 Hello, welcome to another edition of The Fix. My name is Aaron Mestani and I'm Ash Sarka. Today we're trying something a bit new. I just thought I'd spring this on you. We are premiering a new segment called Fix Up, Look Sharp. So what we want you to do is tweet us or comment on the live feed with your questions and they can be about anything. They can be political questions. They can be ethical questions. They can even be personal questions. Just don't be like really creepy about it. And we will answer them 100% honestly. And if we can, we'll even try and be a bit useful. How about that? First time for everything. Trying to be useful. But before we do that, because that will be after the break, we're going to talk about Haringey. As you may have seen last Tuesday, Labour's NEC basically censured a Labour council in Haringey in regard to the HDV, the Haringey Development Vehicle. Do you know what this is Ash? Can you explain it? I will explain it because lots of people have heard of it. They've heard about a huge amounts of protest between within the Labour Party effectively. You've had a Labour controlled council push through effectively this new development vehicle which is pooling the assets of Haringey, libraries, schools, public land with Lend-Lease, property developer for 20 years and then they share the profits. What Haringey Council have said is we have no money, we don't have the skills, but we have this land which isn't going to use, so we're going to partner with the private sector. And this is upset a lot of people because obviously one of the most valuable things right now in the world is London property. And yet they're doing this and it's not serving the local community. And it's not just the NEC that it's angering. Even David Lamien, Catherine West, I say even because they're not, you know, these aren't momentum members. Historically these will be fellow travellers for the kinds of people championing these reforms. Even they are saying the HDV shouldn't go through. And also local party CLBs have passed motions rejecting it as well of course as Jeremy Corbyn. So very few people in the Labour Party with the exception of these councillors are for the HDV. We'll go into a little bit more detail about what it means, but before that there is of course one group of people who are pro HDV. Can you guess who they are? Bastards. No. No. Tories. No. Okay then I'm out. It's Labour first. They've just started a petition to be pro privatisation. And you can find that petition, it's online. Here we go. And it's pretty remarkable because, you know, you will find very few Tories these days who'll be as vocally pro privatisation outsourcing as the Labour right. And it turns out that people like Alasdair Campbell, Luke Akerst, Richard Angel are now to the right of most of the Conservative Party, I think particularly people like Philip Hammond. I mean, so here's the thing, is that these are people who have been squawking about the need to empower constituencies vis-à-vis the excesses of Labour Party leadership. And it seems to me that everyone in the constituency apart from this hardcore rump of councillors is anti HDV. Instead of taking a look at what's actually being said in the community, the mood on the ground, Labour first are like, no, no, no, we're just going to take these what, 20 odd councillors and decide that they're representative of the entire borough of Hange. Well the argument is actually it's on that Labour first petition, you can go check it out. It's pretty much the only thing on that website because it's a pile of dog shit to be quite frank, is, whatever it is, they just really tell you, in this NEC election which of course John Lansman, the landslide was elected to the NEC, the share of the vote from the Labour first candidates went down on last time. So people are alienated by this nonsense. This is a quote from a local Labour councillor, Stuart McNamara. This is about, we're about to pull this up. And of course people say, well look, they've got this, it was a manifesto pledge, that's their mandate. Quote, the HDV was not in any manifesto, and yet you have pursued it through a letter, and this was a letter by the way to Claire Kober, through a covert and incremental approach, duping fellow councillors who sat on the future of the housing review about the sheer size and scale of the plans. Both MPs and both the Tottenham Labour Party and Hornsian Wood Green Labour Party actively oppose it. So there's not a political support, well there's no, we don't, there's no discernible political support, because it was never put to people in an election for HDV. You know, the vast majority of the Labour Party membership, the elected apparatus, the leadership, the NEC, the local MPs don't support it, and yet it's being pushed through. Now, go on. Wasn't there a motion that was put forward to delay any more further motions being put forward on the HDV to hand and get councillor until April, right? And most of the councillors who voted down that motion aren't even going to be councillors after this year anyway. Well that's right, because there was a bit of a reselection battle around all this stuff in Haringey, they clung on, but they won't be able to clang on for much longer, and my instinct is a lot of these people, Claire Kober in particular, think, well if we do this, if we tie ourselves to this ideological flag, we'll very likely be employed in construction and regeneration, perhaps in some government quango down the line. But to get out of it, it then will mean it will cost the taxpayer, what, 10 million for nothing? It's not really possible. I mean it would be a very protracted legal battle. I mean you can, but there would be a big, like you say, big financial overhead, I'm not entirely sure about the numbers, but just to sort of be fair to them, you know, they would say our budgets have been squeezed in 2010, and that's of course where the vast majority of austerity has fallen, it's been on local budgets. 2010, Lewisham, where I live, their budget was £400 million a year, it's now £230 million. It's going to go down to £170 million and 80 by 2022. So there's a huge cut to more than 50%, similar story in Haringey. They've lost £160 million worth of funding since 2010, and there's more to come ahead of 2020, and so they would say, well look, we can't build affordable housing, we can't deal with the housing crisis unless it's in partnership with the private sector. And that's where I think they are completely wrong, they're about to find out. There's one particular place where they want to make big changes called Northumberland Park. Now this is going to get very complex, but you need to hear this out. One of the first estates earmarked for regeneration under HDV, more than 1,000 social rent homes face demolition, more than 1,000. Now they're going to be replaced by 5,000 homes, the vast majority for sale or rent privately, and maybe about 30% of these new homes will be available at affordable rents, not social rents, affordable housing, not social rents, there's a big difference. So the people that are having to leave, they're saying well you can come back and it will be affordable housing, not social rents, but the difference is about 40% of market value to 65%, so that's a big increase for people's rents. And so the argument they would make is we can solve the housing crisis only in partnership with the private sector, you're not even giving new people homes, you're making the situation even worse for people that already are low income renters. So it makes no sense at all really. If I was to ask you how many council homes do you think the London Borough of Haringey have sold since 2010, 11, how many council homes given that they've got rampant housing need, many people living in temporary accommodation, thousands of people actually, how many didn't they've sold these council homes? Okay, I'm just thinking about it in terms of who the two Haringey MPs are, I would say I don't know what, you'd sell off 100, 200, anything else than that, you'd be in electoral trouble, right? They've sold 600, they've sold 600 council homes since 2011. It's something they've built, maybe they've built more, right? Maybe that's okay because they're using the revenues from these ones that are being sold. You'd have to, if you're selling off 600, you would want to match that or as close to match that and how many you'll build, and otherwise it's just a completely kamikaze housing policy. Right, it's what Thatcher did, isn't it? So what Tories did? It would be, if you've sold off 600, I would say you're building 600 or near to 600. Since 2011, Haringey council have built zero council homes. Zero. They've sold 600. Let me get the data up in terms of how many people are homeless in the borough. This is from Shelter, very reliable, which by the way, the data you're looking at there is from Shelter. The number of vacant dwellings has gone up from 1900 in 2010 to 2500, so lots of empty homes. Like I say, no council homes are being built, council homes are being sold. The number of households accepted as homeless and in priority need up from 51 in 2010, priority need homeless up to 198 in the first quarter of 2012. Just those two years it quadrupled and yet council homes are being sold and no new ones are being built. So where's all that money going? There is clearly money that would be made from just that. That's not being reinvested. And when you do the private partnerships with Len Lise, that's not helping these people out. There are actually only more and more people living in precarious and temporary accommodation. So it looks like a bit of a con. It's a scam. I mean it looks like a scam, right? It looks like Claire Kober is a scam artist, which would make sense given that she's about to not seek re-election. Jesus. So speaking of housing, I would like to bring up the other winter crisis, the under-reported winter crisis, which is homelessness. This is rough sleeping, right? Rough sleeping. So crisis, the homeless charity reported a 22% increase in their shelters being accessed by rough sleepers between the 22nd and the 29th of December. So that meant that there was 4,500 rough sleepers in their shelters, the biggest number in the charity's 40-year history. And Aaron, I know that you've got a video soon to come, right? Yeah. About Kev, who was a homeless man from your hometown of Bournemouth. That's right. Who died after his sleeping bag was confiscated. Yeah, we don't know the cause of death, but he was 66, I believe. He died on Bradley Road, which is where my dad used to live. I used to walk up and down that road all the time. I used to have a football coach. But on the age of 66, it was not him. And yeah, he died two days after his sleeping bag was taken by the police. The local council, which is 54 councillors locally, 51 atories. They've got a very bad record with rough sleepers in 2015-16. They were giving them one-way tickets out of the town. They were literally paying for them. Which, you know, if you're the other council, if you're Liverpool or wherever leads, I mean, that's not solving anything. It's also treating human beings like Flotsam or Jetsam or like Dechtis to be moved. And in Ambarad's own constituency of Hastings over the Christmas period, he had three rough sleepers die over a period of six days, three in six days. And do you want to know what the average life expectancy for a homeless person is in this country? Right. So, I mean, there's a lot of countries now in sub-Saharan Africa which have a life expectancy in the mid-60s. I mean, even India is hitting, I think, 70-something. Yeah, but that's because if you listen to my mum, turmeric will make you live forever. Sure. But, I mean, these are low GDP countries. There isn't, you know, at least here a homeless person, if they have a stroke or a heart attack, they go to the hospital, right? That's guaranteed. There's electricity. Surely it's going to be mid-60s. 47 years old. Oh, really? The average life expectancy for a homeless person in this country is 47 years old. But they choose to do it according to some people. Oh, yeah. According to some conservatives. They choose to, you know... Voluntarily homeless. Because everyone loves living without a roof over their head. Everyone. And let's tell, I've got another question for you. Go on. What do you think the area in this country with the highest rate of rough sleepers is? I would imagine it's in a big city. I would imagine it's in a big city. It would be a post-industrial town, maybe. Maybe in the north. Maybe in the north. I don't know, maybe Newcastle, maybe Middlesbrough, somewhere like that. I don't know. Somewhere where there's not much money from the local council. I don't know. Not much social housing stock. The area with the highest rate of rough sleepers in England today is Westminster. Let that sink in. Westminster. So all around the Houses of Parliament with their subsidised meals, their second homes, their plush leather banquets and their gorgeous antique woodpanelling, you've got vulnerable people out sleeping night after night in the freezing cold on pavement. And rough sleeping has gone up by 134% since 2010 and it's set to increase by another 75% over the next decade. And despite this government's pledge to eradicate rough sleeping by 2027, research conducted by Harriet Watt University for Crisis has predicted that unless there is an immediate change to the government's housing and welfare policy, the number of homeless people will double by 2041 to half a million people. And the biggest increase will be in families who are in temporary accommodation like bed and breakfasts. And there's currently 19,300 households housed in temporary accommodation. And do you know what that's predicted to go up to? That's less than 20,000 today. Presumably it was much lower in 2010. It's predicted to go up to, what's the time frame? In 2041. Okay, so within a generation. When overall homelessness has doubled. Okay, let's say 40,000. 117,500. Wow, okay. And the refusal on the part of successive governments to adequately supply council housing isn't actually saving the taxpayer any money. So between 2011 and 2016, we spent £3.5 billion on temporary accommodation. And that is not getting you the rits. That means that 100,000 children are in overcrowded and damp bed and breakfasts while private landlords are absolutely raking it in. Unit costs for temporary accommodation have skyrocketed, with councils being forced into offering so-called incentive payments as well as paying housing benefit to the private sector. And they are disempowered by law from negotiating a better rate. And so look, if the Conservatives were a serious political party with serious political ideas, they'd tear up the legislation which forces councils to accept these eye-watering costs from the private sector to provide emergency accommodation. And look, if I was Theresa May's advisor, what a world that would be. She'd be a very lucky woman, but fortunately they're too stupid to employ people. Imagine if I was Theresa May's advisor on this. I would say, look, you've got an easy win here. You just go absolutely ham on this stupid red tape costing the taxpayer. Because that's a kind of classic Tory position. You could say, look, councils having to jump through these hoops and it's costing them money, it's costing you money. But they're never going to do that because the Tories are the party of capital. And instead, Tory councils are faffing about with 19th century anti-vagrancy laws to harass and displace homeless people. Stoke-on-Trent Council is proposing to use public space protection orders, which were formerly known as ASBOs, now they're PSPOs, to levy £1,000 fines against rough sleepers who put up tents. Imagine if you had £1,000 to pay, you wouldn't be living in a tent. Probably not, especially in Stoke. That's probably a deposit on a flat and a month's rent. Oh my God, it's like throwing a box on hot wings. But look, it's not just, we need to be clear about this, it's not just the Tories because we were just talking about Haringey and that's a Labour-controlled council which is selling off council homes. Now these are assets very valuable, 600 homes since 2010 in Haringey, the average property in Haringey, £350,000. You're looking at what, maybe that's £20 million worth of assets. They've given away on the cheap to people. Now, I'm not, you know, those people deserve great housing but the point is they can now go and sell them on a market value, make money off that. This is completely bananas. It's completely bananas. It's completely bananas. You're selling property below market value when you have thousands of people who are homeless. And so, what do you think our favourite Tory Genesis has had to say about Corbyn's suggestion that councils be given the power to seize 8,000 empty homes and how's the homeless in them? This is Ben Bradley, isn't it? Yeah, he's my favourite Tory Genesis. There's so many. He's displaced my other favourite Tory Genesis. He's now number one in my heart. Can we put up this tweet? This weekend Jeremy Corbyn repeated his commitment to seizing private property in pursuit of redistribution, a prospect that should horrify everyone who owns anything at all. If the government won't uphold your right to the home or business you've paid for, we're all stuffed. And I for one, Ben Bradley, would like to thank you from the very bottom of my heart because I'm glad that you, a man of the people, are out there winning over hearts and minds and protecting the empty homes of the rich from the horrifying prospect that they should actually be lived in by someone in need. Thank you, Comrade Bradley. Shall we go to a break? I want to just get one more thing in, because I didn't do this before and it's a huge error because we're talking about labour. Where have Lenly's worked in the past in London with what council? K&C? No. Southern Council. You know, the Haygate estate, not far from here, it used to be 1200 units. That was sold to Lenly's, guess how much it was sold for? £50 million. It cost the council £44 million to count the estate anyway. We should have some links coming up for this because I'm not making this up, it sounds like I'm making up but I'm not. So effectively they gave this huge 1200 unit estate to a private developer and guess how many of those units were subsequently purchased by local people? How many? 1200 former units, all socially owned, pretty much. Every single one was bought by a foreign investor. Jesus. Every single one. And this is another Labour council. So yes, of course we want to criticise the Tories at a national level, but whether it's Newham, whether it's Southwark with Peter John, whether it's Haringey with Claire Coba, the enemy is neoliberalism. That's right and their economic agenda is identical to the Tories. So as people on the left, or people even in the Labour Party, we need to be very clear about what we want and who we're against. And not all of those people who we are against are on the other side, some are on our side, except they're not. I've got room on my list for all. So while we go to our little fundraising break, I would like you guys to be posting your questions. They can be political, they can be ethical, they can be personal, just not creepy. And we'll see you in a minute. I don't mind creepy questions, actually. OK, I'll ask you some creepy questions. Yeah, no. Let's ask creepy questions to the man and then, like, you know, sort of redress the patchwork a bit. OK, all right. Over the last 10 years, things have really changed. But for all the darkness, every cause has an effect. For all the talk of change, the present moment is really one of crisis. A crisis of democratic representation. Of identity. A climate crisis. Of a failing economic model, which isn't working for most people. We can't have a media that's beholden to advertisers or the political ambitions of oligarchs. Which is why, in 2013, we founded Navara Media. Unlike corporate media, we are funded by our subscribers. There's no tax avoiders, there's no oil money, and there's no lords. What we're creating is media for you, which quite simply, you make possible. We're looking to raise £40,000. That will allow us to not only keep on paying our contributors, but give them a little bit more, as well as keep our studio and take our fantastic Navara events nationwide. To help us get there, go to support.navaramedia.com and give a one-off donation, or even better, sign up for a subscription. We've already achieved so much, but the truth is, we've barely started. Oh, we're back! We had a slight technical hitch, we just really wanted your money, which is why we started playing it again. So, I got the first question, someone DM'd it to me. That's right. Aaron, what would your fantasy cabinet be? Any historical figures, any political figures, living order, fantasy cabinet, PM, Chancellor, home sec, foreign sec. Well, you know there was this absolute melt thing where it's like, I would have Amber Rudder's home secretary, and then I would have, I don't know, Chris Leslie's, Chancellor of the Exchequer, no, all these people are managerial idiots. What we need to do is clone John McDonnell. So, what you would do is you just have John McDonnell in each office, and he would be taking it all very seriously. And he'd be saying, you know, we need to model at the home office what we do, you know, under post-capitalism. That's what we need to do. It's a bit like Judge Dredd, you know, they clone the judges. So, you would have... We would do that with John McDonnell. So, your fantasy cabinet, let me get this straight, is entirely Don McDonnell. That's right. That's why I'm really into the synthetic biology stuff. It's true. You know, I... We would clone John McDonnell very quickly. I came up with a really serious one. I was like, okay, I think we would stick with PM Corbyn, but I would have Claudia Jones as Foreign Sec Walter Rodney as Chancellor. Oh, you mean like literally anybody in history? Yeah. I thought I was going to have to, like, hear Starmourine transport. I don't care. I literally don't give a fuck. Politicians there to serve members and their constituents. The good ones know that. End of story. Literally, end of story. I don't care. You don't care. They're conduits. So it's a privilege to serve. It's not me dismissing them. So I don't care. In terms of historically, I mean, okay, sure, like... Karl Marx as Chancellor. Come on, you're sick. You've really been a terrible Chancellor. It's like starting fights, like resigning every day. Oh, sorry. I think, like, wasn't Karl Marx a sex pest, really? I mean, it's the mid... I mean, I'm talking about... It's the mid 19th century. I mean, I'm not making excuses. I'm just saying that Chief Whip's office would have a hell of a job. Gengels was sleeping with an Irish servant of his, Mary. Yes. Oh, and also Marx also got his nanny pregnant. Yes, I'd heard about this. So maybe we should keep them out of Westminster. Maybe just have women, right? Maybe just have women. I think women are more reliable as politicians, generally, actually. I must say. I can't wait to prove you wrong about that. Right, hit me with a question. Come on. Right, okay. A serious question or an unserious question? Something in the middle. Something in the middle. Okay, now you're like this. Why do... And this is from Stephen Durant. Thank you, Stephen. Hey, Stephen. Why do liberals and some on the left... We should do this all the time. I like this format. This is good. Why do liberals and some on the left still act like the destruction of NHS education and housing is still an accident? Because 90% of people in this country have no understanding of history or power. And it's that simple. It would like to live in a world where the only things that affect them are the product of maybe the last 12 months. And that's it. Because within that short-term thinking, you are king, right? Your own cultural or intellectual transformation is everything. So if you clock that something is a problem or like, hey, wait, guys, we can do this better. Obviously, we're all these just sort of like, you know, atomized, but somewhat benevolent beings and, you know, we can just pull up our socks and fix things. Whereas if you realize that these things aren't an accident and are the product of ideologies, some of which are centuries in the making. If you're thinking about the impact of colonial legacies on shaping our daily life, or if you think about the impact of, I don't know, discourses in the 19th century about the working class and their, you know, inherent disposition to failure or sickness and that these things are shaping how our NHS is being treated now, then on the one hand it's a bit disempowering because you're like, shit, what do we do? We're up against centuries. But also it makes you think that the solution has to be collective. You have to form a social block, a political block that's capable of agitating and extracting a win. And there's so much more about, so much more than your own political journey then, right? So do you think the key difference then between somebody who's left-wing and somebody who's liberal is somebody who can situate a present situation within a historical context? I don't think liberals have any idea of history. Right, exactly. I mean, I saw on the Rubin report your new favourite programme. I mean, they're really, I love this new American rights. They're all fucking idiots. This guy, not James Rubin, he's a former Clinton guy. Oh, I can't remember his name. Something in Rubin. He was interviewing this African American conservative and he was saying there's no such thing as racism, this African American conservative. And because the guy is not a very good host, he couldn't really give a response and he was going, you know, give an example and then he would say, well, police sing and he had a good rebuttal to police and he said, well, black on black crime, the numbers, it was a moderately strong argument. It wasn't an illogical argument. But then you think if you situate it historically, and you start complaining about welfare, the welfare has destroyed black people, black communities. So, mate, the GI Bill, every returning GI from the Second World War was given access to credit, was given free university education, cheap mortgage credit, they could start businesses. African Americans returning from the Second World War all met, obviously, black and white, couldn't access it, only whites could. So if we want to talk about, like, the equivalent that the US had of the British welfare state after the war, it was whites only, my friend. And nobody's talking about, you know, welfare queens, because it was all white men that benefited from it. Another one, he's saying there's no racism today, it's not like Martin Luther King. Well, okay, the Civil Rights Act was 1964. When, in your strange universe, did racism stop existing? Was it literally the day 1964, now it's over? And I think people on the left know these things. But liberals just, they had this disease. They don't, like I said, they just don't think historically. It's like liberals, to me, it doesn't matter how progressive they think they are, they're like well-intentioned goldfish. So I'm like, that's nice, but you're really not doing me any good here, you need a better sense of memory. Shall I ask you the next question or you'll ask me a question? Because I half answered your last question. Yeah, give me one that's just for me, thank you. Why I have, this is from Kevin Smith, why I have no girlfriend. Kevin, I don't know, right? Because look, the reason why I don't think you've got a girlfriend, Kevin, is because, to be quite honest, I've been telling women stop dating men. And I'm gonna explain this in a second. It's not out of any sense of lesbian separatism. It's out of the sense that men long you out. Men are a waste of time. They take up your energy. Well, it depends how old Kevin is, right? I'm just saying that the reason why he doesn't have a girlfriend is because I've been advising girls to not date. If Kevin's under... So I'm taking responsibility for that one. If Kevin's under... Well, I'm about to aim at the entire Navara audience under 25. Kevin's under 25, I think you're probably certainly right. Young men are a pain in the arse. I mean, I was one. Older men are a pain in the arse too. They're less of a pain in the arse. No. Older people in general are just less of a pain in the arse. When's the last time you dated an older man? Actually, I have been with an older man, but I don't like to talk about these things, you know. And he was a very nice chap. There you go. That's a Navara exclusive. He was very nice. Very courteous, actually. A very... Well... A well-meaning man. Okay, no, I'm going to answer Kevin here why I have no girlfriend. Kevin, look, take my advice. Can I speak to this camera? I'm going to make this an address to you, Kevin. Take my advice. I'm a bit sloppy now. This is kind of like chicken wing, bingo wings. Work out, okay? This is the first thing. Okay, Kevin? Work out, go to the gym. You don't have to be very attractive. All women say, I don't care about their body. Believe me. When you're ten stone, nobody looks at you twice. When you're thirteen stone, they look at you, okay? Second thing, shower twice a day, Kevin. Now, this is really important, okay? Smelling bad is not good. Number three, always wear clean underwear. Okay? This is, again, very, very important. And number five, wear a fragrance. And I really can't, you know, talk about this enough. Women, for some reason, respond to different kinds of cues. Now, men... I had this as a great line. Men read people. Women listen to them, okay? So that's about the kinds of conversations you're having. And men, like, they just read people in terms of what they look like, the visual cues, et cetera. But I think smell as well. I think smell's a real life hack. Kevin. Smell good. I'm going to give you some advice that... I mean, all these things are important, but that's basic personal hygiene. And that, Aaron's just advised you. Basic personal hygiene, you should be on that, like, hype already. Your mother should have taught you that. Your father should have taught you that. You'd be surprised, Ash. Nothing surprises me about men anymore, Aaron. Don't worry about that. My advice is don't seek out a girlfriend, because the minute you go into a relationship of any kind, whether that's a friendship or a flirtation, and you have got a mould in your life that you're trying to fit that person into, all you're going to get is disappointment and conflict, and that person's going to feel pressured, and you're going to feel unsatisfied. And it's just not a recipe for happiness. What we're saying is work on yourself, Kevin. I'm saying work on yourself and be willing to meet people and truly let that relationship, whatever that is, develop without forcing it. And if it blossoms into a beautiful friendship, then it does. If it blossoms into a beautiful relationship, it does. It's not about seeking out a girlfriend, because the minute you detect that sense from a guy that he's trying to mould you into a girlfriend shape, I don't know about you, but I'm out. I mean, I just find all this stuff weird, to be honest. That's why you were just like, Kevin, women are very basic. They respond primarily. Their cells are located in the olfactory system. Kevin, you've just got lots of sandals. No, he's saying girlfriend. I'm assuming the basics. No, because we can't judge Kevin. I don't want to make him feel bad. I'm just saying here are some basics. Kevin, I haven't judged Kevin. What's he's about? He may be a really great person. I've given him some other advice. Let's go look. Next question. Lots of people watch the fix of politics. Next question. What got you into politics, Ash? This is from Jacob Dobson. Yeah, this is from Jacob Dobson. We're not going to answer that. What got you to into politics? And you can respond and I'll respond. What got me into politics? When I was at school, I was a very earnest school student, and I participated in walkouts against the Iraq War. Oh, sweet. How old were you? My first walkout, I was 11 or 12, something like that. And one time we all bunked school to attend anti-war protests. And I was like, girls, it's fine. No one's going to know. Like we left for school in our uniform. We put like our normal clothes on underneath and we got on the bus and we took off like the blazer and all that. And we went to this protest and then the next day, there was a picture of us with all our placards in the metro and our head of year brought it in and just put it down on the table and was like, would you like to explain this? Miss, I had a dentist appointment. Amazing. And that's a picture for a lot of people your age. Yeah. And then I was doing a bit of activism around Palestine around the time of Operation Cast Lead. So I was in sixth form. So I remember Jeremy Corbyn as this kind of rumpled a backbencher who would show up to rallies and kind of Kurdish community hall meetings and stuff around North London. And then when I was 18, I went to university. I went to UCL. We'd occupied our university over tuition fees and that's where I met Aaron Bassani, the only man wearing an ironed linen crisp white shirt at an occupation. I remember it being like, who's this joker wearing a linen shirt at an occupation. And I remember, because I was looking after the donations, I found a hiding spot in the ceiling and I kept bugging you to help me get it up there because I was too short and one time you were really tired and me bickered. Oh, sweet. I've got a really good memory for these things. Oh, I think what got me into politics was my dad being a completely crazy Iranian person. That's what got me into politics. I had a Catholic mother, very self-righteous. She thought she knew best about everything, put the world to rights at the time. It wasn't in a very political way. And then my dad was just a crazy Iranian and obviously the broader context is imperialism in the Middle East. Despite what some of the, fuck you dad left as I like to call them, say on Twitter, I'm not pro-imperialism. I don't want my auntie and my grandmother to be bombed in Tehran, thank you. And the one moment that really stands out for me is actually the Iraq War as well. My dad had sussed out that I was relatively smart. I was going to do one of my A-levels because I'd been a clown until about 16. And so I was starting to sort of, and also when you're about 15, 16, you realise that your parents don't know everything, right? And I was making sort of devil's advocate arguments about the Iraq War. I went on that march as well. I wasn't pro-the Iraq War. But I said, look, hey, something may come of it. And I was sort of repeating these vanilla arguments from, you know, pro-intervention people saying, well, look at MacArthur in the U.S., look at Japan, look at Germany. I mean, it's possible that we could have something like that in Iraq. And as I said that, my dad was bringing in a big roll, a bowl of rice and chicken. And as I said this, he literally threw it on the floor, food everywhere, been cooking it for hours, started screaming at me. He tried to physically assault me. Anybody who knows the rain, you know the people that like this, you know? I mean, he's pulled out hammers on me with all knives. Jesus. Oh, yeah. I mean, it was all, you know, I never thought he would do anything. It was just a bit of banter, really. I mean, I probably shouldn't say this. He's a lovely man. But anyway, I mean, I pissed myself laughing when he did that. And I realized for him, like politics means something. You know, these foreign policy decisions mean something because, you know, he was a refugee. He was here because there was a war between Iran and Iraq. Because there was a revolution. And politics, it shapes our lives. It's not just this thing in the ether, you know? Yeah. I think for my mom, the most, because I saw that a question had been posted about what books would be on an Avara reading list. And for me, the books that I would recommend are actually the ones that I have this kind of emotional attachment to from my political formation growing up. So my mom was an anti-racist feminist activist, also active within unions in terms of setting up BME caucuses. Her and my grandmother, like, there's a kind of complicated story about how my mom grew up. But when they came back to this country, they set up some of the first shelters, specifically for black and Asian women who were victims of domestic violence. And because of activity that was in our family history, they were both sort of steeped in this anti-colonial tradition. So when I was 13, so the particular experience of being a brown woman and helping me negotiate myself as, and how I saw myself as my physical appearance was always really, really important to my mom. And when I was little, there just wasn't pictures of, you know, dark-skinned models and magazines. So whenever Naomi Campbell or Tyra Banks or, you know, Alec Weck would be on the cover of Vogue or something, my mom would buy Vogue and bring it back. And I remember in the year 2000, it must have been eight or nine, it must have been 1999 or 2000, I can't remember, when Naomi Campbell did Playboy, she was shocked by David Lashapel. And she was wearing the white fur and the latex. My mom went out and bought this bloody copy of Playboy, brought it back home, and she covered up all the nipples with these smiley face stickers. Oh, emojis before they're actually emojis, right? Yeah, I mean, it was so funny. But anyway, when I was 13, my mom gave me black-skinned white masks by Franz Fanon because of the two chapters about interracial relationships and kind of navigating the white colonial gaze. And when I got that book, I turned around to her and I was like, things have changed, mom! I'm not going to experience racism because it is a melting pot and you're so old-fashioned. And then I went back to reading that book at age 17 and I was like, oh my God, you're so right. I'm never doubting you again. You were like a product of state multiculturalism. You were down with Blair. I was... I hated Blair for the Iraq War, but I was just like, listen, it's a multicultural world out there I'm a goth and I listen to Grimes. And then I developed some fucking politics and had some life experience. What about you? So for me, the formative book was Black-skinned white masks. Books, I don't know. If it wasn't apart from Capital and apart from the Grinderisa. Yeah. I mean, both my parents are kind of mixed anyway and then I'm a mix and I'm a bastard. So I never really... I always felt like the rootless cause of my politics. Like I'm the archetypal root. I really don't identify with... Which is why I've always identified as being British, I suppose, because it was quite convenient. That's what my passport says, other than that I don't really care. But a book that you had an attachment to politically emotionally. Yeah, so exactly. So I was critical of British foreign policy. I didn't mind... I mean, you just grow up in New Labour, especially in Bournemouth's conservative place, that's actually left to what most people are saying. In terms of a book, I suppose it's like most... I mean, that's why I have a lot of time, actually. I think we can persuade a lot of these dweebs, basement dwelling dweebs on the alt-right, because when you're 17, 18, you're reading ideas like Nietzsche, like Sartre. You don't know what's what. And somebody's offering you what seemed like incredibly seismic, comprehensive, and final answers to the big questions. Of course they're not. But... And they're very digestible. So Nietzsche and Sartre. And I think a lot of that at the moment, and it manifests itself as accounts culture and as a literary culture. And a lot of that, even Kerouac. I think a lot of the kids that were reading that 10, 15 years ago would probably now be drawn towards some of this alt-right stuff. Which I think the left isn't really thinking about. But anyway, we have a serious question here. Let's be nice and quick, because we've got so many good questions here. And this is a good one about Brexit. So I'll start with you, then you ask me, what should Labour's approach to Brexit negotiations be in round two? I think Shadow Cabinet will be getting up to on their away day. Ooh! I mean, so this is one of the things, right? Is that there is a bit of a split in the Shadow Cabinet, especially the Big Four, right? You've got Dan Aber who is very keen on the European project and feels very strongly towards it and wants to preserve that almost at any cost, I think. And you've got a much more circumspect attitude towards the European project from McDonald and Corbyn, and also Tricket, right? So I think that that's a tension which, so far, has been neatly evaded and I don't know how that's going to play out. I'm personally in favour of a referendum on the terms of the deal. No, I mean, we're probably going to have to do it anyway, but yeah. And I think that the reason why... And so I'm in favour of that because a deal that's negotiated by the Conservatives is a really effective political target for us as a left-wing movement, I think. Well, here's the thing. It's not going to be voted through Parliament anyway. Like, even the Tories aren't going to back an agreement which doesn't give the city passporting rights. So, I mean, I was on BBT Talk back today and they said, well, Labour haven't got a position on Brexit. And I said, well, look, the Tories' position on Brexit is literally changing by the hour. So it's not, I mean, you can say that, but actually at the moment, it looks like we're going to get a soft Brexit because of what Philip Hammond is saying in Davos. So in that case, you can say, well, the Labour's played a blinder because it didn't go down that alley which the Tories wanted them to do. So it's very hard for me. We can't have a second referendum to wipe it out. I think we're going to have to leave the EU. When I was saying, you know, I was pro-Brexit, leaving the EU until about the final two months, six weeks, I said that because I said we would never be able to leave the single market because if we did, it would hit the EU economy like a sledgehammer. So I wasn't that worried about leaving the EU because we'd still be in the EEA or the EFTA. And I said we couldn't leave both because it would just be suicide. That's actually now what hard Brexit would look like. I still don't think hard Brexit can happen. I just do not think it can happen. I don't know what that means. I don't know who's going to do it. But I mean, if I was to be surfer to one thing, it's that we will not leave the EU, leave the single market, cap migration and have the city losing passporting rights. It would be unprecedented. Next question. Next question. What are your views on the FBPE crowd? This is a hashtag, by the way. And this is from Thomas Oliver Williams. Thank you, Thomas. They're very weird, I think. They're very weird. So I'll tell you something. On Friday night, me and my friends were really bored. We just wanted to start some drama on the internet, so I did a poll on my Twitter page, which was, if you could only pick one, what would you prefer to remain in the EU or Corbyn be prime minister? It's the stupidest thing I've seen this year. Not that tweet, but the response. I find it hilarious. No, it's a good tweet. It's like when you know that you're striking a match and chucking it on some dynamite, it's like, hey! And the reason why I found it so funny is because initially it was very, very swayed towards Corbyn. And that's not reflective necessarily of the country as a whole. That's reflective of my followers. But the F... Wait, F... FBPE. The followback pro-Europe crowd are organized online and they were like, we're going to take you down, bitch! Like, to me. And I was like, this was literally the product of political curiosity. And they were going in. It was like for them it was a real referendum between Corbyn and Romain. And so culturally I find it very, very weird. And the one last thing I'll say is that like other than them being quite organized online, is that they do something which I'm very, very uncomfortable about, which is they mobilise the figure of the non-EU migrants as a reason for staying in the EU as an anti-racist option, as if the EU isn't screwing over that non-EU migrant. And without a degree of honesty about how the EU has treated African and Asian migrants and without a serious set of proposals of how to make EU migration more just for African and Asian migrants. I can't take that seriously. And it looks like, you know, a political blackface. You know, it's really weird. I've been calling it abjection drag. Yeah, for me I think that the FBPE crowd, like you say they're cranks, many of them, I don't, you know, there's nothing wrong with wanting to stay in the EU or preferring, you know, the single market over hard Brexit. But the people that hashtag... I want to stay in the EU. Like that's my position. The people with that hashtag in there, account profile are nearly all universally cranks. And the tokens for me, something which has only happened in the last 16 months really since Trump's election, arguably since Brexit, but it took a few months to kick in in this country, which is that actually, centrist liberals who are relatively affluent are the biggest or as liable to conspiracy theories as anyone else. And some of the tendencies they exhibit, I mean, it's when, you know, Labour Party conference, we were down there. I think you went to cover the pro-EU demo. I didn't go. Charlotte Grace went down, didn't she? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think people presumed it would be like this kind of interesting vibe and it was cranks, you know, and they are cranks. They're like, you know, for me, the FBPE crowd are like, it's occupied for the middle classes. It really is. I sometimes see them singing like this song. It's always this woman who can't really hit a note. She's like painting herself blue and she's like, I just want a future for my child. And I was like, that doesn't even scan. What are you doing? Anyway, next question. Also, what future? Alistair Campbell's like FBPE, right? The stuff we're singing in Haringey. Alistair Campbell wants all that to happen. He's pro privatisation. So you're pro this, but we stay in the EU over the opportunity of the Corbyn government. I think it's completely batshit. Clearly it was one of those two things. I know what I would go. Yeah, no, I would have opted for Corbyn for Prime Minister, but I thought it was an interesting political proposition given that for most of my friends who are Romain but pro Corbyn, that that would just be an interesting tension to tease out. I didn't realise I was opening the door to internet hell. So we've got one more question. Let's have a serious question. Someone asked me what trainers I was wearing and I just want to say, Edjordens. My friend brought them back from America. They're great. Crap check. James M. Arnold asks, I've already done that one. Sorry, James. There's a Jacob above you as well. Marcus John Howes. How can Labour, Marcus John Howes ask, win support for its economic policy and destroy the myth of Tory economic competence? I have a good answer for this. I've got an answer for this. You go on then. I'll repeat that because I kind of didn't get it right the first time. How can Labour win support for its economic policy and destroy the myth of Tory economic competence? I'm really excited about this one because it's not actually about just what Labour should do. It's about what we should all be doing. This is also about something that Navarro will be doing, which is a new series of videos explaining economic concepts and addressing quite basic economic questions. We'll be shooting our first one next week. I've just penciled in a shooting day. I was going to tell you about this after this. We'll be doing things like what's the ideal debt-to-GDP ratio or why re-nationalise. It will essentially be taking on these conservative talking points which have contributed to this myth of economic competence. The reason why they're able to project such a sense of unshakable confidence when they talk about money is because, quite frankly, most of us don't have the first fucking clue how to talk about money. The left traditionally very good at talking about human rights, talking about things in a emotive and moralistic tone. That is a powerful thing and that is important, but we lose our confidence when we talk about economics a lot of the time. What I want to do is give people the tools to be able to understand economics, have these conversations and really rebuttory arguments. I think that when and this is the great appeal of Don McJohnnell is that he's got obviously a very refined grasp of economics a very refined grasp of political theory but he talks about it in such a way that he makes you feel that you are able to participate in a conversation with him and that's really important in political messaging. It was something that's been neglected for so long by not just the Labour Party left but also the extra parliamentary left. We thought you had to it was almost like unless you've read every single bit of negrie ever, don't talk to anybody. Do you know what I mean? It was this really intimidating sense of how you develop the tools to talk politically. I want to do that differently and I'm glad that there is a Labour Party project committing to helping achieve that change. For me, the myth of Tory economic competence is obviously going because it doesn't exist that's becoming more obvious by the day but the root answer to that question is to destroy the public understanding of the Tories as being uniquely competent in the economy, we have to destroy the media. We have to destroy and discredit and dismantle particularly the print media because the kinds of people that believe that, they tend to be older they tend to access their information through print media through local newspapers sometimes through the radio sometimes through the BBC but very very rarely through new media. So to do that we're going to have to build a new media for different politics. I'm not going to trouble you with all the details you can go to support.nvarymedia.com for that so you can help fund stuff like these videos which are obviously supremely important but that's it for me and I think the Tories have nothing left except economic competence and obviously it means nothing. I also did just one last question I want to address and I want to say one last thing which is I don't think they'll try and fight the next economy on competence although it will still be something it will figure. They probably realise they can't do that so what we'll see now is a turn to sort of culture war and they'll talk about actually reverse racism actually white-splaining as racist cheaper tickets for brown and black people at a labour conference are racist we're going to see a lot more of these and at the moment we're seeing people like Julia Hartley-Bruer this man on sky with Pfizer Shaheen the other night they're just fishing okay because it works so well in the US and they're just fishing and they're just probing see if it can work here too is it enough? I don't think it is against such a coherent economic offer with Jeremy Corbyn if the melts were in charge if it was just about a social liberal agenda bolster onto neoliberalism it would probably do okay actually but I don't think it will. The answer to address was from Sean Swan Ash how do you avoid dating men need help I'm going to tell you something and it is a very powerful piece of advice bitch get a hobby job done get a hobby like what? get a hobby anything do anything other than dating men I woke up in 2018 and I made a decision I was no longer going to put in work for love I was going to dedicate it all single-mindedly to better for the people and Corbyn for Prime Minister and I've been a lot happier so do that I mean do what you love in a social setting and you'll meet great people generally and then avoid them men women whoever it starts great then just avoid them lock them off when someone says can I have your number you're sitting there you're what's happening you're like I don't have a phone that's what you do can I say one thing and this is actually unlike my advice earlier on this will be true this is correct what I'm about to say okay there's a presumption now this is addressed to younger women out there because I think older women know this there's a presumption that if a man is clever then there must be something else wrong with him or if he's attractive he must be thick or self-serving or arrogant some people actually can have a lot going for them and some people can be really bad they have nothing going for them so just bear that in mind because some people think well they must have this he or she seems really nice really courteous really clever no they're just nice people just go with it no my advice was tend your own garden be your own boyfriend be your own boyfriend well on that note goodbye quoting con deed well we'll see you next Friday then see you next time bye