 Hello, and welcome to a Friday edition of Tiskey Sour. We should warn you that we might get a little bit hazy as the show goes on because we're in a sort of ex-office block here and someone seems to be, I don't know, gluing something together or painting a room downstairs and it's smelling quite toxic up here. It's like, it's definitely not, I think it's glue, it's not paint. You think it's glue not paint? Yeah, so Michael starts hallucinating in mid-show. So one, we're making an excuse if we become a little bit less articulate as the show goes on. And two, or I suppose say something libelous. And two, this is obviously a segue to shout out that we want to move studio so that we don't have to sniff glue involuntarily whilst we are recording live YouTube shows. Just involuntarily, of course, voluntarily. Yeah, we'll keep doing that. Well, if you give us more than 15 grand, we'll obviously have a little bit extra to spend on treats. Which won't be glue. We're classier than that. In any case, we are now after one-off donations as well as your kind monthly donation. But if you want to give us a one-off donation for a studio, please give us, well, give us a super chat. Although YouTube do take a cut there. So go to our website and go to support.nivoramedia.com for a one-off donation. As you already know, I'm here with Aaron Bustani. How you doing, Michael? A little bit hazy as you say. We haven't got hired together on a Friday for a long time. It's like being young again. I'm still young. You are young, I'm not young. Okay, we're going to go to Boris Johnson's northern strategy is going awry. And it is because he has come into contact with real human beings, not the human beings that live in Dominic Cummings. Imaginary. He was out in Doncaster today. This was after, you know, a problematic day in Morley last week, which we covered on that Tiskey Sour. So let's see his reception in Doncaster. We can get that video up now. And it's all good now. We're going to leave you and everything's going to be great. It's just a fairytale. People have died because of austerity. And you've got the cheek to come here and tell us austerity's over. And it's all good now. We're going to leave you and everything's going to be great. It's just a fairytale. So this shows us. I think I've got a little bit of an echo there. I'm going to turn off the sound in perfect. This is showing us exactly what we were talking about last Friday. The Tories have a strategy of appealing to the north of England. They are going to be trying to take votes of Labour in their heartlands. The problem is the people in those traditional Labour heartlands don't seem to like the Conservatives very much. And they especially don't seem to like Boris Johnson very much. That's what we saw last week with the please go home guy. Phenomenally polite, but also very much to the point. And there today are women saying people have died because of austerity and you've got the cheek to come here. He's going around there saying, look, I'm the guy who'll deliver Brexit. I am the man of the people. I am the man who's going to be putting money back into your schools and back into your hospitals. And there's someone who's quite rightly saying, I mean, this will be part of Labour's general election campaign, that you are the party that's responsible for austerity. Any reversal you are making to police cuts are reversals to cuts that you made. He's promised 20,000 extra cops, but that's precisely the amount that Theresa May took away. I think in a way, hopefully this new anti-austerity man of the people image that Boris Johnson and the current conservatives are trying to give off won't be as successful as it was for Dominic Cummings in the leave campaign. What do you think, Karen? Yeah, I think they're very different. I think there's a genuine default to lazy narratives and political journalism, political reporting. Why? Because you're dealing with very complicated and complex phenomena. So it's inevitable, right? But the reality is, the Brexit referendum 2016, and this isn't to cast any conclusive generalizations about what will or will not happen to Boris Johnson. But the reality is, people of all political stripes, people who've never voted before, Labour voters, if Lib Dem and SMP voters, some voted Lee, about 30% of those two parties voted Lee. So the idea that if you're a Lee voter, you'll necessarily not just vote, sort of vote for Boris Johnson. I mean, that's not an accurate statement. Also, we know lots of people who don't generally vote voted in that referendum in 2016, which is part of the reason why it commands this authority that, you know, for some people is puzzling, but the reality is it was the largest democratic exercise in the history of Britain. So I think that's misguided. It may be right. I suspect it isn't. And also this idea that necessarily Northern England, because these places have been left behind because of deindustrialization, yes, who powered that. It was the Tories who was totemic of screwing over half the country to enrich the wealthy and what's viewed as the middle class of the South. It was Margaret Thatcher. You know, the idea that this same party would then be seen instinctively as part of the solution. No. Labour could lose voters on the issue of Brexit. Possible. But it's going to be to the Brexit party. It's not going to be to the Tories. Firstly, because the Tories' position on Brexit isn't actually that clear, generally speaking, right? And then secondly, because they have this historical baggage, which people just won't vote for. And that's all anecdotal. That is all anecdotal. I'm going to give you the data now again. So I mean these videos that we're seeing of people haranguing Boris Johnson when he is up in Northern towns and Northern towns he's trying to win, they're significant because they will go viral during the general election campaign and I think they do significantly undermine his image. So I think the fact that they happen, even if what they represent is somewhat shallow, is significant that these are videos that are being shared widely. Equally, you'll see the opposite position often presented on the BBC or on Newsnight where they go to Grimsby or Doncaster and they meet people who say, I've been a lifelong Labour voter, I'll never vote for them again. I actually quite like this Boris Johnson guy because he's going to get us out of the EU. So it is difficult to get an idea of precisely what people are thinking from Vox pops or politicians who are wandering around. Although it is interesting actually that this doesn't seem to happen to Jeremy Corbyn other than from like far right nutters who I do think that people don't, you know, quite rightly relate to. I mean, it's hard to do it. It's hard to do it to people, right? Generally speaking, it's very hard to be nasty to somebody in the flesh and face to face. It's very hard. So I mean, it speaks to the extent to which Boris Johnson is an unlikable, dislikable person. Austerity is true. Austerity did kill 130,000 people. That it's not some myth, it's not made up. It's a fact, it's been repeated, I think, in the BM by the Lancet. It was first published in the British Medical Journal. Yeah, but I think the Lancet is somewhere as regards to something else regarding Austerity. The BMJ, you know, these are very prestigious civil society institutions. You know, this is not just made up in somebody's head. So people are justifiably angry about that. And the idea that Jeremy Corbyn, you know, Jeremy Corbyn's done some questionable things. He liked a Facebook post. Okay, we can say that was a bad move. We talked about that on the show. You can't compare that to 130,000 people dying because of government decisions. Come on. I said I've got some social science to show why we might expect that the Tory strategy to win over voters in the Labour heartlands might struggle. This was from Paula Surridge, who is a political scientist at Bristol. She released this all today. And she made, I think, quite the strong point that when we look at the, you know, the headline figures from YouGov, what that isn't very good at demonstrating is where undecideds might go. So the reason they fluctuate so much is because there are actually a lot of undecideds who, when they're on the phone, you know, sometimes answer Labour, sometimes answer Tory or a lot of the time answer, they just don't know. Whereas if you want to look at where people might go, you have to ask about their political identities and particularly their political enemies, who they say they will never ever vote for. And luckily there is a source of, you know, there is a data source where we can find this out about people. It's the British Election Studies, which is not done by one of these commercial market research firms. It's done by a consortium of universities and much bigger sample. And they ask lots of questions of people. It's an interesting data set to go through. And she is looking at the question of where are Labour leavers, where are Labour Remainers likely to go and the same question about the Conservatives. So we're going to go through the Labour Party first because this is obviously what's so central to the strategy that Boris Johnson is pursuing here. So she finds that of 2017 Labour voters, 37% were strong Remain. So people who identify strongly as Remainers. 24% were fairly strong Remain. 16% were neutral. 11% were fairly strong leave. And 12% were very strong leave. So it's really these 12% are very strong leavers and 11% are fairly strong leavers that the Conservatives are going to be going for. And the reason why that could be significant, even though we might think that's a relatively small proportion of the electorate, is because of the way they are distributed in the population. So that 12% will presumably be overrepresented in Doncaster, as opposed to Brixton. But why Paula Surridge thinks that the Conservatives should be worried is that in all of these groups, so very strong leave to very strong Remain, a majority, an overwhelming majority say that they would never vote Tory. So they're asked, what are the chances that you would vote Conservative at the next general election? And a majority in all categories give zero out of 10. So people who, you know, if they can't imagine voting Conservative it's unlikely they will. If they tell you at this point they're not likely to vote Conservative, maybe they will, but if they say, I just can't imagine doing it, it is unlikely. Among strong leavers, so that's precisely the people that Boris Johnson is going to be going for here, only 12% say the likelihood of voting Tory is six out of 10 or higher. So you're looking at really quite a small pool of people there. I mean, in many seats that could be decisive, but you know, it's not, you're not going to see a huge avalanche of supporters going over to Boris Johnson's Conservative Party. Some more do go to the Brexit Party. So this is where you will see, I think, I mean, something that's going to be so interesting coming into this election in terms of the opposition is the way that the Tories and the Brexit Party work together informally. I think it's clear at this point that there will be no formal pact, but it could be the case that the Conservatives go less hard in places where they think the Brexit Party might do well. So of Labour leavers, people who were strong leavers, 40% say they could imagine voting, voting for the Brexit Party gave over six out of 10 in terms of when they were asked, would you consider voting for the Brexit Party? And that was only in March, so that was before they had that huge explosion in the polls and 20% of fairly strong Labour leavers said the same. The Remainers, and this now comes into Labour's strategy, of strong Remainers who make up a huge proportion, 37% of Labour voters, 45% give their likelihood of voting Lib Dem as six out of 10 or higher. So they seem to be much more, I mean, basically the Lib Dems in most of the country are a greater threat than the Conservatives. How seriously do you take this kind of data? Do you think that the Tories' strategy, project of winning over Labour leavers is going to be as hard as this suggests? Well, it didn't happen in 2015, did it? If you look at... You mean 2017? No, no, that's 2015, 2015 general election, because UKIP got nearly four million votes, right? And it was in some senses, that was mobilising a certain electorate around the issue of Brexit. More so than 2017, strangely. You know, UKIP obviously collapsed post-2016. UKIP came second, I think, in 120, 121 seats, but how many did they win? You know, and where they did very well was in the south. It wasn't in the north. They didn't take any seats off Labour. They got four million votes nationally. Now, realistically, I think that's the best that the Brexit Party can hope for. They'll get lots of second places, and I think they'll replace the Tory party or the Lib Dems as the second party in many of these Labour heartlands. They may win one or two seats, Barnsley or Boltover, but I can't see a major breakthrough of 2030 seats, because as we saw in Peterborough, and look, by-elections are tailor-made for these kinds of parties. As we saw in Peterborough, Labour won. They won despite the candidate going to prison. They won despite, you know, an ongoing national campaign against Jeremy Corbyn, saying his Brexit position is terrible. All of that, Labour still won. And they won despite the Lib Dems and the Greens running campaigns against them. So if they can keep Peterborough, I imagine the Brexit Party will struggle to take many seats off them. However, they will be a variable. Could it be the difference between Labour forming a majority or not? Potentially, you know, maybe. Maybe there are a few seats where the Brexit Party would be the difference between, you know, Labour winning a seat or not winning a seat. How many will the Brexit Party actually take off Labour? I don't think that many, and in that respect, I think you're right. Democrats are far more important as a variable. And again, it wouldn't be because the Lib Dems are going to take seats off them. It's because there are lots of seats out there where the Lib Dems presently a third or even fourth. And, you know, they would say only we can win here. Because obviously, everybody talks about fake news and Donald Trump and lying in politics as if it's a new thing. But anybody who's familiar with the Liberal Democrat leaflet knows that it isn't really. So in, for instance, Johnson's seat, the Lib Dems in 2017 got 4% of the vote. I think Labour got maybe 10 times that. I don't think 40% of the vote, but they got a really high vote. It's now a marginal. But there'll still be a flyer saying Lib Dems are winning here. Yeah, the Lib Dems said only we can beat Boris. Labour need to step aside, even though they literally lost their deposit in the last general election. So, and it's the extent of that line and their strategy on Brexit, is really undermined under my Labour. So it makes perfect sense to attack in this direction and to view the Liberal Democrats as a bigger threat than the Brexit party of the Tories, particularly in the North. I was just looking this up about Barnsley because I think the reason you mentioned Barnsley is because we were both speaking to Craig Gent, who is a brilliant articles editor at Navarra Media. So hi, if you're watching. He was telling us on Wednesday, I think, that in he's from Barnsley that the Brexit party could be a real threat there because of the votes they got in the European elections. And I think that's very significant in some ways. We've got to consider which is 23,000 and a half they got compared to Labour's 7,000. Obviously Labour collapsed in those elections. But I just wanted to check actually whether that was much more than what UKIP got in 2014, so the same elections, but in different time that was 19,000. You keep talking, Michael. Oh, you're going away, are you? No, I'm not. Somebody's complaining about my camera. So I'm just going to check. You've got me off. You've got me off guard now. Are you free-styling? Yeah. Let's go to. So we've looked at where people might be voting. Let's look a bit more into the Conservative parties, you know, whatever what they are saying to try and win these towns is anything other than bullshit. You probably won't be surprised that we think it's kind of bullshit. So we are going to go to the Manchester Evening News. So this is a what Boris Johnson was talking about when he was in Barnsley was he was saying, so if you watch the longer video with that woman who was telling him, you know what are you doing here? You caused austerity. He was saying, look, I'm here to give you billions of pounds. I'm actually going to invest in all of these towns. I'm going to throw money at your schools. I'm going to throw money at your hospitals. And obviously a question which arose when the Tories announced this policy, there are 100 towns, 100 left behind areas was that this looked a lot like electioneering. Like they were targeting money precisely at those towns where they see the next election being won or lost so at their targets. So we can look. I'm just going to read actually out some of this article which is very good from the Manchester Evening News. So our working show 94 out of the 100 towns of the ones which the Tories have targeted as the towns which need this extra investment are in lead voting areas, mostly in the north or midlands. The remaining six remain leaning towns Cheadle, Glastonbury, South Ports and Ives, Morley and Lewis are all in marginal conservative constituencies set to be Liberal Democrat targets or in the case of Morley and Outwood a Labour target having been very narrowly lost by them in 2015. In fact nearly a quarter of the 100 towns serve some of the most knife edge seats in the country those requiring a 1% swing or less or even less to move them from Labour to Tory or vice versa these include Peterborough crew Bishop Auckland, Bedford, Ipswich et cetera, et cetera. The government insists it has used various selection criteria to pick the winners taking into account productivity deprivation and investment opportunities but of course they have not made these criteria public so it's going into a mysterious black box so there's people in the Treasury deciding where desperately needs extra investment from our government goes into a black box and magically comes out with precisely those towns that the Conservatives want to win at the next election in America they'd call it pork barrel politics. You pump money precisely into those places where you want to win and it is not part of an overall economic strategy it has nothing to do with economic justice or productivity or a sensible industrial policy it is literally trying to buy votes. It's a bit like the DUP policy but you know writ large for large towns. But pre-election right so that was post-election where they had to get the DUP people to how much did they give a billion quid to 10 MPs in Northern Ireland that the DUP represents. Yeah I mean I've seen recently I mean Portsmouth High Street is a mess. Do you know if Portsmouth is included? Portsmouth is included and if you look at the marginal Portsmouth South Stephen Morgan won it in 2017 they would want to win that back I presume they would need to win seats like that back if they want to form the next government and then you've got Penny Morddon in Portsmouth North bit safer about 8000 but that's the classical area if they want to form they're going to have to win places like Mansfield, Portsmouth I'm trying to think what's the typical area. Hastings I don't know if Hastings is included you know sort of large town or a small city where frankly they've been utterly decimated as a result of austerity the economy going nowhere for 10 years you know and that intersects with what's happened with changing consumption habits the emergence of the internet these are big questions that need to be resolved like you say with a coherent industrial policy it can't be let's give five million for you know a bike lane and an extra street sweeper that's not going to help it sadly if it was that simple great it's not we need to have a conversation about what high streets are really full. I mean this is an argument that the labor part you're going to have to get really good at because what you're going to see in this election is the Tories saying we've pumped money into schools well not we've pumped because it hasn't gone there yet but they'll be trying to say you can't make the same argument you made against Theresa May to us because we have funded the NHS or we've promised to fund the NHS and promised schools and Labour are going to have to get really good at saying look this is not this is not an economic policy this is piecemeal it's us who have a strategy for how to to transform the economy so that it works for the mainly not the few and increase the power of Labour against capital the kind of things that the Tory party will never be able to do even if they can pick out of a hat a billion pounds to go to this pork barrel project or a billion pounds to go to schools over here. I mean here's the thing so let's I'll go back to Portsmouth Portsmouth is you know it's included in this fund Portsmouth lost its Marks and Spencer a year or two ago now people might laugh at this but these are big employers right it lost to Marks and Spencer and it'd been there for a very long time it's just had a John Lewis shutdown on the other side of town there that store had been there for more than 140 years I believe opposite the John Lewis Debenhams that shutting down a bit further away Blackwell's the bookstore that shut down this is a really big challenge to local economies and if people want to understand why Brexit happened why you're seeing the rise of the far right in places like the United States we don't just need to talk about income inequality which we do we also need to talk about regional inequality because you know politicians they walk down Tottenham Court Road they walk down Oxford Street and yes there is in work poverty yes there are obviously there's deprivation in places like Islington but these are prosperous places you know it's very easy to not see that for what it is they're prosperous places with a lot of not prosperous people it's important to say there's a lot of economic deprivation amongst households in these places but the high street is vibrant you can find a job even if it's not living wage you can find a job very easily public services work pretty well right it works things work you got a Derby have you been to Derby recently I haven't been to Derby since Derby transformed I went to Derby recently because obviously the book I'm doing a lot of promotion and it's crazy it's absolutely crazy and what was striking for me with Derby was you've got these beautiful historic buildings from 200-300 years ago which are empties or they're side techs to stop squatting you know I'm used to seeing side techs in the south with sort of like buildings that are 40 years old an ex-council building from the 1970s and you're like wow if this was in Manchester in London or one of these sort of really you know these are the places now that draw capital towards them again I'm not saying workers are getting anything from that necessarily but they're getting capital they're creating jobs right but there's nothing like that there I just want to understand that unless we have a coherent offer about work and urban life in these areas as well particularly the large towns we're going to go nowhere and that's not just about economics it's also about culture you know why do people live in Newcastle why does Newcastle exist the industries it was built on shipbuilding weapons manufacture coal mining all three are gone so you've got several hundred thousand people in the northeast you know they didn't choose to be there it was an urban centre that was built on you know these three industries which no longer exists and the sort of Blairite response was cultural industries we'll have a square mile where you have the Baltic gallery you'll have some nice cafes a Michelin-style restaurant that's not going to work and so I think we need a response to those problems which isn't that part of Labour's engaging with that with the Preston model and so on but we have to go far beyond that we have to go far beyond that and I think the default reflex at the moment for a lot of carbon artists is to say this problem doesn't even exist you know actually there isn't this divide between London and the rest of the country there is let's be real it's not just London and also another one is oh it's not just London that voted remain it's Oxford okay yeah you're kind of making the point here it was Cambridge yeah you're still making the point it was Manchester Liverpool yeah these are large urban areas with lots of graduates lots of capital flowing into the most of the country most of England at side of the major cities doesn't look like that the left has to have a response to be something like the Preston model so you sort of have I think Preston model amped up but also with national investment banks regional investment banks right pumping money into these areas not just for infrastructure right because again the Blair right sort of default is build the new public library or not even an ideas centre build some train tracks because of course the best thing about you know run down town is to get the fuck out of there what we would we would say instead is no socialised finance to fund worker owned business corporate own business businesses that can meet the contractual obligations they would have under the Preston model so the catering the cleaning the security contracts for local hospital should be met by worker owned businesses and the high street increasingly might not be identikit cafe Nero costa Starbucks you know gambling shop betting shop you know takeaways McDonald's you know some of those fine they're going to exist right they shouldn't be there you don't need two costas on the same road you don't and increasingly you would hope that a worker owned business that is making sandwiches for the school at the road would be taking that shop front instead and so I think that's the kind of model we should be looking to should we go to Tom Watson and the Lib Dem's kooky Brexit position go on so as you know I'm a bit of light relief so as you know I'm not entirely satisfied with where Labour's Brexit position is at the moment partly because I think by clinging to this frame of renegotiation it seems like they might drag the process on and also I don't like this idea of indecision so they say we'll wait and see which one we back I'd much prefer either every MP to say we'll back remain or they'll back a sort of common market 2.0 style deal or Jeremy Corbyn if he wants could say I'll stay neutral like Harold Wilson but what I don't like is the you know we'll wait and see but what is undoubted what's what can't be doubted is that they have come quite close very close I mean they've basically done everything the people's campaign wanted of them they've said we will back a second referendum and in that second referendum remain will be on the ballot and indeed most of the cabinet will be supporting remain the option that the people's vote people want so you might expect that some of Corbyn's bigger critics on this issue would now be rallying around the Labour Party saying look this is if we want to get the outcome that we want which is a second referendum where we get the chance to campaign for remain the Campbell that's what Tom Watson that's what Joe Swinson have all said they've wanted they should be now rallying around saying yeah this was a good move by him obviously we don't expect the Lib Dems to say vote Labour but you might expect them to say you might expect them to welcome this development that's not what happened I mean you might not be surprised at that let's go first of all we'll do the Lib Dems first so on Monday night they backed revoke article 50 from moving I mean I think for about a year now they've had a position of a second referendum and back remain but it was always going to be via a second plebiscite they've now said no we don't need another vote we're just going to get into government when they're a majority which is part of the plan I mean they already think they are the opposition so Chuck Lomona has shadow foreign secretary they are fantasists whoever is the Ed Davy who's the shadow Chancellor they are fantasists whoever they have like 20 MPs and they'll be like we are now the government this is even worse than Dominic Cummings I did check Joe Swinson's twitter today because I thought the logical conclusion of this is that she has a leader of the opposition on her twitter but she doesn't have that it was a constitutional role isn't shadow foreign secretary a constitutional role no a leader of the opposition is you'd be in the privy council shadow home secretary is in the privy council I have no idea but I think the leader of the opposition is you can attend right you technically don't go if the government's there and telling the Queen what to do but because she's not meant to have contrasting opinions in front of her she's not meant to have political debates but I can imagine Joe Swinson sort of walking into the privy council the Queen's there Boris is there just like hello I'm the leader of the opposition very strange lady in any case what do you think about this revoke article 50 from the Lib Dems I mean I'm guessing you're not supporting it but how do you think this is going to play out politically brilliant don't you think that great for labour it was completely mad isn't it it's wacky I mean yeah I mean what do you think is going to happen the only way we close the lid on this thing right is either you get a deal people are going to complain but you'll get a deal or you have another referendum and people vote to remain or people vote for the deal that's on on that second ballot revoke's not going to stop anything we'll have European parliamentary elections again the Brexit party will have a clean sweep again that element of the conversation just won't just disappear I know these people are like the Romaniacs podcast and all these people with these huge Twitter following AC I don't think it will just go away if you don't allow them to legislate for Brexit but it won't there's a large social constituency that believes this stuff and the reason why we had the referendum in the first place is because they became sufficiently mobilised after the 2015 general election to put Tories under the cosh that would only happen again so I don't really understand the idea of revoke and also it completely buys into this frame of not just being undemocratic being anti-democratic the establishment closing down the only channels by which people can express popular dissent so it's crazy and it's not cathartic if you want an end to this which we all want revoke is not the way to do it and also it undermines the people's vote thing now if the Lib Dems go into general elections and say we want a second referendum people would be like how can I trust you I suspect that referendum when ten minutes ago you were saying you just want to revoke surely if we have another referendum and you lose you'll ask for a third and a fourth and a fifth because the point here isn't democracy from your point of view it's about stopping Brexit so I think they've not just screwed themselves over I think they've screwed over the kind of people's vote thing quite a bit as well I think a lot of their voters will think that I think they'll say this is a really backward step in terms of what I care most about a lot of the people that voted for them in the European elections don't give two tosses about the Lib Dems they care about Brexit they care about not having no deal they care probably about just stopping it all together and I think the majority of them will see this as counterproductive I mean unless they get a majority of unless they get 52% of the votes I mean it is difficult to see how you have a mandate to just completely cancel Brexit I mean why I think it's good for the Labour Party is because I mean clearly the logic behind this is they're worried that they're going to get not so much outflanked by the Labour Party the Labour Party go for a people's vote and suggest that most of them will campaign for a main than the Lib Dems lose their raise on debtor so they've sort of moved to this more extreme remain position in the hope that that will make again them the party of the remainers but I don't think there are many people in the public I mean I do need to check the polling on this actually I'm not sure if it has been poked because it was such a marginal position for a while this idea of just revoking it straight off I think that will alienate people because I think that will I think but who just want to revoke out right yeah I suppose I mean it was like the significant section of the population but I mean maybe the argument can be made quite well nothing has a majority in the defence of that position nothing has a majority right but what tends to have a plurality is remaining right yeah but then the vast majority but that's only like 46% unless you put the two two together remain versus leave then it then it tends to have a majority yeah but if you have your preferable outcome here nothing has an overall majority remain has a majority or a plurality but the primary means of achieving that tends to be a second referendum something that's interesting is that the people's I haven't listened to the Romaniacs podcast in a while but it would be interesting to see actually what the people's vote team are saying about this kind of thing at the moment because obviously it seems like they've gone completely quiet because there's two camps they didn't do much in the stop the coup movement so it seems like they're taking a step back and they're seeing what happens because I don't think they've endorsed Joe Swinson's let's just completely revoke position which means that you could end up with the people's vote campaign rallying behind Labour at the next general election which I don't think we should you know give over our campaign to them but I don't think their support is going to be particularly damaging to us no I think that's just as a neutral observation I think that's entirely correct I think what Labour's position now is far more consonant with what the people's vote sort of I say movement it's obviously an organisation as well there is a formal organisation with headquarters and stuff etc what Labour are now saying is far far more consonant with what they've been demanding than what the Lib Dems are proposing oh this will be interesting a very mad cap I think it's almost just like for me it showed the great thing with Labour is look it takes a long time to change the direction on policies within Labour the reason being it's a democratic organisation with a massive membership and competing interests trade unions you know different factions etc and that's strength by the way with the Liberal Democrats it's like very much on the fly Joe Swinson to advise is probably like you know what let's just we've made the move this far let's do it again because sometimes you're outright and that's how things work you can't just consistently say will outright otherwise you could just have the most wacky left-wing position and everything which in Navarra's defence sometimes we do but that doesn't achieve very much normally you know so I think Labour are I think it really helps Labour the Lib Dems having done this could be wrong but that's my that's my instinct I was just thinking about the I remember I'm actually subscribed to the People's Vote you know daily email I don't check it as often as I should for journalistic reasons I mean I'm not a signed up campaigner for this group but I've just looked at their latest one it says they've got 121 coaches that are going to the People's Vote March on the 19th of October so in two Saturdays time 19th of October that's a month away right oh shit I was thinking of the 19th of September okay so a month and a half away so unless they change the name of their campaign this is going to be hundreds of thousands of people marching for People's Vote not marching to revoke article 50 and the one thing that I mean I wandered down to one of those People's Vote marches just sort of to take videos a while ago and one thing that impressed me was like to be honest this is a big obviously I didn't like anyone on the stage well I don't mind David Lambie but you know there's which one was that I can't remember precisely when it was it was way back it wasn't the one where they said we've got a million people it was one where they sort of had 200,000 people but I remember being there I remember thinking like wow this is actually a large number of people who feel quite passionately about something and it did feel a bit you know awkward or uncomfortable that these were you know this this seemed like a movement you know a movement that was and from seeing past movements you know the 2010 movement you can see that these are actually meaningful forces in British politics and if you have this meaningful force in British politics of people who are networking forming you know political connections and political identities which are completely separate from the Labour Party that is that is a danger I mean the country side alliance did that I mean it doesn't mean just because something's a movement this is where the left instincts have historically been strained in the last 10 years just because all the social movements which have come from the streets and come from civil society happen to have had left wing sort of demands or a disposition doesn't mean that's inherently how they work you know the country side alliance had a huge demonstration during the during the Blair years or the fuel tests which almost got rid of the Labour government you know there wasn't some of it not all of it there was in some areas quite a right wing political agenda I'm not saying it's progressed I'm not saying that makes it progressive I'm saying that makes it a powerful political force sure but I think also Labour in government or the left potentially in power has to get accustomed to the idea of mass social movements in opposition to them which we're completely unprepared for because that's what the left has been doing for the best part the best part of 30 to 40 years you know since Thatcher the left has been characterised by protest and we've never had to be Blair effectively wasn't really left in power let's be real and even then protest was quite minimal it was just really the fuel protests in the countryside alliance so I take your point but also what's interesting is that the Stop the Coup demo the largest one on a Saturday in London about 30 40,000 people John McDonnell got huge cheers it's still much smaller I really I think the Stop the Coup protest came about exactly the right time it meant that Labour could I suppose ride that wave as it were in a way that they'd missed previous ones but this whole idea that the Stop the Coup demo was so much better than the People's Vote ones I mean the People's Vote ones had a million people in the Stop the Coup ones it wasn't a million it was like 400,000 but I mean they did that was a bigger movement the People's Vote movement was a bigger movement than the Stop the Coup movement yeah they had huge amounts of money and it's like a stop the war right huge amounts of money and preparation etc and coordination which Stop the Coup didn't have and I saw the response that John McDonnell got a Stop the Coup I'm absolutely certain if there was a People's Vote demo he'd get a similar one well that's exactly what I'm saying I think it's significant if John McDonnell can stand up there and say maybe make up Jeremy Corbyn well I don't think Jeremy Corbyn would want to speak there I shouldn't because he wants to be the Prime Minister he wants to be the Prime Minister for everybody but you know I think John McDonnell would get a very warm reception let's go on to another kooky Brexit position or a contrarian Brexit position so this is from I mean I'd say everyone's favourite contrarian but I don't think there's not much love within the Labour Party anyway for its deputy leader we're going to look at Tom Watson's speech on the subject so we can get that up now the Prime Minister is desperate for a general election because he thinks it is the only escape route from the prison and solitude he has chosen for himself he and his scorched earth advisors had backed themselves into a corner and they say no other way out an election might well be in the interests or in his interests although I doubt he will win it when it comes but that doesn't make Brexit or a Brexit election desirable far from it a general election should never be decided on a single issue coming up with his latest contrarian position I've got an echo, it's gone again so what Tom Watson is saying is that the Labour Party has now shifted to a position of having campaigning for a people's vote with Remain on the ballot something he's been arguing for for over a year I think he is actually someone who I think does speak at these people's votes and enjoys the huge round of applause he gets for being the person in the Labour Party who's representing their views now he's just so happens coincidentally changed his mind after the Labour Front Bench has agreed to a policy which was much closer to his original position so now he is saying that no it's not good enough in our manifesto to be a second referendum in which Remain is on the ballot what we want to do is avoid a general election and make sure that there is a second referendum before the general election can happen so essentially what he's arguing for is the formation of some kind of government of national unity who then legislates to have a second referendum before the general election takes place and he's arguing this I mean you see loads of Labour MPs arguing this to basically say the subtext of what they say is basically we want to remain but we don't think Jeremy Corbyn is very good so we want to separate the issue of staying in the EU from a Labour Government I mean that's obviously not the line you're supposed to take if you're deputy leader of the Labour Party but Tom Watson has a somewhat ersatz understanding of what the role of a deputy leader of a political party is and for me the reason this doesn't work is one it's completely implausible and the only reason he's saying it is because he wants to have a different opinion to Jeremy Corbyn there is not a majority, there has been a majority in Parliament for a second referendum but even if there were I think the big issue here is what do you have as the alternative and actually even why do you have Remain on the ballot because I mean I do think you need I think a second referendum I didn't use to support it now I think it's the only option for Labour to go into a general election with but I think you do need a mandate to have that I mean David Cameron had a mandate for the 2016 EU referendum because he won a majority in 2015 if you just overthrow let's not call it overthrow the Government but if you create a new Government who implements a policy which wasn't in most of their manifestos 80% of MPs were elected on a platform of implementing some kind of Brexit that doesn't mean we have to implement Brexit because like you say it hasn't worked out that way but the idea that you without going back to the people for a mandate on another referendum I mean that's crazy You just radically shift policy after changing the Prime Minister I mean it's just a recipe for disaster also what do you have as the alternative option and I think this is one of the most significant things because if you I used to think that maybe you'd need to have no deal on the option no deal on the ballot so that every position is represented actually I think that if the Labour Party are going into an election remain versus some kind of credible leave option I think it might as well be maize withdrawal agreement but I know they want to sort of add a few things on to it then you've got a mandate for what's going to be on the ballot paper and people might say oh but then you don't have no deal represented it's like well if you want no deal don't vote Labour sometimes you just have to say that we as a party can't offer something for everyone we offer a platform in our manifesto and then we deliver it whereas if you have this referendum before a general election then what is your justification for not having a harder Brexit than maize deal on the ballot paper they are going to impose remain versus maize deal without having any mandate from the public to rule out no deal or to rule out a much harder Brexit than maize deal so to me it seems like a non-starter which is obviously doing for parties and factional reasons before you go should we go to the responses within the Labour Party because it is harder to I think better the responses than were given by Corbyn McDonnell and McCluskey this week so we'll go to that now I don't accept it and I don't agree with it our priority is to get a general election in order to give the people a chance to elect a government that cares for them not themselves but Tom has a track record of being a bit of a contrarian and so I work on the basis thanks Tom for your ideas but that's Tom now and again Tom pops up from wherever he's been hiding and comes up with something instead of supporting his leader it's normally to try and undermine him and I don't know why he does it less and less people listen to if he wants to continue to languish on the fringes of the Labour Party that's up to him but his views don't really matter anymore Thanks Tom, that's Tom that's the best bit we often complain about the Labour Party not having enough message discipline when it comes to Tom Watts in the front bench and have it in abundance it's not the complete opposite of message discipline so there's a character in the fast show what I'm saying is McCluskey, McDonough and Corbyn have message discipline they've always got message discipline they always say we don't care about this guy but sometimes they get sort of taken astray I would prefer them to more clearly stay on economic inequality and the fact that they're going to rebuild Britain and sort of answer questions very simply I want them to do Bernie Sanders so basically it's like but this was more like Bernie Sanders these were answers that he could have done Bernie Sanders would be like what do you make of Tom Watson he's like look Tom Watson could say what he wants the big thing we need to talk about is that the economy isn't working that's what Bernie Sanders does I've been thinking about this a lot so if you get asked on SCAR, the BBC should Jeremy Corbyn have liked this Facebook post that wall painting that mural that should have been no, it's bad he's apologised, I think it definitely has racist undertones but I really want to talk to you today about the fact that 16 million people in this country have less than 100 pounds of their bank account I think that's a bigger problem that's what Bernie Sanders would do that's now it we now need to shoehorn the economy falling living standards fracturing and fragmenting public services it's absolutely every answer every single answer on the media if there's a camera, start talking about in work poverty something that Tom Watson will never ever do he kind of doesn't care you'll never see anyone on the Labour right do this sometimes you scroll through the Twitter feeds of Labour MPs and you see the amount of time they've ever talked about a talking point which is helpful to the Labour Party is zilch and all they ever tweet about is I mean sometimes they tweet about Boris Johnson as a liar a kind of sort of centrist they can do moralising about the opposition other than I suppose criticising sometimes they criticise their other backbench of friends don't they say brilliant speech by Stella Creasy or something but they'll never sort of go for a talking point which is about the Labour Party but are you familiar with The Fast Show I saw that clip you shared The Fast Show for viewers was a 1990s comedy and I was a kid but I remember some of it and there was and actually a lot of it's relevant to the present political context because you've got the guys that are very drunk and that's basically most people in the House of Lords but there was also a character played by Paul Whitehouse called Indecisive Dave and he'd have his two mates at the pub one would say one thing he'd agree then the other one would say another thing he'd agree and he basically didn't have a mind of his own and I'm thinking perhaps if we were to have a sort of political satire in the BBC one character would be Contrarian Tom and basically you'd have Jeremy Corbyn there talking to you know Tom Watson in the House of Commons cafe or bar and Jeremy Corbyn would say one thing hey Tom I've been thinking about what you're you know proposing in regards to people's vote I think it's a really good idea well actually no I think that people's vote is a shit idea we shouldn't do it and I think you should resign and then Jeremy Corbyn would say you know what Tom I've been thinking about it and you're right I'm going to resign as leader of the Labour Party and then Contrarian Tom would say no I'm going to resign as deputy leader so rather than all these hashtags about Tom Watson resign because he's Contrarian Tom what we actually need to say is Tom for leader Tom Watson for leader of the Labour Party because then he's such Contrarian he will resign as deputy to the Labour Party he may even resign the whip he may even leave the Labour Party altogether because that's how he works anything the left says anything that Jeremy Corbyn says he has to say the complete opposite so we have to stop saying Watson resign we say Watson for leader that's true that's good because often you see people often people ask you know in the comments or on Twitter how do we get rid of Tom Watson I mean the boring answer is you have to persuade 20% of the PLP to back a challenger who will then take him on in a deputy leadership challenge but I mean given the given the constitution of the PLP that can seem at times difficult they don't necessarily want to have that fight so yours seems like a much more you know bloodless peaceful consensual way actually of getting rid of Tom Watson Watson for PM very good let's go on to trigger ballots briefly I think on last Friday's show at length I mean ultimately it's been a little bit disappointing I mean we've talked about how there are a bunch of Labour MPs who don't really do very much to further the cause of the Labour Party entering Government there are people like Tom Watson who seem to actively choose positions purely because they are not the official Labour Party position these are people who aren't necessarily adding that much value on the Labour benches and the hope was that because conference I think it was last year made it slightly easier to trigger a selection of your MP so it used to be 50% of member it's all a bit complicated but basically it's got easier to trigger your MP you can watch previous videos if you love the detail if you're that kind of person I am obviously but members aren't doing it it's kind of disappointing Tom Watson has been re-selected Neil Coyle has been re-selected and I don't know I don't know what's going on because we do have a mobilized left-wing membership who do definitely feel dissatisfied by many of their representatives why are they keeping their position as representatives of our movement what's going on? Trigger ballot process is inherently negative people don't like negative campaigning especially face-to-face especially with people they know you have to go to branch meetings with people that you may be friends with or associates with you campaign with it's going to be very difficult for you to go leaf-litting with somebody and then two days later they back the incumbent MP you say I don't I think we should have a re-selection it might not even be because you don't like the MP you just believe in the idea of mandatory selection so it was always going to fail and this was a typically Corbynite compromise that's not to say I'm attacking Jeremy Corbyn I'm saying it is emblematic of the kinds of compromises which have been the hallmark of the last three years in the Labour Party where you have a position on something and you dig and dig and dig and dig and you get all the bad media you get all the bad faith from other people and then you just basically you just submit to what they want anyway we saw that with the IHRA the Labour rightly accept the IHRA definition but the political problem was the examples they hold out hold out hold out you get weeks of bad press you get weeks of attacks you're denigrated universally across the media and then you do what they want you to do anywhere in the first place and I think it's a very similar story with trigger ballots you get all the overhead of the mandatory selection stuff right so Keir Starmer there was a motion in a branch meeting in Keir Starmer's CLP there was a motion saying what should we do about Keir Starmer's re-selection nobody even said they don't like him they wouldn't vote for him for all we know everybody in that branch would say the sunshine comes out of Keir Starmer's backside of course we're going to re-select him just because it's a motion it gets talked about on Twitter and of course he was re-selected he did get very comfortably re-selected and the point is you get all the downside which he should have been in my opinion he's a great MP you get all the downside of the open selection stuff and at the end of the day the MPs generally stay and people don't want to get involved in the negative campaigning so I don't get it in a way I actually prefer what we had before because at least you don't get the downside to be honest there wasn't much downside the downside is no one really knows that we changed the particular mechanism of that it takes a third instead of a 50% of affiliated organisations the process is only just starting if we had mandatory re-selection the downside wouldn't have been that big the downside would be the same for a lot more right well the downside would be worse but the outcome nobody's been de-selected yet Michael Diane Johnson literally it's just going back to people to choose that hasn't been a huge story if you get people de-selected it would be a bigger story no but I'm saying it would be a bigger story if you had 20 MPs de-selected via mandatory re-selection but it would be worth it there's no point in pretending it wouldn't be a bigger story than it currently is but it would be worth it because we're about to enter government with quite a lot of people who don't really have any interest in achieving the aims of a Corbyn led Labour Government and that's very clear that's why they're constantly hinting to journalists and to constituents, to people on the doorstep that they don't actually want a Labour Government but vote for them so they can stop a damaging no-deal Brexit or they don't even want a general election because they don't think their leader is very good so what they want is just a referendum where they stop Remain and then ultimately afterwards have I don't know some sort of Tory-lived coalition while they sort of regather their forces and try and topple the democratically elected democratically elected leader of the Labour Party the glue is going to my head should we dump the little David Cameron section no, no, no, we keep it all right, should we go on to that now maybe I am getting woozy actually I can't smell the glue anymore people have just tuned in, we said at the top of the show we were trying to instrumentalise that as a segue into helping us move to a new studio go to support.thebremedy.com but also explain how we we haven't been getting high on a Friday night together for a long time Michael but this evening is an exception and next time we get high together on a Friday night we want it to be by choice, not by necessity and the way we do that is getting a new studio which is ventilated where we don't have anyone sort of like gluing tiles or whatever they're making down maybe they're just sniffing glue maybe they are sniffing glue, yeah but whatever's going on we want a bigger studio where we can fit more of the Navara team in with us this is especially important in a general election campaign because we want to create a bit of a newsroom where we have a bit more integration between the articles team, the video team and the audio team and to do that we need more money so if you are already a supporter of Navara Media thank you very much you are one, helping us be here today and two, helping us move into you are helping us get high passively to move into past is new which will allow us to make much fresher content can I just say actually about the studio helping integrate audio articles and media people are saying oh it's great that Navara is here et cetera and that means everything because obviously we wouldn't exist without our supporters but I think if we just had a slight bit more money than we do I look at the impact we'd have on the next general election I think it could far outweigh the new statesman the new statesman has been around for more than 100 years it's owned by a millionaire we're just like a bunch of people that originally started as a radio show on a community radio station and now we're sitting in a shipping container and we're a variable for the radical left in this country so I think it's really it's really crucial and that's not just to say we would do more of what we're presently doing we want to do more investigative journalism we want to do a lot more stuff outside of London because we see massive deficiencies in the British media right now left or right which we want to help overcome to help us do it go to support.navaramedia.com and also like this video keep your comments coming share it on facebook share it on twitter oh some questions yeah we want some questions make sure you are subscribed as well to the navara media youtube channel you want to take some questions let's talk about David Cameron's new book someone mentioned it in the comments and I think it's really really funny so David Cameron has out a new book his memoirs according to the Guardian it's not going very well it's not flying off the shelves it's about 742 pages long I think apparently 100,000 words you what sorry yeah I mean well he's had two years in his 25,000 pounds weird ass shed anyway let's go to I'm going to read out a little bit of the Guardian article because it gives us some background of what's going on so this is today in the Guardian David Cameron's book is the fruit of three years work at least some of which is presumed to have taken place inside a 25,000 pounds shepherds hut the much anticipated publication next week of for the record David Cameron's 752 page book promising a candid account of his time in politics is blah blah blah the stakes are high for everyone involved a car crash was the view of a senior publisher at a rival to Harper Collins which purchased the rights for a reported 800,000 pounds what was described as a hotly contested deal the article goes on we will probably get one or also this is now from a bookshop owner in Hackney we will probably get one or two more people asking for it but I'm not going to make the fit not going to make a big thing we might get fire bombed so there are many shops who don't want to stock this book because people are so angry at David Cameron that's a Broadway bookshop in Hackney probably give them your support Broadway market I mean that's quite affluent like left leading part of the country and they'll be very pissed off about somebody was actually shot at the Broadway market I remember there was like a shooting there in the Argentine restaurant wasn't there do you remember my mate was in there and there was like bullets going into the I fucking know so maybe it would be fire bombed I doubt that was about Brexit that was a Brexit related it's not hyperbolic to the strange things Brexit related drive-by and it's only at 335 in the Amazon charts in terms of pre-orders so it doesn't look like it's going to do very well where is it 335 so Grace Blakeley's books doing better than David Cameron's yeah hers is in the top 50 it's not up 100 now but yeah I mean hers is out this is in terms of pre-orders but in any case it's not particularly impressive as to I mean Michelle Obama and Barack Obama's were like number one like months ahead of their publication anyway in any case I'm not particularly surprised I mean this is not someone who is known as an interesting political thinker an interesting political strategist or a particularly insightful human being he's a PR man that's what his job was before he became prime minister when he was prime minister his job was again PR it was to try and make George Osborne's austerity policy which blamed you know nurses in Norwich and libraries in Nottingham for a bankers bailout and then use that as justification for you know austerity which as you've said earlier in the show cost 130,000 lives it would be to believe the British Medical Journal which to me seems like a sensible thing to do and he is someone who will obviously be most remembered for the referendum which again was a PR stunt that was to try and get support for the Conservative Party away from UKIP and unbeknownst to David Cameron who changed the course of UK political history and he did not plan for the alternative even though I mean the Guardian and from what it seems the sort of objective measures of the success of this book are that it's not going to be either particularly good or particularly successful so I was surprised today when I went to do my I do a weekly political review of the week on talk radio I'll be talking about the big headlines of the day because it was quite a surreal it was quite a surreal one because when we got there they gave us you know this interview that had just been published in the Times we'll go through some of it I mean it's all incredibly dull to be honest he's just David Cameron has just given a promotional interview in the Times about this book and the host who is Dan Wood and he's an executive editor of The Sun was sort of saying to both of us Executive editor so what does that mean? Executive editor it means... Well he's not the editor but I think executive editor means there is an executive which involves about four people and he's one of them and he edits it like once or twice a week once or twice a week he's the editor exactly but he's an entertainment journalist we get along well enough on the show obviously we have completely different politics but in any case he's going through this interview saying this is going to be really headline stuff this is an incredibly long awaited book this is you know it's so interesting there's so many big you know like headline figures in this interview what he said about David Cameron what he said about Boris Johnson what he said about Michael Gove and he's kind of backing a second it was me and someone who regularly writes despite and we were both like I mean nothing in this interview was interesting and this argument was especially not about the political record of David Cameron but whether there was anything of note in this interview or this book turns out so I knew already that this was because it's in the news international building owned by Rupert Murdoch so is the Sun so is the Times this is someone cross promoting their media content that happens a lot on talk radio where they especially go to things which are published in The Times or The Sun but then I realised that the book itself is published by Harper Collins which is also owned by Rupert Murdoch so what you have is this weird you know interlocking system where Harper Collins pay 800 grand for a book by David Cameron which everyone is panning and he's saying it's going to be quite irrelevant and no one wants to buy but then you have to have The Times who do this big you know puff piece interview with him I mean they're saying so you've got from The Times you can probably get up some of these quotes you know they're saying I spend 10 hours courting in an opaquely windowed room at his publisher's office reading the secret proofs of David Cameron's hugely anticipated memoir on every page I hear his good human pragmatic occasionally exasperated voice you know so I completely like this is a complete puff piece by a Times journalist who is promoting a book by a politician who again was backed heavily by Rupert Murdoch published by an imprint owned by Rupert Murdoch which then gets promoted heavily on talk radio which is also owned by Rupert Murdoch and then you have you know like me from New Arameda and someone from Spike going in they'll say like this is all bullshit and like you know obviously our politics is completely different you know he's saying like the referendum was great and it was great that Brexit won I'm like I mean the referendum is a time and we might as well remain but what we both agreed on is that this interview is shit and this book is going to be shit and the only reason you're pretending otherwise is because you're paid by Rupert Murdoch for a living it's all public relations isn't it it's public relations posing as PR and publishing but it's just literally public relations and marketing client journalism they call it don't they well it's more than client journalism it's more than client journalism isn't it I mean what's happened is they're going look shit I want a puff piece in the times this week and they do it and you can imagine that person taking it to the copy editor and they go you know add a few objectives here adjectives here object to this say he was actually he was right it was the right thing to do talk about how lovely he is it's kind of a really shit boring dull but no shut up you know red line through there that's it great guy really looks great sleeping well looks young do you know what I mean it's like it is exactly that it's good it's a humored pragmatic occasionally exasperated voice I mean also there is no headlines in it so the the whole article I've read the entire piece I was going to sort of like read you out the choice quotes but I mean there's not really much to go with I mean we'll give you some of it no I can't even be bothered go on read look having at this is this is David Cameron's quotes now it's not just the sort of brown nosing quotes of the Times journalist who was presumably encouraged to to boost the book that Richard not Richard Rupert Murdoch will be profiting from look so this is David Cameron look having a referendum was not a decision that I took in any way lightly I get very frustrated when I read which I do frequently that a referendum was held because of the results of the 2014 European elections if you Google recent coverage you'll see that it's I suppose that should be contemporary coverage you'll see that in almost every news you'll see that in almost every newspaper it's simply not true the referendum was announced a year beforehand and I thought more than any other decision I took because I knew it was an enormous decision but it seemed to me that there was a genuine problem between Britain and the EU with the eurozone crisis and the development of the euro that needed fixing what's the euro got to do with it the euro has nothing to do with it he's sounding like a lexit person there the reason we had to have a referendum to leave the EU was because of the way that the Troika treated Greece in the eurozone crisis it doesn't make any fucking sense maybe David Cameron have a guest column in the morning star exactly now book sales get a call from we've got a picture column it's from the former Prime Minister David Cameron but no I mean the whole the whole article is him sort of saying nothing was my fault I was making you know decisions about this I was making serious decisions in response to serious circumstances and even though it didn't go particularly well I was acting in a dignified manner obviously he's not pushed on any of this because it's in the times piece which is promoting his book I mean it's all pretty I mean the thing is he's saying oh it was it was a long standing problem well everything's a long standing problem politics you know homelessness is a long standing problem what did you do about that in work properties and a long standing problem NHS waiting lists were a long standing problem you made all those things worse I addressed the problem no you made these problems worse you made the issue in regards to European Union worse nobody made you phrase the question of the referendum in such an open ended way nobody made you campaign so poorly you know nobody made you have the referendum just one year after the general election when UKIP did phenomenally well all these things were incredibly ill judged and you also can't say that you were interested in democracy when you didn't plan for the alternative I mean he didn't he he planned that referendum to win it to try and resolve tensions within his own political party and to try and neutralise UKIP and nowhere in his I don't think he even goes that far to be honest whatever it was he definitely had not considered that potentially the other side would win because he didn't give a shit about democracy he gave a shit about his own personal standing in the public he gave a shit about internal fractures within his party and trying to beat UKIP and now he's written a whole 725 page book trying to launder his reputation which of course is now being puffed up by news corporation well he got paid £800,000 for it and they realised they're going to lose a shitload of money so of course £800,000 and this guy has a house in the Cotswolds a house in Cornwall a house in London he's worth maybe 10-20 million pounds his wife has even more money than he does and he has the temerity to say that this was a national question that needed to be resolved no this was a minor debate within the right you wanted to create party unity within the Conservatives you tried to do that and the consequence was you've created a constitutional crisis you've created the biggest political fragmentation in this country in your lifetime and you still won't take responsibility for it writing in your £25,000 glorified fucking shed on wheels you cunt hate the man hate the man and that's not because he's a conservative it's because he's born into such privilege and such wealth and he has so much money and he still won't take responsibility for austerity rising and work poverty for destroying public services for the idiocy of trying to reduce the deficit and actually making the poorest pay and guess what the deficit's still there they said in 2010 it would go by 2015 we're in 2019 and it's still there he can't take responsibility for anything and I think you know we talk about Boris Johnson as emblematic of a British state a British establishment crisis that's partly true I think David Cameron is the other side idiots who have no clue and are completely incompetent but I wouldn't trust Boris Johnson to walk a dog fine, David Cameron they won't take responsibility for when they make mistakes it wasn't always like that I don't politically agree with them but there was a post war generation of conservative politicians who would fall on their sword for things they'd say this is undignified, I have screwed up I have to take the consequences David Cameron won't do that TH Worth is saying leave it Aaron he ain't worth it he's a cunt I won't say that word for many politicians because you know there's no point dressing up a political problem in moral language you have a political disagreement with somebody keep it political because that's really important for a number of reasons I don't have many political problems with David Cameron but the way he has responded to the outcome of the referendum forget the sort of preamble and the politics beforehand he just resigned whistling going back into number 10 Downing Street singing to himself the guy is just grotesque and he oversaw a government where 130,000 people died as a result of austerity disgusting man, disgusting human being in the interview actually he says I don't want people to think that I just walked away whistling not caring obviously he doesn't say sorry he doesn't apologise for anything he doesn't apologise for austerity but he does say no look, I think about Brexit every day we all fucking think about Brexit every day if the most we have to think about it five times a day and we didn't cause this fucking mess so you could do a bit more than think about it every day imagine if you were an Italian cleaner or a young Spanish student that works in Pretta Monge in London they fucking think about it every day and guess what they haven't got three homes and aren't sitting on a multi-million pound fortune you ox for twat true, I think about it every day yeah it's a fucking side thought while you're sitting in your shepherd's hut in the cotswolds you're like oh that was a bit of a mess they think about it while they're in work poverty working in Pretta Monge and King's Cross fuck me what qualified this guy to be the Prime Minister oh sorry I forgot he went to Eaton and Oxford and never worked there in his life, stole a living sorry I forgot, that's what qualified him oh what qualified his successor the exact same fucking qualification we live in a democracy there are people that go to a school where you pay all this money where you go to Oxford to learn PPE which is literally an exercise in just regurgitating, learning for the establishment which means they can't ever deal with the crisis of this magnitude that qualifies people to be you know Prime Minister of a country like Britain, 65 million people their fates are determined by idiots of this scale really remarkable let's take some questions let's take some questions, let's call off let's call off with some questions do a little bit of mindfulness tell us in the comments how do you best relax this is a great line from Charlie Hallam David Cameron, Necropigfucker it's a entirely apesite description of the man how could you not into David Cameron not ask about the pig are you a Necropigfucker come on give us some questions and put the rocket emoji there abolish Eaton would you abolish Eaton it's relevant because it's going to be something we talk about a conference isn't it, abolish Eaton absolutely it's amazing how some people say this country is a meritocracy and then they defend the idea that you have schools like Eaton where people are literally paying to rig the system that's the point of these things they're paying to rig the system they're not paying for superior education it's just not true it's just amazing state schools and the single biggest indicator of educational attainment is still your parents more than the kind of school you went to they're not getting an education which makes them fit to run the country but they are getting and I always make this argument because often you see on twitter when the annual debate comes up about how many people of colour or how many working class people Oxbridge has let in and there's always this particular opinion which is what we need to do it doesn't matter what university you go to and then it won't matter how many working class people or how many people of colour they let in but I went to Oxford obviously don't talk about it much on the show from a comprehensive in East London I went to Oxford just the record I refuse to even apply because it's full of posh cunts like David Cameron in 1818 I was right but it is I've never seen so many resources in my life so it's not just it is it's not just a pretense that you'd get I don't again talk well is the wrong way to put it because you get taught a very specific thing which I think makes a lot of very terrible psychopathic people but there is locked up in that institution as well as there is an eaten and this is the argument that someone like Holly Rigby makes very well there is a locked in these institutions so much wealth so many resources and it's not just that we should ignore Oxbridge or ignore Eton it's that we should open up access to them and share out that overwhelming wealth that they are basically holding hostage because I mean the reason Oxbridge has it isn't because of anything they give back to the world it's the fact that they own you know shed loads of income but Eton I mean what's Eton's like some 15th, 16th century buildings what resources are those? well they won't just have the building so the whole point of no but the resources fundamentally the value of Eton is in the networks right it's the same school as this person's son and the point is he's the son of a billionaire and that opens up all kinds of opportunities to people but they're not educational resources Oxbridge and Cambridge are very different I don't know Eton but I imagine it's quite similar that you have very small class I mean the value in Oxbridge is also in the networks but you also have shed loads of money because it won't just be the building they'll have what's that word where they have they have loads of sort of land and wealth and assets tied up it's called I don't know legacy money I'm going to call it for now Patrimony? No it's not that either anyway I don't like it when I have to think about a word it's the glue it's the glue they have all this legacy money which means they can provide two tutorials a week one on one with sort of top professors or whatever so what we want to do is not just ignore these institutions we want to open them up we want to appropriate them fundamentally or make them accessible to all this whole thing about Oxbridge being the gold standard Imperial College if you want to study science Imperial was fantastic for anything to do with medicine biomedical sciences UCL is fantastic in terms of global rankings for a lot of these subjects these are great places SOAS if you want to learn a language from a certain part of the world or you want to be an expert Mandarin, Chinese and Economics SOAS is great Social Sciences, LSE is great this obsession with Oxbridge is partly a class thing I know a guy who's a friend of mine who was at UCL his dad went to Cambridge and it was like he had this like thing on his back his entire time at UCL I have to go to Cambridge he's having a fucking nervous breakdown my dad went to Cambridge I have to go to Cambridge he eventually got in to do another degree he had a second degree because my dad went to Cambridge I have to go to Cambridge this is nuts you're a smart person, you're young you're a business, obviously preferably worker owned go get involved in some organisation you're really passionate about what makes you happy journalism, publishing, you want to go start a cafe whatever it is manufacturing, business, whatever but no it's about proving a point to his dad it's just nuts opening up these resources to people there's partly an element of that but I think it is also partly this strange how does the establishment reproduce in those industries primarily talks in Cambridge primarily talks in Cambridge let's not say they aren't great universities, they are our audience with a much better vocabulary than me about 10 people have now said endowment which was the word I was looking for thank you very much, what would I do without you do you want to choose a couple of questions do you think the Guardian will come out for the Lib Dems again in the general election from Stuart do I think they didn't come out for the Lib Dems in 2017 did they surely, I think that was in they didn't come out for the Labour, did they not the Independent came out for the Lib Dems I think the only person that came out for the Labour Party in 2017 and I think it was in 2010 that the Guardian came out for the Lib Dems I think absolutely explicitly in 2015 the FT came out for the Lib Dems because they wanted a continuation of the Condemn coalition and the Independent as well came out for the coalition it's just like you live in such an establishment fairy tale you can't even come out for a political party when we have a two party system I think it's unbelievable they've become completely detached from any sensible conversation about the reality of this country it's insane Oscar Saxby asked a question Michael why do you pronounce BAF BAF like a Norverner if you're from East London it's actually a good question, my mum pronounces it like that well there you go but she's also, I mean she's from Malta which is a small you're half Maltese my grandad was stationed there as an engineer in the Second World War but anyway I've been thinking about should I try and change it because it sounds, because I'm from London but I have that like Northern what's it called, like a short A or like a path, whatever James says it as well people won't believe this James Butler when he said a few drinks he actually says a few words like somebody from Manchester the exact same thing with the end I think it's because his grandma something like that, James will say it I remember when I was about four years old my dad, because he had obviously a foreign accent his ex was French and he was saying dangerous for dangerous he'd learned this word, he was a French lady he was Iranian and he was speaking to his British English son and I remember being three and I was like dad why are you so stupid it's dangerous that's so sweet, Wild Bunny no not that, I mean that is also sweet but I was saying Wild Bunny sweet dudes I've not even earned a fiver in the last month but what the hell, Navarra is awesome he's got wingers Wild Bunny we appreciate it so much and with a super chat of a fiver Wild Bunny if we see you, pull us up and say I'm Wild Bunny it'd be great to chat to you this is a really relevant and interesting question because it's quite likely what would a Labour Lib Dem coalition look like would Swinson's Lib Dems roll over for socialism like Clegg's rolled over for austerity I mean it's a very interesting question I don't think there would be a coalition with Jeremy Corbyn I think the Lib Dems have probably learnt from 2010 I mean to be honest have they learnt anything if I were the Lib Dems what I would have learnt is that actually going into a coalition is often not the best I mean we've seen what the Lib Dems did in 2015 no in 2010 sorry and we've seen what the DUP did in 2017 and it is in a confidence and supply arrangement that you have a lot more control over the government than you do in a coalition agreement so I imagine they would stay in a confidence and supply relationship and I don't know what conditions actually they'd hold on Jeremy Corbyn my assumption is that many of the social democratic policies essentially that are in the manifesto they would leave B I mean potentially they'd have another electoral reform obviously they'd be strong in terms of having a second referendum with Remain on the ballot my guess is more that as soon as the going gets tough as soon as there is any opposition from business or financial elites or from the media which will happen quite soon that is when the Lib Dems will be like because they will ultimately be in that relationship they'll be talking to people in the city they'll be talking to the conservatives they'll be talking to all of the British establishment saying like yeah well pull the plug as soon as it gets remotely dangerous that's exactly right but we can't reject them if the Lib Dems reject Labour the day after the election I think that is going to be potentially damaging for their revival I think what they're going to do is they're going to have a confidence and supply relationship with the Labour Party and pull it out when it's most I mean I don't think it would be damaging for us but I think it puts them in the best light where they can play with the responsible party who have pulled the plug on this government in the national interest because potentially there's some threat to the pound or whatever they'll play hardball with Labour far more than they ever did with the conservatives and the point is that's because they institutionally represent a certain set of interests which are affluent wealthy interests who votes Lib Dems, where do they come from the Liberal Democrats have existed in this country I think since 1987 they are the convergence of the SDP the right wing split from the Labour Party and the Liberals historically the Liberals haven't been power in this country since the 1910s Herbert Asquith was the last Liberal Prime Minister 1910s, 1920 before 1920 I think maybe around 1920 and so they're irrelevant for most of the 20th century they become relevant again because of this right wing split from the Labour Party with the SDP at the end of the 1980s now what have they achieved since the late 1980s they claim to care about electoral reform they care about an elected second chamber they claim to care about a fair economy expanding the autonomy of the individual etc etc they've literally done nothing all they've achieved in their time was propping up the austerity coalition where 130,000 people died so I think the political function of the Liberal Democrats is really ambiguous to me I don't actually think that they exist for any reason I think it's merely an expression of a certain fragment of the British establishment wanting to tell themselves they aren't bad people but they do want to maintain you know expanded role for markets they are social liberals they give them that but when it comes to running the economy they're not that different from the conservatives they are social liberals but they were in coalition when the architecture of the hostile environment was created that's not strictly social liberal policy they claim to be social liberals you meet a lot of them chatting to a guy at a festival we did a talk about the book and he said look I'm a Liberal Democrat and I just think Labour are two-legged wing he was an intelligent guy he thought of himself as a good person it was all very moralising language there was no material account of what's happening in Britain there was no materialist understanding of what's happened since the crisis why austerity happened there was no understanding interpretation of politics really of being composed, comprised of competing interests he thinks that politics is about these people have been persuaded of this these people have been persuaded of this that's why they had these different ideas in their heads it's like no people who are wealthy tend to prefer lower taxes because it's in their material interest people who are on low income who you know have to care for a kid who suffers from some health condition they will favour a publicly funded NHS it's not that hard yes some people are persuaded of the merits of some things etc but generally speaking these are expressions of material interest they don't get that they don't get that that's why I think the Liberal Democrats is really a safety valve for that part of the British establishment wealthy people who think they're nice that's literally all it is Max Holloway has given us £5 in the super chat for my dancing in the TWT promo vid thank you very much that's actually a clip from an edition of Party Time which was a short series I made about two years ago about how you can get involved in your local Labour Party you can I think Google those probably but that's a good segue to talk about TWT because this will be starting when does TWT start? A week from now basically a week on Saturday so there will be Tiskey Sours free of the four nights so on Saturday night, Monday night and Tuesday night we're going to have Tiskey Sours with some incredible guests I mean it's already public on the TWT website so I'll tell you Saturday we're going to do an episode on the Green New Deal that's going to be debated on the conference floor that's going to be with James Meadway, Sakina Shake and Steve Turner who's general or assistant general secretary of Unite and we're going to talk about some of the tensions between the trade union movement and climate change activism think about Heathrow Ferd, Runway etc on the Monday we're going to have a debate about Brexit with Yanis Varoufakis, Len McCluskey and our very own Ash Sarkar and on Tuesday we're going to talk about the future of the Labour Party, how to win a general election and that's going to be with Paul Mason, Grace Blakely and David Lamby MP so I think you can imagine there's going to be some you know, some fire on the stage I think there's going to be a small live audience so if you are going to be in Brighton for TWT make sure you get down there on the Sunday, what me dancing in the video was advertising is the Navarra Media Variety show it's going to be us getting politicians to do kind of stupid things on stage, there'll be audience participation, it's going to be very entertaining there's going to be live music from Soweto Kinsh a good friend of the show so if you are down in Brighton, come along to that say hi to us if you see us there if you are not in Brighton, this will all be streamed live on our YouTube channel so make sure you are tuned in at 8pm on the subscribe button and that means that you get notifications whenever we go live to get notifications I need to hit the bell button oh you need to subscribe and hit the bell button but if you want to plan your evenings there'll be all at 8pm as usual the Tiskey Sours and I think the variety show is from about 6pm on the Sunday but we'll be tweeting, you're going to be there no? I'll be there later I'm doing a panel with Vince Cable and Yannis Varafakis of all people in London fabulous, I didn't realise that for how the light gets in this is kind of like a festival that's doing decamping to London for a bit so that'll be fun with Uncle Vince maybe I'll wear a little hat like Vince yeah exactly ask him what he think would happen actually let's get Vince Cable on the show, ask him on I think he saw me once I was doing some freelance work somewhere he saw me and his face like it was like he swallowed a wasp but maybe you can interview him I walked past I think it was Chris Leslie about 2 years ago when he was still in the Labour Party it was my birthday last year actually and I was going to Politics Live I think to talk about the IHRA sort of a nightmare media appearance with Jess Phillips but I saw like Chris Leslie in that little bit walking out of Parliament and I was like come on Chris say hi for a video it's my birthday and he was like just walked up like that what's happened to that guy oh my god change UK and it's like him Mike Gape's Joan Ryan and Anna Subri I mean my god this is like you can't imagine a bigger car crashing well you're not going to bump into him at Parliament for very long you know I don't think when there's a general election he will be returned to that fire institution he won't even get a thousand votes he'll make Simon Dankshek like a man of the people anyway this glue is going to my head now so I think we should we should cut it unless there's let's cut it let's cut it I'm happy with that we are going to be back on Monday so next Tuesday unless something crazy happens there might be an emergency show on Monday if not next week I'm planning a show on Tuesday and Thursday Tuesday I'm hoping to have Anne Pettifor and we're going to talk about the Green New Deal but also whatever's happened over the weekend so it'll be the big news story big news stories as well as that on Thursday I'm going to have Lara McNealon who have you got on Tuesday with Anne Pettifor I'm not maybe Ash but she hasn't replied to my whatsapp yet Anne Pettifor's got a book out so she's been a great guest yeah exactly she's always a great guest on Thursday I'm going to have Lara McNeil and it's going to be a conference preview so obviously we all know what's going on at TWT you know what we're doing there now but Lara can tell us what's going to be going on on the conference floor what are going to be the big debates going on and what we can expect as the big the big outcomes will there be any rouse etc so make sure you tune in to both of those shows next week thank you so much for joining me this Friday night I'm happy to have a great weekend everyone I hope to see some of you at TWT next week have a great weekend again thank you for watching the show thank you for all of your excellent comments especially when you give me the words I cannot find as ever this is only possible because of your kind support if you are already a subscriber thank you very much you are what makes Navarra Media and Tiskey Sour possible if not please go to support.navarramedia.com as you know our ask is for the equivalent of 1 hours wage a month if you feel like giving us a one-off donation so that we can move studio promptly which will be good. Don't do that studio studio how do you say studio studio studio you said studio do you say tomato no I say tomato look I'm not an authoritarian look I'm not in the Brexit party you can say how you like we're going to move studio we're going to move studio if you give us some nice one-off donations good evening have a have a wonderful weekend we'll see you next week