. And I suppose that could be the four-dimensional why you might create these. The other thing to say about this is election campaigns are also extremely chaotic. So, you know, it's quite possible. It's always possible to attribute more coherence to the opponent than they actually possess. On the other hand, I do think there is a strong element and there has been a strong element throughout this Conservative campaign of really poisoning the public sphere. So poisoning the possibility of any politics at all is, you know, very much for them. They're hoping that this is a deeply, deeply anti-political election. Let's go to a next clip. So I think the highlight of the last debate was Corbyn getting out the receipt about the US-UK trade deal and discussions about the NHS. There were more receipts today, slightly less dramatic, but I mean, potentially it's had some cut through. Let's watch those and we will discuss them afterwards. I do think we need a bit of openness from the government. We forced them to release the documents, or we've released them for them actually, a week ago, which showed the access the US were demanding to our public services. And today, the news came out of what's happening with Northern Ireland. Briefly, Mr Gordon, for people who didn't hear the news, what are you claiming the document show? And then we'll put it to Mr Johnson. They show quite clearly that there are going to be charges. There are going to be customs checks. There are going to be restrictions on trade between Britain and Northern Ireland. Thank you very much. Boris Johnson. Well, actually that is not true. The whole of the UK comes out. England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland together. We do free trade deals together. Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the UK, and we are united. And I have to say, I think it's a great opportunity for our country. And it says unfettered access, I think is what it says. It says unfettered access. And also a question of the factoring that will happen. That is what the document also says, is that Northern Ireland is part of the customs territory of the UK. Isn't the problem, Mr Johnson, that the DUP, the unionists who were your partners, they agree with him and not you about that? Because our deal is a great deal. I mean, if we're talking about trying to get stuff land by not having the public confused when it went from the moment of they say they're going to have unfettered access and Corbyn says, what are you going to have? They say unfettered access because there's going to be some fetchering. What was going on in these particular documents which were released dramatically in a press conference by the Labour Party this morning? Well, I mean, it's funny in some ways. It effectively demonstrates the things that we knew were going to happen with Johnson's deal in the Northern Irish context. One of the key things there is about that border in the Irish sea that actually the trade position of Northern Ireland will actually be very difficult. There's risk of criminality. The new thing is that it's pretty clear that there will be actually quite significant bureaucratic impositions on movement between Britain and Northern Ireland. The thing that is more striking to me about this is that it seems clear to me that Corbyn's team have learned that in order to get Britain's press to pay attention to something you have to demonstrate that it comes in secret document form and you have to do it publicly and you have to do it in front of the cameras. Almost all of this stuff and it is detailed. It's important stuff but it's the kind of important detail that actually should be at the centre of this election because it gives the lie to the kind of stuff that's being claimed by the Conservative Party and the public. It gives the lie to their historic commitment. I think you remember going to reverse gear here for a little bit. You remember probably about 12 months ago at this point maybe even less actually that you have people like Jacob Rees-Mogg standing up and calling the DUP the sacred guardians of our constitution. And of course as always with these kind of effusive pieces of Tory praise it turns out to be nonsense underneath and it turns out to be a convenient piece of rhetoric that they'll use to get whatever they want because the Conservative Party I think this is a mistake that the Left Offer makes the Conservative Party's interest in capitalism. It likes defending capitalists. It likes defending particularly those at the top end of the ladder but what it is interested in more than anything else is power. And so it will very happily fuck over people who have been very close allies to it in order to maintain its grip on power. It will lie, it will cheat, it will deceive. That's the nature of that party. It is a party, you know, not of capitalism per se it is a party of the ruling class and the British ruling class is weird and so it does anything it can to defend this weird alliance. Anyway, so back to these documents there's nothing very very surprising or very new there but it's just been pretty clear to me that in order to get things to be part of a campaign you have to demonstrate that they have emerged as part of a kind of secret leak or whatever. People to really condemn here. I'm not the BBC outright. I know we've had a kind of strong line in BBC bashing in this campaign I think it's been necessary and important. I've turned by the way from those people who thinks like the Left shouldn't talk about the BBC because like it makes us look mad to really just wanting to destroy the BBC. That's not true. There's lots about the BBC I love. There are hugely important things that are done by the BBC and I admire much of it intensely but what frustrates me is the way that it's the stance that its political editors especially take which is that they think of themselves as insiders in the Westminster village and therefore think of politics from the standpoint of a politician. So they see their role as thinking, so you get this when reporting on polling for instance which way are the voters moving out there and how will we as a political class respond to it. So you get process stories about the stuff that's going on inside politicians actually you would think or you would hope that their role ought to be to look at the stuff that's being presented more so than in any election that I can remember even more so in 2017. You have very very clear ideological divisions between the parties and instead of saying the parties are concerned about how voters will react to this it's their job to put forward these differences and demonstrate what they might actually mean in practice and yes that will be difficult in fact if they were to actually do it it would be difficult for both sides not going to pretend that's not true for one minute there would be difficult questions to answer but they're not even doing it at all and that frustrates me and it annoys me and frankly it upsets me it makes me miserable about the atrophied state of our public sphere that these people can't do the very basic so on this is the kind of stuff that gets talked about by these people is like oh nerdy detail that you don't need to do well that nerdy detail is going to affect thousands hundreds of thousands of people's lives and jobs and the way in which they manage their day-to-day affairs you had Boris Johnson wanging on about free ports in this debate he mentioned them they were a big feature at the start they were a big feature and these are effectively deregulated zones this is a serious change the way in which where the business is done in this country and it's a negative one it's a really negative one for a lot of people does it mean merit a mention? do the details of these kind of checks to the impact of this stuff merit a mention? does serious scrutiny of what this actually means merit a mention? no it merits a chortle on some absurd BBC pseudo podcast I mean what the fuck sorry McDonnell was very good on BBC impartiality something that's not said that often actually a really great line for a sort of left winger to say which is that one of the reasons why BBC impartiality is on the decline is basically because of cuts because it's true to have a genuinely independent and impartial broadcaster you need them to have, I mean they still do have the most researchers in the country if you go to any other sort of radio show but they need to have the depth in their research team that they can set the agenda instead of following the agenda of billionaire newspapers and whilst you, so long as you cut them then all you can have is people doing the fairly easy job of commentating on politics as opposed to you know explaining and introducing people to the issues that genuinely matter and setting the agenda which they could do yeah I mean it's also the question of charter renewal stuff like that I mean one of the things that's going to be weird after this actually there's sort of the question of BBC funding be up for debate in the next couple of years I think within the next four years and it's going to be a lot of people who've been you know kind of really appalled by the BBC and they're people who've been naturally inclined to defend the need for a public service broadcaster you know who knows I mean I think the BBC is important it's valuable it should be defended it should be reformed it should also feel less afraid of government right I mean this is also this is the other side of John McDonald's point is the BBC feels afraid of government maybe not you know the level of presenters but the executive level BBC is afraid of the government and that's not a good situation for you know for the press to be in Ah brilliant Fox, our wonderful editor has introduced into my document from YouGov eh so we don't need to just hypothesise about what people might have believed we have the results and to be honest they look quite good is this the whole thread so or have you just showed me the good ones to keep me in a good mood for them so on who came across as more likeable this is from YouGov Boris Johnson 55% Jeremy Corbyn oh that's not good 36% I read it the wrong way around Boris Johnson more likeable apparently fuck on who came across as more in touch with ordinary people Jeremy Corbyn 57% Boris Johnson 79% on who came across as more Prime Ministerial Boris Johnson 54% Jeremy Corbyn 30% wow I really did read those in sort of optimistic goggle glasses there's one further up is there on who came across more trustworthy this was the good one this is why you made it bigger Jeremy Corbyn on 48% and Boris Johnson on 38% I suppose that is quite important actually and actually that's not always been reflected in the polls so Corbyn has done quite poorly when it comes to trustworthiness generally in polling throughout this campaign I think partly because people saw him as being a bit shifty on Brexit which to be which she's not but I do think sometimes he could have articulated their position a bit more proudly especially actually in relation to this Northern Ireland point right so the point with the Northern Ireland customs checks is so long as people think that's a necessary part of Brexit they're going to back it and Jeremy Corbyn's point should be no look this you can have and we will offer people the option of a Brexit where you don't have ridiculous customs checks within the United Kingdom and the reason we won't have that is because we're not obsessed with leaving the customs union and the reason we're not obsessed with leaving the customs union is because we don't want to form bargain basement deals with Donald Trump and you can make this quite coherent narrative of why a Labour Brexit would actually be better than a Tory Brexit there was also a question actually in the debate about why would your Brexit be better than remain which is potentially difficult for the Labour Party but there is also a very easy answer which is for Jeremy Corbyn to say what's different about Labour policy is we are willing to be honest to people and say there are pros and cons to both we will negotiate a Brexit which in some ways is a little bit worse than remain but in some ways is better and we'll negotiate well we won't negotiate but we'll have an option of remain which in some ways is worse than leaving and in some way better I'm the only politician who can play the honest broker and admit that there isn't just one side which is all milk and honey and one side which is hellish misery which is the kind of thing that Boris Johnson I'm here to give you two acceptable options and try and bring the country together I think that's a point that could have been made quite easy is even deeper one again the same thing that we've been saying throughout the unifying feature is trust you can't trust him you can't trust Boris Johnson he's not going to tell you these things he clearly hasn't told you these things in fact he said the complete opposite whenever it suited him to say the complete opposite what else isn't he telling you that trustworthiness one is good though going into I suppose the final week of the campaign he said to have many people's opinions will be formed by now and now when Corbyn goes up and makes his final pitches or his final announcements people will hopefully believe them a bit more than sometimes they okay we've got some more oh who performed best during the section of the BBC debate on Brexit you should get these up on the screen as well if you can manage although I suppose I'm getting you to do too many things at the same time on who performed best during the Brexit part of the debate Johnson 62% Corbyn 29% I mean to be honest I think in these I think people make their minds up before the debate starts on this don't they if when you ask who did best on Brexit to say well Johnson is the one who's good on Brexit Corbyn is the one who's good on the NHS government spending Johnson 48% Corbyn 43% dead heat security anti-terrorism Johnson 55% Corbyn 34% to me that looks like a lot of confirmation bias because there's no you know you need to see a surprise for that to be interesting whereas people have it seems sort of so that's just a left-right thing isn't it are you in favour of government spending and taxing or not a ridiculous part of the debate actually I don't think we have a clip of this was the one where Boris Johnson says taxation always falls hardest on people on lowest incomes I mean this is this is is he not heard of progressive taxation does he think the only form of tax is the poll tax was that was that the only was that the only point he pricked up his ears in what did he do classics or PPE he did classics I suppose they didn't do much tax I do know a bit about kind of that well you had sort of it's one of the problems that really you had I'm not going to get into the rest of taxation you have kind of tax farming that goes on in various iterations of empires and it's one of the things that leads to the eventual collapse of various ancient states is actually the way in which taxation is collected and then you have taxation taxation was very aggressive in feudal times right there because people with privileges were you know legally exempt not like now where they're not legally exempt sometimes they are legally exempt non-domicile people who have who live here but who have who are formally resident elsewhere so when tax time comes around they go sorry not me I might physically be here but I don't actually live here it's not legal privileges it's just very good accountant I mean I just think you know I mean I think it is legal privileges actually I mean the etymology of privilege is private law we're going to go to another clip in a moment but first of all you're watching Navara Media it's a great pleasure to have you watching this show after the final head-to-head debate of the 2019 General Election Momentous Times as you know this show this channel this organization is only possible because of your kind donations if you are already a subscriber thank you very much if not please go to support.navaramedia.com and donate the equivalent of one hour's wage a month or pop us a little election bonus like this video it means it appears in more people's feeds I think we're now going to watch a clip of Corbyn sort of landing a blow on Johnson when it came to those US-UK trade negotiations good now you sent an email on behalf of the Labour Party saying imagine opening a five figure bill for your cancer treatment do you accept that that is totally misleading there is no possibility of anybody having NHS cancer treatment and having to pay a five figure if you end up with a privatized service that's what you get if you end up with that US trade deal that is what you get now the Prime Minister says he's not going to do that sort of a trade deal if that's the case why did the talks go on for two years it doesn't take two years to say no to privatization of the NHS thank you gentlemen thank you very much indeed thank you we're back epic it doesn't take two years to say no it's a belter wasn't it it's a great line it's a great line and it's true and it's something I think that will resonate there is something shifty about it and there's been something shifty about the way in which the Tories have approached those documents and the question of trade with the United States and it's you know ultimately a thing that they can't get away from is that at the end or during the process of trade deal you know I mean if you look at the kind of career United States trade deal again took seven years it was the question of drug pricing US farmer very very very very very important to them is the question of drug pricing and you know it is also worth saying that the UK has actually relatively little that the United States wants you know like something like access to a large market which you know it's you know it's particularly bugbear for Trump but it's true actually quite a lot of the United States trade establishment is that there is like this real resentment at these markets that they can't enter and inflate and exploit in a way that they do it's a risky line in a prime ministerial debate isn't it like literally guys what else have we got it's true we make Jack our markets are kind of small it's absolutely true but but you know I mean in terms of things that the United Kingdom can actually offer as an inducement in a trade deal it's actually pretty much the question to a golf course or something I don't know let's go on to let's talk about security let's talk about because we've got another clip this is kind of like a highlight show here you can if there was another debate you wouldn't have to watch it because you can just come over the highlights and you miss all the all the faff this is on security everyone always thought that would be a difficult topic for Corbin I think he phrased this in this clip Corbin destroys Boris Johnson on national security what is wrong with the idea that Boris Johnson spells out there that terrorists particularly terrorists should serve their full sense you have to run a prison system and a judicial system in a proper way you have to have a prison system that works one day pretty well all prisoners are going to come out at some point but if you don't run a prison system that includes rehabilitation and you don't have a proper assessment of people before they're given any form of early release and a proper review of those cases then there's obviously a danger to all of us and so what happened on the streets of London was utterly appalling and I was very moved by what Jack Merritt's father said about what his son was trying to do that he wanted a society where you did awful acts like that yes of course you must imprison them yes of course you must try and rehabilitate them if you can but there has to be a monitoring process to achieve that we need the security on our streets security doesn't come on the cheap and if you cut the number of police officers cut the number of PCSOs privatise the probation service under fund all the other aspects of the criminal justice system then we all pay a price with our own security it's more crisply than me sort of like looking around and saying we're back but we are back security doesn't come on the cheap it's one of I think the strongest lines of the 2017 general election he's brought it back up here I suppose the fact that the conservatives are saying they're going to give 20,000 more cops makes it slightly harder to land than when it was against Theresa Mayer who was sort of maintaining her proud austerity position whereas Johnson is not saying anything to me can there be anything more positive said about that particular part of the debate yeah I mean I think well I think positive ending to things to be said the positive thing I would say is that actually he didn't take the approach that historic Labour leaders might have done which is to cringe in the face of security questions and say oh actually I also think the human rights should be abolished or changed or altered which by the way is a promise that you know the human rights act what they're going to do to it well I mean like many of the Tory pledges it's completely vague it's part of their constitutional pledges we need to look again at these things but look it seems pretty clear to me that the measure that they have in the Tory manifesto about seizing the property of Roma and gypsies is going to require revision of the human rights act otherwise it'd be challengeable in the ECHR which by the way we are still not court there is an associated court okay but yeah it would be absolutely challengeable in there because it's a basic infringement of human rights to confiscate property in that way so you know you're faced really despite what Boris Johnson is saying you're faced with the frankly rather grim prospect of the cold hands of pretty Patel running through the human rights act thinking get rid of that one get rid of that one get rid of that there is something hugely hugely important about bringing back a social democratic approach the question of security and it's very difficult to do in a debate like this but it should be a concern of the wider labour movement to understand very very clearly the crime and that you know even some of the terrible crimes that are used to terrify people in the country when you resort to law and order rhetoric are primarily functions of political economy historically almost all thinking on crime violent crime especially you know relates it very clearly to the question of the way in which a society is run and in his favourites run and the kind of you know the way in which we think or the way in which we fund or the way in which we support people's lives right so this is something that's very very clear from the early studies of policing very some of the very very exciting smith in this way but Adam Smith says it and that gets lost under Thatcher you know crime becomes you know purely a question of individual you know maleficence or moral responsibility I think there's a role for that but you know we need to rethink the way in which we think about crime and that includes thinking about actually you know modern contemporary criminals they're not just you know the terrorist is the figure you know par excellence of kind of crime in other senses as well you know where you know the human trafficker you know where is the you know you know derivatives trader the person who crashes in the economy based on kind of you know where is the libel rigor where are the people who fucked the economy in 2008 you know where are you know the people who are digital rip-off merchants you know where are the people who are phone scammers you know so there has to be a leave of crime in the country and you know frankly you know there's something that I find very very frustrating about this conversation around crime because there is an instinctive cringe again on the part of the party thinking about the way in which like actually people's lives are genuinely impacted here. That would have been a nice pivot actually. Of course we need to have a situation have a system whereby people don't leave prison when they're about to commit to dealing with that but let's also talk about the hundreds of thousands of people who have been affected by violent crime this year because yes these exceptional terrorist events are appalling and we need to you know obviously something needs to change if someone's just got unparalleled and they've killed a couple of people on a bridge but but we want to talk about crime across society because I think that is often a working class issue that is also shied away from by enforcement and it comes from a very unusual source right so this is again a line from the 70s says we are not letting the public in in our era's dirty little secret that those who commit the crime which worries citizens most violent crime are for the most parts the products of poverty, unemployment, broken homes, rotten education, drug addiction and alcoholism and the other social and economic ills about which the police can do little if anything rather than speaking up most of crime that's not some hippie lefty academic that was Roberto de Grazia commissioner of the Boston police in 1976. I was expecting more of a like a reveal than some guy had never heard of but he was this guy was the head of the Boston Police Department. Still kind of niche but I'll let you have it. I'm going to start collecting some of your questions having a look at your questions but whilst I do that James you were going to say it's very easy to get lulled into a sense that they go naturally through all the issues that matter but they don't. What gets included and not included is really really interesting. What was not in this debate at all was climate change and that to me is just staggering. This issue is frankly it dwarfs Brexit which is a minor constitutional school in a third tier former imperial power. Climate change is the thing that is bearing down on us. Like I would say like a fucking iceberg but yeah that's definitely part of it. It's just insane to me and the parties are so far apart on this that Labour has a climate change strategy that is serious and serious about actually tackling the problem in front of you that says like actually guys we have spent 30 40 50 years in total fucking denial about this that this problem is not bearing down on us. Well it's here now it's already here it's happening. Half of it is you think about the floods up in Yorkshire earlier in this campaign that's part of it you think about the brutal summers that we've had in this country recently you think of something like the thousands of excess deaths in France over the course of that last summer that's part of it you think the way the profound ways in which it's going to shape our politics I mean this is you know this is absolutely astonishing now it's like maybe I don't know maybe it reflects I don't know that people in that audience in that BBC audience wanted to talk about I don't know whatever it was why we should abolish human rights or something like that who knows in any way they find these people from but it's the responsibility again it is the responsibility of journalists in situations like these to take these issues to the forefront it's a huge huge huge division like this in you know in which the survivor of the species is an open question because that's what it means if you're waiting until 2050 to deal with this stuff right this isn't a question but I like it from Nemoff I like how James always seems slightly miffed at everyone else not being on the same galaxy brain level as him that's what it often feels like being in the Navarra media studio I have to say. To be honest it wouldn't matter if you come in to record your the burn. This morning I was in just after 5 a.m. And then I come in at about 6 p.m. so we don't actually cross paths that often. Always a pleasure when we do of course even if you do sometimes seem miffed that I don't share your same galaxy galaxy brain level knowledge about previous chief police officers in American cities from decades gone by. Kirill Popatov Cyril Potapov what are our leading messages right now on the doorstep? You go first. NHS hugely hugely important. That's not a line though, what are you going to say? Line, line, line, no. What's your argument? What are you going to say to the doorstep person? What am I going to say to the doorstep person? What are you going to say to the resident? The voter. Boris is selling the NHS. What are you going to do about it? I know, I know, I know, I know. You have to ask some questions that allow you to make your point, to make your pitch. Yes, I know. Despite being up in the early mornings I've been doing a bit of it myself. You're not supposed to tell them about quotes from 70s police chief officers. I managed to discipline myself in my eccentric ramble through actual history and the way the politics have been conducted on this planet over the course of time. But yeah, no, I mean... Where are we? We were talking about lines on the doorstep. No, okay, so I do think, I really do think the key one now is about trust and it's about trust in public services. It's about trust in the NHS and it's, you know, it's even about trust on Brexit as well. I mean, I think you've really got to, it's not always appropriate on the doorstep but where it's possible and where it's possible to point to the kind of, you know, not just the documents but to point to the entire conduct of not just Boris Johnson but the Conservative Party more generally and say, you know, these people lie. They've lied again and again and again. It's pretty clear from the documents that have come out that they've lied about what this Brexit deal is going to do. You cannot trust them to do it. Whereas Labour Party has made a very clear commitment and laid out exactly how it's going to do it and here it is in these easy three steps. You know, it's a wider question because this is going to be a five-year parliament. Well, if it's a hung parliament, there'll probably be a general election maybe May next year I think is quite likely but it could be a five-year parliament if you've got to think about the next five years. I agree that the argument has to be about trust but not in the way that sometimes, so sometimes the way the argument is about trust is that, you know, you don't know how many kids he's got or he has a tenancy to lie and fib and sometimes what he says isn't quite true. I think the issue about trust should be or and is in fact, a majority is going to be one of the most powerful Prime Ministers we've had in a very long time because they get to set the political economic agenda of the country for decades to come. If they're signing a trade deal with the United States, they get to decide the relationship between our public services and other governments and they're the kind of things that it's actually quite difficult to undo for parties in the future. So whilst in normal times you might think, oh fine, we'll just have this 15th. Oh my God. This bumbling guy for five years, he'll get Brexit done, which many people on the doorstep want and then we can sort of move on. This isn't just a five-year project. If Boris Johnson, and the problem isn't that he just happens to lie, the problem is that he is a person who has consistently been on the side of the establishment, the side of bankers who doesn't give a shit about ordinary people, never has done which is why they have to hide him from ordinary people because he's being hidden. He's under wraps. He won't be under any scrutiny and then he's going to go into negotiations with the United States with Donald Trump and ultimately, well you say crumble but that would be the wrong way of describing it because he's not going in there or even attempting to say no about the NHS. He's going to go in there saying like, look Mr. Trump, I know that we have to, you know that I've got some difficult, difficult voters at home. So whatever I give you on the NHS we're going to have to dress up and look at that in those documents. They're taking cues from US trade negotiators on how to sell coordinated chicken into the country. It's like that, you know, it's not just something that's going to happen in the future. It's already happening. It's happened under the Conservative Party that they're going sniveling to the United States on how to flog off this kind of, you know, terrible, you know, really poorly treated and you know, frankly, very, very unpleasant food products to the United Kingdom. The answer to this question is no. Raging platypus question. Is our best hope to disqualify the Tories on account of electoral fraud, overspending and misinformation? No, not going to happen. You have to win the election on arguments and you have to win the election on speaking to people before it happens. This is actually really important because it's, you know, not to denigrate our question in any way because, you know, I understand where the question comes from. But there is a political consequences kind of stuff and it's the kind of political consequence over Brexit when you had these kind of, like, remainder lawyers shortling along to court trying to find some loophole, some technicality, you know, with which to undo Brexit. Now, look, I'm all for judicial scrutiny. I'm for judicial review. I think the courts have an incredibly important role in keeping Parliament honest. This, by the way, is something Boris Johnson wants to do away with as well. But it has political consequences. Not to the people who are, like, mostly OK with that kind of stuff happening as political consequences to people who feel like they'd never won anything in their life before, that they were people whose desires, whose, you know, hopes for a decent life or even hopes to be taken politically seriously. Even to be recognised as a political constituency, which, incidentally, the Blair Government holds a great deal of responsibility for, even to be recognised as people with meaningful political voices, didn't, you know, got nothing and ignored or ignored. And then they won something. And the same people who ignored them for years and years and years go to the courts to take it away. That has a political consequence. You have to win. You have to win politically. You can't win through legal means. It's just so politically dangerous. A related question, actually, is, you know, you can't, you can't win an election by saying it's not fair, and that does put the left in quite a difficult position when it comes to the BBC, because there is a tendency and it's very difficult to resist to just spend a lot of time being incredibly outraged at biased reporting on the BBC. But that probably doesn't win that many votes. I don't think it wins many votes. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it because it's true you should speak out about it. I think it has an important role in making things better, less than they are, like there are people who shout back at these people. I do think that it's fair to say that the rules on impartiality in this election have been bent and even at times broken in ways that are unusual and in some ways unprecedented in a British electoral campaign. That is not just the fault of the BBC. It's not just the fault of kind of rather supine critical political editors. It's also the fault of the politicians themselves and especially Boris Johnson. The comments is now, and I say this in the kindest way, well degenerate it would be the wrong word but there's lots of people debating MMT, modern monetary theory and I have promised you an actual show on that and I am going to get an MMT in after the general election. But just in our election coverage when you're explaining complicated things you're probably not winning the election. That's probably a not particularly polite way of talking about MMT. But we're going to get on a proper MMT and we're going to have a proper debate about it after the general election when we have a Labour government because then it will be a key question in the Bank of England at that point. Do they appoint an MMT or do they appoint, what's the opposite of a modern monetary theory? I shouldn't speak about this. Final question, James. What is your favourite Bakunin quote? Oh God, that's it. You've stumped me actually. I've suddenly gone completely blank. Okay, new question you can think of there. I don't have any for you. Who is going to be the portillo of this election? Oh, okay. That's a super interesting one. Portillo of this election. So I don't think it's going to be probably retain his seat. I think it might be quite close who knows. I think possibly Ian Duncan Smith. That is the one that I'd really like. I'd really like IDS to go. I think it's unlikely. The other one is Dominic Raab, right? So the recent polls, doesn't that rely on loads of Lib Dems? No, it involves amounts of tactical wording for Lib Dems. But what I mean is just like, I just don't see if there's momentum behind the Lib Dems to be Dominic Raab. I mean, I think in that particular constituency, I think it's possible, but I think it's quite unlikely. In a bi-election, I think he'd lose in a general election now because this whole tactical voting thing gets basically. I agree, I agree. Of course, the Baccunin line, which is also associated with my favourite, indeed the only comic book that I've ever really enjoyed is one that's quoted by the hero very early on. I've never seen the original quote, by the way. And it gets paraphrased throughout kind of the 19th century, anarchism as well, is that the passion for destruction is also creative passion, right? It's, you know, that sense. And it's very common among, you know, in the 19th century left, which is, you know, that sense that actually, it's there in the, slightly later than that song, Solidarity Forever, you know, we can bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old, right? That sense that actually, you know, that our criticism, and it's something that, you know, sometimes I think the left in the Britain, in Britain could do with a bit more of actually, is to understand that, you know, institutions are not in themselves sacred, norms were made to be changed. And that actually we should perhaps respect a little bit more that impulse. To destroy. To understand that sometimes it's necessary for things to pass away in order to build new ones. I like it. I like that. Which was the quote? The tuning quote. The passion for destruction is also creative passion. Great. Take that attitude. Take that attitude out onto the door. I mean, I think that's probably not one to canvas with, but... Keep to the lines we said before about this being a key election. Boris Johnson is going to have a lot of power and he is going to negotiate a trade deal with the United States for the interests of the elite, the business class, not the interests of ordinary people. And he's going to fold when he's talking to Donald Trump, not so much because, well partly because he's weak, but also because he doesn't give a shit about ordinary people. All right, let's leave it there. We will be back same time, same place on Monday. We're doing nightly Tiskey Sours until Thursday, at which point we will have a six hour long, at least election sesh as the results come in. Thank you, James, so much for joining me this evening. It's a great pleasure as always. Thank you to our Tiskey Sours viewers. This is the final weekend before the election campaign. Go out, talk to as many people as you possibly can because it will... And hopefully we will... We'll be commenting on the difference you have all made on Thursday when the results are... Yeah and by the way, what I should say is email me with stories from the doorstep for the burner, which goes out obviously every morning at 7.30 on our Telegram channel and also makes its way to our SoundCloud a little bit after that. So that's the thing that's going on and what your experiences are over the course of this weekend while you're canvassing. And go to support.naviramedia.com so we can keep doing what we do. Good night.