 scientists and politicians have expressed relief, but also some confusion about the apparent decline in new daily COVID cases across the UK. And to add to the complexity, different models for measuring cases are now giving different indications of whether that decline even took place, or whether it is even taking place right now. Let's run you through the different sources of data on this question. So the one we hear most about is from Public Health England. They're the official statistics people who have tested positive any one day. It's what you hear on the news. It's what the government announced at their briefings. Today, as we stand, there were 29,622 new COVID cases reported in the past 24 hours. That's not a low figure. It's also slightly up from 24,004 days ago. That was the lowest we've had in the last couple of weeks. But as you can see from this graph, it is significantly down from seven days ago. And the seven day average is falling quite sharply. As you can see, they're down 36% on the previous week. We can zoom in a little bit now for good measure on those last couple of days, just so you can see where that dip happened and where we might be having a slight uptick. The benefit of Public Health England data and why we hear so much about it is because it comes in real time. They're also all confirmed cases. There aren't any estimations going on here. There is a downside, though, which is that it can be affected by how many people and especially which people are getting tested. That's where the Office for National Statistics data comes in. We use them a lot on the show. They don't have to account for the number and what type of people are getting tested because it is a representative sample of the population. They go around and test the same group of people and then from that estimate who has COVID-19. It's not at all affected by who is turning up to get tested because they go out and do the testing themselves. That is not looking as rosy. The ONS released a report today and they estimate that in the week ending the 24th of July, one in 65 people in England had COVID-19. That's compared to one in 75 the previous week. Remember, according to PHE, cases peaked on the 15th of July. The ONS at this point are telling us that in the week ending, the 24th of July, cases were still rising. We can have a look through in a bit more detail of that data now. They say, according to the ONS, cases were up in all nations of the UK, apart from Scotland, where cases fell from one in 80 to one in 110. The biggest rise you can see there, the most dramatic rise was in Northern Ireland. Cases there went from one in 170 to one in 65 in a week. That's an enormous rise. Wales fairly steady. They went from one in 210 to one in 160, so rising but fairly gently. As I've said, England risen from one in 75 to one in 65. As I've said, the weakness in that ONS data is that it's a lagging indicator. It could just be that we're waiting for the ONS data to catch up with the PHE data. There is one other tracker of COVID cases or another method for estimating how many cases there currently are. That's done via the Zoey Symptom Tracker app. This isn't supposed to have a time lag. They've modeled case rates on the basis of reported symptoms to their app, which hundreds of thousands of people have downloaded. They don't believe cases to have fallen in line with the NHS dashboard. This is how they are currently modeling cases. As you can see there, PHE shows the cases falling dramatically. As that's happening, Zoey suggests that actually they are remaining stable. Tim Spector runs the Zoey app and in this YouTube Q&A session he explains what he thinks is going on. This sudden drop in confirmed cases that are released by the government every day, it's dropped something like 30% in two days, which is pretty much unheard of in pandemics. And remember this is happening without restrictions, without lockdowns, without some sudden event. So to me it looks a bit fishy. It looks as if there's some other explanation for this other than suddenly the virus has given up. Could be that less young people are getting tested. We're not able easily to get those government figures, but if the proportion of young people being tested is going down and older people is going up, that could explain this change. And we know that a lot of people are concerned about the pandemic. They may not want to get tested because they might be told to self isolate. They might want to be going on holiday or going to concerts etc. And so this could be a potential phenomenon that's upsetting those results. So Tim Spector thinks the fall shown by PHE was fishy, but who should we believe and how should we interpret the different signals being given out by these different data sources? To find out earlier today, I spoke to Alex Crozier, a biomedical researcher at Queen Mary University. There's a number of sources to interpret this case data from and they all use slightly different methodologies. And so therefore it's sort of while it sounds sort of confusing that there's these different scenarios being sort of painted, it does actually make sense that different methodologies and different teams would produce different data. I think when you look at sort of the evidence in totality, it is quite clear that the the fall in cases was true by how much is sort of the key interesting question. But that of course doesn't mean that cases aren't going to go up maybe soon again. There's a number of reasons I think you had really quality on on the other day who gave yes basically summed up how complex the situation is right now and how challenging it is to interpret the case data at the moment. Would there be a point at which you would say oh maybe the public health England data is wrong? And I suppose what I mean by that is at the moment these sources of data don't accord. Would there be a time where you thought oh if the ONS is still saying there is this much COVID in the the community that it must have been because of something like testing that the kind of thing that that Tim Spector is suggesting. The ONS and the react data as well are the most reliable data sources we have because they attempt to take a representative sample of the population but they're of course always on a lag. There's sort of other complications there where you can continue to test positive by PCR for a long time after you've been infected. And so when you're coming down from a peak of an epidemic curve that can influence figures and that has influenced figures which is why I think there's some confusion today as as as to why ONS is saying cases are still going up. But really I think my interpretation of the ONS data is actually that that shows that there was a fall. And certainly so yeah I would say if ONS data is very obviously deep disagreeing with public health England data and on that lag then we could maybe say there's the main causes reduced testing or other other reasons like that. But I think at the moment it is quite clear understandable that cases did fall. It's just that question of how much buy and why really. So when it comes to the public health England data so that's people who went to get tested and tested positive. We have seen a slight uptick in that since midweek. Now the debate I'm seeing on Twitter is between people saying this might just be a blip or this is a new surge a new wave. At what point will we know which one of those it is? Yeah I don't think anyone really knows where exactly it's going to go. Graham medley the chair of sort of the modeling modeling group of sage said you know we're likely to see a number of peaks and troughs over the coming months in case we'll likely stay high and go sort of up and down occasionally. And of course throughout the epidemic even even in sort of the winter ways when cases were going up they they they plateaued and went down for a few days and you know it's very sort of a complex system. Yeah but I think it's too early to say I don't think we're at herd immunity yet and it's too early to say that this growth won't come back or that hospitalizations won't rise again which we saw for the first time in a long time actually plateaued this week which is very good news. So yeah there's certainly a long way to go but it's definitely a good thing that we managed to lift all restrictions on mixing and and not have the sort of disaster sage that that some predicted. That was Alex Crows, you're explaining some of the nuances of the different data sources. Something that's particularly interesting about the ONS that I think is potentially under discussed is that people can test positive for COVID-19 in a while so there's a lag because we don't get the data until a week later just because it takes longer to collect than PHE but also potentially because PHE is measuring new infections and the ONS is measuring who is currently suffering from COVID-19 and as we know you can suffer from that for for a week or so. So we might not see that in the ONS data for a while it's only just now actually it's only in this latest release that the fall in Scotland has become apparent obviously though. Lots of uncertainty as to what's going to come next. The final bit of data we have from these sage studies is casting doubt on the usefulness of perspex screens. So those things you see often appearing in pubs to separate tables under the pretence or ostensibly so that it will stop people passing COVID-19 to one another sage is suggesting potentially that's not very useful at all. They say there is very little data on the effectiveness of screens and barriers at reducing infection transmission from epidemiological modelling or laboratory studies and they do say there is some reason to believe it would prevent the spread of COVID by droplets but not a tool for airborne transmission which we know is very very important and they say that on that front when it comes to airborne transmission it could even be counterproductive. So this is the environmental modelling group on sage. They write there is some epidemiological and mechanistic evidence that suggests that screens could increase risks of aerosol transmission due to blocking changing airflow patterns or creating zones of poor air circulation behind screens. This effect will depend on the local airflow patterns. Aaron if I still have you I think I do. I'm here Michael I'm here. We have on this show talked a lot about how some of the supposed COVID safety measures where people say oh no I've made the pub COVID secure how could I possibly have to close it during a lockdown. We've often said they were mainly fear to this idea of perspex screens which can protect you from COVID-19 which is an airborne disease. Opening the window or opening the door is far more important. How frustrating is it that we're still having this conversation when this should have all happened last summer. There are actually other countries where they are talking much more about ventilation in the United States. This country we're just so so behind on these questions. Yeah it's a really interesting question Michael. I'm speaking to a gentleman I've mentioned this book a few times now Ben Bratton from Navarra FM probably next week and it brings these questions into really sharp relief and I think it does it does ultimately boil down to the fact that we have a political orthodoxy and I don't mean a political class because we could replace all the politicians and you know we could replace them with a bunch of other people from the Tory party the Labour Party they would do the exact same thing. You know we could change the head of the CBI and they would do the same things demand the same things. We have a political orthodoxy which is fundamentally not about solving problems and it's still looking at maximizing liberty not inhibiting the this sort of autonomy and agency of the individual. These quite now anachronistic things these quite anachronistic concerns you know I have a right not to wear a mask for instance it's clearly quite a strange thing. So the book sort of engages with that in a really really interesting way I suppose what you've not mentioned really Michael is vaccine passports and the difference that could make and I suppose that the counter would be well actually we don't need these things we can actually have really poor ventilation we don't need to wear masks you can go to nightclubs we can open up schools you know again clearly lots of kids are going to get sick but the extent to which that will percolate through to wider society is questionable if we have vaccine passports and that does seem a bit of a Hail Mary because nowhere has really trialled that maybe you can correct me but we don't have an example of a society where 5-10% of the population is infected and simultaneously 50-60% of the population is kind of insulated from the problem. That seems to be the Tory position come October November I mean it may be the case I suspect it won't work and I suspect we'll sort of move into a new phase of the problem of the crisis which is things will generally be open hospitals won't be a breaking point but I think you'll see a massive sort of economic drawdown I think you'll still see extensive working from home where possible I think you'll see many many people affected in more precarious work where they can't get sick pay you know incredibly you know precarious living on the bread line and that's going to throw up a bunch of new or different economic political and social concerns and you know again that the left has to be a bit more prepared for that so the question is oh we're going to have another lockdown we need a lockdown I think maybe we need a proper conversation actually about well what's what's what's sick pay going to look like for instance over the next 18 months two years because this probably isn't going to go away and you know we probably will see significant numbers of people dying every day I don't think a lockdown is the solution I don't think it will happen because you know over 50 percent of the public has now been vaccinated about 77 of the working age population those over 18 have had two vaccines so it's super interesting I mean what do you think do you think they're looking at the vaccine passport was the Hail Mary no I don't think they are to be honest I mean for me vaccine passports I'm I'm not particularly incensed about them in either direction I think one argument for them would be that there are some there are some areas which are always going to be unsafe however well you ventilate a nightclub that is still going to be somewhere that's a potential super spread or event because you've got lots of people in a closed space they're shouting they're screaming that's what you want to be there kissing each other that's kind of thing you want to do in a nightclub so for me the only way you could make that a bit safer if we do have surges in the winter is something like like vaccine passports I wouldn't see them as a way to control COVID-19 I'm just seeing them as a potential way to keep nightclubs open do you know what I mean you're upset you're obsessed with nightclubs especially with nightclubs I don't think it goes beyond that but I don't think COVID vaccine passports is what really matters going into this winter I think ventilation is going to be much more important and I think there the issue is that the government just cannot be bothered to invest because it would require a lot of money and we know with you know for example how long it has taken them to take down flammable cladding from buildings which we we all watched kill 70 odd people right it's taken them three years to take that down so can you imagine a government who's taken three years to take that down now managing to implement ventilation in every supermarket shop and school I don't think it should be hard to imagine that I think that's precisely the kind of thing our government should be doing right now there are governments in the world doing that right now but for me I think the government like oh we're not up to that we can't do that and so that's why more people are going to catch COVID this winter than they probably need to and not just COVID as those sage documents said all the other respiratory viruses that are going to be going around this winter because ventilation wouldn't just help us during COVID I'd quite like a society where I'm less likely to get a cold and I'm less likely to get the flu right obviously I'm not I don't want anyone's freedoms to be restricted so I don't get the flu or so I don't get a cold I don't want flu or cold passports for for nightclubs but if we could just install some better ventilation everywhere then that's that's that's all that's all upsides but as I say the government don't want to do that because they're terrified of of investment and intervening in the economy yeah I think the problem is as well Michael that the second you you demonstrate that actually the government and the state can intervene and can do things effectively much more so than the market they are really worried about this and that's one of the reasons why they've not engaged in these kinds of interventions you know the Tories they can't build cycle lanes while the Chinese are building 600 kilometers per hour maglev train systems spanning the whole country so again you know the capacity for western governments to solve problems after last 18 months not particularly good and in Britain in Britain in particular not not not very good at all very unimpressive I think as well for the vaccine passports thing because I think it's boiled down it's become a bit strange so people are saying oh we can't have vaccine passports because you want access to basic goods and services without having to you know submit a form of identity I agree with that argument but clearly clearly we can't open sporting events clearly we shouldn't do it it's deeply responsible I think to open sports stadia to you know even half capacity crowds in the absence of a measure like that that's just that's just my opinion but I can see why you know why you would have those why you'd have those mechanisms there clearly people shouldn't be storing the data and so I would far rather people are able to watch football and submit that document then you know players play to empty stadia for another six months you know your priorities night clubs Michael mine is mine is the premier league in the football pyramid yeah I mean the premier league are are implementing vaccine passports apparently that's what they've said and also I mean I think this the vaccine passport already exists I've actually got it on my phone now the NHS app gives you a I mean I haven't used it yet but it gives you what's it called a QR code I'm not sure exactly how it works but it doesn't doesn't seem like a sort of mind bending development let's go to a comment Leviven with five pounds both double vaccinated spouse tested positive for COVID Wednesday I'm still negative very stressful certainly the opposite of freedom for many god that does sound very stressful the silver lining I know it's you know I know this sounds like an incredibly difficult situation I'm not making light of it but the silver lining is because you are both double vaccinated you would have to be quite unlucky to get seriously or there are still people who are double vaccinated getting seriously ill and you know we have to take that very very seriously but on a personal level I'm avoiding situations where I might catch COVID because it seems one like it will create an enormous inconvenience for me and two I do think it seems helpful if we all take it very slowly and and sensibly now but I'm not as scared of it as I was I was before and I think we will be moving to a situation like that in in the future but all of my solidarity to your COVID positive spouse I hope you get better soon let's go straight on to our next story almost everyone agrees that Britain has a serious housing crisis indeed our Tory government often admits so however nothing ever seems to be done about it and a recent report in the financial times gave us a clue why the FT have revealed that the Conservative parties received almost 18 million pounds in donations from 154 donors with property interests since Boris Johnson became UK Prime Minister two years ago a quarter of the Conservative party income comes from pleasing landlords there was no data available on donations from private renters as you can imagine I'm pretty sure that doesn't make up a large proportion of income for the Conservative party to get an idea of why this matters we can take a look at some of the key donors some of the key individuals involved Anthony Gallagher is a billionaire property tycoon specializing in buying and preparing land plots for residential and commercial development he sold his land business in 2017 for 505 million pounds but then he reinvested the money in the private rental sector according to the FT Gallagher has been the most generous property donor to the Tories since Johnson took office in 2019 he's given 1.5 million pounds through his company county wide developments now you might be wondering well you know what does he get out of this potentially you know if you're if you've invested millions of pounds into the private rental market then you get quite a lot of Tory government also and obviously it's not for me to suggest there was anything transactional here it just so happens that Gallagher received a knighthood in 2020 for services to land development and property he began donating to the Tories as just Tony he's now Sir Tony another big donor was John Stuart Bloor he's the billionaire owner of Bloor homes which is one of the biggest private house builders in the UK he's donated 1.1 million to the Conservative since Boris Johnson took charge as you'd expect as with all of these donors Bloor has denied he wanted any favours in return for that 1.1 million pounds he told the FT I have never met Boris Johnson or spoken to him or his ministers neither have I employed lobbyists we donate money to the Conservative party and charities because we agree with their ethos of aspiration and hope for individuals and children and expect nothing in return for these donations a very very reassuring statement there there are some coincidences which might raise suspicions though we know from an earlier report in the Sunday Times that the timing of these donations is let's say notable that's because earlier this year Bloor donated 150,000 pounds to the Tories two days after a housing minister grave the green light to a Bloor proposal to build hundreds of homes on rural land in Herefordshire Aaron we talked last week about your brilliant piece on some of the effects of the housing crisis on mental health among many other issues this story suggests it won't be resolved anytime soon I mean unbelievable Michael you know between 2005 2015 the Tories fundraised a quarter of a billion pounds 250 million pounds that's the kind of money it took for them to to re-end the political sort of mainstream and former government and nothing's really changed since then and then you compare it to labor right and labor have made huge and of course you'd hope that there's a labor government in order to change housing policies so that we can stop this rat run that so many people are stuck in which is a deeply dysfunctional way to run society and labor you know I saw a funny story being spun by the Times last week about how donors are returning to labor one was Dale Vince from Ecotricity well he donated money under Corbin another was a somebody in the gambling industry but apparently according to Matt Sarp he's not particularly bad he donated money under Corbin and then finally there was a donation from Trevor Chin which I think was in the tens of thousands of pounds so that the ballpark the Tories are in Russian oligarchs property developers people who are absolutely invested in literally Britain's casino economy squeezing the poor and the working class of this country against Trevor Chin giving 20, 30, 40, 50 thousand pounds and what's super interesting is that many people were perfectly happy to fund Keir Starmer to become labor leader but they're not willing i.e. to remove the left from any position of political influence in this country but they're not willing to fund him against the Tories because fundamentally they want things to stay the same and I think you know you have to follow the money in politics and that quote that you just you just read out on air Michael was sickening because it said that we support the Tories because of aspiration for people and for for kids there are 4.3 million people in this country 4.3 million young people children minors who are in poverty 4.3 million it's gone up pretty much every year since the Tories have been in power since 2010 the people who are renting and private accommodation has been going up comparative to home ownership or social housing every year since 2010 ditto rough sleeping would have with of course the exception of the the pandemic and and so you're you're effectively looking at you know corruption in plain sight and clearly the only political alternative clearly you know the whole thing about Corbin or Bernie Sanders and you know you know the the wisdom of crowds and people-powered movement and bringing in money you know this was kind of diminished and mocked by the centrist commentary as if Labour have an alternative as if people like this are going to fund the Labour Party and we're going to start seeing loads of social housing being built or we're going to see greater regulation on HMOs or rent caps of course we aren't so clearly the only political alternative that could take that on which could find funding would have to be from a different source and we've just been dealing with hypnotic centrist zombies Michael for six seven years and it's it's terrifying and in the meantime these people these kinds of donors like this gentleman the Russian oligarchs and you know frankly speaking the parasitic renciers that run Britain's economy in their own interests the not the 1% the 0.1% they're laughing while we have the sort of centrist commentary thinking that they can do what those guys do and at the same time they can sort of you know implement better policy well you can't the reason why we have a broken housing system the reason why the Tories are happy to keep on with that is it's in their interests you know we need to bring people together it's not about dividing people no we need to divide landlords from tenants they don't have the same interests that's not that's not me being nasty and divisive it's a matter of fact a landlord wants high rents a tenant wants cheap rents just as a worker wants different things from a boss you know a boss wants cheap employees and a worker wants high wages they don't have shared interests and sadly we've been stuck in this very strange rhetorical cycle for too long where it's been dominated by like I say centrist zombies but this is why our politics has broken Michael follow the money we're going to continue following the money there was another ft report on the influence of Tory donors on the party a couple of really good reports from the ft this week in this report they reveal that there is a secretive club for major conservative donors known as the advisory board and it has been holding regular meetings and calls with the Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Chancellor Rishi Sunak the club some of whose members have given at least 250,000 pounds to the party has been developed by Ben Elliott Tory co-chair as a means of connecting major conservative backers with its top figures the club does not appear in party literature but conservative officials confirmed the advisory board occasionally meets with Johnson and Sunak for an update on the political landscape one person briefed on the advisory board's activities said it held monthly meetings or conference calls with either the Prime Minister or the Chancellor some members have used those discussions to call for public spending cuts and lower taxes a donor said the report did speak to some sources who defended the core the Tory co-chair for setting up this advisory group they write supporters of Elliott say the conservatives have long had a leaders group where donors who give 50,000 pounds are offered regular meetings with ministers the advisory board operates at a more rarefied level with some members giving the party five times that amount well placed conservatives say that not everyone on the advisory board has given 250,000 pounds but some had now Aaron the thing that strikes me about this now I think we all you know we knew that people who give 250,000 pounds to the conservative party aren't just doing it out the goodness of their heart because as that property developer said oh because we believe in personal aspiration no we're not that naive right you know that what is happening is that they want influence over government that's why they do it what shocked me about this one those they call them the advisory group right you're at least supposed to maintain the pretense right that we don't take direction from our donors the donors donate to us because we do what they believe but we don't do what we do because they believe it you know we don't take advice from our donors but they've called the group of five-figured owners or six-figured owners the advisory group well it goes on there well it goes back to the thing I said to you Michael between 2005-2015 right the conservatives raise a quarter of a billion pounds it's no coincidence that after 2010 you get austerity and you get a massive growth in inequality between rich and poor you see a direct funding of money and funds from the poorest most vulnerable in society to the wealthiest you see the erosion of of the state infrastructure basically to enrich private corporate interests particularly through outsourcing zero-hours contracts privatizations you see the privatization for instance of you know royal mail you see the Cameron government trying to sell off it sells off for instance uh east coast main line it sells off you know equity in banks those people gave that quarter of a billion pounds the conservative party you know the labor party weren't particularly radical under Blair and Brown Michael but the point is with the rich that it's never it's never enough it's never enough and so they said look we want our lower taxes we don't want to actually fund you know the NHS and their reward was a conservative government from 2010 and shame on them with the liberal democrats which implemented austerity that is a quid pro quo that was a direct transaction of money resources and funds for certain political outcomes right it wasn't an accident if the Tories after 2005 particularly after the financial crisis were saying we're going to increase taxes and we're going to bring things into public ownership they wouldn't be getting that money would they pretty obvious uh and it's pretty obvious why you know millionaires weren't donating to labor and they still aren't but particularly weren't donating to labor when when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader because there's a transaction going on and I find it supremely odd Michael that the exact same people the literally the exact same people will say on the one hand you get you know everything has a price it's all about you know profit maximization return and investment all these people really cold-hearted ruthless business killers these exact same people say I'm giving tens of millions of pounds or hundreds of thousands of pounds to the political party I don't want anything of return come on we weren't born yesterday and again to return to my previous points Michael about the sort of centrist punditocracy who actually are among the stupidest people in this country if it is willful ignorance then that's a different proposition but I think actually sadly a lot of the time it isn't I think a lot of the time they actually believe what they're saying they are the most naive credulous people imaginable I think the average person recognizes the fact big money donors do these things to get influence to shape outcomes so yes they call it the advisory board but even if they didn't do that Michael we kind of know why why they're doing this and it's the exact same thing you know with trade unions trade unions fund the labor party so that we can get political outcomes which are more advantageous to trade unions and organized labor we should just be open about it and it's not about oh where they're just equally bad no this is good this other thing is bad this other thing is bad a society where Jeff Bezos can have amazon workers pissing and water bottles and he spends the money on a jolly into space is bad a society where we have universal literacy publicly funded healthcare everybody has access to a home a job clean drinking water food this is good this is qualitatively better than that they're not both equally bad I think anybody that says otherwise is it's clearly ridiculous or or is actually just incredibly wealthy and wants to kind of mask the fact they're advancing their own interests two very important groups in politics they're the very rich and powerful people who want to protect their interests and then the credulous people who are willing to go along with it let's go to some comments Rajya Dee with 1999 solidarity with renters so sorry for what landlords are doing to you it's not fair it is not fair I appreciate the solidarity Nikhil Chaun with 20 pounds that's close to right down with predatory landlords down with the property developer rentier capitalist complex I 100% agree should get that on a teacher Callum what with 10 pounds thank you for your careful honest detailed analysis I'm trying to soothe my covid symptoms with an ice cream sundae and tisky sour it's very comforting to know you guys are keeping us informed we've talked about how you know we should have a nuanced perspective to the data and it does seem like cases were falling if we're going to take the very unscientific survey of people who send super chat tisky sour we've got two in seven people have have covid-19 at the moment hopefully it's not as high as that but I hope you get well soon enjoy your sundae and harker it but pariah with five pounds I manage a venue ventilation and UV scrubbing would be a fraction of what government paid many venues to close over locked down by a cultural recovery fund I think that's a very important point I mean I think even with good ventilation to be fair they probably would have to have paid nightclubs to close for a while but the way this has been done is pretty irrational I think the biggest example of this is he out to help out last summer the government gave millions and millions of pounds essentially subsidizing people's meals when what they should have done is given millions and millions of pounds subsidizing those restaurants and caps to get ventilation fixed so that people could go for meals in safety you know people could go to meals without catching covid-19 that would have then benefited us for the rest of the pandemic and also as we were talking about earlier it would benefit us even after the pandemic because who wants to catch airborne viruses whatever they might be if you are enjoying the show hit the like button we're going to go straight to our next story at Navarra media we pride ourselves on being independent of billionaire barons that's because we're funded by our audience we're funded by you we don't have to answer to anyone with particular vested interests it's very different from people who work for the Murdoch press people who work for the sun people who work for the times people who work for talk radio they do know that ultimately their wages being paid by Rupert Murdoch and this is why I think they often lash out at us they lash out at independent journalists who aren't funded by billionaires it happens quite a lot surprisingly and it happened this week this week we got attacked by Oliver Cam he's a leader writer and columnist for the Murdoch owned times on Thursday he tweeted the following Navarra media can say whatever it likes without checking that's the difference between blogging and genuine reporting now I saw that tweet and it piqued my interest someone challenging disputing the editorial standards of Navarra media I wanted to know about it he was sharing an article from the Jewish Chronicle we can take a look at that piece now and so their headline pro-corban journal claimed Starmer agreed quick deal to form to former leaders return this is a reference to a brilliant article we have on our website by Oliver Eagleton it's about the the events which led to Corbyn being suspended from the Labour Party now I'd expected that I have a look at that JC article and there'd be some disputation of what was in that article some sort of claim that what was written there was false that seems to be the implication of what Oliver Cam has said I read that entire Jewish Chronicle article there was nothing all it had the only criticisms it had of the piece was was the following they write according to the article Sir Keir had personally promised his predecessor to share his speech in advance but failed to do so the leaders office has yet to comment on the claims by Mr Eagleton editor of the New Left Review and author of a new book on Sir Keir but the article was met with derision on social media actor Marlon Solomon branded it the comedy revision stage of Navarra media's anti-semitism coverage he posted so Starmer withhold sending him his speech just so Corbyn could walk into the trap of just being Corbyn then he could suspend him filmmaker Oscar Terji branded the article a ridiculous narrative saying it was actually hilarious that they had settled on this story to defend their cult leader's behavior regarding anti-semitism now that's just two tweets from people who are always angry at Navarra media making no factual claim about what was in the article they're just lashing out on Navarra media as they always do these are by the way two very obsessive accounts and Oliver Cam thinks this counts as a cautionary tale I was very confused I pointed this out to Oliver Cam I think this was in I thought there's quite a polite tweet to be honest so I tweeted Cam how is this a cautionary tale in anything we've published a well-sourced article you're sharing an article based on tweets from two obsessive accounts in a newspaper who last week had to pay out damages for publishing something they admitted was entirely untrue that was because of their coverage of Mark Wadsworth now I didn't get a sensible response from Oliver Cam to that instead he put his account on private so no one could see that tweet he just tweeted and no one could see anything he tweeted he locked his account then behind the veil of secrecy now we have to see this from screenshots because obviously we can't see his account once it goes private he goes on to slag off Navarra media now not because of any supposed factual inaccuracy even though they couldn't find any but because of where we live so Oliver Cam writes just protected my tweets comrades and friends to preempt a drearily predictable fusillade from Navarra media denouncing me from the comfort of their bedsits life is short and I've got work to do Aaron I want to bring you in on this we have discussed before Times journalists lashing out at Navarra media on very shaky foundations I mean this is particularly shaky and then ends up just being very unpleasant you're saying we live in bedsits now you can see where I live it's not a bed sit but if it was I wouldn't have any shame about that many people do have to live in bedsits it's what you it's where you live if you're on a low income right actually to be honest not many people can afford to live in a bed sit in London now you nearly always have to share a house with lots of people but anyway the impression he is trying to make there is these people don't have much money so he said one you don't have high editorial standards oh you've called me out because I actually couldn't locate where the editorial standards were wanting now I'm just going to diss you on the basis that you don't have as much money as me Aaron what's going on here what a pathetic little worm Michael Oliver Cam you pathetic little worm first of all like you say we're regulated by impress you people are welcome to dislike Navarra fine it's a free country knock yourself out some people are going to like us some people are going to dislike us it's a well researched piece well written the gentleman's going to write a book with verso books you know it's not just some made up gobbledygook there's serious arguments are being made well researched if you want to find a problem with them like you say Michael when that tweet went out the article went out from the Jewish Chronicle I thought oh god we've got some in accuracy here we're going to have to edit something make a correction okay well let's see and like you said it's just two pranks frankly tweeting about us and they're upset they are obsessives and it had nothing remotely to do the substance of the points being made in the article or even countering them and when this was pointed out to Mr. Cam who is quoting a piece from the Jewish Chronicle which has been subject I think now to four libel settlements it's settled it's given money to people over libel cases in recent years it's been forced by ipso which is regulated by to make nine corrections I think in three years we're regulated at Navarra media by impress which is a higher standard than ipso ipso is effectively a self regulator for the for the print media in this country we're regulated by impress we've had zero corrections in the last three years the Jewish Chronicle have had nine and Oliver Cam because frankly he's an ignorant man but because he's posh because he has money he thinks that he always knows best it's remarkable he was completely found out he was revealed as the ignoramus that he is I mean you just haven't got a leg to stand there for a second though just a blog they're not regulated actually we are regulated to a higher standard and we've had no corrections people said well people don't really care about Navarra media guess what when you're writing articles about John Ware about the labor leaks about trade union general secretaries who subsequently had to resign because of a story we published we're getting lots of correspondence from lawyers you wouldn't be surprised the point is we do things professionally and we haven't fallen short yet we might have to make a correction one day but so far we haven't so we're regulated and of course the moment he was found out Michael this this this cheap smarmy little man had to start making comments about where we live I don't I don't live in a bed sit if I did it wouldn't make the slightest difference in terms of the quality of my opinion or the substance of my character for better or for worse and actually if all of Oliver Cam is any indicator there's somebody who has a presumably he has a nice home who's very well off who's very expensively educated they can be arseholes it doesn't mean that they're particularly intelligent because he was wrong in this instance and he he sort of made a sort of cowardly way out by rather than sort of apologizing or trying to defend his argument just started name calling and it's it's factually inaccurate and also people said you know they're student politics students that live in bed sits as if just you've just said Michael it's it's generally single men on low incomes it's generally single men on low incomes and actually I'm not surprised he used that argument Michael and actually it was in a way it's positive because rather than saying this nonsense or actually in a foreign media they're all posh he's now saying well actually they're all in bed sits they're they're poor idiots I'm not gonna waste my time on them I only waste my time on rich people I bet you do I bet I bet those are the only people you talk to that's why you were very out of touch and a whole bunch of issues I'd rather him say that Michael and where it's a compliment than saying we're we're posh than saying you know we all live in beds it's fine you go knock yourself out Oliver you ignorant small twit Aaron we're going to finish on time today it's a rare occurrence it's been a pleasure as always speaking to you this Friday evening it's been my pleasure Michael I'm very sorry for our audience who've been subjected to the the idiocy of uh Oliver cam I don't think there's a distance as big in the universe as the one the gulf between how smart that guy thinks he is and how stupid he really is I mean it's a it's a big it's like the grand canyon it's a very uh a very true statement to end the show a very a very appropriate way to do so um thank you for watching tonight have a wonderful weekend if you are a regular donator of our media thank you so much you make this all possible if not please do consider going to navaramedia.com forward slash support for now you've been watching tisky sour on navaramedia good night