 It was a vigil to remember a victim of violence against women, the suspected murderer and metropolitan police officer. It ended with images of women pinned to the ground and dragged away by male metropolitan police officers. How did we end up here and what were the cops thinking? Tonight I'm joined by Ash Sarkar and by interim director of Liberty, Gracie Bradley. Thank you both so much for joining me this evening. We will also be discussing tonight, of course, the crime and policing bill, which is currently being debated in Parliament as we speak. If passed, it will criminalise protest in Britain further than it already is. And to close the show, I'll speak to Professor Dean and Pillay about the European government's pausing their rollouts of the AstraZeneca vaccine, a very confusing story for someone who's, you know, not as scientifically literate as the guest I'm going to get on. So I'm very glad we're going to have some expertise there. You know the score. We want to get more people watching the show, so do share the show link and keep your comments coming under the YouTube, under the Twitch stream and on the hashtag TiskeySour. Straight onto our first story. On Saturday evening, hundreds of women gathered to pay their respects to Sarah Everard. He was abducted and murdered after walking home on the 3rd of March. The man arrested on suspicion of the murder is himself a metropolitan police officer. And he had been reported to the Metropolitan Police for alleged indecent exposure days before the abduction took place. That context meant many had assumed the police would apply a light touch towards Saturday's vigil remembering Sarah Everard. But it wasn't to be. I think, you know, most people's reactions to seeing those cops defending a bandstand, you know, with all these flowers around it remembering a victim of murder. I mean, it was just completely unfathomable to me. Gracie, you were at the vigil. Can you tell me about your experience of the event and how the police behaved? Yeah, absolutely. So I got there just after six o'clock and it was still light and people were masked. People were relatively distanced. There was maybe a foot between people and some of the women from Sisters were leading call and response from the bandstand. And of course, it's circular. So that was the focus of the whole thing. And it was quite difficult to see what was happening on the bandstand. But there was some drumming. People had candles. They have flowers. And we were doing the call and response. And it just felt very good to be there. Subsequently, as it got darker, the police stormed the bandstand. So from where I was, what I could see was essentially a lot of police hats, a lot of police bibs on the bandstand where those women who'd been leading the chance had been. And it was at that point that people started to chant let her speak. Who do you protect? Shame on you and so on. The police eventually came off the bandstand. It was hard to see whether or not they'd arrested anybody. Some of the chance continued. And the police who'd been dotted around behind us started to come into the crowd. They were kind of singling people out and telling them to leave. And I had an officer who came and stood very close to me and told me, we're tired of engaging people. You shouldn't be here. You have to leave now. Otherwise, we'll find you. They hadn't engaged me or anyone around me. And I didn't engage with him. And he then continued to sort of move with me as I turned and stood very close to me, shouting in my face. I obviously didn't go anywhere. He went away. Maybe 15, 20 minutes later, I could see behind me that there were a lot more police gathers. And of course, it was circular. So I was like, it's going to be quite easy to kettle people if that's what they decide to do. And it was totally dark at that point. So that was the point at which I left and I saw a lot more police coming in that direction. And it was then when I got home that I saw what had happened to the crowd as well as what had happened on the bandstand. And so you were there for the moment when the police, I suppose, changed their tactic? Because from the images from the day, it looks like they were standing back and letting people drop the flowers and stuff. Then there was a moment where they switched. And it's still kind of confusing what prompted that switch. Was it just people making speeches as far as you understand? Well, it was really confusing to me because the speeches and the chants being led had gone on basically for about an hour, if I recall correctly. It had gone on for a while. So it's not that suddenly people started leading call and response. And then immediately the police went in to move people on. That's not the case. There also wasn't a sudden influx of people. There was quite a steady flow of people coming in, staying for a while, coming out again. And at every point from where I was, you could move quite easily through the crowd. So the police made... I don't know on what basis the police made a decision to storm the bandstand. There wasn't anything that obviously changed to me, apart from it getting darker. But that's what they did. So obviously the discussion since that protest, I mean, no one's really stood up and said, oh, those images were great. It was obviously policed really well, or this was an outcome people wanted. So the debate has mainly focused on who's to blame for the scenes we saw. And I'm going to read out a statement from the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, who's obviously saying it's not the police who are to blame. So he released a statement saying, 26 Metropolitan Police officers were assaulted, punched, kicked, spat at. Yesterday policing the COVID-19 lockdown laws that a democratic elected government have imposed. Laws that the mayor of London has called on us to enforce to keep London safe. Now colleagues are being condemned by politicians of all parties for doing what we have been asked to do by politicians on behalf of society. This is not right or fair. Damned if we do, damned if we don't. Are we supposed to enforce COVID-19 regulations or not? Political leaders should be doing much more to support the police officers they have put in this impossible position. The thoughts of the Metropolitan Police Federation remain with the family and friends of Sarah Everard. Now Gracie, I want you to put your hat on of interim director of Liberty as well as someone who attended the protest. From your perspective, were the ugly scenes we saw the fault of the police or the fault of the politicians who drafted and voted for the particular lockdown laws without any opt out for protests? So in my view, in Liberty's view, this was a dual failure. So it's really important to be clear that the police did have a choice that evening. That there wasn't a kind of sudden switching mood from the crowd and so on that was perceptible to me or to anyone that was there. The police had a choice as to how to police that protest. It was up to the police they arrested people whether they shouted in people's faces whether they pushed people closer together in the context of a pandemic that was all up to the police. I do nevertheless understand that the lack of a clear protest exemption in the regulations potentially may have made things more difficult but the reclaim these streets organizers went to the High Court to try to get this clarified and on Friday the High Court had said protest can be lawful the police and the organizers should figure out a way for this to go ahead safely. So the court had clarified that it's not the case that protest is banned in all circumstances under the current lockdown regulations that had been clear and those regulations although they don't have an explicit exemption always should have been read compatibly with the Human Rights Act which protects our right to free expression and to free assembly. So it should never have been the approach that protest was explicitly banned just because there wasn't an exemption in the lockdown regulations and just because we're in a pandemic that should never have been the position. So ultimately I do think that a lot of blame lies at the door of the Home Secretary because she has refused to support the addition of another protest exemption in the lockdown regulations. Liberty has been calling for that for months we had an explicit exemption before when we were in the three tiers system it would have been really easy to reinsert it. Now the government very recently amended the lockdown regulations for the travel overseas travel declarations they could have put a protest exemption in then and they didn't and the Home Secretary has instead relentlessly demonized protesters and failed to uphold the right to protest. So I do think that this was a dual failure but I don't think it's fair to say that the police were in so difficult a position that the only option left to them was to enforce in a completely disproportionate and unnecessary way. I want to bring in Ash in a moment about the effect this is going to have on the general relationship between the metropolitan police and especially women and potentially it's shining a light on something that should be talked about for way into the past because there is a tweet in terms of how the police behaved at that night that I think was particularly instructive it went viral for a very good reason this was from Josiah Mortimer who's editor at Left Foot Forward so he was at the event he tweeted I've just spoken to Georgina 27 who was at the vigil last night on the way home she was flashed by a man next to Clapham Common she alleged that she told a nearby policeman about it and was dismissed no we've had enough tonight with the rioters that's what the policeman allegedly said that woman was also on the BBC today sort of recounting that story so it's not just not just from that tweet there's lots of people backing this up Ash what do you think about the general phenomenon of sort of like people seeing how the Metropolitan Police are relating to women both in the shocking tragic story of last week and then also this protest do you think this could be a turning point so far the polling doesn't indicate that it's going to be a turning point public opinion is still broadly on the side of the police and it's split on the issue of whether or not the vigil should have gone ahead however I do think that story is like these like the one that Josiah tweeted a really important thinking about the structural and cultural issues to do with misogyny within the police force itself because violence against women and catching rapists is one of the premier ways in which police justify their role and the powers that they have to the public if you're an abolitionist one of the first things that you'll hear back as a rebuttal as well what about the rapists than the murderers well only 3% of reported rapes end in a charge we also know that the police are very bad at dealing with reports of abuse within their own ranks there was a study done on 700 cases of domestic violence involving police or police staff and it was found that police and police staff were a third less likely to be convicted than the general public and fewer than a quarter actually resulted in any disciplinary action within the force itself so that tells you that there's a pretty bad problem there in terms of taking victims and accounts of sexual violence seriously and also dealing with the problem within their own ranks and now we also hear stories emerging not just like the dreadful one that you just quoted from Josiah of a woman who had been flashed which is an act of sexual violence let's be clear being dismissed quite callously by a police officer you've also got reports emerging just this evening from the sun that a police officer is currently being investigated for sending inappropriate jokes about the kidnapping and murder of Sarah Everard when Beiber Henry and Nicole Smallman were found dead in a Wembley Park last year two police officers were suspended and investigated for allegedly taking selfies next to the bodies and distributing them on WhatsApp and that kind of callousness from those two individual officers the mother of the two women alleged played out in how they had investigated or indeed didn't investigate at the outset that they were very slow to take this case seriously and indeed it was the boyfriend of one of the two women who found their bodies in the murder weapon so there is broadly a very deep and entrenched cultural problem when it comes to violence against women within the police at the hands of the police and taking it seriously within their ranks which is completely at odds with their public image of going we're all that stands between you and the sexual offenders We talked at length about lots of those horrific examples of sort of how the police have misdelta and with violence against women on Friday's show I mean it really is striking and appalling we've got almost 2000 people watching do like the stream it helps us on the algorithm and sends more people to the show Now much of Sunday's news cycle was taken up with the question of whether as a consequence of the police's handling of the vigil the Met's Commissioner Cressida Dick should resign Ed Davy who's the leader of the Liberal Democrats called for her resignation but neither of the two main parties have followed suit this was Jess Phillips Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence on the Andrew Marshall on Sunday The leader of the Liberals Ed Davy has said that Cressida Dick should now resign what's the Labour view? Well the Labour view I'll give you my view is that Ed Davy maybe wants a headline that I don't want I came here this morning to talk about violence against women and girls about the names of all of those women as well as Sarah Everard and I'm ending up talking about Cressida Dick The reality is is that I don't think that the police over the past few years have done enough to increase charging in domestic abuse have done enough to increase charging in rape both are reducing this is not the day for me to say whether she should go and give a headline to Cressida Dick when Sarah Everard is the name that should ring out That was Jess Phillips speaking on the Andrew Marshall we can now show you Policing Minister Kit Multhouse defending Cressida Dick this morning on the BBC We have to see the context of the difficult situation that the police find themselves in we need to know more about Saturday night and obviously this independent review will look into that but you know Cressida Dick is an officer of superlative achievement in her life and she's been close to some incredibly successful investigations and I know that she is very dedicated and committed to this issue of dealing with violence against women and girls in assertive a way as we possibly can So that was the two two front benches the Labour and Tory front bench are not calling for Cressida Dick's resignation tougher words perhaps came from London Mayor Sadiq Khan he released this statement on Sunday and so he said I received assurances from the Metropolitan Police last week that the vigil would be policed sensitively in my view this was not the case I asked the commissioner and deputy commissioner to come into city hall today to give me an explanation of yesterday's events and the days leading up to them I am not satisfied with the explanation they have provided Now Khan shares responsibility for the Metropolitan Police with Home Secretary Preeti Patel so that statement should have been worrying for Cressida Dick but the Met Commissioner was herself unrepentant when speaking to the press on Sunday afternoon I understand why so many people wanted to come and pay their respects and kind of make a statement about this indeed if it had been lawful I'd have been there I'd have been at a vigil and six hours of yesterday was really calm and peaceful very few police officers around respectful people laying flowers not gathering and a vigil that did not breach the regulations unfortunately later on we had a really big crowd that gathered lots of speeches and quite rightly as far as I can see my team felt this is now an unlawful gathering which poses a considerable risk to people's health according to the regulations a really invidious position from officers to find themselves in but they then moved to try to explain to people to engage with people to get people to disperse from this unlawful gathering and many many many people did unfortunately a small minority did not so Gracie you clearly think that the police failed at that protest as well as you've said it was a dual failure I think quite rightly and what's your position and especially I suppose the perspective of liberty on whether or not Cressida Dick should resign Yeah it's an interesting question and I've seen some I've seen some opposition to the idea on the ground that Cressida Dick is a senior woman and women should support women just to be totally clear I don't really have any truck with that argument because women can commit human rights violations or be responsible for human rights violations or be responsible for institutions that produce inequality and that violate people's rights so I mean I think that there are some real limitations to girl boss feminism that we have to be really alive to in this situation at the same time liberty is not focused on calling for Cressida Dick's resignation we would be far more interested in seeing an explicit exemption for protest to be added to the current lockdown regulations and crucially we'd be far more interested in wide ranging amendments to the policing, crime, sentencing and courts bill which is going to hand the police significantly more power to crack down on protest and to create situations like the ones that we saw in Club and Common this weekend so liberty's asked a sort of we're interested more in changes to the law and limiting the institutional power of the police as opposed to necessarily calling for one person to go and I mean if we look to the Windrush scandal for example there were loads of calls for Amber Rudd to go Amber Rudd when however long afterwards it is we still have Windrush citizens trying to get compensation finding it really difficult to navigate the compensation scheme people still stuck overseas so I think I'd rather focus on the institutional power and how we could tail that and minimize the ability of certain institutions to do harm to people rather than looking at one bad apple at the top I think that's a debate that's being having much on the left if she were to go what would actually change what would that help and I want to look at some more responses to the the weekend's events and the pressure on Crestedick because it is coming from some unlikely quarters this time around and this is the front page of the Daily Mail this morning you can see that image of the woman being pinned to the ground it says shaming of the Met the times went with defiant Met Chief Fights for Job after Vigil Chaos and even the Sun said the police actions were tone deaf so this is the Sun's editorial the police reaction to Sarah Everett's vigil was utterly tone deaf however it hasn't persuaded the public Ash referred to these statistics earlier in terms of whether or not the protest should have been allowed to go ahead or the vigil however we want to describe it and 43% said it shouldn't have been allowed 40% said it should if you break it up for men and women there's a small majority of women who said it should have been allowed so there is a gender split but not ginormous and then when it comes to whether or not Cressida Dick should resign a much bigger majority think that she should not although unsurprisingly there's quite a lot of don't-nose there I potentially always think that the don't-nose is potentially bigger than people make out in these surveys I want to take a look at one of the organisers of the original vigil this was one of the organisers of Reclaim These Streets that was the demo that got called off she spoke to ITV this morning and said she didn't want Dick to resign no we've not called on Commissioner Dick to resign we are a movement of women women seeking to support and empower other women and as one of the most senior women in British policing history we don't want to sort of add to the pile so that was potentially a bit of a reference to what Gracie was saying before that she was saying no she's a powerful woman we don't want her to a powerful woman sorry we don't want her to resign however that was this morning you saw in that video Anna Burley I think she's also a Labour councillor she spoke to the BBC later today and so just this afternoon after having a meeting with Cressida Dick and she now says that Dick should in fact resign the organisers have found the meeting with the Met Commissioner very unsatisfactory Ash I want your take on the resignation issue I think Gracie is entirely right to highlight the structural issues to do with legislation and I think it's completely appropriate that that's where Liberty focuses their energies on a very basic level of political accountability and shaming I think Cressida Dick should resign and I thought it was very disappointing that that spokeswoman from Reclaim the Streets didn't add to the chorus of voices for Cressida Dick to step down actually I use the word disappointing I'm being too nice I think it was really silly and poorly thought through because what it did was give Cressida Dick that bit more time to sort of reorient to say that while I've met with the organisers and so the credibility laundering begins it's also a missed opportunity for Kia Stama who we know hates taking positions on matters of principle he can eventually you turn into the right position after a lot of focus grouping and a lot of arguing but he's never able to quite lap up the credibility because it's so nakedly opportunistic and unprincipled and also with Cressida Dick still enjoying the support of Priti Patel and Boris Johnson I think that that moment perhaps has passed although if more information emerges about who was in charge of the operational decision making on Saturday or indeed there's more information to come out about the behaviour of officers with regards to the Sarah Everard case then you know never say never but I do think that it's it's the silliest aspect of liberalism which is you assume that if you're really nice to everyone they're going to be really nice to you and doesn't understand the structural role that these institutions play or indeed the way in which they're going to play you if you sort of feed into this fantasy of politics just being one big chumocracy so do find it really I think irritating when I hear this sort of stuff of oh well we're women and we want to support women and need more women prison guards because gender has got nothing to do with it the fact is is that the buck stops with Cressida Dick when it comes to operational matters within the Metropolitan Police and the police behaved on Saturday night as if they were absolutely drunk with power it was not reasonable it was not proportionate and it was in terrible taste considering who it was that's been arrested on suspicion and charged with Sarah Everard's Kidnap and Murder so a real missed opportunity I think for Keir Starmer and indeed for Reclaim the Streets to early on get in the call for Cressida Dick's resignation and you highlighted the sheer number of don't-knows-for-both-questions the 17% don't-knows-for-should-the-vigil have gone ahead the 30% don't-knows-for-should-Cressida Dick resign from a campaigning perspective those don't-knows are what you'd call your persuadables and if you just completely abdicate the terrain of persuading if you don't try and make the argument that actually accountability is a good thing that when there's a really big cock up abuse of civil liberties brutalizing of women who just wanted to gather and mourn that yeah somebody should resign well then it's not going to happen and I think that's one of the most dangerous things about politics at the moment is that there's absolutely no attempt by the Labour Party and even a lot of other progressive voices to go for those don't-knows to go for those persuadables Don't worry Ash because we're going to have a lot of a lot of opportunity later to talking about Labour not really bothering with the don't-knows and when we talk about the political fallout around the policing bill but for now we're going to talk about the bill itself now it's an unhelpful coincidence for the government that the outcry over the Met's handling of a protest coincides with the second reading of the police crime sentencing and courts bill this would give police more powers to crack down on political demonstrations now the policing bill it's a 307-page long document and contains relatively minor changes to the criminal justice system I'm sure we could go through the ins and outs of it and there'd be lots of elements of interest but we are going to focus on on one part of the bill which is what is most controversial and what has caused the most concern and that is the rights it gives police chiefs to impose conditions on static protests and that includes the power to impose a start and finish time to set noise limits and to apply these rules to any demonstration even just by a single person and most controversially the bill creates a new criminal offense this is of intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance now being found guilty of this new crime could lead to up to 10 years in prison so it's a serious a serious accusation or a serious thing to be found guilty of and you can be found guilty of this crime merely for causing annoyance now this is the relevant section of the proposed law so you can see here this is sort of going into one of the clauses of the law for the purposes of the subsection one an act or remission causes serious harm to a person if as a result the person suffers death, injury or disease that seems reasonable that should probably be against the law suffers loss of or damage to property debatable suffers serious distress serious annoyance serious inconvenience or serious loss of amenity or D is put at risk of suffering anything mentioned in paragraphs A to C so if you look at those in combination then you can be found guilty of this crime with a maximum sentence of 10 years merely for putting someone at risk of serious annoyance Gracie I know you've been campaigning against this law I've just sort of introduced a very small element of it from your perspective what are the most worrying aspects of the policing and crime bill I mean this is an attempt to legislate away for people's right to effectively protest an effective protest is one that causes disruption it's one that makes noise it's one that has an impact it's one that is clearly annoying to somebody that has some kind of power that makes somebody sit up and take notice so I mean it's a really stinging assault on our right to protest and it's an attempt to just legislate away our ability to effectively protest although I should of course caveat that with the fact that of course people will continue to protest but people will be at risk of more police oppression than they currently are that's what will really happen it's an attempt to silence people people aren't going to be silenced but we are going to see more scenes like we saw on Saturday night so this no offence of public nuisance is just the threshold is so unbelievably low putting someone at risk of annoyance it would be laughable if it wasn't so worrying and you kind of glossed over the bit about putting someone at risk of disease but that actually is potentially quite significant given that we're currently in a pandemic lots of restrictions have been placed on civil liberties and including protest in the name of protecting public health and that's a clause that could be used to that effect in the future that's something that one of my colleagues at Big Brother Watch pointed out to me earlier today so this no offence of public nuisance is frankly ridiculous but it's incredibly dangerous but as you mentioned it's really the cumulative effect of these different provisions it's the lowering the threshold for conditions on static protests it's making it easier to criminalise people for breaching conditions so at the minute if you know about a condition and you breach it you commit a criminal offence now the bill will make it the case that if you ought to have known about a condition and you breach it you commit a criminal offence so that's a lowering of the threshold there we've got an increase from three months to eleven months in prison for an organiser who breaches conditions we've got an increase in fines we've got an effective expansion of the buffer zone around parliament so this is a really stinging assault on civil liberties and on our right to take a protest to where it's going to have an impact to make some noise and to make people listen to us and it's obviously the continuation of Priti Patel's war on protest that has been going on since well before the pandemic you know Conservatives have wanted to target people ever since Extinction Rebellion we saw them met unlawfully banning protests in 2019 in response to Extinction Rebellion we've obviously all seen the charges that were brought under counter-terrorism law against the stand step 15 which were rightly overturned and of course we've seen the really oppressive policing of some of the Black Lives Matter protests this summer and the subsequent statements of the Home Secretary to the effect that they were dreadful so this is a culmination of a long running war on protest but it's also the government under the cover of the pandemic trying to make essentially permanent restrictions that are currently temporary and I know that this is what civil liberties people always say we always say crisis is the ground on which erosion of our rights is seeded in the long term but I couldn't I couldn't give you a more chilling example of it than this bill No I suppose your perspective as a as a campaigner at Liberty because when we've talked on this show about all these different authoritarian measures that this government are bringing in the spy cops bill the overseas operations bill which means it's much more hard to to prosecute someone for abusing human rights abroad they all seem to be getting passed with very little resistance we have a Tory government with a very big majority a popular prime minister do you feel you know almost ready to give up on on challenging any of these laws or do you see that there is some route to to stopping and limiting this authoritarian turn by this conservative government Yeah that's a great question I mean to be honest I don't I rarely feel like giving up no I mean after this weekend I am so heartened by everybody who came out in the streets I am amazed that we have managed to push the Labour front bench to oppose this bill and that's not that's not a comment on you know Labour's track record on this necessarily but it's actually quite rare for people for parties to vote against a bill at second reading it generally doesn't really happen it's just a matter of convention so to see the strength of feeling is really really encouraging and what we now need is some conservative backbenchers who you know actually have been some pretty strong voices on civil liberties during the pandemic far more so I would say than some people in Labour we now need them to come out and oppose the bill but I think I was gearing up for people not paying a huge amount of attention until this horrible thing became law and people said hang on a minute what's happened to our right to protest but actually following this weekend I'm really really encouraged by the actions that people have taken and I think we have to this is an attritional thing right the government isn't just passing bad laws generally it's also passing laws that are generally they're aimed at undermining people's ability to hold them to account so that's how we at Liberty see this protest bill that's how we see the threat to the human rights act and to judicial review and that's also how we see the overseas operations bill and the CHIS bill it's all about trying to stop stop people from holding power to account but I would say you know these are the actions of a government running scared and I think especially after this weekend we know that we have enormous collective power I do often think it's a bit too late by the time something is on the statute book or is being debated by parliamentarians it's quite late but I think that Black Lives Matter this summer really threw open an invitation to people to think about what really keeps us safe what does safety mean to us what does safe communities look like to us and I think that yeah we may not win it on this bill but the next time we're coming up to elections and also just in the long run because we don't have to do things in the tempo of the electoral cycle I think we will have a vision and we will have asks about what safe communities look like that don't just rely on carceral policing and it may not have come in time for this bill but we will have them I'm really confident of that Oh it's good to end on on a positive note and I suppose in the short term we need to find some Tory backbenches with a backbone maybe email them if you've got a Tory supposedly civil libertarian MP who represents you Gracie Bradley we've got to let you go but thank you so much for joining us this evening it's been a real pleasure having you on thanks for having me bye bye we are going to talk about the Labour Party's relationship to this particular bill they have come round to a position we can support but it's taken a little while just a reminder that that vote is tomorrow night but the government do have have a large majority maybe there'll be a bigger fight on the third reading you know the score if you're enjoying the show do hit subscribe we go live every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7pm the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill being debated in parliament today was always going to pose a challenge for Labour on the one hand the bill seriously undermines our civil liberties it creates the crime of intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance punishable for up to 10 years if the bill passes one could be found guilty of that crime for causing and I quote serious annoyance however on the other hand Keir Starmer loves to seem tough on law and order to potential voters in the so called red wall or he might just be a closet authoritarian we're not sure we've seen how this has played out before these two on the one hand it's a terrible law on the other I like to look tough normally it ends in abstentions an example last September Labour abstained on the second reading of the overseas operations bill that was a bill which protected British soldiers from prosecution for abusing human rights when that was voted on the free shadow ministers who voted against the bill had to resign in that case Labour did go on to vote against the bill on the third reading so not completely a disastrous record there then last October it meant Labour abstaining on the spy cops bill that was a bill which legalized law breaking including rape and murder by undercover police officers on this particular one Labour did go on to abstain on the third reading so they abstained at the moment when this became law really quite outrageous stuff now this time around it seemed to be the route the party would take once again more of the same on Sunday Pippa Quirar of The Mirror tweeted Labour sources tell me shadow justice secretary David Lambie briefed MPs on Friday and said the party's position was to abstain on the police bill she says it will be interesting to see what Labour do now after that demonstration expecting them to say more on this later today and they did say later on that on that issue they did say something on that issue later that day and it was a U-turn so in the wake of the heavy handed policing of the Sarah Everard vigil David Lambie the shadow justice secretary announced Labour would in fact be opposing the bill on the second reading so on Sunday Lambie released the following statement The Conservatives have brought forward a bill that is seeking to divide the country it is a mess which could lead to harsher penalties for damaging a statue than for attacking a woman it goes on Labour will be voting against the police crime sentencing and courts bill on this basis we are calling on the government to drop its poorly fought out proposals and instead work with Labour to legislate to tackle violence against women which is forcing so many across the country to live in fear as well as to deliver the important areas that are long promised like tougher sentences for attacks on frontline workers and increased sentences for terrorists now Ash, Labour here have come to the correct position in the end they are going to be voting against this bill on the second reading but the U-turn has come a little bit late it's somewhat characteristic of the Labour Party that they'll only move when public opinion has quite dramatically shifted Well, you saw just how fast the demands developed on Saturday night when the police attacked women at the vigil first it was you know, crestedict resign then suddenly there was a much more vocal critique of this bill that's making its way through Parliament and Labour had to respond I think quite quickly to that because they were being asked difficult questions not just by the left within their own party who they're quite comfortable to ignore but also by lobby journalists about this bill one of the first people I saw raising this question was host of Channel 4 news Christian Guru Murthy so it's something which they did have to respond to and respond to you quickly the anatomy of that statement by David Lambie is interesting because it also shows you where it is that Labour are coming from at the moment it's not really being motivated by principle what is it about this law is it good or is it bad because well the content of the law hasn't changed significantly since Friday when they were instructing MPs to abstain it's calibrated quite deliberately in order to be focus groupable and it means that you do end up I think with some quite strong lines sort of targeted at some persuadables but you also end up with like a bit of a mulch so they want to criticise a law and order bill without ceding the terrain on law and order in terms of positioning fair enough whatever but they sort of end up with this sort of you know hokey-cokey approach of like we don't want this law but we do want these other two laws and the sort of content of okay so what precisely is wrong about this one gets lost I do think it was a smart move by the Labour front bench to sort of make the connection between look you're going to get more time for defacing a statue of a literal slave trader then you might for raping a woman that's smart that tells a story about Tory priorities but ultimately they're not that interested in building popular support for the principle of democratic protest in itself and I think that's quite dangerous grounds to cede as Gracie said earlier fundamentally this body of laws that the Conservative Party are pushing through are about limiting the ability of people to hold the government to account and if Labour join in with this you know kind of fantasy of middle England's view of protesters which oh you're a disruptive students and you know get a job and what they're going to find themselves doing is closing down avenues through which a public dissent and public disapproval of the government is articulated which itself bolsters support for Labour so it's undemocratic it's you know a silly way to make decisions about which laws you vote down but it's also I think ultimately self-defeating to have this approach to thinking about protest and there's one more thing that I want to say which I sort of talked about earlier I think it was Stephen Bush who said that the problem with Keir Starmer is that you can always see how the trick is done so for instance when there was that whole big brouhaha about Labour and patriotism and should they have the union jack behind Labour front benches when they do broadcast media it was a matter of you can see how the trick is done Labour can't do anything focus groupable without sort of it just seeing seeming screamingly inauthentic and that's going to be one of the things that really holds Keir Starmer back because he doesn't seem like a man who's got ideas or vision or principles he seems like he's motivated by chasing after a poll bounce which by the way isn't coming in fact he's sliding in the polls so I think that this whiff of inauthenticity is kind of becoming a stench I think the public can see it and he's going to be left I think quite quite at sea almost there's not an obvious way through it because political rebrands work when you go well now I'm really being myself but I think the issue for Keir Starmer is that he doesn't really have a self to be We are going to look at some worrying polling for Keir Starmer in one moment first of all I want us to I suppose pause on how significant this U-turn was and also I suppose reflect on how effective how immediately effective this sister's uncut action was this was shadow home secretary Nick Thomas Simons in the House of Commons today explaining why Labour would oppose the policing and crime bill and whilst the event was a vigil not a protest the scenes from Clapham should be a red warning light to the government that ministers should not be rushing through laws cracking down on protest the truth is Mr Speaker this government is failing to address violence against women and girls and ministers even want to curtail their right to protest about it Yet as recently as last week the only criticism shadow secretary Nick Thomas Simons had of the bill was that it didn't go far enough in a Labour press release on the 8th of March he was quoted as saying the measures in this bill will be cold comfort to officers who have been offered a pay-free in response for their remarkable bravery in this pandemic while Labour has been calling for a number of these changes they will not go far enough to tackle violence against officers which saw attacks on officers rise 50% over the past five years I said I'd show you these polls of Keir Starmer as well so this is from Ipsos Mori today showing the direction of his satisfaction ratings so here you can see he goes down from 66% in June to 19% that satisfaction among Labour voters among Conservative voters going in exactly the same direction and then you can see among all voters in total it is going down in that same direction so he's he's in pretty poor territory now Ash I want I suppose your comment on this I mean on the one hand it's kind of cool because it's sort of showing everything that the left has been saying which is look direct action can shift public opinion can shift the political centre of gravity which is what that Sister's Uncut action did and it's saying that if you stand in front of voters and don't have any principles or stand for anything and just you know go with the wind and follow whatever focus groups say is going to be bad for you so in a way you know as much as you know Keir Starmer would still probably be be a better Prime Minister than Boris Johnson it's good to see that his pretty cynical strategy is is not paying off I mean look I love the fact that my you know painstakingly put together hot takes for the Cortado are being vindicated by this polling that's great but it does have I think quite deletrious effects for the state of our democracy it was a bad joke indeed when Laura Koensberg hailed the election of Keir Starmer to Labour leader as the return of real opposition saying that you know everybody suffers when you don't have a real opposition well say what you like about Jeremy Corbyn elements of his political strategy you always knew what the difference was between him and the government and that's really important that's just a basic thing that people need to understand is who are you and what makes you different from the people in charge Corbyn suffered most when you know he started trying to triangulate and he sort of stopped being himself when he lost that sense of authenticity now Keir Starmer seems to have learned all the wrong lessons from the wrong people he's inherited the triangulation of Blair without his combattiveness he's inherited you know Ed Miliband's almost fatal desire to please the lobby at any costs without his sort of ideas or connection to a left-wing intellectual hinterland and in some ways he's sort of inherited Jeremy Corbyn's gift for making some decisions where you go I don't know where that came from but without Jeremy Corbyn's integrity principle or clarity when it came to moral political issues and so what are you left with you're left with someone who says that they're going to be a bit like the government but better but the government's always better at being like the government because they are the government and someone who has you know a voice like Alan Partridge and who's you know kind of looks quite pompous and uptight in a suit sort of you know bleeding sadly at people it's not a compelling image it's not a compelling emotional or political story I think that one thing that Starmer has to do if he wants to turn this around is that he needs to get rid of the people around him who are saying you live and die by focus groups get some people with actual politics around you who don't start from the assumption that the public are fundamentally apolitical and they don't like it when you tell them ideas and surround yourself with people who are capable of generating ideas you've got an idea of how you tap into the things that the public aren't quite saying yet but it's latent and it's there and it's the thing that they want it's something which Corbyn and his team when they're at their best could do very very effectively for instance after the the the Westminster attack and they were able to defy expectations and mount quite a searing critique of the impacts of the war on terror and that came from sort of tapping into a latent public mood about the war on terror or indeed what Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson was so skillfully able to do with Brexit that is the mark of a successful and impactful politician and it's not a quality that we've seen from him Ash the pressure is on because we've got a comment I don't understand Cara Hinkson with a £5.21 super chat thank you very much £5 for Tiskey and £2 for Ash love from Ben and the Gunners you're going to have to explain yesterday was a North London Derby that I'd rather forget of Arsenal versus Spurs at the Emirates and we lost and we lost we lost for two reasons we lost because Marinho is wedded to the most boring form of football when it comes to the big matches against small teams we're allowed to play attacking, creative free flowing and possession based football for some reason in a big match against our biggest rivals Marinho is like no we can sit back and see the possession and just people could be walking about and not have an attacking plan so we lost and then the other bit of it is that our player Lamella Eric Lamella is famous for coming on as an impact sob and doing something really creative and then doing something insane and getting a yellow card this is exactly what happened in the match yesterday so Son who's one of my favourite people in the whole world he had to go off injured because of something to do with his hamstring so Lamella replaced him Lamella does this beautiful bit of skill he gets in front of goal and he scores a rebona do you know what a rebona is Michael? I don't know what a rebona is a rebona is I could pretend I know but it might not sound very good you're in front of goal and you could take it with your right foot or you can take your left foot behind your right ankle and calf and kick from there so he scored a beautiful rebona it's not even his best rebona that he scored from us and it was amazing and then in the second half he drew two yellows and got sent off which is the full Lamella experience fabulous that was very well explained I knew you'd rise to that challenge onto our final story you'll probably remember that just a few weeks ago the European Union were trading blows with AstraZeneca for failing to deliver the expected number of doses of the Oxford COVID vaccine well now many European countries have stopped using what AstraZeneca vaccines they already have last week Denmark and Norway suspended use of the vaccine after a number of people developed blood clots after receiving the Oxford jab then over the weekend the Netherlands and Ireland paused use of the vaccine and today Germany, France, Italy and Spain followed suit this is all the big countries of the European Union really for comment we can go to Germany's health minister he announced they are pausing the AstraZeneca jabs on the recommendation of the Paul Ulrich Institute that's the country's authority on vaccines so the health minister says the background to this decision follows new reports of cases of cerebral vein thrombosis connected with an AstraZeneca vaccination in light of these newly reported cases the Paul Ulrich Institute today reevaluated the situation and recommended a suspension of vaccinations and further analysis now Jens Spahn who's the health minister sort of emphasized this was not a political decision he said and I quote all of us are very aware of the consequences of this decision and we did not take this decision lightly now the World Health Organization have said they are looking into the reports of side effects but say a change to their recommendation to pursue vaccinations with the Oxford jab is very unlikely AstraZeneca for their part say that while 17 million people in the EU and UK have already received a dose of the vaccine fewer than 40 cases of blood clots has been reported so a tiny number compared to the amount of people who've had the vaccine and the UK authority on vaccines has said there is no cause for concern so the JCVI that's the joint committee on vaccinations and immunizations and released a statement from their deputy chair who is Anthony Handan he said safety is paramount and we have been monitoring this issue closely the UK has administered 11 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and there has been no demonstrable difference in the number of blood clots since the vaccine was introduced the vaccine has been rigorously tested for safety and approved by the European Medicines Agency the MHRA and WHO so people should continue to take it now that's a statement with which the European Medicines Agency seem to agree they today released a statement saying the benefits of the Oxford jab outweigh the risks of side effects that's despite many of their member states coming to a different conclusion the EMA that's European Medicines Agency say they will come to a final decision later this week now to discuss these somewhat confusing developments and contradictory statements I'm delighted to be joined by Professor Dean and Pelé who is Professor of Virology at UCL and a member of independent sage welcome back to the show Hi Michael and so we need you to sort this out for us I'm confused and can we start by getting you to explain what were the events that led to the decisions by a number of European governments to to pause the AstraZeneca vaccination program well all vaccine new vaccines that are used in in all countries and certainly countries in Europe will be associated with what's called a surveillance of side effects it's like a new medicine and doctors will be encouraged to identify where there are serious side effects and as in the UK where we have a specific system whereby for instance GPs will be expected to fill out certain forms and submit those forms in relation to to a potential side effect the same is done across Europe now the problem is is is that rare side effects and here we're talking about rare side effects we're talking about side effects that we're talking about sort of between five and 10 or even 15 cases per million individuals who've been giving that who've been given the vaccine that is a very rare side effect and and the problem with rare side effects is those sort of symptoms may also be occurring in the population so for instance this particular thrombosis this particular form of blood clot is well recognized as a rare event to happen in the population and it's expected between five and 10 cases per million individuals will happen over a period of a year so we're comparing small numbers here my understanding is that particularly from the German data that had just come out from the Paul Erlich Institute that you mentioned is that there are similar sort of numbers per million or per 1.6 million who've had the vaccine so far but those those have happened in a relatively short time span and they seem to occur in the five to 10 to 15 days after the vaccine so I can fully understand why this has been flagged up as a potential concern the issue is of course is where this potential concern is just part of the background rate of those of those events those thrombotic events that would happen anyway or where they're particularly related to the vaccine now on top of that there's of course a separate argument that I think you've just mentioned that EMA the European Medicines Agency has talked about and that is that we're obviously giving this this vaccine in the context of a pandemic of Covid so there's a high risk or relatively high risk that those people who have given the vaccine may also of course be getting Covid and thrombotic episodes like this blood clots are a well described consequence a rare but well described consequence of Covid as well so that places an even more difficult situation for the regulatory authorities and if you think I'm fudging the the question I'm not coming down it is because I think it's a really difficult thing it's a difficult situation to be in the regulatory regulatory authorities want to be seen to be ensuring that the vaccine is as safe as can be and they they may need time to analyse in more detail the cases and try and ensure that they really have a good statistical approach to this and they've decided against the advice of the EMA and WHO to stop vaccinations for this period of time but it is a it's an unenviable position to be in the UK on the other hand are monitoring of course the UK is the biggest user of AstraZeneca vaccines through this whole period the UK started vaccinations earlier and have used a lot of AstraZeneca vaccine and they do not see this what we call a signal they do not see this excess of these sort of episodes so that's a conundrum we're in is there any possibility that this is down to well I don't want to say dodgy batch that's probably an overstatement but is it potentially an association between a particular batch of the vaccine and that's causing these particular problems I mean because of the publicity which surrounded who got what AstraZeneca vaccine and when there was sort of conflict between Britain and the European Union we know that the vaccines that we're using in Britain tend to be produced in Britain and the vaccines that they're using in the European Union tend to be produced in the European Union so is there any possibility that potentially the vaccines they've brewed are more likely to cause a blood clot than the vaccines that have been produced in Britain well it it it's it's a nice idea a little bit conspiratorial really to be to be putting all of that together on the other hand we wouldn't need to be conspiracy it could be by accident right I mean it's it's not saying that they've that AstraZeneca have done it to proactively you know get their own back Europe it's just to say that no fully understand and and I guess what the fact that these are that these could be associated in time in other words just just over a short period of time clearly does go along with this being potentially a batch effect if indeed these are clearly related to to to vaccine why that maybe it's very difficult to know it's very difficult to know that the thrombotic episodes that do happen for my understanding of of reading of what has come from the German Paul Ehrlich Agency is associated it's not just a blood clots it's blood clots with a phenomenon of having low levels of platelets in the blood which does infer some sort of immunological basis to that complex clotting factor type of biology and it is complicated and that's not my area of expertise but certainly you know it may be something to do with that particular batch if these this has been seen for over a short period of time you know clearly this has also been seen elsewhere in in in Europe in Scandinavia as well so the relationship between batches and so on can easily be explored in in that way that I'm sure will be one of the things that will be that will be looked at but as I said the other component that I didn't mention in terms of that weighing up the balance and so on is of course what the message goes out to people who are going to be immunized and that's a worry because there's even even if this were to be a very rare side effect of vaccines there is still you're far more likely given the levels of of of COVID that are now that are that are within Europe you're far more likely to actually get disease serious disease from COVID than getting serious side effects from the vaccine even if this was to be a side effect of vaccine so again one needs to you know when when we're thinking about COVID vaccine safety I think the comparison is not that well are we are we safer without getting you know or will we get less side effects if you don't take the vaccine compared the vaccine will giving the vaccine give you more side effects and not taking the vaccine well that's one thing but the second thing is if you don't take the vaccine and you do get COVID then it's far worse to get COVID in terms of the untoward effect on your health than getting a vaccine even with low levels and very rare side effects such as that so that needs to be factored in it's not it's not for instance so we have different threshold with view a different threshold of safety in if there was very little risk here and now of getting the actual disease that one this is protecting you against but at the moment in Europe there's a high chance if you're susceptible of getting COVID and we know what the implications of that are I think that that's all super explanatory of a very complex topic I spent finally I just want to ask almost in a couple of sentences if it's possible because I think the message so far when it comes to the vaccine has been trust the scientists trust the health authorities they say it's safe it is and I think you know everyone in the country has actually been phenomenally you know good at listening to that and going to get the vaccine it does become a bit more complex if they say well our health authority is saying it's safe but the German health authority is saying it's not safe and they're just as much experts as our authorities so if someone's having those doubts how do you you know in very simple language persuade them no get the vaccine so long as the JCVI which is our authority is saying do it do it are these difficult questions what I would answer I want to first of all the importance of your question is that of course there remains vaccine hesitancy and worse than that but vaccine hesitancy is that there is a disproportionate number of people not getting vaccines amongst the most disadvantaged groups in society who are at the highest risk of getting severe COVID so it is a double whammy and we need to make sure that we're honest and communication is clear what I would say is this is that in the UK which has had a longer running period of vaccination as you know 25 million people have now been immunized that we can clearly see the benefit it is having in terms of the reduction in the hospitalization from the in those who have been vaccinated it is very very clear evidence and we're able to do that because we started vaccination earlier than many other countries that that evidence is not yet there in other countries so the focus may be on these very rare side effects but I think in the UK it is clear that it is having benefit it's not it's not just scientists saying that all the evidence is saying that you're far less likely to get ill and get into hospital if you've had the vaccine very clear evidence for that with very little evidence of major side effects so that's all I would say is at the moment the message is in the UK where of course we've got a really well functioning NHS led rollout of vaccine that it is safe and I would only I would really want to encourage everyone to be taking that taking up the opportunity of vaccine it is so awful to see people die your loved ones die of Covid and it would be such a shame if that that benefit we're seeing is not maintained because of hesitancy about taking the vaccine Dean and Pallay that was very clarifying and very reassuring as I always end the show because I just cannot wait to get my vaccine but thank you so much for joining us again on Pallaya Jal reassuring I cannot wait to get that text message to invite me to get that job Ash do you sometimes wake sometimes I just wake up sort of like gridding thinking I'm about to be a beauty in 2019 I think the JCVI got the vaccine rollout order wrong because hear me out hear me out my grandma doesn't want to go to the club it's true it's true but I do so when we're thinking about need was the need of messy extroverts factored into this I don't think it was and I think that that was an oversight and we talk about risk like you know sure she's in her 80s and she's like frail or whatever what about the risk that I have to miscarnaval two years in a row am I not high risk I've always thought when you measure it like that you should need proof of a purchase on resident advisor to get your vaccine but that's the way you immunize the population while supporting the hospitality industry which has suffered so so much over the last year you need to have one photo on your phone of your friends carting you home passed out on the night bus and that's what qualifies you if you want more hot takes from Ash Sarkar you should 100% sign up to the Cortado email which I'm going to get you to explain how our wonderful audience can do that when you go to navara.media forward slash Cortado and every Friday at 9am as if by magic a hot take written by me painstakingly at some point between 5 and 7 in the morning will enter your inbox and there will also be recommendations and a round up of our best content of the week so what do you have to lose it's free you see that we're given away the hot takes for free as if they're going out of fashion so what do you got to lose pick it up like as a sample at a supermarket you don't even like red luster but you're going to eat it anyway free hot takes on a Friday morning what more could you ask for Ash Sarkar thank you so much for joining me this evening a pleasure as always thank you for having me a pleasure as always and thank you for everyone and for your super chats tonight we'll be back on Wednesday at 7pm so make sure you hit subscribe if you haven't already to all of our supporters thank you so much you make this show possible if you haven't already I'm signed up to support Navarra Media please do go to navarramedia.com forward slash support and donate the equivalent of one hour's wage a month we really really do appreciate it for now you've been watching Tisgy Sour on Navarra Media good night