 Welcome to Tiskey Sour, a special thanks if you're joining me live today because for once it's just little old me. I don't have a co-host today so I'm going to be looking longingly towards my comments document created by producer Fox to see what you have to say so I don't feel alone. I do have some great guests for you later on though. I'm going to speak to Clive Lewis on Afghanistan, Lydia Caradonna on OnlyFans and Laurie McFarlane on today's Scottish Greens and SNP Deal. Before that, I'm going to talk you through the row encircling Britain's foreign secretary. If you do want a comment on what I'm talking about, what my guests are talking about, please do tweets on the hashtag Tiskey Sour with your comments and questions. Put a super chat in that comments box or comment under the video. First story. Last Friday afternoon when the Afghan state was on the brink of collapse, senior officials in the Foreign Office advised Dominic Raab to call his counterpart in Kabul to arrange the evacuation of interpreters who had worked for the British government. Of course, they wanted to be evacuated because the Taliban were about to take control and if you have worked for the British government, the Taliban aren't going to look very kindly on that. According to the mail, those officials had made it clear it was important the call was made by Raab personally. It is a sort of diplomatic nicety that if you want to speak to the foreign secretary, the foreign secretary makes the call. You call people who are of the same rank as you. However, Raab delegated the job to a junior minister and so the Afghan foreign minister refused to take the call. That meant an opportunity to rescue Afghan interpreters was missed. The call never happened in the end as well. We initially thought it had been delayed a day. It was revealed today didn't happen at all. This was all because Dominic Raab didn't want to interrupt his luxury holiday in Crete. He'd been there a week. It looked lovely. We're going to show you pictures of it later. Raab didn't return to the UK until the early hours of Monday when Kabul fell. He denied that he had been lounging on the beach. As I said, we're all caught surprised by the situation on the ground. I was engaged in Cobra meetings, several meetings on that Sunday with my officials, making sure we got out the 150 British nationals that we did on that Sunday. I engaged with Foreign Minister Qureshi from Pakistan on that Sunday. So I was not lounging all day on the beach, but my family was there. And so just to give you a very honest answer, rather than having them in the hotel room with me whilst I was conducting all this business, I was checking in with them episodically as we cut short the holiday. It was supposed to be gratefully cut short the holiday. He was there for eight days, by the way. So he was there the whole time that all of Afghanistan's cities were falling, including Kabul. The clip there, of course, didn't answer any questions about the mystical. He was saying that on Sunday when Kabul fell, I wasn't lounging on the beach. No, no mention of the Friday where this call to the Afghan Foreign Minister didn't happen. Today, Raab released the following statement related to the Friday. On Friday afternoon, Raab says, 13th of August, advice was put to my private office around 6pm Afghan time, recommending a call to the Afghan Foreign Minister. This was quickly overtaken by events. The call was delegated to a Minister of State because I was prioritising security and capacity at the airport on the direct advice of the director and the director general overseeing the crisis response. In any event, the Afghan Foreign Minister agreed to take the call, but was unable to because of the rapidly deteriorating situation. So he's saying, look, I didn't miss the call because I was having a good time. I missed the call because I was doing things which were even more important. In this case, that was guaranteeing the security of the airport. How he was doing that is not elaborated on. A few problems with it, as I say, it's not elaborated on what other work he was doing. Also, as so many experts and diplomats have been coming out and saying, you should, if you want to get in contact with the Foreign Minister, the Foreign Minister should make the call. Our Foreign Minister should make the call if we want to speak to the Afghan Foreign Minister. So this idea that he would have taken the call anyway, even though it didn't actually happen, I don't really see how that stacks up. Finally, we have quite a lot of eyewitness accounts that suggest that Dominic Raab wasn't working particularly hard on that Friday. The Daily Mail, right, that given the Aegean sunshine five-star beachfront resort, tennis courts and luxury lounges, it would have been a mighty wrench to tear oneself away. And Dominic Raab didn't, according to his fellow holidaymakers. The Foreign Secretary's claims that he was working intensely through his holiday in Crete have been rubbished by other guests at his hotel. They say they were left in disbelief as the Minister spent hours under a gazebo on Sunday, as the Taliban completed its capture of Afghanistan after days of restless pressure. Mr Raab was seen swimming in the sea, playing tennis and lounging on a beach, as the Taliban tore through Kabul, the guests' claim. You might say this is in the Daily Mail, this is just a guest, presumably the journalist would have made sure that there was proof that they had been staying at the same hotel at the same time. I mean, if there aren't, I presume there aren't pictures, otherwise they would have been printed. So it could be, the guest is telling a tall tale. It does, though, accord with briefings being given by a number of other sources, including sources in government. The Guardian report that a White Hall source said, Raab refused to be contacted on basically anything for more than a week and instead directed that everything had to go to Goldsmith. They added that Raab's team had told civil servants there was an incredibly high bar to getting him to look at anything while on holiday. A separate diplomatic source also said there had been increasing frustration at a lack of support from Raab in the weeks leading up to the fall of Kabul. They said Raab had not spoken to any of the key UK ambassadors in the region, such as in Pakistan or Uzbekistan, or regional ambassadors in London before the weekend, even to offer moral support and commented, you don't need a team of staff to do that. You just need to be a decent human being to say, how are you doing? It's going to be a tough few weeks. How can I help? The source added he has completely missed the boat on everything. You might say with socialists, we think people should be able to take good paid holidays. At the same time, if you're the foreign secretary, this is quite possibly going to be the most significant week of your tenure. If he's Foreign Minister for five years under Boris Johnson, this is probably the most significant foreign policy event that is going to take place in those years. To stay at the hotel when that happens is, I mean, it's pretty dodgy and they're saying he wasn't doing much work even before that anyway. You might say, why does all of this matter? It's a bit of a Westminster SW1 story. I actually do kind of buy the argument that there wouldn't have been that much. The Foreign Minister of Afghanistan could have done, even if he was called by Dominic Raab. You've got to remember the state completely collapsed by Sunday, which makes me wonder whether or not senior government ministers would have spent that much time paying attention to evacuating interpreters who had been working for the British, presumably they had some pretty big issues on their plate. Whether or not this actually cost lives is up in the air. I mean, the fact that we're even asking that question, did the fact that he wanted to stay under a gazebo cost lives is not a good question to be asking about any minister, but I probably don't think it was the most significant thing that's happened over the past week. But what it does do is it demonstrates the callousness really and the disregard of this government when it comes to people who work for the British in Afghanistan. The BBC spoke to a former interpreter for the British Army who had previously been told he had the right to come to the UK. I want to take a look at that now so you can really see why this all matters. Around 10 days ago, I received another email. They are refused my case. I asked it why you are refused my case. What's the problem? They told me your character, conjecture, association is not good for the UK people. And what's your message to the British government? My message is for the British Prime Minister, Minister of Defence, please see my case again. And I'm in a very dangerous situation. I will die. Please don't leave behind me behind. We will kill very, very easy and it will be shame. It will be shame for all UK, for all human rights. Interpreters, British will die. The Home Office says it carries out thorough checks but his bags are packed with nowhere to go. No, super, super tragic clip. I mean, I've seen lots of people rightly I think on Twitter saying why are we only talking about interpreters? Why are we only talking about people who directly worked for the British? And I think that's absolutely right. We should be pushing campaigning to be offering asylum to anyone who might be persecuted by the Taliban whether or not they work for the British. I don't think you have to have worked for the British to have a decent claim to asylum. I mean, that's not how asylum law works for a start. It's also not how any ethical compass should work. But at the same time, I think it is clear, we do a special responsibility to people who had worked for the British Army because the whole reason that they are now at risk from the Taliban is because they were trying to help the British there, right? So the reason they could be persecuted or even killed as that person was saying in that clip is because they work for the British. The British are now Eva saying I'm on holiday. So sorry, it's too difficult for me to try and arrange your trip to the airport. Or in this case, I mean, this to me sounds more like a Home Office problem. They're saying, yes, we can see that you have worked for the British and so you would be entitled to come to this country. But computer says no, essentially, we've got some report that you've done something at some point in time that we can't tell you what it is, which means that you're no longer welcome in Britain. So therefore, sorry, you're just going to have to die even though you work for us. And you know, we invaded your country, you tried to help us rebuild it, we left. And now sorry, mate, we don't think you're the kind of person we really want in our country. So, you know, you're on your own. I mean, it's really, it's really sickening. And I think, you know, that does put this Rob story in perspective, because even if he couldn't have stopped the fall of Kabul, I mean, he couldn't have stopped the fall of Kabul, there is plenty for anyone with any moral compass to be getting on with if you work in the government right now, it's pulling out all the stops to get out anyone who you can get out who is at risk from the Taliban, and particularly those people who are at risk from the Taliban, because they worked for you. The culpability is direct here. It's not complicated. One other thing I want to mention about Dominic Robb is where this holiday took place. So we're going to show you some footage from the Amorandes Hotel in Crete. A week long stay there costs anywhere between six grand. So that's the cheapest rooms and 60 grand. I don't think we have confirmation of which class of room Dominic Robb booked. You can, I think you just saw there actually the gazebos that Rob and his family were allegedly spending all Sunday underneath according to sources at the hotel. And as I said earlier, by Friday, when all of Kabul's major cities other than, sorry, all of Afghanistan's major cities other than Kabul had fallen, Rob had already stayed there for six days, right? So it's Friday. They're saying Kabul could fall. He's saying, sorry, mate, I've got a couple more days at my holiday. And you saw in that earlier interview saying, oh, I did cut my holiday short. I did cut my holiday short. He'd been there for eight days. That's quite a long holiday. As I say, whether or not Robb resigns, that's the big political story of the day. That's not going to make much difference to the people of Afghanistan. They're actually bigger fish to fry when it comes to what political points should we be taking from what's going on now? What should we be learning from what's going on right now? What arguments should we be winning about Western imperialism? For example, not necessarily whether Dominic Robb was at a hotel. It's not the most consequential thing that's happened this week. But it is a reminder of just how morally abject our ruling class are. Let's go to some comments. Jonathan Dawson, with 10 euros history repeating itself, Lord Gray going on a fishing trip during the outbreak of World War One. Oh, I have to admit, you've actually got better historical knowledge than I do. But it definitely sounds like a good comparison. Joshua Youngerman, with 4.99. Unlike Dahlia, Aaron and Ash, we will never abandon you for a luxury holiday on the beaches of Crete. I do appreciate that. Although I do have to say Tisgisau available in all, I was going to say in all, you'd say on all good networks, you can't say in all good countries available anywhere with the internet and without a firewall. I'm not sure if you can watch it in China or North Korea. We'll have to find out with a VPN presumably. Abigail Murray, with 10 pounds, you are never alone. You got us. I appreciate that. That warms my heart. And to do that, well, with 10 euros, here's to Michael, heroically holding down the fort in the face of overwhelming odds, signed Tad. Thank you so much for that, Tad. I really do appreciate that. We are going to go straight on to our next story and I'm not going to be alone for much longer. In the House of Commons debate on the Taliban takeover this week, a number of MPs spoke who had served in Afghanistan. Tom Tuggenhardt, Johnny Mercer and Dan Jarvis had all served in the country during the war and all were critical of Joe Biden's decision to withdraw troops. They described Britain's presence in Afghanistan as bringing progress, stability and freedom. They said everyone who fought in Afghanistan had fought for something meaningful and important, but the problem was the manner of the withdrawal. The problem was that US troops had left too soon. However, there is another MP who served in Afghanistan who didn't get the chance to speak in that debate and who might have had quite a different perspective, a perspective which broke with that consensus, the war good, the withdrawal bad. It's Clive Lewis and he joins me now. You tweeted after that debate that you would have had a different perspective to some of those veteran MPs who spoke, so the Tom Tuggenhardt and the like. What would you have said differently if you'd had the chance to speak? Well, I put it on a tweet thread yesterday and it's probably my best tweet ever in the sense that it was well received. It makes me sad that I wasn't able to explain a slightly different take in the chamber. It doesn't make you an expert having been in Afghanistan, whether you serve there as a civilian or in the military, but it does give you a perspective, a kind of eyes-on perspective of the impact of what's happened. It looked like many people politically. I wasn't born with my political knowledge. It's changed and morphed over the years. I've learned things that I didn't know back in 2009, but even back in 2009, I had doubts about why we're there. I thought like many people, I was going to help the Afghan people stop terrorism, I think on reflection, despite the fact that, you know, I just want to get this kind of caveat out of the way. I'm very proud of the people I serve with. The vast majority of them are good people who are there for I think the right reasons. It's never the soldiers. You know, our brothers, our sisters, our aunts, our uncles, our cousins, our neighbours, who are the problem. It's the politicians that send them and the motivations behind them being sent. And I think most of them were there to try and do some good. Nonetheless, I think given the time that I've had now to reflect on it, what I've seen of the war on terror, the trillions of dollars and billions of pounds that have been spent on this war, the 37 million refugees that have been created from this conflict. And by the way, many of those same countries who have been engaged in that 20-year war on terror are also the same countries that are putting up walls and borders and leaving the European Union to be able to have their own migration policy, et cetera, et cetera. The very same countries that are stopping those migrants from being able to flee the war zones, which we've unfortunately helped to create. And so I think, like many people, I've begun to see that this war was a futile war. It was a war that was wrong. I'm not the first soldier that's been in a conflict that's come out, changed and seen things and seen things, I think, in a different light. I saw people wounded by NATO forces, young people, a young boy of 15 with his foot blown off for doing nothing more than tending his father's livestock in their fields. When you've seen that, it does make you question the visceral image in your head, the smell, the sight, it does make you question why you're there, what you're doing, especially in hindsight. And I think given the fact that one of the key reasons why we're in Afghanistan, arguably to make it a better, more country, stop it from being a failed state to help the Afghan people to economically uplift it. It's still one of the poorest countries in the world. In terms of food security, it's placed number two on the world, it's kind of in danger list. 40% of the population are without a job, 70% of them live below the poverty line. That's after 20 years of so-called uplift in Afghanistan. If we had spent a fraction of that money, of those trillions, of those hundreds of billions that we poured into the military and armed conflict in Afghanistan, maybe we would have made a genuine difference in that country, but we didn't. And now we find ourselves in the situation where the only people who've become enriched from this war, it's not the veterans that have come back here that are struggling to find their support in mental health services, are struggling with PTSD, still fighting this government for justice for what's happened to them. It's also the Afghan people that have received very little, the people who've benefited, are the people who have made absolute fortunes as part of the kind of transnational security elites of this world, the corporate powers that have invested heavily in the Lockheed Martins, the Halliburton's and others in this country that have made an absolute fortune from us, from us British taxpayers, US taxpayers in this country, and that wealth has gone through Afghanistan and then been funneled to them and those corporate executives and those corporations. So this is a money-making machine for them, it's Lockheed Martino I think won the biggest contract ever in the United States without having to bid for it at all once the war in Afghanistan was announced. And so for my perspective, looking at this war, looking at where we're finding ourselves, looking at the so-called lessons that have been learned, that was a phrase that was used quite a lot in parliament yesterday. I don't think the House has learned its lessons. I think this whole notion of liberal interventionism, let's be really clear what it is, is about us deciding that we have a God-given right to go into other countries still. It's a post-imperial, it's an imperial hang-up that we have the right to go into other countries and bomb them or occupy them to find democracy. It doesn't work, it didn't work in Libya, it hasn't worked in Syria with the bombing that we've done there, didn't work in Iraq. In fact, it's called more destabilization, more refugees, more violence, more destruction. And some people have benefited, but not the people in those countries and not the people here, not the people who were sent out there to fight from this country, the people who've benefited, as I said, are those elites and 1% who have enriched themselves on that 20-year multi-trillion pound so-called war on terror. And at the same time, our civil liberties have been destroyed, undermined. So much of that emergency legislation after 9-11, governments haven't given up those powers, they've held on to them. And I suppose from that perspective, I would have spoken about some of those issues in the chamber. I would have liked seven minutes, many of the other veterans received of Afghanistan, I would have been happy with three, I got zero. Why is that? Is that just a technicality? Is that because the luck of the draw? Or was there someone who would have been able to donate you their speaking time, for example? I think it's one of those issues which will forever be debated about whether it was cock up or conspiracy. It could have been a bit of both, it could have been one or the other. I'm not going to, I do not look at the end of the day, I'm not going to sit here and pass conjecture on whether it was a cock up or conspiracy. I think it was what it was, I didn't get to speak, I think I should have. I've been told that I will be called early on at the next debate. But the reality is this was the debate that mattered. This was the debate where parliament had been recalled. This was when the public were listening to what happened, and if you were listening to that debate last week, you would have come away, quite rightly, thinking that there was a consensus, almost a consensus. I know Jeremy and Diane and Zara Saltine and a few other dissenting voices spoke, but you would have thought overwhelmingly that the consensus in that house was that this was a war that actually was just, was right. People were talking about Tom Tuggenhardt and others talking about the West and our democratic values, about human rights. Where was our concern about the human rights and democratic values these last 20 years? We now know because of whistleblowers in the US, one of whom has now been imprisoned, I can't recall his name, we now know that 90% of those people killed in the drone attacks over the last 20 years in Afghanistan were civilians. I was chair of the APPG, the All Party Parliamentary Group on drones a few years back, and we had a US whistleblower that came over to parliament and told us that there was a policy in the US, which was that you could, they didn't need authorization to kill a suspected terrorist if there are up to seven civilians around them or innocent. Anything over that had to go up, but that meant that they could have seven children around them and they were authorized, so you understand them where that 90% figure came from. So where was the concern for their rights, their human rights? Where was the concern for their lives these past 20 years from them same politicians? It does bring into question sometimes these, I think, I'm not going to say crocodile tears, I actually think that people speaking in parliament actually believe what they're saying, which is perhaps more terrifying in some ways, but I just feel that there are sometimes double standards. The question you ask yourselves and the question I have to ask myself is, if the Taliban were sat on petrochemical resources, do I think that certain powers within the West would have found an accommodation with them? They found an accommodation with those who have strategic interest that they want in Saudi Arabia, in Amman, in Yemen, in other countries around the world, in Egypt, which is a dictatorship, a brutal dictatorship, but it has a Suez Canal and it's also a geopolitically important. They found an accommodation with them. I kind of feel to myself, well, what's different about Saudi Arabia and its particular brand of Islamism compared to what the Taliban are kind of practicing. So I'm sure someone out there will tell me that there are major differences, but the bottom line is Saudi Arabia is an autocratic, repressive, violent regime and yet they are one of our biggest exporters of arms and technology and military advice that we give to them. So I think there are double standards and I think when you look at the bigger picture, when you look at who's profited, when you look at who's made money, when you look at who's been dying, when you look at the so-called human rights abuses that have taken place, yes, by the Taliban, but also by ourselves, then you begin to see a far more complicated and muddied picture and it wasn't quite the picture that was being painted in parliament yesterday, that we were some kind of knights on shining armor who kind of went into Afghanistan and for whatever reasons stamped in the back by if not the US president, Joe Biden, if only we'd been allowed to do what we went there to do or would be well, well, I guess the question I now ask myself is, which should we have been there in the first place? There are lots of, if you look around the world, there are lots of nasty regimes, the world is shades of gray and I think I'm reminded of, and I'm kind of going on a tangent here, but one of the things I saw recently which kind of made me take stock was a kind of piece of footage where I think the US, the new US foreign secretary was having a bilateral talks with his Chinese equivalent and before the TV cameras were sent out, the US diplomat said, we've got concerns about the Uighurs, we've got concerns about human rights in China, quite rightly raising those issues, but the Chinese, the Chinese counterparts said, well, yes, we have concerns about your treatment of black people in the United States, we have concerns about human rights abuses that the United States has been committing not only on its own people, but on people around the world and he was flabbergasted and taking it back, but that's the truth of it. We are not, we are not our foreign policy and the elites that perpetrate it, we are not innocents in this international game, you only have to look at our history, you only have to look at our imperial past that's still playing out to this day to see that it isn't a cut and dry good guys, bad guys, the good guys are in the white hats, the bad guys are in the black hats, it is shades of gray, do I think that makes Putin a good guy, do I think that makes Xiaoping and the Chinese authorities in China, good guys, no I don't, you know, but the world is complex and I think we need to see the world in that light and also understand that if we are going to make the world a better and safer place as we move into the 21st century with the climate crisis upon us, which is only going to increase instability, bombing our way out of that future is not going to work, in fact it's a surefire way of hastening our demise, we have got to find new ways of working with others and making sure that we have a foreign policy that is ethical and a foreign policy which is about helping people, you know and we can start that at COP26 by actually showing real leadership in the world in the fight against the climate crisis because the climate crisis is being driven by our global economic system, that's what's driving it, that's what needs to change, do I think the Conservative Party are capable of doing that, no they're not of course they're not because they are integral to that economic system, so that's what needs to happen if we don't do that then I'm afraid to say things are not going to improve, that's how we can show leadership in the world if you know that's what the world wants from us leadership but I think if that's if that's the way we can go forward then I think that would be a way to really make a difference to people's lives, to really make a difference to the 21st century as we go into it. I want to talk about Labour for a bit and especially that consensus that we saw on Wednesday because we spoke about it on Navarra Media on Wednesday's show, it was almost like looking into an alternate reality where you had everyone standing up ignoring the whole last 20 years and saying for the past 20 years the West have been going around the world trying to bring about democracy, trying to bring about progress, you know I kind of felt like we'd moved beyond that you know people recognize now that the war on terror was most right thinking people recognize it was a disaster and suddenly we had Lisa Nandi, Keir Starmer, everyone standing up and saying these Western countries trying to bring democracy about with guns and bombs was brilliant and by withdrawing Biden is now abandoning the forces of freedom, the forces of a rules-based order and you know they were essentially saying let's, Keir Starmer sounded like Tony Blair in the 2000s basically and Keir Starmer in the 2000s was a campaigning lawyer against the Iraq war so I suppose that big change from you or from them what do you think that's about do you think that's that Keir Starmer is terrified to sound unpatriotic so he feels like he has to say everything the army did was good and the only problem was withdrawing or do you think he's had a genuine change of heart and now he is a you know unabashed liberal interventionist I mean how did that extraordinary consensus as you say other than Diane Avert and Jeremy Corbyn etc come about I actually thought you know look I actually thought listening to Keir I mean I think a lot of people would probably place Keir somewhere on before he came into politics and as you said the work that he did as a human rights barrister would probably place him somewhere in the anti-Iraq anti-Afghan war camp I would have thought I got overtones of that by reading between the lines that may have me being overly optimistic by reading between the lines about what he did say and what he didn't say but I think the question about the tone of parliament and I think it came from others I think it came more from other speakers but the tone in parliament the round of applause from our own benches after Tom Tugenhardt kind of basically made this quite heroic appeal to liberal interventionism I think kind of shows you that the party has shifted quite the plp let's be clear here the plp has shifted quite fundamentally from where it has been the last four or five years now there are always people who have been pro the Iraq or pro so-called liberal interventionism but I did see a change from some people who I thought might know better who seem to be cheering that on and I just wonder whether there's a bit of groupthink going on in the plp and in parliament on this you can understand why I'm not not justifying it but you can understand why you've got a kind of almost almost kind of unified kind of presence on the media from common from a commentary in the mainstream media who are buying into this narrative about some kind of defeat for democracy and all that's good and shiny from the west and that's happening here um you I got the sense that there were people in that chamber especially on the conservative side who are itching for us to prove that the west is not weak people like Ian Duncan Smith and others and I think there is a real concern that there will be people in that place who will want to settle scores who will want to show to the world that the west isn't weak in the face of so-called threats from china and russia and other so-called autocratic states they will want to kind of prove themselves and for the west to take the first opportunity to prove itself now I think the mood in the chamber uh the other day was concerning in that if that mood is the mood that we can expect should there be such a crisis um then my concern is that parliament would almost unanimously I'm not going to say unanimously actually I think you probably find elements of the smp liberal democrats as well who would probably oppose it um but there would be a a consensus a majority for uh yet for yet further military action and I'm concerned about that why it's happening but I think there's there's clearly been a shift politically uh inside the labor party I think you'd have to be living on the moon um to not understand why that's happened um I couldn't give you any other um analysis other than that there has been a mood change the mood music has changed inside the plp I think this unfortunately sometimes brings out the worst in our party it's almost as if black lives matter and the taking of the knee and george floyd it's almost as if it happened in a bubble somewhere else I mean surely the whole point about black lives matter about george floyd was about understanding the history of racism of empire of colonialism of where it came from and how it is alive and well today and that racism is a function of that I thought that's what we all took well I thought that's what we all learned and took from the black lives matter campaign and from george floyd's death that that racism that structural racism is a throwback if you want that the original kind of stone dropping into the pond it's a ripple from their original pond of slavery empire and colonialism I thought that's what we learned and that these wars where we think that we have a moral uh right to go into other countries and impose democracy uh by occupation and bombing is is our kind of god given right do people not see the connection between them all and and it just feels as if it's been done in isolation so you know look um it was it was really difficult to listen to some of that in the chamber and I think people I think you know look to your listeners out there to your MPs who are in that chamber you know if you're in the Labour Party still um you need to be questioning your MPs at there at your next clp meeting and asking them for their analysis of what's happened in Afghanistan why it's gone wrong on what they think we should be doing next as a party um in terms of moving forward on this issue because unless they actually have a you know an analysis that's rooted in the reality of our imperial past that's rooted in the analysis in the in the reality of who is making money from these wars vast amounts of wealth from these wars is rooted in an analysis of the reality of the geopolitical situation in this world is rooted in an analysis of what is happening in the climate crisis that destabilization is going to be increasing not decreasing then unless they have the analysis and best they have actually thought about this and can give you kind of kind of pretty good answers on it then you need to tell them to educate themselves and find out about it because I don't see how any so-called democratic socialist social democratic social democrat can look at this world can look at what's happening in Afghanistan cannot join the dots up between all the points that I've made and come to the conclusion that the era of liberal interventionism has to end has to end. Clive I can see overwhelmingly positive comments lighting up the the comment section thank you so much for joining us um this evening always a pleasure to have you on the show thank you thank you for listening to you Waffle just oh and I wish you I wish you got the seven minutes so I'm you know you know in parliament it would have been cool um anyway yeah good we'll speak soon thanks a lot Mike let's go to some of those comments Mike Baker 449 astonishing discussion with Clive Lewis thanks so much Navarra for giving this straight talking legend the platform and Stephen Everson tweets on the hashtag tisky sour the question that everyone watching tisky sour must be thinking how is it that Clive Lewis isn't leading his party he didn't get enough nominations that was that the problem was the plp um it would have been very interesting seeing Clive you know properly debate Keir Starmer in in that in those hustings but unfortunately um there weren't enough MPs on those benches willing to give him a go Stephen Calder we have two pound great guest speaker Clive for Labour leader there's a there's a theme developing here tomorrow with five pounds who needs a co-host when you've got to when you get to chat to us instead thanks for all you do I wouldn't miss the show thank you so much I really do appreciate that um Jay Witscher with a 20 quid thank you very much love Navarra media please could I get a shout out of solidarity to everyone demonstrating in Truro tomorrow about the lack of affordable housing and private rented accommodation in Cornwall very interesting of course you can get a shout out solidarity to everyone demonstrating in Truro beautiful Truro um Greg McGregor with 449 why should I vote Labour when my MP abstained on spy cops and hasn't said anything about Sana Begum yes not my job to answer that question now um you really have to make your own mind up I don't know your MP is or how marginal your seat is let's go straight on to our next story only fans the website famous for allowing users to subscribe to individual porn accounts is banning porn it might sound like an odd business decision it's also massively screwing over the sex workers and adult entertainers who rely on the platform to make a living so why have only fans done it Bloomberg report that the changes are needed because of mounting pressure from banking partners and payment providers according to the company only fans is trying to raise money from outside investors at a valuation of more than one billion dollars in order to ensure the long-term sustainability of our platform and continue to host an inclusive community of creators and fans we must evolve our content guidelines only fans said as reported by the Guardian the influence of payment providers on porn sites is nothing new they write that last December visa and mastercard briefly banned payments to websites owned by online pornography giant mind geek following reports it was hosting revenge porn uploaded without the consent of those involved the financial business is only backtracked when mind geek deleted tens of millions of unverified videos from its sites such as porn hub in that example of course you might say that initial motive was justified revenge porn is a terrible thing it shouldn't be allowed to exist on the internet the question is did that pressure to remove revenge porn mean that too much was taken off websites too much sort of legitimate videos came down and is that what we're seeing again in the case of only fans to discuss I'm joined by Lydia Caradona can I start by asking how how big a blow will this decision be to sex workers who use only fans for their income I mean it's huge isn't it imagine being told one day that you couldn't do your job that you were a journalist but you couldn't use words right so it's going to be a massive blow to the thousands of people who started using only fans as a result of the pandemic or as a result of other general poverty how are people supposed to live if they can't work right and it's going to have knock on effects to the rest of the sex industry as well we know that the pressure from payment processes is not just going to impact only fans other websites are likely going to face difficult decisions like this as well so what happens to all of the people who are currently using those platforms some of them I'm sure will be able to kind of exit the sex industry and get different jobs but other people are going to be in other forms of sex work like escorting where they might not necessarily have the tools to keep themselves safe in any big influx into the sex industry lowest prices and makes it harder to negotiate for safer services is it the payment providers who you blame for this decision do you think that this was that they were pressuring only fans and only fans you know had a meeting and said oh we've got no choice but to succumb to their their demands or do you think that this is potentially only fans sort of using them as an excuse because they had a change of strategic direction I mean if we're talking blame how far back are we willing to go because lots of this could be traced back to some religious far-right movements in the US who have been on a moral crusade against pornography in general lots of the pressure came from these movements so you know we could argue that it's there for but I think lots of people have been very quick to say you know this is Mastercard this isn't only fans only fans do not seem to be trying to fight it or stand up for the sex workers who built their entire platform in any meaningful way and in a way we kind of predicted that only fans would turn its back on sex workers kind of quickly because the the platform itself was never intended to be an adult services website it was intended to be a competitor to Patreon so as soon as we saw that they were really trying to push diversifying and getting celebrities on to release music and stuff we sort of anticipated that only fans would be turning its back on sex workers as soon as that became the financial best decision for them there is no loyalty to the workers whose bodies have created this like multi-billion dollar platform and it is a lot it is a lot of workers there are 16 000 creators who earn at least 36 000 pounds annually from the site that's from internal figures obtained by Axios there will be lots of people whose livelihoods are are you know really undermined by this decision I wanted to ask you about you know what what kind of policies or regulation you would propose because I think most people would agree um that revenge porn anything starring anyone that's underage you know there are lots of things that either we don't want being created in the first place or that we don't want underage people viewing what kind of regulation could we have that wouldn't cast the net too wide well interestingly this sort of regulation is already in place on most websites so I have a friend whose only fans was locked the other day because her boyfriend's hand was in a photo and he was not a verified model um people are already being asked to age verify and um sign model releases for every single person who's in any of the videos um lots of stuff is already happening in the reason this has come about is because there have been um less with only fans but more other websites like Pornhub some very high profile cases of the websites not dealing with real issues of revenge porn or videos of assaults for example being uploaded and the websites themselves not having the robust sort of structure in place to be taking them down immediately so you know it's unsurprising that lots of people are upset with websites like this and coming to the conclusion that banning them all together is the solution um it's just a shame that sex workers have once again been caught in this crossfire where people are willing to throw us all under the bus um in order to protect other people and and what happens now on a practical level so I suppose there are lots of people who've built up a subscriber base whereby they can you know either it you know adds to their you know is part of their income or it's their whole income will they just move to a different website and try and build up a subscriber base again or do you think that that sort of blow of building up this base and then losing it all will mean that people turn away from this particular business model um some people are definitely going to turn away if they're in a position to um and you know good for them there's lots of people who have managed to purchase properties and stuff um and will be fine um there is certainly going to be kind of a gap in the market that is already being filled by a bunch of smaller websites and people are trying to transfer across there's no way that's going to happen without a massive dip in their incomes and also when you have like such a large workforce being displaced it really puts people at the mercy of the website so other websites are taking bigger cuts for example so people are going to get off unscathed and people who aren't able to recover their fan base I guess are probably going to go into other forms of sex work I've already seen people talk about going into independent escorting or looking for other opportunities in places like brothels which is obviously far more dangerous than online sex work so it is a real safety issue for the community and we also know that when there are large influxes of people into the sex industry it hurts everyone else because it drives prices down it makes people unable to negotiate things like condom usage because there is a larger number of clients the same amount of clients and a larger number of workers so everyone is competing with each other so we are going to knock on effects for safety for the rest of the industry Lydia Caradona thank you so much for joining us this evening super insightful stuff I should have said at the beginning Lydia Caradona is a sex worker and a member of the sex worker advocacy and resistance movement JTB with a five a great show Michael never change or don't change too much lol yes I'll do that if I change it won't be probably won't be much this point in my life um settle down to some kind of equilibrium let's go to a final story before I waffle any longer the SMP and Scottish Greens have announced details of a power sharing agreement in hollywood two green MSPs will be appointed as ministers in the Scottish Government which will obviously be led by the SMP it's the first time anywhere in the UK that the Greens have gained power in a national government Patrick Harvey and Lorna Slater are co-leaders of the Scottish Greens and they have this to say on the deal this is indeed a historic moment this deal would see the Greens entering government for the first time ever in Scotland or anywhere in the UK and it couldn't come at a more important time the last 18 months have been an incredibly difficult time for us all and as we seek to rebuild our lives we and our economy we really must seek to do things differently we must build a fairer compassionate country and we must do everything in our power to tackle the climate and nature emergencies and deliver a just transition for all of Scotland and that's what this deal will do it means that our parties will be working together to deliver a bold and ambitious programme to deliver a green recovery from Covid a new deal for tenants and a fundamental change in approach on transport it will put two green ministers into the heart of government advocating for the climate and for a fairer greener Scotland and with the COP26 climate conference coming to Scotland we are in a position to show real leadership on climate we need to cut Scotland's emissions fast here are three ways that this deal would do that one we would deliver a radical shift in transport spending 10% of all transport spend would go towards making cycling walking and wheeling safe and accessible for all and we would invest 5 billion pounds over this parliament in Scotland's rail network two we cannot tackle the climate emergency without improving Scotland's homes and buildings we have therefore agreed an accelerated and expanded 2.8 billion pound programme that would support everyone to make the changes that we need over the coming decade three we would accelerate the rollout of renewables and double the size of the onshore wind industry creating thousands of good quality jobs together we would deliver a new deal for tenants giving tenants more rights introducing rent controls to help tackle Scotland's housing crisis we would make bus travel free for young people create a new national park and much more that was the green co-leaders underlining the policies that they've managed to get into this deal some pretty progressive stuff there the arrangement also underlines both party support for Scottish independence with a commitment to hold a referendum in the next five years this is what First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the deal represents for the Scottish independence movement I am determined that there will be an independence referendum in this parliament I said in the election this agreement reiterates that that Covid permitting that will be in the first half of this parliamentary term I don't want that as an end in itself or as some abstract ambition I believe Scotland should be independent so that we can better equip ourselves to recover from Covid in the way that I think a majority of people across our country wishes to do towards a greener fairer Scotland and one that learns the lessons of the past 18 months and more and of course a Scotland that looks outward to Europe and the world not one that is forced to look inward by the Brexit obsessed government of the UK this agreement I think it's not about making it more likely I think it makes it harder and indeed impossible on any democratic basis for a UK government to resist the right of the Scottish people to choose their own future the three of us standing here and our respective parties want that future to be an independent one but the core principle of democracy is that it should not be us or any other politician who decides the future that should be and will be in my view a matter for the Scottish people that was Nicola Sturgeon reiterating she really does want a second independence referendum earlier today I spoke to Laurie McFarlane about some of the finer details of the power sharing agreement and what it means for the future of Scotland we've seen two documents published basically which is the outcome of months of negotiations between the S&P and the Greens since the election took place in May so the first thing is the draft cooperation agreement and this basically sets out the formalities of how this is actually going to work how the two parties are going to work together and so it's not a formal coalition what it is is more of a confidence and supply type arrangement whereby the Greens basically have they've been offered two junior minister of positions in the government one for climate and one for something else and they basically said that they will support the government in confidence votes and they've they've agreed to support them on on a range of broad areas so it's not a formal coalition government but it's certainly the closest thing it's certainly close to that closer to that than perhaps people might have expected a couple months ago when we saw their election result the S&P having a minority in Hollywood and relying on green votes that's been the case in I think multiple parliaments or at least one and they didn't go into a formal agreement like this well what's the what's the motivation on both sides for a formal agreement yeah so in May the S&P won 64 votes which is the same as all the opposition parties it's actually more than they got in the last parliament and obviously in the last parliament there wasn't any kind of formal agreement the S&P governed as a minority government and often relied on the greens to get legislation through so it's interesting this time around what's changed well I think on both sides so on the S&P side I think Nicola Sturgeon probably sees something in having the greens inside the tent now that part of that might be the sort of kudos of having a green party in government you know scott cop26 has come into Scotland in just a couple of months Nicola Sturgeon is keen to sort of polish up her green credentials and having the greens in government whether or at least in a formal arrangement whether will help that a more cynical view might say that this is an attempt to kind of neutralize the greens so the greens were in quite a powerful position in the last parliament because although the S&P relied on them to get legislation through they had that power to wield because they could actually say actually no we're going to side of the opposition parties to block things that we don't like and so they were in that quite powerful position and did act as a bit of a thorn in the side of the S&P in the last parliament and so by bringing them into the tent from an S&P perspective you know it might be a way of sort of trying to neutralize that that sort of power from from and at least in one sense on the green side you know clearly there is some status to be gained by being a party that has that is you know in not a formal sense but will be seen to be a party of government moving from the sort of fringes of the political landscape this is the first time that the greens have come anywhere near governing in the UK you know they'll see that as a major as a major breakthrough it's worth just pointing out important point to make though is that this has not been finalized yet because the proposals need to be voted on by Scottish Green Party members this weekend Green Party obviously quite a democratic party so this has to be put to the members and the members will decide this weekend whether they want to back this or not so that's a big unknown question as to whether that's going to happen or not it's not being put to S&P members that's just been decided by the leadership but it is being put to Green members before a Green Party member considering they are as you say very relevant in this situation what can they look at in this deal and say yes this is a real victory for us I'm you know I'm imagining these people are slightly to the left of the S&P what would they look at in this document and say this is brilliant this is going to be implemented well the other document that was published today was a draft shared policy program which sets out a whole range of policy proposals policy areas policy agenda where there's common ground or at least on paper there's common ground between the S&P and the Greens and this is what they're going to be pursuing to implement this parliament there's lots of pretty good stuff in there I mean on housing commitment to national rent controls much stronger tenant protection things like that which is quite a big step forward as you'd expect quite good on climate land reform national care service scaling up CUNY wealth building so there's lots of stuff in there that you know if you're looking at it to try and you know get things done you know to improve the way that Scotland is operating at the moment if the Greens can be part of making that happen and can help to push the S&P that little bit further then you can see that that might be tempting one interesting part though there's also in in the documents an explicit annex which sets out policy areas that are excluded specifically excluded from the cooperation agreement and it's really interesting to see what they are one of them is the role of GDP as a measure and the sort of idea of economic growth as a goal so the Greens are quite a bit skeptical about the sort of growth paradigm and pushing against that and the role of GDP as a measure of progress the S&P have said we don't want to basically we don't want to cooperate with the Greens on this area because we don't agree another one is financial support to defence and aerospace companies which again I think there's a fundamental disagreement there and so they're not going to be cooperating on that NATO membership which obviously isn't relevant just now but is relevant in a post-independence context it explicitly said there weren't there's not that's not within the cooperation agreement because there's a big divide there the S&P pro-NATO Greens anti-NATO field sports which is a very innocent name for what's essentially shooting sports so deer stalking, grouse shooting all that kind of stuff again big divide there at sex work the legality of sex work is another one the final one is private schools fee-paying schools so none of that stuff is in the agreement so there's basically there's a there's basically agreement that they're not going to agree on this stuff and so the Greens don't have to agree with them on this and that's been set out at the beginning and I think the key unknown question for me and probably for Green Party members right now is they're thinking well where's our leverage where's our leverage best used is it actually in this formal agreement with the S&P what leverage do we have there it's actually changing or is it actually outside of that with the threat to be able to side with the opposition parties in order to block the S&P stuff and this is a very tricky situation it's a good position to be in for the Scottish Greens it's a powerful dilemma to have but it is a tricky one because they also can leave it I suppose if it turns out that they have a disagreement with the S&P on one of those areas which isn't protected they can say well we'll leave this formal agreement and we will still vote against your your budget I presume no no agreement can commit them in the future against doing that yeah exactly I mean you know in politics things can change very quickly and you know if the if the members this weekend do decide to back this agreement in good faith and are optimistic about it you know we'll see how it goes it could well be the case that further down the line it proves that it's not working and and and the Greens pull out I mean that's that's a possibility but yeah we just need to wait and see how it pans out one policy area I wanted to ask about was the cambo oil fields so at the moment the S&P I think are still supporting it or at least remaining very ambiguous I would presume the Greens are going to oppose that you're saying having the Greens in government is going to make Nicola Sturgeon look good at COP26 is there a possibility that this is something that's going to blow up over the next few months whether or not Nicola Sturgeon will back new oil fields in the North Sea oil in the North Sea sorry well it's interesting because this is actually a reserved area so the Scottish government actually doesn't have any power now and there are some areas that are reserved where the S&P are very keen to talk about they're very keen to say you know we would do this differently you know we would do that Nicola Sturgeon actually did I mean following a meeting with I think it was Green New Deal Rising a couple of weeks ago did actually come out and say actually you know I've listened and I've acknowledged that further opening up new oil and gas fields isn't the right thing to do so she did kind of acknowledge that however in this case in this specific deal this is a reserved area and so you know there's a bit of you know it's not really mentioned basically here it's a bit of a fudge in this agreement because they're saying actually well you know this is an agenda for the Scottish Parliament and basically oil and gas is a reserved matter and therefore I were not going to say anything about it but clearly there is differing views particularly the two parties here you know the Greens obviously very very much opposed to it some within the S&P not so much opposed to it so this is one of these tensions that's kind of bubbling underneath the surface but there's a convenient sort of a convenient reason not to explicitly talk about it here and that's simply oh it's a reserved matter we don't have competence over at the moment and that's kind of what they've done. I understand in the deal they have committed to an indie ref too within five years ideally in the first half of Parliament that's another area where they don't have complete control because the government in Westminster can refuse to allow them to have that referendum does it say in the deal what would happen if the Westminster government does refuse would they have an unauthorized referendum for example? It doesn't it doesn't say that it doesn't say anything about that I mean this is another reason potentially why we were talking earlier about why would the S&P try and do this deal one of the reasons could be to try and that it bolsters the case the mandate for an independent referendum because there is this view that prevails I think certainly in Westminster that green votes are not quite real independence votes and it's the S&P is the real independence vote and because the S&P fell slightly short of a majority then somehow that mandate's not really legitimate because you know the other majority the other that makes a majority is the greens and the greens don't really come and I think by bringing the greens into the fold as a sort of formal partner they're sort of in a sense strengthening the greens as a sort of legitimate political actor as a you know an equal partner certainly when it comes to independence and so I think the S&P will be hoping that this part if this partnership does materialize if it does get the votes this weekend by the members that this will put forward a stronger front provide a stronger mandate to the UK government say look we now have a government a majority government here that is has an unquestionable mandate for independence and you really don't have any right to to refuse of course there's a big question you know the UK the reality is the UK does can just refuse and Boris Johnson when you think about it does you really have an incentive to grant a referendum what's he got to gain from it he doesn't rely on Scottish votes he's got enough headaches on his plate at the moment does he really want to do that so I think it's going to be a really interesting battle playing out and of course the question is if it is refused what what cards does the Scottish government hold could it hold a sort of a wild cat referendum does it want to go down that route that sort of Catalonia route you know well wait there's been various sort of threats being put forward but it'd be really interesting to see how that plays out in practice I'm sure this is the kind of key question that some of the strategists will be thinking about just now and over the coming months that was Laurie McFarlane on a story I'm sure we will be coming back to soon I now have an admission to make I feel kind of bad because at the beginning of the show I was like you know I've stayed here I've got no co-host then you're all like well thank you I'm actually going away now so this is my last show until the 1st of September and Ash will be covering for me on Monday but normally we are now saying you know when I go on holiday that shouldn't mean the shows don't happen we'll get someone else to cover the reason that's not happening this time is because Aaron Bostani is getting married and his fiance is of Maltese heritage the wedding is happening in Malta so Navarra basically is upping sticks and going to Malta so this is going to be the last time we have a week off that's not sort of over Christmas for example but we will be back straight after that and we'll be incredibly refreshed do make sure you tune in on Monday though for Ash Saka thank you for all of your super chats tonight I'm going to go to one more in fact Nick Puleo with a $10 donation asks will this help to raise the Greens profile elsewhere in the UK lend them more legitimacy you know so maybe it will I mean the Greens big problem in this you know in in the UK elections is that is first past the post not really that they're not seen as legitimate so I think it's going to be that voting system that continues to screw them over for now you've been watching Tiskey Sour on Navarra media good night