 This year's A-level results showed things changing and things staying the same. What changed was that grades are dramatically higher in 2021 than they were in 2019. That's the last time exams were used to determine grades. What stayed the same was that people who were lucky enough to be sent to private school dramatically outperformed those who go to state schools. I'll be speaking to an expert on Britain's educational class divide as well as the impacts that COVID has had on it. I'm also joined tonight by Aaron Bustani. How are you doing Aaron? I'm very good Michael. I'm very good and very glad to be joining you. And I'm glad to have you joining me. You'll probably notice my co-hosts have we've shifted around the days of the week this week so we will have Dahlia. No, we will have Ash this week on Friday even I'm confused. We will also tonight be discussing an update on the Assange case Stanley Johnson on Newsnight and Prince Andrew getting sued for alleged sexual abuse. If you have any comments do please tweet them on the hashtag Tiskey Sour or put them in the comments section and make sure you hit subscribe if you are not already. Subscribe to the Novara Media YouTube channel. The coronavirus pandemic meant that examinations this year were impossible and instead grades were given out via teacher assessments. Those results were out yesterday. This is for A levels and unsurprisingly grading was much more generous than usual. As you can see from this chart from the Sutton Trust the proportion of A stars has gone up from 8% in 2019 to 19% this year. 2019 of course being the last time exams were used for A grades. They've gone up from 18% to 25% of all grades awarded by the time you get to C grades that pattern is reversed. What stayed the same is just as significant and that's the huge divide in results granted to state school pupils and those in independent schools. I prefer to scoring them private schools I'm not sure why we call them independent schools. Anyway the already large gap there has only increased again this is from the Sutton Trust the percentage of pupils getting A or above by school type in 2019 it was 44% in 2021. It's 70% in looking at academies in 2019 it was 24% in 2021 it was 42% for six forms it's 22% and 35% and for comps comprehensives it's 20% to 39% getting A or above. So an increase in all of those schools but as you can see a bigger increase among private school students than anyone else. Sir Kevin Collins was appointed by Boris Johnson to advise the government on how our education system could recover from the COVID pandemic of course very relevant because we're seeing that gap only increase. He resigned when his advice was ignored by Boris Johnson and he spoke to Radio 4 this morning. There's a huge risk that one of the the legacies of COVID the education legacy of COVID could be growing in equality. Now to tackle that and to deal with that we need a comprehensive robust and long-term plan. I don't believe that recovery will happen naturally and I think if we don't do something intentional about it we will have growing inequality in our education system. Now you came up with a comprehensive pan 15 billion pounds worth of it it was rejected do you know who rejected it do you know why it was rejected? No it was never my job to decide it was my job to advise and it's perfectly valid for people to decide they don't want to take that advice I think that's completely okay. I think my issue is that we whether you accept my plan or any plan we must have a plan this has to be intentional work it won't happen by accident or just naturally in my view. We must have a plan with Boris Johnson as Prime Minister and Gavin Williamson as Education Secretary. I personally do not have much confidence one will be forthcoming. To discuss the educational divide and the long shadow of COVID I'm now joined by Jeevan Sander an economist at Kings College London researching inequality and poverty and a former official at the Treasury. Jeevan we already had an incredibly unequal education system before the pandemic hit can you talk about how COVID has has changed that has it made it worse and in in what ways? Yeah has certainly made it worse I mean look let's think about what we were before this pandemic right a disadvantaged student was about 18 months behind by the time they started their GCSEs and those divides in education they don't just start at birth they start before birth okay because not having enough money is stressful. Women on low income are twice as likely to miscarry their children much more likely to have low birth weight that means by the time they start school they're already four months behind their children are they've had four million fewer words so children disadvantaged backgrounds are already doing worse and then COVID here and as with the labour market impact the same thing happened in schools as well those on high incomes relatively well shielded those on low incomes really suffered one in five on free school meals didn't have access to a computer at the start of this pandemic one in three on the people premium didn't have a quiet place to study we saw hunger rise as well and hungry kids they really don't learn very well so we would have expected in any case for this to hit low income kids harder and then we had this system of A level grades teacher assessed grades that hit those kids even worse that I want to be clear like I'm an academic and I'm part of a program that teaches disadvantaged children in schools I did it before this pandemic I did it beforehand and teachers and kids did a heroic job I can't commend them enough but then they had this system of A level grades where each school had to try and cobble together some system to try and grade their children and the truth is for national qualifications you need national standards instead teachers had to do their best and what happened well of course own research so that disadvantaged kids were most likely to lose out most likely to suffer from unconscious biases most likely not to be in school because COVID hit them harder and we saw that in the grade results as well you showed there earlier that I think 70 percent of A stars and A's private schools but we also have to think about is the fact they got a much higher increase 12 percent increase in A stars at private school compared to four percent at comprehensive now I don't think kids in private school did that much better than this this year I think they got luckier because of the system they were kind of left with there's also another divide between those in the middle then at the bottom as well those on free school meals fell further behind those who weren't on free school meals so we've seen this divide open up at each point the top putting further away from the middle and the bottom falling further away from anyone else and the final thing to say about this is that this year might have been difficult but next year because universities are so oversubscribed we the hardest year for kids to get into Russell group universities and who is going to suffer undoubtedly those disadvantage and low income children is that when it's is that when this is going to hit them because I know you're talking about and I'm you're rightly talking about how the the gap between private school kids and state school kids and kids on different incomes has increased this year but because everyone's grades have increased I suppose that's kind of masked if people are are generally getting higher grades and they would have otherwise got they're not that inclined to complain that other people are getting even higher grades because they're pleasantly surprised by what they've what they've been given is that now going to leak out of the system and we're just going to be we're going to end up with way more disappointed working class kids than we have over the last decade or I mean what happens next so without a doubt next year is going to be the really big one I mean this year as well let's be clear universities gave out less offers because of the exam fiasco last year as well we'll have to see exactly what happens inside the numbers but I am expecting that actually disadvantaged kids still would have lost out this year but next year it's going to be absolutely awful I mean I'm hearing about courses that are oversubscribed by over a hundred percent there's just no way to kind of make up that shortfall there aren't enough resources there aren't enough teaching staff either in future years we're going to see this really really hit very badly I mean this year has been bad but it will be worse in future years the other thing that will of course happen in future years is about those students who didn't sit their A levels but are further down kind of in the educational system and their learning is going to suffer and as has been covered beforehand there is just not a system in place to ensure they can make up that lost learning is there any kind of plan I mean you've almost preempted that question but I mean you know we heard there Kevin Collins say there needs to be a plan you know I it's not my role to decide what the plan is but there needs to be a plan I haven't seen one yet have you seen any inkling of investment or plans to help kids recover after spending almost a year out of school and if not what what should it look like so the plan that a government released is worth 1.5 billion and as Kevin Collins covered the one they wanted was 15 billion now that 15 billion plan would have had things like longer school days summer schooling one-to-one tutoring and a whole range of educational investments as well including emotional support as well but anyone who wants to see the details I would recommend the educational policies to report it's incredibly comprehensive instead we got 1.5 billion pounds for a year lost schooling and put that number into context eat out to help out one month of us having freer or rather cheaper meals almost cost a billion so we're spending much much less than we did or rather proportionally less than we did on ensuring we have free school meals and also completely unequal to the task at hand I mean the benefits of spending that 15 billion at least 60 billion pounds so if you're looking at the pounds and pens it's definitely a good investment in likelihood like to be much much higher and as an economist like investing in children schooling it's hard to think of investment that has a high return and it's absolutely baffling the decision was made and I have I would struggle to think of what the rationale was behind that let's talk about the broader divides in education which I suppose pre-existed COVID and before you listed I suppose some of the the arguments as to why that inequality exists overworked parents low income kids even before they enter school are underperforming their their richer peers to what extent is this about inequalities outside the school and inequalities inside the school we often focus on private schools and state schools but is that actually you know are we then not seeing the wood for the trees is it is it the fact that actually is the inequalities outside of school that matter more yes we know that parents and schools make a huge difference in kind of primary school and as well as kind of your peers make a big difference in times of where you are in secondary school and on both levels kind of this government has failed and it's particularly around early years education okay we know early years education has a huge impact on your later learning and we know we have a system here that just isn't up to task okay so I think around childcare providers are about underpaid by about third there just isn't enough funding in the system so by the time you get to school you're already falling further behind spending for people is now 10% lower than it was in 2010 as well and as you rightly pointed out outside of school four and a half thousand fewer youth workers hundreds of fewer youth centres as well this is a whole system right like it is not just about education but a huge part of it is our teachers well resourced enough you need that as well to begin with we need both sides of it you know you need to have a good kind of home environment a good community and a good learning environment to raise a child okay it doesn't just take a village it also takes a school and your parents as well so you need all three of those things to really kind of match up together to give kids the best start in life and the big way into this section was the difference in attainment between kids at private schools and the kids at state schools you've talked a lot about investment is it the case that however much we invest in state schools private schools will just invest that little bit more and so they'll always have grades which are much better than at state schools and you'll always just have this baked in inequality in the education system do you think there is any way of closing that gap without just abolishing private schools I think actually like private schools spend about 15,000 pounds of student and in the estate system it's about 6,000 pounds so my view is actually our state school should be so good that no one wants to send their kid to eat them right that we should get it that much and also by the way tax private schools on VAT at the moment of course they still have VAT relief and so I think that actually we should see if we can get there right if private schools keep pushing it further and further up fine but at the very least you need to start closing that gap you need to make our state schools to be best I mean our schools should be absolute paragons of learning if tomorrow's supposed to be the knowledge economy where what we do or rather what we know matters the most that we should be pairing our kids for that that's such a high investment return I don't think that like abolishing private schools also going to get rid of that issue like if you were to abolish private schools I mean middle-class parents are still going to invest in private tutoring they're still going to do everything they can do to ensure their kids can get ahead now every parent wants their kid to get ahead but therefore every child should have the opportunity to get ahead and that's where I see being the real issue like let's at least increase investment to get to our state schools are absolutely brilliant no I mean we I think we all agree that investing in state schools is is is the priority I think they probably will send them to eat them because they're then likely to be sitting next to a future prime minister also I haven't read enough about this but China they've just abolished private tuition I think there are some other East Asian countries that have done it as well this might be sending us down a bit of a detour I don't know if you want to respond to that as a final question should we abolish private tuition like they've done in China I mean again yeah I would like to every kid have the best tuition possible like I just you know I'm I'm basically very reticent about banning anything in one respect and like if you want to spend money on your kid's education that seems to be like a choice that people should be able to make but at the end of the day I think every kid should have the best education possible and not have to worry about that. Stephen Sander thank you so much for speaking to us this evening I should probably clarify about China I think they haven't actually abolished private tuition what they have done is said that private tuition companies which at the moment are making enormous profits throughout China they have to become non-profit companies so a few billion has been knocked off their their their value on the stock exchange a number of explanations for this one is that they want to make bringing up children cheaper and so they want to end this this idea where you all have to compete with other parents by spending loads of money on private tuition anyway that is one for another show a couple of comments Dina Al Aksa tweets on the hashtag Tisgy Sauer really glad to hear the commentary about the barriers faced by low income kids I went to a seriously shitty comprehensive and I only managed to get good grades because the model minority myth was drilled into me as a kid super interesting comment and Matthew Tarr with 10 euros hi Michael could you please wish my wife Deborah a happy birthday we're both big supporters of Navarra and the invaluable work you do Tisgy Sauer is our go to evening viewing thank you for that very kind comment and happy birthday to Deborah we are going to stay on the subject of education obviously we've been talking about some of the longer term issues with the education system in Britain one of the short-term issues has been that we have for the past two years had an education secretary who is completely and I have to emphasise is completely incompetent absolutely appalling at his job everyone it seems from every political persuasion admits that Gavin Williamson is not up to the job he couldn't get laptops to kids nine months into the pandemic now because it is universally accepted he's not particularly good at his job there are suggestions that he is about to be replaced and the times are suggesting that will be by kemi badenok the times has been told this by multiple sources apparently and they report that Douglas Smith a conservative fixer for three decades who has been brought into johnson's number 10 team is said to be pushing for badenok who's 41 to have the role in the reshuffle smith who is married to mania remerser the prime minister's downing street policy director is said to be a key influence at number 10 informing the government's stance on woke issues such as race trans rights and attacks on historic statues badenok is said to have impressed smith and others in parties hierarchy now for me this really really shows where Tory priorities lie yes they should sat Gavin Williamson they should have sat Gavin Williamson a year ago but now it seems that the principal criteria for who to replace him with isn't who can best manage this you know formidable task which is organizing catch up learning for a lot of kids who've been out of school for a year it is putting someone in that role who they think has been successful at fighting culture wars someone who they back on woke issues who they think has been good at standing up and saying no we shouldn't attack statues and we shouldn't teach critical race theory in schools now whatever you think about critical race theory in schools i mean they don't teach critical race theory in schools this is just a complete scare story anyway but even if you believe that the idea that this is a priority for our education system right here and right now i think is i mean it just it tells you everything you need to know about Boris Johnson and his government apparently it turns out Gavin Williamson is not planning to take any sacking lightly they quote a Tory MP is saying he is wetting himself about getting the sack he keeps telling people he knows where the bodies are and the pm is too weak to sack him so we have a prime minister planning to put in place a new education secretary principally because she's tough on woke issues and an education secretary who is refusing to leave because he has secrets on the prime minister this is not how our country should be governed i want to go to one more issue involving Gavin Williams and he caused controversy on an issue yesterday i want to discuss here he is answering a question on whether universities that don't go back to full phase to phase teaching should have to charge lower tuition fees well i think universities have got to sort of stand up their offer to their own students i think that they have a flexibility and the ability to deliver face to face lectures i'd expect them to be delivering face to face lectures well they are autonomous institutions i don't have control over them no i understand that minister but my question is do you think they should be re-educated we would expect university to delivering a high quality teaching experience and part of that is actually doing face to face lectures and if they don't should there be a refund for those universities universities have got to stand up their offer to their students but we've got the office for students which is targeting universities which have low quality courses which aren't doing enough and will give the ofs all the power all the backing in order to pursue those universities that aren't delivering enough for students that are paying their fees and of course the government are underpinning your opinion minister what do you think well i think if universities are not delivering not delivering what students expect then actually they shouldn't be charging the full fees of what they're done so that statement there from Gavin Williamson has been pushed back against by the Russell group of universities and universities UK they said a hybrid model is still appropriate and that lecture theatres could pose a risk of covid transmission apparently 20 out of 24 Russell group universities have said next term they will be providing some undergraduate teaching online for their part the office for students who regulate universities have said hybrid learning is fine so long as they can show or so long as universities can show they're providing a good quality experience of higher education Aaron what do you make of Gavin Williamson's argument there that universities who stick with online lectures should have to cut their fees i agree with him michael go on explain explain well look first of all his answer is is sort of broadly it's comprehensible you know obviously you're trying to get this sort of paxman-esque yes no do you agree or disagree but there's something which it's not a regulator but it resembles one and it can call out universities if they're not basically providing the kind of services that students would expect so i think that's that's actually broadly what is happening it's what happened last year a lot of the remote learning was just not good enough they were crap they were basically crap youtube videos it's one thing to say we can't have you know offline face-to-face learning totally get that but then not to invest in actually the technical and you know the sort of the engineering back end to provide people really good effective resources which generally speaking didn't happen michael universities pivoted towards this incredibly poorly generally speaking and so given that i do agree with him i don't think they're getting value for money and people like u u k universities u k who by the way unblocked on but on twitter by them michael they they wanted tuition fees to go to nine thousand pounds because they were saying this would allow us to invest in a better product for for students and you know they need to be treated like consumers because that will create a more efficient marketplace etc etc live by the sword die by the sword michael you know i like my my my biblical analogies and this is what's happened they wanted their students to be like customers and consumers and that's what you've got and if that's the case you have to understand you have to accept fundamentally that consumers aren't going to pay the same price for an inferior product which is what has happened so either they have to refund them or they have to give them an online product as good or hopefully even better than what they were getting before which i don't think anybody is claiming who who's claiming that these hybrid learning structures which provided last year were as good as what they were previously offering nobody's saying that nobody's serious so i think of course they should be getting refunds of course they should that's how that's how the private market works but of course if your university is uk if you're these university managers on two three four hundred thousand pounds a year you you only want the private sort of sector you only want market you know market fundamentalism when it suits you oh god no if it means i can't get a pay rise next year or if it means i can't go on soirees and have really expensive dinners with people and you know we we can't you know build this new this new stand in my honor you know that can't be my legacy as a member of university management by the way most these people are failed academics or incredibly mediocre ones then no i don't want i don't want the market here's the thing michael the invisible hand never picks up the bill this is what they wanted they should they should accept this is where they are they're students and our consumers and if your consumers are pissed off you're going to have to do something about it they can't have the best of both worlds well presumably i mean we can have a discussion about whether or not university should be free but presumably what they'd argue is look these people chose to pay these fees they're still you know people know that it's going to be a hybrid system next year and people are still going to university right so so i mean they can say that the free hand of the market means that people are willing to pay us nine grand a year even if some of them are complaining i think the bigger issue here though but that's not what happened for this year i agree with you i think people aren't going into this academic year under any illusions last year michael there was quote people are missold a product is what you mean 100% 100% and there was a level of certainty communicated by university management so i'm not saying every university but you saw multiple institutions where this happened and they they were selling a level of certainty which was frankly i think it was morally unacceptable and certainly they couldn't really be sure of what they were really saying of course they had to say it because they were terrified they wouldn't get sufficient numbers because of course they need the consumers because that's where their revenues come from so i think they were missold a product michael and i think the consequence of that are you are going to be criticized by your consumers and i think they're right to ask for their money back no i think that's a good point or is it not the same you know no i was i was looking at next year but i think you're absolutely right a lot of those university managers did give a completely misleading impression to their students as well one thing i would dispute there with gabin williamson is i do think that you know in-person seminars are 100% necessary i mean you want to be having those conversations with your teachers and your peers in-person lectures i mean for me lectures was just loads of people sitting in the same room looking in the same direction they could have happened on youtube so i'm not actually sure that the experience of going to university is particularly undermined by lectures being online for many people it might be improved to be honest because it just means you don't have to get up in time so seminars for me have to be in-person lectures let's say it seems a bit arbitrary it could be keyword it could be but they generally aren't because the investments weren't made and the technical know-how and the expertise wasn't there you know in navara media we we were when the when the when the pandemic hit we were very effective and efficient at working with remote processes and we had line management we had sort of content creation flows all this stuff growth journeys all this crap that people talk about we could do it pretty effectively not having to see one another in and off so we were quite lucky to do that universities weren't like that and they didn't really make a major effort to change and from what i have seen michael the products that students generally had to engage with i agree it could be as good it could even be better all right and it should have been before the pandemic but it wasn't and that's not just limited by the way to like a youtube lecture you know they could think really radically and innovatively on this stuff some universities did but the vast majority didn't and i think that's why they shouldn't expect their consumers which is what they wanted them to be to pay the exact same price for inferior products when they miss out on it i don't think in any other industry that would be acceptable that's an interesting point um let's go to a couple of comments oliver cant with a fiver too many schools are about prepping for ford is type warehouse and precariat jobs and not passing down vital knowledge and enlightening kids um yeah very interesting comment i i do think you basically just need to i've worked in a school and they were quite disciplinarian and my analysis of it was kind of that that was the only way to make that school work with the amount of money they had if you want to give people like this holistic education where you're not as disciplinarian you can let people explore their own ideas and avenues of thought that actually requires a really high teacher to student ratio otherwise you're going to lose control quite quickly so for me the issue is give schools shed loads more money and then they will have the space to become more imaginative than they already are um i'm not that convinced that there's head teachers everywhere that are trying to just you know mold students to be amazon warehouse workers i think the fact that you have an education system that sometimes looks like that has more to do with people struggling to use very limited resources to the best ability they can manage people will disagree con mac tweets on the hashtag tiskey sour gavin williamson talks about leveling up by reintroducing latin or singing i forgot about that or singing about britain being great papering over the growing divisions in our school we need real change of radical policies in and out of schools to shorten the gap i think what that comment is a great reminder of is how gavin williamson's priorities aren't just wrong they're like you know they're catastrophically wrong the fact that this guy was the education secretary throughout a pandemic where he should really have been as busy as the health secretary you know for all you say for all you can say about matt hancock lots of problems he was definitely present right you know he was talking about what he was doing people are asking him questions he put himself forward for um you know some scrutiny gavin williamson just was just sort of asleep on the job he'd appear every now and again writing a comment piece about statues it's like seriously managing the education system over this pandemic should have been you know a military style task absolutely nothing from the guy instead yeah this this nonsense about teaching latin of course gcse results are out tomorrow so we will come back to education as an issue tomorrow um apparently kia starmer has called for gavin williamson to resign i think he's done that a few times already apparently this time he's doing it over exam results caroline duvier hashtag tisky sour what a slap in the face aron we worked incredibly hard to offer great online courses to our students so you're saying me as a lecturer i'm not worth it even when i'm immunocompromised and don't want to die going to campus aron i feel like you should respond to that one i'm not saying that obviously um i'm obviously not saying that it has nothing to do with the quality of the lecturers it has everything to do with the quality the infrastructure built by the universities you know does the university that you work at does it have a head of remote does it have you know the cto the chief technology officer does it even have one probably not how are they having a holistic understanding of how they were going to do this last year not this year last year from what i saw virtually every single institution i saw and how they dealt with this technologically it was very very very very poor and we're talking about allegedly world-class institutions british universities are some of the best in the world a place like ucl or imperial or kings which aren't meant to be you know the top five harvard oxford cambridge these are still meant to be attracting world-class talent uh undergraduate students also in graduate research and certain disciplines they're meant to be you know some of the best the best and yet they couldn't they couldn't get this right and i think that's fundamentally because of the kind of people managing them so there's absolutely nothing to do with the lecturers and i don't think people should be i've said quite clearly i think it's very possible to do offline uh online lectures and online seminars i agree with you michael i don't think for instance lectures are wise i think an offline seminar is generally a good thing but i think a lecture could be entirely remote uh but the systems weren't being built by these people because fundamentally the priority wasn't getting the best value for students it isn't in higher education it hasn't been it hasn't been for a very long time it hasn't been you know the ability to produce stuff at this is going down every year it's getting cheaper and cheaper to do and yet kids are paying more and more for less and less and they've been doing that for a very long time probably 20 years that's not a criticism of the academics as a criticism of university management's not not utilizing these technologies properly no i think that i i think that distinction is quite important actually because i mean it can be the case that students are saying the service we're provided this year after it's gone remote has declined and academics which many are saying is it's it's even harder delivering these lectures remote because we have to do more preparation it's harder to make it engaging etc etc it can be the case that the academics are working harder the students are getting uh think they're getting a worse service and both are absolutely correct because the problem is that it's the medium that is the problem as opposed to the effort that either party are putting well what we were saying michael i'll be quick because you know i know you want to move on but we were saying at the beginning of the academic year it probably was wise just not to do it right or to suspend things by several months to get those systems in place but also not to again miss sell to young people i'll go to university in september everything's fine and that created a spike in many places actually so you know you know we weren't saying oh they have to go back in september and they need to be face to face we were saying delay this and build something worth paying for and also not stressing out the you know staff at the at the at the at the face of this so my my sympathies are with um the person who's comment that that was but i'm certainly not blaming them let's move on to our next topic if you're enjoying tonight's coverage make sure to let us know by hitting that like button us authorities are still pursuing the extradition of julien assange to face charges of espionage back in january a judge blocked assange's extradition that was on the basis that assange was likely to kill himself if he was held under the harsh conditions of the us prison system but the us are disputing that they're appealing the decision and they want to appeal the decision on the basis that the expert witness the psychiatrist who said that julien assange was at risk of suicide was unreliable they're suggesting he was unreliable because he didn't disclose something about julien assange which was that when he was in the ecuadorian embassy he fathered two children the lawyer says he kept that to himself because it was you know an issue of privacy for julien assange a judge today has ruled that that does potentially undermine the expert witness the guardian report delivering the latest decision lord justice holroyd said it was very unusual for an appeal court to have to consider evidence from an expert that had been accepted by a lower court but also found to have been misleading even if the experts actions have been deemed an understandable human response designed to protect the privacy of assange's partner and children all of this means and this is what i find quite depressing that this october we're going to have another court case which is based on quite how suicidal is julien assange like i i think i think the fact that this is the basis of the court case not you know not i'm obviously not blaming the lawyers here the lawyers have to use whatever means they possibly can to stop a whistleblower being tried for espionage so you know all credit to the lawyers but the fact that our legal system means that instead of discussing freedom of speech and discussing the fact that we are extraditing someone who's done journalism for um for espionage they're discussing whether or not you know quite how suicidal is i find that incredibly depressing um let's go to the lawyer for the us because she makes it quite clear i suppose how how grim this all is um so claire dobbin is her name she said he has not made the sort of serious attempt on his life or have the history of serious self-harm seen in other cases it really requires a mental illness of a type that the ability to resist suicide has been lost part of the appeal will be that mr assange did not have a mental illness that came close to being of that nature and that degree dobbin also argued that assange proved he was able to withstand dire conditions by remaining trapped in the equiturian embassy for seven years aron i want to bring you in on this i mean from my perspective i don't feel like i'm in a position to adjudicate as to whether the judge has made a reasonable decision here i i don't have the experience in in jurist prudence to know whether or not an expert witness with holding a piece of information because they wanted to maintain the privacy of their client is is valid or not i don't know what i find grim though is that when we should have an issue which is based on freedom of speech which is based on the right to protect whistleblowers instead we are saying oh the guy should go to america unless there is zero chance that he won't kill himself you know we have to be absolutely sure that he will kill himself otherwise he gets extradited it seems just completely bizarre to me aron what do you make of it i mean it's just unbelievable isn't it there's claire dobbin lady um the thing the case that's being made for the united states i mean it's just bizarre also what's you know what's the how do you test this this this hypothesis we don't think he'll kill himself and then if he kills himself in the us prison oh sorry we were wrong you know you have an independent assessment by a professional who who's familiar with these things which is precisely what happened so you're obviously right the nuances of the case are above our pay grade um but clearly the politics the whole thing thinks and you're right as well michael maybe you want to talk about this maybe i'm jumping the gun a bit but there is an issue in talk in talking about suicide and of course we've had multiple high-profile suicides in u.s prison system in recent years most recently of course jeff riepstein we'll be talking about him later on so the idea that well the last time you had a very high profile in mate they allegedly killed themselves why would mr assigned to be any different specifically if they're you know of a politically sensitive nature i think is a good one uh the suicide in american prisons and jails are very high it's very very high and as is self-harm i think a huge i think about 20 of people in the us prison system are assessed as having profound mental health issues so obviously obviously he's been through a great deal of mental stress you don't have to like the guy you might think he's done wrong you might think he should be incarcerated but i don't think anybody would dispute the fact he's in clear emotional mental distress that's visible just from his appearance he's obviously been through a very unique thing but i am worried as well michael we're talking about we're talking about his case in the completely wrong in a completely wrong way you know we aren't talking about the political substance of what's happened and it's important to say look they think this is what gets him off i mean that's the case i mean that but my point is from a political standpoint it's a shame that we're not talking about the substance of what this man's done and obviously this is meant to be about justice you know right now the saliban is recapturing afghanistan britain the united states and their allies went there 20 years ago actually a month after 9 11 effectively and we've been there for 20 years we've spent britain only spent about 35 billion which is obviously an immense amount of money it's about 2000 pounds per family per household but together two trillion dollars was spent in afghanistan 100 000 afghan civilians died i think more than 2000 us combat personnel died more than 430 50 british combat personnel died many more got ptsd lost limbs etc etc profound devastating loss and people like junior sandian wiki leaks were trying to expose the the military war machine the commercial military war machine behind that intervention behind war in iraq and show actually they didn't go there with good intentions generally speaking and they certainly weren't blamed by the book and wiki leaks exposed for instance disgusting attacks on on civilians i think things that border on war crimes etc forms of illegal detention i don't know about specifically about afghanistan but most certainly in iraq and that war machine can't allow juniors to get away with it and so we are now living in a world where the goodies the people who uphold justice are the ones that went to afghanistan spent two trillion dollars actually nothing changed except now the taliban have humvees and apache helicopters they didn't 20 years ago all right and people might say well they won't have them very long they got shut down or they'll be drone strikes probably but are they going to take Kabul and and kandahar first yes i imagine so who are the good guys junior sand to expose that all these other people who who profit from war they profited from selling all this military hardware and they're going to profit from the machines now destroying the military hardware being used by the taliban and i think it's there's a there's a certain sort of poetic poetic elements i don't like to use that word but i think that's what it is these events right now in afghanistan ongoing the government of afghanistan is collapsing in the face of the islamic emirate of afghanistan the taliban while junior sand is potentially being extradited back to the united states and this is the argument we're having oh well we don't think he's going to kill himself what a toxic civilization we are living in michael utterly barbaric and toxic and i don't think you need to be on the left to say you know what in 50 60 70 years time people will look at that as a what the fuck moment what the fuck they'll be looking at i'm sorry to use the f bomb in front of our audience but that's exactly what it is and they'll be looking at the first 20 years of the 21st century culminating in our defeat in central asia and the middle east culminating in what's happening to julien assange but god willing he doesn't go to the united states and he's left free and they will say wow they spent trillions of dollars destroying central asia for no particular reason literally for the status quo ante actually no that's not true we did do one thing which has massively increased opium production in afghanistan that's the legacy instead of putting that money into climate change and transitioning our economy away from fossil fuels and the people that did it with the good guys the people that did it with the good guys and the bad mingo as julien assange enemy of national security you know we don't need to wait 50 60 years to say that's a crock of shit michael because it is but that will be the universal consensus god willing in our lifetimes because it's going to be very satisfying seeing the people doing this right now being lamented and looked upon and despised and pitied and hated i wholly agree with all of that we're going to return of course to this case in october so that's when the actual appeal will be heard the the just to just to emphasize what was decided today is that in that appeal hearing in october they can bring in to dispute the evidence from the psychiatrist because the judge has decided that even though he's accepted by the previous judge maybe there were things that that judge hadn't taken into account um let's go on to our next story before that if you are a supporter of navara media thank you so much you make this all possible if not please do go to navara media dot com slash support the release of the latest ipcc report on monday was one of the few occasions where climate changed got the attention in our mainstream media that it deserves it did get basically wall to wall coverage it should get wall to wall coverage most days it got it this monday that was because that historic report was released it's also fair to say though that some of the decisions made by our broadcasters when it comes to who to platform to discuss that issue were a little odd the oddest um was probably the environmentalist platformed by bbc news night let's take a look at this particular clip where we are at the moment facing what we face i see one really important thing the government to do and that is to go strongly down the range of carbon taxing this is the polluter base principle we all signed up to it when i was in the e u way back in 1970s we actually had a legal instrument which the uk applied as well we have to go there and part of that of course is also to have carbon border taxes yes we will impose our own standards our own taxes our own charges and that will generate so much money that we can help the white van man we can help the disadvantaged sectors of society through the extra funds raised it's a crucial important instrument which is not being adequately emphasized at the moment so that environmentalist invited onto news night's climate change special um had a fairly familiar face a fairly familiar voice and a familiar surname and that's because as well as being an environmentalist he's boris johnson's father our news night got rinsed for giving stanley johnson the tagline environmentalist i think he has expressed concern about the environment in the past but he's clearly not one of the leading environmentalists in the country he was invited on because he happens to be the prime minister's father why didn't they just put that on the tagline prime minister's father who we've invited on because the prime minister is too terrified to talk to us i mean the whole thing which is completely bizarre isn't it what is a repeat performance of what we saw in the 2019 election mike you might remember channel four had a climate debate boris johnson refused to turn up i believe in the end it was rishi sunak versus rebecca long bailey she destroyed him by the way uh she was the most eloquent labor performer on climate change as she's not even in the shadow cabinet which is unbelievable and guess who turns up instead it's uh it's um stanley johnson he demanded he be allowed to talk on the stage and uh he wasn't i mean wow it's pretty dysfunctional michael where you have a it's not just the prime minister isn't willing to actually be scrutinized to the policies he's outlining on one of the biggest i think i think the biggest but i think you know even if you don't think it's the biggest is one of the biggest uh political issues of the day and his dad turns up instead and now this is being and by the way good for channel four they said please you know go away now the bbc are indulging it and there's a great quote uh which is you know ecology or environmentalism without class struggle is gardening and that to me just sums up stunning somebody like stanley johnson it's true that he's had a you know he's been involved in i think the best word is conservation for decades you know the worldwide fund and you know the rspb and all this stuff so yes he has an interest in conservation he has an interest in nature uh but i think you know it's time michael given the wildfires that we're seeing at the moment it's probably time we had a more informed conversation than boris johnson's dad you know right now we are seeing we're seeing the worst fires in greece italy turkey in decade in decades yesterday in augura 65 people died uh we're seeing the biggest wildfire in the history of california all of that combined is still smaller than the amount of wildfire sort of the amount of surface area covered by wildfires right now in syberia we're seeing something truly extraordinary and the bbc the public service broadcaster one of the world's most powerful you know wealthy countries is getting the prime minister's sort of bumbling dad on uh which is which is terrifying frankly and the thing he said by the way it was also what he said was completely nonsensical about oh well we'll have a carbon tax now help the white van man the one argument against the carbon i would favor a carbon tax but i would actually have it as my number two below uh creation of a carbon coin or quantitative easing to pay for decarbonization you have to have that first because the worry with a carbon tax is the primary way of addressing this michael is of course it's it's um it's a regressive tax and like with a tax on smoking or alcohol very it can be very effective of course at changing behavior but it's not equitable and the worry is you might think well so what sorry this is a bigger problem than that the worry is if you look at the gilet jaune you could see mass movements against the kinds of change we now need to deliver to tackle climate change in the face of this stuff because of these unfair these unfair taxes so carbon taxation really important obviously part of the mix but i think fundamentally is wrong there too the bbc is meant to be better than this michael i mean christ you're about to show us why but you know i i thought it was a spoof at first there's been a few of those this this week well it's especially the the environmentalist tag that gives it that spoof quality i want to bring up a tweet from neon and neon are the new economy organizers network there's a network of people who pitch academics and activists to tv shows we often use them on this show and they tweeted um with this screenshot of stanley johnson labels and environmentalist dear bbc news night over the last four days we have been pitching eight different diverse climate scientists policy experts academics and activists with many decades of climate experience between them to discuss the ipcc report there was no need for this to happen i think that's a good reminder you know stanley johnson was that someone else could have been in that place who was far better qualified to have the discussion he was having but who didn't happen to be the father of the prime minister's really odd style of democracy whereby being related to an elected politician you get to have such a loud voice we shouldn't pretend there weren't experts on that show though and that's what made this particularly surreal because stanley johnson was on the sofa with two people with really significant expertise one was the economist vicky price we've had her on the show before the other was k roiff who is the author of a book doughnut economics roiff made an interesting argument about the growth about growth and climate and the relation between one and the other let's take a look i think it's time to deeply think again about the essentials of our economies nothing on planet earth thrives by trying to grow forever and we've inherited a 20th century framework that believes that endless economic growth is the sign of success and yet nothing on earth does that it's time to get beyond this deep dependence on endless growth and reach an economy that can thrive and this is in fact the existential economic question of our times and i think what's stopping a lot of the action that we already know we need on climate change is government's endless addiction and dependency on creating growth so we need to put this question at the center of reframing our economies now and you of course have been very influential on extinction rebellion but just explain what does a post-growth economy actually look like what's the difference tell me how it would operate oh it's an economy that no longer assumes the absurdity that it must get three and a half percent bigger every year year on year on year on year i mean the absurdity is the idea of an economy that grows forever that's the one that needs to be explained we live in one of the richest economies in the world at the richest point of humanity this country is richer than almost any country's ever been in the history of humankind how is it that our politicians and our economists think that success depends upon yet more growth forever that is what needs to be explained everything in nature grows and grows up and that is how we come to thrive from our own bodies and in southern bodies if we try to grow endlessly we call it cancer and we know it is death to our body we need to take what we know as human body and take it now to the planetary body it's pretty surreal seeing those two incredibly distinguished experts up on the screen and then it pans to Stanley Johnson sort of gafforing as he leans back on the couch in that way that especially posh people do Aaron I don't show that clip though just to see the pan to Stanley Johnson I showed that clip because I was actually particularly interested in what your take was on it fully automated luxury communism what's its take on growth what's the growth and the climate what's the line what's the line good question it's a that's the question Michael I'm glad you asked also I just want to before I answer that question Michael it's important to say what Kate Rayworth is saying there about growth what does a post-growth world look like hey Kirsty walk we've only really talked about macroeconomic growth as a priority since the 1940s the concept of GDP was created in the 1930s the idea that's been around there for we had capitalism a long time before we had this obsession with GDP growth you know actually capitalist are more interested in profit than growth right as we've seen by the way in the last 10 years that many many many more billionaires despite the fact that you know many economies including Britain on a per head basis was broadly stagnant we've produced lots more billionaires so the idea that what does a post-growth world look like well we know because that's what we lived in and until this became the sort of prevailing orthodoxy about 80 years ago it's not you know it wasn't 10 000 years ago they weren't making stone tools in in in Mesopotamia saying oh you know we need to increase you know production this year by 5% and we'll compound that over 10 years and we'll get it's very new in terms of where fully automated luxury communism is on this Michael yeah we obviously need to move beyond GDP GDP is a very very very important and this is so hackneyed you say it so many times you think everybody knows this and of course our viewers know this and I think instinctively most people know this but I'll give you a classic example of of GDP growth great quote by the way from speech rather from Robert Kennedy on this no radical really he was you know he was trying to get the democratic nomination for us president the brother of of of John F. Kennedy he talks about how GDP measures everything but that which makes life worth living and I'll give you an example if you have 10 houses all next to one another on a street and each of those houses has a kid right two parents and one child right very sorry hate to be so stereotypical two parents and one child and and they all look after their own children and of course these are good left-wing families so the father and the mother or the mother and the mother both both parents raise the child equally okay good communist parents uh there needs to be communists just good 21st century parenting there's no cash transactions going on there right Michael there's no money changing hands there's no growth now if each house knocks on the door next door and says I want you to look after my child and I'll pay you 10 pounds an hour to do it and they all do that we're in the exact same situation where each house is looking after a child it's just not their own one and they're being paid to do so now in the world of GDP that is fantastic for the economy because you've just added a huge amount of demand into into the economy and you've just expanded all the economic transactions in existence because what is GDP GDP measures all the economic transactions in some in a particular territory in a particular year in a given year that tends to be what it means so the GDP of Britain for 2021 is around I don't know what two trillion US dollars something like that and that's comprised of all these transactions between individuals between firms etc so that should make it quite clear that actually in and of itself this is a good thing for instance we could legalize drugs you might not think I don't think drugs are a problem but you might not like drugs we could legalize drugs and they would be part of GDP and overnight which is what would happen you'd have a pretty a quite a big increase in GDP stats because all this stuff previously in the black market heroin cocaine cannabis is legalized and now these are regular economic transactions GDP would go up it's questionable if that would actually be good for society so GDP is not a measure of how successful or prosperous society is clearly it needs to be part of some broader indicator which has multiple aspects literacy life expectancy I think self-reported happiness I think carbon emissions time off leisure time so you want some sort of aggregated metric by which to judge society I think clearly we want to judge success right as as Peter Drucker said you can't manage what you don't measure I think clearly there's a socialist you want to measure things but I don't think GDP is a particularly good measure and that's not just me saying it by the way Simon Kuznets the person who invented the measure in the 1930s never intended GDP to be treated like it is never ever ever he said this is completely odd with what I've done not his own words but he effectively had created he was Dr Frankenstein he'd created monster so there's a place for measuring economic transactions but if it's just GDP and not happiness not CO2 emissions you have big problems and that's where we are we've got big problems we're not even measuring the things we should be measuring which is why Michael right now we've got Sicily 49 degrees C we've got a place in Syria 49 degrees C because we don't have an economic system which says well what are we prioritizing here right now it's just economic value expanding expanding expanding and we're destroying the planet in the meantime and ourselves it should be said we have got one more story to get through so we will keep this quick but I do just want to ask Aaron it seems to me there are two issues here right so one is is GDP a good accounting mechanism for whether or not we're moving in the right direction the other is do we want consumption to keep increasing and I suppose why I'm agnostic about the de grove question is that I do want consumption on a global level to keep increasing and I feel like that's kind of the fully automated luxury communism argument is that yes let's have consumption keep increasing so that's I mean I my my consumption probably doesn't need to increase very much at all but on a global level I think there are lots of people whose consumptions could do with you know getting to the level that that mine is a happy middle-class guy living in the west right so so I don't think I am for de grove is that am I misunderstanding something here I get the point Michael I think going back to GDP if you look at for instance healthcare in the UK we have I think we have indisputably a better healthcare system than the US we spend I mean it used to be a percent of of of GDP and that's about 10% in the US they spend twice as much they spend about 20% on as a percentage of health as a percentage of GDP goes on healthcare yet millions of people aren't covered they have far more women dying childbirth they have a lot lower life expectancy you know on on most important measures the United States is not as good as the UK on on healthcare by the way Cuba has a longer life expectancy so if you would say to a developing country oh well you know more consumption higher GDP means you can have a healthcare system like the US rather than the UK it's not a great measure do we need and this is where Marxism's very useful story to borrow viewers this is where you need to make a big distinction between use values and exchange values an exchange value something produced for profit a use value is produced because somebody needs it yeah of course in the global south and actually in the global north we need more housing we need more scores we need more medical care we need more elderly care we know all that infrastructure but the idea that that's going to be measured through GDP I think is incorrect Michael and so in terms of GDP I think I think the framing fundamentally of growth versus degrowth I don't think it's very helpful you know if we if we decarbonize the planet's energy systems in the next 20 years you would see an immense amount of economic growth huge all these contractors all these you know resources being used or the labor being employed you know of course you wouldn't do it because of that but it would happen it would definitely be an externality of it because you'd basically see something like the New Deal done on a planetary level times times 10 so I think that kind of binary growth versus degrowth doesn't really it doesn't really work I think we need to focus on our carbon emissions I think we need to focus on leisure time and I think we need to work on on self-reported happiness I think that's probably a better way of looking at Michael we certainly need something other than GDP in terms of analysing our success as societies you know any good little neoliberal goes to the Economist magazine every week they look at the back they look at their GDP stats in the country of the highest GDP stats that country is doing well they've got they've got 5% this quarter that country's only got Turkmenistan with 5% this quarters doing better than this country with only 1% you know by that measure Italy over the last 20 years is the worst country to live on live in and on earth clearly it isn't has one of the longest life expectancies in the world has very high reported happiness low rates of suicide low rates of insomnia I think you know so pretty these are pretty good indicators of mental health so I think great growth versus degrowth not quite accurate really but I sympathise I'm more with Kate Rayworth and somebody says no we need more growth because I think if you have a global Green New Deal you're going to have you're clearly going to have growth of course you are that shouldn't be the goal though Michael hmm we should so of Italy I don't think they'd say they were the most because is it they would have said that their happiness has increased the least over the past 20 years because Italy hasn't had much growth for 20 years but they still do have a much higher GDP per capita than than most people in the world um I'm not sure how it compares to the UK anyway we should move on to our next story before we do that let's go to a comment say Toyke I beat I don't know what that means I don't know what that's a reference to but anyway you've given us a huge donation thank you very much for that $89.99 this is for Ash saying on channel five have you read the book just watch the clip a minute ago legend that was a clip from Ash on the Jeremy Vine show on Monday we've just put out a clip of that today you can check that out on our YouTube channel and thank you again for that very generous super chat final story I think we can get an image up for this one you've seen it already it's now the time for that image Britain's most disgraced citizen may now finally face justice as he sued in the United States for alleged sexual abuse Virginia Jouffray has filed a lawsuit against Prince Andrew who she accuses of sexually abusing her at the mansion of Jeffrey Epstein as well as other locations when she was under 18 the lawsuit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages the lawsuit claims this is a quote from the lawsuit as it has been filed Jouffray was compelled by express or implied threats by Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and or Prince Andrew to engage in sexual acts with Prince Andrew and feared death or physical injury to herself or another and other repercussions for disobeying Epstein Maxwell and Prince Andrew due to their powerful connections wealth and authority it also alleges that Prince Andrew knew that Jouffray was a sex trafficking victim and that she had suffered and continues to suffer significant emotional and psychological distress and harm 20 years ago Prince Andrew's wealth power position and connections enabled him to abuse a frightened vulnerable child with no one there to protect it is long past the time for him to be held to account so you probably will know a lot of the background to this story in case you don't there was a great update I'm in an ABC report so this is the context the background to the case Jouffray now a 38 year old mother living in Australia first accused the Prince of sexual abuse in public court filings in December 2014 in a case brought by alleged Epstein victims against the US Department of Justice that lawsuit challenged Epstein's lenient deal with federal prosecutors in Florida in 2008 Jouffray alleged in those court submissions that she was directed by Epstein and his longtime associate Glaine Maxwell to have sex with Andrew on three occasions in 2001 in London New York and the US Virgin Islands her claims were met then with vehement denials from Maxwell and from Buckingham Palace on behalf of the Prince the second son of Britain's Queen Elizabeth the second Jouffray's attorney David Boyce has been speaking about the case and he stated that Prince Andrew has been consistently uncooperative and basically that's what's pushed them to file this lawsuit so he said since 2015 we've been trying to have a dialogue with Prince Andrew or his lawyers we have given him every opportunity to provide any explanation or context that he might have we've tried to reach a resolution without the necessary necessity of litigation Prince Andrew and his lawyers have been totally non-responsive we've discussed a lot how Prince Andrew it seems has been incredibly uncooperative in this case either about allegations that relate direct to him or about allegations that relate to Jeffrey Epstein we know that the American authorities were seeking an interview with Prince Andrew because of their investigation into Epstein and Maxwell Prince Andrew was unwilling to go it seems this uncooperative attitude has spanned every aspect of the case this week Boyce has spoken to that's Jouffray's attorney spoken to the BBC about his client's motivation for bringing the case I think what she wants first and foremost is vindication I think first and foremost she wants to call Prince Andrew to account in court and to allow a jury and a judge to determine the truth of her accusations I think that she's tried every way she can to resolve this short of litigation but at this point a litigation is the only way to establish once and for all what the truth is and litigation is the only way to establish once and for all what Prince Andrew's evidence actually is thus far he's not been required to come forward and state his defense subject to cross examination litigation will require him to do that I think secondarily she's looking to be compensated for the damage that she's done that has been done to her as you know she has donated a significant amount of money from the recoveries that she has previously received from Jeffrey Epstein and Giselae Maxwell to her charitable foundation that is dedicated to trying to help victims of sex trafficking and I think that she wants to further those goals as well and finally I think she wants to send a message to every rich and powerful person who engages in sex trafficking and abuses young girls that this is not acceptable and that you cannot hide behind wealth and power and palace walls you will be held to account for your actions in a court of law and it will be up to a jury to decide your fate that was Virginia Jouffray's attorney talking about her motivations for filing this lawsuit against Prince Andrew some more context to the case you might be wondering why is this case being brought now 20 years after the abuse was alleged to have happened and also you know it's been five years since since Jouffray has has gone public with us it was in that deposition when she was filing a lawsuit against um Ghislaine Maxwell the answer is quite interesting it's happening now because New York where this case is filed introduced a Child Victims Act in 2019 which allowed alleged survivors of under 18 sexual abuse to bring forward cases which were previously time barred so if there was a case a case for an alleged abuse which previously had a statute of limitations so you had to take a person to court within five 10 years however however long the statute's limitation was for this year only you can take people to court even if the the alleged abuse happened in the past now the window so there was a set time period where people would be allowed to to take advantage of this act and that ends this week so this was actually the last chance really for Jouffray to take Prince Andrew to court so she's taken it now because if she'd waited another week even it could have been impossible in terms of what could happen next now the American legal system can seem quite complicated to an outsider the telegraph um had quite a good rundown actually of of the options now facing Prince Andrew on whether the Duke will take the stand so whether he will have to give evidence in court they say it is unlikely that's not an attractive proposition since a cross-examination of Prince Andrew is unlikely to go well his performance on news night was one of the great car crash interviews and a grilling by a skilled New York attorney risks a terrifying humiliation a trip to the US also raises the possibility of the FBI bringing him in for questioning as part of its ongoing investigation into Epstein's crimes Guillain Maxwell Epstein's former girlfriend and close friend of Prince Andrew goes on trial on child sex trafficking charges in autumn so they're saying you know he he will probably be asked to give evidence in court he's going to be very unlikely to do that because he would be cross-examined by an attorney it would it would be like that news night interview all over again potentially even tougher this time because well you know Emily Maitland's did very well in that interview she's not on attorney on whether Prince Andrew could just ignore the claim so could he just say oh this is going on in America I'm not going to have anything to do with this at all of that the telegraph right one possible course of action is to do nothing and ignore any attempts by Mr Giffray's legal team to serve him with legal papers however such a strategy risks a civil trial going ahead in his absence and would hugely increase the chances of a judge finding in the claimant's favor such a ruling would be catastrophic for the prince because then a court would be officially labeling him as child sex abuser so they're saying you know it is possible for him just to completely ignore this case they can't extradite him for this because it's civil litigation it's not criminal litigation it's not something you can be sent to prison for it would be suing for damages he could ignore it but if he ignores it that means he's likely to lose it and then that would mean that an American court has found that he was guilty of sexually abusing a minor so that's not an outcome that he wants either finally they suggest and this is a bit of a curve ball they say it could be the case that they could try and switch the trial to the UK so lawyers with good knowledge of the case suggest that the prince could try to force the case to be switched to the high court in London where they could try to have it struck out on grounds of lack of evidence if that is unsuccessful the prince might also argue that he has some form of sovereign or crown immunity because he was working he was a working member of the royal family and a part of the British state apparatus at the time of the alleged incidents that latter option of bringing this to the UK crown courts or the UK high court I'm not in a position to tell you how plausible or not that is what I find particularly shocking about this case and we've talked about this before actually is how little pressure has been put on Prince Andrew to you know cooperate with all of these cases whether it's you know pertaining to allegations which are directly against him or pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and he might have useful information about it there has been no moral pressure whatsoever it seems from this country's establishment to say look if you got involved in these things we know that your close friend was you know a convicted child abuser you know you've got these allegations against you what you have to do is you have to face these charges you have to have your day in court and you you know at the very least have to give an interview to the to the FBI about Ghislaine Maxwell about Jeffrey Epstein he's basically used every legal avenue possible to avoid any of this scrutiny and everyone's just let him get away with it you know I really do feel like if you had had you know Boris Johnson saying this guy was working at the time for the British monarchy essentially for the British state we cannot accept that someone who is working for the British state is shirking their responsibility when it comes to something as serious as child sexual abuse instead they would just say oh nothing to do with us oh what an embarrassment Prince Andrew what an embarrassing guy hopefully he won't be on the front line of royal politics again why aren't we seeing this outcry of people saying look whether or not you think Prince Andrew has sexually abused a child the least he should do is have his day in court how is he able to avoid that well there's two reasons Michael firstly a lot of people are essentially implicated aren't they you know it's important to say that Jeffrey Epstein knew Bill Gates uh he knew you know Andrew Neil Peter Mandelson uh Alistair Campbell was in his little black book and so I think it'd be very difficult for for many of these people many people at the top of British media and politics to go all guns blazing because they're implicated not not not to the fact that they knew this was happening necessarily or that they were past it of course I'm not saying that but they were they were acquaintances or friends with Jeffrey Epstein so there's that dynamic at work which I think it's probably it's probably a big one it can't be understated then secondly and of course this is the bigger one is the fact was because Prince Andrew's you know he's the son of the monarch he's the son of the Queen of England well I should say that's right he's the son of the Queen of Great the United Kingdom of Great Britain Northern Ireland and its Crown Territories because the Iron Man has nothing to do with Britain actually belongs to the Queen like Jersey etc and there are two areas Michael and in this country's sort of political discourse in terms of media and journalism there are two there are two areas which I don't think in any way are dealt with in a remotely sort of democratic popular professional way when I say popular is in there sort of screwtable to ordinary people the first is is foreign policy and defense we made this huge screw up in Afghanistan 20 years ago you can you can't get Tony Blair off the television normally you won't see him talking about this and nobody nobody would be door stepping Tony Blair in Afghanistan like they were with Jeremy Corbyn if he you know made a you know made a cup of tea the wrong way you know they were outside his front door every day of the week for literally years we're not seeing any scrutiny of the same politicians who were responsible for this calamity in Afghanistan the reason being foreign defense policy isn't really subject to the kind of media scrutiny you'd expect in democracy alongside that is the Royal Family the monarchy it just doesn't happen and we saw that with the with the Princess Diana interview Martin Bashir I'm not he acted improperly but the sort of media fallout to that being admitted by the the BBC lasted for weeks the BBC reported on the BBC for weeks because it basically had to self-flagellate very publicly to atone for its sins which is even daring to to hold the the monarchy accountable or people inside the monarchy accountable so the Royal Family and foreign foreign policy and defense policy on these two things we don't have a media which asks the right questions not because they can't not even because they don't want to it's just not the done thing you're not going to get very far in Britain's media and its sort of politics if if you ask difficult questions of the Queen my goodness so that's why but I think that's that's doubly the case because like I say so many people Michael so many people are implicated Jeffrey Epstein knew so many powerful people and they just want this whole episode over it's difficult to argue with that analysis we have done a fair amount of coverage of this case if you do want to know more I would recommend going to look back at the episode we did with the true and non-podcast who are really the go-to people when it comes to some of the more unsaid dark elements to this particular story we are going to wrap up there I remember starting it's been a pleasure as always it's been my pleasure Michael you've been you've been the the viral media MVP through august same as every month thank you all all your viewers know that I just thought I had to say it thank you I do appreciate that maybe summer is going to begin again who knows thank you for watching tonight we'll be back on friday I presume I lose track of the day sometimes and we're back on friday at seven p.m. for now you've been watching Tiskey Sour on Navarra media good night