 With the vaccine rollout going well, the one thing that could disrupt our route back to pre-COVID normality is the spread of a new immune-resistant variant. So how worried should we be about the arrival of the Brazil variant in Britain? And does this show Boris Johnson's travel restrictions aren't fit for purpose? On tonight's Tisgisau, we'll talk you through all the evidence, all the most important evidence for you to get your head around what's going on. And I am privileged to be joined by Ash Sarkar to do so. How are you doing? Hey, please use my new professional title. What is it? Navaramezia's Royal Correspondent, self-appointed. Excellent. Which means that I'm especially lucky to have you on tonight's show because we are going to end with the real reason the UK press can't stand Prince Harry. It often takes me a while to get into royal stories, but this one's really interesting. Some interesting historic videos we have to show you. We are also going to be discussing Rishi Sunak's plans for pre-election tax cuts and at least Dodd's refusal to rule out cuts to universal credit, humiliation for the Labour right in the latest Labour League's court case and Anas Sarwar elected Scottish Labour leader. Before we go on, please do share the show link and comment under the Twitch screen and keep your super chats coming and tweet on the hashtag Tisgisau. The coronavirus pandemic has been tough for almost everyone, but few places have had it worse than Manaus. Manaus, as you can see here, is in the north of Brazil. It's the capital city of the Amazonas state and in the first wave of the pandemic, the city had one of the highest per capita death tolls in the world. Its hospitals were completely overwhelmed. To get an idea of how bad that first wave was, we can go to a quote from the Financial Times. This was the mayor of Manaus speaking to them, having in your mind that the population of the city is 2 million. He told the Financial Times, this is the mayor, at a max our graveyards used to have 35 burials a day and that was in exceptional circumstances, such as a prison riot. Now we have an average of 130. We were not prepared for this. You can sort of see the extent to which this was a city overwhelmed by coronavirus. At the time the high death toll was put down to poverty and isolation, people struggled to self-isolate and hospitals found themselves short on supplies. That's still the best estimation of why that happened. However, we did think there might have been a silver lining. That's because antibody tests of blood donors suggested that 76% of the city had already caught the virus by October 2020. So many assumed herd immunity might have been achieved. You would hope that that would mean that in cities which didn't have quite such a high degree of cases, you would get a second wave and there you wouldn't because people had already got immunity. However, that's not what happened at the end of 2020. Disaster struck. Again, cases surged as did hospitalizations. And on January the 15th this year the BBC reported that Manaus's hospitals had run out of oxygen. So really, really, a really, really serious second wave after having a first wave about as serious as it could be. So what did happen, what meant that it got struck twice even though theoretically we would have thought it would have had herd immunity. Unfortunately, it seems that what happened is a new variant of coronavirus had emerged. It's named P1. You will have heard about it in the news today. And the variant contained the E484 mutation which scientists believe helps the virus evade our immune response. This is a graph from the Lancet which provides a stark visual representation of what happened. So you can see here the top of the graph is showing you how hospitalizations and excess deaths changed over the course of the pandemic. You see very, very high and then they basically stayed low for quite a few months right up until the end of December when again hospitalizations rock it as do excess deaths. And you can see from the bottom graph that that coincides with the earliest detection of the P1 strain or the P1 variation. Now this shows us a number of things which are of interest when it comes to COVID-19. One is the folly of deliberately pursuing a herd immunity strategy. That's not what Manouse did. They were poor and overwhelmed. I don't think they were saying let's do this for the fun of it. But it does show you and that a Tory backbenchers had their way and indeed if Rishi Sunak had his way the result would not have been herd immunity and a return to normality but quite likely new variants and mass death. The experience in Manouse also shows us why we don't particularly want the P1 variant to become dominant in the UK and that's why it's unfortunate. It's worrying that this Sunday we learned that six cases have been identified here. So three of those cases have been identified in North East Scotland. That's among people who recently returned from Brazil by Paris and London in their case and they were free in England. Two of those people have been identified in South Gloucestershire and one person is unfortunately unknown. If you've watched any of the briefings from politicians today you'll have heard that they are all quite desperately calling out if you've had a test on the 12th or the 13th of February and you haven't had your result back, please get in touch because someone took a test on those dates and didn't fill out the form properly and so we think there is an unidentified or we know there is an unidentified case of the P1 variant somewhere in England. This has raised lots of questions about whether the travel restrictions introduced by Boris Johnson so far have been tough enough. But today, speaking to the media, he called for calm. We've got one of the toughest border regimes anywhere in the world for stopping people coming into this country who may have variants of concern and if you look at what we've done in the case of the South African variant a massive effort went in there and the same is going on now to contain any spread of the Brazilian variant. I should just say to anybody who is concerned that just a couple of things. First of all, we have no reason not to think that our vaccines are effective against these variants of concern at the present time. People should take that as some evidence of confidence and then also listen to what Public Health England are also saying. They don't think that there is a threat to the wider public but obviously we are continuing to do everything we can to stop variants coming in at our borders. That's why we've got a tough regime. So many things to say about that intervention. Things that you might not be convinced are true. The border regime compared to countries like New Zealand and Australia who have been had a very successful in response to coronavirus aren't particularly tough. You only have to quarantine in hotels if you've come from certain red list countries. We know that's not really the way one would keep out new variants. Also, these people who've now tested positive for P1A all came very much according to the rules. They weren't hotel quarantine because it took such a long time for that policy to come into force. The second thing that wasn't necessarily true or I think was pretty much outright misleading is the idea that he said we don't have any reason not to think that the vaccines we have are effective against these strains. It's important to be very precise here. I don't want to panic people. We're not in a terrible situation. Again, as I always say, I would love to have the vaccine tomorrow, whichever one they offered me. But it's not as simple as saying there's nothing to be concerned about at all. The Manaus experience shows that this is a strain which can evade immune responses if you've previously had the virus. And we do also have evidence that at least some of the vaccines struggle against this strain. I should say because this is going to be useful throughout the show. The reason this strain we are worried about it is because it has the E484K mutation. It's the same as the South African strain has. The same as an example of the Kent strain developed in Bristol. These are, it's called convergent evolution. So these are developing in different parts of the world. But when they spread, it's worrying because that mutation, also known as the EEC mutation, informally among scientists, does seem to have some resistance to vaccines. Let's have a look at a graph I showed you recently on the show. This is from Eric Topow or Eric Topol. Sorry, he's a professor of molecular biology, very useful Twitter account. And he's showing the effectiveness of the different vaccines against the South Africa strain. I should also point out, we had Dean and Pelleon when we were talking about this. He said, look, you can't necessarily compare the vaccines like for like in this way, but you do get an indication of what's going on from this. So you can see here the vaccines against the South Africa strain, the Novavax one 60%, it has 60% efficacy for people who don't have HIV in South Africa in the UK, it's 89%. So it is less effective, but still effective. The J&J vaccine, 57% against the South African strain. So that's with the EEC variant. That's compared to 72% in the US. So again, less effective, but still effective than the AstraZeneca one. We have a more worrying result because they found that it was only 10% efficacious against mild disease. And that's what's important. We only know that against mild disease. We're still not completely sure how this will fare against severe disease. Now, when I first saw this, I was incredibly worried. I was like, the only thing it seems that we know from this is that the AstraZeneca vaccine doesn't work against the South African strain or strains with the E484K variant. It's not quite as simple. We do have reasons which aren't just wishful thinking to think that it will still prevent severe disease. So the best explanation I've had of this was from a write-up in The Times by Tom Whipple. This was at the time when we got those disappointing results in South Africa about the AstraZeneca vaccine. So he sort of explains here why we shouldn't necessarily assume that this isn't going to work. The AstraZeneca vaccine isn't going to work against severe disease even if we've got one of these immune-resistant strains. So he writes, vaccines stop infection by inducing antibodies, some of which cling onto the end of the virus's spikes, acting as a cap that prevents it entering cells. That is not where their job ends, though. They also induce other responses, many poorly understood, including a wing of the immune system known as T-cells. These responses together attack the rest of the virus, helping to fight off the infection after it has begun. It appears that the South African variant has changed sufficiently that it evades our first line of defense. The second line, though, is more robust. And he expands on that later in the article by stating that data taken from South Africa shows that almost 90% of the vaccine-induced T-cell responses are the same. The T-cells are still seeing the virus, but the antibodies are not taken with the fact that in other vaccines we know protection against severe disease seems to hold up. Professor Daniel Davis says this is hope for Professor Davis, was the immunologist who interviewed for that article. So basically what we can take from this is it seems that all the vaccines will prevent severe disease or we hope they will. But if the variant, this EEC variant becomes dominant, I think here that is don't expect a wild summer, because if these vaccines don't stop transmission, it's going to be hard to drop all of the social distancing measures and go back to any kind of pre-COVID normality, which is why personally I really don't want the EEC strain to become dominant, because I would like quite an active summer, really. So if we had one that did evade mild disease and therefore transmission, that would be very, very disappointing. I do want to give you one more reason not to panic, though, because there is also reason to believe that even though the now strain is here, it won't necessarily become dominant. Or there's lots of reasons to think it won't become dominant, in fact. And for the best write-up of this, I'm going to go to Hugo Guy of the Eye. He had a great piece on this today, a reassuring piece. So he writes, it is more than a month since the South African strain B1351 was first found in Britain and its spread has been relatively controlled with 193 confirmed cases out of tens of thousands of coronavirus infections overall. He also writes, so-called surge testing, which deploys teams to areas where the variants have been found and offers a test to all local residents seems to have been effective in preventing the South Africa strain from running out of control and is likely to do the same with P1. And lastly, later in the article, he writes, more broadly, there are encouraging signs that NHS test and trace is beginning to work better after its failure to stop the resurgence of COVID-19 last autumn, with more than 90% of those who come into contact with infected people now reached and the vast majority of tests processed within 24 hours. Of course, this needs caveats because all of this was partly possible because we're in lockdown. The reason the test and trace system is working very well is because the cases are falling. Once we reopen schools of cases start to rise again, it could be that the test and trace system gets overwhelmed again. We don't know. It's also important to say that we're still not paying people to self-isolate. However good the test and trace system gets, it's still going to be undermined by that simple fact. Ash, I've been talking for a while. I want to know from you how worried do you think we should be about the arrival of this variant and what does it tell us about Boris Johnson's travel regime? Well, I think the first thing that it tells us, as you said, is that in a lockdown context, our test, trace and isolate system is actually working pretty well. The fact that you've been able to identify that there are six people out there with this variant, one of those people is, you know, AWOL, is actually pretty good that shows a pretty decent degree of sophistication and sensitivity from the test and trace system. This will become a lot more challenging as the number of people dependent on that system, particularly when schools reopen, is going to go up, until you're going to have a lot more mixing between households, first in schools and then later as hospitality and workplaces and offices and the like open up again. And so the big question is going to be is that infrastructure going to be robust enough? Is it going to be quick enough? Is there going to be effort made to trace, not just, you know, close contacts, but also do household contact tracing? Those are things which will sort of remain to be seen. I do feel slightly more optimistic after the work that's been done containing the South African variant that you will have the rollout of this quite rapid surge testing capacity in local areas. And I hope that that's something which continues to happen. But of course, all these things are a lot more challenging when you're not pursuing a zero COVID strategy. It does mean that there is an increased likelihood of variants emerging domestically as well as from abroad. And so far because we don't have hotel quarantining in place and certainly it's not as blanket as the kinds of policy that you see in New Zealand or in Australia. We do have a more porous border than other countries which have pursued much tighter travel restrictions than we have here. And so I think in between those factors, the fact that we're going to be reopening when you still have a relatively high case load, and here I'm not speaking necessarily solely within our context. I'm talking about internationally. We've consistently chosen to reopen when new infections are still fairly high. When too, you've got a kind of porous travel restriction policy which identifies countries after they've already been put on alert rather than saying, okay, well, variants can emerge anywhere. Not every country's got good genomic testing so we're going to kind of keep it as a blanket policy. And then the third thing, which is that we have seen in the past our testing trace system fall apart when huge numbers of people rely on it. And you've also got the fact that people aren't being paid to self-isolate, that our sick pay is very low. Between all those things, after we open up, it would put us at a bit of a disadvantage should new variants, which are more transmissible or vaccine resistant, emerge? Exactly the way of looking at it. I don't think the argument isn't, oh no, the P1 strain or P1 variant is here. Everything's over. It's a catastrophe. There's no point even trying to have any return to normality. I don't think we're at that phase yet, but I suppose the reason I'm worried and I do think we have to take these variants very seriously is that we're getting so much good news about the vaccines in terms of how they can not just stop severe disease and stop moderate disease against the strains that are currently dominant in Britain, but can also stop transmission. And if they can stop a large proportion of transmission, that is really going to be an absolute godsend when it comes to can we return to some kind of normality this summer? If it doesn't do that, it's going to be much more difficult. And if the P1 strain or anything similar, anything with the EEC mutation, which could, like it did in Bristol, mutate here, if that becomes dominant, we're in a much more difficult situation. Ash, you wanted to come in. Very, very quickly. I also want to talk about how do you encourage the behaviour of disclosure? So if I'm this person with the EEC variant at the moment, I'd be feeling pretty scared, to be honest. I'd be like, oh my God, am I in trouble? That's if I've even seen the news. But I would be feeling really quite worried. And when you've got a headbanger, pretty patelle, and a wing of the Tory party who's preferred method of combating coronavirus is life imprisonment, obviously you'd be worried. There's been a lot of talk about the stick rather than the carrot as a means of encouraging people to isolate. And I don't think you ever really achieve positive behavioural changes by making people feel scared of punishment, particularly when it comes to healthcare. So I think that one of the things that's going to become really important if you want people to come forward when there are these variants at play, particularly if they're vulnerable for other reasons. Maybe they've got irregular migration status. Maybe they're worried about their job. Is that you essentially say it is completely safe and secure, no matter what, unless you're a serial killer, to come forward if you think that you may have this variant or this mutation. So I think that there is another government role to play in terms of being welcoming of disclosure, of creating an environment where people do disclose their health status in order to keep everybody safe. I think that the constant talking up of punishment, punitive fines is going to be counterproductive. I absolutely agree. That was the thought I had actually watching the press conference today, saying we're going to name and shame you, whoever this person is with the P1 variant. But I think they could have done a bit more reassurance because if that was me and you've got the Prime Minister talking about it, you've got all of the scientific experts talking about it, you've got the Health Secretary is the top of every news outlet. There's this one loose person with this P1 variant. I think we should be quite clear that it seems that everyone here was following the rules anyway. So no one can be criticised on a personal level, but let's all just collectively try to not let these variants, which have some vaccine resistance, become dominant. That's my one wish for the year. Let's go to some comments. Hugh Morgan tweets on the hashtag Tiskey Sour. Funny to hear UK government scrambling for people's contacts who've come back. In New Zealand, we have entire 30-minute press conferences dealing the minute-by-minute movements of one infected person. Yeah, that's quite the contrast. I assume they don't sort of, you know, name and shame the one infected person there either. Cell biology shorts with 10 pounds. So the Navara team think that countries pursuing zero COVID will open up travel amongst themselves and increase restrictions on countries like the UK. Yes, I mean, they already are doing that. So there is already a sort of travel corridor between New Zealand and Australia, but they're cut off from the rest of the world. I mean, there won't be that many zero COVID countries. I'm not sure if it's easy to travel from Australia to China, quite potentially. The only one I know there is the travel corridor is between Australia and New Zealand, but I suppose you could see that as well as we move on if more manage it. Given the rollout of the vaccines, it does seem there are going to be less countries that now choose to go to zero COVID because even with the development of new variants, I do think it kind of changes the potential costs of not pursuing a zero COVID strategy. Even if a variant such as the P1 becomes dominant in this country is quite hopeful we could have an updated vaccine by the autumn or we'll have a few more Pfizer vaccines which seem to work a bit better against the variants anyway. Let's go to a few more. Bit of sound with 15 pounds. Big thanks to Michael, Ash and team Navara for keeping neurons firing during UK MSM draw first. Extra £5 for the swear jar this month after my outburst of course language in the chat room recently. Very bliddiff, very tut-tut for you. We try so hard to keep this show clean. Thank you for the donation. And a big shout out to Pennywise UK who just dropped a £50 Super Chat ever so kind. And Pennywise UK is also a mod on our YouTube chat and it's your birthday. So happy birthday. Thank you for moderating our YouTube chat. Thank you for the very kind donation. I hope you have a great day. Rajya Dee also with a tenor. And they wish Pennywise a happy birthday. It's going crazy in the comments today. And finally, Julie Batterson with 15 pounds. Shout out to comrades in Banbury and by Chester CLP. The Starmerites will not win solidarity comrades on all levels. Remember we are here for our socialist comrades and then the other one sort of threatens my commitment to keeping this show clean. So I'll leave that for you to read. We're moving away from COVID now. Although everything's kind of related, isn't it? We've spoken a lot on recent shows about Labour's self-defeating opposition to tax rises for corporations. And we've said it's a disaster they found themselves to the right of the Tories on taxing the rich. That all still stands. However, you might not be surprised that the increase in corporation tax proposed by Rishi Sunak isn't necessarily suggestive of a genuine commitment to an egalitarian future on the part of the Tories. In the Sunday Times this weekend, Tim Shipman revealed that Sunak had been persuading Tory MPs to vote for tax rises now only so he could cut them again closer to a general election. Very, very cynical stuff. Now this was put to Rishi Sunak on the Sunday morning shows. First of all, this is how Sunak responded when Andrew Ma confronted him with that suggestion. Did you tell Tory MPs that you're going to raise taxes now so that you could cut them before the election? No, I don't recognise that. And I think anyone, given the shock that we've had over the last year and the economic uncertainty we face, it would be brave for people to know exactly what was going to happen in three years. What I'm focused on right now is preparing a budget that provides support for people and businesses and families through the remaining stages of this crisis is honest and levels for people about the challenges in our public finances and also talks about the future economy that we're trying to build. And that was a classic non-denial. He said, I do not recognise that. He didn't deny that that had happened. I do not recognise that story. If you weren't convinced by him there, if you still think what Tim Shipman said was true, then your assumption is only going to be reinforced by Rishi Sunak refusing to answer the question on Sky. Did you tell MPs last week that you want to cut taxes in a pre-election budget? I would like to be able to keep taxes low for people in general. I'm a Conservative and I believe in that. But I want to deliver our promises that we made to the British people, that we would be responsible with their money, that we would look after the nation's finances and we would deliver strong public services. And given the shock that coronavirus has caused us, I think it's right for me to have acted in the way that I have, provide the support that we are providing and will continue to provide. It sounds like you did say this, that you would try and rebalance the finances in the short term so you could cut taxes for a pre-election budget. It sounds like you did. I think in the short term, what we need to do is protect the economy and keep supporting the economy through the roadmap. And over time, what we need to do is make sure that our public finances are sustainable. That's what we've been talking about, that levelling with people, about what that's going to require. That isn't going to happen overnight. That is going to be work that takes time, given the scale of the shock that we've experienced. But if you're asking me, do I want to deliver low taxes for people, of course I do. Come on. Do I want to lower taxes for people, of course I do. You have to sort of really take seriously the fact that Britain's taxes are incredibly low. We have an incredibly unequal society. And just because you're a Tory doesn't mean you have to see incredibly low taxes and think, oh, I've got to lower them even more. We've shown you this graph before, but I want to bring it up again because it's, again, an important one to sort of have ingrained into your skull when you're listening to right-wing people who are saying, oh, if you raise corporation taxes, it's going to be really bad for the economy. Because Britain, when you're looking at large OECD nations, so this is nations with a population of over 30 million, we have the lowest corporation tax of anyone. So corporation tax in the United Kingdom is 19%. It's the lowest in the G7. It goes up to 28% in Italy, 30% in Japan, 30% in Germany. The idea that the Tories would only rise corporation tax to 25% now so that they could lower it to 19% before a general election is economically idiotic. It's what you do if you're interested in getting headlines and you have actually no interest in making the British economy productive. And, well, I mean, we already know that the Tories don't have any interest in making the British economy egalitarian. But making it work, even on a sort of technocratic level, it's ridiculous. While Sunak might be looking opportunistic and unprincipled though, Labour aren't necessarily looking that much better. On the Andrew Marr programme, Shadow Chancellor Annalise Dodds, so the same show that Rishi Sunak was on, refused to commit Labour to opposing any future cut to universal credit. What is the case against Labour saying keep the £20 uplift for good? Well, look, we've set out a range of different measures that we want to see in relation to universal credit. We also want to see, for example, the initial loan turned into a grant. We want to see a strapping of the cap. And we want to make sure that families have the support that they need for the future. That's why we said, during this pandemic, we said it many, many months ago, and the government is trailing in the wake of this, that we needed to see that uplift maintained during the pandemic, but I'm not going to abandon our commitment to reform universal credit because it's needed. I'm not expecting you to. I am just slightly, in fact, quite a lot perplexed at the moment, because it seems to me that supporting an imperfectuity £20 extra on universal credit is exactly the kind of thing that a Labour Party coming out of a pandemic could say yes to, and you can't. Why not? But, Andrew, we've been clear that we don't want to stick with this system for the reasons that I've just set out. It's been shown to manifestly not support people in the way that they need. It's missed out huge numbers of people who've needed support. People have got to wait for five weeks before they get that help. And that's why we said to governments some time ago, be clear about that £20 uplift while we're in the middle of this pandemic, actually get rid of that five-week wait as well. Now, Keir Starmer has been spending the last two weeks saying that Labour's vision for the future will look utterly different to the past, right? And here, when we're actually in a moment where there is no desire to cut benefits among the wider population, the opinion has massively shifted quite, you know, in large thanks to Jeremy Corbyn being willing to actually stand up for people who are on benefits, sort of really taking a risk in opposing the status quo, which is to say that anyone who's claiming state benefits is undeserving and a scrounger, something that Ed Miliband didn't do much to resist, by the way. And now, even in this incredibly, you know, conducive environment to a social democratic politics, you've got a shadow chancellor who won't commit to not cutting universal credit. She's saying, oh, we shouldn't reduce the £20 uplift or we shouldn't do a £20 cut in the middle of a pandemic. But in a year's time, who could say in two years' time, oh, I wouldn't want to commit to that. Just commit to it. I know she's saying, look, we want to scrap universal credit altogether and replace it with something completely different. Yeah, but you're going to be in opposition for four years. Universal credit is going to be around for four years. There's going to be a move by the Conservative Party to reduce that £20. And you can't commit now to saying you're going to oppose that. And you're trying to claim that you want a future that's completely different to the past. You look like the past. And in my whole life, I've been looking at Labour governments and Labour oppositions saying, oh, no, I wouldn't want to commit to long-term increased benefits. Oh, that could be very problematic. Ash, am I being unfair to Annalise Dodds here? No, I think you're being really restrained. I thought that that was a dismal performance and I'm trying to work out whether that was just a bad day for Annalise as an individual or if she was reflecting a wider malaise within the Labour Party leadership. Because it seems to me you've got a perfectly obvious answer there, which is saying Labour are never going to take money out of the benefits system we think is punitive enough even with the £20 uplift. And that's why we're going to commit to reforming the system overall and not maintaining this broken draconian horrible system which thrives on the humiliation of welfare recipients. Simple answer, clear answer. And it also gives you one foot into the future about how a Labour government would be different. It's future-oriented and making a very, very clear commitment. That is basic political comms 101 and anybody who's part of the Labour front bench should be able to do it. Now, I think that Annalise Dodds is actually a very capable and a very smart woman. So what I'm inclined to think is that essentially, Keir Starmer sets these restraints of you will never, ever go even a millimetre ahead out of a position that we've already agreed. So I think quite frankly they've just not really talked about it. They don't have a policy. And so she gave this very weak, very non-committal answer. And it's because Keir Starmer himself hasn't set out what his stall is going to be on the welfare system and what's going to change and how it's going to improve. And that to me reveals the inherent poverty of his rebrand which he did a couple of weeks ago. I thought it was a really welcome thing for him to say that the dividing line between Labour and the Tories is going to be on inequality. Tories don't give a shit about inequality. Labour do care about inequality and they want to go about reducing it. However, apart from this pandemic government bond thing, he's offered no route out of inequality. On the one hand, ruling out changes to corporation tax, which wouldn't even bring it in line with pre-2010 levels. It would still be incredibly low compared to G7 countries. And also corporation tax, it's not a tax on incomes, it's tax on profits. So if you are a hard hit business over the course of the pandemic, you've not made any profits, it won't affect you. So he's ruled that out on the one hand. He's also not committing to windfall taxes or wealth taxes, which would say, you know what, the people who are going to pay for the pandemic and the people who are going to pay for the renewal of our public sector is going to be the wealthy, it's going to be the rich, it's going to be multinational corporations. He's ruled all that out. And then on the other hand, when it comes to the most vulnerable people in our society, which also includes people who are in work, it's not just out of work. It's people who are in work as well, who are being paid poverty wages. There's a lack of commitment and a roadmap of support there, in terms of what happens after the pandemic. So you've got this great sound bite, what's going to divide us is our attitude to inequality. Well, he's offering absolutely nothing. And I think that it's pathetic that a Labour shadow chancellor is hamstrung and prevented from making a clear commitment to retaining a paltry 20 pound uplift after the pandemic. Because you know what? After the pandemic ends, you're not going to have magically lowered costs of living. Utilities aren't going to get cheaper. Rent isn't going to get cheaper. Wages aren't going to have magically increased from the kind of stagnant, glacial pace of which they've been for the last 10 years. It's an easy enough policy to commit to and it's shameful, it's utterly shameful that Labour can't bring themselves to support it. I mean, you're totally right about the cost because the pandemic doesn't actually increase costs. All it changes is that now the Labour Party don't have to feel ashamed when they say, oh, actually maybe people who aren't on high marketplace incomes deserve a bit more money, right? Because what changes between now and three years time when there isn't a pandemic is there's going to be loads of Tories saying, oh, if you're unemployed, it's your fault. And so you don't deserve an extra 20 pounds. And that's when you need a Labour Party to say, actually, it's not really an also, do we really want to punish people for not having jobs? Is that really what a civilized society does? But Labour are basically setting themselves up to saying, oh, yeah, now the pandemic's gone, it is their fault. And so why would we support them having 20 pounds extra a week so that they can afford enough food that they don't have to be malnourished if they ever want to go to the cinema once in a month? And we saw that in the awful pre-Corban era where I think it was Rachel Reeves who said that Labour would be tougher on welfare recipients than the Tories were. It really was a race to the bottom, you know, to appeal to that cader of voters who watch Benefit Street and think hanging's too good for them. It was really appalling. And that was one of the reasons why, you know, the membership declined. People weren't enthusiastic about voting Labour because it looked like pure opportunism. It was all triangulation, no principle. And that's why Jeremy Corbyn was able to make quite a moral case. More than an ideological case for socialism and win people over. And what's so frustrating is that Keir Starmer who, when he was making his pitch to the membership, was a very canny judge of political positioning. He knew how to tell a story which was both left enough to win the membership over, but also distance enough from Corbyn to win over the approval and the adulation of the lobby is now putting himself very clearly and firmly on the wrong side of a consensus issue. And he's wasting this opportunity where people, I think, are a bit more empathetic. There is an organic sense of all of us being in it together, nobody's left behind, wasting that window of opportunity to tell a political story which resists and overturns the demonisation of welfare recipients, which makes the connection between poverty pay and the fact that essentially the taxpayer's having to step in and subsidise these God awful wages, which is making the case for having a welfare system which is supportive and, you know, God forbid, even nourishing rather than one which is punishing and punitive and humiliating to go through. This is the ideal time to make that case and he's not doing it, which, you know, more than, you know, always Keir Starmer or Blair Wright in disguise or Ishiatory in disguise, I don't even think it's that ideological. I think that this is just absolute political cack-handedness and in some ways, that's less forgivable. I can forgive a sin of malevolence more than I can one of stupidity. Hmm. Let's go to some comments. Over on Twitch chat, Spinward says, Spinward's technocracy has zero chance of winning versus a Tory party happy to spend. Labour is screwed. Quite possibly. If you haven't already, please do follow us on Twitch. You can do that at twitch.tv slash Novara Media. You can tell that I haven't quite remembered that address because I had to look to my show notes. Oliver Kant with a tenor. Do you see the Tories pursuing Orban's Hungary as a model, i.e. a mild social democracy but only for white people and authoritarianism for everyone else? Quite possible, actually. I mean, it's not going to be as crude as only for white people, but I think you will see sort of social democracy plus authoritarianism as a electoral ploy. I mean, you're already seeing pretty much Patel saying that after the COVID restrictions are removed, she wants to keep some of the restrictions on protests. So she's saying, oh, we should actually, you know, we'll still have the right to protest, but if you disrupt other people going about their daily business, we want to make that illegal. So you're basically making effective protest illegal, which seems to be what they want to do. And obviously their attitude to migration is similar. I think the idea that you would have yet a reactionary nativist social conservatism alongside at least the absence of austerity along the style of George Osborne is quite possible. We're going to go straight on to some more Labour news because also in Labour land, the party north of the border has a new leader, Ana Sawa, 57% of the vote beating left-wing moniker Lennon to become latest candidate to be Scotland's next-verse minister this Saturday. And Sawa was interviewed by Sky's Sophie Ridge on Sunday, so the following day, and it was an opportunity to introduce himself to those not familiar with him. So Sawa said that Scotland had not had the Labour Party it deserves, and it was his job to work day and night to give people the Labour Party they deserve. So very much along the lines of Kirsten, I'm here to rebuild the trust that we lost. Now, when asked if Labour now believes the party to victory is from the centre, here's what he said. Look, I think it's looking outwards rather than looking inwards, recognising that whatever divisions we think might exist within our own political party, or indeed between our political parties, they pale into insignificance compared to the divisions and inequalities that exist in our society. And we've got to reflect Scotland's future and I think the UK's future and I think at times we haven't done that. And you mentioned being a very different leader, I don't think that we've had a leader that a 37-year-old from the west of Scotland that looks like me from a Muslim heritage, that in itself I think demonstrates a very different Scotland. Outward looking Scotland, internationalist Scotland. I should also say that doesn't say something about me, that says something great about the people of Scotland. And I want to work with all our diverse communities to rebuild the country that we love. Now, he made it quite clear that he himself is against the idea of a second independence referendum. That's obviously going to be the biggest issue facing the Scottish Labour now that he is leader. But he wouldn't say, well, the SNP would have a mandate for one if they win a majority this May. Nicola Surgeon needs to decide what people are voting on. Either they're voting on pandemic record, either they're voting on government record or they're voting on whether they want to have an independence referendum. Look, I don't want to commentate about what happens after May. We aren't spectators, we are participants. And I think this is the challenge for us as a Labour Party is if I believe in something, I'm going to argue for it. So, I don't believe that independence is the right answer for Scotland coming through this pandemic. I don't believe coming straight through this pandemic and going to a referendum campaign is the right thing for us to do when our entire focus should be on saving lives and livelihoods and rebuilding our country again. And if I don't believe in something, I'm not going to argue for it. So, you can see he's not quite yet made his mind up what is going to be the line on whether or not the SNP will have a mandate for an independence referendum if they win a majority at the upcoming Hollywood elections, which seems quite likely they will. That's going to be the big decision he has to make as Labour leader. It will be interesting to see what he decides. As well as these questions on independence, which are obviously key for Scottish politics, there was also a very familiar left-right divide in this leadership election. Obviously, Sawa was defeated previously by Richard Lennon when Richard Lennon was the left candidate and Sawa was the centrist candidate. In that election, one of the key issues when that leadership election in 2017, one of the key issues was when it was revealed that Sawa's family's cash and carry business called United Wholesale didn't pay the living wage and did not have a unionized workforce when he was sort of confronted with that question. Sawa during an interview on BBC Radio Scotland said that he was not a director in the company and had no say in how it operated. But he did say that a line that didn't go down very well with the left, he sort of said, well, look, I believe in the living wage being mandatory, not something that businesses should just voluntary pursue. So people thought that was a bit of a cop-out. He was later forced to relinquish his shares in the business. So it was reportedly worth £4.8 million his shares in that business. So I suppose intelligent of him to create some distance between himself and that company before this time around. But obviously, this is someone with quite a bit of money and he is on the right of the Labour Party. So we'll see how that plays out. That does mean, though, that, yeah, it looks like we have a Scottish Labour Party which is very much in tune with the direction that Keir Starmer is taking the English version. Another Labour story we're going to go straight onto. This one's more juicy. That's because the Labour leaks have shone a light on the toxic environment that existed in Labour HQ under the tutelage of Ian McNichol. It has also spawned many lively court cases. One of those ended today with a judge ruling against a former party director, Emily Oldno. Now Oldno, she's one of the staffers named in the leaked dossier. You might have heard her mentioned on the show before. She was one of the people in that group who was very disappointed when Labour did very well in the 2017 general election. A real opponent of Jeremy Corbyn also involved in some quite unpleasant WhatsApp chats, basically. What this story is about, what this case was about, is that she had sought a court order demanding Labour reveal which individuals they believed were responsible for the leak. That's because she wanted to sue them. Her lawyers had argued that the report was a politically motivated hatchet job and claimed that it contained deliberately misleading and improperly obtained private correspondence. She wanted to know who'd leaked it because they were responsible for the prosecution of her, essentially. She wanted to sue them. The judge decided against her. The judge today ruled that this would not justify her concerns about it being a hatchet job, would not justify revealing the identities of those suspected of leaking the report. According to Paul War in the Huffington Post, in her judgment on Monday, Mrs Justice Tipples said, Oldno's application for a court order to disclose the names of five individuals, smacks of a fishing exercise, and individuals who were innocent of any wrongdoing could be identified as a result. The judge said she recognizes the strong public interest in allowing Oldno to vindicate her legal rights, but that did not extend to Labour being ordered to identify those who it reasonably believed were responsible for the leak or providing a narrative account of the circumstances of the leak or related documents. This is a victory for the staffers who have been accused of leaking it. The most important part of this case is that if you don't have a smoking gun proof as to who leaked it, then I'm not happy to demand a court order that you leak it because it's going to cause lots of problems for these workers who we're not sure did leak it. That was the crux of the case, really. But that the judge was sort of ruled in the favor of the anonymous workers was never an inevitability. And that's because the Labour Party, the Party of the Workers, had initially expressed a willingness to reveal the names of the people who believed had leaked the document. They sent a letter on February the 4th to five of the staff members involved saying they would not resist it. So they should expect it to have some consequences for them because Emily Alden, I want this to go public. They'll make it public. And I presume those five staff members were very worried at that point in time. Luckily, Unite, who represented the staff members, then requested the right to intervene. And the ruling from the judge here, who presents a real victory for Unite, the union who sort of got stuck in, got some good lawyers and represented those workers, and ultimately they have won. And Old Note has now been asked to pay their costs. And we can go to some comment from Unite from the Labour List write-up of the court case. So Unite say they are pleased the court allowed us to intervene in this application to make submissions on behalf of our members the principles of confidentiality are vital for workers to have confidence in the workplace. We are pleased the court accepted our submissions dismissing the application of Emily and Old Note and others as nothing more than a phishing expedition. We also welcome that the court has ordered Emily Old Note and others to pay Unite's legal costs for the making of those submissions, making clear reference to the importance of Unite's intervention given that Labour was not offering effective opposition to the Old Note and others application. So you can see that they're very pleased with the outcome as they should be. They've stepped up. They've defended the workers. They've won. Labour were basically willing to say, oh, nothing to do with us. Yeah, sure. We'll tell you your name so she can sue you. Seems to have been the implication. They did change their mind. So later in the case Labour said actually we don't want to reveal this because we're not entirely sure who leaked the document. We don't have smoking con evidence but that was only after Unite intervened. Ash, what do you make of this story? I think we're going to get, I don't know how many court cases are coming out of the Labour leaks but they're all kind of interesting. It's good to see that the anonymous staffers seem to have won this round. It's going to be like Law and Order Centrits Victims Unit. There will be more court cases to come but what's really interesting about this is the fact that one, you've got a loss when something went to court. So far, Labour has chosen to settle cases before they've reached court, most notably with the panorama whistleblowers and that was because they must have thought that they didn't have a good chance of winning it or perhaps they just didn't want the bad press of having a long drawn out court case. What this shows is that it's not so cut and dry as that, that perhaps some of the people who have sought out legal redress after being named in the leak report, people who were prominent critics of Jeremy Corbyn and the left wing leadership, that maybe some of the claims they're lodging are on shaky legal grounds. And of course the Court of Law, it operates on a very different basis from the Court of Public Opinion. Essentially, it doesn't matter what Aisha Hazarika thinks about who's wrong and who's right or what you're right up in, you know, the Politico email is going to be either or really matters here is the strength of your case, legal precedent and that's going to determine it. So I wonder if that ultimately we're going to see a bit of a change of strategy, maybe from the Labour Party in terms of how it chooses to contest or not contest some of these cases and also on the part of some of these figures who were politically very opposed to the Corbyn project who feel that the leaked reports seriously damaged their reputations or that they were unfairly named within it that the result of this case is it going to change the strategy of taking it to court, fighting it all the way and seeing what result you get. Maybe maybe not. One thing which I've seen a lot of people talking about is this matter of costs. So is Emily Oldnow going to have to pay all of these costs herself? We frankly don't know. We don't know if Labour are going to seek full costs or if they're going to price it with a little bit of a discount and we also don't know whether or not Emily Oldnow and her council took out what's called after the fact insurance. So when you're bringing a claim to court and it's gone all the way, there's sometimes a form of insurance you can take out which means if you lose it on the other side try and recover costs that your insurance pays out. That's another thing we don't know because I've seen a bit of uncharitable Twitter content about somebody having to remortgage a house and such like we simply don't know if that's true or not. I'm going to do something very rare which is I'm disagreeing with a little bit of your analysis there because you're suggesting I know, it's unusual because I normally buy into it wholesale when I get your email on a Friday morning I don't like it anymore. That's my new analysis. You're suggesting that this might show the Labour party that they can win some of these cases if they fight them. When it came to the panorama whistleblowers they had legal advice that actually you've got a pretty strong case you don't need to settle this the reason they settled it is because by settling with it they were siding with their faction of allies who were the right wing assuming the party and they were admitting fault of the previous leadership of the party who were left wing at that point in time and again I think you had the same here they were pretty willing to out the alleged leakers because they were left wing and it was only when Unite got involved that there was actually a defence put up and I think that's the worrying thing about all of these court cases. I think you could actually say a similar thing potentially about the EHRC which is that the leadership at the time when that was being finalised didn't really care if it trashed the Labour party so they weren't putting up much of a fight apparently Chris Williams had actually got it changed quite a lot because he did have an interest in putting up a fight so you will have lots of these situations where a judge gives a ruling about who was right and who was wrong because they basically love it when a judge trashes the record of Keir Starmer's predecessor and so if it hadn't been that Unite said actually we want to get involved here we want to have a say here in favour of the workers then we would have had another situation which Keir Starmer would have been very happy with which is Emily Oldnow gets to sue some left wingers their right wing ally gets some money and some good reputation and their predecessors are trashed but then you've got an interesting thing you've got a precedent of essentially Unite being able to step in on behalf of the workers and hiring in the big boy lawyers from Carter Ruck every time I even say the name Carter Ruck I want to get my hands on the evil eye or something I'm not messing with you lot now that you've got precedent for that being allowed you then have cases going forward where if there are other cases which are being brought against individuals who worked as part of the Labour party perhaps part of Labour's left you might not see the party being so willing to throw them under a bus because then it means that they could be liable for not standing up for their workers and potentially throwing them to the wolves so it does bring in this whole other moving part that's what I'm talking about is that I do think that rather than this being really cut and dry thing and saying this is definitely going to happen it introduces this third element about the role of Unite in the Union which could also create some trouble for Labour so far the trouble's all been kind of in one direction but now this is creating an opposite pole of attraction it'll be entertaining to see what happens next the Yopogo with a fiver finally got a job in the Covid crash congratulations so I'm sending my one hour's wage a month but here's a bonus to celebrate what a lovely comment thank you so much for donating your one hour's wage a month and congratulations on getting that job but no already our main ask on Navarra Media is for you to donate the equivalent of one hour's wage a month to do that please go to navarramedia.com forward slash support it's what makes Navarra Media possible it's that regular subscriber base that means we can grow and we can we can have a stable presence and output so we really do appreciate it if you are watching which presumably you are because you're hearing what I'm saying the video it helps us on the algorithm it takes quite a while for me to pay attention to any royal story often when I hear on the radio someone talking about Prince Charles Prince Harry whoever I tend to switch off however in in various situations there are moments where my ears do prick up Diana conspiracy theories for example and anything connected to her death I will I will listen to I will roll back so I can listen to it again the Harry and Meghan saga has also kind of got to that level for me I can't ignore it I'm actually finding it fairly interesting and the beef between Prince Harry Meghan Markle and the rest of the royals heated up today that was with the release of a promotional clip from their sit down interview with Oprah Winfrey you know for me I'm just really relieved and happy to be sitting here talking to you with my wife on my side because I can't begin to imagine what it must have been like for her going through this process by herself all those years ago because it has been unbelievably tough for the two of us but at least we had each other I'm going to be watching that 90 minutes that was a real dig I think it is dad because he's saying you know we've been dragged through the mud by the British press we've had the royal family against us but at least we've got each other Diana had to go through that on her own should be very interesting it also comes after an interview between James Corden and Prince Harry that was last week they drove around LA on an open top bus it was very much like light entertainment kind of entertaining Prince Harry in that blamed Britain's toxic press for pushing him to stand back from royal duties as is to be expected all of this Prince Harry and Meghan Markle resigning from line royal duties and then going and doing a lot of interviews with the American press that's really riling up lots of Britain's red faced talking heads this was Piers Morgan this morning he tweeted a summary of his article for the Daily Mail it takes a staggering degree of narcissism to play hard done by victims from your Californian mansion as the world reels from a pandemic and Prince Philip lies seriously ill in hospital the only service Meghan and Harry know is self service now Piers Morgan getting angry at a young attractive couple won't come as much of a surprise although I mean obviously there are elements of truth in that as well these are definitely not the two people who I feel the most sympathy for at the moment even if the people who they are angry against I kind of have even less sympathy for in this situation however going back to the media it's not just the likes of Piers Morgan very outwardly ideological shock jocks to some extent Piers Morgan does also does some good interviews but it's also BBC Royal Correspondents who are sort of getting in and seeming real really annoyed at Meghan and Harry not particularly professional this was Nicholas Wichill who is the BBC's Royal Correspondent explaining an exchange between Harry Meghan and the Queen when they resigned from royal duties a couple of weeks ago there's almost an unspoken sentence which doesn't appear in the statement after that the life of public service like I have led like my husband has led at the age of nearly 100 like the rest of your family continue to lead but which you have decided to opt out of of course they're saddened as the statement says they're deeply disappointed I think that this is how matters have turned out and then the Sussexes statement which concludes with these couple of phrases we can all live a life of service service is universal isn't there just a sense there of thumbing their noses don't tell us how to lead our lives so I think on both sides Harry I think will now perhaps finally realise the implications of the decision that they have taken he looks like he's going to have an aneurysm I think Harry will finally realise the implications of the decision he has taken thumbing his nose at the Queen he does not realise the meaning of service none of them realise the meaning of service let's be frank here you can resign from the royal family and still live a life of public service whether or not Prince Harry resigns from the royal family he is not living a life of public service in both cases he's either living off taxpayers money or he's living off advertising revenues from interviews he's doing because for the first you know however old he is 30 odd years of his life he's living off tax people like Piers Morgan do have a point when they say these are self promoting people complaining about the press and then doing very well we presume in these cases well paid interviews with the press so it is a bit hypocritical at the same time he's annoyed because the press and the royal family were terrible to his mother who then died I've got some sympathy with him where do you stand on this wow I never never heard of the concept before I think it's actually useful to contextualise this and then take a little bit of a step back because what's happening isn't Meghan and Harry escape the aristocracy what they've done is that they've escaped the British aristocracy which is deeply feudal deeply old fashioned wedded to systems of hierarchy which you cannot separate from white supremacy because of the fact of the composition of the British aristocracy in order to enter the American aristocracy which is made up of this kind of upper echelon of those who've reached the top of their fields whether that's in celebrity, media acting or politics so they want to become part of this social strata which includes the likes of Barack and Michelle of Beyonce and Jay-Z of Oprah Winfrey of Ellen DeGeneres this American aristocracy obviously is not feudal in nature and it's the kind of product of this you know turbocharger that the age of celebrity and broadcast media was able to put on the careers of people and really get them to the top of the social ladder very very quickly and compose this upper crust of American society and it is a more racially diverse aristocracy Oprah is somebody who is one of the most well known and beloved figures in the entirety of America, sort of the richest people in the country and that's why I think they've also positioned their media debut in the American stage with that Oprah interview it's one step above even the likes of Gayle King who's somebody who attended Meghan Markle's baby shower it's very much saying like we are aiming for the highest of the high the topest of the top and I think it's quite interesting that the sponsorship deals that they've managed to negotiate are very very similar to the ones that Barack Obama and Michelle Obama negotiated for themselves so I think that that's the story of what's happening and then you can get dig into the little character driven elements of this on the one hand you've got Prince Harry who is probably deeply traumatized by the death of his mother the phrasing of that interview preview I imagine that there was a sense that he shares with his mom who said this to Andrew Morton when he was interviewing her for the book Diana in her own words that she was left unprotected by Clarence House when she was dealing with press intrusion both before she married Charles and after their separation she was really just thrown to the wolves she had no money put towards you know her security there was no sense of the Clarence House press machine stepping in to deal with the kind of you know relentless and negative coverage that she got and I imagine there's a sense that that's what killed her was speeding when it entered that tunnel and that's why that tragedy happened and then this is me speculating a bit I don't imagine it was straight forward for Meghan Markle an American woman a divorced woman and a mixed race woman with a black mother to enter those royal spaces and I'm not just talking about how she might have been treated by other royals though we do know that Princess Michael of Kent whose father was an SS cavalry wore a black face brooch and Orinoco brooch for the first time she went to meet Meghan Markle so that's how racist they are they have racist accessories I imagine that also that intensely hierarchical ritualised social setting of the royals and what goes on in their palaces was also something that was very difficult to deal with and again this is something which Princess Diana spoke about she absolutely hated it at Bow Moral where you had this insane level of social ritual just for sitting down to dinner and if you spoke out of turn even the servants would make it very very clear that they disapproved of you so when you add to that the kind of cultural and racial otherness of Meghan Markle I bet that was fucking horrible so why wouldn't you if you were hot if you were rich, if you were media savvy go you know what has a fuck this off you've got this dying decaying British aristocracy and what we could do is make this leap into the American mediaised aristocracy instead I'll be rich, you'll be rich and also people aren't going to treat us like shit all the time how about that and also perhaps we won't have a media culture which is going to kill me like they did your mother I imagine that would be very appealing actually really earned your title as Navara Media's royal correspondent because that was actually the best analysis I've heard of this whole for Rory so far, you've really cut through the crap they have chosen the American ruling class instead of the British ruling class mainly because it's a bit less racist and that's probably why people like Piers Morgan and Camilla Tomony and all the sort of British ruling class journalists and whoever that BBC royal correspondent was, I've forgotten his name already Nicholas Mitchell are quite so annoyed because it implies that their ruling class is actually more racist than the American one both ruling classes have their own problems but no one wants to be called the more racist ruling class and that by them moving to America is essentially what they're doing I have a video from Twitter that I'm going to show you in a moment which really I think shone a light on the historic beef between Prince Harry and the media which I thought was very revealing before that I want to go to a couple of comments over on the twitch chat it's Amy says the BBC Royal Correspondents throwing toys out of the pram because they won't get juicy exclusives and getting called out by Harry we're going to see some of that getting called out in a moment the juicy exclusives is an important point because it is going to be that Oprah Winfrey is going to get these exclusives instead of the BBC Royal Correspondents Michael Deary with a fibre I really don't understand the controversy around Harry if I had a choice between my family and Meghan Markle I'd leave my family in the dust too I hope they're not watching Michael Deary but I'm sure many of our audience will have some sympathy with your conclusion there before we go to this video if you are enjoying this video before we go to our next clip if you're enjoying this video make sure you subscribe to the Navara media channel because you get all sorts of analysis from the likes of Ash Sarkar and it's not always about the royal family and her analysis of British politics and American politics is just as good as Prince Harry and Meghan I promise you let's take a look at this clip which is a compilation I saw on Twitter this weekend of Harry's historic beef with the British press unfortunately every single story was complete lies which rarely, well it always is basically which is a shame but it's something I'd love to do and now I've had the chance once I suppose I've got quite into it and at the end of the day if you join the army you expect to go on operations I don't want to sit round at Windsor because I generally don't like England that much and it's nice to be away from all the press and the papers and the general shite that they write it's too risky for you to go back as a soldier more than the fact that I think the media had said that they would never keep their mouths shut if I went and did the same job so I'd have to do something different if I wanted to go with the media following his every moment Harry can't hide his irritation do you enjoy getting stuck in? Not really Harry's exasperation even loathing of the press has shone through loud and clear my father always says don't read it everyone says don't read it because it's always rubbish I'm surprised how many people in the UK actually read it I mean everyone's guilty for buying the newspapers I guess but hopefully no one actually believes what they read which I certainly don't but yeah of course I read it someone's been written about me I want to know what's being said but all it does is upset me and anger me that people can get away with writing stuff they do not just about me but everything and everybody and that mistrust of the press I mean how far back does that go is that something that's sort of I think it's fairly obvious how far back it goes to when I was very small that was spicy I rate Prince Harry a lot more after watching that I have to say I was always like you know I don't have any skin in this game and the American establishment and the British establishment whatever but seeing him there I generally don't like England that much and the end I mean how powerful was it it's obvious how far this goes back to when I was very small and as Ash was talking about that's because of the way the press and the Windsor family treated his mother Ash what did you make of that clip had you seen it before was all of that familiar to you it was I think for me what was surprising is seeing it all compressed like that is seeing how little he felt inclined to mask his disdain for the British media establishment he's not the only royal to have been critical of the media Prince Charles I think was picked up on a mic calling Nicholas Wichill the BBC Royal Correspondent a dreadful man it must feel awful to be a Royal Correspondent to dedicate your entire career to suck in establishment boot just to get kicked in the face like that you know to drive by my god but I think that it was when it's put together in that way you can see this consistent threat of this how my mother was treated and then it makes a kind of sense of I can see the woman who I've married who I love who I've chosen to have children with being treated in a way that I think was being very similar I think that it's something that all of us can imagine and empathise with from a position of direct experience and I also think this is again me speculating but I've ranted to you before about how against boarding schools I am I just think they're fucked up I just think it's completely fucked up to send your kid to a place where they're going to be bullied and potentially abused when that happens because you've taken kids into the care system people generally go that's a suboptimal way to raise children when the ruling class do it with their kids because they send them to boarding school it's like ah yes they're prioritising their education but I do think that it is really traumatic you add to that the fact that you know your mother who was famously unusually warm with her children and unusually loving has died in this horrible public way and then you've got this completely fucked up family dynamic of you know cold, emotionally stunted and warped people around you all the time and then you managed to fall in love you managed to fall in love with this beautiful woman who's successful in her own right and you can feel the walls closing in and these horrible distorting the effects of media coverage on her mental health and your mental health and you add to that the family context obviously you'd be chewing your own arm off to get out of there you know this is why I think that the monarchy ought to be abolished it's really for their own good I think it's a completely fucked up way to have a family life and you need to get rid of it save them from themselves time bucking and back palace until weather spoons will be happier, they'll be happier what say you speaking of abolishing the monarchy we have a super chat from Juliet jakes with a tenor who asks to advocate the abolition of the monarchy in print in which case I'm going to be an outlaw and if I didn't know that Juliet jakes was a great writer who I'm sure does very good research I would have said of course it's not illegal to advocate the abolition of monarchy in print but I was right to have faith in Juliet because Fox has found for me very kindly the evidence that it is illegal to advocate the abolition of monarchy in print or at least it was in 2013 so in the 2013 the department for justice wrongly announced that a section of the law threatening people with life imprisonment for calling for the abolition of the monarchy had been repealed so it hadn't actually been repealed so you could still get life in prison for calling for the abolition of the monarchy I presume a judge would not hand down that sentence but maybe someone else in the comments knows if since 2013 that has finally been removed Dan Smith with a fiver of more comments congrats to Ash for two spots on Radio 4's Moral Maze in as many weeks finally something good on AM Radio how are you finding being on the Moral Maze Ash? I mean I find Moral Maze really funny because it approaches what I think of as political and social issues from this level of really high abstraction and I would think that in itself to abstract it to that level is kind of wrong like intellectually it's faulty so I find it kind of funny being in that space approaching it from that way though to be fair to the producer they always create the room for me to do my thing and then the other thing is obviously when you hear some of the opinions that people come out with it's hilarious it's just so funny and so divorced from reality if you could go back and listen to the last one you've got Timothy Stanley who's a a telegraph opinion writer saying that he thinks the experience of being a conservative working at the university is akin to being black and Asian anywhere else and I just thought Jesus fucking Christ man I mean one there's only 1% of professors are black so no when you're black you still get treated like you're black in a university and two there's absolutely zero evidence to back this up but it's just interesting the way in which Moral Maze kind of reinforces and reifies some of these positions these insane intellectual positions which have just been conjured in a vacuum with absolutely zero contact with reality and I think that that's just kind of an interesting thing about how opinion forming works in this country and radio force part in it sorry I could talk about this for ages because I think it's a really valuable thing and I'm really glad that I get to do it but I also think it is incredibly weird like what makes me a Moral Arbiter Jesus You're going to make it 100% more listenable I have to say I'm going to catch up as soon as possible it's not on my current you know repertoire of regular listens but I definitely have a lot of motivation to listen to it now you're now you're on it and it's interesting the staging of talking points is interesting to me Keep that on the screen because Zuzu goes with a fiver says show would Ash give a shout out to my friend Coggs we're both big fans Oh God That was incredibly bad timing You can get a shout out without your camera you're coming back I'm coming back I'm here I should be here right is that shit yes Coggs not even my batteries power could keep me away from you I don't know why I'm shouting you out but I just imagine you generally sound and great if you're not patterned up if you are continue doing what you're already doing and Emily Scott with 999 can you give a shout out to my partner Graham we love you guys you give us hope keep up the great work shout out to Graham we love you guys too the name of the person who's left Emily shout out to Emily and Graham and thank you so much for the donation we really do appreciate the support that is it for us tonight it's been a pleasure as always we're going to have to find some more royal stories because yeah that analysis was really good I feel like genuinely I understand the beef that's been going on for the past two years what people don't understand is that no one is more critical or more obsessed with the monarchy than brown people in this country an encyclopedic knowledge coupled with utter disdain very well put you've been watching Tiskey Sour on Navar Media if you want to support our work please do go to www.tiskeysour.com forward slash support donate the equivalent of one hour's wage a month make sure you hit that subscribe button we go live every Monday Wednesday and Friday which means the next time we're going live is Wednesday at 7pm for now you've been watching Tiskey Sour on Navar Media good night